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If hg. IJ folks were Cro-magnon who were R* folks?

It is unfortunate that it had to come to this, but at least now we can continue the discussion properly.
 
Taranis said:
As much as you clearly love to make the Kurds "native", this statement is certainly wrong in the linguistic sense: the earliest known inhabitants of the area of modern Kurdistan were the Hurrians, who spoke a language not closely related with any other language except for Urartian (together forming Hurro-Urartian). Certainly, the area was not the Proto-Iranic homeland, it's far more probable that Proto-Iranic was spoken further to the east, in closer proximity to it's closest relatives: the Nuristani languages of the Hindukush, and the Indic (Indo-Aryan) languages of India. The first Iranic-speaking peoples to reach the region were the Medians, and although it's popular to see the origin of the Kurds with the Medians, this is by no means the only possibility as there is no mention of the Kurds prior the early Medieval Ages.

What I might add, before anybody mentions the Mitanni, is that the "Mitanni" loanwords in Hurrian are of Indo-Aryan (Indic) origin, from a language very similar to Vedic Sanskrit.
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I agree with you on the most part yet I have to straight out some points.

1. Today more and more scientist seem to favor the West Asian (Anatolian?) origin of Proto-Indoeuropeans, which I agree on. But it seems that Proto-IndoIranian formed somewhere in the steppes between Central Asia and Southern Russia not in the Hindukush.

2. The Kurds speak an Iranian language and a large part of their ancestry is most probably linked to Iranic nomads. Yet the ethnogenesis of Kurds starts earlier most probably even during the Sumerian period. The term Karda was used by Sumerians as name for the lands in Southeastern Anatolia around lake van and described a antagonistic "mountain people".

3. The Mitanni loandwords in Hurrian are not believed to be "Indic" since the Indo-Aryans pushed forward into India approximately at the same time the "Mitanni" appeared in Western Asia (or maybe even earlier). Most linguists today seem to agree that the Mitanni spoke a sort of Indo-Iranian dialect from a source before the language split into a Indo-Aryan and Iranian branch. Something like "Proto-Aryan"
 
Alan said:
I agree with you on the most part yet I have to straight out some points.

1. Today more and more scientist seem to favor the West Asian (Anatolian?) origin of Proto-Indoeuropeans, which I agree on. But it seems that Proto-IndoIranian formed somewhere in the steppes between Central Asia and Southern Russia not in the Hindukush.
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"more and more scientists"? Whom in particular? I have to say, I consistently have the feeling that the Anatolian origin to me makes no sense (by the way, are you talking about an origin in Anatolia, or the Anatolian hypothesis in the sense of Colin Renfew? The latter certainly has stiff resistence). The main problem I see is the clear abundance of non-Indo-European languages and language families in an area that is supposed to be the Proto-Indo-European homeland. Another, fairly decisive argument against an Anatolian origin was forwarded by Melchert (2012): namely that there's not a single known example of a borrowing from any of the known ancient Near Eastern languages into Proto-Anatolian. So, if not even Proto-Anatolian was possibly spoken in Anatolia, why should PIE have been spoken there at all? I personally think that an origin north of the Caucasus - in the Pontic-Caspian region makes more sense to me. This of course is "West Asia" by some definitions. ;-)

On Proto-Indo-Iranic, read closely what I wrote, because I didn't say that it was spoken near the Hindukush: I was refering to the Nuristani languages. I agree with your assessment here, I merely pointed out that an Proto-Indo-Iranic homeland in the area of modern Kurdistan was improbable based on the location of the other branches of PII.

2. The Kurds speak an Iranian language and a large part of their ancestry is most probably linked to Iranic nomads. Yet the ethnogenesis of Kurds starts earlier most probably even during the Sumerian period. The term Karda was used by Sumerians as name for the lands in Southeastern Anatolia around lake van and described a antagonistic "mountain people".
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I agree on the ethnogenesis on the Kurds, yeah. But, I have to ask this regarding the term: is there any reference to this term in Assyrian, Hellenisitic, Roman or Byzantine sources? If no, then the likelihood that a connection actually exists is quite questionable. How do we know it's the same term if it has been in disuse for some 2000 years?

3. The Mitanni loandwords in Hurrian are not believed to be "Indic" since the Indo-Aryans pushed forward into India approximately at the same time the "Mitanni" appeared in Western Asia (or maybe even earlier). Most linguists today seem to agree that the Mitanni spoke a sort of Indo-Iranian dialect from a source before the language split into a Indo-Aryan and Iranian branch. Something like "Proto-Aryan"
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Well, my opinion is that the Mitanni loanwords are certainly closer with Sanskrit than with the Iranian languages: this might indicate an undifferentiated Proto-Indo-Iranic dialect. On the other hand, as you may be aware, there (presumably through some late language contact) common innovations of Greek and Iranic. As you may recall, the Hurrian language is effectively contemporary to Mycenaean Greek. How likely is it that an undifferentiated PII was still spoken at that time?

By the way, I have to admit that I dislike the term "Aryan": not so much because of it's mindless misusage by the Third Reich (which might be an obvious reason), but due to it's potential for ambiguity. Depending on the context, and also the time the literature was written, "Aryan" may be interchangable with "Indo-European", "Indo-Iranian", "Iranic" or "Indic"...
 
"more and more scientists"? Whom in particular? I have to say, I consistently have the feeling that the Anatolian origin to me makes no sense (by the way, are you talking about an origin in Anatolia, or the Anatolian hypothesis in the sense of Colin Renfew? The latter certainly has stiff resistence). The main problem I see is the clear abundance of non-Indo-European languages and language families in an area that is supposed to be the Proto-Indo-European homeland. Another, fairly decisive argument against an Anatolian origin was forwarded by Melchert (2012): namely that there's not a single known example of a borrowing from any of the known ancient Near Eastern languages into Proto-Anatolian. So, if not even Proto-Anatolian was possibly spoken in Anatolia, why should PIE have been spoken there at all? I personally think that an origin north of the Caucasus - in the Pontic-Caspian region makes more sense to me. This of course is "West Asia" by some definitions. ;-)
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I think this is the best theory that we have so far. Unless some very compelling new evidence is discovered, we'll have to rely on the Southern Russian/Central Asian steppe origin. I think it is supported by both haplogroup diversity and haplogroup frequency of R1a/R1b. Not to mention all the linguistic and historical evidence.
 
Alan said:
I agree with you on the most part yet I have to straight out some points.

2. The Kurds speak an Iranian language and a large part of their ancestry is most probably linked to Iranic nomads. Yet the ethnogenesis of Kurds starts earlier most probably even during the Sumerian period. The term Karda was used by Sumerians as name for the lands in Southeastern Anatolia around lake van and described a antagonistic "mountain people".
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To whom referred Karda is not that clear. :) Kardu was a Huro-Urartian deity for example.
We Georgians call ourselves Kartveli/Kardueli. There are several toponimes related to the term in Georgia as well.
And in Georgian we have many loan words from Sumerian.
It might well be that Georgians and Kurds have a certain common ancestral population. J2a folks are the primary suspect :)
 
And in Georgian we have many loan words from Sumerian.
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Really? I didn't know that. This is very interesting. Could it be possible that Georgian is related to Sumerian? I am asking, because noone knows to what language family Sumerian belongs to.
 
Templar said:
Really? I didn't know that. This is very interesting. Could it be possible that Georgian is related to Sumerian? I am asking, because noone knows to what language family Sumerian belongs to.
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It looks more like loan words from Sumerian. I guess our area was under direct political and cultural influence from Mesopotamia. Apart from linguistics there are numerous artifacts found at archeological sites and earlier this year in east Georgia whole Sumerian style city remains were discovered.
 
Kardu said:
You are mixing linguistics with genetics/ethnic origins.
Ossetians are as much Alans as modern Turks are Oghuz or modern Hungarians - Magyars...
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I doubt the Ossetes could be descendants of pure Alani - I see rather them as a mix of Alani (Y-R1a as a majority, maybe Y-J2a?) and autochtonous tribes of Caucasus- the study of Ossete languages seams showing an I-E origin but strongly modified by non I-E substrata - I suppose the high %s of Y-G2 among Ossetes are from local geographically origin - Alani was considered as commonly enough fair haired, by the way, even if phenotypical features are not always of great use for someones -
 
MOESAN said:
I doubt the Ossetes could be descendants of pure Alani - I see rather them as a mix of Alani (Y-R1a as a majority, maybe Y-J2a?) and autochtonous tribes of Caucasus- the study of Ossete languages seams showing an I-E origin but strongly modified by non I-E substrata - I suppose the high %s of Y-G2 among Ossetes are from local geographically origin - Alani was considered as commonly enough fair haired, by the way, even if phenotypical features are not always of great use for someones -
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Concerning Ossetians, indeed, dominant among them subclade of G2a1 is relatively young, about 1500 years old. While it's also dominant and much more archaic among adjacent to them Georgian sub-ethnic group Svans. Actually Roman sources mention a tribe Suanosarmatae. So it's plausible that mix of Sarmats with Svans among others gave birth to what later would become Ossetians.
 
Kardu said:
Concerning Ossetians, indeed, dominant among them subclade of G2a1 is relatively young, about 1500 years old. While it's also dominant and much more archaic among adjacent to them Georgian sub-ethnic group Svans. Actually Roman sources mention a tribe Suanosarmatae. So it's plausible that mix of Sarmats with Svans among others gave birth to what later would become Ossetians.
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Hey Kardu, this is is slightly off topic, but I have a question that I have been wondering about. Since you are Georgian, I was wondering if you knew why Caucasoids are named after the Caucus region? I heard it has something to do with the oldest Caucasoid skull being found there. Though it could just be based on 19th century pseudo-science guesswork. Do you have any information about it?
 
Templar said:
Hey Kardu, this is is slightly off topic, but I have a question that I have been wondering about. Since you are Georgian, I was wondering if you knew why Caucasoids are named after the Caucus region? I heard it has something to do with the oldest Caucasoid skull being found there. Though it could just be based on 19th century pseudo-science guesswork. Do you have any information about it?
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Yes, those were the first days of modern anthropology with lot of misconceptions :)
"Blumenbach claimed that Adam and Eve were Caucasian (Georgian) and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach
 
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