Talk:Yamnaya culture/Archive 1

Naming questions

I propose to move this article to Yamna culture, simply for the sake of consistency of name space.--FourthAve 15:39, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Speaking about names: "Yamna" is nonsense. Either take the Russian term yama (hence traditionally and alternatively Pitgrave culture), or transcribed Russian Yamnaya cultura. Thank You. 2003:DD:F11:8CAE:CC93:88D2:891F:4547 (talk) 08:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Yamna is from Ukrainian Ямна культура, so it makes just as much sense as Yamnaya. Much of the culture is found in modern Ukraine. – Joe (talk) 13:17, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Confusing

This is a bit confusing:

a feature associated with both Proto-Indo-Europeans or Proto-Indo-Iranians

This suggests the two populations are distinct, when in fact one is a descendant of the other. Might one not expect this feature in any population derived from the Proto-Indo-Europeans? If so, we might as well remove the mention of Proto-Indo-Iranians. --Saforrest 20:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

DNA research

What about DNA research? Are the people of Yamna were Caucasian type or predominantly dark-haired like Iranians? Is there any genetic proof that links Yamna people with Tocharians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.139.26 (talk • contribs) 22:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Tocharians were from the same stock due being part of the Indo-Germanic or Indo-European group. The Yamna people were the carrier of Proto-Indo-European languages, Tocharian being a descendent of it as Iranian, German, Latin, Slavic...212.161.68.146 (talk) 01:29, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Kurgan Culture

Marija Gimbutas invented this term and it properly goes with her Kurgan hypothesis. Those who have not studied the subject and have not read Gimbutas are perhaps too much influenced by the other propositions most of which Gimbutas resoundly refuted in her lifetime and fall into the category of crank or offbeat. Some are worth considering. Nevertheless we are giving them all a fair shake here, but not at the expense of being unfair to Gimbutas, who has the dominant theory and answered these others quite effectively and would continue to do so were she here. So, I am redirecting the redirect to Kurgan Hypothesis. Gimbutas means by Kurgan Culture (again, her term) all the Kurgans and their immediate precedents not just the Yamna. You will find a definitory ref on it by Gimbutas under Kurgan Hypothesis. Now, if it turns out the other theories are using the term in a different sense - a post-Gimbutas development - then we need to redirect to a disambig page on Kurgan Culture. Until such uses are pointed out to us then it is best to redirect to Kurgan Hypothesis. By this way this article really has to be considered stub. It says little about a very significant culture.Dave (talk) 21:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested Expansion

Only one source was used for this. It happens to be a brief encyclopedia by some creditable authors but it is not presenting the original work of those authors. There is an article on this encyclopedia in Wikipedia but that article says that the archaeological details are often inaccurate! The write-up in that encyclopedia is not very long. I dare say some of the statements in the article of this discussion are questionable or wrong as stated. I requested a cite on one of them (only one?). Most properly I should say this article relies too much on one author but obviously it is a stub. Rather than mark it as a stub I just requested it be expanded because it needed that anyway! There is hardly enough there to hang a picture on. Similarly it needs inline cites but how can you do that when all that is given is a few paragraphs in a quick encyclopedia! If it were expanded the questionable statements might go away. So there you have it.

I see DBachmann has taken a hand. The only trouble is, dab, you are giving off-the-cuff personal assessments in this case with such emotional dismissals as we are not being slaves to Gimbutas. Well, that is not an unbiased or correct statement. You yourself have required rigid standards of me and other people often in this encyclopedia. How about YOU applying your own high standards to yourself? Everything I have done in this set of articles I have accounted for. If you cannot give an equal accounting including refs please do not change what I have. I'm putting the redirects (there are two of them) back to Kurgan hypothesis as you neither answered my argument nor provided another. I don't find that too helpful. Have you provided money to Wikipedia? If so I will just back out but if not you need to follow Wikipedia policies and not have two standards, one for you and one for us.Dave (talk) 01:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Archeology vs history, and attribution of Pit Grave Culture

dab, it would be a good idea to hear and understand how is archeology inconsistent with history before you declare the template "undue" and repeatedly delete it. Please share your line of thinking.

On subject of attribution of Pit Grave Culture there is no universally accepted opinion, and until we can agree that there is one, declaring the Pit Grave Culture per Gimbutas as the only is deliberately misleading, since there are more hypotheses and schools of science against it as there are for it, especially when some schools openly class the Gimbutas hypothesis as only regurgitated and discarded racistic Germanic Calcholithic Invasion Theory <‘myth’ (Häusler 2003) - of an Indo-European Invasion in the Copper Age (IV millennium B.C.), by horse-riding warrior pastoralists>: <the scenario behind it, can now be considered as altogether obsolete>.

To maintain the misleading views in the preamble, without any proper disclamers, is straightforward deceiving. Barefact (talk) 15:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Fringecruft

Barefact, please stop flooding the page with pan-Turkist fringecruft. Even though you are keen to assign the Kurgan hypothesis to the realm of "19th-century (?) European nationalism", it is the theory that has gained wide acceptance in academic circles, while your imaginings have none. if you continue pushing your original research into the article, we shall continue this discussion on WP:FTN. --Ghirla^-трёп- 21:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

My dear Ghirlandajo, please do not assault me, and all all the scholars who do not support the infamous Kurgan theory, with your "pan-Turkist fringecruft". You should not call scholars like Colin Renfrew, Bruce Lincoln, Mario Alinei, G. Erdosy, Meinander, Nuñez, and many more "pan-Turkists". As a scholar said, "After WW2, with the end of Nazi ideology, a new variant of the traditional scenario (i.e. scenario "imbued with European colonialism of the 19th century"), which soon became the new canonic IE theory, was introduced by Marija Gimbutas, an ardent Baltic nationalist: the PIE Battle-Axe super-warriors were best represented by Baltic élites, instead of Germanic ones (Gimbutas 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1980)." You should not use calling names as an argument. I will gladly attend the WP:FTN, "Wikipedia:Fringe theories state, theories outside the mainstream that have not been discussed at all by the mainstream are not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia", the bias conserns must be discussed, referenced, and resolved, not steamrolled with soundbite declarations. Barefact (talk) 23:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't add OR to this the article. Go find actual reliable sources which says the Yamna culture was created by Altaic groups, (with explicit statements) and then add them. --Nepaheshgar 23:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good statement. We need references. Proclamations and promotions would not do. That's what we need, you are absolutely right. BTW, welcome back, life is not the same without you. That the article carries some debility we all can agree now, I hope. Lets talk, see who subscribes to this advertised idea, see who don't, and try to make it sane. Please, read the other comments on this talk page. Barefact (talk) 08:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Bringing a fresh (and unbiased, since I know nothing about this topic) eye to the article, there are three things that strike me. First, the article in its current state looks pretty good, and doesn't cry out for major changes. Second, the edits by barefact are too poorly written to be acceptable, regardless of their factual status, which seems very dubious. Third, other editors, namely Nepaheshgar and Ghirlandajo, are warring unnecessarily by reverting each others changes, in a matter where it looks like both are reasonable people and ought to be able to agree on a wording if they would discuss the issue with each other.Looie496 (talk) 16:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Correction. I did not r.v. Ghirlandajo.. I removed the OR by barefact..--Nepaheshgar 03:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

South Asia

The phrase "In 2009, however, the main candidate is South Asia, based on R1a haplogroup studies" when discussing the PIE homeland seems unfounded. I removed the comment. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 01:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Yamna vs. Yamnaya

David W. Anthony calls this culture the Yamnaya horizon in his book and I was wondering about including that name in the opening. If I'm reading it right Yamna/Yamnaya is a Ukrainian/Russian difference, but the wikipedia article should be named by whatever is the most common usage in English language sources. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:40, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Google has almost twice as many hits for 'Yamna culture' than 'Yamnaya culture'. The area of the culture looks to be fairly close to the current borders of the Ukraine. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 18:28, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

@Smerdis of Tlön "The area of the culture looks to be fairly close to the current borders of the Ukraine." Sorry?.. --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The solution now is perfect. Thanks. HJJHolm (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:23, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Characteristics

With all respect, Benjamin Fortson is a linguist and NOT a primary source for archeological research! Also the following sentence regarding the early cart find at least needs the FULL source, AND the reliable radiocarbon dates with calibration! 93.199.47.139 (talk) 06:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Haak and Lazaridis (2015)

Why was this reference removed, but the text retained? And what's the relevanc eof these haplo-groups, while the article is about the migration from Yamna-people to Europe? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:25, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

References

I've formatted the references into the {{sfn}} format, for better readabiluty while editing. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:57, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions on the neolithization of the Yamna

1. Only hunter-gatherer groups are mentioned among the Yamna ancestry (from East Europe and the Caucasus). This makes me wonder: Can there be no genetic trace at all, of the contact which provoked the neolithic acculturation of their ancestors? In any case, when and where this acculturation episode is supposed to have happened? (Might it be via contact with Samara, Cucuteni, or with Jeitun (by the Kopet Dag -Iran)? Yamna cultural traits have an obvious neolithic ancestry, since they are even typified by "animal grave offerings ... (cattle, sheep, goats and horse)", plus "...some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts." 2. A couple more questions: How did the Yamna get their warlike inclination and knowledge of bronze? JMT 16:31, 16 December 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JdeTeresa (talk • contribs)

References

"Western barbarians" named 'Rong' / 'Hsi-Jung' / 'Dung' in Chinese histories ('Scythian'?)

"Western barbarians" named 'Rong' / 'Hsi-Jung' / 'Dung' in Chinese histories ('Scythian'?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.167.109.242 (talk) 12:41, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Iranian farmers

Lazaridis et al. (2016):

"The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those from Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia." [1]

Eurogenes blog:

"Lazaridis et al. show that Early to Middle Bronze Age steppe groups, including Yamnaya, tagged by them as Steppe EMBA, are best modeled with formal statistics as a mixture of Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and Chalcolithic farmers from western Iran. The mixture ratios are 56.8/43.2, respectively. However, they add that a model of Steppe EMBA as a three-way mixture between EHG, the Chalcolithic farmers and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHG) is also a good fit and plausible."

This should be added. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:22, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

I've added this info; can someone explain to me: how is CHG the same as Iranian chalcolithic? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:20, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah, here's an answer, from Lazaridis (2016) p.8:

"The Chalcolithic people of western Iran can be modelled as a mixture of the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers (CHG)."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:51, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

"early Bronze Age populations of the steppe"

The following info (in bold) was removed:

"The Yamnaya-people were the likely result of admixture between eastern European hunter-gatherers (via whom they also descend from the Mal'ta-Buret' culture or other, closely related people) and hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus c.q. Iran Chalcolithic people."

References

with the following edit-summary:

"yamna not mentioned, mentions Caucasus with turkey, iran; pretty undue"

What Lazaridis (2016) says is:

""a population related to the people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe."

See also the following sentence, which provides further context:

"The spread of Near Eastern ancestry into the Eurasian steppe was previously inferred [7] without access to ancient samples, by hypothesizing a population related to present-day Armenians as a source [7,8]."

note 7: Haak, W. et al. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature 522, 207-211, (2015).

note 8: Mathieson, I. et al. Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians. Nature 528, 499-503, (2015).

This is about the Yamna-culture, and nothing else. It's groundbreaking info on the origins of the Indo-Europeans; calling this "undue" is inappropriate. I've undone this removal. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:14, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

No mention of Yamna culture, that's how it has to do nothing here. Don't revert without gaining consensus. Lorstaking (talk) 07:30, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Whereas Jones 2015, actually mentioned Yamna many times in his studies,[2] he is not mentioning Iran but rather referring the region as Caucasus since it include a few countries. Seems more neutral as well. Lorstaking (talk) 07:41, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Since "How diverse first farmers of the Near East mixed to form the region’s later populations" or the whole source [3], has nothing to do with Yamna culture and this article, I have reverted to a more earlier version of the article. Every other source listed under #Origins mentions Yamna culture indepth while Lazaridis is not mentioning it even once. Lorstaking (talk) 07:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

"Early Bronze Age cultures of the steppe" has everything to do with Yamna-culture, as you know very well. @Taivo, Florian Blaschke, Maunus, and Doug Weller: could you please weight in here? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:25, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

As mentioned above, Lazaridis et al. (2016) refer to Haak et al. (2015):

"The spread of Near Eastern ancestry into the Eurasian steppe was previously inferred [7] without access to ancient samples, by hypothesizing a population related to present-day Armenians as a source [7,8]."

Haak et al. (2015) says:

• "the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry."
• "The Yamnaya differ from the EHG by sharing fewer alleles with MA1 (|Z|=6.7) suggesting a dilution of ANE ancestry between 5,000-3,000 BCE on the European steppe. This was likely due to admixture of EHG with a population related to present-day Near Easterners, as the most negative f3-statistic in the Yamnaya (giving unambiguous evidence of admixture) is observed when we model them as a mixture of EHG and present-day Near Eastern populations like Armenians (Z = -6.3; SI7)."
• "These results can be explained if the new genetic material that arrived in Germany was a composite of two elements: EHG and a type of Near Eastern ancestry different from that which was introduced by early farmers (also suggested by PCA and ADMIXTURE; Fig. 2, SI5, SI6). We estimate that these two elements each contributed about half the ancestry each of the Yamnaya (SI6, SI9)"

So, where Lazaridis et al. (2016) say "steppe," while referring to Haak et al. (2015) as speaking about the same population, Haak et al. (2015) say steppe and Yamna synonymously. With "Near eastern," Lazaridis et al. (2016) mean Iran Chalcolithic. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:33, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Ponging HJJHolm as well. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:37, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Concern is that our information must include only those sources that are discussing Yamna culture well. Lazaridis is not even mentioning Yamna, thus it not detectable if he could emphasize Yamna culture. Caucasus includes a few countries, Georgia, and other countries are more of contender here, per the Jones (who emphasized Yamana culture))[4], not Iran. @Ilber8000, Urselius, SamEV, can you also share your ideas here? Lorstaking (talk) 10:53, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

You know he refers to the Yamna culture; you're deliberately ignoring the quotes above. See also Eurogenes Blog, Yamnaya =/= Eastern Hunter-Gatherers + Iran Chalcolithic:

"Lazaridis et al. show that Early to Middle Bronze Age steppe groups, including Yamnaya, tagged by them as Steppe EMBA, are best modeled with formal statistics as a mixture of Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and Chalcolithic farmers from western Iran. The mixture ratios are 56.8/43.2, respectively."

I'm going to check the dataset now. See [5] if you like. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:05, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

anthrogenica.com quotes from the supplementary information:

"While the Early/Middle Bronze Age ‘Yamnaya’-related group (Steppe_EMBA) is a good genetic match (together with Neolithic Iran) for ANI, [...] (Supplementary Information Page 123)"

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:16, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Which can be found here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Page 78:

"It has been observed that the Yamnaya, Afanasievo, and Middle Bronze Age Poltavka culture formed a tight genetic cluster which we name here Steppe_EMBA."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:23, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: Iran Chalcolithic farmers, Caucasus hunter-gatherers and EHG appears to be three way admixture, perhaps IC needs separate mention from CHG? or as CHG being admixture of two groups, chalcolthic farmers and hunter-gatherers.Ilber8000 (talk) 12:26, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Lazaridis et al. (2016) wrote that these Iranian Chacolithic people were a mixture of "the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers." CHG bing a mixture of chalcolthic farmers and hunter-gatherers is probably not what Lazaridis c.s. intent to communicate... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:16, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Here's an additional comment from Lazaridis himself (emphasis mine):

I just wanted to leave a brief comment that the model of Steppe_EMBA as a mixture of EHG+CHG is rejected (Table S7.11), while that of EHG+Iran_ChL is not. Note that in Table S7.11 we are modeling Steppe_EMBA and the references with respect to 13 outgroup populations (the set O9ALNW), not all of which are included in the TreeMix graph.

It is possible for some models to succeed with a particular set of outgroups (both EHG+CHG and EHG+Iran_ChL are feasible with only the O9 set of outgroups; Table S7.10), but for some of them to be rejected when additional outgroups are introduced (Table S7.11). As we mention further down, that doesn't mean there is no CHG-related ancestry in Steppe_EMBA as we can model it as a 3-way mixture involving CHG as one of the sources. What it does mean, however, is that CHG+EHG cannot be the only sources, as this model is rejected (Table S7.11). A further test of our overall model is that when we withhold Iran_ChL as a source, and infer mixture proportions by intersecting the EHG->Steppe_EMBA and Levant_N+Levant_BA clines (p. 134), we get fairly reasonable agreement (mixture proportions).

We try to be cautious in our interpretation of the admixture models, because of three factors: (i) we don't know the geographical extent of populations like "CHG" or "Iran_ChL" so admixture from Iran_ChL does not imply admixture from geographical Iran or CHG from the geographical Caucasus, (ii) we do not have samples from many places and it's very likely that slightly different mixtures than the sampled populations existed elsewhere, (iii) it is possible that the actual history of admixture may be more complex than the simplest parsimonious models identified by the analysis.

Overall, our admixture analysis rejects several possible models (such as EHG+CHG) and thus puts constraints on what may have happened, and also proposes some models that are more resilient to rejection (such as EHG+Iran_ChL+CHG). But, by no means should these be regarded as the final word or unique solutions, but rather as one possible way that the data can be modeled."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:35, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

The words "and other a Chalcolithic population" doesn't mean anything, so I attempted to restore the original meaning thusly.--Anders Feder (talk) 21:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to article: evidence of this culture's early use of, and possible trade in cannabis. 173.89.236.187 (talk) 00:47, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Lazaridis et al. (2016) does say South Asians are steppe-derived

"Substantial impact" versus "largely derived"

Page 9 of the PDF file reads:

The demographic impact of steppe related populations on South Asia was substantial, as the Mala, a south Indian population with minimal ANI along the ‘Indian Cline’ of such ancestry is inferred to have ~18% steppe-related ancestry, while the Kalash of Pakistan are inferred to have ~50%, similar to present-day northern Europeans

cc User:Joshua Jonathan
2804:7F7:DC80:A8D1:0:0:0:1 (talk) 10:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Hm, you've got a point there. I'll have to look-up the full source again. Anyway, the statement you made made needs to be attributed, and it needs a context; other, related papers on this topic state thst the steppe influnce was minimal. Lazaridis works together with Reich, and Reich seems to favor a strong steppe-infkuce. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:34, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I checked the source again. Lazaridis et al (2016) do not say that the Indian population is largely derived from Steppe-peple; they say that the Steppe-people had a substantial impact on hd south Indian population. That's quite a difference. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:05, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

But then again, the paragraph that I inserted doesn't say all South Asians are heavily derived from the steppe - it says a steppe-like population moved into South Asia. And it acknowledges differences in steppe ancestry levels among Indians, with northern and high caste Indians having far more steppe ancestry than those who are low caste or are from the South. 177.159.209.28 (talk) 21:19, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, User:Ilber8000, learn to assume some damn good faith. My edits are following the source. If you disagree, we can settle this without going about accusing people of vandalism. If I were trying to vandalize the entry, I wouldn't have invited Jonathan to discuss the edit on here. I'm a bit baffled by your immaturity and nastiness. If you make another baseless accusation against my character, I will call arbitration on you. To repeat, MY EDIT DOESN'T SAY "the Indian population is largely derived from Steppe-peple (sic)". It says that the steppe "contributed to a large degree to the DNA of modern-day South Asians", which accurately represents Laziridis' own words - that the "demographic impact of steppe related populations on South Asia was substantial": a sentence which, by the way, was being WHOLLY IGNORED BEFORE I CALLED PEOPLE'S ATTENTION THERETO. If you think there's a better way to phrase it, then let's discuss it - don't accuse me of vandalism and then GO ON TO REMOVE A WHOLE PARAGRAPH DESCRIBING NUMBERS TAKEN FROM THE ARTICLE, SOMETHING THAT IS CLOSER TO VANDALISM THAN ANYTHING I'VE DONE. 177.159.209.28 (talk) 21:28, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

This topic is under discussion and disputed, you can add it only after you're done discussing with User:Joshua Jonathan and he also does not seem to agree with what you have added. Steppe-ancestry in South Asian population does not derive directly from Yamnaya. But, through Sintasta and Andronovo after passing through eastern Corded Ware. Ilber8000 (talk) 21:50, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

"Contributed to a large degree" suggests that the Yamna-people are the main contributants to the Indian population. This is not what Lazaridis et al. (2016) writes, as explained before (though it is indeed a noteworthy sentence, like so much other stuff in that article). Regarding the numbers, Lazaridis only mentions the Mala and the Kalash at p.9. No Pathans, Punjabis, Tiwaris, Kharias; and no mention of caste-differences. Punjabis and Tiwaris are mentioned in the supplementary info though, but regarding the composition of ANI. Maybe you took some information from there, and interpreted it? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:09, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

User:Joshua Jonathan: "Large degree" does not imply "majority"; and if it did, we can just change the wording to say "in some part" or whatever. Supposedly poor wording is not an excuse to delete ALL references to a scientific paper. Let's not throw the baby with the bathwater. Also, ALL OF THE NUMBERS that I had posted on steppe admixture in South Asia were taken from the Laziridis article. You can find them ALL in Table S9.4 of the supplementary material. Honestly, did you think that I had invented them all out of thin air?? As you admitted before, you were ignoring Laziridis (2016) comments on the steppe-South Asian conection, so let's not pretend now that you know the paper perfectly, from top to bottom. Both arguments from keeping my paragraph out of the article - that the wording is inaccurate or that the numbers aren't from the paper - are pretty bad.

Also, User:Ilber8000, the Yamnaya didn't DIRECTLY shape Western European genetic makeup, either. They did so via mixed populations, such as the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beakers. Under the reasoning you're using to justify removing all references to South Asians, we should also eliminate all references to Western Europeans, and indeed, to all Europeans outside Russia and Ukraine, which are the only countries whose borders include what was in the past the Yamnaya country. All others descend from Yamnaya-mixed peoples, not directly from the Yamnaya themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.42.179.42 (talk) 23:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on the table. Nevertheless, you were interpreting the table to sggest something that Lazaridis does not say, namely that the Indian is "largely derived" from steppe ancestry; they see that steppe people had a huge impact. It's up to you to reword it in a way that's in accord with Lazaridis. See also WP:OR. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:45, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Lazaridis et al conclusions

@ User:177.42.179.42 and User:Joshua Jonathan, that is still not accurate because Yamnaya migrated directly to Europe, not to South Asia. South Asian R1a-Z93 associated with Indo-Iranian migration does not come from Yamnaya, Lazardies also mentions this problem. Lazardies et al says it is not an accurate model for South Asians yet.

Conclusions from Lazaridis et al regrading South Asians.

"A useful direction of future research is a more comprehensive sampling of ancient DNA from steppe populations, as well as populations of central Asia (east of Iran and south of the steppe), which may reveal more proximate sources of the ANI than the ones considered here, and of South Asia to determine the trajectory of population change in the area directly."

Supplementary Information 9: "Constraints on the origin of Ancestral North Indians". Ilber8000 (talk) 07:58, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Yamnaya did not migrate directly anywhere - that is a misinterpretation. Yamnaya culture existed over a large area and time span and cannot be thought to have migrated en masse anywhere - indeed to have been the PIE community they must have split into many different smaller communities that migrated in different directions. That is the definition of being a proto-language speech community. You are also overinterpreting the call for future research - it cannot be taken to throw doubt on their current conclusions untill future data actually provides he more detailed picture they call for (also a more proximate source would not mean that Yamnaya was not the ultimate source).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Ofcrose, but neither Lazaridis et al or Haak et al says Yamnaya as direct source of steppe ancestry in South Asians, and Lazaridis clearly talks about R1a1a1b2-Z935 problem. Lazaridis came to conclusion that future research is needed to find more appropriate source for ancestry found in South Asians instead of model considered in study. Ilber8000 (talk) 09:20, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Not "more appropriate", more "proximate". Noone has ever argued that Yamnaya people migrated directly into South Asia - the proto-Indo-Iranians first had to split from PIE and go somewhere before the proto-Indic speakers moved into South Asia. What Lazaridis is asking for is finding those intermediate populations.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:44, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

As Lazardie also mentions "the Srubnaya from eastern Europe which are related to South Asians by their possession of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1a1b2-Z935." Also, Reich et al is coming out with South Asia specific study this year. At the movement, Lazaridis model - as he says further studies will reveal more proximate sources for that ancestry than the one considered in his study. Ilber8000 (talk) 10:46, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Lazaridis (2016) says that Indian are related to the Iranians, and to the steppe people. As for interpretation, it seems obvious (to me) that there were migrations from Iran to India, and from the steppes/Corded ware/Andronovo to India. That explains Z93 in India. Another question regarding Z93: there's R1a-Z93 in South Siberia (Underhill 2014)- where the Afanasevio culture existed, which is related to Yamnaya. How did R1a-Z93 get in the Yamnaya culture and in (North-West) Iran? From steppe to Iran? Or from Iran to steppe? That's a question on which there is no answer, yet. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:27, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, i can see that both Neolthic_Iran ancestry and steppe-ancestry is present in South Asians but the steppe-ancestry in South Asians does not come from Yamnaya as R1a-Z93 was not found in Yamnaya, that was the point. Regarding R1a, here is an interesting map which shows spread of R1a. It is possible that BMAC were Iran_Chl people or, Andronovo picked up more Yamnaya-like ancestry in Afanasevio before coming to South Asia. Ilber8000 (talk) 23:00, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

What I mean is that I think that R1a-Z93 in India came from Iranian populations, who migrated to India from Iran. Eastern Europe (=Yamna + Corded Ware) is R1a-Z282. Ultimately, they gave rise to the Indo-Iranians - but India is Z93, and the growth of Z93 in India seems to be related to the Indus Valley Civilisation, ergo pre-Indo-Aryan. Therefore, I think this R1a-Z93 came to India directly.

Obviously both Z93 and Z282 were present in the Yamna-culture, though maybe in different regions. If Z93 is related to Iran, how did Z93 get at the steppe? Either it originated at the steppe, and moved to Iran, or it originated in Iran, and moved to the steppe. In both cases it means that there were population movements between the steppe and Iran. Which is in line with Lazaridis 2016, I guess, but which is missing in Anthony's revised steppe theory, as far as I know. What happened?!? ~~

See also Eurogens Blog, The Poltavka outlier. And apparently Mathieson et al. (2015), Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe], provides more answers], according to this comment: "nails steppe origin of south asian r1a1a (z93)". Hadn't noticed that article yet. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:59, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

PS: the other possible explanation is quite obvious, of course: 'the steppe people (Indo-Aryan R1a-Z93) had a considerable impact on Indian populations', just like Lazaridis says. And what Reich seems to think. As someone somewhere noted (paraphrased here): 'those geneticists seem to know more than they share', and 'Reich c.s. seemingly want to be sure before they take side on the origins and spread of the Indo-Europeans'. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

What language do you believe R1a-Z93 spoke if it's related to expansion of Indus Valley Civilization? do you believe R1a-Z93 were Indo-Europeanizied? Lazaridis et al's Neolithic_Iran or Chalcolithic_Iran samples did not carry R1a-Z93. According to Davidski comment under Mathieson et al. (2015) Eastern European R1a-M417 and R1a-Z645 is supposedly ancestral to R1a-Z93.

Also, regrading Lazaridis et al's steppe-ancestry in South Asians ~ If we plan on adding this, it should be added in Indo-Aryan migration theory instead, not in Yamna culture page. However, still there are many problems with proposed model as mentioned in supplementary.

I'll add supplementary details about ASI, ANI and steppe-ancestry from Lazaridis in Talk:Indo-Aryan_migration_theory for further consensus. Ilber8000 (talk) 06:38, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ilber8000: some form of Dravidian. But that would be odd if they are related to the steppe-people. It's also a theoretical problem how to explain the supposed migration betweens the steppe and north-western Iran. The Kura-Raxes culture was markedly different rom the steppe-cultures. I sreached further on Afanasievo and R1a-Z93; afanasievo does indeed seem to have been R1a-Z93, so it is possible that R1a-Z93 spread with the Indo-Europeans into India. THat may fit with its geographical distribution: higher at the Ganges valley, that is, the ancient (later) Vedic culture.

Yet, there are also arguments for a spread by pre-Vedic people. From Indo-Aryan migration theory:

"Poznik et al. (2016) note that 'striking expansions' occurred within R1a-Z93 at ~4,500-4,000 years ago, which "predates by a few centuries the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation."[196] Mascarenhas et al. (2015) note that the expansion of Z93 from Transcaucasia into South Asia is compatible with "the archeological records of eastward expansion of West Asian populations in the 4th millennium BCE culminating in the socalled Kura-Araxes migrations in the post-Uruk IV period."[197]"

Anyway, I agree with you that the extra info from lazaridis et al (should be added to IAmt, not here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:40, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

No R1a-z93 in Afanasievo. R1b-M269 has been found though See http://eurogenes.blogspot.in/2017/03/r1b-m269-in-afanasievo.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chetan vit (talk • contribs) 11:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Westward migration to Europe, from Europe?

Just because the article incorrectly say "westward migration to Europe", this article do not need to do the same mistake. The Yamna culture were located in Europe, therefore there can never be a migration to Europe. The article should state "migration to Central and Northern Europe". 86.52.101.203 (talk) 19:24, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks; I've corrected it. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:20, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you so much :) 86.52.101.203 (talk) 12:50, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

There's no evidence the Yamnaya migrated directly to Central or Northern Europe. All evidence we have is that they're ancestral to some cultures in Europe, but we don't know they were still the "Yamnaya culture" when they left the steppe and settled in Germany, for example. Rafe87 (talk) 13:45, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

That's what those sources say: "Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe"; we stick to the sources. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:54, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

At second thought: you're right. Haak et al. say that Corded ware and Yamna are related; they also say that the relationship may have been established by a group related to the Yamna-culture. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:43, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: We should change the section title to "Yamnaya related migrations" and add related-migration articles underneath in sections. Additionally, "Migration to Europe" as Haak et al study is titled is accurate, most of Eastern Europe is not in Pontic–Caspian steppe, a small part of it is and Balto-Slavic languages emerged with Corded Ware Culture expansion, around the same time as Proto-Indo-Iranian emerged. Ilber8000 (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ilber8000: elegant solution. NB: Anthony (2007) explicitly states that the Danube Valley migrations, up to Hungary, at ca. 3,000 BCE, were Yamna-migrations. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:14, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Confused and confusing map

The attached map very much contributes to this confusion, because it (innocently?) hides the fact that the Corded Ware C. started and ended c. 500 years later thanthe Yamna/PitGrave. Between 4300-2700 we have the TrB/Funnelbeacker-C in Central Europe.HJJHolm (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Missing data because of biased agenda?

I don't understand why disappeared the quotation about Y-DNA haplogroups in Yamna culture samples. Perhaps someone can't deal with the fact they are overwhelmingly R-M269+ Z2103+ and I2a? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.146.205.231 (talk • contribs) 6 july 2017 (UTC)

@217.146.205.231: what exactly are you referring to? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Haplogroup table?

What about a haplogroup table documenting all Y-chromosome and mtdna haplogroups found among the Yamnaya to date?Rafe87 (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

This isn't actually an article about genetics, although it seems to be on the way to becoming one. At its base the Yamnaya culture is an archaeological entity. Authors like Haak et al. have posited that certain genetic markers and events in European population history are associated with the archaeological entity, but this hypothesis is not without its critics (e.g. [6][7]). I think detailed discussion of the genetics would be more suited to a different article, e.g. archaeogenetics of Europe. – Joe (talk) 21:09, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Your answer is based on an outdated assumption, that material culture differences in Europe have no known correlation with biological differences between the "archaeological" populations. A parallel can be traced with modern populations. Most Wikipedia entries on modern nations - eg Chileans and Koreans - do touch upon their genetic history and particularities, even if genetics do not provide the main definition of what is a Chilean or a Korean. If genetic material retrieved from what are known Yamnaya sites consistently repeat a certain pattern in parental haplogroups and autosomal DNA, then this belongs in the article about the Yamnaya, even if the Yamnaya, today, are defined primarily for their material culture. The overwhelming majority of the scholarship produced on Yamnaya populations since 2015 - or at least, the overwhelming majority of the Yamnaya scholarship that has garnered media attention - has been primarily about genetics, and only secondarily about language and archaeology. Wikipedia's job is to reflect knowledge as it is produced in scientific journals and reproduced in media coverage, and not to decide whether scientists and journalists and going about a given subject in the correct way.Rafe87 (talk) 21:48, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Our job is actually to summarise knowledge contained in reliable secondary sources, which is why using original results from the primary archaeogenetics literature is usually inappropriate. As the articles I linked above show, these results are often controversial and it takes some time for a scientific consensus to emerge. More pertinently, if you review the available sources, you will find volumes and volumes on Yamnaya archaeology and only a handful of papers on Yamnaya archaeogenetics. Whether or they've "garnered media attention" is irrelevant. The last thing we should be aiming for is molding our articles around pop science's topic de jour.

I'm not saying genetics has no place in this article―which is not about a population but a set of similar forms of prehistoric material culture―but it shouldn't become the major focus of it. I think a table of haplogroups (largely unintelligible to a general reader) is far too much detail. The coverage of the genetics currently in the article seems about right to me. – Joe (talk) 22:20, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

@Joe Roe:@Rafe87: Haplogroups have their Wikipedia pages, so they ARE intelligible for the general reader. What really IS unintelligible - is sorting out what actually was found in DNA samples from reading the "Genetics" section in a way it exists now. What I'd suggest to do is REPLACING the current "Genetics" section by Rafe87's proposition of a haplogroup table. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii (talk) 05:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Oldest cart in Ukraine?

The Storozhova Mohyla cart, here without reference, in fact copied from the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993), is nowhere else confirmed and thus dubious. Meanwhile we have more securely dated wagon graves in this millennium-wide window given for Storozhova Mohyla. Moreover, nobody claimed this Ukrainian find as earliest for whole "Eastern Europe". This is in fact a very bad work. HJJHolm (talk) 08:51, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

linguistic root

jama MEANS pit, no need to drag "roots" into the discussion. Sommerx2015 (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Rename to proper scientific name

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

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Yamna culture → Yamnaya culture – Don't really understand where the Wikipedia's name came from. It's evidently the traditional spelling in:
1) the literature (see Google Ngram, where the Yamnaya spelling is used 10 times more often than the other one and no trend of Yamna spelling becoming more (or less) popular
2) Scientific articles (since Jan 1 2014 222 articles used "Yamnaya" spelling, vs 67 articles using the "Yamna" spelling. The difference holds true over any timespan, for all articles indexed on Google scholar, for example, the difference is 562 to 193. It also appears that about half (5 out of the first 10, 10 out of the first 20) the articles where "Yamna" spelling is used come from Ukrainian authors, where the Yamna/Ямна spelling is the standard one.
3) Admittedly, the regular google searches return a slight disposition towards "Yamna" spelling (18600 results for "Yamnaya culture" vs 24,800 for "Yamna culture") but that is probably a reverse causation of this Wikipedia article influencing history popularizers. Either way, the difference is not that stark as with books (1.2 to 1 vs 1 to 10) or scientific articles (1.2 to 1 vs 1 to 3, and the article's topic is complex enough to use proper scientific nomenclature Historiographic tradition.
4) Historiographical tradition The culture was originally called Yamnaya/Drevne-Yamnaya. As far as I can see, the first usage of the "Yamna" spelling comes from a 1979 article. That is, from an article published about 100 years after the culture was first identified and named.
5) Most prominent textbooks/journals I know of use "Yamnaya" (e.g. Oxford handbooks, Nature, etc (I'd be glad if someone could find a single article using "Yamna" spelling coming from a top journal
6) Also, and this is not a valid argument ofcourse, but I anticipate someone else bringing this argument so here it goes: according to the map from this article's infobox the culture's former geographic extent is now split between modern states of Russia and Ukraine, with Russia actually holding a slightly larger part. Archeological sites appear to be split in the same vein. But ofcourse neither modern Russians nor modern Ukrainian can be considered to be descendants of this group any more so than people currently residing in Siettle or northern India.
7) There are many more arguments that I can list here, but 5 is probably enough, right? Feel free to bring your own counter-arguments and we can decide together on what to do with this article 217.118.79.41 (talk) 12:27, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Support There is no contest here, Wikipedia has to go with the consensus in relevant scholarship. Most scholarly articles use 'Yamnaya', therefore the article should also use this term. I should say "relevant scholarship in English", as this is the English Language Wikipedia. I gather that some of the argument in the past has been from the reference point of the literal meaning of 'yamna/yamnaya' in various Slavic languages, this is entirely irrelevant as usage in scholarship using English needs to be paramount. Urselius (talk) 13:47, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

@Urselius: You might also be interested in the similar case of Srubna culture. There the situation is even worse, the new article's name (renamed in 2015) cannot be found on Ngram at all, for example 217.118.79.38 (talk) 18:52, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support "Yamnaya" appears to be more common in English usage.Anonimu (talk) 11:17, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I agree that Yamnaya has become the most common term. It should be moved to that. --Hibernian (talk) 00:32, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Edit Warring

Why exactly are my edits being undone? What do you mean by "no consensus" when none of the users have replied back to me on their talk pages? My edit is 100% sourced from the paper linked under the physical characteristics. The prevalence of an SNP at TYR that allows the melanogenesis pathway was 93.5%, verbatim from the paper. What exactly is controversial about it?

Please read the paper. Abh9850 (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Replaced the entire population of Britain?

[8] Doug Weller talk 20:31, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Too late to be strictly Proto-Indo-European?

Benjamin Fortson, who links the Indo-European expansion to the use (and possibly also invention) of wheeled vehicles in the steppe, dates the beginning of the expansion, and also the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, to 3400–3300 BC. Virtually nobody (the only exception I'm aware of is Klingenschmitt, who argues for 3000 BC or even a little later) advocates for a later date. But doesn't that mean that Yamnaya culture, which only starts by 3300 BC, is definitely too late to be identified with the Proto-Indo-Europeans? Even if we grant that the dialects leading to the Anatolian (and perhaps Tocharian) languages had already split off by that time, Fortson's argument would seem to still hold true: once wheeled vehicles were in wide use on the steppe, you'd expect that expansion started immediately. It just makes sense to link this circumstance to an expansion (even if it may not have included the whole family). But if the expansion had already started by the time the Yamna culture appears, how can we claim it was the culture that spoke (late) Proto-Indo-European? Neighbouring cultures that apparently temporally strongly overlap the Yamnaya culture like the Coțofeni culture, the Ezero culture, and the Middle Dnieper culture with material affinities to the Yamnaya culture could well already postdate the expansion. Their population was likely at least partially Indo-European-speaking. The same can be said for the Afanasievo culture; the oldest dates are around 3300 BC (maybe 3500 BC). An identification with the linguistic ancestors of the Tocharians has often been suggested, which would mean that the Yamnaya culture cannot be ancestral to them. (Tocharian definitely has a cognate of the word wheel, along with Germanic, Greek and Indo-Iranian, suggesting that it did split off after wheeled vehicles came in use; this datum seems compatible with the idea that the language – or one of the languages – spoken in the Afanasievo culture was ancestral to Tocharian.) It would be a stretch to call the Yamnaya culture "Proto-Indo-European" if not even Tocharian is derived from it. According to David Anthony, the invention of wheeled vehicles took place around 3500 BC, or 4000 BC at the earliest – this means, however, that the phase II of the Sredny Stog culture (which probably already used horses as riding or draft animals, or both, too) c. 4000–3500 BC, or perhaps the late Khvalynsk culture (which ended c. 3800 BC), or the Repin culture, is a much better fit for still undivided Proto-Indo-European than the Yamnaya culture.

Or is the 3300 BC date off? Or too inaccurate to put much stock in it? Sredny Stog culture#Overview seems to imply that Yamnaya started earlier. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:19, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: I just noticed the discussion above. Anthony definitely writes 3400 BC, not 4000 BC, on p. 321. He didn't actually make a mistake – the statement specifically attributed to his book was falsified in the article after you had added it with the correct dates, and you failed to check it against the book (the 4000 BC date comes exclusively from Morgunova & Khokhlova, who include the Repin culture in Yamnaya). Lesson: Never trust Wikipedia articles too much, even the parts you wrote yourself! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:47, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: sharp! I'd noticed your thread above, but not delved into it; too many other topics on my plate. But you're right: here's the original text (december 2016). Here's Granvit's correction; and here's the edit which changed the dates, providing this source, as you already noticed: Nina Morgunova, Olga Khokhlova (2013), Chronology and Periodization of the Pit-Grave Culture in the Area Between the Volga and Ural Rivers Based on 14C Dating and Paleopedological Research. Thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Please correct the dates

I can see virtually no reference for the dates given in this article 3500 - 2000 BC. Almost every archaeological source quotes a date 3300 - 26/2500 BC. Please correct the dates. (Chetan vit (talk) 09:31, 26 December 2017 (UTC))

Ok since no one has replied to my comment, I am going to take a step and correct the dates to 3300 - 2600 BC for the classical Yamna culture which is the one I assume this article is about. Yamna proper was preceded by Repin culture (4000 - 3300 BC) and succeeded by the Poltavka cultue (2600 - 2300 BC) but neither of these cultures fall within the range of Yamna proper and may be described in their separate articles.

Reference : Chronology and Periodization of the Pit-Grave Culture in the Area Between the Volga and Ural Rivers Based on 14C Dating and Paleopedological Research https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/viewFile/16087/pdf (Chetan vit (talk) 09:32, 26 December 2017 (UTC))

I updated the lead to remove the unsourced 3500–2000 BCE date right after you posted this, Chetan vit. 4000–2500/2300 is what our sources (Anthony and Morgunova & Khokhlova) say. There is nothing in either source to support excluding the Repin stage (4000–3300) – both discuss it as part of the Yamnaya culture. – Joe (talk) 09:52, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Anthony treats the Repin culture as a precursor to the Yamnaya horizon and not identical with it.(see p.305 in Anthony's 2007 book for eg.) Since the Yamnaya is synonymous with Pit Grave/ Kurgan, I don't think we should include a pre-kurgan stage in it. Based on the above, I suggest that we stick to the dates 3300 - 26/2500 BC. (Chetan vit (talk) 10:15, 26 December 2017 (UTC))

Yes, you're quite right, my apologies. Reading more carefully, I also notice that Anthony does definitively state that Yamnaya dates to 3300–2500 (pg. 300). It seems Morgunova & Khokhlova are the unusual ones in including Repin etc. as part of the Yamnaya horizon rather than a predecessor. I'll revert my revert and restore the 3300–2600 range. – Joe (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

No worries :) (Chetan vit (talk) 13:21, 26 December 2017 (UTC))

In Anthony (2017), Archaeology and Language: Why Archaeologists Care About the Indo-European Problem, Anthony also uses 3300-2600 BCE. Yet, "The early Yamnaya horizon spread quickly across the Pontic-Caspian steppes between ca. 4000 and 3200 BC" (Anthony 2007, p.321) is sourced; I;ve re-inderted it, with attribution. If this "early Yamnaya horizon" actually refers to Repin, please add a clarification. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Since the dates 3300 - 2600 BC is mentioned by many independent sources, I think it is possible that Anthony has made a mistake with that sentence, contradicting himself. It should indeed have been referring to a pre-Yamna culture. That is why I though it's better to exclude that sentence. (Chetan vit (talk) 09:06, 31 December 2017 (UTC))

@Chetan vit: I was wrtoing regarding 4000 BCE; see Yamnaya culture#Too late to be strictly Proto-Indo-European?. My apologies. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Maciamo Hay and his Eupedia.com is not science source

See here [[9]] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.119.233.20 (talk) 11:11, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you're right. It's an interesting site, but I've read things there which were quite questionable. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:28, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we should use it. Doug Weller talk 18:52, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Maciamo Hay is a good man because he is an enthusiast, but of course he is not an expert. In the Russian-language version of Wikipedia also questioned the credibility of this source. 27 Происхождение балтов из Фатьяновской культуры (источники) and 27.1 Eupedia. See https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5:%D0%93%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BF%D0%B0_R1a_(Y-%D0%94%D0%9D%D0%9A)#%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%B8%D0%B7_%D0%A4%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%D1%8B_(%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8) . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.119.233.20 (talk). Автор Maciamo Hay и сайт https://www.eupedia.com/ в статьях по генетике и гаплогруппам https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%9A_%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%B2/2019/2#%D0%90%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80_Maciamo_Hay_%D0%B8_%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82_https://www.eupedia.com/_%D0%B2_%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%8F%D1%85_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B5_%D0%B8_%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BF%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BC 19:10, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Pathak et al

@Abh9850: I wasn't able to find any data on Steppe_EMBA in the source. All we have is a bar graph representing Steppe_MLBA, Iran_N and Onge extrapolating numbers from which is also an Original Research. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:29, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Please read the entire paper...... it is 62 pages long. You have evidently skipped the entire supplementary data section and just read the first 5 pages. @Fylindfotberserk:. Please read S12. It measures Yamnaya ancestry from qpAdm with K = 3 (Onge and Iran_N are the other two)

Abh9850 (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

@Abh9850:, The paper showed a substantial amount of standard error. Putting data based on mix coefficient and that much standard error is Original research. And should not be used here as per Wikipedia policies. Pinging @Doug Weller:, @Joshua Jonathan:. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:41, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense. Seems you just want to get this removed for whatever reason you have. You didn't even read the paper at first and removed the edit. Half the papers quoted in archaeo genetic studies have standard error or fail to meet p values, doesn't mean you discard the research. Let's start discarding all the values in this page then. Who decides this? I don't see any wikipedia limit, seems very arbitrary

Ping whoever you want, but try to stop resorting to intellectual dishonesty. Abh9850 (talk) 14:46, 7 August 2019 (UTC) @Fylindfotberserk:

@Abh9850:, You have a habit of edit warring and being generally uncivil. Do not attack users. Wikipedia doesn't allow original researches. In Narasimhan et al's study, the supplementary file was clear about the percentages, but this paper is unclear. That much standard deviation is not allowed.

Secondly, the article text doesn't Explicitly mention any percentages except a sentence "Rors and Jats have the highest ~63% Steppe MLBA ancestry". I'm keeping your ref percentages, but keeping my text since your writing is not in conformity with the article. We do not mention all the ethnic groups tested neither the total amount of samples, etc nor "latest study". In similarity to Lazaridis section, only keeping the names of the highest and the lowest group names. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 14:57, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

But is perfectly in conformity and I'm being very civil here mate. That much standard deviation is not allowed. What? You just jumped from standard error to deviation? Also, where? What rule is this? Can you find me one link that says "this much error and p value is needed for original research"...... ?

It does explicitly write the %, literally just read the table. I'm gonna add a footnote and mention all the percentages in accordance with how we did it in Laziridis et al Abh9850 (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2019 (UTC) {ping|Fylindfotberserk}}

@Abh9850:, No the article table s12 doesn't mention percentages as is and the standard "error" is high enough. Please go through WP:OR. We do not write things that are not explicitly mentioned. That is why in this case, a hint is enough. The Rors and Jats having high steppe is mentioned multiple times in the main text but no percentages were given as far as the Steppe EMBA (Yamna} is concerned in the main text. That's why it is better to keep the numbers in the ref note. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 15:15, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Mate, that makes absolutely no sense at all. We get the data from the table, this is not original research at all. You seem to be trying to twist a point that doesn't exist into existence. Do you know the ""exact percentage"" aren't mentioned for the european studies either? Let's remove all that data now? Same with Laziridis et al? Also, I see you didn't provide me a single citation for that "high standard error" claim. I'm sorry, you're just wrong here. Plain and simple. Abh9850 (talk) 20:32, 8 August 2019 (UTC) @Fylindfotberserk:

The fact that you're even talking about errors and admixture values is a clue you're well into WP:SYNTH territory. We have no business drawing conclusions from supplementary data in primary research papers. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be based on well-established interpretations in reliable secondary sources. The dumping of reams of poorly explained archaeogenetic data from just-published papers into archaeology articles is becoming a major problem, and this is a prime example. Add that to the fact that this paper barely even mentions the Yamnaya culture, only the "steppe ancestry" that geneticists (dubiously) associate with it. All this aDNA material needs to be severely trimmed and the article refocused on what it's supposed to be about: an archaeological culture. – Joe (talk) 20:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Joe Roe is absolutely correct. I very much like the phrase "based on well-established interpretations", ie not on raw data. And yes, it's a major problem in any article that mentions genetics. We should be drawing form the conclusions and maybe, if the authors wrote it and only if we know they did, the abstract. Doug Weller talk 06:55, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Anything which is no explicitly mentioned in the sources should be removed including the percentages in the "footnotes" section. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:56, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

@Doug Weller and Joe Roe: Shall I remove the WP:OR admixture part in the 'footnotes'? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Fine by me. – Joe (talk) 17:47, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Doug Weller talk 18:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

 Done I've also added/replaced one sentence with a quote from the journal, similar to the Lazaridis paragraph. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:06, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Fylindfotberserk Joe So then why is data and percentages from SI being cited or used in the Europe section of the page? Either have some uniformity across the board or not? I have no issues letting this be a page for just an archaeological culture but when I started editing it, it was literally filled with genetic information in all sections, so we're going off that precedent. How is this falling into WP:SYNTH territory if the peer-reviewed paper in a big scientific journal literally states the data cited? Is there something I am missing here? Abh9850 (talk) 22:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I removed the percentages after discussion. They were very much in WP:OR territory. Only things that are explicitly written in the text should be kept. Supplementary information with substantial standard error is OR as explained by Doug Weller and Joe Roe. If you think that the other numbers for Europe are SYNTH then discuss it here and remove it. DO not edit war. You were blocked for that and sockpuppetry before. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 07:20, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Yamnaya male (3) (2).jpg (discussion)
• Yamnaya man 1.jpg (discussion)

Participate in the deletion discussions at the nomination pages linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Dnieper-Donets male (Volniensky).jpg
• Yamnaya male (2) (1).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Blogs, forums and pre-prints

It's rare that we use blogs, and I don't know of any situations where we use forums or preprints, so I've deleted several sentences based on a preprint, a blog and a forum. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Thanks. I was thinking of raising this issue here. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Blogs, forums and pre-prints

It's rare that we use blogs, and I don't know of any situations where we use forums or preprints, so I've deleted several sentences based on a preprint, a blog and a forum. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Thanks. I was thinking of raising this issue here. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 16:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

why was my edit reverted by Fama Clamosa?

@Fama Clamosa: @Doug Weller:. If the Iranian Chalcolithic population has two-thirds of it's ancestry stemming from Caucasus Hunter Gatherers, this is not an important detail? There's two possible sources of the southern genetic source of the Yamnaya, either a pure or near pure Caucasus Hunter Gatherer population, or a very related population in Chalcolithic Iran who has two-third's of it's ancestry stemming from CHGs. So you think pointing this out is not needed as it's just a trivial detail? It lets the reader know it's a similar population.Arch Hades (talk) 19:07, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Arch Hades: I don't have the time to look into your edit in detail, but based on the url of the refs: you can't use a pre-print paper as a source.

For instance, use https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19310 instead of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003663/ Azerty82 (talk) 16:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003663/ is not a preprint. Arch Hades (talk) 16:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok sorry. Not a pre-print, although it is not the last edited version. I'm going to look into your edits in detail now, stay tuned, Azerty82 (talk) 16:39, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@Arch Hades: please can you redact below what you want to add to the article? It is difficult to see it clearly with the multiple reverts. Azerty82 (talk) 16:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok, regarding the "Near Eastern population" who composed 50% of the Yamnaya's ancestry. Well there are two competing models. One is that they were Caucasus Hunter Gatherers, the other is that it was a Chalcolithic farming population from Iran. The only thing I added to the article was that the Chalcolithic farming population from Iran itself had a Caucasus Hunter Gatherer component. Lazaridis 2016 models them at having 62% of their own ancestry coming from Caucasus Hunter Gatherers. I think it's important because it shows how related the Chalcolithic Iranian farming population were two Caucasus Hunter Gatherers. BTW i have already added it. I just added in "with a CHG component", it's very minimal but important. Thank you Arch Hades (talk) 22:56, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Lazaridis et al. paper (on archaeogenetics in the Near East) doesn't mention the Yamnaya culture once, making the inclusion of this detail original research. This is supposed to be an article about a specific Bronze Age archaeological culture, not a summary of the population history of western Eurasia. The genetics sections need to be significantly condensed to maintain readability and due weight. – Joe (talk) 09:41, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

In Lazaridis et al. Yamnaya samples fall under the "Steppe_EMBA" (Steppe Early-Middle Bronze Age) along with samples from the Afanasievo culture whom are genetically identical. Arch Hades (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

@Arch Hades: There are many specialists who would disagree with conflating aDNA ancestry groups with archaeological cultures in this way. That is why this is exactly the kind of joining-the-dots we need to avoid under the WP:SYNTH policy. – Joe (talk) 10:24, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Well if geneticists sequence the genomes of these cultural groups who occupied a specific geographic region as well a timeframe, and they show they are all genetically fairly homogeneous and very related. It doesn't really matter what archaeologists think. They would be in no position to cast doubt over the empirical data. We don't need to join the dots to infinity, i agree. But regarding the genetic origins of the Yamnaya culture, i'd say discussing the two main ancestral sources they formed out of with a few paragraphs is not overly stretching out the article. Arch Hades (talk) 16:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Our policy is clear, Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources... do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source. As a good rule of thumb, if a source does not include the word "Yamnaya", it probably doesn't belong in this article. – Joe (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Yamnaya is named multiple times in the supplementary info. Example "It has been observed that the Yamnaya1,14, Afanasievo14, and Middle Bronze Age Poltavka17 culture formed a tight genetic cluster which we name here Steppe_EMBA". I'd say that's explicit enough. Arch Hades (talk) 20:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Dnieper-Donets reconstruction picture, does it belong here?

Im trying to shorten this article out a bit i was almost going to delete this image without asking. Does the reconstruction of the Dnieper-Donets guy belong here? We already have 3 Yamnaya reconstructions, why do we need him? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arch Hades (talk • contribs) 15:27, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Please review this discussion

• Talk:Prehistoric_Iberia#History_of_Spain#Prehistory Yug (talk) 16:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Is there a better term for Europoid?

"Europoid" itself is not defined. It links to "Caucasian race", which is immediately described as "an outdated[3] grouping of human beings historically regarded as a biological taxon". Can the term be replaced with something a bit more specific/descriptive? Is it being used here to describe skin color, anthropometrics, or some other trait? If so, can it be replaced by those specific traits?

Should represent what the source says explicitly. In this case the terms "Europoid" and "proto-Europoid". Replacing these with something else not defined in the article will result in WP:OR. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:25, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Issue of brutality and of inflamatory journalism

Should this article address inflammatory coverage of the Yamnaya in the "popular press"?

• Tariq Tahir, "Ride or Die. Are the horse-riding Yamnaya tribe who brutally murdered their way across Europe the most violent people in history" in The Sun, 30 March 2019. (Accessed 2020-12-12.) It references Prof. Kristian Kristiansen and provides a link to this 2019 The New Scientist article.
• Colin Barras, "Story of most murderous people of all time revealed in ancient DNA" in The New Scientist, 27 March 2019.

In another whole category of journalism would be this article. It more objectively discusses the allegations of severe brutality and mass murder made against the ancient Yamnaya.

• Douglas Preston, "The Skeleton Lake. Using DNA to solve a Himalayan mystery" at pages 36-43 in The New Yorker, 14 December 2020.

Here "controversial" theories of Marija Gimbutas are presented (p.40). "She believed that the nomads from the Caspian steppes imposed a male-dominated warrior culture of violence, sexual inequality, and social stratification... " in prehistoric Europe. Preston identifies these nomads as Yamnaya. Earlier (p.39) Preston discusses an invasion of Iberia circa 4500-4000 kya. "It is "likely the newcomers perpetrated a large-scale killing of local men, boys, and possibly male infants." These invaders are called Yamnaya (p.40). Preston quotes (p.42) David Reich of Harvard Medical School, "Anthropologists and geneticists are two groups speaking different languages and getting to know each other." Preston does not reference any comparative studies of human violence in history. Elfelix (talk) 18:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so. The Sun is considered generally unreliable on any subject. Popular science magazines like the New Scientist are better but still notoriously bad for archaeology topics. I don't see any reason to use them when we have better, secondary, scholarly sources available, including many authored by the researchers who are briefly quoted in the articles above. – Joe (talk) 22:03, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Physical characteristics -- original research

I refer to this quote from the "physical characteristics" section:

"The genetic basis of a number of physical features of the Yamnaya people were ascertained by the ancient DNA (aDNA) studies conducted by Haak et al. (2015), Wilde et al. (2014) and Mathieson et al. (2015): They were genetically tall (phenotypic height is determined by both genetics and environmental factors), overwhelmingly dark-eyed (brown), dark-haired and had a skin colour that was moderately light, though somewhat darker than that of the average modern European.[8][31] "

The following studies are described in the above quote:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5048219/ <-- Haak et al. (2015). Contains no statements about Yamnaya pigmentation

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/016477v2.full <-- Mathieson et al. (2015) (preprint). This paper makes no statements about the phenotypical pigmentation of Yamnaya.

Finally, there is Wilde et al. (2014):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3977302/

This paper makes no statements about Yamnaya pigmentation. It does include a supplementary PDF file ("Supporting Information") which, like the above papers, makes no statements about their phenotype, but does contain charts (Tables S3 and S4) featuring a small sample of Yamnaya DNA profiles, with a corresponding list of alleles at various regions of the genome. Nowhere in the document do the authors state that the Yamnaya were dark eyed, dark haired, or of a medium skin tone.

In order to deduce the pigmentation of the Yamnaya samples from these papers, one would have to have the knowledge of how these alleles affect pigmentation, which isn't given here, and add up these different allele risk factors to interpret their combined effect on the pigmentation of a living individual. Assuming, that is, that the chart here represents the entirety of the Yamnaya's genomic pigmentation, and that the samples are of high quality.

That is, truly, original research.

There's a huge difference between a paper offering a predicted phenotype of a deceased individual, versus a mere list of allele risk factors for pigmentation -- a list that does not even state how these alleles affect pigmentation. Not only are we relying on a potentially incomplete data set with no definitive answers of any kind, we're relying on the research and interpretation of an anonymous Wikipedian who is trying to "ascertain" something the author never said.

Besides, I think the interpretation made in this article just plain wrong. The Yamnaya were clearly very light skinned, and they did carry the allele for blond hair that is found in modern Europeans, according to at least one review paper, which cites Mathieson, et al. (2018):

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/exd.14142

"Interestingly, ancient North Eurasian derived populations, such as eastern hunter‐gatherers and Yamnayas, carried the blond hair allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene to Europe.[66]"

So we can't say what the Yamnaya's predicted pigmentation is, because no author in the scientific literature has offered such an interpretation. But we can say that this kind of original research is not allowed on Wikipedia. Hunan201p (talk) 07:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

You are wrong. Wilde et al. make a number of direct references to Yamnaya pigmentation, Mathieson et al. is even more explicit, read the papers and look at the supporting images. Urselius (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC) See this - admittedly a blog - succinct review of the matter: https://archhades.blogspot.com/2015/10/myth-of-light-pigmented-nordic-looking.html See in particular table 1 from Wilde et al.. As conclusive proof of my assertions I quote directly from the abstract of the Mathieson paper, "We identify genome-wide significant signatures of selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height." The emboldening of the word 'pigmentation' is mine. In direct opposition to your assertions, Mathieson et al. defines what phenotypic pigmentation variants the alleles at various loci are associated with. This is more than enough to support the text in the Wikipedia article. Urselius (talk) 08:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

However, your statement (above), "Besides, I think the interpretation made in this article just plain wrong. The Yamnaya were clearly very light skinned, and they did carry the allele for blond hair that is found in modern Europeans ...", is very definitely POV pushing, if not original research. Urselius (talk) 09:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, Urselius, but you haven't provided a single quotation about Yamnaya pigmentation phenotypes from Wilde or Mathieson, and the images in your blog source (including table 1) do not constitute evidence for any of the statements that were in the Wiki, and do not even mention Yamnaya. It's original research.

As for your claim that I am "pushing POV": I never added anything to this article, I only deleted the original research. Hunan201p (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Your your basis is mistaken, I do not have to prove anything to you. You are deliberately disingenuous, such phrases as "Steppe populations" "Late Neolithic Pontic Steppe people" and "Pontic-Caspian steppe populations", in context, mean the same as 'Yamnaya'. Take this example: "For rs12913832, a major determinant of blue versus brown eyes in humans, our results indicate the presence of blue eyes already in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers as previously described. We find it at intermediate frequency in Bronze Age Europeans, but it is notably absent from the Pontic-Caspian steppe populations, suggesting a high prevalence of brown eyes in these individuals." Eske Willerslev holds the Prince Philip Chair in Evolution and Ecology at the University of Cambridge. He is also the Lundbeck Foundation Professor at University of Copenhagen and director for the Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics. He is also a co-author of at least one paper with Wolfgang Haak. I would rather take his opinion than yours. Urselius (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

To refute your paper "Interestingly, ancient North Eurasian derived populations, such as eastern hunter‐gatherers and Yamnayas, carried the blond hair allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene to Europe.[66]", well Hunter Gatherer remains from the Baltic area (including Motala in Sweden) have shown alleles associated with blondism. So it definitely was not a novel feature in Northern Europe introduced by he Yamnaya, it was already here. No one is claiming that the Yamnaya were homogeneous for any phenotype or genotype, only that they were predominantly tall, brown-eyed and darkish-skinned (by modern European standards). Urselius (talk) 10:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Dear Urselius: thank you for sharing this quote. I note that it is absent from all three papers (Haak, Mathieson, Wilde) which were cited as evidence for Yamnaya pigmentation. So I'm not sure why you're being so pushy? Thanks for sharing a quote that wasn't cited for the material I removed.

However, I'm afraid this quote alone won't be sufficient either, because it doesn't mention Yamnaya. There were many e/neolithic populations on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and Yamnaya were one of them. How many other cultures does this "Pontic-Caspian" sample from Willerslev et al. include? It also says nothing about skin or hair color.

And what part of "Ancient North Eurasian-derived" don't you understand? Motala got their blond hair from an Ancient North Eurasian-derived population according to David Reich.

Look, if you can't find an author who says Yamnaya had dark hair, dark eyes and medium skin tone, based purely on a Yamnaya sample, it's a violation of WP:OR. Hunan201p (talk) 10:38, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

The Hunter Gatherers pre-date the Yamnaya-derived presence in Western and Northern Europe, therefore their blondism cannot derive from the Yamnaya. That some claim that that both derive this from a minor part of a possible common ancestral population (debatable) is irrelevant to the erroneous assertion in the quote you provided. You continue to be deliberately disingenuous, the terminology of "Steppe populations" in context includes, or specifically refers to, the Yamnaya. The authors of the papers chose to present their pigmentation and height data largely in graphical form. It is still relevant data and can be understood by the meanest intellect, as the functions of the various loci are explicitly stated. Your track history in edit warring and disruptive editing does nothing for your cause. Urselius (talk) 11:44, 17 December 2020 (UTC) Secondary source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/06/nomadic-herders-left-strong-genetic-mark-europeans-and-asians - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313697566_The_Indo-European_Genetic_and_Cultural_Legacy_in_Europe - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3119310/How-white-Europeans-arrived-5-000-years-ago-Mass-migration-southern-Russia-brought-new-technology-dairy-farming-continent.html

Well spotted Hunan201p. I agree with removing this. And if I remember rightly, this isn't the first time we've seen material added that has been unduly extrapolated from the figures and data in these papers' supplementary material. I suspect what's happening is that editors are adding things that ultimately come from the kind of dubious blog mentioned above, with citations to these papers instead. It's probably worth source-checking other statements referenced to them.

@Urselius: Are you aware of our policy on primary sources? It may well be that the "meanest intellect" can interpret the data in these papers, but that's not our job as Wikipedia editors – we're supposed to stick closely to what is reported in secondary sources. And hopefully much better secondary sources than the Daily Mail. – Joe (talk) 19:21, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Joe. Yes, unfortunately, this is not the first time that primary research papers have been wrongfully implicated in fallacious Wikipedia statements. There does seem to be an agenda connected to this Yamnaya pigmentation stuff on the blogosphere, and there are common threads among the blogs.

@Urselius: The Wilde paper uses a mixed sample of populations, including 28 DNA samples which they say "can be attributed to the Yamnaya culture". The other 25 samples are from the Catacomb culture, which we know is a population that has different ancestry from Yamnaya, being more admixed with Western Hunter Gatherers.

To quote Wilde's Supporting Information document: Our sample includes 25 skeletons from the Catacomb culture, 10 of which fall into the early phase between 4,700 and 4,500 B.P. The others were assigned to the late/developed Catacomb culture dated between4,500 and 4,000 BP. So nearly half of these specimens aren't even Yamnaya. There's no way to deduce the pigmentation of Yamnaya if the authors didn't specify every specimen's predicted pigmentation in this sample. For all we know, this sample had a lowerrl frequency of blue eyes than the modern Ukranians due to the inclusion of the Catacomb culture. There's no way we can deduce anything about the pigmentation of Yamnaya from this study or its Supporting Information document that is acceptable in this article.

Your comments about Motala are swaying too far off topic. The paper clearly says both ANE-derived populations and Yamnaya contributed blond hair alleles to Europe. Motala got theirs from EHG, other populations later on got their alleles from Yamnaya. Don't like it? It doesn't matter, because you can't "refute" peer reviewed research here.Hunan201p (talk) 07:03, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I refer you to my reply to the other editor above. Your apparent obsession with blondism is strange. The results exist, they are in graphical form because the authors of the papers chose to present them in that form, this does not invalidate their existence. There is no doubt that the ancient Steppe pastoralists were overwhelmingly dark-eyed and that, while having skin paler than the WHG and EN peoples is considerably darker than all modern European groups investiagated it is unambiguously shown in the graphical representations. Wikipedia editors should not act as censors, to remove material that has been commented on by national newspapers is censorship of the crudest kind. There is an easy way out of your problem and that is to talk in the article of "Neolithic Steppe populations of which the Yamnaya were part". That covers your objections to the inclusion of Catacomb culture individuals in the sample. Of course the Catacomb Culture was a direct offshoot of the Yamnaya and I would be interested in your backing your claims of genetic distinctness with references. Urselius (talk) 10:36, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I was going to ask you what your intentions were for the wording of the article. But your deletion of all reference to the the input of ancient DNA on the physical appearance of the Steppe Pastoralists from the article has answered this for me. Taking unilateral and extreme action while a subject is in active discussion of a talk page is offensively arrogant, and contravenes Wikipedia policy. Reaching a consensus with you seems unattainable. How long before you are banned from editing once more? Urselius (talk) 11:04, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@Joe Roe:Generally, it takes many years for large-scale academic reviews to appear. They may exist, but I haven't seen them. Therefore, if secondary sources are required then magazine and newspaper reports are entirely permissable. This subject has important socio-political aspects that Wikipedia editors need to be aware of when making decisions on what to include. The results of ancient DNA on the predicted physical appearance of people of the Steppe population of the Late Neolithic and other European populations have put the final nail in the coffin of Nazi racial theory. If, as is indicated by ancient DNA studies, paler eye colour is a 'primitive' feature of Mesolithic Europe and the bringers of Indo-European languages were dark-eyed and darker of skin than the average in modern Europe, the whole Übermensch idea is shown as the nonsense it is. This is of huge importance in a world that still suffers from ingrained racism. Urselius (talk) 10:07, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

We should wait for those reviews to appear, not use (much) lower quality sources in their place. It's not a bad thing if our articles lag a few years behind the cutting edge of science; it's by design. I agree that there are important socio-political aspects to this research, but many would say [10][11] that resurrecting ancient skin colour as a meaningful topic of scientific research does the precise opposite of challenging ingrained racism. But that's the point – we should wait for the scientific community to resolve these debates, not try to do so ourselves. – Joe (talk) 10:43, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Rather a supine argument. If something is available in a reputable scientific journal and has been widely commented on in magazines and national newspapers, I think that it is so far into the public domain that not commenting on it in a relevant Wikipedia article counts as unwarranted censorship. The material does not need to be presented as undisputed fact, but it needs some comment. Urselius (talk) 10:53, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

But it was presented as an undisputed fact. If the finding has been widely covered in reliable sources, then we could include something properly attributed. But has it? In the links you've included above, there's only a Daily Mail article (generally unreliable), a racist blog, an unpublished paper by a retired psychology professor the SPLC calls "the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic", and the sole reliable source: the Science magazine article that includes a grand total of one sentence on skin colour. – Joe (talk) 11:07, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@Urselius:Wikipedia is not the place for you to right great wrongs, particularly through original research, by citing primary sources that do not support your claims either through express statements or clearly defined data. You are unable to provide a single quote from any of these authors that suggests the Yamnaya were overwhelmingly dark, even relative to modern Europeans. There are however quotes from secondary sources to the opposite effect. Your favored Wilde paper does not segregate the Yamnaya samples from the Catacomb samples, and that makes it impossible to know what Yamnaya's pigmentation was.

The Catacomb people were genetically different from Yamnaya:

https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/theses/737/

"The Catacomb people appeared genetically different from all other population groups in the FST analysis, including the Yamna group, challenging the current understanding of the relationship between the Yamna and Catacomb populations. Further statistical analysis using an exact test of population differentiation confirmed genetic differences in mtDNA haplogroup frequencies between Yamna and Catacomb"

It is possible, or more likely, probable, that Catacomb were darker than Yamnaya on account of their differential ancestry, having more WHG ancestors than Yamnaya. But ultimately all that matters is that you're someone with an agenda, promoting original research based on a primary source, and citing blogs and news reports as sources. We have higher standards than that. Hunan201p (talk) 11:14, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Genetic height, low lactase persistence and brown eye colour attributed directly to the Yamnaya in a scientific journal 'Antiquity' by CUP here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/255652/Kossinna_s_Smile_as_finally_submitted.pdf?sequence=1. Will find more. Urselius (talk) 11:18, 18 December 2020 (UTC) Genetic height and Yamnaya: https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/selection/2018-skoglund.pdf

@Urselius:I find nothing in this document to suggest brown eye coloration in Yamnaya, could you please provide a quote? It appears to be a pre-print submitted for review, not an actual authorized study. Not allowed on Wikipedia. Hunan201p (talk) 11:25, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

First para page 2. The site will not allow copy and paste. Urselius (talk) 11:49, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

It's published, and a good source since Antiquity generally publishes more synthetic papers like this, rather than primary results. I assume Urselius is referring to this passage (summarising the results of several aDNA papers): Yamnaya steppe peoples were fair-skinned but had dark eye colours. However, he is conveniently overlooking the fact that the rest of the paper is a sharp critique of the methodology of these studies, including, crucially, the point that they all have the fundamental and dangerous problem of extrapolating the results from a handful of individual burials to whole ethnically interpreted populations. – Joe (talk) 11:30, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

The paper is a critique, but it does not invalidate the methodology or invalidate the existence of the results of the papers as described in the article here. Sample size is a problem with all ancient DNA studies. It has not inhibited the universal acceptance of the existence of a completely new species or sub-species of human from one finger bone. You will find great use of various ancient DNA studies reported in many Wikipedia articles without them having been challenged at all. Perhaps we should go to formal dispute resolution? Urselius (talk) 11:54, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Neither the Antiquity paper nor the papers cited here in the article support the statements in the Wiki that Yamnaya were dark haired, or of a medium skin tone, though. There is also the phrase "Yamnaya steppe peoples" which to my mind suggests they are using the term "Yamnaya" broadly (as Urselius earlier demonstrated) to describe neolithic Pontic-Caspian steppe populations in general, including groups like Catacomb. What this Wiki needs, according to Urselius's reversion, is a specific statement from an author that Yamnaya sample has brown eyes, dark hair, and medium skin tone, which is based on data from purely Yamnaya samples. Hunan201p (talk) 12:31, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I would agree to a rewording omitting hair colour, widening the scope from Yamnaya to 'Neolithic Steppe cultures, which include the Yamnaya', or a similar wording. The information on eye colour and genetic height are sufficiently supported, as is the relative lack of lactase persistence to remain. The darker skin pigmentation is only supported by the original paper, so could be hedged or also omitted. Urselius (talk) 13:33, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Origins

This chapter is a confused patchwork, because people add what they just read irrespectively of what has been written before. Please, first order the entries in the sequence of the referenced sources, then you can see where, and if at all, changes should be made. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8108:9640:AC3:A9E6:B76A:7C62:82A9 (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Sources and references

sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509185446.htm New research shows how Indo-European languages spread across Asia]. Science Daily. Newspapers are no references for an encyclopedia like wikipedia.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8009:ADF0:4E14:A0DB (talk) 13:28, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Oldest wheels

I replaced an entry with a mistaken source, misspelled author, and from 1953(!). "A.I. Trenozhkin" does not exist. Meant is in fact the entry „Pit-Grave-culture kurhan of the late 3rd millennium …“ Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993), where "TERENOZHKIN, A. (1949)" is cited as excavator. This is by far not the oldest wheel find in Ukraine. For better and actual informations, see Holm, Hans J. J. G. (2019): The Earliest Wheel Finds, their Archeology and Indo-European Terminology in Time and Space, and Early Migrations around the Caucasus.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8009:ADF0:4E14:A0DB (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Genetics and language

The whole sub paragraph starting with "Several genetic studies ..." is momentarily nonsense: It MUST start by 1. Geneticists OBSERVED ..." 2. They CONCLUDED ..., and not starting by taking the conclusion as granted fact. Genes and pots cannot speak. Thank you.HJJHolm (talk) 08:21, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Why? Please expand on your reasoning. The discovery of the introduction of Yamnaya-derived genetic markers into Central and Western Europe, the result of massive-scale physical migrations, does support the concomitant spread of Indo-European languages from the Yamnaya Pontic Steppe homeland. It does not prove it, but, as is stated in the article, it does support it. Urselius (talk) 09:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

1. Must I really tell you that standard English sentences should have the order SVO? And that they should be as concrete as possible, instead giving useless opaque nebulous allusions? And that facts and conclusions have to be clearly understood and distinguished?? Is this expanded enough? Do you expect me to explain this in all my hundreds of updates for wikipedia?

Must I really tell you not to teach your grandmother to suck eggs? You have made the most condescending remark I have ever seen. I wrote a PhD thesis in English, and it was passed without correction; so my level of English expression is, at the very least, adequate. Urselius (talk) 12:57, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Thus you should have learned to give controllable sources for your conclusions (not, "views"). Look at my publication list - I know what I talk about. And perhaps into (s)one of the style guides to be followed in leading scientific journals. I am sure you COULD do this better than I.

I can certainly write more comprehensible English than you appear to be able to. I have written 20 scientific publications, including in Nature, I know how to write publishable research. Urselius (talk) 14:43, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

2. "According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a," ?? I do not know a single R1a in Yamnaya proper, nor is there a single one listed in the huge table of Carlos Quiles (2021). I and all others would be happy to learn about such an essential new find.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8009:ADF0:4E14:A0DB (talk) 10:14, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

No idea what you are saying here. I have not mentioned haplogroups.

Read the header, read the paragraph, please. This will enlighten you. Moreover, this contradicts the paragraph nconsistencies and implications for the genetic research which I only can agree with. 2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8009:ADF0:4E14:A0DB (talk) 13:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

(Unsourced view, offending the talk page guidelines, cancelled.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:8009:ADF0:4E14:A0DB (talk) 13:32, 24 April 2021 (UTC))

Categorically, do not censor other people's contributions to talk pages, this is against Wikipedia policies. Urselius (talk) 14:37, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

"Cunliffe 2016" and R1b-L23

"However, the clade of R1b found in Yamnaya, R1b-L23, is very rare in Western Europeans,[38] meaning that Western Europeans did not get their R1b from the Yamnaya."

Apparently "Cunliffe 2016" is cited, but the source is not shown. What is the alleged source of this claim? Tewdar (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

GG400 vs Z2103

Do we call the "eastern" branch of R1b-L23 "GG400" like Balanovsky et al. or "Z2103" like everyone else? Tewdar (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Too much weight on aDNA

This article is ostensibly about an archaeological culture but, based on a rough word count, only 17% of the article text now directly concerns that archaeological culture. Almost all of the remainder (78%) concerns genetic studies of the ~80 aDNA samples associated with Yamnaya sites. This grossly overemphasises the relative prominence of very recent archaeogenetic research in relation to the rest of the 100+ year old literature on the Yamnaya culture. According to our NPOV policy (emphasis added), articles should represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Recent changes have pushed this article very far from that goal.

Of course the ideal way to fix this would be to add more content on the archaeology. But the various genetics sections are also bloated far out of proportion because they ignore our no original research policy. Specifically, there is a huge over-emphasis on primary sources, regurgitating a litany of results about specific haplogroups in specific studies; and whole sections of original research by synthesis where sources on entirely different ancient populations are included just because a paper on them compares them to Yamnaya samples in passing. The result is an article that is not just impenetrable to the general reader (the section above this one is a case in point – if you even need to ask questions like this, you left accessible prose behind a long time ago), but is quite fundamentally misleading about the level of acceptance of both specific results and the field of archaeogenetics as a whole, in relation to other prehistoric disciplines.

These are long-standing problems across much of our coverage of archaeogenetics, but this article is becoming one of the worst examples, so I'm commenting here to a) explain why I'm about to take a machete to it and b) as a plea to other editors to stop using this page as a data dump for the latest aDNA results and instead focus on writing an encyclopaedia article that average reader can follow, not a textbook. – Joe (talk) 11:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

You are right, a lot of the aDNA can just be dumped into the WSH article. I think that we need to present a simplified version of the evidence on this page, however. I made a small start already. Tewdar (talk) 12:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, how's that? Still too much detail? Tewdar (talk) 14:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Good first aid, but still too much off-topic material here. Many sources discuss the Yamnaya culture in a broader context, which is legitimate, but does not inform us about what the Yamnaya culture essentially is. Joe's 17% have probably risen to 37%, but a big bulk of the stuff that made him raise his critique is still there. E.g., why do we have a subsection entitled "Inconsistencies and implications for the genetic research"? This is not about inconsistencies concerning the Yamnaya culture itself, but about inconsistencies in the model that embeds the Yamnaya culture into a wider narrative of Eurasian prehistory and hypotheses about the expansion of (late) Proto-IE. And to call it "implications for the genetic research" is blatant OR (as if the only objective of archaeology was to provide input material for archaeogenetic research). We have separate pages for that, and talking about it here in such a non-sequitur and OR-ish manner only diminishes the amount of information about the topic of the article itself (not to talk about the tedious task of synchronizing redundant information over various pages that inevitably comes with content forking). –Austronesier (talk) 17:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier - Okay, I dumped all the Inconsistencies section into the PIE homeland page which is probably a more suitable home for it.

What "is" Yamnaya culture, essentially? Tewdar (talk) 14:28, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Well the clue's in the name: a typological group of burial mounds, and the material culture associated with them. – Joe (talk) 14:33, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@Joe - it was a question based on Austronesier's comments above. They seem to be suggesting that the article doesn't adequately describe what the Yamnaya culture "is". I was wondering what they mean by this. Tewdar (talk) 14:43, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

The article Yamnaya culture used to be a burial site, and has become much less so after your cleanup: the essential sections "Origins" and "Characteristics" were buried underneath peripheral and secondary information. I am well aware that most readers probably come here because of the presumed proto-IE connection, and I am also aware that since Haak et al. 2015, the signal of genetic evidence from Yamnaya-trelated indivduals has been often reified into "Yamnayans" (the article mentions twice "Yamnaya people" without explanation what that means; this leaves the guesswork to our readers, or in worst case might be interpreted to imply that an archaeological culture equals a "people" alà Kossinna). But as the title "Yamnaya culture" implies, the primary topic is indeed the "typological group of burial mounds, and the material culture associated with them". –Austronesier (talk) 16:42, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Migrations section

Okay, so is this section suitable for an article on an archaeological culture, or shall I move it to the PIE homeland article? It's mainly based on aDNA, so we could perhaps keep what little archaeology there is and shove the rest somewhere else. Tewdar (talk) 18:18, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a lot of archaeogenetic literature which directly describes the diachronic shift of the geographic distribution of certain features which are strongly associated with Yamnaya individuals (aka migration), so it can actually stay here for lack of a better place (unless you want to clean up Western Steppe Herders, which is quite a task). These are hard facts. If we move it all to PIE-related pages, it would hinge on the widely favored but essentially speculative identification of the Yamnaya culture and Western Steppe ancestry with PIE. –Austronesier (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Lactose tolerance evolution

The archaeogenetics section contains this entry:

About a quarter of ancient DNA samples from Yamnaya sites contain an allele associated with lactase persistence (conferring lactose tolerance into adulthood); it has been hypothesized that the spread of lactose tolerance in Europe began there."

However this seems rather poorly worded, because the statement "the spread of lactose tolerance in Europe began there" can be easily misinterpreted to suggest that lactose tolerance actually has European origins; especially since "Yamnaya" is not a location (while Europe is).

From Segurel, et al. (2020):

"Furthermore, ancient DNA studies found that the LP mutation was absent or very rare in Europe until the end of the Bronze Age [26–29] and appeared first in individuals with steppe ancestry [19,20]. Thus, it was proposed that the mutation originated in Yamnaya-associated populations and arrived later in Europe by migration of these steppe herders."

From Callaway (2015):

"the 101 sequenced individuals, the Yamnaya were most likely to have the DNA variation responsible for lactose tolerance, hinting that the steppe migrants might have eventually introduced the trait to Europe"

^Based on these references it seems more accurate to re-phrase the statement to something like "Yamnaya are believed to be responsible for introducing these trait to Europe from the steppe". Which is also what the Saag paper actually says. Hunan201p (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The dark Yamnaya hoax (again)

For the details, see this archived talk page discussion.

Wikipedia has been the victim of an enduring hoax, which is that the Yamnaya were "overwhelmingly" dark skinned and dark haired. This hoax has been debunked time and time again on multiple talk pages, and yet there are still people like 213.162.73.204 who are trying to keep it alive.

The fact of the matter is that the Yamnaya were not dark skinned or dark haired, and there is not a single scientific study ever published that says that, anywhere. As revealed in the archived talk page discussion above, this insidious idea has absolutely no support whatsoever from the cited research.

What the cited research does make clear, however, is:

they are fair skinned but have dark eye colors

- Kossina's smile, V. Heyd.

Interestingly, ancient North Eurasian derived populations, such as eastern hunter-gatherers and Yamnayas, carried the blond hair allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene to Europe.[66] Its first evidence was described in an 18 000 years old ancient North Eurasian west of Lake Baikal (Figure 2, right). It is important to note that the four major founding populations of Eurasians, which were farmers of the Fertile Crescent (including western Anatolia), farmers of Iran, hunter-gatherers of central and western Europe as well as of eastern Europe (Figure 2, right), genetically differed from each other probably as much as today’s Europeans to East Asians.[77] Thus, the classic light phenotype of Europeans became frequent only within the past 5000 years[3, 56, 70] and owes its origin to migrants from Near East and western Asia.[48]

Differences in the relative admixture of ancient hunter-gatherers, Anatolian farmers, Yamnaya pastoralists and Siberians explain the variations in skin and hair pigmentation, eye colour, body stature and many other traits of present Europeans.[60, 74, 78, 79] The rapid increase in population size due to the Neolithic revolution,[64, 80] such as the use of milk products as food source for adults and the rise of agriculture,[81] as well as the massive spread of Yamnaya pastoralists likely caused the rapid selective sweep in European populations towards light skin and hair.

- Skin color and vitamin D: an update, A. Hanel, C. Carlberg

So, to continue perpetuating the Yamnaya hosx with statements like "The peoples of the Yamnaya culture were predominantly dark-eyed (brown), dark-haired and had a skin colour that was moderately light, though somewhat darker than that of the average modern European," should be considered vandalism. There is nothing in Heyd or Hanel that supports this blatant falsehood. Hunan201p (talk) 12:28, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The biggest hoax, however, is the idea that scholarship even aims to make blanket statements about the physical appearance of the people of the Yamnaya culture. The idea that archeological "cultures" represent homogeneous populations equivalent to ethnic groups is long abandoned in mainstream archeology. The principle ancestry components of Yamnaya samples are well-understood from aDNA research, and it is this very research that shows that societies associated with the Yamnaya culture were diverse and permeable, just as the peoples of the steppe in later millenia. The Neolithic steppe was not a place of ice-age isolation and population bottlenecks which produced the epipaleolithic ancestry components. This whole emphasis on physical appearance in an article about an archeological topic is essentialy a projection of long-discarded ideologies of "racial purity" and "racially" homogenous populations to paleohistory. I suggest (and will boldly do so) to throw out the entire subsection "Physical characteristics" as long as it only consists of simplistic cherry-picked platitudes. –Austronesier (talk) 14:26, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. We shouldn't have a whole section based just on passing mentions in primary aDNA studies. The one secondary source that straightforwardly states what Yamnaya people looked like (so not requiring any synthesis on our part]]) is the Heyd paper, and reading that in context it's clear that he's critiquing, even mocking, such blanket statements. – Joe (talk) 14:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Heyd's paper displays an interesting mix of fascination with the powerful methods of archeogenetics and this eerie feeling "haven't we seen this all before?". Heyd (2017) was thought-provoking, but often gets misunderstood. –Austronesier (talk) 15:09, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Heyd does, however, make direct and unambiguous statements about the Yamnaya allele frequencies affecting height, skin pigmentation, eye-colour and lactase persistence. I would assert that the pigmentation content of the Mathieson (2015) and Allentoft (2015) and a number of other papers has huge socio-political importance. They collectively give the lie to Nazi racial theory - blue eyes are essentially a 'primitive' pan-European feature - blondism is at least partly a development within Baltic area Mesolithic peoples and the bringers of superior technology, horse domestication and possibly the Indo-European languages were neither particularly blond nor blue-eyed. Urselius (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we knew that Nazi racial theory was garbage some time before Haak et al. 2015. – Joe (talk) 15:58, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree. And I want to add that it is highly problematic when this Nazi-age garbage is "refuted" with narratives that revive the same outdated paradigms, just with opposite content. –Austronesier (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing in Haak, Mathieson or Wilde that supports any of Urselius's statements. All three papers are primary research. Heyd (2017) states clearly that the Corded Ware bringers of "superior technology, horse domestication and possibly Indo-European languages" were more likely to be blue eyed. Hunan201p (talk) 15:52, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Heyd absolutely does not. You are just making things up. In the paper he makes only one reference to pigmentation, when he says that the Yamnaya had light coloured skin and dark eye colours, he does not mention hair colour once. Do you read what is on the page, or just whatever construct is in your head? Urselius (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

More to the above, from Frieman & Hoffman (2019):

This is particularly ironic because geneticists suggest that the subsequent Corded Ware period was characterised by a population of tall, light-skinned and often blue-eyed people (Allentoft et al. 2015; Reich 2018, 20, 110–21). In other words, these eastern migrants were masculine and violent, while western Europe was productive, technologically advanced, stable, and feminine (cf. Whitaker 2019). Therefore, this model of violent invasion from the east on the one hand plays on fears about cultural extinction fomented by demagogic and right-wing reporting about contemporary migration, while on the other also promotes a narrative of (biological and social) domination by pale, blue-eyed men.

Urselius's every idea seems to be completely contradicted by secondary research, so this "man on a mission" to right Nazi wrongs by writing his own reviews, using primary research that doesn't even say what he wants it to say, ought to be treated with skepticism. Hunan201p (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The objective of Wikipedia is to mirror current mainstream scholarship with WP:due weight. How many RS from archeologists about the Yamnaya culture actually deal with the question of skin color of Yamnaya samples? It is telling that Anthony – who has been at the spearhead of the migration-over-diffusion revival – explicitly discusses how little value there is in putting too much weight into outward physical characteristics:

• Skin color is a powerful element in the cultural construct of race, but the genes for skin color are a minor part of the 3.2 billion base pairs comprising the whole human genome. Our acute attention to skin color and its entanglement with modern concepts of race makes it easy for us to assume that any study that includes skin-color genes must be about them, but in fact these genes have almost no effect on how individuals are combined into mating networks, lineages, and other kinds of groups in genetic ancestry studies. – Anthony, D. (2020), "Ancient DNA, Mating Networks, and the Anatolian Split" in M. Serangeli and T. Olander (eds.), Dispersals and Diversification Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives on the Early Stages of Indo-European, Leiden: Brill, 21–53.

Another example: Furholt (2021) talks a lot about the Yamnaya culture in his latest paper "Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution", but there is nil about skin complexion and eye color. The historical distribution of these may be covered in articles like Genetic history of Europe, but is WP:UNDUE here. –Austronesier (talk) 16:51, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The aDNA of the Yamnaya samples seems to reveal a genetically quite homogeneous population who probably had predominant phenotypes of dark hair and eyes and light skin. Why is this suggestion apparently so offensive? Tewdar (talk) 05:36, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

What really is offensive, however, is this statement by Hunan201p:

So, to continue perpetuating the Yamnaya hosx with statements like "The peoples of the Yamnaya culture were predominantly dark-eyed (brown), dark-haired and had a skin colour that was moderately light, though somewhat darker than that of the average modern European," should be considered vandalism.

Tewdar (talk) 05:43, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

So now there is a very small summary of what people of the Yamnaya culture might have looked like supported by two high quality secondary (Science, Heyd) and one primary (Mathieson) source. Tewdar (talk) 06:28, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Also, you do understand that very few Yamnaya people had the rs12821256 SNP, right? Right? Tewdar (talk) 06:54, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

And that statements about the physical appearance of Corded Ware peoples don't necessarily apply to Yamnaya peoples, right? Right? Tewdar (talk) 06:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier & @Joe: Please take a look at the changes I have made at your convenience. Tewdar (talk) 11:19, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tedwar: Looks good, thanks for your great contributions. The statement about physical appearance is more balanced and less sexed-up, but something more up-to-date than Gibbons (2015) would be good. The Science report came in the middle of the hype around Haak et al. (2015), and some insights have become more differentiated since then.

About the pros and cons regarding the "Yamnaya > Corded Ware"-debate: I'll add some more information from Furholt (2021) later, who gives a nice overview about it (inspite of two little blunders which have been fixed in an update).

And even if it's gets ad nauseam, we should keep three lessons from Heyd (2017) in mind (disclaimer, I'm not an archeologists):

• 1) Archeogeneticists tend to co-opt archeological paradigms (e.g. cultural historicism) which best explain their data, or provide the easiest match with their data.
• 2) Archeologists must play an active role in the historical interpretation of aDNA data.
• 3) Things have just begun. Haak et al. was a trailblazer, but in Heyd's words: "These are indeed great results, assembled within a short span of time, and they will certainly not be the last of their kind".

Points 1) and 2) are important, since there is a widespread bias towards the idea that archeogenetics is the primary key to our understanding of the past, and that researchers of that field should set the tone. But hey, it's a tool. AFAIK, Willard Libby was more modest in this respect. He taught us how to date, but left it to others to draw wide-ranging conclusions from it. –Austronesier (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

"A widespread bias towards the idea that archeogenetics is the primary key to our understanding of the past"?! Not amongst archaeologists, surely? ;-) Tewdar (talk) 14:47, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, among the latter there is a correlation between their willingness to hand over the steer, and the degree of confirmation that comes from aDNA for their theories which they had developed before the emergence of aDNA research. ;) –Austronesier (talk) 15:14, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tewdar: "Also, you do understand that very few Yamnaya people had the rs12821256 SNP, right? Right?" You do understand you haven't provided a single reliable source that says that, right?

The Corded Ware quote was provided in response to Urselius who erroneously claimed that the Steppe invaders of Europe were not light skinned or blue eyed. They were. If you were offended by anything I have said here, there's something off with your sensibilities. Hunan201p (talk) 15:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

"Steppe invaders" != Corded Ware people != Yamnaya people. Tewdar (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

The Corded Ware culture was a North-Central European culture, not a steppe culture. Corded Ware is not found on the steppes at all, it is found principally on the North European Plain, which is definitely not a steppe. Corded Ware seems to be a product of Yamnaya (a bona fide steppe culture) interaction with northern European cultures and people. The Yamnaya have been shown to have not been of 'Nordic' colouration, whatever their mixed descendants may have been. You seem to have an unhealthy fixation on blondism. Urselius (talk) 06:53, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Gibbons

@Hunan201p: Do you even have access to Gibbons (2015)? It's there on p. 366: "The results, published in February, showed that the Yamnaya were the source of a massive migration of herders who swept into the heartland of Europe on horseback about 5000 years ago ... Anthony got some of his questions answered: The Yamnaya had brown eyes, brown hair, and light skin." Verbatim. –Austronesier (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Yamnaya height selection

Quoting from the archaeogenetics section:

A study in 2015 found that Yamnaya had the highest ever calculated genetic selection for height of any of the ancient populations tested.[41][42]

Is there actually a reliable source out there that suggests this?

Reference [42] is Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe - Mathieson (2015). Its citation is a preprint. I have not searched through this pre-print because it isn't even admissable as a reference here. The actual published study is Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians. Neither it nor the supplementary document appear to contain any statements to the genetic selection of the Yamnaya as compared with other ancient populations tested. In the "Evidence of selection on height" section of the paper, it does state that steppe populations in general appear to have increased selection for height. But none of 30 references to the keyword "Yamnaya" relate to their height, specifically.

The question remains, where in Heyd (2017) does he state that Yamnaya were genetically selected for height more so than "any" other ancient populations -- including other steppe populations? I only have access to the pre-print and it's too difficult to verify by searching, because it's a crappy PDF file. Hunan201p (talk) 16:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Heyd 2017 - "Yamnaya peoples have the highest ever calculated genetic selection for stature (Mathieson et al. 2015)" Tewdar (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Fixed erroneous preprint reference. Tewdar (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that quote and also for the pre-print fix, but @Joe Roe: has suggested that Heyd is critiquing rather than endorsing such an idea. Hunan201p (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Heyd is reporting and summarising what the Mathieson paper says. Has a reliable secondary source endorsed @Joe Roe:'s supposed interpretation of what Heyd is supposedly really saying about what the Mathieson paper says? If not, we should probably just report what Heyd writes. Tewdar (talk) 17:42, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with you, but will be waiting for our friend Joe to comment (if he pleases). Hunan201p (talk) 17:48, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Are you as inclined to accept that in the same paragraph Heyd says that the Yamnya had dark eye colouration? It is from the same paragraph in the same publication, it must carry the same scholarly weight. Urselius (talk) 06:59, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Yamnaya - tall, brown hair, brown eyes, relatively pale skin. This has high quality and reliable sources that are cited in the article. Anyone disputing this now needs to provide a source of equal quality that clearly says otherwise, NOT dodgy original research based upon false personal interpretation of genetics data that is not properly understood (=Hunan201p). Tewdar (talk) 08:03, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

@Tewdar: Please stop insulting my intelligence. The only person who is misunderstanding anything here is you. You have one source (Gibbons) that describes Yamnaya as brown haired, while Heyd (2017) makes no mention of Yamnaya having brown hair. it was already demonstrated, with Urselius's concession, that neither Mathieson, Haak, or Wilde say anything about Yamnaya hair color. Meanwhile, several other references say nothing about Yamnaya having brown hair, while others mention that they were responsible for turning other populations blond.

Here, this is just a sample:

Vitamin D and Evolution: Pharmacological Implications - Andrea Hanel

Yamnaya had high body stature, brown eyes and lighter skin due to a SLC45A2 SNP in addition to the SLC24A5 variant.

Dawn of a continent - Colin Barras

In appearance, the Yamnaya might not have been too different from the early farmers – light-skinned and probably with dark eyes, although there is evidence to suggest they may have been taller [...]

Kossina's smile - Viktor Heyd

Yamnaya peoples have the highest ever calculated genetic selection for stature; [...] (8) they are fair-skinned but have dark eye colours; blue eyes can be seen more often in the CWC

So what we see here are three sources of equal or superior quality to your singular, inaccurate source (Science Magazine - Ann Gibbons) which says Yamnaya were brown haired. My sources make no mention of brown hair, and we already demonstrated in the archived talk page from 2020 that none of the primary research says Yamnaya were brown haired.

What this means is that we have a conflict of sources - my three sources vs your singular source. But that's not all:

Skin color and vitamin D: An update (Hanel and Carlberg) makes no mention at all of Yamnaya having brown hair, despite being a lengthy review article specifically concerning pigmentation. On the contrary, they say this:

The Anatolian farmers had rather short body stature and predominantly brown eyes, which explains the key anthropomorphic traits of today’s southern Europeans, in contrast to Yamnayas, who had a high body stature and settled preferentially in northern Europe.[3, 74] Moreover, these steppe pastoralists brought the horse, the wheel and Indo-European languages.[66, 74-76] Interestingly, ancient North Eurasian derived populations, such as eastern hunter-gatherers and Yamnayas, carried the blond hair allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene to Europe.[66]

And also:

The rapid increase in population size due to the Neolithic revolution,[64, 80] such as the use of milk products as food source for adults and the rise of agriculture,[81] as well as the massive spread of Yamnaya pastoralists likely caused the rapid selective sweep in European populations towards light skin and hair

Again, there is no mention of Yamnaya brown hair in this article.

So if you're going to come clean with the community, stop saying you have multiple sources that suggest Yamnaya were brown haired, and provide them. If you can't do that, you're wasting your time. Hunan201p (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Hanel & Carlberg say that "ANE-derived populations, such as eastern hunter-gatherers and Yamnayas, carried the blond hair allele...to Europe". An earlier version of Hunan201p's text went: "the Yamnaya migrations were probably the root source of the light skin and blond hair of modern Europeans". I hope we won't see this phrasing again.

If you go to Figure 2 in Hanel & Carlberg (2020), you will see that Yamnayans are described as a mix of CHG and EHG, but not stereotyped for appearance as other "groups". For CHG, there is an accompanying text that goes "origin of blue eyes, light skin", for EHG, it reads "light/intermediate skin, variable eye color, some with blonde hair". So Hanel & Carlberg don't commit to say Yamnayans looked like this or that (except for them being tall). The only source that is bold enough to make a clear statement about hair color is the Science report by Gibbons. –Austronesier (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

But unfortunately, there is an accuracy dispute with Gibbons, as three other sources (one contemporaneous, two newer) do not mention hair color, nor does the primary research (Haak, Mathieson, Wilde, Allentoft) they cite. Since the subject matter is not of great importance, and the conflicting sources are numerous, this means the reference to brown hair should be removed. The mentioning of Yamnaya being likely responsible for the transmission of blond hair genetics is of no different reasoning than the content about selection for tallness. Hunan201p (talk) 15:26, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Why then mention the "Yamnaya being likely responsible for the transmission of blond hair genetics" while omitting other groups (EHG)? –Austronesier (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Hanel and Carlberg state that that the "rapid" selective sweep that affected Europe as a whole was generated by Yamnaya. That's what they're referring to. While yes, there were much less profound events earlier in European prehistory, like the EHG donation to Western Hunter Gatherers, creating blond SHG, these were much less impactful than the later steppe migrations. These populations also appear to have been genetic dead-ends. What is relevant here is the rapid, huge Yamnaya sweep that is suggested to have lent blond hair to the modern Europeans. David Reich said something similar. Hunan201p (talk) 15:40, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

For alleles giving rise to light skin colour, you need to look at Fig 3 in Mathieson et al. 2015. In the graph for rs16891982 in the gene SLC45A2 within this figure, it shows frequencies in ancient people 'of steppe descent' fall short of the frequencies found in all the various modern European populations. Anyone can look at a simple graph and deduce what it means, scientist use graphs to concisely convey information. Also, in the text, it is stated, "The second strongest signal in our analysis is at the derived allele of rs16891982 in SLC45A2, which contributes to light skin pigmentation and is almost fixed in present-day Europeans but occurred at much lower frequency in ancient populations". I would assert that "ancient populations" most definitely includes the Yamnaya. Urselius (talk) 16:52, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

The article used to say something like "with moderately light skin pigmentation (but darker than modern western Europeans)", but some people kept finding reasons to remove that, so now it just quotes the secondary source, almost verbatim. Tewdar (talk) 18:16, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is dysfunctional in regard to reporting primary scientific papers, as you might be intruding your own interpretation. However, direct quotations may be a way to circumvent this difficulty. This raises another difficulty, scientists often use graphs or tables to efficiently convey data, but it is impossible to quote a graph. Urselius (talk) 18:52, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I changed Yamnaya's pigmentation again. They'll probably be dark skinned, purple eyed and red haired tomorrow. Tewdar (talk) 19:12, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

No mention of South Caucauses/Iranian influence

Interestingly, there is no mention of the Iranian/South Caucauses influence on Yamnaya, even though most researchers (Reich, Wang, and Max Plank Institute) have repeatedly noted the clear influence from Iranian and the South Caucauses. Most of the "CHG" component conflated, is actually Iranian in origin. In other words, transitively, the Yamnaya were Iranian/S. Caucasian, according to a lot of recent studies in the field.

Read carefully. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:06, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Parpola (2015): Late Tripolye → Yamnaya

We cite Parpola (2015) for the hypothesis that the Yamnaya culture is the result of an expansion of the Late Tripolye culture in to the steppe and subsequent fusion with local pastoralist cultures. I've seen now in Mallory (1989) on p. 243 that he attributes a pretty similar narrative (which he rejects) to Colin Renfrew (Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins, 1987). Two questions here: 1) Is anyone of you sufficiently familiar with Renfrew's book so we could mention him here too? 2) What is the critical reception of Parpola's more recent proposal? His argument is of course somewhat peripheral to the main topic of his book, but I'm sure this must have elicited some response from peers. –Austronesier (talk) 16:35, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm unacquanited with Renfrew; Parpola's proposal seems unlikely, as far as I can see, but I've forgotten why. And it's my conclusiin; I don't know of any review of this particular idea, except that it doesn't seem to have gained any traction. How exactly Yamnaya and CW are related is still a mystery. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:54, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

It's unlikely because Trypillia and Yamnaya material culture have practically nothing in common (quite remarkable, given that they were next door neighbours). Parpola's hypothesis, if he hasn't expanded on it in another publication, is also just a paragraph of speculation with no corroborating archaeological or genetic evidence. Unless others have picked up on it, I don't think it's due weight to include it here. – Joe (talk) 21:31, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The only other publication by Parpola I have found about it is this paper presented at WeCIEC, which has only 22 citations on Google Scholar[12], and most of these focus on the wheel part of his hypothesis. Searching for "Parpola"+"Tripolye"+"Yamnaya" (plus "Trypillia" + "Yamna" in all possible permutations) gives even less results. Per @Joe, I agree to remove this as a peripheral low-impact pet theory of an otherwise notable and eminent scholar. –Austronesier (talk) 14:33, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Does this fall under MEDRS?

A 2022 study by Marnetto et al. found that high levels of Yamnaya ancestry in modern populations is associated with a strong physique, larger hips and waist, increased height, black hairs, and high cholesterol concentrations.

Any comments... yes, you at the back, no not you Hunan201p... 😁  Tewdar  11:24, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Yo Tewdar, I basically agree with Hunan201p not to cite Marnetto et al. here, although probably for different (and less "legally" defined) reasons. It's a new, still uncited research paper, which I generally discourage to use, and its main content is about physical features of present-day populations—a potential minefield and prone to abuse by the wandering circus of identity ideologists and other chauvinists from all corners of Europe (and wider Eurasia).

I don't want to cite WP:MEDRS here, but just WP:UNDUE. The (in)famous RfC at RSN says: However, primary sources describing genetic or genomic research into human ancestry, ancient populations, ethnicity, race, and the like, should not be used to generate content about those subjects, which are controversial. High quality secondary sources as described above should be used instead. Genetic studies of human anatomy or phenotypes like intelligence should be sourced per WP:MEDRS". @Hunan201p: it says should, not must. The world isn't always as it should be, and there often good reasons for it. We all know that there are few review-type secondary sources in the field (because the most prolific cutting-edge researchers don't have time for it), and those which exist aren't necessarily "high quality", but rather perfunctory and defective. And even if there's a good secondary review article (like this one), it won't keep incompetent LTAs from citing the very parts of the study which contain novel terminology or categories instead of the actual summary of previous research. We can cite high quality primary sources if they are much-cited and well-supported by subsequent research. Narasimhan et al. is a prime example for due inclusion in relevant WP articles. –Austronesier (talk) 14:11, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, zero citations is stretching things a bit too far I think. 😂  Tewdar  16:37, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Marnetto, et al. actually did run a GWAS analysis on Yamnaya, and found that in contrast to the Estonian results, Yamnaya were more likely to have light eyes and light hair than dark hair or light eyes. They also predicted atypical phenotypical results for Western Hunter Gatherers (see the WHG GW plot indicating blond hair odds), in conflict with virtually every other study conducted prior. See graph 3, figure B. So if we include Marnetto we should definitely mention that their predictions for the Yamnaya themselves were light hair + light eyes, rather than the Estonian experiment which the authors suggest are not reflective of Yamnaya. -- Hunan201p (talk) 03:54, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Nevertheless I am against adding for reasons Austronesier mentioned + WP:MEDRS, since the paper does include risk factors. The standards exist for a reason. - Hunan201p (talk) 03:50, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

@Hunan201p: - Yamnaya were more likely to have light eyes and light hair than dark hair or light eyes. - if we were to include this article, we should probably go with the authors' stated conclusions, though, rather than trying to interpret the candidate region or whole-genome results ourselves and coming up with (incorrect) WP:OR like this.  Tewdar  09:02, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm also assuming you meant to say "... than dark hair or dark eyes" above.  Tewdar  09:17, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tewdar: Please demonstrate where I was incorrect in my statement aside from the typo. The pigmentation GWAS results are in figure B, and clearly show that Yamnaya are shifted toward light eyes and light hair. As stated by the authors:

An enriched Yamnaya ancestry in the pigmentation candidate regions, in contrast with the genome wide analysis, is linked to dark eye and hair colors, consistently with what inferred from aDNA data from the Baltic region6.

- Hunan201p (talk) 09:24, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Is that from the pre-print? That sentence did not make it through peer review. Why do you consider the whole genome data to be the most "important" part of the study?  Tewdar  09:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Just because the exact sentence is not in the Cell Biology paper doesn't mean it isn't there. I know it is, but can't retrieve it now. The GWAS data from Yamnaya aDNA is the most relevant to this article, because the article is about Yamnaya. To quote Austronesier, this study is mainly ...about physical features of present-day populations, and what you're adding is exactly that. The only thing relevant to Yamnaya in this paper is the actual GWAS study using their DNA samples. The paper actually acknowledges that the ancestry-trait associations are not reflective of the ancient population's phenotypes, so to add the paper's suggestion that Yamnaya ancestry is linked to hip size, or cholesterol, or whatever, in Estonians, is not really appropriate. Especially since it's a primary source. - Hunan201p (talk) 09:43, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Verbatim: An enriched Yamnaya ancestry is linked to a strong build, with tall stature (in agreement with previous studies6,8) and increased hip and waist circumferences, both at genome-wide and region-specific levels, but also to black hairs and high-cholesterol concentrations when focusing on candidate regions.The associations of Yamnaya and WHG ancestries to respectively higher and lower cholesterol levels, together with the observed signatures of selection at loci connected to cholesterol and BMI, add a new component to our understanding of post-neolithic dietary adaptation with potential implications to disease risk and outcomes in present-day populations.  Tewdar  09:57, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

The paper actually acknowledges that the ancestry-trait associations are not reflective of the ancient population's phenotypes - well, here's what they say in the published paper: Importantly, our inferences are applicable to contemporary individuals of European ancestry, where the phenotypes were collected. Conversely, using them to extrapolate features of ancient populations, although tempting, should be done with caution due to the interaction of their genetic legacy with a radically different lifestyle and environment. Furthermore, when seeking a biological interpretation of our results, it should be kept in mind that certain narrowly defined, contemporary phenotypes such as caffeine consumption may point to broader biological pathways.  Tewdar  10:06, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok, so the Yamnaya ancestry-trait relation does corroborate ancient DNA results for hip size, height and build, but not for black hair or cholesterol levels, as shown by the GWAS data. But selectively quoting that passage doesn't change the fact the authors clearly said that "...the researchers stressed that the links between a trait and a given ancestry was not an indication that it was predominant in a particular ancient population or absent in all other groups. Environment and other evolutionary forces have to be considered too, they said". - Hunan201p (talk) 10:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Importantly, our inferences are applicable to contemporary individuals of European ancestry, where the phenotypes were collected... but not ancient individuals of Yamnaya ancestry. - Hunan201p (talk) 10:11, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

but not ancient individuals of Yamnaya ancestry. - no, this is not what they say. This is your own original interpretation of text which I literally just gave you. They say that Conversely, using them to extrapolate features of ancient populations, although tempting, should be done with caution  Tewdar  10:24, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

That is to say, it should be done with caution, by future researchers, because we aren't doing it in our paper. You forgot the keywords "our inferences". Also: ...the researchers stressed that the links between a trait and a given ancestry was not an indication that it was predominant in a particular ancient population or absent in all other groups. Environment and other evolutionary forces have to be considered too, they said" - Hunan201p (talk) 10:29, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

• I did not omit any" keywords".

• The Daily Mail, eh? 😂👍

• I am not claiming that the paper proves anything about ancient populations. Only you are making such claims:Yamnaya were more likely to have light eyes and light hair 😂  Tewdar  10:37, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

You did in fact omit entire sections from the quoted passage. The authors clearly said that their inferences (meaning, the ancestry-trait correlations) aren't used to determine the phenotypes of any of these ancient populations. The GWAS data on the other hand could feasibly be used to do that, since it is raw data from actual Yamnaya bones, but you'll note that from the very beginning I have been opposed to the inclusion of this study in the Yamnaya article. And although I'd never cite DailyMail in the article, it does go to show you're looking quite lonely in your insistence that this paper does in fact offer ancient phenotype predictions based on the ancestry-trait correlation data. Everybody else seems to believe that it does not. - Hunan201p (talk) 10:44, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

You did in fact omit entire sections from the quoted passage. this is a lie, I quoted the entire passage - ctrl+F for "well, here's what they say in the published paper"...

your insistence that this paper does in fact offer ancient phenotype predictions based on the ancestry-trait correlation data - Where? When?  Tewdar  11:01, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

In edit 10:24, 2 May 2022 you neglected to include the "our inferences" bit. Chopping up quotes as you go along can make the authors say anything you want, but it's clear that the whole quote implies that their inferred ancestry-trait correlation does not allow for a prediction of Yamnaya phenotypes.

Most of your commentary in this discussion is inconsistent with your stated opinions. See edit 10:37, 2 May 2022, in which you brushed off a science editor's remarks that echo my own, based on the publisher. Why would you have any problem with Sam's statement that the paper offers no phenotype predictions for ancient populations, if that isn't something that you yourself agree with? In any case if you agree that the paper does not have relevance to Yamnaya, I'm not sure why you would want to put it in the article. - Hunan201p (talk) 11:12, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

In edit 10:24, May 2 2022 I was correcting only the part of your original analysis which misrepresented what the authors were saying, after having quoted the passage in its entirety. You said but not ancient individuals of Yamnaya ancestry., which I *corrected* to Conversely, using them to extrapolate features of ancient populations, although tempting, should be done with caution. Having already quoted the entire passage, verbatim, I saw no need to do so again.

it's clear that the whole quote implies that their inferred ancestry-trait correlation does not allow for a prediction of Yamnaya phenotypes - once again, this is not what the authors say.

Again, just to be clear, the paper apparently demonstrates a correlation between certain traits in modern populations (or Estonians, at least) and Yamnaya-related ancestry. That's all I added to the article. I did not say that the article demonstrates that Yamnaya themselves had these traits. Also, to be even more clear, I already agreed that this paper should not be cited in the article yesterday.

This discussion was started by your claim that the paper demonstrates that Yamnaya themselves had light eyes and light hair, remember?  Tewdar  11:37, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Male CHG bias in the formation of the Yamnaya

Here Lazaridis explains how the CHG/west asian ancestry in Yamnaya was mostly male mediated instead of the other way around. Posting for clarity. Archived from his twitter (wiki doesn't post the link for some reason): archive . ph/nLBXB [EDIT: relevant part here. "The evidence for male CHG bias is not super strong so we did not dwell on this point in the Southern Arc paper. But, I thought it would be useful to report here as I want people to be aware that the data don't point to a male EHG:female CHG mix and if anything the opposite."] 5.55.62.130 (talk) 21:50, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

genomicatlas.org

Who's running that? And, is it a good enough source for the average height of Yamnaya? No proper studies are given for the recently added claim, can't we find something better?  Tewdar  10:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

No authors, no credentials → no reliability. The only good thing is that they give their sources, so we can cross-check and switch the reference to the actual source (but only after considering due weight etc.). –Austronesier (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is a reference for that particular claim, though. So, I'm a-gonna nuke it, unless you already did. 😁  Tewdar  11:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Or add a convert template so we can have an unreliable source in feet and inches. Why not, eh?  Tewdar  17:56, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, even measurements in feet and inches need a reliable source. If have not seen an argument in favor of its reliability, unless silent persistence has become a positive criterion. Btw, the IP is blocked now for 72h. They were reported for disruptive editing in Plotinus. –Austronesier (talk) 18:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)