Otzi, the Frozen Copper Age Mummy (3239 BC) & Indo-European Migration

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"Otzi, the frozen Copper Age mummy who was discovered in 1991 in the Otzal Alps: He suffered from parasitic worms, Lyme disease, tooth decay, joint problems, and other ailments. He died in his mid-40s, likely sometime between 3239 and 3105 BC....and likely from a blow to the head. He has at least 19 living relatives somewhere in Austria. His nickname, the Iceman, is a perfectly badass moniker for someone who wore leather leggings and had 60-plus tattoos.....a microbe taken from his gut reveals new information about human migration patterns during and after Otzi’s lifetime.....The bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is found in roughly half of all people alive today. It’s been infecting humans for an estimated 100,000 years.....The modern European strain is thought to be a hybrid of two older Asian and African strains. But when the authors of the Science paper reconstructed the genome of Otzi’s microbe, they found it to be nearly identical to the Asian variety—meaning it shared less ancestry with the African strain than the bug carried by modern Europeans......the authors offer one possibility: that a mass migration from Africa to Europe took place sometime in the millennia between Otzi’s death and the present day.......He carried a more pure strain, an unmixed strain, and we can say that the history of Helicobacter population genetics in Europe is different than previously thought.."....http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/otzi-the-iceman-gut-bacteria-mass-migration/423069/

"The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, hence the nickname "Ötzi", near the Similaun mountain and Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy.....On a sunny day two hikers, Erika and Helmut Simon, from Nuremberg in Germany, were walking in the Ötztal Alps. Descending from the Finail peak in the Tisenjoch area, the Simons decided to take a shortcut and left the marked footpath. As they walked past a rocky gully filled with meltwater, they noticed something brown on the gully bed. At first they thought it must be some sort of rubbish, but on closer inspection they realized with horror that they had discovered a human corpse...."

"Scientists believe that the first anatomically modern humans to disperse out of Africa were already carrying H. pylori, and have discovered that different strains can be associated with different human populations. In the far north of India, H. pylori from the stomach of Buddhists is genetically distinct from H. pylori from the stomach of Muslims, one study found. The slave trade, the colonization of Polynesia, and other human migrations spread different variants as well...Otzi’s H. pylori, the researchers write in Science, is a nearly pure Asian strain. Genetically, it is most closely related to an H. pylori strain now found primarily in India. Otzi’s bacterium had almost nothing of the African admixture common in present-day European stomachs......That does not mean Otzi came from India: isotope analysis has shown that he lived his whole life in the Alps. What it does suggest is that the influx of Northeast African H. pylori came to Europe some time after Otzi died.."..http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/01/07/5300-year-old-iceman-had-the-stomach-bug-that-causes-ulcers.html

"“Something really dramatic has happened in the last 5,000 years in H. pylori DNA that hasn’t happened in human DNA. There will be an interesting reason for that … we haven’t figured it all out yet,” says Falush....."....http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/01/07/5300-year-old-iceman-had-the-stomach-bug-that-causes-ulcers.html

"Otzi the Iceman’s Stomach Sheds Light on Copper-Age Migration to Europe......In the oldest known pathogen study, scientists find the prehistoric hunter had ulcer-causing microbes that exist only in India and South Asia today.....this early European wanderer was infected with a strain that survives today only in India and South Asia, and not those more prevalent in modern Europe. The finding suggests that multiple waves of migrants settled the region, introducing new strains of the bacteria as they intermingled, they said.....

"....anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa in successive waves starting about 60,000 years ago. It serves as a biomarker for the global travels of humankind.......“The Iceman’s strain must have been the original population that inhabited the stomachs of Europeans 5,000 years ago,” Dr. Moodley said...... the bacteria had inflamed his stomach lining, indicating that the prehistoric hunter, fleeing into the icy highlands where he was shot in the back with an arrow and beaten, may have been feeling ill on the day he was murdered......"....http://www.wsj.com/articles/otzi-the-icemans-stomach-sheds-light-on-stone-age-migration-to-europe-1452193200

"Up till now, it had been assumed that Neolithic humans were already carrying this European strain by the time they stopped their nomadic life and took up agriculture. Research on Otzi, however, demonstrates that this was not the case......"The recombination of the two types of Helicobacter may have only occurred at some point after Otzis era, and this shows that the history of settlements in Europe is much more complex than previously assumed," said Maixner......The findings were published in the Science Magazine. "....http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bacteria-found-in-otzi-the-icemans-stomach-study/1/565758.html

"European hunter-gatherers fired their last arrows around 3000 BC......A study of ancient European DNA has found that indigenous hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived together for 2,000 years, before the hunter-gatherer lifestyle finally died out around 5,000 years ago. The study, led by anthropologist Joachim Burger of the University of Mainz, studied bones from the Blätterhöhle Cave near Hagen, Germany, where both hunter-gatherers and farmers were buried...When the glaciers finally retreated and the first farmers began to arrive from the Near East 7,500 years ago....The hunter-gathering lifestyle thus only died out in Central Europe around 5,000 years ago, much later than previously thought......It marked the end of a way of life in Europe practised since the first arrival of their modern human ancestors on the continent 40,000 years before, and which had helped them survive the last Ice Age.."....http://www.abroadintheyard.com/european-hunter-gatherers-fired-their-last-arrows-around-3000-bc/

https://aratta.wordpress.com/ie-indo-european-1/

"Indo-Aryan Migration into India, c. 1750 B.C.....This map shows the general route taken by the Indo-Aryans who migrated into India beginning around 1750 B.C. They were nomadic warriors who came from the Plateau of Iran and moved through the Hindu Kush Mountains into the Indus Valley and beyond to the Ganges Valley. With them they brought bronze weapons, horses, and chariots They spoke an Indo-European language called Sanskrit."....https://www.pinterest.com/pin/521502831825304354/

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January 2016

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Dmanisi Skull & Early Central Asian Humans (40,000 BC)

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"Dmanisi (Georgian: დმანისი) is a townlet and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. It is the earliest known hominid site outside of Africa…..Early human fossils, originally dubbed Homo georgicus and now as Homo erectus georgicus, were found at Dmanisi between 1991 and 2005. At 1.8 million years old, they are now believed to be a subspecies of Homo erectus and not a separate species of Homo. These fossils represent the earliest known human presence in the Caucasus…Subsequently, four fossil skeletons were found, showing a species primitive in its skull and upper body but with relatively advanced spines and lower limbs. They are now thought to represent a stage soon after the transition from Australopithecus to Homo erectus……Human habitation in the Caucasus goes back to the remotest antiquity. The hominid remains discovered in 1991 by David Lordkipanidze at Dmanisi, Kvemo Kartli (1.8 million years old) are the oldest found outside of Africa (Zatiashvili, 2008). Neanderthal remains have been found at Ortvale K’lde (1973) and elsewhere in the Caucasus (36,000-50,000 years old)."…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmanisi

""There's a roughly 30,000-year gap in the archaeological record of Homo sapiens outside of Africa," said Wells. "The real expansion occurred in the Upper Paleolithic (around 40,000 years ago) into the uncharted territory of Asia proper….Wells says a second wave of hominids left Africa around 45,000 years ago, reproduced rapidly, and settled in the Middle East; smaller groups went off to India and China…..Around 40,000 years ago, as the grip of the Ice Age loosened and temperatures briefly became warmer, humans moved into Central Asia. Amid the bountiful grassy steppes, they multiplied quickly……"If Africa was the cradle of mankind, then Central Asia was its nursery," said Wells.."…..http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman_2.html

"The spectacular fossilised skull of an ancient human ancestor that died nearly two million years ago has forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution…..Anthropologists unearthed the skull at a site in Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, where other remains of human ancestors, simple stone tools and long-extinct animals have been dated to 1.8m years old…..Experts believe the skull is one of the most important fossil finds to date, but it has proved as controversial as it is stunning. Analysis of the skull and other remains at Dmanisi suggests that scientists have been too ready to name separate species of human ancestors in Africa. Many of those species may now have to be wiped from the textbooks…..The latest fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, "when our predecessors first walked out of Africa". The skull adds to a haul of bones recovered from Dmanisi that belong to five individuals, most likely an elderly male, two other adult males, a young female and a juvenile of unknown sex."….http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution

'The site at Dmanisi was a busy watering hole that human ancestors shared with giant extinct cheetahs, sabre-toothed cats and other beasts. The remains of the individuals were found in collapsed dens where carnivores had apparently dragged the carcasses to eat. They are thought to have died within a few hundred years of one another…. "This is the first complete skull of an adult early Homo. They simply did not exist before," he said. Homo is the genus of great apes that emerged around 2.4m years ago and includes modern humans….The remains at Dmanisi are thought to be early forms of Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have body proportions like a modern human. The species arose in Africa around 1.8m years ago and may have been the first to harness fire and cook food. The Dmanisi fossils show that H erectus migrated as far as Asia soon after arising in Africa……"Everything that lived at the time of the Dmanisi was probably just Homo erectus," said Prof Zollikofer. "We are not saying that palaeoanthropologists did things wrong in Africa, but they didn't have the reference we have. Part of the community will like it, but for another part it will be shocking news."…..http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution

"The Caucasus Mountains are a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region….. The highest peak in the Caucasus range is Mount Elbrus in the Greater Caucasus, which rises to a height of 5,642 metres (18,510 ft) above sea level….

"The Kurgan hypothesis (also theory or model) is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" (a term grouping the Yamna, or Pit Grave, culture and its predecessors) in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. The term is derived from kurgan (курган), a Turkic loanword in Russian for a tumulus or burial mound. The Kurgan model is the most widely accepted scenario of Indo-European origins……The Kurgan hypothesis was first formulated in the 1950s by Marija Gimbutas, who defined the "Kurgan culture" as composed of four successive periods, with the earliest (Kurgan I) including the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures of the Dnieper/Volga region in the Copper Age (early 4th millennium BC). The bearers of these cultures were nomadic pastoralists, who, according to the model, by the early 3rd millennium BC expanded throughout the Pontic-Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe……According to the dominant Kurgan hypothesis in Indo-European studies, the Pontic-Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, and these same speakers were the original domesticators of the horse."…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic-Caspian_steppe

"By analyzing DNA from people in all regions of the world, geneticist Spencer Wells has concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago……According to the multi-regional model, an archaic form of humans left Africa between one and two million years ago, and modern humans evolved from them independently and simultaneously in pockets of Africa, Europe, and Asia…..Wells's work and that of others confirms the more widely accepted Out of Africa model, which says that all modern humans evolved in Africa and then left in several waves of migration, ultimately replacing any earlier species……Genetic evidence tells us that Homo sapiens are of recent origin and arose in Africa," said S. Blair Hedges, a molecular biologist at Pennsylvania State University……African populations have the most ancient alleles [gene pairs that code for specific traits] and the greatest genetic diversity, which means they're the oldest," Hedges explained. "Our species probably had arisen by 150,000 years ago, with a population of perhaps 10,000 individuals."…..http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman_2.html

"…there is general agreement that Homo erectus, the precursor to modern humans, evolved in Africa and gradually expanded to Eurasia beginning about 1.7 million years ago…..By around 100,000 years ago, several species of hominids populated the Earth, including H. sapiens in Africa, H. erectus in Southeast Asia and China, and Neandertals in Europe……By around 30,000 years ago, the only surviving hominid species was H. sapiens…..Wells says his evidence based on DNA in the Y-chromosome indicates that the exodus began between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago."…..http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman_2.html

"The Neanderthals or Neandertals…… are an extinct species or subspecies of the genus Homo. They are closely related to modern humans…..Homo heidelbergensis (sometimes called Homo rhodesiensis) is an extinct species of the genus Homo which lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia from at least 600,000 years ago, and may date back 1,300,000 years. It survived until 200,000 to 250,000 years ago. It is very likely the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens in Africa and the Neanderthals in Europe, and perhaps also the Denisovans in Asia. It was first discovered near Heidelberg in Germany in 1907 and named by Otto Schoetensack….. H. heidelbergensis may have been the first species of the Homo genus to bury their dead……H. heidelbergensis was a close relative (most probably a migratory descendant) of Homo ergaster. H. ergaster is thought to be the first hominid to vocalize…. and that as H. heidelbergensis developed more sophisticated culture proceeded from this point….Recent genomic results from the group of Svante Pääbo also show that 30,000 years ago at least three major subspecies coexisted: Denisovans, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. Today, only H. sapiens sapiens remains, with no other extant species or subspecies."…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_(genus)

Neanderthals in Central Asia… "Archeological sites where remains or tools of Neanderthals were found….Teshik-Tash (Uzbekistan) …Teshik-Tash is an archaeological site in Uzbekistan in central Asia. During the excavation in 1938 remains of a Neanderthal male child were discovered in a shallow pit, reported as in association with five pairs of Ibex horns…..Aman-Kutan (Uzbekistan) …..Amankutan Gorge: Just 50 km from Samarkand, Amankutan Gorge has one of the most picturesque views in Central Asia. Rich in delightful wooded mountains and cascading waterfalls, the Gorge is a home to a great diversity of flowering plants, animals and birds. Tulipa fosteriana Hoog ex B.Fedtsch. a direct ancestor of a huge variety of the modern garden tulips can be still found here. The legendary blue bird, symbol of unfulfilled dreams (Blue Whistling-thrush Myophonus caeruleus Scopoli) inhabits the canyons. The shortest path from Bactria to Sogdiana… Amankutan Gorge was used for west – east migration for thousands of years including marches of the armies of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and the Arabs. In 1947, the expedition lead by D.N. Lev discovered a Neanderthal man site in the Amankutan Gorge…. Amankutan was mountains, greenery and an exceedingly pleasant temperature. Situated at over 1,000 m there were even small patches of snow on the highest areas and the whole site was backed by the distant snow-capped peaks of the Zarafshan range and the Pamirs….Amankutan is within an hour of Samarkand. "……http://www.bioexploration.org/Tours/uzbekistan-central-asia-silk-road-itinerary.html

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October 2013

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