Talk:Corded Ware culture/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

the rewrite is fair enough, but what about the Tarpan reference? Are you disputing that? Please make sure no information is lost in rewrites (and if you do remove information, make a statement that you are doing so consciously, becaue it was false or whatever). dab (ᛏ) 16:02, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Happy? With the material at hand, this is as far as I can go. --FourthAve 11:28, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the "wild" tarpan info. On the Internet I stumbled on the info that it is not "proved" that they were tame. I consider it extremely unlikely that the appearance of the Tarpan in Scandinavia with this culture was the due to "reintroductions in the wild" of some kind of corded ware environmentalist group. However, such incredible anachronisms are what must have happened if the CWC did not have domesticated horses.--Wiglaf 11:38, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Horses

I would love to push serious horseback riding well into the 3rd millennium, but have no source for it. Even what little there is on the web is rather vague.

Domestication is sometime around 4000, perhaps somewhat before, perhaps a little after; it was probably initially a meat animal. Horseback riding involves a technology; one can of course ride bareback, just holding onto the mane, but something resembling a bridle is necessary for any serious control, and the bit is the crucial bit of technology. Finding sources for the earliest use of a bit is very difficult. It was probably European. It had spread everywhere by the time of Rameses II (1200s, and this is late). Then real saddles. Stirrups and finally the horse collar are both astonishingly late; the Huns seem to have invented metal stirrups, allowing one to stand in the saddle, while the horse collar does not come along until the early middle ages (both anno Domini!).

Comparison to the Icelandic horse is useful as a representative of a 'primitive' breed, in terms of size, and for the fact they have to be 5 years old before a full sized human can ride them. At the beginning, riding was mainly used to control herds of meat-animal horses and cattle (and of course, for joyriding). Certainly, it could have been used as a pack animal from very early on. But remember, wagons were being pulled by cattle at this time. Horses would not be put to draft until sometime before 2000.

I don't see the horse as anything near a military weapon until after 3000, and then mostly as a terror weapon to trample pedestrian peasants. Real cavalry does not occur until after the demise of the chariot as a practical weapon.

I'm as frustrated as you on the topic, but what I have learned is that we tend to over-romanticize the place of the horse and want to push it back before it can really be demonstrated. Nonetheless, the horse is fully divinized in IE mythology, a creature of light, of the sky: the divine twins, the Asvins, Castor and Pollux, Apollo and Artemis, the twinned horses of the chariot of the sun, and/or of the chariot of Dawn (with her sun-maiden Helen).

If you have a source for horses in Corded Ware Sweden, then by all means put it in the article. For Sweden, horses can have only been introduced. --FourthAve 17:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I have been googling about this, and all I can find is that the horse, i.e. the tarpan, was introduced to Scandinavia during the CW culture. The problem with the CW and IE is that if the CW was not IE, I have not a single clue about the Indo-Europeanization of Scandinavia. It may seem to be a lesser problem in Indo-European studies, but as far as the Germanic languages are concerned it is quite interesting.--Wiglaf 19:07, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, the Corded Ware culture is more of an archaeological complex than a tightly defined culture. Considering how it sprawls across nearly the whole of Northern Europe, it was certainly ethnically and linguistically mixed, incorporating disparate ancestral cultures. As I have pointed out, the Globular Amphora culture and the Baden culture both overlapped the Corded Ware in both chronological time and geographic extent. When you have the G.A. essentially occupying the same geographical area as the previous Funnelbeaker culture and being co-extensive in time and space in part of the area occupied by the Corded Ware, then statements about the introduction of the horse into Sweden from the CW is not necessarily a problem, in that G.A. is certainly part of the "Corded Ware archaeological horizon/complex". Thus, the Swedish horses came out of this, even if it was ultimately via the Globular Amphora.

One thing the article does not get into are the Atlantic salmon runs of Northern Europe. Back then, these were pristine rivers that doubtless matched the extraordinary quantity recorded in the early 19th century for US salmon runs, Atlantic and Pacific (now sadly reduced to near-extinction by overfishing and pollution). With that much delicious protein essentially just waiting to be picked up in the river shallows, even the most primitive of preservation methods (salting, smoking, drying) would ensure a year-long supply of food. Life could be easy. I remember stock fishing (essentially freeze-dried cod) being recorded at something like 5000 BC (???) in the Lofoten Islands.

My own feeling is to see the earliest Germanics as part and parcel of the Globular Amphora. And certainly, earliest Germanic seems to go into isolation, and Sweden is about the only candidate around (all southern Swedish toponyms and hydronyms are 100% Germanic, as I recall).

The more I mine EIEC, the more I find contradictions. JP Mallory has taken articles from other scholars, lightly revised them, then slapped his own initials at the end, but has not attempted to integrate them into a single consistent whole. --FourthAve 22:38, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, no traces have been found of pre-Germanic place names in southern Sweden, which suggests that too much time has passed since the early Proto-Germanic language appeared there. You're right about the salmon runs, but it is not only the good fishing that must have been attractive to early immigrants. Regions such as the Mälaren basin, Skåneland, central Västergötland and the Baltic Sea islands (Bornholm, Öland and Gotland) are very productive agricultural regions and excellent bases for the Nordic Bronze Age culture, which evolved out of the CW. My personal feeling is that the Danish isles (but I don't know anything about the earliest Danish place names) and Skåneland (southernmost Sweden) are the focal point of the Germanic Urheimat, due to their agricultural richness and excellent waterways to the rest of Scandinavia and Northern Germany.--Wiglaf 07:32, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy?

According to the commonly accepted Kurgan hypothesis, Corded Ware was indeed Indo-European, and would therefore be at least in part derived from one of the Kurgan cultures to the east. This article claims that it is "obviously" derived from the more westerly Funnelbeaker culture, a claim that I have never seen before. Where does this article get its information, and is it accurate?--Rob117 12:53, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think either of them is necessarily erroneous. New cultures frequently evolved out of two or more parent cultures, such as the Chernyakhov culture. However, different scholars may stress either of them leading to conflicts such as this one.--Wiglaf 14:28, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Who holds the Kurgan hypothesis to be "commonly accepted"??? In fact it is not. And up to now there are NO compelling arguments for any Urheimat/staging area hypo of the Indo-Europeans User: HJHolm 08:24, 17. feb 2006.

The Name

I hate to bring this up. According to my source, corded ware is a subgroup of the battle axe culture, that of central Europe.--Wiglaf 22:01, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

overlaps

it's perfect (check the maps!) -- Eastern late CW (Proto-Balto-Slavs) and early Andronovo (Proto-Indo-Iranians) cultures said goodbye (lost contact) at the Volga exactly 2300 BC, already fully Satemized and rukied. Satemization took from 3000-2500, then, starting 3000 between disparate, but mutually intelligible Eastern Late PIE dialects :o) dab (ᛏ) 18:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Brilliant! :).--Wiglaf 18:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

I suggest that I restructure this article so that it is called the Battle-Axe culture, and divide it into the following sections:

1. Corded Ware culture (central Europe)
2. Swedish-Norwegian Battle-Axe culture
3. Finnish Battle-Axe culture.
4. Middle-Dniepr culture
5. Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture

This way the name "corded ware culture" will be preserved for the subgroup.--Wiglaf 22:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Had a look at the Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology which considers the Corded Ware Culture to be "a generic term applied to a wide range of late N. and early BA communities in central and northern Europe...their material culture included perforated stone battleaxes...round-bodied amphora...and kurgan burials" It goes on to talk about CWC being lots of local groups with shared ideas. Also, "In Scandinavia it is known as the Single Grave culture". Looking up Battleaxe culture just says to "see CWC".

The Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology puts Corded Ware as the main entry for a culture stretching from "Jutland to the Volga" which I suppose conveniently misses out Scandinavia altogether and has no entry for Battleaxe Culture alone. When it talks about the Single Grave culture though it describes it as being linked with the "Corded ware-Battleaxe Complex". When discussing the Protruding foot beaker culture of the Netherlands, it describes it as a branch of CWC-Battleaxe complex or the Single Grave Cultures as though the Scandinavian ones are distinct from those further south (my italics). I'm not convinced about that though.

That's all I've got to hand at the moment. It sounds to me that Battleaxe=CWC with numerous regional sub-types extending outwards This page may help with the Single Grave Culture thing and illuminate the Scandinavian side of things, but it hurts my eyes to even look at it. adamsan 21:19, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in. I have renamed it, to reflect what appears to be the most common English-language terminology.--Wiglaf 09:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Reconsiderations

In the "origins" section, I made some comments about how the CWC cannot considered a monolithic bloc. Nothing this colossal can be in any sense homogenous. In my reading, I have gotten some insight into some of the "dirty little secrets" of archaeology, in that just about NO site assigned to one particular culture of this antiquity-- particularly sites where the only remains are mortuary -- bears all of the stigmata, and often what seems certain in the literature is in reality something considerably less than a learnéd conjecture. I read a bit where it was stated the only PURE corded ware sites, where EVERYTHING was there are at the periphery, at exactly three sites, one is Switzerland, another in the Crimea and the last in Lithuania.

The other reality is that multiple distinct cultures really did overlap in time and space. At one point in Poland, one could likely have found relatively pure Funnelbeaker sites just a few miles from similarly pure Corded Ware sites, and a just as pure Globular Amphora site just around the bend. It's rather like any large cosmopolitan city of today, where you get an extraordinary mix of emigrants, with quite different cultural practices, all living cheek-to-jowl. If you excavated a Christian cemetery, a Jewish cemetery and a Muslim cemetery, you would say you are witnessing three separate cultural horizons -- and indeed you would -- but they are simultaneous and coterminous cultural horizons. The old comparison between Village Arabs and Bedouin Arabs comes to mind -- radically different material cultures, but ever so much a part of a single culture.

Nonetheless, there really does seem to be a consensus about the Corded Ware culture -- it's real, it's huge, and it really is mixed up with the Indo-Europeanization of Middle and Western Europe.

I've become more critical of Mallory and EIEC. It's not Mallory's fault, really, in that he is adapting other authors' articles; the Great Man himself has admitted that there are some horrible lapses. EIEC, despite its defects, is still a priceless resource. The CWC article in EIEC sort of suggests agriculture was not too present, but the Funnelbeaker article indicates this is the first wave of agriculture in N. Europe. Obviously, there was not a cessation of agriculture once CWC came into being, but you see the problem.

At the moment, I am juggling a host of archaeological cultures in my head, their names, their times, their places, who preceded, what were the successors, what stocks might be placed there, etc. I am gaining, however dimly, a full gestalt of IE expansion.

Right now, my feelings are to put PIE-with-Anatolian at the northern base of the Caucasus, somewhere before 4000, with Anatolian going up into the mountains, and then descending into Anatolia. The main center of PIE then moved, either to north of the Sea of Azov, or up towards the Samara Bend, or probably, to both places, in that both are considered ancestors of the Yamna. pre-proto-Tocharian may have been the Samara culture and/or the Khvalynsk culture (see my comments at Talk there, there is something funny with the dates). It's a superb marshalling ground for sending them east very early by the classic path, the only logical path into Central Asia -- thru the valley of the Samara River into the Ural valley, and then beyond.

The pre-pre-pre-proto Germanics would have been the pioneering northern-fringe. They might have been the group that represents Globular Amphora, but my feeling is that they are only part of that group. Wiglaf and I both like the idea that Germanic sailed to Sweden and went into deep isolation; this certainly explains some things, but probably, before it left, encountered in coastal Poland, if not the substrate, at least a non-IE non-Uralic language that understood rivers, tides, and doing the Baltic Sea and donated a few words.

The Germanics, I hold, were the first IE seafarers, and started a tradition that culminated in the greatest of all IE seafaring traditions, the Royal Navy of the UK. The Greeks got good and have continued good. The Norwegians are heroically good right down to the present. The rest of the IE peoples are largely fishermen, and not sailors (here endeth the editorial). The best sailors of all time, of course, were the the Polynesians.

It's tempting to put pre-pre-proto Celts and Italics in the Baden culture. When you look at the EIEC map of the LBK, it's striking how it resembles the Celtic continuum ca. 100 BC, just before Gaius Julius Caesar re-arranged the ethnic furniture of France. Celts went from the mouth of the Seine, over the Rhine into the Danube valley up the Tisza and down the Dnieper and thence into Anatolia (Galatia, as in St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians). I'm thinking of the Balkan-Danubian complex (Troy to the Elbe, via the Danube), an article that needs to get written and integrated into the CWC article.

The great mixing bowl of Europe is greater Hungary. The Vienna Basin can be defended, but Hungary is easily overrun by invasions from the east, via the gentle passes at the headwaters of the Tisza, San-Vistula and Dnieper. The fact the region speaks a non-IE language essentially proves this.

Anyway. The CWC is essentially the Roman Empire of the European Bronze Age. It defined the next 5000 years of history. --FourthAve 06:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right. This is a really important culture, and you're doing valuable work here.--Wiglaf 07:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

merge

I've made Corded Ware a redirect now. This was its content:

A Finnish type of battle axe of corded ware culture

Corded ware is pottery having an ornamental pattern created by a cord impressed in the unfired clay. This kind of pottery was a characteristic artifact of the neolithic corded-ware culture (sometimes known as Battle-axe people. Often, the decoration only imitates cordmarks. Burial is characteristically in single graves by inhumation under a barrow.

The corded-ware culture is found from the Netherlands to Poland and Switzerland.

Other cultures use cord-impressions for ornaments as well. A well known example is the AOC (for All Over Corded) vessel, considered to be an early Beaker type. Cord-impressed ware is known from Indonesia as well, where it was formerly described as Neolithic, but seems to be mainly of quite recent date.

I think we have all that, except perhaps the Indonesia reference. dab (ᛏ) 11:17, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Einar Østmo?

If a person is used as a source, there should at least be some explanation: Who is he, why is he important? Preferrably, there should be an article about this person. Orcaborealis 10:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Einar Østmo is in one of my books, basically the "Journal of Indo-European Studies".

onwards

this article is quite nice by now, but still a long way from FA standards. Specifically, we need a more coherent account of archaeological excavations, and a more specific literature list. We'd also need a wider choice of images on top of the various "battle-axes", in particular an image of a "corded ware" artifact. dab (ᛏ) 12:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The article still contains phrases that seem to represent personal interpretations rather than statements drawn from the proper sources. Two examples:

• "it clearly represents a fusion of earlier archaeological cultures": clear to whom? Even if partly true (the culture has repeatedly been defined as intrusive to most areas by various authors), this rather sounds like a personal deduction.
• "This viewpoint was still reflected in even some relatively recent literature, but has now been essentially supplanted by the work of Marija Gimbutas" : Some influential opponents to this popular view are still very alive and never renounced their stances. Basic objections and (negative) evidence against theories fully based on migrationist assumptions remain unanswered. It is tricky to dismiss scholarly views like this and the "failure" of other views is not sufficiently sourced.Rokus01 14:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

"Gay caveman"

Yesterday, when I simply reverted the whole lot, I already intended to come back and do it right. I didn't have the time then.

Of course I am aware of paraphrasing and find that question a bit on the disrespectful side. The point of the quotes was to reflect what the sources say. Sure this can be done by paraphrasing but not by inaccurate paraphrasing using loaded terms like "heteronormative". Deposuit (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Classical anthropology & Mention of the taxonomical phenotype?

"Corded", named from the Corded Ware culture, is a supposed 'look', trait or phenotype given to a northern European human type in a common, well attested, strain of anthropological taxonomy. This has been popularized by Carleton S. Coon and others. There should be some minor mention of this, brief description, and redirect to proper articles. Nagelfar (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

On the phenotype M.Gimbutas wrote (slightly paraphrased):

"Physical Type

...that this period simply represent a later phase of the Globular Amphora complex, pushed to the north and northeast by the influx of the Pit Grave people seems likely. Both the Globular Amphora and Corded Pottery complexes contain components of the local TRB substratum and the Pontic steppe element. The TRB component is predominant in the physical type of the Corded Pottery population of Germany and Czechoslovakia, with the exception of some individuals who are considered to be of the steppe type. ¹²² Analysis of the skeletal material from Poland shows a steppe origin. ¹²³ Elsewhere the bulk of the population were indigenous remnants of the Old Europeans." (The Civilization of the Goddess. The World of Old Europe, San Francisco: Harper, 1991, Ch. 10, p. 393)

There is no culture without people, people belong there. I doubt that they changed much since 1991 Barefact (talk) 08:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Finnish Battle Axe Culture

"The Finnish Battle Axe culture was a mixed cattle-breeder and hunter-gatherer culture, and one of the few in this horizon to provide rich finds from settlements."

Then what a shame it is that this section only has one sentence. It should be a high priority for improvements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.170.62.161 (talk) 22:23, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Age of crushed skulls?

Herman Lindqvist is neither a historian nor an archaeologist, but a journalist and a controversial dilettante. I don't see why he should be cited here. /Bcarlssonswe (talk) 19:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Origins and development

The article currently states "The distribution of the Corded Ware culture coincides in part with the earlier Funnelbeaker culture, with which it shares a number of features, such as cord impressions on pottery, and the use of horses and wheeled vehicles, that can be ultimately traced to the cultures of the European steppe", sourced to An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World, without a page number or quote. Those are strong and rather questionable looking claims. I am inclined to remove this until better source information can be provided. - Crosbie 21:40, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

D'accord. No answer of the original author?? Thus I deleted it. HJJHolm (talk) 06:03, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The vexed maps

The map is in fact incorrect because the Baden C. roughly predates the Corded-Ware culture. HJJHolm (talk) 11:13, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Redundances

I have tried to reduce the redundances in the intro, and to correct some smaller errors. Should still be improved...HJJHolm (talk) 10:51, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe 2015

"In the last decade, the basis for absolute dating was considerably enhanced (Czebreszuk and Muller 2001; Furholt 2003) and the focus of debate shifted towards the time, speed, and mechanisms of the spread of Corded Ware. As at the beginning of the Neolithic, the alternative hypotheses of diffusion and migration have been discussed, but also the meaning of the archaeological term ‘culture’: is Corded Ware the material expression of an ethnic or linguistic group, a social marker, or the reflection of an ideology? I he culture concept and suggested model of spread obviously are mutually interdependent. Based on the evaluation of almost 200 radiocarbon dates, Suter (2002) postulated the end of the A-horizon, arguing that the elements of this assumed early phase span several centuries. Sutcr thus considers Corded Ware, together with the somewhat later Bell Beakers, as reflecting the spread of an ideology and ritual drinking customs."[1] Doug Weller talk 15:44, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

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Simplifying and Streamlining Article

Seems that Ilber and I are both interested in rearranging and improving this article. Love just about all the edits (s)he has done except this one: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Corded_Ware_culture&diff=next&oldid=728161233. That edit, for some reason, re-introduced some of the old language about Gimbutas that wasn't even proper English, so I'm going back in to fix that. Please be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater! Mellsworthy (talk) 23:03, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mellsworthy: Let me know, i have simplified it. Paleogenomics does not seem like an appropriate word to use here, it should be archeogenomics/aDNA but genomics is good enough.

This could be added in new section, within genetic study section as "Corded Ware and diffusion of Indo-European languages".

• Corded Ware and diffusion of Indo-European languages
• "Genomic study of Bronze Age Eurasian population conducted by Allentoft et al (2015) found that Corded Ware culture played a key role in diffusion of various Indo-European languages ancestral to Italo-Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian and Greek. The study also found that ancestral population of Sintastha, Andronovo and Bell beaker were partially derived from Corded Ware culture." Ilber8000 (talk) 15:09, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Paleogenomics and archeogenomics are both used in the field, though the field has settled on aDNA for the DNA that is studied. I'm still waiting on either you or another editor to come in here and comment on various ideas for where we should go with this article. I think that the language section (I'm happy with your suggested title above as the title for the entire language section!) should actually focus on language, except for references to Mallory and Anthony as up-to-date theories of how Corded Ware ties in with language, and a reference to Allentoft et al.'s evidence which now excludes fully non-migrationist theories. I still don't think that goes in the genetics section. The DNA section should include a reference to Indo-Europeanization, but I suggest something as brief as "The population turnover in Central and Western Europe that occurred in the Corded Ware period, as shown by these genetic studies, has been implicated in the spread of Indo-European languages. In particular, the similarity to later populations including Sintashta and Bell Beaker, as well as modern populations in Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia is suggestive of the extent of Indo-European language groups." (Obviously the "spread of Indo-European languages" part would be linked to the language section). We might also include a cautionary about populations with partial genetic similarity that are not Indo-European speaking, such as the Basques and Finns, both of which are about as similar to Corded Ware as South Asians, depending on which sub-populations we're talking about. What do folks think? --Mellsworthy (talk) 22:45, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Allentoft et al & languages

@Mellsworthy: I found full Allentoft et al study (2015) and he does not seem to mention anything about spread of languages from corded ware but only genetic contribution of Corded Ware to Sintastha and Andronovo. We might have to remove spread of languages all together in introduction and change it to just genetic contribution of Corded Ware to Sintashta and Andronovo. According to him, closely related ancient groups are expected to show highly correlated statistics. A, Yamnaya/Afanasievo are similar B, Sintashta/Corded Ware are similar C, Sintashta/Andronovo are similar. Ilber8000 (talk) 07:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ilber8000: @Florian Blaschke:Thanks for the correction! I had somehow forgotten that I had left my own edit speculating that Indo-Iranian language spread (associated with the spread of the Sintashta/Andronovo populations discussed in the article) was also linguistically traceable to Corded Ware. I had meant to look for a reputable source that said so, since it is a very low-level inference from Allentoft et al.'s article, but it appears that nobody is in print saying that. Since this article does not say that, and I can't find a legit source, you are correct that this is OR, and should not stay here. I've just now edited the text of the intro to mention the more modest (and vague) claims for what languages derive from the language spoken by the Corded Ware culture as described in the section 11 of the Supplementary Information of Haak et al. These can (and should) be supplemented with Mallory's and Anthony's much more detailed claims, based on old-school archeology rather than genetics, which the authors of both genetics papers refer to as their reference for the relevance of Yamnaya and Corded Ware for language history in Europe. The genetics papers both describe themselves as confirming a pre-existing archeological hypothesis, which is probably why they are very vague on the details that don't quite fit the current hypotheses, like Corded Ware being a partial source for Sintashta. Mellsworthy (talk) 09:21, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Corded Ware

@Mellsworthy: Hello, I had to remove two paragraphs from that section because it was repeat of what was already mentioned in Origins section. Regrading Gimbutas, it is to keep timeline of study of various linguist studies. Ilber8000 (talk) 23:40, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with not repeating, but I was attempting to say, in the language-shift section, how genetic studies potentially bear on the question. That is separate information. For what it's worth, I think some of the wording in the other sections which pertain to language should be moved to the language section, rather than being deleted from the language section and left scattered through the article.

With regard to Gimbutas, there are two problems. One, she was not a linguist; this is not a fundamental problem, obviously, since Corded Ware does not refer to a language, and anyone working on the language of Corded Ware has to be competent across disciplines. Two, her theories in detail are woefully out of date, having been usefully resynthesized by Mallory and Anthony in recent years. Even these more up-to-date syntheses founder on the even more recent genetic data, as pointed out in the articles about genetic shift.

I think we should rewrite the section from the point of view of what the scientific community believes now, and put the history either as an aside in the current section, or in a new sub-section "History of theories of Corded Ware and language", or something like that. --Mellsworthy (talk) 23:52, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mellsworthy: That section is appropriate because how else do you explain other half of genetic ancestry in Northern Europeans which is not Yamnaya? According to Haak et al (2015) this other half comes from "Early European Farmers", "Western European hunter-gatherers" + "Scandinavian hunter-gatherers" (sub-group of WHG). What language did these non-steppe people spoke who make up other half of Northern European ancestry? Gimbutas, Edgar & Guus Kronen theory is in line with recent genetic studies done on Funnelbeaker culture (farmers) and Pitted Ware culture (hunter-gatherers). See, Malmstro¨m et al (2015).Ilber8000 (talk) 00:13, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ilber8000: To be clear, I am not trying to get rid of the section, or the content pertaining to substrate, or even reference to Gimbutas. Yet, the problem with presenting Gimbutas' theory as fact is that it incorrectly proposes that a small number of immigrants (far less than 50% of the population) conquered and ruled Central and Western Europe, similar to the Vikings in many places and the Normans in England. The recent genetic evidence shows that this is the wrong model, since a sudden change from 0% steppe ancestry to 75% steppe ancestry is not a case of elite dominance, but rather is called population replacement, even if later merger with other populations brings the percentage much lower, to about 50% Corded Ware in modern Western Europe. Another way that we should be more subtle than Gimbutas is that decades of archeology begs us to consider whether "conquest" is the right label or some other form of migration, and the evidence of the Black Death being found in archeological sites near the Black Sea from around this time means that it is possible that plague deaths paved the way for population churn, much as in late Roman Britain, or even more clearly the British in North America. The involvement of early Yersinia pestis is speculation, even if a number of scientists are speculating in the same direction, so we should not put that in the article. At any rate, I think we should make these changes because the percentage of population change makes a difference in what kind of language change we might expect. It's not deterministic, but it matters.

Ideally, we would focus on the consensus that Corded Ware is almost certainly a culture where an Indo-European language was spoken, giving arguments from the current literature about why this is so, then presenting a couple of sentences about what modern varieties of Indo-European language might be derived from this early language, followed by the interesting but speculative and controversial work on the evidence for substrate. If we want to do justice to the substrate argument, we also need to include reference to Hans Krahe and Theo Venneman and Old European hydronymy, at least mentioning that this work is not accepted by the majority of linguists now. (I see looking at that page that you'd have to look very closely at the "Other authors" section to see that there's any controversy at all. I can only fix one thing at a time!) Hope this all sounds reasonable! --Mellsworthy (talk) 03:30, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Having now read Malmström, I can't see how it's an argument for anything. It shows that using their data, which is quite limited by genetic standards, they "cannot reject any level of contribution from the ancient farmers to the extant Scandinavian population" (p. 4), but this is irrelevant since, not only do their data show that population replacement is more probable than population continuity, but also studies with higher quality data show that we can certainly reject levels of contribution of farmers above 75%, even including the indirect contribution of farmers to Yamnaya and Corded Ware. --Mellsworthy (talk) 03:51, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mellsworthy: Yes, 75% ancestry of Corded Ware burials but notice how 25% of ancestry of these Corded Ware burials comes from local population, this was not population replacement but gradual cultural assimilation or Indo-Europeanization of local population. Local ancestry still makes up majority of N.European ancestry according to genetic studies Laradies et al (2014), Haak et al (2015), Malmstro¨m et al (2015). There is nothing in the Haak et al (2015) study or any other previous study which states that there was a population replacement, we can't add something that is not stated in the study.

Malmström et al (2015) is study of Scandinavian population, which suggests 60% of Scandinavia ancestry is derived from Pitted Ware Culture (non-IE). Now, take note of diverse study that includes European population as whole, Haak et al (2015). Here is the chart of individual admixtures.

Regarding Gimbutas or any other person, I have added "According to..." before presenting their theories, it is not presented as fact but as view point of these archaeologist and linguistics.

Here are few points regrading criticism of Gimbutas or Old Europe languages.

J. P. Mallory (1989) accepted the Gimbutas' Kurgan hypothesis as the de facto standard theory of Indo-European origins, but he recognized valid criticism of Gimbutas' radical scenario of military invasion. To what degree the indigenous cultures were peacefully amalgamated or violently displaced remains a matter of controversy among supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.

Hans Krahe (1964) introduced the term Old European hydronymy for the language of the oldest reconstructed stratum of European hydronymy (river names) in Central and Western Europe. According to Hans Krahe, character of various river names in these regions are pre-Germanic and pre-Celtic and dated by Krahe to the 2nd millennium BCE. Krahes' theory was criticized by Walter Pohl and others.

Spanish philologist Francisco Villar Liébana (1990) argued for the Old European preserved in river names and confined to the hydronymic substratum in the Iberian Peninsula as yet another Indo-European layer with no immediate relationship to the Lusitanian language. However, the idea of 'Old European' was criticized by Untermann (1999) and De Hoz (2001).

German linguist Theo Vennemann(2003) suggested that the language of the hydronymy was agglutinative and Pre-Indo-European. This theory has been criticized as being seriously flawed, and the more generally accepted view is that hydronyms are of Indo-European origin.

Let me know if i should add these view points, I still need gather more sources though. Ilber8000 (talk) 05:20, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

References

@Ilber8000:You have several points here, all important:

• You are crucially misinterpreting Malmström et al (2015). They do not claim that there was 60% of PWC ancestry in Scandinavians, but rather "the maximum direct demographic contribution consistent with the data is 60%" (p. 8), meaning that there is a 95% chance that the amount was lower than that. Indeed, the chart from Haak et al. (2015) that you mentioned, based on much more powerful data, shows that Yamnaya ancestry remains well over 50% in Norway. PWC (with Loschbour proxy in Haak et al) represents less than 20% of current Norwegian ancestry. The Yamnaya contribution to Southern Europe was much lower, and not yet localizable in time, since suitable paleogenomes showing what happened have not been published.
• You seem to be saying that you want to put all of these things about substrate into this article. It seems better to me to put one or two sentences here, at most, and then improve the Old European hydronymy page to make the controversiality that we're talking about more prominent, and including the sources you have here.
• I don't mean to say that "Kurganist" theories are incorrect. In fact, that general family of solution has the best probability of being right. However, there are some aspects of these theories that need to change a lot based on the newer data, and I don't think anything other than the genomics papers themselves have addressed the needed correction to archeology. So far as I know, Mallory has not written anything in response to the Haak et al data, since he's semi-retired. David Anthony was a co-author on the Haak et al. paper, and he is one of the people producing the necessary modifications to the Kurgan theory. The data was quite surprising, even for those who were migrationist like Mallory and Anthony, since it indicated a far larger migration (percentage-wise) than anyone expected. Once the introgressive ancestry gets to be above 50%, and the Corded Ware culture certainly received more than 50%, and up to 100% of its ancestry from the steppe, then we should be thinking of scenarios where the minority population that derived from the hunter gatherers and the first farmers were integrated into a majority steppe-derived population. This was not particularly gradual, but happened in a single lifetime, since there were about two generations between samples that had no discernable steppe ancestry, and samples that had 75% to 100% steppe ancestry.

In sum, I don't recommend that you proceed editing as you recommend, and you haven't addressed why we shouldn't go the way I recommended. --Mellsworthy (talk) 07:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mellsworthy: I agree regrading PWC. But, regrading CW skeletons from Germany being 100% steppe is not accurate according to the study.

• Here is both Ancient and Modern samples.
• Corded Ware culture playing key role in disseminating various I.E languages should be under Origins OR under genetic section considering it's from genetic study, correct?
• I will simplify O-E hydronymy into short sentence but you don't seem to want it add it though. Ilber8000 (talk) 08:06, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Ilber8000: Points:

• In the graphic you sent me from the article, the bars represent averages over several samples. The authors make clear that several of the CW individuals (yes, there were multiple!) were indistinguishable from Yamnaya.
• I think that there is plenty of material just on the nature of the genetic study and its implications on the ancestral components of Europe to fill the genetics section, though including a cross-ref sentence to the linguistic transition section. I would put the rest of the material in the Indo-Europeanization section, especially since, as we both agree, the basic migrationist hypothesis for the Indo-European languages did not originate in the genetic study, even though the genetic study was a confirmation of its basic thesis.
• Please go ahead and add reference to Old European hydronomy. As I said above, that would be an improvement. I was not clear above: I think we can use one or two sentences per substrate theory, including Old European hydronomy.
• I still like the idea that the clearly out-dated theories could go into a history idea, but I understand if you prefer the current organization of the article.

Thanks! --Mellsworthy (talk) 08:19, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Don't the new developments mean that the early Indo-Europeanisation of Europe was even more catastrophic than Gimbutas assumed? After all, the élite dominance model was not her model, but Mallory's, trying to soften the edge of Gimbutas's ideas, which were (and still are) often thought to make the process out as too warlike to be comfortable – especially for archaeologists, who tend to see continuity and few sharp breaks and thus preferred notions such as Renfrew's which envisioned a much more gradual and peaceful Indo-Europeanisation of Europe. But now it seems that the process was even more abrupt than even Gimbutas herself dared to dream (even though she saw the Indo-Europeans as the "bad guys", unlike those who came before her, who often viewed them as the bringers of civilisation – it sounds conceivable to me that the Yamna people were actually empowered by taking over achievements of the "Old European" Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, the tragic heroines in Gimbutas's narrative, and that this merger resulted in the powerful force that enabled them to spread their language far and wide). The difference is that it was not necessarily only military conquest with a thin immigrant élite, but actual mass migration – but then, did Gimbutas ever utter specific ideas regarding that issue?

(Again, the irony of white supremacist propagandists fretting and stirring panic about mass migration that supposedly endangers the continuity of the "white race" when historical and even prehistorical population movements have generally been "white people" crowding out nonwhite ethnicities, including that key event we're discussing here, is palpable.)

However, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Chalcolithic/Bronze-Age Europe was characterised by a comparably extremely simple level of technology and low population densities overall, especially in regions of Northern Europe dominated by hunter-gatherer populations, and terms like "military conquest" and "mass migration" can easily mislead. Envision a few tens of thousands of Indo-European immigrants facing a couple of thousand natives in some region like Scania (just as a really rough impression; I don't know how realistic that is, but it should suffice to show the general point), and suddenly it doesn't sound all that impressive anymore. While we're not exactly talking cavemen with clubs, but fighters with battle-axes made of stone, it would look kind of pathetic as (pre-)historical fiction in a film. See also these musings on the subject and its enduring fascination for those whose imagination it manages to capture. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the recent evidence for population replacement is actually more extreme than the Gimbutas thesis, which involved quite modest population movements, and certainly more than the toned-down Mallory version. Gimbutas's thesis was a detailed hypothesis specifically of elite dominance, not replacement. My arguments against using Gimbutas as the main organization for this article are on the basis that this aspect of her theory is not particularly tenable anymore. --Mellsworthy (talk) 09:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I see. I was under the evidently mistaken impression that the élite dominance aspect was Mallory's contribution, trying to tone down the implied violence, and Gimbutas at least didn't explicitly and specifically exclude the possibility of large-scale population replacement (having done so actually brings her in line with the modern archaeological mainstream, which if not outright antimigrationist is loath to postulate such extreme scenarios). I'm defensive of her because she gets so much flak, not always justified, from all sorts of people, but I don't view her as an infallible guru, don't worry. Still, I think it's remarkable that even the Corded-Ware-as-PIE-speakers (not just Germanic/Balto-Slavic/Celtic) possibility was to some extent anticipated by her, even though she's generally viewed as introducing (more correctly defending, because it's the older idea) the steppe Urheimat against the northern homeland. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:44, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Gimbutas specifically thought that there was a large physical-type contribution to Corded Ware in Poland, but very little evidence in skeleton morphology for a genetic contribution in Germany. She was basing this on the physical characteristics of the bones, which as we know now, are much more complicated than just genetic inheritance, and if the western end of Corded Ware took up more of the culture of their predecessors, e.g. diet appropriate to their new eco-zone, that can certainly influence skeletal traits. I haven't seen any work using the features of physical anthropology that are known to be genetically heritable, such as non-metrical dental traits, to systematically study the Corded Ware remains, but similar work on the Bell Beaker phenomenon is going to be ahead of the genetics for many years, and possibly forever, since tooth shape is much better preserved than DNA. See Bartels 1998 (A Test of Non-metrical Analysis as Applied to the Beaker Problem) or Desideri 2011 (When Beakers Met Bell Beakers, an analysis of dental remains), for examples. In both cases, heritable tooth morphology shows very unambiguously that Western/Southern Bell Beaker populations were largely or entirely exogenous, markedly in Southern France and Hungary, less so but still clearly in Switzerland, and more continuous with previous populations only in Iberia, where Bell Beaker cultures emerged, and Bohemia, where it appears the Beaker phenomenon was mostly culturally transferred to populations who remained clearly related to the preceding Corded Ware. None of these studies have touched Germany, N. France, or the Low Countries yet. I hope that someone will take on non-metrical dental study of these parts of the Bell Beaker zone and the whole Corded Ware problem, since the data set is so much larger and less chancy than aDNA, but probably the sexiness of aDNA will distract people from this for a long time. --Mellsworthy (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I've updated the Indo-Eurpeanization section, hopefully non-controversially, just to put an intro saying that Corded Ware is important for the question of Indo-European languages in the Copper and Bronze Ages of Europe, and to say that its importance is greatest for the steppe-origin theories originally developed by Gimbutas. --Mellsworthy (talk) 09:32, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Relationship between Corded Ware, Globular Amphora and Funnelbeaker cultures

I have to say the relationship between the (presumably IE-associated) Corded Ware, (IE?) Globular Amphora and (non-IE?) Funnelbeaker cultures is less and less clear to me, in view of their geographic and temporal overlap. Especially the relationship between the first two cultures is utterly opaque to me and the relevant articles do not even recognise the problem; in fact, this article does not mention the GA at all. This is embarrassing. Consider that in what is now Poland, all three cultures apparently coexisted by c. 3000 BC, or even throughout the entire 400-year-long period 3200–2800 BC. That the Funnelbeaker culture co-existed with the other two is on the face of it understandable considering that the "Kurganisation" (or steppe influence, to put it neutrally) could have been gradual (although the genetic evidence seems to conflict with this view). But the co-existence of the Corded Ware (origin in western Ukraine?) and GA (origin in Poland?) cultures is more puzzling to me. A further complication is that the GA culture is said to be the result of the transformation of the Funnelbeaker culture interpreted in terms of "Kurganisation". Parpola (p. 129) even gives a later start (3000 BC) for the GA culture than for the Corded Ware (3200–3100 BC). Maybe this means that both cultures are in origin quite independent phenomena: GA as "Kurganised" successor of the Funnelbeaker culture and Corded Ware as the successor of the Late Tripolye (however this transformation exactly took place: in the case of GA, both acculturation and – especially linguistic – assimilation as well as population replacement are conceivable), and the Corded Ware overlaid the GA and coexisted with it without completely replacing it, at least until 2800 BC (although Parpola gives 2350 BC as the end date for GA and 2300–2000 BC as the end for the Corded Ware, implying an even longer period of co-existence; his end date for the Funnelbeaker culture is significantly later as well, namely 2500 BC). Again, however, I am unsure if the genetic evidence contradicts this explanation. If the Corded Ware spread to Poland simply consisted of immigrants from the western Ukraine largely replacing the pre-existent population, it is utterly obscure to me how the Funnelbeaker tradition could continue for so long and what the origin, role and significance of the GA was. Maybe the GA simply reflected the continuation of the "Pre-Kurgan" native tradition in assimilated form, and the Corded Ware the tradition of the intruders? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:55, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mellsworthy: This is also tied to the "fairness" problem. (Fun fact: There does seem to be a connection to albinism, not only through OCA4, but especially OCA2, considered responsible for blue eyes.) If the Corded Ware culture is associated with people who are genetically overwhelmingly related to the people associated with the Yamna culture, who were apparently not "fair" (as in light hair and eyes especially), but "fairness"-creating mutations and phenotypes were already present and even widespread in Northern Europe prior to the Yamna/Kurgan expansions, and are still extremely widespread in this region, and moreover they are associated with early (Bronze/Iron Age) Indo-European-speakers in Southern Europe and especially Asia (especially early Indo-Iranian-speakers, who may be largely descended from people of the Corded Ware culture, and even Tocharian-speakers, though we don't seem to have any archaeogenetic data about ancient Indo-European Anatolian-speakers, although it should be recoverable in principle, and other data are ambiguous), it's completely unsatisfying to dismiss the (long-observed and now, with newer not known in the 19th century, only strengthened) association with the spread of Indo-European languages completely and act as if it was a mere mirage and the problem didn't exist. Were the people of the Corded Ware culture not significantly more fair than the people of the Yamna culture? If so, how come that they were genetically so close, and how come that modern Indo-European-speakers in Northern Europe are so overwhelmingly fair? If not, how come the people of the Corded Ware culture became fair? Also, were the apparently aboriginal Northern Europeans of the Funnelbeaker culture fair? To me, this is a big elephant in the room when talking about Indo-European origins and the Corded Ware. Moreover, it's a puzzle that should be solvable with more data.

(By the way, "fairness" is really only intended as a neutral shorthand here, despite the ambiguity of the word "fair" that could be taken as subtly implying a white supremacist attitude. This topic is admittedly a minefield. But something like "low pigmentation", let alone the opposite-POV dysphemistic term "melanin deficiency", doesn't sound like a better alternative descriptor to me, either.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:52, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Missing reference

"Zimmer 2015." is what? --Finn Bjørklid (talk) 09:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Era

Article is using both BC and BCE, it should be either BC or BCE, which one it should use? Lorstaking (talk) 04:33, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

BCE. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:ERA states "Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change."

This not a religious article and such articles should use a neutral era style. Doug Weller talk 16:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:ERA does not apply since there is no consistent style yet. I agree with previous editors that we should use BCE. It is more appropriate for scientific content. --Mellsworthy (talk) 07:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Someone changed it without discussion, I have changed back per above discussion. Lorstaking (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Autosomal

Haak: "The Corded Ware are genetically closest to the Yamnaya ∼2,600km away". No mention of autosomal here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:48, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Also,

results from testing ancient DNA from Corded Ware graves]], which now show that the Corded Ware population was autosomally (not YDNA) derived overwhelmingly from the pastoral Yamnaya population of the steppes north of the Black Sea

is not what the source says; it says

• "For 390k analysis, we restricted to reads that not only mapped to the human reference genome hg19 but that also overlapped the 354,212 autosomal SNPs genotyped on the Human Origins array"
• "a target set of 394,577 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (‘390k capture’), 354,212 of which are autosomal SNPs"

No conclusion about 'not YDNA derived, therefore WP:OR. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:52, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan:These are autosoms.

The fact that Cordeds are YDNA R1a (M420) is already in this article. The fact that these same tested Yamna are R1b (M343) is mentioned in the Yamna article. Languages are usually transported by YDNA, not autosoms. Also, the modern population who have the largest share of M343 are the Basques. --Yomal Sidoroff-Biarmskii 21:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

there isn't a single citation in the section "Swedish-Norwegian Battle Axe culture"; reads more like a polemic

The Swedish-Norwegian Battle Axe culture, or the Boat Axe culture, appeared ca. 2800 BCE and is known from about 3000 graves from Scania to Uppland and Trøndelag. The "battle-axes" were primarily a status object. There are strong continuities in stone craft traditions, and very little evidence of any type of full-scale migration, least of all a violent one. The old ways were discontinued as the corresponding cultures on the continent changed, and the farmers living in Scandinavia took part in those changes since they belonged to the same network. Settlements on small, separate farmsteads without any defensive protection is also a strong argument against the people living there being aggressors.

This reads like it is arguing with some opponent who thinks that there was a violent expansion. That opponent's arguments are not presented in the text. If this is still subject to debate, then both sides need to be presented, with appropriate citations. If it isn't a debate any longer, but a scholarly consensus, then this also needs to be backed up with citations. As it stands now, it looks like POV-pushing. There are similar issues in other sections, I just pointed out this one since it stood out to me the most. I tried to add "citation needed" tags to highlight this but the edit was reverted. 128.243.2.32 (talk) 03:00, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Kristian Kristiansen? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:48, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

The bulk of that section seems to have been made nearly 11 years ago(!) and has gone uncited all that time: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Corded_Ware_culture&type=revision&diff=151350779&oldid=151274675

There should be something to back up these claims, especially in the light of the rest of the article, where it looks as though there's a major debate going on between the geneticists and the archaeologists over just how violent this thing was. Much of the major genetic research cited has been published *after* this bit was written. (btw I'm the same person as the IP 128.243.2.32, just on a different computer) 185.121.5.187 (talk) 17:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

"Eastern outposts"

According to our article, the Corded Ware culture did not exist before 2900 BC, and most definitely not before 3000 BC. However, the same article describes the Middle Dnieper culture and Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture as "eastern outposts" of the Corded Ware, even though both are dated to 3200–2300 BC (according to EIEC, whose datings our articles reflect – does Anthony say anything different?). I don't understand how cultures can arise as outposts of a culture that doesn't exist yet. I get the impression that it is common for archaeologists to link Middle Dnieper and Fatyanovo–Balanovo to the Corded Ware, because of apparent material similarities, but the description seems off. If anything (assumed the 3200 BC datings aren't considerably too early), the Corded Ware should be considered a western outpost of Middle Dnieper.

In fact, there is a similar and related (if less stark) problem at Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture: it states that it "emerged at the northeastern edge of the Middle Dnieper culture, and was probably derived from an early variant of this culture" (cited to Anthony), even though the beginning of both cultures is given as 3200 BC.

I'm really curious what exactly Anthony says in context (I don't have his book), and what the datings he gives are. If it turns out that the oldest finds assigned to the Middle Dnieper culture are actually dated to the third millennium (no earlier than the 29th century BC, anyway), and the oldest Fatyanovo and Balanovo finds even later, the contradictions disappear. Maybe the datings are really not all that reliable or precise. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:37, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Actually, the sentence "The Middle Dnieper culture has very scant remains, but occupies the easiest route into Central and Northern Europe from the steppe" seems to imply that the Middle Dnieper culture is indeed older than the Corded Ware and an intermediate step in the migration from Eastern to Central and Northern Europe, so that the Corded Ware is actually derived from the Middle Dnieper culture (just like Fatyanovo–Balanovo, presumably?) and could indeed be described as its western outpost or extension (and Fatyanovo–Balanovo as its northern extension?). But this conclusion should be clarified and made explicit then. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:10, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

A-ha! According to Anthony, the earliest Middle Dnieper finds are only dated to 2800–2600 BC, after the Corded Ware had definitely already appeared in Central Europe. He doesn't actually give dates for the start and end of Fatyanovo, but implies the finds started even later. This means that although it's not impossible that Middle Dnieper was en route and may actually even have preceded the Corded Ware, the available finds do not support this possibility, so it's justified to talk of the Middle Dnieper and Fatyanovo–Balanovo cultures as eastern outposts of the Corded Ware. The 3200 BC datings shouldn't be trusted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:11, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Finland and the Baltic

Another conundrum: History of Finland § Neolithic claims that the Battle-Axe culture spread from the Baltic region to Finland already in 3200 BC. This is confirmed by Mikko Heikkilä here on p. 22, citing Carpelan & Parpola (2001) (also cited in History of Lithuania § Early settlement) and Salo (2008), although the start date he gives is 3100 BC. Still well before 2900 BC, after which this article dates the origin and expansion of the Corded Ware according to new chronological results. The date of 2800 BC given by all sources for the expansion of the Corded Ware into Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway especially, as the Boat Axe culture), on the other hand, does not conflict with the new dating at all. However, the datings for Finland (and the Baltic region) seem suspect, much too early, and quite possibly outdated.

Considering that History of Poland § Prehistory and protohistory, Prehistory and protohistory of Poland § Bronze and Iron Ages and Bronze- and Iron-Age Poland all cite a date of 2400–2300 BC for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Poland (although it seems that some finds in Poland are attributed to the Single Grave culture, thus possibly dating earlier, given that the Corded Ware is not attributed to the Bronze Age yet, but to the Chalcolithic, and the Chalcolithic is said to start in Poland c. 2900 BC in Stone-Age Poland), it seems hard to imagine that the introduction of the Corded Ware into the Baltic region and into Finland significantly predated 2800 BC, although if the Kiukais culture was indeed preceded by Corded-Ware-like finds, it does seem like it well preceded the expansion of Uralic into Finland c. 2000 BC, as Heikkilä maintains. So 2900–2800 BC for the beginning of the Corded Ware in the Baltic region and Finland is credible, but not 3100 or even 3200 BC. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:35, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Neither wikipedia nor encyclopedia-like

Again somebody reverted my corrections and "enriched" the sources in the text by a full description of the sources (most times journals). This is inadiquate and unneccessarily enlarges the text, because these sources belong into the referece part. Understood???2A02:8108:9640:AC3:598C:602A:CEFB:3236 (talk) 09:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Bell-Beaker origin

"The Bell Beaker culture has been proposed to derive from this specific branch [add.: Single Grave Culture] of the Corded Ware culture." This sentence stands in total contrast to the special article and will be deleted, if not scientifically attested. HJJHolm (talk) 05:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The recent change was not better; so I formulated the outlines in a short sentence myself.HJJHolm (talk) 11:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Lately there's been talk of Single Grave origns for BB again. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

This is in no way helpful! Give your source or keep out, please.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:AD5F:2217:67F1:7B52 (talk) 07:33, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Yamna?

Either "Yama" (Russian noun) or "Yamnaya culture" (after Russian typical adjective construction), which both are preferable instead of the traditional, but ambiguous "pit grave culture", because most graves in areas outside the YC normally tend to be in "pits".2A02:8108:9640:AC3:AD5F:2217:67F1:7B52 (talk) 07:39, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

After the Corded Ware?

What comes after the Corded Ware, 2300–1700 BC? Keep in mind that the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age is traditionally dated to 1800 BC and nowadays even later, to 1700 BC. So we're talking about a span of 600 years, equally long as or even longer than the duration of the Corded Ware period itself! Is the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC still counted as part of the Neolithic/Chalcolithic in Northern Europe? Neolithic Europe does imply so. Does this period not have a name? Is it treated as a late period of the Corded Ware (or Battle Axe culture, etc.)? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:49, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Hallo, Florian, your question is in fact justified. Even after 1830, CWC finds are seldom. It is later followed in Middle Europe by the unluckily termed Hügelgräberzeit (Tumulus period), both partly overlapped by the Unetice/Aunjetitz c. Best, Hans.HJHolm (talk) 07:58, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

CW, western Europe, and R1b

An often-stated oddity is that CW is primarily R1a, while Yamnaya (and BB) is R1b. There have been some R1b finds for CW, though. But what are the scholarly explanations for this oddity? And how did Yamnaya-related R1b reach western Europe, if not with R1a-CW man? Sjögren et al. (2020), Kinship and social organization in Copper Age Europe. A cross-disciplinary analysis of archaeology, DNA, isotopes, and anthropology from two Bell Beaker cemeteries:

All the Bell Beaker male burials with sufficient data in our two cemeteries belong to a single Y-chromosome lineage, R1b-M269, which is the major lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe ancestry in western Europe after 2500 BC. In the preceding and partly contemporary Corded Ware populations of central Europe, another Y-haplogroup dominated, R1a, although R1b also occurs albeit in small numbers [1]. For individuals for whom we can determine the R1b-M269 subtype, we found that all had the derived allele for the R1b-S116/P312 polymorphism, which defines the dominant subtype in central and western Europe today [3]. This represents an extraordinary uniformity along the male line, practically linking all men in both cemeteries and in fact the vast majority of Central European Bell Beaker culture men who are also R1b-S116/P312 positive [3]. However, given that this lineage likely arose several centuries earlier, this uniformity does not necessarily imply a very close paternal relationship between the males, neither of these two communities, nor of Central European Bell Beaker men as a whole.

Also, some hints here? And Anthony (2017), which was dismissed here and here by Davidski ? Yamnaya-expansion into Hungary up to 2600; R1b expansion into western from 2500 BCE? See also this map of the CW, which shows that CW was not one big 'blurb', but several distinct regions, with an 'island' (Globular Amphora?) between east and west. See also Lemercier (2018), envisioning Yamnaya to CW-expansion from Hungary, both northwards and northwestwards. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:45, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
The infamous Carlos Quiles provides an answer: 'It's the Bell Beakers, you stupid!' That is, Mallory (2013), “The spread of Indo-European languages from Alpine Europe may have begun with the Beaker culture"; and Prescott (1995), "The Bell Beaker period is the most, perhaps the only, reasonable candidate for the spread and final entrenchment of a common Indo-European language throughout Scandinavia (and not just Corded Ware core areas of southern and eastern Scandinavia), and particularly Norway”. But, see also Talk:Indo-European migrations#Source check needed: Mallory (2013), The Indo-Europeanization of Atlantic Europe for Carlos' inclusion of Balto-Slavic into NWIE. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 21:47, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the many sources (which I all have on my PC). I have long extracted all BB aDNA from C. Quiles' wonderful "all-ancient-dna-2-07-31-full.xlsx" and sorted them according to time and geography. I cannot draw a convincing conclusion from this. Regarding the BB, the datings are still by far to (self)contradicting, which might partly be due to differences between pure archaeological against pure skeleton datings for aDNA studies. So, Carlos' conclusions often appear very bold. Hans.HJHolm (talk) 08:16, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Haak (2015), Anthony (2017), Heyd (2017), and two bloggers

Seems like Haak's Yamna-Corded Ware connection is not that obvious, after all:

• Volker Heyd (2017), Kossina's smile, European Journal of Archeologist. See also Eurogenes Blog (3 aoril 2017), Latest on Bell Beaker and Corded Ware

Anthony is trying to connect the new dots, proposing a further Yamna-migration from the Danube-valley into souther Poland. See:

• Eurogenes Blog (18 december 2017), Corded Ware as an offshoot of Hungarian Yamnaya (Anthony 2017)
• Indo-European.eu (17 december 2017), The new “Indo-European Corded Ware Theory” of David Anthony
• Indo-European.eu (26 december 2017), The Great Hungarian Plain in a time of change in the Balkans – Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age

some more:

• Martin Furholt (2017), Massive Migrations? The Impact of Recent aDNA Studies on our View of Third Millennium Europe, European Journal of Archeologists

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:14, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I realize I am replying to an old post, but indeed shouldn't the article at least quickly mention the well-known criticism by Heyd? I think in a nutshell he is pointing out Haak, Kristiansen and so on are fudging a bit by implying Yamnaya can be ancestral to Corded Ware when chronologically it can't be. They of course seem to admit it when they suggest the real ancestral group might be a predecessor to Yamnaya, but they do not go into the question of whether this ancestor arrived in Europe before Corded Ware, which Heyd thinks likely. (He sees Bell-beaker as a material culture with genetically different populations, and thinks some of the later ones were IE, as I understand it.) Pre-publication version of his often cited article here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:34, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the problem; the Yamnaya culture is dated 3300–2600 BC, and the Corded Ware doesn't begin earlier than 2900 BC. Even accounting for some uncertainties, there seems to be plenty of time for people from the early Yamnaya culture to migrate to Central Europe in the late 4th millennium BC (perhaps in the context of the migration up the Danube c. 3100–2900 BC) and establish a new culture. At least chronologically, there's nothing amiss; the chronological overlap does not speak against an ancestral relationship, just like in the Middle Dnieper vs. Fatyanovo case. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:01, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

what do we know about the phenotype of corded ware ? Kurgans r us (talk) 01:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Corded ware phenotype?

What do we know about the phenotype of corded ware? Kurgans r us (talk) 01:41, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

They had pear-shaped heads, predominantly snow-white hair, scary purple eyes, and teeth like wolves. Lactase persistence was near 100%, and they wuz tall, tall I say, like giants they wuz... Tewdar (talk) 09:55, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

"The Corded Ware language may be ancestral to the Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic Indo-European languages in Europe"

Wouldn't this also make their language ancestral to Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic? I thought the 'consensus' was that were was a hypothetical Proto-Northwest-Indo-European that was ancestral to not only Proto-Germanic but also Proto-Italic and Proto-Celtic.

Yes, we should certainly include this hypothesis in the article. Tewdar (talk) 22:01, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Wait, it's already there. The lede doesn't mention it, however... Tewdar (talk) 22:03, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

"Massive migration"

Moved from User talk:Joshua Jonathan

We could certainly add more sources to support the Haak study, which has been replicated, from both archaeology and genetics. Perhaps we could add more nuance, but even skeptics like Furholt say that "these new aDNA data are overwhelmingly convincing", and seem to focus on "how rapid" and "how massive", rather than claiming a "pretty big and quite fast" migration didn't occur at all. Tewdar (talk) 08:23, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

How about, "The genetic and archaeological evidence suggests a probable migration into this area from the Pontic–Caspian steppe by migrants carrying Yamnaya-related ancestry from the beginning of the third millennium BC, resulting in the replacement of at least 70% of the ancestry of Corded Ware people" or something like that? Tewdar (talk) 08:44, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The WP:LEAD summarizes the article; the article contains scepticism in this regard. And with good reason: Yamnaya was predominantly R1b, Corded ware R1a. That riddle isn't solved yet. From the article: A more recent study by Papac et al. (2021) found that the majority (55%) of the earliest sampled Corded Ware individuals carried haplogroup R1b-L151, suggesting that the male lineages of Corded Ware populations may originate from a related, pre-Yamnaya, population. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:41, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

"Steppe ancestry" (=Yamnaya-related, WSH, "pre-Yamnaya", etc.) does not mean "Yamnaya" specifically (which I have been trying to make clear, here and elsewhere). Similarly, a "massive migration from the steppe" does not mean a "Yamnaya migration", necessarily. I could try and make this clear in the lede? I think we should state in the lede, however, that there was a substantial population replacement in the 3rd millenium,by eastern migrants carrying "steppe ancestry", however we describe it. Also thank you for moving the discussion here. Tewdar (talk) 12:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

BTW did you read Papac et al. yet? Tewdar (talk) 12:07, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

No, not yet; just found out about it. I'll read it, and give my thoughts; give me a few days. It's interesting. Regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

A lot of interesting stuff... I won't re add that paragraph or similar until you've had a chance to read it, then. Enjoy! Tewdar (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Again: the sentence "Papac et al. (2021) argue that the differences in Y-DNA between early CW and Yamnaya males suggest that the Yamnaya culture did not have a direct role in the origins and expansion of the Corded Ware culture. They found that a majority of early Corded Ware males in Bohemia belonged to R1b-L151, while R1a lineages became predominant over time." makes no sense at all in itself.2A02:8108:9640:AC3:4CE5:6B7:902B:86B (talk) 09:06, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

@ip - what doesn't make sense? How do you suggest we improve it? Tewdar (talk) 17:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Haak et al. (2015):

the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery.

The sentence that I removed:

Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the contact zone between the Yamnaya culture and the Corded ware culture in south Central Europe, to the Rhine on the west and the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The genetic and archaeological evidence supports the likelihood of a "massive migration" into this area from the Pontic–Caspian steppe by migrants carrying Yamnaya-related ancestry

Haak et al. refer to the "heartland of Europe"; the sentence from the lead refers to almost all of nothern Europe. CW spread from this heartland, not from the Pontic steppe, into nothern Europe. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:14, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Also eg Malmström et al. "The genomic ancestry of the Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture people and their relation to the broader Corded Ware horizon"...probably a independent migration from eg Polish CW... Tewdar (talk) 20:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Here are the relevant blogs (yeah, I know you don't like them):

• Eurogenes R1a vs R1b in third millennium BCE central Europe (Papac et al. 2021)
• Razib Khan Funnel Beaker, Corded Ware, Únětice, oh my!
• Indo-European.eu R1b-rich earliest Corded Ware, a Yamnaya-related vector of Indo-European languages

And a neat summary: ScienceDaily:

Once established, individuals of the Corded Ware culture (4,900-4,400 years ago) changed genetically through time. One important change seems to have been the sharp decline in Y-chromosome lineage diversity. Although initially carrying five different Y-lineages, later Corded Ware males carry almost exclusively only a single lineage, essentially being descended from the same man in the recent past. "This pattern may reflect the emergence of a new social structure or regulation of mating in which only a subset of men fathered the majority of offspring," says first author Luka Papac, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
This social structure seems to have been even stricter in the following Bell Beaker society (4,500-4,200 years ago) where every single male sampled belonged to a single, newly introduced Y-lineage. Remarkably, this Bell Beaker Y-lineage is never seen before in Bohemia, implying that a new clan arrived in the region and almost immediately replaced all pre-existing Y-lineages with not a single lineage from Corded Ware or previous societies found among Bell Beaker males.

So, culture carried by males, yet also a replacement of males. "Blut und Boden" does not seem to apply neatly, rather cultural memes and cuckoo-kids. That is, "identity" is not a gentic marker, but a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon. Anyway, what could be added to the lead is something like

The Corded Ware culture originated in Central Europe with the migration of Yamnaya-related people to the "European heartland." From there the CWC spread over northern Europe, acting as a vector for the spread of some or all of the core [etc]."

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:23, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Sounds fine... by the way, I'm a big fan of all the blogs you mention... just not as citations or notes on Wikipedia. 😁 Tewdar (talk) 07:33, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

How about just something like

"The Corded Ware culture is thought to have originated from the westward migration of Yamnaya-related people into the territory of the Globular Amphora culture, and is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of some or all of the core [etc]"

Probably more "future-proof"? Tewdar (talk) 08:15, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

You add the references? By the way, did you notice this, from Carlos Quiles: "In my opinion, the data published in this paper make my ethnolinguistic model no longer valid."? By the way, it was a note, not a citation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

If you're approving the text I suggested, I'll add the references. Yes, I saw the news, Corded Ware no longer speaks Uralic 😁... BTW I wrote "not as citations or notes" Tewdar (talk) 09:14, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Are you happy with that? I changed it to "late neolithic European cultures such as blah blah...",and added the refs. Tewdar (talk) 09:47, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Evidence needed for "some or all" IE languages claim in lede

The lede paragraph ends with the following sentence: "and [Corded Ware] is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of some or all of the core Indo-European languages, excluding the Anatolian languages and Tocharian." with the Allentoft et al 2015 paper cited. However, nowhere in the paper is this claim asserted. Specifically, the paper claims a probable Yamnaya or Yamnaya-related vector for the spread of Indo-European languages as a whole and states that a CW origin for Sintashta is the likeliest scenario over other sources.

While the genetic evidence as of 2021 strongly supports a Corded Ware origin for both Indo-Iranian and NW European languages, newer papers are not cited, and to my knowledge there are no published findings yet supporting a Corded Ware origin for the Greek, Albanian or Armenian branches. This sentence needs further qualification and/or updated references if it should remain. Tigernose (talk) 00:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I changed it to "is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of at least some of the Indo-European languages in Europe." I believe that other sources in the article, not in the lede, also support this claim. If not, such sources certainly exist, and can be added.  Tewdar (talk) 09:48, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Expansion of lede section based on a preprint

@Carlos Eduardo Aramayo B.: I have the following objections to your edits here and in the three other pages (Srubnaya culture, Andronovo culture, Sintashta culture):

1. The source used is a preprint. We don't cite preprints, this is a hard rule: see WP:PREPRINT. Anything can happen with a submitted article: it can be rejected, revised, withdrawn or accepted. As long as it is not accepted, we don't do a favor to our readers by adding content solely based on this one source.
2. The lede section is a summary of the key facts in the article. Nothing should be in the lede that isn't discussed in more detail in one of the sections that follow. Even if the source as already published, it should be added first to the main section that covers the subtopic of the ancestral makeup of the bearers of the CWC. And it should be added with care, since it still will be a WP:primary source. Only then, it could appear in a condensed form in the lede , if it really belongs to the key facts of the section "Genetic studies"
3. Corded Ware is not about a genetic profile. In the first place, it is an archeological culture; genetic research is an exciting yet auxiliary tool for understanding the pattern of spread and replacements of cultural patterns. To put it bluntly: there no is "CWC people" before the archeological record of CWC sets in. Obviously, the bearers of CWC didn't come out of nowhere, but the retroactive reification of culture-related genetic profiles is not how data is presented in mainstream literature, both in archeology and genetics.

Disagreement is not disruptive. You are wrong about that. You made a WP:bold edit, which is perfectly fine, but you cannot enforce your opinion about how an article should look like without seeking consensus with other editors who happen to disagree for a reason. This is how WP:BRD works. And as for WP:ignore all rules, it says: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. But: what actually constitutes an improvement, lies in the eye of the beholder(s). Please discuss, and explain to us why WP:PREPRINT and MOS:LEDE shouldn't apply here. –Austronesier (talk) 20:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Also pinging @Tewdar and @TrangaBellam who also have raised their objections here or in one of the other articles. –Austronesier (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Carlos Eduardo Aramayo B. does not seem to be capable of using talk pages... I don't understand why he's doing this.  Tewdar (talk) 20:21, 28 January 2022 (UTC) Very happy to be proven wrong...  Tewdar (talk) 09:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Well, thanks for explaining your view. The main argument I have for editing this preprint is that it belongs to renowned experts, specially two of them, Nick Patterson and Priya Moorjani, who already contributed to previous works on genetic issues, especially the famous Narasimhan et al. (2018) preprint, of which later (2019) peer-reviewed publication in Science magazine confirmed the findings and datings. Of course the main obstacle I can see is the rejection of preprints coming from bioRxiv that Wikipedia explicitly states, but I argue that Common sense norm can solve it, the credentials of the authors and past serious publications by them. I can also say that, to me, it's important to give the Wikipedia's readers the oportunity to know of the most recent academic research, that's why I argued about Disruptive editing here in the four articles. Regarding that articles like Corded Ware Culture are exclusively archaeology-related, it's evident that its first formulation was intended in that way, but now as other disciplines like genetics developed extensively, articles like these can receive such multidisciplinary contribution, even in the lede section. Of course, if you see my edits, I never put this genetic information above the archaeological one, I put it only as complementary.--Carlos Eduardo Aramayo B. (talk) 05:07, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Hypothetical estimates of time of admixture events using recently developed and unproven software and described in a preprint are unacceptable for the article at all at this stage, let alone the lede. Let's wait for the peer review...  Tewdar (talk) 08:58, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

WP's objective is not to present cutting-edge research, especially when it hasn't gone through peer-review and hasn't been cited by peers yet. Patterson and Moorjani are undoubtedly subject matter experts, but this novel methodology and its results cannot be presented as facts in such a prominent place—even if it already had appeared in a peer-reviewed journal. –Austronesier (talk) 12:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)