Comments by "Luis Aldamiz" (@LuisAldamiz) on "Yamnaya Culture: The Most Powerful Culture You May Not Know About..." video.

  1. The oldest known lactase persistance alleles are from the Chalcolithic Basque Country, in fact from the southern Ebro River "frontier" area and from two different "military cemeteries". In both cases the largest population (surely representing Sardinian-like EEF peoples, known to have lived in the area from other sites like Atapuerca) was lactose intolerant (CC allele) and a minority population carried instead the lactose tolerance allele in double form (TT), only two (2/19) individual in the latest of the sites (San Juan Ante Porta Latinam) carried the mixed genetics (lactose tolerant for practical purposes anyhow, CT) and none did in the older site of Longar, emphasizing that these were two distinct populations that had no or barely admixed with each other in those days (c. 2500-3000 BCE, roughly the same dates of earliest Indoeuropean expansion). The second (minority and fully lactose tolerant) population was probably proto-Basque (i.e. admixed with Paleouropeans at c. 40%). Ref. Theo S. Plantiga et al., Low prevalence of lactase persistence in Neolithic South-West Europe. European Journal of Human Genetics 2012. Another issue here pertains to horse domestication: while it's true that the Western or Central Eurasian steppe was a key area of horse domestication and that it provides most of modern horses' genetic roots, there is a secondary area that corresponds roughly with the Iberian Peninsula and that also contributes to modern horse genetics via mtDNA (but not Y-DNA). See: Vera Warmuth et al., European Domestic Horses Originated in Two Holocene Refugia. PLoS ONE 2011. The paper produced high ancestral mtDNA diversity in North Iberia and South France but the archaeological record rather suggest South Iberia as the origin, because there were plenty of horse remains in many sites of that area in the early Chalcolithic (again roughly the same date as the earliest Indoeuropean expansions).
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  2. Nope.
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  3. There is absolutely no correlation between Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. Bell Beaker clearly originated in SW Europe, probably Iberia, 300 years before reaching North-Central Europe (both the Indoeuropean areas and the still pre-Indoeuropean ones in Belgium and the Atlantic Islands). It actually represents a Vasconic pushback and also a replacement of older dominant Sardinian-like genetics by more modern Basque-like (and Irish-like) ones. This last I've been scratching my head about and I suspect may correspond to the bubonic plague that the Indoeuropean invasions brought to Europe: I don't make much sense not just of some Vasconics exterminating other Vasconics but especially doing it at such huge scale (all Western Europe from Scotland to Andalusia), there must have been a previous population collapse. Alternatively or complementarily the end of the Neolithic climate optimum may have also helped, favoring those who were herders and had the ability to digest milk (goats are extremely helpful and also very cheap to maintain even in harsh conditions). It must be said that it was not just Bell Beaker being hegemonic in all Western Europe (and parts of Italy and also in much of the Western Indoeuropean lands of Central Europe) but there were groups that show no or very weak Bell Beaker influence, notably the older Artenacian culture of Western France and Belgium, which was also an archer culture (unlike the Indoeuropean warhammer or "war axe" people). All them were dolmenic-megalithic, showing intense continuity in this aspect with the previous Neolithic and early Chalcolithic cultures (no kurgans here, move along).
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  4.  @CrownTown10  - Why would you think that? Horse domestication seems to have two origins (western steppe and Iberia) because we know of two different mtDNA lineages (but only one of Y-DNA, which is from the steppe) and also because we have abundant evidence of South Iberian horse remains from the Chalcolithic (although the mtDNA basal genetic diversity is now greater in North Iberia). On the other side, the main lactase persistance allele (the European+ one rs4988235-T, there are a few others with limited distribution in the Red Sea area) has a single origin, so, at least in Europe (and derived pops in this trait, such as the Fulani), the allele (and thus the phenotype in as much as it's genetically driven, what is not always clear) must have a single origin. This is IMO somewhere in Aquitaine-Basque Country (again, thus probably related to the expansion of Y-DNA R1b-S116 and Bell Beaker/Artenacian) because it's here where the oldest TT (double lactase persistance allele) is found in minority populations at the military cemeteries of the Ebro (SJAPL and Longar, per Plantiga 2012, "Low prevalence of lactase persistence in Neolithic South-West Europe", EJHG). This strongly suggest that two allied but distinct populations (one CC, lactose intolerant and probably unadmixed EEF, the other TT, lactose tolerant and probably Paleo-admixed proto-Basque) were present in whatever battles those cemeteries represent, they were both present constantly along many centuries (SJAPL is significantly more recent than Longar) and only gradually admixed (SJAPL shows two individuals, 2/19, with CT genotype, Longar none). Also we know from other studies that the consolidation of lactose tolerance in Germany is more recent and even more recent in Hungary. Relatedly Alentoft 2015 had many samples from "Bronze Age" (incl. Chalcolithic) Europe but not Western Europe, not west of the Rhine-North Sea line (in those days ethnic border between Indoeuropeans and Vasconics) and it was extremely striking that they were all lactose intolerant (at least in terms genetic). So, in short, to me it's very clear that lactose tolerance genetics, Y-DNA R1b-S116 and autosomal genetics of the Basque (or ancient Iberian or Insular "Celtic") type are related and expanded primarily with Bell Beaker (but also associated demographic shifts which are a bit more obscure in France and Iberia). A cause for this demographic shift was probably to a large extent the first known bubonic plague, which was brought by the Indoeuropean invasions, but, considering the importance of the LCT genetics, I would also think that famine was a factor (goats are excellent milk producers and extremely cheap to keep, they were the primary source of milk and dairies until recently in Europe). Sorry to not have replied earlier but I missed notification somehow.
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