The Kurgan builders.

The Caucasus Lower Volga cline (CLV) having both south Caucasian and Eastern European foragers ancestry is a genetic term. The material cultures behind this term were variable but they had one important common feature. Virtually all the samples from CLV cline were found from kurgans. Kurgan is an artificial mound, a tumulus on top of the grave. A kurgan could harbor a single or multiple graves. Given that it requires a lot of manpower it was usually built for elite persons. Smaller kurgans also existed. Other prominent features of kurganic burials in Pontic Caspian steppe were the red ochre, the raised knee position etc. The origins of this tradition are uncertain, and the dates of the oldest kurgans debated but what is well known now that it expanded with Eneolithic (is equal to Chalcolithic) pastoralists (4500-3500bc) who had the CLV ancestry, replacing older local hunter's flat grave tradition. Besides kurgans, we know that those people had a patrilocal and exogamic culture.

Kurganic people moved to north, toward middle Volga region and the Khvalynsk culture (after 4500bc) emerged there. In middle Volga region various branches of haplogroup Q1 were integrated into early steppe pastoralist communities. Q-L939 the branch of Georgian Bagrationi. Q-YP1669, probably Q-F26062 and some others to be found.

They also moved toward the Balkanian peninsula where they mixed with local European farmers where various kurganic cultures emerged (Cernavoda, Usatovo, Suvorovo). This migration has been proposed to be the source of Anatolian languages. Currently there is no evidence that they reached deep into Anatolia. Nevertheless it's possible that some obscure ethnicities like Mysians in Turkish Thrace and north west Anatolia were derived from those migrants. Although a later Yamnayan origin is also possible for them. Yamnayans themselves also had kurgans.

The new "finding" in Lazaridis 2024 paper is about the migration of those kurganic CLV people to south Caucasus. I use brackets because the presence of steppe ancestry in Areni cave was known since 2016. But only now it got an interpretation. This migration apparently occurred at 4300BC a period known as late Chalcolithic which is associated with Chaff faced ware. Chaff ware was not from steppe but had a local Neolithic origin. A syncretic culture emerged. A variant of which is known as Leila tepe culture in what is now Azerbaijan. We have already seen that those chaff groups moved to west toward Anatolia. The R1b-V1636 is associated with this event. We have now three cases of V1636 stretched from Aintab to Sevan basin.

The new proposal of Lazaridis is that they were the IE Anatolians and based on this they propose that the CLV is the place were Indo-Europeans emerged. This is the main difference of this paper from the Lazaridis 2022 in which they placed the homeland of PIE ( or Indo-Anatolians ) in south of Caucasus.

My next post will be about the Indo European origins based on the linguistics and how those known migrations fits into the great picture. Also I will discuss the real number of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia and will show that the current data size is very small for having a good understanding of the situation.

** The first picture is a reconstruction of a kurgan .They are usually eroded over time. This one reconstructed. The second picture is the tumulus of Lydian king Alyattes. This is one of the largest known kurgans.