Chapter 12: Haplogroup Q—Far and Wide
Y-DNA Haplogroup Q originated possibly in Siberia, 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. It split into two branches. Q1a initially stayed in Siberia, and then many of the Q1a2a1a migrated across the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska—Beringia—around 15,000 years ago to 18,000 years ago and into the Americas, where Q became the dominant haplogroup in the Americas among Native Americans. Q became the first humans to reside in the Americas when there were still the saber-tooth cats in North America. No evidence humans hunted Smilodon (saber-tooth cats), though likely they saw one another over the span of thousands of years of co-existence. Q1a1 has been in Siberia since the Paleolithic Era. Today is found in the Siberian population of Kets and Selkups. Q1a also spread west and is associated with steppe invaders into Europe and into the flatlands north of the Caucasus.
The Clovis culture is one of the earliest well-documented archaeological cultures in the Americas, known for its distinctive stone tools and association with the late Pleistocene megafauna. A remains of a man from the Clovis culture found that Q is the dominant haplogroup. Both the remains and the culture date to approximately 13,200 to 12,600 years ago, during the late Pleistocene epoch. The Clovis culture was primarily found in North America, with sites from the U.S. to Mexico and possibly Central America. Key sites include Clovis, New Mexico, Blackwater Draw (NM), and Gault (Texas). Clovis Points were lance-shaped, fluted projectile points , likely used for hunting, crafted from chert, flint, or obsidian via flintknapping. They were attached to spears for hunting megafauna (mammoths, mastodons) and processing game.
The Clovis culture were a Hunter-Gather society that relied on large game and diverse plant resources. They were likely nomadic, following animal herds and seasonal resources. Sites like Monte Verde (Chile, ~14,500 years ago) and others suggest earlier human presence, undermining Clovis as the "first." This has led to alternative migration models (e.g., coastal routes). The Younger Dryas flood event (~12,900–11,700 years ago) ended the Clovis culture, as it did the Iberomaurusian hunter-gatherers and Natufian cereal harvesters in Africa and Asia, respectively. The flood event ended hunter gatherer cultures that hunted of small game, medium game, and large game. It ended cereal gatherers, and other cultures. The denial of this global event should be reserved to pseudo-science. Clovis remains a cultural benchmark, though its "first" status is contested. Ongoing research explores earlier migrations and adaptive strategies in the Americas.
While Q1a mostly stayed in Siberia or went further east, Q1b mostly spread westward from Central Asia into Europe, the Middle East, and down to South Asia during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Turkic and Indo-Iranian tribes spread Q2b into the Northern Middle East from Iran to Turkey. And Indo-Aryans could have brought Q1b2 that is present in a small percentage of the Indian population. Jews also have a minority of Q1b.
Chapter 13: R1 - Genociders and Conquerors
R1 was formed around 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, perhaps in Central Asia, and have deep ancestral roots to Southeast Asia and Eastern Eurasia and Northeast Asia. Several thousand years later, it split into R1a and R1b. Before the Younger Dryas flood there is not much known about R1 migration patterns. We do have non-Steppe Yamnaya R1b into Europe before the flood. With the lack of superior weapons or horses, there was no ability to dominate Europe, as later steppe populations did. Residing in higher terrain, these R1b1 males survived the flood. These could not be violent and genocidal because these early migrants had none of the later tools to successfully replace the male population of much of Europe since they had no superior Bronze Age weapons and had no domesticated horses for raids over 14000 years ago. The early R1b settlements into Central Europe were in the minority and weak and had to share and share alike the land. There was much to share.
R1b made early migrations to Europe before the Younger Dryas event. Residing in higher terrain, these R1b1 males survived the flood. And descendants are found in Mesolithic and Neolithic Baltic settlements and Iron Gates settlements, living in relative peace with their neighbors. The same is true in Bohemia for R1b-V88 males in Neolithic Central Europe without superior strength, forced to dwell among many various people of Europe [Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe, Luka Papac et al, 2021;
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi6941]. These were a non-Indo-European population of R1b in Europe. These lines could have struggled to survive the latter violent steppe invasion from the steppe Yamnaya.
Soon after the flood, R1b migrants from the north went into Africa via the Sinai or across the Red Sea. There they settled in the region of north-central Africa when the Sahara was green. North Africa and Central Africa could have been totally wiped clean by the flood, and new settlers were ready to colonize vacant land. These migrations eventually transformed many of Chad's tribes to have, on average, between 15 to 20% R1b, according to early studies in Chad.
The chapter on G men explained about how the ancestors of the Steppe raiders got the horse, from the idea of domestication by being traded or given domesticated cattle as gifts. For many tens of thousands of years, man hunted horses in Northern Eurasia, since Cro-Magnon. Ancestors of man since at least 500,000 years ago hunted the horse. Never did they domesticate and do wholesale riding of domesticated horses and bred domesticated horses. Only once given the idea of domestication of animals, in this case cattle, did the hut dwelling primitive population on the steppe realize they could domesticate animals, and so the steppe (perhaps Sredny Stog) culture tried it on horses and succeeded, as history has shown indications. From these steppe populations that later rode the horse did over 1/2 of European males descend from. From this group did originate the proto-IE of later slavic and celtic. They spread from the horse and violence.
As mentioned in the chapter on G men, in the Steppe Ukraine, there was many different groups, languages and races. Old Europe straddled into the openland of the beginning of the Steppe that stretched to Mongolia. There was a peace kept for thousands of years because those predisposed towards generational violence, as you will see in this chapter, were not given the means to commit wholesale genocide yet. Populations in the Middle East and Old Europe had copper and bronze tools and weapons first, yet did not descend to zero-sum barbarism.
About 1/5 of the global population is from R Steppe pastoralists of R-L23 mutation lineage and R-Z645 mutation lineage, a very recent mutation; this occurred because of the male population replacement of Europe and the expansion of the Steppe population in South Asia. The population of Europe, pre-invasion, was filled with G farmers and I hunter-gatherers, many of whom had taken up farming and pastoralism from the G men. G men in the highly farmable central/southern half of Europe. And I-men dominating the northern half and residing in the southern half of Europe. After the invasion, Europe has not been the same since; Europe went barbarian Indo-European. Over 50% of Europe descended from only two Bronze Age leaders. Genghis Khan did not leave such a horrible record of conquest and rape in the fact that 16 million males today descend from paternal lines from Genghis Khan and family. The genocide spree of Genghis Khan of 40 million did not reach this slaughter and rape from the Steppe invaders over a 1000 years in Europe. In the chapter on G men, we learned G men taught pastoralism and domestication to the R1 steppe hunter-gatherers. This helped give them the idea of the domestication of horses, as previously mentioned. The Old Europe civilization also gave gifts and traded copper to the steppe hunter-gatherers. Likely from the Maykop, the Steppe Yamnaya got the technology for bronze. With their previous use of horses and weapons to destroy the Old Europe civilization for the first Homo sapiens genocide in Europe, steppe invaders with bronze weapons began the conquest, destruction, and genocide of Neolithic and Copper Age Europe, taking women and land and leaving death and genocide behind. R1a wiped out many of the Neolithic male population of Europe via the Corded Ware culture. R1b replaced the male population of Western Europe, hitting Central Europe first. The R1b Steppe invaders gradually became known as the Bell Beaker Culture, though there is evidence the specific pottery predates Steppe invasions. In Scandinavia, I2 were mostly replaced by successive waves of steppe invaders. I1 survived, mostly due to their entry into the Bronze Age, partly due to their confidence and strength. This gave birth to Vikings, half barbarian/half civilized warriors that saw neighbors as us vs. them and lacked the morality to resist pillaging and raping that was done to them and was unheard in Europe pre-steppe invasion on such a vast total genocide wide scale. Scandinavia turned into a hellscape as much of Europe did with the Steppe Y-DNA R1 invaders. The Y-DNA I1 of Northern Europe did not know the world still survived in peace outside of Europe, as their whole world went to hell by invading barbarians, with the those adopt bronze technology surviving. Many of them witnessing their I2 European hunter gatherer brothers get replaced out of the history books.
The Baltic region was majority Y-DNA I before Bronze Age invaders using superior weapons killed the natives. After the invasion by genocidal Y-DNA Steppe barbarians, the Baltic region went 100% Steppe R1 according to the paper, “The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region” by Alissa Mittnik et al 2015, replacing the native population, while pockets could be found to have survived, genetic evidence shows that in most regions of Europe, R1 steppe invaders replaced the male population.
In the paper, "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe" [Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, Wolfgang Haak et al, 2015;
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14317] It shows about a 75% population replacement of the native male lines in Central Europe. After Central Europe, the steppe invaders moved into modern-day France and the Netherlands. The native Neolithic G men and I men were mostly wiped from the gene pool, and their females that did not die defending their husbands and sons ended in the hands of Steppe male invaders. These steppe invaders did not check IDs for restrictions on rape, it would have been similar to the rearguard of the Red Army during WWII. From 8 to 80. It is clear that Steppe males had a policy of excluding Neolithic European males from sex and reproduction through violence against the native females and violence against the native males, resulting in the male lines being nearly wiped out. This was the foundation of Indo-European identity in Europe.
For the France Beaker era, the same story of male replacement. Y-DNA R1 was found in Beaker France, during the Bronze Age, among these studies:
The Beaker Phenomenon and the Genomic Transformation of Northwest Europe, Iñigo Olalde et al, 2017;
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/135962v1
Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Nick Patterson et al, 2021;
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04287-4
Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history, Samantha Brunel et al, 2020;
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/20/1918034117
A rough estimate of 18/22 samples showing over 80% male population replaced in a combination of the above studies in Bronze Age France.
These studies provide data on Y-DNA R1 found in Beaker Britain during the Bronze Age at various sites in the British Isles:
The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe, Iñigo Olalde et al, 2018;
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25738
Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Nick Patterson et al, 2021;
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04287-4
The Beaker Phenomenon and the Genomic Transformation of Northwest Europe, Iñigo Olalde et al, 2017;
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/135962v1
A rough estimate of 35/37 samples were Steppe R1 during the Beaker Era of Britain. Nearly a 95% male replacement rate according to these samples. The Y-DNA G farmers and Y-DNA I native Europeans were nearly totally replaced in a genocide.
A research paper “Long-term hunter-gatherer continuity in the Rhine-Meuse region was disrupted by local formation of expansive Bell Beaker groups” by Olalde et al. 2025 compiled unpublished and published samples from the Mesolithic to Bronze Age Rhine-Meuse region and found over 90% of the pre-Steppe invasion populations were Haplogroup I. The remainder were pre-Younger Dryas European populations of one C sample and two R1b-V88 non-Steppe samples that were present in Western and/or South Central Europe before the Younger Dryas Event. These three samples were in addition to many dozens of I samples in the region before the Steppe invasion. After the barbarians on horse entered the region at the end of the Neolithic Period, a near total replacement of the male population ensued with 100% of the Beaker/bronze age samples being Steppe R1b - 12/12 or 13/13 samples - depending on the start of the period to tally. And several possible samples of neolithic native mtDNA women with the steppe-associated invader males (K2b1a, H1a, H4a1a1a, T2b) to show the males were vastly replaced and the females were taken into the conquerors domain.
“Long-term hunter-gatherer continuity in the Rhine-Meuse region was disrupted by local formation of expansive Bell Beaker groups” by Olalde et al. 2025;
https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.24.644985
Two genetic studies on the Bronze Age Unetice Culture. One study “Kinship practices at the early bronze age site of Leubingen in Central Germany” Penske et al (2024) had 25 Steppe R1 Samples and one (likely native) I2a2a. That is over 96% population replacement from the neolithic natives. Another study: “Tracing social mechanisms and interregional connections in Early Bronze Age Societies in Lower Austria” Furtwängler et al (2025) had 36 out of 40 Bronze Age Unetice Culture as Steppe R1, no V88s noted. That is a 90% replacement rate from a genocide. The Unterwölbinger Culture was shown to be 8/9 Steppe R1.
Tracing social mechanisms and interregional connections in Early Bronze Age Societies in Lower Austria”, Furtwängler et al (2025);
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.10.636471v1
“Kinship practices at the early bronze age site of Leubingen in Central Germany”, Penske et al (2024);
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54462-6
A rough estimate of 24/27 Bronze Age males in Spain were Steppe. Here are the sample studies:
A western route of prehistoric human migration from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula, G. González-Fortes et al, 2019;
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2018.2288
The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years, Iñigo Olalde et al, 2019;
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6432/1230
Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Nick Patterson et al, 2021;
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04287-4
Four millennia of Iberian biomolecular prehistory illustrate the impact of prehistoric migrations at the far end of Eurasia, Cristina Valdiosera et al, 2018;
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1717762115
The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe, Iñigo Olalde et al, 2018;
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25738
Showing nearly a 90% male population replacement in Iberia by the end of the Bronze Age. This is Death Camp level of replacement of the population prompting the headline from one study showing a total population replacement: “The invasion that wiped out every man from Spain 4,500 years ago” (The invasion that wiped out every man from Spain 4,500 years ago, Manuel Ansede, 2018;
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/03/inenglish/1538568010_930565.html). Finding: According to Olalde “40% of the genetic information and 100% of the Y chromosomes come from the migrants”. Given that children inherit the Y chromosome from their fathers, “this means that the men who arrived had preferential access to local women, again and again,” said Reich at the September event.” It can be explained by exclusion of reproduction via bride stealing and threat of violence, or if resistance or the barbarians see you as a threat, that threat is eliminated. Again and again across most of Europe, the reproducing local women end in the invaders huts and the native male Y lineage almost completely wiped out of the gene pool. Neolithic and Copper Age Europe was not hunter gatherers displaced to different hunting grounds, these were very large populations of farmers and herdsmen that were displaced off their land and left unable to reproduce by a hostile invader with superior weapons and the means to take land, possessions and women. For another group of invaders of the same period, such a task would have been an impossible task, yet the invaders had the means to raid, kill and steal with relative ease and that is what the anthropological evidence shows, a population replacement by those only with the means to to do the deed.
To further prove that this was not climate change or a global flood that washed away the Is and the Gs to leave the Steppe population to take over Europe, a 100% European Neolithic woman was found in the dwelling of a Steppe male in Central Europe at the beginning of the Steppe invasion of Europe and displacement of the Neolithic male population. To find these smoking guns means this happened in thousands of other cases. No study has shown that neolithic woman had the plague, though a detailed study could provide further evidence. Neolithic women were assaulted, and the Neolithic males were removed from breeding, either in violence against the males or simply taking women in raiding parties. There is evidence of violence against Europeans from the Balkans to Western Europe by steppe barbarians. [The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe by Olalde et al. (2018)] [Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe by Morten E. Allentoft et al.] [Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia by Kristian Kristiansen et al.]
"Only toward the latest stages of the Neolithic (in Europe), the concept of specialized warriorhood slowly started to emerge. The perpetrators of violence might have become more clearly defined, while lethal raids and indiscriminate massacres still occurred, as multiple examples show (e.g., refs. (38, 70, and 71)). In the following Bronze Age, the face of conflict changed even further, to include specialized weapons of violence and large-scale battles likely fought by dedicated warriors (72)." [Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe, Linda Fibiger et al, 2023]
The 2021 Papac et al. study on Corded Ware migrations in Bohemia found abrupt cultural replacement and genetic turnover, which could be linked to violent takeover [
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi6941]. "Europe’s prehistory oversaw dynamic and complex interactions of diverse societies, hitherto unexplored at detailed regional scales. Studying 271 human genomes dated ~4900 to 1600 BCE from the European heartland, Bohemia, we reveal unprecedented genetic changes and social processes. Major migrations preceded the arrival of “steppe” ancestry, and at ~2800 BCE, three genetically and culturally differentiated groups coexisted. Corded Ware appeared by 2900 BCE, were initially genetically diverse, did not derive all steppe ancestry from known Yamnaya, and assimilated females of diverse backgrounds. Both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups underwent dynamic changes, involving sharp reductions and complete replacements of Y-chromosomal diversity at ~2600 and ~2400 BCE". They mention warfare in their interpretation, specifically "possibly due to increased conflict between male-mediated patrilines". "Our results suggest that the Y-lineage diversity in early CW males was supplanted by a nonrandom process [selection, social structure, or influx of nonlocal R1a-M417(xZ645) lineages] that drove the collapse in Y-chromosomal diversity." [Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe, Luka Papac et al, 2021;
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi6941]
On the taking of women from Neolithic males: "Furthermore, women were not related to the men within the household, suggesting that men stayed within their birth communities in this society, but women did not." [Kinship-based social inequality in Bronze Age Europe, Alissa Mittnik et al, 2019;
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax6219] There was no widespread survival of Neolithic males from taking Steppe women in bride exchanges; this disposing of Neolithic women to Steppe invaders was therefore not in the benefit of the Neolithic male population in every way, which means these Neolithic women were taken in violence or threat of violence. With violence happening to the woman for the remainder of her existence. This clears the false notion that 100% of ancient and prehistory man was bad and backward. There were racial groups that were trying to build community and racial groups trying to destroy community. It was not there was genocide and abuse equally dispersed among races and tribes. There were certain groups that made it their identity and way of carrying on their lines.
The Steppe invaders had access to vast amounts of copper for bronze weapons from various sources in Europe and beyond. Horses were also very numerous to give the two main ingredients to raiding on horse. "Fortifications and Warfare in the Neolithic/Chalcolithic Transition" Kristiansen et al. (2017) argues that the Corded Ware Culture (a Yamnaya-derived group) spread through militarized migration, as evidenced by fortified settlements and weapon-rich burials. Links the rise of warrior identities to steppe-derived groups displacing Neolithic communities. "It remains beyond question that the observed change in the gene pool must have involved the migration of people." The replacement of the native male lines of Neolithic Europe was due to the migration of the Steppe raiders on horse.
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Anthony synthesizes archaeological evidence of horse-based warfare and fortified sites during the Yamnaya expansion. Suggests Steppe groups used military advantages (e.g., horses, wheeled vehicles) to dominate Neolithic populations. [The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David Anthony, 2007]. About two decades ago the archaeological sites proved violent conflict ended Neolithic Europe and Copper Age Europe. With many research papers since painting the genetic picture of the culprits and the victims of that population replacement.
The whole body of evidence paints the same picture of the genocide of Neolithic Europe by steppe invaders that replaced male lines throughout much of Europe for land and women, because the invaders had the means to accomplish this task with ease.
Here are summaries of several reports.
Genetic Replacement and Y-Chromosome Shifts
Haak et al. (2015): "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe."
Found a ~75% genetic turnover in Central Europe during the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, linked to Yamnaya-related migrations.
Y-chromosome lineages (male-inherited) shifted almost entirely to steppe-associated haplogroups (e.g., R1b), while mtDNA (female-inherited) retained more Neolithic diversity. This implies that incoming Yamnaya males largely replaced local Neolithic males, while Neolithic women were integrated into the new populations.
Sex-Biased Admixture in the Corded Ware Culture
Goldberg et al. (2017): "Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations"
Analyzed X-chromosome data and found that Bronze Age migrations (e.g., Corded Ware) involved primarily male steppe descendants mixing with local Neolithic women. This created a stark asymmetry in ancestry, with steppe ancestry more pronounced on the Y chromosome than the X chromosome.
Patrilocal Societies and Female Integration
Mittnik et al. (2019): "Kinship-based social inequality in Bronze Age Europe"
Studied kinship in Early Bronze Age Germany and found that women often married into patrilocal groups, while male lineages remained steppe-derived. This supports a model where Neolithic women were assimilated into Yamnaya-descended groups, whereas local male lineages were marginalized.
Violence and Male Displacement
Anthony (2020): "Archaeology, Genetics, and Language in the Steppes: A Comment on Bomhard"
Discusses evidence of horse-based warfare and territorial conquests by Yamnaya groups, suggesting that Neolithic males may have faced higher mortality due to conflict, while women were incorporated as spouses.
Iberian Case Study
Olalde et al. (2019): "The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years."
In Iberia, the arrival of steppe ancestry correlated with a near-complete replacement of Y-chromosomes but continuity in mtDNA, reinforcing the pattern of male-driven migration and female assimilation.
The dominance of steppe-derived Y-chromosomes and persistence of Neolithic mtDNA suggest that Neolithic men experienced lower survival or reproductive success, possibly due to violent conflict, social practices and assimilation of women. Skeletal evidence of trauma in Neolithic males (e.g., mass graves) supports heightened mortality. Patrilocal and patriarchal Yamnaya societies may have excluded Neolithic males from reproduction. Neolithic women likely survived through integration into Yamnaya groups, contributing to mtDNA continuity. This aligns with practices of exogamy or captive-taking documented in anthropological studies.
While no single study explicitly quantifies "survival rates" of Neolithic males vs. Neolithic females, the cumulative genetic and archaeological evidence strongly supports a scenario where European Neolithic women had higher rates of assimilation into Yamnaya-descended populations, while Neolithic men faced displacement, violence, or exclusion from mating. Key mechanisms include male-biased migration, warfare, and patriarchal social structures. For further reading, consult the cited papers and broader literature on Bronze Age demographic shifts.
Now building the criminal case that it was violence, not disease, that ended many of the Neolithic men:
In a criminal inquiry and criminal case, there is the suspect, motive, scene of the crime, and weapon. Did the Steppe Yamnaya fill these suspect, motive, scene and weapon in displacing and replacing the native male population of Neolithic Western Europe and Spain.
Scene and Suspect: The Yamnaya people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe are the primary suspects in the demographic replacement of Neolithic males in Western Europe and Spain. The Steppe Yamnaya were at the scene of the replacement event. And took native European women in Spain and Western Europe, as revealed in the above studies mentioned. The arrival of Yamnaya-associated groups in Europe (circa 3000–2500 BCE) coincides with a dramatic genetic turnover, particularly in Y-chromosome lineages. The Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures, which spread across Central and Western Europe, are genetically linked to the Yamnaya and show evidence of steppe ancestry.
Weapon: The Steppe Yamnaya had superior Bronze Age weapons compared to the Neolithic Western European natives and Neolithic Spain natives. Also, the Steppe Yamnaya had horses, giving them the ability to overpower villagers in raids for land or women. The Yamnaya possessed advanced Bronze Age weaponry, including metal tools, axes, and daggers, which were superior to the stone tools of Neolithic Europeans. The Yamnaya were among the first to domesticate horses, giving them a significant military and logistical advantage. Horses enabled rapid mobility, raiding capabilities, and the ability to control large territories. Archaeological sites from this period show signs of increased warfare, including fortified settlements, mass graves, and skeletal trauma, particularly affecting Neolithic males.
Motive: The Steppe Yamnaya were likely polygamists, leaving many steppe males with the desire for females and the means to take some females from the local populations. Also, if it were a non-polygamous invasion, a near-total replacement of the male population and the genetic evidence that the women survived in much larger numbers and percentages than their native male counterparts helps prove there was the taking of the native females in Western Europe and Spain, aside from the invaders being highly polygamous or not, in taking many spouses or not. The near-total replacement of Neolithic Y-chromosomes during the Bronze Age and the survival of Neolithic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) indicate that Yamnaya males integrated Neolithic women into their societies while displacing or killing Neolithic males. The Yamnaya were pastoralists who relied on grazing lands for their herds. Competition for land and resources could have driven violent conflicts with Neolithic agriculturalists.
Arguing against this forceful steppe invasion is the debate that since there was disease during the centuries of the steppe invasion, disease killed off most of the native men, leaving many native women alive. Arguing the Bronze Age Steppe invaders of Europe had better immunity against the disease/plague than the Neolithic and Copper Age Europeans. This "disease only" to blame for the replacement of the male population is false because of two reasons.
One: If the false argument that there was no violence and that "disease only" killed off the native males is true, then bride exchanges would explain the peaceful means by which steppe invaders got their women. This false assumption, if no immunity was passed to children of Neolithic local women and steppe males, the local mtDNA would have declined severely as the plague would have wiped out the local women's steppe children in a similar magnitude to the native and local Y-DNA depopulation that is blamed solely on disease and the plague by this false argument of "disease only". If there was no bride stealing and it was instead bride exchanges between steppe invaders and the local population, the neolithic males, in this false assumption of a more peaceful interaction, would in bride exchanges with the steppe invaders have had children with steppe females, giving the same innate immunity to their children that was given to the children of steppe males and local women that did survive. The false "disease only" and "peaceful interactions" argument rests on the idea that disease wiped out the male Y-DNA lines in a peaceful bride exchange scenario. Yet the mtDNA lines of the local women survived the plague or diseases that killed off about 90% or more of the local male lines in Netherlands, Britain and Spain. Thus, proving the group with horses and better weapons engaged in bride stealing and displacing the local male population. In summary, if disease were the sole factor, both male and female lineages would have been equally affected. However, the persistence of Neolithic mtDNA alongside the near-total replacement of Neolithic Y-chromosomes suggests a sex-biased process, consistent with violence and bride-stealing rather than a neutral disease event. If peaceful bride exchanges had occurred, we would expect to see some Neolithic Y-chromosomes surviving alongside neolithic mtDNA. The absence of Neolithic Y-chromosomes and the dominance of steppe Y-chromosomes point to the violent displacement of Neolithic males. In summary, if Neolithic women and their children with Yamnaya males had no immunity to local diseases, their mtDNA lines would have declined alongside Neolithic Y-chromosomes. The survival of Neolithic mtDNA suggests that disease was not the primary driver of male lineage replacement. If peaceful interactions (e.g., bride exchanges) had occurred, Neolithic males would have had children with Yamnaya women, passing on any Steppe immunity advantages. The tiny amounts of Neolithic Y-chromosomes in the genetic record contradicts this scenario.
Two: Looking at diseases in history, the plague would not kill off most males as the only reason why a male population was completely replaced or a near-total replacement of the male population, while the local female lines survived. The first reason why "disease only" fails is supported and enhanced by the second. Here is the second reason why "disease only" killed off most or all Neolithic and Copper Age males in Western Europe and Spain is false. Historically, diseases tended not to wipe out whole populations, leaving vacant land for invaders, especially with invaders that fit the suspect, scene, motive, and weapon, taking the land and many of the local women. Justinian's Plague is a case of a plague causing massive reductions in population. Did that wipe out the residents of the Eastern Roman Empire, leaving it to be invaded and leaving the Byzantine male population to be nearly replaced by Iranian or Arab settlers. The plague weakened the Eastern Roman Empire to make it susceptible to violent invasions, though it does not wash away the violations and offenses of violent military conquest by invaders. I am trying to find another case in ancient history where a disease wipes out a male population during an invasion, leaving the native female population. While the native male population gets a near-total replacement by new invaders, those same invaders have absorbed the native female population into their own population. This disease-only argument seems to be a poor excuse invented because the descendants of the Indo-Europeans don't want their ancestors, their forefathers, to be labeled as violent invaders of Europe that were mostly responsible for wiping out the local native population of Neolithic Western Europe, Spain and beyond. Another case is the Black Death. Europe survived the Black Death. Europe without modern medicine, with primitive medicine, survived the Black Death. Survived the plague. Europe recovered from the Black Death (1347–1351 CE) without a complete demographic replacement.
The near total replacement of the male population in Spain or the near-total replacement of the male population in Britain would not likely be from solely a plague or other disease. There have to be factors causing the male replacement and higher rates of female survival.
The Native Americans were hit with disease and conquest, and the locations where Europeans allowed Native Americans to continue living still have Native American paternal Y-DNA lines today, and the locations where Europeans expelled Native Americans to move them away into reservations no longer have significant Native American populations after being expelled from those locations. Smallpox causing the death of millions of Native Americans did not end the Native Americans. It was the choice of the European colonists that determined the fate of the Native Americans, not disease, though disease killed such a large percentage of Native Americans in many locations throughout the Americas. It was conquerors with superior weapons that took advantage of both the Native Americans unpreparedness for European diseases and took advantage of their own European superior strength in arms to have Europeans colonize the Americas. Disease alone cannot explain the loss of Native American land to the Europeans and European empires. Nor did smallpox totally wipe out the Native Americans from a specific vast region of the Americas. While diseases like smallpox decimated Native American populations, the ultimate displacement of Native Americans was driven by European colonization, warfare, and land expropriation, not disease alone.
I am arguing the only plausible reason for the replacement of the Chalcolithic and Neolithic male population of Western Europe and Chalcolithic and Neolithic Spain was the action of the steppe invaders to displace the male population and take some of the native women. Because if the standard was not bride exchanges, bride stealing is a sign of more violent or forceful invasion and contact. Bride stealing is the probable reason why Chalcolithic and Neolithic males were replaced by steppe males. Conflicts over women and land could have led to violent encounters over the centuries of gradual steppe invasions into Europe. Violence or superior strength led to the displacement of the male locals of Chalcolithic and Neolithic Western Europe and Spain.
The evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the Yamnaya were responsible for the violent displacement of Chalcolithic and Neolithic males in Western Europe and Spain. The combination of superior weapons, horse-based mobility, and polygamous or bride-stealing practices created a scenario where native women were integrated into Yamnaya societies, while native males were marginalized or killed. Disease may have played a secondary role, but it cannot explain the sex-biased genetic patterns observed in the archaeological record.
The Yamnaya fit the profile of the "suspect" in this demographic replacement event, with motive (competition for resources and women), weapons (advanced technology and horses), and opportunity (military superiority). The "disease-only" hypothesis fails to account for the specific genetic and archaeological evidence, making it an inadequate explanation for the near-total replacement of Neolithic male lineages.
(Haak et al. (2015): "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe"
Goldberg et al. (2017): "Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations"
Olalde et al. (2019): "The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years"
Anthony (2020): "Archaeology, Genetics, and Language in the Steppes: A Comment on Bomhard")
These studies provide substantial evidence for the Yamnaya's role in the demographic and cultural transformation of Neolithic Europe. What happened to Old Europe in clear evidence of violence continued in the same actions undertaken against the rest of Europe. Thus this can never be explained away as solely disease or solely climate change.
Whereas Neolithic Europe faced wholesale genocide as a result of the Steppe Invasion, the Middle East also faced Steppe invasions; their existing Bronze Age civilization and Bronze Age tools made wiping out the population much more difficult. Civilizations, with farming, writing, trade, and later metalwork having sprung up in the Middle East, were an ancient goose that lays the golden eggs. Barbarians would not want to destroy such jewels; ruling over them was a more profitable venture. So the Mitanni, a likely R1 nation, and perhaps the Kassites, that could have been R1, sought to rule the Middle Eastern populations rather than exterminate them. Disease did not kill the Middle East populations; climate change did not kill the Middle East population. The Middle East survived because it was not only vastly more prepared to defend itself because the Bronze Age originated there; the Middle Eastern civilizations were a wealth creation for the rulers of the said civilizations. So there is ample reason to kill off most of the Neolithic males via violence or bride stealing to get land and women. And ample reason why the Middle East survived a limited number of steppe invasions.
Take the Steppe invasion into South Asia as another example. Here it was the combination of two. In ancient India and ancient parts of Pakistan, during the Indo-Aryan invasion, there was the appeal to both keep the wealth-creating civilization going by not exterminating the population, though the Indo-Aryans took the most women where the Indo-Aryans settled in North India. In the course of a many generations, a limited number of steppe invaders in Northern India went from 0 to 60% of the population by taking the women these self-imposed rulers wanted.
That R1 Indo-Europeans were genociders is scientifically conclusive; most of what I am writing, others can arrive at different conclusions; here it is definitive. It is not merely possible or likely; it is science proving this genocide took place. Next is their descendants seeking to whitewash this true history, blaming it on climate change and disease. It happened immediately after the research papers were published confirming Indo-Europeans are uncivilized barbarians that stole European women and land and have yet to return both.
Central Europe – over 75% population replacement of males based on available studies -
Britain - over 90% population replacement of males based on available studies -
Spain - near 90% population replacement of males based on available studies -
France - over 80% population replacement of males based on available studies -
Netherlands - near 100% population replacement of males based on available studies -
West Germany - over 90% population replacement of males based on available studies -
Baltic nations - near 100% population replacement of Neolithic males by the end of the Bronze Age based on available studies -
The study, "Y-chromosome haplogroups from Hun, Avar, and conquering Hungarian period nomadic people of the Carpathian Basin" [
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53105-5] showed 2/3 of Huns in modern-day Hungary during the Hunnic period were R1. R1 are natural barbarians. Attila the Hun was surrounded by R1 Hunnic soldiers. On the elite Huns, a 2018 study (Neparáczki et al.) analyzed remains from elite Hun graves in Hungary showed several with R1a and R1b.
Elite barbarian Xiongnu males show genetic ties to primarily West Eurasian (R1a) and secondarily Siberian (Q1a) populations in the 2020 Study (A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe - Jeong et al.;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420313210) Siberian and Mongol Xiongnu were barbarians with Steppe R1 barbarian leaders leading a Siberian and Mongolian population to raid, kill, and pillage. The Great Wall of China was constructed to keep these barbarians out. As the Indo-Europeans were to Europe, the Indo-Iranians were to the Middle East, the Indo-Aryans were to South Asia, and the "Elite R1 dominated Xiongnu" were to East Asia, trying to Indo-fy East Asia, despite the common Xiongnu tribes being perhaps Mongolian or Turkic. China and the Middle East resisted the steppe invaders. South Asia and Europe are still under their yoke. Why are the Middle East and China not over 60% Indo-European/Aryan, the answer is because they were not genocided nearly out of existence. Immigration and migration reduced Europe's Indo-European population from about 80-90% to 50-60% over the centuries.
The "New Scientist", a popular science magazine, featured an article on the Steppe Yamnaya titled "Story of the most murderous people of all time revealed in ancient DNA." With the subtitle "Starting 5000 years ago, the Yamnaya embarked on a violent conquest of Europe. Now genetic analysis tells their tale for the first time".
"The iconic sarsen stones at Stonehenge were erected some 4500 years ago. Although the monument’s original purpose is still disputed, we now know that within a few centuries it became a memorial to a vanished people. By then, almost every Briton, from the south coast of England to the northeast tip of Scotland, had been wiped out by incomers. It isn’t clear exactly why they disappeared so rapidly. But a picture of the people who replaced them is emerging.
The migrants’ ultimate source was a group of livestock herders called the Yamnaya who occupied the Eurasian steppe north of the Caucasus mountains and Black Sea. Britain wasn’t their only destination. Between 5000 and 4000 years ago, the Yamnaya and their descendants colonized swathes of Europe, leaving a genetic legacy that persists to this day. Their arrival coincided with profound social and cultural changes. Burial practices shifted dramatically, a warrior class appeared, and there seems to have been a sharp upsurge in lethal violence. “I’ve become increasingly convinced there must have been a kind of genocide,” says Kristian Kristiansen at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. As he and others piece together the story, one question resounds: were the Yamnaya the most murderous people in history?"[
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...s-people-of-all-time-revealed-in-ancient-dna/]
There is some evidence that hunter gatherers persisted until the end of Neolithic Britain. Perhaps some I2 extended their survival into Bronze Age Britain precisely because the farmers took the observable open land and the hunter-gatherers were pushed into more covert and hidden places of Britain. When the genociders arrived about 4500 years ago in Britain, those out in the open were subject to raids and pillaging. Hunter Gatherers, already pushed into the dark and highlands, were not the first victims of the barbarians. The invaders would take women and land from the most visible regions first and most.
As was pointed out, seed is identity; your Y-DNA is your identity. If you find a human with Neanderthal Y-DNA, that human is really a Neanderthal. Barbarians celebrating nationalism and their barbarian heritage is barbarism. It is the case of the Mongols. It is also the case of Aryan Indo-Europeans. If a group only knitted clothes for tens of thousands of years, celebrating their history and traditions is not barbarism; it is cultural. Not every group is equal, as in the case of celebrating Mongol history. Barbarians ruined their history with evil. Celebrating a paternal line that only knit clothes is completely different than celebrating Aryan Indo-Europeans that genocided Europe for over 1000 years. The reason why you cannot celebrate barbarians is not your fault; it is the barbarians and their ancestors' fault. They have a problem with their family, with their identity, that is not your fault. It is the reason why we don't celebrate Hitler Day or Stalin Day, or we lose our humanity to barbarism and evil.
The steppe invasion of Europe was not a one-day event that can be explained by climate change. A volcanic eruption in about 2900 BCE could not cause 400 years later to have the native male population be replaced in Spain and Britain with the native women with only Steppe males. Volcanoes don't do that. The Steppe invasion spanned over 1000 years with signs of violence along the way. With signs of replacing the male population along the way. With signs the native female population ended assaulted by the invaders via bride-stealing raids on horseback. It cannot be explained by a one event flood because the neolithic and copper age male population was replaced over 100 years as the steppe barbarians got in contacted with the various regions and people. So there was no flood 6000 years ago, as there had to be yearly global flood to wash away the neolithic and copper age population of Europe to explain this by a flood. Neolithic Europe had a bottleneck of male lines when farming started to explode in Europe. The same thing happened in Asia. If not for farming and pastoralism, the human global population would be in the millions, not billions. However there was no near total population replacement by farmers, more of a population explosion of select lines due to the near endless children that combined farming and herding can sustain. [There was a decline of male diversity when humans took to agriculture, 2015;
https://theconversation.com/there-w...versity-when-humans-took-to-agriculture-38725]. The reason for the lack of male diversity is often those populations that got humans to billions in population and not mere millions were farmers and pastoralists. Meaning those farmer lines contributed to a decline in male diversity by the sheer number of children they could support with vast lasts of farms and livestock. When the Steppe pastoralists took over Europe, Europe was already claimed by farmers and pastoralists. And the woods often had hunter-gatherers. First farmers explode in population because of the free land to grow and herd. Europe was farming for thousands of years before the genetic replacement of the Early European Farmer males with Bronze Age Steppe populations via violence and rape.
The Neolithic Europeans had weapons for conflict, as evident in earlier sporadic violence at various sites around Europe. These conflicts were typically over land and resources with deaths both to the newer farmers and older hunter gatherers. These conflicts did not end in the genocide of either group. These weapons to defend their land and women would likely have been present during the late Neolithic period when the Steppe barbarians with superior weapons and on horse replaced the male population of Europe. The founders of European civilization during the Neolithic and Copper Age Europe were nearly wiped out and replaced with hut dwelling barbarian Aryan Indo-Europeans. Western Civilization had to re-emerge from the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean with the predominantly Ionian Greeks restarting Western Civilization for Europe. Caucasians started civilization twice in Europe. First the Early European Farmers, the G-men Caucasians, started European Civilization. Then it was genocided out of existence. Then G-men along with J Caucasians restarted Western Civilization in Greece from the G and J dominant Ionian Greeks beginning with the Minoans and later with Athens/Ionian Greek people.
Continental Europe would have been hit with successive waves of raiders on horseback, barbarians pillaging farms and villages for females for sex and stealing land for their livestock. While horses did cross into Britain, Norway, and Sweden, it was not as easy as moving across continental Europe for successive raids. Also, the abundance of supplies of copper and bronze in the interior of Europe could have had their supplies line wane further north. With fewer horses and less metal available, the magnitude of steppe abilities would have been present in the north, though not as severe in continental Europe. The I1 males in Scandinavia eventually entered the Bronze Age. This could help explain why the native northern Europeans I1 were able to integrate more into Steppe lineages and tribes. It was not the same scenario that Neolithic Continental Europeans faced. The reason why I1 lines survived in Northern Europe could be they had similar weapons technology that the Steppe invaders had and could show themselves stronger than that threat, forcing the invader to make a compromise to eventually merge tribes, forming many of the Germanic tribes.
On the issue of global cooling causing the male population to have 90% replacement rate, there is the case of the Little Ice Age coupled with the Black Death in the 14th century did not cause the male population to be replaced in the 14th century. The Little Ice Age caused crop failures and the poor died in close percentages as the well fed rich from the black death. The years of the Steppe invasion were distinctly warmer than the coldest years of the Maunder Minimum and Little Ice Age in Europe, and farms still sustained the populations during the Little Ice Age in Europe. Europe during this invasion millennia was leaving the Holocene Climatic Optimum, except the genocide of Old Europe in the Balkans happened well before moderate cooling from the warm period—Holocene Climatic Optimum. The fact that there was farming so far north into Europe during warmer years proves that farming in the middle to southern parts of Europe could be sustained in moderate cooling periods. You would expect farming in the extreme north of Europe to be affected by a one- or two-degree drop in temperature. However, if the colder north could support farming during warmer years, then Spain, after the Holocene Climatic Optimum, could too. Due to the widespread use of livestock for food, Neolithic Europe was strong against hunger. Ötzi the Iceman, of 3,300 BCE in Neolithic Europe, had his last meal of red deer meat and ibex fat along with cooked einkorn cereal grains. Showing the Neolithic Europeans not only farmed, raised livestock, and gathered, but they could easily hunt too. Europe provided Neolithic Europeans with an abundance of food to fish, hunt and gather, on top of the herded livestock and farmed crops.
As Mongolians celebrate their genocidal past. Modern Indo-Europeans engage in genocide denial to hide the guilt of their ancestors due to the loss of pride of barbarism from Indo-Europeans being in a Western Civilization started by J and G Greeks that preach ethics and morality as leadership qualities. If the barbarian Rs were stuck in their barbarian tribes and barbarian anti-culture, the Haplogroup R Indo-Europeans would celebrate the genocide by their forefathers as barbarian R Turks still do today in celebrating their horse riding Turks raiding and pillaging, and stealing land and women, and getting offspring from rape. It is because Indo-Europeans desire no loss of standing in a civilized society based on non-R Caucasian Greek Western Civilization that Rs engage in genocide denial of their past. Mongolian Cs and Turkic Rs have no such limitations and celebrate the barbarism of their ancestors and identity.
Why did the disease only wipe out Y-DNA lines that were replaced by steppe invaders, why no spread of the disease to the Aegean and Middle East? Why did the y-lines get reduced in Spanish colonies, not is regions where disease spread and the Spanish did not colonize yet? Because shifts in y-lines were from invaders, during a disease epidemic, that had superior arms and horses.
The Y-DNA replacement perfectly maps onto the expansion of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures—the archaeological footprints of the Steppe migrants. The "disease" somehow magically only killed the men in the exact regions and at the exact times these new cultural groups appeared. This is not how epidemiology works; it is how military conquest and cultural takeover work.
The Steppe had the means to commit genocide against decentralized, vulnerable Neolithic European villages, but they did not have the means to do so against the powerful, fortified city-states and empires of the Middle East and Aegean. These civilizations were "the goose that laid the golden eggs." A Steppe-derived group like the Mitanni or potentially the Kassites couldn't simply genocide the population; they sought to rule them. The pattern of Y-DNA replacement in Bronze Age Europe is not the signature of a plague. It is the signature of a male-driven conquest.
The story of the small pox epidemic for the Native Americans were two separate stories. In the face of near total annihilation of American Indians from disease, Catholic France and Catholic Spain did more to assimilated the Native Americans into their society. That is why there are American Indians and Native American Y-lines so widespread in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and many more nations. The British and American agenda was to use Native American weakness to disease and disadvantages in warfare to exterminate or displace the population in a genocide.
The assimilation during or after one of the most lethal disease outbreaks in human history was one of the contributing factors in keeping the Native American populations of males at near half or above in many present day nations of Latin America. In regions where assimilation did not take place, there was a concerted effort to seize land and either displace or exterminate the local population in English-speaking areas, which can be distinctly characterized as genocide, sometimes occurring during or following an epidemic. This narrative diverges into two distinct accounts: one in various Spanish colonial territories where Spanish men frequently found themselves without women. This situation on the surface resembles that of the Steppe populations, that lacked women due to their society's polygamous practices. Though they divulge in the Spanish regions with the continuation of Native American y-lines, meaning there was no Spanish national policy of seeking full extermination of Native Americans, primarily males, as did happen during the Steppe invasions. While Spanish men took native women during one of the most lethal epidemics in human history, they did not have a policy to 100% exterminate the male population via violence or the preferential access of native women to deny women to the native men. Spain's men could have been polygamous and taken women and exploded in population to then do what the disease could not do - place the surviving local women with the Spanish and have the maleline Y-DNA of the Native American go under 10% throughout Latin American regions. The Spanish were different in that they did assimilate the native male population in vast numbers. Assimilation in the British descent areas meant on a rare occasion taking a squaw or for the Steppe barbarians in Europe often taking a local village girl or native farm woman captive. Adopting a European European Farmer native (slave) boy could have happened on rare occasions increased the chances of the continuation of local male y-lines. These differences further proves that the genocide in Europe during the late Neolithic and Copper Age was from violence to take as much land and women the Steppe barbarians wanted. Copper Age and Neolithic Europe was far more advanced than Native American tribes with widespread farming and widespread herding and metalwork, yet the Spanish were more advanced than the Steppe barbarians. The conquering Spanish were easier on the small pox infected Native Americans, than the Steppe barbarians were to the farmers and natives of Europe dealing with diseases. The reason for more native mtDNA than native Y-DNA in Latin America is because the Spanish single male colonists took native women for wives causing more mtDNA to remain in Latin America during an epidemic that killed tens of millions of Native Americans. Y-DNA lines of Native American males survived because there was no Latin American wide policy of the Spanish to take both land and women of the natives, during and after an epidemic, and no policy to leave the native males with no land and women to reproduce. What did not happen in Latin America did happen in Europe as disease could have weakened local society as happened in the Americas. The quest for 100% of the land causing lack of food from land theft, violence via raiding and bride stealing did not happen in the Spanish colonies in the Americas on such an organized policy of excluding males from reproduction as happened in a genocide committed by Steppe barbarians during the late Neolithic and Copper Age Europe. I am not saying what the Spanish did was not a genocide, though is a light genocide compared to the Steppe genocide with or without disease. With or without disease, the Steppe barbarians sought to replace the native men as owners of the land, taking a few of the village or farm women along the way. The majority of the local women chose to be marginalized, displaced, and die with their husbands or died from natural causes. A significant number bore sons to the Steppe barbarians to then have those sons carry on the cycle of abuse on to more native populations. A normal scene at the end of Neolithic Europe would be similar to what happened to the settlement in Old Europe, steppe raiders terrorize villages, burning villages, farms and land, the wide population flee, losing control over land and fields for livestock and farming, these populations would dwindle to near extinction. Often the border regions were attacked. No ability to fight back. A woman or girl taken in the raids adding to the local admixture DNA of Steppe invading populations. The biological weapons were more those on horse than microbes that replaced the population. Plague findings among late Neolithic Europe show less than 20% of remains in Nordic region samples had the plague (though more full samples could bring this higher), meaning the Small Pox disease and Black Death were more widespread for their victims than the plague [Repeated plague infections across six generations of Neolithic Farmers by Frederik Valeur Seersholm, et al.]. The presence of the plague over six generations (150+ years) is more indicative of an endemic or recurrently epidemic disease than a single, sharp pandemic. This pattern suggests the population had a long-term relationship with the pathogen.
The Neolithic plague lacked a specific gene which is crucial for the flea-based transmission that causes the ultra-lethal bubonic form of the Black Death. Without it, transmission was likely through respiratory droplets (pneumonic) or direct contact (septicemic), which can be deadly but may not have had the same explosive potential as the later, flea-vectored bubonic plague.
The very existence of the large, multi-generational pedigree from Frälsegården is powerful evidence that the society persisted through these plague outbreaks. People lived, had children, and buried their dead in traditional ways for many generations while the plague was present. This is hard to reconcile with a "wipe-out" scenario. It paints a scenario of invaders taking advantage of a weaker population due to primarily superior weapons/ability to raid and secondarily to diseases. Those neolithic populations would have continued had the raids not taken place.
Since Old Europe with vast cities, settlements and copper tools could not survive the raids and had to flee the exposed regions of the Balkans, then the locals of Western and Northern Europe had little chance of resisting.
There is a lack of cultural diffusion from the Steppe invaders to the local population of native villages. There was no large trade in horses, bronze, weapons or carts to Copper Age and Neolithic Europe. The ideas went one way – the idea of domestication went to the Steppe population. Copper and Bronze technology went to the Steppe population from Old Europe or Maykop. The pottery of Bell Beaker went to the Steppe invaders. The females went to the Steppe population. The Steppe population left destroyed civilizations, cities, towns and villages in the wake of their migrations of genocide. Those that argue for economic replacement with no violence or no threat of violence, the stronger economy of the farmers did not displace the native Western hunter-gatherers, taking their hunting ground did displace the hunter gatherers. And to show the Early European Farmers had no genocidal intentions, there was cultural diffusion of farming and herding to the Hunter Gatherers of Europe from the Anatolian Neolithic G men. A mere stronger economy does not displace locals and natives. The act of using their land or taking their land does. And what peaceful economy?, with no trade of substance from the Steppe invaders, where was the extensive trading to the natives if it was only an economic replacement. The indigenous populations in the Baltic region, often referred to as the Narva culture, were primarily hunter-gatherer groups before the arrival of the Steppe genociders. These native populations that could survive in low value wooded regions and were genetically replaced by the Steppe invaders. There was ample room in Europe as the farmers and hunters gradually found balance. Over the centuries, the hunter gatherers found more balance in the cultural diffusion of learning the ways of farming and herding from the Anatolian Neolithic G men. The G male farmers knew how to herd and could have turned into semi-mobile herdsmen with their flocks if there was no violence. If land and women were stolen, then the flocks would have been targets to kill or steal too. Meaning the Steppe invasions were less about the economy of successful trade and more about an aggressive population displacement and replacement from raiding on horseback. 3 to 4 thousands years later, the Spanish had superior weapons, trade and horses, and while the Inca Empire had widespread small pox that killed very large numbers of Incas, where the Spanish did not go and displace the natives, the population recovered thus disproving a combination of factors without genocide could have replaced the native male population of Europe in most regions. The intent to steal land and women while displacing the local male population had to be there, this intent is genocide. The existence of vast intra-trade among Steppe population and nearly no trade comparatively with Neolithic and Copper Age Europe after the conquest of Old Europe shows the Steppe population knew they were committing a genocide by exclusion of natives from their economy of horse raiders and bronze weapons owners. Vast supplies of copper and tin among themselves to make sure they were the individuals with superior weapons. Did divergence in trade norms get I1 a supply of weapons in trade to have these males survive the invasions? How did they learn to make what was then the nuclear weapons of their day?
Exploiting a population with genocide during an epidemic is still genocide. Murdering people during an epidemic is still murder. You cannot say, “they had a nice house and nice possessions and were sick so I killed them when they were weak and took their house, possessions, wife and daughters that did survive. The males were going to die anyways I guess. Don't be so self-righteous. The males were going to die from disease, the females weren't, so we systematically took them. An awfully nice family you got there. Would be a shame if the males died from disease or from my sword while they were sick with disease, no difference, and I got the females.” Now you know why I call them barbarians and genociders because that quote is the best case scenario. I hope a few readers got creeped out. Barbarism is predatory. Likely worse happened. Likely violence with and without disease happened with village and farm raids. I previously established - The "disease" somehow magically only killed off the men in the exact regions and at the exact times these new cultural groups appeared. This is not how epidemiology works; it is how military conquest and cultural takeover work. So there had to be genocidal intent. Europe in the Stone Age that had little defense from invasions died off. The Middle East with bronze weapons and tools, did not die off from biological weapons on horse, because immunity was found in the metal bronze and in fortified cities. The natives of Latin America did not have wheeled wagons/carts for extensive trade and nor did they have horses, yet survived both conquerors and disease when the natives weren't exterminated or displaced. Showing a person you have a wheel does not cause the person to leave his land, showing you have superior weapons in raids does cause the countryside to flee, lose land and go nearly extinct in a genocide. Not ironically, the I1 native population that adopted bronze weapons in the north, did not go nearly extinct as their I2 brothers mostly did, these I1 males experienced a population bottleneck explosion from their adoption of bronze weapons. Meaning equality in weapons gave them an advantage to survive, not herd immunity or other types of immunity. Meaning there was a major contributing factor of violence that led to the end of most male lines of Europe during the late Copper and Neolithic Ages. The bronze weapons did not give them immunity from disease, nor give them carts for better economic trade, nor allowed them to survive climate change. Because these weren't the main issues, the native of Europe were facing genocide by Steppe barbarians and getting bronze weapons technology allowed certain natives to survive and thrive in such a genocidal environment. This again proves genocide. A slightly stronger economy does not nearly wipe out an entire continent of males, military conquest does. The local European natives had the advantage in diversity of food and food security, the invaders had the advantage of raiding as happened extensively in Old Europe and as evidence found in Neolithic Europe proves too. Population bottleneck growth happened from the farming in Europe and East Asia. So it was not an economically food secure invaders vs low population replacement natives that only hunted and gathered in most of Europe. These were two large growth populations and one had most of their males vanished while the other group had the means to cause their vanishing. No significant trade between these two groups during a replacement and no idea diffusion from Steppe populations means no peaceful co-existence rejecting the economic/trade fallacy as the explanation of the replacement of the male population in Europe. One side wanted to keep their advantage in bronze weapons, horses and mobility because that side could displace/replace the native local males and end with both the land and many of women of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe. Climate change, diseases, and/or better goods are excuses to hide the genocide. The community that refuses to admit the reality of this genocide are not only genocide deniers, they are ascientific. Most do not want their history to be tainted as stealers of Europe and barbarians that got Europe via a genocide.
This chapter paints the reality of genocide as the decisive factor in the replacement of the male population at the end of the Neolithic and Copper Age Europe. Not a volcano, not a plague. Violence or threat of violence was the means to displace and replace the male population of Europe.
