Iosif Lazaridis

Χριστός ανέστη

Landmark studies track source of Indo-European languages— Harvard Gazette Researchers place Caucasus Lower Volga people, speakers of ancestor tongue, in today’s Russia about 6,500 years ago

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

I wished, when our preprints came out, that the war raging over the Indo-European homelands, would soon end. May the spirit of open-mindedness and collaboration between our many, especially Ukrainian and Russian co-authors, prevail over the senseless hatreds of the day. end/

... and most of all David Reich who has done more than anyone else for the science of ancient DNA (*) and for co-ordinating these very complex and demanding studies and engaging with all their scientific and practical aspects over many years.

(*) except a certain Swedish Nobel winner :)
9/

This was obviously the work of many people, most importantly my friend and mentor Nick Patterson, the knower of all things Indo-European David Anthony, the indefatigable Leonid Vyazov, my long-time collaborator Ron Pinhasi, the ever curious and insightful Alex Nikitin... 8/

Indo-European Origins: A new Solution to an old Puzzle A meeting between Nick Patterson and David Anthony in Princeton, NJ in 2010 began a 15-year long collaboration to find the answer to the 250-year old question of the origin of Indo-European speakers t...

We wrote a small retrospective and description of our results in the context of a nearly 15-year-long search for the answer to the Indo-European puzzle that gives some of the background of how we ended up on this solution. 7/
communities.springernature.com/posts/indo-e...

CLV people crossed the Caucasus (in sites labeled in bold) via Armenia, north Mesopotamia, and eastern Anatolia before reaching Central Anatolia and becoming the ancestors of people with mostly Mesopotamian but ~10% CLV ancestry that may have spoken Anatolian languages. 6/

The Yamnaya's precursors were formed by admixture ca. 4000BCE and experienced an interlude of relative isolation before the emergence of the Yamnaya horizon ca. 3300BCE. Our best guess of where this happened is in the vicinity of Mykhailivka in the Lower Dnipro in Ukraine. 5/

The Yamnaya, proximal scions of the Serednii Stih archaeological culture that preceded them in the Eneolithic North Pontic region, and more distally composed of a mix of CLV newcomers and Dnipro-Don hunter-gatherers, largely eclipsed the previous inhabitants of the steppe. 4/

A genomic history of the North Pontic Region from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age - Nature Whole-genome sequencing analysis of 81 prehistoric individuals reveals how the genetic makeup of people from the North Pontic region was influenced by waves of migration during the Eneolithic period a...

"A genomic history of the North Pontic Region from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age" focuses on how CLV migrants crossed or settled the steppes north of the Black Sea, and mixed in distinct waves with its local farmers and hunter-gatherers. 3/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The genetic origin of the Indo-Europeans - Nature Ancient DNA reveals how the explosive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists began with a small community north of the Black Sea speaking ancestral Indo-European, and detects genetic links with Anat...

"The genetic origin of the Indo-Europeans" describes our solution: a Caucasus-Lower Volga homeland of Proto-Indo-Anatolian speakers and a North Pontic (or Dnipro-Don) homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans which we identify as the Yamnaya. 2/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our papers, out today in @nature.com, show how ancient DNA from the Eneolithic and Bronze Age steppe points to a North Pontic origin of the Indo-European language family and a Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) origin of Indo-Anatolian (inclusive of the now extinct Anatolian languages). 1/

Sharing is Caring: Central Europe’s First Farmers Lived in Equality Genetic study also reveals long-distance travelling in Neolithic societies

Sharing is Caring: Central Europe’s First Farmers Lived in Equality 👨‍🌾
The results of a new study in Nature Human Behaviour, reveal that the culture responsible for the expansion of agriculture in Central Europe 8,000 years ago showed no signs of population stratification. ⤵ 🏺 #Anthropology

Demographic history and genetic variation of the Armenian population A whole-genome study of Armenians shows homogeneous genetic structure across the region, with a recent bottleneck explaining the distinctiveness of the Sasun population. Our findings reject the Balkan...

www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltex...

Colin Renfrew, renowned scholar of Cycladic civilisation dies | eKathimerini.com Professor Lord Colin Renfrew, a pre-eminent British archaeologist of prehistoric civilizations including the Cycladic, had died, aged 87.

Colin Renfrew's accomplishments in so many fields are many. I only met him once and what I most admired about him was how receptive to new evidence and ready to re-evaluate his own ideas he was. A true giant of world archaeology has passed away.

www.ekathimerini.com/news/1254364...

Remains: The collision of science and America’s Indigenous people A Danish scientist’s search for the earliest DNA in the United States uncovers profound ethical and personal dilemmas.

www.aljazeera.com/program/witn...

DNA evidence debunks tales of Pompeii victims - ABC listen Buried beneath mountains of ash, the final moments of the citizens of Pompeii reveal intimate glimpses of horror and humanity.

Shared our research on the #aDNA of the #Pompeii casts with the @abc.com.au.web.brid.gy earlier this week. Thank you for having me! www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Archaeologists unearth oldest alphabet from ancient tomb Alphabetic writing found etched on clay cylinders unearthed from tomb in Syria

www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

A genomic history of the North Pontic Region from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589600v1 The north Black Sea (Pontic) Region was the nexus of the farmers of Old Europe and the foragers and

A genomic history of the North Pontic Region from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589600v1

The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589597v1 The Yamnaya archaeological complex appeared around 3300BCE across the steppes north of the Black and

The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.17.589597v1

The Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) a curated compendium of ancient human genomes - Scientific Data Scientific Data - The Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) a curated compendium of ancient human genomes

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Medieval DNA from Soqotra points to Eurasian origins of an isolated population at the crossroads of Africa and Arabia - Nature Ecology & Evolution Ancient DNA from Soqotra, an island off the coast of Yemen, evidences a population history differing from other areas of the Arabian Peninsula and suggests there has not been complete population repla...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Megafauna extinctions in the late-Quaternary are linked to human range expansion, not climate change The Earth has lost approximately half of its large mammal species (≥45 kg, one-third of species ≥9 kg) over the past 120,000 years, resulting in depau…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa - Nature We gathered genetic data for 1,763 individuals from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and 12 Late Iron Age individuals, to trace the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples over the p...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Population genomic history of the endangered Anatolian and Cyprian mouflons in relation to worldwide... bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

Our new preprint by Gözde Atağ et al on the genomes of Anatolian and Cyprian mouflons and how they relate to other wild, feral and domestic sheep groups 🐏

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genetic continuity and change among the Indigenous peoples of California - Nature Genome-wide analyses of ancient DNA from individuals from California and Mexico shed light on the spread of Mexican ancestry to California and how it correlates with linguistic flow.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause In his 1956 book, "Profiles in Courage," Kennedy promoted the Lost Cause view of Reconstruction. Blanche Ames wasn’t having it.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Human evolution: Neanderthal footprints in African genomes Human and Neanderthal populations met and mixed on multiple occasions over evolutionary time, resulting in the exchange of genetic material. New genom…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...