Sorry for the last weeks of silence, I have been rather busy lately. I am having more projects going on, and (because of that) I also wanted to finish a project I have been working on for many months already.
I have therefore decided to publish a provisional version of the text, in the hope that it will be useful in the following months, when I won’t be able to update it as often as I would like to:
- Announcement and introduction to the series.
- Book One: A Song of Sheep and Horses: eurafrasia nostratica, eurasia indouralica. Languages.
- Books Two & Three: A Game of Clans: collectores venatoresque, agricolae pastoresque & A Clash of Chiefs: rex militaris, rex sacrorum. Cultures and peoples.
- Book Four: A Storm of Hordes: hic sunt leones, hic sunt dracones. Maps and graphics.
EDIT (20 JAN 2019): For those of you who are more comfortable reading in your native language, I have placed some links to automatic translations by Google Translate. They might work especially well for the texts of A Game of Clans & A Clash of Chiefs.
Don’t forget to check out the maps included in the supplementary materials: I have added Y-DNA, mtDNA, and ADMIXTURE data using GIS software. The PCA graphics are also important to follow the main text.
NOTE. Right now the files are only in my server. I will try to upload them to Academia.edu and Research Gate when I have time, I have uploaded them to Academia.edu and ResearchGate, in case the websites are too slow.
I would have preferred to wait for a thorough revision of the section on archaeology and the linguistic sections on Uralic, but I doubt I will have time when the reviews come, so it was either now or maybe next December…
I say so in the introduction, but it is evident that certain aspects of the book are tentative to say the least: the farther back we go from Late Proto-Indo-European, the less clear are many aspects. Also, linguistically I am not convinced about Eurasiatic or Nostratic, although they do have a certain interest when we try to offer a comprehensive view of the past, including ethnolinguistic identities.
I cannot be an expert in everything, and these books cover a lot. I am bound to publish many corrections as new information appears and more reviews are sent. For example, just days ago (before SNP calls of Wang et al. 2018 were published) some paragraphs implied that AME might have expanded Nostratic from the Middle East. Now it does not seem so, and I changed them just before uploading the text. That’s how tentative certain routes are, and how much all of this may change. And that only if we accept a Nostratic phylum…
NOTE. Since the first book I wrote was the linguistic one, and I have spent the last months updating the archaeology + genetics part, now many of you will probably understand 1) why I am so convinced about certain language relationships and 2) how I used many posts to clarify certain ideas and receive comments. Many posts offer probably a good timeline of what I worked with, and when.
Acknowledgements
I did not add this section to the books, because they are still not ready for print, but I think this is due somewhere now. It is impossible to reference all who have directly or indirectly contributed to this, so this is a list of those I feel have played an important role.
I am indebted to the following people (which does not mean that they share my views, obviously):
First and foremost, to Fernando López-Menchero, for having the patience to review with detail many parts on Indo-European linguistics, knowing that I won’t accept many of his comments anyway. The additional information he offers is invaluable, but I didn’t want to turn this into a huge linguistic encyclopaedia with unending discussions of tiny details of each reconstructed word. I think it is already too big as it is.
I would not have thought about doing this if it were not for the interest of Wekwos (Xavier Delamarre) in publishing a full book about the Indo-European demic diffusion model (in the second half of 2017, I think). It was them who suggested that I extended the content, when all I had done until then was write an essay and draw some maps in my free time between depositing the PhD thesis and defending it.
Sadly, as much as I would like to publish a book with a professional publisher, I don’t think ancient DNA lends itself for the traditional format, so my requests (mainly to have free licenses and being able to review the text at will, as new genetic papers are published) were logically not acceptable. Also, the main aim of all volumes, especially the linguistic one, is the teaching of essentials of Late Proto-Indo-European and related languages, and this objective would be thwarted by selling each volume for $50-70 and only in printed format. I prefer a wider distribution.
At first I didn’t think much of this proposal, because I do not benefit from this kind of publications in my scientific field, but with time my interest in writing a whole, comprehensive book on the subject grew to the point where it was already an ongoing project, probably by the start of 2018.
I would not have been in contact with Wekwos if it were not for user Camulogène Rix at Anthrogenica, so thanks for that and for the interest in this work.
I would not have thought of writing this either if not for the spontaneous support (with an unexpected phone call!) of a professor of the Complutense University of Madrid, Ángel Gómez Moreno, who is interested in this subject – as is his wife, a professor of Classics more closely associated to Indo-European studies, and who helped me with a search for Indo-Europeanists.
EDIT (1 JAN 2019): I remembered that Karin Bojs sent me her book after reading the demic diffusion model. I may have also thought about writing a whole book back then, but mid-2017 is probably too early for the project.
Professor Kortlandt is still to review the text, but he contributed to both previous essays in some very interesting ways, so I hope he can help me improve the parts on Uralic, and maybe alternative accounts of expansion for Balto-Slavic, depending on the time depth that he would consider warranted according to the Temematic hypothesis.
The maps are evidently (for those who are interested in genetics) in part the result of the effort of the late Jean Manco: As you can see from the maps including Y-DNA and mtDNA samples, I have benefitted from her way of organising data and publishing it. Similarly, the work of Iain McDonald in assessing the potential migration routes of R1b and R1a in Europe with the help of detailed maps was behind my idea for the first maps, and consequently behind these, too.
I should thank all people responsible for the release of free datasets to work with, including the Reich and Jena labs, the Veeramah Lab, and also researchers from the Max Planck Institute or the Mainz Palaeogenetics group, who didn’t mind to share with me datasets to work with.
Readers of this blog with interesting comments have also been essential for the improvement of the texts. You can probably see some of your many contributions there. I may not answer many comments, because I am always busy (and sometimes I just don’t have anything interesting to say), but I try to read all of them.
EDIT (1 JAN 2019) I think I should mention at least Chetan, Egg, or Robert George; but then I would leave out old europe, Sgr Ganesh, or Tileman Ehlen; and if I include them I would leave out others…
Users of other sites, like Anthrogenica, whose particular points of view and deep knowledge of some very specific aspects are sometimes very useful. In particular, user Anglesqueville helped me to fix some issues with the merging of datasets to obtain the PCAs and ADMIXTURE, and prepared some individual samples to merge them.
Even without posting anything, Google Analytics keeps sending me messages about increasing user fidelity (returning users), and stats haven’t really changed (which probably means more people are reading old posts), so thank you for that.
I hope you enjoy the books.
Happy new year!
