 What was the genetic make-up of the incredible Cordidware culture of Europe? But first, what actually was the Cordidware culture? Now, the Cordidware culture refers to quite a broad archaeological zone across Europe, dated from around 3000 BC to 2350 BC. It covered a vast area, from a contact zone with the Yamnaya culture to the east, just north of the Black Sea, I have made various other videos on the Yamnaya that will link above. Through large parts of northern Europe and into parts of Scandinavia, as territory can be broadly described as stretching from the Rhine River in the west to the Volga River in the east, the Middle Niber culture served as a bridge culture between the Cordidware and the Yamnaya cultures. In general, the Cordidware culture is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of many of the Indo-European limeges into Europe. It's a culture that has a few names, and in Scandinavia it's often referred to as the single grave culture due to its burial practices. There's an offshoot culture as well in Scandinavia that's often referred to as the battle axe culture. The name Cordidware was coined by a German archaeologist in the 19th century, derived from its cord-like impressions or ornamentation characteristic of its pottery. These are some examples of Cordidware pottery, and you can see the beautiful cord-like patterns. Now it's important to note that the Cordidware culture wasn't necessarily a unified culture as such, and given its geographical breadth, that's perhaps not a major surprise. It was connected and interacted with numerous other archaeological cultures across Eurasia, such as the Bellbeaker culture that was more to the west. Some common traits that we see in the Cordidware culture include similar burial practices, distinctive pottery with cord decoration, and unique stone axes. But what actually were these burial practices? Well, the Cordidware culture practice single burial, hence why it is often referred to as the single grave culture, with the deceased usually being accompanied by a battle axe, amber beads, and pottery vessels. Other grave goods also included wagons and sacrificed animals. Burial occurred in flat graves or below small tummalli and a flexed position. On the continent, males lay on the right side, females on the left, with the faces of both orientated to the south. However, in Sweden and also parts of northern Poland, the graves were orientated north-south, mainly on the left side and women on the right side, both facing east. Now what about the origins and the genetics of the Cordidware culture? Well, the first thing to note and annoyingly so for me that had to research this video is that it is not straightforward and I soon found this out and I tried to research this video. So one of the main takeaways we can take up front is essentially that the Cordidware culture was very much a melting pot in the genetics of ancient Europe in the early Bronze Age. And it was influenced by forces to the east, to the west, and also previous cultures, such as the funnel beaker culture and the globular amphora culture. The nature of the Cordidware culture being such a melting pot means it's hard to get a precise breakdown, a complete roadmap of the Cordidware people. But there is some main points we can note. The first thing to note is there is a debate within the academic literature as to the origins and the genetic makeup of the Cordidware people. One line of argument that's more of the traditional line of argument basically suggests that the Cordidware people were descendants of the Yamnaya, particularly Yamnaya males that had migrated from north of the Black Sea into the territory of the Cordidware people and in modern-day Germany, Poland, etc. These male Yamnaya migrants that migrated westward then married women from farming communities in what became the Cordidware culture. A study published in Nature in 2015, for instance, argued that Western and Eastern Europe came into contact around 4,500 years ago as the late Neolithic Cordidware people from Germany trace 75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. By extending their model to a three-way mixture, they estimated that the ancestry of the Cordidware people was 79% Yamnaya-like, 4% Western and Hundergatherer and 17% early Neolithic. This study did caution, however, that some of the individuals studied may not have been directly ancestral to Cordidware individuals from Germany. It is possible that a more Western and Yamnaya population or an earlier pre-Yamnaya steppe population may have migrated into central Europe and future work may uncover more missing links in the chain of transmission of steppe ancestry. Another study from 2015 published in Nature looked at the population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia and also noted strong genetic links between the Cordidware culture and the Yamnaya. Populations in Northern and Central Europe were composed of a mixture of earlier Hundergatherer and Neolithic farmer groups but received Caucasian genetic input at the onset of the Bronze Age. This coincides with the archaeological well-defined expansion of the Yamnaya culture from the Pontic Caspian steppe into Europe. This admixture event resulted in the formation of peoples of the Cordidware and related cultures and supported by negative admixture F3 statistics when using Yamnaya as a source population. Now, if you want ad-free videos and also your name and the credits of my videos please consider supporting my work on Patreon and helping me make better videos. Please check out the top link in the video description below for more information and thank you for your support. Now on with the video. Now, incidentally, that'll quickly note this study also touched on lactase tolerance in the presence of a certain allele that basically supports lactase tolerance that potentially originated in the steppe area. I have touched on this previously connected to the Yamnaya culture but the Cordidware culture may have had a relatively high amount of lactase tolerance within it compared to other populations of Europe as the study noted. It looked at particular allele associated with lactase tolerance i.e. the ability to digest milk into adult food in particular RS4988235 and noted it was low in Bronze Age Europeans in general but highest in the Cordidware culture and the closely related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures. In general, the study found that the Bronze Age steppe cultures showed the highest arrived allele frequency among the ancient groups in particular the Yamnaya indicating a possible steppe origin of lactase tolerance. So these studies essentially paint the picture that the Cordidware culture are descendants of the Yamnaya culture and they're very closely connected. Albeit it does note that the Cordidware culture did still retain a decent degree at least of ancestry from earlier Neolithic people of Europe but it's still large influx of the Yamnaya and a very strong connection to the Yamnaya. This view has been challenged however. Barry Curnliffe for instance, the Emirates Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University as well as other scholars have argued that available Cordidware samples do not carry paternal haplogroups observed in Yamnaya male specimens and thus Cordidware populations could not be directly descended from a mass migration of Yamnaya males. Individuals from the Pontic Caspian steppe associated with the Yamnaya culture carry mostly R1B haplotypes whereas most Cordidware individuals that have been studied so far carry R1A haplotypes although some do carry R1B. So what can we make of all this? Well in recent years there's a growing theory that potentially the Cordidware culture instead of being a direct descendant of the Yamnaya culture basically existed and grew in parallel to the Yamnaya. So there was lots of crossover in mixing between the two cultures but essentially the Cordidware culture could have evolved essentially independently to some degree as a parallel culture to the Yamnaya culture as opposed to being directly descended from the Yamnaya culture. A more recent study from 2020 gives us some insights into this published in scientific reports entitled Cordidware cultural complex they uncovered using genomic and isotopic analysis from southeastern Poland. They essentially sequenced the genomes of 19 individuals located in the heartland of the Cordidware culture complex region southeastern Poland. This study found that there was a stronger continuity with earlier Neolithic populations than previously observed but still the presence of the Yamnaya is detected. In contrast to observations by Eurus et al. we did not find mitochondrial lineages specifically linked to Yamnaya pastoralists. Instead most of the mitochondrial DNA lineages found in a sample may be associated with European Neolithic farming groups as is in the case for the Western Cordidware sample in the earlier study. Our results would indicate a stronger continuity with the earlier Neolithic populations than previously observed. In other words, our study detected traces of an evident incorporation of local individuals into the migrating groups. However, the funeral rave rituals seem to have been affected in limited extent as the burials exhibit the typical Cordidware pattern in all cases examined. The Y chromosome haplogroup lineage R1B M269 or RL11 are characteristic of Yamnaya and Bellbeaker individuals and they were particularly widespread throughout Eurasia and the Bronze Age and thereafter. Curiously, the haplogroup is uncommon among other published Cordidware complex individuals from Europe including in Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Estonia and Lithuania and is associated with the later Bellbeaker communities. We see the inclusion of Yamnaya genetic signals but again in a different manner than what has been shown in adjacent regions. These results indicate a higher level of Cordidware culture continuity with earlier Neolithic individuals than those previously studied. The results also show that the Cordidware culture groups exhibit an influence of the Steppe world, i.e. individuals with specific Y chromosome. Later the influence of the Bellbeaker culture communities was stronger. This study then goes on to note a very important point. The geographical variation and the impact of the Yamnaya migrations. Our results emphasise the different impacts the Yamnaya migration event had on different populations across Europe, i.e. the genetic legacy that the Yamnaya process left varies greatly between regions and cultures. The southeastern Polish Cordidware culture individuals are significantly more closely related to the Yamnaya than the Cordidware culture individuals from the Polish lowland supporting the differentiation between the various Cordidware culture groups from Central Europe. This study also goes on to note a connection between the Cordidware culture and the Afanasiaevo complex, a culture further east of the Yamnaya that existed in southern Siberia between around 3300 and 2500 BC. It should be noted that the Yamnaya culture and the Afanasiaevo culture were closely related to the world. As the study noted, the most unusual signal identified is the one between the Cordidware culture and the Afanasiaevo complex. This genetic incorporation from a steppe population further east than the Yamnaya culture is novel for these parts and suggests a Cordidware culture population structure in history more complex than previously thought. Although our results should be treated with caution due to not just low number of samples but the appearance of the same signal in individuals that predates steppe expansions and are geographically more widespread. Our findings are in alignment with the recent archaeological reviews suggesting lesser impact of the Yamnaya event than estimated in earlier genomic studies. The Cordidware culture ancestry exhibits links both the common mitochondrial DNA lineages of the initial Neolithic but also to those assimilating and replaced by the Yamnaya pastoralists. Another study from 2021 seems to echo this emerging picture in a paper titled Dynamic Changes in Genomic and Social Structures in 3rd Millennium BC Central Europe where they studied 271 human genomes dated between 4,900 and 1,600 BC from the European Heartland, Bohemia. We show that early Cordidware were genetically exceptionally diverse some resembling globular amphora and the Yamnaya with a few also falling outside of previously sample Central European Neolithic genetic diversity. Such a notable diverse signal is likely the result of the agglomeration of people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds into an archaeological similar yet polyethnic or plural society. Important factors in ethnic identity include ancestry, history, ideology and language. The level of genetic differentiation i.e. time since common ancestor between early Cordidware individuals with high and no step ancestry implies long biological isolation and hence different histories. The finding of globular amphora-like and Yamnaya-like genetic profiles in early Cordidware suggests integration of people who came from ideologically diverse societies. i.e. neither cultures practiced strong genetic differentiation and mortuary practices unlike Cordidware. It is likely that the globular amphora culture and the Cordidware Yamnaya individuals spoke different languages meaning that early Cordidware society and Bohemia encompassed people with demonstrably different histories likely originating from ideologically diverse cultures who spoke different mother tongues. Now, what does this all actually mean? What are some main key takeaways that we can take from all this research? Some of you may be like WTF, what is going on here? There's so much contradictory information and so much nuance to all this research and I think basically the experts can't fully figure it out which is probably one of the main takeaways but there are some general points we can note and I boiled it down to five main points five key takeaways from the genetic makeup and DNA profile of the Cordidware culture. Firstly, the Cordidware culture was very much a melting pot of Europe and as a complicated genetic landscape it integrated various peoples of different backgrounds. Secondly, the Cordidware culture probably does not derive as much of its ancestry from the Yamnaya culture as previously thought but there is still a step component in their ancestry and crossover between the cultures and zones was present and quite common. Thirdly, the Cordidware culture retains a good amount of ancestry from the early on Neolithic populations of Europe as well and migrants integrated with the local population to a large extent as opposed to replacing them. Fourthly, there is a large geographical variation in the genetic makeup of the Cordidware culture with the influence of the Yamnaya migrations not evenly distributed and this may perhaps explain the different findings and interpretations in different studies. Fifthly, the Cordidware culture probably had different influences on it outside of the Yamnaya culture perhaps from the Afanaceaevo culture for example although this culture is very genetically similar to the Yamnaya culture. Now the final point I want to make is the link between the Cordidware culture and a later culture known as the Sintashta culture. The lived around the southern Urals dated to around 2200-1900 BC. This culture is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Aranian languages whose speakers originally referred to themselves as Ari or Eri. The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology which spread throughout the old world and played an important role in ancient warfare. Now one main theory is that the Sintashta culture was formed by the eastward migration of peoples from the Cordidware culture but this is a story for another time. Now speaking of the Yamnaya culture what are the origins and the genetic makeup of the Yamnaya people themselves? To find out please click here. Thanks for watching, please subscribe and hit the bell to support my work on Patreon please check out the top link in the video description below and you'll get exclusive benefits such as add free videos and I'll see your name and the credits of my videos. 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