Andronovo "camp-sites" in Oxus?

Remote Sensing and Survey of the Murghab Alluvial Fan, Southern Turkmenistan: The Coexistence of Nomadic Herders and Sedentary Farmers in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age

Together with other peculiarities, the presence of seven large kilns testifies to the political-administrative importance of the tepe . Surrounding artefact concentrations represent rural villages, individual housing units and manured fields. In addition, traces of Andronovo camp-sites, characterized by the presence of Incised Coarse Ware (ICW), were recorded close to the main tepe . During the Achaemenid period, site 1529 together with its satellite settlements was an important and strategic political-administrative centre whose main function was the supervision of the desert border. The site also has the potential to shed light onto the relationship of nomadic and sedentary groups during the Bronze and Iron Ages.

In the same transect, specialised camp-sites were recorded interspersed betweensedentary agricultural communities, which indicate the beginning of interaction between nomads and farmers and an incipient process of sedentism (Cattani 2008a,2008b; Cattani et al  . 2008). An impressive ICW site (1468), c . 0.64 ha in size, with the evidence of three sunken dwellings, stone pestles and millstones was recorded approximately 7 km to the east of Takhirbai 3. The complexity and remarkable extent of the site suggests it may have been of an important new scale for the Andronovo community, possibly even a ‘center’ for their interaction with the settled communityof Takhirbai. Elaborate incised pottery characterises this site (Cerasetti 1998: 67-70;Tosi and Cerasetti 2010: 94-95). Farther to the east, numerous sites with wheel-made Bronze Age wares were found surrounded by scatters of ICW pottery on the sands. 

In one ofthe survey transects we found an impressive 3 ha Andronovo compound (Fig. 8). Thesite, located mainly on sands, is characterized by a pottery spread and eight distinctconcentrations. The central mound is separated from the other areas by sand dunes, which in some cases obscure continuous artefact distributions. The area with the highest concentration of sands yielded large quantities of hand-made pottery, mainly very large ICW fragments. 15  The presence of a small number of Late Bronze Age wheel-made sherds testifies to interaction with sedentary communities. Numerous cooking-ware fragments suggest the presence of a living area to the north-west of themain mound. A craft production area with evidence for kiln, kiln-slags, metal prills and numerous stone tools is located c . 40 m to the south-west. Numerous fragments ofwattle-and-daub building materials, typical for Andronovo camp-sites in the Murghab alluvial fan, were found scattered across the site. This site is the first example of a sedentary community with an Andronovo cultural identity.

As mentioned above, the progressive decrease in land suitable for agriculture presenteda simultaneous increase of grazing areas during the Bronze Age. One can imagine thatas a result, farmers leased their territories to cattle breeders in exchange for productssuch as milk and meat as well as textiles or pelts. Technology, including agriculturaltechniques, metalworking and possibly even architectural traditions seems to have been exchanged (Shishlina and Hiebert 1998: 222, 231 

Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of the Oxus Civilization in Southern Central Asia

 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-00728-7_14

Abstract

During the Final Bronze Age (around 3750/3700 BP), the proto-urban sedentary cultural entity in southern Central Asia—known as the Oxus civilization or Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex—underwent major social transformations in different field aspects leading to a deep cultural change in the middle of the 4th millennium BP. Among the different reasons suggested to explain these sociocultural changes, the hypothesis of global climate change in Central Asia at the beginning of the 4th millennium BP has been emphasized by different scholars. In this paper, I will examine current paleo-environmental data in relation with the climate evolution during the Mid- and Late Holocene. A critical assessment of the hypothesis of climatic change in Central Asia at the beginning of the 4th millennium BP allows to stimulate the discussion anew. I argue that the present data do not support a drastic climate change during the first half of the 4th millennium BP as a responsible factor for the fall of the Oxus civilization, although local environmental modifications should also not be underestimated and further investigated in a more integrated perspective of co-evolution of the ecological environment and the human societies.

An Iranian from 1800 BCE

While scourging through the Narasimhan supple, I found a sample that caught my eye. It clustered on a PCA with modern Iranians and on G25 distances, it had the lowest distances to modern Iranians; however, it was from the post-BMAC site of Sappali Tepe in Uzbekistan and dated to ~1800 BCE cal. 

The supplementary describes it as such.

BMAC_o2 (n=1): This individual has a significantly elevated proportion of ancestry related to

Central_Steppe_MLBA. We call this individual by the BMAC_o2 analysis label and the

Sappali_Tepe_BA_o split label.

• UZ-ST-010, Sappali Tepe (ST) 1975, 6, Grave 02-05 (I7493): Context date of 2000-1600

BCE. Genetically male.

Distance to: UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o

0.03315719 Iranian_Zoroastrian
0.03528786 Iranian_Fars
0.04027134 Iranian_Persian_Shiraz
0.04254455 Azerbaijani_Dagestan
0.04405072 Ezid
0.04435116 Iranian_Mazandarani
0.04586352 Iranian_Lor

On a PCA, Sappali Tepe clusters with other Iranians as well, shifted a bit to the extreme end of the West Iranian Steppe % The rest of the Sappali Tepe site is regular post-BMAC and accordingly clusters with other BMAC (Gonur1) and post BMAC (Bustan BA) sites. So it's obvious this outlier has BMAC + Steppe ancestry. Not that out of the ordinary, right? Even TKM_IA has this mixture.

Target: UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o:I7493
Distance: 4.9056% / 0.04905551
65.2 UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA
34.8 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA

Poor distance, but where it gets interesting is when you add West Iranian farmer ancestry.  

Target: UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o:I7493
Distance: 3.0157% / 0.03015733
48.2 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
33.2 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
18.6 UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA

This is great, the distance improves a lot. This must mean this individual is a mix of West Iranian type farmers + early East Iranian (TKM_IA) type ancestry. Now, interestingly enough, this must mirror the actual process by which modern West Iranians came to be. Steppe pastoralists mix with Turan_BA (BMAC) type people and form a hybrid 50:50 ish population in the region surrounding modern Tajikistan. This population eventually comes down to the Iranian plateau and mixes with the native Elamite farmers to form modern West Iranians. 

So, let's model it with TKM_IA too, but first add in Indus Valley. 

Target: UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o:I7493
Distance: 2.3048% / 0.02304809
57.2 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
32.8 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
10.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

Modern Iranians likely received an additional wave of Levant_C or Anatolia_C that mixed with their Sehi_Gabi type pop, so might as well as try it with that too.

Target: UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o
Distance: 2.1811% / 0.02181055
52.2 TKM_IA
26.6 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
12.4 Levant_ISR_C
8.8 Indus(Sis2+Gonur)

Yep, way better fits. TKM_IA likely also absorbs nearby WSHG/ANE type ancestry.

Can we replicate this on qpAdm? Let's try. 

Uzbekistan_SappaliTepe_BA_o

Turkmenistan_IA.SG 49.2% ± 9.4

Iran_C_SehGabi 19.8% ± 9.5

Israel_C 20.1% ± 5.6

Indus 10.9% ± 7.3

p-value:  0.300

(Outgroups: Mbuti, EEHG, WEHG (Iron Gates), WSHG, ESHG, Han, Tianyuan, TurkeyN, IranN, Levant PPN, Iberomaurusian/Natufian (optional), CHG, MA1 (optional), Kostenki14 (optional))

This is pretty close to our G25 results. This would mean Sappali Tepe has around ~25% Sintashta ancestry, thus being a perfect fit to model modern Iranians with (who have quite a bit lower Sintashta).

By the way, I tried Anatolia_C and Rus_Maykop_Nosovko as sources too. Former gives quite decent fits on qpAdm and works equally well as a source, but drops TKM_IA to 40% ish. Latter is a poor source, but I decided to try it anyways as some outliers in Bronze Age Turan carry Caucasus ancestry (like the Dzharkutan outliers from Uzbekistan which are Caucasus + Steppe). 

I also tried out other IranN rich profiles such as Sarazm, Geokysur, Parkhai, Namazga as well. They give much poorer fits on G25 and qpAdm. Anyway, let's just do a Dstats run to see if there is indeed allele sharing b/w the two, and to what extent.

result:  Chimp.REF Uzbekistan_SappaliTepe_BA_o Anatolia_C   Israel_C     -0.0235    -4.133     -    7424   7781 153314 

Significant negative Z score, so it looks like Anatolia_C is actually preferred as the Chalcolithic source over Israel_C.  G25 shows the same, the fit improves when we use Anatolia_C. 

Regardless of the exact Chalco source, let's try and model Modern Iranians with the Sappali outlier.

Target	Distance		IRN_Seh_Gabi_C	IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2	Levant_ISR_C	MNG_Slab_Grave_EIA_1	UZB_Sappali_Tepe_BA_o	Yoruba
Iranian_Bandari	0.02025044	•	26.6	20.8	0.8	0.0	48.8	3.0
Iranian_Fars	0.01639102	•	27.2	0.8	7.0	2.2	62.8	0.0
Parsi_India	0.01486118	•	10.8	29.2	13.4	0.8	45.8	0.0
Parsi_Pakistan	0.01436086	•	9.6	27.4	12.8	0.8	49.4	0.0
Iranian_Lor	0.01120472	•	35.8	0.0	10.8	1.2	52.2	0.0
Iranian_Mazandarani	0.01877939	•	44.8	3.4	0.0	0.0	51.8	0.0
Iranian_Persian_Shiraz	0.01724956	•	29.0	3.6	9.4	2.6	55.0	0.4
Iranian_Zoroastrian	0.01704363	•	22.4	0.0	6.6	0.0	71.0	0.0
Average	0.01626760	•	25.8	10.7	7.6	0.9	54.6	0.4

Very good fits. If Sappali is around 24-27% ish Steppe, then this gives Iranian Zoroastrians around 18-19% Steppe, which sounds just about right. So this individual from 1800 BCE Uzbekistan is indeed quite close to a modern West Iranian. 

His haplogroup is Q1b2, which is an India specific branch of Q1 (found in the Swat Valley Loebanr samples) and this kinda gives more evidence for the 10-11% Indus Valley ancestry in him. 

This individual is remarkably similar to another outlier from 1500 BCE Uzbekistan, who I discussed in my substack here. However, this outlier clusters with modern Indo-Aryans and contains the 3 way Steppe + Indus + Onge admix that characterizes modern Indians. The Sappali Tepe outlier contains the 3 way mix that characterizes modern Iranians: Steppe + BMAC + Iranian chalcolithic farmer. 

Now, we cannot be possibly sure what language this outlier spoke, but my bet is it was likely some form of early Iranian, thereby meaning the genepool that characterizes modern Indians and Iranians had already formed in Central Asia by 1600-1800 BCE.