Grimm's Fairy Tales
by Brothers Grimm
(e-book)

Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
(e-book)

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
(e-book)

The Sorrows of Young Werther was Goethe's first major success, turning him from an unknown into a celebrated author practically overnight. Napoleon Bonaparte considered it one of the great works of European literature. He thought so highly of it that he wrote a soliloquy in Goethe's style in his youth and carried Werther with him on his campaigning to Egypt. It also started the phenomenon known as the "Werther-Fieber" ("Werther Fever") which caused young men throughout Europe to dress in the clothing style described for Werther in the novel. It reputedly also led to some of the first known examples of copycat suicide.

Goethe Institute

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German Coat of Arms

German History

Prussia

* German Confederation

The German Resistance refers to those individuals and groups in Nazi Germany who opposed the regime of Adolf Hitler between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Hitler from power and overthrow his regime. Their plans culminated in the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 (the July 20 Plot).

* Aryan Race

* History of the Jews in Germany

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* Nuremberg Trials

Jewish Museum Berlin

* Expulsion of Germans After World War II

* History of Germany Since 1945

* West Germany

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* The Berlin Wall

* German Reunification

* German Exodus from Eastern Europe

* Organized Persecution of Ethnic Germans

Albrecht Dürer

Johann Sebastian Bach

Ludwig van Beethoven

Richard Wagner

* Cinema of Germany

Good Bye Lenin!
(video)

Sophie Scholl
(video)

Lives of Others
(video)

GERMAN

Excerpts from Wikipedia.org

Germans (Deutsche) are defined as an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, citizenship, speaking the German language as a mother tongue and being born in Germany. Germans are also defined by their national citizenship, which had, in the course of German history, varying relations to the above (German culture), according to the influence of subcultures and society in general.

Out of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 70 million people of German ancestry (mainly in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, France and Canada) who are not native speakers of German but who may still consider themselves ethnic Germans, so that the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 75 and 160 million, depending to the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans or partial German ancestry). In the USA, 15.2% of citizens identify as of German American according to the United States Census of 2000, more than any other group.

Origins

The Germans are a Germanic people which as an ethnicity emerged in southern Scandinavia in the centuries leading up to the Migrations Period, where they were in contact with other peoples, including Finnic inhabitants of Scandinavia to the north, Balto-Slavic peoples to the east and Celts to the south. Later in history, Germanic peoples — as most other European people — mixed with bordering ethnic groups such as Gallo-Romans and Slavs. For the global genetic make-up of the Germans and other peoples, see also the World Haplogroups Maps PDF (386 KiB) and the National Geographic Genographic Atlas.

In the course of the Migration Period, Slavs expanded westwards at the same time as Germans expanded eastwards. The result was German colonization as far East as Romania, and Slavic colonization as far west as present-day Lübeck (at the Baltic Sea), Hamburg (connected to the North Sea), and along the river Elbe and its tributary Saale further South.

Ethnic Germans

Ethnic Germans form an important minority group in several countries in central and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia) as well as in Namibia, southern Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Chile.

Some groups may be classified as Ethnic Germans despite no longer having German as their mother tongue or belonging to a distinct German culture. Until the 1990s, two million Ethnic Germans lived throughout the former Soviet Union, especially in Russia and Kazakhstan.

In the United States 1990 census, 57 million people are fully or partly of German ancestry, forming the largest single ethnic group in the country. Most Americans of German descent live in the Mid-Atlantic states (especially Pennsylvania) and the northern Midwest (especially in Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and eastern Missouri), but historically Germanic immigrant enclaves can be found in many other states (e.g., the German Texans).

Notable Ethnic German populations also exist in other Anglosphere countries such as Canada (approx. 9% of the population) and Australia (approx. 4% of the population).

Subgroups

The Germans are divided into sub-nationalities, some of which form dialectal unities with groups outside Germany that are not considered "Germans". The southern Upper German groups retain a pronounced identity, in the case of the Swabians historically even the cause of a limited movement of Alemannic separatism. The Low German Platt speakers also retain a certain ethnic identity, while the Central German majority has largely abandoned individual nationalisms.

Upper German
- the Bavarians (ca. 10 million) form the Austro-Bavarian ethno-linguistic group together with the Austrians.
- the Swabians (ca. 10 million) form the Alemannic group together with the Alemannic Swiss, the Alsatians and the Vorarlbergians.
Central German dialect group (ca. 45 million)
- Central Franconian, forms a dialectal unity with Luxembourgish
- Rhine Franconian (Ripuarian, Kölsch)
- Thuringian
- Hessian
- Upper Saxon
- High Prussian
- German Silesian
Yiddish dialects
Low German (ca. 3-10 million), forms a dialectal unity with Dutch Low Saxon

German Colonial Empire (1914)

Africa

Pacific

German New Guinea

German Samoa

America

Little Venice/Klein Venedig
Saint Thomas
Island of Crabs
Tertholen

China

Jiaozhou Bay / Qingdao

German Diaspora

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German monk, whose ideas inspired the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western civilization. Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority. He translated the Bible into the vernacular, making it more accessible to ordinary people. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a model for the practice of clerical marriage within Protestanti.

Germanic Peoples

The Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European-speaking peoples, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The descendants of these peoples became the ethnic groups of North Western Europe, such as the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Germans, Dutch, English and Frisians.

Migrating Germanic peoples spread throughout Europe in Late Antiquity (AD 300-600) and the Early Middle Ages. Germanic languages became dominant along the Roman borders (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and England), but in the rest of the (western) Roman provinces, the Germanic immigrants adopted Latin (Romance) dialects. Furthermore, all Germanic peoples were eventually Christianized to varying extents. The Germanic people played a large role in transforming the Roman empire into Medieval Europe, and they contributed in developing a common identity, history, and culture which transcended linguistic borders.

Genetics: The most prevalent Y-chromosome haplogroups in Germanic populations are I1, R1a and R1b, accounting for a frequency of roughly a third each in the population of southern Norway, southwestern Sweden, and Denmark.

I1 itself occurs at its greatest frequency in Scandinavia. It displays a very clear frequency gradient, with a peak frequency of approximately among the populations of southern Scandinavia, and rapidly decreasing frequencies toward the edges of the historically Germanic peoples.

Frequency of the R1b haplogroup is significant of Western Europe (particularly the Atlantic Fringe), while R1a frequency peaks in Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Northern India (highest frequencies in Russians, Uzbeks, Indo-Aryans, Altaians). It is the combination of roughly equal frequency of I1, R1a and R1b that is characteristic of North Germanic populations, with a gradient of increasing frequency of R1b towards Germanic speaking populations of the British Isles and the European continent. Sami populations have a frequency of I1 comparable to south Scandinavian values, but a lower incidence of haplogroup R in favour of haplogroup N.

Bronze Age: Regarding the question of ethnic origins, evidence developed by archaeologists and linguists suggests that a people or group of peoples sharing a common material culture dwelt in a region defined by the Northern Bronze Age culture between 1700 BC and 600 BC. The Germanic tribes then inhabited southern Scandinavia, Denmark and Schleswig, but subsequent Iron Age cultures of the same region, like Wessenstedt (800 to 600 BC) and Jastorf, are also in consideration. The change of Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic has been defined by the first sound shift (or Grimm's law) and must have occurred when mutually intelligible dialects or languages in a Sprachbund were still able to convey such a change to the whole region. So far it has been impossible to date this event conclusively.

The precise interaction between these peoples is not known, however, they are tied together and influenced by regional features and migration patterns linked to prehistoric cultures like Hügelgräber, Urnfield, and La Tene. A deteriorating climate in Scandinavia around 850 BC to 760 BC and a later and more rapid one around 650 BC might have triggered migrations to the coast of Eastern Germany and further towards the Vistula. A contemporary northern expansion of Hallstatt drew part of this peoples into the Celtic hemisphere, including nordwestblock areas and the region of Elp culture (1800 BC to 800 BC).

At around this time, this culture became influenced by Hallstatt techniques of how to extract bog iron from the ore in peat bogs, ushering in the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

Urnfield Culture

Map by GaiusCrastinus

The Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC - 750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns which were then buried in fields. The Urnfield culture followed the Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture.

The Tumulus culture dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1600 BC to 1200 BC).

It was the descendant of the Unetice culture. Its heartland the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture besides Bavaria and Württemberg. It was succeeded by the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture.

As the name implies, the Tumulus culture is distinguished by the practice of burying the dead beneath burial mounds (tumuli).

Kurgan is the Russian word (of Turkic origin) for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood. The distribution of such tumuli in Eastern Europe corresponds closely to the area of the Pit Grave or Kurgan culture in South-Eastern Europe.

Kurgans were built in the Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Antiquity and Middle Age, with old traditions still smoldering in Southern Siberia and Central Asia. Kurgan Cultures are divided, archeologically, into different sub-cultures, such as Timber Grave, Pit Grave, Scythian, Sarmatian, Hunnish and Kuman-Kipchak.

A plethora of placenames that include the word "kurgan" spread from Lake Baikal to the Black Sea.

Origin: The Urnfield culture grew from the preceding tumulus culture. The transition is gradual, in the pottery as well as the burial rites. In some parts of Germany, cremation and inhumation existed simultaneously (facies Wölfersheim). Some graves contain a combination of tumulus-culture pottery and Urnfield swords (Kressborn, Bodenseekreis) or tumulus culture incised pottery together with early Urnfield types (Mengen). In the North, the Urnfield culture was only adopted in the HaA2 period. 16 pins deposited in a swamp in Ellmoosen (Kr. Bad Aibling, Germany) cover the whole chronological range from Bronze B to the early Urnfield period (Ha A). This demonstrates a considerable ritual continuity. In the Loire, Seine and Rhône, certain fords contain deposits from the late Neolithic onwards up to the Urnfield period.

The origins of the cremation rite is commonly believed to be the Balkans, where it was widespread in the eastern part of the Tumulus culture. Some cremations begin to be found in the Proto-Lusatian and Trzciniec-culture.

Ethnic Ascription: As there are no written sources, the languages spoken by the bearers of the Urnfield culture are unknown. Some scholars consider them to be the ancestors of the Celts. Urnfield material is found in some of the areas where later people were to be called "Kelt" or "Galatoi" by classical authors (who had never been there). As we do not know how processes of ethnogenesis work or how long they last, and whether a common material culture is always associated with social and political unity, this is highly contested.

Migrations: The numerous hoards of the Urnfield culture and the existence of fortified settlements (hill forts) were taken as evidence for widespread warfare and upheaval by some scholars. Written sources describe several collapses and upheavals in the Eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia and the Levant around the time of the Urnfield origins:

end of the Mycenean culture with a conventional date of ca. 1200 BC
destruction of Troy VI ca. 1200 BC
Battles of Ramses III against the Sea Peoples, 1195-1190 BC
end of the Hittite empire 1180 BC
settlement of the Philistines in Palestine ca. 1170 BC

Some scholars, among them Wolfgang Kimmig and P. Bosch-Gimpera have postulated a Europe-wide wave of migrations. The so-called Dorian invasion of Greece was placed in this context as well (although more recent evidence suggests that the Dorians moved in 1100 BC into a post Mycenaean vacuum, rather than precipitating the collapse). Better methods of dating have shown that these events are not as closely connected as once thought.

More recently Robert Drews, after having reviewed and dismissed the migration hypothesis, has suggested that the observed cultural associations may be in fact partly explained as the result of a new kind of warfare based upon the slashing Niue sword, and with bands of infantry replacing chariots in warfare. Drews suggests that the political instability that this brought to centralised states based upon maryannu chariotry caused the breakdown of these polities.

Chariots: About a dozen wagon-burials of four wheeled wagons with bronze fittings are known from the early Urnfield period. They include Hart an der Altz (Kr. Altötting), Mengen (Kr. Sigmaringen), Poing (Kr. Ebersberg), Königsbronn (Kr. Heidenheim) from Germany and St. Sulpice (Vaud), Switzerland. In Alz, the chariot had been placed on the pyre, pieces of bone are attached to the partially melted metal of the axles. Bronze (one-part) bits appear at the same time. Two-part horse bits are only known from late Urnfield contexts and may be due to eastern influence. Wood- and bronze spoked wheels are known from Stade (Germany), a wooden spoked wheel from Mercurago, Italy. Wooden dish-wheels have been excavated at Corcelettes, Switzerland and the Wasserburg-Buchau, Germany (diameter 80 cm).

In Milavče near Domažlice, Bohemia, a four-wheeled miniature bronze wagon bearing a large cauldron (diameter 30 cm) contained a cremation. This exceptionally rich burial was covered by a barrow. The wagon from Acholshausen (Bavaria) comes from a male burial.

Such wagons are known from the Nordic Bronze Age as well. The wagon from Skallerup, Denmark, contained a cremation as well. At Pekatel (Kr. Schwerin) in Mecklenburg a cauldron-wagon and other rich grave goods accompanied an inhumation under a barrow (Montelius III/IV). Another example comes from Ystad in Sweden. South-eastern European examples include Kanya in Hungary and Orăştie in Romania. Clay miniature wagons, sometimes with waterfowl were known there since the middle Bronze Age (Dupljaja, Vojvodina, Serbia).

The Lusatian chariot from Burg (Brandenburg, Germany) has three wheels on a single axle, on which waterfowl perch. The grave of Gammertingen (Kr. Sigmaringen, Germany) contained two socketed horned applications that probably belonged to a miniature wagon comparable to the Burg example, together with six miniature spoked wheels.

Hoards: Hoards are very common in the Urnfield culture. The custom is abandoned at the end of the Bronze Age. They were often deposited in rivers and wet places like swamps. As these spots were often quite inaccessible, they most probably represent gifts to the gods. Other hoards contain either broken or miscast objects that were probably intended for reuse by bronze smiths. As Late Urnfield hoards often contain the same range of objects as earlier graves, some scholars interpret hoarding as a way to supply personal equipment for the hereafter. In the river Trieux, Côtes du Nord, complete swords were found together with numerous antlers of red deer that may have had a religious significance as well.

Graves: In the tumulus-period, multiple inhumations under barrows were common, at least for the upper levels of society. In the Urnfield period, inhumation and burial in single graves prevails, though some barrows exist.

In the earliest phases of the Urnfield period, man-shaped graves were dug, sometimes provided with a stone lined floor, in which the cremated remains of the deceased were spread. Only later, burial in urns became prevalent. Some scholars speculate that this may have marked a fundamental shift in people's beliefs or myths about life and the afterlife.

The size of the urnfields is variable. In Bavaria, they can contain hundreds of burials, while the largest cemetery in Baden-Württemberg in Dautmergen has only 30 graves. The dead were placed on pyres, covered in their personal jewellery, which often shows traces of the fire and sometimes food-offerings. The cremated bone-remains are much larger than in the Roman period, which indicates that less wood was used. Often, the bones have been incompletely collected. Most urnfields are abandoned with the end of the Bronze Age, only the Lower Rhine urnfields continue in use in the early Iron Age (Ha C, sometimes even D).

The cremated bones could be placed in simple pits. Sometimes the dense concentration of the bones indicates a container of organic material, sometimes the bones were simply shattered. If the bones were placed in urns, these were often covered by a shallow bowl or a stone. In a special type of burial (bell-graves) the urns are completely covered by an inverted larger vessel. As graves rarely overlap, they may have been marked by wooden posts or stones. Stone-pacing graves are typical of the Unstrut group.

Upper-Class Graves: Upper-class burials were placed in wooden chambers, rarely stone cists or chambers with a stone-paved floor and covered with a barrow or cairn. The graves contain especially finely made pottery, animal bones, usually pork, sometimes gold rings or sheets, in exceptional cases miniature wagons. Some of these rich burials contain the remains of more than one person. In this case, women and children are normally seen as sacrifices. Until more is known about the status distribution and the social structure of the late Bronze Age, this interpretation should be viewed with caution. Towards the end of the Urnfield period, some bodies were burnt in situ and then covered by a barrow, reminiscent of the burial of Patroclus as described by Homer and the burial of Beowulf (with the additional ship burial element). In the early Iron Age, inhumation became the rule again.

Proto-Germanic

The expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1 (after the Penguin Atlas of World History 1988): Settlements before 750BC, New settlements until 500BC, New settlements until 250BC, New settlements until AD 1

Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor (proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English, Dutch, German, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish. The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any surviving texts but has been reconstructed using the comparative method. However, a few surviving inscriptions in a runic script from Scandinavia dated to c. 200 are thought to represent a stage of Proto-Norse or, according to Bernard Comrie, Late Common Germanic immediately following the "Proto-Germanic" stage. In some non-Germanic languages spoken in areas adjacent to Germanic speaking areas, there are loanwords believed to have been borrowed from Proto-Germanic; an example is Finnish and Estonian kuningas "king", which closely resembles the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *kuningaz.

Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

Archaeological Contributions: In one major theory of Andrev V Bell-Fialkov, Christopher Kaplonski, Wiliam B Mayer, Dean S Rugg, Rebeca W, Wendelken about Germanic origins, Indo-European speakers arrived on the plains of southern Sweden and Jutland, the center of the Urheimat or "original home" of the Germanic peoples, prior to the Nordic Bronze Age, which began about 4500 years ago. This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found. The region was certainly populated before then; the lack of names must indicate an Indo-European settlement so ancient and dense that the previously assigned names were completely replaced. If archaeological horizons are at all indicative of shared language (not a straightforward assumption), the Indo-European speakers are to be identified with the much more widely ranged Cord-impressed ware or Battle-axe culture and possibly also with the preceding Funnel-necked beaker culture developing towards the end of the Neolithic culture of Western Europe.

Proto-Germanic then evolved from the Indo-European spoken in the Urheimat region. The succession of archaeological horizons suggests that before their language differentiated into the individual Germanic branches the Proto-Germanic speakers lived in southern Scandinavia and along the coast from the Netherlands in the west to the Vistula in the east around 750 BC).

Another theory, which also includes the inception of Proto-Germanic is Paleolithic Continuity Theory. PCT conclusion differs in some detail from the above.

Early Iron Age: Archeological evidence suggests a relatively uniform Germanic people were located at about 750 BC from the Netherlands to the Vistula and in Southern Scandinavia. In the west the coastal floodplains were populated for the first time, since in adjacent higher grounds the population had increased and the soil became exhausted. At about 250 BC some expansion to the south had occurred and five general groups can be distinguished: North Germanic in southern Scandinavia, excluding Jutland; North Sea Germanic, along the North Sea and in Jutland; Rhine-Weser Germanic, along the middle Rhine and Weser; Elbe Germanic, along the middle Elbe; and East Germanic, between the middle Oder and the Vistula. This concurs with linguistic evidence pointing at the development of five linguistic groups, mutually linked into sets of two to four groups that shared linguistic innovations.

This period witnessed the advent of Celtic culture of Hallstatt and La Tene signature in previous Northern Bronze Age territory, especially to the western extends. However, some proposals suggest this Celtic superstrate was weak, while the general view in the Netherlands holds that this Celtic influence did not involve intrusions at all and assume fashion and a local development from Bronze Age culture. It is generally accepted such a Celtic superstratum was virtually absent to the East, featuring the Germanic Wessenstedt and Jastorf cultures. The Celtic influence and contacts between Gaulish and early Germanic culture along the Rhine is assumed as the source of a number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic.

Frankenstein and Rowlands (1978), and Wells (1980) have suggested late Hallstatt trade contact to be a direct catalyst for the development of an elite class that came into existence around northeastern France, the Middle Rhine region, and adjacent Alpine regions (Collis 1984:41), culminating to new cultural developments and the advent of the classical Gaulish La Tene Culture The development of La Tene culture extended to the north around 200 to 150 BC, including the North German Plain, Denmark and Southern Scandinavia:

In certain cremation graves, situated at some distance from other graves, Celtic metalwork appears: brooches and swords, together with wagons, Roman cauldrons and drinking vessels. The area of these rich graves is the same as the places where later (the first century AD) princely graves are found. A ruling class seems to have emerged, distinguished by the possession of large farms and rich gravegifts such as weapons for the men and silver objects for the women, imported earthenware and Celtic items.

The first Germani in Roman ethnography cannot be clearly identified as either Germanic or Celtic in the modern ethno-linguistic sense, and it has been generally held the traditional clear cut division along the Rhine between both ethnic groups was primarily motivated by Roman politics. Caesar described the Eburones as a Germanic tribe on the Gallic side of the Rhine, and held other tribes in the neighbourhood as merely calling themselves of Germanic stock. Even though names like Eburones and Ambiorix were Celtic and, archeologically, this area shows strong Celtic influences, the problem is difficult. Some 20th century writers consider the possibility of a separate "Nordwestblock" identity of the tribes settled along the Rhine at the time, assuming the arrival of a Germanic superstrate from the 1st century BC and a subsequent "Germanization" or language replacement through the "elite-dominance" model. However, immigration of Germanic Batavians from Hessen in the northern extend of this same tribal region is, archeologically speaking, hardly noticeable and certainly did not populate an exterminated country, very unlike Tacitus suggested. Here, probably due to the local indigenous pastoral way of life, the acceptance of Roman culture turned out to be particularly slow and, contrary to expected, the indigenous culture of the previous Eburones rather seems to have absorbed the intruding (Batavian) element, thus making it very hard to define the real extends of the pre-Roman Germanic indigenous territories.

Roman Empire Period: Germanic expansions during early Roman times are known only generally, but it is clear that the forebears of the Goths were settled on the southern Baltic shore by 100 AD.

The early Germanic tribes are assumed to have spoken mutually intelligible dialects, in the sense that Germanic languages derive from a single earlier parent language. No written records of such a parent language exists. From what we know of scanty early written material, by the fifth century CE the Germanic languages were already "sufficiently different to render communication between the various peoples impossible". Some evidence point to a common pantheon made up of several different chronological layers. However, as for mythology only the Scandinavian one (see Germanic mythology) is sufficiently known. Some traces of common traditions between various tribes are indicated by Beowulf and the Volsunga saga. One indication of their shared identity is their common Germanic name for non-Germanic peoples, *walhaz (plural of *walhoz), from which the local names Welsh, Wallis, Walloon and others were derived. An indication of an ethnic unity is the fact that the Romans knew them as one and gave them a common name, Germani (this is the source of our German and Germanic, see Etymology above), although it was well known for the Romans to give geographical rather than cultural names to peoples. The very extensive practice of cremation deprives us of anthropological comparative material for the earliest periods to support claims of a longstanding ethnic isolation of a common (Nordic) strain.

In the absence of large-scale political unification, such as that imposed forcibly by the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the various tribes remained free, led by their own hereditary or chosen leaders.

Map of the Roman Empire and "the free Germania", Magna Germania, in the early 2nd century

Collision with Rome: By the late 2nd century BC, Roman authors recount, Gaul, Italy and Hispania were invaded by migrating Germanic tribes, culminating in military conflict with the armies of the Roman Empire. Six decades later, Julius Caesar invoked the threat of such attacks as one justification for his annexation of Gaul to Rome.

As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire. The tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania. The peoples of this area were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well.

The Cimbri and Teutoni incursions into Roman Italy were thrust back in 101 BC. These invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a Northern danger for the Empire, a danger that should be controlled. In the Augustean period there was — as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River — a first definition of the "Germania magna": from Rhine and Danube in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North.

Caesar's wars helped establish the term Germania. The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns was to protect Transalpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe. In 9 AD a revolt of their Germanic subjects headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the surprise attack on unprepared Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. At the end of the 1st century two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established. Important medieval cities like Aachen, Cologne, Trier, Mainz, Worms and Speyer were part of these Roman provinces.

The Germania by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, an ethnographic work on the diverse group of Germanic tribes outside of the Roman Empire, is our most important source on the Germanic peoples of the 1st century.

Migration Period: During the 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire lost military strength and political cohesion, numerous Germanic peoples, under pressure from population growth and invading Asian groups, began migrating en masse in far and diverse directions, taking them to England and as far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Over time, this wandering meant intrusions into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalated with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Wandering tribes then began staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expanded outwards. A defeat meant either scattering or merging with the dominant tribe, and this continual process of assimilation was how nations were formed. In Denmark the Jutes merged with the Danes, in Sweden the Geats merged with the Swedes. In England, the Angles merged with the Saxons and other groups as well as a large number of natives to form the Anglo-Saxons.

A direct result of the Roman retreat was the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins, and a return to virtually unchanged local Iron Age production methods. According to recent views this has caused confusion for decades, and theories assuming the total abandonment of the coastal regions to account for an archaeological time gap that never existed have been renounced. Instead, it has been confirmed that the Frisian graves has been used without interruption between the 4th and 9th century and that inhabited areas show continuity with the Roman period in revealing coins, jewellery and ceramics of the 5th century. Also, people continued to live in the same three-aisled farmhouse, while to the east completely new types of buildings arose. More to the south, in Belgium, archeological results of this period point to immigration from the north.

Role in the Fall of Rome: Some of the Germanic tribes are frequently blamed in popular depictions of the decline of the Roman Empire in the late 5th century. Professional historians and archaeologists have since the 1950s shifted their interpretations in such a way that the Germanic peoples are no longer seen as invading a decaying empire but as being co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer. Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes had long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them had risen high in the command structure of the army. Then the Empire recruited entire tribal groups under their native leaders as officers. Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government passed into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, is the ultimate example.

The presence of successor states controlled by a nobility from one of the Germanic tribes is evident in the 6th century - even in Italy, the former heart of the Empire, where Odoacer was followed by Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, who was regarded by Roman citizens and Gothic settlers alike as legitimate successor to the rule of Rome and Italy.

2nd century AD to 5th century AD simplified migrations

Assimilation: The various Germanic Peoples of the Migrations period eventually spread out over a vast expanse stretching from contemporary European Russia to Iceland and from Norway to North Africa. The migrants had varying impacts in different regions. In many cases, the newcomers set themselves up as over-lords of the pre-existing population. Over time, such groups underwent ethnogenesis, resulting in the creation of new cultural and ethnic identities (such as the Franks and Galloromans becoming French). Thus many of the descendants of the ancient Germanic Peoples do not speak Germanic languages, as they were to a greater or lesser degree assimilated into the cosmopolitan, literate culture of the Roman world. Even where the descendants of Germanic Peoples maintained greater continuity with their common ancestors, significant cultural and linguistic differences arose over time; as is strikingly illustrated by the different identities of Christianized Saxon subjects of the Carolingian Empire and Pagan Scandinavian Vikings.

More broadly, early Medieval Germanic peoples were often assimilated into the walha substrate cultures of their subject populations. Thus, the Burgundians of Burgundy, the Vandals of Andalusia and the Visigoths of western France and eastern Iberia all lost their Germanic identity and became part of Latin Europe. Likewise, the Franks of Western Francia form part of the ancestry of the French people. Examples of assimilation during the Viking Age include the Norsemen in Normandy, and the societal elite in medieval Russia among whom many were the descendants of Slavified Norsemen (a theory, however, contested by some Slavic scholars in the former Soviet Union, who name it the Normanist theory).

Conversely, the Germanic settlement of Britain resulted in Anglo-Saxon, or English, displacement of and/or cultural assimilation of the indigenous culture, the Brythonic speaking British culture causing the foundation of a new Kingdom, England. As in what became England, indigenous Brythonic Celtic culture in some of the south-eastern parts of what became Scotland (approximately the Lothian and Borders region) succumbed to Germanic influence c.600—800, due to the extension of overlordship and settlement from the English areas to the south. Between c. 1150 and c. 1400 most of the Scottish Lowlands became English culturally and linquistically through immigration from England, France and Flanders and from the resulting assimilation of native Gaelic-speaking Scots. The Scots language is the resulting Germanic language still spoken in parts of Scotland and is very similar to the speech of the Northumbrians of northern England. Between the 15th and 17th centuries Scots spread into Galloway,Carrick and parts of the Scottish Highlands, as well as into the Northern Isles. The latter, Orkney and Shetland, though now part of Scotland, were nominally part of the Kingdom of Norway until the 15th century. A version of the Norse language was spoken there from the Viking invasions until replaced by Scots.

Portugal and Spain also had some measure of Germanic settlement, due to the Visigoths, the Suebi (Quadi and Marcomanni) and the Buri, who settled permanently. The Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) were also present, before moving on to North Africa. Many words of Germanic origin entered into the Spanish and Portuguese languages at this time and many more entered through other avenues (often French) in the ensuing centuries (see: List of Spanish words of Germanic origin and List of Portuguese words of Germanic origin).

Italy has also had a history of heavy Germanic settlement. Germanic tribes such as the Visigoths, Vandals, and Ostrogoths had successfully invaded and sparsely settled Italy in the 5th century AD. Most notably, in the 6th century AD, the Germanic tribe known as the Lombards entered and settled primarily in the area known today as Lombardy. The Normans also conquered and ruled Sicily and parts of southern Italy for a time. Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact until the late 1700’s, when many were deported by Catherine the Great. Their language vanished by the 1800’s.

The territory of modern Germany was divided between Germanic and Celtic speaking groups in the last centuries BC. The parts south of the Germanic Limes came under limited Latin influence in the early centuries AD, but were swiftly conquered by Germanic groups such as the Alemanni after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

In Scandinavia there is a long history of assimilation of and by the Sami people and Finnic peoples, namely Finns and Karelians. In today's usage the term 'Nordic peoples' refers to the ethnic groups in all of the Nordic countries.

Medieval to Modern Ethnogeneses: The Germanic tribes of the Migration period had settled down by the Early Middle Ages, the latest series of movements out of Scandinavia taking place during the Viking Age. The Goths, Vandals, Burgundians and Lombards were linguistically assimilated to their Latin (Italo-Western Romance) substrate populations (with the exception of the Crimean Goths, who preserved their dialect into the 18th century and smaller Gothic groups who went back to Austria after the fall of their kingdom. These groups were assimilated into Bavarians.).

The Viking Age Norsemen split into an Old East Norse and an Old West Norse group, which further separated into Icelanders, Faroese and Norwegians on one hand, and Swedes and Danes on the other. Politically, the union between Norway and Sweden was dissolved as late as 1905, and the Republic of Iceland was established in 1944. In Great Britain, Germanic people coalesced into the Anglo-Saxon or English people between the 8th and 10th centuries..

On the European continent, the Holy Roman Empire included all remaining Germanic speaking groups from the 10th century. In the Late Medieval to Early Modern period, some groups split off the Empire before a "German" ethnicity had formed, consisting of Low Franconian (Dutch, Flemish) and Alemannic (Swiss) populations. In the 19th century, the Austrian Empire became an entity separate from the German Empire (Austrians), leaving the rump Kingdom of Germany to form the German ethnicity by the 20th century, including sub-ethnicities such as the Franconians, Swabians, Bavarians or Saxons. The territory settled by Frisians remains divided between the Netherlands and Germany. The Alemannic-speaking Alsace was disputed between Germany and France from the 17th to the 20th centuries, finally passing to France in 1945, and largely romanized since then.

Daughter-groups of Germanic ethnicities that emerged during the age of colonialism include Anglo-America, Australians and New Zealanders (British Empire, speaking varieties of English), the Afrikaaners (Dutch Empire, speaking Afrikaans) and a scattered distribution of overseas Ethnic Germans, most notably in Namibia (the former German colony of South West Africa) and Argentina.

Contemporary Germanic Europe: The part of Europe in which Germanic languages are predominant corresponds more or less to North-Western Europe and western parts of Central Europe, including Iceland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Faroe Islands, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Swedish-speaking municipalities of Finland, French Flanders and Alsace-Moselle in France, Flanders and the smaller German-speaking Community in Belgium, the German-speaking part of Luxembourg, Germany, the formerly German parts of Poland as well as in East Prussia and the Baltic States Estonia and Latvia, Liechtenstein, the German-speaking part of Switzerland, Austria, and the province of Bolzano-Bozen in Italy.

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Map of Germany

DNA Tribes' Sample Profile - German

Native Population Match: Belgium, Czech Republic, Republic of Ireland, Lille (France), Catalonia (Spain), Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Flemish, Flemish, Spain, Norway, Emilia-Romagna (Italy), North Bavaria (Germany), Germany, Southwest Germany.

* Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations by Michael F. Seldin, et al. (The analysis was performed using 749 SNPs chosen for European substructure information)

Factor Correspondence Analysis Comparing Different Individuals from European Ancestry Groups

* European Population Genetic Substructure: Further definition of ancestry informative markers for distinguishing among diverse European ethnic groups by Chao Tian, et al.

Principal Component Analyses of Substructure in a Diverse Set of Subjects of European Descent

Adygei (ADY), Ashkenazi Jewish American (AJA), Basque (BAS), Bedouin (BDN), CEPH European American (CEU), Druze, Eastern European American (EEUR), German American (GERM), Greek American (GRK), Hungarian American (HUN), IRISH, Italian American (ITN), northern Italian (ITN_N), Dutch American (NETH), Orcadian (ORC), Palestinian (PAL), Russian (RUS), Sardinian (SARD), Scandinavian American (SCAN), Spanish (SPAIN), Swedish (SWED), Tuscan (TUSC), and United Kingdom American (UK).

Principal Component Analyses of Northern European Populations without Inclusion of ORC, CEU, and BAS Subjects

* Population History of the Dniester-Carpathians: Evidence from alu insertion and y-chromosome polymorphisms by Alexander Varzari

Plot from Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Analysis of a FST Values from Y Chromosome
Haplogroup Frequencies, Showing Genetic Affinities among European and Anatolian Populations

GAGK=Gagauzes from Kongaz; GAGE=Gagauzes from Etulia; MOLK=Moldavians from Karahasani; MOLS=Moldavians from Sofia; ROME=Romanians from Piatra Neamt and Buhus; UKRT=Ukrainians from Trans-Dniestria; AND=Andalusians; BASS=Spanish Basque; CAL=Calabrians; CAT=Catalans; CZSL=Czech and Slovakians; DUT=Dutch; FRE=French; GER=Germans; GRE=Greeks; HUN=Hungarians; ITCN=Central-Northern Italians; GREM=Macedonian Greeks; POL=Poles; UKRU=Ukrainians from Ukraine; TUR1- TUR9=Turks; ROMC=Romanians from Constanta; ROMP=Romanians from Ploiesti; GRET=Thracian Greeks; BEL=Byelorussians; CROB=Bosnian Croats, HER=Herzegovinians, SERB=Bosnian Serbs; ALBK=Albanians from Kosovo; SERS=Serbs from Serbia; CROC=Croats of Croatia; ALBA=Albanians from Albania; BOS=Bosnians; MAC=Macedonians. The investigated in the present study populations are marked in blue.

Plot from Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Analysis of a RST Values from Y Chromosome STR
Haplotype Frequencies, Showing Genetic Affinities among European and Anatolian Populations

GAGK=Gagauzes from Kongaz; GAGE=Gagauzes from Etulia; MOLK=Moldavians from Karahasani; MOLS=Moldavians from Sofia; ROME=Romanians from Piatra Neamt and Buhus; UKRT=Ukrainians from Trans-Dniestria (present study); MOSR= Moscow [Russia]; POLG=Gdansk [Poland]; POLW=Wrozlaw [Poland]; POLL=Lublin [Poland]; LIT=Vilnus [Lithuania]; LAT=Riga [Latvia]; EST=Tartu [Estonia]; HUN=Budapest [Hungary]; RUSN=Novgorod [Russia]; BRUS=Byelorussia; UKRK=Kiev [Ukraine]; ALB=Albania; SLO=Ljubljana [Slovenia]; GERB=Berlin [Germany]; GERC=Cologne [Germany]; GERM=Munich [Germany]; AUS=Vien [Austria]; DAN=Denmark; SWE=Sweden; GREA=Athens [Greece]; ITAS=Sicily [Italy]; ITAC=Lazio [Italy]; ITAN=Lombardy [Italy]; CRO=Croatia; TUR=Turkey; BUL=Bulgaria [Bulgarians]; TURB=Bulgaria [Turks]; MAC=Macedonia; BOS=Bosnia; SER=Serbia; GRET=Thrace [Greece]; ROMC=Constanta [Romania]; ROMP=Ploiesti [Romania]. The investigated in the present study populations are marked in blue.

* Genetic Structure of Europeans: A View from the North–East by Mari Nelis, et al.

The European Genetic Structure (based on 273,464 SNPs) - Intra-continental

* Homogeneity and Distinctiveness of Polish Paternal Lineages Revealed by Y Chromosome Microsatellite Haplotype Analysis by Rafal Ploski, et al.

Neighbour-joining Tree Based on Pairwise RST Values from Y-STR Haplotypes of Six Polish and Nine Additional European Populations ( Polish populations are highlighted)

* A Y-chromosomal Comparison of the Madjars (Kazakhstan) and the Magyars (Hungary) by Bíró AZ, et al.

Unrooted Phylogenetic Tree of 38 Populations

* MtDNA and Y-chromosome Variation in Kurdish Groups by Ivan Nasidze, et al.

MDS Plots Based on Pairwise Fst Values, Showing Relationships Among the Kurdish Groups (stars) and Caucasian (circles), European (squares), Central (diamonds) and West Asian (triangles) Groups Based on Y chromosome SNP data

The names of the populations are given using the following abbreviations: Kurmanji-G – Kurmanji speakers from Georgia, Zazaki-T – Zazaki speakers, Kurmanji-T – Kurmanji speakers, Kurds-I – Kurds from Iran, Kurds-T – Kurds from Eastern Turkey, Kurds-Tm – Kurds from Tuirkmenistan, Os-D – Ossetians from Digora, Os-A – Ossetians from Ardon, S-Os – South Ossetians, Lez – Lezginians, Ge – Georgians, Az – Azerbaijanians, Ar – Armenians, Abk – Abkhazians, Kar – Karachaians,
Bal – Balkarians, Kab – Kabardinians, Ir-I – Iranians from Isfahan, Ir-T – Iranians from Tehran, Lu- Lur, Maz – Mazandarani, Gil – Gilaki, Leb – Lebanese, Syr – Syrians, Tur – Turks, Iq – Iraqi, Rus - Russians, Ukr – Ukrainians, Pol – Polish, Hung – Hungarians, Gre – Greeks, Sar – Sardinians, Fr – French, Ger – Germans, It – Italians, Br – British, And – Andalusians, Dut – Dutch, Cat – Catalans, Kyr – Kyrgiz, Ishk – Ishkinasi, Kaz – Kazakh, Taj - Tajik.

* On the Origin of the Mongoloid Component in the Mitochondrial Gene Pool of Slavs by B. A. Maliarchuk, et al.

Frequency of Eastern-Eurasian mtDNA Lineages in the Gene Pools of Different Ethnolinguistic Groups of Europe

* The Closeness of the Finnish Ugric, Slav and Germanic Ppopulations According to Anthropological and Genetical Data by F. Nazarova

Abstract: The computation of genetic distances of 55 human populations belonging to four great human races, based on proteic, enzymatic and blood group loci, and the construction of a dendrogram for these populations, distinguished some relationship among German, Slavic and Finnish-Ugric populations. According to the results, Russians cluster together with Poles, Iranians, Komi, Chuvashes, Udmurtians, Nentses and Ossetians; Germans cluster together with Serbs, Moldavians, Hungarians, Croatians and Czechs; and Greecs are in closeness with Slavic populations. Common migrations of these populations from places of first differentiation in Asia were identified. In Europe, German populations migrated differently than ancestors of Russians, which migrated into Europe across the North of Siberia. The ancestors of Germans probably migrated in the same way than Hunnu. Settlements of ancient Caucasoids in Central Asia are currently under investigation. Haplogroups H, W, I, U, X and T1, defined by mitochondrial DNA, of the rural Russian population in the Yaroslavsky region corresponded to that of Russians and Caucasoids. Additionaly, the last decoding of petrogliphs in the Baikal region discovered the presence of ancestors of Caucasoids in Siberia in paleolithic.

Dendrogram Based on Genetic Distances (horizontal axis) Among Slavic, Finnish-Ugric and
Germanic Populations

Population identification: 1. Russians; 2. Poles; 3. Iranians; 4. Komi; 5. Chuvashes; 6. Udmurtians; 7. Nentses; 8. Ossetians; 9. Arabs; 10. Italians; 11. Germans; 12. Finns; 13. Altaians; 14. Evenks; 15. Yakuts; 16. Mongols; 17. Indians; 18. Ukrainians; 19. Belorussians; 20. Estonians; 21. Scottish; 22. Serbians; 23. Croatians; 24. Bulgarians; 25. Czechs; 26. Hungarians; 27. Mari; 28. Swedes; 29. Mansi; 30. American Indians; 31. Tatars; 32. Jews of Near East; 33. African Negroes; 34. Greecs; and 35. Saami
(Lapps).

The Diagram of Migrations of Prehistoric Human Populations Marked with mtDNA and Y Chromosome Haplogroups

Latin letters in circles indicate mtDNA haplogroups; symbols in rectangles, Y chromosome haplogroups. Letter M with numbers indicates the probable place of the appearance of a one nucleotide polymorphism (snip) in the Y chromosome, the time of its appearance (years ago) is indicated in parentheses. The data on the geographic distributions of mtDNA and Y chromosome haplogroups have been summarize from studies published by different authors.

* Y-chromosomal STR Haplotype Analysis Reveals Surname-associated Strata in the East-German Population by Uta-Dorothee Immel, et al.

Abstract: In human populations, the correct historical interpretation of a genetic structure is often hampered by an almost inherent inability to differentiate between ancient and more recent influences upon extant gene pools. One method to trace recent population movements is the analysis of surnames, which, at least in Central Europe, can be thought of as traits ‘linked’ to the Y chromosome. Illegitimacy, extramarital birth and changes of surnames may have substantially obscured this linkage. In order to assess the actual extent of correlation between surnames and Y-chromosomal haplotypes in Central Europe, we typed Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat markers in 419 German males from Halle. These individuals were subdivided into three groups according to the origin of their respective surname, namely German (G), Slavic (S) or ‘Mixed’ (M). The distribution of the haplotypes was compared by Analysis of Molecular Variance. While the M group was indistinguishable from group G (UST¼0.0008, P40.5), a highly significant difference (UST¼0.0277, Po0.001) was observed between the S group and the combined GþM group. This surprisingly strong differentiation is comparable to that of European populations of much larger geographic and linguistic difference. In view of the major migration from Slavic countries into Germany in the 19th century, it appears likely that the observed concurrence of Slavic surnames and Y chromosomes is of a recent rather than an early origin. Our results suggest that surnames may provide a simple means to stratify, and thereby to render more efficient, Y-chromosomal analyses of Central Europeans that target more ancient events.

* Signature of Recent Historical Events in the European Y-chromosomal STR Haplotype Distribution by Lutz Roewer, et al.

Clustering by Minimum Y-STR-based FST of 45 Male European Samples and Metasamples.
The significance of individual groupings is indicated by vertical bars below the dendrogram (top line
randomisation P<0.05, bottom lineP<0.001)

Haplogroup I1 (Y-DNA)

Haplogroup I1 Distribution

Haplogroup I1 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup occurring at greatest frequency in Scandinavia, associated with the mutations identified as M253, M307, P30, and P40. These are known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). It is a subclade of Haplogroup I. Before a reclassification in 2008, the group was known as Haplogroup I1a. Many individuals and organizations continue to use the I1a designation.

The group displays a very clear frequency gradient, with a peak of approximately 40 percent among the populations of western Finland and more than 50 percent in the province of Satakunta, around 35 percent in southern Norway, southwestern Sweden especially on the island of Gotland, and Denmark, with rapidly decreasing frequencies toward the edges of the historically Germanic sphere of influence.

Approximately 20,000 years ago, much of Europe was covered in ice and permafrost. People in Europe were forced south by the changing climate and topography. The European LGM refuges included the Iberian penninsula and the Balkans, where some believe the ancestors of I1 lived. The theory has been challenged recently by an opposing argument that I1 was not in existence during the LGM. Two primary cultures have been identified during this time: the Solutrean (Iberia and southern France) and the Gravettian (Balkans, Italy and Ukraine).

Origins: For several years the prevailing theory was that during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the I1 group sought refuge in the Balkans. For a time, the Ukraine was considered as an alternative. Yet, The Genographic Project claims that the founder of the I1 branch lived on the Iberian Peninsula during the LGM. Some have given southern France and the Italian peninsula as possible sites as well. Although the locations vary, proponents of the refuge theories do seem to agree on one issue: that the I1 subclade is from 15,000 to 20,000 years old.

However, professor Ken Nordtvedt of Montana State University believes that I1 is a more recent group, probably emerging after the LGM. Other researchers including Peter A. Underhill of the Human Population Genetics Laboratory at Stanford University have since confirmed this hypothesis in independent research.

The study of I1, which some had argued was largely ignored by the genetic testing industry in favor of "mega-haplogroups" like R, is in flux. Revisions and updates to previous thinking, primarily published in academic journals, is constant, yet slow, showing an evolution in thought and scientific evidence.

The most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of I1 lived from 4,000 to 6,000 years ago somewhere in the far northern part of Europe, perhaps Denmark, according to Nordtvedt. His descendants are primarily found among the Germanic populations of northern Europe and the bordering Uralic and Celtic populations, although even in traditionally German demographics I1 is overshadowed by the more prevalent Haplogroup R.

When SNPs are unknown or untested and when short tandem repeat (STR) results show eight allele repeats at DNA Y-chromosome Segment (DYS) 455, haplogroup I1 can be predicted correctly with a very high rate of accuracy, 99.3 to 99.8 percent, according to Whit Athey and Vince Vizachero. This is almost exclusive to and ubiquitous in the I1 haplogroup, with very few having seven, nine, or another number. Furthermore, DYS 462 divides I1 geographically. Nordtvedt considers 12 allele repeats to be more likely Anglo-Saxon and on the southern fringes of the I1 map, while 13 signifies more northerly, Nordic origins. Nordtvedt has repeatedly argued that, at least for I1, SNP testing is generally not as beneficial as expanded STR results.

Distribution: Outside Scandinavia, distribution of Haplogroup I1 is closely correlated with Haplogroup I2a1, but among Scandinavians including both Germanic and Uralic peoples of the region nearly all the Haplogroup I chromosomes are I1. I1 is common in men living near the southern Baltic and North Sea coasts, although successively decreasing the further south one goes.

Popular Culture: In the book Blood of the Isles, published in North America as Saxons, Vikings & Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland, author Bryan Sykes gave the name of the Nordic deity Wodan to represent the clan patriarch of I1, as he did for mitochondrial haplogroups in a previous book, The Seven Daughters of Eve. Every male identified as I1 is a descendant of this man.

Another writer, Stephen Oppenheimer, discussed I1 in his book The Origins of the British. Although somewhat controversial, Oppenheimer, unlike Sykes, argued that Anglo-Saxons did not have much impact on the genetic makeup of the British Isles. Instead he theorized that the vast majority of British ancestry originated in a paleolithic Iberian people, traced to modern-day Basque populations, represented by the predominance of Haplogroup R1b in the United Kingdom today. A similar, more broad-based argument was made by Ellen Levy-Coffman in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy. The book When Scotland Was Jewish is another example. These are direct challenges to previous studies led by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Siiri Rootsi and others. Cavalli-Sforza has studied the connections between migration patterns and blood groups. Spencer Wells gave a brief description of I1 in the book Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project.

Distribution of R1a and R1b, after McDonald (2005)

Haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA)

Haplogroup R1a refers to a major cluster of human Y-chromosome types and is a frequent topic of discussion in human population genetics and genetic genealogy. Men in the same Y DNA haplogroup share a set of differences, or markers, on their Y chromosome, which distinguish them from men in other haplogroups. The Y chromosome is passed from father to son, and so men in R1a all descend from a shared male line ancestor.

R1a can be viewed as a family tree of male lineages. However one sub-branch, R1a1a, is much more common than the others in all major geographical regions. The mutation that is currently used to define the R1a family most broadly is M420. The recent discovery of M420 resulted in a reorganization of the known family tree of R1a. In particular, this discovery demonstrated that there are R1a lineages which are not in the R1a1 branch leading to R1a1a. These have only been found in Asia, including the area of the Middle East, where R1a1a is relatively uncommon.

R1a1a is particularly common in a large region extending from South Asia and Southern Siberia to Central Europe and Scandinavia. The origin of R1a and R1a1a is uncertain. However they are believed to have originated somewhere within Eurasia, most likely in the area from Eastern Europe to South Asia. The most recent studies indicate that Asia is a more likely region of origin than Europe.

Phylogeny (Family Tree)

Publications in 2009 created major changes in the scientific understanding of R1a. In particular, the discovery of the mutation M420 has defined a previously unidentified category of lineages, which are distant relatives of R1a1a, which is the most common and well-known variant of R1a. R1a1a is therefore now known to represent only one sub-branch of a bigger "family tree", and itself has many branches which have already been defined. Each major branching of this tree is identified by a corresponding set of known SNP mutations which are used to test individuals, and define the relationships between branches of descent.

Roots of R1a: R1a evolved from a male-line ancestor who was in haplogroup R1. R1 is defined by SNP mutation M173. The R1a clade can be distinguished by several unique markers including M420. R1a also has a similarly common sister-clade, called R1b, which also has M173, but is distinguished by its M343 marker. There is no simple consensus concerning the places in Eurasia where R1, R1a or R1b evolved, although Underhill et al. (2009) recently suggested that "the most distantly related R1a chromosomes [...] have been detected at low frequency in Europe, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Caucasus and Iran"implying that R1a's origin may perhaps be somewhere in or near these regions. The origins of the most common type of R1a, R1a1a, will be discussed separately below.

Distribution of R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198)

R1a has been found in high frequency at both the eastern and western ends of its core range, for example in some parts of India and Tajikistan on the one hand, and Poland on the other. Throughout all of these regions, R1a is dominated by the R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) sub-clade.

Central and Northern Asia: R1a1a frequencies vary widely between populations within central and northern parts of Eurasia, but it is found in areas including Western China and Eastern Siberia. This big variation is possibly a consequence of population bottlenecks in isolated areas and the large movements of Turco-Mongols during the historic period. For example, exceptionally high frequencies of R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198; 50 to 70%) are found among the Ishkashimis, Khojant Tajiks, Kyrgyzs, and in several peoples of Russia's Altai Republic. Although levels are comparatively low amongst some Turkic-speaking groups (e.g. Turks, Azeris, Kazakhs, Yakuts), levels are very high in certain Turkic or Mongolic-speaking groups of Northwestern China, such as the Bonan, Dongxiang, Salar, and Uyghurs. R1a1a is also found among certain indigenous Eastern Siberians, including: Kamchatkans and Chukotkans, and peaking in Itel'man at 22%.

South Asia: In South Asia high levels of R1a1a been observed in some populations. For example, in the eastern and northern parts of India, among the high caste Bengalis from West Bengal like Brahmins and Kshatriyas (72%), Uttar Pradesh Brahmins (67%), Bihar Brahmins (60%), Punjab (47%), and Gujarat (33%) of male lineages have been observed in this lineage. It is also found in relatively high frequencies in several South Indian Dravidian-speaking tribes including the Chenchu and Valmikis of Andhra Pradesh and the Kallar of Tamil Nadu suggesting that M17 is widespread in tribal southern Indians. To the south of India, it has also been found in >10% of Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

Middle East and Caucasus: R1a has been found in various forms, in most parts of Western Asia, in widely varying concentrations, from almost no presence in areas such as Jordan, to much higher levels in parts of Turkey and Iran.

Wells et al. (2001), noted that in the western part of the country, Iranians show low R1ala levels, while males of eastern parts of Iran carried up to 35% R1a. Nasidze et al. (2004) found R1a in approximately 20% of Iranian males from the cities of Tehran and Isfahan. Regueiro et al. (2006), in a study of Iran, noted much higher frequencies in the south than the north.

Turkey also shows high but unevenly distributed R1a levels amongst some sub-populations. For example Nasidze et al. (2005) found relatively high levels amongst Kurds (12%) and Zazas (26%).

Further to the north of these Middle Eastern regions on the other hand, R1a levels start to increase in the Caucasus, once again in an uneven way. Several populations studied have shown no sign of R1a, while highest levels so far discovered in the region appears to belong to speakers of the Karachay-Balkar language amongst whom about one quarter of men tested so far are in haplogroup R1a1a.

Europe: In Europe, R1a, again almost entirely in the R1a1a sub-clade, is found at highest levels among peoples of Eastern European descent (Sorbs, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians; 50 to 65%). Levels in Hungarians have been noted between 20 and 60% The Balkans shows lower frequencies, and significant variation between areas, for example >30% in Slovenia, Croatia and Greek Macedonia, but <10% in Albania, Kosovo and parts of Greece. In the Baltic countries R1a frequencies decrease from Lithuania (45%) to Estonia (around 30%).

R1a1 was present in Europe at least 4600 years ago, as demonstrated by Y-DNA with the Y-SNP marker SRY10831.2 extracted from the remains of three individuals near Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, discovered in 2005. The discovery demonstrated the appearance of R1a1 with Corded Ware culture in Central Europe.

There is a significant presence in peoples of Scandinavian descent, with highest levels in Norway and Iceland, where between 20 and 30% of men are in R1a1a. Vikings and Normans may have also carried the R1a1a lineage westward; accounting for at least part of the small presence in the British Isles.

In Southern Europe R1a1a is not normally common but it is widespread and found in significant pockets. Scozzari et al. (2001) found significant levels in the Pas Valley in Northern Spain, and also the areas of Venice, and Calabria in Italy.

Origins and Hypothesized Migrations of R1a1a

Most discussions of R1a origins concern the dominant R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) sub-clade. There are two foci of high frequency of R1a1a, one in South Asia, near North India, and the other in Eastern Europe, in the area of the Ukraine. Until 2009 claims regarding the oldest R1a populations varied greatly between different articles, with Eastern Europe and South Asia being the main contenders. Such studies generally look at the STR haplotypes of each major population of R1a positive men. (These are the same markers mentioned above as being useful in trying to discover potential new branches within the R1a1a family tree.) Higher variation of STR haplotype in any particular region is normally seen as an rough indicator that a haplogroup has been present longer in that region. In order to gain more insight, the STR haplotypes are also often examined in detail, looking for clusters of more or less related male lines.

In 2009, several large studies of both old and new STR data, including Mirabal et al. (2009), Underhill et al. (2009), and Klyosov (2009) concluded that not only are there are two separate "poles of the expansion" with similar ages, but also that of these two poles, Asian R1a1a is apparently older than European R1a1a. The data is therefore said to be more consistent with Asian origins for R1a1a, as opposed to European origins, with a particular focus remaining upon South Asia.

South Asian Origin Hypothesis: As data collections have built up, an increasing number of studies have found South Asia to have the highest level of diversity of Y-STR haplotype variation within R1a1a. Three recent studies have argued that South Asia is a likely original point of dispersal, while four other studies have concluded that the data is at least consistent with this scenario. The most thorough study as of December 2009, including a collation of retested Y-DNA from previous studies, makes a South Asian R1a1a origin the strongest proposal amongst the various possibilities.

A particular interest has been taken in using R1a1a to investigate the long-presumed connection between Indo-Aryan origins and high caste Brahmins. For example Wells et al. (2001), noted that the Indo-European-speaking Sourashtrans, a population from Tamil Nadu in southern India, have a much higher frequency of M17 (R1a1a) than their Dravidian-speaking neighbours, the Yadhavas and Kallars, adding to the evidence that M17 is a diagnostic Indo-Aryan marker. On the other hand, some authors have not accepted this association. For example Saha et al. (2005) examined R1a1a in South Indian tribals and Dravidian population groups more closely, and their analyses of the haplogroups "indicated no single origin from any lineage but a result of a conglomeration of different lineages from time to time. The phylogenetic analyses indicate a high degree of population admixture and a greater genetic proximity for the studied population groups when compared with other world populations".

Age estimation techniques play a role in whether authors accept or reject any connection between Indo-Aryan languages, and R1a1a in any broad sense. In particular, researchers such as Underhill et al. and Mirabal et al., estimate the dispersal of R1a1a in India to be much older than the Indo-Aryan language family.

The proposal of Klyosov (2009) based upon STR cluster analysis is that Indian R1a1a combines two distinct clades not yet defined by SNP. One of these is approximately 4000 years old and appears similar to Eastern European R1a1a, thus apparently in accordance with the theory that some R1a1a came from the direction of the Eurasian Steppe, in association with an ancestral version of Indo-Aryan languages. The other R1a1a cluster is older and more uniquely Indian, and is estimated to have had a common male line ancestor about 7000 years ago according to his approximation. (Klyosov does not use the "evolutionarily effective" Zhivotovsky method as used by Underhill et al.).

Central Eurasian Origin Proposals: Cordaux et al. (2004) argued, citing data from 3 earlier publications, that R-M17 (R1a1a) Y chromosomes most probably have a central Asian origin. Central Asia is still considered a possible place of origin by Mirabal et al. (2009) after their larger analysis of more recent data. However these authors do not clearly distinguish the case being made for Central Asia for the case being made for Asia, particularly South Asia, more generally.

Recently, looking at Chinese STR data not included in other studies Klyosov (2009) concluded that the common source of Indian and European R1a must be somewhere near the modern Chinese ethnic groups known as the Hui, Bolan, Dongxiang and Sala and approximately 20,000 years ago, possibly somewhere near southern Siberia.

Eastern European Migration Hypotheses: Theories that the earliest generations of R1a1a men originated in Eastern Europe have become less common with the publication of bigger and more international surveys. However suggestions have been made which associate the distribution of R1a clades with several proposed movements of people in history and prehistory in Eastern Europe. As usual, these suggestions mainly concern the R1a1a sub-clade defined by M17 or M198, because this is the dominant R1a clade, and the only one for which there is significant data.

Four approximate time periods are frequently mentioned by different authors, but they are not mutually exclusive given that R1a lineages may have been taken part in many different human movements over time in the same geographical region. In an article which is still very widely cited, Semino et al. (2000) proposed that there may have been two expansions, suggesting that the spread of R1a from a point of origin in Ukraine following the Last Glacial Maximum may have been magnified by the expansion of males from the Kurgan culture. In a study of the Balkans, Pericic et al. (2005) saw evidence for "at least three major episodes of gene flow" adding "possibly massive Slavic migration from A.D. 5th to 7th centuries" as a third. Below is a discussion of various proposals about R1a in Europe, broken into different periods.

Researchers using the "evolutionarily effective" dating method therefore suppose that any Neolithic or more recent dispersals of R1a1a could not represent the initial spread of the whole clade, and might be more visible in the distribution of a subclade or subclades. Underhill et al. (2009) remark on the "geographic concordance of the R1a1a7-M458 distribution with the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Corded Ware (CW) cultures of Europe". However they also note evidence contrary to a connection: Corded Ware period human remains at Eulau from which Y-DNA was extracted of R1a haplogroup appear to be R1a1a*(xM458) (which they found most similar to the modern German R1a1a* haplotype.) An earlier paper speculated that "R1a [in Norway] might represent the spread of the Corded Ware and Battle-Axe cultures from central and east Europe." Although Klyosov (2009) does not use the Zhivotovsky method, his interpretation of certain Balkan and Chinese data would lead him to agree that R1a1a was already present in Europe around 11,000 years ago, having departed from Asia closer to 20,000 years ago. However, in his scenario modern R1a1a in Europe is mainly a result of much later movements of R1a1a coming from a Balkan point of origin within Europe.

Europe from the Holocene to the Early Bronze Age: Semino et al. (2000) proposed that R1a1a originally spread from a Ukrainian refugium during the Late Glacial Maximum. This proposal is no longer the leading one, though it is still widely cited. Amongst recent publications, Underhill et al. (2009) does propose that R1a1a is old enough for this scenario, but finds it more likely that it was initially in Asia. These authors also estimate that R1a1a was in parts of Europe by approximately 11,000 years ago. Most age estimates for R1a1a having such an early presence in Europe come from papers using the "evolutionarily effective" methodology described by Zhivotovsky et al. (2004), the latest such example being Mirabal et al. (2009) and Underhill et al. (2009). Other methods, such as used by Klyosov (2009), tend to give much younger estimates for any given set of data. Klyosov and Zhivotovsky were amongst authors involved in an exchange in the journal Human Genetics in 2009 which was relevant to R1a age estimations.

The Corded Ware culture is an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic (Stone Age), flourishes through the Copper Age and finally culminates in the early Bronze Age, developing in various areas from ca. 3200 BC/2900 BC to ca. 2300 BC/1800 BC. It represents the introduction of metal into Northern Europe.

The role of the Corded Ware culture in the history of the Indo-European languages is actively debated. The Corded Ware people are mostly seen as ancestral to Proto-Balto-Slavic in its eastern regions, and to the Centum dialects (i.e. Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic) in the western parts.

Steppe Cultures: From the late Neolithic and into the Iron Age, archaeologists recognize a complex of inter-related and relatively mobile cultures living on the Eurasian steppe, part of which protrudes into Europe. Many of these are in turn associated with the dispersal of Indo-European languages, the most recent dispersal being the one which led to the Indo-Iranian family of languages becoming the dominant modern languages of regions from Kurdistan to Western China, including such civilizations as Persia and India. (With the Slavic and Baltic languages considered to represent a relatively closely related branch.)

Geneticists believing that they see evidence of R1a1a gene-flow from the Eurasian Steppe to India have frequently proposed the involvement of these Steppe cultures, Indo-European languages, and possibly with specific cultural traits such as Kurgan burials and horse domestication. All of these are generally felt to originate in the specifically European part of the steppes, which stretches as far west as the Ukraine.

Such a Steppe origin for R1a1a has also been argued by Keyser et al. (2009) on the basis of DNA results from ancient remains from several South Siberian late Kurgan sites, including some from the Andronovo culture. 9 out of 10 male specimens were found to be in R1a1a. Two of the three from the Andronovo culture, "matched the most frequent R1a1 haplotype (12 loci) seen in the southern Siberian population" (a haplotype found also in Eastern Europe and Anatolia). More generally, the authors considered 8 of these 9 R1a1a haplotypes to be of a type typical of Slavic, Baltic and South Siberian populations. The R1a1a evidence was felt by the authors to support the proposal that the Steppes Kurgan culture spread from Europe to Siberia. R1a1a has also been found in central European ancient DNA samples Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. In combination with the above-mentioned DNA samples found in Central Asia, the ancient DNA evidence is therefore thought to make it highly likely that R1a1a was present in or near any of the normally proposed staging points for the original dispersals of the Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family, both thought to have originated in Eastern Europe, and both in the so-called "satem" cluster of Indo-European languages. (Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian also share the Ruki sound law.)

Based on analyses of STR diversity and clustering, Klyosov (2009) gives the most recent genetics based argument that there was a movement of R1a1a from Eastern Europe (specifically from the Balkans, he proposes) via the Steppes, to India, and associated with languages ancestral to Indo-Iranian and Slavic. According to Klyosov's analysis modern Indian R1a1a is made up of two components, an "Indo European" component which came from the direction of Europe, and another which must have been in India earlier, and which does not appear to derive from European lineages.

* The Genetic Link of the Viking – Era Norse to Central Asia: An Assessment of the Y Chromosome DNA, Archaeological, Historical and Linguistic Evidence by David K. Faux

* Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists by Sanghamitra Sengupta, et al.

* Geographical Distributions of Y-chromosomal Haplogroups P*(xR1a), R1a, and J from Male Demography in East Asia: A North–South Contrast in Human Population Expansion Times by Yali Xue, et al.

* A Western Eurasian Male Is Found in 2000-year-old Elite Xiongnu Cemetery in Northeast Mongolia by K Kim, et al.

Abstract: We analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNP), and autosomal short tandem repeats (STR) of three skeletons found in a 2,000-year-old Xiongnu elite cemetery in Duurlig Nars of Northeast Mongolia. This study is one of the first reports of the detailed genetic analysis of ancient human remains using the three types of genetic markers. The DNA analyses revealed that one subject was an ancient male skeleton with maternal U2e1 and paternal R1a1 haplogroups. This is the first genetic evidence that a male of distinctive Indo-European lineages (R1a1) was present in the Xiongnu of Mongolia. This might indicate an Indo-European migration into Northeast Asia 2,000 years ago. Other specimens are a female with mtDNA haplogroup D4 and a male with Y-SNP haplogroup C3 and mtDNA haplogroup D4. Those haplogroups are common in Northeast Asia. There was no close kinship among them. The genetic evidence of U2e1 and R1a1 may help to clarify the migration patterns of Indo-Europeans and ancient East-West contacts of the Xiongnu Empire. Artifacts in the tombs suggested that the Xiongnu had a system of the social stratification. The West Eurasian male might show the racial tolerance of the Xiongnu Empire and some insight into the Xiongnu society.

Frequencies of Y-SNP and mtDNA Haplogroups in Present Populations

Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)

Haplogroup R1b is the most frequently occurring Y-chromosome haplogroup in Western Europe, Bashkortostan and in parts of sub-Saharan Central Africa (for example around Chad and Cameroon). R1b is also present at lower frequencies throughout Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of North Africa. Due to European emigration it also reaches high frequencies in the Americas and Australia. While Western Europe is dominated by the R1b1b2 (R-M269) branch of R1b, the Chadic-speaking area in Africa is dominated by the branch known as R1b1a (R-V88). These represent two very successful "twigs" on a much bigger "family tree".

Origins: R1b is a branch of the MNOPS "macro-haplogroup," which is one of the predominant groupings of all human male lines outside of Africa, and this whole group, along indeed with all of macro-haplogroup F, is believed to have originated in Asia.

It was initially believed that R1b, or at least the majority of it in Europe, dispersed from Iberia after the Last Glacial Maximum, and had only come from Asia much earlier. A variant of this idea was that there may have been two separate R1b dispersals in the Mesolithic period, one from Anatolia, and one from Iberia. However, more recently it has become more widely accepted that R1b entered Europe from Asia more recently, perhaps in the Neolithic.

In 2008 T. Karafet et al. estimated the age of R1 as 18,500 years before present.

R1b1b2: R1b1b1 is defined by the presence of SNP marker M269. It has been found at generally low frequencies throughout central Eurasia, and with relatively high frequency among Bashkirs of the Bashkortostan and Perm region (84.0%).

This subclade is defined by the presence of the M269 marker. From 2003 to 2005 what is now R1b1b2 was designated R1b3. From 2005 to 2008 it was R1b1c.

In articles published around 2000 it was proposed that this clade came into existence in Europe before the last Ice Age, but more recently this scenario is no longer receiving much mainstream attention. A much newer estimate for R1b1b2 arising is around 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. It also appears increasingly to be the case that Western European R1b is dominated by R-P310, also known as R-L11. It is this Western European branch which is in turn dominated by U106 and P312, and the typical most common STR Y DNA signature for Western Europe, the so-called Atlantic Modal Haplotype, which is also sometimes referred to as "Haplotype 15". Haplotype 15 is contrasted with "Haplotype 35", which has long been noted as a distinct type of R1b1b2, more common towards the southeast of Europe.

* Variations of R1b Y-DNA in Europe: Distribution and Origins

* The Place of the Basques in the European Y-chromosome Diversity Landscape by Santos Alonso, et al.

* High-resolution Phylogenetic Analysis of Southeastern Europe Traces Major Episodes of Paternal Gene Flow Among Slavic Populations by Marijana Pericic, et al.

* New Binary Polymorphisms Reshape and Increase the Resolution of the Human Y Chromosomal Haplogroup Tree by Tatiana M. Karafet, et al.

* The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective by Ornella Semino, et al.

* Excavating Y-chromosome Haplotype Strata in Anatolia by Cengiz Cinnioglu, et al.

Atlantic Modal Haplotype

The Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) or haplotype 15 is a Y chromosome haplotype of Y-STR microsatellite variations, associated with the Haplogroup R1b. It was discovered prior to many of the SNPs now used to identify subclades of R1b and references to it can be found in some of the older literature. It corresponds most closely with subclade R1b1b2a1a [L11].

The AMH is the most frequently occurring haplotype amongst human males in Atlantic Europe. It is characterised by the following marker alleles:

DYS388 12

DYS390 24

DYS391 11

DYS392 13

DYS393 13

DYS394 14 (also known as DYS19)

A common haplotype within R1b is sometimes called the Atlantic Modal Haplotype, or haplotype 15. It reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula and in Great Britain and Ireland. In the Iberian Peninsula it reaches 70% in Portugal as a whole, more than 90% in NW Portugal and nearly 90% in Galicia (NW Spain), while the highest value is to be found among Spanish Basques. It was discovered prior to many of the SNPs now used to identify subclades of R1b and references to it can be found in some of the older literature. It corresponds most closely with subclade R1b1b2a1a [L11].

One mutation in either direction, would be AMH 1.15+. The AMH 1.15 set of haplotypes is also referred to as the Atlantic Modal Cluster or AMC.

* A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages by Patricia Balaresque, et al.

Abstract: The relative contributions to modern European populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from the Near East have been intensely debated. Haplogroup R1b1b2 (R-M269) is the commonest European Y-chromosomal lineage, increasing in frequency from east to west, and carried by 110 million European men. Previous studies suggested a Paleolithic origin, but here we show that the geographical distribution of its microsatellite diversity is best explained by spread from a single source in the Near East via Anatolia during the Neolithic. Taken with evidence on the origins of other haplogroups, this indicates that most European Y chromosomes originate in the Neolithic expansion. This reinterpretation makes Europe a prime example of how technological and cultural change is linked with the expansion of a Y-chromosomal lineage, and the contrast of this pattern with that shown by maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA suggests a unique role for males in the transition.

* The Origins of Lactase Persistence in Europe by Yuval Itan, et al.

Abstract: Lactase persistence (LP) is common among people of European ancestry, but with the exception of some African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian groups, is rare or absent elsewhere in the world. Lactase gene haplotype conservation around a polymorphism strongly associated with LP in Europeans (−13,910 C/T) indicates that the derived allele is recent in origin and has been subject to strong positive selection. Furthermore, ancient DNA work has shown that the −13,910*T (derived) allele was very rare or absent in early Neolithic central Europeans. It is unlikely that LP would provide a selective advantage without a supply of fresh milk, and this has lead to a gene-culture coevolutionary model where lactase persistence is only favoured in cultures practicing dairying, and dairying is more favoured in lactase persistent populations. We have developed a flexible demic computer simulation model to explore the spread of lactase persistence, dairying, other subsistence practices and unlinked genetic markers in Europe and western Asia's geographic space. Using data on −13,910*T allele frequency and farming arrival dates across Europe, and approximate Bayesian computation to estimate parameters of interest, we infer that the −13,910*T allele first underwent selection among dairying farmers around 7,500 years ago in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe, possibly in association with the dissemination of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture over Central Europe. Furthermore, our results suggest that natural selection favouring a lactase persistence allele was not higher in northern latitudes through an increased requirement for dietary vitamin D. Our results provide a coherent and spatially explicit picture of the coevolution of lactase persistence and dairying in Europe.

Approximate Posterior Density of Region of Origin for LP/Dairying Co-evolution

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The Nordic Race

Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a famous German war hero (Karl von Müller) as an example of the Nordic type

The Nordic race was one of the racial categories into which the people of Europe were divided by anthropologists in the first half of the twentieth century. The debates about this topic are nowadays mostly not considered scientific, but ideological. Ideologies of racial supremacy that claim that the Nordic race, particularly Scandinavians and Germans, would constitute a master race because of an innate capacity for leadership are referred to as Nordic theory, Nordicism or Nordic thought. Those ideologies were prevalent mainly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Western Europe and North America. Nordic thought was a major influence on Nazism.

In 1899 William Z. Ripley published The Races of Europe where he divided Europeans into three main sub-categories: Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean. The Nordic race resided in northern Europe, especially (but not exclusively) among speakers of the Germanic languages and was typified by tall stature, wide shoulders, long head and facial form, straight and fine blond, red, or light to medium brown hair, and blue, light brown, grey or green eyes. While the concept of Nordic race became intertwined with a northern European cultural identity, the Alpine race was thought to predominate in central/Eastern Europe through to Turkey and the Eurasian Steppes of Central Asia and Southern Russia, and was said to be characterized by short stature, dark hair, dark eyes, narrower shoulders, a darker complexion and comparatively round head. The Mediterranean race was thought to be prevalent in southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa as well as in Wales, and was said to be characterised by dark hair, dark eyes, swarthy complexion, moderate-to-short stature, and moderate of skull.

The green eye color is the most unusual, only 1-2% of the the world population have true green eyes. Green eyes are the product of moderate amounts of melanin. According to some researchers, green eyes are the result of mutations that change the melanin structure Green eyes are most common in Europe and to a lesser extent in the Middle East, Northern parts of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. 88% of the Icelandic population have either green or blue eye color.

Blue eyes contain low amounts of melanin within the iris stroma. The type of melanin present is eumelanin. The inheritance pattern followed by blue eyes is considered similar to that of a recessive trait, however it is a polygenic trait (meaning that it is controlled by the interactions of several genes, not just one). Eiberg and colleagues showed in a study published in Human Genetics that a mutation in the 86th intron of the HERC2 gene, which is hypothesized to interact with the OCA2 gene promoter, reduced expression of OCA2 with subsequent reduction in melanin production. The authors concluded that the mutation may have arisen in a single individual around the Black Sea region 6,000-10,000 years ago, perhaps suggesting that all people with true blue eyes are more closely related. However, blue eyes with brown spots around the pupil are not related to this mutation. Blue eyes are most common in Poland, Ireland, Netherlands, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Russia, Finland, France, Estonia, and the United Kingdom They are also present in Southern Europe, Spain, Italy and the Balkans, the Middle East (especially in Israel and Lebanon), India and are also found in Afghanistan.

Red hair varies from a deep orange-red through burnt orange to bright copper. It is characterized by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin and relatively low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. Approximately 1% to 2% of the human population has red hair. It occurs more frequently (between 2% and 6% of the population) in northern and western Europeans, and their descendants, and at lower frequencies throughout other parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Red hair appears in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a change in the MC1R protein. It is associated with fair skin color, freckles, and sensitivity to ultraviolet light, as the mutated MC1R protein is found in the skin and eyes instead of the darker melanin. Red hair is the rarest natural hair color in humans. The pale skin associated with red hair may be of advantage in far-northern climates where sunlight is scarce. Studies by Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza (1976) hypothesized that lighter skin pigmentation prevents rickets in colder latitudes by encouraging higher levels of Vitamin D production and also allows the individual to retain heat better than someone with darker skin. Estimates on the original occurrence of the currently active gene for red hair vary from 20,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Several accounts by Greek writers detail redheaded people. A fragment by the Greek poet Xenophanes describes the Thracians as blue-eyed and red haired. The Greek historian Herodotus described the "Budini", probably Udmurts and Permyak Finns located on the Volga in what is modern-day Russia, as being predominantly redheaded. The Greek historian Dio Cassius described Boudica, the famous Celtic Queen of the Iceni, to: "be tall and terrifying in appearance ... a great mass of red hair ... over her shoulders". The Roman Tacitus commented on the "red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia (Scotland)", which he linked with some red haired Gaulish tribes of Germanic and Belgic relation. Red hair has also been found in Asia, notably among the Tocharians who occupied the northwesternmost province of what is modern-day China. The 2nd millennium BC caucasian Tarim mummies in China were found with red and blonde hair and most likely were of European origin.

Human skin color can range from almost black (due to very high concentrations of the dark brown pigment melanin) to nearly colorless (appearing reddish white due to the blood vessels under the skin) in different people. The evolution of the different skin tones is thought to have occurred as follows: the haired primate ancestors of humans, like modern great apes, had light skin under their hair. When Hominids evolved relative hairlessness (the most likely function of which was to facilitate perspiration), they evolved dark skin, needed to prevent low folate levels since they lived in sun-rich Africa. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and light skin color re-emerged. Sexual selection and diet may have played a part in the evolution of skin tone diversity, as well.

The Inuit and Yupik are special cases: even though they live in an extremely sun-poor environment, they have retained their relatively dark skin. This can be explained by the fact that their traditional fish-based diet provides plenty of vitamin D.

Attitudes in Ancient Europe: These categories expanded more ancient commentaries on the differences between northern and southern Europeans. Most ancient writers were from the southern European civilizations, and generally took the view that northerners were barbarians. Pale skin and light hair were described as signs of barbarism by Polemon in his book Physiognomica. Pseudo-Aristotle (a writer using Aristotle's name as a pseudonym) noted differences between Greeks and the people of the north, believing that Greek superiority was visible in their medium skin tone, as opposed to pale northerners and dark Africans. He claimed that blue eyes were a sign of a cowardly nature, and that they indicated poor eyesight.

Despite this, Aphrodite was often depicted with blond hair, as were deities associated with the sun. Likewise, the Roman historian Tacitus idealized the Germanic tribes (which he considered autochthonous to their land) for qualities such as superior warlike ardor and chastity, in contrast to the Romans of his day—though his portrait is not unmixed, as he also portrays them as incurably lazy and addicted to gambling. The reference to gambling may be about their unique approach to Divination using Runes. Many Romans believed that fair features were beautiful, at least for women. Wealthy Roman women paid for blond and red wigs made from the hair of captured Germanic or Celtic women.

Origins of Nordicism: During the Renaissance blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin were regularly portrayed in literature as signs of beauty, and were associated with noble moral qualities. This imagery was largely aesthetic. It was not typically theorised in terms of racial difference, drawing instead on traditional symbolism of light as opposed to darkness. From the 17th century on, as Northern European countries became more powerful, Northern peoples began to adapt such aesthetic traditions into arguments for their own superiority. Benjamin Franklin proposed a clear distinction between "white" Europeans and "swarthy" Europeans, stating that immigration to the newly-born United States should favour the "white" Saxons and Englishmen rather than the "swarthy" Germans (except for the German Saxons), Italians, French, Russians, Spaniards and Swedes. Franklin believed the white Europeans to be more "lovely", at least to his taste.

By the early nineteenth century these ideas were attached to emerging theories of racial hierarchy. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer attributed civilizational primacy to the "white races" who gained their sensitivity and intelligence by refinement in the rigorous North:

The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilization.

Influence of Aryanism: Such arguments became especially significant when allied to the theory of Aryanism in the mid-19th century. This theory held that speakers of the Indo-European languages ("Aryans") are an innately superior branch of humanity, responsible for most of its greatest achievements. Its principal proponent was Arthur de Gobineau in his Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1855). Though Gobineau did not equate Nordic peoples with Aryans, he argued that Germanic people were the best modern representatives of the Aryan race. Adapting the comments of Tacitus and other Roman writers, he argued that "pure" Northerners regenerated Europe after the Roman empire declined due to racial "dilution" of its leadership.

By the 1880s a number of linguists and anthropologists argued that the Aryans themselves had originated somewhere in northern Europe. Theodor Poesche proposed that the Aryans originated in the north, but it was Karl Penka who popularized the idea that the Aryans had emerged in Scandinavia, and could be identified by the distinctive Nordic characteristics of blond hair and blue eyes. The distinguished biologist Thomas Henry Huxley agreed with him, coining the term "Xanthochroi" to refer to fair-skinned Europeans (as opposed to darker Mediterranean peoples, who Huxley called "Melanochroi"). This distinction was repeated by Charles Morris in his book The Aryan Race (1888), which argued that the original Aryans could be identified by their blond hair and other Nordic features, such as dolichocephaly (long skull). The argument was given extra impetus by the French anthropologist Vacher de Lapouge in his book L’Aryen, in which he argued that the "dolichocephalic-blond" peoples were natural leaders, destined to rule over more brachiocephalic (short-skulled) peoples.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche also referred in his writings to "blond beasts": amoral adventurers who were supposed to be the progenitors of creative cultures. In On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), he wrote, "In Latin malus ... could indicate the vulgar man as the dark one, especially as the black-haired one, as the pre-Aryan dweller of the Italian soil which distinguished itself most clearly through his colour from the blonds who became their masters, namely the Aryan conquering race." By 1902 the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna claimed to have identified the original Aryans (Proto-Indo-Europeans) with the north German Corded Ware culture, an argument that gained in currency over the following two decades. He placed the Indo-European urheimat in Schleswig-Holstein, arguing that they had expanded across Europe from there.

By the early 20th century this theory was well established, though far from universally accepted. Sociologists were soon using the concept of a "blond race" to model the migrations of the supposedly more entrepreneurial and innovative components of European populations. As late as 1939 Carleton Coon wrote that "The Poles who came to the United States during the nineteenth century, and the early decades of the twentieth, did not represent a cross-section of the Polish population, but a taller, blonder, longer-headed group than the Poles as a whole." he "high brow"/"low brow" distinction, derived from such theories, also became enshrined in language.

The Concept of a Nordic Race: The term "Nordic" itself was initially proposed as a racial group by the Russian born French anthropologist Joseph Deniker in 1899. Deniker's use of Nordique was meant to simply translate as "Northern", and his idea of what it stood for was more akin to an "ethnic group" (another term which he coined) than a biological "race". He defined nordique by a set of physical characteristics: The concurrence of fair, somewhat wavy hair, light eyes, reddish skin, tall stature and a dolichocephalic skull. Of six 'caucasian' groups Deniker accommodated four into secondary ethnic groups, all of which he considered intermediate to the Nordic: Northwestern, Sub-Nordic, Vistula and Sub-Adriatic, respectively.

It was the already mentioned work of sociologist/economist William Z. Ripley which popularized the idea of three biological European races. Ripley borrowed Deniker's terminology of Nordic (he had previously used the term "Teuton"); his division of the European races relied on a variety of anthropometric measurements, but focused especially on their cephalic index and stature. Compared to Deniker, Ripley advocated a simplified racial view and proposed a single Teutonic race linked to geographic areas where Nordic-like characteristics predominate, and contrasted this areas to the boundaries of two other types, Alpine and Mediterranean, thus reducing the 'caucasoid branch of humanity' to three distinct groups.

By the early 20th century, Ripley's tripartite Nordic/Alpine/Mediterranean model was well established. Most nineteenth-century race-theorists like Arthur de Gobineau, Otto Ammon, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain preferred to speak of "Aryans," "Teutons," and "Indo-Europeans" instead of "Nordic Race". Only in the 1920s did a strong partiality for "Nordic" begin to reveal itself, and for a while the term was used almost interchangeably with Aryan. Later, however, Nordic would not be co-terminous with Aryan, Indo-European or Germanic. For example, the later Nazi minister for Food, Richard Walther Darré, who had developed a concept of the German peasantry as Nordic race, used the term 'Aryan' to refer to the tribes of the Iranian plains.

However, there was considerable dispute about the relative importance of these races. The fact that Mediterranean peoples were responsible for the greatest of ancient civilizations was an obvious problem for Nordicist theory. Nordicists dealt with this problem by the speculative claim that Nordics had formed upper tiers of ancient civilizations, which had declined once this dominant race has been assimilated. Thus they argued that ancient evidence suggested that leading Romans like Nero , Sulla and Cato were blond or red-haired Some Nordicists admitted the Mediterranean race was superior to the Nordic in terms of artistic and intellectual ability. However, the Nordic race was regarded as superior on the basis that, although Mediterranean peoples were culturally sophisticated, it was the Nordics who were alleged to be the innovators and conquerors, having an adventurous spirit that no other race could match. The Alpine race was usually regarded as inferior to both the Nordic and Mediterranean races, making up the traditional peasant class of Europe while Nordics occupied the aristocracy and led the world in technology, and Mediterraneans were more imaginative.

Opponents of Nordicism rejected these arguments. The anti-Nordicist writer Giuseppe Sergi argued in his influential book The Mediterranean Race (1901) that there was no evidence that the upper tiers of ancient societies were Nordic, insisting that historical and anthropological evidence contradicted such claims. Sergi argued that Mediterraneans constituted "the greatest race in the world", with a creative edge absent in the Nordic race. They were the creators of all the major ancient civilizations, from Mesopotamia to Rome. This argument was later repeated by C. G. Seligman, who wrote that "it must, I think, be recognized that the Mediterranean race has actually more achievement to its credit than any other". Even Carleton Coon insisted that among Greeks "the Nordic element is weak, as it probably has been since the days of Homer...It is my personal reaction to the living Greeks that their continuity with their ancestors of the ancient world is remarkable, rather than the opposite."

The notion of a distinct northern European race was also rejected by several anthropologists on craniometric grounds. Rudolf Virchow attacked the claim following a study of craniometry, which gave surprising results according to contemporary scientific racist theories on the "Aryan race." During the 1885 Anthropology Congress in Karlsruhe, Virchow denounced the "Nordic mysticism," while Josef Kollmann, a collaborator of Virchow, stated that the people of Europe, be they German, Italian, English or French, belonged to a "mixture of various races," furthermore declaring that the "results of craniology" led to "struggle against any theory concerning the superiority of this or that European race".

Nevertheless, by the early twentieth century the concept of a "masterly" Nordic race had become so familiar that the British psychologist William McDougall, writing in 1920, could say with confidence:

Among all the disputes and uncertainties of the ethnographers about the races of Europe, one fact stands out clearly — namely, that we can distinguish a race of northerly distribution and origin, characterized physically by fair color of hair and skin and eyes, by tall stature and dolichocephaly (i.e. long shape of head), and mentally by great independence of character, individual initiative, and tenacity of will. Many names have been used to denote this type, ... . It is also called the Nordic type.

Nordicism in the USA: In the USA, the primary spokesman for Nordicism was the eugenicist Madison Grant. His 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History about Nordicism was highly influential among racial thinking and government policy making. Grant used the theory as justification for immigration policies of the 1920s, arguing immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe represented a lesser type of European and their numbers in the United States should not be increased. Grant and others urged this as well as the complete restriction of non-Europeans, such as the Chinese and Japanese. Grant argued the Nordic race had been responsible for most of humanity's great achievements, and admixture was "race suicide" and unless eugenic policies were enacted, the Nordic race would be supplanted by inferior races. Future president Calvin Coolidge agreed, stating "Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides." The Immigration Act of 1924 was signed into law by President Coolidge. This was designed to reduce the number of Eastern and Southern European immigrants, exclude Asian immigrants altogether, and favor immigration from Northern and Western European countries.

The spread of these ideas also affected popular culture. F. Scott Fitzgerald invokes Grant's ideas through a character in part of The Great Gatsby, and Hilaire Belloc jokingly rhapsodied the "Nordic man" in a poem and essay in which he satirised the stereotypes of Nordics, Alpines and Mediterraneans. Writers such as Jack London, Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft reflected Nordicist ideas in their fictions.

By the 1930s, criticism of the Nordicist model was growing in Britain and America. The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee in A Study of History (1934) argued that the most dynamic civilisations have arisen from racially mixed cultures. In southern Europe the theory had less influence. Some Lombard nationalists took it up in Italy, but even after the establishment of Mussolini's fascist government racial theories were not prominent. Mussolini stated, "Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist."

Nordic Thought in Germany: In Germany, however, the influence of Nordicism remained powerful. There it was known under the term "Nordischer Gedanke" (Nordic thought). The German eugenicists Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer and Fritz Lenz published their work Human Heredity, which insisted on the innate superiority of the Nordic race. Adapting the arguments of Schopenhauer and others to Darwinian theory, they argued that the qualities of initiative and will-power identified by earlier writers had arisen from natural selection, because of the tough landscape in which Nordic peoples evolved. This had ensured that weaker individuals had not survived. This argument was derived from earlier eugenicist and Social Darwinist ideas. According to the authors, the Nordic race arose in the ice age, from,

quite a small group which, under stress of rapidly changing conditions (climate, beasts of the chase) was exposed to exceptionally rigorous selection and was persistently inbred, thus acquiring the peculiar characteristics which persist today as the exclusive heritage of the Nordic race....Philological, archaeological and anthropological researches combine to indicate that the primal home of the Indo-Germanic [i.e Aryan] languages must have been in Northern Europe.

They went on to argue that "the original Indo-Germanic civilization" was carried by Nordic migrants as far as India, and that the physiognomy of upper-caste Indians "disclose a Nordic origin".

By this time, Germany was well-accustomed to theories of race and racial superiority due to the long presence of the Völkish movement, the philosophy that Germans constituted a unique people, or volk, linked by common blood. While Völkism was popular mainly among Germany's lower classes and was more a romanticized version of ethnic nationalism, Nordicism attracted German anthropologists and eugenicists.

The word "Nordischer Gedanke" first occurred in a textbook on "heritability science" and "race hygiene" by Baur, Fischer and Lenz. Hans F. K. Günther, one of Fischer's students, first defined "Nordic thought" in his programmatic book Der Nordische Gedanke unter den Deutschen. He became the most influential German in this field. His Short Ethnology of the German People (1929) was very widely circulated.

In his Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Race-Lore of the German Volk), published 1922, Günther identified five principal European races instead of three, adding the East Baltic race and Dinaric race to Ripley's categories. He used the term Ostic instead of Alpine. He focused on their supposedly distinct mental attributes. Günther criticised the Völkish idea, stating that the Germans were not racially unified, but were actually one of the most racially diverse peoples in Europe. Despite this, many Völkists who merged Völkism and Nordicism embraced Günther's ideas, most notably the Nazis.

Nazi Nordicism: Adolf Hitler read Human Heredity shortly before he wrote Mein Kampf, and called it scientific proof of the racial basis of civilization. Its arguments were also repeated by the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, in his book The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930). Rosenberg argued that the Nordic race had evolved in a now-lost landmass off the coast of North Western Europe, and had migrated through Scandinavia and northern Europe, expanding further south, and as far as Iran and India where it founded the Aryan cultures of Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. Like Grant and others, he argued that the entrepreneurial energy of the Nordics had "degenerated" when they mixed with "inferior" peoples.

Decline of Nordicism: After World War II, the categorization of peoples into "superior" and "inferior" groups fell even further out of political and scientific favor, eventually leading to the characterization of such theories as scientific racism. The tripartite subdivision of "Caucasians" into Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean groups persisted among some scientists into the 1960s, notably in Carleton Coon's book The Origin of Races (1962). Already race academics such as A. James Gregor were heavily criticizing Nordicism. In 1961 Gregor called it a "philosophy of despair", on the grounds that its obsession with purity doomed it to ultimate pessimism and isolationism. As late as 1977 the Swedish author Bertil Lundman wrote a book The Races And Peoples Of Europe mentioning a "Nordid Race". The development of the Kurgan theory of Indo-European origins weakened the Nordicist equation of Aryan and Nordic identity, since it placed the earliest Indo-European speakers in central Asia. The emergence of population genetics further undermined the categorisation of Europeans into clearly defined racial groups. A 2007 study using samples exclusively from Europe found an unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world."

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German and Axis Allies' Conquests (in blue) in Europe During World War II

Ethnic Nationalism under Nazi Germany

The reaction evoked in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars was a strong ethnic nationalism that emphasized, and sometimes overemphasized, the cultural bond between Germans. Later alloyed with the high standing and world-wide influence of German science at the end of the 19th century, and to some degree enhanced by Bismarck's military successes and the following 40 years of almost perpetual economic boom (the Gründerzeit), it gave the Germans an impression of cultural supremacy, particularly compared to the Slavs.

Ethnic nationalism has essentially been a taboo in German society since World War II, but it has seen a limited comeback since German reunification, with the ethnic nationalist National Democratic Party of Germany receiving 1.6% of the popular vote in the 2005 federal election.

Nationalism: Hitler founded The Nazi state upon a racially defined "German people" and principally rejected the idea of being bound by the limits of nationalism. That was only a means for attempting unlimited supremacy. In that sense, its hyper-nationalism was tolerated to reach a world-dominating Germanic-Aryan Volksgemeinschaft. This idea is a central concept of Mein Kampf (English: My Struggle), symbolized by the motto Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer (one people, one empire, one leader). The Nazi relationship between the Volk and the state was called the Volksgemeinschaft (people's community), a late nineteenth or early twentieth century neologism that defined a communal duty of citizens in service to the Reich ("empire", "realm", or "nation"). The term "National Socialism" derives from this citizen-nation relationship, whereby the term socialism is invoked and is meant to be realized through the common duty of the individuals to the German people; all actions are to be in service of the Reich. The Nazis stated that their goal was to bring forth a nation-state as the locus and embodiment of the people's collective will, bound by the Volksgemeinschaft, as both an ideal and an operating instrument. In comparison, traditional socialist ideologies oppose the idea of nations.

Militarism: Nazi rationale invested heavily in the militarist belief that great nations grow from military power and maintained order, which in turn grow "naturally" from "rational, civilized cultures". The Nazi Party appealed to German nationalists and national pride, capitalizing on irredentist and revanchist sentiments as well as aversions to various aspects of modernist thinking (although at the same time embracing other modernist ideas, such as admiration for engine power). Many ethnic Germans felt deeply committed to the goal of creating the Greater Germany (the old dream to include German-speaking Austria), which some believe required the use of military force to achieve

Racism and Discrimination: The Nazi racial philosophy was influenced by the works of Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Madison Grant, and wholly embraced Alfred Rosenberg's Aryan Invasion Theory. The theory traced Aryan peoples in ancient Iran invading the Indus Valley Civilization, and carrying with them great knowledge and science that had been preserved from the antediluvian world. This "antediluvian world" referred to Thule, the speculative pre-Flood/Ice Age origin of the Aryan race, and is often tied to ideas of Atlantis. Several of the founders and subsequent leadership of the Nazi Party had been associates — and very occasionally members — of the Thule-Gesellschaft (the Thule Society), which romanticized the Aryan race through theology and ritual.

Hitler also claimed that a nation was the highest creation of a "race", and "great nations" (literally large nations) were the creation of homogeneous populations of "great races" working together. These nations developed cultures that naturally grew from "races" with "natural good health, and aggressive, intelligent, courageous traits". The "weakest nations", Hitler said, were those of "impure" or "mongrel races", because they had divided, quarreling, and therefore weak cultures. Worst of all were seen to be the parasitic "Untermensch" (Subhumans), mainly Jews, but also Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, the disabled and so-called anti-socials, all of whom were considered "lebensunwertes Leben" ("Life-unworthy life") owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority, as well as their wandering, nationless invasions ("the International Jew"). The persecution of homosexuals as part of the Holocaust (with the pink triangle) has seen increasing scholarly attention since the 1990s, even though many homosexuals served in the Sturmabteilungen.

According to Nazism, it is an obvious mistake to permit or encourage plurality within a nation. Fundamental to the Nazi goal was the unification of all German-speaking peoples, "unjustly" divided into different Nation States. The Nazis tried to recruit Dutch and Scandinavian men into the SS, considering them of superior "Germanic" stock, with only limited success.

Hitler claimed that nations that could not defend their territory did not deserve it. He thought "slave races", like the Slavic peoples, to be less worthy to exist than "leader races". In particular, if a master race should require room to live ("Lebensraum"), he thought such a race should have the right to displace the inferior indigenous races.

"Races without homelands", Hitler proclaimed, were "parasitic races", and the richer the members of a parasitic race were, the more virulent the parasitism was thought to be. A master race could therefore, according to the Nazi doctrine, easily strengthen itself by eliminating parasitic races from its homeland. This idea was the given rationalization for the Nazis' later oppression and elimination of Jews, Gypsies, Czechs, Poles, the mentally and physically handicapped, homosexuals and others not belonging to these groups or categories that were part of the Holocaust. The Waffen-SS and other German soldiers (including parts of the Wehrmacht), as well as civilian paramilitary groups in occupied territories, were responsible for the deaths of an estimated eleven million men, women, and children in concentration camps, prisoner-of-war camps, labor camps, and death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka

Religion: Hitler extended his rationalizations into a religious doctrine, underpinned by his criticism of traditional Catholicism. In particular, and closely related to Positive Christianity, Hitler objected to Catholicism's ungrounded and international character — that is, it did not pertain to an exclusive race and national culture. At the same time, and somewhat contradictorily, the Nazis combined elements of Germany's Lutheran community tradition with its northern European, organic pagan past. Elements of militarism found their way into Hitler's own theology; he preached that his was a "true" or "master" religion, because it would "create mastery" and avoid comforting lies. Those who preached love and tolerance, "in contravention to the facts", were said to be "slave" or "false" religions. The man who recognized these "truths", Hitler continued, was said to be a "natural leader", and those who denied it were said to be "natural slaves". "Slaves" — especially intelligent ones, he claimed — were always attempting to hinder their masters by promoting false religious and political doctrines.

Although a few exceptions exist, Christian persecution was primarily limited to those who refused to accommodate the new regime and yield to its power. A particularly poignant exemplar is seen in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. However, the Nazis often used the church to justify their stance and included many Christian symbols in the Third Reich.

Volkism was inherently hostile toward atheism: freethinkers clashed frequently with Nazis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. On taking power, Hitler banned freethought organizations and launched an “anti-godless” movement. In a 1933 speech he declared: “We have . . . undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” This forthright hostility was far more straightforward than the Nazis’ complex, often contradictory stance toward traditional Christian faith.

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Proto-Indo-European Language

Diachronic map showing the Centum (blue) and Satem (red) areals. The supposed area of origin of Satemization is shown in darker red (Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna cultures).

The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The existence of such a language has been accepted by linguists for over a century, and there have been many attempts at reconstruction. Nevertheless, many disagreements and uncertainties remain.

When and Where Was PIE Spoken? There are several competing hypotheses about when and where PIE was spoken. The Kurgan hypothesis is "the single most popular" model, postulating that the Kurgan culture of the Pontic steppe were the hypothesized speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. However, alternative theories such as the Anatolian urheimat have also gained acceptance.

The satemization process that caused the separation between Centum and Satem languages probably started as early as the fourth millennium BC and the only thing known for certain is that the proto language must have been differentiated into unconnected daughter dialects by the late 3rd millennium BC.

Mainstream linguist estimates of the time between PIE and the earliest attested texts (ca. nineteenth century BC; see Kültepe texts) range around 1,500 to 2,500 years, with extreme proposals diverging up to another 100% on either side. Other than the aforementioned, predominant Kurgan hypothesis, proposed models include:

the 4th millennium BC (excluding the Anatolian branch) in Armenia, according to the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory);
the 5th millennium BC (4th excluding the Anatolian branch) in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, according to the popular Kurgan hypothesis;
the 6th millennium BC or later in Northern Europe according to Lothar Kilian's and, especially, Marek Zvelebil's models of a broader homeland;
the 6th millennium BC in India, according to Koenraad Elst's Out of India model;
the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia (the 5th, in the Balkans, excluding the Anatolian branch), according to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis;
the 7th millennium BC (6th excluding the Anatolian branch), according to a 2003 glottochronological study;
before the 10th millennium BC, in the Paleolithic Continuity Theory.

Relationship to Other Language Families: Many higher-level relationships between PIE and other language families have been proposed, but these speculative connections are highly controversial. Perhaps the most widely accepted proposal is of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this is the proximity of the proposed Urheimaten of the two families, the typological similarity between the two languages, and a number of apparent shared morphemes. Frederik Kortlandt, while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while Lyle Campbell, an authority on Uralic, denies any relationship exists.

The existence of certain PIE typological features in Northwest Caucasian languages may hint at an early Sprachbund or substratum that reached geographically to the PIE homelands. This same type of languages, featuring complex verbs and of which the current Northwest Caucasian languages might have been the sole survivors, was cited by Peter Schrijver to indicate a local lexical and typological reminiscence in western Europe pointing to a possible Neolithic substratum.

Other proposals, further back in time (and correspondingly less accepted), link PIE and Uralic with Altaic and certain other families in Asia, such as Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut (representative proposals are Nostratic and Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic); or link some or all of these to Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, etc., and ultimately to a single Proto-World family (nowadays mostly associated with Merritt Ruhlen). Various proposals, with varying levels of skepticism, also exist that join some subset of the putative Eurasiatic language families and/or some of the Caucasian language families, such as Uralo-Siberian, Ural-Altaic, Proto-Pontic, and so on.

Proto-Indo-Europeans

Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The purple area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC; the orange area to 1000 BC.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, who likely lived around 4000 BC, during the Copper Age and the Bronze Age, or possibly earlier, during the Neolithic or Paleolithic eras. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the reconstruction of their language, which was the ancestor of the Indo-European languages, including English. Their genetics and phenotypes are unknown.

Archaeology: There have been many attempts to claim that particular prehistorical cultures can be identified with the PIE-speaking peoples, but all have been speculative. All attempts to identify an actual people with an unattested language depend on a sound reconstruction of that language that allows identification of cultural concepts and environmental factors which may be associated with particular cultures (such as the use of metals, agriculture vs. pastoralism, geographically distinctive plants and animals, etc).

In the twentieth century Marija Gimbutas created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the Kurgan hypothesis, after the Kurgans (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes) in which the Indo-Europeans were a nomadic tribe in Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia and expanded in several waves during the 3rd millennium BC. Their expansion coincided with the taming of the horse. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see battle-axe people), they subjugated the peaceful European Neolithic farmers of Gimbutas's Old Europe. As Gimbutas's beliefs evolved, she put increasing emphasis on the patriarchal, patrilinear nature of the invading culture, sharply contrasting it with the supposedly egalitarian, if not matrilinear culture of the invaded, to a point of formulating essentially feminist archaeology.

Her theory has found genetic support in remains from the Neolithic culture of Scandinavia, where bone remains in Neolithic graves indicated that the megalith culture was either matrilocal or matrilineal as the people buried in the same grave were related through the women. Likewise there is evidence of remaining matrilineal traditions among the Picts. A modified form of this theory by JP Mallory, dating the migrations earlier to around 4000 BC and putting less insistence on their violent or quasi-military nature, is still widely held.

Colin Renfrew is the leading propagator of the "Anatolian hypothesis", according to which the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (wave of advance). That theory is contradicted by the fact that ancient Anatolia is known to have been inhabited by non-Indo-European people, namely the Hattians, Khalib/Karub, and Khaldi/Kardi. Also the culture of the Indo-Europeans as reconstructed by means of linguistic reconstruction doesn't fit with this theory, since the early Neolithic cultures in Anatolia had neither the horse, nor the wheel, nor metal, terms for all of which are securely reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European.

Yet another theory is connected with the Black Sea deluge theory, suggesting that PIE originated as the language of trade between early Neolithic Black Sea tribes. Under this hypothesis University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Fredrik T. Hiebert hypothesizes that the transition from PIE to IE dispersion occurred during an inundation of the Black Sea in the mid 6th millennium BC.

Genetics: The rise of Archaeogenetic evidence which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patt

erns also added new elements to the puzzle. Cavalli-Sforza and Alberto Piazza argue that Renfrew and Gimbutas reinforce rather than contradict each other. Cavalli-Sforza (2000) states that "It is clear that, genetically speaking, peoples of the Kurgan steppe descended at least in part from people of the Middle Eastern Neolithic who immigrated there from Turkey." Piazza & Cavalli-Sforza (2006) state that:

if the expansions began at 9,500 years ago from Anatolia and at 6,000 years ago from the Yamnaya culture region, then a 3,500-year period elapsed during their migration to the Volga-Don region from Anatolia, probably through the Balkans. There a completely new, mostly pastoral culture developed under the stimulus of an environment unfavourable to standard agriculture, but offering new attractive possibilities. Our hypothesis is, therefore, that Indo-European languages derived from a secondary expansion from the Yamnaya culture region after the Neolithic farmers, possibly coming from Anatolia and settled there, developing pastoral nomadism.

Wells suggests the origin, distribution and age of R1a1 points to an ancient migration, possibly corresponding to the spread by the Kurgan people in their expansion across the Eurasian steppe around 3000 BC. About his old teacher's proposal, Wells (2002) states that "there is nothing to contradict this model, although the genetic patterns do not provide clear support either," and instead argues that the evidence is much stronger for Gimbutas' model:

while we see substantial genetic and archaeological evidence for an Indo-European migration originating in the southern Russian steppes, there is little evidence for a similarly massive Indo-European migration from the Middle East to Europe. One possibility is that, as a much earlier migration (8,000 years old, as opposed to 4,000), the genetic signals carried by Indo-European-speaking farmers may simply have dispersed over the years. There is clearly some genetic evidence for migration from the Middle East, as Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed, but the signal is not strong enough for us to trace the distribution of Neolithic languages throughout the entirety of Indo-European-speaking Europe.

High concentrations of Mesolithic or late Paleolithic YDNA haplogroups of types R1b (typically well above 35%) and I (up to 25%), are thought to derive ultimately of the robust Eurasiatic Cro Magnoid homo sapiens of the Aurignacian culture, and the subsequent gracile leptodolichomorphous people of the Gravettian culture that entered Europe from the Middle East 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, respectively.

Small Neolithic additions can be concerned in occurrences of "Anatolian" haplogroups J2, G, F and E3b1a, the latter presenting a clearly Northeastern African element. Haplogroup R1a1, whose lineage is thought to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, is associated with the Kurgan culture, as well as with the postglacial Ahrensburg culture which has been suggested to have spread the gene originally. On the other hand Dupuy and his colleagues proposed the ancestors of Scandinavian men from Haplogroup Hg P*(xR1a) or R1b (Y-DNA) to have brought Ahrensburg "culture" and stressed genetic similarity with Germany. Ornella Semino et al. propose a postglacial spread of the R1a1 gene from the Ukrainian LGM refuge, subsequently magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward.

R1a1 is most prevalent in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, and is also observed in Pakistan, India and central Asia. R1a1 is largely confined east of the Vistula gene barrier and drops considerably to the west: R1a1 measurements read 6.2% to Germans (a 4X drop to Czechs and Slovakians reading 26,7%) and 3.7% to Dutch. The spread of Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1a1 has been associated with the spread of the Indo-European languages too. The mutations that characterize haplogroup R1a occurred ~10,000 years bp. Its defining mutation (M17) occurred about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago.

The present-day population of R1b, with extremely high peaks in Western Europe and measured up to the eastern confines of Central Asia, are believed to be the descendants of a refugium in the Iberian peninsula (Portugal and Spain) at the Last Glacial Maximum, where the haplogroup may have achieved genetic homogeneity. As conditions eased with the Allerød Oscillation in about 12,000 BC, descendants of this group migrated and eventually recolonised all of Western Europe, leading to the dominant position of R1b in variant degrees from Iberia to Scandinavia, so evident in haplogroup maps. The most common subclade is R1b1b2a, that has a maximum in Frisia (the Netherlands). It may have originated towards the end of the last ice age, or perhaps more or less 7000 BC, possibly in the northern European mainland and a close match of the present–day distribution of S21 and the territorial pattern of the Eastern Corded Ware cultures and the Single Grave cultures has been observed.

Developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. While findings confirm that there were population movements both related to the beginning Neolithic and the beginning Bronze Age, corresponding to Renfrew's and Gimbutas's Indo-Europeans, respectively, the genetic record obviously cannot yield any direct information as to the language spoken by these groups. The current interpretation of genetic data suggests a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies of mtDNA by Bryan Sykes show that about 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans originated in the Paleolithic, suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by replacement. Absence of unequivocal indications of underpinning unidirectional population movements, however, fail to settle theories on Indo European language assimilation. This notion already gave rise to a new incarnation of the "European hypothesis" suggesting more local continuity, and holding the Indo-European culture to be the result of many local developments that shared certain wide range common ideas.

Glottochronology: Using stochastic models of word evolution to study the presence/absence of different words across Indo-European, Gray & Atkinson (2003) suggest that the origin of Indo-European goes back about 8500 years, the first split being that of Hittite from the rest (Indo-Hittite hypothesis). Gray & Atkinson (2003) go to great lengths to avoid the problems associated with traditional approaches to glottochronology. However, the calculations of Gray & Atkinson (2003) rely entirely on Swadesh lists, and while the results are quite robust for well attested branches, their calculation of the age of Hittite, which is crucial for the Anatolian claim, rests on a 200 word Swadesh list of one single language and are regarded as contentious. A more recent paper (Atkinson et al., 2005) of 24 mostly ancient languages, including three Anatolian languages, produced the same time estimates and early Anatolian split.

A scenario that could reconcile Renfrew's beliefs with the Kurgan hypothesis suggests that Indo-European migrations are somehow related to the submersion of the northeastern part of the Black Sea around 5600 BC: while a splinter group who became the proto-Hittite speakers moved into northeastern Anatolia around 7000 BC, the remaining population would have gone northward, evolving into the Kurgan culture, while others may have escaped far to the northeast (Tocharians) and the southeast (Indo-Iranians). While the time-frame of this scenario is consistent with Renfrew, it is incompatible with his core assumption that Indo-European spread with the advance of agriculture.

Of course, the spreading of IE as a trade language does not need to be based upon a Black Sea deluge. Since the genetic and archaeological evidence, especially in western Europe, shows little support for the Kurgan theory, it may be easier and more scientific to see the spread of Indo-European languages as the spread of a common language among diverse mesolithic groups that permitted entry into the marketplace of ideas and technologies that arrived in the Neolithic period.

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Ancient DNA from Yixi (Linzi), Shandong Peninsula

Map of Shandong Peninsula

* Molecular Genetic Analysis of Remains of a 2,000-year-old Human Population in China-and Its Relevance for the Origin of the Modern Japanese Population by H. Oota, et al. (1999)

Abstract: We extracted DNA from the human remains excavated from the Yixi site (approximately 2,000 years before the present) in the Shandong peninsula of China and, through PCR amplification, determined nucleotide sequences of their mitochondrial D-loop regions. Nucleotide diversity of the ancient Yixi people was similar to those of modern populations. Modern humans in Asia and the circum-Pacific region are divided into six radiation groups, on the basis of the phylogenetic network constructed by means of 414 mtDNA types from 1, 298 individuals. We compared the ancient Yixi people with the modern Asian and the circum-Pacific populations, using two indices: frequency distribution of the radiation groups and genetic distances among populations. Both revealed that the closest genetic relatedness is between the ancient Yixi people and the modern Taiwan Han Chinese. The Yixi people show closer genetic affinity with Mongolians, mainland Japanese, and Koreans than with Ainu and Ryukyu Japanese and less genetic resemblance with Jomon people and Yayoi people, their predecessors and contemporaries, respectively, in ancient Japan."

[The Yixi site is located in Linzi (Zibo), Shandong Province, China. This site has been dated to the period of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.) in China, on the basis of the archaeological finds excavated. The ruins of the ancient city were excavated in 1926 by Japanese archaeologists and in 1964 by Chinese archaeologists. The ruins of the city are surrounded by over 100 tumulus, some as far as 10 km away. Many of the tombs around Linzi had been looted in antiquity. Over 600 horses were sacrificed in two rows, found in a tomb pit, near what is considered the tomb of Duke Jing of Qi. The sacrificial horse pit is now the site of a museum, the Museum of the State of Qi.]

* Genetic Structure of a 2,500-Year-Old Human Population in China and Its Spatiotemporal Changes by Li Wang, et al. (2000)

Abstract: To examine temporal changes in population genetic structure, we compared the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences of three populations that lived in the same location, Linzi, China, in different periods: 2,500 years ago (the Spring–Autumn era), 2,000 years ago (the Han era), and the present day. Two indices were used to compare the genetic differences: the frequency distributions of the radiating haplotype groups and the genetic distances among the populations. The results indicate that the genetic backgrounds of the three populations are distinct from each other. Inconsistent with the geographical distribution, the 2,500-year-old Linzi population showed greater genetic similarity to present-day European populations than to present-day east Asian populations. The 2,000-year-old Linzi population had features that were intermediate between the present-day European/2,500-year-old Linzi populations and the present-day east Asian populations.

Result: The smallest genetic distance for the present-day Linzi population was that from the Mongols, followed by those from mainland Japanese and Koreans. Surprisingly, the three smallest genetic distances for the 2,000-year-old Linzi population were from the present-day central Asian populations: the Kirghiz (Sary-Tash), followed by the Kazakh and the Uighurs. Even more surprisingly, the three smallest genetic distances for the 2,500-year-old Linzi population were from the Turkish, Icelander, and Finnish, rather than from the east Asian populations.

* Reconstructing the Evolutionary History of China: A Caveat About Inferences Drawn from Ancient DNA by Yong-Gang Yao, et al. (2003)

Abstract: The decipherment of the meager information provided by short fragments of ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is notoriously difficult but is regarded as a most promising way toward reconstructing the past from the genetic perspective. By haplogroup-specific hypervariable segment (HVS) motif search and matching or near-matching with available modern data sets, most of the ancient mtDNAs can be tentatively assigned to haplogroups, which are often subcontinent specific. Further typing for mtDNA haplogroup-diagnostic coding region polymorphisms, however, is indispensable for establishing the geographic/genetic affinities of ancient samples with less ambiguity. In the present study, we sequenced a fragment (982 bp) of the mtDNA control region in 76 Han individuals from Taian, Shandong, China, and we combined these data with previously reported samples from Zibo and Qingdao, Shandong. The reanalysis of two previously published ancient mtDNA population data sets from Linzi (same province) then indicates that the ancient populations had features in common with the modern populations from south China rather than any specific affinity to the European mtDNA pool. Our results highlight that ancient mtDNA data obtained under different sampling schemes and subject to potential contamination can easily create the impression of drastic spatiotemporal changes in the genetic structure of a regional population during the past few thousand years if inappropriate methods of data analysis are employed.

* Reanalysis of Eurasian Population History: Ancient DNA Evidence of Population Affinities by C.C. Bennett, F.A. Kaestle (2006)

Abstract: Mitochondrial hypervariable region I genetic data from ancient populations at two sites in Asia-Linzi in Shandong (northern China) and Egyin Gol in Mongolia-were reanalyzed to detect population affinities. Data from 51 modern populations were used to generate distance measures (F^sub ST^'s) to the two ancient populations. The tests first analyzed relationships at the regional level and then compiled the top regional matches for an overall comparison to the two probe populations. The reanalysis showed that the Egyin Gol and Linzi populations have clear distinctions in genetic affinity. The Egyin Gol population as a whole appears to bear close affinities with modern populations of northern East Asia. The Linzi population seems to have some genetic affinities with the West, as suggested by the original analysis, although the original attribution of "European-like" seems to be misleading. We suggest that the Linzi individuals are potentially related to early Iranians, who are thought to have been widespread in parts of Central Eurasia and the steppe regions in the first millennium B.C., although some significant admixture between a number of populations of varying origin cannot be ruled out. We also examine the effect of sequence length on this type of genetic data analysis and discuss the results of previous studies on the Linzi sample.

Discussion: ... the Linzi individuals, they seem to be most highly related to Near Easterners (Turks, Iranians, and Iraqis), Armenians, and Eastern Europeans (Slavs, Hungarians), although others, such as Catalans and Iraqis, are mixed in. The Icelanders are twelfth on this list. The high placement of the Vietnamese may be an anomaly, error, or some element of ancient genetic history that is not clear ....

Ancient Iranian peoples who settled Greater Iran in the 2nd millennium BC first appear in Assyrian records in the 9th century BC. They remain dominant throughout Classical Antiquity in Scythia and Persia.

The Iranian languages form a sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-family, which is a branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Having descended from the Proto-Indo-Iranians, the Proto-Iranians separated from the Indo-Aryans around in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Proto-Iranians are traced to the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia. The area between northern Afghanistan and the Aral Sea is hypothesized to have been the region where the Proto-Iranians first emerged, following the separation of Indo-Iranian tribes.

By the 1st millennium BC, Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau, while others such as the Scythians, Sarmatians, Cimmerians and Alans populated the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Saka and Scythian tribes remained mainly in the south and spread as far west as the Balkans and as far east as Xinjiang.

Countries which are geographically fully located within the Balkan peninsula: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro. Countries which are partially located in the peninsula: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey.

The division of Proto-Iranian into an "Eastern" and a "Western" group is attested in the form of Avestan and Old Persian, the two oldest known Iranian languages.

* Ethnic and Geographic Differentiation of Helicobacter pylori within Iran by Saeid Latifi-Navid, et al.

Abstract: The bacterium Helicobacter pylori colonizes the human stomach, with individual infections persisting for decades. The spread of the bacterium has been shown to reflect both ancient and recent human migrations. We have sequenced housekeeping genes from H. pylori isolated from 147 Iranians with well-characterized geographical and ethnic origins sampled throughout Iran and compared them with sequences from strains from other locations. H. pylori from Iran are similar to others isolated from Western Eurasia and can be placed in the previously described HpEurope population. Despite the location of Iran at the crossroads of Eurasia, we found no evidence that the region been a major source of ancestry for strains across the continent. On a smaller scale, we found genetic affinities between the H. pylori isolated from particular Iranian populations and strains from Turks, Uzbeks, Palestinians and Israelis, reflecting documented historical contacts over the past two thousand years.

Neighbor-joining Tree Based on Pairwise FST Values Generated from hpEurope Population

(German, Kyrgyz, Russian, Finnish, Estonian, British)

Kyrgyz (also spelled Kirgiz, Kirghiz) are a Turkic ethnic group found primarily in Kyrgyzstan and the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.

According to recent historical findings, Kyrgyz history dates back to 201 BC. The Yenisei Kyrgyz lived in the upper Yenisey River valley, central Siberia. Later, in the Early Middle Age, Yenisei Kyrgyzes were under the rule of Göktürk Kaganate and Uigur Kaganate. In 840 a revolt led by Yenisei Kyrgyzes brought down the Uigur Kaganate, and brought the Yenisei Kyrgyzes to a dominating position in the former Turkic Kaganate. With the rise to power, the center of the Kyrgyz Kaganate moved to Jeti-su, and brought about a spread south of the Kyrgyz people, to reach Tian Shan mountains and Eastern Turkestan, bringing them immediately to the borders of China and Tibet. By the 16th century the carriers of the ethnonym "Kirgiz" lived in South Siberia, Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang), Tian Shan, Pamir Alay, Middle Asia, Urals (among Bashkorts), in Kazakhstan. Majority of modern researchers came to a conclusion that the ancestors of the southern Kyrgyz tribes had their origin in the most ancient tribal unions of Sakas and Usuns, Dinlins and Huns.

The Sakas were a population of Iranian nomadic tribesmen residing in and migrating over the plains of Eurasia from Eastern Europe to Xinjiang Province, China, from the Old Persian Period to the Middle Persian Period when they were displaced by or integrated with Turkic language speakers during the Turkic migration. In the Achaemenid Empire much of their range was made a satrapy, Saka, named after them. They also resided in other provinces of ancient Iran.

The ancient Greeks called the Sakas the Scythians but recognized that in the language of the Persian Empire they were called more nearly Sakai. To them the name Sakai in addition to meaning all the Scyths meant explicitly also the ones of Central Asia and the Far East. These latter lived in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, parts of Iran, the Altay Mountains, Siberia in Russia, and Xinjiang Province of China in the centuries before 300 AD, the start of the Middle Persian period. Hence the Romans recognized both Sacae and Scythae.

The Scythians were recognized in ancient languages at either end of their range. They were known to the Chinese as the Sai (塞). On the west they were among the first Iranians to enter the Middle East. The Assyrians of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian the Ashkuza or Ishhuza. Hugo Winckler was the first to associate them with the Scyths and the identification remains without serious question. They were closely associated with the Gimirrai, who were the Cimmerians known to the ancient Greeks. These Scythians were mainly interested in settling in the kingdom of Urartu, which later became Armenia (Eastern Anatolia).

By the time of the Middle Iranian period, the Scyths had either dissimilated into peoples of other names, such as the Sarmatians, Alans and Roxolani, or had been displaced by or assimilated to the Huns. The Scythian language is considered by mainstream historians and linguists as one of the Iranian languages. The Saka speakers were gradually conquered and acculturated by the Turkic expansion to Central Asia beginning in the 4th century.

The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed by recent genetic studies. Remarkably, 63% of modern Kyrgyz men share Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA) with Tajiks (64%), Ukrainians (54%), Poles and Hungarians (~60%), and even Icelanders (25%). Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA) is variously believed to be a marker of the Proto-Indo-European language and Turkic speakers. Chinese and Muslim sources of the 7th–12th centuries AD describe the Kyrgyz as red-haired with fair complexion and green (blue) eyes. Since the Turks were being described as people of small stature in the Tangshu. The description of the Kirghiz as tall, blue-eyed blonds early excited the interest of scholars, who assumed that they could not have originally been Turkic in language. We find even Ligeti cited the opinions of various scholars who had proposed to see them as Germanic, Slav, Yenisei Ostiaks, while he himself, following Castrén and Schott, favoured a Samoyed origin.

* Blue Eye Color in Humans May be Caused by a Perfectly Associated Founder Mutation in a Regulatory Element Located within the HERC2 Gene Inhibiting OCA2 Expression by Hans Eiberg, et al.

* The Genetic Link of the Viking – Era Norse to Central Asia: An Assessment of the Y Chromosome DNA, Archaeological, Historical and Linguistic Evidence by David K. Faux

* The Eurasian Heartland: A Continental Perspective on Y-Chromosome Diversity by R. Spencer Wells, et al.

* Unravelling Migrations in the Steppe: Mitochondrial DNA Sequences from Ancient Central Asians by C. Lalueza-Fox, et. al.

The Kazakhs (also spelled Kazaks, Qazaqs) are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of Uzbekistan, China, Russia, and Mongolia).

Kazakhs are descendants of Turkic tribes (Kipchaks or Cumans), Mongol groups (Kereis, Naimans, etc.) and Indo-Iranian tribes (Wusun, Sarmatians, Scythians, etc.) which populated the territory between Siberia and the Black Sea and remained in Central Asia when the Turkic and Mongolic groups started to invade and conquer the area between the fifth and thirteenth centuries AD.

Due to their complex history, Kazakhs display phenotypical diversity, though they tend to exhibit predominantly Mongoloid features. Fair to light-brown skin tends to be the norm. Among physical traits are aquiline noses, epicanthic fold and high cheekbones. Hair colour among Kazakhs varies from prevalent jet black to red and sandy brown. Hazel, green and blue eyes are not uncommon.

Kazakhs, called Hāsàkè Zú in Chinese (哈萨克族) are among 56 minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. In China there is one Kazakh autonomous prefecture, the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, three Kazakh autonomous counties, Aksai Kazakh Autonomous County in Gansu, Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County and Mori Kazakh Autonomous County in Xinjiang.

The Uyghur (also spelled Uygur, Uighur, Uigur; Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر;; traditional Chinese: 維吾爾) are a Turkic people of Central Asia. Today Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known by its controversial name Uyghurstan or East Turkistan) in the People's Republic of China.

The ancestors of the Uyghur include the Huns. Uyghur emerged as the leaders of a new coalition force called the "Toquz Oghuz". In 744 the Uyghur, together with other related subject tribes (the Basmyl and Qarluq), defeated the Göktürk Khanate and founded the Uyghur Empire at Mount Ötüken, which lasted for about 100 years (744-840).

Properly called the On-Uyghur (ten Uyghurs) and Toquz-Oghuz (nine tribes) Orkhon Khanate, the Uyghur Empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria and lasted from 744 to 840 AD. It was administered from the imperial capital Ordu Baliq. Uyghur Empire considered conquering the Tang Empire, but chose instead to use an exploitive trade policy to drain off the wealth of China without actually destroying it. In 840, following a famine and a civil war, the Uyghur Empire was overrun by the Kyrgyz.

Following the collapse of the Uyghur Empire, the Uyghur established states in three areas: present day Gansu, Xinjiang, and the Chu River the West of Tian Shan (Tengri-Tag) Mountains.

Today one can still see Uyghurs with light-colored skin and hair. The genetic studies show that the Uyghur (UIG) population, presenting a typical admixture of Eastern and Western anthropometric traits, results showed that UIG was formed by two-way admixture, with 60% European ancestry and 40% East Asian (Turkic-Hun) ancestry. Overall linkage disequilibrium (LD) in UIG was similar to that in its parental populations represented in East Asia and Europe with regard to common alleles, and UIG manifested. Both the magnitude of LD and fragmentary ancestral chromosome segments indicated a long history of Uyghur. Under the assumption of a hybrid isolation (HI) model, it was estimated that the admixture event of UIG occurred about 126 [107, 146] generations ago, or 2520 [2140, 2920] years ago assuming 20 years per generation.

A haplotype of R1b, with DYS393=12, has been referenced in the literature as Haplotype 35, or ht35. They can be found in high numbers in Southeastern Europe (Balkans) and Western Asia. The members of this haplotype are thought to be descended from early R1b's who found shelter in Anatolia (Turkey) during the Last Glacial Maximum instead of in Iberia. Descendants can be found in high numbers in the Armenian Highland (Most of the Armenian Highland is in Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region, and also includes northwestern Iran, all of Armenia, southern Georgia and western Azerbaijan.) and Armenia with smaller numbers throughout the Middle East, in Jewish populations, in Southeastern Europe, and in the Caucasus Mountains. There is also a sizable pocket of ht35 in Uyghur populations in western China, which is theorized to be a remnant of the Tocharians, an Indo-European speaking people that inhabited the Tarim Basin in Central Asia until later being absorbed by various Turkic peoples.

Haplogroup R1b is the most frequent Y-chromosome haplogroup in Western Europe. Its frequency is highest in Atlantic Europe. In southern England, the frequency of R1b is about 70%, and in parts of north and western England, Spain, Portugal, France, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the frequency of R1b is greater than 90%. It is also found among Italian, particularly in the north. It is also present at lower frequencies throughout Eastern Europe, although diversity is higher than in western Europe, suggesting an ancient migration of R1b from the east. R1b is also found at various frequencies in many different populations near the Ural mountains and Central Asia, its likely region of origin.

* Analysis of Genomic Admixture in Uyghur and Its Implication in Mapping Strategy by Shuhua Xu, et al.

Tocharians

"Tocharian donors" depicted with light hair and light eye color and dressed in Sassanian (the third Iranian dynasty) style. 6th century AD fresco, Qizil, Tarim Basin. These frescoes are associated with annotations in Tocharian and Sanskrit made by their painters.

The Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim basin (Xinjiang), making them the easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language in antiquity.

The term Tocharians has a somewhat complicated history. It is based on the ethnonym Tokharoi (Greek Τόχαροι) used by Greek historians (e.g. Ptolemy VI, 11, 6). The first mention of the Tocharians appeared in the 1st century BC, when Strabo presented them as a Scythian tribe, and explained that the Tokharians — together with the Assianis, Passianis and Sakaraulis — took part in the destruction of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the second half of the 2nd century BC.

These Tocharians (Tokharoi) are identified with the Yuezhi and one of their major tribes, the Kushans. The geographical term Tokharistan usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria (Chinese Daxia 大夏).

The Tarim mummies suggest that precursors of these easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language may have lived in the region of the Tarim Basin from around 1800 BC until finally they were assimilated by Uyghur Turks in the 9th century AD.

The Tocharians, living along the Silk Road, had contacts with the Chinese, Persians, Indian and Turkic tribes. They might be the same as, or were related to, the Indo-European Yuezhi who fled from their settlements in eastern Tarim Basin after attacks by the Xiongnu in the 2nd century BC (Shiji Chinese historical Chronicles, Chap. 123) and expanded south to Bactria and northern India to form the Kushan Empire.

The Tocharians who remained in the Tarim Basin adopted Buddhism, which, like their alphabet, came from northern India in the first century of the 1st millennium, through the proselytism of Kushan monks. The Kushans and the Tocharians seem to have played a part in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to China.

Tarim Mummies

The Tarim mummies (videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) are a series of Caucasoid mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BC to 200 AD. The earliest Tarim mummies, found at Qäwrighul and dated to 1800 BC, are of a Caucasoid physical type whose closest affiliation is to the Bronze Age populations of southern Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and Lower Volga. The cemetery at Yanbulaq contained 29 mummies which date from 1100–500 BC, 21 of which are Caucasoid—the earliest Caucasoid mummies found in the Tarim basin—and 8 of which are of the same Caucasoid physical type found at Qäwrighul.

Notable mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BC); his son (1000 BC), a small 1-year-old baby with blond hair protruding from under a red and blue felt cap, and blue stones in place of the eyes; the "Hami Mummy" (c. 1400–800 BC), a "red-headed beauty" found in Qizilchoqa; and the "Witches of Subeshi" (4th or 3rd century BC), who wore tall pointed hats.

Many of the mummies have been found in very good condition, owing to the dryness of the desert, and the desiccation of the corpses it induced. The mummies share many typical Caucasoid body features (elongated bodies, angular faces, recessed eyes), and many of them have their hair physically intact, ranging in color from blond to red to deep brown, and generally long, curly and braided. It is not known whether their hair has been bleached by internment in salt. Their costumes, and especially textiles, may indicate a common origin with Indo-European neolithic clothing techniques or a common low-level textile technology. Chärchän man wore a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. Textile expert Elizabeth Wayland Barber, who examined the tartan-style cloth, claims it can be traced back to Anatolia, the Caucasus and the steppe area north of the Black Sea.

Tartans: Today tartan may be mostly associated with Scotland, however the earliest evidence of tartan is found far afield from the British Isles. According to the textile historian E. J. W. Barber, the Hallstatt culture, which flourished between 100 BC to 400 BC, produced tartan-like textiles, some of which were recently discovered, remarkably preserved in Salzburg, Austria. Also, textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European Tocharian graves in Western China has shown it to be similar to the Iron Age Hallstatt culture of central Europe. Similar finds have been found in central Europe and Scandinavia. The earliest documented tartan in Britain, known as the Falkirk tartan, dates from the 3rd century AD. It was uncovered at Falkirk in Stirlingshire, Scotland, about 400 metres north-west of the Antonine Wall. The fragment was stuffed into the mouth of the earthenware pot containing almost 2,000 Roman coins. The Falkirk tartan is simple check design, of natural light and dark wool. Early forms of tartan such as this are thought to have been invented in pre-Roman times, and would have been popular among the inhabitants of the northern Roman provinces. Tartan, as we know it today, is not thought to have existed in Scotland before the 16th century.

DNA sequence data shows that the mummies had haplotype characteristic of western Eurasia in the area of south Russia. A team of Chinese and American researchers working in Sweden tested DNA from 52 separate mummies, including the mummy denoted "Beauty of Loulan." By genetically mapping the mummies' origins, the researchers confirmed the theory that these mummies were of West Eurasian descent. An earlier study by Jilin University had found a mtDNA haplotype characteristic of Western Eurasian populations with Europoid genes.

However, more recent genetic studies painted a more complex picture (Xie et al., 2007). It showed both European and East Asian characteristics.

* The Tocharians by Victor Choi

* Genetic Testing Reveals Awkward Truth about Xinjiang’s Famous Mummies by Khaleej Times Online

* Caucasians Preceded East Asians in Basin by the Washington Times

* A Meeting of Civilisations: The mystery of China's Celtic mummies. by Clifford Coonan

* The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To by Edward Wong

* China History Unravelled by Mummies by Benjamin Robertson

* Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of Ancient Sampula Population in Xinjiang by Chengzhi Xie, et al.

Abstract: The archaeological site of Sampula cemetery was located about 14 km to the southwest of the Luo County in Xinjiang Khotan, China, belonging to the ancient Yutian kingdom. 14C analysis showed that this cemetery was used from 217 B.C. to 283 A. D. Ancient DNA was analysed by 364 bp of the mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region 1 (mtDNA HVR-1), and by six restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) sites of mtDNA coding region. We successfully extracted and sequenced intact stretches of maternally inherited mtDNA from 13 out of 16 ancient Sampula samples. The analysis of mtDNA haplogroup distribution showed that the ancient Sampula was a complex population with both European and Asian Characteristics. Median joining network of U3 sub-haplogroup and multi-dimensional scaling analysis all showed that the ancient Sampula had maternal relationship with Ossetian and Iranian.

PC Map of the mtDNA Data (with respect to the basal haplogroup profiles) of 13 Regional Han Samples from Phylogeographic Differentiation of Mitochondrial DNA in Han Chinese by Yong-Gang Yao, et al. (2002)

(Taiwan-2 clusters with Xinjiang)

Xinjiang or "Ice Jecen" in Manchu, literally means "New Frontier", a name given during the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China. It is home to several distinct ethnic groups of various religious traditions, however, the majority of the region's total population are adherents of Islam. Among ethnic groups who are of the Muslim faith, most notable are Muslim Turkic peoples including the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Salars, and the Kazakhs; there are also Muslim Iranian peoples including Tajiks and the Sarikolis/Wakhis (often conflated as Tajiks); and Muslim Sino-Tibetan peoples such as the Hui. Other PRC ethnic groups in the region include Han Chinese, Mongols, Russians, Xibes, and Manchus.

According to JP Mallory, the Chinese sources describe the existence of "white people with long hair" or the Bai people in the Shan Hai Jing, who lived beyond their northwestern border.

The very well preserved Tarim mummies with Caucasoid features, often with reddish or blond hair, today displayed at the Ürümqi Museum and dated to the 3rd century BC, have been found in precisely the same area of the Tarim Basin. Various nomadic tribes, such as the Yuezhi were part of the large migration of Indo-European speaking peoples who were settled in eastern Central Asia (possibly as far as Gansu) at that time. The Ordos culture situated at northern China east of the Yuezhi, are another example.

Nomadic cultures such as the Yuezhi are documented in the area of Xinjiang where the first known reference to the Yuezhi was made in 645 BC by the Chinese Guan Zhong in his Guanzi 管子(Guanzi Essays: 73: 78: 80: 81) . He described the Yuzhi 禺氏, or Niuzhi 牛氏, as a people from the north-west who supplied jade to the Chinese from the nearby mountains of Yuzhi 禺氏 at Gansu. The supply of jade from the Tarim Basin from ancient times is indeed well documented archaeologically: "It is well known that ancient Chinese rulers had a strong attachment to jade. All of the jade items excavated from the tomb of Fuhao of the Shang dynasty, more than 750 pieces, were from Khotan in modern Xinjiang. As early as the mid-first millennium BC the Yuezhi engaged in the jade trade, of which the major consumers were the rulers of agricultural China." (Liu (2001), pp. 267-268).

The nomadic tribes of the Yuezhi are also documented in detail in Chinese historical accounts, in particular the 2nd-1st century BC "Records of the Great Historian", or Shiji, by Sima Qian, which state that they "were flourishing" but regularly in conflict with the neighbouring tribe of the Xiongnu to the northeast. According to these accounts:

The Yuezhi originally lived in the area between the Qilian or Heavenly Mountains (Tian Shan) and Dunhuang, but after they were defeated by the Xiongnu they moved far away to the west, beyond Dayuan, where they attacked and conquered the people of Daxia (Bactria) and set up the court of their king on the northern bank of the Gui [= Oxus] River. A small number of their people who were unable to make the journey west sought refuge among the Qiang (羌族; an old, once strong and populous people whose offspring include the Tibetans and many minorities in southwestern China) barbarians in the Southern Mountains, where they are known as the Lesser Yuezhi.

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
by Spencer Wells

Videos on Chinese, Europeans, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Scythians

Approximate extent of Scythia and the Scythian languages (orange) in the 1st century BC

The Scythians or Scyths were an Iranian speaking people of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dominated the Pontic steppe throughout Classical Antiquity. By Late Antiquity the closely-related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scyths in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scyths comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories, and archaeologically from the exquisite goldwork found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia

The Sarmatians, Sarmatae or Sauromatae (Old Iranian Sarumatah 'archer') were a people of Iranic origin. Mentioned by classical authors, they migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains around fifth century B.C. and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans.

The numerous Iranian personal names in the Greek inscriptions from the Black Sea Coast indicate that the Sarmatians there spoke a north-eastern Iranian dialect related to Sogdian and Ossetic. Like the Scythians, Sarmatians were of Caucasian appearance; before the arrival of the Huns it is thought that few of the western steppe peoples had Asiatic or Turco-Mongol features

Ancient DNA of 13 Sarmatian remains from Pokrovka and Meirmagul kurgans was extracted for comparative analysis. Most of the genetic traits determined were of western Eurasian origin, while only a few were of central/east Asian origin.

World-wide spreading of Haplotypes which are identical with Pr11 and Pr6 from DNA Report: Pokrovka Warrior Women Compared to Meiramgul

The name "Scythian" has also been used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in a vast area covering present-day Ukraine, Russia and Central Asia — known until medieval times as Scythia. The name was also used among early scholars studying the Proto Indo-Europeans, and within the framework of the Kurgan hypothesis the Scythians are considered a reasonable analogue for their Proto Indo-European ancestors.

Scholars generally classify the Scythian language as a member of the Eastern Iranian languages, and the Scythians as a branch of the ancient Iranian peoples expanding into the steppe regions north of Greater Iran from around 1000 BC.

Asians, especially Persians, knew the Scythians in Asia as Sakas. The Indo-Scythians had the name "Shaka" in South Asia, an extension on the name "Saka".

Ruled by small numbers of closely-allied élites, Scythians had a reputation for their archers, and many gained employment as mercenaries. Scythian élites had kurgan tombs.

In Late Antiquity the notion of a Scythian ethnicity grew more vague, and outsiders might dub any people inhabiting the Pontic-Caspian steppe as "Scythians", regardless of their language. Thus, Priscus, a Byzantine emissary to Attila, repeatedly referred to the latter's followers as "Scythians". In Attila's regime Edekon was the king of Scythians.

The Goths had displaced the Sarmatians in the 2nd century from most areas near the Roman frontier, and by early medieval times, the Turkic migration marginalized East Iranian dialects, and assimilated the Saka linguistically.

Map of the Sayan-Altay Area

Archaeological remains of the Scythians include kurgan tombs (ranging from simple exemplars to elaborate "Royal kurgans" containing the "Scythian triad" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild-animal art, gold, silk, and animal sacrifices, in places also with suspected human sacrifices. Mummification techniques and permafrost have aided in the relative preservation of some remains. Scythian archaeology also examines the remains of North Pontic Scythian cities and fortifications.

Carbon-14 dating of kurgans has allowed archaeologists to trace their emergence in the Sayan-Altay area from about 3,000 BC, and their westward spread starting about 900 BC

Some of the first Bronze Age Scythian burials documented by modern archaeologists include the kurgans at Pazyryk in the Ulagan district of the Altay Republic, south of Novosibirsk in the Altay Mountains of southern Siberia. Archaeologists have extrapolated the Pazyryk culture from these finds: five large burial mounds and several smaller ones between 1925 and 1949, one opened in 1947 by Russian archaeologist Sergei Rudenko. Pazyryk culture flourished between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC in the area associated with the Sacae (Saka).

Scythian Society: Scythians lived in confederated tribes, a political form of voluntary association which regulated pastures and organized a common defence against encroaching neighbors for the pastoral tribes of mostly equestrian herdsmen. While the productivity of domesticated animal-breeding greatly exceeded that of the settled agricultural societies, the pastoral economy also needed supplemental agricultural produce, and stable nomadic confederations developed either symbiotic or forced alliances with sedentary peoples — in exchange for animal produce and military protection.

Ruled by small numbers of closely-allied élites, Scythians had a reputation for their archers, and many gained employment as mercenaries. Scythian élites had kurgan tombs: high barrows heaped over chamber-tombs of larch-wood — a deciduous conifer that may have had special significance as a tree of life-renewal, for it stands bare in winter.

Scythian women dressed in much the same fashion as men, and at times fought alongside them in battle. A Pazyryk burial found in the 1990s contained the skeletons of a man and a woman, each with weapons, arrowheads, and an axe. In the 1998 NOVA documentary "Ice Mummies", an archaeologist explains that, "The woman was dressed exactly like a man. This shows that certain women, probably young and unmarried, could be warriors, literally Amazons. It didn't offend the principles of nomadic society."

As far as we know, the Scythians had no writing system. Until recent archaeological developments, most of our information about them came from the Greeks. The Ziwiye hoard, a treasure of gold and silver metalwork and ivory found near the town of Sakiz south of Lake Urmia and dated to between 680 and 625 BC, includes objects with Scythian "animal style" features. One silver dish from this find bears some inscriptions, as yet undeciphered and so possibly representing a form of Scythian writing.

Homer called the Scythians "the mare-milkers". Herodotus described them in detail: their costume consisted of padded and quilted leather trousers tucked into boots, and open tunics. They rode with no stirrups or saddles, just saddle-cloths. Herodotus reports that Scythians used cannabis, both to weave their clothing and to cleanse themselves in its smoke (Hist. 4.73-75); archaeology has confirmed the use of cannabis in funeral rituals. The Scythian philosopher Anacharsis visited Athens in the 6th century BC and became a legendary sage.

Scythians also had a reputation for the use of barbed and poisoned arrows of several types, for a nomadic life centered around horses — "fed from horse-blood" according to Herodotus — and for skill in guerrilla warfare.

Scythian Religion: The religion and mythology of the Scythians is not directly attested except for sparse accounts in Greek ethnography. It is assumed to have been related to earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and to have influenced later Slavic and Turkic and Ossetian traditions.

The Scythians had some reverence for the stag, which is one of the most common motifs in their artwork, especially at funeral sites. The swift animal was believed to speed the spirits of the dead on their way, which perhaps explains the curious antlered headdresses found on horses buried at Pazyryk

The primary archaeological context of horse sacrifice are burials, notably chariot burials, but graves with horse remains reach from the Eneolithic well into historical times. Herodotus describes the execution of horses at the burial of a Scythian king, and Iron Age kurgan graves known to contain horses number in the hundreds.

Horse Sacrifice: Many Indo-European branches show evidence for horse sacrifice, and comparative mythology suggests that they derive from a PIE ritual. In most instances, the horses are sacrificed in a funerary context, and interred with the deceased. There is evidence from three branches of Indo-European of a major horse sacrifice ritual based on a mythical union of Indo-European kingship and the horse. The clearest picture is afforded by the Indian Aśvamedha is the clearest evidence preserved, but vestiges from Latin and Celtic traditions allow the reconstruction of a few common attributes.

There are also frequent deposition of horses in burials in Iron Age India. The custom is by no means restricted to Indo-European populations, but is continued by Turkic tribes as the cultural successors of the Scythians.

Hebrew Bible: The people briefly mentioned in the Bible as "Ashkenaz" — perhaps as a result of ancient Hebrew alphabet misreading: אשכנז instead of the correct אשכוז (= Ashkūz), in Genesis 10:3 and 1 Chronicles 1:6 — traced their ancestry back through Gomer to Noah's third son, Japheth. The Book of Jeremiah 51:27, mentions Ashkenaz in connection with the kingdoms of Ararat and Minni (in the Taurus Mountains), together with the Medes — and portrays them all as hostile to Babylon. They are also mentioned in 2 Maccabees 4:47.

Descent-Claims: Some modern ethnic groups have claimed descent from the Scythians as a means to extend back in time their national history, and to provide a prestigious connection with classical antiquity.

The Scythians feature in some post-Medieval national origin-legends of the Celts. British historian Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, concluded, “The migrating Scythians crossed the Araxes, passed out of Asia, and suddenly appeared in Europe in the sixth century B.C.” Citing many ancient sources, Turner identified the Scythians ("Sakai") as the ancestors of the Anglo Saxons. However, that conclusion remains controversial.

Traditions of the Turkic Kazakhs and Yakuts (whose endoethnonym is "Sakha"); and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan connect these peoples to Scythians. Some legends of the Picts; the Gaels; the Hungarians; Serbs and Croats (among others) also include mention of Scythian origins. In the second paragraph of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath the élite of Scotland claim Scythia as a former homeland of the Scots. Some romantic nationalist writers claim that Scythians figured in the formation of the empire of the Medes and likewise of Caucasian Albania, the precursor in antiquity of the modern-day Azerbaijan Republic.

Various Frankish and Carolingian sources traced royal Merovingian ancestry to the Germanic tribe of the Sicambri. Gregory of Tours documents in his History of the Franks that when Clovis was baptised, he was referred to as a Sicamber with the words "Mitis depone colla, Sicamber, adora quod incendisti, incendi quod adorasti."'. The Chronicle of Fredegar in turn reveals that the Franks believed the Sicambri to be a tribe of Scythian or Cimmerian descent, who had changed their name to Franks in honour of their chieftain Franco in 11 BC.

Migration Period: Although the classical Scythians may have largely disappeared by the 1st century BC, Eastern Romans continued to speak conventionally of "Scythians" to designate Germanic tribes and confederations or mounted Eurasian nomadic barbarians in general: in 448 AD two mounted "Scythians" led the emissary Priscus to Attila's encampment in Pannonia. The Byzantines in this case carefully distinguished the Scythians from the Goths and Huns who also followed Attila.

The Sarmatians (including the Alans and finally the Ossetians) counted as Scythians in the broadest sense of the word — as speakers of Northeast Iranian languages — but nevertheless remain distinct from the Scythians proper.

Byzantine sources also refer to the Rus raiders who attacked Constantinople around 860 AD in contemporary accounts as "Tauroscythians", because of their geographical origin, and despite their lack of any ethnic relation to Scythians. Patriarch Photius may have first applied the term to them during the Siege of Constantinople (860).

Early Modern Usage: Owing to their reputation as established by Greek historians, the Scythians long served as the epitome of savagery and barbarism in the early modern period. Shakespeare, for instance, alluded to the legend that Scythians ate their children in his play King Lear.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, foreigners regarded the Russians as descendants of Scythians. It became conventional to refer to Russians as Scythians in 18th century poetry, and Alexander Blok drew on this tradition sarcastically in his last major poem, The Scythians (1920). In the nineteenth century, romantic revisionists in the West transformed the "barbarian" Scyths of literature into the wild and free, hardy and democratic ancestors of all blond Indo-Europeans.

Genetic research in modern populations reveals that the same paternal Y-chromosome haplogroup (R1a1) represents a genetic lineage currently found in central, western and south Asia, and in Slavic populations of Europe. The distribution of this haplogroup has been posited to represent the spread of peoples from the Ukrainian steppelands which served as an ice-age refuge during the LGM, in the eneolithic succeeded by the Pit Grave ("Kurgan") culture. This latter culture is associated with the spread of Indo-European languages in the "Kurgan hypothesis". The R1a allele thus far predates the Scythians, and its distribution consequently cannot be used simplistically to trace Scythian migrations in particular.

The distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup (G2) from Pakistan and northwest India and out to Spain rather closely mirrors the spread of the Scythians, Sarmatians, and their offshoot, the Alans. Haplogroup G2 reaches its highest worldwide concentration in the Caucasian Russian Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, and the present-day Ossetians, who speak a Scythian Northeast Iranic language are the last remnant of the ancient Alans. Although this may be indirect evidence of Scythian "genetic legacy", it is likewise of Neolithic origin and cannot be used as a one-to-one identification of Scythian ancestry.

Mitochondrial DNA extracted from skeletal remains obtained from excavated Scythian kurgans have produced a myriad of results and conclusions. Analysis of the HV1 sequence obtained from a male Scytho-Siberian's remains at the Kizil site in the Altai Republic revealed the individual possessed the N1a maternal lineage. The study also noted that haplogroup mtDNA N1a was found at a relatively high frequency in the southern fringes of the Eurasian steppe, Iran (8.3%), and within the Indian Havik group (8.3%), an upper Brahman caste. From this, a possible link to ancient populations presumed to have come from Europe that lived in the neighboring Central Asian parts of India and Iran was suggested.

N1a is a rare haplogroup as it currently appears in only .18%-.2% of regional populations. It is widely distributed throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa and is divided into the European, Central Asian, and African/South Asian branches based on specific genetic markers. Exact origins and migration patterns of this haplogroup are still unknown and a subject of some debate.

N1a became particularly prominent when Wolfgang Haak et al. studies on 7500 year old skeletons in Central Europe revealed that 25% of the Neolithic European population might have belonged to the N1a haplogroup. The skeletons were found to be members of the Linear Pottery Culture which is credited with being the first farming culture in Europe.

Additionally, mitochondrial DNA has been extracted from two Scytho-Siberian skeletons found in the Altai Republic (Russia) dating back 2,500 years. Both remains were determined to be of males from a population who had characteristics "of mixed Euro- Mongoloid origin." One of the individuals was found to carry the F2a maternal lineage, and the other the D lineage, both of which are characteristic of East Eurasian populations.

Maternal genetic analysis of Saka period male and female skeletal remains from a double inhumation kurgan located at the Beral site in Kazakhstan determined that the two were most likely not closely related and were possibly husband and wife. The HV1 mitochondrial sequence of the male was similar to the Anderson sequence which is most frequent in European populations. Contrary, the HV1 sequence of the female suggested a greater likelihood of Asian origins. The study's findings were in line with the hypothesis that mixings between Scythians and other populations occurred. This was buttressed by the discovery of several objects with a Chinese inspiration in the grave. No conclusive associations with haplogroups were made though it was suggested that the female may have derived from either mtDNA X or D.

* Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations by F. X. Ricaut, et al.

Abstract: The excavation of a frozen grave on the Kizil site (dated to be 2500 years old) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia) revealed a skeleton belonging to the Scytho-Siberian population. DNA was extracted from a bone sample and analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA. The resulting STR profile, mitochondrial haplotype, and haplogroup were compared with data from modern Eurasian and northern native American populations and were found only in European populations historically influenced by ancient nomadic tribes of Central Asia.

* Genetic Analysis and Ethnic Affinities from Two Scytho-Siberian Skeletons by F. X. Ricaut, et al.

Abstract: We extracted DNA from two skeletons belonging to the Sytho-Siberian population, which were excavated from the Sebÿstei site (dating back 2,500 years) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia). Ancient DNA was analyzed by autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) and by the sequencing of the hypervariable region 1 (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. The results showed that these two skeletons were not close relatives. Moreover, their haplogroups were characteristic of Asian populations. Comparison with the haplogroup of 3,523 Asian and American individuals linked one skeleton with a putative ancestral paleo-Asiatic population and the other with Chinese populations. It appears that the genetic study of ancient populations of Central Asia brings important elements to the understanding of human population movements in Asia.

Chinese jade and steatite plaques, in the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes

Scythian Influences in China: Ancient influences from Central Asia became identifiable in China following contacts of metropolitan China with nomadic western and northwestern border territories from the 8th century BC. Chinese jade-carvers began to make imitations of the designs of the steppes. The Chinese adopted the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes (descriptions of animals locked in combat), particularly the rectangular belt-plaques made of gold or bronze, and created their own versions in jade and steatite.

Iaroslav Lebedynsky and Victor Mair speculate that some Scythians may have migrated to the area of Yunnan in southern China following their expulsion by the Yuezhi in the 2nd century BC. Excavations of the prehistoric art of the Dian civilization of Yunnan have revealed hunting scenes of Caucasoid horsemen in Central Asian clothing. The scenes depicted on these drums sometimes represent these horsemen practicing hunting. Animal scenes of felines attacking oxes are also at times reminiscent of Scythian art both in theme and in composition

Animal style (also known as Zoomorphic style) is a type of imagery used in Northern Europe during the ancient and medieval periods, characterized by animals or animal-like forms arranged in intricate patterns or combats. Animal Style Art consists of intricate, ribbonlike traceries of line that suggest wild and fantastic beasts. The animal style was used in England, Scandinavia, Germany, France and Russia. The Scythian Altaic nomads of the Pazyryk in the Altay Mountains are famous for their rich Siberian animal style.

Scythian art is art, primarily decorative objects, such as jewelry produced by the nomadic tribes in the area known classically as Scythia, which was centred on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and ranged from modern Kazakhstan to the Baltic coast of modern Poland and to Georgia. This art is also known as steppes art and was produced in a period from 7th-3rd century BC to the period when the Scythians were gradually displaced by the Sarmatians in a lengthy process lasting from 4th century BC to 2nd century BC. As the Scythians came in contact with the Greeks, their artwork influenced Greek art, and was influenced by it; also many pieces were made by Greek craftsmen for Scythians customers. Scythian art especially Scythian gold jewelry is highly valued by museums and many of the most valuable artefacts are in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Their Eastern neighbours, the Pazyryk culture in Siberia produced similar art, although they related to the Chinese in a way comparable to that of the Scythians with the Greek and Iranian cultures.

The Seima-Turbino Phenomenon

The Altai Mountains (阿尔泰山脉,) are a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their sources. The Altai Mountains are known as the Turkic peoples' birthplace. The proposed Altaic language family (include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic languages) takes its name from the mountain range.

The Copper Age in the Middle East and the Caucasus begins in the late 5th millennium BC and lasts for about a millennium before it gives rise to the Bronze Age. The population during the Copper Age has been described as paleomongolid in the east of what is now Mongolia, and as Europid in the west.

Central Asia: The Altai Mountains in what is now southern Russia and central China have been identified as the point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon. It is conjectured that climatic problems in this region around the start of the second millennium BC created ecological, economic and political changes which triggered a rapid and massive migration of peoples westward into northeast Europe and eastward into southeast China, Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 miles. This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in the west to Thailand in the east employing the same metal working technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. It is further conjectured that this phenomenon may have been the medium through which the Uralic group of languages spread across Europe and Asia, ultimately producing 39 modern languages including Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian and Lappish.

Pazyryk

Horseman, Pazyryk felt artifact, c.300 BC

The Pazyryk is the name of an ancient nomadic people who lived in the Altai Mountains lying in Siberian Russia south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, near the borders of China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. In this part of the Ukok Plateau, many ancient Bronze Age barrow-like tomb mounds of larch logs covered over by large cairns of boulders and stones have been found. These spectacular burials of the Pazyryk culture closely resemble those of the Scythian people to the west. The term kurgan, a word of Turkic origin, is generally used to describe such log-barrow burials. This archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Pazyryks were horse-riding pastoral nomads of the steppe and some may have accumulated great wealth through horse-trading with merchants in Persia, India and China.

A funerary mask from Tashtyk; see more Tashtyk death masks at the State Hermitage Museum

Tashtyk culture was an archaeological culture that flourished in the Yenisei valley (Minusinsk Depression, environs of modern Krasnoyarsk, eastern part of Kemerovo Oblast) from the first to the fourth century AD, equivalent to the Yenisei Kirghiz. It was preceded by Tagar culture.

Tashtyk settlements and hill-forts have been unearthed throughout the Yenisei region, particularly the Sayan canyon area. Their most imposing monuments were immense barrows-crypt structures; these have yielded large quantities of clay and metal vessels and ornaments. In addition, numerous petrographic carvings have been found.

During his excavations of the Oglahty cemetery south of Minusinsk, Leonid Kyzlasov discovered a number of mummies with richly decorated plaster funerary masks. There were also intact fur hats, silk clothes, and footware (now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg).

Some of the graves contained leather models of human bodies with their heads wrapped in tissue and brightly painted. Inside the models there were small leather bags probably symbolising the stomach and containing burned human bones. Scaled-down replicas of swords, arrows and quivers were placed nearby.

Judging by the funerary masks, the Tashtyk tribes were Europoids, probably of mixed Turkic, Iranian, and Tocharian origin. With the help of the plaster masks in graves of the Tashtyk culture, we are able to trace back to the times of Yenisei Kirghiz.

Bbronze stag from the Tagar culture, 5th century BC

Tagar culture was a Bronze Age archeological culture which flourished between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC in South Siberia (Khakassia, southern part of Krasnoyarsk Krai, eastern part of Kemerovo Oblast). Named after an island in the Yenisey River opposite Minusinsk, the civilization was one of the largest centres of bronze-smelting in ancient Eurasia.

The Tagar tribes are thought to have been Europoids of the Scythian circle. They lived in timber dwellings heated by clay ovens and large hearths. Some settlements were surrounded by fortifications. They made a living by raising livestock, predominantly large horned livestock and horses, goats and sheep. Harvest was collected with bronze sickles and reaping knives. Their artifacts were heavily influenced by Scythian art from Pazyryk. Perhaps the most striking feature of the culture are huge royal kurgans fenced by stone plaques, with four vertical stelae marking the corners.

Pazyryk Discoveries

A gilded wooden figurine of a deer from the Pazyryk burials, 5th century BC

The first tombs were excavated by the archaeologist Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko beginning in the 1920s. While many of the tombs had already been looted in earlier times, Rudenko unearthed buried horses, and with them immaculately preserved cloth saddles, felt and woolen rugs including the world's oldest pile carpet, a 3-metre-high four-wheel funeral chariot from the 5th century BC and other splendid objects that had escaped the ravages of time. These finds are now exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Pazyryk Chief: Rudenko's most striking discovery was the body of a tattooed Pazyryk chief: a thick-set, powerfully built man who had died when he was about 50. Parts of the body had deteriorated, but much of the tattooing was still clearly visible (see image). Subsequent investigation using reflected infrared photography revealed that all five bodies discovered in the Pazyryk kurgans were tattooed. No instruments specifically designed for tattooing were found, but the Pazyryks had extremely fine needles with which they did miniature embroidery, and these were probably used for tattooing.

The chief was elaborately decorated with an interlocking series of designs representing a variety of fantastic beasts. The best preserved tattoos were images of a donkey, a mountain ram, two highly stylized deer with long antlers and an imaginary carnivore on the right arm. Two monsters resembling griffins decorate the chest, and on the left arm are three partially obliterated images which seem to represent two deer and a mountain goat. On the front of the right leg a fish extends from the foot to the knee. A monster crawls over the right foot, and on the inside of the shin is a series of four running rams which touch each other to form a single design. The left leg also bears tattoos, but these designs could not be clearly distinguished. In addition, the chief's back is tattooed with a series of small circles in line with the vertebral column. This tattooing was probably done for therapeutic reasons. Contemporary Siberian tribesmen still practice tattooing of this kind to relieve back pain.

Ice Maiden: The most famous undisturbed Pazyryk burial so far recovered is the "Ice Maiden" found by archaeologist Natalia Polosmak in 1993, a rare example of a single woman given a full ceremonial wooden chamber-tomb in the 5th century BC, accompanied by six horses. It had been buried over 2,400 years ago in a casket fashioned from the hollowed-out trunk of a larch tree. On the outside of the casket were stylized images of deer and snow leopards carved in leather. Shortly after burial the grave had apparently been flooded by freezing rain and the entire contents of the burial chamber had remained frozen in permafrost. Six horses wearing elaborate harnesses had been sacrificed and lay on the logs which formed the roof of the burial chamber. The maiden's well-preserved body, carefully embalmed with peat and bark, was arranged to lie on her side as if asleep. She was young; her hair was still blonde; she had been 5 feet 6 inches tall. Even the animal style tattoos were preserved on her pale skin: creatures with horns that develop into flowered forms. Her coffin was made large enough to accommodate the high felt headdress she was wearing, which had 15 gilded wooden birds sewn to it. On a gold buckle retrieved from another tomb, a similar woman's headdress intertwined with branches of the tree of life are depicted. Her blouse was originally thought to be made of wild "tussah" silk but closer examination of the fibers indicate the material is not Chinese but came from somewhere else, perhaps India. She was clad in a long crimson woolen skirt and white felt stockings. Near her coffin was a vessel made of yak horn, and dishes containing gifts of coriander seeds: all of which suggest that the Pazyryk trade routes stretched across vast areas of Asia. Similar dishes in other tombs was thought to have held Cannabis sativa, confirming a practice described by Herodotus but after tests the mixture was found to be coriander seeds, probably used to disguise the smell of the body.

Two years after the discovery of the "Ice Maiden" Dr. Polosmak's husband, Vyacheslav Molodin, found a frozen man, elaborately tattooed with an elk, with two long braids that reached to his waist, buried with his weapons.

Other Findings: Other undisturbed kurgans have been found to contain remarkably well-preserved remains, comparable to the earlier Tarim mummies of Xinjiang. Bodies were preserved using mummification techniques and were also naturally frozen in solid ice from water seeping into the tombs. They were encased in coffins made from hollowed trunks of larch (which may have had sacral significance) and sometimes accompanied by sacrificed concubines and horses. The clustering of tombs in a single area implies that it had particular ritual significance for these people, who were likely to have been willing to transport their deceased leaders great distances for burial.

As recently as January 2007, tombs are still discovered at various locations, such as the timber tomb of a blond chieftain warrior that was unearthed in the permafrost of the Altai mountains region close to the Mongolian border. The body of the presumed Pazyryk chieftain is tattooed; his sable coat is well-preserved, as are some other objects, including what looks like scissors. A local archaeologist, Aleksei Tishkin, complained that the indigenous population of the region strongly disapproves of archaeological digs, prompting the scientists to move their activities across the border to Mongolia.

Nomadic Culture: Rudenko initially assigned the neutral label Pazyryk culture for these nomads and dated them to the 5th century BC. The Pazyryk culture has since been connected to the Scythians whose similar tombs have been found across the steppes. The Siberian animal style tattooing is characteristic of the Scythians. Trading routes between Central Asia, China and the Near East passed through the oases on the plateau and these ancient Altai nomads profited from the rich trade and culture passing through. There is evidence that Pazyryk trade routes were vast and connected with large areas of Asia including India, perhaps Pazyryk merchants largely trading in high quality horses.

It has been suggested that Pazyryk was a homeland for these tribes before they migrated west. There is also the possibility that the current inhabitants of the Altai region are descendants of the Pazyryk culture, a continuity that would accord with current ethnic politics: DNA is now being used to study the Pazyryk mummies.

* A Culture on the Hoof: Kurgan Woman of the Pazryrk by Mary Lynn E. Turner

* "Ice Mummies: Siberian Ice Maiden" by NOVA

* Reconstruction of the Genofond Peculiarities of the Ancient Pazyryk Population (I-II millenium BC) from Gorny Altai according to the mtDNA Structure by M. I. Voevoda, et al.

* Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations by Francois-X Ricaut, et al.

* Archaeologists find Mongolian Mummy by Agence France-Presse

* Formation of the Eurasian 'Steppe Belt" of Stockbreeding Cultures: Viewed through the prism of archaeometallurgy and radiocarbon Dating by E.N. Chernykh

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Siege of Fort Zeelandia

Fort Zealandia, 17th century

The Siege of Fort Zeelandia (鄭成功攻台之役; literally "Koxinga's Invasion of Taiwan"), which took place in 1661 and 1662, ended the Dutch East India Company's rule over Taiwan and began the Kingdom of Tungning's rule over the island. Taiwanese scholar Lu Chien-jung described this event as "a war that determined the fate of Taiwan in the four hundred years that follow".

Prelude: In the year of 1659, after an unsuccessful attempt to capture Nanjing, Koxinga, leader of the Ming loyalist remnants, felt that the Qing Empire had already consolidated their position in China, and that his troops needed more supplies and manpower. He began actively searching for a suitable location as his base of operation, and soon a Chinese man named He Bin (何斌), who was working for the Dutch East India Company in Taiwan, fled to Koxinga's base in Xiamen and provided him with a map of Taiwan. The Dutch had established a post at Tayoan (大員, now called Tainan City), that consisted of two forts in 1632. The first was Fort Zeelandia, situated at the entrance to the bay at Tayoan, and was the main settlement of the Dutch. The second was Fort Provintia, located at the bay and was less important and thus smaller in size. Frederick Coyett, the governor of Taiwan for the company, was stationed in Fort Zeelandia with 1,800 men; his subordinate Valentyn was in charge of Fort Provintia and its garrison of 500 men.

The Siege: Koxinga and his fleet set sail from Kinmen on March 23, 1661. His fleet consisted of hundreds of junks and ships of various sizes, with roughly 25,000 soldiers and sailors aboard. They arrived in the Pescadores the next day, left a garrison there, and set sail again on March 30. The fleet arrived at Tayoan on April 2, and, after passing through a shallow waterway unknown to the Dutch, landed at Luermen (鹿耳門) in the bay.

The assault force immediately laid siege to Fort Provintia, catching Valentyn unprepared since the fort was supposedly protected by Fort Zeelandia; facing overwhelming enemy forces, Valentyn surrendered the fort on April 4. Three days after the capture of Fort Provintia, Koxinga's troop surrounded Fort Zeelandia and demanded the garrison's surrender by sending Dutch priest Anthonius Hambroek, who was captured Koxinga's forces, as emissary to persuade the garrison to surrender. Hambroek, however, urged the garrison to resist instead of surrender, and was executed after returning to Koxinga's camp.

Koxinga's fleet then began massive bombardment, and troops on the ground attempted to storm the fort, but were repulsed with considerable losses. Koxinga then changed his tactics and laid siege to the fort. On May 28, news of the siege reached Jakarta, and the company decided to send a fleet of 10 ships and 700 sailors to relieve the fort. The fleet arrived on July 5 and had some small scale confrontations with Koxinga's fleet upon its arrival.

On July 23, the two sides gave battle as the Dutch fleet attempted to break the blockade while Koxinga's fleet tried to hold off the Dutch. After a brief engagement, the Dutch fleet was forced to retreat with two ships sunk, three smaller vessels captured, and about a hundred casualties. The Dutch attempted to break the siege again in October, but were beaten back by the besieging army. This victory, coupled with news of low morale among the garrison from deserted German mercenaries, convinced Koxinga to launched a final assault in December.

On January 12, 1662, Koxinga's fleet began another bombardment, while the ground force prepare to assault the fort. With supplies dwindling and no sign of reinforcement, Coyett finally ordered the hoisting of the white flag and negotiated the surrender terms. The surrender was made complete on February 1, and the remaining Dutch East India Company personnel left Taiwan on February 17. All personnel were allowed to take with them their personal belongings, as well as provisions sufficient for them to reach the nearest Dutch settlement.

Aftermath: After arriving in Jakarta, Coyett was tried for surrendering the post and exiled to the Banda Islands. He was eventually pardoned after strong lobbing by his friends and relatives. He published a book named Neglected Formosa (Dutch: 't Verwaerloosde Formosa) in 1675. In the book he defended his actions in Taiwan and criticized the company for neglecting his pleas for reinforcement.

After the loss of the post at Tayoan, the Dutch East India Company made several attempts to recapture it, and even formed an alliance with the Qing Empire to battle Koxinga's fleet. They captured Keelung in northern Taiwan, but were forced to abandon it due to logistical difficulties and because the Qing fleet suffered numerous crushing defeats at the hands of Koxinga's veteran sailors.

Colored drawing by Caspar Schmalkalden (c.1618-c.1668)

Die wundersamen Reisen des Caspar Schmalkalden nach West- und Ostindien, 1642-1652 (German Edition) by Caspar Schmalkalden

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Sino-German Relations

The earliest Sino-German trading occurred overland through Siberia, and was subject to transit taxes by the Russian government. In order to make trading more profitable, Germany decided to take the sea route and the first German merchant ships arrived in China, then under the Qing Dynasty, as part of the Royal Prussian Asian Trading Company of Emden, in the 1750s.

In 1859, following China's defeat in the Second Opium War, Prussia sent the Eulenburg Expedition to negotiate commercial treaties with China, Japan and Siam. On 2 September 1861, Friedrich Albrecht zu Eulenburg and a representative from the Zongli Yamen signed the Treaty of Tianjin, which opened formal commercial relations between China and Prussia, which represented the German Customs Union. Prussia would later on become the dominant and leading part of the newly founded German empire. The treaty would govern Sino-German relations until World War I, when the Republic of China repudiated the treaty unilaterally.

During the late 19th century, Sino-foreign trade was dominated by the British Empire, and Otto von Bismarck was eager to establish German footholds in China to balance the British dominance. In 1885, Bismarck had the Reichstag pass a steamship subsidy bill which offered direct service to China. In the same year, he sent the first German banking and industrial survey group to evaluate investment possibilities, which led to the establishment of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in 1890. Through these efforts Germany was second to Britain in trading and shipping in China by 1896.

In 1897, the German empire invaded Qingdao and founded the Jiaozhou Bay colony. In 1900, Germany took part in the Eight-Nation Alliance.

SMS Deutschland and SMS Gefion. Arrival at Jiaozhou Bay, 1899

The Jiaozhou Bay was a German colonial concession which existed from 1898 to 1914. With an area of 552 km², it was located in the imperial province of Shandong on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula in northern China. Jiaozhou was romanized as Kiaochow, Kiauchau or Kiao-Chau in English and Kiautschou in German. Qingdao (Tsingtao) was the administrative center.

Background of the Expansion to China: Germany was a relative latecomer to the imperialistic scramble for colonies across the globe. But a German colony in China was envisioned as a two-fold enterprise: to support a naval presence, and that colonies (see German colonial empire) were ideal to support the economy in the motherland. Densely populated China came into view as a potential market. Thinkers like Max Weber demanded an active colonial policy from the government. In particular the opening of China was made a high priority, because it was thought to be the most important non-European market in the world.

But a global policy (Weltpolitik) without global military influence appeared impracticable, so a navy was built. This fleet was supposed to give German interests emphasis during peace (gunboat diplomacy) and to protect the German trade routes and disturb hostile ones during war (cruiser war concept). A network of global naval bases was a key requirement for this intention.

Nevertheless, the acquisition of a harbor in China should serve another purpose: considering the heavy strain accorded to the building of a fleet, a Chinese colony should also promote the navy. Therefore Jiaozhou was from the start subjected to the idea of a model colony: all installations, the administration, the surrounding infrastructure, the utilization had to show the Chinese, the Germans and the world the exceptionally effective German colonial policy.

The German Acquisition of the Bay: In 1860, a Prussian expedition fleet arrived in Asia and explored the region around Jiaozhou Bay. The following year the Treaty of Peking was signed. After journeys to China between 1868 and 1871, the geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen recommended the Bay of Jiaozhou as a possible naval base. In 1896 Rear Admiral von Tirpitz, at that time commander of the German East Asia Squadron, examined the area personally as well as three additional sites in China for the establishment of a naval base. Rear Admiral Otto von Diedrichs replaced Tirpitz in East Asia and focused on Jiaozhou Bay even though the Berlin admiralty had not formally decided on a base location.

On 1 November 1897, the Big Sword Society brutally murdered two German Roman Catholic priests of the Steyler Mission in Juye County in southern Shandong. Admiral von Diederichs, commander of the cruiser squadron, wired on 7 November 1897 to the admiralty: "May incidents be exploited in pursuit of further goals?" Upon receipt of the Diedrichs cable, Chancellor Chlodwig von Hohenlohe counseled caution, preferring a diplomatic resolution. However, Kaiser Wilhelm II intervened and the admiralty sent a message for Diedrichs to "proceed immediately to Kiautschou with entire squadron ..." to which the admiral replied "will proceed ... with greatest energy."

Diedrichs at that moment only had his flagship SMS Kaiser and the light cruiser Prinzess Wilhelm available at anchor at Shanghai, with the shallow draft small cruiser Cormoran patrolling the Yangtze, the corvette Arcona was laid up for repairs at Shanghai and the light cruiser Irene in a dock yard at Hong Kong for an engine refit. Diedrichs weighed anchor, ordered Prinzess Wilhelm to follow next day and Cormoran to catch up at sea. The three ships arrived off Tsingtao after dawn on 13 November 1897 but made no aggressive moves. With his staff and the three captains of his ships aboard, Diedrichs landed with his admirals tender at Tsingtao’s long pier to reconnoiter. He determined that his landing force would be vastly outnumbered by Chinese troops, but he had qualitative superiority

At 0600, Sunday, 14 November 1897, Cormoran steamed into the inner harbor to provide inshore fire support. Kaiser and Prinzess Wilhelm cleared boats to carry an amphibious force of 717 officers, petty officers and sailors armed with rifles. Diedrichs on horseback and his column marched toward the Chinese main garrison and artillery battery, a special unit swiftly disabled the Chinese telegraph line and others occupied the outer forts and powder magazines. With speed and effectiveness, Diedrichs’ actions had achieved their primary objective by 0815.

Signalmen restored the telegraph line and the first messages were received and deciphered. Diedrichs was stunned to learn that his orders had been cancelled and he was to suspend operations at Jiaozhou pending negotiations with the Chinese government. If he had already occupied Tsingtao, he was to consider his presence temporary. He responded, thinking the politicians in Berlin had lost their nerve to political or diplomatic complications: "Proclamation already published. [...] Revocation not possible." After considerable time, the admiralty finally cabled congratulations, and the proclamation to remain in effect; Wilhelm II promoted him to vice admiral.

Admiral von Diedrichs consolidated his positions at Jiaozhou Bay. The admiralty dispatched the protected cruiser SMS Kaiserin Augusta from the Mediterranean to Tsingtao to further strengthen the East Asia Squadron, and on 26 January 1898 the marines of III. Seebatallion arrived on the passenger liner Darmstadt. Jiaozhou Bay was now secure.

Negotiations with the Chinese government began and a few months later, on 6 March 1898 the German Empire retreated from outright cession of the area and accepted a leasehold of the Bay for 99 years (as the British did in Hong Kong's New Territories). One month later the Reichstag ratified the treaty on 8 April 1898. Jiaozhou Bay was officially placed under German protection by imperial decree on 27 April and Kapitän zur See [captain] Carl Rosendahl was appointed governor. These events ended Admiral von Diedrichs responsibility (but not his interest) in "Kiautschou;" he wrote that he had "fulfilled [his] purpose in the navy."

As a result of the German-Chinese lease contract the Chinese government gave up all its sovereign rights within the leased territory of approximately 83,000 inhabitants (to which the city of Jiaozhou did not belong), as well as in a 50 km wide security zone. The "Gouvernement Kiautschou" remained part of China under imperial reign, but for the duration of the lease was turned into a German Schutzgebiet [protectorate]. Moreover the treaty included rights for construction of railway lines and mining of local coal deposits. Many parts of Shandong outside of the German protectorate came under German influence. Although the lease contract set limits to the German expansion, it became starting point for the following cessions of Port Arthur to Russia, of Weihaiwei to Great Britain and Kwang-Chou-Wan to France.

The Organisation and Development of the Protectorate: Because of the importance which the protectorate had for the reputation of the German navy, it was not placed under the supervision of the Imperial colonial office (Reichskolonialamt) but under that of the Imperial naval office (the Reichsmarineamt or RMA).

At the top of the colony stood the governor (all five office holders were senior navy officers), who was directly subordinated to the secretary of state of the RMA, Alfred von Tirpitz. The governor was head of the military and the civil administration within the colony. The former was run by the chief of staff and deputy governor, the latter by the Zivilkommissar [civil commissioner]. Further important functionaries of Jiaozhou were the official for the construction of the harbor, and after 1900 the chief justice and the 'Commissioner for Chinese Affairs.' The Gouvernementsrat [government council of the protectorate] and after 1902 the 'Chinese Committee' acted as organs of advice for the governor. The departments of finance, construction, education and medical services were directly subordinated to the governor, because these were crucial with regard to the idea of a model colony.

Jiaozhou indeed was transformed into a modern realm. Tsingtao was laid out with wide streets, solid housing areas, electrification throughout, a sewer system and a clean drinking water supply, a rarity in large parts of Asia at that time and later. The area had the highest schools density and highest per capita student enrollment in all of China, with primary, secondary and vocational schools funded by the Berlin treasury and Protestant and Roman Catholic missions.

With the expansion of economic activity and public works, German banks opened branch offices, the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank being the most prominent. The completion of the Shantung Railroad in 1910 provided a connection to the Trans-Siberian Railway and thus allowed travel by train from Tsingtao to Berlin.

After the Chinese revolution of 1911 ran its course, many wealthy Chinese and politically connected ex-officials settled in the colony because of the safe and orderly environment it offered. Sun Yat-sen visited the Tsingtao area and stated in 1912, “ ... I am impressed. The city is a true model for China’s future.”

Governors (all were naval officers with the rank of Kapitän zur See [captain]):

Carl Rosendahl	7 March 1898 – 19 February 1899
Otto Jäschke	19 February 1899 – 27 January 1901 (died in office)
Max Rollmann	27 January 1901 – 8 June 1901 (acting)
Oskar von Truppel	8 June 1901 – 19 August 1911
Alfred Meyer-Waldeck	19 August 1911 – 7 November 1914

Later History: On 23 August 1914 the Republic of China cancelled the German lease. On 7 November 1914 the bay was occupied by Japan (see Siege of Tsingtao), which appointed two Military Governors: 7 November 1914 - 1919 Mitsuomi Kamio and 1919 - 10 December 1922 Mitsue Yuhi.

The occupied territory was returned to China on 10 December 1922. The Japanese again occupied the area from 1937 to 1945 during the Second Sino-Japanese War .

Tsingtao Brewery

Tsingtao Brewery (青島啤酒廠) is China's largest brewery. Founded in 1903 by German settlers; it claims about 15% of domestic market share. The beer is produced in Qingdao in Shandong province (and more recently in other breweries owned by the company as well), but the name of the beer uses the old École française d'Extrême-Orient transliteration. The beer's present-day logo displays an image of Zhan Qiao, a famous pier on Qingdao's southern shore.

History: The brewery was founded in 1903 as the Germania-Brauerei [Germania Brewery] to brew beer in the German tradition mainly for Germans and other Westerners in China.

In 1915 the brewery was taken over from the German owners and managers and until 1945 was under Japanese management (the Japanese confiscated all German holdings in Shandong during World War I).

After the defeat of Japan in World War II the Qingdao Brewery was turned into a Chinese brewery under the supervision of the Nationalist government in Nanjing. However, this period of ownership only lasted until 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded and the company became a state-owned enterprise.

The company was privatized in the early '90s and in 1993 merged with three other breweries in Qingdao and was finally renamed Tsingtao Brewery Company Limited. Today 27% of the company is owned by Anheuser-Busch. The company now owns several other breweries in China, some of which also produce Tsingtao Beer.

Beer Styles: Tsingtao Beer, a well-hopped standard pilsner of 4.7% alcohol, is the flagship brew, accounting for most of the brewery's production. An unpasteurised version is sold as Tsingtao Draft Beer. Tsingtao Beer was long advertised as being "brewed with mineral water from the Laoshan Spring", which contributed to its characteristic flavour; however, this now applies only to beer produced in Qingdao, not to that produced in the company's other breweries. Originally, Tsingtao Beer was brewed in accordance with the German Reinheitsgebot ('Purity Law') of 1516, therefore the only ingredients that were used were water, barley, and hops. After privatization however, the recipe was changed, so that today Tsingtao beer, like many other beers made in China, contains a proportion of the less-expensive rice as an adjunct in the mash.

Eight-Nation Alliance

Military of the Powers during the Boxer Rebellion, with their naval flags, from left to right: Italy, United States, France, Austria-Hungary, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Russia. Japanese print, 1900.

The Eight-Nation Alliance (八國聯軍) was an alliance made up of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose armies put down the Boxer Uprising in China in August 1900. The troops were sent after Boxers attacked and murdered Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries across north China, then converged on Beijing and besieged foreign diplomats and civilians who had taken refuge in the Legation Quarter. After their initial landing failed, the Allied armies eventually lifted the siege, then looted the capital. Thousands of citizens died during the campaign.

At the end of the campaign, the imperial government was forced to sign the unequal Boxer Protocol of 1901.

Leading Factors: At the end of the 19th century, resentment towards foreigners was on the rise due to continued foreign involvement within China, extraterritorial legal and trading privileges and influence over China, with Empress Dowager Cixi's passive approval. The Chinese coastline was cut up into spheres of influence for each of the eight nations. Invasion by the Eight-Nation alliance was carried out throughout the entire Eastern region of China.

Pillage and destruction of ancient, cultural artifacts and buildings created resentment. These resentments grew to the extent that destruction and violence against foreign companies, personnel, and even items such as violins, automobiles, phone lines etc. was carried out. Diplomats were assassinated, businesses vandalized and items were set on fire in the streets. Although the Qing government formally condemned these violent actions, they failed to prosecute the people that carried out the acts.

With their commercial interests in China under threat and the necessity to relieve the joint legations under siege in Beijing by the Boxers, the eight-nation alliance sent troops to suppress the uprising.

Events: Troops of the eight countries invaded and occupied Beijing on August 14, 1900. Empress Dowager Cixi, the Emperor, and higher officials fled the Imperial Palace for Xi'an, and sent Li Hongzhang for peace talks.

Participants of the Eight-Nation Alliance were responsible for the ransacking and pillaging of many historical artifacts of Chinese origin, such as those found in the Summer Palace, and instigated the burning of many prominent Chinese buildings in an effort to rout the Boxer rebels. "Following the taking of Peking, troops from the international force, except British and American, looted the capital city and even ransacked the Forbidden City, with many Chinese treasures finding their way back to Europe."

Austro-Hungarian Contribution: As a member of the Allied nations, the Austro-Hungarian Navy sent two training ships and the cruisers SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresia, SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth, SMS Aspern, and SMS Zenta and a company of marines to the North China coast in April 1900, based at the Russia concession of Port Arthur.

In June they helped hold the Tianjin railway against Boxer forces, and also fired upon several armed junks on the Hai River near Tong-Tcheou. They also took part in the seizure of the Taku Forts commanding the approaches to Tianjin, and the boarding and capture of four Chinese destroyers by Capt. Roger Keyes of HMS Fame. In all K.u.K forces suffered only several casualties during the rebellion.

After the uprising a cruiser was maintained permanently on the China station and a detachment of marines was deployed at the embassy in Peking.

Lieutenant Georg Ritter von Trapp, made famous in the musical The Sound of Music, was decorated for bravery aboard the SMS Kaiserin und Königin Maria Theresa during the Rebellion.

Perception by Modern Chinese: This event has been largely associated by the Chinese around the world with shame and as foreign aggression. The events have been made into film a number of times.

Though the reaction of the Boxers against foreign imperialism in China is regarded by some as patriotic, the violence that the Alliance caused in committing acts of murder, robbery, vandalism and arson cannot be considered much different from the events of other rebellions in China. However, the actions of the Eight-Nation Alliance soldiers, who committed similar acts of looting, murder, and rape after taking over the capital city are considered even more morally abhorrent by the Chinese.

In January 2006, Freezing Point, a weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily newspaper, was closed partly due to its running of an essay by Yuan Weishi, a history professor at Zhongshan University, who criticized the way in which the Boxer Rebellion and 19th century history about foreign interaction with China is now portrayed in Chinese textbooks and taught at school.

Boxer forces in Tianjin

The Boxer Rebellion, or more properly Boxer Uprising, was a violent anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement by the “Boxers United in Righteousness,” Yihe tuan or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China. In response to imperialist expansion, growth of cosmopolitan influences, and missionary evangelism, and against the backdrop of state fiscal crisis and natural disasters, local organizations began to emerge in Shandong in 1898. These local groups attacked Catholic missionaries in Shandong in the summer of 1899 and gained strength on the slogan “Revive the Qing, destroy the foreign.” With the tacit approval of the court, Boxers across North China attacked mission compounds. They killed missionaries and Chinese Christians.

In the early summer of 1900, Boxer fighters, lightly armed and with little leadership, gathered in Beijing to besiege the foreign embassies. On June 21, the conservative faction of the Manchu Court induced the Empress Dowager, who ruled in the emperor’s name, to declare war on the foreign powers that had diplomatic representation in Beijing. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers and some Chinese Christians retreated to the legation quarter where they held out for fifty-five days until the Eight-Nation Alliance brought 20,000 troops to their rescue. The Allied troops then conducted a campaign of indiscriminate slaughter, rape, and pillage. The Boxer Protocol of September 7, 1901 ended the uprising and provided for severe punishments, including an indemnity of 67 million pounds. Subsequent reforms led, at least in part, to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Chinese Republic.

Origins of the Boxers: The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists (義和團) known by foreigners as the Boxers was a village sect founded in Shandong, a northern province of China. Westerners came to call well-trained, athletic young men "Boxers" due to the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. Despite the obvious differences between Chinese Wushu and Western pugilistic boxing, the training for unarmed combat took on the same name to the Europeans. The Boxers believed that they could, through training, diet, martial arts, and prayer, perform extraordinary feats, such as flight and could become immune to swords and bullets. Further, they popularly claimed that millions of "spirit soldiers," would descend from the heavens and assist them in purifying China from foreign influences.

The name “Boxer Rebellion,” notes a recent study, is truly a misnomer, for the Boxers “never rebelled against the Manchu rulers of China and their Qing dynasty” and the “most common Boxer slogan" was “support the Qing, destroy the Foreign." Only after the movement was suppressed did both the foreign powers and influential Chinese officials realize that the Qing would have to remain as government of China. Therefore in order to save face for the Empress Dowager and the Manchu court, the fiction was created that the Boxers were rebels. The origin of the term “rebellion,” concludes one recent historian, was “purely political and opportunistic,” but it has shown a remarkable staying power, particularly in popular accounts

Beginnings of Conflict: One of the first signs of unrest appeared in a small village in Shandong province, where there had been a long dispute over the property rights of a temple between locals and the Roman Catholic authorities. The Catholics claimed that the temple was originally a church abandoned for decades after the Kangxi Emperor banned Christianity in China. The local court ruled in favor of the church, and angered villagers who claimed the temple for rituals. After the local authorities turned over the temple to the Catholics, the villagers (led by the Boxers) attacked the church building.

The exemption of missionaries from many laws further alienated local Chinese. In 1899, with the help of the French Minister in Peking, they obtained an edict granting official rank to each order in the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Local priests, by means of this official status, were able to support their people in legal disputes or family feuds and go over the heads of local officials. After the German government took over territory in Shandong, many Chinese feared that the missionaries, and by extension all Christians, were part of an imperialist attempt to "carve the melon," that is, to divide China and make it into colonies.

The early months of the movement's growth coincided with the Hundred Days' Reform (11 June–21 September 1898). Reform officials persuaded the Guangxu Emperor to institute reforms which alienated many officials by their sweeping nature and led the Empress Dowager to step in and reverse the reforms. Making matters worse, massive floods in some areas and drought in others created poverty and refugees.

Commitment of Imperial Army: Now with a majority of conservatives in the Imperial Court, the Empress Dowager issued edicts in defense of the Boxers, drawing heated complaints from foreign diplomats in January, 1900. In June 1900 the Boxers, now joined by elements of the Imperial army, attacked foreign compounds in the cities of Tianjin and Peking. The legations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, Russia and Japan were all located on the Beijing Legation Quarter close to the Forbidden City in Peking. The legations were hurriedly linked into a fortified compound that became a refuge for foreign citizens in Peking. The Spanish and Belgian legations were a few streets away, and their staff were able to arrive safely at the compound. The German legation on the other side of the city was stormed before the staff could escape. When the Envoy for the German Empire, Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was murdered on 20 June by a Manchu banner man, the foreign powers demanded redress. On 21 June Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all Western powers, but regional governors, including Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong, quietly refused to cooperate. Shanghai's Chinese elite supported the provincial governors of southeastern China in resisting the imperial declaration of war.

Massacre of Missionaries: The Taiyuan Massacre was the mass killing of foreign Christian missionaries and of local church members, including women and children, from July 1900, and was one of the more bloody and infamous parts of the Boxer Rebellion. 48 Catholic missionaries and 18,000 Chinese Catholics were murdered. 222 Chinese Eastern Orthodox Christians were also murdered, along with 182 Protestant missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants known as the China Martyrs of 1900.

Missionary Herald, a BMS magazine, published letters and telegrams sent by priests and their families in Manchu Qing dynasty, in Shanxi province, Taiyuan city. In December 1900, Missionary Herald broke the news to its readers: Priests and their families were lured and cast into prison, then excecuted by the Manchu officials, "the entire mission staff in the Province of Shanxi has perished". The murder of the BMS missionaries took place at the end of June 1900. The Taiyuan missionaries fled into a co-worker's house because Boxers were burning churches and houses, killing Christians and foreigners. Three days later, the Governor sent four deputies with soldiers, "promising to escort them in safety to the coast". Instead the missionaries were taken to a house near the Governor’s residence, were then "taken to the open space in front of the Governor’s residence, and stripped to the waist, as usual with those beheaded".

"By June 1900, placards calling for the death of foreigners and Christians covered the walls around Beijing. Armed bands combed the streets of the city, setting fire to homes and "with imperial blessing" killing Chinese Christians and foreigners. --Father Geoffrey Korz, of the Orthodox church"

In 2005 English Professor Henry Hart released a book: Lost in the Gobi Desert to commemorate his great-grandfather's efforts to save the life of western missionaries and their Chinese followers from the hands of the Boxer rebels.

"Boxers blamed “foreign devils” like my great-grandparents for causing northern China's drought and famine, exacerbating economic hardships by building railroads and telegraph lines (because such modern conveniences eliminated jobs), undermining the native textile industry with European imports, infecting and killing Chinese children with Christian prayers and for various other real and imagined infamies."

"The murderous Boxer Rebellion came as a sudden thunderstorm; all foreigners were to be killed not in the sudden merciful death of a bullet but sliced to death by big, old rusty knives and swords.... I had an old Winchester rifle and plenty of ammunition ready for the journey....The Boxer uprising ultimately claimed the lives of more than 32,000 Chinese Christians and several hundred foreign missionaries (historian Nat Brandt called it “the greatest single tragedy in the history of Christian evangelicalism"

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First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plots planned by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned, and eventually executed by hanging.

A strong opponent of Nazism, he was involved, together with Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth and others, in establishing the Confessing Church. In August 1933, he co-authored the Bethel Confession with Hermann Sasse and others. Between late 1933 and 1935, he served as pastor of two German-speaking Protestant churches in London: St. Paul's and Sydenham. While Bonhoeffer desired a trip to India to discover non-violent resistance with Gandhi, he returned to Germany to head a seminary for Confessing Church pastors which had been made illegal by the Nazi regime, first in Finkenwalde and then at the von Blumenthal estate of Gross Schlönwitz, which was closed at the outbreak of World War II. The Gestapo also banned him from preaching; then teaching; and finally any kind of public speaking. During this time, Bonhoeffer worked closely with numerous opponents of Adolf Hitler.

In 1939, Bonhoeffer joined a secret group of high-ranking military officers based in the Abwehr, or Military intelligence Office, who wanted to overthrow the National Socialist regime by killing Hitler. Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943 after money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him. He was charged with conspiracy and imprisoned in Berlin for a year and a half.

In Flossenbürg, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging at dawn on 1945 April 9, just three weeks before the liberation of Berlin and one month before the capitulation of Nazi Germany.

The Cost of Discipleship: This book by the German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a classic of Christian thought. It is centred around an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Bonhoeffer spells out what he believes it means to follow Christ. It was first published in In 1937, when the rise of the Nazi regime was underway in Germany. It was against this background that Bonhoeffer's theology of costly discipleship developed, which was to lead ultimately to his death.

One of the most important parts of the book deals with the distinction which Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. But what is "cheap" grace? In Bonhoeffer's words: "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ." Or, to put it even more clearly, it is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it contains no demand for discipleship.

In contrast to this is costly grace: "costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." "

Bonhoeffer argues that as Christianity spread, the Church became more "secularised", accommodating the demands of obedience to Jesus to the requirements of society. In this way, "the world was Christianised, and grace became its common property." But the hazard of this was that the gospel was cheapened, and obedience to the living Christ was gradually lost beneath formula and ritual, so that in the end, grace could literally be sold for monetary gain.

But all the time, within the church, there had been a living protest against this process: the monastic movement. This served as a "place where the older vision was kept alive." Unfortunately, "monasticism was represented as an individual achievement which the mass of the laity could not be expected to emulate"; the commandments of Jesus were limited to "a restricted group of specialists" and a double standard arose: "a maximum and a minimum standard of church obedience." Why was this dangerous? Bonhoeffer points out that whenever the church was accused of being too worldly, it could always point to monasticism as "the opportunity of a higher standard within the fold - and thus justify the other possibility of a lower standard for others." So the monastic movement, instead of serving as a pointer for all Christians, became a justification for the status quo.

Bonhoeffer remarks how this was rectified by Luther at the Reformation, when he brought Christianity "out of the cloister". However, he thinks that subsequent generations have again cheapened the preaching of the forgiveness of sins, and this has seriously weakened the church: "The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organised church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptised, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving... But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard."

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Friedrich Nietzsche
(video)

Grimm's Fairy Tales
by Brothers Grimm
(e-book)

Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann
(e-book)

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
(e-book)

Good Bye Lenin!
(video)

Sophie Scholl
(video)

Lives of Others
(video)

Plot from Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Analysis of a FST Values from Y Chromosome
Haplogroup Frequencies, Showing Genetic Affinities among European and Anatolian Populations

Plot from Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) Analysis of a RST Values from Y Chromosome STR
Haplotype Frequencies, Showing Genetic Affinities among European and Anatolian Populations

Dendrogram Based on Genetic Distances (horizontal axis) Among Slavic, Finnish-Ugric and
Germanic Populations

Clustering by Minimum Y-STR-based FST of 45 Male European Samples and Metasamples.
The significance of individual groupings is indicated by vertical bars below the dendrogram (top line
randomisation P<0.05, bottom lineP<0.001)