PF2431

-A Provisional Atlas of prehistoric Eurasia based on genetic data supporting the farming-language dispersal model-

Afro-Asiatic origins in the Levant

Regarding the Afro-Asiatic family, what makes the situation ambiguous is the discrepancy in the distribution pattern of haplogroup E-M78 (TMRCA 11 400 BCE). As both the parent haplogroup of EM78, that is E-L539 (TMRCA 16100 BCE) and the sibling haplogroup of this parent group, the less widespread E-Z827 (TMRCA 21600 BCE) are both mostly distributed around the Mediterranean, including Europe, showing highest microsatellite variance in the Levant, this suggests that already the common ancestor group of E-L539 and E-Z827, that is E-M35 (TMRCA 22000 BCE) had arrived to the Levant during the Last Glacial Maximum, and started to divert to subclades already there. While E-M78 shows the highest microsatellite variance in the Levant (YFull 2021), thus suggesting the origins of it as well as the entire Afro-Asiatic family there, but Afro-Asiatic language family shows the highest variety in Africa, with Chadic, Berber, Egyptic and Cushitic all being present in Africa, and only Semitic in Asia. The most simple solution for the discrepancy between high genetic diversity in the Levant and high linguistic diversity in Africa could be that Semitic is a result of a relatively late re-migration from North Africa or the ancient Canaan after ancestors of the other branches of Afro-Asiatic migrated to North Africa. (Otherwise AfroAsiatic languages should be more diverse in the Middle East than in Africa, which is clearly not the case.)

This is also supported by the fact that otherwise E-M78 and even its’ primary subclades are much older by multiple times than the presumed age of language families analyzed in this paper and my earlier papers, as timing of TMRCA-s of its’ primary subclades is the following: 10 000 BCE for E-Z1902, and 9900 BCE for E-Z1919. Regarding secondary subclades, for subclades of E-Z1902 it is 8400 BCE for E-V12 (quaternary ancestor of E-V32, the most widespread subclade of E-V78 in African Cushitic areas, with its’ on TMRCA at 5200 BCE) and 6800 BCE for E-Z22639 (primary ancestor of E-V65, most widespread E-M78 subclade in the Maghreb with its’ own TMRCA at 2100 BCE, most of it however belonging to its’ subclade Z1231, with its’ own TMRCA at 900 BCE)) and regarding the subclades of E-Z1919 it is 6211 BCE for E-L618 (primary ancestor of E-V13 widespread in Europe with its’ own TMRCA dated to 2800 BCE) and it is 6400 BCE for E-V22 (most widespread in Egypt) (YFull 2021). The most plausible date and event for migration to North Africa, seems to be the arrival of wheat and barley cultivation into Egypt in the first half of the fifth millennium BCE (Stevens et al. 2016). There is an apparent coincidence in the TMRCA-s of E-CTS2294, the most widespread primary subclade of E-V32, widespread in Cushitic areas at 3200 BCE, and that of R1b-Y7771 in 3100 BCE (YFull 2021), that subclade of the African subclade of R1b, R1b-V88, that is the most widespread in Chadic areas, suggesting them to had been two flanks of the same demographic expansion, spreading out from Northeast Africa to the west and south, probably occurring already after the population characterizes by R1b-Y7771 already been linguistically assimilated by Afro-Asiatics. E-M81 (TMRCA 800 BCE), one of the subclades of E-Z827, the sibling subclade of E-M78 shows a distribution pattern (YFull 2021) that suggests it to have played a key role in the original Berber expansion in the Maghreb.

The most plausible candidates for Semitic re-migration to the Fertile Crescent with TMRCA-s fitting the arrival of the Akkadians and other early Semitic peoples are certain subclades of both E-V22 and E-V12 with relatively early TMRCA-s present in the middle east could be candidates fur such re-migration, such as E-FGC14382 (TMRCA 2200 BCE), E-V3262 (TMRCA 2600 BCE).

It is also interesting to note that not only the E-V13 (TMRCA 2800 BCE) subclade of E-L618, but also the E-FGC7703 (TMRCA 6600 BCE) subclade of E-V12 is also primarily European. These early migrations to Europe also strongly suggest an ancient homeland in the Levante, likely linked to the Natufian culture. As populations carrying these subclades to Europe already broke away from those groups that participated in the great demographic expansions that can be associated with Afro-Asiatic proper before that apparent major waves of expansion in the 4th-3rd millennia BCE discussed above, their languages were most likely ones that can rather be addressed as para-Afro-Asiatic than Afro-Asiatic. As E-V13 arrived to Europe already after the Vasconic expansion discussed in my previous paper focusing on pre-Celtic (Horvath, 2019 B ) languages it could reach the Balkans no earlier than the Tyrsenian expansion discussed in the same paper. However as Etruscan does not appear to be Afro-Asiatic or not even para-Afro-Asiatic, this suggests that the population carrying E-V13 have most likely already been assimilated in language by the Tyrsenians in Anatolia or the Aegean, and this may as well be true regarding E-FGC7703 as its’ own primary subclades also seemed to have reached Europe not before the 3rd millennium BCE. As both groups are greatly absent from Trukey, their expansion into Europe may have occurred as a bottleneck. This also suggests that Omotic broke away from Afro-Asiatic languages when E-M35 broke away from the rest of E-M215 sometime before 22000 BCE. Certain subclades of E-Z827, the sibling subclade of E-M78 show a distribution pattern that suggests early expansion into Europe. One of them, E-Y10541 (TMRCA 6700 BCE) appears to have spread with the early Mediterranean Neolithic, while another, E-PF1962 (TMRCA 16700 BCE) already with the Magdalenian culture (YFull 2021).