Toros Yesja’s Reviews > The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World > Status Update

That is why I am so glad population genetics come to be ever more widely explored and reliable. Easier for an amateur to discount the truth value of archeology, given that at any point in time I might not want to dig too deep into the methodology. Sure, ignoring the methodological issues with population genetics might be a problem of similar significance, but intuitively I would say everything with genetics has this "hard science swagger" about it, making it for an amateur like myself a decent baseline for the reconstruction via archeology. That said I am sure archeology is making geneticists second guess and reevaluate all the time

Definitely agreed. The problem with stuff like what I talked about is a sort almost unrealistic but still very useful (imo) sort of paranoia. Probably they have very good reason for thinking those "scribbles" are wagons (maybe it's from the period when wagons spread to Europe, and a host of other supporting evidence), but still you just can't help wondering sometimes. I think for me the reason is that I am very afraid of bias in general, because it is one of those things that can make an otherwise very intelligent group of people see things in a very different light.

The DNA-side of this whole story is very interesting, agreed. As far as I understand this book was published before the current haplogroup craze so I plan to go into that next too maybe (though I have already patched this shortcoming up with some Stefan Milo videos -- great youtuber btw, at least for an amateur like me).

All in all the whole PIE thing feels so satisfying and impressive, legitimately a monument of the 21st century), especially due to its interdisciplinary nature.

That is actually quite baffling if that should be weighed as some of the more conclusive evidence. I guess such a science can only make sense in a dialogue with what is known more broadly, but while not up to date with the history of archeology per se I am sure to have read some places or other that major reinterpretations of evidence have happened multiple times. So, those instincts are definitely rightly placed. Much that I would love to have a full grown picture of what happened before scripture my ignorance here weighs not that heavily on me most of the time given that I am not sure how much there really is to know with the evidence that we have. But here the book The dawn of humanity by Graeber which I am reading from time to time is quite a trove for sure. Feeling a little uneasy about sneaking an unasked for recommendation in but I could very well imagine you liking this, especially given that we roughly interested in similar things haha, such that I am getting urges to pick up the PIE book again xD

I know next to nothing about those cultures and given that we both likely descent from them partially, as do so many of the Eurasian populations, I am even more inclined to find out what there is. Also saved the newer paper collection you put on your watchlist.

Hendrik wrote: "That is actually quite baffling if that should be weighed as some of the more conclusive evidence. I guess such a science can only make sense in a dialogue with what is known more broadly, but whil..."

I already have The Dawn of Humanity on my radar and have heard good things about it, so I will definitely be reading it at some point. And don't worry, sneaking the recommendation in makes my job easier if anything, since I already steal from your to-read list all the time lol.

I don't fully understand which part you are referring to in the first part of your reply, but if it's about the wheel-scribbles then yeah, it would also baffle me but I think it's probably backed by actual physical findings and so on.

By the way you talk about the common descent part, and why the hell is that lol? I was thinking to myself the other day that if this book was for instance about Semitic peoples, I probably wouldn't be reading it, which was sort of shocking. I guess it's all due to our tribalism. As stupid as it looks when other people do it, when it's inside of my own head I can't help feeling some sort of pride and pleasure in reading about them. It's all just really fascinating. the other day I was listening to a Vedic hymn to Indra on Youtube and looking at that hymn in the light of the information in book, all of a sudden it was all really understandable, I almost felt like I was taking part in that rite myself 2-4k years ago.