What Caused The Two Highest Energy Particle Showers Seen In Antarctica?

These observations are some of the more important unexplained experimental observations in physics today. They don't have a consensus explanation 

N.B. The 500 PeV energy associated with these events is extremely high in such a concentrated source.

500 PeV = 500,000 TeV = 500,000,000 GeV = 500,000,000,000 MeV = 500,000,000,000,000 keV = 500,000,000,000,000,000 eV = 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 meV.

In terms of mass-energy, the heaviest fundamental particles that the LHC can explore and the heaviest atoms have masses in the TeV range. GeV is a scale comparable to hadrons (like protons, neutrons and kaons), heavy quarks (top, bottom and charm), the Higgs, W and Z bosons, and the tau lepton. MeV is a scale comparable to light quarks (strange, down and up), muons, electrons and gamma ray photons. keV is the warm dark matter hypothesis particle scale and X-ray photons. eV is a scale comparable to visible light photons. Neutrino masses and infrared photons are on the order of the meV scale.

To get to PeV energy scales you need quite heavy particles moving at relativistic speeds, and since they come up from the Earth, but decay at atmospheric altitudes, the source needs a low cross section of interaction with ordinary protons and neutrons, but also a quite short half life.

The pros and cons of beyond standard model interpretations of ANITA events

L. A. Anchordoqui, I. Antoniadis, V. Barger, F. Cornet, C. García Canal, M. Gutiérrez, J. I. Illana, J. G. Learned, D. Marfatia, M. Masip, S. Pakvasa, S. Palomares-Ruiz, J. F. Soriano, T. J. Weiler

(Submitted on 15 Jul 2019)

The Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment has observed two air shower events with energy ∼500 PeV emerging from the Earth with exit angles ∼30∘ above the horizon. 

As was immediately noted by the ANITA Collaboration, these events (in principle) could originate in the atmospheric decay of an upgoing τ-lepton produced through a charged current interaction of a ντ inside the Earth. However, the relatively steep arrival angles of these perplexing events create tension with the standard model (SM) neutrino-nucleon interaction cross section. Deepening the conundrum, the IceCube neutrino telescope and the Pierre Auger Observatory with substantially larger exposures to cosmic ντ's in this energy range have not observed any events. This lack of observation implies that the messenger particle (MP) giving rise to ANITA events must produce an air shower event rate at least a factor of 40 larger than that produced by a flux of τ-neutrinos to avoid conflicts with the upper limits reported by the IceCube and the Pierre Auger collaborations. In addition, the sensitivity of ANITA to MP-induced events must be comparable to or larger than those of IceCube and Auger to avoid conflict with the non-observation of any signal at these facilities. 

Beyond SM interpretations of ANITA events can be classified according to whether the MPs: (i) live inside the Earth, (ii) originate in neutrino-nucleon collisions inside the Earth, (iii) come from cosmological distances. In this communication we investigate the positive and negative facets of these three classes of models.

Comments:	To appear in Proceedings of the 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference
Subjects:	High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph); High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
Cite as:	arXiv:1907.06308 [hep-ph]
	(or arXiv:1907.06308v1 [hep-ph] for this version)

The Standard Model Physical Constants And Their Running With Energy Scale

I am a firm believer in firmly establishing the basics of what is known, and not just new discoveries and theoretical speculation. In that regard, it is helpful to pin down the working values of the experimentally measured parameters of the Standard Model of Particle Physics and how they run with energy scale, in a theoretically consistent manner that relies upon the latest experimental data collected by the Particle Data Group.

The paper does omit the four parameters of the CKM matrix, the four parameters of the PMNS matrix, and the three neutrino masses, as well as a number of physical constants that are used by particle physicists but do not run with energy scale such as "c" (the speed of light) and "h" (Planck's constant). It also omits to two physical constants of the other part of the Core Theories of Physics, General Relativity, which are "G" (Newton's constant) and the lambda which is the cosmological constant.

The raw numbers are unsurprising. The details are below the fold. A few observations about the running of these parameters (consistent with a 2008 paper along the same lines):

* The runnings of the experimentally measured fundamental constants in the Standard Model approximately logarithmically proportional to energy scale.

* The electromagnetic coupling constant gets significantly stronger at higher energies.

* The weak and strong forces get significantly weaker at higher energies, with the strong force declining in strength more rapidly than the weak force at higher energies. The running of the Higgs vacuum expectation value (vev) should be proportionate to the running of the weak force coupling constant.

* Gauge coupling unification does not take place in the Standard Model at high energies, although the relevant beta functions would be modified somewhat if quantum gravity were considered in addition to the Standard Model force and particles. It would take a tweak in the strength of those coupling constants on the order of a low single digit percent at energies seven or more orders of magnitude greater than existing experimental observations in one or more of them, to lead to gauge coupling unification.

* Charged leptons gain mass slightly and proportionately at higher energies; the relative masses of the charged leptons changes very little with energy scale. This means that using running masses for charged leptons at a particular energy scale won't tweak Koide's rule much relative to using pole masses.

* Quarks get slightly and proportionately less massive at higher energies; the relative masses of the quarks changes very little with energy scale.

* The mass of the Higgs boson (who analog to fermion Yukawas is confusingly also called "lambda") approaches zero at high energies, although the point at which it does so is obscured by experimental uncertainty.

* The paper does not have a nice clean illustration showing the running of the W and Z boson masses with energy scale (neither does the 2008 paper linked above).

Celibacy After Ordination Wasn't Always Taken All That Seriously By The Catholic Church

In 1161, there were no Anglican or Protestant churches in England, just Roman Catholic Churches.

In 1161 a parliament of Henry II introduced regulations allowing the Bishops to license brothels and prostitutes in the area, which became known as the Liberty of the Clink. As a result, brothels multiplied in the Bankside part of the Liberty. They were popularly known as "stew-houses" as many were also steam-filled bath houses. The bishop was their landlord,...

Records of court proceedings indicate that priests, monks and friars were among their clients. The brothels had to allow weekly searches by constables or bailiffs, and could not charge prostitutes more than 14 pence per week for a room. Opening was not permitted on holidays, and forced prostitution was prohibited. Prostitutes were not allowed to live at the brothels or to be married, and they were required to spend a full night with their clients.

Via English Stack Exchange.

Did Pre-Columbian Mexico Have "Venus" Figurines?

I'm making this post as a "bleg" (a blend of "blog beg") as a request for crowd sourcing help in solving the riddle of whether figurines like the second picture below were present in Pre-Columbian Mexico. Comments from anyone who knows or has relevant information would be greatly appreciated.

Figurines like the one immediately below, known anachronistically as "Venus figurines" were common in prehistoric "Old Europe" (which is one of the reasons that archaeologist Marija Gimbutas guessed (probably incorrectly we can now deduce from the relationships of people in early Neolithic cemeteries from ancient DNA) that pre-Indo-European first farmers had a matriarchal culture. 

Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the earliest discovered use of ceramics (29,000 BCE – 25,000 BCE) 

by Petr Novák, via Wikipedia

The image below is of a figurine from my room at resort in Cancun a few years ago, without interpretive context (presumably to confer good luck in the fertility department for honeymooners, and, for what it was worth, it was a romantic place to stay).

Photo from a resort room in Cancun, Mexico, ca. 2014 CE,

taken by me with an actual camera (before I had a smart phone).

The figurine shown directly above is a cheap, mass produced knockoff. But, it is also a reproduction of pre-historic art of some kind, and not a modern style. At the time I wondered if this was a reproduction of a prehistoric European Venus figurine (the boring possibility), or if, much more interestingly, if this was a reproduction of a local figurine from Pre-Columbian Mexico, perhaps in the Olmec, Mayan or Aztec cultures, that had developed independently on a local basis in the New World, despite its similarity to Old World Venus figurines.

There was something vaguely similar, but the examples that I've seen are not close enough to be the source for the figurine depicted in my photo above.

Double-faced female figurine, early formative period, Tlatilco, c. 1500–1200 B.C.E., 

ceramic with traces of pigment, 9.5 cm. high 
(Princeton University Art Museum)

Tlatilco figurines are wonderful small ceramic figures, often of women, found in Central Mexico. This is the region of the later and much better-known Aztec empire, but the people of Tlatilco flourished 2,000-3,000 years before the Aztec came to power in this Valley. Although Tlatilco was already settled by the Early Preclassic period (c. 1800-1200 B.C.E.), most scholars believe that the many figurines date from the Middle Preclassic period, or about 1200-400 B.C.E. Their intimate, lively poses and elaborate hairstyles are indicative of the already sophisticated artistic tradition. This is remarkable given the early dates. Ceramic figures of any sort were widespread for only a few centuries before the appearance of Tlatilco figurines. . . .

The Tlatilco figurine at the Princeton University Art Museum has several traits that directly relate to many other Tlatilco female figures: the emphasis on the wide hips, the spherical upper thighs, and the pinched waist. Many Tlatilco figurines also show no interest in the hands or feet, as we see here. Artists treated hairstyles with great care and detail, however, suggesting that it was hair and its styling was important for the people of Tlatilco, as it was for many peoples of this region. This figurine not only shows an elaborate hairstyle, but shows it for two connected heads (on the single body). We have other two-headed femaile figures from Tlatilco, but they are rare when compared with the figures that show a single head. It is very difficult to know exactly why the artist depicted a bicephalic (two-headed) figure (as opposed to the normal single head), as we have no documents or other aids that would help us define the meaning.

Tlatilco figurine of a woman with a dog, Tlatilco, c. 1200–600 B.C.E., ceramic 

(National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

As in the case of their Old European counterparts, male figures are rare.

A lot of Pre-Columbian structures from the Neolithic cultures in the Americas such as those in Mesa Verde in Colorado, show remarkable similarities in design and construction techniques to those of early Neolithic architecture in Anatolia and the Balkans from several thousand years earlier.

Mesa Verde was built by the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from 600 to 1300 CE 
(image from the National Park Foundation).

Çatalhöyük, Turkey, after the first excavations by Omar Hoftun - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

There are also similarities between the structures built in Neolithic/Copper Age Age Mexico (below top) and those of the Bell Beaker period in Wales (below bottom).

Reconstruction of a house, c. 1200 B.C.E., central Mexico

(National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City) from here.

Keith Gibbs Via Wales Online via Bell Beaker blog.

If you'd seen similarities that strong within a few centuries of each other in two places that could have been in contact with each other in that era, you would presume that the earlier one was the source for the methods seen in the later one.

But, these similarities were almost surely a case of independent development of the same technologies and techniques. This is because they pre-dated any contact between the Old World and the Americas that far South that could have transmitted it. There had probably been Austronesian contacts in Pacific Coastal South America and proto-Inuit contacts in the Arctic at about the same time that Mesa Verde was built, but neither of these cultures built early Fertile Crescent Neolithic style structure. Neither did the earlier Paleo-Eskimo peoples who were the main source other than the Founding Population of the Americas of the Na-Dene culture and people. 

So far as I know, neither of these Old World cultural influences on the Americas had Venus figurines, and there is too long of a gap in the archaeological record from the Founding population (which could have been a source for Venus figurines as illustrated by the date of top photo) to the earliest known uses of ceramics and construction of Neolithic era structures in the Americas. Any technologies that were present at the time of the Founding population of the Americas would have been lost by the time that ceramics were being use, or the farming had been independently invented in the New World.

In both cases, to the extent that they are independent developments they inform our ideas of how much of the detail of historical technologies and physical cultures was pre-determine by the constraints faced by the people employing them, and how much they were unique creative developments that could have turned out differently.

Tarim Basin Cemeteries Support Argument That Soma Contained Ephedra

Wikipedia summarizes the debate of what "Soma" and "Haoma" were and discussed their religious context:

In Vedic tradition, soma (Sanskrit: सोम) or haoma (Avestan) is a ritual drink of importance among the early Indians. The Rigveda mentions it, particularly in the Soma Mandala. In the Avestan literature, the entire Yasht 20 and Yasna 9–11 treat of haoma. 

The texts describe the preparation of soma by means of extracting the juice from a plant, the identity of which is now unknown and debated among scholars. In both the ancient religions of Historical Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism, the name of the drink and the plant are the same. 

There has been much speculation about the most likely identity of the original plant. Traditional accounts with unbroken continuity in India, from Ayurveda and Siddha medicine practitioners and Somayajna ritualists undoubtedly use "Somalata" (Sarcostemma acidum). Non-Indian researchers have proposed candidates including Amanita muscaria, Psilocybe cubensis, Peganum harmala and Ephedra sinica. According to recent philological and archaeological studies, and in addition, direct preparation instructions confirm in the Rig Vedic Hymns (Vedic period) Ancient Soma most likely consisted of Poppy, Phaedra/Ephedra (plant) and Cannabis....

According to professor David W. Anthony, author of The Horse, the Wheel and Language, soma was introduced into Indo-Iranian culture from the Bactria–Margiana culture (BMAC). The Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the contact zone between the Zeravshan River (present-day Uzbekistan) and (present-day) Iran. It was "a syncretic mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements", which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the Bactria–Margiana culture. At least 383 non-Indo-European words were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra and the ritual drink soma. According to Anthony,

Many of the qualities of Indo-Iranian god of might/victory, Verethraghna, were transferred to the adopted god Indra, who became the central deity of the developing Old Indic culture. Indra was the subject of 250 hymns, a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with soma, a stimulant drug (perhaps derived from ephedra) probably borrowed from the BMAC religion. His rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers.

Materials found in two Tarim Basin cemeteries seem to support the leading hypothesis, of many serious proposals, that the ephedra is indeed an active ingredient in what is called "Soma" and "Haoma" in the oldest Indo-Aryan (i.e. Sanskrit) and Indo-Iranian (i.e. in a language called Avestan, a.k.a. Zend, a.k.a. Northern Old Iranian, closely related to Old Persian, that is a sister language of Sanskrit) epics respectively.

Ephedra twigs were common and important in both cemeteries. Were they related to the “Soma” in ancient India (Vedas) and/or “Haoma” in ancient Iran (Avesta)? Were the Ephedra twigs related to the body painting (whitish sticky materials painting on skins of the dead)? Was there a common use of Ephedra plant in more nomadic groups in the Eurasian Steppe?

Yang, Yunyun, Shifting Memories: Burial Practices and Cultural Interaction in Bronze Age China: A study of the Xiaohe-Gumugou cemeteries in the Tarim Basin, URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-386612 via Eurogenes.

Ephedra is a key active ingredient in modern medicines including Sudafed. Dietary supplements containing it are banned in the U.S. and it is also illegal for athletes in international sports competitions since it is viewed as a performance enhancing drug. 

Ancient Philistine DNA Tends To Support The Archaeology Paradigm

Archaeology and contemporaneous Egyptian histories support the hypothesis that the "Philistine" people mentioned in the Hebrew Bible were Mycenaean Greek "Sea People" who migrated to the Southern Levant at the time of "Bronze Age Collapse" when a climate event disrupted agriculture causing Bronze Age states from Europe to South Asia to implode (although the dates implied by the Hebrew Bible are not quite right). They would have spoken Mycenaean Greek, an Indo-European language, in a place where Semitic and Coptic languages were predominant at the time.

Now Eurogenes reports on a new paper providing genetic evidence that supports that conclusion although the ancient DNA data released so far is not specific enough to conclusively distinguish between Mycenaean Greeks and other people with European ancestry although it is consistent with this hypothesis.

"The ancient Mediterranean port-city of Ashkelon, identified as 'Philistine' during the Iron Age, underwent a dramatic cultural change between the Late Bronze- and the early Iron- Age. It has been long debated whether this change was driven by a substantial movement of people, possibly linked to a larger migration of the so-called “Sea Peoples”. Here, we report genome-wide data of ten Bronze- and Iron- Age individuals from Ashkelon. We find that the early Iron Age population was genetically distinct due to a European related admixture. Interestingly, this genetic signal is no longer detectible in the later Iron Age population. Our results support that a migration event occurred during the Bronze- to Iron- Age transition in Ashkelon but did not leave a long-lasting genetic signature."

Update 4/7/2019: The paper has just been published at Science Advances [LINK]. One of the Ashkelon females clusters with Mycenaeans (S_Greece_LBA) and one of the males, who also shows a relatively high level of European ancestry, belongs to Y-Chromosome haplogroup R1 (probably R1b-M269). 

The ancient DNA data also suggested that the Philistines had few, if any, living descendants a few centuries later, which would be consistent with the Hebrew Bible account of religiously justified efforts by Semitic peoples in the Southern Levant to genocidally wipe out the Philistines, an effort that was apparently successful. (In fairness, the Hebrew Bible also describes religiously justified efforts by Semitic peoples in the Southern Levant to genocidally wipe out other Semitic peoples in the Southern Levant as well.)

The archaeological evidence also points strongly to the likelihood that the Philistines had suffered widespread malnutrition as children and adolescents, consistent with a Bronze Age collapse motivation for the "Sea People" to seek greener pastures in new, already occupied places.

UPDATE July 8, 2019

Wikipedia summarizes what is known about the Philistines and their language.

Key points from another post from Eurogenes:

It's likely that two of the Philistines from Feldman et al. 2019 harbor relatively recent steppe ancestry. They're labeled ASH067 and ASH068 in the paper. The former individual is a male who belongs to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, which appears to be R1b-M269 judging by the data from the relevant BAM file.

This is just the second instance of Y-haplogroup R1 from the pre-Crusades Levant, and, of course, neither R1 nor R1b-M269 appear in the Near Eastern ancient DNA record prior to the expansions of the Yamnaya and other closely related pastoralist groups from the steppes and forest steppes of Eastern Europe.

So how did the Yamnaya-related ancestry spread into the Biblical-era Levant? Did it come via Anatolia, the Caucasus and/or the Mediterranean? . . . .

Bell_Beaker_FRA are nine samples associated with the Bell Beaker culture (BBC) from what is now France. Interestingly, the BBC population was rich in Y-haplogroup R1b-M269.

Levant_ISR_Ashkelon_IA1_ASH067
Bell_Beaker_FRA 0.116±0.059
GRC_Minoan 0.507±0.111
Levant_ISR_Ashkelon_LBA 0.377±0.117
tail prob 0.530432
chisq 9.018

Levant_ISR_Ashkelon_IA1_ASH068
Bell_Beaker_FRA 0.237±0.044
GRC_Minoan 0.763±0.044
tail prob 0.943265
chisq 4.736

In my opinion, these models basically confirm that both ASH067 and ASH068 harbor Yamnaya-related ancestry. It's heavily diluted and minor, but it's there.

I'm not sure if Davidski really thinks this is a mystery, as the history strongly supports a scenario in which the Philistines are Mycenaean Greek Sea People migrating to the Biblical-era Levant from the greater Aegean Sea, with the Mycenaeans themselves being Indo-European conquerers of Greece who admixed with the local derived proximately from Indo-Europeans in the Balkans not more than a century or two earlier and possible a little as a few decades earlier, who in turn derived from Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

Since we know that the Mycenaean Greeks were Indo-European language speakers and that the Philistines of Ashkelon were probably culturally Mycenaean Greek and probably spoke the same language, it is notable that some of the Philistines were Y-haplogroup R1b-M269 which was common in the Bell Beaker culture (but, if I recall correctly, also not that uncommon among Minoans).

On the other hand, is Davidski notes in the comments, quite surprisingly:

The Mycenaean sample set caused the marker count to dip below 100K, and this definitely had an impact on the models. The tail probs went up and so did the standard errors. 

As a result, I combined the Mycenaeans with the Empuries Greeks, because they basically form a single cluster as far as I can see, and with that the marker count went up to over 100K. But then the tail probs dived. 

In fact, none of the models with the Mycenaean/Empuries Greek reference pop produced better fits than the models that I included in the zip file.

If the Philistines were linguistically Indo-European, and are genetically a mix genetically of Bell Beaker and Minoan people, it would seem that this would be some of the strongest evidence that the Bell Beaker people were indeed Indo-Europeans (the more common view) rather than linguistically Vasconic (the most popular minority view).

But, see the comments below (note that I have liberally omitted portions of the quoted material and while I have tried to indicate where I have done so, I have probably failed to indicate some omissions, check the original to be sure). 

Another good comment at the post discusses the implications of the paper for the source of steppe ancestry in the modern Levant, since this early trace didn't persist.

Erikl86 said... 

What is apparent, is that while indeed the Philistines carried Steppe ancestry into the Southern Levant, it didn't last, and the Steppe-like admixture seen separating MBA Levantines from later Levantine populations, already existing in Roman-era Northern Levantines (as detailed in Haber et al. 2019), didn't come from the Sea People and, doesn't appear to have existed in the Southern Levant by the 10th century BC in any meaningful significance. 

This is quite substantial, for several reasons: 

1. We now know that the vast majority (the one that actually appear to last to Roman-era and contemporary times) of Steppe-admixture most likely reached the Southern Levant after Iron IIA, which is rather late. 

2. This puts the dating post Mitanni or Hittites, which leaves either Assyrians from the Neo-Assyrian Empire era, Persians or later Macedonian/Hellenistic Greeks. Because we now know it already existed among Roman-era Levantines. 

3. Perhaps it already existed in the Northern Levant during the Iron IIA, as suggested by the previously released Levant MLBA sample from Tel Megiddo, and only later reached the Southern area. That would require Iron IIA samples from Lebanon. It's unlikely that it happen this way though, because we know the Mitanni and Hittite had already affected culturally the Southern Levant by that time, and given the Mitanni didn't rule directly over the Southern Levant, it must have reached via Northern Levantines moving from North to South or trade. So if they already had Steppe-like ancestry, it would spread with that cultural influence. 

This, IMO, makes me believe even more that the best candidate for the Steppe ancestry in all of the Levant would be the Neo-Assyrian Empire, not direct Mitanni or Hittite. I also believe the Persian Empire didn't rule for long enough the Levant nor did it experience with movement of populations to the extent of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. So this leaves mostly two candidates - Neo-Assyrians vs. Macedonian/Hellenistic Greeks. The sheer disparity between just how extensive Iran_ChL ancestry among contemporary Levantines, as well the still mysterious Mesopotamian pull we see in many non-Muslim Levantines, compare to the almost total lack of any visible remaining European Mediterranean admixture in modern Levantines, makes me pretty certain the Neo-Assyrian Empire and it's expansion and long rule over the Near East, proceeded by the Babylonians, is what brought most Steppe ancestry to the Levant.

The same person made this follow up comment:

Erikl86 said...

IMO, and this is something which is brewing in my head for some time now, we're looking at a very complex genetic "pendulum" kind of scenario, reflecting the turmoils of the post Bronze Age collapse and the different waves of migration entering into the Levant throughout the Iron Age. I believe at first, especially in the very Late Iron Age (so 8th-6th centuries BCE), Iran_ChL admixture had risen to be more than the 45-50% that was suggested by Haber et al. (2017) for MBA Levantines and which we repeatedly confirm with Global25 and other tools for both contemporary and Roman-era Levantines. I believe Assyrian, then Babylonian, then Persian penetration and rule over the Levant from roughly the late 10th century BCE all the way to the early 4th century BCE, had brought in both Steppe admixture and additional Iran_ChL admixture....

Then, since the 9th century BCE onward, Arab tribes began migrating and settling in the Levant - this is actually documented by the Assyrians and and other Near Eastern Empires of that period. Those Arabs would have more Levant_N than Iran_ChL, and would resemble the EBA Levant samples from Jordan more than the MBA Canaanite samples....

So when I try to model Roman-era Lebanese samples with both additional Iran_IA, Hellenistic Greek, AND Arab-like Levantine (with 67/33 balance between Levant_N and Iran_ChL), I get the best distance.... 

Probably later Ghassanid and other Arabian people which kept on migrating and settling in the Levant during late antiquity (aka Byzantine time) further introduced more Levant_N. 

It would be best if we could have:

aDNA from Mesopotamians (Assyrians or Babylonians).

aDNA from Arabs. 

To actually test if these models really do represent reality. 

Because honestly, if this "pendulum" scenario did occur in one way or another, we are left with extremely enigmatic question as to why Samaritans pretty much overlap with Canaanite MBA, while Roman-era Levantines already show more Steppe ancestry, and why Lebanese do not overlap to the same degree. I mean I just have really hard time accept that Samaritans stayed exactly the same (other than extremely drifted due to severe intermarriage) since 1750 BCE, while other Levantines haven't. 

July 7, 2019 at 5:55 AM

Also interesting is this comment:

Leron said... 

An ancient account from Sudas mentions Sardinians in Crete at the time of a king Minos (relating to a myth of Talos). There are also the enigmatic Elymeans of Sicily that are hypothesized to speak an Anatolian language and were considered to have come from Troy.

If we assume the Sherden of the Sea Peoples were Sardinians and the Peleset a Southwestern Anatolian tribe, it seems to reveal a wide Mediterranean confederation spanning the Nuragic people on the western side and West Anatolians on the east. A clue to this might be the mysterious Piyama-Radu, who could have been a chief of such confederation. He was a Luwian but operated way off into the sea, outside the reach of Hittites and their vassals in Asia Minor that he repeatedly harassed. The Hittite king had to plea to the Mycenaeans to capture Piyama-Radu for them, maybe indicating that his base was in Crete or even further west. 

July 7, 2019 at 7:46 AM

Also this:

Andrzejewski said... 

Many religious Jews wouldn’t be happy to hear that, but many Canaanites were assimilated into rather than exterminated by the incoming Israelite IA tribes/confederacy. Turns out that 1/3 of Canaanite kings’ names were Hurrian, namely Kura-Araxes in origin. Jebusites were an offshoot of the Mittani Kingdom with some Indo-Aryan elite plus admixture with Hittites. Therefore, the name “Aravna” was Indo-European. It’s theorized that many rituals practiced by the Jebusites formed the basis for the temple worship in Jerusalem. Solomon himself was half-Hittite. I am sure that’s how the Ancient Biblical Jews have acquired their Steppe and EEF admixture. 

July 7, 2019 at 10:46 AM

And this:

Mark said... 

It has been suggested in theories dating back to 1846 that the Philistines were the same as the "sea people" who ravaged the Mediterranean: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#Egyptian_inscriptions 

Who were the sea peoples? It always seemed logical to me that since the Urnfield Culture was busy ravaging Europe at the exact same time that they would make and obvious candidate. They expanded to the tip of the Italian peninsula, so the idea of them grabbing some boats from their conquered victims "grand-theft-auto" style and continuing their rampage across the sea is plausible: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urnfield_culture#Migrations 

Two unique identifiers of the Urnfields: 1. cremation and 2. Y-haplogroup R1.

The Philistine site showed: 1. cremation and 2. R1 Y-haplogroup. Nobody else practiced cremation in the Levant at that time. 

Also, if I remember correctly from the earlier archaeological report on the Philistine site the use of cremation lasted only a couple generations which coincides with the recent paper stating the genetic impact of this group not lasting in the Levant.

Now that you have shown that the Philistines have a Bell Beaker genetic affinity that would make perfect sense since the Urnfields were descended from BBC. 

So it all matches up. 

July 7, 2019 at 10:52 AM

Further:

Andrzejewski said... 

@Sam "Everything doesn't have to be looked at from Steppe-perspective. The biggest news for Philistine DNA some of them have southeast European ancestry which of course includes minor Steppe admix."

It matters if we are to judge whether they spoke a Greek-like IE language or a non-IE Minoan or Lemnian Pelasgian one. 

So far, the few words/names/toponyms in the Old Testament betray a West Anatolian/Luwian speaking ethnos, such as "Goliath"=Aliathes and "Seren"=tyrannos. 

My money is that Philistines are nothing but uprooted refugee Luwian-speaking Trojans. 

July 7, 2019 at 12:40 PM

Andrzejewski said... 

For instance, "Abraham"'s migration from Haran, a Kura-Araxes center, with lots of Book of Genesis customs being actually Hurrian-based, non-Semitic. Other facts were the presence of Hurrians, Hittites and Philistines who are probably mostly ANF/EEF with some Steppe and non-Steppe-CHG.

The bible also talks about tales of deportations of Judeans and Samaritans into Babylon, with some exiles coming back and some deportees from other fringes of the Assyrian/Babylonian empires forcibly moved in. Moreover, Ezra and Nehemiah were talking about some futile attempt to force Jews who married neighboring countries wives (Moabites, Ammonites, etc) to divorce their spouses and get rid of their mixed marriages' offsprings. 

I'm aware that the OT (and the NT!) have a clear agenda, and that they were edited centuries after purported events, but I'm attempting to find resonance of historical events...

July 7, 2019 at 12:49 PM 

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "So then they probably weren't literally Greek, but something close by and similar."

My bet is on Luwian refugees from the Trojan war, speaking an IE Anatolian language.

Bob Floy said...

"My bet is on Luwian refugees from the Trojan war, speaking an IE Anatolian language" 

Maybe not actual Trojan refugees, but I'm inclined to agree that the Philistines/"Sea peoples" were Anatolian speakers from the west coast, or maybe Phrygians. That's the best working theory, I'd say....

July 7, 2019 at 2:59 PM

FrankN said... 

Two notes - both of them rather meant as "food for thought" than as final explanation: 

1. Among the seven "Sea Peoples" recorded by Old Egyptian sources, two are often linked to the W. Mediterranean, namely the "Sherden" ~ Sardinians and "Sechel" ~ Sicilians. From both suspected sources, we still lack MLBA aDNA. Archeology suggests significant "orientalisation" of the W. Mediterranean during the MLBA, e.g. pithos(amphora) burials spreading as far as SE Iberian El Argar B. Pithos burials appear to have originated in the Caucasus - one of the earliest attestations is Areni 1 (ARM_CA). They were common (albeit not exclusive) for Kura-Araxes, and are a/o well attested for pre-Hittite (Hattian?) NC Anatolia, and Minoan Crete. As such, if "Sherden" and "Sechel" really refer to Sardinians/ Sicilians, this could culturally and genetically have meant some back-flow. IOW - MLBA Sicily might theoretically have hosted a mix of (French-like) BB, Minoan, and Levantine-Caucasian-derived populations that could potentially qualify as source of Philistine ancestry. 

2. While human "steppe" aDNA apparently didn't substantially affect modern Levantine populations, another LBA/early IA entrant did so, for a different species, namely pigs. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258254257_Ancient_DNA_and_Population_Turnover_in_Southern_Levantine_Pigs-_Signature_of_the_Sea_Peoples_Migration 

"Unexpectedly, wild boars from Israel have the DNA sequences of European wild boars and domestic pigs. To understand how this anomaly evolved, we sequenced DNA from ancient and modern pigs from Israel. Pigs from Late Bronze Age (until ca. 1150 BCE) in Israel shared haplotypes of modern and ancient Near Eastern pigs. European haplotypes became dominant only during the Iron Age (ca. 900 BCE). This raises the possibility that European pigs were brought to the region by the Sea Peoples who migrated to the Levant at that time. Then, a complete genetic turnover took place, most likely because of repeated admixture between local and introduced European domestic pigs that went feral. 

Replacement of Near Eastern (ANF/EEF) by European pig aDNA commenced during the MN East of the Rhine. It is well documented for German TRB, from other candidate regions (Hungary, Poland, Baltic States) pig aDNA hasn't yet been analysed. The first Central European MN culture that shifted from cattle to pigs as dominant livestock was GAC, following earlier Pontic examples (Darkveti-Meshoko, Crimea, Varna-Gulmenita), whereby the sparse pig aDNA available from Gulmenita still suggests prevalence of Anatolian/Armenian pigs there.

As such, Levantine early IA pig aDNA points backwards to an ultimately Central European connection that could also have transmitted human "steppe" aDNA (not GAC, still without such ancestry, but CW/BB/Unetice a.t.l.). The route is still unclear. For pigs, a trail via the Carpathian EBA Wietenberg Culture into MBA Armenia and E. Anatolia has been evidenced (Srubnaya as possible intermediary), but a Balkans route to W. Anatolia and ultimately the Levante may equally be considered. 

July 7, 2019 at 4:20 PM 

Davidski said... 

@All 

Are there any good, mainstream papers online about the potential language spoken by the Philistines? 

July 7, 2019 at 5:04 PM 

Bob Floy said... 

@David 

This is interesting. 

https://www.academia.edu/26654209/King_Taita_and_His_Palistin_Philistine_State_or_Neo-Hittite_Kingdom 

July 7, 2019 at 5:17 PM 

Davidski said... 

Did the Neo-Hittite states speak Hittite? 

July 7, 2019 at 8:47 PM 

Labayu said... 

@Davidski 

Regarding the Philistine language: 

Philistine Names and Terms Once Again: A Recent Perspective

The etymology of Goliath in the light of Carian pn Wljat/Wliat: a new proposal 

Of course the only language we have a record of them speaking is a local Canaanite dialect, but the names and potential loanwords give some clues as to what they may have originally spoke. 

July 7, 2019 at 8:54 PM 

Bob Floy said... 

@Dave 

They spoke various languages descended from Luwian, IIRC. 

Lycian and Lydian are the first which come to mind, there are others that I'm less familiar with. 

July 7, 2019 at 9:06 PM

Bob Floy said... 

The neo-Hittite states, that is. 

July 7, 2019 at 9:07 PM 

Labayu said... 

The administrative language of the Neo-Hittite or Syro-Hititte kingdoms was Luwian, but the populations also spoke Northwest Semitic languages. 

Philistine sərān has been connected to tyrannos. However, I think it may be a Northwest Semitic cognate of Akkadian šarru (king) and Hebrew śar (prince, chieftain, commander). The Ugaritic cognate is śrn (prince), more often spelled srn. Which fits with the fact that we now know there had been a Kingdom of Philistia just north of Ugarit prior to their arrival on the southern Levantine coast. The Hebrew Bible spells sərān as srn.

July 7, 2019 at 9:07 PM

Bob Floy said... 

I also *suspect* that there was never a ton of steppe ancestry in Anatolia, my bet is that when we get more samples from the Hittite period we're only going to see small amounts, probably with a little more in the royal Nes samples, if we're lucky enough to get a look at them. 

July 7, 2019 at 9:59 PM 

Andrzejewski said... 

@Bob Floy Don’t tell me that you agree with Reich and BROAD that PIE came from South of Caspian... 

July 7, 2019 at 10:05 PM 

Bob Floy said... 

@Andre

Good God no :S 

I just don't think that Anatolian was brought by a massive invasion or anything like that, probably a modestly sized elite which for whatever reason was able to extend it's influence across a large area. How they got there in the first place is another question, as is their exact relationship to the rest of the IE family. 

No, I definitely don't agree with Reich and Co. on that issue, in fact I think what they're doing is kind of bizarre. Makes me wonder. 

July 7, 2019 at 10:22 PM

Erikl86 said... 

@all, 

The connection between Northern Palistin or Walistin, the Syro-Hittite, Luwian-speaking kingdom that existed in Northwest Syria in the period of 11th-9th centuries BCE, and the South Levantine Philistia, has never been proven, and is extremely controversial. 

If anything, the connection between Philistines and Aegean people is much stronger, for example the early use of Cypro-Minoan script as well as typical Mycenaean-styled artifacts. 

When examines one of the archaeological remains from the Syro-Hittite Walistin/Palistin, there is no evidence from these artifacts found at sites like at Tell Tayinat, either pictorial nor philological, to indicate a link to known Aegean civilizations, as opposed to the Philistines. 

I don't know if the Philistines were actually Mycenaean per se, but it could be they have been from either Cyprus or Crete, perhaps Minoans with heavy Mycenaean influence. 

And in any case, trying to find similarity between Walistin and Philistines is inherently flawed, because the name Philistines is an english translation derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew (or Canaanite, as Hebrew was a dialect of Canaanite) word "Plishtim" which means "invaders" or "foreigners", while the name Walistin is comes from the Luwian language and was used by the local population itself to name their kingdom. 

July 7, 2019 at 11:29 PM

Davidski said...

The ancient samples from these papers might end up being useful in figuring out where the Philistines came from. 

Ancient island hopping in the western Mediterranean 

July 7, 2019 at 11:53 PM

Bob Floy said... 

Wow, those Balearic Island [ed. The Balearic Islands are an archipelago off eastern Spain, in the Mediterranean. Mallorca (Majorca) is the largest island"] samples sure do have a lot of steppe. Mallorca_EBA looks like an Irishman. 

July 8, 2019 at 1:29 AM 

Labayu said... 

I have to disagree with Erikl86 on a couple points. The archaeological connection between Syro-Hittite Pilistin and the Philistines is actually quite strong.

Philistine Bichrome is basically locally manufactured Late Helladic IIIC. For Cypriot, Cilician, and Levantine finds, Late Helladic IIIC has become the preferred term over Mycenaean IIIC on the basis of it being a distinct Eastern Mediterranean tradition parallel to a regionally specific Mycenaean IIIC tradition. 

In fact, something like 90% of the pottery from Ta’yinat Phase N is locally manufactured Late Helladic IIIC, decorated in motifs which first appear in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze. The closest parallels to Tay’inat Phase N pottery are found in Philistine assemblages. Therefore, the archaeological connection between Northern Levantine Pilistin and Southern Levantine Philistia is unambiguous.

See also: Aegean Style Pottery in Syria and Lebanon during Iron Age I 

Regarding the name, Biblical Hebrew for Philistia is plšt, which is pəlāšet with the Masoretic pronunciation. The Masoretic vowel pointing dates to something like the Eighth or Ninth Century CE, so we can’t really assume it represents the original pronunciation. I’m fairly certain there is no known Semitic etymology for plšt. If anyone has read otherwise, I assume it was simply someone’s speculation. Medinet Habu refers to the “the people of the land of plst”. So comparing consonants, we get the following: 

Plstn = Luwian

Plšt = Hebrew

Plst = Egytian 

For all I know, the final letter in Luwian is grammatical, but then I don’t know much about Luwian. 

July 8, 2019 at 1:40 AM 

Bob Floy said...

@Labayu 

It would be a really absurd coincidence if there was no connection. 

July 8, 2019 at 2:06 AM

Erikl86 said... 

@Labayu, I don't disagree, the connection can be found, but it seems like some here have taken this almost as a fact, as if its consensus - it really still isn't. Far from it, while there is some evidence that link the two, it's still not strong enough as other epigraphic and material findings regarding the Philistines and their almost certain Aegean origin. 

Visiting the Philistine museum in Ashdod few months back, the overwhelming consensus right now is still of Aegean origin, not Luwian. If anything, the cultural osmosis between Late Helladic Greeks and Anatolians can be responsible for some similarities which can be found between the two. 

As for the name... while in the Aleppo inscription they did find the name Palistin, in the Shaizar and Meharde inscriptions the names Wadasatini and Padasatini are preferred. 

And as for the difference between the artifacts and architecture between Palistin and Philistia - most of the discoveries at Tell Tayinat indicate a typical Luwian state. For example, the Syro-Hittite inhabitants used predominantly red slipped burnished ware, which is totally different from the Aegean-type pottery used by the early farming inhabitants. And secondly, the names of the kings of Palistin and the kings of the successor state of Pattin are also Hittite, even though there is no evidence of a direct link between Taita and the old Hittite royal house. 

If indeed Palistin and Philistine has similar etymological origin, then I would suggest that perhaps some Philistines also settled also among Luwians, also bringing with them more Aegean-like Late Helladic IIIC pottery, and then got assimilated into the local indigenous Luwian population, similar to what happened to the Philistines and the local Canaanites in Philistia, giving birth to a Neo-Hittite state which has retained a similar name 

Perhaps, the origin of Philistines is the etymologically similar Aegean people called Pelasgians. 

July 8, 2019 at 5:37 AM 

Labayu said... 

@Erikl86 

Luwian origin and Aegean origin aren’t mutually exclusive propositions. There is both archaeological and linguistic evidence pointing to an origin in southwestern Anatolia, which is along the eastern coast of the Aegean where Luwian was also spoken. The parallels between the material culture of Syro-Hittite Palistin and Philistia suggest either a common origin for Palistin and Philistia or that the Philistines arrived in the southern Levant by way of the northern Levant. Which interpretation seems more plausible partically depends on what chronology one subscribes to. By the Low Chronology, the Philistine material culture doesn’t appear in the southern Levant until about 1125. Jeff Emanuel’s article that Bob Floy linked addresses some of your objections regarding the Palistin issue. 

A couple of bits of relatively recent information worth considering: 

1) Philistine lion-headed cups now appear to be Anatolian/Northern Syrian in origin. 

2) Aegean-like material culture in Cilicia was more prominent than in Philistia. 

Everything I’ve said aside, there is nothing that necessitates a single origin. 

July 8, 2019 at 7:12 AM 

Tropichighlander said... 

@Leron It's a plausible hypothesis. Giving that material finds in Crete, Cyprus and in the Western Mediterranean, especially in Sardinia, support the idea of a strong and direct connection between the Western Mediterranean islands and both Crete and Cyprus during the late Bronze age that seems to have continued even after the Bronze age collapse. 

As for the Philistines, they were a separate group from the Sherden or Shekelesh and their material culture is a mix of Aegean, Cypriot and Anatolian features. Unfortunately the only sea peoples' group whose settlements we know for certain are the Philistines with their well known cities such as Ekron, Gath and Ashkelon, and possibly Dor for the Tjekker. While we don't know any settlement or site belonging to either the Sherden, Shekelesh, Tursha, Ekwesh or Weshesh. If we knew some sites belonging to those peoples then the sea peoples' enigma would have already been unveiled.

July 8, 2019 at 7:57 AM

Western Persia In the Upper Paleolithic

The geological feature that includes Zargos Mountains is shown in green.

After some modern humans migrated out of Africa, the next step was for some of them to migrate beyond Arabia.

The earliest Middle Paleolithic residents of Persia were probably a mix of a very early wave of modern human migration that didn't leave all that much of a trace, and Neanderthals, who were in Persia at least a hundred thousand years before there were any modern humans there.

In the Upper Paleolithic era, about 40,000 years ago, at about the same time that modern humans first made their way into Europe, hunter-gatherers from the Mesopotamia migrated to the Zagros mountains which divide Mesopotamia to the west from Persia to the east. This migration gave rise to the second of many sequential founder effects as modern humans expanded, which was preceded by the Out of Africa founder effect.

These new Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from Mesopotamia settled into their local environments and had only limited contact with each other. This caused three distinct cultures to develop in these mountains. These three cultures were later homogenized as they started to have more contact with each other tens of thousands of years later in the later phased of the Upper Paleolithic era (but before the Holocene era which began ca. 10,000 years ago). 

Some of these Upper Paleolithic distinct cultures fizzled out leaving no discernible survivors. continued their migration leaving no self-sustaining population behind; some of their descendants gave rise to many additional serial founder effects as they moved further east into Asia.

But, other descendants of these Upper Paleolithic migrants were probably the source for the genetic cluster of ancestry known as Caucasian Hunter-Gathers, from which Caucasian farmers emerged in situ in the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent Neolithic Revolution as a genetically distinct half of the earliest of the Neolithic revolutions (the other half was made up of Levantine Fertile Crescent farmers who emerged in situ from hunter-gatherers in the Levant).

This paper aims to understand the cultural diversity among the first modern human populations in the Iranian Zagros and the implications of this diversity for evolutionary and ecological models of human dispersal through Eurasia. 

We use quantitative data and technotypological attributes combined with physiogeographic information to assess if the Zagros Upper Paleolithic (UP) developed locally from the Middle Paleolithic (MP), as well as to contextualize the variation in lithics from four UP sites of Warwasi, Yafteh, Pasangar, and Ghār-e Boof. Our results demonstrate (1) that the Zagros UP industries are intrusive to the region, and (2) that there is significant cultural diversity in the early UP across different Zagros habitat areas, and that this diversity clusters in at least three groups.
  
We interpret this variation as parallel developments after the initial occupation of the region shaped by the relative geotopographical isolation of different areas of the Zagros, which would have favored different ecological adaptations. The greater similarity of lithic traditions and modes of production observed in the later phases of the UP across all sites indicates a marked increase in inter-group contact throughout the West-Central Zagros mountain chain. Based on the chronological and geographical patterns of Zagros UP variability, we propose a model of an initial colonization phase leading to the emergence of distinct local traditions, followed by a long phase of limited contact among these first UP groups. This has important implications for the origins of biological and cultural diversity in the early phases of modern human colonization of Eurasia. We suggest that the mountainous arc that extends from Anatolia to the Southern Zagros preserves the archaeological record of different population trajectories. Among them, by 40 ka, some would have been transient, whereas others would have left no living descendants. However, some would have led to longer term local traditions, including groups who share ancestry with modern Europeans and modern East/Southeast Asians.

Elham Ghasidian, Saman Heydari-Guran, Marta Mirazón Lahra, "Upper Paleolithic cultural diversity in the Iranian Zagros Mountains and the expansion of modern humans into Eurasia" 132 Journal of Human Evolution 101-118 (July 2018) (Link) (the first link is to my source blog post at Linear Population Model; the second it to the paper).

Galaxies Form Earlier In An Alternative To LCDM

This isn't a modified gravity theory, but it is an alternative to the "standard model of cosmology" a.k.a. the "concordance model" a.k.a the lambda CDM model, which causes galaxies to form earlier than in lambda CDM consistent with observation. The paper is also notable for clarifying why the lambda CDM model predicts relatively late galaxy formation. Most modified gravity theories also predict galaxy formation sooner than in the lambda CDM model.

A comparison of the R_h=ct and LCDM cosmologies based on the observed halo mass function

Manoj K. Yennapureddy, Fulvio Melia

(Submitted on 27 Jun 2019)

The growth of structure probes the re-ionization history and quasar abundance in the Universe, constituting an important probe of the cosmological predictions. Halos are not directly observable, however, so their mass and evolution must be inferred indirectly. Studies based on the assumption of a constant halo to stellar mass ratio M_h/M_* (extrapolated from z<4) reveal significant tension with LCDM---a failure known as "The Impossibly Early Galaxy Problem". But whether this ratio evolves or remains constant through redshift 4<z<10 is still being debated. To eliminate the tension with LCDM, it would have to change by about 0.8 dex over this range, an issue that may be settled by upcoming observations with the James Webb Space Telescope. In this paper, we study this problem in the context of another Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model known as the R_h=ct universe, and use our previous measurement of sigma_8 from the cosmological growth rate, together with new solutions to the Einstein-Boltzmann equations, to interpret these recent halo measurements. We demonstrate that the predicted mass and redshift dependence of the halo distribution in R_h=ct is consistent with the data, even assuming a constant M_h/M_* throughout the observed redshift range (4<z<10), contrasting sharply with the tension in LCDM. We conclude that---if M_h/M_* turns out to be constant---the massive galaxies and their halos must have formed earlier than is possible in LCDM.

Comments:	10 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in EPJ-C
Subjects:	Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
Cite as:	arXiv:1907.00897 [astro-ph.GA]
	(or arXiv:1907.00897v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version)

Dilute Super-Archaic Hominin Ancestry

According to a new study looking Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes with powerful statistical analysis tools:

We identify 3% of the Neanderthal genome that is putatively introgressed from ancient humans, and estimate that the gene flow occurred between 200-300 kya. . . . We also identify 1% of the Denisovan genome which was likely introgressed from an unsequenced hominin ancestor, and note that 15% of these regions have been passed on to modern humans through subsequent gene flow.

It seems to be a rule that any new species (or mostly population replacing migration wave within the same species for that matter) will receive some introgression from its predecessor species, which in turn is passed on in greatly diluted amounts to its successor species.