The Okunevo had a rather complex ancestry for their time with the IE Afanasievo from Yamnaya, the Baikal Early neolithic type, another Altai contribution with ANE& Paleosiberian. This makes us think that their unprecedented iconography indeed had connection with that of some
"First Americans". The Okunevo are so strange & alluring that we often wonder what it might have been in their midst. What language did they speak? Did they retain an early branching IE tongue of their Yamnaya ancestors or had they shifted to a Paleo-Siberia or Altaic one? We
suspect it was IE but with major cultural influences of these more eastern groups. The Ancient North Asia represented by the Devil' Cave hunter/gatherers has spread far & wide probably overruning the continental Jomon early on. If one really wanted an Altaic monophyly, one could
one possibility would be descendants of an ancient ANA group. Remain skeptical of anything thing like that but putting it out there.
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