A pair of landmark studies has genetically identified the originators of the massive Indo-European family of 400-plus languages.
- By CHRISTY DeSMITH | Harvard Gazette
Results of the ancient-DNA studies, published Feb. 5 in Nature and supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, place these linguistic pioneers within the borders of current-day Russia during the Eneolithic or Copper Age about 6,500 years ago. They were spread from the steppe grasslands along the lower Volga River to the northern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.
The discovery marks a collaborative triumph that builds on decades of work by linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists.
It provides the missing piece needed to clinch the century-old "steppe hypothesis," which positions the birthplace of Indo-European languages - and their precursor, Proto-Indo-European, which predated writing - on the Eurasian steppe, where Russia and Ukraine stand today.
Earlier work had pointed to the ancient Yamnaya people of the steppe as the originators of Proto-Indo-European, but a sticking point was that ancient speakers of one extinct branch of Indo-European languages didn't have Yamnaya ancestry. Some geneticists, including co-senior author David Reich of Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, hypothesized that an even older population was the ultimate source. The new studies identify that population as the Caucasus Lower Volga people.
