DNA Evidence of Ancient Population Hints at Common Ancestry of Indo-European Languages
New insights regarding the origin of Proto-Indo-European languages come forth due to a study. The study pushes back the beginning of this group even before the Yamnaya culture, stated Harvard. The discovery came to fruition after decades of work by several linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists. Findings regarding the new development in the 'steppe hypothesis' have been published in Nature.
As per the 'steppe hypothesis' Indo-European languages (comprising of languages like English, Russian, Greek, and Bengali) — and their precursor, Proto-Indo-European were birthed on the Eurasian steppe, where countries like Russia and Ukraine stand today. Earlier studies had claimed that the ancient Yamnaya people were the originators of the Proto-Indo-European languages. However, the assertion was challenged, when it came to light that one extinct branch of Indo-European languages didn't showcase any Yamnaya ancestry. This caused co-senior author David Reich of Harvard Medical School and Harvard University to speculate that an even older population was behind the spread of Proto-Indo-European languages.
The study indicates that this older population lived in present-day southern Russia, between the Volga River and the Caucasus Mountains, 6,500 years ago. Researchers named them the Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) group, and believe a branch of it, later gave birth to the Yamnaya community. Experts were ecstatic with the discovery, as it finally gave them a common root for all the Indo-European languages. "It’s the first time we have a genetic picture unifying all Indo-European languages," Iosif Lazaridis, a research associate in human evolutionary biology at Harvard University shared, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
Researchers concluded genetic evidence linked the Indo-European language to the steppe. The proof suggested that the CLV people migrated to two different directions 6,000 years ago. One group moved to present-day Ukraine and later paved the way for the Yamnaya community, while the other was placed in the south into Anatolia. The latter carried an earlier form of Indo-European language with them. "We know from cuneiform tablets that people such as Hittites spoke Anatolian, but these people didn’t have Yamnaya ancestry," Reich added. "We hypothesized some deeper population was the ultimate source of Indo-European languages."
The completion of the study was not easy as it centered around an area currently affected by the Ukraine-Russia war. "Where the worst of the fighting is happening right now—that’s the Yamnaya homeland," archaeologist and study co-author David Anthony shared. In the middle of the research Ukraine scientists refused to collaborate with Russian researchers. This led to a split in functions, as one group focussed on Ukranian DNA while the other focussed on Russian DNA.
Several linguistic experts were ecstatic as it completed the 'steppes hypothesis.' "It’s a fantastic set of new data that was long awaited," Wolfgang Haak, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said. "It’s really completing the picture." Experts also believe the study will help in dismantling 19th- and 20th-century racial theories, which propagated that Indo-European languages belonged to a 'pure' Aryan race. However certain experts were also cautious in accepting the results as it was based on genetics and ancestry. "Language is transmitted socially, not biologically—there isn’t necessarily a direct link between language and ancestry," Guus Kroonen, a linguist at Leiden University who was not involved in the study stated.