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Ancient-DNA Study Identifies Originators of Indo-European Language Family (hms.harvard.edu)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Mind you this is all very fuzzy, take with salt.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I've seen news in this direction. Roughly, Caspian-Lower Volga = Early PIE speakers, and Yamnaya = Late PIE speakers. You don't see Yamnaya ancestry in the Hittites simply because Proto-Anatolian isn't a Late PIE descendant, but rather a sister branch.

This article contains more info than the ones that I've seen before, though. Such as more precise dating (5700~5300 years ago) and initial population size ("just a few thousand people").

I'm suspicious that Late PIE went through some deep phonemic and grammatical changes; that small population might explain why, founder effect + higher interaction with non-Late PIE speaking neighbours.