New insights into our linguistic roots by analysing ancient DNA
Vienna/Austria February 5, 2025 Where did the Indo-European language family originate? Ron Pinhasi and his team from the Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with David Reich from Harvard University, have found a new piece to the puzzle. They analysed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia between 6,400-2,000 BCE. The researchers found that a newly discovered population from the Caucasus and Lower Volga region can be linked to all Indo-European-speaking populations. The new study was published in Nature.
The more than 400 Indo-European languages (IE), which include important groups such as Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian and Celtic, are spoken by almost half of the world’s population today. Historians and linguists have been investigating the origins and spread of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language since the 19th century, as there are still gaps in our knowledge.
In the new study, in which Tom Higham and Olivia Cheronet from the University of Vienna are also involved, the scientists analysed the DNA of 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia from the period between 6,400 and 2,000 BCE. Previous genetic studies had shown that the Yamnaya culture (3rd cent. 300-2,600 BCE) spread from the Pontic-Caspian steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas to both Europe and Central Asia beginning in 3,100 BCE, explaining the appearance of ‘steppe ancestors’ in human populations throughout Eurasia between 3,100-1,500 BCE. These migrations from the steppes had the greatest impact on the genome of European humans of any demographic event in the last 5,000 years and are widely recognised as the likely vehicles for the spread of Indo-European languages.
The only branch of Indo-European (IE) languages that had no steppe ancestors before this was Anatolian, including Hittite, which probably split off as the oldest branch and preserved linguistic archaic patterns that were lost in all other IE branches. Earlier studies had found no steppe ancestors among the Hittites because, according to the new study, the Anatolian languages were descended from a language spoken by a ‘new’ group that had not yet been adequately studied: namely, an end-Neolithic population that lived in the steppes between the North Caucasus and the lower Volga in 4,500-3,500 BCE. If the genetic data of this newly recognised Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) population is used as a source, at least five individuals in Anatolia dating before or during the Hittite era show this CLV ancestry.
Newly discovered population with great influence
The new study shows that the Yamnaya population is about 80 per cent descended from the CLV group, at least a tenth of whom are descended from Bronze Age Central Anatolians who spoke Hittite. ‘The CLV group can therefore be linked to all IE-speaking populations and is the most likely candidate for the population that spoke Indo-Anatolian: the linguistic ancestor of both Hittite and all later IE languages,’ explains Ron Pinhasi. The results also suggest that the integration of the Proto-Indo-Anatolian language – which was spoken by both Anatolian and Indo-European peoples – peaked between 4,400 and 4,000 BCE.
‘The discovery of the CLV population as the ‘missing link’ in Indo-European history marks a turning point in the 200-year-old search for the origins of the Indo-Europeans and the ways in which these people spread across Europe and parts of Asia,’ concludes Ron Pinhasi.
Translated with DeepL_com
Original publication:
Ron Pinhasi, David Reich, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, David Anthony, Leonid Vyazov, et al.: The genetic origin of Indo-Europeans. 2025, in: Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08531-5
(https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08531-5)
ImageSource
Gerd Altmann Pixabay