There’s really not much doubt about the big picture anymore, but further refinements may still emerge and some questions still linger.
This is what Gimbutas argued, then Mallory, then Anthony, all without using genetic evidence. Anthony’s Horse, Wheel, and Language is a must-read for anyone interested in IE spread (and it’s now available as an audiobook). Reich’s team showed the genetic evidence confirms it, and refines it (re: Anatolian). Renfrew’s competing hypothesis, that IE spread with the Neolithic revolution, hasn’t been a real contender for some time, and the “out of India” hypothesis wasn’t ever really taken seriously, out of India, that is.
The genetics mostly just confirmed what was already known, and further refined it. That’s my understanding at least.
-Mike B. Jones
Sent from my iPhone
Reich and Lazaridis have a well-established record of trying to unravel the prehistoric genomic scene in the Eurasian steppes (and neighboring areas).
The spread from that area west and south (as well as east, as established by other studies) coincides with the spread of Indo-European languages; so the conclusion that the two spreads are in fact identical is not at all far-fetched.
It is noteworthy, however, that other studies show that the genomic spread into the Iberian peninsula seems to have included both Indo-European speakers and linguistic ancestors of the Basques; similarly, a recent study suggests that the Etruscans,
who are by most counts non-Indo-European, also had steppe genomes. If these findings are correct, it would need to be acknowledged that the population spread out of the steppes did not only include speakers of Indo-European languages but also of other languages;
put differently, the population spreading out of the steppes may not have been linguistically homogeneous. (If we consider later spreads, such as that of the Huns, who included in their group not only East (Central) Asian populations but also some Iranians,
as well as one branch of the Goths, such mixed linguistic composition should not come as a great surprised.)
So, the Harvard study constitutes a major contribution to unravelling Eurasian prehistory and connecting it with archaeology and linguistics.
All the best,
Hans Henrich
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