View source for Proto-Indo-Europeans

{{Short description|Postulated prehistoric ethnolinguistic group}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2016}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2019}}
The '''Proto-Indo-Europeans''' are a postulated prehistoric [[ethnolinguistic group]] of [[Eurasia]] who spoke [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] (PIE), the [[Linguistic reconstruction|reconstructed]] common ancestor of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European language family]].
  		  	
Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from [[archaeology]] and [[archaeogenetics]]. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the [[Late Neolithic]] period (6400 to 3500 BC). Mainstream scholars place them in the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] across [[Eurasia]] (this [[steppe]] extends from northeastern [[Bulgaria]] and southeastern [[Romania]], through [[Moldova]], and southern and eastern [[Ukraine]], through the [[North Caucasus|Northern Caucasus]] of [[southern Russia]], and into the [[Lower Volga region]] of western [[Kazakhstan]], adjacent to the [[Kazakh steppe]] to the east, both forming part of the larger [[Eurasian Steppe]]).<ref>{{Cite book|title=The horse, the wheel, and language: how Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world|last=Anthony |first=David W.|isbn=978-1-4008-3110-4 |location=Princeton, N.J.|oclc=496275617|date = 26 July 2010}}</ref> Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the Middle Neolithic period (5500 to 4500 BC){{Fix|text=Dates are inconsistent}} or even the Early Neolithic period (7500 to 5500 BC) and suggest [[Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses|alternative origin hypotheses]].

By the early second millennium BC, descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached far and wide across Eurasia, including [[Anatolia]] ([[Hittites]]), the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]] (the linguistic ancestors of [[Mycenaean Greece]]), the north of [[Europe]] ([[Corded Ware culture]]), the edges of [[Central Asia]] ([[Yamnaya culture]]), and southern [[Siberia]] ([[Afanasievo culture]]).<ref name="Mallory1997">{{cite book|last1=Mallory|first1=J. P.|author-link1=J. P. Mallory|last2=Adams|first2=Douglas Q.|title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&pg=PA4|access-date=24 March 2012|year=1997|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-884964-98-5|pages=4 and 6 (Afanasevo), 13 and 16 (Anatolia), 243 (Greece), 127–128 (Corded Ware), and 653 (Yamna)}}</ref>

{{Indo-European topics}}

== Definition ==
In the words of philologist [[Martin L. West]], "If there was an Indo-European language, it follows that there was a people who spoke it: not a people in the sense of a nation, for they may never have formed a political unity, and not a people in any racial sense, for they may have been as genetically mixed as any modern population defined by language. If our language is a descendant of theirs, that does not make them 'our ancestors', any more than the ancient Romans are the ancestors of the French, the Romanians, and the Brazilians. The Indo-Europeans were a people in the sense of a linguistic community. We should probably think of them as a loose network of clans and tribes, inhabiting a coherent territory of limited size."<ref>{{Cite book|last=West|first=Martin L.|title=Indo-European Poetry and Myth|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-928075-9|page=2|author-link=Martin Litchfield West}}</ref>

While "Proto-Indo-Europeans" is used in scholarship to designate the group of speakers associated with the reconstructed proto-language and culture, the term "Indo-Europeans" may refer to any historical people that speak an Indo-European language.<ref>{{Citation|last=Huld|first=Martin E.|title=Indo-Europeans|date=2010|encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195170726.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-517072-6}}</ref>

==Culture==
{{Further|Proto-Indo-European religion|Proto-Indo-European society|}}
Using [[linguistic reconstruction]] from old Indo-European languages such as [[Latin]] and [[Sanskrit]], hypothetical features of the Proto-Indo-European language are deduced. Assuming that these linguistic features reflect culture and environment of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the following cultural and environmental traits are widely proposed:
* [[pastoralism]], including domesticated [[cattle]], [[horse]]s, and [[dog]]s{{sfn|Watkins|2000}}
* [[agriculture]] and [[cereal]] cultivation, including technology commonly ascribed to late-neolithic farming communities, e.g., the [[plow]]<ref name="Mallory 1996"/>
* transportation by or across water{{sfn|Watkins|2000}}
* the solid [[wheel]],<ref>Hans J.J.G. Holm: The Earliest Wheel Finds, Their Archeology and Indo-European Terminology in Time and Space, and Early Migrations around the Caucasus. Archaeolingua Alapítvány, Budapest, 2019, {{ISBN|978-615-5766-30-5}}</ref>{{sfn|Watkins|2000}} used for [[wagon]]s, but not yet [[chariot]]s with [[spoke]]d wheels<ref name="Mallory 2006">The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world – J. P. Mallory, Douglas Q. Adams, Oxford University Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0-19-929668-5}}, p. 249</ref>
* worship of a [[Sky deity|sky god]],<ref name="Mallory 1996">The Oxford Companion to Archaeology – Edited by Brian M. Fagan, Oxford University Press, 1996, {{ISBN|0-19-507618-4}}, p 347 – J.P. Mallory</ref> ''[[*Dyēus|*Dyḗus Ph<sub>2</sub>tḗr]]'' (lit. "[[sky father]]"; > [[Vedic Sanskrit]] ''[[Dyaus (deity)|Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́]]'', [[Ancient Greek]] ''Ζεύς (πατήρ) / [[Zeus]] (patēr)''), vocative ''*dyéw ph₂tér'' (> [[Latin]] [[Jupiter (mythology)|''Iūpiter'']], [[Illyrian languages|Illyrian]] ''Deipaturos''){{refn|group=note|Watkins: "Yet, for the Indo-European-speaking society, we can reconstruct with certainty the word for "god," *deiw-os, and the two-word name of the chief deity of the pantheon, *dyeu-pəter- (Latin Iūpiter, Greek Zeus patēr, Sanskrit [[Dyaus Pita|Dyauṣ pitar]], and Luvian Tatis Tiwaz)."{{sfn|Watkins|2000}}}}<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YvzCBBTqyzUC&pg=PA89 |page=89 |title=History in English Words |isbn=978-0-940262-11-9 |last1=Barfield |first1=Owen |year=1967|publisher=SteinerBooks }}</ref>
* oral [[heroic poetry]] or song lyrics that used stock phrases such as ''imperishable fame'' (''*ḱléwos n̥dʰgʷʰítom'')<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ri4sbTiMKN4C|title=How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics|last=Watkins|first=Calvert|date=1995-11-16|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-802471-2|page=173}}</ref> and the ''wheel of the sun'' (''*sh₂wéns kʷékʷlos'').<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i_JwBsKzgeAC|title=Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction|last=Beekes|first=Robert S. P.|date=2011|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-272-1185-9|page=42}}</ref>
* a [[patrilineal]] kinship-system based upon relationships between men{{refn|group=note|Watkins: "A large number of kinship terms have been reconstructed. They are agreed in pointing to a society that was patriarchal, patrilocal (the bride leaving her household to join that of her husband's family), and patrilineal (descent reckoned by the male line). "Father" and "head of the household" are one: '''pǝter-''', with his spouse, the '''māter-'''."{{sfn|Watkins|2000}}}}

A 2016 [[Phylogenetic tree|phylogenetic analysis]] of Indo-European folktales posits that one folktale, ''[[The Smith and the Devil]]'', can be reconstructed to the Proto-Indo-European period. This story, found in contemporary Indo-European folktales from Scandinavia to India, describes a [[blacksmith]] who offers his soul to a malevolent being (commonly a devil in modern versions of the tale) in exchange for the ability to weld any kind of materials together. The blacksmith then uses his new ability to stick the devil to an immovable object (often a tree), thus avoiding his end of the bargain. According to the authors, the reconstruction of this folktale to PIE implies that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had [[metallurgy]], which in turn "suggests a plausible context for the cultural evolution of a tale about a cunning smith who attains a superhuman level of mastery over his craft".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=da Silva |first1=Sara Graça |last2=Tehrani |first2=Jamshid J. |title=Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales |journal=Royal Society Open Science |year=2016 |volume=3 |issue=1 |article-number=150645 |doi=10.1098/rsos.150645 |pmc=4736946 |pmid=26909191|bibcode=2016RSOS....350645D }}</ref>

==History of research==
Researchers have made many attempts to identify particular prehistoric cultures with the Proto-Indo-European-speaking peoples, but all of such theories remain speculative.

The scholars of the 1800s who first tackled the question of the Indo-Europeans' original homeland (also called ''[[Urheimat]]'', from [[German language|German]]), had essentially only linguistic evidence. They attempted a rough [[Language localization|localization]] by reconstructing the names of plants and animals (importantly the [[beech]] and the [[salmon]]) as well as the culture and technology (a [[Bronze Age]] culture that was centered upon [[animal husbandry]] and having [[domestication of the horse|domesticated the horse]]). The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, which posited a migration from [[Europe]] to [[Asia]], and an Asian hypothesis, which posited that the migration took place in the opposite direction.

In the early 1900s, the question became associated with the expansion of a supposed "[[Aryan race]]", a now-discredited theory that was promoted during the expansion of European empires and the rise of "[[scientific racism]]".<ref>Gilroy, Paul. "Against Race," Harvard UP, 2000. Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief ''Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary'' Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English—Page 66</ref> The question remains contentious within some flavours of [[ethnic nationalism]] (see also [[Indigenous Aryans]]).

There was a series of major advances in the 1970s due to the convergence of several factors. First, the [[radiocarbon dating]] method (invented in 1949) was now cheap enough to be applied on a mass scale. Through [[dendrochronology]] (tree-ring dating), pre-historians could calibrate radiocarbon dates with much more accuracy. And finally, before the 1970s, parts of eastern Europe and central Asia had been off-limits to Western scholars, while non-Western archaeologists did not have access to publication in Western peer-reviewed journals. The pioneering work of [[Marija Gimbutas]], assisted by [[Colin Renfrew]], at least partly addressed this problem by organizing expeditions and arranging for more academic collaboration between Western and non-Western scholars.

The [[Kurgan hypothesis]], which is the most widely held theory as of 2017, depends upon linguistic and archaeological evidence, but is not universally accepted.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Separating the post-Glacial coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a |author=Underhill, Peter A.| journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |year=2010 |volume=18 |pages=479–84 |doi=10.1038/ejhg.2009.194 |issue=4 |pmid=19888303 |pmc=2987245|display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios |author=Sahoo, Sanghamitra| journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |date=January 2006 |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=843–48 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0507714103 |pmid=16415161 |pmc=1347984|display-authors=etal| bibcode=2006PNAS..103..843S |doi-access=free }}</ref> It posits that the PIEs originated in the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] during the [[Chalcolithic]] age.{{sfn|Anthony|Ringe|2015}} A minority of scholars prefer the [[Anatolian hypothesis]], which posits an origin in [[Anatolia]] during the Neolithic age. Other theories ([[Armenian hypothesis]], [[Out of India theory]], [[paleolithic continuity theory]], and [[Anatolian hypothesis|Balkan hypothesis]]) have only marginal scholarly support.{{sfn|Anthony|Ringe|2015}}

In regard to terminology, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term ''Aryan'' was used to refer to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants. However, ''Aryan'' more properly applies to the [[Indo-Iranians]], the Indo-European branch that settled parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as only Indic and Iranian languages explicitly affirm the term as a self-designation referring to the entirety of their people, whereas the same Proto-Indo-European root (*aryo-) is the basis for Greek and Germanic word forms which seem only to denote the ruling elite of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) society. In fact, the most accessible evidence available confirms only the existence of a common, but vague, socio-cultural designation of "nobility" associated with PIE society, such that Greek socio-cultural lexicon and Germanic proper names derived from this root remain insufficient to determine whether the concept was limited to the designation of an exclusive, socio-political elite, or whether it could possibly have been applied in the most inclusive sense to an inherent and ancestral "noble" quality which allegedly characterized all ethnic members of PIE society. Only the latter could have served as a true and universal self-designation for the Proto-Indo-European people.{{sfn|Thapar|1996}}{{sfn|Thapar|2019}}

By the early 1900s, the term "aryan" had come to be widely used in a racial sense, in which it referred to a hypothesized white, blond, and blue-eyed superior race. The dictator [[Adolf Hitler]] called this race the "[[master race]]" (''Herrenrasse''), and, in its name, led massive [[pogrom]]s in Europe. Subsequently, the term ''Aryan'' as a general term for Indo-Europeans has been largely abandoned by scholars (though the term ''[[Indo-Aryan peoples|Indo-Aryan]]'' is still used to refer to the branch that settled in Southern Asia).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pereltsvaig |first1=Asya |author-link=Asya Pereltsvaig |author2=Lewis, Martin W. |title=The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bi47CQAAQBAJ |chapter=1 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-316-29911-1 }}</ref>

==Urheimat hypotheses==
{{Main|Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses}}
{{See also|Indo-European migrations}}
[[File:Indo-European migrations.jpg|thumb|300px| Scheme of Indo-European language dispersals from c.&nbsp;4000 to 1000 BC according to the widely held [[Kurgan hypothesis]].<br />– Center: Steppe cultures<br />1 (black): Anatolian languages (archaic PIE)<br />2 (black): Afanasievo culture (early PIE)<br />3 (black) Yamnaya culture expansion (Pontic-Caspian steppe, [[Danubian Plain (Bulgaria)|Danube Valley]]) (late PIE)<br />4A (black): Western Corded Ware<br />4B-C (blue & dark blue): Bell Beaker; adopted by Indo-European speakers<br />5A-B (red): Eastern Corded ware<br />5C (red): Sintashta (proto-Indo-Iranian)<br />6 (magenta): Andronovo<br />7A (purple): Indo-Aryans (Mittani)<br />7B (purple): Indo-Aryans (India)<br />[NN] (dark yellow): proto-Balto-Slavic<br />8 (grey): Greek<br />9 (yellow):Iranians<br />– [not drawn]: Armenian, expanding from western steppe]]

According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely related populations that were ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, [[Bronze Age]] Indo-Europeans. This is believed especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this belief is not shared by most linguists, because proto-languages, like all languages before modern transport and communication, occupied small geographical areas over a limited time span, and were spoken by a set of close-knit communities– a tribe in the broad sense.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Aikio|first1=Ante|title=An essay on Saami ethnolinguistic prehistory|journal=Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne|date=2012|issue=266, ''A Linguistic Map of Prehistoric Northern Europe''|pages=93f., 98|url=http://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust266/sust266_aikio.pdf|access-date=31 July 2017|publisher=[[Finno-Ugrian Society]]|location=Helsinki, Finland}}</ref>

Researchers have put forward a great variety of proposed locations for the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European. Few of these hypotheses have survived scrutiny by academic specialists in Indo-European studies sufficiently well to be included in modern academic debate.{{sfn|Mallory|1991|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}}

===Pontic-Caspian steppe hypothesis===

The Kurgan (or Steppe) hypothesis was first formulated by [[Otto Schrader (philologist)|Otto Schrader]] (1883) and [[V. Gordon Childe]] (1926),<ref>{{Cite book|last=Renfrew|first=Colin|title=Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins|date=1990|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-38675-3 |pages=37–38}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jones-Bley|first=Karlene|date=2008|title=Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, November 3–4, 2006|journal=Historiographia Linguistica|volume=35|issue=3|pages=465–467|doi=10.1075/hl.35.3.15koe|issn=0302-5160}}</ref> and was later systematized by [[Marija Gimbutas]] from 1956 onwards. The name originates from the ''[[kurgan]]s'' (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes. The hypothesis suggests that the Indo-Europeans, a [[patriarchal]], [[patrilinear]], and [[nomad]]ic culture of the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] (which is now part northeastern [[Bulgaria]] and southeastern [[Romania]], through [[Moldova]], and southern and eastern [[Ukraine]], through the [[North Caucasus|northern Caucasus]] of [[southern Russia]], and into the [[lower Volga region]] of western [[Kazakhstan]]), expanded into the area through several waves of migration during the 3rd millennium BCE, coinciding with the [[Domestication of the horse|taming of the horse]]. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see [[Corded Ware culture]]), they subjugated the supposedly peaceful, egalitarian, and [[matrilinear]] European neolithic farmers of Gimbutas' [[Old Europe (archaeology)|Old Europe]]. A modified form of this theory, by [[J. P. Mallory]], which dates the migrations to an earlier time (to around 3500 BCE), and puts less insistence upon their violent or quasi-military nature, remains the most widely accepted theory of the Proto-Indo-European expansion.{{refn|group=note|See:
* Mallory: "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' and the ''Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse''."{{sfn|Mallory|1989|p=185}}
* Strazny: "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..."{{sfn|Strazny|2000|p=163}}}}

===Armenian highland hypothesis===

The [[Armenian hypothesis]], based on the [[glottalic theory]], suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the [[4th millennium BC]] in the [[Armenian Highland]]. This [[Indo-Hittite]] model does not include the [[Anatolian languages]] in its scenario. The phonological peculiarities of PIE proposed in the glottalic theory would be best preserved in the [[Armenian language]] and the [[Germanic languages]], the former assuming the role of the dialect which remained ''in situ'', implied to be particularly archaic in spite of its late attestation. [[Proto-Greek]] would be practically equivalent to [[Mycenean Greek]] and would date to the 17th century BC, closely associating Greek migration to Greece with the [[Indo-Aryan migration]] to India at about the same time (viz., Indo-European expansion at the transition to the [[Late Bronze Age]], including the possibility of Indo-European [[Kassites]]). The Armenian hypothesis argues for the latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European (''sans'' Anatolian), a full millennium later than the mainstream [[Kurgan hypothesis]]. In this, it figures as an opposite to the [[Anatolian hypothesis]], in spite of the geographical proximity of the respective ''Urheimaten'' suggested, diverging from the time-frame suggested there by a full three millennia.<ref>T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov (March 1990) "The Early History of Indo-European Languages", ''Scientific American''.</ref><ref>I.M. Diakonoff (1984) ''The Prehistory of the Armenian People''.</ref>

===Anatolian hypothesis===
The [[Anatolian hypothesis]], notably advocated by [[Colin Renfrew]] from the 1980s onwards, proposes that the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from [[Anatolia]] from around 7000 BC with the [[Neolithic Revolution]]'s advance of farming (''wave of advance''). The culture of the Indo-Europeans as inferred by linguistic reconstruction raises difficulties for this theory, since early neolithic cultures lacked the horse, the wheel, and metal – terms for all of which are securely reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. Renfrew dismisses this argument, comparing such reconstructions to a theory that the presence of the word "[[café]]" in all modern Romance languages implies that the ancient Romans had cafés too.

Another argument, made by proponents of the steppe [[Urheimat]] (such as David Anthony) against Renfrew, points to the fact that ancient Anatolia is known to have been inhabited in the 2nd millennium BC by non-Indo-European-speaking peoples, namely the [[Hattians]] (perhaps North [[Languages of the Caucasus|Caucasian]]-speaking), the [[Chalybes]] (language unknown), and the [[Hurrians]] ([[Hurro-Urartian languages|Hurro-Urartian]]).

Following the publication of several studies on [[ancient DNA]] in 2015, [[Colin Renfrew]] subsequently acknowledged the important role of migrations of populations speaking one or several Indo-European languages from the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] towards [[Northwestern Europe]], noting that the DNA evidence from ancient skeletons "had completely rejuvenated Marija Gimbutas' kurgan hypothesis."<ref>Renfrew, Colin (2017) "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmv3J55bdZc Marija Redivia : DNA and Indo-European origins]" (''The Oriental Institute lecture series : Marija Gimbutas memorial lecture'', Chicago. November 8, 2017, see timestamp 11:14).</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1= Pellard|first1= Thomas|last2= Sagart|first2= Laurent|last3= Jacques|first3= Guillaume|date= 2018|title= L'indo-européen n'est pas un mythe|journal= Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris|volume= 113|issue= 1|pages= 79–102|doi= 10.2143/BSL.113.1.3285465|s2cid= 171874630}}</ref>

==Genetics==
{{Further|Genetic history of Europe|Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia|Genetic history of the Middle East}}
{{original research section|date=March 2011}}
[[Archaeogenetics]] has allowed the use of genetic analysis to trace migration patterns.

===Kurgan/Steppe hypothesis===
{{Main|Kurgan hypothesis}}
[[File:Indo-European migrations.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Early [[Indo-European migrations]] from the [[Pontic steppes]] and across Central Asia]]
The Kurgan hypothesis, or steppe theory, is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the [[Pontic steppe]] north of the [[Black Sea]] were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term is derived from the Russian {{tlit|ru|kurgan}} ({{lang|ru|курга́н}}), meaning 'tumulus' or 'burial mound'.<ref>{{Cite dictionary |title=Kurgan |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kurgan |access-date=2025-03-27 |dictionary=Merriam-Webster Dictionary}}</ref>

====R1a and R1b====
According to three [[autosomal]] DNA studies, [[haplogroup]]s R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also very common in [[South Asia]]) would have expanded from the Pontic steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.{{sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}<ref name=allen>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1038/nature14507 |pmid=26062507 |title=Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia |journal=Nature |volume=522 |issue=7555 |pages=167–172 |year=2015 |last1=Allentoft |first1=Morten E. |display-authors=etal |bibcode=2015Natur.522..167A |s2cid=4399103 |url=https://depot.ceon.pl/handle/123456789/13155}}</ref><ref name=Mathieson>{{Cite journal |date=2015-03-14 |title=Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe |url=https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/016477v1 |doi=10.1101/016477 |last1=Mathieson |first1=Iain |journal=bioRxiv |article-number=016477 |s2cid=7866359 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Studies which analysed ancient human remains in [[Ireland]] and [[Portugal]] suggest that R1b was introduced in these places along with autosomal DNA from the Pontic steppes.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Lara M. Cassidy |display-authors=etal |year=2016 |title=Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland and establishment of the insular Atlantic genome |journal=PNAS |volume=113 |issue=2 |pages=368–373 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1518445113 |pmid=26712024 |pmc=4720318 |url=http://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/files/18204586/Full_PNAS_pdf_with_supplementary_material.pdf |bibcode=2016PNAS..113..368C |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia: Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based methods |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1006852 |pmid=28749934 |pmc=5531429 |author=Rui Martiniano |display-authors=etal |year=2017 |journal=PLOS Genet |volume=13 |issue=7 |article-number=e1006852 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

====R1a and R1a1a====
The [[subclade]] [[Haplogroup R1a1a|R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198)]] is most commonly associated with Indo-European speakers. Data so far collected indicate that there are two widely separated areas of high frequency:
* one in [[Eastern Europe]], around [[Poland]], [[Ukraine]], and [[Russia]],
* the other in [[South Asia|Southern Asia]], around the [[Indo-Gangetic Plain]], which extends to parts of [[India]], [[Pakistan]], [[Bangladesh]], and [[Nepal]].
The historical and prehistoric possible reasons for this are the subject of on-going discussion and attention amongst population geneticists and genetic genealogists, and are considered to be of potential interest to linguists and archaeologists also.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}}

<!-- According to ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy), the subclade's parent [[Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup|Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup]] [[Haplogroup R1a|R1a-M420]] is thought to have originated in either the [[Eurasian Steppe]] (north of the [[Black Sea]] and [[Caspian Sea]]) or the [[Indus Valley]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR.html |title=ISOGG 2010 Y-DNA Haplogroup R |publisher=Isogg.org |access-date=23 June 2010}}</ref> {{dubious}}-->A large study in 2014 by Underhill et al., using 16,244 individuals from over 126 populations from across Eurasia, concluded there was compelling evidence that R1a-M420 originated in the vicinity of [[Iran]].<ref name="Underhill2014">{{Cite journal |title=The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=124–131 |doi=10.1038/ejhg.2014.50 |pmid=24667786 |pmc=4266736 |year=2015 |last1=Underhill |first1=Peter A. |display-authors=etal}}</ref> The mutations that characterize haplogroup R1a occurred around 10,000 years [[Before Present|BP]]. Its defining mutation (M17) occurred about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago.<ref name="Underhill2014" /> Pamjav et al. (2012) believe that R1a originated and initially diversified either within the Eurasian Steppes or in the Middle East and Caucasus region.{{sfn|Pamjav|2012}}

Ornella Semino et al. propose a postglacial ([[Holocene]]) spread of the R1a1 haplogroup from north of the Black Sea during the time of the [[Late Glacial Maximum]], which was subsequently  magnified by the expansion of the [[Kurgan culture]] into Europe and eastward.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Semino |first1=O. |year=2000 |title=The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans: A Y Chromosome Perspective |journal=Science |volume=290 |issue=5494 |pages=1155–1159 |pmid=11073453 |doi=10.1126/science.290.5494.1155 |bibcode=2000Sci...290.1155S |url=http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Science_2000_v290_p1155.pdf |access-date=2003-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031125151213/http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Science_2000_v290_p1155.pdf |archive-date=25 November 2003 }}</ref>

====Yamnaya culture====
According to Jones et al. (2015) and {{harvtxt|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}, [[autosomal]] tests indicate that the Yamnaya-people were the result of admixture between "[[Eastern Hunter-Gatherers]]" from eastern Europe (EHG) and "[[Caucasus hunter-gatherers]]" (CHG).{{sfn|Jones|2015}}<ref group=web name="bbcnov16"/>
Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA.<ref name=Mathieson/><ref group=web name="bbcnov16"/> According to co-author Dr. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge: 
{{Blockquote|The question of where the Yamnaya come from has been something of a mystery up to now [...] we can now answer that, as we've found that their genetic make-up is a mix of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and a population from this pocket of Caucasus hunter-gatherers who weathered much of the last Ice Age in apparent isolation.<ref group=web name="bbcnov16"/>}}

All [[Yamnaya]] individuals sampled by Haak et al. (2015) belonged to the Y-haplogroup [[R1b]].

Based on these findings and by equating the people of the Yamnaya culture with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, [[David W. Anthony]] (2019) suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language formed mainly from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gathers with influences from languages of northern Caucasus hunter-gatherers, in addition to a possible later influence from the language of the [[Maikop culture]] to the south (which is hypothesized to have belonged to the [[North Caucasian languages|North Caucasian]] family) in the later neolithic or Bronze Age involving little genetic impact.<ref name="Anthony2019">{{cite journal |last=Anthony |first=D.W. |title=Archaeology, Genetics, and Language in the Steppes: A Comment on Bomhard |journal=Journal of Indo-European Studies |volume=47 |issue=1 & 2 |pages=1–23 |date=Spring–Summer 2019 |url=https://www.academia.edu/39985565}}</ref>

=====Eastern European hunter-gatherers=====
According to {{harvtxt|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}, "Eastern European hunter-gatherers" who inhabited Russia were a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000-year-old Siberian from the [[Mal'ta-Buret' culture]], or other, [[Afontova Gora|closely related]] Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people from Siberia and to the [[Western Hunter-Gatherer]]s (WHG).{{sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}<ref group=web name="bbcnov16"/> Remains of the "Eastern European hunter-gatherers" have been found in Mesolithic or early Neolithic sites in [[Karelia]] and [[Samara Oblast]], Russia, and put under analysis. Three such hunter-gathering individuals of the male sex have had their DNA results published. Each was found to belong to a different [[Y-DNA]] [[haplogroup]]: [[R1a]], [[R1b]], and [[Haplogroup J (Y-DNA)|J]].<ref name=Mathieson/> R1b is also the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among both the Yamnaya and modern-day Western Europeans. R1a is  more common in Eastern Europeans and in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.{{Sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}<ref name=allen/>

=====Near East population=====
The Near East population were most likely hunter-gatherers from the [[Caucasus]] (CHG){{sfn|Jones|2015}} c.q.{{clarify|date=March 2025}} Iran Chalcolithic related people with a major CHG-component.{{sfn|Lazaridis|2016|p=8}}

Jones et al. (2015) analyzed genomes from males from western [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], in the Caucasus, from the Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old) and the Mesolithic (9,700 years old). These two males carried [[Y-DNA]] [[haplogroup]]s [[Haplogroup J (Y-DNA)|J*]] and [[Haplogroup J-M172|J2a]]. The researchers found that these Caucasus hunters were probably the source of the farmer-like DNA in the Yamnaya, as the Caucasians were distantly related to the Middle Eastern people who introduced farming in Europe.<ref group=web name="bbcnov16">{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34832781 |title=Europe's fourth ancestral 'tribe' uncovered |work=BBC News |date=16 November 2015}}</ref> Their genomes showed that a continued mixture of the Caucasians with Middle Eastern took place up to 25,000 years ago, when the coldest period in the last Ice Age started.<ref group=web name="bbcnov16"/>

According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), "a population related to the people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe.";{{sfn|Lazaridis|2016|p=8}} and these Iranian Chalcolithic people were a mixture of "the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers."{{sfn|Lazaridis|2016|p=8}}{{refn|group=note|See also:<br/>* eurogenes.blogspot, [http://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2016/06/the-genetic-structure-of-worlds-first.html ''The genetic structure of the world's first farmers (Lazaridis et al. preprint) '']<br/>* anthrogenica.com, ''[https://genoplot.com/discussions/topic/29068/lazaridis-et-al-the-genetic-structure-of-the-world-s-first-farmers-pre-print Lazaridis et al: The genetic structure of the world's first farmers (pre-print)]''}} They also note that farming spread in two places in the Near East, namely the Levant and Iran, from where it spread, Iranian people spreading to the steppe and south Asia.{{sfn|Lazaridis|2016}}

====Northern and Central Europe====
[[File:Yamnaya Steppe Pastoralists.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Bronze Age spread of [[Yamnaya]] [[Western Steppe Herders|Steppe pastoralist]] ancestry]]
{{harvtxt|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}} studied DNA from 94 skeletons from Europe and Russia aged between 3,000 and 8,000 years old.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.347.6224.814 |volume=347 |title=Indo-European languages tied to herders |year=2015 |journal=Science |pages=814–815 |last1=Balter |first1=M. |issue=6224 |pmid=25700495 |bibcode=2015Sci...347..814B}}</ref> They concluded that about 4,500 years ago there was a major influx into Europe of [[Yamnaya culture]] people originating from the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]] north of the Black Sea and that the DNA of [[Chalcolithic|copper-age]] Europeans matched that of the Yamnaya.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Callaway |first1=E. |year=2015 |title=European languages linked to migration from the east |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/nature.2015.16919 |s2cid=184180681 |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}

{{blockquote| The four Corded Ware people could trace an astonishing three-quarters of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, according to the paper. That suggests a massive migration of Yamnaya people from their steppe homeland into Eastern Europe about 4500 years ago when the Corded Ware culture began, perhaps carrying an early form of Indo-European language.}}

====Bronze Age Greeks====
A 2017 [[archaeogenetics]] study of Mycenaean and Minoan remains published in the journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' concluded that the Mycenaean Greeks were genetically closely related with the [[Minoans]] but unlike the Minoans also had a 13–18% genetic contribution from Bronze Age steppe populations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lazaridis |first1=Iosif |display-authors=etal |date=2017 |title=Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans |journal=Nature |volume=548 |issue=7666 |pages=214–218 |bibcode=2017Natur.548..214L |doi=10.1038/nature23310 |pmc=5565772 |pmid=28783727}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=Science Magazine |date=2 August 2017 |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals |author=Ann Gibbons |title=The Greeks really do have near-mythical origins, ancient DNA reveals}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |work=Live Science |author=Megan Gannon |date=3 August 2017 |url=https://www.livescience.com/60027-origins-of-1st-advanced-greek-civilizations.html |title=More than Myth: Ancient DNA Reveals Roots of 1st Greek Civilizations}}</ref>

===Anatolian hypothesis===
[[Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza]] and [[Alberto Piazza]] argue that Renfrew and Gimbutas reinforce rather than contradict each other. {{Harvcoltxt|Cavalli-Sforza|2000}} states that "It is clear that, genetically speaking, peoples of the Kurgan steppe descended at least in part from people of the Middle Eastern Neolithic who immigrated there from Turkey." {{harvtxt|Piazza|Cavalli-Sforza|2006}} state that:
{{blockquote|if the expansions began at 9,500 years ago from Anatolia and at 6,000 years ago from the [[Yamnaya culture]] region, then a 3,500-year period elapsed during their migration to the [[Volga River|Volga]]-[[Don River (Russia)|Don]] region from Anatolia, probably through the [[Balkans]]. There a completely new, mostly pastoral culture developed under the stimulus of an environment unfavourable to standard agriculture, but offering new attractive possibilities. Our hypothesis is, therefore, that Indo-European languages derived from a secondary expansion from the [[Yamnaya culture]] region after the Neolithic farmers, possibly coming from Anatolia and settled there, developing pastoral nomadism.}}
 
[[Spencer Wells]] suggests in a 2001 study that the origin, distribution and age of the [[R1a1]] [[haplotype]] points to an ancient migration, possibly corresponding to the spread by the Kurgan people in their expansion across the [[Eurasian steppe]] around 3000 BC.{{sfn|Wells|2002|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}}

About his old teacher Cavalli-Sforza's proposal, {{Harvcoltxt|Wells|2002|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}} states that "there is nothing to contradict this model, although the genetic patterns do not provide clear support either", and instead argues that the evidence is much stronger for Gimbutas' model:
{{blockquote|While we see substantial genetic and archaeological evidence for an Indo-European migration originating in the southern Russian steppes, there is little evidence for a similarly massive Indo-European migration from the Middle East to Europe. One possibility is that, as a much earlier migration (8,000 years old, as opposed to 4,000), the genetic signals carried by Indo-European-speaking farmers may simply have dispersed over the years. There is clearly ''some'' genetic evidence for migration from the Middle East, as Cavalli-Sforza and his colleagues showed, but the signal is not strong enough for us to trace the distribution of Neolithic languages throughout the entirety of Indo-European-speaking Europe.}}

===Iranian/Armenian hypothesis===
[[David Reich (geneticist)|David Reich]] (2018), noting the presence of some Indo-European languages (such as Hittite) in parts of ancient Anatolia, argues that "the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians." Yet, Reich also notes that "...the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the Hittites themselves has yet been published."{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=120}} [[Kristian Kristiansen (archaeologist)|Kristian Kristiansen]], in an interview with ''Der Spiegel'' in May 2018, stated that the Yamnaya culture may have had a predecessor at the Caucasus, where "proto-proto-Indo-European" was spoken.{{sfn|Grolle|2018|p=108}}

Recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions of a Caucasian homeland for the 'proto-Indo-Europeans'.{{sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}{{sfn|Reich|2018|p=177}}{{sfn|Damgaard|2018}}{{sfn|Wang|2018}}{{sfn|Grolle|2018|p=108}} According to Kroonen et al. (2018) and Damgaard et al. (2018), ancient Anatolia "show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population."{{sfn|Kroonen|Barjamovic|Peyrot|2018|p=7}} They further note that this lends support to the [[Indo-Hittite]] hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language "no later than the 4th millennium BCE."{{sfn|Kroonen|Barjamovic|Peyrot|2018|p=9}} {{harvtxt|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}} states that "the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility" since the [[Yamna culture|Yamnaya]] partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day [[Armenians]]."{{sfn|Haak|Lazaridis|Patterson|Rohland|2015}}

Wang et al. (2018) note that the Caucasus served as a corridor for gene flow between the steppe and cultures south of the Caucasus during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, stating that this "opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus." However, Wang et al. also comment that the most recent genetic evidence supports an expansion of proto-Indo-Europeans through the steppe, noting: "but the latest ancient DNA results from South Asia also lend weight to a spread of Indo-European languages "via the steppe belt. The spread of some or all of the proto-Indo-European branches would have been possible via the North Caucasus and Pontic region and from there, along with pastoralist expansions, to the heart of Europe. This scenario finds support from the well attested and now widely documented '[[steppe ancestry]]' in European populations, the postulate of increasingly patrilinear societies in the wake of these expansions (exemplified by R1a/R1b), as attested in the latest study on the Bell Beaker phenomenon."{{sfn|Wang|2018|p=15}}

[[David W. Anthony]] in a 2019 analysis, criticizes the "southern" or "Armenian" hypothesis (addressing Reich, Kristiansen, and Wang). Among his reasons being: that the Yamnaya lack evidence of genetic influence from the Bronze Age or late neolithic Caucasus (deriving instead from an earlier mixture of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and Caucasus hunter-gatherers) and have paternal lineages that seem to derive from the hunter-gatherers of the Eastern European Steppe rather than the Caucasus, as well as a scarcity in the Yamnaya of the Anatolian Farmer admixture that had become common and substantial in the Caucasus around 5,000 BC. Anthony instead suggests a genetic and linguistic origin of proto-Indo-Europeans (the Yamnaya) in the Eastern European steppe north of the Caucasus, from a mixture of these two groups (EHG and CHG). He suggests that the roots of Proto-Indo-European ("archaic" or proto-proto-Indo-European) were in the steppe rather than the south and that PIE formed mainly from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gathers with some influences from languages of Caucasus hunter-gatherers.<ref>{{Citation | last =Anthony | first =David | year =2020 | chapter =Ancient DNA, Mating Networks, and the Anatolian Split | editor-last1 =Serangeli | editor-first1 =Matilde | editor-last2 =Olander | editor-first2 =Thomas | pages =31–42 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=DHnEDwAAQBAJ&q=%22Introduction:+Dispersals+and+Diversification+of+the+Indo-European+Languages%22 | title =Dispersals and Diversification: Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives on the Early Stages of Indo-European | publisher =BRILL| isbn =978-90-04-41619-2 }}</ref><ref name="Anthony2019"/>

==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=18em}}
*[[Archaeogenetics]]
*[[Indo-Aryan migration]]
*[[Comparative linguistics]]
*[[Historical linguistics]]
*[[Paleolithic continuity theory]]
*[[Old European culture]]
*[[Proto-Indo-European language]]
*[[Proto-Indo-European religion]]
*[[Proto-Indo-European society]]
*[[Gravettian]]
*[[Sintashta culture]]
{{Div col end}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
;Printed sources
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==Further reading==
*{{Cite book
 | last = Anthony | first = David W.
 | title = The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
 | publisher = Princeton University Press | year = 2007
 | isbn = 978-0-691-05887-0
| title-link = The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
 }}
*Kozintsev, Alexander. "[https://pure.spbu.ru/ws/portalfiles/portal/53198823/Proto_Indo_Europeans_The_prologue_2019_.pdf Proto-Indo-Europeans: The prologue]." Journal of Indo-European Studies 47.3-4 (2019): 1-88.
* {{cite journal | last1 = Atkinson | first1 = Q. D. | last2 = Nicholls | first2 = G. | last3 = Welch | first3 = D. | last4 = Gray | first4 = R. D. | year = 2005 | title = From Words to Dates: Water into wine, mathemagic or phylogenetic inference? | journal = Transactions of the Philological Society | volume = 103 | issue = 2| pages = 193–219 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2005.00151.x }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Gray |first1=Russell D. |last2=Atkinson |first2=Quentin D. |year=2003 |title=Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin |journal=Nature |volume=426 |issue=6965 |pages=435–439 |doi=10.1038/nature02029 |pmid=14647380 |bibcode=2003Natur.426..435G |url=http://users.ox.ac.uk/~soca0108/Quentins_website/Publications_&_CV_files/Gray%26Atkinson2003.pdf |access-date=12 May 2020 |s2cid=42340 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830042341/http://users.ox.ac.uk/~soca0108/Quentins_website/Publications_%26_CV_files/Gray%26Atkinson2003.pdf |archive-date=30 August 2017 }}
*{{Cite journal|last=Heyd|first=Volker|date=2017|title=Kossinna's smile|journal=Antiquity|volume=91|issue=356|pages=348–359 |doi=10.15184/aqy.2017.21|hdl=10138/255652|s2cid=164376362|issn=0003-598X|hdl-access=free |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003598X17000217/type/journal_article}}
* Holm, Hans J. (2007). "The new Arboretum of Indo-European 'Trees'. Can new Algorithms Reveal the Phylogeny and even Prehistory of IE?" ''Journal of Quantitative Linguistics'' 14–2:167–214.
* {{cite journal |last=Lazaridis |first=Iosif |year=2014 |title=Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |doi=10.1038/nature13673 |pages=409–413 |volume=513 |issue=7518 |pmid=25230663 |pmc=4170574| arxiv=1312.6639 |bibcode=2014Natur.513..409L |hdl=11336/30563}}
* [[Colin Renfrew|Renfrew, Colin]] (1987). ''Archaeology & Language. The Puzzle of the Indo-European Origins''. London: Jonathan Cape. {{ISBN|0-224-02495-7}}
* Sykes, Brian. (2001) ''[[The Seven Daughters of Eve]]''. London: Corgi Books.
* Watkins, Calvert. (1995) ''[[How to Kill a Dragon|How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics]]''. New York: Oxford University Press.
*{{cite web|url=https://ia903209.us.archive.org/24/items/contacts-abstract-book_202005/CONTACTS_abstract_book.pdf|title=Early contacts between Indo-European and Uralic speakers (4000 BC – 1000AD)|publisher=[[University of Helsinki]], Suomenlinna, [[Finland]]}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|Appendix:List of Proto-Indo-European roots}}
{{Wiktionary|Appendix:Proto-Indo-European roots}}
*{{Commons category-inline}}
*[https://archive.org/details/EncyclopediaOfIndoEuropeanCulture/mode/2up Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (1997)]
*{{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090122004341/http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html |date=22 January 2009 |title=Indo-European Roots Index }} from The American Heritage Dictionary
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050827151908/http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Kurgans.htm  Kurgan culture]
*{{cite journal|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9vq3b17g|title=The Actual Achievements of Early Indo-Europeans, in Accurate Historical Context (2013)|journal=Beckwith, Christopher I| year=2013 | volume=4 |publisher=University of California| doi=10.21237/C7clio4119062 | last1=Beckwith | first1=Christopher I. |s2cid=131553744 |doi-access=free }}
;Genetics
*[http://dlc.hypotheses.org/807 Ancient DNA and the Indo-European Question]
*[http://polishgenes.blogspot.no/2013/04/r1a-and-r1b-as-markers-of-proto-indo.html R1a and R1b as markers of the Proto-Indo-European expansion: a review of ancient DNA evidence] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208141309/http://polishgenes.blogspot.no/2013/04/r1a-and-r1b-as-markers-of-proto-indo.html |date=8 February 2017 }}

[[Category:Proto-Indo-Europeans| ]]
[[Category:Indo-European peoples|*]]
[[Category:4th millennium BC]]
[[Category:Ancient peoples]]
[[Category:Eurasian history]]
[[Category:Extinct ethnic groups]]
[[Category:Neolithic cultures]]
[[Category:Neolithic Asia]]
[[Category:Neolithic Europe]]
[[Category:Bronze Age Asia]]
[[Category:Bronze Age Europe]]
[[Category:Nomadic groups in Eurasia]]