Archaeologists have featured heavily in a long-standing debate regarding the origins of the Indo-European language family. Currently the debate focuses on two main hypotheses. The first suggests that Proto-Indo-European people spread out of Anatolia during the Early Neolithic. On the other hand, others have argued that these people expanded later in time, during the Copper Age and early Bronze Age from the Pontic-Casbian steppe. To shed light on this issue, two independent studies amassed samples of aDNA from several cultures across Europe and Central Asia and from 6000 BC to 900 BC. Interestingly, both studies revealed afinities between the corded ware (2500 BC) people of Central Europe and the Yamnaya steppe culture, suggesting a westward expansion. The data also suggest an eastward expansion out of the Pontic-Casbian Steppe into East Asia, as illustrated by genetic afinities between the Yamnaya and the Afanasievo. Though the sample size is still small, the genetic data seem to support the notion that the Proto-Indo-European language may have spread into Europe and Asia during these expansions.
What was most striking is that this topic has been the focus of debate for 200 years! While these studies do not prove the origin of this language family, they do provide a way to assess the likelihood of these proposed scenarios based on the timing and placement of genetically documented expansions.
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