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Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ∼8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ∼24,000-year-old Siberian. By ∼6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ∼4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ∼75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ∼3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.
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In the citing paper
“We combined our data with previously published ancient data7,8,9,10,8,10-15 to form a dataset of 281 ancient individuals.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“This suggests the hypothesis that diverse ancient West Eurasians can be modelled as mixtures of as few as four streams of ancestry related to these populations, which we confirmed using qpWave7 (Supplementary Information, section 7).”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“PCA on present-day West Eurasian populations (Methods) (Extended Data Fig. 1) on which we projected the ancient individuals (Fig. 1b) replicates previous findings of a Europe-Near East contrast along the horizontal Principal Component 1 (PC1) and parallel clines (PC2) in both Europe and the Near East (Extended Data Fig. 1)7,8,13.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“The demographic impact of steppe related populations on South Asia was substantial, as the Mala, a south Indian population with minimal ANI along the ‘Indian Cline’ of such ancestry34,35 is inferred to have ~18% steppe-related ancestry, while the Kalash of Pakistan are inferred to have ~50%, similar to present-day northern Europeans7.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Scandinavian hunter-gatherers7,8,13 (SHG) are a mix of EHG and WHG;”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“It is now believed that it was this pastoralist migration, and not earlier Neolithic population movements, that likely brought the proto-Indo-European language to Europe 158,226 .”
From Ancient DNA analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [158]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“During the Neolithic (2), the arrival of farming populations dramatically shifted the genetic profile of individuals in Britain towards Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF, yellow).”
From Ancient DNA analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [158]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“The gene pool of people who lived in present-day Britain has considerably changed through time, reflecting a complex migration and admixture history.”
From Ancient DNA analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [158]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“During the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods (1), individuals in Britain genetically resembled Western Hunter Gatherer (WHG, blue) populations found at that time throughout much of Western Europe.”
From Ancient DNA analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [158]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Then, beginning in the Chalcolithic period and continuing through the Bronze Age (Early Bronze Age, EBA) (3), the genetic profile of individuals in Britain shifted again, this time towards Western Steppe Herders (WSH, pink) from the Pontic steppes associated with the expansion of the Bell Beaker cultural phenomenon across Europe.”
From Ancient DNA analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [158]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“We then used qpAdm8 (with parameter allsnps: YES) to test whether Sidon_BA can be modeled as mixture of Levant_N and any other ancient population in the dataset and found good support for the model of Sidon_BA being a mixture of Levant_N (48.4% ± 4.2%) and Iran_ChL (51.6% ± 4.2%) (Figure 2B; Table S3).”
From Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences (2017) · cites this paper as [8]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“This includes the European Neolithic transition, when farmers coming from southeast Europe and Anatolia partially replaced hunter-gatherers (32–35), as well as the Bronze Age, with the spread of pastoralist populations from Eurasian steppes (36–38).”
From Past human expansions shaped the spatial pattern of Neanderthal ancestry (2023) · cites this paper as [37]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The spread of Near Eastern ancestry into the Eurasian steppe was previously inferred7 without access to ancient samples, by hypothesizing a population related to present-day Armenians as a source7,8.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“Both qpAdm35 and the f4-ratio test39 reveal that modern Egyptians inherit 8% more ancestry from African ancestors than the three ancient Egyptians do, which is also consistent with the ADMIXTURE results discussed above.”
From Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods (2017) · cites this paper as [35]
The check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“We obtain the highest estimates in the earliest populations from both Iran (66±13% in the likely Mesolithic sample, 48±6% in Neolithic samples), and the Levant (44±8% in Epipaleolithic Natufians) (Fig. 2), showing that Basal Eurasian ancestry was widespread across the ancient Near East.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“a result that finds some support from Y chromosome analysis which shows that the Natufians and successor Levantine Neolithic populations carried haplogroup E, of likely ultimate African origin, which has not been detected in other ancient males from West Eurasia (Supplementary Information, section 6) 7,8.”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“The Chalcolithic people of western Iran can be modelled as a mixture of the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers (CHG), consistent with their position in the PCA (Fig. 1b).”
From Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East (2016) · cites this paper as [7]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn the citing paper
“The refined model shows that the arrival of the first farmers during the Early Neolithic from the Near East was followed by a massive migration from the Eurasian Steppe ~4500 ya involving people from the Yamnaya culture [31].”
From Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam’s razor (2016) · cites this paper as [31]
In the citing paper
“The genetic impact of the Yamnaya migration is strikingly illustrated by the transition in European Y-chromosomal haplogroups from a predominance of G2a beforehand to R1a and R1b afterwards [31]”
From Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam’s razor (2016) · cites this paper as [31]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Haak, W., Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Rohland, N., Mallick, S., Llamas, B., Brandt, G., Nordenfelt, S., Harney, E., Stewardson, K., Fu, Q., Mittnik, A., Bánffy, E., Economou, C., Francken, M., Friederich, S., Pena, R. G., Hallgren, F., Khartanovich, V., Khokhlov, A., Kunst, M., Kuznetsov, P., Meller, H., Mochalov, O., Moiseyev, V., Nicklisch, N., Pichler, S. L., Risch, R., Rojo Guerra, M. A., Roth, C., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., Wahl, J., Meyer, M., Krause, J., Brown, D., Anthony, D., Cooper, A., Alt, K. W., & Reich, D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
- Broad Institute (US)
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
- University of Tübingen (DE)
- ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities (HU)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (DE)
- Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Abteilung Madrid (ES)
- Peter the Great's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (RU)
- Danube Private University (AT)
- University of Basel (CH)
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Hartwick College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reich, David
- ORCID
- Haak, Wolfgang
- Lazaridis, Iosif
- Patterson, Nick
- Rohland, Nadin
- Mallick, Swapan
- Llamas, Bastien
- Brandt, Guido
- Fu, Qiaomei
- Mittnik, Alissa
- Bánffy, Eszter
- Francken, Michael
- Friederich, Susanne
- Hallgren, Fredrik
- Khokhlov, Aleksandr
- Kunst, Michael
- Kuznetsov, Pavel
- Meller, Harald
- Nicklisch, Nicole
- Pichler, Sandra L.
- Risch, Roberto
- Roth, Christina
- Wahl, Joachim
- Meyer, Matthias
- Krause, Johannes
- Brown, Dorcas
- Anthony, David
- Cooper, Alan
- Alt, Kurt Werner
- Reich, David
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2015-03-02
- Volume
- 522
- Issue
- 7555
- Pages
- 207-211
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC5048219
- OpenAlex
- W2050876420
- Cited by
- 1,940
- References
- 85
- Citations by year
- 2026: 116 · 2025: 201 · 2024: 175 · 2023: 173 · 2022: 191 · 2021: 186 · 2020: 203 · 2019: 223 · 2018: 153 · 2017: 161 · 2016: 111 · 2015: 41
- FWCI
- 106.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1032255)
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Al 287/10-1, 287/7-1, Al 287-7-1, /14-1, Me 3245/1-1)
- National Institutes of Health
- Australian Research Council (DP130102158)
- National Human Genome Research Institute (R01HG006399)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM100233, R01GM100233)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Forensic and Genetic Research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Linguistics and language evolution
- Keywords
- Indo-European origins, Eurasian steppe, ancient DNA, early farmers, hunter-gatherers, Bronze Age, population admixture, genetic ancestry, target enrichment sequencing, European prehistory, origin of language, Y-chromosome haplogroups, mtDNA haplogroups, Bronze Age collapse
- MeSH terms
- Cultural Evolution, Europe, Humans, Language, Male, Polymorphism, Genetic, Population Dynamics, Russia, Genome, Human, History, Ancient, Human Migration, Grassland
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