Before Yamnaya - Origins of the Proto-Indo-Europeans

Those who mastered this step, who broke the first horse, whose seed sprouted the languages of Europe, Iran, and India, who chased the rising and the setting of the sun, we do not know what they called themselves, though their nobles were called Arios. We know them best today as the Yamnaya, or otherwise the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Within the last few decades a consensus has developed that the language was spread into Europe and Asia by the Yamnaya, a people dwelling in the steppe of what is now Ukraine and Russia around 3200 BC. Yet their own origins and the origins of the language that they spoke have remained a point of contention. New genetic and archaeological studies have come together to provide a comprehensive answer, one which explains the exact root of the language and culture which would spread not only into Europe, but south into Anatolia, giving rise to the language of the Hittites and the Luwians. So who were the first people to speak Proto-Indo-European? Hi friends, I'm Kevin MacLean. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe, and consider supporting me on Patreon, PayPal, or through YouTube Super Stickers. Your direct support helps me to continue to make content like this, and gives you access to exclusive material that's only available to clan members. Thank you all for your support. A theory of the steppe-pastoral origins of Proto-Indo-European was first made by the German philologist Otto Schrader in a paper on Indo-European linguistics in 1883, which argued that many of the most abundant and common Indo-European words seem to place it within a steppe-pastoral environment. This theory was later taken up and finally systematized and more widely popularized in 1956 by the Lithuanian archaeologist Maria Gimbutas in her work on the Kuragan hypothesis, which argued that the origin of language group lay with patriarchal steppe-pastoralists associated with the creation of Kuragan mounds. More recently, David Anthony's 2007 work, The Horse, Wheel, and Language, How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppe Shaped the Modern World, revised and greatly improved upon her theory, but still primarily relying on the tools of archaeology and linguistics. However, since then, genetic study after genetic study has proved this theory correct. The Yamnaya-associated groups spread west, forming the Corded Ware culture, south into the Balkans bringing the progenitor of the Greek language, east forming the Abashevo culture, and across the Caucasus establishing the origins of the Armenian language. Yet one ancient group known to be linguistically connected to Indo-European remained unsatisfactorily explained, the Anatolian branch which includes Hittite and Luwian. The Hittite language has been a thorn in the side of the steppe theory of Indo-European since the beginning of the identification of Yamnaya steppe ancestry and the genetic testing of ancient Hittite remains. The Hittites and the Luwians spoke a language definitely connected to a very early stage of Indo-European, a stage sometimes called Indo-Anatolian, but they did not have Yamnaya ancestry. Its absence led to a series of counterclaims about the real origins of the Indo-European language. Now, however, a key to this mystery has been revealed. A study first published in January of 2025 by Josef Lazaridis, David Anthony, Nick Patterson, and many other heavyweights in the field titled The Genetic Origins of the Indo-Europeans believes to have isolated the primary direct ancestral group of not only the Yamnaya but the entire Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Indo-Anatolian language group. Around 8000 BC there were people coming from the north along the Volga river, eastern hunter-gatherers who were largely descendants of the ancient north Eurasians mixed with some western hunter-gatherers. They were beginning to expand southwards from their forested regions in the north and move into the steppe. They did this in part following the course of the Volga and other rivers upon which they depended not only for water but for fishing. They may have also used small boats for transportation. Some of these eastern hunter-gatherers would travel as far down the Volga as its mouth opening into the Caspian Sea. There they would run into another population who were expanding north, the Caucasus hunter-gatherers. Perhaps around a similar time frame, the Caucasus hunter-gatherers were expanding north along the western coast of the Caspian Sea and through the region known as the Miotian Swamp. They were a unique genetic group which originated around the Caucasus, maintaining relative isolation from other populations for possibly tens of thousands of years. They had brown eyes and brown or black hair but a medium to fair complexion, probably lighter than the eastern hunter-gatherers. Caucasus hunter-gatherers had cultural groups to the south in what is now Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. As early as 10,000 BC, the Triletian Mesolithic culture created unique microliths and had a fondness for obsidian, the alluring black stone. The remains of one of the Triletian people discovered in the Tsetserblia Cave in Georgia, dated to around 7,000 BC, was found to genetically group within the Caucasus hunter-gatherer cluster. They appear to have been influenced by the Tsarsian culture in Iran, producing very similar microliths, and they may have also had contacts with groups in Anatolia, those who built the Unfortunately, no burials survive from the Triletian culture, while the subsequent culture in the same region, almost certainly initiated by the same population, the Shuvaleri-Shomu culture, at the site of Massus Blur near Yerevan, Armenia, around 6,200 BC, shows features which are extremely important. They are buried with their knees bent, covered in red ochre. The origins of this custom in the region are not entirely clear, but around the same time, nearly all the Caucasus hunter-gatherer cultures adopted this particular burial custom. However, it is possible that this custom originated in Anatolia. Burials at Katalhoyuk show frequent, though not universal, use of red ochre on the dead, and some were likewise buried with their knees bent. By 7,000 BC, these Caucasus hunter-gatherers were expanding north into the steppe, almost contemporary with the southward movement of the eastern hunter-gatherers. The area where these two people met developed into the Seroglazovka culture. Later genetic evidence from the region shows a mixed population. Y-male haplogroups like R1b and I2, ascribed to eastern hunter-gatherers, were the most typical, but Q1a and J also appear, perhaps showing an inclusion of some male lineages from Caucasus hunter-gatherers. They lived in shallow pit houses, semi-subterranean with central hearths for the benefit of heat retention in the winter, structures similar to in the north. But unlike cultures to their north, by at least 5,500 BC, they were burying their dead on their sides, with their knees couched and their bodies covered in red ochre. The burial custom, as well as their creation of ceramics and lithics, clearly show an influence from the south. The Seroglazovka culture represents an early fusion of Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry with an eastern hunter-gatherer culture. Y-male haplogroups from the eastern hunter-gatherers in the north appear dominant, but the cultural forms of the society appear to be more directly influenced from the south. At nearly the same time, a group further north on the Volga, known as the Elshanka culture, begins creating a very similar style of pottery. In fact, they hold the honor of having the oldest dated pottery in all of Europe. This is likely survival bias. Elshanka and Seroglazovka pottery is effectively contemporary, and more than likely represents the flow of technology from south to north, along the Caspian Sea and then up the Volga. However, their grave custom was completely different. Soon, however, populations from the south Volga would move north. The Elshanka culture was replaced by the middle Volga and then the Samara culture, which adopted the burial customs of the south with some innovations. Those who were to be buried with bent knees would now be placed on their backs, not their sides, but they would still be covered in red ochre. And when dealing with these periods, it's easy to throw around numbers like 7000 BC to 5000 BC without fully comprehending the implications. That is roughly the same time that has passed between the rise of the Roman Empire to the present day. We're dealing with massive timescales here that could influence the language and culture of a group in dramatic ways that is hard to fathom. But things did change more slowly in the ancient world, because the technological forms that shaped the society remained relatively static. But things were changing. They were becoming increasingly pastoral and agricultural. They were developing a deep reverence for the horse, which can be seen by some of the early artworks of the Samara culture. Moreover, they were changing genetically and linguistically. The fusion of Caucasus hunter-gatherers and eastern hunter-gatherers on the lower Volga created a genetically distinct population, which we can identify as Berezhnovka, related to the area around the village of Berezhnovka. They dwelt on the northern regions of the lower Volga, extending towards the north Caucasus as part of a genetic cline between the two places. And they had established their own culture and would have had their own language, possibly with dialects of various intelligibility between the Caucasus and the middle Volga. The spread of their ancestry north was responsible for the cultural changes there, but would also be having a linguistic impact as well. By around 4600 BC, Berezhnovka ancestry already amounted to around 25% of the ancestry as far north as Samara. While to the south, in Hovalinsk, there were three separate clusters, one with around 77% Berezhnovka ancestry, another with 57%, and another with 41%. And sometimes these burials were actually kept separate, perhaps denoting an ethnic distinction being made. The cultural changes that took place in the Samara Hovalinsk culture was initiated by this incoming population, which would have also changed the linguistic dynamic. In a presentation I did in 2023, I was more skeptical of this. However, when considering the entire course of cultural evolution, several thousand years of forming a distinct population in the lower Volga and north Caucasus region, with a clear cultural and genetic link to both south and north, and the dynamics of the demographic flow revealed through more recent tests, the haplogroups alone are not enough to demonstrate that this language was predominantly descended from the eastern hunter-gatherers. But even if it was 2000 or more years ago, the chances that it would have still been mutually intelligible seems very slim. Haplogroups alone, over time, are not enough to demonstrate that a language was predominantly descended from one or another group. For a contemporary example, the Basque people overwhelmingly carry R1b, but their ancestral language is one of the only surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Europe. The Hovalinsk culture may not have been a completely unified ethno-linguistic group, but a zone in flux, with its north having a character distinct from its south, a trading and mating network along the river, within which there were many shared similarities but also differences. Hovalinsk was not likely the cultural or linguistic heartland, and the implies that Berezhnovka and regions to the south were the more influential demographically. Certainly, it was the Berezhnovka group who were expanding, and not only to the north. Beyond the region generally ascribed to the Hovalinsk culture, south of the Volga band, north of the Manekh depression, is a village called Remontnoye. Genetic samples from this area, dating to around 4000 BC, show them to have been a near-equal mix of Berezhnovka ancestry and North Caucasus Maikop, but with Y-Haplogroups overwhelmingly associated with Berezhnovka, suggesting a female-heavy Maikop admixture. Further south, beyond the Mayotian swamp, were, as of 4000 BC, the progenitors of the Maikop culture, which would rise to become an important force around 3700. Maikop samples show an approximate one-seventh Berezhnovka-like ancestry, and importantly, Berezhnovka, Remontnoye, and Maikop all participated in the Kurgan tradition, which the Yamnaya would later expand. This Berezhnovka population appears as the northern tip of the Caucasus to Lower Volga genetic cline. It is highly likely that the Proto-Indo-European language group spoken over much of the world today was born from a cultural and genetic fusion of north and south over several thousand years between the banks of the Volga and the Mayotian swamp. It's a very strange thing that the medieval Gaels placed their own origins in exactly this place. So, when populations from the Lower Volga, similar genetically to those from Remontnoye, began moving further west towards the Dnieper around 4700 BC, it led to a mix with a Ukrainian Neolithic hunter-gatherer population, whose culture dwelt near the Dnieper rapids, and European farmers from the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture. The Sredni Stog, its core having emerged from this region, must have spoken a language ancestral to Proto-Indo-European, because it was from the easternmost and most homogenous grouping of the Sredni Stog that the Yamnaya would emerge as a distinct culture around a thousand years later. The Sredni Stog expanded west across the Dnieper and was in constant contact with the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in what is now western Ukraine and Moldova, and they may have spread partially into the Balkans as well. Like their Lower Volga progenitors, Sredni Stog built temporary villages along the rivers and sometimes constructed shallow subterranean homes. They hunted, but they also kept herds of goats, sheep, cattle, and importantly, horses. They ornamented their pottery with twisted and braided cords, a technique which was later carried on by the Indo-European Corded Ware culture to the west. They likewise had some copper tools. They did not use crurigans for their dead however, but they did lay them to rest on their backs with their knees bent and frequently covered with red ochre, features that were common with the Lower and Middle Volga at the same time. They are thought to have had a fair to medium complexion, variable hair and eye colors, and were taller and more powerful than most other groups. They likewise carried a high percentage of the haplogroup R1a. The Yamnaya, whose ethnogenesis took place within the eastern regions of the Dnieper-Don steppe around 4000 BC, were in close contact with the Hovalinsk and Sredni Stog, representing a westward movement of populations just south of the Berezhnovka area. Unlike the Sredni Stog, but in keeping with the Berezhnovka, Remotnoye, and Maykop, they built crurigans. Yet like the Sredni Stog, the Yamnaya would adapt an expansionist and highly mobile culture, which would prove to be one of the most dynamic and impactful in world history. The Yamnaya were far more homogeneous than the Sredni Stog however, and were much closer genetically and culturally to their Caucasus Volga progenitors, falling about in the middle between Berezhnovka and Remotnoye. They are estimated to be around 74% Sredni Stog, with an additional 26% admixture corresponding to populations which lived between Rostov and Remotnoye, reinforcing the idea that this region was the origin point for the language group. Yamnaya-related groups would spread into the Balkans, bringing the Proto-Indo-European language, and they would also spread south into the Caucasus, the origin of the Armenian language, and some branch of them travelled deep into Asia, seeking the sunrise, and ending up in what is now Mongolia, China, and Eastern Russia. When Yamnaya elements spread west, they mixed with earlier European farmers, creating the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures, who would then spread the language group across all of Europe. Yet neither the Yamnaya nor the Sredni Stog seem to best explain the origins of Hittite. While theories about the Sredni Stog spreading into the Danube and bringing an archaic form of Proto-Indo-European are plausible, their ancestry is not found in Anatolia. On the other hand, Berezhnovka admixture has now been found. The Hittites formed one of the major West Asian civilizations of the Bronze Age, and their language, along with the nearby Luwian language, was related to Indo-European. However, no trace of Yamnaya ancestry had been found in Bronze Age Anatolian samples, and particularities of the language group make it impossible to have been derived directly from Yamnaya. The key piece of the puzzle seems to be the population group that stretched between the Lower Volga and the North Caucasus prior to the rise of the Yamnaya, believed to be the location where the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European language developed over many thousands of years. Around 4000 BC, their ancestry has been found as far west as Hungary, but it has also been identified south of the Caucasus. A genetic sample from Armenia dated to around the same period showed a 27% Lower Volga admixture. This isn't the same as the later Yamnaya admixture, which would serve as a progenitor to the Armenian language, it is earlier and genetically distinct from Yamnaya. Central Anatolians from the Early Bronze Age to the Hittite Period show either an 11% Berezhnovka or a 19% Remontnoye admixture. In addition to this, individuals from Arslantepe dated to between 3300 and 2500 have been found which carry RV163, which was, before the rise of the Yamnaya, a prominent steppe lineage. This provides a very strong case for the people dwelling on the Lower Volga being the origin point not only for the Indo-European language, but the Indo-Anatolian languages. The Hittite language would rise along with their political success, but vanish along with their empire, reflecting their minority position. The Luwians would linger on longer, but be absorbed into the Greek linguistic sphere. Proto-Indo-European came about over thousands of years. Such language formation requires geographic concentration, an ethno-cultural zone in which it develops and evolves. That zone was from the Middle Volga to the North Caucasus steppe, where Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers fused and created an entirely new people, culture and language. In that development, the Eastern hunter-gatherers likely contributed more linguistically. However, when these groups from the North came together with those from the South, they knit together linguistic and cultural elements of both. Red ochre burials, the Kuragan, the religious views and maybe even some of the stories which in fragmented ways have survived into the present. Between 3700 and 3350, the Yamnaya would experience extremely high population growth, going from an estimated population in the tens of thousands to a population of between 200,000 and 400,000. The global population at the time is thought to have been around 14 million, and the European total was around 4 million. The Proto-Indo-Europeans represented at the time of their expansion, one of the largest unified linguistic groups in the world, and certainly the largest unified linguistic group in all of Europe. This would have given them a cultural and linguistic advantage, which greatly added in the spread of the language group. I hope you liked this video, and if you did, please like, share and subscribe. Consider supporting the channel on Patreon, PayPal, or through YouTube SuperStickers, or become a member of the channel. I post member-exclusive content, and add free content for members on Patreon or on YouTube. Thank you all for your support, and as always, Stand Tall.