We are most likely of Yamnaya descent

[guy]

 

Recent DNA research shows that half of the [Central and Northern European] humans alive today are descended from a Steppe people known as Yamnaya, who lived in Ukraine 5,000 years ago.

Note: I think something must have been lost in translation. It is more likely that only 50% of Europeans, not the world population, are related to the Yamnaya. In Sardinia, for example, the penetration of Yamnaya DNA is rare (2.5-7.1%). Likewise, in Sicily, it is also less common (5.9-11.6%). Modern Italians typically have Yamnaya ancestry about 19-33% of the time.

It is believed that the Indo-European languages, used by 40% of the world’s population, may have originated from the Yamnaya people.
 

https://intent.press/en/amp/0/dna-study-reveals-half-of-today-s-population-descends-from-yamnaya-culture-in-ukraine/

 

https://www.science.org/content/article/who-first-spoke-indo-european-dna-points-eurasian-herders-6400-years-ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 10 by guy

[guy]

Below is the quote from the Wall Street Journal March 8, 2025 (p. 148):

 

The map above shows the % of Yamnaya ancestry:  Red is Yamnaya; white is other ancestry

Quote

 

For about half the people alive today, the story of where they came from just became clearer. For centuries, historians and linguists have been searching for the cradle of the Indo-Europeans, an ancient people who shaped history and created the world’s largest language family, now spoken by over 40% of humanity. Now research led by David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who specializes in the study of ancient populations, is making it possible to give a precise answer.
 

DNA detectives, including at Reich’s lab, analyzed DNA samples from the remains of around 450 prehistoric individuals taken from 100 sites in Europe, as well as data from 1,000 previously known ancient samples. In two papers published in the scientific journal Nature last month, the researchers combine genetic evidence with archaeology and linguistics to argue that sometime before 3000 B.C., a previously unknown people migrated from the Volga River to the Ukrainian steppe north of the Black Sea, where they mixed with a local population and formed the Yamnaya.

 

This quote was most interesting:

Quote

 

Shortly after the giant stone [Stonehenge] structure was completed around 2500 B.C., descendants of the Yamnaya steppe riders landed on Britain’s shores. Within years of their arrival, some 99% of the indigenous people disappeared, according to Reich’s analysis of DNA samples from the time. Stonehenge, an apogee of a vanquished culture that took centuries to complete, was turned into a garbage dump.

Traces of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes plague, were found in Yamnaya remains, suggesting that they may have developed immunity to the disease and carried it as an unintended “biological weapon” that decimated rival groups.

 

 

 

 

The Ancient Horsemen Who Created the Modern World - WSJ

Edited March 10 by guy

[caesar novus]

On 3/10/2025 at 4:54 AM, guy said:

Within years of their arrival, some 99% of the indigenous people disappeared, according to Reich’s analysis of DNA samples from the time.

I would like to see a similar analysis of the populating of the americas. In some cases the reverence of "first nations" is misplaced because they are hardly first, but a ruthless later wave that crushed the earlier.

[guidoLaMoto]

These genetic studies must always be taken with a grain of salt...They are obviously not random samples including large numbers of test subjects gathered over the whole geographical area, but usually small numbers from just one or two burial sites, sites probably being family/clan burial sites for obviously closely related individuals....It's just absurd to claim that 99% of a population was wiped out when you only deal with  a sample of a few dozen individuals out of a population with numbers in the thousands.

It would more honest to claim that "of our small sample, 99% were of new genotype and 1% were of the old." Throughout history, it's been more common for a vanquished population to be taken in as slaves and genetically melded into the population of the conquerors....

...and Caesar is quite right-- only Adam & Eve had no one else to push out of the way as they expanded their hunting grounds