Editing Proto-Indo-Europeans (section)

====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}}