Editing Proto-Indo-Europeans (section)

=====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}}