[Updated 08.28.22]
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but the Harvard lab provides none.
David Reich & co of Harvard University’s genetics lab are now claiming that the Proto-Indo-European homeland was in the Middle East / West Asia. Expect sensationalist news stories reporting this half-baked theory as fact very soon.
Their new study claims the ancient Anatolian languages were not Indo-European, but that the ancient Anatolian and Indo-European languages are “twin daughters of a Proto-Indo-Anatolian language,” which originated around the Caucasus among Caucasian Hunter-Gatherers. Note the conspicuous removal of “European” from the new moniker.
“the link connecting the Proto-Indo-European–speaking Yamnaya with the speakers of Anatolian languages was in the highlands of West Asia, the ancestral region shared by both.”
— https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4247
“the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.”
— https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2022/09/the-genetic-history-of-the-southern-arc-a-bridge-between-west-asia-and-europe
Their argument
Their argument is as follows:
- Proto-Indo-European ancestry has not yet been discovered in ancient Anatolia [untrue, by the way].
- Proto-Indo-Europeans and ancient Anatolians both had Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry, therefore…
- Proto-Indo-European languages originated in the Caucasus among Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and spread to Europe and Anatolia via separate migrations.
They also bizarrely claimed that the Yamnaya had some Levantine ancestry that nobody has ever found before, including them.
Plot holes
There are some major plot holes in their argument…
Linguistic:
- They seem to have completely ignored all linguistic evidence. For example, PIE language shows that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were not familiar with agriculture, which was common throughout the Harvard-proposed West Asian homeland of “Indo-Anatolian.”
- Most Indo-European Anatolian languages were found in the West of Anatolia, the opposite side to the proposed entry point of “Indo-Anatolian.”
- For some reason, “Indo-Anatolian” (Indo-European) languages did not survive in their own homeland, but the Caucasian languages (e.g. Kartvelian) did.
- There is a complete lack of Indo-European languages in the Middle East until Bronze Age Yamnaya-related migrants arrive, which we know because ancient Middle Eastern civilizations were literate.
- People with the most CHG ancestry today (Georgians) speak Caucasian languages, not Indo-European languages.
- Both the Mycenaeans and Minoans had additional Caucasian-related and supposedly “Indo-Anatolian”-speaking ancestry but only the Mycenaeans, who also had PIE steppe ancestry, spoke an Indo-European language.
- Caucasian influence on the steppe predates the (real) Proto-Anatolian language by 2000-3000 years. We know this because Caucasian ancestry in PIE comes from a source with 100% Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry, but by the Eneolithic (5000-6000 BC), all Caucasian populations had significant additional admixture from Neolithic Anatolians and Iranians.
- PIE culture was extremely patriarchal and the only West Asian ancestry in confirmed PIE peoples (Sredny Stog, Yamnaya, Corded Ware, etc.) came from female Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers. Did these bride-kidnapped women really impose their language on Eastern European Hunter-Gatherer men?
Archaeological:
- PIE expansions into the European Balkans align perfectly with the proposed date of the (real) Proto-Anatolian language, 3000-4000 BC:
— 4500-4100 BC, Suvorovo Culture in Ukraine & Romania
— 4000-3200 BC, Cernavoda Culture in Romania & Bulgaria
— 3300-2700 BC, Ezero Culture in Bulgaria with affinities to Troy I (Early Bronze Age) in Northwestern Anatolia - There is no evidence of Indo-European culture south of the Caucasus before PIE-type genetics arose in Europe during the Eneolithic (5000-6000 BC).
Genetic:
- Harvard Lab only published a handful of samples from Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age, the most obvious entry point for Indo-European peoples. This is by no means a representative sample size.
- Their method of “proving” the lack of PIE ancestry in Anatolia was a terrible four-way admixture model that used Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers as a source instead of Yamnaya.
- They should have used an admixed Yamnaya + Early European Farmer sample from the Balkans, which would accurately represent the genetic makeup of Proto-Anatolians.
- It takes 7 generations (150-200 years) of ethnic/racial intermixing for autosomal DNA to get “washed out” to less than 1%. So, if Indo-European languages were spread in Anatolia via elite conquest, rather than mass migration, PIE ancestry could have been diluted pretty quickly, while the language and culture remained.
- That being said, clear PIE ancestry has been found in a Bronze Age sample from Kaman-Kalehöyük, which was not mentioned in the study. Moreover, low amounts of EHG ancestry was detected in Anatolia in this study.
- Haplogroup I2a1b1a2 was found in Bronze Age Western Anatolia. This haplogroup was common among Bulgarian Yamnaya and the aforementioned Ezero culture, situated on the doorstep of Anatolia. Fascinatingly, the study also neglected to mention this fact.
Conclusions?
So, what do we think, folks? Genuine theory or more stereotypical anti-White propaganda? Maybe they’re trying to compensate for accidentally fueling the rise of White identity when they discovered that the Proto-Indo-Europeans came from Eastern Europe and were most genetically similar to modern Northern Europeans? After all, David Reich has repeatedly said the purpose of his genetics work is to encourage immigration and race-mixing. See, for example, his 2018 interview in The Atlantic:
“if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world. You have to be more open to immigration. You have to be more open to the mixing of different peoples. That’s your own history.”
— https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/
If you have anything to add to this deb00nking, post it in the comments.
UPDATE: Genetic models using data from the study show obvious Yamnaya-related ancestry in Northwest Anatolia [08.22.28]
Someone processed the data from the study, so I made some quick admixture models using Vahaduo. Here are the source coordinates, if you want to test them out: https://pastebin.com/gpPSFEqK.
These models clearly demonstrate that the samples from Northwest Anatolia (where the Proto-Indo-European derived I2a haplogroup was found) all have obvious Proto-Indo-European or “Yamnaya-related” ancestry. This is the case when using both “deep” ancestry sources (as was done in the recent Harvard Lab paper) or more contemporaneous ancestry sources.
So, why on earth did the Harvard Lab not publish an admixture model using a Yamnaya-related sample? Because doing so would prove that these Northwest Anatolians had Yamnaya-related ancestry? This is bad science verging on academic fraud. How did this get past ~100 authors and a peer review team without being corrected?
Note: The Northwest Anatolian samples are dated to 2000 BC, 2800 BC, and 3000 BC. Recent Mycenaean Greek samples, dated 1000 to 1500 BC, have been included for comparison.
Models
A deep ancestry model without Yamnaya shows very low levels of EHG in these Northwest Anatolian samples, around 1%, which can be written off as a statistical error:
But when Yamnaya_Samara is included in the same model, it shows ~3-5% ancestry in Anatolians:
Using more proximal and contemporaneous ancestry sources, e.g. Bulgarian Yamnaya, shows slightly more Yamnaya-related ancestry in Northwest Anatolians, ~5-9%:
For reference, deep ancestry compositions of the “contemporaneous ancestry sources”:
Thuletide 
This is why genetics alone is insufficient for the study of this subject. Any one area alone can’t create the whole picture. People take one strand of facts and run with a story. This exactly how the out of India idiocy got going.
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This is why genetics alone is insufficient for the study of this subject. Any one area alone can’t create the whole picture.
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This was part of 3 papers, all having some odd models and coming to peculair conclusions (although the Neolithic ones are more or less on point).
I think the use of CHG ( a population of mostly Iran_N ancestry with some Pinrabasi and EHG) over Iran_N “hid” some of the EHG since Anatolia since the Neolithic had some Iran_N admixture (especially in the southern and eastern parts) and using CHG and EHG instead of Iran_N naturally deflates the latter.
In another of their papers published today, the presence of Iran_N alongside CHG is more emphasized so I am quite confused about where they are going with this…
Now unto their main premise, the West Asian origin of PIE, it sounds forced to me on both archaeological (some of those you already mentioned) and genetic grounds, I’ll only add a bit on the genetics, their arguments seems to rest on that second West Asian pulse. Nobody has found Levantine ancestry in Yamnaya before although they do seem to have about 10% ANF-related admixture. Imo, this most likely came from nearby European farmers who ofc were also partly WHG. And since Mathieson (2015) we know that some Yamnaya carried WHG-derived I2 lineages so their argument that there’s no WHG but Levant_N is very odd. Of course, what they imply is that Yamnaya have Caucasus Chalcolithic or related ancestry.
Again, Wang (2019) didn’t get a good fit with Maykop in Yamnaya although you can make most models fit in qpAdm if you use related populations. This paper appears to have used a new method f4admix I am not really familiar with so perhaps their models are correct after all -even though I strongly doubt it- but even if that’s the case I don’t think anything else supports their argument. Hard to imagine the strongly patrilocal Yamnaya got their language from a 25% Caucasus_Ln-like admixture with no associated male haplogroup appearing…
There’s more to be said about their Anatolian models, one of the weirdest papers by the Reich lab so far…
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Yeah, Reich has been talking about this theory ever since his book came out in 2016. This biggest problem is that for Bronze/Iron Age Anatolia, the further east you go, the less Indo-European it gets. The only potentially worthwhile element to the idea of a CHG origin for Proto Indo-European is Eupedia’s theory based on y-DNA phylogeny that Yamnaya, Corded Ware, etc. R1B is CHG in origin as the little R1B found among EHG is very phylogenetically distinct from Kurgan culture era R1B as well as the argument that phylogenetically R1B has it’s greatest diversity in East Anatolia/Zagros mountains region.
https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml#R1b-subclades
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This is a gigantic risk for David Reich and Iosif Lazaridis, two of the most imminent geneticists in the world, all for the minuscule gain of saying PIE originated in West Asia. The average normie doesn’t give two shits about population genetics for this to amount to much. This isn’t even a drop in the bucket, it’s a drop in the ocean. That’s the gain from purposefully lying about this. And the risk? They’re risking their names all for the sake of some theory they *know* will turn out to be bullshit, if we think they’re purposefully lying. I can’t imagine them going with this if they know they’ll eventually be shown to be wrong. As Reich himself says, you shouldn’t dig yourself into an indefensible position that won’t survive the onslaught of science. The reputational risk would be too great for him.
MSM (like CNN, NBC, ABC, and others), aren’t even reporting on it. Now, that might be because the paper is very recent, but I bet even if they do, the readership for these articles will be very small.
TL;DR: I don’t think Reich and Lazaridis published this paper with the intention of promoting the globalist agenda, because it would be too much of a personal and repetitional risk for them, and definitely not worth the gain.
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What do you think @Thuletide?
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The average normie isn’t who counts, it’s the people in media and academia that define the narratives that eventually brainwash the average normie. And these people do pay attention to population genetics.
We’ve seen how the publicl repsonded to the ridiculous claim that WHG were “Black,” which also originated with Harvard-lab affiliated scientists and their useless HIRISPLEX model — “But how can you reject immigrants if the first Europeans were Black?!” is used by globalists/leftists throughout Europe. And, a variation of the same argument is used by David Reich.
I don’t think that these scientists *know* that their theory is bullshit, I think they genuinely want it to be true. You always have to remember that these academics, like all academics, are “diversity” obsessed libtards. So, they will always look for non-European origins for things, even if they aren’t doing it to be intentionally malevolent or deceptive.
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*gigantic risk, if they were in fact lying
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Never really understood this desire by some on the right to be associated with Yamnaya given how they are actually the reason Western Europe isn’t totally Nordic in phenotype. Or perhaps I am mistaken and Yamnaya brought the genes for Nordic features like light eyes and light hair into Europe? Always thought it was Western Hunter Gatherers who first developed the genes for this phenotype.
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Yes, you are wrong. Western Europe was not Nordic at all before they arrived. Hair and eye phenotypes over time in Denmark from a recent study:
Western Hunter-Gatherers had mostly blue eyes and mostly black hair. Early European Farmers had some blue eyes and rare blond hair. Indo-Europeans in Middle Bronze Age had similar blondism to northern Europe today, but Early Bronze Age IE with 100% “steppe” (Yamnaya-type) ancestry had mostly brown hair and eyes.
Both Indo-Europeans and European Farmers carried genes for blondism and blue eyes, but they didn’t have the very high frequencies of both seen in Europe today.
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Reich grew up as part of a Jewish family in Washington, D.C. His parents are novelist Tova Reich (sister of Rabbi Avi Weiss) and Walter Reich, a professor at George Washington University, who served as the first director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[6][7] David Reich started out as a sociology major as an undergraduate at Harvard College, but later turned his attention to physics and medicine. After graduation, he attended the University of Oxford, originally with the intent of preparing for medical school.[6] He was awarded a PhD in zoology in 1999 for research supervised by David Goldstein. His thesis was titled “Genetic analysis of human evolutionary history with implications for gene mapping”.[2]
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Hi,
I’m curious, as a leader of a movement, or at the very least a subsection of a movement, why are you still anonymous. Is it for your job?
It’s honestly not a good look to stay anonymous. Very frankly speaking, it implies sacredness and weakness.
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Scaredness*
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I don’t lead anything, I post stuff on a blog and on telegram.
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“Just dox yourself, pussy!” Could you be any more obvious?
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Check this study out which might help debunk the methods used by Reich et. al. who over interpret their findings and fabricate evidence for their political motives: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/066431v3
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Wasn’t David Reich concerned that his research actually confirmed what the Nationalsocialists wrote about racial origins? And his German associates pulled out because of that?
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yes that is correct. they havent retracted their findings because they were 100% true, currently they are just trying to wedge another theory in front of that theory that implies PIE *really* came from west asia. I suspect it’s a way to undercut their old “nazi” discovery
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what should I study so I can understand this stuff?
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can you be more specific? which part do you not understand?
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origins of human populations, how to understand these studies.
Seems like a lot of work, but maybe I will find it interesting
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Can I get your take on this diagram:
My surprise was that many of those living in Palestine have Levent ancestry.
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Palestine is in the Levant, why would you be surprised by that?
The top half of the diagram is correct, but the bottom half is retarded and disproved by the top half. Jews are half Levantine half European, which you can clearly see on the top right PCA – they are in between Europe and the Levant and nowhere near related to Iranians.
I explained their ancestry here:
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Hi Thule,
Random comment but just wanted to mention:
– Has the last 80 years of Racial Self Hatred harmed Europeans will to achieve or was our enlightenment atomized individualism inevitably going to lose to Asians collectivist Confucius culture based on hard work???
– Did you know that working class Whites in UK actually do worse than working class Blacks in school???
~Btw so I’m not too sure about the whole Race & IQ thing since Nigerians do better than Asians in America. The UK also has many Nigerian doctors from what I hear. They key takeaway is that all those groups have strong racial identity & family-orientated culture.
– Can Whites even have a strong work ethic & family honour culture *without* a racial identity in order to compete with all the other groups or are the two simply joint at the hip?
~Even specific ethnic groups such as the Irish or Italians don’t have the same family culture as Asians do. Their entire identity is muh pizza and paddy’s day. It’s just not meaningful.
One of the most saddening black pills is that classical music has been taken from Europeans for the last 200 years.
First, Jews become the overwhelming majority of acclaimed violinists in the 1800s now Asians are winning 70% of classical music competitions in the US. It’s not even ours anymore…
The Alt Right pisses me off with the whole muh farms bullcrap we need to be Ivy educated & wealthy or else the new influx of hard-working East Asians & Indians will be our demise…
Running away to the country won’t change your civilisation.
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Been seeing this narrative that the Mycenaean Greeks were not Aryan recently. It’s popped up in English-language Greek newspapers like here: https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/15/ancient-dna-proves-griffin-warrior-greek/ redirecting to this article: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2022/08/uc-analysis-shows-griffin-warrior-ruled-his-homeland.html
“When we look at the rise of the Mycenaean civilization, ancient DNA supports the notion that it was a local phenomenon, not something imported from the outside.”
In context arguing against the idea that the Aryan invasion into Greece was a big deal, or in any way responsible for Mycenaeans because they found a king from the time period without steppe ancestry. Ignoring that the Myceneans wrote and spoke in an Indo-European language, ignoring the continuities found between Hellenic culture and other Aryan cultures.
Pretty nice bait-and-switch on the title there.
David “Reich” has something to say about this as well: https://iias.huji.ac.il/event/david-reich-lecture
“We provide insights into the Mycenaean period of the Aegean by documenting variation in the proportion of steppe ancestry (including some individuals who lack it altogether), and finding no evidence for systematic differences in steppe ancestry among social strata, such as those of the elite buried at the Palace of Nestor in Pylos.”
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