Palermo Trapani
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Aren't you doing what Davidski is doing, but in the opposite direction?
PIE is the greatest language family in the history of the world. Discovering its urheimat would be one of the most important findings in the history of archeology.
Enter_tain: My quick take on this, which is in line with what Angela wrote, is how the academics conduct research. So lets take Prof. Reich for example who is an expert in Ancient DNA. You read the extant literature from various fields (Archeology, Anthropology) and the Genetics field to understand what has been empirically documented and you formulate a testable hypothesis and then find the Data (in this case Ancient Genomes) to test it. I am looking at an article in 2000 from the Archeological Institute of American Archeology (July/August edition, US $ 4.95). On the cover is a statement "Exclusive Provocative New Theory: Fate of the Neanderthals" An article by the Portuguese Archeologist Joao Zilhao proposed that Neanderthals and early Homo Sapiens admixed. He based this on some of the morphological and phenotypes in modern Europeans that he argued could only have come from Neanderthals who adapted to Eurasian climates well before the arrival of Homo Sapiens.
Paabo and Reich himself, as he writes in his book Who we Are and how we got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past (2018) did not believe that early Homo Sapiens in Europe and Neanderthals admixed. But when the technology was available to sequence the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Reich who was involved in that project saw the evidence supporting what the Archeologist were saying 10 years before, if not earlier. So Reich in his book was like well is this true and as he states (I am paraphrasing), the Neanderthal admixture (and then Denisovan as well) with Homo Sapiens in Eurasia has been found in every study since the original one in 2010. So did Reich, who held to a theory that no such admixture likely happened prior to 2010, once the evidence was clear that it did happen, he had to acknowledge what the DNA evidence suggested.
Regarding this notion of the Steppe and Indo European languages. I think Reich as a Scientist is interested in the question, just as he was in the formation of Modern Indians, modern Europeans, etc, etc. That is what he does. He looks at what research has been done based on ancient DNA. If there is no ancient DNA from a specific time period, then what the archeologist and linguist say and from that you formulate testable hypotheses. Then as you find DNA samples or you are able to extract DNA to test the hypotheses, you then document what you find even if it maybe did not confirm what you thought ex ante. That is what a qualified reputable academic scholar does. You don't fudge the results to either confirm or reject your ex ante predictions.
In the case of some of the Genetics blogsphere. Papers that do not support views of the owner of the blog or site are dismissed and rejected out of hand. Professor Reich in my view will analyze the data and wherever the data suggest is the PIE homeland, that is what he will report. Because once the Genomes are available for other researchers, if he and his team do not report accurately what they have found and the interpretations from the DNA evidence are nonsensical, some other research team of Geneticist, archeologist and Linguist will call them out.
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