David Reich Southern Arc Paper Abstract

I have another theory which is quite the opposite from the mainstream.

Firstly, there is little or no admixture going on. So, things like Yamnya being a mix of CHG/Iran_N and EHG is an incorrect way of looking at things. What is really happening is that there is divergence from a common dispersal point that gives rise to different groups like ANE (MA1, Botai etc), Anatolian, CHG, Iran_N etc. This dispersal point is either in Central Asia (Steppe DNA) or Northern South Asia.

If we look at Genetic Distance (F3) to South Asians for Steppe groups, we get



Below are the top 5 for ONG and Ror

1 ONG.SG Kazakhstan_Eneolithic_Botai Chimp.REF 217. 1.45 149. 62958
2 ONG.SG Russia_Late_Sarmatian.SG Chimp.REF 216. 1.34 162. 73724
3 ONG.SG Russia_HG_Karelia.SG Chimp.REF 215. 1.44 150. 63238
4 ONG.SG Tajikistan_C_Sarazm Chimp.REF 215. 1.46 147. 57720
5 ONG.SG Russia_Andronovo.SG Chimp.REF 214. 1.28 168. 77585

16 Ror Russia_Late_Sarmatian.SG Chimp.REF 226. 1.26 179. 74373
17 Ror Kazakhstan_Eneolithic_Botai Chimp.REF 226. 1.35 167. 64085
18 Ror Tajikistan_C_Sarazm Chimp.REF 226. 1.44 157. 58663
19 Ror Russia_HG_Karelia.SG Chimp.REF 226. 1.41 160. 64542
20 Ror Russia_MLBA_Sintashta Chimp.REF 225. 1.14 198. 86678

Checking for closeness to Ong is important because that rules out the possibility of Steppe Migrations mediating this genetic relationship. Its pretty obvious that the relationship between Steppe and South Asians is not mediated by supposed LBA Steppe Migration into South Asia, rather different groups are most close to South Asians (and ONG). This most likely reflects on-going South Asian genetic influence into Central Asia and the Steppe.

Also note that Steppe is much closer to South Asians than Iran_N or other farmers (Gonur, Hissar). This is interesting and is most likely due to the higher level of mixing between South Asians and Steppe (nomadic peoples moving around and mixing more) while the Iranian farmers had been isolated from this since much earlier times.

IE cannot easily be separated easily by any kind of genetic argument. Most likely alot of these peoples who are non-Indo European such as Semitic and Caucasian probably spoke an IE langauage at one time, but due to their earlier separation those languages have drifted sufficiently to be no longer grouped with the others, and losing all traces to their common IE origin. This makes sense because non-IE peoples like the Caucasians and Semites all originated via the same process (separating from the others via South-Central Asia) but they are just genetically more distant due to having separated earlier.

The known IE speakers, and the R1A lineages found outside India, all tend to me peoples who are closer to South Asians, but more importantly closer to Ong. Checking for closeness to Ong is important because that rules the possibility of Steppe Migrations mediating this genetic relationship. So, R1 and the most 'conservative' IE languages in Europe are those that have expanded last from Central Asia into Europe, hence their genetic and linguistic similarity to South Asians.

Lastly, MOST populations are being modelled as mixes ie Steppe and South Asians, are not actually mixes. Rather, those populations that these are supposedly mixed from actually originated from South Asians and Steppe. So, Steppe DNA has existed in some form for a long time, ANE is the Eastern drfit of Steppe, Anatolian is the Western drift, EHG North-Western, and Iran_N likely has something similar to Steppe DNA going into it from Central Asia.

PIE was first spoken in Italy in front of my house in 10000 BC.

eurasiadna said:

I have another theory which is quite the opposite from the mainstream.

Click to expand...

Just what was not needed: pseudo-linguistics and personal theories.

Er Monnezza said:

PIE was first spoken in Italy in front of my house in 10000 BC.

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You said "let’s be serious“ pal. Funny how serious it got lol.

Just_a_Common_Guy said:

1 - The Mycenaeans had less than 20% steppe ancestry, yet they were Indo-Europeans.

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I think they want to say this steppe ancestry has nothing to do with IE culture of Mycenaeans: "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."

Palermo Trapani said:

Is Proto Anatolian not the oldest PIE dialect/sub-branch yes or no. What is the oldest Pre-IE spoken in the steppes?

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There is no Sredny Stog was not PIE/IE. I can draw multiple paths for people from Sredny Stog reaching Anatolia, like Western Corded decorated Pottery into Cernavoda into North East Anatolia Troy, being the most commonly and by many experts accepted most likely pathway. Now explain to me how Sredny Stog can be non-IE - good luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredny_Stog_culture

Just_a_Common_Guy said:

1 - The Mycenaeans had less than 20% steppe ancestry, yet they were Indo-Europeans.
2 - Couldn't it have been the CHG/Iran_N women who introduced the archaic PIE into the steppe? I can see that you give little value to women.

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The Greeks were coming late to the party and mixed on multiple steps when migrating down. Even 10 % would be more than enough.

It is much easier to explain Anatolians, Proto-Greeks no problem at all, than explaining Sredny Stog away. There is no way around Sredny Stog.

Er Monnezza said:

PIE was first spoken in Italy in front of my house in 10000 BC.

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Good to know.

Moja said:

I think they want to say this steppe ancestry has nothing to do with IE culture of Mycenaeans: "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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"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" - Reich didn't mean to dismiss steppe ancestry in Proto-Greek origin by saying this, just that the dispersion of IE languages had nothing to do with elites. His ideas were clear: although the Indo-European languages originated in northern Iran, their dispersal across the rest of Eurasia was via the steppe (the only exceptions were the extinct IE languages of Anatolia, like Hittite, which came directly from northern Iran).

I have an idea why doesn't everyone not post unless they have a leak or wait to post until the paper is released?

David Reich Lab just dropped V52.2 (compilation of ancient and present-day individuals).

https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/allen...le-genotypes-present-day-and-ancient-dna-data

Nice. However, "[FONT=&quot]All data released here:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot](a) have already been published (some by our group and some by other groups - see full list of references below),[/FONT]

Riverman said:

There is no Sredny Stog was not PIE/IE. I can draw multiple paths for people from Sredny Stog reaching Anatolia, like Western Corded decorated Pottery into Cernavoda into North East Anatolia Troy, being the most commonly and by many experts accepted most likely pathway. Now explain to me how Sredny Stog can be non-IE - good luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredny_Stog_culture



The Greeks were coming late to the party and mixed on multiple steps when migrating down. Even 10 % would be more than enough.

It is much easier to explain Anatolians, Proto-Greeks no problem at all, than explaining Sredny Stog away. There is no way around Sredny Stog.

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Sredny Stog culture is in Ukraine and it is part of the Kurgan Hypothesis and a suggested homeland of the Proto-Indo European family. But as the article you linked notes, there is no direct evidence of where the PIE homeland is. But genetics/DNA along with the archeological and linguistic evidence we do have has given us better insights than what we had before ancient DNA. There is also debate on how old the 1 Sredny Stog sample as Reich dates it much earlier than what Matheison dates it. Doesn't this ancient sample have EHG+CHG + some EEF. So all we have are hypotheses.

Regardless, what language can you definitively assign Sredny Stog? Greeks were late to the party, most put Greek around 2500 BC. However, the extinct Anatolian Indo European languages are much older than Greek and are at least as old as what was spoken by the Sredny Stog culture, if there was a archaic Proto-Indo European language spoken there. The early Anatolian IE language branch dates back to at least 4200 BC which is to the early part of the period of the Sredny Stog Culture, which ran 4500-3500 BC.

So lets look at Anatolia. In the Neolithic, Feldman et al 2019 "Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a localorigin for the first farmers of central Anatolia"

"We find high genetic continuity(~80–90%) between the hunter-gatherers and early farmers of Anatolia and detect twodistinct incoming ancestries: an early Iranian/Caucasus related one and a later one linked tothe ancient Levant. Finally, we observe a genetic link between southern Europe and the NearEast predating 15,000 years ago. Finally, we observe a genetic link between southern Europe and the NearEast predating 15,000 years ago. Our results suggest a limited role of human migration in theemergence of agriculture in central Anatolia."

The paper shows that the Anatolian HG were from the Villabruna WHG from NE Italy who migrated to the Balkans (Iron Gates HG) and the AHG became a local autochthonous population. With the spread of Farming, there was little genetic turnover as documented by the paper above, both some Levant + Iran Neolithic/Caucus ancestry but those 2 together are no more than 20%. So we are talking about 8,000 BC with the Anatolian Farmers with this genetic profile

The abstract from the New Reich team paper"

The impermeability of Anatolia to exogenous migration contrasts with our finding that the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, both from West Asia, suggesting that the Indo-Anatolian language family originated in the eastern wing of the Southern Arc and that the steppe served only as a secondary staging area of Indo-European language dispersal. The demographic significance of Anatolia on a Mediterranean-wide scale is further documented by our finding that following the Roman conquest, the Anatolian population remained stable and became the geographic source for much of the ancestry of Imperial Rome itself."

So by the Bronze Age, if what I am reading and interpreting correctly, the Bronze Age Anatolians did not have Steppe genetic inflow. Yet, the Anatolian IE branch of languages are the oldest ones (i.e. Hittite). So for bronze Age Ukraine (Sredny Stog) to have been the parent of the Anatolian IE branch, you are 1) going to have to show me there is Steppe admixture into Bronze Age Anatolia and 2) Tell me what is the older Proto-Indo European language spoken in Sredny Stog. Is there such a early Proto-Indo European language family attached to that culture?

Now number 2, I have no idea about what language family was spoken in Ukraine from 4500 BC to 3500 BC (Sredny Stog). I do know that the Proto-Baltic-Slavic branch of IE dates to the earliest at 2800 BC which is 700 years after Sredny Stog. Correct? Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, Czech all are in this family of IE languages. So I ask this question, provide me the citation that indicates that some archaic/earlier Proto-IE language spoken by the peoples of the Sredny Stog culture was the parent language of Proto-Baltic/Slavic which all the modern Slavic and Baltic languages come from.

With respect to genetics, to my knowledge, their is no Steppe admixture in the bronze age Anatolian samples. There is very little in the Myceneans per Lazararidis et al 2014 and from what Reich is reporting in the abstract of this paper. Furthermore, if I am reading Reich's abstract correctly, there did not seem to be any major excursions into Anatolia during the Bronze Age which suggest to me that the Bronze Age Anatolians who spoke the the now extinct Anatolian branch of IE languages, Hittite being the confirmed earliest IE language, were not genetically dissimilar to their Neolithic predecessors. I don't see how you can hypothesize that Sredny Stog impacted the Anatolian Bronze Age.

I can explain Sredny Stog being genetically similar to the Yamnaya to the South, who by 3300 BC likely were speaking an early Proto-IE, the same way I can explain the genetic similarity of the Etruscans and Latins, with one speaking IE (Latins) and 1 note (Etruscans). Maria Gimbutas, the original proponent of the Kurgan hypothesis puts the Proto IE homeland with the Yamnaya, but even she conceded the Anatolian branches are not part of the Kurgan. So you still have that problem. And again it is confirmed by all I have read the Oldest PIE.


I don't know why this thing posted twice, sorry about that.

Just_a_Common_Guy said:

The current Basque language, the old Iberian (non-Indo-European) and Etruscan languages, how do you explain the existence of these languages in populations where the overwhelming majority of males have/had the R1b haplogroup?
I also expect a surprise. :awesome:

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Because the introduction of IE haplogroups in the Basques POSTDATED their linguistic genesis. It isn't like the Indo-European R1b-rich men were just chilling and then the basque women came in and seduced them into speaking their language.

Just_a_Common_Guy said:

1 - The Mycenaeans had less than 20% steppe ancestry, yet they were Indo-Europeans.
2 - Couldn't it have been the CHG/Iran_N women who introduced the archaic PIE into the steppe? I can see that you give little value to women.

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The Indo-Europeans gave little value to women.

Sredny Stog derived directly from the Lower Don groups which had incorporated the CHG settlers which influence we can see probably in sites like R. yar.
With the very dates given and the patrilinear continuity, there is no room for a later Anatolian language dispersal to the steppe.
And Yamnaya is kind of a Sredny Stog offshot with reduced diversity.

Riverman said:

Sredny Stog derived directly from the Lower Don groups which had incorporated the CHG settlers which influence we can see probably in sites like R. yar.
With the very dates given and the patrilinear continuity, there is no room for a later Anatolian language dispersal to the steppe.
And Yamnaya is kind of a Sredny Stog offshot with reduced diversity.

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Ok but my question still stands. What Proto Indo European Language has been assigned to the Sredny Stog culture from the period 4500-3500 BC?

The scholarly consensus is that the now extinct Anatolian Indo European Language branch has the oldest IE language (Hittite) and Professor Anthony himself suggest that the Proto-Anatolian IE branch dates to as early as 4200 BC. So 1) Is there a Proto-Indo European language from Sredny Stog that can be placed before between from period 4500-4200 BC that can be potentially linked to the Anatolian IE branch and 2) Do we have genetic data suggesting migrating Males from Ukraine (Sredny Stog) brought the Proto-IE language from which the Anatolian IE branch was derived from?

Those are the questions I personally need to see answered. As long as the Anatolian IE branch is the oldest one and it precedes al the other IE language branches and it is dated to earlier than both Corded Ware (3000 BC to 2300 BC) and Yamnaya (3300 BC to 2600 BC), both of which we know from genetic data were involved in the spread of IE from the Steppes into the rest of Europe, Yamnaya into SE Europe (Balkans) and Greece, Corded Ware into Northern, Central and Western Europe and likely also Italy (although I think Yamnaya may have been more involved in Italy, but that is not a definitive statement, just personal gut feeling). So the Kurgan Hypothesis is and has been supported by the genetic data explaining the spread of IE into those areas I mentioned. So I want to be clear on that point.

What is the question at hand is where was the original Proto Indo European language homeland? Was it also in the Steppes and thus the Steppes were both the home of Proto-Indo European and the place from which it spread into the rest of Europe or was the Proto-Indo European Language Homeland South of the Caucus Mountains in what is modern Armenia/Northern Iran?

The Anatolian IE branch being the oldest and sitting there with basically little genetic turnover really from the Mesolithic to the bronze age is something that has to be answered to definitively settle the question of where the PIE homeland is. IF it can be shown that some Steppe ancestry came into Anatolia around the same time the Anatolian branch of IE developed, then that would make the case for the PIE homeland in the Steppe better supported by the data.

So that is my take on it. And as I have said a million times since I have been at Eupedia since 2019, I have no emotional ties to the PIE being in the Steppes or South of the Caucus Mountains.

Just_a_Common_Guy said:

"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" - Reich didn't mean to dismiss steppe ancestry in Proto-Greek origin by saying this, just that the dispersion of IE languages had nothing to do with elites. His ideas were clear: although the Indo-European languages originated in northern Iran, their dispersal across the rest of Eurasia was via the steppe (the only exceptions were the extinct IE languages of Anatolia, like Hittite, which came directly from northern Iran).

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What about Indo-Iranians? Do you think they migrated from Iran to another land and came back to Iran?!! The first exception is Indo-Iranian and then Anatolian, look at it:


David Reich says: "The story told within the steppe hypothesis the Yamnaya which is this culture that expands over the steppe beginning fifty three hundreds years ago and expands into the west and also to the east in another form of you know their culture transmits to India and Iran through these cultures called Sintashta Andronovo that follow it but we have genetic data from those populations and they were mixed with European first farmer ancestry which is not present in India so it rules out that model, we also see no evidence of steppe migration through the Balkans into Anatolia because there's time series data now through the Balkans and there's no evidence of steppe ancestry in the Balkans or even in the sample the sporadic samples we have from Anatolia so the model that people have been thinking about about a source in the steppe which transmits these Hittite languages through the Balkans and impacts Anatolia there's just no support for it."

Palermo Trapani said:

Ok but my question still stands. What Proto Indo European Language has been assigned to the Sredny Stog culture from the period 4500-3500 BC?

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You should rather ask which language can't be explained by Sredny Stog culture. The answer is none. Because one of the most common scenarios is that Proto-Anatolian spread with the earliest Corded decorated groups into the Balkans and this was a Western SS branch.

The scholarly consensus is that the now extinct Anatolian Indo European Language branch has the oldest IE language (Hittite) and Professor Anthony himself suggest that the Proto-Anatolian IE branch dates to as early as 4200 BC.

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That's like it is with yDNA: We can probably estimate when a branch split from the other, but we can't tell where. And even the when is even worse to do than with the yDNA, and we know the range of this too. So let's assume Proto-Anatolian split as early as 4.000 BC, as debatable as it is. This just tells you when they split from the rest of the PIE/LPIE, not when they entered Anatolia! Just imagine it was a tribe near Tripolye-Cucuteni which started the evolution towards Anatolian. They mixed in the West more than others already in the steppe, before starting to move out of the steppe.
The question is when did they enter Anatolia and there is no reason or evidence which points to Proto-Anatolian being present in Anatolia geographically before Cernavoda. Or is there any? No, there is not, it's all speculation.

So 1) Is there a Proto-Indo European language from Sredny Stog that can be placed before between from period 4500-4200 BC that can be potentially linked to the Anatolian IE branch and 2) Do we have genetic data suggesting migrating Males from Ukraine (Sredny Stog) brought the Proto-IE language from which the Anatolian IE branch was derived from?

Click to expand...

We have the movement of groups from the Western steppe into the Balkans and from there into the area of Troy. That's archaeologically proven. We just need ancient DNA from Cernavoda and Troy.

Those are the questions I personally need to see answered. As long as the Anatolian IE branch is the oldest one and it precedes al the other IE language branches and it is dated to earlier than both Corded Ware (3000 BC to 2300 BC) and Yamnaya (3300 BC to 2600 BC), both of which we know from genetic data were involved in the spread of IE from the Steppes into the rest of Europe, Yamnaya into SE Europe (Balkans) and Greece, Corded Ware into Northern, Central and Western Europe and likely also Italy (although I think Yamnaya may have been more involved in Italy, but that is not a definitive statement, just personal gut feeling). So the Kurgan Hypothesis is and has been supported by the genetic data explaining the spread of IE into those areas I mentioned. So I want to be clear on that point.

Click to expand...

There is evidence for steppe ancestry everywhere but in Anatolians, but we don't have samples from Cernavoda, Troy and actual Anatolians, of which a large fraction did cremate their dead, especially in the Hittites. This is a further complication, that we see a diverse set of funerary practises and the most commonly Hittite core practise being cremation.
And as we all know, cremated remains can't be tested usually.

What is the question at hand is where was the original Proto Indo European language homeland? Was it also in the Steppes and thus the Steppes were both the home of Proto-Indo European and the place from which it spread into the rest of Europe or was the Proto-Indo European Language Homeland South of the Caucus Mountains in what is modern Armenia/Northern Iran?

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Since both met at the Lower Don, mixed and spread the IE steppe ancestry from there (!), from the Lower-Middle Don, this may never be fully answered. But going by probability, the more likely carrier is the one which patrilineages prevailed. And these are the patrilineages of the local HG people, which is basically R1a+b on the longer run.
Now we might find fisher-half-Neolithicised groups along the Black Sea with lots of J eventually, the original carriers, up to the Sea of Azow. But if they were dominant part in the equation, why did their patrilineages being submerged by and large?

Also, even the Hittites and other Anatolians rather show features which point to the steppe, whereas the opposite can't be said, even linguistically. So we got an entry point related to the earlier R. yar layers, which predates PIE, into the steppe, and a spread from there afterwards, with nothing of significance later coming from the Transcaucasian area.

The Anatolian IE branch being the oldest and sitting there with basically little genetic turnover really from the Mesolithic to the bronze age is something that has to be answered to definitively settle the question of where the PIE homeland is. IF it can be shown that some Steppe ancestry came into Anatolia around the same time the Anatolian branch of IE developed, then that would make the case for the PIE homeland in the Steppe better supported by the data.

So that is my take on it. And as I have said a million times since I have been at Eupedia since 2019, I have no emotional ties to the PIE being in the Steppes or South of the Caucus Mountains.

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If Reich talks about PIE genetics without samples from Cernavoda and Troy, he's producing a complete failure. I rather look at this samples rather than what he has to say - because I like to hear his interpretation, but the data matters more. Cernavoda-Troy is a direct steppe induced movement of people. That doesn't mean they need to be high in steppe, but its like a domino party. You see how Cernavoda came up and where it moved, all induced by Western steppe groups penetrating the Balkans.
So this is definitely the most likely route and entry point for Proto-Anatolian:

The Cernavoda culture belongs to a great, relatively homogeneous, group of cultures characterized by ceramics with twisted decoration, the use of ochre, scepters in zoomorphic forms, and burial under grave mounds.
From a chronological point of view 3450 BC - 3000 BC, The Cernavoda I culture is one consistent Neolithic culture yet the tools and technology are indicative of the Eneolithic, if only for what it inherited from the Gumelnita culture.
The infiltration of the Cernavoda I culture seems to have been quite rapid, even violent. The lower Danube region (where Cernavoda and H?rsova are located) is in the center of a vast zone of cultural mixtures and ethnic migrations. The more one moves away from the lower Danube, the more diffused the Cernavoda I elements become, and the more quickly the Cernavoda I tribes were assimilated. The Cernavoda culture follows a evolution parallel to a series of other Eneolithic cultures. It brought "cultural advances" between Troy and the Carpathians and loaned elements of the Gumelnita culture to the territory on which it settled in the lower Danube.

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https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/harsova/en/cernavoda-i-culture

Moja said:

What about Indo-Iranians? Do you think they migrated from Iran to another land and came back to Iran?!! The first exception is Indo-Iranian and then Anatolian, look at it:

David Reich says: "The story told within the steppe hypothesis the Yamnaya which is this culture that expands over the steppe beginning fifty three hundreds years ago and expands into the west and also to the east in another form of you know their culture transmits to India and Iran through these cultures called Sintashta Andronovo that follow it but we have genetic data from those populations and they were mixed with European first farmer ancestry which is not present in India so it rules out that model, we also see no evidence of steppe migration through the Balkans into Anatolia because there's time series data now through the Balkans and there's no evidence of steppe ancestry in the Balkans or even in the sample the sporadic samples we have from Anatolia so the model that people have been thinking about about a source in the steppe which transmits these Hittite languages through the Balkans and impacts Anatolia there's just no support for it."

Click to expand...

An example of David reich directly contradicting himself. One year later he published the paper claiming a migration from Sintashta/Andronovo brought Indo-European language to India.
BTW in that video he says Indo-Iranian from the steppe just not from Sintashta/Andronovo, then in 2018/2019 he says Indo-Iranian from the steppe via Sintashta/Androvono.

Philjames100 said:

An example of David reich directly contradicting himself. One year later he published the paper claiming a migration from Sintashta/Andronovo brought Indo-European language to India.
BTW in that video he says Indo-Iranian from the steppe just not from Sintashta/Andronovo, then in 2018/2019 he says Indo-Iranian from the steppe via Sintashta/Androvono.

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Which paper? Do you mean he says Iran is the homeland of Indo-Europeans but Indo-Europeans migrated there from another land later?

Riverman said:

You should rather ask which language can't be explained by Sredny Stog culture. The answer is none. Because one of the most common scenarios is that Proto-Anatolian spread with the earliest Corded decorated groups into the Balkans and this was a Western SS branch.



That's like it is with yDNA: We can probably estimate when a branch split from the other, but we can't tell where. And even the when is even worse to do than with the yDNA, and we know the range of this too. So let's assume Proto-Anatolian split as early as 4.000 BC, as debatable as it is. This just tells you when they split from the rest of the PIE/LPIE, not when they entered Anatolia! Just imagine it was a tribe near Tripolye-Cucuteni which started the evolution towards Anatolian. They mixed in the West more than others already in the steppe, before starting to move out of the steppe.
The question is when did they enter Anatolia and there is no reason or evidence which points to Proto-Anatolian being present in Anatolia geographically before Cernavoda. Or is there any? No, there is not, it's all speculation.



We have the movement of groups from the Western steppe into the Balkans and from there into the area of Troy. That's archaeologically proven. We just need ancient DNA from Cernavoda and Troy.



There is evidence for steppe ancestry everywhere but in Anatolians, but we don't have samples from Cernavoda, Troy and actual Anatolians, of which a large fraction did cremate their dead, especially in the Hittites. This is a further complication, that we see a diverse set of funerary practises and the most commonly Hittite core practise being cremation.
And as we all know, cremated remains can't be tested usually.



Since both met at the Lower Don, mixed and spread the IE steppe ancestry from there (!), from the Lower-Middle Don, this may never be fully answered. But going by probability, the more likely carrier is the one which patrilineages prevailed. And these are the patrilineages of the local HG people, which is basically R1a+b on the longer run.
Now we might find fisher-half-Neolithicised groups along the Black Sea with lots of J eventually, the original carriers, up to the Sea of Azow. But if they were dominant part in the equation, why did their patrilineages being submerged by and large?

Also, even the Hittites and other Anatolians rather show features which point to the steppe, whereas the opposite can't be said, even linguistically. So we got an entry point related to the earlier R. yar layers, which predates PIE, into the steppe, and a spread from there afterwards, with nothing of significance later coming from the Transcaucasian area.



If Reich talks about PIE genetics without samples from Cernavoda and Troy, he's producing a complete failure. I rather look at this samples rather than what he has to say - because I like to hear his interpretation, but the data matters more. Cernavoda-Troy is a direct steppe induced movement of people. That doesn't mean they need to be high in steppe, but its like a domino party. You see how Cernavoda came up and where it moved, all induced by Western steppe groups penetrating the Balkans.
So this is definitely the most likely route and entry point for Proto-Anatolian:



https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/harsova/en/cernavoda-i-culture

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Riverman: Everything you are hypothesizing is just that, an Hypothesis. Again, you don't like the fact that the Anatolian branch of IE has been dated to at least 4200 BC (Prof. Anthony) and Hittite is the oldest of the Anatolian Branches. You move the Pre-Anatolian split to 4000 BC you still can't reconcile it with Corded Ware civilization since that does not appear to about 3000 BC, even if it developed from an earlier culture, the Yamnaya civilization dates to only back to 3300 BC. So while Yamnaya and Corded Ware overlapped and likely were influenced by each other via trade etc. You still have a 700 year gap using your 4000 BC state as the start of the Anatolian IE branch.

Whatever scenario you posit and alternative one can be put forth. A Proto-IE homeland in Armenia/Northern Iran can in terms of economy easily explain a move of IE to Anatolia, a language dispersal of IE with minimal to no genetic turnover in Bronze Age Anatolia. The two areas were trading and sharing technology (farming) since the Neolithic with little Genetic turnover in Neolithic Anatolia (e.g. Feldman et al 2019 as I cited earlier). The Reich abstract is indicating that even into the Bronze Age, there was still no genetic turnover in Anatolia.

You may be correct some early Steppe tribe came into Anatolia but you are going to have find DNA samples that support it. As of now, we have an Anatolian IE branch with no Steppe ancestry. Absent Steppe ancestry in the period when the Anatolian IE branch first developed, the best explanation to me is the language was dispersed into Anatolia from Armenia/Northern Iran. Now that then leads to another question, did PIE come from the Steppes into Armenia/Northern Iran bringing EHG admixture and from Armenia/Northern Iran the IE language was dispersed into Bronze age Anatolia without Steppe admixture. That is possible but is there EHG admixture into Armenia/Northern Iran around the time the Anatolian IE branch first developed circa 4200 BC according to Anthony. That needs to be documented and if so it would support your views, in my opinion.

So in my opinion, not having Steppe admixture into Anatolia at the time of the Anatolian IE branch first appeared could be reconciled to your views/theory, if DNA can document some EHG into the South Caucuses just before/concurrently with the development of the Anatolian IE branch. From there, a dispersal of the early IE that lead to the Anatolian Branch would not in my review require any Steppe admixture into Bronze Age Anatolia (circa 4200 BC) because as we have seen and as I noted before, the language could have been adopted in Anatolia via trade contacts with IE speaking peoples in the Southern Caucus region. Evidence already suggest that the Hittite language used writing methods they got from Mesopotamia so there clearly was interaction between Anatolia and the Northern Iran, Armenia ancient Iraq (Mesopotamia) not only in the Neolithic period but well into the Bronze age.