
Beating the retreat from the Steppe hypothesis
This is a commentary on the ancient DNA paper: 'The genetic origin of the Indo-Europeans', i.e. Lazaridis et al. (2025), published in Nature on 5th February 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08531-5 Although presented as if supporting
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This is a commentary on the ancient DNA paper: 'The genetic origin of the Indo-Europeans', i.e. Lazaridis et al. (2025), published in Nature on 5th February 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08531-5 Although presented as if supporting the Steppe hypothesis of Indo-European origins, this new paper’s basic result is actually a retreat from it, notwithstanding some smoke and mirrors. This still does not obscure where the whole language family originated: not on the Steppe, as this paper itself reconfirms. As Lazaridis et al. (2022) themselves already acknowledged three year's ago, the family’s ultimate origins lie where many have long argued: in “the highlands of West Asia, the ancestral region”.