A groundbreaking study has uncovered new clues about the origins of Indo-European languages, identifying an ancestral group that played a crucial role in their spread.
In collaboration with Harvard University, researchers from the University of Vienna analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals across Eurasia, offering fresh insights into a long-standing historical mystery.
The study, published in Nature, suggests that a previously unidentified population from the Caucasus and Lower Volga (CLV) region may be the missing link connecting all Indo-European-speaking groups.
The findings challenge earlier assumptions and provide new evidence on how these languages, spoken by nearly half of the world’s population today, evolved from a common ancestor.
Tracing the roots of Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages, which include Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic, all descend from an ancient language known as Proto-Indo-European (PIE). For over a century, historians and linguists have debated its origins, seeking to understand how it spread across vast regions of Europe and Asia.
Earlier research pointed to the Yamnaya culture, a nomadic group from the Pontic-Caspian steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, as a key driver of this expansion.
Around 3100 BCE, the Yamnaya migrated into both Europe and Central Asia, introducing what geneticists call “steppe ancestry” to human populations.
This migration event significantly shaped European genetic history, marking one of the largest population shifts in the last 5,000 years. However, the origins of the Yamnaya people themselves have remained unclear.
The new study reveals that the Yamnaya derived approximately 80% of their ancestry from the CLV population, an Eneolithic group that lived between 4500 and 3500 BCE in the steppes near the North Caucasus Mountains and the lower Volga River.
A missing link in the linguistic puzzle
One of the study’s most significant findings concerns the Anatolian branch of Indo-European languages, which includes Hittite.
Unlike other Indo-European languages, Hittite and its relatives did not show genetic ties to the Yamnaya, leading scholars to question their place in the broader language family.
Previous studies had failed to detect steppe ancestry among the Hittites, but the new research suggests that Anatolian languages descended from the CLV group rather than the Yamnaya.
Our papers, out today in @nature, show how ancient DNA from the Eneolithic and Bronze Age steppe points to a North Pontic origin of the Indo-European language family and a Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) origin of Indo-Anatolian (inclusive of the now extinct Anatolian languages). 1/ pic.twitter.com/qyqAJDmmgy
— Iosif Lazaridis (@iosif_lazaridis) February 5, 2025
DNA evidence from five individuals in Anatolia, dated before or during the Hittite era, confirmed traces of CLV ancestry, strengthening the link between this newly recognized population and early Indo-European languages.
“The CLV group, therefore, can be connected to all IE-speaking populations and is the best candidate for the population that spoke Indo-Anatolian, the ancestor of both Hittite and all later IE languages,” said Ron Pinhasi, a lead researcher from the University of Vienna.
Rewriting the history of language expansion
The findings suggest that the Indo-Anatolian language, which formed the foundation of both Hittite and later Indo-European languages, took root among CLV communities between 4400 and 4000 BCE.
This challenges earlier models that solely attributed the spread of Indo-European languages to Yamnaya migrations.
“The discovery of the CLV population as the missing link in the Indo-European story marks a turning point in the 200-years-old quest,” Pinhasi said.
The study’s results mark a turning point in the search for Indo-European origins, resolving key gaps in historical and linguistic research.