Proto-Indo-European Origins | DNA

The origins of modern Europeans are shrouded in mystery and wracked by controversy. Archaeologists and linguists have long debated the origins of the Indo-European language family as well as the origins of civilization and settled life in Europe. Recent discoveries in past years suggest that the origin of European culture, as well as some central Asian cultures, is within an archaeological culture called the Yamnaya. One major source of contention over the origins of the precursor to modern European cultures is over whether they involved the movement of actual people or merely the exchange of ideas. Before about 9,000 BP Europe was still in the Palaeolithic. It was populated largely by hunter-gatherers, living not very differently from how they had lived when they first arrived in Europe roughly 37,000 years ago. Beginning around 9,000 BP however, agriculture and village life began to spread across Europe and by 5,000 BP the continent was mostly settled by Neolithic farmers. Around 5,000 BP or 3