European languages linked to migration from the east

Ewen Callaway in Nature:

A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago — bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. Vestiges of these eastern émigrés exist in the genomes of nearly all contemporary Europeans, according to the authors, who analysed genome data from nearly 100 ancient Europeans¹.

The first Homo sapiens to colonize Europe were hunter-gatherers who arrived from Africa, by way of the Middle East, around 45,000 years ago. (Neanderthals and other archaic human species had begun roaming the continent much earlier.) Archaeology and ancient DNA suggest that farmers from the Middle East started streaming in around 8,000 years ago, replacing the hunter-gatherers in some areas and mixing with them in others.

But last year, a study of the genomes of ancient and contemporary Europeans found echoes not only of these two waves from the Middle East, but also of an enigmatic third group that they said could be from farther east² (see 'Ancient European genomes reveal jumbled ancestry').

To further pin down the origins of this ghost lineage, a team led by David Reich, an evolutionary and population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, analysed nuclear DNA from the bodies of 69 individuals who lived across Europe between 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. They also examined previously published genome data from another 25 ancient Europeans, including Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old 'ice man' who was discovered on the Italian-Austrian border.

Their analysis confirmed the arrival of Middle Eastern farmers in Europe between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago. But the team also found proof of a previously unknown migration, beginning several thousand years later.

More here.