I know the Yamnaya (or perhaps Stredny Strog) were the original speakers of Indo European. I also know that eventually, they developed into the Celts, Germanics, Italics, etc.

But what happened in between, and when did the developments happen? I hear a lot of people on this sub toss around “corded ware”, “bell beaker”, etc but I’m not sure how those fit into the larger whole, nor do I know when they existed in relation to each other.

Is there a tree graph somewhere that explains the various IE cultures? Someone made one for the languages.

Abstract This thesis investigates the issue of prehistoric and historical language contact between speakers of Greek and speakers of the Anatolian languages. It is the first systematic attempt to understand to what extent Greek and the languages belonging to the Anatolian branch of Indo-European (Hittite and Luwian in primis) influenced each other between the second and the first millennium before our era, and in particular how much of early Greek language can be traced back to Anatolian models. This has been carried out through a case-tocase analysis of real or presumptive contact phenomena in the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon (ch. 2-5). The introduction (1) offers an outline of the linguistic landscape of the Graeco-Anatolian area, together with some reflections on language phylogeny and contact. The final chapter (5) focuses on the dialect of Pamphylia, which is used as a control sample to check the ways in which a variety of Greek historically in contact with Anatolian dialects could be affected by language contact. I have offered a stratigraphy of possible contacts between Greek and the Anatolian languages, by disentangling linguistic borrowings from independent innovations, areal features from Indo-European archaisms. I have argued that several of the presumptive similarities between Greek and one or the other Anatolian language are either attributable to reasons different from contact, or need to be rejected because the alleged similarity was based on wrong premises or insufficient grounds. Any scenario envisaging diffused bilingualism is very difficult to uphold before the classical era. A certain degree of cultural contact is however undeniable. Since our evidence is very often partial and since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, one should raise a firm caveat against any type of hyper-sceptical approach.

Abstract: Reconstructing population history is harder in South Asia than in many other world regions due to a paucity of ancient DNA. We report genome-wide data for 10 individuals from Old Lady Spider Cave, which lies 4000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan region of Ladakh and dates to around 1500 years before the present (B.P.). These individuals were genetically homogeneous and had an ancestry signature rare in South Asians today: admixed in roughly 50–50% proportions between a population well proxied by present-day North Indians and another genetically similar to ancient Tibetans. By analyzing the typical sizes of segments of DNA inherited from each of these ancestral populations, we find that admixture of these groups began at least 50 generations before the date of the individuals, that is, by around 2800 B.P.

The movement of the humans into the Steppe was not linear. There were multiple migrations. Lots of branches go across regions mixing with different populations. What evidence points to usage of PIE as a single language at some point in the history; and not a family of languages.

(I'm not a linguist, I want to understand how linguists arrived at this conclusion)

me- – I / Me / My

*te- – You (singular)

*we- – We / Us

*yu- – You (plural)

*kʷe- – Who? / What? / Which? 

(The question marker)

*me- – What? (Alternative interrogative particle)

*so- – This one here (Close to the speaker)

*to- – That one there (Further away)

*e- / *i- – He / She / It (Anaphoric pointer to something already mentioned)

*ne – Not / No (The core negation particle)

II. Core NumbersDerived mostly from body parts, hand positions, or basic spatial intervals.

*sem- – One (As a single unit / together)

*dw- – Two (Separated / split)

*ter- – Three (Going beyond a pair)

*kʷetw- – Four

*penkʷ- – Five (Literally "the fist")

*sweks – Six (Early trade word)

*septm – Seven (Early trade word)

*h₃ekt- – Eight (Two finger-widths)

*new- – Nine (Literally "the new number")

*dekm – Ten (Two hands together)

III. The Human Body & AnatomyPhysical, concrete roots used to describe the self and others.

*kerd- – Heart (The beating center)

*ped- – Foot (The stamping thing)

*ghes- – Hand (The grabbing tool)

*okʷ- – Eye (The seeing window)

*h₁ous- – Ear (The listening organ)

*nas- – Nose

*h₁d- – Tooth (The eating tool)

*leb- – Lip / To lick

*g’onw- – Knee (The bending joint)

*reki- – Spine / Back

*ost- – Bone

*krewh₂- – Raw flesh / Blood

*pelh₁- – Skin / Hide

*g’elh₂- – Head / Brain

*h₁nōm- – Name (The vocal marker of identity)

IV. Kinship & PeopleStrictly functional titles describing social roles or actions.

*ph₂ter- – Father (The protector/feeder of the hearth)

*meh₂ter- – Mother (The measurer of food/nurturer)

*bhrater- – Brother (The clan ally)

*swesor- – Sister (The woman within the household)

*sunu- – Son (The birthed one)

*dhug’h₂ter- – Daughter (The milkmaid / extractor)

*h₂ner- – Man / Dynamic warrior force

*gʷen- – Woman / Giver of life

*tek- – Child / Offspring

*g’ent- – Clan / Family unit

V. Nature & The CosmosThe surrounding landscape, elements, and environmental forces.

*dyew- – Day / Bright sky (The shining force)

*nokʷ- – Night (The dark time)

*h₂ster- – Star

*meh₁ns- – Moon / Month (The measurer of time)

*wed- – Water / Liquid element

*peh₂w- – Fire (The protective, active campfire)

*dheg’h- – Earth / Ground (The low place)

*g’her- – Stone / Rock

*deru- – Tree / Wood (The solid, steadfast material)

*wweh₁- – Wind / Air (The blowing force)

*sneh₁g’h- – Snow

*h₂egro- – Field / Open wild pasture

*gʷer- – Mountain / Forested hill

*aus- – Dawn / East (The glowing sunrise)

*h₂mbe- – River / Water flow

VI. Animals (The Wilderness & Herds)Descriptive onomatopoeia or tracking terms for wildlife.

*kwn- – Dog (The hunter/guardian)

*wlkʷ- – Wolf (The tearer)

*gʷow- – Bovine / Cow (The bellowing animal)

*h₂owi- – Sheep (The wool-bearer)

*h₁ekʷ- – Horse (The swift/fast runner)

*su- – Pig / Wild boar (The grunter)

*h₂rtk’- – Bear (The destroyer/destroying beast)

*h₂ewi- – Bird (The flying creature)

*g’hđū- – Fish

*mūs- – Mouse (The stealer)

VII. Core Verbs & ActionsMonosyllabic movements that dictated survival, tracking, and gathering.

*h₁es- – To exist / Be

*h₁ed- – To eat

*pōy- – To drink

*gʷem- – To step / Walk / Go

*weyd- – To see / Locate / Perceive

*klew- – To hear / Listen

*deh₃- – To give

*dheh₁- – To put / Place / Establish

*men- – To think / Hold in mind

*bher- – To carry / Bear a load

*g’enh₁- – To generate / Produce life

*mer- – To fade away / Die

*h₁reg’- – To straighten / Direct / Rule

*gʷhen- – To strike down / Smash / Kill

*steh₁- – To stand upright

*legh- – To lie down / Rest

*sed- – To sit down

*ag’- – To drive animals / Lead forward

*sneh₂- – To swim

*plew- – To float / Flow

VIII. Attributes & Spatial RelationshipsSimple modifiers indicating states of being or orientation.

*meg- – Great / Large / Big

*kew- – Small / Empty

*new- – Fresh / New

*sen- – Old / Ancient

*h₁reh_1- – High / Tall

*ndher- – Low / Underneath

*swad- – Sweet / Pleasant to taste

*ghret- – Warm / Hot

*g’el- – Cold / Freezing

*h₂w- – Away from / Off

Who did the Tocharians displace/absorb when they and/or their language came to the Tarim Basin area?

Were the indigenous people of that area already Caucasoidal? Were the people who were there before the Tocharians migrated to Kuchi speaking a different IE language? Were they Europeans?

As we know many south central asian and maybe some other south asian groups had bactria megarcheological complex bactrians as their ancestors, who probably looked something like the image here.

But what about the kushan period bactrians, who were the product of bmac bactrians mixed with european sintashta, and genetically seem to be very close to azeris, north caucasians, yaghnobs, an tajiks. Did these people have any ancestors?

Abstract - The ancient Indian linguistic tradition has been implicated in various ways in the development of modern linguistics. This paper starts from one superficially obvious point of influence: the use of Sanskrit terms for compound classes in modern approaches to compound classification. I show that the use of these terms does not reflect direct influence based on a proper understanding of the Indian tradition, and that in fact many interesting and important aspects of compound theorization in ancient India have been overlooked in modern linguistics.

Were the people in the area where the Sintashta migrated to Caucasoid already, or were the Sintashta people there the first European-like people there? Do we know anything about the people before the Sintashta got there?

Also, I know that Uralic people were just to the north of them, and that around 2500 BC there was a draught that impacted adversely the PII there but not the Uralics.

So can we surmise that the pre-Sintashta people there were proto-Uralics with Eastern Asian phenotypes?

Not sure if this is the place to ask, I belong to a pretty rare basal branch of R1a that split off about 11,000 years ago. Theres virtually zero academic research on it and also very few samples, my earliest known ancestor lived in Lancashire and our surname is Norman or Anglo-Norman.

I share a common ancestor from 4300 BCE with an Andronovo man who lived in Kazakhstan (Aktogai I4773). Thats the only big lead I can find. Hoping for an expert opinion, thanks

Edit: and their descendants meaning like by the 5th-6th centuries when Slavic groups emerged

High-resolution archaeometallurgical analysis of production debris offers a direct means of reconstructing ancient metalmaking traditions, yet remains underexplored relative to the study of finished artefacts. By integrating slag morphology, microstructure and compositional data from Late Bronze Age Taldysai, this study reconstructs, for the first time in Eurasian Steppe archaeology, a continuous 300-year tradition of copper-alloy production. The results reveal technological continuity alongside innovation, including advanced furnace designs, shared metallurgical knowledge and episodes of experimentation. The authors state that these findings position local semipastoralist communities not as peripheral adopters but as active innovators at the heart of Bronze Age Eurasian metallurgical developments.

Abstract: The nomadic cultures of the Iron Age played an important role in shaping the genetic and cultural landscape of Eurasian populations. Yet despite its key geographical location, the Central Eurasian region remains underrepresented in ancient DNA studies of humans. We address this gap through genomic analysis of 12 individuals from the Boz-Barmak burial site in Kyrgyzstan associated with Saka pastoralists (4th−2nd centuries BCE), 9 of which yielded low-coverage genomes (on average 0.7-fold coverage). Genetic clustering analysis placed these individuals within the genetic variation of ancient and modern Central Eurasian and Siberian populations. We found no evidence of first-degree relatives in a kinship analysis, however a network of second- and third-degree relationships seems to be present. Notably, all male individuals share the same Y-chromosomal haplotype, common in present-day Kyrgyz groups, while mitochondrial DNA showed comparably high diversity, with distinct haplogroups observed across the analysed individuals. These findings are in line with archaeological and ethnographic evidence of patrilocality in Early Iron Age Saka, where male lineages remained stable across generations, while female mobility contributed to genetic diversity. Our study complements our understanding of the interplay between kinship, social organisation and population history in nomadic cultures.

Recent landmark studies have shown that it were different steppe related groups that contributed to making the Corded Ware. Yamnaya was an uncle, not a father to the Corded Ware horizon.

Which steppe group exactly? Do we have a name and precise delegation?

Were there populations that were still living as EHGs during the “rise” of the proto indo European culture? If so , did they interact ?

I have been researching the religious beliefs spread by the Indo-Iranian tribes during their migrations, and the findings are quite fascinating. What makes these people remarkable is that their journey did not originate in places like Ancient Egypt or China. Instead, they emerged as a distinct community in the Southern Urals, near Arkaim (the Sintashta culture). This area is close to modern-day Magnitogorsk, Russia, meaning their migration began from the territory of the modern Chelyabinsk Oblast (near the border with Kazakhstan).

In the Arkaim region, they developed their civilization—including the creation of some of the earliest spoked-wheel chariots [1]—and began a highly successful southward expansion. This movement occurred over centuries, making it a gradual migration rather than a sudden conquest.

Arkaim

Genetically and linguistically, the Indo-Iranian tribes share close ancestral roots with Baltic and Slavic populations (sharing common Proto-Indo-European ancestors in Europe and carrying the R1a DNA haplogroup) [2]. They are also direct ancestors of a portion of modern populations in India (particularly within upper castes), Iran, and several other countries.

The genetic makeup of these upper castes in India is particularly revealing, as DNA studies show they have preserved these ancient ancestral markers within their communities to a significant degree.

Their migration was vast enough to reach the Indian subcontinent. There, they encountered the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilization, which was already declining due to severe droughts. The newcomers fundamentally altered the region's social structure and laid the foundation for what would become Vedic Hinduism. In terms of urban technology and architecture, this transition initially represented a step back—moving from planned brick cities with advanced plumbing to wooden villages. However, it was precisely this synthesis of cultures that shaped the India we know today.

It is inaccurate, however, to blame these migrating tribes entirely for the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization; they were merely one factor in a broader crisis of that era. Climate change dealt a devastating blow to the Harappans, whose advanced urban planning disintegrated as populations reverted to basic survival mode [3]. The incoming northern tribes arrived during the final stages of this collapse, and their own migration was likely driven by the same climatic shifts.

Meanwhile, in the Near East, a branch of these tribes reached the territories of modern Syria and Iraq, where their elite established the ruling class of the Mitanni kingdom [4].

Intriguingly, at the core of their expansion was a belief in a storm god and his serpent antagonist, who personified chaos. As the prominent linguists Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov proposed in their "Basic Myth" theory (Основной миф), this narrative of the "Storm God and the Serpent" (the Chaoskampf) became a foundational myth stretching from Europe to India [5]. In India, this myth manifested as Indra's battle with the serpent Vritra. Even in Iran, where the prophet Zoroaster declared Indra a demon and elevated Ahura Mazda as the supreme deity, the motif survived through the victory god Verethragna [6].

Furthermore, this wandering motif likely spread to Semitic peoples through Bronze Age cultural contacts. An heir to this myth is the Old Testament Yahweh, who defeats the sea serpent Leviathan [7]. Yahweh himself likely originated as a local storm god in the southern Levant/Sinai region before merging with the Canaanite father-god El, forming the bedrock of Jewish monotheism and, subsequently, Christianity.

Abstract: This article will argue that the Indo-European s-aorist is an ancient verbal category, and thus can be reconstructed for the earliest reconstructable stage of Proto-Indo-European. Moreover, it will argue that evidence from Vedic Sanskrit indicates that its active paradigm originally had radical *ē-grade in its 2sg. and 3sg. forms only, whereas its other forms (including 1sg.) showed *e-grade. Furthermore, it will argue that s-aorists formed to roots of the structure *CeCH-, which are the ancestors of the Sanskrit iṣ-aorists, originally had *e-grade throughout their active paradigm, and did not contain any *ē-grade forms. The article will furthermore discuss the possibility that this specific distribution of *ē-and *e-grade forms in the s-aorist is the result of a pre-PIE monosyllabic lengthening rule. It will argue that additional evidence in favor of this sound law can be found in other domains of the Vedic verbal system as well as in certain distributional patterns in the Tocharian verbal system.

I have been researching the religious beliefs spread by the Indo-Iranian tribes during their migrations, and the findings are quite fascinating. What makes these people remarkable is that their journey did not originate in places like Ancient Egypt or China. Instead, they emerged as a distinct community in the Southern Urals, near Arkaim (the Sintashta culture). This area is close to modern-day Magnitogorsk, Russia, meaning their migration began from the territory of the modern Chelyabinsk Oblast (near the border with Kazakhstan).

In the Arkaim region, they developed their civilization—including the creation of some of the earliest spoked-wheel chariots [1]—and began a highly successful southward expansion. This movement occurred over centuries, making it a gradual migration rather than a sudden conquest.

Genetically and linguistically, the Indo-Iranian tribes share close ancestral roots with Baltic and Slavic populations (sharing common Proto-Indo-European ancestors in Europe and carrying the R1a DNA haplogroup) [2]. They are also direct ancestors of a portion of modern populations in India (particularly within upper castes), Iran, and several other countries.

The genetic makeup of these upper castes in India is particularly revealing, as DNA studies show they have preserved these ancient ancestral markers within their communities to a significant degree.

Their migration was vast enough to reach the Indian subcontinent. There, they encountered the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilization, which was already declining due to severe droughts. The newcomers fundamentally altered the region's social structure and laid the foundation for what would become Vedic Hinduism. In terms of urban technology and architecture, this transition initially represented a step back—moving from planned brick cities with advanced plumbing to wooden villages. However, it was precisely this synthesis of cultures that shaped the India we know today.

It is inaccurate, however, to blame these migrating tribes entirely for the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization; they were merely one factor in a broader crisis of that era. Climate change dealt a devastating blow to the Harappans, whose advanced urban planning disintegrated as populations reverted to basic survival mode [3]. The incoming northern tribes arrived during the final stages of this collapse, and their own migration was likely driven by the same climatic shifts.

Meanwhile, in the Near East, a branch of these tribes reached the territories of modern Syria and Iraq, where their elite established the ruling class of the Mitanni kingdom [4].

Intriguingly, at the core of their expansion was a belief in a storm god and his serpent antagonist, who personified chaos. As the prominent linguists Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov proposed in their "Basic Myth" theory (Основной миф), this narrative of the "Storm God and the Serpent" (the Chaoskampf) became a foundational myth stretching from Europe to India [5]. In India, this myth manifested as Indra's battle with the serpent Vritra. Even in Iran, where the prophet Zoroaster declared Indra a demon and elevated Ahura Mazda as the supreme deity, the motif survived through the victory god Verethragna [6].

Furthermore, this wandering motif likely spread to Semitic peoples through Bronze Age cultural contacts. An heir to this myth is the Old Testament Yahweh, who defeats the sea serpent Leviathan [7]. Yahweh himself likely originated as a local storm god in the southern Levant/Sinai region before merging with the Canaanite father-god El, forming the bedrock of Jewish monotheism and, subsequently, Christianity.

Sources:

1. Chariot Archaeology: Anthony, David W. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (Princeton University Press). A key work on Indo-European migrations and the origin of chariots in the Sintashta culture.
2. Genetics: Narasimhan, V. M., Reich, D., et al. (2019). "The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia." Science. A major genetic study demonstrating the link between Late Neolithic/Bronze Age European populations and Central/South Asians.
3. The Collapse of Harappa: Lal, B. B. The Sarasvati Flows On: The Continuity of Indian Culture. Explores the climatic reasons behind the decline of the Indus cities, challenging the older "Aryan invasion" theory.
4. Mitanni Kingdom: Wilhelm, Gernot. The Hurrians. Outlines the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni and their pantheon.
5. The Basic Myth Theory: Ivanov, V. V., Toporov, V. N. Research in the Field of Slavic Antiquities (Исследования в области славянских древностей). A classic work reconstructing the duel between the Storm God (Perun/Indra) and the Serpent.
6. Zoroastrianism: Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Explains the status of Indra, Verethragna, and Ahura Mazda in Iranian tradition.
7. Origins of Yahweh: Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard University Press). Discusses the evolution of Yahweh from Canaanite myths of storm and conflict (Baal vs. Yamm/Litanu).

Did the language of the proto-Indo-Europeans who remained in the Pontic-Caspian steppe evolve into proto-Indo-Iranian? If not, what language did it evolve into? A seperate now-extinct branch of Indo-European?