Kurgan Hypothesis - Genetics

Genetics

The term "kurganized" used by Gimbutas implied that the culture could have been spread by no more than small bands who imposed themselves on local people as an elite. This idea of the IE language and its daughter-languages diffusing east and west without mass movement has proved popular with archaeologists. However geneticists have opened up the possibility that these languages spread with mass movement.

Geneticists have noted the correlation of a specific haplogroup R1a1a defined by the M17 (SNP marker) of the Y chromosome and speakers of Indo-European languages in Europe and Asia. The connection between Y-DNA R-M17 and the spread of Indo-European languages was first proposed by Zerjal and colleagues in 1999. and subsequently supported by other authors. Spencer Wells deduced from this correlation that R1a1a arose on the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Subsequent studies on ancient DNA tested the hypothesis. Skeletons from the Andronovo culture horizon (strongly supposed to be culturally Indo-Iranian) of south Siberia were tested for DNA. Of the 10 males, 9 carried Y-DNA R1a1a (M17). Fairly close matches were found between the ancient DNA STR haplotypes and those in living persons in both eastern Europe and Siberia. Mummies in the Tarim Basin also proved to carry R1a1a and were presumed to be ancestors of Tocharian speakers.

A study published in 2012 states that "R1a1a7-M458 was absent in Afghanistan, suggesting that R1a1a-M17 does not support, as previously thought, expansions from the Pontic Steppe, bringing the Indo-European languages to Central Asia and India." However, this study does not in any way conflict with the hypothesis of expansions from the Pontic Steppe, since the study does not take into account the early wave of the Indo-European speaking people. Even today the R1a1a7-M458 are very rare, almost absent, in the area of the Indo-European origins between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea; the R1a1a7-M458 marker first started in Poland 10,000 years ago (KYA), and arrived in the western fringes of the Pontic steppe 5000 years ago and the eastern fringes only 2500 years ago, while the first Indo-European wave (4500–4000 BC Early PIE) began up to 4000 years before this.

The DNA testing of remains from kurgans also indicated a high prevalence of people with characteristics such as blue (or green) eyes, fair skin and light hair, implying an origin close to Europe for this population.

Several 4600 year-old human remains at a Corded Ware site in Eulau, Germany, were also found to belong to haplogroup R1a1a.