Origin of the Nordic Indo-European Group in the Light of the Latest Paleogenetics Data

Abstract

The subject of the article is ethnogenesis of the Balto-Slavic-Germanic
 group of the Indo-European language family. The article analyzes data on the
 genetic composition of the population of the Corded Ware cultures in Central
 Europe and the Northern Circle cultures in Jutland and Southern Scandinavia.
 The study aims to determine the primary habitat of the Nordic Indo-Europeans in
 the period preceding the disintegration of dialectal unity and the beginning of
 their migrations to Central Europe. The methodology is based on comparative
 and cluster analysis of mitochondrial components in the studied populations and
 their synchronous or diachronic occurrence in other populations and areas. The
 analysis results are verified by the data of archeology, anthropology and glotto-
 chronology according to the principle of mutual convergence.
 In the course of the study, we have established that the substrate of Corded
 Ware cultures lived in the middle reaches of the Dnieper since the Neolithic pe-
 riod, at the same time, it is possible to localize the Nordic Indo-Europeans in the
 indicated region as a single and undivided dialect group not earlier than the
 emergence of the Middle Dnieper variant of the Yamnaya culture, for which the
 chronological framework is determined. It was also found that the influx of mito-
 chondrial genes from the eastern regions of the Yamnaya culture into the habitat
 of the Nordic Indo-Europeans was quantitatively insignificant and did not entail
 a qualitative change in culture and language.