I can recommend the new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, by Laura Spinney. It's an overview of what we know about Proto Indo-European and its spread across the world. Much of the book is evidence from linguistics but it also regularly dips into Reich's ancient DNA work and other sources to cross-correlate with the linguistic evidence. It's very well written.
Also David Anthony's book _The Horse, the Wheel, and Language_ (2007), which just missed the ancient DNA revolution but essentially anticipated its findings on Yamnaya migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe into Europe.
Not that I disagree. You're very likely correct in your assessment.
I only wanted to point out that you're almost forced to come up with some theory you have to explain genomic findings. Over time, yes, most of those theories have historically been shown to be bunk. (My gut tells me this one will share a similar fate.)
But that's the scientific method. Propose a hypothesis (theory). Design experiments to test said theory. Present the results. Which should lead you to another hypothesis.
In the "propose a hypothesis" phase, at least in fields like this one, the proposals will tend to be informed more by world view than by science. That's how humans think. I don't think there's any changing that. The control, or "check and balance", is supposed to be the objective review and validated replication of the results. Which is, I grant you, lacking at times.
I can recommend the new book Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, by Laura Spinney. It's an overview of what we know about Proto Indo-European and its spread across the world. Much of the book is evidence from linguistics but it also regularly dips into Reich's ancient DNA work and other sources to cross-correlate with the linguistic evidence. It's very well written.
Also David Anthony's book _The Horse, the Wheel, and Language_ (2007), which just missed the ancient DNA revolution but essentially anticipated its findings on Yamnaya migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppe into Europe.
Here's the archive.org link - https://web.archive.org/web/20250615092146/https://www.lapha...
David Reich was on the Dwarkesh podcast about a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj6skZIxPuI
It's a really good interview. Recommended if you're an amateur wanting to understand more about human prehistory.
Highly recommend watching Dwarakesh interviewing Reich: https://youtu.be/Uj6skZIxPuI
You will learn more about human prehistory in that 2 hours than anything else.
I highly recommend Reich's book _Who We Are and How We Got Here_.
This strikes me as more of an an attempt to cherrypick and graft genomic findings onto a pre-decided worldview than an objective, scientific article.
Don't worry, there is a tremendous amount of genetic ancestry data in the world, and that data will overwhelm prior beliefs
Not that I disagree. You're very likely correct in your assessment.
I only wanted to point out that you're almost forced to come up with some theory you have to explain genomic findings. Over time, yes, most of those theories have historically been shown to be bunk. (My gut tells me this one will share a similar fate.)
But that's the scientific method. Propose a hypothesis (theory). Design experiments to test said theory. Present the results. Which should lead you to another hypothesis.
In the "propose a hypothesis" phase, at least in fields like this one, the proposals will tend to be informed more by world view than by science. That's how humans think. I don't think there's any changing that. The control, or "check and balance", is supposed to be the objective review and validated replication of the results. Which is, I grant you, lacking at times.