Origin of the Nordic Indo-European Group in the Light of the Latest Paleogenetics Data
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 glottochronology 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 period, 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 mitochondrial 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.