New research suggests that the first Indo-European speakers lived in southern Russia 6,500 years ago, challenging long-standing debates about the language family’s origins

Ancient-DNA analyses identify a Caucasus Lower Volga people as the ancient originators of Proto-Indo-European, the precursor to the massive Indo-European language family. The population lived on the Eurasian steppe within the borders of current-day Russia during the Copper Age about 6,500 years ago, data show.

A new study claims to have identified the first speakers of Indo-European language, which gave rise to English, Sanskrit and hundreds of others.