3
This isn't meant to either support or refute the OP's thinking here, but we're learning now there was not just one monolithic "Indo-European" wave, but a complex series of them. There was in proto-history/late pre-history no doubt a series of related-but-different peoples both in the steppe proper and forest zones further north who spoke similar languages and others that became VERY gradually "Indo-Europeanized".
R1a used to be assumed to be "The" Proto-Indo-European marker, and there is some interesting research going on now that even it's bearers in N.E. Europe probably spoke something more like Uralic/Proto-Uralic before it became in contact with CHG-bearing folks.
Bookmarks