Others pointed to the Yamnaya, a nomadic herding culture that roamed the steppes of Russia and Ukraine around 5,000 years ago, as the likely pioneers of the root language.

This is a reconstruction of the Yamnaya skull. A typical Yamnaya individual from the Caspian steppe in Russia ca. 5,000-4,800 BP. Yamnaya people were tall and were buried in deep pits covered by a ...