[rufus_foreman]

>> This article is conflating language and ancestry

From the article:

"DNA detectives, including at Reich’s lab, analyzed DNA samples from the remains of around 450 prehistoric individuals taken from 100 sites in Europe, as well as data from 1,000 previously known ancient samples"

Ancestry, not language.

"Reich’s award-winning lab at Harvard has one of the largest ancient DNA databases in the world and uses proprietary gene-analysis software co-developed by Nicholas Patterson, a British mathematician who once worked as a codebreaker for U.K. intelligence services."

Ancestry, not language.

"DNA evidence shows that the proto-Yamnaya population migrated from the Volga region to Anatolia"

Ancestry, not language.

"In many places, indigenous male DNA disappears upon the arrival of the Yamnaya, while indigenous female DNA is traceable in the following generations"

Ancestry, not language.

"Within years of their arrival, some 99% of the indigenous people disappeared, according to Reich’s analysis of DNA samples from the time"

Ancestry, not language.

I rate your claim that "This article is conflating language and ancestry" as false, and I award you no points.

[falaki]

This article's confusion is where it states "half the human beings alive today are descended from the Yamnaya." He thinks because half of the world population speaks an Indo-European language, and because the original speakers of the Proto-Indo-European languages were the Yamnaya culture (as Reich's research suggests), then half of the world population are descendants of the Yamnaya culture.

Is the logical error clear now?