uncomfortable when geneticists draw bold
arrows across maps of Europe.
“This kind of simplicity leads back to
Kossinna,” says Heyd, who’s German. “It calls
back old demons of blond, blue-eyed guys com-
ing back somehow out of the hell where they
were sent after World War II.”
Yet ancient DNA, which provides direct
information about the biology of ancient
humans, has become a strong argument against
Kossinna’s theory. First, in documenting the
spread of the Yamnaya and their descendants
deeper and deeper into Europe at just the right
time, the DNA evidence supports the favored
theory among linguists: that proto-Indo-
Europeans migrated into Europe from the
Russian steppe, not the other way around. Sec-
ond, together with archaeology it amounts to
a rejection of Kossinna’s claim that some kind
of pure race exists in Europe, one that can
be identified from its cultural artifacts.
All Europeans today are a mix. The genetic
recipe for a typical European would be roughly
equal parts Yamnaya and Anatolian farmer,
with a much smaller dollop of African hunter-
gatherer. But the average conceals large regional
variations: more “eastern cowboy” genes in
Scandinavia, more farmer ones in Spain and
Italy, and significant chunks of hunter-gatherer
DNA in the Baltics and eastern Europe.
“To me, the new results from DNA are under-
mining the nationalist paradigm that we have
always lived here and not mixed with other peo-
ple,” Gothenburg’s Kristiansen says. “There’s no
such thing as a Dane or a Swede or a German.”
Instead, “we’re all Russians, all Africans.” jFrom his base in Berlin, Andrew Curry writes
about archaeology and other subjects. Rémi
Bénali lives near Arles, France, where he photo-
graphed a Roman boat for the April 2014 issue.WHO WERE THE FIRST EUROPEANS? 113