![]() It is thrilling in its clarity and its scope. Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past Paperback Illustrated, Februby David Reich (Author) 2,534 ratings Goodreads Choice Award nominee See all formats and editions Kindle 14.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0. Reich’s overall picture will, in time, acquire much greater detail – just as Darwin’s great study was a beginning not an end – but we should be grateful to him and his large team of co-workers (including his wife, science writer Eugenie Reich, who had a big role in the book’s creation) for putting the essential story before us now. Reich has now shown that the Indo-European languages and the largest single component of the genetic makeup of Europe and north India today stem from migrations around 5,000 years ago from the vast Steppe, the grass plains bordering the Black and Caspian seas. This led to the recognition of the vast Indo-European language family – which includes the Germanic, Celtic, Italic, near eastern (Iranian) and north Indian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, etc) – but not to any consensus on how this might have occurred. In 1786, he discovered the kinship of Sanskrit and ancient Greek. ![]() Reich’s work can finally answer the tantalising question first posed by an British civil servant, Sir William Jones. ![]()
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