
Indo-European languages (IE), which number over 400 and include major groups such as Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic, are spoken by nearly half the world's population today. Originating from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, historians and linguists since the 19th century have been investigating its origins and spread as there is still a knowledge gap.
The new study published in Nature, also involving Tom Higham and Olivia Cheronet from the University of Vienna, analyzes ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia between 6400-2000 BCE. Earlier genetic studies had shown that the Yamnaya culture (3.300-2.600 BCE) of the Pontic-Caspian steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas expanded into both Europe and Central Asia beginning about 3.100 BCE, accounting for the appearance of "steppe ancestry" in human populations across Eurasia 3.100-1.500 BCE. These migrations out of the steppes had the largest effect on European human genomes of any demographic event in the last 5.000 years and are widely regarded as the probable vector for the spread of Indo-European languages.
The only branch of Indo-European language (IE) that had not exhibited any steppe ancestry previously was Anatolian, including Hittite, probably the oldest branch to split away, uniquely preserving linguistic archaisms that were lost in all other IE branches. Previous studies had not found steppe ancestry among the Hittites because, the new paper argues, the Anatolian languages were descended from a language spoken by a group that had not been adequately described before, an Eneolithic population dated 4.500-3.500 BCE in the steppes between the North Caucasus Mountains and the lower Volga. When the genetics of this newly recognized Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) population are used as a source, at least five individuals in Anatolia dated before or during the Hittite era show CLV ancestry.
Comment: One can argue about the perspective taken by the author, but what he observed, orphaned children and groups of dangerous youth gangs, has happened elsewhere since then and could become even more common also in locations where it was not seen for a long time. Besides, many modern parents have little time to look after their children.
The image for the reposting was found in this article from Top War:
Russia in the Mist: 1921-1923 Years through the Eyes of Western Press Photographers
It should be noted that many efforts were undertaken after the Russian revolution to reduce the problems of uncared for children. One outstanding example is described in this article from Gateway to Russia: This woman defeated crime in one of Leningrad's most dangerous districts by Yulia Khakimova, Oct 15 2022.
While the article describes a history that is already a hundred year old, there are trends seen in modern society:
'Epidemic' of violence against women and girls in UK is getting worse - report
Crime 'spiralling out of control' in stores, warns British Retail Consortium
EU country to allow police to wiretap children which has: A difference between 2023 and now is that there might be an increasing percentage of the population, whether children or adults that embody, or are instruments for a kind of evil that it will be difficult, even impossible to rehabilitate. What to do in such cases?