The Data that Keep on Giving

A 2016 Excavation in Greece Helps Provide Sweeping New Insights into the Evolution of Indo-European Languages. Genetic data collected during an excavation of a Mycenaean tomb at Kastrouli near Delphi, Greece, have helped an interdisciplinary team including UC San Diego scientists unveil some of the mysteries of ancient patterns of human migration, culture and the evolution of Indo-European languages across eastern Europe and into West Asia 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. The data, from a 2016 excavation co-led by Thomas Levy, director of the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability at UC San Diego's Qualcomm Institute and School of Social Sciences, and Ioannis Liritzis, then at the University of the Aegean, contributed to the conclusions of a series of three papers published as the cover story of the August 26, 2022, issue of the journal Science. "This trio of papers changes our understanding of how the Southern Arc's cultures and languages came to be," said Levy. "The scope of the datasets brought together here is unprecedented. Data on that scale can answer questions that researchers working in isolation cannot. The findings are the result of a true transdisciplinary collaboration." - Surprises in ancient history.