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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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The Roman Empire wasn't Aryan though it was Latin. Those who we would label "Aryan" today were still a bunch of illiterate peasants living in thatch huts on the far northeastern fringes of the empire.

Native Romans descended from the Bell beaker culture which was created/preceded by the westward migrations of the Corded Ware culture. The Corded Ware culture is the best approximation of a common ancestor of the Roman, Englishman, Russian, and Indo-Aryan. Most of the living Indo-European language branches are descended from Corded Ware, including Italic (i.e. Latin), Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, and Indo-Iranian(Aryan) language families.

It's really crazy to think how these languages spoken by half the world descended from this culture.

Europeans are essentially a mix of three different population groups:

  • Eastern/Western Hunter-Gatherers

  • European Farmers (also known as Anatolian farmers)

  • Yamnayan Steppe / Indo-European

The combination of these populations varies between European countries. For example, Southern Europeans have relatively more genetic contribution from European Farmers while Scandinavians have relatively more contribution from the Indo-Europeans.

The Indo-Iranians (who called themselves Aryans) were also descended from Corded Ware culture which is why they already had significant admixture from European farmers in addition to the prominent Yamnayan (European steppe) ancestry. According to David Reich in 2019, the Aryan invaders that contributed genetically to South Asia were ~60% Yamnayan (steppe) ancestry and about 30% European farmer ancestry. This is nearly identical to modern Northern Europeans.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Sardinians have almost no Yamnayan ancestry as it was the only location in Europe that was not touched by Indo-European migrations during the Bronze Age. They are living fossils of the Neolithic European Farmers before the Indo-European invasions of Europe.

So you are technically correct that the Romans did not regard themselves as Aryan. At the same time, there is a very real genetic and linguistic origin shared by the Romans, Celts, Germans, Slavs, and Indo-Iranians that is being evoked by the word "Aryan".