> Not really trying to do anything other than discuss something that's pretty interesting and possibly learn more. OK, I'll try to treat you as someone who is trying to have a good conversation as opposed to someone who wants to argue. Sorry, it's hard to tell sometimes on the internet. > Ive seen theories that the actual IE were the battle axe/corded ware people's rather than the yamnaya. I guess that's what I'm trying to explain. It's an argument that doesn't make sense given the data we have. As far as we can tell, the Battle Axe Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples / Language. So, we can do some measure of genealogy based on linguistics. The Celtic language branch is not descended from Germanic. It is it's own distinct branch. So, we can say, based on those facts that the Celts are not descended from the Battle Axe Culture. The split between common ancestors probably wasn't the Yamnaya Culture directly. But some intermediate Proto-Western-Steppe-Herder Culture which I'm not familiar with enough to say with confidence. Possibly something similar to the Corded Ware Culture. Another point of data is lactase persistence. The Yamnaya Culture were not lactase persistant. But both the Germanic and Celtic peoples largely are. This points to a common ancestry after the Yamnaya Culture but before the formation of the Battle Axe Culture. So, doing a differential on the various datapoints we have. The best theory we can piece together is that the common ancestor between the Battle Axe Culture and the Celtic peoples are after the Yamnaya Culture, but before the Battle Axe Culture. So, the Celtic peoples and the Germanic peoples are basically sister peoples.