Editing Tocharians (section)

==Proposed precursors==
The route by which speakers of Indo-European languages reached the Tarim Basin is uncertain.
A leading contender is the [[Afanasievo culture]], who occupied the Altai region to the north between 3300 and 2500 BC.

===Afanasievo culture===
{{ Annotated image 
| image=Indo-European migrations.jpg
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| annotations =
{{Annotation|text-align=center|260|10|[[Afanasievo culture|Afanasievo<br>culture]]|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=10|color=#FF4500}}
{{Annotation|230|73|Tocharians|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=10|color=#000000}}
{{Annotation|270|56|[[File:Feather-arrows-arrow-down-left.svg|20px]]}}
{{Annotation|text-align=center|205|113|[[Indo-Aryans]]|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=7|color=#FF4500}}
| caption=[[Indo-European migrations]], with location of the [[Afanasievo culture]] (genetically identical to the [[Yamnaya culture]] of the [[Pontic steppes]]) and their probable Tocharian descendants.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Vagheesh M. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Moorjani |first3=Priya |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Bernardos |first5=Rebecca |title=The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia |journal=Science |date=6 September 2019 |volume=365 |issue=6457 |pages=eaat7487 |issn=0036-8075 |doi=10.1126/science.aat7487 |pmid=31488661 |pmc=6822619 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
}}
[[File:Chemurchek statue Khukh uzuuriin dugui I - 1.png|thumb|upright=0.5|Chemurchek statue, Khukh uzuuriin dugui I - 1. [[Bulgan, Khovd]], [[Mongolia]]{{sfn|Kovalev|2012|p=124, statue 55}}]]
The Afanasievo culture resulted from an eastern offshoot of the [[Yamnaya culture]], originally based in the [[Pontic steppe]] north of the [[Caucasus Mountains]].<ref name="Allentoft 2015">{{cite journal |last1=Allentoft |first1=ME |date=June 11, 2015 |title=Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |publisher=[[Nature Research]] |volume=522 |issue=7555 |pages=167–172 |bibcode= 2015Natur.522..167A|doi=10.1038/nature14507 |pmid=26062507 |s2cid=4399103 |url= https://depot.ceon.pl/bitstream/123456789/13155/2/nature14507.pdf}}</ref> The Afanasevo culture (c.&nbsp;3500–2500&nbsp;BC) displays cultural and genetic connections with the Indo-European-associated cultures of the Central Asian steppe yet predates the specifically [[Indo-Iranians|Indo-Iranian]]-associated [[Andronovo culture]] (c.&nbsp;2000–900&nbsp;BC).

[[J. P. Mallory]] and [[Victor H. Mair]] argued that the Tarim Basin was first settled by [[Proto-Tocharian]]-speakers from an eastern offshoot of the Afanasievo culture, who migrated to the south and occupied the northern and eastern edges of the basin.{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=314–318}}  The early eastward expansion of the Yamnaya culture circa 3300 BC is enough to account for the isolation of the Tocharian languages from [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]] linguistic innovations like [[satemization]].{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=294–296, 317–318}} Michaël Peyrot argues that several of the most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto-Tocharian-speaking Afanasievans with speakers of an early stage of [[Proto-Samoyedic]] in South Siberia. Among others, this might explain the merger of [[Proto-Indo-European language|all three-stop series]] (e.g., *t, *d, *dʰ > *t), which must have led to a huge amount of [[homonyms]], as well as the development of an [[Agglutinative language|agglutinative]] case system.<ref>Peyrot, M. (2019). The deviant typological profile of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European may be due to Uralic substrate influence, Indo-European Linguistics, 7(1), 72-121. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/22125892-00701007</ref>

Chao Ning et al. (2019) found in burials from around 200 BC at the [[Shirenzigou site]] on the eastern edge of [[Dzungaria]] 20–80% Yamnaya-like ancestry, lending support to the hypothesis of a migration from Afanasievo into Dzungaria, which is just north of the Tarim Basin.<ref>{{cite journal
|given1=Chao |surname1=Ning |given2=Chuan-Chao |surname2=Wang |given3=Shizhu |surname3=Gao |given4=Yang |surname4=Yang |given5=Xue |surname5=Zhang |given6=Xiyan |surname6=Wu |given7=Fan |surname7=Zhang |given8=Zhongzhi |surname8=Nie
|given9=Yunpeng |surname9=Tang |given10=Martine |surname10=Robbeets |given11=Jian |surname11=Ma |given12=Johannes |surname12=Krause |given13=Yinqiu |surname13=Cui
|title=Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya-Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo-European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan
|journal=Current Biology |year=2019 |volume=29 |issue=15 |pages=2526–2532.e4
|doi=10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.044 |doi-access=free |pmid=31353181 |bibcode=2019CBio...29E2526N }}</ref>

===Chemurchek culture===
According to archaeologist Alexey Kovalev, the [[Chemurchek culture]] (2750-1900 BCE), an Altaic culture with many similarities with cultures of Western Europe and especially Southern France in burial and statuary styles, may have been associated with the Proto-Tokharians.{{sfn|Kovalev|2011|p=17}} According to glotto-chronological data, proto-Tokharians must have migrated to the east around the same period, and their Western Indo-European language is closest to proto-Germanic and proto-Italic, corresponding to the broad geographical area encompassing southern France where the style most similar to those of the Chemurchek culture have been identified.{{sfn|Kovalev|2011|p=17}} The language of the Chemurchek/Proto-Tokharians may have originated from the same general location in Western Europe, as did their burial and statuary styles.{{sfn|Kovalev|2011|p=17}}