I am a bit disappointed by New Scientist's standard of reporting here.

"Has been shockingly overlooked by all but a handful of scholars since its discovery 125 years ago" -- really? I picked up the one popular book on the subject that I own. It was first published almost 25 years ago and has an entire chapter on proto-Elamite, plus about a dozen mentions throughout the book.

Everything seems to have some sort of fake narrative these days to make it more "interesting". <old-man-yells-at-cloud/>

P.S. Highly recommend the book: https://www.thamesandhudson.com/products/lost-languages