Indo-European expansion

The Indo-European migrations were hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, and subsequent migrations of people speaking derived Indo-European languages, which took place approx. 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia, from India and Iran, to Europe.

While there can be no direct evidence of prehistoric languages, a synthesis of linguistics, archaeology, anthropology and genetics establish both the existence of Proto-Indo-European and the spread of its daughter dialects through migrations of large populations of its speakers, as well as the recruitment of new speakers through emulation of conquering elites. Comparative linguistics describes the similarities between various languages and the laws of systematic change, which allow the reconstruction of ancestral speech (see Indo-European studies). Archaeology traces the spread of artifacts, habitations, and burial sites presumed to be created by speakers of Proto-Indo-European in several stages: from the hypothesized locations of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, into their later locations of Western Europe, Central, South and Eastern Asia. These changes occurred by migrations and by language shift through elite-recruitment as described by anthropological research. Recent genetic research has increasingly contributed to understanding the kinship relations among prehistoric cultures.

According to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis, or renewed Steppe hypothesis, the oldest migration branch produced the Anatolian languages (Hittite language and Luwian language) which split from the earliest proto-Indo-European speech community (archaic PIE) inhabiting the Volga basin. The second-oldest branch language group, Tocharian, was spoken in the Tarim Basin (now western China), after splitting from early PIE spoken on the eastern Pontic steppe. The bulk of the Indo-European languages developed from late PIE, which was spoken within the Yamnaya horizon on the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 3000 BCE.

Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic may have developed from Indo-European languages coming from Central Europe to Western Europe after the 3rd millennium BCE Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley, while Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic may have developed east of the Carpathian mountains, in present-day Ukraine, moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE).

The Proto-Indo-Iranian language and culture probably emerged within the Sintashta culture (circa 2100–1800 BCE), at the eastern border of the Abashevo culture, which in turn developed from the Corded Ware-related Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture. The Sintashta culture grew into the Andronovo culture (ca. 1900–800 BCE), the two first phases being the Fedorovo Andronovo culture (ca. 1900–1400 BCE) and Alakul Andronovo culture (ca. 1800–1500 BCE). Indo-Aryans moved into the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (ca. 2400–1600 BCE) and spread to the Levant (Mitanni), northern India (Vedic people, ca. 1500 BCE). The Iranian languages spread back throughout the steppes with the Scyths, and into Ancient Iran with the Medes, Parthians and Persians from ca. 800 BCE.

A number of alternative theories have been proposed, most notably the Anatolian hypothesis and the Armenian hypothesis. Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis suggests a much earlier date for the Indo-European languages, proposing an origin in Anatolia and an initial spread with the earliest farmers who migrated to Europe. It has been the only serious alternative for the steppe-theory, but suffers from a lack of explanatory power. The Anatolian hypothesis also led to some support for the Armenian hypothesis, which proposes that the Urheimat of the Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus. While the Armenian hypothesis has been criticized on archeological and chronological grounds, recent genetic research has revived debate.

Fundamentals

Linguistics: relations between languages

Indo-European languages

The Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (1612–1653) noted similarities between various European languages, Sanskrit, and Persian. Over a century later, after learning Sanskrit in India, Sir William Jones detected equivalent correspondences; he described them in his ''Third Anniversary Discourse'' to the Asiatic Society in 1786, concluding that all these languages originated from the same source.Jonathan Slocum, ''What is Historical Linguistics? What are 'Indo-European' Languages?'', The University of Texas at Austin
From his initial intuitions there developed the hypothesis of an Indo-European language family consisting of several hundred related languages and dialects. The 2009 ''Ethnologue'' estimates a total of about 439 Indo-European languages and dialects, about half of these (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan subbranch based in South Asia. The Indo-European family includes most of the major current languages of Europe, of the Iranian plateau, of the northern half of the Indian Subcontinent, and of Sri Lanka, with kindred languages also formerly spoken in parts of ancient Anatolia and of Central Asia. With written attestations appearing from the Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant in historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history, after the Afroasiatic family.

Almost 3 billion native speakers use Indo-European languages, making them by far the largest recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to ''Ethnologue'', twelve are Indo-European – Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Punjabi, Marathi, French, Urdu – accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers.

Development of the Indo-European languages

=Proto-Indo-European language

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The (late) Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, as spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans after the split-off of Anatolian and Tocharian. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be widely accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language and it is by far the most well-understood of all proto-languages of its age. During the 19th century, the vast majority of linguistic work was devoted to reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European or its daughter proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic, and most of the current techniques of historical linguistics (e. g. the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction) were developed as a result.

Scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than a millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis, which postulates an origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe.

The existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones, who observed the similarities between Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin. By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are still accepted today (with some refinements). The largest developments of the 20th century have been the discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian languages and the acceptance of the laryngeal theory. The Anatolian languages have also spurred a major re-evaluation of theories concerning the development of various shared Indo-European language features and the extent to which these features were present in PIE itself.

PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology that included inflections (suffixing of roots, as in ''who, whom, whose''), and ablaut (vowel alterations, as in ''sing, sang, sung''). Nouns used a sophisticated system of declension and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation.

=Pre-Proto-Indo-European

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Relationships to other language families, including the Uralic languages, have been proposed but remain controversial. There is no written evidence of Proto-Indo-European, so all knowledge of the language is derived by reconstruction from later languages using linguistic techniques such as the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction. Most linguists recognize there is a limit to linguistic reconstruction, and that reconstructing an ancestral language to Proto-Indo-European might not be possible.

The Indo-Hittite hypothesis postulates a common predecessor which both the Anatolian languages and the other Indo-European languages came from, called Proto-Indo-Hittite. Although PIE logically had predecessors, the Indo-Hittite hypothesis is not widely accepted, and there is little to suggest that it is possible to reconstruct a Proto-Indo-Hittite stage that differs substantially from what is already reconstructed for PIE.

Frederik Kortlandt postulates a shared common ancestor of Indo-European and Uralic, Proto-Indo-Uralic, as a possible pre-PIE. According to Kortlandt, "Indo-European is a branch of Indo-Uralic which was radically transformed under the influence of a North Caucasian substratum when its speakers moved from the area north of the Caspian Sea to the area north of the Black Sea."

=Uralic, Caucasian and Semitic borrowings

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Proto-Finno-Ugric and PIE have a lexicon in common, generally related to trade, such as words for "price" and "draw, lead". Similarly, "sell" and "wash" were borrowed in Proto-Ugric. Although some have proposed a common ancestor (the hypothetical Nostratic macrofamily), this is generally regarded as the result of intensive borrowing, which suggests that their homelands were located near each other. Proto-Indo-European also exhibits lexical loans to or from Caucasian languages, particularly Proto-Northwest Caucasian and Proto-Kartvelian, which suggests a location close to the Caucasus.

Gramkelidze and Ivanov, using the now largely unsupported glottalic theory of Indo-European phonology, also proposed Semitic borrowings into Proto-Indo-European, suggesting a more southern homeland to explain these borrowings. According to Mallory and Adams, some of these borrowings may be too speculative or from a later date, but they consider the proposed Semitic loans ''*táwros'' 'bull' and ''*wéyh₁on-'' 'wine; vine' to be more likely. Anthony notes that those Semitic borrowings may also have occurred through the advancement of Anatolian farmer cultures via the Danube valley into the steppe zone.

=Phases of Proto-Indo-European

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According to Anthony, the following terminology may be used:
* Archaic PIE for "the last common ancestor of the Anatolian and non-Anatolian IE branches";
* Early, core, or Post-Anatolian, PIE for "the last common ancestor of the non-Anatolian PIE languages, including Tocharian";
* Late PIE for "the common ancestor of all other IE branches".

The Anatolian languages are the first Indo-European language family to have split off from the main group. Due to the archaic elements preserved in the now extinct Anatolian languages, they may be a "cousin" of Proto-Indo-European, instead of a "daughter", but Anatolian is generally regarded as an early offshoot of the Indo-European language group.

=Phylogenetic analysis of Indo-European languages

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Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, but basing their work on comparative vocabulary, a number of researchers have attempted to estimate the dates of the splitting up of the various Indo-European languages. According to the latest study by Kassian et al. (2021), Hittite was the earliest language to split off from the rest, around 4139–3450 BC, followed by Tocharian around 3727–2262 BC. Subsequently Indo-European split into four branches ca. 3357–2162 BC: (1) Greek-Armenian, (2) Albanian, (3) Italic-Germanic-Celtic, (4) Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian. Balto-Slavic split from Indo-Iranian around 2723–1790 BC, Italic-Germanic-Celtic broke up around 2655–1537 BC, and Indo-Iranian split up around 2044–1458 BC. The position of Albanian is not completely clear, from an insufficiency of evidence.

The authors point out that these dates, which are only approximate, are not inconsistent with the dates established by other methods for the various archaeological cultures which are thought to be associated with Indo-European languages. For example, the date for the Tocharian break-off corresponds to the migration that gave rise to the Afanasievo culture; the date for the Balto-Slavic–Indo-Iranian break-up may be correlated with the end of Corded Ware culture around 2100 or 2000 BC; and the date for Indo-Iranian corresponds to that of the Sintashta archaeological culture, frequently associated with Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers.

Archaeology: migrations from the steppe Urheimat

Archaeological research has unearthed a broad range of historical cultures that can be related to the spread of the Indo-European languages. Various steppe-cultures show strong similarities with the Yamna-horizon at the Pontic steppe, while the time-range of several Asian cultures also coincides with the proposed trajectory and time-range of the Indo-European migrations.

According to the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis or ''Steppe theory'', the Indo-European language and culture spread in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat in the Eurasian Pontic steppes into Western Europe, Central and South Asia, through folk migrations and so-called elite recruitment. This process started with the introduction of cattle at the Eurasian steppes around 5200 BCE, and the mobilisation of the steppe herder cultures with the introduction of wheeled wagons and horse-back riding, which led to a new kind of culture. Between 4500 and 2500 BCE, this "horizon", which includes several distinctive cultures culminating in the Yamnaya culture, spread out over the Pontic steppes, and outside into Europe and Asia. Anthony regards the Khvalynsk culture as the culture that established the roots of Early Proto-Indo-European around 4500 BCE in the lower and middle Volga.

Early migrations at ca. 4200 BCE brought steppe herders into the lower Danube valley, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe. According to Anthony, the Anatolian branch, to which the Hittites belong, probably arrived in Anatolia from the Danube valley.

Migrations eastward from the Repin culture founded the Afanasevo culture which developed into the Tocharians. The Tarim mummies were thought to represent a migration of Tocharian speakers from the Afanasevo culture into the Tarim Basin. yet a 2021 study demonstrates that the mummies are remains of locals descending from Ancient North Eurasians and ancient Northeast Asians; meanwhile, the study suggests instead that Afanasevo migrants might have introduced Proto-Tocharian into Dzungaria during the Early Bronze Age before Tocharian languages were recorded in Buddhist texts dating to 500-1000 CE in the Tarim basin. Migrations southward may have founded the Maykop culture, but the Maykop origins could also have been in the Caucasus.

Late PIE is related to the Yamnaya culture. Proposals for its origins point to both the eastern Khvalynsk and the western Sredny Stog culture; according to Anthony it originated in the Don-Volga area at ca. 3400 BCE.

The western Indo-European languages ( Germanic, Celtic, Italic) probably spread into Europe from the Balkan-Danubian complex, a set of cultures in Southeastern Europe. At ca. 3000 BCE a migration of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamna-culture took place toward the west along the Danube river, Slavic and Baltic developed a little later at the middle Dniepr (present-day Ukraine), moving north toward the Baltic coast. The Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE), which arose in the contact zone east of the Carpathian mountains, materialized with a massive migration from the Eurasian steppes to Central Europe, probably played a central role in the spread of the pre-Germanic and pre-Balto-Slavic dialects.

The eastern part of the Corded Ware culture contributed to the Sintashta culture (c. 2100–1800 BCE), where the Indo-Iranian language and culture emerged, and where the chariot was invented. The Indo-Iranian language and culture was further developed in the Andronovo culture (c. 1800–800 BCE), and influenced by the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (c. 2400–1600 BCE). The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians, whereafter Indo-Aryan groups moved to the Levant (Mitanni), northern India (Vedic people, c. 1500 BCE), and China (Wusun). The Iranian languages spread throughout the steppes with the Scyths and into Iran with the Medes, Parthians and Persians from ca. 800 BCE.

Anthropology: Elite recruitment and language shift

According to Marija Gimbutas, the process of "''Indo-Europeanization''" of Europe was essentially a cultural, not a physical transformation. It is understood as a migration of Yamnaya people to Europe, as military victors, successfully imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups, who are referred to by Gimbutas as ''Old Europeans''. The Yamnaya people's social organization, especially a patrilinear and patriarchal structure, greatly facilitated their effectiveness in war. According to Gimbutas, the social structure of ''Old Europe'' "contrasted with the Indo-European Kurgans who were mobile and non-egalitarian" and who had a hierarchically organised tripartite social structure; the IE were warlike, lived in smaller villages at times, and had an ideology that centered on the virile male, reflected also in their pantheon. In contrast, the indigenous groups of ''Old Europe'' had neither a warrior class nor horses.

Indo-European languages probably spread through language shifts. Small groups can change a larger cultural area, and elite male dominance by small groups may have led to a language shift in northern India.

It is thought that when Indo-Europeans expanded into Europe from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, they encountered existing populations that spoke dissimilar, unrelated languages. Based on evidence from presumably non-Indo-European lexicon in the European branches of Indo-European, Iversen and Kroonen (2017) postulate a group of "Early European Neolithic" languages that is associated with the Neolithic spread of agriculturalists into Europe. Early European Neolithic languages were supplanted with the arrival of Indo-Europeans, but according to Iversen and Kroonen left their trace in a layer of mostly agricultural vocabulary in the Indo-European languages of Europe.

According to Edgar Polomé, 30% of modern German derives from a non-Indo-European sub-stratum language spoken by people of the Funnelbeaker culture indigenous to southern Scandinavia. When Yamnaya Indo-European speakers came into contact with the indigenous peoples during the third millennium BCE, they came to dominate the local populations, yet parts of the indigenous lexicon persisted in the formation of Proto-Germanic, thus lending to the Germanic languages the status of ''Indo-Europeanized'' languages. Similarly, according to Marija Gimbutas, the Corded Ware culture, after migrating to Scandinavia, synthesized with the Funnelbeaker culture, giving birth to the Proto-Germanic language.

David Anthony, in his "revised Steppe hypothesis", conjectures that the spread of the Indo-European languages probably did not happen through "chain-type folk migrations", but by the introduction of these languages by ritual and political elites, which were emulated by large groups of people, a process which he calls "elite recruitment".

According to Parpola, local elites joined "small but powerful groups" of Indo-European-speaking migrants. These migrants had an attractive social system and good weapons, and luxury goods which marked their status and power. Joining these groups was attractive for local leaders, since it strengthened their position, and gave them additional advantages. These new members were further incorporated by matrimonial alliances.

According to Joseph Salmons, language shift is facilitated by "dislocation" of language communities, in which the elite is taken over. He observes that this change is facilitated by "systematic changes in community structure", in which a local community becomes incorporated in a larger social structure.

Genetic relations between historical populations

Since the 2000s genetic studies are assuming a prominent role in the research on Indo-European migrations. Whole-genome studies reveal relations between the people associated with various cultures and the time-range in which those relations were established. Research by Haak et al. (2015) showed that ~75% of the ancestry of Corded Ware-related people came from Yamna-related populations, while Allentoft et al. (2015) shows that the people of the Sintashta culture are genetically related to those of the Corded Ware culture.

Ecological studies: widespread drought, urban collapse, and pastoral migrations

Climate change and drought may have triggered both the initial dispersal of Indo-European speakers, and the migration of Indo-Europeans from the steppes in south central Asia and India.

Around 4200–4100 BCE a climate change occurred, manifesting in colder winters in Europe. Steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe.

The Yamnaya horizon was an adaptation to a climate change that occurred between 3500 and 3000 BCE, in which the steppes became drier and cooler. Herds needed to be moved frequently to feed them sufficiently, and the use of wagons and horse riding made this possible, leading to "a new, more mobile form of pastoralism".

In the second millennium BCE widespread aridization led to water shortages and ecological changes in both the Eurasian steppes and south Asia.Rajesh Kochhar (2017)
"The Aryan chromosome"
''The Indian Express''. At the steppes, humidization led to a change of vegetation, triggering "higher mobility and transition to the nomadic cattle breeding". Water shortage also had a strong impact in south Asia, "causing the collapse of sedentary urban cultures in south central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, and India, and triggering large-scale migrations".

Origins of the Indo-Europeans

Urheimat (original homeland)

The Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses are tentative identifications of the Urheimat, or primary homeland, of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language. Such identifications attempt to be consistent with the glottochronology of the language tree and with the archaeology of those places and times. Identifications are made on the basis of how well, if at all, the projected migration routes and times of migration fit the distribution of Indo-European languages, and how closely the sociological model of the original society reconstructed from Proto-Indo-European lexical items fits the archaeological profile. All hypotheses assume a significant period (at least 1500–2000 years) between the time of the Proto-Indo-European language and the earliest attested texts, at Kültepe, c. 19th century BCE.

The Kurgan hypothesis and the "revised steppe theory"

Since the early 1980s the mainstream consensus among Indo-Europeanists favors Marija Gimbutas' "Kurgan hypothesis", c.q. David Anthony's "Revised Steppe theory", derived from Gimbutas' pioneering work, placing the Indo-European homeland in the Pontic steppe, more specifically, between the Dniepr (Ukraine) and the Ural river (Russia), of the Chalcolithic period (4th to 5th millennia BCE), where various related cultures developed.

The Pontic steppe is a large area of grasslands in far Eastern Europe, located north of the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea and including parts of eastern Ukraine, southern Russia and northwest Kazakhstan. This is the time and place of the earliest domestication of the horse, which according to this hypothesis was the work of early Indo-Europeans, allowing them to expand outwards and assimilate or conquer many other cultures.

The Kurgan hypothesis (also theory or model) argues that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" (a term grouping the Yamnaya or Pit Grave culture and its predecessors) in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. The term is derived from ''kurgan'' (), a Turkic loanword in Russian for a tumulus or burial mound. An origin at the Pontic-Caspian steppes is the most widely accepted scenario of Indo-European origins.

Marija Gimbutas formulated her Kurgan hypothesis in the 1950s, grouping together a number of related cultures at the Pontic steppes. She defined the "Kurgan culture" as composed of four successive periods, with the earliest (Kurgan I) including the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures of the Dnieper/Volga region in the Copper Age (early 4th millennium BCE). The bearers of these cultures were nomadic pastoralists, who, according to the model, by the early 3rd millennium expanded throughout the Pontic–Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe.

Gimbutas' grouping is nowadays considered to have been too broad. According to Anthony, it is better to speak of the Yamnaya culture or of a "Yamnaya horizon", which included several related cultures, as the defining Proto-Indo-European culture at the Pontic steppe. David Anthony has incorporated recent developments in his "revised steppe theory", which also supports a steppe origin of the Indo-European languages. Anthony emphasizes the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BCE), which according to him started on the middle Don and Volga, as the origin of the Indo-European dispersal, but regards Khvalynsk archaeological culture since around 4500 BCE as the oldest phase of Proto-Indo-European in the lower and middle Volga, a culture that kept domesticated sheep, goats, cattle and maybe horses. Recent research by Haak et al. (2015) confirms the migration of Yamnaya-people into western Europe, forming the Corded Ware culture.

A recent analysis by Anthony (2019) also suggests a genetic origin of proto-Indo-Europeans (of the Yamnaya culture) in the Eastern European steppe north of the Caucasus, deriving from a mixture of Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs) and hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHGs). Anthony additionally suggests that the proto-Indo-European language formed mainly from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gathers with influences from languages of northern Caucasus hunter-gatherers, in addition to a possible later, and minor, influence from the language of the Maikop culture to the south (which is hypothesized to have belonged to the North Caucasian family) in the later Neolithic or Bronze Age involving little genetic impact.

Anatolian hypothesis

The primary competitor is the Anatolian hypothesis advanced by Colin Renfrew, which states that the Indo-European languages began to spread peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor (modern Turkey) from around 7000 BCE with the Neolithic advance of farming by demic diffusion (''wave of advance''). Accordingly, most of the inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European languages, and later migrations would at best have replaced these Indo-European varieties with other Indo-European varieties. The main strength of the farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with an archaeologically known event (the spread of farming) that is often assumed as involving significant population shifts. Nevertheless, these days the Anatolian hypothesis is generally rejected, since it is incompatible with the growing data on the genetic history of the Yamnaya-people.

Armenian hypothesis

Another theory which has drawn considerable, and renewed, attention is the Armenian plateau hypothesis of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, who have argued that the Urheimat was south of the Caucasus, specifically, "within eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia" in the fifth to fourth millennia BCE. Their proposal was based on a disputed theory of glottal consonants in PIE. According to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, PIE words for material culture objects imply contact with more advanced peoples to the south, the existence of Semitic loan-words in PIE, Kartvelian (Georgian) borrowings from PIE, some contact with Sumerian, Elamite and others. However, given that the glottalic theory never caught on and there was little archaeological support, the Gamkrelidze and Ivanov theory did not gain support until Renfrew's Anatolian theory revived aspects of their proposal.

Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics.

Characteristics

According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely related populations ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, Bronze Age Indo-Europeans. This view is held especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this view is not shared by linguists, as proto-languages generally occupy small geographical areas over a very limited time span, and are generally spoken by close-knit communities such as a single small tribe.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were likely to have lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BCE. Mainstream scholarship places them in the forest-steppe zone immediately to the north of the western end of the Pontic–Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe. Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the middle Neolithic (5500 to 4500 BCE) or even the early Neolithic (7500 to 5500 BCE), and suggest alternative Proto-Indo-European original homelands.

By the late third millennium BCE, offshoots of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached Anatolia (Hittites), the Aegean (Mycenaean Greece), Western Europe, and southern Siberia ( Afanasevo culture).

Origins of Proto-Indo-Europeans

The proto-Indo-Europeans, i.e. the Yamnaya people and the related cultures, seem to have been a mix from Eastern European hunter-gatherers; and people related to the Near East, i.e. Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) i.e. Iran Chalcolithic people with a Caucasian hunter-gatherer component. Where this CHG-component came from is unknown; the mix of EHG and CHG may result from "an existing natural genetic gradient running from EHG far to the north to CHG/Iran in the south," or it may be explained as "the result of Iranian/CHG-related ancestry reaching the steppe zone independently and prior to a stream of AF natolian Farmerancestry," reaching the steppes with people who migrated northwards into the steppes between 5,000 and 3,000 BCE.

Origins of archaic PIE

Different possibilities exist regarding the genesis of archaic PIE. While the consensus is that early and late PIE languages originated on the Pontic steppes, the location of the origin of archaic PIE has become the focus of renewed attention, due to the question where the CHG-component came from, and if they were the carriers of archaic PIE. Some suggest an origin of Archaic PIE from languages of the (EHG) hunter-gatherers of the Eastern European/Eurasian Steppe, some suggest an origin in or south of the Caucasus, and others suggest a mixed origin from the languages of both aforementioned regions.

Caucasus origins

Some recent DNA-research has led to renewed suggestions, most notably by David Reich, of a Caucasian homeland for archaic or 'proto-proto-Indo-European', from where archaic PIE speaking people migrated into Anatolia, where the Anatolian languages developed, while at the steppes archaic PIE developed into early and late PIE.

Anthony (2019, 2020) criticizes the Southern/Caucasian origin proposals of Reich and Kristiansen, and rejects the possibility that the Bronze Age Maykop people of the Caucasus were a southern source of language and genetics of Indo-European. According to Anthony, referring to Wang et al. (2018), the Maykop-culture had little genetic impact on the Yamnaya, whose paternal lineages were found to differ from those found in Maykop remains, but were instead related to those of earlier Eastern European hunter-gatherers. Also, the Maykop (and other contemporary Caucasus samples), along with CHG from this date, had significant Anatolian Farmer ancestry "which had spread into the Caucasus from the west after about 5000 BC", while the Yamnaya had a lower percentage which does not fit with a Maykop origin. Partly for these reasons, Anthony concludes that Bronze Age Caucasus groups such as the Maykop "played only a minor role, if any, in the formation of Yamnaya ancestry." According to Anthony, the roots of Proto-Indo-European (archaic or proto-proto-Indo-European) were mainly in the steppe rather than the south. Anthony considers it likely that the Maykop spoke a Northern Caucasian language not ancestral to Indo-European.

Indo-Uralic Urheimat

Bomhard's alternative Caucasian substrate hypothesis proposes a "north-Caspian Indo-Uralic" Urheimat, involving an origin of PIE from the contact of two languages; a Eurasian steppe language from the north Caspian (related to Uralic) which acquired a substratal influence from a northwest Caucasian language. According to Anthony (2019), a genetic relationship to Uralic is unlikely and cannot be reliably proven; similarities between Uralic and Indo-European would be explained by early borrowings and influence.

Steppe origins with south Caspian CHG-influences

Anthony argues that proto-Indo European formed mainly from the languages of Eastern European hunter-gatherers with influences from those of Caucasus hunter-gatherers, and suggests that the archaic proto-Indo-European language formed in the Volga Basin (in the Eastern European Steppe). It developed from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gatherers at the Volga steppe plains, with some influences from languages of northern Caucasus hunter-gatherers who migrated from the Caucasus to the lower Volga. Additionally, there is possible later influence, involving little genetic impact, in the later Neolithic or Bronze Age from the language of the Maykop culture to the south, which is hypothesized to have belonged to the North Caucasian family. According to Anthony, hunting-fishing camps from the lower Volga, dated 6200–4500 BCE, could be the remains of people who contributed the CHG-component, similar to the Hotu cave, migrating from northwestern Iran or Azerbaijan via the western Caspian coast. They mixed with EHG-people from the northern Volga steppes, forming the Khvalynsk culture, which "might represent the oldest phase of PIE.". The resulting culture contributed to the Sredny Stog culture, a predecessor of the Yamnaya culture.

Archaic Proto-Indo-European

Pre-Yamnaya steppe cultures

According to Anthony, the development of the Proto-Indo-European cultures started with the introduction of cattle at the Pontic-Caspian steppes. Until ca. 5200–5000 BCE the Pontic-Caspian steppes were populated by hunter-gatherers. According to Anthony, the first cattle herders arrived from the Danube Valley at ca. 5800–5700 BCE, descendants from the first European farmers. They formed the Criş culture (5800–5300 BCE), creating a cultural frontier at the Prut-Dniestr watershed. The adjacent Bug–Dniester culture (6300–5500 BCE) was a local culture, from where cattle breeding spread to the steppe peoples. The Dniepr Rapids area was the next part of the Pontic-Caspian steppes to shift to cattle-herding. It was the densely populated area of the Pontic-Caspian steppes at the time, and had been inhabited by various hunter-gatherer populations since the end of the Ice Age. From ca.5800–5200 it was inhabited by the first phase of the Dnieper-Donets culture, a hunter-gatherer culture contemporaneous with the Bug-Dniestr culture.

At ca. 5200–5000 BCE the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture (6000–3500 BCE) (aka Tripolye culture), presumed to be non-Indo-European speaking, appears east of the Carpathian mountains, moving the cultural frontier to the Southern Bug valley, while the foragers at the Dniepr Rapids shifted to cattle herding, marking the shift to Dniepr-Donets II (5200/5000 – 4400/4200 BCE). The Dniepr-Donets culture kept cattle not only for ritual sacrifices, but also for their daily diet. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE), located at the middle Volga, which was connected with the Danube Valley by trade networks, also had cattle and sheep, but they were "more important in ritual sacrifices than in the diet". The Samara culture (early 5th millennium BCE), north of the Khvalynsk culture, interacted with the Khvalynsk culture, while the archaeological findings seem related to those of the Dniepr-Donets II culture.

The Sredny Stog culture (4400–3300 BCE) appears at the same location as the Dniepr-Donets culture, but shows influences from people who came from the Volga river region. According to Vasiliev, the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures show strong similarities, suggesting "a broad Sredny Stog-Khvalynsk horizon embracing the entire Pontic-Caspian during the Eneolithic." From this horizon arose the Yamnaya culture, which also spread over the entire Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Europe: migration into the Danube Valley (4200 BCE)

According to Anthony, the Pre-Yamnaya steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe, their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of the kind partly preserved later in Anatolian." See Suvorovo culture and Ezero culture for details.

Anatolia: Archaic Proto-Indo-European (Hittites; 4500–3500 BCE)

The Anatolians were a group of distinct Indo-European peoples who spoke the Anatolian languages and shared a common culture. The Anatolians' earliest linguistic and historical attestation are as names mentioned in Assyrian mercantile texts from 19th-century BCE Kanesh.

The Anatolian languages were a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. The archaeological discovery of the archives of the Hittites and the classification of the Hittite language to a separate Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages caused a sensation among historians, forcing a re-evaluation of Near Eastern history and Indo-European linguistics.

Origins

Damgaard et al. (2018) note that " ong comparative linguists, a Balkan route for the introduction of Anatolian IE is generally considered more likely than a passage through the Caucasus, due, for example, to greater Anatolian IE presence and language diversity in the west."

Mathieson et al. note the absence of "large amounts" of steppe-ancestry in the Balkan peninsula and Anatolia, which may indicate that archaic PIE originated in the Caucasus or Iran, but also state that "it remains possible that Indo-European languages were spread through southeastern Europe into Anatolia without large-scale population movement or admixture."

Damgaard et al. (2018), found "no correlation between genetic ancestry and exclusive ethnic or political identities among the populations of Bronze Age Central Anatolia, as has previously been hypothesized." According to them, the Hittites lacked steppe-ancestry, arguing that "the Anatolian clade of IE languages did not derive from a large-scale Copper Age/Early Bronze Age population movement from the steppe," contrary Anthony's proposal of a large-scale migration via the Balkan as proposed in 2007. The first IE-speakers may have reached Anatolia "by way of commercial contacts and small-scale movement during the Bronze Age." They further state that their findings are "consistent with historical models of cultural hybridity and 'middle ground' in a multicultural and multilingual but genetically homogeneous Bronze Age Anatolia," as proposed by other researchers.

According to Kroonen et al. (2018), in the linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al. (2018), aDNA studies in Anatolia "show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population", but do "fit the recently developed consensus among linguists and historians that the speakers of the Anatolian languages established themselves in Anatolia by gradual infiltration and cultural assimilation." They further note that this lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language "no later than the 4th millennium BCE."

Time-frame

Although the Hittites are first attested in the 2nd millennium BCE, the Anatolian branch seems to have separated at a very early stage from Proto-Indo-European, or may have developed from an older Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor. Considering a steppe origin for archaic PIE, together with the Tocharians the Anatolians constituted the first known dispersal of Indo-European out of the Eurasian steppe. Although those archaic PIE-speakers had wagons, they probably reached Anatolia before Indo-Europeans had learned to use chariots for war. It is likely that their arrival was one of gradual settlement and not as an invading army.

According to Mallory, it is likely that the Anatolians reached the Near East from the north, either via the Balkans or the Caucasus in the 3rd millennium BCE. According to Anthony, if it separated from Proto-Indo-European, it likely did so between 4500 and 3500 BCE. According to Anthony, descendants of archaic Proto-Indo-European steppe herders, who moved into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, later moved into Anatolia, at an unknown time, but maybe as early as 3,000 BCE. According to Parpola, the appearance of Indo-European speakers from Europe into Anatolia, and the appearance of Hittite, is related to later migrations of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamna-culture into the Danube Valley at ca. 2800 BCE, which is in line with the "customary" assumption that the Anatolian Indo-European language was introduced into Anatolia somewhere in the third millennium BCE.

Hittite civilisation

The Hittites, who established an extensive empire in the Middle East in the 2nd millennium BCE, are by far the best-known members of the Anatolian group. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Egypt and the Middle East. Despite the use of ''Hatti'' for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium). The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. Although belonging to the Bronze Age, they were the forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron artifacts from as early as the 14th century BCE, when letters to foreign rulers reveal the latter's demand for iron goods. The Hittite empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BCE under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After 1180 BCE, amid the Bronze Age Collapse in the Levant associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples, the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BCE. The lands of the Anatolian peoples were successively invaded by a number of peoples and empires at high frequency: the Phrygians, Bithynians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, the Galatian Celts, Romans and the Oghuz Turks. Many of these invaders settled in Anatolia, in some cases causing the extinction of the Anatolian languages. By the Middle Ages, all the Anatolian languages (and the cultures accompanying them) were extinct, although there may be lingering influences on the modern inhabitants of Anatolia, most notably Armenians.

Northern Caucasus: The Maykop culture (3700–3000 BCE)

The Maykop culture, c. 3700–3000 BCE, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop kurgan in the Kuban River valley.

According to Mallory and Adams, migrations southward founded the Maykop culture (c. 3500–2500 BCE). Yet, according to Mariya Ivanova the Maykop origins were on the Iranian Plateau, while kurgans from the beginning of the 4th millennium at Soyuqbulaq in Azerbaijan, which belong to the Leyla-Tepe culture, show parallels with the Maykop kurgans. According to Museyibli, "the Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus." This model was confirmed by a genetic study published in 2018, which attributed the origin of Maykop individuals to a migration of Eneolithic farmers from western Georgia towards the north side of the Caucasus. It has been suggested that the Maykop people spoke a North Caucasian, rather than an Indo-European, language.

Early Proto-Indo-European

Afanasevo culture (3500–2500 BCE)

The Afanasievo culture (3300 to 2500 BCE) is the earliest Eneolithic archaeological culture found until now in south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin, Altay and Eastern Kazakhstan. It originated with a migration of people from the pre-Yamnaya Repin culture, at the Don river, and is related to the Tocharians.

Radiocarbon gives dates as early as 3705 BCE on wooden tools and 2874 BCE on human remains for the Afanasievo culture. The earliest of these dates has now been rejected, giving a date of around 3300 BCE for the start of the culture.

The Tocharians

The Tocharians, or "Tokharians" ( or ) were inhabitants of medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). Their Tocharian languages (a branch of the Indo-European family) are known from manuscripts from the 6th to 8th centuries CE, after which they were supplanted by the Turkic languages of the Uyghur tribes. These people were called "Tocharian" by late 19th-century scholars who identified them with the ''Tókharoi'' described by ancient Greek sources as inhabiting Bactria. Although this identification is now generally considered mistaken, the name has become customary.

The Tocharians are thought to have developed from the Afanasevo culture of Siberia (c. 3500–2500 BCE). It is believed that the Tarim mummies, dated from 1800 BCE, represent a migration of Tocharian speakers from the Afanasevo culture in the Tarim Basin in the early 2nd millennium BCE; however, a 2021 genetic study demonstrated the Tarim Mummies are remains of locals descending from Ancient North Eurasians and Northeast Asians, and instead suggested that " Tocharian may have been plausibly introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants" -i.e. "the Afanasievo herders of the Altai–Sayan region in southern Siberia (3150–2750 BC), who in turn have close genetic ties with the Yamnaya (3500–2500 BC) of the Pontic–Caspian steppe located 3,000 km to the west"- before being recorded in 500–1000 CE's Buddhist scriptures.

The Indo-European eastward expansion in the 2nd millennium BCE had a significant influence on Chinese culture, introducing the chariot, horse burials, the domesticated horse,.. "domesticated horses were introduced to the western pre-Chinese area by the Indo-Europeans." iron technology, and wheeled vehicles, "It is now accepted that the chariot is an intrusive cultural artifact that entered Shang China from the north or northwest without any wheeled-vehicle precursors." "The Chinese did not have wheeled vehicles before this period. They adopted the chariot from the foreigners who brought the fully formed artifact with them from the northwest.".. "no earlier wheeled vehicles of any kind have ever been found in China proper.".. "The wheel was introduced to China as a part of the chariot..." fighting styles, head-and-hoof rituals, art motifs and myths. By the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the dominant people as far east as the Altai Mountains southward to the northern outlets of the Tibetan Plateau were anthropologically Caucasian, with the northern part speaking Iranian Scythian languages and the southern parts Tocharian languages, having Mongoloid populations as their northeastern neighbors.. The dominant people in the western part of it, from the Altai of western Mongolia south through the Kroraina area around the Lop Nor to the Ch'i-lien Mountains, the northern outliers of the Tibetan Plateau, were Caucasoid in race; those in the northern region seem to have spoken North Iranian "Saka" languages or dialects, while those in the Kroraina area spoke Tokharian languages or dialects. These two groups were in competition with each other until the latter overcame the former. The turning point occurred around the 5th to 4th centuries BCE with a gradual Mongolization of Siberia, while Eastern Central Asia (East Turkistan) remained Caucasian and Indo-European-speaking until well into the 1st millennium CE.

The Yuezhi

The Sinologist Edwin G. Pulleyblank has suggested that the Yuezhi, the Wusun, the Dayuan

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