An alternative hypothesis about IE origins

I sought out Anthony’s narrative because of a recommendation from J.P. Mallory.  But I chose it for my principle story line because it holds together well and seems the most comprehensive.  That said, I should mention a competing theory. 

The Anatolian Hypothesis is a proposal by respected archaeologist Colin Renfrew.  It originally posited a Proto-Indo-European origin in Anatolia, i.e. roughly modern Turkey, not on the Pontic Caspian steppe.  The original PIE speakers were agriculturalists.  Origin and expansion of IE languages occurred about 2,000 years earlier than is commonly believed.  It spread along with the spread of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. Renfrew subsequently revised the hypothesis in response to criticism, and now argues that a very early IE ancestor, pre-Proto-Indo-European, arose in Anatolia.  Anatolian split away and remained in Turkey, while speakers of PIE moved into the Balkans, i.e., “Old Europe.”  The formative development of IE occurred there, southeast of the steppe, rather than on it.

The latest hypothesis for the origin of IE languages is as recent as this year, and seems to support Renfrew.  In August, 2012, University of Auckland’s Dr. Quentin Atkinson published another argument for Anatolian origins.  Atkinson, a psychologist and evolutionary biologist, used computer modeling similar to that used to reconstruct the evolutionary development of animals.  The model worked from estimated origins of selected vocabulary forms within various IE language families.  His placement and timing, like Renfrew’s, corresponds with the expansion of agriculture out of Anatolia and across Europe.  Other experts question his conclusions, however, suggesting his model does not integrate the full breadth of linguistic evidence.  Popular accounts of this study appeared in the New York Times and Science News. 

Lingering questions

And finally, these are some things that still bother me, in no particular order:
 


(1)  How and where did the original linguistic basis for Proto-Indo-European come into being?  How does any organized language system—with its standardized sounds and usage around infinite possibilities—come into being?  How do rules of syntax and grammar form? 

(2)  I am still amazed at the virtual annihilation of hundreds, even thousands, of pre-existing tongues by the IE language family.  It just feels like the explanations, including Dr. Anthony’s “franchising” concept, are too simplistic.     

(3)  Did steppe culture annihilate alternative cultures as well?  And if so, to what extent has that influenced the modern West’s political, social and religion systems?  Despite the comment of Dr. Mallory in the last post, aggression in particular still interests me.

(4)  Would a genetic analysis of Eurasian peoples tell us if steppe populations physically displaced those they encountered?  This would promote a more informed discussion of culture and character.   I’m sure such studies exist, but I’ve not had time to explore them.

(5)  Do today’s predominant Western religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) reflect steppe spiritual practices?  In some respects they seem to–they are male-oriented, patriarchal and focused on “sky-gods.”  But the parent is Judaism, whose origins predate proto-Indo-European.  Also, Judaism arose among speakers of Semitic languages, Indo-European.

(6)  There is irony in the Neolithic adoption of farming and pastoralism, a true “progress trap” per Ronald Wright in A Short History of Progress.  I can only assume that, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  Because the longer consequences are indisputable:  nutritional imbalance, altered social hierarchies, population instability, and degraded ecologies.  Others might argue that agriculture contributed to our phenomenal success as a species.  It makes for quite the philosophical discussion, but for insights, see  John Bodley’s Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems. 

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Some final good reads and follow-up on “Origins:”

1)    Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems,  by John H. Bodley, 2012.   This is the sixth edition.  It was first published in the late 80’s, which is when I read it.  I can’t speak for the current edition, but the one I read was excellent and relevant, and I’ve referred to it often since.  Anyone with a background in ecology can readily relate to the narrative.

2)    A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, 2005.  Indispensable, this is my new favorite book to recommend to my ecologist colleagues.  In a sense it carries the same message as Jared Diamond’s Collapse, but shorter and much more readable.  Wright coins the term “progress trap,” for innovations like agriculture and the automobile that have unexpected consequences.    

3)  The Origins of Complex Language:  An Inquiry into the Evolutionary Beginnings of Sentences, Syllables, and Truth, by Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy, 1999.  I’ve not read it, but I’m curious.  Here’s an excerpted Amazon blurb: “…a new theory of the origins of human language…an original account of the early evolution of language…explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence…a new perspective on human uniqueness…draws on archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science and evolutionary biology.”

4)    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language:  A useful summary, and a good place to start if we ever seriously explore the link between PIE language roots and modern European culture.

5)  A History of God:  The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, by Karen Armstrong, 1994.  I haven’t read this, but it’s near the top my list.  Even if these dominant religions have no origins in steppe culture, they have impacted Western thought for perhaps three thousand years. 

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Next Post:  Crete, at last!

The question of “how” is controversial.  Did IE languages expand through force (“invasionist” theory) or via a gradual and voluntary adoption (“diffusionist” theory)?   Of course, it’s simplistic to think it would be “either-or,” and credible authorities today don’t see it that way.  But this hasn’t always been the case.  

Violent overthrow or peaceful expansion?
 
The first coherent theory came from Lithuanian-born archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, in the 1950’s.  In her “Kurgan Hypothesis,”  she opted for violence:  Dispersing steppe warriors, mounted and with advanced bronze weaponry, encountered matrilineal and egalitarian societies.  They easily imposed their patriarchal, hierarchical culture and economy, displacing a goddess-based spirituality with their male-dominated deities.  Today, authorities suggest the archaeological record tells a richer story, one of a more gradual expansion; albeit not entirely peaceful, but nor as violent as Gimbutas believed.

Consider English:  Why is it becoming the modern standard for international discourse?  Maybe it’s because English-speaking capitalists have been so successful.  For most of sixty-plus years since WWII, America has been the big dog, economically and diplomatically.  So we’ve made the rules, sometimes by invasion, sometimes trade or treaty.  Too, we have throughout displayed our enviable wealth and prosperity.  Power, wealth and influence:  Other countries emulate us, want to trade with us.  They want to be like us, to speak like us.  

But why do Americans speak English in the first place?  Or, for that matter, Indians, Africans and Australians?  While we quickly associate colonial violence with Spain in the New World, there was nothing passive about British colonialism, either. These are stories of overthrow, slaughter and oppression, as Richard Gott points out in Britain’s Empire.

The English analogy demonstrates that linguistic diffusion is complex.  For his part, David Anthony, in The Horse, the Wheel and Language, argues that displacement of Neolithic tongues by Indo-European languages was more like a “franchising operation:”   

“At least a few steppe chiefs must have moved into each new region, and their initial arrival might well have been accompanied by cattle raiding and violence.  But equally important…were the advantages enjoyed in institutions…and perhaps in public performances associated with Indo-European rituals.  Their social system was maintained by myths, rituals, and institutions that were adopted by others, along with the poetic language that conveyed their prayers to the gods and ancestors.”  (p. 464)

Or, more succinctly by Azar Gat in War in Human Civilization:  “As linguists have always pointed out, the expansion of the Indo-European languages must have been a multi-layered and untidy process.” (p. 207)

But is the “how” that important?  

In a sense, how IE languages spread is academic.  The reality is that they did.  Language alone is just a marker, inarguable evidence that something significant changed.  More important is, “Did the IE phenomenon shape modern society?”  From there, we could more intelligently explore the ills affecting us today, perhaps create more effective tools for identifying and countering them.  Thus, my second opening question:  Did steppe peoples displace cultures as well and languages?  If so, to what degree, and in what ways?  Which of their cultural identifiers might we carry today?  

Intuitively, the first answer must be “yes.”  Certainly there was some cultural displacement.  It’s not tenable to decouple language from culture entirely.  Social factors powerful enough to transform a linguistic system must have had a broader effect.  But there problems arise:  We have no substantive picture of what the alternative was or could have been.

It’s tempting to point to the militaristic, patriarchal and hierarchical nature of Western societies and religions today.  In Gimbutas view, the precursor was virtually the opposite.  Even though she is seen today as idealistic and even inaccurate (see works like Excavating Women, edited by Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Marie Louise Stig-Sorenson), we aren’t left with an alternative.  What would be a more accurate depiction of pre-IE culture in Europe?.  To what extent were behaviors and societies shaped by instinct and biology apart from culture?  As J.P. Mallory wrote to me in an email, “There is good evidence that populations in Europe during the Neolithic were perfectly capable of bashing in each other’s skulls…”

Frankly, I’m going to leave it at this.  The question of cultural displacement is complex, and exploring it could easily require as many posts and did the overview of linguistic development.  While I will continue exploring this in the background, I do want to move on to the next chapter in European and French history.  The final post on this series will include this and other outstanding questions I’m leaving unexplored.

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)    War in Human Civilization, by Azar Gat, 2008.  No, I haven’t read this…yet.  I did buy it, though, and it’s waiting on my iPad!  The reason it interests me is this except from the Amazon blurb:  “Why do people go to war? Is it rooted in human nature or is it a late cultural invention?”  To me, as an ecologist and biologist and wannabee psychologist, this is the ultimate question.  All kinds of other questions hinge on it:  Is man basically good or bad?  Do we really have “free will,” or are we controlled by our base natures?  Should be interesting reading. 

2)    The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, edited by J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, 2006.  More than the average non-academic reader or serious student probably wants to know about the PIE languages and the world PIE speakers occupied.  That said, I just may seek it out.  The complement of this book for the terminally inquisitive would be the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, 1997, edited by the same authors (but out of print). 
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Next Post:  “Some Lingering Questions”

In these questions we fall back on conjecture and surmise, and it’s unlikely the story is a simple one.  We’ll briefly explore the “how” in the next post, but for now let’s do a quick review and look at the present-day result.

A recap…

The first group of Indo-European speakers left the Pontic Caspian Steppe about 4100 BCE.  These were the speakers of pre-Anatolian and they went southwest into the Danube Valley as Old Europe was collapsing.  Some even believe this was a violent expansion and that the steppe peoples drove the collapse.  Others, disagree, noting that a significant cooling trend during this era had severely affected the crop-based economy of Old Europe.  These dissenters suggest that steppe herders might have simply seen opportunity in empty pastures and weak defenses and taken advantage, though perhaps hastening the collapse in doing so.   

In any case, that early departure was followed some 500 years later by movement from the extreme opposite end of the steppe.  Pre-Tocharian speakers at the base of the Ural Mountains crossed the Urals and continued eastward for some 2,000 km, settling only in western China and Mongolia.  Why they went so far is a mystery.  Were they perhaps fleeing conflict?  Then subsequently, over the next 800 years or so, pre-Germanic speakers moved north; and speakers of pre-Italic and pre-Celtic went southeast into the Danube Valley.  Again, we can’t know why, but by this time the steppes would have been well-developed and probably fully-claimed.  Perhaps these were lesser chieftains leaving to become established elsewhere.  Lesser groups, speakers of pre-Slavic and pre-Baltic for example, departed throughout this period as well.

In all, the chronology is a long one, extending almost two millennia.  The final chapters were only written around 2,000 BCE.  As trade routes developed and population increased, large migrations may no longer have been necessary for linguistic expansion.  For example, pre-Indo-Iranian, which had arisen within the Sintasha culture at the eastern base of the Ural Mountains, may have moved southward into India and the Mid-East simply through the exchange of ideas and goods.  Certainly the chariot, which also originated within the Sintasha, reached the Mid-East within only 200 years. 

Finally, the last Indo-European language family to arise was Hellenic, with speakers of pre-Greek.  It appears to have arisen not on the steppe proper, but from a melange of other steppe language families then found in the Mediterranean region, notably Phrygian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian.

Living the reality…

Whatever the reasons for those early dispersals — fear, power, space, trade, wanderlust, curiosity — we live today their reality.  The Eurasian landscape eventually occupied by steppe tribes was complex and multicultural.  Yet hundreds or even thousands of Neolithic tongues must have fallen before the steppe dialects.  Virtually all are gone.  All dominant languages spoken in Europe today originated on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.  The only remaining non-IE languages are Basque and Maltese (both extremely isolated), and three somewhat larger families: Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian) Turkic and Mongolic.   

The chart below from Dr. Anthony’s book and used by permission, aptly demonstrates the ultimate reach of the ancient steppe herders:

Modern Indo-European Language Families That Have Origins on the Pontic Caspian Steppe
(From “The Horse, the Wheel and Language, page 12 – Used by permission of of the author)

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)  Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, by J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, editors.    Out of print, and I have not seen it (yet!).  However, given the misinformation and biased interpretations surrounding Indo-European origins, I can’t over-emphasize the need for credible sources.  Drs. Mallory and Adams are two.  Here is a summary excerpt taken from Amazon:  “….over 700 entries, written by seventeen leading specialists…an essential reference work…detailed indexing and clear layout and organization…”

2)   Website of Dr. Jay Jasanoff:  Dr. Jasanoff is Professor of Indo-European Linguistics and Philology in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University.  He is another authoritative source of probably more than any non-academic will want to know about Indo-European linguistics.  His “Suggestions for Further Reading” link cites a number of highly academic sources.  Difficult stuff for the rest of us, but probably useful if you want to identify the philosophical or political agendas behind much popular narrative on the web around the subject of IE culture. 

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Next Post:  Why did other languages disappear? 

A steppe chronology…

This brief recounting will tie together our narrative of events on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.  Note the departure dates for speakers of various proto-Indo-European dialects.

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5800 BCE:                                                                                                   
Cattle herders arrive at the edge of the steppes in east Romania.  A longstanding “cultural frontier” is established. 

5200-5000 BCE:                                                                                          
Herding finally diffuses inward, as far as the Volga and Ural Rivers and the Ural Mountains.

4600 BCE:                                                                                                     
Copper smelting in “Old Europe” west and south of the steppes catalyzes trade networks.

4400-4200 BCE:                                                                                          
Steppe herders invent horseback riding.  Increased mobility increases herd size, and demand for horses develops off the steppes.

4200-4000 BCE:                                                                                          
The ancient agricultural settlements of Old Europe, centered off the steppes in Bulgaria and the Danube Valley, collapse.  A cooling climate causes or exacerbates this event.

First dispersal event (Pre-Anatolian):  Colonizers from the western steppes, mounted and speaking proto-Anatolian, occupy the vacated or weakened settlements  of Old Europe.

3700-3100 BCE:                                                                                          
The world’s first urban centers develop in Mesopotamia.  Seeking trade, their representatives visit the southern steppes across the Caucasus Mountains.  They introduce the wheel and ox-drawn wagons, opening the deep steppe interior to nomadic herding.

3700-3400 BCE:                                                                                          
Second dispersal event (Pre-Tocharian):  Colonizers from the eastern steppes, speaking proto-Tocharian, cross the Urals and travel 2000 km to the Altai Mountains of western Kazakhstan, northeastern China and western Mongolia. 

3300 BCE:                                                                                                       
Increased trade, mobility, wealth and power drive social and economic change that “homogenizes” the steppes.  Strong distinctions among previously diverse steppe societies are softened.  Various local cultures, still recognizably different, begin to exhibit broadly similar economies, social systems, and rituals.

3200-3100 BCE:                                                                                          
The “Yamnaya Horizon,” emerges, the “…first more or less unified ritual, economic, and material culture to spread across the entire Pontic-Caspian steppe…” (Anthony, page 304).  Regional cultural variants are associated with localized PIE dialects. 

Even within the Yamnaya horizon, an east-west cultural divide persists. Eastern cultures towards the Ural Mountains are more nomadic, with a more male-oriented society and religion.    Western cultures nearer Europe are more settled and retain some agriculture.  Western religions accommodate some female deities of Old European Neolithic groups. 

3300-2500 BCE::                                                                                          
Multiple dispersal events (Pre-Germanic, Pre-Italian, Pre-Celtic):  Various migrations off the steppes occur.  First, northwest into the Carpathians (Pre-Germanic); then southwest into the Danube Valley (Pre-Italic and Pre-Celtic).    

2500 BCE:                                                                                                   
Linguistic differentiation has produced regional dialects that supplant original Proto-Indo-European.  The roots for all modern IE languages have differentiated.  PIE  is no longer spoken.  

2100-1800 BCE::                                                                                          
Several eastern groups near the base of Ural Mountains consolidate, cross the Urals and solidify into the Sintasha Culture on the eastern piedmont.  This breaks a cultural and ecological frontier that had long blocked movement of PIE eastward.

Chariots originate within the Sintasha culture (around 2000 BCE).  They appear in the Near East within 200 years.

Origin of Pre-Indo-Iranian:  Indo-Iranian takes root in the Sintasha culture, as evidenced by the language of Sintasha ritual that eventually forms much of the Rig Veda and the Avesta.  

1650 BCE:                                                                                                   
Approximate origin of Greek:  Pre-Greek apparently develops from IE dialects already split away.  In part, these are pre-Armenian, pre-Phrygian, and pre-Indo-Iranian.

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Transformation in brief…

Paraphrasing Dr. David Anthony:  These events transformed the steppe economy, as well as it’s “ritual-political system.”  The steppes had been a barrier to transmission of ideas and technologies.  Now they became a conduit connecting the vast geography of China, the Near-East, and central Europe.  Trade and communication, coupled with the obvious wealth, power, mobility and social status associated with the mounted steppe herding societies, created a powerful influence for change elsewhere.  As steppe societies dispersed into Europe, Asia and the Near East, they carried with them much that would drive change in the societies they encountered:  riding, livestock, technology, trade in metal and weapons, and obvious power and wealth.  They also brought a socio-political-religious system better adapted to this new way of life. 

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)  An Introduction to the Processes and Consequences of Culture Change, by Dennis O’Neil.  I found this very readable series when exploring mechanisms of cultural change on the steppes.  Interesting and accessible, it will also be useful in why non-steppe peoples abandoned their language (and presumably much of their cultures) for that of the steppes.

2)   Effects of the automobile on societies.  Should you doubt wagons and horses could change a society, glance at this and (surely) myriad more scholarly works.  Parallels could easily be drawn to the horse and the American Plains Indian, but this is more fun.  We’ve done trains, planes and automobiles.  Tomorrow, maybe commercial rockets?

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Next Post: 

Until 5200 BCE, when a wave of change began.  Perhaps key individuals or groups had finally embraced herding and others followed, analogous to Malcom Gladwell’s Tipping Point.  Perhaps sufficient cultural blending occurred that the system reached “critical mass,” and change became inevitable.

In any case, by 5000 BCE, herding had diffused across the western steppes as far east as the Volga and Ural Rivers.  Interestingly, agriculture did not go along, and steppe peoples would not be farmers for a long while.  But the tide of change swept on…

An abbreviated narrative…

Over the next twenty-five hundred years, new technologies transformed economies both on and off the steppes.  Universal demand for copper and then bronze drove exchange of ores, bulk metals and finished products.  Steppe herders mounted horses, then introduced riding to the world when some ventured off the steppes during the collapse of Old Europe.  

When urban centers developed in Mesopotamia, their traders crossed the Caucasus Mountains onto the steppes seeking metals, gems, wool and horses.  They introduced wheels and ox-drawn wagons, further changing the dynamics of steppe herding.  The mobility provided by horses and wagons allowed herds, pastures and tribal territories to vastly increase.  

Livestock, symbols wealth and status, increased the importance of tribal cohesion on the steppes.  A male-dominated, patrilinear social structure developed to protect herds against theft.  Social hierarchies developed to accommodate newly powerful families and individuals.  Customs evolved to accommodate loyalties and the defenses requisite to a more complex society.  

A social system developed around affluence and power. Chiefs held huge feasts and made elaborate gift exchanges to seal alliances.  They merited ostentatious funerals with complex rituals.  Select individuals closest to the gods officiated and performed the rites.  The diverse and home-based goddess cults of Old Europe were inadequate, and religion coalesced around ritual, a male-dominated society, and the vast geography of the open plains and sky.   Gods were male deities who lived in the heavens and granted favor for animal sacrifices.  

And finally, the Yamnaya Horizon…

In the course of these changes, differences among newly connected societies across the vast steppes gradually broke down.  Though regionally different cultures and dialects persisted, a relatively common and identifiable set of traits could be recognized across most of the landscape.  Archeologists refer to such a phenomenon as a “horizon,” and that which emerged as the culmination of change on the steppes is called the “Yamnaya Horizon.”

It was defined by a herding economy with seasonal pasture movements.  Mounted riders scouted for distant pastures, while cattle-drawn wagons carried tents, water and food into the deep steppe.   Huge herds were dispersed across vast grasslands.  Social stratification reflected vast wealth accumulated through herding and trade.  Oaths of loyalty, feasts and gift-giving sealed social ties and minimized conflict.  Elaborate funeral rituals recognized individuals or families of high social standing.  Funerals were accompanied by complex rituals and prayers.  A male-based warrior class defended property and lands.  And finally, predominantly male deities living somewhere in the vast overhead skies oversaw all this.  

The Yamnaya Horizon lasted perhaps a millennia, ending around 2500 BCE.  By that time, Proto-Indo-European as a language system was no longer spoken.  It had differentiated into numerous derivative dialects.  Also, by that time, several tribal groups had already dispersed from the steppes into Europe, taking their new languages with them. 

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)   Old Europe and the Vinca Culture, by Phil Coppens.  I’m not yet sure what to make of Mr. Coppens, specifically the accuracy of his narrative or the research behind it.  He seems to conflate the Vinca Culture with Old Europe per se (see below).   But his general cultural description is the most complete I’ve found and merits a (perhaps qualified) read.      

2)    Vinca Culture.  Contrast this with Mr. Coppens narrative for a slightly different point of view.  Here, the Vinca Culture is perhaps a subset of Old Europe, rather than being one with it.  More fundamental is the question of it’s fate:  Given the mixed influences of a cooling climate, invasion from steppes, soil degradation, and how little is really know of their dispersal, the story seems to me less definitive than Mr. Coppens suggests.

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Next Post:  “A Pontic-Caspian Steppe Chronology”

In fact, interest in this narrative goes back over 200 years, to 1786.  That’s when Sir William Jones, a British judge and linguist, proposed a common linguistic ancestor among Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian, Celtic and German.  Today, linguists place those tongues (plus dozens of others added later) in the “Indo-European macro-family” of languages.  The name (“IE”) reflects their original geographic extent: Europe, southern Asia, and parts of the Middle East.  

Thanks to European colonialism, IE languages eventually spread to the Americas, Australia, Africa and India (think English, Spanish, Portuguese and French!).  Thanks to modern economic globalism, they continue to grow (think English!).  Today, over 40% of the world’s population speak an IE derivative, some three billion people.  Not bad! 

So, might we agree that events on the steppe merit attention?    

Language as a marker of cultural change  

Gripping as it is, our concern is not with the IE narrative itself.  We are interested in steppe culture, not language.  However, there are two assumptions basic to our story:  First, that linguistic change reflects cultural change; second, that as a language disperses, the associated culture goes along.  In this light, language becomes just a readily detectable marker of cultural change.

All of this matters because the linguistic roots that took hold and grew on the Pontic-Caspian steppe are so obviously dominant today.  And therein lie our real questions:  As Indo-European languages spread, displacing pre-existing indigenous tongues, did indigenous cultures fall as well?  If so, what were the mechanisms of such change?  How did the new differ from the old?  How did this affect Europe over the following millennia?     

PIE, a brief linguistic history…

Next post, we’ll present the list of modern IE languages, and how and when their primitive forms left the steppes.   But before that, we have to talk about the “mother tongue,” what linguists call “proto-Indo-European,” or PIE.  This was the precursor to the hundreds of offshoots found today across the globe.  

The story of PIE is critical to our narrative, because if cultural commonalities exist across modern IE cultures, they should be reflected within the common linguistic heritage.  And while sources vary, one can argue that within PIE are found linguistic artifacts pointing to common mythologies, social hierarchies, gender roles, deities and and religious practices, even concepts of warfare and economic systems.  These are divisive concepts even today, and raise many questions about the culture carried outward by dispersing steppe peoples.    

According to Dr. David Anthony (see the last couple of posts for more on Dr. Anthony), PIE developed out of the indigenous steppe language after inhabitants first encountered herders at their frontier.  It took perhaps 1,300 years, but he believes that by 4500 BCE, PIE was a recognizable language system.  It would have by then reflected the cultural shift that occurred as the steppe embraced herding;  and it continued to develop and evolve over the next 2,000 years.  During that time, its speakers would have undergone other cultural “paradigm shifts,” including horseback riding, wheels and wagons, and metallurgy associated with copper and bronze.  Each of these new technologies drove dramatic cultural change.

But by 2500 BCE, PIE would have given way to primitive forms of Greek and German and Italian and various other IE precursors.  These were the proto-languages that eventually left the steppes.  

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Good Reads and Follow-up:

Indo-European Languages (Wikipedia):  One of many sites on the web devoted to the IE macro-family of languages.  It’s a broad, well-written overview, but only the beginning if you really want to dive into this topic. 

 University of Texas Linguistics Research Center:  In place since 1961, the LRC is a research unit in UT’s College of Liberal Arts.  The center’s stated emphasis is on Indo-European languages.  It is perhaps the most authoritative source readily available for the breadth of resources available on this topic. 

Next Post:  “Drivers of Change and a New World Order”

Probably via the Danube River Valley, a new people arrive.  They speak a tongue we don’t understand and—strangest of all—their food walks along with them!  Our own language hasn’t even words for such a lifestyle and culture.  But while we find it strange, and while the cultural frontier separating us will last some 2,000 years, we know a good thing when we see it!  Herding…what a great idea!

The stage is set…

When our herders arrived, the “Neolithic Revolution” had been in Europe for 1,200 years.  From Greece and Turkey, it had begun radiating across Eurasia.  Perhaps the steppe’s physical isolation had kept it bay, but now change was here.  Over the next three to four millennia, it would have four drivers:  herding, horses, wagons and bronze.  So powerful were these that, when the steppe peoples finally disperse from their homeland, they would do so cloaked in an entirely new culture.

OK, let’s break the suspense.  Yes, eventually these peoples leave the steppe, probably in stages and perhaps by tribal group, perhaps by their departures speaking various dialects of some common basic language.  Their lexicon and lifestyles had by then absorbed and reshaped themselves around the drivers mentioned above.  Their culture had become one of mobility via horses and wagons and chariots;  of wealth and hierarchy via herd ownership; and of advanced tools and weaponry via bronze.  And as they left the steppes, they went on to change the world.

But what exactly is the story?

Today, the steppe peoples are most with us when we speak:  Virtually all modern European tongues derive from their language, and the origin of that language has been a longstanding question.  But another point of entry into this story is the effect of herding and the changes it wrought on an egalitarian, foraging society.  Closely related is question of horses:  Where did humans first climb onto one, and what happened next?  Or, how did herders from south central Europe annihilate Neolithic languages and culture on much of the continent?  And, how much of our subsequent history has been driven by the changes they wrought?

In fact, this is a difficult narrative for a layman to construct.  It’s rife with conflicting theories, contrasting points of view, and multiple points of entry.  The most credible of the many sources are more technical than a layman can absorb.  Some authors dispute a single linguistic source for modern European tongues; others who accept a single origin still dispute the steppe as the place.  And even among those who support steppe origins, few get beyond the facts of departure and the subsequent dispersal and influence.  Few address with any authority (and then to varying degrees) the mechanics of cultural change on the steppe and the derivative cultures that resulted across the continent.

The framework I relate here and in future posts, drawn from Dr. David Anthony’s book, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, is itself only one alternative.  But it is the most recent, and is highly respected among academics.  The breadth of his argument makes a convincing case for the Pontic-Caspian steppe as the homeland of modern European languages.  Dr. Anthony also drills down into the mechanics of cultural and linguistic change on the steppe, which I find missing in many other sources.  So, I’ve chosen to adopt Dr. Anthony’s argument, though it will be necessary later to mention a couple of others.

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)    Indo-European Origins in Southeast Europe, by Dieneke Pontikos.  A web-based summary that samples some competing theories regarding the origins of Proto-Indo-European (i.e., the parent tongue of modern European languages).  Even this doesn’t reference Dr. Anthony’s book, nor really address Marija Gimbutas’ “Kurgan Hypothesis.”

2)    Proto-Indo-European Urheimat Hypothesis.  An insightful Wikipedia entry reviewing the competing hypotheses regarding the Proto-Indo-European homeland (“urheimat”).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_Urheimat_hypotheses

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Next Post:  “Of Language and Culture”

Pontic-Caspian Steppe above the Black and Caspian Seas. This is the westernmost sub-region of the Eurasian Steppe, which extends eastward to China. (Map by DBachmann, used under a Creative Commons license)

A Cliff Notes version of the European Neolithic

European prehistory largely encapsulates three periods:  Paleolithic (early “stone age”), Mesolithic (middle), and Neolithic (late).  Our story begins with the Neolithic, a “wave” of new technologies and accompanying social change that entered southeastern Europe from the the Middle East about 9,000 years ago (7,000 BCE).  Central to this assemblage was a shift to herding and farming over foraging. It spread to the northernmost reaches of the continent and into the British Isles over the next 2,500 years.

Common among the new societies across Europe were hand-shaped pottery, cultivation of grains and legumes, and herding of pigs, goats sheep and cattle.  Archeological clues suggest relatively simple and egalitarian social structures, at least initially.  Settlements seemed to be small, with minimal hierarchy and strongly matrilineal societies.  Community structure evolved somewhat, though:  Within 3,000 years or so, southeasternEurope, the entry point for the Neolithic, had developed fortified agricultural towns of several thousand people.

The secondary effects of this “Neolithic Revolution,” as it has been labeled, were profound.  What began as basic advances in food production drove fundamental change in humans, their societies, and the world they lived in.  This quote from Wikipedia describes it nicely:

“During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human history into sedentary societies based in built-up villages and towns, which radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation (e.g., irrigation and food storage technologies) that allowed extensive surplus food production. These developments provided the basis for high population density settlements, specialized and complex labor diversification, trading economies, the development of non-portable art, architecture, and culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, and depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g., property regimes and writing).” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution).

Pretty astounding!  But not mentioned are the negatives:  environmental degradation, increased susceptibility to disease, and new pathogens transmitted from livestock; a greater tendency towards conflict and hierarchical societies; and loss of the pre-Neolithic foraging knowledge base.  The result?  Vulnerability to crop failure, climatic change, and environmental events (e.g., floods, fire, drought); partitioning of society by skills and wealth and power; loss of intrinsic controls on population size; and a host of other issues we witness even today.  It’s tempting to digress here, pointing this out as an early example of how our insatiable drive to pursue new ideas and solve problems (in this case, food production) has had unforeseen consequences.  But that’s a different post…

So, back to the steppes…

According to Dr. David Anthony in his terrific The Horse, the Wheel and Language, the Neolithic Revolution reached the Pontic-Caspian Steppes about 5800 BCE.   Immigrant herders showed up at the northwestern edge of the region, probably coming from the Danube Valley, west of the Black Sea (though Anthony notes a possible entry over the Caucasus Mountains).  I’ve found nothing to indicate the herders’ previous route, but travel down the Danube, or perhaps north from either modern Turkey or Greece seem possible.

Like all of pre-Neolithic Europe, the steppe occupants lived at that time by hunting, fishing and gathering.  But they differed from the herders in another way: language.  The steppe language system, developed in relative isolation, was unique to the steppes.  And while dissimilar languages must have found one another throughout the Neolithic transition, what happened on the Pontic-Caspian steppe was again unique. Because, over the next few millennia, the steppe language would evolve, spread and eventually replace virtually all others across Europe, and some in Asia as well.

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)  Neolithic_Europe: Wikipedia entry for this topic, and a primary source for much of the discussion on changes wrought by the Neolithic advance.  Actually, I found details across the web, as well as in several books, and rounded it out with personal knowledge.  But this essay is an excellent read.

2) Old_Europe: A  second Wikipedia essay and another information source.  “Old Europe” is a term coined by Marija Gimbutas, whom we will discuss later.  It refers to European agricultural and/or herding societies during the Neolithic.  At this point, the geographical area to which the term applies is unclear to me.

3)  The Horse, the Wheel and Language:  How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, by David W. Anthony.  A recent, comprehensive treatment of Neolithic society on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.  We will discuss this in detail in the next couple of posts.  The book is not directed at the Neolithic, per se, but rather at a longstanding controversy about the homeland of modern European languages.

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Next Post:  Origins (Part III):  “Setting the Stage for Social Change”

Well, for one thing, it’s just part of the story.  But is there perhaps a backstory?  We all know the cultural narrative of Western civilization, with its roots in Greece and later Rome.  But my inner biologist asks if there was something fundamentally characteristic in those founding races that underpinned our cultural development over the millennia.  To consider that, we need to know where we came from…and maybe where we’re going.

Neanderthals vs. the new guys

Technically, the story begins with earlier versions of humans that arrived in Eurasia from Africa.  So-called “proto-humans” reached Europe perhaps a million years ago, maybe earlier,  but it was not until around 200,000 years ago that a nearly modern prototype was present.  We now believe these maligned Neanderthals were actually of somewhat advanced intellect and culture.  In fact, depending on which scientists you support, these guys were either a separate human species (Homo neanderthalensis), or a just a subspecies of modern man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis).

Neanderthals apparently occurred only in central and western Asia and Europe, since remains have not been found elsewhere.  So it’s not clear to me if they arrived “fully formed,” or if they underwent continuing evolutionary development here.  In any case, Neanderthals were in place and well-distributed across the continent by the arrival of our true antecedents (Homo sapiens sapiens), 60,000 to 70,000 years ago.  In Europe, at least, these later arrivals came to be called Cro-Magnons, (though the more appropriate term for them is “Anatomically Modern Humans.”  This latter comes from an email exchange with Dr. David Anthony, Professor of Anthropology at Hartwig College in Pennsylvania).    The two co-existed in parts of Europe for many millennia, and scientists suggest now that they even interbred (a later post will muse on dating etiquette between subspecies…).  But by 25,000 years ago, Neanderthals had left the stage, possibly victims of climatic fluctuations to which they were ill-adapted and the cultural superiority of the new guys.

The arrival of  “modern” Europeans

When Homo sapiens sapiens left Africa, they seem to have taken a half-dozen or so generally different routes into their new world.  The most recent attempt to map this movement comes out of National Geographic’s “Genographic Project.”  This is perhaps the most technically credible effort to trace the paths of humankind across the globe.  Its credibility stems from its design, breadth, and sophisticated technology, the latter associated with genetic mapping.  The figure included here represents the project’s findings regarding dispersal across Eurasia (click photo for a backstory).

The routes of modern humans moving out of Africa, as mapped by National Geographic's Genographic Project. (Used courtesy of National Geographic Society)

To my untrained eye, the map suggests that different routes resulted in Eurasian populations loosely grouped around southern India, central Asia, the Orient, and Europe.  In general, it appears that ancient humans left Africa by moving across the southern Arabian Peninsula and into the Middle East.  From there, they drifted southward along the coast of the Arabian Sea.  But while some continued southward to the southern tip of India and points beyond, one group branched northward from what is now Pakistan.  It soon split also, a contingent heading almost due west and back into Africa, and another northwest, eventually entering the central Eurasian steppes above the Caspian Sea.

It is this second group that interests us, and the one on which our story is based.  I think of what followed as two very general “chapters” in European prehistory.  In the first, there was the general movement to the northwest that differentiated into diverse cultures, virtually covering modern central and western Europe.  To be sure, these were stone age societies.  But by the later stages (5,000 to 20,000 years ago), some had relatively sophisticated technologies and social development (think the cave paintings of Lascaux, and later even Stonehenge).  In a sense, you might think of Neolithic Europe about this time as America at the time of Columbus.  Academics might cringe at that.  For sure, Columbus was a few millennia later, and indigenous Americans had advanced significantly by then.  Still, the comparison is a handy way to grasp western Europe before Chapter II, when the proto-Indo-Europeans mounted horses and climbed on wagons and left the Ukrainian steppes.

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Good reads and follow-up:

1)  Learn your own “deep” origins! For about $US100 and a sample of your DNA, the Genographics Project will trace your ancestry back as far as you dare.  And, you can contribute to a good cause at the same time.  I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours:  Genographic Project – How to Participate

(2) 1491:  New Revelations of the America’s before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann.  Even a cursory read will explain why Neolithic Europe makes me think of the pre-Columbian Americas, and why at the same time I qualify any comparisons.

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Next Post:  “Origins (Part II):   The Pontic-Caspian Steppe Goes Neolithic”

“The border between  Europe and Asia is usually taken as the Ural Mountains in Russia, but that line is a bit arbitrary.  The border becomes even more arbitrary in the Mediterranean region…In fact, for much of Europe’s history, the Mediterranean world has operated as a single unit, with trading ships going back and forth from one coast to another and mighty empires seeking to rule the whole area, without anyone making too much of the fact that, strictly speaking, three separate continents come together there.”

Britain’s Dr. Norman Davies, in Europe:  A History, also steps away from boundaries in favor of geography.  According to Dr. Davies, five dominant physical features largely shaped modern Europe:  (1) a transverse central plain from the Atlantic to the Urals; (2) the mountains (principally the southernmost Alps and even to the Pyrenees); (3) the Mediterranean Sea; (4) the great peninsulas (like Iberia, Italy and the Balkans); and (5) the islands (notably Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Corsica, and Crete).  Events, both their origins and their outcomes, unfolded as the interplay of human migration, trade, armies and other aspects of society on this metaphorical game board.

In short, understanding Europe means forgetting boundaries for awhile and thinking about geography, cultures and events.

Wow!  Doesn’t that help a lot?

None of this should be surprising, but it is something about ourselves we lose sight of:  That we like to put labels on things, to put them in definable and easily-grasped boxes.   Witness the nature of political discourse today, wherein parties and candidates condense complex issues into five-word slogans, and then sell solutions equally as simple.  Real understanding and productive discourse becomes impossible.

Thus it is with Europe.  You can’t understand modern Europe until you look beyond today’s conventions and politics and economy.  True, it has long been a mosaic of different cultures and languages.  But for most of its history, it was not a definable area with distinct boundaries and sovereign nations named France or Germany or Italy.  Until the mid-18th century or so, it was a landscape of shifting rulers and allegiances in which monarchs and emperors and the Church drew and re-drew boundaries by force and cunning and marriage, sometimes horse-trading entire peoples among themselves like kids trading baseball cards.

Surprisingly (and the subject of a future post), our modern concepts of “nations” and “nationalism” have only existed for a quarter millennium, and were arguably crystallized by the French Revolution.  Previously, our loyalties (not to mention our taxes and our right to die for our “countries”) belonged to whatever monarch held our dance card.  Even parts of today’s national boundaries were drawn arbitrarily, some having changed even within the last 25 years, driven by the dissolution of Soviet Russia.

So, what of modern “Europe?”

In brief, Europe today may be a continent by modern convention, but that meant nothing during its formative centuries. And if we consider colonialism, through which Spain and Britain and other countries forced themselves on much of the world, it becomes easier to think of “Europe” as an idea, rather than a continent (per Peter Watson in my last post).  True, European culture had its own formative roots in North Africa and the Middle East.  But as that culture matured, it went on to shape the entire civilizations of North and South America and Australia that we know today, and to a measurable degree those of Africa and Asia.  Incredible what Europeans did with guns and germs, and with (as my comic idol, Eddie Izzard says) “…the clever use of flags.”

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Good reads and follow-up:

1) Ideas:  A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud, by Peter Watson.  Watson is an “intellectual historian” given to seeing history in the context of ideas.  A long read, but entertaining, and guaranteed to make you think about the consequences of human ingenuity.

2) Ideas of European unity before 1945, in Wikipedia.  This very readable essay traces the history of a singular political European identity (in contrast to Watson’s intellectual concept).  Interestingly, a primary driver for a unified Europe was to avoid more war.  Imagine that!

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Next Post:  “Origins (Part I):  Out of Africa (and into…?)”