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| | | {{dambigbox|Proto-Indo-European people|Indo-European}} |
| The '''Proto-Indo-Europeans''' are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed [[Proto-Indo-European language]], a prehistoric people of the [[Chalcolithic]] and early [[Bronze Age]].
| | The '''Proto-Indo-Europeans''', sometimes simply called '''Indo-Europeans''', were a [[prehistory|prehistoric]] people or group of people who are thought to have spoken a [[language (general)|language]] (or group of similar languages) which [[linguistics|linguists]] have reconstructed as '[[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]', representing the ancestor of the modern [[Indo-European languages]] which were spread later across [[Europe]] and a part of [[Asia]] (mainly Iran and [[India]]). Proto-Indo-Europeans probably lived around 6-7,000 years ago. |
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| Some things about their culture can be determined by the words reconstructed for their language:
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| * they used a kinship system based on relationships between men
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| * the chief of their pantheon was ''*dyeus ph<sub>2</sub>tēr'' (lit. "sky father"; > [[Ancient Greek|Gr.]] ''Ζευς (πατηρ) / Zeus (patēr)''; ''*dieu-ph<sub>2</sub>tēr'' > [[Latin|Lat.]] ''Jupiter''), <!--Dyaus Pitā?--> and an earth god{{fact}}<!--Plthvi Mhter?-->
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| * they composed and recited [[heroic poetry]] or song lyrics, that used stock phrases like ''undying fame''
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| * the climate they lived in had snow
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| * they were both [[pastoralism|pastoral]] and [[nomadic]], domesticating cattle and horses
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| * they had [[cart]]s, with solid wheels, but not yet [[chariot]]s, with [[spoke|spoked]] wheels
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| ==Culture and Religion==
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| What we know about the Proto-Indo-Europeans is the result of [[comparative linguistics]], partly supported by [[archaeology]]. The following traits are widely agreed-upon, but are hypothetical by their reconstructed nature.
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| The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a [[patrilineal]] society, probably semi-nomadic, relying on [[animal husbandry]] (notably [[cattle]] and [[sheep]]). They had domesticated the [[horse]] ({{PIE|eḱwos}}). The [[cow]] ({{PIE|gwous}}) played a central role, in religion and mythology as well as in daily life. A man's wealth would have been measured by the number of his animals ({{PIE|peḱus}}, the word for small livestock, acquired a meaning of "value" in both English ''fee'' and in Latin ''pecunia'').
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| They practiced a [[polytheistic]] [[religion]] centered on [[Sacrifice|sacrificial]] [[rites]], probably administered by a [[priestly caste]]. The [[Kurgan hypothesis]] suggests burials in [[tumulus|barrow]]s or tomb chambers. Important leaders would have been buried with their belongings, and possibly also with members of their household or wives ([[human sacrifice]], [[Sati (practice)|suttee]]).
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| There is evidence for sacral [[monarch |kingship]], suggesting the tribal king at the same time assumed the role of high priest (cf. [[Germanic king]]). Many Indo-European societies know a threefold division of a [[clerical]] class, a [[warrior]] class and a class of [[peasant]]s or husbandmen. Such a division was suggested for the Proto-Indo-European society by [[Georges Dumézil]].
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| If there was a separate class of [[warrior]]s, it probably consisted of single young men. They would have followed a separate warrior code unacceptable in the society outside their peer-group. Traces of [[initiation rite]]s in several Indo-European societies suggest that this group identified itself with [[wolf |wolves]] or [[dog]]s (see also [[Berserker]], [[werewolf]]).
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| Technologically, reconstruction suggests a culture of the early [[Bronze Age]]: [[Bronze]] was used to make tools and weapons. [[Silver]] and [[gold]] were known. [[Sheep]] were kept for wool, and [[weaving]] was practiced for textile production. The [[wheel]] was known, certainly for ox-drawn carts, and late [[Proto-Indo European]] warfare may also have made use of horse-drawn [[chariot]]s.
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| The native name of this people cannot be reconstructed with certainty. ''Aryo-'', sometimes upheld as a self-identification of the Indo-Europeans (see [[Aryan]]), is attested as an ethnic designation only in the Indo-Iranian subfamily.
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| ==Origins== | | ==Origins== |
| The scholars of the [[19th century]] that originally tackled the question of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans- (also called ''[[Urheimat]]'' after the German term), were essentially confined to linguistic evidence. A rough localization was attempted by reconstructing the names of plants and animals (importantly the [[beech]] and the [[salmon]]) as well as the culture and technology (a [[Bronze Age]] culture centered on animal husbandry and having domesticated the [[horse]]). The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, positing migration from [[Europe]] to [[Asia]], and an Asian hypothesis, holding that the migration took place in the opposite direction.
| | See: [[Indo-European languages#Origins|Indo-European languages > Origins]]. |
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| However, from its early days, the controversy was tainted by [[Romantic nationalism|romantic]], [[nationalism|nationalistic]] notions of heroic invaders at best and by [[imperialist]] and [[racist]] agendas at worst. It was often naturally assumed that the spread of the language was due to the invasions by some superior [[Aryan race]]. Such hypotheses suffered a particularly severe distortion for purposes of political [[propaganda]] by the [[Nazism|Nazis]]. The question is still the source of much contention. Typically, nationalistic schools of thought either claim their respective territories for the original homeland, or maintain that their own culture and language have always been present in their area, dismissing the concept of Proto-Indo-Europeans altogether (''see'' [[Aryan race]], [[Aryan invasion theory]], [[Eurocentrism]], [[Hindutva]], [[Out of India theory]], [[Paleolithic Continuity Theory]], [[Racism]], [[Rus' (people)|Rus']]).
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| ===Archaeology===
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| There have been many attempts to claim that particular prehistorical cultures can be identified with the PIE-speaking peoples, but all have been speculative. All attempts to identify an actual people with an unattested language depend on a sound reconstruction of that language that allows identification of cultural concepts and environmental factors which may be associated with particular cultures (such as the use of metals, agriculture vs. pastoralism, geographically distinctive plants and animals, etc).
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| In the 20th century [[Marija Gimbutas]] created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the [[Kurgan hypothesis]], after the [[Kurgan]]s (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes) in which the Indo-Europeans were a [[nomad]]ic tribe in Eastern [[Ukraine]] and southern [[Russia]] and expanded on horseback in several waves during the [[3rd millennium BC]]. Their expansion coincided with the taming of the [[horse]]. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see [[battle-axe people]]), they subjugated the peaceful European Neolithic farmers of Gimbutas's [[Neolithic Europe#Old Europe|Old Europe]]. As Gimbutas' views evolved, she put increasing emphasis on the [[patriarchy |patriarchal]], [[patrilinear]] nature of the invading culture, sharply contrasting it with the supposedly egalitarian, if not [[matrilinear]] culture of the invaded, to a point of formulating essentially [[feminist]] archaeology.
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| Her theory has found genetic support in remains from the [[Neolithic]] culture of Scandinavia, where bone remains in Neolithic graves indicated that the [[megalith]] culture was either [[matrilocal]] or [[matrilineal]] as the people buried in the same grave were related through the women. Likewise there is evidence of remaining matrilineal traditions among the [[Picts]]. A modified form of this theory by [[JP Mallory]], dating the migrations earlier to around 4000 BC and putting less insistence on their violent or quasi-military nature, is still widely held.
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| [[Colin Renfrew]] is the leading propagator the "[[Anatolian hypothesis]]", according to which the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from [[Asia Minor]] from around 7000 BC with the [[Neolithic revolution|advance of farming]] (''wave of advance'').
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| Yet another theory is connected with the [[Black Sea deluge theory]], suggesting that PIE originated as the language of [http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Sinop/SinopIntro.htm trade between early neolithic Black Sea tribes]. Under this hypothesis University of Pennsylvania archaeologist [http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/1999/011499/Hiebert.html Fredrik T. Hiebert hypothesizes] that the transition from PIE to IE dispersion occurred during an inundation of the Black Sea in the mid 6th millennium BC.
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| ===Genetics===
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| The rise of [[Archaeogenetic]] evidence which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patterns also added new elements to the puzzle. [[Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza]], one of the first in this field, in the [[1990s]] used genetic evidence to combine, in some ways, Gimbutas' and Colin Renfrew's theories together. Here Renfrew's agricultural settlers, moving north and west, partially split off eventually to become Gimbutas' Kurgan culture which moves into Europe.
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| In any case, developments in genetics take away much of the edge of the sometimes heated controversies about invasions. They indicate a strong genetic continuity in Europe; specifically, studies by Brian Sykes show that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the [[Paleolithic]], suggesting that languages tend to spread geographically by cultural contact rather than by invasion and extermination, i.e. much more peacefully than was described in some invasion scenarios, and thus the genetic record does not rule out the historically much more common type of invasions where a new group assimilates the earlier inhabitants (e.g. [[Ancient Rome |Romans]] in [[Southern Europe]], [[Britons]] in [[Brittany]], [[Arabs]] in [[North Africa]], [[Slavs]] in [[Russia]], [[China|Chinese]] in Southern [[China]], [[Spain |Spanish]] in [[Mexico]] and [[Turkic peoples|Turks]] in [[Anatolia]], etc.). This very common scenario of successive small scale invasions where a ruling nation imposed its language and culture on a larger indigenous population was what Gimbutas had in mind:
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| :''The Process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups.''
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| On the other hand, such results also gave rise to a new incarnation of the "European hypothesis" suggesting the Indo-European languages to have existed in Europe since the Paleolithic (see [[Paleolithic Continuity Theory]]).
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| A component of some 28% may be attributed to the [[Neolithic revolution]], deriving from [[Anatolia]] about 10,000 BCE. A third component of some 11% derives from [[Pontic steppe]]. While these findings confirm that there were population movements both related to the beginning Neolithic and the beginning Bronze Age, corresponding to Renfrew's and Gimbutas' Indo-Europeans, respectively, the genetic record obviously cannot yield any information as to the language spoken by these groups.
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| The spread of [[Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup|Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup]] [[Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA)|R1a1]] is possibly associated with the spread of the Indo-European languages. Its defining mutation (M17) occurred some 10,000 years ago, probably well before the PIE stage, so that its presence cannot be taken as a certain sign of Indo-European admixture.
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| ===Glottochronology===
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| Even more recently, a study of the presence/absence of different words across Indo-European using stochastic models of word evolution (Gray and Atkinson, 2003) suggests that the origin of Indo-European goes back about [[6500 BC |8500 years]], the first split being that of [[Hittite language |Hittite]] from the rest ([[Indo-Hittite]] hypothesis). Gray and Atkinson claim that they went great lengths to avoid the problems associated with traditional approaches to [[glottochronology]]. However, it must be noted that the calculations of Gray and Atkinson rely entirely on [[Swadesh list]]s, and while the results are quite robust for well attested branches, their calculation of the age of Hittite, which is crucial for the Anatolian claim, rests on a 200 word Swadesh list of one single language and is regarded as contentious. Interestingly, a more recent paper (Atkinson et al, 2005) of 24 mostly ancient languages, including three Anatolian languages, produced the same time estimates and early Anatolian split.
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| ==Footnotes==
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| <references />
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| ==External links==
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| *[http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Kurgans.htm Kurgan culture]
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| *[http://dienekes.angeltowns.net/articles/ieorigins/ Indo-European Origins in Southeast Europe]
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| *[http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/Psych/research/Evolution/Gray&Atkinson2003.pdf Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin, Nature 426 (2003) 435-439
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| ==Further reading== | | ==See also== |
| * J. P Mallory, In Search of Indo-Europeans (London 1989). | | *[[Proto-Indo-European language]] |
| * C. Renfrew, Archaeology and language, the puzzle of Indo-European origins (London, Penguin 1987).
| | *[[Indo-European languages]][[Category:Suggestion Bot Tag]] |
| * Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples, and Languages (translated by Mark Seielstad) (New York, Penguin 2000).
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| * Brian Sykes, The seven daughters of Eve (London, Corgi Books 2001) | |
| * Atkinson, Q. D., Nicholls, G., Welch, D. and Gray, R. D. (2005). From Words to Dates: Water into wine, mathemagic or phylogenetic inference? Transactions of the Philological Society, 103(2), 193-219.
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| * Watkins, Calvert. (1995) How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. New York: Oxford University Press.
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