The question of how Indo-European family of languages came to occupy a broad swathe of Europe and western Asia has long attracted discussion. The actual range that the Indo-European family of languages had achieved by early historical times is uncertain, but they were certainly present in central and northern Europe, southeastern Europe, Anatolia and parts of the Near and Middle East. Celtic, Germanic and Slavic migrations may have provided a relatively late overlay of Indo-European languages in parts of western and northern Europe, though without written records of the pre-existing languages it is impossible to say what what widespread before then. Migrations and conquest may likewise have carried Sanskrit and Tocharian further eastwards shortly before early historical times. While acknowledging that these identifiable movements of cultures and peoples contributed to the later spread of the Indo-European languages, scholars have long discussed what events before this time might have led to this group being present widely through central, northern, south-eastern Europe and the Near and MIddle East.
Recent discussion of the prehistoric spreading of the Indo-European language group has generally concentrated on two alternative sets of hypotheses. On one hand there is the view that migrations of war-like cultures (e.g. the 'Kurgan' or 'Battle-Axe' Culture) (Childe 1950, Gimbutas 1980) had spread the languages out from a common point of origin through conquest of relatively passive farming populations. A more recent alternative view (Renfrew 1987, 1992) is that the main event in the spread of the Western Branch of these languages was the initial spread of farming out of the Near East, providing a population 'wave' (due the increased carrying capacity of the farming lifeway) that swamped out the languages of hunter-gatherer groups, speaking non-Indo European languages, that had previously existed in the area. This idea has received some support from genetic evidence of a south-east to north-west gradient in gene marker frequencies across Europe (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994.), which has been taken to be the legacy of the 'farming wave' that spread out of Anatolia beginning around 9,000 BP. The genetic evidence from the 'farming wave' has been disputed however, on the grounds that other (earlier or later) population movements could have followed the same track.
While both the 'Battle-Axe' and the 'Farming Wave' hypotheses have much to merit them, it is important to bear in mind that they may not be the only reasonable explanations in terms of what is known of the pre-history of Europe and western Asia, against a background of emvironmental changes. The possibility that the initial dispersal event of the Indo-European languages involved not neolithic farmers nor bronze-age warriors, but mesolithic hunter-gatherers has been mentioned briefly by several authors (e.g. Renfrew 1987). However, none seems to have given the idea more than a passing thought. Here we aim to discuss this idea in greater depth, examaining what is known of the climate record and the archaeological record, together with general ecological principles of populations, to determine whether this hypothesis stands up to more detailed analysis.
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How languages may spread due to climate instability
The last 100,000 years have been marked by large numbers of dramatic climate oscillations (van Andel & Tzedakis 1996), each of which would have been capable of causing changes in human population density as the resource base shifted. Episodes of relatively low population density, for example during intense cold and dry phases, would have been followed by rebound periods in which humans could expand in range and in numbers across the region.
As well as acting as a source of genetic shifts in population composition, the 'sampling error' caused by contraction of populations, followed by exponential expansion of populations out from refuge areas, could tend to provide waves of linguistic and cultural uniformity to spread across the region. Just such a wave of population out of the Near East may have carried Indo-European languages across much of Europe and part of the way eastward into central Asia.
Following a climate phase marked by low human population densities across the region, any one group that acquired both the general cultural traits that caused it to spread rapidly out of a refugium, and the technology to enable it to do so, would have experienced rapid exponential population growth in an environment relatively free from competition by other hunter-gatherer groups. Such a group, spreading out northwards and westwards, and possibly eastwards as well, would make a disproportionate contribution to the genetic and linguistic legacy of Europe and parts of the Near East.
Other groups even a few centuries slower in expanding their range and populations in tune with the climate change would have become numerically dominated by the earlier colonists as they left their refugial homelands, given the likely exponential growth rate of each population. Even at the relatively low densities that hunter-gatherer populations would have been capable of achieving, competition or at least interaction between groups would eventually have become more frequent, with less abundant (non- Indo-European speaking) groups much more likely to lose their cultural and linguistic identity among a larger wave of Indo-European speakers. This scenario, of separate refugial populations which failed to expand fast enough to dominate linguistically, may explain the existence of the Basque language group, as a 'potential' European dominant that narrowly failed to expand out before the Indo-European speakers became abundant in central and eastern Europe, south-eastern Europe and possibly also most other parts of Europe. The extinct Etruscan, Ligurian and Iberian language groups may be regarded a further examples of the same. As the hypothetical Indo-European wave spread out in each direction, it can be expected to have 'gathered up' the genetic and linguistic legacy of scattered smaller populations it encountered along its way, as each of these began a slightly later spread out of southern European refugia. This process of 'gathering up' may explain some of the current east-west and north-south genetic gradients which now exist in Europe, and some of the differences between the present-day branches of the Indo-European family of languages.
It is thus possible that much of the initial (mid-Holocene) range of the Indo-European languages across central and northern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East was achieved by the rapid spread of a 'sparse wave' of hunter-gatherers, out of either southern Europe, the Levant, Anatolia or western Asia, preceding the 'farming wave'.
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The potential importance of the Younger Dryas cold phase
An obvious candidate for an environmental change which could result in rapid and widespread change in languages, cultures and genetic composition of human populations is the Younger Dryas cold event (about 10,800-10,000 14C years ago) which returned much of western Asia to cold semi-desert conditions (Huntley & Birks 1983, Starkel 1991, Landmann et al. 1996, Rossignol-Strick and Planchais 1992, Velichko 1993), apparently through a series of rapid stepwise cooling events. The transition to the Holocene is marked by noticable changes in technologies (to the Mesolithic) and in human skeletal morphology across this region, possibly suggesting an immigration event. Reviewing the evidence for different hunter-gatherer carrying capacities in different environments, Steele et al. (1998) suggest that temperate forest and moist steppe have a much higher overall carrying capacity than either semi-desert or arctic environments.
Based on a range of different sources of environmental evidence, Rossignol-Strick (1995) suggests that in many areas of Greece and across Turkey, the Younger Dryas period was even more arid than the most extreme part of the last glacial, with semi-desert predominant. Conditions across most of the rest of Europe are variously thought to have resembled open dry forest steppe or possibly (at some stages) semi-desert (Starkel 1991). A priori, such conditions may be expected to have resulted in some change in human population densities and distribution, though it is difficult to demonstrate or disprove this idea, given the limitations in the archaeological record for the Younger Dryas period. In Europe and most of the Near East the record of human occupation during the Younger Dryas is ambiguous, with the 'age plateau' in radiocarbon ages adding to the confusion (10,000 years ago in radiocarbon terms can mean anything between 11,200 to 12,200 'real' years ago). In northern and central Europe, the record is perhaps detailed enough to suggest a complete or almost complete depopulation during the Younger Dryas. However, in the Levant conditions seem to have remained relatively moist (Rossignol-Strick 1995), with relatively strong signs of continuity in human settlement (the Natufian) (Henry 1989). Even in this area, for instance in the Jordan Valley, aridity and a large decrease in food plants are accompanied by more restricted human populations clustered around relatively moist 'oases' (Wright 1993). Following the Younger Dryas, warm, moist Holocene conditions seem to have returned rapidly all across Europe and western Asia, taking only a few decades according to the latest ice core indicators of regional climate (Taylor et al. 1997). Given the magnitude of the change in environments across the region, the earlier rapid climate transition (about 12,000 14C y.a., or 14,500 ca. y.a.) into the much colder, arid Younger Dryas could well have eliminated much of the previous late Palaeolithic population of northern and central Europe, or at least drastically reduced inland population densities, and (from available indications of the carrying capacity of temperate forest environments for hunter-gatherers: Steele et al. 1998) the rapid return of warm conditions would have provided an opportunity for rapid human population expansion to fill this gap.
If one takes Renfrew's view that such dating is unreliable, then an earlier divergence relating to hunter-gatherer recolonization after the Younger Dryas may be more plausible for a spread of Indo-European languages by this type of mechanism (this is especially so considering the large amplitude and very sudden nature of this event). Renfrew (1987, 1992) has vigorously attacked the techniques of linguistic dating and has found broad support among archaeologists, if not among linguists. He makes the point that linguistic dating (based on degree of similarity in vocabulary, and the use of specific 'technology' words to pin down the culture of the earliest Indo-Europeans) is in itself potentially subject to great imprecision.
Around a factor of two error in the estimate of rate of divergence, taken from the earliest written records, would be sufficient to push the point of common origin back several thousand years from the early-to-mid Holocene to the earliest Holocene. Given that during this time there has been a drastic cultural change, to relatively sedentary Neolithic farming (in addition with lesser cultural changes in trade patterns and technology), all across the region and one must ask whether the linguistic chronology is accurate across such a change in group size, inter-group interaction and cultural complexity. One can suggest that for instance (M. Fraser pers. comm.) relatively mobile hunter-gatherer populations moving across large distances of the European continent would have retained their cultural and linguistic unity more readily than denser and more sedentary farming populations.
We do not claim that this particular hypothesis has any more to merit it than either the 'battle-ax' hypothesis or the 'farming wave' hypothesis, merely that it should be seriously considered (given the uncertainty over the early linguistic history of the region) alongside these as another possible scenario. Further light might be shed on this matter if and when the archaeological record of the region improves, allowing this hypothesis to be subject to more rigorous testing. For example, good evidence of a strong depopulation of most of Europe and western Asia during all or part of the Younger Dryas or the early Holocene cold phase would lend support to it, while lack of any depopulation may be seen as evidence against this.
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A plethora of population waves in the Late Glacial and Holocene?
The post-Younger Dryas colonization hypothesis is only one of a range of potential scenarios, suggested by the paleoenvironmental and archaeological record, leading to the spread of Indo-European languages, or higher-order language groups such as the paired Indo-European/Uralic familes, or the still broader and more heterogenous Nostratic superfamily.
Another similar candidate event that might have affected the spread of IE by either hunter-gatherers or early farmers (or both) is the widespread cold, dry event at 8,200 cal. y.a. (Table 1.). This event seems to have been about half-way as severe as the Younger Dryas (Adams et al. 1998), to have come on (and also ended) over at most a few decades, lasting in total about 200 years. Here again, a decline in human population densities across much of the region seems plausible from the extent and the sudden-ness of this event. Turnover in population or in cultural identity among hunter-gatherers resulting from this disruption might well have initiated or added to the spread of the Indo-European languages.
Estimates of the linguistic chronology of the Indo-European languages have been used to suggest that much of their common vocabulary has a more recent origin (about 7,000 years ago) (Swadesh 1972) than the early Holocene divergence that this 'sparse wave' hypothesis (and Renfrew's 'farming wave' hypothesis) would seem to require (about 10,000-11,000 years ago). In this sense, the more likely candidate is the later, less severe cold event 8,200 years ago.
It is also necessary to bear in mind the possibility (though it conflicts still more strongly with the linguistic dating) that the population increase causing the initial phase of spread the Indo-European languages occurred at the earlier warming event at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (about 14,500 'calendar' years ago), with the onset of the Younger Dryas itself, or perhaps even earlier events (Otte 1994). One can also envisage a range of scenarios combining aspects of the three hypotheses (the 'battle-axe, the 'farming wave' hypotheses, and the 'sparse wave' idea presented here). Quite independent of climate change, a more effective 'Mesolithic' technology might directly have lead to a population 'wave' of increased carrying capacity analagous to that associated with the Neolithic transition. As pointed out above, another major cold and arid event - lasting perhaps 200 years - affected Europe and western Asia around 7,400 14C y.a./8,000 cal. y.a. (Alley et al. 1997) (Table 1.).
At different stages all three processes ('sparse wave', 'farming wave' and 'battle-axe migrations') might coincidentally have tended to spread the Indo-European language group. An initial early Holocene 'sparse wave' spread of the Indo-European languages may have been followed by a period of relatively long-distance cultural and linguistic exchange (with possible spreading of innovations in the language, continually 'updating' aspects of the general substratum of Indo-European languages; sensu Sherratt 1996) by relatively mobile hunter-gatherer groups, and later farming and warrior groups.
A major refuge of population in the Europe-west Asian region during the Younger Dryas seems to have been the general area around the Jordan Valley, where populations clustered in moist sites where wild nuts and grains could be gathered. It is interesting to consider that this region, having the general characteristics of a source region for a 'sparse wave' of hunter gatherers, was also a key source for the 'farming wave' of Neolithic farmers. The Indo-European Languages might thus have been propelled out of this source region by two successive population waves, first the faster wave of hunter-gatherers, and then a slower wave of farmers.
The idea that a phase of colder, dryer conditions might have led to a regional decline in population density depends crucially on the cultural habits and cultural flexibility of the hunter-gatherer inhabitants of the region. One might hypothesise (as mentioned above) that an opening-up of the returning woodlands due to cold and/or aridity would have favoured hunting of large animals, enabling an increase in population density. This could merely push the dating of the necessary population wave slightly further back in time. However, animal protien is not a principal source of food outside arctic and coastal environments, so it would be unlikely to result in anything other than a net decrease in population elsewhere as the plant food availability from wild grasses and nut-bearing trees declined with a shift towards cold steppe and semi-desert conditions. The upshot of the complexity of human behaviours is that different cultural groups of humans might have responded to the same change in opposite ways, and such a pattern of simultaneous decline of one group and expansion of another may produce a pattern of linguistic spread. In any caser, overall population density seems likely to have declined during cold, arid events and the archaeological evidence from the Near East supports this.
Thus, if climate events were fast and intense enough to significantly disrupt hunter-gatherer (and/or farming) populations, they may have been responsible for population or cultural replacements which helped to spread languages. Since the most intense events (the Younger Dryas and the 8,200 y.a. cold event) precede the Neolithic across most of the Europe/Near East region, hunter gatherers may have been the vectors of the Indo-European languages.
This is merely speculation, but it is necessary to set out the range of possible scenarios in order to show that the situation in the region could well be more complex than has generally been thought. From considering the very variable environmental record of the Late Glacial and Holocene, it seems that there would have been ample opportunities for population and cultural/linguistic replacement quite unrelated to agriculture or migrations of warriors on horseback.
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Conclusion
The paleoenvironmental record suggests various times over the last 15,000 years at which major changes in hunter-gatherer population density could have occurred on a regional scale, due to environmental changes. Such population shifts would be difficult to detect in a sparse archaeological record subject to large 14C anomalies, but they remain a distinct possibility given the magnitude of the climate and ecological changes recorded from across the region. While the ending of the Younger Dryas event seems particularly likely to have resulted in population waves spreading across the region within the approximate time range of the origin of Indo-European languages, any one of these prehistoric changes could have initiated the spread of the Indo-European language group (and in a broader sense the linked Indo-European/Finno-Ugric group). Given the existing dating and the detailed linguistic analysis which suggests a divergence time around 7,000 cal. y.a., a somewhat later climate change (early-to-mid Holocene; e.g. the 8,200 cal. y.a. or the 5,900 cal. y.a. cold events; Table 1.) would seem to rest more easily with observations. An 8,200 y.a. change could have promoted spread of Indo-European languages by either hunter gatherers, farmers, or both.
Alternatively, climate change might have had little or no role in the actual spreading of the languages, by farmers or post-neolithic warriors. Different processes could coincidentally have aided the spread of the Indo-European language family at different times. It may be that an initial 'sparse wave' of recolonizing hunter-gatherers carried this group of languages part-way into central Europe and western Asia, with later processes such as the spread of farming and migrations of warrior cultures having resulted in a further net spreading of this group of languages.
The purpose of the paper has been to advocate and discuss a fairly speculative hypothesis (that climate change promoted spread of IE languages by causing changes in population density of hunter-gatherer groups) which may be difficult or impossible to test. Given the a priori case which can be made, this 'sparse wave' hypothesis seems fairly plausible, although like the 'farming wave' hypothesis of Renfrew the contradictions with paleolinguistic analyses can be seen as a weakness. The severity of this weakness is uncertain, however, as Renfrew (1987, 1992) has pointed out various grounds on which paleolinguistics can be doubted.
The general hypothesis that past climate changes strongly affected linguistic patterns can also merge into more traditional explanations; sudden climate change could have been the primary cause of migrations of IE-speaking neolithic farmers or horse-riding warriors. If one accepts th paleolinguistic view that such 'technology' words as 'wheel' and 'copper' were initially present at the point of divergence of Indo-European languages, and that they actually applied to technology items such as a fully-formed wheel or worked copper, then the 8,200 y.a. or the 5,900 y.a. climate events (rather than the Younger Dryas) could have been more important, respectively influencing migrations of farming groups or of horse-riding warriors.
Thus we must conclude on a rather defeatist note: the fact that one can so readily add and interchange alternative hypotheses concerning the spread of the Indo-European languages (and other language groups, all of which have formed in the highly variable world of the Late Quaternary period) should perhaps be seen as reason for scepticism regarding any prospect of understanding the true nature of the initial process of spread of the Indo-European languages. Nevertheless 'finding out what one does not know' is a vital part of the scientific process; it is always better to realise that there are grounds for uncertainty than to hold an unfounded belief that one knows the answer. This uncertainty gives reason for open-mindedness as to the true causes of the spread of IE, rather than any sharp division into entrenched views.
The Indo-European languages tend to be inflected (ie verbs and nouns have different endings depending on their part in a sentence). Some languages (eg English) have lost many of the inflections during their evolution.
The Indo-European languages stretch from the Americas through Europe to North India.
The Indo-European Family is thought to have originated in the forests north of the Black Sea (in what is now Ukraine) during the Neoloithic period (about 7000BC). These people bagan to migrate between 3500BC and 2500BC, spreading west to Europe, south to the Mediterranian, north to Scandinavia, and east to India.
The Indo-European Family is divided into twelve branches, ten of which contain existing languages. I will describe each of these branches separately.
The Celtic Branch
This is now the smallest branch. The languages originated in Central Europe and once dominated Western Europe (around 400BC). The people migrated across to the British Isles over 2000 years ago. Later, when the Germanic speaking Anglo Saxons arrived, the Celtic speakers were pushed into Wales (Welsh), Ireland (Irish Gaelic) and Scotland (Scottish Gaelic).
One group of Celts moved back to France. Their language became Breton spoken in the Brittany region of France. Breton is closer to Welsh than to French.
Other Celtic languages have became extinct. These include Cornish (Cornwall in England), Gaulish (France), Cumbrian (Wales), Manx (Isle of Man), Pictish (Scotland) and Galatian (spoken in Anatolia by the Galatians mentioned in the Christian New Testament).
Welsh has the word order Verb-Subject-Object in a sentence. Irish has the third oldest literature in Europe (after Greek and Latin).
The Germanic Branch
These languages originate from Old Norse and Saxon. Due to the influence of early Christian missionaries, the vast majority of the Celtic and Germanic languages use the Latin Alphabet.
They include English, the second most spoken language in the world, the most widespread, the language of technology, and the language with the largest vocabulary. A useful language to have as your mother tongue.
Dutch and German are the closest major languages related to English. An even closer relative is Frisian.
Flemish and Afrikaans are varieties of Dutch while Yiddish is a variety of German. Yiddish is written using the Hebrew script.
Three of the four (mainland) Scandinavian languages belong to this branch: (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish). Swedish has tones, unusual in European languages. The fourth Scandinavian language, Finnish, belongs to a different family.
Icelandic is the least changed of the Germanic Languages - being close to Old Norse. Another old language is Faroese.
Gothic (Central Europe), Frankish (France), Lombardo (Danube region), Visigoth (Iberian Peninsula) and Vandal (North Africa) are extinct languages from this branch.
German has a system of four cases and three genders for its nouns. Case is the property where a noun takes a different ending depending on its role in a sentence. An example in English would be the forms: lady, lady's, ladies and ladies'. The genders are masculine, feminine and neuter. German has three dialects spoken in northern Germany, southern Germany and Austria, and a very different form spoken in Switzerland.
English has lost gender and case. Only a few words form their plurals like German (ox, oxen and child, children). Most now add an s, having been influenced by Norman French.
The Latin Branch
Also called the Italic or Romance Languages.
These languages are all derived from Latin. Latin is one of the most important classical languages. Its alphabet (derived from the Greek alphabet) is used by many languages of the world. Latin was long used by the scientific establishment and the Catholic Church as their means of communication.
Italian and Portuguese are the closest modern major languages to Latin. Spanish has been influenced by Arabic and Basque. French has moved farthest from Latin in pronunciation, only its spelling gives a clue to its origins. French has many Germanic and Celtic influences. Romanian has picked up Slavic influences because it is a Latin Language surrounded by a sea of Slavic speakers. Portuguese and Spanish have been separate for over 1000 years. The most widely spoken of these languages is Spanish. Apart from Spain, it is spoken in most of Latin America (apart from Portuguese speaking Brazil, and a few small countries like Belize and Guyana).
Romansh is a minority language in Switzerland. Ladino was the language spoken by Spain's Jewish population when they were expelled in 1492. Most of them now live in Turkey and Israel. Provincial and Catalan are closely related languages spoken in the south of France and the north-east of Spain, respectively.
Note that Basque (spoken in parts of Spain and France) is not an Indo-European language - in fact it is totally unrelated to any other language of the world.
Galician is a Portuguese dialect with Celtic influences spoken in the north west of Spain. Finally, Moldavian is a dialect of Romanian spoken in the Moldova. Under the Soviets the Moldavians had to use the Cyrillic alphabet. Now they have reverted back to the Latin alphabet.
Apart from Latin, other extinct languages include Dalmatian, Oscan, Faliscan, Sabine and Umbrian.
Latin had three genders and at least six cases for its nouns and a Subject-Object-Verb sentence structure. Most modern Romance languages have only two genders, no cases and a Subject-Verb-Object structure.
The Slavic Branch
These languages are confined to Eastern Europe.
In general, the Catholic peoples use the Latin alphabet while the Orthodox use the Cyrillic alphabet which is derived from the Greek. Indeed some of the languages are very similar differing only in the script used (Croatian and Serbian are virtually the same language).
One of the oldest of these languages is Bulgarian. The most important is Russian. Others include Polish, Kashubian (spoken in parts of Poland), Sorbian (spoken in parts of eastern Germany), Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Macedonian, Bosnian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian.
The Slavic languages are famed for their consonant clusters and large number of cases for nouns (up to seven). Many of the languages have three numbers for verbs: singular, dual and plural. Macedonian has three definite articles indicating distance; all are suffixes: VOL (ox), VOLOT (the ox), VOLOV (the ox here), VOLON (the ox there).
The Baltic Branch
Three Baltic states but only two Baltic Languages (Estonian is related to Finnish).
Lithuanian is one of the oldest of the Indo-European languages. Its study is important in determining the origins and evolution of the family. Lithuanian and Latvian both use the Latin script and have tones. Lithuanian has three numbers: singular, dual and plural.
Prussian is an extinct language from this branch
The Hellenic Branch
The only extant language in this branch is Modern Greek.
Greek is one of the oldest Indo-European languages. Mycenaean dates from 1300BC. The Ancient Greek of Homer was written from around 700BC. The major forms were Doric (Sparta), Ionic (Cos), Aeolic (Lesbos), and Attic (Athens). The latter is Classical Greek.
The New Testament of the Christian Bible was written in a form of 1st Century AD Greek called Koine. This developed into the Greek of the Byzantine Empire. Modern Greek has developed from this.
Greek has three genders and four cases for nouns but no form of the verb infinitive. The language has its own script, derived from Phoenician with the addition of symbols for vowels. It is one of the oldest alphabets in the world and has led to the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. The Greek Alphabet is still used in science and mathematics.
Until the 1970s Greek was a Diglossic language. This means that there were two forms: Katharevoussa used in official documents and news broadcasts and Demotic used in common speech.
The Greek spoken in Cyprus includes many Turkish, Arabic and Venetian words and has a different pronounciation to the official Greek of Greece.
The Illyric Branch
Another single language branch. Only Albanian (called Shqip by its speakers) belongs to this branch. It has been written in the Latin script since 1909; this replaced the Arabic script. Albanian has many avoidance words. Instead of saying wolf, the phrase may God close its mouth is used. The definate article is shown by a suffix: BUK (bread) BUKA (the bread). Many noun plurals are irregular.
There are two dialects that have been diverging for 1000 years. They are mostly mutually intelligible. Geg is spoken in the north of Albania and Kosovo (Kosova). Tosk is spoken in southern Albania and north west Greece.
The ancient Illyric and Mesapian languages, spoken in parts of Italy, are considered by some to be an extinct member of this branch.
The Anatolian Branch
This branch includes the language of the Hittite civilisation which once ruled central Anatolia, fought the Ancient Egyptians and was mentioned in the Christain Bible's Old Testament. Other languages were Lydian (spoken by a people who ruled the south coast of Anatolia), Lycian (spoken by a Hellenic culture along the western coastal regions), Luwian (spoken in ancient Troy) and Palaic.
All languages in this branch are extinct.
The Thracian Branch
This branch is represented by a single modern language, Armenian. It has its own script.
Armenian is spoken in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (an enclave in Azerbaijan). The language is rich in consonants and has borrowed much of its vocabulary from Farsi (Iranian). Nouns have 7 cases and the past tense of verbs take an E prefix like Greek.
Three extinct languages from this branch are Dacian (or Daco-Mysian - spoken in the ancient Balkan region of Dacia), Thracian (spoken by Spartacus) and Phrygian (spoken in ancient Troy).
The Iranian Branch
These languages are descended from Ancient Persian, the literary language of the Persian Empire and one of the great classical languages.
The main language of this branch is Farsi (also called Iranian, Dari and Persian), the main language of Iran and much of Afghanistan. Kurdish is a close relation. Kurdish is spoken in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq by the Kurds. It is the second largest of the Iranian languages after Farsi. In Turkey it was banned until recently.
Pashto (also called Pushtu or Pakhto) is spoken in Afghanistan and parts of north west Pakistan. Baluchi is spoken in the desert regions between Iran, Afganistan and Pakistan. These languages are written in the Nastaliq script, a derivative of Arabic writing. It is interesting that you cannot tell which family a language belongs to by the way it is written.
Ossetian is found in the Caucasus mountains, north of Georgia. Tadzhik is a close relative of Farsi, written in Cyrillic and spoken in Tadzhikistan (of the former USSR) as well as northern Afghanistan.
Avestan is the extinct language of the Zoroastrian religion. Scythian is an extinct language of a warrior people who once lived north of the Black Sea.
The Indic Branch
This branch has the most languages. Most are found in North India. They are derived from Sanskrit (the classical language of Hinduism dating from 1000BC). This gave rise to Pali (the language of Buddhism), Ardhamagadhi (the language of Jainism) and the ancestors of the modern North Indian languages.
Of the modern North Indian languages, Hindi and Urdu are very similar but differ in the script. The Hindi speakers are Hindus and use the Sanskrit writing system called Devanagari (writing of the Gods). Urdu is spoken by the Muslims so uses the Arabic Nastaliq script. These two languages are found in north and central India and Pakistan. Nepali is closely related to Hindi.
In India most of the states have their own language. These languages either use Devanagari script or a derivation (if the people are Hindus) or the Arabic Nastaliq script (if the people are Muslims).
Bengali (West Bengal as well as Bangladesh), Bhili (Central India), Oriya (in Orissa), Marathi (in Maharashtra), Assamese (in Assam), Punjabi and Lahnda (from the Punjab), Maithili and Maghadi (from Bihar), Kashmiri (Kashmir - written mainly in Nastaliq), Sindhi (the Pakistan province of Sindh - also written in Nastaliq), Gujarati (Gujarat in western India), Konkani (in Goa, an ex Portuguese colony, uses the Latin script), Sinhalese (Sri Lanka - uses its own script derived from Pali), Maldivian (Maldives - with its own script based on Arabic).
The most surprising language in this branch is Romany, the language of the Roma (also known as Gypsies - this is a derogatory term which should not be used). The Roma migrated to Europe from India.
Sanskrit had three genders as has Marathi; most modern Indic languages have two genders; Bengali has none.
The fascinating point about India is that the south Indian languages (like Tamil) are not Indo-European. In other words, Hindi is related to English, Greek and French but is totally unrelated to Tamil. North Indians visiting Madras (in the south) are as baffled by Tamil as a foreigner would be.
The Tokharian Branch
Turfanian and Kuchean are recently identified extinct languages once spoken in north west China. Very little is known about this branch as only a few manuscripts dating from 600 AD are in existence. The languages disappeared around the 8th century AD. The closest relatives of these languages are from the Celtic, Anatolian and Latin branches.
In 4000 BC, Indo-European was spoken somewhere, but its location is very controversial.
Central Europe at the beginning of the 4th Millenium BC
Broadly speaking, three major economic lifestyles were in competition in Central Europe during the 5th Millenium BC. These were
Cereal farmers (called Linear Ware or Long House after its pottery and architectural styles) who had inhabited the Danube and Rhine basins since the late 6th millenium, using slash/burn techniques to replace forest with farmland. (Linear Ware is considered sibling to the earlier Impresso culture in the Mediterranean area. Linear Ware farmers apparently practiced crop rotation and animal herding for manure fertilization, but use of the plow probably came 2500 years later.)
Stockbreeders of the east European steppes. These people are called Kurgans, after the Russian name for their burial mounds. In various theories this culture may be derived from pig farmers to the West (Bug-Dniester ca 6000 BC) sibling to the Danubian farmers, hunters from the Baltic area to the North, or ancient farmers and goat herders from across the Caucasus Mountains to the South.
Pre-neolithic people who engaged in hunting, gathering and fishing. These were called the ``Megalithic'' (Big Stone) people because they were entering an advanced phase with spectacular artifacts leading eventually, for example, to Stonehenge. Though shown in the North on the map, these people were also present in forests throughout Europe (and obviously in hostile competition with the forest-clearing farmers).
This was the era of the ``Secondary Products Revolution'' with inventions like cheese, leather, beer, and, most notably, the wheeled wagon. (Cast copper axles have been discovered near the Cucuteni dominion dated to the 5th millenium BC; and Kurgans are known to have bridled horses for riding by 4000 BC.)
By 4000 BC, three mixed-farming (dairy) cultures were in competition in East Central Europe; these were
Tripolye (and Cucuteni), a branch of the Danubian Linear-Ware farmers who, however, did not practice cereal farming, but rather had an economy based on orchards, cows, sheep, and pigs.
Sredny Stog (and Kemi-Oba), branches of the Kurgan breeders whose economy featured horses, cows, goats, barley, and animal byproducts like leather.
TRB/Funnel Beaker, believed to be a branch of the Erteboelle Hunters, who began to build primitive villages and adopt some of the economic ideas of their neighbors, including barley and dairy farming.
There is no universal agreement on which of these three groups provided the proto-Indo-European language, and you can find sober scientists guessing that Indo-European was spoken by any combination of these groups, including none or all three!
Although all three of these groups -- Tripolye, Sredny Stog, and Funnel Beaker -- could be described as ``early dairy farmers;'' in fact the cultures were quite distinct: Tripolye was an organized village society with egalitarian matriarchal customs; Sredny Stog was a semi-nomadic patriarchal society which stressed individualistm; the haphazard lifestyle of Funnel Beaker villagers betrays their recent development from unsettled foragers.
(Cereal farming stresses patience, while stockbreeding requires physical strength -- this may explain why domesticating large animals changes a matriarchal society to patriarchal. Furthermore, the contrast between land-fixed self-growing crops and mobile animals needing to be tended, may help predict whether ancient economics will be based on communal or individual property rights.)
The geographical placements on the map are only approximate. Moreover there was overlap: Kurgan tombs from this era are found as far West as Czechoslovakia, while Tripolye had settlements in central Ukraine. Finally, the indicated cultures are only roughly contemporaneous: Lengyel was 5th millenium, and TRB/Funnel Beaker mainly 4th millenium.
With sophisticated mining, smelting and casting, this era might be called the ``Advanced Copper Age.'' There were metallurgical centers in the Karanovo area in the Balkans, as well as in West-Central Asian areas accessible to Kurgan traders, and the Carpathian Mountains, situated roughly at the central point between the three competing dairy cultural styles, was a rich source of copper ore.
But, although the Bronze Age would begin to emerge 1000 years later, archaeological evidence suggests that by 4000 BC the Balkan metal industry was entering a ``Dark Age'' lasting several centuries. Was this apparent conflict related to competition by the competing dairy cultures being played out in the fertile Danube Basin just to the North of the Balkans?
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A thousand years later, new cultures have emerged, and the locations of Indo-European branches can be inferred. (It is good to remember that there was rapid change even in prehistoric times -- Europe's population may have tripled between 4000 and 3000 BC, although both dates fall in the ``Late Neolithic.'')
Central Europe at the beginning of the 3rd Millenium BC
Again dates and places are approximate: The Bell Beaker culture emerged about 900 years after Globular Amphora.
Although Indo-European languages do not enter the historical record until the 2nd millenium BC, there is wide agreement about Indo-European geography in 3000 BC. Most supporters of both the Gimbutas Kurgan Theory and Danubist or Anatolian hypotheses would agree that Usatovo culture can be tentatively identified with the first speakers of proto-Greek, and both theories usually identify Tocharian with the Afanasievo culture far to the East in Asia. Similarly the identifications of Indo-Iranian with Yamnaya, Balto-Slavic with Battle Axe, and Germanic with Corded Ware (see below) are not controversial. Most of the other identifications shown in the map might also be tentatively accepted by theorists on both sides of the Kurgan-Danubian debate.
In other words, many would agree that the Balkan-Pontic area of the 5th or 4th millenium BC was a locus for early Indo-European expansion; the debate is whether Tripolye ``converted'' the Kurgans to speak I-E, or vice versa! For most experts, the signs of Kurgan culture among the early Indo-European speakers are unmistakable. As just one example, the warrior heroes in Homer's Iliad are buried in Kurgans (though of course Homer doesn't use that Russian word).
In the map above, it should not be inferred that the Battle-Axe people spoke ``proto-Balto-Slavic,'' nor that the Yamnaya people spoke ``proto-Indo-Iranian.'' The languages had diverged too recently for that. Instead both groups spoke the same language, called ``Late Indo-European'' or ``proto-Satem,'' but were developing divergent dialects which after a few more centuries would become the familiar distinct proto-languages of the Indo-European group. Only proto-Anatolian (and probably a few other Centum branches) existed as distinct Indo-European languages in 3000 BC.
Did Indo-European Language Originate with the Kurgan People?
Proto-Indo-European has been reconstructed and shown to contain many words related to horses and stockbreeding. The word kwe-kwlo (cognate of wheel and cyclos) is reconstructed for the wheel, but in all theories besides Gimbutas', proto-Indo-European had already separated into its branches before the wheel was invented.
Opponents of Gimbutas' theory of Indo-European origin base their case on five assumptions:
The Kurgan culture is not the sort of giant advance needed to explain language replacement.
The language of the Danubian Linear-Ware culture and related cultures like Tripolye dominated Europe for about two millenia, and couldn't have disappeared without a trace.
Expansion circa 4000 BC is too late to explain the diversity among Indo-European branches.
The similarities among Indo-European cultures are the result of coincidental, parallel developments.
kwe-kwlo meant ``rotate'' and different peoples independently adapted their versions of the word to denote ``wheel.''
Let me answer these ``charges'' one by one:
The language of the Kurgan horse-riders did expand. All scholars (except the so-called Indocentric crackpots) admit that Indo-Iranian was a Kurgan language, and that the languages of northern India have been replaced by Indo-Aryan, even though there is no evidence of a major invasion. And it does seem suggestive that Middle-Easterners were using Indo-Aryan words to describe horse-riding, even before Indic makes any other historical appearance.
Language replacement is common. The pre-Roman languages of Spain and France quickly disappeared (except for Basque); the Negrito languages of the Philippines have disappeared; Pictish was dominant in northern Britain during Roman times but hardly a word of it is known today.
To the contrary, similarities among the earliest recorded Indo-European languages (Hittite, Homeric Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, Old Irish) are about what one would expect if they had diverged just a few millenia earlier. Today's Lithuanians can make some sense of Sanskrit, which would probably be impossible if these languages had diverged before 5000 BC. Anyway, don't overlook that liturgies and written records serve as a brake on language change, so languages evolved much more rapidly in pre-literate cultures.
Archaeologoists gasped in surprise when they unearthed Tocharian clothing that looked just like Old Irish clothing thousands of miles to the west. The ancient Indic horse-sacrificing ritual of asvamedha has detailed similarities to the horse-sacrificing rituals of the ancient Romans and Irish; even the compound word asvamedha appears to be directly inherited from a proto-Indo-European word meaning ``horse-drunk.''
kwe-kwlo survives in many branches of Indo-European so must have been a basic vocabulary item, a common word used everyday. Primitive peoples didn't speak of ``rotation'' much before they invented the wheel.
Finally, the genetic language tree of Indo-European would have a different structure if Celtic and Italic were spoken in Central Europe before the Kurgan intrusions. I try to explain that on a separate page, but briefly:
All sensible theories agree that Indo-Iranian was a Kurgan language, i.e. the Andronovo descendants of Yamnaya/Pit-Grave. If this were an adopted language, one would expect major changes; instead phonology and grammar of this branch closely follows proto-Indo-European.
West European languages like Italic and Celtic are non-Kurgan in any anti-Gimbutas theory. Thus the I-E tree would involve two major branches: Western and Kurgan.
The Afanasievo culture (sibling to Yamnaya) is the only logical candidate for proto-Tocharian. A Balkan or Danubian (non-Kurgan) origin of Afanasievo is farfetched.
Were the (controversially lumped) Greek-Phrygo-Armenian languages derived from Kurgan or not? In either case, these languages (and Tocharian) would be either in the Western branch or the Kurgan branch of I-E. Instead they form co-equal branches, with micro-tree structure best modeled (cf. Ringe) as westward Kurgan migrations (with the Centum-Satem shift in Yamnaya occurring after Greek separated).
Balto-Slavic/Germanic Equals Battle-Axe/Corded-Ware
Battle Axe and Corded Ware were sibling cultures, and some scientists do not distinguish the two. Yet, Baltic seems to be the Indo-European branch which most closely preserves the prehistoric proto-Indo-European language, while Germanic has undergone major changes in grammar, phonology, and lexicon.
While the position of Germanic in the Indo-European tree is controversial, it has close affinities to Baltic and Slavic, and many theorists speak of a ``Germano-Balto-Slavic branch.'' Yet the single most important ``split'' in Indo-European is the Centum/Satem divide; Baltic and Slavic are Satem languages while Germanic is Centum like Italic.
Do the prehistories of Battle-Axe/Corded-Ware culture and the early Germano-Balto-Slavic language shed light on each other?
The reason Baltic preserves ancient Indo-European most closely is that before the Battle-Axe culture emerged, the only non-Kurgan people in the Baltic area was a small population of hunter/fishers: there was no need for proto-Balto-Slavic to absorb an indigeneous language. The Corded-Ware invaders into present-day Germany, however, encountered the entrenched Funnel-Beaker Folk, who resisted Corded-Ware culture for several centuries. Germanic evolved as a hybrid language, with elements of
proto-Balto-Slavic, the language of the Baltic Battle-Axe invaders,
an Indo-European dialect, probably sibling to proto-Italic, derived from an earlier Kurgan-derived intrusion (e.g. Globular Amphora or Baden culture),
an adstratum of the non-Indo-European languages of the indigenous Funnel-Beaker (and Erteboelle?) culture.
The term ``language hybrid'' may offend professional linguists, since independent languages don't ``interbreed.'' But mutually intelligible dialects of the same language do interbreed and during the Corded-Ware expansion Baltic and Italic speakers could probably make sense of each other, as the common ancestor was only a few centuries in the past. (Similarly, Saxon and Viking languages were probably mutually intelligible at the time of Alfred the Great: hence the many Viking words in English.)
The very name ``Corded-Ware'' provides a strong affirmation of the Gimbutas Theory. This refers to leather cords which were added to pottery as ornaments. (Anti-Gimbutists don't like to admit it but before the advent of Corded-Ware, the Kurgan people were applying cord ornaments to pottery.) The relationship between cord and ornament is preserved in Germanic languages! Consider two cognates in Dutch:
touw -- cord
tooi -- ornament
The Evolution of the Indo-European Languages
Similarities and Differences among the Indo-European Languages
While S, R, L, M, N, Y, and W do not change that often, the plosives often change dramatically. First, in most languages, PIE gh collapses with g, and gwh with gw.
One basic set of differences is that between the Satem languages -- Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic (OCS), Lithuanian, and Armenian -- and the Centum languages -- Greek, Latin, Old Irish (OIR), Gothic, and Hittite.
In Satem, PIE k becomes s or sh, g becomes z or zh, kw becomes k or c (as in church), and gw becomes g or j (as in John). In Centum, these PIE plosives remain as they are (generally speaking!).
Hittite has some of the most extreme simplification, reducing all voiced and -w plosives to unvoiced ones.
In Greek , PIE bh, dh, and gh become phi, theta, and chi, i.e. first become unvoiced aspirated stops and eventually unvoiced fricatives. Note that in Latin, bh, dh, and gh become f, f, and h, respectively. I suspect that the progression was to ph, th, kh, then to phi, theta, chi, and finally to f, f, and h. In most other languages, bh, dh, and gh become b, d, and g (or z/zh, if satem), respectively. Also, Greek collapses PIE kw, gw, and gwh somewhat indiscriminately into k/p/t, b/d/g, and phi/theta/chi.
In Gothic we see some of the most dramatic (although systematic) changes: PIE p, t, k, and kw become f, th, h, and hw, while all others are more conservative. Likewise, in Gothic and in Armenian, PIE b, d, and g become p, t, and k, while all others are more conservative.
In OIR, PIE b, gw, bh, and m all become b or m or w (depending on context). Note also that all plosives become aspirated at the ends of words, and eventually become fricatives.
Note: Languages related to Latin, as well as ones related to OIR, sometimes use p in place of kw. This is another commonality, then, between the Italic family and the Celtic family.
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What groupings might we tentatively make on the basis of these comparisons?
1. Satem -- Sanskrit, OCS, Lithuanian, and Armenian -- vs Centum -- Greek, Latin, OIR, Gothic, and Hittite;
2. Hittite as significantly different from all the other languages, and likely an early divergence;
3. Sanskrit, OCS, and Lithuanian sharing many commonalities in the Satem group;
4. Armenian as an outlier in the Satem group;
5. Greek, OIR, and Latin sharing many commonalities in the Centum group;
6. Gothic as an outlier in the Centum group.
Putting it into outline form:
I. Satem
A. Sanskrit-OCS-Lithuanian
1. OCS-Lithuanian
2. Sanskrit
B. Armenian
II. Centum
A. Greek-OIR-Latin
1. OIR-Latin
2. Greek
B. Gothic
III. Hittite
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Morphology
Unfortunately for the elegance of the preceding, other approaches give us other results. If we look at certain grammatical constructions, for example, we find the following:
For the genitive singular of nouns, we have Greek, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian (Sanskrit) using -osyo, Slavic (OCS) and Baltic (Lithuanian) using -ó, Baltic and Germanic (Gothic) using -eso, and Celtic (OIR) and Italic (Latin) using -í.
For indirect and dative cases, we find a similar pattern: Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian using -bhi, Slavic, Baltic, and Germanic using -m, and Celtic and Italic using -bhos (dative singular).
The Celtic-Italic link is fortified by such constructions as the comparison in -samo (vs -tero, -isto) and medium voice in -r (vs -oi, -moi).
The Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian link is fortified by the fact that all three have an athematic and a thematic aorist.
Hittite differs in many ways from the others, although showing more similarity to Celtic-Italic than to other groups.
(Following Cyril Babaev's "Indo-European Proto-Dialects."
http://tied.narod.ru/)
So now we have a chart that looks like this:
I. Greek-Armenian-Indo-Iranian
II. Slavic-Baltic-Germanic
III. Celtic-Italic
IV. Hittite
So, while Hittite and Celtic-Italic remain independent, Greek and Germanic have jumped the Centum ship, you might say, to join the two Satem sub-groups -- or, the reverse, left the central dialect area (leaving the northern Slavic-Baltic and the southern Armenian-Indo-Iranian) prior to the Satem innovation, but well after the Celtic-Italic split, and even further after the Hittite split.
The Indo-European languages of the Tarim Basin in far western China known as Tokharian have some Celtic sound qualities -- leading some to suggest that a branch of early proto-Celts wandered all the way to China. Another scenario is a little more sensible: The ancestors of The Tokharians left the eastern side of the main PIE area at about the same time as the Celts left the western side, perhaps a little earlier, and so prior to the same changes in the central dialects that the Celts missed.
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Lexicon
And finally, there is the issue of common words. Analyses seem to show that Hittite and Tokharian split from the mainstream earliest. Later, the Celtic and Italic languages split off, followed by Greek and proto-Armenian. Albanian also splits off somewhere in the same time frame. Finally, we have the Indo-Iranian languages splitting off from the central mass of Indo-European, which in turn differentiates into Germanic and Balto-Slavic.
Lexicon analysis generally supports the morphemic hypotheses, and is not too contrary to the phonetic hypotheses.
A sticking point is the place of Germanic: It seems to be both clearly tied to Baltic, yet phonetically quite distinct. It is, in fact, quite distinct from all its relations! One theory is that its similarity to Baltic is in part due to close proximity and continued contact, and that its phonetic distinctiveness is due to a pre-Germanic substrate of megalithic people sometimes referred to as "the Folk."
It is possible that pre-Indo-European neolithic people in France and England likewise influenced the development of the Celtic languages as well -- another "Folk" perhaps. The neolithic people of the Iberian peninsula and southwestern France -- including the ancestors of the modern Basques -- do not appear to have had too significant an effect on the Celtic of that area, nor on the later Latin.
Other languages have had more obvious contact with other language substrates. The Hittites and other Anatolians clearly came into an area already well-populated with non-Indo-Europeans, which no doubt hastened the rather dramatic phonetic and morphemic simplifications characteristic of those languages.
The Mycenaean Greeks may have been influenced by an Anatolian substrate in Greece and the islands (the Pelasgians?), further complicated by a second wave of Greeks (Dorians).
The Armenians appear to be closest to the Indo-Iranians in phonetic and morphemic structure, and were possibly influenced by centuries of contact with them as well as the Hittites, Semites, and Caucasians.
An Evolutionary Time-line of the Indo-European Languages
c. 5000 bc.
Homeland: The Danube River valley (Wallachia and Hungary). Farming learned from the people of Asia Minor. Cultivation of native rye and oats and domestication of native pigs, geese, and cattle begins. Strong tribal sociey develops.
There are many reasons for choosing the Danube River valley: Farming is possible, although the land is less than desirable to more powerful tribes from the south; the flora and fauna of the valley, as well as for other natural features such as hills and rivers, are represented by the oldest words we can reconstruct; the natural ranges of wild horses (what would become the Indo-European's ace card) are nearby in the Ukraine; the area is central to the eventual expanse of the Indo-Europeans, with due allowance for the more rapid expanse commonplace over steppe-lands; the area is also in close proximity to some of the most conservative recent representatives of the family.
The most compelling reason is the presence of the Danubian culture, with its linear incised pottery, at this same time. The culture spreads soon after in exactly the directions that would account for the spread of PIE.
There are, of course, many other possibilities. The most common suggestion is the steppes north of the Black Sea, for many similar reasons. I believe that the strong tribal social structure suggests that the Indo-Europeans were farmers before they were pastoralists. It is highly unlikely that they went straight from steppe hunter-gatherers to sophisticated pastoralists in one step.
c. 4000 bc.
Proto-Anatolians move southeast to Thrace. They would be profoundly influenced by the advanced cultures of Asia Minor and beyond.
Proto-Tokharians move east into the Ukraine. These people are the most likely originators of the horse culture. There is also plenty of evidence of ox-drawn wagons with disk wheels in the western steppes.
A western dialect begins to emerge (the Proto-Celtic-Italic-Illyrians) on the upper Danube. The enclosed steppe of the Hungarian Plain puts them in an ideal position to blend farming with a horse culture.
c. 3000 bc.
Copper working, learned from the people of Asia Minor, begins in Thrace and the Danube valley and reaches Germany by 3000 bc.
Domestication of the horse spreads from the Ukraine. Within a thousand years, horsemanship spreads from the Ukraine throughout the Indo-European area, even into Scandinavia. It is the steppe inhabitants who change most dramatically into true pastoral societies. In the more wooded areas of Europe, horse ownership begins to differentiate a warrior nobility from commoners. Of course, use of the horse spreads to the non-IE societies of the Middle East as well.
The disk-wheel wagon has spread from Russia across Europe to Holland.
The Proto-Anatolians move from Thrace into Greece and Asia Minor. It is likely that they constitute the pre-Greek Pelasgian and Cretan populations (Early Aegean culture).
The Proto-Tokharians continue east to the steppes, towards the Tarim Basin in northwestern China. They may be the people known to the Chinese as the Yüeh-chi, and may have been the core of the Kushan Empire of the first century AD.
The Proto-Celts separate from the rest of the western dialect and expand west into southern Germany, where they develop the Michelsburg culture. The remaining western dialect tribes edge into the modern Slovenia-Croatia area.
The main body of Indo-Europeans expands into Thrace, the Ukraine, Bohemia, and Poland, and begins to differentiate into a northern dialect (Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, represented by the Funnel Beaker culture) and a southern dialect (Wallachia, Thrace, and Ukraine, continuing the Danubian culture).
c. 2500 bc.
Bronze working develops throughout Indo-European area.
The Proto-Italics, who speak a western dialect, move west from the Slovenia area into Italy.
The Proto-Illyrians, speaking another western dialect (perhaps), move south from the northern Croatia area into Illyria (the Dalmatian coast).
One branch of the southern dialect -- Proto-Hellenic -- moves south into Macedonia, Greece, and the Aegean islands. By 1500 bc, the southern-most tribes would establish the Mycenaean culture.
A branch of the northern dialect -- Proto-Germanics -- moves northeast from Poland or Bohemia into northern Germany and Scandinavia.
The remaining main body of Indo-Europeans (the Baltic, Poland, Bohemia, the Hungarian Plain, Wallachia, Thrace, the Ukraine and the neighboring steppes) -- both northern and southern dialects -- undergoes the Satem phonetic changes.
c. 2000 bc.
The horse-drawn, two-wheeled chariot, with spoked wheels, is developed in the western steppes, and spreads quickly to the Balkans as well as the Middle East.
A branch of the southern Satem dialect -- Proto-Indo-Iranian -- expands from Ukraine and the steppes into Afghanistan, Iran, and northwestern India. One tribe -- the Mittani -- goes as far west as northern Mesopotamia.
The main body of the southern Satem dialect expands into the Ukraine to become the Cimmerians, leaving the Dacians in the original homeland. I suspect that the Dacians were a southern (Cimmerian-like) dialect. The people of Thrace were probably closely related to the Cimmerians, with a southern Satem dialect. These people develop the steppe version of the Battle Ax culture.
The main body of the northern Satem dialect -- Proto-Balto-Slavic -- expands north from Poland into Belarus and the Baltic coast. With the Germans, they consititute the northern version of the Battle Ax culture.
The Celts expand into France and, in a retrograde move, back into Hungary. A powerful society, they pressure the original peoples of western Europe, as well as their own relations to the east. They develop the Bell-beaker culture and, later, the Urnfield culture.
Anatolians (most notably the Hittites) establish themselves in Asia Minor, where they become a major power. Their languages are profoundly affected by neighboring non-IE languages.
A second wave of Hellenics (Doric Greeks) moves into Greece from Macedonia.
c. 1500 bc.
Proto-Phrygians -- possibly a branch of the Cimmerians -- move from Thrace across the Bosporus to northwestern Asia Minor. The Phrygians would move into the power gap left by the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1200 bc.
Proto-Armenians -- possibly another branch of the Cimmerians -- move into Asia Minor, probably by means of the Bosporus. It is possible that they entered from the east coast of the Black Sea, or even across the Black Sea. In the next 1000 years, they spread over much of northern Asia Minor, but are eventually pressured into the Lake Van region.
Albanian may be the sole survivor of the Illyrian languages, its many variant features due to long contact with a variety of neighbors. Or it could be the lone descendent of a Dacian dialect that later moved into the Albanian region. I lean toward the latter, but it is very difficult to tell! So little of Dacian, Thracian, Illyrian, etc. is left to us.
The Ligurian (western) Celts expand into western Iberia and the British Isles, where they absorb most of the prior inhabitants. The original inhabitants of Spain survive well into the Roman era, while the original inhabitants of southwest France survive to the present as the Basques.
The Balto-Slavics differentiate into Baltic and Slavic. Both begin to expand east- and northward, at the expense of the hunter-gatherer Finno-Ugric people.
The Indo-Iranians differentiate into Indic and Iranian. The Indic group rapidly expands across northern India as far as Magatha. The Iranians split into powerful tribes, notably the Persians and the Medes, by the 800's bc. The Iranians remaining in the steppes would come to be known as the Scyths and Sakas.
c. 1000 bc.
Iron working begins in the Balkans by 1000 bc. It reaches Britain by 800 bc.
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