Anatolian hypothesis
Proposes Neolithic Anatolia as the Indo-European homeland.
The Anatolian hypothesis, developed by British archaeologist Colin Renfrew in 1987, proposes that Proto-Indo-European originated in Neolithic Anatolia. It is the main competitor to the Kurgan hypothesis, which enjoys more academic favor. The theory is also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Colin Renfrew
- Year proposed
- 1987
- Proposed homeland
- Neolithic Anatolia
- Time depth
- 7th and 6th millennia BC
- Main competitor
- Kurgan hypothesis
Facts from the source article.
Description
The hypothesis suggests that speakers of Proto-Indo-European lived in Anatolia during the Neolithic era. It links the distribution of Indo-European languages to the Neolithic Revolution of the 7th and 6th millennia BC. According to the theory, Indo-European languages spread peacefully by demic diffusion from Asia Minor into Europe from around 7000 BC, accompanying the advance of farming. The expansion of agriculture from the Middle East would have diffused three language families: Indo-European toward Europe, Dravidian toward Pakistan and India, and Afroasiatic toward the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. In response to criticism, Renfrew revised his proposal to a pronounced Indo-Hittite position, placing only Pre-Proto-Indo-European in 7th millennium BC Anatolia and proposing the Balkans around 5000 BC as the homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper, which he identified with the Old European culture. Reconstructions of a Bronze Age PIE society based on vocabulary like wheel may not hold for the Anatolian branch, which may have separated before wheeled vehicles were invented. Renfrew outlined steps: around 6500 BC, Pre-Proto-Indo-European in Anatolia split into Anatolian and Archaic Proto-Indo-European, the language of farmers migrating to Europe. Around 5000 BC, Archaic Proto-Indo-European split into Northwestern Indo-European, Balkan Proto-Indo-European, and Early Steppe Proto-Indo-European.
Bayesian analysis
A 2003 study of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items by Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson found an age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of 7800 to 9800 years, consistent with the Anatolian hypothesis. Using stochastic models, they concluded the origin goes back about 8500 years, with Hittite splitting first. A 2012 phylogeographic study by Bouckaert et al., using methods from modeling spatial diffusion of infectious diseases, also showed strong support for the Anatolian hypothesis. Colin Renfrew commented that finally there is a clear spatial picture.
Criticism
Bayesian analysis has been criticized for inferring a language's lifespan from that of some of its words, with the idiosyncratic outcome of Albanian raising doubts about method and data. Linguist Andrew Garrett stated there is bias in the underlying data leading to an erroneous conclusion, and strong evidence supporting the Kurgan hypothesis is ignored. David Anthony said the model does not match complex linguistic and archaeological evidence and is an example of retrofitting evidence to a model. Paul Heggarty wrote in 2014 that the results are only as useful as the underlying data and assumptions. A 2015 lexicostatistical study by Chang et al. produced results supporting the Kurgan hypothesis. Piggott noted that PIE contains words for technologies appearing in the Late Neolithic to early Bronze Age, including agriculture, stockbreeding, metallurgy, the plough, gold, domesticated horses, and wheeled vehicles. Horse breeding is thought to have originated with the Sredny Stog culture, and wheeled vehicles with the Funnelbeaker culture. Mallory and Adams argued that the PIE lexicon includes words related to the Secondary Products Revolution, postdating early farming, and that Proto-Indo-European cannot be earlier than 4000 BC.
More in Origin Hypotheses of Ethnic Groups
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