In previous sections, it has been explained how Neolithic techniques, and maybe Caucasian languages, spread from modern Kurdistan northwards and westwards. The areas that seem linked with Anatolia

from the first Neolithism are that of the Balkans, South Ukraine, Italy, and the regions of the Cardial Culture spread (maritime regions in France, Spain and Portugal).      

THE INDOEUROPEAN CRADDLE  

WHO WERE THE FIRST INDOEUROPEANS

It is supposed that the Proto-Indo-European community knew and talked about dogs (*kwón-), horses (*Hékwo-), sheep (*H3éwi-), and almost certainly cows (*gwów-) and pigs (*súH-). Probably all these animals were domesticated. At least one cereal grain was known (*yéwo-), and at least one metal (*H2éyos). There were vehicles (*wógho-) with wheels (*kwékwlo-), pulled by teams joined by yokes (*yugó-). Honey was known, and it probably formed the basis of an alcoholic drink (*mélit-, *médhu) related to the English mead. Numerals up through 100 (*któm) were in use. All this suggests a people with a well-developed Neolithic (characterized by simple agriculture and polished stone tools) or even Chalcolithic (copper- or bronze-using) technology that developed such techniques independently.

The Indo-Europeans practiced agriculture and the cultivation of cereals. We have several terms of Indo-European antiquity for grain: greno- (CORN), yewo-, and *puro-, which may have designated wheat or spelt. Of more restricted distribution is bhares-, "barley." A root for grinding is attested, melae- (MEAL-, MILL). Another Indo-European term is se-, "to sow," not found in Greek, Armenian, or Indo-Iranian. The verb "to plow" is *arae-, again a common European term, with the name of the plow, *araetrom. Other related roots are yeug-, "to yoke," and kerp-, "to gather, pluck" (HARVEST). The root gwerae, "heavy," is the probable base of *gweraena, "hand mill" (QUERN). The term is found throughout the Indo-European-speaking world, including India.

Stockbreeding and animal husbandry were an important part of Indo-European economic life. The names for all the familiar domesticated animals are present throughout the family: gwou-, "cow" and "bull," owi-, "sheep," *agwh-no-, "lamb," su-, "swine," and porko-, "farrow." The domestic dog was ancient (kwon-).

And at least one three-member formula (in the sense of the word in traditional oral poetry) can be reconstructed for the poetic language of prayer, on the combined evidence of four languages, Latin, Umbrian, Avestan, and Sanskrit: "Protect, keep safe, man and cattle!" (pa- wi-ro- peku).

The verbal roots p-, "to protect," and kwel-1, "to revolve, move around," are widely used for the notion of herding or watching over stock.

IDEA: The IE take own words to dessignate Neolithic tasks, they did not borrowed such words from neighbours (otherwise that does not deny the possibility that they copied their neighbours...).

There are stems as *ekwo- (a horse), *kwel- (a wheel), *rot(h)o- (a wheel, a chariot), *hois- (a pole of a carriage), *iugom- (a yoke), *dhur- (to harness), *uegh- (to convey), *iaH- (to drive a carriage).

It was probably not long before the dispersal of the Proto-Indo-European community that the use of the wheel and wheeled transport was adopted. Despite the existence of widespread word families, most terms relating to wheeled vehicles seem to be metaphors formed from already existing words.

IDEA: Fundamental to track horses' genes and its blend of races to know europe's history and IE branchings.

The house (dem-) included a dhwer- (DOOR), and was constructed with timber uprights (*kli-t-, klei-, and *stu-t-, sta-, still in English STUD).

Architecture of IE houses differs greatly from the Near East architecture style (wattle and daub houses with the flat roof surrounding the interior court). Like in Neolithic and Eneolithic Europe early IE houses (often semi-earth-houses) were: made of wood; rectangular; of pillar construction; with the gable roof.

The Indo-Europeans knew metal and metallurgy, to judge from the presence of the word *ayes- in Sanskrit, Germanic, and Latin. The term designated copper and perhaps bronze. Iron is a latecomer, technologically, and the terms for it vary from dialect to dialect. Latin has ferrum, while the Germanic and Celtic term was *isarno-, properly "holy (metal)," from eis-, perhaps so called because the first iron was derived from small meteorites. Gold, ghel-, also dialectally *aus-o-, probably "yellow (metal)" or "shining," was known from ancient times, though the names for it vary. Silver was arg-, with various suffixes, doubtless meaning "white (metal)."

IDEA: It would point that the IE was spoken after the Eneolithic almost by sure, and that they invented metallurgy, or that they copied it to neighbours without learning it from them.

Ecological environment: *Hegr- (a mountain), *kel- (a hill), *hap- (a river), *(s)neigh- (snow), *gheim- (winter), *tep- (heat), *perk-u- (an oak), *bhergh- (a birch), *bhaHgo- (a beech), *ei- (a yew-tree), *(s)grobho- (a hornbeam), *hrtko- (a bear), *ulko-/*ulp- (a wolf), *ulopek- (a fox, a jackal), *leu- (a lion), *leuk- (a lynx), *el(e)n-/ *elk- (a deer, an elk), *ger- (a crane), *ghans- (a goose, a swan), *karkar- (a crab) etc.

IE common words: wolf, fox, bear, beaver, hare. These would point how was the original homeland of the Indoeuropeans.

IDEA: This kind of fauna correspond to one inhabiting forestal areas, not stepary areas... and much less the bear.

New finding: the lion was a common beast in area of Ukrainian steppes in 5th - 3rd millennia BC.

IDEA: also might be found in a similar environment: in the Pannonian sabana-like plains of Hungary.

There are very widely represented words for the beech tree, bhgo-, and the birch, bherg-. These formerly played a significant role in attempts to locate the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans, since their distribution is geographically distinct.

Swampy or boggy terrain was apparently familiar to IE, judging from the evidence of the root pel-1.

IDEA: not very steppic landscape so.

From the absence of a general word for "sea" we may deduce that the Indo-Europeans were originally an inland people. The root mori- is attested dialectally (MER-), but it may well have referred to a lake or other smaller body of water. Transportation by or across water was, however, known to the Indo-Europeans, since most of the languages attest an old word for "boat" or "ship," nu-, probably propelled by oars or a pole (er-, "to row").

IDEA: Again difficult that a people living in the Pontic steppe had not name for sea; big rivers present, as in the Pannonian plain (Danube, Tisza, Sava, etc.).

Indoeuropean common ancestral religion might have been similar to the ancient Tengrism of the Mongolians: Zeus, the Latin Jupiter (Jovis), the Dyauh Vedic, the Ziu in ancient German represented the celestial god; no more, neither common words for heros, nor for feasts, nor for rites, nor for priests.

Yet, for the Indo-European-speaking society, we can reconstruct with certainty the word for "god," *deiw-os, and the two-word name of the chief deity of the pantheon, *dyeu-pter- (Latin Ipiter, Greek Zeus patr, Sanskrit Dyau pitar, and Luvian Tatis Tiwaz). The forms *dyeu- and *deiw-os are both derivatives of a root dyeu-, meaning "to shine," which appears in the word for "day" in numerous languages (Latin dis; but English DAY is from a different root). The notion of deity was therefore linked to the notion of the bright sky.  The second element of the name of the chief god, *dyeu-pter-, is the general Indo-European word for FATHER, used not in the sense of father as parent but with the meaning of the adult male who is head of the household, the sense of Latin pater familias. For the Indo-Europeans the society of the gods was conceived in the image of their own society as patriarchal.

IDEA: The IE had a unique god (but that does not excludes the existence of multiple spirits in their old religion, similar to the African religions, or to Mongolian Tengrism). This god ruled over the world (patriarch), and was identified with the heaven or with the sun.

The Wolf and the Bear were sacred animals as the IE used tabbo-words for these.

Indo-Europeans believed that the sun is moved by three of four white horses which were very important for the cult. Horses was the favourite Indo-European sacrifice, and they always accompany the sun god: Apollo in Greece, Mitra in Iran, Jarila among Slavs. Indra, who was worshipped also as the sun god, again ruled a chariot of four horses.

The religion of the Celts--including the Scythians--was solar, and three- and four-armed swastikas as solar symbols are an omnipresent element in Celtic art.

While there exist many special terms for relatives by marriage on the husband’s side, like daiwer-, "husband’s brother," fewer corresponding terms on the wife’s side can be reconstructed for the protolanguage. The terms vary from dialect to dialect, providing good evidence for the patrilocal character of marriage.

Most interesting are the cases where it is possible to reconstruct from two or more traditions (usually including Homer and the Rig-Veda) a poetic phrase or formula consisting of two members. Such are the expressions "imperishable fame," *klewos dhgwhitom (kleu-, *dhgwhei-); "holy (mental) force," *isaerom menos (eis-, men-1); and the "weaver (or crafter) of words," the Indo-European poet himself, *wekwom teks-on (wekw-, teks-).

IDEA: Such traces point to a cult to heros or warriors, typic among IE peoples.

CONCLUSION: The true Indoeuropeans (those that spoke such language), had a neolithic culture that included pastoralism. Such Neolithic culture appered in the Chalcolithic as they worked metals. Thier culture was very different in comparision with the Mediterranean ones, they had no Earth Goddess but a Sky God that ruled the universe; their houses also were constructed in a different way, pointing that they were not nomads also. They dwelt in an area very cold as the animals and trees that they knew are present maninly in cold climatologies. Their homeland was marshy sometimes and with big rivers, but had not an inmediate sea. But what made special this language is that they developed the light chariot and tamed horses, being the combination of both an irresistible machine of war that eased their spread in almost half world. The disposal of metals before their expansion (by -2100), leads to the Copper or Bronze ages in Europe, so the margins for such united language might be from -3000 till -2100.    

EXPANSIONS AND LINGUISTIC SPLITTINGS

IDEA: Imagine that you lead a company of 500 warriors with spears and swords, imagine that a new unknown enemy is plundering the neighbour tribes, and that you and your company first meet such enemies. Everybody sees the awesome enemy exercit: they have fast horses and strong chariots that carry a driver and a bowman; your exercit runs to fight them, but the result is clear: after that your exercit reaches the charioteers is almost exhaust where the charioteers from their tower-like chariots shot arrows and cut arms and heads. This horrible sight is nothing in comparision with the fear that your men have to these giant beasts that never have seen: they will bite ? such beasts will eat the troops after their death ?

This introduction is to show in some way the effect that the militar advantage that chariots represented; and how chariots and horses made invencible those nations that ideated them.

IDEA: But the IE expansion might have been similar to the Neolithic expansion: between the first use of the horse to warring to the step to invade broader areas it is needed a minimal demographicaly important population. As such use might spread by culture or by imposition to the neighbour tribes that surely might have similar languages... then IE branches could came from such tribes. If so, then it would be almost impossible to track proto-languages according to cultures.

INFO: The IE expansions in the Iberian Penninsula, in Italy, in Anatolia, in Central Asia, in South Asia in the Balkans and in Greece, are treated independently in each geographic section.

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. 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 might 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 are not controversial.

MAP displaying this theory, in a new window.

Solid wheels were used in Sumer since -3200 for four-wheeled carts pulled by oxen or by onagres (Asiatic type of ass); around -2600 appear the two-wheeled carts, that was copied by the Indus civilization of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa around -2300. The main problem with these carts in a militar use is that cannot develop any real velocity.

IDEA: In the other side the use of carts quickly provides a net of roads where previously were not; such net of roads of course would help and ease whichever invasion based in chariots pulled by horses, as were those of the Indoeuropean peoples.

Horses used in warfare to pull chariots, is first documented in Anatolia, on seal impressions from karum Kanesh II, dated about -1900.

Riding radically expands the normal range of movement, leading so to a general re-negotiation of all territorial boundaries.

The Anatolian subfamily appears in -2000 in Asia Minor, so then the breakage of the IE was no more recent than -4000 (the Luwite and the Hittite were already formed when entered in Asia Minor).

The majority of linguists basing on glottochronological method and other considerations assume the period of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) community existing to be 5th - 4th millennia BC. The main linguistic groups might establish in 3rd - 2nd millennia BC.

The source language, generally called "Proto-Indo-European", was spoken some 6,500 years ago (J. P. Mallory).

It is from -4000 to -3000 that appear Greek, Thracian, Indo-Iranian as independent languages.

IDEA: Otherwise a fact to have into account is that if the substrate language afects much the new IE language of the area, it would lead to a major differentiation between such IE and other branches, so that for linguists such IE dialects would seem more old than real; take per example the case of Occitan Gascon (Basque substrate) and Occitan Lenguadocian (Celtic substrate).

IDEA: Indoiranian affected by a Dravidian substrate, where Hittite by the Hatti/Caucasian substrate would have led to a more wider separation.

Substrate example: Romanian has 1/3 of its lexic Slav, so that Romanian differs so much from sister Italian or Spanish.

The Aquitanian dialect of Provençal has a 20% of its vocabulary based in Basque words.

The difference of certain languages in forming the medium voice of verbs and the relative pronoun is considered to have marked the earliest division of tongues within the Proto-Indo-European language. According to it, the community was slowly breaking into two dialectal groups: one, including future Venetic, Illyrian, Anatolian, Tocharic, Italic and Celtic groups, used the relative pronoun kwis "which" or its derivatives; its medium voice markers were almost everywhere -r (Latin datur, Hittite kittari, Irish tuigear). The other group consisted of Indo-Iranian, Greek, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Armenian and Thraco-Phrygian languages, which took up "yos" as a relative pronoun, and endings -oi / -moi as medium voice markers.

IDEA: Suppose: only there is one Hindic language recorded (Vedic of -1200), and actual Osset. How many linguists would link that both would be members of a common family without the help of sisters-languages ?

The first written Greek is attested in Mycenes around -1750, similar date for the first attested Hittie in Asia Minor.

IDEA: So each individual IE language was developed, and at least for Greek, has retained enough unity in 3750 years.

From morphological traits together with lexical and phonetic materials we can believe that the common Proto-language broke in three major dialects: Anatolian would branch separately from the second commonl IE branch first. Then appeared two main dialects: the first group included Tocharic, Italic, Celtic, Illyrian, Venetic languages. In fact, we should not forget that at the time this division occurred they were a single language, or even not al language yet, but a dialect, still having just a few differences from the second dialectal group: Indic, Iranian, Greek, Armenian, Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Phrygian, Thracian. Its descendants united into two subgroups: Indic, Iranian, Armenian, Phrygian, Greek and Baltic, Germanic, Slavic. We can only be sure everything mentioned happened between -4000 and -2200.

Main branches: Indic-Iranian-Armenian-Phrygian-Greek Indic-Iranian-Armenian + Phrygian-Greek [as Phrygian invaded Asia minor with Greeks it is to suppose that they mixed much or less...]. Baltic-Slavic-Germanic Baltic-Slavic + Germanic Italic-Venetic-Illyrian-Celtic Italic-Venetic-Illyrian + Celtic

This system of divisions can be stated quite for sure, because a lot of linguistic, arhaeological and historical materials support exactly this version. Such communities (or language alliances?) as Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic and Illyro-Venetic, are well known even according to historical documents. (Cyril Babaev).

Indoeuropean branchings: Slav-Balt-Germanic, (Italo-Celt) + (Albano-Greek and Aryan).

Main IE subdivision: Centum group Greek, Anatolian, Tocharian [in China], Celtic, Italic [Latin, Osco-umbrian], Germanic. Satem group Albanian [modern Illyrian ?], Armenian, Balto-Slav.

IDEA: Branch IE from an early dialectization between satem and centum languages is not valid: first because in some moment can loose the k sound (as latin kentum now in Catalan "sen'"); or could have been influenced by substrate languages breaking so the common relation with brother branches.

Principal subgroupings of the Indoeuropean languages: Indo-iranic + helleno-phrygian (phrygian + macedonian) + Macro Italic (Veneto-Messapic + Latin-Oscan + Illyrian) + Macroceltic // Tocharian + Germanic/Balto-Slav

Germanic is about as distant from Slavic as from Celtic, yet both Germanic and Celtic belong to the Centum group.

The Phrygian has more common isoglosses with Greek and Armenian than with the Thraco-Dacian or the Anatolian languages.

The most up to date research shows the Phrygian relationship to have been closer to Armenian, even while Thracian has an origin in common with it.

Phrygian: Rather close ties with Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian languages are discovered, there are common features with Albanian, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic.

It appears that Phrygian was rather closely related to Greek (cf. Lubotsky 1988), Thracian to Armenian (cf. Kortlandt 1988), and Venetic to Italic. The position of Illyrian re-mains unclear.

The Phrygian has in some sense intermediate characteristics between Greek and Thracian.

Meridional Balkanic would be composed with Macedonian, Phrygian and Armenian.

IDEA: The Phrygian could be linked to Greekish or Pelasgian languages or to Thracian, since the Brygians mingled much with Greek and Thracian invaders, so that their original language could have suffered many influences from the Thracians or from the Greeks...

Similar linguistic characteristics of the Phrygian are common with the Greek (4) and with the Thracian (4), but those that are common in Phrygian are not common between Greek and Thracian.

The close relations between Thracians, Phrygians and Illyrians made many linguists think that these three languages were close relatives. But that can be not true: Illyrian possesses several features that make it closer to Italic, Celtic and even Tocharic languages, Phrygian shows similarities with Greek and Armenian [then the most old IE in the area], and Thracian appeared to have had many common peculiarities with Balto-Slavic tongues. [belonguing also to the newest IE wave ?]

IDEA: Balto-Slavs take shape of Thracians in the Balkans by a Greco-Armenio-Macedonian substrate, where the Illyrians a Venetic shape by the previous Italic (?) substrate ?

The lexical isoglosses leads to the grouping of Tocharian with Meillet's "Northwestern" group in the first instance, with particularly close ties with Germanic. The ties Tocharian has with both Greek and Indic outside of the Northwestern group reflect later contacts on the part of the pre-Tocharians with the pre-Greeks and pre-Indics as the pre-Tocharians moved progressively eastward in the late Proto-Indo-European world.

IDEA: Unfortunately such contradictory branchings don't leave follow a logic sequence proto-language/proto-culture; so only the attested brother languages are taken into account: Celtic + Italic; Baltoslavic + Germanic; Greek + Indoiranian + Armenian (modern Phrygian)

Uralic substrate in German, Baltic, and Slavic languages (and such languages come from the same IE branch)...

In the other side Germanic has only few loanwords from Proto-Finnic, and Uralic does not explains the non-IE vocabulary.

IDEA: That might be a later Uralo-Altaic migration from the east.

IDEA: Till that the linguists will not take into account the presence of substrate cognates and substrate phonetic changes over the IE languages, it will not be profitable to try to take the IE dialectalization as a way to understand the expansion processes and assign them to pre-historic cultures. It is per example similar as in the case that a white man marries a black woman, so that the grandfather of a cousin of the husband would be more similar to him that his own son; such linguists would argue that then, the grandfather of the cousin and the husband are more related than the father and his son...    

WHERE DWELT THE FIRST INDOEUROPEANS

POSSIBILITY A: IN CENTRAL EUROPE

The relationship with Indo-European with Caucasian can be seen in light of the general problem of the terms of cattle-breeding, agriculture and related semantic fields shared by these linguistic families. In a special work on this subject Starostin suggested that all these terms were borrowed from Proto-Northern Caucasian (or from a dialect of it) into Proto-Indo-European in the beginning of the V mil. B.C., perhaps in the area of the Near East to the South of the Transcaucasus.

IDEA: The Neolithic first arrived to the Caucasus that in Central Europe, also that points to Neolithic borrowings from Caucasian to IE and not to the contrary, also that would contradict Renfew's theories about an Anatolian origin of the Indoeuropeans since supposedly they were side by side in Asia Minor and Neolithic techniques spread somewhat before in Anatolia than in the Caucasus...

The Indo-Europeans originated in the Carpathian Basin. Beginning to spread in the middle of the 6th millennium, they brought agriculture to central, western, north-eastern, and northern Europe, militarizing and spreading in all southerly directions from the 4th millennium onward.

Linear Pottery Ware Culture (LBK) expands agriculture from Hungary to N. France, S. Germany, Poland, Czech Rep. and Great Moldavia... Cultural diffussion from the neighbour Körös Culture: this would be the first native neolithic European culture. Attested also genetically since there is a sharp gene discontinuity among West and East Europeans in the Danube.

Linnear Pottery Ware Culture stops in Netherlands, in Low Saxony and in Pomern: by archeology it seems that there was a frontier between Neolithics and Mesolithics and it would mean that Mesolithics were hostil against foreigners there.

IDEA: but also could not allow at first the spread of Neolithic techniques the fact that by there such lowland regions were mainly marshes, and that the same marshes, rivers and coasts might have given enough fish to survive well.

Map of the LBK Culture [ in a new window ].

In Hungary, it is stipulated that the expansion of the agricultural complex halted at the edge of the Starcevo -Körös-Cris culture’s northern and western frontier in the Carpathian Basin for up to a 1000 years. The northern frontier is thought to coincide with the limits of the Mediterranean climate zone. Beyond this area, not all Near Eastern cultigens may have grown readily. This is especially the case beyond the southeastern Carpathian Basin and the Alps. Yet, it is precisely the region, in which much of the LBK unfolded.

The LBK is suggested to develop from Late Starcevo -Körös-Cris roots and/or Serbian Vinca influences in Transdanubia.

The traditional notion that the LBK pottery indicates a clear link with the Near East has come under scrutiny. Analysis of the earliest painted pottery from the Near East and Southeast Europe indicates there is no direct link. For this reason, it seems that pottery style, house architecture, and the economy, may best be considered separately.

The carriers of the LBK pottery built long-houses that cannot be derived from the house architecture of Southeastern Europe and the Near East

It is stipulated that the chipped stone tool technology of the LBK is derived from the autochthonous Mesolithic population.

AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometer) new dating techniques for Linear Bandkeramik culture from central Europe suggest that its earliest phase dates to after -4400, whereas dates on bulk charcoal samples suggest ages as early as -4900.

IDEA: looking at the spreading map of such culture some facts can be glimpsed: that LBK did not expand south (Italy and Balkans) possibly as to forecome ethnic conflicts, muchmore when there was a huge area in the north, the east and the west to colonize and carry there the Neolithic way of life; the northern frontier of LBK seems to have been very sharp among Neolithics and Mesolithics: there was an strong rejection from the Mesolithics'side to be colonized.

IDEA: The Linnear Pottery Ware Culture did not expand soutwards nor to the Alps: the first being occupied already by Neolithics, the second by the cold climate that prevents basic agriculture.

IDEA: Similar area for original IE homeland given by other scholars: Devoto, Bosch-Gimpera, Georgiev; even others center the area near but with some part covering also the Pannonian Plains.

Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is the earliest Neolithic culture of central Europe, western Ukraine to eastern France. The linear pottery core area stretches from eastern Hungary to the Netherlands, including settlement concentrations in the Pannonian Basin, Bohemia, Moravia, central Germany and the Rhineland. A second rapid expansion occurred eastwards round the northern rim of the Carpathians, from Poland to the Dnieper. Small cemeteries of individual inhumations are common as are longhouses with rectangular ground plans. The remarkable uniformity that characterized the Linear Pottery culture in its core area broke down after c 4000 BC and daughter cultures emerged: Tisza, Lengyel, Stroke-Ornamented Ware, Rossen etc.

IDEA: Such quick colonization would drive to a compact language in such huge area.

"In Europe we find now most archaic of the existing Indoeuropean languages - Lithuanian. This  is explained by that Lithuanian developed in the borders of its  rather ancient native land (or near to it) and was coming  under  influences of the nearest related languages - Slavic and German -  and only  in very small degree - Finno-Ugrian" (Georgiev V.I., 1958, 247).

INFO: Italian ressembles most to Latin... and Latin sprout from Italy.

Mallory (1989): "what is most striking is that Lithuanian shows roughly the same general retention of the Proto-Indo-European forms (naturally mitigated by minor sound sifts) as does Sanskrit, despite the fact that the latter language is attested nearly 3000 years earlier than Lithuanian. This apparent archaism has mesmerized linguists for over a century now and has led some to the conclusion that the Indo-European Homeland must have lain in or near the Baltic. [...] The region even retains the Proto-Indo-European names for rivers. [...] Lithuanian and a number of Slavic languages retain traces (of the Indo-European free accent). [...] Because of this transparent conservatism, many linguists hold that the Baltic languages, like their Slavic neighbors, have probably moved but little since late Indo-European times.

IDEA: As accentuation is a substrate characteristic that almost never is lost: "accent", it would confirm such old IE stablishment. But yet there could be explained in different ways, the first as that this was the Indoeuropean homeland, or the second, that the local Mesolitics of the area also spoke an indoeuropoid language  (Indoeuropean-like language).

IDEA: Neolithic find that the next areas available are not fitable for agriculture, then it might be developed an economy based in nomadism and husbandry to colonize new lands and to don't reach an overpopulation in the area of origin. Such case might have happened in the Pannonian area.

IDEA: The Pannonian plain is the ideal laboratory/place to develop nomadism based in herding.

The Swiss Pfyn Culture was derived from the LBK.

The Pfyn assemblage (-3900 to -3500) is located in South Germany and North Switzerland near Lake Constance (Bodensee). A small fraction of Pfyn pottery shows changes that fall in line with the subsequent Horgen culture. Copper smelting is documented and attributed to a connection with the Danubian Late Lengyel.

La culture de Pfyn, en Suisse, partira fonder la culture de Horgen (-2700 à -2200) en Suisse orientale, et un autre tribu issue du Westfalia fondera la culture de Seine-Oise-Marne (-2700 à -2200) dans le Bassin Parisien et la Belgique. Il semble bien que ces peuples étaient en partie des cavaliers. Vers -2400 ils soumettront également la Bretagne ("Quessoy") et s'infiltreront vers le centre-ouest ("Taizé" et "Vienne-Charente") puis vers l'Aquitaine ("Isle-Dordogne") vers -2400. (Les cutures de Taizé, Vienne-Charente et isle-Dordogne sont souvent réunies sous le nom de "Loire-Dordogne"). Mais ensuite, les natives de France relèveront la tête et commenceront à repousser leurs envahisseurs: Vers -2300 les peuples d'Artenac reprennent l'Aquitaine, le centre-ouest et le bassin parisien, et vers -2500 les Lücherziens d'Auvernier (Saône-Rhone) reprennent une partie de la suisse. La première invasion indo-européenne en France se termine par un échec .

Horgen (-3500 until -2850) core area is in Northern Switzerland and Southwest Germany, but it may have reached far north along the Rhine River. Its pottery may be derived from late Pfyn.

Stroke-Ornamented Ware or Stichbandkeramik Culture (TRB) is developed directly out of the Linear Pottery culture, (-4000 to -3800). Bohemia, southwest Poland, Bavaria, and central Germany were its locale. The culture had longhouses.

Lengyel Culture (-4000 to -3000) with many regional variants in Hungary, parts of Austria, and much of Czechoslovakia and Poland. It is closely linked to the Tisza culture of the Hungarian plain, and it may have been from this area that the Lengyel people adopted painted pottery and the occasional use of copper (some of the earliest use in temperate Europe). With the Rössen and Tisza culture, it is a descendant of Linear Pottery culture. Sites have trapezoidal longhouses.

Tisza Culture of eastern Hungary (since -4000 to -3500); there was domestication of aurochs and intensive cattle husbandry. Tiszapolgár Culture (-3500 to -3000) with the oldest stage of the Hungarian copper and successor to the Tisza culture.

Baden Culture (-2750 to -2200), was a Copper Age culture over much of central Europe (the Carpathian basin: northern Yugoslavia, all of Hungary, most of Czechoslovakia, southern Poland, and parts of Austria and Germany). It was a successor to the Lengyel culture. The horse was domesticated and carts mounted on four solid disk-wheels were used. Baden had contacts with the Early Bronze Age cultures of the Aegean.

The Baden culture (-3500 to -2900: sic !) area extends roughly from the Sava River in Serbia to southern Poland and from just east of Munich (München), South Germany, to eastern Hungary. The area includes Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Switzerland. So geographically it overlaps with the later Funnel Beaker culture (TRB), the Globular Amphora culture, and the later Corded Ware culture. In Slavonija (Croatia), just south of Hungary, Baden strata are superimposed by layers containing Vucedol culture artifacts. Copper technology. Defensive stone walls. Evidence for wheeled vehicles, from the TRB. Burial rites include tumuli and cremations. The interred individuals are frequently covered in red ochre (ritual also attested after in Pontic areas). The tumuli, termed "Kurgans," are equated to mounds built of the Yamnaya culture of the south Russian steppe and the Hungarian. The pottery seems to exhibit some similarities with that of Vucedol. It is succeded primarily by the Corded Ware culture [as daughter culture ?], including later Jevisovice and the Vucedol culture (-3050 to -2450). The pottery of Cernavoda in the Danube/Dobrogea area, Cotofeni in western Romania, and Ezero in the south, exhibit similarities, suggesting a wide ranging communication network. This may have extended beyond Hungary, via Bulgaria and northern Greece, to the Aegean Sea, judging by stylistic similarities of handled jugs and cups.

IE had terms on construction of wagons created at a late stage of such protolanguage.

IDEA: Such culture used of horse before Yamnaya culture (thought to be Iranic) spread to Asia.

IDEA: The proposed date of -4000 as the date of the first dialectization of IE could be lowered if we take into account the many and different substrate languages that will affect IE in its expansions.

The Copper Age began with the Baden, Kostolac and Vucedol cultures.

The four-wheeled cart appears in -3750 in Poland under the TRB Culture (or Funnel Beaker Culture) and in the latter part of the Hungarian Copper Age in the Baden Culture, with terracota models of carts, but all these for OXEN.

IDEA: As the common IE had at least one metal (*H2éyos), and there were vehicles (*wógho-) with wheels (*kwékwlo-), it would point that the common IE was spoken among the Badens: they are the first to meet such two components: metal, horses, and chariots or wagons. The previous LBK cultures could have spoken Indoeuropoid languages, but it is in the branching of the Baden Culture that it might be seen the IE dialectal evolutions.

The discovery of up to 4000 year old mummies (-2000) with undeniable Caucasian physical attributes found in Xinjiang Province, northwestern China, wear cloth supposedly identical to that of Central and Northern Europe.

IDEA: That would point to an expansion from Central Europe of the Indoeuropeans.

IDEA: As there is not absolute certainity on dates, how to assign the direction of spread of the Indoeuropeans ? Are much more reliable the material evolutions then.  

POSSIBILITY B: IN ASIA MINOR

The British archaeologist Renfrew suggested in the 80s (but nowadays don't defends such hypothesis) that IE was spoken in actual Turkey and that the spread of IE was paralel to the spread of the Neolithic in Europe; such hypothesis would be confirmed by the genetic spread from there to Europe of Neolithic farmers. But this theory is the most difficult to defend since cannot explain why Hittites found a non-IE people (the Hatti) in Anatolia, or even cannot explain why the IE branchs are so recent (some 5000 years) when the Neolithic expansion dates of some 8000 years. Also strong arguments against it is the presence everywhere of non-Ie languages as Basque, Iberian, Etruscan, Minoic, etc.

Semitic influences in IE: *tauro- and Semitic *tawr- (a bull), IE *ghaid- (a goat) and Semitic *gadj- (a goat cub) etc. The same borrowed lexics were borrowed by Indo-Europeans from other Afroasiatic, Caucasian, Urartian, Hurrian, Sumerian languages. Building on this, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov believe that the Indo-European homeland lay in Northern Mesopotamia, between the Caucasus and Anatolia, in what is now Kurdistan and Armenia.

IDEA: What if the carriers of the Neolithic to the Balkans also were Afroasiatic ?

Proto-Semitic loanwords in IE: seven, bull, arrow, star, millet, mill, mortar, wine... that might be anterior to -2000 (before expansions). Such Semitic expressions would confirm Renfew's theory of an Anatolian homeland for IE as Semitics then would have been neighbours in the south.

IDEA: religious terms (seven, bull, star) and new types of crop (mill, wine) and new tools (mortar, millet). Basques have acquired alocton things from afar without changing their old language: Catholic terms from far Greek, or Amerindian terms for fruits.

The Anatolian family appears in -2000 in Asia Minor, so then the breakage of the IE was no more recent than -4000 (the luwite and the hittite were already formed when entered in Asia Minor).

IDEA: If the major IE dialectization was accomplished already by -3000, and we know that Semites colonized Mesopotamia from Arabia since -2500 (so that there was not possible a neighbourhood among IE and Semites before that), and taking into account that to rise vineyards in arid Arabia surely was not the most common, how it is possible to explain the "Semitic" loanwords ? An alternative explanation, and a common way for both families might be found. However that would rise doubts on that Renfew's proof.

Shells from the Red Sea have been found in Central Europe (in Corded Ware Culture).

IDEA: So THERE WAS some trade between Arabia and Central Europe around -4000; this trade was carried there direcly or by middlemen ?

Francisco Villar: "in the common [Indoeuropean] language a lexicon connected to farming does not exist or hardly exists [...] the common IE terminology for farming is so scarce to allow a dilemma to rise: it is possible that the IEs’ knowledge of farming was modest, […] but it is even possible that they had no knowledge of farming at all ". To dispute Renfrew's theory: "This hypothesis clashes with the Neolithic thesis… according to which IEs would essentially be the inventors of farming, which would be the most important and characteristic activity of their society [...] It is unthinkable that the people who invented and diffused farming would not have a rich and specific lexicon to designate the elements and the techniques of farming"

Every IE language has its own farming terminology, extremely rich farming lexicon, most of which is independently coined with IE material.

«les noms d’animaux domestiques indo-européens que représentent lat. bos, ouis, sus, etc., étaient indifférents au sexe». The eventual autonomous lexicalization of the male and female genre in each spice is an evolution done in each individual IE dialect. That contradicts an agropecuary culture in origin, as even there is not a common fundamental neolithic lexic.

Very interesting is that IE lacks of a common root for "bread", the Neolithic new food. More cases against a Neolithic common culture is the lack of coomon referents for ceramic, for wheat, millet...

IDEA: That would point to a quick dispersal of Neolithic IE, and a consequent quick dialectization ?  

POSSIBILITY C: THE PONTIC STEPPES

La théorie courante parmi les spécialistes est aujourd'hui celle d'une savante americaine d'origine lithuanienne, Mme. Marija Gimbutas. Selon cette théorie les IE étaient des éleveurs et guerriers nomades, avec une organisation patriarcale et une religion céleste, qui invahirent l'Europe au commencement de l'Age des Métaux, environ au IV millenaire avant notre ère, en provenant de la Russie méridionale.

IDEA: But that does not mean that IE was original from the Pontic steppes: some linguist after 2000 years could think that the Germanic language spoken in Canada was originated in England, but we know that English was carried to the Brittish Islands by Germanics around 410.

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.

Tripolye Culture: Ochre used in burials, rectangular houses.

The Tripolie Culture (Cucuteni-Trypillia) is located in southern Ukraine (in the Black Sea area), in Moldavia, and partly in Romania. This was the first Neolithic culture in the area, and had a combined production economy of husbandry and agriculture.  Bones of oxen have been discovered with the remains of a plow, but it seems that they were not strong herders, but rather used animals in agriculture and herded cows, sheep, and pig. There is no indication of tamed horse. They used collective graves for their burials.

In the Tripolie Culture is not closely related to the Near East, but rather to the Balkan and central European Cultures. Some scholars think the northern Black Sea area has been influenced by the culture of Turkey, but there is still speculation.

Scholars think that LBK and Tripolye-Cucuteni cultures were IE, Iranian would be represented by the Kurgan culture, the Pre-Baltic with the Battle Axe Culture (Corded Ware), Proto-Germanic with the Scandinavian Bronze Culture.

INFO: Attested LBK sites in actual Moldavia.

IDEA: If LBKers would have closed to the Balkanics their natural way to spread to the northeast, that would represent that in the Pontic steppes the next cultures to appear would be Indoeuropean.

IDEA: In case that the LBKers would have carried the Neolithic techniques to the Pontic area, then that would represent that the Indoeuropean there had an Indoeuropoid substrate (if it is accepted that before the spread of Neolithic techniques Europe had only Indoeuropoid languages), affecting then the Indoeuropean dailect/s that would have been spoken there. Please note that Lineal Bands could be done with cords, suggesting an evolution from simple lines to corded lines.

IDEA: Could be that an IE branch became more powerful and invaded their Pannonian homeland ? The Pontic IE (Greeks, Aryans, Germanics, Balkto-Slavs, etc.) could have invaded the area of the supposed Pannonian IE (Celto-Italics, Illyrians, etc.) that were displaced westwards ? (and southwards: the Anatolians).

IDEA: Or could be that non-Indoeuropean herdsmen conquered and led the Tripoliye's inhabitants to conquer, but keeping thier language ?

It is proven that people of the Sredny Stog culture (or their immediate ancestors - people of the Sura culture) were the first who had undoubtedly domesticated the horse. Using horses not only as food is proven as well.

The domestication of the horse appears to have been in the Steppe areas of Russia. The first horses were used as a loader animal for transport, as loading animal.

IDEA: But they had not chariots, so as maximum they could have spoken a forerunner of the common Indoeuropean.

Serednig-Stog 1 / Voloshskoje puis Serednig-Stog 2 / Dereivka (sud de la Russie, -3500 / -2900): utilisation d'amphores sphériques et de poteries à fonds coniques ou plats, peignées puis cordées. Les morts sont enterrés dans des tombes à ocre recouvertes de pierres. Les haches sont en pierre puis en cuivre.

Sredny Stog (-4400 till -3500). Rectangular houses made of wood; horses used to transport.

As Dr. Anthony and his colleagues have shown through microscopic study of ancient horse teeth, horses already were being harnessed in Ukraine 6000 years ago. Also, wooden chariots with elaborate, spoked wheels have been shown to date to around -2000 in the same area.

Khvalynsk (Volga, -3500 / -3000): utilisation de poteries grises ovoïdes incisées et cordées. Les morts sont enterrés dans des tombes à ocre recouvertes de pierres. Début du travail du cuivre.

Khavalynsk: in Tatarstan, -5000 to -3800 [??], used tamed horses to eat.

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.

It is important that people from the later phases of the Srednij Stoga Aeneolithic and Bronze Age culture were the most ancient users of corded impressions on clay surfaces, and these impressions have been interpreted as signs of the great importance which cords had among people of that time (cords were used to tame horses and oxen, to prepare harnesses, etc.). Later these impressions were taken over by every single Corded Ware culture group in Europe.

IDEA: Suggested that the Corded Ware is debt to the importance of the cords used to ride horses of the Pontic area, but also it is needed cords to drive chars, as those present in Central Europe.

Mikhajlovka, Kemi-Oba et Novodanilovka (Crimée, -3500 / -2300): utilisation d'amphores sphériques lisses à fonds plats et de poteries cordées. Les morts sont enterrés dans des tombes à ocre recouvertes d'un tumulus, d'un cairn ou de dalles de pierre, entourées d'un cromlech ou de stèles anthropomorphes (de style "Ezero-Tiritaki" à Kemi-Oba et de style "Nataljevka" à Mikhajlovka). Début des chars à deux roues (venus du caucase).

The first archaeological evidence in Europe for ornamentation using cords was found in the Pontic steppes, where horses were domesticated about -4000. At Dereivka on the Dnepr, for example, pots (beakers) were finished with cord impressions. It was from the Kurgan or the Pit Grave culture in this region that about -3000 the Corded Ware culture spread over the North European Plain, to southern Scandinavia and to the Baltic region and Russia.

Early Corded Ware cultures from Pit Grave culture.

IDEA: Herders from the Pontic area: surely they would have influenced the farmers of the Pannonian region, but were able to change their language ?

-2500 to -2000 Pit Graves in West Ukaine and East Hungary from the Pontic steppes (Pastoral and nomadic).

Some think that the "pit" culture which spread from the Volga region to East Europe represented Indo-Europeans.

Some group of scholars think otherwise that the Indoeuropean languages originated in the Pontic steppes (Kurgan Culture), and that their spread was a consequence of their militar advantage: charioters. [Kurgan Culture = Pit Grave Culture].

IDEA: How it is possible to explain that the Pontics invaded Central Europe's Baden culture, appearing the IE Pontics in Ukraine some 300 years after that the "invasion" of Central Europe took place ?? Moreover, being nomads without houses, how could have IE so many roots about sedentary house ?

The Pit Grave Culture is located in the southern Russian Steppe area (Ukraine) and replaces the Tripolie Culture in the mid third millennium BC. Its roots are in the Neolithic and continue to the beginning of the second millennium BC. We have no knowledge of housing or settlement patterns, only graves have been found. These graves reveal a new tradition of burial: the burial mound, which contain offerings. First bronze of the area along first domestic horses there...

IDEA: destruction of the previous Tripoleti Culture if no more houses (would be strange to change the usual dwelling place from house to tent), so provable invasion, so provable alocton culture. Also the nomadic lifestyle would contradict an IE point of origin since clearly IE constructed houses.

IDEA: If archaeology would attest definetively that the Pit Grave culture descended from Corded Ware Culture, the IE homeland problem would be definetively solved, including its branchings.

Many scholars believe that the Pit Culture developed on the basis of Seredniy Stoh Culture. The Pit Culture had three stages of development and should be related to the Copper Age because it ceased its existence with the beginning of the Bronze Age. Radiocarbon analysis dates its latest stage at 25-19 century BC.

INFO: So the Pit Culture did not know how to produce Bronze.

Pit Grave evolves from Sredny Stog. Uses chars with strong and wheighty wheels [for transport of materials then].

The people of the Pit Grave culture, successors of the Sredny Stog people, were the first real (semi-)nomads of the temperate zone. It is possibly to say more definitely, that ancestors of future Aryans, Greek-Phrygo-Armenians and Germano-Balto-Slavs  (the "B area" according to the Gamkrelidze-Ivanov scheme of IE dialects) concentrated in Eastern and North-Central parts, whereas ancestors of future Italo-Celto-Illyrians and Tocharians (the "A area" in those terms but already without Anatolians) were in the South-Western part of the area. The latter group (the "A area") had been migrating westward and to the end of the period they had shifted into steppes of Lower  and then Middle Danube.

The archaeological evidence for the later waves of Kurgan [Pit Grave] migrations points to their having had an Indo-European culture, but the languages spoken by the later Kurgan peoples must have been already differentiated Indo-European dialects, some of which would doubtless evolve into some of the historical branches of the family tree. We must be content to recognize the Kurgan peoples as speakers of certain Indo-European languages and as sharing a common Indo-European cultural patrimony. The ultimate "cradle" of the Indo-Europeans may well never be known, and language remains the best and fullest evidence for prehistoric Indo-European society.

INFO: This text points what is clear, the Kurgan culture don't displays a sharp cultural split, and it is too recent as to be the place where common IE was spoken.

IDEA: the first conquests by IE must have been radial: firstly because their akin neighbours would have similar military skills and advantadges, so loosing much advantage to win them and risking unnecessarily when the non-Indoeuropean peoples where without defences against the ancient "tanks".

In the area of the Fatjanovo culture, by comparison, domesticated horses have been found only in burial grounds from a later historical period (Volosovo-Danilovka, Balanovo).

IDEA: why if IE came from the Pontic Steppes did not conquered first (and easily) the north also ?

IDEA: If it would be seen that Pit Grave culture was original from the Pannonian plain, it would point and afirm a Central-European origin for IE (the Yamnaya culture will represent IE in the steppes). In fact the Baden culture is derived from that of Central Europe Lengyel, not from Kurgans, and the most important is that is more early that that of the Kurgans. Moreover, it displays ALL IE traits, as chariots, tamed horses, cremation, kurgans, etc. Also another point of relation is the expansion following the Danube to the Pontic area...

Kurgans. Archaeologically are primarily referred to as the Pit Grave and the Catacomb culture.

Yammaya cuture around Kiev-Moldavia developed many daughter cultures; there the horse was first domesticated around -2500; the two-wheeled charts also were developed there and spread quikly (as seen in the kurgans).

De la civilisation de Khvalynsk are developed: A. Yamnaya ou Kurganes 4 [Pit Grave] qui partiront se réfugier dans les Balkans. Ce peuple, trés hiérarchisé, vivait dans des maisons quadrangulaires semi-enterrées, élevait des chevaux, des boeufs et des moutons, utilisait des chars à chevaux, fabriquait des stèles et des poteries cordées ou peignées à fonds plats ou pointus et enterrait ses morts dans des tombes à fosses contenant de l'ocre. Cette civilisation s'est répendue partout dans les steppes pontiques vers -2600. B. Afanassievo (-2500 à -1700: sic !).

IDEA: Such area of dispersal would be possible but does not make impossible that the original IE area was in the Pannonian plain; it could be that in the Pontic steppes the IE developed a militar use of chariots. Moreover that the Yamnanians used corded ware leads to think on a western origin.

Contacts existed between the late Pit Grave/Catacomb Grave phase and the Northern European Corded Ware cultures.

Steppe-type graves appeared in eastern Hungary and Transylvania (at Csongrad and Decea Muresului), apparently as the result of a migration from the steppes. The standard dating of these graves, at the transition from Tiszapolgar to Bodrogkeresztur, places them precisely during a period of conflict, about -4100 [sic !, end date of Tiszapolgar is -3000].

During the Early Bronze Age, after -3500 [sic !, Bronze at -2200], in the western steppes (the era of the early Yamnaya culture), settlements virtually disappeared in large parts of the steppes, implying the adoption of a much more mobile residential pattern; and kurgan cemeteries became widespread, perhaps as a way of confirming territorial ownership in the absence of stable settlements; high-cost status weapons like metal daggers appeared in central graves, implying a glorification of warfare and the warrior; a strong and important migration stream flowed from the North Pontic steppes into eastern Hungary and the lower Danube valley after.

The chariots of the steppes were used in war, quite effectively, without being threatened by mounted warriors because there weren't any mounted warriors - horseback riding had not yet been invented, or at least had not yet been used effectively in warfare.

Timbergrave Culture appears by -1850: clear presence of tamed horses with light chariots (radial wheels).

CONCLUSION: There are some factors that would contradict the Pontic steppes as the original IE homeland: the presence of a sea; the absence of climatic trees; the absence of houses among nomades; the cultural dependency from Central Europe's cultures; the too early apparition of the supposed IE group and its expansion which will represent ever Indo-Aryan cultures thereafter. So before that it could be rejected or assumed a Central European origin or a Pontic origin for Indoeuropeans, it is needed much more precise datations and cultural afiliations.    

CONCLUSION

The Neolithic cultures (and their languages), spread towards Europe (the Balkans, the Pontic area, Italy, and even the maritime areas of France, Spain and Portugal: the Cardial Ware). The Indoeuropeans, native Paleolithic peoples of Eastern Europe acquired for themselves the neolithic techniques in modern Hungary, so that in their side they also spread northwards, westwards and eastwards (the areas yet not colonized by farmers). Possibly a daughter culture of the Cardial Ware or an independent Paleolithic culture carried the Neolithic to those areas that remained to colonize by farmers, that is to say, Western Europe (all Spain, France, British Islands and Scandinavia); their languages might have been Bascoid otherwise. Then, after some centuries, the supposed IE cultures of Central Europe were surrounded, so that were not able to expand by "normal" colonization of virgin lands; the alternative to survive bad seasons from then was by conquest or by economic adaptation (as specialized husbandry). Under such panorama, those that developed the best militar techniques were those that won territories, and by the historic accounts, it seems that the Indoeuropeans with their quick chariots and their strong weapons of iron were the most succesful, not only in Europe, but also in Asia, America, and Australia.