# So, What's New in the Field of Historical/Comparative Linguistics ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2018, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-new-in-the-field-of-historical-comparative-linguistics/825158 "2018-11-27T14:57:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2018, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-new-in-the-field-of-historical-comparative-linguistics/825158/21 "2018-11-29T09:35:52Z")
It is apparent that you may be more invested in this subject than I am but let me break down the problems here, in as a scientific manor as possible. Lets look at actual claims of Marija Gimbutas’ actual paper [The IndoEuropeans: Archeological Problems](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1963.65.4.02a00030) > [@](#): > > CONCLUSIONS > > 1. Archeological evidence is against the European theory of the Indo European homelands. > 2. The Kurgan expansion in the second half of the third millennium B.C. into the North Pontic area, Anatolia, the Aegean, the Balkans, central Europe, northwestern Europe, the East Baltic area, and central Russia brought destruction to the old European neolithic and chalcolithic cultures and to the Early Bronze Age Aegean and western Anatolian cultures. > 3. The impetus for expansion lies in the Eurasian steppes, in the lower Volga basin and beyond the Caspian Sea. > … > 4. The Kurgan culture spread astonishingly uniform cultural elements all over the vast area of Europe, the Caucasus and Anatolia. Archeological evidence and the earliest historic records show that these people were ruled by powerful kings and a council of nobles. Now lets consider your claims: > [@septimus](#): > > I admire the writings of distinguished Professor Dixon, but listen to this: > Only linguistic evidence should be used to date proto-languages … and that dating is unsuccessful? 😕 **In the Gimbutas model, Anatolian split from the rest of Indo-European shortly before the invention of the wheeled wagon** … and (although this doesn’t seem to have played a role in the construction of the hypothesis) _all I-E branches except Anatolian share certain words for wheel._ One might dispute the causal connection between ‘wheel’ words and the wheel’s invention, but Dixon implies that even considering the wheel’s dating is off-limits. > > \*\*Twenty or thirty years ago the P-I-E Homeland was controversial, but careful consideration of the _conjunction_ of linguistic and archaeological evidence provided overwhelming support for the Gimbutas “Kurgan” hypothesis, \*\*and, among reasonable people who study the evidence, I think there are fewer and fewer hold-outs against it. The evidence fits like a hand fits a glove; and nothing in OP’s linked article challenges this. Any remaining doubts should have been dispelled by recent DNA evidence which demonstrates that, for example, the rapid Bell Beaker expansion had its source in an elite migration from the steppes. (Emphasis mine) The cites in Post [#18](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21347437&postcount=18) Demonstrates that the top researchers think that the Steppe is the PIE-Homeland, but that it is may homeland of groups like the proto-Germans. It also shows that \* “steppe ancestry might account for only a subset of Indo-European languages in Europe”\* The cites in Post [#16](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21347317&postcount=16) shows that _“No evidence that steppe-related ancestry moved through southeast Europe into Anatolia”_ and if you read the paper at that cite it will show that the split “had to” happen _before_ any pie speakers even reached the steppe. My personal opinion is that we simply don’t have enough data to affirm which homeland is associated with the Indo-European languages. The real story is just more complicated than Gimbutas could have even dreamed back then. The main issue with Gimbutas is here monolithic claims of one culture based on archaeological evidence that just isn’t accepted as being the same cultures anymore. Feel free to read her paper and try to match it to the idea of a PIE-homeland. I think that you will find that as you try to apply it with not just one population but all of them it will become problematic. If her theory was that the Bell Beaker culture was a good fit for late-PIE it would be an easier point to argue, but not as a homeland with what we know today. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2018, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-new-in-the-field-of-historical-comparative-linguistics/825158/22 "2018-11-30T01:34:15Z")
I prepared a long reply, but while doing that I discovered a likely source of confusion. **Rat avatar** links to a 1963 paper by Gimbutas in which she uses much too-recent dates for the I-E expansion. By 1978, she was erring in the opposite direction: “The Kurgan Culture reached Ireland as early as 3500 B.C.” Perhaps I caused confusion by repeating the name Gimbutas; I should have used the name of her disciple Mallory. **Mr. avatar** , and some of his sources, seem to assume that “Gimbutasists” take Steppe People = Yamnaya. No, the earliest Kurgans discovered are associated with the Samara culture on the Volga River, well before Yamnaya or Maikop. Yamnaya depending, on writer, may cover a huge expanse in time and space, but generally should be considered contemporaneous with, and not prior to, Globular Amphora and Afanasievo, two putative sources for I-E branches. Anatolian branched off even earlier. On the chance that misconceptions go deeper than this, let me repeat some observations that seem to conflict with **Mr. avatar** ’s sources. (1) Language need not follow culture. Language need not follow genes. Language follows language. As an arbitrary example, if we write “Slavic descends from Balto-slavic,” we do not assert that the Slavic culture was an offshoot of Balto-slavic culture, nor that the early Slavic people had Balto-slavic genes (though either statement might be true). Instead the Slavic people might have adopted the language of their elite neighbors for social or economic advancement. It’s not clear to me whether Mr. avatar doesn’t understand that, or he thinks that I or Gimbutas-Mallory doesn’t understand that, but his arguments and those of his sources seem confused on this point. These cites might help: Here is a 6-page summary from 2010 of I-E development: > **[art111e.pdf](https://kortlandt.nl/publications/art111e.pdf)** > > 103.49 KB Note in the list on page 5, that Kortlandt is still using Gimbutas’ old “Waves 1, 2 and 3” nomenclature! Here’s a 2017 paper (which uses MCMC!) to assert a “Steppe Homeland”: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317231162\_Steppe\_Homeland\_of\_Indo-Europeans\_Favored\_by\_a\_Bayesian\_Approach\_with\_Revised\_Data\_and\_Processing\_-\_Updated\_Bayesian\_approach\_with\_archeological\_and\_linguistic\_parallels](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317231162_Steppe_Homeland_of_Indo-Europeans_Favored_by_a_Bayesian_Approach_with_Revised_Data_and_Processing_-_Updated_Bayesian_approach_with_archeological_and_linguistic_parallels) A 2015 paper from Anthony-Ringe: > **[The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives |...](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguist-030514-124812)** > > Archaeological evidence and linguistic evidence converge in support of an origin of Indo-European languages on the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 4,000 years BCE. The evidence is so strong that arguments in support of other hypotheses should be... It’s behind a paywall but if appeals to authority are the motif for this sub-debate, the abstract will suffice: > [@](#): > > Archaeological evidence and linguistic evidence converge in support of an origin of Indo-European languages on the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 4,000 years BCE. The evidence is so strong that arguments in support of other hypotheses should be reexamined. (3) I’ve emphasized that migrations or gene flow is not essential to language transmission, but since your cites emphasis genetic data, I wonder why you’ve not commented on my explanation of why Y-haplogroups can provide particular insight into the adoption of the language of a smallish elite group. BTW, the “Indo-Hittite” hypothesis, that there was an early split between Anatolian and the rest of I-E (“Indo-European Proper”) is generally accepted today. Using that for terminology would simplify discussion. > [@rat\_avatar](#): > > Lets look at actual claims of Marija Gimbutas’ actual paper [The IndoEuropeans: Archeological Problems](https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1963.65.4.02a00030)… > … > The main issue with Gimbutas is here monolithic claims of one culture based on archaeological evidence that just isn’t accepted as being the same cultures anymore. Feel free to read her paper and try to match it to the idea of a PIE-homeland. > … > If her theory was that the Bell Beaker culture was a good fit for late-PIE it would be an easier point to argue, but not as a homeland with what we know today. A 1963 paper? Which she herself refuted in the following decades?? Apparently, my choice of “Gimbutas” rather than “Gimbutas-Mallory” caused confusion. Sorry. And a paper that starts with the woefully wrong Atkinson-Gray model is useless. If you want to postulate an alternative to the PIE model of Mallory, Ringe et al, then postulate it. If Atkinson-Gray is your alternative, you can find plenty of sources showing its implausibility. Vague hand-waving that “the steppe model might be wrong” will seem silly if, after trying to construct an alternate model you end up with … the steppe model! The unknown Bell Beaker language was probably ancestral to Celtic, and possibly ancestral to Italic. “Late-PIE”, the way that term is usually used, is associated with Late Yamnaya. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-whats-new-in-the-field-of-historical-comparative-linguistics/825158.md?page=1)