The Archaeology of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Anatolian: Locating the Split

• The 4th millennium BC stands out as a period of increasing interaction between the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Levant and Greece, stimulated by movements of groups of people at land and sea, including the Black Sea coast (Bauer 2011), which had both genetic (Damgaard et al. 2018; Lazaridis et al. 2017; Wu et al. 2018), cultural and linguistic consequences, including Anatolian, which split off during the early to mid 4th millennium BC from early Maykop groups in the northern Caucasus. After the middle of the 4th millennium steppe Maykop expanded north, leading to the formation of the Yamnaya Culture and Proto-Indo-European, which by the beginning of the 3rd millennium saw the development of ancient Tocharian and the first migrations towards the east (Altai) and the west (Europe). Thus, for reasons given below, I argue for the “Indo-Hittite” hypothesis, using “Proto-Indo-Anatolian” for the source of both (Proto-)Anatolian and the rest of the Indo-European languages, reserving “Proto-Indo-European” for the source of the non-Anatolian languages.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

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