Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EUROLITHIC (The Linguistic Roots of Europe's Agricultural Transition)
Période du rapport: 2020-07-01 au 2021-12-31
Europe is nowadays covered predominantly by Indo-European languages, and the question is when and from where this language family arrived. The EUROLITHIC project’s main aims consists of testing the Steppe and Anatolia Hypotheses on the Indo-European homeland. Whereas the Steppe Hypothesis, the Indo-European languages were brought to Europe by the mobile pastoralists of the Chalcolithic Yamnaya Culture of the Russian-Ukrainian steppes, the Anatolia Hypothesis is based on the idea that these languages were introduced by early Neolithic farmers from Anatolia.
There are several different ways to address the Indo-European controversy. Traditionally the debate has been dominated by archaeological research on the spread of material cultures. However, archaeologists appeared to be unable to reach consensus on the Indo-European origins, and instead shifted their focus to a more fundamental debate on whether it is at all possible to connect changes in material cultural to population movements, including those of prehistoric language communities. In recent years, however, advances in palaeogenomic research have reopened and revolutionized the debate in showing that the aforementioned population movements from the Russian steppes and from Anatolia in fact really did take place, proving that there was a population vector spread of the Indo-European language family
The aim of the EUROLITHIC project is to investigate how the linguistic evidence for the spread of the Indo-Europeans fits on top of the archaeological and the novel genetic evidence. To do this, we work on providing linguistic reconstructions of the different Indo-European subgroups of Europe (so-called “linguistic palaeontology”) to see how they fit onto the archaeologically reconstructed changes in material cultures. In addition, by collecting and analysing the prehistoric loanwords within the Indo-European language, we aim at identifying the non-Indo-European groups they were in contact with underway to their future locations across West Eurasia.
There are several different ways to address the Indo-European controversy. Traditionally the debate has been dominated by archaeological research on the spread of material cultures. However, archaeologists appeared to be unable to reach consensus on the Indo-European origins, and instead shifted their focus to a more fundamental debate on whether it is at all possible to connect changes in material cultural to population movements, including those of prehistoric language communities. In recent years, however, advances in palaeogenomic research have reopened and revolutionized the debate in showing that the aforementioned population movements from the Russian steppes and from Anatolia in fact really did take place, proving that there was a population vector spread of the Indo-European language family
The aim of the EUROLITHIC project is to investigate how the linguistic evidence for the spread of the Indo-Europeans fits on top of the archaeological and the novel genetic evidence. To do this, we work on providing linguistic reconstructions of the different Indo-European subgroups of Europe (so-called “linguistic palaeontology”) to see how they fit onto the archaeologically reconstructed changes in material cultures. In addition, by collecting and analysing the prehistoric loanwords within the Indo-European language, we aim at identifying the non-Indo-European groups they were in contact with underway to their future locations across West Eurasia.
The EUROLITHIC projects consists of several sub-projects on the prehistoric movements and contacts of different Indo-European groups, including Germanic (PI), Balto-Slavic (PhD), Celtic (postdoc), Italic (PhD) and Armenian (PhD). In addition, we have an archaeological project on the interactions between the European Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic groups (postdoc). We have outlined scenarios for the spreads and early contacts of Germanic (Iversen & Kroonen, 2017) and Celtic (Van Sluis et al. forthc.) in North and West Europe. The other linguistic sub-groups are being covered by the work on three PhD dissertations. Finally, we have published a new pan-European archaeobotanical database as part of the project’s Archaeo-Linguistic Database.
We have furthermore engaged in several collaborations with colleagues from archaeology and palaeogenetics. Our contacts with archaeologists Kristian Kristiansen, Volker Heyd and geneticists David Reich, Eske Willerslev have provided a framework for the integration of our linguistic work into that of the other disciplines. We have integrated the linguistic evidence for contacts between incoming Indo-European groups from the East European steppe with local Pre-Indo-European agricultural groups in the archaeological Corded Ware horizon (Kristiansen et al. 2017). We have addressed the origin and spread of several different Indo-European subgroups across West Eurasian through a combination of genetic and linguistic evidence (Damgaard et al. 2018). We have additionally used analytical techniques for the study of aDNA and stable isotopes to reconstruct the kinship structures of two South German Bell Beaker sites and compared that to the linguistically reconstructed kinship structure of the Proto-Indo-European speakers (Sjögren et al. forthc.). These integrative studies have allowed us to make important new inroads into understanding the social mechanisms behind the spread and contacts of various Indo-European sub-groups.
We have furthermore engaged in several collaborations with colleagues from archaeology and palaeogenetics. Our contacts with archaeologists Kristian Kristiansen, Volker Heyd and geneticists David Reich, Eske Willerslev have provided a framework for the integration of our linguistic work into that of the other disciplines. We have integrated the linguistic evidence for contacts between incoming Indo-European groups from the East European steppe with local Pre-Indo-European agricultural groups in the archaeological Corded Ware horizon (Kristiansen et al. 2017). We have addressed the origin and spread of several different Indo-European subgroups across West Eurasian through a combination of genetic and linguistic evidence (Damgaard et al. 2018). We have additionally used analytical techniques for the study of aDNA and stable isotopes to reconstruct the kinship structures of two South German Bell Beaker sites and compared that to the linguistically reconstructed kinship structure of the Proto-Indo-European speakers (Sjögren et al. forthc.). These integrative studies have allowed us to make important new inroads into understanding the social mechanisms behind the spread and contacts of various Indo-European sub-groups.
We can report multiple linguistic innovations. Project members have identified several new linguistic diagnostic features by which pre-Indo-European loanwords can be identified across the different Indo-European languages of Europe. We expect this to provided important new clues on the languages spoken in Europe before the arrival of Indo-European speakers. A sub-project on the pre-Roman elements of Sardinia is yielding interesting new results on the pre-Indo-European linguistic links to the East Mediterraean. For Balto-Slavic, the linguistics contacts with Uralic and pre-Uralic speakers has evolved into a promising strategy for the reconstruction of a pre-Indo-European linguistic stratum different from the Neolithic stratum present in the rest of Europe. On the archaeological side, there is the coming online of the project's Archaeo-Linguistic Database (https://arlida.ku.dk) which contains the first ever, pan-European archaeobotanical search.
We further expect that collaborations with our colleagues from palaeogenetics will enable us to move toward further integration of linguistic evidence into the field of archaeology and genetics, resulting in several cases studies in which the linguistic work-packages play a central role.
We further expect that collaborations with our colleagues from palaeogenetics will enable us to move toward further integration of linguistic evidence into the field of archaeology and genetics, resulting in several cases studies in which the linguistic work-packages play a central role.