On the Trail of the Indo-Europeans: From Neolithic Steppe Nomads to Early Civilisations

For more than 3000 years, Indo-European languages have been spoken from India through Persia and into Europe. Where are the origins of this language family? How and when did its different linguistic branches emerge? The renowned historical linguist Harald Haarmann provides a graphic account of what we know today about the origins of Indo-European languages and cultures and how they came to be so widely disseminated. In this impressive study, he succeeds in drawing connections between linguistic findings, archaeological discoveries and the latest research into human genetics and climate history. In addition to linguistic affinities, he shows the economic, social and religious concepts that the early speakers of Indo-European languages had in common all the way from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indus. Particular attention is devoted to the processes of assimilation with pre-Indo-European languages and civilisations. The result is a fascinating panorama of early "Indo-European globalisation" from the end of the last ice age to the early civilisations in Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, Persia and India.

Contents


Introduction: The mystery of the IndöEuropeans
In search of linguistic affinities from a people to a race: Indo-Europeans and Aryans
The swastika, an Aryan symbol?

1.Homeland in the southern Russian steppe (11th - 8th millennium BCE)
Neolithic transitions: nomadic herders in the East, farmers in the West
Homeland Anatolia? New findings in human genetics 28 natural environment of the steppe
Indo-Europeans and Uralians: Early encounters

2.ProtöIndöEuropean language and culture (from the 7th millennium BCE)
Basic structures and properties 46 names as ethnic identity markers
functional variations of proto-Indo-European

3.Early steppe nomads: Social systems and worldviews (from the 7th millennium BCE)
Proto-Indo-European regional cultures
Early social hierarchies and patriarchal power structures
Families, kinship, clans
Outlines of a proto-Indo-European mythology

4.Contacts with farmers to the west (from the 5th millennium BCE)
Adoption of the 'agrarian package'
Technological innovations

5.The first migration of the steppe nomads (from the middle of the 5th millennium BCE)
Migration and the motivation behind it
Evidence of the nomads' migrations
Primary Indo-Europeanisation: adaptation to the elite and language shift

6.The fragmentation of ProtöIndöEuropean (from 4000 BCE)
Southwards: Interactions with the Old Europeans
Eastwards: Exploration of central Asia and southern Siberia
The fragmentation of the common language
Indo-Iranian as a macro-group
The Armenians: Outlier in the Caucasus

7.Southeast Europe: The emergence of Hellenic culture (from the 3rd millennium BCE)
How the Hellads became the Hellenes
Under the patronage of pre-Greek deities
From ritual to theatre
The Hellenes and their political systems
The development of the Greek language

8.Apennine Peninsula: The dominance of Latin (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
Indo-Europeans in Italy
The Etruscans, teachers of the romans
The birth of a world language

9.The Balkans: Between Roman and Greek Civilisation (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
The roman-Greek linguistic and cultural border
Ancient Balkan tribal associations and kingdoms
Fusion culture: Albanian

10.Central and Western Europe: Celtic and Germanic peoples (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
All the way to the Atlantic coast: Celtic cultures and languages
Germanic cultures, languages and nation building

11.Eastern Europe: Slavs and Balts (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
The evolution of Slavic
Contacts with non-Slavic peoples
The splitting-off of Baltic
Baltic-Finnish contacts in the Baltic Sea region: sedentary versus mobile

12.Asia Minor: Anatolian languages and cultures (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
Hittites and Luwians
Non-Indo-European languages and cultures in Anatolia
The cult of Artemis of Ephesus
Phrygian: an Indo-European outlier

13.From Central Asia to the Iranian Plateau (from the 2nd millennium BCE)
The Aryan warrior caste and the Kingdom of Mitanni
Early states founded by Iranian peoples
Iranian languages
Zoroastrianism

14.India: Dravidians and Aryans (2nd millennium BCE)
Dravidian culture
Aryan 'immigration'
Cultural symbioses
From Vedic to Sanskrit
The Prakrits and successor languages
Indic languages in southeast Asia

15.Outlying IndöEuropean settlements in western China (2nd millennium BCE)
The mystery of the Tarim mummies
Tocharian language and culture

16.Experiments with writing: From Linear B to Ogham (1700 BCE - 500 CE)
Syllabaries
Alphabetic scripts

17.Epilogue: IndöEuropean globalisation

Bibliography

Sources of maps and illustrations

Index