Kurgan hypothesis

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The Kurgan model of Indo-European origins draws on both archaeology and linguistics to identify specific archaeological cultures with different stages of the Indo-European expansion.

The Kurgan's thesis is often presented as the predominant model of Indo-European origins. Other views abound and still emerge, especially in archeological circles. Its overall validity has recently been questioned.

Overview

The Kurgan hypothesis originated as a mutual compromise between linguistics and archaeology. The archaeological interpretation of evidence as presented first by Marija Gimbutas, is still considered by historical linguists to give an acceptable approximation to the date at which any set of related Indo-European languages must have started to diverge.

When it was first proposed in 1956, Marija Gimbutas's answer to the question of Indo-European origins was a pioneering interdisciplinary synthesis of archaeology and linguistics. From the 1990s on, new archaeological evidence from Northern European prehistoric cultures was put forward to contest the influence and expansion of Kurgan cultures to the west, and the process of "kurganization" of especially Corded Ware cultures lost its former credibility. The Kurgan model of Indo-European origins identifies the Pontic-Caspian steppe as the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) Urheimat, and a variety of late PIE dialects are assumed to have been spoken across the region. According to this model, the Kurgan culture gradually expanded until it encompassed the entire Pontic-Caspian steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Pit Grave culture of around 3000 BC.

The mobility of the Kurgan culture facilitated its expansion over the entire Pit Grave region, and is attributed to the domestication of the horse and later the use of early chariots. The first strong archaeological evidence for the domestication of the horse comes from the Sredny Stog culture north of the Azov Sea in Ukraine, and would correspond to an early PIE or pre-PIE nucleus of the 5th millennium BC. The earliest known chariot was discovered at Krivoye Lake and dates to c. 2000 BC.

Subsequent expansion beyond the steppes leads to hybrid cultures, such as the Globular Amphora culture to the west, the immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans and the nomadic Indo-Iranian cultures to the east around 2500 BC.

Stages of expansion

Gimbutas' original suggestion identifies four successive stages of the Kurgan culture and three successive "waves" of expansion.

Kurgan I, Dnieper/Volga region, earlier half of the 4th millennium BC. Apparently evolving from cultures of the Volga basin, subgroups include the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures.
Kurgan II–III, latter half of the 4th millennium BC. Includes the Sredny Stog culture and the Maykop culture of the northern Caucasus. Stone circles, early two-wheeled chariots, anthropomorphic stone stelae of deities.
Kurgan IV or Pit Grave culture, first half of the 3rd millennium BC, encompassing the entire steppe region from the Ural to Romania.

Wave 1, predating Kurgan I, expansion from the lower Volga to the Dnieper, leading to coexistence of Kurgan I and the Cucuteni culture. Repercussions of the migrations extend as far as the Balkans and along the Danube to the Vinca and Lengyel cultures in Hungary.
Wave 2, mid 4th millennium BC, originating in the Maykop culture and resulting in advances of "kurganized" hybrid cultures into northern Europe around 3000 BC (Globular Amphora culture, Baden culture, and ultimately Corded Ware culture). In the belief of Gimbutas, this corresponds to the first intrusion of Indo-European languages into western and northern Europe.
Wave 3, 3000–2800 BC, expansion of the Pit Grave culture beyond the steppes, with the appearance of the characteristic pit graves as far as the areas of modern Romania, Bulgaria and eastern Hungary.

Secondary Urheimat

The "kurganized" Globular Amphora culture in Europe is proposed as a "secondary Urheimat", separating into the Bell-beaker culture and Corded Ware culture around 2300 BC and ultimately resulting in the European branches of Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages, and other, partly extinct, language groups of the Balkans and central Europe, possibly including the proto-Mycenaean invasion of Greece.

Timeline

4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse (Wave 1).
4000–3500: The Pit Grave culture (a.k.a. yamna culture), the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Pit Grave culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practicing animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Pit Grave culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to Pit Grave territory. Probable early Satemization.
3000–2500: Late PIE. The Pit Grave culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the emerging Andronovo culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
2000–1500: Catacomb culture north of the black sea. The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
1500–1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops pre-Proto-Germanic, and the (pre)-Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Migration of the Proto-Italians into the Italian peninsula (Bagnolo stele). Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Proto Germanic. Homer and the beginning of Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.

Genetics

A specific haplogroup R1a1 defined by the M17 (SNP marker) of the Y chromosome (see: for nomenclature) is associated by some with the Kurgan culture. The haplogroup R1a1 is currently found in Slavic populations and in central and western Asia, India, but it is rare in most countries of Western Europe (e.g. France, or some parts of Great Britain) (see ). However, 23.6% of Norwegians, 18.4% of Swedes, 16.5% of Danes, 11% of Saami share this lineage ().

Investigations suggest the Hg R1a1 gene expanded from the Dniepr-Don Valley, between 13 000 and 7600 years ago, and was linked to the reindeer hunters of the Ahrensburg culture that started from the Dniepr valley in Ukraine and reached Scandinavia 12 000 years ago.

Ornella Semino et al. (see ) propose this postglacial spread of the R1a1 gene from the Ukrainian LGM refuge was magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward. R1a1 is most prevalent in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and is also observed in Pakistan, India, and central Asia.

Correspondingly, R1b (also Eu18 — see for nomenclature conversions) was spread from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) following the last glacial period (20,000 to 13,000 years ago), and is still prevalent in western Europe, or Atlantic Europe, especially in the Basque Country, without being rare in eastern Europe.

Another marker that closely corresponds to Kurgan migrations is distribution of blood group B allele, mapped by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The distribution of blood group B allele in Europe matches the proposed map of Kurgan Culture, and Haplogroup R1a1 (YDNA) distribution.

Criticisms and qualifications

Archeological evidence

So far archaeologists can trace back the origins of the Kurgan culture to the 5th millennium, although its earlier antecedents are still unknown. Archaeologists are generally more critical of the Kurgan hypothesis than Indo-Europeanists. New archaeological evidence contests the spread of Kurgan culture to the west and instead points at local developments within Corded Ware and previous Funnelbeaker cultures, pushing back the archaeological continuity of western Indo-European cultures to at least the 5th millennium BC. This has led some archaeologists to declare the Kurgan hypothesis "obsolete". However, it is generally held unrealistic to believe that a proto-historic people can be assigned to any particular group on basis of archaeological material alone.

Language does not equal ethnic group

Also, the field of linguistics is attempting to develop new investigative techniques for formative linguistic processes. Linguists argue linguistic expansion does not imply "kurganization" of material cultures, and hold extrapolating current linguistic developments to the past to be precarious (for instance deflexion should be excluded for being a Western European non-representative linguistic process), to conclude a separation between Centum and Satem in the fourth millennium is appropriate but does not imply a different stance on the material cultures involved.

Belligerent expansion or peaceful amalgamation?

Gimbutas believed that the expansions of the Kurgan culture were a series of essentially hostile, military invasions where a new warrior culture imposed itself on the peaceful, matriarchal cultures of "Old Europe", replacing it with a patriarchal warrior society, a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains:

The Process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups.

In her later life, Gimbutas increasingly emphasized the violent nature of this transition from the Mediterranean cult of the Mother Goddess to a patriarchal society and the worship of the warlike Thunderer (Zeus, Dyaus), to a point of essentially formulating feminist archaeology. Many scholars who accept the general scenario of Indo-European migrations proposed, maintain that the transition was likely much more gradual and peaceful than suggested by Gimbutas. The migrations were certainly not a sudden, concerted military operation, but the expansion of disconnected tribes and cultures, spanning many generations. To what degree the indigenous cultures were peacefully amalgamated or violently displaced remains a matter of controversy among supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.

JP Mallory accepts the Kurgan hypothesis as the de-facto standard theory of Indo-European origins, but he recognizes valid criticism of Gimbutas' radical scenario of military invasion: almost all the arguments for invasion and cultural transformation are far better explained without reference to Kurgan expansion.

Häusler's Problem

The Corded Ware culture has always been important in locating the Indo-European origins. The German archaeologist Alexander Häusler was an important proponent of archeologists that searched for homeland evidence here. He sharply criticised Gimbutas' concept of 'a' Kurgan culture that mixes several distinct cultures like the pit-grave culture. Häusler's criticism mostly stemmed from a distinctive lack of archeological evidence until 1950 from what was then the East Bloc, from which time on plenty of evidence for Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis was discovered for decades (Schmoeckel 1999). He was unable to link Corded Ware to the Indo-Europeans of the Balkans, Greece or Anatolia, and neither to the Indo-Europeans in Asia. Nevertheless, establishing the correct relationship between the Corded Ware and Pontic-Caspian regions is still considered essential to solving the entire homeland problem.

Renfrew's Linguistic Timedepth

While the Kurgan scenario is widely accepted as one of the leading answers to the question of Indo-European origins, it is still a speculative model, not normative. The main alternative suggestion is the theory of Colin Renfrew and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, postulating an Anatolian Urheimat, and the spread of the Indo-European languages as a result of the spread of agriculture. This belief implies a significantly older age of the Proto-Indo-European language (ca. 9,000 years as opposed to ca. 6,000 years), and among traditional linguists finds rather less support than the Kurgan theory, on grounds of glottochronology (though this method is widely rejected as invalid by mainstream historical linguistics), since the PIE language contained words for devices especially related to cattle-breeding and riding invented not earlier than the 5th millennium BC by nomadic tribes in Asian steppes, and because there are some difficulties in correlating the geographical distribution of the Indo-European branches with the advance of agriculture.

A study in 2003 by Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson at the University of Auckland , using a computer analysis based upon lexical data, favours an earlier date for Proto-Indo-European than assumed by the Kurgan model, ca. the 7th millennium consistent with Renfrew's Anatolian Urheimat. Their result is based on maximum likelihood analysis of Swadesh lists. Their results run counter to many accepted categorizations of linguistic relations between the different branches within the Indo-European languages tree, and claim the Hittite language to be 9,000 years old which does not hold up with the linguistic and correspondent archeological evidence as the earliest forms of Hittite contained words for wheel, cart, and chariot, which had not yet been invented at that date.

Occurrence of Horse-riding in Europe

According to Gimbutas's hypothesis, the reconstructed linguistic evidence suggests that the Indo-Europeans were horse-riding warriors who used thrusting weapons and could easily overrun other areas, and did do so insofar as central Europe is concerned, around the fourth-fifth millennia BC. On the techno-cultural level, the Kurgan people were essentially at a pastoral stage. Discounting this equation, Renfrew (1999: 268) holds that on the European scene mounted warriors appear only as late as the turn of the second-first millennia BC and these could in no case have been Gimbutas's Kurgan warriors predating the facts by some 2,000 years. Mallory (1989, p136) also joins in here and enumerates linguistic evidence pointing to PIE period employment of horses in paired draught, something that would not have been possible before the invention of the spoked wheel and chariot, normally dated after about 2500 BC. This problem is yet to be resolved.

Level of civilization vs. language

On the linguistic turf, there comes a severe attack by Kathrin Krell (1998) who finds a great incongruity between the terms found in the reconstructed Indo-European language and the cultural level met with in the kurgans. For example, Krell holds that the Indo-Europeans had reached an agricultural level whereas the Kurgan people were just at a pastoral stage. There are others, like Mallory and Schmitt, who are equally critical of Gimbutas’s hypothesis.

Fredrik Kortlandt's revision: No PIE language prior to Sredny Stog

Frederik Kortlandt (comparative linguistics, university Leiden) proposes a revision of the Kurgan model. He states the main objection which can be raised against Gimbutas' scheme (e.g., 1985: 198) is that it starts from the archaeological evidence and looks for a linguistic interpretation. Starting from the linguistic evidence and trying to fit the pieces into a coherent whole, he arrives at the following picture: The territory of the Sredny Stog culture in the eastern Ukraine he calls the most convincing candidate for the original Indo-European homeland. The Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations to the west, east and south (as described by ) became speakers of Balto-Slavic, while the speakers of the other satem languages would have to be assigned to the Yamnaya horizon, and the western Indo-Europeans to the Corded Ware horizon. Returning to the Balts and the Slavs, their ancestors should be correlated to the Middle Dnieper culture. Then, following Mallory (pp197f) and assuming the origin of this culture to be sought in the Sredny Stog, Yamnaya and Late Tripolye cultures, he proposes the course of these events corresponds with the development of a satem language which was drawn into the western Indo-European sphere of influence.

According to Frederik Kortlandt, there seems to be a general tendency to date proto-languages farther back in time than is warranted by the linguistic evidence. However, if the Indo-Hittite and Indo-European could be correlated with the beginning and the end of the Sredny Stog culture, respectively, he states that the linguistic evidence from the overall Indo-European family does not lead us beyond Gimbutas' secondary homeland, so that the Khvalynsk culture on the middle Volga and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus cannot be identified with the Indo-Europeans. Any proposal which goes beyond the Sredny Stog culture must start from the possible affinities of Indo-European with other language families. Taken into account the typological similarity of Proto-Indo-European to the North-West Caucasian languages and assuming this similarity can be attributed to areal factors, Frederik Kortlandt thinks of Indo-European as a branch of Uralo-Altaic which was transformed under the influence of a Caucasian substratum. Such events would be supported by archaeological evidence and locate the earliest ancestors of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European north of the Caspian Sea in the seventh millennium (cf. Mallory 1989: 192f.), essentially in agreement with Gimbutas’ theory.