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Comments
What I think about this idea is that there are too many problems with overly slow language change to permit such an early date for Proto-Indo-European expansion. As well, attributing something as important as agriculture to them seems a bit much. That being said, however, there is without doubt SOMETHING to this theory. While the people in question were not Proto-IE (Proto-Indo-European) as we know it, they may well have had a MAJOR impact on the Proto-IE culture as we know it. Simply put, there are a good deal of deep grammatical rules and sounds that suggest that Proto-IE is related to Uralic (i.e. Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Komi, Udmurt, Ngagasian, and many others), BUT with a very heavy influence from the Caucasian languages. Some of these are suggested in Greenberg's highly controversial and in my eyes, at times highly suspect, Eurasiatic theory - though having said it to be controversial and suspect, there seems to be a good deal of potential truth that is merely overextended, and that could well be applied in comparisons between two languages, especially in the grammatical points. NOW. We know that there is a culture with Caucasian AND Indo-European characteristics, the Maykop Culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maykop_culture). This is without doubt a terribly late date for influence, but if it were considered to be a descendent of other cultures in that region, it could well be not only the link for this Caucasian ad-/sub-/super-stratum of words in Proto-IE, but also, the Maykop culture ITSELF is almost a perfect match for a vehicle of transmission of some words of Semitic origin into Proto-IE (such as for "lion" and "wine", and possibly one of the words for "apple"), and vice-versa (maaaaaaaaaaybe the word for "star" in Proto-IE, *h2ster, could have begotten the Semitic word similar to the Akkadian ishtar (Goddess of Love and War, whose name might originally mean "star")).
But what of these Anatolian languages, huh? WELL, if one looks at the Kurgan hypothesis, such languages that emerged from Anatolia could have become - or at least influenced - many of the "Old European" languages. It is possible that this might account for Indo-European-like words in Etruscan, and a grammatical structure in Linear A that is reminiscent of Indo-European. The alternative is that these languages were given heavy doses of Indo-European Anatolian influence, or were even highly wayward Indo-European languages. The extreme waywardness, however, weakens the latter option (although it doesn't discount it completely).
One final point, just to be clear, should be made. The Basque language doesn't feature in this equation; the Basques seem to have been minding their own business in Iberia and southwestern France during this time. None of its core vocabulary is descended from any known language, and so it's probably just a hanger-on from goodness knows how long ago, maybe even back to the time of the Lascaux caves. Irregardless, it never really had an impact in Proto-Indo-European.
In the section marked "Scenario" there is the following sentence: "This is incompatible with the Kurgan topology of the Indo-European family tree, and with mainstream linguistics which places Balto-Slavic no closer to Indo-Iranian than to Germanic or Italic." I am removing "and with mainstream. ." because Balto-Slavic languages are in the Satem branch of IE and are thus closer to I-Ir than Germanic and Italic. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the passage, but in the meantime I think it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwtrimble (talk • contribs) 17:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Others besides Renfrew
What about Gamkrelidze and Ivanov and Gray and Atkinson?--Eupator 17:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- what about them? the Gray and Atkinson paper is discussed fwiiw. G&I favour an "Armenian hypothesis" incompatible with Renfrew. dab (ᛏ) 12:49, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Gray & Atkinson & Glottochronology
If you read the papers by Gray and Atkinson (e.g. here) you'll find that they are definitely NOT doing glottochronology. Glottochronology is a simple pairwise comparison between cognate counts. The phylogenetic approach they are using is very different and compares each lexical item, in each cognate set, in each language all at once and combines this with a model of lexical evolution. They are NOT the same thing.
- they are not the same thing, but the term glottochronology spans the lot. Glottochronology is not just "the simple pairwise comparison between cognate counts", thank goodness, like other fields, glottochronology is allowed to make progress, and I grant you that the G&A study is an example of 'advanced' glottochronology, yet still glottochronology. dab (𒁳) 09:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
- G&A simply do not know what the term means. Moreover, they based their computation on a - to my knowledge unpublished - source for Anatolian. Given our only fragmentary knowledge of this language, any method based on the completeness of those so-called Swadesh-lists, and the believe into the computability of language change per time, MUST end in a far to early result.HJJHolm (talk) 08:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Note that ALL glottochronological approaches, including those of Gray & Atkinson, Starostin, or Bouckaert et al. work with more or less strict clock assumptions (hence the term), which might or not be true in the here essential languages as Hittite and Tocharian. The clock assumption has repeatedly been refuted and no historical linguist believes in it. Moreover, the data base of the 2003 attempt was very bad, and since then has insufficiently and not completely been updated. Mathematically, the many gaps and isolates in the lists of these languages tend to extend the separation times to older as they in fact may be. Thus, all these computations can never prove the age, let alone the Urheimat/original home of a language family. HJJHolm (talk) 09:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- Traditionally, mainstream linguists have considered glottochronology useful in some cases for suggesting new hypotheses and indicating potentially useful future lines of research, but NOT as capable of "proving" anything much by itself, or of providing useful absolute dates. It doesn't seem that this situation has changed much in recent years... AnonMoos (talk) 18:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
- Obviously nobody has noticed that in [1], 2013 the 2012 article has clandestinely (i.e., as unsigned "correction" in small letters) been revoked because of a serious systematic error. The therin presented new date (median = 7579 years BP) could not be reproduced with the accompanying data and published software. Note further the huge so-called "confidence interval". And this is only the top of the "iceberg". After some more corrections and several billions(!) of test runs the results circle around 6'600 "BP" /4'600 BC. HJJHolm (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
- I dont think the phylogenetic Bayesian approach used by Gray and Atkinson is correctly called glottochronology, as the terms are commonly used. Glottochronology is the application of lexicostatistics to linguistic chronology, i.e. estimating the age of split events. This is based on the flawed assumption that lexical retention rates are stable, which has caused most linguists to reject glottochronology for this purpose. What Gray and Atkinson do is a form of lexicostatistics but it is not based on this assumption and it is not aimed at dating the time of separation. Not all lexicostatistics is glottochronology.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
- Ok, I have to correct myself there, the 2003 paper by Gray and Atkinson is very clearly using a form of glottochronology. I was thinking of the later paper that uses a spread analysis on the established phylogeny without making chronological assumptions.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
References
- ^ www.sciencemag.org - SCIENCE, VOL 342, 20 DECEMBER 2013, p 1446.
Haplogroup R1b in Xinjiang and East Asia
What do people think about the finding that Haplogroup R1b, the most typical Y-chromosome haplogroup among Western European populations (including Basques), is also present at readily detectable frequencies among populations such as the Uyghurs of Xinjiang as well as among the Manchus, Koreans, Han Chinese, etc.? It seems odd that mummies with distinctively Western European physical and genetic characteristics have been discovered in a region (i.e., Xinjiang) that is also strongly associated with the Tocharian languages, whose apparent affinities with Indo-European languages of Central and Western Europe have long been of note. Personally, I am beginning to reconsider the possibility of the Paleolithic Continuity Hypothesis, or at least a theory that allows some sort of convergent evolution in the development of the Indo-European languages. It seems to me that one or two particular Paleolithic population(s) of Europe or Western Asia might have come into contact with a Neolithic population expanding from the Middle East, absorbed some cultural and perhaps genetic characteristics of the Neoliths of Middle Eastern origin, and subsequently spread features of their particular dialect(s) of Paleolithic European/Northwestern Asian language throughout much of the vast regions inhabited by related (formerly) Paleolithic tribes and perhaps even beyond into the territory of completely unrelated peoples. The sparsely attested languages of Classical Antiquity in Europe that appear to bear some sort of resemblance to Indo-European or Uralic languages could then be considered as remnants of the Paleolithic European/Northwestern Asian languages and dialects that were spoken in those areas prior to the immigration of Neolithicized Indo-European former-Paleoliths and concomitant linguistic homogenization of most of Europe. Ebizur 03:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
- Everybody knows that Indo-Europeans arrived in what is now China circa 2500 BCE. They are known to archaeologists as the Afanasevo culture. They are thought to be the ancestors of Tocharian-speaking people. Tocharian is a branch of Indo-European. Of course there were likely migrations much earlier, including Mesolithic, Upper Paleolithic, etc., but these would have nothing to do with Indo-Europeans. Conversely, Asian-looking people migrated into Northern Europe (including Scotland and Scandinavia) as soon as the Ice Age ended. This is only "surprising" to people haven't looked into it. Zyxwv99 (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry but the Torchians were R1a not R1b. The Ughyurs lack any R1b at all and are a mixture of O,Q & R1a which they probably absorbed from the Torchians when the Turks invaded it mixing with them. Your theory doesn't make sense since the Torhcians arrived from the hindu kush mountains to the Tarim Basin only around 1800 BC. Akmal94 (talk) 19:26, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
Haplogroups G and J
Why is haplogroup G mentioned in the article and not J? --Kupirijo 07:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Hittite as a minority language?
Secondly, the Hittite language of Anatolia, on which this commonness has been perceived, was a “minority” language, probably of the elites, whereas the basal language was non-Indo-European.
What's the evidence for Hittite being a minority or elite language in Anatolia? Many of the elite texts, such as sacred and magical texts, were written in Hattic, Hurrian or just straight Akkadian, which were the elite languages. I know of no evidence that the Hittite culture's basilect was anything but Hittite. On top of that, the entire paragraph which contains this sentence has been copied entire from the reference (which is expressly not-for-reproduction) without quoting it. Hence, I'm going to delete the last paragraph on the basis of copyvio and lack of other citation. Thefamouseccles 02:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The "two counts"
The article, which, in my opinion, is not particularly objective, states that, "Anatolian hypothesis falters on at least two major counts." The first objection seems to be that, if the hypothesis is correct, Indo-Iranians and Europeans "ought" to have a common vocabulary with regard to agriculture. This is, of course, highly speculative in the first place and, in the second place, should equally be true if we assume, following the current theory about the origins of nomad-pastoralism, that the nomads in question arose out of a culture with at least primitive agriculture. The second objection apparently arises out of a misunderstanding of Renfrew's model for language change and the hypothesis as originally stated. No one is claiming, as I understand it, that PIE speakers were "the original inhabitants of this area" in exclusion of all others. In Renfrew's 1987 statement of the hypothesis, he acknowledges that the language picture in Anatolia, as revealed in early historical times, was quite complicated. There is no incompatibility between this fact and the proposition that the Indo-European languages were spread throughout Eurasia from Anatolia primarily via the population explosion that resulted from the agricultural revolution. Stupahead (talk) 23:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jared Diamond has pointed out that only one crop name is reconstructible for proto-Indo-European, a word for a non-specific type of grain, while many specific crop names can be reconstructed for proto-Bantu or proto-Austronesian... AnonMoos (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
balkan hypothesis redirect
I don't understand why is Balkan hypothesis redirected to this hypothesis? If it is for merging related articles together, then we should also merge the kurgan hypothesis, shouldn't we?.--Lgriot (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 06:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC).
- this may be a bit unfortunate, because I suppose "Balkan hypothesis" may mean any number of things. The intended meaning here is the revised theory of Renfrew (1999), as in Renfrew's revised views place only Pre-Proto-Indo-European in 7th millennium BC Anatolia, proposing as the homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper the Balkans around 5000 BC. --dab (𒁳) 08:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Haag paper
In 2005 Colin Renfrew seemed to support the PCT. He co-authored a paper concluding: Our finding lends weight to a proposed Paleolithic ancestry for modern Europeans.[3] However the design and conclusions of this study were later questioned. aDNA studies focusing on Paleolithic remains have found a "lack of genetic continuity between modern Europeans and Paleolithic samples."[4]
This is not quite right. In the Haag paper Renfrew co-authored, is supported a genetic continuity in Europe since the Palaeolithic. needs not apply to languages. Hxseek (talk) 03:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Two Competing Hypotheses
It does strike me as very unfortunate that the PCT is given here as the other of only two further homeland theories. What about the Armenian hypothesis or the Out of India theory (which, although it is unconvincing, I would call even less improbable than the PCT)? What about the Baltic or "pre-Renfrewian" Balkans theories? It just seems odd that those have apparently been discarded while something as unlikely as the PCT is listed. Would it be okay if I included at least the Armenian one? Trigaranus (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
- Yes. Be careful not to give it undue weight, though. SamEV (talk) 01:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Moved - Atkinson's research
I've moved the following from the article:
- Recent research
- Conventional methods in historical linguistics do not employ an explicit optimality criterion to evaluate chronologal language trees. These methods cannot quantify uncertainty in the inferences nor provide an absolute chronology of divergence events. Previous attempts to estimate divergence times from lexical data using glottochronological methods have been heavily criticized, particularly for the assumption of constant rates of lexical replacement.
- Computational phylogenetic methods from biology can overcome these problems and allow divergence times to be estimated without the assumption of constant rates. These methods were applied by Q.D. Atkinson (See more: Atkinson Q.D. From Species To Languages: A phylogenetic approach to human prehistory. - University of Auckland, 2006. - 229 p.) to lexical data to test the Anatolian and Kurgan hypotheses.
- Divergence time estimates for the age of the Indo-European language family are used to test between two competing theories of Indo-European origin – the Kurgan hypothesis and the Anatolian farming hypothesis. The resulting age estimates are consistent with the age range implied by the Anatolian farming theory. Validation exercises using different models, data sets and coding procedures, as well as the analysis of synthetic data, indicate these results are highly robust.
This passage is copied verbatim from this summary of a PhD thesis [1]. It is a PhD in psychology from Aukland university. It represents the opinion of its author, Quentin Atkinson, but no evidence is provided that it is at all notable. It's also not clear which version of the Anatolian model is being defended. The author does appear to be potentially significant [2], but I think we need more detail on the model and its reception. Paul B (talk) 12:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Copyright infringements?
The lead has the following sentence:
- "The main proponent of the Anatolian hypothesis was Colin Renfrew, who in 1987 suggested a peaceful Indo-Europeanization of Europe from Anatolia from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming by demic diffusion ("wave of advance")."
This sentence has a striking similarity with a sentence from this book: Carlos Quiles, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Associación Cultural Dnghu 2007, p. 273:
- "Colin Renfrew is the leading propagator [of] the "Anatolian Hypothesis", according to which the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with the advance of farming (waves of advance)."
The section Revision of the theory has an intro that runs as follows:
- "Reacting to criticism, Renfrew revised his proposal to the effect of taking a pronounced Indo-Hittite position. Renfrew's revised views place only Pre-Proto-Indo-European in 7th millennium BC Anatolia, proposing as the homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper the Balkans around 5000 BC, explicitly identified as the "Old European culture" proposed by Marija Gimbutas."
The author of the book mentioned above, Carlos Quiles, has also written a note on p.46 of another edition of what seems to be the same book (see here), that is identical to the passage quoted above. Who is quoting whom without mentioning the source is difficult to figure out, I fear, but I am somewhat suspicious about this article. Theobald Tiger (talk) 08:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
- The text was inserted in this article by User:Dbachmann with this edit of 22 July 2008. The edition of the book with the same text was published in 2009. Gasthuis (talk) 18:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC).
- Quiles' book is cobbled together from Wikipedia material in large parts. This has long been known. It's always Quiles plagiarizing us, not the other way round. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
- @Gasthuis, Thanks for your reply. The reason of my uncertainty (who is plagiarizing whom) was that I do not know exactly what a range of years (2007-2009) in a copyright statement means.
- @Fut.Perf, Thanks for your comment. I wasn't aware of that. Theobald Tiger (talk) 07:55, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
- Quiles' book is cobbled together from Wikipedia material in large parts. This has long been known. It's always Quiles plagiarizing us, not the other way round. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
- The text was inserted in this article by User:Dbachmann with this edit of 22 July 2008. The edition of the book with the same text was published in 2009. Gasthuis (talk) 18:13, 16 March 2012 (UTC).
Science article refs
Here is today's Science article abstract and a NYT media description of the Bouckaert et al Atkinson work. Science prevents archival of its full article - it might be available on a preprint server like arXiv, but the abstract is a good start.
<ref name="NYT_Atkinson2012">{{cite news | first=Nicholas | last=Wade | pages= | language =| title=Family Tree of Languages Has Roots in Anatolia, Biologists Say | date=2012-08-24 | publisher=[[New York Times]] | url= http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/science/indo-european-languages-originated-in-anatolia-analysis-suggests.html?pagewanted=all |accessdate=2012-08-24 |archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/6A9WKY9va |archivedate=2012-08-24 |deadurl=no}}</ref>
<ref name="Bouckaert_Science2012">{{cite journal | last = Bouckaert | first = Remco |coauthors = Philippe Lemey, Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Alexander V. Alekseyenko, Alexei J. Drummond, Russell D. Gray, Marc A. Suchard, Quentin D. Atkinson |authorlink = | title =Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family | journal =[[Science (journal)]] | volume =337 | issue = | pages =957-960 | publisher =[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] | location = | date =2012-08-24 | url =http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6097/957.abstract | issn = | doi = | id = | accessdate =2012-08-24 | archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/6A9WYvRpw | archivedate=2012-08-24 }}</ref>
Boud (talk) 08:53, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
And here is a much more scientific discussion: http://geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/linguistic-geography/mismodeling-indo-european-origin-and-expansion-bouckaert-atkinson-wade-and-the-assault-on-historical-linguistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.78.19 (talk) 09:31, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
- More scientific, perhaps, but also explicitly non-neutral (they view this style of analysis as an attack on their field and they are trying to defend against it). —David Eppstein (talk) 16:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
- [3]·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
- David: Huh? Since when do refs have to be "neutral"? Maunus: Thanks. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:52, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
What about the east half of IE world?
One thing I can think of that contradicts the Anatolian hypo is the archaeological findings of ancient Elam people in the Iranian plateau and the ancient Hindus river civilization, both are defined as "pre indo-iranian cultures" with their own language, religion and alphabets. Given that the two ancient civilizations are around circa 1500 BCE, it would mean that the Anatolian farming population didn't migrate eastward during the first agricultural expansion, or they did but emerged with the local population. In both way the Anatolian farmer could not be the primary force that assimilated the local population into the Indo-Iranian language speakers. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apzat (talk • contribs) 08:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
- As far as I can tell, the only theory of the spread of Indic languages which is taken very seriously among linguists and most archaeologists is that they spread south and east from a culture in the Punjab region which gave social prominence to the chariot, and had some agriculture, but was more dependent on animal-herding. This Punjab charioteer culture is indicated reasonably clearly in the Rig Veda and related texts. Not sure whether the Anatolian theory has any special spin on this... AnonMoos (talk) 12:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
- P.S. The Elamites did not have an "alphabet", but rather two successive (incompatible) cuneiform systems, while the nature of the Indus valley writing system (or whether it was a writing system at all) is disputed, but it's quite unlikely to have been an alphabet. AnonMoos (talk) 12:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Totally agreed with you about the indic languages. I'm not a profession but it seems to me that this Anatolian hypo isn't making any persuasive point about the Indo-Iranian languages, all its focus or its main focus was on the European continent. However the Indo-Iranian languages is so important that, it was this specific language family that inspired the historians of Europe to dig into the past of their own language. I think the Anatolian hypothesis is missing a great part of the Indo-european people by technically ignoring what happened east of Zagros. This was the main reason I cast my doubt on this theory. May be some more research would show more accurate history facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apzat (talk • contribs) 14:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
- Apzat does have a point, Indo-Iranian is a major weakness of Renfrew's hypothesis in both versions. (In the revised version, it isn't even mentioned. Or is it supposed to be part of the Balkan branch?) Jaakko Häkkinen agrees. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:58, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, well said by apzat. based on genetic evidence, a theory consistent with a nexus between Armenia, N.W IRan, and Eastern Turkey seems more plausible. It's also consistent with Ivanov's hypothesis , which included the armenian highland, and the area of Lake Urmia in Iran.2601:882:100:D7B0:540E:A64D:3486:429B (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
you can synthesize them easily with genetics
somebody should source this properly and throw it in. i don't have the time or interest.
Genetic evidence suggests that two large migrations of people entered europe: one through renfrew's proposed path and one through gimbutas' (see cafalli-sforza for preliminary analysis and more recent sources for further analysis). While it is difficult to connect linguistics to genetics in general, the totality of the evidence (including the linguistic dating) strongly suggests that renfrew's farming invasion is related to a substrate underlying the later indo-european advance, rather than the indo-european languages themselves. specifically, there's a neolithic substrate in western german that people have had a hard time understanding, but that is very consistent with a movement of farmers. Ironically, that's consistent with gimbutas' larger theories. That is to say that while renfrew's neolithic advance absolutely did happen, there is absolutely no evidence that it was connected to the spread of indo-european languages - and quite a bit of evidence (dating, substrate, genetics) that it was connected to the spread of a substrate language, instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.48.181.93 (talk) 13:52, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
- I believe having mentioned the same conclusion, which was already suggested by Peter Schrijver a decade or so ago, elsewhere already. The "Old European" substratum (associated with the Linear Pottery culture and the Y-DNA haplogroup G2a), which has been found to have affected Germanic, Celtic and Italic languages, with lexical and structural borrowings possibly as late as the Iron Age in Central Europe (a related substratum language might have affected Albanian, especially if it managed to survive the Indo-Europeanisation of the Balkans in southern Dardania, just like Albanian escaped assimilation there in the medieval period), is known in substratum research under various names: "North Balkan Substrate", "A1", "European", "Atlantic" and "language of bird names". It may have resembled Hattic and Caucasian languages (especially Northwest Caucasian) typologically (in grammatical structure), and Minoan might even belong to the same family. Whatever languages were spoken in the Vinča and Cucuteni-Trypillian cultures were probably part of the family, too. Indo-European is best associated with Y-DNA haplogroup R1a1a and its origin is best sought immediately to the north of the Crimea and Sea of Azov.
- As Ötzi (who lived in the second half of the 4th millennium BC and appears to have grown up near Feldthurns) carries the G2a2b haplogroup, he was certainly descended from the Anatolian farmers too and probably spoke one of the "A1" languages. It is interesting that he was lactose intolerant as, while according to Milk dairy farming was already practiced by the Neolithic Old European farmers, animal husbandry was much more central in ancient Indo-European cultures. By the way, that he had brown eyes while ancient Indo-European peoples typically had light eyes, a conclusion supported by ancient DNA research, fits the picture: Ötzi was probably of Mediterranean/Near Eastern appearance. He just happens to have lived at the time when the Indo-Europeans had just started their expansion out of Eastern Europe into the valley of the Danube. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
Recent edits
@Joe Roe and Florian Blaschke: can you take a look at these recent edits? They look quite 'creative' to me. Thanks, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:38, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Several of the arguments advanced here are just poor.
- Haak et al. (2015) states that the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. Yet, they also state that "the question of what languages were spoken by the 'Eastern European hunter-gatherers' and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open."
- So what? Who gives a damn what population the Yamnaya descends from? This isn't relevant (unless you already reject the steppe hypothesis, which is circular).
- Again, I fail to see the relevance of the genetic heritage of the Yamnaya.
- According to Kroonen et al. (2018), Damgaard et al. (2018) "show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population."
- Large-scale intrusions not being necessary to spread a language. Élite dominance suffices.
- They further note that the earliest attestation of Anatolian names, in the Armi state, must be dated to 3000-2400 BCE, contemporaneous with the Yamnaya culture, concluding that "a scenario in which the Anatolian Indo-European language was linguistically derived from Indo-European speakers originating in this culture can be rejected."
- This evidence wouldn't be incompatible with an Indo-European expansion in the fourth millennium that is widely assumed under the steppe hypothesis. 3000–2400 BC isn't contemporaneous with the early Yamnaya culture, it follows that stage.
- They further note that this lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language "no later than the 4th millennium BCE." somewhere in Anatolia.
- Non sequitur. This evidence is easy to reconcile with the traditional view and does not require Indo-Hittite to explain it.
- According to Reich et al. (2018), genetic evidence point to a likely homeland for the Indo-Europeans in an area from Anatolia to Iran. Similarly Wang et al. (2018) says that the genetic evidence is against the "Steppe origin" for early Indo-Europeans but supports the "Anatolian origin" (or the Armenian hypothesis).
- Genetic evidence alone cannot be relied on to solve the Urheimat problem, especially when it is employed this naively, without accounting for time-depth.
- Similarly another study (2018) suggests that Indo-European itself originated in Anatolia or somewhere south of the Caucasus.
- “The Indo-European languages are usually said to emerge in Anatolia in the 2nd millennium BCE. However, we use evidence from the palatial archives of the ancient city of Ebla in Syria to argue that Indo-European was already spoken in modern-day Turkey in the 25th century BCE. This means that the speakers of these language must have arrived there prior to any Yamnaya expansions.”
- This appears to be the same evidence mentioned before. It's just not decisive. It's not surprising that Anatolian was spoken in Anatolia already in the 3rd millennium BC. I'm pretty sure that what everyone already assumed anyway, considering the distinctively Hittite and Luwian names and loanwords attested in Kültepe in the early 2nd millennium BC.
- Again, if the Indo-European expansion began in the 4th millennium BC, the presence of Anatolian Indo-European in Anatolia in the 25th century BC (when the Yamnaya culture had already ceased to exist) is completely unsurprising. Rather, it is expected, and it was already assumed (see Hittites#Origins). The article misleads the leader.
- The edits to the article attempt to boost the Anatolian hypothesis despite the serious objections against it (reconstructed vocabulary and culture, contacts with Proto-Uralic, non-Indo-European languages found all over ancient Southern Europe and Anatolia, relatively close relationship between the oldest stages of the Indo-European languages including Hittite, among the most important), and therefore constitute POV-pushing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Hello, I have deleted the douple reserach out of the article, (as you said it was the same evidence as before). The other quotes should be ok, as they are supported by the given references. I do not see how this is POV-pushing if the studies say that. Or do you mean that the studies are not directly related to Anatolian hypothesis? I do not attemp to boost any hypothesis about the possible origin of IE, I try to include more recent content. The points you made may be right or not, but this would also be POV or? Because this is your view. But we must only use reliable sources, and I do so. If there is still a problem, please feel free to explain it to me. Thank you!--AsadalEditor (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- This is the talk page and there is no prohibition against OR here. I merely explained that the arguments forwarded are not compelling at all, and this is hidden to the reader, introducing bias. This is a crucial problem with using recent primary research (see WP:RECENT, WP:PRIMARY): there has not been sufficient academic discussion about it yet. Give other scholars time to respond.
- In natural sciences, for example, sometimes articles mention an isolated study only a few months old or less which comes to a highly unexpected conclusion flying in the face of scholary consensus which has been sensationalised in the press – this is a typical case of recentism and poor Wikipedia practice. The study might be on to something, but it is equally possible that it has methodological or other problems; it might even be a fake or hoax, like Andrew Wakefield's infamous MMR study. Scepticism expressed by mainstream scholars should be taken seriously, like in this example. Sometimes articles even rely on articles by amateurs or researchers without relevant expertise, and which are categorised as WP:FRINGE science, which is often a quite charitable description; scholars generally do not bother responding to the often highly eccentric and implausible claims made in the realm of fringe science, which its adherents often mistakenly interpret as "mainstream science has no counter, ha!". Therefore, as a principle, Wikipedia articles are biased towards the consensus, because it is generally supported by a large body of evidence and research that is not easily overturned. Therefore WP:PRIMARY recommends to use meta-studies, overviews and textbooks in preference to primary research, which should only be introduced with great caution instead of prematurely trumpeting its conclusions all over Wikipedia. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:57, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- I agree, the underlying problem here (and across this topic area) is an over-reliance on primary sources. Many of these are debateable, many come to conflicting conclusions – as Wikipedia editors, it's not our role to try and resolve that. We need to stick to high-quality secondary and tertiary source, even if it means the article does not reflect the latest research. – Joe (talk) 14:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Stanislav Grigoriev, CRIMSONpublishers, does not look like WP:RS to me. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Let's also keep in mind WP:WEIGHT, everyone. Due weight is a compelling reason to tone the language in the article down; as pointed out in the introduction, the steppe hypothesis is still the main contender, the Anatolian hypothesis – while respected as a competing proposal – remains significantly less favoured by the actual experts, in light of the mentioned weaknesses (a distance of some 5000 years between Proto-Indo-European – or Proto-Indo-Hittite, presumably highly similar to Proto-Anatolian – and Old Hittite is not likely, seeing how radically attested languages change in much less time).
- Thanks for your edits, Joshua. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:37, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Stanislav Grigoriev, CRIMSONpublishers, does not look like WP:RS to me. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- I agree, the underlying problem here (and across this topic area) is an over-reliance on primary sources. Many of these are debateable, many come to conflicting conclusions – as Wikipedia editors, it's not our role to try and resolve that. We need to stick to high-quality secondary and tertiary source, even if it means the article does not reflect the latest research. – Joe (talk) 14:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- Hello, I have deleted the douple reserach out of the article, (as you said it was the same evidence as before). The other quotes should be ok, as they are supported by the given references. I do not see how this is POV-pushing if the studies say that. Or do you mean that the studies are not directly related to Anatolian hypothesis? I do not attemp to boost any hypothesis about the possible origin of IE, I try to include more recent content. The points you made may be right or not, but this would also be POV or? Because this is your view. But we must only use reliable sources, and I do so. If there is still a problem, please feel free to explain it to me. Thank you!--AsadalEditor (talk) 13:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
This edit copied info from Armenian hypothesis, without attribution, and without adding the sources. The Reich-part originally said:
David Reich, in his 2018 publication Who We Are and How We Got Here, states that "the most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians."[3] Nevertheless, Reich also states that some, if not most, of the Indo-European languages were spread by the Yamnaya people.[13]
The Wang-sentence originally said
Wang et al. (2018) note that the Caucasus served as a corridor for gene flow between the steppe and cultures south of the Caucasus during the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, stating that this "opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus."
Together, this was added in a redacted form as:
According to Reich et al. (2018)[27], genetic evidence point to a likely homeland for the Indo-Europeans in an area from Anatolia to Iran. Similarly Wang et al. (2018) says that the genetic evidence is against the "Steppe origin" for early Indo-Europeans but supports the "Anatolian origin" (or the Armenian hypothesis).[28] Nevertheless, Reich also states that some, if not most, of the Indo-European languages were spread by the Yamnaya people.[29][30]
Haak et al originally said:
Haak et al. (2015) states that "the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility" since the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. Yet, they also state that "the question of what languages were spoken by the 'Eastern European hunter-gatherers' and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open."[2]
but was added as
Haak et al. (2015) states that the Yamnaya partly descended from a Near Eastern population, which resembles present-day Armenians. They further state that "the question of what languages were spoken by the 'Eastern European hunter-gatherers' and the southern, Armenian-like, ancestral population remains open."[20]
Since this is about the Armenina hypothesis, taken out of context, and added without attribution in a editorialized form, I'll remove all of it. And probably issue the editor in question a formal warning for disruptive editing... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:55, 2 May 2019 (UTC) And regarding
He further states (2016) that about ~43% of the genetic heirtage of the Yamnaya is of Iranian origin.[1] But Gallego-Llorente et al. (2016) suggests that a Iranian origin is not certainly, Anatolia or the Levant are also a possible origin.[2]
References
- ^ Lazaridis, Iosif; Nadel, Dani; Rollefson, Gary; Merrett, Deborah C.; et al. (2016). "The genetic structure of the world's first farmers"
- ^ Gallego-Llorente, M.; Connell, S.; Jones, E. R.; Merrett, D. C.; Jeon, Y.; Eriksson, A.; et al. (2016). "The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran"
Lazaridis et al. wrote
a population related to people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the 267 ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe.
while Gallego-Llorente et al. wrote
We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe.
hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus show higher affinity to Western Hunter-Gatherers and early Anatolian farmers; this result suggests the possibility of gene flow between the former and these two latter groups
So, WP:SYNTHESIS from misrepresentation of sources. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:25, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- I see, I apologize for the misinterpretation. I wrongly assumed that Reich and others saying “south of the caucasus” mean Anatolia or included Anatolia as well.—AsadalEditor (talk) 16:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
- That's exactly the issue I hinted at with time-depth. According to the steppe hypothesis, the Indo-European expansion and the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European language started sometime between about 4500 and 3000 BC. The immediate homeland is assumed to be in the steppes of Eastern Europe, and the (early) Yamnaya culture is identified with the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language around the time of its breakup. This does not say anything about the prehistory of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, only the immediate homeland. It may be possible to pinpoint earlier Indo-European "homelands", but this is not what the homeland debate is about. Ultimately, the earliest Indo-European "homeland" can be assumed to be in Africa, because that's where all humans seem to come from. But of course this is not the Indo-European homeland we mean in this context. Equally, Iran is not the Indo-European homeland, even if genetic evidence points to Iran as an origin of the people of the Yamnaya culture. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:23, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Russell Gray update and Max Plank Institute
Gray has since switched to an NW Iran/Armenian/E.Anatolian hypothesis. David Reich and Max Plank Institute, independently agree with that. The Anatolian hypothesis is dead because India doesn't show any genetic influence from Anatolia. And there is no ancient Steppe DNA in Anatolia, and not Antolian DNA in India. So the Iranian Neolithic, (perhaps Chalocolithic) hypothesis make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:882:101:1A0:6905:DBC:1638:E27B (talk) 03:09, 25 February 2022 (UTC)