recent DNA research has indicated that Neolithic peoples arrived in Europe from Anatolia. Certqainly some historians believe that Hittites originated in Anatolia and were not invaders, as once proposed.

As Greek appears to have no close relatives, given it was colonised first, it is possible its closest relatives were dead languages of Anatolia, such as Luwain.

Clearly, language is not related to ethnicity as all English speakers would be simiilarly related. Nevertheless the range of Indo/European speakers is immense. A languages initial locality again does not reflect its growth.

I think Ponto zone, between Black Sea and Caspian was of great importance. There is an east Tibetan goddess (coleric Tara) that looks like the Medusa head found in the basements of Acropolis in Athens, in the large water deposit of Istambul, etc. Asia and Europe were melting in that Ponto zone, and it's almost possible to track their migrations through Medusa image: after Athens, East Greece, South Italy, North Africa and Spain. Also, another seductive idea: that Ponto zone would have been East Iberia and they migrated through the mentioned itinerary up to West Iberia.

Fred, there is ample evidence of herders arriving in Northern Europe around 2000-3000 BCE. What is interesting to me is evidence that they displaced, killed or chased off, the farmers (on present evidence the Anatolian farmers mixed, I assume, with indigenous peoples) in the area. The evidence appears strong in Denmark. These maybe can be associated with the blonde or fair gene, although the association of this gene with Indo-European languages seems mythological to me. If they came from the Pontic region within an area of cultural intermixing then its more likely they assumed the Indo-European language from different groups without the said gene or genes.

Stanley Wilkin My idea is their supremacy came from being able to find, absorb, reproduce and sell new ideas and techniques, due to the diversity of cultures where they were raised up (Suleiman the Magnificent was born and raised up in Trebisonde). But in those Iberian times, they did not conquer the way we imagine conquering today, better say they just move away and were always welcome at the beginning, because bringing new things. The bad point is they were poorly gifted for settlement, basically nomadic, leave few rests and were always on the move and everywhere they went, civilization flourished.

All these models are fine as all are difficult to prove. The key maybe is the Hittites.

The model you have considered Fred, of Indo/European speakers moving through Greece into Anatolia, something that the Ancient Greeks may have believed, is possible and would explain the number of Indo/European languages in the West of Anatolia with Hatti in the East.

This question raises another: where do the "Anatolians" come from?

Well, Gioacchino, that takes us to Catalhoyuk (c8000 BCE) and Gobeliki Tepi (c9000 BCE), the first the first known town in the world the second a possible temple although I believe it was just as likely to be a meeting, gathering point for local clans. Jared Diamond would say domesticity began there because of the local animals-early sheep and goats.

I have to recognize all my knowledge and theories comes from the translation of Slavery Dialogue, 3rd treaty of Topography and General History of Algiers, and Antonio Manutius, one of the authors, the King that had been slave, through a large, deep and philosophic and even religious History of Slavery, in 1575 came to the same conclusion than Jared Diamond about sheep and goats and even seems to regret those nomadic times and civilization, some of the very few he says "innocent". His idea is as far possession wasn't of their concepts, they did not envy nobody.

And my model is better: coming from Ponto, they spare in two branches: one to Anatolia and Levant, up to Red Sea and Ethiopia, the other one to Greece, Peloponese, South Italia, Sicilia, Sardinia, North Africa and Spain. Following Medusa track. Medusa is still on the official flag for Sicilia island.

Delightfull discussion! congrats to you guys. I remember Bruce Chatwin meditating about nomadic and farmer peoples, he, a nomadic heart.

I follow the origin and spread of languages. Recently I came across a University of Copenhagen research that seems relevant to the discussion. I provide a link here.

https://humanities.ku.dk/news/2017/scandinavias-earliest-farmers-exchanged-terminology-with-indo-europeans/

Vera Maura Fernandes de Lima

Chatwin. The Nomadic Alternative. I remember his question: "Why do men wander rather than stand still?

Fred, what about Iran and India? Are there any Indo-European languages native to Egypt and Ethiopia?

I was considering the Yamnaya earlier (forgot the name) as they fit the earliest supposed Indo-European vocabulary through their lifestyle and their ruthless ejection of indigenous farmers. Although they might answer questions about the appearance of the languages in Europe, not elsewhere.

Of course there were Indo-Europeans in Central Asia and parts of present day China (forgotten their name too. Great days). An aetiology in Central Asia is the logical answer. But what about the Neolithic migrants from Anatolia?

Vera Maura Fernandes de Lima maybe those men had to face a volcanic hazard and consequent climate change and had to go to find new fields for sheep and goats.

About language in Ethiopia: a very interesting article: https://www.academia.edu/24845758/LANGUAGES_IN_ETHIOPIA_AND_IN_THE_HORN_OF_AFRICA

a very interesting genetical analysis https://indo-european.eu/tag/ethiopian/

https://indo-european.eu/tag/ethiopian/

and you know what? I knew it because Perseus chased Medusa up to Ethiopia, where he married Andromeda.

Fred, clearly no possibility of Indo/Europeans in Ethiopia. Nor likely. Still, I once read a claim that European elements of the Hyksos travelled as far as Kenya. Your second piece, Fred, assumes that gene groups in the present spoke similar languages in the past. That, I think, is not safe.

For my project, my team-mates and I look for parts of articles in Wikipedia that are super-scripted with the label "Citation needed" . The article on Anatolia has a paragraph marked with the label, which reads:

"Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic. Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC."

Per the Copenhagen research I mentioned earlier, the Yamnaya people migrated into Europe from the Caspian steppe 5,000 years ago.

True Rad, but attested is not the same as actually. Going by that Welsh, for example, was first spoken in Wales in the 9th century ce when Welsh poetry was written. I still tend to believe that the Central Asian model fits best all four examples/Anatolia, India and Iran, Central Asia and West China, Europe.

I copy it, Stanley. :)

I think "gypsies" can be a key. I consider there are two groups of gypsies: the ones from Slavian countries and the ones coming from Africa and Levant, more Pakistan-looking. The term "gypsies" may mean people coming from the country of gypsum. Oldest gypsum mines were located North West Iran (Iranian Ponto). Of course, there are very old gypsy tribes in Iran. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gypsy-i To me, they could be Spanish gypsies.

Fred Romano

Dear Fred, Wikipedia has a different view about it:

"Gypsies are believed to have arrived in Europe from northern India in the 1400s. They were called Gypsiesbecause Europeans thought they came from Egypt. This ethnic minority is made up of distinct groups called “tribes” or “nations.” Most of the Gypsies in German-occupied Europe belonged to the Sinti and Roma tribes."

Nevertheless "gypsies can be a key" is interesting.

Rad Maythil India wasn't then parted, so North of India wasn't that far from that Ponto zone and Caspian sea. And we all know the numerous errors commited by Europeans, such as calling Caraibbean islands West Indies.

Dear Fred, again Caspian!

Gypsy language is connected to India. Not sure trhey have anything to do with the matter in hand.

sorry, it's true, a bit of derivation...

Well Stanley, so the Indo-Europeans are descended from the inhabitants of these cities / temples, according to what you say.

Gioacchino, that is the possibility. At the time of Catalhoyuk they were only subsistence farmers at best. DNA evidence points to Anatolians in Balkans (ancient skeletons) and of course the spread of animals native to Anatolia. But whether they spoke Indo European languages is another matter.

This idea came about through the shock expressed by scientists over a century ago that ancient peoples in the area-Hittite, Luwain, Palaic for example-spoke an Indo-European language. Very unexpected. Of course it died out and a Central Asian language is now spoken throughout the region. Nevertheless, the question asked was how did ancient Indo-European languages become the main languages there and as it were how did they get in? The first solution provided was through invasion via either the Balkans or Central Asia. The more recent discovery of the Neolithic expansion from there into Europe presented an alternative possibility-they brought Indo-European into Europe with them and there was no Hittite and Luwain invasion of Anatolia as Indo-European speakers had been there all along.

Stanley, the sphere of possibilities is gigantic.

The point is the "starting point": the lack of reliable data on the aggregation on the aggregating reasons of these tribes, which have "created" a more stable agriculture, which have "created" a more widely diffused language, etc. etc..

Ultimately, ideas that are combined with ideas and do not have a real scientific basis.

This is archeology and everything that follows.

Gioacchino, I doubt it can be possible to know precisely and although genetists are always positive their results are correct, archaeologists preserve more open minds. Connections between ancient peoples are usually determined, as I am sure you know, through cultural artifacts. This seems reasonable , for although such connections are not viable in the modern world beause of rapid diffusion and worldwide transmission of artifacts and ideas, in the past this seems credible.

Stanley, as you have pointed out, geneticists base their conclusions on verifiable data (and this is Science).

Therefore, the archeology that is based on the "credibility" of concepts based on weak cultural connections or ideas, is not only not Science, but it is no longer credible.

This is an incontrovertible fact.

Gioacchino,

Well if I look at geneticists conclusions five years ago they tend to be different from conclusions now. In English the impact of the Anglo-Saxons over the years has drifted from thirty percent to ten percent or less with emphasis on the lower percentages. Historians of course had before decided that the the Anglo Saxons had annihiated the original British inhabitants. Archaeologists of some 40 to 50 years ago relooked at the evidence and decided it could not be the case. There was little evidence of Ango-Saxon culture in some parts of Britain. The archaeology thereby drove the gene-search. But the results have always been different. The latest says ten percent Anglo-Saxon at best.

But this result is based on certain perceived ideas of history. If the Ango-Saxons and their near cousins came to Britain over a longer period than usually considered the gene evidence is not showing history but present archaeologists perceptions. All science really has more than a bit of ideology.

Is there an English version of this? This does not refute (nor is intended to) the possible introduction of Indo-European into Europe as the earlier date fits early Anatolian Neolithic entry into Europe. Nevertheless, by then Anatolia and the Near East were experiencing urbanisation, and also other historical developments are known in Europe at that time.

Fred, the stuff you sent is brilliant once I could translate the absolutely appalling English!

As I know; the languages spoken in the countries extending from Europe to the Middle East, from Iceland to Sri Lanka has a common language ancestor. It is thought that the Indo-European languages had spread to Europe and Asia nearly 8000-9500 years ago from Anatolia with the farming methods.

Ilhami, traditionally farming did not really exist 8000-9500 years ago although subsistence farming already existed, more as gardens than large scale efforts. Nor does genetics support expansion at that point.

Here you have the Berkeley's new insights on the origins of world language: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf

I promise I did not read it before starting the discussion!

Gioachinno do you remeber garbage DNA? when the geneticists had no idea of most of DNA was about and called it garabage? Evolution tells us that beings are getting more complex whereas life is created deep at the ocenas with simple organisms.

Compariso of artifacts and culture is a powerfull tool, to discret the work of others a sign of ignorance.

another blunder was the rNA memmory story all work of molecular biologists

Fred, I did not read it all and will go back to it but again I dispute the 8000/9000 BCE focus as there was not farming at Catalhoyuk c8000 to 6000 BCE. But the Anatolian hypothesis is suspect becuase of the IE emphasis on horses, not then domesticated. I do not thinking they were domesticated until 4000 BCE at least.

Dear Stanley Wilkin, thanks for your comment about my answer. You may right, I guess this subject is your interest area. I'm not a historian or a linguist. However, I would like to draw attention to the following two issues:

1-) Ain Ghazal, a 10 thousand-year-old village in Amman, provides important information about the transition to agriculture, one of the most important stages in human history. The inhabitants of this settlement grew barley, wheat, peas and lentils and lived in stone houses.

2-) Göbeklitepe is the oldest known religious group of structures in the world approximately 22 km northeast of Şanlıurfa in Anatolia. Göbeklitepe dates back to about 10,000 BC. Einkorn grains of wild wheat type were found in the excavation. Other plant remains are only wild species of almonds and peanuts. Excavations are ongoing.

Will these developments lead to a change in what is known in world history? I think the experts may make important comments.

Ilhami, thanks. I have mentioned Gobekli. I do know of these events but I'm not sure they demonstrate farming as a way of life. One that was transmitted. It used to be thought that farming grew independently, which I still believe might have occurred in some areas, and the expansion of cultivation into farming as a way of life was a very slow process. Others believe places like Gobekli demonstrated one possibility, of large regular gatherings where agriculture was invented to feed the thousands gathered together.

Clearly, suitable crops were necessary and suitable domesticated animals. These were available in the Levant and Anatolia. Nevertheless, as there was considerable farming and animal utilisation in Iraq by c4000 BCE with growing urbanisation, who knows.

A good question. Following answers.

Dear Stanley Wilkin, thanks for your valuable reply.

One of the very first settlements in postboreal Europe, in North East Sicily, around 10.000 years, close to the coast curiously named "Zingaro's" (the gypsies'), meaning people coming from East. Article ( Mesolithic and Neolithic of the Uzzo Cave, Trapani, Sicily...

Could not read as in Italian. The Gypsies are a nomadic group from quite late in history.

I do think more work would reveal even yet more early settlements, but many seem temporary without the food supply or organisation to prosper.

Sorry... Italian is very easy for me... yes but those names in western Mediterraneo are more metaphoric than descriptive. It wasn't gypsies that came to that coast, but nomadic people from the East. We have this kind of poetic memory in toponomies.

It may be that it references early population movement, but I have expressed elsewhere that the separation of east and west is artificial and population exchange has been common. I view Ancient Greece not as an originator of Western Civilisation but an outpost of Eastern culture.

Indo - European originate in Sanskrit. See for reference C.L.Barber (Origin of Languages).

Dear Ilami: peanuts? I always though thatpeanuts were from America. This is big news!

Sanskrit? Possible, but I would have said unlikely. There are no Indo-European speakers to the east of India. Its unusual for languages to expand in one direction only.

A civilization 9000 years old : a very old city submerged in the Gulf of Cambay (India). Nimrod's capital ? I founded it basing my research on 1538 Antonio Manutius' indications.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/cambay

Fred, these kind of sites are ten a dozen with fantastic evidence usually involving the flood. Everyone seems obssessed by the flood. The flood apparently washed away wonderful civilisations that predated all known civilisations based probably on Plato's bit of mischief in The Republic.

But the build up to Mesopotamian urban life is known. The Nafuians culture emerged in Levant and Palestine building small villages around 8000/7000 BCE.. Settlements arose in South West Anatolia, Syria and Northern Iraq. Harvesting of onynx is known, family and clan homes with husbandry, pot making, cloth making, is known. Symbols on pots appear in Egypt. 4.500. We know all this through exhaustive archaeology. Hardworking men and women with trowels. Sea archaeology is well organised. Uruk spread city life.

The aetiology of the Harappan civilsation is less well known but its consequences are known. The rivers probably changed direction and the Harappans morphed into known Indian cultures. There are no mysteries except those people want and look for.

Antonio Manutius described the turbulence of the waters in 1538 and precisely, in 2000 it was what attracted the attention of Indian archeologists: because of turbulence of waters. That's the only example I know that type, but I'll be pleased to know more.

Dear Vera Maura Fernandes de Lima , yes, I had read "peanuts" in the reference. I think that once the Göbeklitepe excavationwill be completed, we can have important information about the history. Of course, these excavations will last for decades.

Illami, rather than a temple I believe Gobeklitepe qwas a meeting place creating identity for different people-clans, tribes-as well as providing a place of exchange. The latter was common in the Early Neolithic or Late Mesolithic. It developed understanding of place that lead towards town-like places such as Catalhoyuk, leading also to domestication-farming and agriculture.

Fred, there were floods and that is usually seen as those that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age. Huge floods caused by dammed up ice that turned to water and flushed out all life in Western USA, ice turning to sea submerged land around Europe and the Mediterranean, separated land in Asia into huge Islands such as New Guinea. It is possible many human species were destroyed for good -if any besides us still existed-and a good number of human communities. It seprated Australia from the rest of the world. Dogger, the area between the UK and northern Europe, was overwhelmed it is thought by a tsunami after years of sea encroachment. Then, the UK was irrevocably part of Europe.

The last great flood was the Black Sea about 5,500 BCE. Whether it was slow (many academics believe it was quick) or fast whole human communities were probably overwhelmed many migrating north or south into Iraq, Anatolia and Iran-possibly causing population stress.

The final event really could be the flood of the ancient mesopotamians (appropriated for the Bible) without of course the unlikely horde of animals, Noah and angry gods acting badly against humans who had supposedly acted badly..

Dear Stanley Wilkin, thanks for your all contribution, especially about Gobeklitepe and Catalhoyuk.

The most ancient civilizations exist in India as Indus valley and Harrapa.The people living here were Daravidians and unable to resist Aryans waves. But strange thing is that in 5500 BCE there exist common painted pottery civilization across the globe.Less things are known than unknown.

Mubasher, any back--up on that? Sounds interesting.

Sajda, that is one version but genetics seems to have disproved it. The IE language seems to have arrived in Europe later with nomadic herders-and from the North East. That does not mean of course that IE originated there. Agriculture is thought to have originated in Southern Anatolia, but I cannot recall the reach of Kurdistan. I did research on agriculture years ago, and from what I remember it developed at different speeds in different places and in different ways. Hydraulics in Mesopotamia speeded up the process with its use of large scale wheat production, but its area of development was from present Palestine to Syria, Anatolia, Palestine and into Iraq and Iran. Experiments occurred there on a relatively small scale for several thousand years. I remember researching onager herding in Northern Iraq 7000 years ago and the virtual seasonal factory production of onager bodies, the bartering of their bodies, skin, meat, bone etc in a form of wealth production and the breeding of more onagers for the next season.

Just following

I think floods in the Middle East were the result of the catastrophic running-down eruption of Santorini vulcano. Some researchers speak about 1000 m waves, which isn't surrealistic considering the magmatic chamber went down, sea came in contact with lava, multiplied by Archimede's push.

Fred, Santorini has been positively established at 1,600 BCE-far too late to affect early agricultual development. Waves of 1000 feet would have destroyed every culture in the Mediterranean basin including Egypt, at least the Delta area where most lived. But only some cultures were affected, mainly the Minoan on Crete. We now know that even that culture survived, although diminished.

Maybe not Egypt that much, because there is a deep basin between Crete and Egypt. But what if the retirement of waters in Red Sea was a metaphoric consequence? Because it's very strange there is no other report about that tremendous volcanic event and its consequences. And also, I consider it destroyed so much Greek civilization some moved to Sicily and Southern Italy and probably Annaba, Algeria.

It is difficult to say that where early civic life and civilization started. Jawaharlal Nehru stated in his book, "Discovery Of India " that India is the hub of the most ancient civilizations, some twenty thousand years old . In India civilizations were along Ganges , Jamna , and Indus Rivers. The most striking thing is that people of Indus Valley Civilization invented wooden wheel,but could not stock the grain. The other civilizations were Ajanta, Alvara , and Gandhara. There is a need to differentiate between civic life and civilization .And also it could not be said with certainty where people made transition from hunting to living in houses.Why?Because in the early stages people lived in groups and in patches on this island called Earth. Recently in Balouchistan , a province of Pakistan, a city named , Mehar Garh, has been discovered,which is eight thousand years old. Moreover, about the thesis of language, there is a strange phenomena that language spoken by gypsies, in that you can find the varieties and traces of early languages,as they were the people who were most effected when frontiers of the World were made. But also it is interesting to note the version of Bible, where it is mentioned that people wanted to reach God and started constructing the "The Tower of Bable" and when it reached the highest point, the people started speaking different languages.

Fred, there is absolutely no historical evidence for the failure of Mycenaean culture during this time-rather the reverse, that they took advantage of Minoan collapse as Knossos was destroyed by the tsunami that resulted from the eruption. Still, they do not appear to have conquered Crete until over a century later so Crete probably recovered.

Striking Crete would have lessened the tsunami's impact and what evidence there is suggests little destructive impact on Egypt. It is not mentioned by the Egyptians. I have come across the tsunami's association with Moses, et al, and the Reed Sea withdrawal, the consequence of tsunamis, but it would be too early for that fantasy although the withdrawal of estuary waters probably occurred.

Mubasher, a great number of claims but please provide something to check them against. The role of India in early agricultural civilisation is rarely discussed and although it seems more recent than Sumeria we cannot be sure. I came across an essay many years ago that Dravidians were the original Sumerians and that the group extended into India. Why not? But I am not sure any genuine evidence has been found to date. The Sumerian language has so far not been successfully connected to any others.

Where the Harrapan culture is concerned I love the fact that no hierarchical structures have been found (or have they since I last read on it?) and in that way may be similar to early Sumeria.

Babel of course means Babylon. The Hebrews hated the idea of cosmopolitanism, which Babylon represented, and the story was an attack on the city and its people. The Jews/Hebrews had an early idea of ethnic purity expressed through religion and shared behaviour.

The genetic language tree of Indo-European would have a different structure if Celtic and Italic were spoken in Central Europe before the Kurgan intrusions ,

briefly:

• All sensible theories agree that Indo-Iranian was a Kurgan language, i.e. the Andronovo descendants of Yamnaya/Pit-Grave. If this were an adopted language, one would expect major changes; instead phonology and grammar of this branch closely follows proto-Indo-European.
• West European languages like Italic and Celtic are non-Kurgan in any anti-Gimbutas theory. Thus the I-E tree would involve two major branches: Western and Kurgan.
• The Afanasievo culture (sibling to Yamnaya) is the only logical candidate for proto-Tocharian. A Balkan or Danubian (non-Kurgan) origin of Afanasievo is farfetched.
• Were the (controversially lumped) Greek-Phrygo-Armenian languages derived from Kurgan or not? In either case, these languages (and Tocharian) would be either in the Western branch or the Kurgan branch of I-E. Instead they form co-equal branches, with micro-tree structure best modeled (cf. Ringe) as westward Kurgan migrations (with the Centum-Satem shift in Yamnaya occurring after Greek separated).

Very interesting. What do you think was the origin of a Western branch and when did it occur? What about the Hittite languages?

Recent DNA evidence from early skeletans indicates that the original Europeans were dark skinned with blue eyes, different from present day Europeans. This fits in with my own idea that the Indo-Europeans came from the East into Europe as a group of cattle herders. There is evidence of displacement of the original population, by then farmers, by cattle herders c4000 ce or slightly later.

Indo-Europeans were not an ethnic group but a language group, probably based in Central Asia.