culture), they subjugated the supposedly peaceful, egalitarian and matrilinear European neolithic
farmers of Gimbutas' Old Europe. A modified form of this theory by J. P. Mallory, dating the migrations
earlier (to around 3500 BC) and putting less insistence on their violent or quasi-military nature, remains
the most widely accepted view of the Proto-Indo-European expansion.[note 3]
Armenian highland hypothesis
The Armenian hypothesis, based on the glottalic theory, suggests that the Proto-Indo-European
language was spoken during the 4th millennium BC in the Armenian Highland. This Indo-Hittite model
does not include the Anatolian languages in its scenario. The phonological peculiarities of PIE proposed
in the glottalic theory would be best preserved in the Armenian language and the Germanic languages,
the former assuming the role of the dialect which remained in situ , implied to be particularly archaic in
spite of its late attestation. Proto-Greek would be practically equivalent to Mycenean Greek and would
date to the 17th century BC, closely associating Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan
migration to India at about the same time (viz., Indo-European expansion at the transition to the Late
Bronze Age, including the possibility of Indo-European Kassites). The Armenian hypothesis argues for the
latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European ( sans Anatolian), a full millennium later than the
mainstream Kurgan hypothesis. In this, it figures as an opposite to the Anatolian hypothesis, in spite of
the geographical proximity of the respective Urheimaten suggested, diverging from the time-frame
suggested there by a full three millennia.[26][27]
Anatolian hypothesis
The Anatolian hypothesis, notably advocated by Colin Renfrew from the 1980s onwards, proposes that
the Indo-European languages spread peacefully into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with
the advance of farming ( wave of advance ). The culture of the Indo-Europeans as inferred by linguistic
reconstruction raises difficulties for this theory, since early neolithic cultures lacked the horse, the
wheel, and metal – terms for all of which are securely reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. Renfrew
dismisses this argument, comparing such reconstructions to a theory that the presence of the word
"café" in all modern Romance languages implies that the ancient Romans had cafés too.
Another argument, made by proponents of the steppe Urheimat (such as David Anthony) against
Renfrew, points to the fact that ancient Anatolia is known to have been inhabited in the 2nd millennium
BC by non-Indo-European-speaking peoples, namely the Hattians (perhaps North Caucasian-speaking),
the Chalybes (language unknown), and the Hurrians (Hurro-Urartian).
Following the publication of several studies on ancient DNA in 2015, Colin Renfrew subsequently
acknowledged the important role of migrations of populations speaking one or several Indo-European
languages from the Pontic steppe towards Northwestern Europe, noting that the DNA evidence from
ancient skeletons "had completely rejuvenated Maria Gimbutas' kurgan hypothesis."[28][29]