Following the publication of several studies on ancient DNA in 2015,
Colin Renfrew has accepted the reality of migrations of populations
speaking one or several Indo-European languages from the Pontic
steppe towards Northwestern Europe.[64][27]
Objections
Dating
The main objection to this theory is that it requires an unrealistically
early date.[4] According to linguistic analysis, the Proto-Indo-European
lexicon seems to include words for a range of inventions and practices
related to the Secondary Products Revolution, which post-dates the
early spread of farming. On lexico-cultural dating, Proto-Indo-European
cannot be earlier than 4000 BCE.[65] Furthermore, it has been objected,
on impressionistic grounds, that it seems unlikely that close
equivalences such as Hittite [eːsmi, eːsi, eːst͜si] = Sanskrit [ásmi, ási, ásti]
("I am, you are, he is") could have survived over such a long timescale
as the Anatolian hypothesis requires.[66]
Farming
The idea that farming was spread from Anatolia in a single wave has
been revised. Instead it appears to have spread in several waves by
several routes, primarily from the Levant.[67] The trail of plant
domesticates indicates an initial foray from the Levant by sea.[68] The
overland route via Anatolia seems to have been most significant in
spreading farming into south-east Europe.[69]
According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), farming developed independently
both in the Levant and in the eastern Fertile Crescent.[24] After this
initial development, the two regions and the Caucasus interacted, and
the chalcolithic north-west Iranian population appears to be a mixture
of Iranian Neolithic, Levant, and Caucasus hunter-