1 The origins and spread of
Proto-Indo-European
This book will argue that the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe—except for its far
northeast—began in the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries BC, with military take -
overs of lands rich in natural resources. That is a topic quite distinct from questions
about the origins and the early spread of Proto-Indo-European. Those questions do
have a bearing on the present topic, however, and this chapter will therefore state
my understanding of the origins of Proto-Indo-European in the fourth millennium
BCand its remarkable spread during the third.
Indo-Europeanists are apparently quite certain that Proto-Indo-European,
henceforth PIE, was still being spoken after the invention of the wheeled vehicle,
which occurred ca. 3500 BCor perhaps a century or two later. The reason for the
linguists’ confidence is that the several branches of Indo-European inherited
words for wagon, wheel, yoke, thill and axle.^1 Because the various branches also
have a word for wool, they must have left the PIE stem at some time after sheep
began to be bred for their wool. This too had occurred by the fourth millennium
BC(sheep were raised thousands of years before that, but for their meat). After
discussing wool, wheels and other items of diagnostic value, Benjamin Fortson
dates “a breakup of PIE in the late fourth millennium. Linguists would not be
comfortable with a date much later than this.”^2
The Indo-Hittite theory
Granted that PIE was spoken for some time between ca. 3500 and 3000 BC, what
can be said about its origins, about the process and place of its evolution, and
about its early spread? The progress made on these questions in the last few decades
has been remarkable. Perhaps the most important development in research on the
origins and spread of PIE we owe to Indo-Europeanists, who have determined
that the Indo-Hittite theory—as an explanation of the profound differences between
the Anatolian and the “other” Indo-European languages—is basically correct. The
theory, still unfamiliar to many archaeologists and prehistorians, was first proposed
by Emil Forrer in 1921, just 5 years after the decipherment of Hittite, and in 1938
was more fully formulated by Edgar Sturtevant.^3 “Indo-Hittite” is the unfortunate
name coined by Sturtevant, and many linguists prefer not to use it, but the
substance of the theory has now been generally accepted. Sturtevant noted the