The Kurgan Civilization Hypothesis: CASS-DELL History of English Langauge (EL 111)
The Kurgan Civilization Hypothesis: CASS-DELL History of English Langauge (EL 111)
The Kurgan Civilization Hypothesis: CASS-DELL History of English Langauge (EL 111)
W
e can only guess where Indo-European was originally spoken—but
there are clues, such as plant and animal names. Cognate terms for
trees that grow in temperate climates (alder, apple, ash, aspen, beech, birch, elm,
hazel, linden, oak, willow, yew), coupled with the absence of such terms for
Mediterranean or Asiatic trees (olive, cypress, palm); cognate terms for wolf, bear,
lox (Old English leax ‘salmon’), but none for creatures indigenous to Asia—all this
points to an area between northern Europe and southern Russia as the home of Indo-
European before its dispersion. And the absence of a common word for ocean
suggests, though it does not in itself prove, that this homeland was inland.
The early Indo-Europeans have been identified with the Kurgan culture of
mound builders that lived northwest of the Caucasus and north of the Caspian Sea as
early as the fifth millennium B.C. (Gimbutas, Kurgan Culture). They domesticated
cattle and horses, which they kept for milk and meat as well as for transportation.
They combined farming with herding and were a mobile people, using four-wheeled
wagons to cart their belongings on their treks. They built fortified palaces on hilltops
(we have the Indo-European word for such forts in the polis of place names like
Indianapolis and in our word police), as well as small villages nearby. Their society was
a stratified one, with warrior nobility and a common laboring class.
In addition to the sky god associated with thunder, the sun, the horse, the
boar, and the snake were important in their religion. They had a highly developed
belief in life after death, which led them to the construction of elaborate burial sites,
by which their culture can be traced over much of Europe. Early in their history, they
expanded into the Balkans and northern Europe, and thereafter into Iran, Anatolia,
and southern Europe.
Other locations have also been proposed for the Indo-European homeland,
such as north-central Europe between the Vistula and the Elbe and eastern Anatolia
(modern Turkey and the site of the ancient Hittite empire). The dispersal of Indo-
European was so early that we may never be sure of where it began or of the paths it
followed. [1]