Kurgan hypothesis
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In 1956 Marija Gimbutas introduced her Kurgan hypothesis combining kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples. She tentatively named the culture "Kurgan" after their distinctive burial mounds and traced their diffusion into Europe.
This hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European research. Those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a Kurgan culture as reflecting an early Indo-European ethnicity which existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from the fifth to third millennia BC.
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Overview
The "Kurgan hypothesis" of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the "Kurgan culture" until it encompasses the entire Pontic steppe, Kurgan IV being identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC. Subsequent expansion beyond the steppes leads to hybrid cultures, such as the Globular Amphora culture to the west, the immigration of proto-Greeks to the Balkans and the nomadic Indo-Iranian cultures to the east around 2500 BC. The domestication of the horse, and later the use of early chariots is assumed to have increased the mobility of the Kurgan culture, facilitating the expansion over the entire Yamna region. In the Kurgan hypothesis, the entire pontic steppes are considered the PIE Urheimat, and a variety of late PIE dialects is assumed to have been spoken across the region. The area near the Volga labelled ?Urheimat in the map above marks the location of the earliest known traces of horse-riding (the Samara culture, but see Sredny Stog culture), and would correspond to an early PIE or pre-PIE nucleus of the 5th millennium BC.
Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The purple area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC, and the orange area by 1000 BC.
Stages of expansion
Gimbutas' original suggestion identifies four successive stages of the Kurgan culture and three successive "waves" of expansion.
- Kurgan I, Dnieper/Volga region, earlier half of the 4th millennium BC. Apparently evolving from cultures of the Volga basin, subgroups include the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures.
- Kurgan II–III, latter half of the 4th millennium BC. Includes the Sredny Stog culture and the Maykop culture of the northern Caucasus. Stone circles, early two-wheeled chariots, anthropomorphic stone stelae of deities.
- Kurgan IV or Yamna culture, first half of the 3rd millennium BC, encompassing the entire steppe region from the Ural to Romania.
- Wave 1, predating Kurgan I, expansion from the lower Volga to the Dnieper, leading to coexistence of Kurgan I and the Cucuteni culture. Repercussions of the migrations extend as far as the Balkans and along the Danube to the Vinca and Lengyel cultures in Hungary.
- Wave 2, mid 4th millennium BC, originating in the Maykop culture and resulting in advances of "kurganized" hybrid cultures into northern Europe around 3000 BC (Globular Amphora culture, Baden culture, and ultimately Corded Ware culture). In the view of Gimbutas, this would correspond to the first intrusion of Indo-European languages into western and northern Europe.
- Wave 3, 3000–2800 BC, expansion of the Yamna culture beyond the steppes, with the appearance of the characteristic pit graves as far as the areas of modern Romania, Bulgaria and eastern Hungary.
Timeline
- 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper-Donets and Sarama cultures, domestication of the horse (Wave 1).
- 4000–3500: The Yamna culture, the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time.
- 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Yamna culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society, with stone idols, early two-wheeled proto-chariots, predominantly practicing animal husbandry, but also with permanent settlements and hillforts, subsisting on agriculture and fishing, along rivers. Contact of the Yamna culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artefacts are introduced to Yamna territory. Probable early Satemization.
- 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Yamna culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast "kurganized" area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The Centum-Satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active.
- 2500–2000: The breakup into the proto-languages of the attested dialects is complete. Proto-Greek is spoken in the Balkans, Proto-Indo-Iranian north of the Caspian in the emerging Andronovo culture. The Bronze Age reaches Central Europe with the Beaker culture, likely composed of various Centum dialects. The Tarim mummies possibly correspond to proto-Tocharians.
- 2000–1500: The chariot is invented, leading to the split and rapid spread of Iranian and Indo-Aryan from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex over much of Central Asia, Northern India, Iran and Eastern Anatolia. Proto-Anatolian is split into Hittite and Luwian. The pre-Proto-Celtic Unetice culture has an active metal industry (Nebra skydisk).
- 1500–1000: The Nordic Bronze Age develops pre-Proto-Germanic, and the (pre)-Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age. Migration of the Proto-Italians into the Italian peninsula (Bagnolo stele). Redaction of the Rigveda and rise of the Vedic civilization in the Punjab. The Mycenaean civilization gives way to the Greek Dark Ages.
- 1000 BC–500 BC: The Celtic languages spread over Central and Western Europe. Proto Germanic. Homer and the beginning of Classical Antiquity. The Vedic Civilization gives way to the Mahajanapadas. Zoroaster composes the Gathas, rise of the Achaemenid Empire, replacing the Elamites and Babylonia. Armenians succeed the Urartu culture. Separation of Proto-Italic into Osco-Umbrian and Latin-Faliscan. Genesis of the Greek and Old Italic alphabets. A variety of Paleo-Balkan languages are spoken in Southern Europe. The Anatolian languages are extinct.
Secondary Urheimat
The "kurganized" Globular Amphora culture in Europe is proposed as a "secondary Urheimat", separating into the Bell-beaker culture and Corded Ware culture around 2300 BC and ultimately resulting in the European branches of Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages, and other, partly extinct, language groups of the Balkans and central Europe, possibly including the proto-Mycenaean invasion of Greece.
Differences of interpretation
Gimbutas viewed the expansions of the Kurgan culture as a series of essentially hostile, military invasions where a new warrior culture imposed itself on the peaceful, matriarchal cultures of "Old Europe", replacing it with a patriarchal warrior society, a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains:
- The Process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the indigenous groups.
In her later life, Gimbutas increasingly emphasized the violent nature of this transition from the Mediterranean cult of the Mother Goddess to a patriarchal society and the worship of the warlike Thunderer (Zeus, Dyaus), to a point of essentially formulating feminist archaeology. Many scholars who accept the general scenario of Indo-European migrations proposed, maintain that the transition was likely much more gradual and peaceful than suggested by Gimbutas. The migrations were certainly not a sudden, concerted military operation, but the expansion of disconnected tribes and cultures, spanning many generations. To what degree the indigenous cultures were peacefully amalgamated or violently displaced remains a matter of controversy among supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.
J. P. Mallory advocates the Kurgan hypothesis as the de-facto standard theory of Indo-European origins, but he recognizes valid criticism of Gimbutas' radical scenario of military invasion: almost all the arguments for invasion and cultural transformation are far better explained without reference to Kurgan expansion.
The German archaeologist Alexander Häusler has sharply criticised Gimbutas' concept of 'a' Kurgan culture that mixes several distinct cultures like the pit-grave culture.
The Kurgan scenario is widely accepted as one of the leading answers to the question of Indo-European origins, but its status remains speculative. The main alternative suggestion is the theory of Colin Renfrew, postulating an Anatolian Urheimat, and the spread of the Indo-European languages as a result of the spread of agriculture. This view implies a significantly higher age of the Proto-Indo-European language (ca. 10,000 years as opposed to ca. 6,000 years), and among linguists finds rather less support than the Kurgan theory, on grounds of glottochronology, and because there are some difficulties in correlating the geographical distribution of the Indo-European branches with the advance of agriculture.
Genetics
A specific haplogroup R1a1 defined by the M17 (SNP marker) of the Y chromosome (see:[1] for nomenclature) is associated by some with the Kurgan culture. The haplogroup R1a1 is currently found in central and western Asia, India, and in Slavic populations of Eastern Europe, but it is not very common in some countries of Western Europe (e.g. France, or some parts of Great Britain) (see [2] [3]). However, 23.6% of Norwegians, 18.4% of Swedes, 16.5% of Danes, 11% of Saami share this lineage ([4]).
Ornella Semino et al. (see [5]) identify haplotype Eu18 (R1b in modern terminology (see [6] for nomenclature) (prevalent in western Europe, especially Basque Country) and Eu19 (most prevalent in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and the Russia as descended from an expansion from the Iberian peninsula following the last glacial period (20,000 to 13,000 years ago), and link the spread of Eu19 (which is also observed in Pakistan, India and central Asia) to the Kurgan expansion.
Another study [7] concludes that the Indian population received "limited" gene flow from external sources since the Holocene and suggests R1a1 originates from South or West Asia.
Literature
- "In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth" by J. P. Mallory, ISBN 0500276161
- "The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe: Selected Articles Form 1952 to 1993" von Marija Gimbutas u.a., ISBN 0941694569
- "Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture" ed. James Mallory, D. Q. Adams, ISBN 1884964982
