ARCHAEOLOGY ween | AND t cn LANGUAGE ‘The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins COLIN RENFREW le CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK‘To the memory of my father ARCHIBALD RENFREW bled he Pe syne fhe Urey antler Sata sphee New Yo Fenton bron? ripe econ ogra re 9 tea cop on eer Liver fp pin pr iin 7 edn oeshove sthacloycly that many ofthe Cures ofthe dieret ioc ingot rg aed by Dal ey Indo-Baropenn. only stergedinthose societies fre date w T ruld sopget fore etiy movement of peopl speaking exh, large it rll evaation. co ‘rao ofthe ine whose ngage no ong te ilo-Eoropern amily, So the impeaon mos be tha good pt ed tndo-E is for the structure and organi- seco supply wholy sxistcory answers. ep do to show the mom of the answers car {ferent methodology ‘ean be made. Ihave attempted hee to beg 1. The Indo-European Problem in Outline Jn the yeat 1786, an English judge, serving in India atthe High rt in Caleuts, made a quite extraowdinary id Anniversary Discourse tothe Asiatic Society of Bengal he briefly mentioned an observation he had made which ean be taken sa starting point forthe whole study of historical linguistics, and ‘certainly for the field of Indo-European stuies" ‘The Sanskrit nguage, whatever may be ie antiquity, is of wonderfal structure; more perfect than the Greek, more its of esemblance in the grammati- calstructure areas important 2 similarity eeween the words of the> 4 ‘ a Tanpuages of northern Europe ~ Gothic fd Celie ~ and rightly compared hs Tanguoge in which the hymns ofthe Avets, the ancient srprres," are writen, ‘Sir Wiliam Joner nw tha hes re to be more than fortuitous, These diferent lnguages areal related fh some way to one another. The most obvious explanation lances were so striking at “Teidenoflangogebeing fone. It had ‘ong boon realized that many of the languages of itn, French, Sih and ‘din gamma "Tiler Comparisons ite verb be ‘The sore of comparison which Jones had been making might be seroutby more recent scholars in Table 1 Ianguages of Europe should be derived {fom Latin isnot very surprising. We cam finly recy cee For between Europe and ranand Ini ‘uactofland where very diferent languages are spoken, ld these five languages, and indeed many others, be in 1813 the English scholar Thomas Youngé coined che .do-Evropean” singe group of people who si ‘ike exnadon Tha tee final question of this book, and ‘question for European and Asin prehistory” I there wose indeed rly populations, which might have been pethaps through trade, and exchange of marrage partners — thenthe archaeological record, propery interpreted, this. There is very ide inthe early histories Ianguages concer ‘Sone ofthe most notable and enduring problemsin he prehistory ‘ispersal ofthese angus ‘oun for thee orginal dieeibaion in Europe and other parts of id nach more dificult. one possible exception to the lack of historical emarkablesource, once againintndia texts were apparendly Vwhat i agreed to be a auch eae form of language, (general termed Vedie Sankt or simply Vedic, chan the clasial SEtskrehkearuteof thesia centary AD. They may have been (acherto pupil until they were set in wing at atime w! ‘yasto longer wellundertood, and indeed when even Sanskrit wat to longer spoken, The topographical fe the Rigede are ry. "Wiliam Jones were soon fllowed agit researches of scholars sch a0 hat within Bey by the much mores ir friedtich von Sebege and Franz Bopp,’ every mach time or the development ‘of human language or culture. An evolutionary view, vi cha hronsogy hers Sevcopment extending over mins of {yeas only became portbl in the year 189 withthe publican of ‘Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species.® * ‘Unt hat une, sme ofthe explanation on offer forthe origin equity preocepid aon then Begining to cme to to the more samy preiore he pee cemory~skhough tee were4 ARCHAEOLOGY AND LAKCUACE notable exceptions, sich 2 the highly orginal work of Sir Flinders Petrie in Egypt. In Europe inthe nineteenth century, much ofthe very propery devoted tothe development of local mh be eronrocte ar thet ~ teen bg ted by chvcton ade recom ae weds whence ot an analogy wth the branch of ssa history whee easly t ok ‘he called this approach Inia rr. sheep ost ox ow and ore) were Ie, fom ‘hich eet somctns lowed tte scnomy eho THE INDO-EUROPEAN ynosteM HN OUTLINE 15 had been one based on pastoralism rather than agriculture. By arguments such as these a Whole series of pels homeland war appropriate homeland forthe Proto. Indo-Europeans might be the South Russian steppe. from (Carpathians to Cental Ass, where nomad pastorlsm was known all the argume on the linguist evidence alone ‘or in Lithuania. This theory grew in an fome quarters he turn ofthe century, question ofthe origins of| the Indo-European languages had been treated as oneto be resolved primarily on linguistic evidence, athough of course the Proto- forthe Indo-European ages. Kossinna was effecivly the frst to equne prehistoric les (and hence languages) with potiery types, and he Founded {thereby a school of thought which srvives otis day “The most influential exponent ofthis approach was V. Gordon6 ‘ineiianibe An6 Una "HE IMO-EUROPEAY PRORLEN HF OUTLINE ” ‘rejecting any inferences drawn from measurements of skulls, he | accept tat the approach of igus palacontology, ecm ound in Proto ndo-Enropenn, could fons about the homeland. He now vowed an Indo-European Inguages esching late rons ge asp | tery of te Greck mile bronze age Rrogsed 15 the indieato ofthe aval for che fi EeEipesking people in Greece Che was 2 philoyst by Se nogh be er trned to achesogy and in 1935 synths of European retin Them of rip did oc emerge in their most a bejudgedtoe harshly ‘Atte same time the fc that che ist rs no iho prc, The ‘Stock did enable them by the bare fact advanced ples 020 10 impos their halolithie periods which would correspond mother cultare ofthe Indo-Europeans 38 1chelpofcommen words, and there were sions and conquests affecting whole teri= historic source and a cultural continu ct of Indo-European speakers. Gimburas, bullding on the work of Childe and betore him of | Schrader, thus lays considerable stress upon the arguments from rm hich their body type the early hha auracted the atention of archaeologist,B ‘AxcauEOLOGY 4x LANGUAGE Her work displays fll contol ofthe recent archatologicl material is cerainly one of the most thorough treatments to dat Feld of linguistic palscontology, actully begine his ss follows "THE Iv0-FUNOFEAN PmORLEM ns CUTLINE 9 ‘This shore study teats one small portion ofthe language and culture f the speskert of Prot rpithians, during roughly the fourth millennium and the fest centuries ofthe third milen= sium BC. nis highly questionable. So complete an adoption of. ha ‘question of © archaeological imerpretation should sed upon the ling eatse for concer, inreality one begins where ‘he other ends. They are both relying on each tier to prop up theit smuual thesis,