Indo-European migrations

"The classification "the Indo-European branch of humanity" could be defined either as the group of people who spoke some Indo-European language (Latin, Sanskrit, French, Swedish, Persian, and so forth) or as the group of Aryans, who were typically imagined as tall, blond, and blue-eyed specimens of homo sapiens."

"Our knowledge of these migrations [that broke PIE unity] is very limited. On a linguistic basis, little can be said about them."

"The role of the Indo-European peoples in the ancient world has been portrayed too often as the incarnation of northern virility sweeping down in massed chariots to bring new vigour to a decadent south."

"In the current state of knowledge, none of the hypotheses forwarded can be seriously demonstrated... There is in fact no evidence for the gradual progression of an entire material culture from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the Atlantic or the Ganges—unless, of course, we drastically force the data."

"It is presumptuous to say the least to claim that the migratory routes traveled by the Indo-Europeans from their original Homeland have now been clearly traced."

"We do not find any evidence for the diffusion of the entire material culture of the steppes to those regions where historically attested Indo-European languages were spoken"

"The biological situation among the speakers of modern Indo-European languages can only be explained through a transfer of languages like a baton, as it were, in a relay race, but not by several thousand miles’ migration of the tribes themselves."

"But in the period 3100-2900 BC came a clear and dramatic infusion of Yamna [= Pontic] cultural practice, including burials, into Eastern Hungary and along the lower Danube. With this we are able to witness the beginnings of the Indo-Europeanization of Europe."

"The archaeological correlates become some sort of labels or tags that one may employ in order to trace the supposed Indo-European populations. But, in fact, very little of the illustrative archaeological material actually exhibits specific Indo-European or Indo-Iranian traits; a question therefore arises: what is the relevance of archaeological material if any sort of assemblage present at the expected or supposed time/space spot can function as the tag of a linguistic group?"

"What does this prove? That proto-Indo-Iranian broke away before proto-Anatolian, since the latter family has the PIE term for lion and wine while the former did not? Or does it prove my Leophobic Secondary Pontic Steppe-Anatolian Sequential Dispersion theory, according to which, Anatolian speakers broke away from PIE due to the sheer monotonous boredom of the Steppes and moved through the Balkans to Anatolia, where they encountered lions (note that Luwian includes the root for ‘lion’). When the rump of PIE subsequently broke up because even the excitement of a slow moving, non-steerable cart was no match for the tedium of the Steppes, the non-drinking, killjoy proto-Indo-Iranians went east into the deserts of Central Asia and only lightened up after they discovered soma, while the remainder of PIE went on vacation to Anatolia to visit their long-lost relatives who introduced them to lions, albeit with this proving such a traumatic experience that they immediately fled to Europe and never went back. You may consider the above to be unsubstantiated ‘just-so’ balderdash, and you would be welcome to think so, but I would point out that it is no more simple-minded than the following: “they might have moved several times, perhaps by sea, from the Western Pontic steppes to south-eastern Europe to western Anatolia to Greece, making their trail hard to find”, which constitutes Anthony’s own double hand-waving non-explanation of how Greek spread from the ‘wrong’ side of the Pontic Steppes to Greece. Once you adopt his ‘se non è vero è ben trovato’ standard of empirical evidence based on duff linguistic archaeology you can argue for just about anything."

"Although the Brahmans of India belong to the same family, the Aryan or Indo-European family, which civilized the whole of Europe, the two great branches of that primitive race were kept asunder for centuries after their first separation. The mainstream of the Aryan nations has always flowed towards the northwest. No historian can tell us by what impulse those adventurous Nomads were driven on through Asia towards the isles and shores of Europe. The first start of this world-wide migration belongs to a period far beyond the reach of documentary history; to times when the soil of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans, Slavonians, Romans, or Greeks."

"Europeans today are a mixture of three very different ancestral populations: hunter-gatherers, first farmers, and a population with eastern affinities that was not yet present in Europe at the time of the first farmers. It was unclear when and how this eastern component arrived in Europe... ‘When we first looked at the new data, it was a Eureka moment’ ... ‘The eastern ancestry was present in every single sample starting at around 4,500 years ago, and absent in every single one before that time.’"