"In the 1990s, this view was briefly challenged by the British archaeologist Colin Renfrew, who posited a Homeland in Anatolia. Thence, the IE-speaking tribes would have spread as early as about 7000 BCE, on the strength of their mastery of agriculture. This new development allowed for a fast population growth, as illustrated by the more recent spread of the Bantu languages throughout Africa along with agriculture. His merit was that he tied the spectacular expansion of IE to a powerful mechanism, the demographically useful new technology of agriculture. However, this theory has been widely rejected as linguistically untenable and archaeologically unsupported. The targeted studies that sought to decide between the Anatolian and the Russian Homeland have generally favoured the latter option."