Indo-European expansion

Indo-European migrations were the migrations through which the earliest speakers of the Indo-European languages spread throughout Europe and Asia.

Our knowledge of these migrations is based on data from linguistics, archeology, anthropology and genetics. Linguistics describes the similarities between various languages, and the linguistic laws at play in the changes in those languages. Archaeological data, describes the spread of the Indo-European language and culture in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Eurasian homeland in the Pontic steppes, into Western Europe, Central and South Asia, by migrations, and by language shift through elite-recruitment as described by anthropological research. Recent genetic research has a growing contribution to the understanding of the historical relations between various historical cultures.

The Indo-European languages and cultures spread in various stages. Early migrations from c. 4200–3000 BCE brought archaic proto-indo-European into the lower Danube valley, Anatolia, and the Altai region. Pre-Celtic and pre-Italic probably spread into Europe after new migrations into the Danube Valley, while pre-Germanic and pre-Balto-Slavic developed east of the Carpathian mountains, at present-day Ukraine, moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE). The Indo-Iranian language and culture emerged at the Sintashta culture (c. 2100–1800 BCE), at the eastern border of the Yamna horizon and the Corded ware culture, growing into the Andronovo culture (c. 1800–800 BCE).Indo-Aryans moved into the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (c. 2300–1700 BCE) and spread to the Levant (Mitanni), northern India (Vedic people, c. 1500 BCE), and China (Wusun). The Iranian languages spread throughout the steppes with the Scyths and into Iran with the Medes, Parthians and Persians from ca. 800 BCE.

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