Proto-Indo-European homeland

The Proto-Indo-European homeland (or Indo-European homeland) is the prehistoric urheimat of the Indo-European languages — the region where their reconstructed common ancestor, the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), was originally spoken. From this region subgroups of speakers migrated and went on to form the proto-communities of the different branches of the language family. The majority of Indo-European specialists support the Kurgan hypothesis, which puts the PIE homeland in the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 4000 BC, though critical issues remain to be clarified.

The major alternative theory is the Anatolian hypothesis, which puts it in Anatolia around 8000 BC, but has lost support due to the explanatory limitations of this theory.

The Steppe theory and the Anatolian hypothesis are "the two leading competitors" for the Indo-European homeland. The steppe hypothesis, a revised version of the "Kurgan hypothesis", places the PIE homeland in the Pontic steppe around 4000 BC. The majority of Indo-European specialists support the steppe hypothesis, though critical issues remain to be clarified.

The Anatolian hypothesis places the pre-PIE homeland in Anatolia around 8000 BC, and the homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper in the Balkans around 5000 BC. Although it has attracted substantive attention and discussions, the datings it proposes are at odds with the linguistic timeframe for Proto-Indo-European and with genetic data which don't find evidence for Anatolian origins in the Indian genepool.

A notable, though unlikely, third possibility is the "Near Eastern model," also known as the Armenian hypothesis. It was proposed by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, postulating connections between Indo-European and Caucasian languages based on the disputed glottalic theory and connected to archaeological findings by Grogoriev.

A number of other theories have been proposed, most of which have little or no academic currency today:

Traditionally homelands of linguistic families are proposed based on evidence from comparative linguistics coupled with evidence of historical populations and migrations from archeology. Today, genetics via DNA samples is increasingly used in the study of ancient population movements.

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