Early Kurgan expansion

I felt the need to draw and share these maps to illustrate the first stages of the Kurgan (Indoeuropean) expansion. Some other details are added for contextualization.



Before c. 4000 BCE
Stage 1: some pre-IE languages are also indicated:
  • Vasconic is tentatively associated here with Neolithic languages of Thessalian origin (my main working hypothesis). It would at the time be the largest European language family therefore.
  • Uralic should be right north of the early Indoeuropeans, what explains their ancestral Sprachbund.
  • Pelasgian indicates the language of Vinca-Dimini (Grey Ware), which was a limited intrusion c. 5000 BCE with origins related to Tell Halaf most likely.


c. 4000-3500 BCE
Stage 2: main outline of the Indoeuropean expansion. Some other cultures and languages are indicated in gray colors for context. At this point we should have the seeds of:
  1. Anatolian (Maykop)
  2. Tocharian (Afanasevo, in Altai)
  3. Indo-Iranian (Yamna)
  4. Western Indoeuropean (Baalberge): a large subfamily that would give birth to Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Celtic and Italic.
  5. Possible seeds of Tracian, Greek, etc. in the Balcanic Kurgans, an ill-defined group that would nevertheless plunder and radically alter the ethnic geography of the Eastern Balcans (see next map).


c. 3500-3000 BCE
Stage 3:  consolidation. Some notes:
  • The Anatolian branch goes into Asia with the Kura-Araxes culture.
  • The Eastern Balcans are divided between two cultures:
    • Cotofeni, more purely Kurgan and a candidate for Greek origins
    • Ezero, rather Dniepr-Don (→ Sredny-Stog II) cultural inheritance. Surely proto-Thracians and hence a candidate for the origin of Armenian (via Phrygians).
  • Expansion of Yamna (proto-Indo-Iranians) and therefore liquidation of Dniepr-Don Neolithic
  • Consolidation and first expansion of the Western IE branch (Globular Amphorae). It may be important to note that in the Baalberge→→→Globular Amphorae period, this Kurgan culture experimented various influences that may be considered Vasconic: the Danubian substrate, the powerful southern Danubian culture of Baden and the Northernly Funnelbeaker influence, associated to Atlantic Megalithism.


c. 3000-2400 BCE

Stage 4: setting the proto-historical scenario with some further expansions. Most notably:
  • Corded Ware: a major expansion of the Western IE group to the West, East and North.
  • Vucedol: probably associated with the previous, eradicates the Danubian culture in their homeland (only Foltesti in Moldavia would survive for some more time within this important Neolithic macro-culture). Vucedol would be another candidate for Greek origins for their use of the architectural concept of megaron.
  • Catacombs culture's origins are debated but it's clearly Kurgan in any case.
  • Poltavka represents continuity with the seed of the Kurgan/Indoeuropean phenomenon and its later evolution leads directly to Indo-Iranians.
It should be noted that, synchronously with the Corded Ware expansion, the Megalithic bowmen of Artenac culture expanded from Dordogne, subsuming the last Western Danubian groups all the way to Belgium.  This culture was probably proto-Aquitanian.

A whole millennium of stability followed at the new Rhine border, crossed only by the likely traders of the Bell Beaker phenomenon.


Update (Feb 20 2015): please check this study by Will Chang et al.: ANCESTRY-CONSTRAINED PHYLOGENETICANALYSIS SUPPORTS THE INDO-EUROPEAN STEPPE HYPOTHESIS, which provides an approximate chronology that is quite revealing and that largely (although not strictly) fits the previous outlined scheme of archaeological foundations.

Also for those particularly skeptic, taking a look at the genetic evidence outlined in Haak 2015 and discussed HERE may be of use.

6 comments:

  1. False, Globular amphore is not the root of corded ware, the root from corded ware and globular amphore is funnelbeaker.
    Result, corded ware not from easteurope, she is from middle europe.
    Other problem, i cant found a kurgan what is older as 3500 BC, what is the time of tumuli in europe.
    they are better qualificated to build a kurgan as a asian population.
    yamnaja horizont has more european peoples, not asian population.
    forget your kurgan these, search a new these.

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    Replies
    1. Are you talking of pottery shapes? Because funnelbeaker is just that: a pottery style that extends through many different cultures in an area effect radiating from Denmark, where it's associated with Neolithic and Megalithism (this last also in other areas but not at the Elbe-Saale nor further East).

      As for Corded Ware, it is chronologically and culturally derived from Globular Amphorae by all accounts. The main issue, if any, is the presence at an early stage of a Catacomb element in Cujawia (but nowehere else in the cultural area) which may have triggered the cultural change. But otherwise GA → CW is almost linear, site by site.

      And the result is... that Corded Ware is indeed from Central Europe: right where Globular Amphorae existed.

      "Other problem, i cant found a kurgan what is older as 3500 BC"...

      Here Gimbutas explains well why the Khvalynsk culture is at the origin of the Sredny-Stog II intrusive element. Oddly enough it seems one of the best references online other than Wikipedia. What happened to popular education promoted by public universities and all that?! We have to do it all with nearly no resources ourselves.

      "yamnaja horizont has more european peoples, not asian population."

      You look like ranting about a geographic border that does not really exist between Europe and Asia. The fact that you avoid capital letters, proper punctuation and you structure so badly your extremely short dogmatic sentences make me feel you're not serious in your questions, are you? I say because I hate to waste my time.

      Delete
  2. EEFs spoke Vasconic, just as Neolithic Indians spoke Dravidic. Indoeuropean only arrived later on, with its origins being in the Volga basin and North Caucasus (Khvalynsk culture). Unlike reflected in my first map, I think possible now that the key element into IE genesis actually arrived from beyond the Caucasus, from the West Asian Neolithic.

    R1 is not directly related to Indoeuropeans: R1a in South Asia is mostly Neolithic, R1b in Western Europe also (probably Chalcolithic but pre-Indoeuropean in any case). Indoeuropeans also carried in many cases these lineages but they do not own them in any exclusive way.

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  3. Indoeuropean refers to a linguistic family, not to a "race". Haitians are Indoeuropean and black, Basques are white and not Indoeuropean. OK? It is language and culture what makes ethnicity, not skin color (at least not normally).

    ReplyDelete
  4. A MI ENTENDER SEGUN HE LEIDO EN ALGUNAS OBRAS SEUDOHISTORICAS Y DEL TRABAJO DE MONTEIXANO QUE QUISO BUSCAR LA LENGUA RAIZ DE LA PALABRA GADEIRO O GADIRO HIZO PRUEBAS CON MUCHOS IDIOMAS INDOEUROPEO, URALICO, SANSCRITO, CUNEIFORME ETC Y DESCUBRIO QUE EL UNICO ANTIGUO IDIOMA QUE SEMEJABA AL NOMBRE DE GADIRO ERA EL SEMITICO-BEREBER QUE SE HABLABA EN EL ANTIGUO OASIS DEL SAHARA Y TAMBIEN TENIA SEMBLANZA CON LOS ANTIGUOS IDIOMAS EUROPEOS IBERO, VASCO, ETRUSCO, LIGUR, PELASGO ETC Y EL DESCUBRIMIENTO DE LAS ESCRITURAS IDEOGRAFICAS PALEOLITICAS Y NEOLITICAS DE (GLOZEL Y ALVAO) DE 15.000 Y 4.000 a.d.c. RESPECTIVAMENTE SE LO CONFIRMO AUN MAS.
    A MI PARECER ANTES DE LA LLEGADA DE LOS INDOEUROPEOS EXISTIA EN EUROPA UNA CIVILIZACION SUPERIOR A LA NUESTRA EN DISCIPLINAS COMO EN LA CONSTRUCCION CON PIEDRA (LITICA), ESPIRITUAL Y ARMONICAMENTE Y SOBRE LA CONSTRUCCION LITICA FUERON UNICOS Y HAY EVIDENCIAS EN TODA EUROPA MEGATILISMO, MICENAS, HATUSAS, BALBEK, ACUEDUCTO DE SEGOVIA UNA OBRA CICLOPEA CONSTRUIDO SIN MORTERO Y ARGAMASA ETC. PARA MI LA VERDADERA HISTORIA ES LA MITOLOGICA EN EPOCAS ANTIGUAS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Primero de todo: no grites. Es horrible netiqueta escribir todo con mayúsculas. Te he aprobado el comentario pero la próxima no cuela, advertido estás.

      Segundo, Georgeos Díaz-Montexano es un estafador, se dedica a sacar los cuartos al personal con supuestas expediciones submarinas en busca de una Atlántida que está a mi entender en tierra firme (en la zona de Castro do Zambujal, Torres Vedras, Portugal) e incluso inventa muchísimas cosas que no son para nada reales en términos arqueológicos.

      Gadir tiene una etimología clarísima, la misma que Agadir y muchas otras formas similares en lenguas semitas: "la muralla" y por extensión "la fortaleza". Gadir no es ni Atlántida ni Tartessos (probablemente bajo el casco antiguo de Sevilla), sino una típica y bastante bien documentada colonia fenicia de c. 800+ aEC.

      Gadir probablemente destruyó Tartessos c. 560 aEC, flirteaban demasiado con los Foceo-Marselleses, resultando en una sociedad turdetana (post-tartésica) más débil y fragmentada que los Bárcidas conquistarían más tarde sin demasiado esfuerzo.

      El etrusco no tiene relación alguna con el euskera (más allá de posibles orígenes comunes en el Paleolítico de Asia Occidental o relaciones de adyacencia/sprachbund en varias geografías). La primera colonización neolítica d.c. 9000 aEC fue vascónica en lengua (y eso produce el euskera, el íbero, el "paleosardo" y probablemente el ligur también, entre muchas otras lenguas destruidas y olvidadas, que un día se hablaron hasta Kiev mismo - Cucuteni era vascónica también). Sin embargo, los Pelasgo-Tirsenios corresponden a una segunda oleada, centrada en el Halafiense del Norte de Siria, que conquistó Asia Menor y partes de los Balcanes a los vascónicos y se extendió a Italia en la crisis del Bronce Final y Hierro inicial, produciendo los Etruscos pero genéticamente (Y-DNA J2) afectando muchísimo a toda la península (genética que luego expandirían algo los romanos a Occidente). Son ambos "pre-Indoeuropeos" pero no son lo mismo.

      No hubo "civilizaciones superiores" y Platón nunca habló de Atlántida (Atari Andi? = "gran portal" o "gran puerto" quizá) como una civilización "superior", sino como una civilización comparable y "bárbara" (en el sentido de "extranjera" o "exótica"). Estoy muy seguro de que la Atlántida es un sitio real pero está en tierra firme (aunque sí que fue barrida por un terrible tsunami seguramente c. 1100 aEC) y era una civilización "típica" a nivel de desarrollo del Calcolítico y Edad de Bronce (duró milenios y fue muy influyente pero hace falta más investigación).

      Ver: https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2014/05/i-just-found-my-very-old-first.html

      Estoy ahora incluso bastante convencido de que la guerra que declararon, según Platón, a las civilizaciones del "golfo interior" (Mediterráneo Oriental) es al menos plausible, porque el colapso de Egipto y Grecia es contemporáneo (c. 1070 aEC) y, en el caso de Egipto, vemos como los bereberes (Meswesh) se hacen con el control del Delta, mientras que en el caso de Grecia vemos como únicamente Atenas (a la que Platón atribuye la derrota de los atlantes) sobrevió al desastre intacta. Ese es efectivamente el momento final de la Edad de Bronce (excepto por el Atlántico, donde dura unos siglos más)y es probable que sea así porque el colapso de Atlántida seguramente supuso el fin del comercio del estaño, el metal estratégico de esa época, que casi sólo se originaba en Afganistán (ruta controlada por los asirios) y en el noroeste de Iberia (ruta controlada por Atlántida en gran medida). Al quebrarse la globalización de la Edad de Bronce de manera catastrófica, el hierro (aún bastante mediocre en tecnología) se convirtió en la única alternativa de fácil acceso y pronto fue mejorado en acero cada vez de mejor calidad.

      Delete

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