Indo-European migrations

Expansion of Indo-European languages

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The Indo-European migrations were the migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, as proposed by contemporary scholarship, and the subsequent migrations of people speaking further developed Indo-European languages, which explains why the Indo-European languages are spoken in a large area in Eurasia, from India and Iran to Europe.

While there can be no direct evidence of prehistoric languages,  both [the existence of Proto-Indo-European] and [the dispersal of its daughter dialects] through <wide-ranging migrations and elite-dominance dispersal> are inferred (推論［推察・推測］する、察する/infə́ːr) / through a synthesis of data from linguistics, archaeology, anthropology and genetics. Comparative linguistics describes the similarities between various languages and the linguistic laws at play in the changes in those languages. Archaeological data traces the spread of cultures presumed to be created by speakers of Proto-Indo-European in several stages: from the hypothesized locations of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, into their later locations of Western Europe, Central, South and Eastern Asia by migrations and by language shift through elite-recruitment as described by anthropological research. Recent genetic research has increasingly contributed to understanding of the relations between various prehistoric cultures.

According to the widely held Kurgan hypothesis, or renewed Steppe hypothesis, the oldest branch (Proto-Indo-European languageから枝分かれしたのでbranchという表現を使用している) were the Anatolian languages (Hittite language and Luwian language) which split from ＜archaic PIE＞：the earliest proto-Indo-European speech community (archaic [〔歴史の〕初期の、古代の/ɑrkéiik] PIE), which itself developed in the Volga basin (流域/béisn). The second-oldest branch, the Tocharian languages, were spoken in the Tarim Basin (present-day western China), and split-off from ＜early PIE＞, which was spoken on the eastern Pontic steppe. The bulk of the Indo-European languages developed from ＜late PIE＞, which was spoken at the Yamnaya horizon (領域、範囲/həráizn) in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, around 3000 BCE.

Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakersという集団がPontic–Caspian steppe地域に形成され、その後、その集団がmigrationsという形で、Eurasia, India, Iran, Europeの各地に拡散していく過程で、本来のProto-Indo-European languageから様々なIndo-European languagesに変化していった。

Pontic-Caspian Steppe

Genetic research has identified this region (Pontic-Caspian Steppe Region) as the most probable place where horses were first domesticated. According to the most prevalent theory in Indo-European studies, the Kurgan hypothesis, the Pontic–Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language.

The steppe extends roughly from the Danube to the Ural River. In this map is shown the region known as Pontic Steppe, which is the biggest portion of the whole Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

Urheimat (原郷とは言語学において、ある語族の祖語の拡散の始まった場所をさす) of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers

late PIEの時期(3000 BCE)から、migrationが盛んとなり、インドヨーロッパ語族(Indo-European [IE] language speakers)がEurasia, India, Iran, Europeの各地へ拡散が始まった初期の状況が以下。

●   Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic may have developed from Indo-European languages coming from Central Europe to Western Europe after the 3rd millennium BCE (The 3rd millennium BC spanned the years 3000 through 2001 BC) Yamnaya migrations into the Danube Valley.

●   Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic may have developed east of the Carpathian mountains, in present-day Ukraine, moving north and spreading with the Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (3rd millennium BCE).

●   The Proto-Indo-Iranian language and culture probably emerged within the Sintashta culture (circa 2100–1800 BCE), at the eastern border of the Abashevo culture, which in turn developed from the Corded Ware-related Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture. The Sintashta culture grew into the Andronovo culture (ca. 1900–800 BCE), Indo-Aryans moved into the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (ca. 2400–1600 BCE)
＜The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilization is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilization of Central Asia＞
and spread to the Levant (Mitanni), northern India (Vedic people, ca. 1500 BCE), and China (Wusun). The Iranian languages spread back throughout the steppes into Ancient Iran with the Parthians and Persians from ca. 800 BCE.

World Population

ところで、Yamnaya文化が存在した、紀元前3600年ごろから紀元前2200年ごろにかけて、migrationしていった人口も含めて、Yamnaya文化圏の人口はどのくらいだったのか？という事が知りたかったが、とりあえず、当時の世界人口の予測値は、1000万人から2500万人前後と予測されている (下のグラフ) 。

Indo-European languages

Indo-European languagesという概念の発生

The Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (1612–1653) noted similarities between various European languages, Sanskrit, and Persian. Over a century later, after learning Sanskrit in India, Sir William Jones detected equivalent correspondences; he described them in his Third Anniversary Discourse to the Asiatic Society in 1786, concluding that all these languages originated from the same source. From his initial intuitions there developed the hypothesis of an Indo-European language family consisting of several hundred related languages and dialects. The 2009 Ethnologue (The Ethnologue is a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries.) estimates a total of about 439 Indo-European languages and dialects, about half of these (221) belonging to the Indo-Aryan subbranch based in South Asia. The Indo-European family includes most of the major current languages of Europe, of the Iranian plateau, of the northern half of the Indian Subcontinent, and of Sri Lanka, with kindred (同類の、類似の/kíndrəd) languages also formerly spoken in parts of ancient Anatolia and of Central Asia. With written attestations (証明、認証) appearing from the Bronze Age in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean Greek, the Indo-European family is significant in historical linguistics as possessing the second-longest recorded history, after the Afroasiatic family ＜アフロ・アジア語族は、アラビア半島を中心とする西アジアおよび北アフリカに分布する語族。古くはセム＝ハム語族（または「ハム＝セム語族」）と呼ばれ、現在もこの語を使う学者もあるが、ひとつのまとまりをもつ「ハム語派」の存在は否定されている＞.

Almost 3 billion native speakers use Indo-European languages, making them by far the largest recognised language family. Of the 20 languages with the largest numbers of native speakers according to Ethnologue, twelve are Indo-European – ①Spanish, ②English, ③Hindi, ④Portuguese, ⑤Bengali, ⑥Russian, ⑦German, ⑧Punjabi,
⑨Marathi ＜マラーティー語は、インド・ヨーロッパ語族のインド・アーリア語派に属し、インド西部のマハーラーシュトラ州の公用語である。またインド連邦レベルでも憲法の第8付則に定められた22の指定言語のひとつである。この言語を話す人々はマハーラーシュトラ州だけでなく、隣接するゴア州、グジャラート州、アーンドラ・プラデーシュ州などにも多数居住し、全体で、9,000万人ほどの言語使用者がいると算定されている。マラータ語、マラーター語ともよぶ。マラーティー語は約2000年前に成立した。この言語は日本語にとても似ているともされる。＞
, ⑩French,
⑪Urdu ＜ウルドゥー語：北インドを中心に、パキスタンに約1300万人、インドに約6000万人の母語話者がおり、話し言葉レベルでの話者の人口はヒンディー語と共に、中国語、英語につぐ世界第3位とされる。パキスタンの国語になっている（公用語は英語）。インドでは、憲法の第8附則において定められた22の指定言語のひとつであり、インド最北部のジャンムー・カシミール州では州の唯一の公用語とされ、北部のビハール州、デリー連邦直轄地、ウッタル・プラデーシュ州、および中南部のテランガーナ州では追加公用語(additional official language)となっている。インドの公用語であるヒンディー語と同系の言語であり、両者ともヒンドゥスターニー語デリー方言の社会的変種に属し（複数中心地言語）、ウルドゥー語はそのイスラム教徒版標準語と位置付けられる（一方のヒンディー語はヒンドゥー教徒版標準語となる）。表記法は異なるが文法や基本語彙は同一であるため、多くの場合相互に理解可能である。ただし、ウルドゥー語はヒンディー語に比して宗教的な条件からペルシア語やアラビア語からの借用語がより多く使われているのに対し、ヒンディー語は独立闘争期の言語純化運動の影響でサンスクリットからの（再）借用語がより多く、専門的な内容になるほど相互理解可能度は下がる＞,
and ⑫Italian – accounting for over 1.7 billion native speakers.

＜Indo-European languagesの系統図を2つ、Indo-European languagesの地理的分布図を2つ以下に示した＞

Indo-European languagesの系統図

Indo-European languagesの地理的分布図

Development of the Indo-European languages

Proto-Indo-European language

The (late) Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of a common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, as spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans after the split-off of Anatolian and Tocharian. PIE was the first proposed proto-language to be widely accepted by linguists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing it than any other proto-language and it is by far the most well-understood of all proto-languages of its age. During the 19th century, the vast majority of linguistic work was devoted to reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European or its daughter proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic, and most of the current techniques of historical linguistics (e. g. the comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction) were developed as a result. Scholars estimate that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, though estimates by different authorities can vary by more than a millennium. The most popular hypothesis for the origin and spread of the language is the Kurgan hypothesis, which postulates an origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. The existence of PIE was first postulated in the 18th century by Sir William Jones, who observed the similarities between Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin. By the early 20th century, well-defined descriptions of PIE had been developed that are still accepted today (with some refinements). The largest developments of the 20th century have been the discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian languages and the acceptance of
the laryngeal theory
＜ The laryngeal theory is a widely accepted hypothesis in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes (《言語学》音素/fóunìm) beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the hypothesis maintained that there were sounds / in Proto-Indo-European / that no longer existed in any of the daughter languages, and thus, could not be reconstructed merely by comparing sounds among those daughter languages. These phonemes, according to the most-accepted variant of the theory, were laryngeal (喉頭部の、喉頭音の/ləríndʒiəl) consonants (子音/kɑ́nsənənt) of an indeterminate place of articulation (明瞭な発音/ ɑrtìkjuléiʃən) towards the back of the mouth. The theory aims to: Produce greater regularity in the reconstruction of PIE phonology (音韻論/founɑ́lədʒi) than from the reconstruction that is produced by the comparative method. Extend the general occurrence of the Indo-European ablaut (母音交代/ǽblàut) to syllables (音節/síləbl) with reconstructed vowel (母音/váuəl) phonemes other than *e or *o.＞.
The Anatolian languages have also spurred a major re-evaluation of theories concerning the development of various shared Indo-European language features and the extent to which these features were present in PIE itself. PIE is thought to have had a complex system of morphology (《言語学》形態論/mɔrfɑ́lədʒi) that included inflections (言語学》語尾変化/inflékʃən),suffixing (接尾辞をつける/sʌ́fiks) of roots, as in who, whom, whose, and ablaut (母音交代/ǽblàut) vowel alterations, as in sing, sang, sung. Nouns used a sophisticated system of declension (語形変化◆特に名詞や形容詞の/diklénʃən) and verbs used a similarly sophisticated system of conjugation (〔動詞の〕活用/kɑ̀ndʒəgéiʃən).

Phases of Proto-Indo-European

• ＜Archaic (初期の、古代の/ɑrkéiik) PIE＞ for "the last common ancestor of the Anatolian and non-Anatolian IE branches";

• ＜Early, core, or Post-Anatolian, PIE＞ for "the last common ancestor of the non-Anatolian PIE languages, including Tocharian";

• ＜Late PIE＞ for "the common ancestor of all other IE branches".

The Anatolian languages are the first Indo-European language family to have split off from the main group. Due to the archaic elements preserved in the now extinct Anatolian languages, they may be a "cousin" of Proto-Indo-European, instead of a "daughter", but Anatolian is generally regarded as an early offshoot (〔社会集団からの〕分派/ɑ́ːfʃùːt) of the Indo-European language group.

Genesis of Indo-European language

Using a mathematical analysis borrowed from evolutionary biology, Don Ringe and Tandy Warnow propose the following evolutionary tree of Indo-European branches:

• Pre-Anatolian (before 3500 BCE)

• Pre-Tocharian

• Pre-Celtic and Pre-Italic (before 2500 BCE)

• Pre-Germanic?

• Pre-Armenian and Pre-Greek (after 2500 BCE)

• Pre-Germanic?

• Pre-Balto-Slavic

• Proto-Indo-Iranian (2000 BCE)

David Anthony, following the methodology of Ringe and Warnow, proposes the following sequence:

• Pre-Anatolian (4200 BCE)

• Pre-Tocharian (3700 BCE)

• Pre-Germanic (3300 BCE)

• Pre-Celtic and Pre-Italic (3000 BCE)

• Pre-Armenian (2800 BCE)

• Pre-Balto-Slavic (2800 BCE)

• Pre-Greek (2500 BCE)

• Proto-Indo-Iranian (2200 BCE); split between Iranian and Old Indic 1800 BCE

Archaeology (考古学/ɑ̀rkiɑ́lədʒi): migrations from the steppe Urheimat (原郷とは言語学において、ある語族の祖語の拡散の始まった場所をさす。いわば語族の故郷、起源地というべき場所のことである。)

Archaeological research has unearthed a broad range of historical cultures that can be related to the spread of the Indo-European languages. Various steppe-cultures show strong similarities with the Yamna-horizon (領域、範囲/ həráizn) at the Pontic steppe
＜The Pontic–Caspian steppe (sometimes called the "Caspian steppe" or "Pontic steppe") is the steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea to the northern area around the Caspian Sea.＞,
while the time-range of several Asian cultures also coincides with the proposed trajectory (軌跡/trədʒéktəri) and time-range of the Indo-European migrations.

According to the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis or Steppe theory, the Indo-European language and culture spread in several stages from the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat in the Eurasian Pontic steppes into Western Europe, Central and South Asia, through folk migrations and so-called elite recruitment. This process started with the introduction of cattle at the Eurasian steppes around 5200 BCE, and the mobilisation of the steppe herder cultures with the introduction of wheeled wagons and horse-back riding, which led to a new kind of culture. Between 4500 and 2500 BCE, this "horizon", which includes several distinctive cultures culminating in the Yamnaya culture, spread out over the Pontic steppes, and outside into Europe and Asia. Anthony regards the Khvalynsk culture as the culture that established the roots of Early Proto-Indo-European around 4500 BCE in the lower and middle Volga.

Early migrations at ca. 4200 BCE brought steppe herders into the lower Danube valley, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe. According to Anthony, the Anatolian branch, to which the Hittites belong, probably arrived in Anatolia from the Danube valley. 

Migrations eastward from the Repin culture ＜In the Volga–Ural region, Repin features are found at transitory camps and burial mounds in the nearby Volga and Ural areas during the Middle and Late Eneolithic. These findings point to the Repin semi-nomadic culture diffusing into the Cis-Ural region with settlers.＞ founded the Afanasevo culture which developed into the Tocharians.  Tocharian languages were recorded in Buddhist texts dating to 500-1000 CE in the Tarim basin. Migrations southward may have founded the Maykop culture, but the Maykop origins could also have been in the Caucasus.

Late PIE is related to the Yamnaya culture. Proposals for its origins point to both the eastern Khvalynsk and the western Sredny Stog culture; according to Anthony it originated in the Don-Volga area at ca. 3400 BCE.

The western Indo-European languages (Germanic, Celtic, Italic) probably spread into Europe from the Balkan-Danubian complex, a set of cultures in Southeastern Europe. At ca. 3000 BCE a migration of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamna-culture took place toward the west along the Danube river, Slavic and Baltic developed a little later at the middle Dniepr (present-day Ukraine), moving north toward the Baltic coast. The Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (third millennium BCE), / which arose in the contact zone east of the Carpathian mountains, / materialized with a massive migration from the Eurasian steppes to Central Europe, probably played a central role in the spread of the pre-Germanic and pre-Balto-Slavic dialects.

The eastern part of the Corded Ware culture contributed to the Sintashta culture (c. 2100–1800 BCE), where the Indo-Iranian language and culture emerged, and where the chariot (一人乗り二輪馬車［戦車］/tʃǽriət) was invented. The Indo-Iranian language and culture was further developed in the Andronovo culture (c. 1800–800 BCE), and influenced by the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (c. 2400–1600 BCE). The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians, whereafter Indo-Aryan groups moved 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.

Anthropology (人類学◆人類の起源と、人類がどのように発達してきたのかを、主に社会的・文化的側面から探求する学問分野/æ̀nθrəpɑ́lədʒi): Elite recruitment and language shift

Anthropology: Elite recruitment and language shift

According to Marija Gimbutas, the process of "Indo-Europeanization" of Europe was essentially a cultural, not a physical transformation. It is understood as a migration of Yamnaya people to Europe, as military victors, successfully imposing a new administrative system, language and religion upon the “indigenous groups”, referred to by Gimbutas as “Old Europeans”. The Yamnaya people's social organization, especially a patrilinear (父方の、父系の/pæ̀trilíniə) and patriarchal (家父長の、〔社会などが〕男性に支配された/pèitriɑ́rkəl) structure, greatly facilitated their effectiveness in war. According to Gimbutas, the social structure of Old Europe "contrasted with the Indo-European Kurgans who were mobile and non-egalitarian (平等主義の/igæ̀litέəriən)" with a hierarchically organised tripartite (3者が参加（加盟）した/ tràipɑ́rtait) social structure; the IE (Indo-European) were warlike, lived in smaller villages at times, and had an ideology that centered on the virile (男らしい、男性的な/vírl) male, reflected also in their pantheon (殿堂/pǽnθiɑ̀n). In contrast, the indigenous groups of Old Europe had neither a warrior class nor horses.

Indo-European languages probably spread through language shifts. Small groups can change a larger cultural area, and elite male dominance by small groups may have led to a language shift in northern India.

When Indo-Europeans expanded into Europe from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, they encountered existing populations that spoke dissimilar, unrelated languages. Based on evidence from presumably non-Indo-European lexicon (〔特定の分野の〕語彙/léksikɑ̀n) in the European branches of Indo-European, Iversen and Kroonen (2017) postulate a group of "Early European Neolithic"
＜新石器時代◆およそ紀元前8000～5000年の間の、定住して農業を行い、磨製石器や武器の使用が始まった時代。＞
languages that is associated with the Neolithic spread of agriculturalists into Europe. Early European Neolithic languages were supplanted (置き換える、取って代わる/səplǽnt) with the arrival of Indo-Europeans, but according to Iversen and Kroonen left their trace in a layer of mostly agricultural vocabulary in the Indo-European languages of Europe.

According to Edgar Polomé, 30% of non-Indo-European substratum (《言語学》基層（言語）◆征服された言語（被征服言語）が、征服した言語に対して影響を与えている場合の、被征服言語を指す言葉/sʌbstrɑ́ːtəm) found in modern German derives from non-Indo-European-speakers of Funnelbeaker Culture indigenous to southern Scandinavia. When Yamnaya Indo-European speakers came into contact with the indigenous peoples during the third millennium BCE, they came to dominate the local populations yet parts of the indigenous lexicon persisted in the formation of Proto-Germanic, thus lending to the Germanic languages the status of Indo-Europeanized languages. According again to Marija Gimbutas, Corded Ware cultures migration to Scandinavia "synthesized" with the Funnelbeaker culture, giving birth to the Proto-Germanic language.

David Anthony, in his "revised Steppe hypothesis" notes that the spread of the Indo-European languages probably did not happen through "chain-type folk migrations (When migrants sponsor other family members for migration – such as parents, children and siblings – who can then sponsor other migrants themselves, and so on…)", but by the introduction of these languages by ritual and political elites, which were emulated (まねる、模倣する、見習う/émjəlèit) by large groups of people, a process which he calls "elite recruitment".

According to Parpola, local elites joined "small but powerful groups" of Indo-European speaking migrants. These migrants had an attractive social system and good weapons, and luxury goods which marked their status and power. Joining these groups was attractive for local leaders, since it strengthened their position, and gave them additional advantages. These new members were further incorporated by matrimonial (婚姻の) alliances.

According to Joseph Salmons, language shift is facilitated by "dislocation" of language communities, in which the elite is taken over (乗っ取られる). According to Salmons, this change is facilitated by "systematic changes in community structure", in which a local community becomes incorporated in a larger social structure.

Phases of Proto-Indo-European

• ＜Archaic (初期の、古代の/ɑrkéiik) PIE＞ for "the last common ancestor of the Anatolian and non-Anatolian IE branches";

• ＜Early, core, or Post-Anatolian, PIE＞ for "the last common ancestor of the non-Anatolian PIE languages, including Tocharian";

• ＜Late PIE＞ for "the common ancestor of all other IE branches".

1. Archaic (初期の、古代の/ɑrkéiik) Proto-Indo-European

Pre-Yamnaya steppe cultures

According to Anthony, the development of the Proto-Indo-European cultures started with the introduction of cattle at the Pontic-Caspian steppes. Until ca. 5200–5000 BCE the Pontic-Caspian steppes were populated by hunter-gatherers. According to Anthony, the first cattle herders arrived from the Danube Valley at ca. 5800–5700 BCE, descendants from the first European farmers. They formed the Criş culture (5800–5300 BCE), creating a cultural frontier at the Prut-Dniester (黒海西岸に注ぐ河川) watershed. The adjacent Bug–Dniester culture (6300–5500 BCE) was a local culture, from where cattle breeding spread to the steppe peoples. The Dniepr Rapids area (黒海北部) was the next part of the Pontic-Caspian steppes to shift to cattle-herding. It was the densely populated area of the Pontic-Caspian steppes at the time, and had been inhabited by various hunter-gatherer populations since the end of the Ice Age. From ca.5800–5200 it was inhabited by the first phase of the Dnieper-Donets culture (黒海クリミア半島の北部・北西部), a hunter-gatherer culture contemporaneous (同時期に起こる/kəntèmpəréiniəs) with the Bug-Dniestr culture.

At ca. 5200–5000 BCE the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture (6000–3500 BCE) (aka Tripolye culture), presumed to be non-Indo-European speaking, appears east of the Carpathian mountains, moving the cultural frontier to the Southern Bug valley (黒海の北西部), while the foragers (採食者) at the Dniepr Rapids shifted to cattle herding, marking the shift to Dniepr-Donets II (5200/5000 – 4400/4200 BCE). The Dniepr-Donets culture (黒海の北部地域) kept cattle not only for ritual sacrifices, but also for their daily diet. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE), located at the middle Volga, which was connected with the Danube Valley by trade networks, also had cattle and sheep, but they were "more important in ritual sacrifices than in the diet". The Samara culture (early 5th millennium BCE), north of the Khvalynsk culture, interacted with the Khvalynsk culture, while the archaeological findings seem related to those of the Dniepr-Donets II Culture.

The Sredny Stog culture (4400–3300 BCE) appears at the same location as the Dniepr-Donets culture, but shows influences from people who came from the Volga river region. According to Vasiliev, the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures show strong similarities, suggesting "a broad Sredny Stog-Khvalynsk horizon” embracing the entire Pontic-Caspian during the Eneolithic.
＜銅器時代（どうきじだい）は、石器の使用に併行して金属器が使用された、人類文化の発展段階を指す用語である。金石併用時代、純銅器時代とも呼ばれる。青銅器時代に先行し、錫を含まない自然銅を鍛造成形して使用した段階である＞
From this horizon arose the Yamnaya culture, which also spread over the entire Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Europe: migration into the Danube Valley (4200 BCE)

According to Anthony, the Pre-Yamnaya steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe, their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of the kind partly preserved later in Anatolian."

Anatolia: Archaic Proto-Indo-European (Hittites; 4500–3500 BCE)

The Anatolians were a group of distinct Indo-European peoples who spoke the Anatolian languages and shared a common culture. The Anatolians' earliest linguistic and historical attestation (真実であることの〕証明、認証/æ̀təstéiʃən) are as names mentioned in Assyrian mercantile (商業の、商人の/mə́ːrkəntàil) texts from 19th-century BCE Kanesh.

The Anatolian languages were a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. The archaeological discovery of the archives (保存記録/ɑ́ːkaiv) of the Hittites and the classification of the Hittite language to a separate Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages caused a sensation among historians, forcing a re-evaluation of Near Eastern history and Indo-European linguistics.

Damgaard et al. (2018) note that "among comparative linguists, a Balkan route for the introduction of Anatolian IE is generally considered more likely than a passage through the Caucasus, due, for example, to greater Anatolian IE presence and language diversity in the west."

Mathieson et al. note the absence of "large amounts" of steppe-ancestry in the Balkan peninsula and Anatolia, which may indicate that archaic PIE originated in the Caucasus or Iran, but also state that "it remains possible that Indo-European languages were spread through southeastern Europe into Anatolia without large-scale population movement or admixture."

Damgaard et al. (2018), found "no correlation between genetic ancestry and exclusive ethnic or political identities among the populations of Bronze Age Central Anatolia, as has previously been hypothesized." According to them, the Hittites lacked steppe-ancestry, arguing that "the Anatolian clade of IE languages did not derive from a large-scale Copper Age/Early Bronze Age population movement from the steppe," contrary Anthony's proposal of a large-scale migration via the Balkan as proposed in 2007. The first IE-speakers may have reached Anatolia "by way of commercial contacts and small-scale movement during the Bronze Age." They further state that their findings are "consistent with historical models of cultural hybridity and 'middle ground'
＜the metaphor of the “middle ground” to describe mutual accommodation, social blurring (ぼやけた), and cultural hybridity＞
in a multicultural and multilingual but genetically homogeneous Bronze Age Anatolia," as proposed by other researchers.

According to Kroonen et al. (2018), in the linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al. (2018), DNA studies in Anatolia "show no indication of a large-scale intrusion of a steppe population", but do "fit the recently developed consensus among linguists and historians that the speakers of the Anatolian languages established themselves in Anatolia by gradual infiltration and cultural assimilation." They further note that this lends support to the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, according to which both proto-Anatolian and proto-Indo-European split-off from a common mother language "no later than the 4th millennium BCE."

Time-frame

Although the Hittites are first attested (証明される/ətést) in the 2nd millennium BCE, the Anatolian branch seems to have separated at a very early stage from Proto-Indo-European, or may have developed from an older Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor. Considering a steppe origin for archaic PIE, together with the Tocharians
＜The Tocharians, or Tokharians (US:/toʊˈkɛəriən), were speakers of Tocharian languages, [Indo-European languages known from around 7600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD], found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China)＞
the Anatolians constituted the first known dispersal of Indo-European out of the Eurasian steppe. Although those archaic PIE-speakers had wagons, they probably reached Anatolia before Indo-Europeans had learned to use chariots for war. It is likely that their arrival was one of gradual settlement and not as an invading army.

According to Mallory, it is likely that the Anatolians reached the Near East from the north, either via the Balkans or the Caucasus in the 3rd millennium BCE. According to Anthony, if it separated from Proto-Indo-European, it likely did so between 4500 and 3500 BCE. According to Anthony, descendants of archaic Proto-Indo-European steppe herders, who moved into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BCE, later moved into Anatolia, at an unknown time, but maybe as early as 3,000 BCE. According to Parpola, the appearance of Indo-European speakers from Europe into Anatolia, and the appearance of Hittite, is related to later migrations of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamna-culture into the Danube Valley at ca. 2800 BCE, which is in line with the "customary" assumption that the Anatolian Indo-European language was introduced into Anatolia somewhere in the third millennium BCE (The 3rd millennium BC spanned the years 3000 through 2001 BC).

Northern Caucasus: The Maykop culture (3700–3000 BCE)

The Maykop culture, c. 3700–3000 BCE, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. According to Mallory and Adams, migrations southward founded the Maykop culture (c. 3500–2500 BCE). Yet, according to Mariya Ivanova the Maykop origins were on the Iranian Plateau, while kurgans

＜A kurgan is a type of tumulus (古墳、塚/ túːmjələs) constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asia and Eastern, Southeast, Western and Northern Europe during the 3rd millennium BC.＞

The earliest kurgans date to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus,[2] and researchers associate these with the Indo-Europeans.[3] Kurgans were built in the Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Antiquity and Middle Ages, with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia.＞

 from the beginning of the 4th millennium at Soyuqbulaq in Azerbaijan, which belong to the Leyla-Tepe culture, show parallels with the Maykop kurgans. According to Museyibli, "the Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus." This model was confirmed by a genetic study published in 2018, which attributed the origin of Maykop individuals to a migration of Eneolithic 
＜銅器時代（どうきじだい）は、石器の使用に併行して金属器が使用された、人類文化の発展段階を指す用語である。金石併用時代、純銅器時代とも呼ばれる。青銅器時代に先行し、錫を含まない自然銅を鍛造成形して使用した段階である＞
farmers from western Georgia towards the north side of the Caucasus. It has been suggested that the Maykop people spoke a North Caucasian, rather than an Indo-European, language.

2. Early Proto-Indo-European

Afanasevo culture (3500–2500 BCE)

The Afanasievo culture (3300 to 2500 BCE) is the earliest Eneolithic archaeological culture found until now in south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin, Altay and Eastern Kazakhstan. It originated with a migration of people from the pre-Yamnaya Repin culture, at the Don river, and is related to the Tocharians.

Radiocarbon gives dates as early as 3705 BCE on wooden tools and 2874 BCE on human remains for the Afanasievo culture. The earliest of these dates has now been rejected, giving a date of around 3300 BCE for the start of the culture.

The Tocharians

The Tocharians, or "Tokharians" (/təˈkɛəriənz/ or /təˈkɑːriənz/) were inhabitants of medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). Their Tocharian languages (a branch of the Indo-European family) are known from manuscripts from the 6th to 8th centuries CE, after which they were supplanted (置き換える、取って代わる/səplǽnt) by the Turkic languages of the Uyghur tribes. These people were called

The Tocharians are thought to have developed from the Afanasevo culture of Siberia (c. 3500–2500 BCE). "Tocharian may have been plausibly (〔人が話や説明などをするときに〕もっともらしく/plɔ́zəbli) introduced to the Dzungarian Basin by Afanasievo migrants"  i.e. "the Afanasievo herders of the Altai–Sayan region in southern Siberia (3150–2750 BC), who in turn have close genetic ties with the Yamnaya (3500–2500 BC) of the Pontic–Caspian steppe located 3,000 km to the west".

The Indo-European eastward expansion in the 2nd millennium BCE had a significant influence on Chinese culture, introducing the chariot, horse burials, the domesticated horse, iron technology, and wheeled vehicles, fighting styles, head-and-hoof rituals, art motifs and myths. By the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the dominant people as far east as the Altai Mountains southward to the northern outlets of the Tibetan Plateau were anthropologically Caucasian, [with the northern part speaking Iranian Scythian languages and the southern parts Tocharian languages], having Mongoloid populations as their northeastern neighbors. These two groups (Caucasian vs Mongoloid populations) were in competition with each other until the latter overcame the former. The turning point occurred around the 5th to 4th centuries BCE with a gradual Mongolization of Siberia, while Eastern Central Asia (East Turkistan) remained Caucasian and Indo-European-speaking until well into the 1st millennium CE.

＜The political history of the Indo-Europeans of Inner Asia from the 2nd century B.C. to the 5th century A.D. is indeed a glorious period. It is their movement which brought China into contact with the Western world as well as with India. These Indo-Europeans held the key to world trade for a long period... In the process of their own transformation, these Indo-Europeans influenced the world around them more than any other people before the rise of Islam.＞
                                                                                           — A. K. Narain

The Yuezhi

The Sinologist Edwin G. Pulleyblank has suggested that the Yuezhi, the Wusun, the Dayuan, the Kangju and the people of Yanqi, could have been Tocharian-speaking (Tocharian is a branch of the Indo-European family). Of these the Yuezhi are generally held to have been Tocharians. The Yuezhi were originally settled in the arid (〔土地が〕荒れた、不毛の、〔気候や場所が〕乾いた、乾燥した) grasslands of the eastern Tarim Basin area, in what is today Xinjiang and western Gansu, in China.

At the peak of their power in the 3rd century BC, the Yuezhi are believed to have dominated the areas north of the Qilian Mountains (including the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria), the Altai region, the greater part of Mongolia, and the upper waters of the Yellow River. This territory has been referred to as the Yuezhi Empire. Their eastern neighbors were the Donghu. While the Yuezhi were pressuring the Xiongnu from the west, the Donghu were doing the same from the east. A large number of peoples, including the Wusun, the states of the Tarim Basin, and possibly the Qiang, were under the control of the Yuezhi. They were considered the predominant power in Central Asia. Evidence from Chinese records indicate the peoples of Central Asia as far west as the Parthian Empire were under the sway (支配) of the Yuezhi. This means that the territory of the Yuezhi Empire roughly corresponded to that of the later First Turkic Khaganate. The Pazyryk burials of the Ukok Plateau
＜The Pazyryk burials are a number of Scythian (Saka) Iron Age tombs found in the Pazyryk Valley and the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountains, Siberia, south of the modern city of Novosibirsk, Russia; the site is close to the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. c. 300 BCE.＞ 
coincide with the apex (絶頂期/éipèks) of power of the Yuezhi, and the burials have therefore been attributed to them, which means that the Altai region was part of the Yuezhi Empire.
After the Yuezhi were defeated by the Xiongnu, in the 2nd century BCE, a small group, known as the Little Yuezhi, fled to the south, later spawning the Jie people who dominated the Later Zhao until their complete extermination by Ran Min in the Wei–Jie war. The majority of the Yuezhi however migrated west to the Ili Valley, where they displaced the Sakas (Scythians). Driven from the Ili Valley shortly afterwards by the Wusun, the Yuezhi migrated to Sogdia and then Bactria, where they are often identified with the Tókharoi (Τοχάριοι) and Asioi of Classical sources. They then expanded into northern South Asia, where one branch of the Yuezhi founded the Kushan Empire. The Kushan empire stretched from Turfan in the Tarim Basin to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain at its greatest extent, and played an important role in the development of the Silk Road and the transmission of Buddhism to China. Tocharian languages continued to be spoken in the city-states of the Tarim Basin, only becoming extinct in the Middle Ages.

3. Late Proto-Indo-European

Late PIE is related to the Yamnaya culture and expansion, from which all IE-languages except the Anatolian languages and Tocharian descend.

Bronze Age spread of Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry into two subcontinents—Europe and South Asia, and location of the Afanasievo culture, which has the same genetic characteristics as the Yamnayas.

Yamnaya-culture

According to Mallory 1991, "The origin of the Yamnaya culture is still a topic of debate," with proposals for its origins pointing to both Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE) (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture (ca.3950–3300 BCE) in the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the closely related Sredny Stog culture (c.4500–3500 BCE) in the western Pontic-Caspian steppe, preceded the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BCE). According to Anthony, the Yamnaya culture originated in the Don-Volga area at ca. 3400 BCE, arguing that late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamnaya pottery.

The Yamnaya horizon (a.k.a./also known as/ Pit Grave culture) spread quickly across the Pontic-Caspian steppes between ca. 3400 and 3200 BCE. It was an adaptation to a climate change that occurred between 3500 and 3000 BCE, in which the steppes became drier and cooler. Herds needed to be moved frequently to feed them sufficiently, and the use of wagons and horse-back riding made this possible, leading to "a new, more mobile form of pastoralism". It was accompanied by new social rules and institutions, to regulate the local migrations in the steppes, creating a new social awareness of a distinct culture, and of "cultural Others" who did not participate in these new institutions.

According to Anthony, "the spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic-Caspian steppes." Anthony further notes that "the Yamnaya horizon is the visible archaeological expression of a social adjustment to high mobility – the invention of the political infrastructure to manage larger herds from mobile homes based in the steppes." The Yamnaya horizon represents the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society with stone idols, predominantly practising animal husbandry (農業、畜産/hʌ́zbəndri) in permanent settlements protected by hillforts (丘上集落、丘のとりで◆ヨーロッパ特にケルト文化圏で、新石器時代の後期から作られ始め、青銅器時代を経て鉄器時代に全盛期を迎える丘の上に作られたとりで/hílfɔ̀ːt), subsisting (生計を立てる、生活する/səbsíst) on agriculture, and fishing along rivers. According to Gimbutas, contact of the Yamnaya horizon with late Neolithic (新石器時代◆およそ紀元前8000～5000年の間の、定住して農業を行い、磨製石器や武器の使用が始まった時代/nìːəlíθik) Europe cultures results in the "kurganized" Globular Amphora
＜The Globular Amphora culture, c. 3400–2800 BC, is an archaeological culture in Central Europe. Marija Gimbutas assumed an Indo-European origin, though this is contradicted by newer genetic studies that show a connection to the earlier wave of Neolithic farmers rather than to invaders from the Ukrainian and western-southern Russian steppes.＞
and Baden cultures.
＜The Baden culture was a Chalcolithic culture (The end of the Neolithic period saw the use of metals. Several cultures were based on the use of copper and stone implements. Such a culture is called Chalcolithic, which means the copper-stone phase.) from c. 3520–2690 BC. It was found in Central and Southeast Europe, and is in particular known from Moravia (Czech Republic), Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, northern Serbia, western Romania and eastern Austria.＞

The Maykop culture (3700–3000) emerges somewhat earlier in the northern Caucasus. Although considered by Gimbutas as an outgrowth of the steppe cultures, it is related to the development of Mesopotamia, and Anthony does not consider it to be a Proto-Indo-European culture. The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to the Yamnaya horizon.

Between 3100 and 2600 BCE the Yamnaya people spread into the Danube Valley as far as Hungary. According to Anthony, this migration probably gave rise to Proto-Celtic and Pre-Italic. Pre-Germanic dialects may have developed between the Dniestr (west Ukraine) and the Vistula (Poland) at c. 3100–2800 BCE, and spread with the Corded Ware culture. Slavic and Baltic developed at the middle Dniepr (present-day Ukraine) at c. 2800 BCE, also spreading with the Corded Ware horizon.

Post-Yamnaya

In the northern Don-Volga area the Yamnaya horizon was followed by the Poltavka culture (2700–2100 BCE), while the Corded Ware culture extended eastwards, giving rise to the Sintashta culture (2100–1800). The Sintashta culture extended the Indo-European culture zone east of the Ural mountains, giving rise to Proto-Indo-Iranian and the subsequent spread of the Indo-Iranian languages toward India and the Iranian plateau.

Europe

Decline of neolithic (新石器時代◆およそ紀元前8000～5000年の間の、定住して農業を行い、磨製石器や武器の使用が始まった時代/nìːəlíθik) populations

Between ca. 4000 and 3000 BCE, neolithic populations in western Europe declined, probably due to the plague and other viral hemorrhagic fevers. This decline was followed by the migrations of Indo-European populations into western Europe, transforming the genetic make-up of the western populations.

Three autosomal (常染色体の) genetic studies in 2015 gave support to the Kurgan hypothesis of Gimbutas regarding the proto-Indo-European homeland. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a expanded from the West Eurasian Steppe, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.
＜A haplotype is a group of alleles [多くの真核生物は、両親から配偶子を通してそれぞれ 1 セットのゲノムを受け取ることによって、計２セットのゲノムを持つ。これはすなわち、各個体はそれぞれの遺伝子座について、2個の遺伝子を持っていることを意味する。このとき、同じ遺伝子座を占める個々の遺伝子を対立遺伝子(allele)と呼ぶ] in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation. More specifically, a haplogroup is a combination of alleles at different chromosomal regions that are closely linked and that tend to be inherited together. As a haplogroup consists of similar haplotypes, it is usually possible to predict a haplogroup from haplotypes. Haplogroups pertain to a single line of descent. As such, membership of a haplogroup, by any individual, relies on a relatively small proportion of the genetic material possessed by that individual.＞
R1b and R1a expanded from the West Eurasian Steppe, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.

Origins of the European IE languages

The origins of Italo-Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic have often been associated with the spread of the Corded Ware horizon and the Bell Beakers, but the specifics remain unsolved. A complicating factor is the association of haplogroup R1b with the Yamnaya hohaplogroup R1b with the Yamnaya hrizon and the Bell Beakers, while the Corded Ware horizon is strongly associated with haplogroup R1a. Ancestors of Germanic and Balto-Slavic may have spread with the Corded Ware, originating east of the Carpatians, while the Danube Valley was ancestral to Italo-Celtic.

Relations between the branches

According to David Anthony, pre-Germanic split off earliest (3300 BCE), followed by pre-Italic and pre-Celtic (3000 BCE), pre-Armenian (2800 BCE), pre-Balto-Slavic (2800 BCE) and pre-Greek (2500 BCE).

Mallory notes that the Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages are closely related, which accords with their historic distribution. The Germanic languages are also related to the Baltic and Slavic languages, which in turn share similarities with the Indo-Iranic languages. The Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian languages are also related, which suggests "a chain of central Indo-European dialects stretching from the Balkans across the Black sea to the east Caspian". And the Celtic, Italic, Anatolian and Tocharian languages preserve archaisms (古語、古文体、古い語法/ɑ́rkiìzm) which are preserved only in those languages.

Although Corded Ware is presumed to be largely derived from the Yamnaya culture, most Corded Ware males carried R1a Y-DNA, while males of the Yamnaya primarily carried R1b-M269. According to Sjögren et al. (2020), R1b-M269 "is the major lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe ancestry in western Europe after 2500 BC," and is strongly related to the Bell Beaker expansion.

Corded Ware culture (3000–2400 BCE)

The Corded Ware culture in Middle Europe (c. 3200 or 2,900 – 2450 or 2350 cal. BCE) probably played an essential role in the origin and spread of the Indo-European languages in Europe during the Copper and Bronze Ages. David Anthony states that "Childe and Gimbutas speculated that migrants from the steppe Yamnaya horizon (3300–2600 BCE) might have been the creators of the Corded Ware culture and carried IE languages into Europe from the steppes."

According to Anthony (2007), the Corded Ware originated north-east of the Carpathian mountains, and spread across northern Europe after 3000 BCE, with an "initial rapid spread" between 2900 and 2700 BCE. While Anthony (2007) situates the development of pre-Germanic dialects east of the Carpathians, arguing for a migration up the Dniestr, Anthony (2017) relates the origins of the Corded Ware to the early third century Yamna-migrations into the Danube-valley, stating that "the migration stream that created these intrusive (〔岩石が〕貫入性の/intrúːsiv) cemeteries (墓地、共同墓地/sémətèri) now can be seen to have continued from eastern Hungary across the Carpathians into southern Poland, where the earliest material traits of the Corded ware horizon appeared." In southern Poland, interaction between Scandinavian and Global Amphora resulted in a new culture, absorbed by the incoming Yamnaya pastoralists.

According to Mallory (1999), the Corded Ware culture may be postulated as "the common prehistoric ancestor of the later Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, and possibly some of the Indo-European languages of Italy". Yet, Mallory also notes that the Corded Ware can not account for Greek, Illyrian, Thracian and East Italic, which may be derived from Southeast Europe. According to Anthony, the Corded Ware horizon may have introduced Germanic, Baltic and Slavic into northern Europe.

According to Gimbutas, the Corded Ware culture was preceded by the Globular Amphora culture (3400–2800 BCE), which she also regarded to be an Indo-European culture. The Globular Amphora culture stretched from central Europe to the Baltic sea, and emerged from the Funnelbeaker culture. According to Mallory, around 2400 BCE the people of the Corded Ware replaced their predecessors and expanded to Danubian and northern areas of western Germany. A related branch invaded the territories of present-day Denmark and southern Sweden. In places a continuity between Funnelbeaker and Corded Ware can be demonstrated, whereas in other areas Corded Ware heralds a new culture and physical type. According to Cunliffe, most of the expansion was clearly intrusive. Yet, according to Furholt, the Corded Ware culture was an indigenous (土着の、先住の/indídʒənəs) development, connecting local developments into a larger network.

Recent research by Haak et al. found that four late Corded Ware people (2500–2300 BCE) buried at Esperstadt, Germany, were genetically very close to the Yamna-people, suggesting that a massive migration took place from the Eurasian steppes to Central Europe. According to Haak et al. (2015), German Corded Ware "trace ~75% of their ancestry to the Yamna." In supplementary information to Haak et al. (2015) Anthony, together with Lazaridis, Haak, Patterson, and Reich, notes that the mass migration of Yamnaya people to northern Europe shows that "the languages could have been introduced simply by strength of numbers: via major migration in which both sexes participated."

Volker Heyd has cautioned to be careful with drawing too strong conclusions from those genetic similarities between Corded Ware and Yamna, noting the small number of samples; the late dates of the Esperstadt graves, which could also have undergone Bell Beaker admixture; the presence of Yamna-ancestry in western Europe before the Danube-expansion; and the risks of extrapolating "the results from a handful of individual burials to whole ethnically interpreted populations." Heyd confirms the close connection between Corded Ware and Yamna, but also states that "neither a one-to-one translation from Yamnaya to CWC, nor even the 75:25 ratio as claimed fits the archaeological record."

Bell Beaker culture (2900–1800 BCE)

The Bell Beaker-culture (c. 2900–1800 BCE) may be ancestral to proto-Celtic, which spread westward from the Alpine regions and formed a "North-west Indo-European" Sprachbund
＜A sprachbund , also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact.＞
with Italic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic.

The initial moves of the Bell Beakers from the Tagus estuary, Portugal were maritime (海を介して). A southern move led to the Mediterranean where 'enclaves (飛び地、飛び領土/énkleiv)' were established in southwestern Spain and southern France around the Golfe du Lion and into the Po valley in Italy, probably via ancient western Alpine trade routes used to distribute jadeite ( ヒスイ/dʒéidait) axes. A northern move incorporated the southern coast of Armorica. The enclave established in southern Brittany was linked closely to the riverine (河川の/rívəràin) and landward (内陸への/lǽndwərd) route, via the Loire, and across the Gâtinais valley to the Seine valley, and thence to the lower Rhine. This was a long-established route reflected in early stone axe distributions and it was via this network that Maritime Bell Beakers first reached the Lower Rhine in about 2600 BCE.

Germanic

According to Mallory, Germanicists "generally agree" that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, / the ancestral idiom (訛り、方言/ídiəm) of all attested (証明［立証］された/ətéstəd) Germanic dialects, / was primarily situated in an area corresponding to the extent of the Jastorf culture, situated in Denmark and northern Germany.

According to Herrin, the Germanic peoples are believed to have emerged about 1800 BCE with the Nordic Bronze Age (c.1700-500 BCE). The Nordic Bronze Age developed from the absorption of the hunter-gatherer Pitted Ware culture (c.3500-2300 BCE) into the agricultural Battle Axe culture (c. 2800-2300 BCE), which in turn developed from the superimposition of the Corded Ware culture (c. 3100-2350 BCE) upon the Funnelbeaker culture (c. 4300-2800 BCE) on the North European Plain, adjacent to the north of the Bell Beaker culture (c. 2800–2300 BCE). Pre-Germanic may have been related to the Slavo-Baltic and Indo-Iranian languages, but reoriented towards the Italo-Celtic languages.

Italo-Celtic

Italic and Celtic languages are commonly grouped together on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. This could imply that they are descended from a common ancestor and/or Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic developed in close proximity over a long period of time. The link to the Yamnaya-culture, in the contact zone of western and central Europe between Rhine and Vistula (Poland), is as follows: Yamnaya culture (c. 3300–2600 BC) – Corded Ware culture (c. 3100–2350 BCE) – Bell Beaker culture (c. 2800–1800 BC) – Unetice culture (c. 2300–1680 BCE) – Tumulus culture (c. 1600–1200 BCE) – Urnfield culture (c. 1300–750 BCE). At the Balkan, the Vučedol culture (c.3000–2200 BCE) formed a contact zone between post-Yamnaya and Bell Beaker culture.

Balto-Slavic

The Balto-Slavic language group traditionally comprises the Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to a period of common development. Most Indo-Europeanists classify Baltic and Slavic languages into a single branch, even though some details of the nature of their relationship remain in dispute in some circles, usually due to political controversies. Some linguists, however, have recently suggested that Balto-Slavic should be split into three equidistant nodes: Eastern Baltic, Western Baltic and Slavic.

A Proto-Balto-Slavic language is reconstructable by the comparative method, descending from Proto-Indo-European by means of well-defined sound laws, and out of which modern Slavic and Baltic languages descended. One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum and became ancestral to the Proto-Slavic language, from which all Slavic languages descended.

Hellenic Greek

Hellenic is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes the different varieties of Greek. In traditional classifications, Hellenic consists of Greek alone, but some linguists group Greek together with various ancient languages thought to have been closely related or distinguish varieties of Greek that are distinct enough to be considered separate languages.

The Proto-Greeks, who spoke the predecessor (先行したもの、前にあったもの/prédəsèsər) of the Mycenaean language, are mostly placed in the Early Helladic period in Greece (early 3rd millennium BCE; circa 3200 BCE) toward the end of the Neolithic in Southern Europe.In the late Neolithic, speakers of this dialect, which would become Proto-Greek, migrated from their homeland northeast of the Black Sea to the Balkans and into the Greek peninsula. The evolution of Proto-Greek could be considered within the context of an early Paleo-Balkan sprachbund
＜Paleo：a grouping of various extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in the Balkans and surrounding areas in ancient times.＞
＜The Balkan sprachbund is an ensemble of areal features— similarities in grammar, syntax, vocabulary and phonology— among the languages of the Balkans. Several features are found across these languages though not all apply to every single language.＞
that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial laryngeals (喉頭音/ləríndʒiəl) by prothetic vowels
＜A vowel or consonant (子音/kɑ́nsənənt) added by prothesis (《言語学》語頭音添加/prɑ́θəsis) is called prothetic or prosthetic＞
is shared, for one, by the Armenian language, which also seems to share some other phonological (音韻の、音韻論の、音韻体系の/fòunəlɔ́dʒikəl) and morphological peculiarities of Greek; this has led some linguists to propose a hypothetically closer relationship between Greek and Armenian, although evidence remains scant.

India: Indo-Aryans

The research on the Indo-Aryan migrations began with the study of the Rig Veda in the mid-19th century by Max Muller, and gradually evolved from a theory of a large scale invasion of a racially and technologically superior people to being a slow diffusion of small numbers of nomadic people that had a disproportionate societal impact on a large urban population. Contemporary claims of Indo-Aryan migrations are drawn from linguistic, archaeological, literary and cultural sources. The Indo-Aryan migrations involved a number of tribes, who may have infiltrated (侵入する/infíltreit) northern India in series of "waves" of migration. Archaeological cultures identified with phases of Indo-Aryan culture include the Ochre Colored Pottery culture, the Gandhara Grave culture, the Black and red ware culture and the Painted Grey Ware culture.

Parpola postulates a first wave of immigration from as early as 1900 BCE, corresponding to the Cemetery H culture and the Copper Hoard Culture, Ochre Colored Pottery culture, and an immigration to the Punjab ca. 1700–1400 BCE. According to Kochhar there were three waves of Indo-Aryan immigration that occurred after the mature Harappan phase:

1.the "Murghamu" (Bactria-Margiana Culture) related people who entered Balochistan at Pirak, Mehrgarh south cemetery, and other places, and later merged with the post-urban Harappans during the late Harappans Jhukar phase (2000–1800 BCE);

2.the Swat IV that co-founded the Harappan Cemetery H phase in Punjab (2000–1800 BCE);

3.and the Rigvedic Indo-Aryans of Swat V that later absorbed the Cemetery H people and gave rise to the Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) (to 1400 BCE).

The Vedic Indo-Aryans started to migrate into northwestern India around 1500 BCE, as a slow diffusion during the Late Harappan period, establishing the Vedic religion during the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE). The associated culture was initially a tribal, pastoral society centered in the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent; it spread after 1200 BCE to the Ganges Plain, as it was shaped by increasing settled agriculture, a hierarchy of four social classes, and the emergence of monarchical (君主制の/ mənɑ́rkikəl), state-level polities (政治形態［機構］/ pɑ́ləti).

The end of the Vedic period witnessed the rise of large, urbanized states as well as of shramana (沙門は、古代インド社会に於いて生じた、仏教・ジャイナ教などヴェーダの宗教ではない新しい思想運動における男性修行者を指す) movements (including Jainism and Buddhism) which opposed and challenged the expanding Vedic orthodoxy. Around the beginning of the Common Era, the Vedic tradition formed one of the main constituents of the so-called "Hindu synthesis"

Indo-Aryan Vedic religion

The Vedic religion refers to the religious beliefs of some of the Vedic Indo-Aryan tribes, the aryas, who migrated into the Indus River valley region of the Indian subcontinent after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. The Vedic religion, and subsequent Brahmanism center on the myths and ritual ideologies of the Vedas, as distinguished from Agamic, Tantric and sectarian forms of Indian religion, which take recourse to the authority of non-Vedic textual sources. The Vedic religion is described in the Vedas and associated voluminous Vedic literature including the early Upanishads, preserved into the modern times by the different priestly schools. It existed in the western Ganges plain in the early Vedic period from c. 1500–1100 BCE, and developed into Brahmanism in the late Vedic period (1100–500 BCE). The eastern Ganges-plain was dominated by another Indo-Aryan complex, which rejected the later Brahmanical ideology, and gave rise to Jainism and Buddhism, and the Mauryan Empire.

 The Indo-Aryans were speakers of a branch of the Indo-European language family, which originated in the Sintashta culture and further developed into the Andronovo culture, which in turn developed out of the Kurgan culture of the Central Asian steppes. The commonly proposed period of earlier Vedic age is dated back to 2nd millennium BCE.

 The Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion, and shows relations with rituals from the Andronovo culture, from which the Indo-Aryan people descended. According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the contact zone between the Zeravshan River (present-day Uzbekistan) and (present-day) Iran. It was "a syncretic (〔哲学・宗教などの諸派が〕融合した/sinkrétik) mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements" which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the Bactria–Margiana Culture (BMAC). This syncretic influence is supported by at least 383 non-Indo-European words that were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra and the ritual drink Soma. According to Anthony, many of the qualities of Indo-Iranian god of might/victory, Verethraghna, were transferred to the adopted god Indra, who became the central deity (神/díːəti) of the developing Old Indic culture. Indra was the subject of 250 hymns,
＜A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification.＞
a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with Soma (〔ヒンドゥー神話の酒の〕ソーマ◆ベーダ(Veda)に記載されている、植物から作る酒。〔ヒンドゥー神話の植物の〕ソーマ◆酒のソーマの原料とされる植物で、マオウ(ephedra)ではないかと考えられている。), a stimulant drug (perhaps derived from Ephedra) probably borrowed from the BMAC religion. His rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers.

The oldest inscriptions in Old Indic, the language of the Rig Veda, are found not in northwestern India and Pakistan, but in northern Syria, the location of the Mitanni kingdom. The Mitanni kings took Old Indic throne names, and Old Indic technical terms were used for horse-riding and chariot-driving. The Old Indic term r'ta, meaning "cosmic order and truth", the central concept of the Rig Veda, was also employed in the Mitanni kingdom. Old Indic gods, including Indra, were also known in the Mitanni kingdom.

The Vedic religion was the product of "a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures and civilizations". White (2003) cites three other scholars who "have emphatically (強調して、断固として、力強く、きっぱりと/imfǽtikəli) demonstrated" that Vedic religion is partially derived from the Indus Valley Civilization. The Vedic religion texts are cerebral (知性に訴える/sérəbrəl), orderly and intellectual, but it is unclear if the theory in diverse Vedic texts actually reflect the folk practices, iconography (図像/àikənɑ́grəfi) and other practical aspects of the Vedic religion. 

The Vedic religion changed when Indo-Aryan people migrated into the Ganges Plain after c. 1100 BCE and became settled farmers, further syncretising (融合する) with the native cultures of northern India. The evidence suggests that the Vedic religion evolved in "two superficially contradictory directions", state Jamison and Witzel, namely an ever more "elaborate, expensive, and specialized system of rituals", which survives in the present-day srauta-ritual, and "abstraction and internalization of the principles underlying ritual and cosmic speculation" within oneself, akin to the Jain and Buddhist tradition.

Aspects of the historical Vedic religion survived into modern times. The Nambudiri Brahmins continue the ancient Śrauta rituals. The complex Vedic rituals of Śrauta continue to be practiced in Kerala and coastal Andhra. The Kalash people residing in northwest Pakistan also continue to practice a form of ancient Hinduism.

According to Heinrich von Stietencron, in the 19th century, in western publications, the Vedic religion was believed to be different from and unrelated to Hinduism. The Hindu religion was thought to be linked to the Hindu epics and the Puranas through sects based on purohita, tantras and Bhakti. In the 20th century, a better understanding of the Vedic religion and its shared heritage and theology with contemporary Hinduism has led scholars to view the historical Vedic religion as ancestral to modern Hinduism. The historical Vedic religion is now generally accepted to be a predecessor of Hinduism, but they are not the same because the textual evidence suggests significant differences between the two, such as the belief in an afterlife instead of the later developed reincarnation and samsāra.
＜輪廻または輪廻転生とは、サンスクリット語のサンサーラ（संसार saṃsāra）に由来する用語で、命あるものが何度も転生し、人だけでなく動物なども含めた生類として生まれ変わること。インド哲学において生物らは、死して後、生前の行為つまりカルマ（梵: karman）の結果、次の多様な生存となって生まれ変わるとされる。インドの思想では、限りなく生と死を繰り返す輪廻の生存を苦と見、二度と再生を繰り返すことのない解脱を最高の理想とする。＞ 

Brahmanism

Historical Brahminism

Brahmanism, also called Brahminism, developed out of the Vedic religion, incorporating non-Vedic religious ideas, and expanding to a region stretching from the northwest Indian subcontinent to the Ganges valley. Brahmanism included the Vedic corpus (言語資料/kɔ́rpəs), but also post-Vedic texts such as the Dharmasutras and Dharmasastras, which gave prominence to the priestly (Brahmin) class of the society, Heesterman also mentions the post-Vedic Smriti 
＜Puranas [プラーナ文献若しくはプラーナ(पुराण purāṇa) とは、サンスクリットの「古き物語」を意味する言葉の略称で呼称される一群のヒンドゥー聖典の総称である] and the Epics [Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two main epics of India that both written in Sanskrit, and together form the canon of Hindu scripture]：The second category of Hindu sacred text is Smrti＞,
which are also incorporated in the later Smarta tradition. The emphasis on ritual and the dominant position of Brahmans developed as an ideology developed in the Kuru-Pancala realm, and expanded over a wider area after the demise of the Kuru-Pancala kingdom. It co-existed with local religions, such as the Yaksha cults.

The word Brahmanism was coined by Gonçalo Fernandes Trancoso (1520–1596) in the 16th century. Historically, and still by some modern authors, the word 'Brahmanism' was used in English to refer to the Hindu religion, treating the term Brahmanism as synonymous with Hinduism, and using it interchangeably. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Brahminism was the most common term used in English for Hinduism. Brahmanism gave importance to Absolute Reality (Brahman) speculations in the early Upanishads, as these terms are etymologically (語源的に［に関して・に基づいて・の点で］、語源学上（は）/ètiməlɔ́dʒikəli) linked, which developed from post-Vedic ideas during the late Vedic era. The concept of Brahman is posited (断定する/pɑ́zit) as that which existed before the creation of the universe, which constitutes all of existence thereafter, and into which the universe will dissolve, followed by similar endless creation-maintenance-destruction cycles.

The post-Vedic period of the Second Urbanisation saw a decline of Brahmanism. With the growth of cities, which threatened the income and patronage of the rural Brahmins; the rise of Buddhism; and the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great (327–325 BCE), the rise of the Mauryan Empire (322–185 BCE), and the Saka invasions and rule of northwestern India (2nd c. BC – 4th c. CE), Brahmanism faced a grave threat to its existence. This was overcome by providing new services and incorporating the non-Vedic Indo-Aryan religious heritage of the eastern Ganges plain and local religious traditions, giving rise to contemporary Hinduism. This "new Brahmanism" appealed to rulers, who were attracted to the supernatural powers and the practical advice Brahmis could provide, and resulted in a resurgence of Brahmanical influence, dominating Indian society since the classical Age of Hinduism in the early centuries CE.

caste system

Vedas are the anchor texts in Hinduism. The earliest mention of the Indian caste system or caste system in Hinduism can be found in  Purusha-Sukta of the Rig-Veda, there is a clear reference to the division of Hindu society into four classes. It is described there that the Brahmanas came out of the face of the Lord, the Creator, Kshatriyas from His arms, Vaisyas from His thighs, and the Sudras from His feet.
Indian History is riddled with a famous puzzle of a superior race called Aryan Race who came from Central Asia riding their horse chariots with bow and arrow. The fierce warriors were no match to the indigenous aborigine's called Dravidians who were Black in color. The encounter lasted for ages with Aryans and Dravidians fighting for their legitimate rights where the powerful Aryans, because of their superiority, were able to start a new Aryan Empire. This led to great amalgamation (融合、混血/əmæ̀lgəméiʃən) of Aryan and Dravidian in Punjab who then slowly started moving into the interiors of various parts located near the great banks of Sarasvati river and established a new Hindu Religion which spread throughout the country.
The early history says that the First Aryans lived as one homogeneous people during the Rig Vedic Age and over a period of time, Brahmans and Kshtraiyas emerged. Over a period of time, distinction was made among various classes and varna system based on division of labor emerged.
In order to solve the mystery of origin of castes and the nature of it how it existed and how it changed with time and how it reached the current form, involves a examination of history of almost 5000 yrs of Indian history and bringing in scientific and rational thinking in to the entire debate, right from the times of Indus Valley Civilization to Modern Day India. I use the modern day access to various literary, archeological and genetic evidence and try to unlock the origin and also the emergence of the modern caste system.

This is an extract from one of the oldest History books “ Early History of India” which clearly shows internecine (互いに殺し合う/ìntərnísn) wars between Aryans and a common enemy called “Dravidians”. They mention that the Dravidians, who were original inhabitants, offered a dogged (根気強い、容易に屈しない、粘り強い、頑固な/dɔ́gid) resistance to the Aryan Invaders but were defeated because of better weapons, chariots, horses and also trained army. The war was fought for hundreds of years and finally the Dravidians were reduced to dasas (古代インドの宗教文献『リグ・ヴェーダ』に登場する名称で、インド・アーリア人の敵の部族を指すと考えられる) or slaves. They say that the with time, a complex culture of both Aryan and Dravidian culture emerged under the influence of Sanskrit.

The history of origin of caste system first had Aryans and Non Aryans which then gave rise to complex division of labor under the varna system and eventually because of heredity the varna system became rigid.