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Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses are attempts to identify the ''Urheimat'', or primary homeland, of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Such hypotheses often consider glottochronology and how cultural, biological, and geographical items reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European fit the archaeological record. The mainstream consensus among Indo-Europeanists favors the "Kurgan hypothesis", which places the Indo-European homeland in the Pontic steppe of the Chalcolithic period (4th to 5th millennia BCE). The Pontic steppe is a large area of grasslands in far Eastern Europe, located north of the Black Sea, Caucasus Mountains and Caspian Sea and including parts of eastern Ukraine, southern Russia and northwest Kazakhstan. This is the time and place of the earliest domestication of the horse, which according to this hypothesis was the work of early Indo-Europeans, allowing them to expand outwards and assimilate or conquer many other cultures. The Kurgan hypothesis was formulated by Marija Gimbutas in the 1950s, and gained mainstream currency beginning in the 1970s. The primary competitor is the Anatolian hypothesis, which proposes that the dispersal of Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia, as part of the expansion during the Neolithic revolution in the seventh and sixth millennia BC. First advanced in 1987 by Colin Renfrew, the Anatolian hypothesis has been popular among archaeologists , but linguists have by and large preferred the Kurgan pastoralist model.〔Paul Kiparsky. ("New perspectives in historical linguistics" ). (To appear in Claire Bowern (ed.) ''Handbook of Historical Linguistics''. )〕 All hypotheses assume a significant period (at least 1500–2000 years) between the time of the Proto-Indo-European language and the earliest attested texts, at Kültepe, c. 19th century BCE. ==Hypotheses== There are three main competing basic models (with variations) that have academic credibility (): #the Kurgan hypothesis (Pontic-Caspian area): Chalcolithic (5th to 4th millennia BCE) #the Anatolian hypothesis (Anatolia in Asia Minor): Early Neolithic (7th to 5th millennia BCE) #the Balkan hypothesis, excluding the Anatolian languages (a variant of the Anatolian hypothesis): Neolithic (5th millennium BCE) As mentioned above, the Kurgan hypothesis is currently dominant in Indo-European studies. The Anatolian hypothesis, primarily associated with Colin Renfrew, is the main competitor. A number of other opposing hypotheses also exist, for example: *the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory), with a homeland in Armenia in the 4th millennium BCE (excluding the Anatolian branch); *a 6th millennium BCE or later origin in Northern Europe, according to Lothar Kilian's and, especially, Marek Zvelebil's〔Zvelebil, "Indo-European origins and the agricultural transition in Europe," ''Whither Archaeology?: papers in honour of Evžen Neustupný'', 1995.〕 models of a broader homeland; *The Out of India theory, with a homeland in India in the 6th millennium BCE;〔(The Non-Invasionist Model )〕 *The Paleolithic Continuity Theory, with an origin before the 10th millennium BCE *Nikolai Trubetzkoy's theory of Sprachbund origin of Indo-European traits. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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