Indo-European Origins

South Russia Steppes were in the middle!

I am of the opinion that the original IEs were from Central Asia and not from Eastern Europe but others use a diferent archaeological chronology and argue the opposite. I'm unable to say which one is the correct so far.

My line of thought would be IEs originally east of the Volga (before 3500 BCE), mixing in the Don basin with European natives (that had domesticated the horse) to form the western branch of IEs, quickly expanding in Central and Northern Europe and parts of the Balcans.

Eastern IEs would expand more or less as Afghanan posted. In fact proto-Scythians and proto-Cymmerians were surely invading Eastern Europe intermitently in earlier dates than those mentioned but never seem to consolidate their domain (possibly because they remained as steppary semi-nomadic warriors and never settled).

One should at least mention at this point that there is such a thing as the "Palaeolithic Continuity Theory".

This theory, championed by the Italian linguist Mario Alinei, has a very different approach.
It equals the arrival of IE people with the arrival of �homo sapiens� in Europe and Asia from Africa in the Palaeolithic age long before the 10th Millennium BC. It states that the development of different IE languages took place over a very long time period and was the result of cultural and social fragmentation of the Proto IE. It completely denies any large scale immigration into Europe after 10000BC and therefore presumes a continuous resident indigenous population from the Palaeolithic age onwards without being replaced by any invasions.

Originally posted by Komnenos One should at least mention at this point that there is such a thing as the "Palaeolithic Continuity Theory". This theory, championed by the Italian linguist Mario Alinei, has a very different approach. It equals the arrival of IE people with the arrival of �homo sapiens� in Europe and Asia from Africa in the Palaeolithic age long before the 10th Millennium BC. It states that the development of different IE languages took place over a very long time period and was the result of cultural and social fragmentation of the Proto IE. It completely denies any large scale immigration into Europe after 10000BC and therefore presumes a continuous resident indigenous population from the Palaeolithic age onwards without being replaced by any invasions.

While (apart of Neolithic aportation) it can well be said the modern Europeans are largely descendants of those that dwelt here in the Paleolithic, it doesn't seem to be any logic to attribute IE languages to them at all. The most logical thing to deduce is that Basque is descendant of whatever languages were spoken by Magdalenians in Western and Central Europe, and that, very likely too, Caucasic languages are descendants of those spoken by Eastern Gravetians in Eastern Europe, Anatolia and the Zagros.

IE, even with the most extreme chronologies didn't start branching before 10,000 BCE, but Paleolithic Europeans of that time had been "branching" for 20 or 30 milennia more. The chronologies don't fit however you look at them.

We must remember always that invasion or migration doesn't mean replacement of populations (this is extremely rare in history and all valid examples are too modern: North America, Australia...). While the migration of Neolithic farmers into lands of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (in time-spans of milennia!) can be aduced to explain some genetic/population substitution (but also admixture), the invasion of metal age nomads over metal age farmers can't be the explanation of any important population change. Whatever the details of the proccess, it's sure that the farmers would survive and eventually (maybe) become assimilated by the invading superstrate. This can be seen in many historical processes: from German, Arab and Magyar invasions in Upper Medieval times to the colonization of agrarian/civilized Latin America in Modern times. In many of these cases the socio-politically strong invaded cultures were not even assimilated by the invaders