The Paleolithic Continuity Theory (or PCT, Italian La teoria della continuità), since 2010 relabelled as the Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm (or PCP), is a hypothesis suggesting that the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) can be traced back to the Upper Paleolithic, several millennia earlier than the Chalcolithic or at the most Neolithic estimates in other scenarios of Proto-Indo-European origins. Its main proponent are Marcel Otte, Alexander Häusler, Mario Alinei. Alinei advanced the theory in his Origini delle Lingue d'Europa (Origins of the Languages of Europe), published in two volumes in 1996 and 2000. The PCT posits that the advent of Indo-European languages should be linked to the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia from Africa in the Upper Paleolithic. Employing "lexical periodization", Alinei arrives at a timeline deeper than even that of Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis. Since 2004, an informal workgroup of scholars who support the Paleolithic Continuity Theory has been held online. Apart from Alinei himself, its leading members (referred to as "Scientific Committee" in the website) are linguists Xaviero Ballester (University of Valencia) and Francesco Benozzo (University of Bologna). Also included are prehistorian Marcel Otte (Université de Liège) and anthropologist Henry Harpending (University of Utah). It is not listed by Mallory among the proposals for the origins of the Indo-European languages that are widely discussed and considered credible within academia. GENERAL LINES -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The framework of PCT is laid out by Alinei in four main assumptions: * Continuity is the basic pattern of European prehistory and the basic working hypothesis on the origins of IE languages. * Stability and antiquity are general features of languages. * The lexicon of natural languages, due to its antiquity, may be "periodized" along the entire course of human evolution. * Archaeological frontiers coincide with linguistic frontiers. The continuity theory draws on a Continuity Model (CM), positing the presence of IE and non-IE peoples and languages in Europe from Paleolithic times and allowing for minor invasions and infiltrations of local scope, mainly during the last three millennia. Arguing that continuity is "the archeologist's easiest pursuit," Alinei deems this "the easiest working hypothesis," putting the burden of proof on competing hypotheses as long as none provide irrefutable counter-evidence. Alinei also claims linguistic coherence, rigor and productivity in the pursuit of this approach. HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Paleolithic Continuity hypothesis reverses the Kurgan hypothesis and largely identifies the Indo-Europeans with Gimbutas's "Old Europe." PCT reassigns the Kurgan culture (traditionally considered early Indo-European) to a people of predominantly mixed Uralic and Turkic stock. This hypothesis is supported by the tentative linguistic identification of Etruscans as a Uralic, proto-Hungarian people that had already undergone strong proto-Turkic influence in the third millennium BC, when Pontic invasions would have brought this people to the Carpathian Basin. A subsequent migration of Urnfield culture signature around 1250 BC caused this ethnic group to expand south in a general movement of people, attested by the upheaval of the Sea Peoples and the overthrow of an earlier Italic substrate at the onset of the "Etruscan" Villanovan culture. KURGAN HYPOTHESIS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a "Kurgan culture" as reflecting an early Indo-European ethnicity which existed in the steppes and southeastern Europe from the 5th to 3rd millennia BC. Marija Gimbutas' Kurgan hypothesis is opposed by Paleolithic Continuity Theory, which associates Pit Grave and Sredny Stog Kurgan cultures with Turkic peoples, and the Anatolian hypothesis, and is also opposed by the Black Sea deluge theory. (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_Continuity_Theory) (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan#Kurgan_hypothesis) The PCP Workgroup: http://www.continuitas.org/workgroup.html The Settlement of the Indo-European, Turkic, and Finno-Ugric tribes in Eastern Europe: http://www.v-stetsyuk.name/en/Alterling/SettlEastEur.html Ethnicity of the Neolithic and Eneolithic cultures of Eastern Europe. The Seredniy Stiğ and Yamna (Pit) Cultures: http://www.v-stetsyuk.name/en/Alterling/Archaelog.html http://alterling2.narod.ru/English/Maps/EneolitEn.PNG _________________ See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botai_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_worship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Turkic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urheimat#Indo-European_homelands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urheimat#Turkic_homeland

• published: 23 Dec 2013
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