Languages on horseback

I have just finished reading David Anthony's book The Horse, the Wheel and Language (2007), a book that I mentioned briefly in a post some time ago.

First of all, I'd like to say that David Anthony is an eminent archaeologist with vast knowledge about the prehistory of the Eurasian steppes, and more concretely about the archaeology of human societies in connection with horse domestication, an area which is vital in our understanding of Eneolithic and Bronze-age societies. He has written extensively about this issue and has also developed an innovative technique to date the use of domesticated horses by analysing bit wear in their bones. I'm sure his ideas about the subject are valuable and must be taken into account in any serious research in that field. Now, what's the problem? The problem arises when Anthony tries to fit all these data into a comprehensive explanation of the genesis and transcontinental expansion of Indo-European (IE) languages. This is when his scientific writing becomes fantasy.

Anthony bases his archaeological voyage on a series of linguistic facts which he accepts as irrefutable. We have talked about these things profusely in this blog (the traditional concept of proto-language, the use of linguistic paleontology, etc.) and we have seen how these ideas can easily be challenged. Anthony, however, takes them for granted. In his view, there is a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) people to be found somewhere, with its own language and even institutions. (p. 89): "that language [PIE] is a guide to the thoughts, concerns and material culture of real people who lived in a definite region between about 4500 and 2500 BC". In this respect, he follows Gimbutas' and Mallory's ideas, which we have extensively talked about (and criticised) in the blog. The novelty is that Anthony uses horse domestication and later developments as the use of chariots, as the main factors in the expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans and their languages.

In his book, Anthony analyses one by one all the prehistoric cultures of the Pontic-Caspian region. He presents them in the framework of his own preconceptions, at times establishing simple correlations between culture, people and language. Pastoralist societies become PIE societies endowed with a remarkable capacity of expanding and subduing other human groups. (p. 343): "Wealth, military power, and a more productive herding system probably brought prestige and power to the identities associated with Proto-IndoEuropean dialects after 3300 BCE. The guest-host institution extended the protections of oath-bound obligations to new social groups. An Indo-European-speaking patron could accept and integrate outsiders as clients without shaming them or assigning them permanently to submissive roles, as long as they conducted the sacrifices properly. Praise poetry at public feasts encouraged patrons to be generous, and validated the language of the songs as a vehicle for communicating with the gods who regulated everything. All these factors taken together suggest that the spread of Proto-Indo-European probably was more like a franchising operation than an invasion. Although the initial penetration of a new region (or "market" in the franchising metaphor) often involved an actual migration from the steppes and military confrontations, once it began to reproduce new patron-client agreements (franchises) its connection to the original steppe immigrants became genetically remote, whereas the myths, rituals, and institutions that maintained the system were reproduced down the generations."

Franchises, military power, migratory movements... It is obvious that all of Anthony's metaphors and hypotheses can be doubted or found completely wrong. He talks about (literally) hundreds of prehistoric societies, and maks all kinds of assumptions about their language, social customs or expansive moods. One theory leads to another, in a process that can only be described as accumulative conjecture, or plain fantasy. First it is horse domestication, then the use of chariots, with the addition of a myriad of complementary elements. Aided by these extraordinary tools, PIE people started their incredible story of success. First, with the detachment of Anatolyans, then, with the emergence of proto-Slavic, proto-Germanic and proto-Italic in central-eastern Europe as off-shoots of the Pontic steppe developments, finally the expansion of proto-Indo-Aryan in the BMAC area. Let's see an example (p. 367): "The many thousands of Yamnaya kurgans in eastern Hungary suggest a more continuous occupation of the landscape by a larger population of immigrants, one that could have acquired power and prestige partly just through its numerical weight. This regional group could have spawned both pre-Italic and pre-Celtic. Bell Beaker sites of the Csepel type around Budapest, west of the Yamnaya settlement region, are dated about 2800-2600 BCE. They could have been a bridge between Yamnaya on their east and Austria/Southern Germany to their west, through which Yamnaya dialects spread from Hungary into Austria and Bavaria, where they later developed into Proto-Celtic".

The author finishes his analysis at this point, sometime at the Bronze age, with all the IE proto-languages ready for action. Their incredible run of good luck lasts centuries, millennia. In the vast poker game of prehistory Indo-Europeans seem to have the winning hand at all times!

Obviously, Anthony is not the only researcher who has felt the temptation to offer a comprehensive explanation of IE origins and expansion. Like Mallory and Gimbutas, he does so from an archaeological perspecitve, and as I said before many of the things they said might be useful and coherent, at least at a minor, less ambitious level. A similar type of analysis, enriched with population genetics data, is to be found in other authors, such as Mario Alinei. Reading his volumes about the linguistic prehistory of Europe I often felt a bit lost in the never-ending tales of prehistoric societies that follow one another. His theories are possibly quite imperfect and need a lot of refining, and in some cases must probably be rejected, but there is an important difference between Alinei and the more traditional authors such as Anthony or Mallory: his approach offers a more logical framework to understand language events through time.

Note on illustrations: on the left, The Large Blue Horses, a painting by Franz Marc.

The Atlantic zone of Western Europe

I won't be there and it's a pity, because I'd love to. From the 9th to the 11th of June the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (University of Brest) organizes a conference about the possible connections across the Atlantic fringe of western Europe. There are contributions from a variety of sciences: archaeology, linguistics, population genetics, and some of the participants are scientists that I have already talked about in this blog, in some cases extensively: Mario Alinei, Stephen Oppenheimer, Marcel Otte, Xaverio Ballester, John Koch, Francesco Benozzo, and some others whose research I would be very interested to know about. It is clear that some of the participants share views that are connected with the Continuity paradigm, something that can be seen very clearly just taking a look at the programme of the conference, with titles like Les Indo-Européens sont venus avec Cro-Magnon (Marcel Otte) or The Atlantic Celts: cumulative evidence from Paleolithic (Alinei- Benozzo).

As I said, I'd really would love to be there, but I can't. Unfortunately, there is no post as 'official blogger of the event' that I could apply for! It's not just the conference, it's also the chance of going to Brittany. In any case, however, I'm planning a trip there in August, so I'll get a chance to visit places like Carnac (see picture) or the Armorican coast.

On the edges of the earth: Atlantis, Celts, Ovid

Some years ago I made an unforgettable trip to Rome and its region, Lazio. One day I visited the Alban Hills, in an area nowadays called Castelli Romani. My journey there, first by underground and then by bus, was like a journey into the most archaic history of the Latins. My first stop was Albano Laziale, near lake Albano; the legendary city of Alba Longa stood by the shores of this lake, possibly near the location of today's Castel Gandolfo. The beautiful scenery is dominated by Mount Albano (nowadays called Monte Cavo in Italian), a place that was sacred for the old Latins (picture on the right); it was there that the Feriae Latinae, an annual celebration of the Latin league, took place. The next stop in my journey was the beautiful town of Genzano di Roma, famous for the Infiorata, when the main street of the town is covered with flowers (see picture below). That street leads you to the upper part of Genzano, with beautiful views of Lake Nemi, a small, round lake in the centre of what used to be a volcanic crater. Anyone who has read James Frazer's The Golden Bough will be familiar with the antiquities of the area, including the famous Temple of Diana, now disappeared, and the vicissitudes of the Rex Nemorensis.

Definitely, travelling around the Castelli Romani is like going back to the remote past of Rome and the Latins. I didn't have time to visit all the interesting places in the area, including the remains of Tusculum, the walk to Mount Albano along an old Roman path or a visit to places like Grottaferrata, Velletri or Aricia. In Aricia, for example, there's a curious Roman building. It used to be a guesthouse in classical times, and it continued to be so in later centuries. I read about it somewhere, but now I can't find the information about it, even using the whole apparatus of Internet. According to tradition, the Roman poet Ovid (43BC-17AD) stayed in this guesthouse some days on his way to exile. Maybe this story is just an invention to attract visitors, as Ovid is one of the most famous Roman poets and the story of his exile to the remote lands of Tomis, at the shores of the Black Sea, which he dramatically narrated in his books Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, soon became literary classics. In these books, Ovid complained bitterly about the conditions he had to live in and the back luck he had had to end his days in such a remote and apparently uncivilised corner of the world. Now, was it really so bad? Was he really sent so far away?

In a recent book published in Spanish (Gálatas, Getas y Atlantes, 2010), Xaverio Ballester analyses Ovid's texts in full detail and reaches the conclusion that they're full of inconsistencies. It seems that for the geographic and cultural aspects the Roman poet relied on the general erudition of the time, rather than on first hand experience. According to Ballester, the location of Ovid's exile was a lot closer to Rome. Ovid wrote about Tomis basically because he was supposed to be there!

Ballester's book is a compilation of three essays, including the one about Ovid (El geta de Ovidio). The book is really pleasurable to read, an excellent mixture of scientific rigour and the finest sense of humour.

In the third essay (La Atlántida... si creemos a Platón), Ballester tackles one of the most intriguing topics in Greco-Roman antiquity: the possible location of Atlantis, the legendary territory whose dramatic fall was narrated by the Greek philosopher Plato in two of his dialogues. Is Atlantis just a myth, or is there any truth in this story? If so, what was the location of the 'lost continent'? For centuries, all types of people, including scholars, have asked themselves these questions and come up with the most varied proposals. One of the main points to bear in mind is that Plato offered a precise location for his Atlantis: off the Columns of Hercules, i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar. According to Ballester, however, this location must not be taken at its face value. In many cases old myths are adapted and re-elaborated to the new circumstances. The original material originated at a very early time, in the context of the eastern Mediterranean. The lands further west were basically unknown, or unheard of. Later on, with the expansion into new, and therefore exotic lands, the myths were embellished with new locations further west, as happened, for example, to the Herculean cycle. Ballester puts forward an interesting hypothesis about the Atlantis myth, linking it with the Dardaneles and the Black Sea. The myth would be linked with a geological process that took place at about 5,600 BC: the rise of the sea level and the flooding of the Black Sea area (until then just a small lake) with water from the Mediterranean.

In the first essay (Más allá de gálatas o celtas), Ballester deals with the Celts, particularly with their ethnonym. The study of ethnonyms is traditionally full of absurd proposals, as Ballester funnily shows at the beginning of the chapter. They are explained in linguistic terms, with little or no connection to reality or common sense. We find an example of this in the various explanations for the word 'Celtae', 'Galli' or 'Gallaeci' that have been traditionally proposed. Ballester offers a completely new reading of the terms, which he connects to the geographic notion of 'people who live on the fringe', or 'at a remote area in the west', with the association of 'the west' with the notions of 'death' or 'the end of the world'. It is difficult to prove the validity of this proposal but at least it is coherent with the geographic and (pre)historic contexts.

Influential articles

A couple of weeks ago I read some blog posts (e.g. here and here) that celebrated the 20th anniversary of Pinker and Bloom's 1990 article Natural language and natural selection, generally considered the starting point for the revival in the studies of language origins. Sometimes the discussions in this area derive into theoretical controversies that seem to lead nowhere, as could be expected in a relatively new scientific discipline. The debates are usually conducted by American scholars who are imbued in Chomskyan linguistics, with its collection of useless notions such as UG (Universal Grammar) and its tendency towards 18th century-style categorizations. However, in the milieu of this renewed field of study, there are also people making interesting proposals. One of them is, precisely, Steven Pinker (see photo on the left). I have read some of his books, e.g. The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought, in which he has put together notions of psychology and linguistics in a most intelligent and coherent way. Even though I may not agree with some of the things he has said, I think his proposals are a step forward in the direction of getting a clearer view of language.

What makes an article influential? I suppose the main factor is time. A couple of decades is enough time to assess the degree of importance of a given writing, which can even be measured in numbers of citations, etc. Normally it is books, not journal papers, that become a landmark in the humanities, so we could say the Pinker and Bloom's article is rather exceptional in this respect. But there are other examples of articles that have been influential in linguistics, or that may have a potential for it. Let's see one of them.

In 1999, Jonathan Adams and Marcel Otte published a paper whose title poses an interesting question: Did Indo-European languages spread before farming? , a question that is not often asked in the field of Indo-European linguistics. According to the authors (p. 77): "No one seems to have given the idea more than a passing thought". That was at least until Mario Alinei and his proposals for a Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm (PCP). In fact, Marcel Otte (picture on the right) is nowadays a member of the multidisciplinary PCP workgroup. One of the things that the authors of the article say is that there is no clear indication in the archaeological record of Europe of any massive process of language substitution of the kind that would have caused the supposed spread of IE in the Neolithic of Bronze ages. For them, the key to understanding the distribution of people and languages in prehistoric Europe lies in the climatic conditions of the post-Ice-Age period. Later developments during the Neolithic and Bronze/Iron Ages, some of them quite relevant, produced the final outlines. In the article, the authors offer a series of hypotheses for future research, opening a completely new line of thought. Let's remember, on the other hand, that Marcel Otte is actually one of the most prestigious prehistorians in contemporary times, comparable to other figures like Renfrew or Zvelebil, and I think what he has written about the prehistory of European languages should be taken into account. In short, a couple of influential articles on linguistics, or at least with a potential to be influential, written by authors who are not linguists themselves. What is this, a sign of the times?

Hunter-gatherers, farmers and... something in between

When it comes to thinking about the origins and expansion of agriculture, one is influenced by the powerful appeal of the word revolution. We were all taught at school that there was an Agricultural, also called Neolithic, Revolution that started somewhere in the Middle East and then propagated to the adjacent areas. This hearth of farming and pastoralism would eventually become the so-called 'cradle of civilization'. There were other places in the world where agriculture and animal domestication developed independently (South Asia, China, the Americas) but not at such an early date and with such far-reaching consequences. From the perspective of today, it is logical to see the events associated with agriculture as a revolution that involved profound changes in every possible sphere of human economy and society. But in what ways was it a revolution for the human populations who were involved in the process? I have recently read an enlightening book that analyses this issue in detail: Barker, Graeme (2006). The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory. Why did Foragers become Farmers? Oxford: OUP. It's the kind of book that anyone interested in prehistoric languages should read.

It would be difficult to summarize the book in a few lines. It is a comprehensive study of the whole process of foraging-farming transition in all the world's regions. One of the main conclusions of this study is that there is not a general pattern for this transition but a variety of possible scenarios. According to the traditional view, the one established since Gordon Childe's coining of the term Neolithic Revolution, agriculture and farming were transmitted from its core area by a process of demic diffusion of wave of advance, whereby groups of farmers, pushed by demographic or climatic pressure, spread into new territories either displacing the local population or causing a process of quick acculturation. This model was proposed for all domestication areas in the world, especially for the one that involved the Fertile Crescent and its contiguous areas of propagation, especially Europe and Africa. It seems, however, that the archaeological evidence does not support this kind of model on a general basis.

First, it seems that most of the research in this area in the last century has been biased by a series of preconceived ideas about the topic. Most archaeological research has focused on South-East Asia (the Levant and Fertile Crescent region), whereas other areas have not been researched so thoroughly. On the other hand, the archeological evidence was traditionally interpreted on the lines of a simple contrast between foraging and farming populations. However, the use of more modern techniques, for example the study of the DNA of animals and plants or the analysis of sediments or pollen deposits, and the better understanding of the hunter-gatherer communities of modern times provided by anthropological studies, offer a much more complex picture of the process. In any case, it was not a single event, or the result of a single expansion process: (p. 378) "The traditional model of Neolithic agricultural colonists from South-West Asia spreading inexorably across Europe is extremely difficult to reconcile with the complexity of the evidence now available for the beginnings of agro-pastoral farming here". Something similar can be said about East and South-East Asia: (p. 229): "The central and eastern Pacific was a 'melting pot' of local domestications and cultigen acquisition from both west and east, not a one-way movement of agricultural colonists", and about South Asia. What we have in general is a variety of subsistence strategies that were adopted at different times and places. In some cases there was a quick transition to a farming-pastoralist economy, in others there was a long coexistence of foraging economy with some forms of basic farming. At the beginning of the Holocene, most human populations were acquainted with more or less elaborate techniques of plant collection and processing that paved the way, especially at the psychological level, for the later introduction of farming. The patterns of nomadism or sedentism also varied considerably. Some of the early farming populations show significant patterns of mobility, whereas some foraging populations were more sedentary than previously acknowledged. A few decades ago, the animal and plant remains found in archaeological sites were confidently understood as domesticated or wild species, which allowed a very simple explanation of the facts. A closer analysis, with more accurate technologies and a more multidisciplinary approach, tells us a different story. Our understanding of prehistoric societies is changing. The contrast between farmers and hunter-gatherers is not as clear-cut as once thought, and it seems that there were (and in some places of the world there still are) many possibilities in between: (p. 413) "a major problem with the demic diffusion model (...) of agriculture has been its focus on the transition to farming as some kind of unique sequence of movements in an otherwise static world".

In a previous post I commented on the importance of agricultural expansion in connection with language. The demic diffusion model, involving the expansion of farming-pastoralist populations into vast territories, has been applied in different linguistic areas of the world, e.g. the Indo-European area (Renfrew's Anatolian Hypothesis), and especially the Afro-Asiatic group, where it has found a more general acceptance (I'll write a post about this group of languages in the near future). The question is: can the expansion of agriculture be the main reason behind the expansion of these language groups? Some linguistic arguments have been used in order to support this view, especially the ones provided by linguistic paleontology: it has been suggested, for example that the IE and Afro-Asiatic 'proto-languages' have some common vocabulary for farming, which would imply that the speakers of this proto-language were already farmers. I have had the chance to look at some of these lists of 'farming vocabulary', e.g. the ones proposed for IE, and it seems to me that they are anything but conclusive. In many cases, they are words that could perfectly fit a foraging type of subsistence, especially if we understand foraging in more complex ways, as Barker has suggested in his book; in other cases, they can be explained as examples of language diffusion.The Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan groups of languages seem especially interesting as a testing ground for the various proposals (p. 322) "the theory that the earliest speakers [of Afro-Asiatic languages] were farmers depends on the assumption that terms identified in proto-Afro-Asiatic such as grains, grasses, and grinders must automatically refer to domesticates and their processing, rather than to wild plant collecting, whereas in the formative stages of the language group a correlation with wild grass collectors is just as likely (...) In both language groups, terminologies with indisputable agricultural connotations can only be identified in the more developed stages of the member families".

As I said, I will discuss some aspects of the Afro-Asian and Nilo-Saharan groups in some future posts.

Note: the second picture shows a hunting scene from the Cova dels Cavalls, in the Valltorta Valley near Castellón (Spain), a beautiful example of the Levantine prehistoric art. I really enjoyed visiting this place, and the nearby museum, a few years ago; the third picture, taken by me the other day, is from the Abrigo del Ciervo, near Dos Aguas (Valencia).

Colin Renfrew. The Anatolian Hypothesis

For many years, basically until the second half of the 20th century, the study of Indo-European (IE) was exclusively in the hands of linguists. They analyzed ancient languages, devising laws and family trees, and imagined the emergence and expansion of Indo-European as an event which involved a series of massive migrations or invasions occurring (what a coincidence!) a few centuries before the first attested documents written in IE languages. In the 1950s and 60s, the Lithuanian-American archaeologist Marjia Gimbutas provided the archaeological evidence to support the traditional view. Her theory, generally known as the Kurganic Theory, was later developed by other authors, e.g. J P Mallory. It can be summarized as follows: the original homeland of the proto-IE (PIE) speakers was in the Russian steppes; they started to spread into other Eurasian territories between 4000 and 3000 BC. Gimbutas identified these early proto-Indo-Europeans with a series of prehistoric cultures of that time, especially the one that built the Kurgans, a type of burial mound. Another important aspect of this theory is the role of the horse, linked to pastoralism and warfare. Needless to say, Gimbutas’ theory fitted perfectly well with the orthodox IE paradigm, and it soon became the most widely accepted explanation for IE origins. The first scholar who challenged this view was the eminent British archaeologist Colin Renfrew (image on the left). His theories are based on a simple fact: a phenomenon of such proportions as the expansion of IE languages can only be explained in connection with a really significant event in prehistory. And this event, according to Renfrew, is the expansion of agriculture in the Neolithic. This puts the chronology of PIE a couple of millennia back in time (around 5000-6000 BC), and the PIE homeland somewhere in the Anatolian Peninsula, from where, alongside agriculture, IE languages (and peoples) spread towards Europe and Central Asia. For this reason, his theory is often referred to as the Anatolian Hypothesis.

There’s no doubt that Renfrew’s theories about IE origins are an important step forward in this field of study, and a stimulus for further reassessments of the IE question. The most important thing is that he proved the inconsistencies of the traditional view, for example the ones regarding the role of horses in the expansion of Indo-Europeans. Needless to say, Renfrew’s theory has generally been rejected by mainstream Indo-Europeanists, who prefer the more traditional view, based on a series of obsolete assumptions about language change and prehistory. Personally, I think that the diffusion of agriculture in the Neolithic must necessarily have had some relevant linguistic consequences, associated with the new technology and the socio-economic changes that it brought about, but it doesn’t seem to be the best explanation for the expansion of IE. As we have variously seen in this blog, this explanation could be found further back in time, in the Paleolithic.

Further reading:
- MALLORY, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Language, Archaeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson.
- RENFREW, Colin (1987). Archaeology and Language. The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Pimlico.

Origins of the Celts

There is no doubt that the Celts occupy a central position in the history and prehistory of Europe. They spread through an extensive territory and their language and traditions have survived until today. Now, who were the Celts? Where did they come from? Several theories have been put forward to answer these questions. I will focus on two of them: the ‘traditional’ ones (e.g. Marija Gimbutas’ theory), and the recent proposals made by Mario Alinei and the Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT).

- It has traditionally been thought that the Celts emerged as a differentiated IE group in Central Europein the Late Bronze Age, i.e. at around 1,000 BC. Later, in connection with the expansion of the Iron Age Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, the Celts reached other European areas, where they settled.

- In the context of the PCT, the original territory of the Celts basically coincides with the areas where Celtic groups and languages were present at the beginning oh history, and in some cases even today: the British Isles, Belgium, and the Atlantic areas of France and Iberia (Portugal, Galicia, Cantabrian regions). Celtic languages were spoken in these areas from the Late Paleolithic or Mesolithic, and there was no relevant discontinuity until the times of the Romans. The expansion of Celtic elements, associated with metallurgy and other technical developments, took a west-east direction, and was carried out by intrusive elites rather than through massive migration.

What theory do I prefer? The answer is clear: I prefer the one proposed by the PCT. This will come as no surprise to the readers who are already familiar with this blog, as I have very often talked about the PCT in its various aspects and proposals. If you are new in Language Continuity, I think it’s a good idea to take a look at the posts under the “Continuity Theory” Label on the right, because this way you can have a better view on this. I won’t go into the details of the theory now, but at least I’ll try to give some reasons why I think its proposals about the Celts are reasonable.

First of all, and most importantly, I think that it is a question of common sense. According to the traditional view, the Celts emerged somewhere in Central Europe and then expanded from there to other areas, with the incredible result that they actually disappeared from their original homeland! This is really unheard of, or at least highly unusual. Following the traditional explanation, an area like Ireland, which is so clearly and deeply ‘Celtic’, is just a later settlement of those Celts who originated in Central Europe, where they had gathered a great amount of strength to start their European expansion. How is it possible that this ‘powerful’ Celtic core in Central Europe just vanished from history, whereas the Celtic element remained vigourously in the supposed ‘new’ areas? Does it make any sense to propose a framework where prehistoric peoples move from one place to another at incredible speed, or where entire populations decide to abandon their language and adopt a new one for reasons that are hard to believe, as if the supposed pre-IE populations were just dreaming of becoming IE? Obviously, this explanation is constrained by the traditional chronology of IE, which sees the origin of PIE (proto-Indo-European) at about 4,000 BC. This leaves a very short stretch of time to offer a plausible explanation of the Celtic ‘mystery’, and fosters the invention of unrealistic stories like the ones mentioned above. The PCT, with its new chronology for PIE, is not limited by such constraints.

Apart from these general considerations, there are also significant data, from a variety of sources, pointing in the direction of a continuity of Celtic elements in the Atlantic ‘façade’ of Europe. If we analyse the evidence from archaeology or population genetics, there is nothing suggesting any kind of relevant discontinuity caused by the arrival of exogenous elements. A very clear exposition of this theory can be found in a recent article by Mario Alinei and Francesco Benozzo (2008): Megalithism as a manifestation of an Atlantic Celtic primacy in Meso-Neolithic Europe (you can also find it in Italian, here, and in Portuguese, here). In this article, which I strongly recommend, the authors offer an innovative analysis of megalithism in the framework of the Continuity Theory. The oldest megaliths (5th millennium BC) were erected in Brittany, on the French Atlantic coast, and in the following centuries they spread to other Atlantic areas, especially those connected with the Celts, and later to other areas, e.g. in the Mediterranean. Menhirs and dolmens can be found in the Isle of Man, in Galicia and in any other corner of the Celtic world; they all seem to echo the maritime context which gave birth to the Celts in prehistory. It is curious, for example, that the higher distribution of megaliths in Britain corresponds to the Celtic speaking areas of the north and west, especially in Wales and Scotland, whereas in central and eastern parts of England megaliths are much less common. On the other hand, the magico-religious and linguistic elements associated with megaliths suggest an uninterrupted continuity which has even reached modern times.

Maybe some of the details of the theory need to be discussed or refined, but I think there is evidence to suggest that the people who built the first megaliths in western Europe were speakers of Celtic languages.

NOTE: the pictures have been taken from the Alinei-Benozzo article mentioned above.
- First picture: Dolmen at Forkhill, County Armagh, Ireland.
- Second picture: A megalith at Ysbyty Cynfyn, Wales.

Language continuity in Europe (II): Switzerland

If we were asked to think of a typical example of a multilingual country in Europe, Switzerland would probably be one of the first ones to come to mind. Let’s take a look at the map of the offical languages of this country:












(From Wikimedia Commons. Click here for a larger image and further details).


This linguistic complexity, however, can be simplified if we bear in mind that these languages belong to two different and clearly-defined groups: on the one hand, we have a Germanic dialect: Swiss German (Schwyzertütsch), spoken in the Centre and north of the country, and, on the other hand, a group of Romance dialects (Franco-Provençal, Gallo-Italic and Ladin), located in the west and south.

The traditional explanation for this language diversity derives from two historical facts: the Roman Conquest, which brought about Latin as the base of modern Romance dialects, and the Germanic migrations at the end of the Roman Empire, which are the origin of Swiss German. It is also supposed that, before these historical events, the people who lived in this area were basically speakers of Celtic dialects.

The Continuity Theory (CT), however, sees it quite differently. Switzerland is actually a good place to test this theory. During the last glaciation, this area was completely uninhabited. It was only at around 8000 BC, when the ice-cap started to recede, that human populations started to settle in this area again, which means that there is no continuity between these human groups and the ones that lived here before the glacial period. A similar situation can be seen, in general, in the northern territories of Europe and Asia. For example in the Scandinavian Peninsula (see this post for more details).

Mario Alinei (2000, pp. 334-353) analyzed the prehistoric cultures of Switzerland from the Mesolithic (i.e. from the end of the last Glacial Age) onwards and found out that there is a consistent and significant correspondence between the distribution of these cultures and the distribution of present-day dialects. For example, analyzing the cultures of the Early Neolithic Period, Alinei realized that the Liniendandkeramik (LBK) culture was present in the areas were Germanic languages are spoken today, whereas the Chassey, Lagozza and Cortaillaud cultures correspond, respectively, to the areas where French (oil), Gallo-Italic and Franco-Provençal dialects are spoken, all of them belonging to the Italic group. This correlation of prehistoric cultures and modern dialects continues in the Late Neolithic and Calcolithic periods, and also in the Bronze and Iron Ages. An important factor in the formation of these speech communities is the presence of Celtic elements, connected mainly with the Iron Age cultures of Hallstatt (750-450 BC) and La Tène (450-58 BC), but also to be found in some older cultures, already in the Neolithic. In any case, these Celtic elements cannot be seen as the result of a massive migration or invasion. In the words of the archaeologist Marc Sautier (1976, 153):

“The arrival of the Celts did not deeply alter the indigenous way of life, except probably in the social field, as the impression is given that the relatively few newcomers constituted a ruling class”.

The expansion of Celtic cultures (and also, in the east, of Balkan elements) is connected with technological developments, especially in metallurgy. In many cases, especially in the later periods, the Celts can be interpreted as an intruding elite that ruled over the original population.

As we have seen, the CT explains the linguistic situation of Switzerland in a completely new way. Germanic and Italic dialects were already spoken here in the Mesolithic, i.e. from around 8,000 BC, with a geographical distribution which is quite similar to the one we have today, 10,000 years later. An important factor in the formation of these dialects is the influence of external groups, especially the Celts.

What about the Romans then? It is obvious that their language, and also the dialects brought by the Germanic tribes that migrated from the north, are of great importance in the formation of modern Swiss dialects. However, their role in the geographic distribution of these dialects is basically irrelevant.

Bibliography:
- ALINEI, Mario. (2000). Origini delle Lingue d’Europa. II. Continuità dal Mesolitico all’Età del Ferro nelle Principali Aree Etnolinguistiche. Bologna, Il Mulino.
- SAUTER, Marc R. (1976). Switzerland from Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest. London, Thames and Hudson.

Language continuity in Europe (I): Greece

It is generally agreed that Greek languages, which are a subgroup of Indo-European, have been spoken in Greece since around 1500 BC. The confirmation for this dating came in the 1950s, when the English classical scholar and architect Michael Ventris deciphered the Linear B script, which was used during the Mycenaean Civilization period (from 1600 BC to 1100 BC). He discovered that the language spoken by the Mycenaeans was actually a form of Greek. (On the left you can see an example of Linear B inscribed on a transport jar found in the ancient Greek city of Thebes). Before the decipherment of Linear B there was a wide variety of theories about the Mycenaeans, and it was generally believed that the arrival of Greek-speakers in the Peninsula and islands was a later phenomenon. Given the new evidence from Linear B, some important aspects of Greek history had to be changed, especially some chronological assumptions. Mario Alinei refers to this type of historical re-scheduling as proiezione micenea (in English, Mycenaean projection).

A language continuum of 3,500 years, like the one universally accepted for Greece, is the exception rather than the norm in the context of European languages. According to the traditional approach, the dates for the emergence of European languages depend on the extant historical documents or can be inferred from historically attested events such as the Roman expansion or the migrations of the Germanic or Celtic tribes; the rest belongs to the dark ages, or to some obscure people who predated the arrival of the invaders. We can see some methodological problems here. The only difference between Greece and the rest of Europe is that the documents available are much older, due to its geographical position and the greater technological development of ancient Greeks in comparison with their European contemporaries. There's nothing in the speech communities of Greece that makes them exceptional. They have gone through the same kind of historical events, including dominance by other nations (the Romans, the Turks, etc.), and they are characterized by the same features that we find in any other European speech-community. But that's something that traditional historical linguistics does not take into account: their chronology depends on the objects or the interpretations that are available; if a new significant discovery is made, then the whole paradigm is changed. It seems that this is a very poorly-based methodology and that there could be alternative ways to look into the history of languages. And in fact, they exist. In a previous post in this blog we saw how Mario Alinei, in the context of the Continuity Theory (CT) has given a plausible explanation for the continuity of languages in the Scandinavian Peninsula from the Mesolithic, i.e. from the end of the last Glacial Period (you can read the post here). Similar explanations can be given for other linguistic areas in Europe, as I’ll try to show in future posts (the next one will be about the languages spoken in Switzerland).

Is it really possible to propose earlier dates for the continuity of European languages than those traditionally accepted? Obviously, a completely new paradigm is required. I can see some conditions for these new developments:

- The traditional chronology of Indo-European must be abandoned (as Mario Alinei, Xaverio Ballester and other members of the CT workgroup have variously shown, there are many good reasons to do so).

- It is necessary to revise many essential concepts, like the nature of language change or the role of social factors in the history of languages.

- The new proposals must be made in the context of a multidisciplinary approach, i.e. in accordance with the results obtained in anthropology, archaeology, genetics, etc.

- A new methodology is required, especially one that takes into account the study of modern dialects.

This is the only way forward in historical linguistics. Not only for European languages, but also in other areas in the world. Unless, of course, you are comfortably seated in your university office waiting for a new Rosetta Stone to appear.

The Continuity Theory at work

Many people might be surprised by some aspects of the Continuity Theory (CT), especially when it comes to dating the expansion of Indo-European. Traditionally, it had been assumed that this expansion took place in late prehistory or at early historic times, at a time not earlier than 4000 BC. The CT, as it is outlined in Mario Alinei’s work, proposes a much earlier date. In fact, the expansion of Indo-European is viewed in connection with the arrival of the first Homo Sapiens in Europe and Asia, after their dispersal from Africa. And that took place many millennia before. The question many readers may be asking themselves right now is: How did Mario Alinei reach this revolutionary conclusion, which is against the most essential, and some would say even ‘untouchable’ principles of historical linguistics? We can see it more clearly with an example.

SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES

The Paleolithic Age is characterized by a succession of Glacial periods and periods with a more moderate climate like the one we have now. The last of these Ice Ages ended between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. During this glacial period, Scandinavia was covered with a thick layer of ice, which, together with the arctic temperatures of the time, made it impossible for humans to live there. All human or hominid populations disappeared from the area, and it was only when the ice cap started to recede that this land was again populated from the South, through Denmark. The same pattern of events took place in other areas of Northern Europe and Siberia. Traditional historical linguistics sees these first inhabitants of the Scandinavian Peninsula as some kind of obscure folk of whom basically nothing is known (that’s a leit motiv in their explanations, in Scandinavia and elsewhere; they systematically resort to the ‘unknown’, the people with no name who were there before the arrival of the horse-riding Indo-Europeans!). It would be many years later, in the 1st millennium AD, that Germanic tribes migrated to the North bringing with them their own language, a branch of Indo-European. And not before that, because otherwise the whole picture of events would simply not hold. The CT sees it in a completely different way. The first populations who settled in the Scandinavian are after the end of glaciation were already speakers of Germanic. That is, Germanic was already a separate branch of Indo-European by the year 15,000 BC. The main argument in favour of the traditional hypothesis is that it fits the constraints of its own theory, based on the analysis of the available linguistic data and historically attested events. But if we look at the archaeological data, a very different picture emerges. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest a clear continuity in the populations of Scandinavia from the Paleolithic, with no relevant input of other elements through massive migration. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that nearly 100% of the place names of Norway and Sweden are of Germanic origin. How come the ‘aboriginal’ inhabitants did not leave a single mark of their own language? How could they be so systematically erased from the face of the earth by the arrival of these new settlers who, on the other hand, left no clear sign of their ‘invasion’?... It looks like there’s something wrong with the traditional explanation. In fact, the whole idea of the expansion of Indo-European has always been full of such incredible migrations and invasions, in which the Indo-Europeans were usually depicted as the ones who brought light where there was darkness. Or the ones who were ‘superior’. The Scandinavian area provides a good example of how the CT offers interesting explanations in accordance with data from archaeology, genetics, anthropology and other sources. The same type of reasoning has been applied to other linguistic areas with similar results (vid. Mario Alinei, Origine delle Lingue d’Europa, in 2 vols. 1996, 2000), even though in some cases the situation is not so simple, like in the Baltic area, and some new research is needed in order to refine and develop the theory. But on the whole, it is clear that the CT is a real breakthrough in the study of historical linguistics.