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Indo-European podcasts

I’ve been doing my steppe series since the spring of 2021 and will be continuing it into 2022 (chronologically). But I thought some blog readers might have missed the podcasts

Thomas Olander: the origin and spread of Indo-European languages
David Anthony: the origin of Indo-Europeans
Kristian Kristiansen: the birth of Northern Europe
James P. Mallory: finding the Indo-Europeans

(all ungated)

2 thoughts on “Indo-European podcasts

  1. Great posts. I am not at all qualified to speak authoritatively on this prehistoric population but I have thought:

    What if Greco-Armenian was brought to Greece and Anatolia with a population “rich” in r1a-z93? It seems like there was an early wave of proto indo europeans rich in r1b m269. This early wave would presumably speak dialects that eventually evolved into the Anatolian, Celtic, Lusitanian, Italic, Tocharian and Germanic languages. These early proto indo european populations would have stretched from Anatolia to Western Europe(to atleast France) and to what is now modern day Poland(since early Corded Ware was slightly over half r1b-m269) as well as Siberia(Afansievo).

    In the Baltic, Belarus and Central Russia(eastern Corded Ware basically) there would have been “r1a Indo-Europeans”. We now know that these latter populations and their paternal lineages ultimately became dominant on the steppes and progressively started to take over the “traditional” territories of those original r1b rich communities. Now here is the really interesting part among those “traditional r1b” territories, Greece and Anatolia were included. So perhaps one of the causes for the Trojan war, if it actually occurred, was the encroachment of r1a IE populations(or atleast only their younger males) on r1b IE populations. The persistence of R1b-Z2013 in the southern Balkans and Anatolia may be due to the elite position that proto Greeks and proto Armenians gained once they took control of those regions.

    So what we would have is an early wave of r1b IE populations moving west, east and south from the Pontic-Caspian steppe but just with carts(no chariots obviously) and copper tools/weapons. Then somewhere during the Bronze Age, there was a demographic “explosion” and expansion(aided by chariots and bronze tools/weapons) of r1a IE populations living in the forest steppe regions. These folks took over the old stomping grounds of those early R1b IE communities. These divisions could perhaps explain the similarities between Greek and Hindu mythology. The old Greek myth of Dionysus conquering India(Dionysiaca has parallels with Indra conquering the Dasa(Rig Veda).

    Again I am just amateur and have no room to speak on such topics but these are just my thoughts for now.

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