Urheimat protoindoeuropeo

La cuestión del urheimat de los pueblos proto-indoeuropeos y de su lengua ha sido un recurrente tema en los estudios indoeuropeos a partir del siglo XIX.

Many hypotheses for an Urheimat have been proposed, and Mallory (1989:143) said: “One does not ask ‘where is the Indo-European homeland?’ but rather ‘where do they put it now?’ ” La única cosa conocida con certeza es que la lengua se debió haber diferenciado y desarrollado en distintos dialectos a través del tercer milenio adC. Mainstream estimates of the time between PIE and the earliest attested texts (ca. nineteenth century BC; see Kültepe texts) range around 1,500 to 2,500 years, with extreme proposals diverging up to another 100% on either side:

• the 4th millennium BC (excluding the Anatolian branch) in Armenia, according to the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory);
• the 5th millennium BC (4th excluding the Anatolian branch) in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, according to the Kurgan hypothesis;
• the 6th millennium BC in India, according to Koenraad Elst's Out of India model;
• the 6th millennium BC or later in Northern Europe according to Lothar Kilian's and, especially, Marek Zvelebil's models of a broader homeland;
• the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia (the 5th, in the Balkans, excluding the Anatolian branch), according to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis;
• the 7th millennium BC (6th excluding the Anatolian branch), according to a 2003 glottochronological study[1];
• before the 10th millennium BC, in the Paleolithic Continuity Theory.

These possibilities boil down to four competing basic models (with variations) that have academic credibility (Mallory (1997:106)), i.e.:

• Pontic-Caspian: Eneolithic (5th to 4th millennia BC)
• Balkans: Neolithic (5th millennium BC)
• Baltic-Pontic-Caspian ("broad homeland"): Mesolithic to Neolithic (Ertebølle to Corded Ware horizon, 6th to 3rd millennia BC)
• Anatolia: Early Neolithic (7th to 5th millennia BC)