Paleolithic Continuity Theory - Historical Reconstruction

Historical Reconstruction

Associated with the Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT) is the historical reconstruction proposed by Alinei, which suggests that Indo-European speakers were native in Europe since the paleolithic. According to this reconstruction, the differentiation process of languages would have taken an extremely long time; by the end of the Ice Age the Indo-European language family had differentiated into proto Celtic/Italic/Germanic/Slavic/Baltic speakers occupying territories within or close to their traditional homelands. The rate of change accelerated when (Neolithic) social stratification and colonial wars began. Summarizing:

1. The colonial expansion of the Celts started much earlier than La Tene and proceeded (generally) from West to East, not vice versa.
2. The Mesolithic cultures of Northern Europe are identified with already differentiated Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Uralic groups.
3. Scandinavia was colonized by Germanic groups "only" after deglaciation, and was better able to preserve its original character in isolation. Germany, in contrast, suffered fragmentation as a result of the Neolithic appearance of the Linear Pottery culture, and developed a wealth of dialects.
4. The prehistoric distribution of proto-languages akin to Italic was an important factor underlying the current distribution of Romance languages throughout Europe.
5. The Slavic languages originated in the Balkans and became linked with the Neolithic expansion. This group would be especially identified by the Baden culture.

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-Turkish 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.