(by invitation only, if you’d like to attend please email your request to Mika at chp-coordinator@uu.se)

Speaker: Axel Palmér, Human Past Fellow (CHP & SCAS)

Title: Archaeolinguistic perspectives on the Proto-Indo-Iranian homeland

Abstract

The Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European has been hypothesized to originate in the Ural region and to be correlated with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE). This hypothesis is based partly on matches between reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian terminology for chariots and archaeological evidence for chariots in the Sintashta culture. However, there are also mismatches in the material. While there is no evidence for pig husbandry in the Sintashta culture, Proto-Indo-Iranian inherited words for domestic pig from Proto-Indo-European, which point to a continuous familiarity with domestic pigs. To account for this, I propose that the boundaries of the Proto-Indo-Iranian homeland should be extended to include the Abashevo culture (to the west of the Ural mountains).