The Paleolithic Continuity Theory (or PCT, Italian La teoria della continuità), since 2010 relabelled as the Paleolithic Continuity Paradigm (or PCP), is a hypothesis suggesting that the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) can be traced back to the Upper Paleolithic, several millennia earlier than the Chalcolithic or at the most Neolithic estimates in other scenarios of Proto-Indo-European origins. Its main proponent is Mario Alinei, who advanced the theory in his Origini delle Lingue d’Europa, published in two volumes in 1996 and 2000.[1]
The PCT posits that the advent of Indo-European languages should be linked to the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia from Africa in the Upper Paleolithic.[2] Employing "lexical periodization", Alinei arrives at a timeline deeper than even that of Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hypothesis.[3]
Since 2004, an informal workgroup of scholars who support the Paleolithic Continuity Theory has been held online.[4] Apart from Alinei himself, its leading members (referred to as "Scientific Committee" in the website) are linguists Xaviero Ballester (University of Valencia) and Francesco Benozzo (University of Bologna). Also included are prehistorian Marcel Otte (Université de Liège) and anthropologist Henry Harpending (University of Utah).[2]
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The framework of PCT is laid out by Alinei in four main assumptions:[2]
The continuity theory draws on a Continuity Model (CM), positing the presence of IE and non-IE peoples and languages in Europe from Paleolithic times and allowing for minor invasions and infiltrations of local scope, mainly during the last three millennia.[5]
Arguing that continuity is "the archeologist's easiest pursuit," Alinei deems this "the easiest working hypothesis," putting the burden of proof on competing hypotheses as long as none provide irrefutable counter-evidence. Alinei also claims linguistic coherence, rigor and productivity in the pursuit of this approach.[2]
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:[2]
The Paleolithic Continuity hypothesis reverses the Kurgan hypothesis and largely identifies the Indo-Europeans with Gimbutas's "Old Europe."[7] 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,[6] 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.[6]
In introduction to PCT Mario Alinei argues, following Cavalli Sforza, that the distribution of genetic markers largely corresponds to that of languages. He further contends that 80% of Europe's human genetic material dates back to the Paleolithic, and cites Bryan Sykes in claiming that only a fifth of European DNA can be traced back to neolithic incomers.[2]
A 2009 study comparing mitochondrial DNA lineages of late hunter-gatherers, early farmers, and modern Europeans found large differences between the three groups. In particular, 82% of hunter-gatherers had maternal lineages that are rare in modern central Europeans.[8]
The origin of paternal lineages remains difficult to prove because modern science is unable to extract Y-DNA haplogroups from Paleolithic samples. However, the recent analysis of Arredi, Poloni and Tyler-Smith (2007) suggests that R1b-M269, the most common western European haplogroup, may have entered Europe only in the Neolithic.[9]
Alinei's Origini delle Lingue d’Europa was reviewed favourably in 1996 by Jonathan Morris in Mother Tongue, a journal dedicated to the reconstruction of Paleolithic language, judging Alinei's theory as being
"both simpler than its rivals and more powerful in terms of the insights it provides into language in the Meso- and Palaeolithic. While his book contains some flaws I believe that it deserves to be regarded as one of the seminal texts on linguistic archaeology, although given its lamentable lack of citation in English-language circles, it appears that recognition will have to wait until a translation of the original Italian appears."
Morris's review was reprinted as the foreword to the 2000 edition of Alinei's book.[10]
Renzi (1997) sharply criticized Alinei's book, refuting in particular the claim of the presence of Latin and of its different territorial forms in Italy in the 2nd millennium BC. Renzi argues that this theory would subvert firmly established concepts of Romance philology and dialectology, such as the concepts of substratum, vulgar Latin and so on.[11]
Alinei's theory was again critically reviewed by Adiego Lajara (2002):[12]
Although some of Alinei's reflections on linguistic change are very interesting, it should be said that certain conceptions in his work -- such as the excessive immobility of languages or the relationship between types of language and progress in the prehistoric lithic industry -- are very debatable. Alinei's core theory -- continuity from the Palaeolithic --, runs into a serious difficulty: it obliges us to deal with words traditionally reconstructed for Indo-European, referring to notions that did not exist in the Palaeolithic as loans, when from the formal standpoint they are indistinguishable from those Alinei sees as being Indo-European in the Palaeolithic period.