Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins

by Colin Renfrew

Book Overview

In this book Colin Renfrew directs remarkable new light on the links between archaeology and language, looking specifically at the puzzling similarities that are apparent across the Indo-European... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521386756
• ISBN13: 9780521386753
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

historian

This is an excellent treatment of the origins of the Indo-Europeans and together with Cavalli-Sforza's "Genes,Peoples and Languages" provides where from and at what time period the ancesters of the Europeans originated. Renfrew's only inaccuracy is in infering that at the time of the arrival of the first agriculturalists to the Balkans a Greek association be made. Cavalli-Sforza puts forward a more factual and convincing identifcaton of the language of Albania being the oldest in Europe. These two books present when examined together the most convincing arguments on the topic in particular since they base there presentations on either radio-carbon dating in the case of agriculture or on genes in the case of dating who are the oldest people of Europe.

Reason vs. Dogma

This is an excellent iconoclastic overview of an often maligned people who were to provide the basis for western civilization. Although Mr. Renfrew comes across as a reasonable scholar - often noting the tenuousness of his own conclusions and fairly articulating opposing views - he is vilified by the old guard - the Gimbutas gang of western-bashing renown. Another reviewer cites Mallory's work, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, as a more scholarly and correct work. I do encourage others to read it. Note how many paranoid attacks are made specifically of Mr. Renfrew (by name). It is almost as though he believes Mr. Renfrew has the intellectual high ground and he must resort to ad hominem tirades instead of reason to bolster his tottering old viewpoint. Mr. Renfrew's detractors have certainly missed the forest for the trees. All of archeology and historical linguistics is glued together with speculation - so, rather than arguing over arcane details it is sometimes good to resort to reason. Mr. Renfrew's reasoning, void of political correctness, is refreshing and enlightening.

A fascinating book

No one can doubt Mr.Collin Renfrew's erudiction on the subject of the origin of the people who first spoke an indo-european language. No doubt he is one of the most important scholars on this very difficult subject. This does not mean that one has to agree with his very particular and innovative vision of the original place where an indo-european language was spoken. He is the first to acknowledge to arrive at any non-controversial answer. The innovative approach he brings can be summarized by his adoption of many procedural modells to approach what really happenned in terms of social and cultural interchange, and movements in time and space. His style is convincing and his prose easy to follow despite the weighty issues he raises. In my view, I find to be pretty more convincing the hypothesis which ascribe to the Caucasian region the origin of the indo-european people, but I think that Mr.Renfrew's main contribution is to put in the forefront of the debate the tree model almost automatically adopted by all the proponents of an Indo-european people who spoke a proto language, and so exploring with major emphasis the trade-offs ocurred between the brethen inside this tree. Also, the radio-carbon datings presented are amazing and fascinating at the same time. To summ up, the book is a must to anyone interested in this fascinating issue.

A Little More Balance, Please!

For those who prefer their IE ancestors waving bloody battle-axes as they horse across Eurasia, instead of pushing plows and herding cows, this book is not congenial reading. Renfrew identifies the "wave of advance" of agriculture into Central Europe from Asia Minor as the foundational event in the spread of IE languages. This puts the time of origin back beyond 4000 bce, possibly even to 7000 bce. The battle-ax gang was a later development, an offshoot, dating to around 2600 bce. As Renfew points out, pastoral nomadism requires the pre-existance of more settled agriculture.Some of what Renfrew has to say is a reaction against those who imagine prehistory as a sort of Conan the Barbarian playground, full of tribal migrations and thrusts. It is possible to support Renfrew's ideas in the main, without denying that various warlike surges took place. The question is, do we attribute the root of the languages we speak to the transient nomads, or to the people who hung on, before and after?There is more to this book than this one issue, but this seems to be the hot one as far as some other reviewers are concerned.

A challenging model for the spread of indo-european

Since the mid-nineteenth century it has been recognised that most languages can be grouped together with others based on their common roots. One of these groups is that of the indo-european languages (which include the germanic, romance, celtic, slavic, baltic, greek and indo-iranian languages). At one time the area in which these related languages were spoken stretched from the Atlantic to the Far East and from Scandinavia to the Indian sub-continent. Most archaeologists and linguists have suggested: a) that the origin of the indo-european languages lies within the relatively recent past, most probably within the steppes of southern Russia; and b) that the subsequent expansion of the language group was the effect of waves of invading groups stemming from that area. In this challenging and fascinating book, Professor Renfrew suggests that the time-depth of the spread and development of these languages coincided with the spread of agriculture from its middle eastern (e.g. in this case anatolian) origins. He also presents models for the spread of these languages which are intuitively satifying in that they do not require great hordes of people wandering around europe for no particular reason. If you are interested in the origins of the indo-european languages (including english, of course) this is a great place to start.