David W. Anthony

Finally got this book back out to finish it. I found the first chapters, which were more about the language, the most interesting. toward the end my eyes were glazing over, as the author went into minute detail about archaeological finds.. this is obviously his bread and butter and you can't blame him for finding it fascinating in all of its detail.
I lost the thread of his argument in all the minutia though, so I finished the book feeling like maybe he hadn't defended his central thesis entirely.
that being said, I did really enjoy most of the book, and consider myself better informed about proto Indo European and its probable culture.… (mer)

An entertaining read about the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) and its spread and the influences on it from the invention of the wheel, domestication of the horse and other sources around six thousand years ago. Includes considerable interesting discussion of linguistics and archaelogy. The book has a little more information than I needed (as a layman) about some specifics, such as some details of archaeological sites, but much of that type of data is in chart form and may be quickly scanned. There are good maps and diagrams.

Although the inference of the author that the language may first have been spoken in an area just north of the Black and Caspian Seas (Pontic Steppes) may not be strictly correct*, the discussion and data presented are little at issue, and the book is hardly diminished thereby, even if the inference may prove wrong . The author has done original research on the question of when horses were first ridden, as horse riding had influences quite beyond domestication alone.

PIE-based languages are spoken by more people than is any other language group and include English, German, Celtic, Greek, Italic (Romance), Slavic, Iranian and other language families. The amount of detail that linguistic study has constructed about PIE and the culture that spoke it is remarkable, given that PIE was entirely oral. Archaeology has much to say as well, and together they yield a fascinating insight about peoples long gone.

* A recent sophisticated study (reported September of 2012) based on linguistic connections purports to show, as some experts had previously argued, that PIE spread with farmers from Anatolia (Turkey) at a time beginning about 1500 years before this author places it at the Pontic Steppes. In any case, PIE and the Pontic culture certainly did spread from the steppes, traveling from there to, for example, as far away as northwestern china, though it became extinct there. The recent study may not resolve the issue. The author does treat with the Anatolia theory and explains some of the problems associated with it, acknowledging the Anatolian language as an odd and in some ways archaic relative of the PIE family.… (mer)