Structuring the Near Eastern Dialect Continuum in the Neolithic

Introduction. The question of the territories and temporal reference of the origin of ethnic groups that are part of the Indo-European (IE) community remains open up to nowadays. This is due to the difficulties in localizing the area of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, from which the origin of the IE languages is assumed. The article proposes the derivation of IE languages from the archaic dialect continuum, bypassing the stage of the simultaneous existence of a hypothetical PIE language. The relevance of the article lies in the reduction of uncertainty in the ideas about the ethnogenesis of the IE peoples.

Methodology and sources. The time of the beginning of the emergence of ethnic groups from the ancient dialect continuum is determined by paleogenetic data. To determine the areas of emergence of ancient ethnic groups, data on the original names of copper ore/copper, livestock and cultivated plants, etc., were used in conjunction with data on copper deposits, areas of cattle domestication, plant cultivation, etc., the ancient areas of the carriers of which are considered to be quite well known.

Results and discussion. The emergence of IE ethnic groups began in the 9th-7th millennia BC in the Fertile Crescent zone and was associated with the transition of mobile huntersgatherers to the sedentary lifestyle of farmers. The ancestors of the Slavs, Balts, Latins and Germans emerged earlier from the Middle Eastern dialect continuum in the vicinity of the Semitic, Hurrian-Urartian and Kartvelian tribes and ancestors of the Turks.

Conclusion. The complex application of linguistic, archaeological, and paleogenetic data makes it possible to clarify the history of the emergence of a number of IE ethnic groups without using the hypothesis of a common PIE ancestral homeland. The separation of particular histories of ethnogenesis in space and time makes it possible to exclude some inconsistencies such as “Wanderwörter”.

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