Indo-Europeans: history and characteristics of this Prehistoric people

Have you ever heard of the Indo-Europeans? Perhaps you don't know that if your native language is Spanish, English or German, you are speaking an Indo-European language.

And it is that practically all European languages ​​(and some of India and Iran) have their origin in the ancient language spoken by this mysterious people. And why do we say mysterious? Because the Indo-Europeans have not left any trace in history; we only intuit its existence in the common roots that the different languages ​​have to which we have referred.

In this article, we propose a trip to the past; a journey to the origin of our ancestors, Indo-European peoples.

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The discovery of the Indo-Europeans

A people that leaves no traces is doomed to oblivion, and the Indo-Europeans were for millennia. In antiquity, neither the Greeks nor the Romans seem to have realized the similarities their languages ​​had, not only with each other, but also with that of the Celts or the Persians.

And a little later, in the Middle Ages, this amazing similarity continued to be ignored. The multitude of languages ​​spoken in the world was explained as the punishment of God imposed on the pride of the human being, as stated in the passage of the Tower of Babel in the Bible.

But from the fifteenth century and, more specifically, from the sixteenth, something begins to change. It is the time of great discoveries and great journeys. Thus, some merchants who travel to the East begin to realize the great similarity that some oriental languages ​​have with Latin and Greek. Undoubtedly, this discovery must have left them stunned. How could it be that cultures so far apart had so many points of union?

In 1686 Andreas Jägger published his De Lingua Vetustissima Europae, that is, "Of the oldest language in Europe". In this play, Jägger points to the Caucasus as the place of origin of an already extinct language, but which was still alive in the languages ​​spoken in Europe. Without knowing it, the author was making the outline of the first idea about the Indo-European peoples.

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Who were the Indo-Europeans?

But who was this enigmatic town? Where did it come from? **What were the origins, both geographic and ethnic, of the Indo-Europeans? **

AND... Was it true that they spread throughout Europe and Asia during Prehistory and left traces both in the languages ​​and in the social structure of the Greeks, Latins, Germans and Indians, among others?

So let's shed some light on these mysterious ancestors.

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What was the place of origin of the Indo-Europeans?

Unfortunately, and despite the numerous investigations in this regard, it is not possible to ensure for sure which is the original homeland of the Indo-European peoples. Historically, four possible locations have been proposed: India, Lithuania, the Danube area, and finally the southern Russian steppes.

It was in the 19th century when studies related to the Indo-European peoples began to take shape.. In those years, and within the framework of the passion that any oriental subject aroused in Europe, India was indicated as the place of origin of these tribes. Those who claimed this were based on the existence of Sanskrit, which for millennia has been used in the Indian subcontinent as a language of culture. For these researchers, the fact that, of the languages ​​derived from Indo-European, Sanskrit was the oldest, was reason enough to consider India as the cradle of this culture.

However, as the decades passed, this theory was losing supporters. At the end of the 19th century, the Baltic area and, specifically, Lithuania, were identified as the cradle of the Indo-European peoples, location that conflicted with that indicated by other scholars, supporters of the Danube area as the homeland of the Indo-Europeans.

A little more recently, researchers such as the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas pointed out as a more than probable place of origin the southern Russian steppes.

Specifically, he defended the discovery of the remains of a prehistoric culture in that area, known as the Kurgan culture. According to Gimbutas, this culture had enjoyed enormous expansion throughout Europe from the 5th millennium BC. C, expansion that could be demonstrated with archaeological findings. To reinforce the theory, there was the fact that the culture of the Kurgans was semi-nomadic, so their constant migrations were justified.

Theories have continued to be proposed, but none achieve the unanimous acceptance of the experts. For the moment, the original land of the Indo-Europeans remains in the shadows.

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What was Indo-European society like?

As we have already pointed out previously, the Indo-Europeans were a semi-nomadic people. This does not mean, however, that they did not enjoy more or less stable settlements in good times. In fact, in the excavations of the Kurgan culture (presumably the place of origin of the Indo-Europeans), evident remains have been found that attest to the existence of fortifications in high places to facilitate defense.

This type of construction implies the existence of a more or less hostile environment, with frequent clashes or wars, so the Indo-Europeans had to be good horsemen and better warriors. On the other hand, the European burials of the I millennium BC. C show rich grave goods, full of elements related to war, so the theory that the Indo-Europeans they were highly hierarchical societies of warriors.

The Indo-European tripartite society (the rulers-priests, the warriors and the producers) is present in many of the cultures that are daughters of the Indo-European culture. Thus, we find examples in the Greek world (in Plato's Republic, the philosopher proposes an identical structure as an ideal society), as well as in the Middle Ages, whose class society based on orators, bellatores and laboratores is almost a carbon copy of the social hierarchy Indo-European. Nor can we forget about India, whose caste system is also a faithful reflection of this primitive hierarchization of the Indo-European peoples.

What was the religion of the Indo-Europeans?

Of course, and like many other aspects of their culture, the Indo-European religion is unknown to us. However, we have many clues, since this archaic religion left its mark on mythologies as apparently disparate as the Greek, German or Hindu.

Thus, it is assumed that the Indo-Europeans had a supreme god, the sky god, who could have been called Dieus (based on the common roots that the word god has in all the descendant cultures of the Indo-European). Indeed, the Indian god Dyaus, the Roman Jupiter (Iovis, in its original Latin form) or the Greek Zeus are divinities that come from this ancestral god. In his magnificent essay Treatise on the History of Religions, Mircea Eliade proposes that this god early Indo-European was related to the sky and, later, to the phenomena atmospheric. And, indeed, both the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus as well as the Germanic god Tyrzio are celestial gods, lords of the sky.

As Francisco Villar argues in "The Indo-Europeans and the Origins of Europe", it makes sense that the Indo-Europeans, a people from the Russian steppe, had as its main god the god of the sky, thunder and rain, because life on the steppe meant being at the mercy of the elements.

Nor is it surprising that they worshiped other gods related to other phenomena; among them, the fire, whose cult we find extended from India to the western end of Europe. And following Villar again, It is more than likely that these Indo-European peoples did not have temples, but practiced their worship in the open air.. A cult that, by the way, was based on the sacrifice of animals, something natural in a semi-nomadic people of shepherds and that we see replicated in cultures such as the Roman or the Greek.

And what language did they speak?

Despite the fact that, as we have already commented, in many of the Eurasian languages ​​we preserve many roots that come from this ancestral language, it is absolutely impossible for us to reconstruct the language of the Indo-Europeans, and we can only do assumptions.

The most common words (such as those related to family or nature) have indeed left traces in today's languages. Let's see some examples:

• The word mother: in Latin, mother; in greek, μήτηρ (to put); in Sanskrit, kill; in English, mother; in German, mutter; in Russian, kill (mat); in Gaelic, mathair.

From the common root, it has been possible to venture what the word mother was like in Indo-European: mater.

As the Indo-European peoples were herders, words related to animals abound in their lexicon. Thus, in Spanish we have the word sheep, which in the other languages ​​of Indo-European origin is:

• In latin, notify; in Sanskrit, avi; in Lithuanian, too notify; in irish, I heard; in ancient Greek, ὄϊς (you hear); in old Bulgarian, ovi-ca; in Old English, eowu.

Once again, from the common root, the original Indo-European word, hewi, has been reconstructed.

In this second example we see, once again, to what extent our European languages ​​are imbued with Indo-European roots, and how this vanished culture influenced our current speech.

Indo-European peoples remain a mystery to scholars. Despite the fact that it has been possible to reconstruct part of their culture, we are still a long way from knowing it in depth. However, their language still beats in many of the languages ​​present in the world: this is the heritage that has survived from the Indo-Europeans, a people whose origins date back no less than 7,000 years back.