Rating: 
Summary: provocative but unconvincing
Review: renfrew's book appears to try to prove that there were no mass migrations into europe that carried the indo-european languages into this continent, and it appears that he is altogether uncomfortable with the idea of mass migrations altogether. well, the migrations of celts and germans were facts that were recorded by greek and roman observers, and they were movements of whole populations, not just fighting men, so if you find it uncomfortable to admit that mass migrations took place, too bad. better documented and more recent examples are the movements of slavs and turks during the last two millennia. so migrations are facts. the second fact that renfrew appears to overlook is that the indo-european languages are too similar to one another to have differentiated at the time when farming spread from anatolia to europe. the third fact he appears to overlook is one also found in biology and is hence relevant (language, after all, is a behavioural phenomenon of humans, who are biologically speaking mammals): you derive the species from the territory of its genus, and the most likely candidate for the territory of the genus is the area with the greatest linguistic diversity, and this in this case is eastern europe with celtic, germanic, slavic, baltic, a bit further south italic, illyrian, dacian and proto-greek. armenian is also originally a balkan-type language, so you really have hittite, tokharian and indo-iranian that cannot be shown to derive from that area. you do not have that diversity reported for anatolia. there are other points, too, but these are the most salient i can think of. it appears to be a tortured attempt to prove that 1) there were no bloody mass-migrations into europe (what were all these tombs containing iron weapons, then?) and 2) IE originated and spread from, anatolia. in my opinion it fails in both, but thanks dr renfrew again, it is a very provocative book.
Rating: 
Summary: A challenging model for the spread of indo-european
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another failed effort to locate the Indo European Urheimat
Review: The book provides an excellent overview of the linguistic issues involved in the Indo-Eurpoean problem. It also rightly claims that migratory theories are mere fantansies. When populations move they must have a reason to do so and they definitely follow some logical processes. The three models postulated by the author for spread of people and/or languages are lot more scientifc than the 19th century invasionst theories. The author's main thesis is: the Indo-Eurpoean languages have spread all over Europe and Asia from their Urheimat (homeland) in Anatolia (Turkey). He carries his thesis well while describing the spread of languages in Europe and Scandanavia but runs into major problems when dealing with the Indo-Iranian aspect. The present reviwer disagrees with identifying Anatolia as the orginal homeland of Indo-European languages for the following reasons. 1. This is based essentially on the identifcation of the now extinct Hittite as an Indo-European language. The author basically ASSUMES that Hittite must have been spoken in Anatolia as far back as 7000 BCE. However, this assumption is cleary unfounded. The Biblical and Babylonean records , which are largely undisputed, identify Hittite people as relative new comers to the region (around 1500 BCE). 2. Hittie vocabulary has very large proportion of Non Indo-European words which indicate that it was a minor language when it arrived in Anatolia. 3. Comparitive mytholgoy has idenfied many common gods to the Indo-European people. However, the written records found in Hittite mention only one such god Inar (Vedic Indra, Greek Zeus, after Vedic Dayus Pittar) 4. Anatolian Urheimat model runs into major timeline problems with regards to South Asia. The earliest Neolithic settlement has been discovered in Mehargarh (Eastern Pakistan) dating around 6500 BCE. This is thought to be almost four times larger than its contemporary in Anatolia (Catal Hayuk). The wave model of spread of agriculture cannot acount for this fact, given the enormous distance between the two. Few scholard will dispute the strong archeological trail of the spread of agriculture from Anatolia to Europe. However, there is no proof to equate that with the spread of languages.
Rating:
Summary: Another failed effort to locate the Indo European Urheimat
Review: The book provides an excellent overview of the linguistic issues involved in the Indo-Eurpoean problem. It also rightly claims that migratory theories are mere fantansies. When populations move they must have a reason to do so and they definitely follow some logical processes. The three models postulated by the author for spread of people and/or languages are lot more scientifc than the 19th century invasionst theories. The author's main thesis is: the Indo-Eurpoean languages have spread all over Europe and Asia from their Urheimat (homeland) in Anatolia (Turkey). He carries his thesis well while describing the spread of languages in Europe and Scandanavia but runs into major problems when dealing with the Indo-Iranian aspect. The present reviwer disagrees with identifying Anatolia as the orginal homeland of Indo-European languages for the following reasons. 1. This is based essentially on the identifcation of the now extinct Hittite as an Indo-European language. The author basically ASSUMES that Hittite must have been spoken in Anatolia as far back as 7000 BCE. However, this assumption is cleary unfounded. The Biblical and Babylonean records , which are largely undisputed, identify Hittite people as relative new comers to the region (around 1500 BCE). 2. Hittie vocabulary has very large proportion of Non Indo-European words which indicate that it was a minor language when it arrived in Anatolia. 3. Comparitive mytholgoy has idenfied many common gods to the Indo-European people. However, the written records found in Hittite mention only one such god Inar (Vedic Indra, Greek Zeus, after Vedic Dayus Pittar) 4. Anatolian Urheimat model runs into major timeline problems with regards to South Asia. The earliest Neolithic settlement has been discovered in Mehargarh (Eastern Pakistan) dating around 6500 BCE. This is thought to be almost four times larger than its contemporary in Anatolia (Catal Hayuk). The wave model of spread of agriculture cannot acount for this fact, given the enormous distance between the two. Few scholard will dispute the strong archeological trail of the spread of agriculture from Anatolia to Europe. However, there is no proof to equate that with the spread of languages.
Rating: 
Summary: A failed effort, stubbornly insisted upon
Review: When this book first appeared, in the middle of a comparatively huge media storm (nobody can criticize Professor Renfrew's mastery of media approaches), I found myself discussing it, in Oxford, with a linguist specializing in Persian and other Arya languages, and one of the world's great specialists in Indian cultures. (My own field is early Indo-European culture.) From all our very different perspectives, we found ourselves saying the same thing: the archaeological evidence was very interesting, but Renfrew had no understanding of comparative and historical linguistics (so said the Indianist and the historical linguist) or of comparative mythology and Dumezil (so said I). The reviewer below, who points out the violent prejudice against migration in English archaeological theory, is perfectly right: Renfrew is indeed trying to reverse a paradigm which he finds distasteful, not for scholarly reasons, but for disguised ideological ones - a behaviour, alas, all too frequently found in the United Kingdom. And in spite of its evident weakness, he has since insisted on buttressing his unacceptable theory of linguistic development with a string of publications. But the really funny thing is, that a different equally speculative, and even more irrational school of archaeologists, that of Marija Gimbutas, has at the same time insisted on creating an equally mythological picture of peaceful farmers at the origins of Europe - with the Indo-Europeans, this time, as the wicked axe-welding patriarchalist bandits from the steppes putting an end to their matriarchal idyll and introducing war, unknown until then, into Europe! Ain't life grand?
Rating: 
Summary: A fun read, nevertheless
Review: Yes, the Anatolian origin for Indo-European is questionable at best, and most scholars don't believe it; neither is it supported by any independent data based on physiology, such as blood grouping studies, that I know of. Unfortunately, it is necessary for Professor Renfrew's time line that the point of origin be west of the areas usually recognized.
However, there is something compelling about his picture of the spread of language through expansion more than through migration and invasion. The idea of large numbers of fairly primitive tribes leapfrogging hither and thither almost at random through Europe displacing, defeating, and/or giving language lessons to any indigenous populations they encounter is neither attractive nor elegant.
In either case, this book is engagingly written and can be understood and enjoyed by anyone with an interest in the subject. Even if the theory is not valid, there is much food for thought here; reading it is time well spent.
| 
