The lexical data used in this analysis come from the Indo-European Lexical Cognacy Database (IELex). Known events in the past (the date of attestation dead languages, as well as events which can be fixed from archaeology or the historical record) are used to calibrate the inferred family tree against time. This analysis combines a model of the evolution of the lexicons of individual languages with an explicit spatial model of the dispersal of the speakers of those languages. The minority view is decisively supported by the present analysis in this week's Science. Lexicons combined with dispersal of speakers The minority view links the origins of Indo-European with the spread of farming from Anatolia 8,000 to 9,500 years ago. The evidence for this comes from linguistic paleontology: in particular, certain words to do with the technology of wheeled vehicles are arguably present across all the branches of the Indo-European family and archaeology tells us that wheeled vehicles arose no earlier than this date. The majority view in historical linguistics is that the homeland of Indo-European is located in the Pontic steppes (present day Ukraine) around 6,000 years ago. Their paper appears this week in Science.
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