Mario Alinei

An alternative model for the origins of European peoples and

languages: The Continuity Theory

Summary

Source: "Le radici prime dell’Europa: Stratificazioni, processi diffusivi, scontri e incontri di
culture" (Europe’s first roots: Stratifications, diffusion processes, cultural clashes and
encounters.) 27 - 28 ottobre 1999, Milano
Surprisingly, although the archaeological research of the last few decennia has provided more and
more evidence that no large-scale invasion took place in Europe in the Calcholithic, Indo-European
linguistic has stubbornly held to its strong invasionist assumption, as shown by the work of
Gimbutas, Mallory, Gamkrelidze & Ivanov and others. Renfrew’s model is a welcome innovation,
which replaces the traditional invasion of pastoral warriors with the arrival of the Neolithic
Revolution from the East, and thus offers a badly needed higher chronology for IE developments.
Unfortunately, however, also his model is contradicted by current archaeological views, according
to which the neolithization of Europe was a complex and geographically differentiated acculturation
process, within which the autochthonous populations almost always played the major role.
Moreover, it does not fit the archaeological record of northern Europe, where Neolithic is a very
late phenomenon, and therefore can not explain the assumed indoeuropeization of this area. The
only model which would be in full accordance with the archaeological record is then a Continuity
Model (CM), which would project IE and non-IE peoples and languages in Europe from Paleolithic
times, allowing for minor invasions and infiltrations only of local scope, and mostly dated to the
Metal Ages, and thus with an elitaire and colonial character. Their linguistic impact on
autochthonous peoples would never go beyond that of a superstrate. Interestingly, such a model has
already been advanced, and its success has been such as to become the accepted view, for all the
Uralic languages and peoples of Europe and Asia (Finno-Ugric and Samoyed). These peoples are
now considered by both archaeologists and linguists to be a branch of Homo sapiens
sapiens  coming from the south, and having occupied their present north-eastern European and
north-western Asiatic territories in postglacial times. And it is worth recalling that until about thirty
years ago the dominant view concerning the origins of the Uralic people of Europe was also based
on a recent invasion, modeled exactly upon the IE one. It must also be pointed out that if we take
into consideration not only Uralic but world languages and peoples considered globally, we will
observe that the CM is the most general one, as it is applied, albeit not in detailed theories, to most
African, Asiatic and New World languages and peoples. As far as Indo-European peoples and
languages are concerned, the CM has often been suggested (most lately by a prehistorian such as
Marcel Otte), but the first attempt to work it out it in detail is to my knowledge my own 800-page
volume published in Italy in 1996 (Alinei 1996), to be followed by a second 900-page volume, now
in print, in which I present a peoples and languages, but also already existing northern IE. The
extraordinarily rich and well studied Scandinavian cultures of Mesolithic times, for example, could
be safely detailed survey of the converging archaeological and linguistic developments of Europe
from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age. In this model, occupation of deglaciated areas in northern
Europe would involve not only Uralic attributed to Germanic people, thus offering - among other
things - the first simple answer to why Scandinavian place names are exclusively Germanic. It
would also become clear as to why the Mesolithic fishing and hunting equipment of this area, which
has been preserved to modern times, has deeply rooted Germanic names. Again, Slavic languages
and peoples would have inhabited south-eastern Europe from late Paleo-Mesolithic times, and the
extraordinary success and stability of the Neolithic cultures of this area (the only ones in Europe
showing tell  formation) would explain the lack of differentiation of Slavic languages much better
than the supposed "arrival" of the Slavs in the early Middle Ages. Also Celtic people would have
inhabited western Europe prior to deglaction, and the future Celtic expansion would involve
megalithism and Bell Beakers, before culminating in La Tène and in their colonial thrust to East.
Their protohistorical ‘explosion’ would have a longer a more realistic preparation, and the
constantly eastward direction of their expansion would eliminate the merry-go-round character of
the Celtic movements in traditional terms. On the whole, as is already the case with Renfrew’s
model, but with considerable differences as regards the general framework and northern Europe,
most archaeological cultures of Europe would receive a linguistic label, which would be extremely
rewarding for both archaeologists and linguists. Archaeologists would be able to antedate - as it
were - protohistory. Linguists would be able to place the history of many European word families
and loanwords in the contect of concrete archaeological cultures, as I have tried to show,
systematically, in my book. Perhaps more important, we linguists would have to accustom
themselves to the idea that our languages are much more ancient than traditionally thought, and
accept the now current view that language itself began with Australopithecus (Tobias), and precisely
therefore ‘must’ be innate as a human faculty (Chomsky, Pinker). Linguistic development becomes
thus an integral part of our evolutionary history. And the principle that inspired the Darwinian
revolution would show its productivity again: the present is the key to the past.

REFERENCES
Mario Alinei, Origini delle lingue d’Europa, Vol. I: La teoria della continuità, Il Mulino, Bologna,
1996;
Vol. II: La continuità delle principali aree etnolinguistiche dal Mesolitico all’età del Ferro, Il
Mulino, Bologna, in press.

BIOGRAPHY
Mario Alinei is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987.
Founder and editor of "Quaderni di semantica" review, he is president of "Atlas Linguarum
Europae".
Among his main works the following ones have been published by Il Mulino: La struttura del
lessico (1974) and Lingua e dialetti: struttura, storia e geografia  (1984).

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