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Prehistory by Bayesian phylogenetics? The state of the art on Indo-European origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Paul Heggarty
Paul Heggarty*
Affiliation:
*Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany (Email: Paul.Heggarty@gmail.com)
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Abstract

Bayesian analysis has come to be widely used in archaeological chronologies and has been a regular feature of recent articles in Antiquity. Its application to linguistic prehistory, however, has proved controversial, in particular on the issue of Indo-European origins. Dating and mapping language distributions back into prehistory has an inevitable fascination, but has remained fraught with difficulty. This review of recent studies highlights the potential of increasingly sophisticated Bayesian phylogenetic models, while also identifying areas of concern, and ways in which the models might be refined to address them. Notwithstanding these remaining limitations, in the Indo-European case the results from Bayesian phylogenetics continue to reinforce the argument for an Anatolian rather than a Steppe origin.

Keywords

Indo-Europeanlanguage prehistoryBayesian analysisphylogeneticsfarming/sol/language dispersals
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 340 , 01 June 2014 , pp. 566 - 577
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014 

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