Reconstructing Prehistoric Population Movements: Seeking Congruence in Genetics, Linguistics, and Archaeology

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Reconstructing PrehistoricPopulation Movements: SeekingCongruence in Genetics,Linguistics, and ArchaeologyRUTH GRUHN aa Department of Anthropology , University ofAlberta ,Published online: 05 Dec 2006.

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RECONSTRUCTING PREHISTORIC POPULATIONMOVEMENTS: SEEKING CONGRUENCE IN GENETICS,LINGUISTICS, AND ARCHAEOLOGY

Ruth Gruhn

Renfrew, Colin, ed. America Past, America Present: Genes and Languages inthe Americas and Beyond. Papers in the Prehistory of Languages. Cambridge: The

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000. xþ 175 pp.

Bellwood, Peter and Colin Renfrew, eds. Examining the Farming=LanguageDispersal Hypothesis. Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological

Research, 2002. xivþ 505 pp.

Books discussed here focus upon the initial peopling of the Americas andthe worldwide development of food production. They examine postulatedhistorical instances in which genes, languages, and cultural elementsappear to correlate, indicating major population movements in pre-history. Recognized experts in historical linguistics, archaeology, andmolecular genetics review current methodology, available data, andmodels of global and regional population history. A more holisticapproach and a greater understanding of human population dynamicsare called for to improve our reconstruction of these past events.

Keywords: agriculture, cultural evolution, historical linguistics, molecularanthropology, prehistoric population movements

RUTH GRUHN is Professor Emerita in the Department of Anthropology at

the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on the initial settlement of the

Americas. She has conducted archaeological field research at early sites in the

Great Basin, Baja California, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Brazil. Her rel-

evant articles include ‘‘Aboriginal Culture History Through Linguistics and

Archaeology in the Great Basin’’ (Idaho Archaeologist 10:3–8, 1987) and

‘‘Linguistic Evidence in Support of the Coastal Route of Earliest Entry into

the New World’’ (Man 23: 77–100, 1988).

Address correspondence to Ruth Gruhn, Department of Anthropology, University of

Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H4, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]

Reviews in Anthropology, 35: 345–372, 2006

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0093-8157 print=1556-3014 online

DOI: 10.1080/00938150600988182

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Two subdisciplines of anthropology, archaeology and historicallinguistics, have long been concerned with the prehistory of particularpopulations in the various regions of the world; and in recent yearsthe field of molecular genetics has been contributing to historicalmodels. The two books under discussion are assemblages of articlesby recognized experts in these research fields. They review method-ology, available data, and current historical models. The books areconcerned with two significant phases in world prehistory: the peo-pling of the Americas, and the worldwide development of foodproduction. The Renfrew volume (2000) resulted from a brief 1998Cambridge symposium on molecular genetics and historical linguis-tics in relation to the Americas, and the Bellwood and Renfrew book(2002b) constitutes the proceedings of a similar symposium on thefarming=language dispersal hypothesis held at Cambridge in 2001.Both volumes were published with remarkable promptness, for whichthe editors and contributors are to be highly commended.

All scientific fields involved with the study of prehistory beginresearch with determination of the geographical distribution of ele-ments of interest, be they genes, languages, or technological elements.Data accumulated by the anthropological fieldwork carried out overthe years have indicated how these elements are distributed world-wide. What can the distributions of these elements reveal of the historyof populations that carry them? Specifically, can early populationmovements be confidently reconstructed, dated, and explained?

Researchers in molecular genetics are now addressing these ques-tions; and their work has attracted the attention of prehistorians inthe older disciplines, who are now becoming more interested inpossible correlations between the distribution of genes, languages,and archaeological remains. These two books result from this inter-est. It is a long-standing credo in anthropology that genes, language,and culture cannot be expected to correlate with each other (cf.Kottak 1974:260). These books investigate particular historicalinstances in which the correlation may hold.

In approaching such issues, all three fields of research presentstrengths and weaknesses in the investigation of historical questions.Molecular genetics, the newest field to enter the domain of historicalreconstruction, has recently developed useful methodological tools,well described by the geneticists who have contributed to both booksunder review. Analysis of genetic material drawn from population unitsworldwide has provided the data to determine the geographical dis-tribution of two significant genetic categories: mitochrondrial DNA(mtDNA), inherited through the female line, and non-recombinantelements of the male Y chromosome (NRY). These genetic elements

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mutate relatively rapidly; and in any given major group of geneticlineages (haplogroup), the sequence of evolution of derivative lineages(haplotypes) can now be traced.

Theoretically, then, by plotting the geographic distribution ofparticular haplogroups and haplotypes, one can reconstruct pastpopulation movements. Molecular geneticists have also calculatedthe time depth of evolutionary divergences within haplogroups ofmtDNA and NRY by assuming constant rates of mutation ofparticular gene segments (cf. Schurr 2004:200–210). However, theyare careful to point out to interested prehistorians in other disciplinesthat geneticists’ estimates of the time depth of particular haplogroupsand haplotypes refer only to evolutionary developments within thegenes, which are not necessarily correlated with the date of popu-lation movements, as well explained by Barbujani and Dupanloup inthe Bellwood and Renfrew volume (2002:424–426). Interestingly,however, postulated dates for specific population movements, suchas the initial settlement of the island of New Guinea, placedby archaeologists around 60 thousand years ago, have been used tocalibrate the rate of mutational change in mtDNA lineages(Stoneking et al. 1992).

Calculating the time depth of a documented divergence is also aconcern in historical linguistics. Relative time depths of divergence oflanguage subgroups within a particular language family or stock havelong been inferred from the sequences of branching within model‘‘family trees’’ constructed through a careful process of determiningthe degree of closeness of relationships among the member languages,a methodology well explained by Ringe (2000) and Kaufman andGolla (2000) in the Renfrew volume. An accurate genetic classi-fication of related languages is an essential step in constructingmodels of their past history. Assuming that such a genetic classi-fication is accomplished, an analysis of the geographical distributionof the related languages can become the basis for inference of pastpopulation movements (Dyen 1958; Diebold 1960). Although thephenomenon of language replacement or language shift without amajor population movement is well documented, as the linguists inboth volumes point out, in ancient times languages had to be trans-mitted by living persons, so a wide geographic spread of a givenlanguage must imply some population movement.

The problem of accurately determining time depth remains. Themethod of lexicostatistic dating has been discredited (cf. Bergslandand Vogt 1962; van der Merwe 1966), and it seems that historicallinguists depend largely on the rate of linguistic change observed inthose languages with long written records to make estimates of the

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time depth of divergences within recognized language families. Fewventure a maximum estimate of the age of a major language familybeyond 8,000 years. Beyond that range, it is believed by mostlinguists, language relationships cannot be scientifically recon-structed. Such a limitation placed by methodology on the age ofmajor language families may result in incongruence with the earlyarchaeological record.

Among the three fields of prehistoric research under consideration,archaeology now enjoys the benefit of secure calendric dating of itsmaterial evidence, thanks to the various physical methods of radio-metric analysis: radiocarbon dating is the most appropriate methodfor the last 40,000 years. From the documented changes in materialculture, archaeologists may infer changes in technology and econ-omic systems, settlement patterns, social organization, and symbolicelements of culture over time. The research is most commonlyfocused upon developments in particular regions, however; and fewhave considered globally applicable historical models. The booksunder review explore interdisciplinary correlations that may supportsuch models of population movements.

THE RENFREW VOLUME: AMERICA PAST, AMERICAPRESENT

The Renfrew volume addresses the question of relationships amonggenes, language, and culture in the Americas. It was prompted, in thefirst instance, by the controversy generated in the late 1980s by whathas come to be known as the Greenberg model. When linguist JosephGreenberg proposed that there were only three aboriginal languagegroups distributed in the Americas—the Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Denefamilies in the north and northwest of North America, and a greatphylum termed Amerind encompassing all the languages in the re-mainder of the two continents—geneticist S. L. Zegura and physicalanthropologist Christy Turner attempted to correlate the distributionof particular clusters of genetic elements and dental elements in ab-original American populations in order to support a three-migrationmodel for the initial settlement of the Americas (Greenberg et al.1986). Archaeological evidence was drawn upon to set the chron-ology of the three separate migrations. Thus the Amerind phylumwas correlated with the Clovis complex, then widely believed torepresent the earliest American population; and its entry into NorthAmerica was correspondingly dated at about 12 thousand yearsago. The Na-Dene speakers were thought to have entered interiorAlaska some time later, after about 10 thousand years ago; and the

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proto-Eskimo-Aleut speakers were believed to have spread from Asiato Alaska and along the Arctic coast later still, perhaps as late as5,000 years ago.

The Greenberg model has since come under criticism from allsides. Questioning Greenberg’s method of classification of largenumbers of languages by mass comparison of vocabulary elements,for reasons outlined by Ringe (2000), linguists have rejected hisconcept of a great Amerind phylum, arguing that a deep geneticrelationship among the approximately 200 language families or lan-guage isolates located throughout the Americas cannot be demon-strated. As for the genetic and dental evidence presented inGreenberg et al. (1986) in support of the Greenberg model, even itsauthors had to admit at the time that there was no tight correspon-dence with three separate aboriginal American populations. In timeeven the archaeological correlations were questioned, as the ‘‘Clovis-first’’ model was undermined by the discovery of earlier-datedarchaeological complexes in North and South America that werediverse in character and technologically different from the Cloviscomplex (Dillehay 2000; Gruhn 2004).

Placed at the end of the Renfrew book, however, is a chapter byMerritt Ruhlen (2000), which is highly critical of other linguists’judgment of Greenberg’s model. He points out inherent limitations ofthe traditional methodology used in determining linguistic relation-ships. As explained in Ringe (2000) and Kaufman and Golla (2000),traditional linguistic methodology involves close, detailed compari-son of selected languages in order to reconstruct the phonology andmorphology of an ancestral protolanguage, a procedure felt to berequired for a scientific demonstration of a postulated ‘‘genetic’’relationship. Ruhlen notes that the limitations of this method raisepersistent questions about the historical implications of the currentlyaccepted classification of American languages.

I can add a query. If there are some 200 separate language familiesand language isolates in the Americas, as most linguists accept, doesthis situation not imply several hundred separate migrations fromnortheast Asia, with no identifiable linguistic relatives left behind?Given what is understood of human population dynamics, and whatis known of the archaeological record along the presumed entryroutes through northwestern North America, such a model ofmultiple serial migrations is unsupportable. The Amerind concept,suggesting deep relationships between all languages beyond the limitof the great continental ice sheet, would seem more probable, even if itcannot be conclusively demonstrated by the traditional methodologyof historical linguistics.


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An essential problem as I see it is the limited time depth imposedby linguistic methodology on the age of language families. As men-tioned above, approximately 8,000 years is as much as linguists canallow for the history of major language families because they cannotidentify phonological, grammatical, or lexical elements of postulatedprotolanguages which would survive the inexorable processes oflinguistic change in operation over that length of time.

In fact, the date of emergence of many major language families isplaced much later than 8,000 years ago. In North America, forexample, shallow time depths are proposed for widespread familiessuch as Uto-Aztecan (4,800 years), which is distributed from CentralAmerica through the American Southwest and Great Basin; Atha-baskan and Algonquian, distributed over most of the forested areasof northern North America, are given only 3,000–3,500 years ofhistory (Kaufman and Golla 2000). As there is archaeological evi-dence of human settlement of the areas occupied by these threelanguage families extending back to 11,000 radiocarbon years ago ifnot older, one has to ask what languages were spoken in these vastareas before the purported late intrusive spread of these languagefamilies. Linguists respond that all earlier languages in these areasmust have become extinct (cf. Campbell (1997:50–51, 2002: 104). Thealternative hypothesis, however, is to propose that the languagefamilies historically recorded for these areas are descendants of thelanguage of the first people to enter; and the language families inquestion are much older than linguists can document.

In regard to the time depth of major language families in NorthAmerica, Richard Rogers (1987) has noted that the historical distri-bution of Eskimo-Aleut and Athabaskan in northwestern NorthAmerica can be correlated with a population dispersal following theremoval of the glacial barriers to expansion from refugia withinBeringia at the end of the Pleistocene. (Beringia incorporates theunglaciated area of northeast Siberia and northwest North America[interior Alaska and the Yukon Territory] joined by a broademergent land bridge in the Bering Sea area during glacial phases ofthe Pleistocene epoch, which ended by 10,000 radiocarbon years ago.)It is of interest that Forster and Renfrew (2002), considering themtDNA evidence, also propose that Eskimo=Aleut and Athapaskanpopulations were in eastern Beringia by 20,000 years ago, subse-quently to become isolated in that region from other populations byglacial or periglacial barriers during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Rogers et al. (1990) also point out that the regional distribution ofmajor language families in North America south of the limit ofthe great Laurentide ice sheet corresponds with late Pleistocene

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biogeographic zones, to which particular early populations may havebeen adapted. The Algonquian family, for example, correlates in itssouthern distribution with the Symbos-Cervalces biogeographic zone,which included an extensive region south of the present Great Lakesduring the late Pleistocene, characterized by the now-extinctmammalian genera Symbos (related to musk ox) and Cervalces (a largemember of the cervid family described as a stag-moose). The forest-adapted population was poised to expand northward into easternCanada and New England as the continental ice sheet receded.

Rogers’s hypotheses now merit attention, as current archaeologicalevidence indicates that there were people south of the continental icesheets before the end of the Pleistocene. Recent geological andpaleoenvironmental research has shown that the so-called ice-freecorridor east of the Rocky Mountains was impassible until as late as11,000 radiocarbon years ago (Mandryk et al. 2001), after the areas inboth North and South America which were beyond the reach of icesheets were already populated (cf. Dixon 1999). With this new pictureof the paleoenvironmental and archaeological framework, a varietyof essays in a recent timely publication (Madsen 2004) consider thepossibility that people entered the Americas before the Last GlacialMaximum, before 20,000 years ago.

Such an early entry date has been supported by the work ofmolecular geneticists. In the Renfrew volume, Torroni (2000) reviewsthe origin and distribution of the four major mtDNA haplogroups inthe Americas and proposes an arrival date between 26,000 and 34,000years before present for the first peoples, based on the accumulatedsequence divergence in the American mtDNA haplogroups. A morerecent and detailed review of the relevant mtDNA and NRY data bySchurr (2004), which wisely addresses common concerns aboutmolecular data, also concurs with an early entry, with currentestimated dates of divergence within the major American mtDNAhaplogroups ranging from 36,000 to 16,000 years ago. Moleculargeneticists vary in the number of migrations proposed. Some haveargued that the widespread distribution of all four major mtDNAhaplogroups throughout the Americas indicates that there was asingle founding population (Bonatto and Salzano 1997); others inferthat probably more that one migration from Asia took place, theposition held by Torroni and Schurr.

Thus far I have discussed what Renfrew terms macro questionsconcerning possible correspondences between genes, languages, andcultures over large geographic areas. He concedes that perhaps mostproductive at the present time may be micro studies, focused uponparticular small populations. In that respect perhaps the most lasting


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contributions in the book will be the chapter by Merriwether et al.(2000) on the correspondences in genetic variation and the directionof gene flow in dialectically-distinctive Yanomama settlements; and achapter by Bradman et al. (2000) which traces the correspondences ingenetic lineage and traditional descent rules of the Jewish priestlygroup. Both papers show how the careful analysis of empirical datacan indeed demonstrate correlations between genetics and socialunits.

Summing up, the Renfrew volume features valuable chapters thatexplicate the methodology employed by molecular geneticists andlinguists in approaching questions of population history. Sorelymissed, however, is a contribution by an archaeologist, who couldhave provided a detailed presentation of the current archaeologicalrecord of the initial settlement of the Americas to be compared withthe genetic and linguistic models offered. I have discussed possiblecorrelations here and elsewhere (Gruhn 1997).

BELLWOOD AND RENFREW: EXAMINING THEFARMING=LANGUAGE DISPERSAL HYPOTHESIS

A strong value of the Bellwood and Renfrew book on the farming=language dispersal hypothesis lies in its detailed analyses of particularregional situations, as well as the presentation of detailed chapters onmethod and theory. This is in many ways a much more substantialbook than the Renfrew volume, with many more contributors. Thereare two introductory chapters by the editors; seven chapters thataddress specific methodological and theoretical issues; and twenty-seven regional studies incorporating archaeological, linguistic, andgenetic data from Southwest Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia, Oceania,the Far East, Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest, and Europe.With plentiful maps and charts, and full bibliographies, it provides awealth of current information and insightful discussion; and will longserve as a basic reference work for students of world prehistory.

The volume was edited by the two archaeologists who have longbeen recognized as the leading advocates for the farming=languagedispersal hypothesis, Peter Bellwood maintaining the case forAustronesian horticultural seafarers spreading through IslandSoutheast Asia and Oceania (Bellwood 1978; 1996), and ColinRenfrew (1987) proposing the association of Indo-European with thespread of early Neolithic farming in Europe. In their introduc-tory presentations, both editors outline the general nature of thehypothesis. They also take the opportunity to respond to criticalquestions raised by authors later in the volume, so these introductory

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chapters should be reviewed again when the reader has finished thebook.

Method and Theory

The volume presents overview articles that consider current methodand theory, and suggest new ideas to pursue. Mark Cohen (2002)deals directly with aspects of population dynamics in the transitionphase from broad-spectrum foraging to farming. He points outthat food production with accompanying sedentism could be seen tohave deleterious effects on health, offering a more limited and lessnutritious diet, increased exposure to infectious disease, andincreased vulnerability of the community to total loss of its resourcesthrough a natural catastrophe or aggression by neighbors. In hisview, the transition to farming in most areas of the world in the earlyHolocene was the result of the decline of the high-ranked foodresources, large game animals, at the end of the Pleistocene, forcingpopulations to place more emphasis on lower-ranked resources suchas seeds. Farming, then, first developed among populations underresource stress; and it is likely that only those hunter-gatherers whosewild resources were failing due to changes in habitat would choose toadopt it.

David R. Harris (2002), the archaeobotanist, reviews the expan-sion capacity of the various early agricultural systems whichcharacterize five different regions of the world, and argues that theagro-pastoral ‘‘package’’ of nutritious cereals and pulses anddomesticated herd animals which originated in Southwest Asia wasespecially well adapted for its subsequent spread throughout thetemperate belt of Eurasia. In his view, only those early agriculturalsystems that featured cereals as staple crops, highly productive,adaptable, and nutritionally well balanced, had an inherent capacityto expand territorially. The five areas that he reviews do not includethe equatorial tropical forests, which unfortunately he was forced toignore due to lack of space. Indeed, the tropical forest areas of Africaand South America, both sources of independent development ofsignificant root crops and tree crops (Harlan et al. 1976; Wilson1999), are not reviewed anywhere in the book.

Considering the evidence now available for the importance ofthe Amazon basin as a center of domestication of plants in SouthAmerica, it is painful to note on the map on the book cover and theendpapers that arrows indicate an origin of tropical forest agriculturein the Andes. In fact, the Amazon basin contributed more domes-ticated plant species to the Andes area than it received; and dry


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archaeological sites in Peru have demonstrated that many of thesespecies arrived in the Andes at approximately the same time asAndean plants were being domesticated locally, indicating an equallyearly domestication of plants in the Amazon basin (cf. Wilson 1999:82). I suspect that the expansion of tropical forest agriculture maybe associated with the widespread distribution of the Arawakan,Tupian, and Cariban families in lowland South America and eventhe expansion of Chibchan into lower Central America; but thesepossible correlations are only suggested in table 5.1 in the articlecontributed to the volume by the linguist Lyle Campbell (2002).

Campbell is skeptical of the farming=language dispersal hypothesis,as he points to a number of known exceptions around the world.There are major language families not associated with agriculture thatspread over large areas (for example, Pama-Nyungan in Australia),and language families early associated with agriculture that did notspread (for example, Mixe-Zoquean in southern Mexico). As for thenotion that an expanding language family associated with agriculturewould replace all other languages in its path, he points to a number ofcases (listed in table 5.2) wherein a small language family with agri-culture has been maintained in the same geographical area as a muchlarger family (for example, Basque in Western Europe). In Campbell’sview, there are too many exceptions to the farming=language dispersalhypothesis to make the model generally useful. Campbell is severelycritical of the concept of contrast between so-called ‘‘spread zones’’and ‘‘accretion or residual zones’’ of language distributions as pro-posed by Nichols (1992), and others, pointing out demonstrable dis-crepancies and contradictions in the models presented. He stressesthat a great variety of known social factors as well as factors ofgeography and economy may be involved in specific instances oflanguage shift or language maintenance, a point also made by Golla(2000) in the Renfrew volume.

The geneticists who contributed methodological papers to theBellwood and Renfrew volume appear to be sharply divided on theapplicability of molecular genetic studies to questions of populationprehistory. Peter Underhill (2002) presents a complicated review ofworldwide non-recombinant Y chromosome data that confidentlycorrelates distributions of particular NRY haplotypes with particularNeolithic population expansions. In contrast, in a paper laced withsuch pejorative terms as ‘‘tales,’’ ‘‘stories,’’ and ‘‘alchemy,’’ Bandelt,Macaulay, and Richards (2002) express extreme skepticism concerningcurrent molecular genetic studies purporting to determine popula-tion histories; in particular, they question the arbitrariness of thedefinition of population units typically used in statistical comparisons.

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Nevertheless, in his chapter Luca Cavalli-Sforza (2002), who initiatedthe involvement of geneticists in research in population prehistory withhis study of the distribution of classical genetic markers in the NearEast and Europe (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1971, 1973), con-tinues to argue for his concept of ‘‘demic diffusion,’’ actual growth andareal expansion of farming populations.

Forster and Renfrew (2002), using the ‘‘molecular clock’’ to datethe evolution of particular mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, presenta series of distribution maps showing the inferred geographical dis-persal of ‘‘expansion clusters,’’ groups of mtDNA haplotypes, at setintervals in the late Pleistocene. They conclude that the dispersal ofmost major mtDNA haplogroups took place before 20,000 years ago;and in northern latitudes the dispersal was affected by climatic bar-riers, with depopulation of much of the northern part of all Eurasiaduring the Last Glacial Maximum. To consider what populationmovements may have occurred subsequently, it is necessary to turnto the regional studies that comprise the major portion of theBellwood=Renfrew volume.

Southwest Asia and Africa

The regional survey begins with the area in which farming firstappeared, in Southwest Asia. The archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef(2002) provides a concise summary of the paleoenvironmental andarchaeological record for the development of the Natufian and thevarious Early Neolithic complexes, reviewing the significant changesin environment, economy and technology, settlement patterns, andsociety which took place in the Levant, northern Mesopotamia, andAnatolia in the critical millennia between about 12,000 and 8,000 cal.B. P. Bar-Yosef concludes that early agriculture appeared over a widearea within Southwest Asia; and archaeological evidence for identi-fication of a restricted ‘‘core area’’ for the first development offarming is still unclear, although the central Levant is currently thebest candidate. He recognizes population growth as an importantcomponent of the development; but is more doubtful of the ‘‘wave ofadvance’’ model of population expansion, preferring (at least in theshort run) a saltatory model in which farming communities chose toexpand into the most arable lands, leaving the less desirable land toresident foragers. He leaves the question of possible language cor-relations to other authors in the volume.

Fekri A. Hassan (2002) opens the question of language correla-tions with a critical discussion of linguistic approaches to northernAfrican prehistory. He is especially skeptical of the reconstructions of


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prehistory proposed by Christopher Ehret (1993, 1998) on the basisof his interpretations of language distributions, protolanguagereconstructions, and identification of loan words, pointing to anumber of incongruities with archaeological evidence. Two chapterslater, Ehret presents his case, with a detailed exposition of his model,focusing upon the spread of the Nilo-Saharan language family in eastAfrica, a development which he correlates with the expansion ofagro-pastoralism.

In the interval, a chapter by Alexander Militarev (2002) reconstructsan early Afroasiatic farming lexicon with a long list of significantcognate words in member languages. Miltarev, bolder than Bar-Yosef,correlates the Afroasiatic family with the Natufian and Early Neolithiccomplexes in the Levant. Graeme Barker (2002) then reviews thearchaeological evidence for the beginning of food production inNorth Africa. Barker is skeptical of the demic diffusion model as anexplanation for the early spread of agro-pastoralism westward throughNorth Africa, preferring a model of rapid cultural diffusion amongresident foragers. This conclusion opens the possibility that thegreat Afroasiatic family is late Pleistocene in age, spreading in apre-agricultural context.

The Bantu family, distributed throughout eastern and southernAfrica, has long been considered a good case of farming=languagedispersal. David Phillipson (2002) presents an historical review of thedevelopment of research in linguistics and archaeology in this area ofAfrica, showing how controversy developed over the years amonglinguists concerning the location of the Bantu homeland, and thedirection and dating of population expansions. Archaeologists wererelatively late in coming into the research, but with much fieldwork inthe area in recent years a reasonable synthesis has emerged. Phillip-son summarizes his own widely accepted historical model, whichreconstructs a complex sequence of Bantu movements from ahomeland in the Cameroons=Nigeria border area; and involving theacquisition of agriculture, livestock, ironworking, and ceramics in thenorthern area of east Africa; followed by dispersal of Bantu agro-pastoral peoples into eastern and southern Africa over the intervalfrom 2,500 to 1,500 years ago.

South Asia and the Far East

A strong feature of the Bellwood and Renfrew volume is the closeattention paid to lesser-known regions of the Old World, specificallythe Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and South China. Examiningreconstructed protolanguage agricultural vocabulary in correlation

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with archaeobotanical evidence, Dorian Fuller (2002) provides amplesupport for his arguments proposing that proto-Dravidian is linkedwith independent centers of plant domestication within India; and thatthe Dravidian family was not intrusive into India in the Neolithic butrather was already in place and differentiating before the onset offood production. His presentation features useful charts and maps,including a chronological chart (table 16.1) which correlates thearchaeological sequences in Southwest Asia, India, and China. Thegeneticist Toomas Kivisild and nine co-authors (2002) support Fullerin providing data on mtDNA and NRY distributions which suggestthat the vast majority of the population of the Indian subcontinent wasin place by Upper Paleolithic times.

The scene then shifts eastward to Southeast Asia, as CharlesHigham (2002) presents a well-documented case for a close associationbetween the distribution of the Austroasiatic language family (whichencompasses Vietnamese and Khmer, and a number of small now-isolated language communities including Munda in east India) and theearly Holocene spread of rice agriculture. He identifies a series ofcognate words related to rice cultivation in various Austroasiaticlanguages, and then reviews in detail the emerging archaeologicalevidence for the expansion of rice farmers from the early Holocenecenter of domestication (about ten thousand radiocarbon years ago) inthe middle Yangtze valley. He addresses the fate of resident Mesolithichunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia, proposing acculturation tofarming and the adoption of the Austroasiatic languages of theincoming farmers by most of the resident groups. Later most groups ofAustroasiatic speakers were themselves enveloped by expansion of theAustro-Tai and Sino-Tibetan families. Higham presents his model as ahypothesis which merits testing, and awaits the results of relevantgenetic studies.

In the following chapter, George van Driem (2002) reviews thehistory of linguistic research on the Sino-Tibetan family; and presentsthe case for a new classification of the member language groups, withthe family better termed Tibeto-Burman, as the Sinitic group is not afirst-order branch but rather a lower-level subgroup within a morecomplex framework, diagramed in figure 19.5. The geographic centerof Tibeto-Burman linguistic diversification is in the Indo-Chineseborder area, and van Driem places the homeland in Sichuan. Sinitic,then, would represent a secondary spread of one Tibeto-Burmanlower-level subgroup over the vast territory to the east and northeast.

Van Driem reports that some genetic studies also support a south-western origin for the Chinese dispersal. He postulates that in the earlyHolocene, proto-Sinitic speakers migrated northward from Sichuan


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into the Yellow River valley, where they became associated with theemerging early Neolithic cultures in the 8th millennium B.C., later tospread southward and eastward with the development of Chinese states.Van Driem recognizes that support of this model will require archae-ological evidence from Sichuan, still a poorly known area of Asia.

For Japan, Mark Hudson (2002) postulates that the spread ofJaponic is closely correlated with the introduction of the Yayoi cul-ture and the concomitant expansion of rice agriculture throughoutthe main islands, beginning in the late 1st millennium B.C. In con-sidering the arguments advanced by some Japanese scholars for anassociation of Japonic with the preceding Mesolithic Jomon culture,thereby proposing an age of many millennia for Japonic, Hudsonpoints to the remarkable homogeneity of the Japanese languagethroughout the islands, indicating a late and rapid spread. However,it is clear from the archaeological evidence that the Yayoi culturewas introduced from Korea; so it is of concern that a linguisticrelationship of Japanese to Korean or any other mainland language isnot at all obvious, considering the late date of the proposed Yayoimigration, only 2,500 years ago. The question of what language orlanguages were spoken by the Jomon people remains open, then,although Ainu is commonly believed to be the survivor.

Oceania

Four chapters consider the spread of the great Austronesian family inIsland Southeast Asia and Oceania, long viewed as a clear-cut casesupporting the farming=language dispersal hypothesis, with detailedand congruent evidence from both historical linguistics and archae-ology. Andrew Pawley (2002) presents the standard model of thedispersal, with a brief outline of the history of research; a review ofthe prehistoric record, focusing upon the Lapita dispersal in easternMelanesia and western Polynesia in the late 2nd millennium B.C.;a description of the Neolithic in Island Southeast Asia and NearOceania; and a summary of the linguistic evidence for the Austronesiandispersal and its correlation with archaeological evidence.

Then comes strong critique. Victor Paz (2002) submits a moredetailed and critical discussion of aspects of the standard model thanPawley, especially focused upon the archaeobotanical evidencefrom archaeological sites in Island Southeast Asia (Indonesia andthe Philippines). He finds no evidence for the correlation of riceagriculture and pottery with the postulated expansion of theAustronesian branch proto Malayo-Polynesian from a homeland onTaiwan through the Philippines and on to Indonesia; and suggests

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that rice agriculture actually spread into the islands much later,mainly after 500 B.C., associated with metal technology.

Geneticists Stephen Oppenheimer and Martin Richards (2002)also point to problems with the standard model, specifically ques-tioning the identification of Taiwan as the Austronesian homeland.They reiterate arguments made by linguists and archaeologists whohave been critical of this interpretation; and then review the availableevidence of mtDNA and NRY distributions. The discussion focusesupon the so-called Polynesian Motif, a distinctive subgroup ofmtDNA Haplogroup B, which is found in high frequency amongPolynesians but not recorded west of Wallace’s Line (a biogeographicboundary, extending from south of the Philippines through the straitbetween Borneo and Sulawesi, and south between Bali and Lombok),although the immediate ancestor lineage is found in China, Taiwan,and the Philippines. They conclude that the mtDNA data are moreconsistent with an origin point for Austronesian speakers in IslandSoutheast Asia rather than Taiwan. And they drop a major problemonto the desks of linguists and archaeologists: the molecular clockindicates an age of 17,000–5000 years for the emergence of thePolynesian Motif, a dating completely incompatible with all presentlyaccepted linguistic and archaeological evidence for the emergence ofthe Polynesian population about three thousand years ago, asBellwood (2002) points out in his introduction to the volume.

In the final paper focusing upon the Austronesian case, geneticistMatthew Hurles (2002) provides an excellent diagram (figure 23.1)summarizing the evolutionary trajectory of relevant cultural features(language, pottery, horticulture, and distinctive tool types) andbiological elements (mtDNA and NRY lineages) in the expandingAustronesian population. The critical zone of rapid cultural andbiological change is seen to be between eastern Indonesia and theislands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea, where it is pos-tulated that the Oceanic branch of Malayo-Polynesian emerged andthe Lapita ceramic complex developed, and as well where consider-able gene flow occurred between the incoming Austronesian peoplesand the indigenous Papuan population. In Hurles’s view, evidence forthe multiple genetic origins of the Polynesians is clear. Thus whilearchaeology and linguistics correlate well in the case of Austronesian,there are problems with genetic correlations still to be resolved.

Mesoamerica and the Southwest

In introducing the section on Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southwest,linguist Søren Wichmann (2002), considering language distributions


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in Mesoamerica, draws a significant distinction between a linguisti-cally reconstructed but unattested protolanguage with all its limita-tions, and a ‘‘real-life’’ early language, illustrating his point withstudies of the Cholan branch of the Mayan language family, for whichwritten evidence of the early language in the form of deciphered glyphshas recently emerged. Wichman is particularly critical of the commonmethod of locating a protolanguage on a restricted point in space, ashistorical linguistic analysis implies; and he accepts the possibility thatan early language may have been initially distributed over a wide area,with its diversification subsequently developing in place, not bymigrations from a restricted center. Such could be the case with Uto-Aztecan, the only American language family considered in the volumeas a likely candidate in the farming=language dispersal model. Uto-Aztecan is certainly a classic example of a ‘‘spread’’ language, witheight to five branches recognized as coordinate (cf. Hill 2001), dis-tributed from southern Idaho to lower Central America, suggestingthat linguistic divergence could have occurred in place. However, thethree chapters specifically concerned with Uto-Aztecan all associateits distribution from the heartland of Mesoamerica far into theAmerican Desert West with a northward expansion of maize farmersafter agriculture developed in central Mexico.

The archaeological record for central Mesoamerica and theAmerican Southwest is relatively well known (that for the interveningarea much less so), and the emergence of farming in those two areas iswell documented. In the Mesoamerican heartland, on the Mesa Central,maize was domesticated by about five thousand years ago; and settledfarming villages were established in the early Preclassic, by 3,500 yearsago (Adams 1991). Wichmann believes that a remote relationshipbetween Uto-Aztecan and Mixe-Zoquean may be demonstrable, indi-cating deep roots for Uto-Aztecan in Mesoamerica; but no author in thevolume reviews the archaeological record for this area. Needed isarchaeological evidence for population continuity in the area of theMesa Central, where Nahua languages are attested by about A.D. 1000in native traditional histories (Coe 1994: 158–159), but could well beearlier.

Two chapters in the Bellwood and Renfrew volume focus on thearchaeological evidence for the emergence of farming in the AmericanSouthwest. Both R. G. Matson (2002) and Stephen A. LeBlanc (2002)interpret the evidence to indicate an intrusive population of farmersfrom Mexico, which first settled in villages along the rivers in the lowdesert of southern Arizona by about three thousand radiocarbonyears ago; and some centuries later, farming expanded northwardonto the Colorado Plateau, the latter movement associated with the

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Western Basketmaker II people, who were distinct in many respectsfrom the Eastern Basketmakers, a resident population with more localArchaic roots. Matson sees a ‘‘blending mosaic’’ of early farmers andresident foragers in the diverse environments of the Southwest;LeBlanc sees evidence of conflict. In any case, a close associationbetween the spread of maize agriculture and the distribution of theUto-Aztecan language family would seem a reasonable hypothesis.

Problems with the hypothesis arise, however, from the archae-ological record in the Great Basin to the north of the AmericanSouthwest. In the eastern part of this region, small farming settlementsof the Fremont culture existed from about A.D. 400 to 1300 (Marwitt1986). It has been cogently argued that the roots of Fremont culture liein the local Desert Archaic tradition, and that maize agriculture andpottery were derived by diffusion from the early Anasazi (AncestralPuebloan) farming traditions in the northern part of the Southwest(Berry 1980; Marwitt 1986; Grayson 1993: 266). It is also widelybelieved that in late prehistoric times the Fremont population wasreplaced by an intrusive expanding population of foragers speakingNumic languages, pertaining to the most northern branch of Uto-Aztecan; however, the timing of the so-called Numic Spread andits causes have recently been the subject of considerable debate (cf.Madsen and Rhode 1994).

In the Bellwood and Renfrew volume, Jane Hill (2002) raisesobjections to the late Numic Spread model, suggesting that the Fre-mont population was Numic-speaking and it was not replaced;around A.D. 1200, settled agriculture was simply abandoned by thepopulation in favor of greater emphasis on mobile foraging due toadverse climatic change at the time, in a cultural devolution (cf. alsoUpham 1994). Taken with the archaeological evidence that the Fre-mont culture developed in situ from the local Desert Archaic tra-dition, however, this interpretation would leave open the possibilitythat the Numic branch was long established in the Great Basin beforemaize agriculture diffused northward in the early first millenniumA.D.; and that in fact the Uto-Aztecan family achieved its historicaldistribution before the spread of farming.

More linguistic work will be necessary to resolve the case of Uto-Aztecan. In his earlier chapter, Lyle Campbell (2002) expressedskepticism of Hill’s model of a homeland for Uto-Aztecan in centralMexico and a language spread northward with a farming population,pointing out difficulties with her proposed cognates for maize andrelated terms in selected Uto-Aztecan languages. A secure classi-fication of the subdivisions of Uto-Aztecan would also be helpful inassessing the historical significance of their geographical distribution.


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Needed also are comparative genetic studies of the Uto-Aztecanpopulations in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.

Europe

Finally, the Bellwood and Renfrew volume comes to the most dis-puted case associated with the farming=language dispersal hypothesis,that of Indo-European. Ever since the identification of this greatlinguistic family, which was distributed from Ireland and Scandinaviato Central Asia and northern India even before the European ex-pansion beginning in the 15th century A.D., prehistorians havespeculated upon its homeland or point of origin, and the circum-stances of its vast spread. By the mid-20th century, the dominantmodel, with support drawn from archaeological evidence andlinguistic reconstruction of relevant cultural vocabulary in proto-Indo-European, was the so-called Kurgan expansion model, whichproposed an invasion westward into Europe by mounted pastoralwarriors from the eastern steppes at the end of the Neolithic, ca. 3000B.C., imposing their language upon the conquered peasantry(Gimbutas 1970; Mallory 1989). Then, following publication of theanalyses of east-to-west clines in classical genetic markers byAmmerman and Cavalli-Sforza (1971, 1973), which indicated demicdiffusion, an influx of migrants in a ‘‘wave of advance’’ from South-west Asia into Europe, Colin Renfrew (1987) proposed that Indo-European had begun to spread into Europe much earlier than theKurgan model proposed; in fact it was to be associated with the ex-pansion of the earliest farming populations from Anatolia into Greeceand the Balkans, and subsequently spread into central Europe withthe expansion of the Southeast European-derived Linearbandkeramikculture, during the interval between about 7000 and 5500 B.C.

Of the eight chapters focused upon Europe in the Bellwood andRenfrew volume, three are primarily concerned with the nature of thespread of farming into the area during the Neolithic. Martin Jones(2002) examines the genetic and archaeological record for majordomesticated plants and animals; and concludes that the spread ofcrops from their restricted areas of origin was relatively slow, whereaskey animals were brought under domestication across large geo-graphical areas, and are associated with greater mobility of humangroups. Marek Zvelebil (2002) and Chris Scarre (2002) both supportan integrationist model of the introduction of farming to Europe,rejecting the extreme poles of the immigrationist explanation (e.g.,Piggott 1965) and the indigenist explanation (e.g., Whittle 1996).While accepting evidence for an immigrant farming population in

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Southeast Europe and Central Europe, Zvelebil points out that thereis little archaeological evidence for substantial differences in popu-lation density between the early Neolithic farming settlements andcontemporary Mesolithic communities; and it is likely that earlyfarmers in these areas formed only small enclaves within territoriesoccupied by foragers. Scarre focuses upon the transition to theNeolithic in Western Europe, reviewing three areas in detail (theRhine=Meuse delta, northern France, and Atlantic Portugal); andfinds that the distribution of early farmers and foragers was mosaic incharacter, with population movements small-scale and short-range,not a ‘‘wave of advance’’ of a rapidly multiplying farming popu-lation. Scarre sees no archaeological evidence supporting the arrivalof Indo-European in Western Europe in the Neolithic, as most of theearly farming cultures in the area can be identified with acculturatedMesolithic groups.

Bernard Comrie (2002), the only linguist to contribute to the sectionon Europe, is doubtful about the Renfrew model that proposesan association of Indo-European with the earliest farmers enteringGreece from Anatolia. For Comrie, an age of 9,000 years for the Indo-European family is far too much; most linguists would accept an age of6,000 years at most. Comrie believes that the linguistic evidence sup-ports a correlation with a later, secondary farming dispersal, pointingto cognates enabling the reconstruction of proto-Indo-European termsnot only for crops, livestock, and related tools, but for specific agri-cultural activities including dairying and most importantly, ploughing.Comrie asserts that this advanced agricultural practice appearedrelatively late in the archaeological record; but ard furrows have beennoted on the land surface below Neolithic burial monuments in Britainand Denmark, and as well there is direct evidence for dairy products inthe Neolithic, according to Rowley-Conwy (2004). Comrie suggeststhat Indo-European spread late among already-resident farmingpopulations in Europe by the mechanism of elite dominance; which isthe essential causal element in the model of the Kurgan expansion.Thus Comrie stands by the linguistic arguments that support thetraditional model of the late spread of Indo-European.

Of the four chapters contributed to the section on Europe bygeneticists, two employ admixture analyses to address the problem ofdetermining whether farming was introduced into Europe by demicdiffusion, an influx of farming peoples, or by cultural diffusion, theadoption of farming by resident foraging populations. GuidoBarbujani and Isabelle Dupanloup (2002) stress that molecularevolution and demographic history must not be confused, asdivergence in genetic lineages may be older than population splits. It


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is not sufficient to declare that 80 percent of European mtDNAlineages and NRY lineages have late Paleolithic roots and only 20percent of the gene pool of Europeans is of intrusive Neolithic origin;the degree of admixture in regional populations must be determined,to see if there is a directional gradient in haplogroup frequencies.Barbujani and Duponloup made an estimate of the contributions ofparticular haplogroups to the gene pools in 12 regions of Europe, andconcluded that incoming Neolithic farmers did make a largecontribution to the European gene pool. Lounes Chikhi (2002) alsocarried out an admixture analysis with simulation models, andreached the conclusion that the demic diffusion model is indeedsupported by the observed gradient in admixture proportionsextending from east to west within Europe.

The final two essays by geneticists, however, would appear todisagree. Kristiina Tambets and 16 co-authors (2002) reiteratethat the mtDNA evidence indicates that the phylogeography ofmany European haplogroups was determined by the pattern ofpopulation re-expansion from southern refugia following the LastGlacial Maximum, before the spread of farming. MartinRichards, Vincent Macaulay, and Hans-Jurgen Bandelt (2002) arriveat the same conclusion using founder analysis, a complex method inmolecular genetics that seeks to identify founder lineages by comparingvariation in probable source and sink populations. They argue that whileNeolithic colonization did occur, the majority of mtDNA lineagesin European populations are derived from indigenous Mesolithicpopulations.

In sum, there is no consensus between or among linguists, archae-ologists, and geneticists regarding the case for an historical correlationbetween the geographical distribution of Indo-European and theprogressive expansion of early farming throughout Europe.Discussion of the circumstances of the farming spread into Europecarried on after the publication of the Bellwood and Renfrew volume,with a special issue of the journal Current Anthropology (Bar-Yosef2004) focused upon the question of origins and dispersal of foodproduction into Europe, featuring articles by archaeologists, archae-obotanists, and physical anthropologists, each presentation ac-companied by comments from other interested scholars, as is CurrentAnthropology custom. Possible linguistic correlations, however, arenot mentioned. It would appear that most researchers in EuropeanHolocene prehistory have now given up on attempts to tie in historicallinguistics, as it is felt that a case for a farming=language dispersal linkcannot be demonstrated. The archaeological record for Europe is toocomplex to be explained in a simple model.

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Summing Up

Unfortunately, then, the book does not end with the best case forthe farming=language dispersal hypothesis; but there were enoughsignificant regional studies presented within the volume to justifyBellwood and Renfrew’s continued confidence in pursuing the pos-sibilities, as expressed in their thoughtful postscript (2002a). Indeedthere are many insightful observations presented by the contributorsthroughout the volume; too numerous to recount in this review. Evenif particular hypotheses do not stand up after further research, thevolume has contributed much of value to method and theory in thestudy of prehistory.

CONCLUSION

Certainly these two volumes have brought to the fore a number ofspecific problems yet to be resolved in attempting to correlate lan-guage spreads and gene distributions with the archaeological record.One obvious methodological problem is reconciling the disparatedating often noted between the analyses of historical linguistics,molecular genetics, and archaeological data. In comparison with thearchaeological record, the linguist’s date for the spread of a languagefamily may seem too young, and the molecular geneticist’s date for theevolution of an mtDNA or NRY lineage may appear too old. How-ever, while archaeologists can employ more secure methods of dating,the archaeological chronology may also change with further research.

Above all, what is required for viable models of populationmovements is a better understanding of human population dynamics.It seems that often specialists forget that genes, languages, and ideasdo not move on their own: they must be carried by living people onthe ground. Correlating the geographical distributions of these ele-ments is not a sufficient explanation of a postulated populationmovement: a complete model must include reasonable hypotheses ofthe cause and the means of movement, in human terms.

Concerning any specific prehistoric movement of population,Grover Krantz (1977) proposed a number of questions to beanswered in each instance:

(1) Why did the people move at all, rather than simply stay wherethey were?

(2) Why did they move where they did, rather than to some otherlocation?


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(3) Why did they move when they did, rather than at some othertime?

(4) Why was it they who moved there and then, rather than someother people?

(5) How was the move accomplished, especially if the new territorywas already occupied by other people?

Genetics, linguistics, and archaeology may be able to documentthat a given prehistoric population movement took place; but simplequestions like these may be left unanswered unless a broad approachis taken, with reference not only to the spacial distribution of genes,languages, and cultural traits but also to the fundamental geographicfeatures of the area, the significant paleoenvironmental changesthrough time, and the rich ethnographic record of interaction amongpeoples. The more convincing models of prehistoric populationmovements will incorporate these diverse factors in a holisticapproach.

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Documents

Reconstructing Prehistoric Population Movements: Seeking Congruence in Genetics, Linguistics, and Archaeology