No Indo-European Migration

How would the world differ if the Indo-Europeans never migrated out of the Pontic Steppes at around 3,500 BC. The Hittite branch doesn't leave the Urmheimat and the Andronovo expansion halts in the east. This lack of expansion could be due to military energy being focused inwards rather than outwards.
 
Everything west of China would be utterly unrecognizable so absolutely anything goes. About the only thing you could say with some certainty is that lactose-tolerance might be less common. And even that isn't exactly certain, so its wide open.
 
Everything west of China would be utterly unrecognizable so absolutely anything goes. About the only thing you could say with some certainty is that lactose-tolerance might be less common. And even that isn't exactly certain, so its wide open.

Is it thought that the Indo-European migrations caused this spread of lactose tolerance? I am aware that it is thought that the levels of lactose intolerance were common in the Copper Age, but is it the case that it was a result of this migration or a development independently? Interesting question though.
 
A post of mine from a few months ago:

z6jnsf02rn7z.jpg


A rather bizarre map I found online. See https://pastebin.com/ELK9qULK for an explanation of the place-names: "A lot of imagination has been used in some cases! Many nations are in different positions here and the actual timeline, and some etymologies can be a bit far-fetched..."

The caption asks "What if" the Indo-Europeans never left their original homeland and didn't displace Paleo-Eurasian, Uralic, and Turkic peoples. I don't know to what extent that is meant seriously and to what extent it is a deliberate tongue-in-cheek DBWI.

The obvious problem with the map and caption (if taken seriously for a minute) is that while some peoples like the Basques and Etruscans and the Finnish peoples may have been indigenous to Europe, to a large extent this map can be called "Map of Europe if it were inhabited by non-Indo-European peoples, many of whom are indigenous to Asia and would probably never have come to Europe if not for the Indo-European peoples already living there." The Magyars, Bulgars, Turks, Tatars, etc. on this map are obviously not in their ancestral homeland. And southern Ukraine, far from being a place where Indo-Europeans displaced Tatars, is widely regarded as part of the original Indo-European homeland...

Some of the place names, incidentally, seem to be based on the notion that "old European" river names are of pre-Indo-European origin--a notion expounded by Theo Vernnemann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Vennemann but rejected by the great majority of scholars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_hydronymy

Note also that the Inuit have colonized Iceland...

I can see the case that this belongs in ASB, but there are *some* real possibilities here.
 
For Europe, if it weren't the Indo-Europeans, it would be someone else. Advancing technology had turned the steppe from a near impassable wasteland to a human superhighway, and eventually some steppe people will spread across the Northern European Plain. For South Asia, things are less certain. But I imagine India would be more linguistically and culturally Dravidian without the Aryan invasion.
 
World would be very very unrecognsible.

Some iof my thoughts. Anything of course not be sure and many things might be different:

- Scandinavia would be Uralic dominant. Might be that Uralic languages are spoken in Northern Germany too. And perhaps whole Western Russia would be Uralic.
- Italy remain as Etruscan. Etrusans were culturally very different as Romans so there hardly would be widely expanded Etruscan Empire but Italy might be unified as Etruscan kingdom.
- Iberia would be linguistically very strange. Might be too core of Basque Empire. But this is just purely speculative.
- India would remain mostly Dravidian if then some another people not invade the subcontinent.
- Perhaps Elamite Persia or then some another people takes the region.
 
How strictly are we apply "no migration" here? That is, what's the absolute smallest amount of territory that the Indo-European peoples would reasonably inhabit in such a scenario?
 
Is it thought that the Indo-European migrations caused this spread of lactose tolerance? I am aware that it is thought that the levels of lactose intolerance were common in the Copper Age, but is it the case that it was a result of this migration or a development independently? Interesting question though.

Old Europeans had domesticated goats so it is likely they would develop lactose tolerance through that.

A post of mine from a few months ago:

z6jnsf02rn7z.jpg

Very interesting map, thank you.

For Europe, if it weren't the Indo-Europeans, it would be someone else. Advancing technology had turned the steppe from a near impassable wasteland to a human superhighway, and eventually some steppe people will spread across the Northern European Plain. For South Asia, things are less certain. But I imagine India would be more linguistically and culturally Dravidian without the Aryan invasion.

Would Indo-Europeans stuck on the Pontic Steppes block these more Eastern invaders?

World would be very very unrecognsible.

Some iof my thoughts. Anything of course not be sure and many things might be different:

- Scandinavia would be Uralic dominant. Might be that Uralic languages are spoken in Northern Germany too. And perhaps whole Western Russia would be Uralic.
- Italy remain as Etruscan. Etrusans were culturally very different as Romans so there hardly would be widely expanded Etruscan Empire but Italy might be unified as Etruscan kingdom.
- Iberia would be linguistically very strange. Might be too core of Basque Empire. But this is just purely speculative.
- India would remain mostly Dravidian if then some another people not invade the subcontinent.
- Perhaps Elamite Persia or then some another people takes the region.

Some interesting concepts.
 
How strictly are we apply "no migration" here? That is, what's the absolute smallest amount of territory that the Indo-European peoples would reasonably inhabit in such a scenario?

Here is a rough map I made a month ago showing some cultural zones in such a world
  • The Vasconics inhabit Iberia and southern France
  • Tartessos is a Vasconic (proto)-civilization which trades with the British tribes for tin
  • The Goeldics are 'cousins' to the Basque and inhabit the British Isles as well as northern France
  • Cornwall (mistakenly called Kent) is a Goeldic (proto)-civilization which developed through trade with Tartessos resulting in the increase in wealth in the hands of certain chieftains who used this to fund expansion.
  • Tyrsenians are a group with Afro-Asiatic influence. They are descended from the Neolithic farmers that migrated into Europe.
  • The Etruscans are a Tyrsenian group who are more powerful and influential due to the lack of Italians and Celts.
  • The Nuragians are either Vasconics or Tyrsenians who could go on to develop a Minoan styled civilization in the West Mediterranean.
  • The Pelasgians are descended from the Neolithic farmers and related to the Tyrsenians.
  • The Minoans and Cypriots are Pelasgian thalassocracies.
  • The Danube is a civilization which would absorb much of the Hittite ancestors (I subscribe to the belief that the Anatolian languages isn't descended from PIE but shares a common ancestor with it)
  • Swideric is a (proto)-civilization in the Baltics which arose through the trading of amber to the Danube.
  • The Europeans are a group in northern Europe and southern Scandinavia who are neither Vasconic or Finno-Ugric.
  • The Finno-Ugrics dominate much of Scandinavia and Western Russia
  • In Estonia is a possible hybrid Swideric/Finno-Ugric culture
  • The Indo Europeans stretch throughout the Steppes with a settled community in Crimea due to trade with the rest of the world.
  • Egypt is Egypt.
  • The Hatti develop a civilization similar to that of the Hittites IOTL
  • The Maykop develop a rich and advanced civilization
  • Elam survives as a regional power
  • Sumeria might survive through butterflies (Probably not though unfortunately)
  • Elamites, Gutians and Hurro-Urartians are all one language family.
  • BMAC go on to develop a civilization instead of being overrun by the Indo-Europeans
  • Harappan culture is a revival of the IVC after its collapse with a more eastern central point. They are Dravidian.
  • The Dravidians are tribes as of now.
  • The Tamil carry on being the Tamil.
 

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Is it thought that the Indo-European migrations caused this spread of lactose tolerance? I am aware that it is thought that the levels of lactose intolerance were common in the Copper Age, but is it the case that it was a result of this migration or a development independently? Interesting question though.

Its one possibility. The early PIE people were pastoralists, and genetic studies seem to show that lactose tolerence originated in their general area of settlement. How unique it was to them isn’t certain, but it is likely they were one of the few groups that had that trait.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33057927
 
The problem with this question is the lack of information out there, the linguistic\ethnic groups of Northern Europe pre IE is unknown, the old Europeans probably had different language families of their own not Finno-Ugric as it probably came later on, whether these language families of old Europeans are descendant from the Near East farmers that migrated to Europe or from hunter gatherers that has it’s origins from Cro Magnons is also anyone’s guess.


Southern Europe will probably be dominated by Basque\Etruscan related languages, while modern day Iran would be Elamite and Anatolia would be dominated by Caucasian languages.
 
Hmm... hard to answer. We don't *really* know why the Indo-European groups succeeded as they did. There's a theory that they were relatively successful in Northern Europe, because they cleared the forests for use in pastoralism in a bigger way than the preceding agriculturalists, who might have concentrated more on finding small areas of fertile land and raising crops. Though even the predecessor cultures were not strictly pure agriculturalists (Funnel Beaker culture for instance, much of whose cultural products seem adopted by probably Indo-European speaking Corded Ware horizon, used a lot of domestic animals and were quite mobile).

But it seems quite likely to me as well that they were simply more mobile than most other groups, and so ended up amassing quite a large territory that way, and then assimilating or replacing other peoples, depending on population density. Where less mobile cultures were not as expansive or migratory in the same way.

In particular this could be what led to them being poised to become important in down phases of early civilizations (Indus Valley for instance, where not much evidence of Aryan invasion, but the fall of the culture may have allowed extensive migrations to take place).

Much of the stuff about distinctive Indo-European religion and social structure beyond high mobility I take with a pinch of salt.

It really depends on how you butterfly out the Indo-European cultures. I think the only couple things that seem really likely to me are:

- Languages would likely have been more deeply diverged and hard to learn over a large zone, at least until major empires came and homogenized regions, and so transmission of some ideas might be slower (or people might just be more linguistically capable).
- I'd guess that people living in Europe may have followed paths of being more intensive in small regions and less extensive in their agricultural systems, and with more density, earlier, perhaps more proto-urbanism and civilization about well before in our time line... but on the other hand, maybe not, if extensive, low density systems in much of European pre-history post-IE migrations were primarily ecologically determined.

Re: the European lactose tolerance variant, it seems to be absent in the early and presumed Indo-European culture of the Yamnaya, Afanasievo and Poltavka, but then shows up later with cultures who seem from genetics to have absorbed people from the Neolithic cultures in Europe. So may equally have existed in the early PIE people, or come from non-PIE Neolithic cultures west of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, who tend to have some extensive evidence of milking themselves.
 
Hmm... hard to answer. We don't *really* know why the Indo-European groups succeeded as they did. There's a theory that they were relatively successful in Northern Europe, because they cleared the forests for use in pastoralism in a bigger way than the preceding agriculturalists, who might have concentrated more on finding small areas of fertile land and raising crops. Though even the predecessor cultures were not strictly pure agriculturalists (Funnel Beaker culture for instance, much of whose cultural products seem adopted by probably Indo-European speaking Corded Ware horizon, used a lot of domestic animals and were quite mobile).

But it seems quite likely to me as well that they were simply more mobile than most other groups, and so ended up amassing quite a large territory that way, and then assimilating or replacing other peoples, depending on population density. Where less mobile cultures were not as expansive or migratory in the same way.

In particular this could be what led to them being poised to become important in down phases of early civilizations (Indus Valley for instance, where not much evidence of Aryan invasion, but the fall of the culture may have allowed extensive migrations to take place).

Much of the stuff about distinctive Indo-European religion and social structure beyond high mobility I take with a pinch of salt.

It really depends on how you butterfly out the Indo-European cultures. I think the only couple things that seem really likely to me are:

- Languages would likely have been more deeply diverged and hard to learn over a large zone, at least until major empires came and homogenized regions, and so transmission of some ideas might be slower (or people might just be more linguistically capable).
- I'd guess that people living in Europe may have followed paths of being more intensive in small regions and less extensive in their agricultural systems, and with more density, earlier, perhaps more proto-urbanism and civilization about well before in our time line... but on the other hand, maybe not, if extensive, low density systems in much of European pre-history post-IE migrations were primarily ecologically determined.

Re: the European lactose tolerance variant, it seems to be absent in the early and presumed Indo-European culture of the Yamnaya, Afanasievo and Poltavka, but then shows up later with cultures who seem from genetics to have absorbed people from the Neolithic cultures in Europe. So may equally have existed in the early PIE people, or come from non-PIE Neolithic cultures west of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, who tend to have some extensive evidence of milking themselves.
You remind me of the IVC. Who could replace the Indo-Europeans as invaders of the Indus once the Civilization collapses? Could the BMAC, Elamites or southern Dravidians invade? Possibly Austronesians from the east but that seems pretty out of the way.
 
- Italy remain as Etruscan. Etrusans were culturally very different as Romans so there hardly would be widely expanded Etruscan Empire but Italy might be unified as Etruscan kingdom.

IOTL Etruscan culture was pretty heavily influenced by the Greeks, who ex hypothesi don't exist ITTL, so I think pretty much all bets are basically off regarding them.
 
Everyone's mentioning the Basques and Etruscans in the Mediterranean, but it should be pointed out that until the Roman Empire really got off the ground, Semitic groups like the Phoenicians (as well as their successors, the Carthaginians) dominated much of the Mediterranean. Accepting that butterflies make it nearly impossible to project just who would come out ahead in such a scenario, I think a good case could be made for much of the Mediterranean world - and, by extension, much of Europe and/or North Africa - becoming culturally/linguistically Semitic here.
 
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