By Lily Carmichael

Colin Renfrew Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn Born July 25, 1937 in Stockton-on-Tees British archaeologist, paleolinguist, and conservative peer Noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, prevention of looting at archaeological sites Formerly the Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research He is now a Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, a fellow of the British Academy, and a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences

Education and Work Educated at St. Albans School in Hertfordshire From 1956 to 1958, he did National Service at the Royal Air Force Went to St. John’s College in Cambridge where he read the Natural Sciences, Archaeology, and Anthropology Graduated in completed his PhD thesis titles “Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the Cyclades and the external relations” From 1968 to 1970 he directed excavations at Sitagroi, Greece

Hypothesis Renfrew developed the Anatolian hypothesis It states that Proto-Indo-European (the reconstructed ancestor of Indo-European languages) originated approximately 9,000 years ago in Anatolia and moved with the spread of farming This contradicts Marija Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European was spread by a migration of peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppe approximately 6,000 years ago

Hypothesis Proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia Speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) lived in Anatolia during the Neolithic era Associates distribution of historical Indo-European languages with the expansion during the Neolithic revolution of the 7 th and 6 th millennia BCE

Hypothesis In 1987 Renfrew suggested peaceful Indo-Europeanization of Europe from Anatolia from around 7,000 BCE with the advance of farming by demic diffusion. He called this a “wave of advance.” Most of the inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European languages, and later migrations would at best have replaced these Indo-European varieties with other Indo-European varieties The main strength of farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with archaeologically known event (the spread of farming) which scholars assume involved significant population shifts

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Works Cited arqueologo-lord-odyssey html arqueologo-lord-odyssey html reveals-the-relationships-between-languages reveals-the-relationships-between-languages geography/linguistic-geography/mismodeling-indo- european-origin-and-expansion-bouckaert-atkinson- wade-and-the-assault-on-historical-linguistics geography/linguistic-geography/mismodeling-indo- european-origin-and-expansion-bouckaert-atkinson- wade-and-the-assault-on-historical-linguistics cradle-danube-valley-civilization-2.html cradle-danube-valley-civilization-2.html