The steppe theory was first formulated by Otto Schrader (1883) and V. Gordon Childe (1926),[3][4] then systematized in the 1950s by Marija Gimbutas, who used the term to group various prehistoric cultures, including the Yamnaya (or Pit Grave) culture and its predecessors. In the 2000s, David Anthony instead used the core Yamnaya culture and its relationship with other cultures as a point of reference.
Scheme of Indo-European language dispersals from c. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. Center: Steppe cultures
Not shown: Armenian, expanding from western steppe
Gimbutas defined the Kurgan culture as composed of four successive periods, with the earliest (Kurgan I) including the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures of the Dnieper–Volga region in the Copper Age (early 4th millennium BC). The people of these cultures were nomadic pastoralists, who, according to the model, by the early 3rd millennium BC had expanded throughout the Pontic–Caspian steppe and into Eastern Europe.[5]
Genetics studies in the 21st century have demonstrated that populations bearing specific Y-DNA haplogroups and a distinct genetic signature expanded into Europe and South Asia from the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the third and second millennia BC. These migrations provide a plausible explanation for the spread of at least some of the Indo-European languages, and suggest that the alternative theories such as the Anatolian hypothesis, which places the Proto-Indo-European homeland in NeolithicAnatolia, are less likely to be correct.[6][7][8][9][10]
^Mallory 1989, p. 185, "The Kurgan solution is attractive and has been accepted by many archaeologists and linguists, in part or total. It is the solution one encounters in the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Larousse.".
^Strazny 2000, p. 163. "The single most popular proposal is the Pontic steppes (see the Kurgan hypothesis)..."
^Renfrew, Colin (1990). Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. CUP Archive. pp. 37–38. ISBN978-0-521-38675-3.
^Jones-Bley, Karlene (2008). "Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, November 3–4, 2006". Historiographia Linguistica. 35 (3): 465–467. doi:10.1075/hl.35.3.15koe. ISSN0302-5160.