Something is moving in the Academy among Archaeologists: Marija Gimbutas' most determined opponent, Colin Renfrew, now recognizes that she was right.
We publish some passages from a letter by Joan MARLER in which she gives news of the changed attitude of Colin Renfrew, the archaeologist who fought hard against thekurgan hypothesis. He is the same as in the book Archeology. Theory, Methods, Practice, a text adopted in many universities, including Italian ones, omits Marija Gimbutas in presenting the archaeologists of the 900th century - except to mention her several times in the text to disagree with her theories.
Written in December 2017, it tells how at the opening of the conference at the University of Chicago, entitled “Marija Gimbutas Memorial Lecture series”, taking note of the confirmations coming from studies on the DNA of ancient populations in recent years, Renfrew announced that after all Marija Gimbutas he was right in linking the spread of the pastoral peoples of the steppes to the Indo-Europeanization of Ancient Europe.
Here are some excerpts from this letter:
(…) In 1987 Renfrew announced to Marija that his Anatolian hypothesis (that farmers from Anatolia brought Indo-European languages to Europe during the Early Neolithic) would prove her Kurgan hypothesis to be wrong.
Recent DNA evidence indicates direct genetic connection between the Yamnaya steppe population and the Indo-European Corded Ware people of North-Central Europe, considered ancestral to subsequent Proto-Germanic and Proto-Baltio-Slavic Indo-European populations.
The spread of the Yamnaya pastoralists into Europe provides the most viable explanation of the rapid Indo-Europeanization of the continent. Therefore, Renfrew decided it was best to position himself in from of his critics and gallantly announce that Marija was right after all.
(…) He acknowledged that his Anatolian hypothesis has not yet received the genetic confirmation that Marija's hypothesis has received but he's hoping that someday DNA evidence will show that the Hittites (who are the earliest known Indo-European people in Anatolia) can be shown to share DNA with Neolithic farmers.
He's holding out hopes that there is some way to prove that Indo-European entered Europe three thousand years earlier than the Kurgans. That's a very long shot and linguists have already dismissed the notion of IE evidence in Anatolia that early – but in the meantime, he's stepping sideways to allow Marija to bask in the limelight where she belongs.
Marija would be very pleased!
I remember that when in 1980 the "Los Angeles Time" defined Marija Gimbutas as "Woman of the Year", Marija commented on the flattering recognition despite the many protests, saying that she was aware that for a real appreciation and acquisition of her research "at least 35 years would be needed" !
Well, maybe we're there!!
