Proto-Indoaryans, Mitanni, Hurrians
Study of the origins and dispersals of and continuity and discontinuity among Proto-Indo-European peoples has engaged a number of scholars over a hundred and fifty years. Two major methods used in the study are: archaeology and language.
Archaeological method and linguistic method have been based on a number of theoretical assumptions which result in differences in interpretations of data.
Indo-European languages have common vocabulary for semantic categories : parts of the body, family relationships and numerals. This is a very strong semantic evidence which led to the postulation of a hypothesis that the original homeland of the people speaking the Indo-European languages should have been in Central Asia with migrations westwards towards Europe and southwards towards Iran and India.
Bronze Age can be dated to ca. 1800 to 700 BC overlapping with the later Iron Age and with the earlier Neolithic/Chalcolithic Age. The chronology
is not strict and is not linear in many areas of Asia.
An acceptable method has to be found to relate the changes in languages to the changes in
culture and technology surmised from archaeological evidence.
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