9419349 Robert Sokal There are currently two contending hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European speakers. Sir Colin Renfrew has challenged the established view, propounded by Marija Cimbutas, that the Indo-Europeanization of Europe proceeded in three waves between 4400 and 2800 B.C. from the Pontic Steppes, north of the Black Sea. Renfrew has the Indo- Europeans arising in Anatolia much earlier (ca. 7000 B.C.) and entering Europe as early agriculturalists, distributing themselves through Europe with the spread of the Neolithic. Both of these hypotheses should have very different consequences for the subsequent population relationships among European groups. Robert Sokal has constructed a unique database on European ethnohistory, recording the location and movements of most known ethnic units from 2200 B.C. to the present. In an earlier pilot project, his has established the utility of the database in making further predictions of patterns of genetic variation over the European continent. He can now proceed to testing the two overarching (and conflicting) hypotheses of Indo-European origins and dispersal in Europe. ***
