The Indo-Europeans

COURSE INFORMATION

SGL Name:  Ollie Curme

Course Meeting Times/Dates:  Mondays, 11:10am to 12:35pm, September 9 through November 18, except not October 14

Contact information of SGL:  ocurme@gmail.com

ZOOM Link for Course Meetings: https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/7817604971?pwd=ajhVaW5xSFdZQjhUY0FFWU5hMDJyUT09

Meeting ID: 781 760 4971

Password: bolli

COURSE DESCRIPTION

A long, long time ago, buried in the mists of prehistory, there arose a tribe of people who became very successful.  At some point, for reasons unknown they traveled east and west and eventually came to conquer almost the entire landmass of Europe and Asia.  Linguists first discovered clues to these people 250 years ago when they realized that nearly all languages in Europe, Asia, and India were descended from a common source, which we call proto-Indo-European.  Archeologists have searched for the homeland of the proto-Indo-Europeans over the past 150 years, with mixed results.  Finally, in just the past decade, the broad outlines of these prehistoric conquests has been solved, using analysis of ancient DNA.  In this course, we’ll try to unravel the mysteries of who the Indo-Europeans were, why they became so successful and how they came to conquer so much of the world.  We’ll infer much of this through archeology, and try to match up our cultural and linguistic inferences to evidence from the beginnings of written history, 3,000 years ago.  We’ll look at the cultures and myths of the people behind some of the major language groups: Anatolian, Germanic, Italic/Celtic, and Indo-Aryan, and we’ll try to decipher some continuing mysteries, such as the origins of the Basques and Greeks.  Come travel back in time as we meet the Indo-Europeans, see their art, their culture, their religion and their myths, and learn how they impact our culture to this day.

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