Form: Short Note

WIKI IS PRETTY ACCURATE ON PIE:

The following basic traits of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their environment are widely agreed upon but still hypothetical due to their reconstructed nature:

– Pastoralism, including domesticated cattle, horses, and dogs

– Agriculture and cereal cultivation, including technology commonly ascribed to late-Neolithic farming communities, e.g., the plow

– A climate with winter snow.

– Transportation by or across water.

– The solid wheel, used for wagons, but not yet chariots with spoked wheels

– Worship of a sky god, *dyeus ph2tēr (lit. “sky father”; > Sanskrit Dyaus Pita, > Ancient Greek Ζεύς (πατήρ) / Zeus (patēr); vocative *dyeu-ph2ter > Latin Iūpiter; Illyrian Deipaturos)

– Oral heroic poetry or song lyrics that used stock phrases such as imperishable fame and wine-dark sea

– A patrilineal kinship-system based on relationships between men

The Proto-Indo-Europeans relied largely on agriculture, but partly on animal husbandry, notably of cattle and sheep.

They had domesticated horses – *eḱwos (cf. Latin equus). The cow (*gwous) played a central role, in religion and mythology as well as in daily life.

A man’s wealth would have been measured by the number of his animals (small livestock), *peḱu (cf. English fee, Latin pecunia).

As for technology, reconstruction indicates a culture of the late Neolithic bordering on the early Bronze Age, with tools and weapons very likely composed of “natural bronze” (i.e., made from copper ore naturally rich in silicon or arsenic). Silver and gold were known, but not silver smelting (as PIE has no word for lead, a by-product of silver smelting), thus suggesting that silver was imported. Sheep were kept for wool, and textiles were woven. The wheel was known, certainly for ox-drawn wagons.

They practiced a polytheistic religion centered on sacrificial rites, probably administered by a priestly caste.

Burials in barrows or tomb chambers apply to the Kurgan culture, in accordance with the original version of the Kurgan hypothesis, but not to the previous Sredny Stog culture, which is also generally associated with PIE. Important leaders would have been buried with their belongings in kurgans, and possibly also with members of their households or wives (human sacrifice, suttee).

Many Indo-European societies know a threefold division of priests, a warrior class, and a class of peasants or husbandmen. Georges Dumézil has suggested such a division for Proto-Indo-European society.

If there was a separate class of warriors, it probably consisted of single young men. They would have followed a separate warrior code unacceptable in the society outside their peer-group. Traces of initiation rites in several Indo-European societies suggest that this group identified itself with wolves or dogs (see also Berserker, werewolf).