Hi Danny
You wrote
> I favor an Anatolian ("Turkish") homeland (because of the
Hittites),
with
> the IE-speakers migrating to the Balkans as well as to the
Caucasus.
And
> that is because of my personal opinion that all or most ancient
Near
Eastern
> cultures came from lower Mesopotamia.
Danny, the approach that has all cultures coming from one place (eg
Lower Mesopotamia), is called unipolar diffusionism and was
championeed by Elliot Smith last century and to a lesser extent by V.
Gordon Childe (from 1930's to 1960's). It is very much out of favour
in modern Archaeology.
It seems that once out of Africa, multipolar diffusionism held sway.
Coastal fishing and fowling was the predominant adaption for the
people who moved out of Africa 75,000 BCE, systematic specialised big
game hunting began with the Aurignacian cultures, particularly the
Eurasian Steppe 40-25,000 BCE, the "broad spectrum revolution" of
microlithic mesolithic cultures began with African Aterian of the
Algeria-Sahara region as did pottery with the catfish cultures.
Pottery also began 11-12,000 BCE with the Jomon of Japan, farming
seems to have had multiple origins, in the region of New Guinea
(25,000 years BP if not earlier), in South East Asia (perhaps
10-12,000 BCE), the Middle East 8,500 BCE, China about 7,500 BCE,
MesoAmerica 3,900 BCE). Cattle seem to have domesticated three
times,
in the Sahara, in the Middle East and in India. The horse was
possibly domesticated 25,000 BCE, but if so its domestication was
forgotten until rediscovered in the region north of Crimea and east
to
the Caspian.
I know many like the Anatolian origin, but it would seem to me that
the region north of Crimea and east to the Caspian is the PIE
homeland
most supported by archaeology.
Hope this helps
John