How to make Indo-Aryans

George wrote:
<<There is a paper by David Anthony which propounds an "elite dominance"
theory to explain the spread of IE among steppe populations east of the
Volga.>>

Yes. I'm including the abstract here because it really is kind of amazing.
You see Anthony -- of all people -- can't use the HORSE to explain IE's
spread to this corner of the world because he's been busy showing the
domesticated HORSE IS ALREADY THERE! And has been for a long time. (And,
based on what we've just read, if he goes back too far in time, he might even
run into Yamnaya going in the other direction.) That means he has no real
evidence of any migration in the direction he wants at the rather late time
he wants it.

So, he almost has to postulate that "a small immigrant elite population can
encourage widespread language shift among numerically dominant natives..."

I picture this European management committee on bronze chariots crossing the
Urals and patiently explaining to this horde of hell-raising Attila-types on
war ponies who is elite and who is not. And "encouraging" them to speak a
"ritual" IE, with "attractive high-prestige behaviors." Too funny. "No, no,
Genghiz. Remember, we hold the tea cup with only the forefinger and thumb."
Ha.

This must be the first abstract EVER with Anthony's name on it that does not
mention the horse, even once:

Social dynamics of the spread of Indo-Iranian languages
in the Late Bronze Age
David W. Anthony, Hartwick College, USA
The expansion of the Indo-Iranian languages east of the Urals is often
presented as the result of a series of migrations during the steppe Late
Bronze Age, or Andronovo period. This is not likely. The
cultural-archaeological context shows that the eastern steppes were already
populated earlier; the process by which this resident population became
IE-speakers was cultural, not just demographic.

A relatively small immigrant elite population can encourage widespread
language shift among numerically dominant natives in a non-state or pre-state
context if the elite employs a specific combination of attractive
high-prestige behaviors, encouragements and punishments, which are described
here. Language shift can be understood best as a social strategy through
which individuals and groups compete for positions of prestige, power, and
domestic security .

What is important, then, is not just dominance, but vertical social mobility
and a linkage between language and access to positions of prestige and power.
In this paper I explore how the Sintashta-Arkaim culture began a new economic
and ideological system, closely connected with a specific ritual language,
reflected in the later Avesta and Rig Veda.

Native ethnic groups east of the Urals adopted Indo-European languages
because of the connection between ritual language, prestige, and power, not
through simple migration and conquest.
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