Paleolithic Continuity Theory
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The Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT) suggests that the Indo-European languages originated in Europe and have existed there since the Paleolithic.
It is based on a controversial synthesis of linguistic studies, the archaeogenetical studies of Brian Sykes indicating that some 80% of the genetic stock of Europeans goes back to the Paleolithic, as well as on archaeological data indicating European cultural continuity.
Its main proponents are the Italian linguists Mario Alinei, Gabriele Costa and Cicero Poghirc as well as the German and Belgian prehistorians Alexander Hausler and Marcel Otte.
Proponents point to a lack of archeological evidence for an Indo-European ‘invasion’ in the Bronze Age; to the lack of genetic change since the Paleolithic; and to analogy with a theory of a Paleolithic origin of Uralic people and languages in Eurasia. Critics reply that genetic continuity does not imply linguistic continuity and that theories of a literal conquest have fallen into disfavor with most supporters of the theory of a Bronze-Age origin of Indo-European.
In historical linguistics it is commonly deemed unfeasible to make any assertion about particular languages of such antiquity. PCT must therefore be regarded as controversial.
Authors like José Miguel de Barandiarán hypothesize that Basques and their non-Indo-European language form continuity with local Cro-Magnons.