Kin, Clan and Community in Indo-European Society

This book analyses the latest trends in Indo-European studies, combining linguistic study with insights from archaeology, anthropology and archaeogenetics, in an attempt to shed new light on the social structure of the pastoralist society of Proto-Indo-European speakers. The book opens with a brief introduction on the benefits of approaching Indo-European studies from an anthropological angle. This is followed by nine chapters representing the two main thematic parts of the book: one on kinship terminology and family structure, and one on structures that function across and unite families, namely wooing and marriage. Part one includes a lengthy chapter which gives an overview of Proto-Indo-European terminology, as well as five chapters focusing on individual branches or languages: Anatolian, Avestan, Latin, Germanic and Albanian. Part two starts off with a chapter on how consanguinity affected marriage in various early Indo-European societies, followed by a chapter on Anatolian marriage and marriage types, and finally a chapter on what ancient sources, primarily from Greece, can tell us about processes and rites related to wooing. Together, these studies combine to form the first study of Indo-European family structure to draw on linguistics, archaeology and genetics, and the book is an important contribution to our understanding of how social and family structures developed in prehistoric and early historic times.