Des proto-Indo-Européens

In the twentieth century Marija Gimbutas created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the Kurgan hypothesis, after the Kurgans (burial mounds) of the Eurasian steppes) in which the Indo-Europeans were a nomadic tribe of the Pontic-Caspian steppe (today Eastern Ukraine and Southern Russia) and expanded in several waves during the 3rd millennium BC. Their expansion coincided with the taming of the horse. Leaving archaeological signs of their presence (see battle-axe people), they subjugated the peaceful European Neolithic farmers of Gimbutas's Old Europe. As Gimbutas's beliefs evolved, she put increasing emphasis on the patriarchal, patrilinear nature of the invading culture, sharply contrasting it with the supposedly egalitarian, if not matrilinear culture of the invaded, to a point of formulating essentially feminist archaeology.