PIE Urheimat Discussion

[Vuvuzela]

Actually I don't think this is quackery, so maybe it deserves a new thread, still what do you all think of this? To me it makes about as much sense as anything else and seems to be looking for causes etc.

http://www.academia.edu/2944128/Indo-Eu ... ion_Cycles

First impression: It is not quackery at all, but a plausible hypothesis that is at least worthy of discussion. Thank you for sharing it!

If it's worth discussing, then someone please start a thread in the appropriate forum.

[Pole, the]

PIE Urheimat is surely in Ur! One hundert per cent sure!!!

[Shm Jay]

Actually, it wasn't in Ur, it was in

ॠ ṝ

which is derived through sound change from the original name of the place,

ॡ ḹ

and that also explains why Sanskrit has a letter for the sound even though it doesn't exist as a real Sanskrit phoneme.

[marconatrix]

Actually, it wasn't in Ur, it was in

ॠ ṝ

which is derived through sound change from the original name of the place,

ॡ ḹ

and that also explains why Sanskrit has a letter for the sound even though it doesn't exist as a real Sanskrit phoneme.

C'mon guys, this was supposed to be a serious discussion of a bit of newish thinking. Not so much the homeland as the reason for the expansion(s). For a major language family to get going it's originators either have to be able to expand into virgin territory, or else have some major advantage over their neighbours, and maybe also some internal pressure to drive the expansion. Basic agriculture vs hunter-gatherers seems to be too early, so what drove the massive IE expansion that produced a major multi-branched language tree?

[Zju]

Given that most theories place the urheimat somewhere around Black sea, it's quite possible that it was these people who spoke PIE. Moreover, loss of land is a good motivation for migration.

[WeepingElf]

Given that most theories place the urheimat somewhere around Black sea, it's quite possible that it was these people who spoke PIE. Moreover, loss of land is a good motivation for migration.

The Black Sea Flood is too early for PIE proper in my opinion, but it may have resulted in the spread of a language family PIE was a part of. This family, which could be called "Macro-IE" or "Europic", would have spread along the rivers that flew into the northern part of the Black Sea across Central Europe (the Linear Pottery culture), the Lower Danube (the Starčevo and Vinča cultures) and Ukraine (the Trypillia and Sredny Stog cultures). The language of the Linear Pottery culture and its daughter cultures may have left traces in the Old European hydronymy, which seems to be from a sister language of PIE which branched off before the establishment of the PIE ablaut system.

PIE proper (rather, Early PIE, i.e. the ancestor of all IE languages including Anatolian) would have been the language of the Sredny Stog or perhaps that of the Trypillia culture (these two would have been very close to each other anyway) ca. 4500 BC, though Sredny Stog seems to fit the reconstructible PIE cultural profile (horse-based warrior aristocracy) better than Trypillia. Late PIE (the ancestor of the non-Anatolian IE languages) would have been the language of the Yamnaya culture ca. 3500 BC.

What one has to keep in mind in discussions of the "Kurgan hypothesis" is that the opponents like to whack strawmen. Yes, it is unlikely that a nomadic culture from the steppe could have conquered forested western Europe. Yes, PIE does have architectural terminology which probably didn't refer to tents. Yes, PIE has terminology for crop farming which nomads don't do and never did. BUT - the Sredny Stog and Yamnaya people weren't steppe nomads like the much later Huns and Mongols. They were farming societies practicing both crop farming (for which Ukraine, as everybody knows, is very well-suited, in terms of soil and climate) and cattle herding. Cattle herding was held in higher social esteem than crop farming; probably, the men took care of the cattle and the women of the crops. The horse and later the chariot were very important in warfare, and the horse also in herding cattle. No archaeologist worth his stripes sees steppe nomades of the Hun/Mongol type in Copper Age Ukraine!

[Morrígan]

PIE proper (rather, Early PIE, i.e. the ancestor of all IE languages including Anatolian) would have been the language of the Sredny Stog or perhaps that of the Trypillia culture (these two would have been very close to each other anyway) ca. 4500 BC, though Sredny Stog seems to fit the reconstructible PIE cultural profile (horse-based warrior aristocracy) better than Trypillia. Late PIE (the ancestor of the non-Anatolian IE languages) would have been the language of the Yamnaya culture ca. 3500 BC.

Strongly agreed on these. That's certainly what I understand to be the current mainstream view, and there aren't especially good reasons to discount it on the basis of known information. David W. Anthony wrote a lot about this, specifically from the perspective of archaeology and the spread of horse domestication and the later development of riding. I've found his scholarship to be sound, though I'm not an archaeologist by any means.

If I remember, he suggests an early origin in the Balkans, and movement north, and then east into the Black Sea region, but this was based entirely on archaeology, so it's hard to say if this is an Indo-European migration or not. But the kind of material culture we see at Sredny Stog is related to earlier cultures in the Balkans, possibly originating in western Anatolia.

[WeepingElf]

PIE proper (rather, Early PIE, i.e. the ancestor of all IE languages including Anatolian) would have been the language of the Sredny Stog or perhaps that of the Trypillia culture (these two would have been very close to each other anyway) ca. 4500 BC, though Sredny Stog seems to fit the reconstructible PIE cultural profile (horse-based warrior aristocracy) better than Trypillia. Late PIE (the ancestor of the non-Anatolian IE languages) would have been the language of the Yamnaya culture ca. 3500 BC.

Strongly agreed on these. That's certainly what I understand to be the current mainstream view, and there aren't especially good reasons to discount it on the basis of known information. David W. Anthony wrote a lot about this, specifically from the perspective of archaeology and the spread of horse domestication and the later development of riding. I've found his scholarship to be sound, though I'm not an archaeologist by any means.

Yes. There are no good reasons to discount it. Sure, the mainstream view on some matter can be wrong (luminiferous aether, anyone?), but this does not appear to be one of those cases. The mainstream view accounts of the facts reasonably well. David W. Anthony's book is very good and a recommended read for anyone interested in the PIE homeland problem.

If I remember, he suggests an early origin in the Balkans, and movement north, and then east into the Black Sea region, but this was based entirely on archaeology, so it's hard to say if this is an Indo-European migration or not. But the kind of material culture we see at Sredny Stog is related to earlier cultures in the Balkans, possibly originating in western Anatolia.

The Black Sea Flood hypothesis accounts for this relationship between Sredny Stog and the earlier cultures in the Balkans by a shared descent from a culture located in where now is the Bay of Odessa. Some survivors moved west on the Danube (probably by boats) and founded the Balkan Neolithic cultures (Starčevo, Vinča) and the Linear Pottery culture in Central Europe; others moved north on the Dniepr and founded what was later to become the Sredny Stog culture.

Another reason to assume an origin of PIE north of the Black Sea is that it is quite similar to Uralic in grammatical morphology and also in lexicon. These similarities are more easily accounted for (either by descent from a common ancestor, or by intense contact over a long time) if PIE and Proto-Uralic were neighbours than if they were separated from each other by the Caucasus.

[Morrígan]

Another reason to assume an origin of PIE north of the Black Sea is that it is quite similar to Uralic in grammatical morphology and also in lexicon. These similarities are more easily accounted for (either by descent from a common ancestor, or by intense contact over a long time) if PIE and Proto-Uralic were neighbours than if they were separated from each other by the Caucasus.

Ah, good point. I tend to forget about Kortlandt's work in this area, since I'm not nearly as familiar with Uralic linguistics.
I've yet to read through this thoroughly, but it seems relevant: C.C. UHLENBECK ON INDO-EUROPEAN, URALIC AND CAUCASIAN

[WeepingElf]

On the similarity between IE and Uralic, just look at the pronouns and verbal personal endings of Finnish. They look more Indo-European than those of many modern IE languages, including English! Of course, many other things, such as the numerals, are utterly different.

And what regards Kortlandt's paper: It is indeed likely that Proto-Indo-Uralic was more like Proto-Uralic than like PIE (though PU is certainly younger than even Late PIE, as can be seen from which branches of Uralic borrowed from which branches of IE), but PIE was transformed under the areal or substratum influence of Caucasian languages (or lost languages typologically similar to the extant Caucasian languages).

For instance, it seems that in Pre-PIE, all non-high vowels, and before sonorants also high vowels, merged into a single vowel phoneme that is reasonably reconstructed as */a/. I call this the "Great Vowel Collapse" (GVC). This Pre-PIE */a/ would later develop into ablauting *e~o~0; accordingly */i/ and */u/ became *ei~oi~i and *eu~ou~u, respectively. The original qualities of the pre-GVC vowels can be partly recognized by the frontness, backness or labialization of adjacent velars. The stop system (in Late Pre-PIE probably as reconstructed in the "glottalic theory", though Late PIE is better described by the standard reconstruction - but I entertain the fancy that the "voiced aspirated stops" may actually have been voiced fricatives instead) also seems to have been "Caucasianized". The precise sound correspondences between IE and Uralic, however, remain to be sorted out.

[Terra]

Questions for WeepingElf:
1) Do you think that IE and Uralic are related?, or that they just influenced each-others' grammar through long and repeated contact/inter-marriage?
2) If IE and Uralic are related, why don't they share a common set of numerals? What are each's numberals derived from? (Like "five" from "hand", for example.) What compels a language to create numerals in the first place?

And what regards Kortlandt's paper: It is indeed likely that Proto-Indo-Uralic was more like Proto-Uralic than like PIE (though PU is certainly younger than even Late PIE, as can be seen from which branches of Uralic borrowed from which branches of IE), but PIE was transformed under the areal or substratum influence of Caucasian languages (or lost languages typologically similar to the extant Caucasian languages).

This makes sense, given Caucasian languages tendency to have many consonants and few vowels. How far back do records for Caucasian languages go? Can any loanwords (from Caucasian into IE) be deduced?

For instance, it seems that in Pre-PIE, all non-high vowels, and before sonorants also high vowels, merged into a single vowel phoneme that is reasonably reconstructed as */a/. I call this the "Great Vowel Collapse" (GVC). This Pre-PIE */a/ would later develop into ablauting *e~o~0; accordingly */i/ and */u/ became *ei~oi~i and *eu~ou~u, respectively. The original qualities of the pre-GVC vowels can be partly recognized by the frontness, backness or labialization of adjacent velars. The stop system (in Late Pre-PIE probably as reconstructed in the "glottalic theory", though Late PIE is better described by the standard reconstruction - but I entertain the fancy that the "voiced aspirated stops" may actually have been voiced fricatives instead) also seems to have been "Caucasianized". The precise sound correspondences between IE and Uralic, however, remain to be sorted out.

So, PIE "k^w" from Pre-PIE "ku", and what else?

What (well-regarded) literature would you recommend for me to read about these topics? (both Caucasian influence on Pre-PIE, and possible Uralic-PIE connections)

[WeepingElf]

Questions for WeepingElf:
1) Do you think that IE and Uralic are related?, or that they just influenced each-others' grammar through long and repeated contact/inter-marriage?
2) If IE and Uralic are related, why don't they share a common set of numerals? What are each's numberals derived from? (Like "five" from "hand", for example.) What compels a language to create numerals in the first place?

1) I consider it more likely that they are related, but mutual influence between originally unrelated languages cannot be ruled out completely.

2) I don't know. It is sometimes claimed that elaborate numeral systems evolved only in the Neolithic, but I am not sure whether there is good evidence for that or not.

This makes sense, given Caucasian languages tendency to have many consonants and few vowels. How far back do records for Caucasian languages go? Can any loanwords (from Caucasian into IE) be deduced?

Records for most Caucasian languages go back only a few centuries at most. The exception is Georgian, which has been a literary language for about 1,500 years. But Proto-NWC, Proto-NEC and Proto-Kartvelian appear to have had the "typically Caucasian" features (large consonant inventories with uvulars, ejectives and two or more series of sibilants; ergativity; high degree of inflection) already. There are some lexical similarities which probably are loanwords, especially cultural vocabulary that was borrowed from IE into NWC and NEC languages.

So, PIE "k^w" from Pre-PIE "ku", and what else?

Yes, that sort of thing. PIE *kWel- 'to turn' may have been *kul- or *kol- in Early (pre-GVC) Pre-PIE.

What (well-regarded) literature would you recommend for me to read about these topics? (both Caucasian influence on Pre-PIE, and possible Uralic-PIE connections)

Frits Kortlandt has written some relevant papers; see here. There is also some nifty stuff on internal reconstruction in PIE by the late, lamented Jens Elmegård Rasmussen. Unfortunately, many Indo-Europeanists are very skeptical about such matters and do nor wish to concern themselves with it.

[gach]

2) If IE and Uralic are related, why don't they share a common set of numerals? What are each's numberals derived from? (Like "five" from "hand", for example.) What compels a language to create numerals in the first place?

2) I don't know. It is sometimes claimed that elaborate numeral systems evolved only in the Neolithic, but I am not sure whether there is good evidence for that or not.

Certainly when you look at the reconstructible PU number system you get the impression that it was much mor elimited than what the modern languages have. For Proto Fenno-Ugric we can securely reconstruct only the numbers 1-6 with possibly 10 as well (see e.g. N-Saami logi, Mari lu both "10" and Finnish lukea "to count, to read" > luku "number"). I'm not aware of any attempted explanations for the deep origin of the numbers 1-6 though.

Samoyedic has reconstructed its number system with a heavy hand and only shares PFU's words for "2" and "5". We've evidently lost a lot of data here and it's safest to assume that the PFU system provides us with the best guess of the number system present in PU. This is especially so since it's been questioned whether the Fenno-Ugric vs. Samoyedic division really is the primary split in Uralic and consequently whether PFU is really just a subset of PU. Remarkably though, the Samoyedic cognate of the Finno-Ugric word for "5" denotes the number "10" (compare PFU *wiiti "5" and PSam *wiət "10"). Clearly there was some sort of instability in the number system around the time of the Samoyedic split.

We don't know about the numbers 7-9 in PU but it's entirely possible that these have a shallower history than the lower numbers. The word for "7" appears to be universally an IE loan (e.g. N-Saami čieža, Finnish seitsemän, Komi śiźim, Nenets siu). In Finno-Permic the numbers "8" and "9" are fairly transparent derivations formed from "2" and "1" with formulas roughly "8" = "10-2" and "9" = "10-1". Compare

N-Saami
gávcci "8" ~ guokte "2"
ovcci "9" ~ okta "1"

Finnish
kahdeksan "8" ~ kaksi "2"
yhdeksän "9" ~ yksi "1"

Komi
kökjamys "8" ~ kyk "2"
ökmys "9" ~ ötik "1"

Also "10" may have been loaned. Permic das for "10" is of iranian origin and a similar explanation has been proposed for the latter part of the constructions for "8" and "9".

[Pole, the]

For instance, it seems that in Pre-PIE, all non-high vowels, and before sonorants also high vowels, merged into a single vowel phoneme that is reasonably reconstructed as */a/. I call this the "Great Vowel Collapse" (GVC). This Pre-PIE */a/ would later develop into ablauting *e~o~0; accordingly */i/ and */u/ became *ei~oi~i and *eu~ou~u, respectively. The original qualities of the pre-GVC vowels can be partly recognized by the frontness, backness or labialization of adjacent velars. The stop system (in Late Pre-PIE probably as reconstructed in the "glottalic theory", though Late PIE is better described by the standard reconstruction - but I entertain the fancy that the "voiced aspirated stops" may actually have been voiced fricatives instead) also seems to have been "Caucasianized". The precise sound correspondences between IE and Uralic, however, remain to be sorted out.

But what about sequences of e.g. *ḱu-/ḱw- (*ḱun-/ḱwon- "dog") or *kʷi-/kʷy- (*kʷih₁-/kʷyeh₁- "rest")?

And what about appereances of *a, *i, *u that do not undergo the ablaut?

[jmcd]

One thing I notice about PIE is that horse domestication took place between Ukraine and Kazakhstan 4000BC to 3000BC, a similar time and place to some proposals for PIE. So, to me, it seems reasonable to suggest that, its speakers having domesticated the horse, PIE or pre-PIE managed to spread thanks to this new (war) technology.

[Drydic]

For instance, it seems that in Pre-PIE, all non-high vowels, and before sonorants also high vowels, merged into a single vowel phoneme that is reasonably reconstructed as */a/. I call this the "Great Vowel Collapse" (GVC). This Pre-PIE */a/ would later develop into ablauting *e~o~0; accordingly */i/ and */u/ became *ei~oi~i and *eu~ou~u, respectively. The original qualities of the pre-GVC vowels can be partly recognized by the frontness, backness or labialization of adjacent velars. The stop system (in Late Pre-PIE probably as reconstructed in the "glottalic theory", though Late PIE is better described by the standard reconstruction - but I entertain the fancy that the "voiced aspirated stops" may actually have been voiced fricatives instead) also seems to have been "Caucasianized". The precise sound correspondences between IE and Uralic, however, remain to be sorted out.

But what about sequences of e.g. *ḱu-/ḱw- (*ḱun-/ḱwon- "dog") or *kʷi-/kʷy- (*kʷih₁-/kʷyeh₁- "rest")?

And what about appereances of *a, *i, *u that do not undergo the ablaut?

Are there any expressions of them in nominal/verbal roots that nowhere undergo ablaut? I'm no expert, but I don't recall any...

[Morrígan]

One thing I notice about PIE is that horse domestication took place between Ukraine and Kazakhstan 4000BC to 3000BC, a similar time and place to some proposals for PIE. So, to me, it seems reasonable to suggest that, its speakers having domesticated the horse, PIE or pre-PIE managed to spread thanks to this new (war) technology.

Early domestication was fairly limited though, in terms of utility. I'm not recalling the archaeological timeline, but from what I remember, we don't see horse tack like bridles and bits until later, after Indo-European has spread extensively. I remain agnostic on the question of an Indo-European Invasion.

[Terra]

There are some lexical similarities which probably are loanwords, especially cultural vocabulary that was borrowed from IE into NWC and NEC languages.

What kind of cultural vocabulary? Does it pertain to horses? warfare? farming?

[zompist]

One thing I notice about PIE is that horse domestication took place between Ukraine and Kazakhstan 4000BC to 3000BC, a similar time and place to some proposals for PIE. So, to me, it seems reasonable to suggest that, its speakers having domesticated the horse, PIE or pre-PIE managed to spread thanks to this new (war) technology.

Way too early for a war technology. Archery from horseback wasn't mastered till about 700 BC. Before then you had to use the much more cumbersome chariot, which only goes back to about 1600 BC.

[Salmoneus]

I think maybe people see 'horses' and instantly get fixated on knights and mongols and whatnot. But in a war context, mounted infantry is still immensely useful. Even if you don't have the tactical sophistication to employ dragoons, a mounted army can move far faster than an army on foot. And greatly superior speed gives you a vast strategic advantage.
But horses also have other uses. They facillitate trade, and communications (which can maintain (or create) a degree of unity between a larger group of people*). They facillitate mass migration. They're probably helpful in agriculture and construction and so on, even if you already have oxen.
And then there are the social and psychological consequences - mastery over an animal, the ability to literally look down on all other humans (and have them look up at you in awe) and the ability to move extremely rapidly at will might all, I would think, change how a group might act and might interact with their neighbours.


*Important to note is that most later steppe nomad groups were not individual roving tribes, but inter-ethnic confederations in which many different groups united under a single aristocracy and to a large extent adopted a shared culture and identity. While some conflict was no doubt involved in this, it clearly wasn't a matter of conquering each tribe in turn - different groups of horse nomads flocked to the banner of the most powerful group. The Indo-Europeans might have been the most powerful and prestigious early adopters of the horse, with more and more people assimilating into their empire as the technology spread.

[WeepingElf]

There are some lexical similarities which probably are loanwords, especially cultural vocabulary that was borrowed from IE into NWC and NEC languages.

What kind of cultural vocabulary? Does it pertain to horses? warfare? farming?

I don't know which they are precisely, but I have heard that there are some. Apparently, some NWC and NEC languages have words for 'wheel' that sound vaguely similar to PIE *kʷekʷlos (or at least, Octaviano has claimed so), and as PIE *kʷekʷlos has an impeccable etymology within PIE (it is a reduplicated thematic noun derived from the verbal root kʷel- 'to turn'), the Caucasian languages must have borrowed the 'wheel' word from PIE (and not the other way as Octaviano claims).

[Terra]

There are some lexical similarities which probably are loanwords, especially cultural vocabulary that was borrowed from IE into NWC and NEC languages.

What kind of cultural vocabulary? Does it pertain to horses? warfare? farming?

I don't know which they are precisely, but I have heard that there are some. Apparently, some NWC and NEC languages have words for 'wheel' that sound vaguely similar to PIE *kʷekʷlos (or at least, Octaviano has claimed so), and as PIE *kʷekʷlos has an impeccable etymology within PIE (it is a reduplicated thematic noun derived from the verbal root kʷel- 'to turn'), the Caucasian languages must have borrowed the 'wheel' word from PIE (and not the other way as Octaviano claims).

Okay.

Here ( http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art247e.pdf ), Kortlandt says:

The rise of the ergative construction, grammatical gender and adjectival agreement can be attributed to North Caucasian influence and may have proceeded as indicated by Pedersen (1907).

He also says:

claims that Proto-Indo-European itself already consists of two unrelated groups of elements, which he calls A and B (1933, 1934a, 1937b). Here A contains pronouns, verbal roots and derivational suffixes whereas B contains isolated words which are not related to verbal roots, such as numerals, some kinship terms, and many names of body parts, animals and trees. Uhlenbeck compares A with Uralic and Altaic and attributes irregular features such as heteroclitic inflection and grammatical gender to B, for which one might think of Caucasian languages. The relation between Indo-European and Uralic can be extended to Eskimo (cf. Uhlenbeck 1905a, 1906, 1907, 1934b, 1937a,

[Morrígan]

I don't know which they are precisely, but I have heard that there are some. Apparently, some NWC and NEC languages have words for 'wheel' that sound vaguely similar to PIE *kʷekʷlos (or at least, Octaviano has claimed so), and as PIE *kʷekʷlos has an impeccable etymology within PIE (it is a reduplicated thematic noun derived from the verbal root kʷel- 'to turn'), the Caucasian languages must have borrowed the 'wheel' word from PIE (and not the other way as Octaviano claims).

This is what I would expect to see, based on our current model of that period, though I've yet to see a cogent reconstruction of any NEC or NWC language group, even at the relatively recent level of, say, Proto-Lezgic, Vainakh, or proto-Tsezic.

[TaylorS]

Given that most theories place the urheimat somewhere around Black sea, it's quite possible that it was these people who spoke PIE. Moreover, loss of land is a good motivation for migration.

The Black Sea Flood is too early for PIE proper in my opinion, but it may have resulted in the spread of a language family PIE was a part of. This family, which could be called "Macro-IE" or "Europic", would have spread along the rivers that flew into the northern part of the Black Sea across Central Europe (the Linear Pottery culture), the Lower Danube (the Starčevo and Vinča cultures) and Ukraine (the Trypillia and Sredny Stog cultures). The language of the Linear Pottery culture and its daughter cultures may have left traces in the Old European hydronymy, which seems to be from a sister language of PIE which branched off before the establishment of the PIE ablaut system.

PIE proper (rather, Early PIE, i.e. the ancestor of all IE languages including Anatolian) would have been the language of the Sredny Stog or perhaps that of the Trypillia culture (these two would have been very close to each other anyway) ca. 4500 BC, though Sredny Stog seems to fit the reconstructible PIE cultural profile (horse-based warrior aristocracy) better than Trypillia. Late PIE (the ancestor of the non-Anatolian IE languages) would have been the language of the Yamnaya culture ca. 3500 BC.

What one has to keep in mind in discussions of the "Kurgan hypothesis" is that the opponents like to whack strawmen. Yes, it is unlikely that a nomadic culture from the steppe could have conquered forested western Europe. Yes, PIE does have architectural terminology which probably didn't refer to tents. Yes, PIE has terminology for crop farming which nomads don't do and never did. BUT - the Sredny Stog and Yamnaya people weren't steppe nomads like the much later Huns and Mongols. They were farming societies practicing both crop farming (for which Ukraine, as everybody knows, is very well-suited, in terms of soil and climate) and cattle herding. Cattle herding was held in higher social esteem than crop farming; probably, the men took care of the cattle and the women of the crops. The horse and later the chariot were very important in warfare, and the horse also in herding cattle. No archaeologist worth his stripes sees steppe nomades of the Hun/Mongol type in Copper Age Ukraine!

I have myself always wondered if the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture were PIE speakers.

[TaylorS]

I think maybe people see 'horses' and instantly get fixated on knights and mongols and whatnot. But in a war context, mounted infantry is still immensely useful. Even if you don't have the tactical sophistication to employ dragoons, a mounted army can move far faster than an army on foot. And greatly superior speed gives you a vast strategic advantage.
But horses also have other uses. They facillitate trade, and communications (which can maintain (or create) a degree of unity between a larger group of people*). They facillitate mass migration. They're probably helpful in agriculture and construction and so on, even if you already have oxen.
And then there are the social and psychological consequences - mastery over an animal, the ability to literally look down on all other humans (and have them look up at you in awe) and the ability to move extremely rapidly at will might all, I would think, change how a group might act and might interact with their neighbours.


*Important to note is that most later steppe nomad groups were not individual roving tribes, but inter-ethnic confederations in which many different groups united under a single aristocracy and to a large extent adopted a shared culture and identity. While some conflict was no doubt involved in this, it clearly wasn't a matter of conquering each tribe in turn - different groups of horse nomads flocked to the banner of the most powerful group. The Indo-Europeans might have been the most powerful and prestigious early adopters of the horse, with more and more people assimilating into their empire as the technology spread.

It is interesting to note that the chariot was invented by IE speakers sometime around 2500 BC, which is also when they started expanding significantly out of the steppes. A northern lobe of expansion became the Corded Ware culture, from where Germanic, Balto-Slavic, and Tocharian emerged. A southern lobe gave rise to the Hellenic, Celto-Illyrian, Italic, and Armenian subfamilies, and a eastern lobe became Indo-Iranian.

EDIT: I apparently can't do directions...