North European hypothesis

The North European hypothesis is a linguistic and archaeological theory that tries to explain the spread of the Indo-European languages in Europe and parts of Asia by locating the original homeland (Urheimat) in southern Scandinavia or in the North German Plain. This hypothesis, advanced by Karl Penka, Hermann Hirt, Gustaf Kossinna and others, had some success in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. However, given its association with Nazism, and even more decisively given the subsequent rise of the Kurgan hypothesis (developed out of the more general steppe hypothesis of the 19th century), it is now a fringe theory only supported by a minority of scholars, typically in a variant known as the Neolithic creolisation hypothesis.