[GSlob]

Hmm... I remember reading somewhere that the triangle between the lakes Van-Sevan-Urmia [SW from the Caspian, not N of it] was the cradle of the Indo-European language group of people. They tried to trace cognate words and figured out that the place needed to have birches, beech, snow [occasionally], salmonids and so on. That sort of meshed with counterclockwise centrifugal dispersion from there, traceable by other means.

[blam]

"Hmm... I remember reading somewhere that the triangle between the lakes Van-Sevan-Urmia [SW from the Caspian, not N of it] was the cradle of the Indo-European language group of people. They tried to trace cognate words and figured out that the place needed to have birches, beech, snow [occasionally], salmonids and so on. That sort of meshed with counterclockwise centrifugal dispersion from there, traceable by other means."

Some recent study placed 'it' in the Indus Valley. I would place it further north and east, probably in China.

[SunkenCiv]

"They tried to trace cognate words and figured out that the place needed to have birches, beech, snow [occasionally], salmonids and so on."

To add to what GS wrote, Indoeuropean languages don't exhibit common vocabulary for seas and oceans (large bodies of water), having acquired different loanwords from whomever was already there wherever they wound up. :') So, an inland origin is indicated, probably right up on top of the ice floe. ;')