Proto-language and Uto-Aztecan Homeland
The Proto–Uto-Aztecan language is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Uto-Aztecan languages. Authorities on the history of the language group have usually placed the Proto-Uto-Aztecan homeland in the border region between the USA and Mexico, namely the upland regions of Arizona and New Mexico and the adjacent areas of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuaua, roughly corresponding to the Sonoran Desert and the western part of the Chihuahuan Desert. The proto-language would have been spoken by Mesolithic foragers in Aridoamerica, about 5,000 years ago. The homeland of the Numic languages has been placed in Southern California near Death Valley, and the homeland of the proposed Southern Uto-Aztecan group has been placed on the coast of Sonora.
A contrary proposal of a location much farther south for the territory of Proto-Uto-Aztecan was published in 2001 by Jane H. Hill based on her reconstruction of maize related vocabulary in Proto-Uto-Aztecan. This would make the assumed speakers of Proto-Uto-Aztecan maize cultivators in Mesoamerica who were gradually pushed north, bringing maize cultivation with them, during the period of roughly 4,500 to 3,000 years ago, the geographic diffusion of speakers corresponding to the breakup of linguistic unity. This hypothesis has been criticized on several grounds, and is not generally accepted by Uto-Aztecanists.
Read more about this topic: Uto-Aztecan Languages
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