page_title: Urheimat
section_title: Uto-Aztecan
hierarchical_section_title: Urheimat / Americas / Uto-Aztecan
context_page_description: In historical linguistics, an Urheimat is the area of origin of the speakers of a proto-language, the parent language of a group of languages assumed to be genetically related.
  Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty or it may be very uncertain. The reconstruction of a prehistorical homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics.
context_section_description: Some authorities on the history of the Uto-Aztecan language group place its 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 Chihuahua, shown on the map (below left) roughly corresponding to the Sonoran Desert. The proto-language would have been spoken by foragers, about 5,000 years ago. Hill (2001) proposes instead a homeland further south, making 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.
caption: Uto-Aztecan languages
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