Re: Gimbutas.

I wrote

> >Linear Pottery didn't come from the Middle East. They developed in
> >situ from a process of neolithicisation of pre-existing mesolithic
> >cultures which were in contact with Starcevo-Koros culture which
> >definitely did come from NW Anatolia. There is no link further
> >East until 10,500 BCE with the early Natufian.

Marc replied

> Thanks, John. At that time the Black Sea was a much smaller lake (no
> Bosporus). C-S's 1st component has its centre far south in the
> Middle East,so probably LP does not correlate with it. If anything,
> C-S's 4th componentcould correlate: S-Balkan & W-Anatolia (but

also

> S-Italy)?

There is an alternative explanation. If the mesolithic "Nostratics"
came out of Africa, as Glen and I suppose (one thing we do agree on)
then having the first component in the way it does could be referring
to that!

I wrote (John)

> >It is interesting that C-S leaves out of his European data the
> >Sardinians who are completely different from anyone else.
> >Sardinian settlement began about 9,000 BCE, long before the
> >neolithic settlements from the east (measured by 1st component).

Marc asked

> Does the 1st component measure this? then it should have its centre
> in Anatolia rather than in the Middle East?

No it doesn't. In fact Sardinians are much further removed from
Western Europeans than the later are from people of the Middle East,
the Balkans or Eastern Europe. So much so that C-S was forced in his
History and Geography of Human Genetics to have a completely separate
discussion just on the Sardinians. In fact Sardinians are further
removed genetically that are the Basques, whose language suggests
that
they are the representative of the aboriginal Europeans.

What does this mean? The most parsimonious explanation is that there
were two waves out of Africa. The first, the early one, shown most
by
Sardinians but with minor echoes in the Basques and Caucasians,
coming
out 40,000 years ago with the Upper Paleolithic Peoples
(Aurignancians
and Gravetian cultures). The second and much more recent one,
associated with bows and arrows, and microliths (from Africa) and
domestication of the dog (in the Middle East), associated with the
coming of te Nostratics. This could be the one measured by C-S's
first component (which being more recent, and being reinforced by the
coming of agriculture, shows up so much the stronger).

I wrote

> >Their closest affiliations are with the Viskayans and with the
> >Caucasians to the East - suggesting the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis
> >may be proven genetically.

Marc replied

> Yes, the islands of Crete, Sardinia, Corsica etc. are "forgotten"

on

> his maps!

Corsica in his data shows itself to be close to the Ligurian Italian
coast and the Bouches de Rhone. Sicily is intermediate between
Messina and Tunisia, Crete is intermediate between Anatolia and
Greece. Only Sardinia sticks out like a sore thumb.

Regards

John