Julianus or John or something:
>If doubting makes me a sexist, what of my wife? She is a feminist and >is
>even more opposed to matriarcial fantasies than I am.
I think the issue of the existence of matriarchy is being confused with the
validity of a _matriFOCAL_ Goddess religion being practiced in Europe. Let's
not confuse the two. Ignore the angry, male-hating tint that Gimbutas weaves
into this. I'm not Gimbutas.
>So you're an agricultural supremacist? Seriously, I see no reason why
>influences have to go only one way.
Do you have something serious to present? Agriculture was a major and a
superior, yes a _superior_, innovation to what existed at the time. The
Steppe people (and early IE-speaking peoples) were merely hunter-gatherers
but it worked for them for the longest time. So they didn't jump on the
agricultural bandwagon all at once.
The IE-speaking peoples most likely didn't start farming right away,
starting out as a cultural mixture of pastoralists, agriculturalists and
hunter-gatherers. All major influences into the North Pontic are inarguably
from the Balkans/West Anatolia and, to a minor degree, the Caucasus - all
the archaeology indicates this. All the linguistics indicates that important
terms related to the technology of agriculture (like *weino- for one) as
well as very apparent loanwords *sweks and *septm are all likely to be
derived from a Semitic-like language.
Second of all, there may very well have been influence between the IEs and
this Semitish-speaking people that I theorize. But honestly, if the Semitish
language died out at around 5000 BCE, there would be little linguistic
evidence at all of IE's impact in the Balkans or West Anatolia, would there?
Of course not. Neither would there be substantial archaeological evidence of
new innovations coming from the North Pontic INTO the Balkans... unless you
can personally think of any that might have somehow arisen?? Shake your head
and come back to me.
If you are willing to doubt such overwhelming archaeological evidence
pointing to prehistoric Anatolian influence on the North Pontic just because
you and your feminist wife find fault with matriarchy (which has nothing to
do with this topic of comparative mythology at all!) then I can see that
reasoning fails you and my discussion with you would be well advised to
terminate.
- gLeN
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