Re: Black Sea

flefort@... wrote:

> In the same Liberation's article
> (http://www.liberation.fr/sciences/actu/20000928jeuv.html), it is
> reported that the American geologist Robert Ballard claims to have
> identified sub-marine building-like structures (about 13m x 4 m)
> located at 12 miles from the coast. I am really impatient to see

more

> of these findings.
> Back to the Indo-European and the flooding, 5500 BC looks still
> earlier than supposed. And back to my grapevine interest,I know

that

> terms referring to grapevine and wine exist in many ancient indo-
> european languages but first wine-making evidence has been found in
> North Iran (McGovern et al)and is dated about 5500-5700 BC, which
> according to the present knowledge was not a Indo-European

territory

> at that time. On the other hand, the regions of origin and of the
> further expansion of the Indo-Europeans hosted wild grapevine.
> Certainly these people knew and harvested wild grapevine, maybe

they

> also made wine from its juice. But did they plant it or did they
> bring plants with them during their migrations?

There is are cognate words for wine found in all languages from
Karvellian, Semitic, Hattic, Hurrian and Indo-European. This
suggests that the word for the product spread with the technique for
making it - consumption of large amounts of wine became an elite
marker, separating trans-egalitarian chiefs off from their peasant
retainers (Beer and Mead had a similar role in the areas north of the
Mediterranean where grapes did not grow). We thus find the spread of
pottery stuyles (Funnel and Bell Beakers, and the Helladic and
Anatolian destinctive pottery) associated with wine consumption.

Regards

John