Re: [tied] Semitoid, PIE, Tyrrhenian, etc.

----- Original Message -----

From: Glen Gordon

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 10:09 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Semitoid, PIE, Tyrrhenian, etc.

> My reasons for this positioning of Tyrrhenian in the Balkans isn't in order to posit an arcane substrate. The reasons are based on the fact that Lemnian thrived in the area, then there's the Tyrrhenian sounding cityname of Yttenia (Tetrapolis) in the area, as well as the likelihood that Tyrrhenian languages are closely related to IndoEuropean just to the north/northeast of the area.

 

I wouldn't dispute the view that the Tyrrhenian homeland was in the general vicinity of the Balkans, though as regards the possible "material" identification of the Proto-Tyrrhenians, there are a number of cultures to choose from, especially (parts of) the Vinc^a cultural complex. The Starc^evo phase of the Balkan Neolithic could well represent the influence of "Semitish" immigrants from the Near East.

> Hmm, but I have trouble accepting that IE was "a stone's throw" away from Anatolia and yet it failed to cross over until after 4000 BCE. Usually, people don't view the IE population as makers of wine and yet we have *woinos... so... someone had to have made
that wine! It wasn't the Semitic afaik.

The IEs expanded north and west into the North European Plain (and only then eastwards into Ukraine) rather than south and east, because the Balkans, the western coast of the Black Sea (or of the lake that preceded it) and the Near East were already densely populated by carriers of highly advanced neolithic cultures, who formed an effective ethnic barrier to relatively non-aggressive "demic spread". In the north, there were only sparse mesolithic populations that could be absorbed or ignored by the Linear Ware farmers. Various IE groups began to penetrate the southern Balkans, Anatolia and Iran in the early Bronze Age, when it made little difference in which direction they migrated as long as they had sufficient military means to launch a successful conquest. I think that during the initial phase of the IE dispersal the Proto-Anatolians stayed behind close to the Danubian homeland (expanding slowly towards the lower Danube basin) and so became the first IE group to be pushed into Anatolia as the Proto-Iranians started a chain of migrations round the Black Sea, forcing their immediate western neighbours to look for new homes in the Carpathian region and the Balkans.

 

Piotr