--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:
> The three 'Kurgan waves' cannot be disputed, of
> course, nor the military nature of these waves; we are only
> questioning what the 'Kurganish' language was.
Why "of course", Mark? As a matter of fact, they HAVE been disputed
by archaeologists in recent years, with a good deal of success. The
more we learn about the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures
(and the final stages of the Funnel Beaker culture), the less
evidence there is of any massive movements, let alone "waves", from
the Steppe into NC Europe. New research has demonstrated, for
example, that the Globular Amphora culture (one of the original
waves) expanded eastwards from the lowlands of Central Europe. New
series of dates obtained for the Steppe cultures (e.g. under the
Polish-Ukrainian research programme: Klochko, Kosko and Szmyt 1999)
show a corrected chronology that is much too shallow to be compatible
with the Pontic homeland hypothesis.
Piotr