Re: [tied] Danubian homeland?

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001 05:50:20 -0000, markodegard@... wrote:

>Pushing all these theoretical languages into an empty Greece does not
>solve the Greek substrate problem; it actually would seem to
>complicate it.

But the Greek substrates _are_ complex. We have one or more non-Greek
but Indo-European substrates (so-called "Pelasgian"), we have Lemnian
(which Herodotus calls "Pelasgian"), we have Anatolian (on the
evidence of a wholly Anatolian toponym like Parnassos) and we have one
or more completely unintelligible languages in Crete and Cyprus...

>My current thinking is that the Ezero culture was at
>least partly Anatolic-speaking and that they went directly to Anatolia
>via the Troad, and on the whole, ignored Greece.
>
>I remind everyone of Homer's description of Patroclus's funeral. If
>this is not a kurgan burial, I don't know what is. A tumulus,
>sacrificed horses, dogs, servants, even suttee -- the whole ball of
>wax. Even tho' we all seem to be happily dumping the Blessed Gimbutas'
>theory, there are still these archaeological and literary realities.

Gimbutas theory is partially correct, in that the Old European Balkan
cultures (such as Vinc^a) collapsed and that new cultures and people
(which can vaguely be classified as "Kurgan") came in from the north
and east, though it seems the invasions postdated the collapse,
instead of causing it. But I have always maintained that this was
only a secondary stage in the spread of IE languages, not the initial
movement.