[tied] Re: Did IE languages spread before farming?

S.Kalyanaraman

> Why not? Did IE start from a vacuum?

No, it did not. But IE studies end where the data ends. There is
insufficient data to project further back than the usual time depths
spoken of on this list.

> What was the state of language
> prior to the last glaciation? What is the starting set of IE words?
> Did they have 'farming' words? Or, 'glacier' words?

There were of course ancestors to PIE, and before that, to the IE
language family itself. The present consensus, however, has IE emerge
as a language family after the end of the last Ice Age.