--- Miguel Carrasquer <
mcv@...> wrote:
> The question is what happened at the edges of the
> LBK area, where
> conditions were not favourable anymore for "LBK
> technology". The
> early (sub-)Neolithic cultures of the steppe and
> forest-steppe emerge
> just at the time that Neolithic farmers (from the
> Balkans and the LBK
> area) arrive at the edges of the area. Clearly, the
> adoption of
> pottery, animal domestication and other Neolithic
> techniques was
> inspired by these newcomers.
*****GK: The earliest pottery of the Bog-Dnister
people was not inspired by either LBK or the Balkans,
but by the Djebel continuum in the east. There were of
course contacts with the west and south west, stronger
or weaker in different phases of this culture.
Ultimately the BD people assimilated into Trypilia.
There is no indication whatsoever that the developing
cultures of the steppes (Dnipro-Donetsk, Sursk et al.)
were inspired by the LBK newcomers. And as already
commented on last year, the Trypolia culture's impact
was basically nil (other than a few imports). But the
reverse relationship, viz., the growing and eventually
overwhelming influence of steppe cultures on the west
is richly documented in the archaeological
literature.*****
Was there also a
> movement of peoples and
> therefore languages into the area? I can't see why
> not. Small groups
> (comparable to the trappers and coureurs de bois in
> North America) may
> have abandoned the purely Neolithic way of life and
> have adopted a
> hybrid culture at the edge of the let's say
> "civilized world", and
> eventually far beyond it. That's my theory on the
> ultimate origin of
> the Tocharians.
******GK: The danger of this approach (if
universalized beyond your interesting Tocharian
theory)is that it is simply a petitio principii. There
is no evidence for it. And one could just as easily
claim that these "hybrids" adopted the speech of their
environment (pre-Satem IE).The difference between the
Balkan hypothesis and the Pontic/Caspian hypothesis
for the birth and spread of IE is that one does not
have to make such assumptions in the latter case since
the archaeological evidence for expansion is there in
infinitely more obvious quantity.******
>
> >
> It seems clear that Indo-Iranian expanded out of the
> Pontic/Caspian
> area, and the Yamna(ya) culture provides a good
> archaeological locus.
> The question then becomes how to trace back the
> Yamna(ya) people to
> the "central area". And Piotr's Globular Amphora
> scenario sounds good
> to me.
******GK: I don't think Piotr would contend that Yamna
developed from GA. I don't see what GA achieved that
TRYP failed to achieve. They were both stopped cold by
the steppe cultures and eventually assimilated.******
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