From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 17126
Date: 2002-12-11
----- Original Message -----
From: <vishalagarwal@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 4:10 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Does Koenraad Elst Meet Hock´s Challenge?
> VA: Southeast Asia was inaccessible as the gangetic plains were
> heavily forested, and IA languages could not penentrate the coastal
> areas because of Vindhyas and dense forests. It could be easier to
> cross the Khyber, go to Oxus, and move among that river to Caspian
> (as is well known Oxus flowed into Caspian till around 600 BCE). It
> was only late that Iranians pushed militarily into Eastern Iran,
> Armenia etc.
It all depends on the time frame. The Austroasiatic Mundas have been in India for a long time and it seems the ancient range of the Munda languages was much wider than it is now, and extended farther west (although practically nobody takes Diakonoff's Munda-Sumerian hypothesis seriously). If Austroasiatic speakers were able to negotiate the Gangetic plains, why not the IEs? Dense forests were not impenetrable to Neolithic farmers in other parts of the world (including equatorial Africa, Southeast Asia and South America)
I also suppose the mountains and semideserts of Afghanistan would have appeared rather hostile and forbidding to a population whose original means of subsistence was, it seems, chiefly sedentary farming. What incentive could have made them embark on such desperate migrations?
> Similary, the Central Iranian depression offered a formidable barrier
> to movement of IE speakers into Mesopotamia. Arabia could not be
> reached except along the coast of Makran, Iran because long distance
> sea travel had not been invented along that route yet.
"Not yet" meaning when? Some people speak of long-distance sea travel in _very_ early times. The Saraswati site describes a maritime "Vedic" civilisation and suggests they maintained contacts with Mesopotamia!
> Note that I am not an OIT'er, but the above could be replies to your
> objections. Feel free to point out errors in the above hypoethesis.
Thanks, Vishal, I know you're willing to consider various possibilities and I appreciate that.
Piotr