Indo-Europeanization

From: george knysh
Message: 20306
Date: 2003-03-25

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, x99lynx@... wrote:
>(GK) <<Later on, the PaleoEuropeans [Corded Ware,
Yamna] pushed out some
> Trypilians and absorbed the remnant.>>
>
>(SL) A note: "paleoEuropeans", as the term would
imply, normally refers in western
> literature to populations spread across most of
Europe dating to the
> paleolithic. Why the term would be restricted to
Corded Ware and Yamna is
not clear.

******GK: There is no restriction. The term continues
to be used by reference to the dominant
�anthropological type� (descended from local and
incoming Paleolithic populations) among carriers of
Yamna and Early Corded Ware in connection with their
relation to the Late Trypilians.*******
>
>(SL) Outside of the Ukraine, the prevailing
explanation for the dispersal of
> population centers along the Danube was clearly
indicated climatic changes
> and a possible transition from large scale
agrarianism to less centralized
herding.

******GK: What time frame have you in mind here?******

>
>(SL) I don't know about Ukrainian Tripolyians, but
the population of the Hungarian
> plain and the western Carpathian Basin appear to
have been of mixed physical
> types and not exclusively Mediterranean. There is
no evidence that they were
ever "pushed out" or "absorbed" by paleoEuropeans from
the Ukraine.

******GK: I wonder who would claim this? The issue of
the anthropological consequences of the spread of
Corded Ware to the West and North is different from
that of the fate of the Trypilians.******

>
> <<The Trypilians are described as "representatives
of the Middle East" (p.
> 26) north of the Black Sea (for awhile).>>
>
>(SL) The descendents of the original migrants from
the Middle East had been in
> Europe for 2500 years in 4500BC. By then they were
Europeans. A strong
strain of them apparently still exists in Europe
today.

*******GK: Very possible. Linguistic and cultural
assimilation would not necessarily be accompanied by
decisive anthropological alteration.*******


>
> <<(GK)They are not deemed to have been carriers of
IE speech.>>
>
(SL)Maybe they should be.

******GK: Why?******

>
> <<Ukrainian scientists identify the homeland of IE
as the area between the
> Dnipro (Ukraine) and Ural (Russia) rivers. A variant
of the Pontic/Caspian
> hypothesis.>>
>
>(SL) And they come to this conclusion because they
have some evidence that these
> formerly foraging cultures were not given
Indo-European language by the
"representatives of the Middle East." Would you know
what that evidence is?

*******GK: Certainly. The progressive
�neolithicization� of cultures such as Dnipro-Donetsk,
Surska, Lower Mykhajlivka etc. etc. is independent of
any major cultural impulses from the West and South,
though contacts and exchanges clearly existed. The
exception here is the �foraging� Bog-Dnister culture,
which was absorbed by the Trypilians. There is no
reason to assume that cultures which retained their
specific profiles as neighbours of the Trypilians for
over a thousand years would have adopted the language
of the latter. As I�ve already indicated a number of
times, it is the Trypilians who eventually succumbed
to the cultural and military pressure from the East,
with the survivors being absorbed into Corded Ware
communities (I am simplifying somewhat, since
Trypilians were also subject to pressure from the
Globular Amphorae people, themselves subsequently
assimilated into Corded Ware). It is therefore much
more reasonable to suggest that linguistic
Indo-Europeanization was the result of this cultural
assimilation (later spreading North and West) than to
advocate the reverse influence. Why would you think it
unlikely that IE arose as a �neolithicizing� language
in the Pontic/Caspian area, and later submerged
�neolithicizing� languages which were brought over
from Anatolia or developed independently further West
under the influence of Anatolian technologies?*******




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