--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> > Then why do you explain the semantic shift in the PIE word?
>
> What? I never claimed there was a shift. It's your suggestion and your
problem.
>
An important factor I suggested earlier is the consideration of bears as
magic animals, being object of a religious cult. This would also explain
the preservation of the word in most IE branches, many millenia after
PIE disintegrated.
On the other hand, PIE chronology in Villar's "soft" continuity theory
(as opposed to the "hard" of Alinei et. al) is the Gravettian period (~
22,000 BP). The IE paleo-varieties studied by him were already
differentiated in the Mesolithic, when northern Europe was repopulated
from southern refuges after deglatiation.