Re: Black Sea flood

The Black Sea 'flood' is a recently proven fact of Earth History. It occured ca 5500 BCE plus or minus 50 years, by radiocarbon dates.

I have some quotes and personal notes on this book here:

http://homepages.msn.com/LibraryLawn/mark_odegard/Indo-European.html

I should state this is not a formal document, but represents personal notes, and some personal speculations, nothing more. Ryan and Pitman have impeccable credentials as earth scientists; their speculations on archaeology, linguistics and ethnography are unhelpful. The original paper that announced the discovery of this event was published in the journal Science; those of you with access to this journal may wish to consult it.

The implications of the Black Sea flood are for the coalescence of proto-Indo-European, and not for its eventual breakup. My own views -- which are just an inclination and could change at any moment -- are that the earliest stages of PIE are probably found where Marija Gimbutas suggests -- in the Volga-Ural complex, with the Samara River as the linchpin, with early extension westward into what became Sredny Stog.