From: Alexander Stolbov
Message: 106
Date: 1999-10-26
----- Original Message -----From: markodegard@...Sent: Friday, October 22, 1999 8:16 PMSubject: [cybalist] Ezero.Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:There are people who certainly don't ignore the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture when discussing IE origins, though I must agree that it has been regrettably neglected by proponents of a steppe homeland. Gimbuts herself regarded Cucuteni as a prematurely truncated pre-IE quasi-urban culture.
Yes. C-T and Ezero have been neglected. The idea that the earliest stages of Troy got it's culture from Bulgaria still does not sit too well with many commentators.
My own feeling is that this is where Anatolian first broke off from the main body of IE. Ezero is ca 3200 BCE down, and this agrees very well with the usual dates for the breakup of PIE. I'm not saying the proto-Anatolians were the Ezero culture, just that they were down there, and perhaps, were the impetus for Ezero to build its walls.
Ezero is early Bronze Age. One question I've not had answered by an expert is *where* the Indo-European steppe-nomads got their tools for making their sturdy steppe-worthy carts and wagons; for these, you need a judicious use of hardwood, and for hardwood, bronze tools would have been of immense utility.
The question of the fist IE in Balkan and Anatolian areas is now very far from being clear. However I think we must not gather in one group such cultures as Tripolye-Cucuteni, Ezero and Troy (Troy I and Troy II-V).I have touched already the Tripolye question in the previous message (I'd like only to add, that cultural influence of Tr. on Sredny Stog was substantial due to the fact that copper working came to Sr.St. from Balkans via Tripolye). From my point of view Tripolye culture obviously can not be attributed as an IE one.The same I can say about Troy I and Troy II-V. An year ago there was an exhibition in the Hermitage named "Schlimann. St.Petersburg. Troy". Archaeological evidences from all the layers of Troy and also from kurgans of the Maikop culture were presented there. After seeing them it became evident to me that material culture of Troy II-V (ceramics, metal working) has strong parallels in North Caucasian (and I know - Anatolian) cultures. In the same time 2 peculiarities of Troy II-V don't allow to see in them IE. I mean the absence of the horse-breeding (it appered only at Troy VI ["Laomedont Troy"] stage, by the way, simultaneously with the gray Minyan pottery !), and the presence of the potter's wheel (this is not characteristic for EARLY IE). Plus the fact itself that Troy II was one of the greatest cities of the world tells against EARLY IE attribution - it is not typical for semi-nomadic stock-breeders.It is not so evident (for me) with Ezero. We can find there both Northern (horse-breeding) and Anatolian (ceramics, fortress) influences. It seems to be so that almost simultaneously 2 great movings of the Early Bronze Age took place. The first (a little earlier) started somewhere in Eastern Anatolia (Kuro-Araxian type cultures) and spread westward (Early Helladic, Early Cretan and Early Cycladic cultures and some Balkan cultures of that time could be probably considered as its offsprings) and northward (Maikop culture ? - or they are cousines ?). There are some reasons for the hypothesis of the North Caucasian (North-West Caucasian?) belonging of their languages. However it is just an assumption. What can you say pro et contra ?Alexander Stolbov