junk2Mark wrote:
<<As Piotr knows, I timidly keep myself within the According-to-Mallory standard
model; I mostly parrot the authorities I've been reading. This model, however,
best explains all the evidence we presently have. About the only amendment I
would make is that the PIEs, at the final point of unity (including Anatolian)
would seem to have occupied two distinct habitats, the forest-steppe boundary,
and the Northern European forest itself. Geography impels us to look to Kiev as
the approximate center of the PIE homeland.>>
According to such a scenario the very first splitting of the IE unity (let it be
after Anatolians are off) should be "forest block" vs. "steppe block" division,
should not it? If so Balto-Slavic (a typical forest group) and Aryans (a typical
steppe group) would be found on the most distant branches of the IE systematical
tree. But we know that these two groups are very closely connected in all
linguistic aspects. How to reconcile these statements?
Alexander