> Mark, you write the following:
>
> <The idea seems that the PIEs were not Kurgans, but rather, were
> kurganized by linguistically unrelated migrants from the
> east.>
>
> Gerry here: I have a very small suggestion. Your reference to Kurgans
> could possibly be a bit unclear? In which sense are you using the word?
> As a particular group of folks who used kurgans for tumuli and/or houses
> or for the people themselves?
'The Kurgans' defines a culture associated with an archaeological
horizon. It speaks to their inhumation practices. I don't think I'm
being unclear. Some or all of these Kurgans may have been PIE speaking;
the standard model regarding Sredney Stog suggests at least some of them
were.
Gerry here: According to The Alekseev Manuscript (lecture 8) he states
that the Pit Grave Culture (located in the southern Russian Steppes
(Ukraine) is known only by its new tradition of burial, the burial mound
(kurgan). These kurgans (a Turkic word) are made of stone in
mountainous areas and of soil in flat areas. The heights of kurgans are
variable but not ever more than 10 meters high. A circle of kurgans may
be as greaat as one hectare. Within each kurgan are usually one or two
burials but can sometimes be as great as 15-20.
G: Geographically kurgans have been found from Romania to the steppe
areas of southern Russia to the Volga with some findings in
Kirghizistan. The Pit Grave are a people without Mongoloid mixture.
Physically they are more similar to Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic
than to Neolithic (they are tall with a broad face and strong
superstructure in the region of the forehead).
G: The language for both the Pit Grave and Afanasyevo Cultures is
Indo-European.
G: Kurgans have been found on the border with Mongolia and some in
southwestern Mongolia. Chinese archaeologists excavating in east
Turkistan and Xingjiang Province have found that these kurgans contain
the same tpe of animal bone and physical traits foundt in the former
Soviet Union.
G: So much for Kurgans. Do you know about "tolos"?
Gerry
2/26/00
--
Gerald Reinhart
Independent Scholar
(650) 321-7378
waluk@...
http://www.alekseevmanuscript.com