Re: [tied] Re: Gimbutas.

This is precisely the kind of society that could create a social cleavage between "noble" and "commoner", a cleavage which would be emphasized by speach, dress, behaviour and customs.  Into this cleavage, an adstratum language could play an important role, and endogamy within the class of aristocrats would promote a pan-European "cultural style" (be it Funnel or Bell Beaker" folk).  In such circumstances IE languages from the East could spread rapidly as local elites sought to compete with their neighbours for the latest fashions in dress, weapons, behaviour and language.  Pre-existing substratum languages would be kept for the domestic sphere, and amongst the commoners.

 

This social form appeared immensely enduring. It survived in the realm of "inner Eurasia" - stretching from Ireland to the Tarim Basin from the Age of the Beakers to the spread of the large land based Empires - Archaemenid, Hellenistic, Chinese and Roman.  Features of it survived even the progressive "Turkification", so the "patronage alliance" and continuous distribution of surplus was a feature even of the Steppe Empires of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.

It survived well into the Renaissance, and beyond that until, really, the Peace of Westphalia! It survives down to the present in various parts of the third world.

 

What you call 'endogamy within the class of aristocrats' has another term, one present day European nobility are quite aware of: 'equal marriage', eben-something in German.

 

As for such a social system leading to language replacement, well sometimes. Usually, the upper class learns the peasents' language at their nursemaids' knees, and soon switch to the common language. Germanic replaced Celtic in Britain, but survived the later French invasion. French might have supplanted Russian had there not been so many Russian peasents.

 

John also says:

 

The construction of the "chief's hall" capable of holding all male members of a warband (and when women were involved, their wives and daughters), quite often marks the shift to this new kind of society.  Excessive ("binge") consumption of alcohol, and the ability to "hold liquor" also became a mark of status (hence the proliferation of beer, mead, and the recepticles for holding it). Brewers became an important adjunct alongside smiths in the chiefs retinue and the power of the chief was marked in his ability to "keep the beer/mead flowing".

A biker gang run is a modern-day equivalent. Menelaus' palace/hall (in the post-Dorian recension) undoubtedly was a place where liquor flowed freely for the fine warriors. I doubt the cultural basics were any different than those of Eirik Bloodaxe in York.

 

St. Augustine says ~~someplace~~ something to the effect that human government is mostly one set of bandits replacing another set of bandits.

 

You mentioned the Celts. It's occurred to me their undeniable success probably effectively wiped out every other IE language in Western Europe, excepting German and Italic, and probably would have taken care of these two too, had it not been for the likes of Gaius Julius.

 

Mark.