Piotr wrote:
> Renfrew thinks they did speak PIE already in Anatolia, and that
the first Neolithic arrivals in Greece were IE. I agree with what
John
says and what most archaeologists seem to believe about Linear
Pottery: "They developed in situ from a process of neolithicisation
of
pre-existing mesolithic cultures." There is enough cultural
discontinuity between Starchevo and LP despite all the similarities
to
make this hypothesis acceptable. I suppose the LP-makers were
originally riverside dwellers who were expert at exploiting woodlands
and the resources of river valleys, and had the good fortune to live
in areas in which the southern farmers had little direct interest.
There is a good deal of evidence which suggests that the Mesolithic
peoples of the Danubian Gorge culture developed as Danubian 1. I can
post the evidence up if people want to see it for themselves.
Furthermore there is evidence that the Murzak-Koba culture, from
which
both the Bug-Dneistr and the Don-Donetz mesolithic cultures, together
with the mesolithic hunter-fishers of the Urals, also derived
ultimately from the coastal fishers of the Franchthi cave culture of
the Aegean. As climates warmed with the end of the Ice Age there was
a general movement of mesolithic cultures from the south to the
north,
as climates ameliorated. With the evidence that you posted Piotr on
the cultures of central Asia, it would seem that the mesolithic
peoples even of the Irytush and ultimately the Siberian zone of
the northern Altai mountains also came from this region.
This would suggest a dialect chain that ultimately became separate
languages
Tyrrhenian (Anatolia, Balkans)
to
Danubian cultures (languages unknown)
to
Proto-Indo-European (Pontic Steppe)
to
Uralic Yukaghir (Trans Urals)
to
Altaic (Iyrtush, Nthn Altai Mountains)
This makes sense of the mesolithic cultures out of which various
neolithic movements occurred.
I have a map showing these connections, based upon accurate site
dates if anyone is interested.
Regards
John