Re: [tied] Re: Euxine Event.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Odegard

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 2:26 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Euxine Event.

 

 

Assuming the first possibility (my favourite), we can only say that the cultural ancestors of the IEs came from Anatolia; they were also to a considerable degree their biological ancestors (though mixing with native European populations certainly occurred), and we can further speculate -- with some plausibility -- that they were their linguistic ancestors as well. Remember, however, that PIE is a technical term meaning "the most recent common ancestor of all the IE languages", which means that we can't speak of PIE proper in pre-Danubian times. "Indo-Tyrrhenian" is a possibility here, if we can ever demonstrate its reality.

 

My tentative bottom line of experimenting with various scenarios is as follows: the maximally inclusive [+ Anatolian] PIE was spoken by the early LBK folk on the Danube in the mid-sixth millennium BC, while the [- Anatolian] IE branch evolved further north. The Eastern group (including "Proto-Satemic" dialects) resulted from early migrations from N Central Europe into the N Pontic steppe and forest-steppe zones (the separation of dialects ancestral to Tocharian may be even earlier). These genetic relations are heavily overlaid with secondary influences, especially in the N European Plain, where Late Neolithic cultural processes (from TRB onwards) tended to produce much linguistic diffusion.

 

The myth of Steppe origins is too romantic to be quickly buried in its kurgan. Despite the recent upheavals it remains the standard paradigm of IE studies. I suppose there will be attempts to salvage as much of it as possible, e.g. by proposing an early Iranian Plateau homeland a la Gamkrelidze & Ivanov, with a relatively recent secondary dispersal centre in the Pontic steppes.

 

Piotr

 

 

 

 

Mark:

 

Unless we are to say the IEs came from Central Asia (unlikely), they had to come from Anatolia, via the Bosphorus Land Bridge, or had to enter via Iran east of the Caucusus at a rather late date.