Piotr,
While I share your skepticism about the presence of a decipherable
script in the Steppes/Ukraine that reads IA/Sanskrit (for different
reasons!), I would certainly appreciate references that
evaluate/critique the often heard claims (I still have not read any
thing in print) that IA languages/words are attested in the Pontic
Steppes/Ukraine before 1000 BCE.
Apparently, a lot of these claims are in Russian works or in other
languages that I cannot read and as an instance I cite the following
reference below (I will appreciate of some list member can present a
critique of such works).
Author Name: Trubachev, O. N. (Oleg Nikolaevich)
Main Title: Indoarica v Severnom Prichernomor1e : rekonstruktsiia
reliktov iazyka : etimologicheskii slovar1 / O.N. Trubachev.
Published/Created: Moskva : Nauka, 1999.
Description: 318, [1] p. : maps ; 23 cm.
ISBN: 5020116750
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-[319]).
Subjects: Indo-Aryan languages--Ukraine--Black Sea Lowland. Black Sea
Lowland (Ukraine)--Languages--Etymology.
LC Classification: PK179 .T78 1999
Other System No.: (DLC) 99235151
CALL NUMBER: PK179 .T78 1999
I do not know precisely what dates are referred to in the book above
but admittedly any attestation of IA words in Ukraine in ancient
times is nothing short of a big scandal.
Sincerely,
Vishal Agarwal
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Thanks for the references. In As'oka's times there was already
enough
> stylistic variation in the Brahmi system to guarantee a prehistory
of
> some length, so it's hardly a surrprise if its beginnings are dated
> back to 500 BC or earlier. Still, not 1200 BC, and not in the
steppes
> of Ukraine.
>
> Piotr