Re: [tied] Will East and West ever meet?

--- Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
The LB Pottery culture

> which
> >PG posits as a starting point only reached the
> >westernmost areas of contemporary Ukraine, and
> petered
> >out with no discovered archaeological continuations
> >there (if one believes Ukrainian archaeologists and
> >why not?). It has no direct links to
> >Trypilja-Cucuteni(Tripolye)
>
> This is debatable. Links between Trypilja and LBK
> are often mentioned
> (e.g. by Mallory in EIEC: "In origin, the [Tripolye]
> culture is seen
> as a projection of southeast European
> agriculturalists to the east and
> its closest genetic connections, seen particularly
> in ceramics, are
> with Neolithic cultures of the Balkans (Boian,
> Hamangia) and the
> Linear Ware culture").

*****GK: The Balkan connection is
indubitable.TRIP.(Trypilja/Tripolye)spread north and
east therefrom. But what is missing is any indication
of a direct connection between LB and TRIP. The
stratigraphy of Ukrainian sites consistently shows
that TRIP. arrived in locations previously occupied by
LB at its[TRIP.] B phase only, long after LB had
vanished.*****

> >Serednyj Stih for its part develops to a large
> degree
> >from the Dnipro-Donetz culture whose own
> antecedents
> >are in the mesolithic cultures of Eastern Europe
> (and
> >partly of the area close to the Baltic coast) and
> not
> >in either LB or FB.
>
> I would prefer the term "Sub-Neolithic" rather than
> "Mesolithic" for
> these Eastern European / Baltic cultures (Narva,
> Valdai, Comb-Pricked
> Ware, etc.)

*****GK: Ukrainian (and Russian) archaeologists
continue to use "Mesolithic" for more ancient phases,
but there is no problem in understanding what's
what.*****

While they are not to be equated with

> the Linear Ware
> (LBK) culture to which they neighboured in the west,
> they adopted
> certain techniques (such as pottery) from their
> western neighbours.
> In fact, it is impossible to tell how far the
> interactions between the
> Neolithic "LBK'ers" and their Mesolithic or
> Sub-Neolithic neighbours
> went: certainly, in the course of having their wave
> of advance peter
> out, some LBK farmers must have moved into these
> areas, without
> succeeding in becoming technologically predominant
> (perhaps because of
> the different terrain and climatological conditions,
> which prevented
> an LBK-style economy to be effective there). A
> certain demographic
> influx from the more densely populated LBK area must
> have continued to
> occur even after the borderline between Neolithic
> and Sub-Neolithic
> had become firmly established. So in terms of genes
> and pottery, the
> LBK area can be seen as the "donor", while the
> eastern Sub-Neolithic
> area is the "recipient".

******GK: The point however is that this is not
reflected in the archaeology. There is nothing in the
pottery styles, microlithic industry, or burial
practices of the Dnipro-Donetz population which
indicates "donor" lines of influence from the LBK
area, nor even from the Bug-Dnister culture which was
closer to them territorially.******

We have no proof that this

> was also the case
> in terms of language, but it cannot be excluded
> either.

******GK: In that case nothing can be excluded, but
then we leave the realm of scientific inquiry
altogether.****

When the

> Dnepr-Donets culture emerged from this eastern
> Sub-Neolithic area
> southwards to the "steppe" zone, the language they
> brought with them
> may well have been an eastern peripheral dialect of
> LinearBandKeramikese ("proto-Satem-IE").

******GK: The most recent research (published by
Telegin in "Arkheologia"(1999) indicates that the
Dnipro-Donetz culture emerged overwhelmingly from
previous local "mesolithic" (to use his terminology)
groups. I.e. from groups already "in place". The
"incoming language" scenario is thus rendered as
impossible as these things can be. The major "foreign
contacts" (those with the northwest were very minor)
were with the Caucasus area. There is just no room for
the LBK hypothesis to work. *****

>
>
>
>

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