--- Piotr Gasiorowski <
gpiotr@...> wrote:
> [PG] It's almost exclusively graves in the
> Podolye/Moldova subgroup (on the upper Dniester,
> Prut and Seret), but there is some evidence of GA
> settlements, camps, workshops etc. in the Volhynia
> subgroup (where, BTW, Yamna influence on GA burial
> rites is remarkably strong). What we see in Poland
> is dense, permanent and long-lived GA settlement in
> Kujavia, and there are stable territorial groups of
> exceptionally large GA villages in the Sandomierz
> Upland, but there is only sparse settlement in
> selected places elsewhere. If the GA-carriers
> practised a flexible mixed economy, with transhumant
> livestock-breeding or agriculture becoming dominant
> depending on the local ecological conditions, that
> would explain their economic evolution towards
> semi-nomadic pastoralism in the forest-steppe zone
> and more .(slightly corrected in subsequent post)
*****GK: I have noticed one rather odd matter in this.
The GA in Ukraine has left practically nothing but
gravesites. Apart from the very slight evidence you
refer to there are no settlements (so it seems). But
on the other hand, the Late Trypilian cultures which
occupy the same area as GA in Ukraine (Horods'k in
Volynia, and Kasperivtsi on the Dnister)have left
plenty of settlements, BUT NO GRAVESITES. And on the
Dnister there is good evidence that early Corded Ware
co-existed with the final phase of Late Trypilia
(briefly but certainly: ceramic imports in the
respective culture sites show this). Now these Late
Trypilian cultural groups are very interesting in that
they combine the "usual" Trypilia stuff (incl.
symbolic female statuettes) with elements later
associated with Corded Ware: stone battle axes and
corded ceramics. And the GA graves, as noted, show
much evidence of "Yamna" influence. We obviously need
more precise laboratory analysis of relevant artifacts
from these cohering GA and TRYP groups, but their
basic synchronism seems increasingly evident. And so
we must ask. Are these easternmost GA+ Late Trypilia
really distinct groups or are they actually a hybrid
culture, with GA and TRYP in the same relationship as
proto-Yamna and TRYP in the well-known Usatove complex
near Odessa? Should the answer be affirmative we would
be very close to a solution of the problem : "what
happened to Trypilia" as well as of the problem : "how
did corded ware arise". And this solution could also
have linguistic corollaries.******
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