--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:
> Farmers were from the south, Cavalli-Sforza-wise, and they left
about
> ten percent of their genes in the European gene-stock. The farmers
> from the south were not that important, genetic-wise. And probably,
> linguistic-wise.
First of all, the recent work says 10-15% AVERAGE. That's 5% in
Holland, as high as 30% in the Balkans - a much higher average
by the way than the so-called "Kurgan" gene in the west of Europe.
So, by the same logic, it was probably not that important
linguistic-wise either.
And where does that leave us? How did IE spread?
First clue - IE did not spread by the migration of genes. No genes
match up with the extent of IE. Not even close.
Second clue - Mesolithic cultures across Europe were isolated from
most of one another for thousands of years. If they all spoke IE, it
should have been in 100 different languages, following the New
Guinea/Australian model. If they had a lingua franca, they didn't use
it much. No real cross-continental contacts are evident.
Third clue - In Denmark, along the Danubian Iron Gates and in
Dereivka One, there is recurring evidence of porotic hyperostosis
attributed to parasitic infestation by fish tapeworms among the
mesolithic populations. So, even in lox paradise, there was a price
of admission. Especially if you didn't cook your fish.
Fourth clue - No significant European population, except in the far
north, did not convert to agro-pastoral culture. Most took some time
to get around to it, but were always dependent in the mean time on
agri-pastoral marketeers for all of their finery and most of their
wares.
Fifth clue - Andrew Sheratt - the archaeologist who identified the
secondary products revolution (ie, mesolithics show no signs of ever
having a surplus of food or materials, neolithic types developed
surpluses, enter "rich guys") maintains that the best evidence now is
that the giant vats of LBK were malt vats. Cooked fish bones show up
in northern neolithic middens. Bring me salmon, I'll give you beer.
Now, if you carry on that relationship for a few hundred years, do
you think you might get around to speaking a common language, just
for
convenience? Which language? Who had the beer? I'd go with the
guys
who had the beer, I think.
> Archaeologists are saying that Northern European farmers seem to be
> little (but more populous) enclaves surrounded by 'more primative'
> hunter-gatherers.
Actually, populated settlements at first surrounded by very small
fragments of foragers. Followed by semi-settlements of
foragers becoming farmers. Don't buy George's 11% claim. Most of
that territory shows no signs of foragers - they could have occupied
11% or less.
These little [!] enclaves became isolated linguistic
> islands, while the much more wide-ranging hunter-gatherers spoke a
> lingua franca. Thus: the farmers learned proto-Indo-European, and
left
> only a slight substratum.
But honestly that's a fifty-fifty chance, isn't it?
In trade and range, the farmers were much more far-ranging - we
recognize no mesolithic culture that stretched from Holland to the
Ukraine or from Yugoslavia to Southern France, the way that LBK and
Cardial Ware did. With the agri-pastoralists, Polish obsidian
suddenly shows up in the Southern Balkans. Trade expanded
appreciably.
Sometimes, I wish the Turks were IE speakers, so that they could
flood the discussions with lots of ethno-centric claims about their
Anatolian forebears and even up the bias I sometimes sense.
Steve Long
etc.,