Re: Anatolia in 7500BC

Glen wrote:
<<We know that Uralic (or Uralic-Yukaghir, for that matter) and
Altaic are languages placed firmly away from Anatolia. They are
positioned to the east of IndoEuropean. We know that Uralic and
Altaic are language groups that are most likely closely related
to IndoEuropean because of sometimes uncanny similarities in
grammatical elements and vocabulary. If we can accept this, we
have a problem placing IndoEuropean in Anatolia without creating
a farflung scenario to account for its past.>>

Let me ask some questions about how you are placing these languages at about
7500BC. In other words, where do feel they were at that point and in what
form? Presumably there was a center or origin point. And presumably they
starting spreading at some point. And presumabaly there were ancestors,
possibly from somewhere else. Where would all this be in their history at
about 7500BC or maybe just before that?

My understanding of the first spread of Uralic is that it identified with the
spread of Pit Comb ware culture in north eastern Europe. Do you think that
is correct? Is there a similar correlation between Altaic and some early
material culture?

Glen also wrote:
<<What is so special about Anatolia that causes us to feverishly attempt to
lay it there? Is it because Anatolia is the cradle of
European agriculture? Why do we continue to feel the need to place
IE in the center of neolithic action.>>

Well, placing *PIE on the Danube doesn't put it in the center of neolithic
action. My idea is that some progenitor of PIE could have been in or near
western Anatolia when the neolithic started moving northwest from the
direction of the Near East and became the language of neolithic change in
that direction. But if IE or pre-IE had to have originally been north of
Anatolia when the hook-up with neolithic culture began happened, that would
be okay with me. The key for me is to put it in the vicinity of the Danube.

Being around the Danube however would certainly put early IE in the main
European center of neolithic action, although it was a more local and later
event than what was going on in the Near East.

Andrew Sherratt recently pointed out that the effect of the epicenter of
Agriculture (with a capital "A") in the Near East continued to reverberate in
the peripheral areas like Europe well after the first surge. ("If there was
a secondary products revolution [in Europe], then it was part and parcel of a
continuing series of consumer revolutions in the very unusual part of the
world that we call western Asia (or, more ethnocentrically, the Near East).")

But it was that first locally-adapted surge (with secondary products,
surpluses, locally adapted domesticates, textiles, often houses, etc.) that
provides the only coherent, observable event that can be consistently
correlated with the eventual location of IE languages. Those first surges
created a continuum of technically competent, populated and persistent
cultures across Europe (and perhaps parts of Central Asia) whose continuity
would not be repeated again in any evidence we've found. If I'm going to
correlate the spread of a language with any event in the past, it's going to
be something that looks like it could spread a language. By the time of
Yamna, all we see are events of limited, local impact and with none of the
"consumer revolution" or economic impact we see in the European neolithic.

But getting back to Anatolia in 7500BC. I'm wondering what languages were
spoken there then. And if any place names there could stay the same for 6000
years. If they did, then might they have been the same in 10,000BC and then
we are talking ice age? Or do we assume that "Asia Minor" was always
changing languages and toponyms, just like it did in recorded history.

Glen also wrote:
<<This topic reminds me a lot of the olden days when people thought
that the Earth was in the center of the universe. Eventually,
people finally accepted that, lo and behold, the Earth is just one
of many planets, none of which are in the center of the universe.>>

Look, Giordano Bruno stated that the universe was an infinite sphere whose
center was everywhere. But he even had to admit sometimes you have to focus
a little bit, so you pick a temporary point just to get some footing. Over
at the Minature Collie forum, minature collies are temporarily the center of
the Universe. On the Rush Limbaugh forum, Rush is the center of the universe
(and then some.) This is called an Indo-European Languages forum. So, I'm
sure you can understand why there's some temporary focus on IE languages
here. Even if, at another center of the universe, the garbage does need to
be taken out. Coming, dear!

(Steve)