Piotr:
>While I don't think it's necessary to locate pre-PIE in Anatolia,
>[...], I disagree with the view that there's nothing special
>about IE.
I think this is a matter of how one interprets "nothing special".
I simply meant in my previous post that IE does not need to be
placed in the center of everything (ie: the view that IE must be
the language of the first European farmers, or that IE speakers were
purely patriarchal warriors that invaded Europe, or any other
simplistic viewpoint where IE is given extra and undue attention
as the bringer of good or evil).
When I say that IE was connected peripherally to the Middle-Eastern
economy of the time, I again mean just that. I didn't mean that IE
was not an important language in its region, because it certainly
must have been, given the later size of the family.
>It need not have been the primary catalyst for grand events throughout the
>Neolithic, but I bet it got its chance at a certain
>point.
Yes, I agree... its "grand event" was c.4000 BCE. Before that, I
don't think IE was anything more than one of many players on stage.
As for 7500 BCE, IE wasn't even an embryo and probably didn't have
much connection to anything other than some surrounding mesolithic
languages. (Don't get me started on "Abadha".)
- love gLeN
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