Re: [tied] 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.
>
> In order to get them there, we either need to say that IE,
> Uralic and Altaic were _all_ located in Anatolia at one time
> (of which there is no trace of linguistic evidence to support
> such a hypothesis), or we need to say that IE alone had, for
> a brief time moved to Anatolia before going back up north where
> it must have been previously! I am satisfied with Bomhard's
> view that IE is ultimately from the east. This makes the most
> linguistic sense.

Glen, it if PIE, Uralic and Altaic were all in Anatolia together,
surely it wiould have been as Proto-Eurasiatic or Proto-Steppe that
was present in Anatolia. It is true that there is no "linguistic
evidence" to suggest that this is the case, because Anatolia has been
such a linguistic highway - with Hatto-Hurrian languages moving into
it from the east, Kartvellian present and possibly moving from the
North East, Tyrhenian in the West, Anatolian coming later, and Greek
and Turkish - to have expected linguistic evidence of Proto-Steppe to
have survived all this coming and going would be too much.

As far as whether this is archaeologically possible, it would seem
that the finding of close connections with the Nostratic homeland
(suggested by Bomhard) - and cultural connections of Beldibi and
Belbasi cultures with Kebaran and Natufian, it would seem that prior
to the commencement of Neolithic cultures in Anatolia - a Pre-PIE,
Pre-Uralic-Yukaghir, Pre-Alatic precirsor could have been found in
Anatolia.

> So really. Why must we try so hard to have IE in Anatolia? 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. I'm quite content in
> accepting that IE had a _peripheral_ involvement in the early
> economy of the Middle-East.

Agreed.

By the time the languages were splitting between PIE, Uralic and
Altaic they had long moved north to the Eurasian steppes and forest
regions to the north.

Regards

John