Re: [tied] Anatolia in 7500BC

Glen asked

> Even if the movement were earlier, I find it extremely odd that a
> parent language moving out of Anatolia into the Balkans would only
> spread far eastward and nowhere else. Honestly, what was stopping
> them from going to Europe?

Nothing. In fact some of them may have, perhaps leading to Nostratic
tongues that have failed to survive. There was a problem here
though. That the route into Western Europe was already taken by
people of comparative technological level - mesolithic Tardenoisians,
Maglemose folk and around the Baltic we have Swidderian middens. I
believe that most of these were probably speaking now extinct
Vasconic languages. To the north and east, there may have been a few
remnant retreating "big game" hunters, following the retreating herds
of reindeer northwards, but the Balkans, steppes and forests north of
the Pontic region were relatively empty.

I wrote

> >Glen, given that Yukaghir, EskimoAleut and Chuckchi-Kamchatkan are
> >all collected only in modern times, and that Eskimo-Aleut, on
> >cultural grounds only spread comparatively recently, how much time
> >do you propose for these languages to have split from the Boreal-
> >Steppe core?

Glen replied

> Something along the lines of the following is in my head:
>
> Steppe = up to 9000 BCE
> Boreal = 9000-7000 BCE
> Uralic-Yukaghir = 7000-5000 BCE

This fits the cultures for the "mesolithic out-of-Anatolia" thesis I
am arguing pretty well.

> As far as I know, Uralic-Yukaghir is normally dated to about
> 5000 BCE since Uralic itself is contemporaneous with IndoEuropean.
> What do you mean when you say they are "collected" only in modern
> times?

We only have Yukaghir compararively recently. IE goes back nearly 40
centuries (1900 BCE).

Regards

John