From: jpisc98357@...
Message: 14080
Date: 2002-07-19
Have you read
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~macaulay/papers/richards_2000.pdf ? It talks of refuge areas both in S. W. France and Spain and in Italy, so that after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Europe would have been recolonised from both the South West and the Near East. I don't know whether 'South West' includes Italy or not; I don't see why not. This spread is dated to c. 14.5kYBP. This scenario in itself suggests that there would have been several language families present, let alone several languages. I don't think any of us believe there was a single, widespread langauge just before the spread of IE. (In this context, 'Europe' excludes, at the very least, Russia and the Caucasus.)