>I've
> seen many make the poor assumption that non-Indo-European presence in a
> general geographical area automatically rules out early
> Indo-European speech in that general area.
This is not the major argument against Anatolia. Details are more
complicated than my poor brain can remember, but one of the main arguments
raises the question of whether Anatolian IE had lost what the rest of IE
has, or whether the rest of IE innovated so much after splitting from
Anatolian. If Anatolia is the homeland, we have to say either:
(1) all the groups that departed remained in contact sufficiently long
enough to develop all the stuff missing from Anatolian; or
(2) Anatolian IE lost all that stuff after the departure.
Whereas a homeland outside Anatolia means:
(3) Anatolian IE lost all that stuff after it splits off from other IE
groups, that is, before and after it moved into Anatolia, or
(4) non-Anatolian IE developed all that stuff without having to move
anywhere, because it did so after Anatolian split off.
(1) seems to demand an unlikely coherence for migrating groups, and we have
to explain both their contact and their deep differences.
(2) seems not to leave enough time.
(3) and (4) leave us time, and only requires one group to split off, and
doesn't require migrating groups to remain contact.
This is also not the only argument against an Anatolian homeland, but it
seems to me an interesting one.
Peter