--- Glen Gordon <
glengordon01@...> wrote:
There is a general _cultural_ movement
> from the south
> Caspian to the north Pontic and one from Anatolia
> into Europe during
> the neolithic, if I understand correctly. This does
> not equate with
> population movement because cultural spread can be
> motivated by trade
> (and we know there was much trade in the neolithic
> so this is highly
> probable, in fact).
******GK: Ukrainian archaeologists and
paleoanthropologists think that much of the Trypilian
population was made up of northward migrants from the
Balkans and Anatolia. They have not yet been able to
decipher their "signs" (in any case the connection to
any language would prove difficult to say the least),
but the numerically dominant human types in the
cemeteries left by these collectivities were very
similar to those of the early agricultural cultures of
the South of Europe and of Asia Minor. [no DNA
analysis yet] Paleoanthropologists like to "flesh out"
their bones. In "The Ethnic History of Ancient
Ukraine" (Kyiv:Ukrainian Academy of Sciences 2000)
there are interesting pictorial representations of the
very different "types" of Trypilia (West Central
Ukraine) and Serednyj Stih/Lower Mykhajlivka (Eastern
Ukraine). The Trypilians are classified as gracile
"PaleoMediterraneans" and frequently "Hurrian-like"
(prominent hooked noses, like those of some later
Hittite sculptures) in appearance [archaeologists also
point to thousands of little statuettes extant from
Trypilian sites which realistically reproduce these
kinds of faces], while the latter are viewed as more
massively structured "PaleoEuropeans". Later on, the
PaleoEuropeans [Corded Ware, Yamna] pushed out some
Trypilians and absorbed the remnant. The Trypilians
are described as "representatives of the Middle East"
(p. 26) north of the Black Sea (for awhile). They are
not deemed to have been carriers of IE speech.
Ukrainian scientists identify the homeland of IE as
the area between the Dnipro (Ukraine) and Ural
(Russia) rivers. A variant of the Pontic/Caspian
hypothesis.******
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