Re: PIE's closest relatives

What about Mallory's suggestion that proto-Slavic homeland can be
identified with the Chernoles culture (750-200 B.C.) NW of the Black
Sea and that this coincides with Herodotus' Scythian Farmers, who
would be Iron Age Slavs, and that the Neuri mentioned by Herodotus
are the Balts, as implied by the plague of snakes and werewolf
legends he mentions among them? Mallory further states that
Herodotus locates the Neuri north of the Scythian Farmers/possibly
Slavs, which would equate the Neuri/Balts with the Milograd culture
that he says falls within the Old Baltic hydronymic system.

-Michael


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Alexander Stolbov" <astolbov@...>
wrote:

> Torsten wrote:
> > How come the Balts don't originate on the coast? Wasn't the whole
> > Kurgan thing a pincer movement, with Corded Ware in the North

found

> > first in the Baltic countries and Holland?
>
> The pre-history of East Balts can be enough sure traced back till

the Iron

> Age.
> It was the Dniepr-Dvina culture which was recognized as a (East)

Baltic one

> practically by everybody. Besides, there are some more cultures

which are

> attributed also as Baltic (Milograd c., Strichkeramik c., Yuchnovo

c.) with

> different degree of reliability, but all of them occupy the

territory of the

> Dnieper basin. Later the descendants of the Dniepr-Dvina c. in the

form of

> the c. of East Lithuanian kurgans and the Early Latgalian c.

started to move

> westward and finally reached the Baltic coast.
> The situation with West Balts is not so transparent but still it is

clear

> that they also came to the Baltic shore recently and from the East.
> There is the 3rd Baltic branch (Golyad') who remained on the Oka

banks until

> they were assimilated by Eastern Slavs.
> The area of the Baltic hydronymy also covers the basin of the

Middle and

> Upper Dnieper.
>
> Thus, from the beginning of the Iron Age till the Early Medieval

times Balts

> were not coastal dwellers.
> The Bronze Age situation is not so clear and allows to give

different

> interpretation. Particularly, it would be possible to claim that

Proto-Balts

> (and Proto-Slavs) like Proto-Germans were a part of the Corded Ware
> movement, and they moved first westward but then returned back

(eastward) to

> the Middle Dnieper and Upper Volga to form there the Fatyanovo c.

(also a

> Corded Ware c.). However I can't believe in it because of one

consideration.

>
> 1. It is well known that Indo-Iranians represent the eastern part

of IE

> massif.
> 2. Balto-Slavs are the closest genetically to Indo-Iranians, as

they share a

> number of innovations in the most degree.
> 3. The Corded ware cultures left the main IE massif (the Yamnay c.)

very

> early (not later than 3000 BC), much earlier than the rest of the

Yamnay c.

> gave life to a big number of daughter cultures of the Middle and

Late Bronze

> Age (2700 - 1200 BC). People of any of these cultures must be closer
> genetically to Indo-Iranians than any variant of Corded ware

cultures,

> because they parted with Indo-Iranians later.
>
> Thus the Corded Ware - Balts hypothesis must insist that all the

numerous

> steppe cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Age left no survived

languages

> (but Indo-Iranians themselves + theoretically Tocharians) , and in

the same

> time a number of IE branches (Celts, Italics, Greeks, Thracians

etc.) left

> the IE massif earlier than 3000 BC when only a small number of

cultures

> which can be attested as potentially IE was known. I find this

unbelievable.

>
> Alexander