George Knysh wrote:
>
> *****GK: Why? This argument is too abstract. I would
> be interested in a list of differentia which could not
> conceivably have developed over the 600 years or so of
> my favourite Balto-Slavic "separation" scenario,
> currently based on historical and archaeological data
> only.*****
Could you please give references to this scenario?
> Thus we can think that since the
> > Late Bronze Age (c. 1600
> > BC) the Indo-Iranian community didn't exist anymore.
>
> *****GK: Here I agree with the view that the
> separation was approximately 1,000 yrs older.****
About 2600 BC ? What cultures do you mean? Catacomb and Poltavka?
> > Thus we may expect that the Baltic and Slavic
> > languages separated some
> > earlier than in 750 BC.
>
> *****GK: Again: why? Could BaltoSlavic not have
> remained a unified whole of sorts much longer than
> Indo-Iranian?*****
They could. But in this case nobody would doubt which relation is closer -
Baltic+Slavic (existed together till 750 BC) or Indic+Iranian (existed
together till 1600 BC or even 2600 BC
if I understood you correctly).
By 750 BC Iranian languages were already separated in East and West Iranian
subgroups. East Iranian and West Iranian are closer to each other than
Slavic and Baltic, are not they?
> > As to the region of Balto-Slavic disintegration I'm
> > not ready now to defend
> > the precise localisation. Perhaps somewhere between
> > Volga and Dnieper.
>
> *****GK: Which cultures of the region would you
> tentatively identify with each group?*****
Pozhaluista, ne beyte menya slishkom silno :)
Currently I'm playing with a hypothetical scenario where Common Balto-Slavic
is represented by Pozdnyakovo culture (between Oka and Upper Volga since
about 1600 BC or some earlier). This culture had intensive contacts with
Srubnay, Abashevo and Andronovo cultures - the "Satem block" in this
scenario. Slavs separate from them about 1200 BC in the form of the
Bondarikhino culture (there are archaeological evidences for such a
movement) in the Dnieper Left Bank steppe-forest area. Balts have to leave
the old region because of the press of the "Setchataya keramika" cultures
(sorry, don't remember the English term) and occupy the territory of the
Sosnitsa culture in the Middle Dnieper basin . Later (in the Iron Age) they
form the Dnieper-Dvina and some other cultures.
The first Slavic culture of the Iron Age according to this scenario should
be the Milograd culture , which later survives an East Germanic invasion
(foreign Zarubinetskaya c.) and produces the Kyiv culture. After the Hunnic
invasion the latter culture starts disintegrating to produce early Slavic
branches - the culture of Pskov long kurgans (Krivichi), the Pen'kovo c.
(Ants), the Romanovo-Borshchevo c. (Vyatichi ?), the Prague c. (the rest of
Slavs).
This is just a working hypothesis.
Alexander