>What I find unsettling about the Nestor argument is that it has no
>conceivable bearing on the problem, even if we grant that
>Nestor's/Sylvester's Walachians were speakers of Rumanian. Given the
>Balkan potential for small populations of mountain pastoralists to
>expand into suitable low-lying areas, demographic conditions in the
>ninth century just cannot be projected back into the past.
Why 'Nestor argument is that it has no conceivable bearing on the
problem'? The details that gives here are quite impressionant: exact
place name: river names, city names, populations etc...please read
him again the details indicates clearly shows a well informed person.
I also want to ask you if is true that: 'river Polota, flows into
Dvina' or we have to doubt this to.
Nestor (1056 - 1136 AD) Chronicle:
"When Walachians invaded those Slavs, they settled among them and
oppressed them. Then some of the Slavs migrated North, settled on
river Visla and called themselves Lakhs. Later they divided up into
Polans, Lutychs, Mazovshans and Pomoryans. Those who settled on river
Dnipro divided up into Polans (field people), Derevlans (wood people,
because they lived in forests), Drehovychs (between rivers Prypyat
and Dvina), Polochans (after river Polota, which flows into Dvina).
The Slavs who settled on lake Ilmen were called Slovens. They built a
city and called it Novhorod. Others settled on rivers Desna, Seym and
Sula called themselves Siveryans."
"In 6406 (898) Magyars, who fought against Slavs and Walachians,
marched past Kyiv on the hill, which nowdays is called Hungarian
Hill."
"Thus Japhet's domain included also Northmen, Anglo-Saxons,
Galicians, Walachians AND (so please read again, here is written :
AND) Romans."
Regarding your idea: "Given the Balkan potential for small
populations of mountain pastoralists"
From where you deduced a 'small population'? -> This population is
spreaded today from Dalmatian Coast and Nothern Greece, and from
Pannonia and Slovakia in the North until Nister and Bug in the
East ...Could you imagine that a small population could spread in
such a huge area from some 'small pastoral isolated groups' in less
than 500 years from about 900 to 1400?
Only The Bests,
marius