Re: The Thrakoid presence in ancient Ukraine [Was:[tied] Thracian p

George, a few questions. Is the overall consensus (if there is one) that Neuri were
Slavic or Baltic speakers? If they were likely Slavic, where would Balts be located at
this time, and do you know in what regions the earliest Baltic toponyms. I thought
Mallory equated the agricultural Scythians with Slavic tribes.

And, you're saying Thrakoid tribes with an Iranian ruling class were among the
Aukhatia population?

-Michael

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> >
> > > GK: The proto-Slavs were part of the
> > > classical Scythian realm. Why would they have
> > > waited? (to adopt the Dnipro etc. rivernames GK)
> >
> > To tell the truth, I don't know if they were part of
> > it,
>
> *****GK: The oldest Slavic toponyms and hydronyms are
> found in the area south of the Prypjat'/Pripet, which
> were part of the Scythian state (more precisely of the
> subsidiary kingdom of the Aukhata). The population of
> "northern Aukhatia" was mixed: "Neurian" and
> "agricultural Scythians", the former apparently more
> numerous.*****
>
> though of
> > course they were strongly influenced by the culture
> > of Iranian-speakers
> > (lateral contact rather than full immersion in the
> > Scythian empire would
> > have been enough, I suppose).
>
> *****GK: The point is that the basic "Aukhata"
> population, ruled by secondary Paralata kings, but
> retaining an aristocracy of its own, descends from
> archaeological cultures whose Thrakoid identity is
> demonstrable (Komarov, Bilohrudiv, Chornolis) and
> which corelate nicely with the few extant Thrakoid
> hydronyms. So the proto-Slavs of "norhern Aukhatia"
> would have had even more intense cultural dealings
> with these Thrakoids than with their Iranic masters.
> This, in the period 600-200 BC, preceding the massive
> Thrakoid outmigration subsequent to the collapse of
> Scythia.****
>
> But even if the
> > contact was very intimate,
> > it doesn't follow that the name "Don", for example,
> > goes back to a
> > Scythian past.
>
> *****GK: Here the issue is the short "o" rather than
> the exact name.****
>
> river-names can change, and can be
> > borrowed and
> > re-borrowed easily in an ethnically unstable area
> > (which the steppe zone
> > was during and after the Great Migrations).
>
> *****GK: We're actually talking forest-steppe and
> south forest zones, though that too was unstable. But
> acc. to Stryzhak, the modern Dnipro can be shown to be
> a derivative of the ancient Borysthenes, and he tries
> to describe the various changes leading from one to
> the other.*****
>
> The
> > Slavs probably had their
> > own name (or names) for the Dniester (or parts of it
> > course) before a
> > borrowed name became accepted with reference to the
> > whole river.
>
> ******GK: It seems quite plausible that they
> "borrowed" the name which they found in use upon
> arriving here or already knew via contact, cultural
> and commercial, with their predecessors in the area,
> or with intermediaries of such. And the same should
> hold with regards to Dnipro and Don.*******
>
>
>
>
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