From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 42643
Date: 2005-12-28
----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 6:07 AM
Subject: [tied] On the connection between archaeological and linguistic
evidence
>
> Archaeologists and linguists sometimes issue decrees that the result
> of the other discipline is irrelevant to those of their own. The other
> day I read such a statement by an archaeologist. As proof he offered
> the observation that if material culture and ethnicity were correlated
> then, since the population of the Roman empire switched from cremation
> to inhumation burial in the 2nd cent. CE, he would have had to assume
> a similar switch in the ethnic makeup of the Roman population.
>
> Aha.
***
Patrick:
Is there really anyone on this list who would defend the idea that the
ethnic makeup of Rome _did not_ change after a century or two of empire?
***