Remember
> Early Middle Chinese kwen' "watering channels" (from Old Chinese
*kÜ-)
?
from Pulleyblank:
The Historical and Prehistorical Relationships of Chinese
"
9. COUNTRY, TERRITORY
Ch. guó .. EMC kw&k < *xÜ&´k 'country'; yù .. EMC wik < *a-
xÜ`&k 'territory, region.' The phonetic element is xu:.., the
phonogram for *xÜ. The presence of a palatal feature is also
indicated by the interchange between the graphs .. and .. for the
word xù EMC xwik 'water channel, city moat.' The word rhymes in *-
&kj in the Shijing, where it is written .., with xue^ ... EMC xwet <
*xÜ&´kj 'blood' as phonetic - compare TB *s-hyw&y 'blood' (Benedict
1972:51). It is one of a number of examples of words in *-&k that
were palatalized to *&kJ in the Shijing dialect (Pulleyblank 1960).
The assumption that the original initial in the word guó .. was a
fricative rather than a stop is supported by the fact that yù ..,
which is obviously closely related, had initial w- rather than gw-
in EMC and also by the fact that Type B derivatives with voiceless
initials such as 'water channel, moat' have x- rather than k-. The
hardening of a velar fricative to a stop has parallels in the case
of ji^ .. EMC kï', which I take to be the ganzhi phonogram for *x
and the alternation between Middle Chinese j- and k- in cases like
gu^ .. EMC k&wk 'valley,' also read yu EMC juawk,
which I assume to have originally had initial *G.
Compare IE *weikJ- 'house, settlement,' OI vis´-, 'dwelling place,
house,' Gk. oîkos 'house,' Lat. vi:cus 'group of houses, village,'
Goth weihs 'town, village.' For the correspondence between initial
*w in PIE and *xÜ in PST see YEAR above.
"
The thing that caught my attention was the close relationship
between words for "water course" and "strip of land".
Cf.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Op.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pd.html
Here, the -kW- "water" root extended with a dental means "strip of
land along water". In Old Chinese (see above) the extension is a
velar. There is connection between the two extensions in Proto-Sino-
Tibetan, I seem to recall; I'll have to check.
The question is: if *akW-/*ap- "water" is a loan in IE, did it come
from a substrate, and if yes, which one. The answer is (ta-dah!)
LBK, Linearbandkeramik.
Cf. from "Europe in the Neolithic"
"
Chapter 6
LONGHOUSE LIVES: CENTRAL AND WESTERN EUROPE, c. 5500 to before 4000
BC
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK), c. 5500 to after 5000 BC
The Linear Pottery culture was the first Neolithic culture in
central and western Europe. The name derives from the
characteristic decorated pottery, Linearbandkeramik or
Linienbandkeramik in German, and the acronym LBK is preferable to
the more clumsy English transcription.4 Closely related to but
distinct from the Linear Pottery culture of the Alföld or
Great Hungarian plain, the LBK culture is found from western
('Transdanubian') Hungary to the southern Netherlands, eastern
Belgium and the river valleys of central-northern France, in the
Paris basin. It is distributed through Slovakia and the
Czech Lands, northern and eastern Austria, southern and parts of
central Poland, and in Germany as far north as Braunschweig
and Magdeburg. Crudely speaking, its northern limits more or less
coincide with the northern limits of loess soils, or
conversely with the southern limits of the varied sandy and clayey
soils of the morainic landscape of the north European
plain, but there are important outliers in Poland in Kujavia, in
Chelmno-land and near Szczecin, beyond the loess
Central and western Europe, c. 5500 to before 4000 BC
The settlements in the north-west part of this distribution were not
the earliest of the culture. Those are found from
western Hungary, through northern and eastern Austria, Slovakia and
the Czech Lands, to southern and parts of central
Germany, as far west as ihe Neckar, a tributary of the middle part
of the Rhine.6 In the next phase of expansion the LBK
culture reached southern Poland and the Rhine, and it is from this
phase that the Aldenhoven plateau and Dutch Limburg
sequences begin. Later still, LBK sites appeared in eastern Belgium
and northern France. Some LBK sites are known beyond
the loess in central and north-east Poland, but they serve to
underline the general observation that the limits of
distribution were reached comparatively early and then not
significantly extended.7 This process is discussed in more
detail later in the chapter.
LBK settlements are typically found on fertile soils and near water
in valleys or low-lying situations. Right across the
distribution, the natural environment was woodland, in its climax
phase of post-glacial growth. The rather scanty pollen
evidence suggests that, as on the Aldenhoven plateau, limited
inroads were made into these woodlands."
The LBK culture is characterised by a high degree of uniformity,
especially in its earlier phases.10 Across the LBK
distribution, people made similar choices of locations for
settlement, and built longhouses in Bohemia and Poland very
similar to those in north-west: Germany. Enclosures and cemeteries
were widely distributed across the LBK range. Within the
constructed domestic focus of longhouse and clearing, similar stone
adzes and pottery were in use, especially in the early
and middle phases of the culture. In some situations stone adzes and
flint supplies were obtained from greater distances in
earlier phases than towards the end of the culture, when pottery
styles became more regionalised.11 The scale of early
uniformity can be exaggerated, however, since details of house
construction and crop choice, for example, were quite varied
even in early phases.12 Such uniformity has often been linked to the
question of origins and to the nature of pioneer
settlement.
In sum, the LBK has usually been taken as representing a clean break
with the indigenous forager population of central and
western Europe. That has been seen as thin on the ground in the
woodlands of inland temperate Europe, and as lacking both
the social complexity and the technological knowledge perceived as
necessary to become Neolithic. Somewhat by default,
since the process of cultural transformation has not yet been traced
in any detail, the LBK culture is normally seen as a
colonisation from the fringes of southeast Europe, a demographic
overflow from the Hungarian plain and points south, held
together by shared material culture and practice.13
This chapter will explore alternative ways of approaching the LBK
phenomenon, which involve the native forager population.
The radical hypothesis is that the LBK culture represents a
transformational indigenous lifestyle, both in response to local
factors of resource supply and in contact with Neolithic
communities. I will explore the nature of LBK society, since
standing at the head of the sequences of central and western Europe
it is a critical baseline to understand. The radical
hypothesis is that the LBK culture represents an extension of an
indigenous ethic of cooperation and integration. I will
challenge aspects of the now conventional model of settlement and
subsistence, arguing that more attention needs to be given
in this area too to the process of creating Neolithic society.
The colonisation hypothesis
Even those who have argued most vigorously against the colonisation
hypothesis for both south-east and north-west Europe have
accepted it for the beginnings and spread of the LBK culture.
Radiocarbon dates suggest that the rate of spread was relatively
rapid, again consistently with demographically fuelled
expansion.
The case for indigenous transformation
There are many problems with the details of the colonisation
hypothesis, and I set out here the case for a radical
alternative.
While some sites are on land of good agricultural potential, others
are in surprising situations for supposed agricultural
colonists, in narrow, sometimes hilly, side valleys. In southern
Slovakia, earliest sites are quite widely dispersed through the
valleys of tributaries of
the Danube like the Váh, Nitra and Hron.18
The duration of the earliest LBK phase is thought generally to have
been no more than a few generations. The sites themselves seem to be
quite small. With the colonisation hypothesis, it has always been
attractive to see the valleys and loess soils of central and western
Europe as favourable, empty niches waiting to be filled, but there
were real risks and uncertainties from climatic and resource
fluctuations.21
It is not easy to understand the cultural transformation represented
by the LBK culture, if there was continuity of population from
Transdanubia and the Hungarian plain to the west, though there are
other unexplained cultural re-formations, for example the appearance
of the Vinca complex. The physical anthropological evidence from LBK
cemeteries is compatible with continuity of indigenous population,
since there is considerable variation from area to area within the
LBK distribution. One analysis suggests substantial difference
between LBK populations in Transdanubia and the Great Plain.22
Two sorts of forager situations can be explored. Inland foraging
communities may have been more numerous than at first appears. They
may have changed their earlier strategies of mobility, some to
operate in more circumscribed areas. They must have been indirectly
in contact with Neolithic communities to their south or east,
through the movement of obsidian and flint.
Expansion from the late Körös phase onwards may have intensified
such contact, and the availability of new resources would have
allowed the consolidation of indigenous ways. The construction of
longhouses could have enhanced indigenous practices of aggregation
and cooperation, and cattle and cereals could have been taken up to
underpin these.
In coastal areas, around the Baltic, in south Scandinavia, in the
Netherlands, and perhaps in Brittany and parts of Britain
and Ireland, forager populations probably became more numerous.
Their patterns of mobility may have altered too, with more
continuous use of the coastal zone and 'logistical' use of the
hinterland. By the later sixth millennium bc, forager populations of
the North European plain and Baltic/Scandinavian coasts were not far
from the northern limits of LBK communities. The appearance of
burial grounds beside coastal forager settlements like Skateholm II
in southern Sweden may be due not only to reduced mobility but also
to redefinition of identity as the nature of the wider world shifted.
The spread of LBK culture
The first phase of the LBK culture has been defined above all by a
simple style of pottery including flat-based bowls,
variously tempered, and decorated with simple incised curved linear
and rectilinear motifs. This älteste Keramik defines
a series of sites in northern Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Lands,
parts of eastern and northern Austria, and parts of
Germany as far west as east of the middle Rhine and as far north as
near Magdeburg.
Many earliest sites are found on loess and other fertile soils,
often but not exclusively in valleys and close to water.
Timber long houses were built from the outset,
Many of the ditched enclosures appear to belong to the late
phase, although some may date to the middle phase.53
The settlement system of the LBK culture
Subsistence: sedentism and mobility
LBK people, whatever their origin, lived in a still very wooded
environment. In this they kept animals, particularly cattle,
and seem to have done little hunting after the earliest phase. There
is some evidence for river fishing, and simple dugout
canoes of a little later date (from the Chasseen period) have been
found recently in Paris.54
Were animals kept in LBK houses? The house plans give no clear
indications of such a use. There has been little application
of phosphate analysis.64
Longhouse life
The longhouse has been taken for granted. In the context of
developments in south-east Europe up to this date, especially in the
more northern area of the Starcevo-Körös and Alföld LBK cultures,
where large houses first appeared on the Great Plain in the
Szakálhát phase (between the Linear Pottery and Tisza cultures), the
LBK longhouse was in itself a remarkable construction.
LBK material culture
There was much uniformity through the LBK world. Not only were
longhouses, settlements and burial grounds laid out in rather
similar ways across broad areas, but the material equipment used by
LBK people was similar from area to area, especially in
earlier phases.
This could also indicate seasonal movement.
Longer-range movement of raw material has also been documented. At
the earliest phase site of Bruchenbrücken, most of the flint also
came from Maas valley sources, here some 200 km away. At Bylany, the
distances involved were even greater. In the first occupation, most
of the flint was derived from Baltic erratics from the Elbe valley
100 km and more to the north.
"
Note the puzzlement of the author at the siting of these new
settlements: preferably along rivers, sometimes inaccessible, with
small plots alongside. It's rater obvious to me that the *akW-/*ap-
word in IE must have been taken from a LBK substratum (I'll take my
Noble prize in small bills, thank you).
I'll add my own interpretations to those of the author's on the
genesis and purpose of these LBK sites: they were trading posts,
similar to that of Fort X and Y on the American Frontier, except
here the Indians in the end made up the majority. That means that
the driving force of this culture was a new mode of transport: boats
on the rivers.
Torsten