Re: From words to dates: Water into wine, mathemagic or phylogeneti

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
> > Fig 3 is just a comparison of timelines; not geography. The rapid
> > divergence can came from Anatolia or for that matter South Asia. The
> > 2003 Nature article by the same authors I have posted earlier,
> > supports the Anatolian hypothesis.
> >
>
> It does?
> "
> The pattern and timing of expansion suggested by the four
> analyses in Fig. 1 is consistent with the Anatolian farming theory
> of Indo-European origin. Radiocarbon analysis of the earliest
> Neolithic sites across Europe suggests that agriculture arrived in
> Greece at some time during the ninth millennium BP and had
> reached as far as Scotland by 5,500 years BP25. Figure 1 shows the
> Hittite lineage diverging from Proto-Indo-European around 8,700
> years BP, perhaps reflecting the initial migration out of Anatolia.
> Tocharian, and the Greco-Armenian lineages are shown as distinct
> by 7,000 years BP, with all other major groups formed by 5,000 years
> BP. This scenario is consistent with recent genetic studies supporting
> a Neolithic, Near Eastern contribution to the European gene pool4,6.
> The consensus tree also shows evidence of a period of rapid
> divergence giving rise to the Italic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic and perhaps
> Indo-Iranian families that is intriguingly close to the time suggested
> for a possible Kurgan expansion. Thus, as observed by Cavalli-
> Sforza et al.26, these hypotheses need not be mutually exclusive.
> "
>
> Cf the conclusion with that of the 2005 article:
> "
> ...the two theories of Indo-European origin may not, in fact, be
> mutually exclusive – a possibility identified by Cavalli-Sforza et al.
> (1994).
> "
>
> You haven't been exactly honest with us, mr Kelkar. And don't tell us
> you haven't read it, the expression 'rapid divergence' that you use,
> occurs there and nowhere else in the paper.
>
>
> Torsten

Here is a direct quote from the 2003 paper

"Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history1,2.
The origin of the Indo-European language family is "the most
intensively studied, yet still most recalcitrant, problem of historical
linguistics"3. Numerous genetic studies of Indo-European
origins have also produced inconclusive results4,5,6. Here we
analyse linguistic data using computational methods derived
from evolutionary biology. We test two theories of Indo-
European origin: the `Kurgan expansion' and the `Anatolian
farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centres on possible
archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the
Near East by Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium
BP7,8. In contrast, the Anatolian theory claims that Indo-
European languages expanded with the spread of agriculture
from Anatolia around 8,000–9,500 years BP9. In striking agreement
with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of
87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age
range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800
and 9,800 years BP."

There is *no doubt* that they do not support the kurgan horsemen theory.

Here is the portion of the para you quoted earlier:

"The consensus tree also shows evidence of a period of rapid

> divergence giving rise to the Italic, Celtic, Balto-Slavic and perhaps
> Indo-Iranian families that is intriguingly close to the time suggested
> for a possible Kurgan expansion. "

I think you are reading what you want to read in this sentence. But
what the authors are actually saying is, the period (which means TIME)
of rapid divergence is intriguinngly close to the TIME suggested for a
possible Kurgan expansion. That does not mean they are actually
supporting the Kurgan horsemen theory. There is no mention of Kurgan
horsemen anywhere in the paper.

M. Kelkar