--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Max Dashu <maxdashu@...> wrote:
>
> Torsten,
>
> I'm in agreement with what you say here but am interested in what
> sources you are drawing on.
>
> Max
>
> >Those people who left a trail of destroyed fortifications and general
> >disruption behind them in South Eastern Europe are assumed to have
> >spoken IE languages, because nothing on that scale is documented from
> >a later period, so if IE languages are intrusive in Europe, those
> >people most likely brought them here. Also, the timing of the
> >incursions matches generally that of the Kurgan hypothesis.
It was my impression it was widely held belief, but this is what I
found within the sources at my disposal
Alasdair Whittle, Europe in the Neolithic, p. 126
"
Accents of change
From about 4000 to 3500 bc there were extensive and profound changes
throughout south-east Europe.8 Most tells were abandoned, many for
good, some for re-occupation after a period marked by significant
stratigraphic hiatus. Such settlements as are known seem to be smaller
and more dispersed; there are hilltop and cave occupations, and
perhaps some defended sites. Settlement through the islands of the
Aegean became much more prominent. The rich artefact assemblages of
painted pottery and copper tools were replaced with plainer vessels,
many in the general style already described for Hungary, and a new
metallurgy based on the alloying of copper with arsenic was gradually
introduced. Some cemetery burial continued, for example in central and
eastern Romania and southern Ukraine, but the cemeteries of the Black
Sea coast and its hinterland by and large lapsed, along with their
adjacent tell settlements. Burials marked by small mounds appeared in
parts of the region, as far west as the Hungarian plain, with greater
concentrations in the lower Danube and the steppe zone of southern
Ukraine.
The practice of mound burial (kurgan in Russian) has been connected
with traditions on the steppes of easternmost Europe, from the Dniepr
to the Urals. Other artefacts of supposed steppe origin have been
found in south-east Europe at this time, such as small stone models of
horseheads.9 One often argued explanation for the changes in south
east Europe is the incursion of horse-riding steppe people. And it is
to the period of c. 45002500 bc that most linguists date the
existence of a homeland of speakers of Proto-Indo-European language,
which many locate in the area north of the Black Sea and east to the
Caspian Sea. Since there were other, non-Indo-European languages, and
since Indo-European became widely distributed both in Europe and east
to the Indian subcontinent, it follows that there was a historical
dispersal.10 Many have connected Balkan changes, steppe incursions and
the dispersal of Indo-European language into one explanation. Restless
steppe people, speakers of Proto-Indo-European, perhaps in search of
grazing for their horses, pressed upon their sedentary neighbours to
the west, causing that world to change, and ushering in new kinds of
society based on more warlike and mobile life, less peaceful, and
perhaps male-dominated11.
"
Clearly, it is not the opinion of the author, although I can't figure
out which that is.
Torsten