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

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

>
> --- 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. 4500—2500 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
>

He cites you and you cite him. Bad scholarship.

"And it is
to the period of c. 4500—2500 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. "

M. kelkar

"