Again with the PIE homeland thing- RE: *(s)teuros

I myself lean towards the theory of a Pontic-Caspian home base for
PIE. However, the issue with likely borrowings with Semitic poses
some issues. Along with the ongoingly discussed PIE *(s)tauros -
Proto-Semitic *t~awr- (both bull, first also aurochs, second also
ox), one should note PIE *medhu (honey) - Proto-Semitic *mVtk-
(sweet), PIE *septm - Proto-Semitic *s^ab'atum (both seven), and PIE
*woinom - Proto-Semitic *wayn [Mallory & Adams: 2005]

It's unlikely there was any form of vessel worthy of the high seas of
the Black Sea, so travel via that method that can likely be ruled
out. Therefore, as I see it, there are two possibilities for how
these Semitic words came into IE:
1) Trading with Semitic people
2) Words taken into another culture with whom the PIEans traded.
Now, the second seems more likely when taking into account the
distance from, say, a pre-Akkadian non-Sumerian culture in Northern
Iraq or Northwest Iran. The face that there are so many examples of
Wanderwoerter in Western Eurasia seems to vouch for the latter.

Continuing on this hypothesis, there appear to be two routes through
which such words could have come:
1) Across Anatolia, into the Balkan regions, and from there to the
PIEans, who very likely did trading with them, considering the spread
of some ideas but not others into seemingly non-Kurgan cultures there
(again, this is debatable; there are hypotheses that say the Balkan
people WERE the PIEans)
2) Through the Caucasus. The seemingly most likely culture for this
transmission was the Maikop culture (again, unless they were IE as
well), which shows several similarities with Kurgan traditions. Some
evidence of intensive trading there is suggested by Mallory and
Adams' discussion about the IE numbers: the comparison of the
notoriously uncertain "6", *(k^)(s)(w)ek^s to the Proto-Kartvelian
*eks^w [s^=sh] and Hurrian s^eez^e [s^/z^=sh/zh], as well as the
apparent dual-form for "8", *Hxok^toh3(u), potentially from *Hxok^toh1
(u) (with problematic laryngeal switching) with a singular *Hxok^to-
meaning "4" perhaps being reflected in Proto-Kartvelian as *otxo
("four").

Finally, I might as well point out some potential PIE - Proto-Uralic
connections. Aside from the commonly discussed pronouns, there are a
few precious examples of connected words. Anaysis is considered as
though these were borrowings from PIE to Uralic:

PIE *mei- (exchange)- PU *miGe [G = voiced velar fricative] (give,
sell) (either with metathesis of the e and i, or related to the PIE
zero-grade; a glide between the two has become a velar fricative. The
similarity in meaning is clearly visible)

PIE *mesg- [phonetically *mezg] (dip under water, dive)- PU *mus'ke
[s' = palatal s] (wash) (/z/ becomes /s'/, then devoicing, and the
vowel changing to high back under influence of the /m/. Both have to
do with covering something with water)

PIE *h1nomn (name) - PU *nime (name) (if h1 was a glottal stop, it's
no surprise it doesn't show up in PU. The final syllabic /n/ has been
converted into an /e/. The issue of PIE /o/ vs. PU /i/ remains
troublesome, though. The meanings are identical)

PIE *sneh1wr (tendon) - PU sene (vein, sinew) (an epenthetic /e/
isadded between the first two letters /s/ and /n/, and the last three
letters /h2nr/ are dropped. This seems a stretch, unless PU roots are
all bisyllabic. Both describe long, string-like parts of the body)

PIE *h2weseh2- [likely phoetic *h2wezeh2] (gold) - PU *was'ke (a kind
of metal) (the first h2 is lost, the first /e/ becomes /a/ (like in
Indo-Iranian), the /z/ becomes /s'/ (like in *mesg-), and
SURPRISINGLY, the final h2 becomes a /k/. If this is an actual
pairing of roots, then it has some impact on the laryngeal issue.
Both terms refer to a metal)

PIE *wodr (water) - PU *wete (water) (Borrowed with an /e/
conjugation (the /o/ in *wodr is an ablauting vowel), the /d/ was
devoiced and the final syllabic /r/ became an /e/. The meanings are
identical)

PIE *deh3- (give) - PU *toGe [again, G = voiced velar fricative]
(bring) (After /d/'s regular devoicing, the /e/ becomes an /o/ (it
likely already was an /o/ in PIE, thanks to the adjacent h3), and
STRIKINGLY, the h3 becomes a verlar fricative; one more point towards
the phonetic identity of the laryngeals. Both words refer to a
purposeful movement of something to someone)

Having noted these, one should note, however, that there is a major
possible fault. There is more than one reconstruction for Proto-
Uralic - the field has yet to solidify as much as Proto-Indo-European
has - which means that the comparisons are on thin ice.