--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Octavià Alexandre <oalexandre@...>
wrote:
> I think Renfrew's was right in stating the spreading of agriculture
> through Europe was linked to the spreading of languages, but wrong
> in that languages were IE. He overlooks too much linguistic data
> for his theory to fit in what we know about IE. Nor he even
> considered other non-IE languages as candidates........Hurrian and
> Urartian (grouped toghether as Hurro-Urartian), once spoken in
> Anatolian have been shown to be related to the NEC family.......
> Other works link Etruscan (alongside with languages such as
> Raethic, Lemnian, Eteo-Cretan, Eteo-Cypriot and pre-IE Greek) with
> NEC and Hurro-Urartian. So the chances are all these languages
> descent from the ones spoken by the first agricultors of the
> Neolithic.
The recent genetic paper on pig domestication in Europe available at
http://tinyurl.com/2ynplm ,
whose download link was already provided by M. Kelkar a few days
ago, arrives at the conclusion that the earliest domesticated pigs
in Europe were introduced from the Near East by neolithic farmers.
The authors of that paper maintain that the discovery and analysis
of ancient Near Eastern pig remains across Europe would suggest that
Europe was colonized by Near Eastern farmers who brought their
`farming package' of domesticated plants, animals and distinctive
pottery styles with them. Thus, their conclusions appear consistent
with Renfrew's hypothesis about a major 'demic' diffusion of farming
populations from the Near East into Europe during the Neolithic,
with the important difference that they, of course, don't assume
that those farmers spoke IE languages!
If these farmers really came to SE Europe from Anatolia, I agree
with you that Hurro-Urartian/NEC languages are a good candidate for
their linguistic affiliation. All the better if these languages will
one day be proved to be related to Etruscan/Raethic/Lemnian, Eteo-
Cretan, Eteo-Cypriot, pre-IE Greek ('Pelasgian'?), Hattic and you
name it... :^)
Thanks and best regards,
Francesco