On 2008-01-30 20:39, fournet.arnaud wrote:
> We have already reached the conclusion that PIE was long gone
> when gold became something interesting.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. The oldest gold jewellery found so far
(5th millennium BC) is from the Black Sea coast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_Necropolis
and they had copper as well.
==========
As far as I am concerned
around the 5th millenium BC,
PIE had already split for maybe 5 to 7 thousands years.
But I understand you may have another point of view.
- 5000 in the Black Sea is fairly coherent
with a neologism shared with Central PIE only.
The fascinating point is
Starling Uralic root 1138
which looks like a variant of HaHw-s
But Central PIE is in between with ghelH-t
Arnaud