----- Original Message -----
From: "gerryreinhartwaller2001"
<
waluk@...>
To: <
nostratic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent:
Friday, May 10, 2002 9:40 PM
Subject: [nostratic] Re: Origins of
I-E
[Gerry]
> Aren't you basing the "steppe hypothesis" on
morphological & cultural
> evidence?
[Alexander]
Actually
every hypothesis suggests a zone for searching the IE homeland
depending on
the features which are accepted as the early IE ones. The
question is :
"Where is the most probable location of people who meet the
following
demands: ... ?" Put instead of dots your ideas about the people
who spoke
PreIE and its daughter languages and you'll get the answer. Your
own
answer.
GRW: QUESTION: How are you defining the "people" you are
searching for? Are you defining them by morphological/physiological
traits or "mental traits" that can be determined by the products found in the
archaeological record (art work, animal husbandry, farming, clothing
etc.)? IOW, when you assess "migration" is it of a "pure" morphological
group? Hope this is clear; it might not be. Let me try
again: are you telling me to select a list of criteria such
as: nomadic, no potters wheel, fancy leatherworking for horse trappings,
elaborate felt appliques, presence of calendrics, etc. and then add a "pin" to
the Euroasian map?
As to the "steppe hypothesis" (better - steppe hypotheses), the basic
idea
behind it is specific adaptation of early IE to the life under the
steppe
conditions (livestock breeding with the tendency to nomadism as
economical
basis, using domesticated horse, some later - invention of the
spoked wheel
and light chariots) accompanied by the specific cultural
complex (kurgans,
sceptres, stone axes, unusual clothes, no potter wheel
etc.). The linguistic
evidences of borrowings from and into other languages
are also of a great
importance here.
GRW: I like that -- adaptation to a
specific environment i.e. steppe conditions. Thus the vocabulary of a
steppe dweller is fairly different from someone living at Hierakonpolis or
Babylon or the deserts of Egypt. This adds a new dimension to the
linguistic corpus, doesn't it? Why would a "culture" have a potter's
wheel if it had no access to clay? Or build houses of timber
on a desert?
If you don't agree principally with these
characteristics of early IE, you
will not accept steppe hypotheses,
naturally.
GRW: Yes, I agree with most of what you are
saying above. Do you have a workable definition for the steppe
hypotheses?
[G]
>Your placement of the IE homeland at
Middle Volga does
> sound a bit "Russocentric"
[A]
:))))))
A
strong counterargument, isn't it?
BTW, my homeland is St.Petersburg, not
Russia.
GRW: [with wrinkled forehead] Huh? Do
you live in Florida? Seriously, I thought St. Petersburg was
the intellectual capital of Russia. From wence Vadim Masson hails.
Did St. Petersburg successfully secede from Russia?
[G]
>
but nevertheless, how does your
> information match the genetic maps
(Cavalli-Sforza for example)?
[A]
I find genetic mapping very
interesting and useful for some problems of
ethnogenesis. However, I'm
afraid, in the case of the steppe belt this can't
help. There were dozens
of mighty waves of migrations in both directions
during millennia there.
After every next wave not so much remains from the
previous one. What can
give a genetic map reflecting the present
situation?
Alexander