----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 9:50
PM
Subject: Re: [nostratic] Re: Origins of
I-E
[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?
Alexander:
Yes, however, one also needs to add an idea,
when PIE could exist (usually Late Neolithic-Eneolithic-Early Bronze periods
are accepted) and how its daughter branches development principally could
bring the situation to the present state of affairs.
GRW: [with wrinkled forehead] Huh?
Do you live in Florida?
Alexander:
Not, I visited
St.Petersburg,Florida only once.
GRW:
Seriously, I thought St. Petersburg
was the intellectual capital of Russia. From wence Vadim Masson
hails. Did St. Petersburg successfully secede from
Russia?
GRW: Valery Alexeev
always claimed that all early groups were genetically mixed. Is this
what you are claiming as well?
Alexander:
Well, any natural group
of organisms (plants, mushrooms, animals) is genetically mixed. However new
genes (or variants of old genes) arise regularly. Principally they
could be used as markers, like ringing of birds is used by
ornithologists. If we could obtain genetic information from bone remains it
would be a great source of information concerning populations migrations.
Unfortunately now we can get genetic information only from living
people which pictures the present day situation. In some cases (when
populations are well isolated with sea, high mountains, deserts
etc.) this picture is rather conservative and can reflect ancient
processes of populations movements and mixings. But not in steppes. The
picture for the period of our interest (about 9000-5000 years ago) has been
disturbed and practically erased many times there.
Alexander