GREEK PREHISTORY AND IE (EVIDENCE?)

[Stanley Friesen]

[ Moderator's note:
  I have replaced Mr. Friesen's old e-mail address "sarima at ix.netcom.com" with
  his new address "sarima at friesen.net".
  --rma ]

At 01:25 AM 11/2/99 -0500, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>We are talking about a period between roughly 2650BC - 1650BC in mainland
>Greece.  My statement was that there is no serious material evidence of a
>significant immigration during that period, EXCEPT from Anatolia.

>If there are other "lines of evidence" of an "incursion" from the north, I'd
>very much like to hear what they are.

Part of the problem is in trying to pin down what sort of "incursion" is
required to import an IE language.  What I am trying to suggest is that it
does NOT need to be a "significant migration", and therefore may not be
easily seen.  Thus the absence of evidence for another significant
migration is not necessarily significant.

>What's the obvious inference?  That migrations do leave evidence.

That MAJOR migrations leave evidence clear.

>  And that
>the warfare later resulting from these cultural differences do leave
>evidence.  So why didn't any incursion from the north leave evidence?  The
>inference is that it may not have happened.

Or that it took a different *form*.

>If above you mean by an "IE incursion," a movement of IE - speaking peoples
>from the north, the question becomes where is the evidence?  Any evidence.

The main evidence is timing and cultural associations.  True horses and
wheeled carts and IE-style burials are known from the northeastern part of
the Balkans earlier than they are known from either Greece *or* Anatolia.
Such cultures are NOT known from either Mesopotamia or the Caucasus at any
time prior to their appearance in Anatolia (even the Mitanni are not known
until *after* the earliest evidence for Hittite speakers in Anatolia).

This means that the Usatovo-Cernavoda complex is the most proximate
available candidate for the source of IE speakers in Anatolia and the
southern Balkans.  In the absence of other viable candidates in the right
time frame, an origin from that area is left as the only truly reasonable
alternative.

><<Nor can it be used to *deny* such things as it stands.>>

>It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that there was no significant
>incursion during this period from the north into mainland Greece.  It seems
>possible to *deny* its likelihood.

This depends on what you mean by "significant".  Certainly a major overturn
in population is ruled out.  But a limited infiltration of a small elite
would not necessarily be easily visible.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net