Danube homeland.

[Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>]

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal holds for an earlier Danubian homeland. I
have not yet read anything from him indicating why he believes this,
but some thoughts did occur last night as I re-read some parts of
Mallory.

If we are to assume that Sredney Stog (and immediate predecessor[s])
represent the earliest IEs, it then follows that the languages of the
Danubian agriculturalists were replaced at a later date by IE: would
not this have left a substratum, a substrate that would be *absent*
in Indo-Iranian? There is also the issue of correlating a steppe
homeland with Germanic. Yes, Mallory does lead us all down
unsatisfactory cul-de-sacs.

If you move things back further into history, and argue for a much
earlier breakup of IE, certain problems go away. Indo-Iranian could
be seen as an adstratum to the remainder of Non-Anatolian IE.
Germanic is also easier to explain -- but Tocharian, of course,
becomes even harder to explain than it is now.

What are the objections to an earlier date for PIE? Does 5600 to 6000
BCE seem too far back?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net