Pre-Greek languages (Horses and such)

Stanley Friesen sarima at ix.netcom.com
Wed Nov 3 02:07:58 UTC 1999


At 02:57 AM 10/22/99 -0400, X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 10/19/99 4:58:14 PM, sarima at ix.netcom.com wrote:

><<...cultures with written history predate the probable appearance of the
>Hittites in Anatolian in Mesopotamia.  None of these written sources give
>*any* indication of any likely pre-Anatolian people anywhere near
>Mesopotamia.  (They do indicate an early appearance of proto-Iranian
>peoples to the east of Mesopotamia)>>

>The lack of references to "pre-Anatolian people" seems a pretty important
>point. Do those early records identify any "peoples" as living in central,
>northeastern or southwestern Anatolia?

Not always directly, but early Assyrian trade records include names and
words from native languages in all areas where they regularly traded.
Their records, and those of Akkade in the preceding millennium, also often
mention various tribes, ethnic groups and nations on the periphery of
civilization, especially with regard to conquests and exaction of tribute.

Now, admittedly these records are not as complete, nor as precise, as
modern ones would be.  But a good estimate can be made of the tribes and
peoples from southeastern Anatolia all the way to at least central Iraq,
and in earlier times even into modern India.

The only *clear* IE association is found in the Mitanni (names of deities,
nobles, and words for charioteering), and the form of the words indicates
an origin specifically from the Iranian branch.  There are also some words
in SUmerian that have some similarity to IE words, but they are
inconclusive, and Sumerian itself is assuredly NOT an IE language.

>Given the early dates postulated for an IE presence in the area, by e.g.
>Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, what would we expect those IE-related artefacts to
>be?

I am not entirely sure what dates G & I propose, but unless they follow
Renfrew in pushing PIE unity far back into the Neolithic, the following are
minimal: the use of horses (not asses) as a riding animal, the use of
wheeled vehicles, domestic oxen as a draft animal, and use of pigs, cows,
sheep and goats to provide food.

And, if the evidence for PIE originating in the Ukraine is correct, then we
can add: certain burial rites ("Kurgan" burials, or their derivatives),
certain stylistic elements in pottery decoration (impressed decorations),
the use of bronze implements, at least among the elite, and so on.

><<and the *total* lack of any pre-Armenian IE substratal
>influences in any of the non-IE languages of the Caucasus.>>

>Again these are very early dates. Do we have a sense of when those non-IE
>languages first appeared in the area?  And would a migration - as opposed to
>settlements - by way of the Caucasus leave such traces.

The problem is that prior to relatively modern times, long range migration
in one stage, especially via heavy mountainous terrain, is pretty much
impossible.  There would, of necessity, have been intermediate settlements,
just to maintain the necessities of life.

><<the closest relative of Greek seems to be Old Macedonian
>[and] ....there were peripheral populations of Greeks to the northeast of
>Greece proper, whence came the Dorians after the collapse of the Mykenean
>civilization.>>

>But does this give us a definite "directional" sense?  Couldn't both
>Macedonian and Dorian be as well explained as the expansion of Greeks
>northward?  One of the striking things about the Dorian account (which we
>rely upon to explain events before say 700 BC) is that it is fairly
>consistently described as "the return of the Dorians."

I suppose that is a possibility.  Though it would have to have occurred
prior to the split of Greek into several dialects to account for the
linguistic data.

On the other hand, mythic origins are often recast to match a group's
current status, so I am not sure how much credence we can give to this
supposed "return".

>In another message dated 10/19/99 4:03:14 PM, you wrote:
><<The appearance of horse-bits (for riding) in the Sredny-Stog culture is
>quite telling here. >>

>But the bit does not appear in Myceneaen remains or in Homer and I don't
>think evidence for it has been found in the Aegean area until after 1000BC.

It is a little tricky, as bits seem to be only rarely preserved.  There are
only a few from the Sredny Stog (I only know of *one* for certain).  More
telling is the arrival of the steppe horse in Greece.  It is not native to
that area, so it had to be brought in by somebody.  It is not well suited
to being raised as a food animal in the harsh climate of Greece (not enough
grass, and too many inedible shrubs), so its presence is most likely due to
use as a riding animal, and as a symbol of elite status.

>advanced metal bits date from 1500BC in the Near East.    As a matter of
>fact, evidence of the "true horse" - equus caballus - does not appear on the
>Greek mainland until the end of the Early Helladic - at more or less the same
>time as evidence first appears in Troy.

Which is when I date the arrival of Indo-Europeans in Greece.  I suspect
these were not Greek speakers, but rather members of some other branch of
the IE family.  (They *may* have been Anatolians, arriving in Greece and
Troy at about the same time as part of a single series of
migrations/conquests).

>It is a little difficult to see how the horse can be especially connected
>with the more western Indo-European cultures with such relative late dates
>compared to the eastern ones. I believe our best evidence (e.g., the Mitanni
>horse manual translated into Hittite about 1400BC) is that the domesticated
>horse was established in the Near and Middle East well before it reached the
>Aegean and Greek mainland (or western/central Europe.)  There is no question
>that the horse came from the northern steppes, but the evidence that it came
>into Greece and Anatolia by way of the Balkans is I believe somewhat poor.

There is evidence of Equus caballus in association with some of the Late
Tripolye cultures in the Balkans (e.g. the Usatovo and Cernavoda).  And
Mallory cites the presence of horse-head scepters in an even wider area as
evidence of the importance of the horse to them.  These put the presence of
the steppe horse in the Balkans back to about 3500 BC, earlier than in
Mesopotamia and Asia.

>I'm having a bit of a problem seeing a pattern here.  And after looking at
>Renfrew again, I have to wonder how much Indo-European cultures crisscrossed
>back and forth over each other.

Probably quite a bit.

>  The notion that the Ukraine may have just
>been a stop along the way - not for Proto-Indo-Europeans but for an early
>group of IE speakers - keeps sneaking back as a possibility when you find
>such a large potential range for IE when historical records show up.  And
>when your first evidence of IE in the Ukraine is not Greek or western IE but
>rather Scythian, which is most often associated with Iranian and the east.

On the other hand, the arrival of the Scytians is moderately well
documented as being somewhat late.  And the core homeland of the Iranian
peoples east of the Caspian is *directly* adjacent to the Ukrainian steppes.

>(And Mycenaean or pre-Mycenaean Greek remains have not been found along the
>north shore of the Black Sea.)

I rather suspect that much of the distinctive cultural characteristics of
the Greeks developed *after* they moved south and came into contact with
civilization.  Indeed, the language itself is probably fairly recent when
they first appear in history.

>And this whole question of toponyms in Greece.  Why don't we encounter this
>problem so extensively in northern and western Europe?

Umm, there are *numerous* old IE toponyms throughout Europe, many of which
do not have the form of words from the IE branch later attested in the
area.  It is just that in Europe the IE languages are not attested until so
much later that the exact relationships are obscured

> We know there was an
>existing population there from well before 2000 BC or even 4000 BC.  What
>happened to that substrate?

It is likely still there to some degree.  There are also many old toponyms
in Europe that are *not* IE in nature.  There are also a *great* many words
in Pokorny (and the other IE dictionaries) that are only attested in the
European branches of the family.  Many of these are very likely substratal
borrowings from the pre-IE languages of Europe.  (Many of words with
reconstructed *a show this pattern).

>  Why aren't there all these non-IE or unknown IE
>place names distributed all over Europe?

There are.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com



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