GREEK PREHISTORY AND LANGUAGE

[Sean Crist]

On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, Stanley Friesen wrote:

> Except that Renfrew can only reach this "conclusion" by ignoring many facts
> about PIE that are quite secure (e.g. the universality of *ekwos, and the
> original distinction between wlkwos and kuoon) and which are inconsistent
> with what is known about early Neolithic culture (no domesticated equids
> and no domesticated dog).

In fairness to Renfrew, *ekwos is not probative.  It's true that the horse
had not been domesticated at the early date for PIE unity which Renfrew
postulates; but you need not have domesticated the horse to have a word
for it.  The PIE speakers could have been hunting wild horses for their
meat, for example.

  \/ __ __    _\_     --Sean Crist  (kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu)
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