Dating the final IE unity (was: Re: GREEK PREHISTORY AND LANGUAGE)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/15/99 12:23:37 AM, Sean Crist wrote:

<<In an earlier post, I suggested that the speakers of Greek entered Greece
around 2100-1900 BCE.  Steven Long suggested that the SPEAKERS of Greek could
have been in Greece as early as 7000 BCE, and cites Renfrew as a source.>>
(caps mine)

Actually what I wrote was:
<<Based on the [archaeological] evidence above, there is NOTHING TO PRECLUDE
the conjecture that "Greeks were in Greece" during or even before the
Neolithic.  If one connects PIE with the first appearance of agriculture (a
la Renfrew), then that could move the date of "proto-Greek" OR ITS ANCESTORS
being in mainland Greece back towards 7000BC.>>

My first point of course was that there was no evidence of material culture
to PRECLUDE Greek, proto-Greek or IE speakers from being in Greece before the
dates Crist gave (2100-1900 BCE).  Crist referred to material evidence that
is apparently not there.

My second point was that IF you follow Renfrew, the material evidence of the
spread of neolithic agriculturalism might date essentially the same people
speaking an ancestor language of Greek as far back as 7000 BC.  This is NOT
inconsistent with the archaeological evidence, BTW.  And that is a VERY
IMPORTANT POINT.

Colin Renfrew's Archaeology and Language - given its date - is a formidable
piece precisely because it sticks with the hard evidence and appraises it
objectively.  And though I admire Mallory's In Search of... very much, it
should be said that Mallory's summaries of Renfrew's arguments are not
complete.  I'll try to point to certain items specifically in a later post.

I'm beginning to suspect that the 4000BC "last date of PIE unity" is pretty
much a linguistic conclusion and - be it right or wrong - the material
evidence does not especially favor that date versus an earlier one.

With regard to Renfrew's approach, Crist writes the following:
<<...the introduction of the agricultural cultural complex thru Europe is the
result of a population movement from Anatolia to the Balkans during the 7th
millenium BCE (which Renfrew accepts).  We're also forced to say that the
spread of the Indo-European languages implies a population movement.
Renfrew's response is to try to collapse these two migrations into one, thus
keeping the number of migrations to a minimum.>>

Actually, there are a better reason given by Renfrew for equating the spread
of neolithic agriculturalism with the spread of Proto-IndoEuropean.  Not the
least of which is the extent of IE dispersal at those periods in time when
ACTUAL DOCUMENTABLE EVIDENCE of language becomes available.

I once tried to find holes in the Neolithic Hypothesis on this list based on
the archaeological evidence.  Miguel Carrasquer Vidal did a darn good job of
presenting the case in a thread called appropriately "the Neolithic
Hypothesis" that may be preserved in the archives.  The strength of his
explanations is that he does know the archaeological evidence as well as the
linguistic.

Sean Crist goes on to write re Renfrew's theory:
<<Unfortunately, this solution cannot be made to work without ignoring a
huge amount of evidence.>>

I'm not sure what "huge amount of evidence" Sean is referring to.

Crist wrote:
<<An archaeologist here at Penn told me that he
was very "annoyed" at Renfrew for having put forward this view, and said
that if anyone with less than Renfrew's prestige had put it forward, it
simply would have been ignored as not worthy of consideration.>>

It's funny how much worse ideas can get through based on "prestige."  One
particular example comes to mind.

If there were any reason for archaeologists to be "annoyed" it would probably
be because they are becoming wary of conclusions many beginning to take the
position the evidence they are collecting to be particulary probative of
ethnic or linguistic conclusions in general.  Especially because of recent
accusations of allowing their work to support cultural bias.

In response to my request for an evaluation of another item that has been
discussed on this list, one rather eminent practioner simply wrote back to me:

<<Archeologist have become increasingly unhappy using
terms based upon language for labeling cultures which are
prehistoric--ie the culture has left no written documents upon which a
historican can exercise analysis. With rare exceptions, physical artefacts do
not include evidence about the language used by those who left the artefacts
recovered.>>

Regards,
Steve Long