Renfrew and IE Overlords

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>Renfrew's neolithic hypothesis stretches the information but how does it
>stretch the linguistic assumptions?

-- it doesn't just stretch them, it does massive violence to them.  If
Renfrew is right, then comparative/historical linguistics is completely
wrong, and vice versa.

Furthermore, for Renfrew to be right, the mechanisms of linguistic evolution
must have been completely different in prehistoric times from anything
observed since.

Eg., for Renfrew's hypothesis to be true, proto-Celtic would have had to
remain totally uniform over an area stretching from Central Europe to Ireland
for 4,000 years, and then start changing rapidly as soon as we look at it.

Is this likely?  No.

>Is it enough to simply say that the earliest possible date of PIE dispersal
>is now 3300BC?  Or is there something that now goes on with the linguistic
>analysis that might alter other assumptions or conclusions?

-- the data indicate that the period of PIE unity can't have been much
earlier than that; the earliest attested IE languages are just too similar.
Not to mention, again, the technological vocabulary.

>You use the phrase assumptions that historical linguistics "is built upon."
>And that is perhaps an issue I am running into.  Is historical linguistics
>finished being built?

-- in detail, no. In broad outline, yes, as far as Indo-European is concerned.