Fallow Deer

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/6/01 3:02:02 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
mclasutt at brigham.net writes:

> The Persian Fallow Deer (Dama mesopotamica or Dama dama mesopotamica) did,
> indeed, exist (and was common) throughout Asia Minor before the modern era.
> It's butchered bones have been found as far west as Cyprus and the Aegean
> littoral.

-- thank you; that _is_ interesting.

It also reinforces the point that the PIE vocabulary lacks terms for the
fauna specific to the southern and middle "tier" of Eurasia -- the
mediterranean zone, Asia Minor, Iran, the Levant.

It _does_ have a fairly complete vocabulary for the _northern_ part of
Eurasia; the zone that stretches from the middle Urals into eastern Europe.
Bears, wolves, aurochs, red deer, elk, etc., yes;  lions, leopards,
tigers, chamois, fallow deer, no.

When you combine this with the existance of specifically PIE loans in
proto-Finno-Ugrian, which by pretty well universal consent had an urheimat
in the central and northern Urals...