European Genetics/IE

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/25/01 6:31:05 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
philjennings at juno.com writes:

> Because if IE stemmed from a creole, even one buried a long time in its
> past, that fact would be detected.  Is this really true?

-- ah... yes.  Creoles have highly distinctive, and extremely similar,
characteristics.

PIE has none of those characteristics; in fact, it's at the extreme opposite
end of the linguistic spectrum.  For example, it's a very highly inflected
language.

> As for the first, the Bactria Margiana Archaeology Complex apparently sprang
> into bloom around 2300bce, and some people think it's the Indo-Iranian
> "homeland."  The big Kurgan breakout was around 2300bce or not much before

-- ah... no.  The mainstream consensus would posit that the original PIE
speakers were roughly coterminous with the Sredny Stog (4500-3500 BCE) and
Yamna cultures of the eastern Ukraine and western Kazakhstan.

The European spread of PIE in the area between the Rhine delta and the Volga
would be associated with the Corded Ware/Battle Axe culture and then its
Beaker offshoot, from around 3200 BCE through the third millenium.

The eastern extension would be the Anafasevo culture of roughly the same
period, which brought the neolithic-pastoral economy to the eastern part of
the steppes, and is often cited as a percusor of the Tocharians.