Renfrew and IE Overlords

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/28/99 3:47:23 AM, sarima at ix.netcom.com wrote:

<<Well, unless he [Renfrew] has *seriously* improved his argument on this
from what he presented in his book, it is woefully inadequate a response.>>

Well, at the time that Archaeology & Language was published, Renfrew's main
argument was with the "majority" theory at the time - which placed IE's
dispersal at 2500BC (Childe-Kossina-Gimbutas).

Quite possibly the book was the stroke that "demolished" that theoretical
date - not the least by pointing out to archaeologists that "the date is not
based on any clear linguistic argument; it is not really a linguistic
argument at all.  It is a conclusion based on consensus.  Yet it is taken by
archaeologists as linguistic evidence,...  There is therefore a complete
circularity.  And in this case it would appear that the consensus may be in
error."  (A&L Cambridge Univ paperback p166)

Now, the new "consensus" date has backed to 4000BC in the recent posts on
this list.  But I wouldn't bet the ranch on it staying there.  Partly because
the actual evidence for picking that date is not much stronger than the old
2500BC date.

One important thing that Renfrew's book did was to bring objectivity back to
archaeology - so that "circular" support for conclusions could be reexamined
and stripped of their presumptions.  The kind Mallory points to in describing
the way that the IE homeland was once placed in the Himalayas, yielding
golden haired horsemen with bronze swords who brought not only elite
dominance but a language to go with it to whoever it was who was living in
Europe at the time.

<<Indeed, I quite agree that IE probably spread largely by elite dominance,
with only the tribal overlords actually migrating to the new areas.>>

And where exactly did these IE speaking "overlords" get their supposed
dominance? It certainly wasn't the horse, which shows no sign of being a
factor in seige or decisive war before 1000BC. And the chariot was just a
platform for conveying war leaders around in Homer.  The wheel is late
neolithic - TRB.  And swords appear on Crete 100's of years before they do in
mainland Greece.  It wasn't archers.  And it wasn't armor.

This business about a few IE speakers being able to come in and convert the
language of an entire people seems to be a vestige of19th Century jingoism
more than it seems to reflect any hard evidence.  If anything, we could just
as easily see any steppe "invaders" of central or southern or even western
Europe turning around and adopting the language of the folk who were already
there.

<<In many ways, I see the spread of European languages to Polynesia, and the
spread of Latin into most of Europe, as the best models for the spread of IE
languages in prehistory.>>

But Latin's prestige didn't come from a bunch of headbashing riders off the
steppes.  The advantages of Latin had to do with access to trade, crafts,
technology and much personal advancement that no profile of a pastoralist IE
speaking barbarian could appear to offer.  The same applies to Polynesia.  The
 theory of some small group of technologically advanced soldiers coming in
and converting primitives does not fit the evidence in the areas where IE
becomes documented at all - UNLESS IE was already the language family of the
original inhabitants of those areas.  And the small group of "overlords" were
assimilated.

In fact that model does work unless the invader has a steady flow of
technologically advanced resources and/or sheer population numbers shoring
him up.  That was the case in the new world.  On the other hand,  the French
don't speak Frankish.  The English do not speak Anglo-Norman or Danish.
Italians don't speak Odacer's language.  And Slavic has consumed a long list
of "dominant elite" languages like they were just popcorn at the ballpark.
When history starts being recorded, small groups of warrior elites are
definitely not the source of language change - except in cases of genocide -
and it takes more than just a few tribal overlords to pull that off.

Larry Trask wrote:

<<But Renfrew has expressly argued that many of these words are not substrate
words at all, but rather late borrowings into Greek long after Greece had
become Greek-speaking.>>

sarima at ix.netcom.com replied:

<<In many cases this is difficult to adequately maintain, since the words do
not correspond closely to the words in the likely source cultures.>>

What likely source cultures would you be speaking of?  Minoan?  or Carian?
Or for that matter Thracian or Getae?  We don't have more than ten sure words
(if any) in any of these languages to correspond to - closely or not.

<< Also, place names based on late borrowings are a trifle unusual.   Even
here in the USA, most non-English place names are substratal (Amerindian or
Spanish), and we are notorious polyculturalists.>>

The "late borrowings" do not refer I believe to place names.  Herodotus
however does mention Pelagasian placenames - and he says he does not know
what kind of language Pelagasian is, but that it is not Greek.

Regards,
Steve Long