IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics

[Stanley Friesen]

At 12:22 AM 2/1/00 -0600, Rick Mc Callister wrote:
>	You're talking about massive upheavals triggered by the arrival of
>major imperialist powers poseessing overwhelming technical advantages. This
>was not an everyday occurance. Of course there were major migrations in
>South Africa and the Americas after Europeans arrived --but because of
>extraordinary events.

This is not clear.  There is reasonable evidence, from various lines of
argument, for prior migrations.  But in the absence of written records,
these are harder to substantiate.  For instance, one point of view on the
combined linguistic and cultural evidence places the Proto-Souixan peoples
in the Ohio Valley, which they left *prior* to the arrival of Europeans.
(These were the ancestors not only of the Dakota, but also certain other
tribes, ones that *preceded* the Dakota into the Great Plains).

Also, it is extremely unlikely that the Navaho migrations were triggered by
European incursion.  First, they moved from the Northwest (probably modern
western Canada) into the Southwest.  This is the wrong direction for an
event triggered by Europeans.  Second, the migration was rather earlier,
before significant European presence in western North America.

[It is not even certain the Dakota migration westward can be laid at the
feet of Europeans - the proximal cause was war with neighboring tribes,
especially the Ojibwa]

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com