GREEK PREHISTORY AND IE (EVIDENCE?)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/4/00 12:17:35 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

<<Farming had spread to the whole of the Balkans by 7000 BCE and
well into what's now France by 5000 BCE.  This is unlikely to change, except
possibly for earlier dates for plant/animal domestication.>>

Next 'factoid':  "Farming had spread ... well into what's now France by 5000
BCE."

Actually I have one site in France from this period - at the southern edge of
the Bandkeramik corridor - Cuiry-les-Chaudardes.   I'm not sure that it isn't
slightly later than 5000BC and I'm not sure that it is a Bandkeramik
settlement.  (Any corrections are welcome, please.)

However, core analysis of pollen deposits indicating forest clearance and the
growth of domesticated plants have not yielded dates in France earlier than I
believe 4600BC.  The earliest Bandkeramik style sites in France I have been
able to find is at Larzicourt which I believe yields a date of @4700BC.
(Corrections, please, of course.)

(Once again, any sign of farming by itself quite obviously does not correlate
to the spread of IE languages.  The origins of farming in the Near East - for
example - do not appear to involve PIE.)

As to your statement - ""Farming had spread ... well into what's now France
by 5000 BCE."

It appears that a more correct statement is that evidence of farming appears
in France before 5000BC.

It also appears that a more correct statement is that the evidence indicates
"Farming had spread ... well into what's now France by @4500 BCE."

This would be about the time - maybe a little later - that colonists from the
Danube area would have populated the area sufficiently to settle in and begin
to differentiate in their language.

The circumstance is perhaps similiar to the first appearance of Spanish
settlers in the Americas (@1492) and the differentiation in one sees in Latin
American Spanish in 2000AD - 500 years later.

Steve Long