Renfrew's Celtic Scenario

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
>By 4000BC, there is enough differentiation between regional expressions of
>Bandkeramik to suggest that the former cultural unities are giving way to
>local identities in western Europe and north of the Alps

In a message dated 2/10/00 1:27:28 AM, sarima at friesen.net wrote:
<<Let's see, cultural unity maintained over much of Europe from 4900 BC to
ca. 4000 BC.  I don't believe it! Even 900 years is too long for
maintenance of unity over that scale sans motor vehicles.  The fact that
the Bandkeramik culture *appears* uniform over this span is almost
certainly an illusion due to lack of access to more distinctive sorts of
artifacts (clothing, jewelry, paintings, etc.).>>

I perhaps am not phrasing that correctly.  Bandkeramik is going through changes
throughout this period and there is also quite a bit of local variation
arising.  There's a neat website by the Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
Erlangen and Wolfgang Weißmüller called Middle Europe (north of the alps)
from 5500 to 780 BC (http://www.uf.uni-erlangen.de/karten/karten.  html).
You'll see there maps showing the different 'technocomplexes" in an abstract
kind of geographical positioning at different periods.  You'll also see by
looking at the maps how local variations started popping up and increasing, so
that that the last complex called Bandkeramik (Stichbandkeramik) on the maps
has kind of been eaten away by 4200BC and is gone in the next map.

Nothing like this sort of uniformity again appears on those maps all the way
to the last one at 780BC.

What the maps don't show is the population changes.  So that you don't see
how the population and number of settlement tremendously increases and in
themselves create a very distinct sudden increase in variation.

You must remember that at the beginning and for a while we are dealing witha
very small number of settlements with small numbers of settlers - so there
just isn't much to vary.

Somewhat parallel is the English colonization of the American Atlantic coast.
 In @1615, you have few settlements and less than perhaps 500 colonists that
are uniformally English in their practices and physical remains.  As time
goes on, the English/european character of the colonies doesn't change much
at all for a century and a half, but then when change comes it accelerates
very rapidly.

Farming techniques, trades and materials take on a distinctly American look
and character, and then begin to get quite regional.  Of course we have no
parallel for the population growth and cultural changes of modern times - but
if you look at those 400 years you can see an underlying consistency in
culture throughout - including language.

Linguistically, the American Atlantic coast is certainly not speaking the
same English it did in 1615, but it is still clearly English.

When Barlowe describes the Native Americans living on the Outer Banks in
1588, it's in an English that is plainly readable today.  "This island had
many goodly woods, full of Deere, Conies, Hares and Fowles, in incredible
abundance...  Such a flocke of Cranes arose under us, with such a cry
redoubled by many Ecchoes, as if an armie of men had showted all together....
{and the locals were] Very handsome, and goodly people, and in their manner
as mannerly, and civill, as any of Europe."  There is no comprehensibility
problem here even after 400 years and through a lot more changes than the
Bandkeramik folk could ever have experienced.

But of course whatever uniformity there may have been in the speech and
culture of those 1615 colonists, regional differences arose that by 1840 were
noted by many observers that reflect real material differences - we can read
constant references to the "Yankee Nation" of the New Englander.

If one can picture a slower rate of change than the 19th and 20th Centuries
gave us, it is not hard to see a small number of "peripherally conservative"
colonists slowly weening themselves from the traditions they carried from the
Danube.  And that slowness first of all was a matter of slow initial
population expansion which only changes about 4600BC - despite what
JoatSimeon at aol.com has been writing, I still only find for example a single
Bandkeramik settlement in modern France before 5000BC.  Agriculture at first
thins population density.  It's possible that early Bandkeramik in western
Europe represented under a few thousand people before 5000BC, but much more
in central Europe.  The first real expansion in population and settlements
appears to have been more by way of neighboring mesolithic neighbors than by
any further colonization from the Danube.

Another factor was the strikingly regimented practices of the early
Bandkeramik settlers - which allowed them to move as quickly across the
geography the way they did - it was like prefab housing construction.  There
were not a lot of these settlers, but they were almost religious in the way
they ritualized their settlements. (Amish settlers in the US come to mind.)
These settlements were very uniform until about 4600BC.  Then the population
starts to soar and it seems something like rock n roll has been introduced
and the local "technocomplexes" start to come up all over.  There are some
new more general practices like megaliths that show up, but most innovation
is local.  The underlying culture - settlement practices, the long houses,
etc. however seems to remain Bandkeramik in central Europe until about
3500BC.  Then the local and regional variations completely take over and the
influence of kurgan is felt in the east and south of this zone.  You'll see
it on the maps on the web site I mentioned.

<<In fact it is the changes at the 4200 and/or 4000 BC levels that are most
likely associated with the spread of PIE.>>

I can't of course be sure about this, but I think that the simplier
explanation is that the uniformity was already disappearing at this point and
the basic populations and possibly language were in place and divisions were
starting to occur.  None of these would have been Celtic or even necessarily
pre-Celtic at this point, of course.

I can't say you are wrong.  But it feels like narrow PIE has already happened
and now there are a whole bunch of IE's that have just formed.  Perhaps
Kurgan a bit later is like Latin or English, a singular IE influence coming
in from the east.  I think of how Hispanic culture has grown so strongly in
the US.  The subtle change in the language is obvious.  It use to be the hot
dog (frankfurter/weiner) that was the number one food of the American summer.
 Now Nachos, Tacos, Chilli and Burritoes are king.

In fact, I look forward to the day 5000 years from now, when <nacho> is used
as evidence for dating the last days of Hispano-American unity.

Regards,
Steve Long