About the Yew1

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/19/2001 10:00:49 PM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:
<<The distribution of the yew (Taxus baccata) has some bearing on the IE
homeland problem. The variety of yew-names in IE languages indicates that the
plant was unknown to PIE-speakers. According to the map at www.conifers.org,
the yew is not found between the Carpathians and the Urals, with the
exception of Ciscaucasia, Crimea, and lowlands NW of Crimea. Hence we don't
want to put the homeland _too_ close to the Black Sea or the Caucasus; it
should be further north.>>

The same map, of course -- at www.conifers.org -- shows that the yew is also
currently NOT "found" in all of northern Anatolia or along the lower Danube
in a region that looks like it may reach Hungary.

So one may also want to put that old homeland a bit farther east or a bit
farther south.  At least based on where the yew is said to be now.

It's a different question where the yew was 5500 - 7500 years ago.  The
conifers web site itself cites "Hartzell, The Yew Tree, 1991" for the
statement: "Some palynological evidence suggests that the yew was
substantially more abundant in Europe during the late Pleistocene (10,000
years ago)."   This is a little off the current data.  But relevant perhaps
to the Anatolian hypothesis, where the yew may have been even less "abundant."

Actually there have been dramatic changes in tree populations and
distributions over the last 8,000 years in Europe.  Perhaps the most
surprising - discovered by the first British C-14  analyzers - was the almost
complete and dramatically quick wipe-out of the elm about 3500BC.  At first
attributed to neolithic farmers, it is now considered to have been the result
of climatic changes -- observable also in the range of other species --
causing perhaps a sudden susceptibility to disease.  A pretty good,
relatively recent web site for information about the sometimes drastic
changes in tree distribution and ranges during the Holocene can be found at
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercEUROPE.html.

One will note there that at the end of the Younger Dryas (7000-6000BC), the
tree distribution in Europe was completely different than it is today.  In
the north, we appear to have steppes.  In the south as far as Crete,
"'northern' deciduous species (e.g. hornbeam - Carpinus, deciduous oaks) were
either dominant or abundant in what is presently savanna evergreen oak
woodland, pine woodland or scrub."  In the north, the steppes were gradually
replaced by conifers where there are deciduous trees today.  The yew mainly
occurs as groves in oak forests (sub-oceanic, moisture wise) and this should
be relevant to where the yew was back then.  (The famous "iceman" of the Alps
is carrying yew bow and axe handle in a region where the yew is rare today.)

Also on the web site is some info on the transition that the forests went
through, the effects of climatic change, human deforestation and the Black
sea flood during the 5000-2000BC period.  There are some maps showing the
expansion of the steppes climate in both the Ukraine and Anatolia.

On another note, a good example of how drastic the changes could be on a
local basis is the Aran Islands: "Those familiar with the treeless topography
of the Aran Islands might be surprised to know that only a few thousand years
ago, Inishere was covered with trees, particularly oak, pine, elm, hazel,
alder, birch and willow and then, later on, yew.... Most of the pollen
recovered during the first half of the Holocene was from trees....  The top
two metres of sediment includes rye pollen, an indication of early farming on
Inishere and a crop grown to this day."

The sometimes late appearance of yew again suggests that the distribution of
yew was not and is not a matter of nature acting alone.

Most modern yew forests seem to be relicts or matters of human cultivation.
Killarney National Park brags that it has one of only three surviving yew
woods in Europe.  The largest concentration of yew in Europe are currently
found in the Carpathians, totaling 20,000 hectares.  This may be attributed
perhaps to the foresight of Polish Kings in the 1400's who banned the cutting
of yew and other trees that were being depleted, across southern Poland and
the then-Polish province of the Ukraine.

In Bulgaria, the government acted to give total protection to the yew and
other "relict" trees in 1989.  At that time, it was observed that the region
may not have had many such trees "in ancient times."  On the other hand, the
Crimean yews may date back to a time when the yew was more widespread in the
Ukraine, even in neolithic times.  Or they may have even been introduced by
trade with hypothetical PIEists.  See Dickson, J.H., The Yew tree (Taxus
baccata L.) in Scotland - native or early introduction or both? (PNN 1994).

In "The archaeology of wood", in the S. Econ. Botany newsletter (1998:1), Jon
Hather wrote:  "The postglacial colonisation of Northern Europe - by trees
such as oak, elm, lime, beech, pine and spruce - was more than just an
ecological event.  From well before the advent of agriculture, and some 5500
years ago, the long straight dogwood and hazel struts of a fishtrap found in
Zealand, Denmark, are some of the earliest evidence of woodland
management....  Woodland ecology and local culture were evolving together...
A strange find by the Thames in east London has been yew - a wetland
situation quite unlike its current habitats.... Evidence for the gradual
disappearance of large trees can be gleaned from the carving of bowls
sideways, i.e. not from transverse sections."

With regard to the Ukraine I have: "The territory of Ukraine is mostly a
level, treeless plain, called "steppe". There are the Crimean Mountains in
the Crimean peninsula and the Carpathians in the west, but they are not very
high. Mixed forests of pine and fir-trees, beeches, limes, oaks and elms
cover the mountains, but the thickest woods can still be found in the
northern part of the republic, in Volyn.  Kiev and Cherkassy lie in the midst
of Ukrainian southernmost pine forest."

I am not clear on this, but I suspect that 6000 years ago, most of the
Ukraine's pine forest would have been deciduous oak and therefore may have
included yew.  This might suggest that the yew premise either puts PIE on the
steppes with no tree names at all.  Or farther to the north in tall pine
Russia.  Or -- of course -- in Anatolia or along the Danube.

My real problem with all this is that the "yew" is not really that
recognizable as a tree or as a wood.  And there is evidence that the name was
not altogether that stable, even among cultures that had writing and could
communicate long-distances about something as local and variable as the
appearance of a tree.  Even if PIEists knew the tree, chances are they would
have soon confused it with other trees.

The main problem I think with using the yew word to locate PIE is, of course,
that the "yew" was not always a "yew."  And this only makes sense, since
trees don't move and that means what you call a yew or don't call a yew and
what I call a yew in the next valley could be two different trees -- up until
such time as we obtain Polaroid cameras. Or up until we get around to cutting
them down and selling the wood, scrapping their bark for extract or perhaps
in the case of the yew, eating their berries.  It would be the by-products,
not the tree, that we could discuss in common.

I try to get to all that in my next post.

Regards,
Steve Long