Dhegiha prehistory, cont.

[Rankin, Robert L]

I think that linguists often underestimate the time depths they are working
with.  This was true of American archaeology until the advent of technical
dating systems too.  There have been numerous statements over the years
about Dhegiha languages that have posited a split in the years immediately
preceding Columbus.  If that were the case, there would indeed be a conflict
between my views and those held by John, and there would be very little
temporal wiggle-room.

The Oneota archaeological complex in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa is
roughly 1000 years old.  I tend to believe the splits in Dhegiha are older
however.  There is no real way to prove this, although I've tried by showing
that Omaha-Ponca, Kansa-Osage and Quapaw borrowed different Algonquian words
for 'bow'.  There are few such diagnostic words however, and there are even
possible alternative explanations for 'bow'.

Reduced to analogy, I'd look to languages like Spanish and Portuguese. These
are often said to be mutually intelligible (although, outside of bare-bones
communication, they are not).  If you look at the earliest texts from
Span./Port. dating conveniently from about 1000 years ago (like Oneota), you
see that most of the features distinguishing these two languages were
already in place.  So the split between them is considerably earlier that 1K
years ago, and really dates from the earliest Roman occupation.  That is,
the Span/Port time depth is nearly equal to the overall Romance time depth
of 2000+ years.

Now, if Dhegiha is similarly old, there would be plenty of time for them to
have originated, as they must have, with the rest of Mississippi Valley
Siouan and STILL have occupied the lower Ohio Valley at some more recent
time.  The Oneota similarities I still ascribe to contact and diffusion of
the pottery style.

I leave the question of geographical location for MVS as a whole open. At
approx. 2000 years, I don't know where they were.  The only real hint we
have is the historical location of the other subgroups plus Yuchi and
Catawba, and that doesn't tell us who did the moving.

Bob