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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
Message-ID: <CzLKIF.D7@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <3aen6l$g6b@pilot.njin.net> <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com> <hubey.785359521@pegasus.montclair.edu>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 03:03:51 GMT
Lines: 53

In article <hubey.785359521@pegasus.montclair.edu>,
H. M. Hubey <hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu> wrote:
>sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>>No, as Kartvelian is NOT a subgroup of the Caucasian languages,
>>but a seperate major family.  There is *no* trace of any Kartvelian
>>language outside of the Caucasus as yet.
>
>OK, so now Caucasian refers to some of the North Caucasus languages.
>But I don't understand the remark about *traces"; are there any
>traces of any language like Circassian or Chechen or Lesghian
>outside of the Caucasus?

If Hurrian-Urartian is indeed a Caucasian language (as seems likely),
then that's a "trace" of this family outside of the Caucasus.
OK, it's as close to the Caucasus as you can get without being
there, but the region were Hurrian was spoken is definitely not
*in* the Caucasus.

>There are further questions: Unless the IE folks liked living in
>harsh lands, there's no explanation of why they conquered/settled
>Anatolia, Iran, India, Central Asia while gingerly avoiding 
>the "Land Between the Rivers". The same problem occurs in the
>Gamkrelidze scenario too. HOw come they couldn't/wouldn't go
>south toward the Syrian coast or toward Egypt or Mesopotamia
>but instead went straight through all the way to India, rounded
>the Caspian and then went south to overwhelm whoever was in
>Greece at the time?

The Gamkrelidze scenario is silly, as is Renfrew's "hypothesis A"
on the origin of the Aryans.  The only possible explanation for
the "coming of the Greeks" and the "coming of the Aryans" is a
nomadic people based on the Eurasian steppe.  You can compare
the Huns (Europe) / White Huns (India) invasions of historical
times, or indeed the Turk/Mongol invasions of the Middle Ages.

By the same token, the nomadic scenario (Gimbutas, Mallory..)
cannot explain Italic, Celtic, Germanic [and Balto-Slavic ?] in 
Southern, Western and Northern Europe.  Nor can it explain the
archaic nature of Hittite/Anatolian vs. the rest of Indo-European.

I believe that Renfrew (and Bosch-Gimpera, Colin McEvedy...) are
correct in thinking that the initial agriculturization of Europe
("Neolithic wave of advance") was done by speakers of Indo-European.
An offshoot settled the steppe lands of the Ukraine, where a nomadic 
way of life was developed after the domestication of the horse.  The
movements of this (Indo-Greek, or "Kurgan") branch of Indo-European 
consitute the second phase of IE expansion.

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
