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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
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References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <hubey.784662659@pegasus.montclair.edu> <sarimaCzE1yE.2w7@netcom.com> <3aen6l$g6b@pilot.njin.net> <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 19:25:21 GMT
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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?

>As far as I am concerned, the oldest good evidence for IE speakers
>in Anatolia is Troy II, which has a megalon style building.  This
>at least *suggests* that the IE speakers entered Anatolia from
>the Balkans.

OK. But then they must have either gone through Greece or 
sidestepped *Greece* for it doesn't seem to be recognizably or
acceptedly an IE language until the "coming of the Greeks"
circa 2000 BC.

The "Aryans" seem to have gone as far as India around the same
time, so it's hard to understand why it took them so long to
travel a few hundred miles south and/or how they got so far
east in such a short time and manage to overwhelm the Harappans.

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?

>>Wouldn't this place be a strange place for an ethnic group
>>to be isolated from the rest of the world for a long time?
>>And isn't it a little odd for these people not to have 
>>a word for "sea"?

>Prior to the time that the Cimmerians entered history, this
>area was well outside of the zone of civilization.  None of
>the oldest major trade routes went through that way - although
>there is evidence that the Pontic Steppes traded with the
>Balkans for bronze (a rather short trade route on the periphery
>of civilization).

If civilization means Middle East yes there are no known such
records. But it is likely/possible that Greece was a Phonecian
colony at one time [one of the archaelogy magazines few years
ago had an article like this]. And the Phonecians were great 
sailors like the Iberians, they probably would have gotten as
far as the Crimea. Even then it still doesn't explain why
the area north of the Black Sea is *isolated*. A few hundred
miles south takes them to Greece. People were making it
accross the Alps thousands of years ago. What was stopping
these folks from going slightly south? And how did they
get there if it was so difficult?

>A steppe tribe in that area would not necessarily be fully aware
>of the Black Sea for what it was, since they would live mostly
>furhter indland.  However, it is *not* clear that PIE had no

There are no natural barriers in those posited lands
that would stop any of them from reaching the sea. If they
could make it accross the Bosphorus they could have gone a few
hundred miles south.

--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
