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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> <3aen6l$g6b@pilot.njin.net> <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com> <hubey.785359521@pegasus.montclair.edu> <sarimaCzrB1K.917@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 11:55:10 GMT
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sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:


>Second, the Harappan culture seems to have died on its own,
>probably due to the loss of the trade routes to Akkadia and
>Egypt with the fall of civilization there around 2000 BC.

But this could be said of any culture. The Romans were
already "dead" but the time of the Huns. But neither the
HUns nor the Germanic tribes that they uprooted and threw
against the Romans made any dent in the languages of the
southern Europe.

One could say that the Arabs took advantage of the
weakened state of the Byzantines and Iranians but so what?
Byzantium held out. Iranians still don't speak Arabic. But
Egypt finally did become ARabized. So there's some other
thing happening.


>Eh, the presence of several highly developed, technological
>civilizations in the area wouldn't discourage them?  Besides,

I thought the Aryans had the edge with their horses, cattle
and superior mobility and weapons. How could the Sumerians
who succumbed to the Semites fended themselves against such
powerful groups who were their neighbors in Iran and in the
north--Hittites, Kassites, Mitanni.


>Another factor in the Mesopotamian region is the close proximity
>of the Semitic homelands in Arabia - providing a ready source
>of "barbarians" to overrun the area more quickly than the more
>remote IE peoples could.

That's the problem. If the ARyans started off from their
Kurgan area and reached Iran in enough force to overrun it
and still had enough steam left to reach India and overrun them
how could they turn away from such a rich land as Mesopotamia
and right before their eyes?



>>>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).

Adventuring nomads needing trade routes? What an idea?
[please see below]

>>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.

>That is later in time!  The Phoenicians didn't start their
>major colonizations until the latter part of the 2nd millenium
>BC or the early part of the 1st millenium BC.  (In fact as
>far as I can tell, the Phoenicians didn't even *exist* in
>the fourth millenium - though it is hard to tell).

Phonecian as in being named by somebody or phonecian as
in semitic peoples living along the mediterranean coast?

Semites had broken out of the arabian peninsula perhaps
as early as 6-8,000 years ago? {I'm not sure about these
dates. I've been busy working on another book. And I had not
intention of getting caught up in this but I thought I'd
take a short break.}


>Remember, the major early IE spread occured in the late fourth
>and early 3rd millenium.  The incursion into India was rather late,
>and can be considered the last gasp of the original diaspora.

We're skipping around. Let's try to remember that these
wonderful adventurers with their speedy steeds that could
travel over wild steppes, deserts of Asia and over mountains
did not need trade routes.

And of course,this becomes even more difficult to comprehend.
How could the last gasp take over a continent when the more
powerful early expansions couldn't even overwhelm Sumeria.

It might be easier to understand if the big wars occurred over
a long time in Asia finally weakening the Harappans. After all,
the Chinese were forced to erect a huge wall to keep out the 
nomadic incursions. Perhaps the Harappans were even more powerful
and the centuries of struggle with the powerful neighbors to the
north, who were living in a drying land and fighting among [perhaps]
even themselves and trying to find a new home, some of them even trekking
off toward unknown lands east and west rather than face the 
choice of either starving in central asia or dying fighting the
Harappans. Maybe over a period of centuries, some of the smaller
tribes had already broken off and wandered off in search of better
pasture and weaker neighbors than the Harappans or whoever it
was in India at the time.


>Sigh - there is the little issue of there already being people
>there.  Invasions are usually driven by some sort of desperation,
>some level of privation.  Or else there needs to be a major
>difference in technology level. Under normal conditions borders
>tend to be relatively stable for long periods.

Yes, that makes sense. Invasians are usually  by some
sort of desperation. I hope that is reasoning applies
everywhere, not just north of greece.




>The problem is that this was Neolithic/Early Copper Age
>local trade - village to village, not the organized long
>range trade routes of the big civilizations in Mesopotamia,
>Egypt, and India.  And, unfortunatly for us, the Sumerian
>and Akkadian trade routes just did *not* reach much past
>eastern Anatolia.  And the peripheral sea trade only hit
>the coastal areas of Greece and Italy, and didn't really
>penetrate indland.


WE have the same problem again. This is at best reverse
engineering. We don't see Sumerian stuff there so there was
no trade. Maybe there wasn't or maybe it was too expensive
or maybe we haven't found any yet. In any case, it doesn't
matter much as to whether they were there for a very long time
or whether they had arrived there a little earlier and either
overpowered who ever lived there or found great pasturage
and did not bother [for a while] to go further south and
explore. This is like a story one can make up as one goes
along. Not much of a science.


>The result is that the only people of that time that were
>writing, the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Harrapans, simply
>never came into contact with the very earliest IE peoples.

>It was only with the expansion of the Hittites into Anatolia,
>and the Greeks into Greece, that IE peoples entered history.
>And it was the extension of trade routes deep into the northland
>by their heirs that the Pontine steppes were brought into contact
>with literate civilization - long years after the break up of the
>PIE unity.

I don't have any problems with when they entered into history. 

>Remember - it is *not* certain that PIE lacked a word for "sea".
>That is the main point.  The other bit was just to show that
>the other possiblity was quite possible.  Certainly the
>Sredny Stog culture does not seem to have not reached to the sea.
>And if I am right, that is the original PIE speaking culture.

It did not have a word for "sea" as far as what I've read. Even
central asians like Turkic peoples have a word for "sea", and
how knows it might even be cognate with IE; it's "deniz" or
"tenngiz". It sounds like, with some twisting, it could be
changed into "don", "danu" or since lots of IE words like to
end in _s, maybe "danus".

--
						-- 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
