(Proto-Celtics?)
Gene flow and Indo-Europeans
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 1995 07:36:17 Gene flow and Indo-Europeans
From:
Subject: Gene flow and Indo-Europeans
H. M. Hubey has made readers of this list aware of an interesting article which appeared in the June 24, 1995, issue of Science News concerning evidence from DNA data indicating a gene flow from Anatolia into Europe beginning around 9,000 years BP. Hubey also points out that there is genetic evidence that nomads from the central Eurasian Yamna culture spread westward into Europe approximately 5,500 years ago.
While it is indeed reasonable to link the first migration with the spread of agriculture, it does not follow that those who migrated spoke any form of Indo-European ("Pre-", "Proto-", or dialects thereof). Nor does it follow that "[i]t is possible that both expansions were responsible for the spread of different subfamilies of Indo-European languages..."
We know from cuneiform records that by 3,000 BCE Anatolia was populated (at least in part, if not in full) by people speaking Caucasian languages. In eastern Anatolia, Hurrian and the later attested and closely-related Urartean were spoken. These languages have been convincingly shown by Sergej Starostin and Igor Diakonoff to be related to Northeast Caucasian. In central Anatolia, Hattic was spoken -- this was later replaced by Hittite, an Indo-European language. Diakonoff maintains that Hattic was also a Caucasian language. Finally, Diakonoff has claimed that the language spoken by the Gutians (Qutians) was a Caucasian language.
Moreover, there are no unambiguous references to Indo-European people or languages in written records from the ancient Near East until just before 2,000 BCE, and the first references are to Hittites. It is generally agreed by specialists (for example, Gamkrelidze, Mellaart, Puhvel, Steiner, among others) that the Hittites were invaders who imposed themselves upon populations speaking Caucasian languages (in particular, Hattic).
Thus, there is much stronger evidence that prior to about 2,000 BCE, Anatolia was populated by speakers of Caucasian languages than by speakers of Indo-European languages. Thus, it follows logically that if one were to attempt to correlate gene flow at about 9,000 BP from Anatolia to Europe with language spread that one would tend to think more about very early forms of Caucasian rather than Indo-European.
Allan R. Bomhard
Boston, Massachusetts