Message: On Another Thread, On Another Board
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Mar 18, 1998 09:09
There has been some discussion of this on the board, Ancient Mysteries. The finds continue to be tantalizing. These people were not only tall and red haired, but they also wore checquered garments that appear to be proto plaid. They had a written language by 1500 B.C.E. , but, to my knowledge, these documents have not been published.

Last week James Mallory of Queens College in Belfast spoke at Stanford about new finds in this study. I have not ,as yet, heard what he said but am actively trying to do so. I shall post anything I get.

The most important aspect of the find seems to be that we are required to push our view of the P.I.E peoples further east. DNA research has related all Europeans to China,Unfortunately with no furthur explaination. This may be a clue.

Message: The Language Of The Tocharians
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Mar 19, 1998 08:58
The Tocharian written language will provide a better understanding of origins and relationships. To date, I know of no publication of these finds. As James Mallory is currently lecturing on the subject, I would assume that they are being studied at Queens College in Belfast. The chequered, proto plaid fabrics, of course,point to a Celtic or pre-Celtic connection.

The most saliant point of this find is its indication of a P.I.E. presence futher to the east than we had heretofore expected.

Message: Any colour you like.
Author: the blonde - Capernica Marius
Date: Mar 19, 1998 10:45
Melanin is the protein responsible for hair and skin colour. (And the chroroid of the eye.) Iron is responsible for giving a colour to melanin. However, the colour that iron imparts is determined by the configuration of the melanin protein. Humans can carry six genes for melanin. Four of these code for a black protein. Two of them code for a red protein. The combination of genes you inherit from your parents determines your hair and skin colour. It seems unlikely that a change in iron metabolism would affect hair colour. Neither would the addition of iron nor the defiency of iron would affect hair colour. People with extreme iron deficency get anemia. If the situation isn't corrected, they tend to die. The system becomes generally weak and can't fight off diseases properly. There are also unfortunate souls who cannot get rid of excess iron. The iron builds up first in the liver and the spleen, where iron stores are normally kept (haemosiderosis). If the situation is not corrected, these organs are severely damaged (haemochromatosis). If the iron build up continues, the skin develops a brassy hue. This is due to the presence of iron granules in the skin cells themselves. These people are not long for the world unless they get immediate medical treatment. So it all goes back to the DNA again.

Message: Back on topic.
Author: - Capernica Marius
Date: Mar 19, 1998 10:48
I was under the impression that there were considerably more than two branches of Indo-europeans. There was one group that went into the Indian sub-continent and a smaller one that went into Greece. Could someone please enlighten me?

Message: On the Tocharians...
Author: - Brica Beag
Date: Mar 19, 1998 15:07
I've been following this discovery with great interest and I am glad to hear there is more reserach soon to be available.

But whether or not their hair was "red" really isn't a big issue, the fact they were "caucasian" is what is interesting. Whether their original coloring was red, blonde or brown, their skeletal structure, facial features, burial methods, clothing etc...all lead to the assumptions that they were a group from eastern Europe that did split off and take the long trek to western China. Evidentally Chinese officials had many such mummies in their position for a long time but did not disclose the discoveries because of the impact of caucasians being found in the region dating back to a time much earlier than originally believed.

It was speculated that these peoples, actually were the first to open the "silk road" for trade and also responsible for the introduction of the wheel into China.

I look forward to more information as it is forthcoming.

Message: o let's go with a language
Author: - maia Nestor
Date: Mar 19, 1998 21:52
From my understanding, the PIEs were at the closest, a loosely allied group speaking related tongues. Language doesn't have to tie in with nationality, language has to do with geography. Still, originally, I suppose one can propose a model for intermarriage and such...the problem is that groups splintered off at such different times. I believe the Hittite language, while classified as Indo European, has other elements that make no sense if one considers it to have an IE base...it's thought that this means the Hittites must have arrived in Anatolia much earlier than the Greeks and other IE groups. They then established themselves and took over some of the proto-hittite language...yet I've heard the opposite proposed, that the existing language took on elements of the new people.

Message: If I may throw culture into the mix
Author: - Sulla Didius
Date: Mar 19, 1998 22:15
If I remember correctly, the Indo-Europeans have been traced back to somewhere in central Asia--please correct me if I'm wrong. I suspect that they originated as a single cultural group--i.e., a group of people who shared particular habits of dress, foodways, beliefs, technology, and---language. As their population increased and as they exanded their territory over the centuries, they became more differentiated as each local population followed its own trajectory, ultimately forming what we might define as separate "ethnic" groups. Yet, certain cultural traits--language, in particular--retained enough similarity between the various Indo-European subgroups (Celts, Persians, etc.)that it has been possible to trace, in broad outlines at least, the spread of Indo-European culture throughout portions of the Old World.

The previous has been a rather convoluted statement to the effect that, as Mitrina noted, the Indo-Europeans were a language group who shared a variety of other traits. Time and circumstance would ultimately splinter them into numerous "subcultures" whose common origins would often go unnoticed, either through ignorance or design.

Message: Go West, Young Indo-European
Author: Verbose - Berosus Etana
Date: Mar 20, 1998 18:24

Here's the way I understand how the European branch of the Indo-European tribe got to its present locations.

The Indo-Europeans originated either on the north slopes of the Caucasus mts. (hence the term Caucasian) or in Central Asia. At first movement to the north was severely restricted; a wide estuary connected the Black and Caspian Seas, and a river ran from the Aral Sea to the Caspian. Both of these water barriers were consequences of the ice age. Not only was Europe colder and wetter because glaciers covered half of it, but the ice blocked the northward flow of many Russian and Siberian rivers, diverting their water to the south instead. When the glaciers melted, these bodies of water either shrank or dried up, producing the current topography of the region.

I'll venture that the Indo-Europeans were already divided into several tribes when they started moving; that would explain how we can have Celts in both Europe and NW China (the Tocharians). Modern Europeans are divided into two basic racial groups: Nordics, who have light complexions and hair color, and the darker Mediterranean type (Greeks, Italians, Iberians, etc.). In my opinion the Mediterranean group moved first, and used ships, because all of the ethnic groups descended from them live on or near seashores. I will also go on another limb and suggest that the Iberians once settled France and England as well as Spain and Portugal, and before the Celts ousted them from much of this territory they built the famous Megalithic monuments of Western Europe. The Basques are probably full-blooded descendants of them; by contrast today's Spaniards and Portuguese have a mixed ancestry, which includes not only Iberians but Celts, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Suevi, Alans, Vandals and Arabs.

Tracing the movement of the Nordics is more tricky. Anthropologists have identified two very old cultures in eastern Europe: the Kurgan culture in south Russia, and the Danubian culture in the Danube valley. These are probably the Nordics at different stages of their migration. They lived first as nomadic herdsmen, and apparently kept moving after they learned agriculture. However, only over the perspective of thousands of years does their migration look like a full-blown volkwanderung. If each family only moved ten miles farther west with each generation, the tribes would still complete the trip in 1,500 years. Besides, their movement could not be very fast until they domesticated the horse.

However they did it, the Nordic tribes gradually split up to form the groups we are now familiar with. The three largest ones were the Slavs (in Belarus), the Teutons or Germanic peoples (in Scandinavia), and the Celts (mainly France and Germany, and the British Isles). Smaller groups worthy of note include the Cimmerians, who stayed behind in Ukraine; the Balts (today's Latvians and Lithuanians); and the Thraco-Illyrians, ancestors of the Thracians and Albanians.

I've said enough on this subject for now. Does anyone have ideas on how the groups in the east (Armenians, Georgians, Indo-Iranians, Scythians, Parthians, Tocharians, etc.) may be related to one another? And how about the Anatolian group--Hittites, Hurrians and Kassites--should we put them in the western or eastern half of this great human mosaic?

Message: Mallory Lecture
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Mar 23, 1998 08:14
A synopsis of the recent lecture on ongoing research into the Takim Mummies given by Professor James Mallory of Queens University Of Belfast, will be published on the Web at
http://www.silk-road.com
Message: Tocharian-Germanic Association
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Mar 25, 1998 09:53
In An Article in The Journal Of The American Oriental Society, Douglas Adams places the Tocharian language in the Northwestern I.E. language group and relates it most closely to Germanic.

Proto Greek and Proto Indic influences appear only later in P.I.E. times as The Tocharians moved eastward.

Message: Indo-European link...
Author: - Rondunac CuChulainn
Date: Mar 29, 1998 13:50
Since we're discussing the Indo-Europeans some of you might find the following link interesting. The authors suggest eastern Anatolia and the Transcaucasus area as the homeland of the Indo-Europeans...just keep in mind that it's only their opinion and not the opinion of all others. But it's a wonderfully interesting site whether you accept their conclusions or not.

http://chess96.com/Olympiad/indoeuro.htm

Message: Proto Indo-European Language
Author: The New - Taliesin Manach
Date: Apr 10, 1998 09:41
I have a friend who knows the language. It is all hypothetical/mathematical. What they've done is look at the Greek, Etruscan, and Latin words to find similarities. The vowels shifts and other grammatical alterations then became evident. There is no absolute proof, but it is probably pretty acurate. If anybody is interested I can give you his email address.

Message: More stuff about the Proto Indo-Europeans
Author: Reeking of Fish - Taliesin Manach
Date: Apr 10, 1998 18:09
Just a little more stuff, and I am not claiming to be an expert. I am exhausting my knowledge on the topic as it comes to me. There is apparently research going on now to find out the original location of the P.I.E. It involves a complicated process of examining a section of related vocabulary from several I.E. languages, such as plants, and then finding the root words. Once the plant is agreed upon they look into the past and try to pin point where that plant may have existed. It is a complicated process, and I am very sketchy on it all. Still, it's interesting. That's all for now.

Message: PIE
Author: a linguistically challenged - maia Nestor
Date: Apr 10, 1998 20:48
Robert Drews, in one or both of his books, The Coming of the Greeks and End of the Bronze Age, deals with the PIE question. Also, the web sites ABZU and Kapatija probably have something listed- you can get to them through most good search engines.

Message: The extinct Tocharic branch of the Indo-European Speakers
Author: The Non-Plussed - Quintillius Fabius
Date: Apr 15, 1998 21:56
In "A History of the Ancient World" Chester G. Starr states that the Tocharic speakers were Asian in appearance.

He's a pretty big gun to be ignored or discounted. Thoughts on this vis a vis the statements regarding red-tressed Tocharic speakers on the Tarim basin?

Message: Central Asia has long had a mixture of Caucasians and Asiatics
Author: Yulduz Usmanova fan - Berosus Etana
Date: Apr 15, 1998 22:49
The Huns were a multiracial tribe, having ancestors of both Finnish and Mongolian stock; some were described as having red hair and green eyes. Likewise, if you go to Central Asia today, the Uygurs of northwest China look like they belong in the Middle East, with their wide eyes and large noses. However, the Uzbeks look more like Chinese or Mongolians, even though they live a thousand miles farther west and are, like the Uygurs, ethnic cousins of the Turks.

Therefore I think it's quite possible that the Tocharians could have been a mixed group, too. Then again, how old is that book Quintillus quoted from? It may have been written before that controversial cemetary was discovered.

Message: The Hun Empire
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Apr 16, 1998 08:38
The huns assimilated tribes wholesale. Some were conquered and some, wisely, allied themselves to avoid conquest. This does not mean that they did not keep their own ethos or that they intermarried and became Hun.
Chester Starr should be read with some caution. I would question his sources.

Message: Chester G. Starr-
Author: - maia Nestor
Date: Apr 16, 1998 14:43
is a well-respected historian,I believe. I constantly see him referenced. According to the Library of Congress, the last revision of the book Quintillius referred to was 1991, which may have been a bit early for all the recent discoveries.

Message: Kallistos, bookmark this!
Author: On the Oxus again, - Berosus Etana
Date: Apr 23, 1998 13:45
This page is from one of my favorite websites, the Uzbekistan-based Oxus Communications. It's not fancy like the Silk Road link you posted, but I figured you would like anything we can find about the Tocharians.

http://www.wlc.com/oxus/tocharia.htm

Message: Multigenesis
Author: - Demetrios Xanthippos
Date: Apr 24, 1998 14:09
Actually the multigenesis theory has a sizable following in academic circles. There was a debate in either National Geographic or Archaeology a couple of years ago, dealing with this topic.

Message: An inetersting link Author: Researcher - Urgos Enkidu Date: Apr 27, 1998 00:04 Aryan Invasion Theory, this link contains a rebuttal of the Aryan invasion theory and has some interesting information regarding early life in the Indus river valley. http://www.itihaas.com/ancient/contrib1.html

Message: So where's the decipherment of the Harrapan language?
Author: - Archimedes Aristophanes
Date: Apr 27, 1998 02:42
Urgos:

Your site reference mentions the decipherment of the Harrapan language, but goes into no details that I could find. Was their language then Indo-European or not?

Message: Species in the fossil record
Author: - Archimedes Aristophanes
Date: Apr 27, 1998 03:10
I think it quite unlikely that species can be distinguished in the fossil record. How can we tell, based on bone structure, whether a population might be able to interbreed with another population? Could we, for example, if we didn't know better, determine that the off-spring of donkeys and horses would be infertile based on skeletal remains? I don't think so.

Now, how then can we say where or when Homo sapiens arose? I understand DNA evidence suggests descent from a common ancestor, a female, in Africa about 200,000 years ago. This analysis is based, of course, on current populations and population distributions as well as some historical distributions.

Now, how do we identify a Homo sapiens by DNA analysis and distinguish said person from another member of the genus Homo without a living representative with which to compare? How can we tell when or where a Homo erectus population became Homo sapien? I don't think we can, therefore,it's just as plausible for Homo sapiens, like the horse, to have arisen on the America continent as anywhere else.

Since we define a species as a population which can interbreed with fertile progeny, it follows that it is unlikely such a population would arise in widely separated locations independently. For genetic drift to render a breeding population unique, some sort of isolation must be presumed. That such isolated populations should just happen to remain mutually fertile while diverging from other representatives of the genus seems a bit farfetched. Therefore, the issue becomes where did the first sapiens population develop? It could be Africa, it could be Asia, America or Europe. I don't think we know or can venture a reasonable guess given the current state of the science.

Message: Species
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: Apr 27, 1998 08:02
Is a race to be considered a separate species?
Cannot mutations occur in several places, perhaps even the same mutation at different times in different places? Perhaps there is not one source, but a variety of sources.

Message: Right, we're only one species
Author: Taxonomist - Berosus Etana
Date: Apr 27, 1998 08:57
Technically, a species is defined as a group in which any two members can have viable offspring. That is certainly the case with humanity. You can match up a man and a woman from the most exotic ethnic groups you can find, like a Hottentot and an Eskimo, and expect them to have healthy kids (as to what they'll look like, your guess is as good as mine).

That says to me that the human race originated in one place, and did not spring up in several locations simultaneously. It just makes more sense, whether you use creation or evolution to explain our origins.

For that matter, one could argue that we're all really one race. We call ourselves "black" or "white," when we're all some shade of brown. We all have just one type of pigment, melanin. A little melanin makes us "white"; a lot of melanin makes us "black"; if one has no melanin at all, he is an albino. A friend of mine once said that he can take a group of people who are as black as the ace of spades, and if he controls who they marry, in eight generations their descendants will be white enough to get into the most snobbish country club.

Message: Language of Harrapan
Author: Astrologue - Urgos Enkidu
Date: Apr 27, 1998 22:48
This particular site gives the most scholarly account on the web about the language debate. All things considered the subject is still undecided and may always be so...

http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html

Message: A link
Author: - Demetrios Xanthippos
Date: Apr 28, 1998 17:12
There´s an excellent overview of Harappa and the Indus Valley civilization at Harappa. They include a discussion of the language by a couple of scholars with different viewpoints.

http://www.harappa.com/

Message: That's Plaid
Author: - Kallistos Alexandros
Date: May 21, 1998 09:30
I saw the PBS special on the Chineese mummies and had a chance to inspect, quite closely, the fabrics.I had been sceptical about the use of the word, "plaid". Herodotus said many squares of different colours which is more properly motley. The surviving fabrics are quite sophisticated and beautifully woven plaids.The natural dyes give a soft and subtle overall effect which I had not anticipated. They are not only plaids, they are very fine plaids indeed.

If they are like the Celtic fabrics, the Herodotean description does not give a proper image. The sophisticated restraint is striking.

Message: One species, one genetic mother.
Author: - madbat Gilgamesh, Patron
Date: Jul 7, 1998 20:09
Sorry I cannot give a reference, though I will as soon as I come across it, but we are all descended genetically from one mother, this has been traced, and tested with many different "races". There is only one species, and it seems we did indeed come out of Africa. So much for White supremasists...

Now to work on what little tan I got...

Message: Species Origins
Author: Herbalist - Columcille Niall
Date: Aug 7, 1998 01:08
Quite correct. Humanity is a single species, as is indicated by the genetic evidence. To be precise, it is mitochodrial genetics that leads us to this conclusion. Not all genetic information in the cell is located in the nucleus. Some of it is located in the mitochondria. Due to the mechanism of fertilization, all the mitochondria a child receives come from the child's mother. All the paternal mitochondria are lost. Hence, mitochondria tend to be quite genetically stable. Also, it is easy to sequence the DNA of mitochondria. You can do a sequence comparison of the mitochondria of widely separated population of humans and find that they are almost identical. In fact, there is greater than 95% identity. Statistically, it is impossible that more than one species with such incredibly similar mitochondrial DNA could arise independently, be capable of cross breeding, and do so in approximately the same time period. By the way, just as an interjection, I'm sorry to be talking about humans as if they were breeding livestock. It's a habit biologist, biochemists, and geneticists get into. At any rate, the genetic evidence that we are a single species is incredibly strong. The genetic evidence does not necessarily point to origins in AFRICA, however. Another equally strong interpretation is that humans originated in Indochina. I don't think that without some intact cells of potential ancestors (e.g. Austrolipithecus, Java Man, Neanderthals, etc.) we could say which line we are most closely related to. The archeological evidence of Leakey and his successors seems to indicate Africa, but the case isn't completely watertight. I hope I haven't been on my soapbox to much.

Slainte,
Colum

Message: Back to the topic
Author: - Bigisdicis Cassius
Date: Aug 9, 1998 16:38
A couple of good books to read on the subject are Colin Renfrews 'Archaeology and Language' and Mallory's 'In Search of the Indo-Europeans.' And I agree that to use the term Indo-European to mean race is not completely correct since although the I.E. were Caucasians there were many Caucasians in ancient times who spoke a non I.E. language... for example the Semitic peoples.

Message: A thought on Indo-European linguistics
Author: - Quintillius Fabius
Date: Jan 7, 1999 20:09
Isn't it amazing that in the course of tracking backwards from the ancient languages extant to us, one finds a number of amazing words and concepts that bind together the successors to the ancient Indo-Europeans? For example the similarity of the words for "god" ("deus" in Latin, "Zeus" as chief Greek god, and although the Hindi equivalent escapes me, it too is similar), "sword," "spear," "chariot," etc. And yet there is no common word for "sea," or "ocean," which lends weight to the theory that the Indo-European root-tongue evolved in a land-locked environment such as the steppes of Asia.

Regards,

Fabius

Message: It is pretty amazing, Quint!
Author: - maia Nestor, Patron
Date: Jan 8, 1999 01:29
Linguists were able to determine that the people we call the Greeks (speakers of an Indo-European language) were not the native inhabitants, because they relied on the proto-Greek word for sea, thalassos. There were other words, too, particularly those that ended in 'nthos' like Korinthos and 'ssos' like Parnassos.

Message: I heard that much, too
Author: Amateur linguist - Berosus Etana, Patron
Date: Jan 12, 1999 06:56
Apparently the words of non-Greek origin came from an older race in the neighborhood, most likely the Pelasgians or Minoans. In his humorous history books, Larry Gonick gave the following examples: Korinthos (the city of Corinth), hyacinthos (hyacinth), minthos (mint), and agaminthos (bath).

Hmmmm, does the last one mean that the first Greeks didn’t bathe?

Message: The Kalash and the Kurds
Author: - Fearn Niall
Date: Mar 2, 1999 11:00
I have recently heard about a folk called the Kalash, which lives in a valley between Pakistan and Afganistan. It is said they are the last remnants of the pre-muslim culture of Afghanistan. Their language has words very alike to Greek, Sanscript and Parsi, so they are IE. Their politheistic religion has wide similarities with that followed by Europeans before the spread of Crhistianism. What do you know about the matter? I have also heard some kurds are not exactly muslims, but heathens.

Message: Well, Fearn
Author: Hope this helps, - Berosus Etana, Patron
Date: Mar 3, 1999 07:20
I hadn't heard of the Kalash, though after reading your messages I found a few webpages about them. An interesting group. You probably know that there was a Greek-speaking kingdom, called Bactria, in Afghanistan from about 250 to 130 B.C. These could be the last Bactrians.

As for the Kurds, I hadn't heard about them being pagan. What I do know is that many of them belong to Sufi sects, which combine Moslem and pagan elements. And since they live in northern Iraq, some may belong to the bizarre Yazidi movement, too. Read what I wrote about both Sufis and Yazidis on the Bagdad board.

Message: Another interesting connection
Author: Student of IE - Selket Isetnofret, Patron
Date: Jul 12, 1999 23:36
Most of the cultures thought to be Indo-European are connected in similar ways. My interest lies in Religion...and there are some very interesting parallels there. There is a common thread, usually called "Indo-European Tri-functionality". This basically means that the IE divided up the world into three parts, and many things in is into three parts. These three are explained as this: Black, white, and gray (two opposing concepts and then the concept that reconsiles the two).

Examples:

1. Heaven-Earth-Hell
2. Gods-demigods(angels)-Humans
3. Crone-matron-virgin
4. Winter-Spring(or Fall)-Summer

As you can see, these lead to mirrors in society...

In India, in the caste system: The highest is the religious (gods), next are the ruling/warrior caste (high humans...ie demigods), and then the common (humans). Of course, over thousands of years, the system was complicated and made more complex, but in it's original, and most basic form, it was three parts.

The reason, scholars believe, for this phenomenoa was that the human brain MUST reconsile opposing forces. Humans are most comfortable when they have categorized all things in their orb of existence. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that this caused the formation of this belief system. If something is not one thing, and it's not the opposite thing...then it falls in the gray area in between.

There are other parallels, but I'm tired and am on my way to bed. When I think of some more, I'll post them.

Em Hotep!