Indo-Aryan im/e-migration (scholarly debate)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Jan E.M. Houben" <JHOUBEN at RULLET.LEIDENUNIV.NL> wrote:

>Parpola presents:
>. . . domesticated horse, wheeled vehicles, stockbreeding and limited
>horticulture, spread from the Ukraine eastwards over the vast grasslands.
>The Proto-Aryan word for 'horse' aZva . . . is clearly a Proto-Indo-European
>inheritance.
>. . .
>The horse and chariot can thus with good reasons be expected to be physically
>and ideologically present in the archaeological cultures identified as Aryan.
>This is the case in the Gurgan culture of northern Iran, with the chariot seal
>of Tepe Tissar . . in the Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex . . .

While the *absence* of domesticated horse can be construed as a
strong indication that the culture was not Aryan (given the word
aZva), it does not work the other way: the *presence* of domesticated
horse in itself proves nothing.  Even if we ascribe the domestication
of the horse to Indo-Europeans (and there can be little doubt IMHO
that the Srednij Stog culture *was* IE-speaking), there was nothing
to stop linguistically non-IE groups to adopt the horse as a
domesticate (we know the Sumerians, Akadians, Hurrians and Egyptians
did).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam