Paired Horse and PIE breakup

[N. Ganesan]

<<<<
There doesn't have to be evangelism for horse rituals or chariots to
spread around.  If you look at the culture described by Gimbutas
it looks a lot more like recent and/or modern Altaic or Uralic cultures
than anything else. If you compare the Scythian culture described by
Herodotus and others with the culture of the Hun, Magyars and Mongols,
there are a great many parallels. Yet, it is suggested that these people
had different language associations.

Well, I never said textual materials were not relevant. However, can
we base theories on the spread of languages on them?  I certainly
would not trust such theories.

We see Persians using cuneiform and Aramaic scripts that they borrowed.
Assyrians certainly had their own chariots.  These type of things
crossed linguistic and ethnic barriers.  So, I ask how do we know
the Sintashta or related cultures spoke Indo-European?

Why couldn't they have spoken languages related to Hurrian,
the Caucasian languages or Uralic (among others)?
>>>>

    On Nov.5, 1998, I posted D. Anthony's views on why
    PIE existed as a speech community after 3500 B.C.
    He says the wheels, vehicle technology could
    have been invented by others. (Archaeology
    shows the inventions in the Neareast). But at
    the time of wheels, vehicle technology, PIE
    existed as one single community. This is
    after 3500 B.C.

    On similar lines:
    It is extremely unlikely that Sintashta culture
    is not related to IA culture. Several American,
    Russian and W. European scholarly works say so.
    Even if we allow that Sintashta chariots were
    invented by a tiny group, extinct long ago,
    PIE folks as one single community must have
    borrowed the chariotry from that extinct group
    and developed the complex of horse myth
    and ritual together in a small region. At the
    best, Late Common IE people must be neighbors
    for Indic azvamedha and Roman equus, divine
    horse-pair myths, etc., to be similar
    in surprisingly small details.

    Otherwise, one has to explain widespread conversion by
    'horse cult' monks from Rome to India.

Regards,
N. Ganesan







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