Table Of ContentThe Indo-Europeans
in the Fourth and
Third Millennia
Edited by
EDGAR C. POLOME
THE INDO-EUROPEANS
IN THE FOURTH AND THIRD MILLENNIA
Edited by Edgar C. Polome
1982
KAROMA PUBLISHERS, INC. ANN ARBOR
Copyright © 1982 by Karoma Publishers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 0-89720-041-1 (cloth)
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Edgar C. Polome, Editor, University of Texas at Austin
Old Europe in the Fifth Millennium B.C.: 1
The European Situation on the Arrival of the Indo-Europeans
Marija Gimbutas, University of California at Los Angeles
Archaeological Evidence for the Migrations of the Indo-Europeans 61
Homer L. Thomas, University of Missouri at Columbia
Was There an Indo-European Art? 87
S. M. Alexander, University of Texas at Austin
Aspects of Indo-European Poetics 104
Calvert Watkins, Harvard University
Areal Typology and the Early Indo-European Consonant System 121
Paul J. Hopper, State University of New York at Binghamton
From Phonetic Facts to Syntactic Paradigms: The Noun in Early PIE 140
Winfred P. Lehmann, University of Texas at Austin
Indo-European Culture, with Special Attention to Religion 156
Edgar C. Polome, University of Texas at Austin
Bibliography 173
PREFACE
Edgar C. Polome
In the course of recent decades, a number of important new perspectives have
been opened in the study of Indo-European. In the field of linguistics, syntax—
which had remained the stepchild of the Neogrammarians and the structuralists-
has received increased attention under the influence of recent developments in
linguistic theory. Combining the results of the investigations in transformational
grammar and typology with the well-established scholarship of previous genera¬
tions, W. P. Lehmann ventured to produce a Proto-Indo-European Syntax (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1974), and this attempt at an explanatory syntax of the
parent language soon became an incentive for further scrutiny into the syntactic
categories of Indo-European and their development in the various dialects. The
issue of the original word order became an object of lively discussion, triggering the
writing of numerous articles and valuable monographs such as Paul Friedrich’s
Proto-Indo-European Syntax: The Order of Meaningful Elements (Butte, Montana:
The Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1975). The correlation between syntactic
features and morphology was often emphasized in these studies and led to a num¬
ber of searching Einzeluntersuchungen such as Dorothy Disterheft’s doctoral
dissertation on The Syntactic Development of the Infinitive in Indo-European
(Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1980), or the work of Carol Justus on Hittite
relative clauses and related items. The importance and vitality of such problems is
well illustrated by the recent Colloquium of the Indogermanische Gesellschaft,
the proceedings of which were edited by Paolo Ramat under the title Linguistic
Reconstruction and Indo-European Syntax (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1980).
An assessment of recent developments in a broader framework is given by Henrik
Birnbaum in his Linguistic Reconstruction: Its Potentials and Limitations in New
Perspective (Washington, DC: Journal of Indo-European Studies, 1977). These
include in particular the efforts of T. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov, on the one
hand, and Paul Hopper, on the other, to propose a typologically more acceptable
viii PREFACE
alternative for the usually reconstructed subsystem of Proto-Indo-European ob¬
struents—a topic discussed in detail by Paul Hopper in his contribution to this
volume. To the suggested revision of the reconstructed phonological system—the
most radical change proposed since the “laryngeal theory”—we might add the
renewal of studies on Indo-European accentuation, especially under the influence
of V. A. Dybo and V. M. Illic-Svityc, illustrated, for example, by Frederik Kort-
landt’s concise but most substantial Slavic Accentuation: A Study in Relative
Chronology (Lisse, The Netherlands: Peter de Ridder Press, 1975), as well as the
work done on morphology since the publication of Calvert Watkins’ volume on
the Indo-European verb in Jerzy Kury-towicz’ Indogermanische Grammatik (Bd.
Ill, Formenlehre I, Teil: Geschichte der Indogermanischen Verbal flexion, Heidel¬
berg: Carl Winter, 1969). The better part of William R. Schmalstieg’s “new syn¬
thesis” on Indo-European Linguistics (University Park: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1980) is devoted to a thorough analysis of verb morphology, and his chapter
on noun morphology provides an interesting background for further investigation
in correlation with W. P. Lehmann’s stimulating contribution on the same subject
in this volume.
Indo-European poetic language, illustrated by the collection of papers published
by Rudiger Schmitt (Indogermanische Dichtersprache, Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-
liche Buchgesellschaft, 1968), as well as by his own work (Dichtung und Dichter¬
sprache in indogermanischer Zeit, Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1967), has become
a major subject of investigation, as the recent Ricerche di Cultura Poetica Indo-
europea of Enrico Campanile (Pisa: Giardini, 1977) shows and Calvert Watkins
further emphasizes in his contribution to this volume.
In the field of archaeology, new methods of dating by calibration of the carbon-
14 determinations with dendrochronological controls have led to a thorough
revision of all previous chronologies. On this basis, Homer L. Thomas reviews the
archaeological evidence relevant to the Indo-European migration and attempts
here a new comparative chronology. This study may answer some of the queries
of British archaeologists who contest Marija Gimbutas’ ethnic identification of
the Indo-Europeans with the late Neolithic Pit Grave (i.e., Kurgan) culture, e.g.,
J. M. Coles and A. F. Harding, The Bronze in Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1979), who point out (p. 7) that “the supposedly derivative groups in Europe are
in fact contemporaneous with the Pit Graves in south Russia, and not appreciably
later than them.” Marija Gimbutas’ contribution to this volume focuses, however,
on the civilization that the Indo-European invaders encountered in Europe and with
which they ultimately merged after three successive waves, producing thorough
social and cultural changes reflected by the archaeological material. Whatever
artistic endeavors resulted from the new cultures that emerged after the Indo-
Europeanization are reviewed by Shirley Alexander.
PREFACE ix
Finally, in the field of culture and religion, where the contributions of Emile
Benveniste and Georges Dumezil have completely renewed the content and scope
of the investigations, Edgar C. Polome tries to give a “state of the art” report,
indicating how a multidisciplinary approach has put cultural and religious studies
on a much more solid basis than in previous generations of scholarship.
The papers published here are revised versions of oral presentations made at a
symposium organized at the University of Texas at Austin in February 1980 to
commemorate the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Department of
Oriental and African Languages and Literatures and to honor Professor Raja Rao
upon his retirement because of his constant, active support of and encouragement
to Indo-European studies. A number of distinguished scholars participated in the
discussion of these papers, and their contributions to the argument have been most
valued by the speakers and taken into account in their final texts. We are therefore
particularly grateful to Professors Eric Hamp (University of Chicago), Carol Justus
(University of California at Berkeley), Bruce Lincoln (University of Minnesota),
Thomas Markey (University of Michigan), and Ladislas Zgusta (University of
Illinois) for their share in the success of the symposium and for the valuable help
and information their comments brought to the contributors as well as to the
audience.
We want to convey our special thanks to Dean Robert King of the College of
Liberal Arts for presiding at our first meeting and for addressing our symposium.
Without his moral and financial support, our conference would never have been
possible. We also want to include Vice-President William Livingston, Dean of the
Graduate School, in our expressions of deep gratitude for the grant which helped
us bring to Austin some of the most active scholars in Indo-European studies to
discuss together the major problems facing our discipline in the eighties.
