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Re: Indo-European family tree (was Re: Celtic and Afro-Asiatic?)

From:Leo Caesius <leo_caesius@...>
Date:Friday, September 23, 2005, 15:26
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 22:23:03 -0500, Thomas Wier <trwier@...>
wrote:

>Except that it's not noticeably more complicated than the other >major alternatives. In fact, Mallory's, which is only a more >sophisticated version of Gimbutas' (crazy) theories about >"Old Europe" (in which the evil warlike patriarchal Indo-Europeans >overran the peaceful agrarian matriarchal mother-goddess worshipping >pre-Indo-Europeans -- I'm actually not exaggerating here even for >effect; read her works) involves all sorts of invasions and movements, >so in some sense Mallory's view, which predominates, is the more >complicated.
I'm familiar with Gimbutas' theories, thank you. I'm not even sure whether you're a supporter of Lord Renfrew's theory or if you're just playing advocatus diaboli here. I suspect that your enthusiasm for it is only lukewarm, in any case, because I haven't seen you making any arguments in favor of it, only a lot of critique of the arguments against it. I don't know where the IE "homeland" was, or if indeed one can be identified, but it strikes me that Renfrew's theories require a lot of special pleading.