Re: What features do P-I-E languages have in common?

Thomas R. Wier sikyal:

> Quoting John Cowan <jcowan@...>:
>
> > Mark J. Reed scripsit:
> >
> > > Okay, my goal is to design a family of languages that all descend
> > > from PIE, but have been completely isolated from all other
> > > members of that family for the past few tens of millennia
> >
> > The time depth of PIE is only about 6000 years.
>
> This is by no means universally accepted, though it is the currently
> reigning orthodoxy.  In particular, those who advocate an Anatolian
> Urheimat, such as Colin Renfrew, usually claim an age of somewhere
> between 7,000 and 9,000 years B.P., when agriculture was spreading
> out of Anatolia into Europe and elsewhere. One of the key pieces of
> evidence usually cited in favor of the orthodox age is the fact that
> a PIE root for "wheel" can be reconstructed, and no wheels have been
> discovered earlier than about 6,000 years B.P.
>
> (While I have no strong opinion on this, I have never gotten an
> adequate response about the existence of wheels existing in
> PreColumbian Meso-America which were used only with toys, and
> not with modes of transportation.)
Curious--what is the inconsistency here? The wheel could easily have been
invented multiple times, and as for its failure to become important in
Meso-America, I have always heard that attributed to the lack of large
pack animals to make carts/plows worthwhile.

Curious that that Incas never invented carts to hook up to their llamas,
though.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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