The Horse the Wheel and Language

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TeresaJ
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The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by TeresaJ » Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:31 pm

This book is about Proto-Indo-European but it covers a *lot* of ground in terms of linguistics, culture, anthropology, archaeology.

I'm getting a lot of interesting ideas, insights, and questions from it as I go along, so I figured I'd put them into a thread. Anyone please feel free to jump in and discuss.

So one concept is this idea of cultural-linguistic areas and frontiers, how they can move and be reinforced. Eg pre-European Iroquois tribes recruiting (or capturing) people who might have come from different genetic populations but who then become culturally and linguistically Iroquois.

Where it also gets interesting is when you have a hierarchical society next to a more "egalitarian" society. People might be drawn to or recruited into the more hierarchical society because it ironically gives them status - inferior status compared to the chiefs of the hierarchical society but *superior* status compared to people who used to be their peers but now are below them. So with the Acholi people in Africa you had migrant chiefs going out into a new area and *recruiting* locals into their power structure, and so even though they started out as the genetic and linguistic minority they eventually became culturally and linguistically dominant over a large area.

And then the other example is the Baluch and Pashtun people in this specific area in Afghanistan. The Pashtun people derive their wealth from land and are more egalitarian, on the surface - their society is organized into councils of peers. But you're either in or out. If you have no land, you have no status. So Pashtuns who have lost their land through feuds often go next door to the Baluch people who live in the mountains with their herds and have a comparatively harder life. They have a much more rigidly hierarchical society, but there's no shame in being the client of a wealthy patron and there's room for *upward mobility.*

It reminds me of how part of the appeal of Christianity in Europe among the pagan chiefs can be attributed to its more impressive hierarchy and pageantry. You're not just a chief among equals but an anointed king doing the work of the King on High.

I can't help but think about how this might apply to the persistent dominance of patriarchal organization throughout pretty much all known human culture.

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Ferrus
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Re: The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by Ferrus » Sat Mar 06, 2021 9:10 pm

I tend to take a lot of PIE research with a bucket of salt. Gimbutas's Kurgan hypothesis* seem to have support archaelogically but she extrapolates far beyond what is deducible from the evidence for what seem to be ideological motives.

* There are some Anatolian hypothesis holdouts from what they regard as probabilistic evidence that I remember being dominant in the mid-2000s when I was at uni. I guess it will never be satisfactorily settled.
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TeresaJ
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Re: The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by TeresaJ » Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:57 pm

Anthony presents very detailed arguments that add up to a convincing overall picture. I am definitely not qualified to judge the strength of his evidence, but it makes for a compelling story with a very broad range of tie-ins and implications.

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TeresaJ
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Re: The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by TeresaJ » Sun Mar 07, 2021 3:31 pm

So something else I had never thought about before is the impact of the invention of the wheel on European farming. As Anthony imagines it, farming pre-wheel necessarily had to involve a lot of village-wide cooperative hauling. A single family farm just wasn't an option.

And then the further implication is that stonehenge and the like - or large earthen mounds in comparable societies - was something like the equivalent of our Apollo missions. It was the highest expression of technology that their daily lives depended on. Overland, cooperative hauling.

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TeresaJ
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Re: The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by TeresaJ » Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:34 pm

Anthony actually does associate patriarchal societies with herding specifically as herds can be stolen more easily than crops. So you have brothers sticking together to protect the family herd rather than ranging afield from a presumably matrilineal home base.

Speaking very broadly, of course.

In this way it’s rather like reading a more academically rigorous book by Jared Diamond. Broad, geographical and historical stories. Which I love.

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Re: The Horse the Wheel and Language

Post by Julius_Van_Der_Beak » Mon Mar 08, 2021 5:09 pm

I love ancient history and archaeology. Fascinating to look at a piece of jewelry in a museum and think that it belonged to someone.
TeresaJ wrote:
Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:34 pm
Anthony actually does associate patriarchal societies with herding specifically as herds can be stolen more easily than crops. So you have brothers sticking together to protect the family herd rather than ranging afield from a presumably matrilineal home base.

Speaking very broadly, of course.

In this way it’s rather like reading a more academically rigorous book by Jared Diamond. Broad, geographical and historical stories. Which I love.
I still need to finish Guns, Germs and Steel. It's one of the many books I've started but haven't finished. I'm always in the middle of multiple books, and sometimes things get put in the backburner for a long time.

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