The Renfrew hypothesis, anatolia and the first Greeks

[Flipper]

Have you ever read Renfrews version of the proto Greeks? He suggests that the first Greeks were the farmers that arrived in the northern Helladic area and replaced the earlier hunter-cultures. This is suppossed to have happened in neolithic times.

Unlike the theory that places the proto-Greeks, between 2500BC and 1600BC, Renfrew suggests otherwise.



Renfrew is not just another archeologist. He has actually been doing excavations in Greece, like the following in Drama that was co-ordinated by M. Gimbutas: http://www.unc.edu/awmc/prehistoricsitagroi.html

[chicagogeorge]

Flipper, very interesting. Is there more information on this theory other than the link that you gave us?

[Flipper]

I do not have concrete material on his work unfortunately. I'm actually searching for it. I'm aware of this guy through refferences. I don't think we can speak about Greek speakers back in the 7th millenium BC, but i can agree with him that the Greek language was formed in the Helladic area and was not imported by some misteriously people that came from an undetermined place.

The comming of the proto-Greeks theory sometimes sounds like if they landed in Greece from outer space. We don't find material culture reminding the early Greek one in the danube region or somewhere else in europe. There's not a route similar to the celts, italics, iberians etc that indicate a movement of people like proto-Greeks, proto-Phrygians, proto-Armenians etc. It seems that all these groups had a local evolution rather than external.

[chicagogeorge]

Here is what Jonathan Hall said about the Renfrew hypothesis

[chicagogeorge]

Here are some books by Colin Renfrew
Unfortunately only a limited preview.

http://books.google.com/books?id=R64...efox-a#PPT1,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=P3g...fox-a#PPA67,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=p4o...fox-a#PPA46,M1

http://books.google.com/books?id=H1-...fox-a#PPA18,M1

Here is some more of Renfrew's hypothesis as explained by Trevor Watkins...

[Andrew]

I'm always a bit "cautious" over Renfrew !!

First of all lets see the Renfrew's hypothesises :

1) "anatolian" , 1987-1999 : IE diffusion correlated to the demic neolithic diffusion from anatolia to balkans and the rest of europe.
2) "balkan" , 1999-2005 : when his first hypothesis failed to answer about a 12 questions of predominantly linguistic ,but also archaeological theme he changed his view ...In his balkan thesis or (D'Iakonoff's original hypothesis) he considered the pre-proto-IEans coming from anatolia and forming PIE in the balkans ..and so considering the anatolians as pre-IEans who didn't crossed the Bosporus. although he answered many of the questions he failed to answer the corrent archaeological view that the anatolians went to Anatolia from the Balkans (Ezero culture) and the IE linguistic "axiom" that the PIE never saw sea since the PIE as reconstructed has no maritine terminology , but all IE languages borrowed it from their pre-IE substrata. So linguists argue that a PIE bulk never crossed Bosporus , because it has no maritime linguistic memory. Further more , not even a pre-PIE bulk has ever crossed the Bosporus because this inverts the Ezero->Anatolia archaeological influence and if the pre-PIE had crossed the Bosporous and gave birth to the PIE in the Balkans ..then the last would of have a linguistic maritime memory ., since the Balkans are not so far from it.
3) From 2005 , Renfrew believes in the PCT (Paleolithic Contuinuity Theory) which is the exact opposite of his first "anatolian hypothesis" contradicting the "demic diffusion theory". He lately believes that the european neolithization was more an "idea changing wave" rather than "demic diffusion" ...which is something that genetics don't accept. The Ev13 "Balkanian" haplogroup was generated in the Balkans and it's slow reduction outside of it shows a symmetric migration patern centered in Vinca culture.

So IMO , I see the IEans certainly of supra-danubian origin leaving free the "latidute" from Poland to the East Russian stepps, although a philosophical/geometrical perception would consider the PIE culture in the interception of it's 3 basic cultures (Corded Ware , Globular Amphora , Yamna). In the south part of the Globular Amphora we can put the Graeco-Aryan group (Greeks , Indo-Iranians , Armenians , Phrygians) which split arounf 3000-2800 BC bringing the future Satems eastwards and the proto-Greeks in the Central Balkans (Bubanj Hum II culture).

Around the time that anatolians invade the peri-Aegean regions starting from Ezero (Bulgaria) around 2600 BC We have the invasion of BH II in the lakeland and a hybridation process between proto-Greeks (BH II) , Porodin Neolithics MaliqI , and anatolians (Armenokhori culture).

The first hybrid form of the three were BH II becomes dominant is MaliqIIb dating around 2500 BC and it's irradiation in the Greekland starts from 2300 BC.

MaliqIIb tumuli are first found until around 2100 BC in Epeirus , Serbia(Elimia) , Vergina and Leukada , around 1900 BC in Lianokladi (Sperkhios ,Lamia) and a little later in Lerna (Argolid).

And if the idea of a language forming itself outside of it's final region looks stange ...the same thing happened with the Slavs and Anglo Saxons.Proto-Slavic was spoken somewhere in the Baltic Inner land (belonging to an earlier GERMANO-BALTIC-SLAVIC family) and finished in it's differenciated forms from Russia to South Balkans and Anglo-Saxon was a german language that was imposed in a Celtic substratum in England.

And the term Proto-Greek is not so difficult to understand either. In Greece you have the glossological overlap of 3 populations :

1) IE Bubanj Hum II
2) Anatolian IE
3) Neolithic pre-IE

Now the language thatwas formed is definately IE and has IE innovations that anatolian never acquired and maintained some PIE characteristics that anatolian lost (none of the anatolian languages , for example ,have maintained PIE "aspiration" [*bh,*dh,*gh]..undercontrarly Greek and Sanskrit have maintained aspiration) ...which means that from the three populations the BH II populations "offered more heavily" in the formation of the greek language-structure ..and that's why they are called "proto-Greeks".