On Feb 17, 11:34=A0pm, Ralph Hertle <ralph.her...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> grapheus:
>
> I have some questions regarding the population sources of the Minoans.
>
> 1. =A0 =A0 =A0The Cyclades are small in area, and they have an
exceedingly=
small
> land area. I suspect that the agricultural base of the islands would
> have been too small to sup****t a base of population that could have
> moved a society to Asia Minor. Small groups, possibly.
Yes, and it is what happened. The Cycladic Proto-Ionian islanders
settled only on the coast (in Anatolia as in Greece), and most of the
time on islets near the coast. They never "colonized" the interior,
except in Khalkidik=E8, Euboea and Attica.
> Note that on
> Crete and nearly every where else in the ancient world cities and
> nations were built on large level plains for agricultural production.
> Food was the base of the societies.
Correct.
> I wonder, did the Proto-Ionians [of
> Asia Minor and not the Ionian Coast of the Greek mainland] actually
> originate on the Cyclades?
They originally came from the South Danubian Valley, like all the
other Greeks. The Greek language was born in an area north of Greece
by the mixing of "South Danubian peoples" with Indo-Europeans coming
from the South of Russia (M. Gimbutas' theory). But, as all the other
Greek speakers, they moved South. In fact, they were the first "proto-
Greeks" to do so, and contrary to the others (Achaeans/Mycenaeans and
Dorians), they came by sea in the Aegean. So they settled in the
Cycladis Islands as soon as 3000 BC.
>
> 2. =A0 =A0 =A0The Finno-Ugrian languages appear to have been spoken on
the=
North
> coast of Asia Minor after the Black Sea filled in c. 7,000BCE. The
> Finno-Ugrian peoples were probably displaced by the flooding, and bands
> of them moved into what is now the North coast of Asia Minor, Hungary,
> the area of ancient Black Sea coastal Macedonia and Bulgaria, Finland,
> Ukrainian river areas, and Northern Russia. The Finno-Ugrian languages
> are not IndoEuropean, however. My Question is this: did those peoples
> have anything to do with the peoples that became the Minoans or the
Greeks=
?
For the Greeks, the answer is definitely NO.
For the Minoans, the question rest open, as nobody can tell what
language they spoke...
>
> 3. =A0 =A0 =A0The early settlers of Italy appear to have been of the
same =
stock as
> the peoples of India. Italians are also mixed with the Europeans. Still,
> modern Italians have a marked similarity to the people of India. The
> peoples of India are really Caucasians. [the US government job
> questionnaires are grossly wrong in calling them of the same race as
> Orientals, Blacks and other Asians.] From where did the peoples of India
> originate?
Some of them were of Indo-European origin, i.e. they came from the
steppe in Southern Russia, and spoke Indoeuropean language (as shown
by the texts written in sanskrit).
By the way, the "race-concept" has a small and relative value for the
actual Homo Sapiens populations, and no value at all concerning the
peoples living in Europe in Antiquity. There have been too maning
"mixings" for this concept to have even an approximate meaning !.. See
Bryan Sykes' work, for instance).
>My Question is this: did those peoples have anything to do
> with the peoples that became the Minoans or the Greeks?
As for the Greeks, the answer is YES for the Indians who spoke and
wrote sanskrit. Both have a common IE-origin.
As for the Minoans, the question is still open...
Regards
grapheus
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