ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE I ONE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY Series Editor: P.J.Ucko Animals into Art The Politics of the Past H.Morphy (ed.), vol. 7 P.Gathercole & D.Lowenthal (eds), vol. 12 Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity S.J.Shennan (ed.), vol. 10 The Presented Past: heritage, museums and education Archaeological Heritage Management in the G.Stone & B.L.Molyneaux (eds), vol. 25 Modern World H.F.Cleere (ed.), vol. 9 Sacred Sites, Sacred Places D.L.Carmichael, J.Hubert, B.Reeves & Archaeology and the Information Age: a global A.Schanche (eds), vol. 23 perspective P.Reilly & S.Rahtz (eds), vol. 21 Signifying Animals: human meaning in the natural world The Archaeology of Africa: food, metals and R.G.Willis (ed.), vol. 16 towns T.Shaw, P.Sinclair, B.Andah & Social Construction of the Past: representation as A.Okpoko (eds), vol. 20 power G.C.Bond & A.Gilliam (eds), vol. 24 Centre and Periphery: comparative studies in archaeology State and Society: the emergence and T.C.Champion (ed.), vol. 11 development of social hierarchy and political centralization Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions J.Gledhill, B.Bender & M.T.Larsen R.Layton (ed.), vol. 8 (eds), vol. 4 Domination and Resistance Time, Process and Structured Transformation in D.Miller, M.J.Rowlands & C.Tilley Archaeology (eds), vol. 3 S.E.van der Leeuw & J.McGlade (eds), vol. 26 The Excluded Past: archaeology in education P.Stone & R.MacKenzie (eds), vol. 17 Tropical Archaeobotany: applications and developments Foraging and Farming: the evolution of plant J.G.Hather (ed.), vol. 22 exploitation D.R.Harris & G.C.Hillman (eds), The Walking Larder: patterns of domestication, vol. 13 pastoralism, and predation J.Clutton-Brock (ed.), vol. 2 From the Baltic to the Black Sea: studies in medieval archaeology What is an Animal? D.Austin & L.Alcock (eds), vol. 18 T.Ingold (ed.), vol. 1 Hunters of the Recent Past What’s New? A closer look at the process of L.B.Davis & B.O.K.Reeves (eds), innovation vol. 15 S.E.van der Leeuw & R.Torrence (eds), vol. 14 The Meanings of Things: material culture and symbolic expression Who Needs the Past? Indigenous values and I.Hodder (ed.), vol. 6 archaeology R.Layton (ed.), vol. 5 The Origins of Human Behaviour R.A.Foley (ed.), vol. 19 ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE I Theoretical and methodological orientations Edited by Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs London and New York First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1997 selection and editorial matter, Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs; individual chapters © 1997 the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN 0-203-20583-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-26673-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-10054-2 (Print Edition) Cum remotae gentium origines historiam transcendant, linguae nobis praestant veterum monumentorum vicem. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, De originibus gentium There is no tracing the connection of ancient nations but by language; and therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations. If you find the same language in distant countries, you may be sure that the inhabitants of each have been the same people; that is to say, if you find the languages are a good deal the same; for a word here and there the same will not do. Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell, 1785 If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the best classification of the various languages now spoken throughout the world; and if all the extinct languages, and all intermediate and slowly changing dialects had to be included, such an arrangement would, I think, be the only possible one…this would be strictly natural, as it would connect together all languages extinct and modern, by the closest affinities, and would give the filiation and origin of each tongue. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species To seek, by the multiple routes of anatomy, physiology, history, archaeology, linguistics and even palaeontology, what have been in historic times and in the ages which preceded the most ancient remains of humanity, the origins, the affiliations, the migrations, the mixtures of the numerous and diverse groups which make up the human species. Paul Broca, ‘La linguistique et l’anthropologie’ Contents List of figures ix List of tables xiii List of contributors xv Preface xvii General introduction Roger Blench 1 Introduction Roger Blench 18 Part I Prehistory of language 29 1 Evolution and the biological correlates of linguistic features 31 Bernard H.Bichakjian 2 Cognitive archaeology: a look at evolution outside and inside language 43 Gábor Györi 3 New epistemological perspectives for the archaeology of writing 53 Paul A.Bouissac Part II Deep-level linkages/hypotheses 63 4 Principles for palaeolinguistic reconstruction 65 Irén Hegedüs 5 The diffusion of modern languages in prehistoric Eurasia 74 Marcel Otte 6 World linguistic diversity and farming dispersals 82 Colin Renfrew Part III Problems of method 91 7 The homelands of the Indo-Europeans 93 James P.Mallory viii CONTENTS 8 The epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread 122 Johanna Nichols 9 Are correlations between archaeological and linguistic reconstructions possible? 149 Ilia Pejros 10 Linguoarchaeology: goals, advances and limits 158 Victor Shnirelman 11 Crabs, turtles and frogs: linguistic keys to early African subsistence systems 166 Roger Blench 12 Linguistic archaeology: tracking down the Tasaday language 184 Lawrence A.Reid 13 Social networks and kinds of speech-community event 209 Malcolm Ross 14 Linguistic similarity measures using the minimum message length principle 262 Anand Raman and Jon Patrick Part IV Oral traditions 281 15 Ancient migrations in the northern sub-Urals: archaeology, linguistics and folklore 283 Lidia Ashikhmina 16 Oral Traditions and the prehistory of the -speaking people of Benin 308 Joseph Eboreime 17 Oral traditions and archaeology: two cases from Vanuatu 321 José Garanger 18 Puhi, the mythical paramount chief of Uvea and ancient links between Uvea and Tonga 331 Daniel Frimigacci 19 Traditions of extinct animals, changing sea-levels and volcanoes among Australian Aboriginals: evidence from linguistic and ethnographic research 345 Margaret Sharpe and Dorothy Tunbridge 20 The lost languages of Erromango (Vanuatu) 362 Jerry Taki and Darrell Tryon 21 Oral traditions, archaeology and linguistics: the early history of the Saami in Scandinavia 371 Inger Zachrisson Index 377 Figures 3.1 Distribution of black and red hands on a wall section of the Gargas cave. 57 3.2 Sample of ‘ship’ designs in Scandinavian rock engravings. 59 4.1 Estimated time-depths for major phyla. 69 4.2 Proposed taxonomy of Nostratic and related groupings. 71 5.1 The shaping of tools using grouped complex processes. 77 5.2 The spearthrower sets different forces into action. 78 5.3 Nuclear zone of the Eurasian steppes. 79 6.1 Early farming dispersals. 87 7.1 Distribution of the major stocks of the Indo-European languages. 94 7.2 Centres of gravity. 95 7.3 Non-conformity of disciplines. 102 7.4 Four main models of the homeland and dispersion of the Indo-European languages. 107 7.5 The Dnieper ‘border’. 114 8.1 Hypothetical arrangement of some protolanguages along loanword trajectories. 124 8.2 Schematic rendition of languages used in the fourth millennium. 128 8.3 Examples of locus and range of particular language spreads. 129 8.4 The central Eurasian spread zone. 131 8.5 The Iranian language family, early first millennium BC. 132 8.6 The Turkic and Mongolian language families, end of thirteenth century AD. 133 8.7 The locus and range of Proto-Indo-European. 135 8.8 The trajectory of loci for language spreads in central Eurasia.137 10.1 A proposal for the Proto-Afroasiatic homeland. 159 11.1 Operation of phonaesthetic feedback loops. 171 13.1 Language fissure. 213 13.2 Lectal differentiation. 213