THE GREAT COLONIZATIONS - THE NEOLITHIC  

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in Palestine dated of -8500 to -7600 BC, first defined at Jericho. It is derived from the Natufian culture, making use of and developing Natufian architecture (round houses). It offers evidence of first attempts at agriculture in the near East, though still in a hunting context: pure Mesolithic culture.

In the Near East two big areas of incipient agriculture appeared (Mesolithic): Natufian, which would be related to Proto-Afroasiatic, and the other center around Zagros. Calculated that Proto-Afroasiatic splitted in the major branches around this time. (Proto-Semitic till -4300, Berber at -5400).

IDEA: The Zagros area would have expanded the Caucasian family of languages then ?

The Natufian Culture is located in the eastern Mediterranean in Lebanon and Israel.

IDEA: Neolithism can expand by copiying it to Neolithic neighbours, but when it becomes fully capable to mantain the population develops and increases the Neolithic population, so that it leads to territorial expansion to acquire new lands to cultivate; but that would mean that some neighbour Neolithic cultures would suffer the same process, and from there the consequent migrations would carry different languages in each direction depending on the number of Neolithic cultures developed in the original area.

Near East Neolithic cultures can be grouped: those of Syria that expanded towards the Taurus and Palestine, and those of the Zagros Ranges with ramifications towards Anatolia. Curiously these two main areas were already differentiated in Mesolitic periods (Natufian Culture in Syria-Palestine), and Zarzi Culture in the Zagros.

Dual domestication of Cattle, Sheep, Water Buffalo and Pig has been suggested as their gene tests display a sharp double branching, so that it has been though even that such animals were domesticated at the same time in different distant regions.

IDEA: But that also would fit for a population that has not reached the stage of Neolithic saturation and where other neighbour culture copied the system (cultural diffussion), then such cultures after reaching both Neolithic saturation after a giving period would expand each one in a different direction as to don't fight for the SAME lands (no because they were pacifists, but rather because nobody by then was ready to risk its life...).

From Renfew and Cavali-Sforza theory: from the Near East three languages spread, Indoeuropean northwards, Afroasiatic southwards, and Elamo-Dravidian eastwards.

Collin Renfrew: Neolithics expanded Afroasiatic tongues to N. Africa and Arabia from Israel-Syria; Dravidian speakers introduced agriculture and Dravidian from the Zagros Mountains to Iran, Central Asia and India; and from Anatolia the IE expanded all over Europe. Fact that would be attested by genetic maps.

A clear example on migrating Neolithic cultures that spread their languages are the Bantu-speaking peoples, which originated between actual Nigeria and Cameroon from a common Banue-Kwa frame in Guinea. The archeologic evidence there coincides well with the spread of such peoples and their languages along agriculture over Africa with the genetic map of Africa: a southwards expansion. They extended from -3000 (sic) [the agriculture arrived to Equatorial Africa by -1500] to Equatorial rainforests, reaching the Great Lakes region by -1000, and South Africa at 100, not accomplishing the complete colonization of Souther Africa and leaving there Khoisan peoples (Bushmen); maybe the complete colonization was prevented by the arrival of the Afrikaners (agriculturists themselves, and now replacing the Khoisan languages !).

All negritos in Philipinnes have got alocton Austronesian languages (who carried the Neolithic civilization there).

IDEA: That is an example on how Neolithic language becomes dominant in the areas of settlement.

IDEA: a possible way to adapt/adopt local hunter-gatherers to the alocton Neolithics would be in times of scarcity, as per example in a period of coldness, where the unique reserve of foods would be in the Neolithic setlements.

Jericho, was a walled city dated to the eighth millennium BC, and with recognized Natufian origin. Extended for 10-15 hectares, and shows evidences of agriculture and domesticated animals.

Le PPNB Ancien (-8700/ -8200) concerne les territoires de Syrie du nord avec une première phase d’extension vers l’Anatolie du sud-est. Le PPNB Moyen (-8200/-7500) et le PPNB Récent (-7500/-7000) sont deux phases d’expansion vers le nord et le sud. L’Anatolie centrale fut néolithisée au PPNB récent, sans doute par des populations venant de la partie orientale.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) dated of -7600 to -6000 BC, and first defined at Jericho. It originated in Syria and is characterized by rectangular buildings with lime-coated or plastered floors, by the cultivation of cereal crops, and by the beginnings of small-animal husbandry. Toward the end, it saw the first expansion of agriculture and the spread of Neolithic culture beyond its semi-arid zone towards the temperature coastal regions of Syria (Ras Shamra) and the desert oases. Pottery began to appear sporadically.

Whole inventories of cultural symbols (including the religious) coincide among the first Anatolian Neolithic cultures and Halaf: that would be consequence of a migration.

-6500/-5600: Çatal Hüyük (in southern Turkey) becomes a farming and trading center.

First remains of a possible nomad and reinderer society: Palestine-Jordania by -6000

IDEA: Semites that afterwards expanded southwards, to the Arabian Peninsula ?

During the 5th millennium BC a people known as the Ubaidians established the first Neolithic settlements in the region known later as Sumer; these settlements gradually developed into the chief Sumerian cities, namely Adab, Eridu, Isin, Kish, Kullab, Lagash, Larsa, Nippur, and Ur.

The Proto-Sumeria word ùr meaning both roof and entrance, as well as the word ub meaning corner, suggests that they lived in the close-packed, rectangular houses entered through holes in the roof found in Western Iran at sites like Ganj Dareh as well as in Anatolia at sites like Çatal Hüyük. Proto-Sumerian includes words for domesticated animals such as dog (ur), goat (ùz), cow (áb), and sheep (us5). Simple agriculture is indicated by the words for grain (še), irrigation ditch (ég), and digging stick (al). The indications are that the proto-Sumerians invented their language at the start of the Near Eastern Neolithic, approximately ten thousand years ago.    

EASTWARD SPREAD

Les Élamites ont vécu sur le plateau iranien du IIIe au Ier millénaire avant J.-C. Tout d’abord, notre compréhension de la langue élamite demeure très limitée, aussi bien en ce qui concerne le vocabulaire que la grammaire et la syntaxe ; la traduction et l’interprétation de nombreux textes restent donc très incertaines. Il est vrai que le corpus disponible est encore très limité : on ne connaît pas plus de huit cents mots élamites. En outre, bien que la capitale élamite, Anshan (ou Anzan), ait été localisée dans le Fars à Tall-y-Malyan depuis plusieurs décennies, les fouilles n’y ont eu qu’une ampleur limitée. C’est Suse qui reste la ville la mieux connue ; mais une bonne part des recherches archéologiques s’y sont déroulées à l’époque des pionniers, quand les méthodes de fouille étaient encore balbutiantes. Et Suse n’est pas l’Élam : la Susiane - l’actuel Khouzistan - est un prolongement de la plaine de Mésopotamie du sud, + pakistan dravisa a muntanyes....

In northern Afghanistan and the bordering parts of the Soviet Union, in the regions called Margiana and Bactria in antiquity, burials and setlements, fortresses and cult places have been excavated in recent years. These contain elements betraying contact with civilizations in the interior and on the northwest margin of the Iranian Plateau,and has been stressed an Elamian component. On the other hand, affinities to India, to Harappa, and to contemporary cultures as well as later ones cannot be overlooked.

There are many agricultural settlements in northeastern Iran. Among them is Tepe Hessar located on the southeastern coast of the Caspian Sea. In the second half of the third millennium BC, peoples migrated from Tepe Hessar to Namazga-Tepe to the Geoksyr group. They lived there half a thousand years and then the group at Geoksyr disappeared.

Geoksyr typifies the culture of the eastern Anau group of tribes that displays connections with Elam.

The Indoiranian languages of Iran have a Dravidian substrate.

Central Asia: Neolithic appears with Djeitun Culture at -4500, clearly coming from Iraq and Iran, from -2000 develops a true urbanism in its daughter cultures, but suddenly at -1600 everything decays, and appear there previously unknown svastikas and other materials belonging to Indoeuropean steppe peoples (Iranian branch).

Present evidence is far from conclusive but suggests that food-producing cultures of the 'Middle Eastern type' may have spread from southern Turkmenia to the borders of Xinjiang (China) as early as the third millennium B.C. and may have provided the backdrop for the exchange of materials, such as silk and metals, between two major culture areas.

IDEA: no more "natural" or demic Neolithic expansion in China: Chinese Neolithic in the east, and no productive land in the north.

Agriculture came from the west to India (wheat and barley), along domesticated animals: cattle, sheeps, pig...

IDEA: Varieties of wheat and other cereals of Fertile Crescent origin appear in India about -7000 (?), that could have been carried there by a Neolithic culture that also would have spread its language (Elamite - Dravidic); such arrival of Caucasians, along the permanence of Australoid indigenous populations in the area (that can be seen even today among India's most unreached tribals) would have led to the present racial mix, helped some 4000 years ago with the Aryan invasions of Caucasoids. This picture has a paralel in Mexico where there is a mix of Caucasian populations (originally Spaniards) with Native Amarican Mongoloids that can be appreciated nowadays: mestizos, but also islands of tribals or "Indians".

Dravidian "islands": Malto language in the border India - Bangla Desh, and Kurux dialect in Nepal.

IDEA: if the unreadable Harappan script would be linked to Dravidian or Brahui (a Dravidian language spoken in the mountains of Pakistan), it would show a Dravidian continuity all over the Indian subcontinent.    

AFRICAN SPREAD

Neolithism in Egypt since -6500.

Fayum first Egyptian Neolithic ATTESTED dates by -4500 (but surely coming from a north previous culture not attested).

A total of 19 different haplogroups were identified. In Somalis, 14 haplogroups were identified. The haplogroup E3b1*(xE3b1b) was found in 77.2 % of the male Somali population, in 6.3 % of Iraqi males and in 1.7 % of male Turks whereas E3b1* was not found in Sub-Saharan Western African males. It has been stated so that 2/3 of the typical North African make-up is derived from E3b and J haplotypes. J is known to be of "Middle Eastern" origin, while E3b is clearly of Sub-Saharan east African origin. The investigations to explain that have arrived at the point to suggest that carriers from Egypt and Sudan populated in the Paleolithic the Middle East; but that after merging with the natives, a posterior colonization migrated towards Egypt and North Africa carrying there the Haplogroup J.

Nilo-Saharian language family: in S. Egypt and Sudan nomads with cattle domesticated since -9000 (data not sure); by -7200 sedentarism and agriculture (sorghum) along sure cattle-raising. From tools and pottery evidences this culture expanded southwards and westwards to the Sahara. The reconstruction of Proto-Nilo-Saharian don't displays evidence whatsoever of any kind of food production, but from the reconstruction from a northern dialect (proto-Saharo-Sahelian) it is evident the addition of food production and techniques: cow, driving animal's words, milking, words for cultivated fields, etc. appear adding a suffix to a propy Nilo-Saharian word not related previously with food-production. (per example "to clear a field" verb comes from a previous indigenous verb that meant "to clear"). After such process, clear Afrasiatic borrowings were adapted (for goats and sheep).

IDEA: the phases were an expanding Neolithic culture (as Afroasiatic) suffers stagnation in not reaching the step of Neolithic Saturation is "dangerous" since it provokes that neighbour paleolithic cultures have enough time to copy the system and spread themselves after (as in the Nilo-Saharian example). So verly it might have ocurred in the Near East also.

Jartum area (Sudan): varios yacimientos del Neolítico antiguo (-4000/-3000) y final (-3000/-1000).

In the Sahara, after a bright Paleolithic, appears the Bovidian culture since -3500, which included domesticated cattle, and had a mix of Negroids and Caucasoids; the progressive dessecation of the Sahara led the Bovidians southwards around -1000 to occupy the modern Sahel; a possible barrier to carry their culture more southwards is that the tse-tse fly infects all cattle.

IDEA: The Bovidian culture was a westwards expansion of Nilo-Saharian peoples or of Afroasiatics ? It could have been Nilo-Saharian, since the linguistic map shows that once such family was more extensive than nowadays, including now some spearheads here and there. Afroasiatic (Berber) tribes might have occupied the Sahara after from the Mediterranean, possibly aided by new militar techniques (horse, iron, etc.).

By -2500 the Saharian moist sabanna ended.

Shepherds migrated southwards as the Sahara become extremely arid around -1500.

IDEA: precisely about this epoch the Sea Peoples were warring all over, may have been they or their Lybian allies those that pushed southwards the Bovidians ? Were the peoples that carried there the Chadic branch of Afroasiatic ?

IDEA: Before the actual diseccation of the Sahara Desert, the Nilo-Saharian Neolithic culture would have been in an expansive station (southwards); but after such deseccation some little Nilo-Saharian spots would be conservated in oasis (even the ancient authors speak about "Ethiopians" in Moroccan oasis). But which was the cause of the disapparition of these almost certain Nilo-Saharian tribes ? Of course the main cause would be the aparition of the actual Berber populations. When such populations came to these oasis ? Archaeologicaly the most easy answer would be to fit such a cultural change with the spread of the Garmatians (or the "Chariot Culture"), which expanded from actual Lybia since -1250 thanks surely to their militar advantage. Two factors that help such hipothesy is that this ancient culture had the same spread that in the Middle Ages had the Berber languages by one side, and by the other side the other factor is that the "Chariot Culture" comes to be paralel to Lybio-Berber inscriptions, which are of course in Berber tongue. Maybe a reason for such westward conquest would be the failure of the best conquest, that of Egypt, since the Lybians would have been one of the various "Sea Peoples" that tried to conquer infructuously Egypt: the Temehu.

Adaptation of agriculture to the humid Guinean climate was accoplished by -1500.

IDEA: Such adaptation might have been ideated mainly by Nigero-Kordofanian peoples, as they will expand the Neolithic and their language to the south.

Domesticated cattle arrived to the African horn around -1200.

IDEA: Carried surely there by Afroasiatics (Cushite branch); after a southwards expansion based in the Red Sea.

From Saba kingdom in SW Arabia there was a Semitic (Afroasiatic branch) colonization of Ethiopia and Eritrea some 2500 years ago; develop to Amhara and Trigrinya languages there.

IDEA:  The second map African gene map would display the Semitic expansion ?

Those living in the African Horn have some 60% of Negroid genes and a 40% as Caucasian.

Ethiopians have a 60% of African genes, and a 40% as Caucasoid.

CONCLUSION: It seems probable that the first neolithic farmers stablished their first bases in Africa from the Near East, carrying there the Afroasiatic languages (supposedly the branch Berber/Egyptian/Coptic). The Cardial Ware culture also colonized, almost in the same time the Maghrib. As the Cardials supposedly spoke a Bascoid/Caucasian language, maybe the first neolithic culture there would have been changed after migrations of herdsmen. In Sudan, a possible north branch of the Niguer-Kordofian languages (the Nilotic family) developed in copying Neolithic techniques an agriculturist and pastoralist society that spread across the fertile Sahara lands; after progressive desseccation of their areas, the only way to survive was to concentrate their dewllings in the Nile or to migrate southwards as the Maghrib was already settled by Neolithic socienties. Their southern limit coincided with that of the rainforest, where their animals and plants faced difficulties to progress; but Bantu peoples of the rainforest, after centuries of contact would have learned the neolithic techniques from their northern neighbours, taking native plants as a means to create a new Neolithic society that was able to survive in tropical environmets, colonizing so the Congo Basin, the Guinea coast, and taking a migratory colonization over the rest of Africa.      

ANATOLIAN AND TRANSCAUCASIAN SPREAD

Hatti was a no-Indoeuropean language of Central Turkey spoken before the Hittite invasion (-2000); is an isolated language, but in the other side some scholars relate it to Abkhaz and Kartvel (Caucasian languages).

In North Turkey (over the Black Sea coasts), Caucasian languages related to Laz were once common (Colchian).

The Hurrian are regarded as having been the people responsible for the Transcaucasian Eneolithic Culture (or Kura-Arax culture). This was a cultural unity which pervaded Transcaucasia and the Armenian Plateau from -3250 to -1750.

 The Urartian (East Turkey) language known from cuneiform inscriptions is related to Hurrian (East Turkey) according to Arutiunov, and yet both are related to Dagestanic (North Caucasian).

IDEA: and even there was territorial continuity between all these Caucasic languages: before that the Turkish Azaris or Azerbadjanis occupied their actual area, it was inhabited by the Caucasian Albanians, a people related to the actual Uti, which speak a language that belongs to the North Caucasian sub-family. That would link Caucasian to the Zagros (Neolithic homeland).

Khaldi was the first god among Urartians and also among Armenians; the second god most worshipped among Armenians was Tesiheba.

IDEA: That would proof that the Indoeuropean Armenians accepted and adapted the native Urartian pantheon, and that as the Armenian Tesiheba and the Hatti Teshub are similar, it would point that there was a common original non-IE Anatolian religion shared by Hurrians and the non-Indoeuropean Hatti, pointing to a common religion and a common proto-language also.    

EXPANSION IN EUROPE

Cultural areas colonized by Neolithic Anatolians in Europe: Balkans including Greece, Italy, and western spearheads in coastal areas of France and Spain.

There is a certain degree of uniformity in the first Neolithic ceramics from the Middle Danube till the Aegean Sea, and even Anatolia.

The votive figures found in Çatal Hüyük resemble those of Cyprus, Hissarlik, Crete, and the Cyclades; even the sacral horns were given recognition.

IDEA: The direct Neolithic expansion into Europe originated in Anatolia would have resulted in an unified language family, as for Neolithic Dravidians in the east, Afroasiatics in the south, Austronesians in the Pacific, Bantu peoples, etc.

The Starcevo culture (-6000 to -5000) is the earliest Neolithic culture of the western Balkans, named for a settlement site near Belgrade. It is part of a broad complex of cultures that includes Karanovo I, Kremikovci, Körös, Maritza, and Cris. [Such cultures were of Anatolian origin]. It developed into the Vinca culture.

Les Seskliens étaient probablement venus de Hacilar en Anatolie pour s'installer en Grèce. Ils fondèrent deux cultures en deux migrations successives : -Culture d'Argissa et Saliagos ( proto-Sesklo ) -6500 / -5800; ils sont agriculteurs et éleveurs de porcs et moutons sans poteries puis avec poteries blanches ou rouges sombres. -Culture de Sesklo (-5800 à -4400) qui seront vaincus vers -4400 par aloctones: on a retrouvé les traces de leurs villages incendiés. Une partie des Seskliens s'installera toutefois en Italie du sud (-4800) [-6000] pour fonder la culture des poteries peintes et gravées de Matéra-Ostuni et ça donne cultures que expand pour toute l'Italie (Cardials).

Ge (the pre-Greek Earth goddess) directly equates with the Sumerian earth-goddess 'Ki' both etymologically and in mythology. Ki was originally united with the 'heaven' god 'An' (or 'Anu'). His name, like Ge's consort Ouranos, means 'sky' or 'heaven' and also appears etymologically related to his Greek counterpart. Like Ouranos, he was the original creator-god mated to the earth goddess. Ge's son Kronos, like Ki's son (the air-god Enlil) finally separated her from her mate, and succeeded his father as the supreme deity. The name of the Greek primordial sky father Ouranos means 'sky' or 'heaven' in ancient and modern Greek. This word is very difficult to relate to other IE languages' words for sky and heaven, which can mostly be traced to words meaning 'cloud'.

INFO: Hurrian celestial god: Anus.

IDEA: Sumerian-like language in Greece ? Confirmation that the substrate was in fact Caucasic ? (no Sumerian influences in Greece at least).

The Tripolie Culture (Cucuteni-Trypillia) is located in southern Ukraine (in the Black Sea area), in Moldavia, and partly in Romania. This was the first Neolithic culture in the area, and had a combined production economy of husbandry and agriculture.  Bones of oxen have been discovered with the remains of a plow, but it seems that they were not strong herders, but rather used animals in agriculture and herded cows, sheep, and pig. There is no indication of tamed horse. They used collective graves for their burials.

In the Tripolie Culture is not closely related to the Near East, but rather to the Balkan and central European Cultures. Some scholars think the northern Black Sea area has been influenced by the culture of Turkey, but there is still speculation.

IDEA: Then the proposed language that spread the Neolithics northwards was Caucasoid, that might have originated in the Zagros mountains; such hypothesis is also followed by the majority of scholars.

The Black Sea was just until -5500 a medium-sized lake; then the Bosphorus strip of land ceded and the Mediterranean water flooded the area till reach the sea level. As logic, some scholars have suggested that such event, which seems to have been suddenly, was which originated the Universal Flood histories. In fact, by comparision with the Balkan area, the Black Sea might have had a rich Neolithic culture which would have been a millenia old when the Bosphorus land was broken, failing then the huge amount of water contained in the Mediterrean Sea.

Neolithique Pontique: Volga ou Seroglazovo, Samara et Agidel (-4000 à -3500): Les morts sont enterrés, tête au nord ou au nord-est, dans des fosses à ocre entourées de pierres. Début de l'élevage des chevaux [...?].

Kourganes 1 (-4100 à -3500) étaient un rameau issu de la culture de la Volga (Seroglazovo). Les morts étaient enterrés dans des tombes collectives contenant de l'ocre.

Autres branches neolithiques sont developées des de Seroglazovo, mais finalement, tous ces peuples seront balayés par les porteurs de Yamnaya    

CARDIALS = CAUCASICS FROM ANATOLIA

With the newest AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometer) technology it has been possible to calibrate much better the Cardial remains and its expansion: A side issue of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition as seen from these kinds of sites was the local domestication of goats, suggested for Cova Fosca (Valencia), and the late Mesolithic acquisition of exotic domestic sheep through long distance exchange mechanisms, suggested for Abri Dourgne and Grotte Gazel, among others. This was a definitional issue, involving the identification as domesticates of juvenile ovicaprid bones recovered in high mountain sites that might in fact belong to young chamois or ibex. Such identifications created the impression that in these regions the Neolithic did not spread as a complete integrated package. Instead, local hunter-gatherers would have gone through a process of piecemeal independent invention, or adoption, of different elements. However, once the taxonomic status of bones attributed to sheep reported for those Languedoc sites was reevaluated, the evidence for domesticates in the Mesolithic vanished. This made it clear that the Cardial and related impressed ware cultures of west Mediterranean Europe represent the simultaneous appearance in the archaeological record of the whole package of features involved in the earliest agro-pastoral practices of the region: animal and plant domesticates, ceramic vessels, polished stone axes, and village dwelling. None of these have ever been found in secure, undisturbed Mesolithic contexts. Since the data indicated an inception of the Neolithic -5800 in Ligúria, -5600 in Valencia, and -5400 in central Portugal, it was suggested, therefore, that the mechanism best explaining the west Mediterranean process was maritime pioneer colonization, for which the occupation of the Pacific islands provides an analogy. To trace the direction, after calibration, the results indicate that the Neolithic begins significantly earlier in southern Italy, perhaps as early as -6000 but that northward and westward all available dates on short lived diagnostic samples are identical to those for Iberia.

IDEA: Such quick expansion (some 600 years) would lead to consider that the language (and ethnic type) of colonization was similar, similar as their pottery was from Lisbone till Napoli.

Cardial origins from Near East cultures according to the CNRS.

The Cardial pottery style may have originated in Asia Minor or even Yugoslavia (Starcevo culture).

IDEA: Neolithic enclaves in Western Europe (Cardial Culture) would be produced by an already stablished Neolithic culture that cannot expand by land after a Neolithic saturation stage (and such overpopulations might have appeared in S. Italy and/or in Greece and/or in Anatolia...: next enclaves would appear in the Languedoc, Valencia, Malaga, Algarvre, Central Portugal (by -5400); otherwise would not have the same culture such sites ...

IDEA: First synthetic map of genes in Europe would reflect the expansion of the Neolithics in Europe from the Near East, with successive secondary "reexpansions": Romans in Gaul, etc.

IDEA: Neolithic genetic gradation (NGD). Clear in the Austronesian spread: this linguistic family spread from South China-Taiwan, being there mixed Negritos-Mongoloids; after crossing Indochina and Indonesia colonizing them step by step, when they reached Timor Island they have left there an Austronesian culture, but their traits are clearly more Melanesian/Australoid than Mongoloid: after more advanced eastwards they mixed more and more loosing the original traits, so that the last almost had not Mongoloid characteristics even being fully Austronesian in culture and language. Taking then this information, applying that from modern Kurdistan the Neolithic spread to all over Europe, scarcely inhabited by native European tribes and subraces by then. Also another example of NGD is the Bantu expansion over Africa: as they mixed and mixed with Khoisan tribes, they were loosing their original genes (but not the cultural traits), so that the Bantus of South-Africa have clearly a Khoisan racial component now.

Cardial ware in: Mediterranean Spanish coast (-5000), Sardinia, Italy  western coasts, Provence, and enclaves in Portugal (-4600).

Les cardiaux sont un rameau séparé des proto-seskliens [Balkans]. Ils fondèrent premièrement la culture de Magoulitsa dans le nord de la Grèce, en Albanie et en Serbie.

IDEA: A logic sequence for the spread of the Cardials would be that those Sesklians that colonized from Greece the Cyclades got much experience on sailing; after colonization, the available lands to cultivate became overexploided, so that the excess of population would have seen the Western Mediterranean as a solution to decrease demographic population (Egypt was occupied by neolithics, also Anatolia, also Greece, etc.). Their maritime experience would allow them to colonize quickly the European shores, more quickly than a terrestrial colonization.

Pre-Sesklo: This is an intrusive northern or northwestern culture found only in northern Thessaly, where it succeeds the Proto-Sesklo culture. Pre-Sesklo is characterized by the appearance in quantity of impressed wares: at first, barbotine and nail-impressed, then later a finer ware exhibiting impressions made with cardium shells. Figurines are crude and pear-shaped and lack any facial features or incised decoration

Épicardiale (-4500/-3500), enterraient leurs morts dans les grottes d'habitation puis, plus tardivement, dans des fosses ovales ou rondes (parfois cerclées de pierres).

Ensuite, à l'époque "épicardiale" (-4500 / -3500), ils se diviseront en plusieurs sous-cultures locales: adriates (Dalmatie, Sud Italie, Sicile et Malte), tyrrhéniens (mélange de Franco-ibérique et d'Adriatique à l'Italie Centrale et Nord) et franco-ibériques (Espagne, Portugal, France et Maghreb).

Les tyrrhéniens sont un rameau des cardiaux. Ils enterrent leurs morts (sur le coté gauche et recouverts d'ocre) dans des fosses ovales parfois cerclées de pierres.

IDEA: Similar funerary customs as among the first Pontic neolithics, from Anatolia/Caucasus.

A l'époque "épicardiale" (-4900 / -3500), ils fondent plusieurs cultures en Italie: En Italie du nord Fiorano et Isolino (-4300 / -3800). Cette civilisation disparaitra lors de l'invasion des épicardiaux adriates venus de l'est vers -4000. Seule la culture d'Isolino di Varese se maintiendra encore quelques temps au nord-ouest de l'Italie, mais elle sera finalement absorbés par les chasséens de Lagozza vers -3300. Au sud Sasso-Sarteano (-4200/-3400), Guadone (-5000/ -4800) et Stentinello (-4900/-3900) disparaitront devant la progression des seskliens venus de Grèce à partir de -4800.

IDEA: Italy reoccupied by peoples ethnically similar to those native of the peninsula.

IDEA: So after an epoch of dialectization of the "Cardial" language, new waves of Neolithics came from the Balkans to occupy (again) Italy, except Liguria, occupied by Neolithics from France.

The earliest recorded evidence of man in Scotland is dated to -8500. It is thus that a few thousand years before the birth of Christ, Neolithic men from Spain and France, makers of fire and herders of sheep and cattle had already made their way to Scotland. Some archeologists suggest that these people may have built and used the great chambered cairns which dot the Scottish countryside. It has also been suggested that their descendants eventually merged with the Beaker people (who probably came from northern Europe), and this ethnic union made up the pre-Celtic stock of the northern lands. The link of these early inhabitants to their Iberian ancestors can be found in the many spiral pattern grooves cut into the rocks and boulders of this northern land and which can also be found in Spain, France and Ireland. The design of burial chambers located in the Orkney islands also provide an important link to the Iberian origin of their builders. Farming arrived in these islands around 4,000 BC. The great stone circles such as Sunhoney were probably being built around 3,300 BC.

The Neolithic tombs of the Orkney Islands, as those of Megalithics in Basque Country with men, women and children buried within the chambered tombs they erected.

The Neolithic Period in Ireland began around -3600 (after calibrations). Domesticated cattle, sheep and goats were imported to Ireland by then, together with cereals. Megalithism also just appears by then.

Les Almériens (ou culture hispano-maurétanienne) -4000 a -3100 descendent des cardiaux franco-ibériques Montserratiens. Les Almériens construisaient aussi des menhirs.

Les peuples epi-Cardials de Valence resteront à l'écart de la civilisation mégalithique, ils fonderont l'"art levantin".

Vers -3900 les peuples de Catalogne enterrent leurs morts dans des fosses couvertes de pierres.

Cardiaux de l'Èbre (Montserratins) fondent la civilisation péri-cardiale de Roucadour dans tout le sud-ouest de la France (-3800 à -3400). Les morts sont encore enterrés collectivement dans des grottes d'habitation.

Vers -4530 des peuples Cardiaux (venus probablement par le Portugal et l'Espagne plutôt que par le sud de la France) s'établissent en Vendée et en Charentes à Dissignac et à la Tranche sur mer. Naissance à la civilisation des mégalithes dont voici l'histoire: -3800 à -3400 les rubannés de Cerny dominent les cotes atlantiques et construisent de longs tertres funéraires de type "Passy".

IDEA: Migration of Megalithics from South Portugal and South Spain; they occupy those areas yet not neolithized (they seem where the most advanced among the Cardials).

Limburg and La Hoguette (-5500 to -5300). It belonged to a partly Neolithic, partly Mesolithic population that differed from the Bandkeramik (LBK) farmers. The Limburg variant is located primarily near the Maas River. La Hoguette is found in the Rhône valley, Northern France, Switzerland and Southwest Germany. The Cardial/Impressed pottery using groups along the Mediterranean Coast of Italy and France (-5600) apparently gave rise to La Hoguette. Although the domesticated animals and the pottery are thought to derive from the Mediterranean, the stone tools indicate the continuation of a local Mesolithic tradition. La Hoguette seems to coexist with the Bandkeramik (LBK) in many sites, but the datation of two sites may suggest that the pottery is older than the LBK in Western Europe.

The Hinkelstein group or culture appears to have been short lived, lasting perhaps 150 years, dating to about -5000 to -4850.  Hinkelstein is replaced by or overlaps Großgartach. No house structures are available, but the form of the bowls is derived from the Bandkeramik.

Großgartach (-5000 to -4600) overlaps chronologically, stratigraphically and regionally with Hinkelstein and coexist in a similar manner with the STK. The pottery stile has been noted in Bohemia (Western Czech Republic), West and Central Germany and adjacent easternmost France. One of its primary distribution centers is the Rhein (Rhine) River Valley. The early pottery is related to Hinkelstein. In Southwest and Central Germany it is frequently found together with STK (Stichbandkeramik) pottery in village debris and pits. Großgartach may also have given rise to Rössen via the intervening Plaining-Friedberg pottery style.

IDEA: If living side by side with Cardials...

The copper-using culture of Rössen (patches covering Germany, but not in the north) dates about -4800 to -4400. Seriation of form and decoration indicates that the pottery evolves out of Großgartach (LBK derived ?). Based on the seriation, early Rössen develops at a time when the late Stichbandkeramik or STK (LBK derived) still exists in Central and Southeast Germany as well as the Czech Republic.

IDEA: Cardial peoples side by side with IE peoples in Germany ?

IDEA: Germany and North France seems that were regions of contact between two different expanding Neolithic cultures: those supposedly IE from Hungary (LBK), and those supposedly Bascoid from the Mediterranean Cardials. Giving the dates of expansion of such cultures, both enter in contact there around -4500, being those from the south somewhat more older (in Provence stablished from -5600). The neolithic colonization by both cultures is the traditional leap-frog, so that in the first moments they would have disposed of new enough lands as to don't clash for older ones. But at the end, compression led to: A. local invasions and cultural dominance of a group over the dominated, or B. fussion.

Bishheim is primarily located in along the greater part of the Rhein River and its tributaries: -4600 to -4200. Bischheim arises out of Late Rössen. In fact it is the equivalent of Rössen III in the Saale River region of Central Germany. In the Rheinland it gives rise to Michelsberg. At its northern and eastern boundary, it provides the impetus for the development of the TRB.

Bischheim, Michelsberg, Ertebølle and Early TRB ceramics are largely undecorated.

Funnel Beaker Culture or TRB first Neolithics (in Frisia, N. Germany, Denmark, Poland, Bielorusia, where by archeology is thought that was carried by both difussion and colonization).

TRB (-4000 to -2800). Often considered the first Farmers of the North European Plane, the people of the Funnel Beaker culture, abbreviated TRB, ranged from southern Norway to the Czech/Austrian border and from Netherland to Ukraine. Bischheim provides a common root for the MBK (Michelsberg) and the early TRB: in fact there are difficulties to differentiate Michelsberg and early Baalberge pottery (TRB). Furthermore, agriculture, the plow and monumental architecture appear in northern Europe for the first time; in fact Megalithism is used for some burials. The TRB ends around -2800 with the arrival of the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture. The Southeast Group in Poland ends there with the appearance of Baden-like pottery around -3100. The southern group probably ends around -2800 with the appearance of Baden-like pottery. The Global Amphora Culture replaces the TRB pottery in Poland and East Germany around -3100. Previously to the desapparition of the TRB, this culture constructed defensive forts.

IDEA: TRB Culture occupied at first those zones not colonized by LBK (in patches); when there was no more regions to colonize neither for TRB nor for LBK, surely their daughter cultures were engaged in ever-local wars that would have led to assimilations in both senses, but what seems clear is that were there were Megaliths developed, the TRB won.

Accepted commonly that Trichterbecher (TRB) culture (-4500/-2700) would represent Balto-Slavs.

The Globular Amphora culture ranges from just west of the Elbe River in Germany and Bohemia to the middle of the rivers that flow into the northwestern part of the Black Sea. This culture replaces the TRB in much of Poland and East Germany, but this is not the case in the north of Slovakia. It seems that they continued with the Megalithic tradition. In fact, the pottery's design techniques are related to the TRB Alttiefstich/Walternienburg pottery...

Bronze articles from the Global Amphora Culture are the same as that from the Battle Axe Culture [supposedly IE culture, importations ?]. However, preservation of Neolithic traditions are strong in the northern area with a continued use of polished stone tools; bronze objects are rare. In these northern areas are forests with great numbers of rivers and lakes; here are domestic animals and weak agriculture. The Neolithic traditions were strong until the distribution of iron, i.e. the majority of tools were made of stone.

Michelsberg sites (-4400 to -3500) are located primarily along the Rhein River, but can also be found in Belgium and the Paris Basin. Michelsberg evolves out of Bischeim, a late phase of the Rössen culture. New evidence from the Paris Basin may indeed be interpreted as a development of Michelsberg in response to the Chasséen (Cardial origin) of France. No metalurgy. Near the Bodensee it is replaced by Horgen; in the NW German state of Hessen and adjoining regions it evolves into the Wartberg culture; and at its northern fringes, it is replaced by the TRB. In the east (Central Germany and Bohemia), it seems to overlap with the Baalberge Group of the TRB, starting around -4000.

Les Indo-européens de Michelsberg descendent d'un groupe cultural de globelets-entonnoirs qui se sont mêlés aux Rubannés de Rôssen. Cette civilisation , qui dure de -3000 à -2200 est construite par des pasteurs cavaliers portant des haches de combat et utilisant des gobelets tulipiformes. Leurs tombes sont des mêmes types que chez les de gobelets-entonnoirs. Parmi les tribus qui forment ce peuple, on trouve les Spienniens en Belgique, les Chaudardiens dans l'Aisne, les Balloyens sur la Seine (à la Bassée puis à Balloy et Gravon), etc...

However, megaliths probably date to the Michelsberg culture of the later Neolithic.

Elle se divise alors en plusieurs sous-groupes ("épi-Michelsberg"): Mundolsheim , Altheim , Wartberg , etc....

The Wartberg Culture (WBC) is mainly located in the German states of Hesse, eastern Northrhine-Westphalia and western Thuringia. The relation between Michelsberg and WBC can be recognized as a clear succession. Collective burial chambers used; in fact the mortuary customs and architecture in the older stage show a close long-distance relationship to the Paris Basin and Britanny (Chassey Culture). Approximate dating: -3700 to -2700. The end arrives by the arrival of the Corded Ware neighbour culture (-2700), that might have been agressive since previously to the end there was a fortification of the territory. However, recent research on the WBC-Corded Ware transition in the northern parts of the WBC distribution area shows that - at least in the field of mortuary ritual - there was no such clear-cut discontinuity. On the contrary, the replacement was a long step-by-step process, taking place between -3000 and -2700.

IDEA: Before -1200 the religious spread must have been almost uniquely by consquest or by cultural affinities: there were not by then "Universal Religions" that could break the cultural barriers.

Altheim is located in East and West Bavaria, Germany and western Bohemia, Czech Republic. -3700 to -3500. It seems to be related to the Late Lengyel and overlaps with the Later Michelsberg and Baalberge (TRB). Few copper.

IDEA: According to genetic studies, the 20% of the mean European genes are of an easterner origin (from the first Neolithics from the Near East). Such studies are taken as proof that the expasion of the neolithic techniques were carried by colonizers, but in the other side it also serves as proof that the Mesolithic component in Europe is majoritary, so that there was little racial blend. But matter is that Europe could have been recolonized de facto: if the neolithics came from Anatolia, and mixed with Mesolithics in Greece (let say 85 Neolithics and 15 Mesolithics), so that a 15% of the Greek genes would be pre-Neolithic or native, and then that the Cardials from Greece spread and mixed more and more, so that arriving to the Provence the native genes would arrive to a 40%, (mixing again 85 Neolithics with 15 Mesolithics), the new match would be a 49%; next the Neolithics/Cardials would reach south Portugal with a gene blend of  33% + 66%... so that the history would end as seems nowadays, that a majority of native European genes survive (as is after so much blending), but giving also the appearance that there was an important Mesolithic factor that might have influenced the Neolithic cultures of Europe. But as seen, also could be that a major Neolithic colonization with its culture and language/s would spread almost without major native inflluences.

Provence was colonized by peoples that carried the Cardial pottery.

Chausse Neolithic Culture from Provence covers almost all France, from Provence (-3500).

In France, from the uniform pottery of the Late Chassey; an intense regionalization follows the period: Sena-Oise-Marne (SOM) in the north, the groups of the Causses, Gougas-Saint Ponst Initial, Couronnian and Verazian in the Midi, the groups of Vienne-Charente and Artenacian in the center-west and the Saone-Rhoine Culture (CSR) in the east.

The central French Cortaillod culture, and the northern Italian Lagozza culture are all derived from the Cardial Culure.

Les cardiaux franco-ibériques de Provence se sont unis vers -3800 pour fonder la civilisation de Chassey. Au début, les chasséens enterraient leurs morts dans des coffres de pierre (cistes) ou de bois puis, à l'époque où ils s'étaient divisés, ils ont commencé à subir l'influence des peuples Atlantiques à mégalithes. S'est installée en Suisse (chasséens de Cortaillod; -3600 / -2600), dans le nord de l'Italie (chasséens de Lagozza ; -3100/ -2200), sur les cotes de l'Atlantique (chasséens de l'ouest et du centre-ouest ; -3500 / -2500), en Bourgogne (chasséo-rubannés de marcilly; -3300 / -2400) etc. dans le bassin parisien (nord-chasséens; -3200 / -2700); aussi ils sont au nord du Ebre et en Sardeigne.

IDEA: Maybe the spread of Megalithism is done by cultural affinities. Also that would favour to consider the language of the post-Cardials was yet enough unified by -3500.

IDEA: For a Cardial Culture expanding to the countryside, it would be difficult to mantain its characteristic way to made pottery... the most easy way would be to change the decoration, or even leave pottery undecorated.

Atlantic Andalusia with Neolithic since -4500 without Cardial ware...

Portugal's Neolithic appears in the same habitations of the previous Mesolithics, and without breakage of technologies used; its pottery seems related to that of Atlantic Andalusia.

IDEA: then cultural diffussion ? Local ideated Neolithic ?

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First Megalithism in Algarvre at -4500. First Neolithic in South Portugal dated at -5400 (Cardial Ware).

IDEA: as such areas belongued to the Cardial Culture, it would point that the Megalithism was a daughter culture of the Cardial, and as it will be checked that Megalithism could be paired with Bascoid, then it would point that Bascoid was a branch of the Caucasian (if it is accepted that in Asia Minor the language spoken there in the Neolithic was Caucasian: Hurrian, Hatti, Colchian, Caucasic Albanian or Uti, etc.).

Megalithic culture shows clear Egypcian influences; what is more, the megaliths where used for astronomical purposes and as burial places.

IDEA: and the pyramids that were constructed then also were that: a super-megalith that is used to bury and has astronomic/religious purposes as has been seen in Gizeh (where a tunnel directed faraoh's soul towards the Sirius star/god in a precise day; in the megaliths the soul was directed mainly to the Sun in its Summer solstice).

About -4000 in S. Spain evident cultural influence from Egyptian Bader Culture, and with domesticated cats and bovides from same origin...

Angelo Mosso writes: "The vases found at Amerejo in Spain have the characteristic form of the Egyptian vases of the close of the Neolithic Age. The resemblance of the Egyptian idols with those of Crete and the Continent is an established fact; the burial sites are similar; the flat copper axes of Egypt cannot be distinguished from those of the Continent; the evolution of art in Southern France and in Spain went on during the Neolithic Age, and we know that navigation was general on the Mediterranean in the times preceding the introduction of copper-all these data give good reason to suppose that the pre-Dynastic Egyptians had relations with the west which enabled them to procure tin, which when mixed with copper rendered it harder.

The Spanish Early Bronze Age artifacts also show close resemblances to Egean forms, and in several places of Spain goblets similar to those taken from Early Minoan strata in Crete, and others from the tombs of Abydos in Egypt.

IDEA: So Egyptian influences could have taken place.

The so-called "Megalithic" culture began to develop in what is now Portugal, sometime around -4500. Though there was undoubtedly a North African [Egyptian] component to the culture, it was an indigenous development, not inspired by the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. It spread rapidly by sea, up and down the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, as a glance at a map of Megalithic monuments proofs; Megalithic "seafarers" carried their culture up and down the Atlantic coast from the Canary Islands in the south to Ireland in the north. Atlantic colonizers from the western Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic regions occupied the European Atlantic coast, the isles, and the river basins from about 5000 B.C. onward. They were cattle-breeders and experts in orcharding (apples), and brought the Megalithic culture to Europe.

IDEA: From then, Megalithism spread alongside agriculture. Neolithic farmers reached the British Isles just when Megaliths began to be constructed in that region.

Megaliths only can be erected where there are presence of big rocks, so surely there are many zones that were occupied by the Megalithics but have not left such remains (as in sedimentary regions).

The theories about the origins of the Megalithism point to be in Galicia or in Portugal (according to the last calibrations that would be correct since the most old megalithic structures are those erected in such areas); or that it was spread by missionaires from the Near East; or that it was a difussion of the Mycenians (the most ancient theory, nowadays discarted). On the theories relating to the function some say that it was an status symbol, others that it was a temple, others say that it served as a boundary mark between Neolithic tribes that were growing constantly (Renfrew).

IDEA / CONCLUSION: The Megaliths seem to have been originated in southern Portugal as a mean to mark the boundaries between tribes so that its diffussion would have been in part cultural and in part based in the domino effect; as to display the own strenght to other tribes; to meet and unite all the tribe; and as a religious temple that served to perform rites to propiciate the fertility of the fields since such temples acted as astronomic clocks that determined the time to sow, the time to contact with the deceased, and the time to meet.

MEGALITHIC PYRENEAN GROUP: It presents a great unity that comprises the cultural forms found from the Basque Pyrenees till the Catalan dolmens. The megalithic Catalan culture appears simultaneously with the Millares Culture in SE Spain and resists there till the end of the Bronze Age [-750]. In fact, the more monumental sepultures with corridor and megalithic chamber, or those with covered gallery, as the sepultures in artificial caves, appear more frequently in the areas near the Mediterranean coast [please look at the Balears' section], while in the rest of the Pyrenean area it was used more frequently the megalithic cist.

INFO: Before the arrival of the Bell Beakers, Catalonia and the rest of the Pyrinees (in both sides) were occupied by the bearers of the Veracian Culture, whit collective burials. For more details please check the section on Iberian tribes.

Navarra (Western Pyrenees):  the Neolithic appears there around -3000; the new cultural pattern included the erection of megaliths (dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs); but the main burials are individual (in fetal position), or collective. By -300 the plain areas receive a clear Iberian influence (by cultural transmission or by colonization it is not clear), as iron becomes widely used, the burials are incinerating first the body and depositing the remains after in urns, apparition of wheel-made pottery, and even coins written in Iberian were in use around Pamplona.

INFO: Navarra region is paramount to link Megalithism and collective burials with Bascoid languages since all this area was Basque-speaking till the XVII Century, and don't shows indices that it was Indoeuropeanized, leaving then a direct bridge between Megalithism and Bascoid languages.

IDEA: It might correspond to a Caucasic (Ibero-Basque) family of languages the spread of such megalithic techniques, the fact to find and to link directly Megalithism just before the appearance of Iberians in Catalonia, and Basques in the Pyrinees would autofeed this hypothesis. Also would confirm a Pyrenaic origin for the Iberians, since in Valencia the Megalithism is not present, and all the evidences there would point to an IE influence.

MAP: Click here to open a new window with a map of megalithic sites.

Interior Spain with the first dated Neolithic economy from -3000 (mainly with husbandry), no Cardial ware there, but instead ressembling that of Atlantic Andalusia.

Neolithic in the Basque Country attested by -3500

In Brittany and UK Neolithic is carried there by the Megalithic culture.

First Neolithic in England at -4000 (with clear Megalitism since -3500: first phase of Stonehenge).

IDEA: Megalithics specialized in husbandry ?: occupy the Pyrinees, UK, Alps... central Spain...

First Neolithic in South Scandinavia at -3000.

The first megalithes found in Britain and Ireland date from -4250 and that then extension seems was done by boat (as seems by the map of Megalithism).

IDEA: If Megalithics appear first in -4000 in Britanny, then the Linnear Pottery Ware Culture was enough near as to allow cultural diffussion/copy; that would have left an spread of the Neolithic Megalithists by territories occupied by Mesolithics: England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Portugal, etc.

IDEA: The way of expansion of this local culture, would seem then to have colonized first the mainland (France), but that thereafter or at the same moment colonizing or  imposing their culture by boat to coastal Spain, British Islands, N. Germany, Dinamark, S. Sweden, Balears, Sardinia, and even Bari's area in Italy.

Megalithics appear with metalurgy already.

In Sardinia Neolithism appears with the Cardial Culture around -6000, surely from Corsica Island. The metalurgy appears at the same moment that do menhirs and dolmens around -2850 (Monteclaro and Filogosa cultures). Inmigration or acculturation ??

IDEA: The metalurgy might have helped them to invade other Cardial enclaves (Sardinia, Spanish coasts) ?

The Lenguadoc ideated a own Neolithic culture.

Recaurdie Culture in South France is Neolithic but without Cardial ware, instead it clearly evolves from the Mesolithic Tardenois and Sauveterre cultures.

IDEA: There are many theories of a "sudden" deveolpment of Neolithism by native Mesolithics for France, Italy, Portugal... As many of these theories are being debuked by better datations, and by evidences, others seem that fit a chovinist feeling...: biased science.

IDEA: The theory that indigenous foragers adapted farming in western Europe only would be acceptable for one or two times since it is not attested anywhere that each tribe of foragers take for themselves agriculture, developing in each case a new and different culture. In Asia per example are really few the cases that can be attested that the local Mesolithic cultures would have taken everywhere Neolithic technologies: by the language families spread it seems that Neolithic culture spread demicaly.    

THE CARDIALS SPOOK BASCOID LANGUAGES ?

INFO: BASQUE Latin loanwords (or how would sound a Romance that would have sprout from Basques): Initial PTK sonorized (PACE bake, TEMPORA dembora, CASTELLU gaztelu); Betacism (VIGILARE bigiratu); intervolcalic N lost (VENA mea "mineral", PLANUS PLANO lau); intervocalic L to r (CAELU zeru, VIGILATUM begiratu); intial PL-, CL-, FL changes to l (PLACET laket, FLORE lore, CLAMORE lamur; PLUMA luma ). Occasional loss of intervocalic PTK (MAGISTER maizter), and even in initial position (BUCCELA okela); AU diptong transformed (MAURO mairu); rejection of initial F- (FESTA besta, FARINA irin); rejection of consonatic groups (LIBER LIBRO liburu; ASTER ASTRO asturu).

IDEA: So the ancient Basques had problems to say intervocalic N and L; and also problems to say initial (or along a consonant) B, V, P and F. Then, if a non-Basque language presents such problems we can suspect that it is debt to a natural process, or if the coincidences are many, that such language had a Basque substrate (or that its substrate was influenced by a Basque substrate). In fact N and L are phonemes that are produced with the extreme of the tongue touching the palate, where the sounds B, V, P and F are sounds produced with the lips; the Basque, to assimilate such sounds, arrived to the elimination of intervocalic N, the substitution of L by liquid R, the change of B by M in initial position, the assimilation of V to B, also P was assimilated to B... and initial F simply was not voiced.

IDEA: Such Basque phonetic changes over Latin loanwords could also be applied by sure to other IE branchs (Celtic, Germanic, etc.). And even more: it could be possible to recognize a Bascoid substratum in a given IE language (as Gascon, Aragonese, Spanish...). Good to see also the section for Italy, and how substrate has affected Sicilan, Sard or Lygurian.

INFO: Languages that have a clear Basque substrate are Spanish, Gascon and Aragonese; even could be that it was the substrate of Celtic Galaic in North Portugal and Galicia (loss of intervocalic N and R, consonatic groups that include L are reshaped to tsh or cons+r, etc.).

The Vasconic etymology for cheese has no plausible Indo-European connection. Its original meaning is determined as 'the salty (one)'. Bq. gazi (alongside gazdun, also gaztun) 'salty' is an old adjectival formation based on Bq. gatz 'salt'.

The Basque has words with a common stem that would point to a pre-Neolithic datation: from «aitz», stone, has appeared aitzur (hoe), aizkora (axle), and aizto (knive).

IDEA: also that would display again that Bascoides developed by themselves a Neolithic culture since they constructed a name for a food that is made from domesticated animals.

An independent development of Neolithic techniques is attested in Basque, where the words to cultivate or to plough and to tame or to domesticate are not borrowed from other idioms but are naitve, so that where not carried by other peoples with other languages (J.M. Barandiaran).

The Basques might have known the gold and the silver before the Chalcolithic, as for the tin they name it "zirraide" (literaly: silver-like) and copper "urraide" (gold-like).

IDEA: independent developement or copy of metalurgical techniques.

Basque "hilargi" for moon. The ancient Basque word for moon was *ila, but this ancient word survives today only as the first element of hilargi, originally `moonlight' (argi `light') and hilabete `month', originally `full moon' (bete `full').

IDEA: That points to a primitive calendary based in the moon, ideated independently by the Basques (or Bascoids).

The Berber - Basque relation is expressed in Neolithic terms as garum "bread" in Basque gari "wheat" or "grass"; ugi "food" where there is a Basque ogi "bread" or "wheat".

Tovar about the investigation on the relation Basque - Berber: "Respecto al léxico, incluye en la comparación palabras vascas tomadas claramente del latín, palabras onomatopéyicas, infantiles, compuestas recientemente, mal traducidas y otras que no tendrían lugar ahí. Las correspondencias entre sonidos vascos y bereberes (dos fonéticas bien distintas) no son siempre fijas, sino que las establece aleatoriamente, según los casos.".

IDEA: Such relation could happen if the Cardial culture (theoricaly Caucasian-speaking) would have spread both in Spain and in the Maghrib; also such terms lead to an independent ideation of the Neolithic techniques (and foods) among Bascoids (Caucasoids ?).

Since a long time ago, the resemblances between the Basque phonemic system and the Iberian and also the similar compound structure have been stated; Iberian sounds like Basque. Additionally, we have the "evidence" provided by the few Aquitanian personal and god names known; attested in latin inscriptions. Not only these compound names are very similar to the Iberian ones, but they also show bases identical to Basque words which allow coherent translations of the personal names (as a matter of fact Aquitanian is considered as Ancient Basque); hence similarities between Aquitanian and Iberian suggest a genetical relation between Iberian and Basque.

More similarities are given in the section for Iberian Peninsula, but for Spanish and Catalan...:

SPANISH: BELLA (beautyful) bella (pron. "beya"); MELIORE (best) mejor (pron. "mehor"); REGULA REG'LA (grille) reja (pron. "reha"); VETULA VET'LA (old, femenine) vieja (pron. "bieha); OCULO OC'LO (eye) oxo ojo; CASTELLO (castle) castiello castillo (pron. kastiyo); ALTERO AL'TRO (other) autro otro; MOLTO (much) mucho /// CAPSA (box) caxa caja (pron. as "cahha").

CATALAN: BELLA (beautyful) bella (pron. "beya"); MELIORE (best) millor (pron. "meeyor"); REGULA REG'LA (grille) rella (pron. "reya"); VETULA VET'LA (old, femenine) vella (pron. "beya); OCULO OC'LO (eye) oll uell ull; CASTELLO (castle) castell (pron. kasteyy) /// CAPSA (box) caxa ; LUNA (moon) lluna (pron. "yoona"); CAMBA (foot) cama (the Latin group MB also was reduced in Gascon to M).

PATUÉS: In the middle of the Meridional Pyrenees there is the Valley of Benasc were it is spoken a language named "patués" (a French term that means local language and used usualy as a despective term). This valley in the north has frontier with Gascon, in the east with Catalan, in the West has frontier with Aragonese, and in the south Spanish (Castilian). The Aragonese linguists adscript such language as an Aragonese dialect, were the Catalan linguists think that it is a Catalan dialect very corrupted by Spanish; in fact the wear, the type of house and the traditions are Catalan, and as more we go back in time, more Catalan words we get. In whichever case, this pigdin language has its roots in a Bascoid language spoken in the valley till around the VIII Century, that is no doubted by any linguist by its archaic Basque words and its Basque toponymy (Ersite, Eresué, Arasán, Bisaurri, etc.). This language went an step more further than Catalan in pallatizing the majority of Latin L (the Catalan only pallatizes when L was in initial position, or was influenced by iod, or was doubled, or was after K, T, G: lluna, millor, castell, ull, vella, rella); so that in Benasquese PL, CL, FL and RL has resulted a palatization (PLOMBO pllom, pron. "pyyom"; DIABOLO DIAB'LO diaplle; CLARO cllaro; FLORE fllor; TORLA torlla), and even this trend to palatize L also has been extended to Spanish loanwords (peligro pelligro; salida sallida; explosión expllosión; luto lluto). Also the Patués (the Benasquese) has mantained more Bascoid traits than Catalan as it tends to eliminate diptongations (even those of Spanish origin as in "feo (ugly) fego", or in "faena (job) fayena", or in "cadauno (each one) cadaguno"), or groups of consonants (pruna peruna; llàgrima llàrima); tends as Basque to the rothacism of L even in Spanish loanwords (olmo urmo, albañil arbanyil, alambre arambre), and also as Basque did, the B is changed to M in Spanish loanwords (bandarra mandarra; moribundo morimundo; pulmón polbón).

IDEA: If Basque "from Britanny" or "from Algarvre" was carried in the Basque Country about -4000, and in Murcia-Alicante or in Catalonia (as possible areas of spread of the Iberian)  around -5000... it means that there were some 4000 years to evolve among first Basque/Aquitanian inscriptions and Iberian: similar time period took to evolve in different directions medieval Hundi, Spanish, Russian or Armenian from their common Indoeuropean.

IDEA: If Iberian was linked to Basque (many scholars have tried to translate it with the aid of Basque with much or less succes, as if with English someone would try to understand German), that would give a coastal point for the Bascoid family were Caucasians could have had contact with Bascoids; or where Caucasians from the Balkans would have colonized Spain, where Bascoid would have been a Caucasian branch.

Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops change into voiceless fricatives in German (Grimm's Law): PIE *p, *t, *k PGmc *f (pede foot), *th (teuta dutch), *kh (kerp harvest); Proto-Indo-European voiced stops become voiceless: PIE *b, *d, *g PGmc *p, *t (et- eat), *k; Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops lose their aspiration and change into plain voiced stops: PIE *bh, *dh, *gh PGmc *b (bher- bear), *d (medhu mead), *g.

In Proto-Germanic (centered in South Scandinavia) 1/3 of its vocabulary is no-Indoeurpean and is of unknown origin (mainly for agricultural and marine terminology). This characteristic would have splitted-differentiated Proto-Germanic from its sister languages (Balto-Slavic).

Non-Indoeuropean substrate or adstrate words in proto-German:

IDEA: Megalithics ? Basque "itsasoa", English "sea", Dutch "zee"...

INFO: The words in brackets are the ACTUAL Basque form.

The non-IE words have to do with ships [ontzi] and the sea [itsasoa]; words like keel, oar, rudder, steer, and mast [masta ?] are shared by almost every Germanic language, but cognates for these specific words and senses are not found in other branches of Indo-European. Another group of these words deals with war [borruka] and weapons; words like sword, shield, helmet, bow, and knight are all found in almost every Germanic language, but again, not with these meanings among other Indo-European languages. Some names for animals such as eel, carp, stork, and bear [hartz] are also among these words of obscure origin; so are a few farm animals like calf and lamb. There are scores of non-Indo-European words that are used daily by English speakers; words like earth [herri], blood [odol], bite, hand [hanka, for animals], wife, evil, little, sick, bring, run, and house [etxea].

Basque and Celtic have similar solutions and parallelisms in the formation of the months and seasons, as for "autumn" the Basque has negu-aitzin (lit. "pre-winter") and Irish. fo-gamar (lit. "sub-winter").

It will be very hard to call all peculiarities of modern Celtic languages an internal process. We mean here not only phonetics, but the strange syntax items, the word order (in Gaelic) abnormal for all Indo-European languages, the prepositional pronouns and many other traits that distinguish Celtic speech from other Indo-European groups and make it so interesting. [mutations or instability of sound of initial B-, D-, G-]. IE *kapro- evolve into Celtic to g-: Gaulish gabro- 'a goat', Old Irish gabor 'a goat', Irish gabhar. P- disappears: ater.

The Y chromosomes of men from Wales and Ireland resemble those of the Basques. Some believe that the Basques, from the border of France and Spain, are the original Europeans.

IDEA: rackoned there after successive invasions from mainland Europe of Q-Celts, P-Celts and the later being Germans (Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans, etc.).

A common pre-indoeuropean root of Basque origin is present in Spanish "hacha", French "hache", and German "axen" from "aitz": rock in Basque, and its formative aizkora (aitz + kor): axe.

The German scholar Theo Vennemann, cathedratic of German linguistics in the University Ludwig-Maximilian of Munich thinks that: the root Iz- would be present in the the base of some 200 European rivers between Norway, Italy and Russia; the root Ur- "water" in Basque appears in the rivers Urula (Norway), Urbach (Germany), Huriel (France), Urola (Basque Country), Urnis (Poland), Ur (Russia), etc.; the root Ibar- "bassin" would count in Germany as the base for 80 river names, explaining also in France names as Ivry, Averdon, Ebréon, etc. and others in Servia, Austria and other countries. The root Aran- "valley" would be the in England: Arundel, Norway: Arendal, Arntal in Germany, and in Sweden.

Possible Basque toponymy in the Italian Alps: Arieta or Arrieta (place of stones), Aran (valley), Gane: "peak" in Basque, Lesache, Lessona, Lezetta: (lezea, Lezona, lezeta in Basque), Loy: lohi (mud), Oren= orein (deer), Aiona, Albissola, Ardola, Berri, Carcare, Olano, Orba, Ormea (wall), Savona, Varezze, Venasca, Benasco, Agordo, Andraz, Arabba, Ardo, Arta, Gardena, Gares, Lasa (Tirol), Maia "table", Azasca, Andrate, Aranno, Artore, Arbedo, Arese, Arizzano, Arona, Arola, Arrobio, Arzo, Ascona, Balzola, Barasso, Bettola, Biasca, Gabiola, Gauna, Gazza, Gordola, Landarenca, Lesa, Oria, Ossola, Zubiena, Lambro River (smog in Basque), etc.

The etymon bard-/part- of Partenkirchen (old Part(h)ano, from +Partanum) and its river Partnach is seen in many other toponyms all over Europe, e.g. Partenheim, Perticus saltus (la Perche), Partney, the river Parthe, Partington, Bardemara, and Bardenbach, and is connected to a weakly attested Basque word barta/parta meaning 'swamp'.

LIGURIAN DIALECT: The Lepontic substrate has left Celtic phonetics in the actual Romance speech as ü or ö, or the lenition of some vocal endings. But also shares with other Mediterranean languages some non-Indoeuropean (Bascoid ?) features: intervocalic R is lost (AURO ou; COLORE co; CAELO se; COLOMBO conbo); in groups L+consonat the phonetic value is changed (ALTARE arta; CABALCARE cabarca; SEPULTURA seportua; VOLTA votta; ALTRI atri; CALDO cado; DOLCE dose); the group L+iod evolves to a dj sound (FILIO fidjo; MELIORE medjo); also when L is after the consonant it is changed as happens in the intial groups PL-, FL-, CL-, and even BL-, which have been pallatized (PLANO chan; PLUVIA cheuve; FLAMA schamme; CLARO chao; BLANCO jancu), or in interior groups (UNG'LA unge; VET'LA veja). The Latin V is lost (VENTO ento) and the B sound is changed to "m" as mannana from bannana (per example in Basque the Latin VENA (bena) was reshaped as "mea"; intervocalic R lost (MESURA mezua; TORTURA tortoa). The dialect even shares with Iberian languages some lexic (bazure for "witch" is in Spanish bruja, in Portuguese bruxa, and in Catalan bruixa). Also the non-IE toponymy is strikingly similar (Benasque in the Pyrinees, Benasco in the Alps).

CONCLUSION: The non-IE language known as Lygurian might have been akin to Basque, pointing that the Lygurians would have keept their Neolithic language till the expansion of IE Celtics with the Urnfield culture. Other hypothesis would be that a non-IE language was the substrate of Ligurian, affecting such characteristics the actual romance language.

Other languages and dialects of Italy affected by a supposed Bascoid language can be seen in the section of Italy (Sardinian and Sicilian). In the Calabraese region there are dialects with transformation of Latin initial F- in H-, and the repulsion to start a word with R- (spelling then "arr-"); also in Sardinia the initial F- is substituted by H- in dialects.

The case of Portuguese and Spanish (both with a Celtic substrate that received Bascoid influences) are treated in the Iberian Penninsula section.

Arromanian (Romanian-like language or Romanian dialect spoken in Macedonia that expanded to Greek Epirus and to the Istrian penninsula) has changed intervocalic L to r (GULA gura, BASILICA biserica, Salonike Saruna); also has had rothacism (from intervocalic N to r) as in MINUTO marunt. Betacism.

IDEA: As the case for Portuguese, a Bascoid language would have not been the substrate, but an IE language that served as substrate to Romanian which had such characteristics got from its own substrate... from a Bascoid substrate ?

The Basque counting system seems quite original (non-alocton): ogei (20); ogeitamarr (20 + 10 = 30); berrogei (2 x 20 = 40); etc.

It is evident the system to count by twenty in French (Gaulish substrate), Brittish, Welsh and Basque.

GERMÁN COLÓN founds that in ancient provenzal and in some Catalan writtings, the vegesimal system also is attested.

System to count by twenties used in Tras-os-Montes region (NE Portugal).

Semitic people based their numeric system on number 20. Modern Albanians still use the vigesimal numeric system of ancient Illyrians.

Nuristani and Dardic people count in twenties, except the Kashmiri language which adopted the count in tens. There is no special in this if we remember that Celtic and Italic languages also used to count in 20s. This was probably normal for Proto-Indo-European as well.

IDEA: Otherwise being Burushaski isolated language near such group of Aryan languages... and even being possibly the substrate for them...

Similar system to count among the Caucasic Georgians, by twenties also.

INFO: The Linear A of Crete reflects a non-IE language that had not consonant clusters, terminal -s, and distinctions between r and l , g and k, and p and b, all of which occur in Basque. Please mind that the first colonizers of the island arrived around -6000, suposedly from the same area that the Proto-Sesklo and Sesklo cultures were developed.

Homer said that in Crete the wheat was named "kri" (by the Pelasgians ?, by the Eteocretans ?).

IDEA: Such word seems related to Basque "gari", Berber "garu", Armenian "gari" or Urartian "khari" from a common word *KARÜ (it is common in Basque the despalatization of initial palatals). That would confirm the Caucasism of Basque, or at least that Caucasian speakers were in contact with Bascoids in prehistoric times, since Crete might have received the first Neolitich colonizers from Anatolia or Greece.

Basque "ardo" for wine. The word has regional variants ardao, arno and ardu; the original form was *ardano, and combining form is ardan- today. The word is of unknown origin; the only remotely similar words for `wine' found anywhere are Albanian ardhi and Armenian ort, which are usually thought to be cognate with each other and sometimes thought to be connected with the Basque word.

IDEA: The Armenian and Albanian words for wine might be substrate words since IE had its own word for wine; as seen Anatolia and the Balkans seem that were colonized by Caucasic-speaking peoples, so that fact would point to a link between Basque and Caucasic: borrowing such word or having a common origin; the Cardial Cultures could be the needed link for that in Western Europe.

Initial Indoeuropean PTK sounds have been affected in Armenian, with an Urartian substrate, transforming them to hw-, th-, s-.

Vahan Sarkisian, cathedratic in the University of Yerevan, Armenia, has got some 1500 lexical paralels between Basque and Armenian that coincide in sound and sense.

IDEA: The Armenian has a high substrate component (Urartian).

INFO: Urartian word for "granary" was 'ari, that could be derived from "khari < KARI". Actual Armenian has "gari" for barley (could be a substratum word: total a 40% of its lexic).

IDEA: As said previously it is thought that the Neolithics that colonized Anatolia and the Balkans were linked with an original culture in the Zagros chain.

Sumerian gur "wheels" for Basque gur-di "cart" and gur-pil "wheel".

IDEA: Bascoid had an independent ideation of chariages. Or the name for "chariot" in Basque and Caucasian is an IE loanword.

Caro Baroja in 1946 pointed out that if Caucasic languages and Basque are related, such relation might have existed in the Bronze Age since such languages borrow a similar words for "chariot".

IDEA: But this (and other) borrowings can have an explanation through IE.

Nalchik et Maïkop (nord du Caucase, -3000) : début des tombes princières à chambres boisées, ornées de cromlechs (cercles de pierres) ou de stèles. les hommes sont enterrés sur le coté droit et les femmes sur le coté gauche. Une aristocratie issue de ce peuple ira s'installer en Géorgie et Arménie vers -2400, ou elle fondera la civilisation de Trialéti (utilisation de tombes à fosses en rondins recouvertes d'un kourgane de terre et de pierres). Dans le Caucase occidental ce peuple utilisait aussi des tombes dolméniques sans couloir dont l'entrée en hublot était orientée vers l'est.

IDEA: Megalithism arrives (or is developed paralely by sharing a common ancestry) in the Caucasus; Caucasian languages survive yet there.

The lexico-estatistical relation between Georgian and Circassian with the Basque is 7.52% (Swaden words), the most high correlation of the Basque language with whichever language in the world. Such correlation is too high as to be produced by mere chance according the mathematical calculus.

MAP: Click here to open a new window with a linguistic map of the Caucasus region.

INFO: Please remember that Armenian with Bengali, or Irish with Albanian nowadays have less than the minimal 5% requested.

IDEA: If Basque and Georgian have some genetic relation, and this relation could be thought to be the Neolithic spread, then the date for their division would be around -7000. Between such date and the first attested Basque (Aquitanian) and first atested Georgian there is a time span of seven millenia. Please mind that the time span from the dialectalization of IE and the first written evidences of Greek, Hittite and Aryan is of some 3000 years...; for the Afroasiatic family, the first Egyptian texts can be read from -2500, and the first Akkadian texts from -2200, as such family was dispersed by Neolithic expansion (-7000), so there are a time span of about fifty centuries.

INFO: The first documents written in single Indo-European languages, appear around -1700 (Hittite), -1600 (Aryan words present in Hurrian texts), and in -1600 (Mycenaean Greek in Linear B); just two millenia after the dialectalization of the common Indoeuropean.

IDEA: The best idea to know a genetic filiation between Basque and Caucasic languages (and other linguistic dilemmas) would be to enter into a computer program all words of all languages (entering their meanings and their phonetic values), and then enter all possible phonetic known changes, and all possible meaning changes known. After running the program the computer after infinite calculations would present all possible paralels (those historic, and those from casuality); if a paralel follows a linguistic patern (as intervocalic -t- changes in almost all words to d), such fact might be considered as historic; from such historic changes the computer could reconstruct a linguistic tree that would be definitive.

Michel Morvan has pointed many morphological and lexical similarities between Basque and the Uraloaltaic family.

West Caucasian languages also paralels Basque in being aglutinant languages, and that phonetic constructions as consonant plus consonant are mainly rejected (Latin CROCE Basque gurutz).

Between Caucasic languages and Basque there are many grammatic similarities. Declensions are almost the same in Georgian, including the lack of generus.

Bouda created a list with some 400 common Basque-W. Caucasic words, where according to Tovar "mientras abundan las palabras propias en la ganadería y en la agricultura, faltan en absoluto las correspondientes a los metales y sus usos", so that such possible contact might have been in the Neolithic, but not after the Calcolithic.

IDEA: If Basque and the Caucasic languages have in common Neolithic therms... evidence goes to think that the contact was posterior to -9000. Moreover, if such families are really related, that also points to the date of spread.

In Bouda's list there are stricking similarities as: "cist" zara in Basque and zari in Georgian; "beautyfull" is eder in Basque and  ezer in Georgian; "we" is gu in Basque, but gw in Georgian.

The North American Bengtson (1996) also has composed a list of similar lexic between Basque dialects and Caucasian languages: some basic are tongue, eye, meat, arm, wolf, forest, hot, finguer, alive, etc.

Bengtson himself thought that the existence of common words for "cow" and "wheat" would deduct a Neolithic relation.

Basque gau "night", comes to be similar to *gaume "night" in Proto-Caucasian Meridional.

The Caucasian languages had a similar to the Basque interrogative pronoun: ze- (Basque), z- (in North Caucasian and South Caucasian).

Georgian also has similar constructions as Basque: "fathers" is a word constructed with the aid of "we".

"Eight" in Basque is zortzi, and it could be created from zor "two" and tzi "teen", as to say "two to get teen". The Laz (in the same linguistic family of the Georgian, but spoken in Turkey), has the same process: "eight" is zur tzur, which means "two to get teen".

IDEA: If in true the Bascoid languages were of Caucasian origin (from the Zagros core area), so what kind of languages might have been spoken in Western Europe ? The hypothesys would be that then such languages might have been sister languages of Indoeuropean... pointing that that not all "Indoeuropeanisms" in Basque have a Celtic or Latin origin, but an origin in its own substrate.

Neolithic people in Western Europe [Cardial] are buried in special-purpose collective funerary sites, whereas Mesolithic people are buried individually in habitation sites.

IDEA: The first type of burial is typic of the pre-Megalithic peoples, where the second type [individual site] is typic of the Linear Culture, supposedly Indoeuropean...