Talk:Old European culture

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Should a discussion of the Uralic peoples be included here? It's my understanding that the Sami_people have lived in Scandanavia since well before Germanic settlement there. And of course Russia west of the Urals has been populated by various Uralic peoples since well before Slavic settlement... --Blackcats 18:46, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Merge with other article

Shouldnt this article be merged with Neolithic Europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.194.170.62 (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Serious population studies science left Gimbutas behind years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.69.219.3 (talk) 01:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picts

Should Picts be included? --Error 01:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I just came to ask the exact same question. — Trilobite (Talk) 19:56, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
imho, this article is inherently broken due to its title. It should redirect to Old European culture — seriously, the two articles treat the same topic, and "Old European" is the better term, since it is not as misleading ("Pre-Indo-European" in principle could also refer to India or the Americas). dab (ᛏ) 18:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with a redirect, as soon as all pertinent info is worked into Old European Culture. In other words, most of the groups mentioned here need to be mentioned there. Alexander 007 02:14, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

This title is a little bit confusing, as in historical linguistics, the "Pre-" prefix is used to indicate the earlier state of a language deduced through internal reconstruction rather than the comparative method - that is, "Pre-Indo-European" is a legitimate term in historical linguistics referring to a state of the Proto-Indo-European language prior to that which can be reliably attested by the comparative method. --Peter Farago 07:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Peter Farago that the use of a linguistic term to denote an archaeological moment is confusing, but that's the usage of Professor Gimbutas. It may be better to put this article under Old Europe and just do a redirect from here to there. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
The article should not remain under the current title, an adjective without a noun. Pre-Indo European Wwhat? Language? Culture? Both? Sylvain1972 15:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idea of Anatolian origin for PIEans

It's not impossible that Renfrew is right. However, for that to be so, the Indo-European languages would need to have remained unchanging or barely changing for thousands of years. Even Basque doesn't take that long to change - compare some of the inscriptions from Early Roman-Era Iberia in languages related to Basque! Also, attributing the spread of agriculture to the Proto-Indo-Europeans seems like an attempt to glorify them.

On the other hand, Gimbutas makes the PIEan culture into a savage one that introduced war into a part of the word that didn't know a thing of it, and forced a father-worshiping culture on mother-reverers. That idea of "Old Europe" is far too utopian. No, there were surely wars; name one culture that hasn't ever fought a war. As for the Indo-Europeans, it seems quite likely, from reconstructed words about reciprocity and equivalent exchange, that there was much trading between their culture and the Old European cultures of goods, and as is known, where goods are transfered, so are words and some customs.

Is it possible that the Indo-Europeans were in fact merely aggressive businessmen? That the expansions Mrs. Gimbutas speaks of are major eras of trade with the cultures of Old Europe? The Indo-Europeans might well have set up trading posts in urban centres of Old Europe, or as close to those as existed. Whether or not there were subsequent military incursions is up for grabs, but is it possible that the Indo-Europeans trusted these trading partners enough to take some of their women as wives? This would allow the mixture of cultures that is seen in every branch of Indo-European, but since this was taking the woman in, the children would be brought up in the Proto-Indo-European tradition, while being told Old European stories by their mothers.

Since the archaeological record rarely shows a SUDDEN change from one culture to another, the idea of trading with and gradual absorption of cultures by the Proto-Indo-Europeans seems to work. If there are archaeological clues pointing to war and such, this might still be Proto-Indo-European in origin - BUT IT COULD EQUALLY BE A NON-PIEan INVASION. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seadog driftwood (talk • contribs) 17:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Your reasoning sounds plausible. It would be nice to work these ideas into the article, provided you can find some sources. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Merge

Pre-Indo-European is a concept from Gimbutas and her colleagues. This concept has been pretty much crowded out of contemporary archaeology. It deserves (and receives) a mention in the article on the European Neolithic, but doesn't deserve the full treatment that it receives in this article. So I vote to maintain the split, to keep the nice work so many people put into this page. Anthon.Eff 22:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I am removing the merge tag because the merge hasn't received favorable interest either here or in Neolithic Europe, where the merge tag has already been removed. --teb728 21:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lehmann

Lehmann's use of the term is idiosyncratic, and should be split. The usual term for what he is doing would be Pre-Proto-Indo-European. --dab (𒁳) 10:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed rename

I propose that this article be renamed from Pre-Indo-European to Old European culture (or something like that). The subject of the article is really Gimbutas’s “Old Europe” hypothesis. (Perhaps it should even be named “Gimbutas’s Old Europe hypothesis.”) Although (as the article says) from a pro-Gimbutas POV “Old Europe” and “Pre-Indo-European” are synonyms, calling the article “Pre-Indo-European” presupposes that Gimbutas’s hypothesis is correct.

For reference, the history of the article is as follows:

After the article is renamed, the redirect which results from renaming should not be left, for leaving it would justify renewed objections to such a redirect. Instead the original stub should be restored. (Or perhaps the redirect should be replaced with a redirect to Pre-Proto-Indo-European.) --teb728 09:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

On 5 November 2007 the article was renamed as proposed. --teb728 21:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

"Old European" is both awkward and ambiguous. john k 22:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

So what do you prefer? --teb728 22:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Pre-Indo-European makes more sense to me, but seems to have its own problems. I'm not really sure. john k 20:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Haplogroup I

Are there any hypotheses relating haplogroup I with Old European culture? They seem to span the same terretories. --Kupirijo (talk) 23:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A statement about Greek

Does anyone take issue with the following statement:

A substrate in Greek, "Pelasgian", can be made out from loanwords, but it is unclear whether this is a genuinely pre-Indo-European substrate, or a Anatolian Indo-European one.

If so, can it be improved rather than deleted? --Wetman (talk) 08:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently not. It's been re-deleted. --Wetman (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)