Here I present: David W. Anthony, “THE HORSE, THE WHEEL , AND LANGUAGE: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppe shaped the Modern World”, 2007.
INTRODUCTION.
The book consists of seventeen (17) chapters and the “table of contents” is given BELOW.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE: Language and Archaeology.
Chapter One.
The Promise and Politics of the Mother Tongue Ancestors Linguists and Chauvinists The Lure of the Mother Tongue A New Solution for an Old Problem Language Extinction and Thought
Chapter Two.
How to Reconstruct a Dead Language Language Change and Time Phonology: How to Reconstruct a Dead Sound The Lexicon: How to Reconstruct Dead Meanings Syntax and Morphology: The Shape of a Dead Language Conclusion: Raising a Language from the Dead
Chapter Three.
Language and Time 1:
The Last Speakers of Proto-Indo-European The Size of the Chronological Window:
How Long Do Languages Last? The Terminal Date for Proto-Indo-European:
The Mother Becomes Her Daughters The Oldest and Strangest Daughter (or Cousin?):
Anatolian The Next Oldest Inscriptions: Greek and Old Indic Counting the Relatives: How Many in 1500 BCE?
Chapter Four.
Language and Time 2:
Wool, Wheels, and Proto-Indo-European The Wool Vocabulary The Wheel Vocabulary When Was the Wheel Invented The Significance of the Wheel Wagons and the Anatolian Homeland Hypothesis The Birth and Death of Proto-Indo-European
Chapter Five.
Language and Place:
The Location of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland Problems with the Concept of “the Homeland” Finding the Homeland: Ecology and Environment Finding the Homeland: The Economic and Social Setting Finding the Homeland: Uralic and Caucasian Connections The Location of the Proto-Indo-European Homeland
Chapter Six.
The Archaeology of Language Persistent Frontiers Migration as a Cause of Persistent Material-Culture Frontiers Ecological Frontiers: Different Ways of Making a Living Small-scale Migrations, Elite Recruitment, and Language Shift
PART TWO: The Opening of the Eurasian Steppes.
Chapter Seven.
How to Reconstruct a Dead Culture The Three Ages in the Pontic-Caspian Steppes Dating and the Radiocarbon Revolution What Did They Eat? Archaeological Cultures and Living Cultures The Big Questions Ahead
Chapter Eight.
First Farmers’ and Herders: The Pontic-Caspian Neolithic Domesticated Animals and Pontic-Caspian Ecology The First Farmer-Forager Frontier in the Pontic-Caspian Region Farmer Meets Forager: The Bug-Dniester Culture Beyond the Frontier: Pontic-Caspian Foragers before Cattle Arrived The Gods Give Cattle
Chapter Nine.
Cows, Copper, and Chiefs The Early Copper Age in Old Europe The Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture The Dnieper-Donets II Culture The Khvalynsk Culture on the Volga Nalchik and North Caucasian Cultures The Lower Don and North Caspian Steppes The Forest Frontier: The Samara Culture Cows, Social Power, and the Emergence of Tribes
Chapter Ten.
The Domestication of the Horse and the Origins of Riding: The Tale of the Teeth Where Were Horses First Domesticated? Why Were Horses Domesticated? What Is a Domesticated Horse? Bit Wear and Horseback Riding Indo-European Migrations and Bit Wear at Dereivka Botai and Eneolithic Horseback Riding The Origin of Horseback Riding The Economic and Military Effects of Horseback Riding
Chapter Eleven.
The End of Old Europe and the Rise of the Steppe Warfare and Alliance:
The Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture and the Steppes The Sredni Stog Culture: Horses and Rituals from the East Migrations into the Danube Valley: The Suvorovo-Novodanilovka Complex Warfare, Climate Change, and Language Shift in the Lower Danube Valley After the Collapse
Chapter Twelve.
Seeds of Change on the Steppe Borders: Maikop Chiefs and Tripolye Towns The Five Cultures of the Final Eneolithic in the Steppes Crisis and Change on the Tripolye Frontier: Towns Bigger Than Cities The First Cities and Their Connection to the Steppes The North Caucasus Piedmont: Eneolithic Farmers before Maikop The Maikop Culture Maikop-Novosvobodnaya in the Steppes: Contacts with the North Proto-Indo-European as a Regional Language in a Changing World
Chapter Thirteen.
Wagon Dwellers of the Steppe: The Speakers of Proto-Indo-European Why Not a Kurgan Culture? Beyond the Eastern Frontier: The Afanasievo Migration to the Altai Wagon Graves in the Steppes Where Did the Yamnaya Horizon Begin? When Did the Yamnaya Horizon Begin? Were the Yamnaya People Nomads? Yamnaya Social Organization The Stone Stelae of the North Pontic Steppes
Chapter Fourteen.
The Western Indo-European Languages The End of the Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture and the Roots of the Western Branches Steppe Overlords and Tripolye Clients: The Usatovo Culture The Yamnaya Migration up the Danube Valley Yamnaya Contacts with the Corded Ware Horizon The Origins of Greek Conclusion: The Early Western Indo-European Languages Disperse
Chapter Fifteen.
Chariot Warriors of the Northern Steppes The End of the Forest Frontier: Corded Ware Herders in the Forest Pre-Sintashta Cultures of the Eastern Steppes The Origin of the Sintashta Culture Warfare in the Sintashta Culture: Fortifications and Weapons Tournaments of Value Sintashta and the Origins of the Aryans
Chapter Sixteen.
The Opening of the Eurasian Steppes Bronze Age Empires and the Horse Trade The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex The Opening of the Eurasian Steppes The Srubnaya Culture: Herding and Gathering in the Western Steppes East of the Urals, Phase I: The Petrovka Culture The Seima-Turbino Horizon in the Forest-Steppe Zone East of the Urals, Phase II: The Andronovo Horizon Proto-Vedic Cultures in the Central Asian Contact’ Zone The Steppes Become a Bridge across Eurasia
Chapter Seventeen.
Words and Deeds: The Horse and the Wheel. Archaeology and Language.
COMMENTS.
Here I want to present my own viewpoint on topic’s David W. Anthony, “The Horse, the Wheel, and Language”, 2007 discusses in his excellent narrative’ on languages in Eurasia.
BELOW is a family-tree with Indo-European phylum at the center of the diagram. Two (2) superphylums: Nostratic & Dene-Caucasian group all languages in the diagram.
Languages in the “Sinosphere” (East Asia & Vietnam) tend to be analytic with little morphology, monosyllabic or sesquisyllabic lexical structures, extensive compounding, complex tonal systems, and serial verb constructions.
Languages in the “Indosphere” (South Asia and West Asia) tend to be more agglutinative with, polysyllabic structures, extensive case and verb morphology, and detailed markings of interprepositional relationships.
The book presents the current view on the evolution of language, and the agricultural revolution. The domestication of farm animals (horses) and horseback transportation; and earlier inventions such as the wheel, and metals (copper, iron & bronze) are well discussed by David W Anthony who mixes linguistics and archeology into readable narrative’.
