Linguistic Prehistory Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Scholars posit contrasting models of the ethnic identity and language / population movements of prehistoric peoples in the southwestern Great Basin and far southern Sierra Nevada. These models favor either in situ cultural development or... more

Valid links between prehistoric material residues and the languages that were spoken by their creators are notoriously difficult to establish. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence does set limits on the scenarios that are tenable concerning... more

Valid links between prehistoric material residues and the languages that were spoken by their creators are notoriously difficult to establish. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence does set limits on the scenarios that are tenable concerning prehistoric ethnic stability, displacements, and interactions. In the Colorado Desert, several of the synchronically observed linguistic patterns can plausibly be connected to events that fell within a broadly defined Archaic-Late transition period (ca. 1000 B.C.-A.D. 1000). There are at least a few hints concerning the geographical directions in which linguistic expansions occurred, but these do not necessarily match the directions of diffusion for other cultural traits during that period.

Like archaeologists, linguists and geneticists too use the data and methods of their disciplines to open up their own windows onto our past. These disparate visions of human prehistory cry out to be reconciled into a coherent holistic... more

Like archaeologists, linguists and geneticists too use the data and methods of their disciplines to open up their own windows onto our past. These disparate visions of human prehistory cry out to be reconciled into a coherent holistic scenario, yet progress has long been frustrated by interdisciplinary disputes and misunderstandings (not least about Indo-European). In this article, a comparative-historical linguist sets out, to his intended audience of archaeologists, the core principles and methods of his discipline that are of relevance to theirs. They are first exemplified for the better-known languages of Europe, before being put into practice in a lesser-known case-study. This turns to the New World, setting its greatest indigenous ‘Empire’, that of the Incas, alongside its greatest surviving language family today, Quechua. Most Andean archaeologists assume a straightforward association between these two. The linguistic evidence, however, exposes this as nothing but a popular myth, and writes instead a wholly new script for the prehistory of the Andes — which now awaits an archaeological story to match.

A revised model of Tangkic linguistic and cultural history is developed based on a reanalysis of relationships between six Tangkic languages in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria and drawing on recent archaeological and environmental... more

A revised model of Tangkic linguistic and cultural history is developed based on a reanalysis of relationships between six Tangkic languages in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria and drawing on recent archaeological and environmental studies. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Tangkic basic vocabulary was employed to infer the topology of the Tangkic family tree and define structural branching events. Contrary to previous models suggesting progressive colonisation and fissioning from mainland sources, the data support hypotheses that the modern configuration of Tangkic owes its form to pulses of outward movement from Mornington Island followed by subsequent linguistic divergence in both grammar and lexicon of the varieties. We also speculate that an extreme environmental event (c.800-400 BP) may have flooded low-lying coastal areas resulting in abandonment of some areas, a relatively short co-residence involving cultural and linguistic syncretism between neighbouring groups and then recolonization.