Archaeology and Language I: Theoretical and Methodological Orientations

✍ Scribed by Roger Blench, Matthew Spriggs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 411
• Series: One World Archaeology 27
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Archaeology and Language I represents groundbreaking work in synthesizing two disciplines that are now seen as interlinked: linguistics and archaeology. This volume is the first of a three-part survey of innovative results emerging from their combination.
Archaeology and historical linguistics have largely pursued separate tracks until recently, although their goals can be very similar. While there is a new awareness that these disciplines can be used to complement one another, both rigorous methodological awareness and detailed case-studies are still lacking in literature. Archaeology and Language I aims to fill this lacuna.
Exploring a wide range of techniques developed by specialists in each discipline, this first volume deals with broad theoretical and methodological issues and provides an indispensable background to the detail of the studies presented in volumes II and III. This collection deals with the controversial question of the origin of language, the validity of deep-level reconstruction, the sociolinguistic modelling of prehistory and the use and value of oral tradition.

✦ Table of Contents

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of figures......Page 10
List of tables......Page 14
List of contributors......Page 16
Preface......Page 18
General introduction......Page 24
Introduction......Page 41
Prehistory of language......Page 52
Evolution and the biological correlates of linguistic features......Page 54
Cognitive archaeology: a look at evolution outside and inside language......Page 66
New epistemological perspectives for the archaeology of writing......Page 76
Deep-level linkages/hypotheses......Page 86
Principles for palaeolinguistic reconstruction......Page 88
The diffusion of modern languages in prehistoric Eurasia......Page 97
World linguistic diversity and farming dispersals......Page 105
Problems of method......Page 114
The homelands of the Indo-Europeans......Page 116
The epicentre of the Indo-European linguistic spread......Page 145
Are correlations between archaeological and linguistic reconstructions possible?......Page 172
Linguoarchaeology: goals, advances and limits......Page 181
Crabs, turtles and frogs: linguistic keys to early African subsistence systems......Page 189
Linguistic archaeology: tracking down the Tasaday language......Page 207
Social networks and kinds of speech-community event......Page 232
Linguistic similarity measures using the minimum message length principle......Page 285
Oral traditions......Page 304
Ancient migrations in the northern sub-Urals: archaeology, linguistics and folklore......Page 306
Oral Traditions and the prehistory of the d-speaking people of Benin......Page 331
Oral traditions and archaeology: two cases from Vanuatu......Page 344
Puhi, the mythical paramount chief of Uvea and ancient links between Uvea and Tonga......Page 354
Traditions of extinct animals, changing sea-levels and volcanoes among Australian Aboriginals: evidence from linguistic and ethnographic research......Page 368
The lost languages of Erromango (Vanuatu)......Page 385
Oral traditions, archaeology and linguistics: the early history of the Saami in Scandinavia......Page 394
Index......Page 400

✦ Subjects

Языки и языкознание;Лингвистика;Происхождение и эволюция языка;