Ebook: A New Approach to Language and Archaeology: The Usatovo Culture and the Separation of Pre-Germanic

The Journal of Indo-European Studies. — Volume 36, Number 1 & 2 — Spring/Summer 2008. — pp. 1-51.Regional variants of Tripolye C2 in western Ukraine and Moldova might have played an important role in the origins of the northwestern Indo-European language branches. In particular, the Tripolye C2 Usatovo culture might have played a significant role as the intermediary between Proto-Indo-European and the Germanic branch. The influence of the Usatovo culture extended up the Dniester, and upper-Dniester Tripolye C2 cultures extended this chain of social interaction into southeastern Poland during the final centuries of the Trichterbecker or TRB culture, prior to the appearance of the Corded Ware horizon there. The Proto-Indo-European dialects that would ultimately form the root of Pre-Germanic might have spread up the Dniester from the Usatovo culture through a nested series of patrons and clients, eventually being spoken in some of the late TRB communities between the upper Dniester and the Vistula. These late TRB communities later evolved into early Corded Ware communities, and it was the Corded Ware horizon that provided the medium through which the Pre-Germanic dialects spread over a wider region.