lpetrich
Contributor
Grammars Across Time Analyzed (GATA): a dataset of 52 languages | Scientific Data -- all of them langs without long literary traditions. Did the authors try to avoid literary traditions as linguistic interference?
Lexibank, a public repository of standardized wordlists with computed phonological and lexical features | Scientific Data
The time and place of origin of South Caucasian languages: insights into past human societies, ecosystems and human population genetics | Scientific Reports - the Kartvelian ones, including Eurasian Georgian
They used
They found
Lexibank, a public repository of standardized wordlists with computed phonological and lexical features | Scientific Data
The time and place of origin of South Caucasian languages: insights into past human societies, ecosystems and human population genetics | Scientific Reports - the Kartvelian ones, including Eurasian Georgian
They used
- the past distribution ranges of wildlife elements whose names can be traced back to proto-Kartvelian roots
- the distribution ranges of past cultures
- the genetic variations of past and extant human populations.
They found
- Zan: 1,200 BP - Laz, Megrelian
- Karto-Zan: 2,617 BP - Georgian, Zan
- Proto-Kartvelian: 7,641 BP - Svan, Karto-Zan
Colchis is at the east end of the Black Sea.Our analyses place the Kartvelian Urheimat in an area that largely intersects the Colchis glacial refugium in the South Caucasus. The divergence of Kartvelian languages is strongly associated with differences in the rate of technological expansions in relation to landscape heterogeneity, as well as the emergence of state-run communities. Neolithic societies could not colonize dense forests, whereas Copper Age societies made limited progress in this regard, but not to the same degree of success achieved by Bronze and Iron Age societies.
According to the mean split dates estimated by the phylogenetic model, the divergence between Svan and Karto-Zan occurred prior to or at the beginning of the introduction of metallurgy in the study area, while Georgian and Zan diverged in the Iron Age, specifically during the Urartian period.