Archeolinguistics

Abstract

Archeolinguistcs is a field of linguistic studies, which creates an ancient picture of the world. For instance: let’s talk about the ancient cultures such as Kura–Araxes (Kur–Araz). Archeological excavations in Georgia with the amazing findings of Kura–Araxes (Kur–Araz) Culture, that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, and Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture which preceded the Kura–Araxes Culture in this region or Colchian Culture 3000 BCE to 600 BCE, Trialeti Culture late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC, Bedeni-Martkopi or Early Kurgan Culture  before 2550 BC, and many others. The excavations showed that Kura–Araxes Culture and Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture are remarkably wealthy. The economy was based on farming and  livestock-raising (especially of cattle and sheep). They grew grain and orchard crops, and are known to have used implements to make flour. They raised cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, and in later phases, horses. They worked with copper, arsenic, silver, gold, tin, and bronze. These archeological cultures how a precocious metallurgical development, which strongly influenced surrounding regions.  Viticulture and wine-making were widely practiced in this area from the earliest times. The word ‘vine’ in many languages worldwide comes from Georgian (‘ghvino’).  The earliest evidence of domesticated grapes in the world has been found at Gadachrili Gora, near the village of Imiri, southeastern  of Georgia; carbon-dating points to the date of about 6000 BC. Grape pips dating back to the V-IVth millennia B.C. were found in Shulaveri; others dating back to the IVth millennium B.C. were found in 'Shulaveri area' in Georgia. Kura-Araxes and Shulaveri-Shomu cultures developed gradually through a synthesis of several cultural traditions, including the ancient cultures of the Caucasus and nearby territories.Following the archeological vectors we can research the linguistic lexical bases of the transported things and/or customs and traditions, following the archeological path and revealing the historical faces for the worlds reconstructing them with the well-known methods of historical-comparative linguistics, and creating the archeolinguistic dictionaries.   Of course the historical linguistics has already used its methods to reconstruct the words, but archeolinguistics will systemically follow the vectors viewing the wide lexicosemantic and cultural backgrounds, considering the artifacts as the units of the entire system. On the other hand, archeologists give the names to the things they find, but they never get any linguistic consultations or advices. ‘A cult item’ usually is named a thing with unknown functions - by the archeologists. The archeological vectors had been spread from this region to the south, west and north, transporting the cultural and household appliances. The migrated things had their names and functions. Of course the names migrated with these things as well. These migrated things have been adopted functionally and linguistically for the each case at the each location. The proposed theory states that linguistic vectors followed archeological ones. The challenge is to study these combined vectors, and the field can be called as ‘Archeological linguistics’ or ‘Archeolinguistcs’. Archeological linguistics will study the ancient linguistic picture of the world.  Actually this will be the interdisciplinary studies, which will request the high level professionals in history-archeology and linguistics. The ancient word-roots can be revealed and the full lingvoculutral portrait can be restored for the each region around the globe.