PALEOGEOGRAPHY,TOPONYMY AND ETHNOGENESIS

An attempt is made by a Lithuanian physical geographer to combine the findings of paleogeography and place-name studies in shedding light on the time and place of the original settlement of the Indo-European peoples. The author also suggests that plausible elements in folk legend are susceptible to paleogeographic analysis, and he illustrates the point by relating Lithuanian folk legends about the origin of lakes to known thermokarstic processes giving rise to cave-in lakes. On the basis of a paleogeographic analysis of Lithuanian place names resembling the name Dunojus (Danube), the author suggests that the name of the Danube River is derived from an Indo-European root word such as duna, signifying an inlet or estuary of Late Pleistocene waterbodies with a sandy, dunelike shoreline. The vocabulary of Indo-European languages relating to features in the natural environment is used in establishing the time and location of the settlement of Indo-European peoples. On the basis of correspondences for tree names in the various Indo-European languages, the author concludes that the original Indo-European proto-ethnos sought refuge in the Pomeranian substage of the Late Pleistocene (about 20,000 years ago) in the mountain caves of central Europe. With the retreat of the ice sheet, the original Indo-Europeans began to migrate northward, and it was in the new areas of settlement in the plains of northern Europe that the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic branches of the Indo-Europeans were formed.