G* ERANI NDOEUROPEOS O PREINDOEUROPEOS LOS PRIMEROS NEOLITICOS EN LA PENINSULA?

Abstract

Recent proposals that Indo-European colonization of Europe rnay have commenced early in the Neolithic, and rnay have been related to the spread of plant and animal husbandry,
attempt to kill three birds with one stone, by integrating some findings of biological anthropology, prehistoric archaeology, and palaeolinguistics. The resulting synthesis has the appeal of
simplicity. However, it is far from clear that it is a powerful explanatory model, because in each of the three disciplines mentioned it requires so much explaining away of substantive
findings as to raise the question of whether the model itself may be no more than a case of special pleading drawn from recalcitrant data which rnay well be incommensurable. From the
standpoint of Peninsular palaeoanthropology, the problem rnay be less one of whether there are some findings that are not discordant with the model, than of whether it is susceptible to
refutation in a key region for studying the interface between Indo-European and pre-Indo- European communities. It is maintained that the robusticity of a model depends upon its ability to withstand attempts to refute it which use practica1 tests designed to try to overtum it. It is suggested that even in such a cmcial region as the Peninsula the model rnay be so immune to refutability as to be unhelpful in formulating scientific working hypotheses in any of the three disciplines from which it has been drawn.