[Bob Ireland]

Is there verified language at Catalhoyuk? It has been some time since I looked at my files re: this site, but I seem to remember I connected it (provisionally) with Gobekli Tepe. (And best not get involved with that at present, 'cause I doubt that was built by Hunter - gatherers over two millennia.)

[bitt]

p

[SunkenCiv]

I think they've got no clue about languages spoken at either site, and it will probably remain that way. Imagine what it would take -- there would have to be a body of inscriptions contemporary with a site; a bilingual text, both unreadable, but one a later successor tongue, which also has some sort of body of inscriptions at some site or sites; then another bilingual inscription with a third successor; and this sequence would have to repeat until the newer language on the bilingual were one someone knows how to read.

Here's one of my favorite clippings for reprise -- there are short inscriptions in the European cave paintings:

In her Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology, Mary Settegast reproduces a table which shows four runic character sets; a is Upper Paleolithic (found among the cave paintings), b is Indus Valley script, c is Greek (western branch), and d is the Scandinavian runic alphabet.