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Where would this old Balkan AA language fit in geographically speaking? The only way Afro Asiatic could have reached there is if there was a rapid expansion of an Afro Asiatic speaking tribe from the Levant straight into the Balkans. They would be overwhelmed though by the huge population of Anatolian farmers present in the Balkans during the 6 millennium BC. It’s still possible but I don’t see how.
The burden of proof is not on this side where linguistic evidence has been substantiated. This is not a matter of "
if" it is possible, and the picture you're showing is not a negation of the linguistic reality put forth, nor is the map you're showing comprehensive (there is a lot we don't know.), nor does it support your stance even -- because that Neolithic expansion was multi-faceted, complex and multi-spread by diverse groups, not a single homogenized group. You're talking about genetics when this is a linguistic matter.
Clearly, those people were not some linguistically uniform groups, similar to how we don't assert they were cultural, social, or organizational either -- other than the subsistence. Anatolia was a very expressively mixed place despite the genetic similarity.
We already know ideas and things were brought from the Levant through demic and social diffusions already. That's why the Neolithic Levantines were heavily Anatolian... Many times you have non-genetic diffusion of traits, or elite diffusion that make no autosomal difference. Agaws and Amaharas are genetically indistinguishable, but they are different speech groups. The Americas had diverse linguistic groupings despite all being of the same broad stock. Australian aboriginals despite being of the same regional grouping also had very diverse linguistics. You can make individual stances based on respective research but you cannot conflate disciplines.
You also are making extremely reductive. Even your map shows several expansion points of different groups into Europe. Reality would be more complex than the image you showed as the source even states.
Here is an expert on the matter:
Questioning when, how and even why the Neolithic way of life appeared in Europe has been one of the most debated problems of European prehistory, leading to the formulation of various explanatory models, each providing evidence to support its point of view, but without convincing others. Conventional standpoints, one-tract thinking and considering the emergence of the Neolithic way of life as a short-term event have hampered consensus, bringing discussions almost to a dead- lock. Recent evidence has made it clear that the Neolithisation process in Europe was a multifarious event that went on for more than a millennium; thus, all previous hypotheses were correct with re- gard to their specific cases. Analytic or synthetic explicative models such as migration, colonisation, segregated infiltration, the transfer of commodities and of know-how, acculturation, assimilation, and maritime expansion that are seemingly mutually contradictory actually took place simultaneously as distinct modalities.
This was a complex matter with a diversified front, not a single push with a single group. And how they applied their technological diffusion was not one package:
"With the increase in our knowledge of the Neolithic Period defining what is implied by the term, the Neolithic became far more difficult than before; now, the definition varies according to the types of question being asked. However, any hypothesis based on conventional ‘primary’ elements would fail to answer even the simplest questions.
Although the term ‘Neolithic package’ has emerged to mark the multifarious outlines of Neolithic cultures, considering it as a single, homogenous package is as misleading as the earlier assumptions. The Neolithic package has to be defined and specified both in time and space as distinct packages."
There has always been a bi-directional influence between the Levant and Anatolia since the very earliest moment of farming technology developed in the region. This is a statement from Max Planck:
"These results suggest gene flow from the Levant to Anatolia during the early Neolithic. In turn, Levantine early farmers (Levant_Neol) that are temporally intermediate between AAF and ACF could be modeled as a two-way mixture of Natufians and AHG or AAF (18.2 ± 6.4% AHG or 21.3 ± 6.3% AAF ancestry; Supplementary Tables 4 and 8 and Supplementary Data 4), confirming previous reports of an Anatolian-like ancestry contributing to the Levantine Neolithic gene pool6. These two distinct detected gene flows support a reciprocal genetic exchange between the Levant and Anatolia during the early stages of the transition to farming"
Even I can substantiate how the Anatolian Neolithic and the early European Neolithic Farmers were Levantine influenced from the get-go, consistent with the literature research:
These people since the Neolithic had even Levantine genetic influence, no matter how much or negligible, the idea that there was never a precedent is an ignorant statement. Hungarians speak a fucking Asiatic today but they have almost non-existent real Magyar DNA. Even if the Hungarians had zero Magyar DNA, as many do, it would make no difference. Geneflow lowering the original introduction of the language does not make it impossible situation implausible for genetic Central Europeans to speak Hungarians. Do you see the silly logic in this argumentation? Linguistics and genetics are not the same thing although many times it comes with it depending on conditions.
As I was correct from the beginning to not devolve into this, just because these people had Levantine ancestry, doesn't suddenly mean they all spoke Afro-Asiatic languages either. It's just merely one diversity among many. It would be the same as arguing that Basque was representative of pre-Indo-European Europe. That would be a stupid statement. Because Basque could for all we know come from other ENF diversity or could have been given by Western Hunter Gatherer types. It's not an engagement of the conversation other than you not wanting to accept the linguistic facts. How those facts come about is a mystery to everyone involved. We can theoretically explain here and there. For example, E-M78, but then again, I refrain from doing haplogroup essentialism because it can quickly delve into another form of stupidity, although it is a possibility given the geographic and distributive frequency. We simply don't have the facts on the ground, but what is logical is to start to explain the pathways for this to be the case since the linguistic aspect is set, instead of burying your head in the sand because, whether you like it or not, it is a fact.
Finding evidence of people living in an area doesn't mean they demographically conquered the whole region with no room for variation, nor that they lived there forever nor that they spoke a single language forever either... That expansion you refer to was done by different cultures that set up different power profiles, some more related than others, some very distinct. This notion that these people were homogenous is not based on the literature at all, so I don't know why language should suddenly apply -- especially when the linguistic evidence clearly shows proto-Indo-European was influenced by this ancestral Afro-Asiatic branch that shaped the language family instrumentally for farming and pastoralists and others.
As I told
@Garaad diinle, Anatolian genetic people were diversified groups across time and space. So the conversation is a non-issue. You're mistaken if you believe ANF DNA equals the same exact people. It's the wrong conversation and it frankly derails the topic into quite different things.
