Re: [tied] Nakh Daghestan and the origins of agriculture

Hello Alexander

The points you raise are certainly interesting. You wrote

> In your previous post you described your (and J. Nichols') idea
> that NEC people represent the descendants of the first Near East
> farmers, and that Nakh and Daghestan branches divided very early
> (6,000 BC or even earlier).
>
> I have another current hypothesis.
> I agree that ultimately one of the early farmers groups produced
> the NEC people. However I'd expect a wider scale of its early
> branching. The idea of J.Bengtson's Macro-Caucasian superfamily
> (including NEC, NWC, Basque and Burushaski) would fit here
> perfectly.

Yes, I have seen some versions of this. The Encyclopedia of Language
suggests a deep level structure (approx 12000 BP, i.e. PPNA times)
between NE and NW Caucasian, and Oppenheimer recently suggested a
trans-Mediterranean post-neolithic connection between Basque and
Caucasian, based upon human genetics, that would support 1/2 of
Bengtson's thesis.

> As to NEC (or, better, Nakh-Daghestanian) properly, I try to
> associate its progress, spreading and therefore disintegration with
> the invention of the arsenical bronze somewhere in Greater Armenia
> about 3500 BC (or a bit earlier). There are 2 related and striking
> cultures of that epoque: the Kuro-Arax c. in East Armenia and the
> East Caucasus, and the Maikop c. in the western part of the North
> Caucasus. The latter definitely came from the southern regions and
> gives the direct line to the Nakh tribes: the Maikop c. > the North
> Caucasian c. > the Koban c. > the Nakh tribes.
> The destiny of the Proto-Daghestan tribes isn't so clear. Perhaps
> they descend from the Kuro-Arax c., perhaps they represent another
> branch of the Maikop c. (less probably), perhaps there is the third
> source.

Interesting idea. I have often wondered about Maikop, bit I thought
it too far West into the NW Caucasian area, and given the connections
between Maikop and Alaka Huyuk, that certainly lends itself to
Hattic. The description of Colchians in Herodotus seems to have some
points of connection with Abkhazia, and there is some evidence of
such Circassians moving eastwards out of Anatolia (Jospehus presents
evidence that the Tabal were in fact Georgians).

> I'm afraid that neither you nor me have at the moment enough facts
> to ground strongly own hypothesis. We have mainly guesses. I
> suggest to consider both working hypothesis simultaneously pointing
> both strong and weak sides of each of them.

Excellent idea. The absence of information is enough to tantalise
but not enough to "ground" the theories adequately.

Alexander, you asked

> Do you consider "Proto-Tigrean" as the language of the Ubaid
> culture? If so, Subartu and other "North" branches would be a
> result of the well-known movement of Ubaid people to Upper
> Mesopotamia - the North Ubaid complex.

Yes I do feel that Ubaid was Proto-Tigrean, but I regard the Subartu
as the remaining people of te earlier Samara culture out of which
Ubaid itself developed. The Subartu (the name also came to
mean "slave" in Akkadian as a result of slaver's raids in the area,
seems to have come from the Sumerian SA.BIR = "North".

> What suggests that the language of Subartu is close to NEC and/or
> Proto-Tigrean? (besides of similarity Subartu - Urartu)
> There was a province Shubria in SW Urartu. Is this a development of
> Subartu?

There was a 1944 analysis of Hurrian names appearing in the corpus of
Ur III. Many of these names are specifically called "Subartu". I
believe an analysis of this has been uploaded on the web.

I wrote

> > I know that some of these (for example the
> > city name Bad Tabira = City of the Smiths, the second city of the
> > Sumerian Kinglist, are of Hurrian or Proto-HU) origin.
>
> Has Tuval-Cain (Cain the Smith) from Genesis 4:22 anything to do
> with Bad Tabira?

I suspect that Hurrian Tabir may also be behind the name of the
Tabal - people who were in Neo-Hittite (i.e. Luwian) times living in
the Taurius Mountains. In the interegnum between the Old Hittite
Empire and the New Hittite Empire, this area of Kizzuwadna was
Hurrian, which may have influenced the name given to mountain smiths
as Tabir/Tabal. But this is highly subjective, but there is a Ya'udi
Kingdom in the North of the Levant with a king with the same name as
Azariah of Yaudah (Judah) of the Bible. There may be a distant half
connection - as there is a strong Hurrian influence in the Genesis
Bible (eg. Noah is the same as Hurrian Nhmzuli - the Hurrian
floodmyth hero who also came to rest on Ararat).

> And with Hattic hapalki/hawalki - the mother for the "iron"
> and "smith" words in many languages?

Interesting thought.

I wrote

> > This "pottery" root would certainly place the split AFTER the
> > shift from Pre-Pottery to Post Pottery Neolithic (i.e. AFTER
> > 8,000 BP)

You reply

> Yes, pottery appeared about this date in Anatolia (Beldibi).

The Beldibi culture was strongly influenced by the Natufian.

> However it was Mesolithic tribes (fishermen, not farmers!) who
> invented it. Only as late as about 6,500 BC the Near East farmers
> started to use clay pottery (insted of stone or wooden vessels) and
> Pre-Pottery Neolithic ends.
>
> By the way, there are at least 4 places in the world where clay
> pottery was invented independently - Japan, Anatolian coast,
> Central Sahara and Lower Amazonca. The first three of them are
> presented by fishermen cultures (for the moment of the invention),
> and I guess fishing also must be important in Amazonia. Coincides?

Fascinating. Were the Central Saharan "catfish" people Afro-
Asiatics? Afro-Asiatic has a common cognate for bowl or pot.

> One more collateral question:
> What dishes of cereals were cooked by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
> people?

Maybe they made "damper" in the ashes of the fire, like Australian
Aboriginal people did?

> Sure. However I think you will find the direct access to this
> database. At the moment the server of iiasnt.leidenuniv.nl doesn't
> work. However one may use another link:
> http://starling.rinet.ru/babel.htm
> Please choose "All Databases" in the left menu and then "North
> Caucasian Etymology" in the drop-down list.

Thanks

John