Re: Near Eastern origin of European cattle.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
> > > All the sources you mention are characteristically vague on what
> > > defines a location as a center of domestication. The practical
> > > definition seems to be that for each race of cows, within its area
> > > they have picked the place with the earliest archaeologically
> > > documented transition to farming as the center of domestication
> > > for that race. And as I said, much of NEAsia is under-investigated
> > > archaeologically. Therefore, Anatolia might have to give up the
> > > prize one day.
> > >
>
> > That said, it is still *always* going to be either Anatolia or South
> > Asia in the Indo-European world, as far deciding the issue of PIE
> > origin is concerned.
>
>
> Of course not. If an archaeological site with transition to
> stock-breeding earlier than that of the Anatolian ones is found
> somewhere on the Steppes between the Ukraine and China, that site
> automatically becomes the new assumed origin of domestication of Bos
> Taurus.

I agree witht the above except for the word "automatically." The new
site will also have to be earlier than zebu (bos indicus). There is
no reason to assume that *kwou (?) means bos taurus just as there is
no reason to assume *ekwos means caballus linn.

And on the origin of cereals, none of your sources seem to be

> aware that the European and East Asian varieties of millet are
> identical.

Please check the map on page 7 taken from Jared Diamond (who
incidently believes in the IE conquest theory).

http://nchs.ucla.edu/NH100-preview.pdf

He has forgotten neolithic Mehargarh in Pakistan. The two dots in
China are too far off from Central Asian steppes. If millet was
indeed domesticated there it could have as easily gone up north
through South Asia.

https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2005-December/021309.html



"Based upon the present day distribution of the wild progenitors of
sorghum and pearl millet in Africa, it has been proposed that their
domestication occurred within a forest-savanna sub-Saharan band north of
the equator, from the Atlantic to the Indian Oceans."


"The second is Ehret's
linguistics claim of a sorghum domestication centre in the vicinity of
Lake Chad c. 4 000 B.C. Thirdly, dates as early as 4 000 B.C. have been
claimed for the presence of durra in India, implicating an
intercontinental movement of domesticated sorghum from Africa."


M. Kelkar

Obvious that didn't come out of Anatolia.

>
>
> Torsten
>