Glen,
I still think that any of us is not able to prove that the opponent is wrong
(conceptually, not in particular facts).
But we are able to crystallize our disagreements and better understand
ourselves.
So it is worth continuing.


[Glen]
> Nostratic has nothing to do with the spread of agriculture
> because it, without a shadow of a doubt, occured before 9000 BCE.
> You can't possibly argue this point.

[Alexander]
I'll try.
Rather different estimations of the date of the farming beginning were made.
Some of them considerably older than 9000 BC. The problem is in the fact
that for a rather long while there were no differences between wild and
"domesticated" (better to say treated as domesticated) plants and animals.
Not so rare is the situation when archaeologists write: The grains found at
this site look quite wild, but there never has been wild progenitors of this
plant in this region, therefore these grains has been domesticated.

But what makes us say that Nostratic existed only before 9000 BCE (or other
precise date)? Glottochronology? Who calibrated this technique at this part
of the time scale?

[A]
> >1. Nostratic languages pressed out all the languages of hunter-gatherers
> >from Europe, North Africa and West+North+South
> >Asia (excluding only areas not suitable for farming)
> >AND
> >Nostratic languages spread from the region where goats+sheep and
> >wheat+barley has been domesticated (Near East)
[G]
> Hmm. First, the exact location of Nostratic is still under
> debate and I don't recall there being a secure location provided
> as of yet. So, your conviction that Nostratic absolutely came from
> the Middle-East is merely convenient for your hypothesizing. In
> some parts of the world, they would accuse your ideas of being
> "biased".
> Second, the domestication of these things occurred much
> LATER than is possible for the date of Nostratic.

Glen, look. We are discussing this question yet. But you takes a possible
conclusion of the discussion as an argument to support this conclusion. A
logical short circuit, isn't it?

[G]
> If you don't
> agree, I suspect that you aren't well caught up on the Nostratic
> languages and their immense differences. We require an appropriate
> amount of time for these differences to occur and for the
> respective peoples speaking these languages to have spread into
> the regions that they have, as demonstrated by both archaeology and
> linguistics.

[A]
The differences are immense...
The differences between manatees and elephants are immense too, however they
needed a lesser time to diverge from a common ancestor, than looking much
more alike hares and squirrels needed for the analogous divergence from a
their common ancestor.

How could we convert "immenseness" of linguistic differences into time?

Let's take the date of the Nostratic splitting say, 10000 BC, i.e. 12000
years ago.
Is it enough or not?
Let's compare. Indo-European family started to split about 4 000BC, i.e.
about 6000 years ago. This time span was enough for divergence of a single
language into such different languages as, say, modern English and Armenian.
Was the difference between PROTO-Indo-European and PROTO-Dravidian as big as
between English and Armenian?
In other words is Proto-Indo-European in a half way from Common Nostratic to
modern English? Why not?

[G]
> The Nostratic languages certainly didn't just radiate
> out from the Middle-East in a simplistic pattern like spokes on a
> wheel.

[A]
I'd better compare this process on the first stages with spreading of
bacteria on the substrate with different nutritious properties (which
corresponds to different ability of various nature zones to provide people
of this economic type with everything necessary), taking into account
competing bacteria of other species (i.e. Non-Nostratic farmers, because
hunter-gatherers can't compete - their density was 50-100 times less).

[G]
> There were multiple movements going on over different periods
> of time for different reasons.

[A]
Yes, there were secondary multiple movements, no doubt. But the reason of
the victory in the competition always was the same - a better adaptation of
the economy to the current conditions. And as the result a larger areal, a
higher density and a bigger biomass.
The behaviour of the human populations reminds very strongly the behaviour
of
bacteria or plants, frankly.


Alexander