Re: girl

----- Original Message -----
From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller <waluk@...>
To: Alexander Stolbov <astolbov@...>; <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 1999 7:45 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: girl


> Gerry here: I asked the following question and your answer wasn't what
> I was looking for.
>
> > And where in
> > Africa do you draw the goat, sheep, wheat and barley line?
>
> A: Do you mean, how this complex spread through Africa?
>
> Gerry: Let me rephrase it again. If you are relating goat, sheep,
> wheat and barely to a mid-east population then there has to be a
> boundary line in Africa above which is goat, sheep, wheat, and barley
> and below which are "typical African stuffs". Where do you
> geographically draw this line?

Now I see.
I think it's better to speak not about "lines" (in the sense - borders between 2
distinct territories, like countries - either A or B) but
about "zones of spreading" which can have a wide "empty" territory between them
(neither A nor B) or, in contrary, may overlap (both A and B). Normally the
square of such zones constantly grows (if somebody got acquainted with sheep or
ceramics will never forget it even if new much more attractive alternative
interests appear). Thus the position of such zones depends on the time point we
take.

6000 BC. Domesticated goat, sheep, wheat and barley exist only in Asia.
Domesticated cattle of Asiatic kind is presented in Anatolia,
North Mesopotamia, North Zagros and is absent in Palestine and adjacent
territories. Domesticated cattle of African kind is presented only in Central
Sahara (Hoggar-Tibesti). The rest of African territory is occupied by
Paleolithic/Mesolithic tribes.

4500 BC. African domesticated cattle has spread eastward till Nubia (Nabta) and
northwestward till Atlas mountains (Capelletti). Domesticated goat, sheep, wheat
and barley occupy in Africa the whole Mediterranean coast and Egypt (El Badari).
There is overlapping in Maghreb and soon it will happen in Nubia and Central
Sahara when Asiatic species complex comes there. Thereafter domesticated species
of Asian and African origin will spread together while they are complementary to
each other and are welcome to any Neolithic culture which had not them before.

So where is the line? We can speak only about the line dividing Afroasiatic and
Nilo-Saharan languages (again movable in time), but the material culture of
"frontier folks" (like Hausa, Nubians, Somalians) has both African and Asiatic
peculiarities.

> You then state:
>
> <It's possible to speculate that the Tasian culture could be the switch
> <point of Egyptian and Cushitic groups.
>
> Gerry here: Now your agrument is based on a traditional archaeological
> presentation with which most archaeologists are in agreement. However,
> if we attempt to seek the opposite argument (that is tipping yours onto
> its head) we come up with the "diffusionist" agrument which I might add
> is always unpopular and tends to bristle folks in academe. The
> diffusionists would say that your traditional argument is wrong because
> "Tasian folks or Badarian people travelled in very small groups and were
> NOT part of a "wave" that moved in unison. Some archaeologists like
> Stephen Williams claim that these diffusionists are practicing
> "fantastic archaeology" likened to myths about the lost ontinents of
> Atlantis and Mu and has squelshed speculation about Norse, Semitic, and
> Celtic letters carved in stones throughout the US. Even Brian Fagan
> (from here in CA) states that diffusionism is exasperating and refers to
> diffusionism as "crank literature".
>
> Now that we have deliniated the argument, how do we resolve it? Is it
> possible to incorporate a diffusionist argument into a traditional
> (structural) argument? Is it possible to utilize Ian Hodder's "Critical
> Hermeneutics" (an attempt to attain a simultaneous fusion AND separation
> of the present and the past) to bridge diffusionism with structuralism?
>
> Well, Alexander, what do you think? And if anyone else on the list has
> any comments, I'd be most interested.

Gerry, I feel like a student who came to the professor and is asked about
subjects which are not well learned by him...
To tell the truth, I have never thought seriously about this aspect of the
problem. This is worth thinking indeed, but at the moment I'm not ready to give
a proper answer, sorry.

Alexander