Alexander wrote
> > > First farmers appeared at the territory north of the Sahara
> > > in the 6th mill.BC.
> > > What a superfamily did they belong to? We can answer confidently
- to
> > > the Nostratic one (or theoretically to the second hypotetical
Near East
> > > superfamily, however I don't think so) because they had barley
and wheat > > > + sheep and goats, not millet + cattle.
I replied
> > Specifically probably to the Afro-Asiatic branch. Some have
suggested
> > that this family started in Africa (Ethiopian region) subsequently
> > spreading to the Middle East. Certainly if we base the original
site
> > of language where the oldest features are found and where linguistic
> > diversity is greatest - it should be Ethiopia.
> Alexander:
> Maximal linguistic diversity is a good argument.
> Please give more details about "the oldest features" (in Cushitic, I
> > believe?).
I would refer you here to Greenberg who showed of the six families of
the Afro-Asoiatic language, five of the six (comprising some 220
languages) are confined to Africa. This strongly suggests an African
origin). For an African origin of Agriculture see Fred Wendorf et al
"Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8,000 years BP" in Nature 1992
359:721-4, and Andrew Smith (1992) "Origin and Spread of Pastoralism in
Africa" Annual Reviews of Anthropology 21:125-41
You asked some interesting questions
> But if we take the Ethiopian hypothesis some questions arise:
>
> Who had brought goats, sheep, barley and wheat in Africa?
These definitedly came out of the Middle East, and possibly with the
second wave of Neolithic Settlers rather than the first (in this case
they were probably part of the "Secondary Products Revolution" in the
Middle East. Goats are found in Egypt from Amratian times I believe,
but the evidence of them before that it equivocal.
> How and when Semitic people appeared in Arabia?
In the Middle East Semitic people I believe have been linked to the
Ghassulian culture of Palestine and its affiliates elsewhere into the
Mesopotamian region. They have been linked to the rise of nomadic
pastoral cultures coming out of Arabia which was post Natufian in
Palestine. As with the later cultures, the nomadic breakthrough seems
to have created an amalgam with sedentary agriculturists in the middle
east at least by Ubaid times if not earlier.
> Why early Semits did not have tef and finger millet which were
domesticated
> in Ethiopia very early (c. 5000 BC)?
I believe that proto-neolithic tef and finger millet using cultures in
Ethiopia before its eventual cultuvation would produce an Ethiopian
population increase, which carried Afro-Asiatic speakers of the Semitic
family across the Afar triangle and into Yemen very early. There they
remained a small group, interminging within the Yemen peoples until the
arrival of middle eastern grains and domesticates. The development of
a full-pastoralism carried them north and eastwards. In the north,
they appear as the Ghassulian nomads about 5,000 BCE, replacing the
earlier "Natufian" aceramic neolithic culture. To the east, I
hypothesise, they later put pressure on Ubaid Dilmun, leading to its
Abadandoment in the Uruk phase, and leading to the Sumerian arrival in
southern Iraq (Eridu). I don't think that domestication of sheep and
goats, or of the wheat and barley grains was achieved by the Semites.
Rather I believe it was a pre-Semitic substrate (belonging to a group I
call the Japethics). There is archaeological evidence for some of this
hypothesis but not for it all.
> Semits, Egyptians and Lybians belong to Europeoid racial type;
Cushitic and
> Chadic people belong to 2 DIFFERENT ancient kinds of mixed
Europeoid/Negroid
> racial type. How to explain this?
Cushitics on genetic basis have been shown to have more in common with
Capoids than with Negroids. This ties is well with Egyptian pictures
at Hatshepsut's Deir el Bahri temple, which presumably visited the horn
of Africa about 1500 BCE. Even then the mixture of Europeoid/Capoid
characteristics can be found. Egyptian records show this visit to the
land of Punt (Pnt, Pwenet) was achieved by boat, although they also
state that it was possible to vist Punt overland from Kush (the Sudan).
Certainly evidence suggests that there were very early movements from
Yemen into Ethiopia. A certain similarity of cultures and languages
grew up on both sides of the Southern Red Sea, with movements in both
directions. The Axum civilisation grew from Yemeni settlers much
later, whilst Abraha from Ethiopia invaded Arabian Yemen and Hejaz in
the Year of the Elephant - the year Mohammed was born.
> Are there any evidences of spreading people WESTWARD from Middle or
Upper
> Nile (i.e. in the region to the south from Sahara) in the Neolithic
period?
> (I mean the origin of Chadic people)
Hard to say. There is evidence of B Group and C group Nuba people
coming into the Nile Valley from the Sudan, but there is not much
evidence of movements back in the oposite direction until Merotic
times. Most of the movements into the Chadic area seem to have
occurred across the Sahara from the direction of Lybia. Indeed, after
Merenptah defeated the Peoples of the Sea, Libu and Meshwesh alliance
(about 1200 BCE) (the Meshwesh are linked to Herodotus' Myaxes who are
supposed to have lived near Tunis), chariot using warriors invaded the
Saharan Tasilli, coming to rule over the Nilo-Saharan cattle
pastoralists of the area. This may be the beginnings of the Chadic
group of Astro Asiatic.
> BTW Do you consider Afro-Asiatic family as a Nostratic one?
Yes I do.
> Even if not, is it possible to deny very early contacts of
Proto-Afro-Asiatic
> people (not only Proto-Semitic or Proto-Egyptian!) with proto-groups
which
> produced other Nostratic families? Where? In Ethiopia?
I believe the contacts with the Semitic group and other Nostratics
occurred in the Middle East. With the other members of the
Afro-Asiatics, I am not so sure. Certainly I believe Coptic shows a
mixture of s Semetic superstratum over an Afro-Asiatic non-Semitic
substratum. For the Berber languages further west I don't have
evidence either way.
> > > [Alexander]:
> > > Egyptians belong to the Nostratic superfamily (Afroasiatic
> > > family), but they were far not the very first group there.
> > >
> > > [Gerry]:
> > > So what you're saying is that the Egyptians weren't the first
> > > people to live in Egypt? Then which group are you selecting to
have
> > > superceded the Egyptians? BTW, don't let the present day
Egyptians
> > >know
> > > what you're saying. With their strong sense of nationalism,
they'll
> > > certainly disagree (and right they should).
> >
> >[John]:
> > There is much discussion over this. Farming it has been suggested
> > (Apart from the abortive Hulwan industry around Fayyum) with the
Tasian
> > and Badariran cultures seem to have shown aun unbroken succession
down
> > to the Nilotic Sudanese (Dinka and others) of today.
>
> Alexander:
> I can't agree with this. Look, "the Tasians were settled farmers who
> cultivated emmer wheat and barley and raised herds of sheep and
goats"
> (Enc.Brit.). But Dinka and other Nilotic folks herd first of all
African
> cattle and cultivate mainly millet of African origin. Thus Nilotic
people
> (like Niger-Kodofan as well) represent the Saharan Neolithic
> complex (cattle+millet) in contrary to the Near East initial Neolithic
> complex (goats/sheep+wheat/barley).
I take your point. Perhaps they are the Black Nuba that arrived
between the Kushitic and Merotic periods in the Sudan.
> > Amratian culture
> > shows clear Asiatic afinity and it has been suggested that it is
linked
> > with the Libu (Libyans). Gerzian (Naqada III) has been linked with
a
> > "Dynastic Race" which had close Mesopotamian affinities, and has
been
> > suggested to have been the originator of the "Semetic" features in
what
> > was otherwise a "Hamitic" language. Now that both are part of
> > Afro-Asiatic changes things somewhat and makes the newer features
less
> > obtrusive.
>
> Thank you for the interesting imformation. Could you give some more
details?
This explanation was fostered most by Petrie's Pups, W.B.Emery in
"Archaic Egypt", Henri Frankfort and Margaret Murray. Frankfort wrote
(1951) "The strongest evidence of this contact between Mesopotamia nad
Egypt is supplied by three cylendar seals shown by their very material
and by their design to have been made in Mesopotamia during the second
half of the Protoliterate period, but found in Egypt. One was
excavated at Naqada, in a Gerzian (Naqada II) grave; and the same
origin is possible for the other two. These importances were not
without consequences: from the beginning of the 1st Dynasty the
cylendar seal was adopted in Egypt and made in considerable quantities.
Since it was an odd form for the seal and used only in countries in
contact with Mesopotamia, and since one of the Mesopotamian cylendar
seals were found in Egypt in a context just ante-dating the earliest
native seals, it would be peverse to deny that the Egyptians followed
the Mesopotamian example." Emery writes "The connection between the
Nile and the Euphrates at this early period is beyond dispute and is
generally accepted. But whether the connection was direct or indirect,
and to what context Egypt was indebted to Mesopotamia, are still open
questions."
Another Mesopotamian influence seems to be the faceted architecture of
later pre-Dynastic and early Dynastic times. Kings names were enclosed
within a Serekh, which seems to be a stylisted form of their pallace
(similar to the name Pharaoh from the pr-o of Hieroglythics, meaning
"great house")
It would seem that whilst not an invasion by a horde of people of a
Dynastic Race, there was some movement which led to an early influx of
Semitic superstrata loan words in Old Kingdom Egyptian.
Which way did this influx occur? Some have seen a conection between
Ubaid northern Syria and Egypt. Certainly the connection could not
have been via Palestine at this time, which was culturally more
primative. There is also an ealy connection between Isis (Auset) and
Gubla (Biblos) that could have come from this period. If so it was an
influence by sea. Certainly some of the early evidence of the growth
of social stratification in Egypt as being shown by early evidence of
naval battles between high prowed vessels of showing Mesopotamian
features, with others showing indigenous design.
Others have suggested that the Mesopotamian influence came up the Red
Sea via Wadi Hammammat, where Winckler found cliff drawings of
identical high prowed boats.
It is interesting that the Egyptian upper class in the Old Kingdom
believed themselves to be of different background than the common folk.
They believed they had come from Punt and called themselves Iri-pt, as
destinct from the other people of the Nile Valley, called Henemmet and
Rekhet. David Rohl, popularising the concept of a "foreign elite" has
recently suggested a circum Arabian connection between Mesopotamia,
Dilmun, Magan (the Oman Coast), Punt and Egypt.
> John, you use the term "Semetic". Do you distinguish this from
"Semitic"? If so
> what is the difference?
My typing fingers only - the difference is a typogrphaicla eeror.
Warmest regards
John