John,
Thank you for the very interesting information containing both facts I have not
been awared of and fresh ideas forcing to think about.
Still I can't accept the Ethiopian hypothesis.
IMO the key counter-argument is the Nostratic conception. If we believe in the
genetic relatedness of the Nostratic languages we must acknowledge that ones
upon a time it was a single group whose descendants in many millenia have turned
into Yukaghir and Hausa, Gauls and Tamils etc.. It seems to me that the most
probable place, time and the reason of fantastic spreading are the Near East
Region (either Zagros or Levant), 10-12 millenia BP and the Neolithic revolution
(the Near East variant of it, i.e. goats/sheep + wheat/barley).
{However, last time I'm thinking more and more often about the Near East
"Subneolithic" - when processing of cereals is already well developed and brings
a great benefit to the people but gathering of grain is not substituted with
sowing yet. Examples (the marker - sicles with microliths of the NE type):
Natufian c. as Proto-Afro-Asiatic, Yangelka c. in South Ural as Proto-Uralic,
Microlithic c. in North China as Proto-Turkic etc. Just a raw hypothesis}
If we take Ethiopia as the place of the Afro-Asiatic origin we must either lead
ALL Nostratic folks from there or postulate that Afro-Asiats first migrated to
Ethiopia from another place as a single group and only thereafter started to
spread and split. IMO both variants are not very attractive. Such geographical
manoeuvres are not well supported by archaeology. Besides, in this case we lose
the moving force of the initial spreading. I seems to me that the argument of
the AA geografical distribution (4 or 5 to 1 for Africa) can't outweght the
shortcomings mentioned.
I have also some comments to particular aspects we discussed.
>[A]
> > How and when Semitic people appeared in Arabia?
> [J]
> 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.
I don't have yet a firm opinion concerning the Ghassulian culture, but Enc.Brit.
says: "The Ghassulian stage was characterized by small settlements of farming
peoples, immigrants from the north, ... The Ghassulians also smelted copper.
Evidence indicates that they buried their dead in stone dolmens ... The
Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt and also seems
to have affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or "bird vases") with early
Minoan materials in Crete." Does this fit to the description of early Semitic
nomads from Arabia?
> [A]
> > Why early Semits did not have tef and finger millet which were
> domesticated
> > in Ethiopia very early (c. 5000 BC)?
> [J]
> 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.
Thus the Semits had given up and COMPLETELY forgotten their native tef and
finger millet to switch over to alien wheat and barley. The same had
independently happened to Berber, Egyptian and Chadic folks. Please estimate the
probability of these events.
BTW is there evidence of tef and millet cultivation in Neolithic Yemen?
>[A]
> > 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)
> [J]
> 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.
I think the Chadic group (a unit of the same rank as say Semitic group) had to
be established much earlier than about 1200 BC (I guess in 4th-5th mill. BC).
Otherwise we would speak about the Chadic subgroup of the Berber group.
> [J]
> Certainly I believe Coptic shows a
> mixture of s Semetic superstratum over an Afro-Asiatic non-Semitic
> substratum.
Does not Coptic belong to the Egyptian group?
>[J]
> 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.
Should not Meluhha (the Indus valley civilization) be added to this list?
Alexander