Alexander asked in relation to my post
> [John]:
> > 3. Secondly we need to look at motive forces. If Indo-European was
> > just one microlithic culture in a sea of related other microlithic
> > cultures, then there is nothing that would produce the rapid
increase
> > in populations that would cause IE to fragment into chains of
related
> > dialects, eventually becoming sister languages, until that is
> John, to continue a productive discussion, I think, we should first
clear up a
> principal point. How do you think the establishment of new language
groups
> happened in the Mesolithic-Neolithic?
>
> Suppose, the tribe of the Nostratic speakers occupies a certain area
of an
> average size. Actually we have a dialectal continuum on this
territory, as
> usual. Which of 2 following scenarios do you accept?
>
> Scenario "A":
> The occupied territory remains the same, but in course of time
linguistic
> differences in distal parts of the area are accumulating more and
more until
> crystallizing new languages which can differ from each other as
strongly as
> Proto-IE, Proto-Uralic, Proto-Dravidian etc. Then, people speaking
newly
> established languages may migrate (if there a proper motive force
appear) or may
> stay at the same place developing as different folks (with mutual
linguistic
> borrowings, of course). It is very important that in this scenario
the motive
> force for a possible migration is not a reason of new linguistic
groups
> establishment.
>
> Scenario "B":
> As long as the occupied territory remains the same the difference
between
> dialectal variants remains approximately the same (if a new obstacle
for
> interdialectal contacts doesn't appear), the dialects exist but
constantly
> intermingle, their borders are not stable. No crystallizing of new
languages.
> Only when due to appearance of a motive force the territory of the
speakers
> extends in all admissible directions, connections between dialects
strongly
> decrease and new proto-languages start to crystallize. In the
beginning of this
> process they differ very slightly but later develop in different
manners partly
> due to initial dialectal basis and partly due to interaction with
different
> substratum languages. It's principally that the motive force for
migrations is
> here the ultimate reason of the wide spreading of different but
related
> languages.
I think in the development of linguistic differences there are
centrifugal and centripedal processes at work. Chief amongst those
forces holding a language together and preventing fragmentation is the
amount of frequent, close, face-to-face personal and intimate contact
between two groups. Those forces that tend to promote such contact (eg
proximity, absence of belicosity between groups, perception that "they"
are really "us", endogamy etc) would tend to limit the beginings of
dialectical, and ultimately language differences. Those forces that
tend to reduce such contact (eg the reverse) would tend to hasten the
splitting up of a unified language into dialects, first of all, and
ultimately into separate languages.
The chief factor that has prompted this in human history, I believe, is
an increase in population beyond that capable of being supported by a
local environment.
This tends to promote the following cultural responses
1. Emigration to areas where population density is seen to be lower
than the environmental carrying capacity for that culture. This can
reduce population densities to the environmental carrying capacity
again.
2. Infanticide, geronticide (voluntary or "involuntary" suicide on the
part of the elders), abortion, delayed marriage, reduced cohabitation
between the sexes etc. It has a consequence often ditto to number one
(over a slightly longer term)
3. Increased intergroup agression, as one group attempts to confiscate
the source of subsistence of a neighbouring group (and, if food can be
stored in some way, enslave them). This not only can lead to a
socially stratified "class" based culture, but also through warfare,
and possible resulting plagues, famines or pestilence, can reduce
population to the carrying capacity of the environment once again,
4. Intensification of production - through technological or
organisational reorganisation. The shift to mesolithic, and hence to
sub-neolithic, aceramic neolithic, the secondary products revolution
and urbanisation - represents examples of this trajectory.
5. The increase in inter-regional trade. Functional areal
specialisation into some product or another can lead to long distance
trade, which may provide a group with a product which has become
depleted in a local area as a result of exceeding the carrying
capacity. The general rule is the longer the distance traded, the more
valuable an item is held to be. Thus Sumeria traded grains and
textiles to nearby areas, and imported timber from mountain slopes
(Zagros and Lebanon), building and sculpture stone from the same areas,
salt water products from the gulf, aromatics from the Arabian coast,
Lapis Lazuli from Badakhistan, and Gold, probably from Egypt (via Red
Sea and Bahreini intermediaries).
These 5 alternatives are not mutually contradictory, but are often
complimentary - (i.e. one or more - or sometimes all 5 are found!)
Whatever the consequences, all 1,3,4, and 5 tend to promote the spread
of a language into a larger area (which as a result of reduced contact,
ultimately begins to split the language into groups. This spread is
usually at the expense of less beligerant, less technologically
sophisticated, less well organised, less cohesive groups on the
periphery. These then often become substrata languages, hastening the
split between mutually incomprehensible dialects. This pattern has
been repeated time and time again, ever since we Homo sapiens came out
of Africa.
I wrote
> > I think it is probably Agriculture. I think it is
> > also Agriculture in the Niger Kordofanian too. For the Nilo-Saharan
> > the situation is different. There is evidence of an exceedingly
early
> > domestication of cattle in this part of the world, based upon
genetic
> > distance from wild ancestors of the cattle species itself.
>
> Very interesting. Could you give the reference or report the main
facts, please
> ? Are there investigations (genetic or morphological)of Egyptian
cattle - came
> it from Sahara or from Asia Minor?
Egyptian cattle today are indistinguishable from the Middle East, but
given their wide-horned appearance on Egyptian tombs it is just
possible that they may have been Saharan in origin. I don't know of
anyone who has genetically tested the leathers found in Egyptian tombs
to test the bovine geneologic tree.
> > 1. Horticulture began within the Indo-Pacific languages 25,000 years
> > ago (from the Solomon Islands evidence, and the findings at Kuk in
> > Papua New Guinea). As a result Indo-Pacific languages spread from
> > Island Melanesia to Halmahera and Timor.
> >
>
> What are "Indo-Pacific languages"?
Indo-Pacific languages have been called the languages of the Andoman
Islanders in the Bay of Bengal, the interior Timorese, Halmahera in
Indonesia, the Trans-Papuan Phylum of Stephen Wurm, the Toricelli and
Sepik Ramu Phyla and a number of isloated languages of Papua New
Guinea, and the now extinct substrate languages beneath the
Austronesian languages stretching along the New Guinea coast (eg Manus
and Tolai etc).
> I have never met 25,000 years as estimation of the age of the New
Guinea
> Neolithic (usually about 8,000 BP is reported). Please give any
details.
This is very recent. Melano-Australoids arrived in the North Solomons
30,000 years ago after a considerable ocean voyage, first to
Bougainville, and secondly down into the Solomon Island chain.
Examination of stone tools found in the Solomons by the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) of Australia,
has demonstrated the presence of microcrystaline deposits of the
domesticated variety of taro on the edge of stone tools found there and
accurately dated. This is the earliest planetary evidence of
horticulture yet found. The Kuk swamp drainage ditches are the second
oldest at 8-9,000 years BCE, but that was in the highlands, resting
right up against the cultivable limits of tropical horticultural crops.
Common sense would suggest that cultivation began first in coastal
regions, where the wild varieties of cultivated species are found.
There is also evidence that the Austro-Papuan side of Wallaces line is
also a Vavilhov zone of great antiquity. Sugar cane was certainly
first cultivated there, as was sago, breadfruit, pandanas nuts, one
variety of swamp taro, a range of leafy vegetables found in Asia (eg
amaranthus species), at least one variety of banana (Musa australis),
and possibly even coconuts! Golson the ethnobotanist and
paleoanthropologist who has researched much of this early evidence has
even anecdotally suggested that the hafted "hoe" like stone tools found
in Finschaven on the north coast of PNG (where perched sea levels of
Ice Age times are above the sea level of today) may have been used for
working the soil. The fact that Papua New Guineans travelled back out
of the Sahul area to Timor has led some to suggest that these Hoes
(found throughout the Hoa Binh culture of Mainland and Island South
East Asia, but of much later provinance (10,000 BCE rather than 50,000
BCE) than the Papua New Guinean ones - may have been carried by
Melanesians....
In reply to my
> > 2. Horticulture began secondarily within the Austroasiatics 14,000
> > years ago (Spirit Cave Thailand). As a result they spread from
India
> > to Malasia throughout Mainland South East Asia.
> >
> > 3. Horticulture appeared amongst the Niger Kordofamian about 4-5,000
> > years ago (or thereabouts). As a result the Congo-Cameroun Bantu
> > family spread from the Camerouns to the Fish River in South Africa.
Alexander asked
> Don't you think that they (like Nilo-Saharans) are descendants of the
Early
> Saharan Neolithic (millet + cattle since 8,000 BP)?
Some have suggested that cattle were domesticated in the Sahara region
before millet was cultivated. I cannot however give you the biblio
details on this one.... although I saw it today mentioned again in the
recent Times Atlas of Archaeology.
I wrote
> > 4. Horticulture appeared amongst the Sino Tibetans about 8-9,000
years
> > ago. They have spread from Southern Manchuria to Indian Ladakh, and
> > down the Malay Peninsula - a fair distance.
Alexander replied
> When saying "horticulture" do you mean only vegetables cultivating,
without
> cereals? If so I'd disagree with the points #3 and #4 (they
cultivated
> different species of millet).
Carl Sauer in the 1950s suggested on the basis of studies of shifting
subsistence hunter-cultivators that in most cases a horticultural phase
seems to have occurred prior to a cereal phase in the origins of
agrarian societies. The exception to this pattern seems to have been
the middle east, where cereal farming occurred strait up. His evidence
for this hypothesis is that hunter gatherers become familiar with the
growing conditions of a number of food plants, and experiment, before
settling on those ones that produce the greatest returns for the least
effort. Spirit cave in Thailand shows early evidence of horticulture
before the cultivation of dry rice, confirming Sauers hypothesis. It
would be quite likely that a prior horticultural period was found in
both Africa and China, before millet cultivation began.
Hope this helps
John