Re: Afro-Asiatic

[John]:

> Alexander in reply to my thrice out of Africa hypothesis wrote
>
> > Looks good, John, however 2 question arise:
> >
> > 1. What about Amerinds (all native Americans but Na-Dene Indians and
> > Eskimo-Aleuts)?
>
> I generally follow Greenberg and Cavalli-Sforza in this regard with
> three North American waves
>
> 1. 25-15,000 BCE crossing over the Berengia Land Bridge and through
> the Cordilleran-Laurentide Ice Corrdor - Carrying Folsom Points across
> (This is a very early group, but derived ultimately from Aurignacians)

[Alexander]:
Sorry, I don't understand to which of the "waves out of Africa" should it
correspond - to the 1st (I guess - not) or to the 2nd (but this wave is
already "reserved" for Na-Dene) ?

>
> 2. 8,500 BCE crossing, probably by boat and down the West Coast (This
> is the Na Dene wave)
>
> 3. 5,000-3,000 BCE crossing of Innuit people, from Bering strait
> islands, creating the Thule culture up along the Alaskan Northern Coast
> and East to Greenland.
>
> > 2. We need to explain such a pattern: 10-20,000 y. periods of
> migrations
> > with gaps of 15-20,000 years. Something VERY importand had to happen
> to
> > provoke every next wave of migrations. It seems to me that it could
> be both
> > climatic changes and technological/cultural inventions. Do you have
> such
> > explanations?
>
> Yes, I see all three factors coming into effect.
>
> First wave out of Africa - East through the tropics to Sundaland -
> cultural invention - ability to speer and catch fish, making of string.
> These were litorial cultures, creating shell middens (now beneath the
> sea).
>

Is this a pure supposition or there are archaeological evidences? IMO the
description fits well to the Mesolithic way of life. Is not too early?

> Second wave out of Africa - North onto the Steppes - this is the Upper
> Paleolithic Assemblage of Big Game Hunters (see any Europo-centric book
> on "the origins of man" and the stories of these cultures will be
> rammed down your neck. These are the Ice Age Cro-Magnon cultures who
> developed a facility living in Steppe-Tundra cultures.
>

I think again about America. IMO this corresponds to early Amerindian
hunters rather than to Na-Dene fishermen. If so, we hardly may associate
this 2nd wave with the (only) Dene-Caucasian groups.

> Third wave out of Africa - microlithic mesolithic cultures - This was
> associated with the warming phase at the end of the Ice Age, and the
> spread of forests throughout Europe. These people specialised in
> hunting and trapping small game, and the domestication of the dog. As
> Europe warmed, so they could move further and further north.
>

IMO the typical feature of "Eastern" (Asiatic) microlithic groups was using
of sickles with microliths for harvesting (wild and then domesticated)
cereals. (+ hunting and fishing, of course). I don't know if "Western"
(European, Atlantic) microlithic groups used sickles at all. Do you?

> Similar kinds of waves can be seen with the movements in America.
> Except there Big Game Hunters were the first wave, litorial fisherfolk
> (Na Dene) second wave,

It seems to me that Big Game Hunters as a part of the Old World 2nd wave and
Na-Dene as a part of the 3rd wave look much more natural (even if this can
force us to modify a really beautiful scheme). Don't you think so?

>and kayak-seal cultures were the Thule Third
> Wave, again associated with warmings and coolings of climate. Innuit
> replaced Viking in Greenland only in the 13th - 14th century "Little
> Ice Age".

Did the Thule (or its ancestral) culture have any connections with
microliths?

Alexander