Dennis wrote
> The root of the Akkadian word /pillaq-/ exists in modern Arabic
/flq/ - "split, cleave". Wouldn't this indicate then that the root is
Semitic, not Sumerian? And that, therefore, Sumerian borrowed it from
Semitic? And further that the Ubaid pottery people were Semitic
speaking?
I suspect that Semitic elements were present, as it seems that three
different cultural elements came together to make the Ubaid culture
Ghassulian (Semitic) ----->}
Halaf (Hurrian) ---------->} Classic Ubaid
Hadji Muhammed (unknown)-->}
It was the way in which Akkadian was introduced into Southern Iraq.
Glen keeps accusing me of saying Akkadian separated from Semitic
circa
3,300 BCE. I know that is not the case, although they were first
attested as a language at that date.
The problem with Ubaid as being totally Semitic lies in the fact that
most Sumerian place names have no etymology in either Sumerian nor
Semitic. A great many of the divinities (eg Innana) are in a similar
position, and many of the occupations (agriculture, potter, metal
worker etc) are also non-Semitic and non-Sumerian in origin. The
Ubaid was the first culture into southern Iraq (although the Hadji
Muhammed (derived from the Samara culture) had begun the adaption
towards irrigated agriculture.
> > Indeed, many of the so-called Semitic loans in PIE have a
Sumerian
rather than a
> > proto-Semitic origin. Thus proto-IE *reudh (red), has a
similarity
to
> > Sumerian *urud (copper), which again seems to come to both
languages
> > from an unknown third source.
>
> Perhaps Semitic /?rD/ "earth, soil", Arabic /?arD/.
I thought "soil" was *'-d-m-h (hence Adamah)?
> Why did the Semites have to come from Egypt? Ethiopia, the presumed
Semitic homeland, is also one of the "centres of origin" of
agriculture.
Dennis, there was a long discussion about this earlier on the list.
I
proposed an Ethiopian origin, crossing the Red Sea to Yemen, and was
shot down in flames. Despite the fact that Semitic languages in
Ethiopia are more numerous and more diverse than elsewhere
(evidence of potential origin sites), it was pointed out that the
Ethiopian crops for the origin of Agriculture were domesticated only
post 3,000 BCE, too late for the appearance of Semites to be
associated with a dispersal zone from Ethiopia.
Dennis wrote
>Given that the lower Nile valley was probably
>impenetrable marshy jungle, isn't it more likely they came via the
>grasslands of the Arabian peninsula, bringing their Ethiopian
>agricultural techniques (and Ubaid pottery) with them?
The "impenetrability" of the lower Nile in pre-historic times was not
that impenetrable. It was the route that Aurignacians took on the
movement from North Africa to Palestine 40,000 BCE.... and also the
route by which Sebilian III mesolithic culture, transmogrified into
Kebaran entered Palestine circa 15,000 BCE.... The Semites followed
the same routes. There is also no evidence of Ethiopian techniques
or crops (eg. tef, finger millet, coffee) in Arabia. The
domesticates
for Ubaid were all Middle Eastern in origin, and Ubaid shows a clear
derivation from the previous cultures of the Middle East (see above).
Thus my point
> > Semites learned their agriculture
> > from cultures in the Middle East cultures which were already
> > agricultural. It is the reason why Semitic agricultural terms are
> > shared widely with Proto-Elamite, Karvellian, Hattic and Hurrian.
> > They all shared a common technology, a technology which came
probably
> > from the rain fed slopes of southern Anatolia and the Zagros (the
> > areas where wild progenators of domesticated plants and animals
were
> > most widely found). PIE learned agriculture from people whose
> > technological origins were in the same area. Thus we find today
> > "videorecorder" is a word in Japanese, even though they have had
> > little culture contact with Latin tongues. Such examples become
> > "wander-words" which tend to spread far beyond their points of
origin.
>
To which Dennis replied
> Maybe, maybe not.
I tend to feel not "maybe not"
> > Another example. Proto-IE *kwelkwlo (wheel) has been linked to
> > Akkadian Semitic galgal. But this word seems derived from
Sumerian
> > gigir and even Kartvellian grgar. We can therefore suppose,
rather
> > than a Semitish-PIE loan occurring in the Balkans, that the
> > technology
> > of wheels, starting in Southern Mesopotamia, tended to carry the
> > words
> > for their use as they travelled northwards, across the Caucasas.
Thanks for the etymologies for galgal.... Certainly interesting. It
would upset contemporary archaeology to have Semites rather than
Sumerians inventing the wheel, but hey! upsets in archaeology have
happened before.
Dennis continues
> So where does this leave us? The examples you have supplied can be
attributed to proto-Semitic. This would suggest that Semitic is
indeed
the source. Perhaps they were also the first farmers. Just because
Emmer wheat and such originated in Anatolia, doesn't mean that the
people there cultivated it, or even thought of cultivating it first.
On the basis of the origins of farming there is about 300 years so
far
in separating between the Anatolian, Zagros and Palestinian farmers,
with Anatolian and Zagros both occurring slightly prior to Palestine.
This is hardly surprising as despite the fact that Natufian harvested
eincorn wheat, bread wheat (the hybridization of emmer and eincorn)
occurred first in the area where the wild grains overlapped
(Anatolia-Zagros region). At the moment it would seem that the
Anatolian sources not only cultivated it, but also cultivated it
first. There are clear signs of crop domestication and they appear
in
Anatolia before they do in Palestine. Sorry....
> Interestingly, while trawling (not "trolling" I assure you) the
Internet I found this :
>
> "Until recent decades, the transition to farming was seen as an
inherently progressive one: people learnt that planting seeds caused
crops to grow, and this new improved food source led to larger
populations, sedentary farm and town life, more leisure time and so
to
specialisation, writing, technological advances and civilisation. It
is now clear that agriculture was adopted despite certain
disadvantages of that lifestyle (e.g. Flannery 1973, Henry 1989). "
>
> The disadvantages included a poorer diet with less variety, greater
susceptibility to famine due to drought, or late rains, and various
other natural disasters, greater susceptibility to disease through
overcrowding, and a much greater input of effort for less reward.
>
> Now, I would have thought, with all that wheat growing naturally
with no effort, why cultivate it? Perhaps it was the influx of
Semitic
agriculturalists that forced this lifestyle choice on the local
people.
I would suggest you read a little more of Flannery. His suggestion
is
that the shift towards agriculture was a result of a change in
conditions such that populations temporarily exceeded the carrying
capacity for the environment. Drawing on the previous work of
Esther Boserup, in such consitions
1. An increase in mortality and reduction in life expectancy would
occur
2. An increase in intergroup and intragroup aggression would occur.
3. An outmigration of ecological refugees would take place.
4. A search for alternative technologies, giving higher yeild per
acre
(but probably lower yeild per hour labour) would also take place.
It was the fourth shift that led to the development of farming.
Recent work in the middle east has shown that under Natufian times,
harvesting wild grains gave sufficient return for the creation of
perminent settlements. The climatic collapse at about 8,500 BCE saw,
in Southern Palestine, the collapse of Natufian culture, and the
clear
presence of symptoms 1-3 above. In Northern Syria, the Anatolian
Breakthrough allowed Natufian culture to transform itself into the
Yarmukan, which when the climates subsequently recovered, shifted
back
to southern Palestine, building the walls of Jericho against those
seeking to take control of the Jericho spring, 6,000 BCE. By
Pre-Pottery Neolithic II times, a second shift in climate (increasing
aridity) saw a shift from cultivation towards greater pastoralism
(particularly of the newly domesticated sheep and goats). It was
during this period that pottery first appeared in the Levant, showing
clear signs of African affiliation. It appears that these
pastoralists were the first Semites. Once again, climatic recovery
permitted cultivation to grow at the expense of pastoralism by 5,600
BCE, and in Palestine the sophisticated Ghassulian culture was the
result. These Ghassulians saw the spread of Semitic languages
throughout the Middle East. Pastoralists, displaced from Palestine
by
the recovery of cultivation, spread across the Northern Arabian area,
penetrating down the Red Sea and across the Trans-Jordan to Iraq and
points south. It was Semitic pastoralist pressure on the Sumerian
area of Bahrein, I believe, that caused them to decamp at the end of
the Ubaid period and resettle in Southern Iraq, beginning the
Mesopotamian civilisation that was to last for 3,000 years.
> So, now on to part II - the Egypt of Ramses II under the cultural
and economic domination of Mycenae? Hmmm, doesn't seem likely on the
face of it.
It is interesting that while Minoans and Mycenaeans are portrayed on
the walls of Egyptian tombs, there are no Egyptian portayals in
Mycenaean or Minoan pallaces.
> I'll be back
Welcome.
John