Re: How do we Know...

Janeen

Thanks for the common sense in the argument. It shows for me again
the difficulty of determining the order in which ingredients were
introduced into the omlettes of the medieval written myths of the
Germanic, Celtic, Baltic and Slavic traditions. Many of those
ingredients no doubt did come from Sumer, via Greco-Roman
intermediaries.

Regards

John

>
>
> I asked:
> > If the innovations appeared all throughout the >Middle
> >East and if the prehistoric Sumerians never came up with >anything

new,

> >then why did civilization (i.e., the growth of cities) >occur

first in

> >Sumeria?
>
> Glen responded:
> >Well, I'm a bit confused too. Help me out with this piece of

logic... How

> do
> cities grow without agriculture?
>
> Looks we're both confusing each other. :) Let's see if we can

clear this

> up. What I find incredible in the first statement is the idea that

the

> Sumerians never invented *anything* at all. However, that does

*not*

> automatically imply that I think they invented *everything.* John

is the

> one who listed an impressive set of accomplishments for the

Sumerians, not

> I.
>
> Also, I never said or meant to imply that cities can grow without
> agriculture. I agree with Glen's summary of: "No cities started

without

> agriculture first, as far as I know. So... first agriculture, THEN

a city."

>
>
> Glen asked: "Why Sumer and not some place else?" and he went on to

give some

> humorous and interesting comparisons between Vancouver and

Winnipeg. There

> are a variety of reasons why things happen in one place and not in

another,

> but three very important ones are climate (as Glen mentioned),

resources (as

> John mentioned), and location (which of course influences both

climate and

> resources). Sumer was in a fertile land with an adequate and

reliable water

> supply, and it was also easily accesible for travelers. Kind of

like the

> large industrial city of Pittsburgh in the United States: three

rivers meet

> there, it's surrounded by rich farmland, and there are nearby coal

deposits.

>
>
> The term "attractor" works in this instance, both for solidly

logical

> reasons (enough water and enough food) and for more mystical ones

(good bars

> and lots of single women or single men). People move to Los

Angeles and

> Paris for no other reason than the music and art they can find

there. I'm

> sure people went to Sumer because they heard it was a happening

kind of

> place to be.
>
> When Glen says that we cannot make a "convincing argument that the

Sumerians

> indeed affected the IEs or vice-versa," again, I'd like to put in

a request

> for some kind of timeline. Once the Proto-IEs split, do we stop

calling

> them IEs at all? Do we start referring to them as Anatolians,

Aryans,

> Celtic-Italians and what not? Obviously, the Sumerian culture did

influence

> the descendants of the IE.
>
> Back to confusing parts: I most certainly did not say that

Sumerians

> invented agriculture. I specifically stated that there were

several tribes

> all scratching in the dirt at the same time. Nor did I say that the
> Sumerians "gave the IE agriculture or mythology." I said that once

the

> cities in Sumer started (whenever we date that), the Sumerians

would have

> had more influence than the other tribes.
>
> While the Vinca-writing connection in 4700 BCE is interesting, it

does not

> negate the premise that a culture which develops and maintains

cities has

> more influence than tribes who do not. Inventions need to be used

on a

> regular basis to have much impact. (With the exception of atomic

bombs.)

> For example, an ancient Greek (sorry, not sure what century or what

city)

> knew about the principle of the steam engine, but it didn't have

any impact

> because the metallurgical techniques weren't around to do much with

it. It

> took the invention of steel to bring the steam engine into its own,

over

> 2000 years later. Likewise, Leonardo da Vinci drew pictures of

airplanes,

> but didn't have the motors available to make them feasible.
>
> That citified culture's influence would show up first on

neighboring tribes,

> but it would also spread in ripples to tribes farther away, such as

the IE.

> I don't know how long it would take that influence to spread. I

don't know

> in what areas that influence would be in. Irrigation? Trade?

Fighting

> techniques? Weaving patterns in cloth and baskets? Myths?
>
> Some weeks back, I asked if there was any information on IE star

myths or

> star names. Except for the possibility of the name of a star or a

planet or

> two, there is apparently no record of any native IE starlore. Like

Glen, I

> personally find it unlikely that the IEs had *no* divinities

associated with

> the stars, but there is little evidence of it left. All their myths

which we

> know about--star and otherwise--seem to show Sumerian influence.
>
> When did that Sumerian influence show up? I have no idea. Luckily,

Glen

> does:
>
> >However, regarding proto-IE itself (c.4000), I don't see how

Sumerian

> civilisation was as yet powerful enough to have affected in any

direct way

> IE-speaking cultures.
>
> Ah, the importance of timelines! It seems that the Sumerians did

not

> inundate the ProtoIE with their stories. So, did the Sumerian

influence

> come in succeeding waves, rippling out again and again over the

millennia

> from Sumer, from Greece to Rome to north-west Europe, then again

from India

> to Arabia to Italy and to north-west Europe again, slowly eroding

any native

> IE myths? Can we piece together anything that doesn't have a

Sumerian

> flavor to it?
>
> Glen believes we can. He says: "Common deductive reasoning must

painfully

> sift out the late additions and alterations from these lores to

arrive at

> the common IE myths. Luckily, there appear to be at least some

common IE

> characteristics of the prototypical Euro-Anatolian mythos that are

unique to

> the IE."
>
> I'm not so sure at this point. Like salt in soup, just a dash can

affect

> the entire pot. Pity.
>
>
> Janeen