Re: NEW GUINEA AND ANATOLIA IN 7500BC

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, x99lynx@... wrote:

> NED SMITH WROTE:
> <<...there was an article published within the last year or two

purporting to

> find a
> strong correlation between tropical horticultural societies and

maximum

> language diversity. The author(s?)put forth the hypothesis that

this was a

> casual relationship, based on the following mechanism- a

horticultural

> society in a tropical environment would
> have less need for maintaining contact with neighboring groups,

since there

> would tend to be much less fluctuation in their food sources than

those of

> foragers, pastoralists or non-tropical farmers.
>
> ...it is not just lack of markets, but also lack of the need to

maintain some

> sort of ties over a sufficiently large enough area to conteract

local

> fluctuations in food supply.>>
>
> I think this is also an old point-of-view. 19th Century

anthropologists

> often portrayed "primitive" cultures as being either complacent

(i.e., in

> paradise) or unmotivated (i.e., lazy) and therefore prone to

isolation. But

> what seems to be a key factor is that these cultures do not build

up any kind

> of surplus in food, materials or secondary products. They do in

fact have

> contact (e.g., there is ritualized war among Amazonian tribes) but

do not

> trade because there is no surplus to trade, no food preservation

and nothing

> above subsistence manufacturing.
>
> Markets and the exchange of surplus food and materials for other

surpluses or

> for mesolithic resources (e.g., furs and hides, lumber, plant

materials, or

> even surface metals, etc.) necessitate communication. Sometimes

this results

> in pidgins, creoles or contact languages. Sometimes it creates

bilingualism

> or even wholescale conversion to another language.
>
> The basic premise of the article you mention in any case is that

without

> economic motivation, cultures will isolate. A slightly different

point of

> view says that humans have a tendency to be basically consumers and

will look

> to spend their surplus on something new-fangled that they can't

find at home

> -- things like cows, goats, pigs, horses, grains, wheeled vehicles,

etc.

> Only a lack of surplus will get in the way.

Hi Steve,

I still haven't been able to locate the article (I think I may have
actually read a summary in Science or Science News, rather than the
actual article) but as I recollect the argument, it seemed to be
dealing with something beyond trade. It did not have to do with
surpluses so much as constancy and reliability of production.
Hunters, foragers, pastoralists, and agriculturists in *most*
environments are at the mercy of fluctuations in their respective
food supplies- some years are good years, and some are decidedly not
so good years. To deal with these fluctuations it helps to maintain
close relations with groups not in your immediate area. If food has
run out in your neighborhood, you want to be able to trek over the
horizon to someone who knows you, who has social obligations towards
you, and who just might have enough food to share with you. And it
will be in their interest to do so, because a few years later they
might have to come to you looking for food.

The mechanisms used to maintain these long-distance contacts might
include establishment of regular market relations, but could include
other means as well- exogamy, annual festivals, etc.

But according to the theory, tropical forest horticulturists are much
less prone to suffer from such fluctuations. They may barter for
luxury goods, but they have much less incentive to maintain long-term
reciprocal social relations with a specifc set of people outside
their immediate neighborhood.

I hope my recollections are doing justice to the article's thesis.

Also, remember that the article claimed there was a correlation
between tropical horticulture and linguistic diversity. That might
still be true, even if the proposed explanation is not valid.

Ned