----- Original Message -----
From: "jdcroft" <jdcroft@...>
To: <nostratic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 12:50 PM
Subject: [nostratic] Problems with Bomhard

...
> The Kebaran culture saw the
> introduction of microliths from NE Africa into the Sinai and then
> points northwards, and was associated with the diffusion of the bow
> and arrow (which had been used in Africa since Ateran times (30,000
> BCE)) into the Middle East.


I met a point of view on microliths and bow&arrows as 2 alternative types of
stone industry (N.Bader, 1989 Earliest Cultivators in Northern Mesopotamia):
Well studied Mesopotamian sites (Tell Magzaliya, Umm Dabaghia, Tell Hassuna)
had a lot of aroowheads and few microliths (no geometric microliths at all).
Sites to the East from Tiger (Jarmo, Tell Shimshara) show a lot of geometric
microliths and no arrowheads at all - they used sling instead of bow.
In Palestina geometric microliths coexisted with arrowheads in Natufian
time, but later were completely substituted with arrowheads, when new
population came.

I also met statements that bow&arrows first appeared in Central Europe about
13 000 BC - Late Madlen and Hamburg cultures. I don't know whether it is
correct.

It seems to me rather probable that the distribution of microliths could
mark the distrribution of the Nostratic folks because microlithic cultures
were found in South Asia (Merghar and later South India; could correspond to
the Dravidian branch), in NW China (could correspond to the Altaic branch),
in the East Caspian region and Urals (Yangelka; could correspond to the
Uralic branch), in the Ukrainian steppe (the Sura and later the Sredny Stog
culture; I believe it corresponds to the IE branch), some cultures in Near
East and NE Africa (could correspond to the Kartvelian branch and the
AfroAsiatic branch). All these cultures are either definitely agricultural
or represent the phase of transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture.
However I must say that there is another chain of microlithic cultures from
Tunissia, then through shore regions of Spain, Portugal, France, Britain to
the south shore of Baltic. They are associated nether with agriculture nor
with any known Nostratic languages. They seem to have parted with the future
Nostratic people after inventing microliths but before the transition to
agriculture. Therefore they had no chance to survive like all
hunter-gatherers in regions which potentially can be effectively used by
farmers (if those regions are not so well isolated like Australia).

In my opinion bow and arrows don't show something analogous to such a
correlation with the distribution of linguistic units.


> Except that there is no identified movement of cultures from Asia
> back into Africa prior to the neolithic cultures of Merimde and
> Fayyum (4,500 BCE) which is far to late to account for the observed
> differences in language between Cushitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic
> and Omotic.


African Neolithic and early Near East Neolithic are easily distinguishable
due to the contrast sets of domesticated animals and plants. Africans
domesticated cattle and bulrush millet (and some later finger millet and
sorghum), whereas in Near East first sheep+goats and wheat+barley were
domesticated.
The Times Atlas of Archaeology gives the following dates for early findings
of Asian domesticated species in Africa:
- wheat and barley in Faiyum 5300 BC;
- sheep in Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica) 5650 BC;
- sheep in El Khril (Marocco) 5500 BC.

So we can expect that earliest Neolithic groups from Africa entered Africa
in the beginning of the 6th mill.BC.
Is it too late or early enough to explain differencies between linguistic
groups of the AfroAsiatic family? I don't know. However, linguistic groups
of the IndoEuropean family seem to have separated only in the Early Bronze
Age, i.e. not earlier than 3000 BC.

Alexander