----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <nostratic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 2:23 AM
Subject: Re: [nostratic] Problems with Bomhard


>
> Alexander:
> >All these cultures are either definitely agricultural
> >or represent the phase of transition from hunting-gathering to
> > >agriculture.
>
> Erh, but agriculture surely came long after the dispersal of
> Nostratic which is dated to approximately 15000 BCE. Agriculture
> should be irrelevant to what we are discussing here.

Yes, if we trust this figure - 15000 BC. If we accept the estimation of this
event date as about 12000-10000 BC, we will not be frightened by association
of Nostratic fantastic spreading and the Neolithic revolution in the Near
East region. I can't judge what is closer to the reality - 15000 BC or 10000
BC? I even don't know whether glottochronogical technique can provide such a
preciseness for such old events.

> >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 differences between
> >linguistic groups of the AfroAsiatic family?
>
> Yep. AfroAsiatic is pre-agricultural. The Semitic branch alone
> seems to extend back into the Neolithic.

Which arguments for pre-agriculturalism of AA make us make this conclusion?
Among all nations and even the most archaic tribes speaking an AA language
NO ONE is known as a hunter-gatherers community.

> >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.
>
> If you include the Anatolian branch as part of what you call
> "the IndoEuropean family", then we must date the initial dispersal
> of IndoEuropean to around 4000 BCE, not 3000 BCE.

Yes, I agree. Anatolians seem to leave other IndoEuropeans already at the
stage of Chalcolitics (the Copper Age). But this is the only example. And it
happened almost 2 millennia later than first Asiatic farmers entered Africa.

Alexander