Alexander Stolbov wrote:

> 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).

These sites are far too late. These people had already crossed into
the Neolithic and Hassuna was a second generation Neolithic culture.
We are hear talking Zarzian and Kebaran which were about 4,000 years
earlier, (back to 12,000 BCE).

> 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.

Yes, there is a clear transition from bow to sling shown at
Shanidar. But again Jarmo is again about 8,500 BCE which is far too
late here Alexander.

> In Palestina geometric microliths coexisted with arrowheads in
> Natufian time, but later were completely substituted with
> arrowheads, when new population came.

Natufian is currently seen as a daughter and derivative culture from
the Kebaran. It is hard to see a new people arriving at this time as
the continuities between late Kebaran and Early Natufian (at about
10,500 BCE) are such as to suggest an indogenous development. Only
in the north, when we see the shift from harvesting wild grains (as
did the Natufians) and planting domesticated ones (as they did in Pre-
Pottery Neolithic A) is there any evidence of any population shift
and then it is only from Syria to Palestine of a culture (PPNA) that
is related to Natufian in any case.

> 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 is quite possible. It would appear the arrow was introduced into
Spain with the Ibero-Maurasian culture (circa 15,000 BCE). The
Azilian culture which followed Magdalenian in Western Europe seems to
have developed first on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees and so
introduced the bow and arrow into Western Europe. Later movements of
Tardeoisian and Swidderian cultures Northwards introduced it to the
Baltic region in post glacial times. Certainly the Maglemosian
culture at Star Carr in Yorkshire used bow and arrow technology.

From this we can assume that the bow and arrow which had been in
Africa 30,000 BCE, crossed into Eurasia from two routes

1. A western route - via Spain and Portugal
2. An Eastern route via the Sinai and Palestine.

> 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;

The Sredny Stog culture microliths seem to have developed in situ
from the earlier Murzak Koba derived cultures, I understand
(Alexander you may have better data than do I here). I understand
that the Murzak Koba culture was fairly widespread and very early
(9,100-8,000 BCE) giving rise to both Grebenki (8,500-7,000 BCE and
to Dneipr-Bug and Dnesitr-Donetz cultures (7,000-5,500 BCE) which led
to the development of Sredny Stog. Murzak Koba also seems to have
extended northwards into the Urals forested region, and may have
spread into the area later occupied by the Uralic languages. Could
this have been the ancestor of both Indo-European and Uralic/Yukaghir?

> 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.

They all occupy what Flannery has called "the broad spectrum
revolution", in which big game hunting and dependence upon one or two
species, which characterised the upper palaeolithic, (eg reindeer,
bison, horses and mammoths) was replaced with cultures which (while
living in smaller sized groups) exhibited a far greater
sophistication in knowledge of local ecologies and with fishing,
snares, trapping, and new technologies (canoes, snow shoes, bow and
arrow) were able to access a far greater proportion of diverse local
food items. It was out of the broad spectrum revolution that
neolithic farming was later to develop.

> 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.

These people seem to be associated with the Ibero Maurasians I was
speaking earlier of Alexander. Some have found traces of Afroasiatic
substrate languages in this part of the world, (eg in Iberian and
Germanic) but I would feel they are too buried to be identifiable
whoever they are.

> 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.

The shift to bow and arrow technology is a lot "patchier". In some
areas at atlatl (throwing stick) gave hunting spears a superiority
over early bows and arrows (esp. in places like Australia).
Nevertheless, in eastern and central Eurasia and North America the
bow and arrow is associuated with the appearance dog, which was first
domesticated in roughly the area Bomhard gives for the centre for
distribution of Nostratic languages (the Kebaran-Zarzian area).

I wrote

> > 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.

Alexander replied

>
> 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.

This was a typing error, I meant 5,500 BCE not 4,500 BCE, sorry. It
seems that the period from 6,200-5,600 BCE was a period of worstening
climates and increased aridity in the Middle East. Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B sites in the Sinai and Negev were abandonned and reverted
to hunter-gatherers who show Egyptian affinities. The recovery of
agriculture with Andrew Sherrat's "Broad Spectrum Revolution" which
saw the addition of many new cultivars, the beginnings of plough
cultivation, and a tighter livestock-grain-fallow cycle of crop
rotataion extended these across the Sinai (probably through the
mediation of the Proto-Semitics who had just crossed from Africa).

The Times Atlas of Archaeology is interesting in this regard. There
was a very early Afircan centre for pottery technology (circa 7,000
BCE) associated with wavy line pots (decorated with catfish
incissions from the Sahara - probably associated with the
distribution of Nilo Saharan languages - and perhaps with an early
(and independent domestication of cattle). Pottery was thus
introduced into Palestine from two directions - north from Africa
through the Sinai (Minhatta culture) and south from Anatolia and the
Zagros. The fusion of these styles created the Ghassulian culture
which can be (and often has been) equated with the first spread of
the Semites in the Middle East, circa 5,600 BCE. The Ghassulians
seem to have been the people who invented the mixed mediterranean
economy of wine, grapes, grains, beans and transhumance pastorage.

Alexander asked

> 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?

Yes, it is too late. Bomhard suggests that at least three groups of
Afro-Asiatic languages (SOV (Cushitic/Omotic), SVO (Chadic) and VSO
(Berber, Egyptian and Semitic)) had separated by 8,000 BCE. I tend
to agree as this is associated with the diffusion and spread of
different styles of Capsian microlithic cultures.

> 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.

The Anatolian group seems to have split earlier. This would coincide
well with the Usatova culture in Bulgaria.

Thanks for the response Alexander

Regards

John