Alexander asked me

> Do you mean that the Mesolithic "Broad Spectrum Revolution" is a
> unitary process, and ALL the variants of it went from one center? In
> other words, fishermen tribes and gatherers of wild cereals
> developed in different ways the same inventions made by their common
> (Nostratic according to your conception) ancestors?

Agreed, there were cultural differences that grew up in different
areas, but I see these cultural differences grafted onto a common
lithic core of tool using (microliths, bows and arrows, and dog
domestication), that showed an increased preparedness to experiment
with alternative food sources at the end of the Ice Age. Underneath
the differences is a chain of surprising commonality - clear links
between Kebaran and Anatolian culutes, and clear links between
Anatolian and mesolithic Franchthi Cave in the Aegean. Balkan
mesolithic cultures developed it would seem from Aegean early
exemplars and the Steppe cultures show a connection with the Balkans,
with forest-steppe and trans-Urals showing up still later. This
northward "trail" seems to reflect the trend in climatic warming. It
is hardly surprising that as climate zones moved northwards, we find
hunter-gatherer cultures which had adapted to those climatic zones
would also move. When people from the south would enter into a region
already occupied, a new cultural amalgam would have emerged, which, as
warming continued would move northward in turn. The process would
have been slow and exceedingly complex, but isn't this what the
differences between (and within some of) the Nostratic languages show?

> I think that different variants of the "Mesolithic revolution" are
> alternative processes. When ecological conditions changed every
> tribe had to invent a new adaptation or die out. If one has invented
> a fishing net, he need not to invent a sickle. It's impossible to
> sit on 2 chairs.

Agreed, but with linking Nostratic to the spread of dog domestication
I think we can come back to sitting on one chair. The close
association of human and dogs seems to date back 12,000 years at the
Natufian site of Ein Mallaha, Israel. At this site which is located
near the Huleh Lake in the upper Jordan Valley, the remains of a
skeleton of a puppy buried alongside humans were excavated.(5)

The earliest archeological evidence for dogs in Kurdistan go back to
12,000 years ago. The evidence for this was found in the site
of Palegawra in Iraq. The remains found in this site are considered to
be that of the very early domesticated dogs. A more
recent evidence dates back to 9,250 years ago from Jarmo in Iraqi
Kurdistan. At this site, many physical remains of dogs have
been found.

Genetically Wayne has found that the .2% divergence of dog from wolf
genome, requires abandonning the spearate canis familiaris species in
favour of dogd being a genetically destinct sub-species of Canis
lupus, a Middle Eastern variety separate from the Eurasian grey wolf
for at least 100,000 years. The peculiar canid genome suggests
repeated crossings back from the dog line with wild wolves in various
parts of the world.

> An episode, in result of which the density of population in
> Neolithic increased 50-fold, at least.
>
> From my point of view the transition to farming is the most
> important what ever happened with mankind (although it happened
> independently several times in different parts of the world). From
> the point of view of ecology before it Homo sapiens was just 1
> species of about 1000000 animals populated the Earth. Not better and
> not worse than any other species. Homo had a large brain, but some
> other animals had a long tail. Sometimes a long tail is more useful
> than a large brain. The only real advantage of human populations was
> the ability to change their behaviour relatively quickly due to
> teaching. But the places where people appeared (forests, steppe,
> lakes, mountains) remained practically the same (perhaps only the
> frequency of fires increased). If all the people disappeared from
> the planet, nobody would notice a difference. Pigs or bears would
> occupy their ecological niche immediately.

Alexander, this may have been true during the Middle Paleolithic, but
the Upper Paleolithic suggests that something very definitely
different was afoot. Homo sapiens were clearly engaged in
demonstrating that they were different to other omnivorous predators
(eg bears) in crossing the Wallace line into Australia, and having a
huge impact on the flora and fauna of that continent. The fact that
we have evidence of the domestication of taro going back 25,000 years
in the South Pacific, suggests that the domestication of grains in the
Middle East (which did have a huge impact on population densities that
you mention), was preceeded by a mixed hunter-gardening system, at
least in South East Asian and Northern Australasia that had a much
less impact on population densities (although it may have caused the
early spread of the Indo-Pacific language family).

> The situation changed principally when some people passed to
> farming. New biomes were created artificially - a garden, a field, a
> pasture, a farmyard - they are new worlds, which would never arise
> spontaneously and which are not able to exist without constant
> influence of people. The human being started to create an artificial
> biosphere for himself. Only from this moment we can say that he is
> something more than just an animal.

I would doubt you could say that even now - we are still "just an
animal". After all ants have been "farming" for 200 million years,
and we don't consider ants (nor their huge impact on the biosphere)
makes them "more than just an insect". This is your
anthropocentricism talking here Alexander. Humans are not an evolved
apex to the tree of life, rather we are just one strand in a living
web. In this respect I support the growth of Eco-Psychology which is
arguing for "biospherical or ecological equality" here. You may like
to see Daniel Quinn's book "Ishmael" which does much to puncture such
human centredness.

Regards

John