Re: Problems with Bomhard

Alexander

> It is well known that some caves had been inhabited for many
> millennia (often with gaps) by peoples of different cultures. For
> the Kilu rockshelter there are 2 periods of occupation, one c.28,000
> to 20,000 years BP and one c.9,000 to 6500 years BP
> (http://www.ahc.gov.au/infores/HERA/pleistocene/png.html).

> It is very important from which layer of the cave the taro starch
> traces origin. Is it sure that from the oldest one?

Rock solid. You may be interested in "Direct evidence for human use
of plants 28,000 years ago: starch residues on stone artefacts from
the northern Solomon Islands" by TH Loy, M. Spriggs, & S. Wickler,
(1992) Antiquity, ISSN 0003-598X 1992, 66: 898-912

You wrote

> Anyway it's very interesting. But I'd wait a bit before making the
> final conclusions.

I find it interesting that the cultural efflorescence of the Upper
Paleolithic (from 40,000 BCE) in the Old World was purely one of
specialised big game hunting, and that farming came so late (despite
your finding of sickles back to 10,000 BCE, evidence for
crop domestication of grains in the Middle East is only circa 8,500
BCE maximum). The question is "why so late"?

Full-time farming seems to have been not so much an improvement in
many areas of the world as a reduction in quality of life and living
standards. As a result we find that it seems to have occurred
everywhere associated with increased environmental pressure - either
from increased dessication as a result of a worstening environment, or
as a result of increased population pressure on the carrying capacity
of the natural environment, and, according to grave anaylses, with
increased levels of malnutrition and falling life expectancy.

The possibilities of repeated experiments of hunter-gardening
approaches was first explored by Carl Sauer in the 1950s with his
suggestion that agriculture began first in Sundaland (mainland and
island Indonesia), as shown by the depth of cultivation of certain
tropical crops (eg. Cultivated Bananas are seedless and hence require
human intervention to spread). But because research was concentrated
in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America, of these three
regions, the Middle East seemed the earliest. Europe and North
America experienced wild climatic swings and periods of dessication,
true, but the massive movements of vegetation zones prevented the
close observation of micro-environment that permitted plant
domestication.

It is interesting that the growth of "gardening" in Australasia is
associated with the dependence upon fishing activities. Fishing
activities, because of the bounty of the sea, can encourage permanent
year round settlement, and would lead to a rapid depletion of native
plant foods, unless some kind of cultivation were practiced.
Pseudo-domestication also seems to have been involved. The first
settlements on New Ireland are associated with the appearance of the
Cuscus on the island (suggesting that it was introduced on the rafts
or dugouts of the first settlers as a food source) for the same
reason.

By 12,000 BP gardener-hunting had spread into the highlands, as the
draining ditches found in swamps at Kuk in the Western Highlands show.
This was right at the altitudinal limit for growing taro in the late
Pliestocene, and suggests a long prior development in the lowlands and
around the coast. The appearance of a separate Vavilhov zone for a
range of cultivars in Northern Australia, and the appearance of
implements used to work the soil (eg. hafted hoes) dating back before
40,000 years at Finchaven in Northern New Guinea suggest a very early
precursor of gardening (similar to the presence of sickles in the
Middle East to harvest the bountiful wild grains). Similar hoes are
found in the Hao Binh culture in South East Asia suggesting a very
early "back migration" of Indo-Pacific people into Sundaland. The
distrinution of Indo-Pacific languages in "Greater Melanesia" seems to
show a very early effect of these trends. The recent discovery that
dogs in Thailand are infested with Australasian kangaroo ticks, shows
that there was more going and coming across the Wallace line than
everyone, up to now, has suspected - and the movements seem to have
been not all going just in one way.

Hope this helps

Regards

John

Either way, this is fascinating (and very new) material that promises
to cause a minor revolution in thinking about the development of
agriculture.

>
>
> Alexander
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jdcroft" <jdcroft@...>
> To: <nostratic@...>
> Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 3:09 AM
> Subject: [nostratic] Re: Problems with Bomhard
>
>
> > Alexander
> >
> > While hunting for Web Based resources for you on your post here
> >
> > > What do you mean? The Solomon Islands? Other parts of this

region

> > > were not populated yet, AFAIK. Could you give any references

please.

> >
> > I found the following
> >
> > Human settlement of Sahul (Australia and New Guinea, joined when

sea

> > levels were lower) in the Pleistocene almost certainly involved
> > repeated, purposeful water crossings of some distance. It is

perhaps

> > no surprise, therefore, that people had crossed the Vitiaz Strait

to

> > the Bismarck and Solomon Islands by 35 000 years ago; scattered
> > evidence reveals tantalising glimpses of their lives. The early
> > Holocene saw changes in settlement and foraging patterns: in the

New

> > Guinea Highlands there is evidence for very early agriculture,

while

> > the lowlands and islands saw innovations in arboriculture and

shell-

> > working. Malaria may have played a key role in limiting population
> > growth in the region.
> >
> > http://dannyreviews.com/h/Road_Winds.html.
> >
> > Golson,J. (1971c) The remarkable history of Indo-Pacific man:
> > missing chapters from every world prehistory. Fifth David Rivett
> > Memorial Lecture of the CSIRO, Canberra
> >
> > Kirch,P.V. and P.H.Rosendahl (1973) Archaeological

investigation

> > of Anuta. In D.E. Yen and J. Gordon (eds) Anuta: a Polynesian

outlier

> > in the Solomon Islands, pp.25108. Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop
> > Museum, Department of Anthropology. Pacific Anthropological

Records

> > No.21
> >
> > Deal with some of this
> >
> > The easiest to access is from Steve Wickler's "The Prehistory of
> > Buka: A Stepping Stone Island in the Northern Solomons" Terra
> > Australis series No 16. a joint publication of the Department of
> > Archaeology and Natural History, RSPAS and the Centre for
> > Archaeological Research.
> >
> > "The earliest occupational evidence dates to 29,000 BP at the Kilu
> > cave site. The rich faunal assemblage at this site includes

endemic

> > rats which are now extinct. Starch residues and raphides from

aroids

> > found on stone tools from the basal site deposit provide the

earliest

> > direct evidence for the use of root crops in the World."
> >
> > The starch residues and raphides from aroids were found by the
> > Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

of

> > Australia - the country's leading research organisation - and

relate

> > to chemicals known from domesticated taro - which was not endemic

to

> > the Solomon Islands and had to have been introduced from outside

the

> > islands.
> >
> > Thus suggests that the cultivation of root crops in fact occurred

in

> > the Sahul region long before any evidence of grain farming in the
> > Middle East (previously hailed as the beginnings of agriculture).
> > This fact suggests
> >
> > 1. a mechanism for the widespread nature of Indo-Pacific languages
> > (Andaman, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Solomons)
> >
> > 2. a mechanism whereby very early Sahul cultivars (eg breadfruit,
> > sugar cane, sago, Musa australis bananas, a variety of swamp taro

and

> > possibly domesticated coconuts) could have been taken from Papua

New

> > Guinea back into Indonesia, there to be spread by later

Austronesian

> > settlement some of them from Madagascar to Easter Island)
> >
> > Hope this helps
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >