Re: Ghassulian culture

Dear Alexander

You wrote

> Let me start from the very end of your letter:
>
> [A]
> > That's why I don't think that the Ghassulian culture can represent
> > early Semites.
> [J]
> And this is why I think they can. But I am not inflexible on the
> topic and can be pursuaded otherwise.
>
> [A]
> So am I.
> "Early Semites" in my sentence means a group which can be ancestral

for _all_ (North)Semitic tribes, including Akkadians, Assyrians,
Amorites, Arameans etc.

> However, from my point of view, theoretically the Ghassulians could

represent a "local" group of people speaking a Semitic language who
passed to a sedentary way of life (the Mediterranean one in this case
but not Mesopotamian one as in the case of Akkadians).

Yes, that would seem to make sense.

I wrote

> The shift two and
> fro between sedentary mixed agriculturists --> transhumance
> pastoralists --> fully nomadic pastoralists and all the way back
> again is one that happened repeatedly for the Semites, I feel.
>
> [A]
> My feelings are a little different. IMO the ways from sedentary way

of life to pastoral nomadism and in the opposite directions are long
and painful processes. I don't think that it can happen repeatedly
(pendulum-like) in the history of a tribe.

Alexander - how long is long in your "long and painful process"? Two
hundred years? Three generations? Generally - looking at the speed
with which people like the Martu (Amorites) later assimilated to the
Lower Mesopotamian culture - three to four generations seems about
right.

> In the situation when
> (A) we see at a site the transition from nomadism (phase 1) to

sedentary life (phase 2), then nomadic pastoralism dominates again
(phase 3), and then again we find a sedentary population (phase 4),

> and
> (B) we know that language of people of the site remained almost the

same,

> I would be inclined to interpret it as the following:
>
> 1. A part of a nomadic population passed from the nomadic way of

life to the sedentary one (because climatic conditions favour this),
whereas the rest of the population remained nomadic (because the
tradition and the Gods of parents were against this) - phases 1 -> 2 ;

> 2. Climatic conditions changed (got dryer) and the latter group

ousted the former one (because the Gods punish renegades) - phase 3 ;

> 3. The new population of the site still passes to the sedentary way

of life (because olives are so fat and grape is so sweet) - phase 4.

Could be. Sounds like 3-4 generations to me.

I wrote

> From what I have read, it would seem that all the place-names
> within the orbit of the Ghassulian culture zone are Semitic in
> origin. There does not seem to be any underlying sub-strata that
> can be identified. If Ghassulian is non Semitic, I would have
> thought that traces of this non Semitic sub-stratum would have
> survived to Biblical times at least.
>
> [A]
> An important fact, indeed. But...
> I guess the Ghassulian culture zone is Palestine and perhaps South
> Syria (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Yes you are right.

> Anyway there lived somebody who didn't belong to Afrasiatic-
>Semitic linguistic branch - either PPNA or PPNB. If you state that
> the Semites came from Africa, then neither of them. Thus we have 2
> non-Semitic substratum layers, even if we stay aside the
> Ghassulians. Why none of these substratum layers have survived to
> the Biblical times? Too long?

I believe so. I tend to think PPNA and B are non Semitic. PPNA is
definitively derived from the Natufians, who were in turn derived
from Kebaran. I would see Kebaran as Proto-Nostratic. But equating
cultures with languages, at such a distance is tricky business.

> Yes, however the distance from the Chalcolithic to the Early Iron
> Age is not very short too.
> I just don't know - what is the longest space of time which _must_
> be survived by substrate toponymes for sure? Do such estimations
> exist?

I am sure they do but I have not seen any. Given that an Indo-Aryan
substrata can be detected in the Ukraine that would seem to be about
3,000 - 3,500 years. Any advances anyone?

Regards

John