Mark Hubey wrote

> I think there are records of human civilizations in Central Asia
> dating back about 30,000 years.

Considering that there has not yet been a civilisation that developed
without agriculture, and this is generally accepted as being a
discovery of the people living between Cayonu in Eastern Anatolia and
Murayabet in Syria, dated to about 8,500 BCE, to say that a
civilisation existed in Central Asia this early is

EITHER

to suggest farming began in central Asia (where there are no known
cultivar Vavilov Zones (where the wild varieties of cultivars are
known to have existed) for any of the domesticated crops (unlike the
zone spoken of above - where both Emmer and Einkorn Wheat are shown
to have existed in wild state).

OR

to suggest that civilisation can exist without farming - a truly
revolutionary theory and one which I don't know I have ever heard of
before.

Mark, this sounds suspiciously like the 19th Century attempts to
lcoate the Garden of Eden in Central Asia (Shangri-La perhaps?).

> I posted about that little carving with the guy pointing
> to heavens in a special pose before.

Sorry, I seem to have missed it. Can you give me the number in the
Archive?

> There is a 3D version of that; a little statuette from Anatolia
> around the time of Hittites. It can be seen in the book by Queen or
> McQueen on the Hittites.

I'll try to check it out.

> Strangely enough, apparently earlier thought was that the Hurrians
> actually came from the east of the Caspian, and perhaps from
> further afar. Now it is said that they were Caucasians. I wonder
> now which is true.

Mark, where did you get the story of Hurrians coming from East of the
Caspian? It is true that the burning of Tepe Hisar near the Caspian
Gates, circa 2,300 BCE, set of a chain of destruction westwards all
the way to the Kirbet Karak Ware folk who moved into Israel, and
tghis is normally associated with the Hurrian wave (as distinct from
the proto-Hurrian Subartuans who lived in the region previously).
But this wave, as Pottery styles show, was one of a "domino effect"
one people pushing on a second, who pushed on a third, who pushed on
the Hurrians etc. Unless you are working on evidence which is a
little out of date.

I finished

> > Thoughts anyone?

Thanks for giving yours.

Warm regards

John