If there were only one early Out of Africa migration, as most investigators now seem to believe, that would make it much easier to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the nature of HMC, for reasons that should become evident as I proceed. If more than one, the process of accounting for HMC1, HMC2, etc., and distinguishing between them, becomes much more difficult. On the other hand, multiple migrations would offer more interpretive flexibility -- and provide a convenient out in the event a serious contradiction emerges. While it's always nice to have an "out," I'd much prefer it if a single event were actually the case, because that greatly simplifies the process.
I'll begin by exploring that first alternative, a single Out of Africa migration. My strategy will be simple. I'll first consider, one by one, the characteristics of HBC that we've already considered, and ask whether it's likely that the same traditions could still have been alive in HMC. I'll then consider possible characteristics of HMC that might differ from HBC.
It's important to remember that our assessement of HBC was based on the examination of three African populations, EP, WP and Bu, whereas our assessment of HMC must be based on non-African traditions as well. Assuming a single Out of Africa event, it should be clear that all non-African cultures everywhere in the world ultimately derive from the culture of the original Out of Africa migrants. I repeat: all non-African traditions, however diverse, can be understood in the most fundamental sense as stemming from HBC as filtered by HMC. While EP, WP and Bu served as "feeders" in the construction of our HBC model, all non-African cultures, especially those of the most traditional indigenous groups, are available as "feeders" in the construction of our model for HMC. While this immeasurably enhances the richness of the possibilities, it also makes the process of hyphothesis construction far more complicated and uncertain.
Let's begin with some relatively straightforward questions. Did the Out of Africa migrants have bows and arrows? And if so, did they use poison arrows? While the use of bows and arrows and arrow poison by HBP remains uncertain (no stone arrow points have been discovered in the tropical forests of Africa -- but most Pygmies and Bushmen traditionally used bone or wood points that would not have been preserved), the widespread presence of bows and arrows both in and out of Africa makes it almost certain that this technology was an important part of the material culture of HMC, from where it would have spread to the rest of the world.*
As for the use of poison tips, on arrows, spears and darts, it seems logical to conclude that this too is very likely to have been an important part of the hunting technology of HMC, especially since such tips can be found among so many hunting and gathering people today.
Did the Out of Africa migrants have beehive huts? HBP almost certainly had them, as I've already argued. And since we still find them scattered about among a great many indigenous peoples worldwide, it seems clear that HMP must also have had them.
Were HMP hunters and gatherers? An obvious question for many, but it must be asked, nevertheless. And since so many indigenous peoples in Asia, Oceania and the Americas are not strictly hunters and gatherers, but also, to some extent, farmers (more commonly referred to as "horticulturalists") this must remain an open question -- despite the widespread assumption among anthropologists and archaeologists that no form of farming or herding could have taken place prior to ca 10,000 years ago. I'm not so sure, so I'd prefer to leave this as an open question.
(to be continued . . . )
*While it's possible to argue, on the basis of its apparent late appearance in the Americas, that the bow and arrow may well have been independently invented there, it seems highly unlikely that it could have been independently invented in many different places, as is sometimes claimed. There is nothing obvious about bows and arrows, and certainly nothing obvious about the archery skills necessary if they are to be of any use. Given what we now know about African origins, it seems logical to conclude that a technology as widely used as this must have had its beginnings on that continent, along with so much else.
"Did the Out of Africa migrants have beehive huts? HBP almost certainly had them, as I've already argued."
ReplyDeleteYou did argue for them, I remember. But you failed to prove it. I thought rock shelters (attested both archaeologically and in modern Pygmy populations) turned out to be better candidates for the ancient African dwelling type. Beehive huts are unverifiable.
German: "Beehive huts are unverifiable."
ReplyDeleteAllow me to clarify, because the way in which I presented the case for beehive huts in the above post could be misunderstood. The method I originally outlined was what I described as "triangulation." I.e., if there is evidence that representatives of all three populations, EP, WP and Bu, share a certain cultural feature, then that feature must be taken very seriously as a possible feature of HBC. And this possibility can take the form of a hypothesis, which can then be tested.
As I demonstrated, a very specific type of beehive hut is indeed characteristic of the Mbuti (EP), Baka (WP) and Kalahari Bushmen (Bu) and thus, according to the terms of my method, this very distinctive type of hut should be taken seriously as a possible characteristic of HBC.
In testing this hypothesis, I presented supporting evidence in the form of descriptions of how these huts were made among both Pygmies and Bushmen, evidence which indicated that they were assembled in much the same way and in all cases by women. I also presented what I consider to be a strong argument against independent invention in such a case. And I explained why the existence of rock shelters has no bearing on the use of temporary huts, since HBP were in all likelihood nomadic foragers, thus not sedentary.
While my arguments may not meet your high standards of verifiability, they are at least based on a clearly defined method and backed up by evidence, NOT assumptions. While no scientific hypothesis is 100% verifiable, I believe mine to be as close to being verified as any other hypothesis based on comparative ethnology. If the only standards of verification were those of archaeology, then your own theories must also be understood as unverifiable.
There must be at least one partial exception in your suggestion that ALL non-African cultures must stem from one single original HMC (this stands for "hypothetical migrant culture", right?) this is with all likelihood that one related to the Epipaleolithic/Neolithic expansion of haplogroup E1b1b (and some L(xM.N) mtDNA) out of Africa, probably related to the spread of Afroasiatic languages and cultural items.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, I would argue that the practice of circumcision has an African origin and that spread outside Africa originally with this late migration. This migration had some offshoots in Europe, notably the Balcans, Southern Italy and Iberia but left descendants also in North Europe and along the Silk Road. It is hard to evaluate its overall cultural impact, very specially as some of the major religions of the World (dictating morals for many centuries) have an Afroasiatic origin.
In general I would precautionarily dismiss any trait only present among Afroasiatics or of Afroasiatic or West Neolithic derivation as likely not to be part of the HMC package.
Were HMP hunters and gatherers?.
ReplyDeleteObviously yes. I don't understand why you keep asking that question. This element is pretty well resolved in Prehistory. It is possible that some horticulturalism evolved separately in some groups but there is no evidence whatsoever that this practice can be much older anywhere than the usual dates for earliest Neolithic, c. 10,000 BP.
Another issue could be animal domestication. It's now quite clear that Paleolithic Eurasians domesticated the dog but it's also clear that the ancestor is the Eurasian gray wolf and hence this early domestication event happened once in Eurasia, surely after people moved beyond the subtropical areas.
An even more intriguing issue is the highly controversial indications of possible horse domestication by Magdalenian culture people. This issue has been dropped as of late from the archaeological discussion but was largely based on the finding of sculpted horseheads that appear to have brides on them (image 1, image 2, image 3). At the quite good Don's Maps site the author mentions that they might have also began the transition to Neolithic, as some of the remains show sickle sheen, caused by cutting grass (or cereals), typical of Neolithic, along with some sort of grinders. However these findings (near Oloron) would in any case belong to c. 10,000 BP, at the very end of the Magdalenian culture as such.
In any case, I don't exclude that at some point Magdalenians developed some sort of horse pastoralism, including maybe the drinking of mare milk. This would explain better than any other logic the high prevalence of adult lactose metabolism adaptations among West and North Europeans.
But in any case, they would not be too distant from the usual Neolithic dates. Only wolf domestication would be really old. So I think that the question is answered with a clear NO: they were foragers and remained being so for many many millennia.
I was pondering which peoples may replace the Bushmen, Pygmy and Hadza in Eurasia as collective reference.
ReplyDeleteOne of the traits of these peoples is that they have a good deal of very early distinct lineages, i.e. that they are very old of offshoots of early humankind. The phylogenetic situation is different in Greater Eurasia (Eurasia proper plus Sahul and America) but some clear cases of early offshoots who still practiced hunter-gathering in the 20th century are the Australian Aborigines and the various aboriginal peoples of SE Asia collectively known as Negritos (at least three distinct populations since long ago). They do have deep lineages in the Eurasian genetic landscape.
A different case, surely reflecting better a second stage would be those few hunter-gatherer remainders in the Arctic region (Nganasan, Inuit) and the various tribes in America that are known to have practiced a strict forager economy or even still do it (Piraha, Nukak...).
South Asia is an important reference in all this process of Eurasian expansion and diversification but the only forager people I could find there are the Paliyan. This makes them potentially a crucial referent, maybe at the same level as Negritos and Australian Aborigins (as the colonization of India is similarly old or probably even older).
Sadly enough I don't think there is a single forager people still around in West Eurasia. So in this region we can only judge from archaeology and inference from other regions.
Unrelated question: Victor, do you know of Godfried Toussaint? Check out the talk on the phylogeny of music he gave at Harvard in October 2009. http://www.radcliffe.edu/fellowships/events.aspx.
ReplyDelete"There must be at least one partial exception in your suggestion that ALL non-African cultures must stem from one single original HMC (this stands for "hypothetical migrant culture", right?) this is with all likelihood that one related to the Epipaleolithic/Neolithic expansion of haplogroup E1b1b (and some L(xM.N) mtDNA) out of Africa, probably related to the spread of Afroasiatic languages and cultural items."
ReplyDeleteFirst, I do agree on the African origin of Afroasiatic languages. From the kinship studies perspective, Cushitic and, especially, Chadic subgroups have the high concentration of archaic kin terminological "markers" missing from Semitic (with the exception of such South Semitic group as Gurage that probably reflects a Cushitic substrate). Then, there is a curious presence of some typical African kin term formations in "southern" Indo-European dialects as reflected in Greek adelphos 'brother' (lit. 'of the womb' meaning 'mother's son') and in Ossetian afsymaer (same from suvar 'womb') 'brother'. These are late formations with an uncertain rationale. There're no Semitic parallels to these formations, but definitely some Chadic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo ones, in which they are straightforward reflections of polygyny (no such thing among ancient Greeks or recent Ossetians).
I've always treated these similarities as coincidences, but may be it's diffusion from Africa.
Many Chadic peoples have an Eurasian male lineage quite dominant: R1b* (the same lineage as the R1b found among West Europeans and also in West Asia and among Uyghurs). This lineage probably spread via Sudan and Upper Egypt (where it's also quite frequent - though not dominant), though the particulars are a bit of a mystery so far.
ReplyDeleteNeolithic or Mesolithic flows happened in both ways probably and anyhow the main core of Neolithic is West Asia, where E1b1b is relevant but not the main lineage (which are J1 and J2). Not everything Neolithic necesarily has an Afroasiatic origin: I just meant to warn of this in a precautionary form: West Eurasia may be more directly influenced by Africa than just via the original OoA migration. Instead this is not the case in East Asia, genuine Native Americans or aboriginal peoples of Sundaland and Sahul (and for what I know in South Asia either - with a couple of well known Modern exceptions, specially among Makranis).
Anyhow, West Eurasia is also the only subregion of Great Eurasia that lacks of any surviving or historically well known hunter-gatherer people, so in general we will have to do for this region with the archaeological data, the general deductions from other regions and the careful analysis of whatever possible cultural survivals such as the ones that Victor may have located in music.
Maju: "I would argue that the practice of circumcision has an African origin and that spread outside Africa originally with this late migration."
ReplyDeleteI fully agree that there may well have been later migrations out of Africa, especially later in the Paleolithic or, as you say, early Neolithic. It's also possible that African slaves may have been traded in Asia long before the modern slave trade. I don't know that history very well, but this is something I'll need to look into at some point.
The point you make about circumcision is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to explore in future posts, after dealing with some of the issues that are clearer to me. Since there is no evidence of circumcision as a native tradition among any Pygmy or Bushmen groups (though many Pygmies now practice it under pressure from Bantu "masters") it's not clear to me whether this practice would have been part of HMC. I would think it necessary to take a close look at its distribution worldwise, especially along the southern route.
What you say about this later migration interests me very much as it might explain why circumcision is found both in and out of Africa, yet not among African foragers, apparently. Is it found among non-African foraging groups. What evidence do you have for its association with a later Out of Africa migration via a northern route (presumably through the Levant???)?
Maju: "Obviously yes. I don't understand why you keep asking that question."
ReplyDeleteBecause I can't find anyone who can explain to me why archaeologists are so convinced of that 10,000 ya cutoff. Obviously intensive agriculture, especially with things like terraces and irrigation, would leave very clear traces in the prehistoric record, but how much of a trace would simple gardening leave, especially if there were no experimentation with plant hybridization, or other attempts to artificially improve yield. Neolithic is a term that refers to a certain type of stone tool and weapon manufacture and it's clear how the introduction of new stone working methods could be traced historically from artefacts. But simple gardening (aka horticulture) might not leave any artifacts, so how can we know when it started? Same with domesticated animals, since it may have been some time before conscious breeding techniques were employed.
There is evidence that Reindeer herds have been followed far back into the Paleolithic, but where do we draw the line between that and herding? How can we know whether Paleolithic herds were simply followed or perhaps guided?
"sculpted horseheads that appear to have brides on them"
Thanks, Maju, for these very interesting links. The second image especially is very powerful, a great work of art imo. But I don't see any signs of a bridal. And anyhow, horses can still be domesticated, and ridden, without a bridal. So how can we say when that practice began or how old it is?
Maju: "South Asia is an important reference in all this process of Eurasian expansion and diversification but the only forager people I could find there are the Paliyan."
ReplyDeleteThe Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers also lists the Hill Pandaram and the Veddas of Sri Lanka. Also of course the Andamanese, though they are in a category of their own, clearly. The tribal peoples of India have never been studied to the same extent as those of SE Asia, Melanesia and Oceania, so there are still many questions about them. They are different also in the sense that they have been surrounded for thousands of years by much more "advanced" peoples and that may have affected them, I'm not sure. But as far as I can tell, they seem very different from the native peoples of SE Asia and Melanesia and even Indonesia. Their music as far as I can tell appears to be much simpler and they lack any trace (as far as I've been able to tell so far) of certain key instruments, such as pipe and horn ensembles, panpipes, etc., or any trace of the Pygmy/Bushmen style vocalizing. This is why I see a gap in India and of course even before India, in the Arabian Peninsula as well, not to mention Central Asia, which is also very different from Africa.
German: "Unrelated question: Victor, do you know of Godfried Toussaint?"
ReplyDeleteI read an article on the phylogeny of Flamenco rhythm that must have been written by him. It interested me purely for technical reasons. I think it extremely naive to think one could develop such a phylogeny for world music, and for many reasons. For one thing, rhythm in itself is a complex matter. You can't simply "measure" a rhythm, you have to first develop a whole theory of what rhythm is all about and then you'd have to apply it to encode a huge database. And you'd have to assume that all rhythmic systems worldwide are comparable in the first place, which is a big assumption. So as I see it this might be an interesting technical exercise, but probably little more than that.
I didn't mean to enter into a debate on the origins of circumcision specifically (was more of an example) but, as you ask, the center of gravity of this practice and also the so-called female circumcision (ablation, castration), seems to be at the Nile area, making it very likely related to Afroasiatic expansion in Eurasia.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it could well be a Neolithic cattle herder custom, maybe related to hygienic needs in places with little available water originally. But I'd think of a more Oedipic patriarchal ritual meaning as well, in any case surely associated to the development of real patriarchy among Neolithic peoples, in relation to the development of property (cattle specially) and the patriarchal way of life, where women and children are rather considered subservients of the patriarch(s). However this custom is not found among Eurasian pastoralists such as Indoeuropeans, so it must have a southern, epi-Saharan center of spread, much as it has now such a center of gravity as well.
Is it found among non-African foraging groups?.
Not that I know. Almost sure it is not. It seems a Neolithic invention to me.
What evidence do you have for its association with a later Out of Africa migration via a northern route (presumably through the Levant???)?.
That it's unknown to all cultures but (some?) Semitic ones out of Africa. Instead in Africa, Ancient Egyptians seem to have practiced circumcision and also female genital modification. Some peoples that are not Judeo-Islamic like the Dogon or some Nilo-Saharan peoples also practice this ritual and this is also the case with the female mutilation.
Anyhow the E1b1b migration is, up to a point, shrouded in mystery. However it probably permeated the Neolithic Levant in the context of Capsian/Egyptian-related flows at some point before or at Neolithic genesis, later causing a marked founder effect in Neolithic Greece (E-V13) and Albania that spread to other parts of Europe (at lower frequencies). A secondary E1b1b flow seems to have originated in NW Africa, possibly mediated by West Iberia, where both E sublineages are relatively common (this Atlantic distribution does not match historical Muslim presence nor proto-historical East Mediterranean colonization but rather seems another Neolithic founder effect).
Because I can't find anyone who can explain to me why archaeologists are so convinced of that 10,000 ya cutoff.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there is not such clear-cut 10 Kya cutoff, as I hypothesize with the Magdalenian horses story, but overall the archaeological evidence for a nearly single origin of Neolithic in the Western Old World (and maybe in the Old World as a whole) is very robust. This origin was, as we know, in the Fertile Crescent.
One of the main arguments is that domestication alters the genotypes and phenotypes of plants and animals. That's the main reason why the dog is acknowledged to have been domesticated much earlier, at least as early as Gravettian: the remains look much more like a modern dog than like a wolf.
The same happened later on with sheep, bovines and pigs, as well as with cereals and legumes. It is not always possible to determine if an animal was domestic or wild stock, or if some wild-looking seeds were cultivated anyhow at the beginning of the economic transition, but in the long run farming and herding causes intentional or accidental modifications to the animals and plants that can be recognized. Hence archaeologists talk without ambiguity of wild species and domestic ones in most cases.
I also understand that the introduction of Neolithic to Papua (possibly one of your doubts) is also archaeologically documented up to apoint, including a period of deforestation that surely had dramatic consequences. This deforestation was reverted with silviculture, reforesting largely with sago trees.
However my knowledge is wider than my bookmarks. This is the problem of relying on computers to store information: that when the computer breaks down (as mine did some months ago) you lose all the information stored in them. I could do a search but so can you. ;)
(In fact I made a quick search and could not find anything relevant - but did not look much in depth).
There is evidence that Reindeer herds have been followed far back into the Paleolithic, but where do we draw the line between that and herding? How can we know whether Paleolithic herds were simply followed or perhaps guided?.
There are still peoples in Asia who hunt and do not farm reindeer. These (Nganasan) are directly related to modern European reindeer farmers such, all of whom are Uralic speakers, just like the Nganasan.
Another reason is that we do not have any evidence of domestication for reindeer in any case. Reindeer is anyhow an animal that has never been properly domesticated but just "managed" somewhat by specialized peoples.
Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack but in this case the so useful Occam's Razor applies quite clearly. Would animals or plants have been systematically domesticated (not just "managed") they would have become something else morphologically and would be detectable in many cases. The lack of such innovation (except for the dog) suggests that domestication did not happen, at least to any relevant extent, before the "official" Neolithic Revolution.
However you may have a point in the sense that the transition to agriculture/pastoralism may well have deeper roots in some, more or less conscious, practices of wildlife management. Surely all foragers manage their environment somewhat... but this is not yet farming/herding. Otherwise you could argue that lions are pastoralists or zebras agriculturalists.
But I don't see any signs of a bridal.
ReplyDeleteTo me they are very apparent in all three images. However some have argued they are "muscles".
It's highly controversial and, as I said, has been mostly dropped from the discussions I know of.
And anyhow, horses can still be domesticated, and ridden, without a bridal. So how can we say when that practice began or how old it is?.
We have not much of an idea. The mainstream theory nowadays is that the earliest evidence of horse domestication is among the Botai people of Central Asia, contemporary and neighbors by the east of the earliest Indoeuropeans (Kurgan) of Samara basin. However, before the recent discoveries of this culture, the original domestication event was said to have happened among Neolithic East Europeans, either the Dniepr-Don peoples or those of Samara (PIE).
There are no bridles there, tough there are some nose rings that might have been used instead of bridles. I'm pretty sure that you do need some sort of bridal to "brake" the horse anyhow - otherwise how can the rider exert any direction in a front to back direction? Additionally they are handy for directing the animal to the right and left but this I guess can also be done with your legs (if you're good enough rider).
I know that stirrup and saddle are medieval developments but I'm almost sure that bridles are as old as horse domestication.
The Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers also lists the Hill Pandaram and the Veddas of Sri Lanka.
ReplyDeleteGood!
Wikipedia says that some Veddas also farm with slash and burn techniques. It would be nice to research this in more detail.
I could not find much about the Hill Pandaram.
"While it's possible to argue, on the basis of its apparent late appearance in the Americas, that the bow and arrow may well have been independently invented there, it seems highly unlikely that it could have been independently invented in many different places, as is sometimes claimed."
ReplyDeleteCorrespondingly, spear-throwers that precede bows and arrows in America and Australia are virtually unknown in Africa. Spear-throwers have an advantage over bows and arrows when it comes to hunting big game. Pygmy hunters have to run up very close to an elephant and stab it in its belly with a spear in order to kill it. An arrow sent from a distance just won't do it. IMO, multiple technological inventions are just as likely as long-term retentions. It depends on the historical situation (environment, game availability, etc.), which makes some of them obsolete and others re-invented several times.
re: the 10,000 year cutoff, I think Victor is continuing an important point he's been making for a while now that the line between "hunter gatherer" and "agriculture" is far more blurry than the (perceived) archaeological consensus makes it out to be. I think there's still a lot to discover about how the process of domestication plays out.
ReplyDeleteWhile driving home tonight I heard a short bit about an MSA site in Mozambique that yielded some evidence of cereal production. Here's a link at yahoo for the pop story:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091217/tsc-early-humans-tucked-into-porridge-4b158bc.html
It's published in this month's Science journal, it's by Julio Mercader (I think Victor may have cited some of his other papers elsewhere). The supplemental pdf file at this link has some of the detailed info:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;326/5960/1680/DC1
Whoa! Glen: you found the key archaeo-story just in the right moment. It has a publication date of today and I don't think it's still "today" anywhere in the USA, where Science is published (or just barely: a few hours after midnight in New York).
ReplyDeleteIt is a fascinating finding.
However does it indicate farming? I don't think so, but it may indicate a much larger and older importance in some groups of cereal gathering, a practice that was generally believed to have evolved to meaningful amounts only in Mesolithic.
Some have argued it's an African development (related maybe to the, partly pre-Neolithic, expansion of Afroasiatic languages) but checking at Mathilda's blog (a good source of North Africa related materials), I found it's been debunked and that the Egyptian pre-Neolithic cereals appear all to be modern contaminants.
However this Mozambican "MSA Mesolithic" seems very carefully studied, so guess it's valid. And therefore extremely interesting.
Yeah Maju the stars were aligned on that find. I think the broader question here is when does gathering become farming? If you regularly go to a field to harvest certain plants year after year, maybe pluck out the plants you know have no use to you...is that farming? If you gather roots without killing the whole plant, is that farming? What archaeological record would that kind of behavior leave? Is what we're talking about here really something more like property ownership rather than agricultural techniques?
ReplyDeleteMaju: "I didn't mean to enter into a debate on the origins of circumcision specifically (was more of an example) but, as you ask, the center of gravity of this practice and also the so-called female circumcision (ablation, castration), seems to be at the Nile area, making it very likely related to Afroasiatic expansion in Eurasia."
ReplyDeleteIt is also found among the Bira farmers, Bantus associated with the Mbuti, who, as reported by Turnbull, have worked hard to involve Mbuti youths in this practice.
Since I can't find any references to circumcision outside of Africa, except among Jews and Moslems, I see no reason to associate it with either HBP or HMP. I agree that it's probably a neolithic development.
German: "Correspondingly, spear-throwers that precede bows and arrows in America and Australia are virtually unknown in Africa."
ReplyDeleteYes. The history of all these weapons is extremely interesting. I tend to be very skeptical of explanations involving independent invention, as you know, so I try to figure out as best I can where each such practice started.
While musical style is imo a relatively neutral cultural marker, weapons like the bow and arrow and spear thrower are definitely not. They are so useful in fact that it's easy to see how they could spread very quickly from one group to another, even in the absence of migration. A stray boat that drifted off course and landed on the coast of South America carrying people who had bows and arrows with them might have been enough to introduce this weapon into the new world. The people might not even have survived, but the weapons they were carrying would have been of great interest, I'd imagine and once the secrets of archery had been mastered, it could have spread like wildfire throughout both Western continents, which does appear to have been the case.
If indeed the bow and arrow originated in Africa, as I strongly suspect, it's hard to understand how that tradition would have been lost to the Australians and Amerindians. Which is why I am a great believer in population bottlenecks as engines of change.
Glen and Maju, I too find the article very interesting, but as I am not an archaeologist the question of the origin of agriculture really doesn't interest me all that much, very frankly. The point I was trying to make was not that agriculture began before 10,000 ya. I am just being very careful to avoid assumptions wherever possible and that looked to me like an assumption.
ReplyDeleteWhat you say, Maju, about the manner in which all peoples shape their environment, even hunter-gatherers, strikes me as very true. It is now known, for example that many indigenous peoples, both farmers and foragers, regularly set fires that drastically altered their landscapes.
It is also found among the Bira farmers, Bantus.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I meant: African practice, with a possible Nile origin. Historical Bantus are farmers and know of iron metallurgy, all of which is related to (if not directly originated at) Sudan/Egypt in Africa. Some Nilotics also practice it, more than Bantus probably, people around the West Sahel (Dogon, etc.)...
Since I can't find any references to circumcision outside of Africa, except among Jews and Moslems, I see no reason to associate it with either HBP or HMP. I agree that it's probably a neolithic development.
Ditto.
I imagine it can be an evolutionary twist of scarification.
If indeed the bow and arrow originated in Africa, as I strongly suspect, it's hard to understand how that tradition would have been lost to the Australians and Amerindians.
It could perfectly be that the bow was developed in Africa AFTER the OoA. If you look at Greater Eurasian archaeology and cultural anthropology, the mainstream view is that bows are a relatively recent addition.
However it could also be that different groups used different techniques. Malaysian Negritos use mostly blowtubes (what's the name in English?, "cerbatana" in Spanish), as do many Amerindians, specially in jungle contexts (this by the way can suggest an origin for the Australian djiridoo musical instrument). Others could have chosen to use almost exclusively the atlatl because it adapted best to large game, etc.
AFAIK, the absence of arrow-sized points is notable... until the development of microliths in South Asia, some 38,000 BP. However they could make just wooden arrows and we'd have no idea from the stones and bones record.
Which is why I am a great believer in population bottlenecks as engines of change.
A bottleneck "senso strictu" is a natural mass murder. An event where only a few survive out of lots. There's no clear signature that such thing happened in Eurasia in the genetic record: just some narrowings at migration events, as one would expect from founder effects.
There can also be cultural founder effects in parallel to these demographic FEs, logically. These are not "bottlenecks" in the sense of catastrophic events of huge dimensions, just variants that mark the beginning of a new expanding population with a cultural and biological signature.
Diverse peoples always have diverse customs and practices, even those who have diverged only recently. Flamenco is unknown in Latin America for example or the custom of drinking mate is unheard of out of the South Cone... Even if they start with roughly the same culture, separated groups diverge soon, sometimes randomly, sometimes on practical grounds.
The point I was trying to make was not that agriculture began before 10,000 ya. I am just being very careful to avoid assumptions wherever possible and that looked to me like an assumption.
I understand that consolidated agriculture is "easy" to discern with modern archaeological techniques in the presence or absence of domesticated variants. Hence the (roughly) 10 Kya date is pretty solid for West Eurasia (and some time later for other regions).
So for me the question you formulated is pretty much answered, notwithstanding some incognites that anyhow are restricted to particular contexts and cultures.
Also we don't know of any plant or animal (other than parasites such a louses) that migrated with the OoA people(s), which would have been the case if they farmed or herded any.