Hi Rod, Bo, all
very on late, sorry, but my old PC, finally, has expired.
R.I.P.
(well, actually I'm going to scratch it and try resuscitate it with Linux,
Horse will be glad).
Here is the first post from my brand new laptop. I had written the draft
last Monday....
========
thanks for the link, Rod, I love this kind of things.
As it seems there is a bit of interest about the history of humankind, I've
restored the book I mentioned in my first post on this thread and I'm going
to re-offer that story, as it has been reconstructed by scientists.
Hope I'm not going to annoy you with all this non-MOQish stuff.
===
Firstly, here are a couple of links, if someone is interested.
A paper from Cavalli-Sforza, the author, about his 45 years work
http://www.balzan.it/english/pb1999/cavalli/laudatio_profilo.htm
(follow "paper").
An excerpt from the book "Genes, Peoples and Languages"
http://www.fsbassociates.com/fsg/genespeopleslanguages.htm
===
Secondly, a couple of corrections. As I had written, I had not the book with
me... and I made a couple of mistakes, sorry.
One, the average migration speed has been 200 kilometers per century (2 km's
per year). On foot, of course. The age of horses begins just 5,000/6,000
years ago.
Then, as Rod rightly points out, Celts were Indo-Europeans.
But that's also true that at most Indo-Europeans are 10,000 years old. While
important traces of Homo Sapiens are in Europe (the Cro-Magnon Man is the
most famous) since the Paleolithic age. These Paleolithic humans are not the
ancestors of the Celts (that's was my mistake), but surely are the ancestors
of the Basques. According to some researcher, maybe also of Etruscans and
Sumerians - see below -
In the site ROD mentions I read:
«Geneticists had a surprise when they analyzed Y chromosome samples taken
from the Basques. Despite the fact that the Celts and Basques speak very
different languages, it turns out that the Y chromosomes of the Basques are
indistinguishable from those of the Welsh and Irish. What's more, this Y
chromosome type is very different to those found in the Near East. This
means that the cultural changes in the British Isles, including the arrival
of the Celtic language family, did not involve the replacement of Y
chromosomes and thus did not involve much male immigration from the Near
East.»
Exactly. No surprise really. That's what I was meaning with my "doubts about
Irish and Welsh". They have many genes with non Indo-European origin, but
speak an Indo-European language. The reason is that culture walks faster,
and often does not follow genes. A weak culture can be replaced in few
generations, without changing the genes of a population. We have no
historical traces of the events, but it is highly probable that a small
group of Celts invaded Britain and took the control of the area.
Similar events can be also found more recently. For example, Hungarians are
genetically as we could expect for a typical East-European population. But
they speak a non Indo-European language. It's simply happened that a small
tribe of Siberian nomads (The Magyars) took the power in former "Pannonia"
(where Latin was the common language) and imposed their "Trans-Uralian"
culture. But they were few, and their genes have left almost no traces.
Other groups of the same origins imposed a similar language into Finland to
an originally typical Indo-European German-like population.
About the Basques, at the time of the Romans they were present in a wider
area than today. Great part of Spain and Southern France. They have been
able to resist the Indo-European genetic and cultural colonization as their
culture rarely allowed "exogamy". And probably because the area they have
been reduced into has never been of great interest.
===
And here is a bit of the story. A world map can be useful while reading.
#0
-100,000 (years ago)
Homo sapiens is in Africa.
#1.
-75,000 / -70,000
First successful migration out of Africa, following the Southern Asian
coastline. We have rare traces of this migration among current peoples:
pre-Dravidic aborigines in India; the so-called "Negritos" in the Andaman
Islands, Malaysia and Philippines.
Once in India, they split into two main branches.
Northward to Vietnam and China (origin of the South-East Asian peoples)
Southward to New Guinea and Australia (origin of Papua and Australian
aborigines)
#2.
-60,000/-55,000
Arrival into Australia.
-67,000
Arrival into China (Liujiang, Guangxi).
#3.
The Asian branch splits in two.
One to the inner lands of China will originate the Mongolian populations:
today's Northern Chinese's, Tibetans, Koreans, Japanese's...
#4.
Another one following the coastline up to the Bering area. Actually, on the
East coast they have been almost completely replaced lately by the
populations of the other branch. But we still have traces in North-East Asia
(the Ciukcy's in Kamchatka).
Again, two branches:
one, across the Bering area to America;
another one westward to Central Asia back to Middle East and Europe.
#5.
-50,000/-30,000
First colonization of America. Even if the Bering sea has probably been dry
just between -25,000 and -10,000, we had for sure former migrations.
Actually, it is often frozen, so it is possible. Anyway, there have been at
least three different migrations into America in three different periods.
The three populations are known as: "Amerindians"; "Nadene's" (almost all
Canadian Natives, Apaches, Navajos); "Eskimos" (Northern Canada); Eskimos
came much later and actually their language is completely different from the
other's.
#6.
-50,000/-30,000
Meanwhile the other branch goes on through Siberia up to the Urals. Then,
across the Caucasian area, they are back into Middle East.
#7.
-45,000/-40,000
Middle East becomes the center of the world. There are many migrations in
all directions between Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
#8.
-40,000
First invasions of Europe. Southern Europe from Turkey. Northern Europe from
the Urals. In the same period the Neanderthalians disappear.
Time now to look at the story of languages.
It is impossible to say if all languages have a common origin. But it is
very probable, as there is no trace of a "primitive" language. The problem
is that within 5,000 years a language evolves almost completely into
something very different. So we can't go easily back to the origins.
Anyway we have for sure one a common origin for all African languages.
"Indopacific" languages (Melanesian, Micronesian, Papua, Australian...) and
"Austric" languages of South-East Asia (Thai, Daic, Khmer, Malaysian... )
seem to have a common origin since the times of the first migration. ( # 1 )
Another interesting group of languages is the so called
"Sino-Naden-Caucasian". It was born about -50,000 year ago in Asia, and
originated for sure all Amerindian and Nadene languages in America; Chinese
and Tibetan in Asia. Few traces of its western expansion to Europe: some
rare Asian language like the "Burushaski" (Pamir); Caucasian language; and
probably early European languages like Basque, Etruscan and Sumerian. It was
the language of the two branches described in #3.
About -15,000 years ago, in central Asia a new group of languages appeared,
the Eurasian or "Nostratic" family, probably derived from the former
"Sino-Naden-Caucasian" among nomads Siberian populations.
This language migrated into three directions:
Eastward, evolved into the "Altaic" languages (Japanese, Korean, Turkish...)
Eskimo language is seemingly Altaic, that would mean that the last migration
to America has been quite recent. (-10,000)
Southward, into Turkey evolved into the "Indo-European" family. Note that
Turkish is Altaic not Indo-European, as in the probable home of all
Indo-European languages a recent migration from Asia replaced ancient
Indo-European languages. Even if originally the Eurasian man is mainly a
nomad, the Indo-Europeans are mainly farmers.
Northward evolved into the "Uralic" family (Samoyed, Hungarian, Finn...)
Meanwhile, about -20,000 years ago in East Africa we have the development of
two new families, probably related. The "Dravidic" family, the oldest one,
migrated Eastward to Iran and India (arrival in India: about -10,000, where
replaced the ancient populations). The "Afro-Asian" family (Semitic
languages in South West Asia; Ethiopian, Berber in Africa, ) migrated later
Eastward to Arabia and Middle East.
The expansion of Indo-European languages to Europe and India begun
about -8,000 years ago. It has been both linguistical and genetic. The
"Indian" branch (Aryans) pushed the Dravidic populations to Southern India
and invented the cast system and the Vedic religion. Indo-Europeans were
able to arrive to far East (Tocarian is an extinct Indo-European language of
China).
In Europe they replaced the former populations and languages almost
everywhere (but Basques, apparently). During last 2000 years we have an
expansion of Uralic (Hungarian, Finn) and Altaic languages (Turkish) to
Europe. But meanwhile European languages have replaced great part of
American, African and Indopacific languages. The current situation sees the
extinction of hundreds of languages every year.
====
And here are few final comments to Rod.
> The occurence and variation in a few of these specific gene
> markers, is enough to work out how many individuals ( twenty
> or so), originally crossed into europe from asia..
There is also another very elegant explanation. It is the so-called "Genetic
drift". This phenomenon brings on the long run an entire people with no
external contacts to have an increasing identical genome. I will maybe write
a message on it.
> As for your more detailed pattern of migration, I guess this would
> have occured as the sea level fell before the last ice age, 10,000
> years ago, giving rise to new land bridges, and aiding
> dispersion of mankind.
But there are clear traces of Homo Sapiens almost everywhere 40,000 years
ago...
> Genetic testing has not yet proved if there were two routes out
> of Africa: "a northern Levantine route (to Eurasia) and a southern
> coastal route (to Australasia)".
The book I mention seems to have good answers. I've been brief, but it is
full of hypothesis, proofs and alternative views. Of course, a great part of
the -100,000/-40,000 period lacks of certainty. But relating languages,
genetics and archeology it offers a valid picture.
> You are right to say that shamanic, animalistic religions may
> well have evolved before this journey, but I'm not so sure they
> were. Surely all religions however primitive would have
> attempted to leave some sort of mark of their beliefs, as the
> aborigines have in Australia, but I have never read of any pre-India.
> This is where we find the appearance of the earth mother
> goddess, whose attributes are found in many later idols. I think
> John Romers book " Testament: the bible and history " would be
> a good read.
Thanks for the suggestion.
The problem is that Sanskrit is not the first language and Indian is not the
most ancient culture. For sure, American natives developed their religion
completely independently from Indians. Africans too. And Europeans just have
a common origin. About Indians aborigines, they are known as Munda. You will
find many links on the net. And Dravidic populations (the Tamil are the
most famous) are not Indo-Europeans.
Pirsig finds his "oldest idea" (RT) back into Sanskrit. But his question "
is it 100,000 years old?", points to the hypothesis that it could be much
older than any known language and religion. He says also that the early
rituals have been the connecting link between society and intellect, the
first forms of knowledge. Bo few weeks ago wrote about a New Guinea tribe
where they believe that airplanes are divine signs. I've been thinking
about them lately and all what I see is a -primitive if you want- need of
knowledge and explanations. They are not rational; not objective; but surely
I'd call this need intellectual.
thanks for reading,
Marco
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