tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606098424948502460.post725024788036678162..comments2023-10-31T06:00:32.091-04:00Comments on Ethio Helix ኢትዮ:ሒሊክስ: East African mtDNA variation has implications on the origin of AfroasiaticAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06247500186976801582noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606098424948502460.post-39363865280299967512013-01-15T00:05:26.308-05:002013-01-15T00:05:26.308-05:00I am not in agreement at all with the Anatolian hy...I am not in agreement at all with the Anatolian hypothesis for Indoeuropean, I find it impossible to sustain, very especially in (1) the steppary migration of Indo-Iranian, (2) the fact that we know many many non-IE languages from Ancient Anatolia and surroundings, as well as other areas that would have been influenced by the alleged IE Neolithic migrations (notably Iberian and Basque, which may well descend from whatever Cardium-Impressed Pottery peoples spoke) and (3) the fact that the alternate (and much more mainstream) model known as "Kurgan", which roots IE in early Chalcolithic Samara Valley (Russia between the Volga and Ural rivers), works nearly perfectly to explain every single IE branch from Hittite and Tocharian to Celtic and Indo-Iranian, going through the various Balcanic branches. <br /><br />I must write a page at my blog about it. Needs some work however. <br /><br />So I don't think that PPNB would be IE speakers but rather of one or several of the Caucasian families. Also I think that Sumerian (another example of non-IE non-AA West Asian "Neolithic" language) correlates best with NE Caucasian (Chechen, many Daghestani languages) and therefore with its probably relatives of what would be Kurdistan and Armenia, the Hurro-Urartean (sub-)family. <br /><br />As for the list of non-IE languages that relate to Neolithic expansion these are: Basque and Iberian (plausibly derived from Cardium Pottery language, possibly related to whatever other European Neolithic peoples spoke), Etruscan-Lemnian (original from Anatolia almost for sure), Eteocretan (original from Anatolia on archaeological grounds), Etecypriot, Hattic (rel. to NW Caucasian), Hurro-Urartean (rel. to NE Caucasian), Sumerian, Elamite (arguably related to Dravidian, probably spoken at IVC) and then of course the Afroasiatic family. It's very difficult to imagine that the main impulse for the expansion of Indoeuropean was the West Asian Neolithic and then so many non-IE languages survived that can or often must also be related to the same process. <br /><br />But then of course there are two reasons that yield support the Anatolian hypothesis: <br /><br />(1) that much of the IE diversity originated at the very waves of expansion (hence the Balcans, where that expansion caused complex mixtures in a rough topography, retained high historical diversity: at least Greek, Albanian and Traco-Phrygio-Armenian, possibly more as we know little of Dacian, Illyrian, etc.). Instead in the Northern European Plain and the Eurasian Steppe, the differences were flattened out more easily producing Western and Eastern IE almost only (add the remote Tocharian language to that). This is admittedly confusing and may also apply to Afroasiatic, which retains its highest diversity in and around the abrupt regions of Ethiopia but which may well be an illusory effect of "diversity flattening" in other lands, hence the archaeological record is also very important. Luckily for the IE case, that one is rather well known and totally supports the Kurgan model. <br /><br />(2) Most IE speakers prefer to imagine themselves as cultural descendants of industrious and semi-civilized farmers (Anatolian model) rather than barbaric horse raiders (Kurgan model). The perception of this difference of behavior has been smoothed now (it was very sharp when Gimbutas first articulated the Kurgan model but now we know that the farmers were not such nice people either and often went to war and probably styled some sort of Patriarchy also) but the subjective preferences remain and bias the debate. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606098424948502460.post-21953266938199969702013-01-14T20:19:45.354-05:002013-01-14T20:19:45.354-05:00"After the expansion of PPNB from Kurdistan/T..."After the expansion of PPNB from Kurdistan/Turkey (languages related to Caucasus surely),"<br /><br />One thing I forgot to add with respect to this statement you made above is that using Bayesian techniques the Turkey or Asia minor region is also now largely thought to have been the earliest area/center where Indo-European (rather than Caucasian) type languages were first spoken:<br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19368988<br />Bouckaert et. al(2012) - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6097/957.abstract?sid=fcb44a85-9a73-485d-b8f0-9707340a8402<br /><br />So maybe the PPNB people were speaking some form or another of proto-Indo European ? I admit however, I don't know much about the history of IE languages.....Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06247500186976801582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606098424948502460.post-19711313778283872722013-01-08T12:27:32.948-05:002013-01-08T12:27:32.948-05:00yeah, good synopsis overall, one thing I would lik...yeah, good synopsis overall, one thing I would like to add though is that the internal classification of Afroasiatic has not reached consensus, for instance the 'BoreAfrasan' group which includes Chadic, berber, ancient egyptian and semtic, and that is championed by Ehret is contrasted with Lionel Bender's 'Macro-Cushitic' which groups berber, cushitic and semitic together, incidentally, if you take some of the E-M35 lineage frequency distributions at face value, and make the following rough oeverlaps: E-M81 - Berber, E-M78 -Ancient Egyptian, E-M123 -Semitic, E-V42/M293 -Cushitic/Southern cushitic then the SNP E-Z827 that unites M123, M81, V42 and M293 but excludes M78 would better mirror Bender's classification than Ehret's, but again these things are changing fast, but the 'SNP dust' should settle within the next couple of years where we will get the final picture, hopefully.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06247500186976801582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7606098424948502460.post-56890876581341943052013-01-08T00:03:06.346-05:002013-01-08T00:03:06.346-05:00The African (EA) origin of AA is pretty much clear...The African (EA) origin of AA is pretty much clear for me and the only honest reluctance is the issue of the origin of Semitic, the only AA subfamily known to ever have been spoken in Asia (at least in any meaningful way, i.e. beyond the occasional Egyptian army or Berber pilgrim group). <br /><br />I think that this can be reasonably explained as pre-Neolithic Egyptian influences into Palestine, where the PPNA and very especially the Harifian (desert pastoralists) may have adopted it. These pre-Neolithic influences also explain E1b in the Levant and as far as Greece, where it arrived via West Asia almost for sure, causing a founder effect which may well be Mesolithic rather than Neolithic. <br /><br />After the expansion of PPNB from Kurdistan/Turkey (languages related to Caucasus surely), the so-called Circum-Arabian Pastoralist Complex (CAPC) probably inherited the language and traditions from Harifian (even if generically absorbed into PPNB, it retains Harifian roots as far as I know). <br /><br />Then in the 4th millennium BCE, at the edge of History, they expanded quite suddenly into the agricultural regions around their semi-desertic econiche (the mythical "flood", which is probably a wordplay in Sumerian between amaru=flood and a-maru=semites, also known as amurru). I can only imagine that climatic conditions were at play but whatever the case this is pretty much documented archaeologically and, in the case of Sumer, also in text (only "after the flood" Semitic names begin to appear). <br /><br />That should explain it. However it'd be nice if we'd also have good archaeological information from Arabia, very especially the Hedjaz, which may well have played a role in the formation of the CAPC or in the backflow of early Semitic branches into Africa (Ethiopia). <br /><br />Rather than AA languages, I'd like if someone studied Y-DNA J1 in depth. It's often not even tested for but rather described as J(xJ2) but it is key to understand the interactions between North and East Africa with West Asia. Of course it's possible that J1 did expand from West Asia with the Neolithic but the matter must be researched on its own right. It should be much more informative re. languages than mtDNA, after all in most cases the ethnicity, and hence the language, is patrilocal. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.com