The Spread of Indo-European language

[jmccr8]

Hi Harte,

Yes I realize that evidence is difficult to find unless a site is found where there are tools present that would be interpreted as having being used for cultivation of edible plants,which is what I have been searching for.In another thread I posted a link that does suggest early plant domestication.I do not wish to take this thread off track with archaic hominids but will add the link here again as the material is not unique to just archaic hominids.

http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/s/Scott_11.pdf

I am quit confident that in the future there will be more to find.

jmccr8

[jmccr8]

Hi,

After posting the third link in post #47 I re-read the link in the op and began to wonder if the population was 60-70 million by 4000bp,could there have been times when populations were near/at/or more than that of 4000ya and recovered from de-population events as described in the op?

jmccr8

[Frank Merton]

I think it's a series of small steps between gathering nuts and roots and seeds to going back to the same places that were successful the year before in the hope that these are good places, which they probably are, to picking out certain good seeds and planting them (it would be obvious where the plants come from) to artificial selection of better grains and so on, to hanging around helping the plants you have planted succeed. I don't see where any of this would produce archaeological traces. Maybe the strongest evidence is when the plants begin to show signs of artificial selection.

I don't see any association between these processes and the Proto-Indo-European. By the time that language group arrived agriculture was already well established all over the place. What I do see is domestication of the horse (which may have been done by other groups but that they adopted and invention of various types of cart, which seems supported by the archeology, and would have made mobility of whole tribes much easier.

Even then though although much of th spread may have been by migration and conquest (as with the Aryans into India), most of the time they would become a ruling veneer over an older population which for convenience would adopt the new language (not by force but in a natural and well understood process of bilingualism yielding to the new language over a generation or two. This then rules out the need to find evidence of widespread conquest and genetic change to explain the spread of the languages.

[jmccr8]

Hi Frank,

For me it's is not solely about the expansion of the Indo-Euro language groups or just agriculture in as much as it is about the movements of groups of people from the north to the south during the last ice age.The de-population of regions of Europe and Asia indicated in the op made me question as to whether or not there have been larger established settlements in those regions and if they had already started agriculture elsewhere and bought it with them when they moved south,which is what my comment in an earlier post about Gobekli Tepe where we see a culture that was carving stone, creating structures,and farming.

jmccr8

[Frank Merton]

The Indo-European language speaking cultures were thousands of years after the last ice age. Getting the two mixed up does not clarify anything. There is probably as much distance in time between the last ice age and them as there is between them and us.

[jmccr8]

Hj Frank,

The author of the op suggest a date of 14,500bp as a possible time of movement and de-population.now I am not proposing that they are correct in their presentation,just interested in how these events could be a cause for change.It is know that there were people populating these regions at that time and that there have been geological events other than the ice age that have impacted human populations at different times in the past,and given the population numbers quoted in link #3 in post #47 I do not see why my questions would seem out of context.

For me the purpose of this thread is exploratory,I am not familiar with the subject and used the op as a means to expand on what I have read.The responses that I have received have given me other areas to search so from my point of view it has been a productive endeavor.Yes you are correct in that there are small step taken in developing agriculture and when and where those steps were taken is still open to discovery.

I hope that you do not think that I am being difficult as that is not my intent,my aim is to learn.As always thank you for your input.

jmccr8

[Kenemet]

Hi Harte,

I am still looking for information with respect to whether Homo erectus grew crops,but I suspect that my computer and I do not speak the same Indo-European language as it keeps bringing up a lot of irrelevant material .I will not quite looking .

jmccr8

H. erectus did NOT grow crops.

That was a technology exclusive to H. sapiens. We see the development of it from a less formal "save some seeds and plant them near where we found these bushes" to a more active farming culture in the Levant around 8,000 BC. In the Americas, the Native Americans in California practiced this type of agrarian activity, though to the southeast (Hopi, Navajo ,Pueblo) and far east (Caddo, Iroquois, etc) they practiced true farming.

HOWEVER... those were at different time periods. There's a tendency to squash things together as though they happened at the same time.

[Leonardo]

We see the development of it from a less formal "save some seeds and plant them near where we found these bushes" to a more active farming culture in the Levant around 8,000 BC.

I accept that is the current orthodoxy, however new discoveries are creating doubt that is the complete picture. If we are to associate sedentism/permanent inhabitation with the development of agriculture (as we probably should) then there are various regions around the world which qualify as being a "birthplace of agriculture" - all of which probably occurred independently of one another.

Take the discoveries around Amesbury in England. The area is now thought to have been permanently/continuously occupied as a village for over 10,500 years. While game was certainly on the menu there, fire-pits dating back to this time have been found with charred remains, it is unlikely that the area's inhabitants were entirely carnivorous - and permanent inhabitation would likely exhaust wild crops, thus farming becomes the only practical solution. I don't believe that evidence of crop-raising from 10,000+ years ago has been discovered there yet, but I would be less-than-surprised were such evidence to be found.

All this before the spread of the IE group of languages. I do not necessarily see any connection between that spread, and the rise of agriculture in various regions. Nor do I see that rise of agriculture as necessarily having a single, common, source.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Leonardo

[Harte]

H. erectus did NOT grow crops.

You mean, you know of no evidence for this.

We weren't talking about established farming in a community here (with my H. Erectus comment.)

The idea that various species of humans didn't sow seeds or prepare soil cannot be ruled out by fiat.

Harte

[Frank Merton]

You mean, you know of no evidence for this.

We weren't talking about established farming in a community here (with my H. Erectus comment.)

The idea that various species of humans didn't sow seeds or prepare soil cannot be ruled out by fiat.

Harte

I think you moved the goalpost, but even with your move it seems unlikely. Homo sapiens did have intellectual advantages that were not present before, and one of them was more than likely the ability to see such relationships.

[Harte]

I think you moved the goalpost, but even with your move it seems unlikely. Homo sapiens did have intellectual advantages that were not present before, and one of them was more than likely the ability to see such relationships.

I'd say it's unlikely as well, based on the lack of evidence. But, as I pointed out earlier, if Erectus did sow seeds, what sort of evidence for this could we possibly expect to find?

IMO, there is no basis for a claim that "intellectual advantages" were not present before H. Sapiens.

Harte

[Frank Merton]

Culture is the basis for saying this. Homo erectus was around for maybe two million years with essentially the same toolkit, but homo sapiens quickly and at a faster and faster rate began to invent things.

[Harte]

Erectus' tool kit served his needs.

We know that Erectus migrated to Malta and Flores - two islands with no land bridge.

There can be no doubt they (at least) rafted there.

So, where are the rafts? Who invented rafts?

Harte

[Leonardo]

The difficulty with statements such as "H. erectus didn't develop agriculture" lies in the relatively arbitrary nature of taxonomy. Where, for example, does H. erectus (or H. heidelbergensis) 'stop' and H. sapiens 'begin'?

There is no clear-cut boundary, simply an arbitrary point-in-time when we make a determination that 'this' is where one species 'stops being' and another species 'begins'.

[Frank Merton]

Well does this compare with ceramics and copper smelting and houses and domesticated animals other than dogs and so on? I don't want to get into an argument here because it is pretty obvious that sapiens had mental advantages from the toolkit and remains. Sapiens entered Europe maybe 50,000 years ago and it is a revolution from the middle to the late stone age to the iron age in a period one twentieth of the time erectus was in the early stone age. That erectus survived with thin populations on the ground with its toolkit really only says that is all erectus could do.

[Frank Merton]

The difficulty with statements such as "H. erectus didn't develop agriculture" lies in the relatively arbitrary nature of taxonomy. Where, for example, does H. erectus (or H. heidelbergensis) 'stop' and H. sapiens 'begin'?

There is no clear-cut boundary, simply an arbitrary point-in-time when we make a determination that 'this' is where one species 'stops being' and another species 'begins'.

The transition of sapiens happened in Africa and we don't know much about it. From the European point of view the transition was arbitrary as sapiens moved in.

[Harte]

Well does this compare with ceramics and copper smelting and houses and domesticated animals other than dogs and so on? I don't want to get into an argument here because it is pretty obvious that sapiens had mental advantages from the toolkit and remains. Sapiens entered Europe maybe 50,000 years ago and it is a revolution from the middle to the late stone age to the iron age in a period one twentieth of the time erectus was in the early stone age. That erectus survived with thin populations on the ground with its toolkit really only says that is all erectus could do.

Ceramics and metallurgy are a relatively recent development for Sapiens. So, where were their "intellectual advantages" for the first 92% of their existence?

Harte

[jmccr8]

Hi,

H.s.s if it had any advantage,would have gained those advantages due to the discoveries of their predecessors,which include stone knapping,hunting,foraging,use of watercraft,language,art,making heat treated compounds,as well as understanding which types of wood would provide the proper heat for the process,as well as numerous other practices that far exceed how long H.s.s has been in existence.Sites where tool working and tool blank production show long term permanent habitation,it would seem likely that there was some way sustain food supply,for me that would be an indication of some farming near the settlement.

I suspect that sites like these also may have been where working larger stone originated.To work large stone would require a social structure that would have hunter/gatherers as well as craftsmen to support each other,the natural progression would be domestication of animals and edible plants,small game like rabbits are easily controlled and domestication doesn't require much more that keeping breeding stock and a pen to keep them in.

jmccr8

[jaylemurph]

I think we all know that language and agriculture both started in Tanzania about 148,000 years ago when the Fleet arrived.

--Jaylemurph

[Harte]

I think we all know that language and agriculture both started in Tanzania about 148,000 years ago when the Fleet arrived.

--Jaylemurph

It's obvious that language and agriculture arose at the same time, I'd say.

After all, before agriculture, there was nothing to talk about:

Harte

Edited May 25, 2014 by Harte

[jmccr8]

Hi,

I can see that the thread has run it's course and I have exhasted the available resources from the members in the forum and thank all of you for your input and the avenues of search that I found here .I will continue looking for material relative to the op.

jmccr8

[+DieChecker]

It's obvious that language and agriculture arose at the same time, I'd say.

After all, before agriculture, there was nothing to talk about:

Harte

What about the weather? Everyone talks about the weather.

[Harte]

Only in relation to the crops. In Nebraska.

Harte

[jmccr8]

Hi,

I have come across several articles about genetics of Neolithic farmers,I am just posting this one on the movements of these early farmers.It would seem that travel by water was preferred by these people.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140610102041.htm

jmccr8

[jmccr8]

I am probably putting this link in the wrong place but in does fit in with trade routes and I assume that they were Indo-Euro speakers so here it is.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/121107-europe-oldest-town-bulgaria-walls-science/

jmccr8