Re: The first Mehrgarhans did not come overland from the west
- From: "Peter Alaca" <p.alaca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:53:01 +0200
Doug Weller <dweller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 22:46:05 +0200, in sci.archaeology, Peter Alaca
wrote:
Carl <pchristainsen@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
On Jul 20, 12:28 pm, "Peter Alaca" <p.al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Carl <pchristain...@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
Two concluding points about Mehrgarh I -
"First, Mehrgarh is on the edge of the natural distribution of
the potentially domesticable plants and animals, not within
it. The inhabitants of this site had already gained sufficient
control over their subsistence system that the plants and
animals could be removed from their wild habitats and still
survive.
Second, without doubting the importance of Mehrgarh, and
the very high quality of the French excavations there, we
should recall that the earliest inhabitants of the site came
there with a broad suite of fully domesticated food grains,
including both wheat and barley. In this sense, Mehrgarh I
is not a place where we have evidence of the earliest
experiments with domestication.
Mehrgarh might be compared to an early Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B site in the Near east, with its mud-brick
buildings and domesticated food grains. The really early
experiments with food production on the Indo-Iranian
borderlands are found closer to, even embedded within, the
habitats of Braidwood's constellation of potentially
domesticable plants and animals. This is the mountains of
Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier, and Afghanistan, at
such places as Aq Kupruk."
Possehl, Gregory L.,The Indus civilization : a contemporary
perspective, 29,
Walnut Creek, CA : AltaMira Press, 2002.
So, now explain your
" So, the first settlers did NOT come overland from
the west."
"I say the homeland, for the first settlers knew
farming and domestication of wild species of
sheep, goat, and cattle from experience at that
place, was the submerged Gujarat as speculation."
Note that Possehl in the quote above compares Mehrgarh
with an early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site in the Near east.
Also note that Mehrgarh is on the eastern border of an
agricultural zone reaching to SE Europe in the period
before 6000 BC.
Also note that the first farmers of central Europe came
there with a broad suite of fully domesticated food grains
and that they were very far from the natural distribution of
the domesticable plants like wheat and barley.
The Sundadont characteristics found at Mehrgath have never been
observed anywhere else in the subcontinent. South-east Asia's
extensive Sunda Shelf was the home of Sundadont teeth. The
first Mehrgarhans represent the western margin of the phenotypic
dental pattern known as Sundadont. Their teeth share several
dental features in common with the Sundadont pattern; they are not
pure Sundadont. Thus, the first Mehrgarhans came from some
intermediate place, not the Sunda Shelf or south-east Asia.
Since they were already farmers according to Possehl,
He did not say that, as you show yourself below.
I say river
delta cultivation is the clue to their homeland, possibly land that
was inundated at the end of the Ice Age to the north, south, and
east of Gujerat.
AFAIK nowhere agriculture developed in lowlands.
And if the Mehrgarh farmer came from around
Gujarat, why is there no earlier agriculture in Gujarat?
You say, but what evidence do you have?
NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VEDIC CIVILIZATION By Navaratna Rajaram
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/vedic-civilzation.html
"[A]griculture and livestock spread to parts of India from its
origin in the east, near the Mekong region" at least as late as
10,000 BC.
So?
---
Possehl explains the "sudden" appearance of the strangely
sophisticated village farming community at Mehrgarh as an artefact
of incomplete excavations and is confident that "the beginnings of
food production and domestication in the region" will eventually be
traced - within the region itself.
" Within the region itself" means Baluchistan, not Gujarat.
I've concluded that he doesn't know the relevant geography.
That is not the only basic he is unaware of
and he shows no interest in learning.
Also he relates the level of
development that archaeologists have exposed in Stage One to that
of so-called PPNB ["Pre-Pottery Neolithic 'B'] sites in the Levant.
Recall that he also says the really early experiments with food
production on the Indo-Iranian borderlands are in the mountains of
Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier, and Afghanistan, at such
places as Aq Kupruk.
---
Either the first Mehrgarhans evolved their food-producing skills in
the
submontane belt around the foothills of the Karakorams and the
Himalayas earlier than 9000 years ago OR they evolved their skills
somewhere else such as a river delta on great perennial rivers
bursting forth from the Himalayas-Indus, Sutlej, Sarasvati (now
dry), Yamuna and Ganga in North India.
The second possibility, not the first, is favored by the ancient
traditions of India itself.
Who are "the ancient traditions of India" ?
Remember that we are talking archaeology
We are. He thinks he is, but isn't.
Let's discuss all aspects to get at the answer to Mehrgarh's origin.
Read what Petraglia & Allchin have to say
(see the thread 'Origines agricultural package
Pakistan and Indus valley', download the pdf
and read more)
And do not ignore what you don't like.
I still think it is amusing that he thinks somehow discussion here
will discover Merhgarh's origin (whatever that means) -- without
needing any more archaeology.
Doug
He thinks that insufficent knowledge means
that there is a mystery and that you can solve
the 'mystery' by ignoring what is known and
replacing it with fantasies.
--
p.a.
.
- References:
- The first Mehrgarhans did not come overland from the west
- From: Carl
- Re: The first Mehrgarhans did not come overland from the west
- From: Peter Alaca
- Re: The first Mehrgarhans did not come overland from the west
- From: Doug Weller
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