Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?

On 11 Jan, 14:32, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 10, 9:31 pm, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 10 Jan, 04:49, benlizross <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

richard01 wrote:

On 9 Jan, 07:02, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 9, 5:28 am, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8 Jan, 13:42, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jan 8, 12:15 pm, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

The archaeology
hardly gets a mention, though it fails to support either his claim
that Vanuatu and New Caledonia were settled a lot earlier than
Polynesia, nor that Maori left central Polynesia before Rapanui.

It fails to support my claim because no-one has yet found a
definitive
'first settlement date' almost anywhere east of Buka, in the Solomon
Islands.
Not true. Dates for the whole Lapita area have been stable for quite a
while now, even though new sites continue to be discovered. They range
from about 3500 BP in the far west to, I think about 2800 in Samoa.
Check recent surveys by Kirch for the figures. In other words, the
interval between first settlement of Vanuatu/New Caledonia and that of
Fiji/Western Polynesia is probably no more than 2-300 years.

The Lapita phenomenon did indeed happen very fast, but it's been
vastly overblown by archaeologists, who don't have much more than pots
and bits of chipped stone to go by.

What else do archaeologists normally have?

snipped - sorry
Lapita was never claimed to be a technical advance, nor even the first
pottery around. It was simply an easily identifiable style. And east
and south of the Solomons it appears with the first evidence of human
settlement.

Yes, it was. I don't really object to Lapita pottery being used as an
archaeological horizon by archaeologists, but I do object to the idea
that it was the FIRST sign of 'civilisation' anywhere east of Mussau,
the earliest and western-most Lapita site. And to the semi-desperate
effort by Bellwood to connect that to Tapen' keng pottery in Formosa..
And to the semi-automatic tying into that of the idea of proto-
Polynesians whistling down there on their Express Train, hanging about
a bit while they invented better boats to get to Fiji and Samoa, and
then hanging about a bit more  while they invented even better boats
to get to Hawai'i, New Zealand and Rapanui, as 'Vikings into the
Sunrise'.

Discussion of any of these belongs on sci.arch.

If there are no retrievable archaeological finds in Vanuatu before the
arrival of  Lapita pots on certain beaches, then I'm not at all
surprised. The Lapita pots on certain beaches are (could be) no more
than evidence of short-term visitors or short-term settlers.

They are not all on beaches, and there is more than just pots. The
presence of Lapita as part of the assemblange provides one clear
connection with other sites in the region. These are clearly the
earliest human inhabitants of Vanuatu. I don't see why you're so
desperate to wave this away.

 There's

no evidence of any connection between Lapita and Austronesian, except
back-constructs to certain linguistic terms, that were connected
(concocted?) by Pawley and Green in the 70s, and accepted ever since..

I have already explained what the connection between Lapita and
Austronesian is. I don't know what "concocted" terms you can be
referring to here.

The Lapita trail is a very over-simplified story. There's a nice paper
at:
The spread of the 'Lapita people': a demographic simulation - Anne Di
Piazza and Erik Pearthree (1999)
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/2/3/4.html
where they end up (almost) stating that the Pacific colonisation must
have been by sea nomads - very different from the proposition of
deliberate colonisation by settled, but over-populated
agriculturalists propagated by the Express Train crowd - Bellwood,
Blust etc.

Sea nomads don't deliberately take cuttings and seeds of their
favourite food plants, or puppies and piglets, or the village potter,
or their whole family, on their voyages.

That, to me at least, sounds like a better explanation of the
Polynesian loss of dogs, pigs, and pots than any other.

??? What "Polynesian loss of dogs, pigs, and pots"??

And that brings up another ridiculed figure. To quote Andrew Pawley
(pers comm) "Whatever you do, take no notice of Bill Solheim's
maverick attempts at a grand synthesis, which I'm afraid are from
another planet". Obviously - Bill Solheim proposed a very early sea
nomad culture (Nusantao) around Western Indonesia/Philippines/
Formosa , extending to coastal China and the Yayoi in Japan. Maybe he
over-did it his ideas, but not a lot.

Again this belongs on sci.arch if you want to discuss it. The reason we
deviated into archaeology/prehistory was that in your linked comment
that started this thread you drew certain conclusions about settlement
chronology from your numeral-evolution theory, and I pointed out that
the archaeology (just basic dates, not grand theories) does not support
these. That's where it stands.

Ross Clark- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sorry about bringing in archaeology/prehistory, settlement chronology,
etc if this is an isolated back room where the only permissible
subject is current linguistics. You've probably seen, from my posts,
that I have NO expertise (or real interest) in linguistics, per se,
but I do have a lot in using it as a tool to tweak out significant
bits of history or pre-history, together with archaeology and genetics.

You drew some archaeological inferences from your numeral-theory-
driven linguistic picture. I pointed out that the evidence does not
support them.



Against the (about) 1200 Austronesian languages have been described,
more or less in detail,

!! You're counting everything from a 100 word list on up, then?

 the number of samples of this vast area

investigated by archaeologists or geneticists seem almost
insignificant, or very much ball-park figures (in volume-of-knowledge
terms).

I do not agree. If you're talking about the whole AN area the number
of archaeological sites "described more or less in detail" would be
many hundreds.

So the recorded data of Austronesian languages provides a

wide geographical and historical record, which is both mine-able and
map-able.

That is what I am trying to do, with just one set of related words, in
each language. It's no Grand, pre-conceived Theory

Well, it's one big and apparently immovable pre-conceived assumption.
My comment about theory was that your archaeological predictions are
in conflict, not with somebody's grand migration theory, but with the
basic radiocarbon dates for earliest settlement. Settlement of Rapanui
looks earlier than New Zealand, not later. And you have at most a 300
year interval between settlement of Vanuatu and settlement of
Polynesia. If you start talking about "sea gypsies" in early Vanuatu,
that just makes it worse.

Ross Clark- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

11 Jan, 14:32, "benli...@xxxxxxxxxx" <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 10, 9:31 pm, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On 10 Jan, 04:49, benlizross <benli...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]

That is what I am trying to do, with just one set of related words, in
each language. It's no Grand, pre-conceived Theory

Well, it's one big and apparently immovable pre-conceived assumption.

No, it's not. It's gone from the germ of an idea, reinforced by every
bit of evidence that I've found since.



comment about theory was that your archaeological predictions are
in conflict, not with somebody's grand migration theory, but with the
basic radiocarbon dates for earliest settlement. Settlement of Rapanui
looks earlier than New Zealand, not later.

What carbon dates are known for first settlement of Rapanui or NZ?

And you have at most a 300
year interval between settlement of Vanuatu and settlement of
Polynesia.

I don't have that 300 yr interval, at all - only the pottery daters
do. I don't believe Vanuatu was first settled by (dateable?) pottery
makers, but by much earlier voyagers who had nothing to leave that
could be found by archaeologists (no stones, no pots). Those hunter-
gatherers were pushed south by later immigrants, and their remnants
are still surviving in New Caledonia, Erromonga and Tanna. This is an
established and well known pattern in other Austronesian immigrations,
in the Philippines, Sulawesi, etc, where newcomers pushed earlier
settlers from the coast towards the interior. Vanuatu doesn't have
much of an 'interior' but the pattern of new number system adoption in
Santo fits that process very well indeed.

If you start talking about "sea gypsies" in early Vanuatu,
that just makes it worse.

I think you're over-doing the ridicule with that statement.

Why the hell do you think I'm persisting with this tiny, little,
unimportant, very tedious study if I didn't think there might be
something worthwhile to be gained from it?

regards
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... Polynesia, nor that Maori left central Polynesia before Rapanui. ... 'first settlement date' almost anywhere east of Buka, ... vastly overblown by archaeologists, who don't have much more than pots ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... Polynesia, nor that Maori left central Polynesia before Rapanui. ... 'first settlement date' almost anywhere east of Buka, ... vastly overblown by archaeologists, who don't have much more than pots ... earliest human inhabitants of Vanuatu. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... Polynesia, nor that Maori left central Polynesia before Rapanui. ... 'first settlement date' almost anywhere east of Buka, ... vastly overblown by archaeologists, who don't have much more than pots ... earliest human inhabitants of Vanuatu. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... It's no Grand, pre-conceived Theory ... basic radiocarbon dates for earliest settlement. ... I don't believe Vanuatu was first settled by pottery ... could be found by archaeologists ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... It's no Grand, pre-conceived Theory ... basic radiocarbon dates for earliest settlement. ... I don't believe Vanuatu was first settled by pottery ... settlers from the coast towards the interior. ...
    (sci.lang)