Newsgroups: sci.lang,sci.archaeology
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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Origin of Agriculture and Bronze in East Asia
Message-ID: <CzsuwH.J9q@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <Czox76.8Ct@inter.nl.net> <sarimaCzrD2x.CLL@netcom.com> <boyleCzsFDA.3uC@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 01:31:29 GMT
Lines: 52
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang:33062 sci.archaeology:15383

In article <boyleCzsFDA.3uC@netcom.com>, Joseph Boyle <boyle@netcom.com> wrote:
>sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>>Relevent to this is the fact that on the basis of genetics the
>>chnese people should be speaking an Austro-Tai language. This
>>means that Sinitic must, in some way, have been intrusive.  The
>
>Sinitic is certainly intrusive in southern China, within the last 2000 
>years. Its age in northern China isn't clear, but all the recorded 
>civilizations are thought to be continuous, making a late arrival unlikely.
>
>It's not clear what genetics says about northern China. Cavalli-Sforza's 
>work treated China as a unit and may have only sampled southern Chinese. 
>(Again, please correct me with the details)
>
>>arrival of bronze technology and agriculture long after they
>>appeared in Mesopotamia - and about the time that the collapse
>>of the earliest civilizations suggest the existance of extensive
>>tribal movements - is a good candidate for this arrival.
>
>The Spirit Cave excavation in Thailand found bronze and agricultural
>remains at a much earlier date, suggesting that they may have originated
>in Southeast Asia independent of Mesopotamia and spread north. (Does
>anyone have more details on this?)

I believe this is correct.  I'm not sure about the dates.  I can
only find a reference in the Times Atlas of World History (giving
it as 6000 BC for rice and 3000 BC for copper/bronze).  
It certainly seems an independent discovery of both agriculture and 
metal working, which must have spread from South-East Asia into India 
(Munda?), Southern China and Indonesia.

For Northern China the dates given are 4000 BC (millet) and
1600 BC (copper/bronze).  Given that the earliest Neolithic
cultures of Northern China (Yangshao) arise in the West, just
east of Sinkiang, an ultimately Mesopotamian origin for the
techniques involved cannot be ruled out.  I refer to my previous
posting about the Seroglazovo culture (7th millennium BC).
 
>>In this model the Proto-Macro-Caucasian area would be eastern
>>Anatolia and southwards, and the Proto-Sino-Tibetan region would
>>be the eastern Zagros.
>
>Why so far south?
>

Indeed.  Maybe because otherwise the Proto-Sino-Tibetan homeland 
would overlap with the assumed Indo-European homeland.

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
