From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Apr 14 2002 - 16:51:24 MDT
Curt, Greg, and Mike have constructively added to the
discussion on Meso-American vs. Middle Eastern development,
but, alas, we have all been undone by the presence of blanks
within the charts, and the resulting distortion of the graphs
when viewed by various email programs. For example, according
to Curt's chart (as I cut and paste ascii text), it looks as
though villages first developed in the West at 7000 B.C.,
which is different from what I gave.
So here, belatedly, is a corrected chart where I have used
dashes instead of blanks. If you have the slightest doubt
about the veracity of the rendering by your software, export
it to an ascii editor, or compare it to the following data:
>From pages 362-363 of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond:
Fertile Cresent Meso-America
Writing 3200 BC 600 BC
States 3700 BC 300 BC
Metal tools 4000 BC 1000 +AD (Andes)
Chiefdoms 5500 BC 1500 BC
Villages 9000 BC 1500 BC**
Pottery 7000 BC* 1500 BC**
Animal dom. 8000 BC 500 BC
Plant dom. 8500 BC 3000 BC
*China is credited with the advent of pottery making 500 years earlier.
**Villages and pottery are both found in the Amazon basin about 6000BC.
Corrected Charts:
B.C. (1000's): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 +1
Writingxxx------------------------------------------E---------------W----------
Statesxxxx---------------------------------------E-------------------W---------
Metalsxxxx-------------------------------------E-----------------------------W-
Chiefdomsx----------------------------E-----------------------W----------------
Potteryxxx-------------------E--------------------------------W----------------
Animalsxxx-------------E--------------------------------------------W----------
Plantsxxxx----------E--------------------------------W-------------------------
Villagesxx-------E--------------------------------------------W----------------
B.C. (1000's): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 +1
So I still claim that the West's development was probably quicker, no
matter how you slice it. For example, following Curt's idea, let's graph
them in order of Western discovery:
Metalsxxxx-------------------------------------E-----------------------------W-
Statesxxxx---------------------------------------E-------------------W---------
Writingxxx------------------------------------------E---------------W----------
Animalsxxx-------------E--------------------------------------------W----------
Chiefdomsx----------------------------E-----------------------W----------------
Potteryxxx-------------------E--------------------------------W----------------
Villagesxx-------E--------------------------------------------W----------------
Plantsxxxx----------E--------------------------------W-------------------------
B.C. (1000's): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 +1
The Western development is more tightly clustered in total too.
But if there was diffusion in pottery making and the idea of
villages, then this conclusion is much less clear.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:31 MST