tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post8546985574977933752..comments2024-03-26T14:19:33.332-07:00Comments on Bench Grass: Gather the Bones, XVI, 2: The Work of EannaErik Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-60741882477630094942013-02-11T21:34:47.458-08:002013-02-11T21:34:47.458-08:00Which is true. I just wish that the archaeologists...Which is true. I just wish that the archaeologists wouldn't make the domestication of camels some kind of floating reference, ever receding into past time. (At any moment I expect to see the origins of Indian civilisation pegged at the K-T Boundary.) Maybe someone will come up with something as off-hand useful as Drew's <i>Early Riders</i>, where it doesn't matter who first domesticated horses, because you can't have largescale horse riding without iron bits. <br /><br />As for the theory, I offer it for what it's worth, but it does converge nicely with the Inca comparison. The only pastoral society in the New World is also the only one with a true empire --and probably a heritage of earlier empire building. <br /><br />Herds are mobile wealth, and put the idea of conquering, or at least despoiling, distant peoples into political play at the centre. Which I guess reads as "neo-conservatives cause empires." Cynical as that is, I like it better than bloodless arguments about how the Uruk Expansion reached out to "secure resources." Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-10010995209258898632013-02-10T07:27:00.705-08:002013-02-10T07:27:00.705-08:00You know, one further point comes to mind: if the ...You know, one further point comes to mind: if the early towns of Mesopotamia were founded around mass animal movements, the introduction of the camel (millennia later, I know...) should have played havoc with the regional economy.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-42849599366915438842013-02-08T14:15:25.693-08:002013-02-08T14:15:25.693-08:00Something that dropped out of my post between the ...Something that dropped out of my post between the version that Blogger ate and the one that appeared is a note that the early date palms were planted on the levees, which were also the main roads. <br /><br />Old civil engineering handbooks actually discuss the kinds of trees that you should plant along the edge of roads, rating them by shade value and their fodder value.... Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-43677000636463653212013-02-07T04:14:37.097-08:002013-02-07T04:14:37.097-08:00At the first oasis where I did my fieldwork, it wa...At the first oasis where I did my fieldwork, it was date _stones_ that fed the cattle - they pounded them into a powder edible to goats. That said, some inferior date types were also used as fodder. But date palm products are useful for so many other things - building fences, providing beams, making baskets and ropes, lighting fires, making monster costumes... and, perhaps more importantly, date palms are great for shading other crops that don't do so well in that level of sunlight, so planting them lets you expand your crop repertoire.<br /><br />Date palms are also - ironically - really thirsty. They can grow without irrigation if there's enough water, but if you're serious about yield, you irrigate them. Dunno how they did it in 3200 BC, though.<br /><br />As for the geneticists, obviously the causation is the other way around: it's only once people start drinking milk that mutations that help them digest it better can confer enough of an advantage to spread.Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.com