The role of long-distance communication in human history
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If one has a knee-jerk reaction to attribute all distant cultural resemblances to chance coincidence (independent invention), that would be to make a mockery of human mobility and adaptability. It would be as if people never deigned or had the opportunity to borrow something from another group.
I can give hundreds of long distance cultural correspondences that could not possibly have been due to chance coincidence — so complicated, intricate, and exact are they, especially when accompanied by textual, artistic, and other types of evidence, much of it hard / material. Moreover, we often have the bodies and the goods and the words — at transitional stages and times — to go along with the transmission. For some examples, see the "Selected readings" below. Many more could be adduced.
I'll just focus for a little bit on the spread of things Iranian from Southeast Europe to East Asia. For a detailed investigation of Scythian art and material culture across the Eurasian continent during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millenniun AD, see Petya Andreeva, “Fantastic Beasts of the Eurasian Steppes: Toward a Revisionist Approach to Animal-Style Art,” PhD Dissertation (University of Pennsylvania, 2018), with 164 illustrations and 2 maps (link).
Petya is also the guest editor for a special issue of Arts dedicated to the Zoomorphic Arts of Ancient Central Eurasia, with a set of fascinating papers on Scythians / Saka / sāi 塞 (Middle Sinitic /sək̚/, Old Sinitic /*slɯːɡ/), as well as Xiongnu (Huns).
If you want good linguistic and biological evidence for Iranian words being borrowed into Sinitic, see Berthold Laufer's venerable Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, Publication 201, Anthropological Series, Vol. XV, No. 3 (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1919), including those for "grape" (and the whole technology of true winemaking), "coral" (from the Khotanese studies of Harold Bailey), and so forth.
See also the remarkable article by Zhu Qingzhi, "Some Linguistic Evidence for Early Cultural Exchange Between China and India", Sino-Platonic Papers, 66 (March, 1995), 1-7 (pdf) which discusses five pre-Buddhist (!) borrowings from Sanskrit into Sinitic. It is telling that four out of five of these early Sanskrit borrowings in Sinitic have to do with go गो / niú 牛 ("cattle"). The paramount importance of cows in Indian culture is well known. So how did these pre-Buddhist Sanskrit terms get into Sinitic so early? Did they soar over the towering Himalayas or osmose through the distant seas? Or did people bring them?
Originally, we all came from Africa anyway. That took a mighty lot of trekking to get where we are now, n'est-ce pas?
§§§
In sum, in writing the history of human civilization, we have to take into account both cultural transmission and independent invention, bearing in mind that so-called independent invention is not really totally independent (i.e., chance coincidence, as though it were some sort of spontaneous combustion). It is naive to think so, since even "independent invention" takes place in a framework or matrix of cultural elements, some of which demonstrably came from abroad.
Please keep a balance in your outlook on the question of transmission vs. chance coincidence. It is not a matter of one or the other. In different circumstances, they both may be true.
Finally, please remain civil and respectful in all discussions on this blog.
Selected readings
- "Eurasian eureka" (9/12/16)
- Andrew Sherratt, "The Trans-Eurasian Exchange: The Prehistory of Chinese Relations with the West," in Victor H. Mair, ed., Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), pp. 30-61.
- Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (3/8/16)
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 2" (3/12/16)
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 3" (3/16/16)
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 4" (3/24/16)
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 5" (3/28/16)
- "Of armaments and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 6" (12/23/17) — particularly pertinent, and also draws on art history as well as archeology
- "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 7" (1/11/21) –on the akinakes* (Scythian dagger / short sword) and Xiongnu (Hunnish) horse sacrifice
- "Of felt hats, feathers, macaroni, and weasels" (3/13/16)
- "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19) — details how the akinakes and other attributes of Saka / Scythian culture penetrated to the far south of what is now China; excessive sacrifices of horses in the south and in Shandong
- "The dissemination of iron and the spread of languages" (11/5/20) — with a lengthy section on the akinakes and its dispersion
- "Indo-European religion, Scythian philosophy, and the date of Zoroaster: a linguistic quibble" (10/9/20) — with an extensive bibliography
- "Of horse riding and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (4/21/19)
- "Of reindeer and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/23/18)
- "'Mulan' is a masculine, non-Sinitic name" (7/15/19)
- "Ethnogenesis of the Mongolian people and their language" (8/19/20)
- "Idle thoughts on 'gelding'" (8/3/20)
- "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 3" (6/3/20)
- "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics, part 2" (5/11/20)
- "The importance of archeology for historical linguistics" (5/1/20) — with a list of more than a dozen previous posts related to archeology and language
- "Archeological and linguistic evidence for the wheel in East Asia" (3/11/20)
- "Indo-European 'cow' and Old Sinitic Reconstructions: awesome" (1/16/20)
- "'Horse Master in IE and in Sinitic" (11/9/19)
- "'Horse' and 'language' in Korean" (10/30/19)
- "An early fourth century AD historical puzzle involving a Caucasian people in North China" (1/25/19)
- "Of dogs and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (3/7/18)
- "Of jackal and hide and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (12/16/18)
- "Galactic glimmers: of milk and Old Sinitic reconstructions" (1/8/19)
- "Mare, mǎ ('horse'), etc." (11/17/19)
- "Blue-Green Iranian 'Danube'" (10/26/19)
- "China and Rome" (2/24/19)
- "Old Sinitic reconstructions and Tibeto-Burman cognates" (4/18/16)
- "The 'whole mess' of Old Sinitic reconstruction" (12/14/20) — with scores of relevant posts listed in the "Selected readings"
- Victor H. Mair, “The Horse in Late Prehistoric China: Wresting Culture and Control from the ‘Barbarians’”, in Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew, and Katie Boyle, ed., Prehistoric steppe adaptation and the horse, McDonald Institute Monographs (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2003), pp. 163-187.
- Victor H. Mair, “Horse Sacrifices and Sacred Groves among the North(west)ern Peoples of East Asia”, Ouya xuekan 欧亚学刊 (Eurasian Studies), 6 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 22-53; also available as chapter 11 in Victor H. Mair, China and Beyond: A Collection of Essays (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2013).
- Prods Oktor Skjaervø, "The Horse in Indo-Iranian Mythology", review of Philippe Swennen, "D'Indra à Tištrya: Portrait et évolution du cheval sacré dans les mythes indo-iraniens anciens", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 128.2 (April-June, 2008), 295-302.
- Saikat K. Bose, "The Aśvamedha: in the context of early South Asian socio-political development", Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 25.2 (2020).
- "Bezoar" (8/2/21)
Scott P. said,
January 26, 2023 @ 9:29 am
In sum, in writing the history of human civilization, we have to take into account both cultural transmission and independent invention, bearing in mind that so-called independent invention is not really totally independent (i.e., chance coincidence, as though it were some sort of spontaneous combustion). It is naive to think so, since even "independent invention" takes place in a framework or matrix of cultural elements, some of which demonstrably came from abroad.
There are certainly instances of independent invention, such as the domestication of cotton in both Southern Asia and South America, the independent invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica, etc.
Richard Hershberger said,
January 26, 2023 @ 9:54 am
I sense that this post jumps into an ongoing argument that I haven't been following. My guess is that there has been a reaction to the standard wisdom of a century or so ago that similarities imply interaction, as in There are pyramids in Egypt. There are pyramids in Meso-America. The only possible explanation is that Egyptians sailed to America. This is obvious nonsense. The pyramid is the engineering solution to building tall with stone. Two peoples presented with the problem will naturally arrive at the same solution. So I suspect that there was a backlash, with cultural interaction rejected in circumstances where it ought not be. So here today we have the backlash to the backlash. Did I get that right?
Victor Mair said,
January 26, 2023 @ 10:03 am
@Richard Hershberger
No, you got that quite wrong, from the first sentence to the last.
You have a lot of catchup reading to do.
@Scott P.
Naturellement.
Chris Button said,
January 26, 2023 @ 10:24 am
Small technical note …
I think we can safely drop the -l- in Zhengzhang’s form (I would just go with *sək myself). Looking in the list in his book, the -l- seems to be based on 僿, which is probably unnecessary.
Victor Mair said,
January 26, 2023 @ 4:19 pm
From Miriam Robbins Dexter:
We can also add Southeast European / Machang iconography (see images at the preceding link and in our book) to your list. See Miriam Robbins Dexter and VHM, Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia (Cambria Press, 2010).
martin schwartz said,
January 26, 2023 @ 9:48 pm
@ Chris Button: Saka has a perfectly fine Iranian etymology:
With HW Bailey, *saka- 'strong, able', Indo-Iranian √śak.
Skuth-, Akkadian Aškuz etc. probably rightly François Cornillot:
named from their distinctive hats, with the etymon still surviving in Wakhi. Szemerényi was wrong in his suggestions for both.
Xiongnu, I've no clue. Lots of speculations out there; cf. Chionites.
Av. H'iiaona- ….
Chris Button said,
January 26, 2023 @ 11:23 pm
@ Martin Schwartz
Thanks, yes it’s just a transcription in Chinese.
James Wimberley said,
January 27, 2023 @ 5:39 am
There is the complication that some of the key inventions were about means of transport, especially horses and sailing boats.These must have been self-propagating, and enabled mobility of other innovations (crops, domesticated animals, languages, political systems, science, weapons, religions). Consider the importance of both in the Spanish conquests in the Americas and the Russian conquest of Siberia.
Peter Erwin said,
January 27, 2023 @ 8:50 am
@Victor Mair:
One of the things Richard Hershberger said was:
Are you claiming this part of what he said was wrong? That Mesoamerican pyramids really were derived from Egyptian pyramids? (Or, as I understand a current Netflix series is advocating, that both Egyptians and Mesoamericans got the idea of building pyramids from the lost Atlantean civilization?) That is nonsense.
Victor Mair said,
January 27, 2023 @ 11:34 am
@Peter Erwin:
That is nonsense.
Linda Seebach said,
January 28, 2023 @ 11:24 am
Razib Khan, on his blog https://razib.substack.com/ , recently posted a two-part discussion of the genetic heritage of the Han Chinese, which is shared, at least in some small part, across much of Europe. These posts are for subscribers, but just knowing that people were provably in contact (and approximately when) is strong support for cultural transmission as well.
Scott P. said,
January 28, 2023 @ 6:32 pm
Linda,
That is the sort of thing that I think leads to unwarranted conclusions. DNA is not people, let alone cultures. The presence of Han DNA in early Western Europe need not mean there were Han Chinese in Western Europe. Half my DNA is Polish and the other half German, but I am neither Polish nor German.
To say it indicates 'contact' is rather meaningless, in my view. What kind of contact? If that can be established, then you have something to use to analyze things like cultural transmission. But the presence of certain genetic haplotypes says nothing about the kind of contact, so doesn't contribute much to the discussion.
John Swindle said,
January 29, 2023 @ 12:25 am
Long-distance communication, eh? When I was a young teen my friend's mother taught Communications at a small local university and showed not the slightest interest in becoming a ham radio operator. It boggled my mind.
Aaron said,
January 29, 2023 @ 10:49 am
The comments on this blog have gradually become so full of strange non sequiturs and replies that don't actually engage with what they're supposedly replying to that I feel like I'm reading the product of a Markov chain AI text generator.