Mother Tongue Newsletter 30 (Winter 1997)

7/27/2019 Mother Tongue Newsletter 30 (Winter 1997)

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N E W S L E T T E R O FF O R T H E S T U D V

T H E A S S O C I : A T I : O NO F L A N G U A G E

I:N P R E H I : S T O R V

Xssue 30 (MT-30) W i . :n . t . e :r 1997


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MOTHER TONGUE : NEWSLETTER of the Associa t ion fo r the Study ofLanguage In Prehis tory . Issue 30. Winter 1997The Associa t ion for the study of Language In Prehis tory (ASLIP) i s anonprof i t organizat ion , incorporated under th e laws of the Commonwealth ofMassachuset ts . I t s purpose i s to encourage and suppor t the study oflanguage in prehis tory in a l l f i e l ds and by a l l means, including researchon the ea r ly evolu t ion of human language, support ing conferences, se t t i ngup a da ta bank, and publishing a news le t t e r and a journal to repor t thesea c t i v i t i e s .Membership: Annual dues fo r ASLIP membership and subscr ip t ion to MotherTongue are us $25 in a l l coun t r i e s , except those with currency problems.For membership informat ion , contac t :Harold c. Fleming,Secretary I ASLIP16 Butman AvenueGlouces te r , MA 01930-1006 USAOFFICERS OF ASLIP (Address appropr ia te correspondence to each)Pres ident John D. Bengtson I 1329 Adams St ree t NE IMinneapol is , MN 55413, USA I Tel . 612-348-5910Vice Pres iden t Roger Williams Wescott I 16-A Heri tage Cres t ISouthbury, CT 06488 USA I Tel . 203-264-1716Vice Pres iden t Daniel McCall 1 7 Wigglesworth St I Boston, MA 02114USA 1 Tel . 617-277-1434 1 508-627-5571 (summer)Secretary-Treasurer Harold c. Fleming (see above). Tel . 508-282-0603BOARD OF DIRECTORSOfer Bar-Yosef (Peabody M, Harvard) Kenneth Hale (M.I .T.)Anne W. Beaman (Brookl ine, MA) Jero ld Harmatz (Tuf t s U.)Allan R. Bomhard (Charleston, SC) John Hutchison (Boston U.)Ronald Chris tensen (Lincoln, MA) Judi th Leader (Lexington, MA)Freder ick Gamst (U 1 Massachusetts) Mary Ellen Lepionka (Cambridge,MA)Phi l ip Lieberman (Brown U.)COUNCIL OF FELLOWSRaimo Ant t i l a (UCLA)Luigi Luca Caval l i -Sforza (Stanford)Igor M. Diakonoff (S t . Petersburg)Aaron Dolgopolsky (UIHaifa)Ben Ohiomamhe Elugbe (UIIbadan)Joseph H. Greenberg (Stanford)Carle ton T. Hodge (UIIndiana)

Sydney Lamb (Rice Universi ty)Winfred P. Lehmann (UITexas)Karl-Heinrich Menges (UIVienna)Colin Renfrew (Cambridge U ., UK)V i t a l i j Shevoroshkin (UIMichigan)Serge i Sta ros t in (Moscow Sta te U)Dell Hymes (UIVirginiaCopyright 1996 Aaaociation to r th e Study of Lanquaqe in Prehis toryISSN 1087-0326 fo r Mother Tongue: The Journal (an Annual, not Newslet ter)


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INTRODUCTION TO MT-30: The Newsletter (Editor th is issue: H. Fleming)ASLIP BUSINESSThe business of managing our jo int venture i s most serious th i s timearound. Very few nominations have come in , yet it i s time to vote. There i san urgent need to replace the Secretary, the Treasurer, and the person whowrites these Newsletters. I f you do not find someone to fu l f i l l th i s role ,

John Bengtson wil l have to do All the work. Predictably, he won't be ableto do t ha t for long and ASLIP wil l become ' h i s to ry ' , as the Americans say.Now's the time for ASLIPers f inal ly to pay the i r 1997 dues. So we mustinvoke the laundryman's rule - - no t ickee no washee. No pay dues, no getJournal. : : See the attached colored sheet .Are there any volunteers out there? You must nominate and vote forsome off icers and directors . See another attached sheet , to f i l l out andsend in to Hal Fleming.THE HOTTEST AND THE LATEST NEWS. AS OF MID-FEBRUARY. 1998.This time around, the hot news is very brief , yet very important. Atthe top of the l i s t is a remarkable study by Stephen Zegura and Mike Hammerabout the original Great Diaspora which neatly confirms the basic hypothesis f i r s t advanced by Becky Cann but also allows for some interbreedingwith the Untermenschen in s i tu . As in other areas it s t i l l remains thecase, however, t ha t the in terpreta t ion of evidence as confirming, fa ls i fying, or bo th ( ! ) i s not so e a sy - - not easy a t a l l th is t im e : : In additionChomskyite theory of language origins seems to have taken a h i t fromresearch on chimpanzee b r a in s - - maybe : : Yet another archeological s i te inthe New World, ' too old ' for the Maginot Line to withstand, is unearthed : :Extensive biogenetics of New World fa l s i f ies 3-migration theory - - maybe - and dates f i r s t migrations to 30-40 kya : : Is a 0.56 correlat ion very good?

OBITUARIESProfessor Gordon Hewes has died. His many contr ibutions to language originsresearch and anthropology are noted in a colleague 's eulogy .NEWS OF OFFICERS' ACTIVITIES. INCLUDING A CONFERENCESeven long rangers were invited to a workshop a t the Santa Fe Ins t i tu te inNew Mexico in December. They were not adjuncts to some larger conference;the i r work was the central focus. Quite a se t of energetic minds bumpinginto each other! John Bengtson reports on things as he saw them. HalFleming perceived some systematic differences in s t ra tegies , even tac t ics ;he reports on them. Dolgopolsky's passionate performance i s noted.THE MEMBERSHIP (PERMITTED) LIST.Add Giorgio Banti 1 UIRoma 1 I t a l i a . In ter a l ios .More names are added to the "Good Guys" l i s t which i s enclosed.

OUR JOURNAL. HT-III. COMES OUT SOON. (Despite several serious setbacks):Your patience in awaiting the th i rd issue of our Journal i s appreciated. Wehope to be aware of the Ides of March a t out-put t ime. Key features of th i sissue will be (a) Paul Whitehouse's dauntless ef for t s on Nihali & Kusunda,(b) several people, led by our expert on ant iqui ty , Igor Diakonoff, have ago a t Sumerian, (c) a fine inter-scholar mutual review of several books onlanguage or igins , (d) Ken Hale reviews a major new book on native Americanlanguages by Campbell, and (e) Staros t in ' s long review of Chirikba 's newbook on West caucasic. Plus - - assorted goodies.

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MT-30ASLIP BUSINESS

The Annual Meeting of ASLIP will be April 18, 1998, Saturday, from noonunt i l 3 pm, a t the African Studies Center, Boston University, 270 Bay StateRoad, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Our meeting will be on the 4th f loor.The reason for moving ASLIP business to the top of the roster i s simple: weare facing a management cr i s i s . But a cr i s i s of a different sor t from theusual, i . e . , top management i s f ine but the lower levels are departing. ThePresidential support system will soon be lacking. We must replace twooff icers or find some individual to take two jobs. And we must find someoneto write the biological and/or archeological portions of the Newsletters,or MOTHER TONGUE will become, simplement di t , a l l his tor ica l l inguis t ics .

This is also a cr i s i s for ye, the members. For the past twelve yearsyou have been models of passivi ty and nonchalance, le t t ing one or twopeople do everything. Now you will have to decide whether you want th isorganization to continue or not. Sup 2 Yew.

But, as Paul Benedict used to say, where are the other enterprisestha t do what ASLIP and MOTHER TONGUE do? Hmmmm? Perhaps you should bes t i ryourselves to think about i t . Do I t may be your l as t chance - - ever.Reguested Forms. Enclosed in th is envelope are two forms; they aremeant for your act ion. One i s a yellow form which begs for money. Only somof you receive those because many have paid dues and some have given more.The second i s a blue/purple form which asks you to ~ for off icers ofASLIP and for Board members. Those who have already been nominated arel i s ted as al ternat ives in voting. However, in order to compensate for thevery low number of responses to the original request for nominations, youare given the option of 'wr i te - in ' votes, i . e . , you nominate and vote forsomeone a t the same t ime. Thus, i f you decide you want to be a member ofthe Board, you write your name in the space provided, instead of circl ingthe name of a proper nominee.We do understand tha t many of you do not make nominations because youare quite sa t is f ied with the present off icers and Board members. I t i s forthose dissa t i s f ied and those previously inactive tha t we di rec t theseforms. As everyone knows, the Annual Meeting is able, legal ly and byprecedent, to choose a l l the off icers and Board members - - a l l by i t se l f .The primary t a rget of our e f for t here i s to make the Annual Meeting process

more democratic or give the appearance of being democratic. That is not acynical remark; it jus t ref lec ts the rea l i ty tha t 92% of the ent i t ledvoters do not vote. Legally, an election can be said to be democratic i fsome quorum or minimal number vote, but morally/social ly one has t roubleseeing 92% lack of in teres t as democratic! This means - - in social factt ha t the opinions and desi res of 9/lOths of the body pol i t i c are notref lected or expressed in the select ion of i t s governors.TIDBITAccording to our best informant in Arizona, Joseph Greenberg will speak a tthe University of Arizona, Tucson (Arizona) on April 16, 1998. The topic i sEurasiat ic . After the ta lk , drop by in Boston for the Annual Meeting.

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THE HOTTEST AND THE LATEST NEWS. AS OF MID-FEBRUARY. 1998.The hot tes t biogenetic news i s excit ing and even a l i t t l e strange. I tappears tha t strong confirmation for Rebecca Cann's theory of human originshas appeared, but along with some support for the opposing view, i . e . , the' r i s ing t ide l i f t s a l l boats ' theory or multiregionalism. Extraordinary! Is

i t possible t ha t both sides of a major sc ient i f ic dispute are correct , a tl eas t in part , and incorrect , a t l eas t in part? Mon dieu! l e t us not taketh is question to philosophy; le t us bring it to earth! What's happening?stephen Zegura and MichaelHammer (both U/Arizona) are publ i sh ing the i r formal ar t ic le nextmonth in JMBE. We are not allowedto ' s tea l JMBE's thunder ' prior topublication, except only the informal general remarks about it madeby Zegura in Santa Fe, New Mexico,in December. So our remarks are

very general and serve to ca l lat tent ion to the forthcoming a r t i c le in the JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. The substanceof the Arizonan ef for t s i s highlytechnical , analyt ical and quitebeyond an audience of non-speciali s t s . They consulted with Templetonof U/Utah a t several points , sotha t t he i r models are fire-hardenedas it were. Templeton i s famous, aseveryone knows, as the analyst whothrew cold technical water on BeckyCann's hot new theory. His at tent ions were what is expected when weta lk about te s t ing and fa ls ifyinghypotheses. I t is presumed tha tTempleton strengthened, nay improved, the Hammer-Zegura models. There s t of our remarks will be ent i rely free of technical deta i l s otherthan the statement t ha t both mtDNAand Y-chromosome data were used, aswell as B-globin. (Remember theHarding ar t ic le in MT-28 ?)

Basically, Stephen and Mikefound t ha t a common modern humanancestor could be proposed for 150kya and in Africa; t ha t the GreatDiaspora out of Africa could bedated to around 110 kya; t ha t therehad been some feedback in tha t someAsians had migrated to Africa circa30 kya; and tha t the Diaspora wasprimari ly a movement/migration of3

males who in terbred with the loca lfemales - - le s autochthonesfound on t he i r routes or in the newregions of Earth which they wentto . At the end of th is we also findanother surprise - - social s t ruc t ure analysis or good old kinshipstudy - - will now occupy one of thefoci of our in teres t . This time forprehistory instead of synchronictheory. Since some of our longrangers are also experts on kinship, we bid the biogenet ic is ts toseek t he i r advice. I want especia l ly to mention Bernd Lambert ofCornell and Stephen Tyler of Rice,two superb analysts of kinshipsystems in Oceania, India & e lse where. We predic t tha t you wil lneed t he i r help - - ser ious ly .

Subject to the publishingres t r ic t ions mentioned above, wehave pieced together an abstract orprecis of the ZegurajHammer paperfrom Stephen's ora l presentation inSanta Fe and some remarks in al e t t e r . This i s DQt the formalpresentation of the i r paper. Thisone, among other things, i s wri t inEnglish. Heh, heh! (Hereinafter'we' refers to Hammer and Zegura.)"We surveyed nine di -a l le l ic polymorphic s i tes on the Y chromosomeof 1,544 individuals from Africa,Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the NewWorld. Phylogenetic analyses ofthese nine s i tes resulted in a t reefo r 10 dis t inc t Y haplotypes with acoalescence time of - 150,000 yearsThe 10 haplotypes were unevenlydis t r ibuted among human populations: f ive were res t r ic ted to a par t ic ular continent, two were shared


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MT-30between Africa and Europe, one waspresent only in the Old World, andtwo were found in a l l geographicregions surveyed. The ancestralhaplotype was l imited to Africanpopulations. Random permutationprocedures revealed s t a t i s t i ca l lys ignif icant patterns of geographica l s t ruc tur ing of th is paternalgenetic variat ion. The resul ts of anested cladis t ic analysis indicatedtha t these geographical associations arose through a combination ofprocesses including res t r ic ted ,recurrent gene flow ( isola t ion bydistance) and range expansions. Weinferred tha t one of the oldes tevents in the nested cladis t icanalysis was a range expansion outof Africa which resulted in thecomplete replacement of Y chromosomes throughout the Old World, afinding consistent with many versions of the Out of Africa Replacement Model. A second and morerecent range expansion broughtAsian Y chromosomes back to Africawithout replacing the indigenousAfrican male gene pool. Thus, thepreviously observed high levels ofY chromosomal genetic divers i ty inAfrica may be due in part to b idirec t ional population movements.Finally. a comparison of ourresul ts with those from nestedcladis t ic analyses of human mtDNAand B-globin data revealed di f fe r en t patterns of inferences formales and females concerning there la t ive roles of populationhistory (range expansions) and populat ion st ructure ( recurrent geneflow), thereby adding a new sexspecif ic component to models ofhuman evolution."

Their analysis includes somedates of i n t e res t to us, remembering tha t biogenetic dat ing remainslargely unverified but highlyin teres t ing. For the Adam in th isscenario, he would be dated to147,000 35,000; he would be an4

African, and his t r ibe would remainin Africa for many millennia. Thenaround 110,000 they leave and eventua l ly replace the males who hadl ived in the Old World outside ofAfrica, such as la te Homo erectustypes, Neanderthals, etc . Thenaround 55,000 begins a movement ofEast Asians who re-enter Africaaround 31,000 years ago. There areother l a te r ' events ' , including20,000 ya in North Africa whichmight be the ' Iber ians ' enter ing,but these deta i l s wil l have to bel e f t for the a r t i c le in JMBE. Alongwith the whole technical and mathematical basis for t he i r report .On the subject of the male/femaledifferences - - and th is wil l becomethe hot topic - - we may borrow ab it from the i r or ig inal ar t ic le ,jus t to get the topic s ta r ted . Nowbegin quoting:"Both Templeton's (1993)or ig inal nested cladis t ic analysisof human mtDNA and his methodological ly more rigorous re-analysis(Templeton 1997b) are highlightedby recurrent gene flow res t r ic tedby i sola t ion by distance throughoutthe Old World for the entire timeperiod encompassing the mtDNATMRCA. This short-range gene flowis pervasive a t a l l levels of analysis and underscores the paramountinf luence of population st ructureon the dynamics of human maternalgenome evolution. No inter-cont inenta l range expansions similar tothe three postulated on the basisof our Y chromosome data aredetectable in global mtDNA data.Thus, the effec ts of populationhistory seem to have l e f t a muchclearer in ter -cont inenta l imprinton our paternal-specif ic genomethan the regional signals l e f t inour mtDNA. One possible explanationfor th i s pattern is tha t males disperse more than females duringlong-range in ter -cont inenta l population movements while females may


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disperse more than males duringshort-range in tra-continentalmigrations.""If males and females do, in deed, exhibi t major differences inthe i r ancient population structureand demographic his tor ies , then wemight expect t races of these di f f erences to be preserved in theautosomal DNA record. Templeton's(1998) re-analysis of Harding e ta l . ' s (1997) B-globin data represents the only nested cladis t icanalysis of a human autosomal dataset . The deepest clade in the a-globin cladogram showed an out ofAfrica expansion; however, the800,000 year coalescence time forthe B-globin gene t ree makes itunlikely t ha t th i s range expansionhad anything to do with the out ofAfrica event detected by our Ychromosome data. On the other hand,th is time frame i s more concordantwith the sudden appearance of thepossibly African-derived Homo antecessor in Spain sometime before780,000 years ago ( . ) [Note: cfMT-28- HF]. Moving to less deepstructures, a l l the mid-level (2-step) clades gave strong evidencefor gene flow res t r ic ted via i so l ation by distance occurring morethan 200,000 years ago throughoutthe Old World. Final ly , two rangeexpansions were detected a t the 1-step clade level : (1) the aforementioned expansion from SoutheastAsia [s ic] back to Africa, and (2)an out of Africa expansion tha tinvolved the oldest haplotypes byoutgroup root ing, making the temporal framework of th i s expansionunclear ( i . e . , it may be a recentexpansion or the same one detecteda t higher levels in the cladegram).""This out of Africa expansionwas not a replacement event becauseit was nested within a 2-step cladecharacterized by gene flow re s t r i c ted via i solat ion by distance. Inorder to equate th i s out of Africaevent with the one detected in ourY chromosome data , one would have

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to argue tha t perhaps Eurasianmales were replaced but femaleswere not. This i s consistent withthe demographic picture from thenested cladis t ic analyses of mtDNAdata ( . . )where females show nosign of replacement and where geneflow rather than range expansion i sthe oldest inference. Therefore,the B-globin locus integratesaspects of both the mtDNA and Ychromosome analyses, and providessupport for the hypotheses ofcontrast ing male and femalepopulation structure and demographi c h i s tor ies . Because there i s ev i dence for res t r ic ted , recurrentgene flow throughout the Old Worldduring the ent i re his tory of anatomically modern humans, as well forrange expansions out of Africa>100,000 years ago, the nestedcladis t ic analysis resul t s fromthese three types of data conformwith genet ic predictions based onhuman orig in(s) models characterized by interbreeding between migrating and resident populations.Thus, the combined data add a newsex-specif ic component to the conceptual framework of both Brauer 's(1989) African Hybridization andReplacement model and of Smith,False t t i , and Donnelly's (1989)Assimilation model: the possibi l i tytha t the Old World female genet iccomplement was preserved by hybridizat ion , whereas the Eurasian malecomponent was replaced by African Ychromosomes."[Note: these two common terms arenot actually clear here. Eurasianrefers to pre-African Homo types,resident in Eurasia + Ocenia. OldWorld seems to mean a l l tha t +Africa. But t i s not cer tain. - - HF]

Since news of th i s paper cameout, many people have wondered howSteve 'n Mike's theory could beworked out or understood. One natural observation would be tha tmtDNA ought to show evidence of in breeding, gene flow from the Untermensch, but it doesn ' t seem to .


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MT-30Firs t Americans: Has 3-MigrationTheory been Falsif ied?While Stephen Zegura was joiningMike Hammer in proposing t he i r newtheory, discussed above, Steve wasinvolved indirect ly in anotherjournal, AJHG, by vir tue of h ispar t ic ipat ion in the originalAmerind theory of three separatemigrations to the New World, longknown as the Greenberg-ZeguraTurner theory. As you know, itaccounted for the Amerinds, NaDene, and Eskimaleuts by proposingthree migrations bearing us acrossthe Bering Stra i t s around Clovishorizon time - - 12th millennium BP.Mind you, Steve was not underat tack, nothing personal, but theimport of the AJHG a r t i c le is , infact , a refuta t ion of 3-migrationtheory. Well, maybe it i s .

Writing in the American Journal of Human Genetics 61:1413-1423,1997, Sandro L.Bonatto & FranciscoM. Salzano of Universidade Federaldo Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre,Brazil published "Diversi ty and Ageof the Four Major mtDNA Haplogroups, and Their Implications for thePeopling of the New World." TheirSummary is given forthwith:"Despite considerable invest igation, two main quest ions on theorigin of Native Americans remainthe topic of intense debate - namely, the number and time ofmigration(s) into the Americas.Using the 720 avai lable AmerindianmtDNA control-region sequences, wereanalyzed the nucleotide divers i tyfound within each of the four majormtDNA haplogroups (A-D) thought tohave been present in the colonizat ion of the New World. We f i r s t veri f ied whether the within-haplogroupsequence divers i ty could be used asa measure of the haplogroup's age.The pattern of shared polymorphism,the mismatch dis tr ibut ion, thephylogenetic t ree , the value of

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Tajima's D, and the computer simulat ions a l l suggested tha t the fourhaplogroups underwent a bott leneckfollowed by a large population expansion. The four haplogroup divers i t i e s were very similar to eachother, offering a strong supportfor t he i r s ingle or ig in . They suggested tha t the beginning of theNative Americans' ancestral-populat ion different ia t ion occurred- 30,000-40,000 years before thepresent (ybp). These values are ingood agreement with the New Worldsett lement model tha t we have presented elsewhere, extending theresu l ts in i t i a l ly found for haplogroup A to the three other majorgroups of mtDNA sequences found inthe Americas. These resu l ts put thepeopling of the Americas clear ly inan early pre-Clovis time frame."Before going on, we should add tot he i r conclusions t ha t they f ind nosupport a t a l l for the 100+ separate migrations required by thelogic of the usual Americanisttaxonomy - - with i t s 100+ phyla!I would suppose, a lbe i t withoutproof, tha t the biogenet ic is ts findthe notion of 100+ l inguist ic phylatoo ridiculous to comment upon.

Since more and more nowadayswe ask whose data was sampled andhow representat ive the sample was,we l i s t here the t r ibes ;e thnic i t ieswhich the i r study used, e i ther fromt he i r own f ie ld work or tha t of theothers ( l ike Ward, Torroni, andMerriwether). The donors were from:South America: Xavante, Zoro,Gaviao, Wai Wai, Surui , Mapuche,Yanomama, Wayampi, Kayapo, Arara,Katuena, Poturujara, Awa-Guaja,Tiriyo, Yanomami, Colombian mummiesCentral America: Huetar, Ngobe,Kuna. North America: Bella Coola,Haida, Yakima, Athapascan, @Nootka,Inupiaq & west Greenland Eskimo. : :Then we leave th is problem for biogenetic is ts to solve. Interest ing!


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@Nootka. They wrote the s i l ly nameNuu-Chah-Nulth which I refuse topublish. The people have been ca l l ed the Nootka fo r ages!In the i r Discussion a morenuanced, more prehis tory-or ientedargument is presented. Quoting:(p.1421) "In our previous study(Bonatto and Salzano 1997), usingmainly haplogroup A sequences, weconcluded t ha t those mtDNA datastrongly indicate t ha t a l l NativeAmericans originated from a singlecolonization event t ha t occurred inBeringia >22,000 ybp ago, possibly- 30,000-40,000 ybp. We suggested ascenario, based on Szathmary'sworks (e .g . , Szathmary 1993), inwhich the Native American ancestralpopulation se t t led in the Beringianlandmass during sometime before expanding. Eventually they crossedthe Alberta ice-free corridor andcolonized the r e s t of the Americancontinent. The collapse of tha tcorridor, -25,000-14,000 (Hoffeckere t al.1993) or - 30,000-11,000(Lemmen e t al.1994) ybp, i solatedthe people s t i l l l iving in Beringia , from whom originated the NaDene and Eskimos (with the i r reduced overal l mtDNA divers i ty); thosesouth of the ice sheets gave r i seto the Amerind-speaking peoples.The present resul t s for the fourmajor haplogroups' divers if ica t ionages agree very well with theseestimates. When only the meanvalues are considered, these est imates suggest a very ear ly date(-30,000-40,000 ybp) for thebeginning of the divers if ica t ion ofthe Native American ancestralpopulation, with a lower bound of-25,000 ybp.""At l eas t two types of evidencesupport the idea t ha t haplogroups'sequence dif fe ren t ia t ion probablybegan during Beringia 's sett lementand not in Asia before the colonization process: (1) our est imatesof 100 -fold ancient populationexpansion suggest t ha t the diversi f ica t ion began during an intensivecolonization process; and (2) i f

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the expansion had occurred somewhere else in Asia, then one shouldfind there sequences, with a l l markers for each haplogroup, a t a highnumber and frequency, similar tothe -90% frequency found in NativeAmericans; however, only the founding sequences for each haplogrouphave been found in Asia so far - and they have been found a t a verylow frequency (see Forster e t a l .1996; Kolaman e t a l . 1996; Bonattoand Salzano 1997). The few addi t i onal founding sequences for haplogroup A tha t have been suggested - in the Na-Dene and Eskimo (seeForster e t al.1996) - - are probablyderived ones and wil l be discussedelsewhere (authors ' unpublisheddata) ... As for Torroni e t a l ' s(1992,1994) hypothesis, our previous resul t s do not support the ideaof an independent Na-Dene migration( . . . ) , and our present analysesalso do not support t he i r suggestion of a more recent haplogroup Bmigration. Similarly, nei ther Horaie t a l ' s (1993) proposal of di f fe r ent migrations, -14,000-21,000 ybp,for each haplogroup nor the hypothes is of a Polynesian contributionfor haplogroup B sequences found inAmerica ( . . . )was supported. In anycase, Torroni e t a l ' s (1994) est imated average arr iva l date , -26,000-34,000 ybp, for the other threehaplogroups i s very close to oures t imates ( . . . ). In general , Forster e t a l ' s (1996) scenario for thepeopling of the Americas i s s imi larto tha t which we proposed( . ) .They postulated a single and earlyentry (>20,000 ybp) and suggestedtha t , although the Amerinds colonized a l l the cont inent and maintained the i r original divers i ty ,Beringians (Eskimo + Na-Dene) reduced the i r divers i ty , because of thecl imate 's deter iorat ion unt i l-11,000 ybp, a t which time they expanded to the i r present s ize .Forster e t a l also have presentedcoalescence ages for Native American haplogroups, using a data se tvery s imi lar to our HSV-I - - but


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MT-30very dif ferent methods - - to est ima te the haplogroups' age. Althoughthey did not calculate any CI[Note: Confidence Interval -HF] forthe i r age estimates, they suggested-20,000-25,000 ybp as the arr ivaltime for the Amerinds, which i snear our lower-bound estimates.Their haplogroup coalescence ages,however, are probably underestimates of the divers i f ica t ion timessince these populations ' entrancein the Americas, since they est imated the diversi ty values on thebasis of each haplogroup with eacht r ibe separately. Their resul t swould receive a strong influencefrom the recent demographic historyof each t r ibe , which would s ign i f i cantly change the ancient parameters tha t we are interested to es t i mate. A good example of th i s can beseen in the i r estimated age for theCentral American Amerinds, whichshowed a coalescence age lower thant ha t of the South Americans. Farfrom suggesting t ha t Central American Amerinds originated more recent ly than South American Amerinds,th is resul t only ref lec ts the reduced mtDNA diversi ty found in theChibcha groups, from which a l l Cent r a l American mtDNA sequences came.The Chibcha's reduced mtDNA diversi ty i s thought to have occurred because of recent events (Kolman e tal 1995)." End of quote.I t i s real ly not te r r ib ly bad newsfor ei ther Zegura, Greenberg orTurner. The guts of the i r proposalseems to remain. Again s ta t ing tha tbiogenetic dating i s not yet sooore l iable , s t i l l the Maginot Linearcheologists can get small comfortfrom the Brazi l ians ' paper!Yet Another 'Too Early ' Si teWell, just to add injury to insul t ,in the only terms the Maginot Linearcheologists seem to credi t , onemore excavation shows greater time

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depth than the Clovis hypothesiscan allow.As the headline in MammothTrumpet said in January 1998: "OHIOCAVE, SEALED SINCE ICE AGE, YIELDSDATA ON PALEO-AMERICANS." InSheriden cave which i s par t of acave system in Wyandot County,about 40 miles south of Lake Eriethe principal excavator, Kenneth B.Tankersley (Kent State U.), and alarge team found very r ich animalfoss i l s , many of ext inct species,plus human ar t i fac ts . "The area wasrepeatedly scoured by Pleistocene

glaciat ion, and was deglaciatedonly about 14,100 years ago." Theexcavator had believed tha t largecaves in Ohio, and indeed in theeastern United States , were emptyas fa r as Pleistocene finds wereconcerned. Now much more can bedone by looking in other caves.The foss i l animals included agiant long-kegged omnivore, theshort-faced bear (Arctodus simus);stag moose with forked ant lers(Cervalces sot t i ) ; giant beaver(Castoroides ohioensis) which gotup to 9 feet long; flat-headedpeccary (Platygonus compressus),wide-ranging American pig of thePleistocene; and caribou (Rangifertarandus). And many other kinds.At the human a r t i f ac t levels ,which lay below 30 feet of s te r i l esediment, dates for the range ofhuman ar t i fac ts ranged from -10,000to -13,000 BP by radio-carbon. Therange was not var iabi l i ty so muchas it was top to bottom layers. Thenearly 13,000 date was near bottom.

In tha t same January issue ofthe 'Strumpet Anne Roosevelt (FieldMuseum, Chicago) had a careful ,precise summary of Clovis dates,along with correct ions in them madeby various scholars . Her ar t ic lefound t ha t the Clovis horizon hasbeen dated too early; it should bela te r : circa 11,000 BP.


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Chimps Have the Brain for Syntax?Normally we leave the hardwarequestions about human languageorigins to the LOS folks . We do ab i t here and a dab there but notmuch systematical ly. In the newJournal, Issue I I I , we wil l do muchmore with our Symposium/Seminar orRound Table discussion of varioustheories of, basical ly , brain/mindand language. For the nonce therei s an in teres t ing new developmentwhich has caused a mild s t i r in thepress. I t ' s based on an ar t ic lewhich appeared in SCIENCE 279:220-2January 9, 1998. The t i t l e grabsyou r igh t away: "Asymmetry of Chimpanzee Planum Temporale: HumanlikeBrain Pattern of Wernicke's Language Area Homolog". An isomorphicl ink between our close re la t ivesand ourselves in one of the keylanguage (function) areas of thebrain. Wernicke's Area i s famous asthe area most l ike ly to be associated with the abi l i ty to decodeutterances and generate them tosend to Broca's Area where theywil l be pronounced.If syntax has ahome, Wernicke's Area is where itis a t . [Note: Pennsylvania usagefor where it i s located -HF]Author P.J.Gannon (Mount SinaiS.of M., New York), Ralph L. Holloway (Columbia U.) , Douglas c. Broadbent (C.U.NY), and Allen R. Braun(N.I.D.O.C.D., Bethesda, MD) haveth is abstrac t :"The anatomical pattern and l e f themisphere s ize predominance of theplanum temporale, a language areaof the human brain, are also present in chimpanzees (Pan t roglodytes) . The l e f t planum temporale wass ignif icantly larger in 94 percent(17 of 18) of chimpanzee brains examined. I t is widely accepted tha tthe planum temporale i s a key component of Wernicke's recept ive language area, which i s also implicated in human communication-relateddisorders such as schizophrenia andin normal var ia t ions such as musica l t a lent . However, anatomic hemi-

9

spheric asymmetry of th is cerebrocor t ica l s i te is clear ly not uniqueto humans, as is current ly thought.The evolutionary origin of humanlanguage may have been founded onth is basal anatomic substra te ,which was already la tera l ized tothe l e f t hemisphere in the commonancestor of chimpanzees and humans8 million years ago."Our colleague, Terrence Deaconadvised tha t th i s a r t i c le not bepublished because the planum tempora le i s a red herring; it misleadsus. Many more of Terry 's ideas wil lappear in the Journal. For now,however, it i s good to partake ofthe r ich discussion in the a r t i c le .Quoting now:" T h e most parsimonious assumpt ion t ha t may be made, however, i stha t the PT was already la te ra l izedanatomically to the l e f t hemispherein the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans about 8 millionyears ago. Within th is evolutionaryscenario, however, several dis t inc tevolutionary hypotheses are embedded." "Fi rs t , tha t the asymmetric PTin the common ancestor was unrela t ed to language or communicativefunctions but l a te r became coaptedto subserve the unique form ofhuman language. Conversely, the PTdid not evole a functional role incommunication-related tasks in thechimpanzee lineage and is current lyinvolved with some other function.""Second, tha t the ancest ra l ,asymmetric PT was involved withcommunication-related functions,which then followed disparate evolutionary t ra jec tor ies during thesubsequent dif fe ren t ia t ion of thechimpanzee and human l ineages. Because both of these discre te funct iona l t ra jec tor ies were founded ona communication-related basal neura l framework, they gave r i se to theunique and dis t inc t forms of humanand chimpanzee ' language' over thesubsequent 8 million years . Withinth is hypothetical framework, chimpanzees would possess the neural


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MT-30substrate for 'chimpanzee language ' , which may be mediated throughuse of a subtle ' ges tura l -v isua l 'mode we have to understand be t te r . .Many studies have supported th i sspeculative notion based on the extraordinary and diverse cognit iveabi l i t ies and purported prel inguist i c capaci t ies of chimpanzee . . ""Third, it may be tha t the PTwas never, and currently i s not,re la ted direct ly to language orcommunicative functions in e i therhumans . or chimpanzees. Instead,the PT may be involved with yet tobe understood or tangential funct ions tha t are also local ized tothe PT in the l e f t hemisphere andtha t may even be common to bothspecies. This l a t t e r in terpre ta t ionwould characterize the PT in humans , a brain region t ha t current dogma mandates to be a key sub-stra tefor language and other re la ted funct ions , as an epiphenomenon."" I t is less l ike ly t ha t the PTwas symmetric in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees andthen became la tera l ized to the l e f themisphere in both l ineages independently, because th is would involvehomoplasy, tha t i s , separate evolut ionary processes acting in parall e l . Furthermore, evidence from SF[Note: Sylvian f issure -HF] lengthin another l iving hominoid species,the orangutan, which have shared acommon ancestor with humans around12 million years ago, also indicates tha t the PT was already asymmet r i c and la te ra l ized to the l e f themisphere a t th i s much ea r l i e rtime point . For th is reason, itwould be ins truct ive to fur thercharacterize th i s region in theclosely re la ted bonobo (Pan paniscus) as well as the other greatapes and lesser apes.""Regardless of i t s putat ivefunctional role in communication orlanguage tasks , the anatomic subs t ra te of the PT appears to havehad a long evolutionary history

10

within the cerebral cortex of a tl eas t hominoid primates. Whetherthe PT represents the functionalsubstrate of a species-specif iccommunication-related behavior inchimpanzees i s currently not known.I t has been suggested, however,tha t cognit ive and communicativeab i l i t i e s may have co-evolvedduring hominid evolution . . . Withinth is theoret ica l framework, itseems reasonable to hypothesizetha t the PT (which was alreadyasymmetric and l ike ly modally equipotent ia l in the common ancestor)further evolved independently tosubserve the species-speciic reperto i res tha t character ize human andchimpanzee communication andcognition."Brandt Crit ic izes Luca's HGHGIn a paper read a t the annual meetings of the American Anthropologica l Association th i s past Fal l ,Stephen Brandt (U/Florida) tookL.L. Cavall i-Sforza to task overputative deficiencies in the giantbook, called HGHG in our publications. Speaking as an archeologistand Africanis t , and a specia l i s t inthe Horn of Africa, Steve l i s tedthese faul ts of Luca's giant opus:(1) HGHG used so-cal led populationswhich dif fered grea t ly by content ,as t r ibes , pooled ethnic groups, orgroups of languages.(2) HGHG chose 7 ' popula t ions ' torepresent the many different groupsfound in the Horn, but not a goodsample. Too much lumping.(3) Cluster analysis produced somebloopers, l ike Somali & Khoisan!(4) HGHG t r i es to explain intermedi a te posit ion of Ethiopians betweenNear Eastern and Negroid peoples byinvoking Arab + Negroid migrantsmeeting and mixing + residentKhoisaners (Bushmen) in Horn early.(5) Khoisan substrate unacceptable;no archeology to back it up.{6) Bad business of rac ia l labels .


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Is a 50/50 Correlation Good?In the long quiet discussionof the correlat ion between genesand languages, or more properlybiogenetic taxonomies versus genetic taxonomies in l inguis t ics , mostof the evidence has been suppliedby Cavalli-Sforza or his studentsand/or colleagues. Make no doubtabout it - - th i s discussion i st ruly worth our while.But one key question has become sa l ient : how much of an associat ion is there between the two?Especially when we already knowtha t the null hypothesis (r = 0) isuntenable because too many cases ofhigh correlat ion exis t . And we knowtha t r 1.00 or 100%, provingfa lse because there are too manycases of low correlat ion. You wantexamples? Okay, Eskimo languages &genes is almost a case of r = 1.0,yet English languages & genes i sfa r from a case of r = 1.00, especi a l ly in North America. I f we counted cases of pidgins & creoles, wecould bring it down to r = 0.02 orsuch. We could turn the whole thinginto ni tpicker ' s del ight and hire a

bunch of l inguists to worry a t theproblem for the next century. Butthe key question for prehistoriansreal ly i s the one posed by Luca andh is colleagues. Thinking in largergenetic uni ts wil l t e l l us muchmore about prehistory than tryingto find precision for individuallanguages. Modern English l inks upwith a remarkable heterogeneity inbodies, but look a t the taxon towhich English belongs, as my fa therput i t : "a mass of f laxen-hairedbarbarians", the Teutonic peoples.The l a tes t e f for t to f ind outhow workable it a l l i s and to f indsome correlat ion to home in on hasbeen made by a group of Latins a tMusee de l'HommejGeneva, Pavia, andCalabria. Twas a major a r t i c l e , appearing in AJHG 61:1015-35, 1997and preceded by an invited edi toria l by Barbujani. The t i t l e : "Human

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Genetic Affini t ies for Y-ChromosomeP49a,fjTaql Haplotypes Show StrongCorrespondence with Linguist ics".The authors were E.S.Poloni , O.Seino, G.Passarino, A.S.SantachiaraBenerecetti , I.Dupanloup, A.Langaney, and L. Excoffier . A strong andexperienced group of sc ient i s t s !Their Summary:"Numerous population samples fromaround the world have been testedfor Y chromosome-specific p49a,f/Taqi res t r ic t ion polymorphisms.Here we review the l i t e ra ture aswell as unpublished data on Y chromosome p49a,fjTaqi haplotypes andprovide a new nomenclature unifyingthe notations used by differentlaborator ies . We use th i s largedata se t to study worldwide geneticvar iabi l i ty of human populationsfor th is paternally transmittedchromosome segment. We observe, forthe Y chromosome, an importantlevel of population genetic s t ruc t ure among human populations (FaT =.230, P


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MT-30maternal and paternal contributions to the gene pool of several populations". [End quote] I have received permission from AJHG to write a l e t t e r ,protest ing some of the i r serious l inguist ic and prehis tor ic mistakes.

OBITUARYA long ranger of considerable stature, a contr ibuter to glossogonics, and afine anthropologist has died. Our valued colleague, Gordon W.Hewes, hasl e f t a big hole in our ranks. Whether someone can f i l l the empty spaceremains to be seen, but we can a t l eas t mourn the loss and celebrate hisl i f e . While Roger Wescott has writ ten two obi tuar ies , to be published inother journals, we decided t ha t it was unseemly for us to copy what hewrote for them. Roger's eulogy of his good friend can be found in ISCSC andLOS publications.The following obituary was writ ten by Duane Quiatt , Professor ofAnthropology, University of Colorado: (home address) 835, 7th Stree t ,Boulder 80302, Colorado, USA :" Gordon W.Hewes, an anthropologist whose in teres t s embraced and extendedwell beyond anthropology's t radi t ional four subdisciplines (archaeology,ethnology, l inguis t ics , and physical anthropology), died a t age 80 inBoulder, Colorado on 22 November 1997. Hewes, in his teaching as well as,more prominently, in his research and writ ing, provided something l ike aone-man jus t i f ica t ion of anthropology's claim as a ' ho l i s t i c ' approach tothe sc ient i f ic explanation of human behavior. As scholar and sc ien t i s t hewas, in th is respect , i f not the only show in town, certa inly one of themain shows, and he will be sorely missed.""Born in San Francisco on 29 October 1917, Hewes earned degrees inAnthropology (A.B.1938, Ph.D. 1947) a t uc Berkeley. His graduate educationwas interrupted by World War I I , during which he served in Washington, D.C.as geographer with the oss and, for a year, the Department of the In ter ior .This duty enabled him to renew early interests in orienta l studies and inJapanese and Chinese languages and cul tures , which developed into acontinuing concern for the comparative study of civi l iza t ion (1959, 1961).In the l a s t decades of his l i fe Hewes focused th is in teres t on the 7thcentury, a period which he saw as of part icular importance for the r i se andefflorescence of world re l ig ions , consequently for cross- fer t i l i za t ion ofculture elements l inked with Buddhism, Islam, and Chris t iani ty .""Hewes's teachers a t Berkeley included, notably, Robert Lowie andA.L.Kroeber. His doctoral disserta t ion, a study of pre- and post-contactfishing in native American populations of western North America (1942), wasbased on both ethnological and archaeological fieldwork, a combination lessfrequently observed in these days of special ty t ra ining. Meticulouslydocumented, in a manner tha t Hewes's colleagues and students would come torecognize of h is work, th is early study continues to provide baseline datafor research on f isheries in the west.""After the War Hewes taught for shor t s t in t s a t the University of NorthDakota (1946-49) and the University of Southern California (1949-1951)before se t t l ing in , following a year as Visit ing Lecturer (1951-52), to a

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career of teaching a t the University of Colorado, Boulder, where heremained unt i l retirement in 1988, with continuing appointment thereaf terof Professor Emeritus. I t can hardly be said, however, tha t Gordon Hewes' remained' in any one place. He held two appointments abroad as FulbrightVisit ing Lecturer, in Japan (1955-56, Keio University and Tokyo KyoikuUniversity) and in Peru (1960, University of San Marcos, Lima); he servedas Visit ing Lecturer for shorter periods a t the University of Ibadan,Nigeria (1968) and a t International Christian University, Mitaka, Tokyo(Summer, 1977); and he gave occasional lectures a t other univers i t ies whiletraveling in Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and, of course, the Americas.Travel , always in company with his wife, Minna, was an important par t ofGordon Hewes's l i f e . He was an enthusiast ic and a seasoned t rave l le r . Thatnoted, it must be emphasized tha t he was, f i r s t of a l l , a broadlyaccomplished anthropologist who pursued anthropology as an eclect ic and asynthesizing discipl ine . The t ravel , then, was less for s ight-seeing thanfor s i te v i s i t s , ethnographic observations, l inguis t ic exercises, andcomparative examination of, e .g . , postural habi ts , gestural communicativepract ices , and behavioral customs around the world - - as well as,increasingly, sc ient i f ic interchange with colleagues from other lands andother discipl ines a t internat ional congresses and symposia. Anthropology,for many anthropologists, provides a fine excuse for t ravel . For Hewes,more than for most, it const i tuted the essent ia l reason.""Hewes had directed f ie ld excavations and archaeological surveys as agraduate student in California (1941) and, subsequently, in archaeologicalf ield schools tha t he ran during summers a t the Universi ty of North Dakota(1949). In Colorado, he secured sponsorship from the Department of Stateand the National Science Foundation for a 3-year project of archaeologicalexcavations a t Wadi Halfa, Republic of Sudan, thus in i t ia t ing the f i r s t ofseveral salvage operations conducted there by University of Coloradoarchaeologists, physical anthropologists , and paleontologists . Hewesdirected excavations in 1962-63 (1964) and was instrumental in extendingthe project over seasons to follow. However, around th i s time he began toconcentrate his research and writ ing (thought by no means exclusively) onissues of human biocul tural evolution, issues to which archaeologicalresearch was not as immediately important as was integration of knowledgefrom physical anthropology, ethnology, l inguis t ics , neurobiology,primatology, and comparative studies of animal behavior more general ly.""Chief among these issues i s , of course, the origin and evolution oflanguage. His most recent publicat ion, "A History of the study of languageorigins and the gestural primacy hypothesis" (1996), reviews a f ield ofbroadly in terdisc ipl inary studies which Hewes himself was in no small par tresponsible for reopening and developing for serious sc ient i f icinvestigation, performing the necessary archival work (1975) and set t ingstandards of research and theory formulation (consistently empirical andbroadly synthetic) in a ser ies of publications beginning in the 1970s.Readers of Mother Tongue wil l be famil iar with Gordon's work in th i s area(e .g . , 1973a,b, 1976, 1977, e tc . ) , perhaps as well with ear l ie r papers tha tbear only less direct ly on the subject (e .g . , 1955, 1961}. 11"In short , we have los t a general anthropologist whose 200 publicationsrange widely and informatively across anthropology, l inguis t ics , and othersc ient i f ic discipl ines . Many of them const i tute major integrat ivecontributions to knowledge, and not a few, part icular ly in the realm of

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MT-30language origins theory, have proved f6undational .""Hewes is survived by h is wife, Minna Winestine Hewes, whom he married in1939 and who proved a steady companion and close in tel lectual confidantethroughout his l i f e . A celebrat ion of tha t l i fe i s in planning for Spring,1998, by the Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado.""Contributions in Hewes's honor can be made to : The Goril la Foundation,P.O.Box 620-530, Woodside, CA 94062 or to Friends of Washoe, CentralWashington Universi ty, Ellensburg, WA 98926.""References1941 Reconnaisance of the Central San Joaquin Valley. American Antiquity7:123-133.1942 Economic and geographical relat ions of aboriginal f ishing inNorthern California. California Fish and Game 23(2): 13-110.1949 Burial mounds in the Baldhill area, North Dakota. American Antiquity

14: 322-328.1955 World dis tr ibut ion of cer ta in postural habi ts . AmericanAnthropologist 57: 231-234.1956 Food t ransport and the origin of hominid bipedalism. AmericanAnthropologist 63: 687-710.1959 World ethnographies and cul tural-his tor ical syntheses. AmericanAnthropologist 61: 615-630.1961 The Ecumene as a civi l izat ion mult ipl ier system. Kroeber MemorialVolume, Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, No.25: 73-110.1964 Gezira Dabarosa: Report of the University of Colorado Nubianexpedit ion. ~ (Khartoum) 12: 174-187.1973a An expl ic i t formulation of the re la t ionship between tool-using,and the emergence of language. Visible Language 7(2): 101-127.1973b Primate communication and the gestural origin of language.Current Anthropology 14: 5-24.1975 Language origins: A bibliography. The Hague. 2 vol . , 2nd ed. , rev.1976 The current s ta tus of the gestural theory of language origins . InS.Harnad, H.Steklis , and J.Lancaster, eds . , Origins and evolutionof language and speech. pp.482-405 [s ic] . Annals of the New YorkAcademy of Sciences, vol.80.1977 Language origin theories . In D.M.Rumbaugh, ed. , Language learningby a chimpanzee: The LANA project , pp.S-35 (Chapter 1) .1996 A history of the study of language origins and the gesturalprimacy hypothesis. In A.Lock and c. Peters , eds . , Handbook of humansymbolic evolution, pp.571-596. Oxford: Clarendon Press. "[End of Quia t t ' s obituary of Gordon w. Hewes]

We can publish some remarks Roger Wescott made about Hewes in a personall e t t e r in November, 1997. Quoting now: "Dear Hal,A week ago, the International Society for the Comparative Study ofCivi l izat ions, the Language Origins Society, and the Association for theStudy of Language in Prehistory los t one of the i r most valued members - Gordon Winant Hewes, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology a t the Universityof Colorado in Boulder.Since Gordon and I have been fr iends, colleagues, and collaboratorsfor nearly forty years, I wil l , with your permission, submit a remembrance14


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MT-30Discussions were frequently spir i ted and vigorous. Here are some of myimpressions from the workshop, by way of my very personal rea l i ty f i l t e r :Fleming: There is a major dichotomy in current approaches to language

origins and evolution: (a) "The Deductive Way," dominated by neuro-anatomy,some l inguis t ics (mostly synchronic, Transformational-Generative), evolut ionary psychology, and the "hardware" of language; and (b) "The InductiveWay," associated with his tor ica l l inguis t ics and paleo-l inguist ics , archaeology, biogenetics , and the "software" of language. The (a) group or schoolis mainly associated with the Language Origins Society (LOS), the (b)school with the Association for the Study of Language In Prehistory(ASLIP), though of course there i s some overlap of the two memberships.Ruhlen: "The Emerging Synthesis" (mainly group 'b ' in Fleming'sanalysis) is leading to the ins ight t ha t there was a very s ignif icant eventor t rans i t ion around 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, which is most clear ly seenin stone tools . Something happened to dramatically a l te r the "style" ofhuman act iv i ty , and t ha t event was probably the development of modernlanguage - - "Mother Tongue". Only because the event was so recent , we cans t i l l find t races of th is Mother Tongue in modern and recorded languages.Wang: Besides the dichotomy between "Apollonians" ( logical ,analyt ical , dispassionate) and the "Dionysians" ( in tui t ive , synthetic,passionate), there can be a th i rd way, the "Odysseans, combining the bestfrom both ways in the quest for new ideas.Dolgopolsky: Opposes the separation of Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic),Kartvelian and Dravidian from the re s t of Nostrat ic. In response to Ruhlen& Greenberg's "Euroasiat ic Cognates," Dolgopolsky provided a l i s t ofproposed cognates aiming to show t ha t "Eurasiat ic" words are found in theother three families as well .Bernhard: Outlined his current findings on the dispersal of Nostrat iclanguages, the l a te r dispersals of Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European, andt he i r in terre la t ionships with the spread of agr icul ture .Bengtson: Offered resu l ts of recent research on the Dene-Caucasianmacro-family; morphological and lexical .Starost in : Presented his remarkable STARLING computer program fororganizing lexical material . Starost in has also masses of his own lexicalcol lec t ions avai lable on the In ternet : Altaic, Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan,etc . For more information, check the web a t [ s tar l ing. r ine t . ru] or e-maila t [starl ing@rinet . ru] .In sum, I thought th is was a very valuable workshop. I t assembled agood representat ion of dif fe ren t views on approaches to l inguis t icprehistory. Like Rice University (1986) and Ann Arbor (1988), th is was ameeting tha t wil l produce resul ts for many years to come.

Fleming wrote a l e t t e r to many of the par t ic ipants and some others tot e s t the i r agreement with a scheme he had worked out. Nobody responded,save Merri t t Ruhlen, and he disagreed with most of the ideas. So th i sscheme represents an unsupported but once opposed way of looking a t thepar t ic ipants of ASLIP type a t the conference plus some sa l ient other typesfrom the world of his tor ica l l inguis t ics a t large.He presents it here in order to get ~ feedback, in the be l ie f tha tth is scheme stands close to the t ruth about the s tra tegies and t ac t ics ofus ' software ' types. In br ief , it is a kind of epistemological analysis ,aimed a t basic assumptions, things s t ressed, things neglected or scorned.16

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Dramatis personae are: Joseph Greenberg (JHG), Merrit t Ruhlen (MR),Aharon Dolgopolsky (AD), Sergei Starost in (SS), John D.Bengtson (JDB)andAllan R. Bombard (ARB). These acronyms are to help identify ourselves onthe char t below. In addit ion we throw in Hal Fleming (HF), Marvin LionelBender (MLB), PaulK. Benedict (PK), Morris Swadesh (MS), Edward Sapir(ES), your average Americanist (YAAM), your typical Indo-Europeanist(YTIE), and typical Afrasianists of the 1970s (TAA) who contrast sharplywith the Muscovite school. Is idor Dyen & Paul Black are (Dyen). The severeenemies of JHG are Campbell, Kaufman, and Goddard (CKG).The chart which follows i s an effor t to segregate and separate thebasic epistemic approaches of the several kinds of long rangers and someother var ie t ies of his tor ica l l inguis t s . No scheme i s championed here,leas t of a l l HF's which is atypical . Rather we seek to mark out more clearly the s imi lar i t ies and differences among us and others to help find thebases of our confl icts with each other and with the nincompoop l inguis t s .The l e f t - r igh t dimension or abscissa (symbol x) shows the regular use,or will ingness to use, lexicos ta t i s t ics and beyond t ha t glottochronology,ent i rely lexicon-based cognate counts. The difference between the two, nowpart ly established in American usage, is not accepted by the Muscovites - apparently. or a t leas t t ha t became evident in discussions with SS. So, onthe extreme l e f t there i s no use of lexicos ta t i s t ics , while on the extremer ight there i s fu l l use of both techniques.

The up-down dimension or ordinate (symbol y) shows the preference forreconstruct ion andjor s t r i c t sound laws, as opposed to a preference fortaxonomy, class i f ica t ion before reconstruct ion. Now there i s anotherdimension which we cannot get on the char t which would show a marked preference for grammatical/morphological evidence as opposed to lexical . MostSemiticists and many Aryanologists would be affected by th is addit ionalfactor . In order to use it a t a l l we put it on the y-axis as a mid pointbetween taxonomy and reconstruct ion 1 That i s not sat isfactory, as youknow, but it may be useful . There i a difference between most Semiticistsand most Americanists. Let Robert Hetzron (HETZ) stand for the Semit ic is tdominant tendency. Ehret stands for Christopher Ehret of U.C.L.A.The two dimensions which govern the char t do DQt cover one mostimportant at t r ibute of us 8 long rangers, to wit, boldness & courage.(Choose whichever you prefer) . The dimensions on the char t do not, therefore, cover the thing which most separates long rangers from shor t rangers.Moreover, the absence of boldness as a dimension dis tor ts Dolgopolsky'strue posit ion, as Ruhlen pointed out , which i s much closer to JHG.There are some surprises , i f there i s t ruth in the chart . (1) Aharon isquite dis t inc t from other long rangers but much l ike JHG's enemies. (2) PKcame out close to Sapir, his teacher: both scored high on the ordinatebecause they were taxonomic innovators but did want sound correspondences.(3 ) Allan and John are close yet th is derives from different influences:the one from YTIE and the other from the Muscovites. (4 ) HF and MLB showthe in tersect ing influences of JHG, MS, and Dyen. (5 ) TAA may surprise you.Few Afrasianists used Indo-European methods in the 1970s: AD came as a

1 Jus t to keep the record s t ra ight . Although some colleagueshave implied t ha t they thought of it f i r s t , HF invented thedichotomy of "taxonomy versus reconstruction" in 1987 a f te r theMichigan conference. Twas published in MOTHER TONGUE too, 1987.17


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MT-30surprise to most of them and was resis ted by Semit icists! (6) JHG should beeven closer to Sapir because of the i r strong mutual respect for grammaticalanalyses. (7) Ehret used ad hoc glottochronology, not Swadesh's.

A ROUGH EPISTEMIC ARRAY OF HISTORICAL LINGUISTS---------------------------------------------------------------------------T MSAX0 MR.N HF0 JHG TAA MLBMyHyper-Morph- HETZologyR ESE PKc Dyen0 JDBN ARBs ssT EhretRucT YAAMI YTIE0 CKGN AD

No! < - - - Lexicostat is t ics + /- Glottochronology - > Yes!Everyone knows t ha t th is i s not a picture of God's Truth, but le t us seehow much agreement we can get on the general outl ines.

Some fascinating things can also be reported. Perhaps f i r s t to mentionwas the marked moiety division of the workshop into the Dionysian seeminghistor ical l inguists on a side of a great table and the Apollonian naturalscience types on tother s ide. AD exemplified the passion of the histor ianside, although HF and SS contributed s ignif icant amounts of t ha t marveloussubstance from time to t ime. But the cool high-tech folks showed an abi l i tyto generate passion, especial ly in Zegura's astute cr i t ique of the remarkable ways in which his tor ica l l inguists approached problems. But mostfrequently the natural sc ien t i s t cum mathematician sorts were confused, o ftdumbfounded, by how the induct ive, highly empirical heads on our side ofthe table worked. I t was l ike C.P.Snow's Two Cultures, except t ha t our sideobjected, and yes passionately, tha t we were sc ient is ts . At one point ADand SS angri ly insis ted tha t the high-tech folks qui t t rying to run 'ourscience ' .The whole experience could not have fai led to impress an ethnographeror some ' neut ra l ' observer t ha t th is was not a homogeneous group of

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sc ient is ts - - a t a minimum - - and tha t with patience and good will somewould come to appreciate the others ' resul ts and the strange ways the i rheads worked. Some would not , thus departing scornful of the other s ide .I t should also be reported tha t the American long rangers , or a t leas tHF, were most impressed with the high intel l igence and remarkable memory

for data, including fas t re t r ieva l , displayed by the two Russians, AD andss. Other long rangers will appreciate t ha t much mending of fences tookplace too. Not jus t good wil l . Both Muscovites are back in ASLIP again.Together we are stronger now. I t has been a long decade waiting to regainwhat we star ted out with in 1986. Our ain wee Cold War did indeed wound us!A good time was had by a l l . Thank you, Murray and Merri t t !THE MEMBERSHIP (PERMITTED) LISTProfessor Dr. Giorgio Banti wished to make sure tha t his name was added tothe 'Permitted ' l i s t . Accidentally, he had not been l i s ted before. HisRoman address is : Giorgio Banti, Vile del Vignola 73, 00196 Roma, I ta ly .

An updated l i s t of The GOOD GUYS of 1997 who are:Miguel Aguirre-Martinez 1 ESA, The NetherlandsPietro Bagliet to 1 Genova, I ta l i at Paul K. Benedict 1 Ormond Beach, Florida, USAMartin Bernal 1 Cornell UniversityL.L. Cavall i-Sforza 1 Stanford UniversityGyula Decsy 1 Indiana UniversityRonald Christensen 1 Lincoln, Mass., USARobert Eckert 1 Grosse Pointe Park, MI, USABruce El l io t t 1 Sudbury, Ontario, CanadaFrederick c. Gamst 1 University of MassachusettsGene Gragg 1 University of ChicagoKenneth Hale 1 Massachusetts Ins t i tu te of TechnologyThomas J . Hinnebusch IU. of California @ Los AngelesGrover Hudson 1 Michigan State UniversityMarta Mirazon Lahr 1 Universidade de Sao PaoloSydney Lamb 1 Rice UniversityBernd Lambert 1 Cornell UniversityWinfred P. Lehman 1 University of TexasSaul Levin 1 State University of New York, BinghamtonPhil ip Lieberman 1 Brown UniversityFrank B. Livingstone 1 University of MichiganJean Lydall 1 Melle, GermanyVictor H. Mair 1 University of PennsylvaniaD. Andrew Merriwether 1 University of MichiganKazutake Miyahara 1 Uji Kyoto, JapanDuncan Murray 1 Temple City, CaliforniaCraig Oehme 1 Nevada City, CaliforniaJ . Joseph Pia 1 Rochester, New YorkWolfgang Schenkel 1 Oniversi tat TubingenJan Vansina 1 University of WisconsinPaul Whitehouse 1 London, England

I t i s a pleasure to be associated with such a group of good people. We canonly thank you-al l sincerely for saving our common enterprise!

Mother Tongue Newsletter 30 (Winter 1997)

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Transcript of Mother Tongue Newsletter 30 (Winter 1997)