Subject: Re: bottle gourd domestication/diffusion

From: [email-masked] (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 19:55:37 GMT

Peter van Rossum ([email-masked]) wrote:

[Yuri:]
: >I merely wish to point out here that the human-assisted transmission of
: >the sweet potato is _the hypothesis_ that has the support of the _majority
: >opinion_ among the specialists in the field. That's all. We have already
: >gone over this area in detail with Peter van Rossum. 

: From our past
: discussions, I thought we were in agreement that if the Sweet Potato arrived
: in Polynesia prior to the 16th century (and I think at present there's 
: sufficient evidence to support such an interpretation), there are two major 
: possibilities.  The Sweet Potato might have been transmitted by transoceanic
: human voyages OR it might have been transmitted by a natural dispersal.

: You tend to the human-asssisted hypothesis based on the fact that you believe
: a natural dispersal to have been too unlikely to be worth considering, I lean
: to the natural dispersal because I see no good artifactual evidence of South
: American/Polynesian contact.

: So we're at an impasse, and neither interpretation can at present be 
: discounted on the basis of the dispersal of the Sweet Potato alone. 
: Please let me know if you disagree with this conclusion.

This is a fair summary. Yet you have not suggested a likely mechanism for
such a natural dispersal. I have started a new thread where I come back to
this discussion. 

Best,

Yuri.
--
           **    Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto   **
  -- a webpage like any other...  http://www.io.org/~yuku  --
 
Most of the evils of life arise from man's being 
unable to sit still in a room    ||    B. Pascal

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From: [email-masked] (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: 25 Nov 1996 19:50:44 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:

: Don't hide behind semantics.

OK.

: Here is what you wrote:

: Diffusion of Lagenaria is _only one_ of the great
: many pieces of evidence for across-the-ocean human contacts in earliest
: antiquity. The across-the-Pacific diffusion of the sweet potato _ipomoea
: batatas_ is the best evidence for human assisted diffusion, it seems. It
: is native to the Americas, and was found across the Pacific in
: pre-Columbian times.

: The first sentence is a clear statement of "evidence"! No "seems" etc.

Of course it's evidence! What else is it?

: The second sentence states also the "is the best evidence".
: The way you tag the "it seems" at the end does not really
: convey that this is not "real" evidence but mere speculation.
: As a matter of fact, "it seems" in your sentence could simply mean that
: the sweat-potato seems to be the best evidence, in contrast
: to perhaps corn, or something else.

And I never claimed I have complete and total "proof". Which is what I'm
trying to point out to you...

[Yuri:]
: > I merely wish to point out here that the human-assisted transmission of
: > the sweet potato is _the hypothesis_ that has the support of the _majority
: > opinion_ among the specialists in the field. That's all. We have already
: > gone over this area in detail with Peter van Rossum. 

: Where do you get the fact from. 

>From  the scholarly literature. We've been through this with Peter
already...

: You have cited a few
: sources,  that does't make it the majority.  I am sure
: 90% of archeologists would state that human-assisted transmission
: is not the majority-supported hypothesis. 

Thomas, you obviously missed the discussion I had with Peter. I suggest
you go back to the old posts and read them. I am talking about the
majority of the _botanists_ who dealt with this matter (not that many
botanists have dealt with this matter).

: Given how
: often you state that you don't have time to go to the library
: to read up material, how can you make such factless statements.

I cannot do your work for you, Thomas. If I went to the library for every
quibble that anyone throws at me, I'd have to sleep and eat in the
library. And the libraries at the U of T do not allow food in the stacks!
<grin>

By the way, see my further comments about plant diffusion in a new thread 
in these groups.

Regards,

Yuri.

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From: "Paul E. Pettennude" <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Nov 1996 21:31:37 GMT

Any plant which can germinate without human assistance can not be
considered as such because both its arrival and planting are suspect.  You
need a plant like maize/corn which can only be grown with human
intervention in quantities (larger than that with a bird might propigate). 
Once you've got such a plant you can point to diffusion.  You also need to
research the other plants to determine their ability to remain
suspended/floating in salt water for "x" period of time.  Coconut, gourds,
etc. can float for weeks and wind up on some tropical shore and grow.  The
same goes for yams.  I doubt that any of you out there are "country boys". 
My grandmother, bless her heart, was from the southern state of Alabama. 
Yams are a big consumable there.  I can tell you from personal experience. 
It's almost impossible to kill off yams once they've started to grow
(without herbicides).  Just drop one on the ground and in a week the damn
thing is growing.

Paul Pettennude

Peter van Rossum <[email-masked]> wrote in article
<[email-masked]>...
> In article <[email-masked]>
[email-masked] writes:
> >> There's a long list of other plants that have been suggested as
evidence. 
> >> Cotton, peanuts, yam, plantain, taro, coconut, calabash, maize,
> >> grain-amaranths, and others. The degrees of certainty for each vary. 
> >> 
> >> Yuri.
> >
> >I know the paper in Nature that shows something like a
> >maize cob on in the hand of a goddess in India.
> >Unfortunatly, nobody ever cites the reply a few issues
> >later, which shows other statues, where it becomes clear
> >that the item that they hold in the hand is not a maize cob.
> >In addition, there is no historic, nor archeological record
> >of any maize in India before the Conquest.
> >
> >Thomas
> 
> While we're at it I think we can also strike the coconut,  the bottle
gourd,
> and cotton off the list as good indicators of human contact.  
> 
> The coconut is emimently capable of having been naturally dispersed.
> 
> The bottle gourd is also a good candidate for natural dispersal (see
Yuri's 
> website for data by Mr. Baker on this).  Given that the bottle gourd has
> been found in the New World in levels dating back to at least 7000 B.C.
we've
> got two possibilities: 1. it was naturally dispersed, or 2. it was
dispersed 
> by transoceanic voyagers by 7000 B.C.  I don't know which seems more
> plausible to you but without solid supporting artifactual evidence of
contact 
> by 7000 B.C. I see no reason to rely on humans as the primary mechanism.
> 
> In the past cotton was used as a good indicator of Old/New World contacts

> because New World tetraploid cottons was formed by the cross-breeding of
> an Old *and* and New World variety.  Again cotton can be naturally 
> dispersed and recent genetic mapping indicates that this Old/New World
> hybridization event took place some 1-2 Million Years Ago (Wendel 1989). 
I 
> think evenYuri will concede that this is too early for human
intervention, so
> a natural dispersal is the much more plausible scenario.
> 
> As for the other plants Yuri lists I do not at present have the time to
look 
> into them (end of semester and all) but I will over Christmas break if no
one
> else has.
> Peter van Rossum
> [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date: 26 Nov 1996 16:56:48 GMT

Paul E. Pettennude ([email-masked]) wrote:

: You also need to
: research the other plants to determine their ability to remain
: suspended/floating in salt water for "x" period of time.  Coconut, gourds,
: etc. can float for weeks and wind up on some tropical shore and grow.

Paul,

I have a question for you and others. We know the coconut was native to
the Old World (most likely India). So why, at Columbus' arival, so few
coconuts were growing in the New World (mostly in the relatively narrow
area of Columbia's Pacific coast)? If the diffusion was natural, i.e.
non-human-assisted, they should have been all over the tropical America,
right? (Of course we are all aware how important was/is coconut as a
sorce of food for native peoples.) 

On the other hand, the proponents of the human-assisted hypothesis
suggest that the arrival of coconut was quite late historically, and thus
its spread did not proceed very far by the time of Columbus. Makes more
sense to me...

Yours,

Yuri.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 26 Nov 96 14:37:11 MET

> Of course it's evidence! What else is it?

Well, seems that it is my turn now of accusing you of not
knowing English:
evidence: from Webster's dictionary
something that furnishes proof, indication

So, you say that lagenaria is one of the great many pieces
that furnishes proof for contact.
Obviously, you are mixing this totally up:
the evidence is:  Lagenaria is in Polynesia, an
undisputed fact, since there are C14 dates of around 900 AD,
if I remember correctly (way to late for the Olmecs, by the way).
This fact is not evidence for human contact, since
other alternatives have been presented.
As a matter of fact, the following facts exist:
 the
 seeds are viable for more than 20 years; they are hard and dormant
 unless sacrificed; they are impervious to salt water; and they are not
 buoyant, but the capsule is.
Further oceanographic studies show, that items can float
around the world within 2 years.
Tsunamis, hurricans, etc. occur every year that can blow
even large objects long distances inland.
The seeds can grow without human assistance.

Thus, all these points suggest (note, I do not talk of
evidence like you do), that the dispersal occured without
human assistance.

> trying to point out to you...
Again, obviously you have problems with the English language,
A sentence like " the great
 many pieces of evidence for across-the-ocean human contacts"

simply means that there is ample proof, for which there is not.

> botanists have dealt with this matter).
Ok, fair enough, I can ask Peter.  Nevertheless, I'd claim
that > 90 % of the botanists don't know much about archaeology.

> library. And the libraries at the U of T do not allow food in the stacks!
Neither can I make the work for you. You make the claims,
it is not up to us to prove your claims.

> By the way, see my further comments about plant diffusion in a new thread 

Best wishes
Thomas

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From: "Paul E. Pettennude" <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Nov 1996 01:43:52 GMT

Yuri,

I read all of Columbus' journals again before responding.  No where does he
discuss coconuts.  What is your source for coconuts being restricted to a
narrow band of Columbia?  Which variety of coconut was this?

I know that Caribbean coconuts were brought into Belize and Yucatan by the
British.  I think you'll find there's an indigenous species in the
Caribbean.

I called Dr. Ray Porter, one of the world's specialists on tropical plants.
He's looking further into his notes but off the top of his head he says you
might be confused.

Your coconut idea was presented to him without prejudice just to get his
reaction.  His findings will be interesting.  Hope you're right on this
one.

I'll also pass your comments on to Fairchild Gardens, the largest
collection of palms in the world.  It's located here in Miami.  One of
their botanists will surely know the answer.

Thanks,

Paul Pettennude

Yuri Kuchinsky <[email-masked]> wrote in article <[email-masked]>...

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From: [email-masked] (R Molony)
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 17:23:02 GMT

coconut may have originated in pacific region
fossil coconuts are known in NZ from late Miocene period