Dispersals and Diversification

Dispersals and Diversification
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2019-12-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004416196

Dispersals and diversification offers linguistic and archaeological perspectives on the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Two chapters discuss the early phases of the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European from an archaeological perspective, integrating and interpreting the new evidence from ancient DNA. Six chapters analyse the intricate relationship between the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, probably the first one to separate, and the remaining branches. Three chapters are concerned with the most important unsolved problems of Indo-European subgrouping, namely the status of the postulated Italo-Celtic and Graeco-Armenian subgroups. Two chapters discuss methodological problems with linguistic subgrouping and with the attempt to correlate linguistics and archaeology. Contributors are David W. Anthony, Rasmus Bjørn, José L. García Ramón, Riccardo Ginevra, Adam Hyllested, James A. Johnson, Kristian Kristiansen, H. Craig Melchert, Matthew Scarborough, Peter Schrijver, Matilde Serangeli, Zsolt Simon, Rasmus Thorsø, Michael Weiss.

Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact

Language Dispersal, Diversification, and Contact
Author: Mily Crevels
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2020-07-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191035750

This book addresses the complex question of how and why languages have spread across the globe: why do we find large language families distributed over a wide area in some regions, while elsewhere we find clusters of very small families or language isolates? What roles have agriculture, geography, climate, ethnic identity, and language ideologies played in language spread? In this volume, international experts in the field provide new answers to these and related questions, drawing on the increasingly large databases available and on novel analytical research techniques. The first part of the volume outlines some general issues and approaches in the study of language dispersal, diversification, and contact. In the rest of the volume, chapters compare the language and population histories of three major regions - Island Southeast Asia/Oceania, Africa, and South America - which show particularly interesting contrasts in the distribution of languages and language families. The volume is interdisciplinary in approach, with insights from archaeology, genetics, anthropology, and geography, and will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in language diversity and contact.

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia

Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia
Author: Yousuke Kaifu
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 1019
Release: 2015-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623492777

Despite the obvious geographic importance of eastern Asia in human migration, its discussion in the context of the emergence and dispersal of modern humans has been rare. Emergence and Diversity of Modern Human Behavior in Paleolithic Asia focuses long-overdue scholarly attention on this under-studied area of the world. Arising from a 2011 symposium sponsored by the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, this book gathers the work of archaeologists from the Pacific Rim of Asia, Australia, and North America, to address the relative lack of attention given to the emergence of modern human behavior as manifested in Asia during the worldwide dispersal from Africa.

Pure and Applied Biogeography

Pure and Applied Biogeography
Author: Levente Hufnagel
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2018-01-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9535137549

This book, Pure and Applied Biogeography, gives a very interesting report and overview about the frontiers of such parts of recent biogeographical research, which plays important roles in solving our most pressing global problems (biodiversity crisis, climate change, water issues, and sustainable agriculture). Our book consists of three sections: "Introduction", "Pure Biogeography and Global Patterns" and "Applied Biogeography and Regional Issues." After the introductory chapter, which is about the main branches and aims of biogeography in service of solving global problems, - we can find three chapters as parts of the first section. First chapter in this section is in close relation with the origin of biodiversity and conservation. The second and third chapters are about the biogeograhical aspects of climate change and biodiversity. In the second section of this book three applied biogeographical chapters can be found, which are related to agriculture, theoretical background of biological plant protection against herbivores, and regional patterns in ecological biogeography.

Aryans in the Rigveda

Aryans in the Rigveda
Author: Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 128
Release: 1991
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789051833072

Fruit from the Sands

Fruit from the Sands
Author: Robert N. Spengler
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2020-09-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520379268

"A comprehensive and entertaining historical and botanical review, providing an enjoyable and cognitive read.”—Nature The foods we eat have a deep and often surprising past. From almonds and apples to tea and rice, many foods that we consume today have histories that can be traced out of prehistoric Central Asia along the tracks of the Silk Road to kitchens in Europe, America, China, and elsewhere in East Asia. The exchange of goods, ideas, cultural practices, and genes along these ancient routes extends back five thousand years, and organized trade along the Silk Road dates to at least Han Dynasty China in the second century BC. Balancing a broad array of archaeological, botanical, and historical evidence, Fruit from the Sands presents the fascinating story of the origins and spread of agriculture across Inner Asia and into Europe and East Asia. Through the preserved remains of plants found in archaeological sites, Robert N. Spengler III identifies the regions where our most familiar crops were domesticated and follows their routes as people carried them around the world. With vivid examples, Fruit from the Sands explores how the foods we eat have shaped the course of human history and transformed cuisines all over the globe.

Origin of Tropical Diversity: From Clades to Communities

Origin of Tropical Diversity: From Clades to Communities
Author: James Edward Richardson
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre:
ISBN: 2889450503

In this volume we aimed to assess progress in determining the processes by which current patterns of tropical biodiversity were established and are maintained. Tropical regions are highly species-rich and we present studies that have improved our understanding of the generation of that diversity at local, regional and global scales. We demonstrate how diverse fields from molecular phylogenetics, phylogeography, palaeontology and palaeoecology continue to improve our understanding of the natural history of the tropics.

Language Dispersal Beyond Farming

Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
Author: Martine Robbeets
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2017-12-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027264643

Why do some languages wither and die, while others prosper and spread? Around the turn of the millennium a number of archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood made the controversial claim that many of the world’s major language families owe their dispersal to the adoption of agriculture by their early speakers. In this volume, their proposal is reassessed by linguists, investigating to what extent the economic dependence on plant cultivation really impacted language spread in various parts of the world. Special attention is paid to "tricky" language families such as Eskimo-Aleut, Quechua, Aymara, Bantu, Indo-European, Transeurasian, Turkic, Japano-Koreanic, Hmong-Mien and Trans-New Guinea, that cannot unequivocally be regarded as instances of Farming/Language Dispersal, even if subsistence played a role in their expansion.