[decimon]

The first farmers are believed to have brought domesticated cattle with them to Europe

One of the houses in the Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae, in Scotland's Orkney islands

[decimon]

Uber orange ping.

[Sacajaweau]

I just love it when archeologists have different opinions of the same find...THEY BOTH GET GRANT MONEY....and it can go on....FOREVER!!!

[muawiyah]

The first Celts of whom we have historic knowledge (that is, a written reference) were driven out of the Danube region sometime in the 1000 BCE to 700 BCE timeframe.

One of the reasons we have some "history" is that they picked up, purchased, collected, seized, or otherwise laid hands on Greek scribes to take with them to write down important information ~ navigational hints, bills, deliveries, news about the gods, etc.

The Galicians in Spain claim their earliest materials (copied by hand down through the centuries like all ancient documents) are written in ancient Greek for example.

The seagoing Celts weren't the only people to do that, and Greek scribes were always highly prized and sought after.

I suspect in earlier times OTHERS found it advantageous to capture Middle Eastern agricultural technicians and use them as slaves in the "royal gardens".

Else we'd have to believe two possible other tales ~ (1) That Middle Eastern settlers could move into occupied hunting grounds in Europe and just start farming without difficulty, or (2) That primitive hunter/gatherers went to the Middle East to study farming and then returned!

Since Western Europeans look more like the Sa'ami than they do like the Arabs, I simply have to opt for the slavery option.

[ClearCase_guy]

Up until now, many scientists believed that the concept of farming was brought to Europe merely by the transfer of ideas.

I've never heard that. Europe has seen wave after wave of peoples from the East moving in. The Lap people in Finland are basically Asians. The Turks aren't like Arabs -- they are also Asians. Huns and all the other barbarians came from Asia. Why would this be a recent (1-2000 years ago) phenomenon? Why wouldn't this have happened at the beginning of agriculture?

The notion that people in the Near East and people in Europe had enough language in common that this sort of idea could transfer seems quite spurious. It seems far more likely like people just walked on over and said "We could plant seeds here. Let's stop and stay a while."

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Back to Ex Oriente Lux?

[bunkerhill7]

Migrants from the Near East ‘brought farming to Europe’ only because they had already lost all the topsoil, turned the Middle East into a desert and were ready to do the same thing in Europe until the Arayan-descended Hessian Stormtrooopers wiped them out Big Battle of the Saar [Cannaanite God of the Storm, pronounced with a Germanic lisp as “Thor”] with iron swords against the farmer`s puny bronze sickle swords. That`s why Teutonic legend calls them “Thor Losers”

[Verginius Rufus]

The new book by Bill Bryson, At Home, has an interesting discussion of Skara Brae.

[Frantzie]

Billy Ray Cyrus and his cows.

[SunkenCiv]

hmm, coulda sworn that link you sent had been posted in some form. Will post it.

Genes Help Identify Oldest Human Population
New York Times | 0108-2002 | Nicholas Wade
Posted on 01/08/2002 3:29:31 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/604281/posts
http://web.archive.org/web/20060217150742/http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/604281/posts