Guaporense

Well, so you have seem the term "western eurasian". Of course, it was not homogeneous. But, nothing is homogeneous.

World system theorists and urban system theorists defined the term "central world system" for the civilization in western eurasia.

jehosafats

Which we still know very little about. Yet its still safe to say the extended dry phase we see today was a kind of pump dispersing different language/ethnic groups to all corners of the continent. And the same occurred circa 10-8kya when overpopulation in NE Africa led to several migration events into SW Asia.

By the time of dessication the upper Nile had already served as a meeting point for the various fishing communities throughout the once-fertile-Sahara (also Lake Chad). You can tell by the pattern of Paleolithic settlements:

100,000 BP


40,000 BP


19,000-10,000 BP


The sites grew in size but remained in these general areas. There were some sites more far afield during the early Holocene:

8,000-7,000 BP


But as we can tell from the map below the Neolithic settlements sprang nearest the older Paleolithic settlements and were pretty much concentrated there well into the Pharaonic age.

6,500-5,000 BP


5,000-3,000 BP


The Nilotes (Egyptians, Ethiopians, Somalis, etc) emerged from these regions of the upper Nile. Only close proximity between different groups in present day Sudan could explain their cohesiveness generations later. Dessication began around 2,500-3,000 years ago. That's when the Niger and Nile became saving grace.

And thanks for bringing up Timothy Kendall's research on Jebel Barkal. He argues Kemet at the time of unification could only mean a united Nubia and Upper Egypt, since apparently the red crown of Lower Egypt was first associated with the kings of Napata in Upper Egypt and in his words: "By the time of Harsiotef, "Kemet" had come to mean Kush." Its interesting because this would make the whole of Lower Egypt part of the "foreign lands" mentioned in the Piye Stele. Parsons put it this way:

"The red crown, or deshret, may very well have originated in Upper Egypt, although it eventually became associated as the symbol of Lower Egypt. A sherd from a large vessel dated to late Naqada I, near the town of Nubt, the city of Set, has a representation in relief of the red crown, and on both the Narmer palette (one side) and macehead the king’s figure is shown wearing the red crown." - Egypt: Ancient Egyptian Royal Regalia, A Feature Tour Egypt Story

Every time people make simplistic claims about the relationship between Egypt and "Nubia," especially ethnically and religiously, something positively weighty contradicts them.

mansamusa

Thanks for the information jehosafats. In regards to the civilization of the Green Sahara am thinking of buying this book:

Have you read it; and is it worth buying? Or what else would you recommend?

jehosafats

I've heard a great deal about it but haven't read it. I might just get it next week.

Nikator

Some things are more homogeneous than others - one could describe the Aegean Islands and neighbouring Greece as "homogeneous" and I doubt many would argue the toss. I haven't seen the term "Western Eurasia" specifically, but it has been alluded to - in as much as "in this book we will describe everything from Britain to the Indus". Integrated world systems barely emerge in the 17th and 18th century let alone in the 3rd millennium BC or 5th century AD. Yes there were interacting spheres of influence but I wouldn't go as far as to describe that as a world system, in the same way you wouldn't describe two nations interacting one nation. That is perhaps a discussion for another thread though. I am pretty sure though that the idea of "Western Eurasia" being the central world system doesn't emerge until the age of Colonialism and even then I'm not exactly sure how the Near East fits into that schematic.

mansamusa

No. This is the perfect thread for such a discussion. This concept of a world system is an idea i just came across as recently as one week ago, while reseraching the concept of Ancient Economy. It partly inspired this thread. Here is Andre Gunder Frank on it. He draws a sharp contrast between the Eurocentric idea of a World System as being something revolving around Europe as oppossed to his idea of Western Europe being laregly peripheral to a World System that predates Europe by millenia:

And the book he talks about, which i have not read :


The ironic thing about Andre Gunder Frank is that even as he criticizes Eurocentrism, he uses the phrase Western Eurasia in the same way that Guaporense would use it. Africa seems to be left out; although am pretty sure that somewnere he makes mention of the Medieval Western Sudanic empires as part of the World System.

mansamusa

The Romans had a singularly conflicted attitude towards the Greeks. The Greeks in the Roman world were very often people who were conqured and who served as Roman slaves. They were seen scornfully as the unworthy latter day heirs of a great civilization created by inspired ancestors long ago. This also means that the Romans were jealous and even afraid of Greeks.

Greek learning and culture in many ways was the dynamic force which kept the Roman empire together . It was the language and culture of civilzation. Every noble man has his home graced with Greek art such as sculpures, vases and paintings; they all had their children taught in the classical Greek tradition. They even fought to get Greek slaves for their household for the specific purpose of boasting in public that their lowliest doorman was learned in Homer and Aristotle.

Becoming a Roman citizen could be a very difficult affair, but anyone--Gaul, Numidian, Ethiopian, Syrian could be a Greek as long as they were able to master the language , quote Homer appropriately and possessed other aspects of a sound Classical Greek education.

The Romans valiantly tried to match this Greek tradition of culture and learning by cultivating the discipline of Latin. However they were never able to to so. This failure can be seen in the epic of Virgil:

　
It should go without saying that by Others, which begins the extract, Virgil actually means the Greeks. In a matter of fact this poem--The Aeneid, commissioned by the emperor Augustus, was written as a direct reaction to Homer's Epics--The Illiad and Odyssey. Odysseus, the eponymous hero featured in the latter is far from the ideal hero. He is dare devil and a trickster. He is also hardly honourable. He ventures into the cyclops cave out of curiosity sacrificing the lives of many of his men, needlessly and he returns home and begins renewed warfare and chaos. He sticks an arrow through the throat of his most dangerous opponent {a fellow Greek country man} while that countryman is on the verge of innocently sipping a cup of wine:
　
Wheras Aenaes, the hero of Virgil's poem, and the mythical ancestor of Rome on his way to fulfilling his destiny as founder of Rome rescues one of Odysseus's men on the island of the Cyclops carelessly abandoned by Odysseus; he also seeks to work with rival tribesmen on the Italian peninsular to forge a new society as oppossed to Odysseus who simply bought more internal chaos and strife with his return to his home--Ithaca.

The Romans even as they admired and yearned for all things Greek constantly scorned and mocked the Greeks as deceitful and dishonourable.

This is exemplified in Juvenal's satire:
　
But I think its instructive that Virgil left instructions--ignored by Augustus-- for his poem, The Aeneid to be burnt after his death. Already he seemed to have sensed that his poem would go down as nothing more but a valiant yet failed imitation of a superior work. And indeed, today Homer remains the greatest poet of antiquity with Virgil recognised as genius enough but not nearly as grand as Homer. Virgil's poem was commissioned by Augustus whereas Homer was nothing more but the culmination of an ancient and brilliant Greek oral poetic tradition.

Rome also suffered the same fate as Virgil's poem. After the collapse of the Western Empire in 476 AD, the Greek-speaking Eastern empire remained vigorous and prosperous until it fell to the Turks in 1453. Within that space of time the Rise of Rome was remembered as nothing more but a "quaint political experiment". Almost mockingly the Greeks of the Eastern Empire who were so often disparaged by the Romans referred to themselves as "Ruma"--the Greek word for Roman.

The worst fear of the Romans actually came true. The Greeks eventually took over and inherited their empire. However in the Medieval ages we see the mistrust and fear that the Romans had of Greeks being echoed with the attitude of the Franks and other "Latins". The Latins who were largely descendents of the Nomadic German invaders who bought down Rome often mocked their Byzantine counterparts as effeminate, deceitful and weak. {The Latins also ironically enough were a vestige of Rome or the collapsed Western empire; they adopted Roman Catholic Christianity whose clergy employed latin in their masses and literature.} It was inevitable that such a Latin attitude would lead to the disaster of the 4th crusade--as brutal and merciless as anything suffered by the Romans at the hands of the Visigoths.

Today this conflicted attitude toward Greece remains in Western Historiography. In many of the modern day debates bashing Afrocentrism as blacks trying to steal Greek--Roman culture. This Greek--Roman culture is portrayed as a unique inheritance of Western Europe { as oppossed to Africa}, when everyone knows that the nomadic ancestors of Western Europe were directly responsible for destroying this Greek-Roman culture. The Western Mass media also often mocks and pours scorn on Modern day Greeks for their economic failure, even as they vehemently protect Ancient Greek culture against what they deem as "Afrocentrist Raping or Mis--Appropriation".

And also even as it is clear that Greek economic catastrophe is a direct result of Usurious banking policies being implemented in Western capitols such as London and New York. In other words, The 4th Crusade all over again.