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Re: chicken in America: from Asia? (cont.)
In article <5996v4$j01@news1.io.org>, yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
>agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu (DomingoMartinez-Castilla) wrote:
>: Acosta, Mr Kuchinsky, is NOT, repeat , NOT an early observer for South
>: American standards: 1590 is late, very late.
>
>Yes, but he was an early observer in _that area_.
False. Carter mentions Acosta's surprise about finding words for hen and egg
(this one still makes me smile) in the Kechwa language of the Incas... in
1590! Spanish towns and cities were well established all over the Andes by
then. There were no conquistadors left anymore, and the Spanish polity was
already established all over the Andes. Sheesh! You hate to recognize that
somebody else may be right even when that person is providing a better source
than the one Carter gives!
>
>I am grateful to you for finding that quote from Trujillo. But that quote
>doesn't exactly disprove what I said. It may indeed add weght to it...
Another bigger sheesh! Of course it adds weight to Carter's argument. The
problem is that the argument itself is not such a thing. Carter talks about a
*hypothesis*, doesn't he? In your lovely "essay about the chicken" you claim
that such hypothesis has not been disproven! Can you tell me of a hypothesis
that has? Any hypothesis? Hypotheses are meant to be proved, not the other
way around, lest they become religion.
If I posted the Diego de Trujillo quote it was because it is part of my
interest in a topic very dear to you: diffusion, especially related to
agriculture, has not been studied as much as it should. (Of course, the only
diffusion you care to "study" is the one coming from Eurasia or Africa before
Columbus, especially if it is "documented" in one of the ...er... abundant
sources you quote ad nauseaum.) I am of course more interested in the
consequences of the introduction of the very few and successful Eurasian
domesticates (plants and animals) in an agricultural environment dominated by
the largest (by far) variety of domestic plants (and the lowest in domestic
animals). But that is another thread altogether.
The history of American pre-Columbian agriculture has not been written yet.
We do not even have enough information to understand how research and
development of the abundant varieties (very necessary in such a varied
environment) of local crops were accomplished and, yes, diffused. We still
are fighting with the concept of multicrop agriculture vis-a-vis specialized
monocrops. En fin...
Perhaps you have all the answers to those issues as well...
Domingo Martinez Castilla
agdndmc@showme.missouri.edu
References: