🚀 go-pugleaf

Bernard,

This is the second part of my reply to your long article. I hope you
enjoyed the previous installment. Now I will continue where I left off
before. 
 
bortiz@cms.cc.wayne.edu wrote:
: In article <5nhblj$cla$2@trends.ca>,
:   yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:

	...

: Carter
: (1977) and Lathrap (1977) were also published in mainstream publications
: but it seems that consensus had been reached that the evidence for all
: these allegations was weak (Reed 1977) and diffusionist claims of this
: nature are no longer being considered seriously.

To reiterate, the problem with this is that your information is outdated. 

: Recent reviews of New
: World diffusionist controversies (Fingerhut 1994; Fritze 1993) offer
: little in this area after the 1970�s.

Thanks for pointing out here that Fingerhut and Fritze also have not done
their homework, or else are too biased to see any way out of their
American Isolationist impasse where they seem so comfortable. I believe
that the meaning of scholarship is to consider _all of the evidence_
objectively. True scholarship cannot consist of reading only among the
writings of one's own co-religionists and fellow believers. This is not
scholarship but pseudo-science, I'm sorry to say.

: Mainstream texts on the origins of
: agriculture (Cowan and Watson 1992; Harris 1996; Shaw, Sinclair, Andah,
: and Okpoko 1993; Zohary and Hopf 1993) ignore the matter completely."
: [BOM I am speaking particularly about claims of plants in the New World
: from other places, although this also holds for other plant diffusion
: claims in the rest of the world]

How nice of you to offer here such a clear indication of the inadequacies
of the current mainstream dogma. Let us hope that these people will wake
up one day and smell the coffee. 

	...

: Kent V. Flannery (1973) in a much cited
: review of the origins of agriculture says, "My overall conclusion is that
: Old World-New World diffusion of cultivated plants in Pre-Columbian times
: was very limited, if it took place at all;

Well, Bernard, thanks for including one source that does not seem to be
uninformed. I would like to point out that "very limited" is not the same
as "it didn't happen". The difference is big, in fact.

I'm aware of studies that suggest precolumbian diffusion of perhaps 20 or
more agricultural plants. The degree of certainty and/or reliability
varies. Nevertheless, these studies should not be swept under the rug.

: and certainly it did not
: "cause" agriculture to begin in either area." Flannery, K.V. 1973. "The
: Origins of Agriculture," *Annual Review of Anthropology* 2: 271-310.

What caused agriculture to begin in various areas is an extremely complex
question about which the specialists in the field often disagree, and
which is beyond the scope of present discussion...

	...

Now, Bernard, you have also offered some rather sharp comments about the
quote I posted from D. Kelley dealing with bananas and yams in S. America. 

: 2) You cite this as a *recent* publication after chiding the age of my
: references, BUT this is misleading. Kelley has NO RECENT REFERENCES ABOUT
: YAMS OR BANANAS he just cites Van Sertima (1976)

Is it your opinion that bananas and yams were not grown in America before
Columbus? Are you sure you're right about this?

Yours truly,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky   | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
     -=-         | is always Paradise: so say the most ancient 
 in Toronto 	 | and the most modern serpents."  F. Nietzsche
 ----- my webpage is for now at: http://www.io.org/~yuku -----