🚀 go-pugleaf

Garry Williams (gdwill@earthlink.net) wrote:
: yuku@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:

: >If we need to invoke natural disasters such as these, the case for the
: >gourd surviving upon its auto-arrival is weakened thereby.
: 
: How so? Everyone knows that the Nile floods like clockwork every
: year-or did until humans started building dams. I admit I don't know
: how it goes there nowadays, but obviously river flooding is not an
: uncommon event. Didn't you hear about the floods in various parts of
: the US this spring and in years past? In some areas, natural fires are
: also very common.

Garry,

Your examples are valid, and yet we must clarify a couple of things right
from the beginning. What kind of gourd arrived to America and when? You
should clarify your position on this.

_If_ gourd arrived to America as a cultigen, at about the time when
agriculture began in America (ca. 10,000 bp), I believe that the chances
will be overwhelmingly that it was brought over by humans.

_If_ gourd arrived in its wild state much before that, then it was
probably domesticated here independently. Still, in such a case we will
have to explain _why_ the gourd was among the first domesticates in
America, as well as in Africa. Simply a coincidence?

Regards,

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 -----


: Don't you ever see in the news where nearly every
: year there are terrible fires in California when things are really dry
: from lack of rain, plus the Santa Ana winds that suck additional
: moisture out of everything and then fan the flames once they do get
: started? Under those conditions it just takes a spark. And there are
: plants that are adapted to this sort of conditions, requiring a fire
: to pass over in order for the seeds to germinate. Moving along to the
: next disaster, they seem to have a fair number of mudslides in
: California, too, when it does rain, not to mention earthquakes. I'm
: sure you can find similar conditions in many parts of the world. I
: just mention Egyptian and US floods and Californian fires, mudslides
: and earthquakes as examples showing that these events are not
: uncommon.