User talk:Krause96

The Proto-Afroasiatic Homeland
There is no consensus where the original homeland (Urheimat) of the first Afroasiatic speakers was located. Scholars have proposed locations both in the Middle East and in Africa. An complicating factor is the lack of agreement on the subgroupings of Afroasiatic (see Subgrouping) - this makes associating archaeological evidence with the spread of Afroasiatic particularly difficult.

An origin within Africa has broad scholarly support, and is favored by most linguists on the basis of the linguistic data. Althought there is no concensus on the exact location, a significant number of scholars place the homeland of Afroasiatic near the center of its current distribution, "in the southeastern Sahara or adjacent Horn of Africa." The Afroasiatic languages spoken in Africa are not more closely related to each other than they are to Semitic, as one would expect if only Semitic had remained in an Western Asian homeland while all other branches had spread from there. Likewise, all Semitic languages are fairly similar to each other, whereas the African branches of Afroasiatic are very diverse; this suggests the rapid spread of Semitic out of Africa. Proponents of an origin of Afroasiatic within Africa assume the proto-language to have been spoken by pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers, arguing that there is no evidence of words in Proto-Afroasiatic related to agriculture or animal husbandry. Christopher Ehret, O. Y. Keita, and Paul Newman also argue that archaeology does not indicate a spread of migrating farmers into Africa, but rather a gradual incorporation of animal husbandry into indigenous foraging cultures.

A significant minority of scholars supports an Asian origin of Afroasiatic, most of whom are specialists in Semitic or Egyptian studies. The main proponent of an Asian origin is the linguist Alexander Militarev, who argues that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken by early agriculturalists in the Levant and subsequently spread to Africa. Militarev associates the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic with the Levantine Post-Natufian Culture, arguing that the reconstructed lexicon of flora and fauna, as well as farming vocabulary indicates that Proto-AA must have been spoken in this area. Scholar Jared Diamond and archaeologist Peter Bellwood have taken up Militarev's arguments as part of their general argument that the spread of linguistic macrofamilies (such as Indo-European, Bantu, and Austro-Asiatic) can be associated with the development of agriculture; they argue that there is clear archaeological support for farming spreading from the Levant into Africa via the Nile valley.

In 2009, Militariev however changed his view on the Afroasiatic homeland. By incorporating new evidence, he argues for a link between Western Asian pastoralist societies and the Proto-Afroasiatic language. The Proto-Afroasiatic language would have spread with pre-Neolithic movements into Africa, subsequently coming into contact with local groups, and later diverging within Africa into the various Afroasiatic branches. A similar view was raised by Hogdson et al. 2014 and Mc Call in 1998, arguing for a pre-Neolithic wave into Africa (c. 12-23 kya). A pre-agricultural movement into Africa during the Paleolithic has been confirmed by archaeogenetic studies.

An intermediate view was presented by Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019), which arued for a "across-the-Sinai" solution. They argue that "given the dually "deeply-rooted" presence of Afro-Asiatic languages both in Africa and in the Levant, the linguistic debate on the origin of this family is still open (Kitchen et al. 2009; Ehret et al. 2004) and probably settling on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. This shows that even relatively well studied cultural packages such as languages point to early interactions between Africa and the neighbouring Eurasian cultures or, in other words, to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as "strictly African" in a long term perspective."

'''New version: ''' An intermediate view was presented by Pagani and Crevecoeur (2019), which argued for a "across-the-Sinai" solution. They argument that "given the dually "deeply-rooted" presence of Afro-Asiatic languages both in Africa and in the Levant, the linguistic debate on the origin of this family is still open (Kitchen et al. 2009; Ehret et al. 2004) and probably settling on an intermediate "across-the-Sinai" solution. This shows that even relatively well studied cultural packages such as languages point to early interactions between Africa and the neighbouring Eurasian cultures or, in other words, to a geographical shrinking of what can currently be defined as "strictly African" in a long term perspective." Similar views have been proposed by Hogdson et al. 2014 and Mc Call in 1998, arguing for a pre-Neolithic wave into Africa (c. 12-23 kya), which was substantial among "Proto-Afroasiatic-speakers". A pre-agricultural movement into Africa during the Paleolithic giving rise to various cultures, such as the Iberomaurusian, has been confirmed by archaeogenetic studies.