MOESAN
Elite member
- Messages
- 5,974
- Reaction score
- 1,370
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Brittany
- Ethnic group
- more celtic
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- R1b - L21/S145*
- mtDNA haplogroup
- H3c
Not only linguistic but... Here under a compilation of diverses opinions of diverse times, showing the question is not as clear as source water:
A. Wierciñski, contrarywise to the earlier authors, found a far more complicated anthropological structure in the Mesopotamian population, which made the previous search for “Sumerian race” pointless. In his opinion the area of Tibet (or generally Central Asia) may be considered as the Sumerians’ place of origin. The discussion about the “Sumerian race” has been curtailed by the sober Georges Roux’s remark that the iconographical representations were conventionalised and thus their comparison with the osteological data gives no valuable information (Roux 1969:136). However, some remnants of the racial argument continued to be in use also in later discussions. Fifteen years ago H. Crawford referred to the old speculation that the Sumerians were round-headed and the Semites were long-headed and noticed after C.S. Coon (1949) the great tooth size of early inhabitants of Mesopotamia, which used to be taken as the evidence of their affinities with the Indians (Crawford 1991:9). * * * Frankfort’s first theory, placing the coming of the Sumerians in the beginning of Uruk period, was supported in 1930s by the German scholars, chie‚y E. Speiser (1930) and A. Ungnad (1936:10). In Speiser’s opinion the names of many most ancient cities of Sumer were Elamite in origin and the Elamites, related by him to the mountain peoples of Lullubeans and Kassites, inhabited the Mesopotamia
Physical anthropology and the “Sumerian problem” 149
before the Sumerians (1930:40,46). The Sumerians were thought to invade Mesopotamia from the south, coming through the Persian Gulf from the east. Speiser suggested that they may have been related to the Dravidians (1930:83). In later publications (1951; 1969) Speiser has maintained his theory and added some new arguments. He has argued that the diversity of cultural tradition in Late Neolithic Mesopotamia was a re‚ection of ethnical differences and all archaeological cultures defined by modern scholars – Hassuna, Halaf, Ubaid, Uruk – were developed by different ethnic groups (1969:99). In his opinion the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia relatively late, in the last phase of the Ubaid period, and initially settled only in the head of the Persian Gulf. During the Uruk period they moved northward and eventually lost their racial distinctiveness. Such a vision was accepted also by Anton Moortgat and Beno Landsberger (cf. Speiser 1951:345–353; 1969:99–103; Potts 1997:46). Speiser’s theory has been further developed by Jan Braun who has gathered many similarities between Sumerian and Tibetan languages and argued on that base that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia on ships from northern India and in spite of their small number dominated the local population due to their much more sophisticated culture...]
A. Wierciñski, contrarywise to the earlier authors, found a far more complicated anthropological structure in the Mesopotamian population, which made the previous search for “Sumerian race” pointless. In his opinion the area of Tibet (or generally Central Asia) may be considered as the Sumerians’ place of origin. The discussion about the “Sumerian race” has been curtailed by the sober Georges Roux’s remark that the iconographical representations were conventionalised and thus their comparison with the osteological data gives no valuable information (Roux 1969:136). However, some remnants of the racial argument continued to be in use also in later discussions. Fifteen years ago H. Crawford referred to the old speculation that the Sumerians were round-headed and the Semites were long-headed and noticed after C.S. Coon (1949) the great tooth size of early inhabitants of Mesopotamia, which used to be taken as the evidence of their affinities with the Indians (Crawford 1991:9). * * * Frankfort’s first theory, placing the coming of the Sumerians in the beginning of Uruk period, was supported in 1930s by the German scholars, chie‚y E. Speiser (1930) and A. Ungnad (1936:10). In Speiser’s opinion the names of many most ancient cities of Sumer were Elamite in origin and the Elamites, related by him to the mountain peoples of Lullubeans and Kassites, inhabited the Mesopotamia
Physical anthropology and the “Sumerian problem” 149
before the Sumerians (1930:40,46). The Sumerians were thought to invade Mesopotamia from the south, coming through the Persian Gulf from the east. Speiser suggested that they may have been related to the Dravidians (1930:83). In later publications (1951; 1969) Speiser has maintained his theory and added some new arguments. He has argued that the diversity of cultural tradition in Late Neolithic Mesopotamia was a re‚ection of ethnical differences and all archaeological cultures defined by modern scholars – Hassuna, Halaf, Ubaid, Uruk – were developed by different ethnic groups (1969:99). In his opinion the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia relatively late, in the last phase of the Ubaid period, and initially settled only in the head of the Persian Gulf. During the Uruk period they moved northward and eventually lost their racial distinctiveness. Such a vision was accepted also by Anton Moortgat and Beno Landsberger (cf. Speiser 1951:345–353; 1969:99–103; Potts 1997:46). Speiser’s theory has been further developed by Jan Braun who has gathered many similarities between Sumerian and Tibetan languages and argued on that base that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia on ships from northern India and in spite of their small number dominated the local population due to their much more sophisticated culture...]