Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 December 6

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December 6

Bartering concept

Is there any references what time period when the bartering system started in Europe and in America? --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 12:44, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Many sources here note that it began in about 6000 BC in Mesopotamia and spread to other parts of Afro-Eurasia from there. I can't find much on its use in the Americas as yet. --Jayron32 13:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Depending what you're doing, it may be useful to note the parts of the article Barter that say the barter system never existed on its own, and that gift-giving (with implied debt) was far more usual.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:13, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Christie the puppy lover Debt: The First 5000 Years would be a good book about the relations of bartering, debt and gift economy from ancient times to modern era by David Graeber ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 15:54, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Was the Middle-East ever considered part of Africa?

Hello, Wikipedians I just recently heard from someone that the Middle-East was once considered part of Africa? What I`am asking is, is this true? Or is it a crackpot myth? THANK YOU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.241.6 (talk) 19:02, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Definitions such as these change over time, because of different subjects, or for any of a host of other reasons; there is no hard and fast answer to the question. In economics, it is common to refer to the Middle East / North Africa region, and Sub-Sahara(n) Africa. 19th century scholars considered the Middle East to be part of Western Asia (and some multinational organizations still do). So, the rough answer is that yes, the Middle East was once considered part of Africa, and yes, it still may be. DOR (HK) (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me there's not much ambiguity about what is "part of Africa". Just look at a globe. The only piece where it's a question of what things are "considered" is the Middle East part.

Our Middle East article shows Egypt as part of the Middle East, and Egypt is unambiguously part of Africa, and as far as I know always has been.

On the other hand, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and eastward are unambiguously not part of Africa.

What I'm a little surprised about is the map at that article not showing more of North Africa. If you'd asked me if Libya was part of the Middle East, I probably would have said yes. --Trovatore (talk) 19:26, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

A long time ago, most of Africa wasn't even part of Africa. At one point, only what is essentially today northern Libya and Tunisia was considered Africa. See Africa (Roman province), which as far as I know was the earliest use of the term. The Romans took the name from the Afri, which was a word of unknown origin they used to describe the ethnic groups that lived in what is today Libya and Tunisia, like a group of what today would be ancestors of the Berber people (though modern Berbers, of course, have no more in common with those people than modern Italians have with the Romans). Over time, the term became extended by European peoples to mean "All of the land south of the Mediterranean Sea", which today we know as the continent of Africa. The first time that entire land mass was given one name is likely Ptolemy's world map; Ptolemy called it all "Libya", which was an alternate name for the Roman province of Africa; so from there it is not hard to see how the name got applied to the entire continent. Ptolemy's second century map evolved and was simplified over the years into what is known as the T and O map, where Africa is clearly identified as the entire landmass. The term "Middle East" generally refers to "Northeast Africa + Southwest Asia", and while North Africa is sometimes socially, culturally, and ethnically separated from Sub-Saharan Africa, as the people there generally have more in common culturally with the Arabic peoples of Southwest Asia, I know of no common definition of Africa that would include places like Syria or the Arabian Peninsula in Africa. --Jayron32 19:36, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Egypt is really the only overlap - being geographically in Africa but culturally considered part of “the Middle East”. The rest of “the Middle East” can be broken up into a number of geographic sub-regions (Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, “the Levant”, “the Gulf”, Mesopotamia, Etc) or grouped into “Southwestern Asia”… but it is not considered part of Africa. Blueboar (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

It also depends on how you define the border of Africa and Asia. There is no easy natural boundary; two obvious candidates for water boundaries are the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba, but deciding which side the Sinai Peninsula lies on is kinda arbitrary; we've mostly settled on using the man-made Suez Canal as that boundary, but there's no inherent reason it needs to be that. We call the Sinai Peninsula as part of Asia, but that's mostly arbitrary. --Jayron32 12:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Most properly, no: because, in order to have a an East that is 'Middle', it is necessary to have an East that is Near ;P. The Near East would therefore include Egypt (all of which was once considered part of Asia, and a small part of which still is), Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, sometimes Mesopotamia (Iraq). Arabian Peninsula, Persia/Iran, & Afghanistan was/(is?) the 'Middle East'. Pakistan is usually grouped with the Mideast now, but Pakistan was the original "India" and "India" was once used as a near synonym for "Far East" (i.e., everything from thence and eastward).

Not that anyone should care, but when I was little I thought that the Arabian Penonsula was part of Africa (that was how my 6-year-old eyes saw as the most sensical), and tens of millions of years ago Arabia was part of Africa, before the Red Sea opened up. So it goes to show that - at least for the Old World - there is no such thing as what is "objectively" one continent or another, because "continent" is an artificial construct. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:38CD:5C90:85F:5464 (talk) 22:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

You are falling for the etymological fallacy. Both "Near East" and "Middle East" have evolved into proper nouns, each with a whole spectrum of meanings, many of which coincide. Also note that these terms are also used in e.g. Australia and Singapur, where the regions (no matter which version) are unquestionably to the East. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:34, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The article they cited already states "According to the National Geographic Society, the terms Near East and Middle East denote the same territories and are "generally accepted as comprising the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Syria, and Turkey"." In other words, Near East and Middle East mean essentially the same thing. Is that confusing and somewhat illogical? Perhaps. But being confusing and illogical has not relation to whether it is true. And in this case, it is. The Near East and the Middle East means the same thing. --Jayron32 12:52, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

My understanding (from general military-contexted conversations while growing up as an British Army brat) is that original British terminology designated the eastern Mediterranean/Red Sea area as the 'Near East', India and surrounds as the 'Middle East', and Hong Kong, Singapore etc. as the 'Far East'. (My father served in these 'Near' and 'Far' Easts and I lived in the latter.) Once Britain lost a significant military presence in the Indian subcontinent, the application of 'Middle East' shifted, and to an extent Gibraltar became thought of as the 'Near East'. Of course, other countries had different geographical and political viewpoints and Britain's became less dominent, so usages elsewhere did and do not necessarily correspond. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.90.66 (talk) 07:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The wartime British Middle East Command covered Egypt and everything to the east of that up to and including Iran. A later Near East Command covered Cyrus, Malta, Libya, and Egypt up to the Suez Canal. Alansplodge (talk) 13:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Humans are famous for inventing words and then trying to shoehorn reality into them. Mainland Europe, Asia and Africa are (or were) a single land mass. Mainland North and South America are (or were) a single land mass. I say "or were" because there are canals cutting through in places. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The Panama Canal is not a sea-level canal, so there is never a continuous body of water through the isthmus. It makes use of canal locks to raise ships to about 26 meters above sea level to get through the Culebra Cut. The Suez Canal, however, is a sea-level canal and continuous between the Mediterranean and Red Seas.--Jayron32 03:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)