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Afaik there isn't evidence of beekeeping in East Asia as early as in other regions. While it may sound unbelievable that cultures haven't always known about bee
by trompetenaccoun 4y ago
Afaik there isn't evidence of beekeeping in East Asia as early as in other regions. While it may sound unbelievable that cultures haven't always known about bees and honey, people are also regularly surprised by how late certain cultures learned about something as "simple" as the wheel. It all sounds obvious in hindsight.
Either way, I'd be cautious and skeptical about all those supposed linguistic links. The honey one might be true, it does sound very enticing, but of course it's always possible it's coincidental.
- paganel 4y ago> Afaik there isn't evidence of beekeeping in East Asia as early as in other regions. Wow, I actually didn't know that, it will probably do well as a separate HN post if anyone finds a good source for it. I actually thought that beekeeping was a thing across most of Eurasia of ancient times. > Either way, I'd be cautious and skeptical about all those supposed linguistic links. I'm in the same boat, especially when talking about peoples and languages so far apart from one another.
- adrian_b 4y agoEating honey from wild bees was of course widespread in all places where the ancestors of the humans and then the humans found wild bees. On the other hand, the domestication of the bees seems to have happened only in Egypt, a few thousands years ago, and then it has spread from there into Europe and Asia. So it should have reached China after passing through some Indo-Iranian populations.