This paper considers this issue by studying lexicon formation processes. It is

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When explaining human behavior, anthropologists frequently distinguish the things that people do of their own free will from the things they do because they have to. In much of anthropology, and most American archaeology, this is

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and how advanced is areal linguistics?

The issue of ‘knowability’ in relation to the origins and distribution of the language families of the world is addressed, and recent advances in historical linguistics and molecular genetics reviewed. While the much-debated problem of the validity of the concept of the language ‘macrofamily ’ cannot yet be resolved, it is argued that a time depth for the origins of language families greater than the conventional received figure of c. 6000 years may in some cases be appropriate, allowing the possibility of a correlation between language dispersals and demographic processes following the end of the Pleistocene period. The effects of these processes may still be visible in the linguistic ‘spread zones’, here seen as often the result of farming dispersals, contrasting with the linguistic 'mosaic zones ' whose early origins may sometimes go back to initial colonization episodes during the late Pleistocene period. If further work in historical linguistics as well as in archaeology and molecular genetics upholds these correlations a ‘new synthesis’, whose outlines may already be discerned, is likely to emerge. This would have important consequences for prehistoric archaeology, and would be of interest also to historical linguists and molecular geneticists. If, however, the proposed recognition of such patterning proves illusory the

was not unusual to pick up a parasite in the public toilets of Rome. However, the Roman parasite ate with you, unlike the modern version, which just eats you. In fact, the word is formed from the Greek words para (with) and sitos (food), and the original parasite was a companion at your table. “Why does Vacerra hang around the latrines all day? ” asked the satirist Martial in the first century CE. He went on to answer his own question: “He’s not sick, he’s looking for a dinner invitation” (Martial 11.77). Martial can ask this question because using a Roman latrine was a jolly social occasion on which the participants sat side by side and exchanged chat, gossip, and invitations to a coming dinner— even as they disposed of the previous one. A guide to Roman etiquette stipulates that the number at a dinner party should follow “Varro’s rule ” and be more than the Graces (three) and fewer than the Muses (nine) (Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 13.11). There were those a Roman might want to invite—his guests—and those he brought in to make up the numbers—the parasites. Because then, as now, dinner parties were about a great deal more than food,