Winckler-Caetani theory
Encyclopedia
The Winckler-Caetani theory , named after its two most distinguished proponents, Hugo Winckler
and Leone Caetani
, which claims that Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and spread of the desert at the expenses of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, the Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Hebrews), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent
. The Arabs of history would thus be the undifferentiated residue after the great invasion of ancient history had taken place.
This theoruy has recently been replaced and significantly updated by Juris Zarins
who proposes that a Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6,200BCE, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon animal domesticates, and a fusion with Harifian
hunter gatherers in Southern Palestine, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into Southern Iraq.
Hugo Winckler
Hugo Winckler was a German archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire at Boğazkale, Turkey....
and Leone Caetani
Leone Caetani
Leone Caetani , Duke of Sermoneta , was an Italian scholar, politician and historian of the Middle-East....
, which claims that Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and spread of the desert at the expenses of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, the Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Hebrews), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
. The Arabs of history would thus be the undifferentiated residue after the great invasion of ancient history had taken place.
This theoruy has recently been replaced and significantly updated by Juris Zarins
Juris Zarins
Juris Zarins is an American-Latvian archaeologist and professor at Missouri State University, who specializes in the Middle East....
who proposes that a Circum Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex developed in the period from the climatic crisis of 6,200BCE, partly as a result of an increasing emphasis in PPNB cultures upon animal domesticates, and a fusion with Harifian
Harifian
The Harifian is a specialized regional cultural development of the Epipalaeolithic of the Negev Desert. It corresponds to the latest stages of the Natufian culture. Like the Natufian, it is characterized by semi-subterranean houses. These are often more elaborate than those found at Natufian sites...
hunter gatherers in Southern Palestine, with affiliate connections with the cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Cultures practicing this lifestyle spread down the Red Sea shoreline and moved east from Syria into Southern Iraq.