[tom hyle]

That goes easy on my mind; the over-culture was originally if not invented by the ancient Latins (a definite maybe) certainly vastly promulgated by them, across both space and time. I'm getting some kind of theory, which actually involves China, so it's helpful to consider ideas that may either opose or combine with it. I think the Indian ocean could be viewed as a center with a certain cultural sphere around it. To some extent you can pick any point on Earth and get pretty valid results (when adding migration patterns) doing this, for genes (which is one thing many consider illogical about the concept of race) or for culture, but centering it on ocean is an interesting concept, and I think one with, especially in this instance, a lot of historical antecedent. It seems to me from what little I know that the people around these coasts and islands still kind of see things this way; the ocean as the center of the "known world" if you will, and even the Mediterranean is the Middle Earth Sea (not sure of the relation to the old German expression/concept Middle Earth [Mid-gaard, Mittel-march, etc.]).......it makes the field of travel, of fishing, of commerce and long distance trade into the center, this concept does, in a way; useful and intereseting.