Some 12,000 years ago, the only place to live along the eastern Sahara Desert was the Nile Valley. Being so crowded, prime real estate in the Nile Valley was difficult to come by. Disputes over land often were settled with brutality, as evidenced by the cemetery of Jebel Sahaba where many of the buried individuals had died a violent death.
But around 10,500 years ago, a sudden burst of monsoon rains over the vast desert transformed the region into habitable land.
This opened the door for humans to move into the area, researcher's found through 500 new radiocarbon dates of human and animal remains from more than 150 excavation sites.
"The climate change at [10,500 years ago] which turned most of the [3.8 million square mile] large Sahara into a savannah-type environment happened within a few hundred years only, certainly within less than 500 years," said study team member Stefan Kroepelin of the University of Cologne in Germany.
In the Egyptian Sahara, semi-arid conditions allowed for grasses and shrubs to grow, with some trees sprouting in valleys and near groundwater sources. The vegetation and small, episodic rain pools enticed animals well adapted to dry conditions, such as giraffes, to enter the area as well.
Humans also frolicked in the rain pools, as depicted in rock art from Southwest Egypt.
In the more southern Sudanese Sahara, lush vegetation, hearty trees, and permanent freshwater lakes persisted over millennia. There were even large rivers, such as the Wadi Howar, once the largest tributary to the Nile from the Sahara.
"Wildlife included very demanding species such as elephants, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and more than 30 species of fish up to 2 meters (6 feet) big," Kroepelin told LiveScience.
TIMELINE
22,000 to 10,500 years ago: The Sahara was devoid of any human occupation outside the Nile Valley and extended 250 miles further south than it does today.
10,500 to 9,000 years ago: Monsoon rains begin sweeping into the Sahara, transforming the region into a habitable area swiftly settled by Nile Valley dwellers.
9,000 to 7,300 years ago: Continued rains, vegetation growth, and animal migrations lead to well established human settlements, including the introduction of domesticated livestock such as sheep and goats.
7,300 to 5,500 years ago: Retreating monsoonal rains initiate desiccation in the Egyptian Sahara, prompting humans to move to remaining habitable niches in Sudanese Sahara. The end of the rains and return of desert conditions throughout the Sahara after 5,500 coincides with population return to the Nile Valley and the beginning of pharaonic society.Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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^ The article should have made it clear that Africans independantly domesticated cattle around this time [10kya~].
According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle.
Those findings support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle domestication was local.
Our results confirm that African cattle stem from the domestication of a B. taurus type of wild ox that inhabited northern Africa when the Sahara region was much less arid than it is today.
It may even be the case that the distinctive pastoral lifestyle of African tribes such as the Masai is of tremendous antiquity, and could pre-date the capture of cattle and development of milking in the Fertile Crescent.
Moreover southern European cattle - like southern Europeans - have neolithic African ancestry....
It was also found that South European cattle shared several sequences of their mtDNA with their counterparts in North African, sequences which were not found in the Near East specimens.
quote: Radiocarbon data from 150 archaeological excavations in the now hyper-arid Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad reveal close links between climatic variations and prehistoric occupation during the past 12,000 years. Synoptic multiple-indicator views for major time-slices demonstrate the transition from initial settlement after the sudden onset of humid conditions at 8,500 B.C.E. to the exodus resulting from gradual desiccation since 5,300 B.C.E. Southward shifting of the desert margin helped trigger the emergence of pharaonic civilization along the Nile, influenced the spread of pastoralism throughout the continent, and affects sub-Saharan Africa to the present day.
This full article will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal Science.
So no more of this nonsense that the ancient Egyptians are not related to "SubSaharan" Africans nonsense.
It also reminds me more and more of the original garden of eden myth as well. You know, a lush paradise that first man is kicked out off and cut off from to the "flaming" swords of the angels.......
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Some 12,000 years ago, the only place to live along the eastern Sahara Desert was the Nile Valley. Being so crowded, prime real estate in the Nile Valley was difficult to come by. Disputes over land often were settled with brutality, as evidenced by the cemetery of Jebel Sahaba where many of the buried individuals had died a violent death.
...the remains of whom, had been described by some as having "Mechtoid" characteristics, as pointed out in the Mechta-Afalou thread I opened up some time ago. As far as the disputes and violence is concerned, it may be worth noting that, some things just don't change, if you know what I mean. Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Which is the basis for the perpetual struggles evident going deep into prehistory, which has NOTHING to do with race and EVERYTHING to do with access to land and water and minerals.
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^ Race is a but a clever distraction from any fact(s) of history that do not necessarily flater the ego of Eurocentrists.
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: ^ Race is a but a clever distraction from any fact(s) of history that do not necessarily flater the ego of Eurocentrists.
Agreed; it maybe that human groupings in the early days of human social development, which were very modest, i.e. initially in the form of small hunter-gatherer parties, extending to nuclear families, and then eventually into communities of families, the notion of "race" was in all likelihood not considered, though advancing of self-interests for survival along the lines of 'clanship' [in this case, immediate family members] was likely developed early on. As social groupings further developed, so did the idea of "clanship" to help members of a social grouping to better serve interests that are deemed necessary to their survival. With the development of relatively highly complex social groupings that are hierarchical in nature per social standing, there was a need for broader concepts of "kinship/clanship" to advance the proposed interests of those social groupings, in addition to those of whatever micro-level social kinships [in other words, in the form of social classes] extant in the said hierarchical social complexes. Hence, the notion of "ethnicity" was developed, which would allow the elite social layers within a given social complex, to exploit "ordinary" members of the supposedly shared social complex, so as to ensure first and foremost, the survival of their micro-social or class level “kinships” [i.e. within social class systems that are hierarchical in nature], whereby the residuals of benefits are left to the ordinary folks - to make them feel that they are still part of the “one big societal family”. It is from such background, that the notion of "race" would develop - whereby the interactions of discretely [socially] identified social complexes at some point, would cultivate an environment of competing respective social elites. In such an environment, respective competing social elites of the discretely identified social complexes, had to find a means to ensure their social supremacy over their rivals/counterparts, by using 'patriotism' or 'jingoism' along "ethnic" or "racial" lines.
So, “race”; a “clever distraction from any fact(s)”? Yes - that it certainly is. It is interesting though, in terms of how it almost always works in diverse situations.
-------------------- Truth - a liar penetrating device! Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Nice article Rasol. Of course it can't be stressed enough the significance of the Neolithic wet Sahara in terms of Egyptian history as well as African history in general.
quote:Originally posted by rasol: ^ The article should have made it clear that Africans independantly domesticated cattle around this time [10kya~].
According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle.
Those findings support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle domestication was local.
Our results confirm that African cattle stem from the domestication of a B. taurus type of wild ox that inhabited northern Africa when the Sahara region was much less arid than it is today.
It may even be the case that the distinctive pastoral lifestyle of African tribes such as the Masai is of tremendous antiquity, and could pre-date the capture of cattle and development of milking in the Fertile Crescent.
Moreover southern European cattle - like southern Europeans - have neolithic African ancestry....
It was also found that South European cattle shared several sequences of their mtDNA with their counterparts in North African, sequences which were not found in the Near East specimens.
quote:Originally posted by rasol: ^ Race is a but a clever distraction from any fact(s) of history that do not necessarily flater the ego of Eurocentrists.
Agreed; it maybe that human groupings in the early days of human social development, which were very modest, i.e. initially in the form of small hunter-gatherer parties, extending to nuclear families, and then eventually into communities of families, the notion of "race" was in all likelihood not considered, though advancing of self-interests for survival along the lines of 'clanship' [in this case, immediate family members] was likely developed early on. As social groupings further developed, so did the idea of "clanship" to help members of a social grouping to better serve interests that are deemed necessary to their survival. With the development of relatively highly complex social groupings that are hierarchical in nature per social standing, there was a need for broader concepts of "kinship/clanship" to advance the proposed interests of those social groupings, in addition to those of whatever micro-level social kinships [in other words, in the form of social classes] extant in the said hierarchical social complexes. Hence, the notion of "ethnicity" was developed, which would allow the elite social layers within a given social complex, to exploit "ordinary" members of the supposedly shared social complex, so as to ensure first and foremost, the survival of their micro-social or class level “kinships” [i.e. within social class systems that are hierarchical in nature], whereby the residuals of benefits are left to the ordinary folks - to make them feel that they are still part of the “one big societal family”. It is from such background, that the notion of "race" would develop - whereby the interactions of discretely [socially] identified social complexes at some point, would cultivate an environment of competing respective social elites. In such an environment, respective competing social elites of the discretely identified social complexes, had to find a means to ensure their social supremacy over their rivals/counterparts, by using 'patriotism' or 'jingoism' along "ethnic" or "racial" lines.
So, “race”; a “clever distraction from any fact(s)”? Yes - that it certainly is. It is interesting though, in terms of how it almost always works in diverse situations.
The point here is that diversity is not always RACIAL and therefore, RACE is not always the PRIMARY factor behind human interaction. In fact, RACE as a primary reason for human interaction is PURELY a notion concocted within the last few thousand years.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Nice article Rasol. Of course it can't be stressed enough the significance of the Neolithic wet Sahara in terms of Egyptian history as well as African history in general.
quote:Originally posted by rasol: ^ The article should have made it clear that Africans independantly domesticated cattle around this time [10kya~].
According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle.
Those findings support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle domestication was local.
Our results confirm that African cattle stem from the domestication of a B. taurus type of wild ox that inhabited northern Africa when the Sahara region was much less arid than it is today.
It may even be the case that the distinctive pastoral lifestyle of African tribes such as the Masai is of tremendous antiquity, and could pre-date the capture of cattle and development of milking in the Fertile Crescent.
Moreover southern European cattle - like southern Europeans - have neolithic African ancestry....
It was also found that South European cattle shared several sequences of their mtDNA with their counterparts in North African, sequences which were not found in the Near East specimens.
So how did African cattle get to Europe, if not the Near East??...
SouthWest Asia - mideast is a fake term invented by britain within the last century - domesticated their own cattle.
India domesticated cattle.
Africa domesticated cattle.
Europeans inherited cattle domestication - and agriculture - and writing - from Asia *and* Africa.
If African cattle entered Europe thru the Levantine - they might have left no lasting genetic impact in Asia, since by that time Asians had their own domestic cattle.
African cattle could also have entered Europe via the Maghreb.
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Agreed; it maybe that human groupings in the early days of human social development, which were very modest, i.e. initially in the form of small hunter-gatherer parties, extending to nuclear families, and then eventually into communities of families, the notion of "race" was in all likelihood not considered, though advancing of self-interests for survival along the lines of 'clanship' [in this case, immediate family members] was likely developed early on. As social groupings further developed, so did the idea of "clanship" to help members of a social grouping to better serve interests that are deemed necessary to their survival. With the development of relatively highly complex social groupings that are hierarchical in nature per social standing, there was a need for broader concepts of "kinship/clanship" to advance the proposed interests of those social groupings, in addition to those of whatever micro-level social kinships [in other words, in the form of social classes] extant in the said hierarchical social complexes. Hence, the notion of "ethnicity" was developed, which would allow the elite social layers within a given social complex, to exploit "ordinary" members of the supposedly shared social complex, so as to ensure first and foremost, the survival of their micro-social or class level “kinships” [i.e. within social class systems that are hierarchical in nature], whereby the residuals of benefits are left to the ordinary folks - to make them feel that they are still part of the “one big societal family”. It is from such background, that the notion of "race" would develop - whereby the interactions of discretely [socially] identified social complexes at some point, would cultivate an environment of competing respective social elites. In such an environment, respective competing social elites of the discretely identified social complexes, had to find a means to ensure their social supremacy over their rivals/counterparts, by using 'patriotism' or 'jingoism' along "ethnic" or "racial" lines.
So, “race”; a “clever distraction from any fact(s)”? Yes - that it certainly is. It is interesting though, in terms of how it almost always works in diverse situations.
The point here is that diversity is not always RACIAL and therefore, RACE is not always the PRIMARY factor behind human interaction. In fact, RACE as a primary reason for human interaction is PURELY a notion concocted within the last few thousand years.
The message I was trying to deliver is that, the ideology of "race", however late in history it may be, is but another off-shoot of the evolutionary process of human social development from hunter-gatherers to communal complex societies, with social hierarchy becoming an inevitable byproduct of social complexity. The more complex human social groupings became, the more diverse, became the set of parameters for social identity underlying social hierarchy in one form or another. So as discrete social groups came into contact, as a means to address potential social-class rivalries between the interacting social entities/groups, members of the competing parties adopted certain social constructs [usually exhibiting undertones of social hierarchy], which would allow for social 'kinship' on the one hand, and relative social 'distance' on the other. So, if you think about it, "race" too, was used as a means to place groups of people from diverse historical backgrounds into certain layers of social hierarchy, wherein primary social 'kinship' was based on pseudo-biological ideas. These pseudo-scientific ideas were used in such a way that, certain groups of people would consistently appear on the top layers of the social hierarchy, while others outside the 'social kinship' ['race' in this case] would consistently appear in the relatively lower social layers of the hierarchy.
quote:rasol:
Europeans inherited cattle domestication - and agriculture - and writing - from Asia *and* Africa.
Figures that the aforementioned bunch was inherited by Europeans from Asians and Africans. Is it indicated anywhere, based on genetic data, as to when the African breeds initially made their way into southern Europe, so as to allow for subsequent interbreeding between the in situ breeds and the African ones?
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Prehistoric contacts over the Straits of Gibraltar indicated by genetic analysis of Iberian Bronze Age cattle
Cecilia Anderung *, Abigail Bouwman {dagger}, Per Persson {ddagger}, José Miguel Carretero §, Ana Isabel Ortega §, Rengert Elburg ¶, Colin Smith ||, Juan Luis Arsuaga **, Hans Ellegren *, and Anders Götherström *, {dagger}
The T1 haplotype was found in one specimen radiocarbon dated 1800 calibrated years B.C.
Accepting T1 as being of African origin, this result indicates prehistoric African–Iberian contacts and lends support to archaeological finds linking early African and Iberian cultures.
Origin of European Cattle, evidence from DNA Albano Beja-Pereiraa,b,c, David Caramellic,d, Carles Lalueza-Foxe, et. al. The distribution of the T1 haplogroup outside Africa thus can be used to understand the relationships between cattle breeds across the Mediterranean, and an interesting pattern seems to emerge in Europe (Fig. 2):
T1 sequences are relatively common (with frequencies ranging from 5% to 30%) in different breeds from Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece.
The presence of T1 mainly along the Mediterranean shores of Europe (near Africa), but *not in central and northern Europe*, is suggestive of the occasional introduction of cattle by boat FROM North Africa INTO southern Europe and is difficult to reconcile with any gene flow process unrelated with the sea.
But when did this process occur? The presence of T1 haplotypes previously observed in Portugal was attributed to historical migration due to North African, possibly Moorish, conquerors (19).
However, even if 63 and 11 different T1 haplotypes are observed in Africa and Europe, respectively, only two of them are present in both regions. In addition, (i) T1 haplotypes can be found well beyond the area of maximum Moorish expansion, (ii) recent introductions of exotic cattle are usually male mediated (not affecting mtDNA) (34), and (iii) one T1 haplotype has been recently Observed in a sample of 16 *Bronze Age* cattle remains from Spain.
So, the hypothesis of a recent and geographically restricted introduction of African cattle does not seem sufficient to explain the T1 distribution in Europe.
On the contrary, DNA data are compatible with earlier gene flow *into( several Mediterranean regions.
Breeds domesticated in the Near East and introduced in Europe during the *Neolithic* diffusion probably intermixed, at least in some regions, with local wild animals and with African cattle introduced by maritime routes.Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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The Great DNA Hunty by Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose
Nonhuman DNA has great potential for shedding light on cultural practices. Recent work by Daniel Bradley is a case in point. Before now it was assumed that cattle were first domesticated in the Near East. African, European, and Indian cattle were all thought to be descended from a domesticated Near Eastern progenitor, and to have developed into characteristic breeds afterward. Bradley and his colleagues have determined that Indian cattle broke off from an ancestral lineage between 117,000 and 275,000 years ago. The lineage split again about 22,000 to 26,000 years ago into groups that gave rise to modern African and European cattle. These are startling results because cattle in the Near East were not domesticated until about 9,000 years ago, and cattle in *India and Africa* were genetically distinct before then.
The latter two could not possibly be descended from domesticated Near Eastern cattle, as was thought, but must have been domesticated independently.Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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So we are looking at direct Africa to Europe contact and gene-flow. What about humans?
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