posted
I came upon this website today (http://www.geocities.com/nilevalleypeoples/index.htm), and while it's a very handsome collection of data, I am a little bothered by the website's interpretation of one particular graph:
quote:From the website: A 2003 study by Hanihara places the ancient Egyptians (Naqada) closer to Nubians (Kerma), Somalians, and Kenyans than to European or Eurasian (Middle Eastern) populations. (Tsunehiko Hanihara, Am J Phys Anthropol. 2003 Jul ;121 (3): 241-51 "Characterization of biological diversity through analysis of discrete cranial traits." )
The problem with this interpretation is that while the dendrogram does show that Egyptians are closer to Sudanese than to anyone else, if you trace the branches back to their origins, you find that both are closer to French and other Europeans than to fellow East Africans? Am I reading the dendrogram wrong or is the website author doing that?
Also notice that on that graph, Tibetans are closer to Australo-Melanesian populations than geographically closer Central or East Asians.
Posts: 7093 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Anyone knowledgeable about this stuff there?
Personally I am skeptical about the results. I cannot accept uncritically that Nubians are more closely related to Europeans than geographically close Somalis, or that Tibetans are closer to Australian aborigines than geographically close Chinese.
Posts: 7093 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
^ Best place to start is by reading the actual study.
Notice the actual study cautions against certain assumptions that you might want to make about it:
In the present study, the frequency distributions of 20 discrete cranial traits in 70 major human populations from around the world were analyzed. The principal-coordinate and neighbor-joining analyses of Smith's mean measure of divergence (MMD), based on trait frequencies, indicate that 1) the clustering pattern is similar to those based on classic genetic markers, DNA polymorphisms, and craniometrics; 2) significant interregional separation and intraregional diversity are present in Subsaharan Africans; 3) clinal relationships exist among regional groups; 4) intraregional discontinuity exists in some populations inhabiting peripheral or isolated areas. For example, the Ainu are the most distinct outliers of the East Asian populations. These patterns suggest that founder effects, genetic drift, isolation, and population structure are the primary causes of regional variation in discrete cranial traits.
^ It's not a simplistic conclusion that cranio-comparison correlates with ancestry.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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^ So what is your interpretation of the results? (My own guess is that if the results do say anything about ancestry, they reflect the NE African ancestry of Europeans)
Posts: 7093 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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^ My opinion is that no system of cranometric measurement can accurately assess population relatedness especially on a world wide scale.
Crania vary too much and for too many different reasons for that.
Systems of cranial measurement are also subjective.
Here is what I agree with:
Finally, the assumption that cranial form is an im-mutable “racial” character is very likely to be false, given the diversity of studies of immigrants and the known effects of food preparation and masticatory stress uponcranial form. Cranial form, like other aspects of the body,is a phenotype partly determined by heredity but also strongly influenced by the conditions of life
posted
YOU KNOW. That is why you are a suspicious character. On the board for how long and you come up with these stupid ass questions. Pretending you are incapable of thinking. Always trying to fack with peoples mind. Always getting back to the some hypothesis- -East Africans are related to or decended from Europeans.
Either you are really dumb or you are playing games.
Here is a clue - E3b and E3a. Continent Africa vs land mass Europe
quote:Originally posted by T. Rex: ^ So what is your interpretation of the results? (My own guess is that if the results do say anything about ancestry, they reflect the NE African ancestry of Europeans)
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: ..On the board for how long and you come up with these stupid ass questions. Pretending you are incapable of thinking...
That sounds exactly like yourself xyzman! At least T-rex uses his mind to think and accept valid and logical answers unlike you. Posts: 26307 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
What gives you the idea that TRex . . . . THINKS? Did you understand how elemenary his question is. You call that logic. That's why YOU are also a suspicious character.
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: What gives you the idea that TRex . . . . THINKS? Did you understand how elemenary his question is. You call that logic. That's why YOU are also a suspicious character.
I was simply asking how to interpret a particular dendrogram and whether one particular online source misinterpreted it. Is that supposed to be a stupid thing to do?
Posts: 7093 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by T. Rex: I came upon this website today (http://www.geocities.com/nilevalleypeoples/index.htm), and while it's a very handsome collection of data, I am a little bothered by the website's interpretation of one particular graph:
quote:From the website: A 2003 study by Hanihara places the ancient Egyptians (Naqada) closer to Nubians (Kerma), Somalians, and Kenyans than to European or Eurasian (Middle Eastern) populations. (Tsunehiko Hanihara, Am J Phys Anthropol. 2003 Jul ;121 (3): 241-51 "Characterization of biological diversity through analysis of discrete cranial traits." )
The problem with this interpretation is that while the dendrogram does show that Egyptians are closer to Sudanese than to anyone else, if you trace the branches back to their origins, you find that both are closer to French and other Europeans than to fellow East Africans? Am I reading the dendrogram wrong or is the website author doing that?
Hmm.. If you look at the dendrogram it clusters Naqada, Kerma and Gizeh together more closely than the rest. Kerma was historically based in Nubia, so it would be right to say that the ancient Egyptians, as represented by Naqada and Gizeh, are closer to Nubians as represented by Kerma, than say Europeans or Arabs.
And indeed, based on finds in Kerma, like the Qustul incense burner, archaelogist Bruce Williams considers Kerma as an importance influence in the process of early Egyptian dynastic formation formation.
Other info from the page seems to back up Hanihara, as to Kerma. Something from Keita is quoted:
"Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Kebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans."
I even see real old studies from 1958 quoted that says the Kerma samples were Negroid and matchup with ancient Egyptian Naqada and Badari crania:
"Nutter (1958), using the Penrose statistic, demonstrated that Nagada I and Badari crania, both regarded as Negroid, were almost identical and that these were most similar to the Negroid Nubian series from Kerma studied by Collett (1933)."
So Hanihara's study basically confirms older data, which links Kerma with Egypt from way back. In essence, the Kerma samples from Nubia were always close to the Egyptian ones, closer than those of Somalia, Ethiopia etc. and folks from the Middle East. They were actually neighbors-- the Nubians from Kerma and the people of Upper Egypt. So the match is a logical one.
As for why the wider Nubian samples match up with say France, that could be a case of outliers, and indeed Nubia is at the tail end or outer edge of the France/Scandanavian group. Keita on the page notes a study where some Egyptian crania samples showed matches with samples from India. But once those outliers were excluded, the cranial data matched the Egyptian samples more closely with the African ones, than with Middle Eastern ones. Says Keita on the page:
"When the unlikely relationships [Indian matches] and eliminated, the Egyptian series are more similar ''overall'' to other African series than to European or Near Eastern (Byzantine or Palestinian) series."
Weird matches sometimes crop up in these cranial surveys like Rasol says. I think Brace matches up European skulls a bit with Mongolians in one of his studies as well, so with crania, you might get unusual results at times. But the cluster of the Egyptians with the Kermans looks logical.
In fact according to one Wikip article, Swiss archaelogist C. Bonnet discovered all sorts of cool stuff at Kerma, including finds linked to the Nubian kings that conquered Egypt. So it is no surprise at all the KErma and Egypt match up more closely that with Europeans and others.
"In 2003, a Swiss archaeological team working in northern Sudan uncovered one of the most remarkable Egyptological finds in recent years. At the site known as Kerma, near the third cataract of the Nile, archaeologist Charles Bonnet and his team discovered a ditch within a temple from the ancient city of Pnoubs, which contained seven monumental black granite statues. Magnificently sculpted, and in an excellent state of preservation, they portrayed five pharaonic rulers, including Taharqa and Tanoutamon, the last two pharaohs of the 'Nubian' Dynasty, when Egypt was ruled by kings from the lands of modern-day Sudan. For over half a century, the Nubian pharaohs governed a combined kingdom of Egypt and Nubia, with an empire stretching from the Delta to the upper reaches of the Nile" Wikipedia kingdom of kerma
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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I haven't yet gone through the details of its intra-sampling specifics, but what this dendrogram seems to be suffering from, may well be what I refer to as the "Spanish Crania Syndrom", as will be described shortly below...
"race classification of all individuals in this sample using the Forensic Data Bank option. Of the 95 individuals, 42 (44 percent) were classified as white, 35 percent as black, 9 percent as Hispanic, 4 percent as Japanese, 4 percent as American Indian, and the remaining three individuals as Chinese and Vietnamese" - Ubelaker et al., Application of Forensic Discriminant Functions to a Spanish Cranial Sample, 2002.
And this phenomenon presents itself yet again...
Williams et al. 2005 provided another example of this, when their examination of Meroitic cranial series showed that the series couldn't be classified into a single homogeneous entity, but rather, produced clusters with multiple series from distinct geographical regions. They say:
"The Howells series. Fordisc 2.0 could not effectively classify ten of the crania, and of the remainder, eight were identified as Late Period Dynastic Egyptian, six as Zalavar, four as Easter Islander, three as Lake Alexandrina Tribes, and three as Norse (Medieval Norway). Eight were not significantly different from eight separate populations: Teita, Andaman Islands, Zulu, Arikara, Santa Cruz Island, Ainu, Hokkaido, and Atayal."
“Fordisc 2.0 classified the Nubian crania with populations **over an enormous** geopraphic range, including North and Central Europe, Easter Island, the Andaman Islands, Japan, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, and North America.“
“If Fordisc 2.0 is revealing genetic admixture of Late Period Dynastic Egypt and Meroitic Nubia, then one must also consider these ancient Meroitic Nubians to be part of Hungarian, part Easter Islander, part Norse, and part Australian Aborigine, with smaller contributions from the Ainu, Teita, Zulu, Santa Cruz, Andaman Islands, Arikara, Ayatal, and Hokkaido populations. In fact, all human groups are essentially heterogeneous, including samples within Fordisc 2.0. Using Fst heritability tests, Relethford (1994) demonstrated that Howells’s cranial samples exhibit far more variation within than between skeletal series. There is no reason to assume that the heterogeneity of the Late Period Dynastic Egyptian population exceeds that characterizing our Nubian sample. This heterogeneity may also characterize the populations in the Forensic Data Bank; Fordisc 2.0 classified the Meroitic Nubians not as either all black or all white but as black, white, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American.”
Williams et al. 2005 sum it up...
“We suggest that skeletal specimens or samples cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity because of (1) the wide variation in crania of the known series that crosscuts geographic populations (polymorphism), (2) the clinal pattern of human variation, and (3) cultural and environmental factors. Even a presumably homogeneous population such as the Meroitic Nubians shows extensive variation that preclude its classification as a geographic group.”
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Good point about Fordisc and Howells, but the key point at issue is not the outliers or unusual matches, but the quite logical Egyptian-Kerman matches. And the analysis you post deals with Fordisc, a program having distinct flaws.
When the totality of cranial studies are considered across the board, using multiple lines of evidence and multiple methods, the matches noted by Keita, Hanihara, and even Brace (2005) hold up pretty well.
Furthermore peoplke like Keita are not claiming that Badarians and say Sudanese or Kenyans are one homogenous population, like say Japanese are. In fact Keita in particular stresses that these populations were/are diverse. Narrow noses or light brown skin for example would not be something unusual in the broad zone spanning the Sahara, Upper Egypt, or the Sudan or Chad.
Keita et al are looking at aggregations or averages. So for example in Studies of Crania from Northern Africa (1990) he says:
"The Badarian crania have a modal metric phenotype that is clearly “southern”; most classify into the Kerma (Nubian), Gaboon, and Kenyan groups."
So when you look at the total picture, using multiple methods, you overcome Fordisc's limitations and the data is there showing stronger links with the African populations than say Europeans or Mesopotamians.
Another thing to keep in mind is the supporting evidence from material culture, and here again, the archaelogical data backs up the linkages. Keita himself says that there should be multiple lines of evidence- cranial, skeletal, archaelogical, and anthropological. Only thus can you have a balanced picture.
I would agree that cranial studies are not perfect and you will always have strange aggregates. This is part of the picture, but analyses spanning many different researchers, (including even Afrocentric critic Brace) and covering many different methods, validate those linkages.
Also, Keita et al. fine tune their analyses to a much more balanced degree than some other cranial study methods. Fordisc is only one problematic thing out there. Another is the widely used CRAND database, which is highly regarded by some. The problem with CRANID though, is sampling bias. It uses samples from the far north of Egypt, cemeteries close to the Mediterranean, to be "representative" of all of Egypt, while excluding important historic sites (cemeteries at Elephantine) in Upper Egypt. This skewed use of "representative" samples is a common problem in studying Afrian populations. So you don't have a true picture. (See Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation, Routledge: 2005, p. 55)
You can also see it in DNA studies, where samples from the far north, such as in Cairo, are used by researchers (Hammer 97, Cavalli-Sforza 94, et al) as "representative" of north Africa or all of Egypt. Naturally with such sampling bias, you can better downplay or write undesirable "Africoid" elements out of the picture.
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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Good point about Fordisc and Howells, but the key point at issue is not the outliers or unusual matches, but the quite logical Egyptian-Kerman matches. And the analysis you post deals with Fordisc, a program having distinct flaws.
You are missing the elementary point here; the component of the forces of the intra-sample variation that are likely playing on the setup of the dendrogram. The dendogram does appear to be clustering certain groups that are geographically promixate in several cases; but it would be a mistake to take the linkage/branches as shared ancestry. It appears to show Africans on one end of the dendrogram, and Australo-Melanesians on the other, with groups like Europeans, East Asians, etc, in between. Curious: have you read the study in question? If so, what can you tell us about the intra-sampling specifics?
Ps - Also please take note, from the authors of the study in question:
significant **interregional separation** and **intraregional** diversity are present in Subsaharan AfricansPosts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Good point about Fordisc and Howells, but the key point at issue is not the outliers or unusual matches, but the quite logical Egyptian-Kerman matches. And the analysis you post deals with Fordisc, a program having distinct flaws.
^ the problem isn't just with Fordisc. the problem is with the very idea that you can descern lineage from crania.
in a way Fordisc - which is a computer program - exposes the fallacy.
anthroplogists making their purely 'subjective' assessments can easily make their findings 'conform' to to 'quite logical' - ie - expected results.
However when you reduce their subjectivities to and objective criterion of statistics - you get results which defy expectations.
This is because something is fundamentally wrong with the underlying presumations of race-craniometry.
If you listen carefully, this is what Williams et. al are saying.
They are not saying 'fordisc stinks'.
They are saying:
skeletal specimens cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity.
The rasol/"ma dick"/Explorateur character have created a new character so they can attempt to look scholarly after they have been thrashed intellectually and exposed psychologically.
Posts: 3085 | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
^ Why is the sub-male above with every body orfice defiled still writing in this forum let alone scientific thread?? It even speaks of others supposedly being "thrashed intellectually" and psychologically exposed! LMAO
It's a shame that the creature above has no intellect to thrash let alone speak of, and as far as pyschologically exposed... Posts: 26307 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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You are missing the elementary point here; the component of the forces of the intra-sample variation that are likely playing on the setup of the dendrogram. The dendogram does appear to be clustering certain groups that are geographically promixate in several cases; but it would be a mistake to take the linkage/branches as shared ancestry. It appears to show Africans on one end of the dendrogram, and Australo-Melanesians on the other, with groups like Europeans, East Asians, etc, in between. Curious: have you read the study in question? If so, what can you tell us about the intra-sampling specifics?
I got the point and agree that cranial analysis is a subjective business. As for the intra-sampling specifics you will have to look at the study yourself. The full citation and year is given. Note, the dendrogram on that page says that the Kerma/Naqada/Somalia data clusters closer to each other, than they do to data from other places. It does not say that the populations shared ancestry.
However, as demonstrated numerous times on this forum, the peoples of Nubia, Somalia and Egypt do share certain elements of ancestry. In sum, while the cranial data cannot be said to conclusively prove shared ancestry, when taken with DNA and anthropological and archaeological data as Keita himself recommends, then it would be pretty clear so see why it is not unusual that the populations in question cluster together. Some seem to find such clustering an impossibility outside mere geographic proximity, especially if the clustering is with "tropical" or "sub-Saharan" types.
Ps - Also please take note, from the authors of the study in question: significant **interregional separation** and **intraregional** diversity are present in Subsaharan Africans
No argument from me with that assessment, and that is yet another reason why attempts to pigeonhole Africans as one "true" type somewhere far south of the Sahara are deeply flawed.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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The rasol Explorateur character have created a new character
^ Lol. Paranoid, jackass loser alert.
I have no other alias on this forum, and never have.
That you can't even tell that the above posters are two different people is hilarious evidence of how banal and well, stupid, you are.
No wonder you can't read or understand anything, and are always confounded and confused. rotfl!
It's as if the singular purpose of every post by you is to expose how afraid you are of me, or anyone else more intelligent than you - which means - *just about everyone else*.
Keep being afraid, loser...
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Good point about Fordisc and Howells, but the key point at issue is not the outliers or unusual matches, but the quite logical Egyptian-Kerman matches. And the analysis you post deals with Fordisc, a program having distinct flaws.
^ the problem isn't just with Fordisc. the problem is with the very idea that you can descern lineage from crania.
in a way Fordisc - which is a computer program - exposes the fallacy.
anthroplogists making their purely 'subjective' assessments can easily make their findings 'conform' to to 'quite logical' - ie - expected results.
However when you reduce their subjectivities to and objective criterion of statistics - you get results which defy expectations.
This is because something is fundamentally wrong with the underlying presumations of race-craniometry.
If you listen carefully, this is what Williams et. al are saying.
They are not saying 'fordisc stinks'.
They are saying:
skeletal specimens cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity.
It's quite clear.
Fair enough. I agree that data can be "shaped" to support the initial subjective models researchers use, or can yield strange results and anomalies. I agree also that race-craniometry can be shaky since African populations show a lot of diversity, and of course in the process of statistical aggregation, important variability is lost. No question on the weaknesses of the method.
That is why I agree with Keita, who himself uses these models extensively in some of his work, that skeletal/cranial type studies need to be backed up with other supporting lines of evidence. In his 1993 "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," (History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54) for example, he challenges a dental study that suggested sweeping population replacement of native stocks by outsiders, noting that the claim was inconsistent with the continuity indicated by the cranial/skeletal studies (including limb proportion studies) in the field. These other studies served as a cross check.
So I agree that full faith and credit in such skeletal research is not called for, but looking at the overall weight and consistency of data in the field, I would agree with Keita for example that the Badarians cluster closer to tropical types than they do to Europeans, controlling for the anomalies as he does in the study referenced elsewhere on this page. Keita's multiple lines of evidence approach also includes cultural data (religious beliefs, artifacts etc) which must be added to the mix.
Of course, DNA analysis can be more accurate. But would you not say that DNA data can be manipulated in the same way skeletal data is? For example, one of Cavalli-Sforza's studies hold that Ethiopians are more related to Eurasians (read 'white people') than Sub-Saharan Africans. Could he not also have been using a subjective initial model and then tailored the DNA data to "fit" his concept?
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote: But would you not say that DNA data can be manipulated in the same way skeletal data is?
All data can be manipulated.
That isn't the issue.
You still really aren't listening, and so trying to talk past what is being said....
quote: If you listen carefully, this is what Williams et. al are saying.
They are not saying 'fordisc stinks'.
They are saying:
skeletal specimens cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity.
It's quite clear.
^ The fallacy being exposed by Williams is the fallacy of RACE, not skulls, nor DNA, nor dendrograms, nor fordisc, nor science....but race.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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You are missing the elementary point here; the component of the forces of the intra-sample variation that are likely playing on the setup of the dendrogram. The dendogram does appear to be clustering certain groups that are geographically promixate in several cases; but it would be a mistake to take the linkage/branches as shared ancestry. It appears to show Africans on one end of the dendrogram, and Australo-Melanesians on the other, with groups like Europeans, East Asians, etc, in between. Curious: have you read the study in question? If so, what can you tell us about the intra-sampling specifics?
I got the point and agree that cranial analysis is a subjective business.
If you had gotten the point, then why did you initially dismiss the post as though it were trivial to the topic at hand? Does the opening topic not say this:
The problem with this interpretation is that while the dendrogram does show that Egyptians are closer to Sudanese than to anyone else, if you trace the branches back to their origins, you find that both are closer to French and other Europeans than to fellow East Africans? Am I reading the dendrogram wrong or is the website author doing that? - by T. Rex
quote: As for the intra-sampling specifics you will have to look at the study yourself.
In other words, you haven't read the study either?
quote:
Note, the dendrogram on that page says that the Kerma/Naqada/Somalia data clusters closer to each other, than they do to data from other places.
Is that the impression you're getting from this dendrogram? As per your understanding, is the dendrogram suggesting a closer link between say, Nagada, Kerma and Giza on the one hand, and Somalia, Khoisans and Kenya on the other, than say between Nagada, Kerma and Giza on one hand, and Germany, Finland/Ural, and Scandinavia on the other...or is it vice versa? Just focus on the dendrogram for the moment, if you will.
quote: It does not say that the populations shared ancestry.
Never claimed that it said so; however, the topic opener did inquire along those lines, did he not?
quote: However, as demonstrated numerous times on this forum, the peoples of Nubia, Somalia and Egypt do share certain elements of ancestry.
I know, because I was/have been one of those very people who have been establishing that fact on this forum.
quote:
Ps - Also please take note, from the authors of the study in question:
significant **interregional separation** and **intraregional** diversity are present in Subsaharan Africans
No argument from me with that assessment, and that is yet another reason why attempts to pigeonhole Africans as one "true" type somewhere far south of the Sahara are deeply flawed.
Well, it goes back to yet another reason the Williams et al. piece was posted. With possibly large swaths of the continent not having been sampled in between regions, as "significant inter-regional separation" would suggest [unless clarified otherwise], who's to say that even closer links, or smoother flow of changes in craniometric trends would not have been overlooked? It also re-iterates the point being made about the diversity found in the Meroitic sample, as per "intra-regional diversity"; would this for example, not have likely played a role in giving the impression, as the dendrogram seems to suggest, that there is some sort of a close link between 'Nubian' specimens and France, Italy et al.?
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote: If you listen carefully, this is what Williams et. al are saying.
They are not saying 'fordisc stinks'.
They are saying:
skeletal specimens cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity.
It's quite clear.
^ The fallacy being exposed by Williams is the fallacy of RACE, not skulls, nor DNA, nor dendrograms, nor fordisc, nor science....but race.
Yes, and as you have re-cited, by *geography* as well, which is what this dendrogram appears to be doing in many cases; for instance, if one observes carefully, sub-Saharan Africa is placed in one macro-cluster/grouping, then along comes the north African grouping, and then the European one(s), and so on. It ultimately places sub-Saharan Africa as one macro-cluster/grouping, and every other geographical entity as another macro-cluster/grouping. But the pattern of the varying distances between individual sampling entities within said cluster/grouping, which in some cases are actually similar between individual sampling entities across the different "groupings"/clusters, belies the clustering/grouping structure, or shall I put it more appropriately, the seemingly geographically-oriented groupings/clusters.
Since Fordisc attempts to do precisely that; that is, to classify specimens via "idealized" cranio-morphological patterns [as often done in "racial" typology] in tandem with geographic typifications(idealized geographic-types) for them, the apparatus of Fordisc is in fact a subject of criticism by both Ubelaker et al. 2002 and Williams et al. 2005, since as the latter note, to recap:
We suggest that skeletal specimens or samples cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity
— (1) the wide variation in crania of the known series that crosscuts geographic populations (polymorphism),
And of course, the rest follows as well...
— (2) the clinal pattern of human variation, and
— (3) cultural and environmental factors.
And of note:
"Even a presumably homogeneous population such as the Meroitic Nubians shows extensive variation that preclude its classification as a geographic group."
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
LOL, Explorateur aka "MA DICK" may even change costumes. Which for him means putting on a Nick at Night tee shirt, some soiled hanes white underwear repleat with skid marks, and a picnic table cloth (the traditional red and white checkerboard type) around his neck for a cape.
posted
Originally posted by rasol: That isn't the issue.
You still really aren't listening, and so trying to talk past what is being said....
quote: If you listen carefully, this is what Williams et. al are saying.
They are not saying 'fordisc stinks'.
They are saying:
skeletal specimens cannot be accurately classified by geography or by racial affinity.
It's quite clear. The fallacy being exposed by Williams is the fallacy of RACE, not skulls, nor DNA, nor dendrograms, nor fordisc, nor science....but race. [/QB]
That's fine, but I never said skeletal studies signified race. In fact I AGREED that they could be quite subjective. I said that the dendrogram simply clusters some groups together more than others. I also pointed out to Exploteur that the "Kerma" referred to was based in Nubia, and gave several historical studies why this was so.
I also said Keita looks at multiple lines of evidence when looking at population variability, regardless of whether it was DNA or skeketal/cranial research, and indeed he himself eschews racial categories and percentages that's why I referenced him.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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I also pointed out to Exploteur that the "Kerma" referred to was based in Nubia...
What was the point of pointing out something that was already pretty much well known about, nor was an issue for starters? I believe you meant to say that its location would have been in what is now part of "Sudan"; no such thing as a Nubian state ever existed.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
^^^OK let's backtrack here. We are on the same page basically. Originally I thought some of the first few posts were attacking ANY use of skeletal studies, including those by Keita. That was not the case and I apologize for misinterpretation. The quote: "I also pointed out to Exploteur that the "Kerma" referred to was based in Nubia..." should say "I also pointed out to TRex.." not Explorateur.
I stressed Kerma at the beginning because it served as a cross check against those who used the Nubian anomaly to serve up the "Nubians are Caucasian theory", because the Kerma series, being from Nubia, and also being related by various studies to the Egyptian samples (Williams, etc) undercut such blanket claims. I was wrong in seeing any questioning of skeletal/crania studies as an attack on the Kerma clustering - straight up.
Looking at your analysis again, you are quite justified in pointing out the weaknesses of the dendrogram: (a) first with the example of Fordisc and then (b) with the example of how the clusters are structured, and (c) the clinal/cultural factors. All that is a solid analysis.
-QUOTE] Note, the dendrogram on that page says that the Kerma/Naqada/Somalia data clusters closer to each other, than they do to data from other places. -QUOTE]
Is that the impression you're getting from this dendrogram? As per your understanding, is the dendrogram suggesting a closer link between say, Nagada, Kerma and Giza on the one hand, and Somalia, Khoisans and Kenya on the other, than say between Nagada, Kerma and Giza on one hand, and Germany, Finland/Ural, and Scandinavia on the other...or is it vice versa? Just focus on the dendrogram for the moment, if you will.
The dendrogram has the Egyptians (Nagada/Giza), Nubians (Kerma) clustering closer together than they do to others. The Somalia, Khosian, Finland, Germany link would be another issue. Based on the DNA evidence posted by various writers in this forum, as well as other Skeletal studies, Nagada, Kerma and Giza are closer to Somalia, Khoisans and Kenya than they would be to Germany, Finland/Ural, and Scandinavia, etc. Keita's multiple evidence approach would confirm this.
However, as demonstrated numerous times on this forum, the peoples of Nubia, Somalia and Egypt do share certain elements of ancestry. --/QUOTE]I know, because I was/have been one of those very people who have been establishing that fact on this forum.
Indeed, and as I go through the archives, you, Rasol and others are to be commended for the wealth of data and analysis you bring to these issues. Your aproach is much more balanced than the skewed "true" type model so often used in academia or elsewhere online as in Racial Percentage Matilda's blog, which allocates sweeping racial percentages to the ancient peoples. One blog boldly declares the Nubians to be 60% "Caucasian." But it collapses like a house of cards when the author's "true negro" model is exposed.
--QUOTE]Well, it goes back to yet another reason the Williams et al. piece was posted. With possibly large swaths of the continent not having been sampled in between regions, as "significant inter-regional separation" would suggest [unless clarified otherwise], who's to say that even closer links, or smoother flow of changes in craniometric trends would not have been overlooked? It also re-iterates the point being made about the diversity found in the Meroitic sample, as per "intra-regional diversity"; would this for example, not have likely played a role in giving the impression, as the dendrogram seems to suggest, that there is some sort of a close link between 'Nubian' specimens and France, Italy et al.?
Agreed. Intra regional variation could account for the general Nubian sample anomalies. I have no problem with that on the basis of the fact that Africans have very high genetic diversity. So if an analysis is using narrow noses as a basis of classification, it would be flawed if it does not recognize that narrow noses are nothing unusual among some peoples of northeast Africa, independently of any admixture by 'Caucasoids', Eurasians, etc. This is precisely the problem with a number of researchers in the field, as well as those online like the aforementioned "racial percentage" allocator. However as Rasol notes about variation" "These patterns suggest that founder effects, genetic drift, isolation, and population structure are the primary causes of regional variation in discrete cranial traits."
To the matter of regional variation could also be added the problem of outliers and anomalies. As noted in studies referenced by Keita, some research links peoples of the area with Indians. When those outliers are controlled for, the cluster pattern (the "southern leaning metric") noted by Keita in various places for people like the Badari still holds. Your analysis and that of Rasol is spot on.
PS: In what sense do you mean there was no such thing as a Nubian state?
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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Fair enough. When looking at the dendrogram, the vertical links joining clusters of individual samples, are supposed to somehow quantify the extent of shared similarities [which may not necessarily involve shared ancestry] between the samples or clusters of samples in question, but when looking at the actual horizontal distances of the individual samples, one finds that east African series generally form closer distances before they do to other groups, which based on a multidisciplinary approach -- as you correctly acknowledge, makes sense.
By "no such thing as a Nubian state", I mean that no organized autonomous social complex ever called "Nubia" existed; it is a bastardized term that took the twist of becoming a Eurocentric geographical construct for artificially demarcating what they would like to perceive, as opposed to what actually was, as the geographical extent of the "true" Ancient Egypt. "Nubia" was supposed to be thrown as a bone to "Black Africa", which Eurocentric propagandists felt they could concede to "Black Africa", but beyond which, northward, "Black Africa" should not feel any special relation to other than just the namesake of being on the same continent.
Note that both "Kerma" and "Nubia" appear on the graph, but the latter likely reflects the Napatan or Meroitic complex sample.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Hmm, based on what you say then, how do you see the 25th Dynasty? Using the National Geog aproach they are "foreign" invaders. But is it more accurate to see them as simply another power center in the overall region of southern Egypt- in other words a distinctive group, but overall, essentially Egyptian? Many play up "foreignness" but is it that simple? How would you view it?
Also how do you see the quote below. Both you and Rasol note several times that various mutations or differences to folks in the Mideast are simply subsets of the original African variability. Hanihara 1996 states that early West Asians looked like Africans. So would any so-called "backflow" not be bringing back simply another variant off the already diverse original African stock? Would it tie in with the Nautifians (sic)? I know here he is restating the OOA model but what are the implications for alleged hordes of incoming Caucasoids?
Distance analysis and factor analysis, based on Q-mode correlation coefficients, were applied to 23 craniofacial measurements in 1,802 recent and prehistoric crania from major geographical areas of the Old World. The major findings are as follows.. .. Recent Europeans align with East Asians, and early West Asians resemble Africans.. The craniofacial variations of major geographical groups are not necessarily consistent with their geographical distribution pattern. This may be a sign that the evolutionary divergence in craniofacial shape among recent populations of different geographical areas is of a highly limited degree. Taking all of these into account, a single origin for anatomically modern humans is the most parsimonious interpretation of the craniofacial variations presented in this study. (Hanihara T., "Comparison of craniofacial features of major human groups," Am J Phys Anthropol. 1996 Mar;99(3):389-412.) ;.
And given your solid critique od the dendrogram re Williams and fordisc etc, plus your data showing Europeans as having subsets of the original African stock, could the Nubian anomalies not be explained as a product of those subsets? In other words, the French, Italian, German, English samples match up, not because the Nubians looked like these people, but because these Europeans are already admixed with african genes, and were hence showing their "true colors" at the skeletal/cranial level?
I am just throwing out the question, not saying it is so. In various forum posts I see for example that Italians have a substantial portion of african genes (cant remember the exact post). So perhaps it would be no surprise if a clustering study picked up these traits at a skeletal level, many thousands of years ago? DNA I know is more accurate, but just throwing out another speculative scenario here, not endorsing the cranio/skeletal approach..
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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What has to be understood in this situation is that cases in which a skull is classified as "Caucasoid", you have to remember, how erroneously East Africans (and other African populations) are classified as "Caucasoid". What this simply means is that, there were many supposed Negroid types in Egypt, with supposed "Caucasoid" types. This can be easily verified through the variability and immense diversity inbetween Africans, even in a single village.
What can not, and will not be distorted, is the variations in the proximal to distal segments of each limb, which confirm an African tropical origin for the Ancient Egyptians.
Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions Sonia R. Zakrzewski*
Stature is comprised of contributions from several body portions, i.e., from the lower limb and from the trunk and cranium. The analyses performed on each individual bone were undertaken to see whether the small stature change found could be assigned to differences in growth of either the lower limb or the trunk (employing upper limb measurements as an indirect proxy for trunk size). Both upper and lower limb measurements (individual long bone lengths) exhibited significant change through time, although neither upper limb length (humerus radius) nor lower limb length (femur tibia) themselves exhibited significant change through time. All long bone lengths that changed display the same trend of increasing in length up until the start of the Dynastic period, and then decrease to the MK. None of the body ratios separating upper and lower portions exhibit statistically significant change through time. This pattern supports suggestions that the relative constancy of stature (i.e., the relatively low level of change through time) cannot easily be compartmentalized. This result is in agreement with previous research that found no significant change in body proportions between the Predynastic period and the Middle Kingdom (Masali, 1972; Robins, 1983). The ancient Egyptians have been described as having a “super negroid” body plan (Robins, 1983). Variations in the proximal to distal segments of each limb were therefore examined. Of the ratios considered, only maximum humerus length to maximum ulna length (XLH/XLU) showed statistically significant change through time. This change was a relative decrease in the length of the humerus as compared with the ulna, suggesting the development of an increasingly African body plan with time. This may also be the result of Nubian mercenaries being included in the sample from Gebelein. EGYPTIAN STATURE AND BODY PROPORTIONS 227 The nature of the body plan was also investigated by comparing the intermembral, brachial, and crural indices for these samples with values obtained from the literature. No significant differences were found in either index through time for either sex. The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-negroid”body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many “African” populations (data from Aiello and Dean, 1990).
This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicatesthat the Egyptians generallyhave tropical bodyplans.Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clusteredtogether as compared to the other populations. Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
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As far as the 25th Dynasty is concerned, I treat it as a 'native' Nile Valley regime, since despite geopolitical distinctions between the territories under Dynastic Egypt and Kush, they are both native to the Nile Valley.
With regards to the extract, I think it merely reiterates in its own way,...
*1) as per Ubelaker et al. 2002's and Williams et al. 2005's findings, how cranio-metric patterns do not always necessarily conform to geographic stereotypes, because of intra-population or intra-regional diversity found in many populations across the globe [which not surprisingly, includes those in the world's most diverse region - Africa], which crosscuts geographic regions, and
*2)earlier crania found outside of Africa [and in Africa], like those of upper Paleolithic era, some of which have been referred to as being of "generalized" types, tend to have patterns that more closely approach those found amongst tropical groups in Africa and in Australo-Melanesia. This is seen as a telltale sign of the tropical and African origins of anatomically modern humans - hence, single origin for anatomically modern humans.
"Nubian" cranio-metric variation crosscuts geography, just like the Spanish series demonstrated. It is fair to say that the same will hold true to varying degrees, in French, Italian, German or what have you geopolitical entities. This to varying degrees may be attributable to single origin of humanity, convergent evolutions, and migration. What you call an anomaly in the 'Nubian' series, is actually quite a normal observation in African cranial series; east Africa to this day, especially Sudan and Ethiopia, closely followed by Kenya, and to some extent Tanzania, is notably the most diverse region on the planet, hosting sizeable populations belonging to major African language phylums - from Nilo-Saharan, Afrasan, Niger-Congo to San families. As Williams et al. put it, given the intra-regional diversity found in their Meroitic samples, which to reiterate -- seems to crosscut geography, one might well be tempted to say that 'ancient Meroitic Nubians' were part Hungarian, part Easter Islander, part Norse, and part Australian Aborigine, with smaller contributions from the Ainu, Teita, Zulu, Santa Cruz, Andaman Islands, Arikara, Ayatal, and Hokkaido populations. However, common sense would instantly tell us, not to mention what multidisciplinary learning would instill in us, that Meroe could not have played host to settler populations from all these regions.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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