posted
During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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Neither- doing what responsible scholars do. Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct. The "Eve" hypothesis was being strongly contested at the time as new data should be tested and replicated in science. Although, now the "mitochondrial Eve' in Africa is well accepted, when I was writing the paper, Stoneking, one of the authors of the Eve paper, admitted that they had made a mistake in their procedure (Hedges 1992). A whole issue of a journal in March 1993 was going to be devoted to this controversy.
Here's what I wrote on p. 52
quote:No one denies that hominids originated in Africa. Recently a vigorous controversy on the question of a single versus a multiple origin for modern humans has occurred. Defenders of a multiple origin claim that Homo erectus led to modern humans in several areas (Thorne and Wolpoff, 1992). Based on the analysis of variation in mitochondrial DNA it has been proposed that all modern humans descend from a female in Africa, the mitochondrial African Eve, about 200,000 years ago (Cann et al., 1987). Melanists have seized upon this proposal of an African Eve as confirmation of their beliefs (King, 1991b; Adams, 1990:7).1° Recent publications have, however, cast serious doubts on the validity of the mitochondrial Eve hypothesis, and one of the original authors has admitted that the analysis procedure in the original paper was in error (Hedges et al., 1992; Gibbons, 1992).
The papers cited are:
Gibbons A (1992) Mitochondria1 Eve: Wounded but not dead yet. Science 257:873-875.
Hedges SB, Kumar S, Tamura K, and Stoneking M (1992) Human origins and analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences. Science 255:737-739.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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Neither- doing what responsible scholars do. Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct. The "Eve" hypothesis was being strongly contested at the time as new data should be tested and replicated in science. Although, now the "mitochondrial Eve' in Africa is well accepted, when I was writing the paper, Stoneking, one of the authors of the Eve paper, admitted that they had made a mistake in their procedure (Hedges 1992). A whole issue of a journal in March 1993 was going to be devoted to this controversy.
Here's what I wrote on p. 52
quote:No one denies that hominids originated in Africa. Recently a vigorous controversy on the question of a single versus a multiple origin for modern humans has occurred. Defenders of a multiple origin claim that Homo erectus led to modern humans in several areas (Thorne and Wolpoff, 1992). Based on the analysis of variation in mitochondrial DNA it has been proposed that all modern humans descend from a female in Africa, the mitochondrial African Eve, about 200,000 years ago (Cann et al., 1987). Melanists have seized upon this proposal of an African Eve as confirmation of their beliefs (King, 1991b; Adams, 1990:7).1° Recent publications have, however, cast serious doubts on the validity of the mitochondrial Eve hypothesis, and one of the original authors has admitted that the analysis procedure in the original paper was in error (Hedges et al., 1992; Gibbons, 1992).
The papers cited are:
Gibbons A (1992) Mitochondria1 Eve: Wounded but not dead yet. Science 257:873-875.
Hedges SB, Kumar S, Tamura K, and Stoneking M (1992) Human origins and analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences. Science 255:737-739.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
I have read some of it. Not surprisingly, most of what they cling to is old news- from the early 1990s- 20 years ago, during the Mary Lefkowitz era. But as we have discussed several times on ES, even Mary conceded a central plank of the "Afrocentrics," and so does Stephen Howe although he tries to downplay and backhand it. Just sifting thru the reviews/ and GoogleBook previews, etc, the following patterns spring out readily:
[1] The strawman "monolith." Tunde Adeleke's book 2012 is more recent- I have not read it, but looking at reviews and the book previews, his big talking point is supposedly tackling a "monolithic" essentialist Afrocentrism. But Afrocentrism these days is far from any "monolith." SOME visible proponents prominent in the 1980s and early 1990s held sway back then, but they have receded, and the scientific base today confirms much of what they said re the African character of ancient Egypt, as has been well documented here on ES and elsewhere. By focusing on an alleged "monolith" Tunde himself has erected an easy monolithic strawman to "fight" against.
-------------- common cultural patterns- Africa------- And while SOME Afrocentric writers have talked up a universal African culture, others have erected no such monolithic construct, instead noting the commonalities, linkages, and similar patterns in many African societies including those of the Nile Valley and other African cultures. Much of this has been validated by current scholarship.
And, yes we all know Egypt never had the transportation network that Greece and ROme had via the Mediterranean for the movement of armies, goods, materials, men, tech and ideas, but within the limits imposed by its desert environment and a Nile river that was not only difficult to navigate but blocked by numerous obstructions, a common Nilotic culture emerged in that area of Northeast Africa, and ancient Egypt itself shows numerous linkages and commonalities with fellow, surrounding African cultures.. Why is this "controversial" and why should West Africans forgo study and comment on this, "confining themselves" only to "approved" locales? White people are seldom asked to do the same. Why do distant northern Europeans embrace Greek culture for example, but when a black man from West Africa shows up he ain't supposed to embrace the Nile Valley, an entity itself in Africa, and part of a basin that drains 10% of the African continent- from Egypt to the Congo's Atlantic approaches? Indeed that Egyptian-Sudanic zone is closely kinked with the Sahara, itself a "Pan African" entity.
[2]Dated works from the 1990s/Lefkowitz era Second, while Tunde tackles people such as Molefi Asante, Marimba Ani, Maulana Karenga, and John Henrik Clarke. most of the works he considers are from the 1990s or earlier. He confronts Marimba Ali for example and spends a bit of of text on her thought in "Let the circle Be Unbroken" but that is a work from 1980, over 35 years ago. Even Ali's book "Yurugu" which he tacks on seemingly as a more recent reference is from 1994. He spends a great deal of time on Molefi Asante's "Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge," but that is a book from 1992, almost 25 years ago. Curiously, he has little to say about Diop- save very brief references on page 89, but the work cited is from Diop in the 1970s.
Have not read Montellano's piece but it is dated from 1997, 2 decades ago, and current data strongly confirms the African character of the ancient Egyptians on multiple lines of evidence- cranial, dental, skeletal, DNA, cultural etc as seen so often on ES. By the way there was a lot of data BEFORE 1997 but it was carefully buried or downplayed by Howe, etc. Scholarship has long since moved on, though much data confirms certain key points made by foundationalists such as Diop, et al.
[3] Essentialist world view? Tunde criticizes "essentialism" and on some counts he is correct. There is no single "African way" as might be held by SOME supporters or proponents. But EUrocentric thought is just as "essentialist" as any out there, more troubling perhaps because it has been made invisible by a process of marginalizing an "Other" or presenting the Euro world view as a paradigm of "normality"- against which "the Other" will come up short. Edward Said et al have well documented the essentializing processes of Eurocentric discourses and narratives. How many propaganda narrative have we here on ES deconstructed along such lines?
[4) The "tarbrush tactic" - use extreme statements someplace as "representative" of other valid, credible work, in order to sidetrack or disparage hat work. This was part of the modus operandi of the Lefkowitz years. It is not surprising that the person you corresponded with did NOT refer you to Keita, or any of the dozens of scholars and hard data points well documented in the scientific journals, and books of mainstream scholarship and research. The quickly shifted, "framed" or "spun" the discussion to a political angle- re the "Afrocentrics" and their "obsession" with this that and "race." It's an old game. They also spun things to Loring Brace 1993, which has been superseded by his 2005 work, as again well documented on ES. See the game they are running? Why is he in 2015, referring you to stuff circa 20 years ago? They think we are not on to the game...
Now don't get me wrong. I do not believe the "Afrocentric" writers noted above should be immune from critique. I have no problem with some of Montellano's observations, And the claims of various Afro "enthusiasts" can be extreme. And let's be blunt- some work is dated, though key points like the historical influence of racism may stand. George James' Stolen legacy" book for example is circa the 1950s. of course some of his claims are untenable in the light of new research. Who doesn't know this? I doubt significant numbers of today's students are running around uncritically accepting what was written that far back on certain points. They are not stupid.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
@Professor De Montellano Following your acceptance of the research on Mitochondrial Eve, what do you make of the following comment?:
quote:[W]e all come from Africa, we were all Black at first, whites are Blacks who went pale, Far East Asians are Blacks who went yellow, etc., so if there is anything resembling a sort of aristocracy amoug humans, it should the Black people since they are the original humans,
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor De Montellano Following your acceptance of the research on Mitochondrial Eve, what do you make of the following comment?:
quote:[W]e all come from Africa, we were all Black at first, whites are Blacks who went pale, Far East Asians are Blacks who went yellow, etc., so if there is anything resembling a sort of aristocracy amoug humans, it should the Black people since they are the original humans,
I have no problem at all with evolution, i.e. humans adapting to their environment + random mutation, genetic drift, etc. However, I don't believe in the existence of distinct "races" most of the genetic variation of human is present within "races" rather than between "races." Thus, all humans are equally gifted and there is no "aristocracy."
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor De Montellano Following your acceptance of the research on Mitochondrial Eve, what do you make of the following comment?:
quote:[W]e all come from Africa, we were all Black at first, whites are Blacks who went pale, Far East Asians are Blacks who went yellow, etc., so if there is anything resembling a sort of aristocracy amoug humans, it should the Black people since they are the original humans,
I have no problem at all with evolution, i.e. humans adapting to their environment + random mutation, genetic drift, etc. However, I don't believe in the existence of distinct "races" most of the genetic variation of human is present within "races" rather than between "races." Thus, all humans are equally gifted and there is no "aristocracy."
I agree with this, however the sequence of variation order is significant in influence priority, Whereas random mutation followed by genetic drift, and lastly, environmental adaptation occur in that order. Why, because Yellow, red, white (pinkish) are transformations due to genetic mutation/genetic drift, and even social constructs (Asia as example) moreso than environmental adaptation.
It's regretful that we are still stuck by communication necessity of having to use false descriptions such as "race", "white", "black", and others hold-overs from the past misinformation age. I use them, although I don't believe them.
Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
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quote: why are there two different spellings and capitalizations here?
A mistake. It's "De Montellano". Nothing else to see.
NO
Ortiz de Montellano is the last name. Perhaps since it is Spanish you thought that Montellano was my mother's last name, but it is not.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote: Thus, all humans are equally gifted and there is no "aristocracy."
My thoughts exactly.
Believe it or not, however, that quote you're commenting on here is from the very professor who tried to discredit my arguments on ancient Egyptian population backgrounds by sending me your article.
I wondered whether his statement was an attempt to mollify me -- you black people can be happy with being the first modern humans, but please leave ancient Egypt alone.
But as I said in my reply: "Sorry, but I don't believe in racial hierarchies."
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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You said in your response to Kdolo^^ (third post in this thread) that in your 1993 writing on African Mitochondrial Eve, you were doing what responsible scholars do:
"Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct."
Why then, when writing on ancient Egyptian biological affinities, did you not include reference to limb lengths?
Your paper was written in 1993, so after the Robins and Shute publication (1986) confirming that the ancient Egyptians had tropical limb lengths.
In your pages on the Egyptians you wrote:
"[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan. Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources. Berry et al. (1967), using a “measure of divergence” based on 30 nonmetrical skeletal variants, found that there were significant differences between negroid populations (Ashanti, Sudan), Mediterra- nean populations (Palestine), and all ancient Egyptian samples. They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990) showed a pattern com- mon to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as inter- mediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania showed affinities with tropical African patterns and differed notably from the Maghreb pattern. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Nile valley was pri- marily settled by immigrants from both the Sahara and from more southern areas and that Egyptian culture was formed by the fusion of Saharan and Nilotic peoples (Hassan, 1988). The mixture of phenotypes suggested by the archaeological and skeletal evidence is amply supported by representations in art and sculpture (Ver- coutter, 1978; O’Connor, 1971; “rigger, 1978; Kelly, 1991). Brace et al. offer fur- ther review of Egyptian biological status (this volume). Egypt was a multiracial society that did not discriminate internally on the basis of color, but looked down on all foreigners regardless of color (Yurco, 1989,1990; Snowden, 1970,1989,1992; Young, 1992; Levine, 1992; Coleman, 1992). Even Martin Bernal, the most artic- ulate proponent of Egyptian influence on Greece, agrees that in the pharaonic period Egypt was a racially mixed society with a higher incidence of negroid phenotypes in Upper Egypt (Young, 1992; Kelly, 1991; Bernal, 1992)" (pp34-35).
However, there was no reference to limb lengths. Could you explain why?
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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posted
This will not do fellars if we want to END RACISM TODAY. WE GOTTA MAKE PROGRESS? NOT ESTABLISHING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN...
hUMAN RACES WERE INVENTED TO RID eUROPE FROM ITS FOUNDERS who were North Africans. The veryblack or blue hued Negro they considered pure of blood. The portraits of th Black masters were over painted starting from 1848. The paint had supposedly darkened. Existing sources are enough to synthesize these facts.
. I am here on the ground in Morrocco, looking at Notrh Africans and have stated they are Blacks. Many are all out negroes, so no question. Others look like indians or a mix between Indians and Blacks. Most have lighter brown skin.
There are ten marks or so to distinguish a Black. I would say that the elongated skull, the pinched waist and the fat buttock of the women are very important. Next I notice there is a lot of prognathism, about 50 percent ranging from complete, half and a quarter prognathism.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote: Thus, all humans are equally gifted and there is no "aristocracy."
My thoughts exactly.
Believe it or not, however, that quote you're commenting on here is from the very professor who tried to discredit my arguments on ancient Egyptian population backgrounds by sending me your article.
I wondered whether his statement was an attempt to mollify me -- you black people can be happy with being the first modern humans, but please leave ancient Egypt alone.
But as I said in my reply: "Sorry, but I don't believe in racial hierarchies."
No, I'm not trying to mollify you. I have a long record of working against segregation and for the inclusion of minorities, women and the handicapped in science. As a graduate student, I helped to integrate Scholte's Garden, almost popular drinking spot in Austin. A Couple of other things:
Founding member SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. 1973-2- present
Coordinator Minority Academic Affairs Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY. 1975-76
Committee for Opportunities in Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1979-85
State of Michigan Education Department, Committee on Multicultural Science Education Requirements, 1991-1998..
It's funny that most of my life I've been attacked for being a radical integrationist and now this. :-). The Dallas Morning News wrote in 1961 that the University YMCA-_WYCA, which I used to set up the Model UN "was Black-and-White and Red all over."
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor Ortiz de Montellano
You said in your response to Kdolo^^ (third post in this thread) that in your 1993 writing on African Mitochondrial Eve, you were doing what responsible scholars do:
"Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct."
Why then, when writing on ancient Egyptian biological affinities, did you not include reference to limb lengths?
Your paper was written in 1993, so after the Robins and Shute publication (1986) confirming that the ancient Egyptians had tropical limb lengths.
In your pages on the Egyptians you wrote:
"[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan. Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources. Berry et al. (1967), using a “measure of divergence” based on 30 nonmetrical skeletal variants, found that there were significant differences between negroid populations (Ashanti, Sudan), Mediterra- nean populations (Palestine), and all ancient Egyptian samples. They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990) showed a pattern com- mon to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as inter- mediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania showed affinities with tropical African patterns and differed notably from the Maghreb pattern. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Nile valley was pri- marily settled by immigrants from both the Sahara and from more southern areas and that Egyptian culture was formed by the fusion of Saharan and Nilotic peoples (Hassan, 1988). The mixture of phenotypes suggested by the archaeological and skeletal evidence is amply supported by representations in art and sculpture (Ver- coutter, 1978; O’Connor, 1971; “rigger, 1978; Kelly, 1991). Brace et al. offer fur- ther review of Egyptian biological status (this volume). Egypt was a multiracial society that did not discriminate internally on the basis of color, but looked down on all foreigners regardless of color (Yurco, 1989,1990; Snowden, 1970,1989,1992; Young, 1992; Levine, 1992; Coleman, 1992). Even Martin Bernal, the most artic- ulate proponent of Egyptian influence on Greece, agrees that in the pharaonic period Egypt was a racially mixed society with a higher incidence of negroid phenotypes in Upper Egypt (Young, 1992; Kelly, 1991; Bernal, 1992)" (pp34-35).
However, there was no reference to limb lengths. Could you explain why?
It's been 18 years since I wrote the paper. I guess it's due to the fact that the thrust of the paper was the wide variety of "magical" attributions to the melanin molecule and not a focus on the precise color of Egyptians. I still think that Egyptians are a cline darker from Alexandria to Nubia and that modern Egyptians resemble Ancient Egyptians, but I have pretty well kept out of the heated debate about that topic. What is important is culture not the biological characteristics.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor Ortiz de Montellano
You said in your response to Kdolo^^ (third post in this thread) that in your 1993 writing on African Mitochondrial Eve, you were doing what responsible scholars do:
"Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct."
Why then, when writing on ancient Egyptian biological affinities, did you not include reference to limb lengths?
Your paper was written in 1993, so after the Robins and Shute publication (1986) confirming that the ancient Egyptians had tropical limb lengths.
In your pages on the Egyptians you wrote:
"[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan. Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources. Berry et al. (1967), using a “measure of divergence” based on 30 nonmetrical skeletal variants, found that there were significant differences between negroid populations (Ashanti, Sudan), Mediterra- nean populations (Palestine), and all ancient Egyptian samples. They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990) showed a pattern com- mon to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as inter- mediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania showed affinities with tropical African patterns and differed notably from the Maghreb pattern. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Nile valley was pri- marily settled by immigrants from both the Sahara and from more southern areas and that Egyptian culture was formed by the fusion of Saharan and Nilotic peoples (Hassan, 1988). The mixture of phenotypes suggested by the archaeological and skeletal evidence is amply supported by representations in art and sculpture (Ver- coutter, 1978; O’Connor, 1971; “rigger, 1978; Kelly, 1991). Brace et al. offer fur- ther review of Egyptian biological status (this volume). Egypt was a multiracial society that did not discriminate internally on the basis of color, but looked down on all foreigners regardless of color (Yurco, 1989,1990; Snowden, 1970,1989,1992; Young, 1992; Levine, 1992; Coleman, 1992). Even Martin Bernal, the most artic- ulate proponent of Egyptian influence on Greece, agrees that in the pharaonic period Egypt was a racially mixed society with a higher incidence of negroid phenotypes in Upper Egypt (Young, 1992; Kelly, 1991; Bernal, 1992)" (pp34-35).
However, there was no reference to limb lengths. Could you explain why?
It's been 18 years since I wrote the paper. I guess it's due to the fact that the thrust of the paper was the wide variety of "magical" attributions to the melanin molecule and not a focus on the precise color of Egyptians. I still think that Egyptians are a cline darker from Alexandria to Nubia and that modern Egyptians resemble Ancient Egyptians, but I have pretty well kept out of the heated debate about that topic. What is important is culture not the biological characteristics.
Am I going to be ignored? Just as well as I read pink sensibilities in this thread. We need not be interested in the etnicity of Egyptians?
Well some have been claiming Obama is white, his father an African Caucasian. We need not worry about his ethnicity. So everything is okay in the world and Egyptians are just pinks.
For the record, I live among North Africans, Berbers like the Egyptians and today I was taking stock of their elongated skulls that show some variety. If we would only settle for the skull shape we need not have controversity.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Bhahaha, too funny.
Anyway here are the folks who contributed to that loon ranting page.
"In this paper, these claims are detailed and refuted. A review of the genetics and biochemistry of human pigmentation shows that all humans have similar amounts of neuromelanin (brain melanin), and that its concentration is absolutely independent of skin color; that adult humans do not synthesize P-MSH; and that human melatonin has no clearly demonstrable physiological function and no relationship to skin color. “Melanists” also distort human evolution by claimingthat European whites are descendants of negroid albinos. The main problems posed by this ideological movement are that it will increase the already rampant scientific illiteracy in this country, it will contribute to further widening the gap between the races, and, most imporantly, it is being introduced into the public school curriculum under the guise of multicultural education."
[...]
here is where it gets interesting
At the turn of the century, hyperdiffusionist European scholars argued that all civilization originated from one primary center of innovation, Egypt (Perry, 1923, 1937; Smith, 1923; Massey, 1907; Churchward, 1913, 1921). Because most Europeans did not think that black people were capable of the achievements reached by classical Egyptian civilization, in this “Heliocentric model” the Egyptians were Caucasian and Egypt was not considered part of Africa. Much effort has been expended in archeology, anthropology, and history to overcome the racist ideology of the 19thcentury. The dominant theory today, independent invention, holds that discoveriesand inventions such as agriculture, metallurgy, and architectural techniques are the results of independent efforts by different peoples. Archeological evidence simply does not support claims that these great human advances originated in only one place and then spread to others (Fagan, 1991).Clearly, biological differencesdo not produce cultural differences,and one race or ethnic group cannot claim intellectual superiority over all others.
It is ironic that today much of Afrocentric writing about Egypt is based on the same evidence used by earlier Heliocentric authors. However, now the claim is that ancient Egypt was a black African civilization and that Egyptians (or at least the rulers and the cultural leaders) were negroid (Diop, 1974, 1981; Williams, 1974).No one disputes that Egypt is in Africa, or that its civilization had elements in common with sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in religion.
However, the claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid.
Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan.
Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources. Berry et al. (1967),using a “measure of divergence” based on 30 nonmetrical skeletal variants, found that there were significant differences between negroid populations (Ashanti, Sudan), Mediterranean populations (Palestine), and all ancient Egyptian samples. They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990)showed a pattern common to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as intermediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania showed affinities with tropical African patterns and differed notably from the Maghreb pattern. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Nile valley was primarily settled by immigrants from both the Sahara and from more southern areas and that Egyptian culture was formed by the fusion of Saharan and Nilotic peoples (Hassan, 1988). The mixture of phenotypes suggested by the archaeological and skeletal evidence is amply supported by representations in art and sculpture (Ver- coutter, 1978; O’Connor, 1971; “rigger, 1978; Kelly, 1991). Brace et al. offer furher review of Egyptian biological status (this volume). Egypt was a multiracial society that did not discriminate internally on the basis of color, but looked down on all foreigners regardless of color (Yurco, 1989,1990; Snowden, 1970,1989,1992; Young, 1992; Levine, 1992; Coleman, 1992). Even Martin Bernal, the most artic- ulate proponent of Egyptian influence on Greece, agrees that in the pharaonic period Egypt was a racially mixed society with a higher incidence of negroid phenotypes in Upper Egypt (Young, 1992; Kelly, 1991; Bernal, 1992).
[...]
here he gets political, and touches dangerous grounds
The so-called conspir- acy to destroy black men has several corollaries. It is claimed that AIDS was deliberately developed by white males to infect and kill black people (Strecker, N.D.; Adams, 1988). “If you attempt to understand the AIDS holocaust without understanding white supremacy, you will only be confused: and you may be dead. . . . This [AIDS] is not a ‘monkey’biting Africans and causing disease, but a weapon of biological warfare developed in laboratories by people who classify themselves as white” (Welsing, 1991a294, 300). Claims are also made that the drug epidemic in African-American communities is also part of the “conspiracy to destroy Black men” (Welsing, 1991a:4, 1991b). Barnes (1988, 1991) involves mel- anin directly by claiming that melanin has a special affinity to cocaine;that in fact cocaine can copolymerize with melanin and remain in the body of black people for months.
All of the "claims will be reviewed on at a time, later.
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Bhahaha, too funny.
Anyway here are the folks who contributed to that loon ranting page.
Why are these relevant? I have nothing to do with Rational Wiki. I did not know it existed till today.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Bhahaha, too funny.
Anyway here are the folks who contributed to that loon ranting page.
quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Bhahaha, too funny.
Anyway here are the folks who contributed to that loon ranting page.
When "professors" state their belief is that modern Egyptians look like yesterday's Egyptians is this for the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms? They must be speaking of the New Kingdom and can't possibly be speaking of the Old Kingdom, right?
Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
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quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl:
quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: During a 'discussion' with a professor of Egyptology on the population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, he tried to deflect me by e-mailing pdfs of Tunde Adeleke's The Case Against Afrocentrism, Loring Brace's Clines and Clusters Versus “Race:” and Bernard De Montellano's Melanin, Afrocentricity and Pseudoscience.
I remembered the name of the author of the last paper--who apparently posts here on ES (Quetzalcoatl)-- after reading this:
In his paper, De Ortellano doesn't stop at debunking 'melanism' and 'albinoism', but also questions whether the ancient Egyptians were black Africans (pp34-35), as well as the African mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (p52).
Has anybody else read this?
Bhahaha, too funny.
Anyway here are the folks who contributed to that loon ranting page.
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: TIagree with this, however the sequence of variation order is significant in influence priority, Whereas random mutation followed by genetic drift, and lastly, environmental adaptation occur in that order. Why, because Yellow, red, white (pinkish) are transformations due to genetic mutation/genetic drift, and even social constructs (Asia as example) moreso than environmental adaptation.
It's regretful that we are still stuck by communication necessity of having to use false descriptions such as "race", "white", "black", and others hold-overs from the past misinformation age. I use them, although I don't believe them.
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: TIagree with this, however the sequence of variation order is significant in influence priority, Whereas random mutation followed by genetic drift, and lastly, environmental adaptation occur in that order. Why, because Yellow, red, white (pinkish) are transformations due to genetic mutation/genetic drift, and even social constructs (Asia as example) moreso than environmental adaptation.
However, adaptation to the environment (written large) is the ultimate cause- selecting random mutations that allow more reproductive success and fixing of alleles. Right?
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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The First Americans Were Africans: Documented Evidence -- David Imhotep Ph. D.,David Imhotep is a reponse to Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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An evolutionary biologist and a black man, Joseph Graves took pleasure in the coincidence: His symposium "Pseudo-science, Biology, and the Education of African American Students" was held on February 12, the birthday of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln.
Science and race are Graves's preoccupations, when he isn't teaching at Arizona State University West or pursuing his research into aging in five species of fruit fly. Scientists, he says, are taught to observe, and if they have eyes to see, they cannot fail to notice that the condition of African Americans is deteriorating. A stint as a teacher in Detroit's public schools in the late 1980s drove the point home.
Inadequate supplies and rundown facilities were no surprise. But Graves was dismayed by the scientific illiteracy of his students and by what he called " the prevalence of non-scientific ideas among the teachers across the board, not just African Americans." The fashionable solution -- an Afrocentric science curriculum -- he concluded would make the problem worse. For in the name of building black children's self-esteem, this curriculum mangled the very definition of science and brought into the classroom "incorrect methods for addressing the natural world."
Graves went back to graduate school. He started his work on flies at the University of California at Irvine, but he also publicly took on "scientific racism" in several of its guises. He debunked "melanism," the bogus theory that black people, allegedly including ancient Egyptians, have superior mental, physical, and paranormal powers because they have more melanin in their skin and their brains than whites. And he both critiqued what he regards as the spurious genetics in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve and denounced pseudoscientific arguments offered on radio call-in shows to prove The Bell Curve a slander against African Americans.
In 1995, Graves secured a $ 20,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to produce a collection of essays with the same title as his symposium, which took place at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Baltimore. The symposium presented a sampling of the work to appear in the book, which is due out later this year.
The co-editor of the volume and co-chairman of the symposium was Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, from Wayne State University in Detroit. Born in Mexico, Ortiz de Montellano began his career with a Ph. D. in organic chemistry from the University of Texas, then moved into anthropology, writing a book on medicine and diet among the Aztecs. On the side, as a member of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos in Science, he developed an interest in providing "culturally relevant" teaching materials for Mexican American children.
His idea, he explained at the symposium, is not that there is one science for whites, another for minorities; merely that in teaching, it is essential to spark a child's curiosity and that including in the curriculum examples drawn from the child's distinctive heritage can help to do this. Given the anti-academic environment in which many minority students find themselves, teachers must powerfully fire children's interest to persuade them to persevere through the four years of high-school math and science they will need to study science in college.
As Ortiz de Montellano worked on teaching materials for Mexican American students, he kept expecting someone to do the same for blacks. Finally someone did -- disastrously. In 1987 the Portland, Oregon, public schools published the pioneering "Baseline Essays in Afrocentric Education," intended as guidance to grade-school teachers. The Baseline Essays proved highly influential and have been adopted, formally or informally, Ortiz de Montellano says, by hundreds of school systems across the country, including those in Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, and D. C. The trouble is, the essays are polluted with a wild disregard for truth.
The eye-popping mendacity of the Baseline Essay on science (revised in 1990) begins with the misidentification of its author. Hunter Havelin Adams, III is called a "research scientist of Argonne National Laboratories, Chicago"; in fact, he was a technician (he is now, reportedly, a medical student). The essay goes on to deconstruct the concept of science, emphasizing that all knowledge is culturally determined and objectivity is unachievable. "All people are scientists," it teaches, with the implication that one person's science is as good as any other's. African science -- basically, that of the ancient Egyptians -- is based on a "science paradigm" that is "antithetical to contemporary Western ones," which are guided by "nonethical considerations such as cost effectiveness."
Unlike the science of dead white European males, Egyptian science makes room for both "material and transmaterial cause and effect" and investigates " psychoenergetics," including "precognition, psychokinesis, and remote viewing, " better known as ESP.
"Africans understood the multidimensionality of the mind: logical/rational, intuitive/symbolic, and emotional/spiritual," the Baseline Essay says. Indeed, much of the Egyptians' "science" is hard to distinguish from religion -- which makes it a fascinating study for mature historians and philosophers of science, Ortiz de Montellano points out, but a confusing part of the grade- school science curriculum.
Adams's essay is filled with interesting information about the Egyptians' remarkable achievements-their calendars and dams, their architectural feats, their skill at embalming. But along the way it tosses off without evidence such whoppers as the claim that the Egyptians invented the glider and "used their early planes for travel, expeditions, and recreation!"; that 500 years ago the Dogon people of Mali, using no instruments, discovered the star known as Sirius B, imperceptible to the naked (Western) eye; and that, in conclusion, "African people" are "the wellspring of creativity and knowledge on which the foundation of all science, technology and engineering rests."
Such inflated claims can only harm children by offering them "an illusory moment of selfesteem," Ortiz de Montellano asserts. He pleads for a simple educational ethic of self-respect earned by hard work, honest assessment, and genuine achievement. By all means, he says, use culturally relevant teaching materials whenever possible. But let children be taught to distinguish science from the supernatural. Let them learn to ask for evidence; to propose a hypothesis and test it; to observe with care.
By stirring the indignation of men like Graves and Ortiz de Montellano, the excesses of the Afrocentric education movement may have sown its destruction. One wonders, though, why more voices are not raised.
Ortiz de Montellano has tried for years to persuade the American Association for the Advancement of Science to speak out against pseudoscience for African Americans. But though it was willing enough a few years back to condemn the teaching of creationism as science, the association's board has been, silent on melanism and the Baseline Essays. One fears the gentle scholars may be squeamish -- for surely they do not believe that mental ghettos are good enough for minority children.
To be clear, I was referring to the professor who sent me your article and his comment on Africans being atop of an imagined racial hierarchy.
quote: I have a long record of working against segregation and for the inclusion of minorities, women and the handicapped in science. As a graduate student, I helped to integrate Scholte's Garden, almost popular drinking spot in Austin. A Couple of other things:
Founding member SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science. 1973-2- present
Coordinator Minority Academic Affairs Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY. 1975-76
Committee for Opportunities in Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1979-85
State of Michigan Education Department, Committee on Multicultural Science Education Requirements, 1991-1998..
It's funny that most of my life I've been attacked for being a radical integrationist and now this. :-). The Dallas Morning News wrote in 1961 that the University YMCA-_WYCA, which I used to set up the Model UN "was Black-and-White and Red all over."
I don't want to sound dismissive of your laudable efforts and contributions, but I've noticed that even ostensibly egalitarian types draw the line when it comes to the idea of ancient Egyptians as black African.
quote: It's been 18 years since I wrote the paper. I guess it's due to the fact that the thrust of the paper was the wide variety of "magical" attributions to the melanin molecule and not a focus on the precise color of Egyptians.
But in your paper you clearly took a position on the Egyptian race question, using cranial studies to support the following:
quote: "[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan.
I don't understand how, even if true, gradation in skin colour within an African population discounts it as being black--you must have noticed the variability in the complexions of African-Americans. Moreover, I found the statements " all Egyptians", " all the pharaohs" somewhat disingenuous, since you know that in the last thousand years of dynastic history the country was run by foreigners.
I think it would still be interesting if you could answer why you didn't mention the information on limb lengths? Especially since you included studies/references that helped to not only counter the idea that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans, but also the African Eve hypothesis.
quote: I still think that Egyptians are a cline darker from Alexandria to Nubia and that modern Egyptians resemble Ancient Egyptians
Might I ask what you're basing this on?
Some of my reasons for scepticism as follows:
Shomarka Keita concluded: "Cosmopolitan northern Egypt is less likely to have a population representative of the core indigenous population of the most ancient times." http://wysinger.homestead.com/keita6.pdf
I sent this quote to Barry Kemp, who replied:
"I suppose in a very broad, general way his statement is correct. But in Middle and Upper Egypt immigration of bedouin tribes intending to settle was going on into the 18th and 19th centuries. The Ottomans and Mamelukes, who were not really Arabs, brought in garrisons from the Balkans that were stationed even as far as northern Nubia. Egypt has been a real melting pot for peoples for a very long time, and still is, as it increasingly looks, from a Middle Eastern perspective, a relatively stable country and is therefore attracting refugees.
Best wishes: Barry"
So even Barry Kemp doesn't argue that the modern population is the same as the ancient one.
There was also the paper from June this year, Tracing the Route of Modern Humans out of Africa by Using 225 Human Genome Sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians, confirming the Nile as the predominant Out of Africa route. Following the genome testing,the following was concluded regarding the Egyptian sample (100):
"Using ADMIXTURE and principal-component analysis (PCA) (Figure 1A) we estimated the average of non-African ancestry in the Egyptians to be 80% and date the midpoint of the admixture event by using ADLER to around 750 years ago (Table S2), consistent with the Islamic expansion and dates reported previously" (p2).
But it would be interesting to read what you base your idea of biological continuity on.
There are indeed Egyptologists and classicists who are more comfortable with the idea of biological continuity, but that doesn't make them right, does it? Particularly given the ideological baggage besetting these disciplines.
quote: but I have pretty well kept out of the heated debate about that topic.
After reading your paper, I don't know if that's strictly accurate. The fact is that an Egyptologist sent me it to discredit the idea that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans.
quote: What is important is culture not the biological characteristics.
If that were the case, then mainstream academia, museums and the media wouldn't have issues accepting the entirely reasonable inference that the indigenous ancient Egyptians were indeed a predominantly black African population.
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: TIagree with this, however the sequence of variation order is significant in influence priority, Whereas random mutation followed by genetic drift, and lastly, environmental adaptation occur in that order. Why, because Yellow, red, white (pinkish) are transformations due to genetic mutation/genetic drift, and even social constructs (Asia as example) moreso than environmental adaptation.
However, adaptation to the environment (written large) is the ultimate cause- selecting random mutations that allow more reproductive success and fixing of alleles. Right?
I disagree.
The human immune system is a closed loop adaptive system, meaning external stimulus triggers internal response. If the response mechanism is broken, then the system become partially or completely inoperable. In the case of UV, external body sensors detect UV levels and respond accordingly to protect the body. In the case of excess UV, increased melanin production is triggered. In the case of lower UV, a small percentage decrease is triggered. In the case of OCA dominate mutation where little to no Eumelanin production is possible, the feedback path is blocked. In this latter case, there is no actual UV response adoption, is there is no actual skin level positive selection.
There are other environmental responses such as, longer/thicker hair, more body area covered by hair, additional sub-skin circulation system for heat removal, additional eye covering for photo-sensitivity, etc. These are responses to compensate for the original system being broken.
However, after a thousand years of observing African Albinos where the mutation is dominate, we have yet to see any of the above selection traits manifested in any of them.
Black -> OCA -> Environment, define the distinct diversity of Humankind
quote: When "professors" state their belief is that modern Egyptians look like yesterday's Egyptians is this for the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms? They must be speaking of the New Kingdom and can't possibly be speaking of the Old Kingdom, right?
Yes, there was migration into the Nile valley, but according to Joel Irish, the population overall remained biologically constant from the Badarian through to the Roman Period.
That would explain and corroborate the classical descriptions of the ancient Egyptians.
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor Ortiz de Montellano
You said in your response to Kdolo^^ (third post in this thread) that in your 1993 writing on African Mitochondrial Eve, you were doing what responsible scholars do:
"Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct."
Why then, when writing on ancient Egyptian biological affinities, did you not include reference to limb lengths?
Your paper was written in 1993, so after the Robins and Shute publication (1986) confirming that the ancient Egyptians had tropical limb lengths.
In your pages on the Egyptians you wrote:
"[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan. Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources. Berry et al. (1967), using a “measure of divergence” based on 30 nonmetrical skeletal variants, found that there were significant differences between negroid populations (Ashanti, Sudan), Mediterra- nean populations (Palestine), and all ancient Egyptian samples. They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990) showed a pattern com- mon to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as inter- mediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania showed affinities with tropical African patterns and differed notably from the Maghreb pattern. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Nile valley was pri- marily settled by immigrants from both the Sahara and from more southern areas and that Egyptian culture was formed by the fusion of Saharan and Nilotic peoples (Hassan, 1988). The mixture of phenotypes suggested by the archaeological and skeletal evidence is amply supported by representations in art and sculpture (Ver- coutter, 1978; O’Connor, 1971; “rigger, 1978; Kelly, 1991). Brace et al. offer fur- ther review of Egyptian biological status (this volume). Egypt was a multiracial society that did not discriminate internally on the basis of color, but looked down on all foreigners regardless of color (Yurco, 1989,1990; Snowden, 1970,1989,1992; Young, 1992; Levine, 1992; Coleman, 1992). Even Martin Bernal, the most artic- ulate proponent of Egyptian influence on Greece, agrees that in the pharaonic period Egypt was a racially mixed society with a higher incidence of negroid phenotypes in Upper Egypt (Young, 1992; Kelly, 1991; Bernal, 1992)" (pp34-35).
However, there was no reference to limb lengths. Could you explain why?
It's been 18 years since I wrote the paper. I guess it's due to the fact that the thrust of the paper was the wide variety of "magical" attributions to the melanin molecule and not a focus on the precise color of Egyptians. I still think that Egyptians are a cline darker from Alexandria to Nubia and that modern Egyptians resemble Ancient Egyptians, but I have pretty well kept out of the heated debate about that topic. What is important is culture not the biological characteristics.
Hum, as I suspected.
Anyway, you had plenty of time to rectify your previous biased statements.
You complained about Afrocentrism, while Eurocentrism is/ was to the tenth power.
As an anthropologist you should know. The first anthropologist were extremely racist, and had biased views. A lot also supported or were part of the eugenics movement.
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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"Beyond the island [Elephantine] is a great lake, and round its shores live nomadic tribes of Ethiopians. After crossing the lake one comes again to the stream of the Nile, which flows into it... After forty days journey on land along the river, one takes another boat and in twelve days reaches a big city named Meroe, said to be the capital city of the Ethiopians ."
Herodotus informs us that he is aware of the cultural similarities between the ancient Ethiopians and the ancient Egyptians:
"For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they have black skins and curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their neighbours, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians."
Pyramids in Meroe
Diodorus Siculus (60 BC)
"They [the Ethiopians] say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris ["King of Kings and God of Gods"] having been the leader of the colony . . . they add that the Egyptians have received from them, as from authors and their ancestors, the greater part of their laws."
Like Herodotus, Siculus described Ethiopians as Black and their empire as vast, from central and East Africa to the Arabian penninsula. However, by Siculus' time, the capital had moved away from Meroe to the East where Ethiopians mined gold. This was the same time period in which the ancient Aksum leaders thrived:
"But there are also a great many other tribes of the Ethiopians, some of them dwelling in the land lying on both banks of the Nile and on the islands in the river, others inhabiting the neighbouring country of Arabia, and still others residing in the interior of Libya [the Greek term for interior Africa west of the Nile]. The majority of them, and especially those who dwell along the river, are black in colour and have flat noses and woolly hair ...we feel that it is appropriate first to tell of the working of the gold as it is carried on in these regions...At the extremity of Egypt and in the contiguous territory of both Arabia and Ethiopia there lies a region which contains many large gold mines, where the gold is secured in great quantities."
trabo (63 - 24 AD) provides even further detail on the extent of the Ethiopian empire, which included not just Arabia, but Europe as well:
"However, Sesostris, the Egyptian, he adds, and Tearco [Taharqa] the Aethiopian advanced as far as Europe; and Nabocodrosor, who enjoyed greater repute among the Chaldaeans [in modern day Iraq] than Heracles, led an army even as far as the Pillars [Gibraltar]. Thus far, he says, also Tearco went..."
Count Constantin de Volney (1757-1820) on Modern Egypt and ancient Egypt.
"fter being imbued with all the prejudices we have just mentioned with regard to the Negro, Volney had gone to Egypt between 1783 and 1785, while Negro slavery flourished. He reported as follows on the Egyptian race, the very race that had produced the Pharaohs: the Copts.
"..all have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, thick lips; in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says: "As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ..."
posted
I respect Quetz's decision to stay out of the Egyptian debate for the most part these days. I understand his specialty is Mesoamerica, and I admire the scholarship he's done in that field (including his rebuttals to Clyde Winters).
I am a bit bothered by the RationalWiki articles, seeing as they present themselves as scientifically minded secular rationalists. But then, I've learned that even white liberals who take an anti-racist intellectual stance aren't immune to Eurocentric conditioning. It can be a continual battle to overcome subconscious prejudice instilled into you from the larger culture. And then of course a lot of "rationalists" and armchair intellectuals can be arrogant pricks who think they know everything.
At least Wikis aren't considered reliable sources by themselves anymore.
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor Ortoz de Montellano
don't want to sound dismissive of your laudable efforts and contributions, but I've noticed that even ostensibly egalitarian types draw the line when it comes to the idea of ancient Egyptians as black African.
Is this the litmus test that supersedes everything else?
quote:I don't understand how, even if true, gradation in skin colour within an African population discounts it as being black--you must have noticed the variability in the complexions of African-Americans. Moreover, I found the statements " all Egyptians", " all the pharaohs" somewhat disingenuous, since you know that in the last thousand years of dynastic history the country was run by foreigners.
The problem is that the word "black" takes on many different meanings here and elsewhere depending on the intentions of the writer.
All africans are "black" but not all "blacks" are African. Sometimes as in this statement "black is a big range of tones from deep black to yellowish-brown (Khoisan) to brown (North Africa). However, when one wants to claim direct African influence (Chinese, Native Americans, Olmecs, Mayas, Dravidians, Japanese,European nobility, etc. etc.) the word "black" can be almost any hue-BUT in this case it is use as a synonym for "African." So that we have "black" i.e. African Chinese, "black" i.e African Native Americans and so forth. I have no problem with "black" in this context being a gradation in color or saying Egyptians are African-- they live in the continent.
On the Pharaohs- Again the problem is where do you draw the line between genuinely Ancient Egyptians and Egyptians that no longer qualify. Do The Ptolemies and the Romans qualify?
quote: There was also the paper from June this year, Tracing the Route of Modern Humans out of Africa by Using 225 Human Genome Sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians, confirming the Nile as the predominant Out of Africa route. Following the genome testing,the following was concluded regarding the Egyptian sample (100):
"Using ADMIXTURE and principal-component analysis (PCA) (Figure 1A) we estimated the average of non-African ancestry in the Egyptians to be 80% and date the midpoint of the admixture event by using ADLER to around 750 years ago (Table S2), consistent with the Islamic expansion and dates reported previously" (p2).
But it would be interesting to read what you base your idea of biological continuity on.
.
I'll have to get back to you on this. I like to check sources-- could you give me a good citation for this paper? I tried all sorts of variations on Google Scholar and did not get anything.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
^ According to Wiki's founder, Wiki has never been considered a reliable source.
15 Jun 2006 Wikipedia founder Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales has warned students not to refer to Wikipedia, reports the US education weekly The Chronicle.
Wales said that he gets about 10 e-mail messages a week from students who complain that Wikipedia has earned them fail grades.
"They say, 'Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia'" and the information turned out to be wrong, he says. But he said he has no sympathy for their plight, noting that he thinks to himself:
"For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia," the journal reports. Wales didn't, alas, suggest renaming the project to something more appropriate, like "Jimbo's Big Bag of Trivia", as we've advised before. He put the blame squarely on the students. And while Wikipedians love to blame everyone but themselves for their predicament, in large part, he's correct.
The founder of the online encyclopedia, says college students should not use the free encyclopedia for class projects or serious research.
"It is totally unreliable," said Missouri State University history professor Stephen McIntyre. "It's essentially reducing knowledge to opinion."
quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor: []Hum, as I suspected.
Anyway, you had plenty of time to rectify your previous biased statements.
You complained about Afrocentrism, while Eurocentrism is/ was to the tenth power.
As an anthropologist you should know. The first anthropologist were extremely racist, and had biased views. A lot also supported or were part of the eugenics movement.
I definitely agree that early anthropologists - probably up to the 1940s and 50s were very racist and some did support eugenics. That is why in my paper I castigate early 20th century Europeans who claimed that a white race of Egyptians spread civilization all over the world. What painful as a Hispanic is to now see a race of "black Egyptians or Mande claiming to do the same and quoting the same racist evidence of the early 20th century to support this view. Van Sertima has tons of this stuff.
Eurocentrism is not only anti black it is also anti-Native Americans and Mexicans. Most of my time during my career was involved in fighting against Eurocentrism particularly in Science - where it is deeply entrenched. i.e. only European white males can do science, there are no qualified minority scientists, minority scientists are all products of affirmative action, science textbooks only showed pictures of white European males. My efforts were always to get Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to unite and push for reforms. This is why I am a founding member (1973) of the most dynamic and largest Hispanic and Native American Science society ,SACNAS. Look it up. We started with a nucleus of 20 scientists in 1973 and now have over 25,000 members, and friends.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor: []Hum, as I suspected.
Anyway, you had plenty of time to rectify your previous biased statements.
You complained about Afrocentrism, while Eurocentrism is/ was to the tenth power.
As an anthropologist you should know. The first anthropologist were extremely racist, and had biased views. A lot also supported or were part of the eugenics movement.
I definitely agree that early anthropologists - probably up to the 1940s and 50s were very racist and some did support eugenics. That is why in my paper I castigate early 20th century Europeans who claimed that a white race of Egyptians spread civilization all over the world. What painful as a Hispanic is to now see a race of "black Egyptians or Mande claiming to do the same and quoting the same racist evidence of the early 20th century to support this view. Van Sertima has tons of this stuff.
Eurocentrism is not only anti black it is also anti-Native Americans and Mexicans. Most of my time during my career was involved in fighting against Eurocentrism particularly in Science - where it is deeply entrenched. i.e. only European white males can do science, there are no qualified minority scientists, minority scientists are all products of affirmative action, science textbooks only showed pictures of white European males. My efforts were always to get Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to unite and push for reforms. This is why I am a founding member (1973) of the most dynamic and largest Hispanic and Native American Science society ,SACNAS. Look it up. We started with a nucleus of 20 scientists in 1973 and now have over 25,000 members, and friends.
What do you think of the strategy of some Mexican acitivists in the U.S. to dissassociate themselves as being identified as "Hispanics" or even as "Mexicans" to an extent but instead to empasize themselves as "Native Americans"?
It seems smart in one sense because you might have claims to certain indigenous rights. On the other hand look at the conditions of Native American territories
Posts: 42921 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: @Professor Ortoz de Montellano
don't want to sound dismissive of your laudable efforts and contributions, but I've noticed that even ostensibly egalitarian types draw the line when it comes to the idea of ancient Egyptians as black African.
Is this the litmus test that supersedes everything else?
You listed your contributions to civil rights as if that necessarily meant that your approach to the subject was disinterested. As the poster calling himself Truthcentric, who actually endorsed you, commented:
quote: But then, I've learned that even white liberals who take an anti-racist intellectual stance aren't immune to Eurocentric conditioning. It can be a continual battle to overcome subconscious prejudice instilled into you from the larger culture.
White people marry into black families but still voice racist views. I know this from experience.
I'm hoping to get greater insight into why you said that responsible sholars: "Report the state of the literature as up-to-date as possible, and give both sides until one is proven to be correct." But didn't include findings on ancient Egyptian limb lengths. When I asked you why this was the case, you replied:
quote: I guess it's due to the fact that the thrust of the paper was the wide variety of "magical" attributions to the melanin molecule and not a focus on the precise color of Egyptians .
However, it appears that whilst your paper did not focus on the skin colour/population backgrounds of the ancient Egyptians, again, you did take a position:
quote:"[T]he claim that all Egyptians, or even all the pharaohs, were black, is not valid. Most scholars believe that Egyptians in antiquity looked pretty much as they look today, with a gradation of darker shades toward the Sudan."
In your last reply, you wrote:
quote: The problem is that the word "black" takes on many different meanings here and elsewhere depending on the intentions of the writer.
All africans are "black" but not all "blacks" are African. Sometimes as in this statement "black is a big range of tones from deep black to yellowish-brown (Khoisan) to brown (North Africa). However, when one wants to claim direct African influence (Chinese, Native Americans, Olmecs, Mayas, Dravidians, Japanese,European nobility, etc. etc.) the word "black" can be almost any hue-BUT in this case it is use as a synonym for "African." So that we have "black" i.e. African Chinese, "black" i.e African Native Americans and so forth. I have no problem with "black" in this context being a gradation in color or saying Egyptians are African-- they live in the continent.
This part of your reply is meandering and obfuscatory. In the ancient Egyptian context, 'black' refers to an individual or population of tropical African descent. The indigenous ancient Egyptians were largely inner African in origin...their limb lengths show this. It's not hard.
Like other academics, it also seems that you prefer the idea of the ancient Egyptians as 'African' by dint of their being on the African continent (akin to modern coastal Libyans and Tunisians), rather than what 'African' more commonly denotes.
quote: On the Pharaohs- Again the problem is where do you draw the line between genuinely Ancient Egyptians and Egyptians that no longer qualify. Do The Ptolemies and the Romans qualify?
I'm not sure I see the relevance of discussing the Ptolemies and Romans here.Some of them intermarried with the local population, but they were European in origin. Again, it's not hard.
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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quote: I'll have to get back to you on this. I like to check sources-- could you give me a good citation for this paper? I tried all sorts of variations on Google Scholar and did not get anything.
I put the title into google and the article comes up as the first search result:
Tracing the Route of Modern Humans out of Africa by Using 225 Human Genome Sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians
h ttp://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297(15)00156-1
quote: Following the genome testing,the following was concluded regarding the Egyptian sample (100):
" Using ADMIXTURE and principal-component analysis (PCA) (Figure 1A) we estimated the average of non-African ancestry in the Egyptians to be 80% and date the midpoint of the admixture event by using ADLER to around 750 years ago (Table S2), consistent with the Islamic expansion and dates reported previously" (p2).
What did you make of Shomarka Keita's and Barry Kemp's comments?
Could you also provide sources for the argument that the modern population is the same as the ancient?
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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quote:Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl: [ Eurocentrism is not only anti black it is also anti-Native Americans and Mexicans. Most of my time during my career was involved in fighting against Eurocentrism particularly in Science - where it is deeply entrenched. i.e. only European white males can do science, there are no qualified minority scientists, minority scientists are all products of affirmative action, science textbooks only showed pictures of white European males. My efforts were always to get Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to unite and push for reforms. This is why I am a founding member (1973) of the most dynamic and largest Hispanic and Native American Science society ,SACNAS. Look it up. We started with a nucleus of 20 scientists in 1973 and now have over 25,000 members, and friends.
What do you think of the strategy of some Mexican acitivists in the U.S. to dissassociate themselves as being identified as "Hispanics" or even as "Mexicans" to an extent but instead to empasize themselves as "Native Americans"?
It seems smart in one sense because you might have claims to certain indigenous rights. On the other hand look at the conditions of Native American territories
The emphasis is on Mesomerican indians, Maya, Aztec, etc. Not USA. It is a valid effort to connect with some cultural roots. On the other hand, I have criticized Vine De Loria for making the same sort of pseudoscientific claims I objected to in the Baseline Essays.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl: The problem is that the word "black" takes on many different meanings here and elsewhere depending on the intentions of the writer.
All africans are "black" but not all "blacks" are African. Sometimes as in this statement "black is a big range of tones from deep black to yellowish-brown (Khoisan) to brown (North Africa). However, when one wants to claim direct African influence (Chinese, Native Americans, Olmecs, Mayas, Dravidians, Japanese,European nobility, etc. etc.) the word "black" can be almost any hue-BUT in this case it is use as a synonym for "African." So that we have "black" i.e. African Chinese, "black" i.e African Native Americans and so forth. I have no problem with "black" in this context being a gradation in color or saying Egyptians are African-- they live in the continent.
On the Pharaohs- Again the problem is where do you draw the line between genuinely Ancient Egyptians and Egyptians that no longer qualify. Do The Ptolemies and the Romans qualify?
Montellano there is no disagreement on who or what is a black person, or negro. A negro can be defined as a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara. Negro comes from the Spanish and Portuguese term to denote “black and black people”, derived from the ancient Latin word niger, also meaning black. You claim their can be no black Chinese, Japanese, Dravidians and Olmecs, yet today we have white Americans, even though the Americans when Europeans arrived were black and mongoloid Native Americans. This is why you and your ilk are so deceitful. There were black Chinese. In the Chinese literature the Blacks were called li-min, Kunlung, Ch'iang (Qiang), Yi and Yueh. The founders of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasties were blacks. These blacks were called Yueh and Qiang. The modern Chinese are descendants of the Zhou. The second Shang Dynasty ( situated at Anyang) was founded by the Yin. As a result this dynasty is called Shang-Yin. The Yin or Oceanic Mongoloid type is associated with the Austronesian speakers ( Kwang-chih Chang, "Prehistoric and early historic culture horizons and traditions in South China", Current Anthropology, 5 (1964) pp.359-375 :375). The Austronesian or Oceanic Mongoloid type were called Yin, Feng, Yen, Zhiu Yi and Lun Yi.
In Chinese min=people and li= black (see L. Wieger, Chinese Characters (1915)).The Chinese classics make it clear that the Min Li, meant "Black people" not young Chinese or peasant Chinese. In the "Shu King", we read that "In the Canon of Yao, we discover that Yu "…regulated and polished the people of his domain, who all became brightly intelligent. Finally, he united and harmonized the myriad States of the empire; and lo! The black people were transformed". In this passage "min li is used to describe all the people in the Empire, not just the peasants or the young people. In Book II, it was written that Kao yao "…with vigorous activity sowing abroad his virtue, which has decended on the black people, till they cherish him in their hearts". Again the term li min was applied to the people of the empire and not just a particular group. You act as though I made up the Dravidian idea that they are related to black Africans. Dravidian speaking people recognize their recent African heritage. See:Aravanan KP. 1976. ''Physical and cultural similarities between Dravidians and Africans''. Journal of Tamil Studies 10:23–27; and Aravanan KP. 1979. Dravidians and Africans, Madras; Aravanan KP. 1980. Notable negroid elements in Dravidian India. J Tamil Studies 20–45. The Olmec came from Saharan Africa.[/b] They spoke a Mande language. Evidence of this connection comes from the fact:
1) both groups used jade (Amazonite) to make their tools. Amazonite was used in Saharan Africa
It was found at many sites in the ancient Sahara by archaeologists from the University of Chicago led by Soreno See:
They made adzes and pendants to name a few items in amazonite.
2) both groups made large stone heads. Here is an African head dating back to the same period.
3) The Mande came to Mexico in boats from the Sahara down the ancient Niger River that formerly emptied in the Sahara or they could have made their way to the Atlantic Ocean down the Senegal River.
4) The Olmec writing points back to a Mande origin in Africa.
.
5) Olmec skeletons that are African.
6) Similar white, and red-and-black pottery.
7) Introduction of the 13 month 20 day calendar.
8) Mayan adoption of the Mande term for writing.
9)Mande religious and culture terms adopted by Mayan people.
It is clear that Montellano would rather make up a lie about African people instead of examining the evidence of Black Chinese, Black Olmec , Black Dravidians and etc.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor: []Hum, as I suspected.
Anyway, you had plenty of time to rectify your previous biased statements.
You complained about Afrocentrism, while Eurocentrism is/ was to the tenth power.
As an anthropologist you should know. The first anthropologist were extremely racist, and had biased views. A lot also supported or were part of the eugenics movement.
I definitely agree that early anthropologists - probably up to the 1940s and 50s were very racist and some did support eugenics. That is why in my paper I castigate early 20th century Europeans who claimed that a white race of Egyptians spread civilization all over the world. What painful as a Hispanic is to now see a race of "black Egyptians or Mande claiming to do the same and quoting the same racist evidence of the early 20th century to support this view. Van Sertima has tons of this stuff.
Eurocentrism is not only anti black it is also anti-Native Americans and Mexicans. Most of my time during my career was involved in fighting against Eurocentrism particularly in Science - where it is deeply entrenched. i.e. only European white males can do science, there are no qualified minority scientists, minority scientists are all products of affirmative action, science textbooks only showed pictures of white European males. My efforts were always to get Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to unite and push for reforms. This is why I am a founding member (1973) of the most dynamic and largest Hispanic and Native American Science society ,SACNAS. Look it up. We started with a nucleus of 20 scientists in 1973 and now have over 25,000 members, and friends.
Ancient Egypt was a composition of several ethic groups. From inner Africa. And yes, the true negro, as often is stereotyped as a slave in ancient Egypt, was amongst the royals too.
Eurocentrism has done a lot of damage to African history. I agree that Afrocetrism/ Africana should not follow their path.
posted
'My efforts were always to get Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women to unite and push for reforms'
The worst kind of 'reformer' is the white, hispanic, and other 'ethnics'/ marginalized groups who trie to ally with Blacks for reforms.
These types have developed a strategy of using the moral standing, political clout, and cultural aggressiveness of Negroes to advance themselves often at Negro expense.
These people are 100% untrustworthy. They will throw Blacks under the bus and tend to do so immediately after getting what they want.....the are thrilled to get crumbs from white establishment in particular if getting the crumbs means harming Blacks.
These people are the ultimate white supremacists.....Latin American culture in particular is openly white supremacist.
Montellano can claim to be liberal all he wants....it means nothing if he refuses to acknowledge on the pillars of Afrocentric thought - Ancient Egyptians are BLACK Africans and it was BLACK african civilization. A few years ago, one may have been able to make excuses.....but no more. The evidence is conclusive:
-Genetic, lingusotic, anthropological, arecheaological, etc.
Denial of this is a cover for racist sentiment and Eurocentri bias.
The same can be said for obvious African influence in meso America as relates to the Olmecs.
-------------------- Keldal Posts: 2818 | From: new york | Registered: Apr 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: Montellano there is no disagreement on who or what is a black person, or negro. A negro can be defined as a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara. Negro comes from the Spanish and Portuguese term to denote “black and black people”, derived from the ancient Latin word niger, also meaning black. You claim their can be no black Chinese, Japanese, Dravidians and Olmecs, yet today we have white Americans, even though the Americans when Europeans arrived were black and mongoloid Native Americans. This is why you and your ilk are so deceitful. There were black Chinese. In the Chinese literature the Blacks were called li-min, Kunlung, Ch'iang (Qiang), Yi and Yueh. The founders of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasties were blacks. These blacks were called Yueh and Qiang. The modern Chinese are descendants of the Zhou. The second Shang Dynasty ( situated at Anyang) was founded by the Yin. As a result this dynasty is called Shang-Yin. The Yin or Oceanic Mongoloid type is associated with the Austronesian speakers ( Kwang-chih Chang, "Prehistoric and early historic culture horizons and traditions in South China", Current Anthropology, 5 (1964) pp.359-375 :375). The Austronesian or Oceanic Mongoloid type were called Yin, Feng, Yen, Zhiu Yi and Lun Yi.
In Chinese min=people and li= black (see L. Wieger, Chinese Characters (1915)).The Chinese classics make it clear that the Min Li, meant "Black people" not young Chinese or peasant Chinese. In the "Shu King", we read that "In the Canon of Yao, we discover that Yu "…regulated and polished the people of his domain, who all became brightly intelligent. Finally, he united and harmonized the myriad States of the empire; and lo! The black people were transformed". In this passage "min li is used to describe all the people in the Empire, not just the peasants or the young people. In Book II, it was written that Kao yao "…with vigorous activity sowing abroad his virtue, which has decended on the black people, till they cherish him in their hearts". Again the term li min was applied to the people of the empire and not just a particular group. You act as though I made up the Dravidian idea that they are related to black Africans. Dravidian speaking people recognize their recent African heritage. See:Aravanan KP. 1976. ''Physical and cultural similarities between Dravidians and Africans''. Journal of Tamil Studies 10:23–27; and Aravanan KP. 1979. Dravidians and Africans, Madras; Aravanan KP. 1980. Notable negroid elements in Dravidian India. J Tamil Studies 20–45.
quote: The Olmec came from Saharan Africa.[/b] They spoke a Mande language. Evidence of this connection comes from the fact:
1) both groups used jade (Amazonite) to make their tools. Amazonite was used in Saharan Africa
It was found at many sites in the ancient Sahara by archaeologists from the University of Chicago led by Soreno See:
They made adzes and pendants to name a few items in amazonite.
The usual spam. You are one of the chief offenders who uses completely circular logic in his claims. For example, there are African genes in modern day Native Americans, therefore you claim that Africans came to the New World. There are two types of logical errors here 1)excluded middle - the choice is not Africans were here pre-columbian or they were not-we have had 500 years of Africans brought over in which sex has taken place with Native Americans-- and this is the most probable answer following Occam's Razor.; 2) circular argument-- you state ,as a proof of pre-columbian African presence, the fact that Native Americans have African genes BUT you can't do this. First you have to prove that Africans were here independently.
I have dealt with your other arguments ad nauseam in the last few years. Thus I'm not going to tie up this thread with that. Just one
You state that the Olmec spoke Mande because both the Olmec in the New World and the Mande used Amazonite, which in itself does not prove what you claim. it is like saying "the Greeks (or anyone) and the Maya used copper therefore the Maya were Greek." This "proof" of yours is totally bogus like your other "proofs." The Olmecs used Jade not Amazonite. Africans used Amazonite BUT Amazonite is NOT Jade. Two minutes on google gets you this:
quote:Amazonite is a translucent or opaque blue-green or green colored gemstone that falls into the Feldspar family (specifically, the Microcline variety). Amazonite can sometimes resemble Jade and is occasionally passed off as it, but the two can be distinguished by their different densities and refractive index numbers. Amazonite can sometimes have uneven coloring, and it is common to see white streaks in the stone.
Amazonite has middling hardness, with about a 6 on the Mohs scale. It has a refractive index level of 1.52 to 1.53, and has specific gravity of around 2.57.
quote:Jade is the gem name for mineral aggregates composed of either or both of two different minerals, Jadeite and Nephrite. Jadeite is a sodium-rich aluminous pyroxene; nephrite is a fine-grained, calcium-rich, magnesium, iron, aluminous amphibole. All jade is composed of fine-grained, highly intergrown, interlocking ("matted" or "felted" texture, like asbestos or felt) crystals of one or both of these minerals. Though neither mineral is very hard (6-7), jade is one of the toughest gem minerals known because of the intergrown nature of the individual crystals. Most jade on the market is composed of nephrite; jadeite jade is quite rare and in its emerald-green, translucent form is referred to as Imperial Jade or "gem jade". A small amount of Cr in jadeite accounts for the color of imperial jade. Other color-based names for jadeite jade are Yunan Jade, for a uniquely appearing dark green, semitranslucent jade, Apple Jade for apple (yellowish green) green jade, and Moss-in-Snow for white jade with vivid green spots and streaks. Nephrite and jadeite jade ranges in color from a somewhat greasy-appearing, white ("mutton fat jade") to dark and light shades of green, gray, blue-green, lavender, yellow, orange, brown, reddish-brown, and black. An important dark green variety of nephrite is sometimes known as "spinach jade". The chromophore in all nephrite jades is usually Fe. Nephrite jade is usually opaque to translucent in thinner pieces. The name jade has been, and continues to be, applied to a variety of materials that superficially or closely resemble jade but are not composed of either jadeite or nephrite. F.T.C. regulations in this country deem such usage unlawful, yet the practice persists, either through ignorance or otherwise. Some of the problem can undoubtedly be traced to cultural and historical differences in word usage. In China, for example, the word jade has traditionally been applied not only to nephrite and jadeite jade, but to green serpentine and soapstone (talc) whose appearance closely resemble true jade. Common misnomers and the materials they represent are: "Korean" Jade for serpentine or gem serpentine (bowenite), "Indian" Jade for aventurine, "Mexican Jade" for green-dyed calcite, "Transvaal Jade" for green hydrogrossular garnet, "Amazon or Colorado Jade" for amazonite (blue-green or green) feldspar and "Oregon or Swiss Jade" for green chalcedony.
Properties • Crystal System: Monoclinic • Habit: Fibrous crystals, densely matted together. Usually found as water-washed pebbles or boulders. Rare botryoidal habit known. • Hardness: Nephrite: 6 - 6.5 Jadeite: 6.5 - 7 • Toughness: Extremely tough • Cleavage:2 directions; not evident in jade • Fracture: Splintery • Specific Gravity: Nephrite: 2.90 - 3.02 Jadeite: 3.3 - 3.5 • R.I.: Nephrite about 1.62 Jadeite about 1.66 • Color: See above • U.V. Fluorescence: Lighter colored jadeites have a weak whitish color in long U.V. light; nephrite doesn't fluoresce • Phenomena: Chatoyance, yielding fine cat's eyes in rare pieces (Korea, Alaska, Russia). Distinguishing Properties • Difficult to impossible to distinguish nephrite jade from jadeite jade by visual inspection. Specific gravity determination is the most reliable of simple I.D. methods for distinguishing the two. • Great variety of materials offered as imitations, e.g. talc (soapstone), serpentine, amazonite, dyed chalcedony, and others. All can have colors remarkably similar to jade, but properties above, particularly S.G., can be used to distinguish.
So much for your "proof" that the Olmecs spoke Mande (which BTW you haven't proved either. Please spare us the incoming flood of spam.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: Montellano there is no disagreement on who or what is a black person, or negro. A negro can be defined as a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara. Negro comes from the Spanish and Portuguese term to denote “black and black people”, derived from the ancient Latin word niger, also meaning black. You claim their can be no black Chinese, Japanese, Dravidians and Olmecs, yet today we have white Americans, even though the Americans when Europeans arrived were black and mongoloid Native Americans. This is why you and your ilk are so deceitful. There were black Chinese. In the Chinese literature the Blacks were called li-min, Kunlung, Ch'iang (Qiang), Yi and Yueh. The founders of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasties were blacks. These blacks were called Yueh and Qiang. The modern Chinese are descendants of the Zhou. The second Shang Dynasty ( situated at Anyang) was founded by the Yin. As a result this dynasty is called Shang-Yin. The Yin or Oceanic Mongoloid type is associated with the Austronesian speakers ( Kwang-chih Chang, "Prehistoric and early historic culture horizons and traditions in South China", Current Anthropology, 5 (1964) pp.359-375 :375). The Austronesian or Oceanic Mongoloid type were called Yin, Feng, Yen, Zhiu Yi and Lun Yi.
In Chinese min=people and li= black (see L. Wieger, Chinese Characters (1915)).The Chinese classics make it clear that the Min Li, meant "Black people" not young Chinese or peasant Chinese. In the "Shu King", we read that "In the Canon of Yao, we discover that Yu "…regulated and polished the people of his domain, who all became brightly intelligent. Finally, he united and harmonized the myriad States of the empire; and lo! The black people were transformed". In this passage "min li is used to describe all the people in the Empire, not just the peasants or the young people. In Book II, it was written that Kao yao "…with vigorous activity sowing abroad his virtue, which has decended on the black people, till they cherish him in their hearts". Again the term li min was applied to the people of the empire and not just a particular group. You act as though I made up the Dravidian idea that they are related to black Africans. Dravidian speaking people recognize their recent African heritage. See:Aravanan KP. 1976. ''Physical and cultural similarities between Dravidians and Africans''. Journal of Tamil Studies 10:23–27; and Aravanan KP. 1979. Dravidians and Africans, Madras; Aravanan KP. 1980. Notable negroid elements in Dravidian India. J Tamil Studies 20–45.
quote: The Olmec came from Saharan Africa.[/b] They spoke a Mande language. Evidence of this connection comes from the fact:
1) both groups used jade (Amazonite) to make their tools. Amazonite was used in Saharan Africa
It was found at many sites in the ancient Sahara by archaeologists from the University of Chicago led by Soreno See:
They made adzes and pendants to name a few items in amazonite.
The usual spam. You are one of the chief offenders who uses completely circular logic in his claims. For example, there are African genes in modern day Native Americans, therefore you claim that Africans came to the New World. There are two types of logical errors here 1)excluded middle - the choice is not Africans were here pre-columbian or they were not-we have had 500 years of Africans brought over in which sex has taken place with Native Americans-- and this is the most probable answer following Occam's Razor.; 2) circular argument-- you state ,as a proof of pre-columbian African presence, the fact that Native Americans have African genes BUT you can't do this. First you have to prove that Africans were here independently.
I have dealt with your other arguments ad nauseam in the last few years. Thus I'm not going to tie up this thread with that. Just one
You state that the Olmec spoke Mande because both the Olmec in the New World and the Mande used Amazonite, which in itself does not prove what you claim. it is like saying "the Greeks (or anyone) and the Maya used copper therefore the Maya were Greek." This "proof" of yours is totally bogus like your other "proofs." The Olmecs used Jade not Amazonite. Africans used Amazonite BUT Amazonite is NOT Jade. Two minutes on google gets you this:
quote:Amazonite is a translucent or opaque blue-green or green colored gemstone that falls into the Feldspar family (specifically, the Microcline variety). Amazonite can sometimes resemble Jade and is occasionally passed off as it, but the two can be distinguished by their different densities and refractive index numbers. Amazonite can sometimes have uneven coloring, and it is common to see white streaks in the stone.
Amazonite has middling hardness, with about a 6 on the Mohs scale. It has a refractive index level of 1.52 to 1.53, and has specific gravity of around 2.57.
quote:Jade is the gem name for mineral aggregates composed of either or both of two different minerals, Jadeite and Nephrite. Jadeite is a sodium-rich aluminous pyroxene; nephrite is a fine-grained, calcium-rich, magnesium, iron, aluminous amphibole. All jade is composed of fine-grained, highly intergrown, interlocking ("matted" or "felted" texture, like asbestos or felt) crystals of one or both of these minerals. Though neither mineral is very hard (6-7), jade is one of the toughest gem minerals known because of the intergrown nature of the individual crystals. Most jade on the market is composed of nephrite; jadeite jade is quite rare and in its emerald-green, translucent form is referred to as Imperial Jade or "gem jade". A small amount of Cr in jadeite accounts for the color of imperial jade. Other color-based names for jadeite jade are Yunan Jade, for a uniquely appearing dark green, semitranslucent jade, Apple Jade for apple (yellowish green) green jade, and Moss-in-Snow for white jade with vivid green spots and streaks. Nephrite and jadeite jade ranges in color from a somewhat greasy-appearing, white ("mutton fat jade") to dark and light shades of green, gray, blue-green, lavender, yellow, orange, brown, reddish-brown, and black. An important dark green variety of nephrite is sometimes known as "spinach jade". The chromophore in all nephrite jades is usually Fe. Nephrite jade is usually opaque to translucent in thinner pieces. The name jade has been, and continues to be, applied to a variety of materials that superficially or closely resemble jade but are not composed of either jadeite or nephrite. F.T.C. regulations in this country deem such usage unlawful, yet the practice persists, either through ignorance or otherwise. Some of the problem can undoubtedly be traced to cultural and historical differences in word usage. In China, for example, the word jade has traditionally been applied not only to nephrite and jadeite jade, but to green serpentine and soapstone (talc) whose appearance closely resemble true jade. Common misnomers and the materials they represent are: "Korean" Jade for serpentine or gem serpentine (bowenite), "Indian" Jade for aventurine, "Mexican Jade" for green-dyed calcite, "Transvaal Jade" for green hydrogrossular garnet, "Amazon or Colorado Jade" for amazonite (blue-green or green) feldspar and "Oregon or Swiss Jade" for green chalcedony.
Properties • Crystal System: Monoclinic • Habit: Fibrous crystals, densely matted together. Usually found as water-washed pebbles or boulders. Rare botryoidal habit known. • Hardness: Nephrite: 6 - 6.5 Jadeite: 6.5 - 7 • Toughness: Extremely tough • Cleavage:2 directions; not evident in jade • Fracture: Splintery • Specific Gravity: Nephrite: 2.90 - 3.02 Jadeite: 3.3 - 3.5 • R.I.: Nephrite about 1.62 Jadeite about 1.66 • Color: See above • U.V. Fluorescence: Lighter colored jadeites have a weak whitish color in long U.V. light; nephrite doesn't fluoresce • Phenomena: Chatoyance, yielding fine cat's eyes in rare pieces (Korea, Alaska, Russia). Distinguishing Properties • Difficult to impossible to distinguish nephrite jade from jadeite jade by visual inspection. Specific gravity determination is the most reliable of simple I.D. methods for distinguishing the two. • Great variety of materials offered as imitations, e.g. talc (soapstone), serpentine, amazonite, dyed chalcedony, and others. All can have colors remarkably similar to jade, but properties above, particularly S.G., can be used to distinguish.
So much for your "proof" that the Olmecs spoke Mande (which BTW you haven't proved either. Please spare us the incoming flood of spam.
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You have not disproved anything. The fact that the Mande used Amazonite in Africa, explains why they used a similar feldspar: Jade, in China and Mexico
posted
I have proven that the Olmec spoke a Mande language
1. the translation of the title of the inventors of Mayan writing Tutul Xiu;
2. affinity between Olmec writing and Mande sripts;The first researcher to recognize that the Olmec writing was Mande was Leo Wiener, in Africa and the discovery of America. He recognized that the writing on the Tuxtla statuette was written in Mande characters;
quote: I'll have to get back to you on this. I like to check sources-- could you give me a good citation for this paper? I tried all sorts of variations on Google Scholar and did not get anything.
I put the title into google and the article comes up as the first search result:
Tracing the Route of Modern Humans out of Africa by Using 225 Human Genome Sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians
h ttp://www.cell.com/ajhg/abstract/S0002-9297(15)00156-1
quote: Following the genome testing,the following was concluded regarding the Egyptian sample (100):
" Using ADMIXTURE and principal-component analysis (PCA) (Figure 1A) we estimated the average of non-African ancestry in the Egyptians to be 80% and date the midpoint of the admixture event by using ADLER to around 750 years ago (Table S2), consistent with the Islamic expansion and dates reported previously" (p2).
What did you make of Shomarka Keita's and Barry Kemp's comments?
Could you also provide sources for the argument that the modern population is the same as the ancient?
I'm working on the Pagani paper and may have to ask him a question. I'll get back to you.
Posts: 833 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote: I'm working on the Pagani paper and may have to ask him a question. I'll get back to you.
OK.
In the meantime, would you be able to comment on the Shomarka Keita and Barry Kemp statements?
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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posted
Why does Mary Lefkowitz feel the need to mention the one drop rule when conceding that the ancient Egyptians were black? It wasn't just one drop. If you look at the people in Luxor, Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo... the indigenous people are visibly black.
Why not just admit it without performing rhetorical gymnastics?
Posts: 1568 | From: Pluto | Registered: Sep 2008
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