"Studies from the Sahelian and Sudanic zones have yielded evidence for inter- and intraregional genetic diversity, as well as evidence for relationships with populations at long distances, in sub-Saharan Africa, the Sahara, North Africa and beyond. These data do not support conceptions of racial boundaries in the Sahara: populations intermediate geographically tend to be intermediate genetically, and there is abundant evidence for substantial genetic interchange at long distances and across geographical barriers."
I guess this paper effectively drives another stake in the heart of those who wish to divide Africa up based on the racialist models of "Negroid" and Medit K-zoid Africa.
Posts: 2595 | From: Vicksburg | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:This imprecision in the northern frontiers of ‘Africa’ is related to traditional conceptions of race on the continent, and especially a distinction between ‘Negroid’ and ‘Caucasoid’ histories.
Exactly.
This is the basis upon which Eurocentrism attempts to remove Nile Valley civilisation from Africa to begin with.
Eurocentrists cannot decry application of race concepts to history, while continuing to attempt to frame history in a manner that extends Europe's imagined significance into the past....by utilising racial constructs.
European history is then forced to withdraw it's tentacles to Europe..
Make no mistake about it - without "n-groids and k-zoids" Eurocentrists haven't a leg to stand on.
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posted
Actually it goes further than north and east Africa versus the so-called sub-Saharan Africa. Expand our minds, shall we, and claim NRY J as African?
From a combined pan-Africanist - black nationalist perspective I learned Africa includes the Levant and the former "Mesopotamia," i.e., the entirety of the Arabian tectonic plate lands
Yemen
Oman
United Arab Emirates
Qatar
Bahrain
Kuwait
Iraq
Jordan
Israel
Palestine
Lebanon
Syria
from Gabriel Kofi Osei who, from around 1975 on, never presented a map of Africa without the above listed real estate, and who fomented reconquest of said region once the main continent becomes united.
It's patently obviou that geologically and geographically said area is African. Only accepted politics, based on Greco-Roman idealogy makes us recognize it as SW Asia or Middle-East.
But on a note more relevant to the subject header:
quote:Modern humans had been present in the Levant (the east region of the Mediterranean) since at least 111,100 years ago, but the population was never extensive and was limited to a few sites. During this early phase of the last ice age, the eastern Mediterranean was effectively an extension of northern Africa with similar climatic conditions and animals.
Spencer Wells The journey of man : a genetic odyssey Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2002 pp 98, 106
Now that Simon has said it maybe we can believe it.
Only our continued buy-in to the West calling the shots prevents our correct delimiting of the perimeters of our continent and accepting a game of the same mold as, and older than, the old give 'em Nubia and we'll keep Egypt hand jive.
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Why are you asking such questions,Africa? You have to consider that such areas have had population shifts,migrations,and intermixing with the local populations. Consider this area a transitional area that is geographically still apart of Africa.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Yes Euro-mommy Arabs are light whereas Arabo- mommy Arabs and Afro-Arab mommy Arabs are red and brown.
I've elsewhere listed two or three good photo books of anthropology showing these peoples in their own clothes ad before western media took to editing out dark Arabs from the news clips. Many a time the first airing may show a dark Arab ad wham, the clip stops or changes scene. By the next airing the clip stops before viewers even can get a glimpse of the dark Arab. Sad but true many white folks don't want a darkie in their living room, not even on the telly!
And you you fall for that garbage, eating it up and regurgitating to us (mixed in with yor own anti-Arab bias) as if its a tasty less lone palatible fare.
U n b e l i e v e a b l e.
Besides that, if your argument really held any water then North America would be Europe as would Australia.
The people living on a land mass is not what defines that land mass's continental name or status. But a haplotype if derived at a certain locale is indigenous to that geographical entity.
posted
Come on Takruri, be serious. SW Asia is Africa only tectonically, and then not even fully. SW Asia outside of the Arabian peninsula is not part of the African plate. The Arabian plate, even if it is a subset of the African plate (please provide a source, b/c I've never seen this before), but it is a plate in its own right as well. Ignoring that, the people do not associate themselves with Africans and were not Africans later than many millenia ago.
posted
Make me laugh some more. Wiki as an authority and ethnicity determining continental inclusion? So I take it per you that the USA, Canada and Australia are all parts of Europe because the people don't associate themselves with the natives and never were native no matter how many millenia ago.
I'm reposting the below (not because you asked me for something that you yourself fail to provide) but to show why the geneticist Wells (cited in a previous post) and others in Africana related fields acknowledge the peninsula, the Levant and Iraq as Africa not Asia.
Geologically speaking all of the Arabian peninsula clear up to Syria is part of the African continent. The Great Rift Valley extends from Mozambique to Syria. Continental drift of tectonics shows the Arabian plate breaking off from the continent and colliding into the Asian plate to create the mountain ranges of Turkey and Armenia. The Mesopotamian region, the Levant and the rest of the Arabian peninsula are a geological part of Africa.
Only politics is what makes them geographically a part of Asia.
Need you be reminded that Rif Valley fissures are even now breaking away everything east of the Nile and the Nyanzas (African Great Lakes) from the main African tectonic plate?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
So-called SouthWest Asia -- the Arabian peninsula, the Levant, and "Mesopotamia" -- is in reality only an extension of Africa resulting from the Arabian tectonic plate severing from continental Africa.
There is no geological connection between the African and Eurasian tectonic plates such as there is between the African and Arabian plates. The Arabian plate is nothing but a splinter off of the African plate and its separating movement continues today.
Unlike the Rift Valley which is even geographically African/Arabian, there is no topography shared by the African and Eurasian plates.
At the time there was anything like a connection between the two continents of Africa and Europe, the continents as we know them were not yet formed.
Very unlike the time -- the Miocene c. 14mya -- when the African/Arabian plates were still conjoined and the continents were delineated precisely as at present.
Plate tectonic maps and Continental drift animations by C. R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project (http://www.scotese.com). See the map index page http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm for more info on earlier ages and continental drift (http://www.scotese.com/pangeanim.htm).
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:In this essay, I revisit historical analyses of ancient "East Africa" and the ancient "Middle East," roughly in the years between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E. Contrary to the bias of most Western scholarship on this subject, but in accordance with a growing critical scholarship, I suggest that cultural relations between these regions may have been endemic and pervasive. To show this, I suggest new readings of available sources, an expansion of sources currently considered, and the reading together of sources previously separated by disciplinary and/or ideological boundaries. In the cases of both Nabatean and East African cultures, historical and archaeological research tends to focus on debates within the respective regions, but not on global formations and cultural relations between regions. External social relations are rarely considered. My aim is to both provoke and stimulate reconsideration of these perspectives and to, thus, contribute to the decolonization of knowledge.
Historical questions regarding this region usually revolve around the opposed terms: "East Africa" and "the Middle East." These are little more than anachronistic post eighteenth-century Western designations that implicitly posit a pre-existing separation between these realms. More than actual historical events, Walter Rodney has suggested (1981), this sort of colonial historiography reflects the apartheid-style racial complex of the slavery-cum-colonial era in world history. The idea of Africa or "sub-Saharan Africa" being separated from the Middle East or Middle East/North Africa, works at an almost tectonic level in late-modern Western thought (Houston 1926; Mazrui 1986, 1992), based always on a supposed racial distinction between Arab-versus-Black inhabitants, terms which are as sociologically non-discrete as they are imprecise (Cabral 1973:84; Zeleza 1993; Bekerie 1997). In asking questions across this imagined divide, it is difficult not to ponder the contemporary meanings of this ubiquitous and racial "line in the sand."
Posted by Evergreen (Member # 12192) on 17 November, 2006 05:54 PM:
Jesse Benjamin Of Nubians and Nabateans: Implications of research on neglected dimensions of ancient world history _in_ Journal of Asian and African Studies, Nov 2001 v36 i4 p361(22) Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 E.J. Brill
posted
Neither the Arabian plate nor the Indian plate/sub-continent are the same as the Eurasian tectonic plate so are not geological parts of the Eurasian supercontinent.
Why do we continue to group them and the languages, haplogroups, etc., originating on them -- vs the ones that expanded to them -- as Eurasian?
Granted they assumed their present positions long before any hominid walked the earth but certain paleolithic migrations to them and peoples living there never set foot on Eurasia, unless you count the passage through the Zagros Mts fold enroute to India.
Accordingly, the following NRY lineages are not Eurasian in origin though most of their subclades are rightfully Eurasian as they diverged there. It's uncertain whether the first two arose in Africa or diverged in India or maybe Indonesia, if in the latter they would be Eurasian.
C-M130 D-M174
F arose in the Arabian peninsula or per a minority opinion came over from East Africa. All the next on the list (except for L) coalesce to F.
F-M89 G-M201 H-M69 I-M170 K-M9 L-M20 (? -- some say it crossed the Hindu-Kush Mts making it Eurasian) J-M267 & M172 (all J subclades diverged on Arabian plate lands)
The remainder haplogroups M N O P Q and R all definitely arose in Eurasia.
Semino et al (2004) in Am. J. Hum. Genet. 74; see figure 2. Underhill (2003) in Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Bio. Vol. 68; see commentary on maps 2a, 2b, and 2c. Wells (2002); chapter 6 and figure 10.
quote:alTakruri: Make me laugh some more. Wiki as an authority and ethnicity determining continental inclusion? So I take it per you that the USA, Canada and Australia are all parts of Europe because the people don't associate themselves with the natives and never were native no matter how many millenia ago.
These places are far away from europe therefor they cant name it as part of europe, but i'm quite sure if the settlers went to russia or china which is connected with Europe instead of america, then they would have named U.S. and Canada part of Europe, for sure. If Nigerians or Ethiopians invaded the arabian peninsula 500 years ago and took over the whole place then i'm quite sure it would have been considered politically part of Africa.
I agree with Africa and Yom, these tectonic plates are under water and have no bear on the human psyche, what do they have to do with population movement and identity? It would be crazy to rename these regions just because of these plates.
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posted
African things about the far north east extension have been brought out. Now for the old status quo view its only fair that Asian things about "south west Asia" be brought to light.
quote:African things about the far north east extension have been brought out. Now for the old status quo view its only fair that Asian things about "south west Asia" be brought to light.
posted
Uh, Ok I'm a little slow, what has that got to do with showing a landmass' (Levant/"Mesopotamia"/Arabian Peninsula) continental connections (Asia)?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Africa stated that "North Africans should claim their European roots as well since they are mainly Europeans on their mtdna side" but it is the opposite. The group know as Europeans are 'subgroups'!! (my word usage and I realize it may be insufficient to describe where I am going with this) who dispersed from the Fertile Crescent over millenia into the land mass we call Europe. Africa begins at the Pyrenees!
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posted
**Modern humans had been present in the Levant (the east region of the Mediterranean) since at least 111,100 years ago, but the population was never extensive and was limited to a few sites.***
Since when did modern humans exist in the Levant or Med. 111,100 years ago? Doesn't this conflict with OOA science?
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In many ways it comes down to whether one embraces an absolutist or relativist approach to what is and is not African. As Yazid904 alludes to, all non-Africans are really a subset of Africans. Middle Eastern people seem to be an extension of this African core. There has been a continuous out flow of Africans into SW Asia since the late Pleistocene. Since the Bronze Age there has been extensive backflow from Eurasia into North Africa. This backflow has altered the modal somatic norms of this region.
-------------------- Black Roots. Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
There's more than one OoA event, even by Hss proper.
Wells is relaying the facts of Hss presence in the Levant. Before the successful OoA migration that peopled the world, other Hss had moved from the main continental mass to the Levant.
But climatic conditions made for their demise and eclipse by Neanderthal who took over the belated Hss sites (Skhul/Qafzeh).
quote:Originally posted by tutemkasret: **Modern humans had been present in the Levant (the east region of the Mediterranean) since at least 111,100 years ago, but the population was never extensive and was limited to a few sites.***
Since when did modern humans exist in the Levant or Med. 111,100 years ago? Doesn't this conflict with OOA science?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
1ST EXIT 135,000 - 115,000 A group travelled across a green Sahara 125,000 years ago, through the open northern gate, up the Nile to the Levant.
115,000 - 90,000 The branch that reached the Levant died out by 90,000 years ago. A global freeze-up turned this area and North Africa into extreme desert. This region was later reoccupied by Neanderthal Man.
1st EXIT by Steven Oppenheimer
Humans had to come out of Africa in the end, as all their primate relatives had - but the timing and the route, as always, were determined by climate swings. There were two potential routes out of Africa, a northern and a southern, and the weather determined which was open at any particular time. The one that was open, in turn, directed the explorers where to go next - north, or east. Modern humans first left Africa over 120,000 years ago through an open northern gate. As we shall see, that first foray ended in disaster. Their second, successful venture set them on a path through Asia to the south and east, already well worn by their predecessors. Europe was bypassed and ignored until 50,000 years ago.
The unique patchwork of savannah and forest that is sub-Saharan Africa is effectively separated from the rest of the world by two sets of environmental gates and corridors. For the last couple of million years these corridors have acted like a huge livestock corral, with several gateways alternately open and closed. When one set of gates was open the other was usually closed. One gate led north, over the Sahara to the Levant and Europe, while the other led east, across the mouth of the Red Sea to Yemen, Oman, and India. Which gate was open depended on the glacial cycle and determined whether mammals, including humans, migrating from Africa went north to Europe or east to Asia.
Today, Africa is physically linked to the Eurasian continent by only one of these corridors, via the Sinai Peninsula in the north. Normally an unforgiving dry desert, the potential route through the Sahara and the Sinai to the rest of the world opens, like some science-fiction stargate, only when variations in the Earth's orbit and the tilt of its polar axis produce a brief episode of warming. This fleeting event in geological time happens only once every 100,000 years or so, when the Sun's heat causes a polar meltdown and a warm and humid global climate ensues. The Sahara, Sinai, and the deserts of Australia grow lakes, become green, and flower in the short geological spring. But because this warm interlude is so brief, the North African weather-gate can act as a deadly trap to migrants.
The brief but marked warming of our planet's surface, which opens up the gates of Eden, is known to geologists as an interglacial optimum. These short lush spells contrast with the normally cold and dry glacial conditions of the Pleistocene. We modern humans have had only two such glimpses of paradise during our time on Earth. The most recent interglacial optimum was only about 8,000 years ago, and we are lucky to be still basking in the after-effects of its autumnal glow. For perhaps a couple of thousand years the Sahara was grassland, and all kinds of game from the south spread throughout North Africa and across into the Levant.
. . . .
... during the previous interglacial 125,000 years ago, the first in our time on Earth, a brave band of pioneers headed north out of Africa and reached the Levant before the Saharan gate slowly shut behind them.
This earlier interglacial, is known to scientists as the Eemian or Ipswichian, and came 125,000 years ago, soon after the birth of our human family. We know that early modern humans travelled out of the sub-Saharan Africa into North Africa and the Levant at a very early stage because their bones have been found in those places. In fact, the earliest remains of modern humans anywhere outside Africa – dated to between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago – were found in the Levant. The big question is whether they made a lasting impression there. From the genetic record, it looks as though they failed to do so.
The Extinction of the 1st Exodus by Stephen Oppenheimer
Until the very early dates were confirmed for the first modern humans in the Levant, the out-of-Africa scientific camp assumed that the early northern exodus of modern humans there formed the nucleus from which Europeans and most Asians evolved. But there were basic flaws to these arguments. The early trail of modern humans sadly petered out in the Levant around 90,000 years ago. From climatic records we can see that there was a brief but devastating global freeze-up and desiccation 90,000 years ago that turned the whole of the Levant to extreme desert. After the freeze, the deserted Levant was soon reoccupied but this time by other, more established residents of the region - our first cousins, the Neanderthals - who were presumably forced southward to the Mediterranean by glaciers advancing from the north. We have no further physical evidence of modern humans in the Levant or in Europe for another 45,000 years, until the Cro-Magnon people made their appearance (as indicated by the presence of so-called Aurignacian stone technology) 45,000-50,000 years ago and successfully challenged the Neanderthals for their northern birthright.
Thus most authorities now accept that the first modern humans out of Africa must have died out in the Levant on the return of the dry glacial conditions that caused North Africa and the Levant to revert to extreme desert. Trapped in the northern corridor by the Sahara, there was no way back for them and few places to take refuge. The gap of 50,000 years between the disappearance of the first modern Levantines and the subsequent invasion of Europe by Cro-Magnon man obviously raises serious doubts about the prevailing theory that the northern African exodus gave rise to Europeans. We shall now see why.
To help us to understand why many European archaeological and anthropological authorities argue that Europeans arose separately from a northern African exodus, we need to acknowledge that there may be a Eurocentric cultural agendum in what the northern exodus tries to explain. Most important is the lingering twentieth-century European conviction that the Cro-Magnons who moved into Europe no more than 50,000 years ago defined the beginning of our species as 'modern humans' in the fullest intellectual sense. This human epiphany, with its extraordinary flowering of art, manufacturing skills, and culture, is known to archaeologists rather dryly as 'the European Upper Palaeolithic'. For many of them, it was the creative explosion that heralded our coming of age as a sentient species. The magnificent cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux and the voluptuous, finely carved Venus figurines found throughout Europe date back to this culture.
The argument goes like this: if we ultimately came from Africa, and if this ancient artistic revolution that speaks so evocatively of abstract thought came from the Levant, then it is only a short walk from Egypt. Ergo, 'we Westerners' (for the proponents of this view are all European by origin) must have come from North Africa. The northern route is thus, for many experts, the conceptual starting point for out-of-Africa migrations. Later in the map we shall see how it is logically impossible that Europeans were the first 'fully modern humans', and how it was that Africans were fully modern, singing, dancing, painting humans long before they came out of their home continent.
There are other real problems, however, in explaining how the sub-Saharan ancestors of Europeans could have got out through North Africa at that time. For a start, with an impassable Sahara Desert in the way for most of the past 100,000 years, any late North African invasion of Europe could only have come from a green refuge left in North Africa, such as the Nile Delta, after the interglacial from over 100,000 years ago. The Europeans could not have come directly from sub-Saharan Africa 45,000 – 50,000 years ago unless they floated all the way down the Nile on logs – which the genetic story denies.
Reconstructed Eve[] [/i] The image of Out-of-Africa Eve has been reconstructed from one of the best-preserved Skhul remains from the Levant; her features reflect a robust build typical for that period, a relatively narrow skull and a broad upper face. These features, but not always her associated behaviour, differ from those of her neighbours – the Neanderthal.
The hypothesis that early modern humans were not successful in their first attempt to adapt to the Levant and adjacent parts of Europe and western Asia refocuses our attention on the differences between the Middle Paleolithic Upper Paleolithic modern human adaptations as clues to later humans' adaptive radiation. The presence of well-entrenched Neanderthal populations in the Levant, effectively blocking the major land route out of Africa, may have been a major stimulus to the development of Upper Paleolithic adaptations by modern humans along the Northeast African "frontier."
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Man, this thread is pretty darn interesting and some of the stuff posted answers some of the theories I had.
Yeah, we need to be more "liberal" with African geography and not narrow. Where exactly does Africa start and end? Here is my opinion, a map I made of what I think is really Africa geographically.
Thoughts? Based it on tectonic plates, cultural influence, genetic influence and migration influence.
Posts: 1891 | From: NY | Registered: Sep 2014
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
What about Napoleon's POV Africa starts at the Pyrenees
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posted
North Africans should claim their European roots as well since they are mainly Europeans on their mtdna side.
That's only COASTAL North Africans, which does not reflect a full snapshot of North Africa. And parts of North Africa are themselves "sub-Saharan."
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Oppenheimer says There are other real problems, however, in explaining how the sub-Saharan ancestors of Europeans could have got out through North Africa at that time. For a start, with an impassable Sahara Desert in the way for most of the past 100,000 years, any late North African invasion of Europe could only have come from a green refuge left in North Africa, such as the Nile Delta, after the interglacial from over 100,000 years ago. The Europeans could not have come directly from sub-Saharan Africa 45,000 – 50,000 years ago unless they floated all the way down the Nile on logs – which the genetic story denies.
This seems off base. For one thing,the Sahara was and has never been "impassable." Such thinking by Oppenheimer or whoever is an yet another example f skewed thinking in Africa. And the Sahara at one time was once a lush greenbelt, with plenty of resources and water to sustain movement north.
Second, there has been ancient movement from Africa to Europe documented via Gibraltar. So there is no need for any "logs floating down the Nile."
^^not as early as 100K, but the Gibraltar route into Spain has been established.
Third, any North African green refugia need not be as far as Egypt. The Sahara has had plenty of phases in green far north. And movement in any case through the Middle East and Anatolia has always been a credible pathway.
^^The movement of Africans via the "Middle East" is no "problem".
To help us to understand why many European archaeological and anthropological authorities argue that Europeans arose separately from a northern African exodus, we need to acknowledge that there may be a Eurocentric cultural agendum in what the northern exodus tries to explain. Most important is the lingering twentieth-century European conviction that the Cro-Magnons who moved into Europe no more than 50,000 years ago defined the beginning of our species as 'modern humans' in the fullest intellectual sense. This human epiphany, with its extraordinary flowering of art, manufacturing skills, and culture, is known to archaeologists rather dryly as 'the European Upper Palaeolithic'. For many of them, it was the creative explosion that heralded our coming of age as a sentient species. The magnificent cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux and the voluptuous, finely carved Venus figurines found throughout Europe date back to this culture.
The Eurocentric agenda has always been at the core of many approaches. Assorte proponents have tried to claim that the spurt of art, tools etc was partof a "cognitive" revolution in humanity, that occurred, first in Europe. The only thing wrong with this formula is that it is BS. RECAP FROM RELOADED:
Advanced cognitive, technological and behavioral patterns derive from Africa. Dubbed the "Human Revolution" by some researchers, they lead up to the expansion of humans from Africa to other parts of the world, circa 60-40kya. Other scholars argue for a more gradual continuum of advances deeply rooted in Africa that spread worldwide. In either scenario, whether relatively rapid advance or gradual accumulation, the cognitive, technological and behavioral advances took place within Africa.
QUOTE: "Recent research has provided increasing support for the origins of anatomically and genetically "modern" human populations in Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, followed by a major dispersal of these populations to both Asia and Europe sometime after ca. 65,000 before present (B.P.). However, the central question of why it took these populations {approx}100,000 years to disperse from Africa to other regions of the world has never been clearly resolved. It is suggested here that the answer may lie partly in the results of recent DNA studies of present-day African populations, combined with a spate of new archaeological discoveries in Africa. Studies of both the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mismatch patterns in modern African populations and related mtDNA lineage-analysis patterns point to a major demographic expansion centered broadly within the time range from 80,000 to 60,000 B.P., probably deriving from a small geographical region of Africa.
Recent archaeological discoveries in southern and eastern Africa suggest that, at approximately the same time, there was a major increase in the complexity of the technological, economic, social, and cognitive behavior of certain African groups, which could have led to a major demographic expansion of these groups in competition with other, adjacent groups. It is suggested that this complex of behavioral changes (possibly triggered by the rapid environmental changes around the transition from oxygen isotope stage 5 to stage 4) could have led not only to the expansion of the L2 and L3 mitochondrial lineages over the whole of Africa but also to the ensuing dispersal of these modern populations over most regions of Asia, Australasia, and Europe, and their replacement (with or without interbreeding) of the preceding "archaic" populations in these regions." ---Mellars, Paul (2006) Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 years ago? A new model. PNAS, 2006, 103(25), pp. 9381-9386
Advanced cognitive, artistic and behavioral patterns and technology like more refined tools are found in Africa long before similar patterns arose in Europe. The migration of tropical African types to Europe in the Cro-Magnon era brought these cognitive, cultural and behavioral advances to Neanderthal Europe.
"A more gradual "revolution" position is now held [by Paul Mellars].. a period of accelerated change in Africa between about 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, as shown by the following developments recorded in South African cave sites: new and better- techniques for producing long thin flakes of stone blades; specialized tools called end scrapers and burins, which were probably used for working skins and bones, the [production of tiny stone segments that must have mounted on handles of wood or bone to make composite tools, complexly shaped stone tools such as 'leaf points', relatively complex bone tools; marine shells perforated to make necklaces or bracelets, red ochre (natural iron oxide) engraved with geometric designs suggesting early artwork,; greater permanence and differentiated occupation areas in caves; new subsistence practices such as the exploitation of marine fish as well as shellfish; and perhaps intentional burning of undergrowth to encourage the growth of underground plant resources such as tubers. Mellars suggests that a neurological switch to modernity in the brain alongside rapid Climatic fluctuations, could have been the driving forces behind this period of heightened cultural innovations.."
"The most impressive site for early evidence of symbolism however, is Blombos Cave in South Africa, with a record stretching well beyond 70,000 years ago.. The stone tools in these levels include Still Bay points, beautifully shaped thin lanceolate spear points, flaked on both sides. They also show the earliest application of a refined stone tool-making technique known as pressure flaking, some 55,000 years before its best-known manifestation in the Soultrean industry of EUrope. Slabs of red ochre were excavated from various levels, including the deepest ones, with wavy, fan or mesh-shaped patterns carefully engraved on them.. Hundreds [beads made from seashells] have now been excavated from Blombos, and most show signs of piercing, with many holes also displaying signs of wear.. The shells have a natural shiny luster, but the color seems to have been modified by rubbing with hematite in some cases and by heating to darken the shells in other cases, so they may have been strung in different-colored patterns.. " --Chris Stringer (2012) Lone Survivors: How we came to be the only human on earth 150-155
Some archaeologists criticize notions of a "human revolution" suddenly occurring after humans exited Africa for Asia and Europe. Instead they argue, the alleged "revolutionary" changes in cognition, symbol manipulation, advanced technology, trade etc were ALREADY occurring WITHIN Africa, long before any migration out. There is no need for a 'eureka moment' of 'progress' upon leaving Africa. 'Progress' was already well underway and long in place within Africa. QUOTE:
"This is because by focusing on changes that occurred at the Middle Paleolithic/Upper Paleolithic or Middle Stone Age/Later Stone Age transitions (in Europe and Africa, respectively), there is a failure to appreciate the depth and breadth of the African Middle Stone Age record that preceded the time of the supposed revolution by at least 100,000 years. In their view, [McBrearty and Brooks 2000] 'modern' features such as advanced technologies, increased geographic range, specialized hunting, fishing and shell-fishing, long distance trade, and the symbolic use of pigments had already developed in a broad range of Middle Stone Age industries right across Africa, between 100,000 and 250,000 years ago. This suggested to them that an early assembly of the package of modern human behaviors occurred in Africa, followed by much later export to the rest of the world. Thus the origin of our species, both behaviorally and morphologically, was linked to early developments in Middle Stone Age technology, and not to changes that occurred much later.. 'this quest for this 'eureka moment' reveals a great deal about the needs, desired and aspirations of archaeologists, but obscures rather than illuminates events in the past.." --Chris Stringer (2012) Lone Survivors: How we came to be the only human on earth 128-29
1-- Detailed modern cranial studies show Cro-magnon crania clustering AWAY from today’s Europeans. Brace 2005 testedthe “Cro-magnid” claim and found it “folklore.” QUOTE: "When canonical variates are plotted, neither sample ties in with Cro-Magnon as was once suggested. .. If this analysis shows nothing else, it demonstrates that the oft-repeated European feeling that the Cro-Magnons are “us” (46) is more a product of anthropological folklore than the result of the metric data available from the skeletal remains..." --CL. Brace 2005. The Questionable contribution of the Neolithic to European craniofacial form
2–Africans possessing the highest phenotypical diversity on earth, producing variants covering most features. Several Cro-Magnon specimens are described as ‘negroid.’ QUOTE:
“Both methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan Africato have the highest levels of phenotypic variation consistent with many genetic studies.“ [-- Relethford, John "Global Analysis of Regional Differences in Craniometric Diversity .” Hum Bio v73, n5, -629-636])
---------------------- Three scholars (Arthur Keith, M Boule and HV Valloid found ‘negroid’Cro-Magnon features: QUOTE: "The ancient Grimaldi woman and boy are of the mixed or negroid type." --(Arthur Keith. Ancient Types of Man. p. 60)
3- Several Upper Paleolithic European specimens show high cural indices in limb proportions- more akin to dark-skinned tropical Africans than today’s Europeans, who show lower cural indices. QUOTE:
"As with all the other limb/trunk indices, the recent Europeans evince lower indices, reflective of shorter tibiae, and the recent sub-Saharan Africans have higher indices, reflective of their long tibiae... The Dolno Vestonice and Pavlov humans.. have body proportions similar to those of other Gravettian specimens. Specifically, they are characterized by high bracial and cural indices, indicative of distal limb segment elongation.. .. as a whole, in body shape the Gravettian sample (including most of the specimens from Dolni Vestonice and Pavlol) are morphologically closer to the recent Africans than to the recent Europeans. In many cases, recent Europeans of the same sex with index values identical to the Dolbi Vestonice and Pavlov individuals are rare indeed. Therefore the overal pattern that emerges is that the GRavettian himans, despite living in Europe during a glacial period, evince relatively tropically adapted physiques (Trinkhaus, 1981; Ruff, 1994; Holliday, 1997a, 1999). The limb and body proportions of the Dolni Vestonice and (to a lesser degree) Pavlov fossils conform well to this overall pattern." --Trinkaus and Svoboda. 2005. Early Modern Human Evolution in Central Europe]
– AND--
-Body proportions of early European H. sapiens fossils suggest a tropical adaptation and support an African origin (Holliday & Trinkaus, 1991; Ruff, 1994; Pearson, 1997, 2000; Holliday, 1997, 1998, 2000).” -–McBrearty and Brooks 2000. The Revolution that Wasn’t. Jrn Hu Evo 39, 453-563
4-- Traits like narrow noses occur naturally in African environments: ".. low mean nasal indices (high, narrow noses) tend to [also] be found in arid regions, such as the desert areas of east Africa.. -- Mays. S. (2010). The Archaeology of Human Bones. Pg 100-101
5-- Several Upper Paleolithic European types- Predmost (Czech), Combo Capelle (France) Grimaldi (Italy) and Teviec (France) show a variant of “African” affinities like prognathism. Some scholars hold this to be an ‘Eastern Cro-Magnon’ variant: QUOTE:
------ "others like Predomost and to a lesser degree Grimaldi and Teviec, are more prognathic like Skhul 5." --Marta Mirazón Lahr. 2005. The Evolution of Modern Human Diversity: A Study of Cranial Variation
and
---------- ".. on whose basis, many specialists define the eastern Cro-Magnon variant in the Upper Paleolithic population of western Europe." --S. De Laet (1994). History of Humanity, UNESCO
6– DNA provides clear evidence of tropical African types migrating to Paleolithic era Europe, contradicting claims of “Caucasoid” evolution in situ. Tropical limb evidence confirms DNA. The African tropical types may have interbred with local Neanderthals, but in any event would have adapted to the colder conditions of Europe over time. QUOTE:
"Early modern Europeans reflect both their predominant African early modern human ancestry and a substantial degree of admixture between those early modern humans and the indigenous Neandertals. Given the tens of millennia since then and the limitations inherent in ancient DNA, this process is largely invisible in the molecular record. It is readily apparent in the paleontological record.“ --E. Trinkhaus (2004) European early modern humans and the fate of the Neandertals. PNAS 2007 vol. 104 no. 18 7367-7372
and
"The so-called Old Man [Cro-Magnon 1] became the original model for what was once termed the Cro-Magnon or Upper Paleolithic "race" of Europe.. there's no such valid biological category, and Cro-Magnon 1 is not typical of Upper Paleolithic western Europeans- and not even all that similar to the other two make skulls found at the site. Most of the genetic evidence, as well as the newest fossil evidence from Africa argue against continuous local evolution producing modern groups directly from any Eurasian pre-modern population.. there's no longer much debate that a large genetic contribution from migrating early modern Africans infuenced other groups throughout the Old World.“ --B. Lewis et al. 2008. Understanding Humans: Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology. p 297 ------------------------------------
posted
Classic article debunks numerous Eurocentric assertions on Africa, human progress and evolution- Check out link for full article. Long but well worth the read. 20-30 excerpts over time to be posted. Subsequent studies such as Brace 2005 only confirm what the authors are saying. On count after count (technology, symbolic thought, art, food production, the epoch-making influence of fire, etc) the authors document that innovations flowed from and are centered in Africa, not the inflated "revolution" claimed by assorted Eurocentrists. -------------------------------------------------------
The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior
McBrearty and Brooks Journal of Human Evolution (2000) 39, 453–563 -------------------------------------------------------------
Proponents of the model known as the ‘‘human revolution’’ claim that modern human behaviors arose suddenly, and nearly simultaneously, throughout the OldWorld ca. 40–50 ka. This fundamental behavioral shift is purported to signal a cognitive advance, a possible reorganization of the brain, and the origin of language. Because the earliest modern human fossils, Homo sapiens sensu stricto, are found in Africa and the adjacent region of the Levant at >100 ka, the ‘‘human revolution’’ model creates a time lag between the appearance of anatomical modernity and perceived behavioral modernity, and creates the impression that the earliest modern Africans were behaviorally primitive. This view of events stems from a profound Eurocentric bias and a failure to appreciate the depth and breadth of the African archaeological record. In fact, many of the components of the ‘‘human revolution’’ claimed to appear at 40–50 ka are found in the African Middle Stone Age tens of thousands of years earlier.
These features include blade and microlithic technology, bone tools, increased geographic range, specialized hunting, the use of aquatic resources, long distance trade, systematic processing and use of pigment, and art and decoration. These items do not occur suddenly together as predicted by the ‘‘human revolution’’ model, but at sites that are widely separated in space and time. This suggests a gradual assembling of the package of modern human behaviors in Africa, and its later export to other regions of the OldWorld. The African Middle and early Late Pleistocene hominid fossil record is fairly continuous and in it can be recognized a number of probably distinct species that provide plausible ancestors for H. sapiens. The appearance of Middle Stone Age technology and the first signs of modern behavior coincide with the appearance of fossils that have been attributed to H. helmei, suggesting the behavior of H. helmei is distinct from that of earlier hominid species and quite similar to that of modern people. If on anatomical and behavioral grounds H. helmei is sunk into H. sapiens, the origin of our species is linked with the appearance of Middle Stone Age technology at 250–300 ka. 2000 Academic Press
Who were the earliest modern Europeans? It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny that they were Africans. Although the ‘‘mitochondrial Eve’’ hypothesis, first articulated by Cann et al. (1987), has been revised in light of criticism (Templeton, 1992; Hedges et al., 1992; Ayala, 1995), and population size and structure have effects on the distribution of genetic characters that were not taken into account in early reconstructions (Harpending et al., 1993, 1998; Sherry et al., 1994; Relethford, 1995; Relethford & Harpending, 1995), genetic data either directly support or are consistent with an African origin for modern humans (Wainscoat et al., 1986; Cann, 1988; Stringer & Andrews, 1988; Vigilant et al., 1991; Stoneking, 1993; Stoneking et al., 1993; Relethford & Harpending, 1994; Ayala, 1995; Nei, 1995; Goldstein, 1995; Tishkoff et al., 1996; Ruvolo, 1996, 1997; Irish, 1998; Pfeiffer, 1998; Zietkiweicz et al., 1997; Pritchard et al., 1999; Quintana- Murci, 1999; Relethford & Jorde, 1999; Tishkoff et al., 2000; see Relethford, 1998 and Jorde et al., 1998 for recent reviews).
As Howell (1994:306) observes, ‘‘The phylogenetic roots of modern humans are demonstrably in the Middle Pleistocene. The distribution of those antecedent populations appear to lie outside of western and eastern Eurasia, and more probably centered broadly on Africa.’’1 The fossil evidence for an African origin for modern humans is robust. It is clear that modern humans (H. sapiens sensu stricto) were certainly present in Africa by 130 ka (Day & Stringer, 1982; Deacon, 1989), and perhaps as early as 190 ka if specimens such as Singa are considered modern (McDermott et al., 1996; Stringer, 1996). Modern humans do not appear in Europe or Central Asia before ca. 40 ka; earliest dates for the Levant range between ca. 80 ka and 120 ka (Day, 1969, 1972; Day & Springer, 1982, 1991; Stringer, 1989, 1992; McBrearty, 1990b; Stringer et al., 1989; Bra¨uer, 1984a,b, 1989; Stringer & Andrews, 1988; Valladas et al., 1988; Gru¨n & Stringer, 1991; Miller et al., 1991; Foley & Lahr, 1992; Mercier et al., 1993; Deacon, 1993b; Brooks et al., 1993a,b; Stringer, 1993a; Schwarcz, 1994; Straus, 1994; Bar-Yosef, 1994, 1995a, 1998; but see Howells, 1989). Recent evidence suggests that modern humans were present in Australia as early as 62 ka (Stringer, 1999; Thorne et al., 1999). Although some, notably Bra¨uer (1984a,b, 1989), favor a scenario involving some interbreeding among Neanderthal and modern human populations, the successful extraction and analysis of fragmentary mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from both the Neanderthal type fossil (Krings et al., 1997, 1999) and additional material from the northern Caucasus (Ovchinnikov et al., 2000) appears to remove the Neanderthals from modern human ancestry.
Body proportions of early European H. sapiens fossils suggest a tropical adaptation and support an African origin (Holliday & Trinkaus, 1991; Ruff, 1994; Pearson, 1997, 2000; Holliday, 1997, 1998, 2000). A single migration or population bottleneck was originally envisaged in the ‘‘African Eve hypothesis’’ (Cann et al., 1987), but a succession of population dispersals, subsequent isolation induced by climatic events and local adaptation may better account for the complexity of the 1. The Middle to Late Pleistocene boundary is the beginning of the last interglacial, at approximately 130 ka; the base of the Middle Pleistocene is the shift from reversed to normal magnetic polarity at the Matuyama–Brunhes boundary, dated to about 780 ka (Butzer & Isaac, 1975; Imbrie & Imbrie, 1980; Berger et al., 1984; Martinson et al., 1987; Shackleton et al., 1990; Deino & Potts, 1990; Cande & Kent, 1992; Baksi et al., 1992; Tauxe et al., 1992). Further evidence may confirm recent suggestions (Schneider et al., 1992; Singer & Pringle, 1996; Hou et al., 2000) that the age of this geomagnetic polarity reversal be revised to ca. 790 ka. fossil record and the genetic composition of present human populations (Howells, 1976, 1989, 1993; Boaz et al., 1982; Foley & Lahr, 1992; Lahr & Foley, 1994, 1998; Ambrose, 1998b).
It can be deduced from the archaeological evidence that on a continent-wide scale the African record differs markedly from that of Europe in its degree of population continuity. While parts of Africa, such as the Sahara or the interior of the Cape Province of South Africa, do appear to have experienced interruptions in human settlement during glacial maxima (Deacon & Thackeray, 1984; Williams, 1984; Butzer, 1988b; Brooks & Robertshaw, 1990; Mitchell, 1990), climatic reconstructions suggest that the contiguous expanse of steppe, savanna and woodland biomes available for human occupation, especially in the tropical regions of the continent, was always substantially larger than the comparable regions in Europe. Perhaps as a result, hominid populations in Africa, while probably widely dispersed, appear to have been consistently larger (Relethford & Harpending, 1995; Jorde et al., 1998; Relethford & Jorde, 1999; Tishkoff et al., 2000).;
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
Reposting this from 14 yrs ago as supplement to the Khan thread.
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri:
Actually it goes further than north and east Africa versus the so-called sub-Saharan Africa. Expand our minds, shall we, and claim NRY J as African?
From a combined pan-Africanist - black nationalist perspective I learned Africa includes the Levant and the former "Mesopotamia," i.e., the entirety of the Arabian tectonic plate lands
Yemen
Oman
United Arab Emirates
Qatar
Bahrain
Kuwait
Iraq
Jordan
Israel
Palestine
Lebanon
Syria
from Gabriel Kofi Osei who, from around 1975 on, never presented a map of Africa without the above listed real estate, and who fomented reconquest of said region once the main continent becomes united.
It's patently obviou that geologically and geographically said area is African. Only accepted politics, based on Greco-Roman idealogy makes us recognize it as SW Asia or Middle-East.
But on a note more relevant to the subject header:
quote:Modern humans had been present in the Levant (the east region of the Mediterranean) since at least 111,100 years ago, but the population was never extensive and was limited to a few sites. During this early phase of the last ice age, the eastern Mediterranean was effectively an extension of northern Africa with similar climatic conditions and animals.
Spencer Wells The journey of man : a genetic odyssey Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2002 pp 98, 106
.
Now that Simon has said it maybe we can believe it.
Only our continued buy-in to the West calling the shots prevents our correct delimiting of the perimeters of our continent and accepting a game of the same mold as, and older than, the old give 'em Nubia and we'll keep Egypt hand jive.
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