Current Anthropology Volume 41, Number 3, June 2000
This paper may be a little old but it accurately raises and addresses alot of the point we bring up here. Its a critique of Cavalli-Sforza's "The History and Geography of Human Genes (Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza 1994)
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On Cavalli Sforza's notion that San people have "Caucasoid" mixture:
Pygmies, Khoisan, and Caucasian connections. The high-level cluster of sub-Saharan African populations contains 33 of the 49 populations of the phylogenetic tree. It is a considerably more diverse grouping than the Saharan/Northern African, with multiple subclusters at different fissioning points. The most famous "outlier" populations of traditional African ethnography are of course Pygmy and Khoisan-speaking groups, which are to varying degrees physically distinct from their African neighbors and also to varying degrees participate in foraging economies. These latter are frequently seen by Westerners as archaic, and Pygmy and Khoisan populations have often been identified as unchanged relics of earlier ages (e.g., Thomas 1959:68; Turnbull 1983:1113, 15758). Pygmy (Mbuti and Biaka) and "Pygmoid" populations are found at various points on Cavalli-Sforza et al.'s phylogenetic tree as outliers and with other groups. As Froment (1998) points out, this separation of Pygmy and other African populations is extremely imprecise; it depends to a great extent upon linguistic criteria, ignores the numerous transitional populations (not only those denominated as "Pygmoid"), and systematically discounts the fact that we know very little about the historical and physical relations between these groups over any significant period of time.
Similarly, Khoi and San populations cluster with a Somali sample (which itself is held to be out of place, given that Somali groups geographically sit within the Northern African range), while Sandawe clusters with populations from Senegambia and Hadza is an outlier between the two. Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994:16970, 17477, 18993) posit that especially San populations are the result of admixture between "Caucasoid" groups originating in Southwest Asia and African "Negroid" groups. This is supposed to be a different process of interaction across the Red Sea from the one that yielded the distinctive genetic and physical characteristics of Ethiopian populations; indeed, the San and Ethiopian peoples are held to be "similar to Caucasoids but ... otherwise very different [from one another]" ( p. 191). The historical mechanismsand even the demographic meaningof such multiple similarities are left unspecified. This is unfortunate, given that hypotheses of immigration into Africa by (often "Hamitic") "Caucasoids" have bedeviled African history and archaeology for much of the past century, often being advanced to explain away African cultural innovations and based on very unsatisfactory evidence. One would have hoped that consciousness of this situation would have led the authors of The History and Geography of Human Genes to substantiate this hypothesis in detail.
The nongenetic evidence marshaled in support of the hypothesis of relations between San groups and populations in the Near East is extremely weak. A putative "Asian" genetic contribution to forager groups in Ethiopia (Nijenhuis and Hendrikse 1986) is discussed only with reference to "Pygmoid" populations, although Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994:174) imply that these groups are related to the San. They claim ( pp. 160, 176) that skeletal material "credibly identified as San" has been found in various parts of North and East Africa, including northern Egypt, but note only parenthetically that this assertion in Nurse, Weiner, and Jenkins (1984) is based upon a 30-year-old paper by Philip Tobias (1968 [1964]). The Tobias paper does not in fact seem to make that claim, and it is in any case disputed by more recent researchers on the basis of the characteristics of the material involved, the very fragmentary state of the collections, and known problems with the accumulation of Khoi and San skeletal reference collections (Froment 1998; Morris 1986, 1987; Rightmire 1975; 1984:19398; Schepartz 1988). In fact, the identification of this skeletal material from northeastern Africa as related to San skeletal material from southern Africa is very doubtful; the material indicates that ancient populations in the area were most closely affiliated with the present-day inhabitants.
The only widely accepted evidence of ancient Khoisan populations in East Africa is the ascription of the Sandawe and Hadza languages to the Khoisan phylum (with even less well-attested traces of Khoisan contacts in Dahalo and Yaaku [Ehret 1974:11, 88]). However, the Khoisan affiliations of Sandawe and/or Hadza are still disputed by some linguists, and in any case the available genetic data do not indicate a close relationship between Sandawe and Hadza people, on the one hand, and San and Somali people, on the other. The paradox is obvious: Sandawe and Hadza provide the only firm link between San populations and northeastern Africa (a linguistic one), but according to the genetic data that provide the basis for The History and Geography of Human Genes they are more closely related to West and Central African groups (fig. 2). There seems to be no a priori reason to associate Khoisan-speaking populations with Southwest Asia on the basis of San genetic data and not to associate Khoisan-speaking populations with Senegambia on the basis of Sandawe genetic data, but this is just what Cavalli-Sforza et al. do. It is also, of course, possible that either or both associations are spurious, especially given the small size of some of these forager groups and the attendant possibility of genetic drift.
I recall seeing this in a study by Sforza, it sems he was invoking a version of the Hamitic Hypothesis.
Posts: 2595 | From: Vicksburg | Registered: Feb 2006
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On a possible explanation for the distinction between North African, Saharan and "sub-Saharan" genetic differences and Africa being an importer of genes but not an exporter:
The distinction between Saharan/Northern African populations and peoples living in sub-Saharan Africa is explained by the varying contribution of genes from "Caucasoid" populations in Europe and Southwest Asia to the former. This is very likely a contributing factor, given the archaeological and historical evidence of such population interactions around the Mediterranean. It is also quite likely that clines in gene frequencies across the Sahara are in part the result of natural selection operating upon characteristics that are not adaptively neutral in the very different environments through this region. There is a significant amount of evidence for both climatic and latitudinal effects upon different gene frequencies (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994:143; Mastana, Constans, and Papiha 1996; O'Rourke, Suarez, and Crouse 1985; Spitsyn et al. 1998). The greater instability of Saharan environments through time probably offered less scope for such in situ adaptation than is the case among, for example, the Nile Valley populations examined by Brace et al. (1996).
Saharan and Sahelian groups (various Berber- and Arabic-speaking populations, including Tuareg and groups subordinated to them, such as the Bella and the Haratine and Saharan-speakers such as the Chaamba, Reguibat, Teda, and Kanembu) are not covered in detail in the work (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994:173), although investigations of biological variation among those populations have indicated that their anthropometric and genetic affiliations are very diverse and complex (Froment 1999). This lack of data on intermediate groups may make human physical and genetic distinctions across the Sahara appear more clear-cut than they are. The status of these populations is particularly important given that climatic change rendered significant parts of the Sahara passable (and in some cases habitable) through periods in the Holocene at least, with the result that there is abundant evidence of more extensive human contacts across the desert than have existed in historic times. Sutton (1974) and Ehret (1993) have suggested that the Saharo-Sudanese Neolithic tradition was largely the province of Nilo-Saharan-speakers. Populations speaking those languages do not, however, occupy an intermediate position between North African and sub-Saharan African populations, suggesting that either the correlations between archaeology and linguistics or those between genetics and linguisticsor bothare erroneous.
While Cavalli-Sforza et al. emphasize the contribution of immigrant genes to the modern genetic makeup of Saharan/Northern African populations, they do not really consider the possibility of an African genetic contribution to either Europe or the Near East. It thus appears that Africa accepts genetic contributions from other areas but does not reciprocate them. A principal-component map of 42 world populations (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994:82) indicates a somewhat more complex picture, with a succession of Basques, Sardinians, Near Eastern populations, and Berbers occupying a space intermediate between African and European populations, although certainly arrayed closer to European groups. This assumption is also at variance with the known history of the region, where we see evidence for two-way relations throughout the Holocene, especially via Southwest Asia and the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. People from North, Saharan, and sub-Saharan Africa have crossed the Mediterranean as settlers, conquerors, and slaves through recorded history just as have Europeans. In recent times such population flows may have tended to be from north to south, but it should not be assumed that this has always been the case.Posts: 2595 | From: Vicksburg | Registered: Feb 2006
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Sforza and his data precents some of the most challenging and delicate matters for processing.
He is a brilliant geneticist and his History/Geography of the Human Genome is arguably a masterpiece.
However it is dated of course, at almost 15 years old, and can only be processed in the context of much subsequent information.
He is also a southern-Eurocentric obsessed as many South Euro geneticists are with rescuing the endangered and precious racial purity of his fellow Southern Euros, and sometimes his bias is betrayed.
But if we can place him in context, there are many gems that can be gleaned.
For example: He is *right* about and affiliation between "SAN" and "Europeans". He is simply wrong about *why* and what it really means.
It is currently possible to denote *exactly* what San and Europeans have in common -> recent East African ancestry as denoted by E3b.
Cavelli wrote at a time before the devastating revelations of the African PN2 clade.
He simply assumed based on wishful thinking that anytime there was and affinity between Euroepans and other people.....waundering CaucaZoids must have been working their 'race majik'.
Nope, guess again.... It's the East AFricans who migrated into Eurasia during the Neolithic that creates the affinity.
So his data with regards to genetic affinity are useful even when he is wrong [and biased] about *why*.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Geneticists make few claims about the Geneology of ancient Elamites because very little is known about Elam, compared to ancient Kemet and Kush.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Look at the bibliograpy of Sfoza's book and you will find many outdated book references like Races of the Sahara by Briggs and Africa by George Peter Murdock. Murdock,a non-geneticist/anthropologist, considered Cushic speaking people to be caucasoid--albeit dark caucasoids. Sfoza is probably getting his data from these outdated sources and subconsciously subscribing to the ''Hamitic Hypothesis''.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: Sumerian is considered a language isolate.
Elam is actually and Akadian word.
Akadian is and Afrisan/Semitic language.
Geneticists make few claims about the Geneology of ancient Elamites because very little is known about Elam, compared to ancient Kemet and Kush.
If this is true how can you maintain that the Natufians spoke a Semitic language when the Akkadians do not appear in Sumerian history for hundreds of years.
There is no way we can tell from Natufian skeletal remains what language they spoke.
quote:Originally posted by rasol: Sumerian is considered a language isolate.
Elam is actually and Akadian word.
Akadian is and Afrisan/Semitic language.
Geneticists make few claims about the Geneology of ancient Elamites because very little is known about Elam, compared to ancient Kemet and Kush.
quote:If this is true how can you maintain that the Natufians spoke a Semitic language when the Akkadians do not appear in Sumerian history for hundreds of years.
Never stated I knew what langauge the Natufians spoke.
However, Natufian is a Palestinian/Levantine culture, not and Iraqi/Iranian culture, presumed to be progenator of "Elamites".
Your discourse is interesting because you make assumptions about what I am saying based on theories which you ascribe to, but - I do not.
You assume that Elam and Dravidia come out of Africa in the Neolithic.
I don't.
Nothing I've said about neolithic Africa necessarily relates in any material way to Elam or Dravidia.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: Sumerian is considered a language isolate.
Elam is actually and Akadian word.
Akadian is and Afrisan/Semitic language.
Geneticists make few claims about the Geneology of ancient Elamites because very little is known about Elam, compared to ancient Kemet and Kush.
quote:If this is true how can you maintain that the Natufians spoke a Semitic language when the Akkadians do not appear in Sumerian history for hundreds of years.
Never stated I knew what langauge the Natufians spoke.
However, Natufian is a Palestinian/Levantine culture, not and Iraqi/Iranian culture, presumed to be progenator of "Elamites".
Your discourse is interesting because you make assumptions about what I am saying based on theories which you ascribe to, but - I do not.
You assume that Elam and Dravidia come out of Africa in the Neolithic.
I don't.
Nothing I've said about neolithic Africa necessarily relates in any material way to Elam or Dravidia.
Rasol you claim that you never said what language the Natufians spoke and yet you made the following comment: * linguistically characterised by the spread of the semitic sub-family of afrisan language into eurasia.
This clearly shows that you claimed these people spoke a Semitic language.
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^ Your question was *who were the neolithic blacks* who spread into Eurasia.
I answered that question.
Nowhere does my answer claim to *know what language* Natufians spoke.
The reason you can't understand this, is the same as the reason you can't understand geneticist Kivisild and Chang Sun. It's because you can only see your **broken Dravidian theory**, and you blind yourself to any information that does not fit into it.
btw: I notice that whenvever you use the word *clearly*, you follow it with a dubious statement.
It's called 'over compensating'. It's a sure bet that if you were hooked to a polygraph test, the needles would 'go thru the roof', whenver you use the word 'clearly'.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
The Natufians likely spoke some development of the proto-Afrasan, or else some proto-Semitic language brought into the region by proto-Afrasan Africans via the Nile Valley corridor.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Supercar: The Natufians likely spoke some development of the proto-Afrasan, or else some proto-Semitic language brought into the region by proto-Afrasan Africans via the Nile Valley corridor.
Evergreen Writes:
It is also of interest that the Sumerian word for sickle is derived from an Afro-Asiatic root.
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by ausar: Look at the bibliograpy of Sfoza's book and you will find many outdated book references like Races of the Sahara by Briggs and Africa by George Peter Murdock. Murdock,a non-geneticist/anthropologist, considered Cushic speaking people to be caucasoid--albeit dark caucasoids. Sfoza is probably getting his data from these outdated sources and subconsciously subscribing to the ''Hamitic Hypothesis''.
Interesting, in light of the fact that Mind, rasol, bass etc would go on to argue stringently in this man's defense.
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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^ Of course, you still willingly ignore that just because Sforza or any scholar is wrong on one or more things does not mean he is wrong about everything and that there are some accuracies. We all know you are just sore about his findings that Europeans (your people) have 1/3 African admixture.
That makes you and 'the lion' two of a kind. Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Europeans being 1/3 African etc is from one of the outdated sources Ausar talked about. Its from the 1991 Bowcock study with its stereotypical/Coonian methodologies. You should try reading Prof. Keita some day instead of brainlessly pigging other posters arguments.
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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^ LMAO Sorry but it was verified through genetics as was shown to you by Rasol and Mystery Solver in various threads.
I know having 1/3 African ancestry among your people pains you but get over it, you pinhead imposter! Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Funny how you're always complaining about 'Stolen Legacy' yet you seem so ashamed of your Hidden Legacy-- African ancestry among your people. Perhaps this is the reason why you are so 'anguished'. Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^Nice! Well, he clearly argued such in the paper that he and Kittles wrote called "the persistence of racial thinking". Djehuti and Anguish have been going back and fourth on this same issue of interpretation for over a year now, but you can read and interpret what he's saying yourself (albeit you've already confirmed his position via direct correspondence).
quote:Originally posted by Sundjata: ^Nice! Well, he clearly argued such in the paper that he and Kittles wrote called "the persistence of racial thinking". Djehuti and Anguish have been going back and fourth on this same issue of interpretation for over a year now, but you can read and interpret what he's saying yourself (albeit you've already confirmed his position via direct correspondence).
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^ That Doc kid needs to get out more. After the . . . .OBVIOUS
Really, how did you get his number?
Quote: Gee, funny you mentioned this cuz I had a talk with him too and he said the opposite.
Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Doctoris Scientia: Actually, I recently talked to S.O.Y. Keita on the phone. And he didn't seem to argue against those findings at all.
How could he when the findings are irrefutable. Europeans carry 1/3 African ancestry namely E lineages which are most prominent around the Mediterranean basin.
quote:Originally posted by Sundjata: ^Nice! Well, he clearly argued such in the paper that he and Kittles wrote called "the persistence of racial thinking". Djehuti and Anguish have been going back and fourth on this same issue of interpretation for over a year now, but you can read and interpret what he's saying yourself (albeit you've already confirmed his position via direct correspondence).
quote:the 1991 Bowcock study with its stereotypical/Coonian methodologies.
Coon wasn't a geneticist. What do you mean by this statement?
Actually it wasn't I so much as Mystery Solver and Rasol who went back and forth with the ignorant anguished-ass in denial over the African mixed nature of he and his Eurofolk.
Posts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: How could he when the findings are irrefutable. Europeans carry 1/3 African ancestry namely E lineages which are most prominent around the Mediterranean basin. [/QB]
posted
More like Sforza/Bowcock's European sample ("Caucasoids of Northern Europe") has 1/3 "Pygmy" or "Forest Negro". This of course has been criticized by Prof. Keita as deeply flawed and evidence of the persistence of racial thinking. Give up rasolowitz. Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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^ Is Doc Scientia Rasol?? If not, he obviously still has an understanding of population genetics which is more than what I can say for YOU.
I notice you still bear a grudge against Rasol (who schooled your-ass and put you in the dunce corner so many times) by calling his name out in a 'Jewish' way. Rasol is no Jew but a black African and Jew or not, you cannot escape your erroneous fate like the desperate loser you are.
A third of Europe's male lineage is African E
Those boogy-man Jews can't hurt you Anguished, but they might be able to help you in the form of psychiatry! LOLPosts: 26246 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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