quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: NO:The kushites were and are predomintally NILO-SAHARAN SPEAKERS.There is also a genetic relationship between nilotic and bantu,have you ever made that comparison?oh i forgot the only african language you know is MANDE.
LOL You're a funny guy. Please show the limguistic evidence uniting the Nilo-Saharan speakers and Dravidians.
In addition to Murugu, the Dravidians also worshipped the god Amma or Amon.
quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: clyde somehow thinks,the khoisan and maasai are some primitive africans who are indigenous to africa,and that have never left africa,but he cannot explain how the maasai,khoisan and even yoruba acquired caucasian NIENDERTHAL DNA.but the holy bible documents the presence of maasai(sabaeans) in arabia,where maasai morans(sabaeans)stole the oxen of job,cattle rustling is still practised by maasai today.
You have read the Bible wrong. First of all you believe that the only people on earth were the people mentioned in the Bible and their were no others. This is false there were many people on earth. The Bible mainly talks about people who had a covenant with the Creator via the last Creation. The Creation of Adam Let’s look at the Bible it says that God created man from the earth and women from the side (rib) of Adam. In Genesis 4 we read:
quote: “Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.”
According to these passages we discover that the first man and woman was Adam and Eve. We also discover that they had two sons Cain and Abel.
If you accept these passages literally you would assume that only Adam, Eve and their children were the only humans on earth. If you reached this conclusion you would be wrong. There were other people on earth when Adam and Eve were created by God.
How do we know this you ask. The answer is simple. We know it was more humans on earth besides Adam from the Book of Genesis. This reality was made clear after Cain killed Abel in Genesis 4:13
quote: Genesis 4 :13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Genesis 4:15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
The key phrase from this passage is ; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” This passage makes it clear that Cain was afraid that whoever “found him would kill him”. If Cain was afraid to be killed there were other people on the earth besides Adam and Eve, and their sons. To protect Cain , “Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. “ The presence of different groups of people on the earth besides Adam and his family, is supported by the archaeological evidence of different hominids, existing at different times in the history of man. That is why I can write about the Khoisan and Pgymy being a different population from the Sons of Adam and Noah. Sure many of the Khoisan and Pgymy settlements were destroyed during the great flood. Khoisan and Pgymy populations on some of the Islands and in the mountains survived. That is why we found Pgymy populations all over the world at the time Europeans made there way from Europe to other parts of the world.
quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: clyde somehow thinks,the khoisan and maasai are some primitive africans who are indigenous to africa,and that have never left africa,but he cannot explain how the maasai,khoisan and even yoruba acquired caucasian NIENDERTHAL DNA.but the holy bible documents the presence of maasai(sabaeans) in arabia,where maasai morans(sabaeans)stole the oxen of job,cattle rustling is still practised by maasai today.people like clyde winters claim the khoisan were an isolated group hence were not affected by flood.But the bible says all humanity was affected by that flood which covered the whole world.According to genesis 10:6,phut(khoikhoi and san ancestor)was a son of HAM(father of all africans).according to the bible all humans are related and are children of NOAH after the flood,this is supported by genetics.
LEDAMA the Neanderthals were Blacks.
Let's look at the evolution of homo sapiens.
The Eves were also African
The Aurignacian people who replaced the Neanderthal looked like this
Below is the ancestor of Neanderthals
,
. Here is a picture of Neanderthal man
.
By 100kya Neanderthal looked like this
As you can see, there is little difference between the African ancestor of Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals themselves.
Here we have Cro-Magnon or Aurignacian man
LEDAMA it is easy to explain the relationship between Neanderthal and Khoisan. They met in North Africa. Other Khoisan met Neanderthal in the Altaic Mountains after the Cro-Magnon (Khoisan) spread the Aurignacian culture across Europe.
The African Neanderthal people used the common Levoiso-Mousterian tool kit originally discovered in Europe. The Nenderthal skeletons have come from Djebel Irhoud and El Guettar in Morocco (Ki-Zerbo,1981). Later Neanderthal people used the Aterian tool kit. It was probably in Morocco that Neanderthal and Khoisan interacted. An exception to this norm are the Khoisan who share a phylogenic relationship with Altai Neanderthals (Prufer, et al, 2013). Many researchers claim that Africans have no relationship to the Neanderthals.But Prufer et al (2013) share more alleles with Altaic Neanderthal than Denisova. In the Supplemental section of Prufer et al (2013) there is considerable discussion of the relationship between Neanderthal and Khoisan. In relation to the Altaic Neanderthal the non-Africans have a lower divergence rate than Africans between 10-20%. Prufer et al (2013) note little statistical difference between non-African and African divergence. Researchers have observered a relationship between the Neanderthals, the Khoisan and Yoruba. Prufer et al (2013) detected a relationship between the Neanderthal and Mandekan. It is interesting to note that Yoruba traditions place them in Mande-speaking areas (Prufer et al,2013).
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There is interesting information in Figure S7.1. In Figure S7.1 the maximum likelihood tree of bonobo, Denisova and Neanderthal, the closest present-day hmans are Africans, not Europeans. Reading the Tree Chart Graph, the neighbor joining tree of archaic and present day human individuals has the Khoisan following the Denisova. An interesting finding of Prufer et al (2013) was that Altaic Neanderthal and Denisova are estimated to have similar split times. The divergence estimate for African Khoisan-Mandekan and Altaic is younger than the split between Africans and Denisova archaic individuals and modern African individuals. The split times between the Khoisan and Mandekan may be explained by the presence of AF-24 haplotype in West Africa.
References
Ki-Zerbo,J. (1981). Unesco General History of Africa Vol. 1: Methodology and African Prehistory (1981), pg.572.
Pruler,K, Racimo,F.,Patterson,N et al. (2014). The complete genome sequences of Neanderthal from the Altai, Mountains. Nature , 505/7481: 43-9. doi .10.1038/ Nature 12881.Epub.2013.Dec.18.
Scozzari, R, Massaia,A, Trombatta,B. et al.(2014). An unbiased resource of novel SNP markers provides a new chronology for human Y-chromosome and reveals a deep phylogenetic structure in Africa. Genome Research, January 6,2014, doi: 10.1101/gr./60785.113.
quote: According to these passages we discover that the first man and woman was Adam and Eve. We also discover that they had two sons Cain and Abel.
If you accept these passages literally you would assume that only Adam, Eve and their children were the only humans on earth. If you reached this conclusion you would be wrong. There were other people on earth when Adam and Eve were created by God.
How do we know this you ask. The answer is simple. We know it was more humans on earth besides Adam from the Book of Genesis. This reality was made clear after Cain killed Abel in Genesis 4:13
quote: Genesis 4 :13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Genesis 4:15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
The key phrase from this passage is ; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” This passage makes it clear that Cain was afraid that whoever “found him would kill him”. If Cain was afraid to be killed there were other people on the earth besides Adam and Eve, and their sons. To protect Cain , “Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. “
quote:I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
lol, here cain was talking prophetically or futuristically if you would.He mean't 'if i become a vagabond,meaning if my descendants become vagabonds,every that finds them will kill them'.if you noticed the chronological accounts of the bible,doesn't list women,for example,we know the sons of Adam,but not his daughters,i assume for every son he had two daughters,this is also similar to african oral historians who trace their lineage from fathers side,not mothers side.Here are other people in the bible talking futuristically or prophetically,because curses/blessings usually does not only affect a person directly,but also follows his seed. here is noah speaking futureristically:Genesis 9:25-27" 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."It does not mean that the patriarch Ham will start becoming a house servant of his brethren immediately,but sometime down in history his descendendants will be slaves to Japhet(caucasians)for 400 years i.e the transaharan slave trade,and to shem for 400 years i.e transaharan and arab slave trade.According to the bible no curse e.g slavery of a nation is allowed to last more than 4 generations.1 generation in the bible is 100years,so 4 generations is 400 years.Exodus 34:7 "7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children,unto the third and to the fourth generation." that is why the israelites were slaves for 400years,inorder for the curse of noah to take efeect,all africans had to be gulty first,especially canaan(bantu),that is why the jews were enslaved in egypt during the reign of a BANTU PHARAOH RAMASES (E1b1a). Genesis 15:12-13"
quote:12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
"
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quote: That is why I can write about the Khoisan and Pgymy being a different population from the Sons of Adam and Noah. Sure many of the Khoisan and Pgymy settlements were destroyed during the great flood. Khoisan and Pgymy populations on some of the Islands and in the mountains survived. That is why we found Pgymy populations all over the world at the time Europeans made there way from Europe to other parts of the world.
"
clyde unless you believe the bible was lying,which i don't.you are entitled to your beliefs,personally i believe in the bible.according to the bible,that flood covered the whole earth.(including mountain tops). "
quote:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
" Everything in the bible is true,including UNICORNS.UNICORNS=WHITE RHINOCEROUS. When jewish translators were explaining to greek translators how a rhinocerous looks like,they explained that it looked like a white horse with a huge horn on its face.
The khoisan(phut) and pygmies(mizraim) have never been separated from other africans(sons of noah).through genetics we know ham had 5 sons(Y A,B,D,E) and 2 daughters(mtDNA Lo and L1),phut(A) the eldest married Lo and entered africa,mizraim(BT)married L1 and had 5 daughters(L1a,L1b and L1c,L2 and L3),he married his own daughter L1a and had pygmy sons whom he gave L1b and L1c to marry.he gave L2 to canaan(bantu) and L3 to Cush(nilote).L4 and L5 ARE DAUGHTERS OF CUSH,all bantus that have L3 e.g L3e,L3b,L3d is becaus of marrying nilotic women,e.g egypt martriachy laws(kalenjin L3x).L3 is pure nilotic.
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@ clyde winters-wow you have pictures of nienderthals i didn't know they had cameras those days(sarcasm).clyde it is the neinderthal gene responsible for low melanin in whites,they couldn't have been blacks.
quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: @ Clyde winters-
quote: According to these passages we discover that the first man and woman was Adam and Eve. We also discover that they had two sons Cain and Abel.
If you accept these passages literally you would assume that only Adam, Eve and their children were the only humans on earth. If you reached this conclusion you would be wrong. There were other people on earth when Adam and Eve were created by God.
How do we know this you ask. The answer is simple. We know it was more humans on earth besides Adam from the Book of Genesis. This reality was made clear after Cain killed Abel in Genesis 4:13
quote: Genesis 4 :13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Genesis 4:15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so[e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
The key phrase from this passage is ; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” This passage makes it clear that Cain was afraid that whoever “found him would kill him”. If Cain was afraid to be killed there were other people on the earth besides Adam and Eve, and their sons. To protect Cain , “Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. “
quote:I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
lol, here cain was talking prophetically or futuristically if you would.He mean't 'if i become a vagabond,meaning if my descendants become vagabonds,every that finds them will kill them'.
LOL. As I said earlier you make up things to suit your purposes. LEDAMA you wrote:
quote: lol, here cain was talking prophetically or futuristically if you would.He mean't 'if i become a vagabond,meaning if my descendants become vagabonds,every that finds them will kill them'
Wrong . He was talking about himself.
I repeat you don't know the Bible and you make up material to support your Eurocentrists claim.
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Clyde, the Dravidians are straight haired. Does this mean that if they originated in Africa they had straight hair when they were in Africa? Or do they have hair like that because they mixed with Aryans? Also, who are their ancestors in Africa? What tribe currently and/or historically are the African version of Dravidians?
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quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: @ clyde winters-wow you have pictures of nienderthals i didn't know they had cameras those days(sarcasm).clyde it is the neinderthal gene responsible for low melanin in whites,they couldn't have been blacks.
LOL. Of course they didn't have cameras to make pictures in those days. What scientist who are artists do is look at the skull of a person and use the features of the skull to reconstruct how the deceased person looked. The pictures of Neanderthal and others are based on craniometric measurements from skulls recovered through archaeological excavations or cave finds.
I am not an Evolutionist I am a truth seeker.
I can not deny that archaeologists have found different types of hominids.So, I can assume that these hominids existed.
I, respect God, but you don't.
God makes it clear in the Bible that he Creates, by uttering a single word "BE", and it is.
quote:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
As you can see HE only has to say a word and it is.
I also know that God likes variety.
I look at nature and we see different types of Bears and Birds. Knowing this I can accept the fact that God could have created different types of hominids, since I respect the fact that God is Omnipotent and can do what ever he pleases.
Archaeologists have found different types of hominids. I may question the dating of the hominids, but I can not disagree that the hominid existed. I also look at the various races of mankind, and the different humans that exist today, for example pgymies vs Watusi. If God can diversify human types, build and stature, how can I say he did not make different hominids.
You are a hyp·o·crite. On the one hand you accept some things from the Bible as literal, or the conclusions of Europeans who you claim you don't believe, yet you deny other things you have not been taught. The best example is when you can read Cain, saying he is afraid that he will be killed by someone because, he had become a "wanderer", and alledge that Cain was talking about the future instead of his present condition. Oh Brother, how we lie to ourselves. Cain's words lay in front of your face, but because you have been taught that Adam was the first man by your Preachers, you can not accept what is written in front of you.
You don't know anything about the Bible. You think everything in the Bible is the word of God, when in reality some of the Bible is History, while other parts of the Bible are prophesy, or words from God shared with us by the Prophets.
You are not wise. You can't think for yourself that why you are blind to what is written in the Bible. How dare you say God could not have created other types of hominids, when you see the variety of God's creations for yourself.
I am not an evolutionist and you are not a Creationist. If you believed in the Creativity of God, you would not say what God can and can not Create.
You are sad indeed. Stop talking about the Bible, when you don't even understand what you read. You only interpret it from the perspective of others who may not even know what their talking about.
quote:Originally posted by LEDAMA: The khoisan(phut) and pygmies(mizraim) have never been separated from other africans(sons of noah).through genetics we know ham had 5 sons(Y A,B,D,E) and 2 daughters(mtDNA Lo and L1),phut(A) the eldest married Lo and entered africa,mizraim(BT)married L1 and had 5 daughters(L1a,L1b and L1c,L2 and L3),he married his own daughter L1a and had pygmy sons whom he gave L1b and L1c to marry.he gave L2 to canaan(bantu) and L3 to Cush(nilote).L4 and L5 ARE DAUGHTERS OF CUSH,all bantus that have L3 e.g L3e,L3b,L3d is becaus of marrying nilotic women,e.g egypt martriachy laws(kalenjin L3x).L3 is pure nilotic.
Please cite the passages in the Bible where the Khoisan are named as Puntites.
Tell me where in the Bible or other sources you used that we find the DNA of Ham and his decendants. How could they have possessed hg A and B and etc., which is 30k plus years old, when Noah only existed 6000 years ago?
quote:LOL. Of course they didn't have cameras to make pictures in those days. What scientist who are artists do is look at the skull of a person and use the features of the skull to reconstruct how the deceased person looked. The pictures of Neanderthal and others are based on craniometric measurements from skulls recovered through archaeological excavations or cave finds.
They are not always accurate e.g The real king tut skin colour @lioness-
quote:These Dravidians are Nilotes?
yes they are,but they mixed with semitic negritos and caucasians.
the genetic timing is highly exxagerated,same as archeological time.Humans are not more 7000 years old,if so we would have overpopulated the whole world to extiction.devide the genetic time by 7 to get the correct haplogroup age-the age gaps between the loci is not that great.
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Less complexity in Lower Egypt as regards state formation and societal and material culture say some Egyptologists, in comparison to the south, or Upper Egypt.
"Evidence in Lower Egypt consists mainly of settlements with very simple burials, in contrast to Upper Egypt, where cemeteries with elaborate burials are found. The rich grave goods in several major cemeteries in Upper Egypt represent the acquired wealth of higher social strata, and these cemeteries were probably associated with centers of craft production. Trade and exchange of finished goods and luxury materials from the Eastern and Western Deserts and Nubia would have taken place in such centers. In Lower Egypt however, while excavated settlements permit a broader reconstruction of the prehistoric economy, there is little evidence for any great socioeconomic complexity... Archaeological evidence points to the origins of the state which emerged by the 1st Dynasty in Nagada culture of Upper Egypt, where grave types, pottery and artifacts demonstrate an evolution of from from the Predynastic to the 1st Dynasty. This cannot be demonstrated for the material culture of lower Egypt, which was eventually displaced by that originating in Upper Egypt." --K. Bard (2005). Encyclopaedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. 28
-------------------- 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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Tomb reveals Ancient Egypt’s humiliating secret Our correspondent reports on how details of crushing defeat by another Nile superpower were kept hidden
By Dalya Alberge ANCIENT Egyptians “airbrushed” out of history one of their most humiliating defeats in battle, academics believe. In what the British Museum described as the discovery of a lifetime, a 3,500-year-old inscription shows that the Sudanese kingdom of Kush came close to destroying its northern neighbour. The revelation is contained in 22 lines of sophisticated hieroglyphics deciphered by Egyptologists from the British Museum and Egypt after their discovery in February in a richly decorated tomb at El Kab, near Thebes, in Upper Egypt.
Vivian Davies, Keeper of the museum’s Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, said: “In many ways this is the discovery of a lifetime, one that changes the textbooks. We’re absolutely staggered by it.”
The inscription details previously unknown important battles unprecedented “since the time of the god” — the beginning of time. Experts now believe that the humiliation of defeat was one that the Ancient Egyptians preferred to omit from their historical accounts.
Contemporary Egyptian descriptions had led historians to assume that the kingdom of Kush was a weak and barbaric neighbouring state for hundreds of years, although it boasted a complex society with vast resources of gold dominating the principal trade routes into the heart of Africa. It did eventually conquer Egypt, in the 8th century BC.
Mr Davies, who headed the joint British Museum and Egyptian archaeological team, said: “Now it is clear that Kush was a superpower which had the capacity to invade Egypt. It was a huge invasion, one that stirred up the entire region, a momentous event that is previously undocumented.
“They swept over the mountains, over the Nile, without limit. This is the first time we’ve got evidence. Far from Egypt being the supreme power of the Nile Valley, clearly Kush was at that time.
“Had they stayed to occupy Egypt, the Kushites might have eliminated it. That’s how close Egypt came to extinction. But the Egyptians were resilient enough to survive, and shortly afterwards inaugurated the great imperial age known as the New Kingdom. The Kushites weren’t interested in occupation. They went raiding for precious objects, a symbol of domination. They did a lot of damage.”
The inscription was found between two internal chambers in a rock-cut tomb that was covered in soot and dirt. It appeared gradually as the grime was removed.
Mr Davies said: “I thought it would be a religious text, but it turned out to be historical. Gradually, a real narrative emerged, a brand new text inscribed in red paint, reading from right to left.”
The tomb belonged to Sobeknakht, a Governor of El Kab, an important provincial capital during the latter part of the 17th Dynasty (about 1575-1550BC).
The inscription describes a ferocious invasion of Egypt by armies from Kush and its allies from the south, including the land of Punt, on the southern coast of the Red Sea. It says that vast territories were affected and describes Sobeknakht’s heroic role in organising a counter-attack.
The text takes the form of an address to the living by Sobeknakht: “Listen you, who are alive upon earth . . . Kush came . . . aroused along his length, he having stirred up the tribes of Wawat . . . the land of Punt and the Medjaw. . .” It describes the decisive role played by “the might of the great one, Nekhbet”, the vulture-goddess of El Kab, as “strong of heart against the Nubians, who were burnt through fire”, while the “chief of the nomads fell through the blast of her flame”.
The discovery explains why Egyptian treasures, including statues, stelae and an elegant alabaster vessel found in the royal tomb at Kerma, were buried in Kushite tombs: they were war trophies.
Mr Davies said: “That has never been properly explained before. Now it makes sense. It’s the key that unlocks the information. Now we know they were looted trophies, symbols of these kings’ power over the Egyptians. Each of the four main kings of Kush brought back looted treasures.”
The alabaster vessel is contemporary with the latter part of the 17th Dynasty. It bears a funerary text “for the spirit of the Governor, Hereditary Prince of Nekheb, Sobek- nakht”. Now it is clear that it was looted from Sobeknakht’s tomb, or an associated workshop, by the Kushite forces and taken back to Kerma, where it was buried in the precincts of the tomb of the Kushite king who had led or inspired the invasion.
The El Kab tomb was looted long ago, probably in antiquity. There is more to investigate at the enormous site and the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt is now making such work a priority.
Rich pickings from ebony and ivory
Kush was a vast territory spanning modern-day northern Sudan. Ruled by kings who were buried with large quantities of luxury goods, including jewellery and inlaid furniture, it had complex political and religious institutions.
The economy was based on trading in ivory, ebony and incense, as well as slaves. Its skilled craftsmen left behind some of the finest ceramics produced in the ancient world.
The independent kingdom of Kush arose during the 8th century BC. The native kings laid claim to the Egyptian throne, declaring themselves the true heirs of Thutmose III and other great pharaonic ancestors. Under the leadership of King Piye (c747-716BC), they conquered Egypt, ruling as its 25th Dynasty.
The reign of King Taharqo (690-664BC) was a high point of the Kushite empire. He erected imposing temples, shrines and statues throughout the Nile Valley. His pyramid, the largest of the Kushite examples, soared to more than 48m (160ft).
Over 4,000 years interaction between the empires was inevitable. While they had different funerary practices at the time of the El Kab inscription — the Egyptians had tombs and pyramids while the Kushites preferred tumuli (grave mounds) — the Kushites went on to build pyramids and mummify their dead.
In return, the Egyptians were particularly influenced by Kushite jewellery design.
During the 19th century boom in Egyptian archaeology the tomb of Elkab's 17th-dynasty governor Sobeknakht was discovered. Though its whereabouts were published it was subsequently neglected. Until recently it continued to sit undisturbed upon the cliffs overlooking the Nile south of Luxor, accrued grime and soot obscuring many of its internal inscriptions. Only this year have the tomb's soiled walls been cleaned to reveal an inscription relating a hitherto unknown Kushite raid upon Egypt that has been abuzz with superlatives and speculation among Egyptologists.
Earlier this year a number of British and Egyptian conservators under the aegis of the British Museum began work at the tomb in response to concerns about its deteriorating condition. In the process of cleaning the walls between the tomb's inner and outer chambers they stumbled upon an inscription believed to be the first evidence of a huge attack from the south on Elkab and Egypt by the Kingdom of Kush and its allies from the land of Punt, during the 17th dynasty (1575-1525 BC). The newly discovered inscription is a biographical text painted in 22 horizontal red hieroglyphic lines that narrate the Kushite attack on Egypt and Sobeknakht's successful counter- attack that expelled the invaders. "It is a very important military and religious inscription that was previously unknown," Culture Minister Farouk Hosni told Al Ahram Weekly and asserted that it is the most significant piece to emerge about the 17th dynasty since the famous Kamose stella, now on display at the Luxor museum.
Though Egyptologists had known that tension existed between the Kingdom of Kush, which lay along the Nile in present-day southern Sudan, and Egypt during the period in question, they had no evidence of the kind of clash reported by the inscription.
"This is completely unparalleled," affirmed Vivian Davies, who headed the mission, in an interview from London with the Weekly. Davies initially assumed that the inscription was a religious text because it was near the burial shaft where the spirit of the dead rose to begin its spiritual life. However, as conservators continued to clean the inscription it was clear that it was not a routine funerary text but a biographical text chronicling events from the life of the tomb's owner Sobeknakht.
The text recounts his role in the crisis, from his command to strengthen the defences of Elkab to his mustering of a force to combat the Nubians to his successful counter-attack southwards which destroyed an enemy force through the aid of Elkab's vulture-goddess Nekhbet. The inscription ends with an account of celebration in the presence of the Egyptian king, who is not identified by name, and of the temple of Nekhbet's endowment with a sacred boat.
Evidence corroborating the general scheme of these events have also recently been found in Sudan, where archchaeologists discovered a vessel that was once in Sobeknakht's tomb. Davies stated that this vessel proves that during the invasion Sobeknakht's tomb was already prepared for the old governor's death. Relatedly, early studies on the inscription revealed that it was a late addition to the tomb, as it was painted in red on the outer chamber, which, according to the Ancient Egyptian taboo, made it untouchable. Davies added that as the tomb's decorations were completely finished by the time of the Kushite attack the corridor between the two chambers was the only space left to record such an event.
Davies is not alone in his feeling that the inscription forces a reconsideration of Egyptian history. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the supreme council of antiquities (SCA), stated that it sheds new light on the extent of Egypt's vulnerability during that period, when the native Upper-Egyptian 17th dynasty centred in Thebes was engaged in a war of independence against the Lower-Egyptian Hyksos who were based in Avaris in the Nile Delta.
"It was a pincer movements on Egypt," Hawass told the Weekly. He said that success by either Kush or Hyksos would have changed the face of Egypt, even up to the present day. Mamdouh El-Damadi, the director general of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, also emphasised how important the inscription is for understanding Kushite ambitions in Egypt. Davies chimed in on this point in stating, "We always thought that the Hyksos were the greatest of Egypt's enemy but Kush was as well." The defeat of the Kush-led invasion represented in Sobeknakht's tomb may come to be interpreted a critical event in Egypt's subsequent defeat of the Hyksos and expansion of its nascent empire into Palestine and Sudan.
The dramatic nature of this discovery begs the question of what revived interest in a site that was catalogued over a century ago and then essentially ignored.
Two years ago, as part of the Egypt and Sudan Department of the British Museum's substantial archaeological programme covering Nile Valley sites and monuments threatened by modern development or in dire need of conservation, Sobeknakht's tomb was finally put on a scientific agenda. Its inclusion in this programme is due to its distressing material condition and its status as the only surviving tomb datable to this crucial transitional period in Egypt's history.
"For us the tomb was like a patient in dire need of urgent care," said Lameya El-Hadidi, one of two Egyptian conservators on the British Museum team. After difficulties finding a solution that would clean the walls without damaging the inscriptions, the team finally settled on small pieces of cotton dampened with distilled water as the best option. However, El-Hadidi explained that the tomb was suffering from not only the accumulation of grime and soot but also from bat waste and bee hives. Among the other obstacles to the tomb's conservation were poor lighting and ventilation, with the effect of the latter being that the conservators were forced to breathe foul air peppered with dust and bat excrement. However, the fruits harvested of this labour went beyond the discovery of the inscription discussed above.
El-Hadidi confirmed that, "what made us put behind our fatigue was the beautiful illustrations that appeared piece by piece while cleaning."
Scenes featuring Sobeknakht with his children and wife were among the iconic ornamentation found. A number of monkeys, some in symbolically erotic poses, are also engraved on the tomb's walls.
A particularly striking scene shows monkeys sitting on the offering table eating the deceased's food.
"It is a cheeky scene," Davies told the Weekly, suggesting that the tomb's artist had a unique sense of humour.
Images from Sobeknakht's Tomb
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While the CRANID anthro reference database is skewed towards Northern Egypt and downplays the tropical south (Kemp 2005), some forensic analyses of mummies on the same skewed data still indicates membership in the "Egyptian" group- with the next closest match being African. --QUOTE:
"A mummy of an Egyptian priestess dating from the 22nd dynasty (c. 770 BC), completely enclosed in an anthropoid (human shaped) coffin, was scanned on a CT scanner. An accurate reconstruction of the cranium was generated from 115 × 2 mm CT images using AVS/Express on a SGI computer. Linear measurements were obtained from six orthogonal cranial views and used in a morphometric analysis software package (CRANID). The analyses carried out were both linear and nearest neighbour discriminant analysis. The results show that there is a 52.9% probability that the mummy is an Egyptian female, with a 24.5% probability that the mummy is an African female."
--Hughes, Wright, and Barry (2005)Virtual reconstruction and morphological analysis of the cranium of an ancient Egyptian mummy. Australas. Phys. Eng. Sci. Med. Vol. 28, No 2, 2005
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Egyptologist Barry Kemp on the worldwide CRANID database that used northern samples near the Mediterranean as "representative" of the ancient Egyptians, and classifying them in a "European" direction, while excluding key historic sites further south..
"If, on the other hand, CRANID had used one of the Elephantine populations of the same period, the geographic association would be much more with the African groups to the south." (Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation, Routledge: 2005, p. 55)
-------------------- 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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-------------------- 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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Most of the genetic change in human populations is not from natural selection but genetic drift.
"It may appear counterintuitive, but a large part, if not the majority, of genetic change in human populations is not thought to be due to natural selection but rather due to the play of chance (genetic drift; Harris and Meyer, 2006; Li et al., 2008; see Table 2 for a glossary of terms frequently used in population genetics). Many opportunities for chance can occur in the transmission of alleles from parents to offspring, and evidently did occur as part of the demographic process of dispersal out of Africa. Thus, finding differences in the frequency of alleles at a particular locus between populations is not an evidence of natural selection per se. The default position is that of neutral theory, whereby chance events account for most patterns of genetic diversity (Harris and Meyer, 2006). Of course, deleterious mutations will be selected against (purifying selection) and beneficial mutations may increase in frequency to fixation, but overall these events will contribute little to explaining the presence of most polymorphisms."
--J. Rees and R. harding 2011. Understanding the Evolution of Human Pigmentation: Recent Contributions from Population Genetics. Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 358
NATURAL SELECTION LIMITATIONS
"How do we know for certain whether a trait evolved through natural selection or instead, through a neutral evolutionary mechanism of genetic drift? This question (as well as any answers we may offer) is fundamental to understanding the adaptive significance, if any, of population-based (or race-based) differences in functional traits.
Many experts maintain that although natural selection plays a critical role in the evolutionary origin of many traits, it is not the driving force behind all biological phenomena. In fact, according to some evolutionary biologists who conduct empirical field research, genetic drift is typically assumed by default to account for most traits. Proving that natural selection is involved in the origin of a particular trait is a complicated process. Given the complexity of natural selection, it is not surprising that biologists cannot ascertain if there are long term differences in traits that have evolved through natural selection versus those that emerged through neutral selection. 3
There are other enigmas that must be sorted out as well if we are to identify the features that distinguish natural selection from neutral selection. For instance, genetic drift tends to be more influential in small populations while natural selection is more powerful in large populations. The microevolution of human races that occurred over the past 15,000 to 30,000 years affected smaller human populations. At the same time, however, natural selection had a momentous impact on the evolution of certain anatomical and physiological traits in larger geographical populations. Both genetic drift and selection could have operated in tandem to initiate the emergence of different traits in the same populations, or in clusters of geographical populations.
Positive natural selection increases fitness, which is measured in terms of survival and reproduction. However, natural selection may act on different levels of biological organization, even simultaneously at times. Classic bioevolutionary studies emphasize the influence of natural selection on individual organisms, populations, and even species. Yet, selection can also act at the level of the genome, chromosomes, and genes (DNA sequences). "
The Adaptionist Yardstick: Rethinking the Social Implications of Sarich’s and Miele’s Fast-Track Micro-Evolution A REVIEW BY ALONDRA OUBRÉ, Ph.d. Medical Anthropologist
-------------------- 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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Dead says: AE's were subtropical/warm adapted, not tropical/hot. I've also shown this with pigmentation and cephalic index. No, you were debunked on all counts before, on Reloaded where you posted as "Ben" or "Herodotus" (or whatever) and here as well. You haven't shown anything new that changes the verdict.
The discrepancy between those earlier studies and Raxter (2011) regarding crural index is easily explained by the fact the early studies only used "White Americans", while Raxter included specifically "Southern Europeans" in their study.
Most "White Americans" have ancestors that came from the north or more northern-Atlantic regions of Europe, as opposed to the Mediterranean [i.e. the three largest ethnic groups of American Whites are: German Americans (16.5%), Irish Americans (11.9%) and English Americans (9.2%)]. So they are more colder adapted, than say Greeks or south Italians.
While intermediate, once you include "Southern Europeans", ancient Egyptians' crural indices appear closer to Mediterranean populations than Sub-Saharan African populations. The reverse is true for brachial, while the other body plan indices fall roughly in the middle.
Not surprisingly, you have yet to produce any detailed evidence. Where is the chart or study that shows your Mediterraneans closer to ancient Egyptians? Making a claim is one thing, credible data is another. But let me help you out.
On Reloaded you posted a chart showing a Mediterranean zone peoples- the Yugoslavs. On that chart, indeed the Mediterraneans separate somewhat from the northern Europeans, as would be expected for people from warmer climates. However despite this, your Mediterraneans are nowhere near the Egyptians, African-Americans and other tropical peoples, who cluster together. Sorry, your "easy explanation" fails yet again, and with your own "supporting reference."
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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You still have not established your claim of southern Europeans grouping closer with Ancient Egyptians. You earlier claimed that:
Once you include "Southern Europeans", ancient Egyptians' crural indices appear closer to Mediterranean populations than Sub-Saharan African populations.
This is false, and your supporting reference, undermines your assertion. Here’s Raxter- QUOTE:
"Ancient Egyptians and Nubians of both sexes are consistently significantly different in limb length proportions from Northern and Southern Europeans, with their brachial and crural indices grouping with the majority of other Africans. One group Lower Egyptian males, is only significantly different from Northern Europeans in crural index. However, this is expected since they are situated in the northernmost area of Northeast Africa, closest to the Mediterranean Sea, and thus would have had the greatest opportunity for gene flow with Southern Europeans."
Furthermore, Lower Es show cural indices closer to Africans before MEdits(see San below.) OVERALL affinity, as confirmed by several studies, taking into account all Egyptians, is with the Africans. The OVERALL picture is still with Africans- as Raxter notes- and consistently so. This further amplified by Raxter and Ruff 2008, who note as to the overall picture- quote:
"Intralimb (crural and brachial) indices are significantly higher in ancient Egyptians than in American Whites (except crural index among females), i.e., Egyptians have relatively longer distal segments (Table 4). Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks."
The expanded gene flow from the Medit at the tail end is not at issue. The overall African finding is again confirmed by other studies, such as in Stringer's data above. The Yugoslavs, while somewhat away from Northern Europeans do not match the closer clustering of the African Americans and Egyptians. At best the Lower Egyptians are an intermediate population, almost as much on the warmer side as the colder side. But evenhere studies differ. Raxter 2011 is only one study that must be compared with others. Indeed, Most of Ruff/Raxter's 2008 samples were northern Egypt- (Giza) and the end result was still a primary cluster with tropical populations like Africans or African Americans. And in that paper they looked at yet other studies involving Black Americans. The results were the same- ancient Egyptians clustered primarily with other tropical Africans or tropical African derivatives like US Blacks. Use of say more Italian Americans in the "white" category would make little difference.
Raxter 2011 is not the only game in town. As Kemp 2005 notes in other studies of the north:
"..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." --(Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)
The weight of scholarly studies and data thus confirms the primacy of the African connection.
" AE's were subtropical/warm adapted, not tropical/hot."
“Warm" includes the tropical zone range, which is variable not merely “hot” (whatever than means)- so trying a fuzzy, shifting definition does not help your claim. Almost 20 percent of Egypt by the way is in the tropical zone.
part 2 once you include "Southern Europeans", ancient Egyptians' crural indices appear closer to Mediterranean populations than Sub-Saharan African populations.
As another example shows-false. When all AEs are combined the closest affinity is with Africans. But even when you separate out the Lower Egyptians the claim is still false. The lower Egyptians are closer to another African SUB-SAHARAN population, the San. The sub-Saharan San, who have little European gene flow, post a male index of 84.2 compared to the Lower Egyptian 84.7 or .5 difference. By contrast the Medits post 83.9 compared to 84.7 for Lower Egyptians, or .8 diff.
In short, while southern Europe has had some gene flow into Egypt such as during Greek or Roman times, the San yet again confirm the case for the primary African connection. The SUB-SAHARAN San have little European gene flow, yet they still post closer to Lower Egyptians. The more temperate zone is the major factor, but its still Africans first. Once again, ancient Egyptians, cluster more with Africans than with northern OR Southern Europeans.
As Bleuze et al., 2014 point out: ancient Egyptian "crural indices [are] more similar to Southern Europeans".
But Bleuze is using Late Period samples from the Roman period, a time of greater gene flow. No one disputes that in such later periods more variable Medit elements (Greeks, ROmans) were introduced to the Egyptian population. Beluze states that the Kellis 2 cemetery referenced at the Dakleh Oasis is dated between AD 100 and 450- quite late in the game. Other scholars put the earlier Kellis 1 at the Late Ptolemaic -Early Roman period (c 60 BCE to 100 BCE.) The earlier period doesn't make any difference. So sure, these tail end samples from the Roman periods may trend more Medit, but its tail end after 100AD or even 50BC, and still doesn't change the overall bottom line.
In fact Beluze confirms my observation when they note that the Oasis individuals were more Medit flavored to begin with, so naturally in various measurements, they would lean that way, at the tail end of ancient dynastic Egypt. With such a sampling, the expected results are nothing special. QUOTE:
"However, given the socioe-conomic conditions at Dakhleh during the Romano-Christian period and the evidence that migrants to the Oasis likely came from regions that experienced geneflow from Southern Europe and/or the Near East, body shape in the Kellis 2 sample may show greater variation than expected."
No matter how you slice it, the ancient Egyptians cluster more with tropical African or tropical African derived groups than Europeans- whether they be north or south.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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None of the above makes any difference. Melanesians need not be 86+. Upper Egyptians or Nubians are not that high. And the san post 84.2 with little gene flow. Tropical populations vary, just like non-tropicals, and that includes "warm." No credible scholar thinks "warm" only refers to a subtropical climate.
None of the data supports your attempt to make out that Southern Europeans are closer to the Egyptian. Before you get to the Europeans, the closest match is with Sub-Saharan people- the San. On the other side of the coin- the warm side- the closest match is Upper Egyptians. On either side of the scale, the primary connection is African. Raxter's own data shows this.
You say anyone can read- sure- and per Raxter- quote:
""Ancient Egyptians and Nubians of both sexes are consistently significantly different in limb length proportions from Northern and Southern Europeans, with their brachial and crural indices grouping with the majority of other Africans. " [/]
She never said anything about all Egyptians clustering with Southern Medits are you are trying to make out.
And Raxter/Ruff 2008 ran a similar study- same overall pattern. [i]""Intralimb (crural and brachial) indices are significantly higher in ancient Egyptians than in American Whites (except crural index among females), i.e., Egyptians have relatively longer distal segments (Table 4). Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks."
Raxter is not the only relevant study, and when you step outside Raxter- makes no diff- same result. In fact Raxter/Ruff cite another study where American blacks were in the mix- same result. Likewise Kemp 2005 notes as regards yet another study- this one with data on Lower Egyptians:
""..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." --(Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)
The scholarly conclusions are clearly there for people to read.
Beluze et al do not break out Raxter's detail, but it is misleading for any to represent Raxter as applying to all Egyptians. Rather Raxter calls attention to LOWER EGYPTIANS re the Medit distance, NOT ALL Egyptians. Its LOWER Egyptians at issue, on crural indexes.
And when you take the Lower Egyptians, using Raxter's own data- the primary connection remains with Africans. On the cooler side are the Sub-Saharan San. On the warmer side, the Upper Egyptians. Either way- Africans come first as regards Lower Egyptians.
And Beluze also has this to say: "The significant decrease in humerus length relative to ulna length between earlier and later groups suggested an increasingly African body plan over time (Zakrzewski, 2003). The Egyptian sample as a whole had longer distal limb segments relative to proximal limb segments within each limb compared with many African populations.."
This confirms what I say about the overall picture, and a credible scholar in the field shows this directly.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote: ""..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." --(Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)
What people can retain from this discussion is that Ancient Egyptians from various era (beside foreign dynasties) have similar limb and body proportions than African people (Sub-Saharan Africans, African-Americans, etc) and different from modern and ancient Europeans, West Asians, North Africans and Palestinians.
We can see it many studies such as the Barry Kemp quote above, Raxter (2008) and here taken from Holliday 2013:
posted
When did the earliest Greeks enter Egypt? Could not various colonists have come to tutor the natives long before Alexander and his troops showed up?
-------------------- 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
quote:Originally posted by Dead:
quote:Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova:
.
Classic ideology vs data argument. Ideologues fall for the roorag. Rational folk follow the amassed data nor are thrown off by change-the-subject reroute attempts.
Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
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Reply With Quote When did the earliest Greeks enter Egypt? Could not various colonists have come to tutor the natives long before Alexander and his troops showed up? That is during the 26th dynasty,during the reign of pharaoh Psamis 1,irony his name PSAMIS in kalenjin(south nilotic)means BAD,So i guess the ancient egyptians considered him bad.
Posts: 306 | From: Kenya | Registered: Dec 2013
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Source of the above is unknown. Why??? Of which specimen and dynasties does the author speak???
quote:In fact, in terms of body shape, the European and the Inuit samples tend to be cold-adapted and tend to be separated in multivariate space from the more tropically adapted Africans, especially those groups from south of the Sahara.
--Holliday TW, Hilton CE. Body proportions of circumpolar peoples as evidenced from skeletal data: Ipiutak and Tigara (Point Hope) versus Kodiak Island Inuit.
quote:However, the remaining 35% of L mtDNAs form European-specific subclades, revealing that there was gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa toward Europe as early as 11,000 yr ago.
Reconstructing ancient mitochondrial DNA links between Africa and Europe --Mar ́ıa Cerezo, et al.
quote: PC correlates and component loadings (Figure 2) showed a pattern similar to average hg frequencies (Table 2) in both large meta-population sets, with the LBK dataset grouping with Europeans because of a lack of mitochondrial African hgs (L and M1) and preHV, and elevated frequencies of hg V.
--Wolfgang Haak Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities
quote: The most thorough studies on the prehistory of North Africa come from the land included within the present borders of Egypt and northern Sudan. The Nile river and the Sahara desert have alternatively affected each other on both cultural and environmental levels and Eastern Saharan populations have acted as intermediaries between central Saharans and Nilotic peoples in both east–west and west–east directions. The Eastern Sahara is often referred to as the Western Desert, as it is located west of the Nile river. However, the Eastern Sahara proper extends east of the Nile river, as well. This article regards the most relevant events of past human populations in the area. Main topics include: the spread of early anatomically modern humans (e.g., at Kurkur Oasis, Bir Tarfawi, BirSahara); the reoccupation of the Sahara after 10 000 years ago; the earliest herders (e.g., at Bir Kiseiba and Nabta Playa); the earliest production and the spread of pottery (e.g., at Nabta Playa, Bir Kiseiba, Gilf Kebir, Great Sand Sea); caprine herding (e.g., at Sodmein Cave, Dakhleh Oasis, Nabta Playa); the origins of farming (e.g., at Farafra Oasis); and the development of sedentism (e.g., at Dakhleh Oasis, Nabta Playa).
AFRICA, NORTH Sahara, Eastern, --Elena A.A. Garcea et al.
quote: Large-scale climate change forms the backdrop to the beginnings of food production in northeastern Africa (Kröpelin et al. 2008).[ Hunter-gatherer communities deserted most of the northern interior of the continent during the arid glacial maximum and took refuge along the North African coast, the Nile Valley, and the southern fringes of the Sahara (Barich and Garcea 2008; Garcea 2006; Kuper and Kröpelin 2006). During the subsequent Early Holocene African humid phase, from the mid-eleventh to the early ninth millennium cal BP, ceramic-using hunter-gatherers took advantage of more favorable savanna conditions to resettle much of northeastern Africa (Holl 2005; Kuper and Kröpelin 2006). Evidence of domestic animals first appeared in sites in the Western Desert of Egypt, the Khartoum region of the Nile, northern Niger, the Acacus Mountains of Libya, and Wadi Howar (Garcea 2004, 2006; Pöllath and Peters 2007; fig. 1).
--Fiona Marshall
Domestication Processes and Morphological Change Through the Lens of the Donkey and African Pastoralism Fiona Marshall and Lior Weissbrod
quote:Evidence from throughout the Sahara indicates that the region experienced a cool, dry and windy climate during the last glacial period, followed by a wetter climate with the onset of the current interglacial, with humid conditions being fully established by around 10,000 years BP, when we see the first evidence of a reoccupation of parts of the central Sahara by hunter gathers, most likely originating from sub-Saharan Africa (Cremaschi and Di Lernia, 1998; Goudie, 1992; Phillipson, 1993; Ritchie, 1994; Roberts, 1998).
[...]
Conical tumuli, platform burials and a V-type monument represent structures similar to those found in other Saharan regions and associated with human burials, appearing in sixth millennium BP onwards in northeast Niger and southwest Libya (Sivilli, 2002). In the latter area a shift in emphasis from faunal to human burials, complete by the early fifth millennium BP, has been interpreted by Di Lernia and Manzi (2002) as being associated with a changes in social organisation that occurred at a time of increasing aridity. While further research is required in order to place the funerary monuments of Western Sahara in their chronological context, we can postulate a similar process as a hypothesis to be tested, based on the high density of burial sites recorded in the 2002 survey. Fig. 2: Megaliths associated with tumulus burial (to right of frame), north of Tifariti (Fig. 1). A monument consisting of sixty five stelae was also of great interest; precise alignments north and east, a division of the area covered into separate units, and a deliberate scattering of quartzite inside the structure, are suggestive of an astronomical function associated with funerary rituals. Stelae are also associated with a number of burial sites, again suggesting dual funerary and astronomical functions (Figure 2). Further similarities with other Saharan regions are evident in the rock art recorded in the study area, although local stylistic developments are also apparent. Carvings of wild fauna at the site of Sluguilla resemble the Tazina style found in Algeria, Libya and Morocco (Pichler and Rodrigue, 2003), although examples of elephant and rhinoceros in a naturalistic style reminiscent of engravings from the central Sahara believed to date from the early Holocene are also present.
--Nick Brooks et al.
The prehistory of Western Sahara in a regional context: the archaeology of the "free zone"
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Saharan Studies Programme and School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Coauthors: Di Lernia, Savino ((Department of Scienze Storiche, Archeologiche, e Antropologiche dell’Antichità, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Via Palestro 63, 00185 – Rome, Italy) and Drake, Nick (Department of Geography, King’s College, Strand, London WC2R 2LS).
Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change
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It's been entertaining watching Cass try to dismantle the importance of limb lengths as proof that the Egyptians were tropical in ancestry...he'd previously dismissed this metric, saying something like, no-one paid attention to it.
Wonder what changed.
Posts: 805 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2013
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quote:Recent studies find the ancient Egyptians had a tropical body plan like sub-Saharan 'black' Africans and were not cold-adapted like European type populations. Tropical body plans also indicate darker-skin.
QUOTE: "The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the "super-Negroid" body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.
a 2008 Study puts the ancient Egyptians closer to US Blacks than whites:
Quotes:
"Intralimb (crural and brachial) indices are significantly higher in ancient Egyptians than in American Whites (except crural index among females), i.e., Egyptians have relatively longer distal segments (Table 4). Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks... Many of those who have studied ancient Egyptians have commented on their characteristically ''tropical'' or ''African'' body plan (Warren, 1897; Masali, 1972; Robins, 1983; Robins and Shute, 1983, 1984, 1986; Zakrzewski, 2003). Egyptians also fall within the range of modern African populations (Ruff and Walker, 1993), but close to the upper limit of modern Europeans as well, at least for the crural index (brachial indices are definitely more ''African'').. In terms of femoral and tibial length to total skeletal height proportions, we found that ancient Egyptians are significantly different from US Blacks, although still closer to Blacks than to Whites.
"More recently, it has been shown that ancient Egyptians had brachial indices that were generally similar to ther African populations and crural indices more similar to Southern Europeans (Raxter, 2011). Body breadth and body mass relative to stature in ancient Egyptians were intermediate between high-and low-latitude groups (Raxter, 2011). (Bleuze et al., 2014)
"The mosaic pattern in ecogeographic patterning among ancient Egyptian populations suggests that they cannot readily be characterized as “super-Negroid” as previously suggested (Robins, 1983; Zakrzewski, 2003). (Bleuze et al., 2014)
'Im sorry to re-inform you again, but the pattern is always from South to North. We have been showing you this for years. I advice you to reread LA Brana. It clearly debunks your thesis.
"Climate-Controlled Holocene Occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa's Evolution"
quote: "Radiocarbon data from 150 archaeological excavations in the now hyper-arid Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Chad reveal close links between climatic variations and prehistoric occupation during the past 12,000 years. Synoptic multiple-indicator views for major time slices demonstrate the transition from initial settlement after the sudden onset of humid conditions at 8500 B.C.E. to the exodus resulting from gradual desiccation since 5300 B.C.E. Southward shifting of the desert margin helped trigger the emergence of pharaonic civilization along the Nile, influenced the spread of pastoralism throughout the continent, and affects sub-Saharan Africa to the present day."
quote:"At the end of the last Ice Age, the Sahara Desert was just as dry and uninviting as it is today. But sandwiched between two periods of extreme dryness were a few millennia of plentiful rainfall and lush vegetation.
During these few thousand years, prehistoric humans left the congested Nile Valley and established settlements around rain pools, green valleys, and rivers.”
quote:Originally posted by tropicals redacted: It's been entertaining watching Cass try to dismantle the importance of limb lengths as proof that the Egyptians were tropical in ancestry...he'd previously dismissed this metric, saying something like, no-one paid attention to it.
Wonder what changed.
quote:"The initial movements westwards across the Sahara and, almost a millennium later, are likely to have been caused by the succession of drought episodes at 7600, 6800-6500, 6100, 5800, and 5500-5400 cal BC (8.6, 7.9-7.7, 7.26, 7, 6.6-6.5 kyr bp) […]”
-- Fekri Hassan, Droughts, Food, and Culture: Ecological Change and Food Security in Africa’s Prehistory
quote:Originally posted by Dead: Theoretically Melanesians should be 86+ like other Old World populations at tropical/equatorial latitude. Instead they are 84.8. This has to do with the recent large-scale mixture of the natives islanders with Austronesians who settled across Melanesia from Taiwan and southern China.
Like Melanesians, African-Americans are not tropically adapted. AA's are 85.1. This is because the average African-American has recent white ancestry. West African and East Africans means are both 86+ [the "South African Black" sample mean in the above table is 86.2-3].
None of the data supports your clustering attempt. You are trying to pool all these populations together, but it doesn't work.
What West & East Sub-Saharan Africans match is the Lower and Upper Nubian series, not Egyptian.
The data is there for anyone to read. The quote from Bleuze et al., 2014 who point out: ancient Egyptian "crural indices [are] more similar to Southern Europeans" is directly citing Raxter (2011). They aren't talking about the late period series.
I'm not claiming they pool with Southern Europeans, but that they are intermediate/warm-adapted/subtropical, but fall closer to Mediterranean's, when compared to populations at hot tropical latitude like Sub-Saharan Africans (the Melanesians though aren't a good example for the reason I pointed to above).
And you can combine Lower and Upper Egyptians to produce an overall mean. It comes out still below 85.
We have reviewed this years ago, all you do here is iterate your old school thesis. The more you resist the more you get your panties in a bunch.
The Khormusan: Evidence for an MSA East African industry in Nubia
quote:"There is clear evidence of lithic technological variability in Middle Paleolithic (MP) assemblages along the Nile valley and in adjacent desert areas. One of the identified variants is the Khormusan, the type-site of which, Site 1017, is located north of the Nile's Second Cataract. The industry has two distinctive characteristics that set it apart from other MP industries within its vicinity. One is the use of a wide variety of raw materials; the second is an apparent correlation between raw material and technology used, suggesting a cultural aspect to raw material management. Stratigraphically, site 1017 is situated within the Dibeira-Jer formation which represents an aggradation stage of the Nile and contains sediments originating from the Ethiopian Highlands. While it has previously been suggested that the site dates to sometime before 42.5 ka, the Dibeira-Jer formation can plausibly be correlated with Nile alluvial sediments in northern Sudan recently dated to 83 ± 24 ka (MIS 5a). This stage coincides with the 81 ka age of sapropel S3, indicating higher Nile flow and stronger monsoon rainfall at these times.
Other sites which reflect similar raw material variability and technological traditions are the BNS and KHS sites in the Omo Kibish Formation (Ethiopia) dated to ∼100 ka and ∼190 ka respectively. Based on a lithic comparative study conducted, it is suggested that site 1017 can be seen as representing behavioral patterns which are indicative of East African Middle Stone Age (MSA) technology, adding support to the hypothesis that the Nile Valley was an important dispersal route used by modern humans prior to the long cooling and dry trend beginning with the onset of MIS 4. Techo-typological comparison of the assemblages from the Khormusan sites with other Middle Paleolithic sites from Nubia and East Africa is used to assess the possibility of tracing the dispersal of technological traits across the landscape and through time.”
--Mae Goder-Goldberger
Quaternary International 25 June 2013, Vol.300:182–194, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.11.031 The Middle Palaeolithic in the Desert
quote:Originally posted by Dead: Ancient Egyptian mean (N + S combined) is 84.8-9.
Low-latitude (i.e. tropical/high temperature adapted) populations are 86, or around there.
So no, AE's do not overlap or pool with populations within the tropics.
The three lines I added, but you can basically see the pattern. High latitude cold adapted populations are under 81, or about there. Relatively high latitude temperate populations are all around 82-83. Intermediate/subtropical or warm adapted are 84-85. Tropical or heat adapted are 86-87. Obviously this doesn't explain everything, since there are some oddities (e.g. Ainu) but its clear AE's are not tropical.
If what you claimed as valid, the authors like Sonia Zakrzewski would have rectified along time ago. It’s really that simple.
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quote:Originally posted by Dead: Theoretically Melanesians should be 86+ like other Old World populations at tropical/equatorial latitude. Instead they are 84.8. This has to do with the recent large-scale mixture of the natives islanders with Austronesians who settled across Melanesia from Taiwan and southern China.
Like Melanesians, African-Americans are not tropically adapted. AA's are 85.1. This is because the average African-American has recent white ancestry. West African and East Africans means are both 86+ [the "South African Black" sample mean in the above table is 86.2-3].
None of the data supports your clustering attempt. You are trying to pool all these populations together, but it doesn't work.
What West & East Sub-Saharan Africans match is the Lower and Upper Nubian series, not Egyptian.
The data is there for anyone to read. The quote from Bleuze et al., 2014 who point out: ancient Egyptian "crural indices [are] more similar to Southern Europeans" is directly citing Raxter (2011). They aren't talking about the late period series.
I'm not claiming they pool with Southern Europeans, but that they are intermediate/warm-adapted/subtropical, but fall closer to Mediterranean's, when compared to populations at hot tropical latitude like Sub-Saharan Africans (the Melanesians though aren't a good example for the reason I pointed to above).
And you can combine Lower and Upper Egyptians to produce an overall mean. It comes out still below 85.
quote:Originally posted by Gor: With that said, I don't think the bronze skin Tut reconstruction is biased at all.
quote: Figure 2 | Ancestral variants around the SLC45A2 (rs16891982, above) and SLC24A5 (rs1426654, below) pigmentation genes in the Mesolithic genome.
The SNPs around the two diagnostic variants (red arrows) in these two genes were analysed. The resulting haplotype comprises neighbouring SNPs that are also absent in modern Europeans (CEU) (n = 112) but present in Yorubans (YRI) (n = 113). This pattern confirms that the La Braña 1 sample is older than the positive-selection event in these regions. Blue, ancestral; red, derived.
--Carles Lalueza-Fox
Nature 507, 225–228 (13 March 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12960
Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues
A-M Mekota1, M Vermehren Department of Biology I, Biodiversity Research/Anthropology1and Department of Veterinary Anatomy II2, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Germany Submitted January 8, 2002; revised May 4, 2004; accepted August 12, 2004
quote:
Abstract
During an excavation headed by the German Institute for Archaeology, Cairo, at the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt, three types of tissues from different mummies were sampled to compare 13 well known rehydration methods for mummified tissue with three newly developed methods. Furthermore, three fixatives were tested with each of the rehydration fluids. Meniscus (fibrocartilage), skin, and a placenta were used for this study. The rehydration and fixation procedures were uniform for all methods.
Materials and methods In 1997, the German Institute for Archaeology headed an excavation of the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt. At this time, three types of tissues were sampled from different mummies: meniscus (fibrocartilage), skin, and placenta. Archaeological findings suggest that the mummies dated from the New Kingdom (approxi- mately 1550-1080 BC).
Skin Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1).
The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin. In the dermis, the hair follicles, hair, and sebaceous and sweat glands were readily apparent (Fig. 2). Blood vessels, but no red blood cells, and small peripheral nerves were identified unambiguously (Fig. 3). The subcutaneous layer showed loose connective tissue fibers attached to the dermis, and fat cell remnants were observed. To evaluate the influence of postmortum tissue decay by micro-organisms, the samples were tested for the presence of fungi using silver staining
.
Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, 80(1): 7Á/13
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quote:If what you claimed as valid, the authors like Sonia Zakrzewski would have rectified along time ago. It’s really that simple.
Her study is old.
"The mosaic pattern in ecogeographic patterning among ancient Egyptian populations suggests that they cannot readily be characterized as “super-Negroid” as previously suggested (Robins, 1983; Zakrzewski, 2003). (Bleuze et al., 2014)
As mentioned before. She has newer data, and did not RETIFY her observations. Nor did others.
I have posted a sum on climatology, migration, genetics and melanin dosage. In support of Sonia Zakrzewski and other anthropologists who observed the same. So your argument is literary blue. (a sky high dream").
Let's get to the nitty gritty, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, is West Egypt. Reread my posts...LOL
So, whether they were similar or closer..., fact is they range with other Africans on multiple levels and came from the South. As they migrated up North.
Several studies have shown that the human body generally conforms to the ecogeographical expectations of Bergmann's and Allen's rules; however, recent evidence suggests that these expectations may not hold completely for some populations.
Egypt is located at the crossroads of Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Europe, and the Near East, and gene flow among groups in these regions may confound ecogeographical patterning.
In this study, we test the fit of the adult physique of a large sample (N = 163) of females and males from the Kellis 2 cemetery (Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt) against ecogeographical predictions.
Body shape (i.e., body mass relative to stature) was assessed by the femur head diameter to bicondylar femur length index (FHD/BFL), and brachial and crural indices were calculated to examine intralimb proportions.
Body shape in the Kellis 2 sample is not significantly different from high-latitude groups and a Lower Nubian sample, and intralimb proportions are not significantly different from mid-latitude and other low-latitude groups.
This study demonstrates the potential uniqueness of body shape and intralimb proportions in an ancient Egyptian sample, and further highlights the complex relationship between ecogeographic patterning and adaptation.
quote: The Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP) is a long-term regional study of the interaction between environmental changes and human activity in the closed area of the Dakhleh Oasis, Western Desert of Egypt, but including the larger area of the Palaeoasis. The study includes all the time since the first incursion of humans in the Middle Pleistocene, perhaps 400,000 years ago, down to the 21st century oasis farmers, and all the human activity and all the changing environmental conditions for which there is evidence within the time period.
To achieve such an assessment, it is necessary to gather data on the modern environment and all past environmental conditions. The environment is seen as one of the most important influences on all human activity. The evidence for this is sought in the geological, geomorphological, the botanical and the faunal records. These data are collected by various field workers, specialists in their particular fields, who ultimately will provide a consensus of the environmental history of the region. The DOP environmentalists to date are Professor R. F. Giegengack, Jr., Dr. Jennifer Smith, Professor C. S. Churcher, Dr. Ursula Thanheiser and Mag. Johannes Walter. Formerly, there have also been Professor J. C. Ritchie and Professor I. A. Brookes.
The activities of humans within these environmental settings must be investigated by a wide range of expertise. The settling and development of cultural evolution within the oasis area, the expansion into and from other Saharan regions and, of course, connections with the Nile Valley are all of interest. These studies are performed by geoarchaeologists, Old Stone Age African specialists, Holocene-Neolithic archaeologists, historical periods specialists – Pharaonic, Ptolemaic-Roman-Christian archaeologists, Islamic archaeologists; by physical anthropologists, and by linguists.
So far, no social or cultural anthropologists have participated in the DOP. These investigators include Professor M. R. Kleindienst, Dr. M. M. A. McDonald, Dr. C. A. Hope, Professor A. J. Mills, Professor F. Leemhuis, Dr. O. E. Kaper, Professor R. S. Bagnall, Professor J. E. Molto, Professor M. Woidich, Professor K. A. Worp, Professor I. Gardner, and a great number of field assistants and experts brought into the project to study specific specialized aspects of our finds.
To understand both the cultural evolution and the environmental changes and their interdependence properly, the oasis has to be studied in great local detail, as well as in a much wider context of northeastern Africa. The general trends, both cultural and natural, throughout the Sahara, and Nile Valley and the eastern and central Sahara as well as locally in the oasis itself must be understood to place the Dakhleh Oasis in its proper setting. Because the Dakhleh Oasis is both an isolated unit and a microcosm of much wider trends, the study is important.
No such large oasis area of the eastern Sahara has yet been so broadly examined and in such great detail. What occurs in the Dakhleh Oasis, will in all probability also occur in other places, with local variations. For example, because of human interference and natural destruction, early adaptation in the Nile Valley is imperfectly understood. The Dakhleh Oasis is isolated but not too distant from the Nile, is subject to many of the same but a much less complex group of influences, and the DOP will be able to shed light on such a problem area.
Through an understanding of the cultural development in the oasis, and in the variety of ways people have had to adapt and accomodate themselves to their changing world, and also how they have influenced or created change in their world, it should become easier to understand the present-day problems of life in an hyper-arid environment, with fertile soils but with a finite water supply. Past solutions and mistakes and results can often better inform mankind. This in turn will inform development agencies for future planning and programs in such regions.
The Dakhleh Oasis lies some 800 km SSE of Cairo, surrounded by the wastes of the eastern Sahara, centered at 25o 30’N and 29o 07’E. The oasis is some 80 km west to east and 25 km maximum wide. The population (in 2002) is about 75,000. The local economy is based in agriculture, and there are no known mineral or other viable resources.
The capital is at Mut, which has been the main town since at least the Eighteenth Dynasty, about 1,500 BCE. Before then, the site of ‘Ain Asil at Balat in eastern Dakhleh had been the seat of the government, since 2,500 BCE, and before that the less settled Neolithic and earlier populations inhabited the area. The Dakhleh Oasis has had a continuity of settlement for about the last 8,000 years but only since 2,500 BCE has it been politically tied to the Nile region. Climatic trends and events that can be discerned in most of the eastern Sahara are also seen at Dakhleh.
The first European traveller to ‘discover’ the Dakhleh Oasis was Sir Archibald Edmonstone, in 1819. He was followed by several other early travellers, but it was not until 1908 that the first egyptologist, Herbert Winlock visited the oasis and noted its monuments in a systematic manner. Only in the 1950s was any real interest taken, first by Dr. Ahmed Fakhry, and in the late 1970s an expedition of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale and the Dakhleh Oasis Project each began detailed studies in the oasis.
The Dakhleh Oasis Project has been conducting this wide study since 1978, supported by a number of universities and organizations. Among these have been Monash University, The University of Durham, the University of Toronto, Columbia University, The Royal Ontario Museum, the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, the American Research Centre in Egypt, the Egyptology Society of Victoria, The Dakhleh Trust, as well as the many institutions of the various participating scholars which support individuals. Support for the DOP is governmental, institutional, corporate and individual and is invited at all times.
The results of the DOP fieldwork are published as quickly as possible, in order that they enter the public domain without delay. The Bibliography of titles generated by the Project members is complete and is also found in this website. It will give the reader access to all our research and reporting.
The site of ancient Kellis, modern-day Ismant el-Kharab, is located in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. The name Kellis is attested in documentary material from the site, which also reveals that the village once belonged to the Mothite nome. The ancient settlement is denoted by numerous mud-brick structures and a dominant temple complex, and the main phases of occupation at the site are dated from the early Roman to late Roman Period (i.e., 1st-2nd to 4th-5th centuries CE). Kellis covers an area of approximately one square kilometer and is bounded upon its northwest and southeast by dried up wadis(water courses).
Several early travellers and modern Egyptologists visited the site and left brief reports of their observations. They include: B. Drovetti, J. G. Wilkinson, H. E. Winlock, G. Elias and Ahmed Fakhry. The first detailed examination, however, did not commence until 1981-2, during an extensive archaeological survey of the oasis undertaken by the Dakhleh Oasis Project (DOP). In accordance with the DOP’s system of reference, the site was ascribed the number 31/420-D6-1. The primary stages of planning and mapping of the site were conducted at this time in conjunction with small-scale test excavations.
Consequently, the site was divided into areas ( see map ) as part of the initial surveying process. Major excavations at Ismant el-Kharab began in 1986 under the auspices of the DOP. The principal investigators for this site are Dr. Colin Hope and Dr. Gillian Bowen of Monash University.
quote: golden-mummyThe two cemeteries associated with Kellis are located north of the settlement on either side of the northwest wadi which runs from the northeast to the west of its boundary. The West Cemetery (DOP number 31/420-C5-1), also referred to as Kellis 1, consists of a large number of small chamber tombs which are cut into a progression of low-rise mounds west of this wadi.
Studies of the ceramic material and objects found in the tombs indicate that they were in use from the Ptolemaic Period into the early Roman Period. The entrances to most of the tombs were brick-lined or provided with door jambs and a lintel built with roughly-hewn sandstone, and many entrances were blocked with a sandstone slab. All of the tombs contained multiple burials, many of which were secondary and added after the initial tomb interments. A substantial number of bodies were mummified and many were provided with painted and gilded cartonnage. Significant quantities of burial goods were also found in the tombs.
The East Cemetery (DOP number 31/420-C5-2), or Kellis 2, is located on the broad plain east of the same wadi and consists of simple rectangular pit graves that were cut into the red Nubian clay. Some of the graves have low mud-brick superstructures and several of these graves are contained within two larger mud-brick enclosures, both of which are preserved only to a few courses high. The graves that have been examined thus far have contained a single inhumation which was wrapped in linen cloth and in almost all of the graves there have been few burial goods found. In some instances however, the entire grave pit was covered with pottery.
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The more I tend to read, the more interesting it gets.
quote: University of Reading Excavations focus on Area 1 in order to capture a holistic view of a single Romano-Egyptian neighborhood. Area 1 is characterized by mixed spatial usage and includes houses, a ceramics production area, and a large open courtyard.
One house (B2), dating to the mid-late third century until the early fourth century, has already been excavated as part of the Amheida Project, and a full publication will go to press later in 2012. Current and future excavations by the Reading team will take place around this structure in order to explore small-scale social relationships, economic exchanges, and domestic life.
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lol, good info Patrol. Thule/Anglo/"Dead" doesn't seem to realize that his argument is "dead on arrival." And his touted diagram is his own shaky patchwork, not a screenshot from a cited original, and does not contain a direct, original quote, or specific citation, meaning he can fudge and lie. Graphics should include an actual screen shot and direct quotes, so people can verify where info is from. But even his unsourced, non cited "supporting" chart, undermines his argument. It shows the Europeans clustering AWAY from the tropicals. If anything, it shows the Egyptians cluster more with the tropical Africans that his white Europeans. African Americans, a tropical, "sub-Saharan population, and Pygmies, an African, "sub-Saharan" population cluster closer to the Egyptians. And the Dakleh Oasis samples as you note are weighted towards non- Egyptian, mixed or untypical late period samples, in the Roman era. Says his "supporting" reference:
However, given the socioe-conomic conditions at Dakhleh during the Romano-Christian period and the evidence that migrants to the Oasis likely came from regions that experienced geneflow from Southern Europe and/or the Near East, body shape in the Kellis 2 sample may show greater variation than expected."
and:
""The significant decrease in humerus length relative to ulna length between earlier and later groups suggested an increasingly African body plan over time (Zakrzewski, 2003). The Egyptian sample as a whole had longer distal limb segments relative to proximal limb segments within each limb compared with many African populations.." --Beluze
Again, and again, his own "supporting" information, blows away his own argument.
^Another "supporting" reference..
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It literaly went up in smoke, Dead got burned badly this time. lol
Deadline...
quote: Morphological variation of the skeletal remains of ancient Nubia has been traditionally explained as a product of multiple migrations into the Nile Valley. In contrast, various researchers have noted a continuity in craniofacial variation from Mesolithic through Neolithic times. This apparent continuity could be explained by in situ cultural evolution producing shifts in selective pressures which may act on teeth, the facial complex, and the cranial vault. A series of 13 Mesolithic skulls from Wadi Halfa, Sudan, are compared to Nubian Neolithic remains by means of extended canonical analysis. Results support recent research which suggests consistent trends of facial reduction and cranial vault expansion from Mesolithic through Neolithic times.
--Meredith F. Small* The nubian mesolithic: A consideration of the Wadi Halfa remains
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^^Even these previous studies show the African character just as how keita could point to old field surveys in the 1800s, 1920s and 1930s that show how "African" samples were excluded in final reports. We still have a lot of work to do, and the issues still have to be pursued but there is a gradual coming around to putting AE in its African context- grudging mayhaps.
What is interesting is that the most vocal opponents are some modern Egyptians. As epitomized by Anwar Sadat- how he was mocked for his African ancestry (upper Egyptian guy with Sudanese wife) and the "horrible" instance of a black American actor portraying Sadat, in an American film. Sheesh, they even banned the film in Egypt. Then of course there is Hawass.
"His father, Anwar Mohammed El Sadat was an Upper Egyptian, and his mother, Sit Al-Berain, was a Sudanese from her father.[8][9] Thus, he faced insults by his opponents in Egypt for not looking "Egyptian enough" and "Nasser's black poodle."[10] --Khalid, Sunni M. (February 7, 2011). "The Root: Race And Racism Divide Egypt". npr.org.
For too many Egyptians, sub-Saharan Africa is a stereotypical exotic land of thick jungles and masses of poor, starving and black-skinned savages. By: Sunni M. Khalid Posted: Feb. 3 2011 2:53 PM
Because of my looks, my religion and my name, I have frequently been mistaken for Arab during my travels throughout the Middle East. It has been a mentally liberating sensation -- to leave the racial politics of the United States (in reality, this is simply the process of exchanging the ethnic politics of one land for those of another) and not to be regarded as simply a nondescript "black."
Over the years, I have, at various times, been mistaken for many different nationalities. But when I am in the Middle East, strangers most often mistake me for Egyptian. Of course, many African Americans look like Egyptians, right across the color spectrum. I would often scan a crowded street in Cairo and pick out the faces of Egyptians whose visages reminded me of family or friends.
Almost every time I arrived at the Cairo airport, the immigration official would examine my passport closely. Inevitably, the official would ask me a series of questions.
"Is this your name, Sunni Khalid?"
"Yes."
"Are you Egyptian?"
"No."
"Is your father Egyptian?"
"No."
"Is your mother Egyptian?"
"No."
"Where were you born?"
"Detroit."
The official would immediately become suspicious. After all, to his eyes, I looked like an ordinary Egyptian. Finally, another immigration official would show up, repeating the same series of questions. I'd have to repeat my answers a third or fourth time before still more disbelieving immigration officials.
As a last resort, I'd often put my hands up in a boxer's stance and start jumping around, throwing punches in the air. Then I'd turn to them and say, "I'm like Muhammad Ali-Clay." That would always bring smiles.
"Oh, you're a boxer! Do you know Muhammad Ali-Clay?"
"No, I'm like Muhammad Ali-Clay," I would say. "I'm an African-American Muslim."
Quickly, those quizzical looks would be replaced with smiles and handshakes. As they stamped my passport, the officials would tell me, "Welcome home."
But other blacks, whether American or not, have fared much worse than I did; they are never mistaken for Arabs.
Slender, beautiful, blue-black-skinned Southern Sudanese women, who walk around Cairo with their thick, kinky hair woven distinctively in intricate braids, are routinely the targets of verbal public abuse. Carloads of Arab men drive by, hanging out of windows, shouting catcalls, or making loud demands for sexual favors.
Over the years, Egypt has had a particularly difficult time coming to grips with its African identity. Many Egyptians do not consider themselves Africans. Some take offense even to being identified with Africa at all. When speaking to Egyptians who have traveled to countries below the Sahara, nearly all of them speak of going to Africa, or going down to Africa, as if Egypt were separate from the rest of the continent.
More than a few Egyptian women, for example, told me that they disliked the dark-skinned former President Anwar Sadat, ridiculed for years as "Nasser's black poodle." Sadat, whose mother was Sudanese, they insisted, "did not look Egyptian enough."
For too many Egyptians, sub-Saharan Africa is a stereotypical exotic land of thick jungles and masses of poor, starving and black-skinned savages. Ironically, a little more than a generation ago, Cairo was the nerve center for the continent's liberation movement. Today the state-controlled media devote scant attention to the affairs of the continent below the Sahara. Even the occasional visit by a head of state from sub-Saharan Africa is greeted with smiles by snickering Egyptian government officials, especially when African visitors choose to wear their national dress.
This was not always the case. In 1966, following the coup in Ghana, Egypt's first president, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, sent for the Egyptian wife and half-Egyptian children of Ghana's deposed leader, Kwame Nkrumah. Nasser died suddenly in 1970, and much has changed since then.
Sub-Saharan Africans, who have fled as refugees to Egypt from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, are routinely targeted for periodic security roundups in Cairo. In December 2005, Egyptian riot police brutally attacked a camp of Sudanese refugees in Cairo who were protesting their treatment. In front of TV cameras, at least 28 and as many as 100 refugees were killed, and hundreds of others were injured, arrested, imprisoned or deported. There was little public protest.
My wife, Zeinab, a Kenyan Somali, endured a series of racial indignities during our time in Egypt. She would shop Road Nine, the trendy commercial drag in Maadi that caters mostly to foreigners and wealthy Egyptians. More than once, she would be standing in line at the checkout counter, when an older, fair-skinned Egyptian woman would arrogantly walk from the rear of the line and place her packages on the conveyor belt in front of Zeinab, as if my wife didn't exist. Indignantly, Zeinab would glare at the woman and dump her packages at the back of the line -- or even go so far as to grab the woman by the collar to make her point.
Whenever my wife would come to the airport to pick me up, she'd often have to fend off several Arab men, who assumed that, as a black woman, she was somehow immediately "available" to their desires, whether she was married or not.
One afternoon, as we ate lunch at our favorite restaurant in Cairo's sprawling Khan el-Khalili market, we noticed two scowling Egyptian women staring at us from across the room. I left Zeinab to go to the restroom. As I returned to our table, one of the women who had been glaring at us earlier, an older Egyptian woman, accosted me.
"Don't you know better?" she asked in Arabic. "How dare you bring a woman like that into a place like this?"
As far as this woman was concerned, Zeinab, dressed casually in slacks, her hair in braids, was obviously a "Sudanese prostitute," and I was taken to be her Arab "john." Certainly, in her eyes, no respectable Egyptian man would ever cavort publicly with a black woman.
"Excuse me, ma'am," I replied politely in Arabic, "you've made a mistake. That woman is my wife."
My protests were futile. The woman kept tugging indelicately on my sleeve, castigating me for my "scandalous" public behavior.
Before I left Cairo, I met a group of sub-Saharan African students enrolled at the prestigious al-Azhar University. They told me about the racial harassment they were subjected to on a daily basis on the streets of Cairo by Egyptian Arabs.
"I learned something much different from what I believed," said Bala, a native of northern Nigeria and a graduate student at the American University in Cairo, who lived in Egypt for six years. "I thought [the Arabs] were our brothers in Islam, but they don't bother about that when you're black. ... They pretend that you are a brother in Islam, but this is different from what they hold in their hearts and in their minds."
He told me that for many Muslims from sub-Saharan Africa, the spiritual solidarity with Egyptian Muslims was misplaced. "I was coming out of masjid [mosque] in a place called Dar-el-Malik," Bala said. "So we used to say 'Salaam' to one another when we came out of salat [prayer]. There was one child, called Mohamed, and we were used to shaking hands with him. And one day, I came out to shake his hand and he refused. He told me his father told him never to shake hands with a Sudani -- that is black. So he is telling me his father told him he cannot say, 'Salaam,' to any [Africans]."
Through Bala, I met other African students, including some who were studying at al-Azhar University, with the hope of returning to their native lands as imams and religious scholars. Some of the students told me that they experienced racism within al-Azhar to such an extent that they eventually renounced their vows as Muslims.
Some Egyptians, they told me, called Africans hounga (a nonsense word) or asked, "What time is it?" This was apparently done so that the sub-Saharan Africans would look down and be reminded of their dark-skinned wrists, where their watches might be. The jokesters would immediately laugh, but the Africans wouldn't catch on to the joke until much later.
"Egyptians ask you if you live in trees," Bala said. "Or, 'Why are you black?' 'Is your country hot?' So, this is how we know that there is something called racism here. We are Muslims, not because of the Arabs, but Muslims despite what the Arabs have done to us. Even my worst enemy, I would not ask him to come to Egypt for studies, let alone my son."
As Egypt moves forward in a post-Mubarak era, it will have to look at healing many of the wounds that have been opened and have festered over the years. This includes mending ties among Egyptians across religious lines, between the Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority, as well as across racial fault lines, with more acceptance of the non-Arab Nubian minority and the significant number of African refugees living and working in Egypt. How these minorities are treated in the future may speak volumes about how far Egyptians have come, or have to go, in treating one another.
Sunni M. Khalid is the managing news editor at WYPR-FM and has reported extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He reported from Cairo for three years.
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Post-Pharaonic Nubia in the Light of Archaeology.
"The Meroitic kingdom and culture exhibit a whole series of developments and accomplishments which are by no means prefigured in the late Napatan era, and which are symptomatic of a marked return of cultural vigour.2 The Meroitic achievements in the political and religious fields were nearly as great as the Napatan of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and in the material and artistic fields surpassed them-especially when we recall that they were to a far greater extent the work of local craftsmen.3 It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Meroitic at its peak, far from being a period of cultural disintegration, actually represents the highest level attained by native Nubian culture up to that time 4... and not merely a veneer of Egyptian culture imperfectly grafted on to a Nubian base.
Foremost among the accomplishments of the Meroitic era must be accounted the tremendous territorial expansion of the kingdom, or at least of its cultural influence. Meroites not only reoccupied Lower Nubia in force,5 but also extended their dominion southward to Sennar and Kosti and westward to Kordofan and perhaps even Darfur.6 The Meroitic kingdom at its height was perhaps as geographically extensive as the Napatan.. The reoccupation of Lower Nubia must however be accounted a major accomplishment in itself, especially as there is some evidence that it was contested by the Ptolemies.7
Further evidence of renewed cultural vigour in the Meroitic period is to be seen in the wave of temple building which took place under various Meroitic rulers in the first century of the Christian era-especially under the famous royal pair Natakamani and Aminatari.8 Their work cannot be regarded simply as a continuation of an established tradition, for there had been nothing on a comparable scale since Taharqa, and no temple building of any significance at all for 200 years. Natakamani and Aminatari were the last Nubian rulers to employ Egyptian craftsmen in the design of their monu- ments, and their temples and mortuary chapels are undoubtedly the finest of the Meroitic era. Nevertheless, the work of the strictly local artisans in the following reigns wvas still of a high artistic order.9
Another noteworthy development of the Meroitic era was the beautiful and far-famed Meroitic decorated pottery. The origins of this industry remain obscure. The designs combine elements of Egyptian and of Graeco-Roman origin, but the combinations and their execution are uniquely Nubian, and the ware is far superior both techno- logically and artistically to anything made in Egypt at the time. It represents, in fact, one of the highest attainments in the history of Nubian material culture.
Meroitic pottery was very widely manufactured, and appears in surprising quantities even in the humblest Meroitic dwellings.' A final cultural achievement which we must credit to the Meroitic era was the development of the Meroitic system of writing, which for the first time in history enabled the Nubians to record the language in which they habitually spoke.. they give evidence of a more widespread literacy than at any other period of Nubian history. "
--William Y. Adams. 1964. Post-Pharaonic Nubia in the Light of Archaeology. I The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 50
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Originally posted by Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor:
Recently discovered bone implements from Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at Sibudu Cave, South Africa, confirm the existence of a bone tool industry for the Howiesons Poort (HP) technocomplex. Previously, an isolated bone point from Klasies River provided inconclusive evidence. This paper describes three bone tools: two points and the end of a polished spatula-shaped piece, from unequivocal HP layers at Sibudu Cave (with ages greater than ?61 ka). Comparative microscopic and morphometric analysis of the Sibudu specimens together with bone tools from southern African Middle and Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits, an Iron Age occupation, nineteenth century Bushman hunter-gatherer toolkits, and bone tools used experimentally in a variety of tasks, reveals that the Sibudu polished piece has use-wear reminiscent of that on bones experimentally used to work animal hides. A slender point is consistent with a pin or needle-like implement, while a larger point, reminiscent of the single specimen from Peers Cave, parallels large un-poisoned bone arrow points from LSA, Iron Age and historical Bushman sites. Additional support for the Sibudu point having served as an arrow tip comes from backed lithics in the HP compatible with this use, and the recovery of older, larger bone and lithic points from Blombos Cave, interpreted as spear heads. If the bone point from the HP layers at Sibudu Cave is substantiated by future discoveries, this will push back the origin of bow and bone arrow technology by at least 20,000 years, and corroborate arguments in favour of the hypothesis that crucial technological innovations took place during the MSA in Africa.
--Backwella, d'Erricob, and Wadleyd (2008) Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 35, Issue 6, June 2008, Pages 1566–1580
^^This ties in with the data on MSA and any so-called "Revo"..
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 supposed "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, without the need for 'eureka' moments. 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
Qafzeh/Skhul remains cluster more with tropical Africans and show similarities to Cro-Magnons- the latter also showing tropical affinities.
i]"The Qafzeh/Skhul sample is fundamentally modern, and in fact very similar to Cro-Magons.." [/i] --Geoffrey A. Clark, Catherine M. Willermet. 1997. Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research. p111
"Results indicate that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have African-like, or tropically adapted, proportions, while those from Amud, Kebara, Tabun, and Shanidar (Iraq) have more European-like, or cold-adapted, proportions. This suggests that there were in fact two distinct Western Asian populations and that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids were likely African in origin - a result consistent with the "Replacement" model of modern human origins.
.. Thus, the discovery of tropically adapted hominids in the region would therefore likely indicate population dispersal from the TROPICS, and the most logical geographic source for such an influx is Africa. In this regard, Trinkaus (1981, 1984, 1995) and Ruff (1994) have argued that the high brachial and crural indices, narrow biiliac breadths, and small relative femoral head sizes of the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids suggest an influx of African genes associated with the emergence of modern humans in the region." ---Trenton Holliday (2000) Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western Asia. American Anthropologist. New Series,
KLEIN
Proponents of a "fast track" human "revolution" in cognition, organization and technology locate the "revolution" as beginning in, and being sustained from Africa, not other parts of the globe. Other scholars argue for a more gradual evolution of the traits that brought about advances in Africa where anatomically modern humans first appeared, and their expansion to Europe and Asia circa 50kya. Whatever scenario is followed, it makes little difference. The "revo", gradual or "fast track", began in Africa and was sustained from thence. - QUOTE:
"..distance and small population size probably limited gene flow, and the composite fossil and archeological records indicate that the African lineage spread to replace or swamp the others beginning roughly 50 ky ago. It is thus reasonable to supply the lineages with biological species labels: Homo sapiens in Africa, H. neanderthalensis in Europe, and H. erectus in the Far East. The European lineage is the best documented,73 and it is marked by the progressive accumulation of Neanderthal features, culminating in the classic Neanderthals by 130 ky ago. During the long interval when the Neanderthals were evolving, from at least 500 to 130 ky ago, Europe was generally much cooler than it has been historically, and some conspicuous Neanderthal distinctions, including massive trunks and short limbs, were probably physiological adaptations to cold. Other key distinctions— including, for example, the strong forward projection of the face along the midline, the unique configuration of the mastoid region and the occipital, and some peculiarities of the postcranium— may owe more to gene drift in populations that periodically crashed when climate became especially cold.
The pertinent African fossil record is much less complete, but it contains no specimens that anticipate the Neanderthals, and it shows that anatomically near-modern people were widespread in Africa by 130 ky ago,74 when only Neanderthals inhabited Europe. The Far Eastern record is the most sketchy,75 and it may actually comprise two distinct evolutionary trajectories: one in southeastern Asia that suggests continuity within Indonesian Homo erectus from before 500 ky ago until perhaps 50 ky ago,76 and a second in China that may indicate evolution from classic H. erectus before 500 ky ago to populations that by 100 ky ago, retained few distinctive H. erectus features and that approached H. sapiens in braincase size and form.77 The relevant archeology suggests that even as Europeans and Africans progressively diverged in morphology after 500 ky ago, they remained fundamentally similar in behavior.
Thus, both Europeans and Africans produced Acheulean artifacts before 250 ky ago, and they made very similar kinds of non-Acheulean artifacts afterwards. From a strictly artifactual perspective, a conspicuous difference between Africa and Europe arose only after 40 ky ago, and it then occurred in the absence of a morphological contrast, for the artifact makers on both continents were now H. sapiens of African origin. Archeological divergence was followed on each continent by a significant acceleration in artifactual (cultural) differentiation through time and space. This surely signals the existence of the historically familiar modern human ability to innovate. If as I suggest, the development of this ability depended on a biological (neural) change in Africa 50–40 ky ago, then the name H. sapiens should probably be restricted to fully modern humans after this time, and their preceding near-modern African ancestors should be assigned to another species, for which the name H. helmei is available.78
The more fundamental point, however, is that the sudden origin of the modern capacity for culture in Africa 50–40 ky ago could help explain both how and why fully modern Africans were then able to expand at the expense of their nonmodern Eurasian contemporaries... The issue is complicated by the realization that Middle Paleolithic people in Europe were Neanderthals, whereas MSA people in Africa more closely resembled living people. contexts.
Using this criterion, the most plausible evidence for modern human behavior before 50 ky ago comes from the Katanda sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo121–124 and from Blombos Cave in South Africa.125–128 At Katanda, electron spin-resonance dates on hippopotamus teeth and luminescence dates on covering sands bracket mammal and fish bones, stone artifacts that could be either MSA or LSA, eight whole or partial barbed bone points, and four additional formal bone artifacts between 150 and 90 ky ago. At Blombos Cave, luminescence dates on enclosing sands suggest that mammal and fish bones, classic MSA stone artifacts, three whole or fragmentary polished bone points, and 17 less formal bone artifacts accumulated around 100 ky ago.129 At both Katanda and Blombos Cave, the most striking discoveries are the formal bone artifacts..
.. credible claims for art or other modern human behavioral markers before 50 ky ago must involve relatively large numbers of highly patterned objects from deeply stratified, sealed contexts would antedate other known examples, from LSA/Upper Paleolithic sites, by 50 to 40 ky. If the stratigraphic associations and age estimates at both sites are accepted, they could imply that modern human behavioral traits and modern morphology arose in Africa together, at or before 100 ky ago..."
--Richard Klein 1999. Archeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology. 9(1) 17-36
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Below is a decent academic roundup of Egyptology research on migratory versus in-situ development and composition of Ancient Egyptian population. Much of the info is already known but the author throws in some fresh references, of fairly recent origin. The author also has a thesis paper comparing the prevalence of dental caries in Nubian and Egyptian populations.
The biological origin and population history of Dynastic Egyptians (3000-343 BCE) have been central issues in the study of complex societies, among which Egypt presents one of the earliest examples. Egypt is particularly important in this respect because Egyptian kings were the first to extend the rule of centralized authority over a vast geographical region. In contrast, Mesopotamian polities were organized as city-states in control of a limited, peripheral agricultural area. And whereas Old Kingdom Egypt (2686-2125 BCE) was characterized by regional stability and social cohesion, much of early Sumerian and Mesopotamian history is punctuated by regional antagonism, endemic warfare between city-states, and resource competition (Yoffee 1995). Mesopotamia is unified for the first time in 2270 BCE under Sargon of Akkad who thus establishes the first empire in recorded history. Egypt, however, had constituted it’s own local ‘empire’, at least based on size, much earlier. By 2500 BCE Egypt is a regional power in its own right with centralized bureaucracy, international trade networks, monumental architecture on a grand scale, surplus economy, standing military, and ideoreligious beliefs promoting conformity and stability (Wenke 1989). Moreover, the significant changes leading to this type of complexity take place rather quickly, within the few hundred years from the beginning of Naqada I (Amratian, 4000-3500 BCE) to the First Dynasty (3000-2890 BCE).
Physical anthropologists and archaeologists with an interest in the biocultural components of change during rapid social transformation have thus taken a keen interest in the biological origins of Dynastic Egyptians. Generally speaking, scholarly opinions differentiate along two main lines as to the origins of the Dynastic: there are those who advocate an external, migratory event that either caused large-scale population replacement along the Nile Valley, or led to domination of the predynastic population by a ruling elite composed of newcomers (Giuffrida-Rugeri 1915, Morant 1925, Petrie 1939, Baumgartel 1955); and those who opt for an in situ development along lines of general continuity with the preceding predynastic cultures (Greene 1972, Hassan 1986a and 1988, Bard 1994 and 2000, Keita 2004, Irish 2006 and 2009).
The purpose of this paper is to provide support for the in situ hypothesis in the evolution of the dynastic cultures in ancient Egypt. The argument in favor of the hypothesis will be formulated in two main directions. I believe that the greatest validation for regional cultural development is offered in the bioarchaeological record. Thus part of the pro- in situ argument is concerned with review and discussion of relevant archaeological, ecological/behavioral, and osteodental studies. These a) establish biocultural continuity between the Neolithic, Predynastic, and Dynastic periods of Egyptian history and b) present no evidence for large-scale population replacement, though do not rule out localized admixture. The other component in the regional hypothesis argument will attempt to deconstruct the concept of race as means of explaining biological affinity and cultural change. ‘Race’ is an important factor in early attempts to explain the considerable, at times, material changes that take place in Egypt. Influenced by ethnocentric notions of cultural superiority some early Egyptologists were inclined to attribute the origin of complex societies to a Caucasian ‘race’, usually of European or Semitic affiliation.
The replacement model for cultural evolution in Egypt is largely hinged upon the premise that ‘races’ can be confidently identified by specific, and exclusive, skeletal and cranial traits. Modern microbiological studies, however reveal, that most of the phenotypic variability in humans is shared within the so-called ‘racial’ groups, instead of between them (Lewontin 1972, Nei and Roychoudhury 1974, Relethford 2002). Thus ‘race’ does not represent a valid taxonomic unit for identifying biological relationships. If one abandons racial explanations in assessment of past human bioaffinity, total population replacement becomes the least likely option. A deconstruction of race is therefore necessary in order for us to interpret phenetic variability in ancient Egyptians from an evolutionary and adaptive perspective. Such discussion takes place in the next two sections, followed by discussion of the bioarchaeological evidence for continuity.
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Crucial human technological innovations first took place during the MSA in Africa. before the Out of Africa expansion into Eurasia
Recently discovered bone implements from Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at Sibudu Cave, South Africa, confirm the existence of a bone tool industry for the Howiesons Poort (HP) technocomplex. Previously, an isolated bone point from Klasies River provided inconclusive evidence. This paper describes three bone tools: two points and the end of a polished spatula-shaped piece, from unequivocal HP layers at Sibudu Cave (with ages greater than ?61 ka). Comparative microscopic and morphometric analysis of the Sibudu specimens together with bone tools from southern African Middle and Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits, an Iron Age occupation, nineteenth century Bushman hunter-gatherer toolkits, and bone tools used experimentally in a variety of tasks, reveals that the Sibudu polished piece has use-wear reminiscent of that on bones experimentally used to work animal hides. A slender point is consistent with a pin or needle-like implement, while a larger point, reminiscent of the single specimen from Peers Cave, parallels large un-poisoned bone arrow points from LSA, Iron Age and historical Bushman sites. Additional support for the Sibudu point having served as an arrow tip comes from backed lithics in the HP compatible with this use, and the recovery of older, larger bone and lithic points from Blombos Cave, interpreted as spear heads. If the bone point from the HP layers at Sibudu Cave is substantiated by future discoveries, this will push back the origin of bow and bone arrow technology by at least 20,000 years, and corroborate arguments in favour of the hypothesis that crucial technological innovations took place during the MSA in Africa.
--Backwella, d'Erricob, and Wadleyd (2008) Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 35, Issue 6, June 2008, Pages 1566–1580 [/b]
Ancient Stone tone assemblages in North Africa suggest closer links with the African Middle Stone Age industries rather than to the Middle Paleolithic of western Eurasia.
quote: North Africa is quickly emerging as one of the more important regions yielding information on the origins of modern Homo sapiens. Associated with significant fossil hominin remains are two stone tool industries, the Aterian and Mousterian, which have been differentiated, respectively, primarily on the basis of the presence and absence of tanged, or stemmed, stone tools. Largely because of historical reasons, these two industries have been attributed to the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic rather than the African Middle Stone Age. In this paper, drawing on our recent excavation of Contrebandiers Cave and other published data, we show that, aside from the presence or absence of tanged pieces, there are no other distinctions between these two industries in terms of either lithic attributes or chronology. Together, these results demonstrate that these two ‘industries’ are instead variants of the same entity. Moreover, several additional characteristics of these assemblages, such as distinctive stone implements and the manufacture and use of bone tools and possible shell ornaments, suggest a closer affinity to other Late Pleistocene African Middle Stone Age industries rather than to the Middle Paleolithic of western Eurasia.
--On the industrial attributions of the Aterian and Mousterian of the Maghreb, Harold L. Dibble et al. Journal of Human Evolution, 2013 Elsevier.
Some Environmental disasters hindered early African population growth and agriculture
“Dating from more than 15,000 years ago, the evidence from the Nile valley is arguably the earliest comprehensive instance of an organized food-producing system known anywhere on Earth. Given time, this pioneering system might have developed into the stupendous civilization that ruled ancient Egypt for two and a half millennia from about 5,000 years ago. But it could never be. Disaster struck the Nile Valley as its population reached a peak, and by 10,000 years ago occupation density had plunged to a level only slightly above that known for the time of the Wadi Kubbaniya site. The cause of the calamity originated more than 2,000 kilometers to the south, in central Africa at the headwaters of the Nile, where climatic amelioration which followed the last glacial maximum had brought a very marked increase in rainfall.. Around 13,000 years ago, heavy and persistent whih had already flooded even the desiccated Kalahari basin with a number of large lakes moved steadily northward..
The effects downstream were catastrophic. From a sluggish river flowing through shallow braided channels, the Nile was transformed over a period of five hundred years (12,000 to 11,5000 years ago) into what has been called the 'wild' Nile. Extremely high floods were only the beginning of the problem.. With the Nile now flowing through a single deep channel, the extent of the floodplain was severely reduced. The quantities of available plant foods declined.. The levels to which the human population had soared could not be sustained,.. Conservative assessments conclude that regular annual rain began to fall on the region from about 11,000 years ago; additional rain in the valley can hardly be viewed as compensation for the devastating floods its inhabitants had suffered.."
--Africa: A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader, 1999, pp. 155-156
The "revolution" took place in Africa per scholar John Reader, not "Eurasia"
"The Katanda sites are at least 75,000 and possibly as much as 90,000 years old, an age which demands revision of some entrenched Eurocentric views on human cultural development. Hitherto it had been widely believed that although modern humans had evolved in Africa and first migrated from the continent around 100,000 years ago, the manufacture of specialized tools and the development of sophisticated cultural practices such as complex economic strategies, large scale social networks, personal adornment, and an expanded use of symbols in art and daily life arose in Europe, central Asia, Siberia and the Near East between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago. The Katanda evidence contradicts this view, pushing back the invention of specialized tools at least 35,000 years and making Africa the origin not only of anatomically modern humans but also of modern human behaviour."
--John Reader, 1999, Africa: A Biography Of The Continent, p139
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As Bedouin tribes had an important role in the colonization of southeast Jordan, it could be that the haplogroup composition of the Dead Sea reflected genetic affinities to them, but that is not the case. The most striking characteristic of the Dead Sea sample is the high prevalence of R1*-M173 lineages (40%), contrasting with the lack of them and of its derivatives R1b3-N269 in Bedouin from Nebel et al. (2001) and its low frequencies in Amman. It is worth mentioning that until now, similar frequencies for R1*-M173 have only been found in northern Cameroon (Cruciani et al. 2002). The possibility that the Dead Sea and Cameroon are isolated remnants of a past broad human expansion deserves future studies.
Interestingly, when the molecular heterogeneity of the G6PD locus was compared between the Amman and the Dead Sea samples, a lower number of different variants and a higher incidence of the African G6PD-A allele was detected in the latter (Karadsheh, personal communication). Another singularity of the Dead Sea is its high frequency (31%) of E3b3a-M34, a derivative of the E3b3-M123 that is only found in 7% Bedouins (Cruciani et al. 2004). Until now, the highest frequencies for this marker (23.5%) had been found in Ethiopians from Amhara (Cruciani et al. 2004). On the contrary, most Bedouin chromosomes (63%) belong to the haplogroup J1-M267 (Semino et al. 2004) compared with 9% in the Dead Sea. All these evidences point to the Dead Sea as an isolated region perhaps with past ties to sub-Saharan and eastern Africa.
"the first component clearly separates the Middle East eastern regions (Pakistan, Iran and Kurds) from the African samples and Oman.. the negative displacement is mainly driven by African haplogroups. The second component again displaces Oman, Somalia, and Egypt, mainly due to their relative abundance of lineages with sub-Saharan African adscription.."
--Flores, et al. 2005. Isolates in a corridor of migrations: a high-resolution analysis of Y-chromosome variation in Jordan. J Hum Genet. 2005 Sep 2
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CHARIOTRY and cavalry superiority were essential to success in military battles of the first millennium B.C. The Assyrians left numerous records concerning the incor-poration of foreign chariotry and cavalry units into their army. These texts make espe-cially frequent mention of Kushite horses. In this article, the textual, representational, and archaeological evidence for horses in the Kushite realm will be examined. The cu-neiform evidence for the presence of Kushites and Kushite horses in Assyria during the reigns of several Neo-Assyrian kings will also be discussed.1 The evidence for the breed-ing of horses in the Dongola Reach area of the Third Cataract during the medieval period and later will also be reviewed. It will be posited that this region was already an impor-tant horse-breeding center during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty and perhaps earlier.2 I. THE KUSHITES AND THEIR HORSES According to the victory stela from Napata, when the Kushite king Piye (747-716 B.C.) entered the stables of the defeated ruler of Hermopolis around 728 B.C., he became out-raged at the sight of the neglected horses stabled in them. It was distressing to him that these horses had been allowed to starve during his siege of the city of his rebellious vas-sal.3 Piye seems to have had a great admiration for horses. He had them depicted atop this victory stela at Napata4 and on reliefs on the walls of the temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal. He also initiated the custom of burying a team of horses in a cemetery near his tomb at El Kurru, the earliest of the Gebel Barkal royal cemeteries.6
This practice was followed by three of his successors.7 A relief block from the temple of Taharqa at Kawa depicts a rider on a horse wearing a sun-hat.8 Also, the excavator of the Kushite site of Sanam speculated that a series of rooms comprising the so-called "Treasury" could have been stalls for the stabling of horses, although the surviving reliefs on the temple at Sanam depict mules-not horses-either being ridden or pulling chariots and wagons.9 Finally, a Ptolemaic or Roman period relief from Temple 250 at Meroe shows horsemen with lances. 10
II. KUSHITE HORSES AND THEIR HANDLERS IN ASSYRIA
By the late eighth century B.C., the Assyrians had also developed a deep appreciation of horses. Cavalry and chariotry forces were of utmost importance to Assyria's strategy of controlling trade and politics throughout the Near East. The Assyrians obtained their horses as booty and tribute, and by trade. Tiglath-pileser III, who ruled from 744 to 727 B.C.,11 claims to have taken Egyptian horses as booty after his victories over the Mediterranean coastal cities of KalpUina (modern al-MinaD) and Tyre.12 The Egyptians also sent horses to the Assyrian kings. Sargon II (721-705 B.C.) states in an inscription that Silkanni (= Osor-kon IV, 730-715 B.C.) sent him "twelve large horses of Egypt, the like of which did not exist in... [his] country."'3 Other inscriptions of Sargon mention gifts of "large Egyptian horses trained to the yoke" (i.e., trained as chariot horses), which were presented to him upon the inauguration of his new capital, Dir-Sarrukin.14 Sargon's successor, Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.), claims that when he defeated the Judean king, Hezekiah, and his Egyptian and Kushite allies at the Philistine city of Ekron (Eltekeh) in 701 B.C., he captured Egyp-tian and Nubian charioteers.'5 Horses are listed among the booty which Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C.) took from Egypt in the course of his campaigns there and are also counted among the annual tribute payments which he imposed on that land.16 In addition, Esarhad-don carried off to Assyria numerous captives from the palace at Memphis, including the crown prince of the Kushite king Taharqa, his other sons, his daughters, his wives and concubines, and his palace attendants.17 Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.c.) also includes "large horses" among the booty he claims to have taken from Egypt when he reconquered it in ca. 663 B.C.18 While these inscriptions do not specifically mention "Kushite" horses, there are numer-ous references to Kushites and Kushite horses in other Neo-Assyrian documents. Stephanie Dalley assembled much of the relevant data, noting that,... [T]he late eighth century was a time when the Assyrians were increasingly aware of the im-portance of equestrian technology. Suddenly during that period cavalry in particular developed into Iran28 or in Anatolia.29
But Postgate, citing the lack of evidence for another country with this name, noted that this breed of horse was identified by the Assyrians with the African land of Kush. He cautioned, however, that "this would not imply that all the horses of this kind.., were bred in Nubia, any more than today Arabian horses come from Arabia. All that is necessary is that the type of horse was, rightly or wrongly, associated with that country."30 In a letter dated to around 669 B.C., it is reported that an attempt was made to return the statues of the gods Bel and Zarpanitu from Assyria to Babylon-the city from which these images had been plundered in the course of Sennacherib's general sack of the Babylonian capital in 689 B.C.31 For reasons not concerning us here, the journey was aborted. The horse pulling the cart, however, is described in the letter as a "strong horse harnessed in the trap-pings of the land of Kush." Because the animal pulling the sacred load is not identified as Kushite, it has been suggested that the designation "Kushite" in the Nineveh Horse Re-ports was not a breed identifier, but rather the type of trappings the horses wore.32
But the Nineveh Horse Reports specifically mention "horses of Kush," not "Kushite trappings." The references to Egyptian and Kushite horses in Neo-Assyrian texts indicate that the two North African countries actively bred horses, and that the horses of Kush were a breed prized by Assyrian charioteers. Dalley suggested that the markets established by the As-syrians in the territory of Gaza and on the eastern border of Egypt, which are mentioned in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II, respectively, were involved in the horse trade between Assyria and Egypt. She noted that most Assyrian merchants at this time were either explicitly labeled "horse-traders" or can be shown to have been involved in the horse trade, and she was therefore inclined to believe that Tiglath-pileser and Sargon established these markets to encourage trade with Egypt in order to acquire Nubian horses for their chariotry.33 Several documents mention Kushite horse-experts living in Assyria. Dalley cites a Neo-Assyrian text mentioning a Kushite holding the high military office of "chariot driver of the Prefect of the Land."34 Also, in a loan document dated by its eponym to sometime be-tween 648 and 612 B.C., a man called kisaya, who perhaps worked in the king's stables, was responsible for delivering bales of straw and measures of grain.35
Finally, one of the Nineveh Horse Reports in which a delivery of Kushite horses is mentioned contains an or-der from the king concerning horses in the palace and for the "settlement of Kush."36 This settlement, which was presumably located close to the capital, may have been inhabited by Kushites engaged in the care and handling of horses in the Assyrian army. Unfortunately, the text is broken and the precise information concerning the king's wishes is lost. If we consider only the Neo-Assyrian evidence, then, Kushites were employed in the Assyrian army as horse-experts from at least the reign of Tiglath-pileser III down into the reign of Ashurbanipal-that is, from the mid-eighth century B.C. until almost the end of the third quarter of the seventh.
III. OTHER KUSHITES IN ASSYRIA AND ASSYRIA'S INTEREST IN MELUIJA AND KUSH
Neo-Assyrian texts also mention Kushites working in other jobs in the empire. An eco-nomic document mentions two Kushite eunuchs, with Assyrian names, collecting personal debts.37 And fifteen Kushite women are found on a list of foreign female workers that in-cluded musicians, temple personnel, scribes, smiths, stone-workers, a barber, and a baker.38 Both these texts come from archives in Nineveh and may date from anytime between the beginning of Sargon II's reign in 721 B.C. and the fall of Nineveh in 612. Nubians were also familiar to Assyrian artists, who, beginning in the eighth century B.C., depicted them on art objects and wall reliefs.39 Many of the references to Kushites and Kushite horses in Assyria are from the reign of Esarhaddon. In fact, this king's interest in Kush is attested in a number of texts. Esarhaddon apparently meant not only to conquer Egypt but to extend his control to the southernmost limits of the known world. On one of his later campaigns, he claims to have departed from Egypt towards Melulhba.40 Unfortunately, the account of this expedition is fragmentary and seems to describe an expedition (perhaps in Arabia?) that was unrelated to his southern foray. But in another fragmentary inscription Esarhaddon mentions a "city of Kush which none among [his] fathers [had ever seen],"41 which possibly refers to the Kushite capital or a major city in Kush (although no other inscriptional evidence indicates that Assyrians ever traveled to Kush or Melublha). "City of Kush" in this context might also refer to a major settlement of Kushites within Egypt.
IV. AFRICAN HORSEMEN DURING THE CLASSICAL PERIODS
Evidence for the association of black Africans-perhaps Nubians-with the care and handling of horses extends both back into the late second millennium B.C. and forward into later times.42 During the Greek and Roman periods Africans were frequently represented as grooms, charioteers, or riders.43 A number of royal tombs at Meroe, located between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts and dat-ing to the late first millennium B.C. through the early first millennium A.D., exhibit horse remains on the stairs leading into the tombs,44 seemingly anticipating the later horse sac-rifices in the X-Group royal tumuli at Qustul (fourth-sixth centuries A.D.) in Lower Nubia.45
V. MEDIEVAL NUBIA AND THE DONGOLAWI HORSE
While the evidence cited above suggests a close association between blacks and the training and handling of horses, early textual evidence for the actual practice of horse-breeding in the Sudan is sparse. Such evidence is, however, substantial from the medieval period to the recent past.46 When John Burckhardt traveled to the region in the early 1880s, he found that the Dongola horse was famous throughout the Sudan, Ethiopia, and the rest of the Near East.47 He stated that the breed was originally from Arabia, and that it was one of the finest he had seen: "the horses possess all the superior beauty of the horses of Arabia, but they are larger."48 Burckhardt also noted that five to ten slaves were paid for one prime stallion, and that the Mamluks in Dongola were all mounted on these horses.49 Other late eighteenth-and nineteenth-century travelers in the Sudan noted that the horses of Dongola were a fast-moving trade item in the markets of Berber, Shendy, and Sennar, along the middle Nile, and in Suakin, on the Red Sea coast.50 The demand for these horses was widespread, and in 1769 James Bruce purchased a horse of Dongola in one of the mar-kets of Tigr6.i51
Bruce was very much impressed by the breed and remarked that, north of Khartoum, begins that noble race of horses justly celebrated all over the world.... What figure the Nubian breed would make in point of fleetness is very doubtful, their make being so entirely different from that of the Arabian; but of beautiful and symmetrical parts, great size and strength, the most agile, nervous, and elastic movements, great endurance of fatigue, docility of temper, and seeming attach-ment to man, beyond any other domestic animal, can promise any thing for a stallion, the Nubian is, above all comparison, the most eligible in the world.52 Bruce also noted that Dongola, and the dry area near it seemed to be "the center of excel-lence for this noble animal."53 The Funj kingdom centered at Sennar was one of the main suppliers of horses for the cavalry of the Ethiopian kingdom.54 Bruce reported that in the 1770s the local ruler in Dongola was nominated by the Funj king and that the tribute imposed on the area included horses, which he called "the great strength of Sennar."55
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posted
White Skin Developed in Europe Only As Recently as 8,000 Years Ago Say Anthropologists in new study
The myriad of skin tones and eye colors that humans express around the world are interesting and wonderful in their variety. Research continues on how humans acquired the traits they now have and when, in order to complete the puzzle that is our ancient human history. Now, a recent analysis by anthropologists suggests that the light skin color and the tallness associated with European genetics are relatively recent traits to the continent.
An international team of researchers as headed by Harvard University’s Dr. Iain Mathieson put forth a study at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists recently.
Based on 83 human samples from Holocene Europe as analyzed under the 1000 Genomes Project, it is now found that for the majority of the time that humans have lived in Europe, the people had dark skin, and the genes signifying light skin only appear within the past 8,000 years. This recent and relatively quick process of natural selection suggests to researchers that the traits which spread rapidly were advantageous within that environment, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
This dramatic evidence suggests modern Europeans do not appear as their long ancient ancestors did.
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Ancient European hunter-gatherer was dark-skinned and blue-eyed caveman Did light-skinned, redheaded Neanderthal women hunt with the men? Europeans share more language and genes with Asia than previously thought New studies reveal 20 Percent of Neanderthal genome lives on in modern humans
Spreading Genetics
The samples are derived from a wide range of ancient populations, rather than a few individuals, and they supplied researchers with five specific genes associated with skin color and diet.
AAAS reports that the “modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today. […]
Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.”
This differed from the situation farther north. Ancient remains from southern Sweden 7,700 years ago were found to have the gene variants indicating light skin and blonde hair, and another gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes. This indicated to researchers that ancient hunter-gatherers of northern Europe were already pale and blue-eyed. This light skin trait would have been advantageous in the regions of less sunlight. Natural Selection
Mathieson and colleagues do not specify in the study why the genes were favored and spread as quickly as they did, but it is suggested that Vitamin D absorption likely played a role. Ancient hunter-gatherers in Europe also could not digest milk 8,000 years ago. The ability to do so only came about 4,300 years ago.
Paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University notes that people in less sunny climates required different skin pigmentations in order to absorb and synthesize Vitamin D. The pale skin was advantageous in the region, as well was the ability to digest milk.
“Natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk,” writes AAAS.
This new research follows related studies on pre-agricultural European genomes and modern humans in Europe before the rise of farming.
Artist’s depiction of Stone Age peoples
Artist’s depiction of Stone Age peoples (Wikimedia Commons)
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Researchers claim Neanderthals were NOT a sub-species of modern humans From farming to sedentary lifestyles - how 6,000 years has transformed the human body Stone Age Britons traded with European farmers 8,000 years ago
DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a 7,000-year-old human found in Spain in 2006 overturned the popular image of light-skinned European hunter-gatherers. The study revealed that the individual had dark hair and the dark-skinned genes of an African. However, the man had blue eyes, an unexpected find by researchers. The hunter-gatherer is the oldest known individual in Europe found to have blue eyes.
Artist’s impression of a blue-eyed hunter gatherer
Artist’s impression of a blue-eyed hunter gatherer (Credit: PELOPANTON / CSIC)
Previous research published in 2008 found that the earliest mutations in the eye-color genes that led to the evolution of blue eyes probably occurred about 10,000 years ago in individuals living in around the Black Sea.
The surprising aspect of the findings is that while it is fundamental to natural selection that advantageous genetic attributes spread, it is not often a speedy process. The study shows that these genetic pale skin traits swept across Europe speedily, and that phenomenon is of particular interest to researchers.
The preprint study “Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe” by Mathieson and colleagues has been published in the online journal BioRxiv.
These new findings shed light on humanity’s genetic past, giving us a clearer vision of our ancient origins.
Featured Image: Image of reconstructed faces of three early humans in profile view. Credit: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
-------------------- 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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