quote:Originally posted by Swenet: ^Personally, I don't see there being any problem. Rightmire is the problem. But some of his colleagues (see Coon in the quote below) got it right as far as the descriptive part where Rightmire totally failed. Coon correctly identifies the Rift population as being its own population, both with respect to modern Africans, palaeolithic Europeans, and with respect to what seems to be a hybrid European - N. African population (the Afalou sample). So, for me the 'racial' models work well, after taking what is useful and discarding what is not useful.
I don't subscribe to those racial models, including bantu, sub saharan, negro, cushitic, hamitic, etc, because they are arbitrary and come with baggage that have nothing to do with biology. However, metric clustering of populations on a regional, global and temporal scale absolutely makes sense, but that is not 'race'. It is just plotting relationships over time of various human biological characteristics to see patterns and trends based on local evolution and migration. As such, biological functioning involving mutations and emergence of various traits cannot be subscribed to any one population at one time or any particular place, which is the problem with what I am calling the 'racial' model of anthropology, which has always caused more problems than it solved in my book. The issue is in separating the wheat from the chaff when in reality the underlying ideology and mentality leading to models of human biology is the core problem. And partly because of this reinterpretation of these models over time the other problem becomes language as when you say "bantu" it may have different meanings to different people.
But that is neither here nor there I am not trying to bog down this thread with that side discussion, other than to say you must frame those older works in the context of the time and models they were working under.
The loose racial categorization served it's purpose as being a short hand way to describe in detail what people were observing. Retroactively characterizing modern populations via relatedness as pigeon holing their affinities are separate issues. "Just because he/she is black doesn't mean they're negroid" -isms are newer problems which was unnecessarily conflated with anthro-terminology. With that being said, I don't fully see how the Bantu become relevant in these contexts as they weren't even a part of the Archaeological record dating that far back and the majority of their markers are quite recent in founding and distribution. See E-V3224
Unfortunately I cant agree with that. Any look at the works of the early 19th century on African crania shows the overt racialist tone and ideology behind how these crania were categorized. So it is impossible to claim that those studies had merit and the problems of classification arose later. If anything, later scholars after the 70s had to change their approach to be less overt due to the social upheavals and independence movements in the wider world.
quote: But the distinction is based on social, linguistic, and cultural, as well as on physical grounds, so that, as at present constituted, the Sudanese and Bantu really constitute two tolerably well-defined branches of the Negro family. Thanks to Muhammadan influences, the former have attained a much higher level of culture. They cultivate not only the alimentary but also the economic plants, such as cotton and indigo ; they build stone dwellings, walled towns, substantial mosques and minarets ; they have founded powerful states, such as those of the Hausa and Songhai, of Ghana and Bornu, with written records going back a thousand years, although these historical peoples are all without exception half-breeds, often with more Semitic and Hamitic than Negro blood in their veins.
........
But in Negroland the case is reversed, and here the less cultured Bantu populations all, without any known exception, speak dialects of a single mother-tongue, while the greatest linguistic confusion prevails amongst the semi-civilised as well as the savage peoples of Sudan.
Although the Bantu language may, as some suppose ^ have originated in the north and spread southwards to the Congo, Zambesi, and Limpopo basins, it cannot now be even remotely affiliated to any one of the numerous distinct forms of speech current in the Sudanese domain. Hence to allow time for its diffusion over half the continent, the initial movement must be assigned to an extremely remote epoch, and a corresponding period of great duration must be postulated for the profound linguistic disintegration that is everywhere witnessed in the region between the Atlantic and Abyssinia. Here agglutination, both with prefixed and postfixed particles, is the prevailing morphological order, as in the Mandingan, Fulah, Nubian, Dinkan, and Mangbattu groups. But every shade of transition is also presented between true agglutination and inflection of the Hamito-Semitic types, as in Hausa, Kanuri, Kanem, Dasa or Southern and Teda or Northern Tibu.
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Those prehistoric East African remains are the ancestors of the modern Tutsi and Bahima, not outside invaders. Cranial diversity at that time was more diverse in Africa than it is now.
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^ I don't know what evidence you have that they were the direct ancestors of the Tutsi and Hema, but we can be certain they were indigenous. There is no evidence that these people were aliens from outside the continent which was the popular (Hamitic) hypothesis.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: ^What level of pigmentation do you think they could have had?
Who? The Proto-Cushites? I'm sure they were melanoderms and not the light-skinned or 'red bone' or even bleached skin types that Perahu tries to pass off as pure Cushites. Even people in the Hamitic Union forum especially actual Custhitic speakers have called out Perahu's beach-washed nonsense. As to what actual level of pigmention. I don't know but if they weren't the ebony dark or blue-black types then they would have at least been the so-called "brun" types similar to ancient Egyptians and Libyans that mahogany type complexions. The paper I cited from Dienekes merely states that ebony type complexions may not necessarily have been the original skin tone for original Sapiens in Africa but they were still melanated people as in still 'black'.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: The paper I cited from Dienekes merely states that ebony type complexions may not necessarily have been the original skin tone for original Sapiens in Africa but they were still melanated people as in still 'black'.
I believe the date for the MFSD12 mutation is 500 kya, which predates the the current 200-300 MRCA for Y-DNA "Adam" by quite a bit of time. Of course, that doesn't mean there wouldn't have been variety in how dark Homo sapiens populations were by that date (and, of course, MRCA Y-DNA Adam being estimated to date back 200-300 kya doesn't mean what we call AMH morphology couldn't have been older).
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^ I agree. Either way, these earliest humans did not have the SLC24A5 gene that modern Khoisan have so attempted re-enactments of yellow-brown early Sapiens is not correct. If you ask me, I think these Euronuts are just being nitpicky as to how black the early Sapiens were. The point is that they were still black, so what if they didn't have the exact same complexions as South Sudanese or Andamanese. LOLPosts: 26515 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ I don't know what evidence you have that they were the direct ancestors of the Tutsi and Hema, but we can be certain they were indigenous. There is no evidence that these people were aliens from outside the continent which was the popular (Hamitic) hypothesis.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet:
^What level of pigmentation do you think they could have had?
Who? The Proto-Cushites? I'm sure they were melanoderms and not the light-skinned or 'red bone' or even bleached skin types that Perahu tries to pass off as pure Cushites. Even people in the Hamitic Union forum especially actual Custhitic speakers have called out Perahu's beach-washed nonsense. As to what actual level of pigmention. I don't know but if they weren't the ebony dark or blue-black types then they would have at least been the so-called "brun" types similar to ancient Egyptians and Libyans that mahogany type complexions. The paper I cited from Dienekes merely states that ebony type complexions may not necessarily have been the original skin tone for original Sapiens in Africa but they were still melanated people as in still 'black'.
I had the Rift Valley people in mind with that question (not proto-Cushitic speakers).
One possible depiction of people of this type could be this Acacus rock art scene. The body type and face profile seem to be a good fit. Although the skin pigmentation could already have been lightened (or darkened) by this time. (The date of this rock art scene is probably far removed from 17ky Olduvai, the earliest attestation of this population in the form we find it in, in the Rift Valley).
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The way I see it, we are talking about an ancient morphotype/population of which the Rift Valley could just be one local group, with the oldest attestation so far. Yes, we can point to movements from the Rift Valley to the north (Capsians?), but we can also point movements from the north to the south by holocene populations partly derived from this morphotype (Kenya Pastoralists/Cushitic speakers).
I think by the time of Olduvai we are already far removed from the origin of this population, so movements north/south do not indicate the place of origin.
The mode 4+5 industries linked to the Rift Valley population don't seem to have lots of antiquity in Sub-Saharan Africa (so far). Sub-Saharan African industries are generally mode 5 (or something else, but generally not mode 4). So, even though they or population like them expanded from the south at some point during postglacial times, there were populations already there, already bearing this phenotype.
See the bolded.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet:
quote:Originally posted by Askia_The_Great: I've constantly read that Somalis are the best representation of "Cushite" speakers in the region when it comes to samples. And yea M1 is a very ancient lineage in that region and one of the best hints for indigenous Northeast African imo. Correct me.
I still have yet to put the pieces of the puzzle together regarding early mtDNA M1 (ie where it went after splitting frrom mtDNA L3 and M). But after the LGM/during postglacial times, I think it's safe to say that lineages like mtDNA M1 were part of the mtDNA pool of the populations from the Maghreb to the Rift Valley. The East African portion of this metapopulation that Horners, but especially Somalis seem to have mixed with, seem to have included populations that used backed blades (note: not backed bladelets as in Egypt and the Maghreb). See quotes below of the blade (but not microlithic) industries, and note the timing coincides with the LGM and later, much like certain mtDNA M1a haplogroups:
In the Ethiopian section of the Rift Valley, the beginnings of the local blade tradition using obsidian probably go back to more than 27,000 B.P. (Gase and Street 1978: 290) and certainly to 22,675 ‡ 500 B.P. on the evidence of excavations at Lake Besaka (Clark, in press). At Laga Oda in the escarpment hills south- west of Dire Dawa, the microlithic industry, using most- ly chert, is 15.000 years old (Clark and Prince 1978).
In East Africa, there are dates in the 20,000*s B.P. for the fully microlithic industry using chert, quartz and obsidian, of backed blades, lunates and fan-shaped scrapers at Lukenya Hill (S.F. Miller, pers, com.) (Fig. 3, nos. 1-5). This locality, overlooking the Athi Plains near Nairobi in Kenya, also yielded, with a simi- lar industry, a fragmentary cranium of Modern Man dating to c. 17,700 B.P. (Gramly 1976). At Nasera, in northern Tanzania, the earliest blade industry (Layer 4) has many backed blades and outils esquillés in chert and quartz and there is an amino acid racemisation date on bone of 18,000 B.P. The same industry occurs also in Layer 5 which must, ipso facto, be even earlier (Mehlman 1977). What is probably the same industry in obsidian and chert is present in the Naisiusiu beds at the Olduvai The Microlithic Industries of Africa: Their Antiquity and Possible Economic Implications https://brill.com/edcollchap/book/9789004644472/B9789004644472_s020.xml [/QB]
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Unfortunately I cant agree with that. Any look at the works of the early 19th century on African crania shows the overt racialist tone and ideology behind how these crania were categorized. So it is impossible to claim that those studies had merit and the problems of classification arose later. If anything, later scholars after the 70s had to change their approach to be less overt due to the social upheavals and independence movements in the wider world.
quote: But the distinction is based on social, linguistic, and cultural, as well as on physical grounds, so that, as at present constituted, the Sudanese and Bantu really constitute two tolerably well-defined branches of the Negro family. Thanks to Muhammadan influences, the former have attained a much higher level of culture. They cultivate not only the alimentary but also the economic plants, such as cotton and indigo ; they build stone dwellings, walled towns, substantial mosques and minarets ; they have founded powerful states, such as those of the Hausa and Songhai, of Ghana and Bornu, with written records going back a thousand years, although these historical peoples are all without exception half-breeds, often with more Semitic and Hamitic than Negro blood in their veins.
........
But in Negroland the case is reversed, and here the less cultured Bantu populations all, without any known exception, speak dialects of a single mother-tongue, while the greatest linguistic confusion prevails amongst the semi-civilised as well as the savage peoples of Sudan.
Although the Bantu language may, as some suppose ^ have originated in the north and spread southwards to the Congo, Zambesi, and Limpopo basins, it cannot now be even remotely affiliated to any one of the numerous distinct forms of speech current in the Sudanese domain. Hence to allow time for its diffusion over half the continent, the initial movement must be assigned to an extremely remote epoch, and a corresponding period of great duration must be postulated for the profound linguistic disintegration that is everywhere witnessed in the region between the Atlantic and Abyssinia. Here agglutination, both with prefixed and postfixed particles, is the prevailing morphological order, as in the Mandingan, Fulah, Nubian, Dinkan, and Mangbattu groups. But every shade of transition is also presented between true agglutination and inflection of the Hamito-Semitic types, as in Hausa, Kanuri, Kanem, Dasa or Southern and Teda or Northern Tibu.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they weren't racist tones or academic racism predating the 90's etc. I'm just saying that the criteria built at the time served our purpose better whether racist or not. Simply describing what you see and using racialist terms is better than disguising racialist terms under inclusionary models.
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By the way, the profile of the Libyan above bears a striking resemblance to this Amratian depiction of Tjehenu.
Good catch.
There is a resemblance in face profile, but notice the stature of the Egyptian figures compared to the body proportions of the Libyan figures. This is consistent with the holocene change in stature in populations with this ancestry (e.g. especially in Badarians).
Just centuries ago, East/Southeast Africa apparently still had these populations in a bit more of an unmixed form compared to populations today (although probably still very mixed compared to the palaeolithic Rift Valley samples). See the Gishimangeda, Sechikuencho and so-called "Masai grave" samples' position near predynastics and Gizeh, although the use of only 8 measurements makes these results less reliable.
In table 11 of the paper below we see that the populations there were also shorter than the Palaeolithic Rift Valley samples. So it seems like a change across the board.
Brauer (l976), for the following reasons, used the term "Masai grave" skeletal series for the human remains which were excavated by Kohl-Larsen. All the graves, except one, contain men who generally died between 50 and 60 years of age. . .. A possible explanation for this remarkable sex and age distribution could be found in the practice of the Masai to bury only older men and medicine men. The extraction of the lower medial incisors, which was very common and which is known as 'Masai-deformation'. can also serve as an indication of the relationship to the Masai. . .. The skeletal material shows the strongest affinities to Jebel Moya, Gamble's Cave and Gizeh, which indicates a hybrid population with Mediterranid as well as Negrid elements. The assumed indications of the relationship of these skeletons to the Masai are more probable since these people have arrived in this region by the 17th or 18th century". The ablation of the lower medial incisors. however. is prevalent in the Masai as well as in the lraqw and Datoga, all of whom are more of less hybrid popu la tons between the Mediterraneans and the Negroes. Accordingly. for all that the "Mas ai-grave" and Sechikuencho cranial series are characterised by the removal of the same teeth and that they craniometrically approach to the Masai, it would be premature to put the Masai up for the only candidate for the tribe most closely related to these skeletal populations. The Gishimangeda skeletal series represent the Mangola Villagers who died several centuries ago[. They are quite different from the "Masai-grave" series in showing neither unbalance of sex and age distribution nor practice of tooth removal, while these two series show common crani al morphology. Burial cairns are widely distributed in East Africa and are still made by some tribes today. Some crania whose lower medial incisors were extracted were unearthed from the prehistoric cairns in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. A human skeleton was excavated from the cairn at Engaruka, located at the foot of the Rift scarp south of Lake Natron. The date of this cairn is believed to be around the 16th century. Prof. P. Tobias, who examined this skull briefly. expressed an interim opinion that it belongs to a young adult male with negriform features and that the lower medial incisors had been ablated (Sasoon, 1966). At the Makalia Burial Site and Willey' Hadza and Iraqw in Tanzania 23 Kopje, the same type of burial mound and the practice of extracting the lower medial incisors link the burial with that of Engaruka. The grave" at the Makalia Burial Site and Willey's Kopje, which yield the skulls with "Europid" morphology (Brauer. 1978a). can be dated probably back to the beginning of the 1st millenium of the Christian Era. On the other hand, a skull from the Nakuru Burial Site, which may be dated to the 2nd millenium of the Christian Era. has not had the lower medial incisors extracted. It is essentially non-negroid, although the forehead does show the negro characteristic of a single central frontal boss (Leakey, 1931). Therefore, it does not always follow that the burial cairns, the practice of removing the lower medial incisors and the cranial features characteristic of the Mediterraneans link together. The analysis which used 8 cranial measurements shows that the Gishimangeda series are close to the "Masai-grave" series, Gizeh and Nagada, all of which are very far from the Khoisan group and also different from the Bantu group. It should be noted, however, that among the Gishimangeda series there are indi vidua Is showing the Negro characteristic of prognathism and frontal boss. They are essentially hybrid population between the Mediterraneans and the Negroes, but are more close to the latter compared with the "Masai-grave" series. The populations with mixed physical traits of the Mediterranean and Negro are the Hamitic and Nilotic peoples in Mangola. The Iraqw investigated as a representative for the Hamitic bear a close resemblance in an thropometrical and odontometrical comparison to the other members of the Hamitic or Caucasians as well as to the Bantu speakers. This accords well with the s ta tement by Allison et al. (1954) that. so far as blood group frequencies show, the Iraqw are neither the typical Bantu nor the typical Hamitic people. In dermatoglyphics and physical measurements, on the other hand, the Datoga of the Nilotic occupy an intermediate position between the Caucas ians and Negroes, but they a re closer to the latter, while the Datoga represent one cluster with the Hadza and differ significantly from the Iraqw-Caucasian-Negro group in size of teeth and of dent al arches. Based on reexamination of human crania from the prehistoric sites in the Eastern Rift Valley of Kenya, Rightmire (1975) assumed that many of these skulls can certainly be exculuded from probable member of the Egyptian population and that much firmer ties can be established with one of the several African Negro groups. es?ecially with Nilotid Negrid. From linguistic evidence, he has drawn inferences that early Southern Nilotic as well as other language such as Cushitic was obViously spoken in this region for a long time, perhaps several thousand years before the Christian Era. He has given further attention to the pre-Masai people in oral history of the living Masai. According to Jacobs's study quoted by Rightmire, the pre-Masai people refered to as "llumbua" by the Masai, said to have been dispersed during the 1st millenium of the Christian Era by a later people called "lltatua" who were in turn driven out of the area before 1960 A.D. by the Masai. Jacobs considered either the Datoga or the Iraqw speakers of northern Tanzania to be the likeliest living representa- tives of pre-Masai people. Putting our results and these studies together, we can suggest that the occupant of the Gishimangeda cave several centuries ago were the Nil otic or the Cushitic peoples, probably the former because of the morphological features of Gishimangeda skeletal series. The history of occupation in Mangola village can be traced back to an early stage of Later Stone Age by human remains from the Mumba Rock Shelter and even further to the Upper Pleistocene by "Eyasi skull" (Fig. 1 ). Reviewing the Mumba Rock Shelter crania which were collected by Kohl-Larsen in 1934/38, Brauer 0978b. 1980) found that they have Negroid Size and shape characteristics. He concluded that "during long period of the Later Stone Age, not only Caucasoid but also Negroid populations may have been present in East Africa, and the wide dispersion of Khoisanoid populations, until recently assumed to have reached as far as Tanzania and Kenya at that time, is on the whole uncertain, even improbable." . The Hadza and the Iraqw in northern Tanzania: Dermatographical, Anthropological, Odontometrical and Osteological Approaches https://web.archive.org/web/20181104182552id_/https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/67986/1/ASM_2_1.pdf
Notice that the mean position of the Gishimangeda sample ('GX' in fig 11) and the position of the individual best resembling this population (G1 in fig 11) are inconsistent with typical Nilotic population. What Nilotic population did the author have in mind considering the measurements of the most typical individual, G1? Same goes for the so-called "Masai Grave" sample. If the "Masai Grave" were Nilotes or Nilo-Saharan speakers, and if the "Masai Grave" cluster with Egyptians, then we should have modern samples of Nilo-Saharan ancestry that do the same. But I've never seen this in any paper.
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^ That's a rather astute assessment you have especially in regard to bodily proportions, assuming the artwork is that accurate.
"Nilotes" are themselves a diverse group, but certain generalizations can be made.
Recall the craniometric data from Froment.
By the way, about frontal bossing being a "negroid" trait, recall that even Coon said "Mediterraneans" are noted for "slight negroid tendencies", forehead bossing-- a pedomorphic trait, being one of them.
..The skull is distinguished in all of these people [Egyptians] by being long, narrow, ill-filled, pentagonoid (coffin-shaped) or ovoid, eyebrow ridges poorly developed or absent; the forehead is narrow, vertical, smooth, and often slightly bulging; the occiput is bulged out into marked prominence of the back of the head; the orbits usually horizontal ellipses or ovoids with thin margins; nose moderately developed, small, and relatively broad and flattened at its bridge; chin pointed (downwards); jaws feeble; face short and narrow, ovoid, usually orthognathous; teeth of moderate size or small; whole skeleton of slight build and suggestive of effeminacy.--(Grafton E. Smith, 1911)
The same principle of attenuation applies to the faces. In all of them, and especially in Oldoway, the faces are extremely narrow, and very long, especially in the upper segments. The brow-ridges are weak, the zygomatic arches feebly developed, the mandibles light and slender, with narrow bigonial diameters, and weak, although positive, chins. The orbits are high and narrow, and the noses likewise. The Gamble’s Cave skulls are leptorrhine, leptene, and leptoprosopic; Oldoway is mesorrhine, and hyperleptoprosopic. The two Gamble’s Cave skulls are orthognathous, but Oldoway possesses considerable alveolar prognathism. In vault size, these crania resemble Combe Capelle and Afalou #28, rather than the European and North African crania of later Aurignacian and Oranian date. Oldoway and Gamble’s Cave #4 are higher and narrower than the European Upper Palaeolithic mean; Gamble’s Cave #5, which is the skull of an adolescent, is shorter, higher, and nearly as broad. The foreheads are gently sloping and rounded; the occiputs projecting, but without the lamboidal flattening which characterizes the European crania. The total impression is one of thinness and delicacy.-- (C. S. Coon, Races of Europe)
The skull of the Nilotid is long and narrow, with bulging occiput, and the brow-ridges are feebly marked; but in most respects the face is very unlike that of Sudanids. The Nilotid is not prognathous, the chin is well developed, and the nose has quite an up-standing bridge, so that it is not altogether unlike that of Europids except that the alae are widely spread and more sharply marked off from the rest of the nose and from the cheeks...-- (John R. Baker)
The eastern Arabo-Berbers, Libya, and the oases: ..One of the most characteristic features of the nose of the Siwans, and of the Awjila people, is a considerable nasion depression. The browridges, however, are usually absent or slight, and the forehead slightly sloping to straight; in some cases bulbous.
And I remember reading somewhere that "gracile Mediterranean" Berbers like the above had frontal prominence also.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ That's a rather astute assessment you have especially in regard to bodily proportions, assuming the artwork is that accurate.
It's too bad we don't get much body proportions data in anthro literature. But in Trenton Holliday's work there has been a consistent tendency for Egyptian, Christian Nubian (but not Kerma, interestingly) and Capsian (Ain Dokkara), skeletal remains to have Pygmies as their closest African population in terms of body proportions. So, for me this is pretty much proved. The only question is, what happened in the holocene period, that caused this change in body proportions/stature while leaving little evidence behind.
The cranio-facial bones also weren't affected nearly as much as the stature of these populations. Shuqbah males for instance were 1.5-1.6m, which is not far from the Pygmy range. But cranio-facially they resembled predynastic Egyptians and other, taller, Type B populations.
What kind of people were the Natufians? They were people of short stature; a comparison of the various parts of limb bones with the corresponding parts of ancient Egyptians makes me confident that the stature of the men varied between 5ft and 5ft 3in (1525-1600mm.) New discoveries relating to the antiquity of man https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002696519&view=1up&seq=1Posts: 8807 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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^ What's funny is that most data I've read on ancient Egyptian body proportions comes from examination of their artwork. Egyptologist Gay Robins was one of the few to tie the accuracy of the artwork to the skeletal material.
As for reduction in stature by Holocene times, so far I've only found Larry Angel who addressed this. He attributes this pedomorphic body size reduction, which also reduced sexual dimorphy, to environmental conditions namely food shortage and disease.
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I wish people would stop saying populations are mixed or hybrid just because they fall intermediate between two different populations, thats the crap of antiquated anthropology.
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quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: [QUOTE]Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they weren't racist tones or academic racism predating the 90's etc. I'm just saying that the criteria built at the time served our purpose better whether racist or not. Simply describing what you see and using racialist terms is better than disguising racialist terms under inclusionary models.
I understand where he's coming from, today's geneticists and some anthropologists read those old anthropology books and are still influenced by it, how many modern geneticists claim they don't believe in biological race but still do their studies in such a way that still shows they believe in race? Take the Abusir study for example.
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quote:Originally posted by Elijah The Tishbite: I wish people would stop saying populations are mixed or hybrid just because they fall intermediate between two different populations, that's the crap of antiquated anthropology.
There are ignoramuses like Antalas who don't even realize that North Africans are metrically intermediate between Sub-Saharans and West Eurasians.
"Miss Fawcett believes the Naqada crania to be sufficiently homogeneous to justify speaking of a Naqada race. By height of the skull, the auricular height, the height and width of the face, the height of the nose, the cephalic and facial indices, this race presents affinities with Negroes. By the nasal width, the height of the orbit, the length of the palate, and the nasal index, it presents affinities with Germans...." ---Dr. Emile Massoulard, Prehistoire et Protohistoire d'Egypt (1949)
^ Note that not only are North Africans intermediate but so too are Horn Africans and look who comes closest to the origin-- Proto-Mediterraneans as well as Nubian D-group and Somali-Galla.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ What's funny is that most data I've read on ancient Egyptian body proportions comes from examination of their artwork. Egyptologist Gay Robins was one of the few to tie the accuracy of the artwork to the skeletal material.
As for reduction in stature by Holocene times, so far I've only found Larry Angel who addressed this. He attributes this pedomorphic body size reduction, which also reduced sexual dimorphy, to environmental conditions namely food shortage and disease.
Thanks for reminding me (I know there have been studies done of this kind). Will look into it.
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And let's not forget Robins' 1983 work The Physical Proportions and Living Stature of New Kingdom Pharaohs: Another method for estimating living stature that has been applied to Ancient Egyptian and Nubian remains, involves relating total height to the lengths of individual long bones through equations obtained from measurements made on modern populations (Pearson,1899; Dupertuis & Hadden, 1951; Harrison, 1966; Masali et al., 1966; Nielsen, 1970; Masali, 1972; Derry, 1972). Such equations only yield acceptable values for stature if the unknown population group to which they are applied had similar physical proportions (limbs to trunk, distal limb bones to proximal limb bones) to the population group from which the equations have been derived. Equations are now available for negroes and whites (Dupertuis & Hadden, 1951; Trotter & Gleser, 1952, 1958). It has been recognized by Warren (1897) and others (e.g. Dupertuis & Hadden, 1951; Masali, 1972) that the physical proportions of Ancient Egyptians had negroid affinities; nevertheless since they were certainly not negroes, the use of negro equations to estimate their stature has generally been avoided.Posts: 26515 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Unfortunately I cant agree with that. Any look at the works of the early 19th century on African crania shows the overt racialist tone and ideology behind how these crania were categorized. So it is impossible to claim that those studies had merit and the problems of classification arose later. If anything, later scholars after the 70s had to change their approach to be less overt due to the social upheavals and independence movements in the wider world.
quote: But the distinction is based on social, linguistic, and cultural, as well as on physical grounds, so that, as at present constituted, the Sudanese and Bantu really constitute two tolerably well-defined branches of the Negro family. Thanks to Muhammadan influences, the former have attained a much higher level of culture. They cultivate not only the alimentary but also the economic plants, such as cotton and indigo ; they build stone dwellings, walled towns, substantial mosques and minarets ; they have founded powerful states, such as those of the Hausa and Songhai, of Ghana and Bornu, with written records going back a thousand years, although these historical peoples are all without exception half-breeds, often with more Semitic and Hamitic than Negro blood in their veins.
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But in Negroland the case is reversed, and here the less cultured Bantu populations all, without any known exception, speak dialects of a single mother-tongue, while the greatest linguistic confusion prevails amongst the semi-civilised as well as the savage peoples of Sudan.
Although the Bantu language may, as some suppose ^ have originated in the north and spread southwards to the Congo, Zambesi, and Limpopo basins, it cannot now be even remotely affiliated to any one of the numerous distinct forms of speech current in the Sudanese domain. Hence to allow time for its diffusion over half the continent, the initial movement must be assigned to an extremely remote epoch, and a corresponding period of great duration must be postulated for the profound linguistic disintegration that is everywhere witnessed in the region between the Atlantic and Abyssinia. Here agglutination, both with prefixed and postfixed particles, is the prevailing morphological order, as in the Mandingan, Fulah, Nubian, Dinkan, and Mangbattu groups. But every shade of transition is also presented between true agglutination and inflection of the Hamito-Semitic types, as in Hausa, Kanuri, Kanem, Dasa or Southern and Teda or Northern Tibu.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they weren't racist tones or academic racism predating the 90's etc. I'm just saying that the criteria built at the time served our purpose better whether racist or not. Simply describing what you see and using racialist terms is better than disguising racialist terms under inclusionary models. [/QB]
I am talking about the idea that human features originated in features unique to specific "racial groups" and that any presence of said features represents evidence of "racial mixture" in a population. That is simply nonsense pseudoscience and what the old models of cranial studies and anthropology are based on. Human features are the result of evolution and adaptation to environmental conditions and vary all over the planet and are not the result of ancient "racial mixture".
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