posted
Does anyone happen to have access to this article and can provide an analysis on its findings?
quote: Cruciani, F., Santolamazza, P., Shen, P., Macaulay, V., Moral, P., Olckers, A., Modiano, D., Holmes, S., Destro-Bisol, G., Coia, V., Wallace, D.C., Oefner, P.J., Torroni, A., Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Scozzari, R., Underhill, P.A., 2002, ‘A back migration from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa is supported by highresolution analysis of human Y-chromosome haplotypes’, American Journal of Human Genetics, 70: 1197-1214.
Also these if you don't mind:
quote: Coia, Valentina, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Fabio Verginelli, Cinzia Battaggia, Ilaria Boschi, Fulvio Cruciani, Gabriella Spedini, David Comas, & Francesc Calafell, 2005, ‘Brief communication: mtDNA variation in North Cameroon: Lack of Asian lineages and implications for back migration from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 128, 3: 678-681.
Underhill, P., 2004, ‘The South Asian Y chromosome landscape’, paper presented at the 2004 Harvard Round Table, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.
Hammer M. F.; T Karafet, A Rasanayagam, ET Wood, TK Altheide, T Jenkins, RC Griffiths, AR Templeton and SL Zegura , 1998, ‘Out of Africa and back again: nested cladistic analysis of human Y chromosome variation’, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 15, 4: 427-441.
I am trying to read more into this "Back-Migration" hypothesis as it concerns Wim van Binsbergen's notion that African divination systems derived from Mesopotamia. Any help is greatly appreciated.
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: Does anyone happen to have access to this article and can provide an analysis on its findings?
quote: Cruciani, F., Santolamazza, P., Shen, P., Macaulay, V., Moral, P., Olckers, A., Modiano, D., Holmes, S., Destro-Bisol, G., Coia, V., Wallace, D.C., Oefner, P.J., Torroni, A., Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Scozzari, R., Underhill, P.A., 2002, ‘A back migration from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa is supported by highresolution analysis of human Y-chromosome haplotypes’, American Journal of Human Genetics, 70: 1197-1214.
Also these if you don't mind:
quote: Coia, Valentina, Giovanni Destro-Bisol, Fabio Verginelli, Cinzia Battaggia, Ilaria Boschi, Fulvio Cruciani, Gabriella Spedini, David Comas, & Francesc Calafell, 2005, ‘Brief communication: mtDNA variation in North Cameroon: Lack of Asian lineages and implications for back migration from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 128, 3: 678-681.
Underhill, P., 2004, ‘The South Asian Y chromosome landscape’, paper presented at the 2004 Harvard Round Table, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.
Hammer M. F.; T Karafet, A Rasanayagam, ET Wood, TK Altheide, T Jenkins, RC Griffiths, AR Templeton and SL Zegura , 1998, ‘Out of Africa and back again: nested cladistic analysis of human Y chromosome variation’, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 15, 4: 427-441.
I am trying to read more into this "Back-Migration" hypothesis as it concerns Wim van Binsbergen's notion that African divination systems derived from Mesopotamia. Any help is greatly appreciated.
10 Black African slaves were so common in T’ang China that the phenomenon gave rise to an entire literary genre featuring a Black trickster hero (Irwin 1977). During West European mercantile expansion, i.e. in Early Modern times, substantial Black African communities were established in India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, and these are likely to have spread African socio-cultural traits in Asia – some authors (e.g. Barnes 1975) even attribute the remarkably limited attestations of mankala in that region to this factor. The Afrocentrist educationalist and linguist Clyde Winters (1980a, 1980b, 1980c, 1981, 1983a, 1983b, 1984, 1985, 1988) has repeatedly stated the claim of extensive pre- and protohistorical West African influence on South and East Asia, and – not surprisingly, considering both the world politics of knowledge and the obscurity of his publicational venues – has attracted less mainstream attention than he deserves. However, as far as the Early-Modern Asian distribution of mankala is concerned, the extensive Islamic influence throughout South, South East and East Asia is probably a more likely explanation for mankala distribution than direct African influence can be. (Incidentally, the connections which Winters (1984, 1985) claims to exist Sumerian, Manding, Elamite and Dravidian remind us of the close links which also the prominent linguists Igor Diakonoff, and Paul Rivet (1929), saw between Sumerian and Austric, and on which I recently hit (in press (a) when finding a plausible Austric etymology for the name of the Sumerian’s paradisiacal island Dilmun; apparently neither Winters’ claim of affinities, nor the ‘Sunda’ trajectory in Fig. 15, are totally chimaerical – Winters’affinities, spanning the huge range from West Africa, West Asia to South Asia, could be explained as traces of Sunda / Austric influence.)
posted
If you are interested in the Austric Sumerian connection you may want to contact Paul Manansala. Paul wrote a fine article some years ago about this relationship.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
One of my problems with this author is that he is really vague in his comparisons and never seems to give the fine points of detail needed for much of his analysis. He writes extensively but I find more of the same and in large part major assumptions of his stated as fact without the community backing or supporting his theses. He appears to also be bitter that Martin Bernal's work has gained traction and has been discussed fervently over the years, but not his work. This is evident in his conclusion of the article I cited at the beginning of this thread:
quote: 3. Conclusion on geomancy, mankala, Afrocentrism, and Bernal (2012) We see that my passionately Afrocentric argument of 1997 needs to be thoroughly revised. Neither for geomancy, nor for mankala, can we maintain a sub-Saharan African origin, now that (aided by the greatly enhance search facilities of the Internet and the digitalisation of academic libraries worldwide), we have added fifteen years of focused data collection to our 1997 data base, we moreover have refined the analytical and conceptual tools to approach the distributional analysis of formal cultural systems rather more rigorously and methodically, and now that recent developments in genetics, com-parative linguistics and comparative mythology have actually provided the models against which to situate the historical interpretation of the distribution maps of specific cultural traits.
What remains is the realisation – so beautifully brought out by the complex stories of mankala and geomancy – that Africa is very much a part of the wider world and has always been just that, culturally, genetically, and linguistically. What was not yet clear to me in 1997, is that we must combine a number of greatly disparate phases in order to account for the African involvement in the wider world:
1. Out of Africa, 80-60 ka BP; until then Pandora’s Box was fully African 2. Back into Africa movement from c. 15 ka BP onwards, which brought back into Africa many traits which had meanwhile (ever since the Out of Africa migration) percolated, transformed, been innovated, and added to within the Asian continent 3. The forced demic diffusion from Africa in the context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade 4. Very recent globalisation of the last hundred years or less, which meant for a worldwide percolation of cultural traits and initiatives, in which African traits (music, dance, rites, therapies) were particularly successful in intercontinental transmission and reception.
Ironically, none of these four movements tallies with Bernal’s Black Athena thesis, and in fact, that thesis’ secondary, Afrocentrist reformulation (inspired by a combination of (3) and (4)) grosso modo goes against (2).
Bernal has been cited, and has sometimes flattered himself, as an amazing case of being right for the wrong reasons. At the 2008 Warwick international conference on his work, his Black Athena thesis was more or less canonised as a part of mainstream cultural history. However, my contributions to the debate, reprinted in 2011 under the czrefully chosen title Black Athena Comes of Age, has intended to question such canonisation. The more I think about Bernal’s Black Athena thesis (‘total socio-cultural dependence of Ancient Greece upon Ancient Egypt, and in the later Afrocentrist reformulation, total dependence of Ancient Egypt upon prehistoric sub-Saharan Africa’), and the more I reap the benefits of the magnificent inspiration it has given me and other scholars over the past twenty-five years, the more I realise that, when all is said and done, Bernal is especially a case of simply being wrong for the wrong reasons – amongst which loom large: a passion for ideology and for ad-hominem arguments, and the desire to make a lasting imprint on the history of ideas.
As we can see he is really dismissive of African-Centered work and tries his hardest to explain African languages as well as African cultures as originating in Asia. He is even claiming a "Austric" substratum in Bantu. Again, all of this based on this notion of a Back-Migration from Asia into Africa which brought all of these innovations in culture, language and technology. I'm wondering why hasn't he been called out on these claims?
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
Wim van Binsbergen is an interesting author. His work is complicated and confusing. He is the only author to recognize that I made it clear in my writing that Black Athena, was not an Afrocentric text.
I know you have read most of Wim van Binsbergen's work, which can be used to support many Afrocentric themes. Both of us believe that much has been made of Bernal's Afrocentric reputation that is unjustified.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I don't think anyone is calling Bernal's texts Afrocentric. It doesn't qualify as such. However, van Binsbergen calls out all Afrocentric texts and claims to discredit it, yet he doesn't cite African-Centered authors and answers them point-for-point. For instance, it is not Afrocentric hyperbole that Egyptian culture influenced Greece. This is based on the testimony of the Greeks themselves. So how is his Borean or Back-Migration analysis going to trump eye-witness testimony? He claims that the divination systems originate in Mesopotamia, yet he totally different names for the divination systems in all of his examples. If the Africans borrowed the systems, why are they different names for each system? This is the logic used against the Eurocentrists who argue that agriculture was diffused to the Africans, again, from Mesopotamia, yet all of the agricultural words are totally different than what we find in Mesopotamia. A lot of his work is detailed speculation.
Posts: 853 | From: Houston | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
I am trying to read more into this "Back-Migration" hypothesis as it concerns Wim van Binsbergen's notion that African divination systems derived from Mesopotamia. Any help is greatly appreciated.
a weak argument to "read" into:
a) He relies on "demic diffusion" as a vehicle for "bringing" the "systems" to Africa, but other credible research on religious systems shows such systems were likely fundamentally already in place for a long time, and did not have to "arrive" via the "Middle East." Egyptian religion for example is more closely linked with the belief systems of east Africa than Mesopotamia.
QUOTE(s): Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508 "A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty."
"It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk)." (Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508)
Back-migration per se may mean little but movement across an artifical "border" defined by Europeans in the modern age- like the oft bogusly used "sub-Saharan" "border." An African Nile river or lakeside fisherman that crossed over into Sinai only to return 2 decades later does not suddenly turn "Middle Easetrn" or "Caucasoid" or "Asian". Was there influence from outside Africa on certain things based on certain eras, such as Greek religion in Ptolemaic Egypt? Sure, but this does not mean that divination systems "derived" outside Africa. van Binsbergen notes for example that certain versions of mankala was developed in Northeast Africa or the Arabian peninsula. Even if they came from Arabia, this does not mean "Asian origin" since the people at the assorted Neolithic timeframes given ALREADY looked like tropical Africans, and very ancient types show certain patterns like the "Nubian complex" (among other things) in the Middle East.. All the "backflow" or "back migration" hypotheses are not going to airbrush Africans away.
van Binsbergen sez: we must combine a number of greatly disparate phases in order to account for the African involvement in the wider world:
1. Out of Africa, 80-60 ka BP; until then Pandora’s Box was fully African 2. Back into Africa movement from c. 15 ka BP onwards, which brought back into Africa many traits which had meanwhile (ever since the Out of Africa migration) percolated, transformed, been innovated, and added to within the Asian continent 3. The forced demic diffusion from Africa in the context of the trans-Atlantic slave trade 4. Very recent globalisation of the last hundred years or less, which meant for a worldwide percolation of cultural traits and initiatives, in which African traits (music, dance, rites, therapies) were particularly successful in intercontinental transmission and reception.
^^But van Binsbergen misses one crucial phase in his list of 4- that casts doubt on assorted claims. African influence was ALSO present in the Neolithic, via the Natufians, and then there is also continued movement from the Sahara and southerly zones from 15ka. SOmehow these 2 things are suspiciously missing from his list of 4 which postulates a laughable "negro gap" model- OOA, then back-migration, then nothing much happened until the Atlantic Slave TRade. The "inconvenient blacks" conveniently disappear after OOA some 60kya, and only get resurrected in time for the Slave Trade. Sheeyit... Where the Natufians? Where the progenitive assist of Nile Valley civ by the folks at Nabata Playa? They mysteriouly disappear into the er, black hole of the "negro gap"...
in the later Afrocentrist reformulation, total dependence of Ancient Egypt upon prehistoric sub-Saharan Africa’),
^^Laughable. What "total dependence" upon prehistoric sub-Saharan Africa for Ancient Egypt by the "Afrocentrists"? Nonsense. For one thing the Sahara is a moving target historically- it once covered one-third of Africa. "Africans" or "black" people were never confined to some neat "apartheid" barrier awaiting their walk-on roles like Issaic Hayes in a bad episod eof "Southpark." Sub-Saharan Africa plays a primary role, as shown by limb and cranial data, and cultural data, but no credible "Afrocentrist" ignores the fact that other areas impacted AE. Diop or Keita never denied the introduction of certain animals or crops like wheat from the "Middle East" or the clear evidence of trade with Mesopotamia and the Meditrranean zones, or the movement of traders, war captives etc. WHo is "denying" this to claim said mythical "total dependence"? BS...
Asar says: One of my problems with this author is that he is really vague in his comparisons and never seems to give the fine points of detail needed for much of his analysis. He writes extensively but I find more of the same and in large part major assumptions of his stated as fact without the community backing or supporting his theses.
^Indeed.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I don't think anyone is calling Bernal's texts Afrocentric. It doesn't qualify as such. However, van Binsbergen calls out all Afrocentric texts and claims to discredit it, yet he doesn't cite African-Centered authors and answers them point-for-point. For instance, it is not Afrocentric hyperbole that Egyptian culture influenced Greece. This is based on the testimony of the Greeks themselves. So how is his Borean or Back-Migration analysis going to trump eye-witness testimony? He claims that the divination systems originate in Mesopotamia, yet he totally different names for the divination systems in all of his examples. If the Africans borrowed the systems, why are they different names for each system? This is the logic used against the Eurocentrists who argue that agriculture was diffused to the Africans, again, from Mesopotamia, yet all of the agricultural words are totally different than what we find in Mesopotamia. A lot of his work is detailed speculation.
Clyde says the Sumerians were Kushites. So the Sumerian Kushites brought divination to the African kushites
Posts: 42925 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I don't think anyone is calling Bernal's texts Afrocentric. It doesn't qualify as such. However, van Binsbergen calls out all Afrocentric texts and claims to discredit it, yet he doesn't cite African-Centered authors and answers them point-for-point. For instance, it is not Afrocentric hyperbole that Egyptian culture influenced Greece. This is based on the testimony of the Greeks themselves. So how is his Borean or Back-Migration analysis going to trump eye-witness testimony? He claims that the divination systems originate in Mesopotamia, yet he totally different names for the divination systems in all of his examples. If the Africans borrowed the systems, why are they different names for each system? This is the logic used against the Eurocentrists who argue that agriculture was diffused to the Africans, again, from Mesopotamia, yet all of the agricultural words are totally different than what we find in Mesopotamia. A lot of his work is detailed speculation.
Clyde says the Sumerians were Kushites. So the Sumerian Kushites brought divination to the African kushites
LOL. You are tricky. Since the Sumerians were Kushites they took the system from Africa into Mesopotamia.
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I don't think anyone is calling Bernal's texts Afrocentric. It doesn't qualify as such. However, van Binsbergen calls out all Afrocentric texts and claims to discredit it, yet he doesn't cite African-Centered authors and answers them point-for-point. For instance, it is not Afrocentric hyperbole that Egyptian culture influenced Greece. This is based on the testimony of the Greeks themselves. So how is his Borean or Back-Migration analysis going to trump eye-witness testimony? He claims that the divination systems originate in Mesopotamia, yet he totally different names for the divination systems in all of his examples. If the Africans borrowed the systems, why are they different names for each system? This is the logic used against the Eurocentrists who argue that agriculture was diffused to the Africans, again, from Mesopotamia, yet all of the agricultural words are totally different than what we find in Mesopotamia. A lot of his work is detailed speculation.
Black Athena, is recognized as an Afrocentric text by Eurocentrics. They have written many papers and books saying as much; and many Af Americans promoted it as such, without really seriously reading the text. Blacks failed to recognize that Bernal was claiming an Asian Egyptian Dynasty introduced civilization to the Greeks--not Black Egyptians.
Afro Americans promoted Black Athena because it was written by a European and they thought it claimed that "Blacks" made contributions to Greece's civilization.
Due to some latent feelings of inferiority most Black researchers believe they can not advocate a point of view not first popularized by a 'white ' scholar. Af Am follow any European author who claims any form of "Black Contributionism" to ancient history because they feel it gives them validity because a European said this or that, while they pay lip service to the work of real Afrocentric scholars such as DuBois, J.A. Rogers, John Jackson and others, who they fail to cite in their work.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: I made it clear in my writing that Black Athena, was not an Afrocentric text.
what would you call it? or maybe it can't be eaily categorized ?
It is a good book on historical methodology and interpretation.
The major thing done by Black Athena is to discuss the difference in how the Greco-Romans interpreted the role of Blacks in history and how the German's removed Blacks from playing any role in ancient history except as slaves.
This angered the academe because it struck a blow at white supremacy and called for an interpretation of history based on reality instead of mytholody.
quote:Originally posted by Asar Imhotep: I don't think anyone is calling Bernal's texts Afrocentric. It doesn't qualify as such. However, van Binsbergen calls out all Afrocentric texts and claims to discredit it, yet he doesn't cite African-Centered authors and answers them point-for-point. For instance, it is not Afrocentric hyperbole that Egyptian culture influenced Greece. This is based on the testimony of the Greeks themselves. So how is his Borean or Back-Migration analysis going to trump eye-witness testimony? He claims that the divination systems originate in Mesopotamia, yet he totally different names for the divination systems in all of his examples. If the Africans borrowed the systems, why are they different names for each system? This is the logic used against the Eurocentrists who argue that agriculture was diffused to the Africans, again, from Mesopotamia, yet all of the agricultural words are totally different than what we find in Mesopotamia. A lot of his work is detailed speculation.
Clyde says the Sumerians were Kushites. So the Sumerian Kushites brought divination to the African kushites
LOL. You are tricky. Since the Sumerians were Kushites they took the system from Africa into Mesopotamia.
.
If the Sumerians were Kushites isn't it possible that they developed some things after having settled in Mesopotamia?
Posts: 42925 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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