quote:--G. J. Tassie (University of Winchester) and Joris van Wetering (ECHO)
Introduction to Research at Naqada Region
The Naqada region is located to the north of Luxor in Upper Egypt. The settlement of Nubt-South Town is located on the west bank of the Nile halfway between the modern towns of Kom Billal and el-Zawayda and is the most famous and largest settlement in the Naqada region, which consists of a cluster of sites of differing sizes and types (see Fig. 1).
Together with Hierakonpolis and Abydos, Nubt-South Town is one of the most important sites for understanding the socio-economic developments that occurred during the Predynastic (Naqada I-II, 3,900-3,300 BC) to Protodynastic (Naqada IIIA-B, 3,300-3,060 BC) periods, and represents one of the primary political centres of early Egypt. As such, it was a major player in the process of state formation (Wilkinson 2000). As the funerary remains cover the entire Predynastic and Protodynastic periods, it is enormously important for both chronological and bioarchaeological studies (Hendrickx 1986).
Petrie uncovered a huge cemetery (N or the Great New Race Cemetery), along with other smaller cemeteries (B and T) and several structures (South Town area) as well as finding indications of Predynastic occupation around the temple area (Nubt area). Subsequent investigations by Kaiser (1961) have identified settlement remains dating to the Predynastic and later along the floodplain edge north of the South Town spur and in front of the Temple spur. He also identified a Predynastic cemetery located just to the north of the temple spur. Re-analyse of Cemetery N, primarily by Bard (1987; 1989; 1994) has allowed for a better understanding of the distribution of early remains at Nubt-South Town (van Wetering & Tassie in press).
quote:-- AP Starling, JT Stock. (2007), Dental Indicators of Health and Stress in Early Egyptian and Nubian Agriculturalists: A Difficult Transition and Gradual Recovery. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 134:520–528
"The question of the genetic origins of ancient Egyptians, particularly those during the Dynastic period, is relevant to the current study. Modern interpretations of Egyptian state formation propose an indigenous origin of the Dynastic civilization (Hassan, 1988). Early Egyptologists considered Upper and Lower Egyptians to be genetically distinct populations, and viewed the Dynastic period as characterized by a conquest of Upper Egypt by the Lower Egyptians. More recent interpretations contend that Egyptians from the south actually expanded into the northern regions during the Dynastic state unification (Hassan, 1988; Savage, 2001), and that the Predynastic populations of Upper and Lower Egypt are morphologically distinct from one another, but not sufficiently distinct to consider either non-indigenous (Zakrzewski, 2007). The Predynastic populations studied here, from Naqada and Badari, are both Upper Egyptian samples, while the Dynastic Egyptian sample (Tarkhan) is from Lower Egypt. The Dynastic Nubian sample is from Upper Nubia (Kerma). Previous analyses of cranial variation found the Badari and Early Predynastic Egyptians to be more similar to other African groups than to Mediterranean or European populations (Keita, 1990; Zakrzewski, 2002). In addition, the Badarians have been described as near the centroid of cranial and dental variation among Predynastic and Dynastic populations studied (Irish, 2006; Zakrzewski, 2007). This suggests that, at least through the Early Dynastic period, the inhabitants of the Nile valley were a continuous population of local origin, and no major migration or replacement events occurred during this time.
Studies of cranial morphology also support the use of a Nubian (Kerma) population for a comparison of the Dynastic period, as this group is likely to be more closely genetically related to the early Nile valley inhabitants than would be the Late Dynastic Egyptians, who likely experienced significant mixing with other Mediterranean populations (Zakrzewski, 2002). A craniometric study found the Naqada and Kerma populations to be morphologically similar (Keita, 1990). Given these and other prior studies suggesting continuity (Berry et al., 1967; Berry and Berry, 1972), and the lack of archaeological evidence of major migration or population replacement during the Neolithic transition in the Nile valley, we may cautiously interpret the dental health changes over time as primarily due to ecological, subsistence, and demographic changes experienced throughout the Nile valley region."
quote:--John Coleman Darnell and Deborah Darnell
The Wadi of the Horus Qa-a:
A Tableau of Royal Ritual Power in the Theban Western Desert
The Theban Western Desert preserves several important tableaux of late Naqada II through Early Dynastic date. One of the longest and most artistically accomplished of these tableaux is Image 1located in a wadi northeast of Gebel Tjauti, on a branch of the ‘Alamat Tal Road (Figure 1). The strongly marked tracks, with associated ceramic material, lead to the head of the wadi, in the upper part of which, despite the lack of any clear path of ascent, are a number of dry stone structures, as well as the remains of “game traps.” Near the head of this wadi, apparently the haunt of hunters traveling the Alamat Tal Road, are several concentrations of rock inscriptions, providing extreme examples of the clustering of a particular genre of image in one area, and the dominance of one genre of representation at a discrete site. We have named the wadi after an inscription at Site No. 2 — the serekh of the late First Dynasty ruler Horus Qa-a.
quote:In the language of KMT proper, Naqada is "Nubian" culture, meaning a culture centered around the gold trading town in Upper Egypt. Nub is the name of gold and hence became the name of the town. And just like the gold came from the South so too did the population as well. So in reality "Naqada" culture is "Nubian" culture as the region was based around the town Nubt. Naqada is an Arabic term meaning to dismantle or revoke.
Originally posted by Oshun:
The "Gerzeh culture" or Naqada II begins way in lower Egypt (or is that incorrect?) From what I'm reading they moved south, contributing to the dynastic race theory. My question is, why's there such an emphasis on Gerzeh if Egypt's culture mainly came from out of Sudan and into the North???? Or would the Sudanese cultures of the south be Naqada III???
quote:Not really trying to confuse anybody.
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ You could be confusing him. But to Oshun: Know that Naqada culture originated in the south in Upper Egypt. Naqada I centered around a site west of the Nile in modern day el-Amrah hence Amratian culture. Naqada culture spread to Lower Egypt specifically the Faiyum which became the center of Naqada II in Gerzeh hence Gerzean culture. Then came Naqada III also called Semeinian Culture after el Semeia site near the ancient city of Nubet (golden one) which was likely the root for the Roman term 'Nubia' for the gold rich lands south of Egypt.
In other words the second phase of Naqada Culture or Gerzean culture is the result of southern influence even colonization in the mouth of the Delta.
By the way, I take it your phrase 'Sudanese transplant' came from here:
"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north.
The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly
be called a Sudanese transplant."
--J. Vogel (1997) 'Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction'. Encyclopedia
of Precolonial Africa. pp. 465-472
You need to realize that when Vogel wrote this he meant that the Sudanese aspect of Egypt came about LONG before even Naqada! Naqada is considered the quintessential ancient Egyptian culture more removed from Sudan than its predecessors-- Badarian and Tasian.
quote:http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2012/september/navigating-nubian-prehistory-at-postgraduate-conference
Located across what is now Southern Egypt and northern Sudan, Ancient Nubia was situated between the 1st Nile cataract and the area now covered by the city of Khartoum. It is an area rich in history and archaeology, with occupation spanning from the Palaeolithic to modern times. And experts in Nubian history are converging on Leicester this week for a one-day conference.
‘Nubia before the New Kingdom: Current research into the pre and early history of northern Sudan’, being held this Thursday, 6 September 2012, has been organised by Ruth Humphreys, a PhD student in our School of Archaeology and Ancient History, and her supervisor Dr David Edwards.
Ancient Nubian history is a pretty specialist area with a small number of researchers rarely crossing paths so Thursday’s conference is an important event and has attracted delegates and speakers from Germany, Norway, France, Belgium and the USA as well as British institutions.
Historically, the level of consideration accorded to Nubian history and culture as a whole has been disproportionately low, when one considers its potential interest and significance to world archaeology. Often bundled together with its fashionable and glamorous neighbour of Egypt, Nubian studies was considered, for many years, simply a primitive extension of Egyptology, with the majority of archaeological research undertaken in the region electing to focus on later periods (Pharaonic/Napatan/Meroitic) where a seemingly strong Egyptian presence and influence was deemed visible.
quote:http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm
In the 1820s, the Western world was thrilled to hear news of the rediscovery of the monuments of ancient Nubia - or "Kush," as it was called in the Bible. The ruins, hundreds of miles south of Egypt in the Sudan, had been reported almost simultaneously by individual British, French, and American travellers, whose excited descriptions and glorious illustrations of temples and pyramid fields delighted scholars and reawakened interest in this mysterious African kingdom.
Greek traditions told of Memnon, a legendary Nubian king who had fought in the Trojan War; they spoke of Nubia's people, who were the "tallest and handsomest on earth," and whose piety was so great that the gods preferred their offerings to those of all other men. They also knew that historical Nubian kings had once conquered Egypt and ruled it for sixty years and that their dynasty was counted as Egypt's Twenty-fifth. The Greeks, however, did not call these people "Nubians" or "Kushites," as we do today; they called them Aithiopes ("Ethiopians"), which in Greek meant "Burnt-Faced Ones." They knew perfectly well that Nubians were black-skinned, as are the Sudanese of the same regions today.
During the 1840s, the great German egyptologist, Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) led an expedition to record the monuments of Egypt and Sudan for the King of Prussia. On his return, he asserted confidently that the Greek term "Ethiopian," when referring to the ancient civilized people of Kush, did not apply to "negroes," but was used to describe reddish-skinned people closely related to the Egyptians, who "belonged to the Caucasian race." Again, in 1852, when the American diplomat Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) visited Sudan and gazed upon the temple carvings of sumptuously clad gods and rulers with clearly African features, he also found it inconceivable that they could have been created by black-skinned Africans. Rather, he asserted, echoing Lepsius, they must have been created by Egyptians or by immigrants from India or Arabia, or, in any case, "by an offshoot ... of the race to which we belong."
Lepsius and Taylor failed to acknowledge the fact that the Greeks themselves never confused "Ethiopians" with Egyptians, or that they always used the term "Ethiopian" to apply equally to the peoples of Kush and central Africa. Such racist opinions and "scientific" distortions among Western scholars of the 19th century, while not universal, did, unhappily, predominate and shaped the attitudes that for another full century would retard and confuse the discipline of Nubian Studies and African civilization in general.
So remote was the northern Sudan that scientific archaeology could not take place there until the British seized control of the country in 1898 and opened it up with the completion the Cairo-Khartoum railway. The first major excavations were undertaken by famed Egyptologist George A. Reisner (1867-1942), whose team, sponsored by Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, would first excavate Kerma in 1913, the Gebel Barkal Temples from 1916-1920, and all the royal pyramids of Kush between 1917-1924. Almost single-handedly, Reisner laid the foundations of Nubian history, reconstructing it from the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Christian era. He also deciphered the names and approximate order and dates of all the Kushite monarchs through some seventy generations, from the 8th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. It was a towering achievement, almost unparalleled in the annals of archaeology.
While Reisner's deductions still strike us as astonishing for their brilliance and essential correctness, we are equally appalled to discover his inability to accept that the monuments he excavated were built by bona fide black men. Using entirely specious evidence, he formulated a theory that the founders of the 25th or "Ethiopian" Dynasty of Egypt were not black Sudanese but rather a branch of the "Egypto-Libyan" (by which he meant "fair skinned") ruling class of Dynasty 22, and that they were called "Ethiopians" by the Greeks simply because they dominated a darker-skinned native "negroid" population, which, as he stated, "had never developed either its trade or any industry worthy of mention." Like Taylor and Lepsius, believing absolutely that skin pigmentation was a determinant of intellectual ability and enlightenment, Reisner attributed the apparent cultural decline of the Napatan phase of the Kushite culture (ca. 660-300 B.C.) to the "deadening effects" of racial intermarriage between his imagined light-skinned elite and darker-skinned hoi poloi. The Meroitic cultural renaissance (after ca. 300 B.C.) he explained as simply the result of new influxes of Egyptians. Nubian cultures, he reasoned, were not as developed as the Egyptian because the people were of mixed race, yet by virtue of their relationship to the superior Egyptian race, they were elevated far above the "the inert mass of the black races of Africa."
This was Reisner at his worst. Such unabashed racist interpretations, widely published in scholarly journals at the time and accepted as gospel by the popular press, today offend and embarrass all of us. Yet it is interesting to note how such pervasive racism then affected the discipline of Nubian Studies in America. Reisner, very much a product of his time, seems to have had an unconscious need to believe that his Kushite kings were "white" (or "white men" in darker skin, or dark men with "white souls") in order to make them and their culture more worthy of study to himself and more acceptable to the contemporary scholarly and museum-going public -- and perhaps even to his financial backers at the Museum of Fine Arts. Yet whether judged as "white" or "black," Nubian civilization could not have received much popular interest at the time. If it were merely an offshoot of a "white" Egypt in central Africa, as Reisner theorized, then it would inevitably be judged as late, decadent, and "peripheral" (i.e to the Egyptocentered and Eurocentered universe). If it were "black," then in the minds of his contemporaries it would be utterly irrelevant to history. In either case, it seemed to offer few attractions as an area of study for Egypologists of that generation, and almost none pursued it. Contemporary books on Egyptian history virtually ignored it.
quote:https://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/Nelson%20Khalifa.pdf
The presence of Black-topped pottery as part of a larger ceramic complex that shares
general features is important. This is first because this combination of features represents
broad changes in technology, which will be discussed in detail below, and second because
this complex, although referred to by a variety of cultural names, including Badarian, Tasian
and A-Group, appears to be a widespread phenomenon. Broadly defined, this ceramic
complex includes Black-topped pottery, Ripple-ware and tulip-shaped vessels, together or in
conjunction with other vessels that fall within the more general Red/Brown, Qussier Clastic
and Olive wares (as described in Nelson 2002b). The extent of this complex includes the
Nabta Playa area (Nelson 2002a), the adjacent Gebel Ramlah (Kobusiewicz et al. 2004),
Dakhleh Oasis (in the culture described as Bashendi B in McDonald 2002), Kukur Oasis
(Darnell and Darnell 2006), as far east as the Eastern Desert at Wadi Atulla (Friedman and
Hobbs 2002), southwards to Khartoum (see, for example, Arkell 1949, pls. 91–100) and
beyond. This ceramic complex replaces the rocker-stamped and impressed wares that were
also widespread. It is not possible within the scope of this paper to discuss all of the details
of the distribution and variability of this new ceramic complex. Regardless, it is necessary
to understand the broader changes that led to this transformation in pottery and to consider
this transition within the larger context of the formation of cultures in southern Egypt and
northern Sudan.
code:University College London
Pre-Kerma Early A-Group Naqada Ic-IIa/d about 3500 BC
Pre-Kerma Classical A-Group Naqada III about 3200 BC
Pre-Kerma End of A-Group Unification to mid First Dynasty about 3000 BC
Pre-Kerma unknown Old Kingdom 2800-2200 BC
quote:
Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Not really trying to confuse anybody.
Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ You could be confusing him. But to Oshun: Know that Naqada culture originated in the south in Upper Egypt. Naqada I centered around a site west of the Nile in modern day el-Amrah hence Amratian culture. Naqada culture spread to Lower Egypt specifically the Faiyum which became the center of Naqada II in Gerzeh hence Gerzean culture. Then came Naqada III also called Semeinian Culture after el Semeia site near the ancient city of Nubet (golden one) which was likely the root for the Roman term 'Nubia' for the gold rich lands south of Egypt.
In other words the second phase of Naqada Culture or Gerzean culture is the result of southern influence even colonization in the mouth of the Delta.
By the way, I take it your phrase 'Sudanese transplant' came from here:
"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north.
The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly
be called a Sudanese transplant."
--J. Vogel (1997) 'Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction'. Encyclopedia
of Precolonial Africa. pp. 465-472
You need to realize that when Vogel wrote this he meant that the Sudanese aspect of Egypt came about LONG before even Naqada! Naqada is considered the quintessential ancient Egyptian culture more removed from Sudan than its predecessors-- Badarian and Tasian.
The point is the terms these Egyptologist use are designed to promote confusion. Most of the names they use are based on modern place names for different 'eras' in the history of the Nile Valley. But the problem is these name had no relevance or meaning in ancient times. This is especially true when it comes to the word "Nubian". There was no population, culture, nation or clan called "Nubian" by the people of ancient KMT where "Nubian" became a defacto synonym for 'black Africans'. No such creature existed outside the imagination of white Egyptologists. The ancient word for gold, "Nub" was used as by the people of the Nile Valley and this referred to not only the precious resource but also the sacred substance of the gods and various aspects of royalty and cosmology. Therefore, it would never have been used to refer to foreigners, especially those supposedly hated and reviled as Egyptologists like to claim. Not only that, but whereas all the other phases of the predynastic have specific timespan, Egyptologists treat "nubian" as a timeless description of ANY population in the Nile Valley South of Egypt no matter what time period is involved.
This is why people are confused about the relationship between KMT proper and areas to the South. There was never any strict boundary between the two and populations have always flowed from South to North. This is simply a reflection of modern prejudices on the part of Egyptologists. This is why to this day they are promoting the idea that "Nubia" was a monolithic ethnic group with a distinct identity and culture from the 5th millenium all the way to the present day which is completely false. Just like there were no Romans, French or Spanish in the 5th millenium BC, so too were there no "Nubians" in the 5th millenium BC and no Egyptians or Sudanese either because neither of these nations existed. So this construct is basically designed to promote something that never existed, as in to pretend that there was some magical boundary population between the populations that became KMT and the other populations further South, which is absolutely fake. Just like the people of Nubt and in that area did not call themselves "Naqadans" or the other groups call themselves "Amratians", neither did anybody at this ancient time call themselves "Nubian". There were various cultural units along the Nile at that time and they fused together to become what we know now as dynastic Egypt. And most of the cultural units that formed the basis of the Dynastic Era originated further south to begin with. Hence another reason why this idea of "Nubia" as some separate and distinct population is completely false.
Case in point:
quote:http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2012/september/navigating-nubian-prehistory-at-postgraduate-conference
Located across what is now Southern Egypt and northern Sudan, Ancient Nubia was situated between the 1st Nile cataract and the area now covered by the city of Khartoum. It is an area rich in history and archaeology, with occupation spanning from the Palaeolithic to modern times. And experts in Nubian history are converging on Leicester this week for a one-day conference.
‘Nubia before the New Kingdom: Current research into the pre and early history of northern Sudan’, being held this Thursday, 6 September 2012, has been organised by Ruth Humphreys, a PhD student in our School of Archaeology and Ancient History, and her supervisor Dr David Edwards.
Ancient Nubian history is a pretty specialist area with a small number of researchers rarely crossing paths so Thursday’s conference is an important event and has attracted delegates and speakers from Germany, Norway, France, Belgium and the USA as well as British institutions.
Historically, the level of consideration accorded to Nubian history and culture as a whole has been disproportionately low, when one considers its potential interest and significance to world archaeology. Often bundled together with its fashionable and glamorous neighbour of Egypt, Nubian studies was considered, for many years, simply a primitive extension of Egyptology, with the majority of archaeological research undertaken in the region electing to focus on later periods (Pharaonic/Napatan/Meroitic) where a seemingly strong Egyptian presence and influence was deemed visible.
In fact, you can see how this concept of Nubia is fake when you understand the history of the term. The term was originally created as a reference to types of pottery found around the 1st cataract. Pottery is not human remains and therefore is not a "racial" distinction. But at some point, this identification of a cultural group based on pottery, which was the norm for the other predynastic cultures, became a way of defining 'racial' groups along the Nile. But the hypocrisy of Egyptology is obvious when you understand that George Reisner, who created the term "Nubian" actually believed that the Nubians were not black Africans because of their closeness the ancient Egyptians. White Egyptologists denied the blackness of the so called Nubians because of course they would also deny the blackness of the Egyptians. And folks like Reisner felt Egypt and Nubia were not distinct but part of the same cultural expression indigenous to the Nile Valley. But here we have PBS no less, trying to separate the racism towards Nubia from the racism towards Egypt, so they can claim that ancient Egypt was white not because of racism in Egyptology.......
quote:http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm
In the 1820s, the Western world was thrilled to hear news of the rediscovery of the monuments of ancient Nubia - or "Kush," as it was called in the Bible. The ruins, hundreds of miles south of Egypt in the Sudan, had been reported almost simultaneously by individual British, French, and American travellers, whose excited descriptions and glorious illustrations of temples and pyramid fields delighted scholars and reawakened interest in this mysterious African kingdom.
Greek traditions told of Memnon, a legendary Nubian king who had fought in the Trojan War; they spoke of Nubia's people, who were the "tallest and handsomest on earth," and whose piety was so great that the gods preferred their offerings to those of all other men. They also knew that historical Nubian kings had once conquered Egypt and ruled it for sixty years and that their dynasty was counted as Egypt's Twenty-fifth. The Greeks, however, did not call these people "Nubians" or "Kushites," as we do today; they called them Aithiopes ("Ethiopians"), which in Greek meant "Burnt-Faced Ones." They knew perfectly well that Nubians were black-skinned, as are the Sudanese of the same regions today.
During the 1840s, the great German egyptologist, Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) led an expedition to record the monuments of Egypt and Sudan for the King of Prussia. On his return, he asserted confidently that the Greek term "Ethiopian," when referring to the ancient civilized people of Kush, did not apply to "negroes," but was used to describe reddish-skinned people closely related to the Egyptians, who "belonged to the Caucasian race." Again, in 1852, when the American diplomat Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) visited Sudan and gazed upon the temple carvings of sumptuously clad gods and rulers with clearly African features, he also found it inconceivable that they could have been created by black-skinned Africans. Rather, he asserted, echoing Lepsius, they must have been created by Egyptians or by immigrants from India or Arabia, or, in any case, "by an offshoot ... of the race to which we belong."
Lepsius and Taylor failed to acknowledge the fact that the Greeks themselves never confused "Ethiopians" with Egyptians, or that they always used the term "Ethiopian" to apply equally to the peoples of Kush and central Africa. Such racist opinions and "scientific" distortions among Western scholars of the 19th century, while not universal, did, unhappily, predominate and shaped the attitudes that for another full century would retard and confuse the discipline of Nubian Studies and African civilization in general.
So remote was the northern Sudan that scientific archaeology could not take place there until the British seized control of the country in 1898 and opened it up with the completion the Cairo-Khartoum railway. The first major excavations were undertaken by famed Egyptologist George A. Reisner (1867-1942), whose team, sponsored by Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, would first excavate Kerma in 1913, the Gebel Barkal Temples from 1916-1920, and all the royal pyramids of Kush between 1917-1924. Almost single-handedly, Reisner laid the foundations of Nubian history, reconstructing it from the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Christian era. He also deciphered the names and approximate order and dates of all the Kushite monarchs through some seventy generations, from the 8th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. It was a towering achievement, almost unparalleled in the annals of archaeology.
While Reisner's deductions still strike us as astonishing for their brilliance and essential correctness, we are equally appalled to discover his inability to accept that the monuments he excavated were built by bona fide black men. Using entirely specious evidence, he formulated a theory that the founders of the 25th or "Ethiopian" Dynasty of Egypt were not black Sudanese but rather a branch of the "Egypto-Libyan" (by which he meant "fair skinned") ruling class of Dynasty 22, and that they were called "Ethiopians" by the Greeks simply because they dominated a darker-skinned native "negroid" population, which, as he stated, "had never developed either its trade or any industry worthy of mention." Like Taylor and Lepsius, believing absolutely that skin pigmentation was a determinant of intellectual ability and enlightenment, Reisner attributed the apparent cultural decline of the Napatan phase of the Kushite culture (ca. 660-300 B.C.) to the "deadening effects" of racial intermarriage between his imagined light-skinned elite and darker-skinned hoi poloi. The Meroitic cultural renaissance (after ca. 300 B.C.) he explained as simply the result of new influxes of Egyptians. Nubian cultures, he reasoned, were not as developed as the Egyptian because the people were of mixed race, yet by virtue of their relationship to the superior Egyptian race, they were elevated far above the "the inert mass of the black races of Africa."
This was Reisner at his worst. Such unabashed racist interpretations, widely published in scholarly journals at the time and accepted as gospel by the popular press, today offend and embarrass all of us. Yet it is interesting to note how such pervasive racism then affected the discipline of Nubian Studies in America. Reisner, very much a product of his time, seems to have had an unconscious need to believe that his Kushite kings were "white" (or "white men" in darker skin, or dark men with "white souls") in order to make them and their culture more worthy of study to himself and more acceptable to the contemporary scholarly and museum-going public -- and perhaps even to his financial backers at the Museum of Fine Arts. Yet whether judged as "white" or "black," Nubian civilization could not have received much popular interest at the time. If it were merely an offshoot of a "white" Egypt in central Africa, as Reisner theorized, then it would inevitably be judged as late, decadent, and "peripheral" (i.e to the Egyptocentered and Eurocentered universe). If it were "black," then in the minds of his contemporaries it would be utterly irrelevant to history. In either case, it seemed to offer few attractions as an area of study for Egypologists of that generation, and almost none pursued it. Contemporary books on Egyptian history virtually ignored it.
Not to mention that the earliest Neolithic site in the Nile Valley was Nabta Playa which is in the far South of Egypt, in areas supposedly occupied by "Nubians" but this isn't called "Nubian" even though the culture of Nabta Playa is also associated with the culture of Early Khartoum which is also further South in what is now Sudan. So we see these labels are arbitrary and purely racist. And Nabta Playa is home to some of the earliest black topped pottery as well.
Full list of the phases of Egyptian archaeology:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/chronology/index.html
If black topped pottery started in the far south of Egypt along with the Neolithic tradition, why isn't that called "Nubian" as well?
quote:https://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/Nelson%20Khalifa.pdf
The presence of Black-topped pottery as part of a larger ceramic complex that shares
general features is important. This is first because this combination of features represents
broad changes in technology, which will be discussed in detail below, and second because
this complex, although referred to by a variety of cultural names, including Badarian, Tasian
and A-Group, appears to be a widespread phenomenon. Broadly defined, this ceramic
complex includes Black-topped pottery, Ripple-ware and tulip-shaped vessels, together or in
conjunction with other vessels that fall within the more general Red/Brown, Qussier Clastic
and Olive wares (as described in Nelson 2002b). The extent of this complex includes the
Nabta Playa area (Nelson 2002a), the adjacent Gebel Ramlah (Kobusiewicz et al. 2004),
Dakhleh Oasis (in the culture described as Bashendi B in McDonald 2002), Kukur Oasis
(Darnell and Darnell 2006), as far east as the Eastern Desert at Wadi Atulla (Friedman and
Hobbs 2002), southwards to Khartoum (see, for example, Arkell 1949, pls. 91–100) and
beyond. This ceramic complex replaces the rocker-stamped and impressed wares that were
also widespread. It is not possible within the scope of this paper to discuss all of the details
of the distribution and variability of this new ceramic complex. Regardless, it is necessary
to understand the broader changes that led to this transformation in pottery and to consider
this transition within the larger context of the formation of cultures in southern Egypt and
northern Sudan.
quote:You are a desperate individual. A filthy white supremacist.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
https://i.imgbox.com/ZW9eQokU.png
https://i.imgbox.com/hEO52GBR.png
http://www.lessingimages.com/w2/080108/08010839.jpg
what is the proper term for these ^^^ people?
Kushites?
quote:--Godde K.
"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians. Table 3 lists the Mahalanobis D2 distance matrix. As there is no significance testing that is available to be applied to this form of Mahalanobis distances, the biodistance scores must be interpreted in relation to one another, rather than on a general scale. In some cases, the statistics reveal that the Egyptian samples were more similar to Nubian samples than to other Egyptian samples (e.g. Gizeh and Hesa/Biga) and vice versa (e.g. Badari and Kerma, Naqada and Christian).
These relationships are further depicted in the PCO plot (Fig. 2). Aside from these interpopulation relationships, some Nubian groups are still more similar to other Nubians and some Egyptians are more similar to other Egyptian samples. Moreover, although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group, the Egyptian samples clustered in the upper left region, while the Nubians concentrated in the lower right of the plot. One line can be drawn that would separate the closely dispersed Egyptians and Nubians. The predynastic Egyptian samples clustered together (Badari and Naqada), while Gizeh most closely groups with the Lisht sample. The first two principal coordinates from PCO account for 60% of the variation in the samples. The graph from PCO is basically a pictorial representation of the distance matrix and interpretations from the plot mirror the Mahalanobis D2 matrix."
quote:-"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians.
Originally posted by the lioness,:
^^^ the idiot then posts a quote calling them Nubians. Another example of Ish Gebor comprehension issues, not comprehending Doug's post
quote:It's unbelievable how stupid Ish Gebor is. The remarks are about the proper name of an ethnic groups and he still doesn't have a clue, talking about genetic affinities, very dumb indeed.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
quote:LOL AT THIS DUMB PIECE OF RACIST ****!
Originally posted by the lioness,:
^^^ the idiot then posts a quote calling them Nubians. Another example of Ish Gebor comprehension issues, not comprehending Doug's post
-"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians.
-Moreover, although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group,
They are the same people with origin in the same region, that is why they cluster, you dumb piece of ****! Thus all that stuff you've posted has become irrelevant. And of course the author is going to use those references, to make clear what he refers at.
Germany WWII invaded surrounding nations. Ancient Greek invaded and enslaved surrounding nations.
quote:lol you have nothing to refute
Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:It's unbelievable how stupid Ish Gebor is. The remarks are about the proper name of an ethnic groups and he still doesn't have a clue, talking about genetic affinities, very dumb indeed.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
quote:LOL AT THIS DUMB PIECE OF RACIST ****!
Originally posted by the lioness,:
^^^ the idiot then posts a quote calling them Nubians. Another example of Ish Gebor comprehension issues, not comprehending Doug's post
-"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians.
-Moreover, although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group,
They are the same people with origin in the same region, that is why they cluster, you dumb piece of ****! Thus all that stuff you've posted has become irrelevant. And of course the author is going to use those references, to make clear what he refers at.
Germany WWII invaded surrounding nations. Ancient Greek invaded and enslaved surrounding nations.
quote:You'll defend white supremacy with tooth and nail. And will attack everything African. You are a racist. But you will call others racist. lol
Originally posted by the lioness,:
Racist Ish Gebor is so incredibly dumb. Doug wrote a post abut the term "Nubian" and he still has no idea
quote:although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group,..
The Predynastic populations studied here, from Naqada and Badari, are both Upper Egyptian samples, while the Dynastic Egyptian sample (Tarkhan) is from Lower Egypt. The Dynastic Nubian sample is from Upper Nubia (Kerma). Previous analyses of cranial variation found the Badari and Early Predynastic Egyptians to be more similar to other African groups than to Mediterranean or European populations (Keita, 1990; Zakrzewski, 2002).
[...]
Studies of cranial morphology also support the use of a Nubian (Kerma) population for a comparison of the Dynastic period, as this group is likely to be more closely genetically related to the early Nile valley inhabitants
quote:--D. Usai, S. Salvatori, T. Jakob & R. David
Abstract
The first millennium BC in Sudan sees the birth of the Kushite (Napatan and then Meroitic) Kingdom. Royal cities, cemeteries and centres of religious power have attracted archaeologists and historians while peripheral areas have only rarely seen any systematic investigations. This lack of research provides difficulties in interpreting the limited evidence of the Napatan and Meroitic periods located on the White and Blue Niles and limits our comprehension of the role of this region within the political, economic and cultural framework of the kingdom. Recently, a multiphase cemetery was discovered at the site of Al Khiday 2, on the west bank of the White Nile, which was also used by a small group that is thought to be closely related to the Meroitic. The graves excavated have produced a bio-archaeological sample that is presented here with detailed descriptions of the funerary practices, including different types of grave structures, grave goods, burial position and orientation of the inhumations, as well as an overview of the anthropological analysis of this population. These findings are placed within the wider context of Meroitic studies by providing comparisons with contemporaneous sites, highlighting the possible elements of contiguity with that world, as well as providing some reflection on future research directions.
quote:--Irish 2012. Population continuity after all? Potential late Pleistocene dental ancestors of Holocene Nubians have been found! AJPA Sup 54: 172-173
"A preliminary comparison of dental nonmetric data in 15 late Pleistocene through early historic Nubian samples (n=795 individuals) with recently discovered remains from al Khiday in Upper Nubia may provide the answer. Dating to at least 9,000+ BP, the new sample (n=40) may be the first of Late Paleolithic age recovered in >40 years; however, until additional fieldwork and dating are conducted, the excavators prefer the more conservative term of "pre-Mesolithic."
Using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to record traits and multivariate statistics to estimate pairwise affinities, it is evident that al Khiday is closely akin to most Holocene samples. It is widely divergent from Jebel Sahaba. As such, there does appear to be long-term biological continuity in the region after all.."
quote:racist troll, quote properly, full sentences
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group,..
quote:Go cry yourself to sleep, horrible racist bigot. Deplorable white supremacist!
Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:racist troll, quote properly, full sentences
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
although the Nubian and Egyptian samples formed one well-distributed group,..
quote:
The Predynastic populations studied here, from Naqada and Badari, are both Upper Egyptian samples, while the Dynastic Egyptian sample (Tarkhan) is from Lower Egypt. The Dynastic Nubian sample is from Upper Nubia (Kerma). Previous analyses of cranial variation found the Badari and Early Predynastic Egyptians to be more similar to other African groups than to Mediterranean or European populations (Keita, 1990; Zakrzewski, 2002).
[...]
Studies of cranial morphology also support the use of a Nubian (Kerma) population for a comparison of the Dynastic period, as this group is likely to be more closely genetically related to the early Nile valley inhabitants
quote:To continue, on your question:
Originally posted by Oshun:
The "Gerzeh culture" or Naqada II begins way in lower Egypt (or is that incorrect?) From what I'm reading they moved south, contributing to the dynastic race theory. My question is, why's there such an emphasis on Gerzeh if Egypt's culture mainly came from out of Sudan and into the North???? Or would the Sudanese cultures of the south be Naqada III???
quote:--Gregorio Dal Sassoa et al.
Pottery from Al Khiday (Khartoum, Sudan), where a number of sites with well-preserved stratified archaeological sequences have been excavated and radiometrically dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods (7000–4000 calibrated BC), was archaeometrically analysed with the main aim of quantifying the textural parameters of the inclusions in the ceramic pastes. A set of 360 samples was studied, and quantitative and qualitative information was obtained regarding paste production recipes and the raw materials used over time.
Three main petrographic groups were identified, according to contents in alkali-feldspar and quartz, and the grain-size of quartz inclusions. Further sub-groups were defined and described in terms of grain-size distribution and abundance of the various types of inclusions. Digital image analysis on both scanning electron back-scattered images and elemental maps enabled validation of petrographic groups by quantitative description of the type, abundance and shape of inclusions, and the inclusion-to-matrix ratio. Correlations among the paste production recipes and decorative motifs revealed changes in production technology over time.
quote:--Zerboni, Andrea et al.
The micromorphological investigation on several pluristratified archaeological sites in central Sudan (Al-Khiday, left bank of the White Nile, Khartoum region, Sudan) permitted to elucidate depositional and post-depositional processes playing a role in the formation and preservation of the archaeological record. At Al-Khiday sites are located at the top of small mounds, representing the remains of Pleistocene sandy fluvial bars, and were attended since the beginning of the Holocene. The first occupation of the area corresponds to a pre-Mesolithic cemetery; than Mesolithic groups lived upon the mounds and their occupation is testified by several archaeological features: pits filled by ash and bones and living floors. Preserved Neolithic features are scarce and limited to few graves (V millennium BC). After this phase, a long gap in human attendance is registered, during which wind continued to dismantling the mounds and the sites; at ca. 2000 years BP Meroitic/Post-Meroitic groups built their tombs at the top of the archaeological sequences and altered most of the stratigraphic record. Thanks to micromorphology, it was possible to distinguish between archaeological strata still in situ and those disturbed by natural and anthropic processes; furthermore, this approach allowed to interpret the significance of several archaeological features (living floors, fireplaces, and garbage pits). In this case micromorphology of archaeological deposits was a key tool to reconstruct the depositional and post-depositional processes that contributed to the formation and preservation of the archaeological record.
quote:Right. So it wasn't so much that Egypt was a Sudanese transplant, it was an extension of indigenous Nile Valley African culture, from which other cultures evolved, such as Wawat, Yam, Kush, Meroe and so forth.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
Of course there was no Sudan 7000 years ago, but now there is. So of course they will use this terminology. How else are to going to make clear what regions / location they are referring at?
The dynastic Egypt is a time reference.
quote:Transplant is likely the wrong terminology indeed.
Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Right. So it wasn't so much that Egypt was a Sudanese transplant, it was an extension of indigenous Nile Valley African culture, from which other cultures evolved, such as Wawat, Yam, Kush, Meroe and so forth.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
Of course there was no Sudan 7000 years ago, but now there is. So of course they will use this terminology. How else are to going to make clear what regions / location they are referring at?
The dynastic Egypt is a time reference.
quote:No, that is not what I was saying. The question was from where did the culture originate. So I answered that.
Originally posted by Doug M:
The problem is we also know that Sudan is also used as a synonym for "black African" when it comes to the history of the Nile. Which is partly the point I believe you were originally making. We know this is simply a reflection of the fact of how the racist Europeans have decided to divide up the history of the Nile Valley based on race.
quote:I thought you already knew where the culture originated but confirming that others are acknowledging what many on this forum and elsewhere already know. Because to this day much of the scholarship on the Nile Valley divides Egypt from the rest of the Nile Valley on multiple levels, especially in the sense that Egypt is not an AFRICAN culture, which again we know is fake but scholarship refuses to let go of.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
quote:Transplant is likely the wrong terminology indeed.
Originally posted by Doug M:
quote:Right. So it wasn't so much that Egypt was a Sudanese transplant, it was an extension of indigenous Nile Valley African culture, from which other cultures evolved, such as Wawat, Yam, Kush, Meroe and so forth.
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
Of course there was no Sudan 7000 years ago, but now there is. So of course they will use this terminology. How else are to going to make clear what regions / location they are referring at?
The dynastic Egypt is a time reference.
They also speak of cataracts. But the average person doesn't understand that.
https://www.utdallas.edu/geosciences/remsens/Nile/cataracts.html
quote:No, that is not what I was saying. The question was from where did the culture originate. So I answered that.
Originally posted by Doug M:
The problem is we also know that Sudan is also used as a synonym for "black African" when it comes to the history of the Nile. Which is partly the point I believe you were originally making. We know this is simply a reflection of the fact of how the racist Europeans have decided to divide up the history of the Nile Valley based on race.
quote:https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum-exhibits/special-exhibits/nubia-salvage-project-1
The land of Nubia is a desert divided by the river Nile. For want of water and rich soil, most of Nubia has never been able to support a large population for long periods. However, some of Africa's greatest civilizations emerged here, centers of achievement whose existence was based on industry and trade. Because they did not write their own languages until very late in ancient times, we know these centers and their people largely through their archaeology and what the Egyptians and Greeks said about them.
An Early Kingdom in the Land of the Bow:
The A-Group, 3800-3100 B.C.
The first continuous agricultural tradition in Africa, the Sudanese-Saharan Neolithic, developed almost ten thousand years ago in country west of Nubia that is now desert.
The Nile Valley in Egypt had been inhospitable, but in the seasonally dry channels of the Second Cataract, early farmers learned to manage parts of the river's annual flood. This knowledge could then be applied in Egypt's wide floodplain, giving rise to the great sequence of Upper Egypt's early civilizations.
Upper Egypt soon grew wealthy and its culture expanded again into Nubia, where renewed southern contacts gave rise to the first of Nubia's trading cultures, called the A-Group. Incense, copper, gold, objects of shell, and semiprecious stones were traded northward in return for manufactured articles and probably agricultural produce.
Most surprising, evidence that early pharaohs ruled in A-Group Nubia was discovered by the Oriental Institute at Qustul, almost at the modern Sudanese border. A cemetery of large tombs contained evidence of wealth and representations of the rulers and their victories. Other representations and monuments could then be identified, and in the process, a lost kingdom, called Ta-Seti or Land of the Bow, was discovered. In fact, the cemetery at Qustul leads directly to the first great royal monuments of Egypt in a progression. Qustul in Nubia could well have been the seat of Egypt's founding dynasty.
quote:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301274605_Storage_amidst_early_agriculture_along_the_Nile_Perspectives_from_Sai_Island_Sudan
The transition to an agricultural economy hinges on both the presence of domestic plants, and the reorganization of labor and storage practices so that crops play ever-larger roles in human subsistence. Examining agricultural origins through the lens of changing storage practices offers novel insights about possible motives for early farming, and a clearer focus on how some of the “consequences” of agriculture e e.g. sedentarization, intensification of resource use, occupational specialization, and social differentiation e unfolded in specific times and places depending on management of physical storage facilities. In the Sahara and Nile, people prioritized different kinds of storage (social, physical, and environmental) in response to the changing opportunities and constraints they faced during early and middle Holocene times. Environmental storage (herding) held sway across much of northeast Africa until environmental deterioration pushed human populations into a small area near the Nile, where they developed physical storage facilities in the Fayum and Nile from the Delta south to Kerma. Discovery of wheat/barley in Sudan cemeteries predating these storage facilities suggests that herders were aware of southwest Asian crops for centuries before large-scale physical storage and regular farming took hold. Analysis of site 8-B52A on Sai Island shows the gradual development of a major storage facility that was used for centuries by local people who produced and processed southwest Asian crops, and undertook construction and maintenance without external input or control by a centralized authority. Sai's record contrasts with other areas along the Nile, where large-scale facilities quickly triggered profound social changes. Although food security needs motivated northeast Africans to undertake farming of southwest Asian crops and invest in physical storage facilities, people managed storage in locally distinctive ways. Only in a few places did they rapidly translate the practice of storage into new social and economic spheres that fostered social differentiation, long-distance trade and, ultimately, the centralized polities of Ancient Egypt and Kerma.
quote:http://www.ancientsudan.org/history_02_cultures.htm
The Expansion of Kerma: A-Group and C-Group
Archeological evidence indicates that by the mid-fourth millennia BC the cultural affluence of the Dongola Reach has expanded to other regions and societies across the Nile Valley. Kerma, within the Dongola Reach, became the headqurters of political leadership and the center of economic prosperity in the Middle Nile. The expansion of the culture of the Dongola Reach, and that of Kerma in particular, is best attested in the well studied A-Group and C-Group societies of Lower Nubia.
While the Dongola Reach had a relatively high population density, Lower Nubia was comparatively low in population. Being predominatly arid and difficult to cultivate, Lower Nubia may be best described as a buffer zone between Sudan and Egypt.
Due to their ethnic and cultural affiliation with Sudan, the people of Lower Nubia have represented a threat to the national solidatary of ancient Egypt, particularly in the Predynastic period. The Egyptian Pharaoh Menes, considered by many scholars to be the first true king of Egypt, considered defeating the Kushites as a necessary step to unifying Egypt.
The ancient Egyptians referred to Sudan as Kash, or Kush--of which Kerma was the primary municipality-- or alternatively as Nehasay.1 They also called Sudan Ta Sety meaning "land of the bow";2 that is because the Kushites were popular in the ancient world for their efficiency in using bows.
One of the oldest Egyptian depictions of a Kushite person is found in an inscription from Gebel Sheikh Suleiman in Lower Nubia, in the Sudan's nothern border.3 The inscription is dated to Predynastic Egypt and shows a scorpion and a bound Kushite captive. The Kushite identity of the captive is defined by his feather. Another figure, in the same inscription, is shown with a bow, which is a symbol of Kush. Beside indicating the importance of Sudan in the development of Predynastic Egypt, the inscription suggests that the people of Kush were active in the affairs of Upper Egypt. Such conclusion corroborates the infiltration of the Kerma culture in Lower Nubia as attested in the archeology of the A-Group and C-Group.
The A-Group:
The A-Group population flourished in Lower Nubia around 3500 BC. The tumilus burial tradition, along with other visual evidence extracted from pottery analysis, indicates that the Group has originated from the Dongola Reach area of Sudan. The Sudanese origin of the Group has been supported by recent research,4 which dismissed the traditional theory that claimed native Lower Nubian roots.
The A-Group population practiced flood plain agriculture, animal husbandry, and conducted trade.5 Unfortunately, the Group's settlements cannot be traced in precision because of two reasons. First, their houses were built of perishable materials, such as unbaked-mud. Second, the Group's settlements were established very close to the Nile river where seasonal floods would have destroyed them long time ago.6 Therefore, most of what we know about the A-Group culture comes from the cemeteries located few miles away from the Nile Valley.
The material culture uncovered from the burials suggests a complex culture with a hierarchical structure.7 Excavations in cemeteries, in Sudan's northern border area, provided a good insight on the social complexity of the Group.8 The sizes of the graves there indicate the social status of the deceased. The larger the grave the richer was the deceased, and the smaller the poorer was the deceased.
Excavation in A-Group cemeteries, uncovered everyday life tools. Findings included jewelry, weapons, plates, beakers, storage jars, and cups. Pottery, however, is the most abundant of all the grave finds, and has been essential for informing archeologists on the culture of the Group. Incised and impressionistic decorations are typical of the A-Group pottery and attest to the Sudanese roots of the culture. Foreign pottery from Syro-Palestine and Egypt has been found in considerable amounts indicating that the Group has practiced extensive trade.9
An important A-Group cemetery is located in the modern village of Qustul.10 Some graves there reach 34.34 square meters.11 Their roofs were built of Timber and were found containing high quality goods including gold and copper objects.12
Owners of these graves were leaders of some sort; however, whether they ruled all of Lower Nubia, or parts of it, is unknown. An incense burner was found depicting the figure of a pharaoh, who was probably Kushite according to the type of fashion he was depicted as wearing. (The dress included a long belt that dangled all the way down to the knees, i.e. a typical Kushite dress).13 The archeological evidence for the economic and social structure of the A-Group indicates a chiefdom, or perhaps a princedom.
Recent analysis have pointed to the elite burial tradition of the silo-pit among the A-Group, which originated from Kerma.15 The fact that A-Group's pits were much smaller than those of Kerma, may indicate a vassal-kingdom relationship. In other words, the A-Group chiefdom is likely to have been a subordinate to the more powerful kingdom of Kush, centered at Kerma. Accordingly, the rulers of the Group may have not been more than princes or vassals to the kings at Kerma. This suggestion would explain the disappearance of the A-Group when Egypt took control of Lower Nubia in 2900 BC. As suggested by some scholars, it appears more than likely, that the Egyptians have expelled the A-Group.16 No archeological evidence indicates the continuation of the A-Group after 2900 BC, (except for little traces of the culture in the second cataract area). It appears more likely to scholars that they were expelled by the Egyptians and probably forced to return to their ancestral homeland in Sudan.
quote:http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/22/uncovering-the-origins-of-ancient-egypt/
Ancient Egypt has stood out even among the impressive remains of other ancient civilizations for three main reasons: the pyramids are enormous, the cultural style and imagery remained consistent for ages, and it is really, really old. In fact, the pyramids were roughly as old to ancient tourists from classical Greece as the ruins of Athens and Delphi are to us today.
One of the biggest questions surrounding ancient Egypt then is “where did it come from?” Last week at the Dialogue of Civilizations in Guatemala, National Geographic grantee Renée Friedman of the British Museum, and Ramadan Hussein, recent recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship at the University of Tuebingen, set out to answer that question.
quote:I take it you are referring to the Khartoum Mesolithic-Neolithic Complex. This is what I meant by predecessors of Badarian and Tasian being the Sudanese transplants. But yeah "Sudan" has no meaning in this time period.
Originally posted by Doug M:
Again there was no Sudan 7000 years ago and there was no dynastic Egypt either. What you had were various small clusters of populations at various points of the Nile MOST OF WHICH WERE ON THE UPPER NILE going into what is now Sudan. Therefore, these populations would have been moving around looking for suitable habitation in these areas and of course would all have been closely related as "Nile Valley/Saharan" population cluster. The idea that there was some 'magical' racial division between one of these population clusters and the other population clusters based purely on pottery styles is utter nonsense. The source of all these populations was ultimately further South and in the Sahara during the last wet phase when the areas of what would become dynastic Egypt were sparsely populated. Ancient centers of human habitation on the Nile were Nabta Playa, Wadi Kubbaniyah and the Khartoum Mesolithic sites. So yes, even though there was no "Sudan" at the time, much of the culture of dynastic KMT came from populations further South in Africa proper.
quote:I don't know about connecting Kubbaniya to Natufians. The Natufian culture may have different roots though no doubt still African.
In fact, Wadi Kubbaniyah is the site of some of the earliest evidence of the human use of grinders and other implements to exploit wild grains which was an important step leading to plant domestication. This underlines and promotes the notion of African migrants into the Levant ultimately driving the development of agriculture based on older African patterns of wild plant management ("basal Eurasian" and Natuficans).
quote:I don't think there is a disagreement?
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
^ to = The position...
quote:Agreed. However, I mentioned Wadi Kubbaniyah as an example of the African cultural precursors that may have ultimately led to the migrations into the Levant that helped develop agriculture.
Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:I take it you are referring to the Khartoum Mesolithic-Neolithic Complex. This is what I meant by predecessors of Badarian and Tasian being the Sudanese transplants. But yeah "Sudan" has no meaning in this time period.
Originally posted by Doug M:
Again there was no Sudan 7000 years ago and there was no dynastic Egypt either. What you had were various small clusters of populations at various points of the Nile MOST OF WHICH WERE ON THE UPPER NILE going into what is now Sudan. Therefore, these populations would have been moving around looking for suitable habitation in these areas and of course would all have been closely related as "Nile Valley/Saharan" population cluster. The idea that there was some 'magical' racial division between one of these population clusters and the other population clusters based purely on pottery styles is utter nonsense. The source of all these populations was ultimately further South and in the Sahara during the last wet phase when the areas of what would become dynastic Egypt were sparsely populated. Ancient centers of human habitation on the Nile were Nabta Playa, Wadi Kubbaniyah and the Khartoum Mesolithic sites. So yes, even though there was no "Sudan" at the time, much of the culture of dynastic KMT came from populations further South in Africa proper.
quote:I don't know about connecting Kubbaniya to Natufians. The Natufian culture may have different roots though no doubt still African.
In fact, Wadi Kubbaniyah is the site of some of the earliest evidence of the human use of grinders and other implements to exploit wild grains which was an important step leading to plant domestication. This underlines and promotes the notion of African migrants into the Levant ultimately driving the development of agriculture based on older African patterns of wild plant management ("basal Eurasian" and Natuficans).
quote:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
quote:I take it you are referring to the Khartoum Mesolithic-Neolithic Complex. This is what I meant by predecessors of Badarian and Tasian being the Sudanese transplants. But yeah "Sudan" has no meaning in this time period.
Originally posted by Doug M:
Again there was no Sudan 7000 years ago and there was no dynastic Egypt either. What you had were various small clusters of populations at various points of the Nile MOST OF WHICH WERE ON THE UPPER NILE going into what is now Sudan. Therefore, these populations would have been moving around looking for suitable habitation in these areas and of course would all have been closely related as "Nile Valley/Saharan" population cluster. The idea that there was some 'magical' racial division between one of these population clusters and the other population clusters based purely on pottery styles is utter nonsense. The source of all these populations was ultimately further South and in the Sahara during the last wet phase when the areas of what would become dynastic Egypt were sparsely populated. Ancient centers of human habitation on the Nile were Nabta Playa, Wadi Kubbaniyah and the Khartoum Mesolithic sites. So yes, even though there was no "Sudan" at the time, much of the culture of dynastic KMT came from populations further South in Africa proper.
quote:I don't know about connecting Kubbaniya to Natufians. The Natufian culture may have different roots though no doubt still African.
In fact, Wadi Kubbaniyah is the site of some of the earliest evidence of the human use of grinders and other implements to exploit wild grains which was an important step leading to plant domestication. This underlines and promotes the notion of African migrants into the Levant ultimately driving the development of agriculture based on older African patterns of wild plant management ("basal Eurasian" and Natuficans).
quote:—Matthieu Honeggera, Martin Williams b et al.
Our article presents a detailed Holocene archaeological sequence from the Nile Valley at Kerma in Upper Nubia, northern Sudan. This sequence retraces the evolution of human populations thanks to the study of several sites, supported by 90 14C dates. Reconstruction of the environmental changes was supported by a study of dated stratigraphic sections located near the archaeological sites studied, and illustrates the effects on human occupation of changes in river flow and floods, which are in turn forced by climatic changes. The results shed new light on the evolutionary dynamics of the Holocene populations in Nile Valley, little known due to the numerous hiatuses in occupation. When compared with the situation in the Sahara and the rest of the Nile Valley, they confirm that the initial occupation took place ca. 10.5 kyr BP after the start of the African Humid Period, followed by a migration towards the banks of the Nile commencing 7.3 kyr BP. They also confirm the appearance of the Neolithic by ca. 8.0 kyr BP. The Kerma stratigraphic sequences show two prosperous periods (10–8 and 7-6 kyr BP) and two hiatuses in the occupation of the sites (7.5–7.1 and 6.0–5.4 kyr BP), resulting from increased aridity.
quote:—Matthieu Honeggera
El- Barga reveals one of the most important necropoleis of the early Holocene in Africa.
This site was discovered in 2001 during a survey concentrating on the zones bordering the alluvial plain. The name el-Barga is borrowed from a nearby mountain. The site is located on an elevation formed by an outcrop of bedrock (Nubian sandstone) less than 15 km from the Nile, as the crow flies. It includes a settlement area dated to circa 7500 B.C. and cemeteries belonging to two distinct periods.
The habitation is a circular hut slightly less than five metres in diameter, its maximum depth exceeding 50 centimetres. This semi-subterranean structure contained a wealth of artefacts resulting from the site’s occupation (ceramics, grinding tools, flint objects, ostrich eggshell beads, a mother-of-pearl pendant, bone tools, faunal remains, shells). The abundance of artefacts discovered suggests a marked inclination towards a sedentary lifestyle, even though certain activities (fishing and hunting) necessitate seasonal migration.
North of this habitation, about forty burials were dated to the Epipalaeolithic (7700-7000 B.C.) and generally do not contain any furnishings. On the other hand, the Neolithic cemetery (6000-5500 B.C.) located further south comprises about a hundred burials often containing artefacts (adornment, ceramics, flint or bone objects).
quote:Paleoclimate and archaeological evidence tells us that, 11,000-5,000 years ago, the Earth's slow orbital 'wobble' transformed today's Sahara desert to a land covered with vegetation and lakes.
Figure 1: Images of North African prehistoric rock and cave paintings.
From (a, b) Swimmer’s Cave (Wadi Sura, southern Egypt), (c) the Ennedi massif (northeastern Chad) and (d) Zolat el Hammad, Wadi Howar (northern Sudan).
Evidence for the African Humid Period
The Early Holocene AHP is one of the most thoroughly documented and well-dated climate change events in the geologic record, and the number and diversity of paleoclimate records is remarkable (COHMAP Members, 1988; deMenocal et al., 2000; Gasse, 2000; Hoelzmann et al., 1998; Jolly, 1998; Kroepelin, 2008; Kuper and Kröpelin, 2006). Through these terrestrial and marine records we can document both the timing and extent of the humid interval.
Geological evidence for past lake basins in the Sahara are commonly found near interdune depressions and other low-lying regions, where ancient lake bed sediment outcrops and shoreline deposits are exposed. Most of the early Holocene paleolakes were small, but numerous and widespread (Figure 2b). Some lake basins in North Africa were exceptionally large, as large as the Caspian Sea today. These so-called megalakes occurred in the North (Megalake Fezzan, Libya), South (Megalake Chad, Chad/Niger/Nigeria), West (Chotts Megalakes, Algeria) and East (Megalakes Turkana and Kenya) (Drake and Bristow, 2006). Based on their stratigraphic records, these must have been permanent, open-basin lakes, indicating that annual moisture supply exceeded evaporation for many millennia during the AHP, even in the driest regions of the modern-day Sahara.
A continent-wide compilation of past lake-level reconstructions (the Oxford Lake Level Database (OLLD) (COHMAP Members, 1988; Street-Perrott et al., 1989)) updated with lake-level reconstructions published in the last twenty years (Tierney et al., 2011) chronicles the changes in lake levels that occurred across Africa as a result of the African Humid Period (Figure 2b). This database classifies lakes as "low" (lake is within 0–15% of its potential volume or dry), "intermediate" (lake is within 15–70% of its potential volume) or "high" (lake is within 70–100% of its potential volume or overflowing) every 1000 years during the late-glacial period and the Holocene. The difference in lake levels at 9000 years — the height of the African Humid Period — relative to the conditions today shows that the extent of the AHP across the continent was vast — extending from the far northern Sahara to as far south as 10˚S in East Africa (Figure 3).
quote:--Joel D Irish
TABLE 2. Dental trait percentages (%) and number of individuals scored (n) for 15 Egyptian samples 1 Trait 2 Upper Egyptian samples Lower Egyptian samples GRM BAD NAQ HRK ABY THE QUR HES KHA TAR SAQ LIS GIZ GEG HAW
quote:--J.D. Irisha, R. Friedman
There is no significant dental difference between the Hierakonpolis C-Group and samples originating in Nubia proper
quote:If "Caucasoids" or the "dynastic race" was found as far south as Nubt in Petrie's findings, what has since been released that responds to his conclusions about the crania?
Originally posted by Ish Gebor:
quote:--G. J. Tassie (University of Winchester) and Joris van Wetering (ECHO)
Introduction to Research at Naqada Region
The Naqada region is located to the north of Luxor in Upper Egypt. The settlement of Nubt-South Town is located on the west bank of the Nile halfway between the modern towns of Kom Billal and el-Zawayda and is the most famous and largest settlement in the Naqada region, which consists of a cluster of sites of differing sizes and types (see Fig. 1).
Together with Hierakonpolis and Abydos, Nubt-South Town is one of the most important sites for understanding the socio-economic developments that occurred during the Predynastic (Naqada I-II, 3,900-3,300 BC) to Protodynastic (Naqada IIIA-B, 3,300-3,060 BC) periods, and represents one of the primary political centres of early Egypt. As such, it was a major player in the process of state formation (Wilkinson 2000). As the funerary remains cover the entire Predynastic and Protodynastic periods, it is enormously important for both chronological and bioarchaeological studies (Hendrickx 1986).
Petrie uncovered a huge cemetery (N or the Great New Race Cemetery), along with other smaller cemeteries (B and T) and several structures (South Town area) as well as finding indications of Predynastic occupation around the temple area (Nubt area). Subsequent investigations by Kaiser (1961) have identified settlement remains dating to the Predynastic and later along the floodplain edge north of the South Town spur and in front of the Temple spur. He also identified a Predynastic cemetery located just to the north of the temple spur. Re-analyse of Cemetery N, primarily by Bard (1987; 1989; 1994) has allowed for a better understanding of the distribution of early remains at Nubt-South Town (van Wetering & Tassie in press).
The History and Research of the Naqada Region Collection
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/directory/material_culture_wengrow/Geoffrey_Tassie-Joris_van_Wetering.pdf