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Hair of mummified remains...
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan: [QB] Let me see if I have all the data you are presenting right. Based on the environmental factors you mention, hair color in ancient mummies can be misinterpreted. But I am wondering also if hair differences are not part of built in African genetic diversity? Looking again at that Senna research: (Hrdy 1978- Analysis of Hair Samples of Mummies from Semna South, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, (1978) 49: 277-262) Hair samples of Egyptian and Nubian mummies have undergone a number of studies. ( Pruner-Bey (1877, Virchow (1898), (1899, Brothwell and Spearman (1963)). Hair color in ancient remains is often influenced by environmental conditions. Brothwell and Spearman (1963) studied ancient mummies using a variety of techniques. They found the state of preservation of the samples closely related to environmental factors of the burial sites, pointing out that reddish-brown ancient color hair is usually the result of partial oxidation of the melanin pigment. (Brothwell. D., and R. Spearman 1963 The hair of earlier peoples. In: Science in Archaeology. D. Brothwell and E. Higgs, eds. Thames and Hudeon, London. ) Thus variations in hair color among mummies do not necessarily suggest the presence of blond or red haired Europeans or Near Easterners flitting about Egypt before being mummified, but the influence of environmental factors impacting surviving remains. Other sources of hair color variation could include the mummification process with its use of alkalines and sodium, can also bleach surviving hair samples into various colors ranging from a browning to yellowing, as also noted by Brothjwell and Spearman. Varying hair color is also not unusual in Africa. Blondism for example is found in various regions. The author asserts that Nubians may have had lighter hair in the past than now, and argues that the samples were better preserved from environmentl damage. Is this really so, and if there was a lighter haired population, is that based on race admixture or yet more routine variability in African populations? It should be noted that a large portion of the Senna sample had bleaching- the reddish-brown oxidation of melanin - noted by Brothwell and Spearman, and the author specifically do not rule this out as an influence on the study. Curling data showed a pattern intermediate between Northwest European and African samples. The X-group, especially males, showed more African elements than the Meroitic in the curling variables. Seems to me that this intermediate position would not indicate race admixture or percentages, but simply a data pattern of variation in how hair curls. This is a routine occurrence within human groups. Among Europeans for example, some people have curlier hair and some have straighter hair than others. Various peoples of East and West Africa also have narrow noses, which are different from other peoples elsewhere in Africa, nevertheless they still remain Africans. DNA studies also note greater variation within selected populations that without. Since Africa has the highest genetic diversity in the world, such routine variation in characteristics such as hair need not indicate any racial percentage or admixture, but simply part of the built-in genetic diversity of the ancient peoples on the continent. As regards diameter, the study found that the average diameter of the Semna sample was close to both the Northwest European and East African samples. This again suggests a range of built-in indigenous variability, and calls into questions various migration theories to Nubia and the Nile Valley. As far as the populations most likely to be in Nubia, in 1971 Czech anthropologist Strouhal asserted that the original Nubian population were all white Europids, overrun by waves of late-coming blacks. This view is given great weight in various "Aryan" websites but has has been thoroughly debunked by modern scholarship. It thus seems unlikely an assortment of white people would have been waiting patiently in Nubia for blacks to overrun them, thus creating that there "mixed" pattern of hair. Another theory given weight on said websites is of native black stock that was transformed by waves of incoming white people- thus giving rise to all that "mixed" hair (Northwest Europeans like Germans, Swedes, Danes, Scots etc) in some versions. This too seems unlikely. Both skeletal and DNA studies i ndicate that the peoples of the Sahara, Sudan and East Africa have much closer connections to Nubia and the Nile Valley than Europeans. See "UNFAIR" below. Rather than confirm racial percentage or white migration models, the hair studies seem a confirmation of the OOA model: built-in African genetic variability giving rise to numerous variations in hair color, texture and form. This variability would first begin in Africa, spreading to various parts of the continent, before spreading out to different parts of the globe. I find that Hrdy's 1978 study seems to hold to a "true Negro" model, in that variability is viewed as either clustering towards the northwest European average or "African elements" - in other words, its got to be either black or white, with "black" or "negroid" defined more narrowly. The study design is front-loaded using this fundamental underlying assumption, as are other referenced, defining "negroid" hair in the narrowest terms possible. When race models are cross-checked against other data, such as the limb proportion studies noted by Knowledge, the melanin data of Dejuhut, King, etc, the DNA data presented by Rasol, as well as the various studies by Keita, built-in indigenous genetic variabilty seems a much more balanced and solid explanation of hair differences in Nile Valley populations than models that postulate race percents and admixtures and/or demic diffusion type influxes of incoming European or Near Eastern colonists. Interestingly, the author Hrdy in passing also notes that blondism, especially in young children, is common in many dark-haired populations (e.g., Australian, Melanesian), and is still found in some Nubian villages. This again suggests routine built-in genetic variability in the ancient populations rather than influxes of Europeans or related populations. USE OF NORTHWEST EUROPEANS BY KEITA "UNFAIR"? Some on various websites have argued that that the use of Northwest Europe as a point of comparison with Africans is "unfair". But when Hrdy above does it, they do not complain, but embrace any information on "African" hair being "closer" to that of Europeans, proof of European migration or admixture into the Dark Continent. They do not complain about the 1993 Clines and Clusters analysis by Brace which excluded the Maghreb, Sudan and Horn of Africa from its grouping of "African" peoples, and seemed to suggest a population relationship between Scandanavians and Horn of Africa peoples. Indeed, they embrace this methodology. In his 2005 EARLY NILE VALLEY FARMERS FROM EL-BADARI, Aboriginals or “European”Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data.) Keita put such methods to the test, testing the notion of population replacement of ancient African stocks in Egypt (the Badari) by an influx of ancient European farmers or colonists. What he found was that no matter how the data algoritm was sliced, the ancient samples clustered much closer to Saharo-tropical Africans than to the Northwest European samples. One of his conclusions was that similarities between African data (skulls, hairs whatever) and others was not due to gene flow, but a subset of built-in African variability. The notion of influxes of ancient Euro farmers into the indigenous populations thus seems a shaky one. Is such testing by Keita "unfair" seeing that the influx model holds such great sway? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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