It's too long in my opinion which is why I had to watch it in parts. Also, the title is somewhat misleading because the guy goes all the way to human origins in Africa and OOA. He would then use (AI?) generated artwork of modern Africans to portray paleolithic populations even though paleolithic populations of Africa are very different from modern populations both genetically and craniofacially, despite having dark/black skin.
In regards to the Green Sahara and the Aqualithic Culture, unfortunately the archaeology is sparse and we still don't know enough about this culture which was actually one of many cultures in that region but it is the Central Sahara that is the link between West Africa and Egypt.
We see genetic clues to this.
HBS (sickle cell)
HLA genes
Autosomal markers
mtDNA lineages
The populations of the Holocene Sahara were ancestral to many peoples not just Egyptians and West Africans.
Djehuti Member # 6698
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Area of the Aqualithic Culture.
Examples of the Aqualithic Culture.
The Tashwinat child mummy Uan Muhuggiag.
The Tin Hanakaten child mummy.
Djehuti Member # 6698
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Has anyone come across any craniological studies of the Central Saharan mummies?? I've only come across references which remark that they have a combination of "Mediterranean" and "negroid" features, but the same can be said about other North African crania including Egyptians. The above photo and description of Tin Hanakaten child skull for example labels him "negroid" due to prognathism but such was not uncommon in predynastic Badarians of Egypt.
This reminds me of the 2002 P.M. Vermeersch study where he states "In addition it is possible to detect a separation between North African and sub-saharan populations, with the Neolithic Saharan population from Hasi el Abiod and the Egyptian Badarian group being closely affiliated with modern Negroid groups..."
This also reminds me of Colin Groves findings on Saharan populations: Today the North African and Sub-Saharan genepools are separated by the Sahara arid zone, a wide sparsely populated region whose people are intermediate morphologically between “Caucasoid” and “Negroid”. While the late and terminal Pleistocene populations of northern Africa were noticeably more robust than their present-day descendants (as were those of Europe), like them they were differentiated into more northerly “Caucasoid” and more southerly “Negroid” morphologies. Yet the transition between these two geographic forms was much further north in the terminal Pleistocene than today; the terminal Pleistocene Nubians and the Asselar skull are as “Negroid” as are the modern Teita of Kenya; the intermediates today are the Dogon of Mali, but in the terminal Pleistocene the intermediates were the people of Afalou-bou-Rhummel in Algeria. --'The Terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene populations of northern Africa'
BrandonP Member # 3735
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti:
This also reminds me of Colin Groves findings on Saharan populations: Today the North African and Sub-Saharan genepools are separated by the Sahara arid zone, a wide sparsely populated region whose people are intermediate morphologically between “Caucasoid” and “Negroid”. While the late and terminal Pleistocene populations of northern Africa were noticeably more robust than their present-day descendants (as were those of Europe), like them they were differentiated into more northerly “Caucasoid” and more southerly “Negroid” morphologies. Yet the transition between these two geographic forms was much further north in the terminal Pleistocene than today; the terminal Pleistocene Nubians and the Asselar skull are as “Negroid” as are the modern Teita of Kenya; the intermediates today are the Dogon of Mali, but in the terminal Pleistocene the intermediates were the people of Afalou-bou-Rhummel in Algeria. 'The Terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene populations of northern Africa'
I'm surprised he considers the Dogon to be morphologically intermediate between North and sub-Saharan peoples. I know about Tishkoff 2009 finding a large pseudo-Eurasian component in their autosomal ancestry, but the Dogon to me look like stereotypical "sub-Saharan" West Africans phenotypically. Though admittedly I am doing "eyeball anthropology" here.
Djehuti Member # 6698
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^ Yeah, that's why I was surprised too but apparently Groves did a metric analysis of Dogon skulls for him to reach that conclusion.
I used to have access to the original Groves study, but here is the abstract: We studied three northern African samples of human cranial remains from the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary: Afalou-bou-Rhummel, Taforalt, and Sudanese Nubia (Jebel Sahaba and Tushka), and compared them to late Pleistocene Europeans and modern Europeans and Africans. Despite their relatively late dates, all three of our own samples exhibit the robusticity typical of late Pleistocene Homo sapiens. As far as population affinities are concerned, Taforalt is Caucasoid and closely resembles late Pleistocene Europeans, Sudanese Nubia is Negroid, and Afalou exhibits an intermediate status. Evidently the Caucasoid/Negroid transition has fluctuated north and south over time, perhaps following the changes in the distribution of climatic zones.
Taforalt's metric position is interesting considering his autosomal genetic findings.
The early Holocene crania of Hassi-el-Abiod, Mauritania are also classified as intermediate between Iberomarusians and Sub-Saharans.
Djehuti Member # 6698
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Then there's also Asselar Man discovered in the Kidal area of Mali which was hailed as the earliest known "Negroid" skull in Africa even among Euronuts.
Yet strangely the cranium doesn't look anymore "Negroid" than many Egyptian skulls I've seen or perhaps it's just my eyeball anthropology.
BrandonP Member # 3735
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Then there's also Asselar Man discovered in the Kidal area of Mali which was hailed as the earliest known "Negroid" skull in Africa even among Euronuts.
Yet strangely the cranium doesn't look anymore "Negroid" than many Egyptian skulls I've seen or perhaps it's just my eyeball anthropology.
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^ Great find! I've only seen excerpts of that old Braeur study. So according to that graph Asselar is indeed close to Badarians as I suspected and if I'm reading it correctly Asselar falls squarely in the 'Negrid' column whereas the Badarian is intermediate between 'Negrid' and 'Europid' while the Kenyan Elmenteita and Gamble's Cave fall squarely in the latter. But note how both Wadi Halfa and Jebel Sahaba are also in the same intermediate area as Badarian.
BrandonP Member # 3735
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Great find! I've only seen excerpts of that old Braeur study. So according to that graph Asselar is indeed close to Badarians as I suspected and if I'm reading it correctly Asselar falls squarely in the 'Negrid' column whereas the Badarian is intermediate between 'Negrid' and 'Europid' while the Kenyan Elmenteita and Gamble's Cave fall squarely in the latter. But note how both Wadi Halfa and Jebel Sahaba are also in the same intermediate area as Badarian.
It seems to be not a PCA chart but rather one that sorts skeletal remains into four typological categories (“archaeomorph”, Khoisan-like, “Negrid”, and “Europid”), although it is interesting that Badarians, Wadi Halfa, and Jebel Sahaba are placed in what appears to be an intermediate position between the “Negrid” and “Europid” types as you noted. The Y axis is for chronological age.
LoStranger Member # 23740
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Great find! I've only seen excerpts of that old Braeur study. So according to that graph Asselar is indeed close to Badarians as I suspected and if I'm reading it correctly Asselar falls squarely in the 'Negrid' column whereas the Badarian is intermediate between 'Negrid' and 'Europid' while the Kenyan Elmenteita and Gamble's Cave fall squarely in the latter. But note how both Wadi Halfa and Jebel Sahaba are also in the same intermediate area as Badarian.
What's even more interesting is despite Taforalt being classified as "Europid" we now it's has around 50% ANA or 1/3 SSA ancestry. Who's to say Badari won't score an even higher African percentage especially since it's closer to being "Negroid" than Taforalt.
the lioness, Member # 17353
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quote:Originally posted by LoStranger: Taforalt being classified as "Europid" we now it's has around 50% ANA or 1/3 SSA ancestry.
2018 May 4;360(6388):548-552. doi: 10.1126/science.aar8380. Epub 2018 Mar 15. Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations Marieke van de Loosdrecht
The Taforalt individuals derive one-third of their ancestry from sub-Saharan Africans, best approximated by a mixture of genetic components preserved in present-day West and East Africans...
The relationships of the Iberomaurusian culture with those of the preceding Middle Stone Age, including the local backed bladelet technologies in Northeast Africa, and the Epigravettian in Southern Europe have been questioned (13). The genetic profile of Taforalt suggests substantial Natufian-related and sub-Saharan African–related ancestries (63.5 and 36.5%, respectively) but not additional ancestry from Epigravettian or other Upper Paleolithic European populations. Therefore, we provide genomic evidence for a Late Pleistocene connection between North Africa and the Near East, predating the Neolithic transition by at least four millennia, while rejecting the hypothesis of a potential Epigravettian gene flow from Southern Europe into northern Africa, within the resolution of our data. Archaeogenetic studies on additional Iberomaurusian sites will be critical to evaluate the representativeness of Taforalt for the Iberomaurusian gene pool. We speculate that the Natufian-related ancestral population may have been widespread across North Africa and the Near East, associated with microlithic backed bladelet technologies that started to spread out in this area by at least 25,000 yr B.P. [(10) and references therein]. However, given the absence of ancient genomic data from a similar time frame for this broader area, the epicenter of expansion, if any, for this ancestral population remains unknown. Although the oldest Iberomaurusian microlithic bladelet technologies are found earlier in the Maghreb than their equivalents in northeastern Africa (Cyrenaica) and the earliest Natufian in the Levant, the complex sub-Saharan ancestry in Taforalt makes our individuals an unlikely proxy for the ancestral population of later Natufians who do not harbor sub-Saharan ancestry. An epicenter in the Maghreb is plausible only if the sub-Saharan African admixture into Taforalt either postdated the expansion into the Levant or was a locally confined phenomenon. Alternatively, placing the epicenter in Cyrenaica or the Levant requires an additional explanation for the observed archaeological chronology.
We analyzed the genetic affinities of the Taforalt individuals by performing principal components analysis and model-based clustering of worldwide data (Fig. 2). When projected onto the top principal components of African and west Eurasian populations, the Taforalt individuals form a distinct cluster in an intermediate position between present-day North Africans [e.g., Amazighes (Berbers), Mozabites, and Saharawis] and East Africans (e.g., Afars, Oromos, and Somalis) (Fig. 2A). Consistently, we find that all males with sufficient nuclear DNA preservation carry Y haplogroup E1b1b1a1 (M-78; table S16). This haplogroup occurs most frequently in present-day North and East African populations (18). The closely related E1b1b1b (M-123) haplogroup has been reported for Epipaleolithic Natufians and Pre-Pottery Neolithic Levantines (Levant_N) (16)
However you will not see in this article or other articles "ANA" being used to describe "Ancestral North Africans" as if an abbreviation "ANA" is defined genetically. It is a mistake to use "ANA" intending it to mean "Ancestral North Africans" and relate it to Taforalt when there are sites in North Africa much older than Iberomaurusian (but not DNA tested yet) and may or may not be similar genetically. As bolded above in the very article talking about 1/3 SSA:
quote:the absence of ancient genomic data from a similar time frame for this broader area, the epicenter of expansion, if any, for this ancestral population remains unknown
In fact the abbreviation ANA has instead been used in science articles indicating "Ancient North Asian" https://tinyurl.com/4fubd2kp
And different articles, the theories on Taforalt remains are not all the same, though they might have some overlap >>
Paleolithic DNA from the Caucasus reveals core of West Eurasian ancestry Iosif Lazaridis 2018
If our model is correct, Epipaleolithic Natufians trace part of their ancestry to North Africa, consistent with morphological and archaeological studies that indicate a spread of morphological features and artifacts from North Africa into the Near East. Such a scenario would also explain the presence of Y-chromosome haplogroup E in the Natufians and Levantine farmers, a common link between the Levant and Africa. Moreover, our model predicts that West Africans (represented by Yoruba) had 12.5±1.1% ancestry from a Taforalt related group rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source [11]; this may have mediated the limited Neanderthal admixture present in West Africans[23] . An advantage of our model is that it allows for a local North African component in the ancestry of Taforalt, rather than deriving them exclusively from Levantine and Sub-Saharan sources...
Western PGNE populations, including Neolithic Anatolians, pre-pottery Neolithic farmers from the Levant (PPNB), Natufians, and Taforalt, can all be modeled as a mixture of Dzudzuana and additional ‘Deep’ ancestry that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians.
[11] van de Loosdrecht, M. et al. Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub Saharan African human populations. Science, (2018).
Djehuti Member # 6698
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^ Let's not forget the Hadza-like influence in such ancestry as well as the nature of Basal Eurasian.
quote:Originally posted by LoStranger: What's even more interesting is despite Taforalt being classified as "Europid" we now it's has around 50% ANA or 1/3 SSA ancestry. Who's to say Badari won't score an even higher African percentage especially since it's closer to being "Negroid" than Taforalt.
Yet Lachish looks "negroid" but lacks African genetic affinity so who knows until we get some good analysis on them.
Then again, we have the following results from Upper Nubian Kadruka.
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