Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[Big Triece]

A 2009 linguistic study that I recently came across:

Using primarily linguistic evidence, and taking into account recent archaeology at sites such as Hierakonpolis/Nekhen, as well as the symbolic meaning of objects such as sceptres and headrests in Ancient Egyptian and contemporary African cultures, this paper traces the geographical location and movements of early peoples in and around the Nile Valley. It is possible from this overview of the data to conclude that the limited conceptual vocabulary shared by the ancestors of contemporary Chadic-speakers (therefore also contemporary Cushitic-speakers), contemporary Nilotic-speakers and Ancient Egyptian-speakers suggests that the earliest speakers of the Egyptian language could be located to the south of Upper Egypt or, earlier, in the Sahara. The marked grammatical and lexicographic affinities of Ancient Egyptian with Chadic are well-known, and consistent Nilotic cultural, religious and political patterns are detectable in the formation of the first Egyptian kingships. The question these data raise is the articulation between the languages and the cultural patterns of this pool of ancient African societies from which emerged Predynastic Egypt.

"It is possible from this overview of the data to conclude that the limited conceptual vocabulary shared by the ancestors of contemporary Chadic-speakers (therefore also contemporary Cushitic-speakers), contemporary Nilotic-speakers and Ancient Egyptian-speakers suggests that the earliest speakers of the Egyptian language could be located to the south of Upper Egypt (Diakonoff 1998) or, earlier, in the Sahara (Wendorf 2004), where Takács (1999, 47) suggests their ‘long co-existence’ can be found. In addition, it is consistent with this view to suggest that the northern border of their homeland was further than the Wadi Howar proposed by Blench (1999, 2001), which is actually its southern border. Neither Chadics nor Cushitics existed at this time, but their ancestors lived in a homeland further north than the peripheral countries that they inhabited thereafter, to the south-west, in a Niger-Congo environment, and to the south-east, in a Nilo-Saharan environment, where they interacted and innovated in terms of language. From this perspective, the Upper Egyptian cultures were an ancient North East African ‘periphery at the crossroads’, as suggested by Dahl and Hjort-af-Ornas of the Beja (Dahl and Hjort-af-Ornas 2006).

The most likely scenario could be this: some of these Saharo-Nubian populations spread southwards to Wadi Howar, Ennedi and Darfur; some stayed in the actual oases where they joined the inhabitants; and others moved towards the Nile, directed by two geographic obstacles, the western Great Sand Sea and the southern Rock Belt. Their slow perambulations led them from the area of Sprinkle Mountain (Gebel Uweinat) to the east – Bir Sahara, Nabta Playa, Gebel Ramlah, and Nekhen/Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt), and to the north-east by way of Dakhla Oasis to Abydos (Middle Egypt)."--Anselin (2009)

--Dr. Alain Anselin (University of Antilles-Guyane) Some notes about an early African pool of cultures from which emerged Egyptian civilization.
In: Egypt in its African Context. 2009. Proceedings of the conference held at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, ENgland. Karen Exell (ed). BAR International Series 2204 2011
Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports

[SirNitram]

I'm tempted, at five months, to just say necro. But perhaps this will actually contain some logic and discussion.

[LadyTevar]

No, it's a clear Necro of a useless topic that he failed to prove last time.

LOCKED

[Edi]

Thread reopened. This thread got neglected and fell by the wayside in the past, but the debate is still ongoing. Thanas still has his five point rebuttal to complete and has expressed interest in doing so.

Therefore this thread stays open for the time being.

[Big Triece]

Wow half a year later and still no "5 point rebuttal" to Mentuhoteps points.

It has pretty much been mutually agreed on that the indigenous Northeast African origins of ancient Egypt are undeniable. The closest people in terms of physical appearance to the ancient Egyptians are modern Horn Africans populations (based on biological evidence). Whether or not people want to consider people who look like Somalis and Ethiopians as "black" is up to them.

[Thanas]

No actually some have been posted already, some are still in progress or having been put on the backburner. But keep lying and convincing yourself that people are agreeing with you.

[HMS Conqueror]

The first time I heard about this issue (not this thread) I had trouble believing it is real. You have a bunch of race-nationalists on both sides trying to prove... what exactly? Does Ancient Egypt have to be black for slavery not to be ok, or something? Or conversely, what would Ancient Egypt not having an African origin say about anything, when we already know that the whole of humanity has an ultimately African origin? The ancient world did not have the modern USA perception of race*; this debate is trying to project a totally anachronistic interpretation of history to serve modern ideological ends.

EDIT: *by this, I mean that above-the-Sahara Africa only very recently (like, 200 years ago) fell out of the 'Mediterranean civilisation' and became some other and in many peoples' eyes lesser civilisation. Below-the-Sahara Africa was more or less unknown because it was too difficult to reach. To a Roman, Egypt and Carthage were more civilised than France, and Britain was basically the edge of the world. Scandinavia was actually off the edge. The Mediterranean Rim, rather than 'Europe' defined their view of the civilised world.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The first time I heard about this issue (not this thread) I had trouble believing it is real. You have a bunch of race-nationalists on both sides trying to prove... what exactly? Does Ancient Egypt have to be black for slavery not to be ok, or something? Or conversely, what would Ancient Egypt not having an African origin say about anything, when we already know that the whole of humanity has an ultimately African origin? The ancient world did not have the modern USA perception of race*; this debate is trying to project a totally anachronistic interpretation of history to serve modern ideological ends.

EDIT: *by this, I mean that above-the-Sahara Africa only very recently (like, 200 years ago) fell out of the 'Mediterranean civilisation' and became some other and in many peoples' eyes lesser civilisation. Below-the-Sahara Africa was more or less unknown because it was too difficult to reach. To a Roman, Egypt and Carthage were more civilised than France, and Britain was basically the edge of the world. Scandinavia was actually off the edge. The Mediterranean Rim, rather than 'Europe' defined their view of the civilised world.

Well, I have argued this extensively, not in this thread mind, but when we were invaded by black-supremacists a while back... and it does not matter to me personally which is true, except for my dedication to the truth. Egypt is in a intergrade zone. In southern egypt at the time, there was a mix of sub-saharan and Mediterranean lineages (when you look at patterns in bone morphology, as well as both mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplotypes). Northern egypt has a similar mix, but the ratios are changed. The culture however evolved out of both African and Mediterranean cultures and became something distinct from both. Trying to claim an African origin for Egypt is like trying to claim a celtic origin for English civilization, when the reality is that English culture as we know it is a combination of different peoples and cultures. Celt, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish/Norwegian, and French. Even the language bears the signposts of all of them. It is simply not true, and not fair, to try to claim exclusive or even primary credit to only the one group of people for the civilization that Egypt, or England became.

[Big Triece]

Egypt is in a intergrade zone. In southern egypt at the time, there was a mix of sub-saharan and Mediterranean lineages (when you look at patterns in bone morphology, as well as both mitochondrial and Y chromosome haplotypes).

At what time? The information that has come from contemporary mainstream biological research indicates that the original population source of the Nile Valley were tropical African populations from further south. shortly after unification small scale migration from the Middle East began to inter the Nile, which overtime altered the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians. It is all detailed in the peer reviewed article of Egypt's population history below:

"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."[/i]

-- 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

Also note the biological overlapping of early Egyptian crania with those of ancient Nubia, which is a consistent pretty much across the board. Combine that with the cultural affinities of both civilizations and you will understand why most scholars contend that both populations are of the same origin.

the culture however evolved out of both African and Mediterranean cultures and became something distinct from both.

That is for the most part incorrect. The origins of Dynastic Egyptian culture is indigenous to Northeast Africa and once again that is recognized across the board:

"The evidence also points to linkages to other northeast African peoples, not coincidentally approximating the modern range of languages closely related to Egyptian in the Afro-Asiatic group (formerly called Hamito-Semetic). These linguistic similarities place ancient Egyptian in a close relationship with languages spoken today as far west as Chad, and as far south as Somalia. Archaeological evidence also strongly supports an African origin. A widespread northeastern African cultural assemblage, including distinctive multiple barbed harpoons and pottery decorated with dotted wavy line patterns, appears during the early Neolithic (also known as the Aqualithic, a reference to the mild climate of the Sahara at this time). Saharan and Sudanese rock art from this time resembles early Egyptian iconography. Strong connections between Nubian (Sudanese) and Egyptian material culture continue in later Neolithic Badarian culture of Upper Egypt. Similarities include black-topped wares, vessels with characteristic ripple-burnished surfaces, a special tulip-shaped vessel with incised and white-filled decoration, palettes, and harpoons...

Other ancient Egyptian practices show strong similarities to modern African
cultures including divine kingship, the use of headrests, body art, circumcision, and male coming-of-age rituals, all suggesting an African substratum or foundation for Egyptian civilization"

Source: Donald Redford (2001) The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p.28

Some ideas and items that were used in early Lower Egypt did come from the Levant (sheep, goat, wheat, barley) but none the less the overall culture and people of Lower Egypt also show a more southerly African origin. Not to mention that the cultures of the Fayum and Merimde were ultimately displace by that of the Dynastic culture which originated and spread from the south, leading to unification.

A snippet from a great documentary by renown historian Basil Davidson conveys this point quite well:

Trying to claim an African origin for Egypt is like trying to claim a celtic origin for English civilization, when the reality is that English culture as we know it is a combination of different peoples and cultures. Celt, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish/Norwegian, and French.

That's your opinion.

Even the language bears the signposts of all of them.

Once again the language of ancient Egypt like it's people came from the areas to the south, not the Middle East or Europe:

"Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots. The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food." (Christopher Ehret (1996) "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture." In Egypt in Africa Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press)

One most also remember that Nilo Saharan speaking populations were also instrumental in the creation of the civilization:

"the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. They included peoples from the Afroasiastic linguistic group and the second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). Thus the earliest domestic cattle may have come to Egypt from these southern neighbors, circa 6000 B.C., and not from the Middle East. Pottery, another significant advance in material cultural may also have followed this pattern, initiatied "as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East."
(Christopher Ehret, "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 25-27)

Davidson details the Nilo Saharan African origins of ancient Egypt:

It is simply not true, and not fair, to try to claim exclusive or even primary credit to only the one group of people for the civilization that Egypt, or England became.

Well with indigenous African diversity taken into account Nilo Saharan and Afro-Asiatic populations are very much genetically distinct from one another (Tishkoff 2009). If by "exclusive" you are referring to social definitions of "race" then as far as physical appearance goes with both populations coming from the tropics of Africa based on biological evidence they would generally be considered "black Africans" if that's what you meant of course.

and it does not matter to me personally which is true, except for my dedication to the truth.

And you have just been presented with several objective peer reviewed sources that inform you of the "truth". Egypt's origins come from more southerly areas.

[Broomstick]

Some ideas and items that were used in early Lower Egypt did come from the Levant (sheep, goat, wheat, barley) but none the less the overall culture and people of Lower Egypt also show a more southerly African origin.

Just as the scholars of the 19th Century minimized or dismissed the southern influences on Egypt, you continue to dismiss the Mediterranean influences. With wheat and barley forming the bulk of the Egyptian diet, not just bread but beer as well, that was a massively important factor in the agriculture that allowed them to build such a monumental (in several senses of the word) civilization. Indeed, I would argue that it is the Levant influences which set Egypt apart from the other African civilizations, just as it's African influences help to distinguish it from the Levant.

I fail to see why Egypt can't be acknowledged as a unique melding of influences rather than having to be forced to be EITHER European OR African. It's both and neither.

Once again the language of ancient Egypt like it's people came from the areas to the south, not the Middle East or Europe

No one is claiming a European origin of Egyptian language. Are you trying to conflate the Middle East and Europe? They aren't the same thing, any more than Nubians and Zulus are the same thing. You would shoot down anyone claiming a Zulu origin for Egyptian culture or language, yet you don't hesitate to do the equivalent when discussing influences you consider less than African.

If by "exclusive" you are referring to social definitions of "race" then as far as physical appearance goes with both populations coming from the tropics of Africa based on biological evidence they would generally be considered "black Africans" if that's what you meant of course.

If you go back far enough we're ALL of sub-Saharan African origin. If you go by the theory that the Khoi-San represent the oldest variety of human, though, you will be forced to acknowledge that the skin color of humans 50,000 or 500,000 years ago may not have been as dark as the darkest groups of today. Yet another example of why you be cautious apply today's racial categories to the past.

Clearly, human skin colors are not immutable and even within a group can change over time. Comparing bone structures is far easier than comparing skin colors in archeaology, and even then its fraught with error due to normal variations within any human group. For a nation residing in a crossroads between three continents this would be the case even more because, for sure, one thing humans do is have babies with each other whether by marriage, clandestine encounters, or rape. No group at a crossroads is going to be pure anything, they're going to be mixtures even more than the average band of humans.

[Big Triece]

Just as the scholars of the 19th Century minimized or dismissed the southern influences on Egypt, you continue to dismiss the Mediterranean influences.

The fundamental problem with your entire premise is that you are trying entirely too hard to equal out the contribution of both bordering regions in the creation of ancient Egypt, when it is simply not equal. Just about all available mainstream Bio-Cultural evidence indicates the indigenous (Northeast African) origins of Dynastic Egyptian culture (which spread from Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt) and it's cultural affinity/roots stemming from a combination of various inner African populations.

By the way if you read the article in my previous reply you will note that it was early 19th century scholars who attempted to credit the North with the creation and unification of the civilization, until it became obvious in more recent decades that it simply was not true.

With wheat and barley forming the bulk of the Egyptian diet, not just bread but beer as well, that was a massively important factor in the agriculture that allowed them to build such a monumental (in several senses of the word) civilization.

Those items from the Levant have been acknowledged by Christopher Ehret, Keita, along with numerous other studies on the subject, but with those acknowledged contributions they all seem to say unapologetically that Egyptian culture was an indigenous creation. On another note have you not considered that maybe it is just YOU who is attempting to overemphasize the importance of those Levantine products? The reason why most scholars do not take this into consideration as indication of a "partial" Levantine origins (rather than indigenous) is due to the fact that those products were incorporated into an indigenous Nilotic foraging strategy and domestication system. Furthermore as noted earlier the fact that the ancient Egyptian words for those products ARE NOT "loan words" from Semitic languages argues strongly against in-dept Levantine involvement (let alone migration) with their incorporation of those products. This is what is meant when Ehret says that Egypt's origins are "fundamentally African". If it makes you feel any better however, Keita has concluded that Egypt's origins are "Primarily African":

In summary, various kinds of data and the evolutionary approach indicate that the Nile Valley populations had greater ties with other African populations in the early ancient period. Early Nile Valley populations were primarily coextensive with indigenous African populations. Linguistic and archaeological data provide key supporting evidence for a primarily African origin. (S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)

Which is more inclusive in crediting those Levantine influences that we've noted, but still emphasizes that the origins "were above all African" (just as Basil Davidson states in the first video posted).

Indeed, I would argue that it is the Levant influences which set Egypt apart from the other African civilizations, just as it's African influences help to distinguish it from the Levant.

The only problem with this statement is that Dynastic Egyptian culture stems from various other African cultures, which is why it has the most cultural affinity with other African cultures and practices (as noted by the Oxford encyclopedia referenced earlier). The same can not be said about Egyptian culture and the civilizations of the Levant, which scholars have noted to be distinct in culture and political structure (amongst other things).

I fail to see why Egypt can't be acknowledged as a unique melding of influences rather than having to be forced to be EITHER European OR African.

Because Dynastic culture and the Egyptian people themselves were fundamentally African. Even today genetically many if not most Egyptians are still fundamentally African, even though they have slowly gained Bio-Cultural affinities with the Middle East over the last millenia:

"The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population."
(Stevanovitch A, Gilles A, Bouzaid E, et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in a sedentary population from Egypt.Ann Hum Genet. 68(Pt 1):23-39.)

Notice the most ancestral population of ancient Egypt according to genetic evidence is from Sub Saharan East Africa and the other contributions came later. This paints the same picture that is noted in the article posted in my last reply. Contrary to popular myth the roots of ancient Egypt are essentially seen as an extension of East African and Saharan communities according to mainstream Bio-Cultural evidence. Christopher Ehret displays this fact as plain as day.

It's both and neither.......No one is claiming a European origin of Egyptian language. Are you trying to conflate the Middle East and Europe?

Hi did you not notice in that statement that right before the word "AND" came the the word "Middle East" How is that conflating both regions with one another? The point of mentioning Europe at all is because many early Western scholars were pretty obsessed with painting a European face on ancient Egypt until they created their own arbitrary racial category ("Caucasoid") to stretch from Scandinavia to parts of Sub Saharan Africa to include all populations in between as their own.

They aren't the same thing, any more than Nubians and Zulus are the same thing. You would shoot down anyone claiming a Zulu origin for Egyptian culture or language, yet you don't hesitate to do the equivalent when discussing influences you consider less than African.

Semantics, not going there!

If you go back far enough we're ALL of sub-Saharan African origin. If you go by the theory that the Khoi-San represent the oldest variety of human, though, you will be forced to acknowledge that the skin color of humans 50,000 or 500,000 years ago may not have been as dark as the darkest groups of today.

There are several things wrong with your interpretations of this theory but:


A San bushman with Dr. Spencer Wells Photograph: National Geographic Society

sure why not.

No group at a crossroads is going to be pure anything, they're going to be mixtures even more than the average band of humans.

Once again you are contemplating by the word "mixture" that because Egypt is at the cross roads of three continents that inhabitants of all three continents (bearing contrasting physical features) simultaneously came together on the Nile to create what we now know as ancient Egypt. This is false and you have been presented with a plethora of Bio-Cultural evidence indicating that initial population source of what we now know as ancient Egypt was of local Northeast African origin. The continuation of Egypt's population being comprised entirely of local Northeast Africans stretched from Pre-Dynastic to early Dynastic periods:

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 [/b](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. -- 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 ANTHROPOLOGY134:520–528

After this stretch of continuous local origin into the Dynastic period "prolonged small scale migration" from elsewhere is noted.

[Simon_Jester]

Could you remind me what "Bio-Cultural" means? It sounds like a pretty vague-term, and it's obviously important to you or you wouldn't be arbitrarily capitalizing it as if it were a proper noun.

Do you think people are born with cultural templates welded into their head, so that if their ancestors come from a certain chunk of land, that means that their cultural behavior will be typical of that chunk of land, and that it reflects on that chunk of land more than any other chunk of land?

If that's not what you mean, what do you mean?

For that matter, what do you mean by "Egyptian culture was an indigenous creation?" Do you simply mean to assert that it evolved more or less linearly, within Egypt, by slow modifications of existing traditions? Do you mean that it evolved within Egypt like this rather than being imposed from outside by some bunch of people who came in and said "okay, now you will have pharaohs and pyramids" at spearpoint and overwrote the existing culture, the way that, say, the Romans overwrote the culture of Gaul?

Or do you mean something else?

[Broomstick]

Just as the scholars of the 19th Century minimized or dismissed the southern influences on Egypt, you continue to dismiss the Mediterranean influences.

The fundamental problem with your entire premise is that you are trying entirely too hard to equal out the contribution of both bordering regions in the creation of ancient Egypt, when it is simply not equal.

Nowhere do I ever say the influences are equal - it is YOU are insisting that all other influences outside of one can be discarded, no one else has done that.

Just about all available mainstream Bio-Cultural evidence indicates the indigenous (Northeast African) origins of Dynastic Egyptian culture (which spread from Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt) and it's cultural affinity/roots stemming from a combination of various inner African populations.

With additions from elsewhere, like extremely important agricultural crops from the Levant which formed the bulk of the Egyptian diet. Or don't you think agriculture was important to Ancient Egypt? Yet you refuse, over and over again, to acknowledge that such a significant part of daily Egyptian life originated from outside Africa. How would Egypt have been different if the primary grain was sorghum or millet, far more common in equatorial Africa than wheat or barley? What would have been the impact if Egypt hadn't had domestic goats or sheep? Would they have had to devote more manpower to food production and thus less for priests, scribes, and stonemasons?

By the way if you read the article in my previous reply you will note that it was early 19th century scholars who attempted to credit the North with the creation and unification of the civilization, until it became obvious in more recent decades that it simply was not true.

And you are their mirror counterpart, disregarding anything that doesn't fit your theory of exclusively African origin for everything in Ancient Egypt, and not just that but a sub-set of African influences.

With wheat and barley forming the bulk of the Egyptian diet, not just bread but beer as well, that was a massively important factor in the agriculture that allowed them to build such a monumental (in several senses of the word) civilization.

Those items from the Levant have been acknowledged by Christopher Ehret, Keita, along with numerous other studies on the subject, but with those acknowledged contributions they all seem to say unapologetically that Egyptian culture was an indigenous creation.

So? Did Ireland become a Incan civilization by adopting the potato to feed the masses? No, of course not - but adopting that food source would have enormous repercussions down the line, both good and bad. Did the British Navy suddenly become culturally Asian when it started using lime juice to prevent scurvy? No - but that did have an impact on the British utilization of the sea and was a factor in the British Empire by allowing long voyagers that ended with people healthy and functional instead of half-dead from vitamin deficiency.

A foreign influence can have a major impact without wholly overturning the culture to which it is introduced.

The reason why most scholars do not take this into consideration as indication of a "partial" Levantine origins (rather than indigenous) is due to the fact that those products were incorporated into an indigenous Nilotic foraging strategy and domestication system.

Riiiiiiight... because adoption of a foreign food item never has a major impact on a culture...

I mean, one can see that non-native crops had virtually no impact in Europe, that's why products like tomatoes, potatoes, pepper, cinnamon, and tobacco are virtually unobtainable in Europe and have no economic importance.... Seeking to obtain spices never affected trade routes or navigation. New crops that could produce more food per acre than old crops were never of any importance anywhere.

Adoption of Levant food crops don't have to change the language or religion or style of dress or social customs to have a significant impact, all they have to do is allow a larger population on the same land. Even better if they can be grown with less manpower though frankly I have no way to know if that's the case here or not. The Egyptian civilization was built on agricultural items that had their origins in the Levant, not from southern Africa. That doesn't mean it couldn't have been - certainly the ruins of Zimbabwe are impressive stone monuments and so far as we know that was a group with no input whatsoever from the Levant - but in fact the Egyptian diet was ultimately of Levant origin for many of its most basic items. I've long wondered about that - are those crops and herds so much more efficient than African counterparts that Egypt was able to support a huge contingent of non-farmers?

It's not like the Egyptians were ignorant of other crops. They certainly tried to domesticate everything they encountered, including animals like cheetahs, which they didn't succeed at doing. Maybe their willingness to incorporate outside influences they found advantageous helped with their success, allowing them to adopt the most efficient and useful things they encountered regardless of origin. That is not a universal trait among cultures.

Furthermore as noted earlier the fact that the ancient Egyptian words for those products ARE NOT "loan words" from Semitic languages argues strongly against in-dept Levantine involvement (let alone migration) with their incorporation of those products.

So what? Not every language incorporates foreign words as easily as, say, English. Even among languages that do absorb words easily it still doesn't always happen that way.

Let's look at the humble potato again. The current theory I'm familar with says the English "potato" comes from the Spanish "patata". That, in turn, may have come from either the Taino "batata" referring to a sort of sweet potato or the Quechua "papa" which means potato. Well, clearly the Anglosphere not only adopted the food, but the word as well. On the other hand the French word for potato is "pomme de terre", or "apple of the earth" which is clearly NOT from either Taino or Quechua, yet the French still know what a potato is, and they still eat them.

We see this again with the crop that is called "corn" in the US and "maize" in most other English speaking parts of the world, specifically and scientifically Zea mays. In fact, it's an even better example. In the US, this crop of Central American origin is enormously dominant in agriculture, is used as food, animal feed, fuel, and industrial feedstock. It's freakin' everywhere from the table (as grain, vegetable, and food additive) to the gas we put in our cars (good old gasohol), to the powder we use on baby butts after changing a messy diaper to filler in pharmaceuticals to ...well, it's just damn everywhere, isn't it? But we don't use a new world word for it. We use a word from Europe to refer to it. Does that somehow "prove" Z. mays is only a minor and easily disregarded influence on the modern US?

While loan words or lack of them can be an indication of influence of lack of it, it's not a definitive proof. The North American European immigrants never adopted the Native word for the dominant cereal crop of the continent, even if they have been and continue to be highly dependent on it for many things. Or don't you think the world would be a different place without Z. mays?

If it makes you feel any better however, Keita has concluded that Egypt's origins are "Primarily African":

Yes, I do prefer the term "primarialy" in this context because it acknowledges that there were other influences that helped shaped Egypt. That makes Egypt no less African and no less indigenous, to acknowledge that were capable and willing to adopt useful things from afar.

Which is more inclusive in crediting those Levantine influences that we've noted, but still emphasizes that the origins "were above all African" (just as Basil Davidson states in the first video posted).

And is more accurate than simply repeatedly bleating they're African-African-African.

Indeed, I would argue that it is the Levant influences which set Egypt apart from the other African civilizations, just as it's African influences help to distinguish it from the Levant.

The only problem with this statement is that Dynastic Egyptian culture stems from various other African cultures, which is why it has the most cultural affinity with other African cultures and practices (as noted by the Oxford encyclopedia referenced earlier). The same can not be said about Egyptian culture and the civilizations of the Levant, which scholars have noted to be distinct in culture and political structure (amongst other things).

I'm going to leave it to Thanas to tackle this one, as he knowledge of the details of ancient civilizations is superior to mine.

I will point out, however, that outside influences on Egypt does not make it any less African. If other sub-Saharan African groups had had more contact with exterior groups and their foods, resources, and goods they might have been quite different, and no less African. Certainly, such groups have readily adopted foreign crops and goods in modern times, if they didn't in the distant past it probably had more to do with lack of access and trade routes than willingness on the part of people to incorporate outside influences into their culture. Are Nigerians less African for adopting automobiles and electricity and crops from outside of Africa? Yet it would be foolish to claim those influences haven't had significant impact on their cultures.

I fail to see why Egypt can't be acknowledged as a unique melding of influences rather than having to be forced to be EITHER European OR African.

Because Dynastic culture and the Egyptian people themselves were fundamentally African. Even today genetically many if not most Egyptians are still fundamentally African, even though they have slowly gained Bio-Cultural affinities with the Middle East over the last millenia:

Genetics are destiny. Geez, it's like this idiot I used to work with who was convinced all Jewish people were born knowing Hebrew. Yes, there is a correlation between genes and culture but it's far from absolute. You keep repeating this business of sub-Saharan genes as if African culture is indelibly wedded to African genes but it's not. No one these days disputes that Egyptian have a hefty input of south of the Sahara genes, that doesn't mean the entirety of their civilization is such with no input from anywhere else.

Heck, there were and still are significant cultural differences between southern and northern Egypt. Both parts of the country are still, nonetheless, considered part of Egypt. We don't say one group is less and one group is more Egyptian, they're both Egyptian, even if they aren't identical.

If you go back far enough we're ALL of sub-Saharan African origin. If you go by the theory that the Khoi-San represent the oldest variety of human, though, you will be forced to acknowledge that the skin color of humans 50,000 or 500,000 years ago may not have been as dark as the darkest groups of today.

There are several things wrong with your interpretations of this theory but:


A San bushman with Dr. Spencer Wells Photograph: National Geographic Society

sure why not.

Yes, why not - no one has claimed the Khoi-San are white, but we've had more than enough examples of dark skinned people in this thread that a quick comparison shows that the Khoi-San are not the darkest examples of humanity. Human skin color is more fluid than people give credit for. IF the Khoi-San are representative of the "original" humanity then the skin color of other groups has both darkened and lightened as people moved around. Which would indicate that skin color alone is not as reliable a marker as people think it is.

No group at a crossroads is going to be pure anything, they're going to be mixtures even more than the average band of humans.

Once again you are contemplating by the word "mixture" that because Egypt is at the cross roads of three continents that inhabitants of all three continents (bearing contrasting physical features) simultaneously came together on the Nile to create what we now know as ancient Egypt.

Nope, nope, nope - NEVER said all influences were equal. They aren't. Once again, you are trying to hammer everyone else into a box of YOUR making.

[Big Triece]

With additions from elsewhere, like extremely important agricultural crops from the Levant which formed the bulk of the Egyptian diet. Or don't you think agriculture was important to Ancient Egypt?

Yes agriculture was an extremely important part of the Egyptian lifestyle, but what you are undermining is that the foraging and domestication system (aka agriculture) seen in ancient Egypt was NILOTIC in origin. Once again the basis of Egyptian agriculture and livestock domestication is of Nilo Saharan origin, which means that prior to the introduction of those Levantine products the early inhabitants of the Nile knew how to feed themselves. Overtime Nile Valley inhabitants began to gain dependence on those products:

"Furthermore, the archaeology of northern Africa DOES NOT SUPPORT demic diffusion of farming from the Near East. The evidence presented by Wetterstrom indicates that early African farmers in the Fayum initially INCORPORATED Near Eastern domesticates INTO an INDIGENOUS foraging strategy, and only OVER TIME developed a dependence on horticulture. This is inconsistent with in-migrating farming settlers, who would have brought a more ABRUPT change in subsistence strategy. "The same archaeological pattern occurs west of Egypt, where domestic animals and, later, grains were GRADUALLY adopted after 8000 yr B.P. into the established pre-agricultural Capsian culture, present across the northern Sahara since 10,000 yr B.P. From this continuity, it has been argued that the pre-food-production Capsian peoples spoke languages ancestral to the Berber and/or Chadic branches of Afroasiatic, placing the proto-Afroasiatic period distinctly before 10,000 yr B.P."

Source: The Origins of Afroasiatic
Christopher Ehret, S. O. Y. Keita, Paul Newman;, and Peter Bellwood
Science 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1680

This indigenous Nilotic basis for their agriculture is likely the main reason why most scholars do not hesitate to consider Egyptian culture as a whole an indigenous product of Africa. For it is through these indigenous systems that the products of the Levant were able to be utilized after their introduction.

Would they have had to devote more manpower to food production and thus less for priests, scribes, and stonemasons?

Sustaining a growing population is the likely reason why they gained dependence on those easily harvested products. Climatic similarities also support the incorporated dependence on products from more similar environments like those in the neighboring Middle East.

And you are their mirror counterpart, disregarding anything that doesn't fit your theory of exclusively African origin for everything in Ancient Egypt, and not just that but a sub-set of African influences.

That is a straw man argument. If my premise was to deny that any influence came from the Levant then that is what I would be doing, but as apparent by posting I am not. Now what influences my opinion as far Egypt's indigenous African origin?:

Other ancient Egyptian practices show strong similarities to modern African
cultures including divine kingship, the use of headrests, body art, circumcision, and male coming-of-age rituals, all suggesting an African substratum or foundation for Egyptian civilization"

Source: Donald Redford (2001) The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p.28

This statement along with those of most other scholars who attribute an African (not Middle Eastern) foundation for this ancient African civilization.

So? Did Ireland become a Incan civilization by adopting the potato to feed the masses? No, of course not - but adopting that food source would have enormous repercussions down the line, both good and bad. Did the British Navy suddenly become culturally Asian when it started using lime juice to prevent scurvy?

The adoption of those products and ideas are completely irrelevant to the cultural origins of those Europeans.

Riiiiiiight... because adoption of a foreign food item never has a major impact on a culture...

Already explained above.

The Egyptian civilization was built on agricultural items that had their origins in the Levant, not from southern Africa.

Once again the agricultural and domestication system that was already in place in the Nile Valley was Saharan not Levantine. None the less wheat and barley from the Levant were great influences on that already in place system, no one is denying that fact. Christopher Ehret for example acknowledges those products from the Levant:

Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era. (Christopher Ehret, "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 25-27)

But within that same article with the facts above taken into account, Ehret states that the ancient Egyptian civilization was fundamentally African based on linguistic and cultural evidence:

Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots. (Christopher Ehret, "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 25-27)

The best explanation for why he and most other scholars now feel confident to say that the culture of ancient Egypt was an indigenous product of Africa with those Levantine influences taken into account is likely due to the reason that I've noted about the Nilotic basis for their entire foraging strategy and domestication system.

Maybe their willingness to incorporate outside influences they found advantageous helped with their success, allowing them to adopt the most efficient and useful things they encountered regardless of origin.

I've read somewhere that one of the main reasons why sheep and goat became a popular domestic was because they were easier to herd to than cattle. This would likely explain why there are more sheep and goat remains in both the Nile and ancient Sahara than their are other livestock (Cattle and Donkey).

So what? Not every language incorporates foreign words as easily as, say, English. Even among languages that do absorb words easily it still doesn't always happen that way.

As far your "so what" goes:

Ovacaprines appear in the western desert before the Nile valley proper (Wendorf and Schild 2001). However, it is significant that ancient Egyptian words for the major Near Eastern domesticates - Sheep, goat, barley, and wheat - are not loans from either Semitic, Sumerian, or Indo-European. This argues against a mass settler colonization (at replacement levels) of the Nile valley from the Near East at this time. This is in contrast with some words for domesticates in some early Semitic languages, which are likely Sumerian loan words (Diakonoff 1981).. This evidence indicates that northern Nile valley peoples apparently incorporated the Near Eastern domesticates into a Nilotic foraging subsistence tradition on their own terms (Wetterstrom 1993). There was apparently no “Neolithic revolution” brought by settler colonization, but a gradual process of neolithicization (Midant-Reynes 2000). Keita and Boyce, Genetics, Egypt, And History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns Of Y Chromosome Variation,
History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246

In this case the linguistic difference are of significance.

Yes, I do prefer the term "primarialy" in this context because it acknowledges that there were other influences that helped shaped Egypt. That makes Egypt no less African and no less indigenous, to acknowledge that were capable and willing to adopt useful things from afar.

"Primarily African" (Keita) or "fundamentally African" (Ehret) both seen to indicate that some influences came from else but the overall Bio-Cultural origin of the civilization was African. With that said why do you get upset when I state that Dynastic Egyptian culture was an indigenous African product, which is echoed across the board as far as scholars are concerned?

And is more accurate than simply repeatedly bleating they're African-African-African.

They were indeed "fundamentally African" in origin with those Levantine influences taken into account.

Genetics are destiny.

No, but the analysis of the Y-Chromosome are the most accurate means to track migration and population history.

Yes, there is a correlation between genes and culture but it's far from absolute.

I was not equating culture with genetics. The point of posting the Gurna study was to put on display the findings that the most ancient lineage of modern Egyptians comes from the Sub Saharan East Africa followed by ancient Saharan populations. Those biological facts just so happen to coordinate with cultural and linguistic evidence.

No one these days disputes that Egyptian have a hefty input of south of the Sahara genes, that doesn't mean the entirety of their civilization is such with no input from anywhere else.

"Hefty input" of Sub Saharan genes seems to infer that there was a mixture of folks comprised of people who were not from the areas south of Egypt. Well I suppose you could always infer that others were present (let alone had a significant presence) in the Nile during Pre-Dynastic times, but without actual...biological evidence to back those inferences then it reduces them to nothing more than wishful thinking.

Heck, there were and still are significant cultural differences between southern and northern Egypt. Both parts of the country are still, nonetheless, considered part of Egypt. We don't say one group is less and one group is more Egyptian, they're both Egyptian, even if they aren't identical.

Well yes of course nationally all people who reside within the confines of the Egypt's borders are technically Egyptian. Likewise in ancient times peoples who migrated into and adopted the Egyptian way of life became Egyptian as well. With that said some modern Egyptians are have less ancestral Egyptian lineages than others. In the North for example where the great bulk of Near Eastern migration took and still takes place, it has been noted that they are a lesser representation of their core indigenous ancestors than other Egyptian populations further south:

"However, in some of the studies, only individuals from northern Egypt are sampled, and this could theoretically give a false impression of Egyptian variability (contrast Lucotte and Mercier 2003a with Manni et al. 2002), because this region has received more foreign settlers (and is nearer the Near East). Possible sample bias should be integrated into the discussion of results." (S.O.Y. Keita, A.J. Boyce, "Interpreting Geographical Patterns of Y Chromosome Variation1," History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246 )

and

"Cosmopolitan northern Egypt is less likely to have a population representative of the core indigenous population of the most ancient times".
- Keita (2005), pp. 564

IF the Khoi-San are representative of the "original" humanity then the skin color of other groups has both darkened and lightened as people moved around.

Correction the Khoisan have high frequencies of the most ancestral haplogroups (A and B), but some other African populations (Nilotic and East African populations) have just as high and even higher frequencies of those haplogroups. This is not indication enough of the Khoisan or the other Africans populations as being representative of the original humans:

The evidence from osteology, serogenetics and anthropometry provides no satisfactory biological support for the presence of KhoiSan peoples in East Africa during prehistoric times. Nearly all of the evidence in support of this contention was collected during the period of racial typological assessment in physical anthropology and the conclusions of these studies are considered suspect by today's methodological techniques. Studies that have re-assessed prehistoric crania according to multivariate techniques have consistently rejected any relationships between these crania and the skulls of modern or prehistoric KhoiSan populations. Likewise, anthropometric and serogenetic studies have shown no relationship between living East Africans and their South African counterparts. Linguistic connections between the East African 'KhoiSan' and the South African KhoiSan languages are not rejected but the presence of clicks in these languages must not be considered proof of the biological unity of the people who speak the languages. Like the mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes shared by modern Ethiopians and Khoisan, these should be taken as signs of survivorship of ancient genetic polymorphisms and not survivorship of ancient people. The history recorded by the presence of clicks and ancient gene lineages underlie more recent population events (Underhill et al. 2001) but it is the more recent population events that have defined and shaped the KhoiSan and modern East Africans.

With the demise of the East African KhoiSan myth, other models of origin for the populations of sub-Saharan Africa must be considered...This paper favours a distinct regionalisation of prehistoric populations where living KhoiSan groups are seen as native to the southern African sub-region and their specific biological features represent their specific genetic history in that region alone. - A. G. Morris (2003), The Myth of the East African 'Bushmen.

Which would indicate that skin color alone is not as reliable a marker as people think it is.

I don't think recall anyone ever indicating this.

[Bakustra]

So what exactly happened to the original Egyptians if they are not still within Egypt? Was there an unrecorded genocide at some point between the collapse of the New Kingdom and the modern day? Did intermarriage wipe out native Egyptian genotypes despite this not happening in other areas (e.g. modern inhabitants of England tend to be genetically very similar to the earliest Celtic inhabitants, indeed more similar than the Anglo-Saxon or Norman migrants)? Or are they still there in Egypt, in your view?

[Big Triece]

So what exactly happened to the original Egyptians if they are not still within Egypt?

There descendants are indeed modern Egyptians, no one is denying this. What has been proven however is that a combination of both steady and sudden waves of migrants from Europe and Western Asia (the Mediterranean) have altered the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians. Meaning that the original Egyptian populace who were of more southerly African origin (black African) over the course of 5,000 years have absorbed the input from those Mediterranean migrants (lighter folk). No genocide took place of the original Egyptians nor was there some sort of mass displacement, but rather just population abortion. Here is another peer reviewed article which details the more southerly African affinities of the earliest ancient Egyptians and their distinction from Late Dynastic-Modern Egyptians:

"As a result of their facial prognathism, the Badarian sample has been described as forming a morphological cluster with Nubian, Tigrean, and other southern (or \Negroid") groups (Morant, 1935, 1937; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Nutter, 1958, Strouhal, 1971; Angel, 1972; Keita, 1990). Cranial nonmetric trait studies have found this group to be similar to other Egyptians, including much later material (Berry and Berry, 1967, 1972), but also to be significantly different from LPD material (Berry et al., 1967). Similarly, the study of dental nonmetric traits has suggested that the Badarian population is at the centroid of Egyptian dental samples (Irish, 2006), thereby suggesting similarity and hence continuity across Egyptian time periods. From the central location of the Badarian samples in Figure 2, the current study finds the Badarian to be relatively morphologically close to the centroid of all the Egyptian samples. The Badarian have been shown to exhibit greatest morphological similarity with the temporally successive EPD (Table 5). Finally, the biological distinctiveness of the Badarian from other Egyptian samples has also been demonstrated (Tables 6 and 7).

These results suggest that the EDyn do form a distinct morphological pattern. Their overlap with other Egyptian samples (in PC space, Fig. 2) suggests that although their morphology is distinctive, the pattern does overlap with the other time periods. These results therefore do not support the Petrie concept of a "Dynastic race" (Petrie, 1939; Derry, 1956). Instead, the results suggest that the Egyptian state was not the product of mass movement of populations into the Egyptian Nile region, but rather that it was the result of primarily indigenous development combined with prolonged small-scale migration, potentially from trade, military, or other contacts.

This evidence suggests that the process of state formation itself may have been mainly an indigenous process, but that it may have occurred in association with in-migration to the Abydos region of the Nile Valley. This potential in-migration may have occurred particularly during the EDyn and OK. A possible explanation is that the Egyptian state formed through increasing control of trade and raw materials, or due to military actions, potentially associated with the use of the Nile Valley as a corridor for prolonged small scale movements through the desert environment.
(Sonia R. Zakrzewski. (2007). Population Continuity or Population Change: Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 132:501-509)

Notice that while being centroid to all later Egyptian populations (hence continuity) Pre and Early Dynastic Egyptians form their own distinct cluster from Late Dynastic Egyptians. Early Dynastic Egyptians also show close affinities with later Dynasties all the way until the 25th:

Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV. -- Godde K. (2009) An Examination of Nubian and Egyptian biological distances: Support for biological diffusion or in situ development? Homo. 2009;60(5):389-404.

[Broomstick]

There descendants are indeed modern Egyptians, no one is denying this. What has been proven however is that a combination of both steady and sudden waves of migrants from Europe and Western Asia (the Mediterranean) have altered the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians. Meaning that the original Egyptian populace who were of more southerly African origin (black African) over the course of 5,000 years have absorbed the input from those Mediterranean migrants (lighter folk). No genocide took place of the original Egyptians nor was there some sort of mass displacement, but rather just population abortion.

WTF?

Population abortion? Killing off part of the population isn't genocide?

What the hell are you trying to say here?

[Big Triece]

Omg calm damn! I meant absorption!

[Simon_Jester]

Triece, I call on you again to define your terms.

Could you remind me what "Bio-Cultural" means? It sounds like a pretty vague term, and it's obviously important to you or you wouldn't be arbitrarily capitalizing it as if it were a proper noun.

Do you think people are born with cultural templates welded into their head, so that if their ancestors come from a certain chunk of land, that means that their cultural behavior will be typical of that chunk of land, and that it reflects on that chunk of land more than any other chunk of land?

If that's not what you mean, what do you mean?

For that matter, what do you mean by "Egyptian culture was an indigenous creation?" Do you simply mean to assert that it evolved more or less linearly, within Egypt, by slow modifications of existing traditions? Do you mean that it evolved within Egypt like this rather than being imposed from outside by some bunch of people who came in and said "okay, now you will have pharaohs and pyramids" at spearpoint and overwrote the existing culture, the way that, say, the Romans overwrote the culture of Gaul?

Or do you mean something else, something more ambitious that might actually explain why you feel the need to keep trumpeting how different your opinions are from those of everyone else in the world?

[Sir Sirius]

Big Triece, you do realise that the red highlights you so love are basically illegible in some board styles (e.g. BlackSoul-SDN)? Please, stop using them.

[Big Triece]

Could you remind me what "Bio-Cultural" means?

Biological+Cultural= Bio-Cultural:

It is the same term that Keita uses as the name for his Cambridge lectures which were posted on the first page of this thread. Biological evidence being genetics and anthropology. Cultural evidence being a combination linguistic, archaeological, religious, and social customs.

Do you think people are born with cultural templates welded into their head, so that if their ancestors come from a certain chunk of land, that means that their cultural behavior will be typical of that chunk of land, and that it reflects on that chunk of land more than any other chunk of land?

No! Go back and re-read my post throughout the 10 page thread.

For that matter, what do you mean by "Egyptian culture was an indigenous creation?"

Egyptian culture was an indigenous product of local but various Northeast Africans. Those various populations came from both Sub Saharan East Africa and the ancient Sahara. Ancient Nubians (especially Lower Nubians) are also of the same population source, which is reinforced by the shared overlapping of biological and cultural affinities between the two adjacent civilizations.

Or do you mean something else, something more ambitious

Ambiguous? In what ways can what I am asserting become "ambiguous"? By ambiguous do you mean referring to both Nubians and Egyptians as "black Africans"?

that might actually explain why you feel the need to keep trumpeting how different your opinions are from those of everyone else in the world?

"Who is everyone else in the World"? You simply CANNOT be referring to mainstream academia which confirms my and Mentuhoptep's beliefs regarding the origins of ancient Egypt. Are your referencing the emotional heart ache of butt hurt Eurocentrics, Pan Arabs, who? What are people usually called who do not want to accept overwhelming irrefutable evidence confirming a position that they are simply uncomfortable with accepting? We call that act DENIAL and those people IGNORANT. Ignoring the fact that despite a politically correct face put on display that old racial prejudices and colonial minded ideas still widely exist is a major trend amongst the great majority in our society. With that said don't try to take shots at me with this shit.

[Big Triece]

Big Triece, you do realise that the red highlights you so love are basically illegible in some board styles (e.g. BlackSoul-SDN)? Please, stop using them.

Ok I'll use another color. In the meantime if you or anyone else is having trouble reading that brightly colored font then just highlight the quote to give it a white background with a blue font.

[Terralthra]

Big Triece, you do realise that the red highlights you so love are basically illegible in some board styles (e.g. BlackSoul-SDN)? Please, stop using them.

Ok I'll use another color. In the meantime if you or anyone else is having trouble reading that brightly colored font then just highlight the quote to give it a white background with a blue font.

I read the forums on a Kindle and a Smartphone, you arrogant fuck. Not everyone has the option. If you need to emphasize something, try bold, italics, underline, or size.

[Broomstick]

It also helps those of us who are colorblind if you refrain from pissing a rainbow all over your cites. Even on a PC, changing colors doesn't always help me.

Around here, it's generally considered part of the game to put your cites into a form usable by others without making them jump through hoops.

[Big Triece]

Big Triece, you do realise that the red highlights you so love are basically illegible in some board styles (e.g. BlackSoul-SDN)? Please, stop using them.

Ok I'll use another color. In the meantime if you or anyone else is having trouble reading that brightly colored font then just highlight the quote to give it a white background with a blue font.

I read the forums on a Kindle and a Smartphone, you arrogant fuck. Not everyone has the option. If you need to emphasize something, try bold, italics, underline, or size.

Boy oh boy the money I would pay for a PC that allows me to snatch a bitch up through the monitor!