Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[Simon_Jester]

You're moving the goalpost on that one. First it was an issue of using American vs. other English terminology, now it's a matter of "the west". It doesn't change the fact that how Europe views matters is quite different than how North America does

As I've stated earlier probably 95% (if not 100%) of the participants in this thread are from the general region listed above. The point is that Americans, Canadians, and Europeans all share a common definition of what a black person or "Negro" is regardless of language differences or dialect. Therefore when people who participated in this thread are saying "well I'm not American so I don't know your terminology (the term black) means" they are LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH and they know it.

I must take exception to this.

If I say I don't know what you mean by black, I am being quite honest. There is more than one version of 'black' that might be used even in North America or Europe.

On a "one drop" theory (and God do I despise that sort of thinking), anyone with a great-great-grandmother who was herself "black" is by definition also "black" no matter what their physical appearance or behavior is like

Or "blackness" can be defined culturally: even if your appearance is "black," you aren't really "black" unless you act in certain ways and adhere to certain cultural templates. Acting "non-black" turns you into a race traitor- again, despicable thinking, but you can find people who think that way.

Or "black" can mean "50% or more descended from people who live in this region," and there are varying degrees of "blackness," but it's a strictly genetic term and it doesn't matter how you act. If you're biologically linked to this group, you are of this group, but only if the links are strong.


There are some weird anomalies. For example, are Australian Aborigines in any sense "black?" Obviously they're about as unrelated to modern Africans as it's possible to get, but they're phenotypically pretty similar to a lot of Africans- if you saw an Aborigine and he tried to pass himself as an African, it might be hard to refute what he was saying. Certainly the Aborigines can point to a history of oppression as terrible as that of most Africans, so if you define "blackness" as a collective identity created in response to oppression by Europeans, the Aborigines have as much of a right to it as the Kenyans do- the British treated them a lot worse. For that matter, 19th century whites used some of the same ethnic slurs to talk about Aborigines that they did to talk about Africans.

And yet, while Aborigines look pretty darned African, and have been oppressed as ferociously as most Africans, culturally they share practically nothing with any part of Africa, and their ancestors left Africa tens of thousands of years ago. So in yet another sense they're no more "black" than the people living in China are.

Different definitions of "blackness" yield different answers to "can an Australian aborigine call himself black?" Or they should. Chromatically, he's black. If blackness is something that comes from a common experience of oppression, he's black. If blackness comes from being descended from the traditions of African civilizations, though, he's totally non-black.

Would you say he's black, or not? I'd guess that you would say "no," but I can't be sure, because I'm not sure which model of blackness you adhere to.


Which ties into the subtext question of what degree of unity and coherence you think there is among different groups of "black" people who lived millenia before the term "black" was even invented to lump the inhabitants of Africa into one big category. From the sound of it, the answer is "not very much," which says good things about your historical knowledge and mental health, but by the same token makes the entire question of the "blackness" of ancient Egyptians seem less important.

[Broomstick]

In the context of this discussion, it would be the belief that civilization flowed wholly from Africa and did not arise elsewhere and/or the belief that Africa and things of African origin are inherently superior than those from elsewhere.

So how does me or anyone else stating the fact that the early ancient Egyptians were black Africans automatically equate to dismissing any sort of outside influence or the notion of black Africans as "inherently superior" to others?

Denial of outside influences would also play into that. For example, if a civilization greatly benefits from the importation of a new crop but a historian or anthropologist downplays or dismisses that foreign contribution I have to question that scholar's impartiality and look for bias. That doesn't matter if it's Levantine wheat brought into Egypt or potatoes brought to Europe. Both seem to have had an enormous impact that is often swept under the rug. If such imports trigger major shifts and empire-building (both crop introductions resulted in a population boom, and empires require manpower) then that's hugely important to history. If some other African culture had had the benefit of those crops early on that might have resulted in sub-Saharan empires of great significance and world less tilted towards the northern hemisphere. It also indicates that civilization owes much to chance availability of resources and less to intelligence or cultural cleverness. In other words, it can refute the notion that non-Europeans were incapable of high civilization (never mind the Asians such as the Chinese were living refutations anyway) but rather lacked certain key elements that would have allowed such potentials to become actualities. This would argue against the pernicious notion that persists to this day that helping the disadvantaged in Africa is useless due to "bio-cultural" factors based upon past lack of X or Y. Indeed, Africans have readily adopted non-African crops both for subsistence and for cash and they are a significant slice of GDP in various areas. The biggest problem is trying to grow temperate crops in tropical areas and vice versa, but as far back as the Egyptians people have been trying to develop tropical-tolerant strains of useful temperate crops.

Which is getting off on a tangent, but it's an example of how history is relevant to the present, both to refute incorrect memes as well as to give ideas to the present to benefit humanity as a whole. Trading useful crops and domestic animals around the world has sometimes had bad side effects, but overall it is more benefit than not. You can point to Ancient Egypt as proof that has been the case for 5,000 and more years.

Once again it got so bad so that apology statements on behalf of board officials had to be given. This shows that an emotional attachment to this issue was already in place amongst many on SDN, which indicates that they had a "chip on their shoulder".

Don't know if it helps or not, but we've had the same problem on other topics, such as transhumanism. Sometimes, after repeated encounters with complete and utter stupidity and/or prejudice people start having kneejerk reactions, including moderators, who are only human. Don't just blame the moderators, blame also the idiots who show up on a message board to troll, provoke, or simply vomit their bias and stupidity, thereby creating an atmosphere hostile to rational discussion.

As has been repeatedly stated, no one is arguing that ancient Egyptians were anything but Africans, and no one is denying them dark skin. What we're really arguing about is the particular shade of brown.

My real problem with that was that there is no real evidence yet that can pinpoint any sort particular skin coloring as a real reference point to the ancient Egyptians. What we do know for a fact is that they were tropically adapted like Africans to the south (who are generally regarded as black), which based on ecological principal indicates that a population has dark skin.

The only trouble with that line of reasoning is that the correlation between skeleton proportions and skin color is not absolute. To some extent, we must simply accept that some questions can't be settled absolutely, either because correlations are not absolute, or because the way the question is framed involves false assumptions, like the notion that any large group of people will have just one skin color rather than reality, which is that all large human populations have a range of skin color, with some showing more variation than others.

The point is that Americans, Canadians, and Europeans all share a common definition of what a black person or "Negro" is regardless of language or dialect. Therefore when people who participated in this thread are saying "well I'm not American so I don't know your terminology (the term black) means" they are LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH and they know it.

I'd almost agree if you were discussing just English speakers, but in fact there are finer distinctions made in some cultures. Latin Americans, for example, are known for making different distinctions than Anglo-Americans. South Africans codified "European", "African", and "mixed race" into their apartheid system - never mind that the mere existence of mixed race people flew in the face of their categories and belief structure.

For a more concrete example, it's not unheard of for people to refer to Barack Obama as "mixed race" or "half white" as well as "black", and I've heard that from a variety of different people. Obama is "black" in the sense of dark skinned and of African descent, but to some people he is not black enough or seen as very different from someone whose black ancestors were slaves or descendants of slaves rather than a recent Kenyan immigrant. There are other people who insist his race is "Muslim", nevermind he's been a practicing Christian for all his adult life and quite possibly earlier than that, and it's a religion not a race. That's why race is such a minefield - even in a common culture meanings can shift depending on context and political or social agendas. Beware of any term that "everybody knows" because even if we're using the same words we're all bringing different baggage to the discussion.

As I said, no one is arguing that in today's nomenclature the ancient Egyptians would be "white", what we are arguing about is how dark were they? Were they brown, dark brown or very dark brown? How great was the range of skin color in Ancient Egypt?

I would argue that based on the data available and presented that throughout the entire 3 thousand year period that Dynastic Egypt flourished, the range of skin tones would have similar to that which is seen today (which is very "great"). The difference however is the frequencies of particular phenotypes would have been reversed. From the Pre-Dynastic to periods int the New Kingdom biological evidence suggest that the predominate skin tone range across the country and would have been dark and within the range of Africans further south.

Well, see, we actually agree there, at least in broad outline. We both think that the Ancient Egyptians had a relatively broad range of skin tones. Again, what we're really discussing is, as you put it, the frequency of particular phenotypes. Since there is absolutely no way to gain a definitive answer on that since we can't directly observe people who lived 5,000 or whatever years ago there will always be some room for dispute here.

I don't know, would it be better to say "on average at least as brown as Iman or Waris Dirie, but commonly darker than those two"?

My problem is that this is mere speculation. While not necessarily in disagreement with you, I think that better examples of the skin tone of the original ancient Egyptians should be compared to entire ethnic groups seen in the Horn of Africa (where the closest modern biological affinities lie) rather than individuals (models at that).

I understand the deficiencies you point out, however, the benefit of using well-known names is that the average person has some idea of who you're talking about. I could express skintones in the very specific numbers of the Pantone color system but those terms would be largely meaningless to someone outside of the arts or commercial graphics fields. The information might be more accurate on one level, but not really useful. On the other hand, saying "the same shade as Iman" or the "the same color as Wesley Snipes" might be imprecise (and subject to change due to make up, sun exposure, age, etc.) but the information is arguably more useful to the average person. Particularly if speaking to someone who might not be familiar with, say, Dinka vs. Wodaabe vs. Berber, use of a well known celebrity name might better convey the truly important information.

No, I question the notion they are as dark as their southern neighbors based on physical evidence as well as the fact they lived in close proximity to relatively lighter skinned people

What physical evidence have you seen that distinguishes the ancient Egyptians from their southern neighbors? The notion that the mixed with their "relatively" lighter skinned neighbors to the East during Pre-Dynastic times is simply not indicated by biological evidence. I do not deny that admixture occurred after the establishment of the civilization, and I've even referenced a peer reviewed study which notes that small scale migration from that region occurred relatively early in Egyptian history.

It is the existence of things such as that "small scale migration" - people didn't all just stay home until a hypothetical founding date for Ancient Egypt. If they were moving around in the First Dynasty it's reasonable to assume they were doing that before the First Dynasty. We have physical evidence of people moving through the Nile/Horn of Africa area to and from the Middle East even before the rise of H. sapeins. If trade items were moving in both directions it's reasonable to conclude people were, too, because pots and beads don't move by themselves. Equally clearly their movement wasn't as easy 10,000 years ago as it is today due to differences in transportation technology.

Where I disagree with you is the notion that such migration and influx did NOT occur prior to Dynastic times, or at such low levels it could be completely ignored.. I would argue there was almost certainly less of it that far back, but I don't believe it was absent. Again, we're not really arguing about the existence of facts so much as the frequency of occurrence.

Although, yes, some white people get quite upset at the notion of Ancient Egyptians being very dark,

Yes and many have been getting upset by and lying about this fact since the height of the promotion of white supremacy during Colonial times. Many still foam at the mouth at that idea today.

Yes, bigots exist. They also exist in the form of people who froth at the mouth when someone suggests that Ancient Egyptians have always had some lighter skinned members and influences from the north as well as the south. Both groups are sad and mistaken. Real life is messy and the borders aren't strictly defined.

If biological evidence notes sameness between two population then what is the logical basis to suggest a distinction between the two populations?

Because large populations aren't homogenous, all their traits occupy a range and not discrete boxes. All Europeans are Caucasians even if those in the south tend tend to be darker than those in the north, red hair is more common in the north, and skull shapes differ between, say, Basques and Germans.

Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Nubians may well be accurately lumped as a discrete group based upon a collection of traits, but may be sub-divided based on other traits or a frequency of, as you put it, phenotypes. Ancient Egypt may or may not have had statistically more lighter-brown people than Ancient Nubia did. There may have been a greater frequency of broad noses among the Nubians. These distributions of traits can be sufficient to allow subdivisions within a broader group, particularly when that group encompasses such diversity as seen in north east Africa at any time period you can to name within the past 20,000 years or more.

It does not upset me that the ancient Egyptians were indeed their own people, but they were also Northeast Africans in their Bio-Cultural origin (which you do not dispute). I know that the ancient Egyptians were not some Pan African group of people who looked like them as their equals. The ancient Egyptians did indeed note physical differences between themselves and certain populations further south (particularly certain Nilotic populations in the Sudan), but they also depicted the people of Punt (Ethiopia/Eritrea) with the same skin tone and facial features they depicted themselves:

Well, sure, I'm on board with that. Of course, it may be a matter of the Egyptians making the distinction on facial features rather than skins tones (we've already had the discussion about the limited color palate of Egyptian art). Their grouping of Punt people with themselves may or may not be based on the same criteria we use to lump or split various groups.

A far, far more interesting question to my mind is whether or not the Ancient Egyptians showed any bias related to ethnic traits or not. Did they care if Grandma Tye was a light-skinned Caananite or Papa Menes was originally from Kush?

Here are some studies detailing the relationships between Kush and ancient Egypt

Your examples are actually fairly well known. Without question, even if in art Egyptians made a distinction between Egypt and Kush people, they made few if any social distinctions. It's as if any differences in physical features, skin, hair, or other ethnic traits were granted the same importance or unimportance that we give eye color or the shape of one's thumbs.

I can't find very much on the relationships with other foreign populations.

I actually find the lack of that information rather interesting. It makes me wonder if the big difference to the Egyptians was whether or not you possessed or adopted their culture rather than what you looked like.

Yes, African-Americans as a group were horribly oppressed for centuries, but it breaks my heart to hear the black women in my life talk about hair and skin issues. Not that I understand their issues on the same, visceral level they do, but I can hear the pain in their voices when they talk about the efforts they've gone to in order to make their natural nappy hair conform to some other ideal, or being rejected as a girl friend because their skin is too dark and the man they wanted to date insisted on a woman with lighter skin than he had. Apparently, they find the fact the current First Lady is darker skinned than her husband the President to be a major boost to their identity as dark skinned women, and yet mentioning that fact is, apparently, not always acceptable, as if not mentioning it is like not mentioning a flaw in someone, which isn't how it should be. It shouldn't matter if a woman is darker than her husband, and yet to some it does. Again, I'm the outsider looking in but if an outsider can see these things then I can only assume they loom quite large in the community where these issues come up.

All of which are explained below:

The scene above is from Jungle Fever, is showing African American women's perspectives about racial and colorism issues within the African American community.

Except it's from a work of fiction and shows all manner of bias and prejudice in itself, from "the brothers want white women" to "white women want black dick". You can no more explain the social milieu of black American women in 7 minutes than you can accurately summarize the history of Rome - or Egypt - in that time period. Not to mention it's mixed up with issues that have to do with being a WOMAN and not of a particular color (most notably, the meme that men can't handle a more intelligent, educated or successful woman as a mate, which is a complaint of women of all colors). A scene out of a work of fiction is not a good piece of evidence for a non-fictional discussion.

That social category is an artifact of discredited 19th Century (and somewhat earlier) world views, as we both know.....Imposing rigid, skin color based barriers on Africans doesn't help anyone.

But are still none the less a very real and significant aspect of society in the West and in Africa. For centuries now people in the New World, Europe and yes Africa have been subjected to inhumane treatment and even murder as the result of being included into this social category. That is the reason why many many people feel attachment to and identify as "black African" or "Negro".

Attachment is fine, wearing a straightjacket is not.

Maybe Africa would be better served if the people of Africa were able to throw off such artificially imposed distinctions.

North America, Latin America and Europe would be as well, but we all know that is not happening anytime soon. The concept of race despite how it came to be see and known is very much an integral part of Westernized culture.

If we don't start making an effort now it will never happen. I've seen enormous changes in my own lifetime in the concept of "race" and "nationality" so it certainly does make a difference. If I can't have it soon I'll settle for eventually over never.

Be that as it may, the West has defined people across the globe and many of those people have followed those definitions.

And I say maybe they should stop following those definitions. Define themselves. Is it easy? No. Will others push back? Hell yes. Is it worth doing anyway? You bet.

[Big Triece]

Denial of outside influences would also play into that.

That is a distortion of my argument and you know it. I have never denied the influences from the Levant during Pre-Dynastic times (by way of crops and domesticates), but I have maintained that based on conclusive peer reviewed evidence the basis of the early Nile Valley system of agriculture and cattle domestication were Nilotic in origin. That is Nilotic basis for their agriculture and domestication that most historians and scholars have noted within the last four decades and is the likely reason why they consider the origins of Dynastic Egyptian culture as a whole "fundamentally African".

For example, if a civilization greatly benefits from the importation of a new crop but a historian or anthropologist downplays or dismisses that foreign contribution I have to question that scholar's impartiality and look for bias.

Already explained above. The question that I'm asking is why does stating the fact that the original ancient Egyptians were black Africans automatically equate to the person expressing that fact as an "Afrocentric"? No one is stating that no ideas came from the Levant. Nor is anyone stating that blacks are superior to any and everyone. Could be that societal and historic biases have preconditioned many in the Western world to vilify and ultimately dismiss this idea which goes against old notions which were openly distorted during events in the past?

Often times the statement that ancient Egypt was black is equated with a Nazi asserting that it was Nordic, because the latter is utter baseless nonsense and the polar opposite of the former, the former is seen as equally nonsensical and some sort imagined neutrality to must be placed.

That doesn't matter if it's Levantine wheat brought into Egypt or potatoes brought to Europe

All of this was already addressed in our last exchange on the previous page. If you wish to continue to debate this then please pick up where you left off, as you did not respond to my last reply.

Don't know if it helps or not, but we've had the same problem on other topics, such as transhumanism. Sometimes, after repeated encounters with complete and utter stupidity and/or prejudice people start having kneejerk reactions, including moderators, who are only human.

My only point is that those same SDN members who participated in the last thread or threads about this topic have came into this thread very highly emotional and lashed out ("chip on their shoulder"), which they have attempted to project onto me.

The only trouble with that line of reasoning is that the correlation between skeleton proportions and skin color is not absolute.

Actually it is based on ecological principal that tropically adapted humans have dark skin color, which is a fact that both Keita and Brace have noted about the physical appearance of the ancient Egyptians. During the last segment of Keita's Cambridge lecture he actually states that the ancient Egyptians would have been "dark skinned" based on their skeletal morphology (limb proportions) but that precise skin color cannot be determined through that analysis.

I'd almost agree if you were discussing just English speakers, but in fact there are finer distinctions made in some cultures. Latin Americans, for example,

The entire point of me specifically listing America, Canada and Europe was to exclude Latin America. While Latin Americans most certainly practices the socialization of the concepts of basic races (white, black, Indian ect), colorism is the primary basis of that aspect in most of their societies. Whereas in America, Canada and Europe while minor colorism exist within the black communities the main focus is on being black (identify and treated as such) as whole. Just think about how racially attached and dedicated many African Americans ((especially older generations) even many foreign blacks) are to Obama's (half black but still identifies as such) success.

South Africans codified "European", "African", and "mixed race" into their apartheid system - never mind that the mere existence of mixed race people flew in the face of their categories and belief structure.

The "mixed race" folk of South Africa have been genetically proven to have the most mixed ancestry on the planet (from Africa to Europe to East and South Asia).

Obama is "black" in the sense of dark skinned and of African descent, but to some people he is not black enough or seen as very different from someone whose black ancestors were slaves or descendants of slaves rather than a recent Kenyan immigrant.

I think the fact even with those points acknowledged about his ancestry and that Obama himself actually identifies as a black man is enough said about the culture of this nation. You must also remember that Obama is not a spring chicken and was on the heels of Jim Crow era America and were exposed to those basic views. With all of the corny fried chicken and monkey jokes flying around it's pretty obvious how most Americans really feels about the identity of mixed race people (especially black and white).

That's why race is such a minefield

But is none the less an integral part of 'our' society and history.

Since there is absolutely no way to gain a definitive answer on that since we can't directly observe people who lived 5,000 or whatever years ago there will always be some room for dispute here.

No the phenotype of the ancient Egyptians based on contemporary mainstream biological evidence is pretty much set in stone:

"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas." (Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)

and has been set in stone for several decades now. The highest frequency of the phenotypes exhibited in ancient Egypt (up to around the New Kingdom) would have been that which overlaps with other black Africans further south.

I understand the deficiencies you point out, however, the benefit of using well-known names is that the average person has some idea of who you're talking about.

I can somewhat empathize with that, but if the opportunity is given to show localized groups of Somalis and Tigrean folks (whom overlap with the early ancient Egyptian phenotype) then that should be done. As noted Africa has the most indigenous phenotypic diversity on Earth, using just one individual to represent an entire group of people could give a somewhat false limitation of variability as opposed to lets say a screen shot of an entire village of said groups.

On the other hand, saying "the same shade as Iman" or the "the same color as Wesley Snipes" might be imprecise (and subject to change due to make up, sun exposure, age, etc.) but the information is arguably more useful to the average person.

You are aware that many many many Somalis (whom are gracile in phenotype) are just as if not much darker (almost purple) than Wesley Snipes.

It is the existence of things such as that "small scale migration" - people didn't all just stay home until a hypothetical founding date for Ancient Egypt. If they were moving around in the First Dynasty it's reasonable to assume they were doing that before the First Dynasty.

After the unification of both Northern and Southern Egypt trading systems which were established between Lower Egypt and the Levant began to expand into Upper Egypt. This is why several scholars have noted that the small scale migration took place after Dynastic establishment and even bypassed Lower Egypt and went into the south where the brunt of the civilization laid.

If trade items were moving in both directions it's reasonable to conclude people were, too, because pots and beads don't move by themselves.

The trading between the Nile and the Levant during Pre-Dynastic times was pretty much confined to Lower Egypt. Even with the integral trading system in place between Lower Egypt and the Levant, biological evidence distinguishes both groups from one another which indicates a lack of common ancestry.

Where I disagree with you is the notion that such migration and influx did NOT occur prior to Dynastic times, or at such low levels it could be completely ignored..

You are essentially arguing that Pre-Dynastic Egyptians were already a mixture of Middle Easterners and black Africans. When different populations (races) mix with one another the resulting population tend to be intermediate in their biological affinities to both populations involves. Based on just about all available biological evidence the ancient Egyptians especially Pre-Early Dynastic were as "Negroid" in skeletal morphology as the Egyptians got. In fact the discredited "Dynastic race theory" actually suggest that Dynastic culture was result of an invading population from Middle East (and even Europe) being imposed on a "Negroid" population (Pre-Dynastic Egyptians). There is absolutely no evidence of those proto-Dynastic people being mixed with anything but various black Africans (you've seen the biological evidence).

I would argue there was almost certainly less of it that far back, but I don't believe it was absent.

That is nothing more than mere speculation (the same speculation that colonial scholars used). Every piece of Bio-Cultural refutes this notion.

Because large populations aren't homogenous, all their traits occupy a range and not discrete boxes.

No no no I'm talking about Upper Egyptians and Lower Nubians, two populations who are adjacent to one another. These populations were essentially the same (especially in Pre-Dynastic times) both biologically and culturally and just about everyone knows that.

Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Nubians may well be accurately lumped as a discrete group based upon a collection of traits, but may be sub-divided based on other traits or a frequency of, as you put it, phenotypes.

The Godde 2009 study which has been posted in snippets actually details the Egypto-Nubian relationship, which samples populations from different locations along the Nile and with different time periods:

"The Mahalanobis D2 analysis uncovered close affinities between Nubians and Egyptians. Table 3 lists the Mahalanobis D2 distance matrix... 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). -- 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.

The mere fact that Egyptian and Nubians samples are overlapping with one another versus some of their own samples (even since Pre-Dynastic times) confirms that the ancient Egyptians (Upper Egyptians) and Nubians were and continue to be the same people biologically.

Ancient Egypt may or may not have had statistically more lighter-brown people than Ancient Nubia did.

Just ask yourself why is that mere speculation so important to you? If numerous lines biological evidence conclusively states that Nubians and Egyptians were essentially the same, then why are you still trying to distinguish them on through some imaginary skin tone variation? Why such a push for "lighter skin" when no evidence substantiates it?

There may have been a greater frequency of broad noses among the Nubians.

The broad features were seen in notable frequencies in Nubia AND Upper Egypt:

"The M2 lineage is mainly found primarily in "eastern", "sub-saharan", and sub-equatorial African groups, those with the highest frequency of the "Broad" trend physiognomy, but found also in notable frequencies in Nubia and Upper Egypt, as indicated by the RFLP TaqI 49a, f variant IV (see Lucotte and Mercier, 2003; Al-Zahery et al. 2003 for equivalecies of markers), which is affiliated with it. The distribution of these markers in other parts of Africa has usually been explained by the "Bantu migrations", but their presence in the Nile Valley in non-Bantu speakers cannot be explained in this way. Their existence is better explained by their being present in populations of the early Holocene Sahara, who in part went on to people the Nile Valley in the mid-Holocene, according to Hassan (1988); this occured long before the "Bantu migrations", which also do not exlain the high frequency of M2 in Senegal, since there are no Bantu speakers there either". S.O.Y. Keita American Journal of Human Biology 16:679-689 (2004)

Some older crania analysis place the "broad" Negroid morphologies seen in Egypt at as much as a third of the crania that was analyzed. Of course those same older studies did however group the elongated crania (Somalis, Ethiopians, ancient Nubians ect) as Mediterranean (hence not indigenous).

It makes me wonder if the big difference to the Egyptians was whether or not you possessed or adopted their culture rather than what you looked like.

The assimilation of immigrants into Egyptian culture is indeed what determined if you were an Egyptian or not.

Except it's from a work of fiction and shows all manner of bias and prejudice in itself, from "the brothers want white women" to "white women want black dick".

The idea of that scene was actually recognized by many critics as a very realistic conversation between African American women. In that it talked about issues and insecurities blacks face that many older blacks regard as "our dirty laundry". Those particular "bias and prejudice" ideas are very much real within the African American community. Which is what I mean when I state that "we" live in a very racialized society. Rather or not we want to admit modern prejudices and misconstrues trains of thoughts have been taught to all of us since we were tots. That's just the world that we live in.

You can no more explain the social milieu of black American women in 7 minutes

It gave you a glimpse into the common thoughts and ideas that role through the minds of black women. It showed the pain and insecurities that are associated with colorism on both fronts (light and dark). It showed that those issues mutually shared by dark black and high yellow-mulatto type African Americans (and those in-between) women.

If we don't start making an effort now it will never happen.

It sounds good, but the way things are looking now (all of this political Tea Party BS) good luck.

I've seen enormous changes in my own lifetime in the concept of "race" and "nationality" so it certainly does make a difference.

Yes a lot has changed for the better since the times of Jim Crow, but we all know that we have a LOOOONG (understatement) way to go before most folks can get past the color another persons skin.

And I say maybe they should stop following those definitions. Define themselves. Is it easy?

many often do define themselves as something different than what the West projects them as but to no avail, as the West (all eyes on us) often overlooks those efforts.

[Broomstick]

Denial of outside influences would also play into that.

That is a distortion of my argument and you know it. I have never denied the influences from the Levant during Pre-Dynastic times (by way of crops and domesticates), but I have maintained that based on conclusive peer reviewed evidence the basis of the early Nile Valley system of agriculture and cattle domestication were Nilotic in origin. That is Nilotic basis for their agriculture and domestication that most historians and scholars have noted within the last four decades and is the likely reason why they consider the origins of Dynastic Egyptian culture as a whole "fundamentally African".

Yes. Egyptians are Africans. So are Libyans. So are the Zulu. So are a lot of other people. What in the hell is your point here? NO ONE in this thread has ever implied that Ancient Egypt wasn't African, fundamentally or otherwise. What the hell is your hang up with this?

Importing a few crops and domestic animals from the Levant in no way makes Ancient Egypt less African, yet you treat any mention of such an outside influence as an attack on their "Africaness". It makes you look ridiculous and stupid.

For example, if a civilization greatly benefits from the importation of a new crop but a historian or anthropologist downplays or dismisses that foreign contribution I have to question that scholar's impartiality and look for bias.

Already explained above. The question that I'm asking is why does stating the fact that the original ancient Egyptians were black Africans automatically equate to the person expressing that fact as an "Afrocentric"? No one is stating that no ideas came from the Levant. Nor is anyone stating that blacks are superior to any and everyone. Could be that societal and historic biases have preconditioned many in the Western world to vilify and ultimately dismiss this idea which goes against old notions which were openly distorted during events in the past?

Could it be that you are hypersensitive to the racial issue and over-react to the initial posts in an internet thread?

That doesn't matter if it's Levantine wheat brought into Egypt or potatoes brought to Europe

All of this was already addressed in our last exchange on the previous page. If you wish to continue to debate this then please pick up where you left off, as you did not respond to my last reply.

This may shock you, but this thread is not the primary concern in my life. For example, most of the past week was spent in traveling over a thousand miles round trip to deal with family concerns. I wasn't even on the internet most of the past week because family takes precedence over any internet discussion. There are other little concerns, such as work, taking care of a disabled spouse, and so forth that means sometimes I go a week or three between posts, or even drop a conversation entirely because by the time I get back to it, it's old enough to be considered a zombie or necro.

So I drop in when I have the time to participate and disappear when I don't. As my couple days off are coming to an end as of tonight I might not be back for a few days, or may not be making lengthy replies - deal with it.

My only point is that those same SDN members who participated in the last thread or threads about this topic have came into this thread very highly emotional and lashed out ("chip on their shoulder"), which they have attempted to project onto me.

Some other people who HAVEN'T "lashed out" at you have also noted your emotional outbursts. You might consider that the criticism is not without some basis. It's alright to be passionate about a topic, but some self-reflection doesn't hurt either.

The only trouble with that line of reasoning is that the correlation between skeleton proportions and skin color is not absolute.

Actually it is based on ecological principal that tropically adapted humans have dark skin color, which is a fact that both Keita and Brace have noted about the physical appearance of the ancient Egyptians. During the last segment of Keita's Cambridge lecture he actually states that the ancient Egyptians would have been "dark skinned" based on their skeletal morphology (limb proportions) but that precise skin color cannot be determined through that analysis.

What part of the phrase "correlation between skeleton proportions and skin color is not absolute" are you having a problem with? That's what I just said, that precise skin color cannot be determined through analyzing a skeleton.

Just think about how racially attached and dedicated many African Americans ((especially older generations) even many foreign blacks) are to Obama's (half black but still identifies as such) success.

And some reject him - because "black Americans" is not a monolithic entity. While they have much in common they are composed of individuals with differing outlooks and opinions.

Obama is "black" in the sense of dark skinned and of African descent, but to some people he is not black enough or seen as very different from someone whose black ancestors were slaves or descendants of slaves rather than a recent Kenyan immigrant.

I think the fact even with those points acknowledged about his ancestry and that Obama himself actually identifies as a black man is enough said about the culture of this nation. You must also remember that Obama is not a spring chicken and was on the heels of Jim Crow era America and were exposed to those basic views. With all of the corny fried chicken and monkey jokes flying around it's pretty obvious how most Americans really feels about the identity of mixed race people (especially black and white).

Apparently, despite the jokes and bias around mixed race people that still exist the majority of Americans in 2008 felt that he should be President. Not a huge majority, true, but still a majority. Was that the point you were trying to make? No? Yes? Maybe? Not sure?

A society can choose a member of a minority group to represent them to the larger world and yet at the same time harbor bias towards that minority. That's because people and their societies are complex and even contradictory at times.

Since there is absolutely no way to gain a definitive answer on that since we can't directly observe people who lived 5,000 or whatever years ago there will always be some room for dispute here.

No the phenotype of the ancient Egyptians based on contemporary mainstream biological evidence is pretty much set in stone:

Apparently you are unaware that anthropology of that sort is based on statistics and is constantly being refined with better techniques and greater knowledge. The exact same arguments - "we know enough about biological to give a definitive answer" - was used as a basis for declarations for the exact opposite state of affairs in the 19th Century. More bones and/or new techniques in the future could give a different perspective on the people of pre-Dynastic Egypt.

As another example - anthropology and biology were long used to declare the Ainu an outpost of Caucasians living in Japan. New evidence now says they're actually Asians, more closely related to the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans than to any European groups. Their "Caucasian" traits are now supposed to be the results of such traits arising independently. 50 years from now someone might prove that no, Asians originally looked like the Ainu but the rest of them changed while the Ainu did not. Or something else.

Any scholar who doesn't qualify an absolute statement about past peoples' traits that are not directly observable really needs to add "to the best of our present knowledge" to such a statement, or something similar. We don't know what skin color tropical humans had 20,000 years ago - we assume they were as dark-skinned as now, but there might be some other factor at work that prompted them to darken over the past few thousand years from a relatively lighter shade in the past. I'll admit that based on present knowledge it's a bit unlikely but such stability of skin color can not be definitively proven based solely on skeletal evidence.

We see this with far northern peoples, who tend to be pale (a trend seen in both Europe and Asia) but the Inuit of North America are a dark-skinned except despite skeletal proportions closer to that of the quite pale Saami of Finland than the equally dark-skinned people to their south. You can't even attribute that to the length of time in the environment, as there is some evidence that the Inuit have been in the far north longer than the Saami.

Again, skeletal traits and skin color do not march in lockstep. Usually a similarity in skeletal form is accompanied by a similarity in skin color but not always.

I understand the deficiencies you point out, however, the benefit of using well-known names is that the average person has some idea of who you're talking about.

I can somewhat empathize with that, but if the opportunity is given to show localized groups of Somalis and Tigrean folks (whom overlap with the early ancient Egyptian phenotype) then that should be done. As noted Africa has the most indigenous phenotypic diversity on Earth, using just one individual to represent an entire group of people could give a somewhat false limitation of variability as opposed to lets say a screen shot of an entire village of said groups.

Except such celebrities are not being used as sole representatives but rather a range of possibilities. No one is saying ALL pre-Dynastic Egyptians looked like Iman OR like Snipes. They were used to illustrate possible end-points of a range.

You are aware that many many many Somalis (whom are gracile in phenotype) are just as if not much darker (almost purple) than Wesley Snipes.

Seeing as we have discussed the issue of skin color and ranges within and without groups, the fact you are asking that question shows that you either have not read any of my posts, or are deliberately misconstruing my meaning. I have pointed out on more than one occasion that no one person is an accurate representation of the range of skin color found in any large group of people.

It is the existence of things such as that "small scale migration" - people didn't all just stay home until a hypothetical founding date for Ancient Egypt. If they were moving around in the First Dynasty it's reasonable to assume they were doing that before the First Dynasty.

After the unification of both Northern and Southern Egypt trading systems which were established between Lower Egypt and the Levant began to expand into Upper Egypt.

So... if such trade and migration could occur after the two Egypts were united why not before? Please tell me what mechanism would have prevent all such trade of goods and people? Certainly a united Egypt makes such travel easier, but what makes you think there was NO such trade prior to that time?

Where I disagree with you is the notion that such migration and influx did NOT occur prior to Dynastic times, or at such low levels it could be completely ignored..

You are essentially arguing that Pre-Dynastic Egyptians were already a mixture of Middle Easterners and black Africans.

Yep. Now, I think the genetic contributions of the Middle Easterners was small, and less and less as you traveled south. I am in no way saying there was an equal mix. I don't think there's a 50/50 mix of African/non-African ancestry even today.

When different populations (races) mix with one another the resulting population tend to be intermediate in their biological affinities to both populations involves.

Not necessarily.

First of all, two mixing groups don't have to contribute equally to the blended population. A group with 80% contributions from Nubia and 20% contribution from Palestine (as an example totally pulled out of my ass as a hypothetical) is a mixed group, but they'll look more like Nubians than Palestians on average (some individuals will always strongly resemble the ancestral populations as well). So proportions of each contributing group makes a difference. The resulting group may well end up distinct from either of the parental groups, yet still incline more towards one than the other in appearance.

The second factor at work is that very tropical environment they lived in. Skin color follows latitude because low sunlight levels cause problems with vitamin D production, and high levels can destroy folate. Both are factors in human reproduction and health. Lighter skin allows more production of vitamin D, but the trade-off is lowered folate levels. Dark skin has the opposite benefit/trade-off. If a dark and a light skin group combine in a high-sunlight area the light skinned group will have more problems getting adequate folate and will not reproduce as well, leading to preferential survival of dark skin. Then can lead even relatively light skinned groups to darken significantly over a few thousand years, or, in low-sunlight areas, for formerly dark-skinned groups to lighten. This can occur more rapidly than people think it can. For example, the most common skin color alleles (in the SLC24A5 group of alleles) of Europe, that is, "white people", might only be 6,000-10,000 years old. The time scale we are discussing here, involving Ancient Egypt around the pre-Dynastic period and somewhat before, is 5,000-6,000 years ago, meaning it's far enough away that skin color of the founding group could have changed due to environmental pressures, and in that environment that most likely means darkening skin, not lightening.

The usual relationship between sunlight and skin color can be disrupted if the diet provides sufficient quantities of the problem nutrient to offset the liability of the "wrong" skin color for the environment or some other factor intervenes. Thus, the current theory is that the Inuit were able to stay dark because of the very high levels of vitamin D in their traditional diet. Likewise, light skinned people may endure in the tropics if the diet provides very high folate levels, or if people customarily wear a great deal of clothing to shield against sunlight.

Any valid scientific theory needs to address these possibilities, and simply repeating "look at the skeletons!" is not sufficient evidence.

That is nothing more than mere speculation (the same speculation that colonial scholars used). Every piece of Bio-Cultural refutes this notion.

Your continued capitalization of "bio-cultural" is strange and ungrammatical, why do you continue to do that?

On top of that - "bio-cultural" theories are subject to change with new data. New data can arise from either new discoveries or new techniques. Although a lot of dead Egyptians have been dug up over the years only a small fraction have been exhaustively studied, and those heavily slanted towards the wealthy and powerful which may or may not have been well representative of the average Egyptian of their time period. Actually, we know in some instances the rulers weren't representative.

Ancient Egypt may or may not have had statistically more lighter-brown people than Ancient Nubia did.

Just ask yourself why is that mere speculation so important to you?

Because absolutist statements regarding the biology of ancient humans have been refuted so often that any such statements now should be approached with extreme caution. Too many times ideas absolutely proven by science have been overturned in a following generation.

Some older crania analysis place the "broad" Negroid morphologies seen in Egypt at as much as a third of the crania that was analyzed. Of course those same older studies did however group the elongated crania (Somalis, Ethiopians, ancient Nubians ect) as Mediterranean (hence not indigenous).

^ see. There's an example. Once upon a time only "broad" crania were seen as truly African and "elongated" crania were seen as Mediterranean. We now know that both cranial types arose in Africa and that such morphological differences can not be used to separate African and non-African.

Except it's from a work of fiction and shows all manner of bias and prejudice in itself, from "the brothers want white women" to "white women want black dick".

The idea of that scene was actually recognized by many critics as a very realistic conversation between African American women. In that it talked about issues and insecurities blacks face that many older blacks regard as "our dirty laundry". Those particular "bias and prejudice" ideas are very much real within the African American community.

Frankly, I find it offensive that you seem to think I have never actually sat in a room with black women while they discussed such issues. Especially after I already stated that I had done so. Yes, conversations on such issues do occur, I have been present for them, but you pointing to a FICTIONAL work as "evidence" in a fact-based discussion is bizarre and nonsensical.

It gave you a glimpse into the common thoughts and ideas that role through the minds of black women. It showed the pain and insecurities that are associated with colorism on both fronts (light and dark). It showed that those issues mutually shared by dark black and high yellow-mulatto type African Americans (and those in-between) women.

And you have the arrogance to think only YOU could give me such a glimpse? After I had stated I had heard such issues discussed in real life, by real women, who are my friends and neighbors?! Such arrogance, so many assumptions!

Do you seriously think I have NO contact with the people I live among?

Do YOU never speak to anyone outside of your own race and ethnicity? If so... how sad for you.

If we don't start making an effort now it will never happen.

It sounds good, but the way things are looking now (all of this political Tea Party BS) good luck.

Ah, the cynicism of youth!

I've seen enormous changes in my own lifetime in the concept of "race" and "nationality" so it certainly does make a difference.

Yes a lot has changed for the better since the times of Jim Crow, but we all know that we have a LOOOONG (understatement) way to go before most folks can get past the color another persons skin.

All the more reason to get started as soon as possible.

By the way - as I already mentioned, I have to get back to doing things tomorrow, so any future replies in this thread may or may not be prompt. It's not like I haven't contributed to this thread in the past. I'd happily let someone else take over the dialogue at this point.

[Big Triece]

Yes. Egyptians are Africans. So are Libyans. So are the Zulu. So are a lot of other people. What in the hell is your point here?

You are deliberately distorting what I am relaying to you. Your obsession with proving the futile assertion that Middle Easterners were ever present in Pre-Dynastic Egypt, has been hung up by your overemphasis of the incorporation of Levantine products into the Nilotic foraging system and domestication used by the earliest inhabitants of the Nile. It upsets you because just about all scholars across the board refer to Dynastic Egyptian culture as an indigenous product of Africa, which pays no mind to Levant's limited involvement in the Egypt's overall development.

But anyways how does this make me an "Afrocentric"? I acknowledge cultural input from the Levant in Egypt's development and I am not arguing that blacks are superior to anyone. That is according to you what an "Afrocentric".

Importing a few crops and domestic animals from the Levant in no way makes Ancient Egypt less African, yet you treat any mention of such an outside influence as an attack on their "Africaness".

You are not fucking slick! Just as I've been assuming, your motive in this entire discussion has been to prove that the ancient Egyptians have been a mixture of black Africans and Middle Easterners since Pre-Dynastic times. Overemphasizing the importance of the incorporation of these Levantine products "on their own terms" (according to Keita, Boyce and Ehret) is your only means to help this futile theory, which goes against just about all Bio-Cultural evidence.

It makes you look ridiculous and stupid.

No it just shows that you are a typical colonial minded, agenda driven hypocrite who cannot and will not accept that the original ancient Egyptians themselves were solely the product of inner Africa no matter what or how much evidence proves this to be true.

Could it be that you are hypersensitive to the racial issue and over-react to the initial posts in an internet thread?

The racial issue has been "the" issue from jump and you know that. Proving the notion that black Africans were "inherently intellectually inferior" to people deemed "white" or "Caucasian" was the motive of these colonial ideas. One popular notion by colonial Europeans in regards to African history (as noted by Basil Davidson in his documentary) was that black Africans could not have done this on their own, that much if not most of it's existence is due to the involvement of non blacks. This idea extended even past Egypt and even into the Nubian civilization, Zimbabwe and many West African civilizations. If you don't believe me check the works of Carlton S. Coon (as late as the 1970's) for the persistence of these backwards ass ideas in Western academia. The very idea that you are arguing the exact same fucking theory in regards to who the earliest ancient Egyptians were in terms of their biological origins as many colonial scholars shows how fucking backwards your ideas truly are.

This may shock you, but this thread is not the primary concern in my life.

I'm not hearing any of that. I took a leave of absence for the majority of this work week, but when I returned I picked up where Simon_Jester left off. Simply ignoring a rebuttal (w/o letting be known that you will be absent or that you are done before hand or immediately after) is often regarded as "chickening out" in the numerous and wide ranging forums that I have been involved in. Coming back into a discussion and picking up on the same points that you obviously cannot defend is self defeating on your part.

Some other people who HAVEN'T "lashed out" at you

EVERY SDN member who has posted in this discussion has included an unwarranted personal attack within their initial post in this thread. They justify THEIR emotional outburst by previous encounters that they've had with people whom they perceived as "Afrocentrics" which likely left those SDN members with scars on their asses. They are the primary example of people who have "chips on their shoulders". They have attempted to past their reflections of themselves onto me and my argument.

What part of the phrase "correlation between skeleton proportions and skin color is not absolute" are you having a problem with?

What part of "ecological principal" do YOU not fucking understand? "Dark skin color" according to this scientific principal is accompanied wherever a population has been a long term residence of the tropics:

"In this regard it is interesting to note that limb proportions of Predynastic Naqada people in Upper Egypt are reported to be "Super-Negroid," meaning that the distal segments are elongated in the fashion of tropical Africans.....skin color intensification and distal limb elongation are apparent wherever people have been long-term residents of the tropics." (-- C.L. Brace, 1993. Clines and clusters..")

The most tropically adapted people on Earth are aboriginal Australians, some southern Asian populations (previously referred to as "Negritos") and of course tropical Africans.

That's what I just said, that precise skin color cannot be determined through analyzing a skeleton.

Is this not the same fucking thing that I just stated? Are you repeating my exact same points in attempt to gain ground in this debate?

The ancient Egyptians were dark skinned Africans based on ecological principal. One skin cell analysis which recorded the levels of pigmentation within the skin cells of ancient Egyptian nobles were the same as "Negroid" populations. Even with that said people who are deemed "Negroid" have the highest level of indigenous skin tone variation on the planet, so that statement does not approximate the specific hue of their skin with any precise population for a relative comparison.

That being said YOU have absolutely no scientific basis to assert a skin tone variation between Egyptians and Nubians, which is what you have attempted do throughout this discussion.

And some reject him - because "black Americans" is not a monolithic entity.

Did you not see where I stated "many"? How in the fuck is that making my own ethnicity out to be some monolithic entity? I base this on my own fucking everyday personal experiences. One of the best places to hear and engage in these types of discussions are in African American barbershops.

Apparently, despite the jokes and bias around mixed race people that still exist the majority of Americans in 2008 felt that he should be President. Not a huge majority, true, but still a majority. Was that the point you were trying to make? No? Yes? Maybe? Not sure?

Many white Americans have tried to excuse many overtly racist jokes, attitudes or gestures towards Obama, by saying that "OH nothing I do can be racist, why... because I voted for Obama". I for one don't buy that shit. Most in this country (especially whites) have a social fear of being outed as a "racist", but many of actions or comments that are done suggest that racial prejudice is still an integral part of our society.

Apparently you are unaware that anthropology of that sort is based on statistics and is constantly being refined with better techniques and greater knowledge.

With that being said most of the studies presented have been from within the last decade, and the Godde study was from two years ago. All of them have been consistent and many if not most reference the findings of Keita and others from the past two decades.

The exact same arguments - "we know enough about biological to give a definitive answer" - was used as a basis for declarations for the exact opposite state of affairs in the 19th Century.

Actually one of Keita's publications in the early 90's specifically dealt with the findings of countless older studies from the past two centuries. The typological approach to interpreting anthropology was exposed as the misleading tool that it was. Keita himself actually looked at the raw data and findings of those older studies to show the true biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians.

More bones and/or new techniques in the future could give a different perspective on the people of pre-Dynastic Egypt

Point blank, none of these recent studies are really new findings. The approach to interpreting data in anthropology has simply been changed, thanks mostly to topple of the concept of race. The idea that some revolutionary new way to measure and group bones will change who the ancient Egyptians have always been found to cluster with is wishful thinking on your part.

As another example - anthropology and biology were long used to declare the Ainu an outpost of Caucasians living in Japan.

Yet another example of the deliberate distortion of data by agenda driven, colonial era scientist. Do you not understand that this was a common theme across the world amongst racist white Western scientist? Africa and African people however has bared the brunt these fucked up ideas/lies because of much more vested interest during those times (slavery).

Any scholar who doesn't qualify an absolute statement about past peoples' traits that are not directly observable really needs to add "to the best of our present knowledge" to such a statement, or something similar.

Or maybe you and your ideas are just the shining example of the point of this thread. You will not concede to overwhelming biological evidence confirming what the ancient Egyptians looked like, because it is something that you are simply not comfortable with accepting. I've already gave my explanation as to why I believe that you are reaching in the air for any other theory as opposed to accepting the social implications which you and I both go by.

We don't know what skin color tropical humans had 20,000 years ago - we assume they were as dark-skinned as now,

What do you mean that "they were as dark skinned as now"? Which tropical African population are you trying to compare them to? Some are darker and some are lighter than others, but none the less it has been conclusively proven that the original humans were "dark skinned":

"Humans skin is the most visible aspect of the human phenotype. It is distinguished mainly by its naked appearance, greatly enhanced abilities to dissipate body heat through sweating, and the great range of genetically determined skin colors present within a single species. Many aspects of the evolution of human skin and skin color can be reconstructed using comparative anatomy, physiology, and genomics. Enhancement of thermal sweating was a key innovation in human evolution that allowed maintenance of homeostasis (including constant brain temperature) during sustained physical activity in hot environments. Dark skin evolved pari passu with the loss of body hair and was the original state for the genus Homo. Melanin pigmentation is adaptive and has been maintained by natural selection."-- Jablonski N (2004)THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SKIN AND SKIN COLOR. Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 33: 585-623

It was even found that dark skin has been "maintained" since then.

Again, skeletal traits and skin color do not march in lockstep. Usually a similarity in skeletal form is accompanied by a similarity in skin color but not always.

"Ecological principal" listen to Keita:

Except such celebrities are not being used as sole representatives but rather a range of possibilities. No one is saying ALL pre-Dynastic Egyptians looked like Iman OR like Snipes. They were used to illustrate possible end-points of a range.

Sure whatever.

So... if such trade and migration could occur after the two Egypts were united why not before?

The trade between the Levant and the Nile was restricted to the Lower Egyptian societies. One of the big pluses that was accompanied with unification was that the trading link between the Levant and Lower Egypt would be extended to Upper Egypt.

Secondly why are you so fucking hung up on believing a theory that you know is based on nothing more than your own wishful speculation? You obviously lack objectivity, in that you do not what to believe what has been proven and is instead out to prove something. I guess the difference between my opinion and your wishful thinking is that my opinion has substantial backing from reputed sources.

but what makes you think there was NO such trade prior to that time?

I'm not interesting your games. Put up or the shut the fuck up. If you cannot prove through any sort of "Bio-Cultural" evidence that Middle Easterners were present in the Nile (especially Upper Egypt) then shut the fuck up about it.

Yep. Now, I think the genetic contributions of the Middle Easterners was small, and less and less as you traveled south

Why does biological evidence refute that notion even in early Lower Egyptians?

"..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." (Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)

If the Pre-Dynastic inhabitants throughout Nile Valley had genetic input from the Levant what in the fuck is up with this finding that even refutes genetic input in Northern Egypt which is adjacent to the Levant? Why are Lower Egyptian limb proportions like tropical Africans rather than intermediate like Middle Easterners or cold adapted like Europeans? Why do "THE MOST" "Negroid" affinities of the ancient Egyptians come from the specimens of Pre and Early Dynastic times? Why do Dynastic Egyptians not show biological affinities with Middle Easterners but rather with black Africans to the south?

I am in no way saying there was an equal mix.

You have no scientific basis to insist that there was even 'a' mixture during that time.

is a mixed group, but they'll look more like Nubians than Palestians on average

Regardless if that group was a mixture of both than it would show biological affinities to both populations, not forming an overlapping affinity with just one of their ancestral populations:

"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).(Sonia R. Zakrzewski. (2007). Population Continuity or Population Change: Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 132:501-509)

A population that is mixed with Black Africans and Middle Easterners would not form an overlapping morphological cluster with "Negroid" groups, but rather become somewhat intermediate between the two groups. This completely refutes your assertions.

involving Ancient Egypt around the pre-Dynastic period and somewhat before, is 5,000-6,000 years ago, meaning it's far enough away that skin color of the founding group could have changed due to environmental pressures

Nope, according to Keita (Cambridge lecture) it takes at least 15,000 years for a populations to adapt to a new environment/climate. Other studies have found the ancient Egyptians to have retained their "Negroid" skin color:

"During an excavation headed by the German Institute for Archaeology, Cairo, at the tombs of the nobles in Thebes-West, Upper Egypt, three types of tissues from different mummies were sampled to compare 13 well known rehydration methods for mummified tissue with three newly developed methods. .. Skin sections showed particularly good tissue preservation, although cellular outlines were never distinct. Although much of the epidermis had already separated from the dermis, the remaining epidermis often was preserved well (Fig. 1). The basal epithelial cells were packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin."--(A-M Mekota and M Vermehren. (2005) Determination of optimal rehydration, fixation and staining methods for histological and immunohistochemical analysis of mummified soft tissues. Biotechnic & Histochemistry 2005, Vol. 80, No. 1, Pages 7-13

Does this finding really shock you? Tropical Africans (Egyptians) have dark skin color in accordance with other tropical Africans. They were black Africans get over it.

On top of that - "bio-cultural" theories are subject to change with new data.

And they have. One of the most ground breaking new findings within the last 30 years was the revelation that Nilotic populations of the ancient Sahara domesticated cattle on their own, without involvement from the Levant. This has been confirmed by recent genetic studies, and pretty much sealed the deal on the origins of ancient Egypt.

and those heavily slanted towards the wealthy and powerful which may or may not have been well representative of the average Egyptian of their time period.

Ok well let me emphasize some other points that stated in those studies that I have posted in regard to the populace of ancient Egyptians:

"The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.

or

"There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas." (Nancy C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999) pp 328-332)

Note the word GENERAL . Which is used to indicate normalcy. According to biological evidence the ancient Egyptians were "normally" black Africans, you cannot refute it so GET OVER IT.

Because absolutist statements regarding the biology of ancient humans have been refuted so often

No, why is it so important for you to emphasize your speculative point that the ancient Egyptians were lighter than a populations whom we generally regard as black? Why are you trying so desperately to emphasize a point which you cannot substantiate and is opposite of conclusive biological evidence?

^ see. There's an example. Once upon a time only "broad" crania were seen as truly African and "elongated" crania were seen as Mediterranean.

Yes this is misleading typological approach that is thoroughly exposed by one of Keita's publications in the early 90's. The Mediterranean branch in Africa was seen a mixture of "Negroid" and "Caucasoid" types rather than an indigenous development of Africa. Through that basis many older scholars contended that the same elongated Northeast African crania (which comprised the bulk of the remains) was Mediterranean which was the basis of them asserting that ancient Egypt was not a product of Africa. Those broad featured Africans even when found in substantial numbers were seen as nothing more than foreigners:

"Analyses of Egyptian crania are numerous. Vercoutter (1978) notes that ancient Egyptian crania have frequently all been lumped (implicitly or explicitly) as Mediterranean, although Negroid remains are recorded in substantial numbers by many workers... "Nutter (1958), using the Penrose statistic, demonstrated that Nagada I and Badari crania, both regarded as Negroid, were almost identical and that these were most similar to the Negroid Nubian series from Kerma studied by Collett (1933). [Collett, not accepting variability, excluded "clear negro" crania found in the Kerma series from her analysis, as did Morant (1925), implying that they were foreign..." (S. Keita (1990) Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 83:35-48)

Carleton S. Coon went as far as inexplicably dismissing the broad crania in the Nile as belonging to mere slaves. This was in the 1970's by the way.

Frankly, I find it offensive that you seem to think I have never actually sat in a room with black women while they discussed such issues.

Frankly I don't care, as I know that I've said nothing offensive to you. As you described yourself as "an outsider looking in", I'm giving you one insider's (me) perspective of these social issues based on my own personal experiences along with a praised cinematic scene that was regarded as a very open discussion of social issues that many African American women go through (including colorism).

By the way - as I already mentioned, I have to get back to doing things tomorrow, so any future replies in this thread may or may not be prompt. It's not like I haven't contributed to this thread in the past. I'd happily let someone else take over the dialogue at this point.

Well then do your thing.

[Big Triece]

You're moving the goalpost on that one. First it was an issue of using American vs. other English terminology, now it's a matter of "the west". It doesn't change the fact that how Europe views matters is quite different than how North America does

As I've stated earlier probably 95% (if not 100%) of the participants in this thread are from the general region listed above. The point is that Americans, Canadians, and Europeans all share a common definition of what a black person or "Negro" is regardless of language differences or dialect. Therefore when people who participated in this thread are saying "well I'm not American so I don't know your terminology (the term black) means" they are LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH and they know it.

I must take exception to this.

If I say I don't know what you mean by black, I am being quite honest. There is more than one version of 'black' that might be used even in North America or Europe.

On a "one drop" theory (and God do I despise that sort of thinking), anyone with a great-great-grandmother who was herself "black" is by definition also "black" no matter what their physical appearance or behavior is like

Or "blackness" can be defined culturally: even if your appearance is "black," you aren't really "black" unless you act in certain ways and adhere to certain cultural templates. Acting "non-black" turns you into a race traitor- again, despicable thinking, but you can find people who think that way.

Or "black" can mean "50% or more descended from people who live in this region," and there are varying degrees of "blackness," but it's a strictly genetic term and it doesn't matter how you act. If you're biologically linked to this group, you are of this group, but only if the links are strong.


There are some weird anomalies. For example, are Australian Aborigines in any sense "black?" Obviously they're about as unrelated to modern Africans as it's possible to get, but they're phenotypically pretty similar to a lot of Africans- if you saw an Aborigine and he tried to pass himself as an African, it might be hard to refute what he was saying. Certainly the Aborigines can point to a history of oppression as terrible as that of most Africans, so if you define "blackness" as a collective identity created in response to oppression by Europeans, the Aborigines have as much of a right to it as the Kenyans do- the British treated them a lot worse. For that matter, 19th century whites used some of the same ethnic slurs to talk about Aborigines that they did to talk about Africans.

And yet, while Aborigines look pretty darned African, and have been oppressed as ferociously as most Africans, culturally they share practically nothing with any part of Africa, and their ancestors left Africa tens of thousands of years ago. So in yet another sense they're no more "black" than the people living in China are.

Different definitions of "blackness" yield different answers to "can an Australian aborigine call himself black?" Or they should. Chromatically, he's black. If blackness is something that comes from a common experience of oppression, he's black. If blackness comes from being descended from the traditions of African civilizations, though, he's totally non-black.

Would you say he's black, or not? I'd guess that you would say "no," but I can't be sure, because I'm not sure which model of blackness you adhere to.


Which ties into the subtext question of what degree of unity and coherence you think there is among different groups of "black" people who lived millenia before the term "black" was even invented to lump the inhabitants of Africa into one big category. From the sound of it, the answer is "not very much," which says good things about your historical knowledge and mental health, but by the same token makes the entire question of the "blackness" of ancient Egyptians seem less important.

Summary of your post "What is Black"



The answer that generally given in the New World north of Latin America, Europe and even within Africa.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Triece, you think Australian Aborigines are black?

The definition you give would support this, but I am personally surprised to hear you say so. I had not expected you to hold that opinion.

[D.Turtle]

So, as an outsider who finds this entire discussion bizarre/fascinating/intriguing, let me just try to understand what exactly is being fought about.

Broomstick (and some others) are basically saying that there was Middle-Eastern/non-African influence in Egypt. Big Triece is saying that there was no such influence before a certain time (pre-dynastic?).

So, Big Triece, at what point in time would you say/admit/allow non-African influence started appearing in Egypt?

[Big Triece]

So, Triece, you think Australian Aborigines are black?

In Australian society they are considered black. A reason why they could be viewed as such is due to the fact that many early anthropologist believed that aboriginal Australians were recent migrants from Africa.

The definition you give would support this, but I am personally surprised to hear you say so. I had not expected you to hold that opinion.

Did you not note that the second definition which stated that the term "black" is referred to populations who have brown to black skin with specification of African origin?

[Big Triece]

Big Triece is saying that there was no such influence before a certain time (pre-dynastic?).

Not quite. I have acknowledged (based on sourced evidence of course) throughout this discussion that limited cultural influence from the Levant (goats, sheep, wheat and barley). The dispute comes from the fact that Broomstick wishes to use that fact as a basis for her speculative theory that Pre-Dynastic Nile Valley inhabitants were already mixed with black Africans and Middle Easterners, which goes against the opinions of most contemporary mainstream scholars. The entire exchange between Broomstick and I is on the previous page.

So, Big Triece, at what point in time would you say/admit/allow non-African influence started appearing in Egypt?

I'm not an authority nor have I asserted my opinion as such, therefore I cannot "allow" anything to be argued or presented. According to at least two of my sources (Keita, and Zakrewski) the evidence of the presence of Middle Easterners did not appear until around the Old Kingdom era. This is when "prolonged small scale migration" is noted to enter into Upper Egypt (the populations center of early times). Prior to that period (Early-Pre Dynastic era) the population of Egypt was of "continuous local origin". Local being Northeast African with overlapping affinities to Nubians, Kushites, Saharans and modern Horn Africans.

[Broomstick]

This may shock you, but this thread is not the primary concern in my life.

I'm not hearing any of that. I took a leave of absence for the majority of this work week, but when I returned I picked up where Simon_Jester left off. Simply ignoring a rebuttal (w/o letting be known that you will be absent or that you are done before hand or immediately after) is often regarded as "chickening out" in the numerous and wide ranging forums that I have been involved in.

Given the sheer amount of posts, much less word count, I have contributed to this thread should prove conclusively to any rational bystander I have done the precise opposite of “chicken out”.

I don't care if YOU choose to make this thread the number one priority in YOUR life, it is not, and will not, be number one in mine.

Frankly, at this point I see no futher use in responding to you. It is the same argument over and over. I have nothing new to add to anything I have already said. I am not your lackey, to be summoned for your amusement nor am I going to return for more of your bigoted vomiting.

Oh, wait – just one last point:

So, Triece, you think Australian Aborigines are black?

In Australian society they are considered black. A reason why they could be viewed as such is due to the fact that many early anthropologist believed that aboriginal Australians were recent migrants from Africa.

The definition you give would support this, but I am personally surprised to hear you say so. I had not expected you to hold that opinion.

Did you not note that the second definition which stated that the term "black" is referred to populations who have brown to black skin with specification of African origin?

Australian Aborigines are, according to what you call “bio-cultural” evidence, the population that is likely to have left Africa before anyone else. They are the least related to African populations of anyone else in the world. By the way you have defined things, Big Trience, if Aborigines are “black African” then so is EVERYONE ELSE in the world. In other words, so broadly defined as a term as to be meaningless.

At this point just concede your purpose is to exclude the “white” people from any contribution to early civilization and be done with it.

If Aborigines have dark skin is either a retained ancestral trait (if the ancestors of all humans were on the darkest end of the skin spectrum) or a case of convergent evolution – examples of which abound in the natural world, and of which coloration is probably one of the most common, if not the most common. It is not because they are somehow more closely related to modern Africans than other ethnic groups are.

There, I am done. Nothing more to add to what I've already said. Good day.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Triece, you think Australian Aborigines are black?

In Australian society they are considered black. A reason why they could be viewed as such is due to the fact that many early anthropologist believed that aboriginal Australians were recent migrants from Africa.

So, do you think Australian Aborigines are black? Unless your beliefs are identical to those of "Australian society," you haven't answered my question.

The definition you give would support this, but I am personally surprised to hear you say so. I had not expected you to hold that opinion.

Did you not note that the second definition which stated that the term "black" is referred to populations who have brown to black skin with specification of African origin?

Bartleby's definition reads: "Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin."

I was under the impression that "especially of African origin" and "exclusively of African origin" do not mean the same thing. Do they mean the same thing to you?

Because if I'm right, and "especially" and "exclusively" don't mean the same thing, then under the Bartleby definition, I don't see why Aborigines couldn't count as black. While African groups with brown or black skin are particularly good examples of "black" under that definition, that doesn't mean they're the only ones, or that all people Bartleby defines as black are of African origin.

So, I repeat: do you, personally, think Australian Aborigines are black? I do not want to know what Bartleby's thinks, or what some guy in Australia thinks. I want to know what you think.

Australian Aborigines are, according to what you call “bio-cultural” evidence, the population that is likely to have left Africa before anyone else. They are the least related to African populations of anyone else in the world. By the way you have defined things, Big Trience, if Aborigines are “black African” then so is EVERYONE ELSE in the world. In other words, so broadly defined as a term as to be meaningless.

Now now, Broomstick.

I can imagine a definition of "black" which concentrates on superficial phenotypical evidence ("gee, they sure look like X" coming from someone's whose idea of biological data is to squint at carefully selected photographs), and on things like a history of racial oppression (defining "black" as anyone who "white" people once chose to call "black" and oppress on that basis). Because Australian Aborigines do look superficially like they might come from Africa, and boy do they ever have a history of colonial oppression, one that makes most African groups look like they got off easy.

Under a definition like that, Australian Aborigines might well be "black" even though their ancestors left Africa when the ancestors of the current population of Iceland or Mexico were still there.

I don't think it's a very smart definition, but I can easily enough imagine someone who applies it. Like a 19th century English anthropologist.

[Spoonist]

Don't have much time right now, I'll be back though and explain how the answers to my questions a page ago shows the difference between T and Keita.

In the mean time the definition of black/negro that T cites in the pic is again a selection bias, specifically picked to be all inclusive instead of any specific use. This is so that the poster can freely pick any definition they want while retaining some sort of loose connection to a source. Also note that the selection bias chooses black from one site and negro from the other. So check out those sources and see the selection bias for yourselves.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/black
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/negro
If you do you will see that its stupid to use those two sites alone as an authority in the field. This since dictionary.com just collect all definitions it can find from other dictionaries, while bartleby.com is a classics books online - including King James Bible, maybe we should select that as source instead... So quoting bartleby without including the book title is as redundant as T himself.

Now go ahead and do a google on "of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of african origin" you will find that this passage usually ends in.
"often Black
a. A member of a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin.
b. An American descended from peoples of African origin having brown to black skin; an African American."

Now compare those with Merriam-Webster:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black



Then back on topic for the interested (ie not T)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... =pmcentrez
Check out fig S6D in the appendix and Figure 5 in the text.
Figure 5b you will recognize, however what has been left out is figure 5A "We incorporated geographic data into a Bayesian clustering analysis, assuming no admixture (TESS software) (25) and distinguished six clusters within continental Africa (Fig. 5A)." Nice what selection bias does, right?

"Our data support the hypothesis that the Sahel has been a corridor for bidirectional migration between eastern and western Africa (34-36). The highest proportion of the Nilo-Saharan AAC was observed in the southern and central Sudanese populations (Nuer, Dinka, Shilluk, and Nyimang), with decreasing frequency from northern Kenya (e.g., Pokot) to northern Tanzania (Datog, Maasai) (Fig. 5, B and C, and fig. S15). Additionally, all Nilo-Saharan–speaking populations from Kenya, Tanzania, southern Sudan, and Chad clustered with west central Afroasiatic Chadic–speaking populations in the global analysis at K ≤11 (Fig. 3), which is consistent with linguistic and archeological data suggesting bidirectional migration of Nilo-Saharans from source populations in Sudan within the past ~10,500 to 3000 years (4, 29). The proposed migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers ~7000 years ago from the central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin may have resulted in a Nilo-Saharan to Afroasiatic language shift among Chadic speakers (37). "

But do read for yourselves, its more interesting than the rants of ignorance.

Here is some other in context that might be interesting
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... =pmcentrez

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... =pmcentrez

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... =pmcentrez

[Big Triece]

I don't care if YOU choose to make this thread the number one priority in YOUR life, it is not, and will not, be number one in mine............I am not your lackey, to be summoned for your amusement nor am I going to return for more of your bigoted vomiting.

"Summoned you"? Aren't you the same fucking person who entered this thread with your own fucking novel length interpretations for all 6 parts of Keita's hour + long lecture on page one? I didn't summon your ass as I didn't even know that you fucking existed. YOU took the sweet time out of your fucking day to do that shit. The reason why you did that is because YOU have a fucking stake in this debate, and now that I have mud stomped your fucking talking points you're acting as though you never truly cared about a topic that you've been engaged in discussing for a quarter of a fucking year...GTFOOH!

Australian Aborigines are, according to what you call “bio-cultural” evidence, the population that is likely to have left Africa before anyone else. They are the least related to African populations of anyone else in the world.

When did I state that they were related to Africans? I stated that many early anthropologist believed that based on their external anatomical traits that they were recent migrants from Africa. Even before genetics became prominent black Africans and Australians were given a distinction by anthropologist.

By the way you have defined things, Big Trience, if Aborigines are “black African” then

The original ancient Egyptians were indigenous Northeast Africans who were no different in physical appearance than other more southerly Northeast Africans. Our society regards those Africans as "black" and or "Negro". I'm not about to get into arguing fucking semantics about "WHAT is black" when you all know damn well what black is (Hence full of shitfullness).

At this point just concede your purpose is to exclude the “white” people from any contribution to early civilization and be done with it.

Whoa Whoa Whoa? Unless you are regarding Middle Easterners as "white" then I have no fucking idea what "white people" have to do with the involvement of early ancient Egypt.

I back my stance with top notch fucking sources (Peer reviewed). That fact that you CANNOT and WILL NOT accept the conclusions of mainstream Bio-Cultural evidence with regards to the origins of ancient Egypt, shows how fucking distraught you are by the facts.

Lastly ummm HELLO have you ever fucking heard of ancient Greece and Rome? Are those European civilizations not good enough? Is that somehow not early enough or something? Does the idea that a group of black Africans created something marvelous before that which is seen in Europe anger you? If so why? Is this the reason why you have ignorantly maintained against all of the presented biological evidence in this thread that Pre-Dynastic Egyptians were a mixture of black African and Middle Easterners? Are you seriously not capable of admitting or even realizing that you and your ilks have been driven throughout this debate by your own fucking racial biases? Do you honestly think that 'we' (black folk) fall for YOUR fake ass, smile in face, "we are one" PC bullshit? Again GTFOOH.

Frankly, at this point I see no futher use in responding to you.

Good Bye

[Simon_Jester]

Triece, all grandstanding for the benefit of lurkers aside, I want to ask that question again:

Do you, personally, think Australian Aborigines are black?

[Spoonist]

Whoa Whoa Whoa? Unless you are regarding Middle Easterners as "white" then I have no fucking idea what "white people" have to do with the involvement of early ancient Egypt.

Since you are willfully using the ignorant and limited american consenus on the "race" you should at least be consistent with your racial terms. In the US most jews and arabs who do not show their cultural roots are indeed refered to as white or at the very least caucasian.
Like John Stewart if I don't misremember that pop trivia.

But I don't really expect you to be consistent.

[Big Triece]

Since you are willfully using the ignorant and limited american consenus on the "race" you should at least be consistent

I'm using the American/Western consensus on race because I am a fucking American? According to biological evidence the ancient Egyptians displayed an overlapping phenotype with modern and ancient "black" Africans further south.

In the US most jews and arabs who do not show their cultural roots are indeed refered to as white or at the very least caucasian.

The social context of the term "white" is limited to European and European descendants and you fucking know that. Never in my days have I heard a white American refer to an Arab as "white". Have heard Middle Easterners referred to as "Caucasian" or "Caucasoid" in broad terminology, but even when that is used in a social context their is always a noted distinction of those folk not being "white".

But I don't really expect you to be consistent.

If you can't dispute the biological evidence then follow Broomstick's trail and just STFU, rather than arguing semantics "WHAT is black".

[Big Triece]

Triece....Do you, personally, think Australian Aborigines are black?

My Goodness more fucking semantics! What does this have to do with the fact that the ancient Egyptians looked like Somalis and Ethiopians/black Africans?

But just to shut you up, NO. I (hence my opinion) do not consider aborigines "black", in the same sense that I (a person of African descent) am. Why? Because the term "black" refers to two distinct groups of people in both America and Australia, hence the meaning varies from both societies. In America where many if not most people have never heard of aborigines they would likely be distinguished (and distinguish themselves) from Africans and African Americans and the same would likely be done in Australia.

[Big Triece]

To add to what spoonist already knows about who is considered "white":

"The most used definition of a "white person" is a person of European ancestry."

Good ole Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_peop ... an_race.22

This statement is sourced in the article by the way. So no Middle Easterners are almost never considered "white". Therefore Broomsticks assertion that I'm trying to exclude "white people" (attempting to consider Middle Easterners as such) from "early" civilization is mooted from jump.

[Dass.Kapital]

*Raises hand*

Just to try and help with some little points.

As an Australian (Of second generation Anglo European descent) I would say that most people here consider Aborigines as more 'Native' i.e Indigenous first and the colour of their skin second.

From what interactions I have had the pleasure of having with said folks, I think I can comfortably say that they see themselves as 'Australian' as well their cultural heritage.

It is interesting to note, however, that I have also seen a few of Native descent do seem to identify with certain elements of imported American culture/tropes.

What adds slightly to the passing strange is that there is also the tendency of some small part of New Zealand Natives to also partake of said American styles.

Though people following fashions is, itself, nothing new.


Much cheers to you and yours.

*Bows*

[harbringer]

I will second Dass Kapitals post, a lot of *ahem* native Australians consider themselves a lot like the American Indians (who are no relation of Indians from Bombay...) and while there is a big push to retro history and get rid of things like black bastard hill and such like names, this is mostly done by leftists from the cities. As someone who is mixed blood myself I don't especially care so much - I am after all who I am regardless. To be completely honest the whole debate on "black" or the "Africaness" of Egypt is stupid, it doesn't matter what colour we think the people were, they created a civilisation that has little to do with what colour they were in any case. The only case when their colour is relevant to the discussion is if you consider African people incapable of achieving such things (in which case it is a outlier and a question that needs an answer), personally I don't believe that and from what I see on this board no one else does - well except for trice.....

There is archaeological evidence that proves Africans like everyone else had sophisticated societies - Egypt was simply the closest to Europe and therefore better studied. Egypt like every society did not live in a glass bottle and took better ideas when they found them or conquered those who knew them - much like the Romans did with Greek ideas. Regardless of the genetic make up (there is as far as I know - no gene for civilisation) Egypt was one of the most powerful bronze age societies, their competition the Hittites, Babylonians, Minoan's, Mycenaean, the peoples who lived in India and Iran (and a lot more, I am sure Thanas could give you a list) at this time all traded with Egypt for the gold and products of the Nile. A proven fact is that many crafts people and citizens passed between all these places taking livestock, ideas and technology with them. Is every single Egyptian going to be 100% native African nope not at all does it change anything? not at all. So what does it matter if Egyptians are black? as far as I am concerned it doesn't matter where they came from or how they got there - it is all about what they did do when they arrived.

[Broomstick]

Is every single Egyptian going to be 100% native African nope not at all does it change anything? not at all. So what does it matter if Egyptians are black?

It's not that it matters to you, it's that it matters to Big Triece and other black supremacists who have a major psychological stake in proving that the Ancient Egyptians were "pure" Africans. It comes out of long-outdated notions that blacks were somehow incapable of civilization, even though at the time such theories were proposed there was ample physical evidence to the contrary. Europeans came up with that bullshit to justify slavery, as they thought it was wrong to enslave civilized people (that is, those that could shoot back and/or form a credible resistant) but somehow OK to enslave "savages". A lot of American blacks feel a need to claim Ancient Egypt entirely as their own in order to prove that blacks can be civilized (which is not something anyone doubts today except for the most backward racists) and, for some of them, to put forth the theory that all civilization is ultimately of black African origin and the white devils stole that, too.

Big Triece may or may not be officially one of those crowd, but his heavy reliance on just Keita (who actually holds a more moderate view than Big Triece if you actually read/listen to him rather than just going by Big Triece's cherry-picking) is indicative of that view. Also indicative are his statements that Arabs are never spoken of as white people by white people (while less common these days, this does and has occurred for a long time). Not to mention his last hysterical, foaming-at-the-mouth tirade in response to one of my posts, which such gems as:

No it just shows that you are a typical colonial minded, agenda driven hypocrite who cannot and will not accept that the original ancient Egyptians themselves were solely the product of inner Africa no matter what or how much evidence proves this to be true.

Part in bold, of course, is his unconscious revealing of his true stance, one that will accept no evidence to the contrary whatsoever. According to him, the Ancient Egyptians were utterly pure, untainted "black" Africans, which is just as ridiculous a position as the 19th Century assertion they were Caucasian imports.

And a subtext, is, of course, that any white person is inherently a bigot - hence the line about "typical colonial minded", which is just code speak for "white person". That's why BT conflates any presentation of biological evidence, even the smallest of data points, that Ancient Egyptians were anything other than "pure" black with such hostility. He's somehow conflating biological mixing of ethnic groups with out-dated, discredited notion of 19th Century mental inferiority. Little does he realize he is, in fact, perpetuating those notions of biology being destiny by doing so. I don't understand why he thinks even the tiniest admixture from somewhere else makes the Ancient Egyptians somehow less, or less African, but he does.

There is also his anger that the rest of us aren't at his beck and call, that we have to remain here and jump through his hoops on his timetable because, of course, he is superior to those damned dirty apes white people. Nevermind what is going on in our private lives, if we don't respond promptly enough we're "chickening out", as if somehow his calling me a coward is something I give a fuck about.

Oh, and here's another gem from the same post:

I base this on my own fucking everyday personal experiences. One of the best places to hear and engage in these types of discussions are in African American barbershops.

Because.... African American barbershops are bastions of scientific research? I truly do not understand the point of dragging barbershops into this discussion. Not to mention that it's a group from which almost everyone else is barred from direct participation (have to be African and American and male to be there, right?). It's the flip side of how earlier white, male academics used to systematically exclude everyone else from their inner circle conversations - you had to be there to understand, but of course, you couldn't be there, so you were just fucked. Really, it's sad to see how some people have inverted yet maintained the practices of slavers and oppressors by forming their own exclusive/excluding groups and perpetuating a myth of their own superiority.

Of course, his failure to convince others of the Truth and Rightness of his viewpoint could not possibly have anything to do with any weakness in his debating skills - it MUST be because we're prejudiced. His argument may start in science, but it's become more of a religion which must be accepted regardless. We can see this in his continual capitalization of "bio-cultural", elevating it to a sacred status.

Also sad is how HE is allowed to use direct personal experience, but no one else is. For example:

Never in my days have I heard a white American refer to an Arab as "white".

I'm here to say that in MY personal experience this is actually fairly common. "Arab" is seen as just as much a subdivision of "Caucasian" or "white" as, say, Italian or German by many white people. It's a viewpoint that used to be even more common just a few decades ago when discussions of race were much less nuanced that today and the tendency was to hack humanity into 3-5 "races".

As well known examples of people of Arab descent, that is, "Arab Americans" that are commonly seen as "white", I offer Frank Zappa, Paul Anka, Jim Backus (cast as that parody of white upper class privilege, Thurston Howell III), Vince Vaughn, Sammy Hagar, Tony Shalhoub, Jamie Farr, Danny Thomas, Casey Kasem, Doug Flutie, Mitch Daniels (governor of Indiana), Ralph Nader, John H. Sununu, and Steve Jobs. There are probably a LOT more than that, those are just the ones I pulled off the top of my head.

So, perhaps it is just that BT has not engaged in many discussions in, say, white American barbershops. Perhaps he should speak more with white people than lecturing at them.

Really, it's BT who doesn't regard Middle Easterners as "white":

Whoa Whoa Whoa? Unless you are regarding Middle Easterners as "white" then I have no fucking idea what "white people" have to do with the involvement of early ancient Egypt.

Yes, BT, a lot of Caucasians actually do see Middle Eastern peoples/Arabs as a variety of "Caucasian". I'm sorry if that gets your panties in a twist but that's the truth. I realize there are also people in this world who regard them as "not white". Then again, it shouldn't be news to anyone that different people (by which I mean cultures, not individuals) divy up other groups differently. That really is support for the notion that "race" in humanity is NOT an objective idea.

Lastly ummm HELLO have you ever fucking heard of ancient Greece and Rome? Are those European civilizations not good enough? Is that somehow not early enough or something?

And here we go - BT, this may come as a shock to you but I am NOT entirely European in ancestry. In fact, I can lay as much claim to my ancestors being part of Ancient Babylon or Palestine or other Middle Eastern civilizations as any Arab, all of which are much earlier than Greece and Rome and indeed some contemporaneous with Ancient Egypt. Indeed, my ties to those ancient empires in the Middle East are FAR stronger than any I may have to Greece or Rome. So if I was going to play the heritage game I'd be laying claim to Ur and Sumer and not Greece and Rome.

My Asian ancestors had their moments, too, but I don't think the Mongol Horde would really be relevant to this discussion.

But hey, just make the kneejerk assumption that because I'm not black I must be a "pure" European.

Does the idea that a group of black Africans created something marvelous before that which is seen in Europe anger you?

Nope, I think it's wonderful. I absolutely think the contributions of Africans to the world have been marginalized and minimized for far too long and I fully support research into African history, and promotion of African culture be it directly from Africa or rising from the African diaspora.

I just don't see the evidence that Egypt is the sole source of ALL African culture as some have asserted, saying things like the Yoruban culture is a descendant of Ancient Egypt and such like. I don't remember if BT was one of those folks or not, and don't feel like re-reading the whole fucking thread at the moment to figure it out.

Are you seriously not capable of admitting or even realizing that you and your ilks have been driven throughout this debate by your own fucking racial biases?

Do YOU honestly think YOU don't have a racial bias of your own? Or do you subscribe to the bullshit notion that black people somehow can't be racial bigots?

Do you honestly think that 'we' (black folk) fall for YOUR fake ass, smile in face, "we are one" PC bullshit? Again GTFOOH.

Biologically, we ARE one species. Human beings are one of the least genetically diverse species on the planet. Equally true, socially and culturally we are not one. Wow, think you can handle both those concepts being true? The real world is complicated and messy like that.

That's why your use of "bio-cultural" is utter bullshit - genetics is not cultural destiny. A rather extreme example of this is Matthew Henson, a man of African, that is, tropical descent who spent much of his life exploring the Arctic and by all accounts did as well as any other person in dealing with the environment. Indeed, his was the first non-Inuit to reach the North Pole (Commander Peary having been sidelined by the environment, even if his ancestry was less tropical in nature). His Greenland descendants do not seem hampered in any way by their half tropical ancestry. Human cultural and technology has long since reached the point where past adaptions to the environment are becoming either trivial or irrelevant factors.

[Akhlut]

No it just shows that you are a typical colonial minded, agenda driven hypocrite who cannot and will not accept that the original ancient Egyptians themselves were solely the product of inner Africa no matter what or how much evidence proves this to be true.

Part in bold, of course, is his unconscious revealing of his true stance, one that will accept no evidence to the contrary whatsoever. According to him, the Ancient Egyptians were utterly pure, untainted "black" Africans, which is just as ridiculous a position as the 19th Century assertion they were Caucasian imports.

This sort of argument always makes me lol. All Homo sapiens are the products of inner Africa! Sure, now there's evidence that all people with lineages outside of sub-Saharan Africa have some admixture with Neanderthals (3-6%), the fact is that Neanderthals were also products of inner Africa, just a little further removed.

And a subtext, is, of course, that any white person is inherently a bigot - hence the line about "typical colonial minded", which is just code speak for "white person". That's why BT conflates any presentation of biological evidence, even the smallest of data points, that Ancient Egyptians were anything other than "pure" black with such hostility. He's somehow conflating biological mixing of ethnic groups with out-dated, discredited notion of 19th Century mental inferiority. Little does he realize he is, in fact, perpetuating those notions of biology being destiny by doing so. I don't understand why he thinks even the tiniest admixture from somewhere else makes the Ancient Egyptians somehow less, or less African, but he does.

The odd thing is that Ancient Egypt may have been so advanced because it was such an enormous cultural crossroads, being a large center of trade for Asia, Europe, and Africa for literally thousands of years. It was bound to pick up large amounts of resources, ideas, and people from the three continents, and, traditionally, such "crossroads" civilizations tend to be very advanced.

Of course, his failure to convince others of the Truth and Rightness of his viewpoint could not possibly have anything to do with any weakness in his debating skills - it MUST be because we're prejudiced. His argument may start in science, but it's become more of a religion which must be accepted regardless. We can see this in his continual capitalization of "bio-cultural", elevating it to a sacred status.

Unfortunately, with finals coming up, I can't go through twelve pages of what must be scintillating conversation, but "bio-cultural" is essentially a meaningless term, outside of agriculture, maybe. Otherwise, humans are perfectly able to adapt to numerous different cultures without problems. Hence, African slaves in North America were perfectly capable of living within American Indian cultures with minimal problems once the language barrier was broken (and Europeans could do the same, and often did when the choice was "live in stifling quasi-feudal colonial hellhole versus egalitarian society with relative plenty"). More than a few American Indians and Australian Aborigines lived in European societies and thrived in them (but usually chose to return to their original societies because they could never excel as much as their white competitors due to racism), to say nothing of modern multiculturalism. There is no tie between human ethnic groups and culture, really. And, frankly, most science on race tends to break down groups into much larger ones that include groups that most racialist people wouldn't like (for instance, grouping Arabs and whites together, as you explain).

That really is support for the notion that "race" in humanity is NOT an objective idea.

Turns out human genotypes don't line up with phenotypes, necessarily? Holy shit! For instance, it is likely that Australian Aborigines are more closely related to Indians and Malaysians than any African, by virtue of having moved out of Africa 40k years ago.

Lastly ummm HELLO have you ever fucking heard of ancient Greece and Rome? Are those European civilizations not good enough? Is that somehow not early enough or something?

And here we go - BT, this may come as a shock to you but I am NOT entirely European in ancestry. In fact, I can lay as much claim to my ancestors being part of Ancient Babylon or Palestine or other Middle Eastern civilizations as any Arab, all of which are much earlier than Greece and Rome and indeed some contemporaneous with Ancient Egypt. Indeed, my ties to those ancient empires in the Middle East are FAR stronger than any I may have to Greece or Rome. So if I was going to play the heritage game I'd be laying claim to Ur and Sumer and not Greece and Rome.

Man, I always love this game! Wait, no, not love. Oh, yes, I hate this game. It's basically just "my dad can beat up your dad!" writ large.

But hey, just make the kneejerk assumption that because I'm not black I must be a "pure" European.

Incidentally, most people of European descent in North America who have had family here for at least 200-300+ years have amounts of Native American, and possibly African, in them!

Does the idea that a group of black Africans created something marvelous before that which is seen in Europe anger you?

Nope, I think it's wonderful. I absolutely think the contributions of Africans to the world have been marginalized and minimized for far too long and I fully support research into African history, and promotion of African culture be it directly from Africa or rising from the African diaspora.

It's also the cradle of humanity and legitimately the Homeland for our entire species. To say nothing of the might of the Mali emperors, Great Zimbabwe, or the like.

However, and more pertinently, even if the Ancient Egyptians were "black" (whatever that means), that has no bearing on the grand majority of black Americans descended of West African slaves because they are no more related or descended of the Ancient Egyptians than I am (because of my Greek descent, which probably means at least some Ancient Egyptian blood in me).

I just don't see the evidence that Egypt is the sole source of ALL African culture as some have asserted, saying things like the Yoruban culture is a descendant of Ancient Egypt and such like. I don't remember if BT was one of those folks or not, and don't feel like re-reading the whole fucking thread at the moment to figure it out.

I imagine the Khoi-San, the Zulu, and other assorted sub-Saharan groups probably have very limited influence from Ancient Egypt that is diluted through Ethiopia and Nubia very greatly. It's like influence of the same time period from Yemen to Denmark; possible, but not very large, if at all present.

Do you honestly think that 'we' (black folk) fall for YOUR fake ass, smile in face, "we are one" PC bullshit? Again GTFOOH.

Biologically, we ARE one species. Human beings are one of the least genetically diverse species on the planet. Equally true, socially and culturally we are not one. Wow, think you can handle both those concepts being true? The real world is complicated and messy like that.

That sort of thing always pisses me off; these fuckers are saying, essentially, I can't actually have a close, familial relationship with my black cousins (because my white aunt married a black guy and had kids) because of some inherent biological difference (that really doesn't exist; so far all genetic differences seem to be differences in disease resistance).

[Simon_Jester]

However, and more pertinently, even if the Ancient Egyptians were "black" (whatever that means), that has no bearing on the grand majority of black Americans descended of West African slaves because they are no more related or descended of the Ancient Egyptians than I am (because of my Greek descent, which probably means at least some Ancient Egyptian blood in me).

Some will go on to try to prove that the West African cultures are tied to Egypt- I think Triece was going on about some Yoruba statue that he identified with Bes, or something along those lines.

[Spoonist]

@Broomy

Jupp, hence why I lead him into those topics. Littledick have been very consistent in his ignorance of history and his interpretations of Keita. His knowledge only stems from sources that he gets from whatever site he comes from or others of a similar mindset.

His insistance of the black angle as derived from the american perspective is telling. Which only becomes laughable when he misses the genetical implications of his stance that "arabs" are not white. Its as if he doesn't even read the haplogroup sources. Cross-referencing that with the starting point of the MC1R mutational defect its mindboggling that he walks into that trap as easily as he does. Heck some google and wiki could have cured that easily.
If people can't see the difference face-to-face between south-eastern euros and south-western asians, and if the genetical trace also have a hard time grouping them seperately, then how does he motivate the distinction? Well, that one he answered himself, he motivated it through wikipedia...
Now unless we include a 18th cen nationalistic nordic definition of race where everyone below Jutland and starting with olive skin and darkish brown hair are non-whites that is just an ignorant position to hold.

Then that he misses all the hints I've given him regarding the neolitic mediterranean and sahara regions must mean that he has no clue how the landmass looked like at the end of the last ice age. As well as what happened in the sahara region directly after the ice age ended and the influences that had on the proto-cultures of egypt.

But with a selection bias as heavy as the ones he and his friends have shown its not so strange.

However I disagree with your verdict regarding bT since I consider him a moderate within his genre. As I've pointed out its more his delivery and bias that is at fault than his underlying opinions or studies. He agreed that the north-south nilo cultures had a pigment range. He agrees on the ethiopians and nubians being less pigmented than the bantu and that the proto-egyptian cultures were not of bantu origin.
All of which lots of afrocentrist americans advocate.

Incidentally, most people of European descent in North America who have had family here for at least 200-300+ years have amounts of Native American, and possibly African, in them! ...snip... However, and more pertinently, even if the Ancient Egyptians were "black" (whatever that means), that has no bearing on the grand majority of black Americans descended of West African slaves because they are no more related or descended of the Ancient Egyptians than I am (because of my Greek descent, which probably means at least some Ancient Egyptian blood in me).

While I see what you are saying I would like to disagree in principle.
First "most people" etc would be the majority and I don't think that there is any research to indicate that the majority does. What is true is that there are a lot of native american/african intermixing and that it is much more than common people realise, but it doesn't stretch into the majority since the immigrants came in waves and later waves didn't have as much chance to intermix as the early waves.

Then I think that in the cultural context of the USA and especially the south it is of great import to african americans that Ancient Egyptians were black/african. This because of the prevalent racism that still exists. By reminding the populace through black history classes and similar that africa did spawn humanity and that africa did actually have very advanced civilizations they counter hundreds of years of pure idiotic racism. This is an ongoing thing as well so it continues to be important to point out. Then that most african-americans can't trace a recent 10k years biological relation is irrelevant outside of academia. What is relevant is that it installs some sort of pride in what is an otherwise downtrodden group. Unfortunately that pride can go a bit far in some cases.

Some will go on to try to prove that the West African cultures are tied to Egypt- I think Triece was going on about some Yoruba statue that he identified with Bes, or something along those lines.

This is that dialog. Starting with bT

The early ancient Egyptians were an indigneous Northeast African population, who were most closely related Bio-Culturally to more southerly Northeast African populations both ancient and modern. This ancient African populations was proven (via the ecological principals of limb proportions) to be a dark skinned population like other super tropically adapted African populations. Dark skinned Africans are considered "black" where I'm from, so the ancient Egyptians would be considered "black". Melanin dosage testing also corresponds with the ancient Egyptians being dark skinned like other dark skinned African populations to the south of them.

For the record: I personally do not care if the Egyptians were black, white, green, blue or yellow, I only care about what can be proven.

I do not follow your attempt to deny Levantine influences on Egyptian culture, as well as your attempt to claim that Egyptian culture evolved on its own without outside influences. This is not an acceptable stance, as the levantine influence is well attested and played a significant role in the formation of Egyptian culture. The Egyptians also do belong in the same row with the other high cultures of their era, which together formed the basis of Western Civilization. There is no "African" civilization which takes its roots from Egypt. If you want to look for such a civilization, I'd suggest trying the Bantus.

Actually the mysterious Nok culture of West Africa that sprang up during Late Dynastic periods, is actually postulated to have been heavily influenced the ancient Egyptians as evidence by them worshipping the same Egyptian Gods: ...snip statue
Here we are talking about the skintone of tropically adapted Africans and you reference the ancient Europeans clearly on the opposite end of the color spectrum as a relative point. They were dark skinned Africans, who had the same melanin content of other Africans whom we consider "black". I'm not going to force you to call a spade a spade however, but don't insinuate that their skin tone looked anything like Europeans or any other non tropically adapted population.

But look at the caveats - its not a clear cut claim, so I wouldn't blast him for that one with so many other things to poke at.

Then we got derailed into Iman and other such shit.