Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[Big Triece]

Concession accepted.

And then you woke up

[Lord Zentei]

The point is, Keita agreed with my position,

The point of me asking for you interpretations of that statement was to put on display how little you know about the shit that you've arguing for the past two months. Keita states that the craniometric variation of early Lower Egyptians was an divergence from that of Upper Egypt. Irregardless of where it plotted in relation to other populations, it originated in Africa. The populations of Lower Egypt were also tropically adapted unlike those populations in the same climate in the Levant:
<SNIP>
Which proves that their ancestry (in the main) descended from the tropics to the south. This according to ecological principal would have made them dark skinned:

And once again Big Triece proves that (A) he can't read or interpret other people's opinions for shit, that (B) he's still cherry-picking, and that (C) he's still busily charging his windmills. What a shock.

In any case, the Berbers are NOT "black".

Do you even know what a fucking Berber is? Obviously not! Tell me which group of people would not be considered Berbers why or why not?
<SNIP>

Yes, I know what a Berber is, and if you weren't such a goddamn hypocrite, then you'd see why your continued picture spam doesn't support your position.

The Berber today are a mosaic of peoples from different background who share practice the same Berber cultures and speak Berber languages. Here is Basil Davidson's documentary of the Taureg Berbers:

Seen it.

By the way are you going to answer the question that "Matter" asked you? Or are you to chicken shit to actually present a solid stance on the issue?

Spoonist already gave "matter" all the answer his posts called for: his points are not pertinent, and my position has been clarified numerous times in the face of your lies and bullfuckery.

[Lord Zentei]

Yes and all of this happened after John McCain won the 2008 election

Concession accepted.

Not the first time either. And yet, like a demented Duracell bunny, he keeps going and going...

[Big Triece]

With the conclusion of the substanceless irrelevant dribble above, let us revisit some of the articles presented summarizing the results of numerous studies (hence mainstream opinions) have concluded about the origins of ancient Egypt.

Christopher Ehret
Professor of History, African Studies Chair
University of California at Los Angeles



Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots.

The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food.

A new religion came with them as well. Its central tenet explains the often localized origins of later Egyptian gods: the earliest Afrasians were, properly speaking, neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Instead, each local community, comprising a clan or a group of related clans, had its own distinct deity and centered its religious observances on that deity. This belief system persists today among several Afrasian peoples of far southwest Ethiopia. And as Biblical scholars have shown, Yahweh, god of the ancient Hebrews, an Afrasian people of the Semitic group, was originally also such a deity. The connection of many of Egypt's predynastic gods to particular localities is surely a modified version of this early Afrasian belief. Political unification in the late fourth millennium brought the Egyptian deities together in a new polytheistic system. But their local origins remain amply apparent in the records that have come down to us.

During the long era between about 10,000 and 6000 B.C., new kinds of southern influences diffused into Egypt. During these millennia, the Sahara had a wetter climate than it has today, with grassland or steppes in many areas that are now almost absolute desert. New wild animals, most notably the cow, spread widely in the eastern Sahara in this period.

One of the exciting archeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East.

One major technological advance, pottery-making, was also initiated as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East.

Very late in the same span of time, the cultivating of crops began in Egypt. Since most of Egypt belonged then to the Mediterranean climatic zone, many of the new food plants came from areas of similar climate in the Middle East. Two domestic animals of Middle Eastern origin, the sheep and the goat, also entered northeastern Africa from the north during this era.

But several notable early Egyptian crops came from Sudanic agriculture, independently invented between 7500 and 6000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharan peoples (Ehret 1993:104-125). One such cultivated crop was the edible gourd. The botanical evidence is confirmed in this case by linguistics: Egyptian bdt, or "bed of gourds" (Late Egyptian bdt, "gourd; cucumber"), is a borrowing of the Nilo-Saharan word *bud, "edible gourd." Other early Egyptian crops of Sudanic origin included watermelons and castor beans. (To learn more on how historians use linguistic evidence, see note at end of this article.)

Between about 5000 and 3000 B.C. a new era of southern cultural influences took shape. Increasing aridity pushed more of the human population of the eastern Sahara into areas with good access to the waters of the Nile, and along the Nile the bottomlands were for the first time cleared and farmed. The Egyptian stretches of the river came to form the northern edge of a newly emergent Middle Nile Culture Area, which extended far south up the river, well into the middle of modern-day Sudan. Peoples speaking languages of the Eastern Sahelian branch of the Nilo-Saharan family inhabited the heartland of this region.

From the Middle Nile, Egypt gained new items of livelihood between 5000 and 3000 B.C. One of these was a kind of cattle pen: its Egyptian name, s3 (earlier *sr), can be derived from the Eastern Sahelian term *sar. Egyptian pg3, "bowl," (presumably from earlier pgr), a borrowing of Nilo-Saharan *poKur, "wooden bowl or trough," reveals still another adoption in material culture that most probably belongs to this era.

One key feature of classical Egyptian political culture, usually assumed to have begun in Egypt, also shows strong links to the southern influences of this period. We refer here to a particular kind of sacral chiefship that entailed, in its earliest versions, the sending of servants into the afterlife along with the deceased chief. The deep roots and wide occurrence of this custom among peoples who spoke Eastern Sahelian languages strongly imply that sacral chiefship began not as a specifically Egyptian invention, but instead as a widely shared development of the Middle Nile Culture Area.

After about 3500 B.C., however, Egypt would have started to take on a new role vis-a-vis the Middle Nile region, simply because of its greater concentration of population. Growing pressures on land and resources soon enhanced and transformed the political powers of sacral chiefs. Unification followed, and the local deities of predynastic times became gods in a new polytheism, while sacral chiefs gave way to a divine king. At the same time, Egypt passed from the wings to center stage in the unfolding human drama of northeastern Africa.

A Note on the Use of Linguistic Evidence for History

Languages provide a powerful set of tools for probing the cultural history of the peoples who spoke them. Determining the relationships between particular languages, such as the languages of the Afrasian or the Nilo-Saharan family, gives us an outline history of the societies that spoke those languages in the past. And because each word in a language has its own individual history, the vocabulary of every language forms a huge archive of documents. If we can trace a particular word back to the common ancestor language of a language family, then we know that the item of culture connoted by the word was known to the people who spoke the ancestral tongue. If the word underwent a meaning change between then and now, a corresponding change must have taken place in the cultural idea or practice referred to by the word. In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, it attests to a thing or development that passed from the one culture to the other. The English borrowing, for example, of castle, duke, parliament, and many other political and legal terms from Old Norman French are evidence of a Norman period of rule in England, a fact confirmed by documents.


References Cited:

Ehret, Christopher, Nilo-Saharans and the Saharo-Sahelian Neolithic. In African Archaeology: Food, Metals and Towns. T. Shaw, P Sinclair, B. Andah, and A. Okpoko, eds. pp. 104-125. London: Routledge. 1993

Ehret, Christopher, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone Consonants, and Vocabulary. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1995

Wendorf, F., et al., Saharan Exploitation of Plants 8000 Years B.P. Nature 359:721-724. 1982

Wendorf, F., R. Schild, and A. Close, eds. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara. Dallas: Southern Methodist University, Department of Anthropology. 1984

The origins of Nile Valley civilizations according to comprehensive summarization of linguistic and cultural evidence, is of Afrasian and Nilotic origins.

[Lord Zentei]

This has all been seen and responded to before now, fucktard. And the posts you ignored were not "substanceless", they were yet again to point out that you're misrepresenting the opinions and data of those you're talking to here. How about if you actually respond properly this time instead of spamming the same crap over and over?

[Big Triece]

The summarization of the peopling of the Nile Valley by S.O.Y Keita:

The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians
Professor S.O.Y. Keita
Department of Biological Anthropology
Oxford University

Professor A. J. Boyce
University Reader in Human Population
Oxford University

What was the primary geographical source for the peopling of the Egyptian Nile Valley? Were the creators of the fundamental culture of southern predynastic Egypt—which led to the dynastic culture—migrants and colonists from Europe or the Near East? Or were they predominantly African variant populations?

These questions can be addressed using data from studies of biology and culture, and evolutionary interpretive models. Archaeological and linguistic data indicate an origin in Africa. Biological data from living Egyptians and from skeletons of ancient Egyptians may also shed light on these questions. It is important to keep in mind the long presence of humans in Africa, and that there should be a great range of biological variation in indigenous "authentic" Africans.

Scientists have been studying remains from the Egyptian Nile Valley for years. Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Ku****es, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.

Another source of skeletal data is limb proportions, which generally vary with different climatic belts. In general, the early Nile Valley remains have the proportions of more tropical populations, which is noteworthy since Egypt is not in the tropics. This suggests that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.


Art objects are not generally used by biological anthropologists. They are suspect as data and their interpretation highly dependent on stereotyped thinking. However, because art has often been used to comment on the physiognomies of ancient Egyptians, a few remarks are in order. A review of literature and the sculpture indicates characteristics that also can be found in the Horn of (East) Africa (see, e.g., Petrie 1939; Drake 1987; Keita 1993). Old and Middle Kingdom statuary shows a range of characteristics; many, if not most, individuals depicted in the art have variations on the narrow-nosed, narrow-faced morphology also seen in various East Africans. This East African anatomy, once seen as being the result of a mixture of different "races," is better understood as being part of the range of indigenous African variation.

The descriptions and terms of ancient Greek writers have sometimes been used to comment on Egyptian origins. This is problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology. However, we can examine one issue. The Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians." Were the Egyptians more related to any of these "Ethiopians" than to the Greeks? As noted, cranial and limb studies have indicated greater similarity to Somalis, Ku****es and Nubians, all "Ethiopians" in ancient Greek terms.

There are few studies of ancient DNA from Egyptian remains and none so far of southern predynastic skeletons. A study of 12th Dynasty DNA shows that the remains evaluated had multiple lines of descent, including not surprisingly some from "sub-Saharan" Africa (Paabo and Di Rienzo 1993). The other lineages were not identified, but may be African in origin. More work is needed. In the future, early remains from the Nile Valley and the rest of Africa will have to be studied in this manner in order to establish the early baseline range of genetic variation of all Africa. The data are important to avoid stereotyped ideas about the DNA of African peoples.

The information from the living Egyptian population may not be as useful because historical records indicate substantial immigration into Egypt over the last several millennia, and it seems to have been far greater from the Near East and Europe than from areas far south of Egypt. "Substantial immigration" can actually mean a relatively small number of people in terms of population genetics theory. It has been determined that an average migration rate of one percent per generation into a region could result in a great change of the original gene frequencies in only several thousand years. (This assumes that all migrants marry natives and that all native-migrant offspring remain in the region.) It is obvious then that an ethnic group or nationality can change in average gene frequencies or physiognomy by intermarriage, unless social rules exclude the products of "mixed" unions from membership in the receiving group. More abstractly this means that geographically defined populations can undergo significant genetic change with a small percentage of steady assimilation of "foreign" genes. This is true even if natural selection does not favor the genes (and does not eliminate them).

Examples of regions that have biologically absorbed genetically different immigrants are Sicily, Portugal, and Greece, where the frequencies of various genetic markers (and historical records) indicate sub-Saharan and supra-Saharan African migrants.

This scenario is different from one in which a different population replaces another via colonization. Native Egyptians were variable. Foreigners added to this variability.

The genetic data on the recent Egyptian population is fairly sparse. There has not been systematic research on large samples from the numerous regions of Egypt. Taken collectively, the results of various analyses suggest that modern Egyptians have ties with various African regions, as well as with Near Easterners and Europeans. Egyptian gene frequencies are between those of Europeans and some sub-Saharan Africans. This is not surprising. The studies have used various kinds of data: standard blood groups and proteins, mitochondrial DNA, and the Y chromosome. The gene frequencies and variants of the "original" population, or of one of early high density, cannot be deduced without a theoretical model based on archaeological and "historical" data, including the aforementioned DNA from ancient skeletons. (It must be noted that it is not yet clear how useful ancient DNA will be in most historical genetic research.) It is not clear to what degree certain genetic systems usually interpreted as non-African may in fact be native to Africa. Much depends on how "African" is defined and the model of interpretation.

The various genetic studies usually suffer from what is called categorical thinking, specifically, racial thinking. Many investigators still think of "African" in a stereotyped, nonscientific (nonevolutionary) fashion, not acknowledging a range of genetic variants or traits as equally African. The definition of "African" that would be most appropriate should encompass variants that arose in Africa. Given that this is not the orientation of many scholars, who work from outmoded racial perspectives, the presence of "stereotypical" African genes so far from the "African heartland" is noteworthy. These genes have always been in the valley in any reasonable interpretation of the data. As a team of Egyptian geneticists stated recently, "During this long history and besides these Asiatic influences, Egypt maintained its African identity . . ." (Mahmoud et al. 1987). This statement is even more true in a wider evolutionary interpretation, since some of the "Asian" genes may be African in origin. Modern data and improved theoretical approaches extend and validate this conclusion.

In summary, various kinds of data and the evolutionary approach indicate that the Nile Valley populations had greater ties with other African populations in the early ancient period. Early Nile Valley populations were primarily coextensive with indigenous African populations. Linguistic and archaeological data provide key supporting evidence for a primarily African origin.


References Cited:

Angel, J. L., and J. O. Kelley, Description and comparison of the skeleton. In The Wadi Kubbaniya Skeleton: A Late Paleolithic
Burial from Southern Egypt. E Wendorf and R. Schild. pp. 53-70. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. 1986

Brauer, G., and K. Rimbach, Late archaic and modern Homo sapiens from Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia: Craniometric comparisons and phylogenetic implications, Journal of Human Evolution 19:789-807. 1990

Drake, St. C., Black Folk Here and There, vol 1. Los Angeles: University of California. 1987

Keita, S.O.Y., Studies and comments on ancient Egyptian biological relationships. History in Africa 20:129-154. 1993

Mahmoud, L. et. al, Human blood groups in Dakhlaya. Egypt. Annah of Human Biology. 14(6):487-493. 1987

Paabo, S., and A. Di Rienzo, A molecular approach to the study of Egyptian history. In Biological Anthropology and the Study
of Ancient Egypt. V. Davies and R. Walker, eds. pp. 86-90. London: British Museum Press. 1993

Petrie, W.M., F. The Making of Egypt. London: Sheldon Press. 1984

Thoma, A., Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khaterman. Journal of Human Evolution 13:287-296. 1984

[Big Triece]

Here is A.P. Starlings more recent interpretations of various peer reviewed studies on the populations history of ancient Egypt:

"The question of the genetic origins of ancient Egyptians, particularly those during the Dynastic period, is relevant to the current study. Modern interpretations of Egyptian state formation propose an indigenous origin of the Dynastic civilization (Hassan, 1988). Early Egyptologists considered Upper and Lower Egyptians to be genetically distinct populations, and viewed the Dynastic period as characterized by a conquest of Upper Egypt by the Lower Egyptians. More recent interpretations contend that Egyptians from the south actually expanded into the northern regions during the Dynastic state unification (Hassan, 1988; Savage, 2001), and that the Predynastic populations of Upper and Lower Egypt are morphologically distinct from one another, but not sufficiently distinct to consider either non-indigenous (Zakrzewski, 2007). The Predynastic populations studied here, from Naqada and Badari, are both Upper Egyptian samples, while the Dynastic Egyptian sample (Tarkhan) is from Lower Egypt. The Dynastic Nubian sample is from Upper Nubia (Kerma). Previous analyses of cranial variation found the Badari and Early Predynastic Egyptians to be more similar to other African groups than to Mediterranean or European populations (Keita, 1990; Zakrzewski, 2002). In addition, the Badarians have been described as near the centroid of cranial and dental variation among Predynastic and Dynastic populations studied (Irish, 2006; Zakrzewski, 2007). This suggests that, at least through the Early Dynastic period, the inhabitants of the Nile valley were a continuous population of local origin, and no major migration or replacement events occurred during this time.

Studies of cranial morphology also support the use of a Nubian (Kerma) population for a comparison of the Dynastic period, as this group is likely to be more closely genetically related to the early Nile valley inhabitants than would be the Late Dynastic Egyptians, who likely experienced significant mixing with other Mediterranean populations (Zakrzewski, 2002). A craniometric study found the Naqada and Kerma populations to be morphologically similar (Keita, 1990). Given these and other prior studies suggesting continuity (Berry et al., 1967; Berry and Berry, 1972), and the lack of archaeological evidence of major migration or population replacement during the Neolithic transition in the Nile valley, we may cautiously interpret the dental health changes over time as primarily due to ecological, subsistence, and demographic changes experienced throughout the Nile valley region."

-- AP Starling, JT Stock. (2007). Dental Indicators of Health and Stress in Early Egyptian and Nubian Agriculturalists: A Difficult Transition and Gradual Recovery. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 134:520–528

[Lord Zentei]

Ah, so. We're down to the mindless spam-and-ignore routine.

Incidentally, Big Triece, if you weren't such a fucking idiot, then you would have realized that the positions of most people around here are not refuted by these last two posts of yours. Doubtless you're too paranoid or arrogant to try and understand that, but whatever.

[Big Triece]

Here is the Godde 2009 study and interpretations of previous research:

"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).

The clustering of the Nubian and Egyptian samples together supports this paper's hypothesis and demonstrates that there may be a close relationship between the two populations. This relationship is consistent with Berry and Berry (1972), among others, who noted a similarity between Nubians and Egyptians.

Both mtDNA (Krings et al., 1999) and Y-Chromosome data (Hassan et al., 2008; Keita, 2005; Lucotte and Mercier, 2003) indicate that migrations, usually bidirectional, occurred along the Nile. Thus, the osteological material used in this analysis also supports the DNA evidence.

On this basis, many have postulated that the Badarians are relatives to South African populations (Morant, 1935 G. Morant, A study of predynastic Egyptian skulls from Badari based on measurements taken by Miss BN Stoessiger and Professor DE Derry, Biometrika 27 (1935), pp. 293–309.Morant, 1935; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Irish and Konigsberg, 2007). The archaeological evidence points to this relationship as well. (Hassan, 1986) and (Hassan, 1988) noted similarities between Badarian pottery and the Neolithic Khartoum type, indicating an archaeological affinity among Badarians and Africans from more southern regions. Furthermore, like the Badarians, Naqada has also been classified with other African groups, namely the Teita (Crichton, 1996; Keita, 1990).

Nutter (1958) noted affinities between the Badarian and Naqada samples, a feature that Strouhal (1971) attributed to their skulls possessing “Negroid” traits. Keita (1992), using craniometrics, discovered that the Badarian series is distinctly different from the later Egyptian series, a conclusion that is mostly confirmed here. In the current analysis, the Badari sample more closely clusters with the Naqada sample and the Kerma sample. However, it also groups with the later pooled sample from Dynasties XVIII–XXV.

The reoccurring notation of Kerma affinities with Egyptian groups is not entirely surprising. Kerma was an integral part of the trade between Egypt and Nubia.

However, the archaeological evidence actually showed slow change in form over time (Adams, 1977) and the biological evidence demonstrated a similar trend in the skeletal data (e.g. Godde, in press; Van Gerven et al., 1977). These conclusions negate the possibility of invasion or migration causing the shifts in time periods. The results in this study are consistent with prior work; the Meroites and X-Group cluster with the remaining Nubian population and are not differentiated.

Gene flow may account for the homogeneity across these Nubian and Egyptian groups and is consistent with the biological diffusion precept. Small geographic distances between groups allow for the exchange of genes.
The similarities uncovered by this study may be explained by another force, adaptation.. resemblance may be indicative of a common adaptation to a similar geographic location, rather than gene flow
Egypt and Nubia have similar terrain and climate. Because of the similarity between and the overlapping of the two territories that would require similar adaptations to the environment, common adaptation cannot be discounted.

Gene flow appears likely between the Egyptians and Nubians, although common adaptations to a similar environment may have also been a factor in their cranial similarities. This study does not rule out the possibility that in situ biological evolution occurred at other times not represented by the samples in this analysis. "

-- 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.

[Big Triece]

Anselin 2009 goes further into the Nilotic origins of ancient Egypt:

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

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

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

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

[Big Triece]

Ah, so. We're down to the mindless spam-and-ignore routine.

Incidentally, Big Triece, if you weren't such a fucking idiot, then you would have realized that the positions of most people around here are not refuted by these last two posts of yours. Doubtless you're too paranoid or arrogant to try and understand that, but whatever.

(Zentei behind the computer screen.."But they couldn't have be black Africans, they must have been mixed")

[Lord Zentei]

Ah, so. We're down to the mindless spam-and-ignore routine.

Incidentally, Big Triece, if you weren't such a fucking idiot, then you would have realized that the positions of most people around here are not refuted by these last two posts of yours. Doubtless you're too paranoid or arrogant to try and understand that, but whatever.

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h40 ... crying.gif
(Zentei behind the computer screen.."But they couldn't have be black Africans, they must have been mixed")

Your own sources corroborate my position, if you'd bothered to try and understand it. And now you're simply trolling.

I can only surmise that the only reason you've not been banned is because you amuse the administration around here.

[matter]

@Lord Zentei. I am sorry bu I have found it difficult to pin down what your stance is. That was why I actually ask you to do a summary of your position as this will help clarity in the discussion. I was not also clear on Big Triese stance on the likelihood of Near Eastern presence in Lower Egypt that was why I asked him and he gave a clear answer. My interest is that we went ahead with the discussion cos you guys may not realize the amount of data and help this thread have been to the many guests visiting.

So let me see if I understand you: like Thanas,Spoonist,Big T,myself and perhaps others the controversy is really on whether there was gene flow from the near east to lower Egypt during early Egypt, and importantly whether they were significant in terms of numbers i.e were they simply absorbed into the local lower Egyptian population. However, there seem to be broad agreement on the fact that the more populated Upper Egypt was mainly settled by peoples who came from a desiccating eastern Sahara during the 5th-early 4th millennium BC, carrying 'Nubian Neolithic Culture Group' traits that would be amongst the mix of cultural features that would then be synthesized by these Upper Egyptians to form the Naqada culture(which essentially would be the culture in Dynastic times); it was this culture that in the later half of the mid-4th millennium BC that replaced the Lower Egyptian culture('Maadi-Buto')-that itself interacted with Near eastern cultures. These upper Egyptians were in the main, a tropically adapted people with greatest biological affinities with some Africans to the south.
Do you have a problem with the above, please respond cos I like clarity in discussions.

[matter]

I also would like to state two quick points of mine:

1st, that the likely gene flow from the Near East has nothing to do with a demic diffusion that brought agriculture, as there is no evidence when we consider the Fayum and Merimde Neolithics, that not only in terms of materials culture(like lithics and pottery) have close affinities to much older saharan oasis area of Egypt(like Farafra,Djara)-whose population was driven from these oases at about 5400BC just around the time Fayum and Merimde was being resettled-but in the continuity of subsistence system, which is inconsistent with incoming movement of farmers from the much older and matured Near East i.e the indigenous lower Egyptians essentially adopted some Near Eastern food and animals and added them to their subsistence on their own terms(Sharai 2010,Ehret et al 2004). These were the parents of the various cultures of the delta during the first half of 4th millennium BC(collectively called 'Maadi-Buto' Neolithics) that interacted,sometimes intensively, with Near Eastern cultures. Another means by which some Near Easterners may have been absolved into lower Egypt may be the 'colonies' of Egypt in some parts of the Levant during the Early days of Egypt that stopped I think during the 2nd dynasty,sometime akin to the absorption of Nubians during the New Kingdom(Smith 2004).

2nd, the modern Egyptians are the descendants, in fact the only descendants we yet know, of the ancient Egyptians. The only point to note however is the fact that modern Egypt, especially those in the delta, have been thoroughly mixed with groups coming from the Levant and southern Egypt through time;such that as Big T has showed even the late period Lower Egyptians is said not to be typical of ancient Egyptians even though there is continuity(Zarzweski 2004). So it is kind of ironic that while some Africans are consistently closer biologically to Early Egyptians than even late period Lower Egyptians and modern Egyptians, they ARE NOT DESCENDANTS OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. Today's inhabitants of the Egyptian Nile and Delta are the primary descendants of the ancients.

[matter]

I meant '... have been thoroughly mixed with groups coming from the Levant and southern Europe through time..'.

Please can someone give me the steps that one can personally edit his work. Thanks.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Does Big T really think that the main reason people are disagreeing with him is purely because of racial motives, and not a genuine difference of opinion?

Like, the ONLY reason someone wouldn't agree with him is because they're racist?

[Spoonist]

Does Big T really think that the main reason people are disagreeing with him is purely because of racial motives, and not a genuine difference of opinion?

Like, the ONLY reason someone wouldn't agree with him is because they're racist?

He has said so repeatedly so why should we give him the benefit of a doubt?

[madd0ct0r]

I meant '... have been thoroughly mixed with groups coming from the Levant and southern Europe through time..'.

Please can someone give me the steps that one can personally edit his work. Thanks.

you can't.
too many people changing what they said previously, and it does no harm to make people think before they click post.
what you've done already is good enough.

[Spoonist]

One which has a lot of research being done on it right now, so its going to be more and more definitive evidence on. All point more and more to the people still living there. Go figure, right?

Really what's the most recent published, peer reviewed evidence? Can you provide this evidence that refutes that the biological affinities of the Egyptian population have remained constant over the past 5,000 years? I've read through this thread and I've yet to see any of this.

You really are a tool. Read that again silly one. If I said that more and more point to the people living there then why would I try to refute that the bio of the Egypt have remained largely the same?
Again you make no sense and try to conjure up disagreement where there is none.
This is why people mistakenly think that you are a troll when you are just delusional.

You came in late in the discussion and REQUIRED that people read stuff that had already been discussed repeatedly. Its no wonder that people didn't reply to your position since it wasn't a contentious one.

No, you nor any of the other stooges did not respond to his post, because his summary was legit and perfectly in line with conclusive peer reviewed biological and cultural evidence. No where in his scholarly backed summarization of the peopling of the Nile Valley, could any of you shit heads assert some mass migration of people with a non African phenotype into the Nile Valley.

Uhm littledick, if your analysis would be correct then we wouldn't be arguing with you. There isn't a poster here that have claimed any such mass migration - that is all in your head. So your deduction of reality is as distorted as usual. This is why we continue to berate you while having a non-issue with Matter or DemoFanboy or Pharao etc.
You are an idiot and present yourself as an idiot, they don't.
Which was what I told you on p2 and p3, nothing has changed since then.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Your own sources corroborate my position, if you'd bothered to try and understand it.

This is my favorite part. A couple of the papers he just spammed don't even support his own position! He honestly doesn't understand what he is talking about. It would be cute if he weren't so stubbornly irritating.

My favorite is this:

Taken collectively, the results of various analyses suggest that modern Egyptians have ties with various African regions, as well as with Near Easterners and Europeans. Egyptian gene frequencies are between those of Europeans and some sub-Saharan Africans. This is not surprising ... It is not clear to what degree certain genetic systems usually interpreted as non-African may in fact be native to Africa. Much depends on how "African" is defined and the model of interpretation.

He even bolded these sentences, even though they completely undermine his argument!

[Big Triece]

You really are a tool. Read that again silly one. If I said that more and more point to the people living there then why would I try to refute that the bio of the Egypt have remained largely the same?

That was actually a typo that I realized I had made a day later. I meant to say that they haven't remained the same, but this does not negate the fact that continuity has been maintained from the Pre-Dynastic period to today. If you want peer reviewed evidence for this stance then read the fucking Starling 2007 article above. If you feel that I'm somehow misinterpreting the study then please provide the correct interpretation according to you.

I also note that many of you dumbasses seem to think that simply acknowledging the existence of a study somehow equates to "refuting it" or the study being "dealt with", and when I am forced to present the study to prove an already proven point the weight of the studies findings are attempted to be overhauled because it was according to you all "dealt with" (not refuted, but dealt with). What the fuck is up with that?

There isn't a poster here that have claimed any such mass migration -

Your interpretations of the dialogue throughout this thread was just proven in beginning of the my last post (which you are only partially responding to) to be unreliable biased bullshit! I can point to at least two posters who have made this insinuation within the last two months. You know they have, I know they have, everyone who has read this thread can clearly see that they I have.

This is why we continue to berate you while having a non-issue with Matter or DemoFanboy or Pharao etc.You are an idiot and present yourself as an idiot, they don't.

I think that the lack of conflict with these posters that you've listed (who have all stated that they are almost completely in agreement with my stance (go figure)) and you all is that you all know that you simply cannot afford to argue against two of us. Therefore you all must attempt to isolate the position of the OP (me) as one in which no one can comply with. One poster (Demofanboy) directly came in and called you all out of your bullshit:

I concur with BigTriece and PharaohMentuhotep that the majority of the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned, tropically adapted African people who were related to other Africans, particularly Northeast Africans whom most Americans do call "black", but frankly traditional color labels such as "black" and "white" are really ideal. To begin with, no one in the world is literally either color; we're all shades of pink or brown. Furthermore, even if we were to apply these labels to the lightest and darkest extremes of the human skin color spectrum, we still have to account for the billions of people who are neither extremely light or extremely dark. Calling only the fairest Europeans "white" implies that relatively tan Europeans like Greeks and Spaniards should be ethnically disconnected from other Europeans, just as calling only really dark Africans "black" implies a similar disconnect between those Africans and chocolate-brown people like the ancient Egyptians and Kalahari Bushmen. It would be better to say that Egyptians were indigenous Africans rather try to pigeonhole them into any of our horribly inaccurate, pre-scientific racial categories.

That said, I have the feeling that most of the people arguing against Big Triece and PharaohMentuhotep here are doing so out of a belief that any connection between ancient Egypt and tropical Africa is not "mainstream". Sorry to burst your bubbles, but the so-called "Afrocentric" position on ancient Egypt is gaining currency among mainstream scholars. I visited Chicago's Field Museum recently, and although they never got into race their ancient Egypt exhibit made a point of Egypt's position in Africa and its Saharan and even sub-Saharan ties. We also have the official website of Britain's Fitzwilliam Museum (which works with the University of Cambridge) devoting whole pages such as this to Egypt's African heritage. We have Nancy C. Lovell, in the Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, saying this "......."

Of course the old paradigm hasn't completely died out, but the trends don't bode well for those who like the posters on this board want to sever Egypt from more southerly Africa. You people aren't nearly as much in sync with your precious "mainstream science" as you want to believe. What does that make you? A bunch of arrogant armchair historians viciously fighting in defense of an obsolete paradigm.

Link to page

The only difference that Democracyfanboy notes between myself and him is that he does not find the usage of social racial categories (black, white, mixed) to be useful. We are in complete agreement of what they would have looked like however (Nilotic and Afrasian Horn African). We are also in agreement that you all are full of shit! "Matter" has also implied that there is no logical reason why the Nilotic and Afrasian African populations (creators of Kemet), would not be called black Africans):

I really dont understand what the fightings and insults are about,cos from what I can deduce from the discussion,both parties seem to agree more than disagree i.e that the early ancient egyptians,were in the main a tropically adapted mixed population of groups from east/northeast Africa(afrasans) and and ancient sahara(nilosaharans) who mostly settled in upper egypt,the main centre of population, over time.they then developed egyptian culture during naqada times nd would then, through some actual migrations and culture flow,totally replace the lower egyptian neolithic culture-the sparsely populated lower egyptians themselves being mostly an indigenious African population but divergent from upper egyptians who very likely also saw some population flow from the middle east since they traded with them and since some middle eastern cultures influenced thiers.I think the point of disagreement is whether we can call these people,esp upper egyptians 'blacks'? Once we agree that we are not talking about biological race here,who would really not consider nilosaharans and east/northeast africans as 'blacks' in a social sense?

Link to page

What I would truly love to see now, is if any one of you all take issue with the position that "Matter" has posted above (and previously). He has also called Zentei's coward ass out on his unclear position of WHEN and WHERE the so called "mixed affinities" of the ancient Egyptians came into play and came from. I directly called him out on how his position for this assertion has jumped from admixture from the Maghreb to a very early back migration into Africa via the Sinai, to supporting a Demic Diffusion model into Africa from the Levant. He responded with his typical clownish childish two sentence reply, which was nothing more than a personal attack with no relevance to the question.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I get concerned when I see you talk about 'interpreting' what people have said here. We're speaking plainly, so when you talk about interpreting what folks are saying in this thread, it smacks of the same molehil/mountain conversion that people talk about when they whinge about 'racial codewords' and the like while speaking of the right's criticism of Obama.

[Spoonist]

That was actually a typo that I realized I had made a day later.

So you predictably contradicting yourself is now to be refered to as typos which you yourself does not acknowledge unless I clearly point them out?
That is a concession if you didn't know it.
Contrast this to matter who directly put in an errata.

There isn't a poster here that have claimed any such mass migration -

I can point to at least two posters who have made this insinuation within the last two months. You know they have, I know they have, everyone who has read this thread can clearly see that they I have.

None of this false inuendo. Quote them.

I think that the lack of conflict with these posters that you've listed (who have all stated that they are almost completely in agreement with my stance (go figure)) and you all is that you all know that you simply cannot afford to argue against two of us.

Uhm, did you miss the part where both demofanboy and matter asked if there are any disagreement at all and wondered why the discussion continued? Or that matter has consistently said that he thinks that our views are closer than they appear?
Could it be that I was right about you going to la Mancha since p3 onwards?

cos from what I can deduce from the discussion,both parties seem to agree more than disagree

Nice that you try to ignore that part of matter's post for your continued crusade against reality.

"Matter" has also implied that there is no logical reason why the Nilotic and Afrasian African populations (creators of Kemet), would not be called black Africans).

Given the ignorant american view on black that you use that would be obviously correct. However that would include geneflow from other parts in much larger %age than current research suggest so its a completely redundant observation. If you include Rosa Parks in the black bracket, what is left outside?

He responded with his typical clownish childish two sentence reply, which was nothing more than a personal attack with no relevance to the question.

If you don't mind the pun, that is the proverbial pot calling the kettle egyptian.
I've pointed out since p4 that you have deliberately distorted my position for the sake of personal attacks, and now you try to claim some sort of high ground? Aint gonna happen.

[Spoonist]

Link to page

Uhm, have you missed all the times I've linked to specific posts? Ever wondered how I do that?
Why remain ignorant when all you had to do was ask? (yes I know that was a retorical question...)

Each post has a small white paper like a square, about in the middle of the header bar of the post, its right after the link to the subject title. Right click that and select Copy Shortcut.
the post you wanted was this one
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3616732

Which lets me do things like post this link
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 6#p3618196
where DoemoFan quotes Zentai saying clearly that he doesn't think there was a significant influx - contrary to your inuendo...
Plus its the post where DemoFan clearly takes a step away from what he perceive is your view on the issue. Then he, simon and zentai pretty much agreed with each other and after that DemoFanboy pretty much leaves the thread...
See a pattern there anywhere?

Like the things I pointed out here
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3483125
and here
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3483405
Your continued posting has only proven those early conclusions to be correct over and over and over.

[Big Triece]

None of this false inuendo. Quote them.

Rewind! According to one of Zentei's many theories as too why the Egyptians must have been racially "mixed", an ancient back migration from Asia into Africa from over 20k years.

Given the ignorant american view on black that you use that would be obviously correct.

The "American view" on what is black is the most prominent concept of the term. This should be expected considering how highly racialized American (and Western society in general) is compared to the rest of the world (especially the non West).

However that would include geneflow from other parts in much larger %age than current research suggest so its a completely redundant observation.

Still at it I see. Aside from the small yet likely presence of people from the Levant who may have resided in Pre-Dynastic Lower Egypt, what is the "larger %age" of gene flow are you talking about? What scientific basis do you have to back this statement or is just your own speculation?

If you include Rosa Parks in the black bracket, what is left outside?

Why ask such a silly ass question, as though you don't shit about this American societal construct? Rather or not you agree with it is irrelevant to the fact that it does exist and has been in existence for centuries.