Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[Thanas]

And he did this in response to my far more moderate position that the ancient Egyptians showed affinities to their neighbors to west and east and north, that while back-migration probably took place, the diversity of the Kingdom of Egypt was mainly indigenous, and that it would be inappropriate to use the "black African" label to describe them (which for some reason he assumed meant that I believed that Egypt was founded by "Euros" or something).

For the record, that is my position as well, with the only change being that I think immigration happened on a somewhat larger scale than Zentai does.

[EgalitarianJay]

Personally I think that Keita makes much more sense nowadays when he has moved away from fordisc and started to rely more heavily on DNA. That gives him a lot more credability than he used to have. Like this from 2004 when he joined with Kittles

DNA studies were not as advanced in the early 1990s when Keita did a lot of his work on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptians.

His main points are still the same:

1. Ancient Egypt was an indigenous African civilization

2. Ancient Egyptian culture arose in the Nile Valley - it wasn't introduced there by foreigners (e.g. The Dynastic Race Theory)

3. The Ancient Egyptians themselves had biological and cultural connections to their neighbors West, East and South with stronger connections to the Nilotic and Horn African peoples in the early formative period

4. Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted a long time and became an Empire which absorbed immigrants and invaders over the centuries who contributed to the gene pool

5. There was a long history of racist ideas about ancient Egypt and its people in Western Egyptology that was fixed on viewing its population history and culture through a racial lens and denying its Africanity which were unscientific and historically inaccurate

I may have posted this earlier as PharaohMentuhotep but here is a more detailed statement by Keita about his research and its implications. This post was in response to my questions about the skin color of the Ancient Egyptians in which I asked Keita for his interpretation of a study that did a histological analysis of Ancient Egyptian skin and determined that the skin was "packed with melanin as expected for specimens of Negroid origin."

HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND NATIVE AMERICAN CELEBRATION!

Please give the full reference for the studies that you referenced: title, authors, year and journals, and of this interesting citation. It sounds interesting Histologically one would be interested in how the melanin is packaged. What cannot be accepted is a study on one mummy. One needs a study on groups of mummies from all social classes, periods, and regions, of those whom one thinks are native Egyptians as opposed to immigrants. Also of course you know that craniofacial analyses give you some idea of facial conformation--which is why I did not mention this--but alone cannot give you skin color. There is a range of African facial confirmations--your starting point in analysis is very important.

There is a history of ideas in anthropology on Africa that is problematic.

My research only effectively covers up to Dynasty I. I have not studied remains in a systematic fashion from the dynastic period in a given region , but hope to do this. There is clear continuity, but also change in morphology for various regions. Please send me that reference so that I can further explore the issue with you.

I think that if one modelled gene flow into Egypt over thousands of years that the model would indicate a change in biology in an average sense, but there was always likely a cline in Egypt. However there was no wholesale replacement of the Egyptian population in the traditional sense, and no evacuation of the whole populace or pushing it aside. My remarks about Upper Egypt are an educated guess--with the caveat that foreigners may have settled in any urbanised region or center. It would be difficult to say more than this with scientific confidence. There is a color gradation in Egypt in some average sense, but of course there are exceptions to the cline.

By compiling information from different sources and getting different opinions you will be able to come to your own conclusions about appearance--which has not been a major focus of mine.

[Big Triece]

Nope the point is that you have from p3 onwards made false accusations about my views. So I'm just making the basic assumption that you are doing that with the other posters as well. But, hey I could be wrong, I've been so before and will probably be again.

Ok, and with that being said your assumption that I am misinterpreting their arguments was wrong. After Zentei's clarification on the previous page it appears as though he no longer wishes to used racial labels (black, white, "mixed"). But he also incorrectly states that Demic Diffusion from the Levant entered Africa 10,000 years ago, which is a mass migration of people moving into the Nile Valley from the Levant. This has been consistently proven to not be the case:

But then I admit my mistakes - a trick you should learn sometime...

Dude I'm not as stubborn or brick headed as some of you all make me out to be. I can and have admitted mistakes in this thread.

Like this of Zentei saying the complete opposite of what you claim:http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 618189"I'm not sure that anyone here is claiming that there was significant influx from Southwest Asia, though." Or are you going to argue that that is part of the conspiracy?

This was in response to Democracyfanboy which I've already expressed my opinion of the situation on. Zentei has took the stance that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and did not look like "black Africans" in physical appearance, and has backed this stance with the false idea of "race mixing" as a result of a 40+k year migration and continued with a Demic Diffusion model from the Levant into Lower Egypt. Since Jay's reappearance into the thread, Zentei suddenly no longer believes in using sociological racial categories to categorize the physical appearance of the ancient Egyptians. If this was the case then he should have stated this ten pages ago, that he would rather only focus on the biological aspects of the debate rather than trying to relentlessly refute that they were black Africans:

"Amazingly, you admit this now after 19 pages of claiming relative homogenity in ancient Egypt in order to dismiss data that does not support the idea that ancient Egypt was "black" in the sense "negroid"."

or

You goddamned tool, no one here is disputing that the Egyptians originated in Northeast Africa. This has been pointed out to you countless times, yet you keep harping on like a broken record. That is not the issue here. The issue is whether the overall population of Egypt could be characterized as "black" in the sub-Saharan sense, as opposed to being heterogenous, and with resemblances with Near East and Maghreb populations as well as other populations, seeing as Egypt was the fucking corridor for the original settlement of those populations into their native lands.

link

His stance is negated by that of Keita, Ehret and others which is that there is no scientific reason to believe that the ancient Egyptians originated anywhere but in Northeastern Africa. Saying that Demic Diffusion occurred (which means a mass migration) from the Levant into Africa directly contradicts that these people did not originated wholly or primarily in Northeast Africa.

Nope, matter refined such a backmigration as still african regardless if they had lived on another continent for approximately 15 000 years. I even quoted him saying exactly that. But you snipped that out - I wonder why (yes rhetorical). Here let me show how you quote someone:http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3652259

That statement of Matter that I was referring to. It was Matter's response to Zentei's module of Demic Diffusion from the Levant into Africa, in which Matter stated clearly that this was simply not the case:

whether or not there was some small back migrations or even 'trekkers' long long ago on both sides,is largely irrelevant.
I had asserted previously(cos this is an area of knowledge) that there is NO EVIDENCE for demic diffusion(which is a marked movement of whole peoples from one place to other, in this case, bringing agriculture). Fayum and Merimde, which is relevant here, had a culture that was essentially an extension of Egyptian Saharan Oasis Culture Group(in places like Djara,Farafra) that were chased away from desiccating region around 5400BC just about the time Fayum and Merimde was been resettled(with similar lithics and pottery).

Also I have already acknowledged what Matter initially implied about the origins of M1 (being reintroduced into Africa from Yemen). After my introduction of recent genetic studies of M1, he has seemingly been persuaded that it was indeed African in origin, hence he later states that it indeed originated in Africa.

Nope, I do not necessarily agree with Zentei and Thanas, but I go after refuting blatant stupidity first and minor disagreements later.

Well considering the fact that you, myself and others have stated that we are all for the most part in agreement on this stance, and yet we have stragglers still proclaiming events such as Demic Diffusion into Africa or those asserting that Kemet was apart of biological or cultural Mediterranean continuum, wouldn't it be the opposite in terms of relations? Meaning WE (You, Me and the "general board") be the ones with "minor disagreements", THEIR (Thanas, Zentei, Ziggy) arguments being the ones which are "blatant stupidity"?

You on the other hand think that racist fuckheads on a football game should be the golden standard of the definitions of words in scientific discourse.

The point of contention was not to label Europe as racist, but to demonstrate that the societal definitions of what is considered "black" is pretty consistent on the American front and Europe (Western society minus Latin America). If I'm not mistaking one of your points was that Americans define "black" as a broad group, which you felt was stupid and did not reflect the society in which in you were from (I'm assuming Europe). The people who were tormented by the racist anti black insults encompassed a similar "broad group" of phenotypes as that in the stupid American definition of the label. My overall point is that there appear to be little to no differentiations in what Americans consider black and what most Europeans consider black in society.

Bullshit. Both Zentei and Thanas has expressed such views. Ziggy I haven't really followed as much.

So now according to you Thanas and Zentei are in compliance with mainstream view of the board? You have already been linked to Zentei's post supporting a Demic Diffusion model from the Levant into Africa, as well as his vehement stance against the proven physical appearances of the ancient Egyptians. This is Thanas's view on the biological and cultural affinities of the ancient Egyptians:

What people are denying is that one cannot say the Egyptians as such were exclusively Africans, or viewed themselves as such, or that their accomplishments were a pure African feat (unlike those, for example, of the Bantu). Egypt was much more influenced by the Semitic cultures, the Middle Eastern cultures and the Minoan/Greeks than it was from "inner africa". The Egyptian geostrategy was much more concerned with the mediterranean than it was with the south and the Egyptians treated those to the South as non-equals.

link

This was on page one. These are the people whom many allowed to speak up for this board, and have done such. Thanas's opinion according to you is in compliance with that of the general board consensus on the matter. Do you not also see how such an ignorant statement (at the end) can somewhat be viewed as racially offensive?

Hehe, so you are saying that in that timeframe the levant was "white" but yemen was "black"? By your own defintions of black/white, not you know like those other pesky definitions of black and white.

40,000 years ago the entire world was still black as they were still migrating and had not had time to fully adapt to their respective environments. Also the distance from the Levant to Yemen is that which is greater than the Delta of Egypt to Kenya. The Levant lies in the Sub tropics, while Yemen lies firmly within the tropics.

Also you missed the point. You are claiming a mass migration that changed the skintone of northern africans, you have said so repeatedly. However you place it after dynastic formation to fit your formulae. Do I need to pull out that magical power of quoting that so confound you?

I have never claimed any mass Pre-historic migration did such (with the exception of isolated regions of Northwest Africa). I have acknowledged the implications of "Matter"'s theory of a back migration of M1 into Horn of Africa, but I do not support that theory. So if you have a quotation of mine in which I've done so then please provide it.

Now since you consider them to be black then by your defintion they would also be africans - how nice. So then when you said that you thought that I was "incorrect" you really meant that you agreed with me completely when I said:

MANY Yemenis are black simply because this nation which is a hop skip and a jump from Sub Saharan East Africa has continuously absorbed migrants from Sub Saharan East Africans since the Neolithic. Many of their citizens are nothing more than Somali migrants or are so heavily mixed with Somali blood that they are ostracized by those who are less mixed and thus identify as black.

Would you agree with a similar adoption in the northern sahara/libya/northern egypt region in the same era?

As Keita stated it is most certainly theoretically possible, but the populations of Northern Africa were proven to be the result of admixture rather than environmental adaption. The fact that the limb proportions of Lower Egyptians were tropically adapted rather than adapted to the Sub tropical environment which they then inhabited, made for a significant difference between themselves and the those populations in the Levant who had been in place in that sub tropical environment for much longer.

Then why for the love of sanity have you been arguing against such a view for the last 18 pages when it comes to calling people black? Dark skinned does not equal black and black does not equal african for everyone in the west, do you agree?

Dark skin accompanied with African ancestry in the West is what is defined as "black". Of course I am aware that not all Africans are "black" and I have not insinuated such.

Now you can't even click links?

Honestly considering the fact that 95% of your links in this thread, have been to earlier post which I've already expressed my opinion about during the time of their relevance, No I don't pay much attention to your links which are unaccompanied by quotes. Just the truth!

To which I responded in full instead of your snippet:

No you didn't! You never explained how the Nordic race theory is relevant to non white citizens in the nations where it was prominent, and more specifically what relevance has it as an alternative to who is considered "black" in those societies.

[Lord Zentei]

This was in response to Democracyfanboy which I've already expressed my opinion of the situation on. Zentei has took the stance that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and did not look like "black Africans" in physical appearance, and has backed this stance with the false idea of "race mixing" as a result of a 40+k year migration and continued with a Demic Diffusion model from the Levant into Lower Egypt. Since Jay's reappearance into the thread, Zentei suddenly no longer believes in using sociological racial categories to categorize the physical appearance of the ancient Egyptians. If this was the case then he should have stated this ten pages ago, that he would rather only focus on the biological aspects of the debate rather than trying to relentlessly refute that they were black Africans:

That is in response to YOUR constant claims that the Ancient Egyptians WERE black Africans, you idiot!

As you would clearly be able to see if you actually thought about what I was saying:

"Amazingly, you admit this now after 19 pages of claiming relative homogenity in ancient Egypt in order to dismiss data that does not support the idea that ancient Egypt was "black" in the sense "negroid"."

<SNIP>

You goddamned tool, no one here is disputing that the Egyptians originated in Northeast Africa. This has been pointed out to you countless times, yet you keep harping on like a broken record. That is not the issue here. The issue is whether the overall population of Egypt could be characterized as "black" in the sub-Saharan sense, as opposed to being heterogenous, and with resemblances with Near East and Maghreb populations as well as other populations, seeing as Egypt was the fucking corridor for the original settlement of those populations into their native lands.

Now: try to understand what my point is here. You are the one who harps on about the Ancient Egyptians being "black Africans". I am rejecting that position. Do you understand how it is therefore YOU who are insisting on using social labels? I am not "suddenly" avoiding racial labels, it is your insistence on using the "black African" label to the Ancient Egyptians that I have been arguing against since I joined this thread!

His stance is negated by that of Keita, Ehret and others which is that there is no scientific reason to believe that the ancient Egyptians originated anywhere but in Northeastern Africa. Saying that Demic Diffusion occurred (which means a mass migration) from the Levant into Africa directly contradicts that these people did not originated wholly or primarily in Northeast Africa.

Once again, you demonstrate that you can't read. Keita claims that the Egyptians had connections to neighbors to the east and west, not just from Northeast Africa. Meanwhile I have asserted that the Egyptians were in the main from Northeast Africa, in spite of migrations Egypt (mostly LOWER Egypt), due to the Kingdom of Egypt being formed when Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt. My position is NOT negated by Keita, whose work you're abusing by taking the "black Egypt" stance which Keita does not support.

[Thanas]

What people are denying is that one cannot say the Egyptians as such were exclusively Africans, or viewed themselves as such, or that their accomplishments were a pure African feat (unlike those, for example, of the Bantu). Egypt was much more influenced by the Semitic cultures, the Middle Eastern cultures and the Minoan/Greeks than it was from "inner africa". The Egyptian geostrategy was much more concerned with the mediterranean than it was with the south and the Egyptians treated those to the South as non-equals.

link

This was on page one. These are the people whom many allowed to speak up for this board, and have done such. Thanas's opinion according to you is in compliance with that of the general board consensus on the matter. Do you not also see how such an ignorant statement (at the end) can somewhat be viewed as racially offensive?

Do you understand the words geostrategy and inner africa? Did you also read the post this was in reply to? If so, get your eyes examined and consult a dictionary because this does not mean what you think.

[Big Triece]

Do you understand the words geostrategy and inner africa?

Your statements are baseless and incorrect!

[Lord Zentei]

^ Well, that was terse. I suppose one can view that as some sort of improvement.
[line 2]

Seriously, though: it's not as if more could be gained from pursuing this much further. Even the humour of watching Big Trice run in circles is getting stale.

[Big Triece]

Now: try to understand what my point is here. You are the one who harps on about the Ancient Egyptians being "black Africans". I am rejecting that position. Do you understand how it is therefore YOU who are insisting on using social labels?

Ok....Don't be deceptive NOW as you what you have clearly been implying throughout this thread. You have disputed that they were black Africans and you have instead argued everything else from them always having the same "mixed" phenotype which is seen in most modern Egyptians today to them having close biological affinities with modern Europeans. Do you for what ever reason not think that your usage of the term "mixed" (meaning mixed race) is not a social label?

I am not "suddenly" avoiding racial labels, it is your insistence on using the "black African" label to the Ancient Egyptians that I have been arguing against since I joined this thread!

You have rejected the "black African" social label in favor of the "mixed" race social label.

Once again, you demonstrate that you can't read. Keita claims that the Egyptians had connections to neighbors to the east and west, not just from Northeast Africa. Meanwhile I have asserted that the Egyptians were in the main from Northeast Africa, in spite of migrations Egypt (mostly LOWER Egypt), due to the Kingdom of Egypt being formed when Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt.

Through what migrations Zentei? The only possible theory that you could even possibly support your claims of Egypt being "mixed race" since Pre-Dynastic times is Demic Diffusion from the Levant into Africa, which has been debunked for decades now, and in the youtube that I just posted Keita states clearly that such a notion "is almost laughable" seeing as how "the dates won't work" (in a stern voice).

My position is NOT negated by Keita, whose work you're abusing by taking the "black Egypt" stance which Keita does not support.

Here is Martin Bernals take on Keita's research:

Were the Ancient Egyptians black? That is entirely up to you. But were they biologically African? It would seem that they were. After considering the full range of anatomical, linguistic, cultural, archeological and genetic evidence, Shomarka Keita feels confident in concluding that the original Egyptians by which he means the pre-dynastic people of Southern Egypt, who founded Egyptian civilization evolved entirely in Africa. Both culturally and biologically, he says, they were more related to other Africans than they were to non-Africans from Europe or Asia.

Through the years, Keita believes, the Egyptians appear to have blended with many immigrants and invaders, many of whom were lighter-skinned and more Caucasoid in appearance than the original Egyptians. Libyans, Persians, Syro-Palestinians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans all left their imprint on the faces of Egypt. But Egyptian civilization remained profoundly African to the very end.

Keita himself rarely resorts to such crudely racial expressions as black and white. But if we might be forgiven a momentary lapse into everyday speech, it would probably not hurt to conceive of Keita's theory as the polar opposite of the Hamitic Hypothesis. Whereas the Hamitic theorists saw Egypt as a nation of white people that was gradually infiltrated by blacks, the biological evidence seems to suggest that it was more like a black nation that was gradually infiltrated by whites.

Black Spark White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe? - Chapter 77. Black, White or Biologically African? Pg. 471

[Lord Zentei]

Ok....Don't be deceptive NOW as you what you have clearly been implying throughout this thread. You have disputed that they were black Africans and you have instead argued everything else from them always having the same "mixed" phenotype which is seen in most modern Egyptians today to them having close biological affinities with modern Europeans. Do you for what ever reason not think that your usage of the term "mixed" (meaning mixed race) is not a social label?

"Mixed" in the way I used it is not social, since it refers to diverse origin and does not require one to acknowledge stereotypical races. Besides which, I have more often used "heterogenous".

I am not "suddenly" avoiding racial labels, it is your insistence on using the "black African" label to the Ancient Egyptians that I have been arguing against since I joined this thread!

You have rejected the "black African" social label in favor of the "mixed" race social label.

You are an idiot. See above.

Here is Martin Bernals take on Keita's research: <SNIP>

Right, and did you read Keita's own take on his own research posted previously?

[Big Triece]

"Mixed" in the way I used it is not social, since it refers to diverse origin and does not require one to acknowledge stereotypical races. Besides which, I have more often used "heterogenous".

Zentei you are being dishonest! You were clearly coming from a social angle when you were trying to refute whether or not they were black Africans. You were coming clearly from a social angle when you used the word "mixed/heterogeneous (you used both terms interchangeably). You made this clear in your list of points from earlier:

1) No one here is denying that ancient Egyptians were African.
2) I am not claiming that the Egyptians are northern invaders, though they probably were highly mixed with non-sub-Saharan Africans.
3) WRT the above, the issue is only whether the Egyptians were "black", whether due to gene flow from the near east and north Africa, or due to local evolution and subsequent dispersal from Egypt and the Horn region to the rest of the world.
4) I don't recognize that the matter is resolved.
5) I'm entirely open to the possibility that you're right, should I get the impression that the consensus has been settled.

Link

As I've stated you change your position according to who enters the debate, and what their points are.

[Lord Zentei]

"Mixed" in the way I used it is not social, since it refers to diverse origin and does not require one to acknowledge stereotypical races. Besides which, I have more often used "heterogenous".

Zentei you are being dishonest! You were clearly coming from a social angle when you were trying to refute whether or not they were black Africans. You were coming clearly from a social angle when you used the word "mixed/heterogeneous (you used both terms interchangeably). You made this clear in your list of points from earlier:

I have lost count of the times that you have misunderstood and/or lied about my position. Don't you understand that I can reject the social term "black" while using the term "heterogenous" (or "mixed") in a non-social sense? And yes, I know that I used both terms, though I prefer "heterogenous".

1) No one here is denying that ancient Egyptians were African.
2) I am not claiming that the Egyptians are northern invaders, though they probably were highly mixed with non-sub-Saharan Africans.
3) WRT the above, the issue is only whether the Egyptians were "black", whether due to gene flow from the near east and north Africa, or due to local evolution and subsequent dispersal from Egypt and the Horn region to the rest of the world.
4) I don't recognize that the matter is resolved.
5) I'm entirely open to the possibility that you're right, should I get the impression that the consensus has been settled.

Link

I am NOT using the term "mixed" in a social sense there. As you can see by the fact that I placed inverted commas around the word "black", which is a social term, while sub-Saharan is not.

As I've stated you change your position according to who enters the debate, and what their points are.

And as I have stated, you are a goddamned idiot.

[Spoonist]

@Zentei and Thanas
Great. So now we have a baseline of what the reply is when its a generic question. So please bare with me and answer what your position is on the following.

For you Zentei:
Do you believe in a mass migration into proto-Kemet (like the Badari culture) that would make the people there share a closer biological relationship to modern Afghans, Russians and French than the biological relationship they share to modern chadese, sudanese and somalis?
From here
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 0#p3650500

For you Thanas:
Do you believe that the genetic setup for proto-kemet (like the Badari culture) came mostly from mass migrations from the west as in Sahara, mass migrations from the south as in proto-nubia or mass migrations from the north-east as in the levant, or because you secretely fear dark skin from mass migrations from mediterranean hellenes?
From here:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4#p3645044
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 0#p3645430

[Thanas]

@Zentei and Thanas
Great. So now we have a baseline of what the reply is when its a generic question. So please bare with me and answer what your position is on the following.

...

For you Thanas:
Do you believe that the genetic setup for proto-kemet (like the Badari culture) came mostly from mass migrations from the west as in Sahara, mass migrations from the south as in proto-nubia or mass migrations from the north-east as in the levant, or because you secretely fear dark skin from mass migrations from mediterranean hellenes?
From here:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4#p3645044
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 0#p3645430

What is the point here? Asked and answered, I don't feel particularly inclined to restate my opinion for the upteenth time. That takes both effort and time so I want to know what this is?

[Spoonist]

Just mockery of littleBrain, so if you don't feel like it just ignore it.

The point was his constant inuendo of what our views are in contrast to what we say. This was a direct approach for the audience to see the difference, since it is usually lost in between all snippets back and forth.

[Famdopel]

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 with the 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 Sudan 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)

[Spoonist]

Personally I think that Keita makes much more sense nowadays when he has moved away from fordisc and started to rely more heavily on DNA. That gives him a lot more credability than he used to have. Like this from 2004 when he joined with Kittles

DNA studies were not as advanced in the early 1990s when Keita did a lot of his work on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptians.

Yes, but those early studies are cited heavily in these kinds of discussions when it is really his later ones that should be used. Keita says so himself.
So even if his general conclusions remain similar, because of the nature of software, skulls and bones, his early studies should be taken with a pinch of salt. He puts caveats in the text all over the place, and for good reason.
Nowadays he can be more assertive in some of his views thanks to DNA.

Now just for fun, I'll go through each point you list and say if I agree or disagree.

1. Ancient Egypt was an indigenous African civilization

Very much agreed.

2. Ancient Egyptian culture arose in the Nile Valley - it wasn't introduced there by foreigners (e.g. The Dynastic Race Theory)

Agreed, with the caveat that the Naqada culture's influence stretched outside of the nile valley. So I'd say "in and around" or somesuch.

3. The Ancient Egyptians themselves had biological and cultural connections to their neighbors West, East and South with stronger connections to the Nilotic and Horn African peoples in the early formative period

Agreed, with the caveat that I'd add a comment about unification of upper and lower egypt.

4. Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted a long time and became an Empire which absorbed immigrants and invaders over the centuries who contributed to the gene pool

Agreed. With some caveat about "while remaining uniquely egyptian".

5. There was a long history of racist ideas about ancient Egypt and its people in Western Egyptology that was fixed on viewing its population history and culture through a racial lens and denying its Africanity which were unscientific and historically inaccurate

Agreed. Which in some places continues to this day.

[Lord Zentei]

For you Zentei:
Do you believe in a mass migration into proto-Kemet (like the Badari culture) that would make the people there share a closer biological relationship to modern Afghans, Russians and French than the biological relationship they share to modern chadese, sudanese and somalis?
From here
viewtopic.php?p=3650500#p3650500

Haha. No.

I do not claim that there was a mass migration that would have left the Egyptians more closely related to modern Europeans than neighboring Africans.

The back migration and demic diffusion I referred to earlier took place a long time previously, and come from the Levant, not Europe (though there would have been continuous migration, and I cited a paper). Actually, these studies I presented were more to refute Big Triece's claims that NO back migration had taken place, which is flat out false. In any case, Big Triece is conflating affinities with close biological relationships (and from the summary in that link, his characterization of our exchange is hilariously off base).

My participation started on page 14 of this thread, here: linka.

My initial posting of Brace's study was made here: linka. Note the context: Big Triece was saying that Egyptians ALWAYS clustered with the more southerly types, therefore they were "black" Africans. I said "it's not that simple", and posted links to three papers which did not support his position. That was not to claim that Egyptians were not African, but to show that the claim that they always cluster with "more southerly types" was false.

[Thanas]

Just mockery of littleBrain, so if you don't feel like it just ignore it.

The point was his constant inuendo of what our views are in contrast to what we say. This was a direct approach for the audience to see the difference, since it is usually lost in between all snippets back and forth.

To answer your questions:


I doubt any migration - after the big migrations (the out of africa and back migration from asia to africa of 40.000 BC and 10.000 BC) happened - had any large impact on the local development of Egypt. Earliest evidence of agriculture is apparently in the north, though the south might have also developed cattle independently. The Badari culture might have also had strong trade links with the western Saharah and gotten the most significant impuleses from there but then again, nothing of that requires an invasion or mass immigration.

It is also worth noting that even during the time of the Naqada culture we find very much trade in existence, like for example charcoal and cider wood imported from the Lebanon as well as ivory from Ethiopia (just two of many examples of huge trade). None of that means that they required mass immigration to figure out these concepts or even assimilate them, though given the non-state nature of these days it is most likely some of it took place due to intermarriages etc. The only real lasting invasion with regards to technology development after dynastic formation was that of the Hyksos and much later on that of the Persians and Greeks.

As far as the archeological evidence goes this (outdated, but good nonetheless) essay gives a good overview about the development of predynastic Egypt.

[Thanas]

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 with the 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 Sudan 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)

Again, none of that is in any way surprising considering tropical adapatation and the local development of Egypt.

[Spoonist]

But then I admit my mistakes - a trick you should learn sometime...

Dude I'm not as stubborn or brick headed as some of you all make me out to be. I can and have admitted mistakes in this thread...

26 pages of shit speaks volumes on why that is not true...

...Zentei suddenly no longer believes in using sociological racial categories...If this was the case then he should have stated this ten pages ago,

This is his first post in this topic
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3617189
this is his first post vs you
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3617205
this is from p14
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3617397
"What I'm doing is rejecting this hard "black/white" paradigm of classification that permeates American thinking."
So you are right, he didnt state this TEN pages ago instead he stated it TWELWE pages ago.

THE POWER OF QUOTING, BEHOLD IT AND WEEP YOU MERE MORTALS.
Or you are a moron limpdick.

You goddamned tool, no one here is disputing that the Egyptians originated in Northeast Africa. This has been pointed out to you countless times, yet you keep harping on like a broken record.

His stance is negated by that of Keita, Ehret and others which is that there is no scientific reason to believe that the ancient Egyptians originated anywhere but in Northeastern Africa.

See why we say that you are clueless?

that Kemet was apart of biological or cultural Mediterranean continuum

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3483405
"My impression was that Thanas then was influenced by the old discussion with v-rex and wanted to dam the tide early. That was also before bigT specified that he refered to origins only and not dynastic egypt. "
Covered that on p3 asshole.

You on the other hand think that racist fuckheads on a football game should be the golden standard of the definitions of words in scientific discourse.

My overall point is that there appear to be little to no differentiations in what Americans consider black and what most Europeans consider black in society.

I'm from europe, yes. So now I call out that race card you pulled on p2-3, namely that because I'm from that culture I'm uniquely qualified to determine how my own culture should be percieved.
Take your pick, disagree with that statement and you disagree with your view on why you could uniquely call black african racism thingie.
Or I could just point out that you were wrong about the murrican defintion so why would you be right about the yuro one?

You have already been linked to Zentei's post.

Remember when I told you that it was a GIF and that you had to redo that?

40,000 years ago the entire world was still black as they were still migrating and had not had time to fully adapt to their respective environments. .

Remember what Keita says about diversity within africa? There would be great variance in skintone then as well. There wouldn't be any pink skinned people outside of albinos, mind you, but there would be diversity.

Also you missed the point. You are claiming a mass migration that changed the skintone of northern africans, you have said so repeatedly. However you place it after dynastic formation to fit your formulae. Do I need to pull out that magical power of quoting that so confound you?

I have never claimed any mass Pre-historic migration did such (with the exception of isolated regions of Northwest Africa).

i actually thought that I had to for a few seconds before reading on, listen to yourself a couple of lines later:

As Keita stated it is most certainly theoretically possible, but the populations of Northern Africa were proven to be the result of admixture rather than environmental adaption.

If that has to take place in that short a timeframe, then yes you are talking about a mass migration into northern africa...

Then why for the love of sanity have you been arguing against such a view for the last 18 pages when it comes to calling people black? Dark skinned does not equal black and black does not equal african for everyone in the west, do you agree?

Dark skin accompanied with African ancestry in the West is what is defined as "black". Of course I am aware that not all Africans are "black" and I have not insinuated such.

Insanity it is. Called it on p4.

Now you can't even click links?

Honestly considering the fact that 95% of your links in this thread, have been to earlier post which I've already expressed my opinion about during the time of their relevance, No I don't pay much attention to your links which are unaccompanied by quotes. Just the truth!

You are a repetitive moron, just the truth.

To which I responded in full instead of your snippet:

No you didn't! You never explained how the Nordic race theory is relevant to non white citizens in the nations where it was prominent, and more specifically what relevance has it as an alternative to who is considered "black" in those societies.

Fuck you. Fuck your ignorance. Fuck the ignorant society that raised you. Fuck the ignorant country you live in.
Fuck this, I'm going to bed.

[Democracy Fanboy]

Honestly I have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of time to argue over this subject. What are you all really arguing about any more? That the Ancient Egyptians were or were not of one general skin color? That African does not equal Black? That most Ancient Egyptians would be considered Black by modern societies today? That some modern Africans are descended from ancient back migrations into Africa? What is the point? Why is it important?

I probably wouldn't care so much if our popular culture did not continually misrepresent ancient Egyptians as homogeneously White or otherwise lighter-skinned like this (from Civilization V and Age of Empires Online respectively):





For me it's like how Velociraptors are still commonly depicted in pop culture as scaly a la Jurassic Park rather than feathered like birds, except worse because it has its roots in anti-African prejudice. I realize almost no one in this particular thread is advocating for predominantly non-African White/Arabian AEs, but it is a very widespread misconception among laypeople. What makes things really terrible though is how fervently some people cling to it. They seem to have some unfathomable investment in what should be accepted as a common historical error like scaly raptors or horned Viking helmets.

In an ideal world, no one would give a shit about the ancient Egyptians' statistically average skin tone or phenotype, but as long as pop culture continues misrepresenting it we should correct it.

That being said, I understand why you feel tired of this whole argument. Debating racists is like debating creationists. Better to educate the open-minded and rational than engage the close-minded and emotional.

African history is more than Ancient Egypt and it is not necessary to prove the Ancient Egyptians were all or by and large dark-skinned to refute the notion that dark-skinned Africans are less intelligent than Europeans or anyone else.

This I wholly agree with.

[Thanas]

Not having played either game I cannot comment on how light or dark-skinned the figures are in relation to it, but they should be somewhat more earthier than gauls.

That said, most popular depictions seem to favor the Ptolemaic dynasty which would probably look very much like Greeks and in that context the skintone is most likely correct.

This goes both ways though - for example Rome Total War had a comical representation of Egyptians as well, completely denying the Persian/Greek influence there. They even had them still use chariots. I doubt this is racism just pop culture sucking as such. Heck, Russians and Germans are still the preferred antagonists of movies.

[Big Triece]

This is his first post in this topic

The links to Zentei's post that I have posted and that which you have just posted have demonstrated that Zentei has not been consistent in what he has been trying to argue in this debate. You cite that Zentei has made his position clear right here:

"What I'm doing is rejecting this hard "black/white" paradigm of classification that permeates American thinking."

Compare that to what he says right here:

goddamned tool, no one here is disputing that the Egyptians originated in Northeast Africa. This has been pointed out to you countless times, yet you keep harping on like a broken record. That is not the issue here. The issue is whether the overall population of Egypt could be characterized as "black" in the sub-Saharan sense, as opposed to being heterogenous, and with resemblances with Near East and Maghreb populations as well as other populations, seeing as Egypt was the fucking corridor for the original settlement of those populations into their native lands.

or

2) I am not claiming that the Egyptians are northern invaders, though they probably were highly mixed with non-sub-Saharan Africans.
3) WRT the above, the issue is only whether the Egyptians were "black", whether due to gene flow from the near east and north Africa, or due to local evolution and subsequent dispersal from Egypt and the Horn region to the rest of the world.

Once again this is one of his MANY statements in which he is CLEARLY trying to refute the fact that they would socially be considered black Africans based on their physical appearance and rather be a "mixed race" or "heterogeneous" (two terms which he clearly uses interchangeably) population. If he did not care about the social categories as he states above, then he should not have even acknowledged the terms "black" or "mixed"/"heterogeneous" in a way to describe the civilization and instead focused strictly on biological evidence. You've stated that you don't agree with everything that Zentei, Thanas, and Ziggy have stated, so why do you feel so obligated to defend Zentei's CLEAR contradictions in his stance, and conversely and falsely make me out to be deliberately misinterpreting what he has been implying? This is doing nothing more than discrediting your own objectivity.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 3483405"My impression was that Thanas then was influenced by the old discussion with v-rex and wanted to dam the tide early. That was also before bigT specified that he refered to origins only and not dynastic egypt. "Covered that on p3 .

A grown man (who some of this board regard as a "scholar" of sorts) has the right to express ignorance because his feelings got hurt in an earlier thread. Are you serious? That is no kind of excuse for that type of ignorance on the subject! Never mind the fact that he has yet to rectify his position himself, and has lightly persisted upon this stale argument. Case and point stating that he and Zentei have been in compliance with the "general concensus" on this board on the subject is simply not the case and you know it.

I'm from europe, yes. So now I call out that race card you pulled on p2-3, namely that because I'm from that culture I'm uniquely qualified to determine how my own culture should be percieved. Take your pick, disagree with that statement and you disagree with your view on why you could uniquely call black african racism thingie. Or I could just point out that you were wrong about the murrican defintion so why would you be right about the yuro one?

You have yet to give an alternate view that most European societies have on the concept of race and who is considered black, compared to that of American society. Why can't you just admit that there are no real difference in who is considered "black" socially in most European societies and that which is defined in America?

Remember what Keita says about diversity within africa? There would be great variance in skintone then as well. There wouldn't be any pink skinned people outside of albinos, mind you, but there would be diversity.

Like genetic variation the skin tone of tropical/Sub Saharan Africa has the most diversity of any sub region on Earth:

"Previous studies of genetic and craniometric traits have found higher levels of within-population diversity in sub-Saharan Africa compared to other geographic regions. This study examines regional differences in within-population diversity of human skin color. Published data on skin reflectance were collected for 98 male samples from eight geographic regions: sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Europe, West Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia, Australasia, and the New World. Regional differences in local within-population diversity were examined using two measures of variability: the sample variance and the sample coefficient of variation. For both measures, the average level of within-population diversity is higher in sub-Saharan Africa than in other geographic regions. This difference persists even after adjusting for a correlation between within-population diversity and distance from the equator. Though affected by natural selection, skin color variation shows the same pattern of higher African diversity as found with other traits."-- Relethford JH.(2000). Human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations. Hum Biol. 2000 Oct;72(5):773-80.)

This has little to no relevance to what I've stated however. This was in response to the theory of an M1 back migration into Africa around 40,000 years ago. My point was that everyone in the world was still tropically adapted (black African migrants) at this early point in history, and therefore a back migration into Africa wouldn't have any bearing on the phenotypes already in place on the continent.

If that has to take place in that short a timeframe, then yes you are talking about a mass migration into northern africa...

As I just stated earlier and cited about 20 pages back, migration back and forward from Europe via Iberia has been confirmed, but had been constricted to isolated regions of Northwestern Africa.

Fuck you. Fuck your ignorance. Fuck the ignorant society that raised you. Fuck the ignorant country you live in.
Fuck this, I'm going to bed.

Hope ya slept good.

[Big Triece]

The back migration and demic diffusion I referred to earlier took place a long time previously, and come from the Levant, not Europe (though there would have been continuous migration, and I cited a paper).

This has been proven to be false:

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

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

Demic Diffusion into Africa from Levant would also mean that Afro-Asiatic originated in the Middle East, which simply will not work based the possible dates that have been given for this proposal.

I said "it's not that simple", and posted links to three papers which did not support his position. That was not to claim that Egyptians were not African, but to show that the claim that they always cluster with "more southerly types" was false.

Yes when you take all of these factors into account:

• Created an "African" or "sub-Saharan" group, but excluded the Maghreb (including parts of the Sahara and Sahel), the Sudan and the Horn area (Ethiopia and Somalia) even though these latter two are BELOW the Sahara, and thus "sub-Saharan".
  Excluded the Badari, and Naqada I and II, key Egyptian groups, thus obscuring the Sudanic/Saharan character of numerous early samples, noted in several earlier analyses.
  Ignored the formative range of the Saharans on Egypt, from the megaliths and cattle cults of the Nabta Playa to early mummification practices was ignored. T
  Excluded the Nubian population of the Badari and early Naqada period, including the rich remains of the well documented Qustul culture, near the present Sudanese-Egyptian border, again obscuring the close relationship between the two peoples.
  Created a vague "Bronze Age" grouping of Nubians, and a "modern" group of medieval samples, an era long after the dynasties and when Nubia had experienced more gene flow of that and the later Arab incursions, beginning in the 700s. Sampling thus ignored the early Badari/Naqada Nubians, jumped the 25th Dynasty era, and shifted to the medieval era in the age range of the Arab conquests.
  Used Somalian samples that were modern, and thus within the range of recent gene flow (such as the Arab era), particularly on the coast.
  The result was a "comparison" finding that the ancient Egyptians had no relationship "at all" to other "sub-Saharan" peoples and were relatively distant from the Nubians and Somalians. peoples. This finding has been undermined by the subsequent research of several scholars, including limb proportion studies.

Then you'll be able to defy what consistent biological analysis have concluded about the matter. It's like breaking a thoroughbred's leg then putting up against a mule to race and saying at the end "ya see thoroughbreds don't always win".

[Big Triece]

@Democracyfanboy:

Good points.