Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[EgalitarianJay]

^None of your interpretation follows without an analysis of what foreigners were absorbed in what quantity and at what time.

My interpretation follows Keita's viewpoint correctly in my opinion.

As far as foreigners are concerned Keita has spoken specifically about the Greco-Roman and Islamic periods as having the most significant genetic impact of all the foreigners to enter Egypt. He also makes the point that gradual small scale migration over a long time period can significantly alter gene frequency and physical characteristics of a population.

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).

[Thanas]

^None of your interpretation follows without an analysis of what foreigners were absorbed in what quantity and at what time.

My interpretation follows Keita's viewpoint correctly in my opinion.

And it makes a massive leap without any proof of it in mine. We know immigration happened, so why does it automatically mean that it has to be immigration that follows your model?

[Big Triece]

This is a quote from Richard Poe's book not Martin Bernal.

I was trippin, thanks for clearing that up. No wonder it was so damn hard to find this passage in a google search.

[EgalitarianJay]

^None of your interpretation follows without an analysis of what foreigners were absorbed in what quantity and at what time.

My interpretation follows Keita's viewpoint correctly in my opinion.

And it makes a massive leap without any proof of it in mine. We know immigration happened, so why does it automatically mean that it has to be immigration that follows your model?

We know that the early Ancient Egyptians had strong affinities to more Southerly African populations. We know that there are historical periods in Egyptian history where Egypt was occupied by foreigners (The Ptolmaic Dynasty, Roman Colonization, The Arab Conquest). We know that Egypt's population experienced a dramatic increase due to birth rates during the Middle Ages when the occupying power in Egypt were the Arab Muslims who had occupied Egypt for hundreds of years. We know that the genetic profiles of modern Egyptians reveal substantial European and Middle Eastern ancestry and that there is a clinal gradation with Northern Egyptians being genetically closer to Eurasian populations and Southern Egyptians being genetically closer to Africans. The Northern Egyptians have more Eurasian ancestry but a significant amount of the genetic profile is derived from Africa. Recent DNA studies on King Tut and other Amarna mummies show that they are most genetically similar to tropical Africans.

There is a substantial amount of scientific evidence that foreigners impacted the Egyptian population's gene pool significantly as population genetic theory would predict. As far as I know there are no reliable estimates of how many foreigners entered Egypt in any of these given time periods but the historical evidence indicates they came and the biological evidence indicates their presence left an impact on the genetics of Egypt as well as the culture.

I think the real question here is how diverse the phenotypes of Egypt were during the Dynastic period before any of the invasions and presumably significant immigrations occurred. How diverse were the skin colors of the Ancient Egyptians from say the Early Dynastic to New Kingdom period. Keita says that without histological analysis of the skin or accurate portraits we can't have an objective scientific answer to that question. I imagine that given its geographic proximity there were probably light-skinned people in Egypt as early as the Pre-Dynastic period but I have no idea what quantity of people were as light-skinned as your average Middle Easterner or Northwest African. I think we can only speculate on that but can conclude that Early Dynastic Egyptians in the main looked more like modern Southern Egyptians and tropical East Africans (Nilotics, Somali, Oromo etc.) with some variability.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Maybe there are things you are seeing in the quotes that made you think it undermines my main arguments, then you can point it out so I can respond better. For your information I have never talked about 'purity' or exclusivity. The word I used most is 'in the main'. Maybe this info will help when we want to respond to my views subsequently

What, in one sentence, is your argument, and what do you believe mine is?

Because from your posts and responses to mine there seems to be some confusion over what we are arguing.

[matter]

Maybe there are things you are seeing in the quotes that made you think it undermines my main arguments, then you can point it out so I can respond better. For your information I have never talked about 'purity' or exclusivity. The word I used most is 'in the main'. Maybe this info will help when we want to respond to my views subsequently

What, in one sentence, is your argument, and what do you believe mine is?
Because from your posts and responses to mine there seems to be some confusion over what we are arguing.

This is a summary of my argument http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3653965.
Am afraid that I dont really understand your stance. I do understand Spoonist's(and I respect that he has got some degree of consistency in his arguments-I think it is only in the details that I disagree with him), Lord Zentei's(though he has not responded to this post http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3654005 , so I am yet to know if he has modified them a little) and Thanas's(and we disagree fundamentally-he also has not responded to this post http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3654162 in particular and the following two posts on page 27 ,on the marked south-north migration of people due to the desiccating Eastern Sahara desert that was the main source of the peopling of Ancient Egypt and Nubia in the late holocene, which he disputes), but I dont understand your stance yet. It may be easier for us both if you responded to this post
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3652779 , cos I dont know if you still hold on to your Ancient Egyptian-mediterranean continuum position.

PS: You could also respond to my post(response) to Zentei and Thanas on the last page.

I have been very busy, but am hoping that when I have time, I will do a post on the 'myth' of any significant north-south movements of whole peoples in Nile Valley ; it is increasing clear that every significant movement from at least 30,000-20,000 yrs ago to well into dynastic Egypt(especially from the Late Paleolithic/Early Holocene to Predynastic period) has been south-north(am surprised not only at this clear archaeological observation but more at the fact that its importance has not been acknowledged widely-kind of like when until the 80s and 90s(after Hoffman) most Egyptologists thought Naqada culture had moved north-south, without ANY evidence to such views;we can now be astonished at how they ever held such views at all and for so long)

[Ziggy Stardust]

This is a summary of my argument http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3653965.

So is it fair to say that this sentence characterizes your main point?

"[Early Egyptians] were, in the main, tropically/supertropically adapted indigenious northeast Africans that had greatest biological affinities with other northeast Africans and other southernly Africans" [sic].

Am afraid that I dont really understand your stance.

I suppose that I have used rather imprecise language in my posts. I am, by trade, a biologist, not an archaeologist (I entered this debate mostly because of BigT's butchering of genetic data), and am not 100% familiar with the right terminology to use in this sort of argument. Needless to say, my original stance was essentially that BigT is an idiot that doesn't understand basic genetics, which is obvious.

In any case, the most simplistic explanation of my stance is simply that the ancient Egyptian population was heterogeneous, representing a biological and cultural admixture of various ancestral sources, including "black" African, North African/Berber, Arab, Semitic, etc. etc. I earlier used the phrase "Mediterranean continuum" in a broad (perhaps inaccurate) sense: it is a well established fact that the various populations that inhabit the Mediterranean coastal regions (or, indeed, other bodies of water similarly contained by land) are more genetically mixed, and linked with one another, than inland populations. I simply believe that ancient Egypt fits better into this paradigm than a purely "black" African one; that it more properly belongs in a greater Mediterranean community. That is not to say that Egypt is NOT African, just as I am not calling the Berbers, Tuaregs, or other North Africans NOT African. Similarly, northeast-Africans of the Horn region arguably share greater links with Arab and Asian populations than they do with, say, Senegal (and, indeed, historic precedent shows that this is the case ... for the same reason the Malagasy are properly Polynesian).

Demonstrating this is pretty elementary. As your yourself admitted, here, "nobody denies links with modern Egyptians, especially in the delta." The position accepted by many modern scholars is that, by and large, modern Egyptians are genetically much the same as ancient Egyptians. That is, the present heterogeneity is not an artifact of post-dynastic migration and invasion, but an integral component of Egyptian genetic identity. See this, this, and this (at least two of these papers have already been posted in this thread, but I figure I would repost them to save you the trouble of digging them up again).

(I am ignoring the references to Zentai, Spoonist, and Thanas. Although I agree with their positions, I don't feel the need to get involved in your separate debates with them.)

on the marked south-north migration of people due to the desiccating Eastern Sahara desert that was the main source of the peopling of Ancient Egypt and Nubia in the late holocene, which he disputes)

What exactly do you mean by "late Holocene"? The present? You realize the Holocene geological epoch includes modern times, right?

I have been very busy, but am hoping that when I have time, I will do a post on the 'myth' of any significant north-south movements of whole peoples in Nile Valley ; it is increasing clear that every significant movement from at least 30,000-20,000 yrs ago to well into dynastic Egypt(especially from the Late Paleolithic/Early Holocene to Predynastic period) has been south-north(am surprised not only at this clear archaeological observation but more at the fact that its importance has not been acknowledged widely-kind of like when until the 80s and 90s(after Hoffman) most Egyptologists thought Naqada culture had moved north-south, without ANY evidence to such views;we can now be astonished at how they ever held such views at all and for so long)

What about the eastern migrations of people into the Nile Valley around 5,000 years ago, with the drying to the Sahara? Hell, what about the evidence of Aterian tool-making circa 40,000 years ago, which almost certainly came from the west, not the south? What about the various Mesolithic pastorialist peoples of Lower Egypt, and the Sahaba Daru Nile phase, when dessication in the Sahara caused movement into Egypt and Nubia from the Libyan oases? My point being why the focus on this north-south paradigm, when east-west is arguably just as important/significant?

Also, are you completely denying that there was back-migration into Lower Egypt from the Levant, or just downplaying its significance? Heck, weren't the Gerzean Naqada from the delta region, and migrated south, just prior to the first unification?

[matter]

(Ziggy wrote)

This is a summary of my argument http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3653965.

So is it fair to say that this sentence characterizes your main point?

Yes it basically does, but this is in the biological sense alone. You left out the cultural
and archaeological affinities, that forms the greatest part of the summary, of what later
became Egyptian culture(Naqada) is from the general south-this is very important not only
cos it stands on its own and clearly shows the Africanity of Ancient Egypt but also cos it
can be very helpful in drawing biological affinities and origin models of the Nile Valley.

(Ziggy wrote)What exactly do you mean by "late Holocene"? The present? You realize the Holocene geological epoch includes modern times, right?

Yea you are right in a sense. But in this case I am talking about the general period c.5300
-3000BC.

(Ziggy wrote)What about the eastern migrations of people into the Nile Valley around 5,000 years ago, with the drying to the Sahara?

Eastern migrations? Do you mean from the Eastern Desert(which is part of the Eastern Sahara)?
Cos the range of cultures in this region as far as archaeological records shows is from the
Khartoum Variant and/or Early Khartoum in the Early and middle Holocene(c.10000-5500BC),
and then 'Nubian Neolithic culture Group' or related cultures in the Late Holocene
http://www.academia.edu/attachments/273 ... nload_file . Also the small, ephemeral
cultures at Sodmein cave near the red sea coast is related to the southern Upper Egyptian
Elkabian,both of which are younger and related to El Ghorab unit of Early Holocene Nabta
playa(Shirai 2010 Chapter2 pg22-23 http://www.google.com.ng/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=origins+of
+fayum+neolithic&source=web&cd=49&ved=0CFMQFjAIOCg&url=https%3A%2F
%2Fopenaccess.leidenuniv.nl%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F1887%2F15339%2FShirai%2520Chapter
%25202.pdf%3Fsequence%3D11&ei=6zJlT9SMF4iJ0AXNiJGMCA&usg=AFQjCNH13yk-
N3EocGnP4z_cn1KBnui2fQ&cad=rja). There were also later Badarian, Tasian and Early A-group
settlements around the region. Descendants of such groups include Pan Grave, Medjay, Blemmeyes and
perhaps the modern Beja. All these cultures and subsequently peoples are Africans.

(Ziggy wrote)Hell, what about the evidence of Aterian tool-making circa 40,000 years ago, which almost certainly came from the west, not the south?

1st of all, Aterian is not 40000 yrs old. It is now known to be very old, up to 100,000 yrs
old i.e well before humans left Africa. It or its antecedent may have originated from the
south(East Africa) http://www.antiquityofman.com/LatePleis ... plexes.pdf and
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0029029 . It was also later
concentrated in central Sahara and Northwest Africa.

(Ziggy wrote)What about the various Mesolithic pastorialist peoples of Lower Egypt

Mesolithic Pastoralist groups of the Lower Egypt? dont think there was any. There were only
neolithic farmers/pastoralists/fishers/hunters of the Fayum, Merimde and el-Omari. While
there certainly was contact and perhaps small migrations to and fro the Near East at this
time, the archaeological records shows the main movements was from the Egyptian Saharan oases
to these sites. See http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3654005

(Ziggy wrote)and the Sahaba Daru Nile phase, when dessication in the Sahara caused movement into Egypt and Nubia from the Libyan oases? My point being why the focus on this north-south paradigm, when east-west is arguably just as important/significant?

The Libyan or Western or Nubian oases(like Nabta, Bir Kiseiba, Kurkur,Dunqul,Dakhla,
Farafra, Djara etc) had Early Holocene cultures that came from the south(Khartoum variant
and Saharan Oases group)-whether from the far southeast or from southern Nile Valley at the
start of the wet Sahara, before when they were very dry and did not substain human populations. They later became either part of the 'Nubian Neolithic culture
group'(older and relate to the Badrains, Tasians, Early Naqada, Early A-Group etc
http://yale.academia.edu/MariaCGatto/Pa ... _territori
es_the_Nubian_Group_in_prehistory ) or the Saharan Oases 'neolithic' group(partly related
and older than Fayum and merimde see Shirai 2010 chapter 2 above; also see
http://www.panafprehistory.org/images/p ... _EGYPT_SET
TLEMENT_PATTERNS_AND_IMPLICATIONS_FOR_FOOD_PRODUCTION_IN_THE_EL_BAHR-
_EL_OBEIYID_REGION_Barbara_E_Barich.pdf ). No culture-group is predicted to have moved south
for any of these cultures. Let me also clarify that when I say south-north movements, it
does not only mean from directly southern part of the Nile valley. If the cultures seen to
the west/southwest(Western Desert) and east/southeast(Eastern Desert) are part of the
general 'Nubian' sequence(Khartoum variant, Karmakol, Nubian neolithic group) and if these
cultures ultimately came from the south, the movement is generally south-north

(Ziggy wrote)Also, are you completely denying that there was back-migration into Lower Egypt from the Levant, or just downplaying its significance?

That is not true since in the clicked post above I even was talking about more evidences of
contact with near east an the likely gene flow to and fro. I think everyone agrees on this,
and I have maintained this throughout. What am not sure is their significant. I think they
were most likely a minority that were absorbed by the Lower Egyptians though.

(Ziggy wrote)Heck, weren't the Gerzean Naqada from the delta region, and migrated south, just prior to the first unification?

Woo! Ziggy. Where do I start from...but I thought you read my references an the links of the summary you are critiquing? Anyway also see this http://www.farkha.org/pliki/cialowicz4.pdf ,on the transistion of lower Egypt to Naqada during the the Gerzean. This position is very incorrect! Naqada culture
developed in upper Egypt and only later replaced the different but mainly indigenous Maadian culture(s) of Lower Egypt. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTION ABOUT THIS:

The geographical locations of the Naqada I sites all lie within Upper Egypt, from Matmar in
the north to Kubaniya and Khor Bahan in the south...In broad terms, the Amratian[Naqada I]
is not differnt from the earlier Badarian culture. The burial rituals and the types of
funerary offerings are so similar that one wonder if the later does not constitute an older,
regional version of the former.
(Prehistory: From the Paleolithic to the Badarian Culture(c.700,000-4,000) by Stan Hendrickx
and Pierce Vermeersh 2003pg 37{in Oxford History of Ancient Egypt(ed) Ian Shaw }) pg.44-45

And As I have already shown both Badarian and Naqada I are variants of same widespread
Nubian Neolithic Culture Group. Furthermore, from same reference:

During the second phase of the Naqada culture, fundamental changes took place. These
developments, however, took place not at the margins of the culture but in its Amratian
heartland, in essense they can be regarded as an evolution rather than a sudden break. The
Naqada II phase[Gerzean] was characterized primarily by expansion, as the Gerzean culture
extended from its source at Naqada northwards towards the Delta and(Minshat Abu Omar) and
southwards as far as Nubia.
Hendrincx and Vermeersh pg 49-50

This was what I was talking about in my last post.These were/are still the kinds of 'myths'
that make people to hold certain views about Ancient Egypt

(Ziggy wrote)In any case, the most simplistic explanation of my stance is simply that the ancient Egyptian population was heterogeneous, representing a biological and cultural admixture of various ancestral sources, including "black" African, North African/Berber, Arab, Semitic, etc. etc. I earlier used the phrase "Mediterranean continuum" in a broad (perhaps inaccurate) sense: it is a well established fact that the various populations that inhabit the Mediterranean coastal regions (or, indeed, other bodies of water similarly contained by land) are more genetically mixed, and linked with one another, than inland populations. I simply believe that ancient Egypt fits better into this paradigm than a purely "black" African one; that it more properly belongs in a greater Mediterranean community. That is not to say that Egypt is NOT African, just as I am not calling the Berbers, Tuaregs, or other North Africans NOT African.

North African/Berber? I already treated this in this post and another link within it
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3654777. There is this tendency to
imagine that cos Egypt is in the north, then it must necessarily share deep relationship with other North
Africans. However, there is actually more biological(Nazlet,Wadi Kunabiya,Esna, FAyumian,
jebel sahaba, Tushka, Early and middle Nabta etc said to have some sub-saharan affinities
Vermeersh 2002) and culturally links common to the northeast. Infact Siwa 'berbers' are even distinct from Northwest African 'berbers'. Also, see the caution of Pihasi in Vermeersh 2002:

Paleoanthropologists tend to regard North Africa as one large geographical zone, thus
assuming populations affinities between the Maghreb and the Upper Nile Valley, are more
likely than between the later and sub-saharan Africa. However, a quick glance at the map of
Africa indicates that the distance between the Maghreb and the Nile Valley is larger than
between the Nile Valley and Ethiopia or Kenya. Moreover, North-South population movements
along the East Africa and the Nile Valley is more likely than an eastbound migrtaions along
the winding southern Mediterranean coast. Plentiful sources of water, availability of game,
and favorable climatic conditions(that is, no hot or fry ecological zone) probably spurred
population movements along this route. However, the size of the Mediterranean coastal belt
varied along the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Thus, during periods of extremely arid
conditions, the availability of water and game along the coast was more likely than limited.
Vermeersh 2002 pg 324

This continued to the Early to Late Holocene in the Nile Valley(eg Khartoum Variant to
Nubian Neolithic and Saharan Oasis group) while the Maghreb was from Iberomaurasian/Oranian
etc to Capsian-different cultural relationships.
Arab? Dont think there was an Arab identity during Early Egypt. Semitic? maybe.

You are now leaving your 'Mediterranean continuum' theory yet you are still saying that
Ancient Egypt 'properly belongs to a greater Mediterranean community'. This is so wrong.
Ziggy refer to this post
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?
p=3654315&sid=e1c6a3127b41bbfde40df5498ee16be8#p3654315 notice not only that these scholars
are demonstrating 'southern' influences in the Nile Valley(Khartoum variant,Early Khartoum,
Karmakol, Saharan oases) during the Early and middle holocene, and then at least for upper
Egypt ,the 'Nubian Neolithic culture group'. 2nd, that these cultures was shared across the
communities in the Nile valley and some others in the Eastern Sahara.3rd, that the Egyptian
side was the northernmost part of these cultural continuum. Even for Lower Egypt(Fayumain,
Fayum neolithic, Maadi-Buto etc) it was mainly an indigenous culture that interacted and
perhaps had gene flow to and fro with the Near East(and not really with the Mediterranean).
It was NOT part of the cultural sequence of the Mediterranean(which is what a continuum or
being 'properly part of the Mediterranean community' suggest). In fact these lower Egyptian cultures had relatively little contacts with the Mediterranean, and the delta remained relatively sparsely populated until late period of the civilization(from the 26th dynasty to especially Ptolemaic and Roman periods and subsequently till today-the Delta is now the most populated and important part of Egypt and so regarded now as being at least part of the Mediterranean world but this was certainly not the case with Ancient Egypt). The claim that Ancient Egypt is a Mediterranean civilization is a 'myth' with nothing to support it, and one of those unfortunate concepts(like Hamitic theorem,Dynastic race theory etc)that has burgled the correct understanding of the civilization.

(Ziggy wrote)Similarly, northeast-Africans of the Horn region arguably share greater links with Arab and Asian populations than they do with, say, Senegal (and, indeed, historic precedent shows that this is the case ... for the same reason the Malagasy are properly Polynesian).
Demonstrating this is pretty elementary

Woo! Ziggy huge claim. Since you are a biologist I will await your exposition on this before I comment. Others may also like to make their views clear on this particular issue. When you want to properly treat it please say clearly if you believe in the Biological concept of race. I noticed that the Wikipedia link you provided was on E1b1b(E-M215/E-M35)-you do know that the closest clade to it is V100/33(E-M2) that is prevalent in West Africa,and that both are the two descendants of PN2(Trombetta 2011)
.

(Ziggy wrote)As your yourself admitted, here, "nobody denies links with modern Egyptians, especially in the delta." The position accepted by many modern scholars is that, by and large, modern Egyptians are genetically much the same as ancient Egyptians. That is, the present heterogeneity is not an artifact of post-dynastic migration and invasion, but an integral component of Egyptian genetic identity. See this, this, and this (at least two of these papers have already been posted in this thread, but I figure I would repost them to save you the trouble of digging them up again).

Totally disagree. Granted there is general continuity in Egypt and the moderns are 'partly' the descendants of the ancients, but especially in the Delta there have been thorough 'mixing' with other groups('Libyans',Greeks,Romans, Jews,Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, Hyksos etc). Even the late period Dynastic Egyptians are said not to be typical of ancient Egyptian biology:

The data consist of 55 cranio-facial variables
from 418 adult Egyptian individuals,
from six periods, ranging in date from
c. 5000 to 1200 BC. These were compared
with the 111 Late Period crania (c. 600-
350 BC) from the Howells sample. Principal
Component and Canonical Discriminant
Function Analyses were undertaken,
on both pooled and single sex samples.
The results suggest a level of local population
continuity exists within the earlier
Egyptian populations, but that this was in
association with some change in population
structure, reflecting small-scale immigration
and admixture with new
groups. Most dramatically, the results
also indicate that the Egyptian series
from Howells global data set are morphologically
distinct from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Nile Valley samples (especially
in cranial vault shape and height),
and thus show that this sample cannot be
considered to be a typical Egyptian series.
Intra-population and temporal variation
in ancient Egyptian crania(: abstact AAPA 2004)
by S.R. Zakrzewski. Department of Archaeology,
University of Southampton, UK.

Refer to this post again http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3654777

Where those last two links saying that modern Egyptians were same as the ancients or was just doing genetic analysis of MODERN egyptians?

[matter]

@Spoonist. forgot to respond to your post; will do when I have enough time.apologies

[Ziggy Stardust]

Matter, I don't have time right now to go into your post in detail. I'm at work. I will get to it later. But I need to say a couple of things:

1) Can you please dress your links, as I have in my posts? It isn't difficult. It makes your posts a lot easier to read if you do so. It gets really irritating to have to separate the URLs out of your paragraphs.

2) You don't seem to have read any of the sources I linked to in my post. I suggest you do so.

When you want to properly treat it please say clearly if you believe in the Biological concept of race.

What, in your view, is the "biological concept of race"? I would love to say clearly if I believe in it or not, but I have no idea what you mean by the phrase, especially with relation to what I wrote and linked to in my post.

[Spoonist]

@matter
No problem, I didn't even remember posting anything specific vs you since you hit it off with Thanas???

BTW the "you only have to ask" comment at bT goes for you as well.
Your (Ziggy wrote) is totally unnecessary.
If I use the quote button on your post I get this:

@Spoonist. forgot to respond to your post; will do when I have enough time.apologies

As you can see it writes it out, if we look at the code you can see that the only thing that differs is the ="xxx"

Code: Select all

[quote="matter"]@Spoonist. forgot to respond to your post; will do when I have enough time.apologies[/quote]

So by using that principle I can even embed a link in a quote like this:

In early 2007, scientists created an entirely new proxy to determine annual mean air temperature on land-- based on molecules from the cell membrane of soil inhabiting bacteria. Recently, Scientists from the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research conducted a temperature record dating back to 25,000 years ago. In concord with the German colleague of the University of Bremen, this detailed record shows the history of land temperatures based on the molecular fossils of soil bacteria. When applying this to the outflow core of the Congo River, the core contained eroded land material and microfossils from marine algae. That concluded that the land environment of tropical Africa was cooled more than the bordering Atlantic Ocean during the last ice-age. Since the Congo River drains a large part of tropical central Africa, the land derived material gives an integrated signal for a very large area. These findings further enlighten in natural disparities in climate and the possible costs of a warming earth on precipitation in central Africa!

Which looks like this:

Code: Select all

[quote="[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Africa#Recent_news:_History_of_Tropical_Africa]Wikipedia[/url]"]blabla[/quote]

Which is really neat when quoting studies...

[matter]

@ Ziggy I did read your links. The 1st link took me to an abstract for which I could not find the full study, moreover the abstract indicated the study was about MODERN Egyptians, who the authors suggested had genetic patterns from 'the Mediterranean, Near east and Africa'-nobody have contested this for modern Egyptians; the 2nd was on E1b1b(E-M215/E-M35) which I commented on; I also commented on the 4th and 5th ones where I asked again if they were not talking about MODERN Egyptians(I have read these works before); the 3rd link was to an ABSTRACT of a study being interpreted by an individual I have little respect for 1.e for her opinions.

What, in your view, is the "biological concept of race"? I would love to say clearly if I believe in it or not, but I have no idea what you mean by the phrase, especially with relation to what I wrote and linked to in my post

No. The question was not meant to imply that you advocated the concept of biological race in your post, I only asked cos it will be important when discussing the affinities of northeastern/eastern Africans.
The Biological concept of race suggest as Keita said that visible human variation connotes fundamental deep differences within the human species which can be packaged into near-uniformed groups of individuals, implying that certain external variations 'originated' in one of these types so if we see them in another type, it means that there have been gene flow between them. These fundamental types have been called Negroids, Caucasoids and Mongoloids(where they placed the others is less defined). Different people who believe in this concept have different opinions on the origins of these said human types-different species that originated in different continents, differentiation of humans that left Africa into these types over time etc etc.
This concept is opposed to the idea that there are no real deep fundamental differences between the Human species, and that whatever differences there is can be seen as CLINAL differences of clusters of certain variations; and also that 80-85% of these variations are WITHIN the said types compared to 20-15% between them


@ Spoonist thanks.

[matter]

I am posting this because of some people who still think that there were no significant migrations to Egypt , especially from the Late Period onwards and mostly in the Delta, that significantly affected the affinities of the Ancient Egyptians. This will also help in the debate with Ziggy. Many of the quotes are from a recent(2012) study by Egyptologists Baines and Christina Riggs:

source[/url]]In the Late Period, internationalism,
migration, and trade are especially well
documented, and immigration from Thrace
and the Greek cities of Anatolia was
facilitated by the establishment of Naukratis
(attributed to the reign of Psammetichus I)
and the use of Greek mercenaries, first against
Nubia (Psammetichus II) and later against
Persian rule. The descendants of Greek
immigrants took Egyptian names and
operated within Egyptian cultural practices: a
dark stone anthropoid sarcophagus is
inscribed for the deceased Wahibraemhat,
whose ethnic heritage emerges in the Greek
names of his parents, Alexikles and Zenodote,
transcribed into hieroglyphs (Leiden AM4:
Grallert 2001). One of the possible markers of
ethnicity—language difference—may have
worked against acculturation for some ethnic
groups, though such boundaries remain highly
permeable. The Carian community established
at Memphis, for instance, inscribed Carian
and Egyptian in parallel on a series of sixthcentury
BCE tombstones, which also
combined Greek and Egyptian visual forms
(Ray 1995; Kammerzell 1993; Hockmann
2001).
Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt, in
332 BCE, precipitated a period of mass
immigration. Peaking in the third century
BCE, immigration from the Mediterranean,
the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Near
East may have numbered into the hundreds
of thousands and included foreign slaves and
prisoners of war as well as economic migrants
and military veterans. In Greek and Demotic
sources, almost 150 different ethnic labels
attest to the scale and geographic range of
immigration and ethnic-group settlement
(La’da 2003: 158 - 159). Many Greek-speaking
immigrants did not remain separate from the
existing population. Men like the Greek
cavalry officer Dryton married into Egyptian families (Lewis 1986: 88 - 103; Pomeroy 1990:103 - 124), and an Egyptian priest named
Horemheb, who lived at Naukratis during the
reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, seems to
have had a Greek father and an Egyptian
mother (Derchain 2000: 20 - 21, 42 - 43).
Riggs, Christina, and John Baines, 2012, Ethnicity. In Elizabeth Frood, Willeke Wendrich (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles.

Hundred of thousands of Mediterraneans during this extended period! But even before then there were marked migrations from Hyksos(though most were driven from Egypt by Ahmose),'Libyans'(who were affected by the Sea Peoples movements and who later became Egyptians in the north and even ruled for some time),Romans, Carians, Jews(who had settlements in Delta and even in Elephantine) etc:

In the north of Egypt the same period saw the immigration and settlement from Palestine, probably by the descendants of the people who befriended Sinuhe....Their presence is most famously documented at Tell el-Dab'a, a huge town site in the Northeast Delta. Called Avaris in ancient times, it became the fortified centre for the line of Palestine kings, the Hyksos, who at a time ruled northern Egypt for just a century and, for a short time, might even have ruled the whole country.
Barry Kemp 2006 pg41

A relatively well documented case of this kind of transfer, of a complete society from one region to another, concerns the Libyan during the 1st millenium BC who feature so prominently as the enemy in Egyptian battle records of 2 or 3 centuries earlier. In a kind of reverse exodus, and despite the earlier defeats at the hands of the Egyptians, they successfully moved as a series of complete societies from their homelands that must laid along the Mediterranean coastal zone to the Nile Valley. There they set themselves up in position of authority, eventually becoming the rulers of large parts of the country.
Barry Kemp 2006 pg42 and pg43

In Roman Egypt, “Egyptian” became a
defined category for taxation purposes
(Egyptians paid the poll tax at full rate),
alongside categories for Roman citizens,
Alexandrian citizens, citizens of the other
Greek cities (Naukratis, Ptolemais, and later
Antinoopolis), Jews, and metropolites. These
last, who paid reduced poll tax, were residents
of the nome capitals (metropoleis), and their
status as members within the metropolite
category had to be proved through paternal
and maternal descent (Nelson 1979). Censuses
carried out under Augustus may have
identified the “hellenized” elites of the late
Ptolemaic Period and codified their
membership, thus turning a quasi-ethnic
group into a hereditary status group. Other
individuals in Roman Egypt may have selfidentified
as “Greeks,” but without
metropolite (or gymnasial) membership, they
would not have enjoyed any recognition as
such for legal or taxation purposes. A
collection of statutes known as the Gnomon of
the Idios Logos underscores the Roman
administration’s concern with status and
group membership: according to one
stipulation in the Gnomon, a child born to a
Roman citizen and an Egyptian, as defined by
Roman law, would inherit the status of the
lower-ranking parent (Nelson 1979: 2).
Riggs, Christina, and John Baines, 2012, Ethnicity. In Elizabeth Frood, Willeke Wendrich (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles.

Other ethnic groups may have
maintained more closed boundaries, such as
Jewish communities[in the Delta, Memphis and Elephantine], or the Persian residents implied by a third-century BCE stela from
Saqqara, inscribed in Demotic for a man
named Khahap, “leader of the Medes” (fig. 4;
Vittmann 2003: 72, fig. 33: Berlin 2118, lost in
World War II).
Riggs, Christina, and John Baines, 2012, Ethnicity. In Elizabeth Frood, Willeke Wendrich (eds.),
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles.

PS: It was during this general period and slightly later that the Coptic Identity began to crystallized following a complex process of course.
Note that before this the Delta was sparsely population as most of the population was then in the valley, but after this, especially after the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, the Delta became the most important region as it remained to this day. Also, dont forget movements during Byzantine rule and of course Arab period(when northern Egypt was really cosmopolitan). Movements of Turks from the Mamluk dynasty(which they formed) to recent times should not be forgotten. There were also at various times migrations of 'Nubians' from the south.
So there is no question that very significant migrations happened but the question should be what was the biological affinities of Early Egyptians relative to other Africans and non-Africans, and if this affinities changed due to the migrations.
EVERY study(Keita 1990,1993;Zarkzweski 2002,2007;Nancy Lovell 1999;Godde 2009;Starling and Stock 2007;Buzon 2006;Berry Kemp 2006, even Brace 2006 etc) clearly tell us that the Early Egyptians had greater biological affinities to some Africans to its south than to Near Easterners and Mediterraneans, as one would expect knowing that the main population source of these Early Egyptians are from the desiccating Eastern Sahara(See these post: 1st, 2nd, 3rd). They also tell us that while there was some level of continuity, modern Egyptians and even Late Period Delta Egyptians(who were more affected by these movements from Greeks,Romans,Carians,'Libyans'etc) changed- in fact Zakrzweski tell us that they are not a 'typical' Egyptian series. See these:

"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

The data consist of 55 cranio-facial variables
from 418 adult Egyptian individuals,
from six periods, ranging in date from
c. 5000 to 1200 BC. These were compared
with the 111 Late Period crania (c. 600-
350 BC) from the Howells sample. Principal
Component and Canonical Discriminant
Function Analyses were undertaken,
on both pooled and single sex samples.
The results suggest a level of local population
continuity exists within the earlier
Egyptian populations, but that this was in
association with some change in population
structure, reflecting small-scale immigration
and admixture with new
groups. Most dramatically, the results
also indicate that the Egyptian series
from Howells global data set are morphologically
distinct from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Nile Valley samples (especially
in cranial vault shape and height),
and thus show that this sample cannot be
considered to be a typical Egyptian series.
Intra-population and temporal variation
in ancient Egyptian crania(: abstact AAPA 2004)
by S.R. Zakrzewski. Department of Archaeology,
University of Southampton, UK.

Also, see:

Dendrogram[in pg 57] which shows the relative closeness to or distance from one another of
males in 53 human populations from Africa and the Mediterranean region. The program has no
geographical or chronological intuition. It is thus reassuring to find expected groups
actually coming together, sometimes with a degree of chronological ordering, which suggest
evolutionary changes. The extent to which Late Period Giza cemetery is not representative
of Egypt as a whole but only one stage in population change is clear.
Berry Kemp 2006 pg 41

This is the dendrogram.Notice that modern Delta Egyptians are not in the primary block- who
are in the block? Why do you think we are seeing this pattern over and over again in all
these studies:



I would later post references and links for movements during Byzantine(Christian), Arabic, Turkish etc periods. I am also getting ready my post on the 'myth' of marked north-south movements in the Nile Valley(especially during Late Paleolithic/Early Holocene to Early Dynastic period) once I have the time to finish it.

[Spoonist]

@matter
Why do you spam the same stuff littlebrain has spammed so many times before? The only new data presented there was Riggs, Christina, and John Baines, 2012 which I will check out since it seems interesting.
Also, refering to older dialog with shitstain here, do you agree that dna is much more relevant to historical origins than craniological research? (Especially since genes tell a much broader story of ancestry by their compounded mutations). If you do, take my advice from p3-5 and skip the old and just go with the new era. It's much more relevant to the topic at hand. For instance - using a study with a picking bias of 200 skulls isn't really conclusive evidence, it's just a small indication of a possible assumption.
So less quantity and more quality in the picking of your supporting studies would benefit your argument.

[matter]

Why do you spam the same stuff littlebrain has spammed so many times before? The only new data presented there was Riggs, Christina, and John Baines, 2012 which I will check out since it seems interesting.

Maybe Spoonists you have not noticed, I am as much interested in sharing info(by provided sources and links directly) as I am interested in debating. I also like to put my arguments in CONTEXT. It was better to present the biological affinities of ancient Egyptians as studied by most experts and show that there was change esp from the Late Period,although with some level of continuity, just as I was presented evidence for marked migrations during the same extended period. Readers(many of whom might have just started following this thread) can then understand that the most likely reason for the change was because of the migrations. So I was not 'spamming'(to say the truth it was somewhat offensive) but providing CONTEXT for people(another reason I linked to page 27 where evidences of the origins of most of the source populations of Ancient Egypt-desiccating Eastern Sahara-was presented).

What should be of concern to you and others should be this: we know that the Early Egyptians had the greatest Biological Affinities with some more southerly Africans, especially other Northeast Africans.Are we surprised? NO. Because we know that the main population source of Ancient Egypt(especially the critical and far more populated Upper Egypt was the desiccating Sahara as shown on pg27 -see the 3 links I provided in my last post). Evidences have just been presented for marked migrations started mainly from the Late Period that certainly would have had some effect on the Biological Affinities of Ancient Egyptians. Now, lets go back a little- all the studies tell us that the Biological Affinities of Early Egyptians clustered with some southerly Africans and that this generally continued through out most of the Dynastic period, though there was some change in population, probably due to amongst others, some small scale movements to Egypt(again are we surprised by this? NO);however, all these studies tell us that significant changed occurred from the Late Period onwards(such that the series from this period in certain parts of Egypt was 'not typical' of Earlier Egyptians). Now, should would be surprised by this knowing the very marked migrations at this time? NO, especially as we already know that these migrating Mediterraneans and Near Easterners didnt form a cluster with Early Egyptians that mostly absorbed them over time. PS: this is just 1st millennium BC, we are not even yet talking about the migrations that happened in the last 2 millennia AD(Byzantine-Christian period, Arab period- when Egypt was opened to the Islamic Cosmopolitan world,Turkish periods etc), SO ANYBODY THAT SAYS 'LOOK AT THE MODERN EGYPTIANS, IMPLYING THOSE IN THE DELTA, TO SEE THE IMAGE OF THEIR ANCIENT ANCESTORS' IS SPEAKING NONSENSE.

Oh by the way Spoonist, why dont you also talk to others who have virtually ran away or are suspiciously slow to respond to posts directed at their views, some of them dishonestly. Take Thanas, who have refused to respond to 3 posts of mine and 1 of BigT on page 27 in response to his view that Early Ancient population was from a combination of Out-Of-African peoples and further massive back migrations of non-Africans and virtually little from the 'south', after dishonestly making it seen like he agreed with most in this board that the main population source was from the Eastern Sahara; now, after all those counter-arguments with more than 10 sources and their links he chose not to respond-either to support his views or to modify them. Even Zentei(and I am not saying he is dishonest) has not stated his (new?) views about Demic Diffusion.
Yea, please read the new study by Baines et al and give your impression on it.

Also, refering to older dialog with shitstain here, do you agree that dna is much more relevant to historical origins than craniological research? (Especially since genes tell a much broader story of ancestry by their compounded mutations). If you do, take my advice from p3-5 and skip the old and just go with the new era. It's much more relevant to the topic at hand. For instance - using a study with a picking bias of 200 skulls isn't really conclusive evidence, it's just a small indication of a possible assumption.
So less quantity and more quality in the picking of your supporting studies would benefit your argument.

I think Biological anthropological(cranial metric and nonmetric as well as skeletal) methods are still very important once done with vigorous modern statistical analysis and appropriate sampling and pooling. The only thing is that it can not stand alone since it can not give us the fuller picture So other lines of evidences like Genetics would be needed; others like archaeology,historical-linguistics, cultural studies, geography/climate, migrations etc are also useful because they all help in giving a CONTEXT and building a MODEL on Biological affinities and Origins. This was what the Nancy Lovell did in her 1999 studies that enabled her come to the conclusions she did, since ALL available Lines of Evidence as regards the Ancient Egyptians lead to one narrative:

...while some of the earliest metrical studies of Egyptian biological data are significantly flawed, recent investigations have employed published standards for obtaining precise and accurate measurements and have utilized historically and geographically relevant population comparisons. Alternatively,nonmetric characteristics,particularly of the teeth and the bones of the skull, are used to examine biological affinities. 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 characteristic that are within the range of variations for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the sahara and tropical Africa....In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas....Any interpretations of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians must be placed in the context of the hypotheses informed by archaeological,linguistic,geographic or other data. In such context,the physical anthropological evidence indicates that the early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage,but exhibiting local variation. This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow,genetic drift and natural selection, influenced by culture and geography.
Nancy Lovell 1999 pg 330-331{in Encyclopedia of Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (ed) Kathryn Bard and Steven Blarke}

In the same vein, genetics can be very useful, but even if you have the genetic profiles of the Ancient Egyptians across the classes and through the periods(which is very rare in deed as most of the studies we have are mainly about MODERN Egyptians-who we are told have profiles from Africans, Mediterraneans and Near Eastern populations-any surprises there?), it still cannot stand on its own. While the study on MODERN Egyptians can be helpful in MODELLING, we will still need the other Lines of Evidences I have earlier mentioned since we know there was significant change and also some continuity in Egyptian Population History. Moreover, genetic studies should also be put in CONTEXT, for eg how would you interpret an individual whose mtDNA is M1? Is he 'authentic' African? If he is not because M1 'might' have returned to Africa around 45,000 ago, we would have to be told at what stage did it or its ancestor clade for that matter(L3(M)) become non-African?
This is my observed guess- I think that in Early Egypt there would have been E-M75, B, E-M2, J2 and probably R-V88, A, X, J1? Also, L3,L4,L0,M1,L2,L5 and probably N1,N2,L6,L1; this is just an educated guess though. I await your exposition on this topic.
PS: I hope you are not advising that we should wait until we have genetic profile of the Ancient Egyptians, before we can draw some believable inferences and even conclusions on the Lines of Evidences we have. If so I totally disagree with you.

[Ziggy Stardust]

@ Ziggy I did read your links. The 1st link took me to an abstract for which I could not find the full study, moreover the abstract indicated the study was about MODERN Egyptians, who the authors suggested had genetic patterns from 'the Mediterranean, Near east and Africa'-nobody have contested this for modern Egyptians; the 2nd was on E1b1b(E-M215/E-M35) which I commented on; I also commented on the 4th and 5th ones where I asked again if they were not talking about MODERN Egyptians(I have read these works before); the 3rd link was to an ABSTRACT of a study being interpreted by an individual I have little respect for 1.e for her opinions.

Once again, as Keita notes, there is little evidence that modern Egyptians are SIGNIFICANTLY genetically differentiated from Ancient Egyptians. That is the consensus of most modern genetic research in this field, so far as I can tell (as I said, this is not my primarily field of study; my knowledge is from casual reading of scholarly articles, which I and others have presented in this thread). This is the essence of my argument. If modern Egyptians and Ancient Egyptians are as similar as some believe, then that is pretty good evidence that ancient Egyptians were more genetically diverse than you and BigT seem to be allowing for.

(After all, the simplest iteration of my argument is simply that the Ancient Egyptian population was genetically diverse. Everything else is just semantics.)

For purposes of comparison, think about the modern genetic arguments for the origins of the British isles. Bryan Sykes is the authority on this issue; I can't find a good paper on it (only some abstracts), but the essence of his position is that the modern genetic makeup of the British isles is overwhelmingly similar to what it was in Neolithic times. The various migrations, invasions, cultural shifts, etc. etc. certainly impacted the population, but genetically speaking the impact was relatively minor. The current population still serves as a decent model for the old one.

The Biological concept of race suggest as Keita said that visible human variation connotes fundamental deep differences within the human species which can be packaged into near-uniformed groups of individuals, implying that certain external variations 'originated' in one of these types so if we see them in another type, it means that there have been gene flow between them.

I looked back through your posts, and maybe I am just missing it (this thread is too damned long to go back and re-read), but is there a link where you are getting this from? Because in my mind, the biological concept of race is, essentially, just a genetically divergent population, usually as a result of adaptation to local conditions or geographical isolation. Generally speaking, in biological terms a "race" is simply a term used to designate variance in the genetic make-up of a widespread population, where the differences are too insignificant to warrant a formal rank.

EDIT: Okay, did some Google searching. What you are describing seems to be the typological model of anthropology, which has been thoroughly discredited for decades, now. This concept has nothing to do with modern biological conceptions of race.

This concept is opposed to the idea that there are no real deep fundamental differences between the Human species, and that whatever differences there is can be seen as CLINAL differences of clusters of certain variations; and also that 80-85% of these variations are WITHIN the said types compared to 20-15% between them

I'm a bit confused by what you mean here. Well, honestly I'm a bit confused by your entire point on this issue.

How is the typological approach to anthropology OPPOSED to the idea of deep fundamental differences between humans? The entire point of that (racist) model was to DRAW deep fundamental differences between humans. It had no basis in actual biological science whatsoever, as a matter of fact.

The concept of clinal differences and variation is much more in line with modern biological interpretations of the idea of "race," though I am not sure to the accuracy of the numbers you cite.

----

Also, matter, if you are wondering why I didn't respond to one of your posts (like 3-4 posts ago), it was because I realized out little debate wasn't really going anywhere. We were both just throwing the same 3-4 links to articles at each other and rephrasing our arguments in different ways. Since we were just going down a dead end, I decided to reframe the argument a bit to see if we could get anywhere. It wasn't an attempt to dodge the issue, it was an attempt to refine it.

[Big Triece]

Found a great new interview from renown Egyptian and Egyptologist Robert Bauval. Bauval starts off by exposing the silliness and racism of the now ousted Egyptian authority Zahi Hawass. He states that the early ancient Egyptians were "obviously" black Africans prior to the migrations from the Levant and Europe during later periods. This modern Egyptians is as "white" as they come in appearance and like many modern scholars who study the subject has now made it a point to expose the cover up of this vital fact.



Here is a documentary in which is talks about the cover up of an advanced civilization pre-dating Pharonic Egypt in the Sahara (Nabta Playa)

[matter]

Once again, as Keita notes, there is little evidence that modern Egyptians are SIGNIFICANTLY genetically differentiated from Ancient Egyptians. That is the consensus of most modern genetic research in this field, so far as I can tell (as I said, this is not my primarily field of study; my knowledge is from casual reading of scholarly articles, which I and others have presented in this thread). This is the essence of my argument. If modern Egyptians and Ancient Egyptians are as similar as some believe, then that is pretty good evidence that ancient Egyptians were more genetically diverse than you and BigT seem to be allowing for.

This is becoming tiresome. I have tried to treat the 'Biological Differences yet with some degree of Continuity' between Ancient and Modern Egyptians and have quoted and given links to scholars who demonstrated this on this very page. In fact all the studies that I know on the Biological Affinities of ancient Egyptians support this, with perhaps the exception of the flawed Brace 1993(criticized by other scholars and somewhat contradicted by even Brace 2006 study). I have also in my last two posts given clear evidences for very marked migrations from the Mediterranean and Near East(said to be in the hundreds of thousands) in the then sparsely populated, outlier and circumspect area of the Nile Delta(that now has the majority of said MODERN Egyptians); and you did not consider any of these in your above post.

No problem. Could you NOW post sources and links to:
1. where Keita said that 'there is little evidence that Modern Egyptians are significantly genetically differentiated from ancient Egyptians '(and please give CONTEXT in your explanation).
2. evidences of the ' consensus of most genetic researches' that modern Egyptians are not different from ancient Egyptians.
Since I thought I have read all Keita works on this issue and many genetic studies on MODERN Egyptians and have not come across these views, it will be great if you can enlighten us further.
While we stay with Genetics, plz dont forget the post where you said that Northeast/East Africans are more related to non-Africans than other Africans. So also post sources and links backing this claim, and in your exposition give some CONTEXT.
I will be expecting at least these 3.

(After all, the simplest iteration of my argument is simply that the Ancient Egyptian population was genetically diverse. Everything else is just semantics.)

The Early Egyptians because of the way peoples migrated at different times during the late 6th-4th millennium BC from the desiccating Eastern Sahara were 'mixed', but as BigT once argued this 'mixture' was mainly different groups of Africans(Afrasans and Nilosaharans) living in the Eastern Sahara at those times. Except you are actually saying that the people living presently in the Delta,with clades mostly seen outside Africa(actually mostly in Southern Europe and Near East where we Now know of marked migrations during the last 3 millennia- except for E-M75; and also nothing their 'whitish' looks) today were wholly part of the populations in the Eastern Sahara, then you would have to explain why they only went north to the Egyptian(Lower) Nile and apparently none went to the Upper Nile and areas south(like other parts of NE Africa, East Africa, parts of West-Central Africa where we know they also went). You should also explain why in all these studies(Keita 1990.1993,2004,2005; Zakrweski 2002,2004,2007;Nancy Lovell1999; Starling and Stock 2007;Buzon 2006; Godde 2009;even Brace 2006 etc) the Early Egyptians did not primarily cluster with MODERN Egyptians of the Delta(and also Near Easterners and Mediterraneans) but only with some southerly Africans , and that they only started to show changes during and after the times of these migrations.
You also do know that Africa is the most diverse region genetically on earth.

[Lord Zentei]

Seeing as this is still active, and matter has mentioned me by name more than once:

Matter, I've largely lost interest in this thread, more so since you're not really bringing anything new to the table, (much like Big Triece whose last exchanges have displayed a deplorable WOI). As for your continued demands that I provide evidence for demic diffusion into North Africa, that has already been provided to you. The fact that you can't access the web page is not my fault: it's not a free service, and I can hardly go around pirating an article from where I'm registered simply for the sake of an internet debate. As for your question to Ziggy Stardust: the relatedness of Ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians has also been covered already, way back on page 18.

[Big Triece]

Matter, I've largely lost interest in this thread, more so since you're not really bringing anything new to the table, (much like Big Triece whose last exchanges have displayed a deplorable WOI).

As I've stated earlier, some of you are complaining about the fact that many of these sources have already been presented earlier on in this thread in response to them being reposted as though the fact that you are aware of their existence somehow nullifies their relevance to the overall points being made. It doesn't! They have been presented and they have proved our points beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore when people such as yourself and Ziggy continue to make the same arguments which our relevant sources outright refute, it calls for a reminder that you are wrong.

As for your continued demands that I provide evidence for demic diffusion into North Africa, that has already been provided to you.

And it has been refuted! That is what you're not willing to accept. You have found a source or two that makes the claim of Demic Diffusion from the Levant into Africa, but what you're not accepting is that those sources have been directly refuted by other scholars whose position continues to be the generally accepted view:



Keita directly refutes the notion of Demic Diffusion that you are for whatever reason (Keita calls "idiocracy" in another lecture) trying to uphold for position which you know by now holds little to no support.

As for your question to Ziggy Stardust: the relatedness of Ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians has also been covered already, way back on page 18.

Zentei why are you continuing to blindly make this assertion against so much evidence which says otherwise? A level of continuity has been maintained from early Dynastic populations to the current inhabitants, and from that continuity we can say today that the modern inhabitants of Egypt are the main descendants of the ancient Egyptians. This does not negate the fact that major change in biological affinities have taken place due to large migrations from populations whom the original ancient Egyptians themselves had little affinities with. This change is clearly displayed in the purple dendrogram a little further up on the page. After looking at it ask yourself: Where are modern Egyptians in relation to early ancient Egyptians? Where are Late Dynastic Egyptians in relations to early Egyptians? Where are Nubians in relations to early Egyptians? Where are modern Northeast African populations in relation to the early ancient Egyptians? Then listen to the interview by leading Egyptologist Robert Bauval in my last post, so that those results could be put in a clear context.

[Lord Zentei]

Boy, that didn't take long. Why hasn't this fucker been banned yet, anyhow?

As I've stated earlier, some of you are complaining about the fact that many of these sources have already been presented earlier on in this thread in response to them being reposted as though the fact that you are aware of their existence somehow nullifies their relevance to the overall points being made. It doesn't! They have been presented and they have proved our points beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore when people such as yourself and Ziggy continue to make the same arguments which our relevant sources outright refute, it calls for a reminder that you are wrong.

This is called "broken record tactics".

And it has been refuted! That is what you're not willing to accept. <snip more YouTube shit>

No, it has not been "refuted". It's just that you are an idiot and a liar. And that video has nothing to do with anything posted in this thread.

Incidentally, even your own heroes disagree with you, even still:

The analyses demonstrate the metric heterogeneity of pre-Roman mid-Holocene Maghreban crania. The range of variation in the restricted area described extends from a tropical African metric pattern to a European one and supports the phenotypic variability observed in and near Carthage by ancient writers and in morphological studies. Thus the population emerges as a composite entity, no doubt also containing hybrid individuals. However, the centroid value of the combined Maghreb series indicates that the major craniometric pattern is most similar to that of northern dynastic Egyptians, not northwest Europeans. Furthermore, the series from the coastal Maghreb and northern (Lower) Egypt are more similar to one another than they are to any other series by centroid values and unknown analyses.
The upper Nile Valley series show close affinities to one another and to tropical African series. Thus variation is also present in the Egyptian Nile Valley, as the northern pattern trend is distinguishable from the southern one. The Badari and Nagada I cranial patterns emerge as tropical African variants (with Kerma). Badari remains show little affinity to the mass of Maghreban crania.
Notable Nagada/Kerma metric overlap is observed with the first dynasty series, which shares the pattern to a lesser degree, as indicated by its centroid values.
In summary, canonical variate analysis demonstrates the impressive variation suggested previously for early northern Africa. It also suggests that there was a modal craniometric phenotype common to northern Egypt and the coastal Maghreb in the mid-Holocene, intermediate to European and southern Egyptian Nile Valley/tropical series.

Doubtless you've seen this before, right? And doubtless you'll ignore it.

BTW: this little quote from Keita is not about the demic diffusion, but the relationship between the Lower Egyptians and Maghreb peoples you were denying earlier.

Zentei why are you continuing to blindly make this assertion against so much evidence which says otherwise? A level of continuity has been maintained from early Dynastic populations to the current inhabitants, and from that continuity we can say today that the modern inhabitants of Egypt are the main descendants of the ancient Egyptians. This does not negate the fact that major change in biological affinities have taken place due to large migrations from populations whom the original ancient Egyptians themselves had little affinities with. This change is clearly displayed in the purple dendrogram a little further up on the page. After looking at it ask yourself: Where are modern Egyptians in relation to early ancient Egyptians? Where are Late Dynastic Egyptians in relations to early Egyptians? Where are Nubians in relations to early Egyptians? Where are modern Northeast African populations in relation to the early ancient Egyptians? Then listen to the interview by leading Egyptologist Robert Bauval in my last post, so that those results could be put in a clear context.

The fact that you not only admit that the modern Egyptians are the main descendents of the ancient Egyptians but also that "No one disputes that modern Egyptians (especially those in the south) have biological resemblance to their core indigenous ancestors." renders any nitpicking of yours moot. Papers showing lack of significant change to the Egyptian population due to mass migration have already been presented to you ten pages ago, and you responded with evasions.

[Big Triece]

This is called "broken record tactics".

What exactly does it make you for continuing to ignore these facts?

No, it has not been "refuted". It's just that you are an idiot and a liar. And that video has nothing to do with anything posted in this thread.

Zentei you're simply being childish! Did you even watch the clip? It is clearly demonstrating why the dates given for Demic Diffusion in both regions disprove the notion of it's occurrence in the first place. Also the fact that the ancient Egyptians did not speak a lick of Semitic like the people who you claim migrated into the Nile and radically changed the local inhabitants way of life did.

BTW: this little quote from Keita is not about the demic diffusion, but the relationship between the Lower Egyptians and Maghreb peoples you were denying earlier.

What relationship Zentei? Some regions of the Maghreb have been noted earlier to have been the recipient of European populations during early stages of it's inhabitations, but note this affinity has been restricted to certain parts of the Maghreb. Hence this is why Keita notes that Carthage is a restricted region, and is also thousands upon thousands of miles away from the Nile. Furthermore more recent genetic evidence confirms that there is little to no relationship between northern Egyptians (Siwa) and populations of Northwest Africa (The Maghreb):

"The mitochondrial DNA variation of 295 Berber-speakers from Morocco (Asni, Bouhria and Figuig) and the Egyptian oasis of Siwa was evaluated.. A clear and significant genetic differentiation between the Berbers from Maghreb and Egyptian Berbers was also observed. The first are related to European populations as shown by haplogroup H1 and V frequencies, whereas the latter share more affinities with East African and Nile Valley populations as indicated by the high frequency of M1 and the presence of L0a1, L3i, L4*, and L4b2 lineages. Moreover, haplogroup U6 was not observed in Siwa. We conclude that the origins and maternal diversity of Berber populations are old and complex, and these communities bear genetic characteristics resulting from various events of gene flow with surrounding and migrating populations."
-- Coudray et al. (2008). The Complex and Diversified Mitochondrial Gene Pool of Berber Populations. Annals of Human Genetics. Volume 73 Issue 2, Pages 196 - 214

Keita states that the early northern Egyptian crania fell in line with the centroid value of the tropical African populations and European populations ( a mixture of the two) of the Maghreb. Now consider the fact that an early European component is absent in the rural (important) modern northern Egyptian populations compared to those in the Northwest Africa, where would the supposite non African mixture (European) have came from then? We have no evidence whatsoever of a European migration (which is what you would have to be arguing) into the Nile prior to the Late Dynastic Period. It simply did not occur! Early Lower Egyptians variation were not the product of admixture but was an indigenous divergence from the Upper Egyptian/Sudanese variation seen further up the Nile (Zakrewski 2004). They were also tropically adapted in the same fashion as other Africans to the south.

Papers showing lack of significant change to the Egyptian population due to mass migration have already been presented to you ten pages ago, and you responded with evasions.

Zentei the only paper that you are talking about is from Irish, in which I provided it's interpretation by another scholar (Starling) along with interpretations of other relevant studies, which prove that what you are attempting to argue is not the case. Continuity has been maintained, but with high levels of change due to migration from the Mediterranean. This has also been also been stated CLEARLY by leading Egyptologist Robert Bauval above, which is reassurance that the stance taken up by Matter, Mentuhotep, Democracyfanboy, and myself are not simple misinterpretations but are correct. By the way what is your response to the comments of Robert Bauval on the matter? Is he also a "liar"?

I also found this documentary detailing the early inhabitants of southern Libya (the ancient Sahara) interesting in it's regards to origins of mummification:

[Lord Zentei]

What exactly does it make you for continuing to ignore these facts?

The point that escapes you, is that you have been presenting studies that do not support your own stated position. This has been pointed out to you before.

Zentei you're simply being childish! Did you even watch the clip? It is clearly demonstrating why the dates given for Demic Diffusion in both regions disprove the notion of it's occurrence in the first place. Also the fact that the ancient Egyptians did not speak a lick of Semitic like the people who you claim migrated into the Nile and radically changed the local inhabitants way of life did.

Yes, I did. Did you try and understand the position you're arguing against?

Zentei the only paper that you are talking about is from Irish, in which I provided it's interpretation by another scholar (Starling) along with interpretations of other relevant studies, which prove that what you are attempting to argue is not the case.

And I replied to you. Your insistence that your opinion is supported by that which you claim supports you is bullshit. I showed you where you misquoted the studies you claimed supported your position. You can yammer all you want about it, that does not change a goddamned thing. And the people from this thread you name-drop don't all agree with you either, so you can quit pretending that you're not "that guy".

[CaptainChewbacca]

This has been going on a long fucking time. Can one of you guys just CALL KEITA ON THE PHONE AND ASK HIM? Or shoot him a quick email? The man is alive, he's got to be able to settle this question for you. This is the internet, don't tell me you can't find a way to get ahold of him with 30 minutes of google.

[matter]

Matter, I've largely lost interest in this thread, more so since you're not really bringing anything new to the table, (much like Big Triece whose last exchanges have displayed a deplorable WOI).

Is that so? Okay.

As for your continued demands that I provide evidence for demic diffusion into North Africa, that has already been provided to you. The fact that you can't access the web page is not my fault: it's not a free service, and I can hardly go around pirating an article from where I'm registered simply for the sake of an internet debate.

*laughing*...so this is how 'stubborn' debaters concede points?.... *continue laughing*

Seriously Zentei,so you would have us believe that demic diffusion of whole populations boils down to one study whose abstract was only provided and whose full study can only be accessed by journal members(that your audience here mostly are not). Like was started in this posthttp://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 0#p3654005 Demic Diffusion(eg Bantu diffusion, Saharan repopulation, movements of IndoEuropeans etc) leave clear and specific archaeological traces and so are easily, therefore MUST be demonstrated-you do not do that with an abstract that YOU said stated it.

It is interesting the pattern that is developing in this debate-if in fact we can still call it that cause you guys are really no longer debating. Debate, at least honest and possibly productive debate, demands that debaters should respond to ALL the points raised by others and directed at their views. What you(lately), Thanas and Ziggy(to some extent- am still waiting for him to plz provide at least 3 evidences as directly requested in my last post) have started to do is 'go away' for some time when counter-evidences are been presented and then after sometime show up and rather arrogantly ask opponents to go to this page or that page for 'answers' and not really fully treating their posts. For eg in the post of mine I just linked I demonstrated(by citing sources) movements of peoples from the Egyptian Eastern Saharan oases about the time the Fayum and Merimde were been repopulated owing to desiccation of their former homes, and showing that the pattern of subsistence, lithics and to some extent pottery were similar to the people of Fayum and co. I also showed that they adopted some domesticates and some few artifacts from the Near East either through trade links or some migrations from Near East but that there was no evidence of large scale migrations at this time. This was done by citing experts(and like I said there are many more, in fact am unaware of recent experts stating otherwise) on the early neolithic of the Lower Delta; now what you should have done(if you wanted to be honest or if you actually had demonstrable points) was to counter every single one of those points.

For instance, has nobody seen the critical evidence I presented in this post http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3659895 especially from Riggs and Baines 2012? Or why are u guys behaving as if it is not important? At least was it not Thanas that asked EgalitarianJay this:

^None of your interpretation follows without an analysis of what foreigners were absorbed in what quantity and at what time.

You are talking about 'evidence' from an abstract; okay, Zentei since you implied you were a member and have access to the full study purportedly showing demic diffusion(except you dont have the study yourself) what have stopped you from posting those sections of the study supporting your points(ie DEMONSTRATING Demic Diffusion) and maybe sending the full study to a debater for comparison. In fact Zentei, I DARE you to post those sections NOW so we can discuss it.

As for your question to Ziggy Stardust: the relatedness of Ancient Egyptians to modern Egyptians has also been covered already, way back on page 18.

This was what I was just talking about. If you had engaged our posts in the last 2 pages you would have known(through your actual counter-responses) that we have treated this severally(ie migration of Early Egyptians from desiccating Eastern Sahara and their clear affinities with some southern groups not Near Easterners and Mediterraneans, the marked migrations of nonAfricans in their hundreds of thousands starting from the late Period mostly in the then sparsely populated Delta where most of these MODERN Egyptians now reside,and the biological distinction at this period and area where the marked migrations occurred); you would actually have known that we have consistently talked about Continuity and that there is a difference between 'Continuity' and 'Been the Same' biologically-maybe we could have show that our understanding of Irish 2005 when put in context is that there was 'continuity'- we know this since the ancient Egyptians did not die out and neither did the hundred of thousands to low millions of nonAfricans who migated to Egypt over the last 3 millennia(nonAfricans who by the way did not cluster with the Early Egyptians) die out either: they are both mixed through a long and complex process to varied degrees at different places with those to the south closer to the Ancients. Hell, you would have no doubt,because of actually debating with us, that we never said that the Ancient Egyptians were not related to the modern Egyptians as we even maintained that they are their descendants only that they have been significant changes especially in the north. You could have known this and perhaps we could have had a fine debate, in stead of sending us to page 18(what is even in page 18?).

I came here not to 'win' any debate but to test assumptions(mine and others) and that can only happen if all debaters show sufficient honesty in the debate.