Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[EgalitarianJay]

Hello.

I see that this debate is still going on. I posted in this thread some time ago as PharaohMentuhotep but I do not remember my password so I have created a new account. I have taken some time to rethink my position and participation in debates like this. 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 want to share a little bit of my background on the topic and why I feel it is not worth the time to keep debating it obsessively.

I got involved with this topic because I used to post on message boards where racists talked about their racial beliefs.

One of the message boards was an anti-racist message board designed to argue with racists about their racist views. In one of my first discussions a racist made a thread titled Human Accomplishment and basically tried to argue that Black people were innately stupid and violent and that's why Black Africans were savages running around in the jungle when Europeans colonized the continent and sold many of them into slavery. Their lack of civilization was evidence of stupidity and modern crime rates in countries like the United States where people of African descent were are overrepresented in violent crimes was proof of their natural tendency to be criminals and therefore a menace to good Western society. Disparities in average IQ test scores were said to be the scientific proof of innate stupidity and this correlated with crime because of course criminals are generally stupid.

I found these claims to be ridiculous and offensive as did most of my fellow Egalitarian posters on the board. But some of the posters were not so supportive of my counters to the historical arguments that Blacks created no civilizations, particularly my claim that the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. Some of the Egalitarian posters actually argued vigorously that my claim was false and that Ancient Egypt was either a Near Eastern culture or the people during the Dynastic period looked the same as they do today. I was honestly surprised by this because at the very least much of the artwork looked to me like depictions of Black people and I had read elsewhere that they were Black Africans. Since the racists were also claiming the Ancient Egyptians were not Black I felt the my side was being harmed by the quarreling over the race of the Ancient Egyptians.

So I decided to do some more research on the topic and discovered Egyptsearch where posters were not only claiming the Ancient Egyptians were Black but providing scientific studies supporting their argument. A scholar by the name of Keita was mentioned often. Egyptsearch is a diverse crowd. Most of the veterans maintain that the Ancient Egyptians were Black while there are racists claiming they were White and that Blacks are inferior. Some of the posters there are Black Supremacists every bit as racist as the White Supremacists and are also Pro Black Egypt. Some of the posters make radical claims about African history and influence on the world that even the Pro Black African Egypt people distance themselves from and call them Afrocentrists. The board attracts a lot of trolls some claiming to be Egyptians that are angry that Afrocentrists are trying to steal their heritage and curiously hold the same attitudes as White Supremacists. Some posters who don't come a cross as racists claim the Ancient Egyptians were Multiracial or looked the same as the modern Egyptians.

Everyone regardless of their position is clearly obsessed with race. I always felt that my role in this was to learn what I can in order to counter the racists arguing that Black Africans did not build advanced civilizations. I like history but for me this has been one topic of many related to race and racism. Recently I have been more focused on Race & IQ discussions than
Ancient Egypt or ancient history. I don't post on Egyptsearch much at all any more and just recently decided to quit debating racial topics altogether as the idiocy of the racists has convinced me that debating them is a serious waste of time. Plus I've gone as far as I want to do with these debates. There's no challenge for me any more. Arguing with racists is like arguing with a religious fanatic.

Even some of the posters on Egyptsearch who I agreed with are quite fanatical. You can tell when a topic is more emotionally appealing to someone than it is a subject they are merely interested in talking about when they become hostile simply because you question their views. In one of my discussion on Egyptsearch I expressed skepticism that the Ancient Egyptians were referring to their own skin color when they called their nation Khemet as Diop maintained. I asked for evidence and clarification from this matter from other posters and when it became apparent that I was not satisfied with their answer they became extremely angry and one of them accused me of not accepting the evidence because I didn't like it's implications which in my view was insane because as an African-American I want to believe the Ancient Egyptians were Black but that doesn't mean I'm not going to be objective when it comes to the actual evidence about the nature of their culture. This sort of hostility was a real turn off for me and a wake up call that many of these people were no more objective than the people they were debating.

The real eye opener came when I emailed scholars such as Keita and talked about this research directly. I shared some email exchanges earlier in this thread as PharaohMentuhotep. Keita told me himself his research has never aimed to prove that the Ancient Egyptians looked a certain way but rather to determine the geographic origins of their culture and people as well as biological and cultural connections to their neighbors. His research does have some implications for people debating their appearance such as facial confirmation from craniometric studies indicating that early Ancient Egyptians resembled Africans further South such as the Nubians, Somali and Oromo but his research only covers up to Dynasty I, it can't determine skin color empirically and in Keita's view we can only make an educated guess about what the general population during the Dynastic period before years of genetic influx from foreigners by looking at modern Southern Egyptians today. Keita said he believes the skin color of the typical Upper Egyptian to Nubian is probably a good model for what most Ancient Egyptians looked like which to me suggests many if not most were dark-skinned.

If you look at one of his last email replies to me in this thread I created on Egyptsearch Keita clarifies his view on the positions of Diop and Hawass on the subject:

http://www.egyptsearch.com/forums/ultim ... 006446;p=1


Notice that Keita rejects Hawass's position as Egyptocentric and narrow-minded because he implies that Ancient Egyptians had no connections to other Africans but also regards Diop's use of Black as problematic and believes his work to be somewhat outdated. Keita's position is that Ancient Egypt arose in Africa as an indigenous development and its people had biological and cultural connections to its neighbors to the South as well as West and East which would include the Levant and the Maghreb as well as Sudan and the Horn of Africa. I respect Keita for being as objective a scholar as any I have encountered and believe that answers on this subject probably won't stretch beyond his current position.

Alot of the debate in this thread therefore strikes me as futile.

I would like to share an email exchange I had with another scholar. Since I have for some time used my knowledge on Ancient Egypt to shutdown racists arguing that Black Africans created no civilizations I once emailed a scholar named Scott MacEachern who used his expertise on African history and archeology to refute the racialist arguments of scholars like Rushton who is one of the favorite sources of racists on Race & IQ.

This is a part of our exchange and his reply.....

EgalitarianJay:

Thank you Dr. MacEachern

This reply has been very helpful in allowing me to better understand your arguments.

If you have time I would appreciate it if you addressed one more issue on the topic.

Your article appears to be mainly about African pre-history. However you also talk about state formation. I have often made it a point in these discussions to talk about the Ancient Egyptians when discussing African cultural achievement. As I'm sure you know there is has been alot of controversy in Western academia and society concerning the race of the Ancient Egyptians. When I debate this topic and the subject of Ancient Egypt comes up I direct debaters to the research of Dr. Shomarka Keita who has looked at the available research on this subject along with his own work and come to the conclusion that the early Ancient Egyptians were indigenous, tropically adapted Northeast Africans. Is research indicates that the Ancient Egyptians had a variety of physical characteristics and during early periods looked predominately like your average Nilotic and Horn African ethnic groups. Here's a link to one of his papers if you have not read it:

http://wysinger.homestead.com/keita-1993.pdf

I have argued based on this research that because the Ancient Egyptians fit into Rushton's 3 race model under the category Black it is a distortion of the African historical record for him to say that Black Africans have low cultural achievements and that human history does not follow a consistent pattern of geographical/racial hierarchy. In your article you cite David O'Conner as one of your sources on African states. I know of O'Connor through my research on Ancient Egypt. He wrote the book "Ancient Egypt in Africa", which emphasizes the African nature of Ancient Egyptian culture.

Can you give me your perspective on how Ancient Egyptian civilization would fit into the debate on Rushton's racial theories and African history?

Also the Rushton supporter I'm debating has advanced a position on this that I feel is rather absurd. He says that he doesn't feel ancient populations are representative of modern populations so the technological and cultural advancements of Ancient Egypt have no bearing on the capabilities of modern Black African people. Here is a short quote from him showing his line of reasoning:

"Of course modern populations would not negate the existence of the original population. However, I cannot argue that any ancient population is a carbon copy of modern populations. I cannot intelligently argue that a 5,000 year old Egyptian is the exact same being as modern day black auto-worker living on 8-mile. The fact that Sub Saharan Africa has lagged behind continuously from the period prior to colonialism and slavery to the modern periods illustrates that the people of that region are not capable of building advanced civilizations that we see in Europe and Northeast Asia. This is especially true when we see that the average intelligence quotient scores match their inability to function on the levels of other higher-IQ groups."


If you could comment on that in addition to the whole Egypt/Rushton/African history issue that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your time.

Sincerely,

EgalitarianJay


Scott MacEachern:


Dear EgalitarianJay,

Two different issues here. First, I know Shomarka well, and I agree with his conclusions in this article. For me, though, I think that you're rather playing on Rushton's terrain if you accept his 3-race model in the first place: that's simply not a good way to capture human biological variability, whether expressed in somatic or genetic terms. You don't have to try and fit people into any sort of racial straitjacket to note that Egyptians have biological affinities with other African populations: their position along the Nile makes this quite expectable. You might also note that genetic research provides the same result: see for example the article that I have attached to this paper. But I think that any view of ancient Egypt that doesn't take into account both its contacts with other parts of Africa and with areas of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean do not do the culture justice. Egypt is Egypt precisely because it is both African and situated at a crossroad of continent.

Second thing, precisely because of this widely held view that Egypt is not 'part of Africa'(a view that I think stupid, but pretty general) , in that World Archaeology paper I also emphasized the originality and dynamism of African states and civilizations in other parts of the continent. No one in 2011 can say that Meroe, or Kerma, or Axum, or Djenné-jeno were not originally African, and there's lots of good work done on the precursors to those states as well, at places like Zilum and Dhar Tichitt and Qohaito… places that people generally have not heard of, but that were extremely significant archaeological sites in their own right. Egypt is not irrelevant, but it's very far from the only state that developed in Africa.

As for the Rushton supporter you're referring to… as I said last time, one simple observation is that he/she doesn't know any African history. If they did, they wouldn't make the claim that sub-Saharan Africa lagged other parts of the world – like Western Europe, for example – before colonialism and slavery. It just ain't the case, and I would recommend those texts I mentioned in my last email. As for the rest of the claim, it's trivial to some degree – of course modern populations are not exactly the same as ancient ones. That's true across the globe, but it says nothing about their intellectual capacity, nor about how historical trajectories will work. My own ancestors, from Raasay and neighbouring islands off the west coast of Scotland, would have been seen as intellectual dead-enders by your critic as well, up until about AD 1700… after that, the Scots did rather well.

You might also note that I have spent the last 30 years, more or less, working in various parts of Africa – which is about 30 years more than Rushton and his colleagues ever spent there. I last spent six weeks there in this past December- January, in the northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, where I've worked for a long time. The idea that Africans are less intelligent than other people is both ludicrous and revolting, an insult to both those people and (much less importantly) to me as an observer. To be perfectly frank, I find them far smarter than most of those 'racialists' (including Rushton) I used to debate on h-bd. As I said at one point in that article: "It is as if Rushton, Lynn and their colleagues were claiming that all Africans were actually only four feet tall. If such a claim is made, and one is asked to choose between doubting the evidence of one’s own eyes in Africa and doubting the calibration of the ruler used in measurement, most people will doubt the ruler."

Best

Scott

I hope this post is helpful.

I believe that it is historically accurate to say that the Ancient Egyptians of the early formative period had strong biological and cultural connections to people to the South of Egypt as many of their ancestors came to the Nile Valley from those regions. Egyptians probably had diverse physical characteristics. I don't know how diverse. They absorbed foreigners many of whom were probably lighter-skinned than the architects and first rulers of the civilization. Given its geographic proximity it is likely that there were always light and dark skinned people in the Nile Valley since before the Dynastic period. As you can see in the email exchange above MacEachern advised me that it is not a good idea to try to fit Egyptians into a racial box to counter the racialists because you're basically playing into their argument that their racial categories have scientific significance. 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.

[Thanas]

I don't think anybody here who disputes Big Triece and whatever stuff he has concocted up now does so with the aim of discrediting african achievements. Nobody is also denying african states and their early formation.

So I think anybody who came here to argue under that perception pretty much tilted at windmills.

EDIT: It is also unfortunate that the only egyptsearch experience I have so far is from black supremacist trolls.

[matter]

Very well, here's a couple - one for demic diffusion during the Neolithic link 1, and one for back-migration: link 2. Keep in mind that I still assert that the Egyptians were primarily African, just a heterogenous population.
Whoops, meant to include this link too (regarding back-migration): [url=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/314/5806/1767.short]Link 3

Your 1st link took me to an abstract,I could not access the full study which is important cos remember I asked for a source that would DEMONSTRATE demic diffusion not just state it-one would therefore need the full study,be much appreciated if you can help in this respect.
However,the abstract used said it would use linguistic(where it contradicted itself by saying only Afroasiatic failed the diffusion model-anyways we know that Afroasiatic,and Nilosaharan, related to northeast Africa had an African origin),genetics(I would need the full study to know which clade they are talking about-the relevant one would be M1a which clearly came from East Africa and maybe Rv88 which may be significant) and archaeological(well I wait for any study that can even get anywhere near demonstrating demic diffusion to Ancient Egypt using archaeological means,would be 'interesting'-so I wait for the full study).

Your 2nd link was to to a full Cruciani study that generally talked about some back migrated to Africa. If one goes to the case of Egypt chromosome xI(which I think is Rv88) is relevant. A cruciani study(Cruciani et al 2010) suggested that this calde might have migrated just before or during or after the neolithic, and why the clade is currently limited in Egypt it might still have been somewhat significant. I note though BigT(and some scholars) caution cos the populations where this clade is pervasive today up to at times 95%(Chad/Central Africa) have no accompanying mtDNA and they have a complete African autosomal genetic makeup(Tishkofff et al 2009) which would suggest a very old introduction. Anyways this clade might be important and I think that we should further discuss it.

Your 3rd link is about U6 and M1. U6 is not very relevant for Egypt while I have commented on M1- which I regard as African.

I'm not sure why you are posting this, as I have not claimed that ancient Egyptians were not "authentic" Africans. What I have rejected is the label "black Africans", nothing more. The blackness of an African does not determine his authenticity.

Lord Zentei really? Northeast Africans(1.e Afrasans-like Somalians, Eriteans,Oromos,Bejas,Omotics and Nilosaharans-like Dinka,Darfurians,Nubians,Zaghawas,Tibbus,Maasai) cannot be regarded as 'Blacks' in a social sense? Though I am surprised, I note that we are both talking about Identity,and not 'Biological race'-so anyone can define identity the way they choose. So why you may not be inclined to do so,I regard them as 'Blacks' and I think most people would(I mean when a Somalian pirate is caught or an Ethiopian runner wins a marathon or a darfurian woman struggles in a camp is been referred to in the media,are they not regarded as 'Blacks'?).'Black' Africans come in different hues that hinges on brown-chocolate brown,bronzed brown,copper brown,red brown,very dark brown like Dinkas and Ashantis,high yellow like some Igbos,very light brown like Khoisans etc. I understand certain people being ambivalent when it comes to skin colour(since it means nothing biologically) but for Africans who know that the reason Ancient Egyptian origins was so messed up was because some persons could not accept that indigenous 'blacks' could found a 'civilization',especially when it was the 'mighty' Egypt;now after the many schemes concocted(like Dynastic race theorem,Hamitic hypothesis,huge neolithic demic diffusion) have collapsed, and a clear Northeast African origin acknowledged, skin colour is now been downplayed. Africans would naturally be suspicious-we should try to understand that.I dont think it reflects well on us if we shifts the goal post when we are confronted with an uncomfortable stance. ANCIENT EGYPT WAS DIVERSE BUT ITS CULTURAL ORIGINS WAS MAINLY FROM PEOPLE TO ITS SOUTH(DESICCATING EASTERN SAHARA); THESE PEOPLE WERE ALSO MOST PROBABLY THE MAIN POPULATION BASE OF EARLY EGYPT,HOWEVER THERE WOULD VERY LIKELY HAVE BEEN OTHER GROUPS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT FROM THE START,ESPECIALLY IN LOWER EGYPT,AS I HAVE MAINTAINED THROUGH OUT-THEY WERE A MINORITY AND HOW SIGNIFICANT THERE WERE IS WHAT I DONT KNOW. ANYWAY ANCIENT EGYPT WAS MAINLY NORTHEAST AFRICA BUT WAS NEVER PURE(NO HUMAN POPULATION IS AS I STATED MY THE LAST POST)
By the way,do you regard West Africans and say Nubians as 'Blacks' or you just have a problem with the 'black/white' dichotomy.

[Thanas]

Dude, if you think claiming the issue is settled while simultaneously whining about how you cannot access a study you might not have the most secure footing here.

By the way,do you regard West Africans and say Nubians as 'Blacks' or you just have a problem with the 'black/white' dichotomy

West Africa I do indeed regard as black, with the exception of the Maghreb region. Anything in dark green is black, anything in light green is not. Nor is anything in light green white, before you go off on that tangent. Also, note that nation borders may not reflect accurately on this.

[Spoonist]

@littlebrain
I see that you skipped about half my post there with some cherry picking. So I can assume that you agree with me on all those things, right?

So a TripleFail

By this point you as well as everyone else is well aware of the posts that I have been trying to link you to. He even clarifies it when he is making the same assertions in his post above to matter. He made my task easier.

What part of "we don't have to do your work for you" do you not understand?
You said you could provide quotes of multiple posters of claiming a mass migration, then you said that it was zentei and thanas that was claiming mass migrations.
I said no inuendos - quote them.
Now you have proven that you couldn't.
Does the words PARANOID DELUSIONS ring a bell?

Because that is NOT a quote of Thanas claiming or hinting at any sort of mass migration. Instead he points at exactly the same 'influx' that you have acknowledged and that matter mention above with this line "if some group of nomadic people left Africa and went to say Yemen next door and within 15000-10000 years came back". So how come you didn't include matter or yourself as insinuating such a mass migration as well.

Because the back migration that you all are asserting is one in which people with non African physical features reentered Africa.

Bullshit. I have made no such claim. Quote me. Again international board - not a hivemind - different posters. How many times do I need to repeat this?
Does PROJECTION OF PARANOID DELUSIONS ONTO OTHERS ring a bell?

How much could these Africans physical appearance have changed when they remained in the virtually the exact same tropical environment in a less than a 15k year time frame before they migrated back into Africa?

Since you can't be refering to me with this tirade since I've claimed no such thing I'll have to assume that you are calling yourself an idiot again?
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 8#p3480748
"As far as early Northern Egyptians being "lighter" that is simply speculation. That population was an indigenous tropically adapted one unlike the Levantine populations"
That is you on p1 saying that the people in Levant in the same timeframe were not "tropically adapated" which you have repeatedly equated with "black".
So I repeat, how come you do not lump yourself into this vast conspiracy claiming a mass migration?

..the M1 presence in the Arabianpeninsula signals a predominant East African influence since the Neolithic onwards.“ -- Petraglia, M and Rose, J(2010). The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia:

So how does this fit into their module that such early proposed back migrations lead to a "racial mixture" of people in the Nile Valley?

Read that again please. Then explain how you consider a region with "predominant East African influence since the Neolithic onwards" to not be black according to your Jim Crow view on the word black? Remember that we all agreed on p2-3 that horn africans during all ages have had a variety of skintones in the dark brown region.

So please explain, according to you, when exactly did the people in the fertile crescent go from being "tropically adapted"="black" to "tropically adapted"="mixed brown" to "not tropically adapated"="arabs"?
You come across as very confused regarding this.

Don't come with a silly retort either. Again I'm not here to do your homework.

And your red herring about other 'unique definitions' is stupid since I asked for scientific one instead.

There is no consistent scientific definition of race. Early scientist have tried to construct a module but to no avail.

Why do I have to explain this again? This isn't hard.
1) The studies you cite use specific nomenclature.
2) For clarity we must therefore use the specific nomenclature for each study for the discussion to make sense.
3) You don't.
4) That makes you look like an idiot citing sources you do not understand.

Why do you try to insist that when we discuss those studies we must use your definitions and words instead of the ones used in the studies?

Even the canadians and british with whom "you" share a language doesn't use the stupid version you quoted.

What I, Democracyfanboy, and Matter have stated is that in the American/Western social context of race, based on what has been concluded about the external anatomical traits of the ancient Egyptians they would be considered "black".

This is getting tiresome.
No the western world does not share the angloshpere's cultural quirks. I showed you this in the link you snipped from my quote.
Lots of languages/cultures in "the west" have specific words for different gradients of skincolor including mixed heritage.
Even different american regions use the words differently. As was noted by ArmorPierce and Simon in the first couple of pages.

Let's make it simple for you. Do you agree with this quote or not?
"What Keita means by 'local' is Northeast African (Ethiopian, Somali, Beja, Sudanese, ect) all of these populations tend to have light to dark reddish brown to jet black skin color. Rather or not you want to consider that "black" is entirely up to you and your standards for the meaning of the term. Keita however states in his lecture that based on ecological principals the ancient Egyptians would have been dark skinned, how dark he did not say."

Now if you want to use another societal definition of race to assess this question then do so in another thread please, but the intent of this thread was to focus of the most prominent system known here in America.

Again, it's not prominent, it's not a valid system, it has no bearing on the scientific studies we discuss.
Does REDUNDANT AND IRRELEVANT ring a bell?

Again, your "fucking american culture" is not mine and is not used in the scientific community

As you would have seen earlier in the thread, Broomstick and I are well in agreement that most in the scientific community do not find the concept of race as useful to their profession. The social context of race in my "American culture" (Western culture generally) is what drives the context of this discussion, and I believe I made that point earlier in my thread.

Which prompted me, simon and AP etc to point out that you were dead wrong about that. Then I asked you to cite the definition you used - and you failed miserably.
Does SELECTION BIAS ring a bell?
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 0#p3583890

Now I'm not sure where you're from, but with the exception of Latin America the definitions of race (while not as emphasized) throughout the Western world seem to be for the most part consistent.

Again, this was pointed out to you p1-5, no other languages in europe have better terms for this. No that is not a consistent defintion SINCE THE BIGGEST FUCKING AMERICAN ONLINE DICTIONARY DISAGREES WITH YOU.
So no, just no, and then no again.

You see the rest of us had this silly little thing called History classes. In those they explained stuff about, you know, history. One minor detail that those classes went through was this little skirmish called World War II.

So how does the Nordic Race theory apply to the non white citizens of a society that advocated this? Did it change how they were socially defined as groups? From what I've read it the module simply place Nordic Europeans at the top of all white Europeans, who were subsequently on top of all other races (in a social context of course) and according to Nordic scholars were the creators of everything good on this Earth.

Ah, I thought that even the american school system covered this, but since you must have missed history classes completely I can see how you missed how WWII could affect what nordic race theory considered to be non-white people, like jews. You see they had this thing called the star of David, and yes IT FUCKING CHANGED HOW THEY WERE SOCIALLY DEFINED AS GROUPS, you moron.
That is mindnumbingly dumb even for you.

WTF? You are now refering to the person whom you wished to hurt physically and say that you basically agreed with her?

Nope, I don't recall ever wishing to hurt Broomstick.

Huh? *Goes checking*
Aha, my mistake, that was Terralthra. It started with Broomy asking you not to use colors for highlights since they don't work on smartdevices, hence my mistake. But really what you are saying is that if this type of discussion had taken place where you live you would have liked to hurt us all. So not just Broomy, but me and everyone else who have so far disagreed with your stupidity.
Thank you for the clarfication.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 3#p3579703
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4#p3579924
Which reminded me of this quote by TithonusSyndrome.
"If true and not just embarrassing wankery on your part (don't give a fuck either way) then wherever you're from is a shitty place full of shitty people who need to do things differently. Appealing to your local traditions, or the purported reputation of them, proves little other than the fact that you aren't capable of carrying on a debate at the scholarly level and will revert to skid row barbarism out of exasperation and witlessness when the going gets tough."

Shit that was a loooong post, does anyone but me and limpdick read these long posts of mine?

Nope, not your longest.

That is almost funny. Now you are trying to distort sidecomments like that as well?

[Spoonist]

I hope this post is helpful.

Thank you very much for returning PharaohMentuhotep even if it is only a brief visit.

Like I said early on I regret that bT has taken up so much space and time with his projection when it really would have been so much better talking to you.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3483125

Like I told you on p6-7 it is now 20 pages later and bT still doesn't understand that we agree with the basics.

Good luck

PS
You could ask Dalton for your old account back if you can verify it somehow. That way this last post of yours would have a nicer context.
DS

[matter]

Dude, if you think claiming the issue is settled while simultaneously whining about how you cannot access a study you might not have the most secure footing here.

Thanas has my interventions in this thread suggested a person who talks in the absolute.Check my posts again, most of which have been made with words like-most probably,in the main, most of them,generally,most likely,likely. If you know me you would know that I usually donot see things as 'either/or',however when something is clear to me I state it as such. That post you are criticizing said most Early Egyptians and the Ancient Egyptian culture were of local Northeastern origin with the likelihood of some gene flow with near east. This is want I have maintained here,and you sir said previously that you basically agreed with(which was why I was initially asking posters to be clear on their stance).

On 'whining' about a full study, Zentei provided a link which led to a abstract;I tried accessing the full study but was not allowed by the journal because I am a member. And since reading the full study is necessary to demonstrate demic diffusion, I to Zentei that it will be much appreciated if he can help me with the study. How is that 'whining' and how does that make me 'not to have secure footing here'. Plz lose that chip off your shoulders. We are just debating,our lives do not revolve round this. We can disagree, but lets with respect and in honesty.

West Africa I do indeed regard as black, with the exception of the Maghreb region. Anything in dark green is black, anything in light green is not. Nor is anything in light green white, before you go off on that tangent. Also, note that nation borders may not reflect accurately on this.

The above statement suggest 2 things. 1st, that you know very little about Africa-so central,east,south and the entire northeast Africa populations(the grey part of the map)like Maasai and Zulu cannot be called 'Blacks' but West Africans can; also you may not know that there is a significant minority dark skinned('blacks'?) groups in the region in the light green,some of which are indigenous like in the Draa valley of Morocco.
2nd, it just how dishonest some people can be. How can anybody who says he does not believe in 'Biological race' say that an Igbo,Hausa,Mandika,Ashanti(West Africans) are 'blacks' in a social sense but not Nubians,Somalians,Oromos,Zulus. Just amazing!. Anyways like I said in my last post this is about Identity and anybody can define an Identity the way it pleases him, but even then sound,clear reasons and some form of consistency is required. I will therefore not argue on this again; I recognize that you can believe whatever you want to.

[matter]

@ EgaltarianJay
appreciate your post and share your sentiments completely,especially when you reminded us that Ancient Egypt,though important, is not what Africa is about. I been interested lately on Dhar Tichitt and the amazing ancient cities of the entire Middle Niger.
I will be messaging you.

[Spoonist]

We are just debating,our lives do not revolve round this. We can disagree, but lets with respect and in honesty.

matter, this is like entering a domestic violence situation and asking everyone to be friends and sing combaya.
To most posters if it looks like you are siding with shit-for-brains without any reserve for what he represents then you will get flamed, not because of your attitude, but because of his.

1st, that you know very little about Africa-so central,east,south and the entire northeast Africa populations(the grey part of the map)like Maasai and Zulu cannot be called 'Blacks' but West Africans can;

Uhm, matter, the rest of the map is grey not because of any affinity but rather because that is not covered by the map.
As in if you check out the name it's
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Africa.png
as in Western Africa only. You can even check out the backlink to western africa on wikipedia to see what the colors signify and what they say about minorities as well.
So you can draw no conclusions regarding central east south northeast or whatever from that map, except for western.
Also note that you claim civility but just called someone ignorant when it instead was you who misinterpreted the data - just saying that you would have done better by framing it like a question whether another poster really thought X instead of Y. As that stands you come across as passive aggressive when you claim to be wanting a civil discourse.

How can anybody who says he does not believe in 'Biological race' say that an Igbo,Hausa,Mandika,Ashanti(West Africans) are 'blacks' in a social sense but not Nubians,Somalians,Oromos,Zulus. Just amazing!.

This again is posturing, and passive aggressive speak relying on flawed interpretation of data. (the pic)
You are basically asking to be flamed for this.

Anyways like I said in my last post this is about Identity and anybody can define an Identity the way it pleases him, but even then sound,clear reasons and some form of consistency is required. I will therefore not argue on this again; I recognize that you can believe whatever you want to.

Again a passive aggressive stance.You can't just tell someone that you think they are completely wrong and then follow that up with "but you are entitled to your opinion" as if that will make the insult any lesser.
It is a tried tactic of the religious fanatics and people doesn't really like them for it.

[Thanas]

West Africa I do indeed regard as black, with the exception of the Maghreb region. Anything in dark green is black, anything in light green is not. Nor is anything in light green white, before you go off on that tangent. Also, note that nation borders may not reflect accurately on this.

The above statement suggest 2 things. 1st, that you know very little about Africa-so central,east,south and the entire northeast Africa populations(the grey part of the map)like Maasai and Zulu cannot be called 'Blacks' but West Africans can; also you may not know that there is a significant minority dark skinned('blacks'?) groups in the region in the light green,some of which are indigenous like in the Draa valley of Morocco.
2nd, it just how dishonest some people can be. How can anybody who says he does not believe in 'Biological race' say that an Igbo,Hausa,Mandika,Ashanti(West Africans) are 'blacks' in a social sense but not Nubians,Somalians,Oromos,Zulus. Just amazing!. Anyways like I said in my last post this is about Identity and anybody can define an Identity the way it pleases him, but even then sound,clear reasons and some form of consistency is required. I will therefore not argue on this again; I recognize that you can believe whatever you want to.

You asked me if I considered West Africans to be black. Well, "Sir", West Africa just happens to be a term for a specific geographical region, which just happens to be the westernmost region of said continent. Now, three guesses for what region is shown on the map I used?

Also, hilarious how somebody claiming to be here for honest debate and civility is suddenly acting like another one of those trolls who cannot read. If you want to ask me what people of Africa as a whole I consider black, then do so. Don't ask me about a specific region and then get pissy with me if I do not happen to include all of Africa in my reply.

You, who claims to be a bastion of civility, honesty and religious discourse, also might have given me the courtesy of asking for clarification before assuming I considered everything east of that map white. Jerk.

[matter]

Thanas said:You asked me if I considered West Africans to be black. Well, "Sir", West Africa just happens to be a term for a specific geographical region, which just happens to be the westernmost region of said continent. Now, three guesses for what region is shown on the map I used?

I never limited that question(while asking Zentei) to west Africans:

By the way,do you regard West Africans and say Nubians as 'Blacks' or you just have a problem with the 'black/white' dichotomy

So the question was not limited to west Africans, but you chose to isolate west Africa and provided a map of Africa that to my mind had 3 colours: dark green,light green and grey. You were not or rather you chose not to be clear so I interpreted it that way-it was a mistake that you lead me to. By the why is it taking you time to come out and state if you consider northeast Africans as 'blacks' since you already consider west africans to be 'blacks' so on seem not to have a problem with using the word at least in a social sense.
By the way who ever considers the north Africa maghreb to be part of west africa;there is a difference bw west africa and western africa. Part of my question was west africans,so by bringing maghreb into it I didnt realise that you were only focusing on west africa.

Noticed you use the word 'jerk';what did you expect-me insulting you back? Well that wont happen,I dont do that. When I realise that debates have gone to the level of exchange of insults, it means the debate is spent and just leave.

[Thanas]

So the question was not limited to west Africans, but you chose to isolate west Africa and provided a map of Africa that to my mind had 3 colours: dark green,light green and grey. You were not or rather you chose not to be clear so I interpreted it that way-it was a mistake that you lead me to.

Dude, you are the master of passive aggressive. I lead you to your misinterpretation because you assumed a map that shows Italy, the Levantine countries, Spain, Southern France, Egypt and the whole of East and South Africa as grey must mean that I am considering all of those to have the same markup when it comes to population? That is such a stupid assumption to make that it casts doubt on your honesty.

By the why is it taking you time to come out and state if you consider northeast Africans as 'blacks' since you already consider west africans to be 'blacks' so on seem not to have a problem with using the word at least in a social sense.

I do not consider Egyptians to be black. With modern Sudan it gets trickier due to the mixed ethnics. Iirc there is a very slight majorit of people who I would consider black living there. Nor do I consider any of them white. If these terms are even applicable.

How does this in any way impact the debate about ancient Egypt btw?

By the way who ever considers the north Africa maghreb to be part of west africa;there is a difference bw west africa and western africa.

The terms west africa or western africa are used interchangeably in modern discourse.

Noticed you use the word 'jerk';what did you expect-me insulting you back? Well that wont happen,I dont do that. When I realise that debates have gone to the level of exchange of insults, it means the debate is spent and just leave.

Or you become a beacon of passive-aggressive behaviour.

[Big Triece]

You said you could provide quotes of multiple posters of claiming a mass migration, then you said that it was zentei and thanas that was claiming mass migrations.

The point of you asking me to provide these quotes was because you are clearly under the impression that members such as Zentei and Thanas are objective enough to not argue that Pre-Dynastic Egypt was not the product (or even partially) of a mass migration from outside of Africa. Not only are you well aware of the statements by both men that I was attempting to link you to, but Zentei has reaffirmed his position that a mass back migration during pre-historic times lead to "mixed race ancestry" in the Nile Valley which has been maintained since that time. He has provided the exact same abstracts in the his post that I was going to link you to. Matter is currently demonstrating the unlikelihood of such events (at least recently).

This should make it clear to you that there are indeed some members (Zentei, Thanas, and Ziggy) who are not compliant with the same position that you claim "all of us" are in tune with (which is that the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of various Northeast African populations). Matter also expressed his own discontent with their persistence of their arguments which you claim that we all agree simply was not the case. Those members listed are persistent ( all mainstream evidence presented in this thread) that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and attribute this to an influx of people with non African phenotypes into the Nile. That being said it proves that I have not being arguing against "phantom" foes.

One of the reasons why I have held contempt towards you recently is because you are seemingly supporting their ludicrous stances, and claiming that my refutation of what they are clearly implying is based on nothing more than strawmans and other types of distortions of their argument. One instance was what Ziggy and Zentei have clearly been implying with the Brace 93 study. Ziggy argues through his own misinterpretations that it proves a Mediterranean continuum (Matter has refuted that). Zentei argued from the same study that modern Europeans share the same close affinity towards the ancient Egyptians as their Pre-historic European ancestors (I proved that this is not the case). None of their arguments supports the "common consensus" amongst board members of a local Northeast African origin for ancient Egypt. It would be an objective act on your part to point out how their positions are wrong.

"As far as early Northern Egyptians being "lighter" that is simply speculation. That population was an indigenous tropically adapted one unlike the Levantine populations". That is you on p1 saying that the people in Levant in the same timeframe were not "tropically adapated" which you have repeatedly equated with "black". So I repeat, how come you do not lump yourself into this vast conspiracy claiming a mass migration?

My point regarding the hypothesized back migration from Yemen in the Horn of Africa stands. Yemen and most of the Arabia peninsula are not "the Levant":



Yemen is simply a hop skip and a jump across the red sea from Somalia (the Horn). As you could see on the map that I posted previous Yemen and Somalia are virtually the same latitude which is firmly within the tropics and consist of the same environment as that on the opposite side of the red sea. Therefore even going by this non African origin of M1, no environmental factors could have altered these migrating Africans back migrating into Eastern Africa.

Also I don't lump myself into the a "back migration" crowd because I myself don't support a non African origin for M1 and I have provided three recent studies which back this. I was simply demonstrating how by even going with a back migration of M1 it would not have any significance of the physical variation of the Africans affected and subsequently ancient Egypt.

Read that again please. Then explain how you consider a region with "predominant East African influence since the Neolithic onwards" to not be black according to your Jim Crow view on the word black?

The people of Yemen are well known to have be essentially a mixture of virtually adjacent black Africans and Middle Easterners. Many would be considered black and consider themselves as such:

Remember that we all agreed on p2-3 that horn africans during all ages have had a variety of skintones in the dark brown region.

Yes I do remember this and I stand by it. There are a variety of skin tones in indigenous Northeast Africans ranging from light to dark, just as there is a variety of skin tones in West African countries ranging from light to dark.

So please explain, according to you, when exactly did the people in the fertile crescent go from being "tropically adapted"="black" to "tropically adapted"="mixed brown" to "not tropically adapated"="arabs"? You come across as very confused regarding this.

The Middle East is not a monolithic region. Different regions have absorbed different populations during different periods of time. Simply researching the populations history (look at genetics) and looking at a comprehensive map of the region would would realize this. There has been extensive intra -opulation migration throughout the region as well. Most people in the Levant during Egypt's Pre-Dynastic period were already adapted to their sub tropical environment, which explains the contrast in limb proportions between themselves and the relatively recent Nilotic settlers in Lower Nile Valley at the time.


Don't come with a silly retort either. Again I'm not here to do your homework.

This is getting tiresome. No the western world does not share the angloshpere's cultural quirks. I showed you this in the link you snipped from my quote.

Assuming that you're from Europe:



Well as I've been taught and as can be seen in this clip reflecting European society, the definitional range of what they consider black is very similar (if not mirrors) that of the United States. From the darkest African immigrants to those with a high yellow skin tone, they all seem to go through the same ordeals and identify as "black". Where is the sharp line in my stupid American definitions of race and that seen across Europe (at least as far as who is considered black is concerned)?

Do you agree with this quote or not? "What Keita means by 'local' is Northeast African (Ethiopian, Somali, Beja, Sudanese, ect) all of these populations tend to have light to dark reddish brown to jet black skin color. Rather or not you want to consider that "black" is entirely up to you and your standards for the meaning of the term. Keita however states in his lecture that based on ecological principals the ancient Egyptians would have been dark skinned, how dark he did not say."

Yes I stand by my earlier statement. Be aware that I was using this under a relative context, meaning of people who are considered for the most part "black Africans" this color variation exist.

Again, this was pointed out to you p1-5, no other languages in europe have better terms for this. No that is not a consistent defintion SINCE THE BIGGEST FUCKING AMERICAN ONLINE DICTIONARY DISAGREES WITH YOU.
So no, just no, and then no again.

What dictionary would that be, and in what ways does it disagree with me?

Ah, I thought that even the american school system covered this, but since you must have missed history classes completely I can see how you missed how WWII could affect what nordic race theory considered to be non-white people, like jews.

If I'm not mistaking you brought the idea of the Nordic race theory into this debate as a way to contrast that of the prominent American (Western) definition of race, and what was at the center of this discussion was what is considered black and your subsequent dislike of the American definition. Now I asked you what relevance does the Nordic race theory would have on who is considered "black" in the societies where it is prominent. You have yet to address that specific and the most relevant contention of the point.

[Big Triece]

I do not consider Egyptians to be black. With modern Sudan it gets trickier due to the mixed ethnics. Iirc there is a very slight majorit of people who I would consider black living there.

You appear to be referring to modern Egypt, not early Dynastic Egypt which I believe was Matter's contention. He is asking based on the consistent evidence of what their phenotype was:

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

and

"must be placed in the context of hypotheses informed by archaeological, linguistic, geographic and other data. In such contexts, the physical anthropological evidence indicates that 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 C. Lovell, " Egyptians, physical anthropology of," in Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, ed. Kathryn A. Bard and Steven Blake Shubert, ( London and New York: Routledge, 1999). pp 328-332)

and where their cultural origins came from:



Would you consider them black why or why not?

Or you become a beacon of passive-aggressive behaviour.

No Thanas he is trying to be CIVIL! This is what I initially was when I created this thread, until it became clear from forum members and even moderators that they had no such intent whatsoever. Are some people on this board capable of remaining civil and having this passionate discussion?

[Ziggy Stardust]

This should make it clear to you that there are indeed some members (Zentei, Thanas, and Ziggy) who are not compliant with the same position that you claim "all of us" are in tune with (which is that the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of various Northeast African populations). Matter also expressed his own discontent with their persistence of their arguments which you claim that we all agree simply was not the case. Those members listed are persistent ( all mainstream evidence presented in this thread) that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and attribute this to an influx of people with non African phenotypes into the Nile. That being said it proves that I have not being arguing against "phantom" foes.

One of the reasons why I have held contempt towards you recently is because you are seemingly supporting their ludicrous stances, and claiming that my refutation of what they are clearly implying is based on nothing more than strawmans and other types of distortions of their argument.

Hey, asshole, I am getting sick of this.

You never refuted my arguments. You ignored them. In fact, you haven't replied to any of my recent posts directed at you. That is called a CONCESSION. You didn't refute shit.

Neither did Matter, for that matter. All he has done so far is retread your arguments from 10 pages ago, ignoring at the fact that they have all been shown to be inaccurate.

If you really want to ignore me, fine, but don't go puffing your chest that you refuted my "ludicrous" stance (the stance which, by the way, is supported by the academic literature ... and the scientific community, as opposed to racists such as yourself).

[EgalitarianJay]

I hope this post is helpful.

Thank you very much for returning PharaohMentuhotep even if it is only a brief visit.

Like I said early on I regret that bT has taken up so much space and time with his projection when it really would have been so much better talking to you.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3483125

Like I told you on p6-7 it is now 20 pages later and bT still doesn't understand that we agree with the basics.

Good luck

PS
You could ask Dalton for your old account back if you can verify it somehow. That way this last post of yours would have a nicer context.
DS

I would be able to respond to an email but I forgot which email account I registered with.

To be honest I prefer this screen name as it better represents how I identify myself in relation to debates like this. I am an Egalitarian. I'm pro-equality. My involvement in these debates is to combat racism.

Check out my Youtube channel by the same name:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EgalitarianJay

I noticed Spoonist that you quoted one of my earlier posts as PharaohMentuhotep on the previous page.

Just to clarify I believe that there is no academic consensus on this subject. There is no majority view or minority view.
There are no peer-reviewed academic articles representing the majority of Egyptologists or Anthropologists who have given an official stance on the race of the Ancient Egyptians. Zahi Hawass held a position of influence where many of his statements on Ancient Egyptian culture in general were taken to represent mainstream Egyptology but those are the opinions of one person. Some Egyptologists disagree with him on a variety of topics including the race of the Ancient Egyptians. As I showed in my previous post Shomarka Keita does not agree with Hawass's perspective on this topic and he is more qualified to speak on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptians given that he is a Biological Anthropologist and has studied their remains as well as their culture.

During my participation in the Race & IQ discussions I bought books addressing racial ideas in science by an Evolutionary Biologist named Joseph L Graves who is an outspoken critic of hereditarian interpretations of racial differences in IQ.
In one of the books titled The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium Graves touches on the controversy over the race of the Ancient Egyptians and its relation to 19th century racial theories.

He wrote the following:

Frederick Douglass and the Polygenicists

The abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass addressed the claims of the polygenists in "The Claims of the Negro
Ethnologically Considered," an address delivered at Western Reserve College on July 12, 1854. In it he examined
both the scientific methods and the political motivations of the polygenicists (particularly Morton, Nott, Gliddon
and Agassiz). Douglass pointed out that the fundamental pillar of polygenicst thinking and of slavery was the idea
that the Negro race was not part of the human family. For example, the law in slave states did not distinguish between
Negroes and other property, such as domestic animals or chairs.

Douglass clearly articulated the characteristics of humans that are shared by all races and not exhibited by animals
(anticipating many of Darwin's later arguments in The Descent of Man). Among these, Douglass included the use of
hands, speech, higher emotions, the ability to obtain and retain knowledge, and adaptability to different environments

In his address, Douglass also examined the specific claims of Morton in Crania Americana, which had been published
in 1839. He took particular exception to Morton's claims concerning the racial identity of the ancient Egyptians.
For Morton, none of the accomplishments of Ancient Egypt could be attributed to Negroes, for that would clearly
grant intellectual capacities to African unaccounted for by the polygencist racial theory. Douglass advanced the
idea that in fact Egypt was a multiracial society lacking the modern skin color prejudice that existed in the
United States and Europe. None of the Egyptologists of his time supported him on this assertion, but we now know that
Douglass was correct.8

8. Bernard Ortiz de Montellano has shown that Egypt was neither a "Caucasian" society, as claimed by Morton and other nineteenth-century racists, nor solely a sub-Saharan African society, as claimed by many modern Afrocentrists; see Ortiz de Montellano, "Melanin, Afrocentricity, and Pseudoscience," Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 36 (1993): and Ortiz de Montellano, "Multiculturalism, Cult Archeology, and Pseudoscience," in Cult Archeology and Creationism: Understanding Pseudoscientific Beliefs about the Past, ed. F.B. Harrold and R.A. Eve (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995).

I found this excerpt to be interesting because Graves is a first rate scholar and expert on biology who comes to the conclusion that the Ancient Egyptians were "Multiracial" or at least phenotypically diverse and cites a source that is critical of both Afrocentrists and Eurocentrists on the topic. When I looked at the article in question it relied heavily on Keita's craniometric studies in addition to the conclusions of some other studies on the topic. I disagree with some of the logic used by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano but recognize that some of the scholars who have commented on this subject interpret the research different from people using these same studies to make arguments on the internet about what the ancient Egyptians actually looked like.

[Spoonist]

I noticed Spoonist that you quoted one of my earlier posts as PharaohMentuhotep on the previous page.

Just to clarify I believe that there is no academic consensus on this subject. There is no majority view or minority view.
There are no peer-reviewed academic articles representing the majority of Egyptologists or Anthropologists who have given an official stance on the race of the Ancient Egyptians.

Yes, but there have been conferences and several ongoing dialogs in their publications so we can pretty much deduce the majority vs minority view. Especially when some get very controversial while others become used as sources. For instance - there is definately a consensus that craniological studies without accompanying DNA comparison is more prone to error in predicting geographical origin.
The quotes as used was more to show what kind of approach that gets my respect and what kind of approach does not.

I found this excerpt to be interesting because Graves is a first rate scholar and expert on biology who comes to the conclusion that the Ancient Egyptians were "Multiracial" or at least phenotypically diverse and cites a source that is critical of both Afrocentrists and Eurocentrists on the topic.

Douglass advanced the idea that in fact Egypt was a multiracial society lacking the modern skin color prejudice that existed in the United States and Europe. None of the Egyptologists of his time supported him on this assertion, but we now know that
Douglass was correct. Bernard Ortiz de Montellano has shown that Egypt was neither a "Caucasian" society, as claimed by Morton and other nineteenth-century racists, nor solely a sub-Saharan African society, as claimed by many modern Afrocentrists;

Love this part of the quote. Egyptians are Egyptians and have been so for thousands upon thousands of years. Trying to claim mass migrations pre or post dynastic formation to comply with a given racial preference is just ludicrious. Just like claiming that horn africans are "lighter" because of a mass migration of whites from the east or that they are "darker" because of a mass migration from the south is just as ludicrious.

When I looked at the article in question it relied heavily on Keita's craniometric studies in addition to the conclusions of some other studies on the topic.

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:

Individuals with the same morphology do not necessarily cluster with each other by lineage, and a given lineage does not include only individuals with the same trait complex (or 'racial type'). Y-chromosome DNA from Africa alone suffices to make this point. Africa contains populations whose members have a range of external phenotypes. This variation has usually been described in terms of 'race' (Caucasoids, Pygmoids, Congoids, Khoisanoids). But the Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transition (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) shatters the boundaries of phenotypically defined races and true breeding populations across a great geographical expanse. African peoples with a range of skin colors, hair forms and physiognomies have substantial percentages of males whose Y chromosomes form closely related clades with each other, but not with others who are phenotypically similar. The individuals in the morphologically or geographically defined 'races' are not characterized by 'private' distinct lineages restricted to each of them.

[Lord Zentei]

Your 1st link took me to an abstract,I could not access the full study which is important cos remember I asked for a source that would DEMONSTRATE demic diffusion not just state it-one would therefore need the full study,be much appreciated if you can help in this respect.
However,the abstract used said it would use linguistic(where it contradicted itself by saying only Afroasiatic failed the diffusion model-anyways we know that Afroasiatic,and Nilosaharan, related to northeast Africa had an African origin),genetics(I would need the full study to know which clade they are talking about-the relevant one would be M1a which clearly came from East Africa and maybe Rv88 which may be significant) and archaeological(well I wait for any study that can even get anywhere near demonstrating demic diffusion to Ancient Egypt using archaeological means,would be 'interesting'-so I wait for the full study).

I don't have a link to the entire article for free, sorry.

Your 2nd link was to to a full Cruciani study that generally talked about some back migrated to Africa. If one goes to the case of Egypt chromosome xI(which I think is Rv88) is relevant. A cruciani study(Cruciani et al 2010) suggested that this calde might have migrated just before or during or after the neolithic, and why the clade is currently limited in Egypt it might still have been somewhat significant. I note though BigT(and some scholars) caution cos the populations where this clade is pervasive today up to at times 95%(Chad/Central Africa) have no accompanying mtDNA and they have a complete African autosomal genetic makeup(Tishkofff et al 2009) which would suggest a very old introduction. Anyways this clade might be important and I think that we should further discuss it.

Sure.

Your 3rd link is about U6 and M1. U6 is not very relevant for Egypt while I have commented on M1- which I regard as African.

Oh? <shrug> M1 has been assumed to be of African origin by some, but not all scholars. That was kind of the point of linking to that papaer.

Lord Zentei really? Northeast Africans(1.e Afrasans-like Somalians, Eriteans,Oromos,Bejas,Omotics and Nilosaharans-like Dinka,Darfurians,Nubians,Zaghawas,Tibbus,Maasai) cannot be regarded as 'Blacks' in a social sense? <SNIP>

What are you talking about? I haven't commented at all on most of those groups.

'Black' Africans come in different hues that hinges on brown-chocolate brown,bronzed brown,copper brown,red brown,very dark brown like Dinkas and Ashantis,high yellow like some Igbos,very light brown like Khoisans etc.

Indeed: and that is exactly the reason why I find that implying some kind of pan-continental "Black African" crypto-racial designation is silly.

I understand certain people being ambivalent when it comes to skin colour(since it means nothing biologically) but for Africans who know that the reason Ancient Egyptian origins was so messed up was because some persons could not accept that indigenous 'blacks' could found a 'civilization',especially when it was the 'mighty' Egypt;now after the many schemes concocted(like Dynastic race theorem,Hamitic hypothesis,huge neolithic demic diffusion) have collapsed, and a clear Northeast African origin acknowledged, skin colour is now been downplayed. Africans would naturally be suspicious-we should try to understand that.I dont think it reflects well on us if we shifts the goal post when we are confronted with an uncomfortable stance.

Now you're making the same assumptions and thinly veiled allegations as Big Triece. Kindly cut that out.

ANCIENT EGYPT WAS DIVERSE BUT ITS CULTURAL ORIGINS WAS MAINLY FROM PEOPLE TO ITS SOUTH(DESICCATING EASTERN SAHARA); THESE PEOPLE WERE ALSO MOST PROBABLY THE MAIN POPULATION BASE OF EARLY EGYPT,HOWEVER THERE WOULD VERY LIKELY HAVE BEEN OTHER GROUPS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT FROM THE START,ESPECIALLY IN LOWER EGYPT,AS I HAVE MAINTAINED THROUGH OUT-THEY WERE A MINORITY AND HOW SIGNIFICANT THERE WERE IS WHAT I DONT KNOW. ANYWAY ANCIENT EGYPT WAS MAINLY NORTHEAST AFRICA BUT WAS NEVER PURE(NO HUMAN POPULATION IS AS I STATED MY THE LAST POST)

This doesn't contradict my own stance in any significant capacity. Why are you writing in allcaps?

By the way,do you regard West Africans and say Nubians as 'Blacks' or you just have a problem with the 'black/white' dichotomy.

I do have a problem with the black/white dichotomy, but more particularly I have a problem with it as applied to populations on the borders of continents which clearly were heterogenous.

[Lord Zentei]

@EgalitarianJay
Many thanks for your post, it was indeed helpful. I'm particularly pleased to see the exchange you had with Keita, and his apparent rejection of racial designations and classifications for the ancient Egyptians, as well as his nuanced position on Egypt's connections with people to the west, east and south of Egypt - his position seems far more reasonable to me when he explains it in his own words rather than when he is interpreted by those of fanatical stance who claim that his research supports their opinions.

[Lord Zentei]

The point of you asking me to provide these quotes was because you are clearly under the impression that members such as Zentei and Thanas are objective enough to not argue that Pre-Dynastic Egypt was not the product (or even partially) of a mass migration from outside of Africa. Not only are you well aware of the statements by both men that I was attempting to link you to, but Zentei has reaffirmed his position that a mass back migration during pre-historic times lead to "mixed race ancestry" in the Nile Valley which has been maintained since that time. He has provided the exact same abstracts in the his post that I was going to link you to. Matter is currently demonstrating the unlikelihood of such events (at least recently).

You really refuse to understand what people's position is around here don't you? Just wow.

This should make it clear to you that there are indeed some members (Zentei, Thanas, and Ziggy) who are not compliant with the same position that you claim "all of us" are in tune with (which is that the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of various Northeast African populations). Matter also expressed his own discontent with their persistence of their arguments which you claim that we all agree simply was not the case. Those members listed are persistent ( all mainstream evidence presented in this thread) that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and attribute this to an influx of people with non African phenotypes into the Nile. That being said it proves that I have not being arguing against "phantom" foes.

The Ancient Egyptians were indeed in the main a mixture of various Northeast African populations. That does not negate the fact that they were not "pure" African. It seems it must be either black or white for you: you still don't understand what "heterogenous" means, do you? The references to back-migration and demic diffusion were not made to deny the Northeast African origin of the culture of the Ancient Egyptians, nor to deny that most Egyptians were various sorts of native northeast African, but to reject your silly racial purity bullshit, and your almost pathological dislike for any suggestion that Egypt owed anything to non-African cultures during their development.

One of the reasons why I have held contempt towards you recently is because you are seemingly supporting their ludicrous stances, and claiming that my refutation of what they are clearly implying is based on nothing more than strawmans and other types of distortions of their argument. One instance was what Ziggy and Zentei have clearly been implying with the Brace 93 study. Ziggy argues through his own misinterpretations that it proves a Mediterranean continuum (Matter has refuted that). Zentei argued from the same study that modern Europeans share the same close affinity towards the ancient Egyptians as their Pre-historic European ancestors (I proved that this is not the case). None of their arguments supports the "common consensus" amongst board members of a local Northeast African origin for ancient Egypt. It would be an objective act on your part to point out how their positions are wrong.

You didn't prove shit, kiddo. Pointing out that the Egyptians cluster with Europeans according to such and such a criteria does not imply that they were the result of a European mass migration themselves, neither does the origin of Egyptian culture in Upper Egypt become the last word with the ethnic makeup of Egypt in general, particularly Lower Egypt. Such nuances seem lost on you.

[Spoonist]

@Zentei & Thanas
Since littleBrain couldn't even do such a simple task as a link, let's do it this way instead:
Do any of you believe in a mass migration into egypt from the levant during any age before 1000 BC? (That time slot being there solely as not to end up in a biblical discussion).
A simple yes or no will do.

[Thanas]

Yes, that such mass migration happened is pretty much historic fact.

Hyksos, entering Egypt en masse during the 11th dynasty (2134-1999 BC), coming to power and eventually losing it only with the formation of the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC). Coincidentally, their new techniques in agriculture and warfare, adapted by the Egyptians, allowed the New Kingdom to expand to its greatest power.

This also included the conquest of Nubia, which had been allied with the Hyksos and played a substantial role in them coming to power in the first place and the destruction of the previous Egyptian kingdom.


Further studies arguing back migration long before that have also been posted in this thread.

[Lord Zentei]

Aye.

The back migration from the Levant I commented on earlier would have taken place ca. 40000 BC, and the demic diffusion model for the spread of Neolithic agriculture into lower Egypt would have taken place ca. 10000 BC. Of course, both of these predate the formation of the Kingdom of Egypt by a wide margin. Thus, they do NOT negate the fact that both culturally and ethnically, the Kingdom of Egypt, especially in the case of Upper Egypt, was primarily North East African. It only means that simplistic black/white models for "race" are inappropriate. Add to this the questionable relevance of such absolute labels to the indigenous North East Africans themselves.

In other words, it is a strawman to say that I claim that Egypt was founded by immigrants, or that it was primarily populated by such.

[Thanas]

Just like it is wrong to argue that Egypt was founded by benevolent immigrants from Nubia or primarily populated by such. Egyptians are just that - Egyptians. That immigration added to and changed that gene pool continously is just to be expected due to the fact that a) Egypt sits right in the middle between the four major trading places of early antiquity b) Egypt had the most fertile land of all antiquity and as such was always exposed to immigration and invasion, peaceful or otherwise.

As an aside, we also have west-east migration in the case of Libyan tribes and kingdoms carving peaces out of Egypt or outright becoming rulers.


But guess what? It is just wrong to claim that to be considered Egyptian at that time one had to be born there or look a certain type. Which is why I consider the Hyksos just as much Egyptian as the Greek and jewish settlers who immigrated there under Ptolemaic rule.

[Spoonist]

What part of "we don't have to do your work for you" do you not understand?
You said you could provide quotes of multiple posters of claiming a mass migration, then you said that it was zentei and thanas that was claiming mass migrations.
I said no inuendos - quote them.
Now you have proven that you couldn't.

You said you could provide quotes of multiple posters of claiming a mass migration, then you said that it was zentei and thanas that was claiming mass migrations.

The point of you asking me to provide these quotes was because you are clearly under the impression that members such as Zentei and Thanas are objective enough to not argue that Pre-Dynastic Egypt was not the product (or even partially) of a mass migration from outside of Africa.

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. But then I admit my mistakes - a trick you should learn sometime...
So no more inuendos - quote us.
You know like I do, with a link and text.
Like this of Zentei saying the complete opposite of what you claim:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3618189
"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? Zentei deviously saying one thing while in fact mindcontrolling Thanas to say the opposite?

Matter is currently demonstrating the unlikelihood of such events (at least recently).

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

Now most geneticists suggest that it initially back migrated to East Africa from somewhere in Yemen or southern India c.45000-35000yrs ago(its possible origin in East Africa can not be dismissed though since M1 is a basal clade that derived directly from the 'East African' L3-and we know that L3 differentiation already stated in Africa). So lets go with the majority opinion, if some group of nomadic people left Africa and went to say Yemen next door and within 15000-10000 years came back,and ever since have been absorbed in Africa(and remained there for say 40000yrs), I honestly can not understand why they cannot be fully Africans.

So he is basically saying that horners living for 15k years on a different continent and then moving back into the african fold again should still be considered horners. Which is nice and all including so you should like that. Me I think that all including phrasing like that doesn't help us come any closer to the enigma of human diversity. The same as with your definition of black.

Those members listed are persistent ( all mainstream evidence presented in this thread) that the ancient Egyptians were "mixed race" and attribute this to an influx of people with non African phenotypes into the Nile.

See Keita's quote in my response to EliJay.

One of the reasons why I have held contempt towards you recently is because you are seemingly supporting their ludicrous stances, and claiming that my refutation of what they are clearly implying is based on nothing more than strawmans and other types of distortions of their argument.

Nope, I do not necessarily agree with Zentei and Thanas, but I go after refuting blatant stupidity first and minor disagreements later. As I said before, when you were gone for a while me and Akhlut had a minor disagreement when you were gone, which turned out to being me misenterpreting some of his caveats. No biggie but still productive.
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. That is so stupid you'd have to have a whole SSD to fill the whole.
So you'll have to excuse me but ignorance goes before details.

But hey everytime anyone of the other resident posters have adress me directly I've responded to them, as well as every time a new talent has stumbled by I've introduced them as well.

Doesn't really fit with your world view, I know, but that seems to be a universal constant...

One instance was what Ziggy and Zentei have clearly been implying with the Brace 93 study.

Uhm, not a hive mind. You got a problem with them take it up with them not with me. Well I understand why you admire me so much that you'd always consult with my intellectual superiority first before even wiping your arse, but heck what can I say. I'm a fickle god. Me I proposed to you early on that we would skip all studies before 2000 or studies that relied on data before 2000, so that we would get rid of historical crap. Wanna guess what your opinion on that was?

None of their arguments supports the "common consensus" amongst board members of a local Northeast African origin for ancient Egypt.

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

It would be an objective act on your part to point out how their positions are wrong.

Ah, like you did you mean when I pointed out that Simon and DemoFB had the same view but you attacked one and not the other. (<<thats sarcasm)
OK, if you lead I will follow. Point out where your opinion differs from EliJay's hi I'm back post above then I'll do the same for a poster you select. (<< legit offer)

"As far as early Northern Egyptians being "lighter" that is simply speculation. That population was an indigenous tropically adapted one unlike the Levantine populations". That is you on p1 saying that the people in Levant in the same timeframe were not "tropically adapated" which you have repeatedly equated with "black". So I repeat, how come you do not lump yourself into this vast conspiracy claiming a mass migration?

My point regarding the hypothesized back migration from Yemen in the Horn of Africa stands. Yemen and most of the Arabia peninsula are not "the Levant":

Yemen is simply a hop skip and a jump across the red sea from Somalia (the Horn). As you could see on the map that I posted previous Yemen and Somalia are virtually the same latitude which is firmly within the tropics and consist of the same environment as that on the opposite side of the red sea.

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.
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?

Read that again please. Then explain how you consider a region with "predominant East African influence since the Neolithic onwards" to not be black according to your Jim Crow view on the word black?

The people of Yemen are well known to have be essentially a mixture of virtually adjacent black Africans and Middle Easterners. Many would be considered black and consider themselves as such *snip vid*

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:
"As in if we allow the Jim Crow view on race then most of the middle east, half of turkey, southern spain and the majority of greece would be "black"."
Nice to know.

The Middle East is not a monolithic region. Different regions have absorbed different populations during different periods of time. Simply researching the populations history (look at genetics) and looking at a comprehensive map of the region would would realize this. There has been extensive intra -opulation migration throughout the region as well. Most people in the Levant during Egypt's Pre-Dynastic period were already adapted to their sub tropical environment, which explains the contrast in limb proportions between themselves and the relatively recent Nilotic settlers in Lower Nile Valley at the time.

I had to read through that a couple of times. You actually make sense there - so I thought that I'd point that out specifically and say that I agree with that.
Would you agree with a similar adoption in the northern sahara/libya/northern egypt region in the same era?

From the darkest African immigrants to those with a high yellow skin tone, they all seem to go through the same ordeals and identify as "black".

High yellow skin tone identifying as black? I truthfully don't get which pop you are refering to here? Some people from Asia? Or is this some strange reference to Pakistanis being called black by stupid chavs in the UK?

Do you agree with this quote or not? "What Keita means by 'local' is Northeast African (Ethiopian, Somali, Beja, Sudanese, ect) all of these populations tend to have light to dark reddish brown to jet black skin color. Rather or not you want to consider that "black" is entirely up to you and your standards for the meaning of the term. Keita however states in his lecture that based on ecological principals the ancient Egyptians would have been dark skinned, how dark he did not say."

Yes I stand by my earlier statement.

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?

Again, this was pointed out to you p1-5, no other languages in europe have better terms for this. No that is not a consistent defintion SINCE THE BIGGEST FUCKING AMERICAN ONLINE DICTIONARY DISAGREES WITH YOU.
So no, just no, and then no again.

What dictionary would that be, and in what ways does it disagree with me?

Now you can't even click links? You know, the links I put in my posts for reference so that people can check out things if they want.
As in the link you snipped when you quoted me right now?
FAIL, FAIL, FAIL and FAIL again... Are we into doubledigits of fail now?
Sometimes I wonder how you can even post like this in forums when you can't even do basic stuff like links and quotes. But then I realise that you spend all your QuotingQuota on all your selective bias pics.

Ah, I thought that even the american school system covered this, but since you must have missed history classes completely I can see how you missed how WWII could affect what nordic race theory considered to be non-white people, like jews.

If I'm not mistaking you brought the idea of the Nordic race theory into this debate as a way to contrast that of the prominent American (Western) definition of race, and what was at the center of this discussion was what is considered black and your subsequent dislike of the American definition.

It has just as much relevance as your definition. Which was my point. Your defintion is redundant and useless and leads only to hateful deviations from what we really should be discussing. Now could you please join the 21st cen?

Now I asked you what relevance does the Nordic race theory would have on who is considered "black" in the societies where it is prominent.

No you didn't.
BEHOLD THE MAGIC OF QUOTING, don't look behind the curtain..
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 8#p3652848

So how does the Nordic Race theory apply to the non white citizens of a society that advocated this? Did it change how they were socially defined as groups? From what I've read it the module simply place Nordic Europeans at the top of all white Europeans, who were subsequently on top of all other races (in a social context of course) and according to Nordic scholars were the creators of everything good on this Earth.

To which I responded in full instead of your snippet:

Ah, I thought that even the american school system covered this, but since you must have missed history classes completely I can see how you missed how WWII could affect what nordic race theory considered to be non-white people, like jews. You see they had this thing called the star of David, and yes IT FUCKING CHANGED HOW THEY WERE SOCIALLY DEFINED AS GROUPS, you moron.
That is mindnumbingly dumb even for you.

Thank you, thank you - I'll be here all week with my amazing powers. Now it's happy hour in the bar so get your shots early this time. hehehe *bam* Hey - why did you hit me? Oh, hi bT didn't know you'd be in Vegas. Owww, how LUMPY my HEAD feels.

Moron. Thought i wouldn't notice how you skipped that part?