Denial of the African origins of Ancient Egypt?

[Big Triece]

I really dont understand what the fightings and insults are about,cos from what I can deduce from the discussion,both parties seem to agree more than disagree i.e that the early ancient egyptians,were in the main a tropically adapted mixed population of groups from east/northeast Africa(afrasans) and and ancient sahara(nilosaharans) who mostly settled in upper egypt,the main centre of population, over time.they then developed egyptian culture during naqada times nd would then, through some actual migrations and culture flow,totally replace the lower egyptian neolithic culture-the sparsely populated lower egyptians themselves being mostly an indigenious African population but divergent from upper egyptians who very likely also saw some population flow from the middle east since they traded with them and since some middle eastern cultures influenced thiers.I think the point of disagreement is whether we can call these people,esp upper egyptians 'blacks'?

A flawless summary of the entire discussion! I just find it amazing how some people have went through such great measures to obfuscate this simple ass stance.

Once we agree that we are not talking about biological race here,who would really not consider nilosaharans and east/northeast africans as 'blacks' in a social sense?

Thank you!

[Big Triece]

I would also argue that the Egyptians saw themselves as very different from their nubian cousins.

Why are you holding on to such out-dated and debunked views of Egyptian-Nubian relations? What is your motive?

The Egyptians viewed themselves as superior to all of their neighbors, but of those neighbors Nubians were ethnically the closest and as such were never looked down upon in Egyptian society so long as they placed Egyptian culture above all others. A point which cannot even be denied by conservative Egyptologist such as Frank Yurco and of course more objective recent scholars:

“The ancient Egyptians referred to a region, located south of the third cataract the Nile River, in which Nubians dwelt as Kush.. Within such context, this phrase is not a racial slur. Throughout the history of ancient Egypt there were numerous, well documented instances that celebrate Nubian-Egyptian marriages. A study of these documents, particularly those dated to both the Egyptian New Kingdom (after 1550 B.C.E.) and to Dynasty XXV and early Dynasty XXVI (about 720-640 BCE), reveals that neither spouse nor any of the children of such unions suffered discrimination at the hands of the ancient Egyptians. Indeed such marriages were never an obstacle to social, economic, or political status, provided the individuals concerned conformed to generally accepted Egyptian social standards. Furthermore, at times, certain Nubian practices, such as tattooing for women, and the unisex fashion of wearing earrings, were wholeheartedly embraced by the ancient Egyptians." (Bianchi, 2004: p. 4)

The cultures of upper Egypt and Nubia were so similar during Pre-Dynastic times that they could not be told apart from one another:

"According to common knowledge, it has generally been held that there was a geographical, cultural and political boundary between Egypt and Nubia in the Predynastic/Early Dynastic period, and it was located between Gebel es Silsila and Aswan . Any Egyptian evidence in Nubia was seen as an import or cultural influence, while any Nubian evidence in Upper Egypt was viewed as the sporadic presence of foreign people within Egyptian territory. As a consequence, the cemeteries located from Kubbaniya southwards were assigned to the A-Group culture.

In recent years, new research on the subject shows that the interaction between the two cultures was much more complex than previously thought, affecting the time, space and nature of the interaction. As a result, the Aswan area probably never was a real borderline. The two regions, and so their cultural entities, are not antithetical to one another, but in prehistoric times are still the expression of the same cultural tradition, with strong regional variations, particularly in the last part of the 4th millennium BC.

Unique cultural features, unknown elsewhere, have been recorded in the area surrounding the First Cataract, and from there northward up to Hierakonpolis and probably even Armant, and southward down to Dehmit. The data recorded in this area always shows a preponderance of Naqadian elements, while the Nubian component, although consistent, is definitely in the minority, disproving an A-Group affiliation. These features may indicate the presence of a regional variant of the Naqada culture combining, particularly during the first half of the fourth millennium BC, both Egyptian and Nubian traditions."....

"In the Predynastic period, the Egyptian and Nubian identities still shared many common traits derived from a common ancestry. The Naqada culture developed from the Badarian culture which, as the Tasian, was related to the Nubian Neolithic tradition (Gatto 2002; 2006c). Thus, the definition of what was Egyptian or Nubian at that time in the First Cataract region (and the southern part of Upper Egypt) is not so obvious: are the local cooking pots (shale-tempered ware), for example, Egyptian or Nubian?"

--GATTO M.C.(2009). Field season in the Aswan-Kom Ombo region of Egypt." Aswan-Kom Ombo. Archaeological Project. Report to: The Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt.

This cultural overlapping is attributed to the common ancestry of both Nile Valley populations, go figure. This is not even taking into account consistent biological evidence confirming that Egyptians and Nubians have essentially been the same people since Pre-Dynastic times. A fact which further confirms the fallacies of your assertions on their cultural distinctiveness is that the during Pre-Dynastic times, it was apparently the people of northern Sudan (Nubians) who formed the ruling elite over Upper Egyptians confirmed by a inter-population comparison:

"A biological affinities study based on frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in skeletal samples from three cemeteries at Predynastic Naqada, Egypt, confirms the results of a recent nonmetric dental morphological analysis. Both cranial and dental traits analyses indicate that the individuals buried in a cemetery characterized archaeologically as high status are significantly different from individuals buried in two other, apparently non-elite cemeteries and that the non-elite samples are not significantly different from each other. A comparison with neighboring Nile Valley skeletal samples suggests that the high status cemetery represents an endogamous ruling or elite segment of the local population at Naqada, which is more closely related to populations in northern Nubia than to neighboring populations in southern Egypt." (T. Prowse, and N. Lovell "Concordance of cranial and dental morphological traits and evidence for endogamy in ancient Egypt". American journal of physical anthropology. 1996, vol. 101, no2, pp. 237-246 (2 p.1/4)

Which further supports the claim by many that Egyptian culture was likely an extension of the elder Sudanese cultures to the south:

"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."(Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472 )

Therefore your you notion that they were "very" different is baseless and is that which is a common one amongst typical "Negrophobes".

That depends on who you are talking to. The Egyptians themselves did not think so, the Greeks of their age did not thinks so, neither did the Romans, neither did any other culture they came in contact with.

You have a nasty habit of making baseless assertions and expecting people to roll with them. The Egyptians did not have a social concept of race and as such would logically mean that they did not view themselves as any sort of race. The ancient Greeks on the other hand, noticed and recorded the fact that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans like the Ethiopians (Greek word which is collective for all Africans to the south) and came from "Ethiopia". Basil Davidson has stated this explicitly:



Forty seconds into this clip Davidson completely refutes your claim. He is an authority and you are not!

We are talking about a culture that did not see itself as black or african, but as EGYPTIAN.

The Ashanti, Nuer, Nuba, or Shiluk cultures of Africa don't view themselves as "black or african" but of their respective cultures. From our sociological standpoint however they are all collectively viewed as cultures created and maintained by black Africans. The culture of ancient Egypt came from the early Afro-Asiatic speakers who migrated northward from the Nubia-Somalia and the Nilo Saharan communities of the ancient Sahara. Therefore this point is moot and desperately dishonest on your part.

The best modern definition I would think that would apply to such a culture would be mediterranean, as in "part of the mediterranean/mideast culture that dominated the world up into the late middle ages and gave rise to Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Arab dominance" of their known world.

Thanas everyone!

[Lord Zentei]

LMAO!!! Now you're stuck talking about the Paleolithic to the Early Holocene? What the hell has this to do with the Kingdom of Egypt?

So have the years of persistent meth abuse induced you into a persistent state of amnesia, or are you just a dumb ass? The discussion of Brace's 2006 study came up as a result of some ass backwards retard (not you this time) referring to the dubious conclusions of Brace's 1993 study. He was unaware of the later finding that the early Europeans used in Brace's 93 study )which along with Somalis were the sole reason that the ancient Egyptians were lumped into the European, North African, West Asian and Indian cluster) resembled tropical Africans. Brace's latter study confirmed the biological distinction of modern Europeans from those earlier ones, which is just one major blow that nullifies the implications of his 1993 study.

Right, because it's not as if ancient Egyptians cluster with neolothic and modern Europeans in the 1993 study, and that 33000 year old skeletons have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Show... similarities with some of the sub-Saharan... specimens... Well? What the fuck do these 33000 year old skeletons have to do with Egypt,

You see, if you're going to intrude into a fucking discussion then you should first at least attempt the understand the dialogue. The reason why it is important to note that these pre-historic Egyptian remains resemble some Sub Saharan African populations, is because those Egyptians (the Mushabi) migrated eastward into the Levant and were the primary population source of the Natufanians (first farmers) who migrated northward into Europe and subsequently brought agriculture into that continent.

Now what is perhaps most ironic about your statement asking why is this relevant, is because you and many others are persistently referring to some sort of Pre-historic back migration from the Levant into African via the Sinai as the basis to say that Egypt has always been mixed. The fact that these studies are attributing the migrating Sub Saharan/Northeast African affinities of early Levantine and European populations to Pre-historic Egypt (Mushabi), directly slaps the shit out that theory!

You goddamned illiterate buffoon. I have said before that you're not arguing with me at all, but with some imaginary poster that you want to have a debate with. But honestly? At this stage, I'm sick and tired of having to repeat my fucking self. While I have consistently said that Egypt is African, and that clusterings with Near East populations is due to the Near East populations having come from North East Africa in the first place, that wasn't good enough for you, was it. You went ballistic that the indigenous populations could have been anything other than your beloved Pure Black Race (TM). Jackass.

seeing as your own sources then go on to speak of demic diffusion into Egypt?

Please post the passage in either study stating that Demic Diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occurred, or admit that your reading comprehension skills are piss poor!

Sure:

The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15). If the Late Pleistocene Natufian sample from Israel is the source from which that Neolithic spread was derived, then there was clearly a Sub-Saharan African element present of almost equal importance as the Late Prehistoric Eurasian element.

Any questions?

is that ancient Egypt was heterogenous. Don't you understand that you don't refute a claim of there being a heterogenous population merely by showing that such and such a sample clusters with sub-Saharans using such-and-such a criteria, when there are numerous samples which cluster with groups in North Africa and the Near East too?

Our opinions on the matter differ in how we are using the term "heterogeneous". The evidence presented thus far indicates that Egypt was indeed a "heterogeneous" civilization since Pre-Dynastic times. It was (according to Keita, Ehret, Bard, Zakrzewski, Davidson ect, ect ect) a mixture of early Afro-Asiatic speaking populations from the regions stretching between Nubia and Somalia and a later wave of Nilotic populations of the ancient Sahara. I am of course using this term from a scientific perspective. These indigenous populations of Africa are genetically and physically distinct from one another, regardless of if both populations would collectively be referred to as black Africans.

You on the other hand are using the term "heterogeneous" from a social perspective meaning a mixture of races. You believe that at some unspecified time in pre-history, a back migration of a non African population exhibiting an disclosed phenotype, having no influence language or culture settled on the Nile, subsequently leading to an inexplicable cultural and biological fusion with black populations from further south that has characterized Egypt ever since. I call it fantasy or bullshit!

And I call you an idiot and a liar. I have lost count of the number of times that I have made my position clear in this thread, but yet you yammer on like a purblind fool, fighting your windmills.

The point was that the source you provide directly refutes your claim of no back migration into Africa from the Near East at any point prior to the Early Dynastic period.

That passage is in no way shape or form indicating a back migration into Africa. No where is such indicated anywhere else in the study, by wording, plots, or dendrograms. The Demic Diffusion was from the Natufanians of Isreal who the descendants of the Mushabi (of Africa) into Europe...The Middle East-Europe.

Now , if you really want me to prove to everyone what an ass clown you truly are, then please persist with your argument of Demic Diffusion into Africa through misinterpretations of Brace or the usage of any other study.

How about that you read it one more time?

You know, the hilarious thing is that these sources of yours support the position that you have accused me of holding: namely, that agricultural societies in early Egypt were at least in part due to immigration from the Near East

You are correct. Egypt did incorporate Near Eastern products into their indigenous agricultural practices, but this fact alone does not prove a migration into Egypt from the Middle East. The strongest non biological evidence against this idea, is that the words for these Middle Eastern products, WERE NOT SEMITIC but native Egyptian. Compare that to the products used in Egypt from the ancient Sahara, which are Nilotic loan words. In fact many many words in ancient Egyptian language were Nilotic despite, ancient Egyptian being an Afro-Asiatic language. This linguistic evidence along with cultural and consistent biological findings have all pointed to a Nilotic colonization of the Pre-Dynastic Egypt. Furthermore the agriculture of ancient Egypt was a result of the Saharan Neolithic which is reflected by the fact that Egyptians used a Nilotic foraging system.

Honestly, whether the words used for the Middle Eastern products were Semitic or not makes not a lick of difference. But that's neither here nor there, since I don't hold the view that the ancient Egyptians were Semitic in any case.

rather than a wholly indigenous development.

This was already discussed earlier. I've never denied the influences of certain Middle Eastern cultures in Pre-Dynastic Egypt. What was debated extensively, was the significance of those influences. Some scholars like Keita state that Egypt had a "primarily African" origin, while scholars like Ehret state that Egypt was "fundamentally African".<SNIP>

Now see, had you posted something like this from the get go, instead of backpedaling now, then perhaps this thread would have been something like 10 pages shorter. Might have been, but probably not.

The persistent answer is that Egypt's origins were above all African (from the south), which in that does not negate influence from the Middle East. No one is saying that it is impossible that some small groups or individuals from the Levant crossed the Sinai into Lower Egypt during Pre-Dynastic times, and in fact I think that it most likely happened. What is baseless to assert however , is that such a presence could characterized early Lower Egyptians as a "mixed" populations. Biological evidence such as limb proportions make findings that early Lower Egyptians and populations in Palestine of the same period "were significantly different" from one another and the former grouped with tropical Africans in that respect.

They cluster with different populations depending on sample and criteria, as has been shown by multiple sources. The fact that they cluster with sub-Saharans by limb proportion and other things does not mean that they were flat out Black African as you have consistently claimed.

Hilariously, you post an image directly from Mathilda's blog,

No actually the image came from Brace's 2006 study. During a google image search Mathilda's page had the best size format for the image, compared to other results which would have stretched the thread page ridiculously wide.

Yeah, the problem with that is that it is hypocritical. You jumped on a bunch of people for their supposed use of material from that site, and yet, now you're using it yourself. BTW, it's trivial to obtain a free image processing software from the internet (Paint.NET, for example) and then re-size your own images.

Incidentally, do you understand that your source just said that the sub-Saharan element is almost as important as the Eurasian element in the population you're talking about here?

Contrary to Brace's words, the biological pull of the Natufanians does not at all suggest a strong "Eurasian" component. In every dendrograms and plot in that study those early Israelis form an affinity placing them squarely within the context of recent/Pre-historic Northeast Africans. Brace even stated that they formed into that twig. What has yet to be proven is the pull towards Eurasian populations, by any of the visuals. Notice that Ricaut's study, never even mentions a Eurasian component in the Natufanians and characterizes them as the descendants of Pre-historic Egyptians (Mushabi) who exhibited a Sub Saharan African phenotype.

So now, you're disagreeing with Brace's conclusion... when you had previously cited him as a source. Well, how about that.

And this population spread across North Africa, Egypt included, bringing agriculture with them? Just wow.

I'm not going to label you as a liar, because it's apparent that you are just a self righteous retard with reading comprehension skills that vary according to what you want to believe. If I asked you to provide a quote from the study stating that Demic Diffusion into Africa occurred, you'd scratch the roots off of your pea head searching for the contents for months.

Again, I have already posted it: it's Brace's conclusion:

The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15). If the Late Pleistocene Natufian sample from Israel is the source from which that Neolithic spread was derived, then there was clearly a Sub-Saharan African element present of almost equal importance as the Late Prehistoric Eurasian element.

[Big Triece]

As for the rest, either provide direct quotes of her to prove your point. However, the very fact that you are unable to even read her posts for what they are is pretty bad and smacks of dishonesty.

I'm not about to turn this thread into a debate about the intellectual honesty of the notions championed by some housewife with no fucking credentials. I and many many others have attempted to debate the bitch on her blog, but she censors responses and ultimately bans people for "lying" (code word for debunking her). Not the mention that the girl absolutely refuses to debate her opposition on an open forum where she doesn't have the moderating power just mentioned. You say that she is hated and receives all sort of vulgar responses to her assertions, which does not surprise me in the least considering the shit that she writes in her comments after she bans people. In summary if you wish to champion a person like that, then it is more of a reflection of you and your ignorance.

[Thanas]

Oh FFS, Triece. I have never denied that Egyt had relations with Nubia (hence me calling them cousins, but apparently that escaped your notions). I have also never denied the existence of Pharaohs from Kush in 720 BC (though one should note they ruled only after the culture was already formed) etc. so you can forget about that. I also do not like how you take Bianchi's words out of context (and did not even show a proper cite, apparently hoping I would not be familiar with the work).

I also like how your post is virtually identical to one on the Egyptsearch forums. Nice going there.

In any case, his work shows a parallel development of societies, with the Egyptians developing faster than their cousins and being different enough to be distinguished by skintone in general:

[...]the ancient Egyptians had recourse to several nouns and phrases by which they referred to the nubians. One of the phrases current at the time was "the Nehusi with burnt faces". The Egyptian proper noun, Nehusiu, in this context, connotes a southerner, that is, one who lives south of the border of Egypt. The phrase "with burnt faces" refers to skin colour, because the Nubians' complexions were generally darker than their Egyptian contemporaries. This ancient phrase was not conceived as a racial slur, because the degree of melanin varies among the black africans even today as one travels the continent.

And of course, he details the Egyptians assimilating the distinctive nubians:

The result has been described as a wholesale Nubian assimilation into Egyptian society. This assimilation was so complete that it masked all Nubian ethnic identities insofar as archaeological remains are concerned beneath the impenetrable veneer of Egypt's material; culture.. In the Kushite Period, when Nubians ruled as Pharaohs in their own right, the material culture of Dynasty XXV (about 750-655 B.C.E.) was decidedly Egyptian in character.. Nubia's entire landscape up to the region of the Third Cataract was dotted with temples indistinguishable in style and decoration from contemporary temples erected in Egypt. The same observation obtains for the smaller number of typically Egyptian tombs in which these elite Nubian princes were interred.

And he had this to say about the state of the debate:

But, just as in some quarters aspects of the ancient Egyptian civilization were judged inferior to aspects of the culture of Greece for the fifth century BCE, so, too, aspects of the Nubian culture were considered inferior when yardsticks of ancient Egyptian art were applied to them. The banal Egyptian phrase "vile/wrechted Kush", the stereotypical representations of Nubians among the Nine Bows in ancient Egyptian Art, the abscence of a Nubian language until relatively late in their own cultural history and their seeminly complete assimilation into the Egyptian culture in certain earlier periods contribute to a prevailing negative assesment of Nubian culture.

In some quarters, this apperent denigration of Nubian culture was regarded as a form of white racism. In order to present an alternative view of Nubian culture, a form of what some scholars have termed "black racism" evolved whereby certain Africanists claimed Nubia as the metaphorical egg from which all subsequent Western European arts, sciences and philosophies hatched.
[...]
One needs to see the Nubians for themselves[...]

So....how does this in any way show Egypt as not a melting pot of indigenous population (which arrived there during the great out of africa migration) and people moving in from the south and the east?

And of course they saw themselves very different from the Nubians (as shown on page 5). That one does not suffer discrimination and that there is significant overlap does not mean that there is not a distinction being made, albeit it being political. You continue to miss that point over and over again.

As for the rest, either provide direct quotes of her to prove your point. However, the very fact that you are unable to even read her posts for what they are is pretty bad and smacks of dishonesty.

I'm not about to turn this thread into a debate about the intellectual honesty of the notions championed by some housewife with no fucking credentials. I and many many others have attempted to debate the bitch on her blog, but she censors responses and ultimately bans people for "lying" (code word for debunking her). Not the mention that the girl absolutely refuses to debate her opposition on an open forum where she doesn't have the moderating power just mentioned. You say that she is hated and receives all sort of vulgar responses to her assertions, which does not surprise me in the least considering the shit that she writes in her comments after she bans people. In summary if you wish to champion a person like that, then it is more of a reflection of you and your ignorance.

Concession accepted.

[Big Triece]

deleted

[Big Triece]

Right, because it's not as if ancient Egyptians cluster with neolothic and modern Europeans in the 1993 study

No you dumb fuck, in Brace 1993 the false assumption was that modern Europeans were a continuity of early Europeans. The fact that he referred to both groups interchangeably, gave the false impression that modern Euros had a biological connection with the ancient Egyptians. In reality the data in both studies, clearly show how distinct modern Euros are from the ancient Egyptians and conversely how tropical African early Euros were in physical appearance:

and that 33000 year old skeletons have absolutely nothing to do with it.

If there was a Pre-historic back migration into Africa via the Sinai, and these people had a phenotype distinct from black Africans then it is simply not supported by the fact that every Pre-historic skeletal remain on Nile has the physical appearance of Sub Saharan African populations.

While I have consistently said that Egypt is African, and that clusterings with Near East populations is due to the Near East populations having come from North East Africa in the first place

What study are you referencing concluding that the primary affinity of the ancient Egyptians is with Middle Eastern populations? If it is one then it most certainly has not been presented in this thread. Studies have however been posted flat out refuting such a notion:

"Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Jebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have 'donated' people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988)... Egyptian groups showed less overall affinity to Palestinian and Byzantine remains than to other African series, especially Sudanese." S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54

In this head to head comparison the ancient Egyptians fell into the African series (which even included West Africans) and showed overlapping affinities with the Sudanese.

The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15)."Any questions?

That is not stating that Demic Diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occurred! It states that a point in time there was an extension of Neolithic culture in those respective regions. It also states that the populations from the Middle East migrated westward INTO EUROPE, bringing agriculture into that continent. This is stated and suggested by the data in the time and time and time again throughout that study, whereas the your bogus assertion is not even postulated in text. Face it, you have suck ass reading comprehension skills!

How about that you read it one more time?

Confirmation that you are a clown!

Honestly, whether the words used for the Middle Eastern products were Semitic or not makes not a lick of difference.

It's makes a huge difference and shoots holes through your argument. You are using the presence of products in the Nile Valley which originated in the Middle East as a basis to assert a migration of Middle Easterners into the Nile. The absence of Middle Eastern loan words for those products, negates the claim made by you of a Middle Eastern migration whose influence would have been reflected in early Egyptian language.

But that's neither here nor there, since I don't hold the view that the ancient Egyptians were Semitic in any case.

Yet oddly enough hold a fucking vice grip on the position that there was a significant Semitic presence in ancient Egypt since Pre-Dynastic times. How does this work? There is a significant presence from the Middle East, but according to almost all Egyptologist the influence from the Semites of the Middle East on the formation of the Egyptian state is not clear. If the Middle Eastern population was significantly involved in the formation of ancient Egypt, why is there the impact of their influence considered minimal at best?

Now see, had you posted something like this from the get go, instead of backpedaling now

Bitch, if you like so many other dumbasses had taken the time to actually read the entire fucking thread and understanding the points that were being made then you would have seen where my position stands (as some contributors were obviously able to do). Broomstick and myself actually agreed on this point. The point that made her (and people like you and her) eyes bleed, was calling the inhabitants of this civilization which was almost uniformly a population comprised of Nilo Saharan and Horn Africans, "black". That is all it's been about.

They cluster with different populations depending on sample and criteria, as has been shown by multiple sources.p

First of all the only four source that have been presented pertaining to the biological affinities of the Pre-Dynastic Lower Egyptians were the crania analysis from Keita and Zakrzewski and the limb proportions from the Smith study. Keita essentially states that the crania of these specimens were their own unique form, which originated in Africa according to Zakrzewski. That being said the crania of the Hausa people of Nigeria differ from the Yoruba, so much so that one was considered "Caucasoid" by Carleton S Coon (go figure). Despite the distinction in crania shape and facial features, both populations were indigenous to Africa and tropcially adapted, which is characterized with dark (black) skin. Likewise the crania of Upper and Lower Egyptians were distinct from one another, yet indigenous to Africa. Both populations were tropically adapted in the form of other Africans further south. Both populations were according to ecological principal dark skinned.

Also one question that has been ringing in my mind, is why didn't Egyptian art distinguish a skin color difference between, Upper and Lower Egyptians, if according to many of you one was lighter than the other? They all seem to display the typical brownish red skin tone, which was also used to characterized Nubians further south, but not Middle Easterners.

Yeah, the problem with that is that it is hypocritical. You jumped on a bunch of people for their supposed use of material from that site, and yet, now you're using it yourself.

How in the fuck is getting a properly formatted undoctored image from the study in question which was posted on the bitch's website, equivalent to promoting her misworded interpretations of the studies data?

So now, you're disagreeing with Brace's conclusion... when you had previously cited him as a source. Well, how about that.

The data speaks for itself:







Why would a stronger an equal or stronger Eurasian component place these early Israelis firmly with a the bracket of Northeast Africans and Niger Congo speakers? The fact that Ricaut 2008 which heavily built upon the findings of Brace 2006 makes absolutely no mention of a "Eurasian component" of the Natufanians and only of their Sub Saharan African affinities validates my suspicion that Brace's wording was based on an assumption that the early native inhabitants of region of the Levant were biological distinct from Africans themselves.[/quote]

[Big Triece]

Oh FFS, Triece. I have never denied that Egyt had relations with Nubia (hence me calling them cousins, but apparently that escaped your notions).

I've never stated that you denied it, but you routinely down play relatedness between both populations.

I also do not like how you take Bianchi's words out of context (and did not even show a proper cite, apparently hoping I would not be familiar with the work).

How did I take those context out of word? You never explained this, you instead went on to quote more passages from the source trying to display their differences. I stated that the Egyptians saw themselves as superior to all of the neighbors, and as such regularly noted distinctions between themselves and others except the Puntites (Nubians not excluded) which cast another dismal shadow over your argument. My point is that of the foreigners the Nubians are the ethnically the closest and Egyptians recognized the kinship between themselves and the Nubians in their religion (the Book of the Dead allows Nubians to go to the eternal afterlife not any other non Egyptians) and culture. Therefore those other passages are irrelevant to my overall argument. They also do not negate the fact that the ancient Egyptians and Nubians were essentially the same populations biologically.

"As a result of their facial prognathism, the Badarian sample has been described as forming a morphological cluster with Nubian, Tigrean, and other southern (or \Negroid") groups (Morant, 1935, 1937; Mukherjee et al., 1955; Nutter, 1958, Strouhal, 1971; Angel, 1972; Keita, 1990). (Sonia R. Zakrzewski. (2007). Population Continuity or Population Change: Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 132:501-509)

Places the physical appearance of both Nile Valley populations with "Negroid" populations further south:

I also like how your post is virtually identical to one on the Egyptsearch forums. Nice going there.

You honestly sound like the type, who regularly trolls those threads to pick fights with extremist like Marc Washington, but ignores the contentions of the intellectual forum regulars like The Explorer and Evergreen.

In any case, his work shows a parallel development of societies, with the Egyptians developing faster than their cousins and being different enough to be distinguished by skintone in general:

There was skintone variation amongst nubians as exhibited by Egyptian art. In the reliefs showing these skintone variations, they appear to be equal in quantity:





With one half being approximate to the general skin tone of the Egyptians themselves. This cannot be said about the reliefs depicting other foreigners from the Middle East.

And he had this to say about the state of the debate:

What does this have to do with my stance?

So....how does this in any way show Egypt as not a melting pot of indigenous population (which arrived there during the great out of africa migration) and people moving in from the south and the east?

How do you come to the conclusions that Egypt was a "melting pot" stemming from activities 45,000 years prior to Dynastic culture from the interpretations of this study? As stated by Keita and others there is simply no scientific evidence suggesting that the ancient Egyptians came from anywhere else but Northeast Africa. Give up your aspirations for a Mediterranean continuum being the root of this African civilization. You have no modern support for this argument, and it is fueled by nothing more than your severe Negrophobia.

[Lord Zentei]

Right, because it's not as if ancient Egyptians cluster with neolothic and modern Europeans in the 1993 study

No you dumb fuck, in Brace 1993 the false assumption was that modern Europeans were a continuity of early Europeans. The fact that he referred to both groups interchangeably, gave the false impression that modern Euros had a biological connection with the ancient Egyptians. In reality the data in both studies, clearly show how distinct modern Euros are from the ancient Egyptians and conversely how tropical African early Euros were in physical appearance:

Bullshit, modern Europeans were included there.

and that 33000 year old skeletons have absolutely nothing to do with it.

If there was a Pre-historic back migration into Africa via the Sinai, and these people had a phenotype distinct from black Africans then it is simply not supported by the fact that every Pre-historic skeletal remain on Nile has the physical appearance of Sub Saharan African populations.

We're not talking about 33000 years ago. This discussion pertains to the Kingdom of Egypt. This is a non-sequitur.

While I have consistently said that Egypt is African, and that clusterings with Near East populations is due to the Near East populations having come from North East Africa in the first place

What study are you referencing concluding that the primary affinity of the ancient Egyptians is with Middle Eastern populations? If it is one then it most certainly has not been presented in this thread.

What the Christ? Are you for real? Seriously, what the hell?

The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15)."Any questions?

That is not stating that Demic Diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occurred! It states that a point in time there was an extension of Neolithic culture in those respective regions. It also states that the populations from the Middle East migrated westward INTO EUROPE, bringing agriculture into that continent. This is stated and suggested by the data in the time and time and time again throughout that study, whereas the your bogus assertion is not even postulated in text. Face it, you have suck ass reading comprehension skills!

So, a line of text which says that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westwards into Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion does not state that demic diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occured. I see.

...

Honestly, whether the words used for the Middle Eastern products were Semitic or not makes not a lick of difference.

It's makes a huge difference and shoots holes through your argument. You are using the presence of products in the Nile Valley which originated in the Middle East as a basis to assert a migration of Middle Easterners into the Nile. The absence of Middle Eastern loan words for those products, negates the claim made by you of a Middle Eastern migration whose influence would have been reflected in early Egyptian language.

You are a liar, yet again. That was not the basis for my argument, and you know it full well.

But that's neither here nor there, since I don't hold the view that the ancient Egyptians were Semitic in any case.

Yet oddly enough hold a fucking vice grip on the position that there was a significant Semitic presence in ancient Egypt since Pre-Dynastic times. How does this work? There is a significant presence from the Middle East, but according to almost all Egyptologist the influence from the Semites of the Middle East on the formation of the Egyptian state is not clear. If the Middle Eastern population was significantly involved in the formation of ancient Egypt, why is there the impact of their influence considered minimal at best?

Yet again, you lie about the position I've held in this thread. But it's interesting to see how much you can drool about this.

Now see, had you posted something like this from the get go, instead of backpedaling now

Bitch, if you like so many other dumbasses had taken the time to actually read the entire fucking thread and understanding the points that were being made then you would have seen where my position stands (as some contributors were obviously able to do). Broomstick and myself actually agreed on this point. The point that made her (and people like you and her) eyes bleed, was calling the inhabitants of this civilization which was almost uniformly a population comprised of Nilo Saharan and Horn Africans, "black". That is all it's been about.

The problem has been your consistent lies about what people are saying, and your ignorant and dishonest misinterpretation of the data.

They cluster with different populations depending on sample and criteria, as has been shown by multiple sources.

First of all the only four source that have been presented pertaining to the biological affinities of the Pre-Dynastic Lower Egyptians were the crania analysis from Keita and Zakrzewski and the limb proportions from the Smith study. Keita essentially states that the crania of these specimens were their own unique form, which originated in Africa according to Zakrzewski. That being said the crania of the Hausa people of Nigeria differ from the Yoruba, so much so that one was considered "Caucasoid" by Carleton S Coon (go figure). Despite the distinction in crania shape and facial features, both populations were indigenous to Africa and tropcially adapted, which is characterized with dark (black) skin. Likewise the crania of Upper and Lower Egyptians were distinct from one another, yet indigenous to Africa. Both populations were tropically adapted in the form of other Africans further south. Both populations were according to ecological principal dark skinned.

Right, because bone structure tells so much about skin color.

Also one question that has been ringing in my mind, is why didn't Egyptian art distinguish a skin color difference between, Upper and Lower Egyptians, if according to many of you one was lighter than the other? They all seem to display the typical brownish red skin tone, which was also used to characterized Nubians further south, but not Middle Easterners.

Nubians were depicted as black, while Egyptians were depicted as reddish brown for males or yellow-brown for females. As has been pointed out to you, Egyptian art was highly stylized and not representative. You know this already, so why are you asking this damnfool question?

Yeah, the problem with that is that it is hypocritical. You jumped on a bunch of people for their supposed use of material from that site, and yet, now you're using it yourself.

How in the fuck is getting a properly formatted undoctored image from the study in question which was posted on the bitch's website, equivalent to promoting her misworded interpretations of the studies data?

You jumped on people for more than simply echoing Mathilda's opinions (and you did so even when they had not actually posted any of her arguments). Just ask Ziggy Stardust.

So now, you're disagreeing with Brace's conclusion... when you had previously cited him as a source. Well, how about that.

The data speaks for itself:

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files. ... .jpg?w=500

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/8424/egyptbm.jpg

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.files. ... .jpg?w=500

Why would a stronger an equal or stronger Eurasian component place these early Israelis firmly with a the bracket of Northeast Africans and Niger Congo speakers? The fact that Ricaut 2008 which heavily built upon the findings of Brace 2006 makes absolutely no mention of a "Eurasian component" of the Natufanians and only of their Sub Saharan African affinities validates my suspicion that Brace's wording was based on an assumption that the early native inhabitants of region of the Levant were biological distinct from Africans themselves.

Why don't you read that study again, and think about it some before posting again?

[Thanas]

I've never stated that you denied it, but you routinely down play relatedness between both populations.

On the contrary, I very much follow Bianchi here.

How did I take those context out of word?

Well, when talking about Kush you snipped out the adjective the egyptians placed before it and which can be found in the (unedited by yours) passage. "Vile kush". That is the most important and quite prejudiced edit I could find. I also find it interesting how you omitted the passages talking about the relations between Egypt and Kush I outlined above.

You never explained this, you instead went on to quote more passages from the source trying to display their differences. I stated that the Egyptians saw themselves as superior to all of the neighbors, and as such regularly noted distinctions between themselves and others except the Puntites (Nubians not excluded) which cast another dismal shadow over your argument.

And I do not dispute that they did not see themselves different from the nubians, so I don't know what you are saying here.

My point is that of the foreigners the Nubians are the ethnically the closest and Egyptians recognized the kinship between themselves and the Nubians in their religion (the Book of the Dead allows Nubians to go to the eternal afterlife not any other non Egyptians) and culture. Therefore those other passages are irrelevant to my overall argument.

Oh, that is rich - a passage saying that the idea of Nubia being the birthplace of Egyptian culture is invalid is somehow irrelevant to your overall argument.

BTW, merely claiming that they are the closest related "biologically" when at the start the claim was that they are what essentially turned into modern egypt is a far cry from that orignial point of yours. I don't really care if they are related biologically or not (given the proximity anything else would be surprising, which btw also applies to the Semites, hellenes or Persian genes).

They also do not negate the fact that the ancient Egyptians and Nubians were essentially the same populations biologically.

Yes they do. They are not essentially the same. There is significant influx from the other neighbours of egypt. Zentei already covered this.

BTW, considering how many slaves the Egyptians took from all their neighbours and the mass immigration into Egypt from the levante anything else would also be surprising.

I also like how your post is virtually identical to one on the Egyptsearch forums. Nice going there.

You honestly sound like the type, who regularly trolls those threads to pick fights with extremist like Marc Washington, but ignores the contentions of the intellectual forum regulars like The Explorer and Evergreen.

Ah, so you are a member from there? Thanks for confirming that. And no, I have never used that forum.

In any case, his work shows a parallel development of societies, with the Egyptians developing faster than their cousins and being different enough to be distinguished by skintone in general:

There was skintone variation amongst nubians as exhibited by Egyptian art. In the reliefs showing these skintone variations, they appear to be equal in quantity:





With one half being approximate to the general skin tone of the Egyptians themselves. This cannot be said about the reliefs depicting other foreigners from the Middle East.

You do not know that Egyptian art is not indicative of any basis in reality as far as proportion and colour is considered?

What does this have to do with my stance?

Not much....except that he denied the notion that philosophy, art etc., all that the Egyptians were famous for jumpstarting, developed in Ethiopia and that it was not at the start an indigenous, pure Egyptian achievement.

How do you come to the conclusions that Egypt was a "melting pot" stemming from activities 45,000 years prior to Dynastic culture from the interpretations of this study? As stated by Keita and others there is simply no scientific evidence suggesting that the ancient Egyptians came from anywhere else but Northeast Africa. Give up your aspirations for a Mediterranean continuum being the root of this African civilization.

Zentei already dealt with that.

You have no modern support for this argument, and it is fueled by nothing more than your severe Negrophobia.

I get pretty tired of being accused of being a racist by you.

[Big Triece]

Bullshit, modern Europeans were included there.

OK, why don't you disprove me then? Show me which plot or dendrogram in either of Brace's studies shows a close biological relationship between the ancient Egyptians and modern Europeans. Or if you can't then just shut the fuck up and admit that you're wrong.

We're not talking about 33000 years ago. This discussion pertains to the Kingdom of Egypt. This is a non-sequitur.

Interesting you and others (Thanas for example) routinely reference the African exodus from 50,000 years ago and back migrations within that same 10-15k year time frame, as some sort of dubious basis to assert that the Nile has always been some sort of melting pot, yet you don't see the relevance in the finding that the earliest Nile Valley remains exclusively exhibit Sub Saharan African morphologies. Why are the biological implications of this back migration of non Africans with an undisclosed phenotype, not reflecting your assertion that Egypt has always been a melting pot?

So, a line of text which says that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westwards into Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion does not state that demic diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occured. I see.

Seriously? You are still fucking lying about this?

You keep asserting Demic Diffusion from the Middle East into Africa through a deliberate misinterpretations of this statement from Brace's conclusions, but you have yet to provide any supporting text or data within the body of the study for your interpretation. You can provide no dates for your demic diffusion model, generated in the text for this assertion which is all it really boils down to. This assertion would also have open another can of worms in the form of linguistics (Afro-Asiatic origins), which again is no where to be found in the study. So once again no where in the study does it state that Demic diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occurred. If you wish to argue this through another study (which are hard to find), then do so, but stop lying pretending that you have something with your ambiguous misinterpretations of one sentence in the conclusions. It's silly, you are wrong and you know!

You are a liar, yet again. That was not the basis for my argument, and you know it full well.

What the fuck are you arguing then? All you have being fucking is "Egypt was mixed", "Egypt was mixed", "You just want Egypt to be black black black", "Egypt was mixed", but you have yet to give a specific fucking theory as to why your assert this, let alone well rounded evidence for it. You are bouncing all over the fucking place to make this dubious claim. Are you arguing that Egypt always been heterogeneous on the basis of some back migration from around 35-40k years ago? Are you arguing that Demic Diffusion and Afro-Asiatic from the Middle East came into Africa from the Middle East? If neither, then specify what your specific theory is to assert that "Egypt was mixed" and provide validation for it!

Right, because bone structure tells so much about skin color.

Have you ever heard of ecological principal? If you don't believe me ask Keita:



Or read Brace's words:

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

The ancient Egyptians were a "dark skinned' indigenous African population (how dark we don't know exactly).

Why don't you read that study again, and think about it some before posting again?

Better yet why don't you just exit the thread! Your points are dead, you know it, I know it, and anyone reading this can see.

[Lord Zentei]

Bullshit, modern Europeans were included there.

OK, why don't you disprove me then? Show me which plot or dendrogram in either of Brace's studies shows a close biological relationship between the ancient Egyptians and modern Europeans. Or if you can't then just shut the fuck up and admit that you're wrong.

OK:



From here: (linka).

Here's some more stuff for your pursual:



From here: (linka)

We're not talking about 33000 years ago. This discussion pertains to the Kingdom of Egypt. This is a non-sequitur.

Interesting you and others (Thanas for example) routinely reference the African exodus from 50,000 years ago and back migrations within that same 10-15k year time frame, as some sort of dubious basis to assert that the Nile has always been some sort of melting pot, yet you don't see the relevance in the finding that the earliest Nile Valley remains exclusively exhibit Sub Saharan African morphologies. Why are the biological implications of this back migration of non Africans with an undisclosed phenotype, not reflecting your assertion that Egypt has always been a melting pot?

Actually, the claim was that Egypt had always been a melting pot, but whatever. And "exclusively"... so you're still ignoring the evidence that has been presented to you. What a shock that is.

So, a line of text which says that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westwards into Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion does not state that demic diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occured. I see.

Seriously? You are still fucking lying about this?

You keep asserting Demic Diffusion from the Middle East into Africa through a deliberate misinterpretations of this statement from Brace's conclusions, but you have yet to provide any supporting text or data within the body of the study for your interpretation. You can provide no dates for your demic diffusion model, generated in the text for this assertion which is all it really boils down to. This assertion would also have open another can of worms in the form of linguistics (Afro-Asiatic origins), which again is no where to be found in the study. So once again no where in the study does it state that Demic diffusion from the Middle East into Africa occurred. If you wish to argue this through another study (which are hard to find), then do so, but stop lying pretending that you have something with your ambiguous misinterpretations of one sentence in the conclusions. It's silly, you are wrong and you know!

You really are pathetic, you know that? I've shown you quite clearly, multiple times, that you're wrong. The explicit reading of the text has been shown to you, and this is not the first time that you've demonstrated such bald-faced dishonesty. It''s just ridiculous. What is it about you that makes you incapable of conceding a single point?

You are a liar, yet again. That was not the basis for my argument, and you know it full well.

What the fuck are you arguing then? All you have being fucking is "Egypt was mixed", "Egypt was mixed", "You just want Egypt to be black black black", "Egypt was mixed", but you have yet to give a specific fucking theory as to why your assert this, let alone well rounded evidence for it. You are bouncing all over the fucking place to make this dubious claim. Are you arguing that Egypt always been heterogeneous on the basis of some back migration from around 35-40k years ago? Are you arguing that Demic Diffusion and Afro-Asiatic from the Middle East came into Africa from the Middle East? If neither, then specify what your specific theory is to assert that "Egypt was mixed" and provide validation for it!

Right, you mean apart from Brace's studies and the various studies presented earlier?

Right, because bone structure tells so much about skin color.

Have you ever heard of ecological principal? If you don't believe me ask Keita:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c__JhIjz9g

Or read Brace's words:

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

You fucking moron, he's talking about people who are long-term residents in the TOPICS. That does not apply to Egypt. The dark skin is an adaption to tropical habitat, it does not follow from bone structure. Don't you understand the difference between causation and correlation? Just wow.

The ancient Egyptians were a "dark skinned' indigenous African population (how dark we don't know exactly).

And you're still boldly charging against your favourite strawman. Congratulations.

Why don't you read that study again, and think about it some before posting again?

Better yet why don't you just exit the thread! Your points are dead, you know it, I know it, and anyone reading this can see.

Why, the comedy gold you offer is too good to pass up. Though you are rather repetitive, I must say.

[Big Triece]

OK:http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/L ... dw9gmd.gif

This dendrogram does not indicate that modern Europeans have a close biological affinity towards the ancient Egyptians for the reasons noted earlier. Brace in this study incorrectly assumes that modern Europeans represent a continuation of early Europeans, which is why he lumped them together. The latter fact was the primary conclusion of his 2006 study:

At the same time, the failure of the Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in central and northern Europe to tie to the modern inhabitants supports the suggestion that, while a farming mode of subsistence was spread westward and also north to Crimea and east to Mongolia by actual movement of communities of farmers, the indigenous foragers in each of those areas ultimately absorbed both the agricultural subsistence strategy and also the people who had brought it. -- Brace, et al. The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006
January 3; 103(1): p. 242-247.)

They instead resembled Sub Saharan African populations:

In addition, the Neolithic revolution was assumed to arise in the late Pleistocene Natufians and subsequently spread into Anatolia and Europe (Bar-Yosef 2002), and the first Anatolian farmers, Neolithic to Bronze Age Mediterraneans and to some degree other Neolithic-Bronze Age Europeans, show morphological affinities with the Natufians (and indirectly with sub-Saharan populations; Angel 1972; Brace et al 2005), in concordance with a process of demic diffusion accompanying the extension of the Neolithic revolution (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994)." F. X. Ricaut, M. Waelkens. (2008). Cranial Discrete Traits in a Byzantine Population and Eastern Mediterranean Population Movements Human Biology - Volume 80, Number 5, October 2008, pp. 535-564

Here's some more stuff for your pursual:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/L ... ara5bi.jpg

Yeah more shit you're posting that you don't even know the meaning behind.

A reduction in tooth size occurred in the Nile Valley as a result of a change in the inhabitants diet:

Origins of dental crowding and malocclusions: an anthropological perspective.

Rose JC, Roblee RD.

Compend Contin Educ Dent. 2009 Jun;30(5):292-300.

The study of ancient Egyptian skeletons from Amarna, Egypt reveals extensive tooth wear but very little dental crowding, unlike in modern Americans. In the early 20th century, Percy Raymond Begg focused his research on extreme tooth wear coincident with traditional diets to justify teeth removal during orthodontic treatment. Anthropologists studying skeletons that were excavated along the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan have demonstrated reductions in tooth size and changes in the face, including decreased robustness associated with the development of agriculture, but without any increase in the frequency of dental crowding and malocclusion. For thousands of years, facial and dental reduction stayed in step, more or less. These analyses suggest it was not the reduction in tooth wear that increased crowding and malocclusion, but rather the tremendous reduction in the forces of mastication, which produced this extreme tooth wear and the subsequent reduced jaw involvement. Thus, as modern food preparation techniques spread throughout the world during the 19th century, so did dental crowding. This research provides support for the development of orthodontic therapies that increase jaw dimensions rather than the use of tooth removal to relieve crowding.

Not some dubious claim of wandering Euros into Africa.

You really are pathetic, you know that? I've shown you quite clearly, multiple times, that you're wrong.

The crazy thing is, I believe that you really think that your misinterpretations of that one sentence in that study is correct. You are truly a dumbass, and nothing more can be said!

he's talking about people who are long-term residents in the TOPICS. That does not apply to Egypt. The dark skin is an adaption to tropical habitat, it does not follow from bone structure. Don't you understand the difference between causation and correlation? Just wow.

"Just wow" yourself. The ancient Egyptians were found to be tropically adapted, despite Egypt not being in the Tropics. Do you understand what this means.....THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS DERIVED FROM A POPULATION WHICH CAME FROM THE TROPICS! They were not sub tropically adapted like Mediterranean populations and certainly not cold adapted like Europeans:

"Limb ratios are of interest because of limb ratios' general relationship to climate per Allen's rule. Mammals (including Homo sapiens sapiens) tend to have shorter distal members of the extremities in colder climates; this is viewed as being adaptive. Hence the shin (tibia)/thigh (femur) index in Europeans would on the average be expected to differ from an equatorial population. Indeed, this is one line of evidence used to support the idea that at least some, if not most, Upper Paleolithic (anatomically modern) 'Europeans" were immigrants from warmer areas (Trinkhaus 1981). Of course variation is expected in any region or population.

Trinkhaus (1981) provides upper and lower extremity distal/proximal member ratios for numerous populations, including a predynastic Egyptian and Mediterranean European series. The predynastic Egyptian values plotted near tropical Africans, not Mediterranean Europeans."

--S. Keita, (1993). Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships. History in Africa. Vol. 20, (1993), pp. 129-154

As stated by Keita in the his Cambridge lecture just posted and Brace's Clines and Clusters, according to this biological fact (tropically adaptation) the ancient Egyptians would have been "dark skinned".

[Big Triece]

Oh, that is rich - a passage saying that the idea of Nubia being the birthplace of Egyptian culture is invalid is somehow irrelevant to your overall argument.

What is my overall argument according to you?

BTW, merely claiming that they are the closest related "biologically" when at the start the claim was that they are what essentially turned into modern egypt is a far cry from that orignial point of yours.

What the fuck are you talking about?

I don't really care if they are related biologically or not (given the proximity anything else would be surprising, which btw also applies to the Semites, hellenes or Persian genes).

You are still talking out of your ass! No biological evidence has been presented suggesting that the ancient Egyptians (save the tail end Dynasties) shared a close biological affinity with any of the populations that you listed above.

Yes they do. They are not essentially the same. There is significant influx from the other neighbours of egypt. Zentei already covered this.

The earliest southern predynastic culture, Badari, owes key elements to post-desiccation Saharan and also perhaps "Nubian" immigration (Hassan 1988). Biologically these people were essentially the same (Keita 1990).

Link

Ah, so you are a member from there? Thanks for confirming that. And no, I have never used that forum.

Never stated that I was member of the forum, just a reflection of you poor reading comprehension skills. I do however regularly check for posting of new studies.

Not much....except that he denied the notion that philosophy, art etc., all that the Egyptians were famous for jumpstarting, developed in Ethiopia and that it was not at the start an indigenous, pure Egyptian achievement.

Who in the fuck denies that these were Egyptian innovations? You are persistently sticking your head up your ass, when any and every authoritative source presented, confirms that the Egyptian civilization derived from inner African cultures. You should understand what derived means, shouldn't you? This fact does not take away from what the ancient Egyptians later accomplished, it just shows where the roots of the civilization lay towards and that is in the African regions further south.

I get pretty tired of being accused of being a racist by you.

And I am getting about fed up with your blatant denial of this clear fact. You know the reason why you're denying this shit, as do I.

[matter]

Let me just try to do a summary of my understanding of the peopling of the Nile Valley as I have deduced from reading many scholars on this subject: The Badarian and Early Naqada predynastic cultures were the northermost,relatively younger variants of a wider spread culture mainly in the 5th and early 4th millennium BC(called variously-Nubian Neolithic Culture Group by Gatto2006,2009;or Middle Nile Culture by Ehret 1993; Pastoral Neolithic of the Nile by Wengrow 2006; Saharo-Nubian Neolithic by Anselin 2009)- other variants of this same culture included the Tasians,Abkans,Rayaynas,Kiddanians,Early A-Group,Final Western Desert Neolithic,Kadruka,Kerma Neolithic, Khartoum Neolithics(Kadero,El kadada,Sheinahab,Geili etc).

This culture of course descended from the so called Khartoum Variant, A cousin of the Early Khartoum-all part of the wide spread Saharo-Sudanese technocomplex of the Sahara. The Early Badarians and Naqadans migrated to a very sparsely populated Upper Egyptian(southern) Valley as the Eastern Sahara was rapidly drying up carrying this Nubian Neolithic Culture with them,during the mid-5th Millenium BC, with elements that would them be synthesized and processed into the Naqadan culture, especially during the mid to late phases of the culture-this developed Naqadan culture is the famous Egyptian Culture that one sees in dynastic times.

The expanding Naqadan culture would then interact and subsequently replace the Lower(northern)Neolithics(especially so-called Buto-Maadi culture) during the late 4th millenium BC, thereby forming cultural unity(see The Nubian Pastoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa:A view from the archaeological record,2009 by Maria Gatto; Ancient Egyptian as an African Language,Egypt as an African Culture,1993 by Christopher Ehret;The Archaeology of Early Egypt:social transformation in North-East Africa,2006 by D.Wengrow;Ancient Egypt in Africa,2003 edited by D. O'Connor and A. Reid pg.18-21;Some Notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures from which Emerged Egyptian Civilization,2009 by Alain Anselin;Egypt and Sub-Saharan African: their interaction,1997 in Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa edited by Joseph Vogel).

These early Badarians and Naqadans were biologically, in the main, tropically/supertropically adapted indigenous northeast Africans that had greatest biological affinities with other northeast Africans and other southern Africans,especially those in the horn and the sahel-sahara(see Egyptians,physical anthropology by Nancy Lovell in Encyclopedia of Archaeology of Ancient Egypt (ed) by Kathryn Bard and Steven Blacke;Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships byS. O. Y. Keita,1993;Studies of Ancient Crania from North Africa,1990 by S O Y Keita; A Bioarchaeological Perspective on State Formation In the Nile Valley,PhD Dissertation by Barbara Santa,2004;Examination of Nubian and Egyptian Biological Distances:Support for Biological Diffusion or in situ Development by Godde K,2009;Population Continuity or Population Change:Formation of the Ancient Egyptian State,2007 by Sonia R. Zakrzewski). While the sparsely populated Lower Egyptians were another divergent indigenous African Populations,they interacted with Middle Eastern cultures and is likely that some level of gene flow occurred with them(Berry Kemp 2005).

EVERY single word asserted above will be DEMOSTRATED if asked to by other posters, but that should please be after those posters have read 11 or so full studies that have been cited-all of whom can easily gotten by a simple google search, and some of which have already been cited in this forum;Only after this will I respond to any questions(and I except many) that may arise. PLEASE lets settle down and debate ,but with respect with others opinions even if they disagree with us-although we must all be honest with ourselves enough to accept points when they have been demonstrated by others and stop strawmans-only then can we understand things better.

[Thanas]

I approved the above post, but I will not approve another, nor will anyone be required to reply to you unless you start to use some spacing.

[matter]

@Thanas you see that is the thing-not using spacing is a reflection of my inability to do so,so I apologise. Can you or others please list the steps needed to do a proper edited and spaced post? Thanks

[Thanas]

I did so, but please try to write less long sentences in the future. Your posts are pretty hard to read.


I also do not think that anyone will really disagree with your post as even those who believe in the theory of levantine influence do not really think it occured a thousand years before the early dynasties were even formed. Everybody is pretty much onboard the "original push out of africa several thousands of years ago, then second push from nubia into egypt over a few thousand years before dynastic formation." What people are debating is the range of influence from the Levante and the populatons who moved there. People like Triece seem to be of the viewpoint that no such significant influence existed.

[Thanas]

Oh, that is rich - a passage saying that the idea of Nubia being the birthplace of Egyptian culture is invalid is somehow irrelevant to your overall argument.

What is my overall argument according to you?

That the ancient Egyptians from early statehood on were of tropic/nubian origin and that other influx was not significant to alter that markup, thereby making the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians not part of a shared mediterranean cultural cycle influenced in part by the levant.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Your posts over the past 20 pages.

You are still talking out of your ass! No biological evidence has been presented suggesting that the ancient Egyptians (save the tail end Dynasties) shared a close biological affinity with any of the populations that you listed above.

Yes yes, just continue everything posted.

Never stated that I was member of the forum, just a reflection of you poor reading comprehension skills. I do however regularly check for posting of new studies.

It must be nice to be part of conformation bias.

Who in the fuck denies that these were Egyptian innovations? You are persistently sticking your head up your ass, when any and every authoritative source presented, confirms that the Egyptian civilization derived from inner African cultures. You should understand what derived means, shouldn't you? This fact does not take away from what the ancient Egyptians later accomplished, it just shows where the roots of the civilization lay towards and that is in the African regions further south.

The roots of the civilization, thousand of years before they became what we know as the Egyptian kingdoms (and after influx from the Levant) lie in the African regions further south. Nobody has ever denied that, you dolt. Also nobody is denying that the roots of all civilizations of this earth also lie in Africa. I guess the idea of people moving out and later returning is a bit too much.

[Big Triece]

That the ancient Egyptians from early statehood on were of tropic/nubian origin and that other influx was not significant to alter that markup

What other external influx could you possibly be talking about Thanas? I asked you this in my last reply, you responded stating that Zentei has proven this... Are you fucking kidding me? Zentei does not even know, when some sort of pre-historic "Caucasoid" migration into African occurred to support his claims that Egyptians have always been "racially mixed". When I asked him to clarify what was his specific theory for this so called back migration, HE COULD NOT RESPOND. Furthermore any theory of some Pre-Dynastic migration from external (non African) sources has been thoroughly debunked by every mainstream scholar on the subject:

However, the Horn is at the same latitude as Nigeria, and its languages are African. The latitude of 15 degree passes through Timbuktu, surely in "sub-Saharan Africa," as well as Khartoum in Sudan; both are north of the Horn. Another false idea is that supra-Saharan and Saharan Africa were peopled after the emergence of "Europeans" or Near Easterners by populations coming from outside Africa. Hence, the ancient Egyptians in some writings have been de-Africanized. These ideas, which limit the definition of Africa and Africans, are rooted in racism and earlier, erroneous "scientific" approaches." (S. Keita, "The Diversity of Indigenous Africans," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Clenko, Editor (1996), pp. 104-105.])

So Thanas once again what other "influx" besides the ones that are perfectly supported in "Matters" summary above lead to the creation of Egypt?

thereby making the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians not part of a shared mediterranean cultural cycle influenced in part by the levant.

Thanas, Egypt's origins were not apart of some fucking Mediterranean continuum, and once again this is perfectly demonstrated by the summary of mainstream scholarship by "Matter" above. The closest cultural and biological affinities towards the original ancient Egyptians were more southerly Northeast African populations in which modern Nilotic populations in this region still have retained the cultural practices which linked them together:

"A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty."

"It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk)."(Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508)

Another clip from Basil Davidson displaying this continuum to the south clearly.

Biological affinities:

"Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans." (S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)

Why are the ancient Egyptians, not closing a biological relationship with Mediterranean populations Thanas? From this evidence we can most certainly see that there is a black African continuum for the formation of Dynastic culture in Upper Egypt. So is it safe to say that you are pulling these assertions out of your ass?

It must be nice to be part of conformation bias.

Aren't you the say person who stated that housewife with no credentials who has a blog which views African diversity as a reflection of "Caucasoid admixture", is always refuting "Afrocentrics"? Yeah, OK!

The roots of the civilization, thousand of years before they became what we know as the Egyptian kingdoms (and after influx from the Levant) lie in the African regions further south.

What Levantine Influx Thanas? When did this occur? What biological, linguistic or cultural evidence has persuaded you so strongly of this? Don't sheild yourself behind someone else retardation, stand up like a man and make a fool of your own damn self with your own damn argument which obviously is one that lies near and dear to your heart.

[Thanas]

Part III of the multipart reply:

PART III - Ancient Egyptian Art and why it proves nothing.

One of the main mistakes of this debate is taking Ancient Egyptian Art to be photorealistic.

This cannot be any further from the truth:

But in ancient Egypt, artists did not even attempt to give depth as such to their compositions. They accepted the drawing surface as flat and represented the surface the subjects of their composition through a series of symbols[...]

Artists were not interpreting the world as they saw it, but were interpreting it as a series of concepts. This means that they produced images that had no direct relationship with reality but were constructed according to known conventions in order to convey desired information to the observer. If modern viewers do not understand this, they can never fully appreciate Egyptian art.

Source: Robins,G., Proportion And Style In Ancient Egyptian Art, Austin 1994 (University of Texas Press)

This is completely different to Greek and later Roman Art, where (especially in Roman Art) Photorealism was a stated goal. For the Romans, to be remembered, one had to be known. It would not do to have a set of statues depicting your ancestors if they all looked alike - unlike the Egyptians, who believed that ones kha would continue on forever as personified by the unchanging appearance.

This website has a good comparison between Greek and Egyptian art:

Statues comprised a set of very strict laws, which every artist had to follow, artists were ranked according to exact implementation of these laws. So it happened that in the course of three thousand years or more Egyptian art changed very little
- Heavy set figures, large heads, round plump faces, showing no facial expression, emotion or any suggestion of movement
- eyes gazing straight ahead, arms glued to their sides
- Seated statues had to have their hands on their knee
- Men statues had to be made using darker materials than women
- legs close together and feet parallel, sculptures of the Pharaohs were usually represented as either standing with the left foot advanced, or seated on a cubic block represented as a throne.
- Emphasis on symmetry

Therefore, Egyptian art cannot be taken as any sort of reliable evidence. See for example this:

The first is an Egyptian depiction, the second a Roman one. They both depict Kleopatra VII. We know that she was of Greek heritage, yet by the Egyptian portraits one could think differently. There is no more a clear cut example of Egyptian artists ignoring reality to follow well-established convention. Another example would be Augustus, who is depicted in Egyptian Art as a typical Pharaoh. See this one from Dendur, for example. We all know what Augustus looked like, but you wouldn't know it from the Egyptian art of him.

Also, we do know that a lot of ancient stone portrayals were painted over. The stone in many cases only acted as a base. Thus, even if we were to conclude that stone portrayals are absolutely accurate when it comes to body proportions and facial features (they are not, see above), then it does not follow that one can conclude skintone or other factors from it. Depending on the paint applied, a statue may have looked completely different in Ancient times.

Another issue is the colouring. People seem to think that the colours in Ancient Egyptian reliefs mean anything. In fact, they do not. As seen above, royalty and the Important figures like Gods or Pharaohs were always depicted darker than their female companions, as were males in general over females.

If one wants to claim differently he or she should present a peer-reviewed, detailled study of Egyptian Art.

[Big Triece]

What people are debating is the range of influence from the Levante and the populatons who moved there. People like Triece seem to be of the viewpoint that no such significant influence existed.

Now what does Triece use to back this assertion, besides conclusive biological evidence:

"What is truly unique about this state is the integration of rule over an extensive geographic region, in contrast to other contemporaneous Near Easter polities in Nubia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the Levant. Present evidence suggests that the state which emerged by the First Dynasty had its roots in the Nagada culture of Upper Egypt, where grave types, pottery and artifacts demonstrate an evolution of form from the Predynastic to the First Dynasty, This cannot be demonstrated for the material culture of Lower Egypt, which was eventually displaced by that which originated in Upper Egypt. Hierarchical society with much social and economic differentiation, as symbolized in the Nagada II cemeteries of Upper Egypt, does not seem to have been present, then, in Lower Egypt, a fact which supports an Upper Egyptian origin for the unified state. Thus archaeological evidence cannot support earlier theories that the founders of Egyptian civilization were an invading Dynastic race from the east.."

"Egyptian contact in the 4th millennium B.C. with SW Asia is undeniable, but the effect of this contact on state formation is Egypt is less clear... The unified state which emerged in Egypt in the 3rd millenium B.C. however, was unlike the polities in Mesopotamia, the Levant, northern Syria, or Early Bronze Age Palestine- in sociopolitical organization, material culture, and belief system. There was undoubtedly heightened commercial contact with SW Asia in the 4th millennium B.C., but the Early Dynastic state which emerged in Egypt is unique and religious in character."
(Bard, Kathryn A. 1994 The Egyptian Predynastic: A Review of the Evidence. Journal of Field Archaeology 21(3):265-288.)

link

The roots of Dynastic culture lay entirely within Upper Egypt, which has been concluded to have stemmed various inner African cultures. Now how in the Hell can Egyptian culture be apart of a "Mediterranean continuum", when the influence of the Mediterranean on Pre-Dynastic culture is not certain? Quite simply Thanas you are subscribing to nothing more than a fucking fantasy in regards to ancient Egyptian kinship, which stems from nothing more than ignorance of the subject, and an unwillingness to admit that you are dead fucking wrong. Which would consequently prove that people whom you perceive as "Afrocentric" (and subsequently detests) were right about Kemet all along.

[Big Triece]

Part III of the multipart reply:

PART III - Ancient Egyptian Art and why it proves nothing.

In summary you know that you don't have a rebuttal to the indisputable facts of the biological or cultural facts in regards to this subject, so you will resort to your own original research which determines which Egyptian art can be used and which cannot. In doing this you will are deceptively being selective in which Egyptian art (from the Greco-Roman period) you feel can be properly used to represent ancient Egypt. In response to your bullshit analysis of the subject I will post this passage from the Fitzwilliam Museum (REAL objective scholars) on what artistic expressions used to represent the ancient Egyptians typically represented in terms of their phenotype:

There are many links between ancient Egyptian and modern African culture, ranging from objects such as headrests to hairstyles such as the side lock, and this and other evidence support the idea that it was an African culture in addition to being geographically in Africa. For these reasons Egypt is seen by people of African descent as part of their cultural heritage and history. The concept of Egypt as part of Africa is not a new one. Some of the earliest travellers to Egypt came from the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, including Greek philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, writers and poets who came to learn from the priests. To the Greeks and Romans, Egypt was an African country, and their artists depicted the Egyptians as Africans, with black skin and tightly curled hair, described by the Greek historian Herodotos in the fifth century BC as 'woolly'.

Feel free the read the entire article. You might learn something!

[Thanas]

That the ancient Egyptians from early statehood on were of tropic/nubian origin and that other influx was not significant to alter that markup

What other external influx could you possibly be talking about Thanas?

Maybe the same influx which introduced goats? Maybe the asia-africa back migration?

Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25* are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95%. Phylogenetic evidence and coalescence time estimates suggest that R-P25* chromosomes (or their phylogenetic ancestor) may have been carried to Africa by an Asia-to-Africa back migration in prehistoric times. Here, we describe six new mutations that define the relationships among the African R-P25* Y chromosomes and between these African chromosomes and earlier reported R-P25 Eurasian sub-lineages. The incorporation of these new mutations into a phylogeny of the R1b haplogroup led to the identification of a new clade (R1b1a or R-V88) encompassing all the African R-P25* and about half of the few European/west Asian R-P25* chromosomes. A worldwide phylogeographic analysis of the R1b haplogroup provided strong support to the Asia-to-Africa back-migration hypothesis.

Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages, European Journal of Human Genetics (2010) 18, Cruciano

I'll respond to it more later in another part of my multi-part reply.

[Thanas]

Part III of the multipart reply:

PART III - Ancient Egyptian Art and why it proves nothing.

In summary you know that you don't have a rebuttal to the indisputable facts of the biological or cultural facts in regards to this subject, so you will resort to your own original research which determines which Egyptian art can be used and which cannot. In doing this you will are deceptively being selective in which Egyptian art (from the Greco-Roman period) you feel can be properly used to represent ancient Egypt.

How about you go pick up that book I referenced? You'll note it references all periods of egyptian Art. The art I used is mainly there to show how even people who looked nothing like your idea of Egyptians were referenced as such.

Now, are you going to attack the people who wrote that book as racists as well?

To the Greeks and Romans, Egypt was an African country, and their artists depicted the Egyptians as Africans, with black skin and tightly curled hair, described by the Greek historian Herodotos in the fifth century BC as 'woolly'.

You dishonest fuck. I already dealt with that here.