amun
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Post by amun on Sept 6, 2011 3:07:20 GMT -5
Why are modern Nubians physically much less Caucasoid than Horners? This in spite of the fact that they enjoy a much more northerly location. Just look at the following anthropometric charts: Interestingly, they don't appear to be genetically significantly more Sub-Saharan than Horners. Their mtDNA frequencies. Source: Richards et al. (2000), (N=51). H 5.90% HV 3.90% J 5.90% K 2.00% L0a 3.90% L0f 2.00% L1b 7.80% L2a 15.70% L3* 3.90% L3b 2.00% L3f 9.80% L3i 2.00% L5a 5.90% M1 9.80% R* 3.90% R0a 5.90% T1a 3.90% T2 2.00% U3 2.00% X 2.00% Overall similar to Horners, ~50% L and ~50% M and N derived lineages. Their yDNA frequencies. Source: Hassan et al. (2008), (N=39). B-M60 7.70% E1b1b-M215(xE1b1b-V12) 7.70% E1b1b-V12 15.40% F-M89(xH1-M52, I-M170, J-12f2, K-M9) 10.30% I-M170 5.10% J-12f2(xJ2-M172) 41.00% J2-M172 2.60% R1b1-P25 10.30% Slightly more haplogroup J and R than Horners, but overall similar. Autosomally, note this population labeled 'Sudanese' here are North Sudanese Arabs from Khartoum, who are, for all intents and purposes, Nubians. img40.imageshack.us/img40/5161/cavallisforza.jpgAgain not too different. So what's going on? Why do they look morphologically more 'African' than Horners?
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Post by Noah on Sept 7, 2011 1:36:07 GMT -5
A few comments first. That plot in the link above is based on an old book-length study from the mid-1990s titled The History and Geography of Human Genes (HGHG) by the Italian population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The study relied on a few classical markers for its results. However, researchers have since discovered that it actually takes exponentially more such ancestry informative markers/AIMs to arrive at a sastisfactory biological diagnosis. A low number of AIMs, like those featured in the Cavalli-Sforza's paper, consistently inflates the minority admixture component in a given population. In the Hamitic people of North Africa and the Horn, that would be the intrusive Sub-Saharan element. "There was an inverse correlation between the number of AIMs used to estimate ancestry and mean and standard deviation of the error in ancestry estimation. Using AIMs, African ancestry was consistently overestimated, while the major ancestral component (European in Puerto Ricans and Native American in Mexicans) was systematically underestimated. Using 300 or fewer AIMS consistently produced a standard deviation of ancestry estimation error of 10% or greater[...] Our results illustrate significant error in the estimation of individual ancestry using AIMs. There is both systematic bias resulting in overestimation of African ancestry (and underestimation of other continental ancestry) and random error. Such error is inversely proportional to the number of AIMs used. These findings may have implications for genetic association studies where ancestry is used to control for population stratification as well as for studies examining associations of individual ancestry estimates with a phenotype."
www.ashg.org/2010meeting/abstracts/fulltext/index.shtml
Cavalli-Sforza also made quite a few mistakes in that study, clustering together improbable groupings such as the Khoisan and Somalis. For this error, he was criticized by colleagues such as Steve Brandt: "In a paper read at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association this past Fall, Stephen Brandt (U/Florida) took L.L. Cavalli-Sforza to task over putative deficiencies in the giant book, called HGHG in our publications. Speaking as an archeologist and Africanist, and a specialist in the Horn of Africa, Steve listed these faults of Luca's giant opus: (1) HGHG used so-called populations which differed greatly by content, as tribes, pooled ethnic groups, or groups of languages. (2) HGHG chose 7 'populations' to represent the many different groups found in the Horn, but not a good sample. Too much lumping. (3) Cluster analysis produced some bloopers, like Somali & Khoisan! (4) HGHG tries to explain intermediate position of Ethiopians between Near Eastern and Negroid peoples by invoking Arab + Negroid migrants meeting and mixing + resident Khoisaners (Bushmen) in Horn early. (5) Khoisan substrate unacceptable; no archeology to back it up. (6) Bad business of racial labels."
www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/MT30.HTM
The linguist and historian Roger Blench also voiced criticism: "the tree also groups together closely the following;
Sandawe (central Tanzania) with Fulfulde, Wolof and Serer (Senegambia) San (Southern Africa) with Somali (Horn of Africa) Kunama (northern Ethiopia) with SE Bantu Bantoid (central Cameroun) with Hausa (savannah West Africa).
These groupings are all geographically remote from one another and neither their cultures nor their languages have anything in common, being part of different phyla. Such conjunctions correspond to no known historical or archaeological data. It seems very difficult to know what meaning to attach to them or how to use them in any credible reconstruction of African prehistory. Another more disturbing aspect of this type of analysis is the way inconvenient conjunctions are removed when Cavalli-Sforza is writing directly of the links with language. Thus in Cavalli-Sforza (1991) where the standard genetic classifications of language phyla are mapped against the results from DNA, these inconvenient results have disappeared, appearing to make the match between disciplines more convincing than actually it is."
www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/Fulltext/philippson/BlenchGenetics&LinguisticsInAfrica.pdf
As did the geneticist Rik Leemans and his co-researchers: "Where gene frequencies give results that are implausible on the basis of other evidence (such as a close proximity between the Somalis and the San) the authors have few qualms about dismissing the result."
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534700890862
"Similarly, Khoi and San populations cluster with a Somali sample (which itself is held to be out of place, given that Somali groups geographically sit within the Northern African range), while Sandawe clusters with populations from Senegambia and Hadza is an outlier between the two. Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994:169–70, 174–77, 189–93) posit that especially San populations are the result of admixture between “Caucasoid” groups originating in Southwest Asia and African “Negroid” groups. This is supposed to be a different process of interaction across the Red Sea from the one that yielded the distinctive genetic and physical characteristics of Ethiopian populations; indeed, the San and Ethiopian peoples are held to be “similar to Caucasoids but... otherwise very different [from one another]” ( p. 191)[...]
the Khoisan affiliations of Sandawe and/or Hadza are still disputed by some linguists, and in any case the available genetic data do not indicate a close relationship between Sandawe and Hadza people, on the one hand, and San and Somali people, on the other."
www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/300144
In addition, Cavalli-Sforza was apparently already aware of the mistake since he too confessed in the paper that the: "second outlier is a cluster of Khoisanids including Somali. This may be an error". The foregoing limitations are basically why Cavalli-Sforza himself no longer relies on a few AIMs for his work. Instead, he has moved on to the much more robust and reliable genome-wide studies that most researchers now use (and which are discussed elsewhere throughout this website). To put the final nail in the coffin, more recent uniparental markers have since shown that modern Somalis actually possess among the lowest frequencies in the Horn of Khoisan-associated Y DNA and mtDNA clades. Maternally, the Cushitic and Semitic-speaking groups in the Horn form a cluster with fellow Hamites in Egypt, not with Sub-Saharan groups. "Africa was divided based on geography combined in a few cases with ethnicity (in the case of Pygmy hunter gatherers and Bantu speakers). SAMOVA was used to eliminate the following outlier groups: West Pygmy (Cameroon, C.A.R., and Gabon), Khoisan speakers (South Africa and Botswana), East Pygmy group Mbuti (D.R.C.), and Moroccan sample (mainly Berbers from North Africa). After removing outliers, the remaining states were divided using SAMOVA into 4 groups: WC/SW Bantu speakers from Angola, Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, E/SE sample from Kenya and Mozambique Bantu speakers, NE/E sample from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and W/WC countries after excluding Bantu speakers and Pygmy hunter-gatherers[...] MDS plot showing the mtDNA variation-based genetic distances between African populations after the outliers[...] were excluded from the calculations. This plot shows the general structure of the remaining regions (with highlighted W/WC clustering) and their relationship to the admixed African American populations, depicted using only the African portion of their ancestry."
www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014495
Now on to the Nubians. To start, it is more phylogenetically accurate in my opinion to categorize the Nubians' mtDNA into three separate groups as opposed to simply two Eurasian and Sub-Saharan categories. This is because, despite its name, haplogroup L3 is actually much more related to the Eurasian maternal clades (which all descend from it) than it is to the Sub-Saharan L haplotypes. "L3 is more related to Eurasian haplogroups than to the most divergent African clusters L1 and L2."
www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/2/13
A more useful categorization would thus look as follows: *Eurasian clades -- mtDNA haplogroups M & N and their derivatives *Proto-Eurasian clades -- mtDNA haplogroup L3 *Sub-Saharan clades -- L(xL3) i.e. all mtDNA macrohaplogroup L lineages except for L3
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Post by Noah on Sept 7, 2011 1:36:48 GMT -5
That said, Nubians actually don't always appear much more Sub-Saharan than Horners. With whom Nubians predominantly biologically cluster and how close those affinities are completely depends on the actual type of Nubian that is being analysed. What I mean by that is that the modern people referred to as "Nubians" are a very mixed population. Some look little different from Egyptians and other predominantly Hamitic people, like the famous singer Mohamed Mounir: Others look Negroid, albeit with minor admixture: To understand why this is so, we need to examine the Nile Valley's history. Originally, the large towns in Kush were mainly inhabited by people closely related to the ancient Egyptians. This Hamitic type used to inhabit a virtually uninterrupted stretch of land extending from the Egypt/Libya border through to the Horn. "The affinities of the Galla and Somali to the A-group, C-group and Meroitic populations of Lower Nubia : these are very close, and they may suggest the extension of the Predynastic Upper Egyptian type over a very wide area in north-east Africa. It cannot be said with any certainty, however, whether the people of that type existed over all that area since Predynastic times, or whether they were pushed from their earliest known home in Egypt southwards under pressure from the north at various times."
books.google.ca/books?id=n8LNAAAAMAAJ&q=%22these+are+very+close,+and+they+may+suggest+the+extension+of+the%22&dq=%22these+are+very+close,+and+they+may+suggest+the+extension+of+the%22&lr=&ei=U-i5SoCHJo7SMruM_MMP&client=firefox-a
This is why the Egyptians often depicted the peoples in the area in quite similar terms as themselves. For instance, note the following peoples of Kush, their non-Negroid hair form, facial features and typically Egyptian reddish-brown skin: This is also why the dental affinities of the peoples of ancient Kush and Egypt are linked to and characterized by simple, mass-reduced teeth like other Hamitic people in North Africa and West Eurasians. Sub-Saharan peoples (Nilotes) from more southernly areas later invaded the region. The Egyptians depicted these new invaders in markedly different terms, highlighting their characteristic Negroid physical features like in the figure below: Contrast that image with the Hamitic peoples of Kush shown earlier. Which of the two groups of people logically more closely resembles the typical ancient Egyptians below? Admixture between these Negroid newcomers and the original Hamitic peoples of Kush then took place. "In Nubia, according to the results of the analysis of physical anthropology, the original Europoid (Caucasoid) stock of the population was several times overrun by Negroid waves, flowing in from the south. Negroes and Negroids penetrated to Egypt only sporadically, and their frequency, uneven according to time, place and the diagnostical knowledge of the investigator, has been estimated as I to 5 per cent."
www.jstor.org/pss/180563
Kushites from the Meroitic period that were recently genetically tested were found to carry about 61% Eurasian genes versus 39% or so Sub-Saharan markers. In other words, they were already mixed by that time, but their overall affinities still clustered with West Eurasians. "The Hpal (np3,592) mitochondrial DNA marker is a selectively neutral mutation that is very common in sub-Saharan Africa and is almost absent in North African and European populations. It has been screened in a Meroitic sample from ancient Nubia through PCR amplification and posterior enzyme digestion, to evaluate the sub-Saharan genetic influences in this population. From 29 individuals analysed, only 15 yield positive amplifications, four of them (26·7%) displaying the sub-Saharan African marker. Hpa I (np3,592) marker is present in the sub-Saharan populations at a frequency of 68·7 on average. Thus, the frequency of genes from this area in the Merotic Nubian population can be estimated at around 39% (with a confidence interval from 22% to 55%). The frequency obtained fits in a south-north decreasing gradient of Hpa I (np3,592) along the African continent. Results suggest that morphological changes observed historically in the Nubian populations are more likely to be due to the existence of south-north gene flow through the Nile Valley than to in-situ evolution."
mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/boring-dna-evidence-from-ancient-nubians/
This was also observed in hair analysis of ancient mummies from the region: "Hair samples from 76 burials at Semna South (Sudanese Nubia) were examined using a variety of techniques. Electrophoresis and fluorescence microscopy indicated some oxidation of the cuticule and keratin protein had taken place. However, the cuticular structure and the lack of fluorescence of the cortex indicate that the low humidity and non-alkaline conditions preserved the physical and chemical properties of the hair well. Pigmentation, even allowing for oxidation of melanin, showed a higher proportion of lighter samples than is currently associated with the Nubian area. Hair form analysis showed medium diameter and scale count; the curling variables were intermediate between European and African samples. There was a high ratio of maximum to minimum curvature (a measure of irregularity), approached only by Melanesian samples. Meroitic and X-group burial types were not statistically significantly different (largely due to sample sizes), but the X-group, especially males, showed more African elements than the Meroitic in the curling variables. Principal components analysis showed the Semna sample to be significantly different from seven populations examined earlier[...]
Principal components analysis (Hrdy, ’73) results on the first three components (accounting for 80% of the variance) are shown in table 3 for the total population, with comparative populations from Hrdy (’73). In component I, which is heavily loaded on general curling variables and scale count, the total sample centroid was significantly different from European and African samples, though it was definitely more European than African."
mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/seventies-nubian-mummy-hair-study/
Besides greater overall ties with Eurasian hair samples, the authors also found a surprisingly non-negligible incidence of brown, red and even blond hair: "Samples that were graded on the red scale (I-VI) for degree of red pigmentation were also graded on the blond-brown-black scale (A-Y) for degree of black pigmentation. Twenty-six percent (29% of the Meroitic, 13% of the Xgroup) of the total sample had some red pigmentation, and 10.5% (8.9 Meroitic, 13% Xgroup) had “blond” pigmentation (Fischer- Saller category G or less)." Traces of the original Hamitic builders of Kush were further reduced over the centuries by greater admixture with the Negroid invaders. This eventually reached a point where the Meroites abandoned their original Meroitic language and adopted in its place the Nilo-Saharan language of the incoming Nilotes. Contrary to the linguist Claude Rilly's theories, Meroitic itself is not a Nilotic language but likely an Afro-Asiatic one, just like the Egyptian language of their neighbors. According to recent linguistic work spearheaded by Kirsty Rowan: "Research into the classification of Meroitic within a language family has consistently focused upon the Nilo-Saharan phylum (Trigger 1964, 1977, Bender 1981a, Hintze 1989, Peust 1999a, Aubin 2003, Rilly 2003, 2004a, 2005). However, this paper puts forward the proposal that the investigation should instead be concentrated on the Afroasiatic phylum. This is due to the process of consonantal compatibility restrictions being evident across languages within the Afroasiatic phylum, and that through the investigation set forward in this paper, it is found that these restrictions also exist in the Meroitic language. This investigation rests upon the firmest known aspect of the language, namely the phonemic values of the signs and their distribution[...]
The process of consonantal compatibility restrictions in languages across the Afroasiatic phylum is explained through subsections on a selection of these languages. This discussion then leads on to the core analysis of these restrictions in the Meroitic language. Further evidence is given which shows that the affiliation of Meroitic with the Nilo-Saharan Nubian language should finally be abandoned as this proposal consistently reappears even though it has drawn no conclusive evidence in the hundred years in which it has been constantly investigated."
www.soas.ac.uk/linguistics/research/workingpapers/volume-14/file37822.pdf
This additional Negroid admixture incurred by the peoples of Kush was later somewhat offset by waves of immigration from Arabia that introduced the Semitic-associated haplogroup J lineages that you've noted above. So that's basically why one sees great variability in the Nubian samples, both recent and old, and an often-times comparable genetic and anthropological profile to Horners and other peoples of predominant Hamitic affinities. With regard to the older Nubian samples, it really depends during which era and where those samples were taken from since different parts of Kush experienced different degrees of Negroid penetration at different time periods. With regard to the modern samples, Nubians that are predominantly of Hamito-Semitic Caucasoid descent like Mohamed Mounir obviously will not cluster in a similar pattern as Nubians that are predominantly of Nilotic Negroid descent like the woman in the second picture below him. So we can see Nubians that predominantly cluster with Hamitic folks & Eurasians like in the dendrogram below (taken from the same study as the first plot in your post above). And this other study: Or we can see them cluster in an intermediate position between Hamitic groups and Negroid groups, as in this other study below. Also have a look at the this page for some more choice quotes on the relationship between the ancient Hamitic peoples of Kush & Egypt and modern Horners.
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Post by hamiticsister101 on Sept 24, 2011 15:35:38 GMT -5
Modern day Nubians are a mixture of Nilotic pure Nubians, Arab invaders, and centuries of Cushitic and ancient Egyptian mingling along with Greco-Roman influence. This is why they look the way they do today, but in reality have pure Nilotic origins.
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Post by Noah on Sept 25, 2011 2:22:01 GMT -5
Welcome back sis! The Nilotes that invaded Kush should indeed not be confused with the actual Hamitic builders of the empire. The scholar Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis recently wrote an interesting article criticizing this (latest) crediting of Hamitic civilizations to foreign peoples.
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Post by hamiticsister101 on Sept 25, 2011 17:26:55 GMT -5
Yes of course that is understood however I was just pointing out that modern day Nubians are mixed peoples of various Caucasian groups of Semitic, Hamitic, and European descent.
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Post by Noah on Sept 25, 2011 20:49:36 GMT -5
True sis. All of that admixture over a Nilotic base (the folks who invaded Kush).
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Post by Noah on Oct 6, 2011 18:25:48 GMT -5
So I was browsing through the internet and came across a surprisingly good passage on HowStuffWorks.com about the Hamitic identity of the original builders of Kush: "Sometime after 1000 B.C., a Nubian people called the Kushites broke away from Egyptian rule and established an independent kingdom. The Kushites became so powerful that they were able to conquer Egypt in the eighth century B.C. A century later, invading Assyrians drove the Kushites back into their homeland in northern Nubia. Later Kush was centered in central Nubia around the city of Meroe. The original Kushites were Caucasian. However, Meroe was in a region of dark-skinned peoples, and the Kushites soon intermarried with this population."
history.howstuffworks.com/african-history/history-of-africa2.htm
The material is in agreement with the dual presence of two discrete populations -- one Hamitic and the other Negroid (Nilotic) -- discussed in previous posts above. An article on wrestling in the ancient Nubian region that was originally published in the Journal of Sport History also sheds further light on the two main racial groups that inhabited the area during the later years of the Kushitic empire. Here's an excerpt: "The Egyptians consistently use the term “Nubian” in a collective sense, referring to all brown or black-skinned peoples to their south. There is evidence, however, that demonstrates that the black-skinned Nubians came from below the third cataract. After a series of Nubian uprisings during the Middle Kingdom, Sesostris III led an army into the Sudan and defeated the rebels. He set up a commemorative stela at Semna (37 miles south of Halfa). The famous stela warns Negroes not to pass beyond that point, unless they are on their way to market.(22) There are no accompanying descriptions of the Negroes given.
Egyptian sources are mute about the southern Negroes during the time period of upheaval called the Second Intermediate Period, (1780-1551 B.C.). There is reason to believe that Sesostris III’s Negro enemy is the same foe faced by Thutmose I during the New Kingdom. Thutmose I erected a victory stela celebrating his triumph over a certain people who lived below the third cataract. The inscription boasts, “He has overthrown the chief of the Nubians; the Negro is helpless. . . . There is not a remnant among the kinky-haired who came to attack him."(23) The Egyptian word translated kinky-haired is accompanied by a lock of hair as a determinative. The epithet “kinky-haired” is used synonymously with the name “Negro.” The parallel construction implies that the distinctive feature about the southern Nubians, or Negroes, is their kinky-hair. This literary evidence suggests that Nubian physical types varied regionally.
Egyptian art also depicts a regional distinction in Nubian physical types.(24) During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, Egyptian rule extended to around the third cataract. Nubians are portrayed with skin of varying shades of darkness, distinctive dress and the facial features of an Egyptian. When the New Kingdom extended its rule south beyond the fourth cataract, there was a corresponding change in the artist’s portrayal of the Nubian. The Southerners are shown with distinct Negroid features—dark skin, everted lips, prognathous jaws and kinky hair (See Figure 4). All of the ancient Nubian wrestlers share a physiognomic similarity to the south-Nubian Negroes alluded to in the Egyptian sources[...]
The suggestion that the ancient Nubian wrestlers came from regions to the south of the fourth cataract seems to be confirmed by anthropological evidence.(25) Archaeologists examined a burial site at Gebel Moya and other hills in the Gezira of Sudan where remains date back to earlier than the twenty-fifth dynasty in Egypt. According to one of the archaeologists, “the cemeteries of this site have yielded the remains of a tall coarsely built Negro or Negroid race with extraordinarily massive skulls and jaws."(26) There is a strong possibility that the southern Nubians portrayed in the wrestling scenes came from this part of the Sudan. Anthropologists further suggest that the Negro type of the Gezira hills immigrated to the Nuba hills of southern Kordofan. The image of the tall, dark and extremely muscular Nubian is strikingly reminiscent of the Nuba of southern Kordofan in the Sudan. These people have remained sheltered in the remote hill country from outside influences and are surrounded by people that are physically and linguistically different from them.(27) Indeed, of the various people in the Sudan, none would seem better fit to be the descendants of the ancient Nubian wrestlers than those of the Nuba hill tribes of southern Kordofan."
wysinger.homestead.com/nubiansport.html
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Post by egypt1101 on Mar 2, 2012 22:57:43 GMT -5
*N.B. Post was moved by admin to existing thread discussing the same topic."Egyptian Nubians retained, from the Neolithic times until now, their prevailing Caucasoid character in spite of their successful adaptation to the climate and an almost permanent Black Sudanese gene inflow." (Strouhal; 2007) cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=22352991
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Post by Noah on Mar 3, 2012 23:48:54 GMT -5
That statement reflects well the two main ancestral elements in the modern Nubians, as discussed above: Nilotic/Negroid and Hamitic/Caucasoid. There's another Caucasoid component, an Arab (Semitic) one, that was introduced later, but it's ancillary to these two preceding elements. The assertion also illustrates Strouhal's long-held belief that the predynastic Egyptians were originally Caucasoid, and so were the related builders of the pyramids in neighboring Kush. This is something that was touched upon in the Meroitic Origins thread. By his reference to "an almost permanent Black Sudanese gene inflow", Strouhal is highlighting the great antiquity of the period during which admixture with Negroid peoples first began in the Nile Valley. Other anthropologists, such as A. Batrawi in his comprehensive two-part study The Racial History of Egypt and Nubia, place that admixture event(s) later in time: "Since early neolithic times there existed two distinct but closely related types, a northern in Middle Egypt and a southern in Upper Egypt. The southern Egyptians were distinguished from the northerners by a smaller cranial index, a larger nasal index and greater prognathism. The geographical distinction between the two groups continued during the Pre-Dynastic Period. The Upper Egyptians, however, spread into lower Nubia during that period. By the beginning of the Dynastic era the northern Egyptian type is encountered for the first time in the Thebaïd, i.e., in the southern territory. The incursion, however, seems to have been transitory and the effects of the co-existence of the two types in one locality remained very transient until the 18th Dynasty. From this time onwards the northern type prevailed all over Egypt, as far south as Denderah, till the end of the Roman period.
In Lower Nubia a slight infiltration of negroid influence is observed during the Middle Kingdom times. In the New Empire period, however, the southern Egyptian type prevails again. After the New Empire a fresh and much stronger negro influence becomes discernable till the end of the Roman period.
There is a wide gap in our knowledge of the racial history of the two countries during the Christian and Islamic periods, owing to the lack of an adequate amount of relevant material. The study of the available measurements of the living, however, apparently suggests that the modern population all over Egypt conforms more closely to the southern type. The mean measurements for the modern Nubians are rather curious. The average cephalic index for them is significantly larger than that for the Egyptians. This is contrary to expectation based on knowledge of the characteristics of the ancient populations. No satisfactory explanation could be suggested.
The distribution of blood groups in present-day Egypt shows that the mass of population is very homogeneous and there are no significant differences, in this respect, between the Moslems and the Copts. Comparisons of head and body measurements suggest the same conclusion." Strouhal places the starting point for that Negroid introgression much earlier, in the Neolithic population ancestral to the Badarians. He considers the Badarians a heterogeneous lot... some almost completely Caucasoid in physiognomy, others largely Negroid, but most somewhere in between, with the preponderance of their ancestry still Caucasoid. He sees a considerable reduction in the Negroid influence by the time of the later predynastic Naqadan culture (i.e. a reversion to the earlier, founding Caucasoid form), but here too still detects lingering traces of that intrusive element's presence. From Strouhal's Evidence of the Early Penetration of Negroes into Prehistoric Egypt: "In contrast with the biometricians' concept of the homogeneity of the Badarian series, the excavators of Badari cemeteries observed their marked morphological diversity, writing '...the variation in the physical features imply that they were affected to some degree by actual admixture'. Matiegkova and Matiegkal also expressed their opinion about racial mixture in the Badarian series. According to the cranial index and to Czekanowski's method of least differences, they distinguished three morphological groups, one hyperdolichocranial, a second dolichocranial and a third dolicho- to mesocranial. According to E. J. Baumgartel, the Badarian population was of mixed origin, which is demonstrated by the simultaneous occurrence of gracile and very robust skulls. These opinions about the heterogeneity of the Badarians had to be checked by the individual analysis of the material[...]
With the aim of elucidating the question of the morphological character of the Badarians, I studied both available Badarian series, the first one in the Duckworth Laboratory at Cambridge (53 skulls), and the second one in the Institute of Anatomy at Kasr El-Aini University of Cairo (64 skulls), making a total of I7 skulls of adult and juvenile individuals[...] Of the total of 17 skulls, 15 were found to be markedly Europoid, 9 of these were of the gracile Mediterranean type (Figs. ia & b), 6 were of very robust structure reminiscent of the North African Cromagnon type. Eight skulls were clearly Negroid (Figs. za and b), and were close to the Negro types occurring in East Africa. The majority of 94 skulls showed mixed Europoid-Negroid features in different combinations and with different shares of both major race components. In one third of them the Europoid, in the other third the Negroid, features were dominant. The last third showed both components, either well-balanced or with characters of the neutral range, common to both racial groups. We may conclude that the share of both components was nearly the same, with some over-weight to the Europoid side[...]
the Negroid component among the Badarians is anthropologically well based. Even though the share of 'pure' Negroes is small (6.8 per cent), being half that of the Europoid forms (12.9 per cent), the high majority of mixed forms (80.3 per cent) suggests a long-lasting dispersion of Negroid genes in the population. It can be interpreted by the supposition that the mixture of both components began many generations previously. A remarkably similar opinion has already been expressed by Stoessiger when she said that if there really were relationships between the Badarians and the Negroes, it would be necessary to go very far back in evolutionary history to account for it[...]
We still do not know exactly when neolithic farmers first settled in the Nile Valley, nor from whence they came. A date in the sixth millennium B.C. is most likely and the sources of the settlement may probably be found in the eastern Mediterranean area. At the same period, however, with the beginning of the Makalian wet phase, the Negro population of the Sudanic savanah belt would have started its movement towards the north, into Saharan latitudes, which then, for the last time, became open to human occupation. Maybe some of these emigrant groups penetrated down the Nile as far as Upper Egypt, thus providing one of the oldest known biological contacts between the Negroids and Europoids, the ultimate evidence of which appears some 1,000-1,500 years later in skeletons preserved in the Badarian cemeteries[...]
Although the re-examination of Predynastic series is not yet finished, we may suppose that during Predynastic times the frequency of markedly Negroid forms diminished and that Negroid features, by now widely dispersed in the population, were fading. There is no evidence for new immigrations of Negroes during this period. This seems to be in agreement with the observation of Morant: 'It is not possible to detect the slightest effect of any (Negro) admixture that can have taken place after early Predynastic times.' On the other hand, there is some suggestion of further Europoid immigration from the north (from the Delta or from the Middle East), causing further dilution of Negroid features.
We have to take into account also the possibility that Negroid features and genes could have been eliminated by selective pressure. Biology points to the stenothermy of Negroes, who are best adapted to the hot and humid conditions of the woodland regions to the south of the savanna. In the Egyptian Nile valley they found themselves in the opposite extreme of climate, that of the dry desert with great differences between day maxima temperature and night minima. A possible demonstration of the harmful influence of the Egyptian climate on Negroes was the shocking case reported in 1824 from Aswan, where 17,000 out of 20,000 ill-clothed Sudanese soldiers died of pneumonia and other consequences of cold. Egyptian soldiers remained healthy under the same conditions. Negroid genes were reintroduced into the Egyptian population sporadically during Dynastic times and later, more extensively in connexion with the slave trade." Strouhal's argument is quite powerful because it actually logically explains the provenance, extent and fate of the Sub-Saharan affinities first observed in some Badarian samples, traits which are at the same time essentially absent in others. One can't very well assert Caucasoid affinities for the Ancient Egyptians while at the same time skirting around this and other difficult issues. Strouhal tackles it head on, realistically and in an empirical way, for which he is to be commended. Besides the material posted earlier in this thread, have a look at the OP in the Eastern Hamites & Nilotes -- No close relations thread for an autosomal analysis of the relative genetic position of modern Nubians vis-a-vis some of their neighbors in North Africa, the Horn, and points further south. An extensive discussion of Hamitic biocultural traits and their influences upon other populations in Africa can also be found in C.G. Seligman's important work Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which has just been added to the Hamitic Library.
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Post by Noah on May 3, 2012 1:41:39 GMT -5
An important ancient DNA (aDNA) study on Sudanese populations was recently brought to my attention. It was conducted in 2009 by Hisham Yousif Hassan Mohamed with the University of Khartoum. The paper analysed Y-DNA markers of Neolithic, Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian period Sudanese samples and compared them with modern Y-DNA and mtDNA samples from Sudan. In agreement with the material discussed above on the two distinct types of peoples that co-habited the ancient Nile Valley (namely, Negroid/Khoisan folks and Hamitic folks), the study observed that the Neolithic Sudanese samples mainly belonged to the Paleoafrican haplogroup A that is especially common in Nilotes and Khoisan, while the later Sudanese samples from the Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian eras belonged instead to the Hamitic haplogroup E and the West Eurasian haplogroup F. "The area known today as Sudan may have been the scene of pivotal human evolutionary events, both as a corridor for ancient and modern migrations, as well as the venue of crucial past cultural evolution. Several questions pertaining to the pattern of succession of the different groups in early Sudan have been raised. To shed light on these aspects, ancient DNA (aDNA) and present DNA collection were made and studied using Y-chromosome markers for aDNA, and Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers for present DNA. Bone samples from different skeletal elements of burial sites from Neolithic, Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian periods in Sudan were collected from Sudan National Museum. aDNA extraction was successful in 35 out of 76 samples, PCR was performed for sex determination using Amelogenin marker. Fourteen samples were females and 19 were males. To generate Y-chromosome specific haplogroups A-M13, B-M60, F-M89 and Y Alu Polymorphism (YAP) markers, which define the deep ancestral haplotypes in the phylogenetic tree of Y-chromosome were used. Haplogroups A-M13 was found at high frequencies among Neolithic samples. Haplogroup F-M89 and YAP appeared to be more frequent among Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian periods. Haplogroup B-M60 was not observed in the sample analyzed. For extant DNA, Y-chromosome and mtDNA haplogroup variations were studied in 15 Sudanese populations representing the three linguistic families in Sudan by typing the major Y haplogroups in 445 unrelated males, and 404 unrelated individuals were sequenced for the mitochondrial hypervariable region. Y-chromosome analysis shows Sudanese populations falling into haplogroups A, B, E, F, I, J, K, and R in frequencies of 16.9, 8.1, 34.2, 3.1, 1.3, 22.5, 0.9, and 13% respectively. Haplogroups A, B, and E occur mainly in Nilo-Saharan speaking groups including Nilotics, Fur, Borgu, and Masalit; whereas haplogroups F, I, J, K, and R are more frequent among Afro-Asiatic speaking groups including Arabs, Beja, Copts, and Hausa, and Niger-Congo speakers from the Fulani ethnic group. Mantel test reveal a strong correlation between genetic and linguistic structures (r= 0.30, p= 0.007), and a similar correlation between genetic and geographic distances (r= 0.29, p= 0.025) that appears after removing nomadic pastoralists of no known geographic locality from the analysis. For mtDNA analysis, a total of 56 haplotypes were observed, all belonging to the major sub-Saharan African and Eurasian mitochondrial macrohapolgroups L0, L1, L2, L4, L5, L3A, M and N in frequencies of 12.1, 11.9, 22, 4.2, 6.2, 29.5, 2, and 12.2% respectively. Haplogroups L6 was not observed in the sample analyzed. The considerable frequencies of macrohaplogroup L0 in Sudan is interesting given the fact that this macrohaplogroup occurs near the root of the mitochondrial DNA tree. Afro-Asiatic speaking groups appear to have sustained high gene flow form Nilo-Saharan speaking groups. Mantel test reveal no correlations between genetic, linguistic (r = 0.12, p = 0.14), and geographic distances (r = -0.07, p = 0.67). Accordingly, through limited on number of aDNA samples, there is enough data to suggest and to tally with the historical evidence of the dominance by Nilotic elements during the early state formation in the Nile Valley, and as the states thrived there was a dominance by other elements particularly Nuba/Nubians. In Y-chromosome terms this mean in simplest terms introgression of the YAP insertion (haplogroups E and D), and Eurasian Haplogroups which are defined by F-M89 against a background of haplogroup A-M13. The data analysis of the extant Y-chromosomes suggests that the bulk of genetic diversity appears to be a consequence of recent migrations and demographic events mainly from Asia and Europe, evident in a higher migration rate for speakers of Afro-Asiatic as compared to the Nilo-Saharan family of languages, and a generally higher effective population size for the former. While the mtDNA data suggests that regional variation and diversity in mtDNA sequences in Sudan is likely to have been shaped by a longer history of in-situ evolution and then by human migrations form East, west-central and North Africa and to a lesser extent from Eurasia to the Nile Valley." The results are consistent with: - The documented lack of osteological affinities between the even older Mesolithic skeletons from Wadi Halfa in Sudan and modern-day Hamitic peoples (shown in the craniometric dendrogram above).
- The relatively close osteological relationship evident between the later A-group, C-group and Meroitic peoples with both ancient and modern Hamitic groups (also shown in the material posted above).
In short, the study confirms what we already know i.e. that the greater the genetic affinity Nilotes have with ancient Nile Valley samples, the more distant those old samples are biomorphologically from both ancient and modern Hamitic samples. This, of course, is because Nilotes and Negroid peoples in general are not responsible for the Ancient Egyptian and Meroitic civilizations. Actual Hamitic peoples are.
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Post by egypt1101 on May 31, 2012 15:14:26 GMT -5
This comment is particularly interesting to me:
"To generate Y-chromosome specific haplogroups A-M13, B-M60, F-M89 and Y Alu Polymorphism (YAP) markers, which define the deep ancestral haplotypes in the phylogenetic tree of Y-chromosome were used. Haplogroups A-M13 was found at high frequencies among Neolithic samples. Haplogroup F-M89 and YAP appeared to be more frequent among Meroitic, Post-Meroitic and Christian periods. Haplogroup B-M60 was not observed in the sample analyzed."
So I am assuming there is no B-M60 at all during the time frame in question from the Neolithic to the Christian period. The Christian period is 543AD - 1323 AD.
Now, the same author Hassan states:
"The Copt samples displayed a most interesting Y-profile, enough (as much as that of Gaalien in Sudan) to suggest that they actually represent a living record of the peopling of Egypt. The significant frequency of B-M60 in this group might be a relic of a history of colonization of southern Egypt probably by Nilotics in the early state formation, something that conforms both to recorded history and to Egyptian mythology." Hassan; 2008
I believe this Copt sample was taken from living Copts in Sudan.
Now I would interpret this to mean that there was no B-M60 in Sudan during the Neolithic, then there would be none in Egypt at this time, as B-M60 would have had to have traveled north first passing Sudan.
So since it's not in Sudan, Hassans "might be a relic" should be discarded. Correct?
Because if B-M60 is nowhere to be found from the Neolithic to the Christian period ending in 1323AD, then B-M60 carriers must have arrived sometime after this very late date - perhaps even a reflection of the Trans-Saharan slave trade which ended in Sudan around ~1800's I believe.
And I'd like to know what exactly Hassan is talking about when he states:
"something that conforms both to recorded history and to Egyptian mythology"
The whole "we came from the mountains of the moon" claim was a propaganda piece concocted by Ben Jochannan and has since been refuted by John Taylor of the British Museum where the papyrus is housed. As for a claim to their origins, I believe they claimed to have come from the sea (I'd have to read up on that to verify).
For others reading this post:
"the B clade is almost entirely restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. B chromosomes are found at their highest frequency among Pygmies" (Karafet; 2008)
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Post by Noah on Jun 8, 2012 0:46:19 GMT -5
Good observations. The absence of the Paleoafrican haplogroup B in the Sudanese samples from the Neolithic through to the Christian periods does indicate that the clade was only recently introduced to the Sudan region. This would in turn suggest that it was absent from Egypt too since, as you pointed out, it would have been introduced from the south. Interestingly, comparative cranial analyses of ancient and modern Siwa Berbers showed that the older Siwan skulls were much more Caucasoid in form, and in a specifically Libyan direction. This would be consistent with a later introduction of haplogroup B, a Sub-Saharan lineage which is today quite frequent amongst Siwans. "As the Siwa skulls from the Roman period are much more similar to the type of the inhabitants of Baharia and Farafra than to the present inhabitants of Siwa, the author concludes that in Siwa a certain change of type took place in the last two thousand years, particularly the change caused by mixture of the inhabitants with the former slaves of west-African origin."
books.google.com/books?id=X41WAAAAMAAJ&q=%22As+the+Siwa+skulls+from+the+Roman%22&dq=%22As+the+Siwa+skulls+from+the+Roman%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dpHRT-63Janf0gHH7MyLAw&redir_esc=y
As I've written elsewhere, there was never anything particularly Egyptian about the Paleoafrican A and B lineages (the original paternal clades of all Negroid groups, including those nearest Egypt, the Nilotes). These haplogroups are clearly of foreign introduction, and this latest Khartoum study, among many others, only confirms this.
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Post by hamiticsister101 on Jun 8, 2012 14:41:47 GMT -5
The Nubians of today such as Omar al Bashir of northern Sudan and central Sudan have Arab, Kushitic, and Nuba (Nilote) admixture some even English from the English colonizers. This is why some look very Cushitic, Arab, or Mulatto. They are a mixed group, however their true Nuba, Dinka, Nuer and other Nilote cousins are fully Nilotic-Negroid peoples living in the south.
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Post by Noah on Jun 8, 2012 23:37:13 GMT -5
Why hello there old friend. Long time no read.
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