Anansi said:
While I'm not gonna use biological reference to bolster my point,take a quick look at Otzi the Iceman, that so many are oohing and aweing about, that some are thinking of making a movie about him in addition to documentaries already done.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi
What was never contrasted either in cognitive ability, is the fact that Otzi society was vastly more primitive than the sub Saharan state of Ta Seti of the same exact era that of 3400 and 3100.B.C ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a good point. Circa 3400BC-3100 BC the Dynastic era in Kemet were already in swing.
But even centuries BEFORE that, predynastic peoples of the Nile Valley were flourishing in
everything from agriculture, to metallurgy, to spinning on looms, etc. This is the early stages.
More was to come as the great pyramid building era approached. Indeed the pre-dynastic Badarians
were already making cloth via the loom, in addition to having very productive agriculture.
So the questions arises- if Northern Europeans are supposed to be these super- pacesetters, evolving
in cold climate and all, which is supposed to do all these wonderful cognitive, iq things and advances,
why did they lag behind for millennia, while the Africans of southern Egypt, a large part of
which is in the tropical zone by the way, were moving ahead with so many advances?
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NOTES ON Badarian technology
"Evidence for ancient Egyptian cloth production dates from at least the Neolithic period (c. 5500 BC), when linen weaving became a staple industry... The horizontal ground loom was the only loom used before the New Kingdom and was first depicted on a painted pre-Dynastic Badarian dish in the Petrie Museum, London."
--DT Jenkins 2003. The Cambridge history of western textiles. (2003) - Page 32-34
and
"predynastic graves of Egypt.. contain beads of native copper.. Traces of copper, chiefly pins, needles and bodkins hammered out of native metal are found in the debris of the earliest agricultural settlements of the Nile Valley.. It is now generally accepted that the first metal to be found on all prehistoric copper sites, at the earliest time, is native copper."
"the conditions in Egypt were particularly favourable for the early discovery of copper by smelting the ore, and there is no need to postulate the occurrence and use of the native metal. Copper ores occur within the geographical limits of modern Egypt in two widely separted localities, namely, in Sinai, and in the eastern desert. The evidence for ancient copper mining and smelting by the Egyptians is twofold, first the existence of ancient mines with ruins.. and second, inscriptions in the neighbourhood of mines left by mining expeditions.. some of these workings [of turquoise] ..was mployed for beads and jewellery in both the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and even as early as the Badarian period), there can be no doubt.."
"Copper, which unlike gold, is not usually fond in nature in the metallic condition, but which must be produced artifically from unattractive-looking ores, was yer one of the earliest metals known to man. In Egypt it was employed before gold as far back as Badarian and early predynastic times. The earliest copper objects found are beads, borers and pins, which date from the Badarian period, and which continued in use during the early predynastic period, supplemented however by bracelets, small chisels, finger rings, harpoon heads, small implements, needles, tweezers and other small articles."
-A Lucas. 2003. Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries. pp 228-229
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".. strong evidence suggests that the Badarians discovered the loom and were, therefore, producing textiles as well. A pottery dish depicting a horizontal ground-loom was found at a tomb at Al-Badari. The earliest known Egyptian flax and Neolithic linen goes back to the Badarian period.
The Badarians also cleverly crafted combs of ivory, bone and wood which are remarkably reminiscent of traditional African combs. But perhaps the most impressive feature of Badarian culture was their highly distinctive pottery. Of superlative quality, the Badarians' pottery was of a reddish brown finish and the tops were burned black, by being inverted in the ashes of the kiln. The walls of the Badarian ceramics were fired to something of a metallic hardness even though they were often eggshell-thin"
-- Egypt Before the Pharaohs; By Gamal Nkrumah; Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 16 - 22 November 2000, Issue No. 508.
weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/508/fo3.htm"..the evidence equally favors a two-bar loom known as a horizontal ground loom. It is this loom that is depicted on a Badarian pottery dish (fig 1-8). c. 5000 B.C., and that is represented on the earliest tomb paintings at Beni Hasan.."
--Eric Brundy (1993) The Book of Looms, pg 38-89
"Thus at the very dawn of the historic period in Egypt we find the craft of the spinner and the weaver very highly developed in technique; manifestly the early stages of the evolution of the loom must be sought far back in the predynastic era."
-- Alfred Lucas. Ancient Egyptian Materials & Industries - Page 167
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IN ADDITION TO THE VARIOUS TECHNOLOGIES THE BADARIANS WERE MAKING ONE OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE
AGRICULTURE SYSTEMS ON EARTH, LONG BEFORE ALLEGED COLD CLIMATE SUPER GENIUSES DID ANYTHING SIMILAR QUOTE:
"With the onset of the Neolithic, the dietary
diversity of hunter-gatherers is replaced with
dietary specialization on one or a few cereal
crops and the products of domestic animals...
Increasing sedentism and population density are
almost universally associated with increases in
infectious disease.. and may underpin the the
reduction in stature in the Predynastic period.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Badarian
civilization had higher population density than
did any other contemporaneous civilizations
(Gabriel, 1987, Hassan 1988)." --Pinhasi and Stock 2011. Human Bioarchaelogy of the Transition to Agriculture
----------------------------------------------------------
^^Again note- it was in the "darker" tropical south that the early predynastic advances above were
rolling along. There was no need for allegedly magical "wandering Caucasoids"...
The above makes no "pro-black" chauvinism claim, just pointing out the bogus nature of many
right wing and racialist arguments, as well as their racial hypocrisy. If all these tropical
African peoples are supposed to be backward, low IQ, and cold climate people so smart and virtuous,
how come the alleged cold-climate "geniuses" were centuries so far behind, and why did they need to
borrow and copy so widely from outside, non European, non-cold climate peoples, if they already
had all this "evolved" super iq/virtue/magical pixie dust going on?
