Sticking points & Questions

[Kalonji]

Alright,

I was going to post this on ES, but I felt it might be a good idea to do it here instead, since it's a great question for a new forum, and a way to generate some energy to vibe of off.

My question is: what is everyones sticking point?

What are the areas in (ancient) African scholarship that you don't understand and want to know more about? Some people aren't able to recall sticking points in the moment, that is ok. You don't have to post right away, put some time into this.

I want it to be something you're genuinly interested in. If everyone knows eachothers sticking point, we will be able to direct eachother to information sources whenever we encounter it during our journey. What I might view as ''common knowledge'' might be new to another person and vice versa. To start, I will state my own sticking points/questions.

Please keep the answers simple and understandable, without too much jargon. Elucidation via examples and metaphors is always appreciated.

1.
How can one reconstruct a proto-language, and determine whether or not there were certain words present?

2.
What are the reasons for a grouping of Elamite into Afrasan, and what ties are stronger. Ties between Afrasan & Elamite, or ties between Elamite and Dravidian?

3.
If language grouping is so accurate, how come different scholars come to drastically different conclusions when grouping Afrasan languages?

4.
How come Tutsi differ physically from Hutu, they live in the same environment, and appearantly have for a long time, as they are genetically essentially the same as the Hutu.

5.
How and when exactly did the ancestors of present day west Africans seperate from the nile valley area. Approximately, or rather what is the minimum of waves we can identify, by way of multidisciplinary evidence?

[homeylu]

Good topic!

Actually my sticking points have changed over the course of my years of studying and acquiring knowledge about the world we live in.

But one situation has been 'bothering' me for quite some time now. And I just can't seem to find the 'logical' answers:

I've often wondered, did human just arise in "East Africa" 200,000 years ago, and can only move in one direction, i.e. Westward, and then decided 150,000 years later, "Hey guys lets all travel EAST, and leave the African continent to go discover the rest of the world."

As simplistic as it may sound, I'm having a difficult time digesting that there was some 'mass migration' 50-80 thousand years ago that caused humans to SUDDENLY leave the African continent. I mean we know that at one point in prehistory, the Red Sea was probably just a sheet of ice, what would prevent humans from spreading into what is now defined as Asia much earlier. Were they stopped by these other types of hominids. Was there a 'territorial' war of the hominids. If so, what happened to these other hominids to give humans the confidence to move more widespread into their territories.

^^ Probably all sounds a bit 'geeky' but these are the type of questions, I'm always trying to find answers to.

[Kalonji]

Good set of questions

There is a debate going on about cognitive functions and how long it took to for those functions be fully developed, but I don't think it factored significantly since older homonids who had decreased cognitive function left the continent too.

One thing to consider, is that there just weren't that many people, so the chances that someone would eventually leave the continent would've been way smaller back then.

Another thing that factors into this, is that anthropologists say that people generally don't like to move way outside of their ''familiar areas''. And I agree with that, although, I think it factors a little less for non-seditary/nomadic populations. Which is what they would have been back then. I think it would've taken a real adventurous, progressive and curious type leader to persuade his people to leave the continent. Because even today, we see that most people are just interested in ''living'', and being lived by their lives, instead of living their lives pro-actively. I can only imagine that they would've been concerned with surviving more than anything back then, and certainly not having the luxury of thinking, ''hey, what would be there on the other side''. Especially when you note that humans naturally have fears for the unknown.

There are alot of things we will never know. I agree with you it does seems odd, even when you take the above into account. 150.000 years is a extremely long time to seriously argue that other migrations did not take place, because nothing has been found so far. this leads me to my next point, which is that it is likely that most of these migrants wouldn't have survived long after their migration to let their genetics/crania tell us their story. Imagine single men, or men with their families, moving out of Africa. If what I know to be true about incest is correct, they wouldn't have survived for long. It takes a certain amount of individuals to ''be fruitful, and multiply'' effectively as the bible says.

[Kalonji]

Nobody having explanations, questions and/or sticking points?

[sundiata]

My weaknesses have to be in the areas of genetics and linguistics. I'd like to understand more about how geneticists calculate mutation rates and identify haplotypes with certain regions even if the haplotype is no longer present there (how they trace its migration). I'd also like to know how to date languages and properly compare lexicons. For example, I don't know enough to understand what's wrong with Obenga's methodology yet a lot of western scholars reject his work. I'd like to understand what the basis is for such an out right rejection. What points are they contesting? I plan to devote more time into studying these things but I'm just knocking out my Gen Ed and lower division course work in school. Not even enough time to sustain a hobby. I'd say given that, the best resource for me would have to be equivalent to a "population genetics or historical linguistics for dummies" kind of thing, for now at least.

[Charlie Bass]

I would have to say that mine are based around genetics and the whole biological race issue and the use/misuse of the STRUCTURE program and FORSDISC. Neither of these programs prove "race' exists yet they continue to be advanced, even by some geneticists who admit the opposite.

[Kalonji]

Sundiata,
I have a beginners ebook on genetics. If you're interested, send me your email via pm and I'll send it to you. Jari, I know you're interested too, whoever wants it, just send me a pm.

I'll keep an eye open for a good book or information source on linguistics. If I find one, I'll let ya'll know. The neat thing with linguistics is, you don't need permission from an institution to perform analysis on languages like you'll have to when you want to study crania. We all have access to languages and wordlists. This makes for easy self study, and gives everyone the oppertunity to reassess the work of anthropologists.