1-Basic Database of Nile Valley Studies

[zarahan]

If it is “reasonable” to classify people by race as some conservatives hold, then it is also reasonable to classify the Ancient Egyptians as Black, due to their physical appearance, and biological links with Egyptians. Conservative race and hereditarian scholars argue that race is easily apparent to ordinary people, therefore the concept of race is a valid, reasonable reality. Applying this same reasoning, it is easily apparent then, that many ancient Egyptians are black. Some conservative Egyptologists also say it is reasonable to consider Ancient Egyptians to be black under this common approach. Other conservative scholars like Mary Lefkowitz hold that using the American “one-drop” race rule, the Ancient Egyptians would be blacks.

Conservative racial hereditarian scholars Sarich and Miele in their book Race the Reality of Human Differences, appeals to the common sense and reasonableness of ordinary people in classifying race. Using societal rules no special expertise needed- QUOTE: "Ordinary people can and do divide Homo sapiens into a number of reasonably discrete groups on the basis of reasonably objective criteria. No special expertise is required… (pp-25-26)
“the most adversarial part of our complex society, not only continues to accept the existence of race, but also relies on the ability of the average individual to sort people into races” (p14).--Sarich and Miele 2002. Race: The Reality of Human Differences




Conservative Egyptologists like Stuart Tyson-Smith using the reasonableness societal standard, says it is reasonable for the Ancient Egyptians to be considered black.
QUOTE:
"Physical anthropologists are increasingly concluding that racial definitions are the culturally defined product of selective perception and should be replaced in biological terms by the study of populations and clines. Consequently, any characterization of race of the ancient Egyptians depend on modern cultural definitions, not on scientific study. Thus, by modern American standards it is reasonable to characterize the Egyptians as `blacks' [i.e in a social sense] while acknowledging the scientific evidence for the physical diversity of Africans."
-- Tyson-Smith IN: The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, 2002 Volume 3. Oxford University Press. p. 27-28




GALLERY OF DARK-SKINNED ANCIENT EGYPTIANS:
Dark skin is not "foreign" to Egypt. It has been there since Day 1. It does not rely on "Nubians" or
"the slave trade." It is not defined by the shop-worn "Nubians bearing gifts" images, but is part of
INDIGENOUS, NATIVE, BUILT-IN DIVERSITY, FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT of the Nile Valley. It is an
Egyptian population feature, long before any "Nubians" bearing gifts showed up.
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/thread/15/basic-database-nile-valley-studies?page=9



The “One-Drop Rule”:
On into the 1980s American courts upheld the "one-drop" rule. In the Suzy Phipps case, a state court upheld Lousiana's "one drop" law. Anyone greater than 1/32nd Negro could not be white. [Phipps vs State of Lousiana, 1983] The state found she exceeded the allowable Negro cut-off point. Thus white American authorities found the one-drop rule reasonable. Despite lego-political changes since, popular race classifi-cation by the white American public still uses the one-drop rule to pigeonhole people, and finds this reasonable. (Omi and Winant 1994. Racial formation in the United States) Using this same approach of white Americans, it is clear that Ancient Egyptians would not meet the threshold to be declared white, thus they must be classified as Negro or Black under the rule.


Other conservative scholars like Mary Lefkowitz hold that using the American “one-drop” race rule, the Ancient Egyptians would be blacks.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Credible scientific studies show that Africans have the greatest phenotypic diversity in the world, not just genetic. Therefore Africans don't "all look alike." They can vary- with narrow noses, light skin, hair in loose curls, etc. etc. ll these varying features are part of NATIVE, INDIGENOUS, BUILT-IN diversity of sub-Saharan Africans.

Most phenotypic variation – Quote:
"Both methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan Africa to have the highest levels of phenotypic variation, consistent with many genetic studies."
--- Relethford, John 2001. Global Analysis of Regional Differences.. Human Biology - V73, n5, pp. 629-636)

Most genetic diversity – Quote:
"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages.. Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world."
---Tishkoff SA, Williams SM., Genetic analysis of African populations.. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2002 (8):611-21.)



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Genetic studies by some mainstream scientists suggest that Europeans are
not a primary "race" at all, but mixed hybrids, one-third African, two-thirds Asian.




Some EUropean populations show African genetic mixtures- over 20% in some areas




LINK: egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/post/13595

[zarahan]

DNA Haplogroup E originated in sub-Saharan Africa


"it has been proposed that E3b originated in sub-Saharan Africa and expanded into the Near East and northern Africa at the end of the Pleistocene (Underhill et al. 2001). E3b lineages would have Reports 1015 then been introduced from the Near East into southern Europe by immigrant farmers, during the Neolithic ex-pansion (Hammer et al. 1998; Semino et al. 2000; Underhill et al. 2001). The three main subclades of haplogroup E3b (E-M78, E-M81, and E-M34) and the paragroup E-M35* are not homogeneously distributed on the African continent: E-M78 has been observed in both northern and eastern Africa, E-M81 is restricted to northern Africa, E-M34 is common only in eastern Africa, and E-M35* is shared by eastern and southern Africans (Cruciani et al. 2002).. Several observations point to eastern Africa as the homeland for haplogroup E3b—that is, it had (1) the highest number of different E3b clades (table 1), (2) a high frequency of this haplogroup and a high microsatellite diversity, and, finally, (3) the exclusive presence of the undifferentiated E3b* paragroup.."

--Cruciani et al 2004. Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215)Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa. Am. Jr. HumGen 74: 1014-1022





The main haplotype in Egypt, E3b, was introduced to the Nile Valley from tropical East Africans,
confirming the African identity of Ancient Egyptians through DNA evidence.

"A more recent dispersal out of Africa, represented by the E3b-M35 chromosomes, expanded northward during the Mesolithic (Underhill et al. 2001b). The East African origin of this lineage is supported by the much larger variance of the E3b-M35 males in Egypt versus Oman (0.5 versus 0.14; table 3). Consistent with the NRY data is the mtDNA expansion estimate of 10–20 ky ago for the East African M1 clade....

The present-day Egyptian E3b-M35 distribution most likely results from a juxtaposition of various demic episodes. Since the E3b*-M35 lineages appear to be confined mostly to the sub-Saharan populations, it is conceivable that the initial migrations toward North Africa from the south primarily involved derivative E3b-M35 lineages. These include E3b1-M78, a haplogroup especially common in Ethiopia (23%), and, perhaps, E3b2- M123 (2%), which is present as well (Underhill et al. 2000; Cruciani et al. 2002; Semino et al. 2002). The data suggest that two later expansions may have followed: one eastward along the Levantine corridor into the Near East and the other toward northwestern Africa."

--Luis et al 2004. The Levant versus the Horn of Africa: Evidence for Bidirectional Corridors of Human Migrations. Am J Hum Genet. 2004 Mar; 74(3): 532–544.

------------------------------------------------


Haplogroup E variants in Egypt- alt labeling system- Keita 2005



QUOTE"
Current patterns of the most common variants (V, XI, and IV) have been
suggested to be primarily related to Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom political actions in
Nubia, including occasional settler colonization, and the conquest of Egypt by Kush (in upper
Nubia, northern Sudan), thus initiating the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. However, a synthesis of
evidence from archaeology, historical linguistics, texts, distribution of haplotypes outside Egypt,
and some demographic considerations lends greater support to the establishment, before the
Middle Kingdom, of the observed distributions of the most prevalent haplotypes V, XI, and IV. It
is suggested that the pattern of diversity for these variants in the Egyptian Nile Valley was largely
the product of population events that occurred in the late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene through
the First Dynasty, and was sustained by continuous smaller-scale bidirectional migrations/interactions.

--Keita, 2005 (History in the Interpretation of the Pattern of p49a,f TaqI RFLP Y-Chromosome
Variation in Egypt: A Consideration of Multiple Lines of Evidence)

======================================================

[zarahan]

While the ancient Horn of Africa, like other places near water or land transport routes has always had some smattering of migration, this is nothing special. Archaeological data shows no sweeping mass migration or cultural revolutions from non-Africans into the ancient Horn of Africa. QUOTE:

"However, more recent archaeological research shows that non-African influences in the HOA [Horn of Africa] were limited and transient. Of the early first millennium BCE inscriptions in non-African scripts complete enough to identify a language, only a small proportion are written in a non-African (South Arabian) language - the majority are written in indigenous proto-Ge’ez [24]. In the HOA, architecture with non-African (primarily South Arabian) elements is entirely monumental or ritual [25] and ritual items with exclusively non-African elements are rare [26]. There are few to no indications of non-African material culture in everyday objects: the ceramics and lithics found outside of the ritual context are almost entirely indigenous with clear local precedents [24,25,27]. While earlier scholarship conceived of a South Arabian origin D’MT polity with sovereignty over much of the northern HOA, it is now clear that this polity, if it ever existed at all as an integrated state [24], was geographically restricted to the regions around Yeha and Aksum in what is now the Tigray region of Ethiopia [25]. Artifacts with non-African features are effectively absent in the material culture (ritual or otherwise) of contemporaneous populations in the Eritrean highlands on the Asmara plateau (the ‘‘Ancient Ona’’) [25,28,29]. Prior to the first millennium BC, the archaeology of the HOA is less well studied, but what is available shows no substantial non-African material culture beyond trade relations [25]. Taken all together, the archaeological data could be consistent with limited non-African (primarily South Arabian) migration into the north Ethiopian highlands at the outset of the first millennium BCE, but cannot support large-scale population movements from any foreign population."

--Hodgson, et al 2014. Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa. PLOS Genetics, Vol 10, Iss 6

--------------------------------------------------------

In any event, would be "backflowees" in the far distant pre-historic past, would be people already looking like Africans..

[Deleted]

European Upper Palaeolithic (EUP's) didn't look morphometrically like Africans. You distort data and then spam the same images over and over. Note sure who you think you are fooling.

Brace et al 2005 who you love to reference, puts Upper Palaeolithic Europeans closest to Mesolithic French, modern Danish, Finns/Sami, Neolithic English. Are/were these peoples black africans. lol? You're a clown.

[zarahan]

Why do you keep starting multiple new threads under different user accounts on topics already
dealt with in other threads save as an attempt to spam the forum, when you are debunked
in those other threads. Your "multiple recycler" tactic will only bring a ban for disruption.

Anyway, dummy, whatever troll account you are using, I already schooled you on this back on ES.
The older European Paleos looked like Africans due to their retention of tropical characteristics,
and/OR migration from Afric/Middle East zones. Your claim above already fails on this count.

And the clustering with Mesolithics and Neolithics is because of that African retention, that tropical
background, and/or migrations from Africa/Middle East. You conveniently leave out the clustering
twig in Brace's study which shows the older European prehistorics closer to the Africans
than to todays modern Europeans.




Furthermore your claim that:
European Upper Palaeolithic (EUP's) didn't look like Africans has already been debunked multiple times.
They don't have to look identical to Mike Tyson. All they need show is evidence of tropical adaptations- indicators
of migration from Africa. The migration could be directly across the Mediterranean or via the Middle East land route-
it makes no difference to the bottom line.





QUOTE:
"Body proportions covary with climate, apparently as the result of climatic selection. Ontogenetic research and migrant studies have demonstrated that body proportions are largely genetically controlled and are under low selective rates; thus studies of body form can provide evidence for evolutionarily short-term dispersals and/or gene flow. Replacement predicts that the earliest modern Europeans will possess “tropical” body proportions (assuming Africa is the center of origin), while Regional Continuity permits only minor shifts in body shape, due to climatic change and/or improved cultural buffering. .. results refute the hypothesis of local continuity in Europe, and are consistent with an interpretation of elevated gene flow (and population dispersal?) from Africa, followed by subsequent climatic adaptation to colder conditions."
--(Holliday, Trenton (1997) Body proportions in Late Pleistocene Europe and modern human origins. Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 32, Issue 5, 1997, Pages 423-447)


".. while the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans have significantly higher (i.e., tropically-adapted) brachial and crural indices than do recent Europeans, they also have shorter (i.e., cold-adapted) limbs. The somewhat paradoxical retention of “tropical” indices in the context of more “cold-adapted” limb length is best explained as evidence for Replacement in the European Late Pleistocene, followed by gradual cold adaptation in glacial Europe."
--(Holliday, Trenton (1999) Brachial and crural indices of European Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans. Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 36, Issue 5, May 1999, Pages 549-566)


"Stature, body mass, and body proportions are evaluated for the Cheddar Man (Gough's Cave 1) skeleton. Like many of his Mesolithic contemporaries, Gough's Cave 1 evinces relatively short estimated stature (ca. 166.2 cm [5' 5']) and low body mass (ca. 66 kg [146 lbs]). In body shape, he is similar to recent Europeans for most proportional indices. He differs, however, from most recent Europeans in his high crural index and tibial length/trunk height indices. Thus, while Gough's Cave 1 is characterized by a total morphological pattern considered ‘cold-adapted’, these latter two traits may be interpreted as evidence of a large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans."
--(TRENTON W. HOLLIDAY a1 and STEVEN E. CHURCHILL. (2003). Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an assessment of body size and shape, Bulletin of the Natural History Museum: Geology, 58:37-44 Cambridge University Press)
----------------------------------------------


Once again, you stand debunked, no matter what troll account you use to recycle your arguments:

[zarahan]

Countries NOW inhabited by "white" people once were filled with people who on most counts
would be deemed "black" today- they had dark skin, "negroid looks" and tropical limb proportions, etc.

Assorted Eurocentric race mongers like to use the stereotypical "true negro" to minimize and downplay African
diversity. But when the very same "true negro" shows up inhabiting Europe, they hypocritically
change tune and whitewash the offender away as "non African" or non-black.





----------------------------------------------------------

African diversity extends to limb proportions- with overlap covering heavy
tropical to more moderate tropical adaptations in Mediterranean climates.

That Africa has experienced gene flow from elsewhere in different eras is not at issue.
But with the most diverse phenotypes on earth, Africans can have features that overlap
almost any other location- and the still remain Africans, without automatically needing to
invoke any "race mix" to explain why they don't all look alike. Below the African
range is so diverse that it overlaps the European range on crural indices, but the people
are still African.

[zarahan]

BLAST FROM THE PAST: DIOP ON DOUBLE-STANDARDS AND HYPOCRISY

Diop on hypocritical double standards of Eurocentrism

“But it is only the most gratuitous theory that considers the Dinka,
the Nouer and the Masai, among others, to be Caucasoids. What if an African
ethnologist were to persist in recognizing as white-only the blond, blue-eyed
Scandinavians, and systematically refused membership to the remaining Europeans,
and Mediterraneans in particular—the French, Italians, Greek, Spanish, and
Portuguese? Just as the inhabitants of Scandinavia and the Mediterranean countries
must be considered as two extreme poles of the same anthropological reality, so
should the Negroes of East and West Africa be considered as the two extremes in
the reality of the Negro world. To say that a Shillouk, a Dinka, or a Nouer is a
Caucasoid is for an African as devoid of sense and scientific interest as would be,
to a European, an attitude that maintained that a Greek or a Latin were not of the
same race.“
-- CA Diop, 'Evolution of the Negro world', Presence Africaine -23, 51. 5-15


DIOP on genotype versus phenotype

"If we speak only of genotype, I can find a black who, at the level
of his chromosomes, is closer to a Swede than Peter Botha is. But what
counts in reality is the phenotype. It is the physical appearance which
counts. This black, even if on the level of his cells he is closer to a
Swede than Peter Botha, when he is in South Africa he will still live in
Soweto. Throughout history, it has been the phenotype which has been at
issue, we mustn't lose sight of this fact. The phenotype is a reality,
physical appearance is a reality. And this appearance corresponds to
something which makes us say that Europe is peopled by white people,
Africa is peopled by black people, and Asia is people by yellow people.
It is these relationships which have played a role in history...

Now every time these relationships are not favorable to the western
cultures, an effort is made to undermine the cultural consciousness of
Africans by telling them. ‘we don’t even know what race is’. What that
means is that they do not know what a black man is; [but] they do know
what a white man is… It is the phenotype which has given us so much
difficulty throughout history, so it is this which must be considered
in these relations."
--CA Diop. 1985- Interview in Journal of African Civilizations




Africans the most phenotypically diverse - QUOTE:

General-
"Both methods for estimating regional diversity show sub-Saharan
Africa to have the highest levels of phenotypic variation, consistent
with many genetic studies."
--- Relethford, John 2001. Global Analysis of Regional Differences.. Hum Bio 73:5


Skin color-
“This difference persists even after adjusting for a correlation between
within-population diversity and distance from the equator. Though affected
by natural selection, skin color variation shows the same pattern of higher
African diversity as found with other traits."
-- Relethford.(2000). Human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan
African populations. Hum Biol. 72(5):

[zarahan]

Presence of Sickle Cell in several Predynastic Mummies:

“We conducted a molecular investigation of the presence of sicklemia in six predynastic Egyptian mummies (about 3200 BC) from the Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum of Turin. Previous studies of these remains showed the presence of severe anemia, while histological preparations of mummified tissues revealed hemolytic disorders. DNA was extracted from dental samples with a silica-gel method specific for ancient DNA. A modification of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), called amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) was then applied. ARMS is based on specific priming of the PCR and it permits diagnosis of single nucleotide mutations. In this method, amplification can occur only in the presence of the specific mutation being studied. The amplified DNA was analyzed by electrophoresis. In samples of three individuals, there was a band at the level of the HbS mutated fragment, indicating that they were affected by sicklemia."

– Marin et. al. 1999, Use of the Amplification Refractory Mutation System (ARMS) in the Study of HbS in Predynastic Egyptian Remains.


==========================
GENERAL INFO

Sickle-Cell Anemia: A Look at Global Haplotype Distribution
By: Abram Gabriel, M.D. (Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University) & Jennifer Przybylski (Rutgers University) © 2010 Nature Education
Citation: Gabriel, A. & Przybylski, J. (2010) Sickle-cell anemia: A Look at Global Haplotype Distribution. Nature Education 3(3):2

Sickle-cell anemia (SCA) is a disease that links biochemistry, pathology, natural selection, population genetics, gene expression, and genomics. Although the disease has existed for thousands of years, it wasn't until 1910 that the symptom complex featuring anemia, recurrent fevers, and bouts of horrific pain, often accompanied by sudden death, became a recognized clinical entity in Western medicine. In that year, James Herrick published a report of a dental student from Barbados with fever, recurrent pneumonia, and sickle-shaped red blood cells (RBCs) (Herrick, 1910). We now know that SCA is an autosomal recessive disorder in which patients inherit one mutated copy of the β-globin gene from each parent (Neel, 1949). The parents usually carry one wild-type and one sickle β-globin gene and are said to have sickle-cell trait, yet they have none of the disease phenotypes or consequences.
Biochemical Basis of Sickle-Cell Pathology

In 1949, Linus Pauling and associates dubbed SCA the first "molecular disease" and coined the termed "molecular medicine." They showed that hemoglobin from SCA patients had different physical properties than hemoglobin from wild-type individuals, whereas hemoglobin from individuals with sickle-cell trait had properties of both types of hemoglobin (Pauling et al., 1949). Adult hemoglobin consists of two α-globin chains and two β-globin chains (Rhinesmith et al., 1957; Rhinesmith et al., 1958). In the 1950s, Vernon Ingram demonstrated that the only structural difference between normal adult hemoglobin and sickle-cell hemoglobin is the replacement of glutamic acid with valine in the β-globin amino acid chain (Ingram, 1957; 1959). At the DNA level, this corresponds to a single base change, from adenine to thymine, within the sixth codon (Marotta et al., 1977). Loss of the negatively charged glutamic acid results in altered electrophoretic mobility.

A scanning electron photomicrograph shows seven red blood cells. Five of the red blood cells appear healthy and are shaped like concave discs. The sixth red blood cell is concave at its center, but is elongated and misshapen. It is shaped like a pea pod with two pointed ends that extend outward. The seventh cell is only partially visible at the lower left corner of the image. It has a point protruding from it, and is likely to have a sickled shape as well.

Figure 1: Sickle-cell anemia is characterized by deformed red blood cells.

A sickle-shaped red blood cell is shown among a group of healthy red blood cells. A change in a single amino acid in one of the hemoglobin proteins is responsible for causing the abnormal sickle shape of this red blood cell.
Creative Commons EM Unit, UCL Medical School, Royal Free Campus, Wellcome Images. View Terms of Use

In vivo, the consequences of this amino acid substitution only become apparent when oxygen dissociates from hemoglobin. Specifically, the deoxygenated hemoglobin molecule changes conformation such that the exposed valine sticks to a hydrophobic patch on a neighboring hemoglobin molecule. This rapidly leads to stacking of the hemoglobin into long polymers that deform the cell membrane into its characteristic sickle shape. Amazingly, the distorted RBCs resume a normal shape in the lungs when oxygen once again binds to hemoglobin. Over time, however, these transitions lead to irreversible distortions of the RBC membrane into a sickle shape (Figure 1) (Lux et al., 1976).

In the deoxygenated environment of tissue capillary beds, the misshapen RBCs are the cause of all the problems associated with SCA. The abnormally shaped cells can build up in capillaries and veins, obstructing (occluding) blood flow and leading to severe pain and tissue damage in almost any organ of the body. The cells' sickle shape and associated fragility result in rapid RBC destruction by a patient's own body. This leads to leads to anemia, as well as congestion and fibrosis of the spleen at an early age.

Mutant Beta-globin Leads to Positive Natural Selection

Figure 2: The distribution of sickle-cell anemia haplotypes among nations with high prevalence of the disease.
Five distinct β-globin haplotypes (indicated by colors) are found in patients with sickle-cell anemia. Each color represents a different haplotype named after the country in which it was first discovered, not necessarily its genetic origin. Indeed, these haplotypes are not restricted to the eponymous nation, and they can be found broadly distributed (i.e., Benin haplotype in multiple nations, or multiple haplotypes within a single nation). The haplotype data represented in the image were summarized from genetic epidemiological studies of sickle-cell patients across different regions. Because the number of patients per study and the population ascertainment methods are highly variable, the colors denote only the relative frequency of each haplotype within a given study group. CAR = Central African Republic. Data were taken from Monteiro et al., 1989; Nagel & Ranney, 1990; Oner et al., 1992; Rahimi et al., 2003; Schroeder et al., 1990; and references therein.

[Deleted]

@ Zaharan

See where/when i respond in the other thread.
egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/thread/2129/e1b1b-north-african?page=7

Originally posted by Zarahan:
See: egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/post/13848/

MORE DATA ON NE AFRICA AND EGYPT

Originally posted by Myra Wysinger:
[QB] Art of the Egyptian Nile flourished much later than that of Saharan and Sudan Africa. The Sahara representations of oxen with discs between their horns is much earlier than those of the cow-goddess Hathor.


Egypt in Africa, 1996, pp. 62-65


Animal Deities and Symbols in Africa
Chapurkha M. Kusimba
Curator, Department of Anthropology
Field Museum of Natural History

Frank J. Yurco
Research Associate
Field Museum of Natural History

Interaction between humankind and animals in Africa has profoundly affected Africa's cultural and ecological landscape. This interaction has be captured in the archaeological record, in ancient rock art, in more recent wood carving, and in oral traditions. Chroniclers, storytellers, and artists have passed on knowledge and ethnic experiences in the form of proverbs, legends, epics, and myths.

Many mythological and popular stories in African prominently feature animals (e.g. Beier 1966; Bleek and Lloyd 1911; Hambly 1949). Some were hunted for food, clothing, and shelter. Some were respected for the might, wit, and cunning. The belief that spirituality is deeply rooted in most aspects of African life may explain why man animals or composite animals forms were adopted as totems and as deities of particular groups and societies (Mbiti 1970; Hornung 1983). For example, the ancient Egyptians revered Sobek, the crocodile deity, and Sekhmet, the lioness, and some of the snake deities such as Edjo, the cobra, for their dangerous qualities. Seth, whom the Egyptians considered a trickster (Evans-Pritchard 1967; Hambly 1949; Te Velde 1977), was manifested as a hippopotamus, pig, or donkey. As a trickster, Seth was very much in African mold. Characteristic of frogs, lizards and insects were used to express aspects of deities. Composite animals forms in Egypt included Taweret, part female hippopotamus, part crocodile, and part lioness, and Bes, the bandy legged household deity, benign, but with a leonine face. Composite animal forms sometimes constitute the imagery of sub-Saharan masks. Other ancient Egyptians deities, like Hathor and Isis, both having cow aspects, were beneficent (Goedicke 1970). That both Egyptians and Kushites worshipped rams as deities, especially Amon of Karnak, underscores the cultural interaction between Egypt and the Nubian cultures of Kush (Kendall 1982). Rams have also had a spiritual significance among the Yoruba, Edo, and other West African peoples. Moreover, most of the animals of special importance in ancient Egypt have ritual and social significance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Thus, Egyptian religious culture depicted in engravings and in art and sculpture points to the common African substratum of Egypt's culture (Frankfort 1948). What have been interpreted as masked priests portraying animals deities in Egyptian ceremonies depicted in murals are reminiscent of common African rituals. The proliferation of animal representation in rock art in Africa probably illustrates the practical, emotional, and spiritual ties between Africans and animals. For example, depictions of people wearing animals masks and animals with discs, aureoles, and rods on their heads, often found together in southern Oran and Oued Djerat in Algeria, suggest people praying in front of animals (Ki-Zerbo 1981;670).

A myth of the San of Southern Africa, which tells of the sun growing tired of being carried on a zebra's back and taking refuge between the horns of a bull (Bleek and Lloyd 1911), is very similar to depictions showing an oxen bedecked with the solar disc in Egypt, southern Oran, and the Sahara. The origins of the cow-goddess Hathor may be rooted in a pan-Africanist myth (Ki-Zerbo 1981:669). KiZerbo makes a strong case for the cultural unity of Africa based on his analysis of prehistoric art:

Art of the Egyptian Nile flourished much later than that of Saharan and Sudan Africa. The Sahara representations of oxen with discs between their horns is much earlier than those of the cow-goddess Hathor. The hawk delicately carved on the sandstone plaque of Hammada el Guir is much earlier than the ram of Amon [known from the 12th Dynasty onwards]. When Andre Malraux looked at the animal heads at Oued Djera, he considered them to be "forerunners of the Egyptian animal deities." The same no doubt holds for the bird-headed goddess at Jabbaran. Semi-naturalism only appears in Egypt in the Gerzean period and is derived from Saharan ox period carvings . . . Egypt had a tremendous influence on the interior of Africa . . . but what is even more certain is that the prehistoric civilizations of the Sahara is earlier in time . . . It was only from the so-called "historic" period onwards that Egyptian civilization achieved that splendor as a result of which everything is now attributed. But where art and technology is concerned, the focal points were originally in the modern republic of the Sudan, in East Africa, and the Near East. Moreover, the prehistoric Sudan owed much more to southeastern influence that to those from the Near East (1981:676).

Thus, the ancient Egyptian belief that divinity can be manifested in any form has strong pan-Africanist roots. Among cattle-owning societies in Africa, cattle are symbols of wealth and serve to define as well as distinguish status. Old Kingdom tombs depict cattle as large parts of a noble's holdings. Cattle provided the means for forging new relations of cooperation and interdependence. Cattle were valued for milk and cheese, but were occasionally slaughtered for religious offerings (Beidelman 1960; Bloch 1971; Rigby 1969). In common with other African pastoralists, the Egyptians practiced horn deformation on special cattle. Egyptians worshipped cattle as beneficent deities. Deities with bovine aspects echoed the importance of cattl in Egyptian society. Apis, the bull deity of Memphis, was a national deity. A bull with special markings and color was sought and, once located, was enshrined at Memphis with great honor. When the Apis died, he was embalmed with solemn ceremony and buried in the vast catacombs at Saqqara, called the Serapaeum. It should be noted that some ox masks of the Bidjogo peoples of West Africa and Apis bulls have a triangular forehead design. Besides Hathor and Isis, Neith and a lesser-known deity, Bat, occasionally were depicted in bovine form. Cow deities provided milk and nourishment for the pharaoh.

Egyptian myths and stories feature cattle. In the Story of the Two Brothers (Lichtheim 1976:203-210), a pair of brothers are grazing animals, and one brother takes on the appearance of a bull. Cattle formed an important part of the booty in Egyptian and other African military raids on neighboring peoples. The Maasai, for example, believe that God gave them al the cattle in the world. They thus feel that they have strong kinship ties with cattle (Rigby 1992). This culture is well myth of many African societies, in the archaeological record, and in modern African religious and cultural practices. Animal deities and animals, then and now, continue to play a central role in everyday spiritual, cultural, and economic life of African people.


References Cited

Beidelman, T.O, 1960. The Baraguyu. Tanganyika Notes and Records 55:244-278

Beier, Ulli, 1966. The Origin of Life and Death: African Creation Myths. London: Heinemann Educational Books Limitied.

Bleek, W.W.I., and L.C. Lloyd, 1911. Specimens of Bushman Folklore. London : George Allen and Company, Limited.

Block, Mark, 1971. Placing the Dead: Tombs, Ancestral Villages, and Kinship Organizations in Madagascar, London: Seminar Press.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E, 1967. The Zande Trickster. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Frankfort, Henri, 1948. Kingship and the Gods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goedicke, Hans, 1970. The Story of the Herdsman, Chronique d'Egypt 45(90):244-256.

Hambly, Wilfred D. 1949. Talking Animals. Washington D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc.

Hornugh, Erik, 1983. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by Jogn Baines, Ithiaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

Kendall, Timothy, 1982. Kush: Lost Kingdom of the Nile. Brockton: Brockton Art Museum.

Ki-Zerbo, J. 1981. African Prehistoric Art, In General Prehistory of Africa I: Methodolgy and African Prehistory. J. Ki-Zerbo, ed. pp. 656-686. Paris UNESCO

Lichtheim, Miriam 1976. Ancient Egyptain Literature, vol II. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Mbiti, John S. 1970. African Religions and Philosophy. New York, Doubleday and Company, Inc.

Rigby, Peter, 1969. Cattle and Kinship Among the Gogo. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.

_________, 1992. Cattle, Capitalism, and Class: Ilparakuyo Maasai Transformations, Phaladelphia: Temple University Press.

Te Velde, Hermann, 1977. Seth, God of Confusion. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

. [/QB]

[zarahan]

DNA studies show some Europeans more related to Asians than other Europeans



"However, in a reanalysis of data from
377 microsatellite loci typed in 1056
individuals, Europeans proved to be
more similar to Asians than to other
Europeans 38% of the time (Bamshad
et al. 2004; population definitions and
data from Rosenberg et al. 2002)."
--Witherspoon 2007. Genetic Similarities Within and
Between Human Populations. Genetics. v.176(1)



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NO ONE claims southern Europeans are all or mostly African, but some
modern studies show up to 25% African DNA in various European populations.
In popular American and European racial models this would make them "mixed race"..

[zarahan]

Egyptian knowledge and techniques laid basis for some substantial
ancient European medicine, modern research shows

QUOTE:

"Although ancient Greek and Roman medicine is generally considered the
origin of European medicine, there is evidence in ancient Egyptian texts
suggesting a precursor role of ancient Egyptian medicine in this regard.
What did Greek and Roman physicians learn from their Egyptian
counterparts? Of the medical papyri discovered to date, the largest and
most significant - the Ebers papyrus and the Smith papyrus - originate
from the beginning of the New Kingdom, however, they were - at least in
part - already written during the Old Kingdom. Considering the times, the
spectrum of diseases treated as well as the range of conservative and
surgical treatment methods was truly astounding. Taking a medical
history, performing a thorough manual examination, and assessing clinical
findings constituted key components in establishing a diagnosis. Apart
from hygienic aspects, skin and hair disorders, the treatment of acute and
chronic wounds and injuries as well as cosmetic procedures took on an
important role. Even back then, physicians sought to assess inflammatory
processes with respect to their cardinal features, implement graded wound
therapy, and treat diseases with allopathic drugs. The 'channel theory'
prevalent at that time, in which the unimpeded flow of bodily fluids was
considered a fundamental prerequisite for health, may likely be regarded as
precursor of ancient Greek humoral pathology. The latter became the basis
for the subsequently established theory of the four humors, and was thus
essential for the entire field of medieval medicine."

-- Hartmann A1. 2016. Back to the roots - dermatology in ancient Egyptian
medicine. --J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2016 Apr;14(4):389-96.

[zarahan]

Dental studies of the ROMAN-era Kellis cemetery of the Dakleh Oasis in Egypt show that the mixed late period population clusters more with Sub-Saharan Africans (West and South incl. Khosian) and North Africans (Chadian, Nubian, Egyptian Algerian, Bedouin, Carthaginian, Canary Islander), than with Europeans, despite more gene flow from Europe and the Near East in the Roman era. Some DNA suggests links with sub-Saharan Africa.Other dental studies of the ancient Badarians hold them as good representatives of ancient Egyptians.



DNA analysis: sub-Saharan influence in place from antiquity:
“.. preliminary sequencing data of HV-1 suggests a genetically diverse population from a maternal perspective. Moreover, specific point mutations, in the small number of individuals analyzed to date (n=13), hint at potential maternal associations with sub-Saharan Africa in antiquity.”
-- Ryan Parr et al. 1999. Mitochondrial DNA Research in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. 10th International Symposium on Human Identification-Abstract 69.

Mixed population area- but African influence still predominant
“.. given the socio-economic conditions at Dakhleh during the Romano-Christian period and the evidence that migrants to the Oasis likely came from regions that experienced gene flow from Southern Europe and/or the Near East, body shape in the Kellis 2 sample may show greater variation than expected.“
--Beluze 2014. An Exploration of Adult Body Shape and Limb Proportions at Kellis 2, Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. AJPA 153(3): 496-505

[zarahan]

Light skin is nothing special in ultra-diverse "sub-Saharan" Africa including West African sub-groups.

[zarahan]

Dental studies of the recently discovered al Khiday sample in Nubia, admit there was population continuity in the
ancient Nubian Nile valley after all - contradicting earlier notions of wholesale replacement by an outside population

"A preliminary comparison of dental nonmetric data in 15 late Pleistocene through early historic Nubian samples (n=795 individuals) with recently discovered remains from al Khiday in Upper Nubia may provide the answer. Dating to at least 9,000+ BP, the new sample (n=40) may be the first of Late Paleolithic age recovered in >40 years; however, until additional fieldwork and dating are conducted, the excavators prefer the more conservative term of "pre-Mesolithic."
Using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to record traits and multivariate statistics to estimate pairwise affinities, it is evident that al Khiday is closely akin to most Holocene samples. It is widely divergent from Jebel Sahaba. As such, there does appear to be long-term biological continuity in the region after all.."
--Irish 2012. Population continuity after all? Potential late Pleistocene dental ancestors of Holocene Nubians have been found! AJPA Sup 54: 172-173

[zarahan]

Modern DNA studies show ancient African movement to, and presence in ancient Iberia (Spain)
going back to the Mesolithic, long before any Roman Empire, or colonial slave trade era.


Over the sands and far away: Interpreting an Iberian mitochondrial lineage with ancient Western African origins- QUOTE.

OBJECTIVES:
There is an ongoing effort to characterize the genetic links between Africa and Europe, mostly using lineages and haplotypes that are specific to one continent but had an ancient origin in the other. Mitochondrial DNA has been proven to be a very useful tool for this purpose since a high number of putatively European-specific variants of the African L* lineages have been defined over the years. Due to their geographic locations, Spain and Portugal seem to be ideal places for searching for these lineages.

METHODS:
Five members of a minor branch of haplogroup L3f were found in recent DNA samplings in the region of Asturias (Northern Spain), which is known for its historical isolation. The frequency of L3f in this population (˜1%) is unexpectedly high in comparison with other related lineages in Europe. Complete mitochondrial DNA sequencing of these L3f lineages, as well phylogenetic and phylogeographic comparative analyses have been performed.

RESULTS:
The L3f variant found in Asturias seems to constitute an Iberian-specific haplogroup, distantly related to lineages in Northern Africa and with a deep ancestry in Western Africa. Coalescent algorithms estimate the minimum arrival time as 8,000 years ago, and a possible route through the Gibraltar Strait.

CONCLUSIONS:
Results are concordant with a previously proposed Neolithic connection between Southern Europe and Western Africa, which might be key to the proper understanding of the ancient links between these two continents.

-- Pardiñas et. al. 2014. Over the sands and far away: Interpreting an Iberian mitochondrial lineage with ancient Western African origins. Am J Hum Biol. 2014 Aug 11


African movement long before the Moors as well..


Move Iberian studies..

Eva Fernández DomínguezAbstract:

[Eng] The origins of European populations have been addressed from various disciplines, highlighting the contribution of population genetics studies. Shuffle two moments in prehistory in which it has been possible to model the gene pool of European populations: the spread of Neolithic and Upper Paleolithic expansions. The ability to retrieve genetic information from past populations provides a unique opportunity to spot check the hypotheses from other disciplines. We studied 197 dental and bone samples of 115 individuals from 17 archaeological sites and Sumerian Neolithic Near East, Nubia Meroitic era and paleolithic, neolithic and post-Neolithic in the Iberian Peninsula. We obtained complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of 244 bp from 35 different individuals were compared with sequences from the same region of current individuals 38 European populations, African and Middle East. In phylogenetic reconstructions based on the distance of Reynolds ancient samples groups are grouped together, away from the extant populations. However, phylogenetic reconstructions made from haplotypes old and new samples illustrates that, although most ancient mitochondrial variants are not present in current populations sampled can relate to more or less closely with them. The composition of haplotypes and haplogroups of ancient samples from Middle East and the Iberian Peninsula differs markedly from that found in the current populations of these geographic regions. In the old sample of middle eastern absence of mitochondrial haplogroups J, U3, W and X, related to the expansion of the Neolithic into Europe. This may be due either to the ancient samples analyzed is not representative-chronologically or geographically-populations that expanded Middle East during the Neolithic well that these variants were not introduced to Europe during the Neolithic. In the old sample of the Iberian Peninsula highlights the presence of a 50% sub-Saharan lines. These lines may have been introduced during the Solutrean, the Mesolithic or Neolithic. This paper also examined several technical aspects of obtaining authentic ancient DNA and the influence of several variables on the preservation of genetic material."
--Fernandez et al. 2005. Mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in ancient populations of the Mediterranean basin