posted 30 December 2004 02:35 PM            

I found this on the net. It is a little old, but I believe it gives us the framework for the position of Diamond, Brace, Bellwood, Renfrew and others.

Thought Posts:

Can Genetics help unravel the Afroasiatic cradle?
MahE9 BEN HAMED1,2, LounE8s CHIKHI3 and Pierre DARLU2

1 Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, UMR5596, Lyon, France
2 GE9nE9tique EpidE9miologique et Structure des populations humaines,

U535, Villejuif, France
3 UMR Evolution et DiversitE9 Biologique, Toulouse, France

Mahe.Ben-Hamed@ish-lyon.cnrs.fr

The location of the Afroasiatic cradle and the routes of
expansion of this linguistic family have long been debated. Two
scenarios compete. The first scenario (Militarev et al., 1992) connects
the history of this linguistic family with the expansion of the major
Eurasian linguistic phyla which are themselves thought to have been
brought during the agriculturalist revolution in the Near-East about
10-13,000 years ago. This scenario is supported by the Russian
linguistic school and the Nostratic tenants who consider the Afroasiatic
is related to the Nostratic macro-family. .On the contrary, afrasian
historical linguists support a second scenario where the Afro-Asiatic is
thought to have originated in eastern Lower Nubia and to be at least
15,000 years old (Ehret, 1979, 1995). It has been difficult to clearly
demonstrate the superiority of any of the two scenarios as tenants from
both sides have sometimes used the same methodologies to reach opposite
conclusions. Moreover, some of the methodologies used such as linguistic
palaeontology and glottochronology are often criticised among the
linguistic community. One possible explanation for obtaining such
paradoxical conclusions is that there might be methodological
deficiencies in the way the issue is handled (Ben Hamed and Darlu,
2003). The debate is thus left wide open, and it remains as topical now
as it was when Afro-Asiatic was first established as a linguistic
phylum, at the beginning of the 20th Century (Cohen, 1924).

Given the existing controversy among linguists and the scarcity
of archaeological data to solve the Afroasiatic homeland puzzle (McCall,
1998), it is legitimate to ask whether genetic data could be as useful
as it has been on similar issues on other linguistic groups. In a
research context favouring multidisciplinary approaches, reconciling the
three approaches would certainly be a significant improvement. .
Currently, the Anatolian scenario is probably the most appealing for it
is both synthetic and parsimonious. It provides a powerful explanation
for the expansion of this and other linguistic families. Indeed, a demic
diffusion scenario starting in the same region is becoming increasingly
supported in the case of Indo-European and some of the other Nostratic
branches. If confirmed this would identify the Fertile Crescent as the
cradle of the neighbouring linguistic diversity, and the demic diffusion
model as a paradigm for the study of populations92 evolution in these
regions at least.

In the present talk we will take an indirect approach to the
problem, which cannot on its own answer the whole cradle issue, but
which can test the consistency of the genetic data with specific
linguistic scenarios. Both scenarios imply migratory events.
Correlatively, in the demic model of a linguistic family expansion,
admixture patterns between the migrating people and the local demes are
expected. Provided appropriate parental hypotheses 96 i.e. which
population represents the migratory wave, and which will represent the
substratum submitted to admixture- it is possible to infer admixture
patterns from the observed genetic frequencies of present-day
populations. We confront here different admixture methods relying on
different assumptions in order to embrace all the evolutionary forces
that can shape the admixture profile of the populations under study
(Chikhi et al., 2001; Bertorelle and Excoffier, 1998; Wijsman, 1984).
The profiles thus obtained are confronted with each of the scenarios
proposed for Afro-asiatic.

Bibliography:

Ben Hamed M., Darlu P. Origine et Expansion de l92afro-asiatiqueA0:
mE9thodologie pour une approche pluridisciplinaire. Bulletins et
ME9moires de la SociE9tE9 d92Anthropologie de Paris, n.s., t. 15,
2003, 1-2, (in press).

Bertorelle G, Excoffier L. Inferring admixture proportions from
molecular data. Mol Biol Evol., 1998 Oct; 15(10):1298-311.

Chikhi L, Bruford MW, Beaumont MA., Estimation of admixture proportions:
a likelihood-based approach using Markov chain Monte Carlo. Genetics,
2001 Jul; 158(3):1347-62.

Cohen M., Les langues chamito-sE9mitiques, in Meillet A., Cohen M.
(eds), Les Langues du monde, Paris. (1924)

Ehret C., On the antiquity of agriculture in Ethiopia, Journal of
African History, 1979, 20: 161-117.

Ehret C., Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels,
Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary, University of California Publications
in Linguistics 126, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles (1995).

Mc Call D.F., The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or
Asian? Current Anthropology, 1998, Vol.39 no.1 pp.139-143.20

Militarev A., Shnirelman V., The Problem of a Proto-Afrasian homeland
and culture (An essay in linguo-archaeological reconstruction), A
Journal of Composition Theory, 1992, 7: 121-130.

Wijsman E.M., Techniques for estimating genetic admixture and
applications to the problem of the origin of the Icelanders and the
Ashkenazi Jews. Hum Genet. 1984; 67(4):441-8.

posted 30 December 2004 09:58 PM            

http://www.asor.org/pubs/news/47_3.html

""Further, a majority of the sites belong to one specific archaeological culture, the Mushabian, which occurs only in the Negev, Sinai, and southern Jordan. This culture may not be of Levantine origin, and, in fact, is related to movement of populations throughout the eastern Mediterranean.""

4. The Prehistory of Northern Sinai

James Phillips, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow; Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago

During the 1970s, a series of archaeological surveys and excavations in northern Sinai were conducted by a joint University of Illinois and Hebrew University team led by James Phillips and Ofer Bar-Yosef. More than fifty archaeological sites were discovered and excavated. This project presents the final results of work after the return of the archaeological material to the Egyptian Government in December 1994.

The Epipaleolithic occupation of the Levant (from 20,000-10,300 BP) contains the seeds for the earliest development of sedentary villages, and, eventually, agriculture and animal husbandry anywhere on earth. The sites discovered in northern Sinai belong to this complex and contain important information, which analyzed, has helped to understand further the processes that led to village life. Further, a majority of the sites belong to one specific archaeological culture, the Mushabian, which occurs only in the Negev, Sinai, and southern Jordan. This culture may not be of Levantine origin, and, in fact, is related to movement of populations throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Thus the project has resulted in a new understanding of the settlement and subsistence of northern Sinai during this period.

The interval from 20,000-10,300 BP was the time period when frequent and rapid climatic changes spread over the earth, effecting the environment in various ways. While in Europe it was quite cold and relatively dry (sea level was down 50-200m), in the Levant it was generally cooler and more humid than today. This climatic type, which promoted a temperate seasonal environment, facilitated the movement of populations out of the Mediterranean northern Levant into the newly formed grasslands and Oak-Pistachio forests of the central and southern Levant. Notable within this expansion was the increased distribution of wild grasses, such as wheat and barley, into the Negev and, probably, northern Sinai. It is within this context that the terminal Pleistocene occupation of northern Sinai took place.

posted 30 December 2004 10:06 PM            

The Prehistory Of Egypt
Beatrix Midant-Reynes
Page 63

“Given that the Nile Delta is located directly between the Levant and North Africa, it must have played an essential role in the development of Microlithic cultures, and some scholars argue that the Mushabian complex in the Sinai might have originated in the Delta.”

The Origins Of Afroasiatic
Chrsitopher Ehret, S.O.Y. Keita, Paul Newman
Science
Letters Section
Vol 306
December 3, 2004

"Underhill et al. state that this lineage was carried from Africa during the Mesolithic.”

posted 01 January 2005 03:57 PM            

If we begin the peopling of AE within the following frame of reference we will go far in establishing the African origin of AE. It shows us the false premise underlying the Nostratic concept. Human gene flow during the Mesolithic period would have flowed south to north:

Thought Posts:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/13/6993

posted 02 January 2005 12:40 PM            

Ben Harder
for National Geographic News
April 11, 2002

African herders rely on cattle for food and other basic needs, and as beasts of burden. But how cattle domestication occurred in Africa has been obscured by long-ago migrations and trade.

Now, by studying the DNA of cattle in 23 countries, an international team of scientists is filling in the picture. An extensive new study of genetic variation in African cattle sheds light on how the domestication of cattle unfolded differently in Africa than elsewhere in the world.

Evidence suggests that sheep and goats, first domesticated in the Near East, were imported into Africa through colonization and ocean-going trade. Scientists have long speculated that the domestication of cattle also occurred first in the Near East and that the practice of herding cattle was similarly imported.

But new evidence, reported in the April 12 issue of the journal Science, suggests that Africans independently domesticated cattle.

Belgian geneticist Olivier Hanotte, who headed the new study, said the research "reconciles the two schools of thought" about how cattle domestication occurred in Africa.

"There were Near Eastern influences" on African herds, he said, "but they came after local domestication."

Since then, there has been considerable mixing of African and Asian breeds.

Unusual Pattern

In general, the domestication of cattle and other livestock has followed the establishment of agriculture. But archaeological research has shown that the domestication of cattle unfolded differently in Africa than elsewhere in the world.

In many parts of Africa, people herded cattle long before agriculture was introduced from the Near East and south Asia. Some African groups that have herded cattle for centuries have never adopted agriculture at all, or have done so only recently. One example is the Masai of eastern Africa, who rarely slaughter cattle but instead mix the milk and blood of the animals to create a staple of their diet.

Intrigued by the uncommon pattern of cattle domestication in Africa, Hanotte moved to Kenya in 1995 in an effort to explain the development. He and other researchers in Europe began untangling layers of genetic information in cattle DNA to help answer major questions about the history of herding in Africa.

Their findings offer scientists and herders a virtual history book describing how cattle, crucial to so many Africans, came to be so genetically diverse. The research also underscores why preserving that variety is essential.

Hanotte and his colleagues analyzed more than a dozen segments of the cattle genome. Because the sections they looked at don't affect how "fit" an animal is evolutionarily, they aren't subject to the effects of natural selection.

As a result, those genetic segments record the genetic twists and turns of different cattle lineages and, in the language of DNA, serve as scribes of bovine history.

The researchers compared this DNA material among many individual cattle belonging to 50 different herds in 23 African nations.

Herders, scientists, and government officials in those countries aided the study by tracking down sometimes-remote herds, testing them, and transmitting the data to Hanotte and his team.

When Hanotte and his colleagues analyzed the samples of cattle DNA, they found that the variation associated with certain segments of genetic code reveal a telling geographic pattern across Africa.

The nature of genetic variation changed like the colors of a rainbow as the researchers looked at cattle from West Africa, Central Africa, and southern Africa. The greatest amount of genetic diversity was found among herds in Central Africa.

Based on the data, Hanotte and his colleagues concluded that people living in Central Africa developed cattle domestication on their own, and that the techniques—or the herders themselves—gradually migrated toward the west and the south, spreading domestication across the continent.

Mixed Origins

In looking at the wide genetic variation among African cattle, the researchers found evidence of interbreeding between cattle native to Africa and an imported breed.

Most modern African herds represent mixtures of two breeds: Africa's native cattle, called taurines (Bos taurus), and a slightly larger Asian breed, known as zebu (Bos indicus), which was domesticated before it arrived in Africa.

Long-distance trade across the Indian Ocean brought many domesticated plants and animals to Africa, including the chicken and camel and cereals such as finger millet and sorghum. Presumably, Hanotte said, trade also brought zebu bulls that farmers interbred with domesticated taurine cows, producing the mixed herds of today.

Some variation in the African herds is also attributable to European influences, Hanotte said. These genetic contributions came in the past few hundred years, during Europe's colonial influence in Africa.

For thousands of years, animal farmers have gradually improved their livestock by selectively breeding animals with different desired traits to endow the offspring with valuable combinations of traits.

Resistance to sleeping sickness is one trait that potentially could spread through selective breeding. Taurine cattle in one region of western Africa, unlike most livestock, are resistant to the parasite that causes the deadly disease.

But the number of animals with the protective adaptation is dwindling, as local farmers give up their taurine herds for large zebu animals.

Hanotte, along with other people, is worried by this trend. "The starting material for selective breeding is diversity," he said. "We can't afford to lose it."

posted 04 January 2005 10:06 AM            

ORIGINS OF THE SOMALI [and cushitic language]:

A paucity of written historical evidence forces the student of early Somalia to depend on the findings of archeology, anthropology, historical linguistics, and related disciplines. Such evidence has provided insights that in some cases have refuted conventional explanations of the origins and evolution of the Somali people. For example, where historians once believed that the Somalis originated on the Red Sea's western coast, or perhaps in southern Arabia, it now seems clear that the ancestral homeland of the Somalis, together with affiliated Cushite peoples, was in the highlands of southern Ethiopia, specifically in the lake regions. Similarly, the once-common notion that the migration and settlement of early Muslim followers of the Prophet Muhammad on the Somali coast in the early centuries of Islam had a significant impact on the Somalis no longer enjoys much academic support. Scholars now recognize that the Arab factor--except for the Somalis' conversion to Islam--is marginal to understanding the Somali past. Furthermore, conventional wisdom once held that Somali migrations followed a north-to-south route; the reverse of this now appears to be nearer the truth.

Increasingly, evidence places the Somalis within a wide family of peoples called Eastern Cushites by modern linguists and described earlier in some instances as Hamites. From a broader cultural-linguistic perspective, the Cushite family belongs to a vast stock of languages and peoples considered Afro-Asiatic. Afro-Asiatic languages in turn include Cushitic (principally Somali, Oromo, and Afar), the Hausa language of Nigeria, and the Semitic languages of Arabic, Hebrew, and Amharic. Medieval Arabs referred to the Eastern Cushites as the Berberi.

In addition to the Somalis, the Cushites include the largely nomadic Afar (Danakil), who straddle the Great Rift Valley between Ethiopia and Djibouti; the Oromo, who have played such a large role in Ethiopian history and in the 1990s constituted roughly one-half of the Ethiopian population and were also numerous in northern Kenya; the Reendille (Rendilli) of Kenya; and the Aweera (Boni) along the Lamu coast in Kenya. The Somalis belong to a subbranch of the Cushites, the Omo-Tana group, whose languages are almost mutually intelligible. The original home of the Omo-Tana group appears to have been on the Omo and Tana rivers, in an area extending from Lake Turkana in present-day northern Kenya to the Indian Ocean coast.

The Somalis form a subgroup of the Omo-Tana called Sam. Having split from the main stream of Cushite peoples about the first half of the first millennium B.C., the proto-Sam appear to have spread to the grazing plains of northern Kenya, where protoSam communities seem to have followed the Tana River and to have reached the Indian Ocean coast well before the first century A.D. On the coast, the proto-Sam splintered further; one group (the Boni) remained on the Lamu Archipelago, and the other moved northward to populate southern Somalia. There the group's members eventually developed a mixed economy based on farming and animal husbandry, a mode of life still common in southern Somalia. Members of the proto-Sam who came to occupy the Somali Peninsula were known as the so-called Samaale, or Somaal, a clear reference to the mythical father figure of the main Somali clan-families, whose name gave rise to the term Somali.

The Samaale again moved farther north in search of water and pasturelands. They swept into the vast Ogaden (Ogaadeen) plains, reaching the southern shore of the Red Sea by the first century A.D. German scholar Bernd Heine, who wrote in the 1970s on early Somali history, observed that the Samaale had occupied the entire Horn of Africa by approximately 100 A.D.http://countrystudies.us/somalia/3.htm

There are even some Somali, who having learned their history from [wst] mythologists, think that they are Hamites, immigrants from Arabia, part Arab and so forth.

Issue is also poltical due to conflict between Ethiopia & Somalia. Somali and Ethiopians sometimes take turns accusing each other of not being indigenous to the region, and claiming aboriginal status for themselves alone.

posted 04 January 2005 10:34 AM            

rasol wrote: Loring Brace who argued that the Ancient Kemetians most resembled the modern Somali...which in turn required him to solve the "problem of Somali origins" by hypothesizing that they were originally non-Black immigrants from Asia...then arguing that the fact that the Somali had dark skin simply proved that they (Asians) must have been living in tropical Africa for "many 10's of thousands of years"..... because it would take at least that long for a previously white people to re-evolve dark skin.

Of course, many critics of Brace noted that his argument was circuitous.

If the Somali were simply viewed as indigenous Africans having always had dark skin....then there is no "problem" and no need to hypothesize an explanation for their origins, that runs counter to all other evidence.

...notice again the need to make bogus mysteries [how did the Somali-and by implication the AE - turn Black?] rather than solve them.

posted 09 January 2005 11:34 PM            

Here is an interesting qoute on the similarities between the living structures found at the Dahklah Oasis and later in the Delta neolithic settlements.

Thought Posts:

Island Of The Blessed
By Harry Thurston
2003
Page 87

"In looking for precedents, the closet examples McDonald could think of were in the Nile Valley at Merimda, on the western edge of the Delta. There, postholes and fragments of wooden posts indicate that the inhabitants lived in oval huts or wigmans. In some instances, a central wooden post supported the roof. But these Valley dwellings date to 6000 years ago, more than a millennium later than the oldest Bashendi prototypes.

posted 10 January 2005 10:06 AM            

Dakhleh Oasis Project:

One component of the Dakhleh Oasis Project is bioarcheological, focussing on the demography, diseases and genetics of Dakhleh's ancient populations. To this end, over 700 burials have been collectively excavated from three major cemeteries: Ein Tirghi (circa 800 BC), Kellis 1 (circa 300-36 BC), and Kellis 2 (K2; circa AD 100-300).
...to date, 378 K2 burials have been excavated. Biological distance analyses using both metric (Henderson, 1993) and nonmetric cranial traits (Molto, 1996) of 310 of these burials suggest that the population is homogeneous through the period, with limited inter-regional gene flow, implying an isolated population.