posted 30 July 2005 01:12 AM            

"[The caves of Erq-el-Ahmar] . . . produced 132 individuals for Miss Garrod. All these Natufians share the same physical type, completely different from that of earlier Palestinians. They are short, about 160 cm.* and dolichocephalic. They were probably Cro-Magnoid Mediterraneans, presenting certain Negroid characteristics attributable to crossbreeding . . ." - courtesy of Furod/Miss Garrod

"Against this background of disease, movement and pedomorphic reduction of body size one can identify Negroid (Ethiopic or Bushmanoid?) traits of nose and prognathism appearing in Natufian latest hunters (McCown, 1939) and in Anatolian and Macedonian first farmers, probably from Nubia via the unknown predecesors of the Badarians and Tasians...." - Larry Angel.

"In my own skeletal samples from Greece I note apparent negroid nose and mouth traits in two of fourteen Early Neolithic (sixth millenium B.C.), only two or three more among 364 from fifth to second millenium B.C., one among 113 Early Iron Age, one or two among 233 Classic and Hellenistic skeletons, but four clear Negroids (all from one area of Early Christian Corinth) among ninety-five Roman period, two among eighty-five Medieval, and of course ten among fifty-two Turkish period Greeks, yet none among 202 of Romantic (nineteenth century) date." - Larry Angel

The Natufians being the product of crossbreeding between Africans and Levantine populations, and subsequent further crossbreeding between those offspring and Nile Valley, is virtually common knowledge now:

The difference between late XVII and XVIII dynasty royal mummies and contemporary Nubians is slight. During the XVIV and XX dynasties we see possibly some mixing between a Nubian element that is more similar to Mesolithic Nubians (low vaults, sloping frontal bone, etc.), with an orthognathous population. Since the Ramessides were of northern extraction, this could represent miscegenation with modern Mediterraneans of Levantine type. The projecting zygomatic arches of Seti I suggest remnants of the old Natufian/Tasian types of the Holocene period…

In summation, the New Kingdom Pharaohs and Queens whose mummies have been recovered bear strong similarity to either contemporary Nubians, as with the XVII and XVIII dynasties, or with Mesolithic-Holocene Nubians, as with the XVIV and XX dynasties. The former dynasties seem to have a strong southern affinity, while the latter possessed evidence of mixing with modern Mediterranean types and also, possibly, with remnants of the old Tasian and Natufian populations. From the few sample available from the XXI Dynasty, there may have been a new infusion from the south at this period. - based on the X-ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980), courtesy of James Harris and Edward Wente:

"One of the archaeological possibilities is a group called the Mushabaeans. This group moves in on another group that's Middle Eastern. Out of this, you get the Natufian people." - Linguist Ehret.

Years later, molecular genetics would confirm the results of earlier and current aforementioned observations:

"In particular, from among its subgroups, E-M78 (fig. 1E) is present in Europe, the Middle East, and North and East Africa. However, whereas no preferential YCAII microsatellite motif is observed in the Middle East, prevalent associations with YCAIIa21-YCAIIb19 in Europe and YCAIIa22-YCAIIb19 in Africa are found. E-M81 (fig. 1F) is almost absent in Europe (with the exception of Sicily and Iberia) and the Middle East but characterizes the majority of the Y chromosomes of populations from northwestern Africa. E-M123 (fig. 1G) is spread in the Near East and is also observed in North Africa and Europe but does not reach the western European regions. E-M281 and E-M329 are geographically restricted, having been seen only in Ethiopians (two subjects each)."

Notice from the above fig, in the European context, how the typical African E haplogroup is more concentrated in the regions near the Mediterranean sea, and rapidly increases in concentration as one moves from western to southeastern regions.

"Southern Italy (Apulia and Calabria) contains sites of the early Neolithic period (Whitehouse 1968), but we know from history that these regions were subsequently colonized by the Greeks (Peloponnesians). To test the relative contribution of Greek colonists versus putative earlier Neolithic settlers, an admixture analysis (Bertorelle and Excoffier 1998) was performed, using E-M78 and J-M172(xM12) as signatures of Greek and Anatolian lineages, respectively. The Anatolian source population was based on 523 Turks, of whom 118 were J-M172(xM12) and 25 were E-M78 (Cinniolu et al. 2004). The Greek population comprised 36 Peloponnesian samples, 5 of which were J-M172(xM12) and 17 of which were E-M78 (R.K., unpublished data). In spite of the small Peloponnesian sample size, the high E-M78 frequency (47%) observed here is consistent with that (44%) independently found in the same region (Di Giacomo et al. 2003) for the YAP chromosomes harboring microsatellite haplotypes (A. Novelletto, personal communication) typical of Hg E-M78 (Cruciani et al. 2004 [in this issue]; present study)." - Semino et al.

Richards et al, 2002, actually make reference to an even more recent gene flow of sub-Saharan E lineages into Europe:

"The analysis for eastern Mediterranean Europe indicated a very high frequency (∼20%) of recent gene flow, as compared with only ∼10% Neolithic input. It would be necessary to perform a similar founder analysis (using, for example, a large panel of fast-evolving microsatellites) to see whether a proportion of the putative Y chromosome Neolithic types in Europe are actually of more recent origin. However, it is suggestive that the frequency of Y chromosome haplogroup E, which Semino et al. (2000) have inferred to be Neolithic, appears at particularly high levels in the western Mediterranean in the more extensive sample of Rosser et al. (2000) (fig. 3E). As Rosser et al. suggest, this may imply gene flow mainly from North Africa (where haplogroup E reaches its highest frequency), rather than mainly from the Near East, because, judging from archaeological evidence, the development of agriculture in Iberia is likely to have been largely indigenous (Zilhão 2000)."

From the first PC analysis, Richards et al found that,

"The first PC accounts for 49% of the variation and is approximately east-west within Europe, but the Near East and eastern Mediterranean Europe cluster with central Europe. This gradient is accounted for largely by paragroup R* (nomenclature of the Y Chromosome Consortium [2002]), formerly haplogroup 1 (Jobling and Tyler-Smith 2000) in the west and by haplogroups R1a (formerly haplogroup 3) and N3 (formerly Tat) in the east (fig. 5). In agreement with the suggestion proposed to explain the distribution of mtDNA haplogroup V (Torroni et al. 1998, 2001), the distributions of Y chromosome groups R* and R1a have been interpreted by Semino et al. (2000) to be the result of postglacial expansions from refugia within Europe."

But with Hg E in the mix, they got:

"The second PC of Y chromosome variation accounts for 26% of the variation, and it clusters most European regions at one pole while grouping the Near East at the other, with eastern Mediterranean and central Mediterranean Europe between the two poles.

The main contributors to the gradients are haplogroups E and J (formerly haplogroups 21 and 9, both of which are frequent in the Near East) and, again, R* and N3 (both of which are more frequent in Europe). This points to gene flow from the Near East, as suggested by both Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994) and Semino et al. (2000). Haplogroup J in Europe is interpreted more specifically by Semino et al. (2000) as the result of Neolithic dispersal. Curiously, however, haplogroups E and J are again most frequent along the Mediterranean coastline and rapidly dwindle as one moves into central Europe, where the archaeological record tells us the main farming expansion took place…

From Semino et al,

"Moreover, the observation that the derivative E-M78 displays the DYS392-12/DYS19-11 haplotype suggests that it also arose in East Africa."

"The frequency of haplogroup E3b1*(xE3b1b) in Somali males is the highest observed in any populations to date, and we suggest that the Somali male population is the origin of this haplogroup...

Although the Horn of Africa is considered a geographic part of sub-Saharan Africa, we have analysed the Somali population separately in order to compare the results with previously published data from other African populations." - Sanchez et al

What is certain about the early the Holocene expansion of sub-Saharan lineages, is that these lineages arose among and subsequently carried by black Africans:

"The oldest remains of Homo sapiens sapiens found in East Africa were associated with an industry having similarities with the Capsian. It has been called Upper Kenyan Capsian, although its derivation from the North African Capsian is far from certain. At Gamble's Cave in Kenya, five human skeletons were associated with a late phase of the industry, Upper Kenya Capsian C, which contains pottery. A similar associationis presumed for a skeleton found at Olduvai, which resembles those from Gamble's Cave. The date of Upper Kenya Capsian C is not precisely known (an earlier phase from Prospect Farm on Eburru Mountain close to Gamble's Cave has been dated to about 8000 BC); but the presence of pottery indicates a rather later date, perhaps around 400 BC. The skeletons are of very tall people. They had long, narrow heads, and relatively long, narrow faces. The nose was of medium width; and prognathism, when present, was restricted to the alveolar, or tooth-bearing, region.
Many authors regard these people as physically akin to the Mediterraneans, hence the label of 'Caucasoids' (or European-like) generally attached to them.

However, all their features can be found in several living populations of East Africa, like the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi, who are very dark skinned and differ greatly from Europeans in a number of body proportions.............

From the foregoing, it is tempting to locate the area of differentiation of these people in the interior of East Africa. Now, as mentioned in Chapter 3, the fossil record tells of tall people with long and narrow heads, faces and noses who lived a few thousand years BC in East Africa at such places as Gamble's Cave in the Kenya Rift Valley and at Olduvai in northern Tanzania. There is every reason to believe that they are ancestral to the living 'Elongated East Africans'. Neither of these populations, fossil and modern, should be considered to be closely related to Caucasoids of Europe and western Asia, as they usually are in literature." -

Jean Hiernaux
The People of Africa(Peoples of the World Series)
pgs 42-43, 62-63"