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OK so I was able to track down Dr. Keita's email and he was kind enough to answer my questions. Alot of people have been interpreting Keita's research on this site and expressed different opinions about his conclusions. I felt that these three questions were important enough to ask him directly about.
Question #1: Is the light skin of many North Africans a local adaptation or was it introduced to the region from Eurasian migrants (if the latter during what time period)?
Keita's answer:
The DNA work has not been done to determine if the light skin in northern Africa is something that emerged there or came in by intermarriage. African variability. Perhaps you will do this. We should expect African variability to be great--ask yourself this: why is it so hard for some to accept the reality or likelihood of African variability in modern sapiens, when in fact the hominid evolution of new genus occurred in Africa. So if such great changes occurred why the doubt about little changes?
Question #2: Were the Ancient Egyptians predominately dark-skinned throughout the Dynastic period and were they predominately African biologically (a pictorial reference to modern populations to illustrate what the majority looked like would be helpful)?
Keita's answer: No one can say exactly what colour they were, but one might reasonably say that the typical Upper Egyptian to Nubian color would have been the modal colour in most of the country.
Question #3: Why do some of the mummies of the Ancient Egyptians have light (yellow, red etc.) hair?
Keita's answer:
The hair colour question is no doubt difficult and has many answers--some related to artificial colouring, some related to different folk being in Egypt, some related natural variation. Remember there are dark skinned Australian Aborigines and New Guineans with blond hair.
Here's a final message from Keita that I think can apply to everyone interested in the topic:
I hope that this helps. Be scientific in all of your work. Understand evolution. Understand also the racist history of ideas that tried to remove Egypt from Africa.
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: Question #1: Is the light skin of many North Africans a local adaptation or was it introduced to the region from Eurasian migrants (if the latter during what time period)?
Keita's answer:
The DNA work has not been done to determine if the light skin in northern Africa is something that emerged there or came in by intermarriage. African variability. Perhaps you will do this. We should expect African variability to be great--ask yourself this: why is it so hard for some to accept the reality or likelihood of African variability in modern sapiens, when in fact the hominid evolution of new genus occurred in Africa. So if such great changes occurred why the doubt about little changes?
Is Keita implying that he's open to the possibility that light skin in North Africa is some that evolved in situ? If so, I don't really agree with him. I don't think UV levels in North Africa are so low that any population living there after migrating from equatorial Africa would experience more than a very slight depigmentation (e.g. ebony to mahogany brown). Therefore, I think the light skin is something that was brought in by a back-migration at some point.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: Is Keita implying that he's open to the possibility that light skin in North Africa is some that evolved in situ? If so, I don't really agree with him. I don't think UV levels in North Africa are so low that any population living there after migrating from equatorial Africa would experience more than a very slight depigmentation (e.g. ebony to mahogany brown). Therefore, I think the light skin is something that was brought in by a back-migration at some point.
I asked them that comment specifically because of the comment he gave at the Cambridge University lecture.
It does seem strange to me that North Africans would evolve such light skin but then again there are light skinned people in Southwest Asia at the same latitude and the Khoisan deep in the heart of Africa have light skin so it is plausible.
I've brought this issue up on Egyptsearch before and people usually reply with genetic data but I did not save those sources so I am not all that familiar with the theories on this.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: It does seem strange to me that North Africans would evolve such light skin but then again there are light skinned people in Southwest Asia at the same latitude and the Khoisan deep in the heart of Africa have light skin so it is plausible.
Well, as one would have to be more specific when asking questions, being that a question beating around the bush wouldn't be met with as much clarity as a straight forward one.
Meaning that when you ask Keita about the light skin of northern Africans being in situ evolution etc.. its not very clear and his answer will most likely be on that can be left open for interpretation.
So with that said, note the following genetic information, note that the genes for pale skin which evolved in situ Europe are accounted for in geographically proximate populations in North Africa, the Middle east and Pakistan.
Genetic Evidence for the Convergent Evolution of Light Skin in Europeans and East Asians Heather L. Norton,*1 Rick A. Kittles
In contrast, the **ancestral allele** associated with **dark pigmentation** has a shared high frequency in **sub- Saharan African and Island Melanesians**.A notable exception is the relatively lightly pigmented San population of Southern Africa where the **derived allele** predominates (93%), although this may be simply due to small sample size (n514). The distributions of the **derived and ancestral alleles** at TYR A192C, MATP C374G, and SLC24A5 A111G are consistent with the FST results suggesting strong Europeans pecific divergence at these loci. The *derived allele* at TYR, 192*A (previously linked with lighter pigmentation [Shriver et al. 2003]), has a frequency of 38% among European populations but a frequency of only 14% among non-Europeans. The differences between Europeans and non-Europeans for the MATP 374*G and SLC24A5 111*A alleles (both derived alleles associated with lighter pigmentation) were even more striking (MATP European 5 87%; MATP non-European 5 17%; SLC24A5 European 5 100%; SLC24A5 non-European 5 46%). The frequency of the SLC24A5 111*A allele outside of Europe is largely accounted for by high frequencies in geographically proximate populations in northern Africa, the Middle East, and Pakistan (ranging from 62% to 100%).
The virtual absence of MATP 374*G–derived allele in the sub-Saharan African populations that we examined in the CEPH-Diversity Panel is consistent with the origin of this mutation outside of Africa after the divergence of modern Asians and Europeans. In contrast, the SLC24A5 111*A–derived allele is found at low frequencies in several sub-Saharan populations including the West African Mandenka and Yoruba, the Southern African San , and SouthWest Bantu. The relatively high frequencies of the derived allele in Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and North Africa seem likely to be due to gene flow with European populations. Similarly, the presence of the derived allele (albeit at low frequencies) in some sub-Saharan African populations may be due to recent gene flow from European and Central Asian populations.Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
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quote:Originally posted by MindoverMatter718: ^Well, original Berber speakers came from the Eastern Sahara, and these populations also have a predominantly Neolithic origin for their Y chromosome lineages.
The NW African Y chromosomes are predominantly African in origin, while their maternal lineages are predominantly non African (Eurasian).
quote:Originally posted by Evergreen: The Complex and Diversified Mitochondrial Gene Pool of Berber Populations
Alternatively, these exchanges could have occurred during history, with the invasion and the occupation during nearly seven centuries (from the 8th to the 15th century) of the Iberian Peninsula by Almoravide then Almohade Muslim Berber troops.
Which is were this above alternative theory is more plausible and the maternal gene flow most likely did occur in historic times.
Most likely during the Moorish/Muslim era. Where Muslims practiced polygamy and would of taken many wives.
quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: "Trafficking of women from the other side of the Mediterranean sea as slaves surely must have left its own mark. This coupled with a tradition of polygamy [especially amongst those sections of north African populations which were Muslim-converts] would have facilitated households with sizeable headcount of offspring per a single male 'owner'. Then there were also sudden waves of migration to the north African coast during the fall of direct northwest African rule in the Iberian peninsula; no doubt families who reached the north African coast had left some genetic imprint therein. And of course, genetic drift has its own role to play in all this. All that aside, a look at samplings so far undertaken in coastal northwest Africa suggests that these have generally relied on sampling small, scattered populations [see Cherni et al. 2005], giving fragmented or incomplete picture of northwest African maternal gene pool structure."
The caveat here is that, if Imazighen populations had found some "white European" groups upon arriving in the northwest African coast, then it certainly doesn't appear to have been one of a large population, with a sizeable European male demography. Contemporary Imazighen speakers of the North African coast have very little to essentially neglegable European male contribution in their gene pool.
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Berbers' mtDNA diversity is mainly Paleolithic in origin, at least as it relates to the Eurasian contribution. Haplogroups H (mainly H1 and H3) and V combined are around 40-50% of their mtDNA and represent a contribution of Paleolithic Europeans to their gene pool. These two haplogroups came from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area (a refugium during the Last Glacial Maximum when most of Europe was covered by glaciers) ca 10-11kya.
Check out Cherni et al. 2009. The studies by Turchi et al. 2009 and Coudray et al. 2009 make the same proposal and are good studies to read as well.
-------------------- "Oh the sons of Ethiopia; observe with care; the country called Ethiopia is, first, your mother; second, your throne; third, your wife; fourth, your child; fifth, your grave." - Ras Alula Aba Nega. Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Actually that makes no sense because it depends on WHICH PEOPLE are being identified as "Berber". The problem with these genetic studies of "Berbers" is
1) "Berber" is a language not a genotype. 2) The range of Berber speaking people is FAR LESS than it was 2,000 years ago. Meaning that the distribution of MODERN Berber speakers do not necessarily match that of ancient Berber speakers. 3) ONLY using modern populations as a basis of DNA samples is only showing PART of the whole picture. Ancient populations and historical movements are not being sampled (and cant be). 4) Berber languages did not ORIGINATE in Eurasia, therefore the presence of Eurasian genes in MODERN Berber speaking populations does not "signal" the arrival of Berber LANGUAGES to Africa. 5) In fact, there was NO BERBER language 10,000 years ago, so tying Berber languages to the POSSIBLE spread of Eurasian haplogroups to North Africa 10,000 years ago is nonsense to begin with. 6) That is a fake artificially created historical identity with no basis in reality as "Berber" is only evidenced to about 2-3,000 years, based on physical artifacts. 7) Linguistically Berber is dated to far less than 10,000 years ago. 7) White skin and European ancestry does not define what is "Berber" because the Berber languages did not start among white skinned European people.
Anytime you hear geneticists trying to tie a language to a genotype you know it is nonsense. The origin and spread of a language cannot be dated purely based on genetic sequences and normally it is not. However, extrapolations of linguistic data can be corrolated with genetic data in order to help provide supporting evidence. However, in the case of Berber, there is no linguistic data supporting a 10,000 year old origin of Berber languages or culture in Eurasia.
Therefore, Eurasian migrants into North Africa did not necessarily bring Berber languages there and if anything, they most likely adopted it from the natives already there. However, since many Europeans seem obsessed with making Berber synonymous with "white", they will always twist the data to make it seem as if Berber languages originated with white Eurasian migrations to North Africa 10,000 years ago. But the linguistic data does not support this.
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I recently got back in contact with Dr. Keita to ask him for a bit more detail about the Ancient Egyptian phenotypes, specifically about skin color and the impact that foreign invasions had on the country. This is what he said in reply:
Without an analysis of histology of the skin and accurate portraits one cannot say exactly how they looked. We can only extrapolate by looking at the variability of the modern Egyptian with a focus on Upper Egypt, considering a predictive approach based on latitude, and imagining what they would have been like without the gene flow from the Near East and Europe over thousands of years. This will help you conceptualize the variability of the Nile indigenous population.
My research cannot indicate skin color in any empirical sense. Body build has been known for some time, see the work of Sonia Zakrezewski's and others--it is tropical in the earliest formative times. In fact you should write everyone who has written on the biology of the Egyptians recently and pose your questions.
My advice is to think in evolutionary terms--but also accept that like the Roman empire that foreigners were absorbed into Egypt.
In my reply I asked him about the Mekota and Vermehren study and its implications. I'm awaiting his response on that. But it's very clear from this latest statement that he feels that Upper Egypt is most representative of the physical diversity of Ancient Egypt and that foreign settlement over thousands of years from Europe and the Near East did have a significant impact on the population.
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I just got a response from Keita. He found the Mekota citation to be interesting and I have sent him the full study which he was previously unaware of. He cautioned that one mummy would ofcourse not be enough and that you would need to study groups of mummies from all social classes, periods, and regions, of those whom one thinks are native Egyptians as opposed to immigrants. He asked me at the end of this latest email not to repost emails as he wants correspondence between parties to be private so I will not reprint anymore emails.
I don't think he liked the fact that Salsassin recorded their phone conversation and posted it on the internet. Knowing that will probably make him careful about what he says and who he trusts with personal communication on the topic in the future.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: So basically Keita is saying that most Egyptians were medium brown to black color?
He explained to me that his research was always about presenting accurate information Ancient Egyptian biological relationships based on sound evolutionary interpretative models not on saying what skin color or external features they had. His research can only make educated guesses on that.
I created these screenshots before he told me not to post any emails and have posted them elsewhere so I might as well share them here.....
Keita on skin color:
Keita on cranial affinities:
Keita on Facial Conformation:
Keita on Statuary:
In the last email what I asked him about was how he could tell that the elongated traits of Ancient Egyptians statues were "Somali-like" as he said in the Cambridge videos.
What I gathered from all of this was that his research can tell us in an empirical sense which populations Ancient Egyptians were biologically closet to and that we would have to rely on the appearance of modern living populations to determine external phenotype.
But it's very clear that he sees the Ancient Egyptians as a tropically adapted indigenous Northeast African people and that the region absorbed immigrants over time just like people have been saying on this board for years.
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Hey Morpheus, thanks for that information. I am in college currently and I have gotten into debates with people about Egypt and almost all of them view them as either white or Arab.
Also there has been debates about when did ancient Egypt start to change in terms of its fundamental African origin into a the melting pot we see today. Everybody knows that there were invasions from the Hyskos, Greeks, Assyrians, Arabs etc. When did they start to effect the makeup of the Egyptians. Did ancient Egypt remain a overwhelmingly black African civilization until its fall?
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: Hey Morpheus, thanks for that information. I am in college currently and I have gotten into debates with people about Egypt and almost all of them view them as either white or Arab.
Also there has been debates about when did ancient Egypt start to change in terms of its fundamental African origin into a the melting pot we see today. Everybody knows that there were invasions from the Hyskos, Greeks, Assyrians, Arabs etc. When did they start to effect the makeup of the Egyptians. Did ancient Egypt remain a overwhelmingly black African civilization until its fall?
That's a good question and I have been investigating that subject myself. Aside from the racist Eurocentrists who refuse to accept any notable Black presence in Ancient Egypt the greatest skepticism from the average laymen seems to be that Egyptians on average don't look Black today, so what reason do we have to believe they looked Black in antiquity? When you tell them that the invasions and subsequent immigration effected the demographics they remain skeptical and argue that the invasions could not possibly have brought in enough people to turn the population from Black to what it looks like today.
It has been said on this board that there is empirical evidence in the form of a difference in craniometric trends during the Late Period for a population change in Egypt. I've been looking for exact quotes and citations and have been told that one of the relevant studies is Zakrzewski (2007). This is the most suggestive quote I found from this study:
When Mahalanobis D2 was used, the Naqadan and Badarian Predynastic samples exhibited more similarity to Nubian, Tigrean, and some more southern series than to some mid- to late Dynastic series from northern Egypt (Mukherjee et al., 1955). The Badarian have been found to be very similar to a Kerma sample (Kushite Sudanese), using both the Penrose statistic (Nutter, 1958) and DFA of males alone (Keita, 1990). Furthermore, Keita considered that Badarian males had a southern modal phenotype, and that together with a Naqada sample, they formed a southern Egyptian cluster as tropical variants together with a sample from Kerma.
If anyone has better quotes and sources let me know. As you can see in my email exchanges Keita speaks of gradual immigration into Egypt from Europe and the Near East over the course of its history. He makes it clear in literature that this immigration likely had a major genetic impact on the population:
The information from the living Egyptian population may not be as useful because historical records indicate substantial immigration into Egypt over the last several millennia, and it seems to have been far greater from the Near East and Europe than from areas far south of Egypt. "Substantial immigration" can actually mean a relatively small number of people in terms of population genetics theory. It has been determined that an average migration rate of one percent per generation into a region could result in a great change of the original gene frequencies in only several thousand years. (This assumes that all migrants marry natives and that all native-migrant offspring remain in the region.) It is obvious then that an ethnic group or nationality can change in average gene frequencies or physiognomy by intermarriage, unless social rules exclude the products of "mixed" unions from membership in the receiving group. More abstractly this means that geographically defined populations can undergo significant genetic change with a small percentage of steady assimilation of "foreign" genes. This is true even if natural selection does not favor the genes (and does not eliminate them).
The Hyksos are the first notable foreign people to have entered Egypt and there is evidence that during the New Kingdom period there were a series of settlements in Egypt when it became an empire. After that immigration was likely gradual due to invasions. I can't say for certain when these immigrants became significantly numerous but we know that by the Roman Period the faces of Egypt had changed from the brown-skinned depictions you see on the temple walls to faces like these (portraits from Fayum):
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It is in fact possible for the aboriginal phenotype in a region to become the minority with enough admixture with foreigners over time. For instance, Native Americans with little to no European or other non-Native ancestry constitute only 30% of the Mexican population, with most of the rest being Mestizos, even though Mexico is a much larger area than the Egyptian Nile Valley and has been occupied by non-Natives for a much shorter period of time (500 years as opposed to 2,500).
quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: If anyone has better quotes and sources let me know.
See if you can find the PDF file for this:
Zakrzewski, Sonia R. "Intra-population and temporal variation in ancient Egyptian crania." In Program of the Seventy-Third Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 215. Tampa, FL: American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2004
It shows that Late Period Egyptian crania are distinct enough from earlier Egyptian crania to be considered "not typically Egyptian".
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Truthcentric: See if you can find the PDF file for this:
Zakrzewski, Sonia R. "Intra-population and temporal variation in ancient Egyptian crania." In Program of the Seventy-Third Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 215. Tampa, FL: American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2004
It shows that Late Period Egyptian crania are distinct enough from earlier Egyptian crania to be considered "not typically Egyptian". [/QB]
The results suggest a level of local population continuity exists within the earlier Egyptian populations, but that this was in association with some change in population structure, reflecting small-scale immigration and admixture with new groups. Most dramatically, the results also indicate that the Egyptian series from Howells global data set are morphologically distinct from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Nile Valley samples (especially in cranial vault shape and height), and thus show that this sample cannot be considered to be a typical Egyptian series. This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust (Bioarchaeology Panel), Durham University (Addison-Wheeler Fellowship) and by University of Southampton.Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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I believe that the Hyskos could not have had a significant impact on the gene pool due to the fact that they only controlled the northern area of Egypt. It was only a hundred years and I have not seen anything saying that they mixed extensively with them. I don' think there was any significant cranial change after the Hyskos that could not be called typically Egyptian. ( I have not seen any study that says so) I think that the cranial changed happened during the time with all the other invasions that happened during the late period, which was about during the very end of Egypt. I think its safe the say that Egypt overwhelming remained a black African civilization until its fall.
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: Morpheus and Truthcentric
I believe that the Hyskos could not have had a significant impact on the gene pool due to the fact that they only controlled the northern area of Egypt. It was only a hundred years and I have not seen anything saying that they mixed extensively with them. I don' think there was any significant cranial change after the Hyskos that could not be called typically Egyptian. ( I have not seen any study that says so) I think that the cranial changed happened during the time with all the other invasions that happened during the late period, which was about during the very end of Egypt. I think its safe the say that Egypt overwhelming remained a black African civilization until its fall.
This is what I believe as well. I mentioned the Hyksos because they were the first notable foreign people to occupy Egypt. They likely brought some Asiatics in but they were also expelled from the region. I think Egypt remained predominately Black until after the New Kingdom period when it fell into decline and was conquered by a series of invaders.
By the Roman period it is clear that the demographic of Northern Egypt had changed considerably. Even more immigrants came to Egypt during the Islamic period from the Arab conquest during the 600s A.D. to the present.
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The Egyptians did have a practice of enslaving Asiatic prisoners of war during the New Kingdom. I don't know how many were brought in, but if it was a significant number I would not be surprised if some lighter-skinned Egyptians today can trace their ancestry back to these slaves.
And then there's the foreign mercenaries which made up an increasingly high proportion of the Egyptian army later in Egyptian history...
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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I think there is so much evidence for a Black Egypt,I don't think ti is Afrocentric to say it was, but people will call you Afrocentric.
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I think there is so much evidence for a Black Egypt,I don't think ti is Afrocentric to say it was, but people will call you Afrocentric.
Is it Eurocentric to say that Rome was a White civilization? Is it Asiacentric to say that China was an Asian civilization? Is it Amerocentric to say that the Mayan civilization was Native American? If you say no to these, than you should not consider declaring Egypt a Black civilization to be Afrocentric. It is simply a statement of fact.
I would use the term "Afrocentric" to describe people like Mike111 and Clyde Winters who think that virtually every significant civilization in history was built by Black people. I don't hold that view; I believe that people of every skin tone have had civilization. The story of civilization is truly a multiracial one.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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I believe there to be enough evidence to suggest that even in the predynastic history of Egypt there was an outside influence. Like it or not plain and simple.
Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010
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Afrocentrism has been turned into a buzzword to describe anything critics regard as pseudohistorical in relation to Black contributions to history.
Martin Bernal describes Mary Lefkowitz application of Afrocentric as describing anyone whose views she opposes including people like himself who simply maintain that Africans and people of African descent made significant contributions to world progress.
The term Afrocentrism was coined by Molefi Kete Asante (author of The Afrocentric Idea) to describe a world view point that emphasizes looking at the world through an African lens and refuting Eurocentric distortions of reality.
As Keita says, it's not Afrocentric to view early Egypt in its African context.
quote:Originally posted by A Simple Girl: I believe there to be enough evidence to suggest that even in the predynastic history of Egypt there was an outside influence. Like it or not plain and simple.
Outside influence from where and what is your evidence?
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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I think there is so much evidence for a Black Egypt,I don't think ti is Afrocentric to say it was, but people will call you Afrocentric.
Is it Eurocentric to say that Rome was a White civilization? Is it Asiacentric to say that China was an Asian civilization? Is it Amerocentric to say that the Mayan civilization was Native American? If you say no to these, than you should not consider declaring Egypt a Black civilization to be Afrocentric. It is simply a statement of fact.
I would use the term "Afrocentric" to describe people like Mike111 and Clyde Winters who think that virtually every significant civilization in history was built by Black people. I don't hold that view; I believe that people of every skin tone have had civilization. The story of civilization is truly a multiracial one.
Morpheus and Truth centric
I know I don't believe that Rome was an African civilization or that the ancient Greeks were black. That to me is Afrocentric.
Why is that people like to divide Africa up with rigid boundaries? Like if its in the Sahara that it is some how not really African? There isn't a Sub anything in Europe, they don't divide southern Europe from northern Europe. Some people even try to say east Africans are not true black Africans even though they cluster a lot more so with black Africans then they do with other OOA groups. Like if the person has a narrow nose then all of a sudden they are mixed with Eurasians. Its a double standard
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quote:Originally posted by A Simple Girl: I believe there to be enough evidence to suggest that even in the predynastic history of Egypt there was an outside influence. Like it or not plain and simple.
Even if there was some Southwest Asian influence, Egyptian culture in the main developed in Upper (i.e. southern) Egypt. In fact the Upper Egyptian culture came to replace the Lower Egyptian culture during the late Predynastic.
For most of the Predynastic period, most of the Delta was an uninhabitable swamp anyway.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: I know I don't believe that Rome was an African civilization or that the ancient Greeks were black. That to me is Afrocentric.
Then you're much saner than some other people on this board.
quote:Why is that people like to divide Africa up with rigid boundaries? Like if its in the Sahara that it is some how not really African?
Egypt has never been totally isolated from sub-Saharan Africa anyway. Not only was the Sahara a savanna when Egypt was being peopled but even after the desertification travelers could always walk alongside the Nile River.
BTW, Nubia, a civilization that almost everyone but the most hardcore Eurocentrics acknowledge as black, is in North Africa too.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Racism is the reason for these double standards.
When Europeans traveled to Africa during the so-called Age of Discovery they encountered cultures that were less technologically advanced than themselves and developed the belief that this disparity between their culture and those people was because of physical differences.
Even though these people were very culturally diverse they defined them by their anatomical traits, notably skin color and developed the concept of race.
The distortion of the African historical record were designed to promote the myth of African inferiority. That's how all this garbage about the "True Negro" and "wandering Hamites/Caucasoids founding African civilizations" got started.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: I know I don't believe that Rome was an African civilization or that the ancient Greeks were black. That to me is Afrocentric.
Then you're much saner than some other people on this board.
quote:Why is that people like to divide Africa up with rigid boundaries? Like if its in the Sahara that it is some how not really African?
Egypt has never been totally isolated from sub-Saharan Africa anyway. Not only was the Sahara a savanna when Egypt was being peopled but even after the desertification travelers could always walk alongside the Nile River.
BTW, Nubia, a civilization that almost everyone but the most hardcore Eurocentrics acknowledge as black, is in North Africa too.
I have seen some people on this board claiming that Rome was a black African civilization, yes obviously with the Roman empire controlling parts of North Africa there were going to be black Africans in Rome's population but say that it was started by them or they were Rome's core population is just simply not true.
About the hardcore euro-centrics, you can't debate with people like that because no matter what you say they are going to believe what they want to. If someone tries to argue that Nubian aren't black Africans you shouldn't even debate them. You should not take someone seriously who says that Rome and Greece were predominantly black African civilizations.
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: Racism is the reason for these double standards.
When Europeans traveled to Africa during the so-called Age of Discovery they encountered cultures that were less technologically advanced than themselves and developed the belief that this disparity between their culture and those people was because of physical differences.
Even though these people were very culturally diverse they defined them by their anatomical traits, notably skin color and developed the concept of race.
The distortion of the African historical record were designed to promote the myth of African inferiority. That's how all this garbage about the "True Negro" and "wandering Hamites/Caucasoids founding African civilizations" got started.
Your right but just rewind a couple or few hundred years ago before the Renaissance age in Europe and you hit the Dark ages or the middle ages. During this time the middle east was a lot more advanced then Europe in many different ways. Just like the Romans were a lot more advanced then the Germanic tribes that surrounded them during that time. So when people say well Egypt could not have been black African because it was so much more advanced then its surrounding neighbors you can say the same thing about Rome
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: Racism is the reason for these double standards.
When Europeans traveled to Africa during the so-called Age of Discovery they encountered cultures that were less technologically advanced than themselves and developed the belief that this disparity between their culture and those people was because of physical differences.
Even though these people were very culturally diverse they defined them by their anatomical traits, notably skin color and developed the concept of race.
The distortion of the African historical record were designed to promote the myth of African inferiority. That's how all this garbage about the "True Negro" and "wandering Hamites/Caucasoids founding African civilizations" got started.
Your right but just rewind a couple or few hundred years ago before the Renaissance age in Europe and you hit the Dark ages or the middle ages. During this time the middle east was a lot more advanced then Europe in many different ways. Just like the Romans were a lot more advanced then the Germanic tribes that surrounded them during that time. So when people say well Egypt could not have been black African because it was so much more advanced then its surrounding neighbors you can say the same thing about Rome
Yes.
And I do point that out to people that history does not show a pattern of racial hierarchies.
Racism began as cultural prejudice with the assumption that observable anatomical traits correlated with mental ability.
The key to refuting racists when they bring up history is to use historical facts against them.
That's actually how I got involved with this subject.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: The key to refuting racists when they bring up history is to use historical facts against them.
That's actually how I got involved with this subject.
I became interested in the ethnic makeup of ancient Egypt for the same reason. I recall that back in eighth grade I wanted to refute the white supremacists' assertion that blacks could not build civilizations, so I decided to Google whether or not Egypt was really a Mediterranean Caucasoid civilization as they claimed. I found an essay on Egyptsearch that showed the bio-anthropological evidence for a Black Egypt and I became intrigued by the subject ever since.
Of course another reason I care so much about this debate is that presenting ancient Egypt as black is simply more accurate. I am just as sick of seeing Egyptians being portrayed as White or Middle Eastern as paleontologists are of seeing Velociraptors reconstructed as featherless.
Unfortunately I am not sure how to get the message across to a large number of people. It's one thing to post arguments in favor of Black Egypt on message boards and Youtube, but not everyone visits those message boards or Youtube. Maybe I should write a book about it or set up a website.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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I am became interested in it too because throughout my life I encountered an ingrained prejudice aganist black African achievements. There is this notion in western society that Africa has always be poor and backward and that blacks should be thankful that they were taken out of the jungle and given civilization. When I was younger I thought that black Africans were all tribal and never had any civilizations because you will end up thinking that if you don't do any research for yourself. I live in America so that's how it is over here. Just go on you tube and you will see tons of videos talking about how blacks are inferior in almost every way.
Posts: 89 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
I'm an African-American and was actually raised with the belief that Africans had "Great" Civilizations. My parents bought me children's books at a young age that talked about some of the various African kingdoms. They also bought the Great Kings and Queens of Africa series which had descriptions of African historical figures. So I was not raised with the impression at all that Africans were inferior.
I knew that my African ancestors had been enslaved and brought to America from a young age and knew that racist White people hated Blacks and thought they were better than Blacks but I didn't make the connection between racism and the notion of inferiority based on cultural achievement, honestly until I started reading about racism on the internet (which was in my senior year of high school!).
When I joined Mootstormfront, an anti-racist message board and started debating racist topics the cultural achievement disparity would always come up and that's when I started to debate about African civilizations. I was actually shocked to see not only the racists denying the Egyptians were Black but Egalitarians as well. I recalled hearing as a child my mom once saying to some friends that, "White people are obsessed with claiming that the Ancient Egyptians weren't Black!"
But I honestly had no idea that this was regarded as a fringe view in Western academia. I took it as a given that the Original Egyptians were Black and Arabs conquered North Africa the way Europeans conquered America displacing the natives. And at the same time I was reading all of this bullshit on White-history.com trying to claim that the Ancient Egyptians were not Black.
Finding Egyptsearch was like a breath of fresh air to all the insanity.
I've learned a lot about racism and the history of racist ideas through this topic. I'm greatful to have found this board.
Posts: 647 | From: Atlanta | Registered: Jan 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Morpheus: I'm an African-American and was actually raised with the belief that Africans had "Great" Civilizations. My parents bought me children's books at a young age that talked about some of the various African kingdoms. They also bought the Great Kings and Queens of Africa series which had descriptions of African historical figures. So I was not raised with the impression at all that Africans were inferior.
I knew that my African ancestors had been enslaved and brought to America from a young age and knew that racist White people hated Blacks and thought they were better than Blacks but I didn't make the connection between racism and the notion of inferiority based on cultural achievement, honestly until I started reading about racism on the internet (which was in my senior year of high school!).
When I joined Mootstormfront, an anti-racist message board and started debating racist topics the cultural achievement disparity would always come up and that's when I started to debate about African civilizations. I was actually shocked to see not only the racists denying the Egyptians were Black but Egalitarians as well. I recalled hearing as a child my mom once saying to some friends that, "White people are obsessed with claiming that the Ancient Egyptians weren't Black!"
But I honestly had no idea that this was regarded as a fringe view in Western academia. I took it as a given that the Original Egyptians were Black and Arabs conquered North Africa the way Europeans conquered America displacing the natives. And at the same time I was reading all of this bullshit on White-history.com trying to claim that the Ancient Egyptians were not Black.
Finding Egyptsearch was like a breath of fresh air to all the insanity.
I've learned a lot about racism and the history of racist ideas through this topic. I'm greatful to have found this board.
I am African American too. I grew up in a all white area in New Jersey for the first 12 years of my life. I experienced a lot of direct and in direct racism there, and when I look back on it I internalized a lot of it. I had weird tastes when I was younger, when I was in 4th grade I liked fiance and I was interested in how fighter jets were engineered. Going to an all white school all I heard was that blacks were slaves and then they eventually were freed and a little paragraph about the civil rights movement. If that's all you here about black history then you are going to end up thinking that Europeans were the ones who introduced civilizations and African were running around in clothes chasing lions.
This educational system is euro centric and you really have to do your on research.
And reading websites like White History.com can really **** with your mind if you don't have the proper tools to refute it or if you already know its B.S
Posts: 89 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
I think a lot of those so called "anti-racists" that want to ferociously deny any black presence in Egypt are just subconscious paternalistic racists. These type of people to me are worst then the outright bigots because deep down inside even though they preach everybody is they believe blacks are not intellectually capable to produce something like ancient Egypt.
It is the type of person who believes in the "White mans Burden"
Posts: 89 | Registered: Nov 2010
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posted
I'm Anglo-American, and I'm happy to say that my parents not only raised me to dislike racism but actually read books to me about slavery and discrimination against black people. Unfortunately I was not taught very much about African civilizations outside of Egypt in school. As for the Egyptians, until eighth grade I grew up imagining them as looking like they did in the Dreamworks animated movie Prince of Egypt.
That said, when I learned about ancient Egypt in grade school, there was never any mention of their "racial" affinities. We simply took the idea of a non-black Egypt for granted. It is not true that White people are obsessed with denying the Egyptians' black heritage.
Nor is it true that all white people are close-minded about this. I've managed to convince my family and some of my friends that the Egyptians were Black, and I even got an essay about the issue published on a history website (link). I would not be surprised if a lot more white people would actually embrace Black Egypt if only they were exposed to the idea.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Truthcentric: I'm Anglo-American, and I'm happy to say that my parents not only raised me to dislike racism but actually read books to me about slavery and discrimination against black people. Unfortunately I was not taught very much about African civilizations outside of Egypt in school. As for the Egyptians, until eighth grade I grew up imagining them as looking like they did in the Dreamworks animated movie Prince of Egypt.
That said, when I learned about ancient Egypt in grade school, there was never any mention of their "racial" affinities. We simply took the idea of a non-black Egypt for granted. It is not true that White people are obsessed with denying the Egyptians' black heritage.
Nor is it true that all white people are close-minded about this. I've managed to convince my family and some of my friends that the Egyptians were Black, and I even got an essay about the issue published on a history website (link). I would not be surprised if a lot more white people would actually embrace Black Egypt if only they were exposed to the idea.
Yeh man I don't believe that all white people are close minded about it. Sometimes you can run into euro-centric black people to.
Hey I was reading your article on the site and you said that Egyptian cranial structure started to significantly change after the Hyskos invasions. I thought it started to chagne significantly change during the late period? I haven't read anything about the Egyptians mixing extensively with the Hyskos?
Posts: 89 | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: Hey I was reading your article on the site and you said that Egyptian cranial structure started to significantly change after the Hyskos invasions. I thought it started to chagne significantly change during the late period? I haven't read anything about the Egyptians mixing extensively with the Hyskos?
It may not have been the Hyksos per se. There were Asiatic immigrants pouring into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom before they took over.
Posts: 7069 | From: Fallbrook, CA | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: Hey I was reading your article on the site and you said that Egyptian cranial structure started to significantly change after the Hyskos invasions. I thought it started to chagne significantly change during the late period? I haven't read anything about the Egyptians mixing extensively with the Hyskos?
It may not have been the Hyksos per se. There were Asiatic immigrants pouring into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom before they took over.
Ok,
Lol you were talking about ridiculous Afrocentric and the like, I just ran across and extremely euro centric blog called Matilda blog, claiming that the ancient Nubian were 70% Eurasian! Even when the tiskoff study states that east Africans have very little Eurasian DNA.
Posts: 89 | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Ceasar: Hey I was reading your article on the site and you said that Egyptian cranial structure started to significantly change after the Hyskos invasions. I thought it started to chagne significantly change during the late period? I haven't read anything about the Egyptians mixing extensively with the Hyskos?
It may not have been the Hyksos per se. There were Asiatic immigrants pouring into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom before they took over.
Ok, was the change enough not to be considered typically Egyptian anymore? Also I assume crania change some over time over periods of thousands of years
According to another source I think posted by Morpheus it states that the late period had such a change that it fell out of the range of African variability, did the study that you saw state that?
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White Nord
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quote:Originally posted by Truthcentric: See if you can find the PDF file for this:
Zakrzewski, Sonia R. "Intra-population and temporal variation in ancient Egyptian crania." In Program of the Seventy-Third Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 215. Tampa, FL: American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 2004
It shows that Late Period Egyptian crania are distinct enough from earlier Egyptian crania to be considered "not typically Egyptian".
The results suggest a level of local population continuity exists within the earlier Egyptian populations, but that this was in association with some change in population structure, reflecting small-scale immigration and admixture with new groups. Most dramatically, the results also indicate that the Egyptian series from Howells global data set are morphologically distinct from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Nile Valley samples (especially in cranial vault shape and height), and thus show that this sample cannot be considered to be a typical Egyptian series. This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust (Bioarchaeology Panel), Durham University (Addison-Wheeler Fellowship) and by University of Southampton. [/QB]
Ok so you guys bitch and moan about the Egyptian samples in the Howells database but ignore the fact that in studies like Hanihara 03 both kerma and naqada samples grouped away from sub saharan Africans and instead with west eurasians. Not to mention Keitas study on badari crania he uses Howells data base. So according to your own logic those findings are invalid. Not to mention he uses a small set of variables for that analysis.
Posts: 219 | Registered: Aug 2007
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^^ lol "Nord" when will you learn? Kerma & Naqada are both tropically-adapted African variants, just like the other variants called "sub Saharan". No matter how you slice it the data is all with tropically adapted Africans. The term "Sub-Saharan" as such means little since you are dealing with tropical African variants across the board.
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Kemp's dendrograms show this..
And in Hanihara 2003, Somalians group with other east Africans like Kenyans, undermining the "white Somalian" argument you have made elsewhere. Your own references keep debunking you "Nord," when will you learn?
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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White Nord
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