(Reading the part of the study starting with the title: The Peopling of the Sahara During the Holocene is very interesting. I assume people have read it)
The Barbed Points (aqualithic) and Ounanian culture are both ancient indigenous African culture. According to the study, the Aqualithic African culture spread following the expansion of aquatic resources in the Holocene which made the Sahara attractive to populations with existing fishing and riverine hunting skills. The Ounanian culture (Niger-congo speakers) from North West Africa would have spread southward and Eastward following big land animals with their bow and arrow hunting skills.
We already know Ancient Egypt may have been the combination of many ethnic groups distributed along many sepats. The numbering of the sepats starting at one with Nubia in the south. I wonder if the population of Ancient Kemet and Nubia/Kush are not the product further down the line of both those cultures. Ancient Egyptians being closer to Ounanian (Niger-congo speakers) while Kushite closer to Aqualithic (Nilo-saharan) with a lot of mixage involved. Also the Kushite (nilo-saharan) would have been slightly darker in hue than Ancient Egyptians (Niger-congo) in general. Although it must be noted that Ancient Egyptian culture spread from Upper Egypt (south) to Lower Egypt (north). Maybe it's the interaction (admixage) between the descendants of ancestral Ounanians cultures and Aqualithic cultures which laid the foundation of Ancient Kemet which later spreads further north toward Lower Egypt to form the whole Ancient Egyptian territory.
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Excellent map Amun Ra the ultimate.The Maa fishing confederation was the first civilization of green Sahara.When the Sahara became a desert people from the Maa confederation left to create Ancient Egypt, Minoan, Sumeria, Anatoli, Elam, Harrapa etc.
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The Kushites were not Nilo-Saharan speakers. They were probably part of the Ounanians culture not Aqualithic culture. The Aqualithic culture is much , much older than Kushite or Egyptian cultures (Winters,2012). I believe that the original founders of the African Aqualithic were pgymy people. Nilo-Saharans may have learned this cultural tradition from the Anu or pgymy people.
quote:
Anu first rulers of Egypt
Nar mar conquroring the Anu ?
.
The Kushites are known throughout the ancient world as expert bowmen. This is highly suggestive that Ounanians were Kushites because of the arrow =bowmen, was charasteristic of this culture,
quote:
The “Ounanian” of Northern Mali, Southern Algeria, Niger, and central Egypt at ca. 10 ka is partly defined by a distinctive type of arrow point (37). These arrowheads are found in much of the northern Sahara (Fig. 3) and are generally considered to have spread from Northwest Africa. This view is supported by the affinity of this industry with the Epipalaeolithic that also appears to have colonized the Sahara from the north (41). No Ounanian points occur in West Africa before 10 ka, suggesting the movement of a technology across the desert from north to south around this time.
The original inhabitants of the Sahara where the Kemetic civilization originated were Blacks not Berbers or Indo-European speakers (Winters,1994,2002,2012). These Blacks formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 4000 BC(Winters,1994,2002).
Overtime the Saharan Highlands/Mountains of the Moon area became arid. As the Highlands became arid the Proto-Saharans migrated down from the Mountains of the Moon to settle around the MegaChad and MegaFezzan lakes. Around MegaFezzan the Proto-Saharans founded the Maa civilization. Around this time West Africa and the Nile Valley was probably controlled by the Pgymies,
This ancient homeland of the Dravidians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Niger-Kordofanian-Mande and Elamite speakers is called the Fertile African Crescent(Anselin, 1989, p.16; Winters, 1981,1985b,1991, 2002). We call these people the Proto-Saharans (Winters 1985b,1991). The generic term for this group is Kushite. .
. The proto-Saharans specialized in the use of the bow. They were experts in navigation and boat technology.This resulted from the presence of numerous rivers and lakes that dotted africa at this time.
These Proto-Saharans were called Ta-Seti and Tehenu by the Egyptians (Winters,1994,2002). Farid(1985,p.82) noted that "We can notice that the beginning of the Neolithic stage in Egypt on the edge of the Western Desert corresponds with the expansion of the Saharian Neolithic culture and the growth of its population".
The inhabitants of the Fezzan were round headed Africans. (Jelinek, 1985,p.273; Winters,2002) The cultural characteristics of the Fezzanese were analogous to C-Group culture items and the people of Ta-Seti . The C-Group people occupied the Sudan and Fezzan regions between 3700-1300 BC (Jelinek 1985;Winters,1994).
The inhabitants of Libya were called Tmhw (Temehus). The Temehus were organized into two groups the Thnw (Tehenu) in the North and the Nhsj (Nehesy) in the South. (Diop 1986; Winters,1994) A Tehenu personage is depicted on Amratian period pottery (Farid 1985 ,p. 84). The Tehenu wore pointed beard, phallic-sheath and feathers on their head.
The Temehus are called the C-Group people by archaeologists.(Jelinek, 1985; Quellec, 1985). The central Fezzan was a center of C-Group settlement. Quellec (1985, p.373) discussed in detail the presence of C-Group culture traits in the Central Fezzan along with their cattle during the middle of the Third millennium BC.
The Temehus or C-Group people began to settle Kush around 2200 BC. The kings of Kush had their capital at Kerma, in Dongola and a sedentary center on Sai Island. The same pottery found at Kerma is also present in Libya especially the Fezzan.
The C-Group founded the Kerma dynasty of Kush. Diop (1986, p.72) noted that the "earliest substratum of the Libyan population was a black population from the south Sahara". Kerma was first inhabited in the 4th millennium BC (Bonnet 1986). By the 2nd millennium BC Kushites at kerma were already worshippers of Amon/Amun and they used a distinctive black-and-red ware (Bonnet 1986; Winters 1985b,1991). Amon, later became a major god of the Egyptians during the 18th Dynasty.
There are similarities between Egyptian and Saharan motifs (Farid,1985). It was in the Sahara that we find the first evidence of agriculture, animal domestication and weaving (Farid , 1985, p.82). This highland region is the Kemites "Mountain of the Moons " region, the area from which the civilization and goods of Kem, originated (Winters,2012).
The rock art of the Saharan Highlands support the Egyptian traditions that in ancient times they lived in the Mountains of the Moon. The Predynastic Egyptian mobiliar art and the Saharan rock art share many common themes including, characteristic boats(Farid 1985,p. 82), men with feathers on their head (Petrie ,1921,pl. xvlll,fig.74; Raphael, 1947, pl.xxiv, fig.10; Vandier, 1952, p.285, fig. 192), false tail hanging from the waist (Vandier, 1952, p.353; Farid, 1985,p.83; Winkler 1938,I, pl.xxlll) and the phallic sheath (Vandier, 1952, p.353; Winkler , 1938,I , pl.xvlll,xx, xxlll).
Due to the appearance of aridity in the Mountains of the Moon the Proto-Saharans migrated first around the megalakeFezzan. Here they founded the Maa civilization until this area was also overcome by arid winds.
Other Proto-Saharans, left the megalakeFezzan area migrated from there southward into Nubia and thence they moved along the Nile up into Upper Egypt or Kem/Egypt which was originally occupied by the Anu or pgymy people. The Proto-Saharan origin of the Kemites explain the fact that the Kushites were known for maintaining the most ancient traditions of the Kemites as proven when the XXVth Dynasty or Kushite Dynasty ruled ancient Egypt. Farid (1985, p.85) wrote that "To conclude, it seems that among Predynastic foreign relations, the [Proto-]Saharians were the first to have significant contact with the Nile Valley, and even formed a part of the Predynastic population" (emphasis author).
The ancestors of the Kemites originally lived in Nubia. The Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization is supported by the discovery of artifacts by archaeologists from the Oriental Institute at Qustul. On a stone incense burner found at Qustul we find a palace facade, a crowned King sitting on a throne in a boat, with a royal standard placed before the King and hovering above him, the falcon god Horus. The white crown on this Qustul king was later worn by the rulers of Upper Egypt.
Many Egyptologists were shocked to learn in 1979, that the A-Group of Nubia at Qustul used Egyptian type writing two hundred years before the Egyptians (Williams 1987). This fact had already been recognized much earlier by Anta Diop (1974) when he wrote that it was in Nubia "where we find the animals and plants represented in hieroglyphic writing".
In reality the early Egyptians used the Thinite script. This was a syllabic form of writing later used by the people of the Sahara, Elamites, Indus Valley and the Olmecs in America.
The Qustul incense burner indicates that the unification of Nubia preceded that of Egypt. The Ta-Seti had a rich culture at Qustul. Qustul Cemetery L had tombs that equaled or exceeded Kemite tombs of the First Dynasty of Egypt. The A-Group people were called Steu 'bowmen'.
The Steu had the same funeral customs, pottery, musical instruments and related artifacts of the Egyptians. Williams (1987, p.173,182) believes that the Qustul Pharaohs are the Egyptian Rulers referred to as the Red Crown rulers in ancient Egyptian documents.
Dr. Williams (1987) gave six reasons why he believes that the Steu of Qustul founded Kemite civilization:
1. Direct progression of royal complex designs from Qustul to Hierakonpolis to Abydos.
2. Egyptian objects in Naqada III a-b tombs
3. No royal tombs in Lower and Upper Egypt.
4. Pharoanic monuments that refer to conflict in Upper Egypt.
5. Inscriptions of the ruler Pe-Hor, are older than Iry-Hor of Abydos.
6. The ten rulers of Qustul, one at Hierakonpolis and three at Abydos corresponds to the "historical"kings of late Naqada period.
The findings of Williams (1987), support the findings of Diop (1991) because we also understand better now why the Egyptian term designating royalty etymologically means: (the man) who comes from the South= nsw< n y swt = who belongs to the South= who is a native of the South= the King of Lower Egypt, and has never meant just King, in other words king of Lower and Upper Egypt, King of all Egypt (p.108).
During Kemite Dynasty I,the A-Group or Ta-Seti (Kushite) people of Lower Nubia disappear. Given the close relationship between the Predynastic Egyptians and Ta-Seti who founded the first empire on earth (Williams 1985), suggest that the Narmar Palette, depiction of the epic battle which unified Kem may also record the forced submission of the A-Group people to Upper Egyptian rule. The terms of this victory may have called for the A-Group people to move into Kem. This would explain the lack of archaeological data on the A-Group people after the unification of Kem. This would also explain how the Egyptian form of government came from the south into the Delta. Trigger (1987) noted that: Evidence that both the Red and the White Crowns were originally southern Egyptian symbols suggests that most of the iconography originated in Upper Egypt" (p.63).
The research makes it clear that the first sepats or nomes of Egypt were probably founded by “Kushites” who spoke a Niger-Congo language and belonged to the Ounanian culture. The A-Group people were the foundation of the Egyptians. The Egyptians differenciated themselves from the Kushites once the former city-states or sepats became Kem (Winters,1994,2002).
References:
Anselin,A.(1984). "Zeus, Ethiopien Minos Tamoul", Carbet Revue Martinique de Sciences Humaines,no. 2:31-50. This articles explains the African origin of the Libyans. It has several very good illustrations of Blacks in ancient Sahara.
_______.(1989). "Le Lecon Dravidienne",Carbet Revue Martinique de Sciences Humaines, no.9:7-58. This paper discussed the origins of the Dravidian.
Bonnet,C. (1986). Kerma: Territoire et Metropole. Cairo: Instut Francais D'Archeologie Orientale du Caire. This is a fine examination of the Kerma culture of Nubia which existed in Nubia before the Egyptians established rule in this area.
Diop,C.A. (1974). The African Origin of Civilization. (ed. & Trans) by Mercer Cook, Westport:Lawrence Hill & Company. This book outlines Diop's theory of the African origin of Egyptian civilization.
_________.(1977). Parente genetique de l'Egyptien Pharaonique et des Languaes Negro-Africaines. Dakar: IFAN ,Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines. This is a very good discussion of the extensive morphological and phonological evidence of unity between Wolof and Egyptian.
__________.(1978) The Cultural Unity of Black Africa. Chicago:Third World Press. This book details the precolombian character of African civilizations, and explains the common cultural expressions they share.
___________.(1986). "Formation of the Berber Branch". In Libya Antiqua. (ed.) by Unesco,(Paris: UNESCO) pp.69-73. In this article Diop explains that the original inhabitants of Libya were Blacks.
____________.(1987). Precolonial Black Africa. (trans. ) by Harold Salemson, Westport: Lawrence Hill & Company. In this book Diop explains the origin and connections between the major Western Sudanic empires and states. These states are compared to European states.
____________.(1988). Nouvelles recherches sur l'Egyptien ancientet les langues Negro-Africaines Modernes. Paris: Presence Africaine. This book provides a number of Diop's theories regarding the relationship between Black-African and Egyptian languages.
_____________(1991). Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology. (trans.) by Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi and (ed.) by H.J. Salemson and Marjoliiw de Jager, Westport:Lawrence Hill and Company. This book details Diop's theory of the genetic model for the study of African civilization. It also gives a fine discussion of the architecture, mathematics and philosophy of the ancient Egyptians and other African people.
Farid,El-Yahky. (1985). "The Sahara and Predynastic Egypt an Overview".The Journal for the Society for the Study Egyptian Antiquities, 17 (1/2): 58-65. This paper gives a detailed discussion of the affinities between Egyptian civilization and the Saharan civilizations which we call Proto-Saharan.The evidence presented in this paper support the Saharan origin of the Egyptians.
Galassi, . (1942). Tehenu. Rome. Galassi explains the history of the Tehenu people forerunners of the Libyans.
Jelinek,J. (1985). "Tillizahren,the Key Site of the Fezzanese Rock Art". Anthropologie (Brno),23(3):223-275. This paper gives a stimulating account of the rock art of the Sahara and the important role the C-Group people played in the creation of this art.
Quellec,J-L le. (1985). "Les Gravures Rupestres Du Fezzan (Libye)". L'Anthropologie, 89 (3):365-383. This text deals comprehensively with the dates and spread of specific art themes in the ancient Sahara.
Winters, Clyde. (1985b). "The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians,Manding and Sumerians". Tamil Civilization, 3(1):1-9. http://olmec98.net/Fertile1.pdf . Winters uses linguistics , historical and archaeological evidence to argue that the Dravidian, Manding and Sumerian speakers originated in the highland regions of the Sahara which he called the "Fertile African Crescent". Many of the culture terms of these groups are discussed and the proto-terms are reconstructed. It also provides numerous maps to delienate the migrations of these people from their archetype homeland.
__________. (1989a). "Tamil, Sumerian, Manding and the Genetic Model". International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics,18(1):98-127. Winters discusses the genesis of the common culture of the founders of ancient civilizations in Africa and Asia. It also refutes the myth that the Sumerian and Dravidian languages are unrelated to any other languages on earth. Here you will find a detailed explanation of the morphological, semantic and lexical affinities shared by these langauges that indicate their genetic unity.
___________. (1991). "The Proto-Sahara". The Dravidian Encyclopaedia, (Trivandrum: International School of Dravidian Linguistics) pp.553-556. Volume l. This is a detailed account of the Proto-Saharan origin of the Elamites,Dravidians, Sumerians, Egyptians and other Black African groups. We also find here a well developed illumination of the cultural features shared by these genetically related groups.
_____________. (1994). Afrocentricity: A Valid Frame of Reference. Journal of Black Studies, 5(2);170-190. In this paper Dr. Winters explains the reality of Afrocentrism as a social science. He explains that ancient Egypt was probably founded by the A-Group, and the Kushites were predominately C-Group people. He discussses the role of C-Group people in the founding the River Valley Civilizations of Africa and Eurasia.
_______________.(2002). Ancient Afrocentric History and the Genetic Model. In Egypt vs. Greece and the American Aacademy , Ed. By Molefi K. Asante and A. Mazama, pp.121-164. In this article Dr. Winters explains that the founders of civilization in Eurasia, the Americas and Africa were Kushites.
_______________.(2012).Egyptian Language: The Mountains of the Moon, Niger-Congo Speakers and the Origin of Egypt. Kindle Books.
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Here's some other interesting maps of rock art and thus people distribution in the Sahara and Northern Africa. It's the first time I see such rock art distribution map for Africa. Usually, it is often limited by one specific site (like the Tassili rock art map).
They can all be seen in the full study link here :
Here we compare the distribution of the Red-rimmed melania snail in the Green Sahara and in current Africa. The fossils sites in northern Africa matches the recent distribution of the species in the south.
Great rock art distribution map. Here rock art drawings of the Giraffe in the Sahara and Northern Africa matches recent distribution in the south.
Another great rock art distribution map. Here rock art drawing of the African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) in the Sahara and Northern Africa matches Giraffe distribution recently in the south.
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Great post A Ra. Ul. Just started reading the 42 pgs. The layout of the rock art tells a story.
Rock art is one thing. Did find actual bones of these animals in the Sahara? Ie thousands of miles away? oops! My bad. I just re-read and saw "and fossils"
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Evidently, the African elephant traversed the Sahara during greener times. I always maintained Iberia and Sicily, not only the near east, was another entry point into Europe. That is why 50% of the aDNA in Iberia is recent African. That is why the Basque, a younger population first, occupied Iberia cf the older modern Europeans. And the Basque is part Berber.
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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What is important to remember with this study (and other similar studies) is that the Sahara wasn't a barrier to the migration to the Mediterranean coast of Sub-Saharan Africans during the Holocene. The Holocene is the period preceding the current dry phase of the Sahara.
While the Holocene period is what interest me here. Since it's the period preceding the current dry period and goes in line with the theory that Ancient Egyptians were part of a larger Saharan civilization complex (during wet phases and as a product of the migration from the Sahara during the current dry phase). The text also mentions other wet periods before the Holocene that correlate with migration of sub-saharan Africans (sub-saharan is less of a misnomer here as they were really Africans from below the Sahara which was not a desert at that time).
quote: Older Saharan Occupation and Crossings
Using the Holocene biogeography and palaeohydrology of the Sahara as an analogue for the MIS5 humid period, it is likely that an interconnected waterway would have been available for faunal and human dispersal. This humid period corresponds very closely with the age of the first modern human occupation of the North African coast (45) and the Levant (46) by sub-Saharan populations , who may have been crossing the Sahara at this time (9). The occupation of the Mediterranean coast of Africa by these early modern human migrants appears to have lasted from ∼110 to ∼30 ka (45), though the Levantine occupation appears to have finished by ∼70 ka (47). Some view the out-of-Africa dispersal into the Levant as the start of the spread of modern humans onward into Arabia and India in MIS5 (48), whereas others believe it to be a “dead end” that was followed by a later more successful dispersal of modern humans out of Africa at a later date: 60 ka in MIS4 (49).
-Excerpt from the study
Basically it says that in much ancient times, Africans from the south of the Sahara had occupied the Mediterranean coast crossing the Green Sahara in wet phases preceding the Holocene.
Bottom line is that the Sahara (which wasn't a desert at ancient times) was not a barrier to the migration of Africans from below the Sahara during the Holocene and previous wet phases.
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Let's get back to the current holocene and dry phase of the Sahara.
The cognates for hippo (and crocodile) in nilo-sahelian languages is very interesting.
That means Gumuz speakers in Ethiopia and Songhay speakers in Niger were probably once part of a populations which had hippopotamus. And since the word for hippo is the same for Gumuz speakers in Ethiopia and Songhay speakers in Niger, in our current context, it means those populations were previously linked together by a civilization that had hippopotamus and used the same word for it. People in Ethiopia and Niger, in this case, were part of the same cultural complex.
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This gets even more interesting when you explore if there's any linkage between those black African populations in the Sahara and Ancient Egyptians.
The video brings up interesting aspects related to this.
Similarity between the Ancient Saharan culture and Ancient Egypt (according to video ):
1 - Deliberate mummification: The mummification of the black mummy in the Sahara predates the earliest example in the Nile Valley.
2 - Similar cattle ritual sacrifice
3 - Presence in cave art of animal headed figures (predating the Nile valley).
4 - Relatively small geographic distance between the Saharan civilization and Ancient Egypt.
5 - Excavation shows an abrupt influx of highly decorated Saharan pottery 6000 years ago in the Nile valley. This pottery had a definitive Saharan style and was not previously found in the Nile Valley.
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This unknown ancient superculture who mummified their dead and worship animal headed gods covered most of North Africa and when they were forced by climate change to migrate to the Nile Valley around 6,000 years ago, we believe they bequeathed many of their rituals and beliefs to the Ancient Egyptians including mummification itself.Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012
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This unknown ancient superculture who mummified their dead and worship animal headed gods covered most of North Africa and when they were forced by climate change to migrate to the Nile Valley around 6,000 years ago, we believe they bequeathed many of their rituals and beliefs to the Ancient Egyptians including mummification itself.
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It seems this Saharan-Sahel-Nile civilization has left 100 of such rock paintings in the Atlas Mountains in the Morocco country (discovered by Susan Searight). This is an example of one.
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Ancient humans 'followed rains' By Helen Briggs Science reporter, BBC News
Prehistoric humans roamed the world's largest desert for some 5,000 years, archaeologists have revealed.
The Eastern Sahara of Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad was home to nomadic people who followed rains that turned the desert into grassland.
When the landscape dried up about 7,000 years ago, there was a mass exodus to the Nile and other parts of Africa.
The close link between human settlement and climate has lessons for today, researchers report in Science.
"Even modern day conflicts such as Dafur are caused by environmental degradation as it has been in the past," Dr Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne, Germany, told the BBC News website.
"The basic struggle for food, water and pasture is still a big problem in the Sahara zone. This process started thousands of years ago and has a long tradition."
Jigsaw puzzle
The Eastern Sahara, which covers more than 2 million sq km, an area the size of Western Europe, is now almost uninhabited by people or animals, providing a unique window into the past.
Dr Kropelin and colleague Dr Rudolph Kuper pieced together the 10,000-year jigsaw of human migration and settlement; studying more than 100 archaeological sites over the course of 30 years.
In the largest study of its kind, they built up a detailed picture of human evolution in the world's largest desert. They found that far from the inhospitable climate of today, the area was once semi-humid.
Between about 14,000 and 13,000 years ago, the area was very dry. But a drastic switch in environmental conditions some 10,500 years ago brought rain and monsoon-like conditions.
Nomadic human settlers moved in from the south, taking up residence beside rivers and lakes. They were hunter-gatherers at first, living off plants and wild game.
Eventually they became more settled, domesticating cattle for the first time, and making intricate pottery.
Neolithic farmers
Humid conditions prevailed until about 6,000 years ago, when the Sahara abruptly dried out. There was then a gradual exodus of people to the Nile Valley and other parts of the African continent.
“ The domestication of cattle was invented in the Sahara in the humid phase and was then slowly pushed over the rest of Africa ” Dr Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne
"The Nile Valley was almost devoid of settlement until about exactly the time that the Egyptian Sahara was so dry people could not live there anymore," Dr Kropelin told the BBC News website.
"People preferred to live on savannah land. Only when this wasn't possible they migrated towards southern Sudan and the Nile.
"They brought all their know-how to the rest of the continent - the domestication of cattle was invented in the Sahara in the humid phase and was then slowly pushed over the rest of Africa.
"This Neolithic way of life, which still is a way of life in a sense; preservation of food for the dry season and many other such cultural elements, was introduced to central and southern Africa from the Sahara."
'Motor of evolution'
Dr Kuper said the distribution of people and languages, which is so politically important today, has its roots in the desiccation of the Sahara.
The switch in environmental conditions acted as a "motor of Africa's evolution," he said.
"It happened during these 5,000 years of the savannah that people changed from hunter-gathers to cattle keepers," he said.
"This important step in human history has been made for the first time in the African Sahara."
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Great work AR Ultimate. Doing research on Etruscan skulls. Was suprise to learn the extent of the cover-up of the skull type BY Europeans. They were undoubtly Berber Africans!!! Will post on ESR. Hits are growing there.
quote:Originally posted by mena7: Immigrant from the Maa confederation of the Sahara after its desertification created Ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Elam, Minoan etc.
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Great work AR Ultimate. Doing research on Etruscan skulls. Was suprise to learn the extent of the cover-up of the skull type BY Europeans. They were undoubtly Berber Africans!!! Will post on ESR. Hits are growing there.
quote:Originally posted by mena7: Immigrant from the Maa confederation of the Sahara after its desertification created Ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Elam, Minoan etc.
I don't see what "Etruscan skulls" have anything to do with any of it. Why do you bring this up in this thread? While I believe the Ancient Kemite civilization was fundamentally ethnically Africans, I'm not really an afrocentrist (it's still interesting though). For example, while I didn't make the study of it, I don't believe intuitively that Sumeria, Elam or Minoan are originally Africans. I read a study this week about black African DNA (haplogroup) in Europe (mainly Spain I think) in Holocene time (added to the more recent African DNA in Europe). But outside academic curiosity I don't see much significance to it. Except to show that in the past the Saharan-Sahel-Nile African civilization was far reaching.
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Evidently, the African elephant traversed the Sahara during greener times. I always maintained Iberia and Sicily, not only the near east, was another entry point into Europe. That is why 50% of the aDNA in Iberia is recent African. That is why the Basque, a younger population first, occupied Iberia cf the older modern Europeans. And the Basque is part Berber.
Yes, even the elephant was documented in Egyptian records. As far as African entry points into Europe you mentioned, let's not forget the nry E as well as mt L2, L3, and U6, and Sicily has high percent of HBS (sickle cell).
quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: It seems this Saharan-Sahel-Nile civilization has left 100 of such rock paintings in the Atlas Mountains in the Morocco country (discovered by Susan Searight). This is an example of one.
Wo. Such artwork totally annihilates the lie of 'white' or Caucasian North Africa. Even the steatopygia of the males can be seen in the painting.
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quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: [QUOTE]I don't see what "Etruscan skulls" have anything to do with any of it. ....I don't see much significance to it. ........ Except to show that in the past the Saharan-Sahel-Nile African civilization was far reaching.
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Keep up the good work!
quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: [QUOTE]I don't see what "Etruscan skulls" have anything to do with any of it. ....I don't see much significance to it. ........ Except to show that in the past the Saharan-Sahel-Nile African civilization was far reaching.
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^ that map is not accurate. This type of pottery exists all throughout Egypt as well.
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quote:Originally posted by beyoku: ^ that map is not accurate. This type of pottery exists all throughout Egypt as well.
Are you sure you're talking about *wavy-line* pottery? Please post sources and links. Nevertheless, wavy-line pottery has its origin in the black African population in the central Sahara and the Khartoum area (Sudan). That is within the Sahara-Sahel-Nile cultural belt/civilization. My following post will clarify those points.
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quote:Originally posted by beyoku: ^ that map is not accurate. This type of pottery exists all throughout Egypt as well.
Are you sure you're talking about *wavy-line* pottery? Please post sources and links. Nevertheless, wavy-line pottery has its origin in the black African population in the central Sahara and the Khartoum area (Sudan). That is within the Sahara-Sahel-Nile cultural belt/civilization. My following post will clarify those points.
Are you really that dumb? You argue against the inaccuracy of that map, and you say wavy-line and dotted wavy line pottery was found in the Khartoum area, as if that map depicts the presence of these pottery types in the Khartoum area.
This is what happens when you're a Google scholar: too busy updating your knowledge and pretending that you knew it all along, when you're talking with knowledgeable people, that you don't even realize it when you're contradicting yourself.
Unfortunately for you, Google hasn't found a patch that solves this problem for their most frequent customers--Google scholars--yet.
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Are you really that dumb?
Why the insults and the condescending tone? I don't argue against anything. I just asked politely beyoku to post sources and links about his affirmation. I'm really just curious about it as it changes nothing about any theory exposed in this thread. Wave Line potteries have their origin in the Central Sahara and Khartoum area.
Anyway Kharthoum is on the map...
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Here's a very IMPORTANT text about the origin of Wavy Line pottery. It must be read by all (to follow this thread and gain knowledge about the Sahalian-Sahel-Nile civilization and it's linkage with Ancient Egypt):
quote: The large distribution of Dotted Wavy Line ceramics, from the Atlantic Coast to the Red Sea , is now well established [EDIT:AKA the Sahelian-Sahel-Nile belt], as is the antiquity of the Wavy Line ceramics (Garcia 1993a, 1998;Jesse 1998) and of North African pottery in general (Close 1995). Ideas concerning how, when and where the Wavy Line pattern was distributed have undergone several changes since Arkell's(1949) first description based on new ceramic data and the addition of radiocarbon dates with both the Kharthoum region and the central Sahara being proposed as areas of its origin.
The development of the Dotted Wavy Line from incised Wavy Line, as already proposed by Arkell, was largely confirmed during the 1980s by the stratigraphic sequence at the site of Shaqadud in the Butana(-) and by the extensive work of Caneva and her team (-) in the Gelli-Kabbashi region north of Kharthoum.
For the Kharthoum area, Caneva(1996a) interprets the sequence of incised Wavy Line followed by Dotted Wavy Line as an autochtonous development in the Nile Valley, whereas the appearance of Dotted Wavy Line pottery is seen as the results of a Saharan cultural expansion. In the central Sahara, Dotted Wavy Line early dates range from 9300 to 9000 bp (Roset 1987,1996) while the introduction of Dotted Wavy Line from the Sahara into the Kharthoum province takes place around 6000bp(Caneva--).
Research work in the eastern part of the Sahara (-) has filled in many of the gaps in the distribution of Wavy Line pottery. The existence of early pottery-bearing sites in the Wadi Howar region, in assemblages with other decoration patterns (Dotted) Wavy Line, provided the basis for a general reconsideration of the Wavy Line distribution in northern Africa (Jesse 1998).
Analysis of the database, containing over 300 sites in northern Africa with Wavy Line pottery and associated radiocarbon dates, made it possible to discern two probable areas of "invention" of Wavy Line at around 9300bp, one in central Sahara and one in the eastern Sahara/Nile Valley.
The earliest occurrence of Wavy Line pottery is in the central Sahara at approximately 9000 bp. In the central Sahara, only Dotted Wavy Line is present and in the eastern Sahara/Nile Valley Incised Wavy Line is followed by Dotted Wavy Line.
- Extract from Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 2: The Pottery of Nabta Playa (2002) By Kit Nelson
So the earliest occurrence of Wavy Line pottery is in central Sahara at approximately 9000 bp.
Here we see cultural transfer(pottery) from the Central Sahara toward the Nile (notice the direction). It is sometimes referred as the "Wavy Line Culture".
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Are you really that dumb?
Why the insults and the condescending tone? I don't argue against anything. I just asked politely beyoku to post sources and links about his affirmation. I'm really just curious about it as it changes nothing about any theory exposed in this thread. Wave Line potteries have their origin in the Central Sahara and Khartoum area.
Because you always know it better than everyone else, even though everything you're willing to defend as if your life depends on it, is something you just stumbled on the other day (or worse, never even stumbled on). From nasal index, to the implications of DNA Tribes analysis, to the Saharan origin of Ancient Egyptians, to Henn et al 2012's supposed shortcomings, to hair type, and now wavy line pottery. Other people have been studying these subjects for years, and you write off their views as ''ridiculous'', ''funny'', ''you just don't like the results'' knowing full well you don't having any contrary evidence.
You were about to go at it with Beyoku, only this time I caught you in the act of starting another Google session to disprove what he said. You weren't ''simply'' curious about his sources, because when you said that, you had the information to KNOW he was right about the inaccuracy of that map (absence of the pottery types in Khartoum).
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Are you really that dumb?
Why the insults and the condescending tone? I don't argue against anything. I just asked politely beyoku to post sources and links about his affirmation. I'm really just curious about it as it changes nothing about any theory exposed in this thread. Wave Line potteries have their origin in the Central Sahara and Khartoum area.
Because you always know it better than everyone else, even though everything you're willing to defend as if your life depends on it, is something you just stumbled on the other day (or worse, never even stumbled on). From nasal index, to the implications of DNA Tribes analysis, to Henn et al 2012's supposed shortcomings, to hair type, and now wavy line pottery.
You were about to go at it with Beyoku, only this time I caught you in the act of starting another Google session to disprove what he said.
There's things I know and things I don't know. I will defend the position about things I know and gain knowledge about things I don't know.
Anyway Kharthoum is on the map so your point is moot.
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Great discussion and thread...I am learning a lot. I always speculated the Sahara is where it was at. ....of even started. Although the current population distribution do not reflect that.
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Here's an article about the oldest pottery in Africa. It is in Mali. Again part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile Belt.
=========================================
Oldest African pottery found in Mali
Jan 18, 2007 - 10:56
A Swiss-led team of archaeologists has discovered pieces of the oldest African pottery in central Mali, dating back to at least 9,400BC.
The sensational find by Geneva University's Eric Huysecom and his international research team, at Ounjougou near the Unesco-listed Bandiagara cliffs, reveals important information about man's interaction with nature.
The age of the sediment in which they were found suggests that the six ceramic fragments - discovered between 2002 and 2005 - are at least 11,400 years old. Most ancient ceramics from the Middle East and the central and eastern Sahara regions are 10,000 and between 9-10,000 years old, respectively.
"At the beginning, the very first piece we found stayed in my desk drawer for years, as I didn't realise how old it was," Huysecom told swissinfo.
Huysecom heads a 50-strong interdisciplinary team, composed of 28 international researchers – mainly from Germany, Mali, Switzerland, France and Britain - on the largest current archaeological research project in Africa, entitled "Human population and paleo-environment in West Africa".
Ounjougou was selected as the location, "as everything led us to believe that there we could follow the evolution of man, the environment and the climate", explained Huysecom.
The site is an archaeologist's dream: a ravine made up of layers of easy-to-date sediment rich in West African history. Significant findings
Since the launch of the project in 1997, the team has made numerous discoveries about ancient stone-cutting techniques and tools, and other important findings that shed light on human development in the region.
But the unearthing of the ancient fragments of burnt clay is one of the most significant to date. Huysecom is convinced that pottery was invented in West Africa to enable man to adapt to climate change.
"Apart from finding the oldest ceramic in Africa, the interesting thing is that it gives us information about when and under what circumstances man can invent new things, such as pottery," he explained.
"And the invention of ceramic is linked to specific environmental conditions – the transformation of the region from desert into grassland." Grasslands
Some 10,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, the climate is thought to have fluctuated between warm and cold periods. This led to the formation of an 800-kilometre-wide band of tropical vegetation extending northwards from the Sahel region, which attracted people who slowly moved north from southern and central Africa.
Wild grasses and pearl millet started sprouting on the former desert land. But for man to be able to eat and properly digest the new plants, they had to be stored and cooked in pots.
"Man had to adapt his food and way of life by inventing pottery," said the Geneva professor.
The invention of ceramic also coincided with that of small arrowheads - also discovered by the team – and which were probably used to hunt hares, pheasants and other small game on the grassy plains.
To date, East Asia – the triangle between Siberia, China and Japan – is the only other area where similar pottery and arrowheads have been found which are as old as those in West Africa, explained Huysecom.
"This is important, as they both appear in same way, at the same time and under similar climatic conditions, which indicates that man has certain modes of adaptation to cope with environmental changes," he commented.
Ahead of the final publication of the team's research findings this year, Huysecom is returning to Ounjougou to rejoin his colleagues, in particular those from West Africa "who are extremely proud of the discovery".
He plans to scour the region for caves and other settlement sites to try and find out exactly where the pottery came from so as to determine more precisely the age of the fragments.
"We know [from the sediment] that they are at least 11,400 years old, but they could be 50 or even 1,000 years older."
posted
Here's a link to the discovery of the Dufuna boat in Nigeria (Dufuna), relatively close to Niger and Lake Chad. The oldest boat in Africa, third in the world. Again, this may be one of the technology of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile civilization used during the early Holocene to populate the green Sahara, moving along rivers.
quote: The bow and stern are both carefully worked to points, giving the boat a notably more elegant form than finds of similar age from Mesolithic Europe, such as the aforementioned dugout made of conifer wood from Pesse in the Netherlands (Van Zeist 1957), whose blunt ends and thick sides seem crude in comparison with Dufuna. It is highly probable that the Dufuna boat does not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development, and that the origins of water transport in Africa lie even further back in time.
quote: If these assumptions are correct, the makers of the dugout belonged to a population which spread along the southern edge of the Sahara , from north Kenya through the central Sudanese Nile Valley to the western Sahara , and adapted to the resources of the lakes of the early and mid- Holocene wet phase .
Again linking the Sahara-Sahel-Nile civilization.
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Nabta playa is another important site when it comes to define the Sahara-Sahel-Nile black African civilization as well as showing potential relationship with the birth of Ancient Egypt.
We can see the location of Nabta Playa in the Wavy-Line pottery map above.
Nabta playa was inhabited by black Africans due to the favorable climate condition brought by the early Holocene (before that it was an arid desert). Following the end of the green sahara wet phase the population left the Nabta Playa site at a period which coincide with the birth of the Ancient Egyptians first dynasty. The level of sophistication of the Nabta Playa population part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile cultural belt make them likely candidate as one of the formative population of Ancient Egypt.
Nabta Playa share many attributes with the rest of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile civilization including cultural and ethnicity.
Among other things, the Nabta Playa population built Megaliths Stone Circle aligned with the stars.
Here's a text linking that Saharan-Sahel-Nile civilization of Nabta Playa with Ancient Egypt in term of cosmology:
quote:Attention to the rising position of Sirius by the population of Nabta anticipates the great importance of the helical rising of Sirius, known as Sothis, in the high cultures of the Nile Valley. The heliacal rising of Sirius [edit:Sopdet in Ancient Egyptian] occurred at summer solstice around 3000 BC. The Event marked the rising of the Nile and the start of the year. As such, the star appears to have served as the primary calibrator of the Egyptian Calendar for at least two millennia, starting with the First Dynasty. An ivory tablet containing an image of Sothis depicted as a seated cow bearing, between her horns, a young plant that may be symbolic of the relationship between Sirius and the newly born year, comes from the reign of Djer, in the First Dynasty, 3100-3055BC. Parker (1978) suggests that a calendar was in place as early as 3100 BC, calibrated by Sirius. The heliacal rising of Sirius was also used as the signal for the addition of an intercalary month, Thoth, approximately every third year. The difference between the solar year of 365.25 days and the Egyptian calendar year of 365 days generated the so-called Sothic cycle of 1460 years, when the heliacal rising of Sirius returns to the start of the solar calendar.
- Excerpt from: Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara Volume 1: The Archaelogy of Nabta Playa by Wendorf
Here we may assist of cultural transfer from the Saharan-Sahel Nile civilization of Nabta Playa toward Ancient Egypt in the form of cosmological knowledge (among other things).
Similar megaliths can be seen elsewhere in Africa in Senegal-Gambia, Nigeria, Central Africa, etc.
quote: "The Central African Republic, on the other hand, possesses quite spectacular megaliths in the Bouar region. This has yielded some important dates, one group lying in the lowest strata of the monuments: 7440 +/- 170 b.b, that is 5490 before our era.. we cannot be certain where the Bouar megaliths should be placed in the Neolithic period but the culture which erected them can at least be said to be contemporary with the Neolithic." --UNESCO General History of Africa: Methodology and African prehistory. 1981
Maybe the Africans who built the Monoliths in the Central African Republic were also once part of the Sahara-sahel-Nile cultural complex before leaving the green Sahara toward Central Africa (instead of the Nile Valley, West Africa, etc) during the dessication. Keeping with them the tradition of building monoliths (among other things).
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quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: Nabta playa is another important site when it comes to define the Sahara-Sahel-Nile black African civilization as well as showing potential relationship with the birth of Ancient Egypt.
We can see the location of Nabta Playa in the Wavy-Line pottery map above.
Nabta playa was inhabited by black Africans due to the favorable climate condition brought by the early Holocene (before that it was an arid desert). Following the end of the green sahara wet phase the population left the Nabta Playa site at a period which coincide with the birth of the Ancient Egyptians first dynasty. The level of sophistication of the Nabta Playa population part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile cultural belt make them likely candidate as one of the formative population of Ancient Egypt.
Nabta Playa share many attributes with the rest of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile civilization including cultural and ethnicity.
Among other things, the Nabta Playa population built Megaliths Stone Circle aligned with the stars.
Here's a text linking that Saharan-Sahel-Nile civilization of Nabta Playa with Ancient Egypt in term of cosmology:
quote:Attention to the rising position of Sirius by the population of Nabta anticipates the great importance of the helical rising of Sirius, known as Sothis, in the high cultures of the Nile Valley. The heliacal rising of Sirius [edit:Sopdet in Ancient Egyptian] occurred at summer solstice around 3000 BC. The Event marked the rising of the Nile and the start of the year. As such, the star appears to have served as the primary calibrator of the Egyptian Calendar for at least two millennia, starting with the First Dynasty. An ivory tablet containing an image of Sothis depicted as a seated cow bearing, between her horns, a young plant that may be symbolic of the relationship between Sirius and the newly born year, comes from the reign of Djer, in the First Dynasty, 3100-3055BC. Parker (1978) suggests that a calendar was in place as early as 3100 BC, calibrated by Sirius. The heliacal rising of Sirius was also used as the signal for the addition of an intercalary month, Thoth, approximately every third year. The difference between the solar year of 365.25 days and the Egyptian calendar year of 365 days generated the so-called Sothic cycle of 1460 years, when the heliacal rising of Sirius returns to the start of the solar calendar.
- Excerpt from: Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara Volume 1: The Archaelogy of Nabta Playa by Wendorf
Here we may assist of cultural transfer from the Saharan-Sahel Nile civilization of Nabta Playa toward Ancient Egypt in the form of cosmological knowledge (among other things).
Similar megaliths can be seen elsewhere in Africa in Senegal-Gambia, Nigeria, Central Africa, etc.
quote: "The Central African Republic, on the other hand, possesses quite spectacular megaliths in the Bouar region. This has yielded some important dates, one group lying in the lowest strata of the monuments: 7440 +/- 170 b.b, that is 5490 before our era.. we cannot be certain where the Bouar megaliths should be placed in the Neolithic period but the culture which erected them can at least be said to be contemporary with the Neolithic." --UNESCO General History of Africa: Methodology and African prehistory. 1981
Maybe the Africans who built the Monoliths in the Central African Republic were also once part of the Sahara-sahel-Nile cultural complex before leaving the green Sahara toward Central Africa (instead of the Nile Valley, West Africa, etc) during the dessication. Keeping with them the tradition of building monoliths (among other things).
There is a similar crop of stone circles in Adrar Madjet in Niger. There is no doubt the Central Saharan people had significant influence in Africa.
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Ethnicity of the population at Nabta Playa:
quote: Of considerable interest is the likely racial identity of the Neolithic people at Nabta. Irish (1994) has recognized two major human populations in Africa, based on several diagnostic morphological variants of dental features among modern African populations. One group he relates to Europeans, and identifies as North African, includes the modern population in the Nile Valley from northern Sudan to the Mediterranean. The other, which he calls Sub-Saharan, occurs through most of Africa south of the Sahara. All of the individuals of Baqar Late Neolithic at Nabta are, like the Jerar Early Neolithic burial at Site E-91-1, within the Sub-Saharan group, and differ from those in the Nile Valley who are included in the North African group (Irish, Chapter 18, this volume). A larger sample is needed to be certain, but this limited evidence suggests that, at least since the later part of the Early Neolithic if not before, the cattle pastoralists in the southern part of the Egyptian Eastern Sahara had close physical ties with sub-Saharan Africa .
- Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa (Chap 25: Conclusions, p 671)
Like the DNA Tribes results on the Ancient Egyptians mummy DNA this may surprise some people on this site. Nabta inhabitants don't only match African people but people from inner Africa under the Sahara.
While I personally don't mind typifying the African category by excluding non-native Africans (any people who left Africa during the OOA migration, including those the products of a back migration) contrary to Keita (seemingly) and many people on this site. This goes a bit far from me as it exclude northern Sudanese and southern Egyptians many of whom are black indigenous Africans. In fact, many Nubians still lives along the Nile river. Fur people still live in Northern Sudan, almost all Northern Sudanese are black Africans, etc.
Still even by using this very restrictive categorization detrimental to the African category (since when Northern Sudanese are Europeans?!?), the Nabta Playa populations matches African populations. Linking them with the rest of the African populations in the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt who now occupy the major part of Africa from (mainly) the southern part of the Maghreb and Egypt up to the tip of South Africa.
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^ what Joel Irish is simply talking about is the analysis of TEETH. They cannot tell you where a population comes from simply how a population's dental traits have a adapted due to diet.
Do you have the full volume? Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1? I have volume 2 only.
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quote:The African Sources of Egyptian Culture and Language
There exists today a controversy over the sources of Egyptian culture in which the contending proponents - the Classicists, as they might be called, on the one hand, and the Diop-influenced variety of Afrocentrists, on the other - argue opposing views that are equally misconceived. Both seem trapped in a time warp , the dimensions of which were laid down in the 19th century and set out in accord with the racialist orthodoxy of the times. Historical linguistics, archeological evidence and comparative ethnographic argumentation make it possible to resituate the arguments in late 20th-century terms. What emerges most strongly is the extent to which ancient Egypt's culture grew from sub-Saharan African roots. In the earliest formative years, it was people from the south who moved north into Egypt and brought in the primary features of a new economy and culture, along with an Afrasian language. In later times, from roughly the seventh to the fourth millennium, the now Afrasian-speaking population of Egypt drew from both the ancient Middle East (several major crops, the plough and two animals of secondary importance) and the Nilo-Saharan centre of agricultural invention located to the south in the Middle Nile Basin (two animals - one, the cow, of major cultural importance - and several secondary crops). So ancient Egypt was both in and of Africa, and Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to extents usually not recognized, fundamentally African.
He is saying both classicists, impregnated with their colonial historian bias against Africans and Diop response to it are not 100% right and need revisiting.
Using historical linguistics, archeological evidences (and now genetics) it is clear Ancient Egypt grew from it's "sub-Saharan Africans" roots. Sub-Saharan is a misnomer as Africans were living in the Sahara when it was green and some still do. It was them who formed the Ancient Egyptian civilization.
The Egyptian civilization was fundamentally African. It was people from the south who moved north into Egypt and brought in the primary features of a new economy and culture. That is people who were part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt during the Holocene.
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quote:Of considerable interest is the likely racial identity of the Neolithic people at Nabta. Irish (1994) has recognized two major human populations in Africa, based on several diagnostic morphological variants of dental features among modern African populations. One group he relates to Europeans, and identifies as North African, includes the modern population in the Nile Valley from northern Sudan to the Mediterranean.
The word that comes up is ''educated fools''. These pseudo-scientists are wasting their energy and their research funds. This is all based on assumptions. The assumptions on which their papers are based blatantly violate basic biological principles such as genetic drift, natural selection and osteological plasticity that can easily account for these skeletal variations. There hasn't been a single study that has shown that differences in dental patterns necessarily imply genetic distinctness.
It is one thing take take dental data and trying to fit it in with all other anthropology data, but to take dental data, and using that to invoke population replacement in early Egypto-Nubian centres has nothing to do with science at all. Look at how his own data slaps him in the face:
quote:Population continuity after all? potential late Pleistocene dental ancestors of Holocene Nubians have been found! JOEL D. IRISH.
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks AK
Friday All day, Plaza Level Add to calendar
Since the mid-1960s, some anthropologists have posited biological continuity in late Pleistocene through recent Nubians. However, subsequent dental and skeletal research revealed that a broad range of Holocene samples, all of which share appreciable spatiotemporal phenetic homogeneity, differ significantly from those at the Late Paleolithic sites of Wadi Halfa and Jebel Sahaba. If the latter two Lower Nubian samples are representative of local peoples at that time, then post-Pleistocene discontinuity is implied.
Who, then, were the ancestors of Holocene Nubians? 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 – though with late Pleistocene Upper- instead of Lower Nubians. While it cannot be proven that the al Khiday people were directly related, they are, minimally, indicative of what such an ancestor would be like – assuming that phenetic affinities are indicators of genetic variation.
Notice how he says this at the end:
assuming that phenetic affinities are indicators of genetic variation.
Fool, this pseudo-scientific assumption is what you've been making the whole goddamn time.
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All quotes are from: Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa (Chap 18).
This show the dental morphology analysis of the 3 most intact bodies (which are from 3 different sites at Nabta Playa).
quote:DENTAL MORPHOLOGY ANALYSIS
Each of the three dentitions was examined for several common dental and osseous non-metric traits (Table 18.1) that are included in the Arizona State University (ASU) Dental Anthropology System . In each case, the traits were dichotomized into categories of present or absent according to standard procedure, based on their appraised morphological thresholds (see Turner 1985). System procedures are based on well-established criteria for scoring intra-trait variation. Only each specimen's highest antimere expressions were analyzed for each trait; this approach maximizes the genetic potential for these polygenic features. (For a comprehensive description of ASU System procedures and traits see Turner et al. 1991).
In previous studies (Irish 1993; 1994; 1997; 1998a,b,c,d; Irish and Turner 1990), up to 36 noncorrelated (per Kendall's tau-b and Spearman's rho) ASU traits were recorded in 30 samples of Late Pleistocene through recent Sub-Saharan and North Africans. Of these 36 traits, it was determined (Irish 1993) that 23 differ significantly (p s 0.05 using Pearson's x2) between pooled samples' from the two geographic regions. Thus, it was decided to use as many of these diagnostic traits as possible to get a cursory indication of whether the E-97- 17, E-00-1, and E-91-1 individuals are phenetically more akin to Sub-Saharan or North Africans. As Henneberg et al. (1980) note, there is uncertainty about the identity of Neolithic Nabta Playa inhabitants. Their provenience places them at a crossroads between the north and south, and their semi-nomadic way of life (Wendorf and Schild 1980; 1984; 1995-96; and elsewhere in this volume) may have brought them into contact with peoples from both regions.
quote:SITE E-97-17
Because of incompleteness and attrition, only six diagnostic traits (LM3 cusp number, LP1 Tome's root, LC root number, LM2 root number, LM3 torsomolar angle, LM3 presence) could be recorded in the 13 teeth. The dichotomized presence/absence breakpoints are listed under each trait name in Table I 8.1; for comparative purposes, the percentage of individuals with a particular Irait in the Sub-Saharan and North African samples is presented on the right side of the table, along with the total number of individuals for whom the trait was scored.
Based on metric analyses of one mandible from Early Neolithic site E-75-8, Henneberg et al. (1980:392) suggest the Nabta Playa people may have been most similar to ". . .Negroes living south of the Sahara." The present qualitative dental comparison tentatively supports this contention . As Table 18.1 illustrates, the presence or absence of the six E-97-17 traits corresponds with Sub-Saharan trait frequencies. Of the four traits that are present, Sub-Saharan Africans exhibit the highest frequencies ; similarly, for the two traits that are absent, they show the lowest. Fourth molar presence in E-97-17 is also suggestive of a Sub-Saharan affinity . Supernumerary teeth are rare in North Africans (Ruffer 1920, personal observation by author), but occur with greater regularity in populations south of the Sahara (Watters 1958; Irish 1998d).
quote:SITE E-00-1
Three dental non-metric traits were analyzed in the eight E-00-1 teeth (i.e.rLP1 Tome's root, LC root number, and LM2 root number). These traits are also dichotomized according to ASU procedure and compared to North and Sub-Saharan Africans in Table 18.1. The qualitative comparison is again suggestive of Sub-Saharan affinity for this second Nabta Playa individual . As Table 18.1 shows, the occurrence of traits corresponds with Sub- Saharan frequencies .
quote:SITE E-91-1
Twenty-one diagnostic ASU System traits were observable in the nearly complete E-91-1 dentition. Of these, four (i.e., Uil labial curvature, U12 interruption groove, UC Bushman Canine, and LMI cusp 7) parallel the North African frequencies. The other 17 traits are more suggestive of Sub-Saharan affiliation (Table 18.1); this finding supports the previous results and those of Henneberg et al. (1980).
quote:Discussion
Despite an ostensible resemblance to Sub-Saharan Africans in 26 out of 30 observations, the worn, largely incomplete dentitions are only from three individuals who may or may not be representative of the general Nabta Playa population. A proper biological affinity estimate based on dental morphological data requires a larger sample, using more traits from both the mandible and maiIla (Turner 19S5; Irish 1993; 1997, 1998a, b, c, d for examples). Furthermore, in the case of E-97-17, the small teeth with fine mots, interpreted here as female indicators, could be suggestive of a North African linkage; North Africans often exhibit reduced, morphologically simple teeth (Irish 1993; 1996; 1998a, b, c, d). Thus, these initial results should he viewed with caution.
This is not surprising as the population of Nabta Playa are also culturally linked with the rest of the Saharan-Sahel-Nile belt. While the specimens match modern black Africans , I still think it is not judicious to exclude black African populations of Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan from the African category and placed them in the European/North African category. At least, it has the advantage of being clear. Nabta playa inhabitants were black Africans similar to those under the Sahara (obviously they were not under the Sahara during the Holocene/Green Sahara or even now for that matter).
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In linguistics, it is always difficult to determine the homeland of a language. Still, it seems to be fairly accepted that the homeland of almost all the main languages in Africa is somewhere close to Sudan, that is in the eastern part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt.
quote: The initial warming of climate in the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, 12,700-10,900 BCE, brought increased rainfall and warmer conditions in many African regions. Three sets of peoples, speaking languages of the three language families that predominate across the continent today, probably began their early expansions in this period.Nilo-Saharan peoples spread out in the areas around and east of the middle Nile River in what is today the country of Sudan. Peoples of a second family, Niger-Kordofanian (EDIT: to which Niger-Congo and Bantu are offshoots) , spread across an emerging east-west belt of savanna vegetation from the eastern Sudan to the western Atlantic coast of Africa. In the same era, communities speaking languages of the Erythraic branch of the Afrasian (Afroasiatic) family expanded beyond their origin areas in the Horn of Africa, northward to modern-day Egypt.
[...]
In the tenth millennium in the savannas of modern-day Mali, communities speaking early daughter languages of proto-Niger-Congo, itself an offshoot of the Niger-Kordofanian family , began to intensively collect wild grains, among them probably fonio. Their Ounjougou culture is the earliest identified facies of the West African Microlithic, the archaeological complex associated with the early Niger-Congo peoples. Integral to their new subsistence system was their invention of the earliest ceramic technology in world history, between 10,000 and 9500 BCE . Rather than grinding whole grains into flour, the Ounjougou people apparently made the whole grains edible by cooking them in pots.
When did the shift from gathering to the cultivation of grains begin among Niger-Congo peoples? The archaeobotanical evidence is as yet unknown for the crucial periods. Provisional reconstructions of several early Niger-Congo verbs specifically connoting cultivation suggest, however, that the transition from collecting to cultivating grains in the grassland savannas of West Africa took place broadly in the period 9000-6000 BCE. Black-eyed peas and African groundnuts (Vigna subterranea) may have been early cultivated plants along with grains. Niger-Congo peoples certainly domesticated them fairly early because they were among the crops the earliest Bantu took with them into the equatorial rainforests after 3000 BCE.
- Excerpt from : Africa in History by Christopher Ehret
The homeland of the Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian (Niger-Congo/Bantu), and Afro-asiatic language is set in the eastern part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile Belt. Again, this demonstrate the movement of people, culture and ideas across the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt.
Even in current Africa it's not rare to have multiple languages, ethnic groups and lineages, in the same relatively close geographic location, in the same country. People using multilingualism and/or lingua franca to communicate with each others.
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I could easily have started my thread with it, especially if it wasn't only covering the eastern-northern part of the Sahara.
Those maps show as its title says that the occupation of Ancient Egypt, Nubia and the Nile were largely in relation to the climate of the time.
Referring to the maps:
A) Before 8500 BCE (late Pleistocene, before the Holocene) - Because of desert condition of the late Pleistocene there's nobody in the Delta and Lower Egypt (north of Egypt). - Prehistoric sites along the Nile are overrepresented at Lake Nubia (because of the archaeological rescue missions related to the Aswan high dam) but contrast clearly with the complete lack of evidence from the desert . - Lower Nubia is inhabited
B) Between 8500-7000 BCE (early Holocene) - Groups from the south , already adapted to savannah ecology, extended their traditional way of life following the northward shifting rains. - Nile dwellers may have left the inhospitable valley.
C) Between 7000-5300 BCE (Mid-Holocene) - Human settlement became well established throughout the Eastern Sahara - Local Domestication of Cattle livestock in the Sahara - Adoption of sheep and goats from the Near East
D) Between 5300 to 3500 BCE (Mid-Holocene) - Exodus of the population from the Sahara toward the Nile valley (and other regions of Africa) due to the dessication of the Sahara. Foundation of the Ancient Egyptian civilization.
Clearly contrary to what Swenet says above, it's not about population replacement but population movements. Black African population were indigenous to the region and moved their settlements in relation to the climate. It says: Groups from the south , already adapted to savannah ecology, extended their traditional way of life following the northward shifting rains. There were almost no settlements along the Nile during the early-mid Holocene (according to this study) beside at the south (Kharthoum area). That is the 2 maps in the middle. Which is a bit surprising. The document suggest that it was inhospitable. It was then followed by an exodus of the population of the Green Sahara toward the Nile during the dessication of the Sahara.
People must also keep in mind that those maps only cover the eastern-northern part of the Green Sahara. The "wavy-line pottery culture" was extending to the whole Green Sahara and lasted thousands of years.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
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quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate:
There were almost no settlements along the Nile during the early-mid Holocene (according to this study) beside at the south (Kharthoum area).
More on the Nile part of this Sahara-Sahel-Nile. Not to focus on some of the map's omissions (eg. a 7400 BCE Early Khartoum industry site at Kerma) here's an early 1980's UNESCO take on it and the culture's offshoots and its Saharan relationship . . . . Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
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^ Tukuler, I have read in several books a while back that remnants of these prehistoric and ancient Sudanic cultures still survive today in small pockets among tribes in rural parts of the Kordofan region. Many cultural anthropologists and ethnologists who have been studying these tribes in the Kordofan have long noted certain styles of pottery, tool assemblage, and even the custom of tooth removal to be strikingly similar to those of ancient and prehistoric cultures elsewhere in North Africa. It's a shame but just as some cultural anthropologists who've studied Sa'idi and Baladi culture in Egypt have pointed out traces and survivals of pharaonic culture, many archaeologists or Egyptologists don't bother to 'connect the dots' or don't collaborate with the ethnologists. Perhaps due to the obvious 'racial' issue of these cultural traits surviving in the black communities only.
quote:Originally posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate: Ethnicity of the population at Nabta Playa:
quote: Of considerable interest is the likely racial identity of the Neolithic people at Nabta. Irish (1994) has recognized two major human populations in Africa, based on several diagnostic morphological variants of dental features among modern African populations. One group he relates to Europeans, and identifies as North African, includes the modern population in the Nile Valley from northern Sudan to the Mediterranean. The other, which he calls Sub-Saharan, occurs through most of Africa south of the Sahara. All of the individuals of Baqar Late Neolithic at Nabta are, like the Jerar Early Neolithic burial at Site E-91-1, within the Sub-Saharan group, and differ from those in the Nile Valley who are included in the North African group (Irish, Chapter 18, this volume). A larger sample is needed to be certain, but this limited evidence suggests that, at least since the later part of the Early Neolithic if not before, the cattle pastoralists in the southern part of the Egyptian Eastern Sahara had close physical ties with sub-Saharan Africa .
- Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa (Chap 25: Conclusions, p 671)
Like the DNA Tribes results on the Ancient Egyptians mummy DNA this may surprise some people on this site. Nabta inhabitants don't only match African people but people from inner Africa under the Sahara.
While I personally don't mind typifying the African category by excluding non-native Africans (any people who left Africa during the OOA migration, including those the products of a back migration) contrary to Keita (seemingly) and many people on this site. This goes a bit far from me as it exclude northern Sudanese and southern Egyptians many of whom are black indigenous Africans. In fact, many Nubians still lives along the Nile river. Fur people still live in Northern Sudan, almost all Northern Sudanese are black Africans, etc.
Still even by using this very restrictive categorization detrimental to the African category (since when Northern Sudanese are Europeans?!?), the Nabta Playa populations matches African populations. Linking them with the rest of the African populations in the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt who now occupy the major part of Africa from (mainly) the southern part of the Maghreb and Egypt up to the tip of South Africa.
Beyoku and Swenet are correct. The Irish dental study was discussed too many times before in this forum. You should be aware that these same dental studies in Northern Sudan which show so-called "caucasoid" traits as well as craniofacial studies labeling them as "caucasoid" does not stand with the genetic findings of these same remains which show them to carry hg A associated with southern Sudanese. Again, this is all based on debunked racial thinking on Africans being true "negro" vs. "caucasian". Northern Sudanese and of course Egyptians were as much African as southern Sudanese or southern African Khoisan.
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This is another great map. Clearly, the domestication of cattle happened in the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt.
From the document we got: -Bir Kiseiba 9500 BP -Nabta Playa 8840 BP -Enneri Bardague (Tibesti) 7400BP -Acarus 7400-6700 BP -Nile Valley: No early domestication of cattle
Here's some interesting quotes from the document:
quote: After being deserted during the last glacial maximum, the Sahara was repopulated c. 9500 BP by hunter-gatherers who used ceramics with distinctive wavy-line decorative motifs. This cultural complex , scattered across North Africa, is variously referred to as Khartoum Mesolithic (Arkell, 1949), Epipaleolithic (Close, 1995), or Aqualithic (Sutton, 1977).
We're talking about a cultural complex. The Sahara-Sahel-Nile one, during the Green Sahara.
quote: With concepts of ownership based on storage facilities and ceramics, some of these groups in the central and southern Sahara probably followed a delayed-return strategy of hunting and gathering (Barich, 1998; Dale et al., in press; Di Lernia, 2001).
Description of the people of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile Complex during the Green Sahara.
quote: Archaeological evidence suggests that cattle were domesticated in the eastern Sahara during the tenth millennium BP. Nabta, located in the driest part of the Sahara, received too little rainfall at this time (less than 300mmp. a.) to sustain wild cattle. Domestication probably took place slightly farther west, in areas capable of supporting cattle.
Obviously within the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt.
quote: Ritual use of cattle may also have provided a specific context in which scheduled consumption would have been especially desirable. [...] Rituals associated with cattle may have occurred at seasonal meetings of pastoral groups or lineages, and helped to consolidate emerging social and political networks.
Descriptive of the culture. Notice the concept of seasonal meetings of pastoral ethnic groups or lineages. Those regional ceremonial centers are still used today by many Sahelian and sub-Saharan pastoralists. Showing one aspect of the interactions and exchange systems between the population of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile cultural complex.
quote: Like the “perfect storm,” the precise conditions that precipitated domestication occurred rarely in North Africa. They converged during the tenth millennium in areas of the eastern Sahara that were wet enough for wild cattle but dry enough to be risky, and were populated by hunter-gatherers with social organization conducive to resource intensification [Edit:delayed return hunter-gatherers with storage technology (ceramics) and concepts of ownership]. Archaeological, genetic, and climatic evidence together suggest that domestic cattle spread from a point origin—perhaps a small playa near the Jebel Marra massif in northwest Sudan, or east of the Tibesti in northeastern Chad— during the tenth–ninth millennium BP.
Northwest Sudan, Northeastern Chad. Again part of the Sahara-Sahel-Nile belt. Culture description.
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^ So far linguistic evidence seems to correlate the domestication of cattle in Africa with Nilo-Saharan speakers as opposed to Afro-asiatic/Afrisian speakers. This was discussed here and here. Though I do question whether Nilo-Saharan was the only language phylum spoken in the Saharan region, especially in the Central Sahara. Many linguists tend to group Songhai as Nilo-Saharan yet that language as well as a few others possess peculiarities that at best make them distant relatives. And a couple of languages (I forgot which) that are spoken by small groups are considered isolates.
I've been looking all over the net for those maps above. I've seen them featured in a lecture by Keita and I point to the fact that the first settlements in the Delta are in the southwest as opposed to the northeast which throws a big wrench into the idea that the Delta folk are of Asiatic origin.
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posted
Here's a very interesting excerpt from Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa.
The Nabta Playa site is identified as a ceremonial center. Which may have served as a meeting place for many different groups and lineages.
I also like the way the Nabta Playa archaeological site is linked with other similar prehistoric sites in the Sahara (as far as Niger), to the south and to the Nile. I also like the way it links some of the Nabta Playa cultural and religious practices with modern African groups in the region and beyond as far as Western Africa.
The knowledge of modern African ancient cultural practices still alive today gives us better knowledge about the Ancient Saharan civilization, Ancient Egypt and Kush (and vice versa).
quote: Nabta as a Regional Ceremonial Center
A major contribution of the work at Nabta and Bir Kiseiba is the information it has yielded on the early development of the African Cattle Complex (Herskovits 1926). It has been widely believed that this complex was a relatively recent development, probably appearing and spreading through Africa during the Iron Age, and that it and the cattle were ultimately derived from Southwest Asia. This view is no longer valid. The cattle remains from Nabta, and from several other Early. Middle and Late Neolithic Localities in the Egyptian Sahara together with the new mtDNA data and linguistic studies, are strong evidence that cattle pastoralism has a long history in North Africa, and that it may have begun in the Eastern Sahara. The cattle remains at site E-75-8. together with the large stone alignment the cattle tumuli, the Calendar Click, and the Complex Stone Structures, suggest that durìng the Baqar Late Neolithic, Nabta probably functioned as a regional ceremonial center. It may have been similar to those still used by many Saheian and Sub-Saharan cattle pastoralists. These African groups are often divided into sections or lineages, and the ceremonial centers serve as foci of religious, political, and social functions for the entire group. They represent nodes in the sacred, political and economic geography of a regional group, thereby functioning as political as well as religious centers. However, a bit of caution is warranted. While there is strong evidence that the Nabta Basin was a ceremonial center, that it served to integrate separate groups, sections or lineages still need to be confirmed.
The excavations of the Complex Stone Structures or Shrines suggested that they are probably an expression of an elaborate and previously unsuspected Late Neolithic ceremonialism. This may be connected with a burial complex, but it has not as yet been determined if these megalithic structures at Nabta are shrines, or if they mark burial chambers or memorials. And while the degree of social control involved in their construction is not as yet established, the planning of the structures, the work required to quarry and transport the possible cow effigy shaped stone, the effort used to dig the enormous pit or ramp needed to place it, and the time demanded to shape that stone and the underlying mushroom rock, all clearly imply a major commitment over a significant period of time. As we shall see, however, elaborate structures can sometimes be erected without strong evidence of social complexity.
In the Western Desert of Egypt, this complex of ceremonial structures at Nabta appears to be unique. Although there is an unstudied tumulus in a basin between Nabta and Bir Kiseiba, and four groups of large rocks that may be an alignment at Bir Mur (Connor 1984a:391), they are isolated features, and their relationship to Nabta is unknown. It is possible that they represent peripheral manifestations of the more highly developed ceremonial phenomena at Nabta.
Unfortunately, the archaeology of that part of northern Sudan immediately south of Nabta is not well known , except for surveys and test excavations in two areas, one near Laqiya Arbain and the other in the Wadi Howar (Kuper 1986; Richter 1989; Schuck 1989). Farther south, however, there are several much later but potentially very interesting sites that may relate to the Nabta ceremonial phenomena. These sites, as yet not studied in detail, are located about 1400 km south and slightly west of Nabta, in the vicinity of Malha Crater in northern Darfur. The area today is near the Sahelian- Desert transition, with a rainfall of around 115 mm per year. The preliminary accounts describe numerous earthen mounds, some of which are very large. These mounds are located close to a group of late prehistoric "cities" that are segmented into distinct units and special precincts. The arrangements of these towns suggest multiple sections or lineages. We do not know if they were farmers or mixed farmers and pastoralists, because very little work has been done at these sites. They are tentatively dated between 3000 and 4000 bp , when the lake sediments in the crater indicate an interval of greater precipitation (Dumont and El Moghraby 1993). Of interest here is the position of the burial mounds in special precincts away from the settlements, an arrangement that resembles the placement of the complex shrines at Nabta. At the very least, these Malha communities indicate that large and complex groups could function successfully in areas of very limited rainfall.
Elsewhere in North Africa, archaeological evidence of presumed regional ceremonial centers with megalithic alignments, burial mounds, and stone circles similar to those at Nabta have been found in Sahelian and Sub- Saharan Africa from Ethiopia to Senegal and north to the Maghreb (Camps 1953; Connah 1987; Desplagnes 1951; Fergussort 1872;Joussame 1974, 1985; Milburn 1988; Tuner 1981). They are particularly numerous in West Africa where there are literally thousands of tumuli and megaliths (Martin and Becker 1974, 1984). Most of these have not been dated, but they are usually assigned to the Iron Age or later. Apparently, the oldest of these features in the Sahara, roughly contemporary with the structures at Nabta, are the tumuli at Site i at Adrar Bous in Niger, with radiocarbon dates of 6350 and 6200 bp (Pa-330 and Pa-753; Roset 1987a; 198Th; Paris 1995; 1996b). Remains of disarticulated and burned cattle were found in these dated tumuli. There are two older radiocarbon dates of 7440 bp and 6700 bp associated with megaliths in the Central African Republic, but both have been rejected as too old (Vidai 1969; Bayle des Hermens 1975:260-261).
Some of these regional centers in the Upper Nile are still in use . In some instances these centers include mounds built over sacrificed cattle, while other mounds cover burials of prominent leaders (Bedri 1939:131; Howell 1948:53). A modern Dinka shrine , constructed on the border between several tribal groups, has become a focal point and national symbol for the Sudanese liberation movement (Johnson 1990:53). Myths associated with these regional centers also serve to define the territorial claims of the groups identified with the shrine and to legitimize the authority of those with spiritual power (Leinhardt 196 :98).
The ethnographic literature of Sahelian and Sub- Saharan Africa, particularly Sudan, the Upper Nile, and eastern Chad , describes many close resemblance's between features at Nabta and those found in regional ceremonial centers in that region. These accounts also help us understand the kind of society that may have functioned at Nabta.
Many cattle pastoralists, such as the Habana and Reni Helba Baggara tribes, who live in the hyper-arid area of northern Darfur , and the Gura'an in adjacent Chad , have economies in which hunting and gathering are significant. In some instances they supplement their cattle resources and gathering activities by having a symbiotic relationship with a group of hunters who provide meat (Nicolaisen 1968). Another solution is found among the Baggara tribes in northern Kordofan who not only gather plant foods, but also use drought tolerant camels as well as cattle (Asad 1970; Lampen 1933; Seligman and Seligman 1918). A few pastoralists also cultivate gardens (Cunnison 1966). The possibility of a symbiotic relationship with specialized hunting groups is a possibility but there is no direct evidence. During the Early Neolithic, that is before 7000 bp, cattle are not present in any of the studied sites located west of Bir Kiseiba sites with only wild fauna occur, and there may have been some exchange with the cattle herders, but there is no evidence that it occurred. The associated floral and faunal remains confirm that cattle pastoralists at Nabta were dependent on both hunting and gathering, and the cattle herders also could have done their own hunting.
The modern cattle pastoralists living in northern Darfur and Kordofan are now Moslems, and traces of their earlier beliefs are scant (Asad 1970; Lampen 1933; Seligman and Seligman 1918). In other aspects, however, the lives of these modern cattle pastoralists living in this hyper-arid area are in many respects similar to those of the non-Moslem cattle pastoralists living today along the Upper Nile in central and southern Sudan. The populations of the tribes living in northern Darfur are smaller, and their herds are not as numerous as those living in the better-watered areas to the south, but they share the same emphasis on cattle: milk and blood are important sources of food; they use cattle for bride payments and to settle blood debts and determine wealth and prestige, and they never kill cattle for their meat except on ceremonial occasions. Although most groups live in the desert throughout the year, the Baggara who live in northern Kordofan have strong ties with the Nubians who live along the Nile near Dongola and during periods of extreme drought they move to the river.
The political system of the northern Darfur tribes usually include an overall tribal leader whose position is inherited in the male line, and who has final authority over all disputes and issues regarding the well-being of the tribe. The authority of these leaders is limited, largely because the lineages can function independently. Strong leaders seem to have emerged only at times of special need, such as warfare or other crisis, and do not seem to have been able to maintain that authority alter the emergency had passed. The tribes are divides into several lineages or sections that are sometimes territorial. Each lineage has a leader who is responsible to the tribal leader, and whose position is also inherited.
Probably because of their Moslem belief, the ceremonial life of these northern Sudanese tribes does not appear to emphasize rain-making, although and lineage tribal leaders sometimes conduct simple ceremonies seeking rain. There are shrines or sacred places, but very little is known about them. Similar sacred places also occur among Moslem groups in West Africa where this belief system associated with sacred places has an important role in maintaining social cohesion during periods of climatic change.
Moving to the Upper Nile, almost all of the animistic tribes in this area are cattle pastoralists . Cattle dominate their lives: they are their primary wealth, they are used to pay bride-payments and blood fines, and they are the basis for prestige. Among most of these groups the rain-makers are the most common religious figures. These rain-makers derive their power from ancestral spirits and may be either the embodiment of their high god, or more frequently, serve as an intermediary with that god to bring rain, so the grass will grow and their cattle will flourish. The rain-maker is usually the most important person in the tribe; he resolves disputes as the final authority, and he is responsible for all public life. Most are also wealthy, and to demonstrate his importance and wealth, an unusually powerful Nuer ruler sacrificed numerous cattle and covered them with an earthen mound (Herskovits 1926:28). The power of these rainmakers is limited, however, because of the ability of the sections or lineages to function independently. The rainmakers also live precarious lives; they are often killed when rain fails to come, and they are also killed when they become ill or grow old. On the other hand, some of the East African cattle pastoralists, such as the Shuluk, who lack rain-makers (Seigman and Seigmart 1932), are led by a king who is regarded as the embodiment of their god . These kings have much greater power and they usually control larger groups than the rain-makers.
There are many kinds of shrines used by groups living along the Upper Nile, most of them are simple decorated poles, referred to as "mobile shrines.' Among the Bari and the Lotuko , the rain-maker shrines consist of a circle of large upright stones with a mosaic of smaller flat stones in the center (Seligman and Seigman 1932:288, 330). The Nuba also have circles of large upright stones with smaller flat stones in the center that are used by the men when the)' perform the new fire ceremony (Seligman and Seligman 1932:343-344). Among the Kalenjin in Kenyas tribal elders sometimes sit against upright stones set in a circle (Fosnaflsky 1966).
Most of the modern Nilotic cattle pastoralists bury their dead in simple shallows graves with a small decorated stick or pole shrine nearby. Cattle are sometimes sacrificed as part of the ceremony particularly for their leaders and the wealthy. Burial among the Nuba and the Moro, however, is in chambers about 2.5 m in diameter and from 2 to 3m below the surface that are reached by shafts dug from the surface (Seligman and Seligman 1932:404, 486).
- Holocene Settlement of the Egyptian Sahara: Volume 1: The Archaeology of Nabta Playa (Chap 25: Conclusions)
posted
^ For the 20th time, do you have that book? In soft copy? Been looking for a cheap copy or PDF
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quote:Originally posted by beyoku: ^ For the 20th time, do you have that book? In soft copy? Been looking for a cheap copy or PDF
I don't have the book, just read it from a local library and copied the most interesting part that I post here.
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