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"[...]What historians have often not recognized is that the formative area of ancient Egyptian culture, southern Upper Egypt, was the northern outlier of a wider nexus of emerging complexity in the fourth millennium." - Africa in History
So southern Upper Egypt, the formative area of ancient Egyptian culture, was a northern outlier of a wider indigenous African cultural complexes.
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"The first evidence of emerging complexity in the fifth millennium appeared not along the Nile itself, but in the then steppe country west of northern Lower Nubia. Three hundred kilometers from the river, the inhabitants of Nabta Playa erected an extensive megalithic archaeoastronomical array. The associated burials, of both cattle and people, reveal a wealthy pastoral society, with a complex ritual basis, in existence centuries before similar complexity in Upper Egypt." - Africa in History
Nabta Playa as precursor of Ancient Egyptian culture.
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Qustul was the capital of wealthy kings from the mid-fourth millennium BCE up almost to the unification of Egypt late in the millennium. Like the earlier Nabta Playa pastoralist sites, the Qustul sites include numerous cattle burials. Pictorial documents in the royal graves explicitly depict the kings of the Qustul state as having conquered Upper Egypt. There is no a priori reason to reject these claims. If one sets aside the received notion of Egyptian exceptionalism, it is quite evident, as the archaeologist Bruce Williams argues, that here was a kingdom every bit as significant as its late pre-dynastic contemporaries in Upper Egypt. - Africa in History
Like the earlier Nabta Playa pastoralist sites, the Qustul sites include numerous cattle burials. Pictorial documents in the royal graves explicitly depict the kings of the Qustul state as having conquered Upper Egypt.
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On sites of ritual importance the people of this Middle Nile culture [Shaheinab and Qustul/fourth millennium BCE] built large conical earthen mounds, reshaped since then by rain and wind into more formless-seeming tumuli. Ritual sites of this type represent a very long-lived cultural and political tradition, lasting in some cases down to recent centuries. - Africa in History
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"Behind the rise of the highly centralized kingship of dynastic Egypt may have been an additional factor, the adoption in late pre-dynastic Upper Egypt of elements of the rituals and royal ideology of the Qustul kingdom . Early Egyptian royal tombs, before the shift to pyramid building in stone, were covered with a conical mound of earth, mimicking the practice known as early as the fourth millennium in Nubia and still prevalent 2000 years later in the kingdoms to the south . These outward resemblances accompany resemblances in ideology as well, from the special ritual significance accorded cattle to the claims of both Sudanic and Egyptian kings to a degree of personal sacredness unparalleled in the Middle East. Did Upper Egyptian rulers build their power in the later fourth millennium BCE by adopting legimitizing ideas from Nabta Playa and Qustul? The outward signs, at least, are not inconsistant that proposal." - Africa in History
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- The African origins of Egyptian civilisation lie in an important cultural horizon, the ‘primary pastoral community’, which emerged in both the Egyptian and Sudanese parts of the Nile Valley in the fifth millennium BC.
- The aim of the present article is to define an important horizon of cultural change, belonging to the fifth millennium BC, linking Egypt’s early development firmly to that of its southern neighbours in Nubia and central Sudan.
- This cultural horizon is situated between the green Sahara (early-mid holocene) period (Wavy Line pottery culture) and Badarian/Naqada period. All in the 5th Millennium BC. The Sahara was in the process of desertification. Most population were still mobile (residence) but maintained a certain cultural uniformity across the Nile and surrounding desert areas (Nabta Playa, Gebel Ramlah, Kharthoum, etc).
- ...the characteristic features of the ‘primary pastoral community’ may appear slightly earlier in the Sudanese than in the Egyptian part of the valley, suggesting a possible spread from south to north during the course of the fifth millennium.
- Neolithic of the Nile Valley constitutes a cultural phenomenon of impressive coherence, scale and duration.
- It is during this period [edit:5th Millennium BC] that burial grounds of varying size—but rarely exceeding a hundred individuals within a single cemetery—become a widely visible feature in the archaeological record of this region.
- ...the sites have a broadly similar character along both its Egyptian and Sudanese courses
- Recent discoveries at the Neolithic cemetery of el-Barga, in the Kerma region of northern Sudan, raise the further possibility that this ritual-territorial system, and its sophisticated modes of body decoration, extend back in time beyond the fifth millennium BC Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012
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"Archaeological evidence also strongly supports an African origin. A widespread northeastern African cultural assemblage, including distinctive multiple barbed harpoons and pottery decorated with dotted wavy line patterns , appears during the early Neolithic (also known as the Aqualithic, a reference to the mild climate of the Sahara at this time). Saharan and Sudanese rock art from this time resembles early Egyptian iconography. Strong connections between Nubian (Sudanese) and Egyptian material culture continue in later Neolithic Badarian culture of Upper Egypt. Similarities include black-topped wares, vessels with characteristic ripple-burnished surfaces, a special tulip-shaped vessel with incised and white-filled decoration, palettes, and harpoons. [...] Other ancient Egyptian practices show strong similarities to modern African cultures including divine kingship, the use of headrests, body art, circumcision, and male coming-of-age rituals, all suggesting an African substratum or foundation for Egyptian civilization" - The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt, Volume 3. Oxford University Press (2001). p.28
Archaeological evidence also strongly supports an African origin
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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,
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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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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: 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 don't think it's a either-or situation here. Both Ounanian and Aqualithic culture are older than Kushite and Ancient Egyptian cultures. It more likely that a diverse group of people were behind the Ounanian and Aqualithic culture. We can be clued into it by observing the wide-spread nature of those industries. The Aqualithic is across the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Nile, same thing with the Ounanian (lets never forget the lack of archaeological works/digging undertaken in Africa outside Egypt. What we see is only fragmentary).
quote:Saharan rock paintings show bows and arrows, but none are sufficiently well dated to permit unequivocal statements about their introduction into West Africa. Microlithic technology appears in the West African record by 12,000 BP. More significantly, however, is the archaeological culture known as the Ounanian, recorded in modern-day Mali by 9000-10,000 BP (Clark 1980; Raimbeault 1990). Ounanian points look very much like arrow-heads, and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that when bow and arrow hunting began in West Africa it introduced a major technological revolution. Hunters could travel further and shoot animals at greater distances and were probably able to rapidly outcompete the situ gatherers and (perhaps) sprear users.
In a neat case of a match between linguistics, technology, and paleoclimatic evidence, it turns out that there is evidence for the possession of the bow and arrow by Niger-Congo speakers. The evidence is tabulated here because of its importance to the overall argument. Table 3.2 shows evidence for reconstructing "bow" in Niger-Congo.
From Archaeology, Language, and the African Past by Blench (2006)
While Blench attribute the Ounanian culture to Niger-Kordofanian (Niger-Congo) people, trying at the same time to explain their modern widespread distribution in a large part of the continent (mostly inhabited by small groups of hunter gatherers before their arrival from the north).
It is also possible, a bit like the wavy-line pottery culture, that this culture transcended geographical (which we can see on the maps posted), linguistic and lineage lines. Of course, it's also possible that it's only Niger-Kordofanian speakers. We know African populations usually have lot of relations, trade, intermarriage with neighboring ethnic groups (often with patrilocality).
This attest again the East-West corridor of economic and demographic exchanges in the past during the end of the Pleistocene and during the Holocene starting with the Wet Saharan period.
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In the table above (from Blench as discussed), we can see the common cognate for bow in various Niger-Congo/Niger-Kordofanian languages. This give us a hint that Niger-Kordofanian speakers already used the bow and arrows associated with the Ounanian culture, before their spread from their Eastern African/Sudan homeland.
On the same line of reasoning, we can notice the Kordofanian branch of Niger-Kordofanian also have the same cognate for bow. So it's quite possible proto Niger-Kordofanians were already using bow and arrows before their migrations from their common Eastern African homeland across the Sahara.
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West Africans also children of the Green Sahara
The following quotes are from the book: The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology edited by Peter Mitchell, Paul Lane (2013)
Basically, it tells us people now living in West Africa (Akan, Igbo, Yoruba, etc) come from the Sahara during its desertification.
quote:In West Africa, there is very little evidence for people south of the Sahara prior to the mid-Holocene, and such evidence as does exist is primarily of small scattered groups of mobile hunter-gatherers, some of whom returned frequently, possibly even seasonally, to the same places.
quote:Davies(1967) and Shaw (1978) both argued that before the desiccation of the Sahara, not only were Saharan inhabitants not compelled to move southward, but it was virtually impossible for them to do so. Postulated barriers to human occupation in southern West Africa include the difficulty of making a living in the dense rainforest prior to the advent of iron tools, and potentially lethal diseases such as malaria, onchocerciasis, and trypanosomiasis, the latter an added problem to herders because it can be devastating to cattle (Smith 1992). Only when climate zones contracted could people, and especially herders, move south.
quote:The artefacts found at many early sites support a northern origin for SMA people in southern West Africa. Projectile points are often in a 'Saharan Style' with concave or convex bases, and pottery often bears comb and roulette impressions very similar to types known from the Sahara and the Nile Valley as early as the tenth millennium B.P.
It's written black on white. People in southern West Africa (Yoruba, Igbo, African-Americans, etc) have a northern origin. A green Saharan origins. They brought with them archaeological artefacts from the Green Sahara period including pottery and else. Common artefacts we can observe from the Nile to the Atlantic coast.
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This is also an interesting quote in regard to Ounanians and Aqualithic:
quote:A few ancient words for watercraft have been reconstructed: 'fish (n.)' to Proto-Niger-Congo, and 'canoe' and 'to paddle' to Proto-Atlantic-Congo (Appendix 4.2). The implication is that speakers of Niger-Congo lived within reach of large bodies of water and exploited them ; cf . Dalby 1976 for the likely importance of watercraft in the later spread of the Bantu, and Horton 1982 for an extension of the hypothesis to Niger-Congo. Detailed comparative studies of the technology of canoe-carving, fishing methods, and their associated vocabulary might throw further light on this area.
- Linguistic evidence for the prehistory of the Niger Delta by Kay Williamson (from The Early History of the Niger Delta)
So apparently ancient Niger-Congo speakers before they migrated south from the Sahara were using bows and arrows as well as practicing an aquatic lifestyle (and bringing with them artifacts from the Green Sahara period).
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The Kushites were noted for their ability with the bow. The Ounanian culture is characterized by arrows. This led me to conclude that this culture was the founder culture of the Kushites.
Kushites founded the Proto-Saharan civilization called Maa.The Proto-Niger-Congo people probably practiced an agro-pastoral culture, not aquatic.
The Paleo-African hunters quickly learned the habits of wild sheep and goats. As a result of this hunting experience and the shock of the short arid period after 8500 BC, Paleo-Africans began to domesticate goat/sheep to insure a reliable source of food. By 6000 BP the inhabitants of Tadrart Acacus were reliant on sheep and goats (Barich 1985).
The first domesticated goats came from North Africa. This was the screw horn goat common to Algeria, where it may have been deposited in Neolithic times. We certainly see goat/sheep domestication moving eastward: Tadrart Acacus (Camps 1974), Tassili-n-Ajjer , Mali (McIntosh & McIntosh 1988), Niger (Roset 1983) and the Sudan. Barker (1989) has argued that sheep and goats increased in importance over cattle because of their adaptation to desiccation.
The linguistic evidence indicates that ovicaprids were domesticated before the Proto-Saharan people migrated out of the Sahara into the Nile Valley, Europe and Asia. As a result we have proto-terms for sheep going back to Proto-Saharan times.
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. The Egyptian terms for sheep,ram are ø zr #, or ø sr # . In the terms for sheep we find either the consonant /s/ or /z/ before the consonant /r/, e.g., s>øa/e/i#________r. This corresponds to many other African terms for sheep, ram:
Language….Sheep, Ram Egyptian sr, zr Wolof xar Coptic sro Bisa sir Kouy siri Lebir sir Amo zara Bobofing se-ge,sege Toma seree Malinke sara Busa sa Bambara sarha,saga Koro isor Boko sa Bir sir Azer sege 'goat' Diola sarha
There is phonological contrast between s =/= z. We find both ø sr # and ø zr # for sheep. Here we have s>z/V_______(V)r. The proto- Niger-Congo term for ram,sheep was probably *sär / *zär.
The interesting fact about the antiquity of the term for ‘ram’ among NE speakers is the fact the same term appears in Dravidian and Sumerian. .
It is interesting to note that the Bantu probably did not domesticate sheep goats as early as the Egyptians, Mande and Atlantic speakers. The Bantu term for ram,sheep was -buzi and -budi> mbuzi and mbudi.
posted
Another map of the Green Saharan/Wavy-line pottery culture:
From Ancient watercourses and biogeography of the Sahara explain the peopling of the desert (Supporting Figures)Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012
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This is a nice video about the oldest pottery found in Africa in Ounjougou, Mali. (at the 44 minute mark starts the Ounjougou segment).
Narration:"The archaeologists carbon-dated the pottery fragments to 11,400 years ago. People were using pottery here 8000 years before they appeared in Britain. The fragments are 200 years older than any other pottery found in Africa. They are the same age as the oldest known pottery in the world."
Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
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Crazy title: Ancient Egypt - A child of Africa and the Green Sahara
The Green Sahara itself is a child of Africa. But precisely who is the Last Humid Sahara's parent?
The Sahara cannot steal Sudan's primacy as both it and Egypt's parent.
North and west bound pre-historic Sudani populations are where most AE's came from but now the academe wants only to credit the Sahara to cover up Sudan's contribution making seem as if some Saharan (implying non-sub-Saharan) people founded AE but the AE's knew nothing of any such thing and saw their immediate founding as one done by the Shemsu Hor from the South not the west.
south = amami, land of the Gods/Ancestors west = amenti, land of the deceased/ghosts
And yes the delta in its mid-Holo peopling can be shown to have ingression from N Saharans and even Levantines as evinced by the archaeology.
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Crazy title: Ancient Egypt - A child of Africa and the Green Sahara
The Green Sahara itself is a child of Africa.
lol.. Indeed...
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Ancient Egypt - A child of Africa and the Green Sahara is a great title. It mirrors a bit Egypt and Nubia: Gifts of the Desert, but of course as highlighted in the book the Sahara at time period wasn't actually a desert. It is meant to highlight the fundamental aspect of the Green Sahara period and culture in the development and establishment of Ancient Egypt before the dynastic era. The Green Sahara era and culture lasted for many millennia (over 3000 years) and spanned a large area of Africa from the Atlantic Coast to the Nile Valley/Sudan (which we can see in the Wavy-line pottery maps posted above).
All of those things, and those not cited, were part of the Green Sahara era (wavy line pottery culture) and were fundamental in the development of the Ancient Egyptian kingdom and culture.
Posts: 2981 | Registered: Jan 2012
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