We know that populations that we identify as modern 'racial' groups only became prevalent at the start of our current epoch (the Holocene) --10,000 years ago. One thing that anthropologists and laymen alike seem to take for granted is the racial division of the African continent into a morphologically "caucasoid" North Africa and a morphologically "negroid" or negro Sub-Saharan.
Strangely and ironically enough, prior to the Holocene the earliest known "negroid" looking skulls were found in North Africa while as well as the converse-- earliest "caucasoid" looking skulls being found in Sub-Sahara. This has become somewhat of a paradox especially since "caucasoid" or type B skulls only became prevalent in North Africa during the Holocene with the appearance of predynastic Egyptians and Nubians.
One expert that delves into this issue is Russian anthropologist Stanislav Vladimirovich Drobyshevsky in his website Anthropogenez.
In his page "Proto-Negroids", he points out what has been discussed before in this forum that the oldest skull thus far that bears resemblance to modern “negroids” is the Upper Paleolithic Nazlet Khater of Egypt (35,100-30,300 years BP)
Nazlet Khater
Pierre M. Vermeersch in a 2002 study of Nazlet Khater said: Like Mesolithic Nubians, Nazlet Khater Man was archaic and robust, so much so that he may not have been fully modern. But even if he was, the population he belonged to migrated south and west, making it ancestral to Sub-Saharan Africans, not [modern] Egyptians, Nubians or anyone outside of Africa... Both hypotheses are compatible with the hypothesis proposed by Brothwell (1963) of an East African proto-Khoisan Negro stock which migrated southwards and westwards at some time during the Upper Pleistocene, and replaced most of the local populations of South Africa. Under such circumstances, it is possible that the Nazlet Khater specimen is part of a relict population of this proto-Khoisan Negro stock which extended as far north as Egypt at least until the late part of the Pleistocene.
According to Vermeersch, Nazlet Khater had very robust and archaic features that he wasn’t sure if he was fully modern, but he goes on to say that his modern features were a suite that comprised features held in common by both modern “Negroes” and “Khoisan” peoples that may represent a population ancestral to both Sub-Saharan groups but not ancient North African groups like Egyptians and Nubians.
Strangely, contemporary to Nazlet Khater is the Hofmeyr skull (36,200-33,100 years BP) found in South Africa at the other end of the continent as ‘Sub-Saharan’ as one can get, yet the skull resembles contemporary Eurasians like Upper Paleolithic Europeans (Cro-Magnon) than it does Nazlet Khater, and when compared to populations today has closest affinities to Australian Aborigines than any Sub-Saharans!
Hofmeyr
In the next page The Origin of the Negro Race, Dr. Drobyshevsky describes in some detail what he and other anthropologists and forensic experts mean by "negroid" and "negro". The vast majority of research on this topic was done before World War II and is now either inaccessible or forgotten. Very few recent studies, despite their high technical capabilities, are characterized by an extremely low level and practically do nothing for the practice of skull diagnostics (e.g., Bruner et Manzi, 2004). Let us emphasize that by Negroids we mean all the western equatorials, and by the Negro variant we mean only a part of the Negroids, "Negroes proper", without pygmies, Khoisans, and, especially, representatives of the East African race (in foreign literature, the Negroid race is usually understood as the Negroid race). It is significant that the West Equatorial (or Negroid) complex differs in many respects from the East Equatorial (or Australo-Melanesian) complex.
The Negroid complex includes:
The size of the braincase is medium or small, and the skull is usually long, but not wide and low.
Prevailing dolichocrania, although a number of groups are typical of meso- or brachycrania.
The massiveness of the skull is medium or weak, which makes the Negroids markedly different from the eastern equatorials. The eyebrow is usually weak, so the bridge of the nose may not be depressed at all.
The forehead is usually vertical or even convex; As always, this feature is more pronounced on female skulls.
The face is low, relatively broad, slightly flattened horizontally and strongly bent vertically; Prognathism, of course, alveolar, not general.
The eye sockets are low, rather rounded.
The interorbital space is wide and flattened.
The nose is very wide, reaching a world maximum. The nasal bones are short, often concave; With a significant interorbital width, the width of the nasal bones may be insignificant, and the nasal bones tend to fuse together.
The size of the jaws is much smaller than that of the eastern equatorials.
The Negro race, unlike the Central and Southern African races, is characterized by a larger size. Strictly speaking, the Negro race is very varied in its variants, but this variability is hardly described. For example, the differences between West and South African Negroes are sometimes mentioned, but they are almost never specified what these differences are (Rightmire, 1974).
The Central African race differs from the Negro race primarily in its much smaller size, broad forehead, and relatively wider face and nose.
The South African race differs from the Negro race in a somewhat smaller size and a sharply tapering face. Sometimes more is postulated Grace of the South African race, but the measurements do not confirm this.
Drobyshevsky then mentions the Wadi Kubbaniya fossil (21,000-19,000 years BP) discovered near Aswan, Egypt which we discussed here. Like his Nazlet Khater predecessor, he too possesses negroid traits especially of the lower face, cranial shape, zygoma, orbital setting etc. However, he also possesses some archaic traits that are in common with so-called 'Mechtoids' of the Maghreb as well as Upper Paleolithic Eurasians just like Nazlet Khater.
Wadi Kubbaniya
It is only until the Epipaleolithic just before the Holocene that we find the earliest skulls with the closest likeness to modern "negroes" which are those found again in North Africa in the Nubian sites of Jebel Sahaba (14,500-12,500 years BP) and Wadi Halfa (13,200-10,000 years BP).
Wadi Halfa
Jebel Sahaba
Drobyshevsky states that while these Epipaleolithic Nubians don’t fully display modern ‘negro’ morphology exactly, they do come very close to it, but they still retain robust traits. Recall that in the Irish dental map these early Nubians not only exhibit Sub-Saharan ‘Afridonty’ but are an outlier due to their archaic traits. Meanwhile, well to the south in the Kenyan Rift Valley you have fossils like Naivasha (11,150-10,550 years BP) and Gamble's Cave Kenyan Capsian specimens (10,000-8,000 years BP) who exhibit “Caucasoid” or “Proto-Mediterranean” features.
Naivasha
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But then there is the discovery of the Epipaleolithic burials of Al-Khiday (14,700–13,100 years BP) with the same morphology. Al Khiday is located just south of Khartoum in Central Sudan which is south of Upper Nubia making it geographically closer to modern Sub-Sahara than Egypt. There has not been a full morphometric study published yet on the crania or post-cranial material but the descriptions of the skulls say they too exhibit the Type B morphology albeit with some robust features. The Irish odontic study confirms it with their position grouped close to predynastic Nubians. So it's likely Al-Khiday represents a more robust/archaic version of Type B Africans the same way Mesolithic Nubians represent a more robust/archaic version of Type A Africans.
The First True Negroids: The Holocene In the Holocene localities of Western, Central, and partly Northern, Eastern, and Southern Africa, we usually find a typical Negroid population. There are quite a few examples of this, and there is no need to list them all.
The Saharan finds have been repeatedly classified. According to one of the options, there are three groups:
West African Negroid type – Ibalagen, Tin Lalou and Asselyar,
Sudanese Negroid massive type with archaic features – Tamaya Mellet, El Guettar and Tamanrasseta,
a tall, slender Negroid type with an elongated face – El Guettar No. 1 (Chamla, 1968).
Drobyshevsky again points out how all these first 'true negroid' skulls were found in and around the Saharan region and not Sub-Sahara proper as many would expect. I am surprised that Drobyshevsky fails to mention the the skeleton of the Qarunian (Fayum B) Woman (8240-7240 years BP) near the Egyptian Delta which we discussed here. Keita makes it clear that the group closest in time that resemble the Qarunian Woman are Mesolithic Nubians but due to her gracility she fits with more modern "negroid" types specifically modern Ugandans and Kenyans. Yet her remains were found all the way near the Egyptian delta.
Asselar Man (Mali: 9500 - 7000 years BP)
Tin-Hanakaten Child
Tin-Felka (Algeria: 1,800 - 700 years BP)
And of course we have the skeletal remains from Gobero.
Drobyshevsky goes on to say that 'true negroid' populations begin to show geographic expansion likely due to Neolithic technology but also diversification of morphometric traits both cranial and post cranial.
After Drobyshevsky covers Central Africans (Pygmies), he then goes on to The Ancient Races of North Africa Northern Afica is a very special area of the "black continent". First of all, it is pleasantly different from the more southern regions by the abundance and good study of anthropological material. The arid climate allowed many skeletons and even mummies to be preserved, and the abundance of historical monuments has always aroused the increased interest of hard-working archaeologists, who, along with temples and tombs, inevitably dug up human remains. Secondly, North Africa is separated from the "rest of Africa" by the vast Sahara. Although the desert has never been impassable, or even always a desert, its isolating influence has always been so great that anthropologically the population of North Africa has always been closer to Europe and Asia than to the tropics of "their" continent.
In the Neolithic and probably earlier times, the Sahara was a semi-desert, and in the southern part even a savannah with many lakes and rivers. Many times it has been written about relict crocodiles living in burrows in the middle of the Sahara. Many times it has been written about rock paintings in the Sahara that depict savannah animals and grazing livestock. Paleoecological reconstructions show that from 16-20 thousand years ago the Sahara was larger and more extreme than it is now, 10-11 thousand years ago - approximately within the modern framework, 9 thousand years ago its southern part was savannah with trees, the central part was covered with open steppes, and the northern part was semi-desert, 7-8 thousand years ago the entire territory was occupied by open steppes, 5-6 thousand years ago - semi-desert. and 4,000 years ago it was a real desert (Adams, http). However, in the Neolithic, the population was too small and disunited to be able to level out the previously formed division into proto-Caucasoid north and proto-Negroid south in the conditions of steppes and semi-deserts.
The problem is that the skeletal data contradicts the Caucasoid north and Negroid south dialectic.
In addition to north-south variability, there is also east-west variability. It is possible to divide the eastern groups (ancient Egyptians, Beja, Galla, Somali and Danakil) and western (Libyans, ancient Nubians, North African Berbers, Tuaregs and Tudus of the Sahara, ancient Guanches of the Canary Islands and Fulani) (Cornevin, 1960, pp.71,
Cornevin simply echoes Giuseppe Sergi's findings of 'Eastern Hamites' and 'Western Hamites' based on noticeable trends in metric traits which I find interesting considering that blood group studies of modern Nubians and later autosomal studies show a significant Western population influence.
Drobyshevsky goes on to point out that much of the Western Sahara and the Maghreb until the early Holocene was of the so-called 'Mechta' type or more a generalized robust population and that by the beginning of the Holocene there are "Mechtoid" populations that is those populations with certain archaic traits resembling Mechta but possessing other traits as well (either 'negroid' or 'caucasoid'). What's funny is that he points out how many people (especially Euronuts) are quick to call the Mechta "Cro-Magnon" in appearance due to their similarities with Upper Paleolithic Europeans however the large width of the nose, wide interorbital space, as well as pronounced prognathism all distinguish them from UP Europeans and closer to other African populations. We now know from genetics that there was influx of European genes into the Maghreb from the Epipaleolithic and especially Neolithic periods.
Another interesting piece from Drobyshevsky.. A special racial type of Northwest Africa may be represented by people from the Ain Meterham locality (southern Tunisia, 7.5-10 thousand years ago; Balout, 1949; Vallois, 1950). It stands out sharply by a high, narrow, hyperleptoprosop and mesognathic face, tall gypsuccinic eye sockets, narrow leptorin nose, weak alveolar prognathism, high lower jaw with a slightly protruding chin. This variant has been described as the Afro-Mediterranean anthropological type. Its significant resemblance to the skull from Combes-Capelle in France has been noted (Lacorre et Lacorre, 1953). Taking into account the new absolute dates of the Combes-Capelle cherrep at 9,575 thousand years ago, such a comparison turns out to be much more revealing than it looked in the middle of the 20th century, when Combe-Capelle was considered an early Aurignacian find. As is always the case with the identification of a type from a single find, the reality of the Afro-Mediterranean type can be questioned. Ayn Meterham may well be simply an evasive individual, or he may indeed represent a special group of people, probably one of the first to become the basis of the modern Tuareg population of the Maghreb. The modern northern Tuaregs belong to the Indo-Mediterranean race, while the southern ones have a noticeable Negro admixture, which is quite natural. However, there is no clear clinal Caucasoid-Negroid variability on the territory of the Sahara, since the conditions of the modern Sahara do not allow the formation of permanent large populations. The nomadic way of life and the centuries-old slave trade make the distribution of Caucasoid and Negroid traits even more inconsistent.
All in all, I'd say there are huge gaps in the skeletal record that belie this seeming paradox.
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That said, the Ksar Akil remains from Lebanon that date to >45 kya already resemble Type B morphology, which would require humans with such morphology already having had a presence in North Africa prior to moving into the Levant.
Wherever and whenever in Africa these disparate morphotypes emerged, they've clearly been moving around the continent since then.
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^ Swenet brought up the Ksar Akil I Child here These apomorphic variations predate 'Caucasians' and explain why some Africans are phenotypically and genetically intermediate. Note that I'm not saying that Eurasian admixture here and there doesn't contribute to this intermediate position of some African populations. What I'm saying is that if you strip those 'intermediate' Africans of their Eurasian contributions, you might get a genetic profile similar to, say, Mota (who is intermediate), as opposed to one that you'd expect to find more likely in equatorial inner Africa. In other words, a Berber speaker stripped of all Eurasian ancestry would still look somewhat like Berbers, albeit with darker skin on par with equatorial Africans. So, the sentiment out there that living North Africans would necessarily blend in with a crowd of 'black Africans' (as lay people often put it) when stripped of their Eurasian ancestry is a myth. The same applies to East Africa. Mota's lack of Eurasian ancestry doesn't stop him from being genetically (and likely also morphologically) intermediate. In this article I will make the case that 'Basal Eurasian' is a later departure from the Y DNA CT / mtDNA L3'4'6 people than Mota. Moreover, I will make the case that they departed from the L3'4'6 stem before the M and N people did.Posts: 26853 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Despite Nazlet Khater's "Sub-Saharan" cranial morphology the finding that his inner ear bones structures resemble those of Eurasians more than Sub-Saharans has sparked debate. This makes me wonder if the reverse is true with the South African Hofmeyr whose cranial morphology resembles Eurasians. Well my question was answered and a lot more this this latest study which is the most extensive multivariate study to date with all these H. sapiens specimens from the terminal Pleistocene to the early Holocene!
^ The multivariate analyses covers facial, calvarial, inner ear bones, dental crown size, mandibular corpus, and mandibular dimensions. Make of them what you will. I would love to see your opinions on these.
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^ Looking at Figure 8, it is interesting that Late Pleistocene, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Northeast Africans all have some overlap with Howells's Egyptian sample (RMH in the graph) with regards to cranial dimensions, as do the Natufians. I don't know whether that's the late dynastic "E" series from Giza in the Howells database or a pooling of more than one Egyptian series. But if it indeed the "E" series, it would suggest quite a bit of diversity in the late dynastic northern Egyptian population, which would be in keeping with the country as a whole becoming more cosmopolitan in later dynastic history.
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^ Yes, and keep in mind Howell's E series has close affinities to the Maghrebi series also. Also not in that specific graph NK and Taforalt are outliers being closer to the Mesolithic Nubians than anyone else.
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Remember there's a reason why Eurocentrics like Dienekes, his follower Evil-Euro, and others would constantly bring up the topic of 'prehistoric East African Caucasoids'. It is due to the discovery of Mesolithic fossils in the Rift Valley area, as noted in this 1927 issue of Nature written by L. S. Leaky below:
Whoah, I've seen the Philip Edwin guy on DeviantArt before, but never realized he was Ancestral Whispers. I will admit the second reconstruction is a lot better than the first, since the first one is basically Eurocentric anthro-broism personified.
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^ Is he Ancestral Whispers?? I thought the name applied to a company or group that he was part of.
Anyway, it seems the first reconstruction is based on a so-called 'MENA' look with a complexion based on modern bedouin. It's similar to how the white-washed Nazlet-Khater was based on certain facial proportions similar to UP Europeans and the Eurasian ear bones.
While we don't know exactly what Elmenteita A's complexion was, if my theory is correct that so-called 'Caucasoid' types originated in Sub-Sahara, then it's likely he was darker than the first recon.
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@Elmaestro I agree. I try to tell ppl new to this. You might as well drop everything you know because it's not going to help you going forward. But luckily the stuff is not so difficult that you can't keep up. Discoveries (e.g. Takarkori's affinites) always have some ramifications down the line that can be used as clues/lessons (see Takarkori in graphic below). If you can catch those clues you can strike out on your own and put the literature/blogs on mute and still be correct.
@DJ Tried to be comprehensive, but all I had was paint, so excuse shitty graphics. You can start reading the Irish quote at the bottom. Then you can start reading the graphic below. Start with the balloon in the center from which the lines emanate and it should make sense.
This is what I mean with not meaningfully related:
MMD distances between the Neolithic and comparative samples are listed in Table 2. These inter-sample MMDs are also significantly different. It can be seen that Gebel Ramlah and R12 are phenet- ically less like each other than they are to the later comparative samples. A dental assessment of biological affinity between inhabitants of the Gebel Ramlah and R12 Neolithic sites.
Sample : 70 male skulls and 54 female Algerian skulls, 19 male skulls and 18 female skulls from the Punic period.
Protohistoric and Punic sites cited in the text :
Strong sexual dimorphism :
quote:On several occasions, we have underlined in the preceding paragraphs the existence of a rather pronounced sexual dimorphism, in particular a much less robustness in the women resulting in a general gracility of the cranial superstructures contrasting with the robustness of many male skulls ; in the mandible, absence of extroversion of the goniac region and effacement of bony reliefs; significantly lower stature.
quote:The height was high in men (average 173 cm), lower it seems in Punics (average 167 cm). Sexual dimorphism is important, with protohistoric women falling into the over-medium and high categories (mean 159 cm), while men mostly fall into the high category.
Presence of Negroid features :
quote:On some skulls, there is a more or less accentuated platyrrhiny associated with a more or less marked prognathism. These are all traits that one might consider negroid. If one is only based on the association of these two traits, ten skulls could be considered as negroid. Some are typical, such as Gastel's skull 3.52 which has a sub-nasal groove, flattened nasal bones, accentuated facial and alveolar prognathism, an erased chin, as well as Djelfa's wife (2.11) whose face, although narrow and long, is strongly prognathic with a grooved infra-nasal rim, flattened nasal bones and, a cultural trait common in African Melanoderms, an image of an upper incisor. Others are less typically negroid, but can nevertheless be considered as such, they are the skulls of Beidj (2.10), Tiddis (5.02), Roknia (3.05 and 3.37), Gastel (3.54), Sigus (coll. Thomas 3.79) , Carthage (4.27 and 4.36).
quote:The nose has an average width in absolute value, its height is quite high. The individual distribution of the index is however quite variable with a similar number of lepto- and mesorhinal individuals among protohistoric, Punic and Roman men. Women are more Mesorhinian. We also note the existence of a significant proportion of Platyrrhine individuals (25% of men and women) in protohistoric and Roman burials in Algeria. They are much rarer in Punic burials.
Presence of Mechtoid features :
quote:We can isolate 6 skulls, 5 in the eastern region of Algeria and one in Carthage, showing typical mechtoid features, i.e. great robustness, developed supraorbital arches, extroverted gonions, protruding nasal bones, face short.
Anthropological position and affinities :
-Mediterranean elements being dominant at 74.07% (79.16% for punics and 71.92% for protohistoric algerians) -Brachycephaly being present at 6.17% (8.33% for punics and 5.26% for protohistoric algerians) -Mechtoid (IBM) element being present at 7.40% (4.16% for punics and 8.77% for protohistoric algerians) -Negroid element being present at 12.34% (8.33% for punics and 14.03% for protohistoric algerians)
Overall punics show great affinities with algerians, Tarragone skulls from the roman era, guanches and to a lesser extent Abydos (XVIIIth dynasty),Etruscans, Bronze age syrians (Euphrate), skulls from the dolmen of Lozere . In the case of protohistoric algerians they show great affinities with punics,abydos,guanches,catalans and bronze age syrians
quote:Examination of these tables yields some interesting remarks. If Algerians and Punics are oriented more towards the populations of the western Mediterranean, we nevertheless note affinities with two near-eastern series of the first millennium BC In particular, the distance is quite low with the Syrian series of the Euphrates. Compared to the protohistoric populations of the central and southern Sahara, the distances are relatively high.
Among the populations of the western Mediterranean, the series from northern Spain and the islands of the western Mediterranean (Catalonia, and Tarragona, Mallorca, Eneolithic Sardinia) are closer to North Africans than the series from southern Spain (Valence). Among the populations of northern Africa, two Egyptian series, Abydos of the 2nd millennium (Upper Egypt) and Giza of the 1st millennium (Middle Egypt), as well as the general series of Canarians, pre-Hispanic of Gran Canaria (and not that of the Gaidar tumulus ), seem quite close to the Algerians of the protohistoric burials.
quote:All in all, the anthropological position of the Algerian and Punic Protohistoric people when it comes to the populations of the Mediterranean Basin agrees quite well with their geographical situation. Located halfway between the countries of the western Mediterranean and northeastern Africa, they offer affinities with the ancient inhabitants of northern Spain and Egypt. On the other hand, to the extent that among the ancient inhabitants of eastern Syria the Mediterranean type predominated, it is not surprising to note similarities between the latter and the protohistoric Algerians where this morphological type predominated. But we must not forget either that the Algerians of the protohistoric era were descendants of the Protomediterranean Capsians and Neolithic. The men who brought the Capsian culture to North Africa probably have a Near Eastern origin. Large dolicho- and mesocephalic type individuals from protohistoric burials may well be their descendants, while more slender individuals resemble the slender Western protomediterranean type that is already found in the Neolithic period in Algeria and Tunisia.
quote:Chamla (1975, 1976, using Penrose’s measure, found a “protohistorical” Algerian series (1500 BC) to be most similar to Carthaginian remains (900-200 BC); Bronze Age Spanish, early Grand Canary, and Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian crania showed the next greatest affinities. A Carthaginian series proved to be most similar to the Algerian series, followed by late North Spanish, early Grand Canary, Bronze Age French, Etruscan, Parthian Syrian, and Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian crania from Abydos. The results of the tests of individual variables used showed that there was no statistical difference for these variables between the Algerian and Carthaginian series ."
S.O.Y. Keita, Studies of ancient crania from northern Africa, p. 37
Dental morphology of Guanches show strong similarities with Carthaginians :
quote:The very low MMD between the Canary Islanders and Carthaginians, who originated in West Asia, suggests a particularly close affinity, despite the geographic distance between these two populations. This result, again, may reflect Berber/Carthaginian admixture.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Is he Ancestral Whispers?? I thought the name applied to a company or group that he was part of.
I wouldn't know if "Ancestral Whispers" was a larger group or simply his one-man brand, honestly.
Another thing I wish to point out is that some of the skeletal traits we called "negroid" (e.g. broad nasal apertures, alveolar prognathism, and Irish's so-called sub-Saharan dental complex) seem to be shared with early AMH, so it may be that what the disparate "negroid" populations have in common are simply traits they inherited from the earliest LSA humans. But we would need remains we could confidently identify as representing basal LSA to be sure.
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^ That's the problem-- trying to separate features that most anthropologists call "generalized modern" from "negroid" which is more specific and then "negro" a.k.a. "modern (typical) Sub-Saharan" which is even a subset of the negroid.
Interesting how Froment was able to distinguish all these traits or rather populations craniometrically.
Froment (1998) craniometrics
^ Note that West Atlantic, Nilo-Saharan, and Bantu Africans form a kind of nucleus. Could this original/ancestral nucleus be located somewhere in the Sahara?? It seems to me to be the case.
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The first study says that the Takarkori remains conform more to 'type A' while the second study specifies through boot-strap analysis that their closest affinity is with Gobero remains.
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Very good discussion. Me and another poster on here have been having a similar discussion. Will post more of my thoughts later.
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@Djehuti Kubbaniya highly resembles Elmentieta F1, don't you think?
And judging by a combination of Rightmares analysis on Elm F1, Prendergast's look at the late holocene Prettejohn samples (early neolithic) and Wang 2022's analysis of Kadruka, I think we can corner down the relatedness of these samples.
Starting with Rightmare:
quote:The positions of the fossils, are also indicated in the figure; most appear to lie in a sort of no man’s land between the m$or Caucasoid and Bushman-Negro con- stellations. A few, such as Willey’s Kopje 111, Elmenteita A, and Elmenteita D make a clear approach to the Negro male cen- troids, while others (notably Baharini, Elmenteita F1 and Makalia) tend to fall closer to the Egyptian groups. Still others are relatively distant from all of the possible parent populations.
Also note, their are bushman affinities carried by F1. This in all looks might be remnants of the elusive East African San (Khoisanoid) many on here spoke about.
Prendergast:
quote: The individuals buried at Prettejohn’s Gully are the earliest directly dated Holocene human remains in the Rift Valley, and are contemporaneous with the earliest appearance of domesticates south of Lake Turkana, at the nearby forager site of Enkapune ya Muto (7). [..] Crevice burials are commonly found in the south-central Rift Valley, and have often been often associated with the SPN (13); however, in light of the early date of these burials, and in the absence of additional material culture, this seems an unlikely and insecure attribution. Given the early date and the distinctive genetic profiles of these two individuals, we have designated the individuals buried at Prettejohn’s Gully as possible early pastoralists. [..]
Our qpAdm modeling reveals that the PN individuals had substantial proportions of all three ancestry components (~40% each for those represented by Dinka and by the Chalcolithic Israel individuals, and ~20% related to Mota; Fig. 3 and tables S8 and S9), with no evidence of western African-related ancestry. The individuals from Prettejohn’s Gully can also be well modeled using the same three components, but in a modestly different ratio.
note; one individual (male) is Ydna:M-75 and MtHg: K1a and the other female is L3f.
Wang 2022:
quote:The very low coverage data resulting from this unique sample posed a challenge for downstream population genetic analyses. Nevertheless, we see from f3-statistics that this individual, from a rural agro-pastoral population linked with the Kerma culture of Upper Nubia16, shares close genetic affinity with Levantine groups. Moreover, we could show that this individual is genetically indistinguishable from early Pastoral Neolithic individuals dated to 4000BP living over 2500 km away in Kenya and Tanzania, even when correcting for relatively large standard errors in population genetic estimates due to the low coverage. This close relatedness to early pastoral populations in eastern Africa is consistent with archaeological evidence for the dispersal of herding populations southwards along the Nile River Valley following their establishment in the Kadruka region from the early 7th millennium BP, although we caution that inference from a single sample can at best be tentative. Scientific
I think indistinguishable is quite a strong term 1, and also, those samples at prettejohn haven't been confirmed pastoralists.
I think Angel might've been right in his initial assertions. Kubbaniya could have an ancestral relationship with North east Africans and I don't think his population should be considered "Subsaharan" in the way people have come to understand. I also think Kubbaniya is mostly differentiated from F1 in robusticity in which the latter is more gracile. I also beleive late mesolithic-Neolithic North East Africans such as Tushka and Jebel Sahaba etc. are of another distinct east African lineage possibly related, though insulated from an ancestral source. Once I take into account the weakly structured stem model a lot of possibilities seem clear, If as little as 12% of ancestral human DNA (ancestry found in all AMH but was isolated until ~12kya) is enough to seperate West Africans into their own cohort. (genetically)
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quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: @Djehuti Kubbaniya highly resembles Elmentieta F1, don't you think?
Well, it looks that way from the profile view but the frontal view is a different story.
Wadi Kubbaniya
Elmentieta F1
G. Bräuer in his 1984 paper puts Elmenteita right within the 'Europid' column of metric features.
^ Yet note not just Badarians but also the Mesolithic Nubians of Wadi Halfa and Jebel Sahaba are in an intermediate area between 'Negrid' and 'Europid'.
Bräuer in his 1990 study 'Late Archaic and Modern Homo sapiens from Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia: Craniometric comparisons and phylogenetic implications' included the Wadi Kubbaniya specimen.
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As far as that Brauer graph, notice the Elmenteita label is in the 'Europid' column, but there is an arrow there w/ a question mark, that goes to the border with the other column.
The Elmenteita sample is holocene, not palaeolithic, unlike Naivasha and Olduvai. So it makes sense that they show evidence of admixures specific to the holocene (e.g. pastoralists, farmers, Mesolithic Nubians), and it makes sense that Brauer found them to not fit one column.
Unlike holocene Elmenteita, Brauer put Olduvai and Naivasha squarely in the righthand column.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Swenet, what do you make of what Antalas wrote in his thread here?: Craniometric conclusions for Punics and protohistorical algerians
I know little about proto-historical/Punic Maghrebis, so can't say too much about what he wrote. Presumably some truth and bs in there, as usual when it comes to Antalas.
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@Djehuti The age of these samples should be taken into consideration. Similar to how Nazlet Khater is predictably differentiated from more modern populations in size and shape. I also believe if we take discrete traits into consideration we'll find a relationship. Did you see where Kubbaniya fell in the 1990 analysis?
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..and copy and paste the doi on sci-hub for the full paper.
But the gist of the findings are as follows. In addition to the two PCAs performed including Dar-es-Soltane 5 and Nazlet Khater, we carried out two Stepwise discriminant analyses to obtain an overall better picture of the robustness of the position of these hominids. Each analysis considered three groups: Upper Paleolithic Europeans, North Africans, and sub-Saharan Africans. In the first of the discriminant analyses, the original eight facial variables were reduced to four (Brauer Nos. 43a, 52, 48, 77a; see Table 3) which significantly separate the groups. Figure 7 shows that Dar-es-Soltane 5 falls within the area of overlap of Upper Paleolithic Europeans and North Africans, while Nazlet Khater lies in the 90% circle of the North Africans. As a result of the fragmentary) nature of Dar-es-Soltane 5, it could not be included in the second discriminant analysis, which was based upon vault variables. Through stepwise elimination, the original 14 variables were reduced to five (Brauer Nos. 33d. 11, 27, 1. 31a; see Table 3). The multivariate test statistics show significant differentiation among the groups. Nazlet Khater occupies a position close to the area of overlap of all three groups and, remarkably, falls within the 90% circle of the sub-Saharan Africans (Figure 8). Yet we should not overlook the fact that for these vault variables the area of overlap between the Upper Paleolithic European and the sub-Saharan samples is obviously relatively large. Regardless of the explanation for the position of Nazlet Khater, these two discriminant analyses. like the Principal component analyses, make it clear that there is a great deal of overlap in the dimensions of the vault and face between Africans and Europeans from the later late Pleistocene and early Holocene.
So Nazlet Khater displays as much affinity with Upper Paleolithic Europeans in vault size and facial proportions as much as his other traits show affinities with Sub-Saharans. So it is ironic that while some traits suggest him to be ancestral to Sub-Saharans (both negroids and bushmanoids) he possesses other features that relate him to UP Eurasians which recent studies confirm with his ear bones shape.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: @DJ See Elmenteita F1
As far as that Brauer graph, notice the Elmenteita label is in the 'Europid' column, but there is an arrow there w/ a question mark, that goes to the border with the other column.
Yes I noticed the arrows but didn't realize those were question marks.
quote:The Elmenteita sample is Holocene, not Palaeolithic, unlike Naivasha and Olduvai. So it makes sense that they show evidence of admixtures specific to the Holocene (e.g. pastoralists, farmers, Mesolithic Nubians), and it makes sense that Brauer found them to not fit one column.
Unlike Holocene Elmenteita, Brauer put Olduvai and Naivasha squarely in the righthand column.
Yes, I can see that. This is why I am curious about Olduvai and Naivasha. There are the remains that Eurocentrists call 'Prehistoric East African Caucasoids'.
quote:I know little about proto-historical/Punic Maghrebis, so can't say too much about what he wrote. Presumably some truth and bs in there, as usual when it comes to Antalas.
My point is that "negroid" traits are found in Proto-historical Punic area which seems to contradict his claims. He could dismiss such crania as "slaves" but there is no evidence of that whatsoever anymore than the negroid crania in predynastic and protodynastic Egypt being that of slaves.
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^ Okay, how about Antalas insisting that "negroid" types are recent to North Africa, yet he cited a source showing such types to already exist in the region of Carthage during the Proto-historical period there. Yet elsewhere he claims that the "negroid" Haratin Berber speakers are the descendants of slaves. This claim of slave ancestry for Haratin is true in some cases but Haratin are not a single ethnic group but a caste in Berber society. The Haratin are the agricultural peasants of the oases who serve the more dominant Berber castes, and studies confirm that Haratin are themselves heterogeneous with populations differing by country and region.
This old source from Lloyd Cabot Briggs is testimony this:
So far I have only read it in two books that the Haratin of southern Morocco and the Western Sahara show genetic ties to one of the Pygmy groups in Central Africa. I have yet to find the scientific source for this claim. I don't know if anyone else can find the source, but apparently this one Pygmy group diverged from a common ancestry with Western Saharan Haratin.
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quote:Okay, how about Antalas insisting that "negroid" types are recent to North Africa, yet he cited a source showing such types to already exist in the region of Carthage during the Proto-historical period there.
He insisted that the presence of the negroid types in Carthage was the result of slavery as well.
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posted
^ Of course he did. There used to be a time when Egyptologists assumed negroid types in Egypt were slaves despite no evidence for it. Eventually the "slave" claim was dropped but the assumption was always made that such types were "foreigners".
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Both sources confirm "negroid" influence from a very ancient "negroid" presence prior to the predynastic. Although some of these traits could be part and parcel of the so-called "Mediterranean" populations as well.
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We know that populations that we identify as modern 'racial' groups only became prevalent at the start of our current epoch (the Holocene) --10,000 years ago. One thing that anthropologists and laymen alike seem to take for granted is the racial division of the African continent into a morphologically "caucasoid" North Africa and a morphologically "negroid" or negro Sub-Saharan.
Strangely and ironically enough, prior to the Holocene the earliest known "negroid" looking skulls were found in North Africa while as well as the converse-- earliest "caucasoid" looking skulls being found in Sub-Sahara. This has become somewhat of a paradox especially since "caucasoid" or type B skulls only became prevalent in North Africa during the Holocene with the appearance of predynastic Egyptians and Nubians.
One expert that delves into this issue is Russian anthropologist Stanislav Vladimirovich Drobyshevsky in his website Anthropogenez.
In his page "Proto-Negroids", he points out what has been discussed before in this forum that the oldest skull thus far that bears resemblance to modern “negroids” is the Upper Paleolithic Nazlet Khater of Egypt (35,100-30,300 years BP)
I thought the photo on the upper left might be a different one of the two skulls at Nazlet Khater but I think it's just shot in brighter conditions and does not have the mandible. In the more clear upper left photo it does appear wider like skull at the top, modern comparison. With the Nazklet Khater it's had to assess that nasal aperture, it's seems much could be missing along the perimeter of the opening
(note: the word "negroid" or "negro" not used in article)
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: By the classic definition of "negro" that anthropology has (Type A Africans), then no-- Nubians like Egyptians do not fall into that category but the narrow Type B Africans. But the point of my thread is to show that the oldest evidence for "negroes" is found in North Africa rather than Sub-Sahara while the reverse is true for Type B Africans.
Thus one could determine a bare skull "negroid" without any information regarding skin color or hair type
Yet the word "negroid" comes from "negro", - black
quote: Negro (n.) 1550s, "member of a black-skinned race of Africa," from Spanish or Portuguese negro "black," from Latin nigrum (nominative niger) "black, dark, sable, dusky"
Thus in 1844 Samuel Morton decided to greatly narrow the definition, exclude Nubians and then start measuring skulls Then we are supposed to work backwards from that, skull measurements are proposed as the basis of the (black) negro
quote: The true Negro conformation requires no comment; but it is necessary to observe that a practised eye readily detects a few heads with decidedly mixed characters, in which those of the Negro predominate. For these I propose the name of Negroid crania; ~ Samuel Morton, 1844 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59789/59789-h/59789-h.htm
It doesn't make sense. He should have created a new term like "Niger-Congo skull" (if we must have such skull categorization) and not blended that with the "Negro/Negroid" concept
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti:
In the next page The Origin of the Negro Race, Dr. Drobyshevsky describes in some detail what he and other anthropologists and forensic experts mean by "negroid" and "negro". The vast majority of research on this topic was done before World War II and is now either inaccessible or forgotten. Very few recent studies, despite their high technical capabilities, are characterized by an extremely low level and practically do nothing for the practice of skull diagnostics (e.g., Bruner et Manzi, 2004). Let us emphasize that by Negroids we mean all the western equatorials, and by the Negro variant we mean only a part of the Negroids, "Negroes proper", without pygmies, Khoisans, and, especially, representatives of the East African race (in foreign literature, the Negroid race is usually understood as the Negroid race). It is significant that the West Equatorial (or Negroid) complex differs in many respects from the East Equatorial (or Australo-Melanesian) complex.
The Negroid complex includes:
The size of the braincase is medium or small, and the skull is usually long, but not wide and low.
Prevailing dolichocrania, although a number of groups are typical of meso- or brachycrania.
The massiveness of the skull is medium or weak, which makes the Negroids markedly different from the eastern equatorials. The eyebrow is usually weak, so the bridge of the nose may not be depressed at all.
The forehead is usually vertical or even convex; As always, this feature is more pronounced on female skulls.
The face is low, relatively broad, slightly flattened horizontally and strongly bent vertically; Prognathism, of course, alveolar, not general.
The eye sockets are low, rather rounded.
The interorbital space is wide and flattened.
The nose is very wide, reaching a world maximum. The nasal bones are short, often concave; With a significant interorbital width, the width of the nasal bones may be insignificant, and the nasal bones tend to fuse together.
The size of the jaws is much smaller than that of the eastern equatorials.
The Negro race, unlike the Central and Southern African races, is characterized by a larger size. Strictly speaking, the Negro race is very varied in its variants, but this variability is hardly described. For example, the differences between West and South African Negroes are sometimes mentioned, but they are almost never specified what these differences are (Rightmire, 1974).
The Central African race differs from the Negro race primarily in its much smaller size, broad forehead, and relatively wider face and nose.
The South African race differs from the Negro race in a somewhat smaller size and a sharply tapering face. Sometimes more is postulated Grace of the South African race, but the measurements do not confirm this.
Same problem here, he says "Negroes proper" aka "true Negro"
The word means black yet he says "without pygmies, Khoisans, and, especially, representatives of the East African race"
So a word Negroes which means dark skinned yet to be proper and true exclude " representatives of the East African race"
How about excluding phrenology form being labeled "Negro" or "negroid" ? If you must use a separate term like "Niger-Congo skull shape"
and leave "Negro" as a separate skin reference (and some might include hair type)
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: By the classic definition of "negro" that anthropology has (Type A Africans), then no-- Nubians like Egyptians do not fall into that category but the narrow Type B Africans.
So what happened between Nazlet Khater and later Egyptians such that if they are not Type A, why not? Is it due to introgression of Type B people displacing or integrating with the earlier Type As?
posted
^ Modern racial classifications like 'Negroid', 'Caucasoid', and even 'Mongoloid' are based on a sets or suites of traits. However these particular suites don't turn up until the Holocene, but some of these traits are obviously older. Things like broad noses and prognathism for example typically identified as 'negroid' features are could be called 'Generalized Modern' since these were traits ubiquitous to Anatomically Modern Humans.
This is why Swenet's point is relevant that even within Africa skeletal types that appear "negroid" do not necessarily mean they are genetically identical with say aDNA IBD-type Sub-Saharans. Nazlet Khater for example has been labeled as a potential ancestor to both modern "negroes" and "capoids" (Khoisan) due to features of both being found in his cranium, yet his earbones resemble those of Eurasians. Again this is why racial labels especially when it pertains to the genetically diverse populations of Africa can be misleading.
Again Swenet has shown in his blog how Natufians had negroid traits even though overall they differed from modern Sub-Saharans. My point is that even these modern Sub-Saharans probably had ancestors that originated further north and Brandon's threads on Ancestral North African like here hints at this.
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To Swenet and anyone else interested, a few more examples of "negroid" skulls of the north:
The Iron Age priestess of Tanit in Carthage, of which I have no info except a few references here and there.
The skull of a woman from the Neolithic megalithic site of Hagar Qim in Malta. (right skull) Even though this culture was part of the Neolithic Mediterrnanean or Cardial Culture.
The two Grimaldi skeletons unearthed in Grimaldi off the coast of Liguria in Northwestern Italy. The remains date to the Upper Paleolithic are associated with the Late Aurignacian Culture.
The last one I find really interesting because Grimaldi could very well be the earliest morphologically modern "negro" crania known even though it was found outside of Africa, and in Europe no less. In fact when they were initially discovered in 1901, anthropologists at the time hypothesized that the "negro race" originated in northern Italy!
The two skeletons are comprised of a woman past 50 years of age and the other an adolescent boy of 16 or 17 buried together perhaps as close family members. Both skulls are hyper-dolichocephalic but the most conspicuous trait is prognathism, specifically among the male since the female had alveolar degeneration due to tooth loss.
Grimaldi Woman
Grimaldi Man
You can read a summary of Grimaldi and other UP European crania here.
Strangely I have yet to find a craniometric study that that shows the statistical relations between UP European skulls that includes Grimaldi. I'm not saying they don't exist but I haven't come across any yet. There have been plenty of literature doing comparisons and contrasts and in the paper above it states the stark contrast of Grimaldi in showing not only 'negroid' but 'bushmanoid' traits as well.
A proper comparison would be with contemporaneous crania. The Grimaldi remains date ca. 26,000 - 22,000 years BP; to the west Cro-magnon Man 1 dates to ca. 27,950 - 27,410 years BP; to the east Predmosti Man 3 dates to ca. 26,000 BP.
Cro-magnon 1 Man
Predmosti 3 Man
Grimaldi obviously differed from the others not not just being prognathous but being more gracile and having more pedomorphic proportions and traits. This suggests to me a distinct population that likely came from North Africa. There are some who counter argue that Grimaldi has a high or elevated nasal bridge yet such a trait is also found among Mesolithic Nubians. Speaking of which the closest fossil in North Africa is that of Wadi Kubbaniya ((21,000-19,000 y BP) which was discussed here. Ironically, Wadi Kubbaniya metrically shows more in common with Predmost in facial traits than Grimaldi.
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posted
To play devil's advocate, there are some individuals from the Gravettian Culture that display similar 'negroid' traits. Predmosti 3 is of the Gravettian Culture and here is a 2008 study by Czech scientists showing the cranial diversity present in Predmost.
^ Note not only the prognathism but also the post-bregmatic depression which is considered a diagnostic African trait.
Further east in Russia we see another example of Sungir 2 which we discussed here.
So is this African ancestry or some indigenous Eurasian population we don't know about?
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posted
Maybe a bit off topic, but I remember that I once had an old comic book about the evolution of humankind. In that book they had illustrations of "the Grimaldi people" depicted as black people. According to the comic they brought the bow and arrow to Europe and used it to exterminate the poor Neanderthals. Both Neanderthals and Cro Magnons were depicted as white people.
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Talking about Predmosti and the Gravettian culture:
According to a study from 2023 the Gravettian culture can be divided into two genetically different populations which shared a common material culture (with some differences)
quote: Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, we reveal a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: [QB] To Swenet and anyone else interested, a few more examples of "negroid" skulls of the north:
The Iron Age priestess of Tanit in Carthage, of which I have no info except a few references here and there.
The skull of a woman from the Neolithic megalithic site of Hagar Qim in Malta. (right skull) Even though this culture was part of the Neolithic Mediterrnanean or Cardial Culture.
The two Grimaldi skeletons unearthed in Grimaldi off the coast of Liguria in Northwestern Italy. The remains date to the Upper Paleolithic are associated with the Late Aurignacian Culture.
The last one I find really interesting because Grimaldi could very well be the earliest morphologically modern "negro" crania known even though it was found outside of Africa, and in Europe no less. In fact when they were initially discovered in 1901, anthropologists at the time hypothesized that the "negro race" originated in northern Italy!
The two skeletons are comprised of a woman past 50 years of age and the other an adolescent boy of 16 or 17 buried together perhaps as close family members. Both skulls are hyper-dolichocephalic but the most conspicuous trait is prognathism, specifically among the male since the female had alveolar degeneration due to tooth loss.
The need for reconstruction The skulls had been damaged by the weight of the overlying sediments, and some reconstruction, particularly of the lower face was necessary. It has been established that the old woman suffered from a phenomenon known in orthodontics. Having lost all her molars of the lower jaw, the upper jaw had been progressively translated forward and the lower part of the face had become more protruding.[13]
Reconstructing the face The adolescent had all his teeth, but these were manipulated by the anthropologists M. Boule and R. Verneau, when trying to reconstruct the skull and the face. M. Boule drilled the maxillaries in order to release the wisdom teeth that were still inside them. By doing this, he changed the face, as the natural growth of the wisdom teeth would have remodeled the dental arc in a natural way. Having then too many teeth to fit the jawline, he reconstructed a very prognathic jaw, possibly bearing in mind the jaw of the woman. The diagnosis of "prognathism" in the adolescent is hence speculative.
Museum display When the Grimaldi skeletons were found, the adolescent lay on his back and the woman face-down. The positions were changed when they were prepared for display. In order to make the prognathism visible, the skeletons were laid out on their side, which also suggested[to whom?] a ritual burial contrary to the original positions.
Photos of this display can be found in textbooks
[13]Legoux, P. (1966): Détermination de l'âge dentaire de fossiles de la lignée humaine, Paris, Maloine
Actualité scientifique [autre] Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française Année 1989 86-8 pp. 228-243
Scientific correspondence Cl. Masset. — Grimaldi
The adolescent, on the other hand, had all his teeth; but these underwent some very strange manipulations during the reassembly of the skull and face by anthropologists M. Boule and R. Verneau. The former did not hesitate to trepan the two maxillae in order to remove the wisdom teeth that were still included. In doing so, he created a monster, because the natural emergence of teeth must be accompanied by a remodeling of the arches, which obviously did not take place. Other teeth were completely moved, and even replaced! There was no longer any dental articulation on the bone, and some very worn teeth had antagonists that were not at all the reconstruction ignored all physiological plausibility. Let us add that the mandibular condyles were not even in the corresponding glenoid cavities... There is therefore no reliable data justifying the diagnosis of prognathism. However, it was this diagnosis that then inspired the reading of the rest of the skeleton, leading to the selection of a few characteristics deemed "negroid" from among others that were not taken into account. However, Grimaldi's two subjects were probably fairly ordinary Cro-Magnons. This fake, because it is one, was the subject of a museum presentation whose representation is familiar to everyone
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: Strangely I have yet to find a craniometric study that that shows the statistical relations between UP European skulls that includes Grimaldi. I'm not saying they don't exist but I haven't come across any yet. There have been plenty of literature doing comparisons and contrasts and in the paper above it states the stark contrast of Grimaldi in showing not only 'negroid' but 'bushmanoid' traits as well.
True. Grotte des Enfants 4 shown here (see diagram below) , is from that exact same cave, but from a different layer (where a man of Cro-Magnon type was buried) and it has been included in the analysis below (although the info in it, is not all that comprehensive).
I've only seen one study using the Grimaldi sample, and, unsurprisingly, it was to prove the skulls were really European. Perhaps scholars are not as 'post-racial' and indifferent to samples like this, as many think. In light of these efforts to obfuscate (and, as we see in lioness post, it's certainly not unfair to call it obfuscation), it's interesting that even the younger Cro-Magnon burial is platyrrhine, on par with many Africans (nasal index=54%).
Either way, this Grotte des Enfants #4 skull of Cro Magnon affinity is interesting to me, because it proves to me that the Cro-Magnon type really is a type (it's found repeatedly in different sites), even if modern scholarship doesn't acknowledge this anymore and has moved on to a label ('AMH') that nowadays has devolved into a paraphyletic grouping (they let everything into that category that looks remotely sapiens), and so, it does not encompass a clade, the way Cro-Magnon used to encompass a clade.
posted
^ The Grotte des Enfants 4 skull does indeed look Cro-Magnon though from that lateral view illustration it appears as if he displays post-bregmatic depression. It's also no surprise that Taforalt comes closest to it.
The authors came to the conclusion that the Gravettians more or less form a homogeneous subgroup or 'type' of generalized moderns which exhibit the phenotype of small prognathous face, dolichocephalic skull etc.
Of course the authors avoid using racial terms like 'negroid' but the paper's conclusion is strikingly similar to that of studies on Paleo-Indian skulls like..
The difference of course is that Luzia and Naia are both derived from East Eurasian populations while Gravettians are supposedly West Eurasians though their proximity to Africa makes me wonder since such 'types' are prevalent in Africa today with the oldest remains being found in North Africa.
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Yes, Taforalt is closest to it in terms of nasal index (x axis) and in terms of craniofacial dysharmonie, as the French put it (y axis). The latter index measures how small the face is, compared to the longness of the neurocrania. So its no wonder that your paper found relative smallness of the face among Gravettians; this trait is common in fossils that are Cro-Magnon-like (although I must say, the face of that Gravettian you posted is, to my eyes, nowhere near as close to Cro-Magnon 1, as the faces of Grotte des Enfants 4 and, say, Mladec 1, are]).
So it's fair to say that in terms of this index, Grotte des Enfants #4 is more Cro-Magnon, than Cro-Magnon 1 (individual after whom this morphotype was named). Iberomaurusians are also highly 'Cro Magnon' in terms of this index (see that diagram I posted), but not in other ways. For instance, according to Coon, vertical foreheads do not exist in the Afalou population. They probably go in the direction of Aterian or Aterian-like humans for the latter trait.
The Afalou crania have been exhaustively described and thoroughly illustrated. In general, they are very large, low-orbitted skulls, thick-boned, and marked in high relief for muscular attachment. The browridges form a heavy jut, even greater in most instances than those of the Gr6-Magnons. Behind a salient glabella the forehead slopes in all instances. Vertical foreheads, frequent among modern whites, especially females, and present in some Cr6-Magnon individuals, do not occur here. The union of the parietal and occipital bones is always marked by a lambdoidal depression, or flattening,46 while below this depression the occiput is usually bun- shaped and projecting. The mastoids are strongly developed, and the thickness of the vault is greater than that of modern man, but no greater than with Gr6-Magnon. The Races Of Europe https://archive.org/stream/racesofeurope031695mbp/racesofeurope031695mbp_djvu.txtPosts: 8877 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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^ Yes, that's why I wonder if these 'negroid' or type A looking Gravettians superficially resemble Sub-Saharans the same way Afalou superficially resembles Cro-magnons. Unfortunately the paper I cited only compares them with other UP European crania and modern indigenous populations from North America, Greenland, and Papua New Guinea. I would like to see the results with modern Sub-Saharans as well as Paleo-Indian types like Luzia and Naia.
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quote:a, MDS plot of pre-LGM individuals. The pre-40 ka group and the Fournol and Věstonice clusters are marked as shaded areas in different colours. Individuals and groups are plotted with the same colours and symbols as in Fig. 1 and names are indicated next to the symbols. b, Gravettian-associated individuals form two distinct groups, with central-eastern and southern European individuals as part of the Věstonice cluster and western and southwestern European individuals as part of the Fournol cluster. In central-western Europe, Gravettian-associated individuals from Goyet show affinity to both clusters. Error bars show 1× s.e.m. (black) or 3× s.e.m. (grey) of the f4 values estimated from 5 cM-block jackknife analysis. c, Admixture graph modelling of the main pre-LGM European hunter-gatherer lineages created using qpGraph.
posted
^ From the above source you cited: It has long been assumed that the Italian/Balkan Epigravettians were a direct ancestor to the earlier Gravettians, hence the name. However, by sequencing and comparing several new genomes the researchers showed the Epigravettians were a different, unrelated population.
All Epigravettians so far belong to the Villabruna cluster, and show no affinity to any Gravettian cluster. The oldest basal individual is the 13 kya Pradis 1 sample from north-east Italy. But given that Villabruna genetics appear at El Mirón some 19kya, the turnover must have been much earlier.
The Villabruna cluster shows a relationship with Near East hunter-gatherers, suggesting that they arrived in Italy from the Balkans.
The genetic diversity within the Epigravettian population was very low and branched out twice within Italy. The Sicilian branch was probably founded by only 70 people.
Given that Villabruna affinities appear in both Iberia and the Balkans, it seems the LGM created a land and likely sea corridor from east to west, running underneath the glacial extremes.
The post-LGM Magdalenian culture has been characterised by both the El Mirón and GoyetQ2 clusters, suggesting that the Solutreans and Epigravettians mixed in some proportion to form the Magdalenians, which spread out north and north-east across Europe. New genomes confirm this, but El Mirón looks to be an outlier, with 43% Villabruna ancestry, whereas all other Magdalenian samples can be placed into the GoyetQ2 cluster.
So the trend of peoples migrating from Southwest Asia into Europe via Anatolia is not new and this obviously includes some of recent African ancestry.
FIG URE 1 The Gravettian (30,000 to 20,000 years) is drawn in black and white; the subsequent Magdalenian (17,000 to 10,000 years) and Hamburgian (13,000-11,750 years) are in light blue and red. It is not known whether the spread of the Gravettian was a result of diffusion of people or cultures. This figure illustrates the possible monocentric origins of the Gravettian, in which the Gravettian is hypothesized to have its origin in the Middle Danube Basin, first spreading west (solid lines) and later spreading east and southeast (dashed lines). This scenario is largely based on the chronology of sites. Thus far, genome-wide data has been collected from only three of the ten Gravettian regions indicated on the map. These regions are northern Austria (1 sample), the Czech Republic (6), southern Italy (3) and Belgium (3), indicating that they all share a genomic ancestry. However, it is unknown whether samples from the remaining regions also share a close genomic ancestry. Some skeletal remains associated with the Gravettian that could be investigated paleogenomically are from Sungir (Russia) 112 ; Laghar Velho (central Portugal) 113 ; Cussac Cave 114 ; Les Garennes, near Vilhonneur 115 ; and Level 2 at Abri Pataud 116 (western France). Light blue and light red regions represent the approximate distributions of the Magdalenian Culture and the Hamburgian Culture (13,000-11,750 years). Figure adapted from Kozłowski. 53 from Demic and cultural diffusion in prehistoric Europe in the age of ancient genomes
Here's another source: The origin of the Gravettians: genomic evidence from a 36,000-year-old Eastern European Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome haplogroups The mitochondrial haplogroup of BuranKaya3A was determined to belong to an early branch of the N lineage, N1. Surprisingly, this assignment falls outside of the lineages previously reported for UP Europe, nearly all of which derive from later N branches (U and R haplogroups, Figure 2). The N1 of BuranKaya3A is notably distinct from the mitochondrial haplogroup N identified from the roughly 40,000-year-old mandible from Peștera cu Oase in Romania, which belongs to a more basal branch that has no modern descendants21. In addition, the N1 of BuranKaya3A carries three of the eight mutations occurring prior to N1b, a rare haplogroup most highly concentrated in the Near East, yet appearing broadly from western Eurasia to Africa. The descendants of the N1b node include N1b2, currently found only in Somalia22, and N1b1b, found in nearly 10% of Ashkenazi Jewish haplogroups23. These three mutations allow us to place BuranKaya3A on a lineage apart from that which has been proposed to later enter Europe from Anatolia during the Neolithic (N1a1a)24. Among ancient samples, the mitochondrial sequence of an 11,000-year-old Epipalaeolithic Natufian from the Levant (“Natufian9”)25 is also a later derivative of this N1b branch. Thus, mitochondrial sequences branching both upstream and downstream of the BuranKaya3A sequence can be traced to the Near East, and the modern presence in Europe of haplogroups descended from the N1 (N1b1b and N1a1a) branch to which BuranKaya3A belongs appear to be due to later migrations from the Near East (Extended Data Figure 2). We determined the genetic sex of BuranKaya3A to be male using both the ratio of chromosome X and Y mapped reads, giving an Ry value of 0.0893-0.097 (95% CI, SE 0.002)26, as well as a ratio of chromosome X mapped reads to the average of autosomal reads of 0.55 (a ratio near 1.0 would indicate diploid for X). From the reads mapping to the Y chromosome, six out of six Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) that overlap with diagnostic sites for Y-haplogroup BT all carry the derived allele, allowing a minimum assignment to BT, which has origins in Africa, with additional derived alleles suggesting an eventual placement of CT or C, found in Asia and the Epipalaeolithic Near East25. Additional ancestral alleles make an assignment of C1a2 or C1b, which appear in UP Europe1, unlikely (see Table S3 for a summary and comparative placement of Palaeolithic Y-haplogroups, and Supplementary Data 1 for a complete list of Y diagnostic SNPs)
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Here is the abstract to the article from where I posted the diagram above. There seem to have been a genetic continuity from Aurignacien through especially the Western Gravettian to the Solutrean and then Magdalenian. The people of the Epigravettian had a different background. It seems there was a mixing between people belonging to the Solutrean with people from the Epigravettian, forming the Magdalenian. After the Magdalenian there were further genetic changes.
quote:Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period3. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, we reveal a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants.
The differences in Phenotype between the later Hunter Gatherers can be seen in for example Scandinavia where Western Hunter Gatherers and Eastern Hunter gatherers met and mixed (forming Scandinavian Hunter gatherers).
When concerning the two different genetic profiles among the Gravettians it partly corresponds also to some differences in the archaeological material.
Map and diagram from the study
a, Geographic locations of newly reported individuals (filled symbols with black outline) and representative previously published individuals (outlined stars). Dotted lines delimit geographic regions described in the text. b, Calibrated radiocarbon dates of individuals plotted in a. The y axis shows the average of calibrated radiocarbon dates in thousands of years (kyr) (Supplementary Data 1.A). The horizontal dashed line marks the boundary between Late Pleistocene and Holocene. c, MDS plot of European hunter-gatherers based on 1 − f3(Mbuti; pop1, pop2). The dimensions are calculated using newly reported and previously published hunter-gatherer groups or individuals with more than 30,000 SNPs. The detailed grouping of individuals shown with empty coloured circles is described in Supplementary Data 1.I.
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In the North Magdalenian was soon replaced by local cultures of Hunter Gatherers like the Hamburg culture, the Federmesser culture, the Bromme culture, the Swiderian culture, and the Ahrensburg culture. They in their turn transformed into local Mesolithic cultures.
In Scandinavia which is rather small there were still at least two, or probably three migrations shortly after the end of the ice age.
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^ I'm just simply pointing out the possibility of African influence in the Epigravettian since there are crania that appear 'negroid' as well as a basal form of mtDNA N1.
The discovery comes from the largest study yet to look at the genetic makeup of ice age European hunter-gatherers...
The researchers unexpectedly discovered that the Gravettian culture that was widespread across Europe between about 33,000 and 26,000 years ago was made up of two genetically distinct groups, despite using similar weapons and producing similar art. That was a surprise, study lead author Cosimo Posth, a paleogeneticist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, told Live Science...
People of the Fournol and Věstonice lineages may have possessed darker skin and eye color than some of the lineages that came after them, the new genome study suggests. However, Posth warned that "it is not possible to know their exact skin and eye colors, because those traits might be influenced by multiple other genes."
The Fournol genetic signature survived the Last Glacial Maximum, lasting for at least 20,000 years. Their descendants sought refuge in what is now Spain and southern France during the Last Glacial Maximum and later spread northeast to the rest of Europe.
In contrast, the Věstonice died out. Previously, scientists thought the Italian peninsula was a refuge for Gravettians during the Last Glacial Maximum, with the people there eventually forming the so-called Epigravettian culture after the glaciers retreated. However, the new findings show the Věstonice were not genetically detectable after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Instead, the new study finds the Epigravettians actually descended from Balkan groups that entered Italy as early as 17,000 years ago.Posts: 26853 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I don´t know how many of the new findings have been incorporated on the DNA GIS map yet, but hopefully most of them will be soon. It makes it possible to better see the geographical distribution of different genetic signatures.
But as we have talked about before it would be nice with clickable GIS maps also with the human remains which have not yielded any DNA and also over other archaeological sites.
Some DNA findings from the OOA to the Epipaleolithic
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^ As newer genomic data comes out there is also updating and refinement.
The new data from Naqada alone is starting to suggest greater diversity of North Africans than was previously thought as well as the probability that 'Basal Eurasian' is African.
Again, my claim that the Epigravettians have an African element is based on outlier skulls that look typically 'negroid' as well as the genomics showing 'Near Eastern' origin not to mention the mitochondrial N1 basal clade which is also prevalent in Africa.
Unfortunately there can be no certainty without skeletal and genetic evidence from contemporary North Africa. The closest there is the Wadi Kubbaniya remains whos crania ironically is more robust and 'Eurasian' facially than Grimaldi and the Predmost female.
Yet we see similar patterns of outlier "negroid" skulls being found amongst Early Farmers of Greece and even Germany (Stuttgart and Muhlhausen).
Stuttgart Posts: 26853 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Yes, hopefully the map will be completed later. I see that a couple of rather new findings from Scandinavia are also missing.
Otherwise it is rather fun to sit and botanize among the DNA findings on the haplogroup map. One can many times clearly see regional differences and of course temporal differences.
The lack of genetic evidence from Africa makes the question of for example mtDNA N a bit hard to answer since it is not found in the oldest material from Africa. It turns up first in the Takarkori findings from Neolithicum. It is not extremely common in the oldest European material either. Future finds in North Africa can hopefully clear up things.
Concerning Epigravettians African element one can wonder when it left Africa and how long it took before it reached the most northern parts of the distribution of the Epigravettian culture? And how many generations does it take before people from Africa who migrate somewhere else cease to be African and become for example European? If one shall really extrapolate one could say that we are all Africans, but such definition becomes a bit meaningless after a certain number of generations.
Seems the origin of haplogroup N is also somewhat contested, some seem to place it in Africa others in the Middle East.
Also regarding negroid skulls, are they signs of a later migration or of groups who retained a certain skull shape? We can see a certain unreliability when it comes to cranial measurements contra descent. Ancient America is a good example where different anthropologists seen European, Australian, Chinese, Arctic, Canarian, Malaysian, "Dongolan", Pacific and "Laponoid" skull forms among ancient Americans. DNA though show that they were closer related to each other and to modern Native Americans than to any other peoples.
The Stuttgart individual seems to have had the mtDNA haplogroup T2 which was rather typical of neolithic Europeans (at least according to Lazaridis et al 2014).
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^ Interesting, what of Stuttgart's Y-DNA? His skull displays post-bregmatic depression and his jaw also has African metric traits. And again he is not the only one with the frequency of skulls with negroid traits increasing as one goes closer to the epicenter of Neolithic expansion in the Aegean area.
In regards to mtDNA both N and M are basal clades of Eurasians in general deriving from African L3.
N is said to be older than M but as an example, M1 is a common hg in East Africa (both North and Sub-Saharan East Africa).
It was initially thought that M1 in Africa is the result of so-called black-migrations from Eurasia since ancestral M* has so far only been found in Eurasia specifically India which has the greatest diversity of and frequency of M haplogroups except M1 which is found in Africa with some frequencies in the Middle East. M1 has its highest frequency and diversity in Africa as well, and you can search the archives of this forum for threads in which we discussed studies from geneticists like Kivisild et al. showing that M1 was likely a parallel clade that split off fom the same ancestral L3 clade that M* split from with M1 having a different motif. Thus many think that M1 is indigenous to Africa. I suspect the same can be said about the older N clade or at least N1 which also has a considerable frequency and diversity in Africa yet seemed to had a significant presence among European first farmers-- Modern Europeans appear genetically unrelated to first farmers (2005).
Basal N* has been found in PP Neolithic in the Levant and the Cardial and Epicardial Cultures of the Meditarranean, but the Neolithic Takarkori sample shows a unique form of basal N different from the others.
R0 is also a common clade in Sub-Saharan East Africa as well as Arabia and basal R* though rare has its highest frequency in the Horn and south Arabia specifically Socotra.
So it is highly suggestive that either hg N originated in Africa or somewhere near it-- many geneticists suggest Arabia.
Again, we can't be sure without genetic data from prehistoric populations. North Africa despite the arid climate favorable for preserving skeletal remains has conspicuous gaps in both archaeology and skeletal material but Swenet has raised some interesting points.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: The Dabban is another group of people compared to those we find during the LGM. So I would not look for one refugium or ancestral home for all of the N. African LSA. Also, the industries within the LSA, in North Africa, have their own subdivisions, with Silsilians, for instance, matching IB2, but not IB1. The implication is that entirely different people are involved, with Predynastics mostly descending from one of these (ie, in my view, they belong to the population Silsilians also belonged to), and Iberomaurusians descending from multiple (hence, IB1, IB2, IB3). This also explains why Taforalt and Afalou have been so difficult to assign to a population based on their skeletal remains. The later ones (postglacial) even have European hg, based on Kefi's work.
If you look above at the Ehret quote. He says the pre-LGM LSA (i.e Dabban, Nazlet Khater) industries are differentiated from from the LGM LSA, in that the latter show connections to Sub-Saharan industries owing to a common origin in Howieson's Poort or something similar. So the grouping 'LSA' in N. Africa has subdivisions that have genetic and morphological implications. Different groups inhabiting N. Africa, some of which persisted down to the Holocene (i.e, several retained their unique bio-affinities well into the Holocene) would then call for different refugia.
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