Extent of Black Admixture in the Mediterranean

González-Pérez et al. (2010) have analyzed populations from the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, with Central Europeans and West Africans as external references. They estimate Sub-Saharan African admixture using two methods that yield vastly disparate results. In the Discussion section, they admit that the inflated "Alu/STR estimate might be artefactual" and favor the estimate based on the Alu loci set alone because it's consistent with previous mtDNA, Y-chromosome and 500,000-SNP structure data.

According to the more accurate latter method, Sub-Saharan African admixture is ~13% in North Africa and "imperceptible" (~0.01%) in Southern Europe:


Here are the locations of the sampled populations and an MDS plot showing their genetic distances, again based on the preferred method:

Northern Mediterraneans are almost equidistant from both Central Europe (0.0526 ± 0.015) and Southern Mediterraneans (0.049 ± 0.025), showing distances very close to those between the latter two population groups (0.042 ± 0.013). MDS representation of the genetic distances (see Fig. 2) based on autosomal Alu data stresses the main differentiation of sub-Saharans, the clustering of Mediterraneans in two different groups corresponding to northern and southern populations, and the distant position of the Egyptian Siwa and the Spanish Pas Valley samples from their corresponding population clusters.

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González-Pérez et al. "Population relationships in the Mediterranean revealed by autosomal genetic data (Alu and Alu/STR compound systems)". Am J Phys Anthropol, 2010.

Mesolithic Nubians Probably Weren't Negroid

Afrocentrists like to believe that Mesolithic Nubia was populated by Negroids because of its strategic location near Egypt and on the Out-of-Africa route, and the time frame coinciding with the dispersals of haplogroup E3b. And they've found support in some research. For example, Groves and Thorne (1999) say that "Sudanese Nubia is Negroid", referring to Mesolithic Jebel Sahaba and Tushka crania, and Irish (1998) groups Mesolithic Nubians with Sub-Saharan Africans based on dental traits.

But it's not that clear cut. What some anthropologists interpret as Negroid morphology, others view simply as primitive or archaic traits indicative of the generalized morphology of early modern humans. Phillipson (2005) summarizes this debate:

To the south, the harpoon-using fishermen of the central and southern Sahara, the Sudanese Nile Valley and parts of East Africa are represented by a few fragmentary skeletons from Ishango, Lothagam on Lake Turkana, Lowasera, Early Khartoum and elsewhere which are said to show negroid physical features. Similar characteristics occur in skeletons from the Qadan cemetery at Jebel Sahaba in Nubia, where Mechta-Afalou features have also been recognised. These remains may be from a population ancestral to present-day Nilotic negroids. Other authorities, emphasizing the presence of features which are also seen in KhoiSan and Northeast African 'caucasoid' populations, prefer to interpret this material as representing a more generalized 'ancestral African' physical type, which may be regarded as akin to a common ancestor of several more recent populations. This explanation also seems plausible for the varied human remains that have been recovered in association with broadly contemporary and rather later industries from southern Kenya.

Complicating things further is the fact that later era Nubia shows clear Caucasoid affinities, which has forced "Negroid Mesolithic" advocates to postulate a population replacement event during the Holocene (the Afrocentrists gloss over this point). Among the authorities questioning this population discontinuity model are Van Gerven et al. (1973), who believe that changes in morphology can be just as easily explained by adaptation (the study they cite is Greene et al. (1967), which analyzed crania from Wadi Halfa, Sudan):

Although the authors view the Nubian population as having remained stable over the last several thousand years, they propose that the living Nubians are the result of the massive penetration of Negroid Africa by Caucasoid genes during the last 14,000 years. In support of this hypothesis, the skeletal remains of a Nubian Mesolithic population are described as possessing bun-shaped occiputs, massive browridges, sloping foreheads, extreme facial flattening, large teeth and deep mandibles. This and other evidence is proposed to indicate that Africa, north of the Sahara, was originally inhabited by non-Caucasoid populations that can in general be termed Negroid.

There are several points at which this analysis remains essentially typological. Specifically, Greene pointed out in his discussion of racial reconstructions:

If indeed there were adequate models for the presumed Negro race of Africa that existed thousands of years ago, then this approach has validity. However, it can be contended that such models are at present not valid since there is little evidence for reconstructing what the then contemporary African Negroes were like skeletally. One can only extrapolate from modern Negroes who may not at all be like their ancestory since racial groups are not static, but evolve.

In addition, many of the skeletal features listed separately by Burnor and Harris may, in fact, be related functionally and/or epigenetically. Greene and co-workers have suggested that features such as large complex tooth form, glabellar protrusion, gonial eversion and massive mandible are all indicative of heavy masticatory masculature. Such features in the Nubian Mesolithic population are similar to those represented by the Neanderthal remains at the Skuhl site in Israel and also by contemporary aboriginal Australian populations. Such commonality suggests similar adaptation rather than common racial origin and migration.

Once again, the explanation of morphological similarity between two populations in terms of racial origins and affinities is totally inadequate unless the role played by natural selection and possible parallel evolution has been determined and incorporated into the analysis.

More recently, Larsen (1997) revisited the long-running debate and backed the continuity model of Greene, Van Gerven and the others that evolution and adaptation explain the differences between earlier and later Nubians better than population replacement:

Beginning in the nineteenth century, various workers speculated on the origins of human groups occupying the [Nile Valley]. Following Morton's (1844) highly influential study of archaeological crania from Egypt and Nubia, the prevailing notion was that two biologically distinct groups occupied the Nile Valley in temporal succession. In Lower Nubia, Morant (1925) identified an earlier 'Upper Nile type', with predominantly 'Negroid' features, and a later 'Lower Nile type', which lacked 'Negroid' features. The changes were viewed in a diffusionistic paradigm: simply, the disappearance of 'Negroid' features resulted from an invasion and subsequent replacement by alien 'Caucasoid' (Egyptian) peoples from the north.

Recent analyses of crania and dentitions from lower Nubia indicate that the evidence for the diffusionist model of biological change is less than compelling. Independent analyses of skeletal and dental discrete and metric variables and other lines of evidence suggest that the earlier and later Nubian populations represent a biological continuum with no invasion by nonindigenous populations. Therefore, the differences in cranial morphology between earlier and later populations...are best understood in relation to factors not involving population replacement.

For better understanding of these factors, especially those related to dietary and technological change, Carlson and Van Gerven and their coworkers compared craniofacial morphology in a Nubian-based temporal sequence, including foragers from the Mesolithic (ca. 12,000 BP), initial agriculturalists from the combined A- and C-groups (3400-1200 BC), and intensive agriculturalists from the combined Meroitic, X-group, and Christian horizons (AD 0-1500). These comparisons reveal that Nubian foragers and incipient agriculturalists have flat and elongated vaults with well-developed, protruding supraorbital tori and occipitals. In contrast, later intensive agriculturalists have rounded vaults with small and more posteriorly positioned faces and masticatory muscle attachment site (temporalis and masseter) and reduced temporomandibular joint size.

Carlson and co-workers posit a masticatory-functional hypothesis for explaining craniofacial changes in Nubia. They argue that the primary factor influencing Nubian craniofacial anatomy was the change in subsistence economy, from foraging to food production and the shift to consumption of softer foods. These changes resulted in a reduction in activity of the masticatory muscles and a concomitant decrease in mechanical loading of the craniofacial skeleton. Alteration in masticatory function led to alteration in craniofacial growth in two ways, including (1) decreased stimulation of bone growth, leading to a reduction in facial robusticity; and (2) progressive alteration of the overall growth of the face and vault, resulting in a smaller and more inferoposteriorly oriented face relative to the cranial vault.

[...]

Turner and coworkers reassessed Greene and coworkers' continuity model of Nubian population history. Although lauding the studies of Greene and others for using a nonracial, nontypological approach to Nubian population history, they argue that extra-regional sources of variation have been insufficiently considered, especially sources that may explain temporal shifts in craniofacial morphology in this region. Implicit in the work by Greene and others is the assumption that population continuity extends at least as far back as the late Pleistocene (ca. 12,000 BP). Turner and coworkers contend that continuity can be claimed only if non-Nubian populations are also considered in statistical analyses of dental trait variation in this region.

Turner and coworkers include in their analysis additional Nubian dentitions from the late Pleistocene 'Upper Stone Age', Meroitic, X-group, Christian period, and historic era European samples. Computed MMD values, modified for small samples and tested for significance, reveal few significant differences between Meroitic, X-group and Christian periods, thus confirming Greene's earlier conclusions regarding population continuity. However, significant differences between the Pleistocene and later groups were clearly identified.... Because of the apparent temporal discontinuity between the Pleistocene and later populations, Turner & Markowitz (1990) hypothesize that the ancestry of recent Nubians was not derived from local late Pleistocene populations, and that a population replacement event occurred during the Holocene in Nubia. The origin of these later populations is unclear, but, solely on the basis of dental traits, they argue that populations north of Nubia containing European and Near Eastern traits are the most likely sources.

In an effort to identify other possible sources of variation, Irish & Turner (1990) compared their sample of Nubian dentitions (late Pleistocene to Christian period) to historic-period dentitions from a west African group — the Ashanti. Univariate and MMD statistical treatment of these samples reveal strong similarities between modern west Africans and late Pleistocene Nubians. As with previous studies, later Holocene dentitions were found to be very similar. The late Pleistocene and modern west Africans are strongly divergent from the Meroitic, X-group, and Christian period Nubians. Therefore, the authors argue that there is a population discontinuity between the late Pleistocene and Holocene populations in Nubia, with the former sharing biological affinities with west Africans. Irish & Turner (1990) suggest that the discontinuity can be explained by high rates of violence and decline (or possible extinction) in late Pleistocene (Mesolithic) Nubian forager, which may have left them susceptible to invasion or 'genetic swapping' by other groups from west Africa.

Turner and coworkers' findings are intriguing, but their analyses do not necessarily disprove the continuity model for the Pleistocene to Holocene transition. Especially problematic is the virtual lack of data from the period between the A-group and the Mesolithic, which represents nearly four millennia of occupation of the region. Comparisons of Mesolithic and A-group populations reveal a decrease in craniofacial robusticity and dental complexity. To be sure, the agent of change could have been gene flow from some other region. Additional dental and morphological data, and a more substantial treatment of the archaeological context from regions surrounding Nubia, are required before the discontinuity model can be accepted. Moreover, the west African collection used for identifying dental trait frequencies is largely undocumented. Therefore, although the similarities between late Pleistocene and west African dental traits are interesting, they are not compelling. From the preponderance of evidence from other studies of craniofacial morphology, biological change, and population history, a model of population continuity appears to fit the evidence best.

It's extremely unlikely that Negroids would have penetrated so far north and east that early in time, and even more so considering that the later Nubians were Caucasoid, which requires the equally unlikely explanation of total population replacement after the Pleistocene. The continuity model that a robust, generalized early population evolved into Nubia's modern Caucasoid inhabitants makes a lot more sense.

Romanian Model Composite

Made by El Caudillo from photos of 23 randomly selected Romanian models:


Software: PsychoMorph

Black History Professor Rejects Afrocentrism

Clarence E. Walker. We Can't Go Home Again: an Argument about Afrocentrism

By Fred R. van Hartesveldt
Teaching History: A Journal of Methods
Fall, 2003

The factual flaws in much of the writing about Afrocentrism have been exposed in the past. Clarence Walker does so again in We Can't Go Home Again, and does so effectively. In this regard he focuses particularly on the Afrocentric assertion that Egyptians were black and the wellspring of Western civilization. He makes very clear that the modern concept of race as identity simply does not apply to the variegated population of Egypt and would not have been understood there. The importance of his book, however, does not lie in renewing and expanding the critique of the factual and analytical content of Afrocentric literature.

Walker refers to Afrocentrism as "therapeutic mythology" asserted as a way to promote the self-esteem of African Americans (a term he does not like) "by creating a past that never was." He understands it as black nationalism; in fact he argues that the origins of Afrocentrism lay in black nationalism of the Romantic era, but rejects it as history. Were Afrocentrism a means of creating African American community and thus empowering a minority, it would be comparable to such mythologies used by other minorities. Such mythologies, however, have been grounded in historical thought, while Afrocentrism is factually errant and theoretically flawed.

By urging black Americans to seek empowerment in a misconstructed Egyptian history, Afrocentrists not only mislead, opening their students to ridicule, but they also assert that culture is "transhistoric" — that is, it can be transferred through time and space intact. Culture, Walker asserts, is always changing and will be different as a result of any transfer, willing or unwilling, on the part of those living it. African Americans have created a culture of their own — a culture of which to be proud, but not an Egyptian or African culture. To Walker's way of thinking, Afrocentrism turns African Americans into helpless victims whose ancestors created a glorious culture and then for thousands of years accomplished little. They became the dupes and victims of Europeans, enslaved and exploited, and now their descendants must look to a mythical African past for purpose and meaning. Such a denigration of the African-American struggle, which Walker regards as a triumph, clearly angers him.

Given the popularity of Afrocentrism and its spread through the academic community and popular culture, anyone teaching history or otherwise interested in the nature of historical methodology should read Walker. The manipulation of history to create a particular attitude or support a political point of view is, as Walker acknowledges, sometimes a way of creating unity and gaining power. To deny a people the heritage they and their forefathers built is not acceptable. Walker shows that historians should help African-American students to appreciate their own real history and not pursue distortions of the past in the name of identity, especially since their actual past offers them an identity worthy of enormous pride.

Walker's prose conveys his ideas and passions effectively, despite a painful tendency to fall into the jargon of social science. His arguments are clear, thoughtful, and easy to read. His concern for the discipline and its practitioners comes through forcefully. Even those who disagree with his conclusions will be engaged and will find much to think about if they are sincerely interested in historical scholarship and how it influences those who study it.

The value of this book for courses in historiography and methodology is obvious. It offers useful examples of how historians analyze material, and historical knowledge can shape our understanding of contemporary culture. Its applications go beyond metahistory, however. Students of modern American society and education will find much to explore in its pages, and anyone investigating African-American history should examine Walker's conclusions. Walker will help such students understand not only one way African Americans have come to view themselves but also an element in their contemporary efforts at gaining a sense of identity within American culture. Thus, although the title might not suggest it, this book can be a valuable part of a variety of courses.

Link

Old Comments Are Gone

HaloScan's free commenting service is being discontinued before the end of the year, and users have been given the option of upgrading to a new paid service or exporting their comments for use elsewhere. I've opted for the latter. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't provide any way of importing them. Maybe that'll change in the future, but for now I'm afraid they're gone. (You can download the archive I exported, but it's not very reader-friendly.) Even though I don't like what HaloScan is doing (and I'm not alone), in a way it's a relief because using Blogger's built-in commenting system will simplify things in the long run.

Another Feeble Attack on FORDISC

The FORDISC computer program used for classifying unknown human crania has been at the center of a debate about its reliability. In 2005 the program's creators responded to criticism, setting the record straight. Now a new study is launching yet another attack. The authors' conclusion, based on tests they conducted, makes the following two points:

FORDISC will only return a correct ancestry attribution when an unidentified specimen is more or less complete and belongs to one of the populations represented in the program's reference samples.

1) Of course a specimen has to be "more or less complete" to be correctly classified. That applies in forensic anthropology in general and has nothing to do with the efficacy of the FORDISC program. No program or anthropologist can be expected to accurately classify highly incomplete crania, which is what the authors have simulated in one of their tests by reducing the number of cranial metric variables from 56 to 10. This argument is the equivalent of faulting someone for not being able to identify the image on a puzzle that's missing 80% of its pieces.

2) Under Materials and Methods, the authors explain that they only consider an ancestry attribution "correct" if the specimen is assigned to its source population or one that they've selected as its "most closely related population". So for example, they match up Berg (Austria) with Norse (Norway), and if a Berg specimen clusters instead with, say, Zalavar (Hungary) — Austria's next-door neighbor — or Gizeh (Egypt), they'd consider it "misclassified", even though the program has correctly identified it as West Eurasian/Caucasoid. Limiting the criteria for correct classifications to exact matches with source populations or, in the absence of these, pre-selected populations of questionable equivalence, is setting the experiment up to fail.

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Marina Elliott and Mark Collard (2009). FORDISC and the determination of ancestry from cranial measurements. Biol Lett., vol. 5 no. 6, pp. 849-852.

Scientists Call for End to Race Denial

Let's celebrate human genetic diversity

Bruce Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein
Nature, 8 October 2009

Science is finding evidence of genetic diversity among groups of people as well as among individuals. This discovery should be embraced, not feared, say Bruce T. Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein.

A growing body of data is revealing the nature of human genetic diversity at increasingly finer resolution. It is now recognized that despite the high degree of genetic similarities that bind humanity together as a species, considerable diversity exists at both individual and group levels (see box, page 728). The biological significance of these variations remains to be explored fully. But enough evidence has come to the fore to warrant the question: what if scientific data ultimately demonstrate that genetically based biological variation exists at non-trivial levels not only among individuals but also among groups? In our view, the scientific community and society at large are ill-prepared for such a possibility. We need a moral response to this question that is robust irrespective of what research uncovers about human diversity. Here, we argue for the moral position that genetic diversity, from within or among groups, should be embraced and celebrated as one of humanity's chief assets.

The current moral position is a sort of 'biological egalitarianism'. This dominant position emerged in recent decades largely to correct grave historical injustices, including genocide, that were committed with the support of pseudoscientific understandings of group diversity. The racial-hygiene theory promoted by German geneticists Fritz Lenz, Eugene Fischer and others during the Nazi era is one notorious example of such pseudoscience. Biological egalitarianism is the view that no or almost no meaningful genetically based biological differences exist among human groups, with the exception of a few superficial traits such as skin colour. Proponents of this view seem to hope that, by promoting biological sameness, discrimination against groups or individuals will become groundless.

We believe that this position, although well intentioned, is illogical and even dangerous, as it implies that if significant group diversity were established, discrimination might thereby be justified. We reject this position. Equality of opportunity and respect for human dignity should be humankind's common aspirations, notwithstanding human differences no matter how big or small. We also think that biological egalitarianism may not remain viable in light of the growing body of empirical data.

Many people may acknowledge the possibility of genetic diversity at the group level, but see it as a threat to social cohesion. Some scholars have even called for a halt to research into the topic or sensitive aspects of it, because of potential misuse of the information. Others will ask: if information on group diversity can be misused, why not just focus on individual differences and ignore any group variation? We strongly affirm that society must guard vigilantly against any misuse of genetic information, but we also believe that the best defence is to take a positive attitude towards diversity, including that at the group level. We argue for our position from two perspectives: first, that the understanding of group diversity can benefit research and medicine, and second, that human genetic diversity as a whole, including group diversity, greatly enriches our species.

[...]

Box 2. Emerging understanding of human genetic diversity

Genetic diversity is the differences in DNA sequence among members of a species. It is present in all species owing to the interplay of mutation, genetic drift, selection and population structure. When a species is reproductively isolated into multiple groups by geography or other means, the groups differentiate over time in their average genetic make-up.

Anatomically modern humans first appeared in eastern Africa about 200,000 years ago. Some members migrated out of Africa by 50,000 years ago to populate Asia, Australia, Europe and eventually the Americas. During this period, geographic barriers separated humanity into several major groups, largely along continental lines, which greatly reduced gene flow among them. Geographic and cultural barriers also existed within major groups, although to lesser degrees.

This history of human demography, along with selection, has resulted in complex patterns of genetic diversity. The basic unit of this diversity is polymorphisms — specific sites in the genome that exist in multiple variant forms (or alleles). Many polymorphisms involve just one or a few nucleotides, but some may involve large segments of genetic material. The presence of polymorphisms leads to genetic diversity at the individual level such that no two people's DNA is the same, except identical twins. The alleles of some polymorphisms are also found in significantly different frequencies among geographic groups. An extreme example is the pigmentation gene SLC24A5. An allele of SLC24A5 that contributes to light pigmentation is present in almost all Europeans but is nearly absent in east Asians and Africans.

Given these geographically differentiated polymorphisms, it is possible to group humans on the basis of their genetic make-up. Such grouping largely confirms historical separation of global populations by geography. Indeed, a person's major geographic group identity can be assigned with near certainty on the basis of his or her DNA alone (now an accepted practice in forensics). There is growing evidence that some of the geographically differentiated polymorphisms are functional, meaning that they can lead to different biological outcomes (just how many is the subject of ongoing research). These polymorphisms can affect traits such as pigmentation, dietary adaptation and pathogen resistance (where evidence is rather convincing), and metabolism, physical development and brain biology (where evidence is more preliminary).

For most biological traits, genetically based differentiation among groups is probably negligible compared with the variation within the group. For other traits, such as pigmentation and lactose intolerance, differences among groups are so substantial that the trait displays an inter-group difference that is non-trivial compared with the variance within groups, and the extreme end of a trait may be significantly over-represented in a group.

Several studies have shown that many genes in the human genome may have undergone recent episodes of positive selection — that is, selection for advantageous biological traits. This is contrary to the position advocated by some scholars that humans effectively stopped evolving 50,000–40,000 years ago. In general, positive selection can increase the prevalence of functional polymorphisms and create geographic differentiation of allele frequencies.

Link to Abstract

Link to Box 2

Foreigners in Ancient Rome

According to the book Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers by David Noy (London: Duckworth, 2000), the main sources of foreigners in Ancient Rome were Gaul and Hispania, Central and Eastern Europe, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Jews (p. 205 ff.). However, it seems that most of those from outside of Europe were ethnically Greek, while Jews never fully assimilated into Roman society, and that the city's foreign population at its peak was only ~5%. Also, foreigners (especially slaves) had higher mortality rates and lower birth rates than natives and were sometimes subjected to mass expulsions. Here are some relevant passages from the book:

Population Size

Immigration was essential to Rome both demographically, to increase or at least maintain the size of the city's population, and socially, to provide skilled workers and soldiers. The slave trade met some of the requirements, but free immigrants were always needed. Provincials probably began to outnumber Italians among newcomers to Rome in the first centuries BC and AD. The third century AD, when all recruitment for the Praetorian Guard was done in the provinces, may have seen the numerical peak of Rome's foreign population. It is plausible to suppose that at least 5% of the city's inhabitants were born outside Italy in that period; the reality could be much greater.

Expulsions

Foreigners who did not have Roman citizenship were always liable to summary expulsion from the city, and by the fourth century the possession of citizenship was no longer protection against such treatment. Although there was a certain amount of xenophobia within the Roman literary class, expulsion was only used in certain circumstances: to deal with the actual or potential misdeeds or alleged bad influence of specific groups (which could be defined by nationality, religion or occupation), or to counteract the effect of food shortages by reducing the number of mouths to feed. Expulsions were probably not carried out very efficiently, and were always short-lived.

Mortality Rate

It is generally agreed that mortality was probably higher in Rome than elsewhere in the Roman world, because of insanitary living conditions and the risk of contagious diseases; diseases such as tuberculosis may have been endemic. Newcomers to [17th-18th c.] London were more susceptible to plague than natives were, and the same point has been made about the greater susceptibility of Rome's immigrants to plasmodium falciparum malaria. Tuberculosis might be particularly dangerous to the young adults who probably formed most of the immigrant population. [...] Slaves are likely to have suffered from higher mortality than the free population, and immigrant slaves would have been particularly vulnerable to diseases which were not prevalent in their homelands.

Birth Rate

It is also likely that the birth rate would have been lower at Rome than elsewhere. Many migrants coming to the city would already have spent some of their fertile years elsewhere, and the slave part of the population would have been less fertile than the rest. Free male citizen immigrants may have postponed marriage until they had access to the corn dole, which from the time of Augustus was only available to a restricted number of recipients. In London, for similar reasons, the natives were closer to reproducing themselves than migrants were, and the same would almost certainly have been true for Rome.

Asia Minor

Although literature emphasizes the significance of Asian slaves at Rome, inscriptions present a rather different picture. The large number of epitaphs in Greek, especially for people from the province of Asia, is consistent with the large number of recorded peregrini [foreigners] in suggesting that the migration of people of free status was particularly significant for this area. The evidence is, however, almost exclusively concerned with the Greek population of Asia Minor, and there is very little sign of people of non-Greek background coming to Rome except as slaves. This is consistent with the general predominance of the most romanized/hellenized section of their home society among free migrants to Rome.

Syria

However, most Syrians arrived at Rome through the workings of the slave trade. Syrus was a common slave name, although not necessarily given only to Syrians, since the association Syrian = slave seems to have been very widespread....

"Voluntary migration from Syria to Rome would probably have begun in the late Republic. Most of the evidence, however, is from the second century AD or later. There is a clear implication that some of the slaves and ex-slaves labelled Syrians in the literary sources were thoroughly imbued with Greek culture, whether their ancestry was Syrian, Greek or mixed. Solin (1983, 722) notes that Syrian immigrants in general tended to be of Greek descent or at least to be from the most hellenized part of Syrian society.

Egypt

Most references to Egyptians at Rome concern Alexandrians, apparently of Greek extraction, rather than 'indigenous' Egyptians. On the other hand, the stereotyped Roman image of Egyptians concentrated on the aspects of their behaviour perceived as most outlandish, particularly the worship of animal-gods, and largely ignored the Greek component of their culture. There seems to be something of a contradiction between image and reality which may be due at least in part to anti-Cleopatra propaganda and its legacy.

North Africa

North Africa contained some cities which were Greek, Libyan or Phoenician foundations, but many of the main population centres began as Roman colonies (notably the re-established Carthage) or military settlements. Ricci (1994b, 198) believes that the colonization programme of Julius Caesar and Augustus in North Africa also stimulated a population flow from there to Rome. The inhabitants of the area came from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds (Italian, Greek, Punic, Libyan, Berber, Jewish), but, as with other areas, it is likely to have been the most romanized/hellenized section of the population which provided most of the free migrants to Rome.

Jews

The group which made the greatest effort to retain a separate identity was the Jews. In their religious and communal institutions, their use of separate catacombs, their epigraphic and liturgical use of Greek, and even their naming practices, they behaved differently from others and were able to pass on a Jewish identity, so that people whose ancestors had lived at Rome for generations and who were otherwise well integrated into Roman society were still identifiably Jewish.

AnthroScape Re-Launch

AnthroScape: Human Biodiversity Forum has reopened. We sincerely apologize for the long delay and hope that you'll join us again. For more information, please begin by reading this topic:

http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/920112/

Thank you.

AnthroScape: Human Biodiversity Forum

AnthroScape is a new biological and social anthropology forum that picks up where the defunct Dodona left off. Please begin by reading the Mission Statement and Forum Rules.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/

We look forward to seeing you there!