Showing posts with label Afrocentrism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afrocentrism. Show all posts

Phoenicians and Moors Were Caucasoid

August 20, 2020

Afrocentrists claim that Phoenicians and Moors were black, but most of these ancient samples from colonies in Iberia are a mix of North African, Levantine and Southern European (Local Iberian), clustering very close to Europeans because North Africans are Caucasoid. Only two samples from the later Muslim period have Sub-Saharan African admixture (37% and 48%) and they cluster far away from the rest. Modern Iberians have much less of all this admixture (~7% North African and 0% Sub-Saharan African) and cluster with other Europeans.

In the southeast, we recovered genomic data from 45 individuals dated between the 3rd and 16th centuries CE. All analyzed individuals fell outside the genetic variation of preceding Iberian Iron Age populations (Fig. 1, C and D, and fig. S3) and harbored ancestry from both Southern European and North African populations (Fig. 2D), as well as additional Levantine-related ancestry that could potentially reflect ancestry from Jewish groups (21). These results demonstrate that by the Roman period, southern Iberia had experienced a major influx of North African ancestry, probably related to the well-known mobility patterns during the Roman Empire (22) or to the earlier Phoenician-Punic presence (23); the latter is also supported by the observation of the Phoenician-associated Ychromosome J2 (24). Gene flow from North Africa continued into the Muslim period, as is clear from Muslim burials with elevated North African and sub-Saharan African ancestry (Fig. 2D, fig. S4, and table S22) and from uniparental markers typical of North Africa not present among pre-Islamic individuals (Fig. 2D and fig. S11). Present-day populations from southern Iberia harbor less North African ancestry (25) than the ancient Muslim burials, plausibly reflecting expulsion of moriscos (former Muslims converted to Christianity) and repopulation from the north, as supported by historical sources and genetic analysis of present-day groups (25). The impact of Muslim rule is also evident in northeast Iberia in seven individuals from Sant JuliĆ  de Ramis from the 8th to 12th centuries CE who, unlike previous ancient individuals from the same region, show North African–related ancestry (Fig. 2C and table S19) and a complete overlap in PCA with present-day Iberians (Fig. 1D).



Olalde et al. "The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years". Science, 2019.

Related: Moors Expelled from Sicily and Southern Italy

Ancient Egyptians and Nubians Were Caucasoid

October 8, 2019

Ancient DNA has confirmed that Ancient Egyptians were Middle Eastern and not Sub-Saharan African. This was already suggested by earlier genetic studies that found North Africans were the result of a back-migration from West Asia. But even before that, older craniofacial analyses of skeletal samples from all over Egypt (and Nubia) spanning all of ancient history also showed the same thing.

Here are five lines of anthropological evidence that group Ancient Egyptians and Nubians with North Africans, West/South Asians and Europeans (Caucasoids), and separate them from Sub-Saharan Africans (Negroids). Note that Horn Africans (Somalis) cluster with Caucasoids in some cases and Negroids in others, which indicates they're a racially mixed population that's not representative of either Sub-Saharan Africans or Egyptians and Nubians.



1. Craniometric


Combined samples of Pre-Dynastic (Naqada) and Late Dynastic (Giza) Egyptians, and Bronze Age, Early Christian and Medieval Nubians, cluster with combined samples of Ancient and Modern North Africans, East Indians and Europeans.


Brace et al. "Clines and clusters versus 'Race:' a test in ancient Egypt and the case of a death on the Nile". Am J Phys Anthro, 1993.



2. Cranial Non-metric


Pre-Dynastic Egyptians from Naqada (#59), 26th-30th Dynasty Egyptians from Gizeh (#60), 12th-13th Dynasty Nubians from Kerma (#61), and Early Christian or Christian Nubians (#62) cluster with South Asians (#44) and several European groups: Greeks (#48), Scandinavians (#51 and #52) and Germans (#53). [NOTE that Somalis are up with Sub-Saharan Africans (#63)]


Hanihara et al. "Characterization of biological diversity through analysis of discrete cranial traits". Am J Phys Anthro, 2003.



3. Dental Metric


Pre-Dynastic and 12th-29th Dynasty Egyptians cluster with Afghans and North Indians on the edge of a larger cluster of Europeans and West Asians. [NOTE that here again, Somalis show Sub-Saharan affinities and don't cluster with Ancient Egyptians.]


Hanihara and Ishida. "Metric dental variation of major human populations". Am J Phys Anthro, 2005.



4. Dental Non-metric


12th Dynasty (Lisht), Roman/Byzantine (El Hesa), and Byzantine (Kharga) Egyptians, and Pharonic, Meroitic, X-group and Christian Nubians, cluster with other North Africans and Europeans (Poundbury, England).


Joel D. Irish. "Diachronic and synchronic dental trait affinities of late and post-pleistocene peoples from North Africa". Homo, 1998b.



5. Prognathism


Ancient Egyptians from Badari, Pre-Dynastic Egyptians from Naqada, and 26th-30th Dynasty Egyptians from Gizeh, as well as 12th-13th Dynasty Nubians from Kerma and Early Christian or Christian Nubians, all cluster with Europeans and West/South Asians on the negative end of the prognathism scale.


Tsunehiko Hanihara. "Frontal and Facial Flatness of Major Human Populations". Am J Phys Anthro, 2000.

Eurasian Origin and Back-Migration of L3 and DE

January 7, 2018

This was already suggested a few years back by Farrell et al. (2013) and Shi Yan et al. (2013), and now a new study is saying the same thing again.

Background: After three decades of mtDNA studies on human evolution the only incontrovertible main result is the African origin of all extant modern humans. In addition, a southern coastal route has been relentlessly imposed to explain the Eurasian colonization of these African pioneers. Based on the age of macrohaplogroup L3, from which all maternal Eurasian and the majority of African lineages originated, that out-of-Africa event has been dated around 60-70 kya. On the opposite side, we have proposed a northern route through Central Asia across the Levant for that expansion. Consistent with the fossil record, we have dated it around 125 kya. To help bridge differences between the molecular and fossil record ages, in this article we assess the possibility that mtDNA macrohaplogroup L3 matured in Eurasia and returned to Africa as basic L3 lineages around 70 kya.

Results: The coalescence ages of all Eurasian (M,N) and African L3 lineages, both around 71 kya, are not significantly different. The oldest M and N Eurasian clades are found in southeastern Asia instead near of Africa as expected by the southern route hypothesis. The split of the Y-chromosome composite DE haplogroup is very similar to the age of mtDNA L3. A Eurasian origin and back migration to Africa has been proposed for the African Y-chromosome haplogroup E. Inside Africa, frequency distributions of maternal L3 and paternal E lineages are positively correlated. This correlation is not fully explained by geographic or ethnic affinities. It seems better to be the result of a joint and global replacement of the old autochthonous male and female African lineages by the new Eurasian incomers.

Conclusions: These results are congruent with a model proposing an out-of-Africa of early anatomically modern humans around 125 kya. A return to Africa of Eurasian fully modern humans around 70 kya, and a second Eurasian global expansion by 60 kya. Climatic conditions and the presence of Neanderthals played key roles in these human movements.

Cabrera et al. "Carriers of mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup L3 basic lineages migrated back to Africa from Asia around 70,000 years ago". bioRxiv, 2017.

Genetic Continuity in Greece

August 8, 2017


Greek women through the ages: Minoan, Cycladic, Mycenaean, Classical, Modern  (SOURCE)


A recent study suggested based on modern samples that Greeks hadn't changed much since ancient times. Now that's been proven with ancient DNA from Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean Greeks. Their ancestry is mostly Anatolian Neolithic farmer with some Caucasus/Iran and less Russian/Siberian admixture (the last two related to the spread of Indo-European languages), they had dark hair and dark eyes, and there was no difference between the elites and common people. They're genetically closest to modern Southeastern Europeans, and not to Northern Europeans or Africans as different people have claimed.

The origins of the Bronze Age Minoan and Mycenaean cultures have puzzled archaeologists for more than a century. We have assembled genome-wide data from 19 ancient individuals, including Minoans from Crete, Mycenaeans from mainland Greece, and their eastern neighbours from southwestern Anatolia. Here we show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically similar, having at least three-quarters of their ancestry from the first Neolithic farmers of western Anatolia and the Aegean, and most of the remainder from ancient populations related to those of the Caucasus and Iran. However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe or Armenia. Modern Greeks resemble the Mycenaeans, but with some additional dilution of the Early Neolithic ancestry. Our results support the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean, before and after the time of its earliest civilizations.

[...]

The elite Mycenaean individual from the ‘royal’ tomb at Peristeria in the western Peloponnese did not differ genetically from the other three Mycenaean individuals buried in common graves.

[...]

Other proposed migrations, such as settlement by Egyptian or Phoenician colonists, are not discernible in our data, as there is no measurable Levantine or African influence in the Minoans and Mycenaeans, thus rejecting the hypothesis that the cultures of the Aegean were seeded by migrants from the old civilizations of these regions.

[...]

Phenotype prediction from genetic data has enabled the reconstruction of the appearance of ancient Europeans who left no visual record of their pigmentation. By contrast, the appearance of the Bronze Age people of the Aegean has been preserved in colourful frescos and pottery, depicting people with mostly dark hair and eyes. We used the HIrisPlex tool (Supplementary Information section 4) to infer that the appearance of our ancient samples matched the visual representations (Extended Data Table 2), suggesting that art of this period reproduced phenotypes naturalistically.

We estimated the fixation index, FST, of Bronze Age populations with present-day West Eurasians, finding that Mycenaeans were least differentiated from populations from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, and Italy (Fig. 2), part of a general pattern in which Bronze Age populations broadly resembled present-day inhabitants from the same region (Extended Data Fig. 7).

The modern Greek samples used in the study for comparison are not the best. Thessaloniki is in the north of the country, the Coriell database doesn't provide specific origins, and there are only two Cretans. I believe that if Mycenaeans were compared to their descendants in the Peloponnese, continuity would be nearly perfect instead of just very strong.


Lazaridis et al. "Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans". Nature, 2017.

Related: Ancient Roman DNA, Ancient-to-Modern Genetic Distances

Reconstruction of an Ancient Egyptian

July 21, 2017


A 3,500-year-old noble Egyptian called Nebiri has been brought back to life through modern forensics.

Scientists have reconstructed the face of the ancient mummy, and discovered he had a prominent nose, wide jaw, straight eyebrows and moderately thick lips.

[...]

Nebiri is thought to have been a member of the Egyptian elite who served as the Chief of the Stables, looking after royal horses, during the reign of Thutmoses III, a pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt.

His remains were discovered in the Valley of the Queens in Luxor in 1904, but as the tomb has been plundered, just his head and jars containing his organs remained.

Researchers from the University of Turin have now used a range of facial reconstruction techniques to produce an impressive facial approximation.

To reconstruct his face, the researchers used a mixture of computer modelling and anthropological research.

The team then used a computer programme to start to build up a picture of the Egyptian's face.

[...]

Speaking to Live Science, Raffaella Bianucci, who led the study, said: 'He was between 45 [and] 60 years old when he died.


Shivali Best. "The face of Nebiri revealed: Scientists reconstruct the head of the ancient Egyptian 'Chief of Stables', 3,500 years after he died of heart failure". MailOnline – Science & Tech, 11:01 BST, 20 June 2017.

Genetics of Peloponnesean Greeks

April 27, 2017

This new study refutes Nordicist and Afrocentrist claims of population replacement in Ancient Greece, showing that modern Peloponnesean Greeks are most closely related to other Southern Europeans, and far from both Slavic and non-European groups. They're also distinct from Greek-speaking populations in Asia Minor, only partly overlapping with those on the Aegean coast nearest to Greece.

Peloponnese has been one of the cradles of the Classical European civilization and an important contributor to the ancient European history. It has also been the subject of a controversy about the ancestry of its population. In a theory hotly debated by scholars for over 170 years, the German historian Jacob Philipp Fallmerayer proposed that the medieval Peloponneseans were totally extinguished by Slavic and Avar invaders and replaced by Slavic settlers during the 6th century CE. Here we use 2.5 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms to investigate the genetic structure of Peloponnesean populations in a sample of 241 individuals originating from all districts of the peninsula and to examine predictions of the theory of replacement of the medieval Peloponneseans by Slavs. We find considerable heterogeneity of Peloponnesean populations exemplified by genetically distinct subpopulations and by gene flow gradients within Peloponnese. By principal component analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE analysis the Peloponneseans are clearly distinguishable from the populations of the Slavic homeland and are very similar to Sicilians and Italians. Using a novel method of quantitative analysis of ADMIXTURE output we find that the Slavic ancestry of Peloponnesean subpopulations ranges from 0.2 to 14.4%. Subpopulations considered by Fallmerayer to be Slavic tribes or to have Near Eastern origin, have no significant ancestry of either. This study rejects the theory of extinction of medieval Peloponneseans and illustrates how genetics can clarify important aspects of the history of a human population.


Figure 2: Genetic similarity of Peloponneseans, Sicilians and Italians. PCA analysis of several European populations. (a) Notice the north to south distribution of the populations and that the Peloponneseans are placed to the far right of the graph and overlap with the Sicilians. (b) PCA analysis of Southern European populations illustrating the close relationship between Peloponneseans, Sicilians and Italians (TSI is an Italian population). (c) Network analysis illustrating the high connectivity between the Peloponnesean populations as well as between the Peloponneseans, the Sicilians and the Italians. Notice the distance between Peloponneseans and the Slavic, and Near Eastern populations. Peloponneseans are connected with the Near Eastern populations through Crete and Dodecanese.



Figure 3: Testing the theory of replacement of medieval Peloponneseans by Slavs and Asia Minor settlers. (a) PCA analysis shows the broad separation of Peloponneseans from four populations of the Slavic homeland (Ukrainians, Polish, Russians and Belarusians). (b) PCA comparisons of the Peloponneseans with three Greek-speaking Asia Minor populations shows only partial overlap with the population of the Asia Minor Aegean coast.



Supplementary Figure 2: Comparisons of Peloponneseans with non-European populations. PCA analysis of Peloponneseans and A. Near East. B. Caucasus. C. North Africa. D. East Africa. E. Arabia. F. West Siberia populations.


Stamatoyannopoulos et al. "Genetics of the peloponnesean populations and the theory of extinction of the medieval peloponnesean Greeks". Eur J Hum Genet, 2017.

Related: Genetic Continuity in Greece

First Ancient Egyptian Genomes

March 14, 2017

This is a talk that will be given at the 82nd annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, BC, Canada from March 29–April 2, 2017. New genome-wide data show that Ancient Egyptians had less Sub-Saharan African ancestry than Modern Egyptians and were closely related to Middle Easterners, which will surely upset Afrocentrists. More ancient genomes from earlier periods should follow soon.

[203] Ancient Egyptian Mummy Genomes Suggest an Increase of Sub-Saharan African Ancestry in Post-Roman Periods


Krause, Johannes (Max Planck Institute—SHH), Verena Schuenemann (Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen), Alexander Peltzer (Department for Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Inst), Wolfgang Haak (Department for Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Inst) and Stephan Schiffels (Department for Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Inst)

Egypt, located on the isthmus of Africa, is an ideal region to study historical population dynamics due to its geographic location and documented interactions with ancient civilizations in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Particularly, in the first millennium BCE Egypt endured foreign domination leading to growing numbers of foreigners living within its borders possibly contributing genetically to the local population. Here we mtDNA and nuclear DNA from mummified humans recovered from Middle Egypt that span around 1,300 years of ancient Egyptian history from the Third Intermediate to the Roman Period. Our analyses reveal that ancient Egyptians shared more Near Eastern ancestry than present-day Egyptians, who received additional Sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times. This analysis establishes ancient Egyptian mummies as a genetic source to study ancient human history and offers the perspective of deciphering Egypt’s past at a genome-wide level.

Hopefully a deeper transect, into the Old Kingdom, Early Dynastic, and Predynastic, is to follow. My prediction (I would be happy to be wrong) is that this DNA came from tooth or bone — I think mummified soft tissue has mostly been a source of disappointment. Differential relatedness of modern Copts and non-Copts to the ancient samples would be something to look out for.

If any of these talks is going to really upset some people, it’ll be this one.

LINK

---------------

UPDATE 06/01/17: The study that goes with this talk is out now, and the Ancient Egyptian samples cluster with ancient Neolithic Levantines, and modern Bedouin, Palestinian and Lebanese Arabs.

ABSTRACT: Egypt, located on the isthmus of Africa, is an ideal region to study historical population dynamics due to its geographic location and documented interactions with ancient civilizations in Africa, Asia and Europe. Particularly, in the first millennium BCE Egypt endured foreign domination leading to growing numbers of foreigners living within its borders possibly contributing genetically to the local population. Here we present 90 mitochondrial genomes as well as genome-wide data sets from three individuals obtained from Egyptian mummies. The samples recovered from Middle Egypt span around 1,300 years of ancient Egyptian history from the New Kingdom to the Roman Period. Our analyses reveal that ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times. This analysis establishes ancient Egyptian mummies as a genetic source to study ancient human history and offers the perspective of deciphering Egypt’s past at a genome-wide level.


Figure 4 | Principal component analysis and genetic clustering of genome-wide DNA from three ancient Egyptians. (a) Principal Component Analysis-based genome-wide SNP data of three ancient Egyptians, 2,367 modern individuals and 294 previously published ancient genomes, (b) subset of the full ADMIXTURE analysis (Supplementary Fig. 4).


Schuenemann et al. "Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods". Nature Communications, 2017.

Natufians NOT Sub-Saharan African

June 20, 2016

This new ancient DNA study refutes the Afrocentrist claim that Natufians were from Sub-Saharan Africa or had Negroid admixture.

Craniometric analyses have suggested that the Natufians may have migrated from north or sub-Saharan Africa, a result that finds some support from Y chromosome analysis which shows that the Natufians and successor Levantine Neolithic populations carried haplogroup E, of likely ultimate African origin, which has not been detected in other ancient males from West Eurasia (Supplementary Information, section 6). However, no affinity of Natufians to sub-Saharan Africans is evident in our genome-wide analysis, as present-day sub-Saharan Africans do not share more alleles with Natufians than with other ancient Eurasians (Extended Data Table 1).


Lazaridis et al. "The genetic structure of the world's first farmers". bioRxiv, 2016.

Related: Natufians NOT Source of European Neolithic

Semitic West Eurasian Ancestry in Africa

February 6, 2014

This new study confirms everything that Afrocentrists deny about Caucasoid admixture in East (and South) Africa.

Back-to-Africa Gene Flow in Eastern Africa


A major open question concerns the initial source of the west Eurasian ancestry in eastern Africa. The estimated mean time of gene flow in eastern Africa is around 3,000 y ago, and the amount of gene flow must have been quite extensive, because the west Eurasian ancestry proportions reach 40-50% in some Ethiopian populations (Table 1 and ref. 10). Archaeological records from this region are sparse, so Pagani et al. (10) speculate that this admixture is related to the Biblical account of the Kingdom of Sheba. However, archaeological evidence is not completely absent. During this time period, architecture in the Ethiopian culture of D'mt has an "unmistakable South Arabian appearance in many details" (19), although there is some debate as to whether these patterns can be attributed to large movements of people versus elite-driven cultural practices (19, 20). Additionally, linguistic evidence suggests that this time period was when Ethiosemitic languages were introduced to Africa, presumably from southern Arabia (21). It is perhaps not a coincidence that the highest levels of west Eurasian ancestry in eastern Africa are found in the Amhara and Tygray, who speak Ethiosemitic languages and live in what was previously the territory of D'mt and the later kingdom of Aksum.

West Eurasian Ancestry in Southern Africa


A second question is, which population or populations introduced west Eurasian ancestry into southern Africa? The best genetic proxy for this ancestry that we have found is the west Eurasian ancestry in eastern Africa (Fig. 1C), and although we do not identify modern east African populations as the best source population, this is likely due to the lack of genetic drift specific to eastern Africa (SI Appendix, section 1.2.3). The most parsimonious explanation for this observation is that west Eurasian ancestry entered southern Africa indirectly via eastern Africa (the alternative scenario of direct contact with an unsampled west Eurasian population cannot formally be excluded; however, there is no archaeological, historical, or linguistic evidence of such contact). The relevant eastern African population may no longer exist. However, such a migration has been suggested based on shared Y chromosome haplotypes (12, 22) and shared alleles/haplotypes associated with lactase persistence (2, 23) between the two regions. Furthermore, based on a synthesis of archaeological, genetic, climatological, and linguistic data Güldemann (13) hypothesized that the ancestor of the Khoe-Kwadi languages in southern Africa was brought to the region by immigrating pastoralists from eastern Africa. Our observation of elevated west Eurasian ancestry in Khoe-Kwadi groups in general (Table 1) is consistent with this hypothesis.

[...]

Conclusions


Based on these analyses, we can propose a model for the spread of west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa as follows. First, a large-scale movement of people from west Eurasia into Ethiopia around 3,000 y ago (perhaps from southern Arabia and associated with the D'mt kingdom and the arrival of Ethiosemitic languages) resulted in the dispersal of west Eurasian ancestry throughout eastern Africa. This was then followed by a migration of an admixed population (perhaps pastoralists related to speakers of Khoe-Kwadi languages) from eastern Africa to southern Africa, with admixture occurring ~1,500 y ago. Advances in genotyping DNA from archaeological samples may allow aspects of this model to be directly tested.


Pickrell et al. "Ancient west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa". PNAS, 2014.

Haplogroups L3 and E are Asian, not African

October 28, 2013

The latest evidence suggests that two major haplogroups long considered African actually arose in Asia and then back-migrated to Africa.

The presence of the L haplogroup common in Africa was unexpected given the clustering of the Saudis with Europeans in the phylogenetic tree and suggests some recent African admixture. To examine this further, we performed formal tests for a history of admixture and found no evidence of African admixture in the Saudi after the split. Taken together, these analyses suggest that the L3 haplogroup found in the Saudi were present before the bottleneck 50,000 YBP. Given the TMRCA estimates for the L3 haplogroup of approximately 70,000 YBP and the timing of the Out-of-Africa split, these analyses suggest that L3 haplogroup arose in the Middle East with a subsequent back migration and expansion into Africa over the Horn-of-Africa during the lower sea levels found during the glacial period bottleneck.

Farrell et al. "The Saudi Arabian Genome Reveals a Two Step Out-of-Africa Migration". Am Soc Hum Genet, 2013.

It remained mysterious that how many times the anatomically modern human migrated out of Africa, since that among the three superhaplogrous C, DE and F, Haplogroup F distributes in whole Eurasia, C in Asia and Austronesia, D exclusively in Asia, while D's brother clade E distribute mainly in Africa, so there are two hypotheses, 1) haplogroups D and CF migrated out of Africa separately; 2) the single common ancestor of CF and DE migrated out of Africa followed by a back-migration of E to Africa. From this study, the short interval between CF/DE and C/F divergences weakens the possibility of multiple independent migrations (CF, D, and DE*) out of Africa, and thus supports the latter hypothesis (Fig. S2 a).

Shi Yan et al. "Y Chromosomes of 40% Chinese Are Descendants of Three Neolithic Super-grandfathers". arXiv:1310.3897 [q-bio.PE], 2013.

Related: Eurasian Origin and Back-Migration of L3 and DE

Greek DNA Sub-Saharan Myth

April 27, 2011

A group of academics have put together a website containing a lengthy article that addresses and thoroughly refutes the infamous Arnaiz-Villena study claiming Greek relatedness to Sub-Saharan Africans, as well as similar studies published by him and others using the same faulty methodology. They're calling for all of the studies to be retracted.

Genetics Studies in the Greek Population vs Pseudoscience


Christos Karatzios, Stephen G. Miller, Costas D. Triantaphyllidis.
January 10, 2011

ABSTRACT:

Arnaiz-Villena et al. published five papers making the claim of a Sub-Saharan African origin for Greeks. Hajjej et al. essentially published copies of Arnaiz-Villena's studies using the same methods, and data sets. World leading geneticists have rejected Arnaiz-Villena's methodology (the primary defect is that they relied on too few genetic markers to reliably compare populations). Numerous studies using proper methodology and multiple genetic markers are presented, showing that Greeks cluster genetically with the rest of the Europeans, disproving Arnaiz-Villena's claims. History, as well as genetics, have been misused by Arnaiz-Villena's (and by extension Hajjej's) unprofessional statements and by their omissions and misquotations of scientific and historical citations. The abuse of scientific methods has earned Arnaiz-Villena's research a citation in a genetics textbook as an example of arbitrary interpretation and a deletion of one of his papers from the scientific literature. In order to protect science from misuse, the related papers of Arnaiz-Villena et al. and Hajjej et al. should also be retracted from the scientific literature.


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  I. INTRODUCTION

        The Arnaiz-Villena Studies

  II. GENETICS

        Studies that Claim the Opposite

        Arnaiz-Villena Contradicts his Conclusions

        The Studies that Copied Arnaiz-Villena

        Arnaiz-Villena's Faulty Methodology

                i. Single Locus Gene Studies are Inappropriate for Population Genetics

                ii. The Congolese Cluster with the Basques and Icelanders?

        Arnaiz-Villena's Confusing Charts

        Criticism and Rejection by the Scientific Community

                i. The Textbook that Calls it "Arbitrary Interpretation"

                ii. The three Geneticists that Call it "Unreliable and Unacceptable"

                iii. The Retraction

        The Article that Calls it "Scientific Hubris"

        Proper Methodology

        Faulty Methodology, Faulty Studies

        The Curious Omissions

                i. The Japanese appear to cluster with Sub-Saharans

                ii. The Japanese appear to cluster with Africans and Italians

                iii. African genes are present in numerous non-African populations

                iv. Misquoted Data

        Dƶrk does not support Arnaiz-Villena

        Greeks Cluster Genetically with other Europeans

        The African Origins of all Humans

        Arnaiz-Villena's Answer to his Critics

        Proposed Retractions

  III. HISTORY

        Arnaiz-Villena's Misquotations of Ancient Sources

        Citations of Modern Sources in Support of Inaccuracies

        Inaccurate Statements Without Ancient Documentation

        Contradictory Statements on History

  IV. CONCLUSIONS

  References

Cro-Magnons Were Caucasoid, not Negroid

February 26, 2011

There's a fantasy among Afrocentrists that the first Europeans (Cro-Magnons and other Upper Paleolithic peoples) were totally unlike modern Europeans and instead had affinities with Sub-Saharan Africans. They cite Stringer and McKie (1998) who say that some Cro-Magnons "were more like present-day Australians or Africans", and Brace et al. (2005) who argue against continuity between Upper Paleolithic and later Europeans.

Prehistoric people were still evolving from a more generalized, archaic human morphology, so there's no reason to expect that they be exactly the same as their modern descendants. It's clear enough from the passage following the above quote that Stringer and McKie are not implying Negroid affinities:

It is a confused picture and suggests that racial differences were still developing relatively recently, and should be viewed as a very new part of the human condition. It is an important point, for it shows that humanity's modern African origin does not imply derivation from people like current Africans, because these populations must have also changed through the impact of evolution over the past 100,000 years.

And despite what Brace et al. conclude, their data still groups Cro-Magnon and Upper Paleolithic Europeans (blue) much closer to later and modern Western Eurasians than to Sub-Saharan Africans (red), while they acknowledge that prehistoric populations are distinguished by being "noticeably more robust than more recent human groups":


This robustness that links all prehistoric humans is likely what accounts for most misclassifications and the opinion that there lacks continuity with modern populations. But another factor is the condition of the skulls being analyzed. Jantz and Owsley (2003) found that poorly preserved, highly incomplete Upper Paleolithic crania are often misclassified as African, while those that have a large number of measurements show the expected European affinities:

Some of the discordance Van Vark et al. see between genetic and morphometric results may be attributable to their methodological choices. It is clear that the affiliation expressed by a given skull is not independent of the number of measurements taken from it. From their Table 3, it is evident that those skulls expressing Norse affinity are the most complete and have the highest number of measurements ( = 50.8), while those expressing affinity to African populations (Bushman or Zulu) are the most incomplete, averaging just 16.8 measurements per skull. Use of highly incomplete or reconstructed crania may not yield a good estimate of their morphometric affinities. When one considers only those crania with 40 or more measurements, a majority express European affinity.

To examine this idea further, we use the eight Upper Paleolithic crania available from the test series of Howells (1995), all of which are complete. Our analysis of these eight, based on 55 measurements, is presented in Table 1. Using raw measurements, 6 of 8 express an affinity to Norse, and with the shape variables of Darroch and Mosimann (1985), 5 of 8 express a similarity to Norse. Using shape variables reduces the Mahalanobis distance, substantially in some cases. Typicality probabilities, particularly for the shape variables, show the crania to be fairly typical of recent populations. The results presented in Table 1 are consistent with the idea that Upper Paleolithic crania are, for the most part, larger and more generalized versions of recent Europeans. Howells (1995) reached a similar conclusion with respect to European Mesolithic crania.

That seems to be the general consensus, and Howells (1997) just comes right out and says it without mincing any words:

If Upper Paleolithic people were "European" from about 35,000 B.P., then such population distinctions are at least that old. And the Cro-Magnons were already racially European, i.e., Caucasoid. This has always been accepted because of the general appearance of the skulls: straight faces, narrow noses, and so forth. It is also possible to test this arithmetically. [...] Except for Predmosti 4, which is distant from every present and past population, all of these skulls show themselves to be closer to "Europeans" than to other peoples — Mladec and Abri Pataud comfortably so, the other two much more remotely.

Carthaginian Reconstruction

October 30, 2010

Science and art bring young Carthaginian 'back to life'


By Kaouther Larbi
Agence France Presse
Oct. 28, 2010

CARTHAGE, Tunisia (AFP) — Clad in a white linen tunic, sandals in the ancient Carthaginian style and a pendant and beads like those found with his remains, 2,500-year-old "Ariche" has virtually come back to life on the sacred hill of Byrsa where he was born.

The outcome of scientific cooperation between France and Tunisia, the young man has been remodelled and returned to his native soil in historical Carthage, a city state that lasted from 814 B.C. to 146 B.C. He will be given a place of honour in the museum of modern-day Carthage, north of Tunis.

"The distance that separates the centuries has been erased, the bones are given flesh and the eyes light up anew in a young man who lived right here six centuries before our own era," French ambassador Pierre Menat said at the opening of the exhibition last week.

The modern history of the youth of Byrsa began in 1994 with the fortuitous discovery of a sepulchre on the southern flank of the hill, which is one of the most famous sites of antique Carthage. A joint Franco-Tunisian team moved in to excavate.

"Gone too soon, taken prematurely from life and the love of those close to him (...) he was doubtless of noble birth and his body was buried in this generous African soil," said Leila Sebai, president of the International Council of Museums and commissioner of the exhibition.

An anthropological study of the skeleton showed that the man died between the age of 19 and 24, had a pretty robust physique and was 1.7 metres (five feet six inches) tall, according to a description by Jean Paul Morel, director of the French archaeological team at Carthage Byrsa.

The man from Byrsa has been rebaptised Ariche — meaning the desired man — at the initiative of Culture Minister Abderraouf Basti, who inaugurated the exhibition.

Ariche has regained an almost living human appearance very close in physiognomy to a Carthaginian of the 6th century B.C. after a dermoplastic reconstruction undertaken in Paris by Elisabeth Daynes, a sculptor specialising in hyper-realistic reconstructions.

"He comes back to us thanks to scientific rigour, notably that of paleo-anthropology and forensic medicine, but also the magic of art, that of Elisabeth Daynes, who knows how to bring many faces back from the distant past," Sebai said.

Dermoplastic reconstruction is based on a scientific technique that enables experts to restore the features of an individual with 95 percent accuracy, though some aspects, such as the colour of the eyes and the hair remain partially subjective, she added.

"We can clearly see that this exceptional witness to Carthage in the Punic era is a Mediterranean man, he has all the characteristics," noted Sihem Roudesli, a paleo-anthropologist at the Tunisian National Heritage Institute.

"I hope that like his contemporaries, legendary sailors and bringers of civilisation, this young man can travel across the seas to bear witness on other continents to the greatness of Carthage," Menat said.

Repatriated on September 24, Ariche will be on show at Byrsa until the end of March 2011 when he will travel to Lebanon, the land of the Phoenicians who founded Carthage, for an exhibition at the American University of Beirut.

Link

Oldest Negroid Skull?

September 30, 2010

I had previously posted that the 6500-year-old Asselar skeleton discovered in Mali was the earliest example of a Negroid African. But it turns out there's a slightly older skull with Negroid features from farther south in West Africa (Iwo Eleru, Nigeria) that seems to be a much better candidate.

Mauny, 1978:

The oldest-known skeleton of a West African was found in Nigeria at Iwo Eleru; it is of a negroid man and is dated to 9250 ± 150 BC.

Allsworth-Jones, 2002:

A human burial described as "proto-Negroid" was found at the base of the succession at Iwo Eleru with a date of 11200 ± 200 BP.

Phillipson, 2005:

A single human skeleton some 12,000 years old from the lowest level of Iwo Eleru has been described as already showing specifically negroid features....

Note that there have been other candidates for the oldest Negroid skull, but in East rather than West Africa, such as Nazlet Khater (33,000 B.P., Upper Egypt) and Jebel Sahaba or Wadi Halfa (Mesolithic Nubia). However, these are very contentious and in all likelihood not Negroid, given that East Africans were still non-Negroid until much more recently.

Study Clarification V

February 7, 2010

This study claims Sub-Saharan African affinities in a Byzantine population from southwest Turkey, excavated at the archeological site of Sagalassos, and ridiculously extrapolates from that similar affinities in Mesolithic and Neolithic populations throughout North Africa, West Asia and Europe. The problem is, none of it is supported either by the present data or the other sources cited.

[NB: The study is much more noteworthy for demonstrating once again the Caucasoid affinities of Ancient Egyptians and Nubians, which the Afrocentrists who quote it selectively always fail to notice.]

Study:

Cranial Discrete Traits in a Byzantine Population and Eastern
Mediterranean Population Movements


Ricaut and Waelkens (2008)
Human Biology

Link to Abstract

Misused Quotes:

Finally, as noted previously, intriguing affinity patterns of the Sagalassos population have been detected without obvious explanations: on the one hand, with two populations from northern and central Europe (Scandinavia and Germany); and on the other hand, with two sub-Saharan populations (Somalia and Gabon).

[...]

From the Mesolithic to the early Neolithic period different lines of evidence support an out-of-Africa Mesolithic migration to the Levant by northeastern African groups that had biological affinities with sub-Saharan populations.

Clarification:

Affinities with Somalis are easy enough to explain, owing to that population's Caucasoid ancestry. Affinities with Gabon not so much. But it turns out that these are tenuous at best and not manifested in all of the data:

Finally, a detailed review of the different statistical tests (MMDst; MDS and Ward clustering) shows that the unexpected biological proximity of some northern and central European and sub-Saharan populations to the Sagalassos population is not supported to the same significance. Indeed, as seen by the MMDst values displayed in Table 3, Scandinavians and Germans (MMDst of 0.72 and 1.02, respectively) present stronger affinity to Sagalassos than populations from Somalia and Gabon, which have nearly significant MMDst values (1.68 and 1.93, respectively). In addition, only the biological affinity between the Sagalassos and Scandinavian populations suggested by the MMDst values is preserved when all the comparative populations are considered (see Figures 2 and 3).

Indeed, Figures 2 and 3 demonstrate that the true affinities of the Sagalassos population (and also the Ancient Egyptians and Nubians) are with Western Eurasians/Caucasoids:

The MDS representation of the global data set of 28 populations (Figure 2) shows roughly three main population clusters: (1) Central, Northeast, and East Eurasian populations, which are found in the top left; (2) West Eurasian and ancient Egyptian and Sudanese populations in the lower part; and (3) recent sub-Saharan populations in the top right. The Sagalassos population clusters with the second group and is most closely related to Greek, Cypriot/Turkish, and Scandinavian populations.


The dendrogram produced by Ward's clustering procedure for the global data set is shown in Figure 3 and provides a relatively similar representation of the MMDst distance matrix than that provide by the MDS analysis. The populations clearly fall into two groups. The first main group can be broken down into two subgroups: (1) all the recent sub-Saharan populations and (2) mainly Central, East, and Northeast Eurasians. West Eurasians form the second main group, which is also subdivided into two subgroups. One of these subgroups includes all the eastern Mediterranean populations (three ancient Egyptian/Sudanese populations from Naqada, Gizeh, and Kerma as well as the Cypriot/Turkish, Greek, and Sagalassian populations) and the Scandinavian sample; the second subgroup includes the other West Eurasian populations.


Yet even with this admitted lack of support for their main claim, the authors go on to speculate at length about how these non-existent "Sub-Saharan morphological elements" could have entered the Sagalassos population, which leads them to cite all sorts of dubious conclusions about Nazlet Khater Man, Mesolithic Nubians, Natufians and Neolithic Farmers, all tied together with the genetic "evidence" of adaptive sickle cell and North African haplogroup E-M78.

Another perfectly good study marred by poor analysis that unfortunately plays right into the hands of people with an Afrocentric racial agenda.

Affinities and Role of Nazlet Khater Man

January 31, 2010

Afrocentrists have a particular interest in considering Nazlet Khater man, an Early Upper Paleolithic skeleton from Northeast Africa, racially Negroid and believing it to represent the ancestors of Egyptians and several Out-of-Africa migrants. But as with Mesolithic Nubians, this seems highly unlikely. Though Thoma (1984) describes Nazlet Khater as "suggestive of Negroid morphology", and Pinhasi and Semal (2000) find that it clusters with Middle Stone Age Sub-Saharan Africans, anthropologists have often misclassified as Negroid various archaic traits, especially in the mandible (see above link on Mesolithic Nubia). And Nazlet Khater certainly fits this familiar pattern, according to Vermeersch et al. (1984):

The Nazlet Khater 4 site (Nile Valley, Upper Egypt) is located on one of the small wadi-interfluves in the lower desert near the steep cliffs bordering the western Nile Valley edge.... The 1982 excavation reported here confirms that Nazlet Khater 4 is a chert mining site with a complex extraction strategy, going back 33,000 yr. A nearby grave contained a skeleton of a man in the extended position. We show that the cranial morphology is anatomically modern with archaic characteristics such as a very robust mandible. There is evidence that the skeleton has a similar age to that of the mining site.

It's so archaic, in fact, that Trinkaus (2007) expresses doubts about whether or not it's fully modern and representative of Out-of-Africa humans:

The only other directly relevant specimen is Nazlet Khater 2, from ≈42 ka B.P. in Egypt. Approximately contemporaneous with the earliest EEMHs [European early modern humans], it may represent the morphology of modern humans dispersing out of Africa after ≈50 ka B.P. However, in some features it is more archaic than the MPMHs [Middle Paleolithic modern humans], which raises questions as to the degree to which its ancestry was purely from the MPMHs and therefore whether it represents the ancestral modern human morphology.

[...]

The role of the Nazlet Khater 2 skeleton is also debatable; it has two plesiomorphic mandible features absent in the MPMHs, suggesting that its post-MPMH ancestors may have experienced admixture with regional late archaic humans.

Even the Afrocentrists' own sources comment on its robust and archaic morphology. From Pinhasi and Semal, who reference Thoma:

Thoma's analysis of the postcranial features further suggests that the specimen is altogether modern and extremely robust. Thoma therefore classified the Nazlet Khater specimen as an anatomically modern Homo sapiens with some archaic morphological features.

They also suggest that the clustering pattern is based on robusticity and not racial affinity, as Nazlet Khater also has affinities with robust prehistoric North Africans but not with modern Sub-Saharan Africans:

The post-Neolithic Northwest African populations have small mandibles and are generally gracile in their morphology, while the Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic Northwest African specimens are robust. The PC1 score of Nazlet Khater is rather high (PC1=2•18) but well within the range of some sub-Saharan and Epipalaeolithic North African specimens.

[...]

The position of mean measurements of the protohistoric and modern South African populations indicate that, in its mandibular dimensions, the Nazlet Khater is not closely related to modern Negro and Khoisan populations.

[...]

Lahr (1996) observed that morphological variability among sub-Saharan African populations was at its peak during the Late Pleistocene–early Holocene period. However, this is partially due to the fact that during this period many of the sub-Saharan and North African populations display levels of robusticity which are largely lost in present African populations.

And finally, based on its potential Sub-Saharan affinities, they (logically) propose a migration of the population it belonged to in the direction opposite that hoped for by Afrocentrists:

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 Nazlet Khater at least until the late part of the Late Pleistocene.

So even if we accept that Nazlet Khater is ancestral to morphologically Negroid populations, these are not to be found in Egypt or Nubia, let alone anywhere outside of Africa. They're restricted to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Natufians NOT Source of European Neolithic

January 26, 2010

There's a theory that the migrations that spread agriculture from West Asia to Europe during the Neolithic period had their source in the Natufians, a Mesolithic Levantine population. Afrocentrists have latched on to this theory (and often cite it as fact) because some anthropologists believe that Natufians traced their origins to Africa and had Negroid affinities. That's a separate issue that's more or less rendered moot by the craniometric evidence against the above theory.

Pinhasi and Pluciennik (2004) analyzed the crania of Mesolithic and Neolithic populations and found no biological relationship between the Natufians and the later West Asian groups who spread farming to Europe:

Analysis of morphological variability in the Near East and Europe suggests that the Epipalaeolithic populations from the Natufian Levant were noticeably different to the Mesolithic populations described from the Danube Gorge, the western Mediterranean, and central Europe. No close similarities were observed between Early Neolithic and Mesolithic European groups in any of the regions studied, with the possible exception of Mediterranean Europe. However, neither were clear affinities observed between Epipalaeolithic Near Eastern groups [Natufians] and any other Neolithic or Mesolithic groups. These results support a third scenario — that the Epipalaeolithic population from which the first Anatolian farmers descended has yet to be discovered.... There is therefore no unequivocal evidence from biological morphometrics for local continuity between Natufian specimens and any of those from the Anatolian or Levantine PPN [Pre-Pottery Neolithic] cultures. Statistical analysis of the Levantine populations indicates no obvious biological continuity between Natufian groups and their successors — either the first Neolithic cultures of the PPNA or subsequently between the PPNA and the PPNB.

Pinhasi and von Cramon-Taubadel (2009) confirm the previous findings, and as a result don't involve the Natufians at all in any of the possible dispersal models of migration from West Asia to Europe:

Figure 1. Map showing geographic distribution of all OTUs. Dispersal models involving the active migration of people from SW Asia take two basic forms. Once-off single dispersals from either Anatolia (brown arrow) or the Levant (orange arrows), or continuous dispersal models whereby active population migration continued from southeastern Europe into central Europe (blue arrows). CD = Continuous dispersal, IBD = Isolation-by-distance (null), LGF = Limited gene flow.
Figure 3 plots the first two principal co-ordinates of the craniometric distance matrix. The OTUs [operational taxonomic units] do not group according to any particular geographic or temporal pattern on the first or second principal co-ordinates. However, the first principal co-ordinate separates the archaeologically defined Neolithic OTUs from OTUs designated as Mesolithic plus the Natufian. Therefore, the principal co-ordinate analysis suggests that Neolithic and Mesolithic populations are biologically differentiated.

Figure 3. Plot of the first two principal co-ordinates illustrating OTU affinity patterns based on craniometric data. The major axis of variation (horizontal axis, 34.9% variance) shows a clear distinction between all archaeologically defined Neolithic OTUs (green, brown and black circle symbols) and all Mesolithic OTUs (purple and red symbols) plus the Natufian (black triangle). Second axis = 18.7% variance.
Related: Natufians NOT Sub-Saharan African

Mesolithic Nubians Probably Weren't Negroid

January 14, 2010

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.

Black History Professor Rejects Afrocentrism

December 20, 2009

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