The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians
Professor S.O.Y. Keita
Department of Biological Anthropology
Oxford University

Professor A. J. Boyce
University Reader in Human Population
Oxford University

What was the primary geographical source for the peopling of the Egyptian Nile Valley? Were the creators of the fundamental culture of southern predynastic Egypt—which led to the dynastic culture—migrants and colonists from Europe or the Near East? Or were they predominantly African variant populations?

These questions can be addressed using data from studies of biology and culture, and evolutionary interpretive models. Archaeological and linguistic data indicate an origin in Africa. Biological data from living Egyptians and from skeletons of ancient Egyptians may also shed light on these questions. It is important to keep in mind the long presence of humans in Africa, and that there should be a great range of biological variation in indigenous "authentic" Africans.

Scientists have been studying remains from the Egyptian Nile Valley for years. Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Ku****es, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.

Another source of skeletal data is limb proportions, which generally vary with different climatic belts. In general, the early Nile Valley remains have the proportions of more tropical populations, which is noteworthy since Egypt is not in the tropics. This suggests that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.

Art objects are not generally used by biological anthropologists. They are suspect as data and their interpretation highly dependent on stereotyped thinking. However, because art has often been used to comment on the physiognomies of ancient Egyptians, a few remarks are in order. A review of literature and the sculpture indicates characteristics that also can be found in the Horn of (East) Africa (see, e.g., Petrie 1939; Drake 1987; Keita 1993). Old and Middle Kingdom statuary shows a range of characteristics; many, if not most, individuals depicted in the art have variations on the narrow-nosed, narrow-faced morphology also seen in various East Africans. This East African anatomy, once seen as being the result of a mixture of different "races," is better understood as being part of the range of indigenous African variation.

The descriptions and terms of ancient Greek writers have sometimes been used to comment on Egyptian origins. This is problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology. However, we can examine one issue. The Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians." Were the Egyptians more related to any of these "Ethiopians" than to the Greeks? As noted, cranial and limb studies have indicated greater similarity to Somalis, Ku****es and Nubians, all "Ethiopians" in ancient Greek terms.

There are few studies of ancient DNA from Egyptian remains and none so far of southern predynastic skeletons. A study of 12th Dynasty DNA shows that the remains evaluated had multiple lines of descent, including not surprisingly some from "sub-Saharan" Africa (Paabo and Di Rienzo 1993). The other lineages were not identified, but may be African in origin. More work is needed. In the future, early remains from the Nile Valley and the rest of Africa will have to be studied in this manner in order to establish the early baseline range of genetic variation of all Africa. The data are important to avoid stereotyped ideas about the DNA of African peoples.

The information from the living Egyptian population may not be as useful because historical records indicate substantial immigration into Egypt over the last several millennia, and it seems to have been far greater from the Near East and Europe than from areas far south of Egypt. "Substantial immigration" can actually mean a relatively small number of people in terms of population genetics theory. It has been determined that an average migration rate of one percent per generation into a region could result in a great change of the original gene frequencies in only several thousand years. (This assumes that all migrants marry natives and that all native-migrant offspring remain in the region.) It is obvious then that an ethnic group or nationality can change in average gene frequencies or physiognomy by intermarriage, unless social rules exclude the products of "mixed" unions from membership in the receiving group. More abstractly this means that geographically defined populations can undergo significant genetic change with a small percentage of steady assimilation of "foreign" genes. This is true even if natural selection does not favor the genes (and does not eliminate them).

Examples of regions that have biologically absorbed genetically different immigrants are Sicily, Portugal, and Greece, where the frequencies of various genetic markers (and historical records) indicate sub-Saharan and supra-Saharan African migrants.

This scenario is different from one in which a different population replaces another via colonization. Native Egyptians were variable. Foreigners added to this variability.

The genetic data on the recent Egyptian population is fairly sparse. There has not been systematic research on large samples from the numerous regions of Egypt. Taken collectively, the results of various analyses suggest that modern Egyptians have ties with various African regions, as well as with Near Easterners and Europeans. Egyptian gene frequencies are between those of Europeans and some sub-Saharan Africans. This is not surprising. The studies have used various kinds of data: standard blood groups and proteins, mitochondrial DNA, and the Y chromosome. The gene frequencies and variants of the "original" population, or of one of early high density, cannot be deduced without a theoretical model based on archaeological and "historical" data, including the aforementioned DNA from ancient skeletons. (It must be noted that it is not yet clear how useful ancient DNA will be in most historical genetic research.) It is not clear to what degree certain genetic systems usually interpreted as non-African may in fact be native to Africa. Much depends on how "African" is defined and the model of interpretation.

The various genetic studies usually suffer from what is called categorical thinking, specifically, racial thinking. Many investigators still think of "African" in a stereotyped, nonscientific (nonevolutionary) fashion, not acknowledging a range of genetic variants or traits as equally African. The definition of "African" that would be most appropriate should encompass variants that arose in Africa. Given that this is not the orientation of many scholars, who work from outmoded racial perspectives, the presence of "stereotypical" African genes so far from the "African heartland" is noteworthy. These genes have always been in the valley in any reasonable interpretation of the data. As a team of Egyptian geneticists stated recently, "During this long history and besides these Asiatic influences, Egypt maintained its African identity . . ." (Mahmoud et al. 1987). This statement is even more true in a wider evolutionary interpretation, since some of the "Asian" genes may be African in origin. Modern data and improved theoretical approaches extend and validate this conclusion.

In summary, various kinds of data and the evolutionary approach indicate that the Nile Valley populations had greater ties with other African populations in the early ancient period. Early Nile Valley populations were primarily coextensive with indigenous African populations. Linguistic and archaeological data provide key supporting evidence for a primarily African origin.


References Cited:

Angel, J. L., and J. O. Kelley, Description and comparison of the skeleton. In The Wadi Kubbaniya Skeleton: A Late Paleolithic
Burial from Southern Egypt. E Wendorf and R. Schild. pp. 53-70. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. 1986

Brauer, G., and K. Rimbach, Late archaic and modern Homo sapiens from Europe, Africa, and Southwest Asia: Craniometric comparisons and phylogenetic implications, Journal of Human Evolution 19:789-807. 1990

Drake, St. C., Black Folk Here and There, vol 1. Los Angeles: University of California. 1987

Keita, S.O.Y., Studies and comments on ancient Egyptian biological relationships. History in Africa 20:129-154. 1993

Mahmoud, L. et. al, Human blood groups in Dakhlaya. Egypt. Annah of Human Biology. 14(6):487-493. 1987

Paabo, S., and A. Di Rienzo, A molecular approach to the study of Egyptian history. In Biological Anthropology and the Study
of Ancient Egypt. V. Davies and R. Walker, eds. pp. 86-90. London: British Museum Press. 1993

Petrie, W.M., F. The Making of Egypt. London: Sheldon Press. 1984

Thoma, A., Morphology and affinities of the Nazlet Khaterman. Journal of Human Evolution 13:287-296. 1984


Some genetic studies suggest that modern Egyptians don't have very close relations to most tropical Africans. [1] Populations from throughout the world were compared using extensive genetic data. The North African populations grouped with West Eurasian (European, Middle East) populations rather than sub-Saharan Africans.[2] However, extensive studies have also been carried out to determine the origins of the Egyptians.

A 2004 study of the mtDNA of 58 native inhabitants from upper Egypt performed to indicate origins found a genetic ancestral heritage to East Africa, and another study links Egyptians in general with people from modern Eritrea and Ethiopia.[3]

The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population.[4]

A 2007 study suggests overall population continuity over the predynastic and early dynastic periods with high levels of heterogeneity but concludes that Egyptian civilization was predominantly indigenous in development, with some, but limited migration from elsewhere.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=14748828

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [
http://wysinger.homestead.com/zakrzewski_2007.pdf

A 2003 Y chromosome study was performed by Lucotte on modern Egyptians, with haplotypes V, XI, and IV being most common.[15] Haplotype V is common in Berbers and has a low frequency outside Africa. [16] Haplotypes V, XI, and IV are all supra/sub-Saharan horn of Africa haplotypes, and they are far more dominant in Egyptians than in Near Eastern or European groups.

A review of the recent literature indicates that there are male lineage ties between African peoples who have been traditionally labeled as being ‘‘racially’’ different, with ‘‘racially’’ implying an ontologically deep divide. The PN2 transition, a Y chromosome marker, defines a lineage (within the YAPþ derived haplogroup E or III) that emerged in Africa probably before the last glacial maximum, but after the migration of modern humans from Africa (see Semino et al., 2004) This mutation forms a clade that has two daughter subclades (defined by the biallelic markers M35/215 (or 215/M35) and M2) that unites numerous phenotypically variant African populations from the supra-Saharan, Saharan, and sub-Saharan regions based on current data (Underhill, 2001).[17][18]
A 2006 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows that a continuity extends from the dynastic to the post-dyanstic periods, and that the Egyptians exhibit dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans, and Southwest Asians to a lesser extent. A sample from the western desert from Nubia was also compared with the Egyptian samples and were found to be significantly different, with the exception of predynastic and early dyanstic samples.[19]

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/ha...s_in_egypt.pdf

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/keita6.pdf

http://mbe.library.arizona.edu/data/1994/1105/4hamm.pdf

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/No...n_analysis.pdf

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/who_were_egyptian.pdf

There were several theories regarding the effects and types of demographic influence on ancient Egypt. All of these theories aimed to explain why ancient Egyptians cluster the way they do in regards to genetics, cranial affinities, and languages/culture. One theory is that the ancient Egyptians belong to a primarily African group, with relatively little significant outside influences from the Near East. Other theories postulated that the ancient Egyptians received significant demographic influence from the Near East, and with minor demographic effects from regions further south.[20][21](SeeDynastic Race Theory)

Recent demographic analysis and work done by various anthropologists has led many scholars to conclude that there was in fact overall population continuity stretching from the Neolithic, right into dynastic times with small amounts of possible miscegenation with foreigners, placing Egyptian society with in a localized NorthEast African and Nile Valley context..[22][23][24][25] As University of Chicago Egyptologist Frank Yurco points out:

Certainly there was some foreign admixture [in Egypt], but basically a homogeneous African population had lived in the Nile Valley from ancient to modern times... [the] Badarian people, who developed the earliest Predynastic Egyptian culture, already exhibited the mix of North African and Sub-Saharan physical traits that have typified Egyptians ever since (Hassan 1985; Yurco 1989; Trigger 1978; Keita 1990; Brace et al., this volume)... The peoples of Egypt, the Sudan, and much of East Africa, Ethiopia and Somalia are now generally regarded as a Nilotic (i.e. Nile River) continuity, with widely ranging physical features (complexions light to dark, various hair and craniofacial types) but with powerful common cultural traits, including cattle pastoralist traditions (Trigger 1978; Bard, Snowden, this volume). Language research suggests that this Saharan-Nilotic population became speakers of the Afro-Asiatic languages... Semitic was evidently spoken by Saharans who crossed the Red Sea into Arabia and became ancestors of the Semitic speakers there, possibly around 7000 BC... In summary we may say that Egypt was a distinct North African culture rooted in the Nile Valley and on the Sahara.
Biological anthropologist Shomarka Keita also believes population variation in Egypt to be primarily indigenous, and not necessarily the result of significant intermingling of widely divergent peoples.[26] He identifies northern and southern patterns in the Egyptian population of the early predynastic period, which he describes as "northern-Egyptian-Maghreb" and "tropical African variant" (overlapping with Nubia/Kush) respectively. He shows that a progressive change in Upper Egypt toward the northern Egyptian pattern takes place through the predynastic period. While the southern pattern continues to predominate in Abydos in Upper Egypt by the First Dynasty, Keita indicated that "coastal northern African" modal patterns are observed also, thus making for great diversity. This northern modal pattern is noted by Keita as being intermediate between equatorial African and northern European phenotypes.

Bosch et. al, 1997
Newman 1995
Frank Yurco, "An Egyptological Review" in Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy MacLean Rogers, eds. Black Athena Revisited. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. p. 62-100
Zakrzewski, et al. 2007.
Irish, et al. 2006.
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/keita6.pdf
Keita SOY and Rick A. Kittles. The Persistence of Racial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 534-544
S.O.Y. Keita, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 87: 245-254 (1992)

A craniofacial study by C. Loring Brace et. al. concluded that "The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related to each other than to any other population. As a whole, they show ties with the European Neolithic, North Africa, modern Europe, and, more remotely, India, but not at all with sub-Saharan Africa [except for Somalia], eastern Asia, Oceania, or the New World."[28]

Keita and Kittles (1997) criticize the study due its alleged contradictions, and selective approach in pigeon holding biohistorical Africans within a fixed architype, in effect, "deafricanizing" groups such as Egyptians, Nubians, and Somali people. They write:

Another example of the use of a socially constructed typological paradigm is in studies of the Nile Valley populations in which the concept of a biological African is restricted to those with a particular craniometric pattern (called in the past the 'True Negro' though no 'True White' was ever defined). Early Nubians, Egyptians, and even Somalians are viewed essentially as non-Africans, when in fact numerous lines of evidence and an evolutionary model make them a part of African biocultural/biogeographical history. The diversity of 'authentic' Africans is a reality. This diversity prevents biogeographical/biohistorical Africans from clustering into a single unit, no matter the kind of data. [29]
A 2005 study by Keita of Badarian crania in predynastic upper Egypt in comparison to various European and tropical African crania found that the predynastic Badarian series clusters much closer with the Tropical African series.[30]

Another study by Brace et al. published in 2006 found that samples from Naqada II Bronze age Egypt clustered primarily with modern Somalis, Nubians, Arabic-speaking Fellaheen farmers of Israel, and more remotely with some Niger-Congo speaker, while adding that a "Sub-Saharan African element" was not found in the historical North African or Egyptian samples:

The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample - both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians - and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa. The other obvious matter shown in Fig. 3 is the separate identity of the northern Europeans.[31]

Brace et al., 'Clines and clusters versus "race"' (1993)
S.O.Y. Keita and Rick A. Kittles,' The Persistence of Racial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence', American Anthropologist (1997)
S.O.Y. Keita, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005) Brace et al, 2006 [2], p. 244

Body Plans
Another reliable source of skeletal data is limb proportions, which tends to vary with different climatic belts. The early Nile Valley populations possessed more tropical body proportions, suggesting that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.[32] A 2003 paper appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Dr Sonia Zakrzewski entitled 'Variation in Ancient Egyptian Stature and Body Proportions', where she confirmed the results of previous studies, indicating that the Ancient Egyptians had tropically adapted body plans.

The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the ‘super-Negroid’ body plan described by Robins (1983). The values for the brachial and crural indices show that the distal segments of each limb are longer relative to the proximal segments than in many ‘African’ populations.

S.O.Y. Keita & A. J. Boyce. Egypt in Africa, (1996), pp. 25-27
http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/eg...roportions.pdf

Saharan-Sudanic inheritance of Nile Valley settlers. Data on the peopling of the Nile Valley do not appear to support earlier historical notions of an initial wave of Caucasoid invaders entering from the North in order to introduce civilization. Mainstream data shows gradual movement and peopling from the south- the Saharan zone and associated parts of the Sudanic region, fusing with indigenous Nilotic elements already in place, leading into the development of the well-known Egyptian kingdoms, not sweeping insertions from the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia or elsewhere.(AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 83:35-48 (1990)[96] See Wiki article Predynastic Egypt for the now discounted Dynastic Race Theory. As to the Saharan movement even Afrocentric critics such as Mary Lefkowitz note:

"Recent work on skeletons and DNA suggests that the people who settled in the Nile valley, like all of humankind, came from somewhere south of the Sahara; they were not (as some nineteenth-century scholars had supposed) invaders from the North. See Bruce G. Trigger, "The Rise of Civilization in Egypt," Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982), vol I, pp 489-90; S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54."[97]

Elements from both the Sahara and associated Sudanic regions appear to have been involved in the peopling Egypt according to a number of mainstream references. The Khartoum Culture and other zones of the Sudan for example show significant influence as indicated by pottery, jewelry, tools and implements, raw materials such as certain types of stone, and artistic designs.[98]

S.O.Y. KEITA, "Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa", AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 83:35-48 (1990)
^ Lefkowitz, Mary "Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History," Basic Books, 1997]

Shomarka Omar Keita and Zahi Hawass discuss colorism and race or genetics of AE (In 2 parts)

Keita states that there is no Scientific evidence in existence which sugguest that the Ancient Egyptians were anything other than Indigenous Northeast Africans.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/vi...eID=1414281487

1 minor point - sevearl times they talk about Egypt not being in the tropics - but from the point of view of climate (which I would think is what counts in this case) it is tropical.

I would say that most deserts (Antarctica is tehnicaly a desert) have a climate that is tropical even if they are outside the capricorn/cancer band.

Antarctica is technically considered a desert because it gets less that 10" of rainfall a year. I have never heard of it being referred to as a topical zone.

Some references in relation to the topic:
www.geocities.com/nilevalleypeoples/quotes.htm

Recent study finds the ancient Egyptians had a tropical body plan like sub-Saharan 'black' Africans and were not cold-adapted like European type populations

QUOTE:
"The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.




Modern DNA studies find even though some African peoples look different, they are genetically related through the PN2 transition clade of the Y-chromosone. Thus light-skinned African Libyans and dark-skinned Zulus are all genetically related Africans ,even though they don't look exactly the same.

"But the Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transition (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) shatters the boundaries of phenotypically defined races and true breeding populations across a great geographical expanse. African peoples with a range of skin colors, hair forms and physiognomies have substantial percentages of males whose Y chromosomes form closely related clades with each other, but not with others who are phenotypically similar. The individuals in the morphologically or geographically defined 'races' are not characterized by 'private' distinct lineages restricted to each of them." (S O Y Keita, R A Kittles, et al. "Conceptualizing human variation," Nature Genetics 36, S17 - S20 (2004)


"Recall that the Horn–Nile Valley crania show, as a group, the largest overlap with other regions. A review of the recent literature indicates that there are male lineage ties between African peoples who have been traditionally labeled as being ‘‘racially’’ different, with ‘‘racially’’ implying an ontologically deep divide. The PN2 transition, a Y chromosome marker, defines a lineage (within the YAPþ derived haplogroup E or III) that emerged in Africa probably before the last glacial maximum, but after the migration of modern humans from Africa (see Semino et al., 2004). This mutation forms a clade that has two daughter subclades (defined by the biallelic markers M35/215 (or 215/M35) and M2) that unites numerous phenotypically variant African populations from the supra-Saharan, Saharan, and sub-Saharan regions.."
(S.O.Y Keita. Exploring northeast African metric craniofacial variation at the individual level: A comparative study using principal component analysis. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 16:679–689, 2004.)
http://www.geocities.com/nilevalleypeop ... alysis.htm

"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages.. Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world." (Tishkoff SA, Williams SM., Genetic analysis of African populations: human evolution and complex disease. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2002 Aug (8):611-21.)

DNA of some modern Egyptians found a genetic ancestral heritage to East Africa:
"The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diversity of 58 individuals from Upper Egypt, more than half (34 individuals) from Gurna, whose population has an ancient cultural history, were studied by sequencing the control-region and screening diagnostic RFLP markers. This sedentary population presented similarities to the Ethiopian population by the L1 and L2 macrohaplogroup frequency (20.6%), by the West Eurasian component (defined by haplogroups H to K and T to X) and particularly by a high frequency (17.6%) of haplogroup M1. We statistically and phylogenetically analysed and compared the Gurna population with other Egyptian, Near East and sub-Saharan Africa populations; AMOVA and Minimum Spanning Network analysis showed that the Gurna population was not isolated from neighbouring populations. Our results suggest that the Gurna population has conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African population, characterized by a high M1 haplogroup frequency. The current structure of the Egyptian population may be the result of further influence of neighbouring populations on this ancestral population."
(Stevanovitch A, Gilles A, Bouzaid E, et al. (2004) Mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in a sedentary population from Egypt.Ann Hum Genet. 68(Pt 1):23-39.)

Other DNA quotes from S.O.Y. Keita
See: http://www.geocities.com/keitadnaquotes.htm




Recent DNA studies of the Sudan show genetic unity and linkage between the Sudanic, Horn, Egyptian, Nubian and other Nilotic peoples, confirming earlier skeletal/cranial studies and historical data. (Yurco (1989, 1996), Keita (1993,2004, 2005) Lovell (1999), Zakrewski (2003, 2007) et. al). Of note is that DNA data shows that one of the oldest Egyptian populations, the Copts, have a significant frequency of the B-M60 marker, indicating early colonization of Egypt by Nilotics in the state formation period.

QUOTES:

"Haplogroup E-M78, however, is more widely distributed and is thought to have an origin in eastern African. More recently, this haplogroup has been carefully dissected and was found to depict several well-established subclades with defined geographical clustering (Cruciani et al., 2006, 2007). Although this haplogroup is common to most Sudanese populations, it has exceptionally high frequency among populations like those of western Sudan (particularly Darfur) and the Beja in eastern Sudan... Although the PC plot places the Beja and Amhara from Ethiopia in one sub-cluster based on shared frequencies of the haplogroup J1, the distribution of M78 subclades (Table 2) indicates that the Beja are perhaps related as well to the Oromo on the basis of the considerable frequencies of E-V32 among Oromo in comparison to Amhara (Cruciani et
al., 2007)...

These findings affirm the historical contact between Ethiopia and eastern Sudan (1998), and the fact that these populations speak languages of the Afro-Asiatic family tree reinforces the strong correlation between linguistic and genetic diversity (Cavalli-Sforza, 1997)."

"Genetic continuum of the Nubians with their kin in southern Egypt is indicated by comparable frequencies of E-V12 the predominant M78 subclade among southern Egyptians."

"The Copt samples displayed a most interesting Y-profile, enough (as much as that of Gaalien in Sudan) to suggest that they actually represent a living record of the peopling of Egypt. The significant frequency of B-M60 in this group might be a relic of a history of colonization of southern Egypt probably by Nilotics in the early state formation, something that conforms both to recorded history and to Egyptian mythology."
Source:
(Hisham Y. Hassan 1, Peter A. Underhill 2, Luca L. Cavalli-Sforza 2, Muntaser E. Ibrahim 1. (2008). Y-chromosome variation among Sudanese: Restricted gene flow, concordance with language, geography, and history. Am J Phys Anthropology, 2008.)


Older research notes the physical makeup of the Copts, now confirmed by recent DNA data avove:

"In Libya, which is mostly desert and oasis, there is a visible Negroid element in the sedentary populations, and at the same is true of the Fellahin of Egypt, whether Copt or Muslim. Osteological studies have shown that the Negroid element was stronger in predynastic times than at present, reflecting an early movement northward along the banks of the Nile, which were then heavily forested." (Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. "Populations, Human")







Northern Egypt shows more physical variation than the south, but not necessarily as part of any significant 'race' mix, but local, built-in variation. They were closer to southerners than any other peoples. In comparisons with "Middle Eastern" populations of the same ancient period, the Egyptians link more closely with other Africans than the Middle Easterners. Africans vary in how they look because they have the highest built-in molecular diversity to begin with.

QUOTE(s):
"..sample populations available from northern Egypt from before the 1st Dynasty (Merimda, Maadi and Wadi Digla) turn out to be significantly different from sample populations from early Palestine and Byblos, suggesting a lack of common ancestors over a long time. If there was a south-north cline variation along the Nile valley it did not, from this limited evidence, continue smoothly on into southern Palestine. The limb-length proportions of males from the Egyptian sites group them with Africans rather than with Europeans." (Barry Kemp, "Ancient Egypt Anatomy of a Civilisation. (2005) Routledge. p. 52-60)


"Individuals from different geographical regions frequently plotted near each other, revealing aspects of variation at the level of individuals that is obscured by concentrating on the most distinctive facial traits once used to construct ‘‘types.’’The high
level of African interindividual variation in craniometric pattern is reminiscent of the great level of molecular diversity found in Africa." (S.O.Y Keita. Exploring northeast African metric craniofacial variation at the individual level: A comparative study using principal component analysis. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 16:679–689, 2004.)



Modern studies show diversity in how people look is heavily based on distance from sub-Saharan Africa, not merely climate.

"The relative importance of ancient demography and climate in determining worldwide patterns of human within-population phenotypic diversity is still open to debate. Several morphometric traits have been argued to be under selection by climatic factors, but it is unclear whether climate affects the global decline in morphological diversity with increasing geographical distance from sub-Saharan Africa. Using a large database of male and female skull measurements, we apply an explicit framework to quantify the relative role of climate and distance from Africa. We show that distance from sub-Saharan Africa is the sole determinant of human within-population phenotypic diversity, while climate plays no role. By selecting the most informative set of traits, it was possible to explain over half of the worldwide variation in phenotypic diversity. These results mirror those previously obtained for genetic markers and show that ‘bones and molecules’ are in perfect agreement for humans." (Distance from Africa, not climate, explains within-population phenotypic diversity in humans. (2008) by: Lia Betti, François Balloux, William Amos, Tsunehiko Hanihara, Andrea Manica, Proceedings B: Biological Sciences, 2008/12/02)




Analysis of skeletal and cranial remains reveals that the ancient Egyptians of the early Dynastic and pre-Dynastic phases, link closer to nearby Saharan, Sudanic and African populations than Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples. Greeks, Romans, Hyskos, Arabs and others were to appear much later in Egyptian history. Craniometric studies generally place ancient Upper Egyptian populations closer to populations in tropical Africa (the nearby Sudan) than to Mediterraneans, or Middle Easterners. (S.O.Y Keita, Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 83:35-48 (1990)

QUOTE(s):
S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54


"Overall, when the Egyptian crania are evaluated in a Near Eastern (Lachish) versus African (Kerma, Kebel Moya, Ashanti) context) the affinity is with the Africans. The Sudan and Palestine are the most appropriate comparative regions which would have 'donated' people, along with the Sahara and Maghreb. Archaeology validates looking to these regions for population flow (see Hassan 1988)... Egyptian groups showed less overall affinity to Palestinian and Byzantine remains than to other African series, especially Sudanese." (Keita 1993)

"When the unlikely relationships [Indian matches] and eliminated, the Egyptian series are more similar 'overall' to other African series than to European or Near Eastern (Byzantine or Palestinian) series." (Keita 1993)

"Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization, could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant."(Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472 )

"Analysis of crania is the traditional approach to assessing ancient population origins, relationships, and diversity. In studies based on anatomical traits and measurements of crania, similarities have been found between Nile Valley crania from 30,000, 20,000 and 12,000 years ago and various African remains from more recent times (see Thoma 1984; Brauer and Rimbach 1990; Angel and Kelley 1986; Keita 1993). Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans."
(S. O. Y and A.J. Boyce, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians", in in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 20-33)



"The Badarian series clusters with the tropical African groups no matter which algorithm is employed (see Figures 3 and 4). The clustering with the Bushman can be understood as an artifact of grouping algorithms; it is well known that a series may group into a cluster that does not contain the series to which it is most similar (has the lowest distance value). An additional 20 dendrograms were generated using the minimum evolution algorithm provided by MEGA (not shown). In none of them did the Badarian sample affiliate with the European series. In additional analysis, the Bushman series was left out; the results were the same." (S.O.Y. Keita, A. J. Boyce, "Genetics, Egypt, and History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns of Y Chromosome Variation1," History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246)

"Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans... There is no archaeological, linguistic, or historical data which indicate a European or Asiatic invasion of, or migration to, the Nile Valley during First Dynasty times.Previous concepts about the origin of the First Dynasty Egyptians as being somehow external to the Nile Valley or less native are not supported by archaeology... In summary, the Abydos First Dynasty royal tomb contents reveal a notable craniometric heterogeneity. Southerners predominate. (Kieta, S. (1992) Further Studies of Crania From Ancient Northern Africa: An Analysis of Crania From First Dynasty Egyptian Tombs, Using Multiple Discriminant Functions. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 87:245-254)"

Afrocentric critic C. Loring Brace's 2005 study groups ancient Egyptian populations like the Naqada closer to
Nubians and Somalis than European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern populations. (Brace, et al. The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl
Acad Sci U S A. 2006 January 3; 103(1): p. 242-247.) An earlier study by Brace in 1993 (Cline and Clusters) also placed the Somalians closer to Upper Egyptians than to Europeans or Middle Easterners.
"The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample, both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians, and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa" (Brace, 2005)




Different features like narrow noses are not due to different "race" mixes but are part of the built-in physical diversity and variation of African peoples. Narrow noses appear in the oldest African populations for example, in Kenya's Gamble Cave complex. They do not need any outside race mix to make them the way they are.

QUOTE(s):
".. all their features can be found in several living populations of East Africa, like the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi, who are very dark skinned and differ greatly from Europeans in a number of body proportions.. There is every reason to believe that they are ancestral to the living 'Elongated East Africans'. Neither of these populations, fossil and modern, should be considered to be closely related to the populations of Europe and western Asia..." [Jean Hiernaux, The People of Africa (1975), pgs 42-43, 62-63)

"....inhabitants of East Africa right on the equator have appreciably longer, narrower, and higher noses than people in the Congo at the same latitude. A former generation of anthropologists used to explain this paradox by invoking an invasion by an itinerant "white" population from the Mediterranean area, although this solution raised more problems than it solved since the East Africans in question include some of the blackest people in the world with characteristically wooly hair and a body build unique among the world's populations for its extreme linearity and height.... The relatively long noses of East Africa become explicable then when one realizes that much of the area is extremely dry for parts of the year." (C. Loring Brace, "Nonracial Approach Towards Human Diversity," cited in The Concept of Race, Edited by Ashley Montagu, The Free Press, 1980, pp. 135-136, 138)

"The role of tall, linearly built populations in eastern Africa's prehistory has always been debated. Traditionally, they are viewed as late migrants into the area. But as there is better palaeoanthropological and linguistic documentation for the earlier presence of these populations than for any other group in eastern Africa, it is far more likely that they are indigenous eastern Africans. ... prehistoric linear populations show resemblances to both Upper Pleistocene eastern African fossils and present-day, non-Bantu-speaking groups in eastern Africa, with minor differences stemming from changes in overall robusticity of the dentition and skeleton. This suggests a longstanding tradition of linear populations in eastern Africa, contributing to the indigenous development of cultural and biological diversity from the Pleistocene up to the present."
(L . A . SCHEPARTZ, "Who were the later Pleistocene eastern Africans?" The African Archaeological Review, 6 (1988), pp. 57- 72)






Recent study shows ancient Egyptians physically more like Black Americans than White Americans

QUOTE(s):
"We also compare Egyptian body proportions to those of modern American Blacks and Whites... Long bone stature regression equations were then derived for each sex. Our results confirm that, although ancient Egyptians are closer in body proportion to modern American Blacks than they are to American Whites, proportions in Blacks and Egyptians are not identical... Intralimb indices are not significantly different between Egyptians and American Blacks." ("Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55


Africa is the most genetically diverse region in the world with the original man being from East Africa according to conservative scholars:

"Africa contains tremendous cultural, linguistic and genetic diversity, and has more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups and languages.. Studies using mitochondrial (mt)DNA and nuclear DNA markers consistently indicate that Africa is the most genetically diverse region of the world." (Tishkoff SA, Williams SM., Genetic analysis of African populations: human evolution and complex disease. Nature Reviews Genetics. 2002 Aug (8):611-21.)

" In other words, all non-Africans carry M168. Of course, Africans carrying the M168 mutation today are the descendants of the African subpopulation from which the migrants originated.... Thus, the Australian/Eurasian Adam (the ancestor of all non-Africans) was an East African Man." (Linda Stone, Paul F. Lurquin, L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution: A Synthesis, Wiley-Blackwell: 2006, pg 108)




Sampling bias in some Nile Valley research such as drawing samples from the far north of Egypt hinders a full understanding of the region's complexity. The stereotypical "true negro" type is still used to artifically separate related peoples and obscure a fuller, more accurate picture of African genetic diversity.

QUOTE(s):
"However, in some of the studies, only individuals from northern Egypt are sampled, and this could theoretically give a false impression of Egyptian variability (contrast Lucotte and Mercier 2003a with Manni et al. 2002), because this region has received more foreign settlers (and is nearer the Near East). Possible sample bias should be integrated into the discussion of results." (S.O.Y. Keita, A.J. Boyce, "Interpreting Geographical Patterns of Y Chromosome Variation1," History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246 )


One 1993 'Clines and Clusters' study by C.L. Brace for example created an "African" or "sub-Saharan" group, but was careful to exclude the Maghreb (including parts of the Sahara and Sahel), the Sudan and the Horn area (Ethiopia and Somalia) even though these latter two are BELOW the Sahara, and thus "sub-Saharan". It also excluded the Badari, a key Egyptian group, obscuring the Sudanic/Saharan character of numerous early samples, noted in several earlier analyses of key Egyptian groups like the Badari. The result was a "comparison" finding that the ancient Egyptians had no relationship "at all" to other African peoples. This finding is undermined by the study's methods and previous research as noted by Keita below.

However, Brace et al. (1993) find that a series of upper Egyptian/Nubian epipalaeolithic crania affiliate by cluster analysis with groups they designate “sub-Saharan African” or just simply “African” (from which they incorrectly exclude the Maghreb, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa), whereas post-Badarian southern predynastic and a late dynastic northern series (called “E” or Gizeh) cluster together, and secondarily with Europeans. In the primary cluster with the Egyptian groups are also remains representing populations from the ancient Sudan and recent Somalia. Brace et al. (1993) seemingly interpret these results as indicating a population relationship from Scandinavia to the Horn of Africa, although the mechanism for this is not clearly stated; they also state that the Egyptians had no relationship with sub-Saharan Africans, a group that they nearly treat (incorrectly) as monolithic, although sometimes seemingly including Somalia, which directly undermines aspects of their claims. Sub-Saharan Africa does not define/delimit authentic Africanity." (S.O.Y. Keita. "Early Nile Valley Farmers from El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European" Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data". Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005)

"..presents all tropical Africans with narrower noses and faces as being related to or descended from external, ultimately non-African peoples. However, narrow-faced, narrow-nosed populations have long been resident in Saharo-tropical Africa... and their origin need not be sought elsewhere. These traits are also indigenous. The variability in tropical Africa is expectedly naturally high. Given their longstanding presence, narrow noses and faces cannot be deemed `non-African.'"
(S.O.Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993), page 134 )



Ancient Egyptian civilization was indigenous with continuity among its peoples, not an influx of Middle Easterners, Europeans or other outsiders like Arabs until relatively late in history

QUOTE(s):
"Some have argued that various early Egyptians like the Badarians probably migrated northward from Nubia, while others see a wide-ranging movement of peoples across the breadth of the Sahara before the onset of desiccation. Whatever may be the origins of any particular people or civilization, however, it seems reasonably certain that the predynastic communities of the Nile valley were essentially indigenous in culture, drawing little inspiration from sources outside the continent during the several centuries directly preceding the onset of historical times..." (Robert July, Pre-Colonial Africa, 1975, p. 60-61)


"overall population continuity over the Predynastic and early Dynastic, and high levels of genetic heterogeneity, thereby suggesting that state formation occurred as a mainly indigenous process."
(Zakrzewski, S.R. (2007). "Population continuity or population change: Formation of the ancient Egyptian state". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132 (4): 501-509)

"the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. They included peoples from the Afro-Asiastic linguistic group and the second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). Thus the earliest domestic cattle may have come to Egypt from these southern neighbors, circa 6000 B.C., and not from the Middle East.[148] Pottery, another significant advance in material cultural may also have followed this pattern, initiatied "as early as 9000 B.C. by the Nilo-Saharans and Afrasians who lived to the south of Egypt. Soon thereafter, pots spread to Egyptian sites, almost 2,000 years before the first pottery was made in the Middle East."
(Christopher Ehret, "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture," in Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 25-27)






X-ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies show some to be linked physically to Nubian types, and some documented royal officials are clearly "Negroid' like Pepi-seneb, an eminent scribe c. 2745 BC


"In terms of head shape, the XVIV and XX dynasties look more like the early Nubian skulls from the mesolithic with low vaults and sloping, curved foreheads.The XVII and XVIII dynasty skulls are shaped more like modern Nubians with globular skulls and high vaults."
(An X-ray atlas of the royal mummies. Edited by J.E. Harris and E.F. Wente. (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980.) Review: Michael R. Zimmerman, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 56, Issue 2 , (1981) Pages 207 - 208)

"While the Upper Nile Egyptians show phenotypic features that occur in higher frequencies in the Sudan and southward into East Africa (namely, facial prognathism, chamaerrhiny, and paedomorphic cranial architecture with specific modifications of the nasal aperature), these so-called Negroid features are not universal in the region of Thebes, Karnak, and Luxor."
(Kennedy, Kenneth A.R., T. Plummer, J. Chinment, "Identification of the Eminent Dead: Pepi, A Scribe of Egypt," In Katherine J. Reichs (ed.), Forensic Osteology, 1986.)




Ancient Egyptian religion closer to the religion of African regions than to Mesopotamia, Europe or the Middle East

QUOTE(s):
Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508
"A large number of gods go back to prehistoric times. The images of a cow and star goddess (Hathor), the falcon (Horus), and the human-shaped figures of the fertility god (Min) can be traced back to that period. Some rites, such as the "running of the Apil-bull," the "hoeing of the ground," and other fertility and hunting rites (e.g., the hippopotamus hunt) presumably date from early times.. Connections with the religions in southwest Asia cannot be traced with certainty."
"It is doubtful whether Osiris can be regarded as equal to Tammuz or Adonis, or whether Hathor is related to the "Great Mother." There are closer relations with northeast African religions. The numerous animal cults (especially bovine cults and panther gods) and details of ritual dresses (animal tails, masks, grass aprons, etc) probably are of African origin. The kinship in particular shows some African elements, such as the king as the head ritualist (i.e., medicine man), the limitations and renewal of the reign (jubilees, regicide), and the position of the king's mother (a matriarchal element). Some of them can be found among the Ethiopians in Napata and Meroe, others among the Prenilotic tribes (Shilluk)."
(Encyclopedia Britannica 1984 ed. Macropedia Article, Vol 6: "Egyptian Religion" , pg 506-508)




Egyptian dynastic civilization based from the 'darker' south (Upper Egypt) not the north (Lower Egypt)

QUOTE(s):
"While not attempting to underestimate the contribution that Deltaic political and religious institutions made to those of a united Egypt, many Egyptologists now discount the idea that a united prehistoric kingdom of Lower Egypt ever existed."


"While communities such as Ma'adi appear to have played an important role in entrepots through which goods and ideas form south-west Asia filtered into the Nile Valley in later prehistoric times, the main cultural and political tradition that gave rise to the cultural pattern of Early Dynastic Egypt is to be found not in the north but in the south.":
The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 1, From the Earliest Times to c. 500 BC, (Cambridge University Press: 1982), Edited by J. Desmond Clark pp. 500-509

"..the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life." (Source: Shaw, Thurston (1976) Changes in AfricanArchaeology in the Last Forty Years in African Studies since 1945. p. 156-68. London.)



Much older scholarship shows cultural similarities between ancient Egypt and the rest of Africa, contradicting claims of Middle Eastern inspiration.

Specific central African tool designs found at the well known Naqada, Badari and Fayum archaeological sites in Egypt (de Heinzelin 1962, Arkell and Ucko, 1956 et al). Shaw (1976) states that "the early cultures of Merimde, the Fayum, Badari Naqada I and II are essentially African and early African social customs and religious beliefs were the root and foundation of the ancient Egyptian way of life."

Pottery evidence first seen in the Saharan Highlands then spreading to the Nile Valley (Flight 1973).
Art motifs of Saharan rock paintings showing similarities to those in pharaonic art. A number of scholars suggest that these earlier artistic styles influenced later pharaonic art via Saharans leaving drier areas and moving into the Nile Valley taking their art styles with them (Mori 1964, Blanc 1964, et al)

Earlier pioneering mummification outside Egypt. The oldest mummy in Africa is of a black Saharan child (Donadoni 1964, Blanc 1964) Frankfort (1956) suggests that it is thus possible to understand the pharaonic worldview by reference to the religious beliefs of these earlier African precursors. Attempts to suggest the root of such practices are due to Caucasoid civilizers from elsewhere are thus contradicted by the data on the ground.

Several cultural practices of Egypt show strong similarities to an African totemic clan base. Childe (1969, 1978), Aldred (1978) and Strouhal (1971) demonstrate linkages with several African practices such as divine kingship and the king as divine rainmaker.

Physical similarities of the early Nile valley populations with that of tropical Africans. Such connections are demonstrated in the work of numerous scholars such as Thompson and Randall Mclver 1905, Falkenburger 1947, and Strouhal 1971. The distance diagrams of Mukherjee, Rao and Trevor (1955) place the ancient Badarians genetically near 'black' tribes such as the Ashanti and the Taita. See also the "Issues of lumping under Mediterranean clusters" section above for similar older analyses.

Serological (blood) evidence of genetic linkages. Paoli 1972 for example found a significant resemblance between ABO frequencies of dynastic Egyptians and the black northern Haratin who are held to be the probable descendants of the original Saharans (Hiernaux, 1975).

Language similarities which include several hundred roots ascribable to African elements (UNESCO 1974)

Ancient Egyptian origin stories ascribing origins of the gods and their ancestors to African locations to the south and west of Egypt (Davidson 1959)

Advanced state building and political unity in Nubia, including writing, administrative apparatus and insignia some 300 years before dynastic Egypt, and the long demonstrated interchange between Nubia and Egypt (Williams 1980)

Newer studies (Wendorf 2001, Wilkinson 1999, et al.) confirm these older analyses. Excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100km west of Abu Simbel for example, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of Egypt's Old Kingdom

Other scholars (Wilkinson 1999) present similar material and cultural evidence- including similarities between predynastic Egypt and traditional African cattle-culture, typical of Southern Sudanese and East African pastoralists of today, and various cultural and artistic data such as iconography on rock art found in both Egypt and in the Sudan.



Assorted demic diffusion theories holding a mass influx of Europeans or Middle Easterners to Africa bringing cattle and agriculture to the natives is not supported by credible evidence. Indigenous development is most likely.

"Furthermore, the archaeology of northern Africa DOES NOT SUPPORT demic diffusion of farming from the Near East. The evidence presented by Wetterstrom indicates that early African farmers in the Fayum initially INCORPORATED Near Eastern domesticates INTO an INDIGENOUS foraging strategy, and only OVER TIME developed a dependence on horticulture. This is inconsistent with in-migrating farming settlers, who would have brought a more ABRUPT change in subsistence strategy. "The same archaeological pattern occurs west of Egypt, where domestic animals and, later, grains were GRADUALLY adopted after 8000 yr B.P. into the established pre-agricultural Capsian culture, present across the northern Sahara since 10,000 yr B.P. From this continuity, it has been argued that the pre-food-production Capsian peoples spoke languages ancestral to the Berber and/or Chadic branches of Afroasiatic, placing the proto-Afroasiatic period distinctly before 10,000 yr B.P."

Source: The Origins of Afroasiatic
Christopher Ehret, S. O. Y. Keita, Paul Newman;, and Peter Bellwood
Science 3 December 2004: Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1680

Early Nile Valley Farmers From El-Badari

"National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution

Male Badarian crania were analyzed using the generalized distance of Mahalanobis in a comparative analysis with other African and European series from the Howells?s database. The study was carried out to examine the affinities of the Badarians to evaluate, in preliminary fashion, a demic diffusion hypothesis that postulates that horticulture and the Afro-Asiatic language family were brought ultimately from southern Europe. (The assumption was made that the southern Europeans would be more similar to the central and northern Europeans than to any indigenous African populations.) The Badarians show a greater affinity to indigenous Africans while not being identical. This suggests that the Badarians were more affiliated with local and an indigenous African population than with Europeans.
(S.O.Y. Keita. "Early Nile Valley Farmers from El-Badari: Aboriginals or "European" Agro-Nostratic Immigrants? Craniometric Affinities Considered With Other Data". Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 191-208 (2005)







The Sahara and the Sudan seem to have provided a major source for the genesis of Egyptian civilization contributing many of its unique elements.

QUOTE(s):
"a critical factor in the rise of social complexity and the subsequent emergence of the Egyptian state in Upper Egypt (Hoffman 1979; Hassan 1988). If so, Egypt owes a major debt to those early pastoral groups in the Sahara; they may have provided Egypt with many of those features that still distinguish it from its neighbors to the east."
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17, 97-123 (1998), "Nabta Playa and Its Role in Northeastern African Prehistory," Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild.

"Over the last two decades, numerous contemporary (Khartoum Neolithic) sites and cemeteries have been excavated in the Central Sudan.. The most striking point to emerge is the overall similarity of early neolithic developments inhabitation, exchange, material culture and mortuary customs in the Khartoum region to those underway at the same time in the Egyptian Nile Valley, far to the north." (Wengrow, David (2003) "Landscapes of Knowledge, Idioms of Power: The African Foundations of Ancient Egyptian Civilization Reconsidered," in Ancient Egypt in Africa, David O'Connor and Andrew Reid, eds. Ancient Egypt in Africa. London: University College London Press, 2003, pp. 119-137)



Ancient Egyptian language is part of the Afrasian or Afro-Asiatic group which has its origins in Africa, and together with other archaeological evidence firmly makes it an African culture. Acording to mainstream research:

QUOTE(s):

"Ancient Egyptian civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both language and culture reveals these African roots. The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language belonged to the Afrasian family (also called Afroasiatic or, formerly, Hamito-Semitic). The speakers of the earliest Afrasian languages, according to recent studies, were a set of peoples whose lands between 15,000 and 13,000 B.C. stretched from Nubia in the west to far northern Somalia in the east. They supported themselves by gathering wild grains. The first elements of Egyptian culture were laid down two thousand years later, between 12,000 and 10,000 B.C., when some of these Afrasian communities expanded northward into Egypt, bringing with them a language directly ancestral to ancient Egyptian. They also introduced to Egypt the idea of using wild grains as food." (Christopher Ehret (1996) "Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture." In Egypt in Africa Egypt in Africa, Theodore Celenko (ed), Indiana University Press)


"Ancient Egypt belongs to a language group known as 'Afro-Asiatic' (formerly called Hamito-Semitic) and its closest relatives are other north-east African languages from Somalia to Chad. Egypt's cultural features, both material and ideological and particularly in the earliest phases, show clear connections with that same broad area. In sum, ancient Egypt was an African culture, developed by African peoples, who had wide ranging contacts in north Africa and western Asia." (Morkot, Robert (2005) The Egyptians: An Introduction. Routledge. p. 10)

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Our society had an excelent talk from a forensic egyptologist. She said there is no table for determining heights from bone lengths for ancient Egypt. They use tables created from repatriated US soldiers. For north egyptians she uses the caucasian tables & for south egyptians the african american table.