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Topic ClosedWerer the Egyptians white or black?
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Werer the Egyptians white or black?
    Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 02:48
I'm not talking about race but about location and how to define that location. Now I could agree if you said location is is deeply etched into everybody's society. Why do I have to live in the poor part of town when everybody should know how much I deserve to live in rich part of town? Because that's the way the ball bounces.
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 03:18
Originally posted by elenos

I'm not talking about race but about location and how to define that location. Now I could agree if you said location is is deeply etched into everybody's society. Why do I have to live in the poor part of town when everybody should know how much I deserve to live in rich part of town? Because that's the way the ball bounces.



edit: the whole post wasn't aimed at you Elenos. Sorry about that. I moved it to my other post to clear up the confusion.


Edited by Jugernot - 24-Jul-2007 at 03:53
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Posts: 7035 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 05:26
 
Originally posted by Jugernot

Originally posted by elenos

Africa is a continent, not a country! How simplistic can some people get than to say all people in Africa are the same. Even without the presence of other race. there are more ethnic types in Africa that evolved differently in the ecological niches of savannas and jungles than anywhere else on earth.  


Yes my friend, I think you understand! Africa is the most diverse place on earth. It's critical for one to read Keita's piece called "the diversity of indigenous Africans" (it's on the keita page in my first post). For instance, people used to describe the Ethiopians, Somalis and Nubians as "Caucasoid". We now know that Africans can have "Caucasoid" features without any non-African ancestry. These types developed in Africa because it suited their surroundings more. There is no "true negro", such stereotypes led people like brace to come up with flawed findings (brace now corrected his mistakes). Most anthropologists and egyptologists don't even use the terms "Caucasian" or "Negro" to describe the Egyptians anymore, because it can be very misleading.
They're misleading in any context.


I cant force anyone to change their opinion. I can only give you information and show you what current Egyptologists think. Their conclusion is that Egypt was an African civilization.Why this is so hard to accept, I do not know.
Because it has nothing in common with the other civilisations of Africa, and pretty well everything in common with the other civilisations of south-west Asia and the Levant. It would be just as silly to call the civilisation of the Fertile Crescent 'Asian'.


No one skin complexion made one more Egyptian than the other, they were all Egyptian. No one skin complexion made them any more African than the other, they were all African (Again, as Dr Yurco said, not all Africans are black).

"This modern population still echoes Nile Valley diversity, where people of the lightest and darkest complexions within Africa are found (Trigger 1978; Yurco 1989). Nonetheless, these Nilotic populations are all Africans, so was the population, religion, culture, and other aspects of pharaonic Egypt" (Yurco).

Edit: Let me try to make this easier to understand for everyone. First of all, throw this race nonsense out the window (Caucasian, Negro). Know this; biologically theres no such thing as race. We all started out in Africa. So why then dont we all look the same? Simple, we developed to best suit the environment we live in. The whole Hamitic hypothesis has long since been proven to be false (at least 11 years now). So what does this mean? Once people moved out of Africa theres no evidence to suggest large migrations moved back in to create the Caucasians and blacks with Caucasoid features in Africa.
Agreed. But there is overwhelming evidence that agriculture and domesticated livestock and all the other prerequisites of civilisation moved from the fertile crescent into Egypt. Domestication of animals and plants never started independently in Egypt.
 
This has nothing to do with people or race, simply with the climatic and topographic conditions in the related areas and the variety of local wildlife and plants.
 
These peoples all developed in Africa to suit their diverse environments. This is why Egypt is an African civilization (already gave ample evidence), but not a black civilization (they were diverse and not all indigenous Africans are black).
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Jul-2007 at 06:39
I knew your post was not aimed at me, Jugernot, I thought you has a good point and answered it. My style of writing I suppose. Why is this subject so important to you? We really have to think of proximity here. there are many Egyptian and Ancient Cretan sacred stories of an early connection between the two places. I would suggest you look them up.
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 01:03
The subject is important because I love history, and it should be told as it really was.

gcl2003, as far as domesticated animals:

"One of the exciting archaeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East."

If you haven't already done so, you should look at the info I posted (lots of interesting stuff).

I'm pretty much done with this topic. Even if you disagree, I hope everyone enjoyed the info I posted nonetheless.


Edited by Jugernot - 25-Jul-2007 at 04:40
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Posts: 7035 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 06:23
Originally posted by Jugernot

The subject is important because I love history, and it should be told as it really was.

gcl2003, as far as domesticated animals:

"One of the exciting archaeological events of the past twenty years was the discovery that the peoples of the steppes and grasslands to the immediate south of Egypt domesticated these cattle, as early as 9000 to 8000 B.C. The societies involved in this momentous development included Afrasians and neighboring peoples whose languages belonged to a second major African language family, Nilo-Saharan (Wendorf, Schild, Close 1984; Wendorf, et al. 1982). The earliest domestic cattle came to Egypt apparently from these southern neighbors, probably before 6000 B.C., not, as we used to think, from the Middle East."
That the Sahel culture domesticated the cattle themselves is a subject of dispute, and the dates are somewhat exaggerated. 9-8,000 years agoi might be more accurate.
 
Moreover, it isn't just a matter of cattle (the wild ancsetor of which was present in North Africa), but of sheep, pigs, goats and the cereal and other crops.


If you haven't already done so, you should look at the info I posted (lots of interesting stuff).
 
The primer on the subject is Diamond's Guns, Germs, Steel, which I assume you've read.


I'm pretty much done with this topic. Even if you disagree, I hope everyone enjoyed the info I posted nonetheless.
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Posts: 6003 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 18:30
How hard can it be to come up with a username.
Arrrgh!!"
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 19:06
gcle2003 (no offense), your repeating things my sources have already gone over (Christopher Ehret and Dr Frank Yurco). I'm done with this topic, no need to go around in circles. As I said, if you disagree, I hope you enjoyed the info I presented nonetheless.




Edited by Jugernot - 25-Jul-2007 at 20:13
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Posts: 2394 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 20:32
Originally posted by Aster Thrax Eupator

The most logical crossing place for people from the Levant to bring Afroasiatic languages would be the Sinai, and as you can see, that area indicated to be the origins is nowhere near, proving Jugernot's point...


Actually the map clearly depicts the "Afro-Asiatic Languages" moving up through Egypt, across the Sinai, and into the Fertile Crescent. This unequivocally indicates that Egypt had much closer linguistic ties with the languages of the Fertile Crescent than with the Khoisan languages, which emerge from a whole different branch of the Afro-Asiatic root.

Edited by edgewaters - 25-Jul-2007 at 20:34
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jul-2007 at 20:48

Afro-Asiatic languages distribution. It is quite clear that family of language is not only "Afro", because includes Arabia, the Levante and other regions in Asia. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called "Asiatic". Big%20smile

 
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 02:05
I would go along with that pinquin. All those early men got their asses moving out of Africa and back again when their looks had changed. "The object of my affection can change my complexion from black to rosy red.."

Why would that happen? Diet has a role to play in genetics worth looking into. Agriculture was never was founded in Africa, but in Western Turkey and spread from there. The grain as a steady source of food, made people settle down and breed more as they bred they expanded again right back to where they started from!
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Posts: 7035 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 05:12
 
Originally posted by elenos

Agriculture was never was founded in Africa, but in Western Turkey and spread from there. The grain as a steady source of food, made people settle down and breed more as they bred they expanded again right back to where they started from!
 
There are three possible areas where agriculture may have self-started in Africa - the Sahel region south of the Sahara, West Africa and Ethiopia. It isn't terribly clear, but since the crops cultivated are totally different in Sahel/West Africa to those domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, it seems likely there was an independent beginning to agriculture there. The Ethiopians do seem to have picked up some of their crops (but not the coffee bean, Ethiopia's unique contribution) from the Fertile Crescent via Egypt.
 
I don't know where you get Western Turkey from: Eastern would be closer, but the oldest evidence of agriculture comes from the Jordan valley.
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 06:20

You are right gcle2003I - OMG, I made a typo! I meant Southern Turkey of course. Among the first proven Neothilic settlements is in the village of Catal-Huyuk in Southern Turkey. They had a population of 5000 inhabitants 9000 years B.C. In that area a collection of sickles was found with inserted oxidian blades, smoothed by the routine contact with the stalk of cereals. The sickles indicate that it was possible to collect seeds not only by picking on the ground, but also by cutting stems of plants.

The favored origin of farming practices is of course as you say located in the 'Fertile Crescent': the wide belt of Asia which includes Southern Turkey, Palestine, Lebanon and North Iraq. In the highlands of this area had abundant rainfall. In all of this area existed, and still exists a wide variety of wild cereals, sometimes in natural extended fields, induced by the rainfalls. Wheat) and barley were common and collected by the local dwellers. The wild cereals had very few seeds which fell on the ground.

In the 'Fertile Crescent' food storing and the development of animal farming took place. For hundreds thousands of years: the human birth rate had been limited by nomadic life. Farmers were settlers that wanted to produce more hands in the family. The family size exploded and, as a result, a need to gain more lands ensued.

The farmer's expansion lasted from 9000 B.C. up to the 4000 B.C. when they reached Ireland, Denmark and Sweden covering most cultivable lands in Europe. The expansions followed the waterways of Mediterranean and of Danube across the time of Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. .



Edited by elenos - 26-Jul-2007 at 06:25
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Originally posted by elenos

I would go along with that pinquin. All those early men got their asses moving out of Africa and back again when their looks had changed. "The object of my affection can change my complexion from black to rosy red.."

Why would that happen? Diet has a role to play in genetics worth looking into. Agriculture was never was founded in Africa, but in Western Turkey and spread from there. The grain as a steady source of food, made people settle down and breed more as they bred they expanded again right back to where they started from!


The theory youre talking about is widely accepted to be false. Diamond and Bellwood are trying to give it new life. However, without enough evidence, and a mountain of evidence against the theory, I wouldnt put my faith in it.

 
In their review Farmers and their languages: the first expansions (25 Apr. 2003, p. 597), J. Diamond and P. Bellwood suggest that food production and the Afroasiatic language family were brought simultaneously from the Near East to Africa by demic diffusion, in other words, by a migration of food-producing peoples. In resurrecting this generally abandoned view, the authors misrepresent the views of the late I. M. Diakonoff (1), rely on linguistic reconstructions inapplicable to their claims (2), and fail to engage the five decades of Afroasiatic scholarship that rebutted this idea in the first place. This extensive, well-grounded linguistic research places the Afroasiatic homeland in the southeastern Sahara or adjacent Horn of Africa (3-8) and, when all of Afroasiatics branches are included, strongly indicate a pre-food-producing proto-Afroasiatic economy (1, 7, 8).

 

A careful reading of Diakonoff (1) shows his continuing adherence to his long-held position of an exclusively African origin (4, 5) for the family. He explicitly describes proto-Afroasiatic vocabulary as consistent with non-food-producing vocabulary and links it to pre-Neolithic cultures in the Levant and in Africa south of Egypt, noting the latter to be older. Diakonoff does revise his location for the Common Semitic homeland, moving it from entirely within northeast Africa to areas straddling in the Nile Delta and Sinai, but continues to place the origins of the five other branches of the Afroasiatic language family wholly in Africa (1). (Ehret, Keita, Newman)

http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/afroasiatic_-_keita.pdf

The five branches with a wholly African origin are ancient Egyptian, Cush*tic, Berber, Chadic and Omotic.

 

As for farming:

 The archaeology of Neolithic and predynastic Egypt does not support mass migration from outside of Africa. The earliest evidence for farming in the Nile Valley indicates that local people incorporated Near Eastern domesticates into an indigenous foraging subsistence strategy (Wetterstorm, 1993) that, over time, developed into more reliance on farming. This is not consistent with a Neolithic revolution that would have occurred if there had been mass settlement by farmers! Settlement patterns and artifacts do not suggest the wholesale settler colonization of the Nile Valley by a community of alien origin. (Keita)

http://homestead.com/wysinger/badari.pdf

This view seems to be more plausible to me.

Guess Im not quite done with this topic.




Edited by Jugernot - 26-Jul-2007 at 18:52
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 22:00
I want what places like Catal Huyuk have. Photos of the actual sites, carbon dating for the stratas that show an evolution of knowledge, stocks of tools that can be examined and other hard evidence of progressive development. Forget quotes from books for paper theories are weak and pitiful in the light of physical evidence.  I don't give a damn about where the sites are located, they can be in Timbuktu or in my back garden as long is there is hard evidence that can be verified by state of the art equipment.
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 22:34
Originally posted by elenos

I want what places like Catal Huyuk have. Photos of the actual sites, carbon dating for the stratas that show an evolution of knowledge, stocks of tools that can be examined and other hard evidence of progressive development. Forget quotes from books for paper theories are weak and pitiful in the light of physical evidence.  I don't give a damn about where the sites are located, they can be in Timbuktu or in my back garden as long is there is hard evidence that can be verified by state of the art equipment.


The afroasiatic stuff is fact until proven otherwise.

As for farming, there's not enough evidence to conclusively show demic diffusion occurred. We'll have to wait  to find which theory is 100%. Even Keita said future work will give a clearer picture.
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 23:05
Jugernot, I just read through the evidence you posted, they do not push for any conclusion like you do. Of course Africa  (depending on what part you are talking about, but I will go along with all the generalities) could have, perhaps should have developed earlier. Maybe they did but we are waiting until the body of archaeological evidence is produced and visit the places rather than read about them. Post the photos of a Neolithic's site in Africa 9000BC or older and we will all become true believers immediately! 
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Jul-2007 at 23:25
Originally posted by elenos

Jugernot, I just read through the evidence you posted, they do not push for any conclusion like you do. Of course Africa  (depending on what part you are talking about, but I will go along with all the generalities) could have, perhaps should have developed earlier. Maybe they did but we are waiting until the body of archaeological evidence is produced and visit the places rather than read about them. Post the photos of a Neolithic's site in Africa 9000BC or older and we will all become true believers immediately! 


There's not enough archaeological evidence to show demic diffusion took place. You can read it plain as day. However, no one is saying there wasn't any outside influence. I don't know what conclusion you think I have. The fact is, there's no archaeological evidence to show large migrations moved back into Africa after they left.

I'm giving you current mainstream ideas. If you don't like it, that's not my fault.



Edited by Jugernot - 27-Jul-2007 at 00:28
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Posts: 1457 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jul-2007 at 00:06
I have no theories at all on the spread of afroasiatic language and agree there can be no debate there for I am unaware what your premises are. I like current mainstream ideas and ones that are not if worth taking a look. Sorry we do not have the same standards of judging what they are, but it takes all kinds of proof to satisfy the public and I'm just one of them.  
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Posts: 28 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Jul-2007 at 00:26
Originally posted by elenos

I have no theories at all on the spread of afroasiatic language and agree there can be no debate there for I am unaware what your premises are. I like current mainstream ideas and ones that are not if worth taking a look. Sorry we do not have the same standards of judging what they are, but it takes all kinds of proof to satisfy the public and I'm just one of them.  


and I'm fine with that. But, if there isn't the archaeological evidence to support demic diffusion, then I'm not convinced either. Hopefully in the future we'll have a better understanding on the subject.

and i misread your last post, sorry about that.


Edited by Jugernot - 27-Jul-2007 at 00:28
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