Egyptian civilisation and ancient Egyptians

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
Honestly, if somebody keeps posting very large posts successively in a row, without anybody else who gave any kind of feedback in the meantime
it certainly raises eyebrows.

The point of my additional post was just illustrating the academic support for my stance, and confirmation that my interpretations of the studies which I post are in line with mainstream scholars. I would argue that individuals before me who plastered all of those misinterpreted studies in response to someone simply stating that the ancient Egyptians were black and even injecting racist ideas into the topic:

RamsesII said:
And this goes a great length in explaining why the Egyptians refused to depict themselves as a "tropical" people yet were consistent in depicting Nubians to the south as such.

should be the only one's who "raises eyebrows", not the one who simply corrects them!

Now, to contribrute to something on this topic, how do you think about the hypothesis (forwarded by Militarev et al.) that the Afrasian (aka Afroasiatic) languages originated in the Near East amongst the first farmer societies, and not in Africa?

Below is the lectures that S.O.Y Keita conducted at Manchester University in which he details that such positions of a non African origin for Afro-Asiatic are is "laughable" and those who support it are "hold out" in the extreme minority amongst linguistic scholars:

In direct response to the assertion that you propose, Keita states "the dates won't work". It's covered within the first four minutes of this segment.

Taranis · Feb 5, 2012

Taharqa said:
The point of my additional post was just illustrating the academic support for my stance, and confirmation that my interpretations of the studies which I post are in line with mainstream scholars. I would argue that individuals before me who plastered all of those misinterpreted studies in response to someone simply stating that the ancient Egyptians were black and even injecting racist ideas into the topic:

should be the only one's who "raises eyebrows", not the one who simply corrects them!

My statement wasn't directed exclusively just against you, but you are the one to who already received an informal warning before. Besides that, I commend your interest and your knowledge on this topic.

Below is the lectures that S.O.Y Keita conducted at Manchester University in which he details that such positions of a non African origin for Afro-Asiatic are is "laughable" and those who support it are "hold out" in the extreme minority amongst linguistic scholars:

Honestly, I do not find the discussion "laughable" at all, and that it cannot be dismissed so easily. I think that the argument is absolutely valid if one assumes that Afroasiatic might have been a farmer language. It is possible to reconstruct common terms of farming for more than one branch of Afroasiatic. Even if these words are not attested in all branches, that doesn't automatically mean they were not present in other branches of Afroasiatic . Mind you, there are no common number words or family kinship terms for Afroasiatic (which is very much unlike the situation in Indo-European), either. I also personally find the assertation that people cling to the farmer hypothesis for "ideological reasons" just plain stupid. I do agree with Keita though that if one imagines Proto-Afroasiatic as a hunter-gatherer language, then this without a doubt heavily supports an African origin.

The crucial question though is: how old is Proto-Afroasiatic? While it is the oldest language family that we can unambiguously conceive, it is doubtful that it is vastly in excess of 10,000 years. Otherwise we end up with a serious problem to explain how isolate languages have seemingly no clear relationship with one another, and there must be a point beyond two related languages are no longer recognizable as such. So, the mere question of age, in my opinion, argues in favour of the farmer hypothesis.

In any case, I must admit this: from my perspective, the whole discussion about the so-called "racial" identity of the ancient Egyptians is quite pointless, but I could see how the discussion could come up in the archaeological or linguistic context.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
Honestly, I do not find the discussion "laughable" at all, and that it cannot be dismissed so easily.

It is "laughable" when you stand it up against that which suggest that it originated in Africa (particularly the Horn). The shear amount of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic within the African continent (all except one) compared to that which is seen in Asia (Semitic) nullifies a non African origin from jump.

I think that the argument is absolutely valid if one assumes that Afroasiatic might have been a farmer language. It is possible to reconstruct common terms of farming for more than one branch of Afroasiatic.

Farming was seen in the Middle East thousands of years prior to it's usage in the Nile Valley. If the farming communities of the Middle East are the originators of the language phylum, then farming would have subsequently been immediately introduced to the African communities as the people migrated into the continent, rather than millenniums passing by before farming was independently created on the continent as it actually did. What could logically explain that gap of this monumental development in an aspect that would become such an integral part of human life? The names of live stock and crops introduced from those Middle Eastern farmers (sheep, goat, barley and oats) would have been Semitic instead the words were Nilotic loan words, which is a testament to those Nilotic communities creating their own indigenous farming system and integrating with the Afrasian communities (from the Horn) during Pre-Dynastic times. This is what Keita means when he states with emphasis "the dates won't work".

Even if these words are not attested in all branches, that doesn't automatically mean they were not present in other branches of Afroasiatic .

Which ones, give specific examples please. That's the problem with the arguments of people who cling to this non African origin for Afro-Asiatic. It's like playing connect the dots with someone who has to create many many dots on a diagram where they simply don't exist. Entirely too much speculation and not enough concrete evidence, which again makes this theory laughable when compared to the African origin. Take the parallel of the spread of M35 from East Africa/migration and the origins/dispersal of the language family:

Ehret

Luis et al. 2004

Mind you, there are no common number words or family kinship terms for Afroasiatic (which is very much unlike the situation in Indo-European), either.

In what ways is that an argument against an African origin for Afro-Asiatic?

I also personally find the assertation that people cling to the farmer hypothesis for "ideological reasons" just plain stupid.

I tend to agree with Keita that the people who persistently argue a non African origin do this for support whatever ideological view that they subscribe to. Anytime a theory has to rely on line after line after line of unsupported or very shaky evidence, one must wonder what is their motivation for trying to prove this. Especially when the evidence to the opposite view is as plain as day.

The crucial question though is: how old is Proto-Afroasiatic?

The Ehret article above states that the language was originally spoken between 15,000-13,000 BC in region stretching between Nubia and Somalia.

Otherwise we end up with a serious problem to explain how isolate languages have seemingly no clear relationship with one another, and there must be a point beyond two related languages are no longer recognizable as such. So, the mere question of age, in my opinion, argues in favour of the farmer hypothesis.

The farmer Hypothesis is simply not supported:

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 Afroasiatic’sbranches are included, strongly indicates a pre–food-producing proto-Afroasiatic economy (1, 7, 8).

or

He explicitly describes proto-Afroasiatic vocabulary as consistent with non–foodproducing vocabulary and links it to pre- Neolithic cultures in the Levant and in Africa south of Egypt, noting the latter to be older.

Link . Most of the article is just a complete annilation of one linguist reasoning to support a non African origin for Afro-Asiatic".

Taranis · Feb 5, 2012

Taharqa said:
It is "laughable" when you stand it up against that which suggest that it originated in Africa (particularly the Horn). The shear amount of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic within the African continent (all except one) compared to that which is seen in Asia (Semitic) nullifies a non African origin from jump.

Farming was seen in the Middle East thousands of years prior to it's usage in the Nile Valley. If the farming communities of the Middle East are the originators of the language phylum, then farming would have subsequently been immediately introduced to the African communities as the people migrated into the continent, rather than millenniums passing by before farming was independently created on the continent as it actually did. What could logically explain that gap of this monumental development in an aspect that would become such an integral part of human life? The names of live stock and crops introduced from those Middle Eastern farmers (sheep, goat, barley and oats) would have been Semitic instead the words were Nilotic loan words, which is a testament to those Nilotic communities creating their own indigenous farming system and integrating with the Afrasian communities (from the Horn) during Pre-Dynastic times. This is what Keita means when he states with emphasis "the dates won't work".

Which ones, give specific examples please. That's the problem with the arguments of people who cling to this non African origin for Afro-Asiatic. It's like playing connect the dots with someone who has to create many many dots on a diagram where they simply don't exist. Entirely too much speculation and not enough concrete evidence, which again makes this theory laughable when compared to the African origin. Take the parallel of the spread of M35 from East Africa/migration and the origins/dispersal of the language family:

Ehret

Luis et al. 2004

In what ways is that an argument against an African origin for Afro-Asiatic?

I tend to agree with Keita that the people who persistently argue a non African origin do this for support whatever ideological view that they subscribe to. Anytime a theory has to rely on line after line after line of unsupported or very shaky evidence, one must wonder what is their motivation for trying to prove this. Especially when the evidence to the opposite view is as plain as day.

The Ehret article above states that the language was originally spoken between 15,000-13,000 BC in region stretching between Nubia and Somalia.

The farmer Hypothesis is simply not supported:

or

Link . The entire article is just a complete annilation of one lingust reasoning to support a non African origin for Afro-Asiatic, by a host of others. Please read it and understand why scholars (as Keita notes) finds the idea "laughable".

You keep saying "laughable" several times over, but I don't see any solid counter-argument in what you have presented there. First off, regarding the assumption that where a language family is most diverse must be near it's place of origin, I don't necessarily agree with this assumption. It could also be the case that this diversity is the effect of a later diversification. Conversely, regarding the Near East as the Proto-Afrasian homeland, it's absolutely possible that the Near East was later on homogenized by the later spread of the Semitic languages. The real problem I have with the hypothesis that Proto-Afroasiatic is a hunter-gatherer language, in my opinion creates a huge general problem: if it takes the excess of 10,000 or 15,000 years for languages no longer to be recognizable as being related, where does this leave isolate languages (like Basque or Sumerian)? My opinion is thus that it is far more likely that Proto-Afroasiatic was indeed a farmer language, and then, an Eurasian origin of Proto-Afroasiatic is pretty unavoidable. Unless of course, you argue for an origin of agriculture in Africa, which however is non-consistent with what we see in archaeology.

EDIT: what should be added, there's also a very interesting genetic argument in favour of an Eurasian origin, namely the fact that the Chadic peoples possess the same marker of lactase persistance as Europeans.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
First off, regarding the assumption that where a language family is most diverse must be near it's place of origin, I don't necessarily agree with this assumption. It could also be the case that this diversity is the effect of a later diversification.

Please explain why the Afro-Asiatic languages for 10,000 years would have waited until they migrated into Africa to diversify? It has nothing to show for those millenniums in the Middle East but one branch, which is Semitic. It makes absolutely no sense, which is why scholarly support non African origin for Afro-Asiatic is in the gutter. That simple observation does however support the fact that Semitic is the one of (if the not 'the') the youngest branch of Afro-Asiatic (as detailed by Ehret's map).

My opinion is thus that it is far more likely that Proto-Afroasiatic was indeed a farmer language, and then, an Eurasian origin of Proto-Afroasiatic is pretty unavoidable. Unless of course, you argue for an origin of agriculture in Africa, which however is non-consistent with what we see in archaeology.

If you actually took the time to read the article by Ehret or watch the documentary by Basil Davidson above then you would already be aware of the fact that Africans created agriculture and domesticated cattle on their own:

"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

Taranis · Feb 5, 2012

Taharqa said:
Please explain why the Afro-Asiatic languages for 10,000 years would have waited until they migrated into Africa to diversify? It has nothing to show for those millenniums in the Middle East but one branch, which is Semitic. It makes absolutely no sense, which is why scholarly support non African origin for Afro-Asiatic is in the gutter. That simple observation does however support the fact that Semitic is the one of (if the not 'the') the youngest branch of Afro-Asiatic (as detailed by Ehret's map).

If you actually took the time to read the article by Ehret or watch the documentary by Basil Davidson above then you would already be aware of the fact that Africans created agriculture and domesticated cattle on their own:

You evidently didn't understand my argument, my suggestion is that the "apparent" relative homogenity of the Semitic languages is the result of a later expansion over an area that was already Afroasiatic. I also disagree on the assessment that Semitic is the youngest branch, that honor, in my opinion, would go to the Berber languages, which are all . It makes no sense for the Capsian Culture to be speakers of Proto-Berber, since Proto-Berber clearly was the language of a pastoralist society, whereas the Capsian Culture was clearly Mesolithic.

Also, I would like to apologize, but you should re-read my previous post, which has some interesting genetic evidence for an Eurasian connection for Afroasiatic.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
EDIT: what should be added, there's also a very interesting genetic argument in favour of an Eurasian origin, namely the fact that the Chadic peoples possess the same marker of lactase persistance as Europeans.

This study seems to suggest that West African populations (Fulani) share a common allele with European. It should be interesting to note that the Fulani [FONT=Verdana, Arial]T-13910[/FONT] predates the allele which is seen in Europe. Now what exactly does this have to do with a Middle Eastern origin for Afro-Asiatic?

Taranis · Feb 5, 2012

Taharqa said:
This study seems to suggest that West African populations (Fulani) share a common allele with European. It should be interesting to note that the Fulani T-13910 predates the allele which is seen in Europe. Now what exactly does this have to do with a Middle Eastern origin for Afro-Asiatic?

Well, unless you going suggest that lactase persistence in Europe arrived from Africa, you must assume that both European and Chadic lactase persistence arrived from a different common origin, which would be the Western Asia. By the way, there is other piece of genetic evidence that ties the Chadic peoples with Eurasia, namely Y-Haplogroup R1b-V88, which has it's highest frequencies amongst Chadic-speaking peoples. This clearly suggests some migration out of the Near East to the present-day location of the Chadic peoples.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
my suggestion is that the "apparent" relative homogenity of the Semitic languages is the result of a later expansion over an area that was already Afroasiatic.

What evidence do you have for this theory? Also you have yet to explain why according to your theory there are thousands of years between when farming is seen in the Levant and when it is seen in Africa, if according to you the original Afro-Asatic speakers were farmers from the Middle East. You have also been presented with conclusive evidence that Nilotic and Afrasian communities of the Sahara developed their own agriculture independently from the Middle East, which should put to rest you concerns on that matter.

I also disagree on the assessment that Semitic is the youngest branch, that honor, in my opinion, would go to the Berber languages, which are all .

Most recent evidence does however support that Semitic is a bit older than previously thought:

Kitchen A, Ehret C, Assefa S, Mulligan CJ Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East Proc Biol Sci. 2009 Apr 29

We used Bayesian phylogenetic methods to elucidate the relationships and divergence dates of Semitic languages, which we then related to epigraphic and archaeological records to produce a comprehensive hypothesis of Semitic origins and dispersals after the divergence of ancestral Semitic from Afroasiatic in Africa (figure 1). We estimate that: (i) Semitic had an Early Bronze Age origin (approx. 5750 YBP) in the Levant, followed by an expansion of Akkadian into Mesopotamia; (ii) Central and South Semitic diverged earlier than previously thought throughout the Levant during the Early to Middle Bronze Age transition; and (iii) Ethiosemitic arose as the result of a single, possibly pre-Aksumite, introduction of a lineage from southern Arabia to the Horn of Africa approximately 2800 YBP.

Link

It makes no sense for the Capsian Culture to be speakers of Proto-Berber, since Proto-Berber clearly was the language of a pastoralist society, whereas the Capsian Culture was clearly Mesolithic.

No offense, but I'm going to role with the scholars on this one.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
Well, unless you going suggest that lactase persistence in Europe arrived from Africa,

Based on what the study estimates their ages to be the precedence should have been given to the Fulani, since it is the oldest by the method applied, but the authors gloss over this. The age estimations was more than likely referenced from Nabil et al. (2007). The results of Nabil & co. just goes to show how LP is largely a natural response to dairy-rich dietary, and as a result, LP has emerged independently [convergent evolution] in different areas of the world, and on different allelic backgrounds.

Taranis said:
By the way, there is other piece of genetic evidence that ties the Chadic peoples with Eurasia, namely Y-Haplogroup R1b-V88, which has it's highest frequencies amongst Chadic-speaking peoples. This clearly suggests some migration out of the Near East to the present-day location of the Chadic peoples.

From the looks of these frequencies of R in West and Central African populations:

Figure 2: Distribution of R1b among African Populations

Mandekan………..…………..…100%
Mossi………….……………….100%
Rimaiba………….…………….100%
Fulbe(Burkina)…….…………..91.0%
Fulbe(Niger)…………………..85.7%
Fulbe(Nigeria)…………………80.0%
Fulbe(Cameroon)……..………88.9%
Bamileke……………………….100%
Ewondo………………………….96.7
Biaka (Pygmies)………………..100%
Mbuti(Pygmies)……..………...100%
Twa(Pygmies)………………….100%

This figure is based on Cruciani et al (2010)

I'd say that this must have either been the result of a very ancient back migration or there is indeed a possibility that R originated in Africa. I think that one way to test the latter out would be to test these African populations with these high frequencies of R for Neanderthal ancestry which according to recent studies all non Africans or people with non African ancestry have. If these results were to come back negative then geneticist would most definitely have to reconsider their proposal for the origins of R. Just my opinion though.

Taranis · Feb 5, 2012

Taharqa said:
What evidence do you have for this theory? Also you have yet to explain why according to your theory there are thousands of years between when farming is seen in the Levant and when it is seen in Africa, if according to you the original Afro-Asatic speakers were farmers from the Middle East.

Because, as I said, the reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Afroasiatic, is not that of a hunter-gatherer society, and common terms for agriculture can be reconstructed for various branches within Proto-Afroasiatic. Common words for agriculture can be found in Semitic, Egyptian, Chadic and Kushitic (you can compare with Diakonoff 1998).

Most recent evidence does however support that Semitic is a bit older than previously thought: Link

To be honest, a bronze age origin for Proto-Semitic honestly makes no sense, since there is no evidence whatsoever for common terms for metal-working in Proto-Semitic. The oldest attested Semitic language, Akkadian, is already quite removed from Proto-Semitic, meaning that the split of the Semitic languages must have already occured at that point. Proto-Semitic must be a Neolithic language.

No offense, but I'm going to role with the scholars on this one.

Well, then roll with them: look up reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Berber. You're free to search for this yourself. You'll see that it's common vocabulary is that of a pastoralist society, which the Capsian Culture clearly wasn't.

Taharqa said:
Based on what the study estimates their ages to be the precedence should have been given to the Fulani, since it is the oldest by the method applied, but the authors gloss over this. The age estimations was more than likely referenced from Nabil et al. (2007). The results of Nabil & co. just goes to show how LP is largely a natural response to dairy-rich dietary, and as a result, LP has emerged independently [convergent evolution] in different areas of the world, and on different allelic backgrounds.

Yes, this is partially correct: lactase persistence indeed developed independently on several occasions, but the key issue is that the Chadic variant is the same mutation that Europeans also have, which is different from the lactase mutation of East Africans.

From the looks of these frequencies of R in West and Central African populations:

Figure 2: Distribution of R1b among African Populations

Mandekan………..…………..…100%
Mossi………….……………….100%
Rimaiba………….…………….100%
Fulbe(Burkina)…….…………..91.0%
Fulbe(Niger)…………………..85.7%
Fulbe(Nigeria)…………………80.0%
Fulbe(Cameroon)……..………88.9%
Bamileke……………………….100%
Ewondo………………………….96.7
Biaka (Pygmies)………………..100%
Mbuti(Pygmies)……..………...100%
Twa(Pygmies)………………….100%

This figure is based on Cruciani et al (2010)

I'd say that this must have either been the result of a very ancient back migration or there is indeed a possibility that R originated in Africa. I think that one way to test the latter out would be to test these African populations with these high frequencies of R for Neanderthal ancestry which according to recent studies all non Africans or people with non African ancestry have. If these results were to come back negative then geneticist would most definitely have to reconsider their proposal for the origins of R. Just my opinion though.

Honestly, an origin of Haplogroup R in Africa can be simply ruled out by the fact that you look at the outgroups of R1b-V88: the other major subclades of R1b (M269 and M73) are in Europe/Anatolia/Caucasus and Central Asia, respectively. Likewise, R1a (mainly eastern Europe and India) and R2 are in Eurasia (R2 is mainly in India). Likewise, the next outlier, Haplogroup Q is in northern Asia, as well as in the Americas (native americans). None of these Haplogroups is presented in sub-saharan Africa. The only sensible explanation for R1b-V88 is to assume a back migration from Eurasia, and this in my opinion matches the arrival of Proto-Chadic speakers in central-western Africa.

There's further evidence, and it comes from the aboriginals of the Canary Isles, the Guanches, which are generally believed to have spoken a Berber language, and ancient DNA shows that the Guanches were E-M81, E-M78 and J-M267, which links them closely with present-day Berbers. What can be ruled out is that the Guanche samples are somehow from intermixing with for instance the Arabs, since the samples are clearly from the pre-Islamic period. So, in my opinion, from the available data, it is possible that Haplogroup J1 and not Haplogroup E may have been the original Afroasiatic Haplogroup, something that is also backed up by the fact that J1 is found in sizable quantities for instance in Oromotic (Kushitic-speaking) populations at the Horn of Africa.

In regard for the Chadic peoples, it's also possible that we're talking about a founder effect here. In that case, Eurasian autosomal DNA could have been diluted, which would also match completely with their outward appearance (which is one of the very important points I'm trying to make here: both genetics, especially y-chromosomal but also mitochondrial DNA, and linguistics are rather independent from what we usually perceive as "race").

Note that I don't necessarily think that the above scenario is 100% correct, but from the available data, I consider the Eurasian/Neolithic origin at least as plausible as the African/Mesolithic origin for the Afroasiatic languages.

Taharqa · Feb 5, 2012

Taranis said:
Because, as I said, the reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Afroasiatic, is not that of a hunter-gatherer society

Your opinion is in direct contrast with that of reputed scholars who find sufficient support for their theory. I will post this once again:

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

He explicitly describes proto-Afroasiatic vocabulary as consistent with non–foodproducing vocabulary and links it to pre- Neolithic cultures in the Levant and in Africa south of Egypt, noting the latter to be older.

Confirmation that the proto Afro-Asiatic vocabulary was not consistent with that of farmers.

Taranis said:
The oldest attested Semitic language, Akkadian, is already quite removed from Proto-Semitic, meaning that the split of the Semitic languages must have already occured at that point. Proto-Semitic must be a Neolithic language.

You keep saying no this could not have happened but your reasoning is flimsy and has a utter lack of mainstream support. The evidence which the study uses to back their origins for semitic are in accordance with the Middle Eastern time line:

Our analysis of the Semitic language family produced a dated phylogeny that estimates the origin of Semitic atapproximately 4400–7400 YBP (figure 2). The phylogeny suggests East Semitic (represented by Akkadian in this study) corresponds to the deepest branch (although the four deepest branches have overlapping HPDs), and our log BF tests indicate that Akkadian is the appropriate root for the Semitic languages analysed here. These results indicate that the ancestor of all Semitic languages in our dataset was being spoken in the Near East no earlier than approximately 7400 YBP, after having diverged from Afroasiatic in Africa (Ehret 1995; Ehret et al. 2004; Blench 2006).

link

The fact that rather than suggesting a non African origin for this language family, the debate was between rather or not the outliner (Semitic) originated in Africa (Ethiopia) or the Middle East, should really hit home that a non African origin simply does not work! You also have yet to explain the dates. If Afro-Asatic originated in 10,000 BC the in Middle East amongst farmers and spread into Africa, why were Africans not farming until it was spread from the Nilotic communities of the Sahara thousands of years later? Why does the Middle East only have one branch of the lanaguage family compared to all others being in Africa, if according to you it originated has been in the Middle East for over 8,000 years? Face it, Keita and the majority of linguist are correct! The dates simply "won't work" for your theory, Afro-Asiatic originated in Horn Africa.

Taranis said:
Well, then roll with them: look up reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Berber. You're free to search for this yourself. You'll see that it's common vocabulary is that of a pastoralist society, which the Capsian Culture clearly wasn't.

You are wrong again. The Capsian culture does indeed show continuity across North Africa:

In this study we attempted to better elucidate the ancient African genetic
background in the northwest African area, particularly in Tunisia. To this aim, we
focused our study on Berber populations that are considered representative of the
ancient North African populations that probably derived from Neolithic Capsians.....

and

The Maghreb has several Neolithic traditions (Camps 1982; Phillipson
2005), which might indicate different peoples or simply cultural adoption or adaptation
by heterogeneous populations who became unified under singular cultural
practices and one language family.The Neolithic Capsian tradition shows continuity
with previous cultures, with evidence of these accepting domesticated sheep
and goat into a local subsistence pattern, thus becoming Neolithicized with a pastoralist
economy (Rahmani, 2003, 2004; Sheppard and Lubell 1990). A. B. Smith
(2005) and McDonald (1998) indicate the importance of pastoralism in the Holocene
Sahara, and this economy may help in the understanding of Berber emergence.
In the coastal Maghreb various Neolithic and post-Neolithic interregional
interactions are in evidence, based on archaeology and the eventual settlements of
the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, and others (Camps 1982).

-- Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations
Frigi et al. Human Biology (August 2010 (82:4)

Taranis said:
but the key issue is that the Chadic variant is the same mutation that Europeans also have, which is different from the lactase mutation of East Africans.

The African variation predates that of the European one. I still however, fell to see what this has to do with a non African origin for Afro-Asatic. As I've stated earlier much of the "evidence" used to try to support a non African origin for Afro-Asatic is speculative reaching at best, which is why Keita states that it's "laughable".

Taranis said:
Honestly, an origin of Haplogroup R in Africa can be simply ruled out by the fact that you look at the outgroups of R1b-V88: the other major subclades of R1b (M269 and M73) are in Europe/Anatolia/Caucasus and Central Asia, respectively. Likewise, R1a (mainly eastern Europe and India) and R2 are in Eurasia (R2 is mainly in India).

How exactly does the wide distribution of it's outgroups rule out Africa. That's like pointing out that it couldn't have originated in India because it's found as far away as West Africa where the frequencies reach up 100% (where else does it) as opposed to anywhere else? As I've stated one way for sure to rule out if it originated in Africa would be to test those populations with presumably no known non African ancestry for the Neanderthal gene which all non Africans have.

Taranis said:
The only sensible explanation for R1b-V88 is to assume a back migration from Eurasia, and this in my opinion matches the arrival of Proto-Chadic speakers in central-western Africa.

The oddest question about a relatively recent backmigration which you are suggesting, is what exactly would these "non African" R carriers would have looked like to produce offspring that blend in right along side tropical West African populations? Were those recent back migrants themselves black?

Taranis said:
it is possible that Haplogroup J1 and not Haplogroup E may have been the original Afroasiatic Haplogroup, something that is also backed up by the fact that J1 is found in sizable quantities for instance in Oromotic (Kushitic-speaking) populations at the Horn of Africa.

With that being said, recent genetic anaylsis postulate that J1 may have originated in East Africa/Ethiopia:

We recently found a number of intermediate DYS458 alleles, indicated as .2. This allelic variant is distributed in several populations, but currently no information is available regarding the molecular structure and the genealogical correlation of chromosomes with this variant. The molecular characterisation of such allele, its worldwide distribution and the correlated evolutionary history are the subject of the present paper. Molecular and genealogical data are suggestive of a single origin for the .2 variant. Phylogeographic analysis points to either a Middle East or East African origin, but additional data is necessary to clarify this point. Our results suggest that the .2 variants is a stable polymorphism and that it could be used for population studies

...

Initial SNPs analysis identified these chromosomes as derived at the M267 markers, placing them on the J1* cluster. J1 sub lineages were additionally tested (J1a–e) and in all cases the .2 chromosomes resulted ancestral at these additional markers. The DYS458 .2 Y chromosomes were then consequently identified as part of the J1 branch (Fig. 1).

...

The .2 variant shows its frequency peaks in Africa (North and East) and Caucasus. Data from the middle East is scanty and we are currently investigating various populations from this region to gather more information on the distribution in this area (data not shown). The presence in Europe is limited and the occurrences in both US and Asia (India and Malaysia) can be
considered as the result of a recent introgression of African and/ or European haplotypes. Given the current set of data it is difficult to establish the ultimate place of origin of such mutation. However, the limited genetic diversity shown by either the Caucasus and North Africa suggest a combination of drift and founder effect (followed by rapid population expansion) in these areas.

Ferri et. al. 2008, Molecular characterisation and population genetics of the DYS458 .2 allelic variant

Even if J1 did not originate in Ethiopia, the frequencies of the overwhelming strand of this haplotype seen in Ethiopian populations is ancient dating back to the Neolithic or earlier and not recent admixture.

Taranis said:
In that case, Eurasian autosomal DNA could have been diluted, which would also match completely with their outward appearance

"Dillution" indicates that the population would be mixed with black African and non Africans. There phenotype in no way, shape or form indicates that they are mixed with non Africans. This also does not explain why populations in Western and Central Africa where the frequency of R reaches between 80%-100% fit in perfectly phenotypically with other tropical West/Central African populations.

Taranis said:
I consider the Eurasian/Neolithic origin at least as plausible as the African/Mesolithic origin for the Afroasiatic languages.

Your support for the former is simply out of the question (based on conclusive evidence) for the vast majority of mainstream linguist.

Taranis · Feb 6, 2012

Taharqa said:
Your opinion is in direct contrast with that of reputed scholars who find sufficient support for their theory. I will post this once again:

Confirmation that the proto Afro-Asiatic vocabulary was not consistent with that of farmers.

You can repost that as often as you like, it is just wrong, because there is common vocabulary for farming in Afroasiatic. I do not have found a good online source for papers regarding this, but I promise that I will get back to this and will post papers here that will demonstrate to you clearly. Until then, I can give you this one example from Diakonoff 1998, namely a common root word for grain *ḥênt-, which is attested in most branches of Afroasiatic:

as "wheat":

Semitic:
Akkadian ʼuṭṭ-at-
Hebrew ḥiṭṭ-â
Aramaic ḥinṭ-ê-t-
Arabic ḥinṭ-at-
Soqotri ḥinṭ-eh

Kushitic:
Hadiya hiṭe
Kambatta hiṭe
Bambala hanṭe

as "millet":

Old Egyptian ḫnd

Hausa (Chadic) "gundu"

This is clearly a Neolithic term. Unless you can demonstrate that it is a 'wandering word' that spread after the breakup of Proto-Afroasiatic, one must assume that it was part of Proto-Afroasiatic, and that, indeed Proto-Afroasiatic was a Neolithic language.

You keep saying no this could not have happened but your reasoning is flimsy and has a utter lack of mainstream support. The evidence which the study uses to back their origins for semitic are in accordance with the Middle Eastern time line:

"Flimsy"? Mind your words, there is no reason to become rude!

Also, the truth is that the study you quote lacks any credibility due to the statement of 4400 YBP, which would be 2400 BC. However, the first evidence of Akkadian in Sumerian sources begins in the 29th century BC, approximately 500 years earlier. How is Proto-Semitic supposed to have split up 400 years after the earliest attestation of Akkadian? And, at this point, I would like to remind you that Akkadian despite it's ancientness is already quite derived from Proto-Semitic. The only way for this to work is that the Semitic languages did split up significantly earlier, which is also backed up by the fact that there are no common words for metals or metal-working in the Semitic languages, as such the Semitic languages are older than the bronze age, and must date from the Neolithic. How can anybody make a claim on the origin of the Semitic language that defies the written record?

The fact that rather than suggesting a non African origin for this language family, the debate was between rather or not the outliner (Semitic) originated in Africa (Ethiopia) or the Middle East, should really hit home that a non African origin simply does not work! You also have yet to explain the dates. If Afro-Asatic originated in 10,000 BC the in Middle East amongst farmers and spread into Africa, why were Africans not farming until it was spread from the Nilotic communities of the Sahara thousands of years later? Why does the Middle East only have one branch of the lanaguage family compared to all others being in Africa, if according to you it originated has been in the Middle East for over 8,000 years? Face it, Keita and the majority of linguist are correct! The dates simply "won't work" for your theory, Afro-Asiatic originated in Horn Africa.

Agriculture in the Nile region arrives in around 6000 BC from the Near East, and this may yield the arrival of Proto-Egyptian speakers. It's absolutely possible that there was an earlier diversity of Afroasiatic languages in the Near East which was eradicated by the spread of the Proto-Semitic speakers.

You are wrong again. The Capsian culture does indeed show continuity across North Africa:

Explain to me, where exactly did we start talking about the continuity of the Capsian culture? I was talking about the reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Berber, which is that of a pastoralist society, and not that of hunter-gatherers. The Capsian Culture was one of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, which means that the Capsians cannot have been speaking Proto-Berber.

The African variation predates that of the European one. I still however, fell to see what this has to do with a non African origin for Afro-Asatic. As I've stated earlier much of the "evidence" used to try to support a non African origin for Afro-Asatic is speculative reaching at best, which is why Keita states that it's "laughable".

The question wether the African or the European type of lactase persistence is earlier is rather irrelevant for this discussion, because Chadic peoples have the European variant, not the African one, which is clearly stated in the article that I provided.

How exactly does the wide distribution of it's outgroups rule out Africa. That's like pointing out that it couldn't have originated in India because it's found as far away as West Africa where the frequencies reach up 100% (where else does it) as opposed to anywhere else? As I've stated one way for sure to rule out if it originated in Africa would be to test those populations with presumably no known non African ancestry for the Neanderthal gene which all non Africans have.

Look again, in detail at the distributions of the various Haplogroups I mentioned:

Q (M242) - Siberia and Americas
R2 (M479) - Indian Subcontinent.
R1a (M420) - Eastern Europe and South Asia
R1b-V88 - Near East and Africa
R1b-M73 - Central Asia
R1b-M269 - Europe, Anatolia, Caucasus

None of the above Haplogroups, with exception of R1b-V88 are, to my knowledge, found in any appreciable quantities in sub-Saharan Africa. The most plausible origin for the common ancestor of the above (Haplogroup P*) is either Central Asia or South Asia. It's clear that the development of all these Haplogroups occured in Chadic R1b is clearly the result of a back migration from Eurasia to Africa. So, my conjecture here is that the arrival of R1b (as well as the European marker of lactase persistence) in the Chad region coincides with the arrival of Proto-Chadic speakers.

The oddest question about a relatively recent backmigration which you are suggesting, is what exactly would these "non African" R carriers would have looked like to produce offspring that blend in right along side tropical West African populations? Were those recent back migrants themselves black?

Is this question even relevant?

With that being said, recent genetic anaylsis postulate that J1 may have originated in East Africa/Ethiopia:

Even if J1 did not originate in Ethiopia, the frequencies of the overwhelming strand of this haplotype seen in Ethiopian populations is ancient dating back to the Neolithic or earlier and not recent admixture.

J1 is prettymuch impossible to have originated in Ethiopia, because the most archaic varieties of J1 are found in the Caucasus. If you take a look at the outgroups, you get a similar picture as with R1b: Haplogroup J2 is also mainly found in the Near East, and Haplogroup I is in Europe. This means that African J1 must also be the result of a back migration, which - again - would be consistent with a Neolithic spread of Afroasiatic languages from the Middle East.

"Dillution" indicates that the population would be mixed with black African and non Africans. There phenotype in no way, shape or form indicates that they are mixed with non Africans. This also does not explain why populations in Western and Central Africa where the frequency of R reaches between 80%-100% fit in perfectly phenotypically with other tropical West/Central African populations.

As you should be aware, Y-Haplogroups are only based off the DNA of the Y-chromosome, and phenotypical features such as skin color are completely independent from it as they are encoded into autosomal DNA.

Your support for the former is simply out of the question (based on conclusive evidence) for the vast majority of mainstream linguist.

Well, there is the possibility that the vast majority of mainstream linguists are just plain wrong about this, and I have presented a number of arguments (both genetically and linguistically) why this could indeed be the case. My opinion is that the arguments for a Neolithic origin of Afroasiatic cannot be dismissed so easily as "laughable".

Taharqa · Feb 6, 2012

Taranis said:
You can repost that as often as you like, it is just wrong, because there is common vocabulary for farming in Afroasiatic.

You have an utter lack of mainstream support for your stance. In other words you have absolutely no scholarly basis to assert that this peer reviewed finding is incorrect:

I do not have found a good online source for papers regarding this, but I promise that I will get back to this and will post papers here that will demonstrate to you clearly. Until then, I can give you this one example from Diakonoff 1998, namely a common root word for grain *ḥênt-, which is attested in most branches of Afroasiatic:

The response by Ehret et al. to your assertion:

However, not one of Militarev’s proposed 32 agricultural roots can be considered diagnostic of cultivation. Fifteen are reconstructed as names of plants or loose categories of plants. Such evidence may reveal plants known to early Afroasiatic speakers, but it does not indicate whether they were cultivated or wild. Militarev’s remaining roots are each semantically mixed, i.e., they have foodproduction– related meanings in some languages, but in other languages have meanings applicable to foraging or equally applicable to foraging or cultivating.

link

Taranis said:
"Flimsy"? Mind your words, there is no reason to become rude!

Keita (an authority) considers your position of a non African origin for this language family as "laughable". Me merely pointing out your reasoning is flimsy, should be the least of your worries!

Also, the truth is that the study you quote lacks any credibility due to the statement of 4400 YBP, which would be 2400 BC.

Why are you insisting on asserting your opinion as an "authority"? Here are the diversion times which are supported by several methods:

Semitic divergence times, which are strengths of Bayesian methods and have been successfully used to date the divergences of Indo- European (Gray & Atkinson 2003; Atkinson et al. 2005) and Austronesian (Gray et al. 2009) languages. These constraints are: (i) the origin of ancient Hebrew 3200–4200 YBP (Steiner 1997), (ii) the origin of Ugaritic 3400–4400 YBP (Pardee 1997), (iii) the origin of Aramaic 2850–3850 YBP (Kaufman 1997) and (iv) the origin of Amharic 700–1700 YBP (Hudson 1997). Each of these constraints spans a 1000- year interval since the earliest epigraphic or historical evidence for the language. An additional constraint (v) was placed on the time of the most recent common ancestor of the included Semitic languages to 4350–8000 YBP (the lower date is based on the earliest known epigraphic evidence of Akkadian; Buccellati 1997). An analysis was also performed without the constraint on the age of the root, which returned an estimate of 4300–7750 YBP for the root, i.e. almost exactly our constraint range.

Taranis said:
However, the first evidence of Akkadian in Sumerian sources begins in the 29th century BC, approximately 500 years earlier. How is Proto-Semitic supposed to have split up 400 years after the earliest attestation of Akkadian?

If you've read the entire study then would have seen where this is noted and is in compliance with historical record:

Our estimate for the origin of Semitic (4400–7400 YBP) predates the first Akkadian inscriptions in the archaeological record of northern Mesopotamia by approximately 100–3000 years (Buccellati 1997). The city-states of Sumer were established and flourishing in Mesopotamia with their own indigenous languages unrelated to Semitic by approximately 5400 YBP (Lloyd 1984), so it is unlikely that Akkadian was spoken in Sumer for the entirety of the possible 3000-year interval between the origin of Semitic and Akkadian’s initial appearance in the archaeological record.

Taranis said:
Agriculture in the Nile region arrives in around 6000 BC from the Near East, and this may yield the arrival of Proto-Egyptian speakers.

Another refuted claim on your behave:

"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.

You cannot simply keep dismissing the words of these reputed because you don't like their ideas. If your opinion is in line with the majority of modern linguist then provide support for your thoery or just drop it.

I was talking about the reconstructed vocabulary of Proto-Berber, which is that of a pastoralist society, and not that of hunter-gatherers. The Capsian Culture was one of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, which means that the Capsians cannot have been speaking Proto-Berber.

Why are you sidestepping every scholarly opinion that I put fourth which refutes your claims? You don't address their legitimacy, but you instead just outwardly say that they were wrong because you say so. It simply does not work that way. Once again this statement from Frigi et al will explain the support that Capsian culture was indeed proto Berber:

The Neolithic Capsian tradition shows continuity with previous cultures, with evidence of these accepting domesticated sheep and goat into a local subsistence pattern, thus becoming Neolithicized with a pastoralist economy (Rahmani, 2003, 2004; Sheppard and Lubell 1990). A. B. Smith (2005) and McDonald (1998) indicate the importance of pastoralism in the Holocene Sahara, and this economy may help in the understanding of Berber emergence.
-- Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations
Frigi et al. Human Biology (August 2010 (82:4)

Taranis said:
It's clear that the development of all these Haplogroups occured in Chadic R1b is clearly the result of a back migration from Eurasia to Africa.

When was this back migration?

Taranis said:
So, my conjecture here is that the arrival of R1b (as well as the European marker of lactase persistence) in the Chad region coincides with the arrival of Proto-Chadic speakers.

The problem with your theory is that you basically saying that the R Haplogroup followed along lingusitic lines, when it clearly did not. The populations with the highest frequencies are Niger Congo speakers (the Mande) and other West/Central African non Afro-Asatic speaking populations.

Taranis said:
Is this question even relevant

It's an unavoidable question and you know it. Why do populations in interior Africa have frequencies of up to 100% of a suppositely non African genetic marker who recieved this from a relatively recent back migration according to you (carried by people who are presumed to be non African in phenotype) look physically indistinguishable from their E carrying African neighbors? Im aware that a haplotype is not the sole determinant of phenotype, but this question still remains in the air.

Taranis said:
J1 is prettymuch impossible to have originated in Ethiopia, because the most archaic varieties of J1 are found in the Caucasus.

No a non African origin for Afro-Asatic according to the vast majority of linguist is "impossible". This theory on the otherhand has recent genetic support:

We recently found a number of intermediate DYS458 alleles, indicated as .2. This allelic variant is distributed in several populations, but currently no information is available regarding the molecular structure and the genealogical correlation of chromosomes with this variant. The molecular characterisation of such allele, its worldwide distribution and the correlated evolutionary history are the subject of the present paper. Molecular and genealogical data are suggestive of a single origin for the .2 variant. Phylogeographic analysis points to either a Middle East or East African origin, but additional data is necessary to clarify this point. Our results suggest that the .2 variants is a stable polymorphism and that it could be used for population studies

Taranis said:
This means that African J1 must also be the result of a back migration, which - again - would be consistent with a Neolithic spread of Afroasiatic languages from the Middle East.

The variation of J1 seen in the Horn dates back to the Neolithic or earlier times:

Haplogroup J, characterized by the mutation 12f2.1,has been found at a frequency of approximately 18% in Ethiopians, with a relatively higher prevalence among the Amhara, where it has been found to exist at levels as high as 35% , of which about 33% is of the type J-M267, almost all of which was acquired during Neolithic times or earlier, while 2% is of the derived J-M172 type representing admixture due to recent and historic migrations. - Origin, diffusion, and differentiation of Y-chromosome haplogroups E and J: inferences on the neolithization of Europe and later migratory events in the Mediterranean area American Journal of Human Genetics 74 (5): 1023–34. doi:10.1086/386295. PMID 15069642

- Semino O, Magri C, Benuzzi G, et al. 2004

Therefore it is likely to have been in place in the Northeast African populations who originated populated Northern Africa.

Taranis said:
My opinion is that the arguments for a Neolithic origin of Afroasiatic cannot be dismissed so easily as "laughable".

The fact that you have yet to take the issue of the farming dates and Demic Diffusion head on (key issues) show just how laughable a non African origin for this language family really is.

Taranis · Feb 7, 2012

Taharqa said:
You have an utter lack of mainstream support for your stance. In other words you have absolutely no scholarly basis to assert that this peer reviewed finding is incorrect:

Since when does "lack of mainstream support" (never mind the fact that "mainstream" is a bit relative anyways when talking about this topic!) equate with "I have absolutely no scholarly basis"? I have provided you with a source (Diakonoff, 1998, in the journal of semitic studies - "The earliest semitic society"), and I have promised that I will post more later here.

Keita (an authority) considers your position of a non African origin for this language family as "laughable".

Regarding Keita, it should be pointed out that he's not a geneticist, he's not a linguist and he's not archaeologist either, but a physical anthropologist. I'm not saying that this means that he has no authority (I surely believe that he has authority as a physical anthropologist), but I certainly raise an eyebrow when you call him "an authority that considers my position laughable" and continue to insult me. You don't win discussions with such statements.

Me merely pointing out your reasoning is flimsy, should be the least of your worries!

Consider yourself officially warned. You are walking on very thin ice right now.

The response by Ehret et al. to your assertion:

Ehret's counter-arguments are standing on shaky ground themselves. Perhaps you can explain to me why the reconstructed terms for instance for domesticated animals clearly match that of a pastoralist society? What purpose would a hunter-gatherer society have for terminologies that differenciate between young, male and females of a type of animal that was domesticated, from the perspective of the hunter-gatherers, at a later point?

Why are you insisting on asserting your opinion as an "authority"?

I'm not asserting my opinion as an authority, but I'm bringing up valid counter-arguments. My authority comes from these counter arguments, not vice versa.

Here are the diversion times which are supported by several methods:

Well, they do something that really casts doubt on their authority on this issue: they cite Gray and Atkinson 2003: they claimed that Proto-Indo-European was a Neolithic language that originates in Anatolia. Does this sound familiar? How can PIE be a Neolithic language if there's common terms for metal-working in Proto-Indo-European? You have a similar problem with neolithic Proto-Indo-European (the Anatolian hypothesis, which Gray and Atkinson 2003 supported) as with mesolithic Proto-Afroasiatic.

Another refuted claim on your behave:

How does this refute my claim? I didn't speak in favour or against Demic diffusion. What the article you quote acknowleges is that farming arrives from the Middle East in Egypt, and it's thus absolutely compatible with the Neolithic/Eurasian origin of Proto-Afroasiatic.

You cannot simply keep dismissing the words of these reputed because you don't like their ideas.

Who is the one here who keeps dismissing an idea because he doesn't like it?

If your opinion is in line with the majority of modern linguist then provide support for your thoery or just drop it.

What? I'm supposed to drop my views because they are not in line with the majority of linguists? That is not how science works. It's possible that the majority of linguists are simply wrong on the topic.

Why are you sidestepping every scholarly opinion that I put fourth which refutes your claims? You don't address their legitimacy, but you instead just outwardly say that they were wrong because you say so. It simply does not work that way. Once again this statement from Frigi et al will explain the support that Capsian culture was indeed proto Berber:

I don't say that they are wrong because I say so. I say that they are wrong because I have well-grounded counter-arguments (both linguistically and genetically), and I also provide you with a chance to disprove my own hypotheses. As I have stated, if you can provide me with linguistic evidence that Proto-Berber was indeed a hunter-gatherer language, then I am willing to believe you that the Capsian Culture is indeed viable as a candidate for speakers of Proto-Berber. I am however quite confident that Proto-Berber can be reconstructed as a Neolithic pastoralist language, which clearly rules out the Mesolithic Capsian Culture. Besides, Frigi et al. argue for genetic continuity between the Capsian Culture and the modern-day Berber populations. This, in no way, stands in any contradiction to the idea that the Proto-Berber languages may have only arrived in northwest Africa with the Neolithic.

The problem with your theory is that you basically saying that the R Haplogroup followed along lingusitic lines, when it clearly did not. The populations with the highest frequencies are Niger Congo speakers (the Mande) and other West/Central African non Afro-Asatic speaking populations.

No, I'm not explicitly saying that Y-Haplogroup R1b is following linguistic lines, because it clearly isn't. However, you have the case of an Y-Haplogroup that originated in Eurasia and migrated into Africa. Amongst other populations, R1b-V88 is also found amongst Semitic peoples in the Middle East, amongst Egyptians and amongst Berbers, all which are Afroasiatic-speaking peoples. From this area, R1b-V88 must have spread southwards into the Chad region, and then why does it not make sense to assume that these same people who spread R1b-V88 were also speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic? Regarding the highest frequencies being purportedly in Niger-Congo speakers, while that is possible, could you please cite the source for that? The source that I cite clearly shows that it's most prevalent amongst Chadic speakers.

It's an unavoidable question and you know it. Why do populations in interior Africa have frequencies of up to 100% of a suppositely non African genetic marker who recieved this from a relatively recent back migration according to you (carried by people who are presumed to be non African in phenotype) look physically indistinguishable from their E carrying African neighbors? Im aware that a haplotype is not the sole determinant of phenotype, but this question still remains in the air.

Well, in my book that question is pretty meaningless. As I have stated before, there is no evidence that Y-Haplogroups have any effect on phenotypical appearance. Besides, there's an analogue for this from the Indo-European context: Both eastern Europeans and Indians, as you may know, do predominantly have Y-Haplogroup R1a. However, autosomally (autosomal admixtures), only a small percentage of Indians correspond with Eastern Europe autosomal admixture. So, if we consider the Indo-European immigration into India, and consider factors such as warfare, polygyny and other factors, we can indeed explain how this would result in Y-Haplogroups becoming dominant, whereas at the same time the corresponding autosomal DNA got dilluted. It is my opinion that when the Proto-Chadic peoples arrived in the Chad region, a comparable scenario might have happened. I admit that this is just a hypothesis, but since R1b clearly originated in Eurasia, one needs to come up with a scenario to explain the prevalence of this Haplogroup in the Chad region.

Regarding Haplogroup J1, you're very selective what your read. In that quote it said "Neolithic or earlier", which does not explicitly rule out Neolithic as wrong. Besides, as I have stated, it is in the Caucasus you find the more archaic varieties of J1 (J1*, ie not part of the major subclade J1-P58). If you, additionally, consider that Haplogroup J2 also originated in the Near East, this means that this is evidence for a migration from the Middle East into Africa. Otherwise, I'm curious how you come up with a scenario why J1 is so abundant amongst certain populations in the Caucasus.

Thus, it shows that both Y-Haplogroups J1 and R1b-V88 provide evidence for ancient migrations out of the Middle East into Africa. What pattern matches with this genetic data other than an Eurasian (and thus likely Neolithic) origin of Proto-Afroasiatic?

Taharqa · Feb 8, 2012

Taranis said:
Since when does "lack of mainstream support" (never mind the fact that "mainstream" is a bit relative anyways when talking about this topic!) equate with "I have absolutely no scholarly basis"? I have provided you with a source (Diakonoff, 1998, in the journal of semitic studies - "The earliest semitic society"), and I have promised that I will post more later here.

You have no "scholarly basis" to assert that they are wrong on their analysis of Diakonoff works, which is what you were essentially taking issue with. The most baffling issue with your stance is that Diakonoff himself in the exact same study that you cite proclaims a Northeast East African origin (between Tibesti and Darfur to be exact) for Afro-Asiatic! One would think that he of all people would be aware of the implications of his own original research when he comes to an African origin for the language family which is almost universally by modern linguist and recent research, so why then are you disputing that fact? Again Keita coined the few opposers to this obvious fact appropriately when he labeled them "hold outs".

Taranis said:
Regarding Keita, it should be pointed out that he's not a geneticist, he's not a linguist and he's not archaeologist either, but a physical anthropologist.

Actually Keita is a bio-geneticist as well. That is why he has lead peer reviewed studies on the Y Chromosome of modern Egyptians. As noted by Keita in the Manchester lecture on the previous page, he in fact is not a linguist, but he is in direct contact with them and he co-authored the the "origins of Afro-Asiatic" article with Christopher Ehret and Paul Newman. He is also not an archaeologist, but he rather cites the works of archaeologist which have been almost universally accepted as more recent works (in other disciplines) run parallel with those findings.

Taranis said:
I'm not saying that this means that he has no authority (I surely believe that he has authority as a physical anthropologist), but I certainly raise an eyebrow when you call him "an authority that considers my position laughable" and continue to insult me. You don't win discussions with such statements.

The National Geographic for one considers him an authority to speak on the issue of the origins of ancient Egypt from a multidisciplinary approach. The University of Cambridge for two considers him an authority on the issue of the origins of ancient Egypt from a multidisciplinary approach. Of course you've seen the clip from Manchester in which is was also invited to speak on the same issue, as an authority from a multidisciplinary approach.

Taranis said:
Ehret's counter-arguments are standing on shaky ground themselves.

Really? How many modern linguist can you cite to back this claim?

Taranis said:
Perhaps you can explain to me why the reconstructed terms for instance for domesticated animals clearly match that of a pastoralist society?

Are you aware that you are simply presenting Militarev's same talking points, which have all been exposed and debunked in the same article that I have posted to you several times throughout this thread? :

"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 Afroasiatic’s branches are included, strongly indicates a pre–food-producing proto-Afroasiatic economy....."

"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–foodproducing 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 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). One interpretation of the archaeological data supports a pre–foodproducing population movement from Africa into the Levant (9), consistent with the linguistic arguments for a pre-Neolithic migration of pre–proto-Semitic speakers out of Africa via Sinai (8)......"

"The proto-language of each Afroasiatic branch developed its own distinct vocabulary of food production, further supporting the view that herding and cultivation emerged separately in each branch after the proto-Afroasiatic period (7, 8). Diamond and Bellwood adopt Militarev’s (2) solitary counterclaim of proto-Afroasiatic cultivation. However, not one of Militarev’s proposed 32 agricultural roots can be considered diagnostic of cultivation. Fifteen are reconstructed as names of plants or loose categories of plants. Such evidence may reveal plants known to early Afroasiatic speakers, but it does not indicate whether they were cultivated or wild." Militarev’s remaining roots are each semantically mixed, i.e., they have foodproduction– related meanings in some languages, but in other languages have meanings applicable to foraging or equally applicable to foraging or cultivating.

Link

Every question or concern in your stance has been addressed/refuted by these linguist, which is why their stance of an African origin is accepted as the mainstream stance and has been for the over the past 50 years.

Taranis said:
I'm not asserting my opinion as an authority, but I'm bringing up valid counter-arguments. My authority comes from these counter arguments, not vice versa.

You are simply not acknowledging that everyone of your counter claims has been addressed and refuted, as they all appear to be highly inspired by the works of Militarez. The fact of the matter is a non African origin for Afro-Asatic is has been abandoned since the latter half of the last century. What is perhaps the most damning piece of evidence which debunked this theory was the revelation of the ancient Saharan "Neolithic":

Later, stimulated by mid-Holocene droughts, migration from the Sahara contributed population to the Nile Valley (Hassan 1988, Kobusiewicz 1992, Wendorf and Schild 1980, 2001); the predynastic of upper Egypt and later Neolithic in lower Egypt show clear Saharan affinities. A striking increase of pastoralists’ hearths are found in the Nile valley dating to between 5000-4000 BCE (Hassan 1988). Saharan Nilo-Saharan speakers may have been initial domesticators of African cattle found in the Sahara (see Ehret 2000, Wendorf et. Al. 1987). Hence there was a Saharan “Neolithic” with evidence for domesticated cattle before they appear in the Nile valley (Wendorf et al. 2001). Keita and Boyce, Genetics, Egypt, And History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns Of Y Chromosome Variation, History in Africa 32 (2005) 221-246

This explains why the words for sheep, goat, wheat, and oats (all of Near Eastern origin) are not Semitic loan words, but indigenous words from Nilotic foraging background.

Taranis said:
What the article you quote acknowleges is that farming arrives from the Middle East in Egypt, and it's thus absolutely compatible with the Neolithic/Eurasian origin of Proto-Afroasiatic.

No where in Ehrets et al's. article does it state that farming arrived from the Middle East into Egypt. Ehret is stating that the indigenous foraging system already in place (which came the Sahara) incorporated Near Eastern products into it "on their own terms" (meaning not suddenly).

Taranis said:
Who is the one here who keeps dismissing an idea because he doesn't like it?

You don't provide valid support (in form of a study or comment from a linguist) for your interpretations. You are merely relying on your own conclusions and trying to use that as a basis to dismiss the words of reputed linguist.

Taranis said:
What? I'm supposed to drop my views because they are not in line with the majority of linguists? That is not how science works. It's possible that the majority of linguists are simply wrong on the topic.

We all know that as time goes on new evidence tends surface which drastically alters ideas and theories. You don't seem to realize that your stance on a non African origin for Afrasian already had it's walk in the sun (during the early half of the last century), and was heavily based on a lack archaeological evidence. In the decades following it's fall from grace entirely too much consensus has been reached against those previous ideas, and the "Saharan Neolithic" was the doomsday for that theory.

Taranis said:
As I have stated, if you can provide me with linguistic evidence that Proto-Berber was indeed a hunter-gatherer language, then I am willing to believe you that the Capsian Culture is indeed viable as a candidate for speakers of Proto-Berber.

I don't dispute the fact that Proto-Berber was a pastoralist society, but it shows continuations with the Capsian culture. Rahmani, N (2004) for one supports the theory that the Capsian culture was ancestral to North African languages including Berber.

Taranis said:
Besides, Frigi et al. argue for genetic continuity between the Capsian Culture and the modern-day Berber populations.

Let's reassess this statement by Frigi et al.:

The Neolithic Capsian tradition shows continuity with previous cultures, with evidence of these accepting domesticated sheep and goat into a local subsistence pattern, thus becoming Neolithicized with a pastoralist economy (Rahmani, 2003, 2004; Sheppard and Lubell 1990). A. B. Smith (2005) and McDonald (1998) indicate the importance of pastoralism in the Holocene Sahara, and this economy may help in the understanding of Berber emergence.-- Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations Frigi et al. Human Biology (August 2010 (82:4)

No where is the statement is Frigi referring to "genetic continuity"! He is clearly referring to cultural/linguistic continuity from the Mesolithic("previous cultures" from neolithic) to the "emergence" of Berber culture.

Taranis said:
No, I'm not explicitly saying that Y-Haplogroup R1b is following linguistic lines, because it clearly isn't. However, you have the case of an Y-Haplogroup that originated in Eurasia and migrated into Africa. Amongst other populations,

You are using the presence of haplogroup R in interior Africa to somehow support your theory of an Afro-Asatic origin in the Middle East and migration into Africa. One major problem with your theory is that you have yet to give a date for this migration! Were these early Semitic speakers comprised entirely of haplogroup R1b? If not then why is there a complete absense of those other non Africa haplogroups in these African populations?

Please answer these question.

Taranis said:
R1b-V88 is also found amongst Semitic peoples in the Middle East, amongst Egyptians and amongst Berbers, all which are Afroasiatic-speaking peoples.

You seem to be ignoring the most troublesome fact towards your theory, which is that the highest frequencies of R1b-V88 in Africa are not amongst the people whom you just listed but instead West African Niger Congo speakers and Central African Pygmies at ranges between 80%-100%! Are the people who according to you are the descendants of an in-migrating R carrying Middle Eastern population, showing less frequencies of the haplogroup than populations who have arguably nothing to do with this migration?

Taranis said:
Regarding the highest frequencies being purportedly in Niger-Congo speakers, while that is possible, could you please cite the source for that? The source that I cite clearly shows that it's most prevalent amongst Chadic speakers.

That was a comparison only amongst Afro-Asatic populations, not the entire continent. The comparisons found in Cruciani et al (2010):

Mandekan………..…………..…100%
Mossi………….……………….100%
Rimaiba………….…………….100%
Fulbe(Burkina)…….…………..91.0%
Fulbe(Niger)…………………..85.7%
Fulbe(Nigeria)…………………80.0%
Fulbe(Cameroon)……..………88.9%
Bamileke……………………….100%
Ewondo………………………….96.7
Biaka (Pygmies)………………..100%
Mbuti(Pygmies)……..………...100%
Twa(Pygmies)………………….100%

How much higher can you than 100%?

Taranis said:
As I have stated before, there is no evidence that Y-Haplogroups have any effect on phenotypical appearance.

Are essentially saying that if a populations whom we presume as being phenotypically non African (out of the range of diversity) backed migrated into Africa and produced populations from central to West Africa, that it would not differentiate those populations from surrounding African populations?

As I've stated the dates for this presumed back migration will help answer this question, based on what we already know about the phenotype of some neolithic Eurasian populations (Brace 2006).

Taranis said:
Regarding Haplogroup J1, you're very selective what your read. In that quote it said "Neolithic or earlier", which does not explicitly rule out Neolithic as wrong.

The point is that it was present in East Africa, whose inhabitants constitute the genetic base for the entire North African region. That being said those very small frequencies of the haplogroup in Northwest Africa, fits much more into the fact that there may have been a small frequency in that East African population to begin with. As opposed to an unsupported theory of a small migration of Middle Easterners across Northern Africa during prehistoric times.

Taranis said:
What pattern matches with this genetic data other than an Eurasian (and thus likely Neolithic) origin of Proto-Afroasiatic?

Your theory is possible, but highly unlikely and lacks a scholarly backing (meaning cite a scholar who argues exactly what you are). On the other hand:

Afro-Asiatic origins in East Africa and the spread of M35 appear to be much more correspondent with one another and has the most support.

Taranis · Feb 12, 2012

Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to continue arguing with you after having read this:

That was a comparison only amongst Afro-Asatic populations, not the entire continent. The comparisons found in Cruciani et al (2010):

Mandekan………..…………..…100%
Mossi………….……………….100%
Rimaiba………….…………….100%
Fulbe(Burkina)…….…………..91.0%
Fulbe(Niger)…………………..85.7%
Fulbe(Nigeria)…………………80.0%
Fulbe(Cameroon)……..………88.9%
Bamileke……………………….100%
Ewondo………………………….96.7
Biaka (Pygmies)………………..100%
Mbuti(Pygmies)……..………...100%
Twa(Pygmies)………………….100%

How much higher can you than 100%?

If I may refer you to the actual paper:

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n7/abs/ejhg2009231a.html

Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages

Abstract:

Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25* are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95%. Phylogenetic evidence and coalescence time estimates suggest that R-P25* chromosomes (or their phylogenetic ancestor) may have been carried to Africa by an Asia-to-Africa back migration in prehistoric times. Here, we describe six new mutations that define the relationships among the African R-P25* Y chromosomes and between these African chromosomes and earlier reported R-P25 Eurasian sub-lineages. The incorporation of these new mutations into a phylogeny of the R1b haplogroup led to the identification of a new clade (R1b1a or R-V88) encompassing all the African R-P25* and about half of the few European/west Asian R-P25* chromosomes. A worldwide phylogeographic analysis of the R1b haplogroup provided strong support to the Asia-to-Africa back-migration hypothesis. The analysis of the distribution of the R-V88 haplogroup in >1800 males from 69 African populations revealed a striking genetic contiguity between the Chadic-speaking peoples from the central Sahel and several other Afroasiatic-speaking groups from North Africa. The R-V88 coalescence time was estimated at 9200–5600 kya, in the early mid Holocene. We suggest that R-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view.

More importantly, if you take a look at the R1b-V88 frequencies that are given in the paper:

... it's very clear that the purported "100%" frequencies you give for non-Chadic peoples are absent, and that there's a clear correlation with speakers of Chadic languages.

You accuse me of purportedly having no authority to criticize the works of Diakonoff, Keira, Ehret etc. (the authority which I'm taking from the arguments themselves), yet in contrast you have seemingly no qualm to change facts as they are stated in papers. How can you so obviously distort actual statements from papers and attempt to lie into my face about this? What point is there in arguing you if you're willing to twist facts just to support your view?

Taharqa · Feb 12, 2012

Taranis said:
Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to continue arguing with you after having read this:

If I may refer you to the actual paper:

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v18/n7/abs/ejhg2009231a.html

More importantly, if you take a look at the R1b-V88 frequencies that are given in the paper:

View attachment 5484

... it's very clear that the purported "100%" frequencies you give for non-Chadic peoples are absent, and that there's a clear correlation with speakers of Chadic languages.

:ashamed2: Forgive me for this error. You are the first to have brought it to my attention. The source for these numbers was based on a misreading of this table:

http://olmec98.net/cruciani.jpg

from the study. I did not purposely try to mislead you or anyone else.

I am however correct that the frequencies of R1 still reach 100% in West African populations, but subsequently has an absence of any other non African haplogroup. Why is this? Were the proto Afro-Asatic speakers who you claim migrated into this region from the Levant comprised entirely of haplogroup R? If not (which is a given) then explain the current circumstance.

Another question is why is it seen in such low frequencies across other Afro-Asiatic speakers in northern Africa (except for 26% in Siwa Egyptian Berbers), but again reaches 100% frequencies in West-Central Africa.

Belisarius · Feb 20, 2012

First of all, what do you mean by white? If you are using white as a synonym for Indo-European then no, they aren't. If you are using white as a term for caucasoid then yes, they are. It is important to be clear on terminology, otherwise there is nothing to stop someone from using bait and switch.

That being said, there are a few points I would like to touch on.

1) Afrocentrism: It is my understanding that Afrocentrists believe that the original Egyptians were negroid, and at some point were either driven off or killed off by Semitic invaders from the Middle East. Some have even made the more ridiculous claim that the present day Egyptians came from Greeks or Romans. Afrocentrists have also argued that the Egyptians must have been black because they supposedly referred to Egypt as Kemet which means "the black land," so therefore it must have been in reference to the people calling themselves black.

*First of all, Egypt has always been a densely populated region with people clustered around the Nile. Most of the rest of the country is useless wasteland with limited resources. There is zero possibility of a genocide having occurred in Egypt at any point in time. Genocides leave behind records. Especially when the people group in question is large, famous, and LITERATE. To believe that this could happen without leaving behind a record is ridiculous in the extreme. Second, the same is true of forced relocation. Forced relocation leaves behind a record as well. Some examples of forced relocation include the expulsion of the Ainu from Honshu, and the expulsion of the many Native American tribes from the eastern United States. In both of those cases a vastly superior civilization expelled people groups which were considerably less developed and smaller. A historical record was left behind. A historical record should exist if a similar expulsion occurred in Egypt. And there is no way that anyone who expelled them would not have bragged about it.

2) "Kemet" refers to the area of black soil around the Nile. They used the term "deshret" (which meant red land) to refer to the useless desert that surrounded the fertile black soil. They didn't call it the red land because the people who lived there are red. The name for Egypt was Aegeptus (spelling?). The term "Copt" is used to refer to the Christian minorities of Egypt who never converted to Islam following the Arab invasion. Those people, up until fairly recently, spoke a language which was directly derived classic Egyptian. Obviously the language has changed over time, and it is no longer used in conversational speech but it is still used in church liturgies. The term Copt was derived from an Arabic mispronunciation of Aegeptus, which Arabs could not pronounce. But Copt literally means EGYPTIAN. That being said, one can disprove a link to Europe and Middle Eastern Semites by checking the list of Semitic and Indo-European languages for COPTIC. I have already checked, and it is not in either group.

3) As for the Ethiopians and the major groups of the Horn of Africa. The only reason they look different from regular black Africans is because of their close proximity to the Middle East. Across the Red Sea in Yemen there are clear elements of Negroid admixture. This is due to the close proximity of both groups, as well as the fact that in ancient times both countries were ruled by common dynasties at times. The Habasha people of Ethiopia speak a Semitic language which is more closely related to Arabic than Coptic. DNA from Y Chromosomes indicates Middle Eastern ancestry, while the X chromosomes are more consistent with the black African norm:

"On the basis of historical, linguistic, and genetic data, it has been suggested that the Ethiopian population has been strongly affected by Caucasoid migrations since Neolithic times. On the basis of autosomal polymorphic loci, it has been estimated that 60% of the Ethiopian gene pool has an African origin, whereas ~40% is of Caucasoid derivation.... Our Ethiopian sample also lacks the sY81-G allele, which was associated with 86% and 69% of Senegalese and mixed-African YAP+ chromosomes, respectively. This suggests that male-mediated gene flow from Niger-Congo speakers to the Ethiopian population was probably very limited ... Caucasoid gene flow into the Ethiopian gene pool occurred predominantly through males. Conversely, the Niger-Congo contribution to the Ethiopian population occurred mainly through females."

Passarino et al. (1998) Different Genetic Components in the Ethiopian Population, Identified by mtDNA and Y-Chromosome Polymorphisms. Am J Hum Genet; 62:420-434

The only reason why the peoples of Nubia and the Horn of Africa do not look as Negroid as peoples of west and south Africa (stereotypical Negroid types) is because of the Egyptian and Middle Eastern admixture. West Africans are closer to pure negroid, due to a lack of proximity with non-negroid groups.

4) You cannot make allusions to the Koran and expect people to take that as any serious kind of argument. I myself am deeply religious (Christian), but I am not going to go into an atheist forum and use passages from the Bible to argue a point unless I can corroborate them with some 3rd party documents or contemporary empirical data which the atheists could consider valid. Your holy text does not count for anything to non-believers unless you can first convince us of it's validity through facts and logic. That being said, many of the stories in the Koran were lifted or edited from the Bible. According to the Biblical genealogies Cush is the progenitor of the black race, but Mizraim is the progenitor of the Egyptians. That's why you Muslims call Egypt MASR. It seems that you are not even clear on what your own religion teaches.

5) My final point is this, we have a complete visual record of Egypt going back through all of history. The royal mummies have caucasoid features and hair, but so do the many mummies of commoners and officials. This is not a matter which any scientists who have studied the corpses will dispute. The visual records from paintings and statues during the classic period are consistent with the imagery from the Roman period as well as the modern period. It shows a consistent population. If you want to believe that at some mythical time during an alleged pre-historic past there was a negroid people group there then you are free to do so. But pre-history is purely speculative, and even if there was a negroid culture there prior to the historical population of Egypt it is irrelevant because we know it is the Egyptians of actual history who built Egypt.

Belisarius · Feb 20, 2012

Will post more later dealing specifically with the Arab invasion.

Egyptian civilisation and ancient Egyptians

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