Re: AfroAsiatic

Dennis in reply to my point about a non icy Mediterranean wrote

> But no people from 18000-16000BCE.

There were people living along the North Coast of Africa
18,000-16,000, people who showed a bridge in Cultures between Aterian
to Ibero-Maurasian. I have to hunt out the Algerian Middle to Upper
Paleolithic transition for you (I am a little rusty here).

I continued

> > Thus we find Aterian to Oranian to
> > Ibero-Maurasian to Capsian, all very distinct with quite different
> > assemblages, but all clearly in an evolutionary sequence from the
> > same
> > cultural grouping. And Capsian leads into neolithic and early

bronze

> > age cultures - going right through to Ancient Egypt.
>
> But, again, no people between Aterian and Oranian.

Yes, in North Africa there were people. No in the Sahara there were
not people. Dennis, I think you are confusing the situations between
North Africa and the Sahara.

> > The Sahara was a tabula rasa 18,000 BCE (after the
> > disappearance of the Aterian derived peoples), but by 10,000 BCE

it

> > was filled with game and hunter gatherers. Rivers ran and inland
> > seas
> > were large. Paintings show hunters swimming!
> >
>
> But there was a tabula rasa, just some 6000 years or so earlier.
> This earlier dating means I no longer need to posit some kind of

Aterian

> survival to account for the Oranian industry, since people now have

plenty

> of time to get across the Sahara.

Dennis Ateri, the site name for Aterian is Algerian. Oranian and
Ibero-Maurasian show clear Aterian survivals in lithic technique.
Tools were made in a similar fashion suggesting continuity.

(I (John) asked)

> > > Where did the people of the Capsian industry come from?
> >
> > He (Dennis) answers
> > >It seems most likely from the homines sapientes sapientes of East
> > >Africa, who would have continued to advance their techniques ...

I (John reply)

> > You are here going against the modern archaeological construction

of

> > African pre-history. Dennis, Hss had spread from East Africa to
> > North
> > West Africa much much earlier than this.

Dennis wrote

> But you still have an empty Sahara at 18000BCE. Nevertheless, you

could be

> right about Oranian leading to Capsian. On the other hand, Capsian

could

> have been an influx of newcomers who took over the Oranian

tradition.

Dennis asked

> I'm not sure I understand you right here. Are you saying that the

art found

> at, for example Tassili n Ajjer in southern Algeria, is Khoisanid?
> Anyway, I'm certainly not arguing for an AA derived from Khoisan

languages.

No. There are two rock art traditions in Africa, the Tassili and
other Saharan sites, and the East African sites, stretching up from
South Africa (Bambata/Umguzan complex 30,000-10,000) to the Beja
country in Egypt (9-4,000 Zimbabwe Nachikufan and a chain of related
cultures). Kenya from 30,000 BCE thus seems to be Khoisanid until
the
arrival of fully formed Capsians, with no previous cultural
development sites in East Africa.

OK, we seem to be coming towards consensus here.

> This is roughly what I was saying, that the Near Eastern

infiltration was

> basically east of the Nile. Can you give any examples of these old

Semitic

> loans into Egyptian. Not that I doubt what you say, but they could

prove

> interesting with regard to the development and movements of the

Semitic

> dialects.

I'll hunt them up for you. I first saw them in Wallis-Budge's
"Egyptian Hieroglyphics". Sir Alan Gardiner's Ancient Egyptian gives
some too.

To my settlements from the Sahara Dennis now writes

> Yes, I've no doubt there were movements into the Nile valley from

west, east

> and south.

To Dennis's point

> > >This seems to be borne out by Herodotos' descriptions of

Egyptians

> > >even in his time, as black with woolly hair.

I wrote

> > This was after Tarqha's Nubian dynasty. Nubians had come to

Egypt
as

> > the governing elite prior to the Assyrian invasion under

Esarhaddon.

> > Prior to that, during the Egytpian Empire large numbers of Nubians
> > were introduced as War Captives. You know, as do I that the
> > Egyptians
> > from the Old Kingdom on were not "black". Men were coloured

orange-

> > red and women (kept indoors) were yellow-white. Skeletally they

were

> > what is called "Eurafrican" and "Mediterranean".

Now I need to get my Herodotus back down from the shelf.... sigh!

Dennis again

> Herodotos also used this description to account for his hypothesis

that

> Colchis was an ancient Egyptian colony (together with circumcision

and

> methods of weaving), so I don't think he only had Taharqa and his

Nubians in

> mind.
> I don't want to get into "what colour were the Egyptians",

Good.... ooops, I spoke too quickly because Dennis writes

but I
would only

> comment :
> 1. artistic convention
> 2. use of cosmentics - skin lightening creams are very widely used

amongst

> urban African women
> 3. differentiation between aristocrats and peasants, who are

normally dark

> in the pictures
> 3. in Egyptian pictures where foreigners are shown, a

distinguishing
feature

> of the Egyptians is their dark skin colour
> 4. incomers from the west would have been dark-skinned Africans. I

know

> about the Berbers, but I think they are a much later phonemenon -

possibly

> post Sea Peoples. Earlier Libyans, Nobatai and Nigretes were seen

to
be

> black, as was the Libyan goddess Neit.

The Red and Black Nuba story.... hmmm.... I remember reading that the
black Nuba arrived fairly late. (Is it Middle Kingdom?) This would
fit in with the beginnings of the movements of classic Negroid across
the Sahel into the Sudan. It cut off the contact that the Egyptians
developed prior to that (the reign of Pepi II) with the Batwa pygmy's
of the NE Congo (displaced SW by movements of Adamawa peoples).
Nigretes were the Latin name for the same people (very late!)

Dennis I'll check it up

> > The Qostul cemetry is too late for the "Dynastic Race" Dennis.

The

> > entry point of the Dynastic Race with their high prowed boats is
> > clearly shown through the Eastern Desert Wadis.
> >
> Qostul is contemporaneous with Naqadah I/II.
> Basically, I don't believe in a "Dynastic Race". Maybe these

high-prowed

> boats, depicted at Qostul, were going the other way?
> Menes and the earliest kings of united Egypt are clearly seen as

coming from

> Upper Egypt.

Upper Egypt in this case is the Abydos, Tinite, Herakleopolitan area,
not south of Aswan. Have a look at any good recent pre-dynastic
Egyptian text and you will see. I am at work at the moment, so
haven't good access to the texts (at home in the Gaian Library).

To my point

> > Storms in Unas's pyramid, Dennis. News to me - I thought it shows
> > that the Nile was reduced to a trickle. Mass famine resulted,

people

> > are shown with distended malnourished and ribs clearly shown.
>
> The text is devotional, not historical.

The reign of Unas has shown wind-blown sand deposits in the Atlantic!
There is independent evidence that the Nile totally failed, being
reduced to a trickle. The pyramid texts are devotional, but the
disaster they refer to was historical.

> So, the only problem I find with your Saharan hypothesis is the

18000-16000

> gap. And for me, this still leaves Semitic coming across the Horn

of
Africa

> and up through Arabia, with proto-Egyptian languages moving

northwards on

> both sides of the Nile valley, Berber (possibly) heading

north-west,
Chadic

> west where it became very influenced by Bantu (Niger-Kordofanian),

with

> Cushitic and Omotic roughly staying put.
> It's given me a lot of food for thought, though. Thanks again.

I am glad if this is the only problem you see.... Now, the
18,000-16,000 Saharan Gap is that that separated between Nostratic
(pre-18,000 if as Glen asserts AA is a Nostratic tongue) and proto-AA
(which you all see as fully independent by at least 10,000 BCE) The
site where this development took place is in the NorthAfrican-Saharan
"pump". But hey! We are trying here to reconstruct things that
happened a great deal of time ago. The truth, well, what is the
truth. Until we get further evidence we may never know.

Dennis, I'll upload for you on files a master copy of dates and
cultures for you. Qafsa (the site name for Capsian) existed from
8,000 BCE to 2,700 BCE. The East African Capsian appears only 6,000
BCE and did not last as long. Ibero-Maurasian lasted from
15,000-8,000 BCE (longer in Spain). Have a look at the Excell
Spreadsheet I have uploaded (The Human Family: Cultures and Places)
to
the files site for you.

Warmest regards

John