Archaeologica.org

[Curious writes] Have African DNA tracers shown up in the archaeological record (or in general population & first nations) in this country from before European settlement?

[Marc writes] I’m not knowledgable about genetics so can’t offer an opinion.

KBS. Not to quibble, however, you wrote

I do think it is a bit of a stretch to say that any occurrence of red/black in an inscription, or rock painting, or what ever, is an example that Africans have been there.

It is a high contrast color combination.

Here’s a question: “Does red and black reflect skin tones in reality whether natural or ‘painted’ ”? If you look at picture 11 from the Sudan below, you will see a woman in the background who is either charcoaled in black (the Bush person, for instance, uses different pigments with animal fat as an insect repellent) with the woman in front as natural reddish-brown.

Is this a true-to-life template (a black woman and a reddish-brown one) for the painted red and black peoples history has preserved in rock art?


http://www.beforebc.de/Made.by.Humankin ... 00-08.html

Below, we see a polychrome man with either black or dark brown skin on one hand and a ochre-painted red face on the other. Is this an indication that perhaps the two tones we see in rock art may be black-skinned persons mixed with those who have painted their bodies red for either insect-repellent or ritual purposes (as you know, a red ochre painted body was used to (through sympathetic magic - that anthropological term) represent life-giving blood at least in burial practices to infuse eternal life to the deceased)?


http://www.beforebc.de/Made.by.Humankin ... -10-01.jpg

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I have a couple of problems with this whole thing, Paul.. I previously went over the failure of disease organisms to devastate an isolated Indian population when they were exposed to African seafarers so I won't dwell on that.

Let me start with art. Can we ever really be certain what the artist is trying to say? How do we know that art isn't merely stylized? For example these three statues:






Khafre c 2550 BC




Sesostris I c 1925 BC




Thutmose II c 1425 BC

These thus cover a period of slightly more than 1,000 years in Egyptian history yet all share a similar style. Are these realistic or idealized portraits? Who can say for certain but even without textual sources someone looking at these three would certainly get the idea that there was some concept of continuity being expressed.

Second point, dugout canoes. Anyone living near a river or sea would have had occasion to notice that logs float. Someone might even try to hitch a ride on one but would soon discover that balancing on top of the log was dicey given the motion of the water.
How much insight would it take to think to carve out a seat for a passenger.

There can be any number of technological changes used: outrigger, centerboard, oars, steering oar, etc. There can be any number of decorative flourishes but the essential truth of a dugout is a hollowed log and I just don't think that is a once-in-a-million insight.

Red ochre. This has been discussed both seriously and humorously but the prevalence of this substance throughout pre-history has been amply demonstrated. Literally everyone seems to know of it and used it in burials or cave paintings.

Charcoal, again, is a common substance in any place where camp fires are a normal part of life. Anyone who ever picked up a piece knows that it is a highly effective writing or drawing tool. The fact that it is used for drawings around the world seems more a factor of utilitarianism.


Now, all this said, I find myself being drawn more and more to the multi-regional model which suggests that Homo Erectus, which everyone agrees evolved in Africa and moved out from there to evolve into what we have now, a million years later. In that sense, we are all Africans to one degree or another but I know this is not the point you are trying to make.

That there would have been significant kingdoms growing up along the Ivory Coast makes perfect sense. That boats from there may have been caught in the currents or winds and driven eastward also seems reasonable. (Getting back would have been a lot dicier.) But could it have been done without introducing the microbes which subsequently devastated the Native American population? That's the piece of this particular puzzle which throws me.

Minimalist wrote:But could it have been done without introducing the microbes which subsequently devastated the Native American population? That's the piece of this particular puzzle which throws me.

Something from 1491 is coming to mind, but i dont have the time to look it up. In Europe bacteria were the main pathogens. In Africa and the New World it was parasites. Perhaps our lost sailors didn't cause plagues because the people they found had similar immune systems?

I just finished 1491 and it seems to me that it was mainly viruses which decimated the new world. Smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measels, mumps, etc.


http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/p ... low-e.html

The one problem the Europeans had with the conquest was the Indian population was almost completely eradicated. Despite all the death the Europeans caused the Natives, the Europeans wanted the natives for labor, guides, and translators. Since the Natives were dying the Europeans began to bring in African slaves who had strong immunity to disease like the Europeans.

Weren't they lucky.

[Minimalist writes]

1) … three statues cover a period of slightly more than 1,000 years in Egyptian history yet all share a similar style. Are these realistic or idealized portraits?

2) Second point, dugout canoes. Anyone living near a river or sea would have had occasion to notice that logs float.

3) Red ochre. <snip> Literally everyone seems to know of it and used it in burials or cave paintings. <snip> Charcoal, again, is a common substance in any place where camp fires are a normal part of life.

[Marc writes]

Minimalist. If one piece of evidence found worldwide existed in isolation in each location it was found, it might be stretching things to say that they were all the sign of a single people. And this could be correct. But, when the constellation of things found in multiple places is the same, for each additional thing found the lesser the possibility that these things were due to chance: the greater the possibility that they are correlated.

Above you mention two things that you think could be independently arrived at: dug-out canoes and the use of charcoal and red ochre. What about board games? Pyramids? Pottery grave goods found in Neolithic burials? What about the fact that all the figurine are of the small delicate type?

Even cosmogonies, worldviews, tripartite heavens, male-female paired creator gods, thunder gods, gods of writing. The list goes on-and-on about the things found in each location during the same window of time.

That all this constellation of things is found within the same window of time to some extent in each locale means there is less-and-less possibility it was due to chance with each new thing found from one, to two, to three, to four, to five, to six, to seven.

THE THREE PHAROAHS: You, Minimalist, have given the three pharoahs as proof that perhaps they were stylized to support an argument saying that similarities of slender, gracile red and black individuals (who, by the way, resemble the real Sudanese women in that picture 11 I showed and the picture of slender Sudanese men in picture 12 from the same area that the bulk of that Neolithic art is found in North Africa).

I have defined “African” phenotypically, not geographically. African as people (omitting color, color aside) given being dolichocephalic (to identify cranial remains) to full facial features (full noses and mouths) and woolly or wiry hair (though many black women have straight hair as do my mother and sister through using hair relaxant).

Now, you have showed three pharaohs who lived within 1000 years of each other. Here are two pictures of populations over a 1.7 million year period who are dolichocephalic, full facial features, given to woolly or wiry hair; many African women are steatophygous as early figurine found in Europe and people acknowledge that the Bushman and Pygmy made Europe’s earliest populations.

The first picture below is in Europe, the second worldwide – Africans by my definition. So, I’d say the three pharaohs you show are likely not too stylistic but likely pretty realistic.

Ancient populations in Europe

http://www.beforebc.de/all_europe/05-09-05.html


Ancient populations worldwide


http://www.beforebc.de/all_america/900_ ... 00-21.html

CONCLUSION: With elements of the same constellation of artefacts found in each locale the same, I'd say the probability is that they showed a single population originating from one point and radiating outwards and that the portrayals were not stylized but realistic.

I am not going to defend this point to you again, Minimalist. This is all I have to say to you about this matter.

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But, I will add this page of steatophygous women:


http://www.beforebc.de/Made.by.Humankin ... 13-01.html

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You, Minimalist, have given the three pharoahs as proof that perhaps they were stylized to support an argument saying that similarities of slender, gracile red and black individuals

No, not exactly. I gave it as an example of 50 generations of Egyptian sculptors maintaining a particular style which was instantly recognizable to anyone. Similar arguments can be advanced with, say, Cretan or Roman frescoes.


Pyramids: Allowing for traditional dating (which, I admit, in the case of Giza I tend to doubt) there were pyramids being built at Caral in Peru which were contemporaneous with the Old Kingdom. This seems to speak more to a certain stage in human development in which rulers decide that it would be a neat idea to pile up rocks and dirt for whatever reason. That such man-made hills have wide bottoms and narrow tops does not surprise me. It seems a reasonable technical solution to the problem.

Board games: If I recall - and I don't want to risk losing this post by going back to look - you had a sample from somewhere 4,000 ypb and one from Scythia in 400 BC. A 4,000 year gap before something shows up in another place suggests trade networks to me. Please recall that I am in favor of the "boat hypothesis." Boats are prime movers of commerce even today. More than trade goods move along those routes, though. Ideas go with them.

Lastly, for now, I have no problem going back 1.7mya to Erectus' ancestors in looking for the family tree. There have been repeated genetic discussions going on here for years and the modern conclusions of geneticists regarding HSS dominance always seem to be bravely advanced and then fired upon from all sides. Just as an example there was a recent discussion about the FOX-P2 gene and whether or not it was passed from HNS to HSS or vice versa. The same geneticists who swear on a stack of bibles that there was no interbreeding between the two are stuck with the finding that BOTH possess this gene. None of them seem to have considered the (likely) probability that BOTH inherited this speech gene from a remote common ancestor ( H. erectus). So, until we are able to isolate and study the Homo Erectus genome I don't know that genetics will ever be a definitive way to examine this stuff. There seem to be far too many assumptions built into it.

OK. That will have to do for now.

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50 generations?


http://www.beforebc.de/all_africa/200_e ... 00-01.html

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Minimalist, you wrote:

I gave it as an example of 50 generations of Egyptian sculptors maintaining a particular style which was instantly recognizable to anyone. Similar arguments can be advanced with, say, Cretan or Roman frescoes.

Here are things that might be considered in re-creating the picture on ancient populations in such places:

Crete


http://www.beforebc.de/all_europe/700_m ... -00-03.htm


Rome


http://www.beforebc.de/all_africa/02-16-12.html

Minimalist wrote:I just finished 1491 and it seems to me that it was mainly viruses which decimated the new world. Smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measels, mumps, etc.

That's what i mean. The Europeans brought over bacterial and viral diseases which neither New Worlders nor Africans had much of an immunity against. On the other hand, if and when Africans crossed the Atlantic, they may have brought their parasites, but that was in no way as devastating to the people in the New World as the European diseases.

I don't know, Paul. You see things that I do not. No one would argue the 25th dynasty which originated with an invasion from Nubia, but many of the others are far from clear cut.

which neither New Worlders nor Africans had much of an immunity against.

Except as the study indicates, the Africans were resistant to diseases and why shouldn't they have been? There was virtual constant contact up the East African coast beginning in remote antiquity and, if nothing else, on the West African coast the Portuguese were exploring southward and building forts and ports for their ships. Why did Portuguese contact along the Ivory coast not de-populate those areas as surely it did in South America? This question has to be answered.

BTW, got this from Rokcet Scientist today. Oddly on point.

http://www.astigan.com/2009/03/24/10000 ... on-jungle/

Olivera said that most of the drawings show hunting scenes and were painted using red, brown, yellow and black pigments. The discovery adds more details to Peru’s ancient history.