Ancient DNA from the Green Sahara reveals ancestral North African lineage

[Step a side]

Pre historic camel carving in Arabia

Saudi Arabia camel carvings dated to prehistoric era - BBC News

A new study suggests the sculptures in Saudi Arabia are far older than previously thought.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[TheLand]

^Arabs had camels since the days of Thamud which chronologically predates the Pharaoh of the Old Testament. Cushites by then were pastoralists with only cattle.

Who was the pharaoh of the Old Testament?

 

[TheLand]

The linguistics implies a Semitic origin to me. Geel/Gaal in Somali and Afar appears a borrowing from OSA, but I guess it's possible that Cushites in South Arabia itself originated its domestication.

But good point about Mesopotamia and the Levant. If it was domesticated anywhere in West Asia I suspect it was Arabia since, as you say, you'd expect the literate groups up north to mention and/or display it's domestication over time if it happened more up north.

I’m not convinced of its Semitic origin. Sure they sound similar but not exact. One is a typical Semitic three-consonant root word and the other has two. Why is that? There are plenty of words in Somali borrowed from Arabic that remain unchanged so it’s not like it’s difficult.

Also the Oromo and Rendille words for camel seem to be very similar, Geela/Gaala which seems to hint at a deeper Cushitic source.

 

[Midas]

^Arabs had camels since the days of Thamud which chronologically predates the Pharaoh of the Old Testament. Cushites by then were pastoralists with only cattle

The problems with this is that thamud is in northern Arabia. There's also a giant desert separating northern arabia from southern arabia. Thats why if arabs who are from northern Arabia and only arrived in southern arabia after the bronze age collapse domesticated camels we would have seen it spread over the north into eygpt and mesomptoia long before it reached southern arabia. But it's the opposite with it only being heavily used in eygpt after 300 b.c

 

[Midas]

The linguistics implies a Semitic origin to me. Geel/Gaal in Somali and Afar appears a borrowing from OSA, but I guess it's possible that Cushites in South Arabia itself originated its domestication.

But good point about Mesopotamia and the Levant. If it was domesticated anywhere in West Asia I suspect it was Arabia since, as you say, you'd expect the literate groups up north to mention and/or display it's domestication over time if it happened more up north.

That's definitely possible. But the problem i have with osa is that the base assumption is that if a word is in both osa and somali we assume its a borrowing from osa. I could accept this as the default assumption if it wasn't for the fact that the osa speaking semites arrived with Cushites already present.

 

[Midas]

It just occurred to me but maybe the culutral differences that have been noticed between bedouins in northern Arabia vs southern arabia especially in how northern arabian clans are more centralized is becuase the ones in southern arabia adopted the traditions of cushitic pastoralists who were already present.

 

[Step a side]

Who was the pharaoh of the Old Testament?

Only Allah knows but most probably Rameses the 2nd. The most powerfull of them all. He fits the time frame perfectly.

At the time of Yusuf and his brothers (roughly 1600 BC) their was no pharaoh but a king indicating their was a foreign dynasty ruling Egypt (Hyksos). By the time of Musa (1250 BC) they were dealing with Rameses 2. Dawuud and Suleiman ushering in the Iron age a couple of centuries later (1000 BCE).

“We bestowed Grace aforetime on David from Ourselves: "O ye Mountains! sing ye back the Praises of Allah with him! and ye birds (also)! and We made the iron soft for Him. (Commanding) "Make thou coats of mail, balancing well the rings of chain armor, and work ye righteousness; for be sure I see (clearly) all that ye do." (Saba’, 34/10-11)

The problems with this is that thamud is in northern Arabia. There's also a giant desert separating northern arabia from southern arabia. Thats why if arabs who are from northern Arabia and only arrived in southern arabia after the bronze age collapse domesticated camels we would have seen it spread over the north into eygpt and mesomptoia long before it reached southern arabia. But it's the opposite with it only being heavily used in eygpt after 300 b.c

The seerah of the prophets (ibn kathir) teaches us that the Thamud migrated from the south after the destruction of Aad and settled up north near tabuk (northern Hejaz). In the Quran the Thamud knew about Aad and were warned not to follow in their footsteps. Thamud have their origins in the south.

 

[Step a side]

@Midas you have to remember nomads like the Turks, Mongols, Cushites, Arabs etc are extremely mobile and can move around very easily. We saw the Kadruka sample match up with pastoralist deep in central Africa.

 

[Midas]

Only Allah knows but most probably Rameses the 2nd. The most powerfull of them all. He fits the time frame perfectly.

At the time of Yusuf and his brothers (roughly 1600 BC) their was no pharaoh but a king indicating their was a foreign dynasty ruling Egypt (Hyksos). By the time of Musa (1250 BC) they were dealing with Rameses 2. Dawuud and Suleiman ushering in the Iron age a couple of centuries later (1000 BCE).

“We bestowed Grace aforetime on David from Ourselves: "O ye Mountains! sing ye back the Praises of Allah with him! and ye birds (also)! and We made the iron soft for Him. (Commanding) "Make thou coats of mail, balancing well the rings of chain armor, and work ye righteousness; for be sure I see (clearly) all that ye do." (Saba’, 34/10-11)


The seerah of the prophets (ibn kathir) teaches us that the Thamud migrated from the south after the destruction of Aad and settled up north near tabuk (northern Hejaz). In the Quran the Thamud knew about Aad and were warned not to follow in their footsteps. Thamud have their origins in the south.

I mean even ibn Kathir is not sure when this was its mainly using irsariliyat and mythical geneaolgies. Didn't the prophet even say people should ignore geneaolgists who try to create geanogligies extending to Ismail and ishaaq since it's not knowable

We can also be pretty confident there were no bronze age semites in southern arabia.

 

[Midas]

@Midas you have to remember nomads like the Turks, Mongols, Cushites, Arabs etc are extremely mobile and can move around very easily. We saw the Kadruka sample match up with pastoralist deep in central Africa.

They do but the difference between cushites and all these other pouplations is that we've basically been in our own region with very little extra input. Versus these other groups who assimilat other people's very frequently.

 

[Step a side]

I mean even ibn Kathir is not sure when this was its mainly using irsariliyat and mythical geneaolgies. Didn't the prophet even say people should ignore geneaolgists who try to create geanogligies extending to Ismail and ishaaq since it's not knowable

We can also be pretty confident there were no bronze age semites in southern arabia.

Arabia is home to the wild dromedary. Using dna studies it’s pretty conclusive that Arabia and especially its south east is the birth place of the domestication of Camels.

According to the Quran Ad predates Thamud and we can all agree on this. Thamud predates Ibrahim and again we can all agree on this. This will place the story of Ad deep in the Bronze Age southern Arabia.

We can argue about Ad not being Arabs which is a different argument all together

 

[Midas]

Arabia is home to the wild dromedary. Using dna studies it’s pretty conclusive that Arabia and especially its south east is the birth place of the domestication of Camels.

According to the Quran Ad predates Thamud and we can all agree on this. Thamud predates Ibrahim and again we can all agree on this. This will place the story of Ad deep in the Bronze Age southern Arabia.

We can argue about Ad not being Arabs which is a different argument all together

Again while that might be true. I prefer not to combine quranic narratives with archeology and genetics.

My argument is more about was it semetic speaking people's or cushites who domesticated the camel. We know that there were cushties present in southern arabia before semetic pouplations and that the evidence for semetic speakers in southern arabia only appears after the bronze age collapse ( basically no semites in southern arabia before 1300 b.c )

 

[Step a side]

Again while that might be true. I prefer not to combine quranic narratives with archeology and genetics.

My argument is more about was it semetic speaking people's or cushites who domesticated the camel. We know that there were cushties present in southern arabia before semetic pouplations and that the evidence for semetic speakers in southern arabia only appears after the bronze age collapse ( basically no semites in southern arabia before 1300 b.c )

We will never know what language those people spoke that domesticated the camel in southern Arabia unless they start looking for more ancient human remains but I am leaning more towards the earliest Semites.

This lineage accounts for almost 50% of all Saudi males and has its highest diversity in the South West. It founding father dates to the 1800 BCE. Most likely lived in the fertile south before its descendants migrated in every direction to colonise the whole of Arabia.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/

 

[Midas]

We will never know what language those people spoke that domesticated the camel in southern Arabia unless they start looking for more ancient human remains but I am leaning more towards the earliest Semites.

This lineage accounts for almost 50% of all Saudi males and has its highest diversity in the South West. It founding father dates to the 1800 BCE. Most likely lived in the fertile south before its descendants migrated in every direction to colonise the whole of Arabia.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/

Semites are from Northern Arabia. We literally have the akkadians (a semetic speaking peoples) in mesoptomaia 1 thosuand years beofe the date you mentioned.

There is also the fact that most semetic lanaguges except ethiosemetic and modern south arabian lanaguges are from the north. I've even posted on here how linguists showed that south semetic is not a real grouping and that old south arabian is actually a central semetic language ( closer to Arabic and Hebrew) than modern south arabian and ethiosemetic. Which are lanaguges which have a cushitic substratum.

The final nail in the coffin is that writing in the semetic script only arrives in southern arabia after the bronze age collapses in 1200 b.c ( the oldest semetic script is found in the Sinai penisula and is called the proto sinatic script) which would make sense if this collapse caused the semetic peoples in the north to flee their urban centers and migrate south.

 

[The alchemist]

I think we will come to find that ANA isn’t one single component, the kind of ANA in Natufians will not be the same as the IBM ANA, that ANA is from Egypt/Sudan not Morocco and it has its own unique history.

I think ANA is basically a mix between something along the SSA-Basal Eurasian cline and local Aterian populations who I think would be SSA-like and have their own local adaptions within NW and NE Africa and would have been the major cause of this distinction between ANA in NW and NE Africa.


I do agree with you in that these samples probably have some recent Green Sahara SSA ancestry not found in Taforalt.

I've figured ANA is a stable signature composite of prehistoric mixture, but Takarkori is something different from ANA, which we dub whatever is in the African side of IBM. Here is my take on it from not too long ago:

ANAs were basically SSAs, lets not mince words

If the Natufians were that much SSA admixed, doesn't that mean Arabians and other Natufian rich populations also have a good amount of SSA DNA?

www.somalispot.com

Takarkori is overwhelmingly like what is in Dinka and Yoruba. It has a high affinity with Saharan Nilo-Saharans for a good reason. Toubous are largely descended from such a Green Saharan mixture. On the paper, they claim that there was no continuity from a mixture of such enabling temperate geographic climatic oscillations when the Sahara desert is inhabited largely by Nilo-Saharan derived population clines with stable and gradient shifting frequency of Yoruba-like ancestry of east-west directionality with additional minor but statistically significant IBM/ANA genetics. To make the claim that the AHP was a period where people did not mix is an false claim, that not only seeks to distort the data right in front of them, but also hides the reality of the extant population outcomes. It's ridiculous. We have archaeology of Sudanic aquatic culture spreading, and Nile Valley pottery complex diffusion too.

"Stylistic resemblances between potsherds found in Saharan and Central Sudanese Nile sites (the so-called ‘dotted wavy line’ decoration, which is found from Mali to Sudan) testify to strong contacts and cultural exchanges within the region."

There were Sudanese scholars that went into the analysis of the pottery in northeast Africa. It is actually pristine, thorough work. An example of locals doing their history justice, which sets us an example of how it can be done with deliberation, effort and professionalism.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251269097_The_Wavy_Line_and_the_Dotted_Wavy_Line_Pottery_in_the_Prehistory_of_the_Central_Nile_and_the_Sahara-Sahel_Belt

What is peculiar is, evidence pertaining to pottery horizons and spread, also strenghtens what I am talking about; interestingly, some of the earliest ceramic evidence were actually found in what we would imagine the pre/proto-Niger Congo speakers lived during late Paleolithic to early Neolithic-- the Ounjougou, in Mali -- previously a very tropical area during periods of higher humidity, inhabited by semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers. However, the Saharan hunter-gatherers found in Gobero, and the pastoralists in the middle Sahara (and their hunter-gatherer predecessors), owed their pottery use to the style that spread from the east, the Sudanic variation. So not only might there be a western origin in pottery, entailing large-scale movements of peoples across the Sahara from western Sahara to the east, but there was definitely a secondary or primary expansion from northeast Africa toward the west again. I have to mention there is some potential evidece to think that it popped up around the same time in northeast Africa. Either way, we're looking at complex movements during the African Human Period that was bi-directional.

You literally have Nilo-Saharan spread all the way to West Africa for that very reason and Kordofanian speakers, existing in the Nuba mountains in Sudanic lands. The Gobero IBM types in Niger had Sudanic type lower incisors removed.

"After an extended occupation hiatus the Sahara Desert was re-populated during the Early Holocene humid phase, a process that likely involved groups from multiple distinct source populations in northern Africa. Previous research has used material culture and craniometric analyses to infer population movements into and throughout the Sahara. Here, we present new data on Saharan population history using an independent data type: the presence and pattern of incisor avulsion, documented for the first time at sites in the southern Sahara Desert. At Gobero (Republic of Niger) both males and females were affected with no side or arcade preference. The frequency of affected individuals did not change through time; however the practice became exclusively male-focused and expanded to include the lateral incisors during the Middle Holocene. Comparison of the pattern and prevalence of avulsion at key Late Pleistocene sites from throughout northern Africa indicates the practice was restricted to the Maghreb. Our interpretation of these data suggests some Maghrebi migrants re-settled the southern Sahara, but over time, new groups entered the Sahara initiating a complex, multi-ethnic community dynamic in which some individuals enhanced the signal of social identity by extracting a greater number of teeth, thus producing a highly visibly modified countenance."

Is that also a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that their hunter-gatherer ancestors used Sudanic harpoons and pottery? Or did that arrive without contact? A lot of contact and anthropological impression without any mixture that shows in the genetics. What a conundrum.

The IBM ANA is much more drifted and is probably due to the Aterian mixture, indeed. But the genetics there is very differentiated too because of isolation, so no one would mistake ANA for Dinka. So far, that one is the true "ghost".

The ANA in Natufian is definitely like the one in IBM. The eastern version of that, which is also Afro-Asiatic, the same one the northeast Africans have. The Takarkori got some real ANA stuff, but it is proportional. Meaning it got a real ANA and Southwest Asian mixture. Do you think it is a coincidence that ANA-proper and Dzudzuana are equal? Clearly the Takarkori had an IBM-like gene flow with some minor real ANA or minor shared deeper ancestry. Still, the far majority of the ancestry that people have called "ghost" is really nested in the Northeast African genetics that characterizes the bulk of West and East Africans.

The final debunking of this is uniparental data, which shows migration of people across the Sahara during that very period. Cushites today carry Saharan-specific clades that spread into the Nile valley during the African Humid Period.

And when you see how, this notion of pastoralists being only culturally diffused, have y'all seen the spooky forms these distinct peoples make that are exactly like Cushitic bucanira forms?

These are Saharan pastoralists' burials:

Notice the burials in the center that are like the Cushitic pastoral cairn/mound burials that are of northeast Africa, but also take note of the crescent-like shape to the side of them:

Does it not look like the same things Kushites did, only with what they call bucrania? That is, middle Kermans did similar burials forming mounds in the center (something that originates much earlier among the first pastoralists in the southern Western desert (the origin place of Cushites), and instead of using stone to shape the half crescent, they used cattle bucrania:

The issue is that scholars that spend time working in the central and Maghreb exclusively have a tendency to divorce themselves from the work of the Nile Valley, and they often go out of their way to dismiss clear associations or unreasonably doubt on things which has made work more fragmented when it is the easiest associations you can have. For example, a study I came across on cairns in northwest Africa by Berbers never once mentioned any similarities with northeast Africa, not even a broad overview.

This makes these E Y-chromosomal DNAs that are non-E1b highly likely to be ANA (definitely Saharan) related, which only spread into the deep tropical Western Africa until ~7000, debunking this notion that is an endemic lineage that existed in the coastal West Africa for 10s of millennia. You see, so much interesting scholarship that transforms people's understanding of relatively recent deep human history can be explored and get proper funding if they set up correct propositions, but they constantly set up artificial dead ends because of constant unprofessionalism. The funny thing is, in about a decade, these guys will say, "As expected," and write down everything I said to a T, and pretend it was always obvious in hindsight. They are going to pretend they were with the program and yap about limitations, despite squandering the data available and never acknowledging their hand in doctoring false narratives. I have seen that narrative constantly. And then, when they somehow deliberately section one group to one side, and "SSA" to another, suddenly they are eager to write second-hand articles saying things like this:

"This shared Saharan human lineage took a different path from those in sub-Saharan Africa around the same time that modern humans first left the continent more than 50,000 years ago."

Wait. I thought Africans had the most diversity, and the paths were more complex?

Why did a team with no priors to African research or literature get the right to pick these available samples and then sabotage the narrow opportunities?

 

[The alchemist]

I seriously don't even wanna blog about this shit. I think I'll literally just post your post here. Or paraphrase and give you credit. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Use whatever you want, bro. Just remember to remove the funny stuff.

 

[Midas]

Lol the camel carvings in saudi arabia are located in najran which is basically on the border between yemen and Saudi arabia ( in other words its southern arabia ) and some of these camel pics in the bar hima complex date back to 2500 b.c . Which means the first people to draw these camel pics couldn't have been semites .

 

[The alchemist]

^Arabs had camels since the days of Thamud which chronologically predates the Pharaoh of the Old Testament. Cushites by then were pastoralists with only cattle.

Cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys. And used to hunt too. The sheep and goats came at the same time as the donkey was domesticated. So about 7000 years ago, probably a few centuries before, from the Levant or Arabia. That is like 2000 years before the horse. And to be honest, I think the domestication of the first beast of burden probably started the other ones.

Remember, Arabia had wild camels. The camel in the Quran was not domesticated by humans since it came to drink by itself. It was not a beast of burden since people were instructed to leave her alone. Either way, that camel was special and not normal.

But similar to how hunter-gatherers depicted aurochs that they would much later domesticate, I believe the early Arabs depicted wild camels, since they hunted for them. Here is a hunt between 4500-3500 years ago:

And that relationship started the domestication process. We have evidence of different peoples sitting on camels, in front of the hump, behind the hump. Many unique sitting styles before the saddle. But those are 5000 years ago and later.

My theory is, started off as a meat source with significant cultural significance. Later, those pastoral-hunters saw the benefit of the animals they had subdued in wild form and wanted the long-term stability it would give them, with Allah's will.

 

[Midas]

Holy shit I've feel like I've caught something.

If taforalt is e-m78 ( which formed 21,000 years ago ) which means a group of paternally east african hunter gathers moved from eygpt/sudan to the edges of north africa in less than 5,000 years and yet none of their subsaharn african dna is east african ?

 

[KingKalbi]

If taforalt is e-m78 ( which formed 21,000 years ago ) which means a group of paternally east african hunter gathers moved from eygpt/sudan to the edges of north africa in less than 5,000 years and yet none of their subsaharn african dna is east african ?

E-M78 is probably North African, Egyptian/Sudanese to be specific so IBM definitely has some North East African ancestry.

Also Taforalt can be modelled using Mota/Dinka. I’ve seen some Qpgraphs where Dinka has a lot of ANA-like ancestry