The alchemist
VIP
This is not true. They had an ethnic conception because in anthropology you are an ethnic group if you consider a set of clans in-group and the rest out-group. By genetic fact alone, Somalis constantly "intra" mixed but strictly did not mix with the rest. People back then spoke the same language dialect, had the same genes, and were even much closer in the Y-DNA front because of less differentiation. Etc. And all this was possible because they were not some fragmented groups living away from each other but part of a pretty excessive network of the ancient agro-pastoral-trading economy. If it was as you described, we would see higher noticeable structuralism and evidence of cross-mixing between several groups in the genetic data of several signatures that we would be able to pick out, and our genetics today would seem like a damn tapestry of sub-signature of marked regional variation rather than homogenized.I don't think the Somali identity as we know it today was a thing 2000 years ago, or even a 1000 years ago. Think of it like the germanic tribes roaming around north and western europe 2000 years ago, they were related, and spoke a close enough mutually intelligible languages, but they were never united as one group until much later. Somalis 2000 years ago definitely did exist as DNA proves that, but we probably existed as independent groups, in pockets, and we were proper laangaab.
Anyway, I would appreciate it if you took this particular conversation somewhere else if you want to expand upon it because it will deviate from the topic of the thread into a topic that already carries demonstrable answers. And I have already written extensive posts with a lot of scientific and anthropological proof to back them up. Somalis had a continuity that went beyond 2000 years ago despite not calling themselves "Somalis," emphasized by the brute facts that prove the people of the region considered themselves as the same group.