Proto-Afroasiatic origins?

[Zak12]

I've been mulling over the origins of the Proto-Afroasiatic language family for a while and found it strange how no real consensus seemed to be reached amongst linguists and scholars. Looking at the evidence, supporters of a West Asian origin believe the Natufians who lived in the Levant were the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic and cite common agricultural terms such as flora and fauna names within the lexicon and that Afroasiatic expanded with the spread of farming which mirror what happened with Niger-Congo and Austroasiatic language families. There is also the fact that Afroasiatic is strongly correlated with Natufian/Arabian like DNA and with the exception of Omotics, all Afroasiatic speakers carry significant amounts of Natufian DNA.

On the other hand, there are those who propose that the Horn of Africa is an origin site as well. The main argument there is that E1b1b, the haplogroup associated with Afroasiatics originated in East Africa and the oldest and most diverse subclades can only be found there as well.

So what do you think? What is the most likely location for proto-Afroasiatic?

@Step a side @NidarNidar @Khaemwaset @The alchemist

 

[NidarNidar]

The origins of the Afroasiatic languages and peoples can be traced back to the Proto-Afroasiatic speakers in Northeastern Africa, particularly in the Red Sea hills around 15,000 years ago. This African origin is widely supported by scholars and favoured by most linguists based on linguistic evidence.

It is the oldest known family group of languages producing two of the oldest known civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia(Akkadians, though Sumerians had a huge effect on Akkadian, their language is language isolate belonging to no known family group ), where it spread into Asia via Z827, the Sinai Peninsula holds great significance in the study of human population movements due to its geographical location as a natural land bridge between Africa and Asia. Its importance in population migrations, trade, and cultural exchange spans thousands of years and has shaped both continents' genetic and cultural makeup.

The development of pastoralism in the Green Sahara may have played a critical role in the spread of Afroasiatic languages. Pastoralism allowed for greater mobility and the movement of populations across large distances, the trade network in around the Sinai was robust, this allowed technology from West Asia and Nile to be exchanged, especially since Cushites domesticated donkeys(5,000-7,000 years ago) as a burden animal, a which lead to technological improves to e.g harnessing techniques and eventual exchange with Eurasian steppe culture for said horses.

Evidence from ancient rock art in the Sahara suggests that cattle were central to the culture of the region's inhabitants. These humpless cattle were imported from Eurasia via the sinai possibly by R1B speakers around 8,000-9,000 ybp early in the domestication of cattle, the Zebu came via the redsea around 2,000 -4,000 years ago originating in southwest Asia( there is evidence of wild grains being traded all the way to India which shows how complexed the trading network was). As the Sahara dried out, these pastoralists likely migrated to more fertile regions, carrying early Afroasiatic languages and their pastoral culture.

"As example, the distinct West Eurasian ancestral component among Afroasiatic-speaking groups in the Horn of Africa is most prevalent among the Somali. This ancestral component — dubbed “Ethio-Somali” — would have diverged from other Eurasian/non-African ancestries around 23,000 years ago and migrated back to Africa prior to developing agriculture, merging with the local indigenous lineages of the Horn of Africa. It is the Natufian-like component. This component may have been the substantial ancestral component of the Proto-Afroasiatic-speaking population. A subsequent mtDNA analysis by Gandini et al. (2016) has produced additional evidence in support of a pre-agricultural back-migration from West Eurasia into the Horn of Africa with an estimated date of arrival into the Horn of Africa in the early Holocene, possibly as a result of obsidian exchange networks across the Red Sea."

This component was spread into the population from the maternal lineage as there is no Eurasian Y-DNA present with Somalis(cushites) that migrated to the horn with them from the Redsea hills as of yet, T and J1 are Eurasian but arrived via the red sea circa 800 - 100 BCE( Males and Females and extended family, closest .)

"Speakers of Afroasiatic (Proto-Afroasiatic) were based in the Southeastern Sahara or the Red Sea hills, because that region includes the majority of the diversity of the Afroasiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, sometimes considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin."

Proto Afroasiatic speakers would have looked somewhat similar to the above reconstruction.

Here is a reconstruction of Elmenteita's(south cushitic, closet genetic match is Somalis) skull found in Kenya.

Phenotype survived lol.

These early southern cushites had about 10% Omotic admixture which is almost noexistant within Somalis, we instead tend to have increased "Nilotic" admixture, the Ethio-Somali component is most prevelant amongst us due to not intermixing with outside groups like the Amharic and Tigray who carry up to 33% J1 and have recent Semetic paternal ancestry(within the last 3,000 years) which have shifted them to semetic language instead of cushitic.