Post by Dalmar Barre on Dec 21, 2003 5:15:37 GMT -5
FROMENT, Alain, Origines du peuplement de l’Égypte ancienne: l’apport de l’anthropobiologie, Archéo-Nil 2 (Octobre 1992), 79-98. (fig., tables).
The origin of the Ancient Egyptians has long been a subject of interest for physical anthropologists. Aside from some fanciful theories, a general consensus used to present them as Mediterranean, or "leucoderm Africans with a Hamitic background". However, some African nationalists, like Diop, whose theories now have a large scholarly audience, challenged this opinion. Using linguistic and cultural criteria, studies of paintings and carvings, and texts from Antiquity, he tried to demonstrate that the Ancient Egyptians were Black. Besides this typological, or raciological view, a more biologically acceptable, non-racial approach considers human variation as a clinal, environmental adaptation. Numerical computations are possible from cranial, or cephalic measurements, which enable populations to be compared by discriminant analysis. Such an analysis was carried out on a set of 384 skull samples from Egypt, Nubia, India, Maghreb, Europe and Subsaharan Africa. Two very discriminant measurements showed a strong correlation with the axes: nose breadth and bizygomatic breadth. This representation of population distribution maps very closely onto their geographic location: on average, the Ancient Egyptian people is morphologically equidistant from Europe and Africa. Nile Valley inhabitants display a wide range of variation, as a consequence of a long process of mixing. Black populations of the Horn of Africa (Tigré and Somalia) fit well into Egyptian variations. Abridged author’s summary
The origin of the Ancient Egyptians has long been a subject of interest for physical anthropologists. Aside from some fanciful theories, a general consensus used to present them as Mediterranean, or "leucoderm Africans with a Hamitic background". However, some African nationalists, like Diop, whose theories now have a large scholarly audience, challenged this opinion. Using linguistic and cultural criteria, studies of paintings and carvings, and texts from Antiquity, he tried to demonstrate that the Ancient Egyptians were Black. Besides this typological, or raciological view, a more biologically acceptable, non-racial approach considers human variation as a clinal, environmental adaptation. Numerical computations are possible from cranial, or cephalic measurements, which enable populations to be compared by discriminant analysis. Such an analysis was carried out on a set of 384 skull samples from Egypt, Nubia, India, Maghreb, Europe and Subsaharan Africa. Two very discriminant measurements showed a strong correlation with the axes: nose breadth and bizygomatic breadth. This representation of population distribution maps very closely onto their geographic location: on average, the Ancient Egyptian people is morphologically equidistant from Europe and Africa. Nile Valley inhabitants display a wide range of variation, as a consequence of a long process of mixing. Black populations of the Horn of Africa (Tigré and Somalia) fit well into Egyptian variations. Abridged author’s summary