Studies of ancient crania from northern Africa

Abstract

Historical sources and archaeological data predict significant population variability in mid-Holocene northern Africa. Multivariate analyses of crania demonstrate wide variation but also suggest an indigenous craniometric pattern common to both late dynastic northern Egypt and the coastal Maghreb region. Both tropical African and European metric phenotypes, as well intermediate patterns, are found in mid-Holocene Maghreb sites. Early southern predynastic Egyptian crania show tropical African affinities, displaying craniometric trends that differ notably from the coastal northern African pattern. The various craniofacial patterns discernible in northern Africa are attributable to the agents of microevolution and migration.

Further studies of crania from ancient Northern Africa: An analysis of crania from First Dynasty Egyptian tombs, using multiple discriminant functions

“…It is clear however from the unknown analyses that the Abydene centroid value is explained primarily by the relatively greater number of crania with northern-Egyptian-Maghreb and European patterns in the series. Badari crania analyzed in this fashion revealed few or none which classified into the northern-Egyptian groups (Keita, 1990). This northern modal pattern, which can be called coastal northern African, is noted in general terms to be intermediate, by the centroid scores of Function I, to equatorial African and northern European phenotypes.…”

“…"Mediterranean," connoting a "race," "one interbreeding population," at the craniometric level, is questionable as defining the "Middle East" during the Bronze Age (Finkel, 1974(Finkel, ,1978, invalid as a term linking geography to a uniform external phenotype (see Snowden, 1970;MacGaffey, 1966;Keita, 1990), inaccurate as a metric taxon for many groups previously assigned to it (Rightmire, 1975a,b), and problematic as a bony craniofacial morphotype denoting a "race" or mendelian population because of its varied soft-part trait associations and wide geographical distribution (see "Hamitic" in Coon et al, 1950;Gabel, 1966;MacGaffey, 1966;Hiernaux, 1975;Rightmire, 1975a). "Hamitic", a label once used for some African groups (Fulani, Galla, Beja, southern ancient Egyptian), is seen by some as equivalent to "Mediterranean White" (e.g., Vercoutter, 1978), but Hiernaux (1975) points out that it is incorrect to view fossil and living groups once so designated as being "closely related to Caucasoids of Europe and western Asia."…”

“…Hiernaux's perspectives are relevant to the creators of ancient Nile Valley culture, which is an integral part of, and originated in a larger African context (Frankfort, 1950;Childe, 1953;de Heinzelin, 1962;Arkell and Ucko, 1965;Fairman, 1965;Clark, 1970;Shaw, 1976;Vercoutter, 1978;Aldred, 1978;Hassan, 1988), and is not simply a part of, or a corridor to or from the "Mediterranean world"-a cultural construct with limited explanatory power today, as noted by Herzfeld (1984), and almost certainly less in the early Holocene. "Mediterranean," connoting a "race," "one interbreeding population," at the craniometric level, is questionable as defining the "Middle East" during the Bronze Age (Finkel, 1974(Finkel, ,1978, invalid as a term linking geography to a uniform external phenotype (see Snowden, 1970;MacGaffey, 1966;Keita, 1990), inaccurate as a metric taxon for many groups previously assigned to it (Rightmire, 1975a,b), and problematic as a bony craniofacial morphotype denoting a "race" or mendelian population because of its varied soft-part trait associations and wide geographical distribution (see "Hamitic" in Coon et al, 1950;Gabel, 1966;MacGaffey, 1966;Hiernaux, 1975;Rightmire, 1975a). "Hamitic", a label once used for some African groups (Fulani, Galla, Beja, southern ancient Egyptian), is seen by some as equivalent to "Mediterranean White" (e.g., Vercoutter, 1978), but Hiernaux (1975) points out that it is incorrect to view fossil and living groups once so designated as being "closely related to Caucasoids of Europe and western Asia."…”

The ancient inhabitants of Jebel Moya redux: measures of population affinity based on dental morphology

“…Although retaining terms and some methodology equated with racial typology of early physical anthropology (see Keita, 1990Keita, , 1992Keita, , 1996, Mukherjee and associates applied the now-common Mahalanobis D 2 distance to craniometric data for the first time; the result was a measure of group divergence between Jebel Moya and 19 other African samples (Mukherjee et al, 1955). This fresh approach, directed away from typology and towards the concept of population affinity, would not otherwise become a focus of physical anthropologists until the 1970s and beyond (Berry & Berry, 1972Greene, 1972;Howells, 1989;Konigsberg, 1990;Keita, 1990Keita, , 1992Irish, 1993Irish, , 1998aIrish, ,b,c,d, 2005Brace et al, 1993;Johnson & Lovell, 1994;Prowse & Lovell, 1996;Hemphill, 1998;Roseman & Weaver, 2003;Pietrusewsky, 2004;among many others).…”

Melanin, afrocentricity, and pseudoscience

“…They also found a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years. Recent multivariate analysis of crania (Keita, 1990) showed a pattern common to both northern Late Dynastic Egypt and the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) in which both tropical African and European phenotypes, as well as intermediate patterns, were present. Early southern Predynastic Egyptian crania 'Anthropologists have labored long and hard to refute the existence of biological races.…”