The prehistory of Nigeria.

Ancient Nigeria.

Archived item!

All evidence suggests the early settlement of Nigeria millennia before the spread of agriculture 3,000 years ago, and one day it probably will be possible to reconstruct the high points of this early history. Although archaeological research has made great strides in identifying some major developments, comparatively little archaeological work has been undertaken. Consequently, it is possible only to outline some of the early history of Nigeria.

The earliest known example of a fossil skeleton with negroid features, perhaps 10,000 years old, was found at Iii Ileru in western Nigeria and attests to the antiquity of habitation in the region. Stone tools, indicating human settlement, date back another 2,000 years. Microlithic and ceramic industries were developed by pastoralists in the savanna from at least the fourth millennium B.C. and were continued by grain farmers in the stable agricultural communities that subsequently evolved there. To the south, hunting and gathering gradually gave way to subsistence farming on the fringe of the forest in the first millennium B.C. The cultivation of staple foods, such as yams, later was introduced into forest clearings. The stone ax heads, imported in great quantities from the north and used in opening the forest for agricultural development, were venerated by the Yoruba descendants of neolithic pioneers as “thunderbolts” hurled to earth by the gods.

The primitive iron-smelting furnaces at Taruga dating from the fourth century B.C. provide the oldest evidence of metalworking in West Africa, while excavations for the Kainji Dam revealed the presence of ironworking there by the second century B.C. The transition from Neolithic times to the Iron Age apparently was achieved without intermediate bronze production. Some scholars speculate that knowledge of the smelting process may have been transmitted from the Mediterranean by Berbers who ventured south. Others suggest that the technology moved westward across the Sudan (see Glossary) from the Nile Valley, although the arrival of the Iron Age in the Niger River valley and the forest region appears to have predated the introduction of metallurgy in the upper savanna by more than 800 years. The usefulness of iron tools was demonstrated in the south for bush cutting and in the north for well digging and the construction of irrigation works, contributing in both regions to the expansion of agriculture.

The earliest culture in Nigeria to be identified by its distinctive artifacts is that of the Nok people. These skilled artisans and ironworkers were associated with Taruga and flourished between the fourth century B.C. and the second century A.D. in a large area above the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers on the Jos Plateau.

 The Nok achieved a level of material development not repeated in the region for nearly 1,000 years. Their terra-cotta sculpture, abstractly stylized and geometric in conception, is admired both for its artistic expression and for the high technical standards of its production.

Nok ceramics.

Information is lacking from the “silent millennium” (first millennium A.D.) that followed the Nok ascendancy, apart from evidence of iron smelting on Dala Hill in Kano from about 600 to 700 A.D. It is assumed, however, that trade linking the Niger region with North Africa played a key role in the continuing development of the area. Certainly by the beginning of the second millennium A.D., there was an active trade along a north-south axis from North Africa through the Sahara to the forest, with the savanna people acting as intermediaries in exchanges that involved slaves, ivory, salt, glass beads, coral, cloth, weapons, brass rods, and other goods.

The Bantu people.

The Bantu expansion

The Bantu are thought to have originated from the the area of Nigeria/Cameroon, and started their expansion East and South about 5,000 years ago (3,000 BC). They reached the equatorial rain forest 3500 years ago, entering what is now Uganda, 3000 years ago. It is people of this ancestry that comprised the bulk of the slaves transported across the Atlantic, and most black Americans can trace their ancestry to West and West-central Africa.

Bantu farming

The success of the Bantu was to do with farming. In a pattern repeated the world over throughout history, the farming people expand relatively quickly into lands occupied by hunter gatherers, displacing them, and  absorbing a small number of them into their population.  Prior to 3000 BC the population of sub Saharan Africa looked like the Khoisan people. The Bantu underwent a recent, massive, population explosion and are now numerically superior. If you went back in time 5,000 years, they would only be a few hundred thousand Bantu people learning to farm on the Western side of Africa. Bantu speakers w number about 60 million, and most of of sub Saharan Africa now speaks some version of the Niger-Congo language family.

This was different to how farming spread in Europe. Although some new population arrived in Southern Europe, most of the old population remained, they simply adopted farming. This was not the case with the Bantu expansion. The neolithic hunter gatherers, although they implemented pastoralism, failed to implement agriculture and were mostly displaced. They are now marginalised to areas where agriculture is not possible, like deserts and scrub land. The Bantu brought their language with them, and their spread can be seen below. You can see how the original Khoisan people (palest brown) have been engulfed by the spread of the Bantu people (light brown). 

 The Bantu brought their cattle and goats with them, and finally carried the technology of iron into Southern Africa, iron arriving in Southern Africa about 400 AD. The exact date of iron working starting in Africa is unclear to say the best, but the first widely recognised smiths In sub Saharan Africa were the Nok people of Nigeria. There’s an interesting read called ‘Iron roads in Africa’ that claims multiple independent discoveries of iron working, but the evidence is  open to criticism due to the common use of fossil charcoal, which can give a false age, and a poor standard of archaeology.  

Igbo kids, Nigeria.                                  Kikuyu woman, Kenya.

Boys, Mozambique.       Ugandan children.

Bantu DNA

Prehistoric and historic traces in the mtDNA of Mozambique: insights into the Bantu expansions and the slave trade

A sample of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the southeastern African population of Mozambique has been shown to have affinities with populations both to its north and south. From the north came sequences that may have been involved in the Bantu expansion (from western, through eastern, to southern Africa), such as members of haplogroups L3b, L3e1a and a subset of L1a. The dating of the major component of Mozambican mtDNAs, the subset L2a of haplogroup L2, displayed an age range compatible with the Bantu expansion. The southern influence was traced by the presence of sequence types from haplogroup L1d, a probable relict of Khoisan-speaking populations that inhabited the region prior to their displacement by the Bantu-speaking incomers. Within historicaltimes, the forced displacement of Mozambicans as part of the slave trade, mainly documented as being to the Americas, generated a differential input of eastern African sequences into the mtDNA pools of the Americas and of Europe, as testified to by the greater number of sequence matches between Mozambique and the Americas, compared to those between Mozambique and Europe

Genetic substructure in South African Bantu-speakers: Evidence from autosomal DNA and Y-chromosome studies.

The extent of genetic differentiation between seven South African Bantu-speaking groups (Zulu, Xhosa, Tsonga/Shangaan, Southern Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, and Venda) was assessed from coancestry coefficients (FST) estimated from autosomal serogenetic, DNA, and Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes. The overall FST obtained from the autosomal data was 0.002, and that from the Y chromosome data was 0.014. The genetic relationships between groups examined were inferred from their cluster affinities in phylogenetic trees constructed from the genetic distances between them. Both autosomaland Y-chromosome DNA studies reveal that 6 of the 7 South African Bantu-speaking groups cluster according to their linguistic groupings, the exception being the Tsonga, who do not cluster with other Nguni language speakers, but rather with the Venda who live close to them. This suggests that the invading Shangaan-speakers, whose Nguni language was adopted by the Tsonga, did not have a major effect on the Tsonga gene pool, and that gene flow from the Venda into the Tsongamay have been considerable. Genetic distances were found to correlate with geographic distances between the regions where each group’s apparent population density is the highest. Linguistic distances were also found to correlate with genetic distances, but linguistic and geographic distances showed no correlation. Together, these results suggest that linguistic and some genetic differentiation took place before the groups (or their forerunners) reached their present-day locations, and that further genetic change occurred after their arrival.
American journal of physical anthropology  

Insights into the western Bantu dispersal: mtDNA lineage analysis in Angola

Africa is the homeland of humankind and it is known to harbour the highest levels of human genetic diversity. However, many continental regions, especially in the sub-Saharan side, still remain largely uncharacterized(i.e. southwest and centralAfrica). Here, we examine the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in a sample from Angola. The two mtDNA hypervariable segments as well as the 9-bp tandem repeat on the COII/tRNA(lys) intergenic region have allowed us to allocate mtDNAs to common African haplogroups. Angola lies in the southern end of the putative western branch of the Bantu expansion, where it metthe local Khoisan populations. Angolan mtDNA lineages show basically a Bantu substrate with no traces of Khoisan lineages. Roughly, more than half of the southwestern mtDNApool can be assigned to west Africa, approximately 25% to central Africa and a significant 16% to east Africa, which points to the western gene pool having contributed most to the mtDNA lineages in Angola. We have also detected signals of extensive gene flow from southeast Africa. Our results suggest that eastern and western Bantu expansion routes were not independent from each other, and were connected south of the rainforest and along the southern African savannah. In agreement with historical documentation, the analysis also showed that the Angola mtDNA genetic pool shows affinities with the African lineages from Brazil, the main American destination of the slaves from Angola, although not all lineages in Brazil can be accounted for by the Angolan mtDNA pool.

Phylogenetic and phylogeographic analysis of African mitochondrial DNA variation

A very technical paper, as a pdf. document.

Back-migration into Cameroon

An alternative explanation, not considered by the authors is that mtDNA, known to be involved in energy production, is subject to strong selection in different natural environments, and therefore, there may have been selection against Eurasian mtDNAafter its initial introduction into the population.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Early View (Articles online in advance of print)

MtDNA variation in North Cameroon: Lack of asian lineages and implications for back migration from Asia to sub-Saharan Africa
Valentina Coia et al.

Abstract

The hypervariableregion-1 and four nucleotide positions (10400, 10873, 12308, and 12705) of the coding region of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) were analyzed in 441 individuals belonging to eight populations (Daba, Fali, Fulbe, Mandara, Uldeme, Podokwo, Tali, and Tupuri) from North Cameroon and four populations (Bakaka, Bassa, Bamileke, and Ewondo) from South Cameroon. All mtDNAs were assigned to five haplogroups: three sub-Saharan (L1, L2, and L3), one northern African (U6), and one European (U5). Our results contrast with the observed high frequencies of a Y-chromosome haplogroup of probable Asian origin (R1*-M173) in North Cameroon. As a first step toward a better understanding of the evident discrepancy between mtDNA and Y-chromosome data, we propose two contrasting scenarios. The first one, here termed “migration and asymmetric admixture,” implies a back migration from Asia to North Cameroon of a population group carrying the haplotype R1*-M173 at high frequency, and an admixture process restricted to migrant males. The second scenario, on the other hand, temed “divergent drift,” implies that modern populations of North Cameroon originated from a small population group which migrated from Asia to Africa and in which, through genetic drift, Y-chromosome haplotype R1*-M173 became predominant, whereas the Asian mtDNA haplogroups were lost.

 

 

It’s quite interesting that an ancient European Berber mitochondrial DNA lineage (U6) has been carried South by the Bantu expansion. This probably spread South into the founder Bantu population during the last Saharan pluvial period, about 12,000 to 4,000 years ago, when the Sahara was a grassland.

 

 

 

 

Human line ‘nearly split in two’.

Humans diverged into separate populations for 100,000 years

By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests.

The genetic split in Africa resulted in distinct populations that lived in isolation for as much as 100,000 years, the scientists say.

This could have been caused by arid conditions driving a wedge between humans in eastern and southern Africa.

Details have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

It would be the longest period for which modern human populations have been isolated from one another.

But other scientists said it was still too early to reconstruct a meaningful picture of humankind’s early history in Africa. They argue that other scenarios could also account for the data.

At the time of the split – some 150,000 years ago – our species, Homo sapiens, was still confined to the African continent.

  We don’t know how long it takes for hominids to fission off into separate species, but clearly they were separated for a very long time

Dr Spencer Wells, Genographic Project

The results have come from the Genographic Project, a major effort to track human migrations through DNA.

The latest conclusions are based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA in present-day African populations. This type of DNA is the genetic material stored in mitochondria – the “powerhouses” of cells.

It is passed down from a mother to her offspring, providing a unique record of maternal inheritance.

“We don’t know how long it takes for hominids to fission off into separate species, but clearly they were separated for a very long time,” said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project.

“They came back together again during the Late Stone Age – driven by population expansion.”

Family tree

Although present-day people carry a signature of the ancient split in their DNA, today’s Africans are part of a single population.

The researchers compiled a “family tree” of different mitochondrial DNA groupings found in Africa.

A major split occurred near the root of the tree as early as 150,000 years ago.

On one side of this divide are the mitochondrial lineages now found predominantly in East and West Africa, and all maternal lineages found outside Africa.

Mitochondrial DNA in Africa.

On the other side of the divide are lineages predominantly found in the Khoi and San (Khoisan) hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa.

Many African populations today harbour a mixture of both.

  Although there is very deep divergence in the mitochondrial lineages, that can be different from inferring when the populations diverged from one another

Dr Sarah Tishkoff, University of Pennsylvania

The scientists say the most likely scenario is that two populations went their separate ways early in our evolutionary history.

This gave rise to separate human communities localised to eastern and southern Africa that evolved in isolation for between 50,000 and 100,000 years.

This divergence could have been related to climate change: recent studies of ancient climate data suggest that eastern Africa went through a series of massive droughts between 135,000-90,000 years ago.

Lead author Doron Behar, from the Rambam Medical Center in Israel commented: “It is possible the harsh environment and changing climate made populations migrate to other places in order to have a better chance of survival.

“Some of them found places where they could and – perhaps – some didn’t. More than that we cannot say.”

Back together

Dr Wells told BBC News: “Once this population reached southern Africa, it was cut off from the eastern African population by these drought events which were on the route between them.”

Modern humans are often presumed to have originated in East Africa and then spread out to populate other areas. But the data could equally support an origin in southern Africa followed by a migration to East and West Africa.

The genetic data show that populations came back together as a single, pan-African population about 40,000 years ago.

This renewed contact appears to coincide with the development of more advanced stone tool technology and may have been helped by more favourable environmental conditions.

“[The mixing] was two-way to a certain extent, but the majority of mitochondrial lineages seem to have come from north-eastern Africa down to the south,” said Spencer Wells.

But other scientists said different scenarios could explain the data.

Dr Sarah Tishkoff, an expert on African population genetics from the University of Pennsylvania, said the Khoisan might once have carried many more of the presumed “East African” lineages but that these could have been lost over time.

“Although there is very deep divergence in the mitochondrial lineages, that can be different from inferring when the populations diverged from one another and there can be many demographic scenarios to account for it,” she told BBC News.

She added: “As a general rule of thumb, when mitochondrial genetic lineages split, it will usually precede the population split. It can often be difficult to infer from one to the other.”

The University of Pennsylvania researcher stressed it was not possible to pinpoint where in Africa the populations had once lived – complicating the process of reconstructing scenarios from genetic data.

The Genographic Project’s findings are also consistent with the idea – held for some years now – that modern humans had a close brush with extinction in the evolutionary past.

The number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the Late Stone Age.

I notice this doesn’t mention the vastly diverged from the norm X chromosomes in the Mbuti pygmies, so it’s probably more like three groups.

Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal Variation in North Africa.

A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for Y-Chromosomal DNA Variation in North Africa

Barbara Arredi,^1,2,3 Estella S. Poloni,³ Silvia Paracchini,^2,* Tatiana Zerjal,² Dahmani M. Fathallah,⁴ Mohamed Makrelouf,⁵ Vincenzo L. Pascali,¹ Andrea Novelletto,⁶ and Chris Tyler-Smith^2,7Am J Hum Genet. 2004

We have typed 275 men from five populations in Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt with a set of 119 binary markers and 15 microsatellites from the Y chromosome, and we have analyzed the results together with published data from Moroccan populations. North African Y-chromosomal diversity is geographically structured and fits the pattern expected under an isolation-by-distance model. Autocorrelation analyses reveal an east-west cline of genetic variation that extends into the Middle East and is compatible with a hypothesis of demic expansion. This expansion must have involved relatively small numbers of Y chromosomes to account for the reduction in gene diversity towards the West that accompanied the frequency increase of Y haplogroup E3b2, but gene flow must have been maintained to explain the observed pattern of isolation-by-distance. Since the estimates of the times to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCAs) of the most common haplogroups are quite recent, we suggest that the North African pattern of Y-chromosomal variation is largely of Neolithic origin. Thus, we propose that the Neolithic transition in this part of the world was accompanied by demic diffusion of Afro-Asiatic–speaking pastoralists from the Middle East.

Many studies of African genetic diversity have concentrated on sub-Saharan and northeastern Africa, the most likely source region and corridor to the rest of the world (Tishkoff and Williams 2002). North Africa, however, may have followed a distinct evolutionary direction and requires further investigation. Genetic studies of this area, performed using classical markers, have revealed an agreement between genetic and geographic distances (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994) and a predominantly east-west structure to the genetic variation (Bosch et al. 1997). A compilation of 185 mtDNAs sampled across North Africa showed (1) that about half of the lineages belonged to the L haplogroups otherwise observed mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and (2) that most of the rest fell into haplogroup U6 (Salas et al. 2002), which perhaps originated in the Near East and spread into North Africa ~30 thousand years (KY) ago (KYA) (Maca-Meyer et al. 2003). Y-chromosomal studies are potentially highly informative about the origin of male-specific lineages, because of the detailed haplotypes that can be obtained and their high geographical specificity (Jobling and Tyler-Smith 2003), but previous studies have been restricted to limited regions of North Africa (Bosch et al. 1999, 2001; Flores et al. 2001; Manni et al. 2002; Luis et al. 2004). Together, these genetic analyses highlighted the similarity between northeastern Africa and the Middle East and the clear genetic differentiation between northwestern Africa and both sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, including Iberia. The Sahara and Mediterranean, despite the narrow width of the Strait of Gibraltar, seem to have acted as effective long-term barriers to Y-chromosomal gene flow.
To provide a more complete description of the North African pattern of Y-chromosomal variation, we have analyzed five additional populations: Algerian Arabs, Algerian Berbers, Tunisians, and North and South Egyptians (table 1). Binary polymorphisms (Underhill et al. 2000), including 12f2 (Casanova et al. 1985), were typed in the hierarchical fashion described elsewhere (Rosser et al. 2000; Paracchini et al. 2002), allowing the allelic states at 119 markers defining 117 haplogroups to be measured or inferred from the Y phylogeny (fig. 1A). In the North African sample, 30 binary markers were found to be polymorphic, identifying 23 different haplogroups (fig. 1A) (table A1 [online only]). Phylogenetically related haplogroups were classified into clusters, the frequencies of which are shown schematically in fig. 1B. With the existing data from Morocco (Bosch et al. 2001), the combined set now spans the northern part of the continent. In addition, samples from southern Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa were included in some analyses (Semino et al. 2000; Underhill et al. 2000; Cruciani et al. 2002). Our results reveal four main conclusions about the male-lineage variation in North Africa.

 

 

First, as shown in fig. 1B, the lineages that are most prevalent in North Africa are distinct from those in the regions to the immediate north and south: Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. This is illustrated by even a cursory examination of the commonest haplogroups: E3b2 is the most common haplogroup in North Africa, forming 42% of the combined sample. In contrast, R1b made up 55% of a mixed European sample (Underhill et al. 2000) and was even higher (77%) in the Iberian sample examined by Bosch et al. (2001), whereas E3a predominates in many sub-Saharan areas, being present at 64% in a pooled sample (Underhill et al. 2000; Cruciani et al. 2002). Such a finding is not surprising, in the light of the earlier genetic studies, but has an important implication: despite haplogroups shared at low frequency, suggesting limited gene flow, North African populations have a genetic history largely distinct from both Europe and sub-Saharan Africa over the timescales needed for the Y-chromosomal differentiation to develop.

Second, just two haplogroups predominate within North Africa, together making up almost two-thirds of the male lineages: E3b2 and J* (42% and 20%, respectively). E3b2 is rare outside North Africa (Cruciani et al. 2004; Semino et al. 2004 and references therein), and is otherwise known only from Mali, Niger, and Sudan to the immediate south, and the Near East and Southern Europe at very low frequencies. Haplogroup J reaches its highest frequencies in the Middle East (Semino et al. 2004 and references therein), whereas the J-276 lineage (equivalent to J* here) is most frequent in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouins. Lineages can rise to high frequency because of biological selection, social selection, and/or neutral drift. There is a suggestion that weak negative selection due to partial deletion of genes needed for spermatogenesis could act on both E3b2 and J (Repping et al. 2003), but this would tend to decrease their frequency, and there is no evidence for positive selection. It therefore seems likely that their increase was due to drift despite any negative selection, implying that male effective population size has been small. Indeed, gene diversity values increase along a latitudinal axis from west to east (fig. 2), and much of this variation is accounted for by haplogroup E3b2, which decreases in frequency in a corresponding fashion from ~76% in the Saharawis in Morocco to ~10% in Egypt (fig. 2). The same haplogroup has increased in frequency in many different populations within North Africa, so there must have been gene flow between them.

Third, there is strong geographical structure to the Y-chromosomal variation within the region. There is a high and significant correlation observed between genetic and geographical distances (r=0.55, P<.0005). Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis of genetic distances (Slatkin 1995) based on pairwise ΦST estimates (calculated using the program Arlequin) between 17 of the samples in fig. 1B showed a close correspondence with their relative geographical locations (fig. 3). Indeed, the positions of the samples in the MDS plot describe a latitudinal axis, from North Africa and the Middle East in the upper part to Central and southern Africa in the lower part. Furthermore, the pattern of genetic affinities among the North African samples parallels the west-east orientation quite precisely, from Morocco on the left-hand side to Egypt and the Middle East on the right. Spatial autocorrelation analysis (by AIDA; Bertorelle and Barbujani 1995) shows a clinal pattern of variation, more marked when Middle Eastern samples are included (fig. 4A and 4B). Haplogroup E3b2 itself shows a significant correlogram in a SAAP analysis (Sokal and Oden 1978) (fig. 4C). Furthermore, diversity within this haplogroup, measured using 15 Y-STRs (Thomas et al. 1999; Ayub et al. 2000), declines substantially towards the west (table A2 [online only]). These findings, together with the gene diversity pattern described above, are consistent with the hypothesis of a demic expansion from the Middle East.

Fourth, the time depth associated with the most common Y-chromosomal haplogroups in North Africa is shallow. Y-STR data (15 loci) were obtained for 256 Y chromosomes and revealed 201 different haplotypes (table A3 [online only]). Of these, only 16 were observed in more than one individual, but two were particularly frequent: one was present in 24 chromosomes from the Algerian Arab, Tunisian, and northern Egyptian populations, belonging, with one exception, to haplogroup E3b2*(xE3b2a); the second haplotype (observed in nine Tunisians) was associated with haplogroup J*. STR variability was used to estimate the TMRCA of North African chromosomes from individual haplogroups using the program BATWING (Wilson and Balding 1998), using either 15 loci (table A4 [online only]) or, to incorporate the Moroccan data (Bosch et al. 2001), 8 loci (table 2). The TMRCA of haplogroup E3b2 was estimated to be ~4.2 KY (95% CI 2.8–6.0 KY), using the mutation rate measured in father-son pairs (Kayser et al. 2000) and assuming 30 years per generation, or 6.9 (5.9–8.2) KY using the deduced “effective” mutation rate calibrated by historical events (Zhivotovsky et al. 2004) (table 2). The times for haplogroup J, the second-most-common haplogroup observed in North Africa (6.8 KY, 95% CI 4.4–11.1 KY; or 7.9 KY, 95% CI 6.6–9.1 KY) were also quite recent (table 2), supporting the idea of a recent demographic event. A network (Bandelt et al. 1999) of the E3b2*(xE3b2a) chromosomes, calculated using the program NETWORK, based on eight loci, showed a widespread high-frequency central haplotype (32%) and a starlike structure (fig. A1 [online only]). The Moroccan samples display low variability, and their chromosomes often occupy more-peripheral positions in the network. These findings together support our second conclusion, that genetic drift must have shaped the North African Y-chromosomal landscape.

Which historical or prehistorical demographic processes could explain the characteristics of the variation of Y-chromosomal lineages in North Africa? The current physical barriers, the Mediterranean Sea to the north and Sahara Desert to the south, could have provided genetic barriers leading to the separate evolutionary paths of the regions, although for the Sahara, episodes of more favorable climatic conditions could have relaxed this barrier at times, particularly during some intervals between ~10 KYA and ~5 KYA (Muzzolini 1993). There is no evident reason why it should have acted as a strong genetic barrier at such times, so, if there was substantial gene flow, the genetic differentiation between North and sub-Saharan Africa may postdate this period. A clinal pattern of haplogroup variation like the one we observe can be expected from an east-to-west population expansion, and the finding of lower E3b2 STR variation in the west than in central North Africa (table A2 [online only]), accompanied by a substantial increase in frequency of this haplogroup, is most readily explained by expansion into virtually uninhabited terrain by populations experiencing increasing drift (Barbujani et al. 1994).

The current distributions of the haplogroups can suggest geographical origins, and their TMRCAs provide some constraints on the times of their spread. The M35 lineage (see the phylogeny in fig. 1A for marker locations) is thought to have arisen in East Africa, on the basis of its high frequency and diversity there (Cruciani et al. 2004; Semino et al. 2004), and to have given rise to M81 in North Africa. The TMRCAs for E3b (8.3 KY, 95% CI 5.2–12.4 KY; or 14.4 KY, 95% CI 9.3–19.3 KY; table 2) and E3b2 (2.8–8.2 KY) should thus bracket the spread of E3b2 in North Africa. These times contrast sharply with estimates of 53 ± 21 KYA for the M35 lineage and 32 ± 11 KYA for the M81 lineage, by use of a constant-sized population model, or 30 ± 6 and 19 ± 4 KYA, respectively, by use of an expanding population model (Bosch et al. 2001). They are, however, more in accordance with times of 26.5 KYA (without a useful CI) for the M215 mutation (intermediate between M35 and M96 in the phylogeny; see fig. 1A) and 5.6 KYA for M81 (Cruciani et al. 2004) or of 29.2 ± 4.1 KYA for M35 and 8.6 ± 2.3 KYA for M81 (Semino et al. 2004). An origin for haplogroup J in the Middle East has been proposed (Semino et al. 2004 and references therein); the TMRCA of the J-M267 branch, found in both the Middle East and North Africa (and including our J* chromosomes), was estimated at 24.1 ± 9.4 KY and must predate its spread. This is consistent with our 95% TMRCA estimate of 4.4–11.1 KY for the North African chromosomes. Thus, although Moroccan Y lineages were interpreted as having a predominantly Upper Paleolithic origin from East Africa (Bosch et al. 2001), according to our TMRCA estimates, no populations within the North African samples analyzed here have a substantial Paleolithic contribution.

Early Neolithic sites are documented in the eastern part of North Africa and later ones in the west, which would be compatible with an east-to-west movement at this time, and this is also the case for the Arab expansion. Historical records of the Arab conquest, however, suggest that its demographic impact must have been limited (McEvedy 1980). In addition, genetic evidence shows that E3b2 is rare in the Middle East (Semino et al. 2004), making the Arabs an unlikely source for this frequent North African lineage. Parallel analyses between North Africa and Southern Europe have revealed strikingly similar patterns of Y chromosome variation which would support a scenario in which the Neolithic expansion, originating in the Middle East branched into two flows separated by the geographical barrier of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, as in North Africa, Y-chromosome variability in Southern Europe is clinal, gene diversity decreases from east to west, and genetic distances between North Africa and Southern Europe increase in a regular fashion from the Middle East toward the west (results not shown). Under the hypothesis of a Neolithic demic expansion from the Middle East, the likely origin of E3b in East Africa could indicate either a local contribution to the North African Neolithic transition (Barker 2003) or an earlier migration into the Fertile Crescent, preceding the expansion back into Africa.

In conclusion, we propose that the Y-chromosomal genetic structure observed in North Africa is mainly the result of an expansion of early food-producing societies. Moreover, following Arioti and Oxby (1997), we speculate that the economy of those societies relied initially more on herding than on agriculture, because pastoral economies probably supported lower numbers of individuals, thus favoring genetic drift, and showed more mobility than agriculturalists, thus allowing gene flow. Some authors believe that languages families are unlikely to be >10 KY old and that their diffusion was associated with the diffusion of agriculture (Diamond and Bellwood 2003). Since most of the languages spoken in North Africa and in nearby parts of Asia belong to the Afro-Asiatic family (Ruhlen 1991), this expansion could have involved people speaking a proto–Afro-Asiatic language. These people could have carried, among others, the E3b and J lineages, after which the M81 mutation arose within North Africa and expanded along with the Neolithic population into an environment containing few humans.

Race and sex differences in teeth.

Tissue contributions to sex and race: Differences in tooth crown size of deciduous molars
Edward F. Harris *, Joseph D. Hicks, Betsy D. Barcroft
College of Dentistry, University of Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee 38163
 

Abstract
This study describes size of constituent deciduous tooth crown components (enamel, dentine, and pulp) to address the manner in which males characteristically have larger teeth than females, and the observation that teeth of American blacks are larger than those of American whites. Measurements were collected (n = 333 individuals) from bitewing radiographs using computer-aided image analysis. Tissue thicknesses (enamel, dentine, pulp) were measured at the crown’s mesial and distal heights of contour. Deciduous mesiodistal molar crown length is composed of about 1/7 enamel, 1/3 dentine, and 1/2 pulp. Details differ by tooth type, but males typically have significantly larger dentine and pulp dimensions than females; there is no sexual dimorphism in marginal enamel thickness. Males scale isometrically with females for all variables tested here. Blacks significantly exceed whites in size of all tissues, but tissue types scale isometrically with blacks and whites with one exception: enamel thickness is disproportionately thick in blacks. While the absolute difference is small (5.56 mm of enamel in blacks summed over all four deciduous molar tooth types vs. 5.04 mm in whites), the statistical difference is considerable (P < 0.001). Aside from enamel, crown size in blacks is increased proportionately vis-à-vis whites. Principal components analysis confirmed these univariate relationships and emphasizes the statistical independence of crown component thicknesses, which is in keeping with the sequential growth and separate embryonic origins of the tissues contributing to a tooth crown. Results direct attention to the rates of enamel and dentine deposition (of which little is known), since the literature suggests that blacks (with larger crowns and thicker enamel) spend less time in tooth formation than whites. Am J Phys Anthropol 115:223-237, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Put simply, people of African ancestry have bigger teeth with thicker enamel, most notable on the crowns. they are often said to have ‘complex, massive’ teeth, where as Europeans have ’simple, mass reduced’ teeth. It’s an excellent way of telling someone’s ancestry, if you are looking at a skull.

Research Article
Metric dental variation of major human populations
Tsunehiko Hanihara 1 *, Hajime Ishida 2
Abstract
Mesiodistal and buccolingual crown diameters of all teeth recorded in 72 major human population groups and seven geographic groups were analyzed. The results obtained are fivefold. First, the largest teeth are found among Australians, followed by Melanesians, Micronesians, sub-Saharan Africans, and Native Americans. Philippine Negritos, Jomon/Ainu, and Western Eurasians have small teeth, while East/Southeast Asians and Polynesians are intermediate in overall tooth size. Second, in terms of odontometric shape factors, world extremes are Europeans, aboriginal New World populations, and to a lesser extent, Australians. Third, East/Southeast Asians share similar dental features with sub-Saharan Africans, and fall in the center of the phenetic space occupied by a wide array of samples. Fourth, the patterning of dental variation among major geographic populations is more or less consistent with those obtained from genetic and craniometric data. Fifth, once differences in population size between sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, South/West Asia, Australia, and Far East, and genetic drift are taken into consideration, the pattern of sub-Saharan African distinctiveness becomes more or less comparable to that based on genetic and craniometric data. As such, worldwide patterning of odontometric variation provides an additional avenue in the ongoing investigation of the origin(s) of anatomically modern humans. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

As you can see, Europeans have pretty tiny teeth compared to most populations

Diagrams fron Hanihara.

Three studies of Nubian teeth.

Population continuity vs. discontinuity revisited: Dental affinities among late Paleolithic through Christian-era Nubians
Dr. Joel D. Irish *
Abstract
The present study revisits a subject that has been a source of long-standing bioarchaeological contention, namely, estimation of Nubian population origins and affinities. Using the Arizona State University dental anthropology system, frequencies of 36 crown, root, and intraoral osseous discrete traits in 12 late Pleistocene through early historic Nubian samples were recorded and analyzed. Specifically, intersample phenetic affinities, and an indication of which traits are most important in driving this variation, were determined through the application of correspondence analysis and the mean measure of divergence distance statistic. The results support previous work by the author and others indicating that population discontinuity, in the form of replacement or significant gene flow into an existing gene pool, occurred sometime after the Pleistocene. This analysis now suggests that the break occurred before the Final Neolithic. Samples from the latter through Christian periods exhibit relative homogeneity, which implies overall post-Pleistocene diachronic and regional population continuity. Yet there are several perceptible trends among these latter samples that: 1) are consistent with documented Nubian population history, 2) enable the testing of several existing peopling hypotheses, and 3) allow the formulation of new hypotheses, including a suggestion of two post-Pleistocene subgroups predicated on an age-based sample dichotomy. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

The ancient inhabitants of Jebel Moya redux: measures of population affinity based on dental morphology
Dr. Joel D. Irish.

This paper re-examines some of the methods and craniometric findings in the classic volume The Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya (Sudan) (1955) by Mukherjee, Rao & Trevor, in light of recent archaeological data and relative to a new dental morphological study. Archaeological evidence characterises these inhabitants as having been heavily influenced by outside sources; yet they managed to establish and maintain their own distinctive culture as seen in the site features and surviving artefact collections. The dental study, modelled after the original craniometric-based investigation and using the same or similar comparative samples, detected complementary indications of outside biological influence. In the study, up to 36 dental traits were recorded in a total of 19 African samples. The most influential traits in driving inter-sample variation were then identified, and phenetic affinities were calculated using the Mahalanobis D2 statistic for non-metric traits. If phenetic similarity provides an estimate of genetic relatedness, these affinities, like the original craniometric findings, suggest that the Jebel Moyans exhibited a mosaic of features that are reminiscent of, yet distinct from, both sub-Saharan and North African peoples. Together, these different lines of evidence correspond to portray the Jebel Moya populace as a uniform, although distinct, biocultural amalgam. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The first item does seem to suggest that there was a population influx into the Nubian area.  My guess this would probably be the expansion of the Neolithic farmers from the middle East.

Dental reduction in post-pleistocene Nubia
James M. Calcagno

Abstract
Tooth size changes among Nubian archaeological populations dating from the Mesolithic through the Christian era, a period of approximately 12,000 years, are analyzed. Standard length and breadth dimensions of all permanent teeth from several cultural horizons are combined to form three large samples: Mesolithic, 10000-7000 B.C.; Agriculturalist, 3300-1100 B.C. (A-group, C-group, Pharaonic); and Intensive Agriculturalist, A.D. 0-1400 (Meroitic, X-Group, Christian). Such information not only fills a void in the knowledge of Nubian skeletal biology, but also provides a much needed African reference point for the comparison of tooth size data among anatomically modern Homo sapiens from various regions of the world.
Changes in mean tooth size and associated t-tests reveal strong and significant reduction in dental size between the Mesolithic and Agriculturalist samples, followed by a continued although diminished trend of reduction for only the molar teeth between the two Agriculturalist groups. These patterns are best observed by examining tooth breadths, which are considered as the most reliable indicator of tooth size. Previously published odontometrics of the Nubian Mesolithic are briefly compared to the findings of this diachronic analysis of Nubian dental change. Revised: 30 January 1986

Ancient Egyptian teeth.

Who were the ancient Egyptians? Dental affinities among Neolithic through postdynastic peoples.

Irish JD.

Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7720, USA. ffjdi@uaf.edu

Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to describe and compare up to 36 dental morphological variants in 15 Neolithic through Roman-period Egyptian samples. Trait frequencies are determined, and phenetic affinities are calculated using the mean measure of divergence and Mahalanobis D2 statistics for discrete traits; the most important traits in generating this intersample variation are identified with correspondence analysis. Assuming that the samples are representative of the populations from which they derive, and that phenetic similarity provides an estimate of genetic relatedness, these affinities are suggestive of overall population continuity. That is, other than a few outliers exhibiting extreme frequencies of nine influential traits, the dental samples appear to be largely homogenous and can be characterized as having morphologically simple, mass-reduced teeth. These findings are contrasted with those resulting from previous skeletal and other studies, and are used to appraise the viability of five Egyptian peopling scenarios. Specifically, affinities among the 15 time-successive samples suggest that: 1) there may be a connection between Neolithic and subsequent predynastic Egyptians, 2) predynastic Badarian and Naqada peoples may be closely related, 3) the dynastic period is likely an indigenous continuation of the Naqada culture, 4) there is support for overall biological uniformity through the dynastic period, and 5) this uniformity may continue into postdynastic times. Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Sub Saharan teeth are described as being complex, massive teeth, not similar to the ancient Egyptians, who had simple mass reduced teeth like modern North Africans.

This chart shows the relative similarities between the teeth of different populations. As you can see, the Egyptians don’t cluster with the Sub Saharan African teeth (marked by black triangles). Click on it for a larger image.

This is another link to a JD Irish study,

Who Were the Ancient Egyptians? Dental AffinitiesAmong Neolithic Through Postdynastic Peoples.

The conclusion of this is that he couldn’t find any evidence of a major population change from the pre-dynastic to Roman times.

The excellent preservation of ancient Egyptian hair.

Abstract: Developments in microfocus synchrotron techniques have led to new results regarding the long-term alteration of archaeological samples of biological origin. Here, ancient hair samples from two Egyptian mummies have been analyzed using a conjunction of structural and elemental synchrotron methods. In this favored context of conservation, structural analysis revealed a remarkable preservation of keratin supramolecular organization at any observed length scale. Bulk keratin structure has therefore not been modified significantly over 2000 years. However, infrared spectroscopy indicated a partial disorganization of keratins close to the hair surface through polypeptide bond breakage. Elemental mapping showed a strongly heterogeneous distribution which can be related to mummification and cosmetic treatments.

Essentially, other than the surface being a little disturbed by by the mummification chemicals and cosmetics, the hair is in remarkably good shape. I suppose that’s what comes of being in a pitch black environment with a stable temperature.

The pyramid builder’s DNA.

Who were the pyramid builders?
After comparing DNA samples taken from the workers’ bones with samples taken from modern Egyptians, Dr Moamina Kamal of Cairo University Medical School has suggested that Khufu’s pyramid was a truly nationwide project, with workers drawn to Giza from all over Egypt. She has discovered no trace of any alien race; human or intergalactic, as suggested in some of the more imaginative ‘pyramid theories’.

Effectively, it seems, the pyramid served both as a gigantic training project and – deliberately or not – as a source of ‘Egyptianisation’. The workers who left their communities of maybe 50 or 100 people, to live in a town of 15,000 or more strangers, returned to the provinces with new skills, a wider outlook and a renewed sense of national unity that balanced the loss of loyalty to local traditions. The use of shifts of workers spread the burden and brought about a thorough redistribution of pharaoh’s wealth in the form of rations.

Almost every family in Egypt was either directly or indirectly involved in pyramid building. The pyramid labourers were clearly not slaves. They may well have been the unwilling victims of the corvée or compulsory labour system, the system that allowed the pharaoh to compel his people to work for three or four month shifts on state projects. If this is the case, we may imagine that they were selected at random from local registers.

But, in a complete reversal of the story of oppression told by Herodotus, Lehner and Hawass have suggested that the labourers may have been volunteers. Zahi Hawass believes that the symbolism of the pyramid was already strong enough to encourage people to volunteer for the supreme national project. Mark Lehner has gone further, comparing pyramid building to American Amish barn raising, which is done on a volunteer basis. He might equally well have compared it to the staffing of archaeological digs, which tend to be manned by enthusiastic, unpaid volunteers supervised by a few paid professionals.

The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt: A Modern Investigation of Pharaoh’s Workforce by AR David (Boston and Henley, London, 1986)

I’d be a lot happier if I could see the DNA results from the source.

Seventies Nubian mummy hair study.

KEY WORDS Hair analysis . Hair form Mummy hair .
Nubia – Meroitics
ABSTRACT

Hair samples from 76 burials at Semna South (Sudanese Nubia) were examined using a variety of techniques. Electrophoresis and fluorescence microscopy indicated some oxidation of the cuticule and keratin protein had taken place. However, the cuticular structure and the lack of fluorescence
of the cortex indicate that the low humidity and non-alkaline conditions preserved the physicaland chemical properties of the hair well. Pigmentation, even allowing for oxidation of melanin, showed a higher proportion of lighter samples than is currently associated with the Nubian area. Hair form analysis showed medium diameter and scale count; the curling variables were intermediate between European and African samples. There was a high ratio of maximum to minimum curvature (a measure of irregularity), approached only by Melanesian samples. Meroitic and X-group burial types were not statistically significantly different (largely due to sample sizes), but the X-group, especially males, showed more African elements than the Meroitic in the curling variables. Principal components analysis showed the Semna sample to be significantly different from seven populations examined earlier.

Though several studies have been conducted on ancient hair, because of small sample sizes, few have allowed adequate statistical quantification, and none has dealt with Nubian material. Egyptian mummy samples have been examined in the past for color and structure by Pruner-Bey (18771, Virchow (18981,
and reportedly by Minakow (18993. Woodbury and Woodbury(‘32) and Trotter (‘431 have examined ancient Peruvian material using metric techniques; they found the ancient hairs to generally fall in the range of modern variation. Brothwell and Spearman(‘63) studied North African and other material using a
variety of techniques, including microscopic examination, fluorescence microscopy, and reflectance spectrophotometry; they found the state of preservation of the samples closely related to environmental factors of the burial sites. More recently, Chiarelli et al. (‘70/’71) studied ancient Egyptian samples with scanning electron microscopy, finding significant loss of cuticular scale edges. Using microscopic and macroscopic techniques, Titlbachova AM. J. PHYS. ANTHROP. (1978) 49: 277-262. and Titlbach (‘77) studied Egyptian mummies in Czechoslovakian collections; they found generally good preservation, with the samples resembling modern European populations with significant African admixture.

This study analyzes hair samples from Semna South in Sudanese Nubia using several biochemical and metric techniques. The samples contain Meroitic( First Century A.D. to Fourth Century A.D.), X-group (Fourth Century to Sixth Century A.D.), and Christian period (Seventh Century to Tenth Century A.D.) material. Strouhal has pointed out (‘77) that the physical relationship of Meroitic and Postmeroitic
populations is not clear. It is still not known whether X-group burials represent a migration of an ethnically distinct people or change in situ of the Meroitics. It is more generally accepted that Christian period inhabitants were the descendants of the X-group.

Hence this study adds perspective to the physical anthropology of the area. ‘ Current address: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical SchwI, Boston, Massachusetts 021 15.
277 The hair samples were analyzed by quantitative hair form analysis (Hrdy, ‘73), electrophoresis of hair keratins (Hrdy and Baden, ‘731, qualitative hair pigmentation analysis (Martin and Saller, ‘62), and  fluorescence microscopy (Brothwell and Spearman. ‘63). The findings of the quantitative hair form analysis were compared to four populations examined by Hrdy (‘73).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The sample consisted of 56 Meroitic, 15 X group, and 5 Christian individuals from Semna South collected between 1966 and 1968 in the course of the excavations of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago directed by L. V. Zabkar (Zabkar, ‘73/’74, “78). Specific information on individual burials is located in Zabkar(‘78). There was no embalming; mummification resulted from burial conditions alone. Burials  were either of a simple pit grave type, or of more complex types, including separate burialchambers, ramps, and vaults. The hair was either attached to the skull or associated with the remains in the fill. Hair from infants under six months, and samples of insufficient size for measurement were excluded from the analysis. Age and sex determinations and burial type were according to the criteria of Zabkar (‘78).
Electrophoretic studies were carried out as outlined in Hrdy and Baden (‘731, with the addition of soaking the samples overnight in 0.05 M EDTA and 0.05 M Tris buffer at pH 9.6 to chelateheavy metals that interfere with chemical extraction of keratin. Fluorescence microscopy was done using the method of
Brothwell and Spearman (‘631, using 0.1% Acridine Orange dye at pH 4.9. Qualitative hair color analysis was performed with a Fischer-Saller hair color standard (Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts) (Martin and Saller, ‘62).

Quantitative hair form analysis was carried out by the method of Hrdy(‘731, using the principal components analysis variables: diameter (in microns, an average of several determinations); scale count (the number of curicularscale ridges per 0.52 mm); average curvature (the inverse of the radius of curvature); ratio of maximum to minimum curvature (a measure of regularity of hair curling); crimp (number of reverse twists along the hair shaft per unit distance); and ratio of natural to straight length (a measure of functionalhair shortening due to curling). Principal components analysis was performed using scores standardized on the seven population sample (Hrdy, ‘73) and the Semna sample.

RESULTS
Electrophoresis of alpha SCM-keratin protein from three samples (identification numbers: Meroitic N224-B, N455; X-group M107) showed similar patterns for all samples. There was a large band at the origin and a large band at the buffer from which represented SCMKB. This aberrant pattern indicates that the fibrous protein had aggregated at the origin, probably from cross linking of the protein chains.

Fluorescence microscopy on modern controls showed a greenish fluorescence throughout the cortex and cuticle, with areas of bright orange associated with fractures in the shaft, as reported by Brothwell and Spearman (‘63). These fractures and areas of orange were more pronounced on hairs that had been bleached. Of nine Semna samples, all had a completely orange cuticle, with brighter orange highlighting
the cuticular structure, which was intact on all samples. Debris clinging to the shaft was also bright orange. The cortex on all samples was greenish, except where the shaft was broken, which was orange. Hair which was blond or “bleached” appearing (M048, M061, M205, M228) fluoresced identically to the brown samples (M069, M098, M107, M188, M246). Macroscopically the hair was in generally good condition, with approximately one percent of the shafts damaged. Eight of the 76 samples had debris clinging to the shafts; the remainder were relatively clean. Two of the samples were braided.

Qualitative grading of the samples on the Fischer-Saller scale is shown in table 1. Samples that were graded on the red scale (I-VI) for degree of red pigmentation were also graded on the blond-brown-black scale (A-Y) for degree of black pigmentation. Twenty-six percent (29% of the Meroitic, 13% of the Xgroup) of the total sample had some red pigmentation, and 10.5% (8.9 Meroitic, 13% Xgroup) had “blond” pigmentation (Fischer- Saller category G or less). The crude variables of the quantitative hair form analysis are presented in table 2. The results are also broken down for subpopulations of Meroitic,  X-group, and Christian; male and female; and simple burial type and more complex. Results from Hrdy (‘73) for Northwest European, East African, Bougainville (Melanesian), and Japanese populations are presented for comparison. In no variable was the Meroitic significantly different from the X-group, male from female or simple burial type from non-simple. However, the X-group sample showed higher curling variables than the Meroitic, especially in males (the Christian group is too small to make valid comparisons).

The sample as a whole was significantly different from the other populations in average curvature, ratio of maximum to minimum curvature, crimp, and ratio of natural to straight length. Diameter was significantly different from Japanese and Bougainville, and scale count significantly different from the European,
Bougainville, and African populations.

Principal components analysis (Hrdy, ‘73) results on the first three components (accounting for 80% of the variance) are shown in table 3 for the total population, with comparative populations from Hrdy (‘73). In
component I, which is heavily loaded on general curling variables and scale count, the total sample centroid was significantly different from European and African samples, though it was definitely more European than African.Component 11, loaded on diameter, was not significantly different from the comparison populations. Due to the large amount of irregularity (high ratio of maximum to minimum curvature values), the Semna sample had a higher score on component 111, which was heavily loaded on that variable, than the African and European samples. Only Melanesian samples had a higher score on this
component.

DISCUSSION
 Hair keratin is remarkably stable due to cross-chain disulfide linkages. However, prolonged exposure to harsh conditions will alter the keratin. The Semna samples were in contact with sand for over a thousand years, and hence were at risk for oxidation of the protein molecules. There undoubtedly was some oxidation, as shown by the aggregation of the protein on electrophoresis and the orange fluorescence
of the cuticle by fluorescence microscopy.

However, the cortex did not have this oxidized pattern, unlike samples from Egypt examined by Brothwell and Spearman (‘531, which fluoresced orange throughout. Since hair form is probably determined by physical arrangements of the alpha helical proteins within the cortex (Hrdy and Baden, ’731, the
apparent limitation of oxidation to the cuticle in the Semna sample argues for the maintenance
of hair form in the samples in spite of their age. In line with this is the large variability in hair form (rather than the uniformity that one would expect if a uniform environmental force was acting on the sample),
and the lack of macroscopic cuticular and shaft damage. Also arguing for intact keratin is the large number of samples with intact cuticle, as opposed to the ancient Egyptian sample analyzed using scanning electron microscopy by Chiarelli et al. (’70/’71). In general, low humidity and non-alkaline conditions
are optimal for preservation of keratin; both conditions were met in the Semna samples.

As Brothwell and Spearman(‘63) point out, reddish-brown ancient hair is usually the result of partial oxidation of the melanin pigment. This color was seen in a large proportion of the Semna sample, and also noted by Titlbachova and Titlbach(‘77) on Egyptian material, where it also may have resulted from the mummification process. However, the large number of blond hairs that are not associated with the cuticular damage that bleaching produces, probably points to a significantly lighter-haired population than is now present in the Nubian region. Brothwell and Spearman (’63) noted genuinely blond ancient Egyptian samples using reflectance spectrophotometry. Blondism, especially in young children, is common in many dark haired populations (e.g., Australian, Melanesian), and is still found in some Nubian villages(J. Zabkar, personal communication).Only one sample (M197) showed cuticular damage and irregularities definitely consistent with bleaching, although bleaching could not be ruled out in some of the blond samples.

The average diameter of the Semna sample was close to both the N.W. European and East African samples, which are of medium thickness. Of the variables that best distinguish European and African samples, the total Semna sample was closer to the European on average curvature, crimp, and ratio of length. The ratio of curvature, however, was higher than either, indicating a degree of irregularity approached only by Melanesian samples. Obviously the sample has a greater degree of African admixture than the Egyptian hair sample described by Titlbachova and Tiltbach (‘771, which had three of 14 samples showing “Negroid elements.” Although there is not a consistent statistically significant difference between the X-group and Meroitic samples, it is interesting that the X-group sample, especially the males, had higher curling variables, indicating more of an African element. Although larger sample sizes are needed for statistically significant results, the results here are consistent with the evidence summarized by Strouhal (‘77) for skeletal material, which shows X-group very similar to Meroitic, but having increased negroid elements.

The principal components analysis showed the Semna population in a unique position on the three component space when compared to seven other populations (Hrdy, ’73). The combination of high ratio of curvature with moderate diameter and curling differentiates the sample from the Melanesian, European, African, and Mongoloid groups.

The Semna sample had high coefficients of variation compared to four other populations, especially in scale count, average curvature, and ratio of curvature. This high intra-population variability undoubtedly reflects the heterogeneous nature of the Nubian population during the Meroitic and Post-meroitic periods.

If I read this correctly, the conclusion is that the Nubian samples are showing a mix of European and African hair, with a few natural blondes in their number. This study doesn’t seem to be recent, but as I understand there hasn’t been any real change in the study of hair over the last few decades. This tallies with the Mt DNA study of Nubian mummies that shows them to be about 60% non Sub Saharan African.

I would just like to add that the blond Melanesian gene isn’t found in Africa anywhere, it’s an in situ mutation in the Australoids. The only known blond gene known in Africa and Europe is traceable to Northern Europe, and is only about 10,000 years on, which makes it pretty specific to European ancestry.

There’s a tendency for Afrocentrists to include Melanesians into their calculations. They shouldn’t, Melanesians and Australoids aren’t even closely related to Africans, and are the people on the planet least related to them. Also, no Australoids were ever in Nubia or Egypt.

Percentage genetic distances among major continents based on 120 classical polymorphisms

	Africa	Oceania	East Asia	Europe
Oceania	24.7
East Asia	20.6	10
Europe	16.6	13.5	9.7
America	22.6	14.6	8.9	9.5

As you can see from this Africa shows the most genetic distance from Australoids (Oceania). Chart from a study by Cavalli-Sforza using 120 blood polymorphisms provides information on genetic distances of the various continents. This chart also matches the work of geneticist Niell Risch, who has shown that the people most closely related to the Aborigines are Asians. You’ll note, Europeans are significantly more closely related to Aborigines than Africans. The people most closely related to Africans are… Europeans.