High frequencies of Y chromosome lineages characterized by E3b1, DYS19-11, DYS392-12 in Somali males
We genotyped 45 biallelic markers and 11 STR systems on the Y chromosome in 201 male Somalis. In addition, 65 sub-Saharan Western Africans, 59 Turks and 64 Iraqis were typed for the biallelic Y chromosome markers. In Somalis, 14 Y chromosome haplogroups were identified including E3b1 (77.6%) and K2 (10.4%).The haplogroup E3b1 with the rare DYS19-11 allele (also called the E3b1 cluster ) was found in 75.1% of male Somalis, and 70.6% of Somali Y chromosomes were E3b1, DYS19-11, DYS392-12, DYS437-14, DYS438-11 and DYS393-13. The haplotype diversity of eight Y-STRs (‘minimal haplotype’) was 0.9575 compared to an average of 0.9974 and 0.9996 in European and Asian populations. In sub-Saharan Western Africans, only four haplogroups were identified. The West African clade E3a was found in 89.2% of the samples and the haplogroup E3b1 was not observed. In Turks, 12 haplogroups were found including J2*(xJ2f2) (27.1%), R1b3*(xR1b3d, R1b3f) (20.3%), E3b3 and R1a1*(xR1a1b) (both 11.9%). In Iraqis, 12 haplogroups were identified including J2*(xJ2f2) (29.7%) and J*(xJ2) (26.6%). The data suggest that the male Somali population is a branch of the East African population – closely related to the Oromos in Ethiopia and North Kenya – with predominant E3b1 cluster lineages that were introduced into the Somali population 4000–5000 years ago, and that the Somali male population has approximately 15% Y chromosomes from Eurasia and approximately 5% from sub-Saharan Africa.
And a little extra detail…
In Somali males, 14 haplogroups were identified. The frequency of the clade E3b was 81.1%, including 77.6% of the haplogroup E3b1 defined by the M78 mutation. The Eurasian haplogroup K2 was found in 10.4%, and 3.0% of the Somali Y chromosomes belonged to the major clade J. Only 3.0% of the Somalis had the sub-Saharan African haplogroups A3, B and E3a*(xE3a4). Less than 2.0% of the Somalis belonged to the Northwest African E3b2 lineage. In the present study, no individual belonging to E3b* chromosomes carried the V6 mutation, which identifies a subset of chromosomes assigned to E3b* (E-M35
Mt DNA info on Somalia.
Our Somali sample presents features that clearly locate it close to the African samples, but European features are also evident…. For a simple approach to measure the Caucasoid influence in East Africa, the triangle method described by Cavalli-Sforza et al was used to compute the proportion of admixture from the genetic distance matrix. Taking the British as a representative Caucasoid sample and the Mandenka as a sub-Saharan population, the proportion m of caucasoid lineages in the Somali is m = 0.46. (46%) This value is similar to the estimate based on autosomal studies (m = 0.40), and clearly higher than the estimates for the mtDNA found in Ethiopians 1 (m = 0.05–0.27)
The autosomal studies show that as a whole Somalis are about 40% Eurasian, which is about the same as Ethiopians. The maternal DNA is about 20% M1.
This shows a population movement from the Egypt/Nubia area to Somalia starting about 24,000 years ago.
The M78 mutation (y chromosome) that is present in East Africans occurred in North East Africa, not East Africa, and it occurred in a mixed Eurasian/African population.
This expansion was most likely from the Lower Nubia area, and might explain why Somalis show some similarities to the ancient upper Egyptians (Badarians); as their ancestry comes fromthe same region, and they are less influenced by later migrations from Arabia and west Africa. The hg’s involved ( M78/E3b1 and M1/M1a) are shown below, showing a clear focus and origin in Southern modern Egypt (Lower Nubia), expanding into Somalia .
Diagram; “Clines and Clusters Versus Race“, C. Loring Brace. Showing skull similarities in Somalians and predynastic upper Egyptians (lower Egyptians are much more like modern North Africans). The PD Upper Egyptians are just outside the range of modern North Africans, and Somalians show a fairly close relationship to them; unsurprisingly, as a fairly large portion of Somali ancestry seems to come from the Upper Egypt/Nubia area.
Mathilda's Anthropology Blog. 
i believe that in centeries ago ethiopian and somalian were from the same father
and since most of east africans look a like alot they all could be related
Humanity starts in East Africa, so why taking one way position stating that has been introduced or that somalis have euroasian genes, and not the opposite. Euroasians, ex Africans might have kept those genes. En plus, this thesis is dangerous, and is excusing neo colonial idea that ethiopia never colonised, organised country have european genes, strong message to alienate africans, and african cohesion.
Interesting theory Dona, but not one population geneticist agrees with you. They all take the view that Somalis and Ethiopians are part Caucasian.
Matilda, you’re wrong. I don’t really care what a pop. geneticist thinks. They can have their opinions, and just because I’m not a population geneticist doesn’t mean that your opinion is better than mine.
Europeans came from Africans. Can you explain why the child of an interracial couple (black & white) almost always comes out looking black? We have the dominant gene you fool, and you are in the minority. Look around the globe and notice how many ancient societies existed i.e. Aborigine, Papua new guinea, bolivian. All a dark…dark skin Afrocentric people were spread all over the planet.
No, but their opinion is way more informed than yours or mine.
They all say ‘part Caucasoid from a back migration’. That this pisses you off just too bad. The few east Africans I’ve discussed this with don’t seem remotely upset about it, and are pretty well aware of the Eurasian contribution to their ancestry. It’s mostly Afrocentric West Africans and black Americans who get all pissy at this because it means the East African kingdoms had some Eurasian in them and weren’t ‘all black’ (racism, so a two way street). I’ve got some news for you, even West Africans have some Eurasian ancestry in them (Y DNA R1b + K, and mt DNA U) from a very old back migration into Africa. There’s no such thing as ‘black or white racial purity’. If you think there is, you should take a full-on DNA test. It will probably shock the hell out of you.
Technically incorrect, they came from a Western Eurasian population about 40k ago, who had probably been non African for about twice that length of tiime
The half-Somali kids I’ve seen pretty much trash your ‘African genes are dominant’ claim, as do my own half black family members, who you wouldn’t know had a S. African mum. Most of the mixed kids I’ve seen have a skin tone halfway between thier parents. One girl (with her jet black dad from Cameroon) I met had bone white skin. Also, the Asians are the majority on this planet.
Look up the word ‘Afrocentric’. I don’t think you understand what it means.
I am a cultural anthropology major, and your use of the term “jet black” to describe a girl’s father from Cameroon is highly offensive- and you SHOULD know better.
I am a cultural anthropology major
It was actually absolutely descriptive of his skin colour, he had the blackest skin colour I’ve ever seen on a human. Don’t get pissy about my using an accurate descriptive word Colette.
Good stuff I like the idea of this research , I just have few questions
(1) How statistically representative is the small sample of Somalis that were tested
(2) Do you know if the tested sample is predominantly from one geographic propinquity, in other words how spatially distributed were the people in terms of their clan affiliation.
(3) Why assume that Ethiopia or Somalia for that matter is a single entity or ethnic group
(4) Would you share this data?
(5) What other factors have not been used or used for the mapping. (if any)
Good job ,
Ahmed
Dona says:
“strong message to alienate africans, and african cohesion”
But science isn’t politically correct in the first place.
i am a 14 year old somali girl i have never been there though. i am born holland and i would like 2 know alot about my genes and where they came from my dad is is very dark but has a long nose and very soft indian like hair nd he face his like indian too but my mother on the other hand is very fair and has afro hair and african features and me well i i am a normal brown colour long soft thick hair and european features and these are the kinda things that confuse me. when i ask my mother abp#out this she replies that hudreeds of years ago arabs used to come to somalia and that they … well you kno and that is why but my father says that it has to do with portugues but i still dont get it and this website is so far the best but i am just 14 and i dont get most of the things on this site can someone please explain
thank you
Maqdis
Somalis have a lot of ancestry from the upper Egypt area from about 20,000 years ago, which itself had an equal mix of Eurasian (ancient Arab) and African (ancient Sudan). Somalis are about half made up of these very ancient Egyptian people. These people moved southwards into Ethiopia, then Somalia. Then, some new people from the Arabian peninsula moved into East Africa a few thousand years ago, more in Ethiopia, but still a lot in Somalia. Then you got trading Arabs in historical times settling in Somalia too, mostly on the coast.
It means Somalis are probably about 1/2 Upper Egyptian, and quite closely related to North East Africans, particularly modern Southern (upper) Egyptians but closest to Ethiopians. A little bit of the rest of your ancestry is Arab, the rest is native East African. Overall, Somali are about 1/3 West Eurasian (people from near East/Europe) or so I’ve worked out.
Somalis aren’t very closely to West Africans at all. You share a lot of ancestry with Europeans and Arabs, which is why you have more delicate facial features and straighter hair than other Africans.
I hope this helps. If you don’t understand anything, just ask me to be a bit clearer.
Does having Arab/Egyptian ancestry upset you, or is it okay? It doesn’t seem to be a secret among Somalis that they have Arab ancestry, but some people get very angry if you suggest it.
You”re doing a good job Mathilda37, but from your intervention I can see you’re a bit dans le Eurocentric camp. I am Somali and I can trace my origins back to Samaale, and there’s not a single gene of what you called caucasian is in my cells. I am african and not mixed. What you call ‘Causian’ features are mine, if you got it then I don’t care, but don’t call us mixed, ok.
‘It doesn’t seem to be a secret among Somalis that they have Arab ancestry, but some people get very angry if you suggest it’
Yes I get angry because somalis (im talking about ethnic somali) who say they have arab origins are ignorant of their culture and features and feel inferior. If we had arab origins we would have preserved the arabic language as we’re muslims, and because arabic islamic culture is so dominant.
To the somali girl MAQDIS Iam just like you a somali guy and in my family we have diverse features. My mother had darker skin, very soft straight hair, straight nose; and my father had a very light skin for a somali I should say, soft and almost wavy hair, and very long and straight nose, with huge forehead, and small lips. This gave me a look that I am proud of and I think is mine or typical somali. I am tall, light skined, straight hair, almost straight nose. All my features are beautiful and african.
Somebody asked this question:
‘Do you know if the tested sample is predominantly from one geographic propinquity, in other words how spatially distributed were the people in terms of their clan affiliation?’
Ethnic Somalis are all same, whether they’are from south, north, east or west. You can pick any sample from anywhere in somalia, ethiopia, kenya, or djibouti and compare them and without any surprise you’ll find them same.
Eurocentric could be defined as ‘anything that observes Eurasian ancestry in black Africans then Osman.
hi i am somalian i have read your comment and would like to clarifie something.please send me email if you are still available.thanks
Sorry, I don’t email people ever.
Though I am not an Anthropologist I am very much interested on the subject. I found your website to be interesting. When you are making this research, I am sure you know the history of the people you are talking about. As we all know Ethiopia is an ancient country and has been known by many since the time of Moses and before. The interaction people made with influenced by War, Trade, Climatic conditions like hunger and flood, looking for pastoral fields have great impact on the movement of people. I believe, the explorers, the traders from other countries also have contributed a lot to the gen-pull apart from the inter marriage between different clan and race in the country. It is my strong believe that even the Amharas in Ethiopia came from Agew people not Semitic 100% as many may have believed it to be. People always try to figure out the race from the language but I am sure that can not be the exact way to determine the race of certain tribes. According to the bible the book of Esther the Persian king Arterxes was ruling Ethiopia with all other 127 countries. One can easily assume that to rule the land he may have sent Soldiers and governors either from Persia or from other nations that he may be ruling to claim its dominancy. If these soldiers marry the indigenous, rape or have a casual interaction, they will definitely put their mark in the current race. Oromo’s are one of the Cush’s sons have been in the land so long and I strongly belive others around them and are far to Chad, Sudan, Mauritania and near by, Ruanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania are Oromo’s cousins. Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somali are all Brothers intermarried and mixed. The border has more political and economical background instead of race. Just to give you a clue, I am an Ethiopian and an Oromo (according to the way we identify our race with our fathers) My dad is an Oromo but his mom is Amhara. My mom is an Amhara, but when digging more in to her grand parents I found out that her dad had an Oromo grand Father and her mom to has an Oromo grand mother. When I was a teen age, I asked my mom if she had an Arab or any other blood, I asked because her skin is as white as the Russians and kids were mocking me callings mom to look like a doll. So when we started learning about genetics I thought I have the clue and wanted to now why she is that white. She admitted that in their family tree (seven generation) there is an Egyptian lady Great…. Great … Great grand ma. I am sure the same is true with the majority of Ethiopians and all our neighboring brothers. We are dominantly Cushitic but mixed with Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Portuguese, Europeans and Asians. If you lived in Ethiopia you will witness these.
I actually read that somali gene pool is the most pure and unmixed gene pool in the world. And that many other ethnicities have bits of this incorporated in their gene pole suggesting that the somali ancestor is humanities ancestor. Considering the close proximity of the archeological findings where man walked and lived first it is not quite amazing.
No, they’ve got a lot of Eurasian and North African mixed in with them.
Language is a good indicator of the spread of human genome. When you look at the shear number of Germanic, Latin and other european languages being spoken in Europe, you will definitely know that White north Americans and South Americans had there origin in Europe. The longer the language lives in a region, the more variations it develops. Even in the USA, the variation in the English dialect is greatest in areas which were settled by earliest by native English speakers (Eastern and southern USA).
The same way (even though we do not have written history to help proof this fact), of the more than 200 afroasiatic languages which are still spoken today, only a handful (mainly arabic, hebrew, aramaic) are spoken outside the african continent. This will tell you that the Afrosiatic peoples had there origin in the horn of africa.
It is my believe that all features seen among the Somalis and other cushitic and sematic speakers are indiginous to Somalis and do not require “importation” from outside gene pools to explain.
The Somali nomad (who carries with him/her the most Somali of the Somali gene pool)have strikingly similar and almost identical features. It does not matter whether he is from the North or the South, or from other Somali areas in Djibouti, Ethiopia or NorthEast Kenya. The nomad’s features are dark, tall, with small borny frame, long face, nose. Hair varying from wooly, thick, curled to almost straight (but never completely straight in the european sense)
In fact, among Somali populations, the nomad is the most homogenous. It is among the farmers of the riverine areas and the traders of the coastal towns you see greater variability in features. It is understandable that these people might have had a more recent interaction with peoples from outside including slaves from east africa or traders from across the seas in arabia, persia, india and china.
Good debate though.
i like your theorie luaguages is an important tool to trace any population.like any other luanguages we have some influence from outside but they are minimal.oromo afar and somali are close.arabe have little influence in the somali except for religious terms.no race is pure but ancient egyptian is in our blood.somali culture have egyptian influence
This is a very interesting post. The thing is, Somali’s like other ethnic groups aren’t entirely related. Some Somali’s have origin’s in different areas. Some has Portugese ancestry some don’t. Why is it that scientists are claiming that we have such a significant amount of Caucasian material? Isn’t it possible that we ( East Africans) are naturally created this way without much Caucasian material? It is a possibility. Maybe scientists could take that into consideration. Niolitic ancestry is very, very possible. Because of our proximity to those people. It is true about the nomads. On both sides of my family we are nomads. We are said to have been invaded by other ethnic groups. I believe if we have any Eurasian admixture it is very low. if we have Asian admixture it would probably be higher. Have you found out anything about the Arab ancestor of some Somali’s? If so, could you share it with us? Thank you for posting this, it is apreciated.
Damn, lol. That was some long-winded stuff there. I was exasperated by the time I got t o 40! Yeah, Egyptsearch is just as bad as those retards at Stormfront. Stay objective, Mathilda, as you are being. Some of these guys have nothing better to do than to wander off that dumb destee site to grapple with their regurgitated/not-sinking-into-their-weeded-little-mind ideas with ZERO basis in anything objective. Probably an American, I am sure. Not satisfied with their own culture so they vote for an African guy (instead of another African-American) one to make due. So deep-set is some of their insecurity that there’s not much one can do to help. It really WOULD be like banging your head against the wall with them. They like lies, just like Stormfront. Anyway, stay this way. Your blog is infinitely more interesting and objective than anything I have seen (outside of peer journals, etc). (Mariah, from Ethiopia, living in D.C.)
Thank you Mariah.
Yes, this really was a long winded argument. Like I can change what the published study said.
Mathilda. You puzzle me, and scare me slightly too. I have read all of the comments on this post and your underlying tone is that of perceived superiority with disregard and lack of respect to the many people you both write about and receive comments from.
I don’t expect you to publish this comment, and quite frankly I don’t really care whether you do or not. I simply felt compelled to say something as I don’t think you’re a very happy person.
I would like to apologize for my previous comment. I don’t know you, and I have no right to pass judgment on you.
Charlotte.
This is just the tip of a very snotty long running argument.. yes, you were correct with the attitude in places. The DNA studies say one thing, but I get masses of spam from irate people insisting they are wrong.
Also I’m an INTJ, it’s just how we sound when we have to keep repeating ourselves.
Mathilda,
A ‘perceived superiority’ is not the tone I got from you. What I got was an understandable response to dealing with the blantant racism of other people, who are taking a superior tone with YOU…all whilst arguing against scientific facts.
Thanks for all of your excellent posts!
Thanks Humbug.. but I will admit I to coming across as snotty at times, repeating the same stuff endlessly gets on my nerves now and then.
I’ve deleted a few comments now, so this may not make sense to anyone reading the comments later on.
Hello people interesting topic, well I am Somali and I’ve always had a concept from parents, family members and other Somalis ever since I can remember that we are different from certain other african countries, I always thought that we are a unique group (until I found out about the Ethiopians and the Eritreans lol), people in my high school and various other place say that Somalis are not Black, I’ve thought about this and I can understand how our features are not like other black people say in west,central and sourthern Africa. So in that sense Iv’e always been referred to as somali as though we have our own ethnicity not white,black,indian,mixed just Somali, as viewed by the majority of the people in Britain. I get asked where I’m from by other people and have even been questioned by other Somalis,(which I find rather amusing).
Although I think we were origanally from egypt, and some of us have eurasian blood. this is a touchy subject with some black people as I have experienced and it shouldn’t be because we are all African.
A gentleman said the some somalis have straight hair but unlike European, well I disagree, I’m pure somali(as in parents are full Somali) and I have soft European like hair as members of my family and relatives have’nt, and I know a few other somalis have too. Anyway we are all different looking as the Somali community knows too well, some of us look Indian, Sri-lankan,arab(not caucasion),South American,Spanish or Mixed. We are probably the most diverse looking ethnic group in the world. I am very pleased of my ethnicity as everyone should be. Thank-you for all your comments.
Somalis have a lot of ancestry from the upper Egypt area from about 20,000 years ago, which itself had an equal mix of Eurasian (ancient Arab) and “African (ancient Sudan). Somalis are about half made up of these very ancient Egyptian people. These people moved southwards into Ethiopia, then Somalia. Then, some new people from the Arabian peninsula moved into East Africa a few thousand years ago, more in Ethiopia, but still a lot in Somalia. Then you got trading Arabs in historical times settling in Somalia too, mostly on the coast.” Ok, let me tell you this Mathilda. It isn’t that we have Egyptian blood. It is they who have SOMALI blood. The ancestral homeland of the Ancient Egyptians is Somalia ( Punt). So, they are descendants of us not the other way around. Anyways, it is nice to see that you show interest in our history.
The ancestral homeland of the Ancient Egyptians is Somalia ( Punt). So, they are descendants of us not the other way around. Anyways, it is nice to see that you show interest in our history
No it isn’t. Genetics show no migration from Somalia to Egypt, they show one from Egypt to Somalia though. As for Punt, there’s more evidence locating it somewhere in the Arabian peninsula than in Somalia. There are a few genetics studies with maps that show a radiation of the E3b1 and M1 out of NE Africa.One here and one here.
There’s also my own explanation here.
“No, they’ve got a lot of Eurasian and North African mixed in with them.” They don’t have mush “Eurasian ancestry. We only have about 15%. But it varies between families.
They’ve got a lot of Eurasian and North African mixed in with them.” They don’t have mush “Eurasian ancestry. We only have about 15%. But it varies between families.
Depends on how it’s worked out. I’m still wating for an autosomal study of Somalis to appear. It seems E3b1 carriers have a portion of Eurasian ancestry from upper Egypt, so it would probably be a bit more than it seems at first.
Actually, Somalis aren’t from Upper Egypt but rather it’s the other way around; those who settled in Upper Egypt originally came from Somalia or the region which is today Somalia. The fact that Somalis have the highest levels of E3b1 of any population in the world should make it clear that they are the population in which that haplotype group originated. The fact that Upper Egyptians have high levels of E3b1 shouldn’t automatically lead you to assume that Somalis came from them, because Somalis have higher levels of E3b1 than people in Upper Egypt. Also, their next door neighbors, the Ethiopians look like them so it’s an ethnic type that most likely originated in the Horn of Africa. I’m a proponent of the theory that Somalis form the basis for all non-African populations
“The most distinct separation is between African and non-African populations. The northeastern-African — that is, the Ethiopian and Somali — populations are located centrally between sub-Saharan African and non-African populations… The fact that the Ethiopians and Somalis have a subset of the sub-Saharan African haplotype diversity — and that the non-African populations have a subset of the diversity present in Ethiopians and Somalis — makes simple-admixture models less likely; rather, these observations support the hypothesis proposed by other nuclear-genetic studies (Tishkoff et al. 1996a, 1998a, 1998b; Kidd et al. 1998) — that populations in northeastern Africa may have diverged from those in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa early in the history of modern African populations and that a subset of this northeastern-African population migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the globe. These conclusions are supported by recent mtDNA analysis (Quintana-Murci et al. 1999”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_people#Genetics
Actually, Somalis aren’t from Upper Egypt but rather it’s the other way around; those who settled in Upper Egypt originally came from Somalia or the region which is today Somalia
No, and incorrect, E3b1 has been show to have orginated in NE Africa , not Somali, study here. Which is supported by the M1 which moved into East Africa down the Nile with the M78/E3b1. The direction is into Somalia, not from it.
You know, that study doesn’t mean what you think it does. It’s explaining how they figured out the rest of the world is descended from an East african population. It doesn’t mean that all Y and mt DNA types are East African in origin.
Nice site you have!
Interesting article, although I am not to fond of using the words eurasian or caucasoid when speaking of East African ancestry.
The only ones who seem to use those terms instead of just being specific and say “semitic ancestry” have often been eurocentrics that enjoy degrading West Africans and claim that East Africans are not black and thus have nothing to do with them.
Interesting article, although I am not to fond of using the words eurasian or caucasoid when speaking of East African ancestry.
It just descibes the place of origin and population association more than anything. East africans are genetically closer to Europeans than West africans though, for whatever reason. East Africans does seem to have seen a lot of immigration from the Arabian penisula and from NE Africa.
If I may move you just a little south.
Of course there is much ado about POTUS Obama and his African roots.
Do you have any data about the Nilitic peoples in general and the Luo in particular?
No, I’ve not got around to the southern parts of Africa yet. I’m starting from the Near East and radiating out.
I have always been mistaken Indian, Arab, Spanish, Italian and even Native Aboriginal and Half caucasian, because I have really soft and wavy hair, light skinned, and my features are very diffrent and don’t look african at all. I am also 14 years old and I also always as my mom why I look like that even thought I’m djiboutian(somalian) though she did tell me we have turkish and arab ancestry because her mom(my grandmother)was half turkish and half somalian/yemeni(my grandmother’s mom was turkish and her father was somalian/yemeni) I tell people I’m somalian, and it’s even hard for somalians to believe it.
Then how come I still don’t look somalian even though most of them have soft hair, and light skin?
And I forgot to mention both of my parents are somalian, my mom looks alot like me, and my dad is light skinned but have afro hair.
Genetically closer to Europeans?!?
And exactly how is that, as far as I know Europeans have a small amount of the same E-clade East Africans have but that is pretty much it…
Tehcnically yes, East Africans are a little closer genetically to Europeans and Arabs than West coast Africans, and it’s all overall DNA, not just Y chr or mt DNA. Mostly to do with the non Africans being founded from a small East African group that had already been isolated from South And West Africa for some time, then with some Eurasian added in later. It’s more true of Ethiopians than Somalis, but the West Africans and South Africans were pretty isolated from East Africa for a very long time.
And I suppose there is some study that shows that East Africans are genetically closer to Europeans than West Africans?
Yes, there are a few. You’d need the fst distances; Cavalli Sforza’s book would be the place to look that up. There are a few studies on the Ethiopian DNA and sundries page.
It boils down to the pre-existing population structure in Africa before the OOA event. The ancestral group to everyone are San-like, with the Bantu west Africans and East Africans splitting off from them a very long time ago, and Eurasians splitting off from the East Africans after quite a lot of time later.
I have a question for you Mathilda. When you said “It’s more true of Ethiopians than Somalis, but the West Africans and South Africans were pretty isolated from East Africa for a very long time.” What did you mean? Do you mean Somali’s have less Eurasian or foreign admixture? Are Somali’s more “indigenous”?
I am a somali male from djbouti and all my life i had stupid Caribeans/Jamaicans tell me im not black because i have silky curly hair and i dont have a wide nose..I usually get mistaken as ethiopian by outher somalis or ill usually get mistaken for Caribean by non east africans my sisters and brothers usually get mistaken as caribean as well my mom is very light skin and my dad is a caramel colour. but im not gunna lie all my life i have been confused about what the hell i am like if im not considerd full black or asain and not considerd arab what am i? Im 100% somali no yemeni in me or nothing else just pure somali
There’s been some very ancient population movement from Egypt into into Somalia that arrived so long ago that the only reason we know is that genetics shows it. There’s a little contribution from Arabs too, some of that dates back thousands of years.
I am interested about somali D N A
i notice that even Somalis don’t look the same, Agricultultural Somalis are quite different from Nomad Somalis,n city dewlers Somalis ere mixed but what nomads have a quite an original look that reminds you old phoras
Thanks for the info Mathilda. Dhalad, I agree…
Bantu people are beautiful and when they mix with white people the color of their skin become lighter with feature staying often African.So if the Somali feature came from white admixture shouldn’t their skin be lighter? They often have a beautiful dark skin. Couldn’t it be that those feature originated in Africa and spread to Europe. After all you posted picture of Asian black tribes a while ago. I think it is a bit hurtful the way the word negroid is used as if there is something wrong with the look. National geographic has posted great picture as you have and all those tribes are so interesting and diverse and beautiful. It is a lot of fun to look at.
the veyr pale skin European had is only about 8k old. Also skin colour is adaptive to UV levels, after a few thousand years it will find it’s own shade no matter what the ancestry of the group.
No, and incorrect, E3b1 has been show to have orginated in NE Africa , not Somali, study here. Which is supported by the M1 which moved into East Africa down the Nile with the M78/E3b1. The direction is into Somalia, not from it.
somalia is in northeast africa, just like ethiopia whether you like it or not,
The Horn of Africa (Somali: Geeska Afrika, Ge’ez: የአፍሪካ ቀንድ, Arabic: القرن الأفريقي) (alternatively Northeast Africa, and sometimes Somali Peninsula; shortened to HOA) is a peninsula in East Africa that juts for hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent
by the way the reason why north africans and some people in the middle east and europe has e3b1 is becouse of an immigration from northeast africa to norh africa and then to midle east and europe.
by the way, you can say or write or study everything by studying it, as long as you can defend it, but it doesnt mean what you are writing is the truth.
within a few years we will hear a whole new theorie, thats the way it goes.
Well yes, but they get more acurate with time, and so far this is as much as is known
This sub-clade of E-M78 is “relatively common”[17] in the Horn of Africa and Egypt, with higher microsatellite variance (0.35 vs. 0.46, respectively) in Egypt. In the article announcing this first information, Cruciani et al. (2007) described it as uncommon in Western Asia and they proposed Northeast Africa as this sub-clade’s likely place of origin
once again norteast africa is somalia and ethiopia
No, actually North East Africa is specifically NOT Somali or Ethiopia. The area given is southern Egypt running into the North of Sudan or central Egypt for the E3b1 mutation.
According to Underhill, E3b may have begun in Sub-Saharan Africa and
expanded
into the Near East and northern Africa at the end of the Pliestocene era.
The
E3b lineage was subsequently brought into southern Europe during the
Neolithic expansion. The authors give an estimate of 26,600 years for the
date of
the MRCA of all E3bs and they place its origin in eastern Africa.
as i said before, as long as you can proof it, you can come with whatever you want.
one more thing, i can relate to anything into everything if i study it. you too,
Yes…
All Y chromsomes originate in sub Saharan African. E3b isn’t in Europe, E3b1 is- a lot of time and distance between the two. Don’t let the names confuse you, the E3b1 in Europe (V13) is about 30k seperated from any sub Saharan ancestor.
there has been a major breakthrough in the genetic sequencing.
Modern day Somalis are descendents of the same father group of Berbers in Morocco, the ancient Phoenicians in Lebanon, 33% of Greeks, pretty much the old real Ancient Greeks, 45% of Albananians and Balkan Europeans, and North Africans with highest percentage in Morocco Berbers at 65% etc.
Scientists recently decided to name the whole group “Somalid” (as of this year 2008, two months ago) all descendents of Haplogroup Y-DNA E1b1b which has the highest existence in Somalia at 81% (the rest of Somalia’s people are from the Eurosian haplogroup T former K2 which the American President Thomas Jefferson and the Wright brothers who invented the airplane are from.
There are no more three Major races anymore. As of this year, scientists have divided humanity into 5 Major Classifications
Mongolid
Negrid
Indid
Arabid
Somalid
Europid
This is the Somalid Race
by the way, the problem with all this dna bs is it always bias to favor Europeans. If you go by what they say then the whole world would be decendants of white people. THATS CRAP! With the exception of Mexicans, they are one of the newest races out there. Have you ever looked up Berber people. According to Europeans, they are considered white. Who came first? Even the Nubians of Egypt and Sudan are considered to be white. Give me a break. White people are not a pure race and there DNA is shared by Africans then that would make them BLACK NOT WHITE! I know we came first. All this DNA evidence is just a attempted for European people to try to steal African and Middle Eastern history to try to claim it as their own because our civilizations where much older than theirs.
Wierd little rant Yes.
And technically, it’s West Asian (Arabia area) ancestry not European in east Africa. Nubians are like Ethiopians, slightly closer to Europeans and Arab populations than West Africans fro ancestry, they aren’t white though. Race and skin colour aren’t always associated. South Asians can range from jet black to ivory in colour.
BTW, there is no such thing as a pure race.
Scientists recently decided to name the whole group “Somalid”
– the parent of the little group you’ve listed was North African, and it’s an absolute crock of crap that they are calling Southern Europeans Somalid. What site did you dredge that from?
my dear Mathilda ,
to yes =Assyrian(arabocentrist)
don’t worry mathilda ,it’s the new lies from arabocentric and afrocentric !
somalid race !!! hahahahahaha there are no logic here !
you must know that the Arabocentrits had already known that the threat from the origin of the Berbers can change the court’s history because it has a link with ancient Semites! Semites for arabocentrics is a red line!
so they want to change the terms ,saying that the north African are somalids or hamitic race, but we already know that the Semitic languages have an African origin this is why they avoiding the danger of pre-historic origin of berbers, it’s like saying that Arabs are purely Semites against their white slaves !
I think “yes” is correct but he is getting the terms incorrect. The Parent group of : Berbers, Somalis, and Egyptians is in fact Ethiopians/Sudanese. They are the groups that have M215 and M35. Any other groups came from this mutation and are just an extension of them.
GENERICALLY SPEAKING :
The same way E3a (E1b1a) is used to show mainly migration and ancestry of a Niger Congo, Bantu, or Bantoid group of people, E3b (E1b1b) is used to show migration of Afro-Asiatic or Ethiopic people.
It really doesn’t matter how you look, that Y ancestry is just one small piece of your makeup. People did in fact travel from Ethiopia to Egypt to the Middle East, then turkey and then the Balkans …………….All along the way that Ethiopic strain of E3b (E1b1b) Mutated, and ultimately it will trace back to that Ethiopic strain of M35, that they still have to day in large numbers. It doesnt really matter how you look and how long that migration took.
E3b labeled by “Yes” as Somalid has just as many mutations (if not LESS) than E3a. I have read too many times people label E3a as West African, Bantu etc. They dont speak of the specific mutation, they just say E3a……I think E3b in all its cases can be looked at the same way: Ethiopic, East African, or Afro-Asiatic – Because these are the people who ancient ancestry it would show. Berbers, Egyptians, Somali are all E3b just how Senegal, Burkina Faso, Angola and Benin are E3a.
No Igbo, the parent group for Berbers E3b1 is North African in origin and about 24k old. E3b1 is in East Africa from a Southward migration. Berbers are essentailly a mediterranean popaultion and not that closely related to black Africans.
People did in fact travel from Ethiopia to Egypt to the Middle East, then turkey and then the Balkans
No, in fact they didn’t.
Yes, things generally don’t; get less coherent with time.
mathilde wrote,
they get more acurate with time, and thats what going on hahhaah
by the way im not asyrian
berbers are not closely related to black africans but a lot closely related to europeans this is the truth (Igbo) ! ! ! !
I know that you are the Assyrian(yes) an arabocentrists , which publishes articles on the web on saying that the Berbers are Somali!
but the Mathilda scientific article has discovered your arabocentrists lies ! so !
you can answer this question: why the Semitic languages are classified in the last level of Afro-Asian languages!
Semitic languages have an African origin ultimately!
You may be mistaken. You should take a second look at the ISOGG Chart. Also it is clearly seen in the article labeled :
“Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa” (Page 5)
Only Ethiopian and Sudan have M215.
(E3b/M215………….E3b1/M35)
E3b1 is mutation “M35” whereas E3a is mutation “M2”
M35 is Not North African. M35 is Eastern African where it is found in its highest frequencies in an underived or Ancestral state (M35*)
This Ethiopian population carrying M35 traveled into Sudan and Egypt where they sat for a long time. In Southern Egypt or North Sudan (Nubian Desert) a man gave rose to M78 or E3b1a.
It is E3b1a is 17,000-20,000 years old…..But berbers dont come from E3b1a (M78)
|
|
V
Almost 13,000-15,000 YEARS LATER —- A man carrying the Ethiopian E3b* that was STILL in Egypt had a mutation called M81 or E3b1b, these guys moved west.
Berbers dont come from Egyptian M78, they come from Ethiopian M35. And the Berber gene is relatively young only at 5600 ya or 3600BC.
They are more of a recent Ethiopian spawn.
Therefore although the Ethiopians went INTO North Africa they came from the Sub-Sahara, there is no mutation in between that separates Ethiopians from Berber. Berber and Egypt are both Brothers. Sons of the Ethiopian Men traveling with M35* So Berber come from Sub-Saharans living in North Africa?
Only E3b1a (M78) Traveled southward back into Ethiopia. This is BACK MIGRATION. :
M35 went to Egypt, M78 was born in Egypt, M78 came back to Ethiopia and Sudan – Probably when the Sahara had a dry spell. You see this in Variant 12, 22, and 32
Its makes for great clarification when you look at Haplogroup E and the TWO large population expansions. There were TWO large ones not just the Bantu. The Earliest and most Diverse was the post Out of African Ethiopian Migration that spread M35 lineages and Afro-Asiatic.
The LAST populations to have an Ethiopian progenitor were the Berber (M35>M81)only 5600 Years ago and their even YOUNGER Sibling (2700 bp) the Southern African and South East African Groups : Datog, Kung, Kwe, Sandawe, etc. (M35>M293)
On the Other hand the Bantu Expansion carried E3a Niger Congo languages and many mutations are seen ins such groups that are in those areas.
The question is, I cannot understand in Y-DNA Terms how two different groups BOTH coming from M2 are not separated but I read two different groups BOTH coming from M35 separated as if they were not Genetic brothers?
M81 is just as much as a genetic brother to M78 as Southern African M293 or Eastern African V6 would be?
Maybe you can clarify?
For mathias , Berbers are not related to Europeans from a Y-Ancestry standpoint. They are related GENETICALLY to other Africans of Haplogroup E, Particularly E3b1. It is a different case for their Mtdna which is predominantly European. So from a Ancestry tracing point they are sort of 50/50%?
Genetic relationship has not bearing on the way a person looks or their physical features.
Again Igbo, No.
E3b1 is NE African, and it’s main partner mt DNAs are Eurasian, as there was a big migration from Asia into North Africa about 35k ago ish. This ‘mixed race’ expansion also took some less common East African Y chr into North West Africa and the near East about 22k ago. E3b, E1 and others are present in low amounts there from the same ancient date, and can be dated entering Spain about 20k ago.
Saying that E3b moved into North East Africa is wrong- it remained there during the backmigration and appears to have been at the area where the new Eur-African population and old African population met and mixed, instead of the Eurasians wiping the Africans out, which is what happened across the rest of north Africa.
The parent of M81 (m125) was hanging around in NW Africa in very low amounts since the Peistocence, it doesn’t show any kind of recent population movement from Ethiopia at all. It’s a founder effect from the neolithic (btw, that age for m81 is way too young).
Even with their African E Y chromosomes Berbers cluster with Europeans and Arabs, not Ethiopians (barring Tuareg who aren’t genetically NW Africans and are pretty recent to the area). Any link to Ethiopia is purely from common ancestry in the upper Egypt/Nubia area about 24k ago.
There was a genetic input from West Asia when the neolithic arrived in Africa, adn this expanding wave of farmers is probably when E3b1 got established by a founder effect. M81 is not considered to have any sub saharan affinites at all, and you never see it in Ethiopia. M81 is from a mainly Caucasoid, white population. North coast Berbers have extremely high levels of E3b but are about as closely related to Europeans as North Africans get- they’d be nearly half black if ‘m81 as a sub saharan’ or ‘Ethiopian marker ‘ were true. And they rather obviously aren’t.
As an example , Eurasian R1 is at about 40% in Cameroon, but it’s pretty unlikely that this shows any kind of recent population movement from Arabia. if it did, it would mean that Cameroonians are bout 1/5 Arab in ancestry. Both the m81 and R1 are too far seperated from the source by a long history of bottlenecks to claim any kind of relationship to the races of East Africa or Eurasia. Not true of Ethiopians though, who show a lot of migrations into the area from West Asia and appear to be about 40% Eurasian in ancestry, when every test known to modern science is applied.
to Igbo
if the Berbers are black in origin????? why the Ethiopian and Somali have Caucasian features on which fathers are most E3b1 majority of the membership among Caucasian of Horn of Africa and there are a few eurasian mt-DNA around 11% against a lot presence of bantu mtdna :!!!!!
you notice any conclusions without any sense, you lost the eye, is what Zindine zidane (french player of berber origin) was be coming black on his Nordic appearance??
Africa has never been black and it never will be!
I dont get what your saying. I could be incorrect but please explain to me exactly WHERE I am incorrect. (Tell me where we disagree.)
You do know that :
E3b= M215 = Ethiopia/Sudan
E3b1=M35 = Ethiopia
I am sure we agree on this?
You are thinking of E3b1a which is M78 that has an origin in North East Africa (particularly the Nubian Desert)
From wiki:
“Afro-Asiatic and E1b1b1 {E3b1 = M35}may have dispersed amongst the ~same populations from the same point of origin,~ making E-M35 a useful tool for speculation into the origins of Afro-Asiatic”
This is M35 NOT M78, they (Christopher Ehret) notes the “Same Population” that is why I called it Ethiopic. It makes sence that its the same populations going each way because you have to have M35* (in the underived state) to get a downstream mutation. If a group of People that Originated M35 go their separate ways that is what you have, different migrations of the SAME populations harboring M35*
(agree?)
Also from wiki:
“Concerning the origins of the E1b1b {E3b1 / M35} lineage, Bosch et al. (2001), Semino et al. (2004), Cruciani et al. (2004), (2006), and (2007), point to evidence that not only E1b1b (E-M215), but also both its parent lineage E1b1 (E-P2), and its dominant sub-clade E1b1b1 (E-M35) probably all first appeared in East Africa between 20,000 and 47,500 years ago”
All Geneticist above put the Origin in East Africa {Ethiopia} One geneticist Cruciani recently put the origin of DOWNSTREAM M78 {E3b1a or E1b1b1a} in Egypt. {E1b1b1a1b or Variant 32 is what comes Back in Ethiopia/Sudan/Somalia etc}
(Agree)
mathilda37 – “Saying that E3b moved into North East Africa is wrong- it remained there during the backmigration ”
Back Migrated from where? E3b is E-M215 ONLY Seen in Sudan and Ethiopia. E3b1 is E-M35* – Seen in its Highest Frequencies in Ethiopia; Amhara, Oromo, Woylata= All over 10%. I think again that you are confusing the mutations. If you have a difference source that says other wise thanks in advanced.
(Agree)
Mathilda37 “The parent of M81 (m125) was hanging around in NW Africa in very low amounts since the Peistocence”
The Parent of M81 is M35* – There is no mutation in between. Also i was looking at the ISOGG chart and I am unable to find a reference for a mutation called M125 (is that a typ0?) I did find M123, but that TOO comes from the Ethiopic M35*
(Agree)
I am unable to find information that says M215 or M35 is North African or even North East African (Unless Ethiopia is the locatized as N.E. Africa) But that wouldnt make sense because Senegal is even more Northerly than Ethiopia and Senegal is NOT seen as North West Africa.
Hmm i did know R1 was Arab. But i am not talking about Race or the way they Look, I was simply speaking of “Genetic relationship” or Genetic Ancestry with them all being:
1: Part of the Same Haplogroup:E.
2: part of the Same Sub-clade: M35. The Main Sub-Clades of M35 are:
Variant 6
E-M78
E-M81
E-M123
E-M293
(Agree)
Maybe I am using old sources. I dont have access to Journals online. Could you give me a source or quote where I am incorrect? Sorry to be repetitive.
U6mt-DNA is too specific to the Berbers, the highest concentration of U6 in the world it’s in Morocco 96% and the majority of countries of North Africa!
but the M-81 is identified as a specific genetic marker for BERBERS!
knowing that the existence of Berbers is too old civilizations with their Ibero-Maurisian culture came from upper Paleolithic in Morocco algeria they conquer Europe before the ice age and are then returned to their homeland by new Mutations in them specially mt-DNA M also Y-R1b that is just ripe for a change E1b1b1 among metchoids not Iberu-Maurusians!
they(metchoids) migrated in Niger on the new transmission of genes between populations of the north after the expulsion from iberu-maurisien who refused those new old know people
these metchoids are mixed with blacks giving rise to the first Ethiopiods lap northern Cameroon and south of the Sahara
to (yes )and (Ibgo)
EAST AFRICAN DNA- Somalian & Ethiopian
E1b1b1a1b(E-V32)lineage’s ==>mixed race’s
I didnt say Berbers were black. I am not talking about the way they look only ultimately where they come from. Here let me give you an example
M2 is the Brother of M215 as both of them come from p2
M2 = E1b1a
M2 is seen it is highest frequency in Senegalese West Africans. West Africans carrying M2 migrated South and carried Niger-Congo languages about 3000 years ago. Along the way M2 had many different mutations, some are:
M58 – found in Burkina Faso
M154 – of Cameroon.
M10 – of Central Africa.
M191 – Bantu expansion
etc.
All of these mutations come from M2. And although they all came from M2 they dont have to look the same. Senegalese dont look like central Africans who dont look like Cameroonians who dont look like people from Burkina Faso – But they all look somewhat the same (Generalized West African), and African Americans look like all of them. In this example – GENETICALLY – can M58 people separate themselves from M154 people? Can they separate themselves from M2? How can they separate themselves from M2 when their genetic marker comes DIRECTLY FROM M2?
{M2} mutated to {M191} which has a mutation called {U174} U174 has only been found in African Americans – Can U174 African Americans separate themselves from M191 or M2?
In Populations genetics ultimately 1000’s of years later some guys in American Blacks that are tested will come up U174. Regardless of what his face looks like they will tell him your people come from ‘Africa a long time ago, from your SNP marker it looks like your people were part of the Bantu Expansion and your progenitor has descendants who are mostly found in Angola.’ – so to speak
Mathias, that video makes no sense. It doesnt really say anything. Not all groups that have V32 are mixed, some of them dont have ANY mixing at all. There are southern Sudanese who have M78. There are western Sudanese who have M78, there are Kenyans who have M78. Many groups other than Somalians and Ethiopians have M78. M78 is still a Male Marker of the African Continent. The TRUE mixed groups are the non-Africans that have an African Genetic marker. That would be the people of the Balkans. I am not sure what you are trying to imply by the video but you should look up the Masalit of western Sudan (Darfur) also the Fur. They have the highest levels of both M78 AND of the Variant 32 lineage. Come back and tell us how they look.
Sorry, force of habit, I keep referring to the e3b1 in E/N Africa as M78, as it’s the dominant one. Also mind my typo with M125/215. I am the typo queen
Igbo.. never use Wikipedia as a reference.. M78 is associated with Afro Asiatic, not M35. M35 is pretty uncommon in the Arab areas, M78 and is variants do occur there.
My point is that Berbers can’t trace any kind of East African ancestry more recent than about 24k ago, and most of that has been from an expansion in NE Africa which was a mix of Eurasian and African people. Their ancestry is NW African (m81) and Eurasian mostly- they were ‘spereated ‘ from East Africa very well by a lot of territory and time. Claiming ‘Berber’s come from Ethiopia’ is just wrong- if you check their clustering they come out way closer to Euopeans and Arabs than East Africans. M81 has nothing to do with East Africa.
We are not defined by color are we?
Hm, i see what you mean but I dont think your idea is sound – From a GENETIC standpoint. When speaking of a different lineage there is no “Separation,” you either are a part of the Lineage or you are not. That is the definition of lineage: “Descent group that can ~demonstrate~ their common descent from an apical ~ancestor~.” The Demonstration through Genetics. The “Ancestor ” is Ethiopic as noted by those geneticists.
Modern Ethiopians and Somalis also are “Separated” 24k years ago from that Specific event. But that “Separation” is only through time and Geography. The Genetic affinity never dies until the lineage itself dies. That is the whole idea of “Population” Genetics : To trace the genetic affinities of Populations and where the come from and migrate to. But I guess it depends on what you are looking for and what point you are trying to make. To me once a populations is static enough to become recognizable they can have descendant groups.
It makes perfect sense to me that Cushtic groups carrying the M78 V32 marker come from Egyptians that have the M78 V12 – Because V12 is found in its highest frequency in Southern Egypt. That was surprising but very understandable to read about on your blog. It doesn’t really matter that the time between M78* coming into existence and V32 coming into existence is 10,000 years (Or what ever it would be) That is their genetic lineage.
As above you state that there was movement from Soutehern Egypt to Ethiopia/Somalia – I fully agree, what do you think of this example:
-There is a 6ooo year gap between Ethiopian M35 and Egyptian M78
-There is a 10,000 year gap between Egyptian M78 and Ethiopian/Somali v32.
When speaking simply of Time: Ethiopian/Somalis have a genetic affinity with Egyptians that is separated buy 10 thousand years. But Egyptians have a Genetic affinity with Ethiopians that was only separated for 6000 years. Therefor the Genetic tie between the founding Ethiopian-to-Egyptian populations is shorter than and closer than the founding Egyptian-to-Ethio/Somali population (This is of course if you believe that M35 represents an Ethiopic marker.)
That is the point that I am trying to make – If Ethiopic M35 didn’t travel North, Egyptians and Berbers wouldn’t exist – Because their markers come FROM the Ethiopic strain of M35. There is only one M35 Marker. It had to come from ONE population.
Therein lies my idea with Berbers i am not sure how old the Marker is but its dated about 5500-6000 years ago. I am not stating that Berbers come from Ethiopia. That is not what i intend to imply. I do mean that When the M35 Arose in Ethiopia 24kya – some of that populations traveled north. While one population was static in Egypt and bore mutation M78* from Ethiopic M35* – Another population, or part of that same population much later only 6000 years ago ALSO Bearing Ethiopic M35* (but not necessarily an “Ethiopian” but rather someone living in North Africa) arose M81, these individuals traveled west, along with other or joined by E-V65, And Haplogroup J, They seemed to derive their women from Eurasia hence the predominant Eurasian Mtdna.
I think that M35* is a better indicator of Afro-Asiatic Ancestry. I am not sure if you study Chris Ehret but – Lets put it another way. M35 could be Proto Afro-Asiatic. Afro-Asiatic languages are tied together by hunter-gathering and foraging words, not necessarily a food producing vocabulary. That is why groups like the Welayta or Wolayta who speak Omotic have VERY high frequencies of M35* and V6 – I think they have the Highest of V6^. – Some people debate of Omotic but the people themselves are Ethiopians and not Nilotic. ^ I also recently saw a slide that showed the Siwa Berbers of Egypt to have 65% V6?
M35 lineages Go INTO the Middle East spreading Proto-Afriasian come back into the Horn in the form of Semitic.
M35 and proto-afrasian Goes into North Africa and splits as Chadic, later Egyptian, and even later Berber.
M35 also expalains why some groups in Southern Africa and southern Eastern Africa who do have M293 (only seen in sub-Sahara) but dont have M78 speak Afro-Asiatic.
There are also populations in Arabia that have little to no M78 but do have M123 that comes from – again what i call Ethiopic M35. And they speak Afro-Asiatic. M78 is scare in the Near east and very rare in the Middle east. Many of the populations in Sudan like Masalit and Fur have M78 in the highest numbers but no Afro-Asiatic, and they are seen as a group closest to the source of the mutation. But i am not sure, your guess is is good as mine.
The Genetic affinity never dies until the lineage itself dies.
Igbo, lineage and racial/population affinity can be a whole different kettle of fish. Just because one ancestor came from Ethiopia about 24k and got lucky enough to influence a bottleneck in North Africa about 18k later does not mean Berbers have any real affinity to ethiopia. You’d need to see some kind of evidence for mass input of different SSA Y chromsomes at about the date M81 appeared to say ‘it’s got an affinity to Ethiopia. They share most of their ancestry with West Asia, the Y chromosome info is kind of misleading (same with Ouldeme). R1b in the Ouldeme (Cameroon, about 95%) is typically Eurasian but has been through so many bottlenecks it’s really lost any genetic affinities to Europeans/Asians. The last two population inflows into North Africa were from the near East, Berber culture really has a lot more to do with that, and so do Berber’s genetics.
Yes I do read Chrish Ehret- and I wince when I do it. Lets just say after having a good root through his dates and protowords, I can tell his estimated dates are less reliable than a politicans promises. The fact a language has a word for yam or cattle does not mean they are farmers or herders. He also tends to ignore some rather crucial dating info- the arrival of sheep and goats into Africa from Asia is well documented from finds, it doesn’t hit until 7,700 BP in Northernmost Africa, in areas like the Sudan it’s about 6,000 Bp. Proto Cushitic has terms for goat and sheep herding, which means it can’t be older than 6k, but he dates it 10,000 bp.. Not a fan of his work. Like I said, I’m starting to think Militarevs association of AA languages withthe Neolithic in Asia has a point. Means I have to delete an old entry. Blench makes a lot more sense.
I’m rethinking Afrasian origins after checking through the PAA noun list yesterday. Too many words for goat- not an African animal, same for horse and sheep. They also have proto words for ‘fortified settlement’, and field. I’m researching this at the moment; I may have to rewrite some pages.
Somalis do not have Bantu mtdna like the idiot mathias has stated on this thread.
Our mtdna is quite varied but mainly haplogroup M and various other haplogroups such as pre-hv etc but no Bantu mtdna.
This further proves that we are infact dark skinned due to our location and not any so called bantu mix.
We are the true essence of Afro-asiatic, being almost 85% Y-chromosome E1b1b (E3b1). I don’t know why you idiots keep saying we are mixed when the numbers are right in front of you.
RETARDS!
Just make sure you never set foot in the horn of Africa or be sure to get your head blown offf!!!!
The problem is that the conceptual tools that historians are lumbered with in the late 20th century were designed and refined by European historians interested in a very different project: the construction of European national histories.
Issues in DNA research
Race’ as a factor in differentiating human populations occurs in very low proportions calling into question its usefulness.
Use of stereotypical “true” negro types to represent African genetic diversity.
Contradictory results from DNA racial studies.
Use of limited samples as “representative” of “Africans” versus use of broad data ranges to represent Europeanized populations.
Pre-sorting and lumping of samples into racial categories before beginning DNA analysis thus skewing final results.
Limited applicability of DNA racial analysis in dicing up closely related population.
Exclusion of African data that does not meet pre-determined racial models.
Use of misleading labeling such as “Oriental” or “Near Eastern” rather than taking DNA data in local context.
Sampling bias- commonly using samples from northern Egypt, which as had more foreign influx from the Mediterranean and Near East as ‘representative’ of all Egyptians.
Inconsistent methodology and failure to look at broader more complex models of population genesis.
Sorry I am never to sure about the gene test from Europeans unless it backed up and agreed by black scholars.
Sorry I am never to sure about the gene test from Europeans unless it backed up and agreed by black scholars
In a word.. racist.
If I wrote that I’d never trust any work by a black scholar I’d get a bomb in the post.
Contradictory results from DNA racial studies
Really? I’ve not seen any.
I do see what your mean but i believe that you are too caught up into “Race.” I am not talking about Race but Genetic Affinity – And they are separate, sometimes they go together, but not always. I will give you an example from you site. You have an Article:
“The Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese of the Andaman islands.”
Now Racially – If you place these people in Nigeria, they will fit right in with us.
In America they will fit right in with Afro-Americans. Or many “Black” people elsewhere, Racially they would be described as “Black” or even “African” because of their physical appearance. They are called NEGRItos for a reason. But when it comes to genetics that is not true. They are very far genetically from Africans. Although they are Yap+ as Haplgroup D is Yap+, They belong to Asian Haplogroup D, and probably Mtdna M. As a matter of fact seems to me that “Negritos” are only “Negros” with Asian DNA.?
Therefore they have NOTHING Genetically that ties them into (recent – post OOA) Africa.
They have a physical Affinity with Africans yet a Biological and genetic Affinity that is purely Asian, their culture is Asian, and their language most truly ties them with other Asians.
Looking specifically at Y and Mtdna markers Your example of the Ouldeme is a good one. But you contradict yourself by saying Ouldeme R1b is “typically Eurasian” but then you say it Has “lost any genetic affinities to Europeans/Asians”
– Looks are not a genetic affinity they are a physical affinity. In terms of Genetic lineage they have not lost anything as the population is primarily R1b.
These two concepts cannot go together. It has Affinity with Eurasia simply because it ~IS~R1b. This lineage from Father to Son is almost untouched in this population, its has not lost anything in this population. R1b is a Eurasian Haplotype regardless of how the person looks or how long they have been in Africa. It may have lost a physical affinity with Europeans and Asians but not Genetically.
The same can be said for Coastal Berbers they are primarily M81. I think it is misleading to see your article “Eurasian Origins of the Berbers.” because the Berbers are considered as a North African Indigenous group. You cannot be “indigenous” to North Africa yet have a Eurasian origin. – this is called an non-starter or Non sequitur. Berber Language is only found IN Africa. Berber history is very complex and Berber speakers are not found in Eurasia, nor is M81 – the Berber Marker – Which are the two most important things that make Berbers BERBER.
It would be like saying the “African Origin of the Ouldeme” – Ignoring the Fact that their main Y Chromosome marker is Non-African” (and hypothetically if they spoke a Non-African language = parallel example with Berbers)
If this doesn’t make sense i can point you to another great article :
“Ethiopians and Khoisan Share the Deepest Clades of the Human
Y-Chromosome Phylogeny”
It is speaking of the SHARING of Haplogroup A in Both Khoisan of South Africa and Ethiopians of East Africa. The article doesn’t say they are “Separated” even if that separation happened 70 thousand years go. It speaks of the “Sharing” of an Ancient Relationship based on These Y Markers even though both groups contain different subsets of Haplogroup A:
(A-M13)
Oromo: 11
Amhara:10
Ethio: 14
Khoisan: (A-M51) 28.2
Khoisan: (A-M6): 12.9
The M13 in Ethiopians and the M51 in Khoisan BOTH come from the mutation called M32 – as you would see on the second page in the study.
Also in the study you can see a digram of the YAP+ Marker. You see that M2 has its own Lineages that are united but have their own histories in West, South and East Africa. Likewise : M35 has ITS OWN lineages, that have THEIR OWN histories in West, South, East, North African, the middle east and the Balkans. Regardless of what automosal testing or MtDNA would show, the MALE ANCESTRY still has an Affinity with M35 because it comes FROM M35 {Not speaking of Ethiopia, or even Africa and definitely not race} the marker its self comes from the M35 Marker and no other Marker in existence. and Both M35/M215 and M2 – BOTH united at the mutation called P2.
But Berbers have multiple lines of male descent. Some from Actual Arabia. But if i understand you are you stating M81 comes from Arabia?
I hope i am not being Obtuse.
R1b is typically European, not the Ouldeme R1b. I’d be surpirsed if their R1b turned out to be a variety you’ll ever find in Europe. Which is kind of playing with semantics.
I was using it as an example of how Y chr can be ‘divorced’ from other aspects of hereditary. And no, racially the Andamanese don’t fit into Nigeria at all, this is a hangover of old ‘skin colour as race’ thinking. The two only have a passing accquaintance. While I realise most rednecks probably wouldn’t know the difference, this doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And Negrito means ‘little black’ it isn’t any linear relationship to the term negroid or the African word Negro in any way except it has the Spanish word for black at it’s root.
No the M81 is from North Africa. It occurred In NA during the Neolithic in a population that’s mainly ‘Eurafrican’, (caucasoid). The population expansion it seems to have appeared in is the neolithic farming Capsian culture (never trust Y dates, they are always too young), but the Y chr that fatherd the first M81 had probably been sitting in North Africa for about 22k years and just got lucky in a founder effect; it could just as easily have been a Eurasian Y chromsome from the same area, but M81 got lucky. The cultural expansion M81 is asscoiated with is the terminal end of an expansion that started in Eurasia about 10k ago. There’s no association with East Africa for the 24k prior to that, so saying m81 shows any connection an expansion from Ethiopia is incorrect except in the sense that someones grandad 22k ago came from there. Similarly the v13 in the Balkans has pretty much lost any affinity for east Africa through about two bottle necks and a shed lot of time and additions of Eurasian ancestry into the population it came from. T
The reverse is not true of Ethiopia which has seen some pretty en mass population movements into it over the past few thousand years though, and other multi gene (autosomal) studies have shown them to be about 40% Eurasian as well.
Although that’s a fair point about the title of the Berbers page as I’ve been trying to come up with a better title. Population affinties of the Berbers is probably the next title for it. Although a comparison to the Ouldeme dioesn’t work as technically most of their ancestry is African, same as most of teh ancestry in modern Berbers is Eurasian (ansd it is, there have been two migrations into NA from Eurasia, which is why it got that title in the first place). Y chromsomes are not teh be all and end all to DNA studeis- you need autosomal and SNP work, and these show Berbers are essentially Eurasians who moved back into Africa, Y chr not with standing.
I am Albanian my ancestors lived in Europe for thousands of years, now some ASSyrian is spreading rumours that I am Somali just cause I have the same DNA as Somalis!
E1b1b frequencies:
Upstream
M215*:
2 Amahara
1 Yemen
Midstream:
M35: Sudan-Ethiopia~1o%
Downstream:
M78: Somalis ~80%, East Africa~35%, Balkans~25%
M81: Almost exclusively Berbers~70%
M123/M34: NE Africa-MidEast~10%
Now they say the lineage is “Somalid” because the majority of Somalis are E1b1b fine, but why we don’t call all human Negrids since we all have A-M91 ofcourse racist Semites & Skinheads will not have an answer for that one!
The v13 in Albanians doesn’t have any connection to Somalia. It’s from the near East- it’s not on the list you have there. It’s pesent in zero amounts once you get south of the near East.
ALBANIANS DO NOT HAVE THE SAME Y CHROMOSOME AS SOMALIS.
mathilda37 where do u come from ? I am a Somali and what to kno if there is any genetically connections between berbers and somali people and also my mum ,brother,sister has is very light skin but me and my dad have brown skin does genes skip off somalis people because i kno other in my situation. my mum is light but her brother are brown ? but they got straighter hair than her. Also people from somaliland said we are mixed with yemeni people is this true they never said nothing about berbers at all.
No Guled.. Somalis aren’t related to Berbers. You are a bit related to Egyptians and Yemeni people.
”with predominant E3b1 cluster lineages that were introduced into the Somali population 4000–5000 years ago, and that the Somali male population has approximately 15% Y chromosomes from Eurasia and approximately 5% from sub-Saharan Africa”
Are you saying Somali’s are not Sub-Saharan Africans? since your saying only 5% of their DNA comes from Sub-Sahara Africa.
Somali’s are known to be one of the purest people in the world. Most Somali’s seem to look alike facially. And what i’ve noticed is that Ethiopians are usually light, shorter and more sub-saharan looking than Somali’s, while Somali’s are usually taller, darker and have narrower feactures and softer hair.
I’ve also noticed that darker skinned Somali’s usually have bone straight hair and look a little like davidians.
Are you saying Somali’s are not Sub-Saharan Africans?
Difficult to say exactly how much of their ancestry is SSA, as the Eb31 in Somalis is probably has a mix of sub Saharan ancestry and Eurasian all blended into its history. Mainly they have affinties with Ethiopians. Only 5%of the male Y chr are specific to SSA, the m78 they have is a mixed race Y chr. Maternally they have a lot more SSA in them maternally, around 70% SSA lines, but more like 80% if you assume some SSA ancestry to their M1 mt DNA.
I’ve often wondered why Somalis have more Euro-type hair than Ethiopians. Founder effect?
DL3 is the predominate marker in East Africa,M1 and U6 are most likely African markers , therefor decreasing the Eurasian maternal in Somalis … M1 and U6 are also found in other Africans including West , Southeast and Southern Africans…
mathilde wrote….
Afro Asiatic is a description of the original founder population. Eurasian mt DNA (U and M1) and E3b African father, m78 mixed ancestry son.
read this link mathilde.
http://exploring-africa.blogspot.com/2008/01/response-to-ana-m-gonzalez-et-al-2007.html
here is the link
Yes…
http://exploring-africa.blogspot.com/2008/01/response-to-ana-m-gonzalez-et-al-2007.html
Read it, laugh at it, then pointed out flaws in it’s pseudo logic when someone else posted it in my comments a month ago.. What it essentially whines in deliberately confusing technospeak is that because L3a is found in Africa, M1 must come from there- and that’s all it says. Since M clades are way older and very varied in India, there was never a good case to place M in Africa. I think the funniest thing is that he’s tried to title it like a formal publication in the hope people will swallow it. It edits out the bit in one of his quotes where the paper goes onto to suggest that even the L3a is present in Africa from a back migration.
U6 also came through the Nile bottleneck in the same expansion that took m78 into East Africa (see maps). M1 is Asian in origin; get over it, two seperate studies by different people have come to the same conclusion, and not one geneticist currently publishing has felt the need to comment onthat conclusion negatively. M1a also show a distribution from the same NE African point that M1 and M78 radiate from. They are all a ‘mixed’ bunch
How much are we bit related to Egyptians and Yemeni people and why can u tell who is somali and r we Sub-Saharan Africans or mixed race because we dont look mix race.
Somalia use to be called ” The Land Of The Berbers ” so did berbers use to come from somalia ? and what is Somalids ? and are somalis somalids ?
are somalis Sub-Saharan Africans
are somalis Sub-Saharan Africans
By location yes, and by ancestry mainly, but they have a lot of Eurasian and North African mixed in with them, and they are pretty distinctive from West Africans.
“The v13 in Albanians doesn’t have any connection to Somalia, It’s from the near East”
I did enough research on my own personal DNA journey, I paid for it so I know exactly my lineage 🙂
V13 itself is just a downstream M78 mutation,
Almost all E1b1b Somalis are M78
Almost all E1b1b Berbers are M81
Many Arab-Israelis are M34
Who do you think is closest to M78-V13 (regardless of this Somalid BS)
Doing str testing, my ancestors & the modern Somalis were the same people around (2500BC~7500BC), thats very close common ancestors.
Same test with Greek V13 shows
(2000BC~6000BC), this is not a surprise, since they are next to us.
Same test with Berbers show (12,500BC~20,000BC)
Arab-Israeli E1b1b is only found in fraction of them & its mixed sometimes M78 sometimes M34, so its harder to test some are as close as the Greeks/Somalis some are as far as the Berbers
All that said I am still European, so please don’t take this Somalid thing too serious its just DNA, it doesn’t change the fact that I am European!
Denying this link, only gives the trolls like mr ASSyrian leverage to show that we are hiding something. So what its just DNA!
Doing str testing, my ancestors & the modern Somalis were the same people around (2500BC~7500BC), thats very close common ancestors
No, and then some more no. V13’s ancestors never came from Somalia, they share a common ancestor from upper Egypt that moved South into Somali and also NE into Europe (m78). The older papers put m78 as East African in origin, but it’s incorrect.
What is your exact hg? Somali m78 is different to European v13.
“What is your exact hg? Somali m78 is different to European v13.”
I am
E1b1b1a2 (M78)(V13)
Somali people are
E1b1b1a1 (M78-V12)
Berber people are
E1b1b1b (M81)
Many Arab/Israeli people are
E1b1b1c (M34)
[b]Fact[/b]
European V13 is much closer to Somali V12, than to [b]any subclade of E1b1b[/b]
Now does this offend me?
[b]No, and then some more no.[/b]
I am 100% European, just like R1a Albanians. I don’t have to cover up my DNA
European V13 is much closer to Somali V12, than to [b]any subclade of E1b1b[/b]
In fact.. no it isn’t.
– Somalian DNA
Msg to (yes=Assyrian)
E1b1b1a1b(E-V32)lineage’s ==>mixed race’s between Eurasians and Sub-saharan and other asian people’s
there are no race called somalid ! ! ! !
scotish,Irish,berbers, greecks ,albanians, Iberians,ancient egyptians ,ancient semites, aren’t of your somalid innovation!
European V13 is much closer to Somali V12, than to any subclade of E1b1b
Mathilda if you disagree with this simple fact please name any E1b1b subclade closer to V13 than V12! I paid for my whole DNA journey & I did long research on this its my personal information.
V12 Somali people are closer to me than to any other E1b1b clade. Closer to me in Y-DNA, NOT ANYTHING ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Modern Somali people mtDNA & most African E1b1b is mixed in the mtDNA not Y-DNA, they have L3 & M1 & I have H. People in Europe have H, people in Africa have L3 & M1 but we have the same Y-DNA (Fathers). In Egypt the mtDNA is mixed also M1, L3 & H
M78 is the clade closest to the somali type… the distribution maps for the two are on the page, there’s not any overlap. You need top read this paper. On page 5 theres little diagram. Both V13 and v12 brach of from m78, like brothers, with m78 being the father.
V12 is most closely related to m78, it has no close relationship ancestry wise to the v13 carrying European population. and technically Somali-specific m78 is v32, V12 looks more Nubian to me.
V12 is common in East Africa, V32 is a micro subclade of V12.
The closest clade to V13 is V12, I used to think berbers are closer to me than Somalis, but I did more research & found out the closelst people to V13 Albanians are other V13 Greeks then V12 East Africans
M81 Berbers are isolated people that branched out directly from ancient Ethiopians-Sudanese
V13 Europeans, V12 Somalis, Nubians & other M78 people are one very close genetic group, but we have our own cultures & nationalities.
I only get offended when I read racist stuff that tyr to force me become Somalid and forget my Albanian nationality & European belonging
very interesting points you guys brought up it helped answer a lot of questions that were bothering me for quite some time..by the way im somali i thought somali’s originated from somewhere in Ethiopia.
They took a route through Ethiopia, so roughly you are right. the expansion seems to have come from nubia/Egypt orginally
Below are the HOA natives that preserved their tongue & genetic integrity:
Oromo, Somali, Afar, Saho
Opposed to the Semitized Cushitics that have a significant minority of genetic Semites amongst them:
Tigre, Tigrinya, Amhara all about~30% J1 that came from teh Semitic people
J1 is less than 3% in the native HOA population; Somali, Oromo, Afar & Saho populations.
Western Ethiopians (Gambela, Welega) are neither Somalid or Semitic they have A3 the most dominant gene in Dinka & South Sudanese natives.
somalis are Sub-Saharan Africans. we have black skin , ( and not mix race skin )and have beautiful detailed fetatures , like straight/wavey hair and light bone struture . we dont look like eygpts or arabs. We have very little Eurasian ancestry and Sub-Saharan Africans ancestry is the domintant gene.
Even an entirely European group would have dark skin after living in Africa 20,000 years. Somalis do have a fair amount of Eurasian in them- the DNA studies show it.
“a fair amount of eurasian ” really ? it does it show in our appearnce ? how much is euasian do somalis have ? I think most of somalis with Eygptian ancestry are in Putland,Somalia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puntland
look at this picture
his eyes are eygptian
The likelihood of Punt being in Somalia is pretty low, as it’s explicitly described as being near places in Asia, as being to the West of Egypt, and even calls Puntite the same name as Arabs.
As far as I can tell from the DNA studies it, you all seem pretty similar, not with the people from Egypt all bunched in one place
But yes, the Eurasian/Egyptian part to you ancestry is probably why you look a bit like upper Egyptians, just darker.
The land of punt , The land of the Berbers – is Somaliland.
The land of punt , The land of the Berbers – is Somaliland.
Not according to the three of the worlds leading Egyptologists, whose book I just read. It was a common belief from the Victorian era, lately disproved…
Which is near Mecca, oddly enough.
Essentially said Africa was very unlikley and a lot of texts say it’s in Asia. Somalia has nothing do with with Berbers at all, genetically or culturally. Where did you get that idea?
Haven’t heard about Punt being in Arabia only really East Africa. Information I read on Punt even showed the people in Punt using Donkeys – Totally African, as pack and riding animals for transport. If Punt was in Arabia I am pretty sure they would have been using Camels as pack animals. The donkey was used extensively in both Egypt and Nubia and I doubt that that donkeys have been in the Middle East since the 5th Dynasty when they were described as well as a Pygmy that was picked up in Yam (Below 3rd Cataract) on the way TO Punt. – Pepi
Also Egyptians speak of having to change the route to Punt because Nubia was no longer occupied by them. Later after they Re-Occupied Nubia they could now trade with Punt free of aggression from Nubia.
Sorry i cannot give you any link with sources because some of this info I got from books.
One book is “Daily life of the Nubians.”
I am now reading “Vile Nubia”
On another topic although I respect you blog i tend to notice you keep repeating a misconception:
“modern Egyptians have mainly Y chromsomes specific to Africa.. how did they magically change appearance then?”
I will have to ask you have you ever actually been TO Egypt? If you have, did you notice many of the different tones that you saw in Egypt? Did you see how the southern Egyptians and people in areas like Luxor are darker and have a different phenotype than than people in Alexandria? This is what you will find. The groups in Egypt that DO have MORE of the African genes and live away from Metro areas still have more of the Authentic look that you see in the Ancients. This is not to say that they ancients didn’t come in lighter colors……….But the Brownish Red color you see on the Walls and bas reliefs is more typical of Southern Egyptians rather than Northern ones. You also see the browish red in Sudan, The horn of Africa, and African populations in general.
Its not surprising (to me) that genetic studies found:
M78* highest in SOUTHERN Egyptians.
M78(v12) highest in SOUTHERN Egyptians.
M78(v22) highest in SOUTHERN Egyptians.
When people talk about “Black Egyptians” they are talking about these people. These “Black Egyptians” of southern Egypt look more like Sudanese and East Africans. Although Egyptians have a phenotype that seems specific to Egypt is still fights the broader one that is typical of North East Africa: Long head, oval eyes etc. “Like Somalis.” (As described by Keita)
I think a modern misconception of people regarding Egypt is that:
1 – Egyptians are Arabs. – Thanks, you cleared that up.
2- There are no “Black People” in Egypt.
Even Egyptians themselves will tell you the purer ones live in southern Egypt. These southern Egyptians, coming in all different shapes and colors are more fittingly compared to Ancient depictions of Egyptians……Coincidentally many of these Southern Egyptians are considered “Black” in Africa, American, EU. etc.
I am actually surprised you haven’t seen these Egyptians on the web. There are tons of pictures i can point you to. Also video you can download and see.
There are some texts that explicitly say Punt was in Asia. I’m writing a peice on it right now, as it goes. There’s no way Somalia is possible – it’s just too far away. Punt was close enough to be threatened into giving tribute, and some texts make it very clear it’s right next to Egypt, and to the east.
I’m familiar with what modern Southern Egyptians look like, and I’ve been to SS Africa and Egypt. Essentially mixed race to Europeans eyes. And I don’t pretend there were no black people in upper Egypt, please refer to the mummy reconstruction page for evidence. Predynastic upper Egyptians were pretty much the same as they are now, which goes from being occassionally black but mostly assorted shades of brown and mixed looking. You have to remember that modern Egypt contains lower Nubia now, so taking people from the southern part of modern Egypt will give you typically Nubian people. I have a image I’m yet to post with the clinal variation along the Nile that’s a good example of the change from N to S. I’ll post it to the front of the blog…Predynastic lower Egyptians all come pretty close to modern upper Egyptians to, there hasn’t been much immgration into the area. Keita has said himself they vary from southern European to intermediate to his mixed ‘tropical africans’ along the North of Africa. How modern Americans would describe someone really isn’t that relevant; BTW most of the EU would call the average southern Egyptians ‘mixed race’.
And the Y chromomse item I posted doesn’t really take into account that a lot of the Y chromsomes of Eurasian (j1 and R1b) origin enetred Africa about 8 to 10k ago- I simplified it really to point out a major logic flaw to the boneheads who keep spamming me with ‘Egyptians are Arabs’. Overall historical immgration is probably in the ‘less than 10%’ area for the entire region. You should really not be looking at all Eurasian DNA as been recent or non dynastic, as most of it does date back that far, and further.
You also only seem to be looking at depictions of male Egyptians (red ochre) on the walls. The women are generally depicted as a very light yellow ochre. One of the things you have to grasp with the wall paintings is that they usually aren’t lifelike portraits the way the painted statues are. It’s why I’m not really into the wall paintings that much, they are pretty stylised.
I just wanted to make a few points.
Essentially Somalis and Southern Egyptians look exactly the same and I believe there was either migration from Upper Egypt to Somalia or vice versa. I have family in Egypt and they are constantly mistaken for Egyptians – specifically for Southern Egyptians. The Egyptians also say that Somalis are related to them and they are the same people but they do not say the same about Ethiopians nor are Ethiopians mistaken for Upper Egyptians. Ethiopians are of Semitic origin and share ancestry and a great mixture with people in Southern Arabia.
Punt was definitely in Somalia. There is so much evidence that shows this. DNA, language and the fact that in Ancient Egypt it was referred to their land of origin.
Take a look at this picture of Somali nomads –Somali dress and culture is strikingly similar to that of Ancient Egyptians:
Somali language is also far more similar to Ancient Egyptian. Look below at some of the words:
Language: Somali/Egyptian (meaning)
Ra/Ra (The sun)
Neter/Neder (divine being)
Hipo/Hibo (the sound b doe not exist in Hamitic languages – gift)
Heru/Huur (a stork)
Tuf/Tuf (spit)
Habi (the Nile)/Wabi ( a river)
Ar/Ar ( a lion)
cb/kab (shoe)
brq/biriq (lightning)
ayah/dayah (moon)
dab/dab (fire)
anka/aniga (I)
su, asu/usi (he)
Ka/Ka,Kaah (spirit)
medu/muud (liquid)
Punt was definitely in Somalia. There is so much evidence that shows this. DNA, language and the fact that in Ancient Egypt it was referred to their land of origin.
The DNA shows a movement into Somalia not from it. There are plenty of explicit text references to Punt being in Asia
Sand dwellers are Arabs in Egyptian.
And its also clear from the art that Puntites weren’t black Africans..
… and some wall paintings and texts make it very clear that Punt was close enough to Egypt to have to hand over tribute, and Somalia is too far away to be threatened by military action from Egypt. The ancient Egyptian languages are reliably grouped with Semitic and Berber on every tree of Afro Asiatic I’ve seen, and these don’t have an origin in Somalia at all. Semitic is Asian, and berber languages are North African. You’ll really only find East Africa down as Punt in books from the 1950’s and before, later Egyptologists have found a lot of references to Punt-in- Asia in texts that were tranlated more recently..
But yes, Southern Egyptians can look a lot like Somalis, although ancient upper Egypt is a buit further north than modern Southern Egypt.
Puntites weren’t black Africans.
There are Somalis in Somalia who are not considered black there alot of somalis have same colour as that of the Egyptians and have similar characteristics. Puntites weren’t black Africans is not the case. Information about Punt has been found in ancient Egyptian records of trade missions to this region, previously believed to be in Somalia. The Punt is In ancient Egyptian and Greek geography, the southern coast of the Red Sea and adjacent coasts of the Gulf of Aden, corresponding to modern coastal Somaliland. #
Somalia has nothing do with with Berbers at all, genetically or culturally.
Somaliland is Referred to in medieval times as Bilad al Barbar (“Land of the Berbers”). We do have genetc and culture connection.
Somaliland is Referred to in medieval times as Bilad al Barbar (”Land of the Berbers”).
Barbars meant barbarians, not Berbers. Somalia and Berbers have zero in common.
Why do people get so pissed off at mathilda?She is not a racist at all and speaks the truth.This who concept of racism is a social construct,that was developed during the slavery eras to divide and rule.NO ONE IS PURE ANYTHING,africans must have some intermixtures in them from other nations. I myself,come from Trinidad&Tobago,and blacks are mixed with indians and whites…take a gene test…
good job mathilda(not much of a gene expert).
Kriss I want to make this clear that this discussion has everything to do with academics but in continuing this discussion you have to also acknowledge that the history and development of Anthropology and Egyptology for that matter is very much steeped in colonialism and a history of scientific racism, eugenics etc. in which scientific finds and methods are used to support or validate racist attitudes and ideolologies or political positions. I love history and am not upset at Matilda at all and I think its great to have this discussion.
Matilda in response to your comments:
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Regardless of the migratory movements the Ancient Egyptian claim of Punt as their ‘ancient homeland’ was a ‘mythical’ story of origin/folklore and it could just be an indication of how they are only validating and showing that there is a historic and genetic connection between the two regions – furthermore the DNA evidence can simply be an indication of ancient migration patterns of Afro-Asiatic groups from the Nile valley that occurred in early history. During Egypt’s formative ages, the Sahara was not truly a desert, while the Nile Valley and other regions etc. provided routes for trade and migration at ALL periods.
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It was once thought that the frankincense and other goods the ancient Egyptians boasted of obtaining in Punt suggest a location on the southern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, but the presence of African animals rules this notion out, as well as the realisation that incense-producing trees also occur in Africa –specifically in abundance in northern Somalia. The majority of historical sources agree that Punt was in eastern Africa as the Ancient Egyptians describe it as being the source of many exotic products, such as aromatic resins, African blackwood, ebony, ivory etc. and wild animals” including monkeys and baboons.
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Puntites ARE Black African — I am not exactly sure what this notion of what “Black African” is. Are Somalis Black African and Ancient Egyptians Non-Black African and as such the Somalis should have been painted with dark black coloring in comparison to Egyptians? It is clear that the Egyptians were indicating that Puntites and Egyptians were of the same racial stock. If you look at Egyptian reliefs the Mediterranean Libyans etc., Semitic or non-African peoples are never painted with ‘red coloring’ but rather with white/yellow coloring and darker African groups such as Nubians with black. So clearly Punt was not in Asia but lets look further..
The temples when referring to Puntites show people with “dark reddish skin, fine features, long hair” who wore “long to medium goatee”. This is an accurate description of much of the people in the East African region and the style of dress and the braided hair etc. matches the style of dress and hairstyles of Cushitic populations because they were very similar to Ancient Egyptians. For example the Beja, the Cushitic group that lives from southern Egypt all the way through Eritrea that Somalis are also closely related to are also depicted with red coloring in Egyptian reliefs and they are also undeniably black African. I don’t like to use that term black African at all because it then brings up this whole issue of what ‘scientists’ use to determine what groups are black or black enough to be black African which often has been historically inaccurate because some groups are sometimes classified depending upon the researcher bias. Somalis were even classified at one time as Caucasoid by some scholars.
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Of course there are multiple sources that claim Ancient Egyptian was not a language associated with anything to do with black Africans and this was because this all goes back to researcher bias and historical context.
Coming from a linguistic background I have studied the Somali language in depth. First of all when it comes to Afro-Asiatic languages I want to focus on three groups Ancient Egyptian, Semitic and Cushitic. Because of so much controversy and disagreement Ancient Egyptian was put in its own category rather than Cushitic because it would indicate that Egyptians were ‘black’ as many Cushites of today are considered but it could very well be part of Cushitic.
Another question that also comes up is –does Semitic have ASIAN origins? I say no and so have many of my Arabic language professors. Hebrew and Arabic are the only Semitic languages spoken outside of Africa –there are more Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia than any other part of the world suggesting that the Semitic languages originated in Africa. The purest form of Arabic according to scholars is spoken at the southernmost tip of Yemen and is spoken by Arab ethnic groups that are described as ‘dark’ and the ‘red’ Arabs. Suggesting that Semitic languages came from Africa and not the other way around as many texts have pointed out.
Second—Ancient Egyptian is a language of Africa not Asia. This constant push to move Ancient Egyptian away from its African context is incorrect. I already gave some linguistic evidence and there are thousands of more examples of linguistic similarities. Modern Egyptians speak Arabic today and have much Semitic admixture but that does not mean that Ancient Egyptians were ‘Asian’.
For example in Cushitic languages, much like ancient Egyptian there is a prevalence of the morpheme Ka as an affix.
In Somali it occurs as Ka (one the), Ki, Ku, Kee (who), Kuwa
In comparison Changing K to H you have in Arabic: Huwa (the one), Hiwa, Huwana
In Ancient Egyptian ‘Kemet’ was the black ones, black people
In Somali Ke Medaw – means black one
I could further delve into linguistic history but I think that suffices.
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Ultimately the Southern Egyptians of today are the least racially mixed ethnic group in comparison to Egyptians further north that have greater admixture from recent Semitic, Mediterannean etc migrations. I am not denying that ancient Egypt had different racial admixtures because it did over time BUT essentially the Southern Egyptian that we see today and that TV never likes to show represent how the majority of ancient Egyptians prior to racial mixing used to look and they always have been historically what many in America would view as ‘black’ –even today Egyptians are referred to colloquially in Arabic as the dark ones. Ultimately Ancient Egypt is much like the rest of the horn of Africa is what can be called Afro-Asiatic –African lands that are at the crossroads of ancient migratory routes and although they have connections to Asia they have a historical and racial identity that is unique to Africa.
The entire Horn of Africa region from Egypt to Somalia have ancient socio-linguistic, genetic and cultural connections and a shared history. Ancient Egypt was not isolated from the rest of what anthropologists like to call ‘Black Africa’.
I just posted a response but its not showing? What happened?
Latifa due to some very nasty stalker problems all comments need to be okayed before they are posted.Sometimes it can take a day or too for me to do it.
It was once thought that the frankincense and other goods the ancient Egyptians boasted of obtaining in Punt suggest a location on the southern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, but the presence of African animals rules this notion out, as well as the realisation that incense-producing trees also occur in Africa –specifically in abundance in northern Somalia. The majority of historical sources agree that Punt was in eastern Africa as the Ancient Egyptians describe it as being the source of many exotic products, such as aromatic resins, African blackwood, ebony, ivory etc. and wild animals” including monkeys and baboons.
Puntites ARE Black African — I am not exactly sure what this notion of what “Black African” is. Are Somalis Black African and Ancient Egyptians Non-Black African and as such the Somalis should have been painted with dark black coloring in comparison to Egyptians? It is clear that the Egyptians were indicating that Puntites and Egyptians were of the same racial stock. If you look at Egyptian reliefs the Mediterranean Libyans etc., Semitic or non-African peoples are never painted with ‘red coloring’ but rather with white/yellow coloring and darker African groups such as Nubians with black. So clearly Punt was not in Asia but lets look further..
The temples when referring to Puntites show people with “dark reddish skin, fine features, long hair” who wore “long to medium goatee”. This is an accurate description of much of the people in the East African region and the style of dress and the braided hair etc. matches the style of dress and hairstyles of Cushitic populations because they were very similar to Ancient Egyptians. For example the Beja, the Cushitic group that lives from southern Egypt all the way through Eritrea that Somalis are also closely related to are also depicted with red coloring in Egyptian reliefs and they are also undeniably black African. I don’t like to use that term black African at all because it then brings up this whole issue of what ‘scientists’ use to determine what groups are black or black enough to be black African which often has been historically inaccurate because some groups are sometimes classified depending upon the researcher bias. Somalis were even classified at one time as Caucasoid by some scholars.
Of course there are multiple sources that claim Ancient Egyptian was not a language associated with anything to do with black Africans and this was because this all goes back to researcher bias and historical context.
Coming from a linguistic background I have studied the Somali language in depth. First of all when it comes to Afro-Asiatic languages I want to focus on three groups Ancient Egyptian, Semitic and Cushitic. Because of so much controversy and disagreement Ancient Egyptian was put in its own category rather than Cushitic because it would indicate that Egyptians were ‘black’ as many Cushites of today are considered but it could very well be part of Cushitic.
Another question that also comes up is –does Semitic have ASIAN origins? I say no and so have many of my Arabic language professors. Hebrew and Arabic are the only Semitic languages spoken outside of Africa –there are more Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia than any other part of the world suggesting that the Semitic languages originated in Africa. The purest form of Arabic according to scholars is spoken at the southernmost tip of Yemen and is spoken by Arab ethnic groups that are described as ‘dark’ and the ‘red’ Arabs. Suggesting that Semitic languages came from Africa and not the other way around as many texts have pointed out.
Second—Ancient Egyptian is a language of Africa not Asia. This constant push to move Ancient Egyptian away from its African context is incorrect. I already gave some linguistic evidence and there are thousands of more examples of linguistic similarities. Modern Egyptians speak Arabic today and have much Semitic admixture but that does not mean that Ancient Egyptians were ‘Asian’.
For example in Cushitic languages, much like ancient Egyptian there is a prevalence of the morpheme Ka as an affix.
In Somali it occurs as Ka (one the), Ki, Ku, Kee (who), Kuwa
In comparison Changing K to H you have in Arabic: Huwa (the one), Hiwa, Huwana
In Ancient Egyptian ‘Kemet’ was the black ones, black people
In Somali Ke Medaw – means black one
I could further delve into linguistic history but I think that suffices.
Ultimately the Southern Egyptians of today are the least racially mixed ethnic group in comparison to Egyptians further north that have greater admixture from recent Semitic, Mediterannean etc migrations. I am not denying that ancient Egypt had different racial admixtures because it did over time BUT essentially the Southern Egyptian that we see today and that TV never likes to show represent how the majority of ancient Egyptians prior to racial mixing used to look and they always have been historically what many in America would view as ‘black’ –even today Egyptians are referred to colloquially in Arabic as the dark ones. Ultimately Ancient Egypt is much like the rest of the horn of Africa is what can be called Afro-Asiatic –African lands that are at the crossroads of ancient migratory routes and although they have connections to Asia they have a historical and racial identity that is unique to Africa.
Matilda in response to your comments:
The entire Horn of Africa region from Egypt to Somalia have ancient socio-linguistic, genetic and cultural connections and a shared history. Ancient Egypt was not isolated from the rest of what anthropologists like to call ‘Black Africa’.
Latifa, the only reason Punt was ever thought to be African was the wildlife, Once the realised you also got rhinos and and giraffes in Arabia that went right out the window. There are multiple images of them- some have fair hair and light skin. I could repaste what that Egyptologist said..
Not my words.
Afro Asaitic- there’s as much evidence for it being Asian not African in origin- in fact more in favour of Asia than anything.
There is zero evidence of any cultural or genetic connection to East Africa with Egypt in that time period, and the only connection before that was from Egypt to East Africa. However, you do get a settler wave from Asia into Egypt about 8k ago, and multiple texts name Punt as being in Asia.
Modern Egyptians only have about 4% overall immigration from the historical era in them. Just becasue they aren’t black doesn not mean they are not native to Africa.
Mathilda37 You say Somalis have Eurasian , Egyptian , Arab , Sub-Saharan genes. Can you tell me how much percentage of each genes are in Somalis.
Great post Latifa but i dont think mathilda understand what “Black” Means as we are using it now.
You just said above “They are not Black”
So what then do we do with the “Black people” that are currently in, and have always been IN Egypt?
Mathilda what are you using as your definition of “Black”? To say there are no Black Egyptians is simply not the truth. Anyone, i repeat ANYONE who has been in Egypt or asks Egyptians will tell you there are Egyptians that are “BLACK.”
Would you like me to give you a link to some pictures of people that Latifa and I would classify as “Black”?
Generally how dark does one have to be within Africa, American or the UK to be classified as “Black” knowing they come from continental Africa (ie :Not “Black” S.E. Asians.)
You say you have been to Africa but you dont seem to understand that MOST Africans have varying shades of Brown, Or dark red, or Dark yellow as their natural color. Many Africans themselves call themselves “Red” – But socially they are under the umbrella of people that would be called “Black.” This is what is hard for me to understand, first we were discussing genetics and migrations but NOW you seem to be using semantics and arguing over exactly WHO is “Black” WITHIN AFRICA – Even when they have BROWN SKIN. I dont know what to say to that.
No offense but you tactically dance around the subject but I am asking you to clarify – WHICH modern Egyptians do you think would best represent the Ancients and WHY? “Egyptians” are not some monolithic group. Based on History of Migrations, Genetics and skin color. I have already gave my piece and said Southern Egyptians. Why?
1 – They are darker and look much more like the Ancient pigments used in the paint.
2 – Their features seem more distinct from Northern Egyptians. Southern Egyptians have distinct features but still fit the broad Elongated type of many North East Africans.
3 – Less migration from outside Africa is seen in the south.
4 – Genetics – Southern Egyptians have more of the Egyptian marker M78* and V12, also even V22 which links over to East Africa.
Maybe my reasons dont really make sense to you. But I have been waiting a long time for your rebuttle to see what YOUR opinion is on this specific question. Instead you just hit me with more numbers about migrations and things – which is fine but i would like to see you answer this question. This is what I meant when i kept saying “I am unsure exactly what you are trying to say about this population.”
Very much looking forward to your answer.
Cultural difference here for the word ‘black’. In this sense to me it mean ‘sub saharan African’, but I know to a lot of Americans it means anyone with any visisble African ancestry. My definition has more to do with biological relationships than skin tone, because some all Eurasian people can have dark skin.
The diiference in historic Eurasian migration between upper and lower Egypt is 8% v 3% (Y chr input/2, rounded up). Neither are enough to alter the physical appearance of the people. I’m ignoring any possible input from black Africans due to the Arab slave trade, which has contributed quite significantly to Arabian and North Africa maternal ancestry, but the two probably balance out.
The people of upper Egypt and Lower Egypt both show minimal input from historical migrations. They both look about the same as they did from the Neolithic on. All the crania studies (Keita inc) point out Lower Egyptians were different to upper, with a closer relationship to Eurasian populations, with upper Egypt being very mixed. There’s zero evidence that this has changed.
If you feel culturally you want to call upper Egyptians black you can, as long as you get they are representative of the ancient upper Egyptians I’m not bothered by their name. I just get a bit irked when people try to claim they were a different population to now. Like I’ve said, most modern Egyptian ancestry has been in North Africa since the neolithic and the bulk of that from 10k and before.
Just want to add – Latifa brings up Yemen.
Yemen and the Horn of Africa have a very very close relationship. They always have. I am trying to find that paper on Yemen. There are many Horn Africans living in Yemen, but some Yemenis actually look like horn Africans. And when i was recently looking at Socotra (Which is ruled by Yemen but actually closer to Somalia) you Really really looked like horn Africans. Not sure what their Mtdna shows though.,
Mathilda37 You say Somalis have Eurasian , Egyptian , Arab , Sub-Saharan genes. Can you tell me how much percentage of each genes are in Somalis.
do we have india and portoggues ancestory ?
Yung Somali Boi
any Indian and Portugese is at a very low level in Somalis.
Hey, I am really confused by this maternal euroasian DNA found in Somalis. I am a Somali, and I very interested in my genetic history. But I just can’t understand where this euroasian influence has come from. Are you stating that Somalis of today, came from a Cushitic dad and an Arab mother.But… where on earth did these women just came from, think of arab culture before you answer this question, whilst this mixing was occuring where were the Cushitic women.
Hey guys, I am a boy aged 16 and living in Copenhagen Denmark. I have always thought about what we Somalis are, my mom says we simply are ethioper “Oromo” Oetset who have moved on, but we do it? and is considered as “black African”? or just some weird people in Eastern Africa?
Zeta Saloman- Somalis are pretty closely related to Oromo. You’ve been in place as a fairly intact population with just a bit of Arab mixed in for over 10k.
Another study by Brace et al. published in 2006 found that samples from Naqada II Bronze age Egypt clustered primarily with modern Somalis, Nubians, Arabic-speaking Fellaheen farmers of Israel, and more remotely with some Niger-Congo speaker, while adding that a “Sub-Saharan African element” was not found in the historical North African or Egyptian samples:
The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample – both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians – and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa. The other obvious matter shown in Fig. 3 is the separate identity of the northern Europeans.[
He’s said outright in his specific study of Egyptians that they are the same as the modern population.
1. Are Somalis and ethioper (Oromo) the same people?
2. If the Somali population is composed of 15% in Europe and 5% sub-African, what is the last 80%?
what is the last 80%
North East/East African. and the 15% is probably Arab, not European.
Matilda, you regarded Somalis / Ethiopian as black people? And do the rest of BLACK Africa it, or are we continuing isolation from rsten of Africa?
Black yes, but they have a lot of ancestry that came back to Africa from Asia a very long time ago.
I would like to comment. To most African Americans i have spoke to and especially most Africans the notion of “Black” being synonymous with “Sub Saharan” is patently false. The main reason would be because “Blacks” inhabit the Sahara! This is what you aer missing. This is why Keita says “African” doesn’t just mean one thing. I will also say that “Black” also doesn’t mean just one type of dark African.
End of story, when you have a country such as “Sudan” or “The land of the Blacks” – It is IN the Sahara. Countries like Mali, Chad, Niger, Senegal are all in the Sahara and are inhabited by primarily people we call “Black” – The Sahel also is primarily inhabited by “Black People”
Other North African countries; Mauritania, Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt ALL have some sub-populations of people that are what we call”Black” In Algeria, Libya , Morocco you see it ESPECIALLY when you leave the coast. Many of the people that choose to live IN the Sahara are primarily “Black” and are no different than those living below the Sahara.
Outside of Africa there are populations who are also “Black” by definition of Color and some by what we would typically see of African features: Skin color, hair, facial features.
Dictionary : Black – Pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia.
Black cannot simply be Sub-Saharan. That is a very very limited view of African Diversity and in general is just not based on an real FACT.
Secondly i would state that looking at the Somali Y Chromosome profile, there was not a lot of Arab expansion in Somalia. There are specific markers that have STR characteristics that show how recent they are, and are typical of
Admixture via the Arab expansion with Islam:
In this study:
-Somalia only have 6 individuals sampled that were Haplogroup J.
-While 7 Individuals were sampled that were African haplogroup other than E3b.
Haplogrouop K2 found high in Somalis cant really be an indicator of Arab ancestry as Arabs pretty much dont have K2. Somalia is SO CLOSE to Yemen and Yemens have virtually NO K2. I am not really sure where K2 is from but i dont think its African. So while it shows admixture, I am not sure where from and when it came. Somalis show the same amount of Arab Admixture that Oromos have = about 3%
Another thing to consider is Southern Egypt had to be relatively Homogeneous to have such Pure groups migrating FROM Southern Egypt/Northern Sudan.
Most groups thought to be descendants of people from the Area of Egypt – Particular Cushitic people and even some People in Darfur that are almost exclusively V32 and M78 are pretty pure and have little to no admixture.
If that area of migration was such a mixing pot so long ago, it really does not reflect in some of the populations that splintered off from Southern Egypt.
Because v32 is also found in Western Sudan I think it sort of removes the possibility that Individuals carrying V12* moved into East African and bore mutation V32. The theory that makes more sense to me is now the V32 mutations happened IN Nubia – Split and went separate ways. (Somali, Oromo, Fur, Massalit, etc) But the populations that migrated were not really mixed at all, if they were, I think that we would see in Especially in the Somalis who have a clan structure and really don’t marry outside of their Clan. Does this makes sense?
Lastly there is a big misconception regarding M78. Even i have repeated it for the sake of non-argument: Cruciani places the origin of M78* actually right on the border Egypt/Libya. Battaglia in 2008 though notes the origin to be in Jebel Sahaba / Lake Nubia – BOTH Sites are in SUDAN and not Egypt.
Do we take the latter explanation to be correct? Why or why not? If the origin in Ethiopia was replaced by Egypt is it now replaced by Sudan?
Also , there is a unique history of M78 v22 and V12 – V12* and V22* were BOTH in what Cruciani called the “Delta Cluster” MOST of delta cluster was variant 22.
“V22 is primarily in Eastern Africa and Egypt. Egypt 4-20, Ethiopia 25%, Sudan 23%, Kenya 11%, Morocco7%”
Cruciani states that V22* and V12* were sort of “Intermingled” and not truly defined. People overlook this but i think as far as male ancestry is concerned : The history from Egypt TO the Horn of Africa is more complicated than just v32.
i think my post was directed to the trash because of “cush*tic.”
Matilda
I found this, It might interest you as to the location of the land of Punt.
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Ian Shaw, p. 317, 2003:
“There is still some debate regarding the precise location of Punt, which was once identified with the region of modern Somalia. A strong argument has now been made for its location in either southern Sudan or the Eritrean region of Ethiopia, where the indigenous plants and animals equate most closely with those depicted in the Egyptian reliefs and paintings.
It used to be assumed (primarily on the basis of the scenes at Deir el-Bahri depicting Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt in the mid-18th Dynasty) that the trading parties travelled by sea from the ports of Quseir or Mersa Gawasis, but it now seems likely that at least some of the Egyptian traders sailed south along the Nile and then took an overland route to Punt, perhaps making contact with the Puntites in the vicinity of Kurgus, at the fifth cataract.
The Deir el-Bahri scenes include depictions of the unusual Puntite settlements, comprising conical reed-built huts set on poles above the ground, and entered via ladders. Among the surrounding vegetation are palms and myrrh trees, some of the latter already in the process of being hacked apart in order to extract the myrrh. The scenes also show myrrh trees being loaded onto the ships so that the Egyptians could produce their own aromatics from them (and it has been argued that this in itself may be an argument for the combined Nile-overland route from Punt to Egypt, given the fact that such plants might well have died during the more difficult voyage northwards along the Red Sea coast). These myrrh trees might even have been replanted in the temple at Deir el-Bahri itself, judging from the surviving traces of tree pits there.”
Matilda why do you not believe that it has gone the other way. I know we Somalis come from some Ethiopian people, but why do you not think that these Asians come from Ethiopia? Moreover, Ethiopia is a very old country of your knowledge.
Matilda why do you not believe that it has gone the other way. I know we Somalis come from some Ethiopian people, but why do you not think that these Asians come from Ethiopia? Moreover, Ethiopia is a very old country of your knowledge
I’m sorry I don’t understand.. which asians?
are somalis 80% sub Saharan African 15% eygptians and 5% ARAB.
Eurasian (upper Egyptians)
lets say you are correct and punt land is not located in Somalia but how do you explain the language that consist of both Arabian pagan gods like Wad and mostly Egyptian gods for example like Ra, Amun, Horus and plane usage of primary words. In Somali pharaoh translates to firqoon.
Hello mathilda37
I am from Somalia by origin and i live in west! my haplogroup is E1b1b1a1b.
There is one Egyptian man, who is one mutation away from me. And that person is arabman. The nearest somalian person is three mutation away form me! . It is crazy world!
“Cruciani et al. (2007) suggest that, E1b1b1a1b (E-V32) is sub-clade of E-V12 originated in North Africa , and then subsequently expanded further south into the Horn of Africa, where it is now prevalent.”
Mathilda: Are you implying that we are more related to Eurasians? Because we aren’t. We are related to other African with the E3a clade. Because they are the original E3a carriers. And we are the original E3b carriers.
Samiyah:
Technically all east Africans are more closely related to Eurasians than West Africans, but not so distantly to the San. The overall study of Somali DNA suggests you are about 40% Eurasian overall, and are very closely related to Ethiopians
hello all, a fascinating discussion. Somewhat overwhelming when I was simply surfing for info on what it is to be “Somali”. Clearly not a simple answer. I am the guardian of a little girl whose father is Somali from Ethiopia. How would you describe the essence of what it is to be “Somali?” What should I teach her?
Do you think Matilda can teach you the essence of how it is to be somali?
I’m from East Africa andwe are the most “genetically diverse”. After all, the theory is that humanity originated from East Africa. Nevertheless, Somalis have interbreeded in history because they are geographically close to the Arabian countries, unlike West Africans who are more “fully” African by their noticeable features. It is all genetics and geography that contribute to this. That’s all I have to say.
Mother: Did you adopt the girl? Mathilda: Why is it that Eurocentrists will say we are related to Eurasians and Afrocentrists will say the opposite. Both sides claim to be right. And I can understand bot points of view.
Mathilda: Why is it that Eurocentrists will say we are related to Eurasians and Afrocentrists will say the opposite
Mainly it’s to do with the ancient Egyptians. The only black African groups any ancient Egyptians population (Badarians)show any similarity to are the Somalis, Ethiopians and other groups of mixed ancestry- which is unsurprising as the Badaraians seem to be a mix of Eurasian and East African just like them but slightly higher in Eurasian. It’s vitally important to their ‘Egyptians are all 100% African’ casue to point out African gropups can occassionally have caucasian hair and light skin- unfortunately the only oines that do are the ones with Eurasian ancestry in them- so they find themselves denying East Africans have Eurasian ancestry as a way round that. I think also the idea of black Africans being contaminated with Arab ancestry seriously winds tham up too.
It’s all ludicrous. Modern Upper Egyptians actually have a near identical DNA mix to East Africans yet Afrocentrists insist in calling them half arabs- probably because their skin is ‘too light’.
Matilde, check this out. http://yeyeolade.wordpress.com/2007/03/page/2/
Seen it, laughed at it Faud.
classical pseudo science and fake geneticist! These are the same people who not so long ago would have come up with some fake scientific evidence to say that genetically blacks are prone to slavery or could not play baseball. Just giving it a monster a good face. science is not be found here. say hello to the bell curve. btw based on the Bell Curve Obama will be much worse a president than Bush, blame his genes!
Jomo it’s actual science and I’m quoting it not making it up.
It’s amazing the mega hiss fits I get over this. Yet white north Africans and arabs just shrug and go mm? when they read the porportion of their ancestry that comes from black Africans. Funny old world.
Mathide is serving us the western ethnocentrist view. Egyptian were euro asian ?!
Like Ethiopians African evoluated organisation can only be due to some euro genes.
Sciences has always served politics, remember that during slavery sciences took ages to determine if blacks were humans which leads to excessive treatment in the mid time.
French Egyptologist faked the translation of Egyptian view of the world until Anta Diop made his research and highlight that Egyptian considered themselves as same people than Ethiopians. Punt Land that how Egyptians called Somalia region, wich means country of gods and who were Egyptian gods? Their ancestors as in a lot of black society.
Like history, science sustains the view of the dominating societies the dominant conception. Kush people were the father of humanity and one day African scientist and historian will prove it with western method. Until that day make history.
Dona- Diop wasn’t any kind of anthrolopologist and carefully edited and ‘retranslated’ things until,they said what he wanted. His melanin drop test was a work of fiction.
Punt has been actually named as being int Asia and they called the Puntites sand dwellers (Arabs). They also used to have fights with them- Somalia is too far away for that.
Matilda, I am 16 years old and know better than you. pity you!
Dona, where are you from?
The first homosepien was a somali that is why you will find bits of all varieties of genes in somalis period!
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mathilda37 please can you answer my questions.
(1) You say Somalis have Eurasian , Egyptian , Arab , Sub-Saharan genes. Can you tell me how much PERCENTAGE of each genes are in Somalis.
(2) You say Somalis have mix ancestry but our skin is black like other sub saharan africans why is this ? If we have mix ancestry how come we dont have mixed race feathers and skin tone ? we dont look half and half.
mathilda37 please can you answer my questions.
(1) You say Somalis have Eurasian , Egyptian , Arab , Sub-Saharan genes. Can you tell me how much PERCENTAGE of each genes are in Somalis.
(2) You say Somalis have mix ancestry but our skin is black like other sub saharan africans why is this ? If we have mix ancestry how come we dont have mixed race feathers and skin tone ? we dont look half and half.
Skin tone is purley a response to the brightness of the sun. If you studk a European population at teh equator 20,000 years later they’d have brown/black skin too.
The overall autosomal study shows Somais like Ethiopians to be aboput 40% Eurasian, but with a lot less historic Arab input. All the non L lineages in the mitochondrial DNA are Eurasian, the E3b1a is ‘mixed race’ from Nubia and the otehr non E,A and B Y chromosomes are Eurasian. Most entered between the Neolithic and Paleoliothic.
Africa is the most diverse continent on this planet, researchers and scientists have noted. This means that within Africa, features vary greatly. There are different classifications of Africans based on common features and DNA and Ethiopians, Somalis, Djiboutis, and Eritreans are often classed together. These four ethnic groups share similar features, cultures, and languages (collectively called Cushitic or Afro-Asiatic).
Somalis are not mixed with anything. Our genetics show that we are African with a very insignificant amount of admixture with any other race. Why we look distinct from other Africans is because Somalis typically have the E1b1b (formerly E3b) genetic haplogroup in their genes which is also found in other ethnicities in the Horn of Africa, like Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti.
I hope this makes sense. 🙂
EDIT: As some people sometimes claim, Somalis are not mixed with Arabs. There is a very small percentage of Arabs and other ethnic groups (called the Banadiir, Bantu, etc) living within Somalia and that identify as Somali and their families have lived within Somalia for centuries. However, these groups are physically very distinct from Somalis and look very Arab. This shows that Somalis do not generally mix with non-Somalis.
Jaysal: Yeah, I used to think it was Asia but in two different anthropology/psych class, my professors said it was Africa. There’s research and scientists that support this. It is not a disputed idea, it is widely accepted. Weird, huh?
so can the eurasian influence in both maternal and paternal lineages be explained by trade?
so can the eurasian influence in both maternal and paternal lineages be explained by trade?
No. Some of them are very ancient in Africa, the M1 isn’t seen Asia and the Y chr have a seriosly ancient entry date to Africa and aren’t common in Asia any more.
Skin tone is purley a response to the brightness of the sun. If you studk a European population at teh equator 20,000 years later they’d have brown/black skin too.
no. human development has taken at least a million year. after 20,000 you would still be white, with blue eyes.
Could you tell me more (all of what you know) about the male haplogroup T / formerly called K2-M70? It is present in Egyptian men and Somali men at (relatively for this haplogroup) “higher” levels. As well in Europe, but predominantly southern Europe (eg, Sicily/Italy, Spaniards, & someone has mentioned Serbs? but I’m not sure on that latter one). Obviously we know the American president Jefferson had it, but it was a bit on the odd side to find it in an Anglo-Saxon of that time it seems. Some speculate he may have had a Sephardic Jew or a Moroccan Muslim as a very distant paternal ancestor somehow. No one knows for sure.
Although it appears really sparsely around Europe generally, but sometimes when it does it’s actually in European Jews (themselves originally with a more Middle Eastern or Asiatic type origin I believe). The article on Jefferson from BBC said, it was considered odd for him because this haplogroup has more of a “Middle Eastern affinity” in general.
Besides the known spots in the Middle East and Africa where this group is found in any real percentages, the highest in Europe I have seen so far are Sciacca, Sicily (a town founded by Saracens incidentally….. so could that be why?), and Ibiza, Spain. But they say Italian men in general , out of all Europeans, may carry this in the highest (overall) amount (which is still relatively low). Something like 4% of Italian men, I believe it was. And it seems to be mostly southerly Italy and Sicily, once again. I have read that it’s most distant origin is Asian/ Eurasian. I realize it may have moved back into Africa, after having been gone for a long while (as in some Somalians for instance, as discussed above). But is it in the Latin European men (Italians and Spaniards) more so because of those two countries’ histories with African / Islamic incursions, colonisations, and occupations in more ‘recent’ times (Middle Ages), or, is it more likely due to general Mediterranean basin area ‘drift’ , so to speak, coming perhaps from a mixture of Carthaginian/Phoenician, Greek, etc, elements for over 2K years and such? Some of it could have been down there since neolithic times, perhaps, but, given all the migrations and so many occupations and such down there , that becomes a bit hard to believe beyond a certain point as well, especially in places like Sicily and southern Italy, and Spain. Any new thoughts on this are appreciated. Thanks to all.
I don’t think that the Islamic presence would have made much difference as there’s not enough Arabic/Berber ancestry to account for the T in Europe (relative percentages, it wouldn’t be enough compared to the other Arab male ancestrty). It’s a very old type in Africa and pobably in Europe too. Unfortunately my special area is North Africa, so I can’t be certain of migrations to account for it’s presence in Europe.
I’m so confused
So Somali’s are more or less ethnic Somalis, and are actually indigenous African (with a small trace of Eurasian genes? We’re simply very similar to Ethiopians/Dijibouti, etc
I have v v v light skin, a soft afro and delicate features, my brother is as dark as anything and has tight black hair like a West African
I’m so confused
Somalis have Eurasian ancestry at about 40%- you guys will vary a lot as a group from very wololy haired and dark to Arab looking. Yo are all pretty closely related though.
“Mathide is serving us the western ethnocentrist view. Egyptian were euro asian ?!
Like Ethiopians African evoluated organisation can only be due to some euro genes.”
Agree with you Donna. The young Somalis who know nothing about DNA and ancestry might be happy discovering this site but sorry, Mathilda is very biased here.
1. Mathilda, I am a Somali who is light skinned and my family probably have quite a bit of Arab ancestry. But I still don’t buy your trying to make Somali more Euro possible.
2. You’re affirming The land of Punt is in Asia! Never heard of that one. Nice try.
3. You say that Eb31/E1b1…M78 is not originally from East-Africa meaning Horn of Africa! Wrong again. Tell me who trained you and where are your sources? All credible DNA ancestry scientists will deny what you are saying and anyone can google to find reputable information from different sources. M78 is from the Horn of Africa as is the whole haplogroup who spread from the Horn to West ASia in the out of AFrica migration and to Nord Africa (Egypt and current Maghreb). You are right on the M81 being specifically North-African-Maghrebian. But I know why you are moving the location of the original place of E1b1…M78…it is in line with you trying to make Ancient Egypt more Euro than it was. And Somali are closer to Upper Egypt…cause lower Egypt was more European 🙂 yeah right…
For the history of the African haplogroup E all the haplogroup, people can visit this link:
http://www.genebase.com/tutorial/item.php?tuId=2
Now, to the Albanian guy, don’t worry. We’re not taking you with us and you will have to stay Albanian Southern European…you aren’t Somali so calm down. But don’t forget, if your DNA says you are M78, you’re not the only European coming from Africa…everyone came from Africa. And those European features/Caucasian features, we donated them to you so say thank you (big grin).
read ‘Mysterious lands’. There are multiple paces known to be in Asia that are described as being in Punt, and they call the Puntites by the nme they called Arabs, Somalia was never likely.
The M78 is from Egypt not the horn. I’ve read the DNA studies. I’m guessing you haven’t. M78 shows a population movement into the horn not from it. I have the DNA studies by the scientist (Cruciani) who specialised in it that says that explicitly on this blog for reference. Tragic attempt by a semi DNA literate (you) to make it sound like you know waht you are talking about.
BTW, Caucasoid features are ‘not from Africa’ they evolved in Eurasia. The first non Africans hardly even looked like modern humans let alone have Caucasoid skull shapes. Easty Africans are 40% Eurasian and part east Africans that had a flat long face through convergent evolution. Which is why some East Africans have Caucasoid skull shapes. Your BS would mean All East asians should have caucasoid skulls too.
While M78 might be from the horn, E-M215, the parent clade of E-M78, originated in East Africa during the paleolithic and subsequently, E-M215 spread to Northeast Africa. According to Cruciani et al. (2007), the presence of E-M78 in East Africa, is the result of a back migration of E-M215 chromosomes that had acquired the E-M78 mutation.
Thus, if anything, the North African genes were a result of Horn Africans who spread northward, and then returned with the M78 mutation.
BTW, according to numerous studies, “The most distinct separation is between African and non-African populations. The northeastern-African — that is, the Ethiopian and Somali — populations are located centrally between sub-Saharan African and non-African populations… The fact that the Ethiopians and Somalis have a subset of the sub-Saharan African haplotype diversity — and that the non-African populations have a subset of the diversity present in Ethiopians and Somalis — makes simple-admixture models less likely; rather, these observations support the hypothesis proposed by other nuclear-genetic studies (Tishkoff et al. 1996a, 1998a, 1998b; Kidd et al. 1998) — that populations in northeastern Africa may have diverged from those in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa early in the history of modern African populations and that a subset of this northeastern-African population migrated out of Africa and populated the rest of the globe. These conclusions are supported by recent mtDNA analysis”. You keep repeating the claim that East Africans are 40% Eurasian, because of the fact that their MtDNA show a degree of Caucasoid influence, but considering the fact that Albanians have 40% E1b1b and Greeks have 47% E1b1, which originated in the horn as indicated by the first study I posted, Albanians and Greeks must be 40% Cushitic, for lack of a better word. It’s preposterous to claim part Caucasoid ancestry because of 40% M1 haplogroup which is believed to have come to the horn 40,000 years ago. Unless the Albanians and Greeks, who have 40% East African genes are considered part African, the Somalis cannot be considered part Caucasoid.
Mathilda, why didn’t you publish my post? Was it too threatening?
I told you you are Eurocentrist and I gave you my arguments so why don’t you let people see what I wrote. You are rejecting truth from DNA and genetics such as the E3b1 haplogroup being originally from the Horn of Africa, from the birth place of humans according to most Scientists. You are also rejecting that the land of Punt was in the Horn of Africa, the actual Somaliland. And you told the Albanian guy that he V12 and V13 are not so close even though he brought you some proofs.
You can be Eurocentrist, that’s fine as everyone has their opinion but you should let others speak because there’s no point having a blog when you don’t let those who challenge you to express themselves.
Mathilda, why didn’t you publish my post? Was it too threatening?
I haven’t been on the blog for the past three weeks. If it was within that time I just haven’t seen it and cleared it.
The Y chr in Albania and Somalia are not closely related, and no he didn’t prove it. As I pointed out ( from memory here) they had a common ancestor in Egypt about 24k ago. That isn’t closely related.
Have you ever considered the reason why African groups with straight hair is because Eurasians got it from these African groups that migrated?
No, you can never prove that, so you believe they are mixed when there is chance that Africans are more genetically diveresed by nature.
And what are traceable Eurasian ancestry? Hmm, is that something Eurocentric people have come up with?
How doe it explain that Africans have more ancient genes than any other race? Compared to Asian and Europeans, it proves Africans have been around longer than any other people, outside of Africa!
So all people come from Africa, and considering the racism of darker people that amount of mixing you keeping talking about is essentially impossible.
And what are traceable Eurasian ancestry? Hmm, is that something Eurocentric people have come up with?
All the African groups with straight hair as part of their range have a lot of Eurasian ancestry in them- Somalis, Ethiopians, Saharan and Fulbe. Look at their DNA studies.
that amount of mixing you keeping talking about is essentially impossible.
And yet, every publishing geneticist observes they have about 40% Eurasian ancestry. Funny .
This was really interesting to read, and gave me a slight idea about backgrounds and genetics. The only thing that really gets on my nerves as a somalian, who looks ‘Different’ but we still aren’t considered black. Throughout school everyone labeled us ‘Somalis’ and others ‘Black’. I use to ask, so what is my skin colour yellow?
My mum is really light skinned, hadn’t noticed much, so curiously asked her what she knew. My dad has an afro, my sister does to but I have thick, soft hair my other sister has soft curls. But anyway my gran, from mothers side was from yemen. Yet some in my own family even, not all, really dislike being called arab. The only thing I can conclude from this is that some dislike them, because of experience in the countries but all this is a DNA fact. So I think our genes are beautiful and should embrace your history rather then ignore, or hate.
Thank you SomaliLady
Mathilda37 the Somali male population has approximately 15% Y chromosomes from Eurasia and approximately 5% from sub-Saharan Africa. Can you tell me the other genes In a somali in terms of percentage.
In Somalis, 14 Y chromosome haplogroups were identified including E3b1 (77.6%) and K2 (10.4%). Can you please explain this to me in so i can understand thanks
As a Somali man who has lived in the Middle East for many years, I would rather be associated genetically with any race but Arabs or Jews. My only concern is that some black Africans, particularly many in Tanzania seem to see Somalis as non Africans.
Now, facts are facts and if the science proves that I have common ancestry with Egyptians or other Middle Eastern folks I would accept that, but I’m really more comfortable to be among what I consider my true brothers, the black Africans.
Fair enough Warsame
Somali- the ‘40% Eurasian’ for East Africans is based on autosomal studies and FST distances, which are a lot more reliable. It’s not based on the mt or Y DNA. Y chr especially are prone to founder effects and are not great indicators of the level of inherited ancestry in mixed groups. Chadic speaking Ouldeme would be 50% Eurasian if that were true, which they rather obviously aren’t. Which is why you should be wary of any idiot that tries to claim greeks ect have a lot of black ancestry on the basis of an E named Y chr that hasn’t seen a sub Saharan male ancestor in about 30k.
The mt/y percentages do make sense if you regard all the M1, U and M78 in east africa as a roughly equal mix of Eurasian and African- which is roughly what happned in the Nubia area about 24k ago- a thoroughly mixed population expanded.
The parent to m78 was probably there as a result as an extremely ancient population movement, and the parent Y chr E and its parent DE may not even be African in origin. They find E in south east Asia occassionally, so naming all E as ‘sub saharan’ is an error, as it seem to have moved into East Africa from outside that area to start with.
I get that you don’t like that just about every geneticist publishing on the subject has said east Africans are about 40% Eurasian. I’m going to trust their judgement more than yours, as they dont’ have some kind of agenda, while I sense you do.
mathilda this is a question for you?iam really confused about my background i dont see my self as other sub-saharan africans nor as arab. iam somali both parents pure somalis but iam not sure about my grandparents.i have straight long nose,small lips,hair is not silk but soft curly and my skin colour is light brown but in summer when i take sun it tends to get darker.my mum is very light and dad a bit dark ,they have straight noses ,small lips and semi soft hairs.i think somalis didnt appear suddenly in somalia ,they must have came from somewhere.my african friends ask me why we are different from other africans.mathilda i want to know who are somalis?thanks
You have some ancestry from Nubia from about 24,000 years ago, but Somalis are a more recent arrival in the Somalia area- you used to be a part of the Ethiopian population once.
yes all east africa was considered abysinia, somalis being nomads have spread looking for better land for there livestock, they are a warrior people and fought many battles to claim the eastern part of ethiopia ogaden, the northeastern part of kenya and djibouiti
Interesting discussion,
Few month back I read in discovery how the human
phenotype evolved in east Africa and dispersed. So, in theory, if we all go back, irrespective of our ethnic we probably look some one from central Ethiopia.
My decent I’m Oromo close too Somali. Whatever somali are discussing is a typical of most Oromo. My mom, looks egyptian, in fact my Kenyan friend couldn’t believe me when I told him. My sibling, most of them have light skin and look berebers.
By the way, genetically haile selassie is more oromo probably 75%.
My point, its hard to align genetics with: culture and phenotype. We are mosaic heading in a vortex that creates super mutt which looks Somali
did i get my answer mathiilda cant wait for the answer.thanks
Somali people are diverse and yet we notice each other from far distances when we live in europe or America. Im somali and im dark brown with long nose, thin lips, curly hair and some of my brothers have almost straight hair and even one of my brothers looks kinda bangladeshi or darker indian and we even nicknamed him gandhi..my dad’s mum had very straight hair and was very dark and his dad was light skinned with curly hair..and my mum’s family are all light skinned with straight hair…This shows our diversity and yet we look alike. I dnt believe somaliz are mixed because we all know wat mixed people look alike..black and white make like Obama type..light skinned with African features..not somali type…obama doesnt look somali..and the interesting thing is wen any somali intermarries other race.the baby doesnt look anything like mixed..i have seen alot of mixed somali and white or asian and i wouldnt know if they are mixed until i read their biography…that also puts question mark on wether we r really black…some africans dnt see us african (black)..i had a friend who had black nigerian father and white german mother and even thou he had light skin and was mixed..he still claimed to be more african than i..and called me white even thou im dark skined with curly hair…I see myself as Somali…and nothing else…and we r not mixed with arabs..because then we would look like normal Ethiopians…which we dont..ethiopians are mostly light skinned and short..while majority of somali are tall and darker skin with non-african features..
mathilda37 : – “you (somalis) used to be a part of the Ethiopian population once”.
Okey!
But how you can explain this:
I am somalian and my YDNA is E1b1b1a1b V32 with DYS438=11 while Ethiopian DYS438 is 12.
My mtDNA is N1b 176g while so far this mtdna is not found in Ethopia and the only place is found in Africa is Egypt.
This seems true:
mathilda37 ” Somalis are a more recent arrival in the Somalia area” from Egypt via Sudan.
This is my inference! What do you think?
Regards
I just cannot believe they have actual gene’s for enthnicity, is anyone finding this troubling? Also, as a Somali myself my mom is a little dark skin and soft waivy hair and is my dad is the same but a little more darker and resembles a black arab. I’m a product of my parent and have not so dark skin very small almond shaped eyes(almost resembling asian) and not so much of a sharp nose. My point here is Somali’s are quite diverse in looking and what I’m reading from comments is the typical Somali look that some stereotype as the nation’s 3 everyone looks like a tend to generalize. I had an arab man one day come to me at work(airport) and asked me if I was Somali and said I didn’t look like the typical Somali b/c I had a wider nose(In his opinion) I think he was expecting sharp nose shape. These types of generalization need to stop. There are Somalis who look more arab, some who look more west african, some look sri laken(dark skin, soft hair) and so on. If you look at all other nationalities everyone is quite diverse in looking and no one question how they look..Basically that is my pt.
mathilda37 Your pt. on european decent is quite valid since it is based on DNA facts. My question is how many european decents did the experts test to see if they had any african roots? I would assume since their ancestors where travelling across the pond quite often, would the european males have a percentage of african genes? As Somalis males would have european decent? I’m not questioning DNA what I’m questioning is the theory behind the facts no one said(present research presented to us) Somali men have 46% of european genes so therefore it is b/c ……
Large studies ahev been done in Europe, generally black African ancesty in white Europeans is less than 1%.
And the Somali DNA is about 40% near Eastern, not European 🙂
My apologies to mathilda37 since it is her blog and gave us some interesting research learn from my ancestors but I find it is quite troubling to see Western cultures imposing their research on orients(non westerners) and the fact that there is an actual field of study anthropology studying other nations almost like animals is incredibly insulting! You never see Japanese anthroplogist going to North America and studying house wives in suburbia. It is somehow okay if the west goes to a romote nomedic area who isn’t well knowledgeable of western education could it be that where their from it is unnecessary to to know what an isosoles triangle is but rather what is appropriate for their environment. I’m going off topic here but I am noticing a trend and really would like to see how africa or other nations South America, China etc. has an influence on the european nation
Mathilda,
I wanted to ask you how come when a somali mixes with a non somali the majority of the time the offspring looks non somali?
I wanted to ask you how come when a somali mixes with a non somali the majority of the time the offspring looks non somali?
Honey, a lot of Somali ancestry comes from the near East (a long time ago) so the more typically African traits tend to get a bit swamped when the kids have European and middle eastern parents.
do somali have biological advantages because of their diverse genes
explain then why are some sub saharan people light skinned according to your sun theory shouldn’t they all be blue black? being in a “tropical enviroment” does not make your skin dark some arab and asian countries are just as hot as africa. Being north or west does not make your skin light. explain then why the eskimos native to alaska have dark skin it should have evolved into white skin by now according to your theory of 20,000 years (even non africans would have dark skin?) how did that happen and are they asian or amerindian if so explain to then how samoan, hawaiian, and other pacific islanders who are considered asian have thick course hair? Race and culture cannot exclude west africans.
explain then why are some sub saharan people light skinned according to your sun theory shouldn’t they all be blue black?
MY theory?
Actually a lot of African tribes are darker than any UV explanation can account for. As you go farther South they turn into a golden brown colour not far off Arab skin tones, and North East Amerindians had much lighter skin tones, not far off Turkish. European very pale skin is a recent response to Neolithic grain based diets, something thats much more recent to the rest of the world, which is why hunter gatherer groups have darker skin..
Eskimos eat a lot of vitamin D, they do not require a lighter skin tone. Generally the solar UV and skin tone matches up pretty well
does somali people have any sort of biological advantage as there genes are diversed
does somali people have any sort of biological advantage as there genes are diversed
Not that I know of.
Mathilda
This is great , in fact I would like to use some of your findings. How do I cite your work.
I must admit I always had problem with the some classifications based on archeological digs.
We sure are unique in our own way, we are proud of our EuroAsian and Afro heritage. Thank You for documenting it .
How came there is so much interest in somali geneology, I have never seen so much interest in one ethnic group. No other nation has there genetic information on wikipedia (seriously)
How came there is so much interest in somali geneology
Because the Somalis come moderately close to the predynastic upper Egyptians and this cause a lot of arguments about their ancestry.They are quite closley related to upper Egyptians and Nubians, and the grief I get here is from individuals who believe the Egyptians were ‘all African’ even though the DNA disagrees with them. Funnily they are happy to admit upper Egyptians are part Eurasian but scream blue murder when anyone observes the same of East Africans.
My main interest in them is that they are the end of a very old expansion from the lake Nubia area that I have an interest in.
Somalis are black FULLSTOP white people have diveristy you have blondes from scandanavia then you have really dark (almost arab looking) italians and spaniards. why can’t Africans have the same diversity its the 2nd biggest continent afterall. were not caucausion and have 0% white blood we are BLACK AFRICANS pure 100% okay may be at least98%
FYI Iman,
Somalis ahve teh same kinds of DNA as in upper Egyptians but in different proportions. How comes you’re okay with upper Egyptians being mixed but not Somalis? I mean they look pretty similar too.
Mathilda!
Do you have any theory, how mtdna N1b ended up to Somalia!.
Actually No, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting detail on Somali mt DNA.
Mathilda,
You said: “I’ve often wondered why Somalis have more Euro-type hair than Ethiopians. Founder effect?”
Can you not see the eurocentric bent of your thinking? Can you not see that you have a fixed agenda and EVERYTHING you mentally absorb will always be filtered through your bias? Can you not see you will never achieve objectivity? Can you not see that Somalis DO NOT HAVE “Euro-type” hair?
Do the Japanese have “Euro-type” hair? Do Native Americans have “Euro-type” hair? Do Indians have “Euro-type” hair? Do Eskimos have “Euro-type” hair? Do Australian Aborigines have “Euro-type” hair? Do Berbers have “Euro-type” hair?
In your British eurocentric mind although just about every people group on the planet has “straight” hair, it is all “Euro-type” hair to you.
Somalis have Somali hair, just like Japanese people have Japanese hair… NOT “Euro-type” hair. In the same vein Somalis have Somali noses NOT “Euro-type” noses.
Even though you may feel you are an objective empiricist your remarks reveal your bias. You see Africans as a monolithic group and any variation must be explained as “Euro-type” features.
Yonas/Ekli whatever your current name is…
You obviously know nothing about genetics, and your sole purpose seems to be to get pissy with anyone who observes Eurasian ancestry in East Africans. Maybe I should have said ‘Caucasian hair’, but you can suck me. And East Asian hair isn’t mainly Caucasian type. It’s a different texture.
The publishing geneticists (barring Kittles) don’t seem to have an issue with this. I suggest you fuck off, and save your attitude for for your BF.
Saying 18 million Somalis are 40% Eurasian is extremely misleading. No one should buy it. When in fact, a sample of 201 Somalis selected for the particular study you are siting were 40% Eurasian.
We have no idea how these researchers from Denmark actually selected their sample. So let’s be clear, 201 selected male Somalis tested and now we are making definitive authoritative assertions for 18 million people. Lame.
And yet with no evidence to support you, you feel free to have a shreiking pissy fit and declare its alll racist BS becasue you don’t like it, Yonas.
Get over it, so far tested Somalis are about 40% Euarasian. More accurate?
Funny how none of you get upset when upper Egyptians and modern nubians (who have the same haplotypes) are described as part Eurasian in ancestry. And you have the shrivelled nuts to call ME racist.
when you claim that egyptians migrated to somalia, do you think that it was an inhabited region?, of course not. there were people living there before those egyptians came.It is true that the ancient egyptians reffered somalia as the land of punt which means the land of milk and honey, and somalia was a part of the ancient egyptian kingdom, the obvious reason for egyptians to travel to somalia was for the purpose of trade, one of the major things the egyptians were found of was the stones that gave off a parfume like scent when it is burnt, many somalis use these stones in there house to make the area smell good. You must not forget that the oldest bones in the world are found in east africa (AFAR). So if humanity started in e. africa it only make sense that we have the features of every racial group in the world, you can find somalis with small eyes like asians, soft hair like indians, skin tone like arabs, and noses like europeans. U have also stated that mixed children have a blend of the fathers and mothers skintone.If somalis were mixed with all these people u claim to say why arent the majority of the population lighskined. You will find the darkest of somalis with these “caucosiod” features.
In terms of tribes Darood which is the largest tribe in somalia was a man who came from yemen, Isaac was also stated to have arab roots, When these two arrived the indiginous somalis that lived there were of the Hawiyee tribe. Arab influence or not. I bet you all the money in the world that you cant go up to a single somali person and know which one of these tribes he or she is without hearing there dialect first. Arab and cacusain influences dont mean nothing when it comes to east africans, but i can see where you are getiing your points from, if you were to paint a somalian white he would look just like a white guy lol
is true that the ancient egyptians reffered somalia as the land of punt
There are multiple Egyptian texts that actually say locations in Punt are in Asia, near Asian locationsand that call the Puntites sand dwellers (Arabs).
o if humanity started in e. africa it only make sense that we have the features of every racial group in the world,
No, as a lot of traits evolved later and aren’t native to east Africa.
what percenatge caucasoid in a somali ?
So Somali are 15% eurasian and 5 % sub-Saharan African what others dna makes a somali i(n percentages)
About 40% of Somali ancestry can be found to be traceable to the near East mostly dating back about 40k years in Africa (from autosomal DNA) – the Y chr aren’t a great guide in East Africa.
But mathilda , If you look at some of the african american kids who are heavly mixed they still tend to have their african traits. But even the darkest somali still has medium sized lips with a small nose. So that bit confuses me about how we lost our african traits and to add to that my cousins are half somali half german and they have very pale white skin with straight dark brown hair and green eyes. They dont resemble a somali one bit and when i am with them people dont assume that we are infact related.
So my question is, how come when an african american mixes with a white person the offspring still remains their african traits but the opposite thing happens to a somali who marries a white person?
Black Americans are mainly descended from the Bantu people, who are genetically and physically quite different to the East Africans. If you think about how different tribes like the Masai look to west Africans, and add that to a big chunk of Eurasian ancestry, you end up with something Obama-like.
Somalis and Ethiopains have a lot of Arab/near Eastern ancestry in them (a bit less than half), and it means that European/East African children actually look more middle eastern than anything.
Mathilda my appologies on behalf of Somalis, First of all it not strange to see Euroasian blood in both Somalis and Ethiopians, Eriterians etc. it very simply people did mixes with others in trade,travel to name few..Also Somalia boost the longest coastline so more likely to have mixed with other Arabs, Portuguese to name few while inland migration from Egypt, Sudan to Ethiopia then in present Somalia.
It very simple to see the moors have left their mark in Spain after ruling for 800 years and others to would have made left genetic link behind in their travel in Africa. We are Africans who mixed with others but overall all human are related. Otherwise we would not have shared much features etc small eyes or tall. I think evniviroment also influence the body to adapt and after few generations it become standard for example to see tall Somalis with skinny body which was good for their daily life of livestock and moving around.
I think people should be happy we all are related but with different features otherwise it would ugly. Difference in us make life interesting. Now mathilda your scientific theory would have been more comrehensive if it was used like say from samply from different Somalis clan. You would find Somalis Bantus have fewer euroasians then those on coast areas and these is normal, Like Rendille tribe in Kenya who migrated towards interior rather than coast. Same can be said with Tutsis who migrated even further and mixed with hutus in Rwanda it make more sense than saying Somalis are pure race that to me is to be in denial. It better to accept whatever you are and be happy with it. Purity in race is impossible as we all are inter related black and white in fact it shocking to see how white and blacks have alomost identical habit. It just show we are human
Mathias! if you qualified other people as arabocentric than you are a one of their foes a berbercentric.Semetic language has nothing to do with afroasiatic(Hamitic) language of the berbers . You have more to do with your somalians origins than the europeans and it is not your complexion which is gona opposite the genetists .Ask Dr Spencer Wells for more details
…i’ve left 2 further somalian comments on the berber page this blog, having trouble navigating
the site(my fault). thank you, matilda for the
paabo you tube video, exciting isn’t it? neander
did give us language, cf., missing mithen/
tzopilotl blog/zme science(neander/fearless hunter), best in coming year, carlos.
One question, why are we considered “Caucasoids” if we fathered the Europeans & Arabs and all Non- Africans? Did life not begin in the Horn of Africa? You have OUR DNA. Fact, you came from us. We are not Caucasoids. I would prefer not to be called that. Try not to think from a biased point of view. If we’re to be completely and utterly honest everyone is mixed. Including yourself. You carry some African, Asian blood. As do I, but 15% (I doubt the avg. Somali carries that much “Eurasian” DNA). Many white Americans carry African DNA some even carry more than 10%, are they considered mixed? To say, we got our looks from ancient European and Asian ancestors is utter bullocks. We have ALWAYS looked the way we do, the amount of mixing is minimal. We are wary of foreigners.
Xabiba
Not all DNA diversity is from Africa- this old saw again. DNA and stone tool evidence disagrees with you totally. I even have a fair number of Somalis posting that disagree with your POV who understand they have near Eastern ancestry.
I always thought somali were mixed, my granmother is from a place in somalia called laskoray and its located at the coast, opposite to yemen and she is very light skined and I’m quite dark. Also, somalis have a unique way of giving surnames (usually the first name of your father will be your middlename and the first name of your granfather will be your last name) My whole name is quite long as my father, i believe, isn’t mixed. But my granmother’s name is very short and so i do believe that her ancestors came from india. Members of tribes in somalia look similar, my father’s tribe is dark while my mothers in very light almost yemeni looking, still i’d like a DNA test for myself. Everyone’s different.
mathilda wat i reeli dont seem to understand is you say somalis are mixed 40% eurasian and i assume 60% sub-saharan africans . these sub-saharan africans do you mean bantu, or nilotic people. if the latter i would like to point out that tutsi’s and masai are both nilotic in origin both these groups have been associated with somalis. this brings me to my next point if somalis are 80% east african i wud assume you meant that this is nilotic as they are indigenous to this region.
also i would like to point out that khoisan people have got a very simmilar genetic make up to somalis i.e E3b1. you also mentioned that somali mtDNA is 70-80% sub-saharan. if we then take a look at pre pleiostine african north and east africa were khoikhoi or capoid areas indigenously . this could then mean that somalis only contain 15-20% non african or eurasian and the caucasian influence could only effect hair texture as facial features would be nilotic . also with hair texture is that capoid people do not have wooly hair but hair that is considered thick. if this hair was then soffetened by eurasian dna curly hair would be observed also wavy hair or eurasian hair could be oserved and wooly hair could be acheived by the nilotic genes . so rather than having a narrower view of simple admixture, but surley the look of somalis could be achieved through this rather than just eurasian and black mixture.
also i donot deny somalis having eurasian dna but i feel it would be less than what is assumed
Somalis show up as 40% Eurasian on autosomal DNA studies A, ahich is about as accurate as you can get. Mostly east African and not Bantu or capoid ancestry makes up their sub Saharan ancestry. They are a subset of an Ethiopian population, and the reason their hair is different to Ethiopian in texture is only going to be a founder effect.
I don’t get why everyone feels the need to argue over this one. Somalis and upper Egyptians have very similar DNA profiles but no-one debates that upper Egyptians are have a lot of eurasian ancestry in them. In fact, somalis and Ethiopians and North Africans all group together as one racial block in one big DNA study of Africa- which I’ll get around to posting at some point.
How come the comment I posted is not on here?
Genetics proof only that they share genes, the rest is interpretations.
Linguistic is contradicting this kind of thesis. The leading theory of human origin is contradicting it . Some DNA polymorphisms are shared by Europeans, West Asians, North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans..
Examples of such variants include the y-chromosomal haplogroup E1b1b and mitochondrial haplogroup M1. How do you explain that, you ll probably say that they all have a bit of caucasian, but some others would say they are all coming from africa since sharing DNA means heritating it from somewhere .
Your theory of europeanising somalis is very dangerous and is the continuity of theories that europeanised the Ancien Egypte, europeanising the ethiopians (these theories started already a bit after the defeat of adoua, fruit of west frustration). And as usual genetics science is used, in the past already to measure the head of blacks and say they re not intelligent, humain.
Anyways, it’s good to know that we share that much, you should email that to extreme right in holland they will have an heard attack.
nice day
europeanising somalis
Actually they have near Eastern and not European ancestry. Where did I say ‘European’? Nowhere.
what is founder effect youve mentioned it a couple of times and i wud like to know how it applies to somalis
Its where small groups expand into large populations, causing genetic drift to happen at warp speed due the random successes of mutations in the founder group.
mathilda37:
I find it interesting that you said Somalis are about 15% Euarasian and started going on about how they’re 40% Euarasian.
So which is it?
Hi matilda
I found your blog really interesting but I have just one question if as people say the world started from ethiopia and according to this article shows new findings that ethiopia and somalia originate from the aswan area of egypt
does this mean that the world started from egypt?
does this mean that the world started from egypt?
🙂
No, the people from Egypt moved into East Africa a long time after that.
You said in your research Somalis have soft like European hair but not nearly as straight…however my brother, mother and I have really straight hair that resembles asian like texture hair and it is also very dark. Would you be kind and try to explain that?
Hi my name is badriya aadam muhammed. im 19 years old and im from somalia. Im darood, from darood, im dalbahantay, from dalbahantay, im baharasmi and im the family of salah. Im very light skin I have soft hair and I was born with gold hair. And my eyes r light brown. My father has blue eyes and he looks white. My grandfathers was so white and had blue eyes. My mother is from the same family they r cousins and she is very light and has hazel eyes. I can count up to my 12 grandfather and they all were muslim shieks. I just want to say most somalis are not all dark skin. Somalians come with all kinds of colors from light to dark. Its also said that somalians come from noah. However must light skin somalians clam something they r not. Im a proud somalian I know I have too much arabian in me but im not gona clam arabian cuz im from somalia and im somalian.
I do not get the chance to frequently communicate with my family overseas so I have learned very little about my paternal lineage thus far. My father’s family originates from Guinea (in W. Africa) and are part of the very small Peuhl tribe. I’ve seen many people around the would belonging to this tribe and we all have similar features. I have noticed though that we do not look like other Guineans or other W. Africans. Our features are very similar to those of Ethiopians and Somalians and even some north africans. We have very defined facial features, long, soft, curly/wavy/thick hair and a diverse range of lighter skin tones. I was wondering if you could give me any information that could help me with my inquiries. Thanks Mathilda.
My paternal family originates from Guinea in West Africa. They belong to a small tribe called the Peuhl tribe. I have seen many of us belonging to this tribe and we do not at all share the same features and physical characteristics as the general W. Africans do. We resemble Somalians and Ethiopians. Most of us vary in lighter skin tones, we have delicate facial features and softer curly hair. Is it possible that east Africans migrated to certain parts of the west at some point not too long ago?
My paternal family originate from Guinea in West Africa. My family belongs to a small tribe called the Peuhl tribe. It is very obvious that we do not resemble general W. Africans. Our features are very similar to those of Somalians and Ethiopians and even north Africans. Our facial features are more narrow and delicate. Our hair is a softer curly/wavy texture. And our skin varies in lighter skin tones. Did any east African tribes or peoples migrate to the west at any point. Please help me out with any info you have.
JB, there is some evidence that some movement from teh Sahara and East Africa made it as far as west Africa, like the Fulani/Fulbe.
JB, there is some evidence that some movement from teh Sahara and East Africa made it as far as west Africa, like the Fulani/Fulbe.
Has there been any Somalian/Ethiopian migration to west Africa at any point? My Guinean Peulh family have features very similar to those of Somalians and Ethiopians. We have very delicate facial features, pale skin, and soft, curly hair. We do not resemble the general west african population. Is there a reason for this?