Talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy/Archive 15

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Black hypothesis

No more mass edits of the black hypothesis without first gaining consensus on the Talk page. Please don't edit war.

I don't agree to introduction of criticism in the middle of the first paragraph, as that paragraph structure is not used for any other hypothesis in the historical hypotheses section. It's POV pushing to only use the short intro, criticism, remainder of definition structure for the black hypothesis, but not others.EditorfromMars (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

As stated several times already, the problem is that you drown the reader in a mush of Diop-ness, and the FACT that this hypothesis has been rejected by mainstream scholarship is lost in the fog. The other sections do not have this problem, for some reason. As a compromise, I propose that we start EVERY section about a debunked hypothesis with the sentence "The {...} hypothesis, which has been rejected by mainstream scholarship, is the hypothesis that ......" How about that? Wdford (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2020 (UTC)


The problem is that EVERY OTHER HYPOTHESIS in the section drowns the reader in a mush of Caucasian/Hamite/Asiatic-ness before stating the position of mainstream scholarship. The even bigger problem is that you want to apply a Wiki style to only the black hypothesis while not applying that same style to the other hypotheses, due to your obvious bias. Furthermore, Diop, Bernal, DuBois, Hansberry, Williams, etc. all have essentially the same views.EditorfromMars (talk) 17:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
i approve of any paragraph structure that is consistently applied to all hypotheses in the historical hypotheses sectionEditorfromMars (talk) 17:13, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@calthinus you have not sought consensus on the Talk page to modify the black egyptian section. In fact, you have introduced a controversial edit that is already under discussion on the Talk page. I do not approve of your change to this section. Please seek consensus.EditorfromMars (talk) 21:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Recording the history of bias in the article, which launches into a rebuttal of only the black hypothesis before even fully defining the black hypothesis, while failing to use this same approach for any other hypothesis. You will notice in every version, that there is no rebuttal provided for the caucasian theory after the intro sentence, although modern scholarship does not support the position that Ancient Egyptian's were white (because the concept of race is not accepted). It's racist editing and moderation of the article to apply one standard to the black theory, but a different stand to the others. There needs to be consistency.
WP:FALSEBALANCE. The probable reason for their being a lack of "criticism" or defining of the "caucasian" theory is probably down to it having only a fraction of the attention that the black theory does/has had.--Trans-Neptunian object (talk) 22:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Finally, Foster concludes, "it was at this point that Egypt became the focus of much scientific and lay interest, the result of which was the appearance of many publications whose sole purpose was to prove that the Egyptians were not Black, and therefore capable of developing such a high civilization."[16] Foster highlights that it was the focus of "much scientific and lay interest." Every black theory book that has ever been written was to refute the white theory. Not buying the argument that the caucasian theory doesn't get attention. The white theory got plenty of attention from the UNESCO conference, Hansberry, Diop, DuBois, Bernal, Obenga, Jackson, magazines, news articles, demonstrations, etc. Diop said, "next they try in vain to find a white origin for Egyptian civilization....It is the whole body of these theses that I propose to expose one after the other. African Origin of Civilization, page 45. The rest of the book is a response to the White theory.EditorfromMars (talk) 01:15, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion and conclusion from UNESCO directly addressed the white theory: "At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, none of the participants explicitly voiced support for any theory where Egyptians were 'white' with a dark pigmentation."[13]:43"EditorfromMars (talk) 01:17, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
DuBois said, "Arnold Toynbee's 'Study of History' definitely regarded Egyptian civilization as white, or European. The Egyptians, however, regarded themselves as Africans. The Greeks looked upon Egypt as a part of Africa...culturally...every fact of history proves that the Egyptians were an African people...We may then ...ignore this verdict of [19th century CE] history, widespread as it is and treat Egyptian history as an integral part of African history." pg. 99, The World and Africa.
In conclusion multiple peer reviewed secondary sources state that the white theory was widespread in the 19th century. Numerous books were written to refute it. That makes an AE race controversy. Meanwhile, at the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, none of the participants explicitly voiced support for any theory where Egyptians were 'white' with a dark pigmentation."[13]:43EditorfromMars (talk) 02:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Earlier in the week, I proposed to solve this issue by starting EVERY section about a debunked hypothesis with the sentence "The {...} hypothesis, which has been rejected by mainstream scholarship, is the hypothesis that ......" Nobody has objected so far. Can we accept that there is now consensus to implement this approach? Wdford (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed to "The...hypothesis, which has been rejected by mainstream scholarship, is the hypothesis that..." starts EACH/ALL theory subsections. After that intro statement, I do not agree to interrupting the rest of the paragraph (theory supporting sentences) meant to explain the theory with a bunch of critiques by biased people whose entire purpose is to tear down the theory at all costs. Those criticisms, critiques, rebuttals need to be grouped together in a separate paragraph (topic sentence = critics say, then supporting sentences).EditorfromMars (talk) 13:51, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I think everyone knows who is the biased one here (hint: It's not mainstream scholarship or everyone that doesn't accept pseudoscience). I agree to wdford's proposal, but EditorfromMars's tries to dismiss the majority of reliable sources and mainstream scholars as "critiques by biased people whose entire purpose is to tear down the theory at all costs" and the fact he is ignoring every opinion from every involved editor here shows there is clearly a NPOV issue that needs to be discussed, otherwise this whole talk page is for nothing. MohamedTalk 14:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
In Foster's words, not my own: Foster concludes, "it was at this point that Egypt became the focus of much scientific and lay interest, the result of which was the appearance of many publications whose sole purpose was to prove that the Egyptians were not Black, and therefore capable of developing such a high civilization."[1] Pretty clear that Foster believes your 'mainstream scholars' are just a bunch of racists trying to justify European colonialism via biased work on EgyptEditorfromMars (talk) 18:53, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • In addition to the fact that this is about the 19th century controversy, not present day, this is the view of one scholar, not a fact. Moreover, Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia. It gives the due weight to each theory or view and doesn't give much weight to theories that are known to be rejected by the maintream. MohamedTalk 19:13, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Again, this article is about the history of the AE race controversy, which includes every century where there was an AE race controversy.EditorfromMars (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Here's another more modern writer, saying the same thing as Foster and his 19th century primary sources and a bunch of 1974 modern scholars refuting/rejecting the white theory:
DuBois said, "Arnold Toynbee's 'Study of History' definitely regarded Egyptian civilization as white, or European. The Egyptians, however, regarded themselves as Africans. The Greeks looked upon Egypt as a part of Africa...culturally...every fact of history proves that the Egyptians were an African people...We may then ...ignore this verdict of [19th century CE] history, widespread as it is and treat Egyptian history as an integral part of African history." pg. 99, The World and Africa.
In conclusion multiple peer reviewed secondary sources state that the white theory was widespread in the 19th century. Numerous books were written to refute it. That makes an AE race controversy. Meanwhile, at the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, none of the participants explicitly voiced support for any theory where Egyptians were 'white' with a dark pigmentation."EditorfromMars (talk) 19:51, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • You can't take 19th century views and claim these represent the current maintream (which is supposed to be given prominence in Wikipedia). Besides, the source doesn't deny that the mainstream is against the black Egypt theory even back then. His justification for that is only his opinion. In any case, the views that were popular back then have nothing to do with the curren maintream and are related to other refused theories mentioned in the article. MohamedTalk 19:57, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Here's a short summary: According to black theory advocates and the numerous primary sources that they cite, the mainstream view from classical Greece/Rome, through the Middle Ages, and through the 18th century was that Ancient Egyptians were black. After Napolean's visit, there was a controversy between Volney/Champollion and detractors. Then in the 19th century, racists tried to change the view to Ancient Egyptians were anything other than black (white, red, yellow) to further their colonial ambitions in Africa. In the 19th-20th scholars/professors began to push back on the widespread white theory, which created controversies between people like Diop and Mauny, Bernal and Lefkowitz, etc. In addition to the scholarly controversies, there were controversies in magazines, at museum openings, etc. In conclusion, the AE race controversy did not start in the 20th century. That's false. Assertions that only Afrocentrists claim that AE was black is also false, because Volney/Champollion, etc. precede the concept of Afrocentrism by hundreds of years, but that didn't stop Volney from saying AE was a black civilization (in his widely available book), while living in a time period where the modern concept/construct of race was fully understood.EditorfromMars (talk) 22:47, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Furthermore, I'm not saying anything. I'm summarizing what peer reviewed secondary sources state. According to the biased, POV pushing Wiki editors, Diop's book is not peer reviewed when he copy/pasted criticisms of his work into his book (English translation version), replied to critics in his book, and devoted an entire chapter of his book to responding to critics. Diop's books are every bit as peer reviewed as Lefkowitz books arguing with Bernal. Smacks of desperation to make this argumentEditorfromMars (talk) 22:51, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
In addition, I don't agree with your straw man argument that "I'm trying to take 19th century views and claim they represent the mainstream." This is an imaginary and fictitious position that I've never taken, so you're really arguing with yourself and your imaginary creation that you will never be able to attribute to a statement that I've placed in the article or on the Talk page. Here's what I am saying, in my own words:
  • The AE race controversy history article should cover the history of the AE controversy. The history shows numerous examples of lily white Europeans from Classical Greece, Rome, medieval painters, France, etc. saying in writing for millennia that AE's were black. Their books are still available for review. This shouldn't be so hard to grasp.
  • There was an AE controversy in the late 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, and 21st century. You can find the AE race controversy everywhere you look (e.g. in books, in magazines, at museums and at protests outside the museums, in scholarly journals, in movies, in critiques of movies, literally everywhere.
  • The black theory is part of the controversy and should be explained.
  • Advocates of the black theory base a lot of their theory on the writings of classical Greek and Roman authors. They also base a lot of their theory on the writings of 18th-19th century authors, like Volney/Champollion, etc. and they often lead with those 18th-19th century authors in their books.
  • Many 19th-20th century authors are open racists and due to their poor moral character, crimes against humanity, etc., they are the least trustworthy/believable people on Earth regarding African history, Ancient Egyptian history, AE race, etc. Even worse, their positions are unscientific, incoherent, and contradict themselves (like Champollion Figeac saying black skin and woolly hair AE people living in Africa since the beginning of time are not black and then contradicting himself a short while later in the same book by saying black skin and woolly hair is the hallmark of the black race). Figeac can't even make up his own mind about the racial groupings. Anyone with a rational mind that loves logic, reason, and objectivity will find it hard to not balance the absurd writings from these authors with an alternative viewpoint.EditorfromMars (talk) 03:18, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
  •  Comment: First of all, there was never any kind of 'consensus' that Ancient Egyptians were black in any point of history. Just like Herodotus wrote that Egyptians (and Colchians in Georgia!) were black or dark skinned, there are many greek and roman writers that differentiated clearly between Egyptians and Ethiopians, ethnically and nationally and regarding skin color, see Black Egyptian hypothesis article. Race is a modern invention, so even if Egyptians were seen as dark or even black in color, that doesn't mean they were seen as being "of the black race" like the hypothesis suggests. The views from 18th, 19th century and beginnings of 20th century are represented in "History" section and already given more weight than they should, as discussed above, when most editors refused to expand the section with Black Egypt claims. Repeating the claim that the majority of scholars that make up the mainstream now are racist because they disagree with your favourite pseudoscience will get you nowhere. From the middle of the 20th century the mainstream regards race itself as an unscientific social construct, so it's ridiculous to put them with 19th century scholars in the same sentence, who again held different views related to other refuted hypotheses mentioned in the article. Again, Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia, and it discusses minority views if they have notability, but gives prominence to mainstream views (the current academic maintream) MohamedTalk 11:07, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Clearly there was a consensus among classical greeks, Romans, and until about 1800 CE according to the multiple peer reviewed secondary sources that I've posted concerning the history subsection and other subsections. Please edit/enrich the article with content from peer reviewed secondary sources that provides an alternative viewpoint. Then we can discuss specific edits to the article. Your opinions aren't that convincing. I'm repeating the claim that the majority of late 18th to 19th century mainstream scholars are racist, because that is literally the position of every person that ever wrote a book espousing the black theory. Pick any of their books and I can guarantee you will find a section of the book that addresses the racist, unscientific, pseudoscience white theory publications of the late 18th to 19th century. Let's provide a few examples:
  • Mainstream scholar Volney says AE's are 'true negroes, same as all Africans' in the late 18th century. Volney quotes the same Herodotus passage as Diop and others. Volney also uses his own two eyes and his observations while in Egypt looking at the sphinx and Copts. Mainstream Father of Egyptology, Champollion the Younger (deciphered hieroglyphics) said 'dark red' AE's are descendants of Nubians. Mainstream scholar Champollion-Figeac says "black skin and woolly haired" AE's are not black. Literally, 36 lines later Champollion-Figeac contradicts himself and states "frizzy, woolly hair is the true characteristic of the negro race." You can see the absurdity. Figeac's statements turn the entire modern construct of race on its head and puts us in a parallel universe where black skinned, woolly haired people living in Africa from the beginning of time are NOT black. That's the beginning of pseudoscience, masquerading as Egyptology. There are no afrocentrists in that late 18th century controversy, just white Europeans debating AE race.
  • Mainstream scholar, Figeac continues and quotes Dr. Larrey, who examined a large number of mummies, and describes AE's as resembling Abyssinians with thick lips and copper colored skin. Then Figeac quotes Cailliaud and adds half frizzy hair. Two pages later in the same chapter, Figeac says "lengthy wars brought AE into contact with the African interior; one distinguishes on Egyptian monuments several species of Blacks...dissimilarities with respect to complexion, which makes Negroes black or copper-colored..." There you have mainstream scholars continuing to contradict themselves in the same book by saying AE's are copper-colored and then having to admit two pages later that there are Africans in the interior that are also copper-colored. The euphemisms of 'dark red' and 'copper colored' start to break down, as these mainstream authors admit that using the modern construct of race, people living in the heart of black Africa have 'dark red' and 'copper colored' skin. No Afrocentrists in this conversation. Just a bunch of white, Europeans discussing AE.
  • Mainstream scholar Cherubini (Champollion's travel companion) utilizes the Biban-el-Moluk document to characterize the AE race. He says AE's must be from Ethiopia, while quoting the unanimous opinion of the Ancients (Greeks and Romans, Herodotus, Diodorus, etc.). Cherubini goes on to talk about their "reddish-brown" color. Then, Cherubini while trying to demonstrate that AEs and blacks were from different races, says King Sesostris captured "some entirely black, others dark brown" Nubians wearing "panther skins" in his war. While trying to prove the impossible, Cherubini falls into the trap of admitting that black people (modern racial construct) from the heart of Africa have multiple skin tones and are painted with multiple skin tones in AE art. The same word "brown" skin ends up being used by Cherubini to describe AE and the Southerners that Sesostris captured, demonstrating the incoherence and weakness of his argument. Cherubini also says the Southerners had "hideous grimaces..reveal savage habits...that race..intermediate between man and brute." Proof of his racism. This racist passage from Cherubini refutes the claim of several mainstream scholars that AE's did not encounter "true blacks" until the 18th dynasty. No afrocentrists in this discussion admitting that both 'blacks' and AE's have brown skin.
  • Mainstream scholar Fontanes said "near the upper nile today, among the Fulbe, whose skin is quite yellow, those whom contemporaries consider as belonging to a pure race, are rather red; the Bisharin are exactly the same brick-red shade used on Egyptian monuments. To other ethnographers, these 'red men' would probably be Ethiopians modified by time and climate, or perhaps Negroes who have reached the halfway mark...it has been noted that in limestone areas, the Negro is less black than in granitic and plutonic regions. Thus, Nubians were former blacks, but only in skin color, while their osteology has remained absolutely Negritic...(about Lepsius' canon) the proportions of the perfect Egyptian body; it has short arms and is Negroid or Negritian...The Ancient Egyptians were negroes, but Negroes to the last degree." Pretty clear that all the Nile valley folks that Fontanes and Lepsius are describing are black in the modern racial construct. No afrocentrists in this convo.
  • Mainstream scholar G. Maspero states, "according to the almost unanimous testimony of the ancient historians, they (AE) belonged to an African race, which, first established in Ethiopia on the Middle Nile, gradually came down toward the sea, following the course of the river." Maspero goes on to state he believes Egypt colonized Ethiopia and not the other way around. Finally, he states "Pliny the Elder attributes the founding of Heliopolis to Arabs; but it was never so popular as the opinion that they came from the high plateaus of Ethiopia." Looks like non-African AE origin stories are in the minority according to the lily white Maspero. Finally Maspero admits in a long description of Old and Middle Kingdom AE statues in museums that they have thick lips. That's literally the only feature that might help to distinguish races (using the modern construct) that he listed, but nevertheless he concludes that AE's are white. He also admits that New Kingdom and later AE statues "transmit the primitive type..have been disfigured by repeated miscegenation with the foreigner" So now, as we move into the pseudoscience white theory timeframe, we have thick lipped, dark red/brown 'white' people living in Africa since the beginning of time. Oh the difficulty in trying to prove the impossible. No afro-centrists in this discussion.
Everything above from Diop's book, AOC 1974[2]EditorfromMars (talk) 16:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
  • You don't quote from the biggest proponent of Black Egypt hypothesis as a reliable unbiased secondary source. All these obsolete views are represented in the History section, with more weight than they should. Again, as you seem to have ignored what I wrote, you can't put 18th and 19th century and the beginnings of 20th century in the same sentence with the mainstream that deveoped in the 20th century that race itself is unscientific. The current mainstream is always given prominence in Wikipedia, while other notable viewpoints are represented with due weight.
You just said a few days ago "Wow! Yes. Consensus. We may have reached another stable state for the article and we can all go edit something else". Nothing changed since then except for the summary of Cleopatra and a sentence or two. You believed there was a consensus and now you're here questioning the entire article? MohamedTalk 14:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
I will make it quite clear for those that don't read between the lines well. It is a false claim by racist, Eurocentrist 'mainstream' authors that Afrocentrists started the black theory. Lily white Europeans (e.g. Volney) started the black theory when they said AE's were black. This was in the late 18th century and 19th century when the authors fully understood the modern construct of race (unlike classical Greeks/Romans). The AE race controversy began as early as Figeac when he pushed back on Volney and others and said that AEs were not black, although agreeing that they had black skin and woolly hair. Then, Diop who preceded the concept of Afrocentrism wrote essentially all of the most important positions of the black theory. Diop relied on Volney (Sphinx, AE race in general), connecting modern scholarship to the 18th-19th century scholarship. Secondary sources say that Diop is not an Afrocentrist and he precedes the concept. So all of the Afrocentrist sentences in this article are nonsense.
  • This sentence was recently added to the black theory, Authors and critics state the hypothesis is primarily adopted by Afrocentrists.[205][206][207][208][209][210][211][212] Were Volney, Dr. Larrey, Cherubini, Fontanes, Maspero, etc. Afrocentrists? They all said either the AEs were black, black with woolly hair, negroes but to the last degree, or from Ethiopia with reddish-brown/dark red skin, etc. All of these authors are white and preceded the concept of Afrocentrism by 100's of years.
  • It needs to be balanced by a similar sentence about racism and Eurocentrists in the white theory or removed.EditorfromMars (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
You clearly don't understand how peer-review works. Peer review means that you submit the proposed paper to a panel of experts, who then approve your work (methodologies, reasoning etc) or they reject it. If they reject it, you cannot publish it in a reputable journal. Diop never submitted his work for peer review, because he suspected that the panel of experts would reject it – as happened eventually at UNESCO anyway. Diop simply wrote off all the experts as racist, and continued on his merry way. Publishing a book which is rejected by experts does not make it a peer-reviewed book, it makes it a peer-rejected book.
Obviously "every person that ever wrote a book espousing the black theory" accused everyone who disagreed with them of racism. That is the entire rationale of Afrocentrism, after all. Reeling off a dozen or more sources who cite Diop citing Herodotus, does not "prove" that Diop (or Herodotus) were correct. This is what the wiki-warning meant when it said not to conduct a referendum.
We all agree that "Diop-thought" is heavily dependent on the works of classical Greeks etc, and that most Afrocentrists merely cite Diop and his sources, without regard to quality. This merrily ignores the FACT that Herodotus lived during the time in which Egypt was a Persian colony, and that Ancient Egypt was over long before he got there. Other authors such as Strabo and Pliny were even more recent – some were more recent even than Cleopatra. How relevant were their observations? Did Diop care? Did all the "classical" authors make individual observations, or did they merely repeat what they had read from earlier authors? Did Diop care? Did Volney etc study all of Ancient Egypt to draw their conclusions, or did they merely look at the people they met in the 1800's etc? How relevant were their observations? Did Diop care?
On the other hand, ACTUAL SCIENCE has used DNA testing to get a truer picture of events. The "Out of Africa" theory still holds true – nobody is refuting it. Once again you are on a straw-man rampage here. However according to the "Out of Africa" theory, all humans are descended from African ancestors – so we are all blacks together, even the Nordics etc. By this standard there are no "races", thus there can be no racism, and when the British invaded Kenya and the French invaded Senegal, they were merely "Africans coming back home".
Mainstream scholarship ALSO accepts that there was a major back-flow from the Near East into Africa at a more recent point. By this time, genetic profiles had diverged, and it might perhaps be possible to speak of "races" – although at a more diversified level than the "whites-yellows-and-us" approach of Diop etc. This does not clash with the "Out of Africa" theory at all. This well-attested back-flow is proved by DNA evidence, as discussed. Remember that at the time of UNESCO in 1974, DNA testing was not even imaginable – science advances over time, and new things are learned. Remember that I cited you TWO scientific papers, not just one, and that both were genuinely peer-reviewed, and published in respected scientific journals. That gives them much more credibility, and thus weight, than the musings of Herodotus.
Here is another actual scientific paper: {https://www.pnas.org/content/111/7/2632} "The fraction of west Eurasian ancestry in eastern African populations is generally higher in eastern than in southern Africa; the highest levels of admixture (40–50%) are observed in some Ethiopian populations."
The Dynastic Theory was abandoned because Naqada I and its northern equivalents predated the Mesopotamian presence, hence modern scholars speak quite correctly of "an indigenous civilisation". Petrie wasn't "embarrassed" – he did the best he could to explain the copious evidence of massive Mesopotamian influence. However mainstream scholarship still recognises the significance of that Mesopotamian influence, which came just before the Dynastic period kicked off. Furthermore that Mesopotamian contact continued unabated through the Dynastic period, until today. Since it was only a few hundred years from Naqada to Djoser, both Djoser and Imhotep may have had Mesopotamian blood – and perhaps even Mesopotamian family connections. See also Egypt–Mesopotamia relations
The Dynastic Theory section here includes material copied in from the Dynastic Theory article where Diop & Bernal rant about racism, but there is no mention here of why the theory was actually discarded. These extra few lines need to be added in, for balance. Any objections? Wdford (talk) 15:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
  • We can make the sentence "primarily adopted by Diop, Bernal and the Afrocentric school", since Diop and Bernal are not always considered a part of the Afrocentric school even if their works were welcomed and relied on in it, and were the basis for the hypothesis, specially in Diop's case. The multiple reliable sources cited after the sentence confirm that not only is the hypothesis mainly maintained by that school of scholars, the hypothesis is even called "the Afrocentric position" (Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction), promoted by the Afrocentric school (Afrocentric Voices: Constructing Identities, [Dis]placing Difference). Just because some scholars who may not have been afrocentrists themselves may have supported some points of the hypothesis doesn't mean we ignore that the hypothesis is indeed primarily adopted by Afrocentrists, that it's even called the Afrocentric approach, position, school. In The Historical Origins of Afrocentrism, the author states that "Many commentators have suggested that, since Afrocentric historical themes such as the belief that Ancient Egypt was a black civilization have been around since the 18th century, we ought to see Afrocentrism as a time hounored african- american tradition". MohamedTalk 15:38, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
A fair statement would say European authors, Diop, and the Afrocentric school... because Volney and Diop are not Afrocentrists and advocates of the theory rely heavily on themEditorfromMars (talk) 21:01, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
@wdford I'm keeping an open mind, but it's hard to deal with conflicting statements from other editors, like "Out of Africa theory is accepted and AE is indigenous to Nile is mainstream, BUT...here's a lot of info about Mesopotamian contact. Sounds like POV pushing. There were just as many "unabated" contacts with Nubia and we all know that Nubians are really dark skinned (bringing us back to the topic of the article). Furthermore, the civilization developed around Abydos, which is quite near to the Nubians.
  • We all know that, genetically speaking, humans are nearly identical. That's why race is no longer accepted as scientific, but this article is about a race controversy. It therefore requires us for the sake of the article to discuss race. Without a discussion of race, there is no article.
  • I clearly do understand how peer review works, and I clearly do understand that there are dozens, if not hundreds of books cited in this article. If you held these books to the same standard to which you're trying to hold Diop's books, our Reference list will be a lot shorter. Diop printing his critic's thoughts and then responding in his books is close enough to peer review and better than what many other author's cited in this article have done. If I were Diop, I also would not bother going through a peer review process with critics who say stuff like "black skin people with woolly hair living in Africa" are not black or "black skinned, white people that moved from xyz place and founded the AE civilization." That's a waste of time.
  • I don't feel the need to post articles about the Out of Africa theory, which precludes massive influx of non-Africans into East Africa, since East Africans don't have the non-African M and N haplogroups in any meaningful amounts. That's mainstream science. You can find it anywhere, including the Wiki Out of Africa page.EditorfromMars (talk) 21:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia isn't about what's fair, it's about what the reliable sources say. No mainstream source claims "Euoropean authors" are among the main proponents of the hypothesis, while abundant sources mention clearly that its main proponents are Diop and his Afrocentric followers, and "many commentators" noted that this hypothesis is "an afrocentric historical theme" that has its origins in the 18th century. There is a difference between an author whose works were cited to support the hypothesis (Volney for example, who was the first modern writer to advocate the debunked Christ myth theory by the way) and the authors that actually created the hypothesis and supported it (Diop and the afrocentric school) MohamedTalk 00:26, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Incorrect again. You have the impression that most authors claim that Afrocentrists started the black theory because you're only reading the works of biased critics, whose sole purpose is to discredit the theory. Let's review Foster's quote:
  • However, "Napolean's scientists concluded that the Egyptians were Negroid." Napoleon's colleagues referenced prior "well-known books" by Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney and Vivant Denon that described Ancient Egyptians as "negroid."[16]. Finally, Foster concludes, "it was at this point that Egypt became the focus of much scientific and lay interest, the result of which was the appearance of many publications whose sole purpose was to prove that the Egyptians were not Black, and therefore capable of developing such a high civilization."[16]
    • These "well known books" from Volney started the Black theory during the time period where the modern construct of race was in existence.
  • Now, let's take a look at the words of the leading proponent of the black theory, Diop. In his own words (not the words of a biased critic):
    • AoC, Chapter 3, 1st paragraph, pg. 43. "The problem of the most monstrous falsification in the history of humanity by modern historians could not have been posed better than Volney did." Clearly, Diop thinks Volney is the founder of the black theory. It's irrelevant what critics think of the theory's origin. It's critics entire job to try to destroy this theoryEditorfromMars (talk) 14:54, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
  • User:EditorfromMars is suggesting we discard the multiple reliable sources cited in support of the fact that the black hypothesis is primarily adopted by Afrocentrists, because they are "biased critics", and instead should rely on the (unbiased of course) works of the most notable proponent of the hypothesis, and an article in the Journal of Black Studies, a source for "radical Afrocentrism"[3] and the "house magazine of the Afrocentric movement",[4] founded and led by the self described Afrocentrist Molefi Kete Asante. MohamedTalk 21:09, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Current mainstream sources are not biased critics because Diop and some adovactes of a hypothesis refused by most scholars say so. MohamedTalk 01:29, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
A reasonable suggestion that gives more weight to what the Advoactes of the hypothesis say could be: "Mainstream scholars state the hypothesis is primarily adopted by Diop and Afrocentric scholars, but advocates of the hypothesis argue it originates in the works of earlier writers." MohamedTalk 01:44, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Caucasian Hypothesis

A 2003 scientific paper here [1] states that:

  • Background - "World-wide phylogeographic distribution of human complete mitochondrial DNA sequences suggested a West Asian origin for the autochthonous North African lineage U6."
  • Conclusions - "The most probable origin of the proto-U6 lineage was the Near East. Around 30,000 years ago it spread to North Africa where it represents a signature of regional continuity."
  • Background - "Attested presence of Caucasian people in Northern Africa goes up to Paleolithic times."

Should we add this actual scientific evidence to the Caucasian Hypothesis section, as it seems to be highly relevant to some of the claims made by supporters of that hypothesis? Wdford (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Why not start a white theory spin off article to discuss details, like you've done for the black theory. Otherwise, we'll have to add more examples to the black theory for balance.EditorfromMars (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no "white theory" – there is a "black theory", and there is mainstream science. When the scientists – in their peer-reviewed paper – state that the "attested presence of Caucasian people in Northern Africa goes up to Paleolithic times," they mean "attested by science", not attested by wishful speculation, or the contested interpretation of a contested ancient scribe. These results were supported by the other paper as well.
Adding "more examples to the black theory" is tendentious, and adds no value unless your examples are peer-reviewed DNA tests. Do you have any peer-reviewed DNA tests you wish to add? Wdford (talk) 15:12, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Caucasian theory is the white theory. Caucasian and white are synonyms. The definition of Caucasian is literally "white skinned." Look it up.EditorfromMars (talk) 20:11, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Not correct - see Caucasian race for accurate information. Wdford (talk) 20:21, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
According to Merriam Webster dictionary, definition #2: "The second refers to the racial group commonly referred to as white." You can state that there is an alternate definition of Caucasian that refers to Caucasus blah, blah, blah, but both definitions are accepted and printed in the quite popular/widespread Merriam-Webster english language dictionary. Words can have multiple meetings.EditorfromMars (talk) 20:26, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

As usual when discussing AE race, euphemism and compromise are the rule. From the article's Caucasian section and I quote "George Gliddon (1844) wrote: "The Egyptians were white men"EditorfromMars (talk) 20:29, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

If you would like to expand this article with more details from the various theories, I support that, as long as it's applied evenly to all theories. Specifically addressing the conclusions above, the proto-U6 lineage was listed in the source as from Northwest Africa or Near East. Therefore, using the source's analysis Proto-U6 could be indigenous to Northwest Africa. Proto U6 does not equal Caucasian/white.EditorfromMars (talk) 20:33, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Quotes from the source:
  • "The highest frequencies for haplogroup U6 as a whole are found in Northwest Africa (Table ​(Table2),2), with a maximum of 29% in the Algerian Berbers [9]."
    • Commentary: So something that is found in the highest frequency in Northwest Africa came from Arabia. Also, to move from Arabia to Northwest Africa it must pass through East Africa (subject of the article) and yet the source states "Its most probable route had to be through East Africa. So, the loss of variability in this area is puzzling". Not logical.
  • "there are no consistent traces of U6 lineages in Europe, Northwest Africa is left as the most probable place from where the African U6 subclades radiated. Another point is to decide whether the proto-U6 ancestor was also of African origin. Although it cannot be completely excluded, this hypothesis seems highly improbable even invoking strong bottlenecks in African populations. It is clear that the whole haplogroup U is an offshoot of macrohaplogroup N. This lineage, together with macrohaplogroup M, were the only ones that, belonging to the star radiation of L3 in Africa, left this continent to colonize Eurasia."
    • Commentary: U6 info that you want to add to the white theory, can't be found in Europe, the region synonymous with Caucasians/whites. The source can't exclude that proto-U6 came from Northwest Africa, where it's found in a high concentration today. Next, the source says all U haplogroups are offshoots of N, which is a descendant of the African L3. This is a story of Homo sapiens with L3 leaving Africa per mainstream Out of Africa theory, traveling abroad, and returning home...or proto-U6 is indigenous to Northwest Africa, where it's still found in high concentrations (the source cannot rule this out, while calling it improbable). This is shaky.
    • Finally, and most importantly this article is about NorthEast Africa (Egypt). The proto U6 and U6a mentioned in this article can barely be found in Egypt. U6 magically jumped over East Africa in its proposed Out of Arabia route and landed in NorthWEST africa in high concentrations. This is not an article about AlgeriaEditorfromMars (talk) 20:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Isn't it original research to add proto U6 and U6a info to the white theory section? I'm not aware of any white theory proponents that have used this info in their book or journal article to promote the white theory of AE civilization. I would think this would be a better fit for the position of modern scholarship section, if it didn't conflict with the AE is indigenous to the Nile valley mainstream view and the mainstream Out of Africa genetic view.EditorfromMars (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
  • The suggestion to put the DNA material in the Modern Scholarship section has merit. I originally mentioned the Maca-Meyer paper [2] in the Caucasian Theory context because it states in the Background section: "Attested presence of Caucasian people in Northern Africa goes up to Paleolithic times." They specifically used the word "Caucasian".
  • You need to get over your "white theory" moan. When actual experts use the word "Caucasian", it has a specific scientific meaning. To the extent that the article requires us to discuss race, we should at least use the terms correctly. Just because certain Americans use the term incorrectly, does not require us to use the term incorrectly in the article. Once you get past that mental block, you will be better able to correctly understand the scholarship.
  • "Peer reviewed" has a specific scholarly meaning. You can cite Diop's books, but you cannot call them "peer-reviewed" books unless they really were peer-reviewed – which they were not. Printing selected criticisms in your own books, and then trying to rebut them, is NOT "close enough" to actual peer-review.
  • The sentence "Authors and critics state the hypothesis is primarily adopted by Afrocentrists" refers to the current on-going situation, and thus was never intended to include the whole history of this theory. Diop and others who are no longer living, were thus not intended to be included in the sense of the sentence.
  • There is no evidence that the AE civilization "developed around Abydos". There was "civilization" in both the north and the south long before the Dynastic period. Once the Two Lands had been unified, the new Boss of Everyone (whoever he actually was) set up his capital in Memphis - i.e. in the north - and Dynastic Egypt was built from there.
  • You refer to the Wikipedia Out of Africa page. However you need to also read the Eurasian backflow and Early human migrations pages as well, to get the full picture.
  • The Asian back-flow into Africa is mainstream science. This is as conclusive as things get in this field. There is no conflict with the "Out of Africa" theory – the only conflict is with the Afrocentric POV. This is hard science, not Diop-style straw-clutching. The FACT has been attested by multiple different teams consisting of multiple experts each, published in peer-reviewed journals.
  • You need to understand the differentiation between "indigenous civilization" and race. The Asian backflow happened long before the Dynastic period, and the Mesopotamian influx into Naqada happened shortly before the Dynastic period. The AE civilization developed in Egypt, it was not imported wholesale by a colonial mission, thus it is correctly "indigenous". However the people already living in the valley at that time included a lot of Asian DNA, and the Mesopotamian influx at Naqada was very influential. Therefore, clearly, there is zero conflict between "indigenous civilization" and "Back into Africa" migrations.
  • You cannot second-guess the conclusions of experts who studied the data in detail, and whose conclusions have been peer-reviewed, just because it doesn’t support your own POV.
  • You quote from the discussion section of the Maca-Meyer paper – [3] which does indeed say that macrohaplogroup N and macrohaplogroup M were part of L3 that left Africa to colonize Eurasia. However you stopped there. If you had continued, the next few sentences say: "Five mutations separate N from the root of the African L3, and there are only late evolved N lineages in Africa, whereas representatives of the full N radiation are present in Eurasia. Thus, this continent [i.e. Eurasia] would be the logical homeland of the proto-U6 that came back to Africa and spread in its northwest area around 30,000 ya." That statement is quite conclusive.
  • Furthermore, you ridiculously suggest that the U6 must have "magically jumped over East Africa … and landed in Northwest Africa". However the experts conclude, quite logically, that the "loss of variability" in East Africa may be due to subsequent "posterior demic expansions" – in other words black people from elsewhere in Africa subsequently moved into East Africa and diluted the original genetic material. No magic required. See also the Olivieri paper below.
  • However you are not allowed to cherry-pick isolated sentences to support your POV. The experts state clearly, in the Conclusion section, that "The most probable origin of the proto-U6 lineage was the Near East. Around 30,000 years ago it spread to North Africa where it represents a signature of regional continuity." Solid.
  • Similarly, the Gonzalez paper [4] states, in the Results section, that: "The M1 geographic distribution and the relative ages of its different subclades clearly correlate with those of haplogroup U6, for which an Eurasian ancestor has been demonstrated." They further state, in the Conclusion section: "This study provides evidence that M1, or its ancestor, had an Asiatic origin. The earliest M1 expansion into Africa occurred in northwestern instead of eastern areas; this early spread reached the Iberian Peninsula even affecting the Basques."
  • Another paper, by Olivieri et al, [5], states that DNA tests of "haplogroups M1 and U6 reveals that these predominantly North African clades arose in southwestern Asia and moved together to Africa about 40,000 to 45,000 years ago. … Thus, the early Upper Palaeolithic population(s) carrying M1 and U6 did not return to Africa along the southern coastal route of the “out of Africa” exit, but from the Mediterranean area." Solid science, which also neatly explains how this DNA got to Northwest Africa but is sparse in East Africa - it apparently came along the Mediterranean coast (i.e. through Egypt) rather than via East Africa. Makes sense.
  • See – simple scholarship, without a pressing race-obsessed POV, makes things quiet simple. Diop did not have DNA testing in his day, but one wonders how he would have reacted to all the actual SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE which has since been accumulated? Wdford (talk) 19:36, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
  • User:EditorfromMars is suggesting we discard the multiple reliable sources cited in support of the fact that the black hypothesis is primarily adopted by Afrocentrists, because they are "biased critics", and instead should rely on the (unbiased of course) works of the most notable proponent of the hypothesis, and an article in the Journal of Black Studies, a source for "radical Afrocentrism"[5] and the "house magazine of the Afrocentric movement",[6] founded and led by the self described Afrocentrist Molefi Kete Asante. MohamedTalk 21:09, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Too many topics being discussed here. Sticking to the caucasian/white theory, which is the theory that AE's were white men according to quotes already in the article. I will read the Eurasian backflow articles, but you still haven't addressed the genetic mismatches between Ancient Egyptians, Egyptians, and Arabia/Mesopotamia:
  • One article is about U6a and proto-U6, which is almost non-existent in Egypt. The subject of this article. It's commonly found in Algeria. Not the subject of this article. You mention the Mediterranean coastal route for dispersal of proto-U6 arriving from Arabia, but EGYPT DOESN'T HAVE ANY U6. Again, the AE race constroversy article is not about Algeria.
  • The Out of Africa theory states that haplogroups M and N are not commonly found in Africa, including Egypt. These haplogroups are common in Arabia and mentioned in one of your articles. Therefore, it can be mainstream science that African L3 homo sapiens left Africa 50,000 years ago, per the Out of Africa view, and came back to Africa 30,000 years ago, per backflow, carrying M and N. The problem remains that M and N are still rare in Egypt, which means that there wasn't very many of M and N carrying people arriving from Arabia and it's insignificant to the genetics of Ancient and modern Egypt (unless you're talking about 7th century CE/AD and later migrations)Here's a mainstream science quote from the Out of Africa article, "L3's female descendants, the M and N haplogroup lineages, are found in very low frequencies in Africa" Not sure how much more clear that could be. Arabian mtDNA is found in VERY LOW FREQUENCIES IN AFRICA. This AE race controversy article is about Egypt, which is in Africa, where there's almost no M and N mtDNA. It's not relevant to this article. Maybe relevant to an article about Algeria.EditorfromMars (talk) 17:27, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
About indigenous vs race, maybe you should read this article on the evolution of human skin color (which is obviously the most important factor in the modern construct of race). https://www.jstor.org/stable/25064866 It is scientifically impossible to be indigenous to the Nile valley with its excessive UV solar radiation (UVA and UVB) and lack of cloud cover (due to almost no precipitation) and be fair skinned. The constant, year round, intense UVA would attack your folic acid and natural selection pressures would lead to your group's demise. Using science, such as regression formulas and correlations to Autumn/fall UV radation, they've predicted skin color for humans around the globe. Of course, their scientific model shows that Ancient Egyptian's are necessarily dark brown to protect themselves from excessive UVA radation. In addition, the article can help you to understand sexual dimorphism, which is a scientific explanation of AE's habit of painting women as fairer skinned than the 'dark red' men.EditorfromMars (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Per @wdford's advice, I just read the Eurasian backflow Wiki 'article', which is less of an article and more like a paragraph. Compare that to the mainstream Out of Africa view Wiki article. Moving on to the content, let's review this statement copied from the Eurasian backflow article:

  • "The term Eurasian backflow has been used for a recent migration of humans from western Eurasia back to East Africa, about 3,000 years ago.[1] Homo sapiens had left Africa about 70-50,000 years ago,[2][3][4] and about 3,000 years ago farmers from Anatolia and the Near East migrated back to the Horn of Africa"
    • Commentary: Glad that it admits, per the Out of Africa mainstream view, that anyone coming into Africa from Arabia is just coming home after a temporary sojourn in Arabia. Next, this migration is listed as 3000 years ago, or roughly 1000 BCE. That's far too late for an article on AE race controversy, since AE was a full fledged civilization 5000 years ago, or 3000 BCE. The proto-AE, indigenous people are even older than that. Conclusion, the 1000 BCE migration from Arabia is irrelevant to an article about the race controversy for a group of people that are indigenous to the Nile valley with a recorded history that dates back to at least 3000 BCE.EditorfromMars (talk) 17:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Balancing the Out of Arabia discussion with some mainstream Out of Africa content copied from the Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans article:
  • "In Oman, a site was discovered by Bien Joven in 2011 containing more than 100 surface scatters of stone tools belonging to the late Nubian Complex, known previously only from archaeological excavations in the Sudan. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates placed the Arabian Nubian Complex at approximately 106,000 years old. This provides evidence for a distinct Stone Age technocomplex in southern Arabia, around the earlier part of the Marine Isotope Stage 5.[43]" Plenty of Nubians living in Arabia before they came back home to Africa around 1000BCE
  • Quoting from the Haplogroup N article, "In 2019, a study by Vai et al. presented evidence of a basal branch of haplogroup N from the Neolithic Sahara. They suggest that N either diverged from haplogroup L3 in the Near East (possibly in the Arabian peninsula, following the exit of L3 from Africa), then back-migrated to North Africa, or that it instead may have originated in North Africa (having diverged from L3 there).[3]" I did not write the quoted sentence, yet the author reached the exact same conclusion as I did, these papers cannot rule out a North African origin for haplogroup N.
  • "In Sub-Saharan Africa, several ancient samples of N have been found, the oldest so far being K1a dating back to about 2000 BC in Kenya.[19]"EditorfromMars (talk) 18:06, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


  • Once again, the Caucasian Theory is the theory that the Ancient Egyptians were of the Caucasian race - as defined by scientific language, not American mis-use.
  • Re the rumoured genetic mismatches between Ancient Egyptians, Egyptians, and Arabia/Mesopotamia, the various scientific papers cited indicate a lot of affinity via the M1, and offer valid explanations for the variation in the U6.
  • This paper by Fadhlaoui-Zid et al [6] states, at page 13: "The most plausible explanation of the frequency distribution of M1 and U6 lineages, the coalescence age estimates, and the starlike shape would be an early split in the back to Africa migration followed by a period of stability and a period of expansion. The split would have produced two different migration waves, one westward, represented by U6, and the other southwards, represented by M1."
  • Yes, M&N might be scarce in Africa as a whole (ie among black peoples), but M1 in particular is very much present in Egypt, and down the Nile Valley to Ethiopia too. Also, you are selectively quoting only maternal lineages here – the cited papers stated specifically that the PATERNAL DNA shows a heavy presence of Asian input.
  • About the JSTOR skin-colour paper, it specifically says that: "Because of its evolutionary lability, skin color phenotype is useless as a unique marker of genetic identity. In recent prehistory, humans became adept at protecting themselves from the environment through clothing and shelter, thus reducing the scope for the action of natural selection on human skin.
  • Further on that skin colour point, you should have realised that the sun and UV and cloud cover of Egypt are very similar to the Near Eastern desert lands just across the Red Sea, where people are not black, but have nonetheless coped admirably with the UV etc for many thousands of years. Once again, "Caucasian" is not limited to fair-skinned whites only.
  • It is ridiculous to suppose that Sexual dimorphism should result in AE females consistently being a significantly different skin colour to their fathers and brothers and sons. In no other human community does this differentiation occur.
  • The cited sources indicate conclusively that the Eurasian backflow started at least 45kya, and that other migrations have occurred since then as well. This is why we use reliable sources for articles, rather than other wiki-articles. However the Eurasian backflow article will certainly get some additional material from reliable scientific sources in the near future.
  • The wiki-article Recent African origin of modern humans openly states: "L3's female descendants, the M and N haplogroup lineages, are found in very low frequencies in Africa (although haplogroup M1 populations are very ancient and diversified in North and North-east Africa) and appear to be more recent arrivals." Arrivals from where?
  • Also there is this 2004 paper [7] from Luis et al: "Oman and Egypt’s NRY frequency distributions appear to be much more similar to those of the Middle East than to any sub-Saharan African population, suggesting a much larger Eurasian genetic component."
  • From this 2016 paper [8] by Hervella et al – in the abstract: "The presence of the basal haplogroup U6* in South East Europe (Romania) at 35 ky BP confirms a Eurasian origin of the U6 mitochondrial lineage. Consequently, we propose that the PM1 lineage is an offshoot to South East Europe that can be traced to the Early Upper Paleolithic back migration from Western Asia to North Africa, during which the U6 lineage diversified, until the emergence of the present-day U6 African lineages." In the first para of the Discussion: "Population genetic analyses of modern-day human mitochondrial haplogroup distributions suggest that in conjunction with the Eurasian expansion, some populations initiated a back-migration to North Africa."
  • From a 2014 paper by Secher et al [9]: In the Background section: "Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6 has been considered as a molecular signal of a Paleolithic return to North Africa of modern humans from southwestern Asia." In the section discussing "Return to Africa traced by U6": "Focusing on mtDNA, it has been suggested that haplogroup M1 could be the travel partner of U6. However, there are notable differences in their geographic distributions, mainly in North Africa where U6 is predominant in the Maghreb and scarce in Egypt, while M1 shows the opposite trend, reaching its highest frequency in the latter country. The divorcing demographic histories of both haplogroups in Africa have been pointed out recently."
Obviously all humans came originally from Africa and we are all thus the same "race". However if people like Diop and yourself insist on differentiating races, then the people of Asia with their different genes were in the Nile Valley in large numbers long before the Dynastic period, and they would have been a big part of the Ancient Egyptian "race". Wdford (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
If we go to the top of this section, the original proposal for editing the article was to add U6 info in the caucasian/white section. To summarize the wall of text above:
  • All editors agree that the caucasian/white section is the wrong part of the article, because there is no secondary source using U6 mtDNA info as a justification/position in the caucasian/white theory. I'm pretty sure that the white theory was already abandoned before mtDNA results were even available. Therefore, "position of modern scholarship" would be a better section.
  • Next, multiple editors agree that U6 is practically non-existent in Egypt and therefore irrelevant to an article about Egypt. Maybe an article about Algeria is more appropriate. It would require SYNTH to tie U6 Out of Arabia migrations to Egypt specifically. It is possible that U6 came back into Africa via the southern route (e.g. Somalia) and completely avoided introduction to Egypt, which is why we can't find it in Egypt today. It's also possible that proto-U6 is indigenous to Northwest Africa, per the source.
  • Finally, multiple editors (me and the editor from the Backflow Wiki article) have concluded that Northwest Africa is a possible location for proto-U6 and ancestral N, as the source's state the same in their papers.
  • Would you like to switch your edit proposal to add M haplogroup content to the Position of modern scholarship section? At least M can be found in Egypt. Adding U6 would be adding fringe info, since U6 can't be found in Egypt.EditorfromMars (talk) 13:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Copied from Haplogroup M1

Much discussion concerning the origins of haplogroup M has been related to its subclade haplogroup M1, which is the only variant of macro-haplogroup M found in Africa.[7] Two possibilities were being considered as potential explanations for the presence of M1 in Africa:

  1. M was present in the ancient population which later gave rise to both M1 in Africa, and M more generally found in Eurasia.[8]
  2. The presence of M1 in Africa is the result of a back-migration from Asia which occurred sometime after the Out of Africa migration.[9]EditorfromMars (talk) 14:55, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Copied from Haplogroup M Wiki article African origin hypothesis

According to this theory, haplogroups M and N arose from L3 in an East African population ancestral to eurasians that had been isolated from other African populations before the OOA event. Members of this population were involved in the out Africa migration and may have only carried M and N lineages. With the possible exception of haplogroup M1, all other M and N clades in Africa were lost due to admixture with other African populations and genetic drift.[10][8]

The African origin of Haplogroup M is supported by the following arguments and evidence.

  1. L3, the parent clade of haplogroup M, is found throughout Africa, but is rare outside Africa.[8] According to Toomas Kivisild (2003), "the lack of L3 lineages other than M and N in India and among non-African mitochondria in general suggests that the earliest migration(s) of modern humans already carried these two mtDNA ancestors, via a departure route over the Horn of Africa."[10]
  2. Specifically concerning at least M1:
This study provides evidence that M1, or its ancestor, had an Asiatic origin. The earliest M1 expansion into Africa occurred in northwestern instead of northeastern areas; this early spread reached the Iberian Peninsula even affecting the Basques. The majority of the M1a lineages found outside and inside Africa had a more recent eastern Africa origin. Both western and eastern M1 lineages participated in the Neolithic colonization of the Sahara. The striking parallelism between subclade ages and geographic distribution of M1 and its North African U6 counterpart strongly reinforces this scenario. Finally, a relevant fraction of M1a lineages present today in the European Continent and nearby islands possibly had a Jewish instead of the commonly proposed Arab/Berber maternal ascendance.[9]EditorfromMars (talk) 15:12, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Copied from Haplogroup M and relevant to Ancient Egypt or Out of Arabia

In 2013, four ancient specimens dated to around 2,500 BC-500 AD, which were excavated from the Tell Ashara (Terqa) and Tell Masaikh (Kar-Assurnasirpal) archaeological sites in the Euphrates Valley, were found to belong to mtDNA haplotypes associated with the M4b1, M49 and/or M61 haplogroups. Since these clades are not found among the current inhabitants of the area, they are believed to have been brought at a more remote period from east of Mesopotamia; possibly by either merchants or the founders of the ancient Terqa population.[11]

The ancient Egyptian aristocrats Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht were also found to belong to the M1a1 subclade. The half-brothers lived during the 12th Dynasty, with their tomb located at the Deir Rifeh cemetery in Middle Egypt.[12]

Haplogroup M is also relatively common in Northeast Africa, occurring especially among Somalis, Libyans and Oromos at frequencies over 20%.[13][14] Toward the northwest, the lineage is found at comparable frequencies among the Tuareg in Mali and Burkina Faso; particularly the M1a2 subclade (18.42%).[15]EditorfromMars (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  • The only M sub-group mentioned in Egypt is Haplogroup M33a2 – India (Katkari, etc.), Egypt (Siwa)EditorfromMars (talk) 15:31, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I intentionally left out the sentence about Roman mummies, because I don't consider Roman or Greek's in Egypt to be AE, rather Greek and Roman history. I also don't believe discussion of Greeks and Romans furthers a discussion on AE race or race controversy, because we all can agree that Romans and Greeks are not the same population or race as the indigenous AEs.EditorfromMars (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

"Thus, in the context of the out-of-Africa model, the following scenario can be envisaged: haplogroup M originated in eastern Africa approximately 60,000 years ago and was carried toward Asia. This agrees with the proposed date of an out-of Africa expansion approximately 65,000 years ago. After its arrival in Asia, the haplogroup M founder group went through a demographic and geographic expansion. The remaining M haplogroup in eastern Africa did not spread, but remained localized up to approximately 10,000–20,000 years ago, after which it started to expand. Y-chromosome and chromosome-21 markers also support the African dispersal scenario, and in particular, other nuclear and mtDNA markers indicate eastern Africa as the origin of both African and Eurasian expansions." Quintana source - http://users.clas.ufl.edu/krigbaum/proseminar/quintana-murci_naturegenetics_1999.pdfEditorfromMars (talk) 16:18, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Skin color

  • Switching topics, the skin color paper quite clearly states that sexual dimorphism is a feature of all human populations and all women are fairer skinned than all human men (within a given group). These are not my words. Read the paper, pg. 600-601.
  • The skin color paper argues that skin color anomalies can be found where a population recently moved into an area (e.g. Eskimos in the extreme north are darker skinned, because they moved there in the last 10-15K years and have a diet rich in Vitamin D to prevent them from becoming unhealthy due to their non-ideal skin color for the environment). Coming back to AE, they are indigenous to the Nile valley and have been there forever. Since we know that the genesis of the civilization was in middle to southern Egypt, we would expect from the skin color paper (and it's scientific regression analyses) that a group of humans living in that climate forever would be dark brown, at a minimum to protect their DNA from UVA damage, which would negatively impact reproduction in both males and females. Arabia has more recent migratory pressures from fairer skinned regions than the Nile valley during AE times (e.g. the fair skinned Hyksos that invaded AE for a couple hundred years actually lived full time in the Near East) and yet there are still a lot of dark brown people in Arabia, especially southern Arabia (e.g. Yemen). I'm sure you know this.EditorfromMars (talk) 14:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • From the M haplogroup info above, you can see that M is prevalent in the extremely dark skinned populations of Somalia and Oromos of Ethiopia. The Quintana source concluded that M survived in a localized, indigenous population in Eastern African. It dispersed from there to other parts of Africa around 10 to 20,000 years ago. M is absent in the Levant, which causes problems for those claiming M came back into Africa from the Near East. Quintana also concludes that some of the M and N carriers left East Africa to populate EurAsia around 60K year ago, shortly after the mutation that gave rise to M and N in East Africa.EditorfromMars (talk) 16:33, 3 September 2020 (UTC)


  • My actual suggestion was to include the point that the "Attested presence of Caucasian people in Northern Africa goes up to Paleolithic times." Whether or not this was the U6 DNA or the M1 DNA wasn't central to my point.
  • We should also make it clear that the "old" scientists who started this theory used the term Caucasian race differently to the modern American usage, in case any other people are also confused. Certainly the quote from Gliddon should stay. However I'm sure you noticed that Gliddon actually said "The Egyptians were white men, of no darker hue than a pure Arab, a Jew, or a Phoenician." I don’t know what Jews looked like to Gliddon, but Arabs and Phoenicians (Palestinians) are not really "white" as such – although they certainly are Caucasian, and they are certainly not black.
  • I agree that the Eurasian back-migration should be in the Modern Scholarship section. We don’t need to go into which haplogroups exactly, as this detail properly belongs in the already-existing articles for the DNA history of Egypt, and the Population history of Egypt, and the Archaeogenetics of the Near East. As you have already noted, every haplogroup appears to have its own article as well. However we have multiple scientific papers that state the Eurasian back-migration as established fact. It doesn’t matter that you can maybe find other papers that suggest that maybe part of M1 maybe originated in Libya or whatever, the Eurasian back-migration is the point – and the people were Eurasian, not Nubian. Also, the scientific papers state that this happened long before the Dynastic period. Unless you have scientific papers that specifically state that there was no Eurasian back-migration before the Dynastic period, the point stands.
  • PS: Here is another 2012 paper by Hann et al [10] – From the Author Summary: "Proposed migrations between North Africa and neighbouring regions have included Paleolithic gene flow from the Near East". That is long long ago. And at the end of the section: "These sub-Saharan ancestries appear to be a recent introduction into North African populations, dating to about 1,200 years ago in southern Morocco and about 750 years ago into Egypt, possibly reflecting the patterns of the trans-Saharan slave trade that occurred during this period."
  • I note again FYI that the JSTOR skin-colour paper specifically says that: "Because of its evolutionary lability, skin color phenotype is useless as a unique marker of genetic identity.
  • However now that you have brought Jablonski to my attention, more factoids beg for our attention too. In their benchmark 1999 paper, "The evolution of human skin coloration" [11] Jablonski and her husband Chaplin stated four major results, which they have reiterated in other papers ever since.
  • In their benchmark 1999 paper, [12] Jablonski and Chaplin concluded with confidence that "all women are fairer skinned than all human men (within a given group)". On page 16 of that paper, they give a table with average results of this difference, which turns out to be 6% based on their scoring system. I'm not sure how they calculated the average. I suggest that this difference it visually slight – certainly nowhere near as dramatic as the representations of Egyptian art would suggest. Unless you have a paper that specifically states that Ancient Egyptian women really were dramatically lighter in natural colour than their menfolk, this hypothesis is entirely your WP:OR.
  • And while Jablonski states with confidence that "all women are fairer skinned than all human men (within a given group)", I quickly found two scientific papers that state exactly the opposite. This 2016 Spanish study [13] involving 1,057 subjects, found that: "with the same genetic variability, men tend to have lighter skin pigmentation and a worse response to the effects of ultraviolet rays." This 2012 paper [14] by Candille et al, a study of 470-odd subjects from Ireland, Poland, Italy and Portugal, concludes the Abstract with the sentence: "Interestingly, we also see that in each of these four populations, men are more lightly pigmented in the unexposed skin of the inner arm than women, a fact that is underappreciated and may vary across the world." Mmmmmm. I'm sure Jablonski tried hard, but it seems her studies have missed a few important points.
  • In their benchmark 1999 paper, [15] Jablonski and Chaplin tried to create a model which matched skin colour to latitude. (In our Skin reflectance article, some very helpful editor has included her table of global estimates of skin reflectance frequencies as observed in various places, together with her "predictions".) In the paper, Jablonski and Chaplin concluded that the "Predicted skin reflectances deviated little from observed values." However, while some results were close to the predictions, and while the "average" may have worked out quite tight (with all the huge discrepancies in either direction being neatly "averaged out"), it is clear from the table of results that some of her individual predictions were ridiculously far off the mark. For example, the Chopi people from southern Mozambique were twice as dark as her model had predicted. The samples from Darwin, Australia (presumably from indigenous Aboriginal people) scored 19 vs a prediction of 36 – almost twice as dark as predicted. Other samples also were wrong by about 50% or so. As the auditors say, "the devil is in the details". Mmmmm.
  • In their benchmark 1999 paper, [16] Jablonski and Chaplin concluded that "human skin reflectance (as a measure of skin pigmentation) was more highly correlated with latitude as a surrogate for UVR than with temperature, humidity, or altitude". Fair enough on the surface. However once again, the actual results do not bear this out. For example, the darkest person she could find was in Darwin Australia, (12 degrees S, observed colour 19.30, predicted colour 36.24). Meanwhile the sample from Cambodia, at 11 degrees N, was 54.00, ie very light, against a prediction of 38.99. The second darkest was a Chopi person from southern Mozambique (23 degrees S, observed 19.45, predicted 43.84). Also, Namibia (Okavango, 17 degrees S, observed 22.92 and predicted 38.63). Meanwhile, a number of samples taken AT THE EQUATOR were much lighter, e.g. the Konda people of the DRC (0 degrees, observed 29.40 and predicted 39.43); and Kenya (0 degrees, observed 32.40 and predicted 34.21). This is hardly a reliable predictive model.
  • Although Jablonski seemingly never measured anybody from Egypt, she does have quite a few samples from the same latitude as Egypt. Cairo (where you find the Pyramids of Giza, and Memphis, the capital city of the 1st Dynasty etc), is at 30 degrees N. Various samples were taken at about that latitude, e.g. Cyrenaica – Libya (31 degrees N, observed 53.50 and predicted 44.19); Tripoli - Libya (32 degrees N, observed 54.40 and predicted 48.83); Fezzan - Libya (26 degrees N, observed 44.00 and predicted 41.31); Morocco (32 degrees N, observed 54.85 and predicted 49.09); Saudi Arabia (24 degrees N, observed 52.50 and predicted 38.65); and Rajasthan – India (26 degrees N, observed 52.00 and predicted 42.19). This is very approximate, but it gives us an average of 28.5 degrees north, with an average observed reflectance of 51.87 against a predicted reflectance of 44.04. According to Jablonski, the Egyptians were at this mark, and they were about 18% LIGHTER than Jablonski's model "predicted" for this latitude. How does this Egyptian "average" observation compare against the Sudan actual observation of 35.50 (46% lighter), and the average observed reflectance from Ethiopia of 32.6 (59% lighter)? Mmmmmmm.
  • I continue to disagree with your assertion that the genesis of the AE civilization was in middle to southern Egypt. First, everything south of Memphis (Cairo) is considered to be Upper Egypt – Lower Egypt is just the delta. However Cairo is a long way north of Thebes, and very far north of Aswan. AE theology described Horus as the god of the North, and Set as the god of the South, and Horus triumphs over Set. The Gerzeh culture was a major fore-runner of the Dynastic period – and Gerzeh in only half a degree (about 60km) from Cairo. The 1st Dynasty founder (Menes or Narmer or whomever) built their founding capital city at Memphis – in Cairo, and Dynastic Egypt was ruled from Memphis until the 1st Intermediate Period. Heliopolis in Cairo was a regional center from pre-dynastic times. The earliest large stone buildings were the pre-dynastic Temple of On (Iunu) at Heliopolis in Cairo, and the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Cairo, and then the other large pyramids around Cairo. During the 1st Intermediate Period the Two Lands split up again, and once the country was re-unified the 12th Dynasty moved the capital to the fertile Faiyum oasis, close to Cairo. Communities developed simultaneously all along the river long before the Dynastic period began, but the genesis of the Dynastic AE civilization happened around Cairo, not in the south.
  • Of course the Hyksos were "fair skinned" – they were Canaanites, and Jablonski scores their skin colour in the low 50's – the same as the Egyptians and all the other North African desert peoples. Mmmmmm?
  • From whence did Arabia get these "migratory pressures from fairer skinned regions" please? Mmmmmm? Wdford (talk) 17:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
I think we have consensus if your plan is to put the Out of Arabia migrations from Arabia to the Nile valley in the Modern scholarship section. It will be key to balance any statement, so that readers understand that the Out of Arabia backflow migration is a theory and there is a competing African origin theory for all mtDNA subclades in question (M, N, U6). Any paper that you've posted on this topic has not been able to rule out the African origin theory, while favoring the Out of Arabia backflow theory.
About the genesis of AE civilization, I suggest reading the predynastic section of the non-controversial Ancient_Egypt article. It was Abydos and Hierakonpolis that were the centers of power at the dawn of the dynastic age.
  • Saying because they made their capital at Memphis, they were northerners is not a solid argument. That's like saying because Shabaka/Shebitku (chronology disputed) transferred the capital of the 25th/Napatan empire to Memphis that he must have been a northerner and his dynasty must have northern origins.
  • My position is that FROM Abydos and Hierakonpolis in the middle to south of Egypt, the first kings of AE conquered the entire Nile valley and then MOVED to the Memphis area. That means that all of their ancestors and family would be from the middle/south in Abydos or Hierakonpolis.
  • In addition to the Wiki Article, I would cite a 2011 book "Before the Pyramids" published by the Univ. of Chicago's Oriental Museum, Chapter 15, page 137. This chapter is called "The First Kings of Egypt: The Abydos Evidence" by Laurel Bestock
    • Chapter 15 begins by highlighting that "the first known truly monumental provisions for death in Egypt" were the principal source for "the rise of Egyptian kingship."
    • The decisive info in this discussion comes next, "all the rulers of the First Dynasty and the last two of the Second Dynasty - built their mortuary monuments at the southern site of Abydos."
    • Next, Laurel states "The tombs of these four rulers (Aha, Djer, Djet, and King Den's mother Merneith)...are adjacent to one another, just south of the already ancient cemeteries where Pre- and Protodynastic rulers were buried." She highlights a Dynasty 0 burial at Abydos. She also highlights the wealth of these rulers and high quality of artifacts found in their tombs.
    • This is an open and shut case. The Abydos/Hierakonpolis area is the the ancestral home of the Ancient Egyptian civilization and that ancestral home is really far south of the Delta and Memphis.EditorfromMars (talk) 15:48, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Again, as both I and Wdford said, there is no contradiction between the ancient African origin of all modern humans and later back to Africa migrations, and the research given discusses and suggests these back migrations builds on the much earlier out of Africa migration, so there isn't any consensus for your supposed balance, because they aren't opposing theories and they discuss completely different times. MohamedTalk 21:20, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
I will repeat myself for @Memelord0's sake: It will be key to balance any statement, so that readers understand that the Out of Arabia backflow migration is a theory and there is a competing African origin theory for all mtDNA subclades in question (M, N, U6). Any paper that you've posted on this topic has not been able to rule out the African origin theory, while favoring the Out of Arabia backflow theory. Here's an example of a properly balanced Wiki article about this topic area, which doesn't try to push a Eurasian backflow POV on the public, without admiting (like @wdford's sources did) that there is a competing African origin of M, N, U6 theory:
Much discussion concerning the origins of haplogroup M has been related to its subclade haplogroup M1, which is the only variant of macro-haplogroup M found in Africa.[7] Two possibilities were being considered as potential explanations for the presence of M1 in Africa:
  1. M was present in the ancient population which later gave rise to both M1 in Africa, and M more generally found in Eurasia.[8]
  2. The presence of M1 in Africa is the result of a back-migration from Asia which occurred sometime after the Out of Africa migration.[9]
According to this theory, haplogroups M and N arose from L3 in an East African population ancestral to eurasians that had been isolated from other African populations before the OOA event. Members of this population were involved in the out Africa migration and may have only carried M and N lineages. With the possible exception of haplogroup M1, all other M and N clades in Africa were lost due to admixture with other African populations and genetic drift.[10][8]EditorfromMars (talk) 16:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

"Thus, in the context of the out-of-Africa model, the following scenario can be envisaged: haplogroup M originated in eastern Africa approximately 60,000 years ago and was carried toward Asia. This agrees with the proposed date of an out-of Africa expansion approximately 65,000 years ago. After its arrival in Asia, the haplogroup M founder group went through a demographic and geographic expansion. The remaining M haplogroup in eastern Africa did not spread, but remained localized up to approximately 10,000–20,000 years ago, after which it started to expand. Y-chromosome and chromosome-21 markers also support the African dispersal scenario, and in particular, other nuclear and mtDNA markers indicate eastern Africa as the origin of both African and Eurasian expansions."EditorfromMars (talk) 16:08, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

In other words, a small group of homo sapiens NEVER LEFT AFRICA and dispersed the M haplogroup within Africa, from East Africa around 10,000 years ago. All balanced, NPOV Wiki articles admit this theory competes with the Eurasian backflow theory. Only in the race controversy article are editors trying to push the controversial POV that the Eurasian backflow theory has widespread consensus in the academic community and there are no other competing theories worthy of mention. Quintana disagrees. Other Wiki articles disagree. The "NEVER LEFT AFRICA" M haplogroup theory has support and competes with the Eurasian backflow theory.[8]EditorfromMars (talk) 16:12, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


I have responded to your envisaging of scenarios in the section at the bottom.
It is common knowledge that Abydos and Hierakonpolis were centres of pre-dynastic power in Upper Egypt. In Lower Egypt, the main centre/s were at Maadi/Heliopolis/Memphis/Cairo. (Wilkinson pg 310 and following). Lower Egypt was already trading far afield during pre-Dynastic times, with Canaan and beyond. In Pre-dynastic times the delta area was already populous, and prosperous. Wilkinson even suggests that Memphis existed prior to "unification", and that Menes/Narmer/whomever built his capital at an already-existing site.
Nobody disputes that the 1st & 2nd Dynasty kings were from Upper Egypt – although there are views that some of them may have married Lower Egypt wives as often happened in mergers of this nature (Lesko pg 49). There are also views that the merger may have been more gradual and less military than was originally supposed. [16] No problem with that. However that doesn't mean that all of what followed in Lower Egypt was purely the work of Upper Egyptians. There is evidence of Upper Egyptian artefacts in Lower Egypt, but no evidence that the local population was swamped out by Upper Egyptians migrating wholesale.
It is accepted that the remains of Lower Egypt tombs and structures are hard to find today, because they were largely covered by silt from inundations, because the mud-brick would be dissolved by the floods, and because the high present-day water table has made it very difficult and expensive to excavate many Lower Egypt remains. Core drilling is one of the few cost-effective exploration techniques in many areas. Therefore the only structures which remain substantially intact today for study are those built away from all of the many different courses which the river followed over 5000 years. Nonetheless there is consensus that Heliopolis was a major centre since pre-Dynastic times, and that the Temple of On was a major structure since pre-Dynastic times. Other authors have shown that the Memphite theology was a foundation of Dynastic religious practices (e.g. Dobrowolska, Reymond). Upper Egypt kings of early dynasties were buried in pits in Upper Egypt, but in Lower Egypt the kings had pyramids. It wasn't until the New Kingdom that Upper Egypt had a temple at Karnak to match Heliopolis.
Your Shabaka example does not illustrate the point correctly. A more valid example would be for the Spanish conquistadors to invade Mexico in the 1500's, and then for their disciples to declare the Aztec empire to be a Spanish invention.
I note also that at the 1974 UNESCO Symposium, Professor Ghallab "considered that the human race during the Palaeolithic period was more or less homogenous and Caucasian." [17]
As noted also below, there is a lot of scientific evidence proving that a backflow from Asia into Africa did actually take place, long before the Dynastic period. On the other side, the Quintana paper does not actually state that there was no such Asian back-flow. Unless you have a number of papers clearly stating that There Was Never Any Asian Back-flow Into North Africa, these conclusions must stand, and the so-called "competing theory" cannot be given equal weight as per WP:UNDUE. Wdford (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with Wdford. Multiple reliable sources indicate that the Back-to-Africa Migrations into North Africa about 12000 years ago are widely accepted. This isn't about the origin of specific haplogroups, it's about the evidence for migrations back to North and East Africa and to which region are ancient Egyptians more related, the Near east rather than Subsaharan Africa. This 2012 peer reviewed and often cited study says clearly that "Genomic Ancestry of North Africans Supports Back-to-Africa Migrations", "In most North African populations we see substantial shared ancestry with the Near East, and to a lesser extent sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. To estimate the time of migration from sub-Saharan populations into North Africa, we implement a maximum likelihood dating method based on the distribution of migrant tracts. In order to first identify migrant tracts, we assign local ancestry to haplotypes using a novel, principal component-based analysis of three ancestral populations. We estimate that a migration of western African origin into Morocco began about 40 generations ago (approximately 1,200 ya); a migration of individuals with Nilotic ancestry into Egypt occurred about 25 generations ago (approximately 750 years ago)." So the shared ancestry with Subsaharan Africa comes from the most recent migartions associated with slave trade, while the majority of North African ancestry is related to the Near east and back to Africa migration thousands of years earlier. This study from Science magazine 2015 says "Ancient Ethiopian genome reveals extensive Eurasian admixture in Eastern Africa" (4500 years ago). It's silly to claim that Back to Africa migrations are not widely accepted, and even more silly to suggest that Ancient North Africans shared more ancestry with Subsaharan Africans than modern North Africans do (which I believe is the central claim of the Black Egyptian hypothesis). MohamedTalk 01:55, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
In any case, I think the current state of position of modern scholars section is enough and doesn't need more additions, except for a summary of population history of Egypt added to the first paragraph of the section, focusing on the continuity between ancient and modern Egyptians and the influence of migrations in relation to the claims of the controversy, since a major claim of Diop and Afrocentrists is that the Egyptian population changed from 'black' or 'negro' to its current state because of invasions (the same claim that modern Egyptians aren't related to ancient Egyptians was also made by European 18th and 19th century writers). See Influence of forgein invasions section in black Egyptian hypothesis article for example. MohamedTalk 03:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@Memelord0 , few points:
  • Subsaharan is anachronistic to this discussion. Nubians are indigenous to the Nile valley and they are certainly not from Arabia. Nubians are also black and being SSA is not a prerequisite for being black. Only racists say that given the obvious black Nubians in southern Egypt and Sudan.
  • All of the following authors have doubts about the Eurasian backflow theory: Other authors propose that M haplogroup is native to East Africa and descended from the Africa only L3 group before the Out of Africa event.[18][19][10][8][20]
  • Your comments above state the Eurasian backflow happened 12,000 years ago, while many papers citing the Eurasian backflow state that it happened 35,000 years ago. This highlights that it's not settled science and people are still studying this topic area.EditorfromMars (talk) 22:34, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Foster 1974 pg 175-191 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Diop, Cheikh Anta (1974). The African Origin of Civilization. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. p. 1-100. ISBN 978-1-55652-072-3.
  3. ^ Masur, Louis P. (1999-05-20). The Challenge of American History. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6222-9.
  4. ^ Howe, Stephen (1999). Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes. Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-228-7.
  5. ^ Masur, Louis P. (1999-05-20). The Challenge of American History. JHU Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6222-9.
  6. ^ Howe, Stephen (1999). Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes. Verso. ISBN 978-1-85984-228-7.
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference metspalu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Quintana; et al. (1999). "Genetic evidence of an early exit of Homo sapiens sapiens from Africa through eastern Africa" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ a b c Gonzalez; et al. (2007). "Mitochondrial lineage M1 traces an early human backflow to Africa". BMC Genomics. 8: 223. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-8-223. PMC 1945034. PMID 17620140.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  10. ^ a b c d Kivisild, T; Rootsi, S; Metspalu, M; Mastana, S; Kaldma, K; Parik, J; Metspalu, E; Adojaan, M; et al. (2003). "The Genetic Heritage of the Earliest Settlers Persists Both in Indian Tribal and Caste Populations". American Journal of Human Genetics. 72 (2): 313–32. doi:10.1086/346068. PMC 379225. PMID 12536373.
  11. ^ Witas HW, Tomczyk J, Jędrychowska-Dańska K, Chaubey G, Płoszaj T (2013). "mtDNA from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman Period Suggests a Genetic Link between the Indian Subcontinent and Mesopotamian Cradle of Civilization". PLOS ONE. 8 (9): e73682. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...873682W. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073682. PMC 3770703. PMID 24040024.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  12. ^ Konstantina Drosou; Campbell Price; Terence A. Brown (February 2018). "The kinship of two 12th Dynasty mummies revealed by ancient DNA sequencing". Journal of Archaeological Science. 17: 793–797. doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.12.025.
  13. ^ Non, Amy. "ANALYSES OF GENETIC DATA WITHIN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK TO INVESTIGATE RECENT HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AND COMPLEX DISEASE" (PDF). University of Florida. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  14. ^ Holden. "MtDNA variation in North, East, and Central African populations gives clues to a possible back-migration from the Middle East". American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
  15. ^ Luísa Pereira; Viktor Černý; María Cerezo; Nuno M Silva; Martin Hájek; Alžběta Vašíková; Martina Kujanová; Radim Brdička; Antonio Salas (17 March 2010). "Linking the sub-Saharan and West Eurasian gene pools: maternal and paternal heritage of the Tuareg nomads from the African Sahel". European Journal of Human Genetics. 18 (8): 915–923. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.21. PMC 2987384. PMID 20234393.
  16. ^ Egyptian Archaeology edited by Willeke Wendrich, pg 1982 onward
  17. ^ as reported in UNESCO General History of Africa, Vol. II, Abridged Edition: Ancient Africa, by Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn Mukhtār, at page 39,
  18. ^ Non, Amy. "ANALYSES OF GENETIC DATA WITHIN AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK TO INVESTIGATE RECENT HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY AND COMPLEX DISEASE" (PDF). University of Florida. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  19. ^ Holden. "MtDNA variation in North, East, and Central African populations gives clues to a possible back-migration from the Middle East". American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
  20. ^ Pennarun, E (2012). "Divorcing the Late Upper Paleolithic demographic histories of mtDNA haplogroups M1 and U6 in Africa". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 12:234. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
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