Trivia on the Natufians

In 1928, Charles Lambert had uncovered, during a preliminary investigation at el- Wad, the first prehistoric art object discovered in the Near East, a finely carved bone animal head. He had also discovered human, later identified as Natufian, burials. - Courtesy of the University of Cambridge, the department of archeology.

The "Natufians", the reputed "first farmers" of the Neolithic "Near East", had gone from being regarded as mere "cannibals" by observers of the day shortly after being uncovered in the late 1920s to becoming widely recognized as "pioneers" of the farming economy that took hold in the Neolithic era and was subsequently swept into Europe.

More Analysis on Body Proportions; A review of:

Body proportions of circumpolar peoples as evidenced from skeletal data: Ipiutak and Tigara (Point Hope) versus Kodiak Island Inuit.

Holliday TW, Hilton CE.

Am J Phys Anthropol. 2009 Nov 19.

ABSTRACT

Given the well-documented fact that human body proportions covary with climate (presumably due to the action of selection), one would expect that the Ipiutak and Tigara Inuit samples from Point Hope, Alaska, would be characterized by an extremely cold adapted body shape. Comparison of the Point Hope Inuit samples to a large (n > 900) sample of European and European- derived, African and African-derived, and Native American skeletons (including Koniag Inuit from Kodiak Island, Alaska) confirms that the Point Hope Inuit evince a cold-adapted body form, but analyses also reveal some unexpected results. For example, one might suspect that the Point Hope samples would show a more cold-adapted body form than the Koniag, given their more extreme environment, but this is not the case. Additionally, univariate analyses seldom show the Inuit samples to be more cold-adapted in body shape than Europeans, and multivariate analyses that include a myriad of body shape variables such as femoral head diameter, biiliac breadth, and limb segment lengths fail to effectively separate the Inuit samples from Europeans. In fact, in terms of body shape, the European and the Inuit samples tend to be cold-adapted and tend to be separated in multivariate space from the more tropically adapted Africans, especially those groups from south of the Sahara. - abstract ends

One excerpt from the study states:

There is strong evidence for such selection operating in the millennia following the initial appearance of modern humans in Europe, i.e., among Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europeans (Holliday, 1999).

Specifically, the earliest modern humans in Europe for whom we have body proportion data tend to show more African-like body proportions (Holliday, 1997a), while later European modern humans show foreshortened limbs in spite of archeological data indicative of improved cultural buffering. This suggests selection for shorter limbs in Late Pleistocene Europe, although we also cannot as of yet rule out the possibility that late Pleistocene gene flow from Neandertals to early modern Europeans played some role in establishing more ‘‘cold-adapted’’ limb proportions for this latter population (Holliday, 1997a, 2006b).

Several issues stand out here: Fair enough, the earliest modern human evidence in Europe show "tropical African-like" body stature; however, here, we are told that evidence of "cold adaptation" starts to appear in the late Upper Paleolithic. Is it then safe to say, that while "tropical limb-proportions" has more than likely always been coexistent with considerable skin pigmentation, short index limb-proportions—as seen in Europe—are not as good as indicators of change in soft body phenotype, such as skin tone? If one goes by published journals from several skin tone analysts, it is hypothesized that the change in skin tone appeared to be marked by an episode of a selective sweep, likely some time close to the middle of the Neolithic (or early Neolithic in Europe) era [and the present author takes it that the suggested dates mainly correspond to contemporaneous European archeological status quo, as the dates may vary from region to region according to state of then existing economy type]. Now remember, it is hard to determine the ages of skin tone alleles under selective pressure with any degree of certainty. One has to therefore infer that skin tone analysts turn to secondary disciplines, outside of genetics, to come up with their age estimations; such disciplinary candidate is archaeology [like those associated with Neolithic farming traditions] and possibly, its paleontology sub-discipline. Only here, human paleontology appears to be disconcordant with examples of such age estimations that come to attention.

Note that the authors indirectly insinuate that a scenario of descendance into poor dietary and life style, relative to the preceding epochs—which is lacking here, does not seem to be a factor in such change in body stature; see:

Specifically, the earliest modern humans in Europe for whom we have body proportion data tend to show more African-like body proportion (Holliday, 1997a), while later European modern humans show foreshortened limbs in spite of archeological data indicative of improved cultural buffering.

Could it then be inferred that change in skin tone very likely accommodated change in body stature, but that such change was gradual in its spread and not in the extreme states that we now see in European populations? And as follows, that the spread of Neolithic farming subsistence factored into a subsequent selective sweep, given Europe's latitudinal positioning? If so, then only here, without extraordinary visible distinctions between "would-be intermediary Europeans" [in terms of skin tone developments] and the more extreme cases of contemporary Europeans, in terms of human remains record, one is hard-pressed to discern between such changes in soft body parts like skin tone.

A look back at older publication from the same author implicated above—Holliday (1999)—suggests that very possibility, the transitory scenario mentioned in the winding comment of the last paragraph (above); here is a copy of the abstract:

Among recent humans brachial and crural indices are positively correlated with mean annual temperature, such that high indices are found in tropical groups. However, despite inhabiting glacial Europe, the Upper Paleolithic Europeans possessed high indices, prompting Trinkaus (1981) to argue for gene flow from warmer regions associated with modern human emergence in Europe. In contrast, Frayer et al. (1993) point out that Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europeans should not exhibit tropically-adapted limb proportions, since, even assuming replacement, their ancestors had experienced cold stress in glacial Europe for at least 12 millennia. This study investigates three questions tied to the brachial and crural indices among Late Pleistocene and recent humans. First, which limb segments (either proximal or distal) are primarily responsible for variation in brachial and crural indices? Second, are these indices reflective of overall limb elongation? And finally, do the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europeans retain relatively and/or absolutely long limbs?

Results indicate that in the lower limb, the distal limb segment contributes most of the variability to intra-limb proportions, while in the upper limb the proximal and distal limb segments appear to be equally variable. Additionally, brachial and crural indices do not appear to be a good measure of overall limb length, and thus, while the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans have significantly higher (i.e., tropically-adapted) brachial and crural indices than do recent Europeans, they also have shorter (i.e., cold-adapted) limbs. The somewhat paradoxical retention of "tropical" indices in the context of more "cold-adapted" limb length is best explained as evidence for Replacement in the European Late Pleistocene, followed by gradual cold adaptation in glacial Europe. - TW Holliday, Brachial and crural indices of European late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans, 1999.

In other words, the concluding portion of that abstract suggests that while the brachial and crural indices of the limb components reported relatively high scores—generally characteristic of those seen in populations inhabiting the tropics, the overall actual lengths of the limbs of the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic European specimens tend to be shorter in comparison to contemporary European examples. This means that recent Europeans would generally be considered taller in comparison to their said earlier European counterparts, notwithstanding the higher limb proportion indices characterizing the latter; in simple terms, one may interpret this seeming contrasting manifestations of limb proportions vis-a-vis overall limb length as suggestive of being part of a transitory phase towards gradual cold adaptation, as noted above. As to the question of the most probable state of soft tissue phenotype such as that of skin tone, one which would have been contemporaneous with the said Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic physical states, one can only surmise some form of relaxation in epidermal melanin, without knowing the precise level; for instance, one might guess that it could have been along the lines of the Inuit, but then again, the Inuit are considered fully cold-adapted. So the question of skin tone is not clear here, and not nearly as neat as the correlation that can be made between tropically adapted body plan and the intense UV radiation levels of tropical latitudes.

And from the remaining segment of the first excerpt,...

This suggests selection for shorter limbs in Late Pleistocene Europe, although we also cannot as of yet rule out the possibility that late Pleistocene gene flow from Neandertals to early modern Europeans played some role in establishing more ‘‘cold-adapted’’ limb proportions for this latter population (Holliday, 1997a, 2006b).

If such event took place, i.e. gene flow between Neanderthals and early modern Europeans, then it appears that genetic drift had effectively sifted it out of modern human gene pool, almost akin to saying that the offspring emanating from such activity died out. On the other hand, molecular genetics presently rules out such undertaking, on the account of which, the analysts/authors here seem to be kept in the dark of.

Moving onto a second extract...

It has two main branches—a long and linear body build branch that includes the Egyptians, Sub-Saharan Africans (except for the Pygmies), and African-Americans and a second, less linear body form branch that includes the Inuit, Europeans, Euro-Americans, Puebloans, Nubians, and Pygmies. Note that the Nubians used in this study are thought by some to represent an immigrant population from Europe or Western Asia [see Holliday (1995)].

Well, it is not surprising to see ancient Egyptian specimens consistently group with sub-Saharan Africans, and not with Europeans, notwithstanding whatever supposed "caucasoid" archetype tendencies are said to be implicated in cranio-morphometric estimations according to some publications of the past, which are prone to inconsistency across different authors, because of variations in sampling selections to the discretion of the samplers. Several published journals have made note of this post-cranial feature of Nile Valley specimens, and they have been covered elsewhere on this blog.

However, the pygmies notably standout here in terms of body "linearity", given their traditional habitat in the African tropics of "sub-Saharan" Africa. Could it have anything to do with discordance between crural-brachial indices and "body build" brought about by their characteristic short height (in correlation to short limbs)? It certainly warrants further examination into the authors' findings and the premise thereof. Likewise the "Nubians", but explanation is offered here for the seeming anomaly. Funny thing about the latter, is the less likely inclination of fringe Eurocentric sects to seize on such isolated finding and use it to suggest that "Nubians" were primarily drawn from the "Nordic" or "caucasoid" stock.

On a winding note, there appears to be disconcordance between the post-cranial report from Holliday & co. (2009) and cranial report from Katerina Harvati (2009). As seen above, Holliday and co. deduced selection for shorter limbs in their late Upper Paleolithic European sample [as opposed to the earlier Upper Paleolithic European specimens], which is interpreted as a sign of "cold adaptation" to the temperate environment of Europe; whereas, Harvati's report shows closer positioning of both early Upper Paleolithic and late Paleolithic European specimens to modern examples from sub-Saharan Africa [Kenyan and South African, Zulu in particular] than they are to modern west European and north Levantine [Syria] counterparts. Now of course, we are looking at post-cranial analysis on the one hand, and a cranial one on the other; hence, precisely what sort of body proportions Harvati's late Paleolithic European specimens exhibited, is anyone's guess, unless data for such is made available. This disconcordance noted here though, as Holliday's 1999 study shows, is not total; after all, retention of "tropically-adapted" phenotype in the limb proportion indices is observed in the Late Upper Paleolithic to Mesolithic European specimens. That said, as a preliminary consideration, could the said contrast in reports from two different sections of human skeleton have something to do with that "gradual change" mentioned in the question put forth above? Perhaps the same question may be asked of the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave [in China] specimens, who are claimed to have close cranial affinities with the late Paleolithic European counterparts.

Naturally, this question makes sense, only if the said Harvati's late Paleolithic European specimens [the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave specimens as well] showed up body proportions consistent with observations made by Holliday et co. in their post-cranial analysis. However, it should be noted that the precise nature of the interplay of several different underlying factors behind cranial morphology is less clear than that underlying post-cranial skeleton, and while cranial morphology exhibits perhaps the most visibly diverse manifestations of hard human physical form, it is also more prone to overlapping [through happenstance in some cases, and gene flow in others] between a wide range of populations from across different latitudinal environments than the case is for post-cranial phenotype; for instance, specimens bearing tropical body-proportions in an unquestionably sub-tropical refugium serves as a fairly good indicator of  a peopling event, shortly after emigration from a tropical environment. If Europeans' earliest ancestors came from a sub-tropical refuge center of a generally cool geographical clime of say, central Asia, then one would expect less inclination towards the display of tropical body proportions, having undergone some level of adaptation or another to the sub-tropical environment. On the other hand, certain crania from populations in the tropics have been inflicted with pseudo-scientific labels such as "caucasoid", even as the body proportions prevalent in those populations turned out to be markedly distinct from so-called "caucasoids" of temperate latitudes.

*Keep an eye on possible future updates.
_______________________________________________________________
*References:

—as already cited.
— the rest is based on personal notes posted elsewhere.

Nehesu: What does It Mean?

For those who have ever been part of a Nile Valley discussion, the word "Nehesu" is a familiar one. However, this word seems to be shrouded in a bit of mystery, as far as its precise meaning is concerned. One thing is certain about it, in that it was generally referenced towards groups beyond Kmtnwt's (Dynastic Egypt) southern boarder, particularly beyond where lower Ta Seti lay. Several guesswork have taken place over the years, about its most purportedly-plausible meanings; however, these appear to be just that — guesswork. This includes the reported Budge translation of the term to "Negroes" , and other translation efforts which place the word as a term supposedly commonly associated with "slaves", "Negro" slaves. See for example, the following pieces:

Click on the images for hi resolution.

Speaking of which, some personal notes of the present author [of the blog] were made on discussion boards a few years back, mid-2005 to be precise:

Nhsw
Various folks connect it with "race", in particular "black" or "negro". On that note, it appears that there were/are proponents out there, however very few, who have tried to associate the term with some sort of a "hamitic" race, or what is supposedly "non-Negroid" black folks. As such, the word "nuhas", which denotes "copper", has been used to hypothesize that, the Nehesu were likely named after their “copper toned skin”, and in the terms of these advocates, this would mean "copper skin caucasoids"; not much different from how some folks here refer to “brown”, as a way to runaway from having to say ‘black’.

To my understanding, this word has been documented in the Old Kingdom, and it appeared that early Egyptian artwork used it in connection with "southerners", who were painted in the same brown skin tones as Kemetians. But then, in the Middle, Second Intermediate and New Kingdoms, it was applied to "southerners", who were depicted in varying colors from reddish brown to pitch black, including various dress styles, hair styles or wigs, and varying facial features. Aside from the “southerners”, I am not aware of the application of “Nhsw” to any other people.

Again, turning to languages still spoken in the region, like the Beja, various words have been utilized in hypothesizing possible origins of words, and their meanings. As an example, a Beja word “nehas”, which is understood as ‘being pure”, has been used in this manner. There is at least one perspective of connecting the word with a possible Kemetian viewpoint of their southern roots, i.e., their “pure” ancestors [pure, as in less foreign admixture], whereby this was looked at in relative terms, not absolute.

At the time these notes were presented, one opinion on the matter went like this, by a third party observer:

bonjour,

I think Nhsy's were a tribe or group of people linked together by rituals different from other parts of "deeper" Africa, who derived ntrws to animalism, totetism, etc….. whereas the Nhsy were praising a lot and praying, could be circumcising their children, because of the hieroglyphic spelling of the name, if you decorticate, you will have in prayer, n-Hst, hsi to praise,n-hsy or the ones in praising just my take on this.

If you look at the glyphs, you will see why i feel that way, the rope the walking stick, (moving tribes materials) and the rebel sign, the man with his hands behind his back, no! if i make any connection to Moses i will be fired.
but then i may be complètement à côté de la plaque.

sw

Of course then, the feedback offered by the present author was to the effect of:

I've heard this one too, along the lines of, 'being praised by God or a god', or 'the chosen people'...by God. This is supposed to be what the 'hsy' or 'hsw' in 'Nhsw' signifies, from this viewpoint.

But getting back to the glyphs presented above, at least one translation given to a variant of "Nehesu" was "peasant" — that Mdu Ntr term in particular, was "Nehi"; see the glyphs again:

Click for hi resolution

Along those lines, an effort was made by a third party advocate to tie "Nehesu" with a string of distinct nouns generally of a 'pejorative' connotation...

Click for hi resolution

The above was for instance, described and translated in the following manner:

...and this was a name of a 13th Dynasty Pharaoh .

Note that his Nsu Biti title contains the determinative for "Barbarian" - his SaRe title merely lists him as "Nahasi" - which I interpret as "The Barbarian" - a synonym in Mtau Ntr for "Peasant, supplicant, worthless ..."

The Greeks would later borrow this ideological terminolgy: Barbarian, for any people who were not Greeks...

The translation no doubt raises a red flag instantly, if for nothing else than the odds of a King, a figure who is generally quite protective of or guarded and sensitive about his image both during life and after death, allowing himself to be identified by anything that is synonymous with "worthless", unless of course, it was a case of some sort of "commemorative" gesture of ridicule bestowed upon him by a successor who despised him and sought to have history remember him in a soiled or less-than-flattering image?

While these various above-mentioned translations — bearing either pejorative connotations to them or else less-than-flattering air to them — were being offered, another set of meanings was being simultaneously offered for "Nehesu (Nehesw)" by the said third party, hence presenting sets of lexicons at odds with one another, at least in so far as conventional thinking goes; see for example, allegedly based off material cited from a Budge authored dictionary:

Nhsj (Nahasi)- a Sudanese man
Nhsj.t (Nahasit) - a Sudanese woman
Nhsjw (Nahasou)- Sudanese; southerners in general
Nhsjw (Nahasou)- The Sudanese tribes in the Tuat, the results of the masturbation of Ra.

The way it's written

Most words in the Mdw Ntr that began with the letter "n" were written with the hieroglyph of a water ripple; the word "Nhsjw" was written using the 'Guinea-fowl' glyph with the pronunciation being "Nh;Neh;Nah" - very few words began with this 'letter.'

...

In Budge's dictionary, alongside the word "Nehsi" there are additional hieroglyphics showing the different ways of writing the "Nehsi" in the plural. What interests us here is the following example:

Hieroglyphic:
(throw stick)+ s + (sedge plant) + "ou"

--The "throw stick" can be either a determinative; an ideogram; or a phonogram "rs" or "Aa"; at the beginning of a sentence it's a phonogram (and probably also an ideogram which indicates "foreign".)

--The "sedge" hieroglyph ("(n)su; sut") indicates the south; ie;Upper Egypt, Sudan...
So we have "rs"+ "s" + "su" or "Resou" which means "southerners" with the use of the "throw stick" to indicate "foreign southerners"; the same as it is used in the word "Aamu" to indicate "(foreigners)Asiatics"...

:essentially all non-Egyptian peoples in the south; "strangers"

......................

There's one Pharaoh that I came across while reading "Egyptian Language: Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics by EWB". If I recall correctly, the example text was from the "Stelae of Pa-Nahesi" (25th Dynasty?).

I personally think that the title "Pa Nahasi" was a self-deprecating play on words that would imply something like the Pharaoh calling himself "The Barbarian!" or "The Stranger!" - literally it means "The Sudani man". (not "The Nubian")

At the very least, these highly divergent translations of the term underlie the highly speculative nature of the translation efforts that have approached the term over the years.

Click for hi resolution

Furthermore, in reference to the cartouche [reposted immediately above] allegedly bearing a pharoah's name, which has "Nahasi" in it, it is simplistic to take "Nehesw" as "stranger", for if that were the case, there would be no need for a determinative/ideogram suggestive of "foreigner" in say, the first cartouche. That determinative is there, precisely to modify the meaning of the noun in question.

And as noted a few notes ago, one of the reasons for reposting extracts from an old internet boardroom discussion, "Nehesw" seemed particularly reserved for groups from beyond Kemet's (Dynastic Egypt) southern border; it wasn't applied to those in Kmtnwt's east, north or west, as far as recollection allows. Thus 'Nehesw' has got to be more than a synonym for "stranger", or its Greek equivalent of "barbarian" which is not reserved for any one group or territory, as the former appears to be. The precise meaning of the term continues to be uncertain, but what is clear in the meantime, is that neither "negro", "worthless", "peasant", "stranger", "Nubian" which is a Roman corruption of a Nile Valley term that was used in markedly different context from that of the Romans and their 'contemporary' European imitators of the word, nor "Sudan" — which is a fairly modern construct, cut it, as far as logical interpretation goes for reasons gone over. As such, this leaves a space here that calls for watching-out for future developments, in both the not-so-distant and distant future!

Crania: Behind the "Generalized Modern human pattern" ...

Within 'Medi-centrist' circles, ideologues have sought psychological refuge in this anthropological catchword, in relation to cranial morphology; however, what is this term really a code word for? Well, let's examine from the language of a few anthropological publications, what this really boils down to...

The reactionary and outdated anthropological work of Colin Groves naturally comes to mind immediately:

...The implications of the Herto find for modern human origins are clear. Here were H. sapiens, more primitive than anyone now living but recognizably members of our own species, living in north-eastern Africa at a time when the Neanderthal people were in sole occupation of Europe. Even later than Herto, the only people for whom we have evidence were still non-modern - an enigmatic Neanderthal-like skull from Maba in China, and late H. erectus in Java. Just as predicted by the Out-of-Africa model, modern humans appear in Africa long before they are known from anywhere else.

There are implications for the origins of modern races, too. Herto (and Jebel Irhoud) are H. sapiens, but with primitive features. They are not, racially speaking, Africans. The later Omo and Klasies remains are more modern, but they too are archaic, and certainly show no traces of the features that characterize any modern races. Only Qafzeh and Skhul seem to lack these primitive features, and rate as “generalised modern humans”.

Our species seems to have existed as an entity long, long before it began to spread outside Africa or the Middle East, let alone split into geographic races.

When, then, did H. sapiens begin to split into races? The evidence indicates that modern racial features developed only gradually in each geographic area. The earliest H. sapiens specimen outside the Africa/Levant region is from Liujiang in China, whose dating was recently confirmed at 67,000 BP by a group led by Guanjun Shen of Nanjing Normal University. Like Qafzeh and Skhul, Liujiang is a “generalized modern”; it has no Mongoloid features.

The East Asian fossil record is not good enough to show when Mongoloid features began to develop. All we can say is that they must have developed before the end of the Pleistocene (12,000 BP) because this is when people began to cross what is now the Bering Strait (which was then a land-bridge); and Native Americans are Mongoloid.

H. sapiens began to enter Europe about 40,000 BP, but it is only at 28,000 BP that we get a fossil that shows any Caucasoid features - the Old Man from Cro-Magnon, in France.

Within the African homeland, the appearance of Negroid features is debatable. The skull from Border Cave, on the South Africa/Swaziland border, may be 60,000 years old and may show Negroid features, but both claims have been challenged.

And Australia? The earliest widely accepted dates for human occupation are of the order of 60,000 BP, not more, according to Bert Roberts of La Trobe University and the late Rhys Jones of the Australian National University. The claim that the Mungo Man skeleton is 62,000 BP has recently been challenged. According to a recent study led by Jim Bowler of Melbourne University, both Mungo Man and Mungo Woman may be only 40,000 years old (AS, April 2003, pp.18-21), but they are still the earliest skeletal remains we have from Australia. Are they Australoid?

Of all “major races”, Australoids have evidently changed least from the generalized modern human pattern, but the flat, receding forehead and angular skull vault that characterise many full-blooded Aboriginal people today are somewhat different to the Qafzeh/Skhul pattern. A 1999 study by Susan Antón and Karen Weinstein of the University of Florida, in the process of confirming that some of the Australian fossils (including most of the famous Kow Swamp series) had undergone artificial head deformation in infancy, found unexpectedly that most of the Pleistocene fossil Australian crania are rounder-skulled than modern ones. So racial features developed late in this part of the world, too.

In summary, the new discovery at Herto does not shatter any myths, but it extends the dataset, shifts the weight of evidence yet more decisively in favour of the Out-of-Africa model of modern human evolution, and helps to place modern racial variation very firmly into context.

Colin Groves is professor of archaeology and anthropology at the Australian National University.

© Control Publications 2003

Let's see what Groves says is not the "generalized modern human pattern":

— primitive features

...which Grove observes, is a feature of the Herto, the Omo and Klasies specimens; and to drive this point, Grove tells us that: The later Omo and Klasies remains are more modern, but they too are archaic, and certainly show no traces of the features that characterize any modern races.

Apparently, bespeaking of the outdatedness of his viewpoint, the Omo specimens that Grove deems more modern, are actually much older than the Herto specimen — that is, outside the fallacy of "human races".

What else is not generalized modern, according to Groves?

— Mongoloid features

...on which we are clued in, here: Like Qafzeh and Skhul, Liujiang is a “generalized modern”; it has no Mongoloid features.

What else?

— Caucasoid features

And we know this, because Groves tells us that: it is only at 28,000 BP that we get a fossil that shows any Caucasoid features - the Old Man from Cro-Magnon, in France.

Mind you, this would be the same "Caucasoid" Cro-Magnons that Chris Stringer tells us: more like present-day Australians or Africans, judged by objective anatomical categorizations, as is the case with some early modern skulls from the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian in China

And with regards to which, Brace says: oft-repeated European feeling that the Cro-Magnons are “us” (46) is more a product of anthropological folklore than the result of the metric data available from the skeletal remains

We are also clued in that generalized modern isn't exactly....

— modern racial features...either!

Yeap, you probably guessed it; he implies this to us, right here: When, then, did H. sapiens begin to split into races? The evidence indicates that modern racial features developed only gradually in each geographic area.

Yet even by Groves' own rationale, although he turns around and simply says that it has been challenged, the so-called 'Negroid' trait preceded the so-called Caucasoid:

Within the African homeland, the appearance of Negroid features is debatable. The skull from Border Cave, on the South Africa/Swaziland border, may be 60,000 years old and may show Negroid features, but both claims have been challenged.

For if the said 'Negroid' features are attested to 60 ky ago, then that would apparently predate the questionable appearance of the so-called 'Caucasoid' features at ca. 28 Ky ago among the discredited "Caucasoid Cro-Magnons" , wouldn't it?!

But perhaps the most instructive piece of Groves' racialist discourse, is this:

Of all “major races”, Australoids have evidently changed least from the generalized modern human pattern, but the flat, receding forehead and angular skull vault that characterise many full-blooded Aboriginal people today are somewhat different to the Qafzeh/Skhul pattern.

It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that Australian aborigines are tropically-derived peoples, with considerable skin eumelanin, placing them well within the range of skin pigmentations found across 'sub-Saharan' Africans. In popular language, we all know the latter are known as "blacks". Indeed, Groves' ability to see closer phenotypic link between Australian aborigines and Upper Paleolithic "Eurasian" specimens of Qafzeh/Skhul and Australia, is consistent with the aforementioned Chris Stringer et al.'s assessment:

"Nor does the picture get any clearer when we move on to the Cro-Magnons, the presumed ancestors of Modern Europeans. Some were more like present-day Australians or Africans, judged by objective anatomical categorizations, as is the case with some early modern skulls from the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian in China

Source: African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity by Christopher Stringer and Robin McKie, Page 162

Stringer et al.'s observation is yet consistent with that of Neves et al. 2005:

"Increasing skeletal evidence from the U.S.A., Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil strongly suggests that the first settlers in the Americas had a cranial morphology distinct from that displayed by most late and modern Native Americans. The Paleoamerican morphological pattern is more generalized and can be seen **today** among **Africans, Australians, and Melanesians.**

Here, we present the results of a comparative morphological assessment of a late Paleoindian/early archaic specimen from Capelinha Burial II, southern Brazil. The Capelinha skull was compared with samples of four Paleoindian groups from South and Central America and worldwide modern groups from W.W. Howells' studies.

In **both analyses** performed (classical morphometrics and geometric morphometrics), the results show a clear association between Capelinha Burial II and the Paleoindians, as well as Australians, Melanesians, and Africans, confirming its Paleoamerican status."

Reminiscent of Groves' distancing of the generalized cranial morphology from the so-called 'Mongoloid pattern', Neves et al. tells us:

The increasing evidence that all late Pleistocene/ early Holocene human groups from South America are characteristically non-Mongoloid has major implications for the colonization of the Americas, as argued by one of us (WAN) since the end of the 1980s. Even if few studies with large samples from single sites have been carried out so far with Paleoindians (see Neves et al., 2003, 2004, as examples of these studies), it is evident by now that South America Central America and possibly North America, were populated by human groups with a more generalized cranial morphology before the arrival of the Mongoloids.

Like Stringer, they too see the generalized pattern as that akin to that seen in cranial morphology of tropical adapted groups like Australians, Melanesians and Africans:

— Since this more generalized morphology (‘‘Australo-Melanesian- like’’) was also present in East Asia at the end of the Pleistocene, transoceanic migrations are not necessary to explain our findings.

— As presented in detail elsewhere (Neves et al., 2003) the arrival of an ‘‘Australo-Melanesian-like’’ population in the Americas is easily accommodated under what is presently known about the place of origin and the routes taken by modern humans in their first long-distance dispersions (Lahr and Foley, 1998).

What Neves et al. tells us next, pretty much sums up why Upper Paleolithic African specimens show affinities with Upper Paleolithic 'Eurasians', as well as Paleo-Indians:

1) Accordingly, a population that began to expand from Africa around 70 ka reached southeast Asia by the middle of the late Pleistocene, carrying with it a cranial morphology characterized by long, narrow neurocrania and narrow, projecting faces.

2) We postulate that after reaching southeast Asia, this stem population gave rise to at least two different dispersions.

— 50 Ky ago
One took a southward direction and arrived at Australia around 50 Ka.

— Between 50 and 20 Ky ago
Sometime between 50 and 20 Ka a second branch dispersed towards the north, and arrived in the Americas by the end of the Pleistocene, bringing with it the same cranial morphology that characterized the first modern humans.

Neves et al.'s observations are apparently valid, and appears to be the consensus scientific finding, but even they fall victim to "idealized" typological constructs [as indicated by the need to refer to the term "Mongoloid" at all] — although to a much lesser degree than Groves — and it serves one to understand that when they speak of stronger phenotypic associations between Paleo-Indians and Paleo-Eurasians and contemporary dark-skinned tropically-adapted/derived groups like aboriginal Australians, Melanesians and Africans than other contemporary groups, that with regards to Africans, the comparison is being made with view to only a snapshot of African diversity. Take for instance, the following Neves et al. characterizations of the Paleo-Indian source populations:

Recap — Accordingly, a population that began to expand from Africa around 70 ka reached southeast Asia by the middle of the late Pleistocene, carrying with it a cranial morphology characterized by long, narrow neurocrania and narrow, projecting faces.

And then this — When the classical Mongoloid cranial morphology appeared in northeastern Asia, either as a local response to extreme environmental conditions, or as the product of a migration from northern Europe, a new expansion of northern Asians reached the New World, bringing with it a cranial morphology characterized by short, wide neurocrania and broad, retracted faces.

Although local microevolutionary processes in the Americas can not be precluded to explain the transition from a generalized to a very specialized cranial morphology (Powell and Neves, 1999), a model based on the entrance of two different morphological patterns from the Old World is much more parsimonious.

The two patterns are further described as follows...

The three different quantitative analyses undertaken in this study demonstrate that the first South Americans exhibit a cranial morphology that is:

1 — very different from late and modern Northeastern Asians and Amerindians (short and wide neurocrania; high, orthognatic faces; and relatively high and narrow orbits and noses)

2 — but very similar to present Australians/Melanesians and Africans, especially with the former (narrow and long neurocrania; prognatic, low faces; and relatively low and broad orbits and noses).

Source: Neves et al. 2005; Cranial morphology of early Americans from Lagoa Santa, Brazil: Implications for the settlement of the New World.

Clearly, the cranial patterns described in association with the Australian/Melanesian and African groups is only a snapshot of the actual overall diversity of Africans; the combination of traits described above is often invoked in what one might refer to as 'stereotypical Negro" — or as it has been referred to elsewhere — as "forest Negro". Certainly, these traits do not cover the full range of cranio-facial patterns observed across sub-Saharan Africans and Africans as a whole; they are just subsets of the said variation.

Revisiting that last 2nd point: 2 — but very similar to present Australians/Melanesians and Africans, especially with the former (narrow and long neurocrania; prognatic, low faces; and relatively low and broad orbits and noses).

It should be obvious from the above, that showing stronger phenotypic affinities with the above mentioned groups — Australians, Melanesians, and Africans, that this doesn't mean the said three groups show no inter-group differences; apparently, there are discernible phenotypic manifestations between them, with contemporary Australians and Melanesians perhaps showing somewhat stronger links to the aforementioned Paleolithic specimens than contemporary Africans, but relatively smaller distances between the three contemporaries and the Paleolithic specimens, than the case may be with other groups; this brings us to the:

Conclusion: Stronger phenotypic associations are observed between the modern tropically-adapted/derived groups like Australians, Melanesians and Africans and Paleolithic groups of Africa, Eurasia and America, because original modern humans were tropically-adapted Africans, who sported considerable skin pigmentation — that is to say, "blacks". Therefore, the 'generalized modern' is nothing more than a code word or just another euphemism for a variant(s) of the [naturally, dark-skinned] tropical African, otherwise also called "black African". This applies to their tropically-adapted Paleolithic descendant populations in the Levant, SouthAsia, Europe, and the Americas. The generalized moderns represent part of the then existing overall variation of tropical Africans, just as the "stereotyped" or "idealized" sub-Saharan African archetype constitutes just a part of overall phenotypic diversity of Saharo-Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ps — Some Eurocentric ideologues, as exemplified in Groves' work, unable to psychologically come to grips with their ultimate derivation from dark-skinned [tropical] African ancestors, conjure up pseudo-scientific "racialist" or typological discourse wherein they seek to mystify the fact by hiding behind code terms like "generalized modern", even if it means contradicting themselves in the process — again as Groves did — and overlooking it. For instance, from Groves, one almost gets the sense that he tries too hard to make a case that the generalized modern is a type which is spared so-called archaic features, yet distinctive from 'contemporary' populations which he divides and classifies into rigid types, while at the same time, acknowledging a relatively stronger association with the contemporary likes of aboriginal Australians. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that aboriginal Australians are considerably dark skinned peoples, whom like other tropical-affiliated groups like Melanesians, are in certain ways reminiscent of their dark skinned African brethren, not to mention sporting strong morphological affinities with both Paleo-'Eurasians' and Paleo-Africans, because they all emanate from autochthonous dark skin ancestral populations of tropical Africa — a fact which is relayed through cephalo-morphometric study, as just examined, and molecular genetics — wherein relatively deeper monophyletic units or markers are attested to in these groups [especially Africans] than those observed in their counterparts elsewhere!
____________________________________________________
*References:

— Colin Groves 2003

—Neves et al. 2005; A new early Holocene human skeleton from Brazil: implications for the settlement of the New World.

—Neves et al. 2005; Cranial morphology of early Americans from Lagoa Santa, Brazil: Implications for the settlement of the New World.

—Christopher Stringer and Robin McKie, African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity.

— Brace et al. 2005, The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form. Neat little link (clickable) to a discussion on the draft of the this paper before it went into publication!

Mechta-Afalou and the so-called Mechtoids: Continued!

Part 1 of this subject:
Mechta and Afalou: Do they and the so-called "Mechtoids" constitute a type with the "Cro-Magnon"? [clickable link]

The following are personal notes of the present author, largely made on a discussion...

It is worth noting that, just as Howell's collection falls short of representing a broader spectrum of regional inter-African variability, so is Groves' even smaller selection from this collection for comparative analysis, using the select "contemporary" groups as a basis for comparing the late Paleolithic/early Holocene specimens. This needs to be taken into consideration when recalling on Groves' claims about the so-called "caucasoid" and "negroid" intra-African geographical transition in the Paleolithic and how this divide supposedly shifted, with the so-called northern "negroid" territorial limit having shifted southward to some extent in the post-Paleolithic periods, in particular - the present.

Recalling Groves,...

a wide sparsely populated region whose people are intermediate morphologically between “Caucasoid” and “Negroid”. While the late and terminal Pleistocene populations of northern Africa were noticeably more robust than their present-day descendants (as were those of Europe), like them they were differentiated into more northerly “Caucasoid” and more southerly “Negroid” morphologies. **Yet the transition between these two geographic forms was much further north in the terminal Pleistocene than today**; the terminal Pleistocene Nubians and the Asselar skull are as “Negroid” as are the modern Teita of Kenya; the intermediates were the people of Afalou-bou-Rhummel in Algeria.

Going onto Groves' Factor analysis

Click on the image for greater resolution

 

The means of selected modern samples from the dataset of Howells (1973) were entered along with those of the fossil samples into a factor analysis to assess the interrelationships of the samples.

The males of the Afalou, Taforalt and Cro-Magnon samples lie far to the right on the diagram (Fig. 4), on factor 1, followed by Nubia male, Asselar, Cro-Magnon female, and Norse and Egypt male; to the left (scoring low on factor 1) are Dogon and Teita males, and the females of the remaining samples. On factor 2, Cro-Magnon, Taforalt, Norse and Egypt score positively, and Afalou and the sub-Saharan and Nubian samples score negatively.

Factor 1 represents robusticity, factor 2 represents the sub-Saharan/Caucasoid contrast. The Caucasoid populations (Egypt, Norse, Cro-Magnon) score positively on factor 2, the sub-Saharan Teita score negatively. The modern Dogon (Southern Mali) samples are intermediate. The fossil Nubians who were described as being Mechtoid score strongly negative, as does the Asselar skull (Central Mali). What is especially interesting is that Afalou also scores negatively, if only slightly; it occupies the same morphological position as do the modern Dogon.

Present author's take: Of note, is that in the figure in question, the Dogon which Groves' analysis deems "intermediate", it just so happens that the male specimen fell on the "positive" end, while the female counterpart on the "negative" end. Meanwhile, as claimed in Groves' notes above, the Nubian fossils which have been described as being "Mechtoid", report "negatively". That Groves considers the Dogon the modern "intermediate" specimen between two so-called "geographic morphologies" of "caucasoid" and "negroid" would be interesting to anyone who is familiar with the Dogon people.

An old New York Times piece on the Afalou...

"The discovery of a new race of neolithic man at Afalou, Algeria, with strange resemblances to the Natufians recently found in Palestine, was announced by the french scientists, Marcellin Boulle and Heri Vallois. Like the Natufians, these hitherto unknown people had some of their incisor teeth knocked out in early life and their limb bones were strong. Their discoverers were unable to connect them with either the Neanderthal man or the Negro or with mediterranean types of modern times."

What's interesting about this piece, is that it makes note of the "resemblances" between the Natufians and the Afalou. In a few years of discovery, in the 1930s, Natufians were then deemed by certain researchers of the time to have "negroid" tendencies. This was before any link between Natufians and early farming practices was made. Taking this into consideraton, one has to pause and think, when the New York time piece says:

"Their discoverers were unable to connect them with either the Neanderthal man or the Negro or with mediterranean types of modern times."

In relation to the above: Perhaps, the "generalized" modern type?!

Either the discoverers didn't have the credentials necessary to make educated comparative observations, or they knew something they didn't want to share with the reading public or their target audience.

It is not certain here what date the NY times piece was released or the full report, but it could be possible [aside from not having yet fully studied the specimens for finer details] that the claim for not being able to draw a connection with the said “types”, has something to do with the notion that the Afalou supposedly resemble or have affinities with the Upper European specimen named Cro-Magnon [who have been viewed as European ancestors]. Remember that Elliot Smith denied any possible ties between the Natufians and the “Negro” type(s), even though other Eurocentric scholars of his time at least acknowledged traits which they associated with the “Negro” type(s). If Afalou was deemed to have been “Negroid”, while resembling the Cro-Magnon, then this would be tantamount to saying that European ancestors, as Cro-Magnons, were “Negroid” or had “Negroid” tendencies as well. Would the Eurocentric scholars of that era have gone that far? The present author believes one can draw his/her own conclusions on this.

The Cro-Magnons don’t tie with contemporary coastal Berbers, as Brace points out, while Briggs and Groves’ seem to imply that the Afalou are not devoid of the so-called “Negroid” traits, painting them as “Intermediate” specimens. Groves’ comparison of the Afalou with the Dogon as being “intermediate”, is particularly interesting, given that we have an idea of what the Dogons look like.

Furthermore, Groves tells us...

“Arambourg et al. (1934) referred to these robust North Africans as the “Mechta-Arbi race”; Ferembach (1962) as Ibero-Maurusians, or Epipalaeolithic, after their lithocultural association. Briggs (1955) divided the Afalou and other samples into four “types” (Palaeomediterranean, African Mediterranean, African Alphine, and true Mechta-Afalou). Anderson (1968) considered them far too homogeneous to warrant this treatment, and indeed Briggs’s analysis is in the typological tradition that held sway up until about 1940, but was thereafter increasingly discarded” — C. Groves, 1999.

Briggs must have felt that he saw enough variations between the North African samples, so as to warrant the said four "types". But as Groves points out, others later, felt that the samples were less heterogeneous to warrant Briggs' kind of labeling, into four African "types". The legitimacy of a single type to which the above specimens, including the European Cro-Magnons, supposedly belong, will be re-visited shortly.

Groves goes onto say:

Exactly the same process of gracilisation seems to have taken place in this region; Carlson and Van Gerven (1977) attributed it to a change in masticatory function, associated with the processes leading to the adoption of agriculture. The largest collection, from Tushka and Sahaba, was described by Anderson (1968); he considered them in the context of “Negroid origins”, but ended by concluding that they are strongly resemble the “Maghrebian Cromagnoids”, as he called Mechta-Afalou populations, but considered that they were “half-way to ‘Negroidization’”, and demonstrated the late derivation of sub-Saharans from Caucasoids

Briggs, as pointed out earlier, felt that the North African samples, the African Mediterraneans, weren't devoid of "Negroid" traits, but acquired these from "Negro" females on their migration path. Anderson on the other hand, interestingly uses "Negroidization", meaning that the originally "Caucasoid" groups evolved into the "Negro" [Sub-Saharan as Groves put it] type. "Caucasoids" spawning "Negroids"; one wonders where that has been heard before?

Alternatively, how about the "Caucasoidization" [we all know why this term doesn't exist] of the original "Negroids"? Funny business! It should be obvious to anyone by now familiar with Out-of-Africa hypothesis of modern human origins, the overwhelming ongoing scientific consensus, that the idea of "negroids" evolving from "caucasoids" is utter descredited nonsense. Moreover assessment of the distribution pattern of human skin pigmentation alleles corresponds well with the Out-of-Africa hypothesis, as do most other genetic monophyletic units; links to that topic:

Skin pigmentation gene alleles [clickable link]

Skin pigmentation gene alleles Part 2 [clickable link]

Revisiting the issue of a "type" to which "Mechtoids" supposedly to belong...

“Arambourg et al. (1934) referred to these robust North Africans as the “Mechta-Arbi race”; Ferembach (1962) as Ibero-Maurusians, or Epipalaeolithic, after their lithocultural association. Briggs (1955) divided the Afalou and other samples into four “types” (Palaeomediterranean, African Mediterranean, African Alphine, and true Mechta-Afalou). Anderson (1968) considered them far too homogeneous to warrant this treatment, and indeed Briggs’s analysis is in the typological tradition that held sway up until about 1940, but was thereafter increasingly discarded” — C. Groves, 1999.

Recap: Briggs must have felt that he saw enough variations between the North African samples, so as to warrent the said four "types". But as Groves points out, others later, felt that the samples were less heterogenous to warrent Briggs' kind of labeling, into four African "types".

Let's examine this:

Recalling the present author's take: The specimens previously placed under the ‘Mechta-Afalou’ actually don’t represent a “type”, but an assortment of specimens that share affinities in some respects, and not so much so in others. Even “robusticity’, which it seems has been seized by some to justify classification into a “type” or “categorization”, varies.

...which is not incompatible with Brace's observation on "Cro-magnon" as well:

Paul Broca himself had promoted the view that the Basques represent the continuing existence of the kind of Upper Paleolithic population excavated at the Cro-Magnon rock shelter in the village of Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of southwestern France in 1868 (38-40). Shortly thereafter the “old man” -“le vieillard” -found in that rock shelter was elevated to the status of typifying a whole “Cro-Magnon race” regarded as ancestral to not only the Basques but also the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands (37, 41-44)…

When the Basques are run with the other samples used in Fig. 1, they link with Germany and more remotely with the Canary Islands. They are clearly European although the length of their twig indicates that they have a distinction all their own. It is clear, however, that they do not represent a survival of the kind of craniofacial form indicated by Cro-Magnon any more than do the Canary Islanders, ***nor does either sample tie in with the Berbers of North Africa*** as has previously been claimed (37, 44-45).
…

To test the analysis shown in Fig. 3, Cro-Magnon, represented by the x in Fig. 4, was removed from the European Upper Palaeolithic sample and run as a single individual. **Interestingly enough, Cro-Magnon is not close to any more recent sample**.

Clearly Cro-Magnon is not the same as the Basque or Canary Island samples. Fig. 4 plots the first and second canonical variates against each other, but that conclusion is even more strongly supported when canonical variate 3 (not shown here) is plotted with variate 1. If this analysis shows nothing else, **it demonstrates that the oft-repeated European feeling that the Cro-Magnons are “us” (46) is more a product of anthropological folklore** than the result of the metric data available from the skeletal remains... — Brace et al. 2005

...and in response to analyzing the following Groves' piece taken from his publication, “The terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene populations of northern Africa”, 1999:

To the southeast, further cranially robust remains have been described from Nubia, on the Egyptian-Sudanese border (Anderson 1968; Wendorf 1968a, b; Carlson and Van Gerven 1977). Exactly the same process of gracilisation seems to have taken place in this region; Carlson and Van Gerven (1977) attributed it to a change in masticatory function, associated with the processes leading to the adoption of agriculture. The largest collection, from Tushka and Sahaba, was described by Anderson (1968); he considered them in the context of “Negroid origins”, but ended by concluding that they are strongly resemble the “Maghrebian Cromagnoids”, as he called Mechta-Afalou populations, but considered that they were “half-way to ‘Negroidization’”, and demonstrated the late derivation of sub-Saharans from Caucasoids.

There are therefore a number of hypotheses about these terminal Pleistocene samples, which we propose to test this paper:

1. That the Mechta-Afalou populations are a generalized “robust” Homo sapiens population (Lahr 1994), or alternatively that they are robust because they are “Cromagnoid” in morphology, i.e. resemble the Upper Paleolithic populations of Europe (Ferembach 1985, Brauer and Rimback 1990)

Groves' results, with regards to 'robusticity':

Lahr’s (1994) hypothesis, that the Maghrebian samples resemble the Cro-Magnons, is true as far as the males are concerned, but not for the females. Cro-Magnon females are robust, as are Co-magnon males; Taforalt females, however, are not so robust.

As far as morphology is concerned, Groves' approach to discriminant analysis yields:

The discriminant analysis shows that the Nubian scatter is so wide that it is some of the Nubian males, rather than any of the Maghrebian ones, that are Cromagnon males’ nearest neighbors. The nearest neighbour of the Cromagnon females, however, is the sole Afalou female.

The frequency if occurrence of the horizontal-oval form of the mandibular foramen compares more closely to the Cro-Magnons in the Nubian than in the Maghrebian sample. In the Maghreb sample, it occurs in 1/15, ie. 6.7%, but in the Nubians in 4/18, that is 22.2% (in the Sahaba sample by itself, 4/14, or 28.6%).

According to Frayer (1992), in 38 late upper Paleolithic specimens (approximately contemporary with the present samples) this form occurs in 5.3%, although in 9 Early Upper Paleolithic specimens it was seen in 44.4%.

North African "Mediterraneans" [now defunct] and the so-called Mechtoid North African specimens were just part of early attempts of European researchers to seek a "European-like" component in north Africa, which in the case of the "Mechtoid" types, took the guise of using the so-called Cro-magnon specimen as the model to build the comparison around. Some of these researchers saw cranio-morphological resemblances between the so-called "Mechtoid" African specimens and the European "Cro-Magnon" specimen, as the present author has noted earlier, yet were not totally oblivious to the differences as well, which prevented them calling the African examples as plainly "Cro-magnons"...just as there were attempts to associate what was dubbed "African Mediterraneans" with the other so-called "Mediterranean" specimens, who just so happened to also belong to this one big happy family of "caucasoids".

Interestingly, as noted earlier herein, there had been some linkage drawn between the so-called "Mechtoid specimens" , i.e. the Mechta-el-Arbi, the Afalou-bou-Rhummel, the Taforalt specimens and possibly the likes of the Jebel Sahaba specimens of the Nile Valley, with what were dubbed as "Mediterranean racial types":

Recap: "The Negroid increment of which there is evidence in some of our Northern Neolithic Series, notably Kef-el-Agab 1 and Troglodytes 1, may have well come in the same way from the South to *add* to the *already* slightly **Negroid Hamitic cast** of the African Mediterraneans and of their **partial derivative**, the Mechta-Afalou Type." — Briggs

In another recap, Briggs goes onto to note that, again with regards to the so-called "Mediterranean racial type":

"...Type B which fits, in all essential respects, the usual definition of the Mediterranean racial type, but sometimes shows also certain morphological peculiarities commonly known as "Boskopid," as well as Negroid features among females. Type B therefore was classified as African Mediterranean...It may have well acquired its "Boskopid" traits on the road, near the headwaters of the Nile, and kidnapped a few Negro or heavily Negroid women on its way west before turning northward into Northwest Africa. The peculiar characteristics of such women could have been restricted largely to females, at least for a time, by artificial selection in the form of preferential mating." - Source: Briggs, Stone Age Races of Northwest Africa, pgs 81,89.

So, apparently both the so-called African "Cro-Magnoid-like" specimens [aka the "Mechtoid"/"Mechta-Afalou" type] in no way actaully represented a single cranio-morphometric type [wherein the "Cro-magnon" is used as the model of morphology], as the notes herein bring to light; the Maghrebian specimens are clearly distinguished from the so-called Mechtoid examples found in the Nile Valley, like the Sahaba specimens. We also know that the Megrebian examples, not in any way to be associated with contemporary northwest Africans, are clearly distinguished from the "Cro-Magnon" of Europe [seemingly acknowleged even in the terming of the "North African Cro-Magnoids" appellation—"iod" implying "likewise but not quite [what is the model]"], as demonstrated above in Groves' discriminant analysis where even some so-called "Nubian" specimens actually clustered closer to the European "Cro-magnoid specimens" than the Maghrebian examples. Yet, in Groves factor analysis, which he uses as his supposed gauging tool to term the "caucasoid" or "negroid" inclination of the specimens in question, the "Nubian" specimens were supposedly inclined towards the so-called "Negroid" tendencies, while the European "Cro-magnoid" specimens and the Maghrebian Taforalt series, to put it in Groves' terms:

On factor 2, Cro-Magnon, Taforalt, Norse and Egypt score positively, and Afalou and the sub-Saharan and Nubian samples score negatively.

...where essentially groups who scored "positively", were implied to have an inclination towards the so-called "caucasoid" tendencies...but it gets interesting, in continuing with Groves' claims:

Factor 1 represents *robusticity*, factor 2 represents the **sub-Saharan/Caucasoid** contrast. The Caucasoid populations (Egypt, Norse, Cro-Magnon) score positively on factor 2, the sub-Saharan Teita score negatively. The modern Dogon (Southern Mali) samples are intermediate. The fossil Nubians score strongly negative, as does the Asselar skull (Central Mali). What is especially interesting is that Afalou also scores negatively, if only slightly; it occupies the same morphological position as do the modern Dogon.

Present author's take: So [as already noted yet again], a Maghrebian specimen, namely the Afalou specimens, occupy the same position as the "modern Dogon" [although a Dogon male scores positively], which is the "intermediary" position? Well, we know what the modern Dogon generally look like...but if anything, at the least, this is yet indication that even the Maghrebian series don't all converge into a single cranio-morphometric "type".
[Note: Norse, Egypt, Dogon and Teita are supposed to be relatively modern examples from Howells' database — 1973]

Just as the so-called "Cro-Magnoid" actually fails to show a single morphological type, so does the so-called "Mediterranean racial type", as can be seen from the pains at which various researchers were trying to reconcile the seemingly so-called "Boskopid" and "Negroid" traits in "African Mediterranean" specimens with the basic ideology behind the so-called "Mediterranean racial type". Obviously the so-called "African Mediterraneans" notably differed from their so-called "Mediterranean" counterparts from across the other side of the Mediterranean sea, prompting these researchers to explain away what Briggs dubs as "morphological peculiarities". Now of course, as far as as the present author can tell at this point, we are not offered any specific extra-cranio-morphometric biological evidence that such "morphological peculiarities" were simply acquired from "miscegenation" between "African Mediterraneans" [whom by implication, were presumably devoid of such "morphological peculiarities" initially] and other groups which were presumably 'typified' by the said "morphological peculiarities", as opposed to being either relics or indicators of the natural micro-evolution of the said "African Mediterraneans". Of the present author's estimation, it seems that the attempt to draw up a type, around the Cro-Magnon model, as is the case to draw up a "Mediterranean racial type", is nothing more than futile Eurocentric attempt to create "types", more likely 'racial types', in which European specimens are presented as models, and extend this European family type into North Africa...as though an attempt to make North Africa into an extension of Europe, as opposed to its being factually [and objectively] part of Africa both geographically and biologically. The bio-anthropological goal of Eurocentric doctrine has historically been to create pseudo-scientific racial types or their subtly transparent "euphemisms", that will extend the associated "European-affiliated" family as much as possible into areas of interest. The pains at which Euro-researchers sought to create "types" around 'Euro-centered' or 'Euro-affiliated' models, can be exemplified in that seen in the following:

recap: “Arambourg et al. (1934) referred to these robust North Africans as the “Mechta-Arbi race”; Ferembach (1962) as Ibero-Maurusians, or Epipalaeolithic, after their lithocultural association. Briggs (1955) divided the Afalou and other samples into four “types” (Palaeomediterranean, African Mediterranean, African Alphine, and true Mechta-Afalou). Anderson (1968) considered them far too homogeneous to warrant this treatment, and indeed Briggs’s analysis is in the typological tradition that held sway up until about 1940, but was thereafter increasingly discarded” — C. Groves, 1999.

Translated source: Para conocer al hombre: Homenaje a Santiago Genovés a 33 años como investigador en la UNAM, by Santiago Genovés, Universidad Autónoma de México Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, 1990.

Speaking of which—with regards to the Afalou‘s being “neither Negro or San”, on the other hand, from Groves, to repeat...

factor 2 represents the **sub-Saharan/Caucasoid** contrast. The Caucasoid populations (Egypt, Norse, Cro-Magnon) score positively on factor 2, the sub-Saharan Teita score negatively. The modern Dogon (Southern Mali) samples are intermediate. The fossil Nubians score strongly negative, as does the Asselar skull (Central Mali). What is especially interesting is that Afalou also scores negatively, if only slightly; it occupies the same morphological position as do the modern Dogon.

Recap: So, a Maghrebian specimen, namely the Afalou specimens, occupy the same position as the "modern Dogon" [although a Dogon male scores positively], which is the "intermediary" position? Well, we know what the modern Dogon generally look like...but if anything, at the least, this is yet indication that even the Maghrebian series don't all converge into a single cranio-morphometric "type".

[Note: Norse, Egypt, Dogon and Teita are supposed to be relatively modern examples from Howells' database — 1973]

The discriminant analysis shows that the Nubian scatter is so wide that it is some of the Nubian males, rather than any of the Maghrebian ones, that are Cromagnon males’ nearest neighbors. The nearest neighbour of the Cromagnon females, however, is the sole Afalou female. - Groves

What seems to be at work here? It looks to be what the present author calls the "Spanish crania" syndrome:

"race classification of all individuals in this sample using the Forensic Data Bank option. Of the 95 individuals, 42 (44 percent) were classified as white, 35 percent as black, 9 percent as Hispanic, 4 percent as Japanese, 4 percent as American Indian, and the remaining three individuals as Chinese and Vietnamese" - Ubelaker et al., Application of Forensic Discriminant Functions to a Spanish Cranial Sample, 2002 [see: Cranio-morphological Variation]

The above pre-historic "Nubian" crania display a phenomenon not uninterestingly distinct from their more modern counterparts:

“If Fordisc 2.0 is revealing genetic admixture of Late Period Dynastic Egypt and Meroitic Nubia, then one must also consider these ancient Meroitic Nubians to be part of Hungarian, part Easter Islander, part Norse, and part Australian Aborigine, with smaller contributions from the Ainu, Teita, Zulu, Santa Cruz, Andaman Islands, Arikara, Ayatal, and Hokkaido populations. In fact, all human groups are essentially heterogeneous, including samples within Fordisc 2.0. Using Fst heritability tests, Relethford (1994) demonstrated that Howells’s cranial samples exhibit far more variation within than between skeletal series. There is no reason to assume that the heterogeneity of the Late Period Dynastic Egyptian population exceeds that characterizing our Nubian sample. This heterogeneity may also characterize the populations in the Forensic Data Bank; Fordisc 2.0 classified the Meroitic Nubians not as either all black or all white but as black, white, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American.” - Williams et al. 2005 [again see: Cranio-morphological Variation]

Such is the result of preconceived attempts to force superficial population variations to undeviating non-overlapping socio-ethnic or "racial" types.

Synopsis: The European inclination to see themselves in North Africans, a region home to one of the most glorified highly-structured social complexes of antiquity — notable examples being Kemet and Kush, is what this whole "Mechtoid" deal is about; in this case, the Cro-Magnon was the Eurocentric template of choice. However, as Brace noted, nothing about the cranio-facial morphology of the contemporary Imazighen suggests a link to Cro-Magnons. And indeed, genetics backs him on this point as well.

As we have seen, even the attempt to relate prehistoric North Africans to European counterparts has virtually failed, as the Mechtoid concept shows; the specimens designated as such neither display a single cranio-morphological type nor robusticity, as the term "Mechtoid" implies. Heck, they are all not even dated to the same time frames. So, it is nothing more than the Eurocentric concept, as Brace again noted, to use "Cro-Magnon" and say that the "Cro-Magnon represents us"...with the "us" meaning "European". Brace characterized this belief as being more of an anthropological "folklore" rather than fact. In fact, Brace says that the Cro-Magnon doesn't tie with any of the contemporary European specimens he studied. So again, the Mechtoid concept and its supposed relationship with Cro-Magnon, is nothing more than another Eurocentric way of trying to relate North Africa to Europe...essentially a *wishful* desire to see north Africa as more an extension of Europe than the actual continent [Africa] its attached to. However, it fails miserably not only for reasons just noted, but also from the fact that none of the so-called Mechtoid specimen 'types' covered here have ever been located in Europe itself.