Revisiting exchanges with Clyde Winters on the Meroitic script Pt. 2

Continued from Part 1 of this topic, here: Revisiting exchanges with Clyde Winters on the Meroitic script

Clyde is convinced that Meroitic must belong to the Niger-Congo superphylum, as put forth in his own words below:

I would classify Meroitic as Niger-Congo langauge.

The great savant Cheikh Anta Diop (1974,1981) was convinced that many West African groups had formerly lived in the Egypto-Nubian region before they migrated to West Africa(Diop,1974). He supported this hypothesis with a discussion of the cognation between the names for gods in Egypt-Nubia and West Africa (Diop,1974), Egypto-Nubian and West African ethnomyns and toponyms common to both regions (Diop,1981) and West African and Egyptian languages.

There are many relationships between Meroitic and other African languages. For example, In Oromo/Galla, the term for queen is 'gifti'; and both 'naaga-ta" in Somali and Wolof 'jigen' mean woman. These terms appear to be related to Kdi > gti/e.

Yet even though we find cognition between some Cushitic and Nubian we can not use these languages to completely decipher Meroitic as proven by many past researchers. The Tocharian language on the otherhand, does allow us to read Meroitic and show its relationship with other African languages.

A comparison of Meroitic to African langauges indicate that Meroitic is closely related to langauges spoken in West Africa. Like Meroitic, the pronoun is often a suffix in other African languages. This suffix of the third person singular is usually n-, in other African languages. For example:

• Bambara: no p r i 'his house'
  Kpelle: nyin 'his tooth'
  Akan: ni dan 'his house'

• Swahili: (1) a-ta kwenda 'he's going to go' (2) a-li-kwenda 'he is here' Manding: (1) ya zo 'he has come' (2) ya shirya mana 'he prepared (it) for us'. The use of -i particle to form nouns in Meroitic correspond to the use of the -it and -ayy suffixes to form nouns in Wolof. The Wolof abstract noun formative suffix is -it, -itt, e.g., dog 'to cut', dogit 'sharpness'.

In Wolof abstract nouns are also formed by the addition of the suffix -ayy, and in Dyolo -ay, e.g., baax 'good', baaxaay 'goodness'.

Prefixes are rarely used in Meroitic. The most common prefixes include the prefix of reinforcement -p, the intensive prefix -a and the imperfect prefix -b. The p-, can be either the prefix of reinforcement e.g., ŝ 'patron', p-ŝ 'the patron' ; or the imperfect prefix e.g., ŝiñ' satisfaction', p-ŝiñ "continuous satisfaction'.

The Meroitic p- affix, means ‘the’. This Meroitic grammatical element corresponds to the Egyptian demonstrative pi 'the'.

In Meroitic, the –o element is used to change a noun into an adjective. The Meroitic –o suffix, agrees with the use affix –u, joined to a vowel, in other African languages to form adjectives. In Swahili, many adjectives are formed by the k- consonant plus the vowel -u : Ku. For example:

• (1) imba 'sing' ; zuri 'fine'
  Kuimba kuzuri 'Fine singing'
  (2) -bivu 'ripe' Kuiva 'to ripen'
  (3) -bovu 'rotten' Kuoza 'to rot'.

In Meroitic the plural case was made by the suffix -b, or reduplication. Reduplication was also used as a plural effect in Meroitic, e.g., d'donations',d-d 'considerable donations'. Reduplication is also used in other African languages to express the idea of abundance and diversity. For example, Swahili: Chungu kikavunjika vipande vipnade ."The cooking pot broke into pieces".

The Meroitic use of the -b suffix to make the plural number, corresponds to the use of the -ba- affix in African languages. In the Bantu languages the plural is formed by the ba- affix. In the Manding group of languages we see use of the -ba suffix. In Manding, the -ba affix is joined to nouns to denote the idea of physical or moral greatness. For example:

• (1) na-folo 'good, rich'
  na-folo-ba 'great fortune'
  (2) so-kalo 'piece'
  so-kalo-ba 'considerable quarter of a village'.

In the Meroitic inscriptions there is constant mention of the khi 'body, spirit', the kha 'the abstract personality', the kho 'a shinning or translucent spirit soul'; and the Ba 'soul'. In many African languages the term Ba, is used to denote the terms 'soul or to be'. For example:

• Egyptian: Ba
  Mbachi : Ba
  Coptic : Bai
  Bambara : Be
  Fang : Be.

The kha, existed within and without the human body. It would remain with the body until its flesh decayed, then it would either leave the tomb or hunt it. The Meroitic idea of Kha, as a spirit corresponds to Ka, in many African languages. For example:

• Egyptian : Ka
  Manding : Ka
  Banda : Ka.
  

The linguistic evidence makes it clear that some of the Meroites may have spoken languages that belonged to the Niger-Congo-Mande family of languages. This is supported by the linguistic evidence of shared grammatical forms and lexical items between Meroitic and Niger-Congo-Mande discussed above.

Mr. Winters' talks of some observed similarities between Meroitic and other African languages, which should not be unreasonable given the common origins of these languages, and close proximity of its speakers at some point or the other. Aside from C.A. Diop, other researchers have also noted similarities between Meroitic and other African languages; for instance, Kirsty Rowan was convinced of its closer relationship with the Afrasan superphylum, largely due to what she observed as a pattern of consonant co-occurrence restrictions, when other researchers, as exemplified in Mr. Rilly, were convinced of its closer relationship with Nilo-Saharan. Some of these links made are more tenuous than others; as an example, when Mr. Winters says:

There are many relationships between Meroitic and other African languages. For example, In Oromo/Galla, the term for queen is 'gifti'; and both 'naaga-ta" in Somali and Wolof 'jigen' mean woman. These terms appear to be related to Kdi > gti/e.

...it may be of interest to note that when Rilly examined a basic vocabulary term like woman, the correspondances he noted down between Meroitic and Northern branch of Eastern Sudanic phylum seem to be relatively stronger than what Mr. Winters is describing above. In looking at the table below, courtesy of Mr. Rilly, one sees this:

Meroitic

Proto-nes

Nara

Proto-Nubian

Proto-Taman

Nyima

kdi [kadi]or[Kandi] "woman"

*kari or *kandi "woman"

kede "sister"

*kari "female"

-

ke r "woman"

The issue of suffix and preffix pronouns, along with plural affixes, is a common phenomenon in many African language and African language-derived superphylums, perhaps going back to the point of shared origins between them. However, the most interesting thing to note about Mr. Winters' position above about the closer relationship between Meroitic and the Niger-Congo superphylum, is the idea that it was made possible largely due to decipherment of the Meroitic script using the Tocharian language and/or writing system...

Recap:  

Yet even though we find cognition between some Cushitic and Nubian we can not use these languages to completely decipher Meroitic as proven by many past researchers. The Tocharian language on the otherhand, does allow us to read Meroitic and show its relationship with other African languages. — Clyde Winters 

The question that then jumps at anyone in the slightest know about Meroitic and Tocharian writing systems, is this:  

How can you use Tocharian to decipher Meroitic when the question of what cognate terms are shared between Meroitic and Tocharian hasn't been addressed, and when they use completely different scripts, developed at completely different timeframes, with the Meroitic script apparently being much older?  

With that question having gone unanswered by Mr. Winters as far as my recollection takes me, while on the subject of similarities between Meroitic and other African languages, there is no harm in noting that the apparent influences between Ancient Egyptian and Meroitic weren't lost him, notwithstanding his overlooking and downplaying of Demotic and Hieratic script influences in Meroitic script vis-a-vis the supposed relationship between Kharosthi and Meroitic [proposed by none other than Mr. Winters himself]:  

EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE ON MEROITIC  

Whereas Rilly is working from conjecture, my decipherment allows me to accurately and effectively compare Meroitic and Egyptian terms. Below is a discussion of the Meroitic and Egyptian relationship. The Kushites and Egyptians had a close relationship for millennia. As a result the Egyptians had a tremendous influence on the culture of the Kushites, especially in the area of religion . As early as the 12th dynasty the Egyptians controlled Nubia. After 1674 BC, the Kerma rulers regained control of Nubia until the raise of the New Kingdom. Pharaohs of the New Kingdom ruled Egypt for 500 years. Nubia gained independence after the decline of Egypt in 1085 B.C. During this period the Kushites developed a highly developed civilization at Napata and Meroe (880 B.C.-A. D. 350). Over time the Kushites became strong enough to conqueror Egypt and found the 25th Dynasty. The long association of Egypt and Nubia suggest that the Egyptians may have influenced more than the culture of the Kushites. In this paper we will review the affinities between the Egyptian and Meroitic languages. Ll. Griffith during his decipherment of Meroitic (M.) found many Egyptian (E.) terms . These terms were especially used in the political culture area e.g., E. p-sy-n-nsw 'son of king' > M. pesto 'king's foothold/foundation of light' .... 

In the short review above of Egyptian and Meroitic cognates we can see the obvious influence of Egyptian, especially Demotic on Meroitic. This influence was shown not only in vocabulary but also grammatical features. This linguistic material discussed above clearly suggest some Egyptian substrata influence on Meroitic. It indicates Egyptian influence on both the structure and vocabulary of Meroitic. It is very interesting to note that much of the affinity between Meroitic and Egyptian is based on Demotic examples. This may be explained by the fact that Demotic was used by the Kushites during the 25th Dynasty, and forms the foundation for the Meroitic writing.  

Naturally, the present author's response to this was:  

Not news. Nobody questions the relationship between Demotic and Meroitic scripts, which is the argument I've always put forth in our exchanges. Apparently, Demotic script was a basis for developing Meroitic script, which did take its own character notwithstanding. You acknowledge this link and yet, talk of this questionable origin from the much younger Tocharian script.    

Mr. Winters proceeds with this:  

There was no evidence that Meroitic was related to any African languages until my decipherment as outlined above. — Clyde Winters  

A disingenuous claim considering the point made above about other researchers having made links between Meroitic—including Mr. Winters own reference to Diop's viewpoint—and other African languages. Note: The so-called "decipherment as outlined above" was the discredited Kushana origins of Meroitic hypothesis, aspects of which will be revisited in posts to come.  

The comparative method was used to find the cognate language of Meroitic. Using this method Meroitic scholars have compared the "known" Meroitic terms to vernacular African languages to establish morphological cognition between Meroitic and an African language. Up to now these linguistic comparisons failed to reveal the cognate language of Meroitic — Clyde Winters  

That is actually false, as Rilly's demonstration was to show congnate lexicon relationship between Meroitic and sub-branches of the Nilo-Saharan superphylum, especially the Northern branch of the Eastern Sudanic subphylum. Now of course, Winters' approach to addressing Rilly's linguistic demonstrations, is to simply disregard it without actually engaging the specific points at hand, which is what the above citation really underlies.  

Rilly recently claimed that Meroitic is related to Nubian , eventhough Griffith and Haycock failed to read Meroitic using Nubian. — Clyde Winters  

Partially true, in that that previous attempts to classify Meroitic into the Nilo-Saharan superphylum had failed, using Nubian, but Rilly provided a good example of what caused such failures:  

1)impossible to prove a genetic relation between given languages if only a few basic words are available, as was the case **until recently**. 2) Moreover, in the list of the allegedly translated Meroitic words, some were actually wrong.

...and he goes onto give a specific example, by referring to Bruce Triggers' attempt to determine the relationship between Meroitic and the Nilo-Saharan superphylum, using Nubian:  

Moreover, in the list of the allegedly translated Meroitic words, some were actually wrong. In 1964, Bruce Trigger tried to prove that Meroitic was a Nilo-Saharan - and more specifically an Eastern Sudanic - language. He used a list of Meroitic words compared with Nubian and Nara, a language from Eritrea. But the list was still very scanty, and half the words he used, taken from Zyhlarz's articles, were erroneously translated - or simply did not exist at all. Although he was right in his conclusion, he was wrong in the way he reached them. — Claude Rilly 

Clyde Winter then rationalizes that:  

Rilly's hypothesis is that Meroitic can be read by reconstructing the proto-language of the Sudani language. — Clyde Winters  

Another glaringly false statement, as Rilly's objective was to show family association of Meroitic, NOT reading Meroitic by using the so-called proto-language of "Sudani language". Rilly figured that:

In spite of the scanty available data, the result is obvious : Meroitic is more than probably a member of the North Eastern Sudanic family.   

However, proto-NE Sudanic, proto-Nubian, proto-Taman, or any given language, can be reconstructed by cognate and phonetic correspondences across languages determined to be related and part of a 'monophyletic unit' via comparative analysis.  

Rilly claims that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan. He claims that this is supported by comparing the Proto-Nilo-Saharan to Meroitic, because the people living in Kush today are remnants of the Meroites. — Clyde Winters  

False. He proclaimed Meriotic's family relationship with the Nilo-Saharan phylum, after having compared Meroitic with contemporary Nilo-Saharan dialects of the NE Sudanic family. Moreover, Rilly did also analyze Meroitic with other language families outside of Nilo-Saharan, and found no strong correspondence, further rendering Mr. Winters' rationale invalid.  

We can disconfirm this theory because it is not supported by the historical and linguistic evidence we have concerning the linguistic and political history of Kush. — Clyde Winters  

Simple: One can't disconfirm something that he/she hasn't gotten right. In Clyde's case, none of the charges he attributes to Mr. Rilly, as just demonstrated, has managed to stick, because quite simply, he hasn't gotten any of Mr. Rilly's premises right. He is simply busy setting up strawman points and knocking them down, rather than confront the actual points Rilly makes in his paper.  

Rilly claims that Meroitic is Nilo-Saharan. He claims that this is supported by comparing the Proto-Nilo-Saharan to Meroitic, because the people living in Kush today are remnants of the Meroites. — Clyde Winters   

In what appears to be a broken-record style of argument, Mr. Winters now turns to a similar claim as the one made above two citations ago, but this time substituting "proto-Nilo-Saharan" with "proto-Sudani language". Fact is, for anyone who simply has read Mr. Rilly's piece, that Mr. Rilly makes no such deduction; rather, Meroitic was compared with contemporary actual subphylums of Nilo-Saharan, and was found to be relatively closer to the northern branch of the Eastern Sudanic subphylum of Nilo-Saharan. In fact, Mr. Rilly did not make any mention of proto-Nilo-Saharan in entire his piece. 

Because there are no cognate Meroitic terms and lexical items in the Eastern Sudanic Languages, Rilly has begun to reconstruct Proto-Eastern Sudanic, and attempt to read Meroitic text using his Proto-Eastern Sudanic vocabulary. — Clyde Winters  

The claim about Mr. Rilly using Proto-Eastern Sudanic or any "Proto-Sudani language", as Clyde calls it, to read Meroitic, has already been falsified several posts ago — above. As to the issue of there being "no cognate Meroitic terms and lexical items in the Eastern Sudanic languages", it is a matter of fact that Rilly demonstrated lexical cognition in the tables. One of those tables specifically represents relationship via lexicostatistic analysis, using contemporary Nilo-Saharan languages and available Meroitic lexicons. The comparative analysis revealed that Meroitic was relatively closer to the northern branch of the Eastern Sudanic subphylum than any other Nilo-Saharan subphylum.  

Even if I hadn’t deciphered the Meroitic writing this method would never lead to the decipherment of this or any other language. — Clyde Winters 

When it is obvious that Mr. Winters hasn't even grasped the proclaimed goal of Mr. Rilly, then how can anyone take it for granted that he has understood the body of Rilly's piece, which has correctly been demonstrated time and again nonetheless, that he hasn't?!  

The problem with Rilly’s method, is there is no way he can really establish the IPLs in Eastern Sudanic because we have not textual evidence or lexical items spoken by people who lived in the Sudan in Meroitic times. As a result, the languages spoken by people in this area today may not reflect the linguistic geography of the Sudan in the Meroitic period. — Clyde Winters  

First glaringly ridiculous claim in that statement, is the notion that the "IPLs" (Intermediate Proto-languages) in the Eastern Sudanic branch is not possible, simply because there is no textual evidence or lexical items spoken by "people who lived in Sudan in Meroitic times". One doesn't need such evidence to reconstruct an 'intermediary' proto-language; all one needs as a prerequisite, are a number of related languages of the given subphylum, understand their relationship both lexically and morphologically, and henceforth, reconstruct the proto-terms. 

Secondly, Mr. Rilly apparently has not come across any such problem of reconstructing the proto-language of certain subphylum(s) of the eastern Sudanic branch. Additionally, one need not establish that these languages were specifically spoken in Sudan in the Meroitic times with textual evidence; rather, only that comparative linguistic analysis has shown genetic relationship between Meroitic and these languages, after exhaustive comparative analysis between Meroitic and language phylums from other language superphylums...and Mr. Rilly has made it known that this is in fact what he had done. 

Thirdly, Mr. Winters himself has no evidence that NO single contemporary Eastern Sudanic language spoken in the Nile Valley today existed therein since the Meroitic period, if not longer.  

This is most evident when we look at modern Egypt. Today the dominant language is Arabic, and yet Arabic has no relationship to Egyptian. If we accept Rilly’s method for deciphering Egyptian we would assume that once me reconstructed proto-Semitic , we could read Egyptian—but as you know Egyptian is not a Semitic language. — Clyde Winters 

Mr. Winters proceeds with the above in an attempt to buttress his strawmen arguments, but it still fails to lend them any semblance of legitimacy. As a matter of fact, Arabic is deemed to have some relationship with Egyptian, as both are determined to be part of the northern branch of the Afrasan superphylum, and both are proclaimed to be largely non-tonal in their sound system. That aside though, Arabic isn't indigenous to Egypt, but is derived from a single source, 'Arabic' [albeit infused with some surviving local lexicon] from the Arabian peninsula. The same can't be said of the Nilo-Saharan dialects spread along Sudan to southern Egypt. These are 'indigenous' languages. If Mr. Winters' point is related to the above, which would be that Eastern Sudanic languages may not have existed in Sudanese Nile Valley back in the Meroitic times, then it would still go back to the aforementioned point about having utilized exhaustive comparative analysis, using various language superphylums to determine family association, which was the proclaimed goal of Mr. Rilly. Now of course, when Mr. Winters was asked if he was suggesting that *all* the different dialects of Eastern Sudanic language in the Nile Valley today suddenly replaced *all* the former languages of the region, leaving no trace of the original languages of the region, the question was met with graveyard silence. As invalid as ever before, Mr. Winters' analogy of using proto-Semitic to read Egyptian, on the account that Egyptian is not deemed to be Semitic, has no bearing on Mr. Rilly's premise, because time and again, Mr. Rilly didn't attempt to, nor did he have to read Meroitic by using some proto-Eastern Sudanic subphylum.   

And to recap: 

Rilly did also analyze Meroitic with other language families outside of Nilo-Saharan, and found no strong correspondence, further rendering Mr. Winters' rationale invalid in all counts to the citation above It is at this point, Mr. Winters revisits the idea of the key to unlocking the secret of Meroitic and its language family association by turning to the Kushana and their script:     

This made it necessary to turn to the historical literature concerning the Kushites to form a new hypothesis related to possible sources of the Meroitic language. The historical literature of the Kushites comes from Egyptian and classical sources. It was the Classical authors who noted the influence of the Indians on Meroitic civilization. — Clyde Winters 

The present author has already made the point about Meroitic being more like Demotic script [followed by Hieratic] than Kharosthi, and the fact that Meroitic is dated older than Kharosthi, not to mention the issue of geographical distance. We'll revisit the ideas laid down by Mr. Winters about the notion of the relationship between the Meroitic script and Kharosthi in the next part, the 3rd part, of this subject in my next posting. So watch this space. In the meantime... 

The present author has amply demonstrated that Mr. Winters doesn't seem to have grasped the concepts Rilly is applying and what is being relayed. For instance, he keeps talking of Rilly's supposed reconstruction of proto-Nilo-Sahara, as a means to translate Meroitic, when there is no such thing to be found in the Rilly piece at hand. He keeps talking about Rilly's focus on geography, in that he chooses to focus on groups in Sudan simply because this is where the Meroitic complex used to be situated. Fact is, before even considering Nilo-Saharan, Rilly first sought after possible cognative association between Merotic and the Niger-congo and Afrasan families, only to find out that there was no strong correspondence, just as previous attempts by other researchers had demonstrated. On the other hand, stronger correspondence was observed in the Nilo-Saharan family, particularly the eastern Sudanic family, with the northern branches of this family being yet closer. 

Rilly himself had this to say about the demographic events in the region: 

According to the most recent archaeological work carried out by the University of Geneva, Kerma was founded around 2400 years BC and did not undergo any dramatic ethnic or cultural changes until its final stage. So the origin of Meroitic can now be placed very probably around this date or even a little earlier... 

Nowadays, these languages are scattered from Chad to Eritrea, but in the past, there was a link between their present situations : the Wadi Howar, an ancient river, now dried up, once an important tributary of the Nile. In the fourth millenary BC, all the region around this river was still a green country convenient for cattle-breeding. But around this time, this part of the Sahara became arid. Very probably, the pastoral populations living in the region were progressively obliged to gather together along the banks of the Wadi Howar. There they lived together for centuries and acquired a common language : Proto-North Eastern Sudanic. But in the beginning of third millenary BC, the river itself progressively dried up. So a first population migrated to the Nile, where they founded the Kingdom of Kerma, not far from the confluence of the Wadi Howar and the Nile. The geographical, historical and climatic data offer a common support to this theory. The Taman group went East, towards the springs of the river, to the place where they still live today. Another refugee group, the ancestors of Nubian and Nyima speakers, went South to Kordofan, where they still live today. Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. As for Nara people, I think they first went to the Nile, like the future Meroites, and later went up the Nile and the Atbara toward Eritrea, where they live nowadays.   

Although current work have linked Kerma settlements with earlier settlements in pre-Kerma phases, suggesting settlements stretching further back in time than what's been detailed here, clearly, Rilly notes certain population movements that Clyde accuses him to be ignorant of, and hence, not considering them in his analysis. Mr. Winters is just totally disengaged with the real specifics at hand. __________________________________________________________ 
*Reference material:  

http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/rilly.htm

Revisiting exchanges with Clyde Winters on the Meroitic script

...and his charges against Claude Rilly, a French linguist, generally known for his proclamations about making some strides in assessing the relationship between the yet-to-be fully deciphered Meroitic script of Ancient Kush and the various African language superphylums, and thereof, subphylums — Part 1.

Clyde Winters' main premise is that of having been able to decipher Meroitic script using a Kushana writing system, namely the Kharosthi script. The following content is mainly going to encompass recounts of my personal exchanges with him pertaining to the intellectual and linguistic validity of the arguments built around that premise.

The aforementioned premise comes along with the idea that the original inhabitants of Meroe had fled the Nile Valley of the Egyptian-Sudanese general region upon the decline of the Meroitic complex and migrated elsewhere, presumably west Africa. This is one of the explanations put forward by Mr. Winters about the struggle of linguists in fully deciphering the Meroitic script — in other words, linguists were looking at the wrong place for languages related to that which was communicated by the Meroitic script. The other explanation put forward, was the idea that origins of the Meroitic writing system was misplaced via the 'tunnel vision' to look for it on the African continent; rather, this origin lies far off, specifically in south Asia via the aforementioned Kharosthi script—which would be the key to unlocking the secrets of the Meroitic script. Now, before going any further, it is worth noting that Mr. Winters is a follower of Theophile Obenga's essentially Black African super language family, which would imply without saying, that there are indigenous 'non-black African' language phylums. What these aboriginal 'non-black African' languages are supposed to be, Mr. Winters does not say, but rather, goes onto to speak of non-African languages, namely—in his own words:

There are three non-African family languages spoken in Africa: 1.Afrikans in South Africa. 2.English and French which is spoken among millions of Africans. 3. Arabic — by Clyde Winters

Apparently, someone forgot to tell Mr. Winters that those languages are not considered aboriginal African languages to begin with.

Now, as for the issue of massive migration as the type seemingly suggested by Mr. Winters, there's got to be some tangible trail or marker left behind by its occurrence. So, when pressed to produce the tangible evidence for this mass Nile Valley intra-African emigration to west Africa, rather than comply accordingly, Mr. Winters responds with the following:

Please cite any source dating to Roman times or later that associates the Nuba with the Meroitic Empire. Tyhe Nubians did not live in the Meroitic Empire. The Nubians or Nobatai lived in the area from Aswan to Maharraqa called the Dodekaschoenas which was first under the rule of the Ptolemies and later the Romans. Most researchers believe that by 200 BC most of the region was occupied by Nubians. David O'Connor makes it clear in Ancientr Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa (1993), that the Nubians or Nobatai "adopted a Romano-Egyptian culture very different from that of Meroitic Lower Nubia" (p.72).Welsby, in The Kingdom of Kush,also believes the area was not fully occupied by Meroites. But there were some Meroites in the major cities. When the Romans left the area in AD 270, the Diocletian agreement was between the Nobatae and the Romans, not the Romans and Kushites. — by Clyde Winters

Needless to say, the so-called Nuba are just a subset of populations living in the Nile Valley, not leave out, as the present author had informed him, about the common acknowledgment of certain socio-cultural shifts [as suggested in Winters references to the authors David O'Connor and Welsby] in the Nile Valley throughout the various time frames from the predynastic periods through to the Roman era; to put it simply, Mr. Winters' so-called counter-request above had no bearing on the request made of him to produce the aforementioned tangible evidence. On an additional note, Clyde's claim of the following:

If the Nubians were always in conflict with the Meroites, we can not claim that these people were Kushites. — by Clyde Winters

Was greeted by this from the present author:

Judging by your careless use of terms, it may well be said that "Nubians" were always in conflict with "Nubians". "Nubian" is a term imposed on these people as a group. Which Nile Valley groups calls themselves "Nubian"? It has become a Euro-contextualized term to place certain Nilo-Saharan dialects of the Nile Valley into a family.

Indeed, "Nubian" had become a generalized Euro-contextualized term applied to the southern most region of Egypt through to the Sudanese regions. Generalized so much so, that the Kushites and their Meroitic successors were generally lumped into this entity. As the present author had pointed above, fact is not even the contemporary groups in the Nile Valley ethno self-designate themselves as "Nubians".

At any rate, when pressed to provide bio-anthropological and genetic evidence of massive Nile Valley-to-west Africa emigration, Clyde Winters' reaction to that was this:

Who needs any biological or genetic evidence. Bones and mtDNA can not tell you what language a person speaks. It can only show you what population they may be associated with. The textual evidence relating to the rise and expansion of the Nubian speakers is all the evidence you need to support this truth. If the Nubians were always in conflict with the Meroites, we can not claim that these people were Kushites. — by Clyde Winters

For some reason, logic escaped Clyde Winters about the fact that human beings as organisms, are ultimately what they are under the instruction of genetic coding. Hence, if the Meroitic population mass migrated to west Africa, their descendants there today should be testament to this migration, in addition to any extra-genetic tangible evidence. However, Mr. Winters goes onto to add:

What genetic evidence exist of the actual mtDNA and Y chromosomes of the Meroites recovered from Meroitic graves? There is none. As a result, researchers are speculating on population genetics 3000 years ago, based on genetic material carried by contempory Sudanic people. Call this "evidence" what it is: i.e., pure speculation and conjecture. — by Clyde Winters

What Mr. Winters failed to take into account in the above, was that by the time the so-called Nile Valley-to-west Africa emigration took place, there were already populations living in west Africa, which in all likelihood, as is the case today, had attained distribution and frequency patterns of DNA markers peculiar to that region, and so, not duplicated in eastern Africa. What are the odds of an inbreeding emigrant population from the Nile Valley continuing to practice endogamy in its new-found location, to conserve the social integrity of that population? Which socially-identified population does not seek to sustain that socio-ethnic unit for the long term? Genealogical studies thus far done in Sudan and Upper Egypt, as the regions where the so-called "Nubian" languages are spoken, tend to show genealogical patterns consistent with eastern Africa, which is the considerable presence of deep-rooted markers like haplogroups A, B, and precursor PN2 lineages like E3* [P2 clade sans downstream PN2-derived clades].

For a full view of the above, click here: Link

Source: Arredi et al., A predominantly neolithic origin for Y-chromosomal DNA variation in North Africa. 2004

Yes, those aforementioned clades are present in west Africa in varying frequencies, but not as considerable as their distribution in east Africa, including the said Nile Valley region. If these Meroitic emigrants in west Africa are genealogically discernable from other west African groups, to the extent that their genealogical background is still consistent with those in East Africa, well then, Mr. Winters had failed to point it out. Instead, Mr. Winter maintained:

I never said the Meroites were wiped out. I believe they just migrated into West Africa. This would explain the genetic relationship between Egyptian and other languages spoken by Black Africans. — Clyde Winters

Hence, the only thing to fall back on, is the tenuous and unspecified link between ancient Egyptian and other "languages spoken by Black Africans." Of note, is the reference to Egyptian rather than "Meroitic", the subject of the topic, in the above. Mr. Winters however goes onto to add:

I also maintain that the composition of the Meroitic Empire was ethnically diverse. As a result, they used first Egyptian, and later Meroitic as a lingua franca. Since Meroitic was a lingua franca you can not use language(s) spoken by contemporary groups living in the fomer Meroitic Empire, to identify any remnants of the Kushites presently living in the former environs of the Meroitic Empire.

Finally, I dispute Rilly research because 1) he claims that the Meroites spoke a language similar to Nubian (which according to the textual evidence was not spoken by any Kushites) a people who practiced an Egypto-Roman culture; and 2) he is attempting to read Meroitic using Proto-Nilo-Saharan, when he does not have any evidence of the various languages spoken by the Meroites. lacking evidence on the languages spoken by the ancient Meroites makes it impossible to reconstruct Proto-Meroitic. — by Clyde Winters

This is where Mr. Winters submits certain charges against Claude Rilly, which the present author will revisit shortly, but to the issue of Meroitic as a possible lingua franca, this is what the present author said to him:

How do you know Egyptian wasn't a lingua franca itself? After all, dynastic Egypt was a union of different polities and socio-complexes. Yet if this was to be the case, you're telling me that the language can be affiliated with contemporary groups, while Meroitic cannot?

The point being that the notion of Meroitic as a potential lingua franca of the time, and a defunct one at that, could not be related to contemporary languages [i.e. the surviving languages of the region], while Egyptian on the other hand, which too is largely a defunct language, has been determined to be related to contemporary languages of the Afrasan superphylum, has little intellectual merit to it.

The present author added that:

If Meroitic was a intra-Kushitic lingua franca, which as I noted before, that I suspect it was, then it was likely done so to unite the related but discerned sub-ethnic units of the Kushite society. Just as Demotic script had influenced Meroitic script, I suspect that the Kushitic/Meroitic language, which likely used as a foundation, some Nilo-Saharan affiliated language, also saw some extra-Kushitic infusions, with the most likely source being from its Egyptic counterpart, thus giving it a certain Afrasan touch to it. The descendants of Meroites went nowhere, they are still in the region, not withstanding some cultural shifts [like Arabization, Islamification, Christianization and so forth] along with various population movements along the region. Meroe was a literate society, and as such, there is no reason to assume that they couldn't have taken their scripture [and other specific cultural traits] along with them in the event of any potential 'exodus'. Meroitic script has been found nowhere else but in the Nile Valley!

Now getting to the aforementioned charges levied against Mr. Rilly by Mr. Winters:

*Finally, I dispute Rilly research because 1) he claims that the Meroites spoke a language similar to Nubian (which according to the textual evidence was not spoken by any Kushites) a people who practiced an Egypto-Roman culture

Aside from being a misinterpretation of Mr. Rilly's premise, this charge carries little intellectual merit for the simple fact that Mr. Rilly was not as vague as Mr. Winters, whom as the present author noted above, clings onto the ambiguous generalized term of "Nubian", which has been known to include the very Meroites and their precursor Kushites—according to norms in Eurocentic scholastic contextualization—that Mr. Winters sought to disassociate from what he vaguely terms as "Nubian". The present author suspects though - since not sure by any means, since he is vague about it, that Mr. Winters' reference to "Nubian" here, pertains to the group of contemporary North Eastern Sudanic languages designated as such. Secondly, Mr. Rilly didn't single out the so-called contemporary "Nubian" language in suggesting a family association with Meroitic, which is what Mr. Winters in his own vague way seemed to be suggesting. What Mr. Rilly had done, as the present author had to reiterate to Mr. Winters time and again, was to compare Meroitic with a multitude [not a singular one] of North Eastern Sudanic languages—a subset of the Nilo-Saharan superphylum—after having compared it with other language superphylums and other Nilo-Saharan subphylums and not finding a closer relationship as that with the North Eastern Sudanic branch:

Previous works, including mine, had shown that a link with other phylums like Niger-Congo or Afro-Asiatic was unlikely. — by Mr. Rilly

So to reiterate, Rilly certainly didn't single out "Nubian" — the contemporary designated North Eastern Sudanic subphylum — as being relatively more closely related to Meroitic than other North Eastern Sudanic languages, as opposed to Meroitic being closer to the North Eastern Sudanic branch in general. In a glaring contradiction to Mr. Winters' charge, right from the horse's mouth, we have:

Later on, in the first centuries AD, Nubian groups invaded the dying Kingdom of Meroe and founded their own kingdoms along the Nile. — by Claude Rilly

That is, taking into consideration, certain demic diffusions into the region.

Anyone familiar with the North Eastern Sudanic branch of Eastern Sudanic languages, would know as Mr. Rilly acknowledges, that:

Nowadays, these languages are scattered from Chad to Eritrea — by Claude Rilly

Getting to the other charge:

*he is attempting to read Meroitic using Proto-Nilo-Saharan, when he does not have any evidence of the various languages spoken by the Meroites. lacking evidence on the languages spoken by the ancient Meroites makes it impossible to reconstruct Proto-Meroitic. — by Clyde Winters

Obviously a gross misinterpretation of Mr. Rilly's premise. Mr. Rilly never said anything about reading Meroitic by using Proto-Nilo-Saharan. What Mr. Rilly did, as would be obvious to anyone who has read his piece, was to try to expand on the limited vocabulary available from previous work on the Meroitic script using a multi-contextual approach, but essentially the reasonably methodological & standard linguistic approaches to reconstruction. To this end, the present author summarized Mr. Rilly's approach upon Mr. Winters request, as follows:

* 'Proto-Meroitic' names are uncovered from Egyptic texts. This partly relies on the weight of archaeological evidence, which relays a picture of certain levels of socio-cultural progression and continuity from the "Pre-Kerma" complex through to the early Kerma complex, and thereof its successor Kush, and ultimately Meroe. For some insight into the "Pre-Kerma" through to the "Kerma" phases, amongst well known publications, see Mr. Honegger's take: http://rmcisadu.let.uniroma1.it/nubiaconference/honegger.doc

*'Typological similarity between Egyptian texts and Meroitic' ones, is sought after.

*Various words are already known from earlier work, but it is the question of determining the meaning for the bulk of them. So, those whose meaning have been determined, provide something to start working with.

*Iconography on archaeological material is taken into consideration, because they are many a times accompanied by descriptive words. This along with aforementioned translated words, names of persons and gods are useful in extrapolating certain words of the cotexts, and confirming their meanings in other [textual] occasions.

* Comparative analysis is undertaken between Meriotic and various other language groups from different language families, and then zeroing in on the ones sporting closer relationships.

*Once closely related languages have come to the fore, lexicostatistical method is applied for comparative purposes between the defunct language [Meroitic] and living ones [in this case, several Nilo-Saharan language sub-phylums, including Eastern Sudanic - both North and South Eastern Sudanic, Central Sudanic, Saharan and so forth], to filter out the yet closer sub-branches of the language superphylum deemed to be more closely related to Meroitic.

*Lexicostatic approach is to be supplimented by the classical comparative method, which involved reconstruction of proto-languages named below; no mention of proto-Nilo-Saharan is made here, nor is the notion of using proto-Nilo-Saharan or any other proto sub-Nilo-Saharan phylum to read Meroitic - rather, Meroitic was compared with both the actual subphylums and proto-North Eastern Sudanic:

It was necessary,

*first to find regular phonetic correspon­dences between North Eastern Sudanic languages,

*second to reconstruct the original phonology of Proto-North Eastern Sudanic,

*third to reconstruct, as much as possible, some Proto-North Eastern Sudanic words, and

*finally to compare these proto-forms with Meroitic words. [courtesy C. Rilly]

The resultant phonetic estimations and lexicon are compared, utilizing not only similar phonological structure, but also possible genetic correspondence, usually communicated in the same meaning of the words in question.

*Finally, close connections were found between some Meroitic words and their Proto­-North Eastern Sudanic counterparts (see table below). Some regular phonetic correspondences are obvious. — Rilly

In spite of the scanty available data, the result is obvious : Meroitic is more than probably a member of the North Eastern Sudanic family.

The process above, is a slow one, requiring much patience, but doable with proper approach to standard linguistic procedures to unlocking 'defunct' but well documented languages.

More to come in the part 2 post of this very topic. Watch this space.

_________________________________________________________

*Reference material: http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-library/meroitic/rilly.htm

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.