Comments on the Photo-protective qualities of epidermal Melanin Content of skin

Based on extracts from Yamaguchi et al. 2006, we have the following:

— DNA damage in the upper epidermis immediately after UV exposure was similar among racial/ethnic groups but levels of DNA damage in the lower concentration of the epidermis was inversely proportional to the melanin content.

Courtesy of Yamaguchi et al. 2006: Figure 1. A) Representative images of CPD DNA damage in fair, intermediate and dark skin immediately and 7 d after UV exposure; green and red fluorescence represent CPD and DNA, respectively. (———) demarks the top of the granular layer of the epidermis, (- - - -) demarks the epidermal:dermal junction, and (· · · · ·) represents the division between the upper and lower epidermal layers. B) Representative images of CPD (green) in melanocytes (stained red for tyrosinase) immediately after UV in fair, intermediate and dark skin.

— Pulse lasers cause highly selective injury to cells containing melanosomes suggesting that the UV energy absorbed by melanin in the upper epidermis causes photothermolysis (heat damage) to pigmented cells.

— The oncogene p53 plays important roles in responses to UV-induced DNA damage and induction of DNA repair. There is an overall nuclear accumulation of p53 in response to UV. More than 13 sites of p53 are known to be phosphorylated, one of them being a critical site at Ser-46, which is associated with the induction of apoptosis.

More p53 accumulated in the nuclei of cells in fair skin than in dark skin at 1 d and at 7 d after UV exposure. However, phosphorylation of p53 at Ser-46 was not seen in fair skin, whereas it was readily seen in dark skin 1 d after UV exposure…

Phosphorylation of p53 at Ser-46, which is associated with the induction of apoptosis, occurred at low levels in fair skin after low doses of UV exposure but was significant in dark skin, suggesting that p53 phosphorylation site is involved in UV-induced apoptosis in epidermis with abundant levels of melanin.

TUNEL assays showed that significantly more apoptotic cells were found in Black skin equivalents than in Asian or White skin equivalents at both UV doses...

— nuclear accumulation of p53 is less in dark skin than in fair skin, suggesting that the overall activation of p53 following UV-induced DNA damage is greater in fair skin. The sustained activation of p53 may also in part cause the higher incidence of photo carcinogenesis in fair skin.

— melanin content is responsible for the apoptosis. Cells containing melanin in the upper epidermis of dark skin tended to undergo more apoptosis after UV than do those of fair skin. Thus, the presence of melanin facilitates the apoptotic effect of UV on cells but whether that results from photothermolysis or whether other properties of melanins are involved will require further study.

DNA damage in the upper epidermis immediately after UV exposure was similar among racial/ethnic groups but levels of DNA damage in the lower concentration of the epidermis was inversely proportional to the melanin content.

Taken together,…

— UV-induced DNA damage in the lower epidermis (which contains keratinocyte stem cells and melanocytes) is not effectively prevented in fair skin because of the low melanin content in the upper (and lower) epidermis.

— DNA damage in the upper epidermis is quite similar among all types of skin, which indicates that epidermal pigmentation is an efficient UV filter for underlying cells.

— UV-induced apoptosis was virtually absent in fair skin after low UV doses, but was significant in dark skin, facilitating the effective removal of UV-damaged cells in dark skin.

— Virtually all epidermal cells had significant DNA damage in fair skin but only ~1% of them became apoptotic whereas less than 50% of epidermal cells in dark skin had significant DNA damage, yet ~ 5% of those cells were apoptotic.

— The combination of relatively low DNA damage and efficient removal of UV-damaged cells contributes to the decreased incidence of skin cancer in darker skin.

we conclude that the upper epidermis of dark skin is significantly more photoprotective for the deeper tissue against UV damage than that of fair skin.

And now, on the understanding gleaned from the above, some personal observations about the photo-protective qualities of epidermal melanin content:

Essentially, the side effect of UV-radiation damage of DNA in epidermal cells is the activation of the p53 gene to presumably suppress cell division of damaged DNA, and allow for repair, which would explain the accumulation of this type in cell nuclei after UV exposure. However, given the greater DNA damage in fair skin due to reduced melanin content, more p53 are activated than the case is for dark skin; the other problem here though, seems to be that there is also a strong correlation between the phosphorylation of p53 at the Ser-46 locus of the gene, which appears to be critical for apoptosis, and epidermal melanin content; the greater the epidermal melanin, the greater chances of greater occurrence of nuclear p53 genes phosphorylated at their Ser-46 locus. The precise triggering aspect of melanin on apoptosis is something that is subject to further investigation, according to Yamaguchi et al.: the presence of melanin facilitates the apoptotic effect of UV on cells but whether that results from photothermolysis or whether other properties of melanins are involved will require further study.

Since this development [phosphorylation] at the Ser-46 locus appears to be much rarer on p53 genes in epidermal cells of fair skin, the prospect of apoptosis occurring after UV exposure is substantially lower, if not rare. This means that damaged DNA are allowed to spread via cell division and so, defects being passed onto daughter cells; on the other hand, greater presence of phosphorylation of the p53 gene at its Ser-46 locus in dark skin epidermal cells allows for effective removal of UV-induced damaged DNA. So, it would appear that the hindrance of p53 gene in fair skin epidermal cells to play a role in removal of cells containing damaged DNA in the process of assisting in DNA repair, at least in part, interrupts the optimal balance between cell division and apoptosis, thereby contributing to photo-carcinogenesis. [see: Yamaguchi et al. 2006; Human skin responses to UV radiation: Pigment in the upper epidermis protects against DNA damage in the lower epidermis and facilitates apoptosis]
_____________________________________________________________
*Related reading:

— Skin pigmentation gene alleles

— Skin pigmentation gene alleles — Part 2

The possibility that Ancient Egyptian was a regional Lingua Franca...

Often times, people discuss how lower Nile Valley polities united with the Upper Nile Valley ones, with the initiative coming largely from upper Nile Valley ruling elites; yet, it almost never comes up or crosses the mind, that these discrete polities might have well very likely spoke distinctive dialects, if not language types altogether, as well. This would mean that there would have been a common language to facilitate trade during the pre-dynastic era, and a common language to effectively unify all the previously discrete autonomous Nile Valley polities under one national language. This language would have no doubt, functioned as a regional lingua franca; the same could be said of the regions south of Egypt, which contemporary Egyptologists have a habit of generically referring to as "Nubia".

The questions that ought to come to mind, should be for example, as follows:

• Did pre-dynastic Lower Egyptians "originally" speak the same languages as their pre-dynastic Upper Egyptian counterparts?

• Did the pre-dynastic Lower Egyptian polities amongst themselves speak a single language, or was there only a single pre-dynastic Lower Egyptian polity [which would seem very unlikely, given the different archaeological complexes of the so-designated regions] with a single language? As for predynastic Upper Egypt, it is well known that not a single polity existed therein at the time; so, did these polities speak the same language, or did they adopt a sub-regional lingua franca in Upper Egypt, all the way to parts of northern Sudan?

• Did Egypt, upon unification, take the language of the dominant ruling elites as the regional lingua franca, which would become Egyptic, or was this simply developed by the merging of language elements from all the regions brought under unity? The same scenario can be played in Kush, where Kushitic/Meroetic language would serve as the regional lingua franca. This was a polity, as can be seen from artistic impressions, to be quite diverse. Could something like what happened in Ethiopia, and elsewhere in Africa, i.e. West Africa and South Africa, have happened in these regions, with Amarinya becoming a sort of lingua franca for the various groups with their distinctive tongues?

Consider for example, the following recap on at least one observation made about predynastic developments in lower and upper Egyptian regions:

With some emphasis placed on language…

Relevant reading from Keita and Boyce, Genetics, Egypt, And History: Interpreting Geographical Patterns Of Y Chromosome Variation, 2005:

“Later there is some movement into Africa after the domestication of plants and Ovacaprines, which happened in the Near East nearly 2000 years before it occurred in Egypt (Hassan 1988, Wetterstrom 1993). Early Neolithic levels in northern Egypt contain the Levantine domesticates, and show some influence in material culture as well (Kobusiewicz 1992). Ovacaprines appear in the western desert before the Nile valley proper (Wendorf and Schild 2001). However, it is significant that ancient Egyptian words for the major Near Eastern domesticates - Sheep, goat, barley, and wheat - are not loans from either Semitic, Sumerian, or Indo-European. This argues against a mass settler colonization (at replacement levels) of the Nile valley from the Near East at this time. This is in contrast with some words for domesticates in some early Semitic languages, which are likely Sumerian loan words (Diakonoff 1981).

This evidence indicates that northern Nile valley peoples apparently incorporated the Near Eastern domesticates into a Nilotic foraging subsistence tradition **on their own terms** (Wetterstrom 1993). There was apparently no “Neolithic revolution” brought by settler colonization, but a gradual process of neolithicization (Midant-Reynes 2000).

(Also some of those emigrating may have been carrying Haplotype V, descendents of earlier migrants from the Nile valley, given the postulated “Mesolithic” time of the M35 lineage emigration). It is more probable that the current VII and VIII frequencies, greatest in northern Egypt, reflect in the main (but not solely) movements during the Islamic period (Nebel et al. 2002), when some deliberate settlement of Arab tribes was done in Africa, and the effects of polygamy. There must also have been some impact of Near Easterners who settled in the delta at various times in ancient Egypt (Gardiner 1961). More recent movements, in the last two centuries, must not be forgotten in this assessment.

And Continued! Keita and Boyce, on the peopling of the Nile Valley…

“Archeological data, or the absence of it, have been interpreted as suggesting a population hiatus in the settlement of the Nile Valley between Epipaleolithic and the Neolithic/predynastic, but this apparent lack could be due to material now being covered over by the Nile (see Connor and Marks 1986, Midant-Reynes 2000, for a discussion). Analogous to events in the Atacama Desert in Chile (Nunez et al. 2002), a moister more inhabitable eastern Sahara gained more human population in the late Pleistocene-early Holocene (Wendorf and Schild 1980, Hassan 1988, Wndorf and Schild 2001). If the hiatus was real then perhaps many Nile populations became Saharan.

Later, stimulated by mid-Holocene droughts, migration from the Sahara contributed population to the Nile Valley (Hassan 1988, Kobusiewicz 1992, Wendorf and Schild 1980, 2001); the predynastic of upper Egypt and later Neolithic in lower Egypt show clear Saharan affinities. A striking increase e of pastoralists’ hearths are found in the Nile valley dating to between 5000-4000 BCE (Hassan 1988). Saharan Nilo-Saharan speakers may have been initial domesticators of African cattle found in the Sahara (see Ehret 2000, Wendorf et. Al. 1987). Hence there was a Saharan “Neolithic” with evidence for domesticated cattle before they appear in the Nile valley (Wendorf et al. 2001). If modern data can be used, there is no reason to think that the peoples drawn into the Sahara in the earlier periods were likely to have been biologically or linguistically uniform.

…A dynamic diachronic interaction consisting of the fusion, fissioning, and perhaps “extinction” of populations, with a decrease in overall numbers as the environment eroded, can easily be envisioned in the heterogenous landscape of the eastern Saharan expanse, with its oases and Wadis, that formed a reticulated pattern of habitats. This fragile and changing region with the Nile Valley in the early to mid-Holocene can be further envisioned as holding a population whose subdivisions maintained some distinctiveness, but did exchange genes. Groups would have been distributed in settlements based on resources, but likely had contacts based on artifact variation (Wendorf and Schild 2001). Similar pottery can be found over extensive areas. Transhumance between the Nile valley and the Sahara would have provided east-west contact, even before the later migration largely emptied parts of the eastern Sahara.

Early speakers of Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic apparently interacted based on the evidence of loan words (Ehret, personal communication). Nilo-Saharan’s current range is roughly congruent with the so-called Saharo-Sudanese or Aqualithic culture associated with the less arid period (Wendorf and Schild 1980), and therefore cannot be seen as intrusive. Its speakers are found from the Nile to the Niger rivers in the Sahara and Sahel, and south into Kenya. The eastern Sahara was likely a micro--evolutionary processor and pump of populations, who may have developed various specific sociocultural (and linguistic) identities, but were genealogically “mixed” in terms of origins.

These identities may have further crystallized on the Nile, or fused with those of resident populations that were already differentiated. The genetic profile of the Nile Valley via the fusion of the Saharans and the indigenous peoples were likely established in the main long before the Middle Kingdom…

…Hoffman (1982) noted cattle burials in Hierakonpolis, the most important of predynastic upper Egyptian cities in the later predynastic. This custom might reflect Nubian cultural impact, a common cultural background, or the presence of Nubians...

Apparently, all these different groups would have found a way to communicate with each other.

Considering that there was an inter-trade network along the Nile Valley long before unification, another possibility is the idea of a 'trade language' being developed, and then developing into what would become Egyptic of Pharaonic Egypt.

Clyde Winters chimes in with this interesting note:

You are on to something.

It will be difficult to really elaborate this theme given our knowledge about Egyptian language. But the use of two different "cursive" scripts: Hieratic and Demotic, by two different ruling groups, may indicate that different languages and traditions of writing may have existed in Egypt in ancient times.

How the term "Berber" stuck to modern day Amazighan speakers

Regardless of the ultimate origins of the term "Berber", it seems pretty clear that the term became particularly synonymous with contemporary Imazighen speakers from the Medieval era onwards, specifically during "Moorish" rule in Europe. And of course today, within the scholarly world of the so-called 'West', the application of this term is justified on the condition that it is strictly a linguistic construct for a Afrasan (Afro-Asiatic) subphylum of certain closely related languages. The term itself is never applied by Imazighen groups to refer to themselves, and so, in that sense, foreign to them. Imazighen groups generally refer to themselves as '- mazigh' in one dialect variant or another. There are several theories out there, as to how the term came to particularly designate Imazighen groups, as opposed to random groups of "strange" or "foreign" people, but the most plausible of these, is the Arab/Moorish connection in Europe. Let's examine...

To the ancient Greeks, the idea of strangers or foreigners wasn't limited to just northwest Africans; rather, it also covered 'strange' people in their own European backyard. Europeans to their north were generally seen as strange, if not uncultured, from the ancient Greek standpoint; their cultural manners were seen as peculiar and foreign to ancient Greeks, and so, they were referred to as 'barbary' (barbarians). Certainly, this term was applied to elements of northeast African populations in the Nile Valley as well; consider this piece on Achilles Tatius' thoughts for instance, with regards to late dynastic delta ancient Egyptians:

"All were huge, black-skinned [not the pure black of the Indians , more as you would imagine a half-caste Ethiopian], bare-headed, light of foot but broad of body. They were all speaking a barbarian language. " - Extracts presumably from Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon

Tim Whitmarsh who translated the work and Helen Morales who gave a synopsis of the work, characterize the above description as a reference to some Nile Valley elements who were apparently seen as a nuisance to Greek interest, because we are told that the folks who were so-described [aka the "boukoli" bandits of the coastal areas of the Nile Valley], where one of those groups who were singled out by this sort of characterization, which amounts to an image of "unculturedness"; whereas...

All of the characters, weather they are natives of Phoenicia, Byzantium, Egypt, or Ephesus, speak in Greek, have Greek names, and demonstrate Greek paideis or culture. The exceptions are the boukoli, the bandits who ambush Leucippe and Clitophon. They are described as ''terrifying savages". - by Helen Morales (Introduction) and Tim Whitmarsh (Translator)

But Morales and Whitmarsh warn of any premature conclusions to be drawn from this "Greekifying" of things not actually Greek:

But to read Achille's description as a reflection of reality is grossly to underplay his rhetoric of demonization. The boukoli are caricatures , like other ethnocentric stereotypes of Egyptians elsewhere in the novel [eg at 4.4: ''Thus it is with an Egypt: in times of fear cowardice leads him to servility''] Geographic and description ethnographicreinforce this construction of the alterity of Egypt...

The description of the Egyptian clod of earth emphasizes its different and strangeness [3.13, and cf. the description of the Nile's duplicity at 4.12].

Despite Achillies' being a native of Alexandria, he perpetuates the ethnocentric stereotypes of Egypt familiar from many centuries' construction of Greek self-definition against the 'Barbarian'. - by Helen Morales (Introduction) and Tim Whitmarsh (Translator)

What does this say of the Greeks? The last bit about "Greek self-definition against the Barbarian" goes back to what the above authors reckon to be Greek arrogance of "reaffirmation of Hellenic superiority"; it serves to explain why the aforementioned point about "Greekifying" things not Greek where convenient or the opportunity to do so, was done so; to recap: All of the characters, weather they are natives of Phoenicia, Byzantium, Egypt, or Ephesus, speak in Greek, have Greek names, and demonstrate Greek paideis or culture. The exceptions are the boukoli, the bandits who ambush Leucippe and Clitophon. They are described as ''terrifying savages". - by Helen Morales (Introduction) and Tim Whitmarsh (Translator)

Perhaps might explain why Egyptian names were given Greek alternatives, like say Ausar for example, which is given the Greek alternative of "Osiris"; it might well tie into that theme of "reaffirmation of Hellenic superiority". All things great, even if not Greek, but has been brought into sphere of Greek interest, would have to be "Greekified" in some way or another. At any rate, the point here, was to show lack of restrictiveness to Greek application of "barbarian" to anyone or anything that was out of the norm from the Greek standpoint; it certainly wasn't restricted to coastal northwest African regions, and so, the idea of ancient Greeks being the source of this designation vis-a-vis northwest African Imazighen groups by sections of European scholars from the Medieval era onwards is a questionable one. The Roman application of such a term faired no differently.

Some sources suggest that the earliest north European examples of exclusive reference of "Berber" — that is, in that form as we know it, which is not exactly "Barbarian" as the Greek word itself, occur in French texts. The French word itself for anything strange or foreign is "étranger", and "babarian" — "barbare". Incidentally, Arabs in the Medieval era, during their endeavors in north Africa, exclusively called coastal northwest Africa, as opposed to the whole of coastal north Africa, as Bilad al Barbar ~ essentially meaning: Land of the Barbar/”Berber”. Could the Arab term have ultimately been attained from Indo-European infusion? Perhaps possible, but unless brought to immediate attention, no other north African region, save for the northwest region — which was also designated as Maghreb al Aksa by Arabs from the so-called Near East — has been so-designated as "Bilad al Barbar". Coincidentally, this is also the same region from where Arab and Moorish rule in southwest Europe would be launched. It would therefore seem that exclusivity of application of this with respect to Imazighen speakers by Europeans has its roots in Moorish-controlled southwest Europe, from wherein the alternative generic Arab geographical designation for the Maghreb diffused into European vocabulary. So, the term initially used as a generic geopolitical reference to people in coastal northwest Africa, the Africans then — in the Medieval era — best known to Europeans and were in relatively more regular contact with them, would evolve into a linguistic reference, which would tie coastal northwest Africans with other groups who spoke closely related languages.

As far as primary text attestations are concerned, Arabic-sources have been reliable; for example Ibn Khaldun, likely an Arabized Amazighan writer in Moorish-ruled southwest European era, born in Tunisia, wrote an auto-biography Ta’reef in Egypt, as part of his work in what he calls, Kitab al-’Ibar wa-Diwan al-Mubtada’ wa-l-Khabar fi Ayyam al-’Arab wal-’Ajam wal-Barbar wa man ‘asarahum min dhawi as-Sultan al-Akbar [courtesy of cis-ca.org]

We now revisit several interesting explanations of how the term "Berber" as a generic reference to Amazighan speakers came about...

From a "Non-Governmental Organization For the defense of the rights of the Amazigh" called ‘Tamazigha’, we are told:

North Africa, an Amazigh land

All the historians of North Africa attest that the country has been populated by the Amazighs (Berbers) since very ancient times. Ibn Khaldoun in his Histoire des Berbères, wrote concerning the country which is usually referred to as the Maghreb and which we call Tamazgha or country of Imazighen (= plural of Amazigh):

«Since ancient times, this race inhabited the Maghreb of which it populated plains, mountains, shores, cities and countryside (Ibn Khaldoun, Histoire des Berbères, Paris, Geuthner, 1999, p. 167).»

And relating to Tamazight, the language of the Amazighs:

«Their language is a foreign idiom, different from all idioms: the very reason the name Berber was given to them (Ibn Khaldoun, 1999, opus quoted p.168). »

Finally regarding the religions practiced in North Africa:

«Among them there were [tribes] which practiced the Jewish religion; others practiced the Christian one, and others pagan ones, and among the latter were sun, moon and idol worshipers. Having at their head kings and leaders, they carried out against the Muslims several very famous wars (Ibn Khaldoun, 1999, opus quoted, p. 177).»

Closer to us, in 1931, the anti-colonialist historian Charles-André Julien observed that:

«Today, it is generally unknown to the majority that Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are populated by Berbers. These are boldly referred to as Arabs, all the while the natives often called themselves Amazigh (Tamazight for the feminine and Imazighen for the plural) which literally means "free people", or sometimes "noble people" and was used by several tribes as far back as before the Roman occupation. (C.-A. Julien, Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, Paris, Payot, 1931, p. 2).»

Source: ‘Tamazigha’, A Non Governmental Organization For the defense of the rights of the Amazigh, in submission to the ‘Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)’ in 2003.

Explanation given in a Kabyle dedicated site by an author going by the name of D. Messaoudi:

For some people, the origin of the word “Berber” would be Greek; their argument rely on the fact that the Greeks called people who spoke a language other than Greek “the Barbarians”. For the Arabs, the above word would be borrowed from Arabic, since in this language there is the verb “Barbara” (to roar) and “Al-barbarah” (“roar” and by extension, incomprehensible language – the equivalent of “baragouin”, meaning gibberish, the name given to the Breton language by the French).

But, in my view, these hypotheses rely on no logic, because in that period, the Berbers were not the only ones with whom the Romans or the Arabs had contacts. Why therefore other people as the Copts, the Kurds, the Sudanese, the Iranians, the Basques, etc, who spoke languages completely different from Latin and Arabic, had not been called “barbarians / Berbers”?

This incites us to search the origin of the above-mentioned appellation elsewhere, and more precisely in Berber language itself.

Our research in different Amazigh dialects led to the discovery of a group of terms and expressions with which we can associate the term “Berber”:

* Iber-iber: nomad in Touareg

* Sberber: be covered with clouds, when speaking about the sky in Kabyle, or to protect somebody or something by covering it with one’s body.

* Sbur: to cover one’s head in Kabyle

* Ibeṛbaṛen: a village located in Mcheddala, Bouira

* Tizi-n-Beṛbeṛ: another village in Kabylia.

* bbeṛbeṛ: very wet, in Kabyle.

My first assumption is that the term “Berber” would be a distortion or perhaps an evolved form of the word attested in Touareg, i.e. “Iberiber”. We know that the Berbers were called “Imazighen”, but maybe the appellation “iberiber”, which became then “Berber”, indicated only a particular grouping of Berbers, as the Touareg which were always big nomads. It would be then the Northern Berbers that would have created this nickname to indicate the Saharan, and the foreigners generalized it then to all Berbers.

My second assumption is that the term “Berber” would have a lexical relation with the words “sbur” and “Sberber”, which are both created on the basis of the same root: “BR”. In fact, if we refer to the dress habits of the North Africans, we will realize that the Berbers, since immemorial time, prefer broad clothings which cover them completely: Kabyle abernus, Shleuh tajellabit, Targui tagelmust, etc., are some examples. Even the Berber women wear long tiqendiar and timhermin or else asburru to protect their heads. It would be therefore the reason for which the Berbers were called, besides Imazighen, “Iberbaren”, which became then “Berber” in foreign languages.

Last but not least, explanation given by Richard L. Smith of the Ferrum College:

Moving beyond race, language—one of the defining characteristics in the modern concept of ethnicity—is rarely mentioned by classical or Arab authors except to note that their subjects spoke some form of gibberish. This began with Herodotus's offhand remark about the Ethiopian troglodytes: "The language they speak is completely different from any other language, and sounds like bats squeaking,"43 and continues through the sixth-century poet Corippus, who, in referring to Berber tribes, notes that their "barbaric languages bark in savage terms."44 Authors don't usually distinguish gibberishes from each other, nor do they state categorically that language was a major criterion for dividing the peoples of North Africa. Perhaps, however, we should assume this. Tacitus, who falls into the Sallust school in his discussion of North Africa but whose study of the German tribes is unsurpassed in classical ethnography, does refer to the importance of language in his review of peoples to the north of the Roman Empire.45 In other regions of Africa, including nearby West Africa, language has often served as an insignia of ethnicity.

Ibn Khaldun does distinguish the Berbers from the Arabs and other peoples by their language. According to him, the Arabs gave the Berbers their name, the origin of which meant something like gibberish: "The word berbera signifies, in Arabic, a jumble of unintelligible cries; from which one says in speaking of the lion that it berbère when it utters confused roars."46 *

[46 * - “ Histoire I:168. In another place, Ibn Khaldun offers an alternate if similar explanation. According to this, a Yemenite king named Afriqus b. Qays b. Sayfi, who lived at the time of Moses, often raided North Africa and killed many Berbers: "He gave them the name of Berbers when he heard their jargon and asked what that barbarah was." Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 14.” - Richard L. Smith]

Richard goes onto say:

The unintelligible cries were the many local dialects Berber was divided into, by one modern count an astounding twelve hundred, although the situation at the time of Ibn Khaldun can only be guessed. And while Berber languages show relatively little internal differentiation in comparison to other branches of the Afro-Asiatic family, a detailed language map of Berber speakers would have the pattern of spilled vegetable soup.47* [47* - “For a background on the origin of Berber and its derivatives, see P. Behrens, "Wanderungsbewegungen und Sprache der früken saharanischen Viehzuchter," Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 6 (1984–85): 135–216.” - Richard Smith]

In the past scholars have tried to get a handle on this so-called "language of dialects" by recognizing two or three dialect clusters—Zanatiya, Sanhaja, and sometimes Masmuda (which, when not recognized as separate, is joined with Sanhaja)—based on phonetic and morphological variations and location. Zanata, Sanhaja, and Masmuda are not terms used in the writings of the ancients but do appear, full-blown, with Arab authors who draw a clear distinction between them. The Masmuda were concentrated in the High Atlas and surrounding areas while in the rest of North Africa the Zanata (those who speak Zanatiya) were more common in the north and east and the Sanhaja in the south and west. The word "Sanhaja" means those who speak Zenaga (Znaga), the major dialect of the western desert. - Richard L. Smith

Then there are legends of ‘Berber’ ancestry, one of which as already very briefly mentioned, is traced back to a personality(s) by the name of “Berr”:

According to the Arabian genealogies, all Berbers are descended from two men: Berr ibn Branes and Berr ibn Botr.79 These two Berrs, although possessing the same name, were not related. From them are descended the great families of Berbers such as the Masmuda, Senhaja, and Zenata. Of all these great families the earliest to spread seems to have been the Masmuda or Ghomara branch. This was followed traditionally by the Senhaja, who today include such varied peoples as the Siwans on the borderlands of Egypt, the Tuareg of the Sahara, and the Braber of the Middle Atlas in Morocco. The third great expansion was that of the Zenata, who were known in Roman times in Cyrenaica, but who did not reach Algeria and Morocco until the Middle Ages. In the thirteenth century these Zenata finally invaded Spain, conquering Arabs and earlier Berbers. One may compare the expansions of the Berber families to those of Kelts, Germans, Slavs, etc. in Europe. - Courtesy of snpa.nordish.net

From the above, the present author can only imagine that the website is basing this on Arabic-speaking others cited in their reference, such as el Bekri and Ibn Khaldun

[More on these sort of legends, from Richard L Smiths analysis:

Unlike Herodotus, Ibn Abi Zar did recognize that his subjects lived in segmented societies,55 but the framework that he and other Arab writers imposed was genealogical rather than anthropological. Groups were defined as descendants of specific people, so exactly who the Berbers issued from was a much debated topic. The most popular starting place was the Holy Land, and first among the candidates was Goliath. After David killed Goliath, the Philistines, frequently confused with the Canaanites, were said to have left their homeland and migrated to North Africa, where they became the Berbers. Not everyone who wanted to keep the Berbers in the Old Testament was convinced of the Goliath connection. One of the most popular accounts goes back to Noah's children, Ham and Sem, among whom Satan was said to have sowed discord:

"Ham, having become black because of a curse pronounced against him by his father, fled to the Maghrib to hide in shame.... Berber, son of Kesloudjim [Casluhim], one of his descendants, left numerous posterity in the Maghrib."56* [56* - “Ibn Khaldun, [I]Histoire I, 177–178. The Ham connection appears in al-Ya'qubi, Corpus, p. 21. The Goliath connection comes a little later in Ibn Hawqal, Corpus, p. 48. Much earlier, in the first century C.E., the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claimed that the Gaetulians descended from Havilah, the son of Cush, grandson of Ham.” - Richard L. Smith]

Understandably, many of the Berbers did not want their family trees rooted in Goliath, Ham, or other Biblical ne'er-do-wells. Muslims all over the Islamic world often tried to establish ancestral connections with the Prophet's homeland, the Arabian peninsula, and the Berbers were no exception. A popular theory among them was that they were long-lost Yemenites.

Ibn Khaldun chronicled all the stories he could find concerning Berber origins and demolished each in turn. He characterized one story that featured an invasion by an ancient Yemenite king as an "example of silly statements by historians."57* [57* - “Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 14.” - Richard L. Smith] Nor did he mince words concerning another popular theory:

"The opinion which represents them as the children of Goliath or Amalecites, and which has them emigrate from Syria, willy-nilly, is so untenable that it merits classification as a fable."

But Ibn Khaldun proved more effective as a critic than in offering a viable alternative. In the end he, too, traced the Berbers back to Genesis:

"Now the real fact, the fact which dispenses with all hypothesis, is this: the Berbers are the children of Canaan, the son of Ham, son of Noah." Down this line came Berr who had two sons, Baranis and Madghis al-Abtar. All Berber tribes descended from one or the other of these brothers and were classified as either Baranes or Botr.58* [58* - “Histoire I, 173–185. Also see R. W. Bulliet, "Botr et Beranes: Hypotheses sur l'histoire des Berbes," Annales Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 36 (1981): 104–116.” - Richard L. Smith]

Continuing…

The Sanhaja were Baranes, and the Zanata were Botr. Further up the tree on the Baranes side were the Mulaththamun, who, according to al-Idrisi, descended from two eponyms, Sanhaj and Lamt. They lived in the Maghrib and were the sons of a mother named Tazakkat (Tizki), "the Lame." But Sanhaj and Lamt produced troublesome broods who tried to conquer the other Berbers and were finally driven into the desert, where they became nomads living in tents and surviving on the milk and meat of camels.59* [59* - “Corpus, p. 127.” - Richard L. Smith]

Arab-imposed, male-centered genealogy tells us more about contemporary Arab historiography than it does about Berber ethnography. This is not to dismiss the importance of perceived descent, which was matrilineal among most Berbers, particularly those of the desert. Etymological analysis seems to indicate that this tradition had its roots deep in the past: the words for brother and sister in proto-Berber, for example, are "son of my mother" and "daughter of my mother" respectively.60* [60* - “G. Marcy, "Les survivances juridiques de la parenté maternelle dans la coutume du Maroc Central," Actes du Congrès del'institut des Hautes Études Marocaines (Rabat, 1937), p. 33.” - Richard L. Smith]

The progenitor of Sanhaja and Tuareg alike was more often than not thought to be a woman, **Tin Hinan** of the Kel Ahaggar being the most well known. Whatever the real story behind the formation of a group like the Lamtuna, a large measure of their self-identity came from the commonly held belief that their eponymous ancestor was a woman named **Lamtuna**, and thus they were related "by blood" to each other.

More on legends, as cited by Richard:

One final aspect of Biblical-based genealogical history is worth noting: it did not start with the Arabs. About halfway through his work, Procopius suddenly announces that it is necessary to tell how the Maures came to Libya. He begins with Joshua and the Hebrews invading Palestine and thrashing everyone in sight. Several of the Canaanite tribes escaped by moving into Egypt, but finding it already crowded, continued on to Libya. Autochthonous people Procopius calls the "Children of the Soil" already lived there; Procopius does not say whether the Canaanites and the Children of the Soil fought or intermarried, only that the Canaanites became Maures.61* [67* - “.V. IV.10.12–24.” - Richard L. Smith] Procopius did not invent the tie between the peoples of North Africa and the Old Testament: for the Christians it goes back to St. Hippolyte in the early third century, but its origins can be seen even earlier in Flavius Josephus and Jewish tradition.62*[62* - “Yves Modéran, "Mythe et histoire aux derniers temps de l'Afrique antique: À propos d'un texte d'Ibn Khaldun," Review Historique CCCIII 2 (Avril–Juin 2001): 327–337.” - Richard Smith] However, Procopius's story does establish a link between portals two and three. It is one of the few strands of continuity, even though it concerns a perceived rather than a real relationship, which brings us back to our original problem: Why does there appear to be such a level of discontinuity?

Richard adds…

The almost complete break in nomenclature between the classical and Arab periods has to raise a few eyebrows. The names we use today come from the sources available to us. Some names originated with the people themselves, as in the case of the Mauri, at least according to Strabo.63* [63* - “Geography XVII.3.2. Later the transliteration became "Moors."“ - Richard L. Smith] Others came from neighbors, and some that ended up in Greek and Roman references were simply botched transliterations.64* [64* - “In the opening paragraph of his discussion on Libya, Pliny complains, "The names of its peoples and towns are absolutely unpronounceable except by the natives," N.H. V.1. See Gustave Mercier, "La langue libyenne et la toponymie antique de l'Afrique du Nord," Journal Asiatique 105 (1924): 189–320.” - Richard L. Smith] Authors confused names probably more often than we suspect. In his tour of the middle of the desert, Pliny notes that "the Blemmyae are reported to have no heads, their mouth and eyes being attached to their chests."65* [65* - “N.H. V.8.46.” - Richard L. Smith] Strabo and others describe a real people they referred to as the Blemmyae, who were nomads living below Egypt. Pliny's Blemmyae, minus the name, were borrowed from Herodotus's discussion of western Libya beyond the cultivated area: "There are enormous snakes there ... donkeys with horns, dog-headed creatures, headless creatures with eyes in their chests (at least, that is what the Libyans say), wild men and wild women...."66* [66* - }Geography VIII.7; 135; Histories IV.191.” - Richard L. Smith] Still others were made up by the Greeks and Romans. Diodorus Siculus provides some egregious examples in his tour of peoples living south of Egypt, which includes the Ichthyophagi (fish eaters), Chelonophagi (turtle eaters), Rhizophagi (root eaters), Hylophagi (wood eaters), Spermatophagi (seed eaters), Stnithophagi (bird eaters), and Acnclophagi (locust eaters). Just to show his scheme was not entirely based on diet, he threw in the Simi (flat nosed). It is unlikely that people actually thought of themselves as being Hylophagi or Simi.67* [67* - “.H. III.15.1; 21.1; 23.1; 24.1–2; 28.1–2; 29.1. On names the Greeks gave to the Libyans, see Olivier Masson, "Grecs et Libyens en Cyrenaique," Antiquités africaines 10 (1976): 49–62.” - Richard L. Smith]

Finally, a bio-anthropological trivia on Imazighen speaker...

Recaps from posts elsewhere: Language family association aside, the other thing that seems to tie in these groups, though perhaps relatively more loosely than the language connection, is reoccurring uniparental markers, that is suggestive of ultimate from descent a common recent ancestor in a proto-Amazighan speaking population; predominantly, from the paternal side, this is primarily the E-M81 marker, closely followed by various clusters of the E-M78 marker. On the maternal end, an interesting pattern is observed: a clinal distribution along geographic lines finds expression with recent European ancestry substantially represented along the the north coast regions, wherein its frequency thereof progressively fades as one proceeds further into the continent, through the Sahara to the Sahel, and ultimately into sub-Saharan Africa. By the same token, the more traditional/typical African markers are more considerably represented in Sahelian and Saharan Imazighen speakers. This maternal distribution pattern seems to parallel phenotypic trends like that of the clinal pattern invoked in skin tone variations; Imazighen (Berber) speakers sport noticeable degree of variation from tawny looking groups to noticeably dark hued groups, and intermediary grades in between the extremes of this phenotypic manifestation amongst Imazighen speakers; darker-toned Imazighen speakers seem to be predominant in the Saharan and Sahelian areas, while the coastal north regions is notably inhabited by considerable segments of populations, though not exclusively, of lighter-toned Imazighen and Arabized Imazighen speakers.

There have been attempts by some parties to tie contemporary Imazighen speakers with Upper Paleolithic bio-anthropological records of Northwest Africa, but genetic studies have shown that while contemporary Imazighen groups carry lineages that derive from Upper Paleolithic provenance, the coalescent ages from typical Amazigh markers postdate the Upper Paleolithic; reoccurring markers like M1 and U6 also derive from the Upper Paleolithic, but are not evenly distributed in considerable frequency in different Imazighen locales, if not even relatively modest compared to some territorially-specific markers of an Imazighen habitation in question. One study found something interesting in the coastal northwest African mtDNA landscape: that an Arabized population had less traditional African-specific markers than the "Imazighen"-identified counterpart in Tunisia; they attribute this interesting find to the "patchy nature" of DNA samplings undertaken on contemporary Imazighen populations...

Female gene pools of Berber and Arab neighboring communities in central Tunisia: microstructure of mtDNA variation in North Africa.
Feb 2005

Cherni L, Loueslati BY, Pereira L, Ennafaa H, Amorim A, El Gaaied AB.

Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Immunology, and Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis, El Manar II 1060, Tunisia.

North African populations are considered genetically closer to Eurasians than to sub-Saharans. However, they display a considerably high mtDNA heterogeneity among them, namely in the frequencies of the U6, East African, and sub-Saharan haplogroups. In this study, we describe and compare the female gene pools of two neighboring Tunisian populations, Kesra (Berber) and Zriba (non-Berber), which have contrasting historical backgrounds. Both populations presented lower diversity values than those observed for other North African populations, and they were the only populations not showing significant negative Fu's F(S) values. Kesra displayed a much higher proportion of typical sub-Saharan haplotypes (49%, including 4.2% of M1 haplogroup) than Zriba (8%). With respect to U6 sequences, frequencies were low (2% in Kesra and 8% in Zriba), and all belonged to the subhaplogroup U6a. An analysis of these data in the context of North Africa reveals that the emerging picture is complex, because Zriba would match the profile of a Berber Moroccan population, whereas Kesra, which shows twice the frequency of sub-Saharan lineages normally observed in northern coastal populations, would match a western Saharan population except for the low U6 frequency.

The North African patchy mtDNA landscape has no parallel in other regions of the world and increasing the number of sampled populations has not been accompanied by any substantial increase in our understanding of its phylogeography. Available data up to now rely on sampling small, scattered populations, although they are carefully characterized in terms of their ethnic, linguistic, and historical backgrounds. It is therefore doubtful that this picture truly represents the complex historical demography of the region rather than being just the result of the type of samplings performed so far.

Recalling from a previous posting elsewhere...

Arredi et al. had already stated that there is no substantial "Paleolithic" contribution in North African west Afrasan-speaking groups (otherwise known as "Berbers"), even though the lineages themselves derive from ancestral lineages of Paleolithic extraction; whereas the Bosch et al. study sees E3b lineages in Berbers as of Upper Paleolithic extraction. Arredi et al.'s study post-dates (2004) that of the Bosch et al. study (2001). Moreover, Bosch et al. idea of what constitutes "sub-Saharan" Africa is messed up, judging from their seeming incapacity to note that E3b-M35 is of sub-Saharan origin. Nonetheless, Wikipedia's claim about ancestry, supposedly in attribution to Bosch et al., is a far cry from what is actually presented in the Bosch et al. study; and so, in reading Wikipedia, caution has to be in order before one accepts the said info as credible. This is what was stated in Wikipedia:

The Y chromosome is passed exclusively through the paternal line. The composition is: 48% E3b2, 12% E3b* (xE3b2), 17% R1*(xR1a) and 23% F*(xH,I,J2,K) ((Arredi et al., 2004) [1]), according to the method used by Bosch et al. 2001. We may summarize the historical origins of the Kabyle Y-chromosome pool as follows: 60% Northwest African Upper Paleolithic (H36/E3b* and H38/E3b2), 23% Neolithic (F*(xH,I,J2,K)) and 17% historic European gene flow (R1*(xR1a)). :

This is what Bosch et al. actually said:

Group IX haplotypes (fig. 2gi) are found in the Middle East and are most prevalent in Europe (Underhill et al. 2000). Group IX also contains three local Iberian haplotypes: H101, H102, and H103. The latter, which is defined by derived mutation M167 (also known as "SRY-2627"), is equivalent to Y-chromosome haplogroup 22 as described by Hurles et al. (1999). These authors examined haplogroup 22 worldwide and showed that it has a geographical distribution almost restricted to northern Iberia. Moreover, on the basis of the dating of microsatellite and minisatellite diversity within haplogroup 22, they suggested that it arose in Iberia a few thousand years ago.

Group IX is found at a low frequency **(3%)** in NW Africa. In Iberia, 56% of the Y chromosomes carry H104, which is found across Europe, with increasing frequencies toward the west; its defining mutation, M173, may have been introduced by the first Upper Paleolithic colonizations of Europe (Semino et al. 2000). It may not have been the only lineage introduced into Iberia during the Upper Paleolithic, but it seems to have been the only one that has persisted in the extant Iberian gene pool. Of five H104 NW African chromosomes, one had an STR haplotype identical to that in an H104 Iberian chromosome, one was one mutation step away from Iberian H104 chromosomes, and the remaining three were two mutation steps away. Moreover, the mean repeat-size difference within 53 H104 Iberian STR haplotypes was 2.8 (range 011). The phylogenetic relations among H104 STR haplotypes is shown by a reduced median network (fig. 3c), in which the NW African chromosomes appear to be clearly embedded within the Iberian diversity. The time necessary to accumulate the STR-allele differences between NW African and Iberian H104 chromosomes was estimated at 2,100 ± 450 years. This close STR-haplotype similarity seems to indicate that H104 chromosomes found in NW Africa are a subset of the European gene pool and that they may have been introduced during **historic times.**

...meaning that European, more precisely Iberian male mediated gene flow, is much more recent in coastal North African west-Afrasan speakers, who are specifically the following:

H50 found in one Moroccan "Arab", and H104 found in one southern Moroccan "west-Afrasan/"Berber"" speaker, three Moroccan "Arab" speakers, and one north-central Moroccan "west-Afrasan" speaker.

Bosch et al. go onto conclude that:

So far, our analyses have allowed a clear dissection of almost all NW African and Iberian paternal lineages into several components with distinct historical origins. In this way, the historical origins of the NW African Y-chromosome pool may be summarized as follows: 75% NW African Upper Paleolithic (H35, H36, and H38), 13% Neolithic (H58 and H71), **4%** historic European gene flow (group IX, H50, H52), and 8% recent sub-Saharan African (H22 and H28). In contrast, the origins of the Iberian Y-chromosome pool may be summarized as follows: 5% recent NW African, 78% Upper Paleolithic and later local derivatives (group IX), and 10% Neolithic (H58, H71). No haplotype assumed to have originated in sub-Saharan Africa was found in our Iberian sample. It should be noted that H58 and H71 are not the only haplotypes present in the Middle East and that the Neolithic wave of advance could have brought other lineages to Iberia and NW Africa. However, the homogeneity of STR haplotypes within the most ancient biallelic haplotypes in each region indicates a single origin during the past, with possible minor reintroductions, with the Neolithic expansion, from the Middle East. Thus, Neolithic contributions may be slightly underestimated.

Whereby Hg E is denoted by the following:

H35=E3b-M78, H38=E3b-M81, and H36=E3b-M35; H22=E3a-M2, and H28=E1-M33

Hg J denoted by the following:

H58=J2*-M172

Hg F denoted by the following:

H71=F*-M89

Hg I denoted by the following:

H50=I1b2-M26, and H52=I*-M170.

Hg R denoted by the following:

H104=R*-M173

Thus note that the "4%" "historic", NOT pre-historic, European contribution quite likely from the Iberian peninsula, is a combination of I lineage (.6%), which was found in only one Moroccan "Arab" speaking individual AND R lineages (2.8%) found in five Moroccan individauls; three of them "Arab" speakers, and two of them "west-Afrasan" speakers.

ATI (Africa Timeline Index) "One-stop" Encyclopedic compilation from various sources:

The bulk of hominid skeletons uncovered in sub-Saharan East Africa has tremendously enhanced our insights into humanity's bio-evolutionary history, but in doing so, may have also created some sort of a researcher tunnel vision, wherein other places in the content are overlooked for the uncovering of other pieces of the hominid evolutionary index — where the prospect of uncovering both other "missing links" to modern humanity and "dead-enders" alike may well have been and continues to be hampered. The hominid cranium found in the Chadic area serves as such an example; it has been dubbed the "Toumai". It may well have been one of those so-called "dead-ender" hominids where ancestry to modern humanity is concerned, but the fact that it is quite old and found outside of east Africa, should serve — the present author thinks — as a wake up call to those aspirant researchers, who want to get a fuller insight into the hominid bio-evolutionary index, that they ought to pay little more attention and brush other parts of the African continent more enthusiastically, while still scavenging in east Africa for whatever hominid fossil pieces remain, for adding precision to our understanding of the hominid evolutionary history.

Toumai, the Chad Skull ~ 7 million years ago:

At 6-7 million years, the newly found Sahelanthropus from Chad, is the oldest known member of the human line of the ape-human family tree. - Courtesy archaeology.org, by the Archaeological Institute of America, 2002

Briefing on the Toumai

Dr. Daniel E. Lieberman, a biological anthropologist at Harvard, called the African specimen "one of the greatest paleontological discoveries of the past 100 years."

The skull was uncovered in the desert of Chad by a French-led team under the direction of Dr. Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers. Struck by the skull's unusual mix of apelike and evolved hominid features, the discoverers assigned it to an entirely new genus and species — Sahelanthropus tchadensis. It is more commonly calledToumai, meaning "hope of life" in the local language.

...Dr. Brunet's group said the fossils — a cranium, two lower jaw fragments and several teeth — promised "to illuminate the earliest chapter in human evolutionary history…

…About a million years older than any previously recognized hominid, Toumai lived close to the time that molecular biologists think was the earliest period in which the human lineage diverged from the chimpanzee branch.

The next oldest hominid appears to be the 6-million-year-old Orrorin tugenensis, found two years ago in Kenya but not yet fully accepted by many scientists. After it is Ardipithecus ramidus, which probably lived 4.4 million to 5.8 million years ago in Ethiopia.

"A lot of interesting things were happening earlier than we previously knew," said Dr. Eric Delson, a paleontologist at the City University of New York and the American Museum of Natural History.

The most puzzling aspect of the new skull is that it seems to belong to two widely separated evolutionary periods. Its size indicates that Toumai had a brain comparable to that of a modern chimp, about 320 to 380 cubic centimeters. Yet the face is short and relatively flat, compared with the protruding faces of chimps and other early hominids. Indeed, it is more humanlike than the "Lucy" species, Australopithecus afarensis, which lived more than 3.2 million years ago.

"A hominid of this age," Dr. Wood wrote in Nature, "should certainly not have the face of a hominid less than one-third of its geological age."

Scientists suggest several possible explanations:

— Toumai could somehow be an ancestor of modern humans, or of gorillas or chimps.

— It could be a common ancestor of humans and chimps, before the divergence.

— "But why restrict yourself to thinking this fossil has to belong to a lineage that leads to something modern?" Dr. Wood asked. "It's perfectly possible this belongs to a branch that's neither chimp nor human, but has become extinct."

…A few scientists sound cautionary notes. Dr. Delson questioned whether the Toumai face was complete enough to justify interpretations of more highly evolved characteristics. One critic argued that the skull belonged to a gorilla, but that is disputed by scientists who have examined it.

Just as important perhaps is the fact that the Chad skull was found off the beaten path of hominid research.

Until now, nearly every early hominid fossil has come from eastern Africa, mainly Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, or from southern Africa. Finding something very old and different in central Africa should expand the hunt.

"In hindsight, we should have expected this," Dr. Lieberman said. "Africa is big and we weren't looking at all of Africa. This fossil is a wake-up call. It reminds us that we're missing large portions of the fossil record."

Source: Courtesy The New York Times, by John Noble Wilford, August 6, 2002

Australopithecus ramidus (a.k.a. Ardipithecus ramidus)  ~ 4.4 million years ago:
Australopithecus ramidus is the most recent addition to the human evolutionary tree; see [ Boyd & Silk 1997 ] , pp 359-361.

In 1994, fossils were found by Tim White and his associates [ White et al. 1994 ] in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. They subsequently named A. ramidus, a new hominid species, though it has recently been changed to Ardipithecus ramidus.

The collection of 17 fossils includes dental, cranial and postcranial material. It is dated to around 4.4 million years ago, making it the remains of the oldest known hominid.

The features include small canines ( like humans ) and thin tooth enamel ( an african ape characteristic ).

They were found near Hadar where A. afarensis was found. Preliminary palaeogeographical reconstruction suggests that the habitat was woodland.

Source: Courtesy whurle-hk

 

Update - Other notes on Ardipithecus ramidus, personified by a specimen nicknamed "Ardi": 

- Volcanic layers around the fossil were used to date it from 4.4million years ago
 
- Ardi's upper canine teeth are more similar to stubby human teeth than sharp chimpanzee teeth
 
- Tooth enamel analysis revealed they ate fruit, nuts and leaves
 
- Ardi's brain was positioned in a similar way to that of humans
 
- Pelvis and hip show the gluteal muscles were positioned so she could walk upright 

"Previously, scientists believed that our common ancestor would have been very chimp-like, and that ancient hominids such as Ardi would still have much in common with them. But she was not suited like a modern- day chimp to swinging or hanging from trees or walking on her knuckles.This suggests that chimps and gorillas developed those characteristics after the split with humans - challenging the idea that they are merely an 'unevolved' version of us.

Ardi's feet were rigid enough to allow her to walk upright some of the time, but she still had a grasping big toe for use in climbing trees.And she had long arms but short palms and fingers which were flexible, allowing her to support her body weight on her palms. 

Her upper canine teeth are more like the stubby teeth of modern people than the long, sharp ones of chimps. An analysis of her tooth enamel suggests she ate fruit, nuts and leaves.
 
Scientists believe she was a female because her skull is relatively small and lightly built. Her teeth were also smaller than other members of the same family that were found later." - Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk  

A. afarensis footprints ~ 3.5-3.7 million years ago:

These A. afarensis footprints embedded now in volcanic rock, were made 3.5-3.7 million years ago at Laetoli in Tanzania.

They were discovered by Mary Leakey and her colleagues in 1978/79, and provide incontrovertible evidence of early hominid bipedalism.

Source: Courtesy whurle-hk

"Little Foot" — South African Sterkfontein Australopithecus-like specimen ~ between 3.22 and 3.58 million years old:

— The skeleton of the South African Sterkfontein Australopithecus-like specimen has been dated at between 3.22 and 3.58 million years old by the Geomagnetism Laboratory at the University of Liverpool. Previously the oldest complete hominid skeleton was a 1.5 million-year-old Homo erectus discovered in Kenya.

The analysis of "Little Foot" has already yielded some valuable insights into the hominid's ability to walk upright. An examination of its bone structure revealed the creature was adapted for clutching onto tree branches. Philip Tobias, one of Clarke's colleagues, said that the hominid had "arboreal habits coupled with terrestrial habits". His statement has created considerable controversy, as most anthropologists previously believed that hominids were completely ground dwelling 3.5 million years ago.

The current knowledge of Australopithecus has been obtained from a number of incomplete skeletons and bone fragments. Until now the oldest most complete Australopithecus was the 3.2 million-year-old fossil, known as "Lucy," which Donald Johanson discovered in 1974 in the Hadar valley of Ethiopia.

The discovery of "Lucy" caused a scientific sensation as it possessed human characteristics such as the ability to walk upright and use tools but had the brain size of a chimpanzee. Until then scientists had dismissed the conjecture made by Karl Marx's collaborator Fredrick Engels last century that upright stature, freeing the hands for tool making, was the crucial first step in human evolution--not brain size. - by Frank Gaglioti, WSWS.org, 1998.

— A nearly complete skeleton of one of the oldest apelike ancestors of humans – a creature who apparently swung in trees but also walked upright – has been discovered encased in a 3.5-million-year-old rock formation inside a South African cave, scientists here announced today…

…There are numerous skulls, parts of limbs, sets of vertebrae and ribs, and a few pelvises – but no specimens in which skull and skeleton are clearly from the same individual. As a result, fundamental questions about Australopithecus have remained unanswered, including the size of the brain in relation to the size of the body, its likely diet, its mode of locomotion and anatomical particulars…

…Two of the most familiar species are Australopithecus afarensis (of which the Ethiopian specimen named "Lucy" is the prime example) and A. africanus, of which the classic examples are from South Africa. It is not clear whether one species preceded the other, whether they coexisted, or which – if either – was the direct ancestor of the first humans. It has generally been assumed that A. afarensis is probably the older species, but the new discovery may challenge that…

…The Geomagnetism Laboratory at the University of Liverpool in England dated the hominid at between 3.22 and 3.58 million years old based on magnetic characteristics of the surrounding breccia, or broken rock. That date would make it marginally older than "Lucy," discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, and one of the oldest known….

Source: Washington Post

A. afarensis ( Lucy ) ~ 2.9 to 3.5 million years:
These remains ( Lucy - AL288 ) were found in the Hadar region of Ethiopia.

Lucy is one of the most important of all fossil hominid finds, with 40 percent of the skeleton recovered; [Boyd & Silk 1997] , pp 342-359.

The species Australopithecus afarensis was named in 1978 to include "Lucy" and the hominid footprints discovered in Laetoli by Mary Leakey and her team.
A. afarensis is widely believed to be ancestral to the other known hominids.

The Ethiopian specimens have been dated to between 2.9 and 3.5 million years.

The footprints (mentioned above) have been dated to between 3.6 and 3.75 million years.

Bringing both these sets of specimens into a single species was controversial at the time, and is still questioned by some specialists.

Source: Courtesy whurle-hk

"Selam" — Australopithecus afarensis ~ 3.3 million-year-old:

Discovered by Zeresenay Almeseged in 2000 at Dikika in Ethiopia (Alemeseged et al. 2006). This is a well-preserved 3.3 million year old partial skeleton of an approximately 3 year old Australopithecus afarensis child. The fossil consists of an almost complete skull, hyoid bone, limb fragments, rib fragments, collar bones ( clavicles) and shoulder blades (scapulae), and some vertebrae. It is the most complete juvenile hominid skeleton known until Neanderthal times.

The bipedal features of other A. afarensis fossils are mostly found in this fossil, confirming that afarensis was bipedal...The features of Selam's upper body tend to be apelike: the shoulder blade closely resembles that of a gorilla, the finger bones are curved as in chimpanzees, and the semicircular canals are more like those of chimps than humans. All these lines of evidence suggest that A. afarensis was partly arboreal.

The name 'Selam' means 'peace' in the local Ethiopian language. Because it belongs to the same species as Lucy, the fossil has also been nicknamed 'Lucy's child', although it is actually about 100,000 years older than Lucy.

References courtesy talkorigins.org: Alemseged Z., Spoor F., Kimbel W.H., Bobe R., Geraards D., Reed D. et al. (2006): A juvenile early hominin skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature, 443:296-301.Wood, B. (2006): Palaeoanthropology: a precious little bundle. Nature, 443:296-301. (the Dikika skeleton)

A. africanus Sts 5 skull ~ 2.6 million-year-old:

The female cranium Sts 5 from Sterkfontein in South Africa, found in 1936 by a vertebrate palaeontologist named Robert Broom.

This skull belonged to an adult female, and was better preserved than the Taung child.

This specimen has been variously named, including "Plesianthropus" for a while, from which has come the nickname "Mrs Ples" - pronounced "Please".

Nowadays most palaeoanthropologists assign it to Australopithecus africanus [ Boyd & Silk 1997 ] , pp 362-365.

Source: Courtesy whurle-hk

A. sediba remains, two fossils - MH1 (11 to 12 year old male) and MH2 (adult female) ~ between 1.78 and 1.977 million years old:

Click on the image for a higher resolution.

The teeth of this species -- called Australopithecus sediba -- indicate that it is also a close relative to the previously identified Australopithecus africanus. Both of these species are clearly more closely related to humans than other australopiths from east Africa, according to the new research.

The study, published in the journal Science, revealed that both africanus and sediba shared about the same number of dental traits with the first undeniably human species.

"Our study provides further evidence that sediba is indeed a very close relative of early humans, but we can't definitively determine its position relative to africanus, said Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, co-author of the study and professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University.

...

africanus scored the same. Sediba shared 13 traits with Homo erectus, an early human species, which was comparable to how africanus scored.

Sediba and africanus shared five dental traits that weren't found in earlier australopiths, further showing their close relationship. Both also share five traits with early humans -- Homo habilis/rudolfenis and Homo erectus -- which weren't shared with earlier ancestors, demonstrating the close relationship between these two australopiths and the first humans.

...

"All of the research so far shows that sediba had a mosaic of primitive traits and newer traits that suggest it was a bridge between earlier australopiths and the first humans," she said.

Guatelli-Steinberg said their dental analysis showed that both africanus and sediba are more closely related to humans than the famous "Lucy" skeleton fossil found in East Africa in 1974. This fossil represented a species, Australopithecus afarensis, that was at one time was thought to be the closest relative of humans.

Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago. Sediba lived 1.977 million years ago, while africanus lived between 3.03 and 2.04 million years ago.

"Our research on teeth can't definitively settle if either sediba or africanus is more closely related to humans than the other species," Guatelli-Steinberg said. "But our findings do suggest that both are closely related to each other and are more closely related to humans than afarensis.

"We need to find more sediba remains to help fill in the missing pieces of this evolutionary puzzle." - Courtesy of Science daily, Fossilized Teeth Provide New Insight Into Human Ancestor: Species Identified in 2010 Is One of Closest Relatives to Humans, April 11, 2013.

Homo Habilis ~ 1.9 - 1.6:

Homo habilis broke through into science in the early 1960's with the discovery of the OH 7 (the habilis type specimen) fossil at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania by Louis Leakey and collegues. The existence of Homo habilis is currently dated to between 1.9 and 1.6 million years

Homo ergaster ~ 1.8 million years ago:
— Anatomically, the African Homo ergaster is similar to the Eurasian Homo erectus. The differentiation comes in the higher cranial vault and lighter frame and facial structure of H. ergaster, as well as in the earlier dates with which ergaster is associated.

— Homo Erectus ( and/or Homo Ergaster? ) in Africa ~ 1.8 million years ago:

In 1997, Gilbert found the Homo erectus calvarium, or the upper part of a skull which lacks a lower face and teeth. The skull was embedded in the sediment of the Middle Awash study area in Ethiopia, about 140 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, the capital city.

The fossil was slightly exposed, and immediately recognizable as part of a skull, Gilbert said, calling the discovery of the Homo erectus cranium-the fourth one found in Africa-"breathtaking."

…"( The cranium ) looks like Asian Homo erectus," Gilbert said. "It's well within the range of variation you'd expect to see within a single widely distributed species."

The idea was that African and Asian specimens represent two divergent lineages, distinguishable from each other at the species level by morphology. If this were true, a quantitative analysis of physical characteristics in all existing specimens should have partitioned them into two distinct groups, by geography as well as morphology, White said.

...Once the new fossil was included in the quantitative analysis, there was no clear division between African versus Asian in the one million year old crania, White said….

…"Now we have this cranium from Africa that is not distinguished at the species level from the Asian forms," White said.

Source: Courtesy University of California, Berkeley, Media Relations

KNM-ER 1466 Left Side of Cranial Vault:Thick and rather robust features could also place this specimen with H. erectus or even as a robust H. sapiens - courtesy of msu.edu.

KNM-ER 3733 Cranium ~ dated to 1.8 million years - courtesy of msu.edu :

Revealed in 1975 by the Koobi Fora Research Project at East Turkana, Kenya

The "Homo Erectus-like" Dmanis skulls ~ from 1.75 million years ago:

(Mission Paléoanthropologique Franco-Tchadienne) The small brain size of a 1.75-million-year-old Homo erectus skull [my emphasis — should rather read: "Homo Erectus-looking"; don't know yet if they were actually Homo Erectus], found in the Republic of Georgia, is causing a reevaluation of early human dispersal from Africa. (Gouram Tsibakhashvili) - Courtesy archaeology.org, by the Archaeological Institute of America, 2002

Briefing

— Although overshadowed by the news of Toumai, the well-preserved 1.75-million-year-old skull from Georgia was also full of surprises, in this case concerning a later chapter in the hominid story. It raised questions about the identity of the first hominids to be intercontinental travelers, who set in motion the migrations that would eventually lead to human occupation of the entire planet.

The discovery, reported in the July 5 issue of the journal Science, was made at the medieval town Dmanisi, 50 miles southwest of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. Two years ago, scientists announced finding two other skulls at the same site, but the new one appears to be intriguingly different and a challenge to prevailing views.

Scientists have long been thought that the first hominid out-of-Africa migrants were Homo Erectus, a species with large brains and a stature approaching human dimensions. The species was widely assumed to have stepped out in the world once they evolved their greater intelligence and longer legs and invented more advanced stone tools.

The first two Dmanisi skulls confirmed one part of the hypothesis. They bore a striking resemblance to the African version of H. erectus, sometimes called Homo ergaster. Their discovery was hailed as the most ancient undisputed hominid fossils outside Africa.

But the skulls were associated with more than 1,000 crudely chipped cobbles, simple choppers and scrapers, not the more finely shaped and versatile tools that would be introduced by H. erectus more than 100,000 years later. That undercut the accepted evolutionary explanation for the migrations.

The issue has become even more muddled with the discovery of the third skull by international paleontologists led by Dr. David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi. It is about the same age and bears an overall resemblance to the other two skulls. But it is much smaller.

"These hominids are more primitive than we thought," Dr. Lordkipanidze said in an article in the current issue of National Geographic magazine. "We have a new puzzle."

To the discoverers, the skull has the canine teeth and face of Homo habilis, a small hominid with long apelike arms that evolved in Africa before H. erectus. And the size of its cranium suggests a substantially smaller brain than expected for H. erectus.

In their journal report, the discovery team estimated the cranial capacity of the new skull to be about 600 cubic centimeters, compared with about 780 and 650 c.c.'s for the other Dmanisis specimens. That is "near the mean" for H. habilis, they noted. Modern human braincases are about 1,400 cubic centimeters.

Dr. G. Philip Rightmire, a paleontologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton and a member of the discovery team, said that if the new skull had been found before the other two, it might have been identified as H. habilis.

Dr. Ian Tattersall, a specialist in human evolution at the natural history museum in New York City, said the specimen was "the first truly African-looking thing to come from outside Africa." More than anything else, he said, it resembles a 1.9-million-year-old Homo habilis skull from Kenya.

For the time being, however, the fossil is tentatively labeled Homo erectus, though it stretches the definition of that species. Scientists are pondering what lessons they can learn from it about the diversity of physical attributes within a single species.

Dr. Fred Smith, a paleontologist who has just become dean of arts and sciences at Loyola University in Chicago, agreed that his was a sensible approach, at least until more fossils turn up. Like other scientists, he doubted that two separate hominid species would have occupied the same habitat at roughly the same time. Marked variations within a species are not uncommon; brain size varies within living humans by about 15 percent.

"The possibility of variations within a species should never be excluded," Dr. Smith said. "There's a tendency now for everybody to see three bumps on a fossil instead of two and immediately declare that to be another species."

Some discoverers of the Dmanisi skull speculated that these hominids might be descended from ancestors like H. habilis that had already left Africa. In that case, it could be argued that H. erectus itself evolved not in Africa but elsewhere from an ex-African species. If so, the early Homo genealogy would have to be drastically revised.

But it takes more than two or even three specimens to reach firm conclusions about the range of variations within a species. Still, Georgia is a good place to start. The three specimens found there represent the largest collection of individuals from any single site older than around 800,000 years.

"We have now a very rich collection, of three skulls and three jawbones, which gives us a chance to study very properly this question" of how to classify early hominids, Dr. Lordkipanidze said, and paleontologists are busy this summer looking for more skulls at Dmanisi.

"We badly want to know what the functional abilities of the first out-of-Africa migrants were," said Dr. Wood of George Washington University. "What could that animal do that animals that preceded it couldn't? What was the role of culture in this migration? Maybe other animals were leaving and the hominids simply followed."

All scholars of human prehistory eagerly await the next finds from Dmanisi, and in Chad. Perhaps they will help untangle some of the bushy branches of the human family tree to reveal the true ancestry of Homo sapiens.

Source: Courtesy The New York Times, by John Noble Wilford, August 6, 2002

— It may well be instructive to note the following, that is said of the Dmanisi specimen found in Republic of Georgia…

The Dmanisi specimens share more similarities with the African species Homo ergaster than they do with the Asian Homo erectus, both of which may have existed at the time when the Dmanisi individuals lived. The only characteristic shared with H. erectus and not with H. ergaster is the presence of an angular bulge or torus at the back of the cranium. Homo ergaster specimens do not have an angular torus, whereas both D2280 and D2282 do. The presence or lack of this feature, though, is not considered significant in phylogenetic analysis.

Morphological and proportional similarities that D2280 and D2282 share with H. ergaster are considered more important. These similarities have led to the classification of both cranial remains as H. ergaster.

… This classification expands the boundaries of this species, which, until these finds, appeared to be geographically confined to East Africa. H. ergaster has been challenged by many paleoanthropologists who consider it a mere variation of the species H. erectus. The Dmanisi cranial remains show that H. ergaster is more than a limited geographical variant of another species.

Source: Courtesy Science vol. 288, pages 1019-1025. May 12, 2000, by L. Gabunia et al.

—D2280 Cranium:

Found in 1999 at Dmanisi, Georgia

—D2282 Cranium:
Found in 1999 at Dmanisi, Georgia

More pics in Source: Link

The remaining tid bits are extracts courtesy of msu.edu, *unless otherwise stated:

KNM-ER 3883 Partial Cranium ~ dated to between 1.4 - 1.6 million years:
Found by Richard Leakey at Koobi Fora, Kenya

The Koobi Fora Kenyan specimens ~ 1.51 and 1.56 million years:

One of the truly more amazing finds in the history of east african paleoanthropology is the Nariokotome Boy, found by K. Kimeu, Alan Walker, and Richard Leakey at Nariokotome III, West Turkana, Kenya. This find represents a nearly full skeleton of an ergaster youth, dating to between 1.51 and 1.56 million years.

KNM WT 15000 Partial Skeleton ~ dated to between 1.51 - 1.56 million years:

The cranium was found by K. Kimeu in 1984, while the remainder was found by Alan Walker and Richard Leakey over the next three years at Nariokotome III, West Turkana, Kenya

KNM-ER 730 Skull Fragments:

By M. G. Leakey in 1970, at Koobi Fora, Kenya. Traits correlate with both Ergaster on one hand, and Erectus on the other

KNM-ER 731 Mandible Fragment

KNM-ER 819 Mandible Fragment
Although placed in the general classification of Homo, is also a candidate for boisei. Because of its greater robusticity, it is placed into ergaster instead of habilis

KNM-ER 820 Juvenile Mandible:
Dentition compared closely to the Erectus specimen from Zhoukoudian. This specimen is placed by many under the H. Erectus classification

KNM-ER 992 Mandible ~ dated to 1.5 million years:

It is the type specimen for Homo ergaster found by C. Groves and V. Mazak in 1975 at Koobi Fora, Kenya

OH 13 Fragmented Skull ~ dated to 1.5 million years:
By Louis Leakey in 1963 at Olduvai

SK 847 Partial Cranium ~ dated to 1.5 million years:
Found at Swartkrans - South Africa in 1969 by Ronald Clarke

Taung skull, Australopithecus africanus ~ 1 million years ago:
1924 - the year the first australopithecine came to light in South Africa. Professor Raymond Dart of Witwatersrand University was sorting another crate of limestone rock from a quarry near a place called Taung…

…Limestone is good fossil-bearing rock. But dynamited fragments ( often associated with quarries ) are hard to date, particularly with radiometric techniques.

This is why the Taung fossil is difficult to date. Faunal correlation ( i.e. dating a fossil by association with other fossils whose dates are known ) is one way round this, and there are others. But Taung dates are still controversial.

Several recent studies suggest that Taung is younger than once thought - possibly little more than 1 million years BP.

...Dart was certain it was an extinct hominid, although very few of his colleagues in the profession agreed. Dart called his new find various things, but finally settled forAustralopithecus Africanus, the first of the "gracile" australopithecines, hominids with aslender or graceful physique…

…The australopithecines are usually separated into two morphological types on the basis of their body build: gracile forms (Australopithecus afarensis and A. africanus) and robust forms (A. robustus, A. boisei and A. aethiopicus).

KNM-ER 1466 Left Side of Cranial Vault:

Thick and rather robust features could also place this specimen with H. erectus or even as a robust H. sapiens

KNM-ER 1593: Skull Fragments

KNM-ER 1648: Parietal Fragment

KNM-ER 1808 Adult Skull Fragments

KNM-ER 1811 Mandibular Fragments

KNM-ER 1812 Mandible Fragments

KNM-ER 1821 Right Parietal Fragment

KNM-ER 2592 Left Parietal Fragments

KNM-ER 2595 Right Parietal Fragment

KNM-ER 2598 Occipital Fragment

KNM-ER 3734 Mandibular Fragments

KNM-ER 3889 Mandible Fragment

KNM-ER 3892 Frontal and Parietal:
Robusticity places it in comparison with that of Asian Erectus

Olduvai, Tanzania specimens:

OH 9 Partial Cranium ~ dated to 1.2 million years:

Discovered in 1960 by Louis Leakey at Olduvai, Tanzania


Already mentioned above: OH 13 Fragmented Skull ~ dated to 1.5 million years:
By Louis Leakey in 1963 at Olduvai

The Gawis cranium dated ~ 500 ky - 250 ky ago:

Missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man?

The hominid cranium -- found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old -- "comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human," said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia.

Omo crania ~ 195 ky ago:
Feb 2005: Two skulls found near the Omo River in Ethiopia in 1967 by Richard Leakey and thought to be about 130,000 years old have now been dated at 195,000 years, the oldest date known for a modern human skull (McDougall et al. 2005). The Omo I skull is fully modern, while Omo II has some archaic features - Courtesy Jim Foley, talkorigins.org

Herto Crania ~ 160 ky ago:

…After uncovering more fossilized fragments, the team reconstructed skull fragments and teeth from seven individuals. The three most complete fossils, however, were one adult cranium ( excluding the lower jaw ), cranial fragments from another adult, and a less-complete child’s skull.

…To determine the age of the fossils, White and his team turned to Paul Renne, of UC Berkeley’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Berkeley Geochronology Center--a non-profit organization that dates geological events in the Earth’s history. Renne’s research group used argon-isotope dating to find the age of the Herto fossils. This process takes advantage of the radioactive decay of an isotope of potassium ( potassium-40 ) into argon ( argon-40 ). By knowing the rate of this decay and measuring the proportion of potassium-40 to argon-40, Renne and his team determined the age of volcanic ash above and below the fossils. After correlating the make-up of the Herto fossils with the volcanic ash, they dated the skulls to about 160,000 years ago, chronologically placing them between pre-Homo sapiens and modern man

…The Herto individuals are not the only early humans found in Africa, but their relative wholeness makes them the most significant. Unlike remains dating from 130,000 to 260,000 years ago found in South Africa, Tanzania and Morocco, the Ethiopian fossils are “especially well preserved and clean,” said Renne. They do not show evidence of disease or pathologies, which can sometimes misrepresent a species and mislead scientists.

The most unique quality of the crania is their combination of early and modern human features For example:

— the wide-set eyes, anteriorly-placed teeth, and short occipital bone at the base of the skull are found in more ancient African crania.

— But the wide upper face, moderately domed forehead, and globular braincase resemble modern human fossils, like those found in Israel from about 115,000 years ago.

Source: Courtesy UC Berkeley, Science Review.

In the words of Jennifer Viegas, for Discovery news, going back to the point about avoiding bio-anthropological "tunnel vision",....

Although Omo I may be the world's "Adam" for now, it's possible that modern humans emerged even earlier at some other place in Africa.

"We only have evidence for what we have found," Fleagle said, adding that there "almost certainly were modern individuals before Omo I."

He explained that Ethiopia's geology has deposits suitable to bone preservation and discovery, which is perhaps why so many fossil hominids have been excavated there over the years.

"Paleontology is a very opportunistic science," he concluded. "When we have a record of fossils in one place, we can reconstruct what happened there, but it is impossible to say what was going on in places from which there is no fossil record." - Jennifer Viegas, Earliest Known Human Had Neanderthal Qualities, Discovery News - August 22, 2008.

Recommended reading: 

Recent Developments in Paleoanthropology

Chronological Bits - Crania

Last updated on April 25th, 2013.