No they didn't. And if we want to go that route the Ancient Egyptians themselves tied themselves to Central Africa with the Mountain of the Moons claims. But we also know that is NOT true.
"The period when sub-Saharan Africa was most influential in Egypt was a time when neither Egypt, as we understand it culturally, nor the Sahara, as we understand it geographically, existed. Populations and cultures now found south of the desert roamed far to the north. The culture of Upper Egypt, which became dynastic Egyptian civilization,
could fairly be called a Sudanese transplant." (Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction. Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa, by Joseph O. Vogel, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California (1997), pp. 465-472 )[119]
To sum up, Nubia is Egypt’s African ancestor. What linked Ancient Egypt to the rest of the North African cultures is this strong tie with the Nubian pastoral nomadic lifestyle, the same pastoral background commonly shared by most of the ancient Saharan and modern sub-Saharan societies. Thus, not only did Nubia have a prominent role in the origin of Ancient Egypt, it was also a key area for the origin of the entire of the entire African pastoral tradition.
The Nubian Pastoral Culture as Link between Egypt and Africa: A View from the Archaeological Record
The major features of cultural and political development that led to dynastic Egypt originated in southern Egypt during what is called the predynastic period.
Some evidence suggests that predynastic Egyptian and early Nubian cultures had ties to the early Saharan cultures and shared a Saharo-Nilotic heritage. Perhaps the earliest predynastic culture, the Badarian-Tasian* (4400 B.C. or earlier, to 4000 B.C.), had the clearest ties to Saharan cultures in the desert west of Nubia.
National Geographic Magazine - NGM.com
“We now recognize that populations of Nubia and Egypt form a continuum rather than clearly distinct groups,” Mr. Emberling writes, “and that it is impossible to draw a line between Egypt and Nubia that would indicate where ‘black’ begins.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/a...ms-of-africa-review.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&
Like I said you're going to have a hard time finding a cultural/anthropological continuum between Nile Valley civilizations and those from the Horn. People from the Horn weren't even living on the Nile Valley during that time and Nilotic speakers PREDATE anyone on the Nile Valley.
And using the Land of Punt to find some connection between Egypt is moot as the origins of Punt is still heavily debated and some in fact place its origins in Sudan...