Lets Talk African History: The Moors. Who Were They?

[Bawon Samedi]

Part One: The Summery

"Lets Talk African History" is BACK... For a very late Black History month special. I've been wanting to badly do a thread like this for the longest, but just never got my chance to gather up all the information/date I needed. For this "Lets Talk African History", we're going to be talking about the big one... One of my favorite African people that many of you know, the Moors.

MOOR'S HEAD, the heraldic term for the head of a NEGRO MAN, in profile, couped at the neck, wreathed about the temples, and having a pearl pendent at the ear.

-Encyclopædia of heraldry: or General armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, comprising a registry of all armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time (1844) by John Burke, Sir Bernard Burke

This thread is going to be your definitive information on the Moors. I'm not trying to brag at all, but some of you got your information on the Moors from sources like Hidden Colors or other sources like that which I fill did not go much in depth or do the Moors any favor. And while I did talk and debate about the Moors on here many times I feel I too did not go much in depth. Well, for this thread I'm going to be "going in" on the Moors on their deepest origins and how they really contributed to not only Africa and Southern Europe but the rest of the world.

The Moors as many people know them were people from Northwest Africa who invaded Southern Europe(i.e Iberia and Sicily) and occupied it for 700 years! That is longer than slavery which lasted 245 years. I saw many people argue that Europeans/whites brutal slavery towards blacks could be vengeance for that. But moving on, the Moors contributed greatly to Northwest Africa, Southern Europe and the rest of the world. For example the success of later 'Gothic' architecture could be attributed to the introduction and popularization of pointed archs during the Almohad period. Another example with Al-Yasamin we owe the integration of the eastern and western algebraic traditions using Indian numerals. And if I remember correctly he was described as "black." Or Ibn Banna who we owe the denominator/numerator symbol to.

Or lets talk about the Almohad Creed.

Spoiler

"The Almohad Creed, or 'Aqlda, provides an important piece of evidence for the immense debt European scholasticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries owed the Almohad renaissance of the second half of the twelfth century in Islamic Spain. This is when the integration of Aristotle into the western European religious worldview helped determine the future intellectual personality of western Europe. The insertion of Aristotelian rationalism into the intellectual tissue of western Christianity prepared western Europe for later rationalist developments in both science and enlightenment philosophy."

"The Almohad Creed is of particular interest to students of thirteenth-century Europe, because we have a Latin translation completed in 1213. The lines of communication from Muslim Spain in this period were kept current as clerics in Paris awaited the latest word from Seville by way of the translators of Toledo. This same route was traversed by Averroes's well-known commentaries on Aristotle, as well as important scientific works on chemistry, pharmacology, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and agronomy."

And then we have their influence on astronomy.

The observatories of Bagdad were founded about 820 A.D. and 980 A.D., and showed a sense of organization beyond any Syrian, Greek, or Babylonian predecessors. They were the first institutions of astronomical research to correlate library resources with observing facilities on a large scale. Between 760 and 1,000 A.D. they collected, translated, and edited the astronomical knowledge of the entire world, excepting China. From Bagdad after the 10th century it diffused throughout Moslem Africa, Persia, Spain; and from Spain it played its part in stimulating the beginnings of modern European astronomy."

- -- Dr. M.C. Johnson, Manuscripts of the Bagdad astronomers, 760-1000 AD

I can go on and on about their contributions but I'll talk about that stuff later. Moving along I notice from people who talk about the Moors is that they don't realize that "Moor" was just a term and nothing more. But what did it mean?
Moor (n.) Look up Moor at Dictionary.com

"North African, Berber," late 14c., from Old French More, from Medieval Latin Morus, from Latin Maurus "inhabitant of Mauretania" (northwest Africa, a region now corresponding to northern Algeria and Morocco), from Greek Mauros, perhaps a native name, or else cognate with mauros "black" (but this adjective only appears in late Greek and may as well be from the people's name as the reverse). Being a dark people in relation to Europeans, their name in the Middle Ages was a synonym for "Negro;" later (16c.-17c.) used indiscriminately of Muslims (Persians, Arabs, etc.) but especially those in India

Online Etymology Dictionary

So yes, the term meant "black" but as time went on it soon meant to describe Muslims in general especially the dark ones. However, anyone who still tries to discredit that the term meant black has to realize that the etymology of the term PREDATES Islam i.e with the Greeks and Romans.

Mauri, the inhabitants of Mauritania. This name is derived from their black complexion

-A classical dictionary: containing a copious account of all proper names mentioned in ancient authors, with the value of coins, weights, and measures used among the Greeks and Romans, and a chronological table (1822) by John Lemprière

So yes, the term "Moor" comes from the term "Mauri" which also meant "black." There is no way around that no matter how much certain people try to discredit it.

"Buh! Buh! Bawon! The Moors were led by the ARAB Umayyad and Fatimid caliphates! So why do you keep saying the Moors invaded Southern Europe!?" Yes, its true that they were under the Umayyad and Fatimid caliphates rule. HOWEVER, what people who say that forget is that the majority of the invasion and settlements were by the Moors themselves and led by the Moors themselves. I hate using Wikipedia but this part backs me up.

Spoiler

The conquering army was made up mainly of Berbers, who had themselves only recently come under Muslim influence. It is probable that this army represented a continuation of a historic pattern of large-scale raids into Iberia dating to the pre–Islamic period, and hence it has been suggested that actual conquest was not originally planned. Both the Chronicle and later Muslim sources speak of raiding activity in previous years, and Tariq's army may have been present for some time before the decisive battle. It has been argued that this possibility is supported by the fact that the army was led by a Berber and that Musa, who was the Umayyad Governor of North Africa, only arrived the following year — the governor had not stooped to lead a mere raid, but hurried across once the unexpected triumph became clear. The Chronicle of 754 states that many townspeople fled to the hills rather than defend their cities, which might support the view that this was expected to be a temporary raid rather than a permanent change of government.

Umayyad conquest of Hispania - Wikipedia

So yes, the invading army was majority Moors and LED BY Moors. The Arabs only came later. More importantly there is a reason why we call it "Moorish Spain" due to sources like this;

"Moorish' Spain does at least have the merit of reminding us that the bulk of the invaders and settlers were Moors, i.e. Berbers from northwest Africa."

-Richard Fletcher; Moorish Spain

Again, the majority of the Muslim foreigners in Iberia were Moors with some Arabs or Syrians. Not only that, the Moors were also the government officials there. We especially see this in Sicily. Think of Iberia during that time as a "colony" of the Caliphate, but the Moors being the ones managing it since they were so close to Southern Europe. But more importantly it seems most people forget about the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties which had ZERO to do with the Arab Caliphates but were independent dynasties that ruled Iberia.

But Bawon who exactly were the Moors? Thats the million dollar question that everybody seems to neglect. And I notice this from not only Euroclowns but also blacks who try to argue for the Moors. The see the Moors as an actual ethnic instead of a term, but it gets more troubling when they neglect the ethnic origins on the Moors which makes their arguments sloppy no offense.

But who were the Moors? The Moors were the BERBERS. And we can not repeat NOT debate the Moors ethnic origins without them. The Moors were majority Saharan Berbers with some West Africans mixed in. The Berbers that made up the Moors were the Sanhaja, Zenata, Lamtuna, Massufa, Gazula, Masmuda, Tuaregs and Katuma Berbers who were all described as "black" or even "negro." The Masmuda, Sanhaja and Zenata were the largest tribal groups in Northwest Africa at that time during the period of the Moors.

The Moors/Berbers and the region of Northwest Africa is a VERY complex topic. Even more complex than discussing the Ancient Egyptians which is easy for laymen to get into. It took me a while to understand the Berber/Moors ethnic origins. But it gets worse when Euroclowns try to Eurasianize Northwest Africa and the Berbers. An because of that we're going to have to go back in the beginning and see what genetic e/anthropology tells us of the biological origins of the Berbers.

To Be continued in next post

 

[Kripplestyle]

 

[BigMan]

Deh ya

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Part Two: What Genetics/Bio-Anthropology tells us

For this part we're going to be taking a more scientific approach to Northwest Africa and the Berbers. However, like I said we are going to be going back in time to understand the complexity of the Berbers and if they are African. The reason we are doing this is because many Euronuts online mainly Spanish, Portuguese and Sicilians whenever they take a DNA test and find out their paternal line is e1b1b they way they cope with having African ancestry on their paternal side is by trying to Eurasionize or "whitening up" Northwest Africa. To say, well... At least it was by OTHER Caucasoids. When that was not the case.

Anyhow, I will be posting deep bio-anthropological material. If you do not understand it then please raise your hand and ask.

Anyways, from my understandings it seems modern day Berbers descend from Nile Valley Berbers, Pre-historic Ancient Maghrebians, West Asians and finally Europeans. But again lets go back in time starting with the VERY first Northwest African population, the people of the Aterian culture(100k-40k iirc).

North Africa is quickly emerging as one of the more important regions yielding information on the origins of modern Homo sapiens. Associated with significant fossil hominin remains are two stone tool industries, the Aterian and Mousterian, which have been differentiated, respectively, primarily on the basis of the presence and absence of tanged, or stemmed, stone tools. Largely because of historical reasons, these two industries have been attributed to the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic rather than the African Middle Stone Age. In this paper, drawing on our recent excavation of Contrebandiers Cave and other published data, we show that, aside from the presence or absence of tanged pieces, there are no other distinctions between these two industries in terms of either lithic attributes or chronology. Together, these results demonstrate that these two ‘industries’ are instead variants of the same entity. Moreover, several additional characteristics of these assemblages, such as distinctive stone implements and the manufacture and use of bone tools and possible shell ornaments, suggest a closer affinity to other Late Pleistocene African Middle Stone Age industries rather than to the Middle Paleolithic of western Eurasia.

--On the industrial attributions of the Aterian and Mousterian of the Maghreb, Harold L. Dibble et al.
Journal of Human Evolution, 2013 Elsevier.


Like I said people of the Aterians and Mausterian cultures were the very first people of Northwest Africa. And they were African. It is possible that these people were carriers of Haplogroup A which is a VERY old paternal African lineage. It is still found in very isolated Northwest African groups like those in Morocco which ironically is where both the Aterians and Mausterian cultures were located.

To shed light on the structure of the basal backbone of the human Y chromosome phylogeny, we sequenced about 200 kb of the male-specific region of the human Y chromosome (MSY) from each of seven Y chromosomes belonging to clades A1, A2, A3, and BT. We detected 146 biallelic variant sites through this analysis. We used these variants to construct a patrilineal tree, without taking into account any previously reported information regarding the phylogenetic relationships among the seven Y chromosomes here analyzed. There are several key changes at the basal nodes as compared with the most recent reference Y chromosome tree. A different position of the root was determined, with important implications for the origin of human Y chromosome diversity. An estimate of 142 KY was obtained for the coalescence time of the revised MSY tree, which is earlier than that obtained in previous studies and easier to reconcile with plausible scenarios of modern human origin. The number of deep branchings leading to African-specific clades has doubled, further strengthening the MSY-based evidence for a modern human origin in the African continent. An analysis of 2204 African DNA samples showed that the deepest clades of the revised MSY phylogeny are currently found in central and northwest Africa, opening new perspectives on early human presence in the continent.

http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(11)00164-9


^^There you have it, the deepest clades found in Central but also Northwest Africa. It can also be possible that this L3 African maternal lineages COULD have been associated with the Aterians, but we don't know...

Spoiler

Moving on, the Aterian culture seen to have disappeared and was replaced. Here is where things get very tricky. Around 30,000 years ago it is said that Eurasian migrants from Western Asia migrated into the Maghreb and bought Haplogroup U6. We don't have no paternal lineages from them, all we have is U6.

Although now found primarily in western, northern and north-eastern Africa, haplogroup U6 descends from the western Eurasian haplogroup U, and therefore represents a back migration to Africa. Secher et al. (2014) estimated that U6 arose very approximately 35,000 years ago (±11 ky), during the Early Upper Paleolithic, and prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

Haplogroup U6 (mtDNA)

However, what did these "Eurasians" look like around 35,000 years ago?

Spoiler

The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form

Many human craniofacial dimensions are largely of neutral adaptive significance, and an analysis of their variation can serve as an indication of the extent to which any given population is genetically related to or differs from any other. When 24 craniofacial measurements of a series of human populations are used to generate neighbor-joining dendrograms, it is no surprise that all modern European groups, ranging all of the way from Scandinavia to eastern Europe and throughout the Mediterranean to the Middle East, show that they are closely related to each other. The surprise is that the Neolithic peoples of Europe and their Bronze Age successors are not closely related to the modern inhabitants, although the prehistoric/modern ties are somewhat more apparent in southern Europe. It is a further surprise that the Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to Sub-Saharan Africa. Basques and Canary Islanders are clearly associated with modern Europeans. When canonical variates are plotted, neither sample ties in with Cro-Magnon as was once suggested. The data treated here support the idea that the Neolithic moved out of the Near East into the circum-Mediterranean areas and Europe by a process of demic diffusion but that subsequently the in situ residents of those areas, derived from the Late Pleistocene inhabitants, absorbed both the agricultural life way and the people who had brought it.

The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form

And this is just the neolithic which is later than those supposed Eurasian back migrants. If the Neolithic Europeans and Middle Easterners are phenotypically distant from their modern populations then there is no way in hell that those Eurasian back migrants into Northwest Africa. This backs up the first source even more.

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Note how prehistoric Mediterraneans in phenotype are distant from their modern occupants. But it gets worse when we realize that pale skin especially in Europe only evolved quite recently.

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White Skin Developed in Europe Only As Recently as 8,000 Years Ago Say Anthropologists

AAAS reports that the “modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today. […]

Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.”

This differed from the situation farther north. Ancient remains from southern Sweden 7,700 years ago were found to have the gene variants indicating light skin and blonde hair, and another gene,HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes. This indicated to researchers that ancient hunter-gatherers of northern Europe were already pale and blue-eyed. This light skin trait would have been advantageous in the regions of less sunlight.

White Skin Developed in Europe Only As Recently as 8,000 Years Ago Say Anthropologists

What I'm trying to say is that those "Eurasians" were not walking pale skinned Caucasoids because that would be pseudo-science, but instead Eurasians who mostly looked like these "Eurasians."

Spoiler

Moving along, something very interesting happened with U6 and this study addresses it.

No southwest Asian specific clades for M1 or U6 were discovered. U6 and M1 frequencies in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe do not follow similar patterns, and their sub-clade divisions do not appear to be compatible with their shared history reaching back to the Early Upper Palaeolithic.

What this is saying is that an SNP event or "mutation" undergone for U6. Meaning that the clade is not longer Eurasian but an African clade that is localized in the Maghreb. Think of it like this... The daughter of a European family moves to say Japan. She marries and have a child by one of the locals there. She no longer has a European surname but now a Japanese one and her kids are part Japanese. Her kids marries other locals and this continues for generations and generations.

Or better example. The Scottish made fried chicken and they bring it to America. African-Americans bring their own twist to it by adding "season", not only making the fried chicken distant to its Scottish ancestor but the fried chicken we all know and love today. Fried chicken underwent a "mutation" in America. A good one at that. lol.

This is what happened with U6. Not only that but the SNP event happened during the neolithic which was WEEEELLLL BEFORE the Bronze Age and definitely well before the period of the Moors. The study then states this.

Our high-resolution phylogenetic dissection of both haplogroups and coalescent time assessments suggest that the extant main branching pattern of both haplogroups arose and diversified in the mid-later Upper Palaeolithic, with some sub-clades concomitantly with the expansion of the Iberomaurusian industry. Carriers of these maternal lineages have been later absorbed into and diversified further during the spread of Afro-Asiatic languages in North and East Africa.

Divorcing the Late Upper Palaeolithic demographic histories of mtDNA haplogroups M1 and U6 in Africa

So yes, they were absorbed by migrating AA speakers. We'll get to that one later. But one should NOTE all of this thus far has little to do with the original Berbers who descent from Northeast Africa and were a very recent group and where the Berber culture/language comes from. We are talking about the prehistoric Maghrebian people.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Continuation of part two:
Moving along... Next we're going to discuss the Iberomaurusian industry which is said to have replaced the Aterian industry. I personally hate talking about the Iberomaurusian industry because it has always been so god damn confusion because both sides provided good arguments. But, recent discussions with people online far more informed than me on the subject has helped me paint a picture of them. It seems the Iberomaurusian industry was associated with those U6 carriers.

What I've been told is that the early Ibermaurusian industry clustered more with Africans while later on it did with some Eurasians. A good poster from another site posted me this study where Pennarun talks about the close relationship between the Iberomaurusian and certain Nile Valley industries.

Whilst a techno-typological shift occurred within the Dabban ~33 KYA [19], starker changes in the archaeological record occurred throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia ~23-20 KYA, represented by the widespread appearance of backed bladelet technologies. The appearance of these backed bladelet industries more or less coincides with the timing of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (~23-18 KYA), including: ~21 KYA in Upper Egypt [20]; ~20 KYA at Haua Fteah with the Oranian [21]; the Iberomaurusian expansion in the Jebel Gharbi ~20 KYA [22]; and the first Iberomaurusian at Tamar Hat in Algeria ~20 KYA [23]. The earliest Iberomaurusian sites in Morocco appear to be only slightly younger ~18 KYA [24]. Whilst backed bladelet production is broadly shared across the different regions of North and East Africa, there was also a level of regional cultural diversity during this period, possibly mirroring a diversification of populations.

--Pennarun et al 2012

We see Upper Egypt listed first meaning that its the oldest in their dates. Not only that, but some sketelon samples in the Iberomaurusian showed African characteristics.

Spoiler

WHAT BONES CAN TELL: BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE HUNTER-GATHERERS OF THE MAGHREB:


The extremely large skeletal samples that come from sites such as Taforalt (Fig. 8.13) and Afalou constitute an invaluable resource for understanding the makers of Iberomaurusian artifacts, and their number is unparalleled elsewhere in Africa for the early Holocene. Frequently termed Mechta-Afalou or Mechtoid, these were a skeletally robust people and definitely African in origin, though attempts, such as those of Ferembach (1985), to establish similarities with much older and rarer Aterian skeletal remains are tenuous given the immense temporal separation between the two (Close and Wendorf 1990). At the opposite end of the chronological spectrum, dental morphology does suggest connections with later Africans, including those responsible for the Capsian Industry (Irish 2000) and early mid-Holocene human remains from the western half of the Sahara (Dutour 1989), something that points to the Maghreb as one of the regions from which people recolonised the desert (MacDonald 1998).

Turning to what can be learned about cultural practices and disease, the individuals from Taforalt, the largest sample by far, display little evidence of trauma, though they do suggest a high incidence of infant mortality, with evidence for dental caries, arthritis, and rheumatism among other degenerative conditions. Interestingly, Taforalt also provides one of the oldest known instances of the practice of trepanation, the surgical removal of a portion of the cranium; the patient evidently survived for some time, as there are signs of bone regrowth in the affected area. Another form of body modification was much more widespread and, indeed, a distinctive feature of the Iberomaurusian skeletal sample as a whole. This was the practice of removing two or more of the upper incisors, usually around puberty and from both males and females, something that probably served as both a rite of passage and an ethnic marker (Close and Wendorf 1990), just as it does in parts of sub-Saharan Africa today (e.g., van Reenen 1987). Cranial and postcranial malformations are also apparent and may indicate pronounced endogamy at a much more localised level (Hadjouis 2002), perhaps supported by the degree of variability between different site samples noted by Irish (2000).


--Lawrence Barham

The First Africans: African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to Most Recent Foragers (Cambridge World Archaeology)

Not only that but the Cambridge History of Africa seems to hint that the early people of the Iberomaurusian industry clustered more with Africans.

Spoiler

However, I have to be honest and admit again that there are some samples in the IM industry that clusters more with Eurasians. But all and all the Iberomaurusian had affinities with industries in the Nile Valley. There is a big gap between the Aterian and Iberomaurusian cultures. We don't know if descendants of the Aterian culture were those of the first Iberomaurusian culture. However, Aterian lineages still survive in Northwest Africa. But speaking on the Nile Valley... That is where our bio-anthropological adventures for the Berbers really starts.

Like I said before the Berber ethnic origins/culture/language originated in Northeast Africa specially the Nile Valley. One roadblock me and others had was that "Berber marker" E-M81 was to young to be associated with the Iberomaurusian culture or even the Berber migration into the Maghreb.

E-M81 was probably already in the Maghreb before the proto-Berber. The paternal line that carried the E-M81 mutation most likely breaks away from E-M35 around the same time when the Iberomaurusian industry started to spread in the coastal areas of the Maghreb (according to Trombetta et al, this paternal line emerged ~25ky ago).

And like one of my sources stated Iberomaurusian tools were related to those in the Nile Valley where E-M35 comes from! But not only that I was told that E-M81 is not an important lineage east of the Nile Valley and is not even among Siwa Berbers, this all tells us that the branch that carries the E-M81 mutation left the eastern Sahara early. So with all this we can assume that the early people of the Iberomaurusian cultures were E-M35 carriers.

This map paints a very sweet picture.

Spoiler

^^We see E-M35 leaving Northeast Africa and when it enters the Maghreb it "mutates" to E-M35. But also this study also adds as backup.

E3b1-M78 predominates in Egypt and Ethiopia, E3b3-M123 in Oman, and E3b2-M81 in northwestern Africa. Importantly, these three sublineages are restricted to regions north of the equator. In contrast, the E3b*-M35 lineages appear to be confined almost exclusively to the sub-Saharan populations. Since the E3b*-M35 lineages appear to be confined mostly to the sub-Saharan populations, it is conceivable that the initial migrations toward North Africa from the south primarily involved derivative E3b-M35 lineages. This proposal is in accordance with a population expansion involving E3b2-M81 believed to have occurred in northwestern Africa.

The Levant versus the Horn of Africa: Evidence for Bidirectional Corridors of Human Migrations

Also it seems that the indigenous Northwest African population in Carthage was still similar to the original Berbers as they still had Nile Valley characteristics. I'm still looking for that study. However, anthropologist S.O.Y. Keita does state this:

The analyses demonstrate the metric heterogeneity of pre-Roman mid-Holocene Maghreban crania. The range of variation in the restricted area described extends from a tropical African metric pattern to a European one and supports the phenotypic variability observed in and near Carthage by ancient writers and in morphological studies. Thus the population emerges as a composite entity, no doubt also containing hybrid individuals. However, the centroid value of the combined Maghreb series indicates that the major craniometric pattern is most similar to that of northern dynastic Egyptians, not northwest Europeans.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Continuation of part two:

Anyways, it seems Berbers still had this Nile Valley like characteristic going into the Moorish period! Hell, Berbers like the Tuaregs(who were apart of the Moors) still cluster closely with E-M35 carrying Northeast Africans like the Beja! Me and others have misunderstood to think that Siwa Berbers are not the "real Berbers" due to not carrying E-M81. However, its the opposite. E-M81 is not the "Berber marker" but instead just the "Maghreb marker." E-M35 is the true Berber marker in my opinion and the Siwa Berbers and Beja are good representations for the original Berbers.

The Berbers during classical and medieval times would have had some Eurasian admixture from people like the Phoenicians, Vandels or Romans but the bulk of their Eurasian admixture came from expelled European Muslims/European slaves(I'll touch base on those two later). Again their prehistoric lineages would have become "localized" by the time of the neolithic which again was well before the period of the Moors.

Modern Berbers seem to still have significant African admixture around 40+%.

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Meanwhile their paternal lineages seems to be predominately African.

Spoiler

In this study we analyzed 295 unrelated Berber-speaking men from northern, central, and southern Morocco to characterize frequency of the E1b1b1b-M81 haplogroup and to refine the phylogeny of its subclades: E1b1b1b1-M107, E1b1b1b2-M183, and E1b1b1b2a-M165. For this purpose, we typed four biallelic polymorphisms: M81, M107, M183, and M165. A large majority of the Berber-speaking male lineages belonged to the Y-chromosomal E1b1b1b-M81 haplogroup. The frequency ranged from 79.1% to 98.5% in all localities sampled. E1b1b1b2-M183 was the most dominant subclade in our samples, ranging from 65.1% to 83.1%. In contrast, the E1b1b1b1-M107 and E1b1b1b2a-M165 subclades were not found in our samples. Our results suggest a predominance of the E1b1b1b-M81 haplogroup among Moroccan Berber-speaking males with a decreasing gradient from south to north. The most prevalent subclade in this haplogroup was E1b1b1b2-M183, for which diffferences among these three groups were statistically significant between central and southern groups.

--Reguig A1, Harich N2, Barakat A1, Rouba H1.

Hum Biol. 2014 Spring;86(2):105-12.

Phylogeography of E1b1b1b-M81 haplogroup and analysis of its subclades in Morocco.


Meanwhile their maternal side seems to be mixed and more (recent)Eurasian. However, all in all modern day Northwest Africans especially Moroccans still seem to have significant African ancestry/admixture.

But whats interesting and what seems to correlate with the Moors is that when we look at the bio-structure of modern day Northwest Africans and I always said this, is that they appear to be a result of African men and European women. This study backs this up.

"Based on Y chromosome and mtDNA studies, Berbers seem to have been issued from admixture of North African men and Iberian women, with a variable sub-Saharian female contribution (Cherni et al. 2009; Ennafaa et al. 2009; Frigi et al. 2010; Keita et al. 2010). Their characterization through the study of seven Alu polymorphisms, and thereby establishing their position with respect to other North African and European populations, offers new genetic data that contributes towards clarifying how the North Africa was populated within the framework of population movements in the Mediterranean area."

They then conclude...

"Taken together, results on Y chromosome, mtDNA and Alu Insertions in North Africa allow to propose a scenario for this region. The ancient sub-Saharan settlement would have been followed by admixture with Iberian populations. But, as the North African Y chromosome remained dominant in the region, we could argue that this admixture have been realized in one direction: North African men and Eurasian women, explaining the gene flow from Europe and high frequency of European types of mtDNA in North Africa as compared with Y chromosome. This situation would not be the result of drift toward Eurasian mtDNA. Our results on Alu insertions interestingly confirm that this gene flow happened several times probably always on the same direction. These matrimonial exchanges between North Africa and Europe should be considered in a context of patriarchal societies with men attached to territory and women from different regions including Europe. Hence, genetic diversity on one hand and relationship with Europe should have been due to women. This result supports the important role that migratory movements have played in North African populations, at least since the Neolithic period and suggests their diverse origins."

http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=humbiol_preprints

But when talking about AFRICAN maternal lineages for Berbers we get this:

Spoiler

Ancient local evolution of African mtDNA haplogroups in Tunisian Berber populations.

Our objective is to highlight the age of sub-Saharan gene flows in North Africa and particularly in Tunisia. Therefore we analyzed in a broad phylogeographic context sub-Saharan mtDNA haplogroups of Tunisian Berber populations considered representative of ancient settlement. More than 2,000 sequences were collected from the literature, and networks were constructed. The results show that the most ancient haplogroup is L3*, which would have been introduced to North Africa from eastern sub-Saharan populations around 20,000 years ago. Our results also point to a less ancient western sub-Saharan gene flow to Tunisia, including haplogroups L2a and L3b. This conclusion points to an ancient African gene flow to Tunisia before 20,000 BP. These findings parallel the more recent findings of both archaeology and linguistics on the prehistory of Africa. The present work suggests that sub-Saharan contributions to North Africa have experienced several complex population processes after the occupation of the region by anatomically modern humans. Our results reveal that Berber speakers have a foundational biogeographic root in Africa and that deep African lineages have continued to evolve in supra-Saharan Africa.

Ancient local evolution of African mtDNA haplogroups in Tunisian Berber populations. - PubMed - NCBI

So all and all Berbers today are a mixed up group(although overall significantly African), however Berbers during classical and medieval times were most similar to the original Berbers with close affinities to Northeast African like people.

And lastly, anyone who tries to claim that those early Northwest Africans in the Maghreb were similar the modern inhabitants and I mean these guys.

Spoiler

Well... I have some BAD NEWS for you.

In order to evaluate their most probable origins, haplogroup frequency distribution patterns should be contrasted with the distribution of their respective variances. However, the number of samples with sound variances precludes their presentation as diffusion maps. For the whole haplogroup U6 and large geographic areas it is possible to estimate the respective diversities using the pi statistic. Nearly identical diversities are found for Europe (4.625 ± 0.737) and the Middle East (4.653 ± 1.230). The Maghreb (3.203 ± 0.524) and East Africa (3.097 ± 1.869) are at a second level, whilst West Africa (2.127 ± 0.961) contains the least diversity. However, the only significant differences between areas are those found when comparing Europe to the Maghreb (p = 0.036) and West Africa (p = 0.011).

The history of the North African mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6 gene flow into the African, Eurasian and American continents


Note, that the Maghreb is LAST. Compared to Europe and the Middle East when it comes to diversity of Maghrebi lineages such as U6! , Europe has more diversity for key Maghrebi lineages (e,g,, U6 and E-M81) than North Africa and that's saying something A LOT. What this tells us is that the modern population of Northwest Africa does not carry the diversity that the earlier populations once carried! It was probably lost during the medieval imo. But what this also means is that we can NOT repeat NOT use modern Magrebi populations to represent the early ancient population. A big sniper headshot to those who try to Eurasionize Northwest Africa.

To be continued in next post

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Can you post pictures of people from those Berber tribes? I couldn't find any phenotypic evidence in my Peopling of Africa thread.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

My gut tells me E-M35 is a key Afro-Asiatic marker

 

[Free White & 21]

Haven't read yet, but thank you in advance

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Part Three: Medieval descriptions/Demographic change

Now that we already touched base on the long and tiresome bio-anthropological part lets finally address the "race" of the Moors/Berbers and how they were described by medieval sources and also how the demographic in Northwest Africa changed.

Since a lot of people believe that there was no demographic change, I want to address that first. It seems when it comes to Northwest African history everyone especially Eurocentrics and Northwest Africans themselves seem to be in big denial of the European slave trade and the European expelled Muslim population from Iberia.

When it comes to mixing the irony is that there really wasn't mixing; or its just that people put too much emphasize's on it in discussion like this. What most people do not know is that the area of Northwest Africa(Morocco/Algeria) was sparsely populated during the early period of the Moors. People also forget that converted European Muslims from Europe were expelled and flooded the coastal part of Northern Africa. Remember the term Moor soon meant all Muslim's in general. Non black Moors soon outnumbered the original black Moors.

To give you an example Christian renegades (Spanish, Italian, French, Albanian, etc. who would eventually convert to Islam) and the medieval slave trade had a major impact on places like Tlemcen, Oran, Bejaia (Bougie - Kabyle central) and especially Alger. Jacques Heers argues in "Les barbaresques" (2001, pg 227) at the time of Turkish rule in Algeria, something like 50% of the population in the capital was composed of European-Christian slaves (even Italian slaves by the seventeenth century). Saqalibas from the Balkans were also well represented. Besides, Arab excursions displaced many of the ancestral populations of the Maghreb between the 12th-15th centuries.

So again it really wasn't mixing but a large population from Europe displacing an already smaller population in an already sparsely populated area. The Berber's were also spread out. Which is also why they were displaced. You have to understand that the original Berbers did not really live on the coastal part of North Africa but in the Sahara and near the Senegal river. They were nomadic people for the most part. The origins of modern day lighter skinned North Africans is not all due to mixing but also European migrates after post-Moorish Iberia who easily displaced a population. Much similar to how Bantu migrates displaced the very small Khoisan population of South Africa.

Its a huge Eurocentric myth that Africans/blacks were the largest amount of slaves during that period when sources like this state, "Except for the Zandj (black slaves) from lower Iraq, no large body of blacks historically linked to the trans-Saharan slave trade existed anywhere in the Arab world ...The high costs of slaves, because of the risks inherent in the desert crossing, which would have not permitted such a massive exodus ... In this connection, it is significant that in the Arabic iconography of the period, the slave merchant was often depicted as a man with a hole in his purse. Until the Crusades the Muslim world drew its slaves from two main sources: Eastern and Central Europe (Slavs) and Turkestan. The Sudan only came third. " - Africa from the Seventh to Eleventh Century, UNESCO, 1988

So there you have it, blacks during the period of the Moors(Crusades) were a minority when it came to the slave trade. However, when it came to White/Europeans, they were literally EVERYWHERE in the Muslim world as slaves to a point where Slav people from Eastern European were associated with slaves. Thus the word slave came from Slav which we all know.

But more importantly, according to this article MILLIONS of white Christian Europeans were enslaved and flooded Northern Africa.

Spoiler

A million Europeans enslaved
An American historian says that more than a million Europeans were enslaved by North African slave traders between 1530 and 1780, a time of vigorous Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal piracy.


The number of white European slaves is only a fraction of the trade that brought 10 million to 12 million black African slaves to the Americas over a 400-year period, historian Robert Davis says, but his research shows the slave trade was more widespread than commonly assumed. The impact on Europe’s white population was significant.

“One of the things that both the public and many scholars have tended to take as given is that slavery was always racial in nature — that only blacks have been slaves. But that is not true,” said Mr. Davis, an Ohio State University professor.

“Enslavement was a very real possibility for anyone who traveled in the Mediterranean, or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland.”

In a new book, “Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800,” Mr. Davis calculates that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by pirates called “corsairs” and forced to work in North Africa during that period.

The raids were so aggressive that entire Mediterranean seaside towns were abandoned by frightened residents. “Much of what has been written gives the impression that there were not many slaves and minimizes the impact that slavery had on Europe.

“Most accounts only look at slavery in one place, or only for a short period of time. But when you take a broader, longer view, the massive scope of this slavery and its powerful impact become clear.”

The pirates, sailing from such cities as Tunis and Algiers, raided ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic as well as seaside villages to capture men, women and children, he says. They were put to work in quarries, in heavy construction and as oarsmen in the pirates’ galleys.

Mr. Davis calculated his estimates using records that indicate how many slaves were at a particular location at a single time. He then estimated how many new slaves it would take to replace slaves as they died, escaped or were ransomed.

“It is not the best way to make population estimates, but it is the only way with the limited records available.”
A million Europeans enslaved

The translator of Leo Africanus Robert Brown mentioned - "The many European races, including the Vandals under Genseric, and the endless European slaves who, turning renegade, became absorbed into the population must have left their mark over the all the Barbary states” (Brown, 1896, p. 203).

According to Robert Davis Tripoli, was “occasionally reportedly crowded with large numbers of Greek slaves." (Davis, 2003, Christtian Slaves Muslim Masters, White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800.p. 112)

And like I said they were literally every, going deep into the interior of North Africa according to this source, "Some masters put their white slaves to work on farms deep in the interior, where they faced yet another peril: capture and reenslavement by raiding Berbers. These unfortunates would probably never see another European for the rest of their short lives.”
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Oth...al-WhiteSlavery/UntoldStoryOfWhiteSlavery.htm

These were the slavers btw. This here is an article about said slavers.

So there you have it. European slaves played a big role in the demographic shift in an already sparsely populated region of the world. Anyone, denying the impact of the European slave trade on Northwest Africa is only being in denial. Not only that you also have the fact that a large amount of Muslim converts in Iberia were expelled to North Africa.

Spoiler

SPAIN’S FORGOTTEN MUSLIMS – THE EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS

By 1614 every last Morisco was gone, and Islam disappeared from the Iberian Peninsula. Going from over 500,000 people to zero in 100 years can only be described as a genocide. Indeed, the Portuguese Dominican monk, Damian Fonseca, referred to the expulsion as an “agreeable Holocaust”. The effects on Spain were grave. Its economy suffered greatly, as a large part of the labor force was gone, and tax revenues dropped. In North Africa, Muslim rulers attempted to provide for the hundreds of thousands of refugees, but in many cases, were unable to do much to help them. The Moriscos of North Africa spent centuries trying to assimilate into society, but still kept their unique Andalusian identity.

To this day, neighborhoods in major North African cities boast of their Morisco identities and keep alive the memory of Muslim Spain’s glorious past. They remind us of the illustrious history of the Iberian Peninsula, as well the tragic story of their expulsion from their homes in the one of the greatest genocides Europe has ever seen.

http://lostislamichistory.com/spains-forgotten-muslims-the-expulsion-of-the-moriscos/

The expulsion of Muslims from Spain was so bad that some considered it genocide and it is still felt today. But hey... Let the Eurocentrics tell it and the Northwest African population always looked the way they did. This is why we start seeing pale skinned Berbers in large frequencies around the 15th and 16th century. This is where we see the bulk of the Eurasian admixture in my opinion.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Continuation of part three:
Anyways, now that we finally addressed the demographic change, lets address the juicy part that you all been waiting for and that is the description of the Moors. One problem that I have with some people is that they differentiate "black" and "Berber" when the two are not mutually exclusive. Like I said the major Berbers who were termed the "Moors" were the Sanhaja, Zenata, Lamtuna, Massufa, Gazula, Masmuda, Tuaregs and Katuma Berbers who were all described as apologetically black. The two biggest being the Masmuda and Sanhaja.

The Moors/Berbers were grouped in with other blacks especially when Al-Jahiz (776-869) wrote that: "among the Blacks are counted the Sudanese, the Ethiopians, the Fezzan, the Berbers, the Copts, the Nubians, the Zaghawa, the Moors."

Going a bit back even the Libyans/Berbers west of Egypt were described as black, "The Egyptians called the population of the neighboring Libya `Tehenu.' They were pictured with dark complexion and curly hair" - Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos, Vol. 5, (1952)



Some scholars even hinted that Berbers came from East Africa when, Appian figured these Moors or Ethiopians had extended "from eastern Ethiopia westward to the Mauritanian Mount Atlas." (Perseus Under Philologic: App. Num. 5)

Anthropologicist S.O.Y. Keita states this...

Spoiler

"Snowden (1970) and Desanges (1981) reference various writers’ physical descriptions of the ancient Maghreb’s inhabitants. In various writers’ physical descriptions of the ancient Maghreb’s inhabitants. In addition to the presence of fair-skinned blonds, various “Ethiopian” or “part-Ethiopian” groups are described, near the coast and on the southern slopes of the Atlas mountains. “Ethiopians,” meaning dark-skinned peoples usually having “ulotrichous” (wooly) hair, are noted in various Greek accounts and European coinage (Snowden, 1970). Hiernaux (1975) interprets the finding of “subsaharan” population affinities in living Maghrebans as being solely the result of the medieval transsaharan slave trade; it is clear that this is not the case. Furthermore, the blacks of the ancient Maghreb were apparently not foreign or a caste."

(S.O.Y Keita, "Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa," American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 83:35-48 (1990)

Berbers were even noted to be under Ham's curse because they were black...

“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." - Ibn Khaldun, Histoire I, 177–178

"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." - Histoire I, 173–185

But going back to the medieval Berbers. I want to first address my favorites, the Masmudas. Who were the largest at the time and the largest infantry for the Caliphates. They were basically the Moors or synonymous with term.

The Masmuda or Masamida Berbers controlled the entirety of the western part of Maghreb or North West Africa between western Algeria and Morocco until the coming of another black population known as the Zanata Berbers of Botr, or El Abter stock. They also maintained power in many towns of Spain.

"Kel Owey girl of the Imakitan Tuareg"
A Kel Owey girl, member of the Imakitan Tuaregs (formerly called Ikitamen) now located in Niger and are known in Arab texts as the KITAMA or KUTAMA Berbers and anciently as the "Mauri" or "Ethiopian" colored people called Uacutameni, Micatateni or Mactunia manus. Centuries ago, the "Kutama branch of the Berbers inhabited the region of Little Kabylia" in Northern Algeria.

See UNESCO's Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, Ivan Hrbek et al., 1992, p. 164.

Coat of Arms of Sardinia. As with the heraldry of families named with variants of Mori or Moor, several countries in Europe have flags and coat of arms with the heads of Moors on them. Military historian, Yaacov Lev in the article , “Army Regime and Society in Fatimid Egypt” (1987) wrote of Nasir Khusroes of the 11th century who speaks of the "20,000" Masmuda men that made up part of the Fatimid troops in Egypt in his time saying, “Masamida were Berbers from the Western Maghreb. Nasir-i Khusrau, however, says that they were blacks and characterized them as infantry who used lances and swords”

(from International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19(3), 337-365).

13th c. A.D.--Abu Shama refers to the Masmuda as "blacks" in his Kitab al-Ravdatayn (B. Lewis, Islam: Religion and Society, 2; 1974, p. 21

Like I said the made up the majority of the Fatimids troops.

Fatimid infantry included "sudani or 'black' African and even Masmuda Berbers from the western Sahara."
- See David Nicholle's Richard the Lionheart, Saladin and the Struggle for Jeruselam- David Nicolle

Fatimid infantry consisted of "20,000 Moroccans (Masmudi Berbers), 30,000 Sudanese, 10,000 'easterners..."- Terrence Wise, The Wars of the Crusades, 1096-1291, 1974, pp 52

With the exception of the bedouins, who were not part of the permanent military organization of the state, the Fatimid army was largely an infantry force composed of blacks. (Nasir-i Khusrau included the Masamida among the blacks)."

- Yaacov Lev, "State and Society in Fatimid Egypt", 1987, pp 94

Like I said these guys were the big players. Masmuda Berbers:

Anyways, lets look at more descriptions of the Moors.

When the Vikings raided the coastal part of the Maghreb they noted that they took away "Blue men."

"They attacked Nekur off the coast Morocco. There was fierce fighting with the Moors but in the end the Vikings were victorious, and many of the "Blue-men," as they called Moors, were ultimately carried off prisoners to Ireland, where we hear of their fate the Fragments of Irish Annals."

- Cambridge Medieval History

While others state that their skin was as dark as night.
"The Moors have bodies black as night, while the skin of the Gauls is white..." written by Isidore of Seville in The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, translation by Steven A. Barney, published 2007. p. 386.

Saying that the Moor's bodies were black as night while the Gauls(French) were white clearly shows that medieval writers KNEW what they were talking about and were not "naive" as Eurocentrics try to make them out to be.

Others, “underlines the fact that Moors are so named because they are black, and their blackness comes from the heat of the sun (9.2.121-23)” (Ramey, L., 2008)


6th c. A.D. - Procopius, a Byzantine in his History of the Wars book IV contrasting a white peoples who had settled in North Africa claimed they were not “black skinned like the Mauri...”

Then we have others saying that they were as black as a cooking pan.
"All the Moorish soldiers were dressed with silk and black wool that had been forcibly acquired… their black faces were like pitch and the most handsome of them was like (as black as) a cooking pan."
Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American

One Shakespearean scholar states this:

"A striking proof that the word Moor was, as among the Germans at this time, exactly equivalent to negro, is not only its use as applied to the curly-haired, thick-lipped Aaron in Titus Andonicus, but also the constant interchange of the two words as applied to the equally unmistakable negro Eleazar, in Lust's Dominion."

- Elmer E. Stoll, Shakespearean scholar

1st c. A.D.– Marcus Valerian Martial was one of the earliest Europeans to use the phrase “woolly hair like a Moor” also translated "a Moor with his crisp hair" in Book 6 of "The Epigrams",

4th c. A.D.--the document Expositio Totius Mundi says a barbarous population lived in the desert south of Tripoli known both as “Mazices and Ethiopians”(Carocopino, 1940, p. 391-393; Gsell, 1927, p. 2).The Mazikes or Mazikha were a people extending from North Africa into the eastern Desert and across the Red Sea into the Yemen, it is originally the name of the Tuareg peoples. Today the name "Amazigh" is a generic and nationalist name for people who speak Berber, but was originally exclusively used by Shluh and Tuareg "the veiled men of Sahara". Herbert Wendt asserts that, in Rome “every other slave was called Amasix, Maxyx, Maxitanus or simply Max” and that "the negroes" luxury slaves on Greek or Hellenic vases were named Amaseos or "folk of Amasis", an ancient ruler of Libyan ethnicity in Egypt whom he refers to as a Berber king. Herodotus refers to these "Libyans" as the "Maxyes". (Wendt, 1962, p. 66).

If the Moors were not black then why did some scholars write of their "horrible black faces" and their skin as black as crows?

6th c. A.D.--Corippus, a Byzantine in Book I, 245 of Johannidus, Book 1, 245, speaking of Moors in the area of North Africa who he felt had "faces of a horrible black color" stated, “Maura videbatur facies, nigro colore horrida” (Michell, G.B. (1903, Jan.). The Berbers. Journal of the Royal African Society, 2(6), (pp. 161-194). He also refers to some Moorish captives as "black as crows."

Describing the population of Mauritania(Morocco):

"After this the Lochlanns (Danes) passed over the whole country, and they plundered and burnt the whole country and they carried off a great host of them as captives to Erin and these are the blue men of Erin, for Mauri is the same as black (Nigri) man and Mauritania is the same as blackness. Long indeed were these blue men in Erin…"

Howorth, H.H. (1884). Early Intercourse Between the Franks and Danes, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 1, pp. 18-61

Again the refer to the "horrible black faces" this time in Southern Italy:
9th c. A.D. - Saedulius Scotus, a Celtic monk in a letter to an Italian ruler refers to the horrible "black faces" of "the Saracen" invaders of southern Italy.

“The Berber women are from the Island of Barbara, which is between the west and the south. Their color is mostly black though some pale ones can be found among them. If you can find one whose mother is of Kutama, whose father is of Sanhaja, and whose origin is Masmuda, then you will find her naturally inclined to obedience and loyalty in all matters, active in service, suited both to motherhood and to pleasure, for they are the most solicitous in caring for their children.”

Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages by Martha A. Brozyna, 2005 p. 303.

Speaking of the Sanhaja. They were not only the founders of the Almoravid dynasty but also founded the Morocco city of Marrakesh!

"The history of the people of Sanhaja Berber and Arab blood who inhabit Western Sahara goes back hundreds of years. In the XIth century, a confederation of tribes, the "veiled Sanhaja", formed the Almoravid State. The Almoravids were pious Sanhaja marabouts , who left the Sahara to go north where they conquered Morocco. Then there was a split; one faction returned south to the desert while the other crossed the Mediterranean, invaded Andalusia, settling in large parts of Spain, as well a in the present Maghreb. They founded Marrakesh and other centres and there was a great flowering of culture during their reign. However they lost contact with the country of their origin and their former way of life."

Western Sahara - History


But whats interesting is that one of the Almoravid leaders was described like this!

In Abd Allah's Roudh el-Kartas, he describes Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the founder of Marrakesh/Morocco, as "Brown color, middle height, thin, little beard, soft voice, black eyes, straight nose, lock of Muhammad falling on the top of his ear, eyebrow joined, wooly hair."

One of the generals of the Almoravids.

^^Note how he is darker than Mansa Musa.

Anyways, I'm VERY tired and that concludes it for now.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

@SpeaktotheMods @Milk @satam55 @blalienz @Karbaash @Trajan @Sonni @Gebor @videogamestashbox.com @Poitier @Akan @thatknickfan @Premeditated @Don Drogo

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Can you post pictures of people from those Berber tribes? I couldn't find any phenotypic evidence in my Peopling of Africa thread.

Will try. Its hardy images of them because they were Muslim and its against to have images of yourself or something like that. But I'll try.

My gut tells me E-M35 is a key Afro-Asiatic marker

I don't think. I think more so E-M78.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Anyways, I'm featuring this thread so all can see.

 

[Poitier]

sub