Egypt: Village Found in Nile Delta Predated Pharaohs

[The SC]

Monday, 3 September, 2018 - 05:30

This undated photo released by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, shows one of the oldest villages ever found in the Nile Delta, with remains dating back to before the pharaohs in Tell el-Samara, about 140 kilometers north of Cairo, Egypt. (Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities via AP)
Asharq Al-Awsat
Archaeologists in Egypt said Sunday they have found one of the oldest-known villages in the Nile Delta dating back to the Neolithic era before the pharaohs.

A joint Egyptian and French mission discovered several storage silos containing large quantities of animal and plant remains, as well as pottery and stone tools, the antiquities ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the find indicates that humans inhabited the fertile Tell al-Samara, in the northern province of El-Dakahlia, as early as the fifth millennium BC.

That would be some 2,500 years before the Giza pyramids were built.

"Analyzing the biological material that has been discovered will present us with a clearer view of the first communities that settled in the Delta and the origins of agriculture and farming in Egypt," said Nadia Khedr, a ministry official responsible for Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities on the Mediterranean.

Rain-based Neolithic farming may hold vital clues to a technological leap that led to irrigation-based farming along the Nile.

https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1381741/egypt-village-found-nile-delta-predated-pharaohs

 

[Gomig-21]

Good stuff. Was reading about this the other day and it opens a whole new dimension to the history of Egypt. There has always been some kind of acknowledgement that a lot of activity existed and occurred in Egypt even prior to the neolithic period because of Egypt's obvious important geographic location, but its ancient Egyptian civilization always stole the show because of the impeccable record kept of it's magnificence, and of course, being an advanced civilization of its time. So much incredible history and heritage.

 

[The SC]

Good stuff. Was reading about this the other day and it opens a whole new dimension to the history of Egypt. There has always been some kind of acknowledgement that a lot of activity existed and occurred in Egypt even prior to the neolithic period because of Egypt's obvious important geographic location, but its ancient Egyptian civilization always stole the show because of the impeccable record kept of it's magnificence, and of course, being an advanced civilization of its time. So much incredible history and heritage.

That would be some 2,500 years before the Giza pyramids were built..
Oufff! That means Egypt is officially a 17 500 years old civilsation..

 

[Saif al-Arab]

Exciting news.

It's of course worth mentioning that the Neolithic civilization emerged in the Arab world (Southern Sham more precisely) and that outside of this area of the world, more precisely Arab world, the 2 countries that were first impacted by this revolution where neighboring Egypt and KSA. That is why some of the oldest Neolithic sites in the world can be found in both countries.

Not only that the first Neolithic civilization/culture (Natufian) that emerged almost 15.000 years ago, modern-day Arabs, in particular Saudi Arabians, Jordanians, Palestinians and Egyptians, cluster the most with those Natufian mummies.

Talk about a historical/genetic continuity.

No region of the world can match the age and depth of the history of the Arab world in particular the Arab Near East (Mashriq). The most incredible thing is that such discoveries occur on a monthly basis all across the Arab world. What makes me happy in particularly is that it often occurs in states where pre-Islamic heritage was not always looked favorably by everybody for "religious" reasons. Such as in KSA. Despite the enormous historical depth (recorded) and likewise the prehistoric part.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DNA results from 2016:

https://plot.ly/~PortalAntropologiczny9cfa/1.embed?share_key=za9Lb3y1UX6nJRG9v4EXOL

Here is the entire report:

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/06/16/059311.full.pdf

http://anthromadness.blogspot.com/2016/06/natufians-and-neolithic-levantines-lack.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5003663/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natufian_culture

Fascinating stuff.

BTW most Europeans are direct descendent (paternal side) from Neolithic farmers/people from the Arab Near East.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Europe#Genetics

Explains why all the haplogroups are shared.

 

[Crocodile]

No region of the world can match the age and depth of the history of the Arab world in particular the Arab Near East (Mashriq). The most incredible thing is that such discoveries occur on a monthly basis all across the Arab world. What makes me happy in particularly is that it often occurs in states where pre-Islamic heritage was not always looked favorably by everybody for "religious" reasons. Such as in KSA. Despite theenormous historical depth (recorded) and likewise the prehistoric part.

Allow me to disagree with you on one point here my friend. While we value the Arabs as a friendly nation with brotherly ties that go for a very long time. We do not consider ourselves to be Arabs (or Africans, or Amazigh, or whatever category we keep being claimed as part of) We are simply Egyptians, as demonstrated by this tablet which divides the world from Egyptian point of view into 4 major groups. They are, from right to left:

1- Egyptians: Featured by wheatish brown skin, short(ish) dark hair and little facial hair. Same as modern day Egyptians.
2- Assyrian/Semetic/Neolithic: Featured by fair skin, long dark hair, and thick facial hair.
3- Nubian/African
4- Libyan/Amazigh/Berber

This is not to say that Egyptians are some sort of pure Master race. On the contrary, modern Egyptian DNA is a result of thousands of years of being a melting pot and a crossroads between several populations from North and east africa as well as the middle East and south mediterranean. Even with that, Egyptian Gene pool is mostly homogeneous (70-80% Egyptian 'Northeast African') with admixtures from all the above, of which Arab/Neolithic DNA only makes up 17%, with other studies showing it to be as little as 10%. Which is not a surprise since there were many interactions over the millennia between Egyptian and Assyrian Empires through trade, waves of migration, military conquest.. etc. It still doesn't mean that we are the same people.

This also confirms Al-Maqrizi's narrative from the 14th century that there was no trace left of the Arab tribes that settled in Egypt shortly after the Islamic conquest. Most likely cause was that they just melted into the larger Egyptian population. Adding more Neolithic admixture into the gene pool but not enough to significantly change it.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wo...9/egyptians-are-not-arabs-they-are-egyptians/

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hia/summary/v032/32.1keita.html


With all that said, I'm not intending for this post to be a catalyst for some racial flame war. I see the arabs as one of our brotherly nations and close allies, same as the Greeks, Sudanese, and potentially the Ethiopians if it hadn't been for the dam issue. This is just a friendly discussion among brothers. Not one of these ultra nationalistic posts trying to demean the Arabs as some sort of lowly race, I have seen quite a few and I understand how charged things could get. If you feel offended by it, tell me and I'll remove it ASAP.

Oh and BTW, Happy New year. Someone now needs to fix this calendar by adding a few millennia to it.

 

[Agito]

Allow me to disagree with you on one point here my friend. While we value the Arabs as a friendly nation with brotherly ties that go for a very long time. We do not consider ourselves to be Arabs (or Africans, or Amazigh, or whatever category we keep being claimed as part of) We are simply Egyptians, as demonstrated by this tablet which divides the world from Egyptian point of view into 4 major groups. They are, from right to left:

1- Egyptians: Featured by wheatish brown skin, short(ish) dark hair and little facial hair. Same as modern day Egyptians.
2- Assyrian/Semetic/Neolithic: Featured by fair skin, long dark hair, and thick facial hair.
3- Nubian/African
4- Libyan/Amazigh/Berber

This is not to say that Egyptians are some sort of pure Master race. On the contrary, modern Egyptian DNA is a result of thousands of years of being a melting pot and a crossroads between several populations from North and east africa as well as the middle East and south mediterranean. Even with that, Egyptian Gene pool is mostly homogeneous (70-80% Egyptian 'Northeast African') with admixtures from all the above, of which Arab/Neolithic DNA only makes up 17%, with other studies showing it to be as little as 10%. Which is not a surprise since there were many interactions over the millennia between Egyptian and Assyrian Empires through trade, waves of migration, military conquest.. etc. It still doesn't mean that we are the same people.

This also confirms Al-Maqrizi's narrative from the 14th century that there was no trace left of the Arab tribes that settled in Egypt shortly after the Islamic conquest. Most likely cause was that they just melted into the larger Egyptian population. Adding more Neolithic admixture into the gene pool but not enough to significantly change it.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wo...9/egyptians-are-not-arabs-they-are-egyptians/

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hia/summary/v032/32.1keita.html


With all that said, I'm not intending for this post to be a catalyst for some racial flame war. I see the arabs as one of our brotherly nations and close allies, same as the Greeks, Sudanese, and potentially the Ethiopians if it hadn't been for the dam issue. This is just a friendly discussion among brothers. Not one of these ultra nationalistic posts trying to demean the Arabs as some sort of lowly race, I have seen quite a few and I understand how charged things could get. If you feel offended by it, tell me and I'll remove it ASAP.

Oh and BTW, Happy New year. Someone now needs to fix this calendar by adding a few millennia to it.

He is using "Arab World" and "Arabs" in the modern context. But I do agree with you, most of the Arab world is arabized, including Egypt. Even Andalusia and Malta were Arabized at one point. The current Maltese language is apparently "deformed" Arabic.