The Peopling of Africa

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Yes, but you must account for Interior Africans migrating East into the Nile Valley and Bantus migrating from the Great Lakes to the Nile Valley. The Niger-Kordofanian theory has been out there and makes tons of sense but there was also other groups already inhabiting the Niger basin.

When do you think Bantus migrated to the Nile Valley?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

There are actually a good number of people who co-sign this theory. And that Nilo-Saharans weren't a monolithic people and that West Africans or Niger-Congo speakers descend from Nilo-Saharan speakers that went west during the drying of the desert.

Interesting. I'm assuming Nilo-Saharans of Chad are the closest living relatives to those earlier people?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Yes, but you must account for Interior Africans migrating East into the Nile Valley and Bantus migrating from the Great Lakes to the Nile Valley. The Niger-Kordofanian theory has been out there and makes tons of sense but there was also other groups already inhabiting the Niger basin.

Are you co-signing this theory?

 

[Poitier]

When do you think Bantus migrated to the Nile Valley?

During the wet phase after the ice age up into Cameroon most likely

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

If only the Sahara stayed Green. African history would've been so much different.

 

[Poitier]

If only the Sahara stayed Green. African history would've been so much different.

Literally was "Pan-Africanism" in motion.

 

[Misreeya]

During the wet phase after the ice age up into Cameroon most likely

I come in the name of peace, but not in conflict with you, but dialogue. Having said that, recently archaeologist has discovered that ancient Punt is in fact Eritrea.

Analysis of mummified baboons in the British Museum has revealed the location of the land of Punt as the area between Ethiopia and Eritrea. To the Egyptians, Punt was a place of fragrances, giraffes, electrum and other exotic goods, and was sometimes referred to as Ta-netjer, or 'God’s land'.

There are several ancient Egyptian texts that record trade voyages to the Land of Punt, dating up until the end of the New Kingdom, 3,000 years ago. But until now scholars did not know where Punt was. Ancient texts offer only vague allusions to its location and no 'Puntite' civilization has been discovered. Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen and even Mozambique have all been offered as possible locations.

However, it appears that the search for Punt may have come to an end according to new research which claims to prove that it was located in Eritrea/East Ethiopia. Live baboons were among the goods that we know the Egyptians got from Punt. The research team included Professor Salima Ikram from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and Professor Nathaniel Dominy and graduate student Gillian Leigh Moritz, both from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The team studied two baboon mummies in the British Museum. By analysing hairs from these baboons using oxygen isotope analysis, they were able to work out where they originated. Oxygen isotopes act as a 'signal' that can let scientists know where they came from. Depending on the environment an animal lived in, the ratio of different isotopes of oxygen will be different. “Oxygen tends to vary as a function of rainfall and the water composition of plants and seed,” said Professor Nathaniel Dominy of UC Santa Cruz.

Only one of the two baboons was suitable for the research – the other had spent time in Thebes as an exotic pet, and so its isotopic data had been distorted. Working on the baboon discovered in the Valley of the Kings, the researchers compared the oxygen isotope values in the ancient baboons to those found in their modern day brethren. Although isotope values in baboons in Somalia, Yemen and Mozambique did not match, those in Eritrea and Eastern Ethiopia were closely matched.

“All of our specimens in Eritrea and a certain number of our specimens from Ethiopia – that are basically due west from Eritrea – those are good matches,” said Professor Dominy.

The team were unable to compare the mummies with baboons in Yemen. However, Professor Dominy reasoned that “We can tell, based on the isotopic maps of the region, that a baboon from Yemen would look an awful lot like a baboon from Somalia isotopically.” As Somalia is definitely not the place of origin for the baboon, this suggests that Yemen is not the place of origin either.

He concluded that “We think Punt is a sort of circumscribed region that includes eastern Ethiopia and all of Eritrea.”

The team also think that they may have discovered the location of the harbour that the Egyptians would have used to export the baboons and other goods back to Egypt. Dominy points to an area just outside the modern city of Massawa: “We have a specimen from that same harbour and that specimen is a very good match to the mummy.”

Next, the team hopes to get the British Museum’s permission to take a pea-sized sample of bone from the baboon mummy and use it strontium isotope testing. This would hopefully confirm Eritrea/Eastern Ethiopia as the baboon’s origin and narrow down its location more specifically.

Baboon mummy analysis reveals Eritrea and Ethiopia as location of land

Finding Punt; Africa’s Last, Lost Great Civilization Is In Eritrea | Foreign Policy Journal

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

I come in the name of peace, but not in conflict with you, but dialogue. Having said that, recently archaeologist has discovered that ancient Punt is in fact Eritrea.



Baboon mummy analysis reveals Eritrea and Ethiopia as location of land

Finding Punt; Africa’s Last, Lost Great Civilization Is In Eritrea | Foreign Policy Journal

Somalis like to claim that Somalia is the Land of Punt.

 

[Poitier]

I come in the name of peace, but not in conflict with you, but dialogue. Having said that, recently archaeologist has discovered that ancient Punt is in fact Eritrea.



Baboon mummy analysis reveals Eritrea and Ethiopia as location of land

Finding Punt; Africa’s Last, Lost Great Civilization Is In Eritrea | Foreign Policy Journal

This doesn't seem conclusive hence "We think..." nor did they test baboons in Uganda/Tanzania which is the area my post is concerned with.

What cannot be denied is the source of the Nile is in Uganda and that the Nilotic tribes knew of it well before outside explorers/traders/military. Take it however you want.

 

[Misreeya]

Somalis like to claim that Somalia is the Land of Punt.

Yeah they do but the scientific evidence states otherwise. However let us not conclude that the current land borders were always weirdly static. A good example the New Kingdom period of ancient Egypt. Which really includes today Egypt and North part of Sudan today.

or the kingdom of Makuria which is today Northern Sudan and parts of Upper Egypt.

What i saying land area changes all the time, so it is possible that Somalia was part of Punt and considering today Djibouti is majority Somali, and borders Eritrea, which i think it is not far fetch.

Demographics of Djibouti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Similar to Niger/and Northern Nigeria which is technically one country, but today are two separate countries.

 

[Poitier]

This is apparently quite a controversial topic, as covered in this article:

The location of Yam as attested in Old Kingdom sources has been the subject of extensive debate, much of which is covered in O’Connor’s comprehensive treatise. In this thesis O’Connor argued for an Upper Nubian location, similar to the previous conclusions of Priese and Edel, with the modifica-tion of placing Yam further upstream in the region of the Fifth Cataract and Shendi-Butana reach as opposed to the Third Cataract and Kerma region preferred by Edel. The most recent synthesis of the Harkhuf material with a view to locating Yam was by Obsomer, who placed the toponym in the area of Kerma. Almost all recent works have invariably followed Edel or O’Connor, accepting an Upper Nubian location for Yam

However, the author of this piece attributes the equation of Yam and northern Nubia with an unfortunate tendency to assume any place name south of Egypt must be Nubian:

This argument of course does not aim to suggest, with any certainty or precision, a location for Yam within a finite area. Rather it argues that a Western Desert location of Yam, near the Gebel Uweinat, or Ennedi, concords well with much of the textual and archaeological evidence. Broadly, the evidence suggests that Yam could be approached by going west and south from Egypt, via the oases and Abu Bal-las trail, or south and then west via the Nubian Nile and North West Sudan. The evidence is certainly too ambiguous to support a Nubian location and to construct arguments based on this location would be hazardous and premature. Such previous attempts at localising Yam reflect a broader tendency to place many unknown “southern” toponyms on the Nubian Nile, with little or no evidence specifically favoring such locations.

I'm far from an expert, so I can't adjudicate here. Check out Julien Cooper's "Reconsidering the Location of Yam" for the full argument.

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answered Jun 30 '15 at 1:56

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Wow thank you for all the information, I'm more knowledgeable about this topic now – frosty Jul 3 '15 at 10:45

If the report that he brought back a Pygmy is correct, that constrains the possible area to the tropical Great Lakes area in the central and western half of central Africa. Basically the area at the latitude of Lake Victoria, from there west.

Now if they did this in the usual Egyptian idiom: going further up the Nile, then it would be somewhere nearish Lake Victoria itself, as that is the Nile's source.

The only other reasonable location in that era would have been the rift valley chain of lakes. Any other route I believe would require traversing tropical forest on foot, which looks far easier on a map than it is in actuality.

@MansaMusa This connects the pygmy point you brought up with my point about the Great Lakes being a source for the Nile and trading partner (either Punt or Yam)

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Interesting. I'm assuming Nilo-Saharans of Chad are the closest living relatives to those earlier people?

Not just Chad but those Nilo-Saharans living in the Sahel today.

Also you guys I would drop the word "Bantu" as Bantu's did not exist during the time of the Green Sahara nor did proto-Bantus.

 

[Poitier]

Also you guys I would drop the word "Bantu" as Bantu's did not exist during the time of the Green Sahara nor did proto-Bantus.

According to cacs.....most Bantu groups have origin stories that point to at least the Nile. Some times the oral tradition is better than anything linguist and archaeologist can surmise at the given moment.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

According to cacs.....most Bantu groups have origin stories that point to at least the Nile. Some times the oral tradition is better than anything linguist and archaeologist can surmise at the given moment.

I'm talking back during the Green Sahara period and not during dynastic periods. Bantu people as a group did not exist yet.

Its better to say Niger-Congo like people who were ancestors to Bantus.

 

[Poitier]

I'm talking back during the Green Sahara period and not during dynastic periods. Bantu people as a group did not exist yet.

So how do you picture the peoples who became "Bantu" migration into Cameroon/Nigeria? I don't buy that as their ancestral homeland, just the place where they gained a formative identity/culture.