The Short Story--A Hybrid Form: Implications For Teaching: Fill & Download for Free

I used to do Tae Kwon Do, but moved on from what I did - basically a mix of boxing, TKD, assorted self-defence stuff from a dozen different sources, and wrestling - to Thai boxing, around 1978 - 81. This does it all (or most of it) without any compromises. You can localise it and add what is missing without wrecking the system.Why choices have to be madeAt the time my priority was becoming a better fighter. It was obvious that TKD could not provide all the answers because Western boxing has hand work that is orders of magnitude better than TKD or indeed any Asian method. Eventually, when I had found the right direction to take, what I needed to do more than anything else was to turn my students into the best possible fighters they could be - and certainly better than me, as I’d wasted a lot of time getting there.In the end, I found that those systems that had existed for a long time and were based on contests without too many rules - what I came to call ‘contest-based combat systems’, as against ‘syllabus-based combat systems’ - had by far the most promise for anyone whose priority is exclusively fighting efficiency. Some of these contests, though, had so many rules that they had little relevance to fighting; modern TKD is one of those. These are probably best termed combat sports. Some had so few rules, like Thai boxing, that the contests are just too tough for the vast majority of those who want to train in fighting. Nevertheless, such systems produce the best fighters.So you’ve got a simple choice: appeal to a wide audience, and do something safe; it won’t be all that practical, but you’ll get a lot of people through the door. Or do something a bit brutal, appeal to very few people in comparison - but train far, far better fighters. It’s a very simple choice. Don’t think you can somehow compromise on the method, because that’s not possible.There is one route to compromise that does work, though: train in something like Thai boxing but make fighting optional. That way, people can train in a real fighting method but they don’t have to go all the way. I think this is the best route for Western audiences, as it holds the best of both worlds.Nobody can get any good at fighting if they don’t fight, because the ability to fight is learned in fighting. Gym time just gives you the basics to put you there. The fight is the teacher.This is why people who have had a lot of fights are better than people who have only had a few; and they are better than people who have had none. After a year or so learning enough to get you into a fight, the amount of time someone has spent training is pretty much irrelevant. You aren’t going to be a better fighter by training for 15 years and fighting twice than if you train 2 years and fight twice. And if you train for 15 years to fight twice, some would say you wasted a lot of time. You can easily train for 10 years but without fighting, and get beaten in a fight by someone who trained for 2 years and had some fights. You can’t learn to be a good fighter in any gym.How a martial art survives and growsMartial arts have to appeal to a wide audience or they shrink to a core following. Therefore by definition they have to appeal to an audience that is not interested in fighting, just training in a way that is associated with it in some manner.To expand your martial art, you provide what the maximum number of people want, and popularise it. It has worked very well for the two forks of TKD. People who train in it for too long when their goals do not align with the core principle of martial arts today (a full gym) are going to become disillusioned. The intrinsic problem with these martial arts is they promise but don’t deliver. There is an implied marketing message associated with them that goes something like this: “Come and learn this exotic oriental martial art and learn how to defeat any attacker and even six of them”. Frankly, that is rubbish. You may not realise that for a few years though (guilty!). What we might call traditional martial arts teach many things - and much of it has value - but they cannot teach you how to become a great fighter.That’s partly because there are some simple facts about fighting ability that no one seems to want to be honest about:You can only improve your fighting ability by fighting, since the ability to fight is learned in fights not in any gym.A fight is where someone is trying to punch your face out the back of your head or throw you hard and choke you out. If doesn’t comply with that, it isn’t a fight, no matter what anyone says.Gyms are there to get you ready to start fighting; and then to fix what went wrong in your last fight, assuming you survived it. Gyms do NOT make you a fighter: fighting does.You cannot learn fighting in any gym, it is learned in fights.A person who trains for 1 year and then enters their first fight (a real one, as detailed above), and a person who trains for 5 years and then enters a fight for the first time, are the same: beginners. If they were to fight each other, all else being equal, either could win. In 100 contests re-runs then the one with the longer training might win 55 out of 100, the difference is no bigger than that. And if you place the 1-year person in a (real not fake) Thai boxing gym and the 5-year person in an average TKD gym: the boxer wins 99 out of 100 times.This is probably the issue that TKD instructors face at some point. Are they in it to train fighters, or is their job to get large numbers of totally unfit people into some sort of shape and give them an interesting leisure activity? You can’t do both.What I was interested in became clear to me around the end of the 70s: being the best fighter I could possibly be, and then training my students to be better than me. What we really wanted to do at that time was MMA, but no one was interested, and of course you need a core system to efficiently take you into that anyway. Thai boxing plus some other stuff was a good route to that. It was real, it worked in fights, it worked well against good fighters; and it was just the one method for stand-up, plus some add-ons for groundwork - instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, which is what we were previously having to do to mix boxing, kicking and throwing. And being a fight-developed system from the ground up, it did so many things so much better than the competition.Later we moved on to a more suitable way of using boxing for our locality: practical boxing. A hybrid system like this has no allegiance to any school, so you can do what needs to be done without worrying if it complies with some kind of syllabus or ruleset.The reality of the situationSo that’s what martial arts are, and are not; how I came to realise that all those decades ago; why I changed horses mid-race; what are the important items you should consider that affect your future direction; and why things are the way they are.The only thing I really despise about the typical martial art is the brainwashing component: how they try to make their students believe that their method is the best. Sometimes it varies what the ‘best’ is supposed to be, but it usually implies some sort of fighting ability. This claim is always rubbish because it implies that (a) they produce the best fighters; and/or (b) they provide the best intangibles.As regards the fighters: no one has the best fighters, it depends on who is fighting, which fights, street or ring, the economic situation where the gyms are, and a hundred other things. You can see who does well though - that should be enough. I never, ever said anything of the usual martial arts-type hype in my gym - the offer was basically: come and train with us; you’re welcome to stay, no matter your background; try it yourself if you need it or come to the contests and make your own mind up. We won 3 or 4 out of 5 fights so it kind of sold itself, it didn’t need me to big it up. That’s why people came through the door after all, changing gyms.As regards the intangibles: this contains the implication that (or even states outright), the school has the ‘best’ of something - maybe discipline, strongest spirit, traditional values, whatever. The great thing about any of these is they can’t be tested.Converting to something that worksI didn’t mention before, but I will now: I converted many Tae Kwon Do instructors to our version of practical boxing / Thai boxing, from my base in Croydon, South London. I knew many due to my past connections, and they came to my gym to see what it was all about. They changed over as a result. Some kept their TKD classes going too, alongside their new boxing sessions, and I completely understood that: there are many good reasons to do so if you have a large following. There is a loyalty component to it, which is always important. You can actually do both, if you wish, just as you can do tennis and boxing. It also helps you to make a decision: which way to jump. If few are interested in fight training and/or fighting in your location, then you still have the TKD, after all. There is an economic side to that of course.On to TKD, then: where it came from and where it’s going.Where Tae Kwon Do came fromA simplified explanation is that it was a mix of Tae Kyun (an old Korean kicking method) and Shotokan. There is a bit more to it than that - but it is a good starting point.There was a political bust-up in Korea, and so a fork in the road developed: TKD split into two basic paths, the WTF and ITF groups.The ITF people moved to north America and went their own way. They basically founded a sort of Shotokan version of TKD. The WTF group was then unopposed in Korea, and moved toward a sort of Korean form of boxing but with the feet.WTF taekwondoThe WTF road became all about the contests, which in the early days was OK if you liked fighting with a lot of kicks, as it was at least full-contact; and if you did your boxing and wrestling elsewhere. It was a good full-contact method within the very restricted format: kicks above the waist, punches to the body only. Up until at least the 70s it was a tough fight format because the rules then prioritised for hard hits with foot or fist. However, it is nothing like that at all, now.At one time it was quite similar to what they were doing in Kyokushinkai karate. Someone from either could easily have fought in the other with hardly any need to change anything much, in the mid-70s. Low kick was the main difference, and both TKD and KK were equally useless at it in those days.How they did WTF in KoreaI did WTF for some years and what we found when our people went to stay and train in Korea in the early 70s is that nobody there just did TKD - they all did Hapkido (some good wrestling type stuff in it) and Judo too; and many boxed as well. All of them.In the small town our guys stayed at for several months on training trips, all the TKD instructors also had grades in Hapkido and Judo, and some boxed too. Just to be clear, these were Kuk Ki Won certified instructors not too far from HQ, overseen by the local 6th Dan, and a couple were full-time TKD instructors (this was in the Chung Do Kwan school, but all we knew of were the same) - this was very clearly a multi-discipline approach.Our people came back with grades from the Kuk Ki Won, and grades in other stuff too - just like any/every Korean in that town.I don’t think this is the story we get in the West.It was very clear at that time that the Koreans themselves regarded TKD as a part of fighting that benefited from other additions.This is partly the origin of Kuk Sool Won, sometimes called Kuk Sul (‘national art’) for short. It teaches all those arts, and a contest is (or used to be) of one round judo, one round boxing, one round tae kwon - that’s how it was at that time, in the 70s. Today of course we bung it all in together as it makes more sense. Or maybe that is just Western pragmatism.Hwarangdo is another system with some similarities to Kuk Sul, and is regarded as a fork of Hapkido. It was Michael Echanis’ system - he was a merc and knife fighting instructor who initiated the US Seals’ knife fight training program (see his books on it). I trained a bit with a student of his. He ended up working for the CIA, in all probability, and got whacked in Nicaragua with a plane bomb - possibly because nobody wanted to get in his face and do the deed :)The basic message of these systems - despite being Korean - is that kicking is good but only a part of combat.Incidentally, at that time (the early 70s), everyone we knew in Korea called it taekwon. We never heard it called anything else except in formal circumstances.So:Mainstream TKD - WTF - became an Olympic sport not a fighting method: a flicky-kicky game that today has no relevance at all to fighting. It demonstrates supreme skill at gymnastic kicking in a sport environment, but it is useless for fighting anyone with real fight skills. It is the combat equivalent of foil fencing: a touch is a score. This is about opposite to what a successful fighter needs: serious power and serious durability.The Korean / north American version of it, ITF, essentially stayed with what it had started with: a Shotokan-Korean kicks blend. It basically started as karate with better kicks. It doesn’t have a proper contest mode of any kind so its ability to make you a real fighter is not there. It is a typical syllabus-based combat system in that regard. It’s the sort of martial art where you break boards in a contest to show how powerful you are, since you’re not allowed to punch the opponent in the head to knock them down and prove it.ITF taekwondoThe ITF route was originally of less use for full-contact fighting as it had point contests (no contact). However it did at least have a head punching component, which was missing from the WTF version.In my opinion, WTF has gradually reduced in viability as a fight method but ITF has improved. Since ITF is based in the West, it has had to take some account of the fact that real combat methods have a wider base than just kicking.All methods degrade over time…unless they fight full-on with a minimum of rules. In which case, they improve.In the end they all just become belt factories with no relevance to fighting. Individual instructors often do what they can to keep some practical fighting relevance - so there are always going to be some good gyms/schools - but when the goal is to get a grade, then the training has to be based on getting grades, not getting good at fighting. You can’t do both.The closest I know of to achieve a balance between grades and fighting ability is the BJJ schools who match belt grades to contest history. They at least try to correlate the grade to the contest skill, i.e. fighting ability; but that is not all BJJ gyms.When it comes to fighting, say with a student of 2 years’ experience in BJJ: since they don’t train against strikers with no rules; they don’t train against the knife; they don’t train against multiple opponents (at least, this is my impression of how the average BJJ gym works) - then I’d say this is not a relevant method for a place like Croydon, where my boxing gym was (it was more a kind of practical boxing - certainly not modern sport boxing). My 2-year students had knife scars; they could tell you how their last fight with 3 opponents went on a Croydon street; or how it was when 2nd Dans from other systems attacked them with a hard punch in the face and how many seconds it took to come back and flatten them.This is not core BJJ material but it is right where practical boxing is.TKD: the good and the badThe first master I trained under was Singapore Fred in London, around 1972. I had boxed and done karate before this, so I’d trained with various coaches and knew the difference. Fred was a real fighter, which helped a lot: he worked for one of the big breweries in central London in their night van team: a van full of bouncers who toured the big venues in London ready on radio call to fly to any venue with a brawl and sort it out. He was probably the smallest bouncer in London at around 5′8″ and middleweight, but he could fight, and probably better than some of the big guys.What made him a master among other lesser instructors was what he knew as well as TKD (boxing and judo), what his life experiences were, and the very, very simple way he could tell you what mattered and what didn’t. There was no bullshido with him.Some of this was a revelation to me as a young student of combat - and it is absolutely true that I didn’t understand some of it until at least 10 years later, when I had moved on in my quest to find the ultimate.You can speak with the wise, after all, but they might be talking a different language to you. You have to grow into it.Freddy was a 4th Dan in Chung Do Kwan TKD, and was personally given an honorary black belt by Oyama after training with him. He knew a lot about real fighting, and fighting all over the world. What he had was priceless to a youngster in London at that time. One of things he told me was that if you want to be a complete fighter you better learn some boxing. That was OK with me as I’d already done that, so I understood (and I went back to it later for various reasons).It didn’t go down very well with my fellow TKD black belts at that time. I remember one of them saying something like, “I came to tae kwon to learn to fight, why do I need to go to boxing too, what is going on here?”.Freddy knew what fighting was about: it was about knocking over some guy who was about to glass you then throwing the guy who’d jumped you from behind while you were busy with the first one, then jumping over some bodies and past some chairs to whack a couple of guys who’ve got hold of one of your pals on the floor and were giving him a pasting after mashing his head in with a bar stool.If you have heard some other version of what fighting is about, that’s good. You keep your version and I’ll keep mine.What Freddy knew and could teach was good. What he did in practice was a mix of TKD, boxing and jujutsu. It wasn’t necessarily the best way of going about it, though - because to get to be like him you needed to be a 4th Dan who’d sparred and fought round the world, and worked as a bouncer in some rough places. That took a good 15 years input, a very practical outlook, and some valid life experiences.There was nothing wrong with it, but there are more efficient ways of going about it that work better (i.e. quicker) for more people on average. And you can’t get to where Freddy was without his history, which would be a problem for most people.Fact and fantasyIf you want to be good at fighting, and that includes versus people who fight and not just some dummy in the queue outside the KFC on a Friday night, then you have to fight for real. TKD does not involve that, and couldn’t anyway, as it would fail unless a lot more was added into the system and a lot of the crud was removed.The problem for the trad martial arts is that people in the West are increasingly exposed to actual fights, and they can see that the martial arts invented in 20th century SE Asia are not all that capable in the real world (e.g. karate, taekwondo). A half-decent boxer-wrestler will pretty much beat all of them except the best. And if he trained a bit in a couple other things he’d beat all of them.Five or ten years of martial arts training in the average school is no use against a real fighter with a short training time but experience in fights, since fighting skill is learned in actual fighting - Jocko Willink explains it best:

Can you describe the fictional world you are building?Yes.…Oh, right, you want details. Implied questions, riiight. Okay, we may be awhile. Go get yourself a drink or something, because once I start on this topic I don’t shut up about it. But you asked, so really, this is your fault.The current world I’m building, that of Saorsa, is more of a universe with several different key planets, and I’ll skip over most of them so you don’t die of old age, but there are some aspects which are part of the universe itself, some aspects of specific planets which affect more than just themselves, and the central planet which has gotten most of the attention and effort currently put into it.So to begin, let’s take a look at the overall universe, since it’s required to make much sense of what’s going on.The UniverseThe overall Saorsa universe is set within our own, mostly. There are a few key differences, but they’re basically science-fiction level differences in that they’re plausible they could be actual facets to our own universe we simply haven’t discovered yet. For all intents and purposes, anything you know about the real universe still applies, but there’s more to it.The most important of these differences is that magic exists as one of the five fundamental forces of nature, meaning it operates similar to gravity, electromagnetics, or the strong and weak nuclear forces of reality. It has a carrier particle (mana particles), it follows explicit rules, and can be studied as a science. Magic is not “magic” in the sense that “stuff just happens, what the hell?”, but rather is very much like electricity and magnets in that, if you understand how it works, you can get it to do all sorts of interesting things.To give an idea about this, consider what electricity can do. You’re reading this on a monitor or phone which uses electricity to generate light, the computer or device you’re reading it on also processes the information to display by quickly adjusting switches on and off and counting up the positions of where those switches are in discrete chunks (bytes in this case) to tell the machine what to display on the screen. The electricity of the power supply spins the fans on the case or pumps fluid through hoses to cool it down to deal with the heat it generates, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Magic in Saorsa is much like this, in that it can be used to generate a wide range of different effects based upon how it works.In particular, the Dirac Sea, an early description for electromagnetics which turned out not to be true for such, is actually a thing in Saorsa: an infinite expanse of positive magical energy existing in a higher order dimension than our own universe. It basically overlays everything else, and when there’s a dip in the sea, it creates a negatively charged mana particle at that physical location in reality. This entire sea flows over time and has waves, crests, troughs and islands within it. In the case of Earth, or more specifically of Terra, there’s a very low ambient background level of magical energy in this part of the universe so we basically just don’t have magic for the most part here because there just isn’t enough energy to do much of anything with.Multiple EarthsYou’ll note the mention of Terra specifically - there are multiple layers of reality which can be defined by a different dimension. Same X/Y/Z/T coordinates but a different N coordinate so that they appear the same place at the same time but are not touching one another. In M-Theory, this is suggested to be the reason why gravity’s so much weaker than the other forces of nature, in that gravitons are small enough to pass along through tiny distortions and dimensions which are tightly curled up and other carrier particles are just too big to fit through. In the Saorsa universe, this is fact - there are in fact several different planets which co-inhabit the same space as our Earth which overlap with one another, and the one that plays the predominate role in the setting is Terra, a mirrored version of Earth which is similar in a lot of ways but a bit different in others. Terra also has a very low ambient magical background level to it, but it’s a little bit higher than that of our own Earth, and therefore you can do a little tiny bit more with it.In fact, there’s another planet as well in this same spot: the homeworld of the Nogitsune species. This world had two separate, distinctive species which co-evolved on the same world, and then one of them disappeared in a very short time frame, which won’t be covered until later in the series and I’m not giving those spoilers out at this moment. For now, note that the Nogitsune are essentially vampiric in nature, in that they need to feed upon magical energy, but are incapable of digesting raw, aetheric energy in its natural form, and instead require the refined form of soul energy. They had formed a symbiotic relationship with their co-inhabiting species but, with the removal of their source of food, well… that’s a problem. Fortunately, these worlds are layered upon each other similar to pages in a book, and though the Nogitsune homeworld was closer to the Dirac Sea, so had more magic, the next page after it was Terra, and then Earth is after that a few pages down.With the pages so close together, and the Nogitsune being closer to Terra than any other, they were able to create several bridges between their world and Terra to cross over in order to gather the food they required to survive. In short, this species creates powerful illusions around themselves that act like holograms for the various senses. If you see them, they look Human. If you touch them, you feel skin and so on. In reality, they’re furred, vulpine-like creatures with many tails living alongside humanity on Terra.All Nogitsune are female, they have no male of their species. They procreate by means of feeding upon more soul energy than they need, and the excess is formed into a new soul for a child. Since all they require to feed is physical contact with a species that has a soul, this has… implications which we’ll get into shortly.In particular of note though, is that Nogitsune are spirits, and therefore they’re incompatible with one another. They can’t feed from each other, and neither can they procreate with one another. They can breed with basically any sapient species other than their own. A Nogitsune’s child will always be a Nogitsune like the mother, though you may note there’s no limitation that the other parent need be the same species or of a different sex. Even species which don’t have male/female dichotomies are able to have children with a Nogitsune, who will “borrow” some small portion of the other parent’s physical attributes to allow their child to better blend in with their new home.The other big thing here of note, is that Nogitsune have found the best way to blend in is to have no one be willing to question the validity of their presence. As such, they have a very strong habit of latching onto the culture of their new home and becoming extreme exemplars of it. It’s not uncommon for various spiritual leaders, or the community nexus to be Nogitsune. Paired with the fact that they can literally have a virgin birth and… well, I’ll let you put those pieces together all on your own.The fact that it’s typically very difficult to even tell that Nogitsune exist, and that they blend into whichever environment they’re in, will become important all too soon.The DragonsLife on Earth, and Terra, began somewhere roughly around 4.5 billion years ago. Life on the Dragon homeworld began considerably sooner than that. In fact, Dragons were the first sapient species in the universe… by roughly about a billion years before anyone else since they hit the perfect jackpot of all the most pristine, perfect conditions for their life and sapience to form.You may note this is a bit of a lonely existence to realize you truly are alone in the universe, and that once you branch out into space, travel the stars, and realize no other life has even really gotten much past the point of being multi-cellular at all, well… it kinda sucks.All the great first discoveries were made by the Dragons. From interstellar travel, to the discovery of magic, to the realization that there were multiple dimensions and essentially other universes on different pages of the book of all reality. And, they were the first to ascend beyond mortality to divinity.A billion or so year head start on everyone else in the universe is a big deal. Having immortal gods who have been alive for most of that time, gradually gaining in power the whole time, kind of meant that by the time any other species had even had their own first deity, the difference between a Dragon deity and that of any other deity, was much the same as the greatest scientist in the world today compared to an ant. The Dragons considered other species to be little more than insects to them, mild nuisances but otherwise not really a threat and mostly able to be ignored. To remove a lesser species’ god from existence would be little more than swatting a fly.The issue there, is that these flies could communicate, could rally together, and when one lower Dragon goddess “swatted” one such “fly,” a coalition of dozens of other species’ gods banded together to make themselves known… by swatting her back.Now, in hindsight, this probably wasn’t exactly the most wise of things to do. Being viewed as mostly harmless is a good way to survive. Being viewed as a potentially deadly threat… well… let’s just say that didn’t go so well.The main thing preventing the absolute and entire genocidal extermination of other species wasn’t themselves, it was that there was a division in the ranks of the Dragons themselves - some felt these other species were now a valid threat and would have to be eliminated before they became a bigger one, but others felt that there was the potential for these other species to be raised up to the standards of Dragons, to become worthy of standing alongside them in time.Obviously, these two conflicting opinions couldn’t coexist, and the war that followed was called The Omnicidal War for good reason - because nearly every species in existence was exterminated, including the Dragons themselves.The AftermathAfter the dust settled, there wasn’t a whole lot left. Galaxy-spanning empires were turned to dust, entire species wiped off the face of reality so thoroughly that they had never existed to begin with, purged all the way back to their very origins. The Dragons had mostly fallen with the side seeking to raise other species up to be their equals ever so barely managing to win the upper hand in the end, but not by much. For all intents and purposes, the era of gods, and the reign of Dragons, had ended.The problem with this, is that when your gods are literally able to interact with you on a daily basis, and have millions of years of experience and wisdom, well… that was your government. All of it. There isn’t a whole lot of need for various governments to form once your species has several members who have ascended, as no mortal government could ever hope to match their ability. This is taken even farther in that the path to ascension involves deep inner reflection and understanding of oneself at an intimate level so that one’s soul and body can resonate in harmony with one another. A god isn’t just an immortal, they’re someone who has become intimately at peace with themselves, their inner conflicts completely defeated in totality, making them the ideal rulers.But those gods were suddenly gone. It took barely eight years for the universe to be wiped clean of virtually all of its deities, and the last few were in hiding or licking their wounds, barely clinging onto the last threads of life. No one even knew how to rule themselves without divine intervention any longer.So… the solution was obvious: create new gods.Nothing could possibly go wrong with this. Yep. Nothing at all.The Council of ElectuaryAbove the tattered remains of the Dragon homeworld, which had been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the course of the war, and now barely capable of supporting life at all, was a council held of the remaining ascended beings of the various species that were still able to reach such.It wasn’t a particularly large meeting.Barely more than a dozen attended, little more than demi-gods at best given what was left from the conflict. Within this council it was decided that they would rebuild the Dragon’s homeworld to be fit for raising others to the standards the Dragons had themselves once held, with a systematic, methodical implementation of a way to make select individuals with the greatest of potential able to reach that potential.The closest thing to a neutral party that there had been within the war were the Æserians - think sort of mechanical, faceless angels in appearance. They would run this little project of creating a mass production line of new gods.The Dragon’s homeworld would have a sister planet created alongside it, within the Dirac Sea itself. Seireadan would have access to essentially limitless raw magical power to create whatever was needed, and could then be transferred over to the other planet for use. An entire army of druids would be able to create literal mountains and new species overnight if need be.At the very head of all of this, would be the head warden: Machiael. An Æserian demigoddess who would guide those selected to participate in the trials of ascension towards their eventual godhood.It would be a real shame if she had ulterior motives. A real shame.…Crap.The Present DayA few hundred years have passed since the council of electuary, and it’s roughly about 1200AD for Terra. A few species have been gradually added to the world as they’ve been deemed fit for being able to potentially ascend.The Dragons and the Æserians were the first to arrive, building up the world and preparing it for what it was to become. To avoid potential problems, given the nature of the last conflict and that it was kiiiind of the Dragon’s fault that almost the extermination of all life in the universe had happened, the Dragons offered to not be in charge directly outside of teaching the Æserians the few secrets they had left regarding the process for ascension. They would be held to the same standards as anyone else, and be just another species learning the ropes again, as it were.The basic idea is that this new world would only help those who needed it. Generally it takes a role of non-interference, those who would ascend on their own are left to their own devices. Those who show the potential for such, by having strong, powerful convictions, but who are suffering intense inner conflict over those convictions and would die before they’re able to resolve such, would be pulled from their worlds moments before their death, and given the option to follow The Path to Redemption instead. Should they complete the path, the individual will be primed and ripe to ascend beyond mortality, and should this occur, they will be either returned home to the moment they had been taken, or able to pick a point in space and time to go to instead as a reward.Ascended beings warp reality around them. One in a million chance events just happen to occur frequently in their presence. The very nature of fate becomes malleable within the presence of such a being. If they return home, their new nature will allow for their survival, as whatever would have killed them just doesn’t seem to occur. The most bizarre of circumstances allow for their survival.In any case, this is the world of Saorsa, the homeworld of the Dragons, and the namesake of the series, the game, and the novels set within.The SpeciesNow, the interesting thing about Dragons, and why they evolved so much faster than anyone else, is that they happen to have a rather interesting trait: all Dragons are of the same species, there are no subspecies of Dragons, no variations genetically. Instead, when a Dragon’s egg is laid, it soaks up the ambient background ætheric energy nearby and infuses the whelp within with such, so that no matter what the conditions are, the Dragon which is born will be perfectly adapted to such every time.Just two different examples of Dragon: Frostburn (above) and Crystalsong (below) - common variants though technically the same genetically.Across each different planet, there are different Dragon types, their young appearing quite humanoid in nature and not gaining their more well known “size of a building” quadrupedal forms until they ascend. What other species consider to be the pinnacle of their species, the attainment of godhood… Dragons consider to just be coming of age to be considered a proper adult.As you likely are a bit more aware of Dragons to some degree than others, let’s move onto some of our more unique species you’ll be seeing in the Saorsa setting. While Dragons were the first, soon other species were added.The first of these new species, were the Ferax.Aggressive, boisterous and energetic, you’ll note the males are smaller than the females by a fair margin. In fact, there are technically three sexes, due in part to a very limited gene pool at one point and extremely harsh conditions upon their homeworld - two distinctive male types, mostly distinguished by one type having striped fur and the other spotted, otherwise quite similar to one another, are required for procreation. The female lays her eggs in the two males and is larger and stronger so as to hunt and provide protection for her two mates. Under the semi-recent guidance of one of their previous goddesses, males have now been given the right to join the military or leadership roles if they can prove themselves up to the task.Another interesting trait is what Ferax are more commonly known for, being that of their Rebirth Pilgrimage. Historically a nomadic people with many tribes in barren wastes, deserts and so on, survival required great strength and their woefully inadequate gene pool wasn’t really up to the task. As such, females would be sent away on their own once they reached maturity, and would have to seek out and find each and every one of the different tribes, visiting each in turn to prove their tracking capabilities and diplomatic capacity, as well as their survival skills. If she made it to the end, she would have met with each culture and could then pick which of them she wanted to live with, becoming a member of that tribe from thereon out. In the modern day, this has become a little… different, but not too far off in purpose: each Feraxian, male or female, upon coming of age leaves home and is expected to travel between various towns and cities. Elders give them food and drink (especially drink, Feraxians absolutely love alcohol, and the pilgrimage has been often described as an enormous pub crawl that lasts for months or years at a time) and stories about the location and its culture. The young learn of the different locations and eventually bring fresh, new blood to the area.This has the additional effect of each Feraxian town becoming hyper-specialized in culture, with like minds congregating together. Two towns within walking distance from one another may have drastic, dramatically different cultures with little to nothing in common with one another.Of all the species on Saorsa, the Ferax are by far the most common in number, and most towns are populated by them.The next to be allowed introduction to Saorsa were the Serketh.Hailing from the world of Dichoterra, a small moon following a figure-8 orbit around two larger planets in a binary, these large arachnids could be described roughly as an odd mix between spiders and scorpions by Terran standards. They are neither gentle giants, nor are they slow brutes, being exceptionally quick both on their feet (well, talons…), and in their wit.The nature of their homeworld is such that it goes through a series of bi-weekly swaps between being dominated by either an electromagnetic or mananetic field, switching back and forth regularly. This has led to many odd adaptations upon their world, and for the Serketh, it means each is actually two in one: each Serketh body possesses two brains, one electrical based, and one magically based, with one normally dormant while the other is awake. Typically they leave messages for their other half upon enchanted/engineered ornaments attached to their horns, allowing for communication between the two to some degree.The bulk of Serketh view reality as being comprised of a grand tapestry of fate, with many different strands woven together to tell the stories of reality upon its fabric. To them, to have two strands spun and braided together allows for greater capacity to withstand wear and tear, and to create more vibrant images. Deities are little more to them than the culmination of many strands all spun together into a single, powerful rope, capable of tugging upon nearby strands with greater ability.These aren’t, however, the only species to be brought to Saorsa.With a failed attempt to introduce a herbivorous species, which went horribly badly as they became excessively paranoid around the Dragons and Ferax both being predatory species, and holding back on introducing the K’yuubi, who we’ll get back to shortly, we have the introduction of the Terrans.The odd thing about Terrans is that they don’t really get along with one another. And given what happened with the whole Dragon dealie… yeah, there was a very clear decision not to have that kind of a rift happen again, especially not with such a volatile species.As such, the first Terrans to be added were from the Norse, their culture at the time the closest of a match to that of the premise of Saorsa itself. Other subspecies of Terran were welcome as, for some odd reason, they can get along with other subspecies better than with those of their own. The term “Terran” is a broadly applied term that covers everything from Humans to Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Goblins, Ogres and any other of a number of subspecies which are all genetically compatible with the descendants of Terra.…Remember the Nogitsune? Remember that they kind of are hard to tell apart from Humans? Remember that they like to blend into any culture they’re introduced into because for some odd reason people try to kill things that eat their souls? Sure, they just nibble upon a soul, and the closer the bond between the two, the more efficient the energy transference so that lovers barely harm their mate when feeding at all, and their mate’s soul will regenerate much quicker than they feed upon it, but… yeah. Something about “she ate my soul… Literally!” tends to lead to pitchforks and torches, go figure.Yeah. So… the “Terrans” did really exceedingly well on Saorsa! A little… too well… and then the Æserians found out that they accidentally had also grabbed the Nogitsune at the same time without even realizing it. Oops.Still, the Nogitsune fared amazingly well on Saorsa, and even though it was an accident, it was deemed within tolerances and they were allowed to stay. Of course… now that they were introduced to Saorsa, they were also able to infiltrate other planets upon leaving, and soon they spread far beyond just mimicking humanity. Now you get all sorts of other species who turn out to be Nogitsune once you strip the illusions away, though good luck doing that since they’re exceedingly adept at their primary method of survival. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s pulled away an illusion of an illusion of an illusion. They’re a bit difficult to pin down like that.At the same time… well, the introduction of Humans may have led to more than just one extra species that wasn’t anticipated to be added to Saorsa.What happens if you take a species with a strong inclination towards being never satisfied with “good enough” and which has virtually no access to magic, but has all sorts of romanticized and idealized beliefs about how it should work, and then suddenly dump them on a planet where all their wildest dreams can turn out to be nowhere near as impressive as they’d hoped?…Yeah. So… let’s just say that maaaaybe mage’s familiars didn’t… quite live up to the expectation Terrans had of them. And maaaaaybe they decided to “fix” that little problem.Enter the Caragh, a constructed species created by Terrans who couldn’t accept “familiars can’t do that” as an answer. An amalgamation of mage familiars, golems and gargoyles, this hybridized magical species retains many of the traits of its origins in that a familiar is upgraded into being a Caragh, and the fox, cat, microdragon or whatever other familiar had been the basis of such can be seen as having some of those physical and mental traits carry forth into the finished product.And make no mistake, they are a product to be owned. Caragh have no real interest in freedom, and were designed to be that way. They’re built to serve, and they love doing it. They never need to wonder what their purpose in life is, or why they were created, or who their creator is - they can literally just ask their owner in person without issue.Built as a combination of research assistant and bodyguard for mages that aren’t exactly well known for their physical prowess, the relatively small, childlike frame of a Caragh may seem weak, but they’re one of the most physically powerful species on Saorsa, and fiercely protective of their owners.At least, up until the point their owners leave, having completed their own Path to Redemption. Can’t take your possessions with you, after all.Caragh don’t really like suddenly losing all purpose and direction in life, and typically tend to look for a new owner as soon as possible to give them guidance. Some few, however, embrace their newfound freedom, viewing it as the universe giving them a nudge to explore what they were previously unfit to experience.In the end though, they’re the second native species to Saorsa, after the Dragons, and despite the purpose of their origins, have proven themselves to be quite adept at meeting the parameters of the world’s purpose.…Which brings us to the K’yuubi.Sigh.If pictures could say a thousand words, this one should be screaming alarms all over.There are a lot of stories about K’yuubi. Almost all of them are bad. There is reason for this.More well known by their individual gendered terms of Succubi and Incubi, the K’yuubi are… special, shall we say. These tiny creatures are eccentric, and most of what you’ve heard about them in various myths, from Succubi to European-style Fae, are probably centered around a kernel of truth. Exaggerated, perhaps, but yeah. They’re generally friendly, happy creatures! …They also have minor issues with things like personal space, personal property, and… alright, to be fair they’re not “evil” as it were, but “morally challenged” would not be inappropriate of a claim to make of them.Most K’yuubi stand in at barely over a foot tall, and they are directly responsible for the phrase “shoulder demon” coming to exist. They have a habit of forming strong pair-bonding with other species, preferably larger species that they can use for personal protection after whatever new crowd of rioters they’ve stirred up calling for their blood. They’re good at that.The thing is, they really don’t mean harm, and they really are fun to be around, it’s just not safe to be around them. The one thing you can rest assured of is that there will never be a dull moment with a K’yuubi nearby.The reason it took so long to introduce them to Saorsa actually had nothing to do with them being incompatible with the world’s purpose. It was more so the fact that the purpose of the world is to transform you into the truest version of yourself, and no one wanted to see an even more K’yuubi-ified version of a K’yuubi. Maybe the world will lead to limiting their potential inadvertent destructive capabilities. Probably not.If there’s one species which is potentially worse than the K’yuubi though, it’s the Kaelas.Actually a moss-based species, the Kaelas are technically immortal already, in that they don’t age, don’t suffer cellular degradation, and have a quite high regenerative factor, capable of even replacing lost limbs in short order.The oldest one known to date lived to the ripe old age of a little over 40.If you’re not concerned by now, you should be, for you see Kaelas have an odd flaw in that their dopamine production is directly linked to their adrenaline production, and they gradually gain an immunity to both as they age. Meaning they become extreme adrenaline junkies the older they get, and “reckless behaviour” is a phrase they pass pretty early on in life and keep accelerating beyond afterward.As you may have noticed, Kaelas do not really have hands, per se. Their large paws aren’t really fit for fine manipulation, and instead they use a combination of their tails, paws and headvines for various tasks, capable of handling several different actions at the same time.Also, that zipper along the front of their face? Uhm, yeah, that’s not a tattoo or anything, that’s an extra row of teeth, and their faces can split wide open like petals on a flower, revealing an overly long tongue and row after row of teeth.These small creatures are pack hunters of vastly larger prey than themselves, and much of their social nature revolves around the hunt. Their first name explicitly denotes their role in a hunting party, in fact, with their second name only specifying which hunting pack they’re in, similar to a familial name, and it’s only their last name that denotes their individual self, which they rarely give out to anyone beyond close friends.The other large portion of their social nature… well… they’re born with a portion of the memories and knowledge of their parents, and this combined with their most common religious setup of viewing each aspect of nature as having an associated deity… well, this led to a very rapid development. Gods of gold and silver and oxygen were superseded in power by gods of subatomic particles and science became their religion. That their homeworld of Nocturne also happens to have by far, on orders of magnitude greater magical power than any other known planet and serves as a lighthouse for most of the known universe to base interstellar maps off of, and you soon find them blazing through the eras at a breakneck pace. From the stone age to nuclear energy took them barely a few hundred years.Their “temples” are mostly devoted to the most powerful of their deities - Quantailia, the goddess of quantum probability, for all other actions in reality are dictated by her whim to some degree or another. What does that have to do with their science, magic and social life? Well… a Kaelas “temple” generally is an enormously powerful magically driven particle accelerator used to test various theories, merged with a casino for a heavy side of gambling over whose theory will hit the deadpool first.The Kaelas didn’t get invited to Saorsa. They broke in. The last time anyone checked on them, they saw a primitive species that barely could bang two rocks together. A few hundred years later and one of their scientists saw a heavily shielded planet that she wasn’t able to teleport to, and went out of her way to find out what was inside. Guess who showed up on the front door one day, not having bothered to test if it was safe to teleport herself there in person? Surprise! …Whelp, guess Kaelas are part of Saorsa now. About the worst thing you can do is tell them they can’t do something, so trying to keep them out was out of the question, and they have fit in fairly reasonably well. Fairly.There are… issues with that, which we shall get into in a moment.But first, gratuitous artwork! BECAUSE REASONS! Well, basically all of the species in full-colour.And some bonus stuff because it’s pretty.Anyway, enough showing off artwork. I know, I know, it’s pretty and all, but we’re not done yet.The Nature of SaorsaThe purpose of the planet is to mass produce new gods. There are a few aspects to allow for this to occur.The most important of such is the global magical dampening field around Saorsa. This restricts a number of things, such as technological advancements beyond about the medieval period. Basically, your goal is to learn who you are and to solve your own problems. Technology which is a solution rather than just a tool to be used in the pursuit of a solution is restricted so that, while you’re on the planet, you just can’t quite seem to think of how stuff works any longer. You may know a gun exists, but despite how simple it is, you just couldn’t figure out how to use one if you had it in your hands, and you certainly couldn’t remember how to build one. “Point and shoot” solves problems too easily, so sure, you can learn how to use a bow, learn trajectories and build up your physical capability of drawing back the drawstring, and so on… but you can’t have a gun.This dampening field covers a lot of other things as well. Languages are automatically translated, meaning even if you don’t speak one, you can still get your point across to a moderately accurate degree. It’s not entirely precise as some concepts simply don’t exist in other languages or cultures, so there’s no appropriate translation to be had. It’ll do the best it can, but it’s not perfect.Another major aspect, possibly the single, greatest one, is that you can’t really die on Saorsa. At least, not for realsies without great effort. Each individual brought to Saorsa is given a case worker, namely an Æserian assigned to them as their Guardian Angel. The dampening field will prevent most harm - if someone “cuts your arm off” you won’t be physically injured. Oh, sure, it’ll HURT like your arm got cut off, the arm will go limp and useless, and you won’t be able to use it for a few moments, but it’ll be good as new again soon enough. If you actually somehow manage to overload your connection to the dampening field by suffering so many injuries in such a short time that it can’t compensate and you actually do die, then fortunately creating a new body actually isn’t all that difficult, relatively speaking. It’s a pretty tough procedure, but your guardian angel can take care of it without much issue.Replacing a soul, however, is a tiny bit more difficult than replacing a body. You can attach a soul (or spirit in the case of Nogitsune) to a new body without much issue. If there’s nothing left to reattach though… you might have a problem. That’s god-tier stuff to fix. Uhm. Except they just killed themselves all off. Er, yeah. There’s not too many beings left who have the capacity to replace a soul.One of the few, would be the warden of Saorsa, and that comes with its own little problem.MachiaelSo… there may be a tiiiiny little problem with the whole “let’s put someone in charge of an entire planet devoted to the mass production of gods.”What happens if she’s corrupt and no one realizes she may have somewhat different plans for those gods, and might have set the entire thing up to fail from the start?Oh. Oh we didn’t think about that.Yeah, uhm, turns out she’s… well, she kinda maybe sort of managed to prevent one of the more powerful Dragon goddesses from dying and put her into stasis in the center of the newly rebuilt planet for safe keeping. And maybe that goddess is one of the “everything other than Dragons should go squish” variety. Aaand maybe you normally can’t prevent a death of something that powerful because it’s such a massive strain on reality that it refuses to budge and will force the matter.Unless, you know, you have mass produced literally hundreds of new gods and they all happen to have an aura around them that lets reality be warped, and destabilizes events that are normally fixed events in history.Oh yeah. That would be a problem, wouldn’t it?Now… let’s say, just for a moment, that the queen of the druids, in charge of the sister planet of Seireadan, figures out what’s going on, so that the production manager and the management of operations basically decide to declare war on each other. And you basically have two goddesses each with an entire planet’s worth of extremely powerful, magical armies to work with, and convinced the other side is actively trying to destroy the purpose of what they’ve all been working so hard towards, so that their entire purpose in life has been betrayed by the other side.Can you say “War in Heaven”? I knew you could. You probably shouldn’t have, though, because it was on the edge of a knife and you may have just tipped the balance. Good job hero, you broke it.Whelp, this is the world we live in now. This is Saorsa, and it’s the central setting for the tabletop RPG of the same name (Saorsa, in case you missed it =P ) which should be hitting open beta next year (2020). In addition, the first novel in the setting is well underway and, assuming no further major problems, I hope to have it out by Christmas of 2019. Given my penchant for heaping extra workloads onto myself, we’ll see how well that goes. If you read this in 2021 or something and it’s still not out, you can slap me for it. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you already know a lot of this. If you didn’t already know all this, and it’s 2021 or whatever, go pick up the game or novel(s), rawr!But yeah… uhm… that’s the “short” version of things. I actually did prune enormous sections out of it. Like most of it. Hi, worldbuilders anonymous, I’m Catreece, and I think I may have a problem.

This is one of many disingenuous straw-man questions that are posited by troll type individuals here on Quora (and there are a lot of them). This is a distorted, exaggerated and misrepresented position. I’ve never in my entire life, heard such nonsense echoed by any so-called African-Americans.The purpose of this question is to promote the Eurocentrist view that African-Americans, who for the most part are descendants of West Africans, have no place speaking on anything regarding Northeast Africa and ancient Egypt in particular. I’ve seen this sentiment expressed many a time, most curiously from the descendants of Asiatics, who are the ones who should have nothing at all to say. Yet, they're the ones who write the most on this topic. This is very ironic, considering Europeans have laid claim to numerous cultures that are NOT genetically tied to Europe. Take ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt for instance. Neither group is genetically related to Europeans, according to all of the recent, credible and verifiable data. But that has never stopped Europeans from claiming these cultures. It is still persists to this day (with the exception of ancient Egypt). It’s the heights of hipocrasy.The real issue the questioner has is with the fact that the so-called African-Americans have pushed back against false Eurocentric constructs. Namely, the imagined Caucasian Anatolian/Levantine/Asiatic origins of the ancient Egyptians. The angers the Euro-centered, and causes them to reach in their bag of tricks (logical fallacies) for lack of a substantive retort.The belief of the Eurocentric is that African-Americans or “blacks” in the U.S. should have nothing to say about Northeast Africans ie. ancient Egyptians, because they’re alleged to descend from Western Africans, exclusively. Tell that to my Ethiopian-American neighbor's “black” children. Not only is this a common Eurocentric trope, but it's very poorly thought out. The Euro-centered will certainly be upset with this offering, as the truth has the greatest potential to cause them harm.Now let's get to the facts of the matter, shall we?E-P2, also known as E1b1/E1b1a (E-M2)Before the OOA migrations the E and related E-P2 haplogroups did not exist as East and West Africans. They were still part of a population that originated in North-East Africa, and eventually developed the E and E-P2 haplogroups. Eventually spreading E-P2 across Africa along with its MtDNA haplogroups counterparts (like L2a, L3bf (L3b, L3f), L3cd (L3c, L3d), L3eijx (L3e, L3i, etc), L0a, etc.) which can be seen all over Africa in Yoruba, Somali, Zulu, etc.Frigi et al (2010), in Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations noted that:Quote: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.“Our results also point to a less ancient western African gene flow to Tunisia involving haplogroups L2a and L3b. Thus, the sub-Saharan contribution to northern Africa starting from the east would have taken place before the Neolithic. The western African contribution to North Africa should have occurred before the Sahara’s formation (15,000 BP)”.Citation Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47810347_Ancient_Local_Evolution_of_African_mtDNA_Haplogroups_in_Tunisian_Berber_PopulationsPaleo-African, the Khoisan “San”P2 /E1b1a (E-M2)Before the Holocene, during the Pleistocene, that is before 10,000BCE, West African origins among the E-P2 (PN2) populations in Eastern Africa (Sudan, Ethiopia, etc). More than 80% of most West African populations are from the E-P2 haplogroup lineage.E-P2 populations in Eastern Africa and future West Africans, likely migrated to the Green Sahara during the African humid period, when much of the Sahara and Northern Africa was covered in grasses, trees, and lakes. Needless to say more wildlife.Niger-Kordofanian speakers arrived in the interior of West Africa after the dessication of the Green Sahara during the Holocene. There they met and assimilated small groups of hunter-gatherers. Few genetic or linguistic traces of them are left now in West Africa. Those hunter-gatherers were likely from the haplogroup A and B which are in minority in modern West Africa. It should be mentioned that E-P2 carriers weren't part of the main OOA migration.Quote:“Using the principle of the phylogeographic parsimony, the resolution of the E1b1b trifurcation in favor of a common ancestor of E-M2 and E-M329 strongly supports the hypothesis that haplogroup E1b1 ORIGINATED IN EASTERN AFRICA, as previously suggested, and that chromosomes E-M2, so frequently observed in sub-Saharan Africa, TRACE THEIR DESCENT TO A COMMON ANCESTOR present IN EASTERN AFRICA”.Research Source: A New Topology of the Human Y Chromosome Haplogroup E1b1 (E-P2) Revealed through the Use of Newly Characterized Binary PolymorphismsThe majority of Niger-Congo speakers belong to E1b1a, Elb1b, E2 and R1. Around 90% belong to Y-Chromosome group E (215, M35*). E-P2 unites African people and is probably one of the main haplogroups among ancient Egyptians along with other A, B and E haplogroups. Most Niger-Congo (Kordofanian), Cushitic and Chadic speakers are carriers of E-P2.All Africans originate from East Africa stupid!!!Dr. Louis LeakeyLouis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903 – 1 October 1972), also known as L. S. B. Leakey, was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai Gorge with his wife, fellow paleontologist Mary Leakey.Dr. Leakey says:Quote:“..the WHOLE HUMAN RACE HAD IT'S ORIGINS IN AFRICA AND PARTICULARLY EASTERN AFRICA. Importance result of necessity “THE EARLIEST MEN WERE ETHNICALLY HOMOGENOUS AND NEGRO”. — Dr. Louis LeakeyAll Africans have a common origin in East Africa. This racist archaic Eurocentric idea that West Africans are “different” from East Africans is yet another Eurocentric construct designed to created to foster division. Yet, this rarely ever occurs when people speak about “European” populations. Everything is not so heavily scrutinized then.The "Tera-neter" tile was discovered in a temple at Abydos by the father of Egyptology, William Flinders Petrie. According to Petrie, the image on the tile is that of a proto-historic figure of Tera-neter, a southern negro nobleman of the Anu or Aunu race, the first inhabitants of Egypt.Bantu scholars propose that Nubia (Sudan) is their homeland and from there people named the "Anu" expanded into Egypt. A recent study (and several older ones) have noted that the Pleistocene (around 12,000 years ago) Nubians were near identical to West African/Bantu populations ("Negroid") as opposed to contemporary more "Ethiopic" or "Nilotic" populations in the Sudan.Origin stories told by West African griots and the oral traditions have long placed the origins of West Africans in East Africa. Bantu people of Kenya, the Dogon, the Luhya, Baganda, the Luo, Nyarwanda, the people of Samia, the Bakusu, Rundi of Burindi, Kikuyu, the Obachani clan, Abakhekhe and the Zulu ALL claim a southerly migration from Egypt.Moreover there are groups of Bantu speakers from Tanzania, Mozambique, Congo, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, who testify a southerly migration from Egypt as well.Quote:“Some migrated North, some West some south, while some stayed in place, while others left the region altogether. It's never been an issue of if, various African peoples are related, but how long ago did they branch off from the original family and when and where they settled”?Information Source: Where Is the Birthplace of Humankind? South Africa and East AfricaThe human race is of African origin. The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens sapiens) were excavated at sites in East Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia (near its border with Kenya) that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world.Ethiopia, a country situated in the Horn of Africa, is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. Ethiopia has offered a greater richness in archaeological findings and historical buildings which makes it a country of rich heritage. Thus, Ethiopia is regarded as the cradle of both mankind and civilization.195,000 year old Herto IdaltuWhen the bones of two early humans were found in 1967 near Kibish, Ethiopia, they were thought to be 130,000 years old. A few years ago, researchers found 154,000- to 160,000-year-old human bones found in a desolate area about 140 miles northeast of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, near the village of Herto, Ethiopia. Now, a new study of the 1967 fossil site indicates the earliest known members of our species, Homosapiens, roamed Africa about 195,000 years ago.“Herto man”The fossils remains of Homo sapiens Idaltu (idaltu meaning "elder" in the Afar language) were discovered at Herto Bouri near the Middle Awash site of Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle. In 1997 by Tim White, Giday Wolde-Gabriel and Berhane Asfaw, but we’re first unveiled in 2003. These fossils are the oldest known fossils of anatomically modern humans, or Homo sapiens.Ethiopia's Omo River flows below bluffs of the Kibish rock formation, where scientists first excavated the bones of early humans in 1967 and estimated they were 130,000 years old. But in a new study in the journal Nature, scientists from Utah, New York state and Australia determined those bones and newly excavated fossils actually were from a member of our species who roamed the area 160,000 years ago. They are the oldest known fossils of Homosapiens.The nearly complete skulls of an adult male and a child and the partial skull of a second adult appear to represent a crucial stage of human evolution when the facial features of modern humans arose.Discovered in Ethiopia's fossil-rich Afar region of Ethiopia, the skulls have clearly modern features - a prominent forehead, flattened face and reduced brow - that contrast with older humans' projecting, heavy-browed skulls.Francis “Frank” Harold Brown, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Dean of the College of Mines and Earth Sciences, University of Utah.Brown conducted the research with geologist and geochronologist Ian McDougall of Australian National University in Canberra, and anthropologist John Fleagle of New York state's Stony Brook University. The researchers dated mineral crystals in volcanic ash layers above and below layers of river sediments that contain the early human bones. They conclude the fossils are much older than a 104,000-year-old volcanic layer and very close in age to a 196,000-year-old layer, says Brown.Brown says that pushing the emergence of Homo sapiens from about 160,000 years ago back to about 195,000 years ago:Quote:“..is significant because the cultural aspects of humanity in most cases appear much later in the record – only 50,000 years ago – which would mean 150,000 years of Homo sapiens without cultural stuff, such as evidence of eating fish, of harpoons, anything to do with music (flutes and that sort of thing), needles, even tools. This stuff all comes in very late, except for stone knife blades, which appeared between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago, depending on whom you believe.”“These are the oldest well-dated fossils of modern humans (Homosapiens) currently known anywhere in the world".“It pushes back the beginning of anatomically modern humans”.Citation Source: Frank Brown, University of Utah, The Oldest Homo sapiensRick PottsRichard B. Potts is a paleoanthropologist and has been the director of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program since 1985. He is the curator of the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian.Rick Potts comments on the Ethiopian finds:Quote:“the skulls, while still large and thick-boned, are undeniably modern”.Potts said he would not be surprised if additional excavations in Africa push back the origins of modern humans further back to about0 200,000 years - humans who would have then spread to Europe and Asia.Quote:“Two Ethiopian fossils have been crowned as the oldest known members of our species. An estimated 195,000 years old, the pair were witness to the earliest days of Homo sapiens”.Citation Source: Ethiopia is top choice for cradle of Homo sapiensQuote:“All the genetics have pointed to a geologically recent origin for humans in Africa - and now we have the fossils," said Professor Tim White, one of the co-leaders on the research team that found the skulls”.Citation Source: Ethiopia is top choice for cradle of Homo sapiensQuote:“The discovery adds yet more weight to the argument that AFRICA, and ETHIOPIA in particular, was the BIRTHPLACE OF HUMANS. The dating sits well with GENETIC ANALYSIS OF MODERN POPULATIONS, which suggest that Homosapiens first appeared in Africa around 200,000 years ago”.Citation Source: Ethiopia is top choice for cradle of Homo sapiensFIRST PEOPLES | Omo 1 - The World’s First Modern Humans | PBS (1:00)Philip RightmireG. Philip Rightmire Paleoanthropologist (State University of New York at Binghamton), Research Associate in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, is a biological anthropologist with research interests in skeletal biology, morphometrics, paleoanthropology, and human evolution. He has carried out extensive studies of fossil remains from localities in Africa, Europe, and Asia and is particularly concerned with interpreting the Plio-Pleistocene record of genus Homo. His current projects center on Middle Pleistocene hominids, the evolutionary significance of the assemblage from Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus), the paleobiology of Homo erectus, and the identification of likely antecedents to this species in Africa.Quote:“The clearest fossil evidence to date for an African origin of modern humans, and strike another blow against the idea that modern humans had a "multiregional" origin both within and outside the African continent”.“I think this pretty much serves as another NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF MULTIREGIONALISM”.“The skulls are a spectacular find.”Citation Source: 160,000-Year-Old Skulls Found, CBS NewsGeneticistPeter Forster FRSB (born 27 June 1967) is a geneticist researching the prehistoric origins and ancestry of mankind. In addition to archeogenetics, he has published on the reconstruction and spread of prehistoric languages and in the field of forensic genetics.From an article written by Gray Tech and Science:Quotes:“The entire human race outside Africa owes its existence to the survival of a single tribe of around 200 people who crossed the Red Sea 70,000 years ago, scientists have discovered”.Research by geneticists and archaeologists has allowed them to trace the origins of modern homo sapiens back to a single group of people who managed to cross from the Horn of Africa and into Arabia. From there they went on to colonise the rest of the world.Genetic analysis of modern day human populations in Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and South America have revealed that they are all descended from these common ancestors.It is thought that changes in the climate between 90,000 and 70,000 years ago caused sea levels to drop dramatically and allowed the crossing of the Red Sea to take place.The findings are to be revealed in a new BBC Two documentary series, The Incredible Human Journey, that traces the prehistoric origins of the human species.Dr. Peter Forster, a senior lecturer in archaeogenetics at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge who carried out some of the genetic work, said: "The founder populations cannot have been very big. We are talking about just a few hundred individuals."“Homo sapiens, known casually as ‘modern human’, are thought to have first evolved around 195,000 years ago in east Africa – the earliest remains from that time were uncovered near the Omo River in Ethiopia”.Citation Source: African tribe populated rest of the world, Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, 2009. Tech and Science.Edited by Peter Mitchell and Paul LaneQuote:“Africa has the LONGEST and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage FIRST EVOLVED and from where Homo sapiens spread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past”.Source: The Oxford Handbook of AFRICAN ARCHEOLOGY, Peter Mitchell, Paul Lane.All West, Central, Northern and Southern (indigenous) African people can trace their ancestry to back to an East African ancestor. The majority of them in the Upper and Central Nile Valley. There exists no shortage of evidence that confirms the ancient migratory routes from the Nile across the continent to West Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean for that matter. Therefore, modern so-called African-Americans do indeed have a direct link to the ancient Egyptian people, because they share a common ancestor.Ironically, racist scholars who are extremely comfortable placing Greece & Rome within the context of European/Western history and civilization, are threatened when Egypt is viewed the same way within African civilization. Insecure people.Richard Poe is an award-winning journalist, a self-described conservative and libertarian, is also a New York Times–bestselling author, and the editor of FPM, a popular conservative website. In addition, his columns have appeared on Newsmax.com - Conservative News in Politics, Health, Finance & More, an online newspaper rated as the sixth most-visited website on the Internet by the World Charts Foundation.In his book Black Spark, White Fire the conservative journalist demonstrates that it is not just “Afrocentrists” who make claims about ancient Egypt's “black” African heritage.In the final three chapters of the book, the discussion centers on race and the African character of Ancient Egypt. Poe even discusses the evolution of the “Aryan Model” and speaks on the defunct and debunked Hamitic Hypothesis, which we’ve seen over the years (scientifically) resurrected by European scientists. A clear abuse of this was seen in 2017, with the release of Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods (Verena J Schuenemann et al. Nat Commun. 2017).In the eleventh chapter of the book, he provides the linguistic, archeological, cultural, and scientific connection between ancient Egypt and Africa.Below is an excerpt from a May 22, 2000 interview he gave to Hisham Aidi for (Africana.com). Africana.com, was purchased by Time Warner the same year and no longer exists. However, the interview is carried on a Richard Poe’s personal website (linked below).Note: The Aryan Model and Hamitic Hypothesis (both attempted to explain how “black” people were in fact the ever elusive “dark-skinned” Caucasians. Harder to spot as an actuality in this world as “Bigfoot” is.Taken from the article:DID AFRICAN EXPLORERS CIVILIZE ANCIENT EUROPE? AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD POEHisham Aidi is a lecturer at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.The interview was conducted by Morracan scholar Hisham Aidi:Question:You say there's a double standard at work when white critics of Afrocentrism say it's wrong for black Americans to identify with ancient Egypt. As you write, "an Anglo-Saxon descended from wild Germanic tribes could legitimately take pride in his cultural inheritance -- however distant and tenuous -- from ancient Greece. But a black African must not take pride in ancient Egypt." Can you elaborate on this point?RIchard Poe:Answer:“The standard talking point of people who attack Afrocentrism is, "I'm Scottish, I don't claim a Greek civilization." THAT'S A LIE. Speaking as a European American myself, the EUROPEAN AMERICANS WHO SAY THEY DON'T THINK OF THEMSELVES AS EUROPEAN, as not considering Europe as their heritage, ARE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH. EVERY WHITE EUROPEAN AMERICAN HAS A CLAIM TO EVERY EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION”.“In the introduction to Black Spark, White Fire, I say I'm proud of European culture. I say that in my opinion, The Iliad and The Odyssey are the two greatest works of literature. I don't set out to beat up on either of the two cultures [European and African]. ANY PERSON WHO DOES NOT HAVE SELF-RESPECT, RESPECT FOR THEIR OWN HERITAGE, CANNOT RESPECT OTHERS”.Source: INTERVIEW: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?Hisham Aidi:Question: Would you call yourself an Afrocentrist?Richard Poe:Answer:Quote:“I'm wary of the phrase "Afrocentrist," just as I'm wary of any political label. I wouldn't call myself an Afrocentrist. I'm not about being Afro-centered. I'm EURO-CENTERED. My book is Eurocentric, it's about the colonization of Europe by Egyptians. EUROPE IS THE CENTER OF MY INTELLECTUAL WORLD. But my book is sympathetic to Afrocentrism. And again, you don't have to beat up on another culture to be proud of your own. I'm proud to be Russian Jewish and Mexican American, and I have no problem with the idea that AFRICA COLONIZED MUCH OF EUROPE”.Source: INTERVIEW: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?Note: Afrocentrism is simply a counter to Eurocentrism. As a matter of fact, one can't exist without the other. If there were no Eurocentrism, then there'd be no Afrocentrism. Fact.Egyptians to plot closest to tropical Africans and not Mediterranean Europeans. The stature of the Ancient Egyptians was more similar to the stature of African-Americans.Studies have been conducted comparing ancient Egyptian osteology to that of White Americans and African-Americans. White Americans are largely the descendants of Europeans. African-Americans are for the most part descendants of West Africa, who according to Eurocentrists, are not related in any sense to East Africans, namely the ancient Egyptians. Of the two groups only one is tropically adapted and share similarities, and it's not that of the European descendants.Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., (born December 24, 1948) is a paleoanthropologist specialised on Neandertalbiology and human evolution. Trinkaus researches the evolution of the species.Homo sapiens and recent human diversity, focusing on the paleoanthropology and emergence of late archaic and early modern humans, and the subsequent evolution of anatomically modern humanity. Trinkaus is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a contributor to publications including Natural History and Scientific American, and is frequently quoted in the popular media. Trinkaus is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Physical Anthropology at Washington University inin St. Louis.Trikhanus (1981) found Egyptians to plot closest to tropical Africans and not Mediterranean Europeans residing in a roughly similar climatic area. A more recent study compared ancient Egyptian osteology to that of African-Americans and White Americans, and found that the stature of the Ancient Egyptians was more similar to the stature of African-Americans, although it was not identical.Source: E. Trinkaus, Aspects of human evolution, Neanderthal limb proportions and cold adaptation.Note: I'm not sure how any group today could possibly be identical anyway. I'm not sure why the emphasis.Research and studies show the ancient Egyptians physically more like tropically adapted Black Americans than White Americans, confirming older studies that show today's Egyptians in general are closer to US blacks than Northern Europeans, and Southern Europeans as well.Quote:“We also compare Egyptian body proportions to those of modern American Blacks and Whites... Long bone stature regression equations were then derived for each sex. Our RESULTS CONFIRM that, although ANCIENT EGYPTIANS ARE CLOSER IN BODY PROPORTION TO MODERN AMERICAN BLACKS THAN THEY ARE TO AMERICAN WHITES, proportions in Blacks and Egyptians are not identical... INTRALIMB INDICES ARE NOT SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT BETWEEN EGYPTIANS AMERICAN BLACKS... BRACHIAL INDICES ARE DEFINITELY MORE 'AFRICAN”... There is no evidence for significant variation in proportions among temporal or social groupings; thus, THE NEW FORMULAE MAY BE BROADLY APPLICABLE TO ANCIENT EGYPTIAN REMAINS."Source: "Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55.Supporting research studies: Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a civilisationhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/286645750_Ancient_Egypt_Anatomy_of_a_civilisation_Second_editionStature estimation in ancient Egyptians: a new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature.Older limb studies confirm Trinkhaus findings:Quote:"An attempt has been made to estimate male and female Egyptian stature from long bone length using Trotter & Gleser negro stature formulae, previous work by the authors having shown that these rather than white formulae give more consistent results with male dynastic material... When consistency has been achieved in this way, predynastic proportions are founded to be such that distal segments of the limbs are even longer in relation to the proximal segments than they are in modern negroes. Such proportions are termed "super-negroid"...Robins (1983) and Robins & Shute (1983) have shown that more consistent results are obtained from ancient Egyptian male skeletons if Trotter & Gleser formulae for negro are used, rather than those for whites which have always been applied in the past. .. their physical proportions were more like modern negroes than those of modern whites, with limbs that were relatively long compared with the trunk, and distal segments that were long compared with the proximal segments. If ancient Egyptian males had what may be termed negroid proportions, it seems reasonable that females did likewise."Source: (Robins G, Shute CCD. 1986. Predynastic Egyptian stature and physical proportions. Hum Evol 1:313–324. Ruff CB"The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983).. This pattern is supported by Figure 7 (a plot of population mean femoral and tibial lengths; data from Ruff, 1994), which indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. Of the Egyptian samples, only the Badarian and Early Dynastic period populations have shorter tibiae than predicted from femoral length. Despite these differences, all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations."Source: Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003). "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 121 (3): 219-229.Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions.Supporting studies:Population continuity, demic diffusion and Neolithic origins in central-southern Germany: the evidence from body proportions."Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature." Michelle H. Raxter, Christopher B. Ruff, Ayman Azab, Moushira Erfan, Muhammad Soliman, Aly El-Sawaf, (Am J Phys Anthropol. 2008, Jun;136(2):147-55Raxter & Ruff, et al. (2008). Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians: a new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature.Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians. Amer J. Phy Anthro 136 (2), 147-55.Source/Research study: Corrigenda to “estimation of stature from long limb bones of American Whites and Negroes,” American Journal Physical AnthropologyTrinkaus found Holocene Egyptians plotting nearer to, or resemble more other tropically adapted peoples like Pygmies, US Blacks and Melanesians. The closest match is with fellow Africans. Southern Europeans like Yugoslavs, Northern Europeans like Belgians, and white Americans are more distant from the US blacks and Egyptians (Trinkhaus, E. (1981) ‘Neanderthal limb proportions and cold adaptation’. p. 211). Trinkhaus' results confirm studies going back to the 1950s, and recent limb studies by Zakrewski (2003). Raxter, Ruff et. al. (2008) applied limb analysis to ancient Egyptians. The outcome was the same. US Blacks linked closer to the Egyptians, than whites.See also (Raxter & Ruff, et al. (2008) Stature estimation in ancient Egyptians. Amer J. Phy Anthro 136 (2), 147-55.)Most samples drawn from northern Egypt near the Mediterranean, closer to Europe and the Levant, but still link more with Blacks Americans.Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10738731_Variation_in_Ancient_Egyptian_Stature_and_Body_ProportionsQuote:"Estimates of living stature, based on X-ray measurements applied to the Trotter & Gleser (1958) negro equations for the femur, tibia and humerus, have been made for ancient Egyptian kings belonging to the 18th and 19th dynasties. The corresponding equations for whites give values for stature that are unsatisfactorily high. The view that Thutmose III was excessively short is proved to be a myth. It is shown that the limbs of the pharaohs, like those of other Ancient Egyptians, had negroid characteristics, in that the distal segments were relatively long in comparison with the proximal segments. An exception was Ramesses II, who appears to have had short legs below the knees".Source: Robins and Schute. The Physical Proportions and Stature of New Kingdom Pharaohs," Journal of Human Evolution 12 (1983), 455-465Professor Trenton Holliday, Ph.D., Professor & Department Chair Anthropology, School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University, [email protected] received his B.A. in anthropology from Louisiana State University in 1988, and his M.A. (1991) and Ph.D. (1995) in anthropology from the University of New Mexico. A paleoanthropologist, he studies fossil hominins from a host of different time periods. He is particularly interested in the origins of modern humans (Homo sapiens), a topic which is intimately tied to the question of the fate of the Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis). He is also interested in late Australopithecus and the origins of the genus Homo, and in interspecific hybridization among extant mammals and its implications for human evolution.Professor Holliday teaches courses in human evolution, functional morphology, and modern human adaptation and variation.Ancient Egyptians group with tropical Africans and African-Americans:Quote:"These same log shape variables were subjected to two forms of cluster analysis: neighbor-joining (NJ) and unweighted pair-group method using averages (UPGMA) tree analysis. Figure 8 is the NJ tree. It has two main branches—a long and linear body build branch that includes the Egyptians, Sub-Saharan Africans (except for the Pygmies), and African-Americans and a second, less linear body form branch that includes the Inuit, Europeans, Euro-Americans, Puebloans, Nubians, and Pygmies. Note that the Nubians used in this study are thought by some to represent an immigrant population from Europe or Western Asia [see Holliday (1995)".Source: Holliday, T. (2010) Body proportions of circumpolar peoples as evidenced from skeletal data. AmerJrPhyAntrho, 142: 2. 287-302Holliday 2010 limb proportion slice- Egyptians group with Kerma [Sudan], West Africa, East Africa, and African Americans.Additional studies supporting Holliday’s research and findings:Quote:This pattern .. indicates that the Egyptians generally have tropical body plans. . all samples lie relatively clustered together as compared to the other populations." (Zakrzewski, S.R. (2003).Source: "Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions". Amer J. Phy Anth. 121 (3): 219-229., Research study: Variation in ancient Egyptian stature and body proportions."Gallagher et al. also points out that:Quote:"body proportions are under strong climatic selection and evidence remarkable stability within regional lineages".Research study: Healthy percentage body fat ranges: an approach for developing guidelines based on body mass index, Gallagher et al.Zakrzewski (2003) studied skeletal samples from the Badarian period to the Middle Kingdom. She confirmed the results of Robins and Shute that Ancient Egyptians in general had "tropical body plans” but that their proportions were actually "super-negroid".Zakrzewski Study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10738731_Variation_in_Ancient_Egyptian_Stature_and_Body_ProportionsQuote:“The raw values in Table 6 suggest that Egyptians had the “super-Negroid” body plan described by Robins (1983)..Research study/source: The physical proportions and living stature of New Kingdom pharaohsAfter an extended passage of time, modern humans who migrated to northern climates, began to evolve cold-adapted limbs, it took several millenia for this to occur. Some of the earliest remains of modern humans in Europe exhibit "tropic limbs" which is how scientists were able to determine they were recently migrated from a "tropical" or warmer climate. Later remains of modern humans, in Northern Europe and Northern Asia, began to show an adjustment in the limbs, as a result of evolving thru the Glacial periods in the Northern latitudes, they adapted colder limb proportions.Using this data, one can easily refute the possibility of Ancient Egyptians descending from the Nordic regions.Research papers: Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western AsiaBrachial and crural indices of European late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans.Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: be sparing with Occam’s razorStature estimation in ancient Egyptians: a new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of stature.Another line of evidence showing a relationship between ancient Egyptians and populations from tropical Africa concerns the skeleton beyond the skull, specifically the proportions of the limbs. Tropical African populations have proportionately longer limbs than European or Asian populations, because longer limbs dissipate heat more easily. Measurements of ancient Egyptian skeletons has shown that their limb proportions were within the range of tropical African populations (Zakrzewski 2003), and sometimes their limbs were proportionately longer than those of some tropical Africans, leading Robins and Shute (1986) to call them "super-Negroid".DNA data suggests that many modern Egyptians are not identical to the ancient Egyptians. While there is some linkage among SOME of today's Egyptians, particularly in the tropical south, from whence the Dynasties sprung, new data indicates that many Egyptians today are Arabized/Eurasian types or hybrids. This is not necessarily a new finding. Bone studies show that the very late period Egyptians (600-350BC) have datasets that are not "typically" Egyptians, like the earlier tropical African types before. Still, especially in the south, the tropical African influence still shows. Note this is not an "either/or" situation- but a matter of degree. MOST modern Egyptians seem Arabized/Eurasian but the DNA data still shows about one-third African, even with the Arabized takeover of Egypt.Quote:“There is long-standing disagreement regarding Upper Pleistocene human evolution in Western Asia, particularly the Levant. Some argue that there were two different populations, perhaps different species, of Upper Pleistocene Levantine hominids. The first, from the Israeli sites of Qafzeh and Skhul, is anatomically modern”.“The second, from sites such as Amud, Kebara, and Tabun, is archaic, or "Neandertal" in morphology. Others argue that this is a false dichotomy and that all of these hominids belong to a single, highly variable population. In this paper I attempt to resolve this issue by examining postcranial measures reflective of body shape. Results indicate that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have African-like, or tropically adapted, proportions, while those from Amud, Kebara, Tabun, and Shanidar (Iraq) have more European-like, or cold-adapted, proportions. This suggests that there were in fact two distinct Western Asian populations and that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids were likely African in origin - a result consistent with the "Replacement" model of modern origins”.Citation Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279544428_Evolution_at_the_crossroads_Modern_human_emergence_in_Western_AsiaQuote:“What we can say, however, is that in the Holocene, humans from southwest Asia DO NOT EXHIBIT TROPICALLY ADAPTED BODY SHAPE (Crognier 1981; Eveleth and Tanner 1976; Schreider 1975). In addition, while Levantine winters today are generally characterized as mild (Henkin et al. 1998), they are nonetheless quite often cold, with frequent snowfall—for example, the winter of 1992 was particularly cold and snowy in Israel (Vishnevetsky and Steinberger 19%). Given that the Holocene is a warm phase, yet recent LEVANTINE HUMANS DO NOT EXHIBIT A TROPICALLY ADAPTED MORPHOLOGY, there is little reason to assume that in the (generally colder) Pleistocene epoch, natural selection alone could result in tropically adapted morphology in the region”.“Thus, the discovery of tropically adapted hominids in the region would therefore likely indicate population dispersal from the TROPICS, and the most logical geographic source for such an influx is Africa.In this regard, Trinkaus (1981, 1984, 1995) and have argued that the high brachial and crural indices, narrow biiliac breadths, and small relative femoral head sizes of the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids suggest an influx of African genes associated with the emergence of modern humans in the region”.Source: Trenton Holliday (2000) Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western Asia. American Anthropologist. New Series, Vol. 102, No. 1, 54-68. Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western AsiaMore supporting limb studies:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13571870_Climatic_influences_on_human_body_size_and_proportions_Ecological_adaptations_and_secular_trendsClimatic influences on human body size and proportions: Ecological adaptations and secular trends https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13571870_Climatic_influences_on_human_body_size_and_proportions_Ecological_adaptations_and_secular_trendsNear Eastern Late Archaic HumansMorphological adaptation to climate in modern and fossil hominidsStature estimation in ancient Egyptians: A new technique based on anatomical reconstruction of staturePredynastic and dynastic Egyptians link closer to Sudanese and East African populations:Quote:Analysis of skeletal and cranial remains reveals that the ancient Egyptians of the early Dynastic and pre-Dynastic phases, link closer to nearby Saharan, Sudanic and East African populations than Mediterranean and Middle Eastern peoples. Greeks, Romans, Hyskos, Arabs and others were to appear later in Egyptian history. Craniometric studies generally place ancient Upper Egyptian populations closer to the range of tropical Africans in the Nile Valley and East Africa than to Mediterraneans, or Middle Easterners.Source: S. O. Y. Keita, "Studies and Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History in Africa 20 (1993) 129-54Older studies often show misclassification or exclusion of Nile Valley remains deemed 'negroid'. Although clearly of the "African" type, such remains were frequently relabeled "Mediterranean."Quote:"Analyses of Egyptian crania are numerous. Vercoutter (1978) notes that ancient Egyptian crania have FREQUENTLY ALL BEEN LUMPED (implicitly or explicitly) AS MEDITERRANEAN, although Negroid remains are recorded in substantial numbers by many workers... "Nutter (1958), using the Penrose statistic, demonstrated that NAQADA I and BADARI I CRANIA, BOTH REGARDED AS NEGROID, WERE ALMOST IDENTICAL AND THAT THESE WERE MOST SIMILIAR TO THE NEGROID NUBIAN SERIES FROM KERMA studied by Collett (1933). Collett, not accepting variability, excluded "clear negro" crania found in the Kerma series from her analysis, as did Morant (1925), implying that they were foreign..."Source: (S. Keita (1990) Studies of Ancient Crania From Northern Africa. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 83:35-48).Europeans, supposedly the defining Caucasians, are simply a hybrid population. Nothing “pure” about ’em when it comes down to it.Genetic data shows that the biochemical systems of Asian and European populations, appear to be more similar to each other, than they are to African populations. thus, Asians (Mongols) and Europeans (Caucasians) may have shared a common ancestry with each other, some 40,000 years ago and a common ancestry with African populations before that. The Out of Africa (OOA) migration, which took Africans into Asia, occurred at about 50,000 B.C. The modern Mongol shows great affiliation with San Africans in body type and facial features, thus the presumed genesis below.Research: African people have very little Neanderthal DNA because their ancestors didn't make the trip through Eurasia, scientists think.There is a 'mysterious' chromosome/alu in Europeans and Asians. It's the NEANDERTHAL GENE. It is not found in most Africans, with exception to those who are mixed with Europeans or Asians.Quote:“The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third respectively. Simulations explain this hypothesis explains quite well the discrepancy between trees obtained by maximum likelihood and neighbor joining”.Citation Source: Colliquium Paper: Genes, peoples, and languages. Genes, peoples, and languagesQuote:".. it appears that Europeans are about two-thirds Asians and one-third African."Source: (Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (2000). Genes, peoples and languages. FARRAR STRAUS AND GIROUX). Genes, peoples, and languagesNumerous studies of North Africa use samples down near the coast while EXCLUDING much larger inland areas and countries that make up "North Africa" giving a misleading picture of African diversity in North Africa.Quote:"These same log shape variables were subjected to two forms of cluster analysis: neighbor-joining (NJ) and unweighted pair-group method using averages (UPGMA) tree analysis. Figure 8 is the NJ tree. It has two main branches—a long and linear body build branch that includes the Egyptians, Sub-Saharan Africans (except for the Pygmies), and African-Americans and a second, less linear body form branch that includes the Inuit, Europeans, Euro-Americans, Puebloans, Nubians, and Pygmies. Note that the Nubians used in this study are thought by some to represent an immigrant population from Europe or Western Asia [see Holliday (1995)".Source: Holliday, T. (2010) Body proportions of circumpolar peoples as evidenced from skeletal data. AmerJrPhyAntrho, 142: 2. 287-302Research study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oa.2315Linguistically:All modern African languages family, including Niger-Congo have their ancient origin in North-Eastern Africa:Citation Source: Reconstructing Ancient Kinship in Africa by Christopher Ehret (From Early Human Kinship, Chap 12).