7 ms·

This is an empirical judgement: http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/evolution5.jpg http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/evolution5.jpg

wearefriends 15y ago
I think there are numerous examples of ancient architecture from even before the age of Rome found in Africa. Particularly northeast-africa. Africa is just too big and diverse too be lumped into one category. However I did get a good chuckle out of the jpeg. I do have to agree with the some of the sentiments here. There are examples of Africans who also have the Neanderthal presence in their DNA, again, east-africans. Probably explains why they're so different to other Africans. Though I still don't know whether they're considered sub-saharan africans or not. They are genetically very distinct from surrounding Africans.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  "Particularly northeast-africa." I hesitate to say this since I had been planning on staying away from this conversation, but northeast africa is not part of sub-Saharan Africa which this article seems to be concerning (at least according to the Discover writeup, which I only skimmed). https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_A...
  - wearefriends 15y ago
    Ah ha! Thank you for that,it was enlightening. I have heard before that East-Africans are considered caucasians. Though I don't know this for sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race Wikipedia for 'caucasian' seems to suggest they are though. Strange!
- okal 15y ago
  Hey. Just a point of correction - East Africans are just as black as people from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. You may find communities along the coasts, such as the Swahili, with significant Arab ancestry but most inland tribes are not different from their Western or Southern African counterparts. The greatest differences occur between language groups. Take the Nilotes for instance - the linguistic group which my tribe, the Luo, belongs to - we tend to be relatively tall and thin, with very dark skin, as compared to the more stout, lighter skinned Bantu groups. These distinctions also exist between the Western African branches of Nilo-Saharan (the Nilotic parent group) and the Bantu communities in the region. Southern African communities are largely Bantu though. In short, the vast majority of East Africans are what you'd call black, no different from any other black populations. PS: "Sub Saharan" is rather long. We really don't mind "Black" Africa.
  - wearefriends 15y ago
    Thank you, that's very interesting. I was more referring to Horners. Ethiopians, Somalians, Eritreans. But that brings up another interesting question for me. How would you consider them? I know outside of Africa they are considered caucasians and have significant caucasian influence ( we're talking at least or over the 50% range.) Pictures results after googling around a bit: http://i.imgur.com/sgCSr.jpg http://i.imgur.com/sgCSr.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Xt8pQ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Xt8pQ.jpg In my opinion, this just shows that humanity is a gradient. Overlapping. It's rather fascinating.
    - okal 15y ago
      Yeah, it really is fascinating. Sorry, my previous comment didn't talk much about the Cushites. We have a large Kenyan Somali population - close to a million - and an even larger diaspora from Somalia with residency or refugee status, because of the civil war in their country. The Somali myth of origin, if I remember my high school history, goes something like this. A Yemeni man marries the daughter of a man - ethnicity not specified - called Darrod. Assuming Darrod was black in the typical sense, this story might point to a "biracial" origin of the Somali. The Ethiopians on the other hand, have a story about a creator making humans out of clay. Those who stayed too long in the kiln became black and were placed south, those who didn't stay in long enough became white and were placed to the north and the Ethiopians who stayed in for just the right amount of time were placed somewhere in the middle. I read it when I was a kid, so I don't quite remember if it placed any distinctions between the Tigre and Amhara, the most dominant tribes in Ethiopia. I assume it's the same for the Erritreans, as they were essentially a single nation at some point. Cushites - are "Black" in a political sense, maybe less so in a cultural sense as I've been made to understand that Ethiopians generally don't see themselves as lowercase "b" black. About the gradient thing, black people have a huge spectrum of different skin colors, even within the same family. My Mum for instance, is light skinned. My sister and I are quite dark. The funny thing is we started out really light skinned as children, perhaps till we each turned three. I've heard some kids start out blonde and end up with dark hair? I find it all quite interesting.
      - 15y ago
iskander 15y ago
You're falling way below the usual standards of discourse on this site.
okal 15y ago
Feel free to google Great Zimbabwe, Old Ghana, Mwene Mutapa or Timbuktu. I could give you a tonne of other examples but your ignorance, I fear, is incurable. All the same, Rome != Europe, and Africa is not a fucking city. And how - what I presume to be a - German, interprets the feats of a culture whose development is only remotely connected to his own, is something beyond my African capacity to comprehend.
- yot 15y ago
  His argument is completely flawed. All areas surrounding the Mediterranean benefited greatly from being able to cover large distances by boat. This allowed trade to flourish and civilizations to prosper in this part. The fertile crescent was the hub of all this, you can trace the origin of European civilization to this point. You could simplify it and say that it went like this: Egypt, Greece, Rome and Europe. Meanwhile, there was a huge dessert isolating Sub-Saharan Africa. You have to keep in mind though that Timbuktu for example didn't spring out of nothing but thanks to Muslims from the North. Other places were able to get their own civilization thanks to one reason or the other, e.g. Eastern China. All that has to do with achievements of different societies. Now at the individual level, how do we know whether groups with Caucasian genes would have been able to develop a civilization if they had lived in a place with the same geography and conditions as Sub-Saharan Africans? We can't know. What we know though is that the conditions are there now for individuals with predominantly Sub-Saharan ancestry to show what they are capable of. Eventually they'll produce someone like Mozart, Newton, Confucius, Sun Tzu, Jabir ibn Hayyan or Abbas ibn Firnas. Or maybe they won't. Perhaps too early to tell.
  - okal 15y ago
    One of the points I was trying to make was, "Africa" as an entity does not exist, save for in Western and post-colonial Pan African texts. We do not see ourselves as African, identifying primarily as one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of distinct ethnolinguistic groups - tribes, if you will. I am a Luo. I only see myself as a Kenyan when I'm outside the country. African cultures - specifically Black African cultures - tend to have strong oral traditions that do not lend themselves well to transcription using Western templates for historical writing. In my tribe, there's a legend of a man known as Lwanda Magere, who conquered nations surrounding the Luo. This would be our equivalent of Alexander the Great. My guess is you've never heard of this, or the million other similar stories from Black Africa. The Mozart's of your world exist because you developed writing or borrowed it from close by civilizations. It's all about records. >You have to keep in mind though that Timbuktu for example didn't spring out of nothing but thanks to Muslims from the North. This would be like calling Sicilly an Arabic city. Timbuktu grew as a center of trade within Black Africa as a result of trade with the northern Arabic and Arabized Berber states. This does not make it any less valid as an example. PS: May not look like it, but I largely agree with you.

I think there are numerous examples of ancient architecture from even before the age of Rome found in Africa. Particularly northeast-africa. Africa is just too big and diverse too be lumped into one category. However I did get a good chuckle out of the jpeg. I do have to agree with the some of the sentiments here. There are examples of Africans who also have the Neanderthal presence in their DNA, again, east-africans. Probably explains why they're so different to other Africans. Though I still don't know whether they're considered sub-saharan africans or not. They are genetically very distinct from surrounding Africans.

burgerbrain 15y ago
"Particularly northeast-africa." I hesitate to say this since I had been planning on staying away from this conversation, but northeast africa is not part of sub-Saharan Africa which this article seems to be concerning (at least according to the Discover writeup, which I only skimmed). https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_A...
- wearefriends 15y ago
  Ah ha! Thank you for that,it was enlightening. I have heard before that East-Africans are considered caucasians. Though I don't know this for sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race Wikipedia for 'caucasian' seems to suggest they are though. Strange!
okal 15y ago
Hey. Just a point of correction - East Africans are just as black as people from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. You may find communities along the coasts, such as the Swahili, with significant Arab ancestry but most inland tribes are not different from their Western or Southern African counterparts. The greatest differences occur between language groups. Take the Nilotes for instance - the linguistic group which my tribe, the Luo, belongs to - we tend to be relatively tall and thin, with very dark skin, as compared to the more stout, lighter skinned Bantu groups. These distinctions also exist between the Western African branches of Nilo-Saharan (the Nilotic parent group) and the Bantu communities in the region. Southern African communities are largely Bantu though. In short, the vast majority of East Africans are what you'd call black, no different from any other black populations. PS: "Sub Saharan" is rather long. We really don't mind "Black" Africa.
- wearefriends 15y ago
  Thank you, that's very interesting. I was more referring to Horners. Ethiopians, Somalians, Eritreans. But that brings up another interesting question for me. How would you consider them? I know outside of Africa they are considered caucasians and have significant caucasian influence ( we're talking at least or over the 50% range.) Pictures results after googling around a bit: http://i.imgur.com/sgCSr.jpg http://i.imgur.com/sgCSr.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Xt8pQ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Xt8pQ.jpg In my opinion, this just shows that humanity is a gradient. Overlapping. It's rather fascinating.
  - okal 15y ago
    Yeah, it really is fascinating. Sorry, my previous comment didn't talk much about the Cushites. We have a large Kenyan Somali population - close to a million - and an even larger diaspora from Somalia with residency or refugee status, because of the civil war in their country. The Somali myth of origin, if I remember my high school history, goes something like this. A Yemeni man marries the daughter of a man - ethnicity not specified - called Darrod. Assuming Darrod was black in the typical sense, this story might point to a "biracial" origin of the Somali. The Ethiopians on the other hand, have a story about a creator making humans out of clay. Those who stayed too long in the kiln became black and were placed south, those who didn't stay in long enough became white and were placed to the north and the Ethiopians who stayed in for just the right amount of time were placed somewhere in the middle. I read it when I was a kid, so I don't quite remember if it placed any distinctions between the Tigre and Amhara, the most dominant tribes in Ethiopia. I assume it's the same for the Erritreans, as they were essentially a single nation at some point. Cushites - are "Black" in a political sense, maybe less so in a cultural sense as I've been made to understand that Ethiopians generally don't see themselves as lowercase "b" black. About the gradient thing, black people have a huge spectrum of different skin colors, even within the same family. My Mum for instance, is light skinned. My sister and I are quite dark. The funny thing is we started out really light skinned as children, perhaps till we each turned three. I've heard some kids start out blonde and end up with dark hair? I find it all quite interesting.
    - 15y ago

iskander 15y ago

You're falling way below the usual standards of discourse on this site.

okal 15y ago

Feel free to google Great Zimbabwe, Old Ghana, Mwene Mutapa or Timbuktu. I could give you a tonne of other examples but your ignorance, I fear, is incurable. All the same, Rome != Europe, and Africa is not a fucking city. And how - what I presume to be a - German, interprets the feats of a culture whose development is only remotely connected to his own, is something beyond my African capacity to comprehend.

yot 15y ago
His argument is completely flawed. All areas surrounding the Mediterranean benefited greatly from being able to cover large distances by boat. This allowed trade to flourish and civilizations to prosper in this part. The fertile crescent was the hub of all this, you can trace the origin of European civilization to this point. You could simplify it and say that it went like this: Egypt, Greece, Rome and Europe. Meanwhile, there was a huge dessert isolating Sub-Saharan Africa. You have to keep in mind though that Timbuktu for example didn't spring out of nothing but thanks to Muslims from the North. Other places were able to get their own civilization thanks to one reason or the other, e.g. Eastern China. All that has to do with achievements of different societies. Now at the individual level, how do we know whether groups with Caucasian genes would have been able to develop a civilization if they had lived in a place with the same geography and conditions as Sub-Saharan Africans? We can't know. What we know though is that the conditions are there now for individuals with predominantly Sub-Saharan ancestry to show what they are capable of. Eventually they'll produce someone like Mozart, Newton, Confucius, Sun Tzu, Jabir ibn Hayyan or Abbas ibn Firnas. Or maybe they won't. Perhaps too early to tell.
- okal 15y ago
  One of the points I was trying to make was, "Africa" as an entity does not exist, save for in Western and post-colonial Pan African texts. We do not see ourselves as African, identifying primarily as one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of distinct ethnolinguistic groups - tribes, if you will. I am a Luo. I only see myself as a Kenyan when I'm outside the country. African cultures - specifically Black African cultures - tend to have strong oral traditions that do not lend themselves well to transcription using Western templates for historical writing. In my tribe, there's a legend of a man known as Lwanda Magere, who conquered nations surrounding the Luo. This would be our equivalent of Alexander the Great. My guess is you've never heard of this, or the million other similar stories from Black Africa. The Mozart's of your world exist because you developed writing or borrowed it from close by civilizations. It's all about records. >You have to keep in mind though that Timbuktu for example didn't spring out of nothing but thanks to Muslims from the North. This would be like calling Sicilly an Arabic city. Timbuktu grew as a center of trade within Black Africa as a result of trade with the northern Arabic and Arabized Berber states. This does not make it any less valid as an example. PS: May not look like it, but I largely agree with you.