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Facial construction of a 4000 year old Nubian
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Ghengis Kaarhis
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thats my cousin liban 
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cunug3aad
3rdchild · Wakaa juba gang gang
@Shimbiris was talking before in a different thread about how these people using AI to make their stuff look official but its mostly pseudoscience
I however welcome our 4000 year old faraxs
I however welcome our 4000 year old faraxs
The alchemist
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Those guys had the same genetics as Somalis, so it does not surprise that some of their phenotypes overlap. Despite this, reconstructions are more of an art than anything.
People think pre-Arabian expansion northern Sudan was like how southern Sudan is right now, but that is completely false. Northern un-mixed Sudan was inhabited by different Cushitic groups.
Northern Sudanese are composed of many groups, but the two most prominent are the Sudanese Arabs and the Nubians. The Sudanese Arabs have undergone significant mixing, with a lot of their ancestry tracing back to the Arabian Peninsula. The Nubians, the largest remaining Cushitic group in northern Sudan, have also experienced considerable mixing, though to a noticeably lesser extent.
Sudanese Arabs still cluster more closely with the Habesha than with other Arab populations, despite having Arab ancestry themselves. However, when compared to more genetically distinct groups such as the Oromos and Somalis, these two tend to show even closer genetic proximity to the Habesha than to any Arab population.
Same can be said for Nubians who have a 20-30% closer genetic distance to most cushitic groups. Noticable their distance to Habeshas increase slightly while their distance to Somali close quite significantly. Also to be clear, the probably have more recent nilotic heritage compared to Somalis, so much so that their native tongue is nilotic.
Northern Sudanese are composed of many groups, but the two most prominent are the Sudanese Arabs and the Nubians. The Sudanese Arabs have undergone significant mixing, with a lot of their ancestry tracing back to the Arabian Peninsula. The Nubians, the largest remaining Cushitic group in northern Sudan, have also experienced considerable mixing, though to a noticeably lesser extent.
Sudanese Arabs still cluster more closely with the Habesha than with other Arab populations, despite having Arab ancestry themselves. However, when compared to more genetically distinct groups such as the Oromos and Somalis, these two tend to show even closer genetic proximity to the Habesha than to any Arab population.
Same can be said for Nubians who have a 20-30% closer genetic distance to most cushitic groups. Noticable their distance to Habeshas increase slightly while their distance to Somali close quite significantly. Also to be clear, the probably have more recent nilotic heritage compared to Somalis, so much so that their native tongue is nilotic.
I’d also like to illustrate what happened through an example. Imagine your brother or sister became an incredibly famous person. Their name and accomplishments became deeply respected in history. Their descendants, many hundreds of years later, look back at them with pride. However, your brother or sister married a Mongolian person, and their children continued to intermarry, on and off, with Mongolians over generations. You, on the other hand, married and continued to marry within the Somali people.
Now, centuries later, people try to reconstruct how your famous sibling may have looked using genetic evidence. To their surprise, the reconstructed image ends up being a mirror of your descendants more than those of the actual lineage.
That is essentially what happened with the people of northern Sudan. They are the descendants of many great civilizations, but due to repeated intermixing over time and the cultural changes that came with it, their physical resemblance to their ancestral population has largely disappeared. Both due to mixing with semetic groups, and also probably with mixing of nilotic groups they kept as slaves. In contrast, the less-mixed related ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa have preserved more of the original Cushitic features and cultural traits.
Now, centuries later, people try to reconstruct how your famous sibling may have looked using genetic evidence. To their surprise, the reconstructed image ends up being a mirror of your descendants more than those of the actual lineage.
That is essentially what happened with the people of northern Sudan. They are the descendants of many great civilizations, but due to repeated intermixing over time and the cultural changes that came with it, their physical resemblance to their ancestral population has largely disappeared. Both due to mixing with semetic groups, and also probably with mixing of nilotic groups they kept as slaves. In contrast, the less-mixed related ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa have preserved more of the original Cushitic features and cultural traits.
Our community was obnoxious enough to clsik P diddy for many years
Never heard other East Africans or Fulanis claim him
The alchemist
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Modern Nubians are not Cushitic. But the bulk of their ancestry is, and that is the oldest and, in the past, the only ubiquitous, basically the ancestry that ushered in civilization that existed in that region. Sudanic ancestry came way later. The Mesolithic hunter-fishers were completely replaced by people who genetically look like Somalis with plus/minus upper and lower bound sub-component variety proportion, which is an internal process, not an outside feature or "diversity." These people dominated the region for many thousands of years until deep into the civilizational period, where we see a minor portion of Sudanic and Egyptian ancestry seep in. I suspect that to be the Neo-Kushite period, I.e., Napatan. Before that, expect the people to look no different than Somalis and also, we might have minorities being Sudanic since you will have an influx of migrants from the Howar region. But they were external people to the region at the time. Like Somali Bantus (not to say that they are not of the region today), I'm just saying it is ridiculous to say that they were the original people or something along that line in the matter of the time period we're talking about. Although the Mesolithics that were completely replaced were definitely Sudanic. But they went out of the region abruptly during the Mesolithic. Then, from the early Neolithic all the way down to the civilizational period, it was the Cushitic horizon that completely dominated.
Specifically, Upper and Lower Nubia during the early Civilization period was early Eastern Cushitic, Somali-like. Although we're Lower Nubian related but definitely genetically mix of Upper and Lower Nubian before this period. The term Nubian is a regional thing but it relates to the people who lived there who were of the same kind in terms of origin, macro culture and traditions, etc.
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Modern Nubians are an incredibly mixed group. While there are still some genuinely more Cushitic groups in Sudan, such as the Beja, they represent only a small fraction of the total population. Nubians are the largest group in which Cushitic ancestry is either equal to or the dominant component compared to the rest of their heritage.
Regarding their origins, I am not certain. All Cushitic groups are to descend from a population that arose through the mixing of Natufians and proto-Nilotes, in the region that is now northern Sudan and Eritrea. I believe that the Cushites of Sudan have incorporated more Nilotic ancestry, considering that their language was eventually replaced by a Nilotic one. A complete language shift implies integration or coexistence, suggesting that Nilotic groups were not merely a servant caste but lived alongside Cushitic groups as equals. Genetically its hard to square because that linguist shift does not correspond with a higher amount of ancient proto-nilotic ancestry.
My best guess is that one branch of Cushites in Sudan began to identify more strongly with their Nilotic or "mother" lineage, while the Cushites of the Horn retained and developed an Afroasiatic language that likely evolved from what the Natufians originally spoke. Could be that they are a cushitic population that had a smaller amount of natufians in their tribe and had more dominant proto-nilotic members. That said, their core ancestry still appears to lean more toward the Horn of Africa.
It could be somethign as simple as a proto-cushite tribal chief in Sudan deciding to speak his mothers tongue while he was in power and that creating a snowball effect.
All of this remains speculative, but I agree with most of what you are saying.
So probably three options. A. An established cushitic group in Sudan took over a nilotic language while not marrying much into them. B. A tribe of proto-cushites where perhaps the ratio of proto-nilotes to natufian was stronger in favor of proto-nilotes. C. A black swan event, from a individual choice to a tribal chief imposing the language of his “mother” to them being estranged from other cushites distance wise during the language evolution and speaking their nilotic tongue as communication seized long enough for them to forgot that language.
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The alchemist
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It's not speculative. I have strong backing for what I am saying (I just don't have the time or energy to write anything extensive). Our ancestry is neither Natufian nor proto-Nilotic. We derive from related groups (that had ancestrally split. Natufian is substantially northeast African, and our AEA ancestry lacks the Western-African hunter gatherer related ancestry) in the southern Western Desert, Egypt, with a stretch all the way east to the southern Egyptian Nile (this entire region is within the old historic broader Nubia). Mixture between groups there (proven by archeology, and evidence of proto-pastoral Neolithic transitional archeological phasing and signs of advancement and maturity) became like the Cushites of today.
Subsequently, they exploded with a migration southeast toward the Nile valley, occupying now lands that were dominated by people who were Nilotic-like without mixing with them. They replaced them completely. Before the southern migration of Cushites, the entire region was settled by hunter-fishers who were descended from the Jebel Sahaba peoples, with minor morphological change due to diachronic morphoplastic reasons. As our ancestors came, they were replaced. Some speculate they might have moved to western Sudan. I'm not sure.
The current mixture of Nubians is a much later phenomenon. Those people used to be Cushites; later, they had a Nilotic and Egyptian mixture. However, that was after our ancestors had left the region (post-3000 years ago). The Egyptian and Nilo-Saharan stuff in Nubians came during the Napatan and Meroitic period. That is when we truly see a surge in Egyptian and Sudanic gene flow, reducing the Cushitic component that was still substantial (and still is).
I studied reconstruction quite a bit about a decade ago. A lot of the reconstructions people see are heavily "creative". For one, without genome sequencing you can't know their skin tone, their eye colour, whether or not they sported facial hair, their hair colour or their hair texture. Unless some of those things survived due to mummification or being frozen. Then, even with genome sequencing, you cannot know their lip shape and their ear shape, as far as I remember.
A truly "scientific" and accurate reconstruction would be colourless with no hair, facial hair or other adorning details and the reconstruction would be caveated with the fact that the lips and ears are somewhat guesswork.
The alchemist
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The tissue dimensions are the difference between a very handsome person to a very generic one. And even things like nose length. They can guess the size to some extent, but not really how it looks. There are so many variables that play into how people look that is outside the knowledge of people who make guesses based on a part skull.
Sometimes it's easier to talk about muscle size. I read that some Nubians had muscular calves because of the wear and tear. Al Khiday from the late Paleolithic period seemed like a robust individual with many muscles. Which makes sense, that individual was hunter-gatherer.
