The Laas Geel type of art moves toward the Dir Dhabe region, and southward. It is definitely by Eastern Cushites, and reflects their expansion into Ethiopia. These were probably the Highland Eeastern Cushites.
C-Group pottery.
Some variation of this is definitely expressed by the Eastern Cushites that moved into the Horn from East-West from Somaliland. That is why I think they're early C-Group related.
From Laga Oda, a place some 20 km plus southwest from Dire Dawa, following the general theme of Laas Geel and the other sites in Somaliland and other places in Ethiopia.
Somewhere in the Western Desert in Egypt, fitting in the same style:
These were the last true cattle pastoralists who rather migrated to greener Horn of Africa, rather than changing subsistence, which was probably what our ancestors did, as the cattle became less used, though highly prized among the Nubians after 4000 years ago.
Regarding rock art, I found something pretty crazy. There was a Magdalenian style in Upper Egypt, Qurta, dated to 19- 16 ka.
"On the basis of the intrinsic characteristics of the rock art, its patination and degree of weathering, as well as the archaeological and geomorphological context, we have proposed an attribution of these petroglyphs to the Late Pleistocene, specifically to the Late Palaeolithic Period (~19 000 to ~18 000 cal BP). This interpretation has met with little criticism from the archaeological community, but proof in the form of science-based dating evidence has thus far been lacking."
In my opinion, could reflect the late Levantine Aurignicians. The rough backmigration of these groups I speculated to be 23 ka.
We have similar art dated to 20-15ka.
This is when this Levantine (Anatolian HG- related) ancestry came to the region, and it seem to coincide. What is peculiar is that I don't think this style existed in Levant but only Western Europe, which was under Ice Age at the time.
By Dirk Huyge 2011:
"By providing a reliable pre-Holocene minimum age, the Qurta OSL dates present the first
solid evidence for the existence of sophisticated figurative Pleistocene rock art in North
Africa. Whereas this makes the Qurta rock art definitely the oldest discovered in North
Africa thus far, its true age remains unknown. It is clear that the buried drawings at QII
were already considerably weathered before they became covered by sediment. It seems
likely therefore that the rock art is significantly older than the minimum ages obtained by
means of OSL. An age of ∼17 000–19 000 calendar years would make the Qurta rock
art more or less contemporaneous with Solutrean/Early Magdalenian art as known from
Upper Palaeolithic Western Europe (Bahn & Vertut 1997: 58–76). Significantly, the rock
art of Qurta and the other Egyptian Pleistocene art sites has several thematic and stylistic
features in common with European Late Magdalenian art. This is particularly evident
from the human figures, most of which are very similar to the anthropomorphs of the
Lalinde/G¨onnersdorf type (see Lorblanchet & Welt´e 1987; Bosinski et al. 2001: 299–346).
Moreover, some of the more elaborately executed bovids are highly reminiscent of Late
Magdalenian aurochs representations, such as those from the Grotte de la Mairie in Teyjat
(Dordogne, France) (Barri`ere 1968). Both the Lalinde/G¨onnersdorf type figures and the
Teyjat bovids are dated to ∼14 000–15 500 cal yr BP. Whereas it would be premature to
speculate on any implications of this in terms of long-distance influence and intercultural contacts, it is clear that the Pleistocene age of the Qurta petroglyphs — as demonstrated by
the present study — along with their degree of sophistication, similar to that of European
Ice Age art, introduce a new set of challenges to archaeological thought."
Maybe the Magdalenian started with Levantines migrating into Europe, the same way they migrated into Africa?
Or it could have been an indirect contact.
"The DNA also sheds light on what happened to these ancient Europeans when the climate worsened between 25,000 and 19,000 years ago, a time known as the last glacial maximum when much of Northern and central Europe was blanketed in ice more than 1 kilometer thick. Archaeologists had assumed people including the Gravettians retreated into ice-free areas in southern Europe beginning about 26,000 years ago, then filtered back north several thousand years later as the glaciers melted. That scenario appears to hold true in the Iberian Peninsula and the south of France: People living there before the ice reached its peak persist through the worst of the cold spell, then surge back north and east as the continent warms."
So paleo Europeans during the LGM moved to refugia in southeastern Europe, came in contact with Levantines through cultural diffusion, then subsequently, during the warming of the environment, moved northward to mainland Europe again, while the Levantines coincided with movement into Egypt.
We know that Europeans after the LGM were different from the ones before, as in they were significantly Near Eastern, reflecting this southern exchange and/or movement.
Going into a bit of the topic,
@NidarNidar, the rock art you show there is actually a later type than the Laas Geel. Dating it would be between 3000-2000, and later, before the present. It is actually an early Somali art. It reflects our interaction with the environment and animals.
Yes, I strongly suspect he is the source of why the Reich lab still weirdly pushes Anatolian Hypothesis adjacent theories like a Caucasus or Iran origin. Him and David had a biblical rivalry back in the day and I bet he gets a bit of a kick out of it whenever he sees David railing against the Reich lab's theories. Humourously, David will vehemently deny it's the same person because Lazaridis is very polite toward him in comparison, but he just doesn't seem to understand how academics have to behave in general.
