Before Egypt: The Maa Confederation, Africa’s First Civilization
by Dr. Clyde Winters
© Clyde Winters, 2013 This copyright is only for the text and maps. The illustrations in this book belong to those individuals and organizations who posted this material on the World Wide Web.
Table of Contents
Page
Table of Contents
5
List of Illustrations
6
List of Maps
7
Introduction
8
Chapter 1: The Maa Confederation
25
Chapter 2: Origins of Proto-Saharan Culture
39
Chapter 3: Boating in Ancient Africa
46
Chapter 4: Animal Domestication
54
Chapter 5: Plant Domestication
71
Chapter 6: Proto-Saharan Writing
85
Chapter 7: The Religions of the Maaites
92
Chapter 8: The Expnasion of the Children of Maa
113
General References
127
List of Illustrations Figure 1:1. Yardangs that Resemble Pyramids Figure 1:2. The God Amon compared to a Yardang Figure 1:3. The Nabta Religious Site Figure 1:4. An Anu Ruler of Egypt Chapter 1 Figure 1:1. Saharan Bowmen Chapter 1 Figure 1:2. Bowmen with horned Headress Chapter 1 Figure 1:3. Niger-Congo Languages Chapter 1 Figure 1:4. African Archers Chapter 1 Figure 1:5. Black and Red Pottery Chapter 1 Figure 1:6. Red and Black Pottery Sherds Figure 3:1 Maaite Chief with Horns Figure 3:1 Saharan Boats Figure 3:2 Saharan Boats with Sails Figure 3:4 Saharan Boat and Horned Captain Figure 4:1 Maaite Goat Figure 4:2 Saharan Cattle and Maaite Cattle Herders Figure 4:3 Mixed Saharan Cattle Figure 4:5 Various Saharans with Horses and Chairiots Figure 4:6 Saharan Chairioteers Figure 6:1 Qustul Incense Burner Figure 6:2 Thinite Pottery (Syllabic) Signs Figure 6:3 Gebel Sheikh Suleiman Inscription Figure 6:4 Oued Mertoutek Inscription Figure 6:5 Comparison of Writing Systems Figure 7:1 Ancient Saharan God Figure 7:2 Seth and Wepwawet
9 10 12 14 27 29 31 33 37 38 42 48 49 54 55 57 59 68 69 85 86 87 89 90 96 98
Figure 7:3 The Canine God Wepwawet Figure 7:4 The God Seth Figure 7:5 Seth and Wepwawet Figure 7:6 Big Head Monument Figure 7:7 Yardang that Resembles Amon Figure 7:8 Kushite God Amon Figure 7:9 Poseidon Figure 7:10 Greek Black Pottery Vase of Poseidon Figure 8:1 Saharan Boat Figure 8:2 Narmar Palette Figure 8:3 Tehenu on Amrathian Pottery Figure 8:4 Symbols of Royalty on Qustul Incense Burner
99 100 101 103 104 105 109 110 114 116 117 120
List of Maps
Page
Saharan Highlands
13
Early Agricultural Sites in Middle Africa
18
Fertile African Crescent Hydralic System and Ounanian Sites
27 35
Africa 3500-2500 BC African Plant Domestication Kushite Civilization in 3rd Millenium BC West African Highlands Kushite Migrations 125
Introduction
41 73 123 124
The French scholar Desplagnes (1906) noted that the people of Middle Africa claimed they once belonged to a great civilization called: Maa. He noted that this view of the African people met was supported by archaeological evidence that linked ancient civilizations from Egypt and the Fezzan all the way to the Niger Valley. Professor Desplagnes (1906) mentioned that this ancient civilization was called the Fish or Maa Confederation and it stretched across Middle Africa. The Maa Confederation was the original homeland of the Egyptians, Mande, Sumerians , Elamites and Dravidian speaking people. I call these people Proto-Saharans or Maaites. They worshipped Seth and Amon/Amma. I first became interested in the Maa Confederation when I began discussions of the Proto-Saharan civilization which existed in the Highland areas of the Sahara after 5000 BC, back in the 1980’s. The first evidence of a great civilization formerly existing in the Sahara came in 1982 when Professor Al Baz, reported on "natural" formations he found in the Sahara, which he called yardangs, that appeared to me to be similar to the Sphinx,and pyramids[1]. In the Siwa and Farafra Oasis there are erosional formations called yardangs. Geologist believe that these are geographical features created in the desert as a result of winds eroding rock formations.
Although Al Baz says that the yardangs are geological formations made by the wind, I believe that they may be the earliest monuments built by the Proto-Saharans who worshipped Amma(n) and Seth. I believe that some of these yardangs may really represent pyramid fields and other monuments built by the ProtoSaharans when these regions were fertile. This view is supported by the fact that the yardangs resemble monuments made in later years by the Kushites to represent Amon.
In this book I will call the people of Maa: Proto-Saharan or Maaites. The Maaites originally lived in the highlands of Middle Africa. The Proto-Saharans were tall in stature. The people of the Maa Confederation mined jade or amazonite in Tibesti, Uweinat and other Central Saharan massifs. The Maaites probably represented populations associated with the Ounanian and Tenerean cultures. These populations are associated with projectle points (arrows) and cattle domestication. Between 7700-6200 BC hunter-fisher-gathers dominated the Sahara. Between 6200-5200 BC, extreme aridification forced many people in the Sahara to migrant to better watered areas in Africa. Professor Paul Soreno, of the University of Chicago found that after 5200 BC a gracile population of humans enter the Saharan Valleys and Oasis. This population was the Proto-Saharans of the Maa Confederation who along with their cattle dominated much of the Saharan region between 5200-2500 BC. Maaite population centers were established along paleolakes in the Sahara. The Maaites made many ornaments, tools (adzes, scrappers) and other artifacts from jade (amazonite) and (hippo) ivory. The numerous finds of these Maaite tools suggests that in Maaite times the Sahara supported a region rich in minerals, flora and fauna. The research of Dr. Fred Wendorf, has found cattle bones dating back 9.5 thousand years ago (kya). Domesticated goats appear in the archaeological record 7kya at Nabta Playa and Dakhlel.
The early domestication of cattle by the Maaites led to the creation of cattle worship among them. A major center of cattle worship was Nabta Playa. At Nabta Playa the Maaites around 6kya erected stone slabs to study the heavens. They also dug underground chamber(s) where cattle worship rituals may have been performed.
The people of the Maa Confederation were not Nilo-Saharan speakers. They were probably Niger Congo speakers
who belonged to the Ounanian and Tenerean culturesthic culture. The Aqualithic culture is much , much older than the Kushite or Egyptian cultures (Winters,2012). I believe that the original founders of the African Aqualithic were pgymy people. Nilo-Saharans may have learned this cultural tradition from the Anu or pgymy people who may have earlier founded Egypt and lived in the Sahara. The Kushites are known throughout the ancient world as expert bowmen. This is highly suggestive that the Ounanians were Kushites because the arrows (=bowmen), was charateristic of this culture. Drake (2012) wrote “The “Ounanian” of Northern Mali, Southern Algeria,Niger, and central Egypt at ca. 10 ka is partly defined by a distinctive type of arrow point (37). These arrowheads are found in much of the northern Sahara (Fig. 3) and are generally considered to have spread from Northwest Africa. This view is supported by the affinity of this industry with the Epipalaeolithic that also appears to have colonized the Sahara from the north (41). No Ounanian points occur in West Africa before 10 ka, suggesting the movement of a technology across the desert from north to south around this time.” The original inhabitants of the Sahara where the Kemetic civilization originated were Sub-Saharan Africans or Blacks not Berbers or Indo-European speakers (Winters,1994,2002,2012). These Blacks formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 5200- 4000 BC (Winters,1994 ,2002, 2012). As the Saharan plains: Mountains of the Moon became less arid a fertile grassland existed and the Proto-Saharans migrated down from the Mountains of the Moon to settle around the MegaChad and MegaFezzan lakes. At MegaFezzan the Proto-Saharans founded the Maa civilization. Around this time West Africa and the Nile Valley was probably controlled by the Pgymies or Anu people. The Anu were the first rulers of Egypt.
By the Late Stone Age (LSA) Negroes/Africoids were well established in the Sahara. These Maaites were members of the Saharo-Sudanese archaeological tradition.(Camps 1974) The Fezzanese and Sudanese were Maaite sedentary pastoralists. In this book we will refer to Sub-Saharan Africans as Negroes or Africoids. There were many Negro groups in ancient North Africa. L.P.Fatti and Hertha de Villiers, have documented the probable spread of
Negroes from southern Africa after 110,000 B.C., into first east and then into North Africa. In North Africa Negroes were established in the area as early as 12,000 B.C. Numerous Negro remains dating to the fifth millennium B.C. have been discovered in the Saharan and Sahelian belts. (Salama 1981:534) These Blacks possessed domesticated cattle and sheep/goat.(McIntosh and McIntosh 1983). By 4400 B.C., Negroes were at Asselar in Mali. Human occupation in Mauritania along the Atlantic coast dates earlier than 4500 B.C.(Petit Marie 1979). They were in Mali much earlier. French archaeologist have found pottery at Ounjougou dating 9-10kya (=thousand years ago). Japanese archaeologists have found pottery and arrowheads dating to 11kya in the same area. Agriculture has been practiced in Nubia for thousands of years. The most ancient grasses collected in Nubia was barley in the north and sorghum in the south. Fred Wendorf, discovered that Nubians near Tushka as early as 17000 B.C. were cultivating and harvesting barley. This is 7000 years before the so-called advent of agricultural revolution in West Asia. (Wendorf 1983) This is significant because common barley is found throughout the Middle East, but domesticated barley mainly occurs in ancient Nubia, where it later spread to West Asia and India. Seven thousand B.C. is accepted as the true date for the African neolithic in West and Northwest Africa. J.D. Clark, has shown that intensive grass collection appeared almost as early in Ethiopia as in Nubia. Grasses were collected in 13000 B.C. on the Northern fringes of the Ethiopian highlands (Clark 1977). In 5000 B.C. sorghums were being cultivated in Ethiopia. Around 3000 B.C. wheat and Barley was being cultivated. (Ehret 1979) And as early as 6000 B.C. ensete was probably being cultivated (Ehret 1979) . By 10,000 B.C. Nubians began to migrate out of Nubia into Asia. These Nubians were not Proto-Saharans. The Proto-Saharans were still living in the Saharan highlands at this time. These Nubians were the Anu people. These Anu people made their way into Palestine. In Palestine these Nubians were known as Natufians, they established intensive grass collection here. The Natufians were Africoid. They practiced the Ibero-Maurusian tool industry which came from north Africa, especially along the NIle (Wendorf,1968). The Natufians were about 5ft. 3ins. with narrow heads. They correspond to the Anu people who first ruled Egypt (Diop 1974). These folk came from Nubia where intensive grass collection originated. Christopher Ehret (1979) has observed that "grass collection was invented first in or near the lower Nubia, perhaps in the region between the Nile and the Red Sea, and spread from there to its present areas of occurrence"(p.163). The Natufians fished and hunted for food. They practiced evulusion of the incisors the same as Bantu peoples and inhabitants of the Saharan fringes. These Africoids probably were one of the Anu tribes, they also took agriculture into Iran and Pakistan. The Anu farmers cultivated barley and wheat. For much of the LSA period the Proto-Saharans were sedentary pastoralists in the highlands. The Anu lived in the lowlands or the Saharan plains. The Anu invented much of the early hieroglyphic writing used in ancient Egypt. By 4000 B.C. they probably invented the precursor to the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia. This writing was used by the Anu to keep records of
their business ventures and knowledge. This writing was later adopted by the Sumerian and Elamite speaking ProtoSaharans when they took over the former trade centres of the Anu, after the Anu civilization was destroyed as a result of the great flood after 4000 B.C. The Proto-Saharans practiced a mixed agropastoral culture. Often Barbary sheep , wild ass, hyena, wild cattle and hare are found at Saharan sites such as Ti-n-Torha and Uan Muhuggiag. These sites typify Proto-Saharan campsites.
Most Proto-Saharans lived on hillocks or slopes near water. But some Paleo-Africans or Maaites lived on the plains which featured lakes and marshes.
Ceramics have been found in the central and eastern Sahara on up into North Africa that illuminate the expansion of the Proto-Sahrans. These ceramics were of Sudanese inspiration and date back to the 7th Millennium B.C. This pottery was used from Ennedi to Hoggar. The makers of this pottery were from the Sudan (Desanges 1981). The Tadrart Accacus massif is in the Libyan Sahara or Fezzan. This is a Neolithic/Epipaleolithic area with sites dating from 9000-3000 B.C. During much of this period the Sahara, resembled the Mediterranean in climate and ecology.
The faunal remains from Uan Muhuggiag , a major site situated in the Wadi Teshuinat in the center of the Accacus massif has incised motifs of the Pastoral style that evidence stock keeping. The pictorial evidence in Tadrart Accacus suggest that Accacus, was occupied from the 7th millennia B.C. The inhabitants of the Fezzan were round headed Negroes (Jelinek, 1985:273). The cultural characteristics of the Fezzanese were analogous to the C-Group Culture items and people of Nubia. The C-Group people occupied the Sudan and the Fezzan regions between 37001300 B.C.(Close 1988)
The archaeological research in Tadrart Accacus illustrates the rise of Proto-Saharan culture. This research indicates that between 9500-8500 B.C., settlers of Tadrart Accacus used simple pottery, they were hunter-gathers. As aridity set in the inhabitants of this area became sedentary. They hunted gazelle,sheep and intensively used plant food. Maaite hunters quickly learned the habits of wild game:sheep and goats. As a result of this hunting experience and the shock of the short arid period after 8500 B.C., Maaites began to domesticate cattle, and goat/sheep so as to maintain a reliable food supply. By 6000 B.P. (Before the Present), the inhabitants of Tadrart Accacus were reliant on pastoralism, due to the increased aridity. They herded cattle sheep and goats. By 3000 B.C., aridity forced people to seek new settlement areas (Barich 1984:684). This decline in climate and ecology led to the migration of Maaites out of the Saharan highlands down into the lowland areas formerly settled by the pygmy/Anu people.
The Maaites in the Fezzan were sedentary pastoralists. Although the people may have had seasonal migration patterns their ceramic tradition and intensive exploitation of plant foods show a continuity and intensive exploitation of plant foods.This shows a continuity of the technological and structural tradition in the Libyan Sahara, and in my opinion do not reflect a true nomadic herder tradition characterized by historic nomadic societies. It is interesting to note that while cattle predominate the pictorial scenes in the Libyan Sahara, the faunal remains from Uan Muhuggiag,and El Kaduna indicate that most Proto-Saharans kept goat/sheep. (Barich 1987) Moreover, the earliest animal engravings in the Fezzan were of rams and goats/sheep. These early Paleo-Africans of Libya are often referred to as the Temehu, by the Egyptians (Behrens 1984:30). Ethnically the Temehu, had the same physical features as other Black Africans. (Diop 1977, 1978, 1984,1986,1987) These sedentary pastoral people lived in Nubia and the Fezzan. The C-Group people began to migrate into the Nile Valley after 3300-2500 B.C. This corresponds to the extreme advance of aridity in the Libyan Sahara. The C-Group people kept small livestock (Diop, 1987; Farid, 1985; Winters,1986b). Members of this group founded the first African empire at Qustul in the Sudan. The northern and southern Temehu or C-Group people had different culture-dress (Winters,1994). The southern CGroup people, later called Nehesi, by the Egyptians were characterized by the single shoulder strap attached to a high waist band . The northern Temehu, later called Thenu, by the Egyptians wore crossed shoulder straps. The northern Temehu also wore this strap style cloak and penis sheaths (Osing 1980). These C-Group people were the dominant Proto-Saharan group. They had their own writing system which was used by the Minoans: Linear A; the Harappans: Indus Valley Writing; and the Manding: Libyco-Berber script (Winters 1985b, 1994). It is interesting to note that the founders of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt appear to have worshipped the main Proto-Saharan god Amon. This Dynasty is credited with the introduction of syllabic writing into Egypt. The gods of the Temehu include Amon and Neith (the terrible with her bows and arrows). Founders of the New Kingdom were worshippers of Amon, and were probably of Proto-Saharan descent.
Descendants of the C-Group people used a common black-and-red ware which later migrated into North and West Africa, Iran and the Indus Valley (Winters,1994). These C-Group people spoke Niger-Congo, Mande and Dravidian languages (Winters ,1986 b, Winters, 2011, 2012). B.B. Lal (l963) of the Indian Expedition in the Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, has pointed out the similarities between the pottery used by the ancient Dravidians and the C-Group people of Nubia, especially the Megalithic people of South India. The Dravidians of South India and Africans are closely related (Anselin 1982; Upandhyaya 1976,1979; Ndiaye 1972, Winters 1980,1981,1981b,1985a,1985c ,1989) . It would appear that many Maaites spoke Egyptian, Dravidian, Mande and Niger-Congo languages. During the LSA the Proto-Saharan speakers had domesticated ovicaprids (sheep/goats) (Greenberg 1970;Winters 1986,1989b). The Proto-Saharans utilized selected plant food including millet (Winters 1986b, 2008) Plant remains from the Eastern and Southern Nile Valley, dating to the 2nd and 3rd millennium B.C. include millet and sorghum (Close 1988:154) . G. Camps (l974) found pollen grains of cultivated Pennisetum millet from the Hoggar at Amekni, other millet has been found at Meniet (Mcintosh and McIntosh 1983:238). Many researchers believe that a food crop may have been the determining factor behind the Paleo-African dispersals (Ehret and Posnansky 1982:243) .This hypothesis has merit, but given the sedentary-pastoral tradition of the Maaites and their slash-and-burn method of hoe cultivation, along with the climatic shift of the 3rd millennium B.C., suggest that a number of variables stimulated the African Negro migration waves from the Saharan highlands onto the Saharan plains, and thence West Africa, not just the introduction of new crops. Cultivated millet reached India by the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. (Winters,2008).This indicates that 3000 B.C. millet had been domesticated in the Sahel or Sahara as supported by the work of Camps(1974) in the Sahara.Murdock, has suggested that millet , sorghum and fonio domestication took place around 4500 B.C. By the 3rd millennium B.C. rice was being cultivated in West Africa (McIntosh and McIntosh 1979; Winters, 1986b). It does not appear that the Niger Bend area was a centre of plant domestication in West Africa. Although, many African groups share the same name for many domesticated crops, the Niger region was not occupied until after 500 B.C. This suggest that these Negro-African groups first domesticated these crops in the Saharan zone and took them with them to the Niger Delta during their colonization of the area. The Maaites were clearly influenced by the post Paleolithic complexes of the Hoggar and the Maghrib as evidenced by North African influences in West Africa (Andah 1981). The Proto-Saharans may have used the Western Saharan ceramic styles.But ,except for slight variations,there was a general cohesion between Saharo-Sudanese styles (McCall ,1971:38). Early artifacts from the Niger area support a Saharan origin for West African agriculture. The bowl designs from the Niger Delta are analogous to pottery styles from the southern Sahara which date between 2000-500 B.C. (McIntosh and McIntosh 1979:246).
The early inhabitants of the Niger Delta were mainly pastoralists and fishermen. It is believed that millet cultivation was not introduced until the first millennium A.D., to the Inland Niger Delta (McIntosh and McIntosh 1979; Winters, 1986b). Due to the Sahara's ecological decline, the Upper Niger replaced the Hoggar and the Fezzan as the heartland for many West African groups especially the Mande speakers. The Sudan/Nubia is an old centre of agriculture in Middle Africa, as is the Fezzan region of Libya for the ProtoSaharans. In the eastern Sudan as early as 4000 B.C. millet and sorghum were cultivated ( Marks,Ali and Fattovich 1986:48; Winters2008). One of the most ancient sites for food production in Nubia, is Es Shaheinab dating to 4000 B.C. Here riverine people bred goats , the pack ass and sheep. They also engaged in fishing, hunting and collecting grasses (Krzyzaniak 1978). At Kadero, also in the Sudan people were dependent on vegetable foods and cultivated summer cereals. Some groups also began cattle rearing, which reached its height during Meroitic times. Kadero dates back to 3310 B.C. Given the wide variety of names for goats in Nubia, there is a good chance that Nubia's first goats were domesticated along the Nile. This goat was different from the predynastic Egyptian goats. This goat had screw horns. The screw horn goat was common to Algeria, where it may have been deposited in Neolithic times by populations moving eastward as the once fertile plains of the Sahara dried up due to gradual desiccation. After 4000 B.C. we see we certainly see cattle ,sheep and goat herding spread across Middle Africa westward (Winters,1986b): Tadrart Accacus (Camps 1969), Tassili-n-Ajjer (Aumassip 1981), Mali (Petit-Marie 1979), Niger (Roset 1983), and the Sudan . Barker (l989), has argued that sheep and goats increased in importance over cattle because it was better adapted to desiccation. No carbonized seeds have been found at Kadero, but many impressed potsherds have been discovered. The majority of impressions are of sorghum and two kinds of millet, other impressions are of wild grasses (Krzyzaniak 1978:160; Winters,1986b). There were no indigenous wild cattle, sheep, goat and wolf in the central Sudan. By 15000 B.P. people in Kenya had domesticated cattle. Four thousand years later cattle appear in the Sahara which was becoming more habitable. By 7000 B.C. we find domesticated goats/sheep in the Saharan zone (Ki-Zerbo 1981). Davies (l978) maintains that the earliest domesticated stock dates from the sixth to fifth millennium B.C. During this period cattle and sheep were existing in the Sahara and coastal north Africa (Kabusiewicz 1976) . Animal domestication in much of the Saharan zone came in response to the decline in resources around lake and river valleys after 6000 B.C., when the Sahara entered a dry phase. (McIntoch and McIntoch 1981; Barker 1989:3536). To ensure steady and reliable food resources for bulging Proto-Saharan populations during this period of ecological change urban centres were built, and complex political organizations and craft specializations followed, as clans within tribal units began to specialize in selected occupations. The shift from a hunter/fisher/gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary-pastoral way of life led many Proto-Saharans to adopt a form of intensive agriculture characterized by the use of the hoe. Goats and sheep remained their primary
domesticate which they could take with them as they moved from place to place--as their slash-and-burn agricultural methods dictated. They Proto-Saharans developed related water storage and irrigation techniques, plus the application of fertilizer (manure) to the land (Winters 1981a, 1981b,1985).
Chapter 1: The Maa Confederation The Maa Confederation was situated in that part of Middle Africa we call the Sahara. Although today the Saharan region is arid, around 8000 years ago this area was a center for civilization, and manifested a mediterranean climate (Winters,1985,2012). The Saharan Highlands was the original home of the Niger-Congo, Egyptian, Elamite, Dravidian, Sumerian and Manding people (Winters,2011). I call the ancestors of these people of Maa: Maaites or Proto-Saharans. The Proto‑Saharans began as a single linguistic community which shared cultural traits that were fashioned in their Saharan homeland (Winters,1985). The Egyptians referred to the Saharan Highlands as God's land, the home of the Gods. The history of the Proto‑Saharans of the Maa Confederation begins in the Sahara, some seven to eight thousand years ago. The Proto‑Saharan speakers remained in the highlands until the Sahara began to change from a mediterranean to an arid climate. The Proto‑Saharans used paleorivers and paleostreams for communication purposes. Due to the abundance of water during the Tenerean and Ounanian periods the leaders of the Proto‑Saharans were men that could tame the waters by dams, or building boats. The homes of the Maaites were often built on habitation mounds safe from the numerous floods that occurned annually. Over time the Proto‑Saharans formed a confederation of city states called the FISH CONFEDERATION. The population living in the Fish or MAA Confederation shared many common culture features.For example they traced their roots back to the Sahara, especially Libya and Nubia. The principle god for these Proto‑Saharans was Amon or Amun in the East, and Seth in the Eastern Sahara. In the archaeological literature the Maaites are called Ta‑Seti (A‑Group), C‑Group (people of ancient Kush/Nubia). The Egyptians called the major Maaite tribe: Temehu. Archaeologists call the Temehu: C‑Group people. The C‑Group people settled much of the Sudan. The cylindrical tomb common to this area was also frequently built by Proto‑Saharans when they migrated into Eurasia.
The Temehu originally kept small live stock: sheep and goats 9000 years ago. The Proto-Saharans worshipped a number of gods, Seth and Wepwawet were worshipped in the western Sahara, while in the eastern Sahara Amon and the goddess Neith were worshipped. In Europe, Neith was called Athena, to the Manding and Minoans she was known as Nia. The members of the Maa Confederation include the Egyptian founders of the New Kingdom, Elamites, Dravidians, Manding and the Sumerians.The God Amon of the Egyptians was taken to Egypt during the New Kingdom. The Proto-Saharans later became known as Kushites. They were recognized throughout history as great archers due to their perfection of using the bow and arrow for hunting and warfare. The Proto-Saharans belonged to the Ounanian culture (Winters, 2012). Drake et al (2012) make it clear there was considerable human activity in the Sahara before it became a desert. One the earliest Saharan cultures was the Ounanian culture. Around the time we see the development of the Ounanian culture in North Africa, we see the spread of the SaharanSudanese ceramic style into the Sahara (Sereno, 2008,Winters,1986b).
There are many rock engravings of figures holding bows found in the Sahara (Soukopova,2012). The Ounanian population hunted animals with the bow-and –arrow. The Ounanian culture existed 12kya (Drake, 2012; Smith, 2005;Winters,2012). This culture is associated with sites in central Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Mauretania and Niger (Blench,1999; Winters,1986b). The Ounanians were members of the Capsian population.There was continuity between the Negroes in the Maghreb and southern Sahara referred to as Capsians, Iberomaurusians, and Mechtoids (Sereno,2008). Many NigerCongo speakers are decendants of the Capsian population.
Ethnically the Proto‑Saharans were round headed mediterraneans of the ancient variety commonly called Negroes (Soukopova, 2012; Winters,2012). For purposes of this book we will call this group Africoid. Around 7000 B.C. mediterraneans of a fairly tall stature not devoid of Negroid characteristics appears in the Sahara at Capsa (now Cafsa).(Desange 1981) These Mediterraneans are called Capsians. This group flourished in an area extending from the western borders of North Africa into the southern Sahara. They lived on hillocks or slopes near water. But some Capsians lived on plains which featured lakes and marshes. Their way of life continued from the Neolithic era up to the time of the Garamante. Using craniometric data researchers it has been determined that the people who belonged to the Maa Confederation were primarily related to the ancient Caspian or Old Mediterranean (Negro) population (Winters,1985,2012). Lahovary (1963) and Sastri (1955) maintains that this population was unified over an extensive zone from Africa, across Eurasia into South India. Some researchers maintain that the Caspian civilization originated in East Africa (Lal,1963; Nayar ,1977). Archaeological evidence indicates that there was unity between the Proto‑Saharan populations in middle Africa. For example, these Maaites used the bow, made pottery and herded animals as a reliable source of nutrition. Since the climate was more wetter ten thousand years ago, the major crops of the Maaites were ensete, rice, sorghum, millet, sesame, barley and fonio. Between 6000‑5000 B.C.,the Sahara was parkland with a mediterranean vegetation. At this time abundant streams, and rivers that dotted middle Africa. Due to the wet environment the Proto‑Saharans communicated mainly by boat. The original homeland of the Proto‑Saharans was in the Saharan zone. The Saharan zone is bounded on the north by the Atlas mountains, the Atlantic Ocean in the West, the tropical rain forest in the south and the Red Sea in the East. It was here that the ancestors of the founders of the river valley civilizations developed their highly organized and technological societies.
During the late pleistocene clay pottery or baskets were probably used by hunter/fisher/gather groups to collect grain, as evidenced by numerous millstones found on early Saharan sites. These baskets evolved into pottery. Ceramics spread from the central and eastern Sahara into North Africa. These ceramics were of Sudanese inspiration and date back to the seventh millennium B.C. The Saharan-Sudanese pottery was used from in the Saharan
highlands from Ennedi to the Hoggar .The makers of this pottery were probably from the Sudan(Desanges 1981). The Capsian pottery tradition also came from the Sudan, and first appeared at the valley of Saoura, and later at Fort Flatters. This type of pottery probably originated at Elmenteita in Kenya (Ki‑Zerbo 1979).
The Ounanian tradition is probably associated with the Niger-Congo phyla. This is supported by the reality that the Niger-Congo languages are genetically related to Elamite, Sumerian and the Dravidian languages. The original homeland of the Niger-Congo speakers was the Saharan Highlands. The dispersal of the the Niger-Congo speakers from the Fezzan to Mauretania mirrors the Saharan sites associated with the Ounanian tradition (Winters, 2011, 2012). This suggest that the Niger-Congo group introduced the hunting tradition and use of bow-and –arrow into Mauretania, Mali, Niger and Southern Algeria and played a prominent role in peopling the desert (Winters, 1986b, 2012). For much of the early history of the Maaites they remained in the Saharan highlands. By the 8th millennium BC Saharan-Sudanese pottery was used in the Air (Winters,1986b). Ceramics of this style have also been found at sites in the Hoggar (Winters, 1985,1994). Dotted wavy-line pottery has also been discovered in the Libyan Sahara (Winters,1986b). In the Sahelian zone there was a short wet phase during the Holocene (c. 7500-4400 BC), which led to the formation of large lakes and marshes in Mauritania, the Niger massifs and Chad. The Inland Niger Delta was unoccupied. In other parts of modern Niger the wet phase existed in the eight/seventh and fourth/third millennia BC
(Drake, 2012; Soreno,2008).
Due to the use of the bow people in the Maa Confederation were great hunters. They early domesticated the dog. Maaite hunters early domesticated the dog. These dogs were used by hunters to catch their prey. The Egyptian term for dog is Ø uher #. This Egyptian term corresponds to many African, and Dravidian terms for dog: Egptian
uher
Azer
wulle
Bozo
kongoro
Guro
bere
Vai
wuru, ulu
Bo(Bambara) -ulu Wassulunka wulu Konyanka
wulu
Malinke
wuli, wuru, wulu
Dravidian
ori
The linguistic data indicates that there is contrast between the Paleo-Afican l =/= r. The Egyptian Ø uher # , Azer Ø wulle # and Manding Ø wuru # suggest that the r> l in Paleo-African. There is also vowel alternation in the terms for
dog o =/= u. The predominance of the vowel /u/ in the terms for dog, make it clear that o
There is no one type of Negro. In the archaeological literature they were called Caspian, brown-skinned whites, ancient Mediterranean type. This is because Negroes or Africoids have varying facial features which vary from small lips and noses to broad noses and big lips (Dzerzykray-Rogalski, 1978). In summary, skeletons of the Old Mediterranean type have been found throughout Middle Africa, Southwest Asia, Mesopotamia, Indo‑Pakistan, Central Asia and China. It was this population founded the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Elam, Sumer and the Indus Valley. This Old Mediterranean people called themselves: KUSHITES (Winters,2005). The Kushites are known in history as bowmen and great sailors. These Kushites called Group‑A by archaeologists founded the earliest empire in the World, in Nubia. The first recorded empire on earth was located at Qustul, Nubia around 3300 B.C.. This is over a hundred years earlier than the founding of the Egyptian empire. As a result the term designating royalty in Egptian nsw < n y swt = "(the man) who comes from the south". This empire was called Ta‑Seti, or the Land of the Bow.It was clear that the government and writing usually associated with Egypt was first invented in Nubia, and later carried down the Nile into Egypt. The people of Ta‑Seti, were called "Steu" or "bowmen". The Egyptians called the area around Kush Tata‑Neter "God's land". The Kushites took the name Kush to many regions where they settled in Africa and Eurasia.The most important Kushite colony in Eurasia was ancient Elam, i.e., hatam (Khaltam). The capital city of Elam, was called Kussi by the Elamites. In Akkadian,Elam was called Giz‑bam or "the land of the bow". The ancient Chinese tribes called the Elamites:Kashti. Moreover, in the Bible in Jeremiah (xlxx,35) we read "bow of Elam".
Black‑and‑Red Ware (BRW) Although the Maaites may have had seasonal migration patterns their ceramic traditions and intensive exploitation of plant foods show a continuity of the technological and structural tradition in the Libyan Sahara, and do not reflect a true nomadic herder tradition characterized by historic nomadic societies (Winters 1986b). It is interesting to note that while cattle predominate the pictorial scenes in the Libyan Sahara, the faunal remains from Uan Muhuggiag and El Kaduda for example, indicate that most Maaites kept domesticated goat/sheep (Obenga 1988 ; Barich 1985; Soukopova, 2012; Winters 1985a,1986b). Moreover the earliest animal engravings in the Fezzan were of rams and goats/sheep (Quellec 1985:367). These Kushites used a common red‑and‑black ware that has been found from the Sudan in Africa, across Southwest Asia and the Indian subcontinent all the way into China. The earliest examples of the black‑and‑red ware of the Proto‑Saharans date to the early Amratian period 4000‑3500 BC. It was after 3500 B.C., and especially 2500 B.C. ,that the Proto ‑Saharans began to deeply affect the activities of the Eurasian peoples.
The Amratian period of Middle Africa is the focal point for the spread of BRW. There is affinity between BRW found at Anau, in Russian Turkestan, and similar pottery from southeastern Europe. Dr. J.G. Andersson (l934) found a similarity between pottery fragments found at Anau, and fragments discovered at Yangshao sites in Henan and Gansu province.All of these sites were early settled by Kushites after 4-5kya.
Chapter 2: ORIGINS OF PROTO‑SAHARAN CULTURE Linguistic and archaeological evidence can help us to reconstruct the Proto‑Saharan economy and social organization. The economy was diversified and shifted from hunter‑gatherer to herder and later food producing as a result of the rise of consistent seasonal rains in Middle Africa after 7000 B.C. This regular rain pattern led to the development of the mixed agriculture‑herding economy of the Proto‑Saharans. The bioarchaeological remains from the Sahara indicates a mixed economy based on the herding of cattle and goats, and the cultivation of millet and barley. Over time the shifting Saharan climate limited , rather than determined the Proto‑Saharan sedentary types of food producing technology. The earliest horizon of the Sahara during the Late Pleistocene pottery and baskets were probably used by hunter‑gatherer groups to collect grain, as evidenced by the abundance of millstones on early Saharan sites. Due to the richness of the flora and fauna in the Sahara during this period ethnic groups in Middle Africa were semi-sedentary hunter ‑fisher‑gatherers who engaged in the exploitation of their habitat. These people may have had a limited interest in the domestication of plants and animals. But it was not until the return of an arid climate to the Sahara between 12,000 ‑7000 B.C., that the Saharans were forced to domesticate cattle and goats to ensure a reliable source of food. It was probably during the Ounanian period that Proto‑Saharans probably began to seriously domesticate/collect plants to supplement their diets (Winters,2012).
The Paleo‑climate of Africa explains the south and eastern migration of Negroes/Africoids from North Africa and the Sudan respectively, into West Africa after 1000 BC.There were various climates in Africa. In the Sahelian zone there was a wet phase during the Holocene (7500‑4400 B.C.) which led to the formation of large lakes and marshes in Mauritania, the Niger massifs and Chad(Talbot 1980). In the Niger area, the west phase existed in the eight/seventh and fourth/third millennia B.C.(McIntosh and McIntosh 1986:417). There were very few habitable areas in West Africa during the holocene wet phase. According to McIntosh and McIntosh (1986) the only human occupation of the Sahara during the humid phase was situated in the Saharan massifs along wadis. By the 8th Millennia Saharan‑Sudanese pottery was used in the Air region(Roset 1983). Ceramics of this style have been found at sites in the Hoggar (McIntosh and McIntosh 1983,1983b). Dotted wavy‑line type pottery has also been discovered in the Libyan Sahara (Winters,1986b). The pastoral‑sedentary tradition is a highly developed specialization exploiting food resources of the Savanna and herding cattle throughout Middle Africa over 5000 years ago. The bioarchaeological remains from the Sahara indicates a mixed economy for the people of Maa, based on herding of cattle goats and sheep, and the collection of sorghum, millet, yam and rice along the marshes and lakes. The view that food production preceded pastoralism in the among people living in the Maa Confederation at this junction in archaeological research‑‑is untenable. It would seem more reasonable to assume that a hunter‑gatherer group which clearly specialized in the hunting of animals (as evidenced by the abundance of arrowheads) would have moved from hunter‑gathering to animal domestication, since they would be keenly aware of the habits of game, and therefore make the shift to animal husbandry rapidly when climatic conditions in the Sahara made it impossible to collect grains. A short arid period affected Middle Africa after the African Aqualithic. The return of the rains during the Ounanian period probably led to renewed interest in plant collection and later domestication. It was probably during this period that various groups began to specialize either in a pastoral or mixed‑pastoral food producing economy. The fact that both of these economies held the best benefit for a stable society, may have encouraged the diverse Saharan ethnic groups to form some sort of "federal " relationship which encouraged trade and cooperation between the varying
peoples practicing different economies (Winters,2011,2012). The contemporary nomadic pastoralist tradition in the Sahara was first introduced as a sedentary pastoral adaptation around 7000 years ago. At this time the Sahara was a mosaic of lakes and marshes united by permanent streams. The vegetation was Mediterranean and grew abundantly in the Saharan highlands, in Hoggar and Tibesti. In addition to cattle, the archaeologist have found that the Proto‑Saharans had abundant pottery and grinding stones. This wavy line pottery was first discovered at Khartoum, and dates to 4000 B.C (Winters,1986b). The collection of plants also provided a reliable source of food during the formative stages of Proto‑Saharan society. The discovery of large amounts of pottery and heavy grinding stones during this period at many sites suggest the possibility that pastoralist were more sedentary at this time. Each community in the Maa Confederation was led by a chief. These chiefs were usually recognized as men with horns.
A comparative study of the languages spoken by the Proto‑Saharans(PS) gives us a very clear indication of their cultural traits. The proto‑term for the Proto‑Saharan culture trait will be PS plus an asterisk e.g.,*PS. For example the Proto‑Saharans had chiefs ‘men with horns’ PS: *sar, and lived in cities/town PS:*uru. In these cities and between the several cities they built roads PS:*sila (Winters,1985). ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Language CHIEF WRITING DRAVIDIAN CA,CIRA CARRU ELAMITE SUNKI,SALU TALU SUMERIAN SAR SAR, RU MANDING SA SEBE,SEWE
CITY UR UR(U) UR FURU
PLACE TA DA,TA TA
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Proto‑Saharans referred to themselves as people or humanity PS:*oku. The mother of the family was called PS: *amma or *ma ; and the father was called PS:*pa. The children both boys and girls were referred to as PS:*de/di/du. They lived in houses called PS:*lu/du. Due to the abundance of water during the Ounanian period the Proto‑Saharans used the suffix PS:*‑ta, to indicate a place of habitation. They also used boats called PS:*kalam (Winters,1985).
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ LANGUAGE BOAT MAN FATHER HOUSE PEOPLE DRAVIDIAN KALAM APPAN LON UKAKU SUMERIAN KALAM TIN,MU PAP MU,U UKU MANDING KULU TYE,MOKO AP LU,NU MOKO ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
It would appear that at the time of the separation of the Proto‑Saharans into distinct groups at the beginning of the 3rd Millennium B.C. they were familiar with mining and metal working techniques. As a result these people share the term for digging a hole: Dravidian (Dr.) tulai, Sumerian (S.) dul/tul and Manding (M.) du, tyolo,tuta =PS: *tul (Winters,1985). Before the Proto‑Saharansmigrated into Eurasia they also knew about blacksmithing e.g., Tamil/Telugu (languages that belong to the Dravidian family) irumbu/inumu, M. numu 'forge', umu 'blacksmith'.Another PS term for blacksmith was *kamara: Dr. Kamara, Wolof Kamara. It is interesting to note that throughout Africa the term 'uma', is suffixed to the word for iron and iron working (Winters,1985). ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ LANGUAGE COPPER GOLD STEEL DRAVIDIAN URUTTIRAN KANI,KANAM,KANNE ALAVU,URUKKU SUMERIAN URUDU GUSH‑KIN MANDING KURA, KU SAANI TUUFA ELAMITE UFA PROTO‑SAHARAN *URUT *ANI *UFA ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
During the Neolithic Subpluvial (ca. 7000‑6000 B.C.), farming and herding were practiced by the Proto‑Saharans in the green savannas of the Sahara. Migrating Proto‑Saharans probably remnants of the future Egyptians took domesticated cattle into the Nile Valley(Hoffman 1979:102; Winters,1986b). These pastoral people moved from the South into the Nile Valley, not from the Southwestern part of Asia into the Nile Valley. The early Proto‑Saharans made adequate uses of local game and plant life, and they established permanent and seasonal settlements around well stocked fishing holes. The wanderings of this hearty folk were dictated by the varying climatic conditions found in Middle Africa Hoffman(l979:218). commenting on the role of the Proto‑Saharans in the founding of Egypt observed that," A exploration of the Western Desert (also known as the Libyan Desert, or more generally, the Sahara) proceeds at an ever quickening pace, it is now apparent that the despised foreigners of Egypt's desert frontiers comprised a major areal tradition roughly comparable to those of Upper and Lower Egypt. Paradoxically, it was this desert tradition and not those of the Nile Valley that contributed to pre‑historic Egypt those critical innovations like farming, cattle pastoralism, and long‑distance trade that led to groundwork for her precocious civilization".
Chapter 3: Boating in Ancient Africa
During the Ounanian period the Proto‑Saharans maintained well developed trade links with the east African homelands by boats which could travel across Africa along the numerous streams and rivers which dotted the more watered Middle African environment 8000 years ago.
The so‑called Egyptian and Mesopotamian style boats were first depicted in the Sahara at Tin Tazarift. As a result we should really refer to the boats in Saharan rock art as Maaite boats. These boats used by the Egyptians, Sumerians and Elamites are nothing more than the boats used by the Proto‑Saharans. These boats were also used by the descendants of the Proto‑Saharans in Mesopotamia and India. To navigate these boats the Proto‑Saharans used celestial navigation.
Boat building has been known in Africa for thousands of years. Reed boats and reed boat illustrations are found throughout Middle Africa. Apart from human and animal figures appearing in Nubian rock drawings the most dominant motif is the reed boat.Other examples of reed boats have been found in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, both areas of early Proto‑Saharan / Kushite settlement. The first use of the mast and sails on reed boats, along with cabins on the deck appear at Ta‑Seti, in Nubia over 5000 years ago.
In the riverine cultures of the Proto‑Saharans, each community had marine architects, ship builders and expert sailors. The captains of the Maaite ships were depicted bigger than the crewmen. They also wore a horned headdress consisting of two horns or feathers to illustrate their status and rank in society. The presence of an elevated bow and stern on many boats depicted in the Saharan rock art and the peculiar "bowstring", astern and "fuse" for the rudder oar, indicate these ancient ships were used for navigation on the open seas. Reed or plank boats are still made by the Dravidians in India, and the Bozo of West Africa along the Niger river. The Maaite boats also had a cabin on the deck. Boat building has been known in Africa for thousands of years. Boats illustrations throughout Middle Africa rock art. For example, today reed boats are still constructed by the Mande speaking Bozo people and Dravidian speaking people in India. Due to shared origin of boating and navigation among the Maaites they share the ter for boat. ═══════════════════════ Shared Maaite terms for Boat LANGUAGE BOAT DRAVIDIAN KALAM SUMERIAN KALAM MANDING KULU ═════════════════════════
The boat has played an important role in Africa since prehistoric times. As early as Nagada I (4000-3500 BC) Africans were depicting boats on their pottery (Robert Partridge, ,p.16). The same style boats are found in the Sahara
at Tin Tazarift (Ki-Zerbo,1979,1981). Between 3500-3000BC we find evidence of sails on pottery from Nubia and Egypt ( Partridge,1996). The Prophet Isaiah mentions the expertise of the Kushites when he noted in the Bible at Isaiah 18:12 that: " Country of the whirring wings beyond the rivers of Cush, who send ambassadors by sea, in papyrus ships over the waters". This indicates that as late as the Meroitic Kushite empire papyrus boast were still being used by Africans. Because the early civilization builders in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Africa, and China after 3500 BC, originated in the Sahara there existed great similarity between boats engraved on rocks in Mesopotamia, Indus Valley/ India and ancient boats in the Sahara and Nile Valley (Hornell,1920). Walter Resch (1967), noted that apart from human and animal figures appearing on the Nubian rock drawings, the most dominant motif is that of reed boats, many of these boats like the boats at Nagada II, had sails. Henri Lhote during his 1956 expedition to the Highland Tassili region of Algeria also found reed boat engravings (Lhote, 1957). Boats with sails were still being used in throughout Africa in 1500BC. Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, recorded in her temple at Deir el Bahri a Puntite ship which had sails and 60 oars. This indicates that African ships were usually prepared for sailing the oceans through the power of the wind, and /or by sail. Punt is believed to be ancient Somalia/Ethiopia. The people who presently live in Ethiopia call the Puntite empire, the Arwe empire. Other examples of reed boats have been found in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. It is among the engraved Saharan boats that we see the first use of masts and sails, along with cabins on the decks of ships as early as 3100 BC. The presence of this highly developed boat technology among the Proto-Mande provided them with the ability to sail to America 2000 years ago to found the Mande speaking Olmec Empire along the east coast of Mexico.
Figure 3:4 Sahran Boat and Horned Captain
Papyrus boats were capable of traveling thousands of miles over the open seas. Earastosthenes, chief librarian of the Egyptian papyrus library in Alexandria said that papyrus ships, with the same sails and riggings as on the Nile sailed as far as Ceylon and the mouth of the Ganges (Indus Valley) (Heyderdahl,1981). In summary, the rock art from the Sahara, across Mesopotamia, and India are identical. It indicates that during Proto-Saharan times each community (Mande >Proto-Olmec, Sumerian, Dravidian, etc.) had marine architects, shipbuilders and expert sailors. The presence of an elevated bow and stern and the peculiar "bowstring" astern and "fuse" for the rudder oar, indicate that the ships used by the Proto-Saharans, including the Mande and Dravidians were used for navigation in the open seas. Once the descendants of the tribes who formed the Maa Confederation moved into the African Savanna and Forest zones, the Indus Valley and South India they began to discontinue the building of papyrus boats; except among the Budumu along Lake Chad and the Bozo on the Niger River . Most West Africans began to build dugout canoes due to the gigantic trees found in many parts of the Savanna and Forest zone.
Chapter 4: Animal Domestication The Proto‑Saharans had a mobile life style and cattle was the mainstay domesticate. Much of the evidence relating to this pastoral way of life comes from the discovery of cattle bones at excavated sites in the Sahara, and the rock drawings of cattle found at many of these sites. Bones discovered at desert sites inhabited between 7000‑2500 B.C.,indicate that residents here not only farmed but herded sheep, goats and cattle, when the Sahara blossomed. Animal domestication in much of the Saharan zone came in response to the decline in resources around lakes and river valleys prior 5000 BC when the Sahara entered a dry phase(McIntosh 1980). The Proto‑Saharans probably domesticated sheep and goats initially, and supplemented these animals with cattle (Camps 1974). The Proto‑Saharans called the sheep *kari. A major Proto‑Saharan site was Tadrart Acacus (9500‑8500 B.C.). Here the people were reliant on pastoralism by 4000 B.C. They herded goat/sheep. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ LANGUAGE SHEEP DOG CATTLE,COW,OX HORSE DRAVIDIAN KURI,KORI ORI NAKU PARI, IYULI
SUMERIAN ZAR,SAR UR GUD PARU 'MULE' MANDING SARA WURU GUNGA,KONGO BARI,WOLO /WOLU PROTO‑SAHARAN *SAR *UR‑ *(N)GU *PAR‑ ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The Paleo-African hunters quickly learned the habits of wild sheep and goats. As a result of this hunting experience and the shock of the short arid period after 8500 B.C., Paleo-Africans began to domesticate goat/sheep to insure a reliable source of food. By 6000 B.P. the inhabitants of Tadrart Acacus were reliant on sheep and goats (Barich 1985).
The first domesticated goats came from North Africa. This was the screw horn goat common to Algeria, where it may have been deposited in neolithic times. We certainly see goat/sheep domestication moving eastward: Tadrart Acacus (Camps 1974), Tassili-n-Ajjer , Mali (McIntosh & McIntosh 1988), Niger (Roset 1983) and the Sudan. Barker (1989) has argued that sheep and goats increased in importance over cattle because of their adaptation to desiccation. The Egyptian terms for sheep,ram are Ø zr #, Ø sr # . In the terms for sheep we find either the consonant /s/ or /z/ before the consonant /r/, e.g., s>0/#________r. This corresponds to many other African terms for sheep, ram: Egyptian sr, zr Wolof xar Coptic sro Bisa sir Kouy siri Lebir sir Amo zara Dravidian kuri,korri Bobofing se-ge,sege Toma seree Malinke sara Busa sa Bambara sarha,saga Koro isor Boko sa Bir sir Azer sege 'goat' Diola sarha There is phonological contrast between s =/= z. We find both Ø sr # and 0 zr # for sheep. Here we have s>z/V_______(V)r 'sheep' There is also clear evidence for the Paleo-African domestication of the goat. The Egyptian word for ram is Ø b #, Øba #. This corespondence to many African terms for goat:
Wasulu ba Malinke ba Kpelle bala Cham bii Vai ba Mende mbala Daduja bii Bambara ba Loma baala Burak bii Dyala ba Egyptian ba Gban bu Bagirmien ba-t Boko ble In the African terms for goat we find an a>i pattern . This suggest that /i/ developed from /a/ as a result of sound change. This is not surprising because we find a similar a > i pattern in the African term for sheep. The Paleo-African term for goat was *ba .
Cattle Domestication
As early as 15,000 years ago cattle were domesticated in Kenya. In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals including the pack ass, and a small screw horned goat which was common from Algeria to Nubia. The zebu or humped cattle are found in many parts of Africa.The oldest faunal remains of the Bos Indicus come from Kenya, and date to the first millennium B.C.
The recent evidence that Bos Indicus , humped cattle, may have originated in East Africa suggest that this type of cattle may have first been situated in Africa, and then taken to Asia by the Proto-Saharans. Testimony to the ancient humped cattle in Africa is supported by the depiction of this type of cattle in the rock art of the Sahara.This view is also supported by the fact that the advent of the Bos Indicus, cattle in Egypt corresponds to the migration of the CGroup people into the Nile Valley. The C-Group people came from the Fertile African Crescent. Augustin Holl (1989) has made it clear that pastoralism was the first form of food production developed by post Paleolithic groups in the Sahara. In the western Saharan sites such as Erg In-Sakane region, and the Taoudenni basin of northern Mali, attest to cattle husbandry between 6000 and 5000 B.P. (McIntosh & McIntosh, 1979,1981,1986,1988). Cattle pastoral people began to settle Dar Tichitt and Karkarchinkat between 5000 and 3500 B.P. (Holl, 1989). The term for cattle, cow in the various African languages show correspondence. Below we will compare the term for cow from various African languages:
CATTLE/ COW Egyptian
ng, nag
Wolof
nag
Fulani
nag
Hausa
nagge
Angas
ning
Ankwe
ning
Susu
ninge
Nuer
yang
Baguirmi
m-ang, mang
Gbea
m-angu, mangu
Sar(a)
m-ang, mang
Serere
nak
Mande
nika
Burma
nak
Tamil
n_ku
Malayalam Tulu
n_ku n_ku
Jarawa
i-nak
Kagoro
nyak
Kaje
nyak
Burak Kagoma Bobo Kono-Vai
nyek nyak nyanga nige
So.W. Mande Sembla
ninke nigi
Congo-Benue Duala Mpongwe
*i-nak nyaka nyare
Fang
nyar
Kwa
nare
Azer(Azayr) Soninke Gourmantche Tamil Malayalam Konda
na na nua, nue _, _n _, _n _.v
Kannda
_, _vu
Telugu
_vu
Senufo
nu
Ewe
nyi
Niellim
nya
Boua (Bwa)
nya
Tarok
ina
Iregwe
nya
Dadiya
nee
Amo
na
Baya
nday
Bobofing
nya-nga
Gera
ndiya
Koro
indak
Malinke
gu_ga, ko_go ‘zebu’
Songhay
dyu_go
Swahili
Ki-go_go
Kannada
g_nde
Kolami
k_nda, kanda
Gadaba
k_nde
Gondi
k_nda
The correspondence between Dravidian and African terms for cattle support the archaeological evidence for the early domestication of cattle in the Maa Confederation. This view is supported by the similarity in the terms for cow/cattle by speakers of the Dravidian, Mande, Niger-Congo, Chadic, and Afro Asiatic Supersets.
The oldest written evidence from Africa comes from the Egyptian language. The Egyptian terms for cattle/ cow were ng and nag . In other African languages we find either the consonant n-, before the consonant g/k , e.g., n/v______(v)g/k ;or the nasal consonant n- , before the vowels -i,-y , and -a , e.g., n+i+a =nia , or n+y+a = nya . This evidence of cognition in Dravidian, African terms for cattle/cow show considerable correspondence in consonants and vowels within roots. Table 1. Correspondence within Roots Niger-Congo
Nilotic
-g/-k
g
-s-
Dravidian
-g/-k
-k
--
-n-
-n-
Chadic
-z-
-n-
Egyptian
-g s/z
-m-
n-
Table 2. Correspondence within Vowels Niger-Congo
Nilotic
-i/-y a/u
a
Dravidian Chadic
-e/-a
-i/-y
a/u
a/u
Egyptian
-y a
The linguistic evidence supports the view that the Paleo-Dravido-African term for cattle/cow in the Maa Confederation was *n'n , *n'g /n'k , and *nia . This data also makes it clear that /g/ and /k/ were interchangeable consonants long before the separation of the Proto-Saharans into distinct African cultural and linguistic groups. It is interesting to note that the Chadic terms for cow and cattle corresponds to the Mande terms. Mukarovsky (1987) provides numerous analogous Mande and Chadic terms for cow/cattle. Mande Bambara Xassanke
Chadic misi
Sha nisi mu
nyinsi
Dyula
misi
Malinke
nisi, misi
Gofa mizzaa Welamo mizzaa Zala
mizzaa
Basketo mizaa Boro
miizaa
Anfillo mintso *misi
*mizaa
This illustrates an ancient alternation of the s =/= z consonants in Paleo-African. In terms of the term for cow and cattle it would appear that the usual pattern was m/v__(v) s/z__.
Susu
ninge
Anga
nin
Mende
nika
Goemai
Malinke
ningi
Kofyar
Kono
ningi
Sura
Vai
nii
Sha
nin, nen nen nin
nisi mu
Bande
nika-i
Lomo
nik
Malayalam n_ku
Kpelle
nina
Tulu n_ku
Bobo
nyanga
*nig / *nik, *nin
Tamil n_ku
*nin
In the above Chadic and Mande terms for cow/cattle we see the n/v_________(v) n. The pattern for Dravidian, Chadic and Mande pastoral words is n/v_________(v) k. The cognition between Chadic Dravidian and Mande terms for cattle/cow indicate that the speakers of these languages were in close proximity to one another during the neolithic.
Horse Domestication It has usually been assumed that the horse was introduced into Africa by the Hyksos. But as indicated below the affinities between the terms for horse in Dravidian and African languages indicate that the horse was domesticated by Dravidians, and other Proto-Saharans before the Asian invasion of Egypt and spread of the Indo-European speaking people. Archaeological evidence indicate that the horse was known to the Nubians centuries before its common use in Egypt . Saharan Africans used the donkey and later horses as beast of burden. The ass or donkey was domesticated in the Sahara at Maadi 3650 BC . A domesticated Equus was found at Hierakonpolis dating around the same period . The horse was also found at other sites in the Sahara. Skeletons of horses dating to between to around 2000 BC have been found in the Sahara-Sahel zone In West Africa according to Daniel McCall the horse was in the Sahara during the Second Millennium BC This would explain the affinity between the Dravidian and African terms for horse outlined above. The Saharan horse was small in size. These horses match perfectly the horses depicted with the Saharan chariot riders. These horses were stiil be used by the warriors of ancient Ghana as noted by the Arabic writer al-Bekri when he visited this area. Most researchers believe that th horse was introduced to Africa/Egypt by the Hysos after 1700BC. This is an interesting date, and far to late for the introduction of the horse given the archaeological evidence for horses at Maadi and the Sahel-Sahara zone. At Buhen, one of the major fortresses of Nubia, which served as the headquarters of the Egyptian Viceroy of Kush a skeleton of a horse was found lying on the pavement of a Middle Kingdom rapart dating to 1675BC. This was only 25 years after the Hysos had conquered Egypt. This suggest that the Kushites had been riding horses for an extended period of time for them to be able to attack Buhen on horse back. This also supports the early habits of Africans riding horses as depicted in the rock art. The Nubians and Upper Egyptians were great horsemen whereas the Lower Egyptians usually rode the chariot, the Nubian warriors of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty rode on horseback . The appearance of the horse laying on a Buhen rampart may indicate it was used by Kushite warriors attacking Buhen. No matter what the use of the horse was, the linguistic evidence makes it clear that the horse was part of Saharan culture before the advent of the Indo-
Europeans.
Figure 4:5 Various Saharans with horses and Chariots The Nubians and Upper Egyptians were great horsemen whereas the Lower Egyptians usually rode the chariot, the Nubian warriors of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty rode on horseback . The appearance of the horse laying on a Buhen rampart may indicate it was used by Kushite warriors attacking Buhen. No matter what the use of the horse was, the linguistic evidence makes it clear that the horse was part of Saharan culture before the advent of the IndoEuropeans. There are many Dravidian and African words for horse, one of the most ancient Dravidian forms for horse may be Brahui hulli and Tamil ivuli. This ancient form of the word for horse appears in African languages with consonant /l/ or/d/, as the main consonant and the vowels /o/ or /u/. Below we compare the Malinke(M.)-Bambara (B.), Nubia (N), Wolof (W.) Hausa, Tamil (Ta), Malayam (Mal) Somali (Som.) Kanarese (Ka.) Telugu (Tel.) Kordofan Nubian (KN) languages. The African languages belong either to the Niger–Congo Family or the Cushitic Family of languages. Horse M. wolu, Bam. b’lu, wolo, N. unde Ta. Iyuli, Brahui hulli Another ancient form of the word for horse was *par- / * far-. Below are other Dravidian-African terms for horse: Mande wolu Bam. B’lu, wolo Mande bara ‘grey horse’, Hausa baraba ‘swift horse’ Wolof fas Somali fara-ka Egyptian nefer Serere pis Tamil , Mal. Pari Tamil payyeru, Fulani puucu Mande bari Ge’ez faras Galla or Oromo farda, ferda Ka. Karte Tamil kartai Hausa doki Tel. gadide Kanuri Nile koś Hausa godiya The Dravidians and Niger-Congo speakers formerly lived in the highlands of the Sahara. Many of these people migrated into West Africa. In West Africa according to Daniel McCall the horse was in the Sahara during the Second Millennium BC This would explain the affinity between the Dravidian and African terms for horse outlined above.
The fact that the chariots found in West Africa resemble those of Crete does not mean that the riders of these chariots had to have come from Crete. In fact Greek traditions make it clear that the ancient Cretans, called Minoans came from Africa
Figure 4:6 Saharan Chairioteers The Dravidian and African languages share similar names for the wheel. For example: Galla makurakura Tulu gali, tagori Swahili guru, dumu Mande koli, kori, muru-fe Tamil kal, ari, urul , tikiri Ka. gali tiguri, tigari It would appear that the Proto-African-Dravidian term for wheel was *-ori / *-uri *go/uri and *ko/uri. The protoSouth Dravidian term for wheel *tigu/ori . The linguistic evidence suggest that in the proto- language the speakers of African-Dravidian used either the vowels o/u or a/i after the consonants. It is also evident that the l and r, were interchangeable in the construction of the term for wheel. The horse disappeared from the Sahara as the area became increasingly drier. This forced the original West African domesticated horses to move southward where they are presently found.
Chapter 5: Plant Domestication
The earliest Neolithic farmers n Saharan Africa cultivated barley. They used a wavy line ceramic style of Middle Africa referred to as the Saharan‑Sudanese ware. The Proto‑Saharans, once engaged in intensive agriculture began to build towns. Complex political organizations and craft specialization followed as Maaite ethnic groups, and clans became more and more sedentary. The Proto‑Saharans practiced a form of intensive agriculture characterized by use of the hoe, related water storage and irrigation techniques, plus the application of fertilizers (manure) to the land. The ability of the Proto‑Saharans to produce surplus food led to an increase in population and changes in social organization. Naturally population increases forced the ancestors of the Proto‑Saharans to spill over into more marginal areas. This forced them to domesticate plants and animals to preserve traditional levels of food production, that had resulted from plant collection. In Nubia the people long practiced agriculture. In 17000 B.C the people at Tushka were cultivating barley. The farmers at Tushka were the Anu people who first took civilization to Egypt and Mesopotamia. At Kadero, a Proto‑Saharan site in the Sudan we find that by 3310 B.C.,sorghum and millet was being cultivated.In Northwest Africa rice was being cultivated by 3000 B.C. Land of cultivation was called *ga(n), in Proto‑Saharan. Barren land near water that was cultivatable was called PS:*de(n)/di(n). The mainstay plant collected by the Proto‑Saharans was millet and or sorghum. They took
this crop with them to Asia. The Proto‑Saharans called their grain *se. The word for cultivate was PS:*be. They used the hoe PS:* pari, to cultivate the land. In addition they had dogs PS: *ur‑, to help them hunt and watch over their
domesticated stock.
There is abundant evidence that African millets were cultivated not only in Africa but also in the Indus Valley during Harappan times (Weber, 1998; Winters,1981a,1981b, 2008). Weber (1998) maintains that Indian agriculture was "greatly influenced" by these millets from ancient to modern times (p.267). The archaeological evidence ndicates that local millets were cultivated before the 3rd millenium B.C. (Weber, 1998; Winters, 1981b). But by the founding of the Harappan civilization and rise of civilization in Gujarat the African millets were integrated into a well established South Asian subsistence pattern (Weber,1998). The major grain exploited by Saharan populations was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 4000 and 3000 BP (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981). Given the archaeological evidence for millets in the Sahara, leads to the corollary theory that if the Dravidians originated in Africa, they would share analogous terms for millet with African groups that formerly lived in the Sahara. Controversy surrounds the transportation pattern for African millets to India (Weber, 1998). Yet it would appear that millets arrive in South Asia, both in the 3rd and 2nd millennium B.C. It is interesting to note that where the African millets represent the dominate cereal grain, rice was also a major domesticate (Weber, 1998). Wiegboldus (1996) believes that these millets may have been transported to India, from African countries situated along the Indian Ocean. The only problem with this theory is that Wiegboldus (1996) found no evidence of the African millets and bicolor sorghum in East African countries until late antiquity, millenia after African millets were cultivated at Harappan sites. There is linguistic evidence that the Dravidians may have introduced African millets to India in Harappan times. Many linguist believe that Dravidian was spoken by the inhabitants of the Harappan cities (Winters, 1990). This view is supported by the large number of Dravidian tribal groups in North India, and the existence of Brahui, also a Dravidian language, in Pakistan and other parts of Central Asia. Thundy (1983) maintains that most Dravidiologist recognize Africa as the original home of the Proto-Dravidians. Aravanan (1976,1979,1980) claims that the Dravidians and Africans share many similarities in culture and physical type. Winters (1994) presents numerous linguistic examples that suggest a geneological relationship between the Dravidian and African languages (Winters,2007,2008b). Winters (1985, 2007,2008b,2010b) has suggested that the Proto-Dravidians formerly lived in the Sahara. This is an interesting theory, because it is in the Sahara that the earliest archaeological evidence has been found for African millets. Millet has been found in the Sahara dating back to 7000 kya from Dakhleh (Thurston 2003). One of the principal groups to use millet in Africa are the Northern Mande speaking people (Winters, 1986,). The Norther Mande speakers are divided into the Soninke and Malinke-Bambara groups. Holl (1985,1989) believes that the founders of the Dhar Tichitt site where millet was cultivated in the 2nd millenium B.C., were northern Mande speakers.
To test this theory we will compare Dravidian and Black African agricultural terms, especially Northern Mande (Winters, 2008,2010). The linguistic evidence suggest that the Proto-Dravidians belonged to an ancient sedentary culture which existed in Saharan Africa. We will call the ancestor of this group Paleo-Dravido-Africans (Winters, 1994,208b,2010b). The Dravidian terms for millet are listed in the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary at 2359, 4300 and 2671. A cursory review of the linguistic examples provided below from the Dravidian, Mande and Wolof languages show a close relationship between these language. These terms are outlined below: Kol
sonna
Wolof (AF.)
suna
Mande (AF) Tamil
-----
suna connal colam
Kannanda
---
----
----
bara, baga varaga
Malayalam
*sona
---
de-n, doro koro tinai
varaku
tina
baraga, baragu
tene
*baraga
---
*tenä
kural --korale,korle *kora
Below we will compare other Dravidian and African agricultural terms. These terms come from the Mande languages (Malinke, Kpelle, Bambara, Azer, Soninke), West Atlantic (Wolof, Fulani), Afro-Asiatic (Oromo, Galla), Somali, Nubian and the ancient Egyptian. The Paleo-Dravido-Africans came from a sedentary culture that domesticated cattle and grew numerous crops including wheat and millet. The Egyptian term for cultivation is
The major grain exploited by Saharan populations
was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 4000 and 3000 BP. (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981). Given the archaeological evidence for millets in the Sahara, leads to the corollary theory that if the Dravidians originated in Africa, they would share analogous terms for millet with African groups that formerly lived in the Sahara ( Winters, 2008,2010). The major grain exploited by Saharan populations was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 4000 and 3000 BP. (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981). Given the archaeological evidence for millets in the Sahara, leads to the corollary theory that if the Dravidians originated in Africa, they would share analogous terms for millet with African groups that formerly lived in the Sahara. Ø b j(w) #. Egyptian Ø b j(w) # corresponds to many African terms for cultivation: Galla
baji 'cultivated field'
Tulu (Dravidian language)
bey, benni
Nubian
ba, bat 'hoe up ground'
Malinke
be
Somali
beer
Wolof
mbey, ambey, bey
Egyptian
b j(w)
Sumerian
buru, bur 'to root up'
These terms for cultivate suggest that the Paleo-African term for cultivate was *be. The Egyptian term for grain is Ø sa #. This corresponds to many African terms for seed,grain: Galla Malinke
senyi se , si
Sumerian
se
Egyptian
sen 'granary'
Kannanda Bozo Bambara
cigur sii sii
Daba
sisin
Somali
sinni
Loma
sii
Susu
sansi
Oromo Dime Egyptian
sanyi siimu ssr 'corn'
id.
ssn 'lotus plant'
id.
sm 'herb, plant'
id.
isw 'weeds'
The identification of a s>0/#_________e pattern for 'seed,grain' in the above languages suggest that these groups were familiar with seeds at the time they separated into distinct Supersets. The fact that Sumerian Ø se # and Egyptian Ø sen #, and Malinke Ø se # are all separated both in time and geographical area highlight the early use of seeds * se , by PaleoDravido-Africans. The Paleo-Dravido-Africans used the hoe to cultivate their crops. The Egyptian terms for hoe are Ø hbs # and Ø wb #, which mean 'to open up' in Egyptian. These Egyptian terms are analogous to Black African and Dravidian terms for hoe: Tamil
parai
Malayalam
para
Kannanda
pare
Nubia
bat
Malinke
daba
Egyptian
per 'to plough'
Hausa
fartanya
Swahili
palile
Egyptian
hbs
Galla
buqis 'root up'
Sumerian
buru 'to root up'
It would appear that contrast exist between b and (f)_______p. This indicates that in Paleo-Dravido-African that b < p. The Paleo-Dravido-African term for hoe was probably *ba(r)/pa(r). The Paleo-Dravido-Africans also possessed other terms for hoe: Malayalam
kuntali
Tamil
kuntali 'pickaxe'
Nubian
Kadid
Wolof
konko
Malinke
kope, daba
Galla
doma
Hausa
garma
Kod
guddali
Kannanda
guddali
Kpelle
kali
This evidence suggest that t > d. The phonological contrast between t =/= d, highlight the alternation patterns of many Paleo-Dravido African consonants for hoe including: b =/= p l =/= r g =/= k.
Rice Soninke Vai Manding
dugo ko'o malo
Dravidian
mala-kurula
Mende
molo, konu
Kpelle
moloy
Boko
mole
Bisa
muhi
Busa
mole
Sa
mela
Bambara
kini Yam
Bozo Vai
ku, kunan jambi
Malinke
ku
Dravidian
kui, kuna, ku
Bambara
ku
It would appear that all the Proto-Dravidians were familiar with the cultivation of rice, yams and millet. This is not surprising because Weber (1998) made it clear that millet cultivation in ancient South Asia was associated with rice cultivation. The linguistic evidence clearly show similarities in the Afican and Dravidian terms for plant domesticates. This suggest that these groups early adopted agriculture and made animal domestication secondary to the cultivation of millet, rice and yams. The analogy for the Malinke-Bambara and Dravidians terms for rice, millet and yams suggest a very early date for the domestication of these crops. MILLET soma, kenge dyempi, pyin kene, nyo sonne, connal suna nyo RICE Azer dankante Soninke dugo Vai ko'o Manding malo Dravidian mala-kurula Mende molo, konu Kpelle moloy Boko mole Bisa muhi Busa mole Sa mela Bambara kini Yam Bozo ku, kunan Vai jambi Malinke ku Dravidian kui, kuna, ku Bambara ku Azer Bozo Manding Dravidian Wolof Bambara
In summary, population pressure in the Sahara during a period of increasing hyperaridity forced hunter/gather/fisher Proto-Dravidian people to first domesticate animals (Winters, 1999a,1999b) and then crops. The linguistic evidence discussed above indicate that the Dravido-African speaking Maaites migrated out of Africa to Harappan sites with millet, yam and rice already recognized as principal domesticated crop. Increased agricultural production also played a limited role in the expansion of the Proto-Mande. The major grain exploited by Saharan populations was rice ,the yam and pennisetum. McIntosh and McIntosh (1988) has shown that the principal domesticate in the southern Sahara was bulrush millet (pennisetum). Millet impressions have been found on Mande ceramics from both Karkarchinkat in the Tilemsi Valley of Mali, and Dar Tichitt in Mauritania between 43kya (McIntosh & McIntosh 1983a,1988; Winters 1986b; Andah 1981). It would appear that all the Proto-Mande were familiar with the cultivation of rice, yams and millet. There are similarities in the Malinke-Bambara and Vai terms for plant domesticates. This suggest that these groups early adopted agriculture and made animal domestication secondary to the cultivation of millet, rice and yams. The analogy for the Malinke-Bambara and Dravidians terms for rice, millet and yams suggest a very early date for the domestication of these crops.
Chapter 6: Proto-Saharan Writing The Proto‑Saharans had writing. They either engraved their syllabic script in rocks, or used a stylus to engrave wet clay. This view is supported by the fact that the term for writing often has the long ‑uu, attached to various initial consonants usually /l/, /r/, or /d/. For example writing in Sumerian is Ru and Shu, Elamite Talu, and in Dravidian carru. These terms agree with the Manding term for excavate or hollow out du/do, kulu, tura, etc. This shows that the Proto‑Saharan term for writing denoted the creation of impressions on wet clay or hard rock.The Sumerian term for carving was du. The Maaite ancestors of the Kemites (ancient Egyptians) originally lived in Nubia. The Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization is supported by the discovery of artifacts by archaeologists from the Oriental Institute at Qustul. On a stone incense burner found at Qustul we find a palace facade, a crowned King sitting on a throne in a boat, with a royal standard placed before the King and hovering above him, the falcon god Horus. The white crown on this Qustul king was later worn by the rulers of Upper Egypt.
Many Egyptologists were shocked to learn in 1979, that the A-Group of Nubia at Qustul used Egyptian type writing two hundred years before the Egyptians (Williams 1987). This fact had already been recognized much earlier by Anta Diop (1974) when he wrote that it was in Nubia "where we find the animals and plants represented in hieroglyphic writing".
In reality the early Egyptians used the Thinite script. This was a syllabic form of writing later used by the people of the Sahara, Elamites, Indus Valley and the Olmecs in America.
The Qustul incense burner indicates that the unification of Nubia preceded that of Egypt. The Ta-Seti had a rich culture at Qustul. Qustul Cemetery L had tombs that equaled or exceeded Kemite tombs of the First Dynasty of Egypt. The A-Group people were called Steu 'bowmen'. The Proto‑Saharan script was the model script for the ancient Mande script, Proto‑Elamite, Indus Valley writing and Linear A. The Proto‑Saharan writing was first used to write characters on pottery, to give the ceramics a talismanic quality. Thus we find Proto‑Saharans characters on ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Linear A and the Indus Valley (Winters, 1977, 1985,1985b,1985c). The first syllabic writing system of Africans was the Thinite script. This writing was used first by Blacks in Nubia, like the Niger-Congo people who migrated out of this region into the rest of Africa.
The Thinite script provides many of the signs that are included in later scripts used by Africans. In Nubia, Black Africans were using Thinite symbols before the rise of Egypt to record their ideas and report on important events.
At this time your people may have been living in the caves of the Caucasus mountains. This writing was later used by Africans to write inscriptions throughout Middle Africa.
Figure 6:4 Oued Mertoutek Inscription The evidence of this writing is found throughout the Sahara. By the time Mande speaking people settled Dar Tichitt they left numerous inscriptions throughout the region ( Galand,1968; Monod,1938). The people of Dar Tichitt were Mande speakers. These Mande speaking people also lived in the Fezzan where they were called Garamante/Garamandes. The Garamante settled Crete and are recognized as the Eteo-Cretans or Minoans.
As you can see from the above chart the Linear A signs and Mande/Manding signs are identical. If you look careful you will note that Africans, or Black people had also taken their writing system to Anatolia were your ancestors were living in the Caucasus mountains as hunter-gatherers. The Minoans, who were Africans introduced Linear A, whose signs are identical to the writing left by Africans throughout the Sahara, like those found at Tichitt and presently represented in the Vai and several other West African scripts. Indo-Europeans adopted this writing to write business documents. Their writing system was Linear B. The other Proto- Greeks obtained writing from the Blacks of Africa and Phonesia passed on writing to the Romans. With the fall of Rome Western Europeans got writing from the African Muslims who taught them the arts and sciences.
Chapter 7: The Religions of the Maaites The historic gods of Africa and Asia were of Maaite origin. Concepts concerning these ancient gods or great ancestors were first developed around a gigantic lake that formerly existed in Middle Africa around 8000 years ago. This is supported by the fact that the Saharan cultures have resemblances to those of Nubia.(Hoffman 1979;Diop 1991) This lake was known in ancient times as Lake Tritonis. Lake Tritonis was situated in the Libyan desert. Here as early as 7000 B.C. there was a slow transition from hunting , to cattle pastoralism. The prehistoric appearance of a great lake in Libya has recently been supported by satellite pictures of the Eastern Desert which indicate that a lake was located in the Qattara depression of northwest Egypt. Around 10000 years ago pluvial conditions existed in the Sahara which led to the creation of numerous river beds now buried under tons of sand.( McCauley, 1982) Due to the abundance of streams, rivers and lakes in Proto‑Saharan Africa men who were powerful, were men who could harness the powerful water of the numerous streams and rivers. Such men as these were recognized as demigods or great ancestors. For example in Sumer and Egypt gods and demigods were described as "reed‑boat navigators". In Egypt some of these great men that became gods include Thoth, and Osiris. This is supported by Dravidian and Egyptian traditions. In ancient Egyptian tradition Ptah, came from the Sahara below Egypt in Kush. He found Egypt inundated , so he performed great works of dyking and land reclamation so the land was more habitable. The first 'avatar' or 'Tirumal of the Dravidians is regarded as a fish, who showed Manu, a boat to save himself from being drowned. Tirumal,is the same as Visnu of Sanskrit literature, another name for this god is Mayavon, Mayan and Mal. According to references in the Bhagavata Purana, a fish who is identified with the first avatar (sage), showed Manu a boat nearby to save himself from being drowned . In passing it is interesting to note that the emblem of the Pandya Kings of South India was the fish. Moreover in the Mesopotamian deluge story two Tamil words: nir 'water' and min 'fish' . Moreover, it is interesting to note that the Arivar or sages of the Dravidians were also called Vellalar "lords of the flood " or Karatar "lords of the clouds". These sages earned these titles because of their skill in controlling the floods and in storing water for agricultural purposes. According to the Olympian Creation Myth the earliest groups to appear on earth were the Libyco‑Thracians. The Libyans were Proto‑Saharans, as were the original Thracians, who were descendants of the Kushite and Egyptian troops established at Trace , by Sesostris (Thutmose III or Ramses II),when he conquered Asia and Europe. Apollonius Rhodius tells us that the goddess Athene was born beside Lake Tritonis in Libya. The goddess Athene, was called Neith by the Egyptians and Nia, by the Manding and Eteo‑Cretans of Minoan civilization. The early gods of the Maaites included a serpent, the sun: Hercules,Seth, Wepwawet, Amon/Aman/Amma, and Kush or Khons. In Egypt and Kush, both Amon and Khons were depicted as coal‑black in accordance with tradition. The Kushites also worshipped a "lord of the mountains", which is analogous to Murugan, a Dravidian god in India. In India, Khrisna, Mal ,Vishnu, and Kali were usually depicted as black in color. Kali, was held to be a form of Paravati, consort of Siva. In addition the Dravidian god of the pastoral region: Mullai, was the black god Mayan, who was beloved by the milkmaids and cattle herders. The earliest gods associated with the great hidden all powerful god were associated with the Sky. They believed in an unseen universal force called "Ko" or "Ka". As a result the Proto‑Saharans offered prayers to "Ka", e.g., Egyptian Ka 'vital force', Dravidian Ka‑n, Manding Kani, and Magyar/Hungarian Kaan. This Ka, is also often associated with snakes,rain and the sky.
THE GOD MAA Many of the Proto‑Saharan beliefs originated during the wet African Aqualithic period. As a result their gods, who had once been great ancestors were referred to as "Fish" or "reed‑boat navigators". This common god was called Maa , the man fish (of Eridu) in Mesopotamia and Syria and the ithyphallic forms, the prototype of Amon/Aman in Egypt ; and the goddess Minaksi, of Madura in South India the goddess of the fish eyes, the Malabar fish bearer of Mana and the sacred fishes of the Mapilla of the west coast of the Dekkan. In the languages of the Manding Maa, is used to refer to the ancient inhabitants of the African continent, and the invisible spirit who inhabits the water-courses .In Egypt Maat, meant divine truth and justice. Among the Proto‑Saharans the name Maa, for their great ancestor/god was joined to many ethnonyms. The descendants of the Maa clan, claim descent from Maa, as evident in the name Mande, for the parent group of the Manding of West Africa. Mande means, Ma‑nde or "children of Ma". Some Dravidians of South India were also members of the Mande Superclan, as illustrated in the Kannada, Telugu and Tulu, Dravidian tribes that use the terms Mande or Mandi to denote "people or persons". The Sumerians called themselves Mah‑Gar‑ri "God's exalted children". The Proto‑Saharans in honor of great Maa, use the term "ma", to denote greatness, for example Manding: Maga; Sumerian: Mag; and Dravidian: Ma. The ma, element was also used in the names for their rulers e.g., Menes of Egypt; the Mannan of the Dravidians; and the Mansa of the Manding. The Mal, of the Dravidians is just another form of Ma. Mal, is the Fish. He was the prototype of the Fish god among the Pandyan‑Tamils. Ama, Uma, Ammon, Amon and etc. seems to either refer to Mal's consort. This goddess Amon is most ancient among the Proto‑Saharans.This goddess has many names including Athene or Neith, daughter of Poseidon god of the Sea (again reference to the great Fish‑man); and Demeter, the mare headed patroness. The Mother goddess Amma/Amon of Libya had her cult center at the Oasis of Siwa. In ancient Egypt Amon was depicted as a ram with spheres. The god Amon was taken to Egypt during the New Kingdom. The Proto‑Saharans early used the oxen with sun disc between the horns as the symbol of their God, long before the Egyptians worshipped Hathor. This god represented Amon/Amma of the Dravidians, Egyptians and Manding speaking people.
Figure 7:1 Ancient Saharan God Engravings in the Sahara, dating back to Neolithic times show the solar disk with "uraei", which was associated with the worship of Ra/Re in Egypt, when worn by the ram it represented Amon of Thebes. There are depictions of this god from the Saharan sites such as Bou Alam and Zenoga. Archaeologists believe that these engravings date back to 4000 BC. This use of a ram god, with different names among the various groups indicate that the Proto‑Saharans worshipped the same religion.For example among the Dogon of West Africa, the god Amma is a ram. In Yoruba Amon, means concealed the same as in Egyptian."
Seth and Wepwawet
A major god of the Maaites was Set/Seth. Seth was worshipped in Egypt and Saharan oasis such as Siwa. In the Sahara, Seth was recognized as a father figure by the Maaites. In Egyptian mythology Set represented the desert, and the foreign lands beyond the desert. The earliest evidence of Set(h), comes from a small ivory piece found in a Badarian grave. Seth was also carved on a ivory Amratian comb (c.4500BC), and the famous Scorpion mace head. The major center of Seth worship in Egypt was Nbt. The term Nbt in Egyptian means “ruler, lord and gold”. The oldest Seth and Anubis engraving is found outside the Dakhla Oasis, west of the Kharga Oasis. This engraving was found by Salima Ikram in 2006, she is director of the North Kharga Oasis Survey.
Figure 7:2 Seth and Wepwawet
The engraving has Thinite inscriptions under the figures. On the left side we see a figure of a cannine and on the right
we have a figure of Seth. Reading the inscriptions from right to left I will decipher the writing. Under the cannine figure we have: Be tu a ka na or "To exist obedient to the order in joy [with the] Mother".
Figure 7:3 The Canine God Wepwawet
Reading the inscriptions under the Seth figure we have reading the inscription from right to left: i lu i gyo fa yo gyo, or " Thou hold upright this divinity of the cult, [our] Father, the vital spirit of the society consecrated to (Seth's) cult".
Figure 7:4 The God Seth
This figure is important in relation to the Western Sahara and the Seth cult. Michael Rice, in Egypt's Making: The Origin of Ancient Egypt 5000-2000 BC, makes it clear that Seth was the god of the Southern people and that Anubis (the canine god) was the protector of the people of the South. The major cannine god of the Egyptians was Anubis. Anubis (Anpu) was the Egyptian god who guided the dead to judgment. The Split Rock inscription above make it clear that Seth was also worshipped in the Western Sahara probably before the people migrated to Naqada. This depiction of a cannine alongside Seth, suggest that this figure represented Wepwawet, the ancient name for the canine god.
Wepwawet is depicted on the Narmar Palette and associated with the dog-fetish of Asiyut (Rice, p.109). Wepwawet, was called both the "opener of the ways" and "guide of the gods" (Rice, p.52).
The inscription and depiction of Wepwawet and Seth at Split Rock in the Western Sahara, make it clear that Wepwawet and Seth were worshipped as the Mother and Father gods of the Maaites. It makes it clear that the mini cave at Split Rock was a temple where the people worshipped Seth and Wepwawet. The ritual centers at Nabta Playa and Split Rock suggest that the Maaites established their religious centers underground.
The appearence of Isis and Anubis (or Wepwawet) on many Meroitic offering tablets may came from the fact that these gods represent the wives of Seth and Osiris who guarded the passage of the dead to the after world as an accomodation of the of Egyptians who believed in different gods,i.e, in the North (Osiris and Isis) and the South (Seth and Anubis/Wepwawet) Egyptians. The Western Sahara is also providings us information about African cultures that formed the foundation of the Olmec civilization. For example, the discovery of green stone artifacts in the Sahara discussed by Holl and others make it clear that the Maaites were working "jade" long before they came to Mexico. In addition a number of stone heads have been found in the Western Sahara.
Figure 7:6 Saharan Big Head Monument
These heads suggest that Maaite people probably had a tradition of using stone to make the heads of their rulers. Both the stone heads and green stone artifacts from the Western Sahara is helping us to learn more about the civilizations that formerly were established by Maaites belonging to the Maa Confederation. Amon/Athene This worship of the ram may have resulted from the important part goat/sheep played in the Sahara as a source of food when the Sahara increasingly became more arid. Archaeology makes it clear that the first animal domesticated by the Maaites were rams and goats. As as a result, the ram became an early ‘god figure’ by the Maaites who recognized rams and sheep as domesticates that could survive under any ecological condition In the Sahara there are many yardangs. These yardangs resemble rams. This suggest that the Maaites built architectural structures that were Ram Spinxes.
Figure7:7 Yardang that Resembles Amon Iconography It is interesting to note that Siwa (> Siva?) Oasis, was recognized as the cult center of Amon/Amma, because in the Siwa depression archaeologists have found numerous conical and pyramidal sand encrusted hills that resemble the monuments of ancient Egypt, including a sphinx which resembles a gigantic ram. Although most scholars believe these monuments in the Siwa and Farafra Oasis are natural erosional formations called yardangs, they may really be the remains of monuments built by the Proto‑Saharans now encrusted with sand harden by the wind. The mother goddess was either identified as Amon or Athene. Amon or Amen of the Egyptians was primarily a Theban god whose shrine was rebuilt around 2500 BC, when the Theban Kings defeated their northern foes. Amon became an important god in Egypt beginning with the 12th Dynasty . The priests of Amon, called their god "the King of Gods". The Egyptians recognized Amon as a primeval god. Amon is identified with the ithyphalli god Men(< Maa ?).
Figure 7:8 Kushite God Amon Amon was recognized as an unseen god, because he could travel. He was also seen as an imperial god. Sesostris I, is credited with building the Temple of Amon at Karnak, near Thebes. Sesostris I, is also credited with conquering the whole sea coast of India, beyond the Ganges to the Eastern Ocean, he also conquered Europe as far as Thrace. It is clear that Amon or Amen, was the ancient god of the Kushites/Proto‑Saharans because Ammenemes I or Ameny I of the 11th Dynasty was from the southern state of Ta‑Seti, the first Nome (city/state) of Egypt. Ammenemes means "Amon is in front". Sesostris I (Thutmose I), probably helped establish Amon worship in Europe and Asia , because as he expanded his Empire he left colonies in all the lands he conquered. Sesostrasen Osiritasen of the 12th Dynasty, is suppose to have established colonies along the Danube river and the Black Sea. Strabo (Bk.3), said that Sesostris I, is suppose to have conquered Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Iberia and Colchis. Before the Egyptians conquered Greece the worship of Amon had already been established in the region. It was the Garamante Manding speaking tribe who took Amon worship to Greece. In Appollonius Rhodius iv.1310, we discover that the goddess Athene was born beside Lake Tritonis in Libya. Plato, identified Athene of Athens with the Libyan
god Neith. Athene was worshipped by the Manding and other Western Saharans including the Linear A people of Minoan Crete. Athene is always associated with the god Amon. Moreover the Manding concept of N'ama as a dynamic spirit among the other Mande tribes point to an earlier worship of Amon, before the Mande accepted Islam. The Bambara call their ancestral god Gnia or Nia, this has affinity to the Greek term for the Libyan god called Neith. It is interesting to note that in the Linear A inscriptions we find mention of the goddess Nia= Neith. Moreover, some South Indian worship Amma = Amon. The priest of this cult are called Chom or Khonrini, the Greeks called them Gymnosophists. This Chom, of the Dravidians has affinity to Khon, the leading Kushite god. The goddess Neith or Athene was known by many names. Some names related to Athene include Anaitis, Nanaia > Tanit of the Phoenicians; Nama in Albania; and the Sumero‑Dravidian Ninni‑Istar "the wild cow". The Proto‑Dravidians and Sumerians had common religions. For example in the Sumer pantheon the emblem for Inanna, was the date palm, while Ninsun, Dumuzi, Anu and Ishkur were associated with bulls. The Dravidian equivalent to Anu, or bull worship was Anu‑Rupa or Siva. The name of this clan in India was called Anu. Many of these Dravidians were also established in Armenia. In India we find the "men with horns". This term was given to Dravidian dignitaries who had crowns made of animal horns. This type of horned figure appear on many Harappan seals, as do serpents. The wearing of animal horns on crowns may date back to the time of Sesostris, because many Egyptian headdresses included horns. In ancient Sumer, the goddess of the marriage rites was Ur. The goddess Ur, has analogies to the Dravidian cult of the goddess Paravati, in Siva temples. Dumuzi The Sumerian god Dumuzi, may be a great ancestor of the Tamil. Prof. Muttarayan (1975) has suggested that the word Tamil, may be an evolute of Dumuzi, the name for the Sumerian moon‑god. Originally Tammuz/Damuzi was supposedly a king of Uruk. According to Sumerian tradition Dumuzi lived in the neither world. In the neither world there was a place called "lapis luzuli mountains". The Dravidian speakers founded the Harappan civilization and wrote the Indus Valley seals. (Winters 1984, 1985) The miners from the Indus Valley controlled the lazurite ores of Badakhshan and Afghanistan.(Brentjes 1983). The Dravidians exported these metals to Mesopotamia. Lapis lazuli is found in metamorphic limestone or dolomite. This material was used to make many prestige items in the ancient world. The riches source of lapis lazuli was Badakhshan . Other lazurite deposits are found in the Himalayan region, and the southern end of lake Baikal in Soviet Union. These centers of lapis lazuli were the central factor in Dravidian colonization of Central Asia. (Winters 1990:127) The Sumerian story about Dumuzi,probably records the expansion of the Proto‑Saharan tribe from Mesopotamia into Central Asia that later became the Tamil. Dumuzi, was suppose to have been exiled from the Sumerian city of Erech or Uruk, by the "demons" of either of these cities. The phonetic laws operative in Dravidian offer no problem in deriving Tamil from Dumuzi. The marriage of the Dravidian cult goddess Paravati, in Siva temples to insure effectively the fecundity and prosperity of the Dravidian people is analogous to the holy marriage of Dumuzi and Inanna, the Sumerian mother‑goddess. The Telugu, call the Dravidians aravaalu "noise makers". This noise made by the Tamils, may have been ritual wailing , one of the major features of the Dumuzi cult in Sumer. The possible ancient exile of people from Sumer to Proto‑Dravidian sites would explain the genetic unity of the Sumerian and Dravidian languages. Interestingly, the Sumerians called themselves proudly sag‑gigga "the black headed people". In Tamil gig, means black. This points to analogy between Sumerian and Dravidian. During the reign of King Asoka, of India the Dravidians were called Kalinka, which appears to be an evolute of Sumerian (sag) gigga . The Sumerians obtained lapis lazuli from the Harappo‑Dravidians. S.Kramer, in the Sumerians, claimed that the Indus Valley was called Tilmun/Dilmun by the Sumerians. This was the Sumerian paradise. The boats of Tilmun, or the Indus Valley were suppose to have taken gold, copper and lapis lazuli to the Sumerian. Demeter The God Demeter was introduced to Greece by the Manding. The descendants of the Manding were called Carians. The major Manding tribe responsible for the spread of this faith were the Garamantes. They are associated with apiculture. Demeter came from Libya. He is suppose to have introduced poppy seeds to Greece. The Carians practiced matrilineal descent, they took the names of their mothers. Hercules the Sun God Hercules was an important god. His emblem was the sun. Megasthenes said that Hercules was the father of the Pandyan dynasty of the Dravidians.
Arrian, on the authority of Megasthenes said that the Indian Hercules and the Theban Hercules, had the same habits. Homer described Hercules as follows: "Black he stood as night his bow uncased, his arrow strung for fight". The association of Hercules with arrows clearly indicate that he was related to the Kushites who used the bow. Thus Hercules is identified with Khrisna and Mal of the Dravidians. Poseidon According to Greek traditions the father of Athene or Neith was Poseidon or Potidan "he who gives drink, the wooden mountain". Poseidon was the god of the sea, his symbol was the trident.
Figure 7:9 Poseidon The identification of Poseidon, with a "wooden mountain" or boat(i.e., a boat on the ocean is like a mountain on the sea) suggest that Poseidon, is another name for the Fish, that showed Manu or Maa the boat that saved mankind from the ancient great flood. The identification of the trident ( which also has affinity to the serekh sign of kingship in Egypt and Ta‑Seti), and the Fish emblem of the Pandyan Kings show the spread of the Maa worship from Middle Africa to India. The agreement of Poseidon's name Potidan with Pandyan suggest that this god was popular among the Proto‑Dravidians. The identification of the Fish, with Maa and Manu, suggest that while the Fish or Poseidon was the inventor of boats, Maa or Manu built dams that controlled the water levels in areas settled by the Proto‑Saharans where they cultivated their crops.
Figure 7:10 Greek Black Pottery of Poseidon It is interesting to note that when Eudoxus of Cyzicus visited the coastal regions of Kush, Strabo reports that he called this area Posidonius. This is interesting because the ancient people of Abyssinia and Somalia, were said to be Icthyophagi, who worshipped the god Poseidon. Siva Siva, was probably introduced into India by the Kushana and Tamilitti Dravidian speaking tribes as they fled from Southeast Asia and China, through Tibet into South India. The symbol of Siva are three eyes (the all seeing), tiger skin, armed with a battle axe riding on a bullock. This indicates that Siva was the god of a people that had conquered the worshipers of Mal (as bullock and fish) and also Murugan (who was symbolized by the Tiger) the god of the mountains. Siva's riding of the bullock, suggest defeat of the mother goddess (worshipers) and rise of a patriarchal clan system as a result of the many wars the Dravidians had to fight against the Indo‑Europeans, Altaic speakers and Sino‑Tibetan speakers in China and Central and Southeast Asia. Kanakasabhai (l966) believes that Siva worship, came from the Himalayan region. He said that "His [Siva's] abode was the snowcapped mount Kailas situated north of the Himalayas, near the sources of the great rivers Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra. His greatest feat was the destruction of Tripiura or the "three castles" which were the strongholds of Asuras who had caused much annoyance to the celestials. He married Par[a]vati, the daughter of the king of the mountains" . Siva is also sometimes analogous to the fish god Mal. In South India, Siva is referred to as the "Great Fish", and is represented by Fish signs. Throughout Tamilnadu tridents are found in association with Siva temples. Kumara Among the Dravidians the god of youth is called Kumara or Skanda in the Puranic literature. Kumara is said to be the son of Siva. This Kumara is analogous to the Egyptian god Horus, the son of Osiris. The above evidence indicates that just as theorized by Diop many of the Proto‑Saharan gods were really great ancestors, e.g., Dumuzi, Mal and etc. This proves that except for these great ancestors the Proto‑Saharans had a great god which they saw as being far away from them , but firmly in control of events on earth. Anta Diop (l991) has shown that the structure of kinship depends much on the material conditions of life. This
rule/theorem can be tested by the Proto‑Saharans. As outlined in Chapter One, the Proto‑Saharans lived an idealized life where there was abundant food resources until at least 3500 B.C. This situational experience led to the development of a semi-sedentary lifestyle. After 4000 B.C., as outlined in the previous chapter the Proto‑Saharans began to raise cattle in addition to collecting grasses for food. Because of the successful use of first goats/sheep and later cattle, this animal began to represent their gods. This abundance of food led to a Proto‑Saharan cosmology imbued with optimism.
Chapter 8:The Expansion of the Children of Maa
Variations in the weather patterns of Middle Africa forced the people to move from one area to the other depending on the environmental conditions resulting from changes in the climate. The first major migration of the Proto‑Saharans from the nuclear Southern Sahara region occurred around 5200 B.C., when they began to move from the central Sahara,into the southern Sahara, and northwest Africa, back into Nubia. Beginning around 4200 B.C. the Sahara began to dry up (Drake, 2012, Soreno,2008,Winters,1986b). Many migrates fled the increasing harsh environment to settle much of West Africa,and Nubia , Equatorial Africa, and much of the Niger Valley at this time was probably still a forest zone. For much of the Ounanian period the Nile Valley was a swampy (Winters,2011). At the end of the European glacial period there was a decrease in the rainfall of the Sahara. This made the Nile Valley an attractive area of settlement for many Proto‑Saharans, because as the Sahara became more arid the Nile Valley changed from a swampy hostile environment to one quite pleasant and habitable. Due the decreased habitability of the Sahara, and the settlement of many Proto‑Saharan populations in the choice areas of Middle Africa, which were not covered with forest or swampy areas where sickness was rampant, after 3500 B.C. many Proto‑Saharans began to migrate out of the Sahara into Europe, Asia, and after 2000 B.C. the Americas . This ancient homeland of the Dravidians, Egyptians, Sumerians, Niger-Kordofanian-Mande and Elamite speakers is called the Fertile African Crescent(Anselin, 1989, p.16; Winters, 1981,1985b,1991, 2002). We call these people the Proto-Saharans (Winters 1985b,1991). The generic term for this group is Kushite. The proto-Saharans specialized in the use of the bow. They were experts in navigation and boat technology.This resulted from the presence of numerous rivers and lakes that dotted Africa at this time.
Figure 8:1 Saharan Boat
These Proto-Saharans were called Ta-Seti and Tehenu by the Egyptians (Winters,1994,2002). Farid(1985,p.82) noted that "We can notice that the beginning of the Neolithic stage in Egypt on the edge of the Western Desert corresponds with the expansion of the Saharian Neolithic culture and the growth of its population". The original homeland of most African groups living in West and Central Africa, was East Africa and Middle Africa. Therefore, those African living today in West Africa are mainly of Proto-Saharan rather than East African origin. It would appear that the African Semitic speaking groups occupied most of East Africa and only recently pushed their way into Southwest Asia and the Northeast African area after the migration of the Proto-Saharans from this area after 3000 BC. The Proto-Saharans took control of the Nile Valley, and parts of Europe and Asia after a great flood destroyed the Anu civilizations around 4000 B.C. The Anu controlled much of the Nile Valley until 40003500 B.C. The rise of contemporary Black African civilizations probably begins with the founding of Ta-Seti Kingdom at Qustul, Nubia after 3500 B.C. After 3500 B.C.,taller Black Africans began to move progressively down the Nile to occupy Anu settlements along this river. Narmar was probably a descendant of one of the rulers of one of the city-states that were part of the Maa Confederation. It was members of the Maa Confederation who introduced the system of mummification, syllabic writing and kingship to ancient Egypt. Below is a palette of Narmar conquering the Anu ?
Figure 8:2 Narmar Palette .
To settle new areas the Proto‑Saharans used their ability as navigators to transport entire tribes from Africa to Asia and Europe. The vessels of the Proto‑Saharans were similar to the Egyptian style boats, as indicated by the boat depicted in the Sahara at Tin Tazarift.
It was in the Saharan massifs that elements of non Anu Egyptian and Black African cultures were created between 9000-6000 B.C. This area from the Sudan in the south to the highland areas of the Fezzan in the north was a "Fertile Crescent". After 5200 B.C,, the Proto-Saharans begin to expand down from the Highlands into fertile Saharan grasslands. A major region controlled by the Maaites was the Fezzan in modern day Libya. The inhabitants of the Fezzan were round headed Africans. (Jelinek, 1985,p.273; Winters,2002) The cultural characteristics of the Fezzanese were analogous to C-Group culture items and the people of Ta-Seti . The C-Group people occupied the Sudan and Fezzan regions between 3700-1300 BC (Jelinek 1985;Winters,1994).
Figure 8:3 Tehenu on Amrathian Pottery
The inhabitants of Libya were called Tmhw (Temehus). The Temehus were organized into two groups the Thnw (Tehenu) in the North and the Nhsj (Nehesy) in the South. (Diop 1986; Winters,1994) A Tehenu personage is depicted on Amratian period pottery (Farid 1985 ,p. 84). In the Amrathian piece above the Tehenu personage wore pointed beard, phallic-sheath and feathers on their head. The Temehus are called the C-Group people by archaeologists.(Jelinek, 1985; Quellec, 1985). The central Fezzan was a center of C-Group settlement. Quellec (1985, p.373) discussed in detail the presence of C-Group culture traits in the Central Fezzan along with their cattle during the middle of the Third millennium BC. The Temehus or C-Group people began to settle Kush around 2200 BC. The kings of Kush had their capital at Kerma, in Dongola and a sedentary center on Sai Island. The same pottery found at Kerma is also present in Libya especially the Fezzan.
The C-Group founded the Kerma dynasty of Kush. Diop (1986, p.72) noted that the "earliest substratum of the Libyan population was a black population from the south Sahara". Kerma was first inhabited in the 4th millennium BC (Bonnet 1986). By the 2nd millennium BC Kushites at kerma were already worshippers of Amon/Amun and they used a distinctive black-and-red ware (Bonnet 1986; Winters 1985b,1991). Amon, later became a major god of the Egyptians during the 18th Dynasty.
There are similarities between Egyptian and Saharan motifs (Farid,1985). It was in the Sahara that we find the first evidence of agriculture, animal domestication and weaving (Farid , 1985, p.82). This highland region is the Kemites "Mountain of the Moons " region, the area from which the civilization and goods of Kem, originated (Winters,2012).
The rock art of the Saharan Highlands support the Egyptian traditions that in ancient times they lived in the Mountains of the Moon. The Predynastic Egyptian mobiliar art and the Saharan rock art share many common themes including, characteristic boats(Farid 1985,p. 82), men with feathers on their head (Petrie ,1921,pl. xvlll,fig.74; Raphael, 1947, pl.xxiv, fig.10; Vandier, 1952, p.285, fig. 192), false tail hanging from the waist (Vandier, 1952, p.353; Farid, 1985,p.83; Winkler 1938,I, pl.xxlll) and the phallic sheath (Vandier, 1952, p.353; Winkler , 1938,I , pl.xvlll,xx, xxlll).
Due to the appearance of aridity in the Mountains of the Moon the Proto-Saharans migrated first around the megalakeFezzan. Here they founded the Maa civilization until this area was also overcome by arid winds.
Other Proto-Saharans, left the megalakeFezzan area migrated from there southward into Nubia and thence they moved along the Nile up into Upper Egypt or Kem/Egypt which was originally occupied by the Anu or pgymy people. The Proto-Saharan origin of the Kemites explain the fact that the Kushites were known for maintaining the most ancient traditions of the Kemites as proven when the XXVth Dynasty or Kushite Dynasty ruled ancient Egypt. Farid (1985, p.85) wrote that "To conclude, it seems that among Predynastic foreign relations, the [Proto-]Saharians were the first to have significant contact with the Nile Valley, and even formed a part of the Predynastic population" (emphasis author). The ancestors of the Kemites originally lived in Nubia. The Nubian origin of Egyptian civilization is supported by the discovery of artifacts by archaeologists from the Oriental Institute at Qustul. On a stone incense burner found at Qustul we find a palace facade, a crowned King sitting on a throne in a boat, with a royal standard placed before the King and hovering above him, the falcon god Horus. The white crown on this Qustul king was later worn by the rulers of Upper Egypt.
Figure 8:4 Symbols of Royalty on Qustul Incense Burner
Many Egyptologists were shocked to learn in 1979, that the A-Group of Nubia at Qustul used Egyptian type writing two hundred years before the Egyptians (Williams 1987). This fact had already been recognized much earlier by Anta Diop (1974) when he wrote that it was in Nubia "where we find the animals and plants represented in hieroglyphic writing".
The Qustul incense burner indicates that the unification of Nubia preceded that of Egypt. The Ta-Seti had a rich culture at Qustul. Qustul Cemetery L had tombs that equaled or exceeded Kemite tombs of the First Dynasty of Egypt. The A-Group people were called Steu 'bowmen'. The Steu had the same funeral customs, pottery, musical instruments and related artifacts of the Egyptians. Williams (1987, p.173,182) believes that the Qustul Pharaohs are the Egyptian Rulers referred to as the Red Crown rulers in ancient Egyptian documents.
Dr. Williams (1987) gave six reasons why he believes that the Steu of Qustul founded Kemite civilization:
1. Direct progression of royal complex designs from Qustul to Hierakonpolis to Abydos.
2. Egyptian objects in Naqada III a-b tombs
3. No royal tombs in Lower and Upper Egypt.
4. Pharoanic monuments that refer to conflict in Upper Egypt.
5. Inscriptions of the ruler Pe-Hor, are older than Iry-Hor of Abydos.
6. The ten rulers of Qustul, one at Hierakonpolis and three at Abydos corresponds to the "historical"kings of late Naqada period.
The findings of Williams (1987), support the findings of Diop (1991) because we also understand better now why the Egyptian term designating royalty etymologically means: (the man) who comes from the South= nsw< n y swt = who belongs to the South= who is a native of the South= the King of Lower Egypt, and has never meant just King, in other words king of Lower and Upper Egypt, King of all Egypt (p.108).
During Kemite Dynasty I,the A-Group or Ta-Seti (Kushite) people of Lower Nubia disappear. Given the close relationship between the Predynastic Egyptians and Ta-Seti who founded the first empire on earth (Williams 1985), suggest that the Narmar Palette, depiction of the epic battle which unified Kem may also record the forced submission of the A-Group people to Upper Egyptian rule. The terms of this victory may have called for the A-Group people to move into Kem. This would explain the lack of archaeological data on the A-Group people after the unification of Kem. This would also explain how the Egyptian form of government came from the south into the Delta. Trigger (1987)
noted that: Evidence that both the Red and the White Crowns were originally southern Egyptian symbols suggests that most of the iconography originated in Upper Egypt" (p.63).
The research makes it clear that the first sepats or nomes of Egypt were probably founded by “Kushites” who spoke a Niger-Congo language and belonged to the Ounanian culture. The A-Group people were the foundation of the Egyptians. The Egyptians differenciated themselves from the Kushites once the former city-states or sepats became Kem (Winters,1994,2002). In reality the early Egyptians used the Thinite script. This was a syllabic form of writing later used by the people of the Sahara, Elamites, Indus Valley and the Olmecs in America.
The advent of hyperaridity led to the collapse of the Saharan culture. High population density, and the resulting need for a reliable food supply forced the Proto‑Saharans to migrate out of the Sahara into other parts of Africa, Asia and Europe. The first group to migrate out of the Proto‑Sahara was the Elamites and Sumerians. The Nile Valley was already settled by the Proto‑Egyptians and the A‑Group people of Ta‑Seti, so the Proto‑Sumerians migrated into Mesopotamia while the Elamites made their way to Iran. These groups arrived in these areas by sea. They commenced to settle in Mesopotamia many cities formerly settled by the Anu people, who had fled these cities as a result of the great flood after 4000 B.C. The linguistic evidenced shows that the Elamites were basically a mixed group speaking Dravidian and Manding languages. These Proto‑Manding and Proto‑Dravidian elements migrated across the Zagros Mountains into Central Asia and China after 3000 B.C. Remnants of these Kushites made their way into the Indus Valley. The Dravidian people of South India are the result of possibly two migrations from Africa into the Indus Valley and India. The Proto‑Dravidians were probably remnants of the Proto‑Saharan herders who occupied the central and southern Sahara until 2400 B.C., when hyperaridity began to dry up lakes, and cattle herding was more difficult (Winters 1985,1989,1990) .
Up until 2500 B.C., most of the Proto‑Manding that had not made the migration to Iran were living in the Western Desert and the southern Sahara. This is supported by the archaeological evidence that indicates that the Sahelian and Sudanic zones were uninhabited by herders before 2500 B.C.(McIntosh and McIntosh 1981) After 2400 BC remnants of the Manding lived in Libya and began to settle Crete. The other major Manding sites were at Karkarichinkat which was occupied until 2000 B.C. By 1500 BC the Proto‑Manding lived in the Tichitt region.
The cultural and ethnic affinities of the Proto‑Saharans encouraged the development of well organized trade relations between these groups in Africa and Asia. From the 4th Millennium through the 3rd Millennium B.C. an extensive trade network connected the Kushites/Proto‑Saharans from Egypt to the Indus Valley, Iran and West Asia. Homer alluded to the Kushite diaspora when he wrote: "A race divided, whom the sloping rays, the rising and the setting sun surveys". Archaeologists have found vessels from IVBI workshop at Tepe Yahya, in West Asia that have a uniform shape and design. This style of vessel is distributed from Egypt to Soviet Uzbekistan and the Indus Valley. These intercultural style vessels show clear parallels between Egyptian,Iranian, Sumerian and the Indus valley civilization. The discovery of Intercultural style vessels from Susa (in Iran),Sumerian, Egyptian and Indus Valley sites suggest a shared ideological identity among these people. In fact the appearance of shared iconographic symbols and beliefs within diverse areas suggest cultural and ethnic unity among the people practicing these cultures. The common naturalistic motifs shared by the major civilizations include, writing (symbols), combatant snakes, the scorpion, bull and etc. This evidence of cultural unity is explained by the origin of these people in the Proto‑Sahara.
GENERAL REFERENCES Anselin,A. 1982. LE MYTHE D'EUROPE DE L'INDUS A LA CRETE. Paris. _________ 1984. "Zeus Ethiopien Minos Tomoul", CARBET REVUE MARTINIQUE DE SCIENCE HUMANINES, 2:31-50. Andah, B.Wai. 1981. "West Africa before the Seventh Century". In GENERAL HISTORY OF AFRICA. VOL.II. UNESCO: Paris. Andersson,T.G. 1934. CHILDREN OF THE YELLOW EARTH:STUDIES IN PREHISTORIC CHINA. London. Aravaanan,K. 1977. DRAVIDIANS AND AFRICANS. Madras. Bagchi,P.C. 1955. INDIA AND CENTRAL ASIA. National Council of Education :Calcutta. Barich,B.E. 1978."Lo scavo di Uan Muhuggiag (Teshuinat) en altivita di survey nell 'Acacus settentrionale". LIBYA ANTIQUE, XV: 1-12. Barker,G.W. 1989. "From classification to interpretation : Libyan Prehistory 1969-1989". LIBYAN STUDIES, 20:31-43. Behrens,P. 1984. "Language and migration of the early Sahara cattle herders, the formation of the Berber branch".In LIBYA ANTIQUA. (UNESCO Report: Paris) Pp.30-50. Bellwood,Peter. 1991. "The Austronessian Dispersal and the zorigin of Language". SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. July. Brenjes,B. 1983. "On Proto-Elamite Iran". CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY, 24(2):240Bernal,I. 1969. THE OLMEC WORLD. University of Calif. Press:Los Angeles. Bernal,M. 1986. "Black Athena:The African and Levantine roots of Greece", JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATION,7(2):66-82. Bradley,M. 1981. THE BLACK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Personal Lib.:Toronto. Brice,W.C. 1983. "Notes on Linear A". KADMOS 22(2):51-106. Burrow,T.& M.B. Emeneau. 1961. A DRAVIDIAN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY. London. Bynon,T. 1977. HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS. Cambridge Univ. Press: London. Chang,Kwang-Chih.1987. ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANCIENT CHINA. New Haven. ________________ 1980. SHANG CHINA. Yale University Press:New Haven. Caldwell,R. 1974. A COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR OF THE DRAVIDIAN. Delhi. Camps,G. 1974. LE CHEVAL ET LA CHAR DANS LA PREHISTORIQUES DE L'AFRIQUE NORD ET DU SAHARA. Doin: Paris. Camps,G. 1974. LES CIVILIZATION PREHISTORIQUES DE L'AFRIQUE DU NORD ET DU SAHARA. Doin: Paris.
Carratelli,G.P. 1963. LE EPIGRAFI DI HAGHIA TRIADA EN LINEARE A. Universidad de Salamanca. Close,A. E. 1988. "Current research and recent radiocarbon dates from Northern Africa". JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY, 29:145-176. Chang,K.C. 1980. SHANG CIVILIZATION. Yale University Press: New Haven. _________ 1987. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANCIENT CHINA. YALE University Press:New Haven. Cook,A.B. 1914. ZEUS A STUDY IN ANCIENT RELIGION. CAMBRIDGE. Delafosse,M. 1901. ESSAI de MANUEL PRACTIQUE MANDE AU MANDINGUE, Paris. ___________ 1899. "Vai leur langue et leur systeme d'ecriture", L'ANTHOPOLOGIE, 10. Diop, Cheik Anta. 1974. THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION ,MYTH OR REALITY .(Trs.) by Mercer Cook. Lawrence Hill Pub. :Westport Conn. ________________ 1977. PARENTE GENETIQUE DE L'EGYPTIEN PHARANIQUE ET DES LANGUES NEGRO-AFRICAINES. NEA: Dakar. ________________ 1978. THE CULTURAL UNITY OF BLACK AFRICA. Third World Press: Chicago. ________________ 1984. "Formation of the Berber Branch". In LIBYA ANTIQUA (UNESCO: Paris) Pp.69-72. ________________ 1988. NOUVELLES RECHERCHES SUR L'EGYPTIEN ANCIEN ET LES LANGUES NEGRO-AFRICAINES MODERNES. Presence Africaine: Paris. ________________ 1991. CIVILIZATION OF BARBARISM. Lawrence Hills Pub.: Westport Conn. Drucker,P. et al. 1959. EXCAVATIONS AT LA VENTA,TABASCO, 1955. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 170. Washington,D.C. Dzierzykray-Rogalski,T. 1978. "On the Black variety at Kadero,Sudan". CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY, 19(2):406-407. Ehret,C. 1979. "On the antiquity of agriculture in Ethiopis", JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATION, 20:161-165. _______ 1988. "Language change and the material correlates of language and ethnic shift". ANTIQUITY 62:564-572. Ehret,C. & M.Posnansky.1982. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC RECONSTRUCTION OF AFRICAN HISTORY. BERKELEY. Evans,A.1921. THE PALACE OF MINOS. McMillan: London. Fairservis,W.A. 1962. THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF THE NILE. London. ______________ 1975. THE ROOTS OF ANCIENT INDIA. Univ. of Chicago Press: Chicago. Fu Ssu-Nien.1935. "Yi Hsia tang Hsi Shuo". In PAPERS PRESENTED TO MR.Ts'ao
Yuan Pe'i on his Sity-fifth Birthday'. Institute of History and Philosophy ,Academia,(Sinica: Nanking)pp.88-129. Gadd,C.J. 1924. A SUMERIAN READING BOOK. Clarendon Press: Oxford. Galand, Lionel. 1968. INSCRIPTIONS LIBYQUES. Paris. Gostony, C.G. 1975. DICTIONNAIRE D'ETYMOLOGIE SUMERIENNE ET GRAMMAIRE COMPARES. De Boccard: Paris. Greenberg,J.H. 1970. THE LANGUAGES OF AFRICA. University of Indiana :Bloomington. _____________ 1987. LANGUAGE IN THE AMERICAS. STANDFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS: Standford. Graves,R. 1980. THE GREEK MYTHS. London. ________ 1982. THE WHITE GODDESS. Pelican Books: New York. Hall,H.R. 1928. THE CIVILIZATION OF GREECE IN THE BRONZE. London Hammond,N.G.L. 1967. A HISTORY OF GREECE. Oxford. Harlan,J.R.1976. ORIGINS OF AFRICAN PLANT DOMESTICATION. New York. Hoffman, Michael A. 1979. EGYPT BEFORE THE PHAROAHS. Alfred A. Knope: New York. Holl, Augustin. 1989. "Social issues in Saharan Prehistory". JOURNAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 8:313-354. ______________. 1985. "Subsistence patterns of the Dhar Tichitt Neolithic Mauritania". THE AFRICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL REVIEW, 3:151-162. ______________. 1985. "Background to the Ghana Empire: Archaeological investigation on the transition to statehood in the Dar Tichitt region (Mauritania)", JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHAEOLOGY ,4:73-115. Homburger,L. 1951. "Le Telugu et Mende dialects",JOUR. LA SOC. AFRICAINES . ___________ 1964. "Sibilants en Sindo-Africaine", JOUR. DE SOC. AFRICAINES. Jelinsk, J. 1985. "Tilizahren, the key site of the Fezzanese Rock Art". ANTHROPOLOGIE, 23(3):223-275. Kabusiewicz,M. et al. 1976. "The Prehistory of the Egyptian Sahara", SCIENCE, 913: 103-4. Kao Chih-Hsi. 1986."An Introduction to Shang and Chou Bronze Nao excavated in South China. In STUDIES IN SHANG ARCHAEOLOGY,(ed.) by K.C. Chang. New Haven. Karetsou,A.,Godart,L., et J. Poliver.1985. "inscription en lineaire A du sanctuaire de Sommet Minoen du mont Iouktas", KADMOS, 24(2):89-147. Ki-Zerbo,J. 1979. "The Cradle of Mankind". UNESCO COURIER, Aug./Sept.:42-44. Krzyzaniak,L. 1978. "New Light on early food production in the Central
Sudan". JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY, 19(2):160-167. ___________ 1975. "Kadero". ETUDES ET TRAVAUX, 8:364-368. Kan, Yang. 1985. "The Bronze culture of Western Yunnan". BULL. OF THE ANCIENT ORIENT MUSEUM, (Tokyo) 7:47-91. Kramer,S.N. 1963. THE SUMERIANS. University of Chicago Press:Chicago. Labat,R. 1950-51. STRUCTURE DE LA ELAMITE. Conferences de l'Institut de Linguistique de l'Universite de Paris IX: 25-42. Lacouperie,Terrien de. 1887. THE LANGUAGES OF CHINA BEFORE THE CHINESE.PARIS --------------------- 1889. "Origin from Babylon and Elam of the early Chinese Civilization. A summary of the proof" BABYLONIAN AND ORIENTAL RECORD 3(5): 97-111. _____________________ 1892. THE YA-KING AND ITS AUTHORS. London
Navarrete,C. 1976. "The Olmec rock carvings at Pijijipan , Chiapas, Mexico and Other Olmec Pieces, from Chiapas and Guatemala", NEW WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION, NO.35. BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PRESS.UTAH LAHOVARY,N. 1957. DRAVIDIAN ORIGINS AND THE WEST. Longmans:Madras. Lawrence,H.G. 1962. AFRICAN EXPLORERS TO THE NEW WORLD. Aquarian Spiritual Center Los Angeles. Lal. B.B. 1963. "The only Asian expedition in threatened Nubia: Work by an Indian mission at Afyeh and Tumas". THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON TIMES 20 April. Langdon,S. 1911. SUMERIAN GRAMMAR AND CHRESTOMATHY. Paul Geuthner:Paris. Li Xueqin.1986. EASTERN ZHOU AND QIN CIVILIZATION. New Haven. Lord,Robert. 1974. COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS. St. Paul's House: London. Maglangbayan,S.& C. Moore. 1976. "BBB Interviews Dr. Chiek Anta Diop", BLACK BOOKS BULLETIN, 4(4):30-37. Marks,A.E., Muhammad-Ali,A. & R. Fattovich. 1986. "The Archaeology of the Eastern Sudan: A First Look". ARCHAEOLOGY , Sept./Oct.: 44-50. Mc Cauley,J.F., G.G. Schaber,C.S. Breed, M.J. Grolier, C.V. Haynes, B. Issawi, C. Elachi and R. Bloom. 1982. "Subsurface Valleys and Geoarchae -ology of the Eastern Sahara Revealed by Shuttle Radar", SCIENCE ,CCXV11: 1004-20. McIntosh,S.K. & R.J. McIntosh. 1979. "Initial perspectives on prehistoric subsistence in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)", WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 2(2):240. ____________________________. 1981. "West African Prehistory", AMERICAN SCIENTIST, 69:602-613.
____________________________ 1983. "Forgotten Tells of Mali",EXPEDITION:38. ____________________________ 1986. "Arcaeological Research and dates from West Africa",JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORY 27:413-42. ____________________________ 1988. "Fron stone to metal: New Perspectives on the later Prehistory of West Africa" .JOURNAL OF WORLD PREHISTORY 2(1):89-109. ___________________________ 1988b. "From sciecles obscurs to revolutionary centuries on the Middle Niger". WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 20(1):141-165. McAlpin,D.W. 1981. PROTO-ELAMO DRAVIDIAN: THE EVIDENCE AND ITS IMPLICATION. Trans. of the Am. Philosophical Society 71, Part 3. Philadelphia. Meenakshisundaran,T.P. 1965. A HISTORY OF TAMIL LANGUAGE. Poona. Meggars,B.T. 1975."The Transpacific origin of Meso-American Civilization", AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST ,77:10-11. Meillet,A. 1926. LINGUISITIQUE HISTORIQUE ET LINGUISTIQUE GENERALE. Paris. Monod,Theodore. 1938. CONTRIBUTIONS A L'ETUDE DU SAHARA OCCIDENTAL:GRAVURES ,PEINTURES ET INSCRIPTIONS RUPESTRES. Fascicule l. Serie A. Du Comite D'etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Francaise. Librairie Larose:Paris. Munson,P. 1976. "Archaeological data on the origins of cultivation in the southwestern Sahara and their implications for West Africa". In ORIGINS OF AFRICAN PLANT DOMESTICATION,(ed.) J.R. Harlan. Paris. Muttarayan,K.L. 1975. "Sumerian, Tamil of the first Cankan". JOURNAL OF TAMIL STUDIES, 7:41-61. Nayar,T.B. 1977. THE PROBLEM OF DRAVIDIAN ORIGINS, LINGUISTIC, ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH. Madras. Neil,P. 1980. "New Light on China's Oldest Civilization",ASIA (May/June):16-21. Obenga,Th. 1988. "Esquisse d'une histoire culturelle de l'Afrique par la lexicologie". PRESENCE AFRICAINE: 1-25. __________ 1973. L'AFRIQUE DANS L'ANTIQUITE. Presence Africains:Paris. Osing,J. 1980. LIBYEN BIBYE. Paris,M.E. 1953. "Recherche sur l'Origine des Marques di Tribus", Bulletin de l'IFAN , ser. A: 1632. Peet,T.E. 1927. "The Egyptian writing Board BM5647 bearing Keftiu Names".In ESSAYS IN AGEAN ARCHAEOLOGY PRESENTED TO SIR A. EVANS,(ed.) S. Casson ,(Oxford 1927) Pp.90-99. Pendlebury,J.D.S.1965. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF CRETE. New York. Quellec,Jean loic Le. 1985. "Les Gravures Rupestres du Fezzan (Libye).
L'ANTHROPOLOGIE (Paris), Tome 89(3):365-383. Rafinesque,C.S. 1832. "Second letter to Mr. Champollion on the Graphic Systems of America and the glyphs of Otolum or Palenque in Central America--elements of the glyphs". ATLANTIC JOURNAL 1(2):44-45. Renfrew,Colin. 1987. ARCHAEOLOGY AND LANGUAGE. Jonathan Cape:London. Rensberger, B. 1981. "Black Kings of Ancient America", SCIENCE DIGEST 9:73-77 and 122. Roset,J.P. 1983. "Nouvelles donnees sur le probleme de la Neolithisation du Sahara meridional: Air et Tenere au Niger",CASHIERS O.R.S.T.O.M. 13(2):119-142. __________ 1987. "Paleoclimatic and cultural conditions of Neolithic Develop -ment in the early Holocene of Northern Niger (Air and Tenere). In PREHISTORY OF ARID NORTH AFRICA,(ed.) by A.E. Close,(Dallas)pp.211-34. Smith,A.B. 1974. "Preliminary report on excavation at Karkarichinkat", WEST AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 4: 53-55. Sjoberg,A.W. 1984. THE SUMERIAN DICTIONARY. Vol. 2. The University Museum: Philadelphia. Spengler,Oswald. 1935. ZUR WELLGESCHICHTE DES ZWEITEN VOCHRISTLICHEN JAHRTAUSENDS. Munich. Strange,J.L. 1980. CAPHTOR,KEFTIU:A NEW INVESTIGATION. Brill:Leiden. Soukopova,Jitka.2012. ROUNDHEADS: THE EARLIEST ROCK PAINTINGS IN THE SAHARA. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Soustelle,J. 1984. THE OLMECS. Doubleday & Company:New York. Swadash,M.1953. THE LANGUAGE OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL HUASTECS. Carnegie Institution Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology,no.114. Talbot,M.R. 1980. "Environmental Responses to Climate change in the West African Sahel over the past 20,000 Years". In THE SAHARA AND THE NILE, (ed.) by M.A. Williams and H. Faure ,(Balkema: Rotterdam) pp.37-62. Ting Shan, "Yu san-tai tu-yi lun Ch'i in tsu, wen-hua", BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY,(Academia:Sinica) 5:89-129. Vamos-Toth,Bator.1983. TAMANA. Honolulu. von Wuthenau,A. 1980. UNEXPECTED FACES IN ANCIENT AMERICA. Second Edition .Humanitas Americana Foundation:San Angel ,Mexico. Upandhyaya,U.P. 1971. "Dravidian and Negro-African". INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL DRAVIDIAN LINGUISTICS, 5:32-64. Webster,B. 1980. "African Cattle Bones stir Scientific Debate", NEW YORK TIMES, 27 August. Wendorf,F. 1983. "Use of barley in the Egyptian late Paleolithic",
SCIENCE, 205:1341-1347. Welmers,Wm. 1971. "Niger-Congo Mande". CURRENT TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS, 7:113-140. __________ 1973. AFRICAN LANGUAGE STRUCTURES. Univ. of Calif. Press . Wiercinski,A. &R. A. Jairazbhoy. 1975. THE NEW DIFFUSIONIST,5(18):5. Wiener,Leo. 1922. AFRICA AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. PHILADELPHIA. 3 vols. Wilson,J.V.K. 1974. INDO-SUMERIAN. Oxford. Winters,Clyde Ahmad. 1977. "The influence of the Mande scripts on ancient American Writing Systems", BULL. DE L'IFAN, t 39 ser B, no.2:941-967 ____________________ 1979. "African scripts in the New World Part l", JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS VOL. 1. ____________________ 1980. "The genetic unity of Dravidian and African languages and culture". Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Asian Studies (Proc. ISAS) 1979 , (Asian Research Service: Hong Kong) vol.5: 1105-1120. ____________________ 1981. "Are Dravidians of African Origin?", PROC. 2ND ISAS,1980, vol.3:789-807. ____________________ 1981b."The African influence on Indian Agriculture", JOURNAL OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATION 3(1):100-111. ____________________ 1981c. "Mexico's Black Heritage", THE BLACK COLLEGIAN ,12(3):76-85. ____________________ 1983. "The Ancient Manding script". In BLACKS IN SCIENCE :ANCIENT AND MODERN, (ed) by Ivan Van Sertima (Transaction Books:London), Pp.208-214. ____________________ 1983b. "Les Fondateurs de la Grece venaient d'Afrique en passant par le Crete", AFRIQUE HISTOIRE, no.8:13-18. ____________________ 1983c. "Blacks in ancient China, Part l: The Founders of Xia and Shang", JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES,1(2):8-13. ____________________ 1985. "The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding, and Sumerians ", TAMIL CIVILIZATION 3(l):1-9. ____________________ 1985b. "The Indus Valley Writing and related scripts of the 3rd Millennium BC", INDIA PAST AND PRESENT ,2(1):13-19. ____________________ 1985c. "The Genetic Unity between the Dravidian, Elamite, Manding and Sumerian Languages". PROC. 6TH ISAS 1984, vol.5 :1413-1425. ___________________ 1985d. "The Far Eastern Origin of the Dravidians". JOURNAL OF TAMIL STUDIES, no.27: 65-92. __________________ 1986."Blacks in Ancient America", COLORLINES 3(2):26-27.
___________________ 1986b."The Rise of Islam in the Western Sahara", THE TOPAZ, 2(1):5-15. ___________________ 1986c. "The Migration routes of the Proto-Mande", THE MANKIND QUARTERLY, 27(1):77-96. ___________________ 1988. "The Dravidian and Manding Substratum in Tokharian ", CENTRAL ASIATIC JOURNAL, 32(1-2):131-141. __________________ 1989. "Tamil, Sumerian, Manding and the Genetic Model", International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 18(1):67-91. Wulsin, F.R. 1941. THE PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF NORTHWEST AFRICA. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol.19. Wunderlich,H.G. 1974. THE SECRET OF CRETE. New York. Zahn,D. 1974. THE BAMBARA. Leiden.
[1] Desert Secrets" Science Digest, January 1982, p.22.
