Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

May 11, 2001, vol. 292, no. 5519, pp. 1151–53). Interestingly, statistical genealogical studies separate from genetics
indicate that the most recent common ancestor of all people alive today was much more recent than Mitochondrial Eve,
and Y-Chromosomal Adam, probably within the past few thousand years (e.g., Douglas L. T. Rohde, Steve Olson, and
Joseph T. Chang, “Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans,” Nature, 30 Sept. 2004, vol. 431, pp.
562–65). Such a more recent common ancestor is consistent with the 200,000 year ago Mitochondrial Eve who was the
most recent unbroken matrilineal ancestor.
In one of the BBC episodes, the presenter, Alice Roberts, who is also a lecturer in anatomy at the University of
Bristol, explains that a “complex-looking DNA-based ‘family tree’ shows how twenty-firstcentury Europeans,
Australians and the rest can all be traced back to the same black African population.” 13 Roberts further explains, with
refreshing candor, that “‘population’ . . . is the word we should be using instead of ‘race.’ I wouldn’t use the word ‘race.’
Biologically, it doesn’t make sense. It’s a bizarre mismatch of concepts: culture, history. . . . Genetically, a white
Scandinavian and someone from sub-Saharan Africa are very similar. In fact, humans have less variation genetically than
chimpanzees. It makes you realize that all the historical attitudes towards different races are scientifically
meaningless.” 14
The genetic evidence, bolstered by more recent refinements, 15 lends support to the Out of Africa Eve hypotheses for
human migration, as opposed to the Multi-Regional hypothesis. In a book accompanying the BBC show, Roberts cites
the work of the Oxford professor Stephen Oppenheimer, who describes the Out of Africa Eve story of humankind as
going something like this:
Homo Sapiens, modern humans, lived ca. 160,000 BC with the earliest mt-DNA and Y-chromosome ancestors
found in East Africa. Four groups of hunter-gatherers travelled out southwest towards the Congo and west to the
Ivory Coast, south towards the Cape of Good Hope, and northeast towards the Nile. Around 125,000 BC one group
moved northwards down the Nile and into the Levant, but due to a climatic upheaval around 90,000 BC this group
died out. A global freeze turned the Levant and North Africa into extreme desert. Around 85,000 BC another group
crossed the entrance of the Red Sea in the south and into the Arabian Peninsula to reach the Indian sub-continent.
They then spread to Indonesia and reached southern China by 75,000 BC. By ca. 65,000 BC they had spread to
Borneo and Australia. Warmer climatic condition around 50,000 BC allowed a group to move again northwards
through the Levant, cross the Bosporus and reach Europe. By 25,000 BC the ancestors of the Native Americans
crossed the Bearing land bridge into Alaska and then spread into North America. By 10,500 BC they had spread also
into South America. Between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago the Levant group moved back into the now-green
Sahara. 16
We can note that what remains to be explained is anomalous evidence for the later parts of that story, such as the fact
that archaeological evidence for dating the earliest South Americans keeps moving back in time, which indicates that they
may have crossed the oceans by boats, for example. In addition, Roberts’s story is a mixture of the genetic,
archaeological, and anthropological evidences, all of which are subject to new results and improvements. Yet some
version of the basic Out-of-Africa-Eve view—that all humans alive today share one female ancestor from Africa who
lived roughly two hundred thousand years ago—is the currently prevailing notion among scientists. It is possible, then,
that while this human journey was going on, the early modern humans of east Africa moved northward into Chad and
settled in the Tibesti-Ennedi highlands. From there, perhaps around 9000 BCE, they started moving north again into the
then inviting, green Egyptian Sahara, probably going first to the Gilf Kebir and Uwainat mountain region, then slowly
spreading east and northeast toward the Nile. Another group moved westward from central Africa into the green Tenere
Sahara of Niger as well as into the fertile Aïr Mountains farther west. It is possible that around 8000 BCE these blackskinned
people in the Egyptian Sahara encountered an incoming Mediterranean group that had returned to North Africa
from Europe via the Levant. This may perhaps explain why Romuald Schild and Fred Wendorf of the CPE found in the
skeletal remains at the prehistoric cemetery of Gebel Ramlah near Nabta Playa two racial groups, one made up of sub-
Saharan Black pastoralists and the other of Mediterranean or North African ethnology. 17 Then, starting around 5000
BCE, as the Sahara became drier, these people began moving out of the desertified regions. Finally, by 3500 BCE, the
desert became superarid and forced them to migrate eastward into the Nile Valley. If this is true—and it does very much
appear to be the case—then the origins of the ancient Egyptians are rooted in a black-skinned race of sub-Saharan