African = Black is a Modern Equation

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

The notion of race is not grounded in genetics nor is it supported by anthropological research. Instead, we should speak of ethnicities. To do that requires mention of specific populations and the regions with which they are associated. It appears that people in the ancient world understood this better than we do. They linked physical traits to the appearance of the land believed to be a population's point of origin.

This belief is reflected in Genesis where we are told that God formed Adam from the ground. Adamah (Hebrew: אדמה) refers to the ground, soil, or earth. The connection is evident in the relationship of the words human and humus. In Genesis, the Creator forms the human from the dust of the earth or from the clay. In Anthropology, the term for this belief is "autochthonous." (Autochthonous = “auto” meaning by itself + “chthonio” as in ‘chthonic’ out of the ground/earth.)

The idea of autochthonous origin of humans is found in the origin stories of many cultures. This is also linked to skin tone. Black people were thought to be created from rich black alluvial soil and red people from mineral rich red lands. These 7000-year figurines of the Butmir Culture (present day Bosnia) show both types.

The term adam is derived from the root אדם (A.D.M), which means "to be red or ruddy" (Strong’s #119). This suggests that Adam, the father of Cain and Seth, had a red skin one. Dam refers to red blood. Adamah refers to the red ground, and adam is the red man. Genesis 2:7 states that "the adam" was formed out of "the adamah" meaning this human was formed of red earth. In Swahili damu refers to blood and the word binadamu refers to a human being.

The idea of humans having an autochthonous origin is fairly universal which indicates that this is a very ancient belief. There is a general anthropological principle to the effect that the more widespread geographically a belief, custom, or culture trait, the older it is. We see this also with the 100,000-years custom of red ocher burial, and the practice of a people calling itself by a word that means "human" in their language. 

Examples include: Ainu (Northern Japan); Dene (Navajo) from an Athabaskan word meaning people or humans. The word Inuit means human. A population of ancient Anatolia called themselves the Nes, meaning humans or people. In ancient Akkadian, the word Hapiru means human being.

Sometimes the name of the people involves reduplication. That is case with the Khoekhoe of Southern Africa. The term khoe means human, and the reduplication khoe khoe makes it a plural form, humans.

Clearly, the genetic diversity of humans was explained by a connection between the people and the land where they resided. In fact, there are as many skin tones among humans as there are soil colors. 

Edom in Hebrew means red. The land of Edom was called Idumea by the Greeks. Idumea means "land of red people" and, as is shown in this photo, the land of Edom is red and reddish brown. Esau of Edom is described as red in Genesis. Genesis 36:31 notes that the Horite Hebrew rulers of Edom are said to have an older royal lineage than the Israelite kings.

Along the Nile there were red people living in the "Land of Red People." Their land was rich in the red clay that washed down from the Ethiopian highlands. These soils have a cambic B horizon. Chromic cambisols have a strong red brown color. This was the land of the Red Nubians.

There were both red and black Nubians.

The Nile Valley had both red and black soil. The black soil was alluvial, the result of the annual floods. The red soil was the mineral rich material of the wilderness regions and the chromic cambisols washed down to the Upper Nile from the Ethiopian Highlands.

The equation of "African" and "black" is a recent development. Africa has always had the greatest genetic diversity. Some of the San have a yellow skin tone. Early Nilotic populations were especially diverse with a wide range of hair types, eye colors, and skin tones. 

There were light skin rulers with red hair living along the Nile 5,800 years ago. The vast majority of hair samples discovered at the Predynastic cemetery site HK43 at Nekhen were cynotrichous (Caucasian) as opposed to heliotrichous (Negroid), according to The Nekhen News (p. 7). Samples ranged from a single hair to a complete headful, with the largest number originating from the disturbed Burial no. 16 of a female of around 35+ years of age.

Another fascinating find at Nekhen was the recovery of an almost complete beard in association with the redheaded man in Burial no. 79. The man had long wavy natural red hair and a full beard. Also found there is a figurine of Seth as a red man with the head of a hippo. 

The shrine city of Nekhen is the oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship and there were Sethite Hebrew living there also.

Related reading: Adam Was a Red Man; Horite and Sethite Mounds; The Fiction of Racial Types; The Bible and the Question of Race

Racism of Young-Earth Creationists

Alice C. Linsley

At the back of Young Earth Creationist books such as Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth by Terry Mortenson one finds the 12 Affirmations and Denials. Affirmation XII claims that the diversity of languages and skin color came about as a result of divine judgment at the Tower of Babel.

XII. We affirm that all people living and dead are descended from Adam and Eve...and that the various people groups (with their various languages, cultures, and distinctive physical characteristics, including skin color) arose as a result of God's supernatural judgment at the Tower of Babel..."

This is the easiest of the Young Earth Creationist claims to refute since the evidence of many languages and skin colors before the time of the Tower of Babel is overwhelming and cannot be denied by reasonable persons. The spread of the early written marks is an example. Other examples involve the dispersion of peoples out of Africa and studies of phoneme variance among them. A recent phoneme study has identified the Nile Valley as the point of origin of modern languages. These dispersed peoples had a range of skin color and languages and they were already widely dispersed before the time of Noah and his 3 sons.

Tera means priest in the ancient Egyptian (and in Japan). Abraham's father was Terah (Tera). This is a title, as is evident from the Petrie image above which gives tera-neter as "one devoted to God." Tera is a title associated with the Ainu, the builders of the shrine city of On (Heliopolis) on the Nile. The Harris papyrus speaks of 'apiru (Hebrew) of Re at Heliopolis. Joseph married into this royal priest line when he took Asenath as his wife. She was a daughter of the priest of On, also known as Iunu, meaning "place of pillars."

The Horite priests of Heliopolis were known for their meticulous devotion to the Creator and his son, and for their sobriety and purity of life. Plutarch wrote that the “priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry wine into their temples, for they regard it as indecent for those who are devoted to the service of any god to indulge in the drinking of wine whilst they are under the immediate inspection of their Lord and King. The priests of the other deities are not so scrupulous in this respect, for they use it, though sparingly.” 

The Nilotic Ainu had a reddish-brown skin tone and their elders wore beards, moustaches and caps with frontal knobs, just as do the Ainu elders of Japan and Eastern Canada. The Ainu spread from the Nile to Japan and to Northeastern Canada via Scandinavia. In Canada they are known as the Micmaq. They came in two waves from the Middle East to Scandinavia, then to Greenland and to the Hudson Bay area of Eastern Canada. They are in haplogroup X2b5, which is traced by maternal line and dates to about 1,550 B.C.

There is evidence that the early written signs of the Nilotic Ainu may have become the basis for the Ainu script of Japan. It is perhaps the most lasting heritage of the Ainu of whom only about 300 pure-blooded remain. This explains why the Hebrew and Japanese alphabets are so similar.

Migrations Out of Africa

The negrito Andaman and Nicobar Islanders migrated between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago from Africa and Arabia along the coastlines, and eventually crossing the seas.  The Onges and Jarawas of Andaman and Nicobar belong to Haplotype D, a subtype of Haplogroup C, which is also common in Tibet and Japan. The Ainu aboriginal people of Japan are in haplotype D (Y-chromosome) and haplogroup X (mitochondrial chromosome).

Michael Petraglia, from the University of Cambridge, found stone tools at Jwalapuram in Andhra Pradesh, in southern India that were remarkably similar to those found in the African Middle Stone Age about 100,000 years ago. He states, “Whoever was living in India was doing things identical to modern humans living in Africa.”

Thomas Strasser and his team found hundreds of tools of African origin on Crete dating to between 100,000 and 130,000 years. Others have been found on the Iranian plateaus. Ancient African artifacts have even been found in China. There is considerable tool and pottery evidence indicating prehistoric movements out of the Nile Valley.

The 20,000 year old human skeletons found at Lake Mungo in New South Wales are likely descendants of early peoples who migrated from Africa, if we follow the red ochre trail. The Lake Mungo population buried its rulers in red ochre, derived from hematite (Fe2O3). This appears to have been a common practices among ancient peoples who dispersed out of Africa. The earliest known use of red ochre powder (300,000 years) is at the site GnJh-03 in the Kapthurin Formation of East Africa, and at Twin Rivers in Zambia.

The Kushite movement out of the Nile Valley is a more recent exodus. The Kushites went as far east as the Philippine Islands. (See Kushites in Mindanao.)


The Proto-Saharans (ca. 10,000-3000 BC)

Between 10,000-3000 years ago the Sahara was much wetter. Seasonal rainfall turned the Sahara into a fertile savannah with sedentary populations. The oldest known cemetery in the Sahara (ca. 7500 B.C.) reveals "The burial density, tool kit, ceramics, and midden fauna suggest a largely sedentary population with a subsistence economy based on fishing and on hunting of a range of savanna vertebrates." The discovery was made by National Geographic photographer Mike Hettwer in 2000.

Proto-Saharan peoples fished and hunted. Ancient Sudan rock paintings show fishing nets. The much older Khormusan sites of ancient Nubia (65,000 and 55,000 years) also reveal evidence of fishing and hunting.

The Proto-Saharans navigated the interconnected rivers which were their highways and trade routes. Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, and Niger had rivers and lakes that connected to major water systems that are identifiable today, such as the Niger, the Benue, Lake Chad and the Nile. The 8000 year old Dufuna boat, a fishing dugout, was found buried in the Sahara.

The cave paintings at Gilf Kebir in the Sahara date to about 6000 BC. At that time a sizeable community lived on this vast sandstone plateau near the Egyptian-Libyan border, about 400 miles from the Nile.

The Proto-Saharans raised cattle in the Lake Chad region which was a much larger lake. They venerated cattle and left behind engravings of bulls and cows with solar disc between their horns. This image was associated with Hathor, the Virgin Queen whose son was Horus. They built the oldest known fortress city dedicated to Horus and Hathor at Nekhen (4000 BC). At archaeologists have discovered a temple, elaborate burial sites, and evidence of animal sacrifice. The rulers of Nekhen had access to sub-Saharan mineral resources of the eastern desert. The high quality of the gold work at Nekhen is evidenced by the discovery of this gold plumed falcon representing Horus.

Proto-Saharan peoples moved into the Nile Valley as the Sahara began to dry. Some would later be called "Kushites." Some crossed the Indian Ocean from East Africa and settled in southern India. These are the Dravidians. There is a close linguistic and religious connection between the Kushites and the Dravidians. The Africanist Geoffrey Parrinder has noted that at least twenty-five tribes in East Africa worship Murungu as the Supreme God, and like the Dravidian god Murugan, the African Murungu self-reveals on sacred mountains.


The Kushite Expansion (ca. 3500-1500 BC)

Genetic research indicates that the term "Kushite" embraces a wide range of peoples. Some of Abraham's ancestors came out of the Nile Valley and are referred to as Kushites in Genesis 10:6-12. Kushite in the Bible refers to the descendants of Noah by his grandson Kush. However, the term includes many people of different skin tones and languages. The Amratian "Kushites" lived about 4000-3500 BC, before the time of Noah.

The Kushites included red and black Nubians, reddish Ainu, red, white and black Canaanites, red, black and yellow Nilotes, red-brown, light brown, black and yellow Egyptians, red-brown and black Sudra, and red, white and brown Mesopotamians. The variety of skin tones is evident on ancient monument paintings in Egypt, Sudan and in the Middle East and Turkey.

Red and black Nubian captives
(Detail from Ippolito Rosellini's drawing from the 1828 Franco-Tuscan expedition to Egypt)

Genesis 10 speaks of the migration of the Kushites into Mesopotamia. The Kushite migration has been confirmed by DNA studies. The Kushites were great pyramid builders and the ziggurats were a type of stepped pyramid similar to that of Djoser at Saqqara constructed between 2667–2648 BC. No pyramids had yet been built in Sumer/Kish. The ziggurats date to the Akkadian period, about 2334–2218 BC. The earliest monarch of Sumer whose historical existence has been independently attested through archaeological inscription ruled Kish about 2700–2600 BC.

Amenhotep III ruled between about 1382 and 1350 B.C. His name means "peace of Amen" and indicates a date when Amen, a name for God was favored over the name Set, which was favored in the Delta. It was during the 18th dynasty that the title 'King's Son of Kush' was first used. The earlier known Kushite ruler was called Kashta which means "The Throne of Kush." This is about 1000 years after the construction of ziggurats, so the Kushite expansion out of Africa is one of the most recent movements out of Africa.

The Kushite expansion out of the Nile Valley is one of the later migrations out of Africa, between about 3500 and 1500 B.C. The Kushites represent a highly organized people, consisting of numerous clans and castes. Their rulers controlled the major water systems and founded early mining industries along the Nile and in southern Israel. Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder. He and his brother Ramah were the sons of Kush (Gen. 10:6-12).

The Biblical term "Kushite" refers to peoples, castes and specific culture traits that emerged from the archaic Proto-Saharans. This would include Canaanites, Hittites, Sumerians, Elamites, and the Horite Hebrew/Habiru. Among these peoples there was a wide range of skin color and a great diversity of languages. To this day, the greatest linguistic and genetic diversity exists in Africa, from which the ancestors of these peoples spread along the coastlines and by sea around 70,000 years ago.

Linguistic Diversity

There are hundreds of language families in the world. Each subdivides into hundreds of languages, dialects and sub-dialects. The most diverse of the language groups is the oldest group, the Afro-Asiatic language family. This includes Chadic, Kushitic, Ugaritic, Elamite, Semitic, Hausa, Amharic, Ethiopic, Magyar, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Babylonian, etc. There is also a linguistic connection to Dravidian and Yoruba.

All the peoples and rulers mentioned in Genesis 10 can be placed linguistically within this language family. The Bible is their story. It tells how God fulfilled the promise of the Son that was made to their ancestors in Eden (Gen. 3:15). These peoples exhibit a range of physical features so that it is impossible to speak of a "race" - a term that does not appear in the Bible. It is ignorant and groundless to assert that skin color is the result of God's judgment.

I agree with Dr. Joshua Zorn, a former young-earth creationist, who said: "The worst aspect of YECS teaching is that it creates a nearly insurmountable barrier between the educated world and the church."

Related reading: Bishop Ussher's Flawed Timeline; The Begats Speak of the First people on Earth?; The Tower of Babel; The Red-City of Petra Reflects Horite Beliefs; The Nile and Tigris Linguistically Connected; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion; The Nile-Japan Ainu Connection; A Kindling of Ancient Memory; Moses' Horite Family; Nilotic Cattle Herders; Genesis as History?

Seligman's Legacy

Seligman is at the center of a long-standing controversy. Some consider him a racist. What do you think?


Alice C. Linsley


Charles Gabriel Seligman (1873-1940) was a British physician and ethnologist whose work influenced such renown anthropologists as Bronislaw Malinoski and Evans-Pritchard. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he served as chair of Ethnology at the London School of Economics from 1913 to 1934.

Seligman did anthropological field research in Melanesia, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and among the Nilotic Shilluk of the Sudan. He speculated that the "Hamites" were pastoral Europeans who came in waves into Africa and were better armed and smarter than the agricultural Negroes they encountered in Africa. (C. G. Seligman, The Races of Africa, London, 1930, p. 96)

Today the evidence of anthropology, archaeology and molecular genetics raises serious doubt about Seligman's portrayal of the Nilotic peoples as being Negroid until they intermarried with white Europeans. Instead a picture is emerging of a prehistoric Africa with peoples of all colors, and a wide range of facial and hair types.

Rather than Europeans moving into Africa, there has been a movement of peoples back and forth between Africa and the ancient Near East, Asia, the Pacific, the British Isles, and even eastern Canada. The Nilotic peoples were sea faring and dispersed widely much earlier than is generally recognized. The peoples of the Nile were likely the first to use sails to navigate. The fact that the Nile waters flow northward while the prevailing winds blow southward, necessitated tacking.

Seligman's theory stressed the racial unity of the black Hamites, and the term "Hamite" came into use as a reference to black people, and more generally as a reference to Africa. This perpetuated the misconception that all peoples of Africa are and always have been Negroid. Seligman certainly knew this not to be the case.

Seligman recognized the common descent of the Hamites and Semites, writing that "there is no doubt that the Hamites and Semites must be regarded as modifications of an original stock, and that their differentiation did not take place so very long ago, evidence for this statement being furnished by the persistence of common cultural traits and linguistic affinities."

Seligman did not recognize that the ruling lines of these peoples practiced endogamy, making it difficult to distinguish ethnic differences between the Hamites and Semites. Scientific analysis of the Genesis King Lists reveals that the lines of Ham and Shem intermarried, so that Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus are descendants of both great Nilotic chiefs.

The marriage and ascendancy pattern of these Nilo-Saharan rulers drove expansion out of Africa into Arabia and Southern Europe.

The Hamite and Semite rulers had two wives. The first wife was a half-sister and the second wife was a patrilineal cousin or niece. The first born son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. The first born son of the patrilineal cousin bride ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. Other sons were given gifts of servants, jewelry, flocks, herds, warriors and craftsmen, and sent away to establish territories of their own. This marriage and ascendancy pattern as a driving factor in Kushite expansion should not be overlooked.

Seligman's unity with distinctions

Seligman recognized cultural commonalities among the Hamites, and that many of these same cultural traits were found among the Semites. Culturally and linguistically they have a common heritage. The unity of the Nilotic peoples is reflected in the thematic parallels in their origin narratives. These same themes are found in the Genesis creation narratives.

Seligman thought that the Negro and Hamite admixture and cultural similarities were particularly evident within the ruling classes. However, we would expect to see a pattern of unity and diversity as rulers in the ancient world worked to unify the people of their territories. Ethnicity in the ancient world was tied to the ruler. Seligman also stressed distinction between two groups that he labeled Negro-Hamitic and Nilotes.

His research was not comprehensive. It did not include in-depth study of some of the key Nilotic peoples, such as the Oromo and the Luo. However, he was an influence on Dr. Paul Baxter who until his dead in 2014, was easily the world's leading scholar on the Oromo. 

Molecular genetics 

Africa is the cradle of all moderns humans (indeed all hominids). The greatest genetic diversity has always been in Africa, and Africa remains the continent with the greatest genetic diversity. Africa is where the roots of many locus-specific phylogenies lie. Africans have a wider genetic and phenotypical diversity than all of the rest of humanity combined. Africa is also were we find the greatest linguistic diversity.

Racial categories have been rendered irrelevant by DNA studies. It has been noted, for example, that a set of twins can be born with physical features that would have been assigned to different races according to the old notion of race.

Today we more accurately speak in terms of haplogroups, clades and subclades, rather than races. Within a haplogroup there are a wide range of physical features.  For example, there were red and black Nubians.  

Were we able to test Abraham's DNA, we would likely find that he is in haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) which has a wide range of physical features. The dispersion of the R1b group is shown on the map (below). Note the bright red around Lake Chad, Noah's homeland, and the Upper Nile Valley. The R1b is also prevalent in the British Isles where Kushan peoples settled and where Horite mining experts took up residence. The Horite Hebrew rulers are listed in Genesis 36.

The highest concentration of R1b in Africa is in the Lake Chad region, Noah's homeland.

The Genesis narrative suggests that Abraham had a distinctive red skin tone that is associated with other Edomites, like Esau. Analysis of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Edomites reveals that it is identical to that of Abraham's Nilotic ancestors. This is what would be expected if Abraham is a descendant of both Ham and Shem.

The Edomites may have been kin to the red Nubians. The Shasu of Nubia also lived in Edom. The red skin tone is a more dominant trait in HG R1b.

Among the people who were ethnically "Kushite" we have a wide range of physical features, some associated with Africa and others associated with Europe. Kushite culture is evident in the construction of pyramids and the mummification of rulers. These traits are found from Niger to Southern China.  The Nilotic Kushites are kin to the European Kushan. The European Kushan are also in HG R1b.

Seligman's assumption that the city building, iron-working peoples of the Nile were white is a big stretch. My African friends call this the theory of "white black men" and laugh. Just another case of a white man assuming that the more advanced technologies must be attributed to white people.

Race itself is a non-starter, anthropologically and genetically speaking. What people looked like has no bearing on their intelligence, their technological development, or their chosen way of life. If a white person lives a simple country life by choice, this is viewed by whites as "simplicity" but if black person chooses the same way of life, whites are likely to regard that person as lacking ambition.

I try to align my thinking about human origins and diversity of peoples to the best data available. However, that involves a judgment on my part. My judgment is often flawed. That is why I often apologize to the readers for mistakes.

Related reading: The Kushite-Kushan Connection; Solving the Ainu Mystery; The Nile-Japan Ainu Connection; A Kindling of Ancient Memory; Kushites in Mindanao; When is the Evidence Sufficient?; Kushite Burial Practices

Endogamy and the Melungeons

Alice C. Linsley

The term "Melungeon" refers to an Appalachian ethnic group with distinct physical, cultural, historical and genetic characteristics. These characteristics served to set Melungeons apart from other peoples dwelling in southeastern North America from the 1500's onward.

Today most Melungeons live in Kentucky. They practiced cousin marriage over an extended period of time (in some cases 400 years). Their marriage pattern is consistent with that of Sephardic Jews, Moors and Arabians. This makes sense since they are descendants of Semitic peoples, mostly Sephardic Jews and Moors banished from Spain. Many came to the United States via France and England. Having intermarried with Native Americans and converted mainly to the Primitive Baptist religion (some with serpent veneration), the Melugeons represent an isolated and mostly forgotten people. When remembered it is usually to crack a joke about them as backward people due to in-breeding (endogamy).

In his book The Genetic History of the Jewish People Harry Ostrer notes that the Sephardic Jews who were the focus of harsh treatment in Spain during the Inquisition, were more prone to marry outside their bloodlines whereas the Ashkenazim are relatively homogeneous despite the fact that they are spread throughout Europe and immigrated to the Americas. He reports that DNA studies confirm that there is a distinctive Jewish "race" but fails to mention that the Kohen Modal Haplotype is also found among Arabs of Horite blood.

Harry Ostrer, director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine, led one of the studies that compared the genetic makeup of Jewish populations from around the world with African populations. Ostrer found that modern Jewish populations have African ancestry. This confirms the Genesis 10 information that indicates Abraham's ancestors were Nilotes and Proto-Saharans.


Here is a review of Harry Ostrer's Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People.
(Oxford University Press, 288 Pages, $24.95)

In his new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, claims that Jews are different, and the differences are not just skin deep. Jews exhibit, he writes, a distinctive genetic signature. Considering that the Nazis tried to exterminate Jews based on their supposed racial distinctiveness, such a conclusion might be a cause for concern. But Ostrer sees it as central to Jewish identity.

“Who is a Jew?” has been a poignant question for Jews throughout our history. It evokes a complex tapestry of Jewish identity made up of different strains of religious beliefs, cultural practices and blood ties to ancient Palestine and modern Israel. But the question, with its echoes of genetic determinism, also has a dark side.

Geneticists have long been aware that certain diseases, from breast cancer to Tay-Sachs, disproportionately affect Jews. Ostrer, who is also director of genetic and genomic testing at Montefiore Medical Center, goes further, maintaining that Jews are a homogeneous group with all the scientific trappings of what we used to call a “race.”

Read it all here.


Related reading:  Eastern Kentucky Language; The Bible and the Question of Race; Hebrew, Israelite or Jew?; Sub-Saharan DNA of Modern Jews; DNA Studies Confirm Mixed Ancestry of Jews; Abraham: Descendant of Both Shem and Ham