Part of
In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropologyEdited by John D. Bengtson
[Not in series 145] 2008
► pp. 17–23
Diachronic comparisons of dental morphology in North and East African groups shows a marked difference through time in North Africa after the end of the Pleistocene. Further comparisons with archaeologically-derived Near Eastern dental samples suggest that the temporal changes in the North African teeth were due to population replacement or admixture from the north. On this basis, it is further suggested that Afro-Asiatic was introduced into Africa along with the migrating immigrant farmers and herdsmen from the Near East 10,000 to 7,000 years ago.