Saturday, July 4, 2015

The Jews of West Africa?


Bronze vessel in the form of a snail shell, 9th century, Igbo-Ukwu (Wikicommons). The Igbo developed metallurgy much earlier than the rest of West Africa.

 

There has been much talk here about Chanda Chisala's article "The IQ gap is no longer a black and white issue." Much of the article focuses on the Igbo (known also as Ibo), a people who live in the Niger Delta and "are well known to be high academic achievers within Nigeria." In the United Kingdom, their children do as well in school as Chinese and Indian students:

The superior Igbo achievement on GCSEs is not new and has been noted in studies that came before the recent media discovery of African performance. A 2007 report on "case study" model schools in Lambeth also included a rare disclosure of specified Igbo performance (recorded as Ibo in the table below) and it confirms that Igbos have been performing exceptionally well for a long time (5 + A*-C GCSEs); in fact, it is difficult to find a time when they ever performed below British whites. (Chisala, 2015)

The Igbo have long been known as achievers, particularly in business. Whereas trade is largely women's work in the rest of West Africa, it is dominated by Igbo of both sexes in Nigeria.

[...] In study after study, it has been documented that the Ibo, through conflict and mobility, have been very successful in enterprise. Indeed, a major study argued that the Ibo have a very high need for achievement in the business world. Still another study showed that the majority of entrepreneurs in the sample were Ibo. (Butler, 1997, p. 178)

Sabino and Hall (1999) describe them as being “competitive, individualistic, status-conscious, antiauthoritarian, pragmatic, and practical—a people with a strongly developed commercial sense.” In colonial-era literature, they were often called "the Jews of West Africa" (see note).

Prehistory

How did the Igbo become so entrepreneurial? It's possible that their location in the Niger Delta predisposed them to be go-betweens in trade between coastal and interior peoples. Similar assemblages of glass beads, many of Egyptian origin and dating to the 9th and 14th centuries, have been recovered from the Niger Delta and eastern Mali, indicating that the Niger acted as a conduit of trade from the Atlantic coast to the Sahel and thence to the Middle East (Davison,1972; Insoll and Shaw, 1997).

Archaeological sites in the Niger Delta show that advanced economic development began much earlier there than elsewhere in West Africa. This is seen in early use of metallurgy. At one metallurgical complex, dated to 765 BC, iron ore was smelted in furnaces measuring a meter wide. The molten slag was drained through conduits to pits, where it formed blocks weighing up to 43-47 kg. The operating temperatures are estimated to have varied between 1,155 and 1,450 degrees C (Holl, 2009). Some radiocarbon dates for iron smelting in this region go back to 2000 BC (Eze-Uzomaka, 2009).

This production seems to have been in excess of local needs and therefore driven by trade with other peoples:

One aspect which can be inferred from the cylindrical slag blocks left behind is that the Lejja smelters must have had excess production of iron, and this may have led to extensive trade to far and distant places, sustained over a long period of time. (Eze-Uzomaka, 2009)

This metallurgy is unusual not only in its early date for West Africa but also in its subsequent development, which reached a high level of sophistication despite a lack of borrowing from metallurgical traditions in the Middle East and Europe. This may be seen in more than 700 artefacts of bronze, copper, and iron recovered from the Igbo-Ukwu site and dated to the 9th century AD:

They are the oldest bronze artifacts known in West African and were manufactured centuries before the emergence of other known bronze producing centers such as those of Ife and Benin. The bronzes include numerous ritual vessels, pendants, crowns, breastplates, staff ornaments, swords, and fly-whisk handles.

The Igbo-Ukwu bronzes amazed the world with a very high level of technical and artistic proficiency and sophistication which was at this time distinctly more advanced than bronze casting in Europe.

[...] Apparently the metal workers of ancient Igbo-Ukwu were not aware of commonly used techniques such as wire making, soldering or riveting which suggests an independent development and long isolation of their metal working tradition.

[...] Some of the techniques used by the ancient smiths are not known to have been used outside Igbo-Ukwu such as the production of complex objects in stages with the different parts later fixed together by brazing or by casting linking sections to join them. (Wikipedia, 2015) 

Contact with European traders

Thus, even before the first European contacts in the 16th century, the Igbo were already the focus of a network of trading relationships that extended outward from the Niger Delta. European traders became integrated into this trade network, thereby enabling the Igbo to emerge as valued middlemen in the slave trade: 

The peoples of south-eastern Nigeria have been involved in trade for as long as there are any records. The archaeological sites at Igbo-Ukwu and other evidence reveal long distance trade in metal and beads, as well as regional trade in salt, cloth, and beads at an early date. The lower Niger River and its Delta featured prominently in this early trade, and evidence is offered to suggest a continuity in the basic modes of trade on the lower Niger from c. A.D. 1500 to the mid-nineteenth century. An attempt to sketch the basic economic institutions of the Igbo hinterland before the height of the slave trade stresses regional trading networks in salt, cloth, and metal, the use of currencies, and a nexus of religious and economic institutions and persons. It is argued that while the growth of the slave trade appears to have been handled without major changes in the overall patterns of trade along the lower Niger, in the Igbo hinterland a new marketing 'grid', dominated by the Arochuku traders, was created using the pre-existent regional trading networks and religious values as a base. (Northrop, 1972)

British colonial rule

Great Britain took over Nigeria initially as part of its effort to outlaw the slave trade. Lagos was annexed in 1861 and a sphere of influence over the country was recognized in 1885 at the Berlin Conference, although a protectorate would not be proclaimed until 1901.

This new political environment favored the Igbo, whose initiative, self-discipline, and future orientation predisposed them to succeed not only in their homeland but also elsewhere in Nigeria, where they soon became dominant as merchants and civil servants. They thus took on a role like that of middleman minorities elsewhere in the empire, such as the Parsis in western India, the Chinese in Malaya, and the South Asians in East Africa. By the 1930s, one Igbo boasted that "the Ibo domination of Nigeria is a matter of time" (Ibrahim, 2000, p. 56). This trend even affected the army. By independence, 24 of the 52 senior army officers of the rank of major and above were Igbos (Ibrahim, 2000,p. 55).

This dominance led to jealousy among Nigerians in the north and west, who accused the Igbo of unfair business practices:

In the private sector they [the Hausa Muslims] are open to the exploitation of the Ibo control of the modern sector of private business activities. Ibos fix prices unilaterally by which Hausa money is siphoned daily. The Hausa are reduced to utter poverty and a large percentage of them rendered street beggars. (quoted in Ibrahim, 2000, p. 52)

According to Arthur Nwankwo (1985:9) "Nigerians of all other ethnic groups will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo", a phenomenon that Chinua Achebe had dubbed "the Igbo problem". They argue that the Igbos are more cosmopolitan, more adapted to other cultures, more individualistic and competitive, more receptive to change and more prone to settle and work in other parts of the country but the myth persists that they are aggressive, arrogant and clannish. (Ibrahim, 2000, p.55)

Independence, civil war, and the aftermath

Independence came to Nigeria in 1960, and with it growing disillusionment among many Igbo, particularly with the perceived instability and corruption of the political process. In 1966, Igbo officers staged a coup and seized control of the country, killing the prime minister and the premiers of the northern and western regions. Northern army officers then staged a countercoup, and Igbo began to flee northern cities in the wake of persecution.

The next year, in 1967, the Igbo seceded and formed their own country, the Republic of Biafra. They lost the ensuing civil war at the cost of a million civilian deaths and a devastated homeland. Nonetheless, they are today building on "the remarkable Igbo economic and commercial élan that has occurred since the end of the civil war" (Ibrahim, 2000, p. 56).

Yet mistrust remains: "the North and the West have a deep-seated mistrust of the Igbo and so are bent on restricting, containing, and denying the Igbo their political right. Added to this is their subtle message to other minority groups: the Igbo, as a group, are not to be trusted!" (Abidde, 2004). This mistrust is founded on a not unjustified perception that the Igbo will prevail on any level playing field:

Collectively, the Igbo are wealthy, educated, and intelligent. These are people with global influence, strength of character, élan and self confidence. The Igbo nation has attributes most other Nigerian nations can only dream of; and are what most other nations are not. The Igbo made and makes Nigeria better. Any wonder then that the Igbo can do without Nigeria; but Nigeria and her myriad nationalities cannot do without the Igbo? Take the Igbo out of the Nigeria equation, and Nigeria will be a wobbling giant gasping for air! (Abidde, 2004)

Today, there is growing recognition in Nigeria that the Igbo can and should be given more political and economic power, but there is still a fear that they will use such power selfishly and not for the good of all Nigerians.

Conclusion

Chanda Chisala uses the Igbo example to refute the "hereditarian-HBD" argument. In doing so, he comes closer to the HBD position than he may realize. Recent work on gene-culture coevolution has shown that the average mental makeup of human populations can change significantly over a short span of historical time. This notably seems to have happened with the Ashkenazi Jews and the English between the Middle Ages and the 19th century (Clark et al., 2007; Cochran et al., 2006).

Why couldn't a similar process have happened with the Igbo? Why assume that sub-Saharan Africa is a monolith whose diverse populations have evolved in exactly the same way? We know that human genetic evolution didn't slow down with the coming of culture. It actually sped up (Hawks et al., 2007). For the most part, we humans have diversified genetically in response to differences in cultural environment and not to differences in natural environment. It is therefore plausible that the different cultures of Africa have had different effects on the gene pools of their respective populations.

I can hear the answer to my question: "You guys are the ones who think all blacks are alike!" Well, that isn't what I think.

On a final note, I couldn't help noticing the many commenters who complimented Chanda on sticking it to the HBD crowd. Don't they understand the logical contraposition? If it can be shown that some African groups have higher cognitive ability, doesn't the converse become plausible and even expectable?

Note

It may be that a similar sort of nickname had evolved into the word "Igbo" itself: "[...] some Ibo claim that the word "Hebrew" must have been mutilated to "Ubru" or "Ibru," then to "Uburu," and later to "Ibo."" (Butler, 1997, pp. 177-178). This is plausible, given that the Igbo initially had a weak sense of collective identity and may not have had a native name for themselves, thus inclining them to take a name given by outsiders. There are examples of this sort of thing elsewhere in Africa. The Tukulor of Senegal, for instance, were originally called the "two colors" by European travellers because some of them were light-skinned and others dark-skinned. 

References 

Abidde, S.O. (2004). The Nigerian Presidency and the Igbo Nation, Gamji
http://www.gamji.com/article3000/NEWS3755.htm 

Butler, J.S. (1997). Why Booker T. Washington was right. A reconsideration of the economics of race," in T.D. Boston (ed.) A Different Vision: African American economic thought, Volume 1, (pp. 174-193), Psychology Press
https://books.google.ca/books?id=WMwRwp9QImAC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false  
Chisala, C. (2015). The IQ gap is no longer a black and white issue, The Unz Review, June 25
http://www.unz.com/article/the-iq-gap-is-no-longer-a-black-and-white-issue/

Clark, G. (2007). A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford. 

Cochran, G., J. Hardy, and H. Harpending. (2006). Natural history of Ashkenazi intelligence, Journal of Biosocial Science, 38, 659-693.
http://harpending.humanevo.utah.edu/trial.link/Ashkenazi.pdf

Davison, C.C. (1972). Glass beads in African archaeology: Results of neutron activation analysis, supplemented by results of X-ray fluorescence analysis, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California


Eze-Uzomaka, P. (2009). Iron and its influence on the prehistoric site of Lejja, World of Iron Conference
https://www.academia.edu/4103707/Iron_and_its_influence_on_the_prehistoric_site_of_Lejja 

Hawks, J., E.T. Wang, G.M. Cochran, H.C. Harpending, and R.K. Moyzis. (2007). Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A., 104, 20753-20758.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/5761823_Recent_acceleration_of_human_adaptive_evolution/file/9c9605240c4bb57b55.pdf 

Holl, A. F.C. (2009). Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy, Journal of World Prehistory, 22, 415-438
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Augustin_Holl/publication/226180393_Early_West_African_Metallurgies_New_Data_and_Old_Orthodoxy/links/00b7d52d503ee77a4c000000.pdf  
Ibrahim, J. (2000). The transformation of ethno-regional identities in Nigeria, in A. Jegga (ed.) Identity Transformation and Identity Politics Under Structural Adjustment in Nigeria, (pp. 41-61), Nordic Africa Institute.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=fUWLQv8-H70C&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Insoll, T. and T. Shaw. (1997). Gao and Igbo-Ukwu: Beads, interregional trade, and beyond, African Archaeological Review, 14, 9-23
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02968364 

Northrup, D. (1972). The growth of trade among the Igbo before 1880, The Journal of African History, 13,217-236.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3234276&fileId=S0021853700011439

Sabino, R. and J. Hall. (1999). The path not taken: Cultural identity in the interesting life of Olaudah Equiano, MELUS, 24, 5-19. 

Wikipedia. (2015). Archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_Igbo-Ukwu

19 comments:

  1. An outcome of genetic colonisation of whites, which is celebrated by every shade of opinion and increasing in the UK at an ever accelerating rate rate: Chuka Umunna. He withdrew from contest to be to be next labour leader. But note he was one of the viable candidates. White mother from upper class family/ Ibo father (white mother/ black father gives higher IQ than white father / black mother of course.

    Him or someone like him will be prime minister within a few decades, rely on it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fourth doorman of the apocalypseJuly 4, 2015 at 12:59:00 PM EDT

    Recent work on gene-culture coevolution has shown that the average mental makeup of human populations can change significantly over a short span of historical time.

    In my opinion, most people simply do not understand what this actually means.

    R = H^1 * S!

    While the population may respond by changing its average mental makeup, a large proportion of the lineages that existed before the change will have gone extinct in order to flush bad combinations of genes out of the population.

    That is to say, if you are in one of those populations that currently has lower average cognitive skills, your population can, over several tens of generations (depending on the severity of the selection) increase its average by one SD, but you and your siblings and relatives might have no descendants in the final population.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fourth doorman of the apocalypseJuly 4, 2015 at 1:00:00 PM EDT

    That should have been R = H^2 * S!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some radiocarbon dates for iron smelting in this region go back to 2000 BC (Eze-Uzomaka, 2009).

    How can we be sure that it was the same people? Could there have been significant population replacement since?

    ReplyDelete
  5. white mother/ black father gives higher IQ than white father / black mother of course

    Why?

    Him or someone like him will be prime minister within a few decades, rely on it

    Most British people are white. Why would they vote for someone of African ancestry to be their leader?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm sorry to say but you got fooled by yet another African Fraud that White people miraculously wants to believe is accurate. The following is the comment I left on Unz's site a minute ago but hasn't been published yet.

    Chanda Chisala's data points do not corroborate one another and in fact conflicts heavily. More damningly, he didn't even bother to even convincingly fake some of the so-called "data". For example Figure 6 has the Luganda's passing at 75% in 2009, only to drop to 33% in 2010 and then rise back to 83% in 2011. Or the laughable 100% Igbo pass rate in 2009. Or the 0% for the Lingala in 2009 only to dramatically rise to 50% in 2010.

    Table 7 prepared by another black African has purported national averages that do not even match up with the Grauniad.

    Instead of posting questionable snippets of even more questionable data, you might as well go direct to the source.

    http://www.ukcat.ac.uk/App_Media/uploads/pdf/UKCAT%20Annual%20Report%20Final%20Low%20Res.pdf

    Standardized cognitive test administered annually to all medical students (not some dodgy power point put together in 5 minutes).

    Page 13

    UK White mean - 2737.96 with a standard deviation of 268.15
    UK Black mean - 2430.79

    Slightly more than a full standard deviation in cognitive means with a sufficiently representative national sample size. Anyone who actually double checked Chanda's so-called data should have instantly seen bullshit, but it appears that no one actually did.

    ReplyDelete
  7. QUOTE AVERAGE JO "Most British people are white. Why would they vote for someone of African ancestry to be their leader?"

    Until recently most of the USA was whit also over 90% White until a couple of decades ago. Now they have a black president and the majority of children are not White. Already the majority of children in cities like London are not White too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Recent work on gene-culture coevolution has shown that the average mental makeup of human populations can change significantly over a short span of historical time."

    In the case of Islam it has turned the birthplace of civilizations into low IQ inbred clans.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I am undoubtedly drastically oversimplifying, but it seems to me that higher intelligence is a pretty good proxy of historic population density.

    Survival & reproduction in a thinly populated region, especially in a warm climate, doesn't seem to require a very high IQ. But thriving among large numbers of people, with complicated economic & political structures definitely rewards smarts.

    Has the historic Igbo region been densely populated & civilized for a relatively long time, compared to other African areas?

    ReplyDelete
  10. An important article. Blacks are, on average, smarter than whites, but the media suppresses this information. I quote from an article from one of the braves who have no fear of writing about this theory:

    "The information presented above suggests that African born blacks residing in western countries as a group possess IQs that are between 5 points and a full standard deviation (15 IQ points) above that of whites living in these countries."

    http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=528:race-intelligence-and-iq-are-blacks-smarter-than-whites&Itemid=360

    So blacks are even smarter than north asians. We can see this by the many new engineering, science and medicine students of black descent in the US. 3/4 of Google is already black. I predict that Africa will be the new superpower in 2100, with more than 9/10 of all technological advances coming out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. "3/4 of Google is already black"

    Where's your Proof?

    ReplyDelete
  12. "3/4 of Google is already black."

    mashable.com/2014/05/28/google-employee-demographics

    "I predict that Africa will be the new superpower in 2100, with more than 9/10 of all technological advances coming out of it."

    No, it won't. It will revert back to a sedentary society.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Dr Frost,

    Incidentally, the same region you discussed (South-Eastern Nigeria) is the homeland of Igbo(id) people notable, in the midst of pre-literate societies, for their native proto-writing system - Nsibidi - which dates back to approx. 400 CE. See:

    Christopher Slogar, Early Ceramics from Calabar, Nigeria: Towards a History of Nsibidi, African Arts Spring 2007, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 18-29

    ReplyDelete
  14. Igbos of Nigeria are the most intelligent people in the world as stipulated by most recent gathered statistics.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Which tests revealed 2000BC? Still fighting the
    Hamitic hypothesis.

    Better to stick to the factual, than to speculations. The Igbo or Ibo or Jews of Africa have high IQs, and don't try to support with archaelogical evidence that is at best speculative.

    ReplyDelete
  16. To you black Americans. Enough of this igbo isrealites bullshit. You know nothing about nigeria. first of all, it's true that the igbos are the smartest tribe in nigeria but that's only due to their population size. it's actually the edo people of nigeria that are the smartest in my opinion. despite their population size, they always rank at the top both in nigeria and abroad. some of the smartest kids in the world are nigerian (edo).

    The picture of the snail shell you have above does not even Belong to the igbos. this is why I say you know nothing about nigeria. it belongs to the edo's. It was stolen from them by the igbos. Now, they say it is theirs.

    The edo people of nigeria were anciently known for their sculptings which used ivory. No other tribe or civilization bested their sculptings; only Egypt's rivaled it. You can go an Google about the benin empire. it was the edo's that were the first to establish a civilization in nigeria. The first to also have a city that wasn't influenced by the white man's interference.

    Most of nigeria's great history comes from the people of benin. Not igbos. All they did in history was steal, why do you think other tribes aren't fond of them.

    So get off this stupid mindset about igbos being jews cos it's seriously stupid. Worry about yourselves.

    -from an igbo man ebuka Chikwendu Ikenga

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What you are saying does not make sense. You must not comment on a topic you know nothing about

      Delete
    2. Mr. Anonymous who chose to identify himself at the end of his skewed write-up as Igbo. You reek of biased and lies. Simply put, you are edoid trying to blackmail Igbos, its not so difficult to figure that out. Observers already knows Igbos are envied in their country.

      Delete
  17. "white mother/ black father gives higher IQ than white father / black mother of course"

    "Why?"

    A simple reason is IQ is dependant on a lot of SNP (single genes) and probably a lot of the combinations of genes.
    Mothers pass an X gene that is larger than the Y gene passed by fathers.
    This imply mothers with higher IQ have more probabilities to pass more high IQ genes than fathers with high IQ.
    On the reverse, having more genes to pass and every genes adding just a little to the total IQ, females IQ tend to be distributed on a shorter range (less high IQ and less low IQ) than males.

    ReplyDelete