Tracking the movements and establishing the identity of peoples in the archaeological and historical records is a difficult and often ambiguous project. Physical anthropology is the best source of identification, but the early misuse of the "race concept" created overly simplistic definitions driven more by colonialism and racism than by science. Modern studies based on population genetics are much more complex and yield more ambiguous results. Historical linguistic evidence, especially names, is also used to establish group identities where historical records exist, as is often the case in Egypt and the surrounding regions. Archaeological data have been used to reconstruct the identity of ethnic groups in two ways; by characterizing artifact assemblages as culture areas, without necessarily establishing that they belong to a historically known group; and by matching groups identified in texts with an artifact assemblage. Unlike physical anthropology and linguistics, archaeological evidence is abundant and relatively easy to analyze, but all studies of this kind rest on the important assumption that a given artifact assemblage does in fact represent a cultural identity, rather than a sphere of cultural influence or culture contact—and this may or may not be true. Radical diffusionists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries favored massive movements of peoples as the engine of cultural change. Thus W. M. Flinders Petrie's "Dynastic Race" concept linked cultural achievement with racial identity in the origins of pharaonic civilization. These models have, unfortunately, been revived by some Afro-centric scholars, who otherwise rightly emphasize Egypt's African origins. Diffusion and population movements did exist in the past, but they must be carefully demonstrated. For example, the identity of Uruk colonies (c.3500 BCE) in southern Anatolia was established by using a combination of architecture, material culture, and textual evidence. In a similar way, a combination of archaeology, text, and art history has documented an Egyptian colonial presence and the diffusion (and subsequent adaptation) of certain aspects of Egyptian iconography, ideology, and institutions in Nubia and in Syria-Palestine.
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