Hamites is a genus of heteromorph ammonite known from the Aptian, Albian, and Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period. The type species is Hamites attenuatus from the early Albian, named by J. Sowerby in 1811. Hamites is characterized by an uncoiled shell, with an open spiral to begin with but opening out into a deep U-shaped hook. In some species there are two 180 degree bends, so that the shell forms a paper-clip like shape. Closely related genera are Hamitella, characterized by a helically coiled shell and Planohamites, which has a flattened whorl section and a planar, open spiral shell.
It isn't certain what Hamites, or any of the other heteromorph ammonites looked like or what their ecology was. Since they were cephalopods, they were probably active and predatory, and most likely used arms to catch their food. Paleontologists are divided over whether they were benthic (bottom-dwelling) animals or planktonic ones. Certainly, their open shells made rapid swimming impossible because of how much drag they would produce.
A recent revision of the genus can be read here [1] (http://homepage.mac.com/nmonks/ammonites/Resources/hamitidae.pdf).
The term Hamites has also been applied to people believed to have descended from the sons of Ham. It became a popular name in Anthropology in the 19th and 20th century, often used to justify racist policies of colonial regimes in Africa.
The Eastern Hamites are essentially a pastoral people and therefore nomadic or semi-nomadic; the Berbers, who, as said above, are the purest representatives of the Libyans, are agriculturists.
As to the question whether the Hamites in this restricted sense are a definite race or a blend, no discussion can, in view of the paucity of evidence, as yet lead to a satisfactory conclusion, but it might.
Arab tribes seem to have repeatedly swept over the whole area of the Hamites, long before the time of Mahomet, and to have left deep impressions on races and languages, but none of these migrations stands in the full light of history (not even that of the Geez tribes of Abyssinia).
The Hamitic Myth was used as a justification for European colonial policy in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the slave trade in earlier times.
The term "Hamitic" is used for the first time in connection with languages by the German missionary Johann Ludwig Krapf (1810-1881), but with regard to all languages of Africa spoken by fl people.
In Rwanda, the Hamitic hypothesis was a racialist hypothesis created by John Hanning Speke (Gourevitch 1999) which stated that the "Hamitic" Tutsi people were superior to the "Bantu" Hutus because they were more Caucasian in appearance, and thus destined to rule over the Hutus.
Feeds |
Contact