[GroosteFoessy]

How specific do you want to get?

Greeks have been around for at least 3000 years, but its unclear how similar genetically modern Greeks are to ancient Greeks.

Germans and Celts have been documented as existing for over 2000 years. If Italians count as the modern-day Latins, then the Latins have been around for 2500+ years.

[vosteglog]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove What about Egyptians? I don't think that they count. AFAIK, Modern Egyptians are Arabs, while Ancient Egyptians were a completely different ethnicity. There's very little Ancient Egyptian left, if any is in fact left at all. I'm far from an expert on this topic, though. Maybe I'm wrong.

[ligaliaCods]

The Aborigene in Australia. They have no history per say, but they have been a distinct cultural and racial group for probably 10,000 years or more.

[excivaamome]

If australian natives count, then I guess basques too

[Dweplyododo]

Originally posted by GePap
The Aborigene in Australia. They have no history per say, but they have been a distinct cultural and racial group for probably 10,000 years or more. Pardon???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian

The exact timing of the arrival of the ancestors of the Indigenous Australians has been a matter of dispute among archaeologists. The most generally accepted date for first arrival is between 40,000 - 50,000 years BP. A 48,000 BC date is based on a few sites in northern Australia dated using thermoluminescence. A large number of sites have been radiocarbon dated to around 38,000 BC, leading some researchers to doubt the accuracy of the thermoluminescence technique. Some estimates have been given as widely as from 30,000 to 68,000 BC.

Humans reached Tasmania approximately 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age.

Stone tools also found at Lake Mungo have been estimated, based on stratigraphic association to be about 50,000 years old. Since Lake Mungo is in south-eastern Australia, many archaeologists have concluded that humans must have arrived in north-west Australia at least several thousand years earlier.

And I'm just going to leave the "no history" bit where I found it.

[wepoiyub]

If the question is about culture,then the Chinese (about 7000 years).

If about genes then all are equally old (unless some are not humans).

Best regards,

[Grieryaliny]

The San (Bushmen) of southern Africa live essentially according to the same cultural pattern that they did when they first moved there, and there's good reason to believe they did right around the birth of modern humanity (archaeological evidence, not least). Genetically, they and the Khoi ("Hottentots") were separated from the rest of humanity about 100 000 years ago. Thoughout most of Africa Khoisan ethnic groups have been replaced at a much later date by younger Bantu groups, or have changed their cultural patterns significantly, so I'd say the San are the winners here.

[gIWnXYkw]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Egyptians have been arabiazed, only speak arab and are muslims, even a few decades ago they attempted to create a big arab state with syria and libya.

Altough maybe the few million native egyptian christians can be considered to be real "egyptians", since a few centuries ago they still spoke copt (the native langauge of egypt), and still use it as a liturgic langauge, pretty much like catholics before the 60´s or jews before they resurrected hebrew as an every day langauge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language Sorry, but nonsense. Coptic is a dead language for over a thousand years now. It is used in the Coptic Church the same way Latin is used in Roman Catholic masses.

BTW, although Coptic was a very late form of ancient Egyptian, it was as far removed from Pharaonic Egyptian as Medieval English is to modern English.

And though modern day Egyptians may be Arabised they are still the same people that lived in ancient Egypt.

[HRS1H7gO]

Originally posted by Hueij

Sorry, but nonsense. Coptic is a dead language for over a thousand years now. It is used in the Coptic Church the same way Latin is used in Roman Catholic masses.
Latin of course was used for secular cultural purposes right up through the late 17th century (and was THE written language of western europe during the middle ages)

Similarly Hebrew, though often considered a liturgical language, was widely used for purposes ranging from science to romantic poetry in the middle ages, and to a lesser extent, iiuc, in the early modern era, before its revival in the early 19th c by the Haskalah (enlightenment) movement.

I wonder if Coptic was also used for secular purposes while being "dead" even if not for day to day speech.

[curcercanty]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Old egyptians LIGHTER than arabs? Where did you get that from? I can't remember. It's just something that got stuck in my mind from way back.

]Would any of you consider Romans to be an ethnic group? At 100 BC? At 400 AD? Difficult to say because of the many peoples that were imported in Rome. I would be inclined to say no. Perhaps in the earliest stages of its development when it was still insignificant yea, but soon afterwards lots of mixture occured. Then again what means an ethnic group to you...

[dhrishiasv]

in east africa, there was an arab migration starting in 8th century, these people became the ruling, commercial and religious elite. initially the africans were forced back into the interior, but over time the populations became mixed. although in many places there are still visible as well as cultural differences, i'm led to believe.

[embefuri]

Chinese

[chuviskkk]

Originally posted by Traianvs


Which ones, there's hundreds of different kinds of Chinese... The different dialetics of Chinese is symptomatic of the culture's age, not its youth.

[lrtoinbert]

I love this thread...

Everyone shouting "Er, that's wrong..." and "I don't think so!" and then proceeding to waffle off their own BS.

Keep it up, very entertaining!

[Sleflanna]

What would that mean, that some isolated mountain valley where eveybody's been intermarrying is "older" than a city like Paris?

[ForumMasta]

Originally posted by VetLegion
What would that mean, that some isolated mountain valley where eveybody's been intermarrying is "older" than a city like Paris? Hey, then I claim victory for my suggestion, cause the aborigenes were all alone on Australia for quite a while.

[NikkitaZ]

I put a smiley because the result of the question as you formulated it is obviousely not what the original poster had intended. Who cares about isolated islands and mountain valleys?

He obviously meant something else. I can kind of sense what, but I can't formulate the question well myself. I'm curious if anyone can.

[icerrelmCam]

Amer-Indians (Native Americans) have a history that goes back 13 to 18 thousand years at least. Some reservation situations may have preserved the ethnicity of an individual tribe into the 21st Century. Some isolated native groups in the Amazon or New Guinea may also have clean bloodlines back 20,000 or so years. However, Brachy-Pride's original examples are both cultural groups, with some intermixing with conquered locals to be taken for granted. Is this not so?