There is much evidence to suggest that a mixing of Asiatic ("near eastern") and African ("black") peoples occurred 5,000 years ago along the banks of the Nile. The Tasians and Badarians, whose methods of survival were simple farming and gathering, may have thought it practical to integrate their talents for the overall betterment of what would later become a Pharaonic "society". Note that this was during predynastic times when different tribes and peoples were not so much united, thus foreign elements were often absorbed into the general Egyptian population without regard to their "racial" origins.

The first Egyptian dynasties were from Upper Egypt, where the story is entirely different. Remains excavated from Karnak, Thebes and Aswan reveal that the population, from prehistoric times on up, had a very strong negroid element that was further enforced by repeated Nubian infiltrations. Even now, one does not have to look very hard at the modern inhabitants of Upper Egypt to find those who would be called "black" in America. This is in stark contrast to the predominantly Mediterranean (Arab) population of Cairo and Alexandria.

It cannot be denied that the foundations of Ancient Egyptian civilization were laid in the Upper Nile region, and so the ethnically Berber northern Egyptians can only be credited for so much. This is partly the reason why the debate over Egypt's racial origins is so heated; the whole of the dynastic civilization began in the south, not the north. Therefore, however "white" the Lower Egyptian people were, they owed their way of life and the Pharaonic code to their darker southern counterparts.