The Mesopotamian Onion

Civilizations don’t pop out of smoke bombs like ninjas. 🥷

For generations, textbooks have told us Mesopotamia was the “Cradle of Civilization”—a miracle that appeared fully formed, disconnected from Africa, and foreshadowing Europe. This book dismantles that myth with precision and wit.

Drawing on cutting-edge genetics, archaeology, and linguistics, The Mesopotamian Onion peels back the layers of propaganda. Lazim et al.’s 2020 genetic study provides the smoking gun: red arrows tracing the migration of African peoples into Mesopotamia with mathematical certainty. The Bayes factor is 1.0—Africa, through Egypt, into the Fertile Crescent.

But the story does not rest on DNA alone. African sorghum in Sumerian beer, cattle domesticated in the Sahara, cotton threads woven in Babylon, Afroasiatic languages spoken in temples and marketplaces—all testify that Mesopotamia was nourished by Africa’s gifts. Even its so-called “isolated” elements, like Sumerian, make sense in this context of continuity, not rupture.

Told with sarcasm, scholarship, and a refusal to flatter old hierarchies, this book is both a demolition and a reclamation. It shows that Mesopotamia was not Europe’s dry run, but Africa’s northern branch.

When the smoke clears, the ancestors step forward. And they are African.