It is named after the noted Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop , who argued that Ancient Egyptians were more closely related to Subsaharan Africans than they were to Caucasians in West Asia .
It is named after the noted Senegalese historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop . 
 He was an African Egyptologist who argued that Ancient Egyptians were more closely related to Subsaharan Africans than they were to Caucasians in West Asia .