Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1057 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Thu 18 Jan 2007 17:46 Post subject:
Many people seem to be unaware of the large diversity of physical characteristics among sub-Saharans, even when viewed on a broad scale. The Bantu-speakers look different from the Khoisan, who look different from the Ethiopians, who look different from West Africans from just south of the Sahara (like the Fulani), and so on.
Many people seem to be unaware of the large diversity of physical characteristics among sub-Saharans, even when viewed on a broad scale. The Bantu-speakers look different from the Khoisan, who look different from the Ethiopians, who look different from West Africans from just south of the Sahara (like the Fulani), and so on.
Quote:
Egypt in Africa, Theodore Clenko, Editor (1996), pp. 104-105
The Diversity of Indigenous Africans
Professor S. 0. Y. Keita
Department of Biological Anthropology
Oxford University
The living peoples of the African continent are diverse in facial characteristics, stature, skin color, hair form, genetics, and other characteristics. No one set of characteristics is more African than another. Variability is also found in "sub-Saharan" Africa, to which the word "Africa" is sometimes erroneously restricted. There is a problem with definitions. Sometimes Africa is defined using cultural factors, like language, that exclude developments that clearly arose in Africa. For example, sometimes even the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea) is excluded because of geography and language and the fact that some of its peoples have narrow noses and faces. However, the Horn is at the same latitude as Nigeria, and its languages are African. The latitude of 15 degree passes through Timbuktu, surely in "sub-Saharan Africa," as well as Khartoum in Sudan; both are north of the Horn. Another false idea is that supra-Saharan and Saharan Africa were peopled after the emergence of "Europeans" or Near Easterners by populations coming from outside Africa. Hence, the ancient Egyptians in some writings have been de-Africanized. These ideas, which limit the definition of Africa and Africans, are rooted in racism and earlier, erroneous "scientific" approaches. Classical European writers ("eyewitnesses") are not very helpful either, since they were not working within modern science. Ancient Greeks made a distinction between Egyptians and "Ethiopians," but such a distinction does not mean that the ancient Egyptians were not Africans. Also, it is not clear whether the distinction was actually sometimes more cultural than biological. Curiously, some Greeks reported that Egypt was an Ethiopian colony.
There is a stereotyped image in the minds of many people about what a "real" African looks like, or what characteristics can be "authentically" African. This stereotype also affects scientists, as noted with candor by Professor Jean Hiernaux (1975:54).
Stereotyped concepts of African human biology seem to persist because of a failure to integrate the facts of paleontology, genetics, and ecology into an interpretive framework based on evolutionary principles. This failure has led some scholars erroneously to explain that diversity in Africa is mainly the result of "true Africans" intermarrying with invaders or colonists from Europe and Asia. Hence, the eye fold, yellow skin, and hair form of most Khoisan speakers were once explained as the result of a very ancient mixing of "Mongoloids" with "true Africans." The narrow noses and faces of many Tutsi were seen as the result of "Caucasian," and ultimately European, admixture. What is wrong with these explanations, given that "intermarriage" does take place, producing people with "variable" features? The answer is straightforward, although multifaceted. First, the explanations are mainly the result, erroneous theories that postulated that humans had evolved into distinct non-overlapping types at some point in the past. This required explaining all variation as a product of the blending of these types. This perspective largely predates modern understanding, yet it persists to some degree! Secondly, there are no adequate data supporting the massive invasions of Africa required by these explanations, especially those that imply that some groups resident in Africa are not African in origin.
The diversity of Africans, which includes ancient Egyptian; and Berber speakers, is real and largely indigenous. An evolutionary perspective helps us understand why. Modem Homo sapiens have lived in Africa longer than anywhere else, according to most scholars. This length of time means that more random genetic mutations, the ultimate source of genetic variation, have accumulated in Africa. Furthermore, Africa is climatically and ecologically diverse. This favors diversification by Darwinian selection. The continent is large, which allows great movements and fissioning of populations. This promotes random genetic variation, since small portions of larger populations rarely accurately represent the range of genetic variation in a larger group, whether it is ancestral or exists at the same time.
Molecular data suggest that the early modern human population began to divide between 150,000 to 115,000 years ago. This fissioning would have taken place in Africa. Modern human fossils dated to about 90,000 years ago are found outside Africa, but the next genetic fissioning is believed to have occurred after this, perhaps about 70,000 years ago (Bowcock et al. 1991). Modern human remains in Asia, including Australia, are dated after this period, and in Europe, to around 35,000 years ago. Why are these data important? Because they indicate that the background genetic variation of Europeans, Oceanians, and Asians originated in Africa and precedes in time the presence of modern humans in these areas. Europeans and Asian-Australians did develop more unique genetic profiles over time, but had a common background before their average "uniqueness" emerged. This background is African in a bio-historical sense. Therefore, it should not be surprising that some Africans share similarities with non-Africans.
The alternative to this explanation would be that a population of genetically uniform individuals left Africa before or between 100,000 and 90,000 years ago, evolved into ancestral Europeans, Oceanians, and Asians, and then returned at some point to Africa. This would then account for certain resident Africans having genetic characteristics only found in Africa, and others being similar to non-Africans. The various kinds of data do not support this scenario. No part of Africa was initially populated from Eurasia-Australia in the time frames given, nor to any great degree in the last 15,000 years, in the sense of different populations replacing each other. This does not mean that the relatively recent historic movements of Europeans and Near Easterners did not probably have some impact on northern African gene pools. However, it may be difficult to determine which genetic variants are not indigenous to northern Africa.
It is important to note that a small amount (one to five percent) of sustained migration, generation after generation, into a population can alter its genetic character in a few thousand years, assuming that the migrants freely intermarry. This is not the same as a new population coming in and displacing, exterminating, or reproducing in greater numbers than the locals. However, both can have the same genetic results. Historical genetic analyses and hypotheses are made more difficult when newcomers may be only slightly different genetically.
"Hamitic hypothesis" is the name given to the migration theory developed by Seligman (Sanders 1969). This theory postulated that "Hamites" migrated to Africa from the Near East bringing new languages, superior genes, and culture and influencing the indigenous people. Hamites were seen as lost Europeans. Hamites allegedly peopled Northern Africa and influenced other regions. Narrow noses and faces, lighter skin, straighter hair, certain lifestyles, and political systems were attributed to Hamites, such that wherever these were found, "Hamitic blood" was alleged to be the source. This is all now known to be untrue. The so-called Hamitic languages are part of a family called Afroasiatic or Afrasian (formerly Hamito-Semitic), which originated in Africa. Only one branch, called Semitic, is spoken outside of Africa.
Admixture with non-Africans probably does not explain the bulk of the variation from Algeria to South Africa, although northern Africa was more affected in this regard. At the DNA level great African continent-wide diversity preceded the minor European and Near Eastern migrations of later Holocene times. There may have been some migration during the Neolithic Period, although Neolithic Northern African sites do not, in the main, look like the work of European or Near Eastern settler colonists. Even "new" "non-African" genes would be subject to the human and physical environment of Africa and hence would be reworked, thereby becoming a part of African biohistory, just as recent tropical African genes have been processed in Greece, Sicily and Portugal. In any case, it is important to reiterate that Africa equals diversity. Evolutionary theory predicts and extrapolations from molecular analyses and skeletal remains all indicate an early and ongoing diversity in the indigenous populations of Africa. The implication of this is that terms like "Negro," "Caucasian," "Hamite," etc., are misleading and non-scientific as applied to Africa.
References cited:
Bowcock, A., J. Kidd, J. Mountain, Herbert, and L. Cavalli-Sforza, Drift, admixture, and selection in human evolution: a study with DNA polymorphisms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) 88:839-853, (1991)
Hiernaux, Jean, The People of Africa. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, (1975)
Sanders, E., The Hamitic hypothesis: Its function and origins in time perspective. Journal of African History, 10:521-532, (1969)
Many people seem to be unaware of the large diversity of physical characteristics among sub-Saharans, even when viewed on a broad scale. The Bantu-speakers look different from the Khoisan, who look different from the Ethiopians, who look different from West Africans from just south of the Sahara (like the Fulani), and so on.
Genetic diversity, too. There is far more genetic variation within sub-Saharan Africa than around the rest of the planet combined. This is because only a relatively few families crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb about 70 kya to colonize the rest of the planet.
I am well aware of the diversity. I also am aware there is no population in Africa quite like the Jarawa, Great Andamanese, Sentinelese, Onge, or the extinct Jangil. I also know that the phenotypes of the Olmec are well represented in Native American populations.
Many people seem to be unaware of the large diversity of physical characteristics among sub-Saharans, even when viewed on a broad scale. The Bantu-speakers look different from the Khoisan, who look different from the Ethiopians, who look different from West Africans from just south of the Sahara (like the Fulani), and so on.
Genetic diversity, too. There is far more genetic variation within sub-Saharan Africa than around the rest of the planet combined. This is because only a relatively few families crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb about 70 kya to colonize the rest of the planet.
A question I had though was this. Does higher genetic variation necessarily imply higher phenotypic variation? It seems to me Eurasia present a larger variation of phenotypes which of course are dominated by a very small fraction of the genotype. At least in certain elements it does seem there is more variation.
Does higher genetic variation necessarily imply higher phenotypic variation? It seems to me Eurasia present a larger variation of phenotypes which of course are dominated by a very small fraction of the genotype. At least in certain elements it does seem there is more variation.
Good question. In anthro lab, I was taught how to distinguish a European skull from an east Asian skull from a sub-Saharan skull, implying that all sub-Saharan skulls are alike. And I recall that Relethford wrote something on skin-color variation being greater in sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps others have looked at height, stockiness, earlobe shape, etc.
As Jaime implies, my gut-feel also is that East Asians look more different from Tamils or from Europeans than, say, Somalis differ from Nigerians. But that may just be due to my conditioning, having been raised in the New World with its unique colonization history. I guess you would have to define measurable features and then measure their variation. Surely, craniofacial anthropometrist Carleton Coon must have said something about that.
When describing faces, Europeans tend to mention hair color, length, and texture as well as eye color--characteristics in which Europeans show wide variation--while Africans single out hair position, eye size, and the appearance of the eyebrows, chin, and ears. In other words, when identifying faces, we tend to look for the features in which our own group shows the most variation.
Joined: 30 Mar 2005 {Posts: 1057 } Location: New Jersey
Posted: Fri 19 Jan 2007 16:14 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
William wrote:
Many people seem to be unaware of the large diversity of physical characteristics among sub-Saharans, even when viewed on a broad scale. The Bantu-speakers look different from the Khoisan, who look different from the Ethiopians, who look different from West Africans from just south of the Sahara (like the Fulani), and so on.
Genetic diversity, too. There is far more genetic variation within sub-Saharan Africa than around the rest of the planet combined. This is because only a relatively few families crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb about 70 kya to colonize the rest of the planet.
Frank and I had a discussion once about how silly the mtDNA nomenclature is, in that it is very Eurocentric. The people who have the highest genetic diversity on the planet -- sub-Saharans -- are all lumped into the "L" category, with the exception of some M1's in eastern Africa.
Jaime: That "Egypt in Africa" article you posted is excellent!
I'd say that if one was raised in a culture that emphasizes certain physical attributes that are considered important in differentiating populations, that always stays with them to a certain extent, no matter how objective one tries to be.
Joined: 04 Oct 2006 {Posts: 211 } Location: CT/U.S.A.
Posted: Wed 24 Jan 2007 22:09 Post subject:
fwsweet wrote:
Quote:
This is pointless. First you claim that you never said it. Then you claim that you said because of their complexion, not because their culture/ethnicity. Then you say that you capitalize the label only when you mean "culture/ethnicity," not when you mean mere color. And yet you capitalize the label throughout.
Sankofa has one hour to convince me that he is not just being obstructive.
It is pointless because I'm not going to argue with you.
I provided you with evidence from my first posting on this thread that proves I initially didn't say they were "Black" and that you made an assumption by taking one sentence (more like one word) from of my entire 1st posting out of context, successfully conflating two seperate posts with one statement. It's partially my fault because initially I didn't catch it until after it strayed way off topic.
I even provided my reasoning and usage of the terms black (in my own definition, as cited in the Rules that you love to throw in people's faces), as in color and "Black", as in ethinicity/"race"/culture; yet, you failed to understand it and instead chose to imply my post is a contradiction. In plain, written SAE (Standard American English) I'll address it for clarification one more time. When I write/use the word black, without quotations and uncapitalized, I'm referring to the actual color. When I use the term "Black", both capitalized and within quotations, I'm referring to ethinicity/"race"/culture. Now, please re-read my posts beginning with the first one and the problem should be resolved.
And then you say I have an hour to convince you that I'm not being obstructive?? WOW! I guess answering your question(s) trumps me taking care of the Exchange servers for the Judicial Branch for the state of Connecticut because Frank says I have to answer his question within an hour's time??!! sigh
You will not put words in my mouth. I answered your question(s) and even provided facts and a link to support William's assumptions about sub-saharan mtDNA being found in Pacific peoples and/or Oceania. That's it! You chose to get hung up on certain words or terms that don't fit into your definitions or perceptions of those meanings. I explained or tried to explain my position and reasoning and it still fell on deaf ears.
Quote:
1. Do you consider the Andamaners to be "Black" (or "black") in any way? Please answer "yes" or "no."
2. If "yes," is this because of their (A) complexion or (B) their culture/ethnicity? Please answer A or B.
Well, I'll play your game and make it extremely easy.
1. Yes, I consider them to be black and/or "Black" because of obvious reasons. That doesn't mean they have to label themselves as such.
2. Yes and No. Yes, because of their complexion and because of where they originated from. No, because they OBVIOUSLY have a complete different way of life and/or culture than ANY "Blacks", self-identified or not, that I've ever met in my life.
fwsweet wrote:
Quote:
I do not classify people against their will. I accept whatever designation anyone applies to himself or herself. As far as I know, they consider themselves Andaman Islanders.
As far as you know they call themselves Andaman Islanders? That's funny because you very well [should] know that isn't a name (Andaman Islanders or Andamanese or Great Andamanese or "Negrito" or "Negrillio") that they gave to themselves. That is/was an imposed identity that they themselves didn't create. They don't speak English so that was a name that was given to them after their islands were "discovered" (renamed). These people have lived in isolation for tens of thousands of years, so only an outsider could have come up with that name and made it stick.
Now...What group of people are notorious for going around the world renaming people, places and things? Hmmm, that's a hard one to answer right there, isn't it? I wonder who that can be?
fwsweet wrote:
Quote:
Absolutely not. They look like Andaman Islanders.
Oh really? If so, then why did you assume they all looked like the Khoisan until Jaime provided documented evidence that they didn't, as you have already admitted? So is it safe to assume that you would have thought the pics I provided via the link were of people of present-day and/or recent African origin had it not been for Jaime's succeeful refutiation of your original hypothesis?
And looks are subjective to the eye of the beholder. What you see isn't necessarily what somebody else sees and that doesn't mean one is better than the other...it just is what it is.
fwsweet wrote:
Quote:
That is probably due to your inexperience or your lack of overseas travel.
There you go assuming again...and your wrong as the day long...again! For your information, Frank, I'm very well travelled. I am a military brat, so I've lived around a bunch of different peoples and have no problems with diversity. Two examples: Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and Ft. Meade, Maryland are just two of the American military bases I've lived on and gone to school during my adolescent years. Sorry to disappoint you. I guess YOU'VE met some of these people and/or have travelled to the very isolated Andaman Islands before? If not, then you're hypothesis is no different from mine because we can only go by what our eyes see in this regard.
Besides that, I grew up around indigenous Africans from all over the African continent and know there are differences between tribes and/or countries/customs. Hell, my son's mother is from Ghana and is of the Ewe tribe. I have first hand knowledge of Africa and Africans, is the point I'm making here.
You do a lot of assuming for someone who is supposed to be a scholar and an educator, not to mention, you misinterpret posts that are written in Lay-men's terms as if to say it is beneath you or something. Either way, it is unattractive and very uncool.
fwsweet wrote:
Quote:
Absolutely not! I never refer to anyone by any label except a label that I know is self-chosen by the person himself/herself. Never! To do so would be insulting and demeaning. In some places it would be suicidal.
Really? Then why are you always defending Powell and her essays on "White" people "passing" for who they really are?? Would you get upset if someone assumed you were "White"?
fwsweet wrote:
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Then you show deeper ignorance than I could have ever imagined.
Sounds like an attack to me, but I'll try not to cry too hard.
Why don't you deal with what I have presented instead of getting hung up on my personal usage of the terms "Black" (ethinicity/"race"/culture) and black (the color) as I define them. You didn't even address the content of my post, only what you wanted to see and you chose to take this thread off-topic based on your own assumptions.
2. is [your calling them "Black"] because of their (A) complexion or (B) their culture/ethnicity? Please answer A or B.
2. Yes and No. Yes, because of their complexion and because of where they originated from. No, because they OBVIOUSLY have a complete different way of life and/or culture than ANY "Blacks", self-identified or not, that I've ever met in my life.
I repeat, please answer A or B. Take all the time that you want. You now have a full week to think of your answer. Again, when you return, please answer A or B. Not "yes and no." A or B. If your answer is "A," I shall consider any substantive prehistory questions that you may have, or claims that you may wish to assert. In the meantime, your choices are A or B.
Due to his repeated refusal after several warnings to clarify what he means by "Black," in violation of The Rules, paragraph B.4.k, Sankofa's posting privilege is hereby suspended for one week.
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