Where do 'White People' come from? MN Historians, Researchers, Anthropologists, please come in.

[CantStayAsleep]

Forgive me, this may be a simple question. It's 4am, can't sleep and a million things have already raced through my mind. I need an answer to this and Google is flooding me with tons of information/articles that aren't getting down to the bottom line. Atleast I can't find the bottom line myself. So over to you MNers. Help me when you're up and can be arsed. Thanks

If Black people = African descent (as many forms state and a lot of people have said), I take this to mean Black people have African ancestry, regardless if it's dating 1 generation or 400 generations ago. So what is white descent? Where have White people descended from?

Europe, but originally Africa too. Evolution lightened skin, we presume to aid vitamin D absorption. The first brits had dark skin.

All humans are descended from Africa
Skin tone lightened according to where we migrated to to compensate for vitamin D

I think it is more of a American thing? When they started doing censuses , they put down race and people started using W for white - so people couldn’t vote or own land. of course I am throwing opinions without researching.

There is an African 'Eve' who we are all descendants of. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

Everything else is just adaptation.

The most common theory, and they are theories after all, is that there is no real white and black and that we are all just shades resulting from evolution along equatorial lines. The truth though is that we don't really know. The whole of human anthropology is based on skeletal remains, which give no indication of skin pigmentation. It's the same reason we can only guess what colour the dinosaurs were. We only know that today's reptiles tend to be brown and green, just as today's humans are white/black/brown ecc.

Lighter skin is an evolutionary thing, and is due to humans migrating north to Europe.

So, technically, white skin is a product of evolution. Its not from a geographical area.

The whole of human anthropology is based on skeletal remains, which give no indication of skin pigmentation.

Anthropology is the study of human behaviour.

OP, as PP have said, all humans are descended form 'Mitochondrial Eve', a common ancestor who lived in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. Our more recent ancestors migrated north and eventually ended up in Europe. Lighter skin and eyes are the result of genetic mutations that made those who carried them more suited to living in a region with less sunlight. Human genes mutate frequently - even between parents and offspring, and some of these mutations will confer an advantage. For example, some humans have a mutated gene that makes it possible for bearers to digest non-human milk, those who don't that are lactose intolerance.

This is truly interesting. Thanks all. I've heard a lot about the human race originating from Africa but didn't really know about Mitochondrial Eve. Thanks for the link.

So does it mean "white people" can't be traced to have been from anywhere after the migration, evolution and mutation? Meaning, no one can tell when the first group of people who had turned 'white' started or where they all first lived together?

Oh dear, just posted and read a part of the last post. So, Europe is the more recent migration. Thanks.

Apologies, still functioning on little sleep.

The change into “whiteness” for migrants would have happened over thousands of years so there wouldn’t have been the first group of white people as it were. Over time skin tones would have become lighter and lighter

I can't speak to the biology aspect, but culturally, 'white' as a construct is pretty recent, and what we think of as different races now haven't always been understood that way. It's only fairly recently racists decided Chinese people had 'yellow' skin rather than 'white' skin and developed a rhetoric of racial difference; at various points in history people have been unsure whether Spanish or Italian people 'count' as being 'white'.

In the period I study, which is late medieval, Western Europeans have a really complicated understanding of blackness that links it both to religion and climate/temperament. They thought blackness was related to an excess of the melancholic humour (a liquid in your body), which burnt black in hotter climates, and gave people dark skin but also a tendency to be angry or promiscuous. It's a really horrible theory but very influential for a long time. Weirdly, sometimes a Western European account will talk about white Middle Eastern Muslims, and usually that whiteness symbolises that they're not 'really' black underneath but can change and convert to Christianity. So there's a sense that skin colour isn't entirely fixed somehow.

Im assuming OP means more 'light' skin and 'dark' skin rather than the cultural aspects of it

Well, she mentions anthropologists and historians in her OP? But if my post bothers you, skip it.

OP if you’re interested, read ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Harari, really interesting book about the origins of humans

Some years ago, must be at least 15 now, dh and I had DNA tests done by Oxford Ancestors (There was a book by an eminent geneticist called The Seven Daughters Of (Mitrochondrial) Eve). They tested your maternal and paternal lines s (if female you had to get a swab from a brother or father for the male line) and they traced the direct maternal or paternal line as far back as was possible then.

It was very interesting, but I dare say the science has moved on a lot since then.

Dh and I had the same male ancestor who IIRC had originated in the Middle East about 25,000 years ago. According to Oxford Ancestors he was the ‘father’ of 45% of native Europeans! Evidently a randy old goat.

OTOH our maternal ancestral ‘mothers’ were quite different - his IIRC from SW France a mere 20,000 or so years ago - mine from NW Greece 45,000 years ago, and much less common - the same as Cheddar Gorge Man (9000 years old) which I found v interesting, having seen where he ended up.

The results came with various info including maps, showing the (presumed from what data was available then) the various routes taken once the most ancient ‘parents’ had left Africa.

Sorry, I thought you meant the term itself

There is a Bible version where they come from. The tower of Babel-God decided to separate people where they could no longer speak to each other by language. Some people believe race as well.

Although most archaeology is indeed based on skeletal remains, the DNA research is changing things very fast. This means that we don't only know where people migrated from, but also, to some degree, what they looked like.

The key finding from this is that the earliest Mesolithic inhabitants of Britain weren't white at all, as they had no genes for blonde hair or light skin. So white people weren't even the first inhabitants of Britain (the racists HATE this).

This book is good for the UK:

www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/chris-stringer/homo-britannicus/9780141018133?gclid=Cj0KCQiAs5eCBhCBARIsAEhk4r5CjNjPaQYMmGUZARu__N-GzY_I9bZgI7V68K1bYVuzt-Whl0lMsrQaAh0bEALw_wcB

It doesnt bother me. You seem angry.

Genetic mutations happen all the time. The ones that give you an advantage stick around.

For a recent (relative to history) kook at Eyam in Derbyshire. If you are not familiar when the plague arrived the village closed itself off from other villages. Lots of people died but the survivors had a gene 'mutation' that gives immunity to plague. As it not a place with a transient population many people in the village have inherited that gene from ancestors and are immune.

If a gene mutated to give paler skin that would give an advantage in being able to absorb more vitamin D, which is great if you live in Europe, but in places with more sunshine it means you will burn easily and if you live long enough develop skin cancer.

There are other mutations, someone already mentioned the gene to allow you to drink milk in adulthood but just as interesting is that white people share a genetic ability to process alcohol, as alcohol was the way we purified water, in places like China where purification involved making tea don't have that ability, or at least not to the same extent.

@Letsallscreamatthesistene

It doesnt bother me. You seem angry.

Well, you were pretty rude! There's no need to tick people off for posting about something you think isn't relevant, and if you'd read the OP properly, you'd see she did ask people who work on the cultural side, so it was perfectly reasonable to reply.

I know it doesn't make for nice reading and I recognise it could upset some people, but I would think the thread title gives some clue there's going to be discussion of unpleasant ideas around race in the thread.

Bit of a tangent, but something I've always thought was kind of interesting. All Europeans carry about 2% Neanderthal DNA, as they were still living hear when are African ancestors first migrated, and must have interbred.

Alright, point taken. Have a nice day.

First day back at school for my son. I was going to go for a run but instead I'm having a guilt-free read of Mumsnet and learning stuff at the same time.

Really interesting read, thanks!

You too.

Slightly off topic. On Long Lost Family to help find relatives they sometimes take DNA and register it on ‘several sites’. What are those sites?