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?

Forgot to mention. Blue eyes I believe are meant to let in more vit d if a person lives in the northern hemisphere where there isnt much sun.

@Californiabakes and/or anyone else who can, I have a bit of a sensitive question and I hope people know I mean no harm by it. Just still wondering...

I've just also learned here, as a PP said that the first Asians were black people who migrated. I mean, knowing now where we all came from, it makes sense it includes Asian people too. So, how did the East Asian people get the same eyes feature? I really wish I could put this better. I just find it fascinating the distinct eyes shape. Is this also part of evolution/mutation or what the original humans all looked like and that didn't change?

Another problem for racists, is that "species" doesn't really have a solid definition anymore

here's another podcast for folks

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kp5r

‘Today I learnt that tigons and ligers are what you get when lions and tigers interbreed?!’ surprised listener Jamz G tells the doctors. ‘What determines whether species can interbreed?’

Geneticist Aoife McLysaght studies molecular evolution. She explains the modern definition of a species, built on ideas from Aristotle, Linnaeus and Darwin: a species is a group of organisms capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring. Hybrids – such as ligons and tigers – are usually infertile, because their common ancestors long ago diverged into the lions and tigers we know today. However, this definition isn’t absolute, and there are many ways a new species can be formed.

Hybrids also offer rich study subjects for scientists. Mathematical biologist Kit Yates discusses why he’s been reading research papers about hebras and zorses (horse x zebra) as their patterns offer insights into how cells spread and develop into organisms, building on a prediction made by codebreaking mathematician Alan Turing.

And it turns out that these hybrids are even more intriguing. As speciation and evolution expert Joana Meier explains, hybrids are not always infertile. Hybridisation can lead to successful new species arising, such as in Lake Victoria’s cichlid fish, who it seems have been having a wild evolutionary party for the last 15,000 years. And the picture gets even murkier when we discover that modern genetics reveals our human ancestors successfully mated with Neanderthals.

Its not clear why people have epicanthic eye folds but it may help against wind and cold.

Mutations in genes happen and if they are advantageous they might remain in a population.

Epicanthic eye folds do rather mimic the 'sunglasses' you can make to limit snow blindness. And that indigenous people have made for a long time.

However, a lot of this kind of thing is supposition. Maybe it's helpful or maybe it's related to another successful gene or just people thought it was attractive so they had a lot of sexual partners. 16 million men alive today have DNA from Genghis Khan. If someone like that had it, you can see how it spreads!

Thanks @MrsTerryPratchett and @Californiabakes . Interesting about the glasses. Also, I didn't know the "distinct eyes" are called Epicanthic eye folds or even had a name, so good to know how to use it next time.

Another interesting theory about human development is that the ability to control fire (which may or may not have originated with hominids) leading to the ability to cook drove us to shrink our guts and inflate our brains. Cooking being quite ancient, and humans being unable to eat a raw diet now.

I agree that this should be taught more widely. I learnt a lot of it at university. But it really shows that racists and racism is stupid, because when you understand the science behind it there is no real difference between skin colours except the absorption of vitamin D.

@starfish88

I agree that this should be taught more widely. I learnt a lot of it at university. But it really shows that racists and racism is stupid, because when you understand the science behind it there is no real difference between skin colours except the absorption of vitamin D.

You realise you have just explained exactly why it won't be taught more widely, don't you ? We can't have any of this hippy "we're all the same claptrap". Not when it took so long to rid all the Abrahamic religions of it. Goodness me !

This is such an interesting thread. I love how clever mumsnetters are!

I have read Sapiens and thoroughly enjoyed it; are there any other similar books that explain anthropology in a way that laywomen can understand?

On the subject of blue eyes - apparently light coloured eyes let in slightly more light and therefore give you better night / low light vision. Therefore giving an advantage in northern climates where winters are often dark. Although it also makes you more susceptible to being dazzled by oncoming headlights in this day and age!

I find prehistory and human development a really fascinating topic, if money were no object I’d love to study it.

I find prehistory and human development a really fascinating topic, if money were no object I’d love to study it.

The proper study of mankind is man ...

I thought the out of Africa theory was well known, but disputed?

sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/oldest-human-fossil-found-outside-africa-sheds-light-behavior-early-homo-sapiens/

(Doesn’t change the skin colour argument, though)

@NewRenovation

I thought the out of Africa theory was well known, but disputed?

sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/oldest-human-fossil-found-outside-africa-sheds-light-behavior-early-homo-sapiens/

(Doesn’t change the skin colour argument, though)

We are a curious, mobile and adaptable animal. Arguably that's part of what makes us "human". Add to that the omnivorous ability, and you have a Chieftain tank of a mammal that can roll across disparate environments in the blink of a evolutionary eye.

As the ad once said: You are amazing.

It’s a long time since I studied human evolution. I was taught the old simple linear path of Australopithecus - homo habilis - homo erectus (Out of Africa 1) - homo Neanderthalensis / Homo Sapiens (out of Africa 2)
Now there’s a lot more species known and suspected, speciation is indeed more suspect, and cross breeding is likely to have happened again. Our evolution is thought of now as a family bush rather than a family tree. The Neanderthals have always generated a lot of interest; some have called in the past for them to be named Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis and us as Homo Sapiens Sapiens. I’m not sure where current thinking is - probably still arguing about it! Anyway I thought this might be a helpful start, it’s a timeline from the Smithsonian. humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-evolution-timeline-interactive

@DGRossetti

Another interesting theory about human development is that the ability to control fire (which may or may not have originated with hominids) leading to the ability to cook drove us to shrink our guts and inflate our brains. Cooking being quite ancient, and humans being unable to eat a raw diet now.

I know I mentioned The Infinite Monkey Cage podcast earlier in the thread re the episode on Neanderthals, but this one about fire is also very good.

They talk in one part about the theory that the Aboriginal people in Australia may have learnt about using fire from the “fire birds” who have been seen dropping flaming twigs (plucked from bushfires) to flush out small mammals.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dy6q

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wildfires-birds-animals-australia

Now there’s a lot more species known and suspected, speciation is indeed more suspect, and cross breeding is likely to have happened again.

There appear to be some absolutes in nature - or so I have gathered these past years ...

1. Wherever you look, you will find life on Earth. As the recent Antarctic discoveries show.

2. Pretty much everything has shagged everything else in history. And yes - this does mean your ancestors. You don't pick up a species DNA by looking at it ....

I notice some PP mentioned the Bible, I can see there's a resemblance between the scientific study and some of the bible's explanation of creation.

Is there any truth/actual connection to this, anyone who knows?

What kind of resemblance between the Bible’s / ancient Mesopotamian creation myths and the scientific study are you seeing?

@SpikeDearheart

It's a while since I studied this, but what I learned studying genetics was that, in the scheme of things, there is very little genetic difference between groups of people that we would categorise as different races, and that race is largely a social construct (which is not to say that it's not real, just that it's not particularly grounded in genetics). IIRC, the genetic diversity in humans remains highest within the continent of Africa, which means that if you were, for example, to compare the genetics of a black East African person with a black West African person, they would probably look more different to each other than if you compared a white European and a Japanese person. Despite this, we would classify the East and West African people as being from the same race and the European and Japanese as being from different races.

Cultures often home in on the subtlties around their "race", and differences of "others"

I have mixed-race relatives, and they are percieved to look more Asian by their European family and more European by their Asian family as both cultures observe through the framework of what is familiar to them. One does look more like their father and one more like their mother.

Reminds me of a recent discussion on here about the description "sallow" and how perception of the word differed in its positivity/ negativity depending on the dominant skin types in different parts around the British Isles.

Been a while since I heard it, but

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ybg84

Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Shappi Khorsandi, science broadcaster Adam Rutherford and evolutionary geneticist Mark Thomas. They look at the thorny issue of race, and whether there is a scientific definition for the concept of race. Do our genes reveal racial differences, and if so do they tell us anything about our evolutionary history? They also look at the results of their own personal DNA tests...so which panellist is a little bit neanderthal and which one has a genetic history firmly rooted in the North!

made the point that it's an unfortunate twist of genetics that in humans, the genes which matter "the least" are the ones that seem to drive the biggest visual difference in appearance. And that aws a species, humans are ridiculously monocultural compared to almost any other mammal.

@NewRenovation

I thought the out of Africa theory was well known, but disputed?

sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/oldest-human-fossil-found-outside-africa-sheds-light-behavior-early-homo-sapiens/

(Doesn’t change the skin colour argument, though)

Some of my post disappeared when I pasted. It should have read that I couldn’t find much anymore, but I find it fascinating anyway that we could have evolved the same way in different areas.

I’m not sure how the plate movement fits in with human migration - that the place that would become the UK was much further south and therefor hotter once upon a time. This means that even if our evolution started in the UK (we didn’t), we would have had dark skin to begin with anyway.

Think it's in one of the Bill Bryson books where its mentioned that as humans started to farm we went backwards. Our skeletons were shorter and life span decreased. Partly due to a poorer diet, partly due to small communities passing on disease in a way nomadic hunter gatherers didnt.
Classic humans, trying to make things better but achieving the opposite!

@coldemortreturns

Think it's in one of the Bill Bryson books where its mentioned that as humans started to farm we went backwards. Our skeletons were shorter and life span decreased. Partly due to a poorer diet, partly due to small communities passing on disease in a way nomadic hunter gatherers didnt. Classic humans, trying to make things better but achieving the opposite!

I think it was Dawkins that suggested farming is not such a great advance as we think it is. It certainly made us far more vulnerable to some really nasty diseases that hunter-gatherers had to out evolve.

Also, farming is a social - not biological - development.

As for being shorter ... well if we all shrunk a foot, it would be a lot better for the environment.

@coldemortreturns

Think it's in one of the Bill Bryson books where its mentioned that as humans started to farm we went backwards. Our skeletons were shorter and life span decreased. Partly due to a poorer diet, partly due to small communities passing on disease in a way nomadic hunter gatherers didnt. Classic humans, trying to make things better but achieving the opposite!

It also set women back badly. When gathering accounts for the majority of calories, food doesn't keep, hunting is seasonal, you'd better keep women sweet. When we can hoard harvests and physical size is important, women suffer.

You can argue that fixed agriculture is the start of the patriarchy. Happy International Women's Day!