Huh. If you find that article, please send me a link.

Jan

see you are one of them

Oooooh. THOSE aliens. Well of course! I must not have had my telepathic antennae extended when I read your email earlier.

Jan

the ancient alien theorists that i see occasionally on the history channel

Hey wiggys! It is an odd day: What freakin' aliens?

Jan

Thanks. I will look that up.

Jan

if the believers on the program about aliens are correct this is meaningless.

There is also a documentary The Human Family Tree by Spencer Wells, PhD. Director, The Genographic Project. Traces back to genetic Adam and genetic Eve. Very eye opening documentary. It kind of shocked one young man who thought his roots were from Africa.

Wow. Knowledge is Power! :>)

Jan

The last two or three paragraphs of the linked article do deal with this question, blarman, and include another link pointing here for further details: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/mace-lab/publicati...

The 'short story' is that we have evidence that skin color change is very recent - 5 or 6K years old. What is not dealt with in these sources is that there seems to have been 2 separate evolutionary paths towards lighter skin: The eumelanin reduction pathway (leaving the pheomelanin stronger and producing a yellowish skin - Eastern Asia) and the pheomelanin reduction pathway (leaving traces of brownish eumelanin behind - European).

Jan

That is certainly possible - the 'technology of civilization'. We forget how SLOWLY things changed for thousands and thousands of years. It may have taken a few hundred thou to accrete enough habits to become civilized. (It is also possible that the signs of civilization were just very labile early on, and did not survive. These answers are not mutually incompatible, note.)

Jan

An interesting chapter or so in Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature" deals with the statistics of slaughter. Paleolithic tribes who have been observed in modern times show about a 50% death rate due to violence (warfare, homicide, ambush) of their males between 15-55. This statistic has decreased as time and civilization permitted: from records from the 14thC onward, Pinker draws a chart of the decline of deaths by violence.

No bucolic noble savages, Alas!

Jan

Fantasy and imagination often become part of a legend that supports a cause. In the imagination of some supporters of "Native" Americans, these noble aboriginals were inherently peaceful lovers of nature, preyed upon by evil European invaders. The reality was that the American Indian tribes were colonists, settlers, and invaders long before the arrival of the "whites". The tribe we call the Seminoles in Florida today were actually Creek invaders from the lower Mississippian culture, who committed genocide against the older settlers in Florida, as one example. We know this because the arrival of the Spanish in Florida interfered with the final slaughter of these older tribes, who told their story to the Spanish clergy. Further West, the tribe we call Comanche actually inherited that name from their victims, the Hopi, who gave them that label, which means "invader". Always question the assertions of the very passionate, as their passions may be purely fiction.

Thanks for the link. It is also interesting to see how recent the dates are in his piece. Humans as a species, Homo sapiens, were established some 200,00-300,000 years ago. Yet what we consider as "human" traits are recent, cave painting, metal working, farming, domestication of dogs, animal husbandry, language etc. are all recent. Why were humans genetically intact at least 150,000 years ago but only become "human" in behavior recently. Maybe it not in our genes but in learned volitional behavior, one innovative person at a time.

One thing I haven't seen explained is skin color. If we all descended from common ancestors, how did we end up with a plethora of skin colorations which haven't really shown any change in thousands of years?

fascinating, Jan; I feel more international already!!! -- j
.

Then you might also be interested in this webpage - and the book that its author wrote:

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/

Jan (the book is a bit technical)

There are no indigenous people (other than Africans, of course). The idea is a European concept based on who happened to be present when the Europeans first showed up.

Thank you. This helps with what I'm working on.