Dr. Pritchard estimates that the average point at which the selected genes started to become more common under the pressure of natural selection is 10,800 years ago in the African population and 6,600 years ago in the Asian and European populations...
Skeletons similar in form to modern Chinese are hard to find before that period, Dr. Klein said, and there are few European skeletons older than 10,000 years that look like modern Europeans...
Dr. Pritchard's list of selected genes also includes five that affect skin color. The selected versions of the genes occur solely in Europeans and are presumably responsible for pale skin. Anthropologists have generally assumed that the first modern humans to arrive in Europe some 45,000 years ago had the dark skin of their African origins, but soon acquired the paler skin needed to admit sunlight for vitamin D synthesis.
The finding of five skin genes selected 6,600 years ago could imply that Europeans acquired their pale skin much more recently. Or, the selected genes may have been a reinforcement of a process established earlier, Dr. Pritchard said.
Now this is a very important. See if Europeans didn't become white until 6,600 years ago then they were black during the time of early Dynastic Egypt! After all 6,600 years ago places us at BC 4594. which is around the time of the first Dynasty of Ancient Kmt. In fact if we read Diop we find that the ancient khemites had already been developing accurate calendars before white people even existed as we know them. We hd certainly already been developing complex religions. We had been domesticating animals and building complex structures. We had been developing what would later be called Chemistry.
It would seem then that when folk refer to white peolpe as "Johny Come Lately" it really really is the case.
Technorati Tags: Africa, Pan-Africanism
4 comments:
Br. Ghost, as always, your blog is fascinating and informative. I continue to be amazed not only by the quality of your commentary but the breadth of your knowledge.
A small correction on the "age" of White folks vs. dynastic Egypt. Most Egyptologists (or Kemetologists, which has a nice ring to it) put the founding of Dynasty I somewhere around 3250-3000 BCE. A few years ago I interviewed Martin Bernal who suggested Dynasty I might begin as early as 3400 BCE (or 5400 Before Present).
Some of the earlier Africentric works (e.g. the material of John G. Jackson) cite earlier dates, which was consistent with what researchers in the 19th and early 20th centuries believed. Personally, I'd love to find out that Dynastic Kemet is even older, but for now, it appears we're looking at mid-to-early fourth-millennium at its earliest.
So in reference to this discussion, assuming the assertions in the NYT piece are correct, then White folks would have been around for at least 1200 years.
What I'd like to find out is this--what about the various settlements of extremely ancient Europe? The "hobbit hole"-style stone houses of England, or Stone Henge, for instance? And how should we consider these people, if, for instance, they were dark-skinned? As Afrikans in Europe? As Afropeans? As Black Europeans?
Part of me wants to ask, "And what difference should it make?" And the answer, of course, is that it *should* not make any difference, but given that Whitesupremacy has been the most powerful organising principle of the planet's economics and politics (not to mention mentality) for the last five centuries, clearly, we're not the ones who made this matter.
I'd love to think that White civilisation would collectively adopt new modes of justice towards their dealings with us if the NYT article assertions are proven; however, it's been a mainstay of anthropology since the Leakeys that all humans come from Afrika, and this has made no difference for our fate... arguably, things have gotten worse (in terms of mortality, definitely).
I think in my excitement over the implications of the NYT article I may not have written what I meant. I brought up the first Dynasty because of it's proximity to the date of the supposed "common" caucasian.
I'm glad you brought up stonehenge because I have asserted that it was a white (caucasian) creation. If this data is right then I can no longer make that assertion. All this really has serious implications on ancient European history specifically on how black europeans became the black hating people they developed into. Were the winters and lack of direct sunlight that much of a selective pressure?
I have a slight correction to offer about Stonehenge, which I tried to make before but realised that what I thought was a preview of my comment was actually the posting itself.
According to the (minimal) checking I've done on Stonehenge, it appears that few people are asserting an earlier date than 5000 BP (3000 BCE) for the raising of the first megaliths, which means well within the range (assuming the NYT article's assertions are correct) of Europeans being what we'd now call White folks.
Now, that's not to say it couldn't have been Black folks (or others) who raised those stones, but unless I hear definitively otherwise, Occam's Razor suggests sticking with a White origin for Stonehenge.
Hotep,
Minister Faust
Well then, I'd have to maintain my original assertion that stonehenge is in fact a European, as in caucasian creation. I don't want to go about appropriating other peoples stuff.
Thanks for the clarifications. Always open for correction.
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