Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?

Gerold Firl (geroldf@sdd.hp.com)
8 Oct 1996 19:40:15 GMT

In article <539b31$smh@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu (Philip Deitiker) writes:

|> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:

|> >In article <52ppks$p9t@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu (Philip Deitiker) writes:

|> >|> In the north part of japan
|> >|> one sees the presence of a group related to transcontinental eskimo.
|> >|> Thus it appears that several groups have interacted to form what
|> >|> japanese would almost consider a race to itself.

|> >Almost? Ha - for the japanese, their racial purity is a tenet of faith,
|> >and a pretty amusing one at that, given their hybrid origin.

|> As is also probably true for indoeuropeans

For the japanese, we have the ainu, east asians, and okinawan-type
aborigines as their progenitors; who would you suggest for the
indo-europeans?

|> >|> thus I send you back to my very simple bipartite classification with a
|> >|> little modification.
|> >|>
|> >|> Those descended very genetically diverse sub-saharan africans.
|> >|> - With alot of mixture of genetically diverse groups and some
|> >|> radiation, produced at least one single bud from an ancient
|> >|> regional population, then mixed some more (negro, asian,
|> >|> caucasion).

|> >Your use of the term "negro" could be more precise. Using the scheme
|> >of the _penguin atlas of african history_, subsaharan africa is home to
|> >5 races: the bushmen, pygmies, negroes, nilo-sudanese, and abysinnians.
|> >The negro homeland is in west africa. It's only in the last 2000 years,
|> >with the advent of metalworking and animal domestication technologies,
|> >that the negroes have broken out from their homeland and occupied huge
|> >areas of southern and eastern africa formerly inhabited by the bushmen
|> >and pygmies.

|> I'm using the term negro in the classical sense as one member of a
|> tripartite race system.

As you point out, such a classification scheme is taxonomically flawed.
Lets not waste too much time beating on that carcass.

|> This has not been clearly defined. I've seen some very strong evidence
|> suggesting that amoung all humanity the bushmen/pygmies may be of
|> greatest distinction; however, the counterargument is that certain
|> 'bush' specific traits are actually distributed in other SSA tribes
|> weakening that argument.

Hmm. Bushman territory has been whittled down to a few measly deserts
in southern africa in the last 2000 years, as negro peoples from west
africa have pushed south, displacing both pygmies and bushmen. Following
the standard pattern, the indigenous populations would be slaughtered
and/or absorbed by the invaders, so the southern negro peoples would be
expected to show some bushman and pygmy characteristics. I haven't seen
any evidence of bushman traits among southern negros, but there does
seem to be some evidence of a pygmy blend. Based on physical appearance
(and I don't just mean height; also facial structure) the hutus of
rwanda and botswana are probably part pygmy.

|> I personally don't think that there is any
|> firm genetic foundation at yet, and until such a foundation is
|> provided I would pretty much leave the cataogorization of SSA types
|> alone

Is it politically sensitive? There seems to be ample historical and
archeological evidence to reconstruct the big-picture taxonomy.

|> >|> The answer is that the racial subtype 'negro' or 'black' is a
|> >|> useless terminolgy since it does not reconcile the genetics of
|> >|> subsahran african diversity, or the fact that all are descended from
|> >|> this population. IOW one could argue that a european (caucasian) is
|> >|> 'genetically' of negro race and in genetic form be correct.

|> >Not exactly. The human family tree appears to have complicated branches
|> >and roots, and where and how negroes, indo-europeans, east asians etc
|> >all branched from the main stem, and what auxiliary roots fed into each
|> >particular stream, is not yet clear. However, the negro race is too
|> >recent to be the ancestor of the other old world peoples, even aside
|> >from the local roots into h. erectus and neandertal populations.

|> if your using as you defined yes, however, if negro = of (SSA) african
|> origin then, no, SSA HS origins point back to > 200,000 years while
|> proto eurasians (as we know them) left this african continent between
|> 50 and 100 kYBP. Many would argue that signs of extraafrican HS
|> appeared first with cromagnon; however, the genetic data shows that
|> asians not europeans are more distinct from african lineages, the most
|> likely cause of this is gene transfer between africa and proximal
|> eurasion popoluations over the post exedos period.

And one more factor: deep roots into local, pre-HSS populations.

|> This certianly
|> seems to be the case in mediterranian and can be explained by
|> historical events as well as predicted in prehistorical periods based
|> on archeological finds. So as far as an absolute temporal separation
|> between africa and europe, there is some reason to believe that such a
|> firm separation has never occured and that the indoeuropean/SSA
|> lineages are best represented as step gradients of genetic traits.

"Step" gradients? I'm not familiar with the term.

When thinking about the genetic barrier between africa and eurasia, we
need to keep in mind the oscillatory history of this ice age, and how
the sahara changes during glacial and inter-glacial periods.

during an interglacial, the sahara is an extremely effective genetic
barrier. More effective than the alps, maybe even more than the
himalayas. During glacial periods, however, the sahara becomes very
hospitable savanna, opening the barrier and allowing relatively easy
gene flow. There is still a choke-point at the sinai, a reducing valve
in the gene flow, but the modern HS people who developed in africa
around 100,000 bp seem to have had no trouble moving through barriers
both geographical and socio-political. They spread pretty fast.

|> This is not so true for asians, particularly because of the geographic
|> distances and barriers of movement. Again I have to emphasize the
|> point that although cromagnon was found in europe this does not mean
|> that europeans are direct descendants of cromagnon, its entiely
|> possible that descendants of these people are in asia, or indonesian
|> or the americas, or extinct.

anything's possible, I guess, but the most likely scenario is one where
the descendants of the cro-magnon are found throughout most of the
world, but with the highest concentration in the place of their origin.
Any idea of the relation between the cro-magnon of western europe and
the rock-artists of the sahara? My impression is that they are closely
related.

-- 

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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=----   Gerold Firl @ ..hplabs!hp-sdd!geroldf