Posted on 02/15/2018 9:21:23 PM PST by Crucial
How Europeans evolved white skin
By Ann Gibbons
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don’t look much like those of 8000 years ago.
The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus in the past year as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago.
Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection—including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencemag.org ...
You’ve completely missed my point. I’ve always seen people of other races as human. I’m saying that if one believes that over time and given the right environment that racial traits are interchangeable and that erases the psychological differences between races. There’s ALWAYS an element of US versus THEM within racial populations no matter how idealistic you are.
Let me get this straight: Doctor Reich (presumably the 3rd) is researching the racial origins of white Europeans? What could go wrong?
LOL When liberal marxists decided class warfare wasn't good enough and decided to add race warfare.
Dyslexia is thought to be inherited; however, it has nothing at all to do with hair color and it is relatively rare for it to be as prominent, as it is in your family. Also, it can skip many generations before it shows up.
From my own, personal study of family traits, it's fascinating how many things actually are genetically passed on; things that you can't see.
This is a great article; many thanks for the link!
I don't know how old you are, nor how you were brought up, but there was a time, when I was growing up, when true "color blindness" was alive and well in some places and social strata, here. There was absolutely NO "US VERSES THEM" crap; none at all.
OTOH...yes, there was a color strata ( still is, though not necessarily the same way ) amongst blacks.
And you're still on the wrong end of everything, with your idea re "eventually all races change" garbage.
People are people/HUMANS, no matter what race they are! Some are intelligent, some aren't, some are nice, others certainly aren't,and it has ALWAYS been this way, no matter how far back you want to go!
Everyone knows that natural selection depends on passing on the genes necessary for survival and possibly an advantage in obtaining food. When certain genes became more valuable both for fight, flight, and food, it was a no-brainer for the species to evolve with light skins in the northern latitudes.
Therefore the lighter skin genes became more valuable in snow covered areas. Like the snow rabbit, light-skinned humans could hide easier, blending into the terrain while avoiding dinosaurs and marauding dark skinned people.
And like the polar bear at a seal’s air hole, they could blend into their surroundings for an ambush.
OF course, this meant going naked in the snow-covered terrain which led to the gene that today makes otherwise rational people to go swimming in icy water during the winter.
All of the above is true and can be proven with some Biblical and literary references too long to continue to pull your leg, eh?
What struck my curiosity was that as Asians and Europeans and farmers and hunter gatherers began to meet, interact, and expand geographically, skin color changed, but immune system DNA did not.
It seems likely that the northeastern Asians who crossed the Alaskan land bridge 12-15,000 years ago would have had a very similar immune system to the rest of Eurasia.
The best estimates for the maximum death toll from the most deadly plague in recorded European history are in the 50%-60% range.
But the estimates for the New World plagues are consistently over 90%.
I have always thought the 90%-plus claim was more political correctness than medical science.
I mean, it has to be really embarrassing that about 10,000 European soldiers conquered 100 million indigenous Americans in less than a century.
I still see a lot of tribalism out there. Whites have deemed it quite unacceptable among themselves and it should be that way. Tribalism is stronger among minorities and you could argue that white oppression or other pressures makes this acceptable. I would like to see an end to it completely but I think there’s a long way to go particularly if there’s too many people in denial of it.
Yeah, I saw the original video of the big guy bullying the little store owner for a $45 box of cigars. On the other hand, what could be the level of anger and frustration that would cause a guy who it is said was college bound to destroy his future like that. It also appears there were many unfair things being done to black people by the local government. Heck, I’m a white person and my local government has done a number of unfair things to me over the years, but not on the level it appears may have been the case in Ferguson. This may be why the left chose to make a big issue in Ferguson, but not in the case of Treyon White which actually seemed like a much more unjustified shooting.
Thanks, glad to help. I wish FReepers would do more sharing of real information. So many threads descend to snarky remarks and crude jokes and insults.
I think 90% could very well be accurate. The Black Death in Europe was only a few generations passed when Columbus sailed.
I was trying to point out just how virulent Europe and Asia had become. Massive populations in giant cities, animals living in most homes all winter. In most of Eurasia, cleanliness a forgotten thing (compared to Romans and their love of bathing and the Chinese wealthy who still did), the spread of rapid transportation in ships, often laden with disease carrying vermin... It’s no wonder people were sick all the time.
I would say that most of these killer diseases really became widespread right around 200 years or so BEFORE during and after Columbus, thus giving some immunity to those who lived through them.
When the Europeans arrived, all dirty and in rat infested ships, it’s no wonder so many people, living in a much less—by a huge factor—virulent world, succumbed like they did.
Think about it. It just wasn’t one disease, but dozens—all at once. Smallpox, Bubonic Plague, Yellow Fever, Mumps, Measles, influenza (derived from pig, duck and chicken diseases totally foreign to Indians), rinovirus, cholera, pertussis, Typhoid fever, and tuberculosis, just to name a few.
That is HUGE! And not a soul in the New World had ever had any of them. And they came aboard with every new vessel.
I live in Alabama, right on the route De Soto took when he came through and fought Tuscaloosa of the Alibamios. Almost all of De Soto’s men died of disease. Imagine what happened to all the non-immune Indians he encountered. In fact, he named off splendid royal town after royal town along his journey here, each with a temple on a mound and surrounded by extensive agriculture. This was the heyday of the Mississippian culture. They were all gone in 50 years. The Creeks and Cherokees were the remnants of that culture, and the Southeast was almost back to wilderness by the time the French and English arrived.
The Creek town, Tuckabatchee, only 10 miles from me, had a population of 10,000 souls in 1812 when Jackson defeated the Red Sticks at Horseshoe Bend, and that was considered the largest Indian town in all the Southeast.
De Soto encountered dozens of towns this size in his journey from 1539-1542. By 1600, they were all gone.
I read that 96% of voting black females did NOT vote for Judge Moore. I am writing this after the horror in Florida. Today I saw an extremely activist quantity of angry high school students in Florida demanding that something meaningful be done after the shooting. I think that there are places that if AR-15 assault type rifles and big magazines are not more strictly regulated, Republicans will loose a lot of votes and Florida is one of them.
Actually there were cities/large towns in parts of Africa below the Sahara that had cities of 50,000 and more before the European slavers and colonialists came in. Actually, some rulers in those cities captured Africans in the bush to sell to the European and Arab slavers.
The most critical factor regarding light skin in the North and Vitamin D synthesis and absorption is the development of rickets with the lack of adequate Vitamin D. Without enough D, the pelvis does not develop well, and childbirth becomes difficult if not impossible. Thus gentlemen instinctively prefer blonds and well developed hips, because such women are much better able to give birth to live children. And thus the gene spreads rapidly. Also, avoiding dinosaurs was never a factor for humans.
First: yes, you pointed out the critical reason for why the death toll was so high among New World inhabitants, namely the cumulative effect of all those diseases hitting them at once. Each of these diseases that swept the Old World over the millennia may have had fatality rates of under 50%, but each new big plague usually arrived many generations after the previous one. So the big hits to the population were spread out over many centuries.
Secondly: For times & places that had no reliable census-taking methods, we have to rely on a few contemporaries who recorded their own personal estimates of the death toll. But these ancient correspondents were often making wild guesses, and making crucial assumptions that they didn't realize they were making.
For instance, seeing a completely empty village might seem concrete proof of a 100% death rate. But as some historians have pointed out, depending on the complexity of a society, a certain minimum number of residents remaining in a village are necessary for it to continue to function as a village. Once the number falls too low, anyone semi intelligent would see the writing on the wall - that the village was doomed - and take their family and themselves to greener pastures.
Or say only 5-10% of a village dies, but the toll includes the only blacksmith, the only doctor, and the only tanner. Again, the village is eventually doomed, so move out now. Or what about the case where a village hits 30% mortality, and the other 70% believed the village was cursed or the crops from the entire region were cursed or poisoned or whatever, and moved out.
Bottom Line: It's hard to estimate how much of a sudden depopulation is due to death, vs how much is due to panic migration.
I think race is simply an environmental mutation. It’s nothing more than humans being molded to their environment. Natural environment determines race. Every single difference between humans from skin color to nostril size to hair type is an adaption.
If you change a person’s environment, deprive them of technology and knowledge of their past, after enough millenia, their race will change. If this had widespread acceptance, racial strife would end because when a white looks at a black or vice versa, they will see themselves.
Yup. The old capital of Benin was huge, and as was the casse in cities throughout Africa and in the muzzie world, the slave trade was just another business. Enslaving members of other tribes would not typically go unanswered, and that city in particular turned into a ghost town in less than 100 years after the discovery of America.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3364047/posts?page=13#13
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2822978/posts
Will there still be Whites in South Africa 20 years from now?
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