Posted on 03/20/2017 2:27:46 PM PDT by rightistight
As the US National Peanut Board confirms, “Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter.”[10] January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day in the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter
It is reasonable to suggest that early humans were already ‘light’ when they left Africa about the same time Cro-Magnon appeared in Africa 50,000 years ago. Neanderthal and human remains dated 100,000 years ago were found in the Middle East so Neanderthal could have also extended to Africa. Genome reconstruction shows more similarities with non-Africans but there are still some with Africans. Resumption of line-breeding with Neanderthals in Europe in the absence of Cro-Magnon, raised the Neanderthal gene concentration as much as 20%, locking in the ‘light eyes/hair/skin’ gene dominance. At the same time, the disappearance of Neanderthal and the appearance of Cro-Magnon in Africa would have introduced a darker, olive-skin gene - but very late in the genetic game.
Neanderthals pass a mutation that accounts for between one and 6 degrees of coloring. Repeated introduction of Neanderthal genes in modern humans would produce generations who's skin could be lighter by a few degrees or more - maybe even similar to the coloring of the Gaunche and the Pharoahs around 3000 years ago.
About 3000 years ago, the Khoisan lived in northern and central Africa until they were invaded from the west by the Bantu who chased them into south Africa, where they hid and isolated themselves. Northern Africans and Egyptian DNA were the same so Pharoahs can be expected to have the same physical characteristics as northern Africans. And they did. The Guanche people of the North African Canary Islands had light brown skin, green and blue eyes, and naturally straight or wavy brown, blonde and red hair. Most Pharoah family mummies also have lighter skin and naturally straight or wavy hair - brown, red, blonde. So Pharoahs’ appearance was similar to the Guanche, similar to the northern Africans, and probably similar to the ‘mother tribe’, the early Khoisan.
Maybe isolation from Cro-Magnon allowed the Khoisan and the Gaunche to maintain their lighter coloring. Tribal self-selecting for darker coloring would eventually cancel out any Neanderthal contribution, especially if there was breeding with Cro-Magnon once Neanderthals moved on. So maybe darker skin is a more recent mutation than lighter skin instead of the other way around?
source material includes:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24988-humanitys-forgotten-return-to-africa-revealed-in-dna/ http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals/sequencing-neanderthal-dna
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