World's most ancient race traced in DNA study
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Independent Minds
The San people of southern Africa, who have lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years, are likely to be the oldest population of humans on Earth, according to the biggest and most detailed analysis of African DNA. The San, also known as bushmen, are directly descended from the original population of early human ancestors who gave rise to all other groups of Africans and, eventually, to the people who left the continent to populate other parts of the world.
A study of 121 distinct populations of modern-day Africans has found that they are all descended from 14 ancestral populations and that the differences and similarities of their genes closely follows the differences and similarities of their spoken languages.
The scientists analysed the genetic variation within the DNA of more than 3,000 Africans and found that the San were among the most genetically diverse group, indicating that they are probably the oldest continuous population of humans on the continent – and on Earth.
The study, published in the journal Science, took 10 years of research involving trips to some of the most remote and dangerous parts of Africa to collect blood samples. The project found modern Africans had the most diverse DNA of all racial groups in the world, confirming the idea that Africa is the birthplace of humanity, said Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania.
The scientists also found genetic "markers" in the DNA of the present-day inhabitants of East Africa living near to the Red Sea, which indicated that they belonged to the same ancestral group who migrated out of Africa to populate Asia and the rest of the world. West Africans speaking the Niger-Kordofanian language were found to share many genetic traits with African-Americans, indicating they were the ancestors of most of the slaves sent to the New World.
One of the main findings to emerge was the genetic similarity between groups who shared similar languages despite living many thousands of miles from one another. The Sandawe and Hadza of Tanzania shared common ancestors with the Khoisan speakers of southern Africa: all three groups speak "click" languages.
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In actual fact, it's most likely that by appearance they would have looked more mixed, as they would have the genetic information for every single ethnicity we see today within their DNA.
Kinda like if dark skin DNA was represented by AA-aa and light skin represented by BB-bb, Adam and Eve would likely have been AB-ab, having the potential to produce children of all ranges.
So those who are aware of this probably won't be choking on their cornflakes :p
Possibly. The fact to bear in mind is that, you can take any human race and place them in another environment and they will physically adapt accordingly. For example, if you took a African Sans tribal group to Norway, then after N generations (without marriage to native Norwegians), the migrant Sans descendants would become white skinned, blonde haired and blue eyed.
This is because our genes have sufficient programming to create all the physical characteristics of all the races on earth. This was the DNA coding embedded into Adam (and therefore Eve).
Yes you are right. I have worked in Norway. I thought most would be blonde but thats not the case. But I was giving a general case scenario of the adaptive capability in built into all of us.
Obviously, my explaination doesnt explain how you might get Chinese (Mongoliod) type traits. But that too will be with the instruction set of the DNA and something would cause it to trigger.
They'll roam the deserts for days on end, and they'll find water in the most unlikely places. Something modern day man would not be able to do without his fancy tech equipment. It's just such a pity that the government of South Africa doesn't give them the credit they deserve.
I remember in the old days the military use to use them as trackers, and use to be treated like kings because of their uncanny gifts. Their senses are so honed, that they'd make the American Indians look like amateurs at tracking. They are so in sync with their surroundings it's incredible. Those gifts some of the Euro-African troops at that time learnt from them. Which explains why, even today, the South African Reconnaissance Commandos are still considered amongst the best Special Forces Units on this planet.
The Ice Ages are important because they are the crucible for the hominids that left Africa.
Climate selected for all those traits that would make Europeans and Asians similar (both are derivatives of the Cro-Magnons-- Africans are not). Traits like, you know, like IQ, technology (the wheel, agriculture, clothing, writing, complex abstract thought, etc.) and hence the capacity to sustain large civilizations.
If your group split from the San, say, 100k years ago and traveled to West Africa (instead of going North), you didn't have glaciation or four seasons and your skin didn't get white because of lack of sunlight and milk drinking. Your body kept its fast-twitch muscles and high testosterone. You didn't farm, and you didn't need to worry about making clothes or about how you would survive through the winter. You didn't build civilizations-- or any of that stuff, because the climate was not there to put pressure on you to select for pre-frontal cortex instead of for traits better suited to being a hunter gatherer that lived in a small band in a perpetual summertime.
Ever wonder why calendars are the mark of an intelligent race? If it's perpetual summer on the savanna, you don't need one. Sub-Saharan Africans never made one. The Mayans however did, even though they are at roughly the same latitude. The Mayans, of course, had 30k years of evolution in Europe that Africans did not before they left for the Americas. But I digress.
Of all the people of the world, the San are second to last on IQ test scores, beating out only the Australian aborigines, a people even genetically older than they are, who left Africa before what would become Europeans and Asians left it. They spread their genes all over southern India and some parts of the Pacific, but did not spawn direct decedents as the San did, and they got cut off once they made it to Australia.
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I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Now can we talk of Darwin too? He said we are from Apes; The African continent is full of Apes. So did Darwin make a hug hole in the talks and spoke to the apes and found out that these slave had the ancestors on the trees eating the bananas, talking in ?Clicks,? the movement of the tongue,
The truth is The Africans were sold as slaves in the ports of Zanzibar and Bagamoyo. These sites are still vivid and tourist comes to see these. Now if any one talks of Adam and Eve as Black, they know more that you too come from the same roots, if not different, if you follow Darwin, or you have used the whitening cream. Either way the theory of Adam and Eve is short of the colour. We have little knowledge and claim to know all. Then we may as well know and keep the zip tight and let the author dig up the truth, give this to us, we read and check it then comment. How can Adam and Eve be black? The suntan? On the other hand, they were made from the heavenly mud that is dust of colorless gold. I have no reply to the colour of Adam and Eve and rest my case here. My Allah help me. By Joe.
All we know is little.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla