Randolph E. Schmid, AP, April 30, 2009
Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.
The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa. The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.
“Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes” in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.
People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.
Over 10 years, Tishkoff and an international team of researchers trekked across Africa collecting samples to compare the genes of various peoples. Often working in primitive conditions, the researchers sometimes had to resort to using a car battery to power their equipment, Tishkoff explained.
The reason for their work? Very little was known about the genetic variation in Africans, knowledge that is vital to understanding why diseases have a greater impact in some groups than others and in designing ways to counter those illnesses.
Scott M. Williams of Vanderbilt University noted that constructing patterns of disease variations can help determine which genes predispose a group to a particular illness.
{snip}
“Everybody’s history is part of African history because everybody came out of Africa,” Ibrahim [Muntaser Ibrahim of the department of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, Sudan] said.
{snip}
Overall, the researchers were able to study and compare the genetics of 121 African groups, 60 non-African populations and four African-American groups.
The so-called “Cape-colored” population of South Africa has highest levels of mixed ancestry on the globe, a blend of African, European, East Asian and South Indian, Tishkoff said.
{snip}
The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins. There was “very little” evidence for American Indian genes among African-Americans, Tishkoff said.
Ehret added that only about 20 percent of the Africans brought to North America made the trip directly, while most of the rest went first to the West Indies.
And, he added, some local African-American populations, such as the residents of the sea islands off Georgia and South Carolina, can trace their origins to specific regions such as Sierra Leone and Guinea.
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: “The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans,” by Sarah A. Tishkoff, Floyd A. Reed, et al. can be read on-line or downloaded as a PDF file here.
Original article
(Posted on May 1, 2009)
Comments
The study also found that about 71 percent of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to western African origins. They also have between 13 percent and 15 percent European ancestry and a smaller amount of other African origins.
White slaveowners raping black slaves is often cited as the reason for this, but I think a more accurate explanation is that the Union Army occupying the South after the WBTS were well-paid and a long distance from their women, while formerly enslaved black women with no prospects, few skills and no money were in the same area. Occupying soldiers from a rich country and poor indigenous women? Put the two together and you can figure out what inevitably happens.
So what? Probably 95% of the criminals in Detroit (and most major cities) can trace their roots to west africa.
“but I think a more accurate explanation is that the Union Army occupying the South after the WBTS were well-paid and a long distance from their women, while formerly enslaved black women with no prospects, few skills and no money were in the same area.”
I think a more likely explanation is that mulattos have been marrying blacks for centuries, thereby increasing the percentage of white genes in the black population. I would be curious to know the percentage of black genes in the American white population though.
I cannot see what the Cape Coloured have to do in a study like that, except if its purpose was to extol the joys of diversity.
The problem the Lefties have is that Leonard Jeffries is right - though not exactly as he meant it:
Steve Sailer has talked about the black admixture in whites:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/strom.htm
“And the average black admixture among whites is only 0.7 percent. That’s the equivalent of having among your 128 great etc. grandparents, 127 whites and one black. It appears that 70 percent of whites have no African ancestors at all. Among the 30 percent who do, the black admixture is around 2.3 percent, which would be like having three black ancestors out of those 128.”
“I think a more likely explanation is that mulattos have been marrying blacks for centuries,”
And where did mulattoes come from?
That 15 percent White admixture number is thrown around quite a bit, but it seems many people misinterpret that to mean that all Blacks have 15 percent White ancestry; this is not true. That number is just an average. Some American Blacks have zero percent White ancestry while others may have as high as eighty percent. People seem to forget this fact and dream up all kinds of theories about why Blacks have White ancestry when the answer is much simpler - it’s just an average.
We need another name for the birthplace of human evolution. Africa is a name loaded with negative connotations in the modern world. The word Africa originated either with the Greeks or Romans (I forget which) and no one knows where the word came from. Before then, people living there would not have known themselves as being African. I feel insulted when people say my ancestors evolved in Africa. They did not. They evolved in the territory now known as Africa, but they would have little in common with the people now living there.
White slaveowners raping black slaves is often cited as the reason for this.
Has it occured to anyone that the black female slaves may have willingly become lovers with their ‘owners’ I think the often repeated word “rape” is probably misleading.
Slaves for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade were initially sourced in Senegambia and the Windward Coast. Around 1650 the trade moved to west-central Africa (the Kingdom of the Kongo and neighboring Angola). The transport of slaves from Africa to the Americas forms the middle passage of the triangular trade. Several distinct regions can be identified along the west African coast, these are distinguished by the particular European countries who visited the slave ports, the peoples who were enslaved, and the dominant African society(s) who provided the slaves. Researchers discovered the genetic DNA of The San people was more diverse than any other group, suggesting they have survived longer than any other group. The first humans evolved in southern Africa, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border, and today the continent has more genetic variation than anywhere else on Earth.
I’d think that genetic variation would be greatest among Hispanics - mixture of European White, slave black, amerindians.
“…over untold hundreds of generations, burned the incompetent, the antisocial, and the ugly out of their gene pool”
This nicely ties into something I’ve thought for years.
Blacks complain that the criminal justice system doesn’t work for them because it’s based on a white belief system. They claim it was created by whites for whites and simply can’t work for blacks. They also note that Africans never created such a system.
This, in a sense, may be true.
Whites have long known that there are bad white people. As such, they created a system of laws and justice to weed out miscreants and remove them from their communities so as to keep communities safe from such bad influences. Since a great deal of violent criminality happens during the same age period as the height of sexual reproduction, locking away violent white criminals during their reproductive years would have resulted in breeding of fewer criminals.
Blacks like to say that too many black men are in jail. I believe just the opposite. Not enough black men are in jail.
Blacks have never had this weeding of criminals from their genetic pool which is why I believe violent black youth are vastly over represented in the criminal justice system where ever such a system is in place.
“Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes” in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.”
So race is a genetic reality, and different racial/ethnic groups are genetically different. QED.
“Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth,”
SO?????
It may be true that humans evolved in Africa. There is much evidence to prove that the first modern humans evolved in S. Asia around 800 thousand years ago instead of AFrica.
Humans may have evolved in Africa first. But I believe nothing about race but what I see and experience.
Back in the early 20th century black supremecists and their white allies had the theory that Whites evolved first and were the most primitive of all humans.
The idea was that animals and have White skin because they are covered with fur and hair. Thus the earliest and most primitive of humans had White skin like animals.
Black and tan people evolved later. They were not covered with hair so their skin became dark.
That theory may be right, it may be wrong. But it is no more valid than the current one that blacks are in some way superior because mankind evolved in Africa.
Cassiodorus wrote:
“So race is a genetic reality, and different racial/ethnic groups are genetically different.”
No, no, Cassiodorus. You’ve got it all wrong. Race is only a genetic reality when it reflects favorably on blacks and the dogma of diversity. Otherwise, it’s only a “social construct”. Also, we’re not talking about “race” here. Not at all. Here, we’re only speaking of “population groups” specific to geographical areas.
The out of Africa theory is flawed.http://erectuswalksamongst.us/Chap26.html http://erectuswalksamongst.us/Chap20.html
DNA and genetic analyses and ancestral lineage research is the best of current scientific information available on human races and genetic similarities.
The National Geographic ‘Genographic Project’ has a narrative cultural chronology of human relatedness on their website,
and provides a way you can know your own genetic lineages, by
www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic
Most apologists for West African black incareration, poverty, and anti-intellectualism point to overt or hidden discrimination and racism as the cause.
No kangaroos,
A later group travelled a bit more to the North to settle in Eurasia. And migrations into what is now Europe took place only some 40,000 years ago.
For those who believe that there were more selctive pressures in cold Eurasia than tropical and sub-tropical Africa should note that the Neanderthal humans were in Europe for more than 300,000 years but were certainly not more cognitively able than the incoming African migrants—despite having larger crania.
‘Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth’
I suppose Africa was the original melting pot.
http://tinyurl.com/cx4zba http://tinyurl.com/clhpyb
I feel that the rest of humanity outside of Africa, has all the Diversity we need.
White slaveowners raping black slaves is often cited as the reason for this.
Has it occured to anyone that the black female slaves may have willingly become lovers with their ‘owners’ I think the often repeated word “rape” is probably misleading.
It’s often cited as an historical justification for today’s outrageous number of sexual assaults against white women by Black males as though every black rapist were thinking about a possible ancestor of his who was raped by the Massa. IF that is the motivation then I think that 30,000 interracial rapes of white women over the last 40-50 years have more than “evened the score”.
What’s the excuse for the horrendous number of rapes that occur each day in almost every African country. European colonialism?
I for one am not completely convinced that all mankind started in Africa. There are some Chinese findings that may suggest that all the races originated in different places.
Any black like our current very incompetent POTUS, who has an IQ above 100 is usually at least 50% white.
OCCAM,
- Sbuffalonative´s idea that it is the judicial system that makes the difference has some merit. H.K.Erben (paleontologist) holds that a “code of conduct” remarkably similar to the Ten Commandments must have been present already at the Australopithecus stage, otherwise society could not have evolved. I think he is overdoing it a little here. There ARE cultural influences, but I´d say they´re superficial. (our own women treating us as eunuchs and going after the ferals is such a recent problem, resulting from both culture and diversity)
However, what I meant was the evolution of the Europids was extraspecific (adaptive, but with genetic constriction), while that of the Negrids was intraspecific. Through civilization, we have eliminated extraspecific selection pressure. As a result, all kinds of undesirables thrive. Eugenics Now!
“What’s the excuse for the horrendous number of rapes that occur each day in almost every African country.”
What rapes? Outside of SAfrica? Africans in africa living with extreme poverty, for the most part are warm, giving, sharing and peacable. It is only with integration that all hope is lost for Africans. And all hope is lost for their ‘benefactors’ too, for that matter.
I suspect the reason for Africa’s great genetic diversity is the fact that it is large - twice the land area of South America - that humans have been there the longest, and that until relatively recent history the population lived in small, isolated settlements (genetic drift always works the fastest in isolated communities.)
Take a look at a map and compare Africa with Europe. Europe has a very convoluted shoreline with major islands offshore, so people would have naturally taken to the water. Africa’s only major offshore island is Madagascar, and that was originally settled by Malays, not Africans. Even most of Africa’s rivers are not very navigable, as most of Africa consists of a plateau, so the rivers tend to have waterfalls not too far from the coast. Under primitive conditions even the Zambezi and Congo would have been as much a hindrance as a benefit to traffic; they’re full of dangerous wildlife, thus are nothing much like the Rhine, Danube, Volga or Don rivers in Europe.
“IF that is the motivation then I think that 30,000 interracial rapes of white women over the last 40-50 years have more than “evened the score”.
By way of self correction, that 30,000 figure is a yearly average; not a total over several decades.
—- also world’s greatest genetic deviation .
Reply to Taurus 689:
That was a good post. The truth is blacks would have very high crime rates, including rape, even if there had never been any slavery. They are actually just engaging in rationalization and self-deception. Note the very high black crime rate in other countries with very different histories from the United States, e.g. Great Britain, France, Canada etc.
“The primitives who had no vision stayed behind where they’ve advanced little since those days 100,000 years ago”.,,,,
Well said and very true. It is remarkable how little sub-Saharan Africa has developed over the millennias. It was never part of any great empire or civilization. No significant inventions or scientific discoveries were made there. Black Africans did not build ships to sail the great seas like the Vikings or the Chinese. Almost everything in sub-Saharan Africa today that is ‘modern’ (but now decaying), was built by European colonialists, roads, railways, bridges, etc. No great religion, philosophy or culture had its origins there. Had it not been for Arab and White contact sub-Saharan Africa would probably be just like it was a 1,000 years ago and would return to that level if the world left the continent alone. Undoubtedly this lack of social, cultural and technological progress can only be posited on the low levels of intelligence of the populations residing there.
“IF that is the motivation then I think that 30,000 interracial rapes of white women over the last 40-50 years have more than “evened the score”.”
No, it was over 30,000 raped in just the year 2005. Over 40 - 50 years who knows what the number is, could be millions.
During the historic era of white rule in African nations, an era that gave these nations the first glimpse of civilized society, it was considered by blacks, an honor to give their daughters to whites, it was very much a status symbol among blacks to have a daughter who was a concubine for a white landowner or businessman, in some African nations this is still practiced, but very much concealed by governments and liberal media.
With all thw white women mating with black men these days, I gather that the genetically pure African in America will become as rare as the California Condor by 2050.
I read a Scientific American article in the early 90s that stated American blacks are losing 5% of their unique African genes every generation they stay in the US. Genetic variation is greater in African mainly because for 200,000 years Africans have had to deal with coevolving diseases; microbes that the rest of the continents don’t burden the human race with. Africa is the the place humans have benn longest and even today have smallest populations because the other life forms there have had more time to learn how to deal with them. Africans have the shortest average life spans on the planet now and without Western medicine and food shipments their populations would crash.
“Africans in africa living with extreme poverty, for the most part are warm, giving, sharing and peacable.”
That’s right!! There are no rapes in Kenya, Ruanda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Djibuti. It’s integration that causes it.
The Out of Africa Theory has no more validity than the Cleopatra was black and black africans built the pyramids theory.
Don’t buy into it. It is not true. Fully modern human remains have been discovered in Java. Those remains are 750,000, almost one million years old. They are not african.
I got jungle fever real bad the other day. Jungle Fever is
It seems as if most of the posters above pay no attention at all to the findings of scientific research. Of course, scientific findings can be problematic or wrong sometimes but you have to show—also by the empirical methods of science—that whatever theory is wrong. But you don’t do it by dogmatically clinging to a position—because you happen to like it.
Facts: humanity lived exclusively in Africa for 75% at least of humanity’s life span. It’s only relatively recently that humans migrated out of Africa—after having migrated to its 4 corners. Humans migrated not only to West Asia then Europe but also to India, Andaman Islands, Fiji, New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania—BEFORE they ever set foot in Europe.
The key African haplogroup of E3b—and others too—are present not only in Africa but also in Europe—Greece especially.
Humanity became humanity because it was able to develop human languages, creatively use stone then metal tools, use fire, invent clothing, etc. All these crucial steps took place in Africa.
If one goes strictly on phenotype then Africans were the first to build in stone, use writing, domesticate animals, use agriculture(the African Natufians in the Levant).
And those who don’t keep up with archaelogical findings should note that part of Egypt and Kush(Nubia) are both in the Sahara and so-called “sub-Sahara” Africa.
And those who have the time should research on the African history as written by serious historians.
OCCAM:
You are so full of S***! You engage in a wierd mixture of pseudo-science gobblydook and outright fanciful thinking. Everything you say is an exaggeration, embellishment or outright lie. By the way, Egypt is NOT part of sub-Saharan Africa. Nor were the ancient Egyptians black.
The key African haplogroup of E3b—and others too—are present not only in Africa but also in Europe—Greece especially.
___
You, E3b is NORTH AFRICAN origin, hence NOT BLACK! North Africans aren’t black, nor the Ancient Egyptians.
http://tinyurl.com/c52jnz
“My higher self won
You want a medal for that?
Humanity began in Africa as well as Civilization.
That said, European ancestors also originated from Africa and mixed with the local Neanderthal population (who were more primitive than the human evolving in Africa at the same time). You will find that the straight black hair, pale underskin, and certain bone structure are derived from these Neanderthals.
It is a matter of archeological fact that earliest vestiges of modern Civilization began deep in Africa and migrated down the Nile (that’s north with those unfamiliar with the Egyptian paradigm) eventual producing the jewel that was Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt then provided the template of (urban) Civilization that would be copied throughout Asia Minor, Europe, and the World.
Africa’s incredible genetic diversity is a result of the nearly 200,000+ years of mutation and variation in the genome, variations that would eventually produce the “other races” of humanity.
The notion that humans “appeared” in multple regions is absurd. All similar species trace their genetic heritage to common ancestors, except the fictitious multi-regional humans who dwell in the imagination of racists.
Posted by William Cutting at 9:55 AM on May 5
Congratulations in conflating a marker of a subset of a regional population with a descriptor of an entire regional population.
And, by the way, some North Africans have been and always have been considered Black by Europeans. You should look up the original definition of Moor, Blackamoor that is.
“Blacks have never had this weeding of criminals from their genetic pool which is why I believe violent black youth are vastly over represented in the criminal justice system where ever such a system is in place.”
Posted by sbuffalonative at 11:00 AM on May 2
Among those ideas is one that I think I agree with; Consciousness is learned by every new generation. This would mean that although we might inherit the capability for intelligence and with it a broader and expanding capacity for conscious thought - self - conscious thought, every new generation must learn and is therefore limited by their culture as well as their genetically inherited capacity for consciousness. Where the transitory frontiers may be is up for discussion, but I think I agree that consciousness is learned from birth on. This is why I think it is clear that we are actually (the human race) going backwards in our level of consciousness.
“It is a matter of archeological fact that earliest vestiges of modern Civilization began deep in Africa and migrated down the Nile (that’s north with those unfamiliar with the Egyptian paradigm) eventual producing the jewel that was Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt then provided the template of (urban) Civilization that would be copied throughout Asia Minor, Europe, and the World.”
Every bit of this contention is utterly false. Civilization began in the Near East and filtered west to Egypt. Sub-saharan Africa had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It’s remarkable that people continue to question so basic and established a fact.
“You should look up the original definition of Moor, Blackamoor that is.”
“Blackamoor” is a much later coinage than “moor,” the original meaning of which is merely a native of Maure, now Algeria and Morocco. The term had no distinct racial significance in the ancient world, which lacked modern racial and ethnic terminology, but was applied generally to Arabs, Berbers and (later) north African muslims generally.
What domesticated animals were these, Black Emperor?
Let’s take a quick look at the common domesticated animals of the world.
1. Dogs. These were bred from wolves in Asia.
How many of the large, strong sub-Saharan African animals were domesticated by blacks? Absolutely none. Some of those ruminants would probably make decent beasts of burden, but they were exploited only as game animals. Even elephants, domesticated in India were ignored as draft animals by African blacks. Civilization moved UP the Nile, from the north, rather than the other way, and the dividing line between Arab north Africa and black Africa is still pretty much at the seventh cataract, south of which the ancient Egyptions couldn’t sail their ships (the prevailing wind blows from the north, so they’d sail against the current, and for the return trip, they’d simply drift downstream.)
Civilization had several separate origins - the Middle East (what is now Iraq), India, China, and Mesoamerica (what is now Mexico), but none of these places are in sub-Saharan Africa. If, as you claim black Africa produced great civilizations, where did they go? Keep in mind that it is impossible to “steal” knowledge from someone in such a way that they no longer possess it. The old Zimbabwean ruins look very much like similar structures in India, so the safest bet is that they were built by Indian traders. Even Timbuktu was built as a slaving outpost to supply labor to the Arab north, and civilization there was built as a frank imitation of what Arabs and Berbers had already created.
What about sea travel? Africans built no seagoing ships; even Madagascar was originally settled by Malays - blacks being brought there in numbers only later as slaves. Did ancient black Africans create a written language, a system of mathematics or a calendar? No. The ancient Greeks on the other hand knew not only that the earth was round, but actually calculated pretty accurately how big it was.
