The First man was black?

[Aardvark]

No one is denying the role of skin in the synthesis of vitamin D.

 

Just that, to extrapolate from that , that the darkness of human skin is primarily a climatic adaptation is a step too far.

 

Originally posted by Glider

Vitamin D is produced through the action of sunlight (UV) on the skin. This is our ONLY source of vitamin D.

Sunlight is NOT the only source of vitamin D, eggs, fish, liver and milk all contain vitamin D.

 

Also humans have other adaptations to deal with such problems as sun burn, they are called clothes. Even cavemen knew how to wear animal skins.

 

You present an interesting hypothesis, but thats all it is, a hypothesis, NOT fact.

[aman]

Maybe the Neandertals were white and after a little inter-breeding the white genes just filled up Europe.

Just aman

[Aardvark]

Doubtful, but an amusing idea.

[Skye]

I think it's important to note the difference between black as people having dark skin caused by high levels of melanin, as opposed to people from Africa with a variety of traits including dark skin. If you assume that Africa was where the first Homo sapiens occured than it would make sense that they would be black due to the latitude. But that doesn't mean they shared other traits with the current Africans. An African has had as long to evolve as any other person so they could be as much or more divergent as white, yellow, red or green people.

[Sayonara]

So we've cracked it then.

 

Latitude makes you black.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Aardvark

No one is denying the role of skin in the synthesis of vitamin D.

 

Just that, to extrapolate from that , that the darkness of human skin is primarily a climatic adaptation is a step too far.

 

First of all, this is not extrapolation. The synthesis of vitamin D3 in the skin (or more precisely, the observation that dark skins require around four times the amount of UV to synthesise the same amount of vitamin D3 as light skins) is one piece of evidence in support of the hypothesis that skin colour is a function of adaptation to climate. This is not my hypothesis, but it is one that makes sense to me in light of the evidence.

 

Sunlight is NOT the only source of vitamin D, eggs, fish, liver and milk all contain vitamin D.

 

These contain dietary vitamin D (D2). Sunlight is our only source of D3.

 

Also humans have other adaptations to deal with such problems as sun burn, they are called clothes. Even cavemen knew how to wear animal skins.

 

True, they did. However, your 'hypothesis' that 'cavemen' wore clothes as a protection against sunburn runs contrary to observations. People tend to wear more clothes the further north you go, effectively cutting down skin exposure to sunlight in climates where the risk of sunburn is lower. On the other hand, people in hotter (more sunny) climates where the risk of sunburn is higher, tend to wear fewer clothes (e.g. the aboriginal people of Australia and indigenous African peoples). Even in cooler, more northerly climes, we can observe the relationship between weather and clothing. Whilst people are now more aware of the dangers of UV radiation, people still have a tendency to wear fewer clothes providing less overall cover in hotter, more sunny weather. In light of this, we may assume that the primary function of clothes was warmth as opposed to protection against sunburn. Thus it would seem that your hypothesis is not supported by the evidence.

 

You present an interesting hypothesis, but thats all it is, a hypothesis, NOT fact.

 

I am aware of that. I don't recall ever presenting it as fact (there are surprisingly few facts in science, particularly those dealing with non-observable phenomena). That is the function of research: Theorise, hypothesize, test, readjust the theory, hypothesize, test and so-on. Ideas concerning the origins of human beings; the development of race traits, language, intelligence, culture and so-on are all hypotheses. They have to be by definition as there was nobody there to observe and record these developments. Nonetheless, many of these hypotheses are supported by evidence. If you disagree with this particular hypothesis (skin colour is a function of adaptation to climate), then you are free to present evidence to the contrary.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Sayonara³

So we've cracked it then.

 

Latitude makes you black.

 

...er...it seems to be a factor?....um...

[aman]

When we get the humen genome mapped and find the schematic, I hear we can now tell races by DNA, it will be interesting to see if dark skin is a common gene to all with it active in blacks and inactive in whites and why genetically bi-racial children can show either black, white, or be brown. It's got me confused.

Just aman

[YoungStrife]

The first humans originated in south africa where there is a warm climate. They develope melanin to reduce the risk of skin cancer. The also sweat less to conserve water and made different adaptations to handle extreme heat like height.

 

Later we moved to Europe where there was a colder environment, so we got shorter, white, and lost many of our adaptations for heat.

 

It's true...climate dictates our appearance, did you ever get a tan? (get it?)

[Jenab]

Maybe there were different feelings towards albinos but they are a rare genetic condition. There never was enough of them to move as a race to Europe. The people spread into Europe about 35' date='000 years ago and lived mostly nomadic until about 10,000 years ago when evidence of settlement has been discovered.

Then 7,000 years ago we start seeing stone constructions and monuments.

It seems over a short period of 25,000 years with high mortality rates and natural selection the evolution of lighter skin was favored in Europe, especially red hair and very light skin in far British Isles. Evolution was compressed due to short life cycles and pressures for survival.

Just my reading of the research to date and my thoughts.

Just aman[/quote']

The earliest hominids appeared when the proto-chimpanzee line diverged from that of Australopithecus afarensis, about five million years ago.

 

Since then, hominid evolution has been extensively branchy, with races spawning new species and genera of hominid types, most of which are extinct today. For example, there was Australopithecus robustus, which sported a sagittal crest: a bony ridge extending from the spine over the top of the head, to which was attached muscles from the jawbone to give added chewing strength. A robustus became extinct about one million years ago.

 

But, to focus on the lineage of presently extant types:

 

A. afarensis begat Homo habilis, which racinated and at least one of the habilis races begat H. erectus, which also racinated.

 

Some of the late habilis and/or early erectus tribes became the seed stock of the early hominid migrants from Africa to the rest of the world.

 

Racial variants of erectus have been found in fossil form in widely scattered parts of the world, from Europe to Indonesia.

 

The transition of erectus to sapiens occurred gradually, but at different rates among the different races of erectus hominids.

 

The use of fire in Europe goes back nearly a million years (dating of hearth fire remains), though it isn't known whether any late Euro-variant of Homo erectus could actually make fire.

 

The earliest sapiens probably appeared in Europe about 700,000 years ago. The transition was mirrored in SE Asia about 300,000 years ago. In Africa, the process took longer, beginning less than 100,000 years ago and might not be completed as yet.

 

Cro-Magnon evolved from a European race of H. sapiens, appearing about 40,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon was the first White race. No other race has Cro-Magnon among its principal ancestors.

 

The "recent Out-of-Africa" school makes frequent use of a mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam theory to seem to prove that the first hominids to migrate from Africa were already sapiens, and that the migration occurred only 135,000 years ago. Their arguments are fallacious, and, possibly, dishonest.

 

Imagine a symbolic tree of your ancestors, in which your mother is F (female) and your father is M (male). Your maternal grandmother is FF. Your maternal grandfather is FM. Your paternal grandmother if MF. Your paternal grandfather is MM. Et cetera.

 

135,000 years is roughly 7000 generations.

 

Let's consider, however, only 10 generations. Ten generations ago, your ancestors were:

 

MMMMMMMMMM

MMMMMMMMMF

MMMMMMMMFM

MMMMMMMMFF

...and so on to...

FFFFFFFFFFMM

FFFFFFFFFFMF

FFFFFFFFFFFM

FFFFFFFFFFFF

 

There's a total of 1024 ancestors at that level of your family tree. How many of them is identified by the lineage of mitochondrial DNA?

 

Only one: FFFFFFFFFF.

 

How many are identified by the lineage of Y-chromosome DNA?

 

Only one: MMMMMMMMMM.

 

Suppose those two were traced to Africa. Would you have the slightest idea where the other 1022 of your ancestors were? No. They could have been anywhere.

 

Now, 135 ky ago, there weren't anything close to 2^7000 people in the world. Family trees stop "forking" a good ways before you go that far back in time. But the principle is the same. You don't know where most of your ancestors were just because you have made a guess about where two of them might have been.

 

The fossil record is better evidence than the badly misrepresented microbiological evidence, and the fossils favor the hypothesis that our hominid ancestors left Africa somewhere in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million years ago, instead of the 100,000 to 150,000 years ago range given by the, um, leftists.

 

Incidentally, civilization might not have originated in the Middle East. The earliest known pottery was found at Dolni Vestonice, Moravia, dated to 28,000 years ago. That's 20 ky earlier than the earliest fragments from the Middle East.