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#1 | ||
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Moomin Valley
Posts: 14,924
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Early Briton ancestor 'had dark skin and blue eyes'
People with an interest in ancient history and archaeology will have known of this for a long time. Now that the Natural History Museum (NHM) has reconstructed a model of 'Cheddar Man', so-called as the remains were found in Cheddar Gorge, West England, near Bristol, at Gough's Cave.
The NHM has a fascinating section in the Red Zone dedicated to Human Evolution and includes life-size models of various branches of the Homo- species, such as Neanderthalsis, so-named after the region it was discovered in. Thanks to lurid headlines about the individual's skin and eye colour, it has attracted a lot of media interest. This is good in terms of educating the masses, but not exactly news, surely?
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Apparently, many people are very upset about this and have taken to social media to express scepticism. Discuss.
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If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~ Japanese Proverb |
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#2 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Arcadia, Greece
Posts: 24,072
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"Even a broken clock is right twice a day. 9/11 truth is a clock with no hands." - Beachnut |
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#3 |
Now. Do it now.
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 24,804
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I'm curious about it, as I had previously thought that eye pigment and skin colour had evolved together.
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"The Conservatives want to keep wogs out and march boldly back to the 1950s when Britain still had an Empire and blacks, women, poofs and Irish knew their place." The Don That's what we've sunk to here. |
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#4 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Arcadia, Greece
Posts: 24,072
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Not an isolated find, it seems:
"La Braña 1, name used to baptize a 7,000 years old individual from the Mesolithic Period, whose remains were recovered at La Braña-Arintero site in Valdelugueros (León, Spain) had blue eyes and dark skin." |
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"Even a broken clock is right twice a day. 9/11 truth is a clock with no hands." - Beachnut |
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#5 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 4,740
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Artisanally cave aged Cheddar Man?
The first Britons must have been hipsters. |
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#6 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Moomin Valley
Posts: 14,924
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Skin colour is to do with two genes named SLC45A2 and SLC24A5, and are associated with variation in skin color in people of European and African descent.
Eye colour is associated with a gene called OCA2 that affects how much brown pigment your cells produce. People with 1 or 2 copies of the A variant of this marker tend to have more brown pigment in their eyes, so they are likely to have darker eyes. Other factors include:
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If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~ Japanese Proverb |
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#7 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In the details
Posts: 78,592
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So, like Thulsa Doom, then?
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#8 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3,109
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Yep. Here's a little scenario I dreamed up; imagine that the ancestors of those white supremacist types were black (obviously they were, due to being from Africa initially) and were still black up until not many thousands of years ago. Also imagine that our species was directly responsible for wiping out the white neanderthals (assuming they were white; given where they lived, and for how long, this is likely). So, the black ancestors of those white supremacist types were responsible for wiping out a bunch of perfectly decent white folk! How can they sleep at night!
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“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” - Victor Hugo “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin |
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#9 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,208
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I feel reckless, I would be willing to place a small bet that your dreamed up scenario is pretty close to the truth.
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"... when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain" - DMB |
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#10 |
Muse
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 684
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I do find the dating interesting. I would have expected the populations in Northern Europe to already be well on their way to light skin by 8000 BCE.
However one of the final paragraphs mentioned something:
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#11 |
Fiend God
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: In the details
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#12 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,208
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But not as good as the real thing.
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"... when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain" - DMB |
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#13 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 16,267
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#14 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 4,740
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Very interesting, and it makes sense that the adaptation of light skin didn't become neccessary until our diets changed.
It does raise a question for me... Neanderthals are usually thought to be fairskinned, but they were hunter-gatherers too as ar as I know. Was their change in skin color due to a different mutation or selection pressure? Did they require more vitamin D to function, or were they not as good at synthesizing it as we were? Or is it just that they've been in northern regions for so long that a relatively small selection pressure on skin color had enough time to affect the population, regardless of diet? |
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#15 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Moomin Valley
Posts: 14,924
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They possibly had much more bodily hair, which would act as a vacuum keeping cold air out (rather like an animal pelt)? Just a guess, based AIUI the fact indigenous Africans have little body hair. Perhaps Neanderthals were thinner on top, to absorb more sun. But who knows?
The article says it is a 76% probability the Cheddar guy had dark skin, which means there is a 24% chance he did not. |
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If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~ Japanese Proverb |
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#16 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3,109
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“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” - Victor Hugo “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin |
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#17 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 16,267
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Great minds discuss ideas. Medium minds discuss events. Small minds spend all their time on U-Tube and Facebook. |
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#18 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Planet earth on slow boil
Posts: 7,940
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Mainstream climate science sources • http://www.skepticalscience.com/empi...al-warming.htm • http://ossfoundation.us/projects/env...g/human-caused • http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/...e-responsible/ ![]() ![]() |
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#19 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 5,065
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Franklin understands certain kickbacks you obtain unfairly are legal liabilities; however, a risky deed's almost never detrimental despite extra external pressures. |
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#20 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 31,724
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I keep reading the thread title as "Early Bitcoin Ancestor..."
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#21 |
Disorder of Kilopi
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: State of Flux
Posts: 9,448
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News to me. Thanks for posting it.
Totally. Good one. *** It's the mayfly mentality one gets from having a short human lifespan relative to the pace of biological and geological change that makes 'nowadays' seem like the only valid, true standard. This makes certain emotional attachments both understandable and silly. |
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#22 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: The Great Northwet
Posts: 20,039
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Perhaps if the dark skin had stuck I wouldn't have had so many stinkin' skin cancers!
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#23 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: the wet side of the mountains
Posts: 3,013
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It's our sunlight-deprived existence here in Washington, keeping us melanin-challenged, along with the annoyingly clean air not blocking the sun's rays enough.
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#24 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2003
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#25 |
Philosopher
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#26 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,208
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I can't help but wonder* what some people would have picked to distinguish "good people" from "bad people" if that were true.
Because they sure would have picked something, maybe to do with hair. *I could not help it, I don't now why I wondered that, it happens I suppose. |
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#27 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 16,267
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Don't I recall the the "not brown eyes" mutation can be theoretically tracked to one person? Time?
eta: 6-10,000 years ago. Dunno what that says about Cheddar man. |
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#28 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3,109
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Well, given that the current peoples of Africa are black (with the exception of ancestors of immigrants from elsewhere), then I guess it is fair to assume that the people who left there 60 - 70 000 years ago also were. Otherwise, the scenario is that they were lighter, but then developed darker skin after leaving, which eventually lightened again at some point in their future.
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“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” - Victor Hugo “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin |
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#29 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: central Illinois
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I suspect you are a sandwich, metaphorically speaking. -Donn And a shot rang out. Now Space is doing time... -Ben Burch You built the toilet - don't complain when people crap in it. _Kid Eager Never underestimate the power of the Random Number God. More of evolutionary history is His doing than people think. - Dinwar |
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#30 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Moomin Valley
Posts: 14,924
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The two skin colour genes mentioned in the OP. It is not so much that the originating Africans were dark skinned, but rather, almost all Europeans and half of all African Americans today (according to 23andme) have this 'depigmentising' gene. In other words Europeans are 'depigmentised' blacks.
Strangely, these 'depigmentising' genes are not found in Asian populations. To make things more complicated, Asians have the highest percentage of Neanderthal genes. Africans have none. So maybe, logically, the Neanderthals were never dark enough to be 'depigmented'...? I tend to go along with the theory Homo Sapiens originated in the Middle East, ventured afar, and were then beaten back to the warmer climes, including Africa, by the last ice age (LGM) some 18K years ago, and then ventured back into Europe, some 10K years ago, whereas the Asians around the equator zone, never left, hence no dark genes to 'depigment'. ETA: Here's the science AIUI: The depigmentation gene is caused by a variant from G to A, to give A -A in the DNA sequence of the SLC24A5 gene, Marker: rs1426654. from 23andme:
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Marker: rs16891982 is marked by a change from a C to a G in the DNA sequence of the SLC45A2 gene.
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As you can see, Asians have very little to none of either gene, thus must always have had that skin tone. |
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If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~ Japanese Proverb |
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#31 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: UK
Posts: 1,756
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A question then; If diet provoked reactions resulting in fair skin, does a modern. healthy diet lead to a relaxation in that requirement? Are our ancestors likely to revert to darker skin tones because there is a reduced drive to produce natural vitamin D?
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#32 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: United States
Posts: 1,893
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Pan African Afrocentrists are going to jump on this for sure...
"See, we told you Hannibal was black" |
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#33 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Feb 2010
Posts: 1,208
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"Nope! Then they would not have picked a Danish actor to portray him in the TV series, would they, huh, huh, huh?"
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"... when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain" - DMB |
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#34 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 19,266
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Kudos to the reconstructor. They managed to get just a hint of expression in the face and that helps make it look oddly familiar.
But every time I see "Cheddar Man" I think it's refering to his complexion texture. |
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#35 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 4,426
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George Hamilton? Nope, brown eyes. Plus I don't think he's quite old enough..
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"Such reports are usually based on the sighting of something the sighters cannot explain and that they (or someone else on their behalf) explain as representing an interstellar spaceship-often by saying "But what else can it be?" as though thier own ignorance is a decisive factor." Isaac Asimov |
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#36 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 4,740
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What's great to see in the reconstruction of the face is that the facial features of Cheddar Man don't really correspond to any of our current races.
Yes, he might have been 'black', but he didn't look like a modern day sub-Saharan African or Melanasian person would look. And me might be an ancestor of later British populations, but he doesn't look particularly 'European' either. Which just goes to show that our current ideas of race don't really apply to our ancestors that much. |
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#37 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: St. Louis, Mo.
Posts: 12,392
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Way back when I was reading the fantasy novels of Robert E. Howard (Conan, Kull...), he did a series featuring “Bran Mak Morn”, a Pictish warrior.
He described the Picts as the “indigenous” inhabitants of Britain, and being “dark and swarthy”... Howard tended to make up most of his anthropology, but maybe he got this right.... |
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#38 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 15,248
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Actually it is even somewhat more complicated than that. Additional loci contribute, some alterations that make for lighter skin in Europeans are also found in Africa, and some gene variants that arose in Eurasia migrated back into Africa.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/...man-skin-color An origin of all modern humans in Africa some 300,000+ years ago, and their migrations within Africa, rather than within middle east, seem pretty strongly supported by the and by the bulk of other studies. |
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#39 |
Mostly harmless
Join Date: Jul 2004
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#40 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 3,109
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“There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.” - Victor Hugo “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” - George Carlin |
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