Theories on the 'races' and history of Africa (1303 hits)

Excerpt from A General History of Africa, Volume 1

UNESCO, 1981

...the blood-group and population method, despite its remarkable achievements, comes up against difficulties. For one thing, its parameters are multiplying at a tremendous rate, and are already producing results which are odd to the point of being regarded by some as aberrant. Thus L . L. Cavalli-Sforza's phylogenic tree of the peoples of the world departs from the anthropometric classification. The latter puts African Pygmies and San

on the same anthropometric branch as the aborigines of Australia and N e w

Guinea, whereas on the phylogenic tree Pygmies and San are closer to the

French and English, and Australian aborigines are closer to the Japanese

4
and Chinese. In other words, anthropometric characteristics are more

affected by the climate than genes are, so that morphological affinities are more a matter of similar environments than of similar heredities. The work of R. C. Lewontin, based on blood-group research, shows that for the world as awhole over 85 per cent of variations occur within nations. There is only a7 per cent variation between nations belonging to the same traditional race, and only 7 per cent between the traditional races. In short, there is more difference between individuals in the same racial group than there is between 'races'.

This is why more and more scientists are adopting the radical position of denying the existence of race altogether. According to J. Ruffié, in the early days of mankind small groups of individuals, living in very different, widely separated ecological areas, became differentiated in response to very powerful selective pressures - their technical resources being extremely limited - and gave rise to the variants Homo erectas, Homoneanderthalensis and the earliest Homo sapiens. The faciès, for instance, which is the part of the body most exposed to specific environments, evolved differentially; black pigmentation in the skin developed in tropical regions, and so on. But this differentiating tendency was soon halted, and remained embryonic. Man everywhere began to adapt himself to his environment not morphologically but culturally (that is, in clothing, habitat, food, and so on). Man born in the tropics - a hot climate - evolved for a long time as Australopithecus, and Homo habilis and even Homo erectus. 'It was only during the second ice age, thanks to his efficient control of fire, that Homo erectus opted to live in cold climates. The human species is moving from polytypic to monotypic, and this process of racial standardization seems to be irreversible. The whole of mankind must be regarded nowadays as a single pool of intercommunicating genes.



4. Quoted by J. Ruffié, 1977a, p. 385. Again, on the basis of certain genetic characters

a
(the Fy antigen in the Duffy system, the R o allele, etc.), the percentage of white

admixture in American blacks resulting from the crossbreeding that goes on in the United States is put at 25 to 30 per cent. Some scientists have concluded from this that what we have here is a new racial group, somewhat hastily labelled 'North American coloured'. Posted By: Steve Williams
Thursday, January 1st 2015 at 8:30AM
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