"...there weren’t any 83-year-old Al Pacinos wandering the African plains impregnating people." this line damn near killed me today for some reason. Thank you?
Silly side note to white supremacy and racial purity. Modern humans can have up to 6% Neanderthal DNA. Except those of African decent, who are purely Homo sapiens. This made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.
Me, too! Love that little factoid, especially after being raised by a racist dad. 🤣 My DNA analysis shows I carry around 4% Neanderthal genes! Whoot Whoot! 👍🏼
Thanks, James! That's a really interesting history of skin tones. On a tangential side note, I'd just add that the idea of humans as persistence hunters, while making intuitive sense considering various human adaptations not shared by our relatives, doesn't really have a lot of support in the fossil record. See, e.g., https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/
Very interesting. I’ll have to look deeper into this. I was reading about it in this book, which was published in 2021, two years after that article. This is the author bio:
Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics—archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology—which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time.
I have a background in evolutionary biology, but I make no claim to being an expert in this area. The adaptations that humans have compared to other primates DO seem geared toward persistence predation, but there are a couple of sticking points: 1. The limited fossil record (that I’m aware of) suggests that humans were not chasing down older, sicker prey the way modern persistence predators (like cape hunting dogs) do; and 2. Persistence predators are generally fast enough to keep prey in sight, and humans are verbally not that fast. The article I referenced talks about the horse v. human marathon, but a more salient example might be the various species of antelope in Africa, which can maintain their top speeds for distances of 5K or longer. In order to catch prey you have to be able to find them, and even on a flat plain, once they are over the event horizon that gets difficult.
Of course, this is beside the point of your article, which seems spot on to me.
Great write up. But I'm going to quibble. Breastfeeding is not a good method of birth control. I am living proof of that. With the state of crazy going on in the US, we need to be really precise with birth control information.
I get that but it doesn't work. I was born 13 months after my sister. My sister was the last child my mother breastfed. I think she was pissed. And I was tiny as a baby, they had to keep me an extra week in the neonatal unit until my weight came up.
We have better options now. Old wives tales have too many slip ups.
"...there weren’t any 83-year-old Al Pacinos wandering the African plains impregnating people." this line damn near killed me today for some reason. Thank you?
I know, right?
It was definitely a "thank the gods I'm not eating or drinking anything right now" moment.
One way to stop racism? Tell your kids the truth.
That there seems to be one woman we’ve ALL descended from and her name was Lucy. And guess what? she was black.
Had the same chat with my grandkids years ago.
Silly side note to white supremacy and racial purity. Modern humans can have up to 6% Neanderthal DNA. Except those of African decent, who are purely Homo sapiens. This made me laugh out loud the first time I read it.
Me, too! Love that little factoid, especially after being raised by a racist dad. 🤣 My DNA analysis shows I carry around 4% Neanderthal genes! Whoot Whoot! 👍🏼
Hope you're healing and obeying doctor's orders!
Thanks, James! That's a really interesting history of skin tones. On a tangential side note, I'd just add that the idea of humans as persistence hunters, while making intuitive sense considering various human adaptations not shared by our relatives, doesn't really have a lot of support in the fossil record. See, e.g., https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/
Very interesting. I’ll have to look deeper into this. I was reading about it in this book, which was published in 2021, two years after that article. This is the author bio:
Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics—archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology—which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time.
https://www.amazon.ca/Short-History-Humanity-New-Europe/dp/0593229428
I have a background in evolutionary biology, but I make no claim to being an expert in this area. The adaptations that humans have compared to other primates DO seem geared toward persistence predation, but there are a couple of sticking points: 1. The limited fossil record (that I’m aware of) suggests that humans were not chasing down older, sicker prey the way modern persistence predators (like cape hunting dogs) do; and 2. Persistence predators are generally fast enough to keep prey in sight, and humans are verbally not that fast. The article I referenced talks about the horse v. human marathon, but a more salient example might be the various species of antelope in Africa, which can maintain their top speeds for distances of 5K or longer. In order to catch prey you have to be able to find them, and even on a flat plain, once they are over the event horizon that gets difficult.
Of course, this is beside the point of your article, which seems spot on to me.
Great write up. But I'm going to quibble. Breastfeeding is not a good method of birth control. I am living proof of that. With the state of crazy going on in the US, we need to be really precise with birth control information.
I qualified it, and for the conditions of the time, it was what they had.
But we have options that actually work now.
Too many people are looking for quack cures that don't work to keep from being pregnant or to end a pregnancy.
And it's just a crapshoot if it works or not.
Well it does help statistically somewhat, and it was pretty much all they had at the time.
I get that but it doesn't work. I was born 13 months after my sister. My sister was the last child my mother breastfed. I think she was pissed. And I was tiny as a baby, they had to keep me an extra week in the neonatal unit until my weight came up.
We have better options now. Old wives tales have too many slip ups.
Darwin rocks!
Thanks man. This is great. Hope you’re healing up & feeling good.
That's a very interesting summation of different skin colours. What brought about Asian and North American (Pre-Asshole Columbus) skin colour?
I actually learned something today thanks to this article! I knew a bunch of it, but not the pasty people-shitty farming diet connection. Thank you!