Do we know where the term “white” as synonym for “Caucasian” originated?

I made a post here talking about bacon’s rebellion and the virginia slave codes, which were designed to dehumanize black people to prevent a white-black alliance against the aristocracy.

But I have no idea how that would apply to any country other than the US. Like the idea of a monolithic white people who are superior to a monolith of all black people, I don’t know how that idea would apply in Canada for example based on the sociopolitical situation in the US.

The Yamnaya lived on the Pontic-Caspian steppes, not in the Caucasus.

They do partly derive from the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer group genetically[1], but not exclusively, and by the time the Yamnaya emerged they were already a distinct population and archaeological culture. Between the CHGs (~10,000 BC) and the emergence of the Yamnaya culture (~3300 BC) lie several millennia of cultural change and admixture. A tenuous connection at best.


  1. but culturally, not really - CHGs weren’t steppe nomads and were without pottery, farming, wheeled vehicles… ↩︎

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