All that I know is that it is apparently a source of great pride for some African Americans today: the first humans were black. But is it true and where did this notion come from?
I think they were black everywhere except the bottoms of their feet.
It was probably hard to tell under all that hair.
We do not know.
Pro:
There is a general consensus that the Out of Africa theory and its minor variations do indicate that humans spread across the Earth, meaning that not only did humanity evolve in Africa, but that several successive waves of humans populated the rest of the world after humanity got started in Africa.
We keep finding the oldest human and pre-human ancestors on the East side of Africa in an area where current levels of melanin are very high in the local population due to the climate which appears to have been similar during the period of evolution. This could suggest that the earliest humans, evolving under the same climate conditions, would have developed from ancestors who would have also had very high melanin content, so that the very first humans had dark skin.
Con:
The great apes, beneath their fur/hair, tend to be lighter skinned. Since we do not know at what point in human evolution the hair disappeared, it is also possible that the very first humans were hairy pale-skinned critters.
I am not sure that anyone has bothered to calculate the odds of either scenario. if it makes someone happy to believe either scenario, I can’t see getting upset about it, but currently (subject to the corrections that follow my post), I do not believe that it is a known fact in either direction.
Depends on what you mean by “Black”.
Did the first humans have dark skin, as seen in the descendants of sub-Saharan Africans?
Or did the first humans originate from Africa?
The answer to your question depends on whether you’re talking about physical appearance or geographical origin.
Depends on what you mean by ‘people’ too. Not like one day we were humanoids, and the next humans.
I still vote for black, under all the fuzz.
**Tomndebb **gave a good summary, and I would add the following:
It’s almost certain that the first Homo sapiens were “hairless”, much like ourselves. Our species appeared on the scene in African some 200k years ago, even though we didn’t spread out from Africa until about 60k years ago. It is therefore likely that they had dark skin, although it might have been more of a medium dark color, like the Bushmen of southern Africa today, rather than the darker “black” color of the more numerous Bantu speakers that westerners are more familiar with.
However, early human species (ie, species that we still consider to be members of the genus Homo) might well have had more hair, like the extant non-human great apes, and lighter skin color. These populations also originated in Africa, although they spread out from there much earlier than our species did-- maybe as long ago as 2M years. Those populations (mostly what could be called H. erectus) are what evolved into the various non-*sapiens *populations in Asia and Europe, including Neanderthals. Neanderthals are often portrayed as having light skin, due to the fact that they evolved (like modern Europeans) in northerly locations. It is thought that all of those non-African species died out, with little or no genetic contribution to our species.
Bottom line, everyone on earth today can trace their ancestry back to Africa about 60k years ago. Whether those ancestors had “black” skin is debatable, but they most likely had dark skin and didn’t look much like what a typical European looks like today.
Are any of the primates black under all the fuzz? I am forced to think that at some point someone must have shaved a monkey and tried to figure this out.
Why would it be a source of pride? Someone thinks they chose their parents?
We know (at least, we can believe on pretty good scientific evidence) that all living humans are descended from Mitochondrial Eve, who lived in Kenya, Tanzania or Ethiopia approximately 140,000 years ago. We do not know what she looked like, or whether she herself had very distant ancestors just as human as she.
The history of anti-black racism has been based in part, at times, on pseudo-scientific theories about the blacks being less evolved than whites, closer to the apes, mentally inferior by heredity. Blacks who take pride in this “first humans were black” theory are in essence saying to the rest of the world, “See, you’re all descended from us!” (Which, come to think of it, is in no way incompatible with “scientific racism.”)
That doesn’t really mean much, though, despite how it’s been drummed up in the press. All that means is that all the other purely maternal lines have died out. Of more significance would be the Identical Ancestor Point– that point in time where everyone alive was either an ancestor of all living humans or of none. That point appears to be sometime between 5k and 15K years ago. That means at the very most, you only need to go back 15K years to find a common ancestor for any two random people on earth (and maybe only as far back as 5K).
It’s not even scientific, since Blacks are no more “us” (of 60k years ago) than Whites are. It just means that “we” may have had a skin color closer to black back then. And if you buy into an unscientific hypothesis like “living group A is descended from living group B”, then you open yourself up to the idea that living group A is “less evolved”.
Rather, we should think that we’re all descended from the same common group way back when-- a group that isn’t “us” in the sense of not necessarily being like any living group.
Which goes back to the question I raised earlier. The subject of pride that the “out of Africa” theory surrounds is not physical appearance; it’s African descendancy. May seem like a distinction without a difference to some people, but it’s important.
There is a centuries-old perception that anything African and African-derived is inferior. This supposed inferiority extends not only to its cultures but to its people. So those who embrace with pride the “out of Africa” theory do so because if all people come from Africa, that means the continent gave rise to a many great things, and therefore is undeserving of the scorn and contempt that it gets. When you hear people call blacks nigger and heaping slurs at their culture, reminding them that everyone came out of Africa is akin to saying “yo mama”.
In other words, it’s like saying “Shut the fuck up, pale face, because you’re black too, when all is said and done.”
It really has little to do with skin color.
Aren’t they actually saying, “See? We all are descended from black ancestors!”?, which is different than saying “You’re all descended from us!”
Not that I agree or disagree with that sentiment.
What about kinky hair? Seems like most of our closest primate cousins have straight hair and medium-light skin. Kinky hair & dark skin seems like a later adaptation. Maybe the first humans started out with straight hair and medium skin, the ones who left Africa kept the straight hair (for the most part) and those remaining in Africa further developed the kinky hair and dark skin?
Of course, many of us have kinky-haired pubs. What’s up with that?
Toss up, to me.
The whole African/Black pride thing is completely understandable, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense, scientifically. Most of us our proud when what we perceive as “our group” gets some glory or some spotlight. It’s mostly an emotional response that is very human, no matter what the color of your skin. And if you’re and American Black, who grew up in an environment of racism, who could blame that person for looking for a source of pride, wherever that might be found? As long as it’s kept in perspective, and doesn’t turn into a sense of superiority, it’s of little harm.
Levdrakon: Since the non-Africans are a subset of the Africans, and there are still descendants, in Africa, of that last subset, then it would seem that kinky hair is the original condition, at least for our species. Maybe earlier populations had straighter hair, like chimps, but H. sapiens probably had the kinky condition.
Another important data point is that some of the oldest non-African populations (eg, the Andaman Islanders) have kinky hair. In fact, those populations share many features with present-day Africans other than hair texture.
I can’t speak for pubes, though. Their function seems to be to trap body odors (in sweat), and maybe that texture is better at doing that.
Yes, of course. And the white racist might well respond, “Yeah, but you lot stagnated in Africa and remained primitive and stupid; we moved out and evolved into higher forms.” An assumption without basis in modern psychology, of course.
Easier to grip. God’s way of providing a home for the crab lice.
I think he means, did they have that “ghetto attitude”. 