Very interesting. Some or all of what he describes took place after some evolutionary trends towards "black" and "white" were already well-developed (as nearly completed as evolutionary outcomes can be). A couple of months ago, I speculated (with, of course, none of Diamond's scholarship) on the possibility that being "black" was actually a later development than being "white", given the enormous environmental differences between Africa of a mere 5000 years ago and Africa of earlier epochs. EXCERPTS: "...questions about the precise environment in which humans evolved before leaving Africa. It is naive in the extreme to imagine that Africa in those times resembled Africa today. Almost(?) as naive as imagining that early humans resembled current inhabitants of Africa. We know, for example, that what we now see as barren sand piteously scorched by the sun (the Sahara) was at one time rich in tropical vegetation and animals..." "...It occurs to me that mankind may have gone through several evolutionary cycles, including a period when our primitive ancestors lived not on sunny savannahs but in dark rainforests and low melanin function was advantageous. In this scenario, very dark-skinned Africans may have evolved from light-skinned Africans when these shelters from the sun were diminished. Odd thought! This would make modern "European" (light-skinned) people 'throw-backs' to a common ancestor of both dark-skinned and light-skinned people today (on whatever continent they live)..." For those that missed it, here it is again: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Wed Jan 9, 2008 6:51 pm http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/message/81870 Pam, you are repeating the standard explanation, with which I am familiar; probably familiar with it before you were born. What you seem to have missed is my describing an alternative scenario (explicitly designated as such). For someone so gung-ho about "alternative" crap such as Null so often spouts (along with some mainstream stuff he claims is his own revelation), you are awfully dependent on a didactic presentation of "the facts" as if "the facts" were engraved in stone. Even here, in your "actually", you mis-state the process as described by those whose "facts" you dutifully "quote". No light-skinned people ever evolved from dark-skinned people; rather, from a population which included a wide range of individuals of varying capacities for producing melanin (and/or for sequestering it in the skin), those with less capacity to do so thrived in less-sunny environments, those with greater capacity did better in sunnier environments. What you seem to have missed is my suggestion that given vast changes in climate and vegetation during early periods of human evolution, it is theoretically possible that early human populations were light-skinned (on the average), and that populations with darker skins evolved from a successful sub-population of that population. In this scenario, either light-skinned members of the earlier population migrated to less sunny regions or light-skinned members of the later (now predominantly dark) population did so. None of this "fact". Simply speculation. As are the speculations underlying the standard theory you parrot as gospel. Not the kind of thing non-scientists understand very well. The fact that science is a "game"; a game much more fun (and more challenging) than the NY Times Sunday Cross-Word Puzzle. --Frank LeFever ======================================================= --- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Pamela Somers" <wbaifree@...> wrote: > > FRANK: In this scenario, very dark-skinned > Africans may have evolved from light-skinned Africans when these > shelters from the sun were diminished. Odd thought! This would make > modern "European" (light-skinned) people "throw-backs" to a common > ancestor of both dark-skinned and light-skinned people today (on > whatever continent they live). > > Actually, light-skinned people evolved from dark-skinned people when > they moved away from the equator. Dark skin protects you from the > sun's radiation in areas around the equator, but the sun is so strong > there that more Vitamin D gets made on the skin. When living in > northern areas you need less melanin for protection, and with less > melanin you absorb more of the less available sunlight and thus make > more Vitamin D. But it can actually be dangerous to the health of a > dark-skinned person to live too far north of the equator because they > can't get enough sunlight to make sufficient Vitamin D! > > All of us should be taking Vitamin D-3 supplements, especially in the > winter. Lighter people should take 1000-2000 units and darker people > should probably take 4000 units. It has to be Vitamin D-3 which is > the active form. Also, taking Vitamin D during the summer months may > prevent SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in the winter. > > Pam > > --- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Frank LeFever" <fflefever@> > wrote: > > > > FRED: "...Everyone came from Africa and some lost pigment like you > > because they could not get enough vitamin D..." > > > > NALINI: "Actually, those with white skin absorb vitamin D far more > > efficiently, light-skinned people tend to be in less sunny > climates. > > Dark skin can lead to a vitamin D deficiency..." > > > > I think that is what Fred was trying to say. I have no doubt that > he > > understands the role of natural selection in the evolution of > > different human types when he thinks about it calmly. However, when > > he gets upset his syntax and possibly his thinking tends to get a > bit > > scrambled. > > > > I believe what he meant to say (correct, me Fred, if I misinterpret > > you) was that Africans "lost" pigments "because they could not get > > enough Vitamin D". A more precise statement would be that those who > > produced too much melanin (having "a melanin excess disease" as Ed > > Marshall should logically say) did not flourish in an environment > with > > reduced sunlight exposure, whereas those who produced just enough > > melanin (Ed Marshall's "melanin deficiency disease") flourished. > > > > Nobody "LOST" pigment "because" they needed Vitamin D. Those who > > ALREADY produced less melanin survived and bred offspring more > > reliably than those who produced more. By invoking a teleological > > explanation Fred shares a common error among non-scientists, unless > > (as I have suggested) it is a trivial linguistic failure not > > adequately expressing his intent. > > > > I find it hard to explain away this part of his formulation, > however: > > "lost pigment like you". > > > > I have lost no pigment, unless Fred is alluding to my annual loss of > > pigment during the winter. > > > > There's another way to look at these things: 30 or 40 years ago (in > > the weekly journal, Science, published by the AAAS) I read a > > speculation that dark skin evolved as a protection against Vitamin D > > poisoning. I don't know if endogenously produced Vit. D can reach > > toxic levels, but this notion does raise questions about the precise > > environment in which humans evolved before leaving Africa. > > > > It is naive in the extreme to imagine that Africa in those times > > resembled Africa today. Almost(?) as naive as imagining that early > > humans resembled current inhabitants of Africa. > > > > We know, for example, that what we now see as barren sand piteously > > scorched by the sun (the Sahara) was at one time rich in tropical > > vegetation and animals. Down south, in Shaka's old stomping grounds > > (Kwa-Zulu), I have traveled through (and visited in) plains and > > rolling hills in some ways like my own birthland, Nebraska. But > Shaka > > was of course a modern man living in an environment immensely > changed > > from that of his (and my) ancestors. > > > > It occurs to me that mankind may have gone through several > > evolutionary cycles, including a period when our primitive ancestors > > lived not on sunny savannahs but in dark rainforests and low melanin > > function was advantageous. In this scenario, very dark-skinned > > Africans may have evolved from light-skinned Africans when these > > shelters from the sun were diminished. Odd thought! This would > make > > modern "European" (light-skinned) people "throw-backs" to a common > > ancestor of both dark-skinned and light-skinned people today (on > > whatever continent they live). > > > > Bytheway: someone should tell Ed Marshall and anyone who thinks > > melanin skin content is relevant to brain function that the > mechanisms > > and genetic controls of melanin in the central nervous system are > > entirely different from those in the skin. > > > > Yes, yes, I know Fred will say "you are 'white' because you want to > be > > 'white' and separate yourself from others". With, of course, > nothing > > whatever to support his claim to read my mind. > > > > --Frank LeFever > > > > ======================================== > > --- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, LasiewiczN@ wrote: > > > > > > > > > In a message dated 1/8/2008 5:30:47 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, > > > siddharta2@ writes: > > > > > > Everyone came from Africa and some lost pigment like you because > > they could > > > not get enough vitamin D. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Actually, those with white skin absorb vitamin D far more > efficiently, > > > light-skinned people tend to be in less sunny climates. Dark skin > > can lead to a > > > vitamin D deficiency. > > > > > > Nalini > > > > > > [here's one study] > > > > > > _http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071218/vitamin_ > 071218/2 > > > 0071218?hub=Health_ > > > > > > (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071218/vitamin_ > 071218/20071218?hub=Health) > > > > > > > > > > > the darker the skin of the students, the lower their levels of > > vitamin D. > > > * Among those of European origin, with lighter skin, 34 per > > cent had > > > insufficient levels of vitamin D. > > > * Among those from East Asian or Chinese descent, 85 per > cent > > had > > > insufficient levels. > > > * Among those from South Asia -- countries such as India -- > 93 > > per cent > > > had insufficient levels. > > > * And among those of African ancestry, 100 per cent -- > > everyone tested > > > -- had insufficient levels. And among this group, about 43 per > cent > > were > > > considered deficient, with levels below 25 nmol/L. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ====================================================== --- In NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Nalini Lasiewicz" <LasiewiczN@...> wrote: > > This article is up for discussion. After so many generalizations, > it's refreshing to think about specifics. > > NL > ============================= > [fair use, (c) Discover Magazine] > > How Africa Became Black > by Jared Diamond > Discover Magazine > 02.01.1994 > > Abstract: Africa's racial history was not necessarily its racial > destiny. To unravel the story of Africa's past, you must not only > look at its faces but listen to its languages and harvest its crops. > > Despite all I'd read about Africa, my first impressions upon being > there were overwhelming. As I walked the streets of Windhoek, the > capital of newly independent Namibia, I saw black Herero people and > black Ovambo; I saw Nama, a group quite unlike the blacks in > appearance; I saw whites, descendants of recent European immigrants; > and outside Windhoek I saw the last of the formerly widespread > Kalahari Bushmen struggling for survival. These people were no longer > pictures in a textbook; they were living humans, right in front of > me. But what most surprised me was a street sign on one of downtown > Windhoek's main roads. It read GOERING STREET. > > Surely, I thought, no country could be so dominated by unrepentant > Nazis that it would name a street after Hermann Goering, the > notorious head of the Luftwaffe. As it turned out, the street > actually commemorates Hermann's father, Heinrich, founding > Reichskommissar of the German colony of South-West Africa, which > would later be renamed Namibia. But Heinrich is no less a problematic > figure than his son: his legacy includes one of the most vicious > attacks ever carried out by European colonists on Africans, Germany's > 1904 War of Extermination against the Herero. Today, while events in > neighboring South Africa command the world's attention, Namibia, too, > struggles to deal with its colonial history and establish a > multiracial society. Namibia illustrated for me how inseparable > Africa's past is from its present. > > Most Americans think of native Africans as black and of white > Africans as recent intruders; and when they think of Africa's racial > history they think of European colonialism and slave trading. But > very different types of peoples occupied much of Africa until as > recently as a few thousand years ago. Even before the arrival of > white colonialists, the continent harbored five of what many consider > to be the world's six major divisions of humanity, the so-called > human races, three of which are native to Africa. To this day nearly > 30 percent of the world's languages are spoken only in Africa. No > other continent even approaches this human diversity, and no other > continent can rival Africa in the complexity of its human past. > > The diversity of Africa's peoples results from its diverse geography > and long prehistory. Africa is the only continent to extend from the > northern to the southern temperate zone; it encompasses some of the > world's driest deserts, largest tropical rain forests, and highest > equatorial mountains. Humans have lived in Africa far longer than > anywhere else: our remote ancestors originated there some 7 million > years ago. With so much time, Africa's peoples have woven a complex, > fascinating story of human interaction, a story that includes two of > the most dramatic population movements of the past 5,000 years: the > Bantu expansion and the Indonesian colonization of Madagascar. All > those interactions are now tangled up in politics because the details > of who arrived where before whom are shaping Africa today. > > How did the five divisions of humanity in Africa get to be where they > are today? Why did blacks come to be so widespread, instead of one or > more of the four other groups whose existence Americans tend to > forget? How can we ever hope to wrest the answers to these questions > from Africa's past without written evidence of the sort that taught > us about the spread of the Roman Empire? > > African prehistory is a detective story on a grand scale, still only > partly solved. Clues can be derived from the present: from the > peoples living today in Africa, the languages they speak, and their > plant crops and domestic animals. Clues can also be dug up from the > past, from the bones and artifacts of long-dead peoples. By examining > these clues one at a time and then combining all of them, we can > begin to reconstruct who moved where at what time in Africa, and what > let them move--with enormous consequences for the modern continent. > > As I mentioned, the africa encountered by the first European > explorers in the fifteenth century was already home to five human > races: blacks, whites, Pygmies, Khoisan, and Asians. The only race > not found in Africa is the aboriginal Australians and their > relatives. > > Now, I know that classifying people into arbitrary races is > stereotyping. Each of these groups is actually very diverse, and > lumping people as different as the Zulu, Masai, and Ibo under the > single heading "blacks" ignores the differences between them. So does > lumping Africa's Egyptians and Berbers with each other and with > Europe's Swedes under the single heading "whites." The divisions > between blacks, whites, and the other major groups are arbitrary > anyway because each group shades into the others. All the human > groups on Earth have mated with humans of every other group they've > encountered. Nevertheless, recognizing these major groups and calling > them by these inexact names is a shorthand that makes it easier to > understand history. By analogy, it's also useful to divide classical > music into periods like "baroque," "classical," and "romantic," even > though each period is diverse and shades into other periods. > > By the time European colonialists arrived, most of Africa's major > population movements had already taken place(see map). Blacks > occupied the largest area, from the southern Sahara to most of sub- > Saharan Africa. The ancestors of most African Americans came from > Africa's western coastal zone, but similar peoples occupied East > Africa as well, north to the Sudan and south to the southeast coast > of South Africa. They were mostly farmers or herders, as were the > native African whites, who occupied Africa's northern coastal zone > and the northern Sahara. (Few of those northern Africans--the > Egyptians, Libyans, and Moroccans, for instance-- would be confused > with a blond, blue-eyed Swede, but they're often considered white > because they have lighter skin and straighter hair than the peoples > to the south.) > > At the same time, the Pygmies were already living in groups widely > scattered through the central African rain forest. Although they were > traditionally hunter-gatherers, they also traded with or worked for > neighboring black farmers. Like their neighbors, the Pygmies are dark- > skinned and have tightly curled hair, but that hair is more thickly > distributed over their body and face. They also are much smaller in > size and have more prominent foreheads, eyes, and teeth. > > The Khoisan (pronounced COY-san) are perhaps the group least familiar > to Americans today. In the 1400s they were actually two groups, found > over much of southern Africa: large-statured Khoi herders, > pejoratively known as Hottentots, and smaller San hunter-gatherers, > pejoratively called Bushmen. Most of the Khoi populations no longer > exist; European colonists shot, displaced, or infected many of them, > and the survivors interbred with Europeans. Though the San hunter- > gatherers were similarly shot, displaced, and infected, a dwindling > number managed to preserve their distinctness in Namibian desert > areas unsuitable for agriculture. (They're the people depicted some > years ago in the widely seen film The Gods Must Be Crazy.) The > Khoisan today look quite unlike African blacks: they have light brown > skin sometimes described as yellow, and their hair is even more > tightly coiled. > > Of these population distributions, that of North Africa's whites is > the least surprising because physically similar peoples live in > adjacent areas of the Middle East and Europe. Throughout recorded > history people have been moving back and forth between Europe, the > Middle East, and North Africa. But the puzzling placements of blacks, > Pygmies, and Khoisan hint at past population upheavals. Today there > are just 200,000 Pygmies scattered amid 120 million blacks. This > fragmentation suggests that Pygmy hunters lived throughout the > equatorial forests until they were displaced and isolated into small > groups by the arrival of black farmers. Similarly, the Khoisan area > of southern Africa is surprisingly small for a people so distinct in > anatomy and language. Could the Khoisan as well have been originally > more widespread until their more northerly populations were somehow > eliminated? > > Perhaps the greatest puzzle, however, involves the island of > Madagascar, which lies just 250 miles off the coast of southeastern > Africa, much closer to Africa than to any other continent. It's in > Madagascar that the fifth African race is found. Madagascar's people > prove to be a mixture of two elements: African blacks and-- > surprisingly, given the separation seemingly dictated by the whole > expanse of the Indian Ocean--Southeast Asians, specifically > Indonesians. As it happens, the language of the Malagasy people is > very close to the Ma'anyan language spoken on the Indonesian island > of Borneo, over 4,000 miles away. No one even remotely resembling the > Borneans lives within thousands of miles of Madagascar. > > These Indonesians, their language, and their modified culture were > already established on Madagascar by the time it was first visited by > Europeans in 1500. To me this is the single most astonishing fact of > human geography in the whole world. It's as if Columbus, on reaching > Cuba, had found it occupied by blue-eyed, towheaded Scandinavians > speaking a language close to Swedish, even though the nearby North > American continent was inhabited by Indians speaking Indian > languages. How on earth could prehistoric people of Borneo, > presumably voyaging in boats without maps or compasses, have ended up > in Madagascar? > > The case of Madagascar shows how peoples' languages, as well as their > physical appearance, can yield important clues to their origins. > Similarly, there's much to be learned from African languages that > can't be gleaned from African faces. In 1963 the mind-boggling > complexities of Africa's 1,500 languages were simplified by the great > linguist Joseph Greenberg of Stanford. Greenberg recognized that all > those languages can be divided into just four broad families. And, > because languages of a given language family tend to be spoken by > distinct peoples, in Africa there are some rough correspondences > between the language families and the anatomically defined human > groups (see map at right). For instance, Nilo- Saharan and Niger- > Congo speakers are black, and Khoisan speakers are Khoisan. Afro- > Asiatic languages, however, are spoken by a wide variety of both > whites and blacks. The language of Madagascar belongs to yet another, > non-African category, the Austronesian language family. > > What about the Pygmies? They're the only one of Africa's five races > that lacks a distinct language: each band of Pygmies speaks the > language of its neighboring black farmers. If you compare a given > language as spoken by Pygmies with the same language as spoken by > blacks, however, the Pygmy version contains unique words and, > sometimes, distinctive sounds. That makes sense, of course: > originally the Pygmies, living in a place as distinctive as the > equatorial African rain forest, must have been sufficiently isolated > to develop their own language family. Today, however, those > languages' disappearance and the Pygmies' highly fragmented > distribution both suggest that the Pygmy homeland was engulfed by > invading black farmers. The remaining small bands of Pygmies adopted > the invaders' languages, with only traces of their original languages > surviving in a few words and sounds. > > The distribution of Khoisan languages testifies to an even more > dramatic engulfing. Those languages are famously unique--they're the > ones that use clicks as consonants. All the existing Khoisan > languages are confined to southern Africa, with two exceptions: the > click-laden Hadza and Sandawe languages spoken in Tanzania, some > 1,500 miles from their nearest linguistic kin. > > In addition, clicks have made it into a few of the Niger-Congo > languages of southern Africa, such as Zulu and Xhosa (which is the > language of Nelson Mandela). Clicks or Khoisan words also appear in > two Afro-Asiatic languages spoken by blacks in Kenya, stranded even > farther from the Khoisan peoples of today than are the Hadza and > Sandawe speakers of Tanzania. All this suggests that Khoisan > languages and peoples formerly extended far north into Africa until > the Khoisan, like the Pygmies, were engulfed by the blacks, leaving > behind only a linguistic legacy to testify to their former presence. > > Perhaps the most important discovery from linguistic sleuthing, > however, involves the Niger-Congo language family, which today is > spread all over West Africa and most of subequatorial Africa. Its > current enormous range seems to give no clue as to precisely where > the family originated. However, Greenberg has pointed out that the > Bantu languages of subequatorial Africa, once thought to be their own > language family, are actually a subfamily of the Niger-Congo language > family. (Technically they're a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub- > subfamily.) These Bantu languages today account for nearly half of > the 1,032 Niger-Congo languages, and Bantu speakers account for more > than half (nearly 200 million) of the Niger-Congo speakers. Yet all > 494 Bantu languages are so similar to one another that they've been > facetiously described as 494 dialects of a single language. > > There are some 170 other such Niger-Congo subfamilies, most of which > are crammed into West Africa, a small fraction of the entire Niger- > Congo range. Even the most distinctive Bantu languages, as well as > the Niger-Congo languages most closely related to Bantu, are > concentrated there, in a tiny area of Cameroon and adjacent east and > central Nigeria. > > From Greenberg's evidence it seems obvious that the Niger-Congo > language family arose in West Africa, while the Bantu subfamily arose > at the east end of that range, in Cameroon and Nigeria, and then > spread out over most of subequatorial Africa. That spread must have > begun sufficiently long ago that the ancestral Bantu language had > time to split into 494 daughter languages, but nevertheless recently > enough that all those daughter languages are still very similar to > one another. Since all Niger- Congo speakers--including the Bantu > speakers--are black, it would be nearly impossible to infer who > migrated in which direction just from the evidence of physical > anthropology. > > To make this type of linguistic reasoning clear, let me give you an > example: the geographic origins of the English language. Today the > largest number of people whose first language is English live in > North America, with others scattered over the globe in Britain, > Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. If we knew nothing else > about language distribution and history, we might have guessed that > the English language arose in North America and was carried overseas > by colonists. > > But we know better: we know that each of those countries has its own > English dialect and that all those English dialects make up just one > subgroup of the Germanic language family. The other subgroups--the > various Scandinavian, German, and Dutch languages--are crammed into > northwestern Europe. Frisian, the Germanic language most closely > related to English, is stuck in a tiny coastal area of Holland and > western Germany. Hence a linguist would immediately deduce--correctly- > -that the English language arose on the northwestern coast of Europe > and spread around the world from there. > > Essentially the same reasoning tells us that the nearly 200 million > Bantu-speaking people now flung over much of the map of Africa arose > in Cameroon and Nigeria. Thus linguistics tells us not only that the > Pygmies and the Khoisan, who formerly ranged widely over the > continent, were engulfed by blacks; it also tells us that the blacks > who did the engulfing were Bantu speakers. But what it can't tell us > is what allowed the Bantu speakers to displace the Pygmies and > Khoisan. > > To answer that question we need to look at a different type of > surviving evidence, that of domesticated plants and animals. Why is > this evidence so crucial? Because farming and herding yield far more > calories per acre than does hunting wild animals or gathering wild > plants. As a result, population densities of farmers and herders are > typically at least ten times those of hunter-gatherers. That's not to > say that farmers are happier, healthier, or in any way superior to > hunter-gatherers. They are, however, more numerous. And that alone is > enough to allow them to kill or displace the hunter-gatherers. > > In addition, human diseases such as smallpox and measles developed > from diseases plaguing domestic animals. The farmers eventually > become resistant to those diseases, but hunter-gatherers don't have > the opportunity. So when hunter-gatherers first come into contact > with farmers, they tend to die in droves from the farmers' diseases > (see "The Arrow of Disease," October 1992). > > Finally, only in a farming society--with its stored food surpluses > and concentrated villages--do people have the chance to specialize, > to become full-time metalworkers, soldiers, kings, and bureaucrats. > Hence the farmers, and not the hunter-gatherers, are the ones who > develop swords and guns, standing armies, and political organization. > Add that to their sheer numbers and their germs, and it's easy to see > how the farmers in Africa were able to push the hunter-gatherers > aside. > > But where in Africa did domesticated plants and animals first appear? > What peoples, by accident of their geographic location, inherited > those plants and animals and thereby the means to engulf their > geographically less-endowed neighbors? > > When Europeans reached sub-Saharan Africa in the 1400s, Africans were > growing five sets of crops (see map at right). The first set was > grown only in North Africa, extending as far as the highlands of > Ethiopia. North Africa's rain falls mostly in the winter months--the > region enjoys a Mediterranean climate--so all its original crops are > adapted to germinating and growing with winter rains. Archeological > evidence tells us that such crops--wheat, barley, peas, beans, and > grapes, to name a few--were first domesticated in the Middle East > around 10,000 years ago. So it makes sense that they would have > spread into climatically similar and adjacent areas of North Africa, > laying the foundation for the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization. > Indeed, these crops are familiar to us precisely because they also > spread into climatically similar and adjacent areas of Europe--and > from there to America and Australia--and became some of the staple > crops of temperate-zone agriculture around the world. > > There's little rain and little agriculture in the Sahara, but just > south of the desert, in the Sahel zone, the rain returns. The Sahel > rains, however, fall in the summer. So even if winter-rain-adapted > Middle Eastern crops could somehow have crossed the Sahara, it would > still have been hard to grow them in the summer-rain Sahel zone. > Instead, here the Europeans found the second and third sets of > African crops, both of which are adapted to summer rains and the > area's less variable day length. > > Set number two is made up of plants whose ancestors were widely > distributed from west to east across the Sahel zone and were probably > domesticated there as well. They include sorghum and pearl millet, > which became the staple cereals of much of sub-Saharan Africa, as > well as cotton, sesame, watermelon, and black-eyed peas. Sorghum > proved so valuable that it is now grown in hot, dry areas on all the > continents. > > The wild ancestors of the third set of African crops are found only > in Ethiopia and were probably domesticated there. Indeed, most of > them are still grown only there: few Americans have ever tasted > Ethiopia's finger millet beer, its oily noog, its narcotic chat, or > its national bread, which is made from a tiny-seeded cereal called > teff. But we all have the ancient Ethiopian farmers to thank for the > domestication of a plant we know exceedingly well: the coffee plant, > which remained confined to Ethiopia until it caught on in Arabia and > then spread around the globe. > > The fourth set of African crops was domesticated from wild ancestors > in the wet climate of West Africa. Some of them, including African > rice, have remained virtually confined there; others, such as African > yams, eventually spread throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa; and > two, the oil palm and the kola nut, spread to other continents. West > Africans were chewing the caffeine-containing kola nut as a stimulant > long before the Coca-Cola Company enticed Americans to drink its > extracts. > > The plants in the last batch of African crops are also adapted to wet > climates. Bananas, Asian yams, and taro were widespread in sub- > Saharan Africa when the Europeans arrived, and Asian rice was well > established on the coast of East Africa. But these crops didn't come > from Africa. They came from Southeast Asia, and their presence in > Africa would be astonishing if the presence of Indonesians in > Madagascar hadn't already alerted us to Africa's prehistoric Asian > connection. > > Let's consider the four indigenous groups of crops. All four-- from > North Africa, the Sahel, Ethiopia, and West Africa--came from north > of the equator. No wonder the Niger-Congo speakers, people who also > came from north of the equator, were able to displace Africa's > equatorial Pygmies and subequatorial Khoisan peoples. The Khoisan and > the Pygmies weren't unsuited for the farming life; it was just that > southern Africa's wild plants were unsuitable for domestication. Even > the Bantu and the white farmers, heirs to thousands of years of > farming experience, have rarely been able to develop southern > Africa's native plants into food crops. > > Because there are so few of them, summarizing Africa's domesticated > animal species is much easier than summarizing its plants. The list > doesn't include even one of the big wild mammals for which Africa is > famous--its zebras and wildebeests, its rhinos and hippos, its > giraffes and Cape buffalo. The wild ancestors of domestic cattle, > pigs, dogs, and house cats were native to North Africa but also to > western Asia, so we can't be sure where they were first domesticated. > The rest of Africa's domestic mammals must have been domesticated > somewhere else because their wild ancestors occur only in Eurasia. > Africa's sheep and goats were domesticated in western Asia, its > chickens in Southeast Asia, its horses in southern Russia, and its > camels probably in Arabia. The one exception is the donkey, which is > widely believed to have been domesticated in North Africa. > > Many of Africa's food staples and domesticated animals thus had to > travel a long way from their point of origin, both inside and outside > Africa. Some people were just luckier than others, inheriting suites > of domesticable wild plant and animal species. We have to suspect > that some of the "lucky" Africans parlayed their advantage into an > engulfing of their neighbors. > > But all the evidence I've presented thus far--evidence from modern > human and language distributions and from modern crops and domestic > animals--is only an indirect means to reconstruct the past. To get > direct evidence about who was living where when, and what they were > eating or growing, we need to turn to archeology and the things it > turns up: the bones of people and their domestic animals, the remains > of the pottery and the stone and iron tools they made, and the > remains of the buildings they constructed. > > This evidence can help explain at least some of the mystery of > Madagascar. Archeologists exploring the island report that > Indonesians arrived before A.D. 800, possibly as early as 300, and in > a full-fledged expedition: the earliest human settlements on > Madagascar include the remains of iron tools, livestock, and crops. > This was no small canoeload of fishermen blown off course. > > Clues to how this expedition came about can be found in an ancient > book of sailors' directions, the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, which > was written by an anonymous merchant living in Egypt around A.D. 100. > The merchant describes an already thriving sea trade connecting India > and Egypt with the coast of East Africa. When Islam began to spread > after the beginning of the ninth century, Indian Ocean trade became > well documented archeologically by copious quantities of Middle > Eastern and occasionally even Chinese products such as pottery, > glass, and porcelain found in East African coastal settlements. The > traders waited for favorable winds to let them cross the Indian Ocean > directly between East Africa and India. > > But there was an equally vigorous sea trade from India eastward, to > Indonesia. Perhaps the Indonesian colonists of Madagascar reached > India by that route, then fell in with the westward trade route to > East Africa, where they joined with Africans and discovered > Madagascar. The union of Indonesians and East Africans appears to > live on today in Madagascar's basically Indonesian language, which > contains loan words from coastal Kenyan Bantu languages. But there's > a problem: there are no corresponding Indonesian loan words in Kenyan > languages. Indeed, there are few Indonesian traces in East Africa > besides some musical instruments like the xylophone and the zither > and the Indonesian crops discussed earlier. Is it possible that the > Indonesians, instead of taking the easier route to Madagascar via > India and East Africa, somehow--incredibly--sailed straight across > the Indian Ocean, discovered Madagascar, and only later got plugged > into East African trade routes? We still don't know the answer. > > The same sorts of archeological evidence found in Madagascar can be > found on the African continent itself. In some cases they can help > prove hypotheses that the other evidence could never fully resolve. > For instance, linguistic and population distribution evidence merely > suggests that the Khoisan were once widespread in the drier parts of > subequatorial Africa. But archeologists in Zambia, to the north of > the modern Khoisan range, have in fact found skulls of people > resembling the modern Khoisan, as well as stone tools resembling > those the Khoisan peoples were making in southern Africa when the > Europeans arrived. > > There are, of course, cases in which archeology can't help. We assume > from indirect evidence that Pygmies were once widespread in the wet > rain forest of central Africa, but it's difficult for archeologists > to test this assumption: although they've found artifacts to show > that people were there, they have yet to discover ancient human > skeletons. > > Archeology also helps us determine the actual dates and places for > the rise of farming and herding in Africa, which, as I've said, is > the key to understanding how one group of people was able to conquer > the whole continent. Any reader steeped in the history of Western > civilization would be forgiven for assuming that African food > production began in ancient Egypt's Nile Valley, land of pharaohs and > pyramids. After all, by 3000 B.C., Egypt was undoubtedly the site of > Africa's most complex society. Yet the earliest evidence for food > production in Africa comes not from the Nile Valley but from, believe > it or not, the Sahara. > > Archeologists are able to say this because they have become expert at > identifying and dating plants from remains as fragmentary as charred > seeds recognizable only under a microscope. Although today much of > the Sahara is so dry that it can't even support grass, archeologists > have found evidence that between 9000 and 4000 B.C. the Sahara was > more humid; there were numerous lakes, and the desert teemed with > game. The Saharans tended cattle and made pottery, then began to keep > sheep and goats; they may even have started to domesticate sorghum > and millet. This Saharan pastoralism began well before food > production got its start in Egypt, in 5200 B.C., when a full package > of western Asian winter crops and livestock arrived. Farming then > spread to West Africa and Ethiopia. By around 2500 B.C. cattle > herders had already crossed the modern border of Ethiopia into > northern Kenya. > > Linguistics offers another way to date the arrival of crops: by > comparing words for crops in related modern languages that diverged > from each other at various times in the past. It thus becomes clear, > for instance, that the people who were domesticating sorghum and > millet in the Sahara thousands of years ago spoke languages ancestral > to modern Nilo- Saharan languages. Similarly, the people who first > domesticated the wet- country crops of West Africa spoke languages > ancestral to the modern Niger- Congo languages. The people who spoke > ancestral Afro-Asiatic languages were certainly involved in the > introduction of Middle Eastern crops into North Africa and may have > been responsible for the domestication of crops native to Ethiopia. > > Analyzing the names of crops leaves us with evidence that there were > at least three ancestral languages spoken in Africa thousands of > years ago: ancestral Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Afro-Asiatic. And > other linguistic evidence points to an ancestral Khoisan language > (that evidence, however, doesn't come from crop names, since the > ancestral Khoisan people didn't domesticate any crops). Surely, since > Africa harbors 1,500 languages today, it was big enough to harbor > more than four ancestral languages in the past. But all those other > languages must have disappeared, either because the peoples speaking > them lost their original languages, as the Pygmies did, or because > the peoples themselves disappeared. >