NotPoliticallyCorrect

By Phil

The following will not all be anthropologists by trade or certification, but each carved their own little niche the distorts research. I will address them in way that reflects the weird way they are all connected.

Bruce Fenton: So thanks to RR, I’ve learned how he once peddled crap such as “giants“, among other things. Needless to say, that answered alot of my questions I had after taking apart his article on his book a while back.

Jeffery Schwarz and John Grehan: Now, to be fair, these guys deserve somewhat more credit in their premise, that is regarding the morphological links with orangutans and humans. It has some basis in how humans evolved, originally being arboreal and not knuckle walking. However, their approach of preferring inheritance based on external morphology over coding DNA and overall genetics has been criticized again, and again, and again, and again.

For clarification, I found them from an Indian study on Hominid development in Fenton’s spurces, which focused on bipedalism. It noted an “Asian hypothesis” of human origins. Technically, Grehan proposed an African-Asian distribution, and as of now Schwarz’s actual hominid data currently works with OOA as a base model while adjusting it. So it doesn’t support Fenton even if Orangutans were the actual ancestors of humans.

It’s worth mentioning as well, the commenter “Marc” in the Grehan link is a crank as well, but not for today.

Shi Huang: Shi Huang here is the only other major researcher I know of who has actually produced any notable difference in the Human-Chimp clade finding, on top of rejecting OOA.

The implications however stray further from the Cann study than Fenton’s. In fact, if you read the link on phenotypic association of human populations…it’s kind demonstrates the futility of using external phenotypes.

Overall, his theory on Africans being Denisovan and Neanderthal admixed humans doesn’t align with Haplogroup associations touched upon previously in my Fenton article linked to Dienekes, the nature of the East African cluster mentioned in my article on modern Africans with A and B y chromosomes making up the majority of Eurasian affiliated Nilotics, and my previous article on the post Neanderthal substructure making up the majority of African genetics.

Now compare all of these inferences, to this-

Fossils or traits indicating AMH migration from East Asia into Africa or Europe have
been noted before. First, native Africans such as Khoisans are well known to have certain East Asian features such as shoveling teeth, epicanthic fold, and lighter skins. Mbuti pygmies look very much like the Andamanese. The much lower frequency of shoveling teeth in African fossils and Khoisan relative to ancient and modern Chinese suggests that this type of teeth could only originate in China with its African presence due to migration. The type of shoveling teeth found in Neanderthals and Pleistocene Homo from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos may either be a different type from that of Asians and Africans or come from early disposal of Homo from Asia to Europe (Martinon-Torres et al., 2007; Wolpoff, 1996). Second, a combination of three features has been noted to be region-specific to China fossils with lower frequency also found in North Africa: a non-depressed nasal root, non-projecting perpendicularly oriented nasal bones and facial flatness (Brauer and Stringer, 1997). Third, Dali man of China (~250,000 years ago) had lower upper facial index and flat nasomolar angle, but these two modern features only first
appeared in Europe in Cro Magnons (Xinzhi Wu, personal communication).

I’ll admit I’m no expert in genomics, but having at least looking over the Dali paper and comparing it to this, I think anyone else who has sense and had done the same would come to the same conclusion as I would to dismiss this paper as the leaps and assertions it makes are vast and at times amateur. Wu Xinzhi apparantly read this himself, but recalling his own paper and work he was much more cautious and more involved in this kind of data. As particular as his theory was, it never devolved into statements like this.

That humans have been a single species for more than ~2 myr is consistent with the
unique feature of being human, i.e., creativity, which could be defined as constant creation of novelty. Intentionally made and constantly improved knife type stone tools, first appeared 2.3- 2.8 myr ago, may be beyond the capabilities of non-humans and mark the first appearance of creativity in life on Earth.
The appearance of modern humans should be accompanied by new technologies just as
the knife type stone tools were associated with the first appearance of the genus Homo. A technology just one step more advanced than stone tools is pottery making. Consistent with our model, the earliest pottery making intended for practical usage was found in Hunan and the neighboring Jiangxi in South China at 18,000-20,000 years ago (Boaretto et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2012). While future investigations could extend the time even earlier, one should not expect a new technology to appear simultaneously with the first appearance of AMH since it would take time for the first modern humans to grow into a large enough population to be able to invent new cultures. It is also remarkable to note that the next new invention after pottery, rice or agriculture, also likely came from Hunan (Zhang and Yuan, 1998). Both the link to his blog post on OOA and this slightly dismissal post on his work shows an ardent defender of his, one that should be very familiar.

German Dziebel: It only takes a short cross-reference to see his BS. Basically, he’s pushing some sort of hypothesis that undermines the divergences of Pygmies and Bantu farmers. This basically mean ignoring the conclusions from his own sources on genetics, here, and here. He confuses the pygmy phenotype, which is shown to be independent, with the pygmy genetic cluster. This is disingenuous to anyone familiar with the topic. He is correct that they are not genetically unrelated due to the geneflow, which accounts for language, but his proposal to explain this primarily on recent splits is contradicted by full genetic research tackling the matter.

On the Shi Huang paper, he says that the Chinese lack the possibility of “bias” Americans feel to support OOA based on guilt of African American discrimination. Perhaps, yet that doesn’t explain Manzi on the Ceprano skull, nor does that explain this paper showing Chinese lacking the substructure expected from the more popular idea of regional continuity, which actually shows bias on behalf on the Chinese to push a theory. Likewise, Wu Xinzhi who proposed the hypothesis even stated it wasn’t mutually exclusive with OOA.

I’ve been saving this as an article concept due to how amazing it was to come across each of them twice after what started as a simple cross reference. This shouldn’t, however, be read as someone who is against changes to the mainstream, but as someone with actual scrutiny on scientific stances. I can accept the meaningfulness of Orangutans, Australians, and Chinese archaic humans in modern human origins.

By Phil

In my absence a lot has occurred in researching African substructure since the Ballito boy paper a while back.

I’ve somewhat touched upon this subject previously in two relevant articles, one of which I will provide a short update on regarding “cranks” in population history, including Bruce Fenton, in the future.

The structure of this article will be outlining the general and particular ancestral groups linked to modern Sub-Saharans, briefly putting them in context of OOA, and attempting to approximate them in the form of fossilized specimens. The ancestry analysis will start from the most recent data to the most ancient data discussed (that is shortly before the Holocene towards the branching of H. sapiens from other relatives from H. Ergaster from about 0.5-1 mya) as it will only be more complex from then on.

The first layer will be the finding from the Mahgreb remains that date about 18k, showing profile that is approximately two thirds Near Eastern hunter gatherer, 1 third Sub-Saharan but showing no particular affiliation to a modern sample. It is only slightly shifted towards the Hadza, perhaps suggesting the ancient Eastern African cluster that preceded Basal Eurasian. This shows two things, one the antiquity of back migration to Africa and the oldest DNA sample that is directly linked to modern Sub-Saharans. This could possibly be part of a previous human culture, which may have been part of the migration that lead to modern West Africans. I, however, hesitate to suggest they are direct ancestors. It provides a rough portrait of ancient North Africa nonetheless, a location I particularly figured to be relevant for clues on modern sub-saharans given the different geography of North Africa at the time of the “Wet Sahara“.

The next finding is the break-down of DNA among Western (Yoruba and Mende), Eastern (Nilotic), and Southern (Khoi-San) Africans. The findings show that, in accordance to the Ballito Boy study, Western Africans are a mixture of Ancient East Africans and Basal African Sapiens, Khoi-Sans are derived from the basal Branch at around 250k-350k, and Nilotics are mostly of the 70k-80k branch. However, what it shows is that these populations exchanged genes, particularly between Eastern and Southern Africans. In the case of West Africans, the Yoruba more so then the Mende. I suspect that this could explain the Igbo from the African Genome project showing signs of hunter-gatherers that are more like the Khoi-San than Pygmies at low percentages.

( 1/22/20 Edit: This recent study breaks it down wih Hunter Gatherers having roughly 4% while farmers have 5.8% of a similar AMH species that diverged slightly after neanderthals. Kabwe may be the best comparison).

Archaic DNA is where it gets interesting however. I’ve already discussed the 140k-150k admixture event that lead to modern variation of MCU7, but two canididates have came up. One, predictably by this point, is an archaic human ancestry at about 8% in Yoruba, using the same methods to detect 2% archaic DNA in pygmies, dated around 460k-540k , roughly after the divergence of Sapiens from Neanderthals based on another study. The first study however distinguished it from that of the Pygmies, which seems to be older compared to the estimates in this study. The dating of the Pygmy’s admixture is also set around 30k, while the same study dates that of the average Sub-Saharan at 9k. The TMRCA is place at around a median of 1.0 mya based on the overall candidate loci, this seems to align nicely to the age of the MCU7 phylogeny in Africans compared to that of Eurasian Archaics. This is however older than the admixture found in Hammer’s study, suggesting late Erectus. This can be resolved by the conclusion of Hsieh’s study. That is, archaic admixture in Africa was found to be weak, though continuous. This could mean that while penetrating new ecosystems, Hominid interaction what short but often, accumulating alot of layers in small degrees, preserved due to advantageous traits as seen in Neanderthal’s immune system genes. These genes were in turn a trait of the common ancestor that Sapiens lost.

It is therefore possible that archaic admixture could contain different archaic admixture within it based on this behavior. A previous study’s results of loci with ages similar to that of the Neanderthal divergence in hunter gatherers supports this, being somewhat intermediate between the MCU7 population and the Basal African. This particular one, however, may very well be tied to a larger finding.

A revised study finds archaic African admixture prior to the split, yet it isn’t African exclusive and seems to have occurred prior to the OOA split. It is only a preprint, but it aligns with what we may have assumed given how long archaic and modern linegaes have mixed. However, as opposed to the continuous flow inferred from pygmies, this particular event was strong and rapid. The researchers likewise note on page 4, though against models of an TMRCA after that of Neanderthals, do not rule it out as a scenario in African substructure. This acknowledges the point made by Razib awhile ago that substructure in Africa reflects the complex development of hominids there. This even pertains to even the Sapiens specific line.

I will now briefly outline the following fossils relevant to modern African population substructure. At the most diverge, early homo found at the Ishango area. I would like to mention that I doubt it mated with Sapiens directly, as the sediment analysis would suggest. Rather, I believe this specimen would genetically contain the variant of genes multiple studies have found to be under selection in African hunter-gathers. The Late Erectus found in Hammer or the Rhodesiensis-like specimen in the initial ghost population models for the Yoruba and Mende I believe were the actual populations that interacted with Humans while possibly carrying these genes.

Late Erectus, or Ergaster, then is represented by Tighenif or Rabat. The latter species can be presented by Bodo or Kabwe. The Kabwe, however, seems to be within Erectus s.l based on internal anatomy than a Petralona equivalent to Sapiens as Bodo is suggested. That is, relative to Bodo or Florisbad, it lacks specializations towards Sapiens. The Ceprano studies however show it nonetheless to be more within the range of overall morphology towards Middle Pleistocene Hominids rather than Ergaster.

(Edit: The Post- LCA admixture could be represented by the two specimens above as well, and I would likewise add a Sapiens Intermediate as well, Florisbad. This status seems to have been replicated here, here, here, here and here. The similar Eliye Springs skull bridges the gap towards Sapiens.)

The next specimen would be the Ceprano skull, the best morphological node for the species Sapiens, Neanderthal, and Denisovans for their LCA. This is significant as it thoroughly rebukes Fenton by his first mistake, dismissing the morphological data in Western Eurasia and Africa. It is shown to be distant from Asian Erectus and seems to represent a “Homo Erectus Sensu Lato” that developed derived traits that would be continued into a trajectory seen in Africa. This is supported by Mounier’s analysis that hypothesized the LCA to be closer to African than European samples. Likewise, his analysis with Manzi shows Erectus/Ergaster tendencies in morphology in partiuclar areas rather than Neanderthal. Manzi also acknowledges a potential morphological link in Africa as well. Therefore we can attribute the LCA detected in DNA in Africans and non Africans by the revised preprint to the above specimen.

(Edit: Manzi has additionally, without confusion, located such an African ancestor to the Hiedelbergensis morphology of Ceprano at the Gombere site.)

Basal Humans, likely the migratory population 148k years ago, would be presented by the Iwo Eleru skull. Jm8 mentions of their relation to similar specimen and DNA sequences found. Likewise, they seem to be responsible for A00.

My previous article has previously mentioned the resulting phenotypic diversity in Modern Africans by way of their skulls. However, I will briefly touch upon some recent examples from my bin of sources.

Klasies River 100k : More so “modern” than Florisbad but shows no particular phenotype towards Khoisan.

Border Cave 100k-50k: Speculated once to be linked to modern Khoi-san, however modern studies shows that it is only apparent much later. General considered “Modern“.

Lukena Hill Crania 20k: Similar to late Pleistocene North Africans, rare morphology in modern samples. Best represents pre-holocene humans prior to gracilization along with 33k Nazlet Khater. The latter skull could likewise conform to Khoi-san ancestry prior to Gracilization in the Holocene.

Matjes River Crania 9k: Joins other Holocene skulls displaying Khoisan morphology.

Nakuru IX: Odd skull with not much literature, somewhere from southern Africa and dated around 17k, yet aligns with Bantu. This book, which provides a very close continuum in morphology that I’ve been following, dates it as Holocene with some Khoi-san samples. This suggest that at some point it was re-grouped.

Concluding remarks, I have left out alot of other significant details that could give direction in what to investigate in future findings. I encourage that readers go over the original articles themselves to notice other significant findings, such as the relevant positively selected features associated with them. I, may likewise, touch upon the sequences of morphology, paleo-environments, and archaeology in the future. For the time being, we have acquired both game-changing evidence of ancient substructure and a refined continuum of homo evolution in recent years.

1550 words

I was watching the show Ancient Aliens a while back (I don’t believe it, it’s great for a good laugh now and then, though) and I recall them “theorizing” that Asians are aliens—specifically due to the Dropa stones. So I was searching Google for some information on it, and I discovered this article Race, Citizenship, and the Politics of Alien Abduction; Or, Why Aliens do not Abduct Asian Americans (Tromly, 2017).

Tromly argues that alien abductions are a specific cultural—national—phenomenon and that certain groups, mainly Asian Americans, are excluded from these so-called abductions. Surely, most readers are familiar with the most famous of all alien abductions—the case of Betty and Barney Hill (Barney Hill was a black man). One night, they were driving down the road. And all of a sudden, they woke up in their car and many hours had elapsed (a concept known as “missing time“). They then went to a hypnotizer and underwent hypnosis. They then described many experiments that the aliens carried out on them. In any case, I’m not going to discuss the so-called abduction here, but this is one case—one of the most famous—of a minority being abducted.

Tromly argues that the notion of alien visitors elicits collectivity in humans—that, of course, all national, racial, and social differences would be put aside in the event of a hostile alien invasion and we would attempt to quell the alien threat. Think War of the Worlds. Indeed, Stephen Hawking argued that we should not attempt to contact aliens. His reasoning was simple: When Europeans came to the Americas in the late 1400s, with their superior technology, they subjugated the natives. Of course, if aliens from far, far away came to earth, they would be far more technologically superior to us—leaps and bounds ahead of the technological superiority when Europeans and Native Americans are compared. So this type of alien invasion, Tromley argues, would spur humans’ “species-consciousness”

Tromly (2017: 278) writes:

According to this paradigm, abductees are traumatized to the point that nationality becomes irrelevant. Describing the trauma of his own abduction in his bestselling book Communion, Whitley Strieber writes, “I was reduced to raw biological response. It was as if my forebrain had been separated from the rest of my system, and all that remained was a primitive creature, in effect the ape out of which we evolved long ago” (18).

So, Tromly then cites psychiatrist John Mack who argues that abductees are not self-selected and that they come from all walks of life. He is pretty much saying that, to the aliens, there is no one type of person that is more desireable to the aliens and therefore no one group is more worthy of visitation than any other. Further, he is arguing that, whatever differences exist between these diverse people, they are equal in one thing: their visitations by alien visitors.

Tromly (2017: 280) then writes:

Lowe argues that this ideal of political membership comes at the cost of specific individuation: “In being represented as citizen within the political sphere… the subject is ‘split off’ from the unrepresentable histories of situated embodiment that contradict the abstract form of citizenship” (2). These inadmissible “particularities” include “race, national origin, locality, and embodiment [that] remain largely invisible within the political sphere” (2). It is useful to revisit Mack’s presentation of the abduction community in light of Lowe’s observations, because his catalogue of abductees is typical of the discourse in that it defines abductees solely in terms of class and profession—in effect, Mack’s example of the diversity of abductees is underwritten by an assumption of sameness. Because he fails to mention other types of difference on the assumption that they are irrelevant, Mack excludes these differences and, ironically, his demonstration of the diversity of the abductee community becomes subtly exclusionary.

Alien abduction, if you keep up with this kind of thing, is pretty obviously racially exclusive: most abductees are white Americans. Though, of course, believers in alien abductions claim that this accurately reflects the racial demographics of America—with whites being the majority racial group.

Tromly then describes a re-telling of the Betty and Barney Hill saga, where the couple he describes are still an inter-racial couple, but the wife remembers the alien abduction, whereas the husband recalls does not remember it, he recalls the night as normal. This story is written by Asian American writer Peter Ho. So when the wife sees a blue alien light, the husband sees blue police lights—implying that alien abductions and police stops are, in a way, coeval. The wife wants to tell the story—the abduction story—since it can be looked at in a broader national context whereas the husband does not want to—since what he recalls of that night was not a night of alien abduction but a night of being stopped by the police. Eventually, the husband gives in to his wife, who was continuously nagging him to “remember’ the abduction. So he “recalled” one under hypnosis, and a completely different one while he dreamed.

Tromly (2017: 287) writes:

The significance of the Asian American abductee’s absence is shaped, in part, by how abduction in general is understood. Accepting accounts of abduction as true accounts of events that have taken place would require hypothesizing about why aliens might be more interested in some ethnicities than others. To understand accounts of abduction as imagined stories that emerge from anxiety, hysteria, or trauma might suggest that these narratives are not a useful avenue for the expression of the concerns of Asian Americans. … Of course, linguistic barriers may be a reason that a certain segment of the Asian American community cannot participate in the textual spread of the abduction phenomenon. (Many abductees recall repressed memories of abduction after reading texts by Hopkins or Strieber.) However, a more compelling reason for their exclusion is that Asian Americans, or the associations they typically bear in popular discourse, disrupt the logic of the abduction narrative.

Great point! What if the aliens can only telepathically communicate with English-speaking people, therefore they are the only ones that get abucted—and not Asian Americans?

Tellingly, Asianness is sometimes used to mark the otherness of extraterrestrial aliens—Strieber, for example, describes the otherworldly features of an alien with whom he comes in contact through a comparison with “Asian” features: “its eyes are slanted, more than an Oriental’s eyes” (60).9 However, rather than focusing on the possible racial connotations of physical descriptions of aliens, it is more productive to examine the similarities between descriptions of alien characteristics and long-standing Asian American stereotypes. Whether they are conceptualized as a threat to humanity or an advanced and enlightened race, aliens that abduct are almost always described as being deliberate, dispassionate, and, needless to say, technologically adept.

Of course, this is where the observation from Ancient Aliens comes from: popular accounts of the aliens are that they are short, physically weak and frail-looking, and, most notably, have slanted eyes. Asians fit this description, too. So, one can see the parallel here: Asians are technologically adapt, as are the aliens. Asians, too, are looked at as being an enlightened race. This, too, pushes the Asian stereotypes—the “yellow peril” stereotype—where Asians want to come to America and take American resources, and the “model minority”—the claim that Asians are what other minorities should strive to be—because they excel “through technological sophistication, emotionless drive” (Tromly, 2017: 288), while they are extremely productive, what I assume aliens would be like.

In any case, it seems that alien abductees are actually more likely to be white. I was watching Ancient Aliens last April and they were discussing certain characteristics of abductees—pretty much like Tromly was, without mentioning race. What they mentioned, though, was pretty funny: abductees were more likely to have rH negative blood along with having a higher percentage of green and hazel eyes. I took two pictures of the screen when it came on:

Wow, how interesting, what a disparity. So it seems, that along with not targetting minorities at the same rate as whites, they are targeting a group of people that are more likely to have green eyes and rH negative blood. Then, someone appeared on the screen and then stated that since hazel and green eyes and RH negative blood are due to mutations, that the aliens either created it or they have a special interest in it. They were talking about a “genetic component” to alien abductions. Seems like even being abducted by aliens is “genetic”, too. Wow, what isn’t “genetic” nowadays?

This article wasn’t that serious; I just found this today and read it, and I had a few laughs. While it is interesting that only white Americans seem to be the subjects of alien abductions and the like—and minorities seem to be overlooked—I don’t think it’s anything like Tromly says. Though obviously, I would say that since the aliens are not abducting Asian Americans and aliens look similar to Asians (small bodies, almond-shaped eyes, and weak and frail-looking bodies) and it is hypothesized by Ancient Astronaut “theorists” that aliens are humans from the future, the conclusion is simple to see: these aliens abducting humans are Asians from the future and they’re not abducting Asians because they are looking for different genes and other physiological and anatomic differences, and since they are descended from Asians then why would they abduct them? Checkmate, Ancient Aliens deniers.