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 Jabari Asim: Bone-Deep SimilaritiesPosted on Jan 16, 2007By Jabari Asim WASHINGTON—In “Between the World and Me,’’ Richard Wright’s classic poem, a traveler stumbles upon a skull half-hidden in the grass. In a frightening whirlwind of soot and magic, the wanderer learns about the man to whom the skull belonged, how he lived and died. “The dry bones stirred, rattled, lifted, melting themselves into my bones,’’ the narrator recalls. “The grey ashes formed flesh firm and black, entering into my flesh.’’ Frederick E. Grine’s encounter with a pivotal skull was far less dramatic. The anthropologist initially spotted it resting on a colleague’s shelf in Cape Town, South Africa. But, when studying bones and fossils, scientists such as Grine often pose the same questions suggested by Wright’s poem: Who was this man? How did he spend his days? How long ago did he live? What Grine learned from that skull on the shelf, recently published in the journal Science, goes beyond providing clues to a single individual’s existence. It also tells us much about humans’ epic journey from Africa to the rest of the world. The skull, found 50 years ago in Hofmeyr, South Africa, initially confounded attempts to establish its age. But new techniques show that it is roughly 36,000 years old. Grine and his team of researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook have concluded that the skull confirms prevailing theories about human origins in sub-Saharan Africa. Three-dimensional measurements indicate that the skull is more anatomically and genetically similar to skulls of humans found in Later Stone Age Europe than those found in modern-day South Africa. According to Grine’s team, such findings suggest that “humans like those that inhabited Eurasia should be found in sub-Saharan Africa around 36,000 years ago.’’ Debates about the origin of human species have been pretty much settled; most experts now agree that it all began in Africa. What they argue about these days is whether ancient Europeans and Asians had contact with other variations of early hominids and became somehow different from the folks in Africa. This skull and other evidence suggest otherwise. Although I read about the recent findings with interest, I confess to reading anything about skulls and race with a large measure of skepticism, perhaps a larger portion than is deserved. That’s because the scientific study and measurement of skulls, called craniometry back in the 19th century, has dubious roots. Back then, scientists relied on their “findings’’ to argue in favor of white supremacy. Chief among them was Samuel George Morton, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and owner of a skull collection so vast that his lab was nicknamed the American Golgotha. In 1839 Morton set out to assess intelligence by measuring cranial capacities. He published his findings in an influential book called “Crania Americana.’’ He studied the skulls of five “races’’—Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, American and Ethiopian—and found that Caucasians were most intelligent. Least so, according to Morton, were Ethiopians, whose skulls suggested that they were “the lowest grade of humanity.’’ Among his other notable theories was the notion that each race was created separately (polygenism, or “many origins") and unequally. Undoubtedly today’s researchers would find Morton’s “scholarship’’ laughably inadequate. Indeed, some of them have condemned Morton’s work as seriously flawed, purely speculative and deliberately deceptive. But Morton, along with Josiah Nott, Louis Agassiz and others, was a founder of the American school of anthropology—and his influence was vast and long-lived. When Morton died in 1851, the New York Tribune wrote that “probably no scientific man in America enjoyed a higher reputation among scholars throughout the world.’’
But that was then. Despite Morton’s strenuous efforts to point out differences where none exists, today’s scientists continue to prove how similar we all are, deep down in our bones.
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By Joe, January 22, 2007 at 8:08 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
P DiBenedetto,
“The advocates of racial egalitarianism exploit ‘their misdirected theory’ for the good of ‘the globalist agenda’, not honest biology objectivity.”
That’s really to my mind (and I’m a white guy) a pretty sad comment in this day and age of enlightenment that we’re living in. But as far as the football circumstance, you’ll find, (actually I know that you know or ‘your’ IQ level would be in serious jeopardy), a great many of these guys come from a disadvantaged socio-economic sector of the community. Their way out? If they’re fit and able-bodied, sport’s an obvious solution / money earner / family raiser-way out for them. But afford these same ‘disadvantaged socio-economic sector’ guys the educational advantages of the privileged elite white boys and you’ve got serious competition on your hands for top positions in every walk of life throughout the land.
Report thisBy P DiBenedetto, January 21, 2007 at 10:23 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
They may say that the races are more similar, but there are clear racial differences and they are profound. Just watch a football game and you’ll see that certain races are over represented in certain positions (quarterbacks and kickers for example)as an easy way to chronicle differing abilities and attributes.
This book covers the intelligence issue well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Differences_in_Intel ligence
Also the Murray and Hernsteins Bell Curve and Phillippe Rushtons classic
Race Evolution and Behavior handily prove that race is a category that well explains the differing attributes of the three major races.
The advocates of racial egalitarianism exploit their misdirected theory for the good of the globalist agenda, not honest biology objectivity.
Report thisBy Chaseme, January 18, 2007 at 4:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Race is simply an American invention for political gain. Don’t you think humans knew where they came from? It isn’t like one day they were in Africa and the next day in Asia or Europe.
This process of separation took time. It evolved for many reasons: different beliefs, different rituals, etc, and over a long period of time. Through this separation came many others differences, which resulted from the adjustment to the various climates: skin color, nose size, eye shape, etc. Name one person in your family who really, really looks like you.
What Samuel George Morton did, with the help of the University of Pennsylvania, a white American institute, funded by the United States Department of Human Services, was try to further separate the family. His research was not to prove ‘Whites are from Mars, Blacks are from Venus’, but with the knowledge that we are all from the same place, ol’ Morton wanted whites to believe they were smarter because they had bigger heads.
Given that men have two heads, in which only one is used for thinking, and the racist stereotype about Black men being large in that area, Morton’s belief would make Black men the smarter of the two.
When Morton received the funds from the American government, most of the people who made up that government were white, Christian men. The same men who believe in a male god and are certain they would not be on this planet if it were not for their mothers. Now, someone needed to have reported to those people that there could not be a He if it were not for a She. How can there be a male GOD if it were not for a female GOD?
This is truly the definition of schizophrenia.
Report thisBy Joe, January 18, 2007 at 5:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
By the way, that email address for Jabari Asim at the Post, “asimj(at symbol)washpost.com.” isn’t working. Having tried twice, neither succeeded.
Report thisBy Bill Blackolive, January 17, 2007 at 4:27 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
This sounds like something from the fifties. Homosapiens are at official minimum 200,000 years old already.
Report thisBy Joe, January 17, 2007 at 11:33 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Though I’m no expert in the field it’s certainly always been one of those intriguing questions; are we all related or arn’t we? (Genetics say we are.) But in recent times an argument has arisen claiming that the Asian races arose separately from the African races and so we’re two separate species of homo sapiens / wise man. Personally I’ve never accepted this theory. (Rather surprised no one else has as yet posted a response to this article.) One of my all-time favourite documentary series (and book) was / is The Ascent of Man as put together / written by the late Polish-English mathematician, Dr. Jacob Bronowski. He attributed ‘this whole great adventure’ we’re having to Lucy, found in Ethiopia? More recently a young geneticist, Dr Spencer Wells following on from the ground-breaking work of his Italian mentor, Dr Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza(?) has made some startling discoveries confirming that indeed we’re all related, each and every one of us:
“By collecting blood samples from thousands of men living in isolated tribes around the world and analyzing their DNA, 34-year-old geneticist [Dr] Spencer Wells and his colleagues discovered that all humans alive today can be traced back to a small tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago.
Following this genetic trail, Wells has charted the ancient journey of our ancestors as they populated the planet, continent by continent. The story is told in the 2002 National Geographic documentary The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey and the book of the same name.”
Read more:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/emerging/spencerWell s.html
Also try this on for size:
We’re All Africans Under the Skin
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/27inter.htm
The late Stephen Jay Gould, who by the way claimed when he was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer (abdominal mesothelioma) “The most important effect upon my eventual cure, was the illegal drug, marijuana,” was also the author of a controversial, best-selling 1981 book “The Mismeasure of Man”. For a summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man
Report thisBy Quy Tran, January 17, 2007 at 11:06 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The skull found 50 years ago in Hofmeyr is now displaying in the White House ! Half of that from Bush and the other from Cheney !
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