the ancient human diaspora

from Thread 131389, "General Stanley McChrystal's take on Obama", p. 7.

actually, the Uzbek refugees seen on TV recently seem quite oriental, re their eyes. some of them could be mistaken for Chinese.

Patton was pre-web and had a different worldview. still, he may have been somewhat correct. the Russians, Hungarians, etc. were remainders of the eastern wave of the Hun tsunami.

saw the tail end of an interesting show on public tv last night. "Journey of Man". outdated (2003) but still ahead of what i've read. the narrator was also the lead scientist (i think). the common point of ancestry for asians, europeans, and native americans is in the middle of central asia; one of the waves from africa split up there. the split was 40,000 years ago, represented by one mutational marker from a single ancestor (the marker shows up in all the above populations). out of 2000 blood samples taken by the author's program in central america, one showed a direct descendant of the 40,000-y-o ancestor. the author traveled to meet him (and scared the bejesus out of the descendent because he thought the "doctor" coming to see him was going to tell him he had cancer). also remembered from the show that the reason europeans are so different from everyone else in the world (red/blond/brunette hair, different faces etc.) was that they travelled there prior to the last ice age and were cut off from the rest of the world.

here is the wiki for the book, which doesn't mention the movie made from the book. and for the author. looks like he gained some weight. and the wiki for the author points to a youtube copy of the movie. no wiki for the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_of_Man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Wells

YouTube&feature=PlayList&p=26D4689DBF14F73D&index=0

i'm wondering about that "cut off from the world" bit. i'm thinking that implies either a collection of mutations that just happened to occur in Europe and nowhere else, or that the rest of the world were contacting each other (in the family way) a lot more than is generally believed.

so, where's the debate? any ideas for debate topics here?

No. This should be in Science. Fascinating topic, I agree.

why can't we all just get along?

Originally posted by zeeblebot
why can't we all just get along?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Because we breed exponentially on a planet of limited resources.

have you ever been to Hong Kong?!?!

THAT'S crowded! Echo Park's not, in comparison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Park,_Los_Angeles

16,867/sq mi (6,512.4/km2)
Population changes significantly depending on areas included.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Island

Density 16,390/km2 (42,449.9/sq mi)

Originally posted by zeeblebot
have you ever been to Hong Kong?!?!

THAT'S crowded! Echo Park's not, in comparison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_Park,_Los_Angeles

16,867/sq mi (6,512.4/km2)
Population changes significantly depending on areas included.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Island

Density 16,390/km2 (42,449.9/sq mi)