Race does exist, but as a social construct far more than a biological one. The effects of racism are no less real for that distinction though.
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Vitamin D has more to do with it, most likely.
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I still get a quiet chuckle thinking about childhood racism based on claims about how far we Europeans were from the Neanderthals.
(Yes, no one stupid enough to still be believing the original claims would be bright enough to have read recent science news. but permit me my imagination.)
On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog… or a history professor 
I wasn’t trying to obfuscate, but given that we’re discussing what the sources say, quoting the sources seemed the way to go. Translations, as you noted, change things.
So no offense meant – we’re really saying the same thing, although it feels like we’re arguing, and I’m not sure why that should be.
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Not the most ancient. The most ancient complete skeleton yet found. The same cave held the remains of unrelated occupants that lived 5000 years earlier. The conclusion is that many groups of people migrated to Britain when it was possible to do so across the land bridge.
Remains of Homo Erectus (500K bce) have been found in Sussex. Older stone tools show Britain occupied by our ancestors 900K bce, and followed by many other migrations of human populations.
The oldest modern human remains found in Britain date to about 40K bce.
It should be enough to celebrate what this find actually represents, without embellishment or exaggeration.
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There’s no arguing. It’s just the more I’ve read up on these sorts of things the more ive found out you can’t neccisarily take those sort of written sources at face value. Especially when using older translations or assumptions based on how more modern Latin works.
These records are often surprisingly accurate. Given that many of them are political in nature. Or deeply removed from their subjects by time or distance. But some inaccurate ideas that are weirdly persistent came about that way. And especially since I have such an interest in bunk. A lot of conspiracy, psuedo-history, psuedo-science and what have backs itself up with that sort of “fact”. And that whole end of the story is shot right through with racism.
The idea of Egypt not being African lead to the Rwandan genocide. I am sure that Breitbart is aware of this and wants to see round two on a continental scale.
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Great post! Have you visited the Kemet thread?
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Since it isn’t prudent to say anything on the other post where you’re bumping your gums about the manufactured psychological construct of race as if you’re some sort of expert, I’ll just post this here instead:
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awwwwwww, SO adorable
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I really appreciate your concern for others, but the Babelfish is a click away, and I really appreciate original sources.
BTW, I don’t agree with some of your assessments, e.g. ancestral mottledness. Can’t dive into details, nor provide the research right now, and I doubt I can before the thread closes… But the line of apes is quite a bit different than the lines of Australopithecines and so forth.
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Not my assessment just a notion that’s out there.
Babelfish doesn’t do Latin. Google translate isn’t exactly accurate, and it’s using modern Latin. Which is different. here’s the block quote as rendered by google translate:
Their physical characteristics are various and from these conclusions may be drawn. The red Caledonia living hair and large limbs of German origin; Silures ought to be colored; and color of face, by their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts; , are like the Gauls, and of one’s neighbor, that is, during the origin of the force, that is, the habit of stretching forward to the bodies in the different countries, gave the position of the heavens.
Not knowing much Latin. And certainly not knowing much about the nuance of latin at the time. I can’t tell you how accurate that is. The wiki link I provided contains the pertinent snippet from an actual translation. Its quite different and uses swarthy over colored. There could very well be some misinterpretation there. The assumptions we make today when we see those particular phrases, may not and likely do not line up particularly well with what a Roman writer was trying to express.
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The Babelfish is shorthand for any translation website you choose, and my point is exactly that translations change the meaning, especially considering a dead language.
Hence, I appreciate the ‘original’.
Sources, then, would help me not to confuse your own assessments and opinions with notions of other people out there. Just sayin’. Since I’m also out there. And don’t necessarily agree. Would need to ask my favourite palaeoanthropologist about the papers. For countering the notions out there. And Tacitus, as mentioned above: we don’t trust him anyway. But I still like his stile. Even without knowing Latin well. Or having ever learned it.
Since the history of Egypt covers thousands of years, several conquests, umpteen dynasties, periods of militant historical revision, etc, I sure that most people’s (including myself) understanding of Egyptian history is like the Tsortian mishmash in Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids:
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One thing we do know is that the skin lightening of northern Europeans was a response to lesser sunlight in northern latitudes to increase Vitamin D production in the human skin.
Ol’ Chedd might not have been quite as dark as depicted. The reconstruction’s skin color does seem correct for someone from southern Spain, around Gibraltar.
Nevertheless, he seems a pleasant fellow.
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