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The Origin of Peoples
| by |
Trevor Major, M.Sc., M.A. |
As we look among the peoples of the world—from the Inuit to the !Kung,
from the Norwegian to the Greek, and from the Indian to the Tutsi—we see
a mind-boggling array of skin color, hair type, stature, and facial
features. On top of all that physical diversity, we must add differences
in culture and language. With technological advances, humans have lived
(if only for a short time) at the South Pole, on the peaks of the
Himalayas, and beyond Earth itself. Even before the advent of modern
science, we have occupied the remotest islands, the driest deserts, and
the coldest steppes. It is difficult to imagine any other creature that
has been so successful at colonizing so many different parts of this
planet (we’ll give the cockroach its due!).
For all these differences, we constitute a single, biological species.
Men and women with roots in different continents meet, marry, and have
healthy families. This unity frustrates any attempt to parcel the
world’s populations into distinct subspecies or races. We perceive great
diversity because our brain is so cleverly designed to detect patterns
and distinguish among individuals of our own kind. Such heightened
perception of the human form is something we cannot ignore, and shapes a
host of psychological responses such as physical attraction and group
identity. Still, at the biological level, this variation reflects minute
differences in our genetic code. We see a few of these in our physical
appearance, but find many more only at the cellular or molecular level.
One person may have resistance to a particular disease, while another is
able to digest milk as an adult. Whether on the inside or outside, the
combination of many subtle differences makes you and me stand out as
individuals within a group, and our similarities identify us with
humanity as a whole.
How did these differences arise? Like Rudyard Kipling’s
Just So
stories, we could spin all sorts of tales to explain why different
peoples are the way they are. We could tell a story about how the
Scandinavians became tall, and another story about how they became
light-skinned. The goal for this traditional Darwinian approach is to
answer the following question: How does a particular trait enhance
survival value, or enable the production of more offspring? One
anthropology textbook emphasizes the “pervasiveness of adaptation in the
microevolution (small-scale differentiation) of man” (Keesing and
Keesing, 1971, p. 51). As we will see, this turns out to be more of a
hope than a claim based on evidence.
There is the assumption, also, that we need a lot of time to explain
human variation because evolution works at a steady, snail’s pace.
Charles Darwin took this as a matter of principle, but not all
evolutionists agree. A few dissenters, citing examples from the fossil
record, believe that species arise during brief moments of intense
change, rather than by slow accumulation of new features (e.g.,
Eldredge, 1985, pp. 21-22). So, too, within human populations, distinct
groups might arise during significant natural or cultural events. In
addition, more evolutionists are expressing concern about the “molecular
clock.” This was supposed to represent the rate at which genetic
differences have accumulated in two related species. However, the
calculation depends on knowing the date of the presumed common ancestor.
Not everyone may agree on this date, or even on whether the two species
are closely related. In any case, evolutionists assume that humans have
diverged from each other at about the same rate we diverged from
chimpanzees—our supposed closest relative. However, a closer look at
families of known lineage has revealed mutation rates that are almost
twenty times higher than previous estimates (Gibbons, 1998). The upshot
is this: we cannot trust the Darwinists’ intuitions on the time it would
take to produce the differences we see in human populations. The rate
may be neither slow, nor steady.
For the moment, I would like to set aside the question of time (but see my
sidebar article), and focus on the biological bases for some of the differences that have arisen among our kind.
IN LIVING COLOR
The difference we tend to notice most is coloration, which depends
almost entirely on the relative abundance of melanin. This is a pigment
of the hair, skin, and irises. It seems to play a role in protecting the
skin from harmful ultraviolet rays. Exposure to the Sun increases
melanin, causing that tanning effect so prized by light-skinned
Westerners. At first glance, it looks as if the inhabitants of
equatorial regions, where sunlight bears down with the greatest
intensity, would have the most melanin. After all, sub-Saharan Africans,
and Australian Aborigines, have more melanin than northern Europeans.
Around 1913, Charles Davenport suggested that humans carried two genes
for color, and that each gene consisted of “black” or “white” alleles
(one allele from the mother, and one from the father, for each gene).
Hence, our coloration depends on the number of black and white alleles
we received from our parents. Davenport noted correctly that children
inherit these genes independently of other characteristics, such as
straight versus curly hair. This explains why albino Papuans look
different from albino Scots.
As usual, the advance of science has revealed a far more complicated
story. Geneticists now believe that almost half a dozen genes have a
significant effect on pigmentation (Wills, 1994, pp. 78-79). These genes
reside in the nucleus of every cell in our body, along with copies of
all the other genes we inherited from our parents. However, color genes
express themselves in only one place—the melanocytes. These are
specialized skin cells that have a monopoly on melanin production. Each
melanocyte is an incredibly complex chemical factory, transforming raw
materials into granules of melanin, which it delivers to neighboring
cells.
Also, there is more to the making of skin color than turning genes on
or off to make black, white, and a couple of shades in between. We all
possess the essential ingredients for making melanin; all of us
could
be black or brown (the only exceptions are albinos, whose bodies make
no melanin at all). Actual coloration varies according to the pigment
package delivered by the melanocytes. The end product depends not only
on slight genetic differences, but also on environmental stimuli (such
as exposure to strong ultraviolet radiation).
The story does not end there. Skin also includes keratin—a fibrous
protein that contributes to the toughness of the skin, and which grows
to form nails and hair. Because this substance has a relatively high
concentration of sulfur, it adds a yellow hue to our palette of skin
colors. Asians (especially from the Far East) happen to have an extra
thick layer of keratin which, when combined with melanin, contributes to
the yellow-brown color of their skin.
The science of genetics helps us understand how small changes can
account for the rainbow of human coloration. Truly, when we consider the
magnitude of these differences at the genetic level, our obsession with
skin color seems blown out of proportion.
NATURAL SELECTION AND HUMAN VARIATION
We know that there are variations in features such as skin color. Why,
or how, did these variations arise? As noted earlier, a knee-jerk
response is to invoke natural selection, but there are a few good
Darwinian tales.
For instance, around 40% of the people in equatorial Africa carry an
abnormal hemoglobin gene that deforms red blood cells into a crescent or
sickle shape. Anyone who carries this trait, plus a normal copy of the
gene, may appear to have the best of both worlds. For a start, the
normal gene is dominant, and so counteracts the recessive mutated gene.
Then, if malarial parasites invade the red blood cells, there is a
tendency for the cells to deform and die, along with their unwanted
guests. Unfortunately, people who have two copies of the abnormal gene
develop sickle-cell anemia, and will die an early death unless they have
access to good medical treatment. Finally, anyone not “lucky” enough to
inherit the abnormal gene has no anemia, but no immunity from malaria
either.
Of course, the picture is not all rosy for the people who carry just
one copy of the sickle-cell gene. If they marry another carrier, some of
the children could inherit two bad copies, and suffer from sickle-cell
disease (see diagram below). With this in mind, it is callous to speak
of the sickle-cell trait as a “good” or “beneficial” mutation.
Nonetheless, the trait persists because the threat of death from malaria
appears to outweigh the threat of death from sickle-cell anemia. In
this instance, nature may have preserved a particular trait because it
confers a survival advantage.
 |
Sickle-cell genetics:
In this example, two parents each have a normal (Hb A) and an abnormal
(Hb S) hemoglobin allele. There is a 1 in 4 chance that a child will
have normal hemoglobin (Hb A/Hb A), a 1 in 2 chance that a child will be
a carrier for the sickle-cell trait (Hb A/Hb S), and a 1 in 4 chance
that a child will have sickle-cell anemia (Hb S/Hb S). |
For most variations that give human populations their distinctive
characteristics, it is difficult to know what forces of selection have
been at work. For instance, scientists used to think that the Pygmy
people of southern Africa were short because food was scarce. Further
studies show normal levels of growth hormone, but reveal a genetic
defect that prevents their bodies from using the hormone to its fullest
extent (Fackelmann, 1989). But the question is this: Did nature select
this mutation because it offered survival advantages, or did this
characteristic arise as a result of random variation?
The answer is not so obvious, because we know so many exceptions to the
rules of natural selection. Take the Japanese, for instance. Their
teenagers are considerably taller than their grandparents ever were. The
difference is a matter of improving diet, not genetics. For hundreds of
years, the people of Japan have survived without nature’s selecting
mutations for smaller stature. So how do we know that a scarce food
supply was responsible for the survival of growth-limiting changes in
the Pygmy?
The list of just-so stories is endless. Why are the Inuit relatively
short and bulky? Because this helps them retain heat. Why are some
groups in Africa relatively tall and slender? Because this helps them
lose heat. In each case, we could list a dozen exceptions. What about
those tall peoples who have survived quite well in cold areas, like the
Dutch? And what about those short peoples who have done just fine in hot
areas, like the Pygmies?
If Africans have less hair to keep them cooler, as some have suggested
(Folger, 1993), then how have Asians done so well in cold climates with
relatively little body hair? Asians also have an epicanthic fold—an
extra layer of skin on the upper eyelid. We could spin a story about
their eyes adapting to the winds of the Mongolian steppes, or the bright
glare of snow. Even so, is this enough? Are variations in the structure
of the eyelid a matter of life and death? Were individuals who had this
epicanthic fold much more likely to survive than those who lacked it?
Similar questions confront the origins of skin color. Precisely how has
natural selection worked to preserve dark and light skin coloring? The
traditional explanation makes what seems to be a sensible link between
the strong sunlight of the tropics, and the protective powers of
melanin. Natural selection, so the argument goes, has favored the
survival of dark-skinned people in equatorial areas. If light-skinned
people lived in the tropics, they would suffer from higher rates of skin
cancer. Then what prevented Africans from migrating to higher
latitudes? The answer, we are told, lies in vitamin D. To make this
important substance, humans need exposure to ultraviolet light. If
people in higher latitudes were too dark, their skin would not be able
to make enough vitamin D. A shortage of vitamin D results in rickets,
which has a severe effect on bone development. So everything works out
perfectly: light people get a little melanin to avoid rickets; and dark
people get a lot of melanin to avoid skin cancer. Whatever the
explanation, many researchers remain convinced that some sort of
evolutionary process must be responsible for lighter and darker strains
of humans (see Wills, 1994, p. 80).
The story seems less plausible, however, when we try to imagine how
selection might have worked. For instance, skin cancer is deadly; it is
something that afflicts lighter-skinned people who spend much time in
strong sunlight. People of European ancestry living in the sunny climes
of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii suffer the highest rates of skin
cancer in the world. As we look back in history, however, the danger of
dying from basal cell carcinomas and melanomas hardly would compare to
the vagaries of childhood diseases, plagues, strife, starvation, and
natural hazards. It is hard to imagine that in a mixed population of
light-and dark-skinned people living near the tropics, evolution
selected the traits for dark skin because cancer gradually eliminated
their lighter-skinned neighbors.
Unlike the skin cancer scenario, the ability to produce sufficient
vitamin D is a definite survival advantage. However, exposure to the Sun
is not an absolute requirement. Oils from cod, halibut, sardines,
salmon, and mackerel provide a rich source of vitamin D (Sackheim and
Lehman, 1994, p. 516). Not surprisingly, such fish figure prominently in
the diets of Scandinavians and the Inuit. With the right foods, they
are able to overcome a disadvantage of living in areas where the Sun is
weaker, and in which the cold climate dictates many layers of protective
clothing.
Still, this does not explain why Africans remained in tropical zones.
They could have moved northward, and endured doses of cod liver oil as
much as any European child. Today, thanks to vitamin supplements, people
of African descent survive in England and Canada without a high
incidence of rickets. When we look to the original population of the
Americas, the story blurs altogether. People of brownish complexion live
across every climatic zone, from Alaska in the north to Tierra del
Fuego in the south. Apparently, no mechanism has been at work to sort
skin color by latitude.
There are many other problems with the climatic theory of skin color
(Diamond, 1992, pp. 114-117), and still, we have barely touched the rich
storehouse of human variety. Perhaps apparently neutral characteristics
will turn out to have some survival advantage (Patterson, 1978, p. 70).
For example, researchers have found a correlation between ABO blood
groups and resistance (or susceptibility) to different diseases.
Further, blood groups seem to have a strong geographic distribution. We
may discover that a particular blood type became concentrated in a
region where it offered a slightly better chance of survival. On this
point, however, all we have so far is another Kiplingesque story. No
doubt, natural selection has had some impact on human history, but it
seems largely inadequate to explain a good portion of the variations
that exist between different human populations.
THE MAKING OF A PEOPLE
If natural selection has played a minor role in human history, then how
do we explain the range of observed features? One possible mechanism is
a phenomenon known as the “founder effect.” We see this most often in
small, isolated communities that have an unusually high incidence of
rare, inherited disorders (Diamond, 1988, p. 12). After some
genealogical detective work, medical researchers are able to trace their
patients’ ancestries to a single couple or a small group of close
relatives—the founders. This seems to be the case with French Canadians,
particularly those of eastern Quebec, whose ancestors emigrated from
the Perche region of France in the 17th century. Small pioneering
groups, together with early marriages, large families, and isolation,
have created a pronounced founder effect. One study found that only 15%
of the settlers contributed 90% of the genetic characteristics in people
suffering from one or more of five genetic disorders (Heyer and
Tremblay, 1995).
 |
| Pioneers in
Chicoutimi (c. 1886), which is now the modern administrative center of
Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. This part of Quebec was settled by a few, closely
related families. Today, 9 or 10 rare genetic diseases are relatively
common among the people of the region. |
It is only natural that much of our information on founder effects
should come from the study of debilitating, and often fatal, diseases.
If medical researchers can pin the problem to a faulty gene, then this
may suggest a treatment or cure. Also, genetic testing can tell
prospective parents whether they will pass these mutations on to their
children. If the effects of the disease will come later in life, people
may want to start certain medical treatments, or make changes in diets,
that will ease or delay the worst symptoms.
However, the record books include a few cases not related directly to
diseases. In a now classic study, H. Bentley Glass (1953) found that the
Dunkers—a community of German Baptist Brethren in Pennsylvania’s
Franklin County—are, in most respects, very similar to other people of
European descent. Their religious customs require them to dress a
certain way, and marry within the community, but otherwise their
physical appearance is not unusual. Although there have been some
outside marriages, most of the surviving members are descended from
fifty families that emigrated from Germany in the early 1700s. Glass
found that the frequencies of blood types and other genetic traits among
the Dunkers differ from the frequencies of these features among U.S.
and German populations. It seems unlikely that any selective forces
were in operation to favor the survival of Dunkers with blood group A,
for instance. Therefore, Glass concluded, the founding population of
Dunkers included, purely by chance, an unusually high proportion of
people with blood group A.
The founder effect itself is part of a broader concept known as genetic
drift, which occurs anytime the frequency of a genetic trait changes
within a population. If, in the case of the founder effect, the
emigrating group carries a set of unique or rare traits, then those
traits will be that much harder to find among the people who stay
behind. In other words, there will be a
drift away from those characteristics.
In some cases, a highly prolific individual or family may skew the
genes of a relatively diverse population, and this may occur in
combination with some other form of genetic drift, such as the founder
effect. For example, groups of Ashkenazic Jews moved eastward out of
Germany in the 17th century, and were isolated culturally from the
surrounding population. Several rare inherited disorders, such as
Tay-Sachs disease, afflict this group at high rates. Evolutionists have
thought this to be a sign of natural selection at work. Perhaps the
population hung on to these genes because they offered some survival
advantage, such as resistance to tuberculosis and other maladies of the
crowded ghettos in which they lived (Diamond, 1991). However, Neil Risch
believes otherwise, at least in the case of idiopathic torsion
dystonia, which occurs at a rate of one in three thousand among the
Ashkenazim today (Glausiusz, 1995). First, migration patterns favor
genetic drift via the founder effect in these people. And second,
historical records show that wealthier couples had more children. If a
mutation arose in one of these families, as Risch infers from the
genetic data, then it could become more frequent in later generations.
This is a matter of misfortune, not adaptation.
Of all the forms of genetic drift, population bottlenecks are the most
dramatic. Typically, these occur when wars, natural disasters,
epidemics, and other catastrophes wipe out all but a small remnant of
the original population. For instance, a flood could drown an entire
tribe, except for a fortunate few in a remote village. These survivors
would bequeath their genetic characteristics to subsequent generations.
If there were a high degree of relatedness among the survivors, then
their descendents may appear quite distinct from neighboring peoples. Of
course, the Bible shows the Flood of Noah to be the greatest bottleneck
of all time. According to the Genesis account, all of us must trace our
ancestry to Noah’s three sons and their wives.
Finally, another piece of the puzzle may be mate selection. We are
quick to point out the ways in which we differ from our spouse, and we
see a positive side to that. “Opposites attract,” so the saying goes,
but the Beach Boys knew better. “I seen all kinds of girls,” the
Californian band harmonized, but “I wish they all could be California
girls.” Underneath the superficial differences lie the grand
similarities. Not always, but more often than not, we marry someone who
grew up nearby, speaks the same language, and belongs to the same
cultural, religious, social, and political group (Diamond, 1992, pp.
99-109). The result is a barrier, obvious or otherwise, that may exist
between two neighboring peoples, or even between groups who live
cheek-by-jowl.
THE BIBLICAL VIEW
Evolutionists may argue that an explanation for human diversity simply
is unavailable to anyone who adopts a literal interpretation of the
Bible. They may reason that creationists have no access to any mechanism
that would cause change, because this means accepting evolution. This
is a common misunderstanding. Creationists object, not to
microevolution, but to
macroevolution.
One works by natural selection acting on mutations to create limited
variation; the other assumes unlimited variation. One seems to work; the
other is highly problematic. For our present purposes, we need account
only for variation on a small scale, and within a single species at
that. There is no reason to eliminate adaptation out of hand, especially
as it seems to work in cases like sickle-cell anemia.
Further, many evolutionists imagine an entirely Darwinian plot. This
may seem to threaten the biblical view on the grounds of time, assuming
that adaptation implies a slow, gradual process. Not everyone agrees on
this tempo of change and, certainly, genetic studies are revealing ample
non-Darwinian strategies.
The key biblical event must be the confusion of tongues at the Tower of
Babel (Genesis 11). Up to this point, as far as we can tell,
three lines of descent
were living in close proximity, and then a miracle occurred. God gave
them different languages so they could not work together on the Tower
(11:7). They could have dug their heels into the rich soil of the
Fertile Crescent, and trained a few good translators, but God “scattered
them abroad” (11:8).
We cannot be sure on what basis the partitioning occurred. In the Table
of Nations (Genesis 10), each line of descent appears by family and
language, according to their lands and nations (10:5,20,31). It seems
most likely, therefore, that the division occurred by the principal
family units present at the time of the confusion and dispersion. This
corresponds to the time of Peleg, in whose days “the earth was divided”
(10:25). It is at this point that the mechanisms described earlier must
come into full force. If the human population scattered over the face of
the Earth, then there was a sudden outpouring of founding groups. Each
extended family, isolated from others by language, would carry its own
set of genes into the world. From these groups, and within these groups,
developed the peoples of the world.
REFERENCES
Diamond, Jared (1988), “Founding Fathers and Mothers,”
Natural History, 97[6]:10-15, June.
Diamond, Jared (1991), “Curse and Blessing of the Ghetto,”
Discover, 12[3]:60-61, March.
Diamond, Jared (1992),
The Third Chimpanzee (New York: HarperCollins).
Eldredge, Niles (1985),
Time Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Fackelmann, K.A. (1989), “Pygmy Paradox Prompts a Short Answer,”
Science News, 136[2]:22, July 8.
Folger, Tim (1993), “The Naked and the Bipedal,”
Discover, 14[1]:34-35, November.
Gibbons, Ann (1998), “Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock,”
Science, 279:28-29, January 2.
Glass, H. Bentley (1953), “The Genetics of the Dunkers,”
Scientific American, August. Reprinted in
Human Variation and Origins (San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman), pp. 200-204.
Glausiusz, Josie (1995), “Unfortunate Drift,”
Discover, 16[6]:34-35, June.
Heyer, E. and M. Tremblay (1995), “Variability of the Genetic
Contribution of Quebec Population Founders Associated to Some
Deleterious Genes,”
American Journal of Human Genetics, 56[4]:970-978.
Keesing, Roger M. and Felix M. Keesing (1971),
New Perspectives in Cultural Anthropology (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston).
Patterson, Colin (1978),
Evolution (London: British Museum/Cornell University Press).
Sackheim, George I. and Dennis D. Lehman (1994),
Chemistry for the Health Sciences (New York: Macmillan).
Wills, Christopher (1994), “The Skin We’re In,”
Discover, 15[11]:76-81, November.
