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First Britons were black

(81 Posts)
Franbern Thu 01-Apr-21 09:23:30

Bluebelle Loved your comment, made me giggle. Britain, is completely made up of so many, many immigrant groups. Wave upon wave of such groups over thousands of years.

BlueBelle Thu 01-Apr-21 09:00:54

This needs teaching in every school It might shut some of the racists up
It’s been known a long time that the origin of humans was in Africa so it doesn’t take too much of a leap to believe the first Brits were black
Oh I d love to see that English lady s (is lady in context here) face when told she is a by-product ???

Alegrias1 Thu 01-Apr-21 08:31:40

I believe there is a living person in the South of England who is a proven descendant of Cheddar Man. Perhaps he should have a word with Jean.

growstuff Thu 01-Apr-21 07:40:41

I'm reading a book called "Who we are and how we got here" by David Reich. His speciality is Ancient DNA and he suggests the same thing, except he thinks that a new wave of people replaced the original darker skinned people. The new wave of people could have come from Sardinia, but a lot of research still needs to be done. People with lighter skin would have survived better than darker skinned people (as you say) because they would have absorbed more Vitamin D. Reich thinks that very few northern Europeans are directly descended from the first settlers.

NotSpaghetti Thu 01-Apr-21 07:13:54

The evidence as I understand it is that lighter skin mutations developed relatively recently.

A paper I read about maybe five or six years ago explained how pale skin and lactose tolerance developed hand-in-hand (through gene mutation) as early peoples spread into northern Europe. It said this was probably making it possible to get enough vitamins D.

Here's a link to Science Magazine - (I think this is basically saying the same thing) Not sure if it's referencing the exact presentation I read about but it does explain the same info:
www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin#:~:text=And%20the%20new%20data%20confirm,pale%20skin%20in%20Europeans%20today.

GagaJo Thu 01-Apr-21 06:52:46

Following on from the thread about David Lammy and the racist phone call he dealt with, I found this.

'Original' Brits, where were actually settlers from Continental Europe, and based on the genome of Cheddar man, would have been black. Makes sense, given that all of humanity originated in Africa

So, basically, Black Britons were the originals. Not white skinned.

www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/first-modern-britons-dark-black-skin-cheddar-man-dna-analysis-reveals