How do forensic archaeologists determine the origins of different races?

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In summary, forensic archaeologists determine the origins of different races by examining skeletal remains, DNA analysis, and cultural artifacts. They use a combination of physical characteristics, ancestry markers, and historical context to determine the ancestry of a person or group of people. By analyzing these factors, forensic archaeologists can gain insights into the migration patterns and intermixing of different populations throughout history. This information can also provide a better understanding of human evolution and the diversity of human populations.
  • #36
I'm white and most of the people in my group at work are Chinese. I have never
felt any resentment (I'm NOT the boss, he is Indian).

After my divorce I started dating and found that Asian
women liked me much more than white women. I think the reason is that I have
a PhD and education is very respected in China, where as the white women could
never get past my lack of hair. My girlfriend is Chinese and the white male / Asian
woman combination is quite common her in CA. I was also in Shanghai not long ago
and they treated me very well.

Asian culture has quite a bit of "hierarchy" to it. All people are not considered the
same. Asians respect their parents, boss, older siblings etc. From my experience
educated white people seem to be respected, but I also think they would look down on
Black people.
 
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  • #37
hbf1184 said:
Black people in China? Well, I believe there's no ethnic classification for indigenious Black Chinese in China from the population data I've seen. They only report Chinese ethnic groups for their population census, not racial groups. Africans or other Black people from other countries (i.e. university students) are the only group in China regarded as 'Black'.

There's the Famau clan (Siyu village) on Pate Island off the East African coast who are considered the last surviving descendants of Chinese sailors (Admiral Zheng He's 15th century treasure ship voyages) and African women, whom Chinese tourist and academics visit frequently. I believe there's a archeological study, started in 2006 of the island by Beijing University.

But according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a genetic study (University of Texas, 1998) headed by population geneticist Dr. Li Jin , "Genetic researchers say they have found fresh evidence that Chinese people are descended from Africans... Academics from the University of Texas and their colleagues in China studied 28 population groups in China and concluded that most - if not all - had their genetic origins in Africa..."

Follow-up genetic research since the 1998 study has yielded the same conclusions. It's amazing how some information never seems to get disseminated well enough. French anthropologist H. Imbert stated this in 1928 (Les Negritos de la Chine): "The Negroid races peopled at some time all the South of India, Indo-China and China. The South of Indo-China actually has now pure Negritos as the Semangs and mixed as the Malays and the Sakais..."

I remember reading an article somewhere that all modern ethnicities are evolved off of one sub-group of black Africans that left Africa thousands of years ago and went on to spread around the world and form into all the different races/ethnicities we have today. They say you can take a black person from this sub-group in modern Africa, and a white person, an Asian, a Hispanic, a Middle Easterner, and so forth, and put them all side by side, that even though they all look different, genetically, they are all very similar.

Whereas then if you take this same black from that part of Africa where the people migrated from, and put him side by side with blacks from other parts of Africa, on the outside, they may all look alike, but genetically, there are some significant differences.
 
  • #38
CAC1001 said:
I remember reading an article somewhere that all modern ethnicities are evolved off of one sub-group of black Africans that left Africa thousands of years ago and went on to spread around the world and form into all the different races/ethnicities we have today. They say you can take a black person from this sub-group in modern Africa, and a white person, an Asian, a Hispanic, a Middle Easterner, and so forth, and put them all side by side, that even though they all look different, genetically, they are all very similar.

Whereas then if you take this same black from that part of Africa where the people migrated from, and put him side by side with blacks from other parts of Africa, on the outside, they may all look alike, but genetically, there are some significant differences.

Yes, the human race began in Africa. A group or several groups left Africa and evolved into the Oriental and Caucasian races. I believe this occurred about 50,000 years ago. Note that at that time there were already Negros along the coasts all the way to Australia.
 
  • #39
PatrickPowers said:
Note that at that time there were already Negros along the coasts all the way to Australia.

Really ? you don't mind using that. I would instead use people with dark skin or african ancestry.
 
  • #40
thorium1010 said:
Really ? you don't mind using that. I would instead use people with dark skin or african ancestry.

"Negroid" is still sometimes used scientifically to refer to persons who have features and skin colour similar to black Africans. In the context of the particular line of discussion references to "people of African ancestry" would probably be less than clear.
 
  • #41
TheStatutoryApe said:
"Negroid" is still sometimes used scientifically to refer to persons who have features and skin colour similar to black Africans. In the context of the particular line of discussion references to "people of African ancestry" would probably be less than clear.

IN the context of the present thread , black people in US refer usually to people of african ancestory. But there are people with dark skin (or black people, which refers to their skin color) who are not of african ancestory.

Negroid is an old term reffering to cranial features of a person of african ancestory. It is a very old term, used to clasify races in forensic and anthropology studies, before genetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid
 
  • #42
thorium1010 said:
IN the context of the present thread , black people in US refer usually to people of african ancestory. But there are people with dark skin (or black people, which refers to their skin color) who are not of african ancestory.

Negroid is an old term reffering to cranial features of a person of african ancestory. It is a very old term, used to clasify races in forensic and anthropology studies, before genetics.

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

In the context of the particular discussion the poster was referring to the theory that all "races" came out of Africa. That would seem to fit in the domain of "forensic archeology" which is apparently, according to that wiki article, one of the few disciplines that still uses the term.
 
  • #43
TheStatutoryApe said:
In the context of the particular discussion the poster was referring to the theory that all "races" came out of Africa. That would seem to fit in the domain of "forensic archeology" which is apparently, according to that wiki article, one of the few disciplines that still uses the term.

In the context of particular discussion , referring to out of africa theory , using the term negroid is pretty much useless .

No one would know how someone looked like many thousands of years ago and more so they probably looked not much different from each other. Africans now, might not be the same as the africans 50,000 yrs ago. So how would you characterize their features then ? (i.e. using the term negroid ). Simply put the term is Useless.

BTW, I would not like to continue this discussion further.
 
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