Expert: Ralph Salier - 9/30/2006

Question
You had ask a question regarding the Folsom People of New Mexico as a race of African American's. The reply given was they were Asian and Caucasian.  As an expert Acheologist, what prompt you to question the Race Ethnic of these historical race of people?  Where you satisfied with the answer you recieved? With the old living human bone being found in a quandrant of Africa, and the first man now being identified as Black and in Africa, how can it be concluded that the Folsom people of New Mexico was Asian and Causcian only? What is the date of the oldest living bone and the race of that person? What is the date of the first Causian person? What is the date of the first Asian person?

History has established that the first people where Black, and with that, I cannot understand how the Folsom people of New Mexico did not have no traces of the African Race?

Answer
Hi Patricia,

Yes it appears that modern Homo Sapiens arose in Africa and them migrated over a period of 100,000 years to other parts of the world.  During this time frame, people who migrated into one region or another adapted to the conditions they found in these varied regions.  Some, like the Caucasians with light skin and hair had adapted to less sun light and colder temperatures while people of Asian regions developed other skin tones and facial features.  However, genetically, we are all the same.

So now lets go back to the Folsom people.  These PRE-historic peoples appear to have come across the Bearing land bridge from Asia based on skeletal remains.  Other PRE-hsitoric peoples of the Hardaway culture (East coast of US) may be of Caucasian background based on skeletal remains.  However, most pre-1492 Native Americans appear to have decended from Asian stock based on both genetics and morphological appearance.  

The first Homo Sapiens by the way were from Africa but not necessarily Black but were more likily of a mediteranian type of skin color, not that this makes much difference since we evolved from them based on environmental conditions our ancestors found.

As for dating specific "racial characteristics", as far as I am aware, no one has done so.  I'm not sure that this is even possible.  What I can say is that given what we know from historical records, the peoples who lived in Northern Europe had been a relatively isolated human population for many generations and  this is also true for Asian populations.  It was not until many generations late when the populations were large enough to interact that some mixture did occur.  

If you look at Human Genetics, the female mitocondria is of African Origin.  And we all have that.