Africa: home to us all

Who are we?     

Where do we come from?     

How did we populate the planet?

How does DNA help us figure out our evolutionary history?

Nicholas Wade’s book “Before the Dawn,” published in 2003 and based on DNA genome discoveries, solved many mysteries about our origin, according to Prof. Reginald Garrett, who teaches biology and nutrition around the world.

“Gorillas are 98% similar to us,” says Prof. Garrett and goes on to back up his information. Fossils show that hominid species (early human ancestors) were in Africa 6 million years ago. Neanderthals can be traced back 400,000 years. Comparison of the DNA in human mitochondria from women around the world suggests the existence of a common ancestor “Eve”, who is mother to us all.  Comparison of the DNA in human Y chromosomes from men around the world gives us ancestral “Adam”, who lived 90,000 years ago. The brain of an ancestral hominid, Homo Erectus, was three times the size of its previous ancestor, with the larger size in the cerebral cortex or frontal lobe allowing us unprecedented power to think and reason, far beyond the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees and gorillas.

We all originated in Africa. Early humans were hunters and gatherers who roamed widely.  About 50,000 years ago, a small group of ONLY 150 human beings migrated out of Northeast Africa. They continued southeast along the coast, reaching India and beyond. Later, some of these people turned back towards the northwest to the Levant, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and onto Europe. Bone fragments found recently in Croatia, the Czech Republic – dating back 31,000 years – and the Alps are 99.84% identical to those found in Africa. 

Populating Asia, Australia and the Western Hemisphere, humans continued to roam. Some went east to China (Xian was the earliest settlement) while others found their way to Australia (Aborigines having retained their uniqueness, giving us solid evidence of how we looked thousands of years ago.)  The Western Hemisphere was settled by humans who traveled to the Americas via the Bering Sea only 13,000 years ago.

Many settled down to create urban environments, domesticating dogs and growing crops (especially barley from which they made beer). DNA also shows us that the default condition for humans is lactose intolerance. However, Caucasians and Northern Europeans cultivated dairy cattle, developing tolerance for milk and other dairy products.

Today’s Africa has:

• 1 billion people living in 54 countries. The latest is South Sudan, breaking away from Sudan in 2011.
• Ghana was the first country to declare its independence from colonial rule in 1957.

• Nigeria with 162 million citizens is largest country. Next is Ethiopia with 84 million. The Seychelles is the smallest with 86,000.

• 40% of Africans live in urban areas, while 60% are rural.

• There are 2100 languages spoken on the continent.

• Egypt had the most advanced civilization, as can be seen by the construction of the pyramids in 2500 BCE.

• The effect of the Atlantic Slave Trade is still being felt 150 years later. Africans admit, however, that indentured servitude existed before the arrival of foreigners.

Our Semester at Sea family is grateful to be visiting five ports in Africa where our ancestors came from.