This is about evidence of people who themselves personally came from North Africa. Not people who's ancestors came from North Africa.
The evidence is found in the oxygen isotopes in their teeth from the water they drank in their early lives, so it's nothing to do with genetics or ancestry and is purely environmental.
With DNA there would be no way to know when the African ancestry was introduced. Bear in mind we've had extensive contact with Africa via the slave and sugar trades for about a dozen generations.
I think that's exactly what you can use dna evidence for. E.g. its used to identify when Neanderthal was added etc. Or is it because the introduction was continuous? Hm.
We don't know from the DNA evidence itself when we received Neanderthal DNA other than the fact we know roughly when main-line Neanderthals died out.
There's a huge difference between saying these modern British people have some tiny amount of African DNA and we don't know where it came from, and saying this person right here in this grave from this historical period grew up in Africa. They tell us very different things.
Ongoing arguments about representation. Some people want to maintain the lie that there were no black people in the UK before the Empire Windrush. Some people want to insist that fantasy novels of pseudo-medieval settings should not have black people in as it's not "realistic", which is also silly.
It should be noted that North African is generally not black and in fact genetic testing of remains of some individuals living in the region of Carthage at the height of its power show them to possess a European haplolyte that has since mostly disappeared, and survives predominantly on the Iberian peninsula.
> It should be noted that North African is generally not black
It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.
>It's not as simple as that. Do a Google image search for 'Tuareg' and you'll find a number of faces that meet modern British (and American) conceptions of 'black'.
I didn't put it in overly simplistic terms. I said it "is generally not black", not "it is not black" or "it is never black". I was referring to the majority, rather making a blanket characterization about all North Africans.
Considering the large slave trade that filled the harems etc with black female slaves, there should be quite a lot of black ancestry in the Arab world?
Similarly, North Africans of the late/post-Roman period could actually be Vandals or Alans, ethnically. There's a huge amount of flux in populations in the ancient period.
It's worth noting that 'blackness' is a kind of modern era invention -- the Romans were deep into north Africa, it was entirely integrated into the empire, more so than much of Europe, and in their texts the colour of Africans skin is not really even mentioned. They are just referred to as Africans, which means Romans who live in North Africa. That's it.
You're absolutely right, and that's another reason why this is considered important: race is a modern way of viewing the world. The Romans were colonialists, but their kind of supremacy was based on culture and civic behaviour rather than skin colour. You could become civis romanus, and be accepted.
Not to mention that along particular corridors, there was contact with sub-Saharan Africans. Especially down the Nile, but also via routes through the desert.
While ultimately all people are of African origin it is still interesting to see whether there were later migration waves out of Africa. (Or even back into Africa for that matter)
While not mainland Africa, Madagascar is an example of a migration back into Africa. It was settled by Austronesians from Borneo. Malagasy is an Austronesian language:
All people are of African origin on a very long timescale of over 50,000-300,000 years ago.
That there were Africans in a more modern Britain sooner (just 5000 years ago), is interesting for this reason and it begs the question as to where the population went to-
> it begs the question as to where the population went to
I'm guessing they married out.
I cannot find a reference, but I seem to remember learning that eighteenth century Covent Garden in London had a significant black population, possibly former slaves freed by and then recruited into the British Army during the Revolutionary War. Within a century, that population had gone, at least as a distinct, visible group: the original population were all male and had taken local wives.
Why? Someone might know what I'm talking about and provide the reference that eluded me; or, just as usefully, they might be able to demonstrate I'm speaking nonsense.
Go back far enough and we'll find a common ancestor, and they probably came from Africa, and while confirming this is in itself interesting I think that people travelling and cross settling in our history is excepotion ally interesting.
Agreed - I'm certainly somebody who finds the history of the many waves of immigration to and emigration from the British Isles absolutely fascinating, particularly where these might overlap with the various origin myths for where peoples believed they originally came from.
[e.g. I've always wondered why I have epicanthic folds (which are fairly common in the part of Scotland I come from) even though my family has been in Scotland for many hundreds of years, although I think I've found a Finnish connection in the 17th century].
The evidence is found in the oxygen isotopes in their teeth from the water they drank in their early lives, so it's nothing to do with genetics or ancestry and is purely environmental.