Whites, Blacks, and Apes in the Great Chain of Being

[dawg]

5. This is a very sensitive matter.

Humans went through a severe population bottleneck around 75,000 years ago. We are *all* descended from a small population of survivors. We are all African. As a species, we have very little genetic diversity.

Because all whites and asians are descended from a relatively small number of individuals, perhaps only one or two bands who wandered away from the continent shortly after the bottleneck event, what little variation we do have as a species exists primarily among the descendants of those who remained in Africa.

Because of this, one African person can be much more genetically different from another African person than they are from me, despite my pale skin.