Chapter 3 – Osteometrics of the Past - The Genesis of the Problem

“The difficult one has in understanding him comes not from his superficial obfuscations but rather his genuine profundity”

– Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Western Civilization

The Genesis of the Problem

Understanding racial taxonomic typeation is more difficult than even the Office and Management and Budget attempted to do in their 1997 process of evaluation. It is a question that literally and figuratively has been documented to haunt us since the beginning of our consciousness as human beings. Consider the thought question based on the OMB 1997 declaration,

White refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as White or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish
-- OMB 1997

Where do those origins begin? How do I know my origins are from Europe? Within this manuscript we have briefly explored the anthropological research that has been presented from as far back as 1856 until the 1970’s only to find no real answer in our origins. We have tantalizing ideas of our origins. But the anthropological records that we have reviewed have only led us as far back as maybe 3.4 million years with “Lucy”. But how did it do that? How do we know that we are not Neandertal, or are we from Homo Erectus and how does this fit with our understanding of our beginnings? More importantly, I would argue to attempt to understand our beginnings as Humans we have to look further back than 1856.

I have never been known to be the most politically correct individual at a dinner party or even in Sunday School at Church. So in kind with my previous behavior I will state what may or may not seem to be the obvious. I am writing this material in English. Those that are reading this most likely read English as a first language. If English is the second language then the chances are the individual has studied enough of Western culture to understand the position that I will embark. The predominate religion of those that have English as a first language are either Christian or are well aware of the Christian traditions. With these suppositions in kind I make the assumption that if you are reading this manuscript, you are well aware of the Christian thoughts in Genesis. But how well have we evaluated the Genesis theory? If your faith in Christianity is weak or you are strongly offended by thoughts that may challenge your understanding close the book now. If you have a view that the understanding of Christianity may be greater than the specific words in a book, I hope you find these next sections enlightening.

Genesis is a book of the Old Testament that conveys that God created the world in 7 days. In this creation theory there seem to be several items of intrigue. First God – suggested by later scripture but never specifically stated in Genesis – takes the form of an elderly man. Although this may seem trivial point to make when discussing racial taxonomy I assure you this complete understanding of origins from a scientific standpoint is critical. I will address both this topic and Noah’s story in the section entitled Allele Differences. Second – the number of days is not clearly stated. There is no clarity that the word “days” represent what we know in science to be a diurnal day. Diurnal expresses the complete rotation of the earth with regard to the sun. The period of 24 hours is never expressly stated. Further from a temporal standpoint there is some ambiguity as to if the days followed one another sequentially to create a total composite of 168 diurnal hours. Finally from a temporal standpoint the entire Bible addresses days and nights and other orders of mathematics much in the same way that the other classical writers did at that time in history. A quick read of Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Western Civilization will provide numerous examples of how the Irish Moncks provided numbers as a generic sense of volume as opposed to a specific discreetness of understanding. This embellishment of numbers was a means to express the representation of tremendous deeds or torturous circumstances. Third one passage in Genesis has until recently caused me great consternation until I came to see what I believe to be a greater scope of understanding. In Genesis verse 4:16 4:17

And Cain was cast out of Eden to the land of Nod east of Eden to lay with the daughter of man
-King James Version

On the surface this is a relatively innocuous statement. A man commits murder of a brother and for that he is banished from the society. But the question arises where was he cast out. The “Garden of Eden” had already become unavailable to him because of the sins of Adam and Eve. Moreover, when he was cast out he married the “daughter of man”. Who was the “daughter of man”?

For many years growing up in the rural south it was suggested that perhaps this “daughter of man” were blacks. Adam and Eve, they were the whites. There was and is no more evidence for any of these statements other than they are popular believes. Hence we use the word faith to describe our understanding of the Bible. Religion is a wonderful method to provide societal structure but it does little good for helping with us to understand physical science. Here is what we know as fact. The earth is much older than the suggested 3000 years of recorded history. There seems to be a fossil record that demonstrates evolution from lower order animals to higher order animals. The Hominid record show an ever closer representation of modern day skeletal form. This information differs significantly from the literal interpretation of Genesis.

This does not mean we should cast out the proverbial “baby with bath water.” The Western Christian understanding of our genesis has provided interesting clues to what has happened in the past, however, the dogmatic literal interpretations has slowed the advance of our understanding of our origins. Furthermore, I would contend it has in the past and continues to provide the basis to our quagmire on racial taxonomy. This topic alone could consume volumes of writing. Our issue of discussion is limited to racial classification. I will attempt to condense this thought as much as possible.

The daughter of man question suggests there were multiple groups of people. No, it more than suggests it; Genesis clearly states it. Cain left to marry the daughter of man. We know from the text that there were only two individuals - Adam and Eve. They had children. Can we infer that the “daughter of man” were children of Adam and Eve that had themselves already been cast out. And why were they termed the “daughter of men”? What significance does the word ‘men’ hold? If the “daughter of men” are descendants of Adam and Eve what egregious act had they committed to already be cast out. Why are there no discussions of this malice behavior? There is another alternative answer. The Bible is a wonderful creation myth that provides insightful stories of philosophy. Moreover, its construction provides a look at our human psyche. Even in the creation myth of Genesis the writer could not reduce the understanding of man to a single point. Within our human consciousness we are saddled with the fact that other humans have always been there. Even for the most remote people, their have always been tribes on the other side of the mountain. When we look at alternative creation myths we deduce either a great deal of plagiarism, a. collective human psyche of incomplete creation mythos or a combination of the two.

Interestingly enough the Norse people have an ancient belief that God walked along a beach one day and desired company. He saw two pieces of wood; one a branch of Elm, the other Ash. He breathed life into the branch of Ash and called him Ashte. He then breathed life in the stick of Elm and called her Elba. The myth is nearly identical to the Christian story of creation down to the naming conventions. It should be similar. According to Thomas Cahill, it was the Monks of Ireland that transcribed the newly emerging Christian religion, and Norse and Druid beliefs heavily influenced them. To maintain form they maintained many of the same Druidic and Norse traditions within the Christian religion. This is but one example. In different cultures the names of the first beings are different, the conditions of their creation are modifications of the same theme, but nonetheless, it all begins with two people. We see here Darwin’s theory of Evolution was a tremendous leap.

With all this talk about Genesis, the adroit reader may ask what about Noah. I would also suggest a review of the Tower of Babel. In any case these stories of the Bible attempt to explain language differences, human origins and other such evolutionary, physical and historical processes as acts of God. Perhaps the evolutionary themes are better explained with a theory often invoked by Milford Wolpoff termed Center Edge. Although the story of Noah fits into this concept to a degree, his myth better fits in the section on microbiology more than in osteomorphology and dating processes. The myth of Noah is not a true Origins question of humans or segregation of groups. However, the Tower Babel is a classic example of the Bible attempting to demonstrate that God separated people. A good friend of mine (who happens to have very dark black skin) and I were discussing my thoughts on being black. He had no problem sighting the Tower of Babel theory as the separation point for blacks and whites. It explained it all to him. An act of God just happened and then it was how it was. I cannot accept this for the same reason I cannot accept Genesis nor the story of Noah’s ark as being anything more than metaphor. These myths are just that. They are embellished at best and factually inaccurate at worst.

The myths mentioned so far herein have provided our starting points for our theories. We have assumed for a long time that there were clear and distinct differences between the races, and our justification for that was that God made it so. When we take a critical look at the source of the information, what we find is factual inaccuracies. Furthermore, as we research more we find that perhaps the Center Edge Theory of Evolution and other science is actually expressed in the myth. For the more industrious reader perhaps even the myth can be reconciled directly with science. As an example, consider this: Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us that time is a function of our space. This space-time fabric is a function of our distribution of mass. Perhaps if we can define the time of our origins to a sufficient degree of accuracy, we can provide compelling physical evidence of the abstraction of God. Specifically, consider the specific time of seven diurnal human days. God is recorded within the Bible as being omnipresent and thus throughout the Universe. Assuming possibly a more Native American abstraction, perhaps God does exist in all matter. That proposed, we might be able to use the General Theory of Relativity to calculate the elapsed time frame of an omnipresent being. Using the seven days as a correlation to the geological time frame of the Universe, it may be possible to calculate the mass of God. Comparing this mass to the expected mass of the Universe would provide scientific insight to the existence of God and the associative time frame put forth in Genesis. Until this information is reconciled, I would suggest human abstractions such as racial taxonomy should be based in scientific theories such as Center Edge and not in non-testable faith based mythos.

Center Edge tells us that animals (which include hominids) become isolated. This isolation creates a limited genome set in a specific environment. From the limited selection certain attributes arise as dominate. We will address this in more detail in Allele Differences. Suffice it to say; eventually members on the edge of these groups (like Cain) are cast out to marry the daughter of man. When they are, they carry with them the genome from the group. When they don’t the genome becomes isolated and is changed to a degree that the isolated group will eventually become its own species. The Genesis myth holds critical clues to our understanding of our origins. The downfall is that for years it made us view the Candelabra theory like the tines of a fork as opposed to the grating of a trellis. Thank goodness the bone record has left us the evidence sort out the facts.