254. The Baseline Scenarios -- 30: The Migrants -- Morphology

Before getting into the complexities of the cultural history, let's see how far we can get when we get physical. Admittedly, the cultural aspect interests me much more, but now that we've reached this point, I can't resist speculating about the physical stuff as well.

Two very intriguing questions immediately come to mind: 1. is there any evidence that HMP were short, like today's Pygmies -- and also certain Bushmen groups; or is it more likely they were of "normal" size, or even taller? 2. is there any evidence that could help us decide whether HMP were morphologically closer to Pygmies or to Bushmen? I think there is evidence that could help us on both counts, though some of it is inconclusive for sure.

To deal with the "easy" question first, it seems evident that HMP must have been more Pygmy-like, 1. because there are a great many "negrito" peoples in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Melanesia, who have a decidedly "pygmoid" physiognomy; 2. there are also a great many taller peoples who strongly resemble Bantu Africans, who are closely related genetically to African Pygmies and look far more like Pygmies than Bushmen; 3. no other people in the world look like Bushmen,* while a great many resemble African Pygmies; 4. the genetic evidence seems consistent with Pygmies, or at least proto-Pygmies as ancestral to everyone else, while mtDNA L0, characteristic of most Bushmen, seems relatively isolated, with no out of Africa branches at all. I'm aware, of course, that there are some striking similarities between modern East Asians and Bushmen, including the epicanthic fold, flattened facial features, etc., but I don't see any evidence of a direct or intermediate link between the two populations, so this might well be a coincidence -- (or perhaps the late "flowering" of some recessive genes).

As for shortness, this is a more complex issue, because we still don't know whether the shortness of all or even most Pygmy groups is inherited from a common ancestor or represents a series of independent adaptations. What we do know is that every single "negrito" group in the world is located along the hypothetical southern coastal route supposedly taken by HMP after leaving Africa for Asia, and it would seem difficult to explain the presence of so many of these groups -- many of which are hunter-gatherers with a culture very similar to HBC -- along this particular path unless they were direct descendants of HMP. It's also true, however, that many, though not all such groups were orginally found living in tropical forest environments, which means that all Pygmy and Pygmoid shortness could be an adaptation to that particular environment (though this doesn't explain Bushmen shortness). It's also true that the great majority of groups now living along this path, and represented by M and N clades, are not negritos. So if HMP were Pygmies, or Pygmoid, then why aren't all their descendants short? If we insist on a single Out of Africa migration, then, at some point, at least one of the descendant groups must have adapted, one way or the other. But this difference could also be the sign that there was more than one Out of Africa migration, and thus more than one HMP, one short, one of "normal" size. Do we need to think in terms of HMP1 and HMP2? and HMC1 and HMC2 as well? As we turn to the cultural evidence, we might find some clues to help us deal with this very fundamental question.

(to be continued . . . )
*[Added 12-14: I should have written "no other people in the world, outside of Africa, look like Bushmen." There are many people in southern Africa who do in fact look a lot like Bushmen, which is to be expected if we accept the commonly held theory that Bushmen and their close relatives, the Khoi-khoi (so-called Hottentots), dominated all or most of southern Africa prior to the Bantu expansion.]