When did Middle Easterner become Caucasian?

[johen]

They didn't. It's the Europeans who are different. The "Caucasus" harbours ancestry which is more inline with Middle Eastern people. Sure there is some WHG and EHG among Middle Eastern people but is minimal and difficult to trace. Some of the WHG pre-dates PIE expansion, but EHG and some WHG (I would not use ANE as reference) definitely was brought with IE language.

(A) I think you explain in route 11 of Mr. Diamond map in the above post 3. By that route, middle Eastern farmer entered in E.U, and one of them turned into Caucasus. During the journey to Caucasus, they would be mixed with HG.
And we question how the HG looks like?

To my knowledge, skulls show the type of race, and DNA Ancestry. (still too much confusing in ancient Egypt. Now American Ind. see his map in post 12. We don't need to discuss further)

C. Brace research (2005) including map tells us 3 things:

1. The Neolithic peoples of Europe and their Bronze Age successors are not closely related to the modern inhabitants,
2. Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to Sub-Saharan Africa. (see his map in my post 10; Natufian is close to Congo, really far from modern European)
3. The data treated here support the idea that the Neolithic moved out of the Near East into the circum-Mediterranean areas and Europe by a process of demic diffusion but that subsequently the in situ residents of those areas, derived from the Late Pleistocene inhabitants, absorbed both the agricultural life way and the people who had brought it.”

--> That is why I think HG had the Caucasian shape, not Natufuan.

(B) From here, we got a big challenge that EEF entered E.U with 2 light skin genes.

Until now there has been 3 theory regarding light skin

1. Sexual selection by Darwin and Diamond, but I cannot believe it
2. Vitamin D theory, which is very persuasive, but cannot explain in the EEF w/ light skin genes
3. Recent cancer theory by B, Mel Greaves, professor of cell biology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London; "Dark Skin May Have Evolved to Protect Against Skin Cancer, A scientist argues that once we were all white; then we were all black; then some of us went back to white." As far as I know, australoid child is born with light skin. But it needs more back-up research though.

However 2 & 3 theory exactly explain in natural selection.

--->Under so hot Middle east, to me there is no chance for specially farming job person’s skin to be changed to be light.

It is more sensible for light skinned people to go there, turning brown., considering 2 & 3 theory thru 11 route.

 

[johen]

How about farming migration to India;

- By wiki “Indian agriculture began by 9000 BCE as a result of early cultivation of plants, and domestication of crops and animals.”

- See the Diamond map of the 11 Route to Iran and Parkistan and 8 Route to India. It shows farming migration to India

- The geneticist PP Majumder (2010) in India stating that:

"Within India, consistent with social history, extant populations inhabiting northern regions show closer affinities with Indo-European speaking populations of central Asia than those inhabiting southern regions. Extant southern Indian populations may have been derived from early colonizers arriving from Africa along the southern exit route. The higher-ranked caste populations, who were the torch-bearers of Hindu rituals, show closer affinities with central Asian, Indo-European speaking, populations. .."

- As far as I know, Indo-European entered in there from central Asia 3,000 years ago.

--> I'm not sure, but EEF in Europe and first farmer in India would be the same ethnics.

 

[Frosty_Chateux]

Do people not realize MENA are Caucasian? Heck, even North Indians are Caucasian from a racial standpoint.

And personally I don't see groups such as Levantines as white-passing, they are 100% white. White = persons who are white in color and CAUCASIAN in appearance. Semites have the same skulls as Europeans, therefore they are white Caucasians. Unmixed Berbers are also white Caucasians. Turks without Mongoloid input are white Caucasians.

 

[Nicu]

Do people not realize MENA are Caucasian? Heck, even North Indians are Caucasian from a racial standpoint.

And personally I don't see groups such as Levantines as white-passing, they are 100% white. White = persons who are white in color and CAUCASIAN in appearance. Semites have the same skulls as Europeans, therefore they are white Caucasians. Unmixed Berbers are also white Caucasians. Turks without Mongoloid input are white Caucasians.

I disagree with that; you're using too much of a blanket description for MENA and even Levantines. If you look at pictures of crowds

And these are Lebanese people even; they're basically the "whitest" of the MENA bunch, so imagine what you can find in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, etc, not to mention Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen/Oman/Egypt (which has some SSA), and North African countries like Morocco were Saharan Tuareg Berbers are settled. Yes, there certainly are people from these countries that are just Mediterranean and not much different from their European counterparts, many of them even. But saying that they're 100% white is just something that no one will take seriously I think (and yes I also admit that "white" is not the most useful or meaningful term in general because it doesn't have a strict definition, but that's a whole different story). I also think a lot of Westerners who are exposed to certain diasporic elements of the Lebanese population (such as Christian groups) are used to seeing the more Euro-shifted kind and dismiss or overlook the sizeable portion of Lebanon that is more Arabian-oriented. I would still say that Lebanon is predominantly more of a Phoenician/Canaanite/Aramaic type of ethnicity overall though.

Christian group in Lebanon, which is still fairly diverse, reflecting the interesting history of the region:

 

[Ailchu]

I disagree with that; you're using too much of a blanket description for MENA and even Levantines. If you look at pictures of crowds

View attachment 13057

And these are Lebanese people even; they're basically the "whitest" of the MENA bunch, so imagine what you can find in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, etc, not to mention Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen/Oman/Egypt (which has some SSA), and North African countries like Morocco were Saharan Tuareg Berbers are settled. Yes, there certainly are people from these countries that are just Mediterranean and not much different from their European counterparts, many of them even. But saying that they're 100% white is just something that no one will take seriously I think (and yes I also admit that "white" is not the most useful or meaningful term in general because it doesn't have a strict definition, but that's a whole different story). I also think a lot of Westerners who are exposed to certain diasporic elements of the Lebanese population (such as Christian groups) are used to seeing the more Euro-shifted kind and dismiss or overlook the sizeable portion of Lebanon that is more Arabian-oriented. I would still say that Lebanon is predominantly more of a Phoenician/Canaanite/Aramaic type of ethnicity overall though.

Christian group in Lebanon, which is still fairly diverse, reflecting the interesting history of the region:

from all the levantine people i've seen so far, imo lebanese aren't looking that much different from their neighbouring countries like palestinians or syrians. in fact i think syrians might even be a little bit more "european" looking often times. there are a lof of people who could pass in europe, but of course not all of them, which is clear sicne their country simply isn't situated in europe and no country looks exactly like the others. the unclarity of the term white is imo not a different discussion, it would belong here. you can say that the levant isn't white, but you can also say that europeans aren't all white. the term white should maybe be used more as a cultural description. it's just the caucasians with a more "western" culture.

 

[Frosty_Chateux]

from all the levantine people i've seen so far, imo lebanese aren't looking that much different from their neighbouring countries like palestinians or syrians. in fact i think syrians might even be a little bit more "european" looking often times. there are a lof of people who could pass in europe, but of course not all of them, which is clear sicne their country simply isn't situated in europe and no country looks exactly like the others. the unclarity of the term white is imo not a different discussion, it would belong here. you can say that the levant isn't white, but you can also say that europeans aren't all white. the term white should maybe be used more as a cultural description. it's just the caucasians with a more "western" culture.

But isn't race based solely on what you look like? Wouldn't being a white Caucasian from one of these lands in fact make you white? Isn't white solely a racial descriptor?

 

[ThirdTerm]

Dow v. United States (1915) defined Syrians as white and affirmed Dow's right to naturalization. However, this decision did not apply to North Africans or non-Levantine Arabs, and some U.S. courts claimed that only Syrians were white. The court's use of the term 'Syrian' referred to Syriac Christians of the Levant, excluding Syrian Muslims. It was not until 1943 when all Arabs and North Africans were deemed white by the federal government.

George Dow was a Lebanese Maronite Catholic from Batroun, a city populated by Maronite, Melkite, and Greek Orthodox Christians in northern Lebanon. The Dow decision extended the privilege of U.S. citizenship to Arab Christians as a distinct ethnic minority population of the Middle East. At the time, more than 95% of immigrants to the United States from the Arab world identified as Christians; fewer than 4% identified as Muslims—to whom Dow did not apply. The first Arab Muslims would not be allowed to naturalize until Ex Parte Mohriez, 54 F. Supp. 941 (D. Mass. 1944), three decades later.

George Dow's gauntlet through the American legal system, and the language with which his petition for citizenship was dealt, illustrate the degree to which legal bodies struggled to classify new groups of immigrants in a racial schema which would ultimately determine these immigrants’ right to become American citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_v._United_States

 

[Frosty_Chateux]

A surprisingly high amount of MENA could easily pass for white in the USA. Because of two reasons:

1. The threshold of what a white person looks like is not that high from a black or Asian person's POV

2. There is a lot of genetic and phenotypical overlap between Levantines/North Africans and Southern Europeans. A third of Turkey is of Balkan European descent.

Personally, I would not consider the aforementioned groups as people of color. The idea that they are a different "race" than Southern Europeans even though they look exactly like them is ridiculous.

 

[EV13SON]

A surprisingly high amount of MENA could easily pass for white in the USA. Because of two reasons:

1. The threshold of what a white person looks like is not that high from a black or Asian person's POV

2. There is a lot of genetic and phenotypical overlap between Levantines/North Africans and Southern Europeans. A third of Turkey is of Balkan European descent.

Personally, I would not consider the aforementioned groups as people of color. The idea that they are a different "race" than Southern Europeans even though they look exactly like them is ridiculous.

Well I grew up in the Racist south and believe me most of them would not consider MENA to be "white" just being honest. I had a good Persian friend growing up and he got called every derogatory word you could imagine growing up and this was decades before 9/11... I myself didn't entirely fit the "white" label, I could definitely get by in the Levant or anywhere along the Mediterranean...so although a piece of paper may say you're white...society at large may not entirely agree, just a cold hard fact...

 

[EV13SON]

But according to the American census below it is plain as day, but again I have a feeling many Northern Europeans would struggle to accept Middle Easterner's or North African's as "white" but perhaps would if they knew more about the ancient contributions to the make up and origins of what became Europe, heck even Scotland has a legend of being founded by an Egyptian Queen, Scotia..

White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.