Since the beginning of time, humans have been contemplating the idea of where they have come from. All people are entitled their own belief. Some individuals believe they came from ape’s over years of evolving and adapting or that we are all descendants from Africa, while others rely on their religion to guide them in understanding where they come from. Weather a person believes from a scientific stand point or a religious, they both are correct in the eye of the beholder. Anthropologist, archeologist, and other scientist believe that Homo sapiens originated from Africa about 200,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa about 100,000 year ago based on the findings of three sets of human fossils (p. 3). This is known as the “Out of Africa” …show more content…
This belief argues, “that as early descendants of modern men and women evolved in widely dispersed geographical settings, they took on diverse personality traits and distinctive physical appearances, with the result that they appear today as different ‘races’” (p. 4). This reasoning supports the idea that we did not all originate from Africa but people were settled all over the world. Based on where people lived and moved to determined their “race”, culture, heritage, language, family life, and daily living (p. 4). On the other hand of a scientific stand point of were humans have come from, there are also many religious beliefs and myths that tell where and how humans were …show more content…
4). The story explains, “that God descended from the heavens in human like form. He became the godlike king Oduduwa, who established the Yoruba kingdom and the rules by which his people were to live” (p. 4). The Brahmanical Vedas and the Upanishads which remain central to the Hindu belief claim that the world is millions if not billions of years old (p. 4). One popular myth that the Hindu people have pasted on for thousands of year is the creation myth. The creation myth is a hymns that is sang during a sacrifice to their gods. The hymn tells of a creature names Purusha, or ‘Man’ to which the sacrifice is made. From the man, he created four different types of people: the Brahman, the Rajanya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra. These four types of people represent, “forefathers of the four castes, or hereditary social classes of India” (p.
Because of this, knowing the genetics behind our ancestors through genetic markers, it’s safe to say that “we are all African under the skin.” The concept of different races and segregation is only an idea that the human population has somehow managed to create over the years; while people may be of different colors and have recent ancestors who were born in different places around the world, we all have one ancient, common ancestor, the
It is quite interesting, because before this discovery, it was thought that the first humans only left Africa 1 million years ago. However, archaeological evidences show that there were already Dmanisi hominids in Dmanisi 1.77 million years ago. It was also thought that the first humans out of Africa were tall, big-brained, and well-developed stone tools. However, the Dmanisi hominids were small, had small brains, and used primitive tools. The Dmanisi also provided paleoanthropologists with a new site to discover.
Neha Chandran SQ3R Chapter 1 Analyze the first humans. About three to four million years ago, the first humans classified as hominids lived in Africa. Australopithecines were bipedal and were able to make simple tools out of stone. Louis and May Leakey discovered a hominid that they named Homo habilis. These hominids were the first to make tools.
Religions of the Ancient World Of the seven religions/philosophies, most are polytheistic, with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as exceptions. These three religions are the three major monotheistic religions, meaning they all only believe in one God. Being a Hindu, you should be grateful, strong, patient, gentle, good, generous, and truthful, as said in the Ancient Indian Epic, Mahabharata in 400 B.C. Hinduism has a Caste System (Doc. 3), which greatly influences the Hindu people. The four major castes are: The Brahmins: priests, The Kshatriyas: warriors, rulers, senators, presidents, and majors, The Vaisyas: farmers, merchants, lawyers, and doctors, The Sudras: unskilled workers, and the Other sub-castes: “untouchables” (Doc. 7). Buddhism
This religion believes in the art of reincarnation, which is being reborn into another creature. Hindus believe in multiple gods, but the most important one is Brahma, the Hindu God of creation. They also believe in karma, a law of cause and effect by which an individual creates their own destiny by their actions. According to Document 7, Hinduism is constructed by a caste system that is also followed in India. The system divides Hindus into hierarchical groups based on their karma and duties.
Furthermore a study by the Genetic Society of America, weakens the myth that race is caused by genetic differences by stating that there is a “larger Genetic Differences Within Africans Than Between Africans and Eurasians” meaning “blacks” are more genetically similar to “whites”
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans began to question the genetics of Africans, wondering what caused their black skin. As the curiosity grew, Europeans began turning to science to explain the distinguishable differences between Africans and Europeans. Some of these explanations were outlandish, such as the theory that Africans evolved from gorillas, lacked the same cognitive abilities as Europeans, and were of a different species of human. Africans were said to lack reason and therefore were inferior and were “naturally suited for subjugation” (White 50). Such ideals helped to foster the preconceived notions of white supremacy that would later give rise to racist ideologies, and notions of superiority over their African counterparts.
Humans came from primates, as scientific studies have shown the great ape from Africa, chimpanzees and gorillas having a common ancestor with humans from six to eight million years ago (Smithsonian,
The Cherokee creation story reflects the Cherokee people's emphasis on moral behavior and the consequences of human actions. It reminds us of the importance of living in harmony with one another and with nature. On the other hand, Genesis 1-3 in the Bible highlights the concept of divine authority and the notion of original sin, which have influenced Western religious thought and moral frameworks for
George Best describes in his document how people often misunderstand what race is, thinking it to be the fault of the sun, but he describes in his novel that the dark skin of those who live to the south of him was actually a punishment direct from god for being cruel during the biblical flood, (Doc. 2) [B]. While this explanation relies heavily on simple stories, the attempt to describe why some are different through religion is a way to have people widely conform to modern conceptions of race; people always look to god [C]. In another document, David Hume describes that he believes those with white skin are inherently better than those with darker skin, stating questionable and untrue facts about there never being a major African civilization, see Ghana or Mali.
Chapter 1 Summary: 1. Chapter one is about the starting of human life. Diamond starts the chapter off by explaining Homo erectus and how humans developed from apes to Homo sapiens. The chapter further explains how humans split off into sections of the world, by starting out in Africa and spreading to continents such as Eurasia and Australia/New Guinea. The main discussion of chapter one is how the humans developed differently between different areas of the globe, but all originated from one place.
Among anthropologists it has become increasingly clear that the concept of race having a biological basis is fundamentally flawed. There a number of flaws with this concept of race. One issue is that features attributed to race, such as skin color, very across the globe in a clinal fashion rather than in uniform groups. Another issue is that there is more in-group variation within races than there is variation between races. Finally, human variation is non-concordant.
SOC 100 - Midterm Essay In the U.S., we were taught to categorize people into different “racial groups” such as White, Black, Asian, and so on, based on physical features, including skin color, hair texture, shapes of lips, and more. However, race is socially and not biologically constructed. According to the textbook, sociologists described race as a human invention which was shaped by social forces present in a time and place of its creation. There are three main arguments for why race is created and designed by society.
Belief in a Supreme High God, who created the world and then withdrew from active participation in it, is common in polytheistic religions around the world. Beyond all minor gods, goddesses, spirits and ancestors, there exists one High God, who created and in some sense still governs the universe. Most believe that this God is too distant and has limited contact with daily operation of human life. Native Americans and Africans have similar concepts of the high god. African and Native American religions recognize the presence of one supreme deity as well as the existence of God in multiple aspects.
The spiritual aspect of Hinduism shows the overbearing power of the “Brahman”. The Brahman also known as the World Soul comes from the sacred text of the Bhagavad Gita given to Lord Krishna. The Brahman is ones deepest self, the identity that remains beneath one’s changing self (Griffen). In Hinduism, this God is the basis of all creation, and all power worshipped in the religion. The Brahman lies at the root of all who show devotion to other gods.