In the politically correct and virtue signalling world, where pseudo-morality reigns, colonisation has become a dirty word. Colonists are considered evil. Statues of colonists are even more depraved. The colonised of the past are always considered victims by the present. Needless to say, a place in the kingdom of heaven is reserved for the colonised. The reality is that any living species which does not colonise is doomed either to stagnation in a niche habitat or to failure and extinction. Colonisation is the stuff of life. Geographical spaces are colonised when expanding communities invade and bring more competitive cultures or technologies than existing in that space. Populations are colonised when their culture and technology cannot compete with incoming ones. Strangely, it is only the European colonisations between about 1400 and 1900 CE which have become politically incorrect. But what is conveniently forgotten is that the colonised populations in Australia and N America and even S America at that time were so backward in technology that they were ripe for colonisation by any invading community with superior technology. If not the Europeans, it would have been someone else. It is, of course, politically incorrect to point out that the colonised were once colonists too, and have themselves primarily to blame. Colonisations in antiquity by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, and Han Chinese are too far in the past for moral judgements in the present. The Mongols, the Normans, and the Vikings generally escape censure today.
But it is worth remembering that human colonisation was started by the Africans.
Colonisation is primarily about the expansion of the physical space being occupied by a biological community. The community may be a whole species or just a particular strain within a species. It is a phenomenon exhibited by every successful biological community from viruses and bacteria and fungi to plants and animals (including humans). A new territory or habitat may already be occupied by other species, or strains of the same species, or unoccupied. The incoming community are the colonists. Any communities already existing in the space are the colonised. Many attempts at colonisation fail; either because the colonists cannot adapt to the new habitat or because they cannot compete (biologically, culturally, or technologically) with the existing inhabitants.
That living things exist in every conceivable corner of the earth’s surface is a consequence of colonisation. That living things find it necessary to search for new habitats is a consequence of surviving changing environments, of growth, and of the genetic diversity inherent in every species. There are a few species which have stagnated in tiny niche habitats, exhibit unusually little genetic diversity and are unable to change. They have become so specialised to fit their habitat that they are incapable of adapting to any other and have reached evolutionary “dead-ends”. Panda bears and theridiid spiders are examples. They have become incapable of growth or of colonisation and are probably on their slow path to extinction.
When it comes to the origins of human colonisation we need to go back to before we were ever human. (I take humans to mean Anatomically Modern Humans who appeared around 300,000 years ago). Some little time after we had evolved from hominids to hominin, and perhaps around 800,000 years ago, a common hominin ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans, a couple of unknown hominin species and of AMH, emigrated from Africa and colonised most of Europe, Central Asia, and South East Asia. Most likely the movement of whole populations was driven, not by a shortage of space, but by changes of climate and a shortage of food. (Note that immigration is not necessarily colonisation, but colonisation always involves emigration). These Old Africans were emigrants and the first ever colonists. They were not initially immigrants since the territories they moved into had no other hominin inhabitants. There were probably many waves of Old Africans and later emigrants may well have been immigrants. Many of the areas they moved into did have indigenous hominid populations. However, the indigenous culture and technology was not sufficiently competitive to prevent the wave of hominin colonisation. Hominins had fire while hominids and other species did not. The colonisation of the world by the Old Africans led to the demise of many species which could not compete against the advanced culture and technology they exhibited. Some were hunted to extinction as prey, while others were unable to adapt quickly enough, and still others were just crowded out by the newcomers.
In due course (a small matter of a few hundred thousand years) the Old Africans in Central Asia and Europe evolved to become the Neanderthals. From about 500,000 years ago they were the dominant species for about 300,000 years. In South East Asia, the Old Africans evolved to become the Denisovans. In the rest of Asia (S China, India, and the Middle East), the Old Africans were still around but had evolved to become some as yet unknown hominin species. In Africa, the Old Africans gave way eventually to Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) by about 300,000 years ago. Let us call them the New Africans.
Then from about 200,000 years ago there were a number of waves of New African emigration/colonisation into Europe and Asia. These emigrant waves continued sporadically for 100,000 years culminating in the Even Newer Africans coming “Out of Africa” around 60 – 70,000 years ago. The New Africans and the Even Newer Africans found indigenous hominin populations all across the new territories they expanded into. They were sometimes just other New Africans and sometimes they were blended populations of Old Africans (Neanderthals, Denisovans, …) and New Africans. In India, for example, the Even Newer Africans arrived after the Toba eruption and mingled genetically with surviving populations of Old Africans already mingled with New Africans.
Whether there was conflict between indigenous and arriving populations, or whether one culture was gradually submerged into the more dominant one is unknown. What is known is that the arrival of the Even Newer Africans caused the Neanderthals and the Denisovans and some other hominin species around to disappear. By around 50,000 years ago the Denisovans were extinct and by 40,000 years ago there were no Neanderthals left. However, their genes still survive and live on in us.
In current-day politically correct terms and to signal great virtue in ourselves, it could be called the Genocide of the Neanderthals by the Even Newer Africans.
Tags: colonisation, Genocide, Neanderthals
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