All this fuckin Africa this Africa that crap. Yeah, I think that at some point back in time you'd probably find most of our common ancestors in Africa... sure. I don't know the debate around it, but it seems to make a lot of sense. But, in a thread about nationality, this fucking bullshit "we are all African" claim is about as pathetic as saying "we were all originally basic bacteria living in the ocean at one point! your great^2000 grandmother was a jellyfish!!!!1!" Come to think of it... Africa isn't even a fucking country so how can it be anyones nationality? That being said, I myself am South African by jus soli and British by jus sanguinis. At birth, I was registered both in a South African office and a British office - two birth certificates -, and to this very day I hold valid passports for both countries. I'm also, more recently, an American national by right of naturalization.
It's pretty well accepted in the scientific community that hominids originated in Africa and spread out from there. 8000 years ago is much, much too recent though. Like others have said, there were already reasonably complex civilizations elsewhere in the world at that time. I do agree that "we're all from Africa" is a stupid argument to make in a 'what's your nationality' thread, though. So to answer the original question, Scottish and German are the only ones I'm 100% sure of. There is probably some English and Dutch in there too.
Your vagueness puzzles me... Do you know what a scientific theory is? What's your plot? If you guys want to discredit the work of highly studied scholars that have dedicated their entire careers to palaeontology basing their consensus off centuries of empirical research and scientific reasoning all because it doesn't feel right in your gut-fine... but please leave your nonsensical ill-informed ideas in your head and don't bother the rest of us in the real world. Good Day.
The word theory has many distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion. In science a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. For the scientist, "theory" is not in any way an antonym of "fact". yup. i sure do. do you? just because you say something is fact and that it's backed up by scientific data that im supposed to just automatically accept it? especially since it's so far back that no one really actually knows what happen. so.. no thank you.
Out of curiosity, what do you believe? That humans originated somewhere outside of Africa? That different groups arose separately in different regions? Some sort of creationist explanation? This is a serious question, I am not trying to be a dick.
it's not that serious to me. i honestly don't believe in anything right now. i look at it that way because i wasn't there. nobody really fuckin knows what happened. so why should i believe in anything? i just don't accept answer easily unless i really research into it and understand it myself instead of some facts being handed to me on a platter. know what im saying?
I remember in High School when they told us Africa was the mother land. It was a group of about 10 african (american) people. I was high and busted out laughing. " If ALL of us are from the Same place, how come we all look completely different?" I didn't get an answer back. I did get sent to see the counselor, and the principal, haha. But I do not believe we're all from ONE continent. Evolution didn't just take place in one area of the world. I'm Polish and Italian. It makes for a very sexy mix.
Everyone I know is convinced I have some asian in me, but I can't prove it, 'cause we don't really know for sure.
I suppose that's fair enough. I have always been a science nerd...I am one of those people who looks for explanations for everything, so that whole mindset is a bit foreign to me. There is plenty of evidence, ranging from paleontology/archaeology to genetic divergence studies that supports the African origin theory though. I guess if you haven't read any of that research then there is no reason to immediately accept it. If this were the case, people from Africa would be highly different genetically from people in Europe, or Eastern Asia, etc. It is also unlikely that these groups would be able to interbreed. This is not the case, there is very little difference genetically between the various races. It is much more likely that hominids arose in one region, and then spread out from there. The differences between Africans, East Asians, Native Americans, Europeans, etc. developed over hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection and relative isolation from each other.
I love how almost everyone completely ignored my post on how irrelevant this whole African origin debate is. As it happens, it seems as though most of the posts in this thread deal with ethnic heritage, not nationality. Don't know if I've got my definitions confused or anything... would be nice if someone else could clarify this for me. Thanks for giving a shit though, guys, I guess its time for me to go sulk in a corner somewhere. P.S. I'm also really digging how everyone knows the answer to this Africa deal. Come on. We haven't even found the missing link yet. There are still people that think that God created people out of dirt. Nobody knows for sure what the fuck happened, it was a long time ago and we've done a lot of drugs since then.