What did Y-chromosomal Adam look like? more specifically, was he black?

Question

He was apparently all of our father's father's father's father's... father and lived approximately 60,000 years ago in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

was he black? if so, should that fact make the world more enlightened and less racist?

Answer 1

He was most likely an Ethiopian or a person from the Horn of Africa. So he probably looked like a modern day Ethiopian, Somali,  or Eritrean or like Barack Obama.

That's where the oldest human remains have been found.  All people can trace their ancestry back to Africans.

Answer 2

Racer X is correct.

Answer 3

no he wasnt black, noahs son was black, read a bible why dont you

Answer 4

I just briefly read that Caucasians did not come from Africa rather instead they came from Asia.

Answer 5

If he looked like Tyson Beckford that would be OK!

Answer 6

Chances are he was black since he lived so close to the equator.  

It will not change the minds of the bigoted person. They would say he would still not be as good as a "white" person because he was less advanced.

Answer 7

He was made in God's image, so he was obviously a Newcastle United supporter, which would make his colours black AND white.

Answer 8

He was probably a medium brown and contained a robust DNA with a skin-tone central genetic code that allowed Him and Eve to produce all the variable skin colors we have today in perhaps one generation, Noah's family were actually the origin of the four basic race types in the world. Population studies also show that the current population on earth of 6.5 billion people is about what you would expect if mankind originated about 4-6000 years ago....not hundreds or even tens of thousands of years.

http://www.ldolphin.org/popul.html

http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/mixe...

Answer 9

We can't really know if he was black because the Y chromosome doesn't contain that information.  The Y chromosome has only 86 genes, nearly all of which have to do with making a person male.

However, he was probably black because he lived in sub-Saharan Africa.  The oldest versions of the chromosome section (Haplogroup A) are found in African populations; newer groups are found in Asia, India, and Europe.  It is theorized that people's skin got lighter as they moved north because light-skinned people were not selected out before they could reproduce.

Answer 10

Look . The Bible is all lies.  There was no Adam.  It's all like the stories in Aesops Fables.  You know, like The tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny ....all put there just to keep your pea brain thinking about something while the establishment sucks the life out of you...til you're old

Answer 11

Dont know but the name means RED

Answer 12

That goes along with the whole mitochondrial Eve theory. I don't think I've heard of a suppossed "Adam" theory. As far as race/skin color is concerned, a lot of that has to do with environment.

Answer 13

Adam, was the first man from which all people descended. So he possessed the genes, to create all the phenotypes (physical appearances) of every living man on earth. All men alive today, are descended from 18 ancient men. I believe the 18 ancient men were very diverse, much like the continent of Africa, itself. Prior to European colonization, Africa was and still is the most genetically diverse continent in the world. Indigenous African people, often referred to collectively as blacks have so many different ways of looking.

Habesha people from the Horn with no admixture (like the Ethiopians and Somalis) have a very nice combination of large dark eyes, metallic brown skin tones, straight and curly dark hair, and are long limbed.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/44/147681...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...

San Africans look very  different too. See here.

http://www.africa-can.org/FILES/southaf/...

Here is a pic of Bantu Africans.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_q5OPKiQWaU8/Rs_xz5...

Here is a picture of a Khoisan African,

http://www.uq.net.au/~zzhsoszy/states/af...

So to answer your question. Yes, I believe Adam was African, and he had a skin tone befitting the sunny equatorial region, which could have been any shade of brown, to a deep smooth black. Prior to European colonialism, skin color was not used as a social construct to classify and oppress. People always interacted with each other, and noticed differences and similarities. But people  in general, were classified by ethnicity, and that included country of origin, religion, and culture.

Most of the people of the world, are people of color. Most families in the world (outside of Europe, but sometimes in Europe) have family members who are in many shades of brown, red, smooth black, yellow, and olive. But they are all related, and no one makes a fuss about it.

I have an  adopted Eritrean cousin, who's pure Eritrean---all Subsaharan African with no mixture. And she is so beautiful.

My other cousins, like myself are Dutch with no admixture, and I have good looking people in my family too. Any group can be good looking, all you have to have is the symmetry.

All the mixing in the world cannot make a person pretty unless they already have pretty genes.

By the way, populations should be divided by blood tribes, aka haplogroups not skin color. Environment plays a huge role in skin color. Beautifully tanned Dutch and Swedes will have skin closer to Subsaharan Africans, than Greek or Italians who live closer to Africa--who might stay indoors all day. I have seen many well tanned Dutch and Swedes who are the same color as some  East and Southern Africans. That's just how it works.

Answer 14

He was not black or white, but sepia-toned.  And the world should be less racist because it is the right thing to do, not because of what colour Adam (or by definition God) is.

Answer 15

Adam and eve were probably weren't interracial.

Skin pigmentation differences probably came when God divided the people after they started the tower of Babel.

Answer 16

You can't know that he was black because just like Ellen said,  information isn't contained on Y chromosome.  I disagree with the assumption that he lived in Africa though it is likely.  There is also a distinct possibility that he wasn't African.  He wasn't a  N egro because African doesn't equal N egro.  He most likely had dark skin but that doesn't make him a N egro either.  Whatever he was, he was probably as close to Whites as he was to N egros.  It would be more rational if people would see melanin as just a very minor superficial biological difference.

Whites aren't more evolved version of more primitive race.  We may have had different selection pressures but we are both the same distance from the common ancestor, in this case "Adam".  We certainly can't go by current populations because males are capable of very long distance travel and no human population should be considered static geographically.  Are we supposed to think that a male gene couldn't travel out of Africa, or back in, in 60,000 years.  The Y chromosome existed ANYWHERE where modern humans existed 60 thousand years ago.  There is much evidence that moderns did exist outside of Africa before 60,000 years ago.

Answer 17

Here is your answer: possibly dark skinned, with skull structure similar to Australian aborigines...it's impossible to know the skin colour, but studies of our ancestors from around that time shows their skull structure to be more similar to Australian aborigines than modern day black Africans. Many believe the skin colour would have been black.

Answer 18

I"m not sure just how old modern man is but if you insist on the Adam story...he was definitely black!

Our ancestors were already Homo Sapiens Sapiens when they arrived in SE Asia from India, out of Africa.

While we didn't mean to, we instincted poor ole Neanderthal because of a brain development that we have and he didn't, it is what separated us from his species, Homo Sapien Neanderthalensis.

All modern humans began black and in Africa. It takes several thousand years in colder (less sun) climes for our epithelial layer to begin changing to a lighter color.

Answer 19

cool

Answer 20

According to Dr. Spencer Wells, who did that study, Y chromosomal Adam looke like a Kalahari Bushman so yeah, according to his findings yes he was black.

Answer 21

Firstly...the 60k date is to recent, humans were in East Asia about 70K ago.  I can't see how the date can't predate the exodus from Africa, which was about 90k ago at least

Yes, he was probably a golden-brown man who looked a lot like the Khoisan people, with pepper corn hair. He would have had a mix of racial traits, it's unlikely he'd have looked like a Bantu (proper N3groid), as they only appear about 14k ago.

Like these people.

http://www.gonomad.com/lodgings/0611/nam...

"if so, should that fact make the world more enlightened and less racist?"

People thought we all came from one married couple 6,000 years ago, they were racist as h**l then. Why would it change?

Marsha... Eritreans are about 50% Semitic! there was a back migration into the horn of Africa about in the stone age, even Ethiopians are 40% Caucasian.