How the flood of immigrants from Africa might, in the long term, be of enormous benefit to Europe

That more and more Africans will be arriving in Europe in coming years seems inevitable. Whether this will prove to be a blessing or a curse remains to be seen.

Once upon a time, long ago, there lived on Earth not one kind of human, but four. One of these groups, Homo erectus, was brutish and ape-like, but the others were rather like us, although they were not able to do much of any great interest. One type of human was able to make crude clothes out of animal skins and they decorated themselves with feathers and beads made from shells. They had a special liking for the feathers of eagles and used them to indicate status, rather as some tribes of native Americans once did. These people also made rudimentary, geometric patterns by scratching rocks or painting a few straight lines on the walls of caves. Deep within these caves they built shrines and enacted rituals when they buried their dead, which suggests the first glimmerings of religion were stirring within them. Today, we know those men and women as the Neanderthals. They occupied the whole of what would one day be Europe, as well as a large part of Asia.

     In the continent we now call Africa, were other people with similar abilities, who had reached about the same technological level as the people living in Europe. This population are commonly known today by the Latin name of Homo sapiens. It is possible, but by no means certain, that the glacially slow technological and cultural progress made by those in Africa and others in Europe and Asia, might one day have led to civilisation. New developments though took place on a timescale measured in hundreds of thousands of years and it is equally likely that these primitive humans would, over the course of many millennia, have remained at the same level or even regressed. One of their forebears, the species called Homo erectus, continued to use the same kind of stone tool, with no improvement, for a staggering period of over a million years. There was nothing inevitable or even especially likely about any of these species eventually emerging as sentient beings like modern humans. Then, roughly 50,000 years ago, something remarkable happened.

     Groups of explorers in search of food, and perhaps also adventure, left Africa, followed the coast and found themselves in a new territory, which was inhabited by strange people; barely recognisable to them as being human. All the same, they traded with these peculiar individuals and also fought with them at other times. Something else happened too. Although the women did not look anything much like their own mothers and daughters, some young men took lovers from these new and unfamiliar tribes; often by force and at other times because despite the barrier of mutual incomprehensibility, some spark of attraction was kindled. Women from the newcomers also had liaisons with those they met in the land in which they were now making their home, and in the course of time, babies were born who shared half their characteristics with each of their parents. This much is certain, but perhaps we can speculate a little on what happened next.

     It was obvious that the children born from this first generation of mixed couplings were special. They were sharper, brighter, more adventurous and more daring than either of the groups from whom they had sprung. They were natural leaders, having more, and better, ideas than any of their contemporaries. Perhaps there was some little prejudice against them to begin with, as is not uncommonly the case with children of mixed heritage, but by the time they had grown to maturity their capabilities were so glaringly plain that they acceded, almost as a matter of course, to the leadership of their various families and clans. Not that this was sufficient to satisfy their ambitions. These were men and women who wanted new and different things. They were not content to stay in one place, doing things in the same way that they had been done for generations; in fact for thousands, tens of thousands of generations.  

     After centuries of increasingly frequent interbreeding, groups of these hybrids, led by the most intelligent and resourceful, began spreading out north, east and west from what is now the Middle East. They carried with them a vital genetic inheritance, which they would pass down to their own children. Not all the characteristics which had been acquired through mating were of use to them. The shape of the skull, proportions of the body and so on were of no importance and as the hybrids started to rely more on their own tribes for sexual partners, so those outward Neanderthal traits slowly faded, until only a small part of the genome of the original inhabitants of that part of the world was retained. Most vital were two genes which gave an enhanced ability to the brain.

Within a few thousand years, the blink of an eye, compared with the time scale to which past changes had been measured, the hybrids had become transformed into what was almost a new species. The difference between this emergent breed and those which had gone before was breath-taking. Before leaving Africa, Homo sapiens produced little more than doodles, consisting of scratches which signify little other than a vague awareness of the concept of symmetry. In what will one day become Europe, the Neanderthals who lived there before the coming of the hybrids were also producing much the same random scratches and the occasional pattern of straight lines on the wall of a cave.

     Within a few years of the arrival of what we might as well call Homo sapiens + in Europe, works of art though were being created such as a three-dimensional figure which was human, although with the head of a lion. It is obvious that whoever made this strange object was quite simply on a different intellectual plane from those who had gone before. For one thing, this figure, known as the lion-man, is representative, rather than merely decorative. It is meant to portray something. Not only that, it is meant to show us something not in the real world, but a figure which existed only in the mind of the creator. Neither he, or she, had ever seen a man with the head of a lion; it had been imagined and then the pure thought had somehow been made manifest for all to see. This achievement, showing in solid form an image which had been conjured up in another person’s mind, showed the immeasurable gulf which separated Homo sapiens + from their ancestors.

      The new breed of humans took the world by storm and, as they spread out across Asia and Europe, innovation and invention became their hallmark. They began building permanent homes, growing crops, and before long the stage was set for the rise to civilisation. The aboriginal inhabitants of the continents which they invaded were wholly unable to compete with the incomers. Those older species, whom we know today as the Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo erectus, found themselves outclassed on all levels and faded quietly away.

      The human population which had stayed behind in Africa simply stagnated. Over the next fifty thousand years, in which Homo sapiens + moved from the stone age to the Industrial Revolution, with its steam engines, blast furnaces and telegraphs, the root stock of modern humanity, the original Homo sapiens, remained for the most part in the Stone Age, where they had been when those first explorers entered the Middle East and encountered for the first time their Neanderthal cousins.

         It does not take a very extensive grasp of history to see that no human invention since the stone hand axe and, possibly the bone harpoon for fishing, originated in Africa. The harpoon, which might first have been devised in Africa, has been around for over 35,000 years. Since that time, nothing more has been invented by the original Homo sapiens in their homeland. Everything, from the wheeled cart and written word to jet planes and smartphones has been invented by those whose origins lie in Europe; the groups who we have called Homo sapiens +. The population of unadulterated Homo sapiens which has lived in Africa for perhaps as long as two hundred thousand years has not come up with any new ideas since the Stone Age.

     The matter is not quite as simple as this, because of course those Neanderthal genes are found not only in Europe, but across the whole of Asia, Australasia and the Americas too. What is it which marks Europe out as the cultural and technological powerhouse which has, for the last 40,000 years or so, provided the driving force for the advance of civilisation? After all, the indigenous inhabitants of China and Papua New Guinea also have Neanderthal DNA. The idea of those living in the jungles of New Guinea coming up with the idea of calculus or quantum computers is an improbable one and yet they have more Neanderthal genes than people in Europe.

     Those whose origin lies in Asia and Australasia have something else of course, besides their Neanderthal ancestry. They also have another lot of genes from an archaic human species which are wholly lacking in Europeans. The Denisovans were very widespread across Asia, ranging from Siberia and Tibet in the north, all the way down to Indonesia. Those Homo sapiens emerging from Africa 50,000 years ago, picked up Neanderthal genes in the Middle East, before heading off in all directions. Naturally enough, as they moved into Europe, they encountered only more Neanderthals, but those who headed east and north-east found themselves entering territory occupied by the Denisovans.  So it was that after having interbred for generations with the Neanderthals, these bands then moved into Asia and began repeating the process with the Denisovans.

     For some reason, the combination of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes did not appear to be so advantageous as Neanderthal genes alone. Neither the Chinese nor the Indians or inhabitants of Indonesia seemed to have the drive for innovation and exploration possessed by the Europeans, who lacked this Denisovan inheritance. The more Denisovan DNA which was inherited, the less resourceful and innovative seemed to be the populations.

     The varying combinations and proportions of DNA from the archaic human species appears to have affected ethnic groups in certain ways. People from East Asia, who inherited a good deal more Neanderthal DNA than those in Europe, leavened with small quantities of Denisovan genes, tend to score higher in intelligence tests that Europeans and to do very well academically. There is very little history though of original inventions in that part of the world. The Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans are excellent at developing and improving other people’s inventions and finding ways of mass producing them more quickly and cheaper, but they are do not have a very extensive history of producing new ideas for themselves.  Apart from gunpowder and paper, most people would be hard-pressed to name a single Chinese invention. Even when such inventions did occur, they were not exploited for any useful purpose. Magnetic compasses appeared in China before they did in Europe, but were used only for the pseudoscience of Feng Shui, rather than for maritime navigation, as they were in Europe. The nations of East Asia are without doubt good at copying ideas such as transistor radios and mobile telephones, and even improving upon them, but not coming up with the original concepts. This may be connected with the way in which the differing genetic amounts of DNA which those from East Asia have, compared with Europeans.

     There can be no doubt that the modern world is almost entirely a creation of European civilisation, culture and technology. It would perhaps be more accurate to say, European and Middle Eastern, because of course Jews and Arabs also seem capable of that quality of questing and original thought which is such a prominent historical feature of Europeans. We reflect that Arabs and Jews too are the recipients only of Neanderthal DNA and that, like Europeans, this is not modified or affected by the presence of Denisovan genes.

     This then, in brief, is the story of the rise of Homo sapiens +; the people who brought civilisation, science and almost everything which makes our lives worth living to the rest of the world. Without Europeans, the world we know today would be scarcely recognisable. Even so basic a thing as the wheel did not appear in the original homeland of Homo sapiens and certainly such concepts as reading, writing and printing were never devised there. This is a matter for neither pride nor dismay. It is simply how evolution has worked to bring one population to the fore.

     So much for the first wave of Homo sapiens to leave Africa and what happened as a consequence over the next 50,000 years or so. It is of course only in retrospect that we are able to understand the course of events over this vast length of time. We may be on the cusp now of a similarly momentous time; namely the emergence of a second wave of Homo sapiens leaving Africa and settling in Europe. What this will mean in the long run is quite impossible to guess. Indeed, it might be thousands of years before the full implications of what is now happening will be properly assessed and understood.

     After those pioneering emigrants moved into the Middle East and began mating with the Neanderthals whom they found there, the great majority of those living in Africa were content to remain in that continent. For the next 50,000 years, they simply stayed in their ancestral homeland, mating only with each other, and possibly with relict populations of Homo erectus who lingered on in Africa, and not venturing out again into the rest of the world. This was the state of play when the descendants of that first wave to leave Africa returned from Europe in the phenomenon which we have come to know as colonialism. This was a one-way process; Europeans entered and left Africa at will, but the Africans remained where they were. Largely due to the medical knowledge which the Europeans brought with them, together with improvements in agriculture, the building of cities and so on, the population of Africa has soared in the last century.

     In 1955 there were roughly 250 million people in Africa. Today, six times as many live there. This number is forecast to double in the next 30 years. There are signs that many of those living in Africa wish to leave and move to Europe. This is likely to alter the ethnic composition of that continent. The proportion of Homo sapiens+ in Europe was, for 40,000 or 50,000 years 100 %. Now, it is declining as more and more of the ordinary Homo sapiens from Africa move into the area. Presumably, there will in the course of time be large scale mating between the two groups, just as there was when the first wave of Homo sapiens moved out of Africa. It is very difficult to predict what the consequences of this new movement are likely to be in the long term. A tentative guess though suggests two main possibilities.

     One way of looking at the situation which might develop over the next few centuries is that the influx of Africans will have a detrimental effect upon the distinct culture of Europe and that combined with other waves of immigration, will cause Europe to slowly sink into oblivion, perhaps being eclipsed by rising industrialised nations like India or China. Instead of being the powerhouse for new ideas, Europe will degenerate and become similar to some of the less salubrious parts of the Third World. Those who fear this outcome are often motivated subconsciously by the ancient and deep-seated anxiety about what was once known as miscegenation; that is to say the mating of black people and white.  There is another way of looking at things though.

     It is a pretty fair bet that the Neanderthals did not exactly welcome the waves of newcomers from Africa when they arrived first in the Middle East and later in Europe. After all, they were doing very nicely and had been living quite happily in these regions for hundreds of thousands of years. What need did they have of others entering their territory with new ideas and different languages; people who did not even look like them? Of course, from our perspective, at a distance of 50,000 years, we can see that that influx of Homo sapiens from Africa was precisely what was needed to kickstart civilisation. The interbreeding of Neanderthals with the new species was a recipe for success. It was the making of Europe and also, ultimately, of the modern world in which we live. It might be that this second wave out of Africa is just what Europe desperately needs.

     In the last century or so, Europe has lost its lead in world affairs. It has been overtaken by America, with China also a rising world power. Looked at in that sense, Europe has been declining in importance and is essentially becoming a backwater, with less and less influence in the world. It might be viewed in a similar light to the Roman Empire, as it slid into decadence in the early centuries of the Christian Era. From this reading of the case, Europe needs something to revitalise it and give it new impetus. Otherwise, it will continue to become less and less relevant as the world changes and other great powers arise, chiefly in the East but also perhaps in South America.

     Although it might seem improbable, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the original Homo sapiens now arriving in Europe in ever-increasing numbers will provide a boost, a sudden flood of new genes. Perhaps after a few centuries or a thousand years of mating with the human population in Europe, a new group will emerge, just as Homo sapiens+ were the unexpected result of that first wave out of Africa. Nobody alive today will see this, but it gives us perhaps some hope for the future. Those living in Europe today are no more likely to welcome disruption to their cosy and familiar ways than were their Neanderthal ancestors, of course, but if the history of the human race has any lesson for us it this; that hominids are a group which constantly mutates and changes. Although we may not live to see it, the story of humanity is likely to continue in new and unexpected directions, long after we ourselves are gone and forgotten.