"Invasion: How Species and Peoples Have Transformed the World" Jared Diamond, 2012

"Invasion: How Species and Peoples Have Transformed the World" Jared Diamond, 2012

"....the Tsalal may not be the single most isolated human community. There are other contenders. North and South America were settled by what appears to have been a single tribe, perhaps a single family group, by some theories. The Australian Aborigines also descended from a small population squeezed through a genetic bottleneck. Historically, the peoples who would become the Khoi San were isolated from the rest of humanity for a period of 70,000 years. Most of the human 'races' ethnicities are the result of isolation of groups over the last twenty thousand years.

But the Tsalal are certainly up there. For one thing, they've passed through not one, but two genetic bottlenecks. First the small group of original settlers of Australia from roughly 45,000 years ago, and then the even smaller group who made it to Antarctica, roughly 36,000 years ago.

All of the genetic diversity of the Tsalal originates from what must have been a small group of no more than a half dozen individuals, stretched across 36,000 years ago. In one sense, not much at all. In another sense, 36,000 years ago, and a high birthrate, is a long time to accumulate random mutations and variations....

.... The Tsalal certainly experienced the most extreme adaptive pressures of any human group anywhere. This made them very different in subtle ways, and the subtlties were alarming to Europeans who became familiar with in the 19th century. Social cannibalism, necrophilia, incest, beastiality, coprophagy and regurgitation feeding shocked Europeans deeply. Even to the point where some argued desperately that the Tsalal were not human, or at least not descended from the same primates that the rest of us were. Even into the early 20th century, there was a frequently expressed view that the Tsalal were descendants of neanderthals, or some other forgotten and beastial tribe of cavemen.

It was very clear that, although their skins were black, the Tsalal had very little in common with other black populations in Africa, or in Asia such as the Melanesians or Negritos. A few of the most imaginative tended to link the Tsalal with the Aboriginal Australians, but so much time had passed since the two populations separated that there were not even linguistic clues. The Tsalal were, almost immediately, accorded their own racial categoy.

...extreme selection pressures, the eternal day of summer, the endless night of winter, the ferocity of winters and Antarctica's own uniquely fluid climate and meteorology, a cultural history that included perpetual recurring famines, produced a population very different from the human norm....

Ethnically, the Tsalal appear to average about two inches short of the western norm of 5'8. During the era of sails and sailing, poor nutrition among Europeans meant that average European heights were much shorter. Indeed, at the time of Arthur Gordon Pym, the Tsalal were described as slightly taller than the whites.

They are a stocky and heavily built people, in this respect, not too unlike the inuit or other northern populations. Their pupils are extremely dark. The whites of their eyes are often grayish or bluish. Their skins are, remarkably for a population which receives so little direct sunlight, among the darkest found in humanity (although there are lighter skinned ethnic groups among the Tsalal, skin colours lightening to a ruddy brick red, rather than brown). The teeth, the famous black teeth, are actually simply staining from eating indigenous foodstuffs.

There are other characteristics. The Tsalal as a population are highly resistant to famine. A Tsalal can go completely without food roughly twice as long as any other human group, they can survive completely without water for roughly 50% longer. They can endure extended periods of malnutrition or poor or erratic food and water far better than other human groups, and retain far more capacity during such periods.

They are tolerant of cold and cold temperatures, along the same level as the inuit. Their circadian rhythms are much more flexible, and the Tsalal can maintain a day/night cycle of up to 60 hours wakefulness. Their circadians are tied, not just to light periods which is highly variable at the south pole, but also to social activities, seasons, famine, etc. Part of the Tslasal's mechanisms for coping with famine are extensions of the sleep cycles. They have phenomenal endurance. Almost since the Olympics began, the marathon has been the exclusive province of the Tsalal ethnic groups.

On the other hand, the Tsalal come closest to a seasonal breeding cycle of any human, with a majority of conceptions coming in mid-fall, and female menstrual cycles varying in duration in a meta-cycle over the course of a year. The Tsalal have excellent night vision, perhaps the best of human ethnic groups, but a tendency towards colour blindness. Studies of Tsalal brains indicate an enlarged lobe devoted to scent, and there are suggestions that smell plays a part in Tsalal social and sexual life.

The Tsalal reproduce the earliest of any human group. Average age of first pregnancy is typically 11 or 12. They have the highest reproduction rate of any human group, the highest infanticide/infant mortality rate, and among the shortest life spans. A natural Tsalal span is between 67 and 72, whereas for North Americans or Europeans in similar circumstances it is between 78 and 82.

Even their diet is different. The Tsalal find themselves unable to process gluten well, and so they have difficulty with cereals and cereal based products like bread. On the other hand, they are adapted to consuming hyper-starchy roots and tubers in their own continent which are inedible to almost everyone elses, a mutation similar to that found in Europeans and some Africans which allows lactose toleration and milk drinking. The Tsalal also seem more tolerant of stomach acids as part of their feeding.

On the other hand, the Tsalal do very poorly in tropical heat. They find harsh sunlight distressing. There are many tales from the American south of attempting to breed Tsalal slaves with African ones to induce hybrid vigour. That worked well enough that in America today there is a reasonably large population which can claim some Tsalal ancestry. But on the other hand, it became an article of faith among slave owners that African slaves, no matter how cowed, would not tolerate the presence of Tsalal among them.

However, none of these ethnic features deny the essential and enduring humanity of the Tsalal. Much as it might please some to think, they are not an inhuman race, they are not the descendants of some primitive ancestor. They are part of the human family, albeit a disturbing part.