carried out research of my own. Here's what I found:
Somalis, along with most of their fellow related Northeast African ethnicities like the Afar, Beja, and Oromo, are what I believe what early humans may have looked like, and that their unique and unordinary combination of aquiline features and dark skin is not a result of mixing or miscegenation of any sort. Rather to the contrary, Somalis are indeed very homogenous, not just culturally and phenotypically, but also genetically.
And if Somalis were indeed a mix of "black" Africans (race being a social construct, but you get meaning) and, say, a "caucasian/white" non-African group, would they not then look like the mixed-heritage Swahili peoples that live just south of them? would they not physically resemble other Afro-Arab or mixed black/white populations? yet they do not. This is yet still ignoring the plethora of other evidences that point and suggest otherwise. Another similar piece of evidence are the neighboring Christian Ethio-Semitic groups, who are themselves the descendants of an Arabian population mixing with a indigenous Cushitic population. Even Ethio-Semitic (or Habesha) persons, for the most part, are easily discernable from the Somalis.
It is my belief that the vast majority of genetic, physical, and cultural affinity the Somalis may have with non-African populations to be the legacy of non-Africans being descendants of a small group of early humans from the Horn of Africa, and not the Eurocentric proposal that it was other way around (this is more in line with Afrocentric thought, which although being equally misguided in general, is right on this one). A very good piece of evidence to further back this up is not just that the first bands of humans leaving Africa crossed from the present day Somali territories and into southern Yemen, but of the most likely place of origin for a major and important language family.
Somalis, along with most of their fellow related Northeast African ethnicities like the Afar, Beja, and Oromo, are what I believe what early humans may have looked like, and that their unique and unordinary combination of aquiline features and dark skin is not a result of mixing or miscegenation of any sort. Rather to the contrary, Somalis are indeed very homogenous, not just culturally and phenotypically, but also genetically.
And if Somalis were indeed a mix of "black" Africans (race being a social construct, but you get meaning) and, say, a "caucasian/white" non-African group, would they not then look like the mixed-heritage Swahili peoples that live just south of them? would they not physically resemble other Afro-Arab or mixed black/white populations? yet they do not. This is yet still ignoring the plethora of other evidences that point and suggest otherwise. Another similar piece of evidence are the neighboring Christian Ethio-Semitic groups, who are themselves the descendants of an Arabian population mixing with a indigenous Cushitic population. Even Ethio-Semitic (or Habesha) persons, for the most part, are easily discernable from the Somalis.
It is my belief that the vast majority of genetic, physical, and cultural affinity the Somalis may have with non-African populations to be the legacy of non-Africans being descendants of a small group of early humans from the Horn of Africa, and not the Eurocentric proposal that it was other way around (this is more in line with Afrocentric thought, which although being equally misguided in general, is right on this one). A very good piece of evidence to further back this up is not just that the first bands of humans leaving Africa crossed from the present day Somali territories and into southern Yemen, but of the most likely place of origin for a major and important language family.