Asselar Man is a neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

 discovered by Theodore Monod

Théodore Monod

Théodore André Monod was a French naturalist, explorer, and humanist scholar.-Exploration:...

 and M.V. Besnard in 1927, in the Adrar des Ifoghas

Adrar des Ifoghas

The Adrar des Ifoghas is a sandstone massif in Mali's Kidal Region, having an area of about 250,000 km².The area is characterized by wide, shallow valleys, and is strewn with piles of eroded granite blocks...

, near Essouk

Essouk

Essouk is a commune and small village in the Kidal Region of Mali. The village lies 45 km northeast of Kidal in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. The ruins of the medieval town of Tadmekka lie 2 km northeast of the present village...

 in what is now Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

's Kidal Region

Kidal Region

Kidal is the eighth administrative region of Mali, covering 151,430 km². Its capital is the city of Kidal.-Geography:The region is bordered on the west by Tomboctou Region, to the south by Gao Region, to the east by Niger and to the north by Algeria....

. Wickliffe Draper

Wickliffe Draper

Wickliffe Preston Draper was an American multimillionaire and an ardent eugenicist and lifelong advocate of strict racial segregation...

 funded the expedition.

Some scholars believe Asselar man to be one of the earliest known skeletons of a Negroid type African human, older examples being those found near Khartoum

Khartoum

Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

, dated between 8000 and 5000 BC, and at Iwo

Iwo

*International Workers Order was the acronym of the International Workers Order, a pro-Communist fraternal organization and insurance company.*Iwo Jima, a small island in Japan, site of the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.*Iwo, Nigeria, a city in Nigeria....

, Ileru, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 to 11000 BC. Others claim it is more closely related to Cro-Magnon

Cro-Magnon

The Cro-Magnon were the first early modern humans of the European Upper Paleolithic. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiometrically dated to 35,000 years before present....

 or bushmen

Bushmen

The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...

http://www.lesbantous.fr/histoire.html. Most place its age around 4500BC., no older than the Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...

.

More recently Peter Frost

Peter Frost (anthropologist)

Peter Frost is a Canadian anthropologist.He was awarded his Ph.D. from Université Laval in 1995.He is best known for hypotheses on the evolution of hair, eye and skin colors...

 hypothesized Asselar Man, hence what most associate with black African racial type, to be the result of intense polygyny

Polygyny

Polygyny is a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time. In countries where the practice is illegal, the man is referred to as a bigamist or a polygamist...

 arising from women's independence due to the neolithic spread of agriculture throughout sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/02/origins-of-black-africans.html.

External links

• Asselar man at Encyclopedia Britannica