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1

Intelligence

So are pygmies in the same league of intelligence as the rest of humanity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.204.142.109 (talk) 19:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tough question. Surprised it hasn't caused a racial flamewar with major trolling yet. REST OF HUMANITY, YOU ASK? Humanity doesn't exactly have the same league of intelligence across the board, fyi, although the nature vs. nurture aspect of it is nowhere near conclusive. Asians appear to have the highest IQs but a very narrow dispersion (more 100-120s), Europeans ("white", "caucasians") have a lower average but significantly wider dispersion (more 140s, but also more 60s), and blacks, native americans, and hispanics have the lowest averages AS TESTED (which doesn't really show anything whatsoever, since Africa and South America have the most dismal education systems and the worst childhood nutrition on the planet; hence, it is unclear what IQ ranges they would show with quality nutrition and decent early education).

So, you cannot really compare anyone to the 'rest of humanity', since there aren't reliable data on what intelligence said humanity has. The only two things we DO know about intelligence are that a) good nutrition and decent basic education boost average IQ a lot, b) conformist and guilt societies achieve higher averages but narrower spreads than more independent-minded individualistic societies, which get a more-Nobel-laureates-but-also-more-utter-idiots tradeoff. Aadieu (talk) 18:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Citation, but not useful

Origins
A commonly held view [citation needed] is that African Pygmies are the direct descendents of the Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest...

Here's your citation, but it doesn't exactly perform the role the original author wanted the citation to perform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Uganda
24.17.178.36 (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

Someone erased the portion about African pygmies with the word "weird." I restored it to the previous version. 140.247.249.71 (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Under Origins, what is "honey-related"? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Related to honey or the collecting of honey: presumably species of honey-producing bees, types of honey, places honey is found, how it is collected. kwami 15:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like Day of the Drones. I think you clarified it now. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Diet/Nutrition

Should someone mention this in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum inc (talk • contribs) 17:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Negritos

This section seems o be self contradictory: "...they are related to Africans..." and "...more closely related to the surrounding Asian population...". I think it's trying to say there's a distinction from Africans, but it's unclear, and the section is a stub anyway. Leushenko (talk) 19:47, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the phrasing was not clear. The article says they migrated from Africa about 60,000 years ago, making them perhaps some of the earlist emigrants from Africa to settle Asia, and hence further genetically to current Africans than other Asians - who arrived from Africa later. --Ezeu (talk) 20:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Australian "Pygmies"

They were not "driven to extinction in the 1960s". The article referred to does not say this. It claims that the concept of the Australian "pygmies", usually called "negritos", was abandoned for political reasons. There are Australian "negritos" still living, although many have interbred with other tribes and with whites. They were certainly not driven to extinction, and this claim should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.91.9.9 (talk) 21:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

better map please

current map has very nice detail, but you can't see the political geopgraphy or the context in terms of rest of African continent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.52.106 (talk) 23:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you need to? kwami (talk) 23:57, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Eh...to put information in context? Seriously, that you would not even understand this, just underscores how bad the typical Wikipedian is as an editor. 72.82.52.106 (talk) 12:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is in context. It's under the section heading 'African pygmies'. I think any normal reader would understand from that that the map is of Africa. kwami (talk) 07:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Provenance of image

I'm a bit concerned about the provenance of the image used on this page. It's listed as being from a 1921 cyclopedia, but is supposed to be of Professor K. G. Murphy, who wasn't born until 1908 - which would have made him at best 13 when the image was taken. He clearly isn't 13 in that image.

Professor Murphy was active in the Congo during the 1930s, and his style of dress in the image is in keeping with that period. I suspect the image has been mis-dated - in which case it may still be in copyright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.180.52 (talk) 10:59, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pygmies of South America

The article briefly mentions pygmies in Brazil and Bolivia, but says nothing more about them. Can anybody add anything? —MiguelMunoz (talk) 07:46, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Bolivia, it's an error in the source article in Time magazine, there are no known ethnicities in Bolivia measuring under 5 ft tall on average. But it's kind hard to prove a negative, so it will probably stay on there for about twenty years. Isn't wikipedia great?

Boynamedsue

Forest People?

I read elsewhere (I don't have a reference) that pygmies around the world tend to be forest people. Is this true and does anyone have a reference? If so, it would be worthwhile to say so in the article. That may be the factor that produces convergent evolution.—MiguelMunoz (talk) 07:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's a common theory, at least for Africa. kwami (talk) 07:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Homo sapiens?

Are these people of the Homo sapiens species, or do they belong to a different species of the genus Homo, like Homo floresiensis? 72.134.97.155 (talk) 08:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All humans are the same subspecies, H. sapiens sapiens. Genetic studies show African pygmies don't even have a single origin. kwami (talk) 10:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recent merge

I just merged in a large block of text from an inappropriately titled article that was up for deletion, as it seemed reasonably well sourced. It would be best if an interested editor merged and distributed the text more skillfully.—Kww(talk) 15:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Life Expectancy

According to this:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/05/short-lives-short-size-%E2%80%93-why-are-pygmies-small/

Pygmies have exceptionally short life expectancy. (16-24 years on average, though I assume this varies between pygmy groups). The article suggests that this might explain their small size. I thought it worth mentioning that they die so young, even if the theory is controversial, but I have no idea how to go about including this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.50.202 (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Systematic discrimination -- Needs Work!

Right now it's a huge wall of text that scares off the reader. It needs paragraph breaks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.244.190.91 (talk) 11:38, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the name of the Ethiopian pygmy tribe?

What is the name of the Ethiopian pygmy tribe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duozopt (talk • contribs) 14:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All I can find so far is in scare quotes: "the 'Sogenannten' Ethiopian Pygmoids". Addressed in Cavalli-Sforza (1986), but I don't have access. — kwami (talk) 19:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Sogenannten" is not a tribe name. It means "so-called." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.192.142.19 (talk) 01:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Too wide a definition?

Is not the definition of Pygmy peoples a little too wide? To me all dark-skinned, short peoples don't appear to form a natural group. I would only use the word Pygmy about those indigenous to Africa. These look like Black Africans except being much shorter on average. The may also have lighter, more yellowish skins. The short, dark-skinned peoples of South-East Asia I would call Negritos. (If it sounds too much like Negro the Malay term orang asli may be preferred.) They may look a bit African but their head shape is usually more similar to other East Asians. They are not quite as short as African Pygmies either. However, the most important difference is that the ancestors of the Negritos have lived in Asia for tenmillenia. Most likely they are direct descendants of the first anatomically modern humans in South-East Asia. It is also worth noting that the majority of South-East Asians today mostly descend from southern China and especially Taiwan. This island was the home of the Proto-Austronesians.

The “Pygmies” in New Guinea, Australia and South America are even less related to the African Pygmies. They are probably only tribes – or groups of tribes – which are shorter than their neighbours. If so they are just unusually short Papuans, Aborigines or Native Americans. To call these Pygmies would at best be at best misleading and at worst racist. Pleas note that races as genetically homogeneous, sharply bordered groups does not exist. What exist are genetically heterogeneous populations which gradually blend into each other. Refusing to accept variation within populations is racist to me. So is classifying a group of people as a biologically separate entity based on just a couple of traits. Empirical evidence simply don't support such ideas.

2010-11-13 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.