Q: Describe how evolutionary theory (via natural selection as first presented by Charles Darwin and later by Richard Dawkins) helps in understanding human migration, cultural development, and social identity.

Instead, nature happens and life is effected.

Lets travel back in time ~ one-two hundred years. Look at America. There was an influx of immigration. Why? Political and religious suppression. Famine. Overcrowded towns. Wars. These things we will call nature, because they are in fact influenced by the environment of culture and the environment of the earth. Nature happens - there is a potatoe famine in Ireland. Life is effected - the people must migrate to another land in search of food. What did it mean to be American? It meant that you were part of a New World. And natural selection played a role - not everyone who set out for America survived the boat ride.

Now lets go back ~ 500 years. This is around the time when Columbus "found" North and South America, which were then attacked by Spainards like bees on a honeysuckle. Why were all of these people interested in uprooting and moving half way around the world to a strange land? Well, these were mostly military men and friars. The military came for power and riches; the friars came with a mission to save the wicked barbarians. In addition, there were no longer free roaming animals to hunt (see next topic). Guess what they found in the Americas ... huntable animals. {See: American Hunting} Nature happens - there is a struggle in Europe for power. Life is effected - people migrate looking for more power, and not all of them survive the trip. Life is also effected in another sense - those whose land is invaded may or may not survive the visitors (the spanish brought many new diseases, in addition to enslaving the natives).

*Note: survive in the sense that they live long enough to bear children, pass on their genes, in the the changed environment.

Back even further ~ 5,000 years. Rather than eating fish, European diet turned to livestock, which was founded about 10,000 years ago. Deforestation and the conversion of wildlands to pasture began, and the Stone Age was ending. Nature, you could say, was changing. With a steady supply of food, the people could focus on other livelyhood tasks such as having more children, traveling farther distances to look for wives and begin trade. Thus, culture was changing. In response, those who were more physically able to change their diet were more readily accepted by the society. Writing was also discovered around this time, adding to civilizations. Sexual selection played out ... a man would choose for a wife a women who could cook, was healthy enough to bear many children, and knew how to keep the garden. With food more readily available, the adults could produce more children and the children also had a better chance of surviving. The population exploded.

Now lets stretch way back to ~ 50,000 years ago. It's difficult to know population sizes back in this time, but we do know that people inhabited all continents. {See First humans in Australia 50,000 years ago. Assuming all homo sapiens originated in Africa, this would mean that they migrated quite far. "Modern humans had plenty of time to reach Australia. A rate of movement from Africa averaging only one mile a year along the coasts of southern Asia would have got people to within a boat ride of Australia in less than 10,000 years." We commonly refer to the people of this time as 'cave men'. We imagine them to be nomadic, going where the food goes, and using only crude tools. Perhaps they reached such distant lands simply because that is where the animals went that they were hunting. Let's imagine reasons why some would survive over others: they were better adept to traveling constantly, they could go longer periods of time without food, they were agile enough to escape predators that were hunting them. In addition to food, these peoples had to fight the climate of different areas. This is also around the time when the first people's crossed the bering strait and entered North America. As more and more humans filled the lands, the animals they hunted were not as able to roam such great distances and the people were eventually allowed to settle somewhat. Rather than being on the move every day, they perhaps moved their tribe once per month or less.
So ...... nature happened - humans traveled constantly, separating themselves from each other at a rapid pace. Then life is effected - once the migrating slowed, the distinction between peoples changed; those in North America began to be phenotypically different from their ancestors in Asia who were phenotypically different from their ancestors in India, etc.

Prior to 50,000 years ago, what we know as human was barely emerging, diverging and changing from their ancestors. "These 'hominids' continuously evolved over millions of years until the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens, somewhere between 120,000 years ago and 40,000 years ago."

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