"...the Kirkasanters...didn't resemble any of the human breeds that had developed locally, but they varied less from the norm than some." (p. 724)
How much can the human form vary? Many years ago, in an sf-superheroes comic book, one panel showed what looked like aliens, bipeds with oddly shaped heads and unusual skin colours. However, a caption explained that these were not products of independent evolutions but descendants of human colonists of extra-solar planets. Larry Niven's Jinxians are very short, squat and black because of the conditions on the planet colonized by their Terrestrial ancestors.
Olaf Stapledon's later human species and James Blish's pantropists go further by artificially adapting human beings to other planets although the pantropists recognize that a completely changed form would no longer be human. Cockroaches think like cockroaches.
Against all this, the Kirkasanters are recognizably human with a few unfamiliar features like broad faces and red skins but they can no longer interbreed with the mainstream of humanity which makes them a different species.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't recall how the gravity of Jinx differed from Earth's, but I'm willing to think it was heavier than that of Imhotep in THE GAME OF EMPIRE. Anderson seems to have thought humans would colonize worlds with gravities no more than 30 percent greater than Earth's. And trying to tote around an extra 30 percent of my weight all at once is dismaying!
The descendants of the human colonists of Imhotep adapted to the higher gravity, becoming stockier and some what shorter than humans from other planets.
Ad astra! Sean
There are human groups where males average several inches under 5 ft.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Such as African pygmies?
And Kenyans seem to be unusually tall.
Ad astra! Sean
Some Kenyans. Nilotic groups in particular; they tend to be both tall and slim and long-limbed, having inhabited -very hot- areas for a long time, where that body plan is favored. H. Erectus was also tall and slim and long-limbed.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That makes sense to me. And humans/hominins living in cold northern regions seem to have a tendency to be somewhat shorter/stockier.
Ad astra! Sean
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