The Yoruba are a Race and Archeological studies that are safely international, have placed the Yoruba as the FIRST RACE OF HUMANS TO INHABIT THESE PARTS OF WEST AFRICA…
The earliest known and documented history of settlement in Yorubaland with human fossil remains and the tools, their shelter in a cave with remains of elements of human habitation, is at a place in Iwo-Eleru, a distance of 24 kilometers from Akure…
The “Iwo Eleru” consciousness into our individual and collective minds is important.
Why Iwo Eleru is important – The Yoruba did not emigrate from Mecca, or any of such spurious assertions…. We Evolved as a Race, Here!
Iwo Eleru is a rock shelter in south-western Nigeria. It is about 24 km north-west of Akurẹ (the state capital of Ondo State) with coordinates 7°26’30” N and 5°7’40”.
Archaeological findings in Yorubaland have confirmed consistently that Neolithic (later part of the Stone Age) people once inhabited Yorubaland especially around the Ile-Ifẹ environs.
However, the watershed moment came in 1965 when a team lead by Thorstan Shaw of the University of Ibadan discovered a skeletal remains dated to circa 9200 BC in a cave at Iwo Eleru (near Akurẹ).
This discovery unambiguously and unequivocally confirmed that humans were living in Yorubaland 14,000 years ago!
I have only brought this information here in answer to the query above….
In the whole of West Africa, Yorubaland is the only place yet where the verifiable oldest human fossils have been found and the DNA gathered matches 100%, with the DNA of the present Yoruba people, meaning we have had at least 14,000 unbroken years of habitation as Yoruba in this part of the World.
No other human group in the whole of the west African plane has had such a conclusive study done.
For the rest of the study concluded by the Experts from The University of Birmingham in 1965, you can Google it.
A Race does not mean a demarcation by color… Among the white you have the Aryan, the Caucasian and so on. The Yoruba have evolved through thousands of years… There are 2 Yoruba Obas speaking the language in Ghana, the Ga people, the Ga Mantse… Countless Yoruba are in Togo and many more in Benin Republic, not to talk of The Bahia, Haiti, Brazil, Jamaica… The uniqueness of a people with their common traits qualifies them to be called a race… How many are the Jews that you will call them the Jewish race compared to the over 60 million Yoruba whose existence predates the Jewish race by at least 10,000 years
