Peabody writes:
If Melanesians diverged so early on (40,000 YBP), shouldn’t they be considered their own race? They’re about as old as Caucasoids.
Also, how long ago did Berbers diverge from other Caucasians?
Melanesians are a separate race. But genetically, they are not particularly distinct. They line up pretty well with the Oceanians and the rest of the Asians. The Aborigines and the Papuans are much more genetically divergent than the Melanesians.
I do not know about Berbers, but they appear to be along with the Sami the remains of the ancient Europeans. The Sami go back 11,000 YBP, and the Berbers seem to have links to the Sami. One wonders if the Berbers are the remains of ancient Southern Europeans. Berbers are also one of the oldest Caucasoid races. Caucasians split off 42,000 YBP, and after that there were quite a few movements of proto-Caucasians back and forth in a few areas – North Africa, the Caucasus and India. So these three places really do seem to be where the Caucasian race actually took shape.
There is a very odd looking Berber group called Mozabites who I suspect may be ancient Caucasians. They are not Black, and they look quite strange, but they are closer to Caucasians than anything else.
The Uighurs also seem to be an ancient race of some sort, perhaps having something to do with the birth of NE Asians and Caucasians.
Another ancient Caucasian group is the Orkney Islanders. They do not look different, but their DNA is very strange and shows links a long time ago to Siberians of all people.
Peabody responds, expanding on my answer:
Uyghurs are probably a mix between the “ANE” (Ancient Northeast Asians) and Mongols.
The group which birthed the Saami had been in Europe since 35 – 40k YBP. They likely admixed with Siberians.
Orkney Islanders are similar in that they’re mostly, if not entirely, of that old race (explaining the similarity). Most Europeans are mixed with newer Caucasoid types that brought agriculture (and later, the Indo-European languages), with the Sami being an exception.
I suspect Berbers split off ~30k YBP, but there’s a lot of weird data regarding mtDNA with them. Probably several migrations.