eli5 Why are there no uncontacted tribes of White European descent?
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There were. But the civilizations that became the dominant European cultures of today killed and/or integrated them all thousands of years ago.
Europe and Asia have been the home of many civilizations that tried to maximize their wealth and power through exploration, trade, and conquest. One of the earliest examples of them is a civilization that we now call the Proto Indo Europeans. As best we can tell, this was a group of farmers living in an area that is now part of Ukraine about 10,000 years ago. They learned how to domesticate horses and make slightly better weapons than their neighbors. They used these technological advantages to conquer most of Europe, central Asia and northern India. There were already people living in these areas, who were killed or assimilated by the Proto Indo Europeans. This process continued over and over again. Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, the Mongols, and China conquered other civilizations and destroyed them through either genocide or assimilation. Through this process, and through long and complex trade networks most of the civilizations of Europe and Asia knew at least a little bit about each other, even in ancient times. The only cultures in Europe and Asia that weren’t part of this system of conquest and trade were in the very remote parts of northern Europe and Siberia.
In contrast, the cultures of the Americas, Africa, and Australia did not form the same networks of conquest or trade. Some of them simply weren’t interested in it. They were content with their own little piece of the world. Others were interested, but were never as successful as the European and Asians. For a good theory as to why they were less successful you could read Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, germs, and steel“
About 500 years ago, when several European cultures develop the technology to sail around the world, trading and conquering with almost everybody, they divided the world into two parts: there was the known world, which was basically Europe, Asia, and North Africa. And there was the uncontacted world, which was everybody else.
In the past 500 years the civilization that’s called themselves “the known world” have explored all other areas of the planet. They have “contacted” almost everyone, and usually after contact they killed or conquered them.
There are only a handful of people living in areas so remote that these European cultures have still not contacted them. None of them are in Europe because the Europeans killed or assimilated those groups long, long ago.
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