Supermodel Naomi Campbell takes one cover of Dazed Magazine’s [IG] Summer 2025 issue, the last one under the editorial vision of IB Kamara [IG]. Ted Stansfield has succeeded Kamara as Dazed Editor in Chief, expanding his duties as editorial director of Dazed Digital and AnOthermag.com and editor of Another Man. Stansfield’s first issue will debut in September.

Kamara photographs Naomi, working on styling with Imruh Asha./ Makeup by Esther Edeme; hair by Lorenzo Barcella

Meanwhile, the glorious Naomi Campbell channels humanity’s oldest African origins and self-adornment using beads, shells and hair collages made of twigs, real flowers, leaves and even stones and butterflies that honor the deep ties between humans and nature.

The Blombos Cave, South Africa

Shell beads in the Bonobos Caves, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa, are dated to 76,000 years ago, making them currently the oldest beads of adornment on record. Of interest to AOC, a nearby Rising Star Cave system was so extremely narrow that it required the paleoanthropologist Lee Berger to recruit six of the smallest-possible physique archaeologists to penetrate this sacred ground.

Six highly-credentialed women able to fit through a narrow chute just 7.5 inches wide were the first humans to penetrate the cave on an expedition that launched in November, 2013. Their discoveries are labeled the homo naledi early humans.

A consistent theme of all of these discoveries is layers of complexity that our earliest humans displayed. Self-adornment as Naomi expresses visually is only one of these complexities.

Transit In and Out of Africa Was Not a One-Way Ticket

No discovery has unseated the region of Lake Turkana, which includes the Omo Valley of southern Ethiopia and the Great Rift Valley in Kenya as the route humans took out of Africa into the Levant.

AOC readers understand the attempts by white nationalists to press the case for a superior group of humans who came from the north, eventually reaching the Levant themselves.

Anne has a personal mission to follow this argument very closely. Steve Bannon and Peter Hegseth may cling tightly to the theory, but scientists have thrown white men came fron the Nordic north out and slammed the door.

What we do know in recent years is that the transit in and out of Africa was far more frequent among early humans — often driven by climate change. This creates a tableau for multiple migrations and humans not always following the same geographical routes out of Africa.

African DNA DOES Include Neanderthal Genes

The single greatest DNA discovery that cuts the legs off the second group of humans — more white and coming from the north — theory is very recent and highly improved DNA analysis among Africans.

It’s widely established now that Humans and Neanderthals shared a common history in central Europe much longer than science understood. DNA analysis of ‘white people’ confirms that shared history and Neanderthals were much more sophisticated early humans than we understood. Frequent sex and procreation existed between the two groups, which you probably know about.

The white nationalist argument was that African DNA did not exhibit this contact with Neanderthals or even white people carrying the DNA signature back to Africa. Today, no one is arguing that Neanderthals set up shop in Africa. But their genetic history had frequent contact with early Africans.

Recent genetic studies, particularly utilizing a new method called IBDmix, have identified Neanderthal ancestry in African populations that is much greater — like 20-30x as great — than previously known. Note it was originally a tiny, fractional number. This new discovery suggests that migration from Eurasia back into Africa introduced these Neanderthal genes.

What’s critical is that every new discovery slams the door in the face of a separate group of really smart white people coming from the north, who were not ‘contaminated’ by contact with Africans. It’s a viscious, ignorant lie — and it has penetrated MAGA deeply.

Onto Jews and Palestinians

The second false argument that has been dispelled in the last five years is unsettling to some AOC readers. I fought deeply during the 2024 presidential election — at all hours of the night — trying to interact with progressives and Palestinians who argue that they share no DNA with Jews.

Specifically, I was begging people, pleading with them to stop the Killer Kamala narrative.

Jews and Palestinians are Blood Brothers and Sisters

Since I was 21 years old I’ve known that Jews and Palestinians share a large amount of DNA, but this archaelogical science was banned decades ago among hardliners on both sides. Our universities haven’t helped the situation over decades.

Now DNA science is setting the record straight that all these arguments on who owns the land are fraught with nasty facts. Jews and Palestinians are blood brothers whether they want to accept that reality or not.

Just as we’re all happy to know that DNA analysis is sending white nationalists packing with their hate-filled theories, here’s the most recent DNA analysis among self-identified Palestinians and the Jewish people.

Genetic studies have highlighted shared ancestry between Jews and Palestinians, indicating they both originated from ancient Canaanites who interacted with other regional populations. Research points to genetic continuity in both groups despite the Jewish diaspora.

Palestinians and Jews are genetically closer to each other than Jewish groups are to populations in their host countries, with studies showing a large percentage of men in both groups sharing Y chromosomes from common paternal ancestors in the region.

A significant portion of the Y chromosome pools of Jews and Palestinian Muslim Arabs overlap. Studies suggest many Muslim Palestinians are descendants of local inhabitants, including Christians and Jews, who converted to Islam after the 7th century AD.

Recent studies, such as a 2021 one, found that modern Palestinian DNA largely matches that of Bronze Age Canaanites. Another study in 2020 suggests genetic continuity between Arabic-speaking Levantine populations and various Jewish groups.

These discoveries underscore significant genetic connections between Jews and Palestinians despite their cultural and religious differences, suggesting a shared ancestral past in the Levant. This YouTube talking history video, summarizes this Holy Land history I’ve just shared and was posted yesterday. Happy thinking. ~ Anne