Archaeologica.org

Haven't y'all seen Nanook of th North? The whole family was inside the
kayak....only Nanook was visible, however.

If the people were migrating along the coast from Siberia,
they had plenty of stuff to eat. No problem there. They ate it raw, and it
was easy to get. Most animals were probably not afraid of people.

THen the question is why would they bother to move down the beach?
Population pressures? Better weather?

SOmetimes they wanted to go fast, so they used boats instead of
walking.

Women were there all the way, I am sure.

Stan, even today marine mammals don't have much fear of humans in kayaks. Seals follow me around Monterrey Bay all the times, and even Sea Otters don't move unless you get real close.

I took this photo in Santa Cruz:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/653 ... 4204MjCVYd

More NORCAL Wildlife:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/653 ... 4204YLIppH


Here is what a traditional Hawaiian outrigger canoe looks like:

http://www.lanikaicanoeclub.org/hawaiia ... _canoe.htm

As you can see, the technology is not too complex. They can make journeys up to 3,000 miles, and carry extended families, with provisions.

I could see the losers of island wars having no choice but take their chances on the ocean ocean. Not much room to run on a small island

Barracuda, you are singing my song, but I wonder how much
island-hopping there was as opposed to sailing along the coast?
The pacific is so vast....
But you seem to have a lot of confidence in the seamanship of the ancients.

Is that you in the yellow boat?

ok. reverse engineering on the women/children thing. obviously, men would go out and hunt whether at sea or on land, leaving women/children at the encampment. statistical chances of men bringing women/children on a hunting expedition, then getting lost at sea, then fetching up on a far shore are basically nil.

my argument is that the migration was purpose-driven. and i don't know why. as correctly argued by many here, you don't take the wife & kids along for a hunting expedition.

yet the wife & kids obviously fetched up in the americas.

sooooooo....................why?

john

i know the difference between an emigrant and an immigrant. the people i'm talking about were not emigrants, as they did not intend to wind up here on new shores. far from it, in the vast majority of cases 50,000 or more years ago, i'm sure.

you're sure ?
what about them

the fact that they ended up building civilisations indicates that they took plenty of women with them
when youre leaving one place for another you are emigrating

This animation may be helpful to the discussion. The words land bridge may be a little misleading. Beringia was in fact a good sized land mass.

It also gives an idea of the coastline for seafarers around Alaska. Currently the Arctic Ocean mixes with the Pacific waters, obviously cooling the area quite. But when Beringia divided those waters the Pacifis side of Beringia was probably not as cold as we imagine.

Just scroll down the page and pick the animation that best suits you.

Beagle wrote:This animation may be helpful to the discussion. The words land bridge may be a little misleading. Beringia was in fact a good sized land mass.

It also gives an idea of the coastline for seafarers around Alaska. Currently the Arctic Ocean mixes with the Pacific waters, obviously cooling the area quite. But when Beringia divided those waters the Pacifis side of Beringia was probably not as cold as we imagine.

Just scroll down the page and pick the animation that best suits you.

Dude, you left out the link.

But when Beringia divided those waters the Pacifis side of Beringia was probably not as cold as we imagine.

GOod point.

http://instaar.colorado.edu/QGISL/bering_land_bridge/

Sorry, it's too early in the mornin' for me I guess.

Thanks for the very intertesting link, Beagle.I had always imagined the Bering land bridge to be just tha, a bridge or narrow isthmus, but that shows it was very wide and would have been liveable for quite some time.
Opened my eyes a bit. That was big enough and open long enough for some serious diffusion to happen. I still don't believe that's the only way people came here, though.

marduk wrote:

i know the difference between an emigrant and an immigrant. the people i'm talking about were not emigrants, as they did not intend to wind up here on new shores. far from it, in the vast majority of cases 50,000 or more years ago, i'm sure.

you're sure ?
what about them

the fact that they ended up building civilisations indicates that they took plenty of women with them
when youre leaving one place for another you are emigrating

emigration implies purposefully leaving one place to take up residence in another permanently. my point is that most of the early inhabitants of the new world were castaways, not emigrants. i'm sure most of them missed home and family greatly, but had no clue how to make the return voyage, and simply made the best of it here.

were castaways, not emigrants. i'm

Accidental Tourists?

Quote:
were castaways, not emigrants.

Accidental Tourists?

refugees?

Ah...but refugees from what?

Survivors from when ocean levels rose after the Ice Age meltdown, perhaps?

Atlantis ?