Commentary on the Peopling of the New World

[circumspice]

Long, fairly in-depth article on the peopling of the New World by Smithsonian Magazine. The comments section is as interesting as the article itself. Enjoy.


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180973739/

[Minimalist]

Nice article, Circ.

[Cognito]

Thanks for the fascinating article, Spice! It is interesting that the area's isostatic rebound can be calculated so accurately with many of the shorelines now being about the same level as 20kya. A 400 foot sea level rise with a 400 foot rebound.

Ted Goebel, associate director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, says that recent developments in genetics, coupled with the work of Fedje and his colleagues, have spurred his desire to search for early Americans in far-flung reaches of Alaska, including tributaries of the Yukon River and parts of the Seward Peninsula.

“Five years ago I would have told you that you were full of crap if you were suggesting that there were humans in Alaska or far Northeast Asia 20,000 or 25,000 years ago,” says Goebel. “But the more we hear from the geneticists, the more we really have to be thinking outside that box.”

I certainly hope the attitude among archaeologists is changing.

Boat voyages have been documented in Japan from 30kya. With the Japanese current flowing east to British Columbia and then south to California, it would feed an unintended, slow and continued migration of mariners to North America simply by accident. Just add a few women to the mix and watch the population boom!

[Jeff]

Where are the genetics? If people entered from Asia and Europe, where is the European DNA? I concede that people could have reached the Americas from ways other than the land bridge. But where is the genetic evidence for a European migration or African migration into the new world? We do have genetic evidence of an Asian migration.

[shawomet]

West Eurasian strain...

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casest ... sensation/

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/two-sur ... ria-541939

[circumspice]

West Eurasian strain...

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casest ... sensation/

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/two-sur ... ria-541939

Both of these articles date from 2013. That's pretty elderly in the scientific arena. Are there any more up to date articles concerning this subject?

[LacamasMorass]

As archaeologists we have to be careful with the word,"peopling". We really weren't people until the modern age. Up until then we were part tree dwelling fanatic, and part tranquil farmer. I like to think of an\cient migration as a style of driven relocation. Where the inhabitants of an area proven to be supportive to the clan were decimated by some type of deluge, either natural or conflicting. I say this because if you ask any archaeologist in the Americas, they will tell you that the artifacts they are finding are much much older than they expected, and I can tell you from first hand experience that all you have to do is find one and you know instantly what they are talking about. The peopling theory is a great step forward in the science of the Humanities, and I always try to follow the science. But when they told me that Americans were all a species of Homo Ergaster decendant, I had to remind them of how many species of hominid there really are, and at the keen ability of hominids to suffice, evolve and defend their clan.

The Lacamas Morass is so unique in its collection, that it would be nearly impossible to find a comparison site elsewhere in the world, so I have had to use the science to further my study. This has not been well excepted by peirs and I have been struggling to make it come together. Please remember that "parallel evolution" is a human thing, and we are the only proof of it.

[shawomet]

West Eurasian strain...

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casest ... sensation/

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/two-sur ... ria-541939

Both of these articles date from 2013. That's pretty elderly in the scientific arena. Are there any more up to date articles concerning this subject?

Well, I’ve never come across later papers that overturned that study. If anybody has, I’d love to know. Lots of articles about it in the 2013-14 time frame, and this article from 2016 describes it briefly in the “History gets complicated” section. I don’t really follow genetic studies, it’s way over my head. I’m lucky I can understand my own DNA results. If this study was overturned, however, I would expect an internet search to establish that, and no searches I’ve conducted has brought up any studies calling it into question.

https://carlzimmer.com/eske-willerslev- ... th-dna-50/

See also this Wikipedia entry:

MA-1( my note: MA-1 is the Mal’ta boy in question) is the only known example of basal Y-DNA R* (R-M207*) – that is, the only member of haplogroup R* that did not belong to haplogroups R1, R2 or secondary subclades of these. The mitochondrial DNA of MA-1 belonged to an unresolved subclade of haplogroup U.[7]

The term Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) has been given in genetic literature to an ancestral component that represents descent from the people similar to the Mal'ta–Buret' culture or a population closely related to them.[4][8] The ANE population is considered to have been "basal to modern day western Eurasians" but not especially related to east Asians, and suggested to have perhaps originally lived Europe or Western Asia.[9][10] According to Lazaridis et al. 2014, the common ancestor of ANEs and WHGs (western European hunter-gatherers) separated from eastern Eurasians around 40,000 BC, and ANEs split from WHGs around 22,000 BC[11] (ANE is also described as a lineage "which is deeply related to Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe...").[12] According to a study by Kanazawa-Kiriyama et al. (2017), MA-1/Mal'ta may have also carried an East Eurasian-related component (around 21% of his ancestry), with the rest being West Eurasian-related.[13]

A people similar to MA1 and Afontova Gora were important genetic contributors to Native Americans, Siberians, Europeans, Caucasians, Central Asians, with smaller contributions to Middle Easterners and some East Asians.[14] Lazaridis et al. (2016) notes "a cline of ANE ancestry across the east-west extent of Eurasia."[15] According to a 2016 study, it was found that the global maximum of ANE ancestry occurs in modern-day Kets, Mansi, Native Americans, and Selkups.[4] Additionally it has been reported in ancient Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures.[3] Between 14 and 38 percent of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta–Buret' people, while the other geneflow in Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin. [2]

MA1 is also related to two older Upper Paleolithic Siberian individuals found near the Yana river called Ancient North Siberians (ANS) and to Tianyuan man from Upper Paleolithic China.[16] (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27ta% ... 27_culture)

[circumspice]

Thanks shawomet for the links! Interesting reading!

[shawomet]

Nice recent summation, IMHO...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -americas/

[circumspice]

Thanks for the links shawomet! It's a good summation of currents theories.

[LacamasMorass]

People, as the crow flies, are often given less interest than even the proverbial dog, and although I would really like to world hop, trying to find the answers to the impossible questions of science, I truly, and I mean with all my heart, that the search for such things is like hunting for atlantis, the lochness monster and the search for spiritual truth.

Even though religion may support the existence of God, would you be willing to go in search of the evidence to support the religion?

My problem here is that all of us "un-educated" backyard archaeologists are trying to make ancient history pay for itself, and with all this hoo-haw and rhetorical non-sence about how all the races of the earth are the descendants of an African Gean olm is really destroying our lives.

Even when we get our sponsors all lined up, we tend to lose their interest when we try to introduce a timeline of the habitation in any given area of America.

I have to say it has taken 2 decades for me to learn to date rocks... and if you want my "expertise" you can at least ask me for it, or how much I want for my services...

and I would say, like all other professionals in a rare field of antiquity and socialism....
How much do you have? And of course, I would lose you also!

So the peopling theory to me, is a very personal experience. I don't know how any person could just think it up, it had to have been created by a great group of scientists whose evidence was empirical and they were probably. Very well paid yes mmmhhmm. But the idea is a great food for thought! Science needs it. Suppose we were all said to be descendent from a dead end gean olm of Brazilians who spawned the entirety of human kind... Whose nearest ancestors to us... The wild Amazon tribes claim that was the truth and the only caveat in the study happened to be cannibalism???

Wouldn't that leave Africa in a turmoil of modern concept and academia? The United States listens to this argument everyday. It has become an obsession to many African archaeologists and some American gangsters. What is the rebut? There is so much evidence in North America, that the argument is humorous to all those who go rock, or artifact hunting. At 12" down in the undisturbed forest top soils, there are few places that you don''t find evidence of ancient people things. It is that dense of a distribution. I know that is hard to believe, and really hard to fathom, but it's the truth, and the Native people here are very hostile about other species who are interested in their race, creed and religions.

The Norse claim they were slaughtered by primitive warriors with no conscience. Spain claims their invasions were halted through a system of socialism that was so strong, their only hope for intervention was senseless annihilation. The French resorted to nihilist tactics when they were relentlessly attacked by random slaughters in terroristic fashions.

All this fruition has finally come to surpass humanisim and patronage! We are learning to get along with each other because of laws, policing and religious curiosity. I could use the help... go ahead! I like what I am hearing!

[circumspice]

Word salad. Nonsensical. What exactly are you trying to convey?