Peopling of America

mongolianarcher · Post by **mongolianarcher** » Sun Apr 08, 2012 10:05 pm

Is that a novelist or other?

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 2:09 am

There is one other theme at work in this entire discussion that might be of interest to the reader. Because of a long history of keeping Indian remains (human bones and other parts) in museums for a long time with out burying them, indignace among Indians has built against the archaeological community for decades till in 1990, our congress passed the NAGPRA law giving Indian tribes the legal right to reclaim all human remains of NA tribes, along with certain other items.

In court it is overwhelmingly favoring Indian's rights to remains found on Indian land. In a recent case of the Kennewick man, it was introduced that he was not NECESSARILY of what we consider to be of Indian origin just because he was of a certain antiquity.

Therefore, any possible presence of European ancestry in ancient American DNA would make an opening for archaeologists to continue studying ancient remains. This supposition is my own theory but I find is somewhat inescapable ramification of the European connection.

geoarcher · Post by **geoarcher** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:21 pm

I know that part of the way this has been working in the US is that a tribe must actually claim any remains to be of their own for bones to be returned. I know a site in Pennsylvania where bones fragments from 10,000 BC were recovered in a Lake that was partly dried up for the season. I am acquainted with the archaeologist who currently houses the remains at a government facility and he said unless a tribe claims these they will remain here indefinitely. He of course had them registered like he was supposed to do and so far all he's hear back is cricket chirps from the Native American communities. This is of course since they are so old and no tribe could possibly lay claim to them since it was discovered well outside a time frame close to the historical. Bones like these can actually be subject to analysis since they are so low profile, in other words there would be a possibility to extract the aDNA. There is some loophole he explained to me but it can still be touchy.

Kennewick man became a very touchy situation though due to the high profile nature of the find, but there is hope for aDNA extraction. Still, the average US archaeologist is usually somewhat intimidated to proceed any futher.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:50 am

Actually the archaeologist who was the plaintiff in the Kennewick case, R. Bonnichsen, was an acquaintance. Though the remains were about 9200 years old, the Umatilla tribe laid claim to the remains but not before DNA samples had been extracted and tested.

In a bit of irony, I shot bows and arrows with Bonnichsen one week before his unexpected death. He had already secured a hard fought win against the Umatilla, several other tribes, and the US government.

If you are really bored, here is the long story of the fight: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

I went to several lectures given by the archaeologist who analyzed the DNA for the court proceedings and here is a simplified conclusion: K man's DNA doesn't really look like anybody's exactly. DNA changes over time and is, and always has been, an amalgamation from so many different sources. K man was not Siberian or European. He was more like a Pacific Islander or etc than anything, but not exactly.

geoarcher · Post by **geoarcher** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:10 am

I stopped following Kennewick Man's case but last I heard (and this was years ago mind you) there was quite the commotion about extracting his aDNA. I didn't realize it was actually done though...thought things were getting too heated over the remains for any real progress to occur but from an archaeological point of view, I'm glad they were able to extract some meaningful info out of the sample taken.

Not all that surprised he is like a Pacific Islander as the modern genomic studies have shown Native American DNA, particularly among groups in South America, does indeed have similar haplogroups to such people. Quite a few researchers feel that Pacific Islander input among SA tribes was due more to a very archaic arrival to the area by sea/boat. The concept of a pre-clovis coastal migration has been brought up before in a study referenced here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Glacial_Maximum

The Paleolithic peopling of the America's has turned out to be quite a nuanced story and DNA/aDNA has helped shed some light here. I hope more progress will be made despite the politics surrounding such research.

Thomas Duvernay · Post by **Thomas Duvernay** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:13 pm

I still contend that the Kennewick Man was actually Patrick Stewart

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:11 pm

Thomas: I agree with you. But this bust is also very controversial. There is nothing on the skull which would indicate the prominence of the nose nor its shape. Same with ears. This is entirely instinctive with the artist. Skin color and hair style cannot be known. What about facial scarification or tatoos?

You could give identical copies of this same bust to many different stylists and come up with many possible variations.

Change the nose and some other features and the possibilities are great.

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Fri May 04, 2012 12:04 pm

http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migr ... ca-1.10562

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 2:33 am

This new study done by Harvard University was recently published. Their conclusion is that NAs are basically made up of three waves of Siberian stock. I believe in the future there might be more room for nuances from other locations.

http://www.boston.com/whitecoatnotes/20 ... story.html

As a side issue, Joe Wilson sent me a copy of his master thesis study of Apache archery gear and I find good merit in his assertion that the latest wave of Athapaskan arrival may well coincide with Mongol era repression and escape of Siberians in the 12 or 13 centuries. The plot thickens.

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:23 am

Jack, interesting link !
you are faster than me checking molecular med/bio news

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 4:23 pm

Uli; I cheated; a similar article was front page news in the local paper. Very few archaeological themes make it to the front page here.

The study does say that they discounted for European boodline influence so this opens the door for a further study for EARLY European bloodlines.

Nothing is ever proved is it? The papers get longer with more disclaimers.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 2:38 am

An interesting aspect of the Nature magazine article is after a long stay in the new world, some NAs returned to Siberia to leave their DNA in those bloodlines.

I remember that during the cold war it was said that Eskimos rowed their traditional skin covered boats from Alaskan areas to the shores of Siberia to visit kin. Navy types reported that it is very hard to pick up a skin boat on sonar. So they were flying beneath the radar so as to speak.

There are other tales of how two groups at the far frontiers of their respective countries found it useful to be friends.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sat Jul 28, 2012 2:40 am

My recurring question is; if archery went on for 10,000 or 20,000 years in Asia, why was this technology not adapted by Americans till 1500 years ago?

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:59 am

Report on the PaleoAmerican Odyssey Conference, Oct 17-19, 2013, in Santa Fe, New Mexico

This was a meeting of professional and avocational archaeologists from around the world who gathered together to discuss where the first people in the New World arrived from, when they arrived, and who they were. Presenters came from Siberia, Japan, Australia, Central and South America, from all over the USA, and many other places. Attendees received a 79 page itinerary and abstracts while a 500-plus page hardback book of 31 of the presentations was made available for purchase under the same title, "PaleoAmerican Odyssey," and can also be ordered online .

As usual for archaeology presentations, the lectures ranged from dry as week old Sahara toast to exciting and even exhilarating. When will lecturers learn to spare us the graphs and thrill us with the artifacts? Take a group of well fed folks, restrict their activity, turn down the lights, show them a graph and, Voila!..sleep. Those few compelled to see the decimals can read the report later for themselves. Several lecturers also insistedn reading the same report which was published in the book. Please! Did they not take college Speech class? Now the highlights.

For myself, the complex DNA discussions are hard to beat. Seems as though those studies are pointing to Western Asians in Siberia, those folks of Indo/European/African origin heritage as being the ancestors of Native Americans rather than the Mongol/ East Asian groups we might have expected. One possible explanation of why Kennewick Man's DNA pointed toward Ainu/ Polynesian origins is that they appear to share the same MOTHER group as American Indians.

There were approximately 100 poster presentations running in four hour sessions concurrently with the major oral lectures. It was truly difficult to take everything in. My favorite poster was on the subject of paleo textiles. There have been many such found including closed toe sandals, large shopping type bags, mats, cloth aprons, string, rope and etc all found in dry caves in Nevada, USA, and dated 8-9000 years old. Easily the most attended poster presentation was of a 9,000 year old atl-atl dart foreshaft found on a receding ice sheet in Colorado and its reconstruction. Other presenters spoke on every imaginable subject having to do with mammoth, bison, extinct fauna, and all possible knappable material. The quest for projectile point collecting dominated the program.

Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian had a strong presence as he announced five new Solutrean points found in New England complete with associated with C 14 charcoal dates of about 22 KYO. These Solutrean points have prototypes on the Spanish coast of Iberia. (KYO= thousand years old; means adjusted radio carbon years old, same as calendar years old= BP- before the present; Archaeo-speak) Dennis had obviously kept his cards close to his chest on this Solutrean info as only Michael Collins of our Texas Gault Site seemed to have previous knowledge.

Readers may remember several years ago when Stanford and Collins shared the microphone at an AIA event at Houston Baptist University and Collins was congenial but not willing to dance to Stanford's Solutrean tune. No Longer! Collins took the lead announcing a map of five new cultures in the New World encompassing most previous theories into one unified one. The big game hunters of "Clovis First" in the Americas timeline of 13 KYO could now be doubled and then some, according to Collins' new "Siberia and Iberia" tune.

Several other archaeologists of retirement age and more seemed willing to bet their careers on finds ranging to 34 KYO and even older for New World sites. Many had been previously published which had come under a suspicion which is now lifting. The door appears to be open to investigate older sites which looked too early to accept in their time.

Jack Farrell

Dusan · Post by **Dusan** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:41 am

Thanks , Jack.In other word, no news. Some comes from south islands (polynesia) way and most from Siberia...