54. The Oldest Americans
An Introduction
by George Weber
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Table of Contents - background information
Opening and closing: the Bering Straight (when dry land: Beringia)
Table of Contents - the oldest survivors
Specific ancient palaeoamerican people still surviving or only recently extinct: General Overview of Fuegians and Patagonians The Pericu of the Southern California peninsula, Mexico The Fuegians (of Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina The Tehuelche and Puelche (Patagonians), Argentina
Table of Contents - the oldest archaeological sites
more than 60 of the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego described
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Traces of ancient human groupshave been and are still being being discovered and excavated in the Americas. Their morphological affinities point towards Southeast Asia and to migrations into the Americas that seem to predate that of the Palaeoamerinds (the ancestors of the modern living Amerinds). In this chapter we are above all interested in the Palaeoindians.
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Terminological note on early Amerindian populations before 2,800 years ago (dates are highly approximate and can vary considerably from source to source): Palaeoindian (American spelling: Paleo-) - earliest known people in the Americas before 13,000 years from present, including the still living (if only just) Fuegians and Patagonians. Archaic indians - people following the
Palaeoindians from around 10,500 2,800 years from
present; |
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A note on C14 dates: Do not confuse calendar years and C14 years. The former are often called "calibrated C14 years before the present" or "calendar years based on C14 sampling", the latter "C14 years before the present". The older a C14 sample is, the more the two dates diverge: e.g. 11,500 C14 years before the present = 13,500 calibrated C14 years or just calendar years before the present. |
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If the linguistic, archaeological, anthropological and genetic evidence available today is taken into account, we get the outlines of four waves of migration into America. For references to the data on which this map is based see on this web-site: Patagonians and
Fuegians
For a complete overview of relevant American
archaeological site described here see the |
There does not seem to be an obvious reason why the earliest definitively known human migrations into America should indeed have been so late by Australo-Asian standards. Evidence for earlier migratory movements into the Americas is inevitably scarce but this could be explained by the small numbers of human individuals involved at the beginning and their minimal impact on the land. The evidence that there could have been several migrations into the Americas predating 9,000 years ago is certainly growing rapidly.
The earliest migration of pre-Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Asia (thought to have started between 120,000 and 100,000 years ago and possibly temporarily disrupted by the eruption of Toba Volcano 73,000 years ago) never left a climate belt that was relatively warm. Even during the worst depths of the pleistsocene ice age, the climate of this migratory corridor was moderated by adjacent oceans. The migrants could follow one enormously long coastline eastwards that, even if narrowed by deserts in places, could always provide sustenance from the sea. It is probable that the migrants had brought boatbuilding skills with them from Africa since one of their most likely exit points there is the Bab el Mandeb, the narrow southern exit of the Red Sea, between Africa and the Arabian peninsula. There would have honed their boating and fishing skills there for many generations before setting out (probably without realising it - they just followed the fish) on the long journey east. If they took the more northerly route through the Sinai peninsula, they would not have needed boats at first but would have needed them later when moving along the coastal deserts of Iran. For a discussion of this, see Forster and Matsamura "Did Early Humans go North or South? . Reaching the far side of India, the migrants certainly must have had boats to cross between the Asian mainland through what is now the island world of Indonesia to Papua-Newguinea (which then was, at times, part of the Asian mainland) and especially to Australia (which has never been connected by land to the Asian landmass for the last billion-odd years). Archaeological evidence in Australia shows that the first humans reached reached there around 50,000 years ago.
The Americas present a completely different picture. We do not know when the first humans reached America - but it was certainly much ater than in Australia. There is increasing evidence of a numerically small but very early population in the Americas. Where could those shadowy pre-Clovis so-called palaeo-Indians could have come from? The most likely theory is that they did not move overland like the game-hunting Clovis people. Instead, they could have been fisher-folk much like the still-living (barely) Fuegians moving south along the American west coast and, as fisher, unfortunately leaving hardly any archaeological traces of their passing. Such people would not have needed an ice-free corridor as the pre-Clovis did in Alaska and could have moved along America's west coast at the same time when other humans crossed the open sea to reach Australia (see comments on route "b" below).
We at the Andaman Association are, of course, rooting for at least a few early fisher from southeast Asia to have moved that way. There are a number of possible ways for early migrants to cross into the Americas:
(a) through the Bering Strait, an icy and stormy area (at times dry land and at other times submerged) that would have been possible only for people with considerable tradition of arctic survival and seagoing traditions (this is the most often considered path for migrations after the end of the pleistocene from ca. 12,000 years ago - we wonder if it really was the most popular with the early travellers)
(b) people boating along the coast of Alaska (this is the ouly possible route south during colder intervals when the inland route a would have been blocked by a vast ice sheet)
(c) across the open Pacific. Possible stopovers in Antarctica have been suggested but how this would have helped the travellers in an ice age is not clear (this is the least likely route in view of the rather advanced long-distance sailing and navigational skills that would have been needed at an early date and in view of the fact that the much easier to reach South Sea islands that were in fact not settled from insular Asia until much later, even though Melanesia had been occupied 40-50,000 years ago
(d) along the southern coast of the ice rim from Europe (a possibility whose likelihood is very difficult to estimate realistically for a time more than 10,000 years ago) but which may have been accomplished by a few hardy souls and lucky survivors (see Clovis and the Solutrean connection).
(e) from Africa across the Atlantic (a possibility that has been little considered but for which "Luzia" could provide genetic evidence), the Sargasso sea would be a hazard but otherwise it is not clear why this route should have remained unused during the pleistsocene. If it was used after all, no clear evidence for it has survived.
Fig. 1. The most likely routes of early human into the
Americas during and after the pleistsocene ice age (between 30,000
and 5,000 years ago).
The red arrows indicate movement into the Americas of populations
with the genetic haplogroups indicated (the relatively common A, C,
D, B and the rare X). For more information on haplogroups see
Haplogroups in Chapter 6. The
presence of the European haplogroup X, though generally rare in most
Amerind groups and not common in Europe either, is intriguing. It
definitely was NOT brought to the Americas by the European explorers
of the last 1,500 years: testing on 1300-year old Amerind remains
have shown that haplogroup X was already well-established in the
Americas then. Perhaps there were some lucky Vikings or even sailors
from antiquity, blown off course by storms.
The following routes into America were available to the intrepid and hardy pleistsocene and earlxy Holocene traveller. The routes were undoubtedly used (although we cannot be sure which ones and by who) and that from as early as 30,000 years ago. The people who set up camp at Monte Verde in Chile, for example, had to enter America by one of the routes or a combination of them.
(a) Bering Straight route (blue)
The Bering Strait before 10,000 years ago was an icy and stormy waterway and something for only the most fearless boat crew to attempt. Every so often, as the climate became colder and sea levels fell, the Strait would turn into dry land and could be crossed on foot by people with a well-established tradition of arctic survival.
(a+b) a combination of Bering and Pacific Coastal routes (blue and black)
The Inuit (Eskimos) and Aleut are two people speaking related languages who appear to have been a third wave (after the PalaeoAmerinds and the Amerinds) of migrants into the Americas over or near the Bering Strait after the Inuit and Aleuts. Genetic evidence suggests that the two groups split up in Siberia around 10,000 years ago before entering the Americas. It is an intriguing (but unproven) thought that the Aleuts (who settled in the Aleut islands around 6,000 years ago) represent route b of the graph above, while the Inuit (who crossed into Alaska a little later and came on route a.
(b) Pacific coastal route (black)
Contrary to the experts who hold that the ancient migrants into America would have needed to walk, a boat trip along the ice shelf and coast is in fact a far more likely route for pleistocene migrants. For people with simple canoes on this route, even at the hight of the ice age, the sea would have been open off the glaciers. The migrants could follow the fish and so would not even have needed to carry much provisions. Even fresh water should not have been an insuperable obstacle in the presence of so much frozen water. Pople like the Fuegian Yamana and Kwaseqar (see Fuegians and Patagonians) could even have done such pleistocene travelling naked! In one of the world's stormiest and unpleasantest climates (Tierra del Fuego) the aborigines until very recently have gone on lengthy boat trips and dived for seafood - without a stitch on. In fact, during the pleistsocene, the inland route a, if open, could well have have been second choice. Sea currents and wind directions were not of major importance to early migrants on the coastal route since they could paddle along the coast and seek shelter on the many islands or even on icebergs. Much as the Yamana and Kwaseqar people have done until very recently.
(c) Pacific crossing route (yellow)
This does not seem a very likely route in view of the rather
advanced long-distance sailing and navigational skills that would
have been needed at an early date. It could have been a rare
"accidental route", though. The survival of such travellers until
they are washed ashore in Siouth America ist , however, is most
unlikely. . The only specks of land in the immensity of the southern
Pacific Ocean would have been tiny Pitcairn and Easter islands and
the Juan Fernandez islands. None of them has yielded archaeological
evidence of ancient visitors. Even famous Easter island was not
reached by Melanesians until around 400 AD (earliest estimates). It
is also noticeable that the South Sea islands were not settled until
around 4,000 years ago despite the fact that insular Asia and
Papua-Newguinea had been populated by modern humans for 40-50,000
years. On present evidence, these early modern humans in Asia and
Australia appear to have ignored the open Pacific for tens of
thousands of years. Although the Pacific crossing seems somewhat
unlikely, it cannot be definitively excluded as a source of migrants
to early America, because: .
(1) we know almost nothing about wind systems and monsoon pattern in
the South Pacific during the pleistocene ice age. It is possible that
winds were more favourable to sailors heading east (deliberately or
accidentally) then,
(2) absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - if the
travellers heading east were few and far between, they would have
left so little evidence on the islands they may have landed on or on
the American coast that they simply have not been found yet - and
could be found only by a major stroke of luck. Australian aborigines
are not known for their long-distance boating skills, but boats from
an as yet undiscovered Australian tribe of skilled and very lucky
sailors may have made it to South America, if only acccidentally.
Enigmatic prehistoric cave paintings in Patagonia (see Fuegian
and Patagonian archaeology) are eerily reminiscent of Australian
aboriginal cave paintings). Coincidence? We do not know.
The prevailing winds north of the permanent high pressure area off the South American west coast would have been against vessels sailing east towards the Americas for the past 10,000 years.Further south, wind direction would have been more favourable but would have led any vessels into one of the world's most notoriously stormy waters, but conditions may have been more favourable during the pleistocene period before 10,000 years ago. Again - we just do not know.
(d) Atlantic crossing route (orange)
During the pleistocene this route must have led along the fronts of monstrous glaciers and along an extremely stormy polar front (the border between cold polar and warm tropical air) that reached much further south into the Atlantic than the comparably puny Greenland glaciers and polar fronts of today. Any travel west along this front more than 10,000 years ago would have most likely been limited to unfortunate stragglers with little chance of survival. Both normal wind and sea surface currents were against travellers attempting to sail west. There are nevertheless some intriguing similarities in stone tool technology between prehistoric Europe and America and there is the enigmatic presence of European haplogroup X among Amerindian populations 1,300 years ago. Some lucky early European migrants do seem to have made it to the Americas it against all the odds (see also caption to map above).
It was much more recently, around 800 AD that the Vikings did unquestionably reach America by using their very advanced sailing technology. Archaeological finds at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland revealed a short-lived Viking trading station dated to around the year 1000 AD. The "official discoverer" of America, Leif Erikson, knew that there was land to the west and there can be no question that there had been earlier explorers and traders who returned to tell their tales. There cannot have been many such and their exploits are unlikely to go back further than around 500 AD. Of earlier explorers there is no evidence, although it is not impossible that there were Celtic, Greek or Roman vessels that might have managed to reach America.
The prevailing winds across the northern Atlantic would have been
against vessels sailing west. Further south, wind direction would
have been more favourable.
The prevailing sea surface current would not have been
favourable
(e) African equatorial route (brown)
The route from Africa across the Atlantic is a possibility that has not received the consideration it would deserve. Evidence of prehistoric African migration to the Americas is lacking but this may be because nobody has been looking. The prevailing winds from both north and south of the equator would have been basically favourable for vessels sailing west, but the extended doldrums in critical areas north of the equator and the uncertain surface currents around the Sargasso Sea might have been a serious discouragement to would-be sailors. Perhaps the genetic evidence for early migration is there but has not been found or recognized yet. "Luzia" (the most famous of the Lagoa Santa "Lapa Vermelha people") does seem to have some African (or perhaps Australian? in any case, quite un-Amerindian) features. No genetic work on this intriguing prehistoric population has been published as yet. For the moment it remains remarkable that there is no solid evidence for an early African migration across the Atlantic.
Fig. 2. The Polar Front position in the northern Atlantic between 20,000 and 9,000 years ago
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1 - 13,000 to 20,000 years ago 2 - 11,000 to 13,000 years ago 3 - 10,000 to 11,000 years ago (cold period known as Younger Dryas) 4 - 9,000 to 10,000 years ago |
Fig. 3. The climate between today and 30,000 years ago (based on changes in oxygen isotopes in deep sea sediments)
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Fig. 4. The prevailing winds from both north and south of
the equator would have been basically in favour of vessels sailing
west, but the extended doldrums in the critical
area north of the equator would have been a serious discouragement to
any would-be sailors.
The complex pattern of the sea surface currents (including the
Sargasso Sea) between Africa and the Americas north of the equator
(though basically favourable to vessels sailing west) could have been
so complex as to further discourage any would-be sailors. Help
or hindrance from ocean currents for early sailors?
X marks the Sargasso
sea. Colours: surface currents,
deep sea currents,
bottom currents
Fig. 5. Help from the wind? Schematic wind and pressure systems in July for the last 10,000 years (Holocene)
L: Low pressure (cyclonic wind circulation), blue
H: High pressure (anticyclonic wind circulation), red
D: doldrums (calms), grey
Fig. 6: Schematic wind and pressure systems in January for the last 10,000 years (Holocene)
L: Low pressure (cyclonic wind circulation), blue
H: High pressure (anticyclonic wind circulation), red
D: doldrums (calms), grey
Similar maps as those given in Figs. 2-6 above for periods earlier than 10,000 years ago would be extremely useful in making educated guesses at the likelyhood of early human migrations across open waters. Unfortunately, too little is known about wind and sea current pattern during the various periods of the ice age.
Opening and closing: the Bering Straight (when dry land, Beringia)
Fig. 1: The Bering Straight (or Beringia as it is often called when the dry passage of prehistoric times is meant) of all possible routes into the Americas has undoubtedly been the busiest and most widely used for tens of thousands of years. As the illustrations below show, the Straight wis not deep and fluctuation sof the sea level with the world climate meant that the Staight opened and closed with the changing climates.
Fig. 2: The graphic above converted into maps. Very clear
in the series of maps below is the very rapid rise of the sea level
following the rapid warming at the end of the pleistocenes around
10,000 years ago.
Maps adapted from R. Dale Guthrie "Radiocarbon evidence of
mid-Holocene mammoths stranded on an Alaskan Bering Sea island",
Nature, 429:746-749, 17 July 2004
grey: permanent arctic ice pack (on average ca. 20 m
thick)
white: temporary floating winter ice (on average ca. 1 m
thick), the area is open sea in summer, substantial fluctuations in
extent occur from winter to winter
blue: permanent open sea
green: present day dry land
brown: originally dry land later drowned by rising sea
levels
red: international borders
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18,000 years ago
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13,000 years ago
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10,000 years ago
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9,000 years ago
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8,000 years ago
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Today
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Fig. 3. Glaciation in north America and around the Bering Strait.
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The detailed geography and sea depth of the Bering Strait
today
Map adapted from M. Leier, 2000 (German original) and 2001 (English
translation), World Atlas of the Oceans, ISBN 1-55209-585-1,
RM Buch und Medienvertrieb/HVK Hamburger Verlagskontor Germany, and
Firefly Books, Buffalo, USA
Light blue: sea more than 50 m deep
Dark blue: sea less than 50 m deep
The reasons behind the absence of human remains in the Americas older than 10,000 years and the alarming scarcity of such remains until a few thousand years ago have been puzzling archaeologists for a long time. It was thought (not unreasonably) that this was because there were no humans in the Americas before the arrival of the Palaeoamerinds. Even with the new discoveries (which so far do not go much beyond 12,000 years), the puzzle remains. Were the first Palaeoamericans so few in numbers that their remains can be found and recognized only with the greatest of luck? Or did the first Americans have burial practices (such as those of the Andamanese, see Chapter 19 of this site) that would leave few traces of their dead ? Did the Palaeoamericans perhaps all arrive only around 10,000 yearsago , after all? Until many more ancient American human remains are analyzed and many more archaeological sites are found and excavated, we will not find out.
Genetic differences between populations provide a gauge of how long they have been apart: the more variation there are between two groups, the longer they have been separated.It has been calculated that 20,000 to 40,000 years has elapsed since new-world and old-world groups shared a common ancestor - that is a major hint that we are missing some very large pieces in the puzzle. Archaeological sites like Monte Verde (Chile), Meadowcroft (USA) and Topper (USA), to name only three, also point in the same direction.
As the old saying has it: who looks will find. With the incentive of the latest discoveries to spur them on, archaeologists, geneticists and linguists are now looking and are increasinly less bothered by the old shibboletz of the "pre-Clovis cannot be". Major Palaeoamerican discoveries have also been made in museums where the evidence had been stored on dusty shelves for decades. More such evidence may be on other shelves in other museums.
Have you noticed how the oldest of the major archaeological discoveries listed in this chapter of our web-site are near the geographical far ends of the hypothetical migration route from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego? It shows just how little we still know about the first Americans.
Fig. 1: Most likely and highly simplified relationships
between the largest groups of American natives.
The numbers represent hypothesized genetic distances.
The following graphs are adapted from Rolando G.J., Dahinten S., Luis M.A., Hernandez M and Pucciarelli H.M., "Cranometric Variation and the Settlement of the Americas: Testing Hypotheses by Means of R-Matrix and Matrix Correlation Analyses,", American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2001, 116:154-165. It shows one possible model of relationship between the various prehistoric American groups as deducted from the analysis of skull forms (craniometry). It is the Southeast Asian context of some of the new discoveries that made us at the Andaman Association sit up and take note. It is, of course, much too early to discuss the question of which Southeast Asian or Pacific Rim groups may have contributed how much, how and when to the earliest settlement of the Americas. We try not to see Negritos under every bed and we do not claim that the Negritos or their possible relatives have an ancestral connection with the earliest Americans. All we say - for now - is that they could and might.
The authors of the Nature article do not say how old the skulls are that were used for craniometric analysis. Even more unfortunate for our purpose, the authors have not put Andamanese (or any other Negrito) people into their comparison. Yet their list still gives an indication of possible relationships far beyond the usual borders of Americanology.
In their painstaking craniometric analysis, the authors had the following to say on the Pericu and Guaycura of the Mexican Baia California in general: Culturally, the Pericu and Guaycuran tribes differed noticeably from the more distant Yumans in the north. The extinction of these groups was abruptly provoked by disassembling of the hunter-gatherer system due to the influence of the Jesuitical missions. The materials analysed came from caves and coastal shell midden. Primary and secondary burials were common at both sites, and these mortuary practices are typical of the late pre-Hispanic cultures.
When measuring up and comparing the Pericu skulls, the authors discovered that the Pericu were not a group of Amerinds like most of the Mexican population since prehistoric times. Instead, they had distinct and clear affinities to Southeast Asia and the Pacific rim populations, inlcuding Australia. As such, they would seem to represent another Palaeoamerican population that had lived in isolation for a long time and, moreover, one that in the case of the Pericu had managed to survive in small pockets until a few hundred years ago.
If this is indeed so, then present-day Amerindian people find themselves suspected of having done to the "truly first Americans" what they accuse the "Whites" of having done to them, the then perhaps not truly first Americans: to have played a part in the near-extinction of an older population. No wonder that the politically aware Amerinds especially in the US are trying to divert this looming threat to their moral superiority with any means at their disposal, including the immediate burial, preferably without scientific examination, of any ancient human remains found in the US (see NAGPRA). Up to a point one can sympathize with them. But the large-scale butchery to the Gods carried out by Aztec Amerindian priests and witnessed by no less bloody Christian conquistadores (to give just one example) testifies to the fact that none of the parties quite holds the high moral ground.
Fig. 2. The chart below shows that the population most closely related to the Pericu (BCS) by skull measurements are the Lagoa Santa people (PAL) - also known as Lapa Vermelha IV or "Luzia's" people - who lived in Minas Gerais near Belo Horizonte in Brazil around 12,500 years ago (see Lagoa Santa "Luzia"). The 13,000 year old Penon woman from near Mexico City has also recently be found to be very close to the Pericu in her skull measurements.
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Results of multivariate analysis of Pericu skulls 1:
The principal coordinates represent minimum genetic
distances The yellow bar is not in the original chart and has been added by us. It draws attention to the apparent fact that in Principal Coordinate 2, groups that we have long thought linked to the Negrito (which have not been included in this study), do indeed seem to be related, if distantly. Blue dots: related relatives of the Andamanese Negrito. |
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Population and region (bold italic
= populations discussed in more detail in this
chapter ) |
Abbreviations |
Number of |
|
Pericu (Baja California Sur, Mexico) |
BCS |
33 |
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Fuegians (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina/Chile) |
FUEG |
89 |
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Tehuelche (Patagonians) (Argentina) |
PATA |
98 |
|
Andean Patagonians (Argentina/Chile) |
APAT |
20 |
|
Pampas (Buenos Aires, Argenina) |
PAM |
23 |
|
Delta of Parana (eastern Argentina) |
DPAR |
30 |
|
Aztecs (Mexico) |
TLAT |
39 |
|
Bolivians (Bolivia) |
BOL |
19 |
|
Toba (northeastern Argentina) |
TOBA |
10 |
|
Calchaqui (northwestern Argentina) |
CAL |
8 |
|
Palaeoamericans of Brazil (Lagoa Santa "Luzia" etc.) |
PAL |
22 |
|
Teita (Kenya, Africa) |
TEITA |
83 |
|
Dogon (Mali, Africa) |
DOGON |
99 |
|
Zulu (South Africa) |
ZULU |
101 |
|
Bushmen (South Africa) |
BUSH |
90 |
|
Australian aborigines (Australia) |
AUST |
101 |
|
Tasmanian aborigines (Tasmania, Australia) |
TASM |
87 |
|
Tolai (Melanesia) |
TOLAI |
110 |
|
Buriats (East Asia) |
BURIAT |
109 |
|
Inuit (Eskimo) (Alaska/Canada/Greenland) |
ESKI |
108 |
|
Yauyos (Peru) |
PERU |
110 |
|
Arikara (USA) |
ARIK |
69 |
|
Ainu (Japan) |
AINU |
86 |
|
North Japanese (Japan) |
NJAP |
87 |
|
South Japanese )Japan) |
SJAP |
91 |
|
Hainan (southern China) |
HAIN |
83 |
|
Anyang (Taiwan) |
ANYA |
42 |
|
Atayal (eastern China) |
ATAY |
47 |
|
Santa Cruz (California, USA) |
SANT |
102 |
Fig. 3. Results of multivariate analysis of Pericu
skulls 2: The canonical coordinates on the z-standardized raw data
with 90%-equal frequency ellipses
(chart adapted from Gonzalez-Jose, R.et al. 2003. "Craniometric
Evidence for Palaeoamerican survival in Baja California",
Nature, 425:62-65; and Th. D. Dillehay. 2003. "Tracking
the first Americans", Nature, 425:23-24.
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1. Red oval: Palaeoamericans 2. Black oval: Africans 3. Brown oval: Australians/Melanesians 4. Violet oval: Amerindians 5. Yellow oval: East Asians 6.. Green oval: South Asians Red dots:the 33 Baja California skulls measured. The majority of the Baja California skulls fit within the Palaeoamerican ellipse.
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The following quotation of the abstract to F.A Kaestle and D.G. Smith, "Acient Mitochondrial DNA Evidence for Prehistoric Population Movement: the Numic Expansion", the American Journal of Physical Anthropology 115:1-12,2001. Wiley-Liss, Inc. is of interest here: "Americans has been shown to fall into one of at least five haplogroups (A, B, C, D, or X) whose frequencies differ among tribal groups. The frequencies of these five haplogroups in a collection of ancient individuals from Western Nevada dating to between approximately 350-9,200 years BP were determined. These data were used to test the hypothesis, supported by archaeological and linguistic data, that the current inhabitants of the Great Basin, the Numic speakers, are recent immigrants into the area who replaced the previous non-Numic inhabitants. The frequency distributions of haplogroups in the ancient and modern Native Americans differed significantly, suggesting that there is a genetic discontinuity between the ancient inhabitants and the modern Numic speakers, providing further support for the Recent Numic Expansion hypothesis. The distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups of the ancient inhabitants of the Great Basin is most similar to those of some of the modern Native American inhabitants of California." |
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