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First Americans May Have Been Australian

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the so-spew-the-slang-thickly dept.

DarthVeda writes "There are some surprising new findings that suggest the first inhabitants of America may have come from down under rather than Siberia. The research is based off of 'distinctive' skulls that predate known Native American skulls. The researchers intend to use extracted DNA to help prove their findings."

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. A word of caution.. by InternationalCow · · Score: 4, Informative

    to all who think that DNA sequencing is going to solve the debate:
    1. The DNA had to be extracted from bone. This is difficult, the DNA may be fragmented leading to incomplete or dubious sequences.
    2. One way to look at population genetics is to look at mitochondrial DNA, which is transmitted maternally. All assumptions on dating changes in that DNA depend on assumptions about mutation rates which are increasingly turning out to be incorrect.
    3. Another way to do it is to look at repetitive sequences in DNA. Here, the amount of change between population groups is used as a timer for divergence. Turns out that repetitive DNA attracts mutations, again screwing up timing estimates.
    Add to this a nice mixture of ethnic pride, scientific pride and plain old human thickheadedness and we have ourselves a nice new long debate that isn't going to be solved anytime soon. Still, I like the idea. It's provocative and might actually help (in the long run) to rid the debate of who was there first of unconstructive emotions.

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    ----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
  2. Wrong song... by ReKleSS · · Score: 3, Informative

    Although a song about a sheep=thieving hobo that commits suicide may seem to be appropriate, it's not the Australian national anthem. The correct national anthem is "Advance Australia Fair"... but it's nowhere near as interesting.
    -ReK

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    md5sum -c reality.md5
    reality: FAILED
    md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
  3. Re:A bit more in an existing debate: by dargaud · · Score: 2, Informative
    The main effect is to slow down either supporting or falsifying the ideas about earlier human groups in the western hemisphere
    You mean the U.S. hemisphere, right ? I had this very impression while in the US and Alaska, about groups who try to pull archeologists findings their way. Surprisingly I've never noticed that in Europe. For instance France has been invaded so many times (Franks, Huns, Vandals, Goths, Romans, Germans, Vikings and many more before that...) that one human group more or less really doesn't matter.

    So why are Americans so touchy on that same matter ? Because the never occupants nearly wiped out the previous ones ? PC sucks.

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    Non-Linux Penguins ?