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Gene Study Supports Single Bering Strait Migration
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "One of the most comprehensive analyses of genetic variation ever undertaken supports the theory that the ancestors of modern native peoples throughout the Americas came from a single source in East Asia across a northwest land bridge some 12,000 years ago. One particular discovery is of a 'unique genetic variant widespread in natives across both continents — suggesting that the first humans in the Americas came in a single migration or multiple waves from a single source, not in waves of migrations from different sources.' The full article is available online from PLoS."
Perhaps. Though they are still "more native" than the rest of the inhabitants.
No, it doesn't. "America" wasn't called so until explorers bestowed it with the name. Hence, whoever was living on the land at the time the land was named "America" would be Native Americans.
Just like how someone can be Native New Jersey if they were born and raised there, though we don't like to talk about those types.
art is science made clear. -cocteau
If you haven't seen it yet, watch (or read, I suppose) "Journey of Man."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journey_of_Man:_A_Genetic_Odyssey
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1212_021213_journeyofman.html
It provides a great grounding in the science and methodology, and the documentary is narrated by the scientist who did much of the research (a rare treat).
Under that reasoning, we are all Africans.
But any reasonable mind knows that the historical definition of 'native American' is one who's family lived there before the 15th century, when some serious immigration issues began.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
So does this mean that I really have Chinese people working on my lawn, not Mexicans?
Hmmm... we might want to reconsider building that wall along the Mexican boarder. Didn't seem to work too well on the Mongolians.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
I've seen documentaries on TV about this stuff. Unfortunately, I
can't cite sources only do this from memory. (Maybe somebody else
can provide links/references.)
But, as I recall, there is evidence that there was a signicantly
different ethnic group (race?) of people here who were possibly
wiped out by the invading ancestors of present day Native Americans.
There was a fossil human found in the Pacific Northwest, whose
face was reconstructed and found to resemble Patrick Stewart.
There's been a lot of controversy as it's a very sensitive subject
for some modern day Native Americans.
If an earlier group of people were wiped out, the only genetic
signatures you'd find for them would be in fossils, right?
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Speak for yourself. My ancestors are all pure-blooded Pangaeans.
Lisa: "You know, in a way, all Americans are immigrants. Except, of course Native Americans."
Homer: "Yeah, Native Americans like us".
Lisa: "No, I mean American Indians."
Apu: "Like me!"
Does this kill the idea that some South Americans got here by sailing across the Pacific?
As for China's attitude towards other "less developed" cultures, I think you've quite a bit of reading to do. China's relations with other states in the 15th century was varied, and assimilation/domination of other cultures was definitely within their repertoire.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
So I guess this study conflicts with the OP....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
But there were people here before 12kya, learning the "Clovis" point from the French, inventing chewable crack cocaine by themselves (using calcium carbonate), and generally having a good time.
Folks have been here so long it is hard to calibrate their radiocarbon dates.
Genes can be killed off. We have artifacts older than genes. I guess the Old Ones got killed off. Was Kennewick Man (portrayed by Patrick Stewart) an Old One?
Anyone with specialist knowledge, please comment.
Sorry, but history in the US is so full of shit, and it's tragic that this is NOT being taught to inspire respect, humility, and more in modern US citizens who will have to deal with the morass we and our so-called leaders have gotten this country into time after time. China really ought to have. From about 1 ad to 1200 ad China had the economic and military might to conquer large portions of the world but were always too introspective. They viewed anything outside of china as barbarian lands hardly worth the effort to visit. It was arrogance more then humility and wisdom. the greatest downfall of China was the isolationist policies enacted by one of the emperors to curb the power of the merchant class. Had he been less successful china might have been a merchant empire as well as Europe.
Ps. I'm proudly Chinese, this isn't china bashing.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
An "testable" reason, for example might be a "working with DNA from Mayan mummy #abc (IIRC the Mayans are considered a lost civilization, right?) that has been dated to X hundred years b.c. was found to have the same markers as related to the steppe people from Siberia etc." combined with "these markers are unique because...." where the "because" is fairly exclusive in terms of the genetics involved, that is, something along the lines of "the Steppe peoples and their mummies (pun intended) all have Gene xyz variants, and almost no or no other peoples and their mummies have that unique genetic signature"
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Some points:
1. America is named for Amerigo Vespucci, and its earliest use to refer to the continent is in a German map from the very early 1500's. It's pretty certain it's not of Chinese origin.
2. Because of the way the winds blow in the (very large) Pacific Ocean, it's much harder to set up trade routes to the Americas than it is across the Atlantic. I'm not sure I'd credit any particular enlightenment with the reason the Chinese didn't aggressively populate California until after the Spanish.
3. Few can argue that Columbus is the first non-native person to set foot on the Americas since the original migration. There is extensive evidence of both nordic and African sporadic contact. But similar to the argument over whether the Wright brothers were the first to ever lift off the ground in something resembling a plane, it's quite clear that Columbus opened the way for everyone coming after him.
4. The origin of Columbus' maps (which he refers to having in his log books) is a matter of extensive debate. Some say they were nordic, some say Chinese. Lots of theories... but the charts did not survive history, and no one really knows.
5. The exploits of ancient Chinese seafarers, from Zheng He on, is often cited as some kind of precedent to later explorers. In its history China has gone through many cycles of technology and exploration. It's interesting to note that China had invented everything from the printing press to rocketry to large seafaring vessels, but by the time Columbus arrived at the new world they pretty much had lost all of that. Zheng He's flotilla had been long ago disassembled, and the printing press forgotten until Gutenberg re-invented it and re-introduced it to China.
The bottom line, though, is that China appears to have set up no regular trade routes with the rest of the world that survived to Columbus' day. It was left to the Europeans to unite the world in trade and colonization, for better and worse.
E pluribus unum
However, the difference is the Chinese didn't come here to STAY, invade, expurgate, demolish, or hijack an existing, thriving human ecosystem (competitive and warring, true), nor to subject the Natives.
...?
What evidence do we have for these assertions?
Given the scant archaeological evidence -- very interesting evidence, yes, but scant -- how can we say anything more than "Chinese ships arrived at an early date, carrying glass beads" and "some tombstones and obelisks appear to be Chinese"
I submit that these archaeological evidences tell us more or less nothing about Chinese motives. Perhaps the Chinese attempted to conquer the native peoples, and failed. Or, maybe the Chinese were noble non-invasive explorers. No way to tell.
-kgj
-kgj
That is something that most people don't get. It does not have to be bashing of a culture to discuss the attributes that a culture had 500 years ago, that don't match with the ones we have today.
The funny part is that most of the people that would consider it bashing, don't realize that in another 500 years, morals will likely change again, and things that are just taken for granted today, will be considered horrific at that time. We may find the idea that people were allowed to breed out of control even though we have the technology to prevent it. We may find that the idea of people having to trade their time just to get enough to eat to be horrific. Or, we may find that, much like the Indians trading land for beads, we will find it horrific that people could sell and hoard ideas for money. Of course, we might also find it horrific that ANY ideas could be used without someone getting paid for them.
the oceans have been rising since the last ice age, Al Gore forgets that part
No. If you'd actually been paying attention, by looking at the evidence over the last SEVERAL Ice Ages, we have determined that our climate is way outside the norms.
Everyone, even Al Gore, understands that the world gets warmer after an Ice Age then peaks, and then gets cooler as we head into another Ice Age. And everyone gets that we will experience 'global warming' until we peak, and the cycle turns the other way.
The issue here is that the evidence shows that we're FAR FAR beyond where we usually peak between Ice Ages.
Its like gravity and the mantra "Whatever goes up must come down!" And everything we through into the air until the 20th century complied with that rule.
But if you've go up high enough fast enough you don't come back down naturally.
Now at this stage with 'global warming' we don't KNOW we can't come back down naturally, but we don't have any evidence that we will, either. We are NOT within the normal climate parameters for the 'warming periods' between Ice Ages. We are FAR beyond that.
You'd be the guy sitting on Voyager-1 going, "I don't see what all the fuss is about the potential for leaving the solar system never to return. We throw things up, they peak, and then they fall back down! And everything that we have ever launched upwards has always had a stage where it was 'going up'. The people raising this issue forget that part."
Excuse me, could someone explain to me how "the theory that the ancestors of modern native peoples throughout the Americas came from a single source in East Asia" is not a theory, as the !atheory tag seems to point out?
You just got troll'd!
Define native and then tell me how you can be more native.
Have I ever felt the scorn of a woman more then when I thought that you couldn't be "more late" (hint, you can). So your answer is probably going to involve creative interpretation.
you completely ignored the absolute truth of my statement that the oceans have been rising since the last ice age.
Probably because the absolute truth about that absolute truth is that it is irrelevant.
With or without the minute contribution to the ocean levels by climate change, the peoples who are relocating because their lands were within inches of sea level would have to do so in future decades anyway, because sea levels will continue to rise with or without man's contribution.
Again, No. The oceans have been rising since the last ice age because the polar ice is melting and the glaciers have been retreating since then. But THIS much ice doesn't usually melt; and the ocean's don't usually rise this much.
In other words, the people who have to move right now due to rising oceans would be just fine, if this was -any- other inter-ice-age period in recorded history.
So, no, they shouldn't 'have to move in future decades anyway'. The ice that is melting NOW, didn't melt after the Ice Age before it, nor the ice age before that, nor even the ice age before that, and on down the line.
This ice doesn't normally melt between Ice Ages! Get it?! But its melting NOW!
Not ALL the ice on the planet melts between Ice Ages. The glaciers retreat, but they only retreat so far. You knew that didn't you? Well THIS time the Ice that doesn't get melted between Ice Ages is melting.
And as a result the oceans are rising MORE *IN TOTAL* than they normally rise between ice ages.
I do wish people wouldn't make such baseless claims as that. "... the first ..."? We have found some fossil remains that predate that (as in, more than 12000 years ago) by quite a bit. One could claim that those others failed to survive where they'd have descendents alive today - raising the question of when they died out and for what reason - but claims that the first humans in the Americas arrived 12000 years ago are obviously false.
Unlike what is claimed in the summary, the study makes no claims about the "first humans" in the Americas, only about the ancestry of the existing descendants of early settlers.
IMHO, it is a stretch to use the analysis they did for making conclusions about migration routes and so forth. We're talking about an analysis of general DNA diversity after over 10,000 years of empires, wars, and extinctions of many lineages.
1) We know there existed in the south, especially the extreme south, morphological diversity non-existent in the north. Some examples are the "giants" Magellan and others saw in Patagonia -- even if you discount his reports, the most conservative estimates still put them at 6 1/2 feet tall, which is still "giant" by comparison to everything else at the time; There is another extinct race -- whose bones we actually have, not based on reports of others -- from the same region, with thick bones, large vertebrae, and prominent browridge, almost as if they were a cross with neanderthals.
2) Analysis of the Y-chromosome DNA distribution and the mitochondrial DNA distribution, show a much different, and apparently unrelated, distribution between the male ancestry of the current populations, and the female ancestry. As with most of Asia and Europe, the female ancestry in the region is older, which stands to reason as with new invasions, female populations are kept, while male populations are killed off and replaced by the invaders. Except, in the Americas, the last successful invaders seem to have a significantly different genetic history than the original females.
3) Certainly, there were migrations over the Bering Strait. There's lots of evidence for that. But IMHO, the only reasonable conclusion is that there were also migrations by sea to the west coast of South America around the same time. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support it, and the only argument against is that people 10kya were too "primitive" to navigate the ocean -- which is nothing but "cave man" prejudice.
That's only the surviving population; it doesn't tell you whether there were previous migrations that didn't survive, or small previous migrations that just completely got absorbed in the last big one.
People that are hypothesizing previous migrations (and there is some archaeological evidence) generally also assume that those populations died out, were killed, or were absorbed by the "native Americans".
That is totally wrong. Even the IPCC report correctly state that the peak temperature during the last interglacial was significantly higher than present temperatures. (It blames a difference in orbital factors, which is unfounded.) There is nothing climatic that is outside the normas at all, certainly not temperature. The only thing that is outside the norms is CO2 concentration.
You speak of Native Americans as if they were all the same culture. Some tribes did live in peace and harmony with each other. Others were warlike. You do know that we got our idea of a Republic from the Iriquois Confederacy, right? Obviously, you didn't get very accurate or in depth "native American heritage".
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am however annoyed that people attempt to use it to claim I have some responsibility in the actions of people that was never alive near a time I was. Even the direct decedents were dead before anyone I know or knew was alive. I'm also annoyed that because I am white, I am included in this little hidden racist agenda. My ancestors came across the pond well after the cowboys and indians games were played. They were also late to the entire slavery issue to.
Automatically suggesting that somehow I am at fault or a lesser person because of it is like saying that all muslims are terrorist because they look the same or practice the same religions. And despite the pop-rap hollywood typed culture, not all black people are dumb, drug dealing, thieving, gang banging thugs either.
As for more native, we have come to a point that the stock definition is appropriate for all Americans. It isn't like the whiteman didn't do something that wasn't already happening. They just did it better. At this point, there is no body alive who was here first. They are all dead now.
The Book of Mormon isn't clear on which direction the ships came from, but the most widely-believed theories are that the earlier migration was from the East (Europe/Africa) while the later one was from the West (India/Asia), both by boats. Also, it doesn't "blow all sorts of holes in their religion", it merely contradicts one of the beliefs.
That was just one small population, not all "native" Americans. IIRC, that group eventually was killed off, as well.
Please, tell what systemic advantages I've enjoyed as a white person in the US, without knowing anything else about me. If you can't name a specific one that I've had for certain, how about a list of advantages, at least one of which is 100% guaranteed to apply to me.
I'm genuinely curious because I find it hard to believe that you can come up with a list that would apply to every single white person in the country, including 3-year-old orphans, prison inmates, and the guy down at the local rehab center who calls himself "Fuzzy" and has an intense fear of the police.
What really makes it sad is that in my community, I am the minority. White people are no longer the majority in many areas of the country.
I was going to leave you alone until I read this last sentence, and it speaks volumes about you. If that makes you sad, I can't possibly imagine the blubbery mess you become when some serious shit hits you, you sad little wanker.
I never said it makes ME sad. You know, I'm sure they offer literacy courses at your local community college. You may want to look into them. Of course, I'm assuming that you CAN'T read. I wouldn't want to insult you by assuming that you were just too lazy to. There is not crime in ignorance, but sloth is a sin. Of course, it is wrong to insult someone based on false information. You just make yourself look not only hateful, but quite foolish.
And since I doubt you can understand my original point, I'll explain it. It is sad when the government, in order to elevate "minorities", mandates breaks to a race of people over the other, especially when the minority race gets the short end of the stick.
but being white does not mean "advantaged"
Depends what country you're in. In the US, that's a big fat yes, if only because whites are the majority.
Ever been to McAllen Texas? How about Laredo or San Antonio? Miami Florida or Ruidoso or Yuma New Mexico? Sorry, but white people are not the majority in these communities.
I don't care how many laws have been passed, or how many times some politician or pundit has stood up and said there is no racism in America, normative ethics and homogeneity will always be there.
Racism is not prejudiced. It affects all peoples, regardless of their race. So yes, there is racism in America and everywhere else in the world. The way to stop it by treating all people equally, blind to their race.
This is, of course, before we even get mired in the way the US has handled its slavery and segregation issues.
And how am I responsible for that? I have never owned a slave. My ancestors never owned a slave. I come from a long line of poor farmers.
If you want to give people a break because they are poor or "less advantaged", then look at their bank statements and their high school's rating and NOT the color of their skin.
What penetrating insight! Shame you stopped digging after only a couple of inches. The way you talk about it, all jobs, schools and neighborhoods are created equal, huh? Thanks for wasting my time with such a shallow and useless argument.
Actually, the argument is not mine. It is from a guy called Martin Luther King Jr. The original goes like this:
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Mine is the first generation to graduate from college in my family. My mother worked several jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. My brother and I both joined the US Army to help pay for school and worked multiple jobs to pay for living expenses. What advantage did my "whiteness" give me?
Could we have used the help? Sure! Was it available? Nope. Even though I have held a job since I was 13, that was not a consideration when it came to college admission. The color of my skin was.
So, quotas suck, got a better idea to help undo hundreds of years of intolerance and abuse?
More intolerance and abuse is not the answer. Two wrongs don't make a right. How about leveling the playing field? How about considering people based on their abilities and their character and stop playing favorites based on race or gender? It was not right when it was done in the '60s and it's not right now.
Al
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The "Topper Site" has radiocarbon dates to about 45,000 B.P. This indicates there were previous migrations. Over the course of 30,000 years, the genetic marker discussed in this study would have integrated itself into the entire population, regardless of when the root migration took place. I'm afraid the conclusions drawn by the researchers are not accurate, and do not reflect the latest archaeological data available.
My family (the white portion) came here in the 1600s, just poor white farmers. The other half of my family, "Native Americans", came here thousands of years before that. Neither is any better or worse than the other. Throughout history there have been injustices perpetrated on every group of every color. We can't remedy what happened to them; we can only make it better from now on. That would be the best way to honor our ancestors.
If we're going to demand reparations for past wrongs no matter how long ago, then Egypt (because I'm also a small part Jewish) and Rome (because I'm Christian) owe me a bunch. :)
I don't know that anything in their plight is all that different then anything in mine. I mean, I grew up relatively poor, My parent worked but got divorced when I was 8 or so, Dad got laid off when the factory closed and moved out of state, we lost the house and had to move in a government project, after being there for about 5 years, Dad finally got another job and we moved to another apartment but money was tight and I had to find a job to "help out". MY paltry $150 a month contribution wasn't much but it helped. I worked for minimum wage ($2.95 then $3.35) until I was 19, Was planning on going into the marines but my job and a poor attitude stopped my grades from being high enough to be accepted (even though I scored high on the asvab.
I could go on and on about shit jobs I had to take, the failed business adventures, the successful ones, and all. But I still don't see the advantage I had. Maybe it was because I just took the worst and attempted to make the best of it. I don't know. But outside some drug habit or something, I don't think I could have been much worse off. Definitely not in a position of being advantaged over someone else.
This study may well be entirely supported and its sample group representative. I have no expertise in this matter at all.
That disclaimer aside, there is a chance that this study's base assumption belies a fatal flaw. The exact percentage of Indigenous peoples to the Americas that survived the epidemics unleashed upon them by the Early Europeans is unknown. The percentage of the survivors may be lower than 10% of the general population after 1492 than existed before that time.
Testing a population after a **massive** cull brought on by an epidemic centuries ago is a very slippery genetic slope.
By way of a poor analogy, Cystic fibrosis is a mutation traceable to Scandanavia in the middle ages where the mutation - as horrible as its longterm effects may be - played a significant role in the carriers of the mutation having a genetic advantage to survive infection by bubonic plague. What means miserable death now meant life, then.
If (and that's a BIG if) the genetic marker they are tracing played a role in the survival of the current population from the epidemic unleashed upon them by the Europeans (believed to be primarily small pox) then what is being studied as a representative sample of an entire population may, in fact, be an isolated view of a trait that the survivors of the smallpox epidemic all shared. As a consequence, this result may have nothing to do with the vastly larger genetic base of the those who died and the migration patterns THEIR genes would have shown.
We simply don't know. I suppose that DNA samples from those frozen Mayan children (whose genes were not selected in any way by epidemiology) could be illuminating on this issue.
If you are, in fact, examining a control group, but believe that biased control group to be a representative sample of a much larger general population, your data may well be fatally flawed.
.Robert