Slashdot Mirror
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
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!"
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
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."
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
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."
No, but it does suggest that the genetic evidence for this was not found in this study. Small genetic populations can easily be lost in a larger population. All this says is that the populations which survive today have markers and appropriate genetic variation to be descendants of descendants of populations in Asia.
This doesn't explain the cultural aspects of how the move occurred or how they were culturally linked to each other and to groups outside of the Americas. This mostly reinforces what was already known: that around 15,000 years ago, there was a dramatic population increase in the Americas starting in the Pacific Northwest and moving down to South America.
This information doesn't say anything about a land bridge or existing populations of people except to say that if there were existing populations that their genetics didn't survive to modern times in significant amounts which is suggestive of small populations which did not integrate into the new-coming population; if they existed at all.
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".
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.
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. :)