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Ancestry Surprises From New Genetics Analysis Method
An anonymous reader commends a recently published study involving a new way to analyze genetic variation in human populations (full article published in PLOS Genetics): "[S]cientists from Ireland, the UK and the US analysed 2,540 genetic markers in the DNA of almost 1,000 people from around the world whose genetic material had been collected by the Human Genome Diversity Project. The results include a number of surprises... the Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland... there must have been a period of gene flow from northern Europe to east Asia. The study also shed light on the peopling of the Americas, as the results suggest that the native populations of north and south America have different origins."
Well, there's anthropological evidence that there were several migrations from Asia to the Americas, namely, two island-hopping sea routes and one over the land bridge in the north. This just sort of confirms this idea.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Probably one of the best sources I can think of off the top of my head is the book, Guns Germs and Steel. The book gives a great in depth look at the origins of man, and the crops/domesticated animals we eat as well as lots of maps showing movements through the ages. It's a pretty long read though, but well worth it. The book also goes well into why the decendants of those from Europe and Asia control the world today and not those in Africa, North America or Oceana.
Have you checked out Movie S1 in the current article? It's an animation of how people moved based on DNA evidence.
Also, the world didn't look any different geologically, if that's what you mean by "what the world looked like back in the ages". The timescales of human migrations are far smaller than those of geological processes.
ResidntGeek
Except for the Bering land bridge. That's a function of sea level, but the world did look quite a bit different. Lots more ice around, less water.
Extensive studies of mitochondrial DNA have pretty much confirmed migrations from east Asia to northwest America, then down south. There were, of course, more than one wave of such migrations. I doubt very much that the natives of north and south america "have different origins", because that would contradict well-established evidence that this is not so. However, they could certainly have a different mix of dna mutations showing various mixes from different areas.
> If people reached Easter Island, which is almost off the coast of South America, what would have stopped Polynesian explorers from
> traveling all the way to Chile?
As I understand it, current thinking is that polynesians did make it to South America, which is where they got gourds and sweet potatoes from. Then, they turned around and followed the prevailing winds home.
Thor Heyerdahl thought that polynesians came from South America and followed the prevailing winds in migrating west. But, genetic evidence proves that they come from Taiwain. The current theory is that they explored into the wind because it gave them a free trip home if they didn't find anything.
I'm not trying to perpetuate a religious argument or anything, but I would just like to point out two or three things in response. First, map 34 in Figure 4 shows the Colombian people having some origin in the regions around Eastern Iran and Western India, not China. The Jewish nation was taken captive into Persia (modern Iran) circa 722 B.C. A couple of other contemporary invasions also sent descendants of Israel all over the old world. That is early enough to match Mormon scripture, though the migratory pattern doesn't match the scenario described in the book. Second, the Book of Mormon states the people described therein were of the tribe of Manasseh, not Judah. "Jew" only referred to their nationality, not their ethnicity. Third, most Jews in Israel today are descendants of the European Jews of the Diaspora rather than those present in the land of Palestine during the later Biblical periods.
Disease made all the difference. Europeans had gunpowder, gun, steel armor and horses over the Africans too, but Africa had it's own terrible diseases. The dominant population in Africa is still black. It's estimated that 80-95% of North American natives died from disease. For comparison, the black plague killed 30-50% of the population of Europe.
There is some suggestive evidence: the Fu Sang legends, South American folktales about "people from the sea", old stone anchors found off the Pacific coast, certain artistic motifs found in both Chinese and South American art. Joseph Campbell spends a few pages on this idea in one of the essays in Flight of the Wild Gander, but I'm too lazy to dig up my copy at the moment. I don't mean to suggest that it's a well-established mainstream theory, but IMHO there're enough hints to call it a sensible possibility.
Just because Columbus and Company got slavery and rapine on their minds the moment they arrived, doesn't mean previous visitors did.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood