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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
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Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Baja Invasion
Baja Invasion
All of us Bajaphiles complain about the hordes of new vacation visitors and retirees from the north cluttering up our formerly pristine Baja
California. In my case it was Vini, Vidi, Velcro, I Came, I Saw, I Stuck Around. We should not complain. We are all Johnny Come Latelies.
New discoveries reveal that island hoppers in boats have been coming here from all over the Pacific rim for the last 40,000 years. 8,000 years ago it
was like Easter Week here. Lots of vacationers in love with the sealife found the seas full of good things to eat, the climate moderate, no time
share PC guys and gals pulling their sleeves.
I think most of these early visitors came just as the mammoths, camelids, sloths, etc. of the Ice Age were disappearing. I believe there might have
been many more deer and antelope but early spring breakers would have had a hard time roundin’ them up to make stew. It is hard to say what riches
the seas might have held way back when but if you let your imagination run it will give new meaning to the words “wide open”.
I’ve explored lots of southern Baja beaches and I can say that very few of them do not have evidence of kitchen middens, mounds of shells from
shellfish which sustained perhaps hundreds of early tribes of visitors from Kamchatka to Chili.
A couple of miles from my house there is a large, well preserved early man surface site that holds literally thousands of worked hand tools and
middens which might be evidence of either large or extended occupation. I think these people were here 4,000 years ago (Mexican Natural History dept.
tagged them as Las Palmas Group) because the site is only 5 meters above sea level – 10,000 years ago the sea level might have been 60 or 70 meters
higher. Thank God these folks were few and primitive because about that time in history the Albans pushed the walrus to the brink of extinction in
the northern seas. Only very recent visitors have had the luxury, the freedom, the permission to loot and pollute this little sea.
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FARASHA
Senior Nomad
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Nice and interesting findings Osprey.
I wonder what people will find in some thousands of years from now - OUR trash I guess, buried under concrete. Asking themself - WHY the hell they did
it. 
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David K
Honored Nomad
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Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Nice post Osprey!
Farasha, today's trash is tomorrow's treasures!!!
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FARASHA
Senior Nomad
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You are probably right David - maybe some petrified pampers are going to be displayed in the Guggenheim??
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Cypress
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Osprey, Thanks for sharing the history.
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Skeet/Loreto
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Thanks Osprey:
And I had the opportunity to see some of the Last of the Vagabondos Sailing the Sea of Cortez, just 35 short years ago!!
Skeet/Loreto
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Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
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Mood: Just dancing through life
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Osprey
It would have been fun to listen as you and Jimmy Smith spoke of such things. I often listened to Don Jimmy expound on things such as these. So
many bits and pieces of real Baja knowledge lost when he passed on.
Please keep sharing...................even if it is with your tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Thanks!
My smidgen of a claim to fame is that I have had so many really good friends. By Bernie Swaim December 2007
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abreojos
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Very clear and interesting point made osprey. We are just a speck in time and now matter what we do, eventually nature will undo it in time!
I sometimes dream about being the only man left on earth along with a couple dozen beautiful young women and it is my job to re-populate the earth!
Let you imagine run wild with that idea some time...
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vandenberg
Elite Nomad
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| Quote: | Originally posted by abreojos
I sometimes dream about being the only man left on earth along with a couple dozen beautiful young women and it is my job to re-populate the earth!
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And who will get to marry you, unless one of the maidens is ordained.
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abreojos
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I don't think I will need anyone's permission and I do not see any reason to carry on that tradition. I'd like to explore other possibilities and not
pass on possessivness & jellousy. But then again brothers & sisters would have no ther choice but each other. Ok, so we'll divide up the
planet into small groups, one on each continient so our kids don't have to marry each other. I'll take Australia and remember Antartica is a
contenient...Is there any takers?
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
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Location: Redding, Northern CA
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Mood: optimistic
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Osprey-------
----Great post!
I too have wondered and wandered amongst the evidence of the "ancient one's" in Baja. For me, it is especially rewarding and inspiring when I
encounter middens on very remote beaches, like the ones north of the BdLA, or sleeping circles and flake scatters upon lonely ridges, and in remote
arroyos near the sea, or grinding holes in granite boulders along the base of the Sierra's-----pottery scatters, etc, etc.. I have very little
formal training in these matters, but I really get excited when I see such remains-----I just like to look at them, and let my mind
wander------linger, and then just walk away, leaving them to rest as they have for centuries.
I am thinking that you are the same.
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David K
Honored Nomad
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I feel the same way Barry... It is great to visit ancient sites even though most are documented... However, it's really exciting when you find a site
that you didn't know about in advance, like this one east of El Socorro...
Don Jimmy was interested in the first inhabitants of Baja Sur, since they were a different race than the rest of the peninsula! Polynesian perhaps?
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wilderone
Ultra Nomad
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I was excited to find that the entire area at Gecko's and along the shoreline/dune/flats areas south of there are littered with scraper tools; and the
cliff bank is a midden about a foot thick stretching a good 40 yards. Intact (more or less) as it is, it provides a clear picture of what was for
dinner, and the species of shellfish apprently in abundance at the time.
There are so many small habitation sites within Baja, I really doubt that the minor ones are documented. During the LNG construction project in
northern Baja, an important artifact/burial discovery was made last year; and another important discovery in the Guadalupe Valley last year or two as
well. More and more discoveries come to light as knowledgeable people uncover and report them. Otherwise, they lie in situ for us to ponder.
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Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
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Mood: Dreamin' of Baja
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Here is a cool article from 2003 on Baja's "Ancient Ones" from the Sept. 6 edition of Science News, Vol 164, No. 10, p. 150.
I may have posted this before, but this is a good place for a repost.
| Quote: | Continental Survivors: Baja skulls shake up American ancestry
Bruce Bower
Around 600 years ago, the Pericú people roamed the southern tip of what is now Mexico's Baja peninsula, a finger of land that extends below
California. Although the Spanish conquest spelled their demise in the 16th century, the Pericú were living links to America's first settlers,
according to a new anthropological study.
Pericú skulls closely resemble 8,000- to-11,000-year-old human skulls unearthed in Brazil, say Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona,
Spain, and his colleagues. The Brazilian skulls look strikingly like those of today's Australian aborigines (SN: 4/7/01, p. 212: http://www.sciencenews.org/20010407/fob1.asp). Moreover, the scientists contend, the data indicate that the Pericú were unrelated to modern Native
American and eastern Asian groups.
FACING BACK. Two views (above and below) of a skull from a Baja population that may illuminate the settlement of the Americas.
González-José
These findings support the scientists' theory that both the first Americans, who arrived at least 12,000 years ago, and the first Australians, who
showed up down under around 40,000 years ago, have a common root in southern Asia. A second wave of American settlers, the ancestors of present-day
Native Americans, immigrated from northeastern Asia a mere several thousand years ago, González-José's group concludes in the Sept. 4 Nature.
That scenario clashes with the traditional view that both the initial and later waves of American settlers came from northeastern Asia.
"Slowly, we are realizing that the ancestry of the Americas is as complex and as difficult to trace as that of other human lineages around the world,"
comments anthropologist Tom D. Dillehay of the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
González-José and his coworkers compared measurements of 33 Pericú skulls housed at a Mexican museum with those of 22 ancient Brazilian skulls and
hundreds of skulls from a worldwide sample of contemporary groups.
The Baja and Brazilian skulls exhibit telling similarities, the investigators say. These include long, narrow braincases and short, thin faces, a
pattern akin to that of modern inhabitants of southern Asia and South Pacific islands.
The Pericú and the ancient Brazilians were descendents of America's initial settlers, the scientists propose. After the last ice age ended around
10,000 years ago, they add, the expansion of a desert across the middle of the Baja peninsula isolated the Pericú from other Native American groups.
Some of the continent's first arrivals probably traveled south along the Pacific coast from Alaska to reach the Baja peninsula's southern tip,
González-José says. Researchers typically theorize that after trekking through Alaska, the first Americans headed south through an inland ice
corridor.
It's still unclear whether the Baja population descended from the continent's ancient settlers or grew to resemble prehistoric Brazilians by virtue of
adapting to a New World environment that's similar to Brazil's, Dillehay says.
According to archaeologist David J. Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the next step is to extract DNA from the Baja and Brazilian
skulls and determine whether the two groups had close genetic ties. For now, Meltzer remains convinced by skeletal and archaeological evidence that
points to Siberia as the homeland of America's first settlers.
References:
Dillehay, T.D. 2003. Tracking the first Americans. Nature 425(Sept. 4):23-24. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/425023a.
González-José, R., et al. 2003. Craniometric evidence for Palaeoamerican survival in Baja California. Nature 425(Sept. 4):62-65. Abstract available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature01816.
Further Readings:
Bower, B. 2001. Early Brazilians unveil African look. Science News 159(April 7):212. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/20010407/fob1.asp.
Sources:
Tom D. Dillehay
Department of Anthropology
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506
Rolando González-José
Universitat de Barcelona
Facultat de Biologia
Secció d'Antropologia
Diagonal 645
08028 Barcelona
Spain
David J. Meltzer
Department of Anthropology
Southern Methodist University
Box 750336
Dallas, TX 752750336
-------------------------------------
Letters:
The multiple-origin theory of ancient New World immigration reported in this article has a long and respectable scholarly history, though it's
tarnished from time to time by enthusiasts for one race or another. For an early popular treatment, see Men out of Asia by Harold Sterling Gladwin
(1947, McGraw-Hill). Gladwin even mentioned the Pericú, who were cited in the article.
Gene McWhorter
Longview, Texas
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FARASHA
Senior Nomad
Posts: 848
Registered: 6-3-2006
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This thread turns out to be the best - really great info here.
Thanks Osprey and Taco d B
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FARASHA
Senior Nomad
Posts: 848
Registered: 6-3-2006
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BACK to the ROOTS then - for the majority of the BajaNomad's ??!! 
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Osprey
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3694
Registered: 5-23-2004
Location: Baja Ca. Sur
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Twi lite zone
"Imagine if you will....." Take a look at Summanus's chart and imagine the Eskimos to be protoJapanese (today's Ainu from Hokkaido) who came all the
way round in boats eating all the good things in the sea and near the shore across the northern Pacific rim, finding themselves at the opening of
Vizcaino Bay. They can go west 70 miles to get around the bay and go south or THEY CAN GO INTO THE BAY, FIND THE WHALES AND SEALS AND OTTERS, LIVE
THERE WHILE THEY ROAM THE NEARBY MOUNTAINS MAKING CAVE PAINTINGS AND PICTOGRAPHS OF SEA ANIMALS. hhmmmm?
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Summanus
Nomad
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Or..."Name that tune."
"Row, row, row your boat..." or "Follow the yellow-line road,.. Follow the yellow-line road.." to the land of Baja?
Some of those Asian boat-types may have noticed the huge Pacific waves, storms, crashing surf, and lack of sweet, plentiful, fresh,
drinkable..'water'. (definitely pre-Pacifico era)
Brainfart idea #3. Alternative routing for seasickness: Take Asia-North America toll-free landbridge..turn right onto Glacier Route 66..tailgate
bison herd south.
Rock painting travel ads back then read: "Picture yourself on an easy stroll through the ice corridor from 'Alaska' to 'Baja'.!"
(...like a lot of us do these days  )
They might follow the migrating herds of food south through the open glacier passes of those by-gone days?..munching nuts, berries, and road-apples
along the way?
(..okay, so they probably passed on the road-apples, but I betcha they used them for fuel.)
The southernmost glacier-fleeing nomads then got bottled up in what are now the golf courses of Palm Springs and were forced south by frostbitten
nomad newbies.
And that is how Baja came to be.
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abreojos
Nomad
Posts: 168
Registered: 2-9-2006
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I agree, there is a lot of great information shared here and I'll even get aa little serious and share this photo of an museum quality spear and
arrowheads found in Abreojos. Thousands have been stolen by Gringo surfers who traded pot to the locals for them and paid for their vacations and
drugs by selling them back in the states.
Some of the best were found on my property, a fovorite place for the natives to fish and chip arrow and spearheads.
[Edited on 1-13-2007 by abreojos]
[Edited on 1-13-2007 by abreojos]
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abreojos
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That is a photo of stolen points. I got it from a local who helped. He has his own private collection and all of them are better than anything I have
seen in San Ignacio, Loreto or La Paz.
That statue is great Summanus. I hope you clobbered that thief really good.
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