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Osprey
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For the Tripper: Here's a short piece from National Geo. from 2003
Who Were The First Americans?Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
September 3, 2003
A study of skulls excavated from the tip of Baja California in Mexico suggests that the first Americans may not have been the ancestors of today's
Amerindians, but another people who came from Southeast Asia and the southern Pacific area.
The question of who colonized the Americas, and when, has long been hotly debated. Traditionally, Native Americans are believed to have descended from
northeast Asia, arriving over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska some 12,000 years ago and then migrating across North and South America.
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But recent research, including the Baja California study, indicates that the initial settlement of the continent was instead driven by Southeast
Asians who occupied Australia 60,000 years ago and then expanded into the Americas about 13,500 years ago, prior to Mongoloid people arriving from
northeast Asia.
The skulls from Baja California, which may date back only a few hundred years, have slender-looking faces that are different from the broad-cheeked
craniums of modern Amerindians, the descendants of the Mongoloid people.
"Our results change the traditional idea that all modern Amerindians present morphological affinities with East Asians as a result of a single
migration," said Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. "The settlement of the New World is better explained
by considering a continuous influx of people from Asia."
The new study is reported in this week's issue of the science journal Nature, and could further fuel the controversy surrounding the origins of the
first Americans, which is a controversial issue for American Indians in particular.
Challenging Clovis
Conventional wisdom says that Native Americans descended from prehistoric hunters who walked from northeast Asia across a land bridge, formed at the
end of the Ice Age, to Alaska some 12,000 years ago. American Indians resemble the people of Mongolia, China and Siberia.
In the 1930s, archeologists found stone spear points among the bones of mammoths near Clovis, New Mexico. Radio carbon dating in the 1950s showed that
the oldest site was 11,400 years old. The sites were assumed, for years, to be the first evidence of human occupation in the Americas.
But more recent discoveries challenge the Clovis story. In 1996, archeologists in southern Chile found weapons and tools dating back 12,500 years. In
Brazil, they found some of the oldest human remains in the Americas, among them a skeleton—named Luzia—that is more than 11,000 years old.
Luzia did not look like American Indians. Instead, her facial features matched most closely with the native Aborigines in Australia. These people date
back to about 60,000 years and were themselves descended from the first humans who probably originated in Africa.
The researchers believe Luzia was part of a people, referred to as "Paleoamericans," who migrated into the Americas—possibly even by boat—long before
the Mongoloid people. These Paleoamericans may later have been wiped out by or interbred with Mongoloids invading from the north.
Continued on Next Page >>
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David K
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Very cool!!!
Keep it coming amigos!!
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elbeau
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| Quote: | Originally posted by mtgoat666
the potential for archaeo tourism in baja -- unless elbow finds the lost civilization -- archaeo is interesting to the sensitive liberal types...
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...even elbeau (at least spell it right) is coming to his senses and realizing that even if there were a lot of past Baja spring-breakers, the
likelihood of finding large-scale ruins is tremendously remote, but the chance that Baja had significant cultures that haven't made it on the radar is
real.
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Osprey
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Here's a link to the Santa Rosa Channel Island colony. (12,000 ybp)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12646364
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grizzlyfsh95
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
Paleeez what? |
Paleeez stop using hyperbole when you preach your politics.
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Osprey
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Politics? Politics? The whole east side of the 68,000 sq miles of the SOC is DEAD. The water is totally absent of oxygen. They are called "dead zones"
because all the sea animals are gone or dead. The fertilizer from the runoff of the agriculture of the Yaqui valley and the effluent from the shrimp
farms have spawned phytoplankton who use up all the O. LOOK IT UP CHUMP. I have no causes, no political bent you can find -- I report, you decide.
[Edited on 4-8-2011 by Osprey]
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bajalera
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My husband was the archaeologist who recovered the unusual skulls and strange artifacts from Cape Region caves, and named the Las Palmas Culture. The
people who have periodically "rediscovered" a Melanesian connection based on the similarity of hyperdolichocephalic (high-sided, narrow-headed) skulls
have, so far, pretty much ignored the research that has been published.
Note for Grizzly: With one piddly little star, you haven't paid enough dues to breeze in here and rudely assail an old-timer's thoughtful comments.
Mind your manners, junior.
[Edited on 4-9-2011 by bajalera]
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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Bajatripper
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Osprey
For the Tripper: Here's a short piece from National Geo. from 2003
September 3, 2003
A study of skulls excavated from the tip of Baja California in Mexico suggests that the first Americans may not have been the ancestors of today's
Amerindians, but another people who came from Southeast Asia and the southern Pacific area.
The question of who colonized the Americas, and when, has long been hotly debated. Traditionally, Native Americans are believed to have descended from
northeast Asia, arriving over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska some 12,000 years ago and then migrating across North and South America.
The skulls from Baja California, which may date back only a few hundred years, have slender-looking faces that are different from the broad-cheeked
craniums of modern Amerindians, the descendants of the Mongoloid people.
"Our results change the traditional idea that all modern Amerindians present morphological affinities with East Asians as a result of a single
migration," said Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. "The settlement of the New World is better explained
by considering a continuous influx of people from Asia."
Continued on Next Page >> |
Thanks for the post, Osprey, but I'm still skeptical.
The fact that the study's leader, Rolando Gonzalez-Jose is a physical anthropologist and not an archaeologist makes me suspect that he is simply
rehashing Paul Rivet's work. Note the article mentions only that the skulls were dug up on the tip of Baja, but no date is given. The original skulls
Rivet studied are kept in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris, not far from Barcelona (relatively speaking).
Like Rivet, Gonzalez-Jose focuses on hyperdolychocephalic (narrowness of the skull as measured front-to-back) characteristics of these skulls to
arrive at his conclusions. Rivet erroneously stated that hyperdolychocephalic skulls were found in the Americas only in the Cape Region of Baja and at
Lagoa Santa, Brazil. His implication was that early Melanesian immigrants landed at the Cape Region and along the west coast of South America. The
South Americans then hiked over the Andes (no small feat, especially considering they were Pacific Islanders) to settle on the east coast of South
America--and left no traces of their passing anywhere along the way. Later physical anthropologists and archaeologists have noted that the
hyperdolychocephalic condition is actually quite common throughout the Americas (I couldn't help but notice that Gonzalez-Jose avoids mentioning this,
instead focusing on where the condition is found in Asia-- which doesn't really prove the point he's trying to make).
Osprey, I have no problem with accepting that early American man arrived much earlier than previously thought--indeed, some scientists who study the
domestication of plants don't think that corn could have been domesticated in the time alloted under the old time frame. Indeed, some early Americans
may well have come from the western Pacific Islands. I just don't think that this study proves a whole lot that hasn't been theorized before--since at
least Rivet's time in the early 1900s (Rivet also mentions Australians migrating to the Americas). It's an interesting theory, but I need more than
narrow skulls to climb on board.
If Bajalera ever finishes her book on the first Bajacalifornianos, she has a whole chapter dedicated to pointing out the flaws in this theory.
[Edited on 4-9-2011 by Bajatripper]
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David K
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Love it! 
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Osprey
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Tripper, Lera, I love it too. Great stuff, a good look at what's happened in the scientific community all over in search of unanswered questions.
Tripper -- thanks for bringing good science to pour in the pot. Gotta go now but I'll add more tomorrow to a rich soup of borrowed knowledge that will
eventually show us that none of our theories should be ignored, that someday they might all come together to make a multi-migration map we can all be
happy with; the idea that people got here all the ways they could, for many reasons, stayed a little and died out, got assimilated and/or moved on.
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woody with a view
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| Quote: |
Gotta go now but I'll add more tomorrow to a rich soup of borrowed knowledge that will eventually show us that none of our theories should be ignored,
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PROMISE?
this place is just an echo chamber when the Gavilon stays away!
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Osprey
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More links as promised.
http://www.innerexplorations.com/bajatext/an.htm
http://archaeology.about.com/od/pathroughpd/qt/pacific_coast...
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monoloco
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The first link was interesting to me because I was just at the anthropological museum in La Paz and saw their exhibit of the metal items found on
Espiritu Santos. I wasn't aware that any of the indigenous cultures here possessed metallurgical capabilities but the items were dated well before the
Spanish period.
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Osprey
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Another link: ocean travel in skin boats 5000 YBP
http://www.paabo.ca/uirala/index.html
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Gypsy Jan
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My Two Cents
Osprey writes in a very dense, self-referential way that is off-putting, at least to me.
He writes from the heart, but doesn't lead the reader in to a plan for the subject of his concern.
I believe in what he is saying, but he offers no format for action to preserve these historic sites.
Sorry, Osprey, I do not mean to offend you, GJ
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Osprey
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Jan, no offense taken. I'm not sure what self-referential means. Mostly I write fiction and the stories are told by the characters and me. Thoughts
about who came here, when, from where, why, show the reader my curiosity lead me to investigate and the rest is just what I found, what I think about
it. The best and oldest evidence of early man visits to Baja California are deep under the sea all along its shores. Mexico knows only too well what a
wealth of antiquity resource it harbors and is putting into place well formulated plans to protect and preserve. I have no plan. I'm a visitor just
like the rest. If a Nomad reader makes his way down the rabbit hole of the internet to learn more about early man and he is enlightened, it would
please me greatly to know he followed me and my sometimes clumsy moves to a better understanding of where we live and play.
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Gypsy Jan
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Hi Osprey
When I read your posts, I feel like I have wandered into a dinner party where everyone else is perfectly dressed and is up to speed on the subject.
I feel awkward, uniformed and that I am digging the toe of my shoe into the carpet.
Just me, you know. GJ
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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