"America Unearthed" Guest Jim Chatters: New DNA Evidence Links Paleoindians to Modern Native Americans

5/16/2014

Several alert readers sent me links to a variety of news articles announcing the discovery of a 12,000 year old skeleton in the Yucatán Peninsula, which was reported yesterday in the online version of the journal Science in the article “Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton and mtDNA Link Paleoamericans and Modern Native Americans.” The bones, which were discovered underwater along with the remains of Ice Age fauna, are among the oldest ever found in the Americas. Tests of her mitochondrial DNA, however, are causing even more of a stir, helping to pinpoint the origin of the first Americans—and suggesting that some of the wilder claims about their origins are wrong.

First, a word of caution: Because the DNA sample came from only one individual, the conclusions are not, strictly speaking, definitive. However, the scientists who tested the bones of the girl they named Naia, who died around the age of 15, found that her mitochondrial DNA provided a direct connection to the people of Beringia, long thought to be the origin point for the first Americans. She had a DNA marker common throughout the Americas and which is believed to have evolved in Beringia among a genetically isolated population before the peopling of the Americas.

According to the researchers, this has several dramatic implications:

The first Americans therefore came from Beringia and not, as some have suggested, from the East Asian population that gave rise to the Polynesians, or from Europe.
The Americas were most likely populated in one major wave rather than a series of smaller migrations.
Morphological changes between Paleoindians and modern Native Americans are the result of rapid evolution within the Americas, not due to an influx of genes from Asia or Europe, or the “replacement” of the Paleoindians with successive migrations from Asia.

As the paper put it, “The differences in craniofacial form between Native Americans and their Paleoamerican predecessors are best explained as evolutionary changes that postdate the divergence of Beringians from their Siberian ancestors.”

These conclusions appear in a paper whose lead author is none other than James Chatters, whom Scott Wolter has repeatedly praised, as recently as April 22 on Frank from Queens’s podcast, as being one of the few archaeologists open to the possibility that Kennewick Man was not related to modern Native Americans. You will recall that Chatters appeared on America Unearthed a few months ago to talk about his previous conclusion, before the most recent evidence, that based on skull shape Kennewick Man was most closely related to Polynesians and the Ainu of Japan, prompting Wolter to incorrectly conclude that Polynesians were in the Americas at least 9,600 years ago. (Polynesians would not become a separate people and culture for at least 8,000 years.) Both Chatters and Wolter placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of skull shape for determining affiliation. At the time I noted that Chatters was an outlier among physical anthropologists, who preferred to see Paleoindian skulls as examples of genetic diversity in the founding population of the Americas which gradually diminished over time.

Chatters has now concluded that the Polynesian hypothesis is no longer supportable given the new DNA evidence. The “Polynesian” appearance of Paleoindian skulls reflects an ancestral Beringian population which evolved over time in a different direction. Chatters now believes that Paleoindians and modern Native Americans are a single people. “Do they come from different parts of the world? This comes back with the answer, probably not,” he told the Washington Post yesterday. His coauthor, Deborah Bolnick, was more explicit. According to her, the weight of evidence shows that “Native Americans can be traced to a Beringian source population.”

This newest evidence does not conclusively exclude other Asian or even European migrations to the Americas, but it narrows the area where such migrants could have conceivably impacted American prehistory. In theory, of course, the Solutreans could have come around 20,000 BCE and then been killed off by the Paleoamericans in 11,000 BCE, as some fringe history believers argue. But the evidence that the supposed “Caucasoid” skeletons of the Americas, like Kennewick Man and other Paleoamericans, are morphologically identical to one now shown to be genetically related to modern Native Americans and ancestral Beringian populations makes such claims much less likely.

46 Comments

[jad]

5/16/2014 03:55:57 am

this NOVA episode suggests that mammoth bones from
50,000 years ago had cut marks on them that came from
stone tools. Tools imply human hands, and a population.
If there was a much earlier population that decreased over
time or had new arrivals enter its genome, we get to see
both continuity and change expressed. 35,000 years does
give ample time for small mutations, so this has a larger
context. Clearly the DNA of the more recent waves of Ice
Age immigration point to Beringia, & the girl on the Yukatan
gives us a link to the Siberian youth from 24,ooo years ago
and Kennewick Man. In time, many of the traits an ancestor
once had could have been dropped. I know I carry Neandertal
DNA but I do not carry all the genes a very ancient ancestor
had at the onset of the last Ice Age. Even though I think that
the Atlantic allowed travel in both directions, I don't think we
had any genocidal events in our prehistory prior to the recent
Neolithic Revolution. I am inclined to place the metaphoric myth
of the Dragon's Teeth being sewn into the soil at the start of the
Bronze Age. I also think Plato's 9000 years before his time date
could imply a sea culture and possible empire as a source point.
I think trade routes were extensive and ancient, but that modern
war demands stockpiles of supplies and large populations. I agree
that the DNA allows conclusions to be reached, but does not sum
up exactly who is also in the extended community, each person
does not live a life in total isolation, there is a context to this all.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2191520252/

5/16/2014 04:02:43 am

NARRATOR: One hundred thousand years ago, on planet Earth, huge sheets of ice surge and retreat.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: This just doesn't happen, man.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: Well, it's happening in your lifetime.

NARRATOR: Now, a stunning find in an ancient lake promises a glimpse into this exotic Ice Age realm and at the fantastic creatures that ruled the land: ancient elephants like mammoths and mastodons; giant bison; sloths and camels.

KIRK JOHNSON (Denver Museum of Nature & Science): Tusks, skulls, pelvises, shoulder blades; it was phenomenal. There were so many bones.

NARRATOR: But there is a mystery about this find.

DANIEL FISHER (University of Michigan): We really don't have a way to explain this.

NARRATOR: They're finding thousands of bones of many different types, but most of them are mastodon, ancient elephants.

In the depths of the Ice Age, entire families of these mighty beasts came down to this ancient lake to graze. And their bones reveal tantalizing clues that, very suddenly, something may have wiped them out.

KIRK JOHNSON: It all starts to make you think that, boy, there was something about this lake that was dangerous.

NARRATOR: What were these animals doing here? And what is it about this lake that killed them?

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: This is definitely a mammoth, right here.

NARRATOR: For these bone detectives, it's a dream site that comes with a twist: a dam is planned here, giving them just 50 days to dig out the fossil clues.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: That skull is massive.

NARRATOR: Can they solve the riddle in time? Ice Age Death Trap, right now, on this NOVA/National Geographic special.

One hundred thousand years ago, here in the Colorado Rockies, massive ancient elephants called mastodons gather on the shore of a small lake, a watering hole. But a catastrophe may be stirring beneath their feet.

Today, Snowmass, Colorado: Thirty feet down in the muddy bottom of that same ancient lake, paleontologists are digging up a stunning number of mastodon bones. It may be the biggest mastodon find ever.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: …a lot of baby bits. A baby tooth, got another baby tooth over here.

NARRATOR: They are also unearthing the remains from other Ice Age creatures, …

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: This is insane. This is insane.

NARRATOR: …like this horn of a giant extinct bison. But it's the mastodons that confound them.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: We think this may be one of the largest mastodons ever found.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: Got that rib, this tailbone, that rib.

NARRATOR: It looks like an entire group of mastodons died here.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: This busted right through the skull.

NARRATOR: Did something catastrophic happen to kill off all these ancient elephants? And what was it?

The mystery starts to unfold in October of 2010. Bulldozer driver Jesse Steele is digging out a new reservoir for the Snowmass ski resort. He notices something coming off the blade of his 'dozer.

JESSE STEELE: That's when I discovered that I had jawbones and teeth of something, and I had no clue what in the world it was. I laid my hand on top of the tooth, and I could still see the tooth around my hand.

KENT OLSON: The jawbone was probably that big.

NARRATOR: It turns out the tooth and the jawbone are from another type of ancient elephant, a mammoth.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: And then we've got another tusk over here. We presume it's probably mastodon.

NARRATOR: The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is called to the scene.

KIRK JOHNSON: Oh, my god, that leg bone is big!

NARRATOR: Overnight, a construction site becomes a fossil dig.

KIRK JOHNSON: I've never found a mammoth before, and I can tell you, it's thrilling to be, like, digging in the dirt with the shovel, and suddenly, there is a giant four-foot-long femur. And that is just a startling experience.

NARRATOR: As they continue to dig, one mammoth quickly becomes two.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: This is absolutely phenomenal, just phenomenal to find an entire rib this long, this thin, in absolute perfect condition. It's like the day the animal died.

NARRATOR: Then more of the extinct bison emerges …

BRYAN EXACAVATION TEAM MEMBER: That's unexpected.

KIRK JOHNSON: This is bison. That's nice.

NARRATOR: …a portion of its jaw and teeth.

KIRK JOHNSON: Anybody got a toothbrush? Going to brush the bison's teeth.

NARRATOR: Then they unearth the vertebra of a mastodon.

IAN MILLER (Denver Museum of Nature & Science): Doesn't have a crack in it, so it's not leaking very bad.

NARRATOR: It's not just large, it's in perfect condition.

IAN MILLER: Amazing.

NARRATOR: And the variety of bones here shows this watering hole was a busy place.

IAN MILLER: We found a pelvis of an unknown animal; we found a deer jaw; we found a bunch of mastodon parts; and then, this morning, we found a sloth's tooth. It's totally incredible.

NARRATOR: What's now a natural basin was once an ancient lake. In digging for

Steve StC

5/16/2014 05:46:48 pm

Jason,
This blog post might be one of your more enlightening. You cut and pasted "that some of the wilder claims about their origins are wrong".

Then you wrote: "According to the researchers, this has several dramatic implications:"

Among those "dramatic implications", you wrote (or pasted) "The FIRST Americans therefore came from Beringia and not, as some have suggested, from the East Asian population that gave rise to the POLYNESIANS, or from EUROPE" (caps are my own).

I am absolutely fascinated by how you must have wrapped your brain around this. Do you think that Diffusionists think that the VERY FIRST people on the soil of North America came from Europe or the Middle East? Do you think that finding who was FIRST is the goal of diffusionists? I don't know any who think the VERY FIRST people here were from Europe, Egypt, etc. And I don't know any who care which early race was first.

Who out there have you heard claim that THE FIRST humans on the North American continent came from Europe? I know for a fact that Scott doesn't focus on that. In fact, after I glanced at the first five painful paragraphs of your latest post, I called Scott to see if I had misinterpreted his focus. He made it abundantly clear that THE FIRST AMERICANS were not in any way a focus of his nor in any way a point of his research.

Only Me

5/16/2014 09:20:05 pm

In regard to your fourth paragraph...how about David Imhotep? Here's a link to his particular worldview, including the need to battle "white supremacy" in academia:
http://historictruth.info/files/documents/First%20Americans%20Brochure.pdf

Or maybe this article, http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-First-Inhabitants-of-the-Americans-Were-Black-64307.shtml.

How about Trevor Townsend, who owns http://www.first-americans.blogspot.com? You'll love his articles claiming evidence suggesting whites had settled in New Zealand, Australia, the Canary Islands and Easter Island before, as he puts it, "the arrival of the so-called indigenous peoples". Or the Tocharians, white people who settled Western China 1,000 years before the-his words- "ethnic 'Chinese' ".

The point, Steve, is that there are diffusionists who find it very important that a specific race or group from Europe were the First Americans. You may not know them, but they exist.

Jason Colavito link

5/16/2014 11:40:42 pm

In addition to the examples Only Me provided, we should add the historical claims that (a) the Native Americans were Lost Tribes of Israel (still held by the Mormon church), (b) that said Lost Tribes were cursed by God with red skin, (c) Solutrean supremacists like Frank from Queens and Kyle Bristow who argue for a "white apocalypse" when the "Beringians" invaded and destroyed a pre-existing "white" Solutrean colony, and (d) claims that Kennewick Man demonstrates a "white" or (more recently) Polynesian origin for Paleoindians.

If Steve would venture beyond a Wolter-centric worldview, he might see that there are a large number of people who have extreme beliefs about who the first Americans really were.

5/17/2014 03:10:49 am

I'm well beyond "Wolter's world". I ran 2 conferences - The Atlantic Conference - each of which had over 15 speakers and a wide audience. In that, I personally met and spoke at length with at least 60 people who explore diffusionist ideas. Not a single one that I spoke with or read cares about the Europeans or white people being first. In fact, many were exploring the ideas of Egyptians or Phoenecians.

Here's just a small sample of the speakers at the Atlantic Conference -

Carl L. Johannessen, Ph.D. explores plant dispersion.

Dr. David H. Kelley, Professor Emeritus, Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary explores Archaeoastronomy and Linguistics in Mesoamerica.

Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin explores ancient cartography.

V. Garth Norman, President of the Ancient America Foundation (AAF) for professional and scriptural archaeology research, and is Director of Archaeological Research Consultants (ARCON Inc.). He found a consistent unit of measure used in Egypt and Mesoamerica.

Gunnar Thomposon, Ph.D. explores maize depictions in Egyptian art.

Chris A. Patenaude AAS explores out of place inscriptions.

Jay S. Wakefield is a biologist specializing in the study of megalithic culture.

Michael Thrasher, a nationally recognized Métis teacher.

Dr. Manuel Luciano Da Silva explores the idea that the Portuguese carved Dighton Rock.

Dr. Stephen C. Jett holds an A.B. cum laude in Geology (Princeton 1960) and a Ph.D. in Geography (Johns Hopkins 1964).

Dr. Evan Jones, Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History with the Department of Historical Studies of The University of Bristol is studying the early Bristol voyages.

I could list many, many more - Not a single one of them cares a whit whether or not Europeans were the FIRST humans to set foot on North American soil. It is not part of their research.

You brought up The Lost Tribes of Israel theories. Even those who believe in that notion DO NOT believe they were the FIRST humans in North America, so why do you bring it up?

You've now mentioned -
David Imhotep
Frank of Queens
Kyle Bristowokay
Trevor Townsend

Certainly they're out there, but your blog post makes it sound like White First is a major goal of diffusionism in general, and so I'm asking you if your view of the people like myself and SW is that our ideas are based on that goal?

If Jason would venture beyond his keyboard, he would meet the level of people I have (including many Ph.D's) who are exploring diffusionist ideas. Many are even using solid science in their approach.

5/17/2014 04:00:42 am

Thanks for the list, Steve. I'll have to look into these individuals to get a feel for their studies.

I don't think Scott's goal, or yours, is to prove "white first". I'm *assuming* Scott approaches his investigations with the commonly-held theory that Native Americans were here first, in mind. He's trying to find evidence that others from the Old World may have ventured to North America sometime pre-Columbus. I'm curious to know what you're researching in this area, outside of your DNA study.

My only complaint is that he does his investigations on AU without considering asking local Native Americans about any knowledge of the subjects he's investigating. American Maya Secrets, The Great Lakes Copper Heist, Mystery of Roanoke and Mystery of the Serpents are example episodes where he missed opportunities to interview local tribes for any details that may have been in their history. Of course, their stories would need to be scrutinized, but I don't consider them of less importance than Jim Egan's John Dee hypothesis for the Newport Tower or Richard Thornton's hypothesis of the Maya settling in the southern U.S.

The problem is those individuals or groups, like David Imhotep and Trevor Townsend, that muddy the waters with their race-driven need to prove people other than the ancestors of Native Americans came to North America first. Such controversial views hold attention far greater and longer than actual scientific studies.

5/17/2014 05:00:06 am

Since, as you note Steve, my reference applies only to those who have ventured an opinion on the peopling of the Americas, your efforts to link this to diffusionist claims that apply to times after the Paleoindian period are moot. You seem to want to purposely muddy the waters to distract from the fact that in S02E11 Scott Wolter concludes that the first Americans were Solutreans (a European occupation, he says, that lasted from 20,000 BCE) and in S02E13 that they might otherwise have been Polynesians, but at any rate were distinct from modern Native Americans.

But as for reading comprehension: I didn't mention diffusionists in the line you quote; actual scientists have been debating whether there were multiple migrations in the Paleoindian period and have been for decades. Jim Chatters himself supported the idea as recently as a few months ago. You're just looking for reasons to be offended.

5/17/2014 07:03:18 am

Seriously, in roughly 200,ooo B.C there was a community
of humans in the loose area of what is now Calico, California
who knapped some flints. Since only the flints were found
and no sites for hearth fires or fossil remains, if these flints
were not formed by lightning strikes, we have no idea if its
a community of Homo Erectus people with half our cranial
capacity, or even Neandertals and/or Early Modern Humans.
This site has been quite a controversy since the mid-1960s!
Scott Wolter has avoided the art and act of forming an opine.
I think Great Apes could have made it to the Americas before
three million B.C so I am more out on a limb than the typical
racist idiots. The problem is, fossil hunters have to spot things
with an open mind, you need to have an idea of how to look about.
not looking could translate into not finding and no advances at all.

5/17/2014 07:32:27 am

Um, yeah...not so much. The "flints" are more than likely geofacts, and their sheer number (up to 60,000) doesn't favor manufacture by human means.

Combine that with the lack of other human activity, the age of the site and the fact there was a lake there lasting from 500,000 - 400,000 years ago until it drained only 18,000 years ago, and I think it's too early to declare this was a human community.

5/17/2014 07:41:13 am

the flints are near a lake, and there was weathering,
the Calico site is within 20 to 50 miles of locations
where pyrite has been mined in modern times, so if
there was not a permanent village, but an area for flint
"farming" where rudimentary knapping was done, did
we have hominids who went there for flint and pyrite, who
then traveled elsewhere upon replenishing their supply?
the controversy is over if there is signs of a village or a
perminent habitation or occupancy of the site. if its very
brief or seasonal, and they are migratory, if they do not
bury their dead or have trash deposits, they are not there
for long. we all then are left with the vast number of flints...

5/17/2014 08:07:33 am

Yes, they were found in an area where there had previously been a lake. However, they aren't "flints". The primary rock available there is chalcedony.

The controversy centers on whether these "tools" are artifacts or geofacts.

The Referee

5/17/2014 12:42:04 pm

Steve St Clair strikes out again!

BillUSA

5/17/2014 03:24:44 pm

Uh, Steve, you overlooked this preface whilst viewing Jason's post through your kaleidoscopic microscope:

:According to the researchers, this has several dramatic implications:"

There's two points you should consider.

1) It says; "According to researchers". Not Jason, not us readers, just the researchers.

2) The definition of the word "imply" is (according to dictionary.com) in part; "to indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated".

Now, you can hop on over there to argue with the webmaster over what mainstream scholars feel is the correct definition of "imply" is, but I think they got better things to waste their time on. I think you misinterpret "imply" to mean "infer".

Have a nice day.

the curious marks...

5/16/2014 04:05:12 am

HENDRIK EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: Predator?

DANIEL FISHER: No, I don't think so. That does not look like gnawing. That's too short for gnawing. That does not look like gnawing damage to me. Those are linear marks. They're very sharp.

NARRATOR: Neither rock damage nor the tooth marks of predators, what these parallel marks look like to Dan is evidence of cutting with stone tools. Could these, along with the boulders, be the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas?

Richard Stucky, Denver's head of Vertebrate Paleontology, takes a look.

RICHARD STUCKY (Denver Museum of Nature & Science): Well, that's interesting.

DANIEL FISHER: I agree. So just with my naked eye, I said I thought that looked to me not like gnawing.

RICHARD STUCKY: Well, I'd agree with that…lines are pretty parallel.

DANIEL FISHER: They are parallel, they are straight, they are sharp bottomed. There are many of them right there.

RICHARD STUCKY: That is an interesting pattern, that's for sure. Hmmmm. Cool!

DANIEL FISHER: We don't really have a way to explain this: marks on a bone, which don't look like gnaw marks made by a carnivore; they look more like marks made by human tools, lithic tools, stone tools: cut marks that could be associated with the removal of meat from this particular piece of rib. What else, we're not quite sure.

NARRATOR: There is another curious detail: only the front half of the mammoth is here. Paleo-Indians were known to favor mammoth brain for food and their tusks for tools.

Still Richard Stucky is not convinced.

RICHARD STUCKY: I'm a devil's advocate, at this point in time. I think there are natural ways that we could understand the boulders associated with the scratch marks, associated with the bones, to suggest that this could be, certainly, a natural event that could have taken place.

EXCAVATION TEAM MEMBER: Let's see if we can find more.

NARRATOR: The idea that humans butchered and cached this mammoth will remain controversial until they find more evidence, so they're covering the fossil, and all the dirt around it, in a plaster jacket. The entire death site will be taken back to the Denver Museum for detailed examination.

With only a day to go, they've reached their goal.

5/16/2014 04:12:17 am

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/ice-age-death-trap.html

50/50 odds that North America was already inhabited 50,ooo
years ago? A bigot's version of the Solutrean Hypothesis has
an earlier version of everything on our coast from Roanoke to
about our Revolution being from one direction, and not the more
normal cultural diffusion where the precursors to the Lenape of
Delaware interacted with Doggerland? There were waves of people
arriving, again the Calico California field of knapped flints that we
know Louis Leakey visited. The Americas could have been peopled
for three million years, but getting way past Clovis takes an effort.

(jad)

5/17/2014 08:39:25 am

why wait for a rainy day? found this link on a blog i did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-report-studies-amazing-graveyard-of-fossilized-whale-skeletons-unearthed-in-chile/2014/02/25/51840df8-9e41-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

some 6 to 9 million years ago, in a timeframe of 10,ooo years,
we see 40 whales stranded up on a beach in Chile, they were the
most sapient species in the Americas at that point in time. This
is before the Isthmus of Panama joins up N.A with S.A as we see
totally unique plants and animals in South America. I know there
have not been any Great Apes found in S.A or N.A from that time,
and much of human evolution had yet to be, but by 3 million years
ago we see the success of the Australopithecines in Africa's Great
Rift Valley. It would be really neat if a few of LUCY's kin made it
to the Americas only to inadvertently get a Terror Bird a tad Po'ed.
Curiously enough, like some Cave Bears, Terror Birds may have
been vegetarians and kept to a vegan diet, so our near kin were
not really meal options for them too often. Terror Birds could run
down the early horses and zebras, and maybe a few cougars, too.

Gunn

5/16/2014 05:24:14 am

From above: "According to the researchers, this has several dramatic implications:

The first Americans therefore came from Beringia and not, as some have suggested, from the East Asian population that gave rise to the Polynesians, or from Europe.
The Americas were most likely populated in one major wave rather than a series of smaller migrations.
Morphological changes between Paleoindians and modern Native Americans are the result of rapid evolution within the Americas, not due to an influx of genes from Asia or Europe, or the “replacement” of the Paleoindians with successive migrations from Asia."

In my opinion, all the conclusions are defective. "The first Americans" aren't determined by finding the girl. Who were the "first Americans" for the thousands of years before she walked on earth? At what point did her DNA include the Beringian background? Maybe Native Americans 10,000 years before her time didn't carry that DNA at all. So to conclude that she represents a "first American" is not astute.

Next, why one major wave? Again, the theory is only accounting for selective information for that time period, and does not even account for thousands of years earlier, when the Beringian DNA may not yet have mixed with earlier inhabitants. Plus, common sense says there were many even "accidental" inputs of people from beyond shores, going back as far as anyone wants to imagine.

Lastly, rapid evolutionary changes seems dumb when these cranium differences are explained this way, rather than acknowledging that the differences would make more sense by considering an "influx of genes." In my opinion, direct physical changes from DNA mixing makes more sense than direct human evolution...though I would think skin and hair color would be more impacted by environmental influences, than skull shape, and much sooner.

So, in my opinion, the conclusions mentioned here, drawn since this new discovery of the girl, are far-reaching and improper. But beyond this, the discovery is amazing for seeing more of a snapshot of the people of her time at that location.

5/16/2014 05:35:53 am

yes... a "snapshot" in time! like as if captured
by a 1960s Swinger camera! Louis Leakey and
the Calico flints trump this in terms of an expanse
of evolutionary time! does ligthning often strike twice
in the same place? did it find out these flints or.... did it?
were they knapped by humans even if Homo Erectus?
they date from 200,ooo years ago, and look knapped.

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-31/news/vw-2874_1_hearths

http://www.reviewjournal.com/trip-week/calico-early-man-site-intriguing-educational-place

http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/barstow/calico.print.html

SeleukosNicator10

5/17/2014 10:49:30 am

There's just one problem with this particular line of evidence that you're putting forward. That is that there's absolutely no real evidence supporting this. Firstly the deposits that you're discussing come from an alluvial fan, meaning that they were deposited there through the normal processes of transport and deposition. Most geologists and archaeologists know that finding these kind of alluvial fans and attempting to get any real information from them is haphazard at best.

What is even worse for this particular site; that being the calico site, is it other than the eco-facts that have been found there is next to no other types of human occupation, nor evidence that humans are even engaging in any kind of activity at the site whatsoever. So what you're asking me is a archaeologists to believe, is that Homo erectus somehow made it to North America and then left absolutely no evidence of its occupation save for a few wasted pieces of chert.

There is absolutely no carbonized material no evidence of hearth usage and no faunal exploitation. So tell me another one.

5/16/2014 05:54:05 am

She is typical for the Americas, but not certain genomes elsewhere?
The below link is technical but goes into a statistical DNA pattern...

http://patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com/2014/05/neanderthal-in-america-data-from.html

Walt

5/16/2014 06:37:26 am

Not only does the newest evidence not conclusively exclude European migration, it doesn't even really address it. The stone tools found on the East Coast are 20000 years old, while this skeleton is 9000 year old.

The Solutrean Hypothesis is simply that they were here and left stone tools as evidence, not that they were a driving force in the peopling of the continent. Fringe thinkers have apparently clung to the latter, but the actual scientific hypothesis allows for no European DNA to be found.

Also, you say it's still possible they were here and then killed off, but that's another fringe idea. It's possible they were here and just died due to competition for resources.

Interestingly, the following article states that a stone point from Virginia was chemically-tested and determined to be made of flint from France.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html

I believe the rest of that article is based on the faulty DNA test results that were later determined to have been contaminated.

Jerome Viveiros link

5/16/2014 08:10:27 am

@Walt
"The stone tools found on the East Coast are 20000 years old, while this skeleton is 9000 year old. "

That's nice. How do you date stone tools? Random number generator?

5/16/2014 08:28:06 am

Stone itself can't be dated, but scientists use radiocarbon dating on other material in the same layer and make some assumptions.

Gary

5/16/2014 11:14:03 am

Stones can migrate to older levels. One way is simply being trampled by animals.

5/16/2014 11:35:23 am

Well, scientists believe they can roughly date stone tools found at archaeological sites and I'm certainly not qualified to dismiss their work. A cursory google search yields not only radiocarbon dating of other materials, but analyzing the affects of cosmic rays on the stone itself, and analyzing the magnetic polarity of the surrounding soil.

5/16/2014 11:16:04 am

They say the girls skeleton is 12,000yo, not 9,000.

5/16/2014 11:27:14 am

Plus, I don't think the stone points are really 20000 years old. That came from the article I referenced.

Not sure why I even mentioned the ages. It's not relevant to whether the latest discovery addresses the Solutrean Hypothesis. It's a blow to those want that theory to mean something about genetics though.

5/17/2014 06:43:36 am

Kennewick Man is from 9000 years ago, Naia and her Mayan
village lived 12,000 years ago, but the Siberian boy from 24,ooo
years ago is easily twice her age in terms of time and accuracy
in the dating methods. This is not all her genes or chromosomes,
only her mitocondrial DNA, but it has a story to tell that is not a
total statistical surprise. these three individuals present a sequence
of events, and given that we do not have all the traits of a remote
ancestor, and there is a mutation rate over time, even if there is no
DNA and/or chromosome overlaps, Kennewick man could be near
kin to the ancestors of the tribes who have lived for thousands of
years in that area of Washington state + Oregon, hence the tribe
could ask that his remains be honored in their way and manner.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/girls-12000-year-old-skeleton-may-solve-a-mystery/2014/05/15/e45a6330-da90-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html

5/16/2014 10:06:59 pm

There are two articles in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, that address the Solutrean hypothesis genetically.

The first, written in 2011, says that researchers in Italy argued that the distinctively Asian C4c and the disputed X2a had "parallel genetic histories." They also go on to say, "C4c is deeply rooted in the Asian portion of the mtDNA phylogeny and is indubitably of Asian origin."

The second article, written in 2012, states, "The similarities in ages and geographical distributions for C4c and the previously analyzed X2a lineage provide support to the scenario of a dual origin for Paleo-Indians. Taking into account that C4c is deeply rooted in the Asian portion of the mtDNA phylogeny and is indubitably of Asian origin, the finding that C4c and X2a are characterized by parallel genetic histories definitively dismisses the controversial hypothesis of an Atlantic glacial entry route into North America."

This latest news is reflective of the growing body of evidence and knowledge that is changing how we in the modern era understand how North America came to be settled by our ancestors.

5/16/2014 06:37:35 am

., it seems like the study is saying, also, that Americans (historical) carried the most Neanderthal DNA, followed by Africans, then Asians and Europeans. (Racists are going to love this study.)

The girl can only be typical to that Swinger snapshot. It's marked on the back: "Period of time & Location".

5/16/2014 06:40:11 am

Sorry, my post was intended for response to the comment just above Walt's.

5/16/2014 06:49:45 am

i do rather like his blog, Gunn... neat study!
his papers are beyond my humanist keen
but from what little i can comprehend, we do
see migratory patterns emerging that tell us
things about our ancestors. he does not try
to treat folktales as factoids, but he does know
the cutting edge science of the hour. the tribes
in Africa with less Neandertal DNA than the rest
of us are also part of the original small community
of ancestors from roughly 70,ooo B.C that young
Spencer Wells talks about. our species has been
sapient for loosely 200,ooo to 300,ooo years and
only modifications on a grand design, thusly recently.
my gut is telling me we beat out South America's
Terror Birds to North America but my Ego is telling me
that Calico in 200,ooo B.C is still a fringe hypothesis
despite Louis Leakey's sharp eye and astute knowledge
of stone tools. Nova's dead mammoths are almost within
the timeline academia thinks permissible and current.
Each new advance begins as a hypothesis, each level
begs one hundred new questions as we learn a little more.

matt the mutt

5/17/2014 06:01:56 am

Whatever demonstrable fact are presented, the believers will not sway. It's impossible to move a mountain of faith, as found in some fable.

Piltdown Man isn't, LUCY is...

5/17/2014 06:35:24 am

Ardi + Lucy helped to define what it takes
to be human. their kind lived 3 to 5 million
years ago. Homo Erectus dominated for
more than a million years in a very human
way. We are a fleeting flash in the pan monent
of species sapience. Homo Erectus may have
had our taste buds & ability to mainipulate tools.

5/17/2014 07:48:12 am

i think we all are on Bill Nye's page
and not under the flooded orchards
of Ken Ham. Science will win out?

5/18/2014 04:30:05 pm

lets all rethink languages, linguistics... and culture.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00397/abstract

A.D.

5/16/2014 06:49:25 am

I see a lot of racist are pissed on here.To bad for you.There is more where this came from.Go cry about it.

Mandalore

5/16/2014 07:38:29 am

People seem pretty desperate to undermine or dismiss this study. Evidence? Science? Who cares? Can't disprove a negative after all. Personally, I think there was a population of Arabians living in Central America 10,000 years ago. That's why some peoples in the area worship meteoritic stones like the one in the Kaaba. But they didn't intermarry or leave any irrefutable evidence, so no one can prove I'm wrong!

5/16/2014 08:09:27 am

More to the point IMO, is if you ask everyone "who's your daddy?" and "who's his daddy's daddy?" enough times, we all end up with roughly the same answer anyway.

The migratory routes of animals like us are really interesting, but I'm dumbfounded that people are emotionally invested in the results, on either side.

Shane Sullivan

5/16/2014 11:38:58 am

In theory, I agree with you; if tomorrow I found out my direct ancestors were cannibal mud-dogs from Io, it wouldn't make me a different person than I am today.

In practice, however, I have to admit that anything that bedevils the racist likes of Frank from Queens does sound pleasing, and that is why, as I watch from the sidelines, I would laugh if conclusive proof against the Solutrean hypothesis was ever found. =P

Otherwise, yeah, what you said

5/16/2014 11:54:50 am

Understood. Unfortunately, since the Solutrean Hypothesis is so vague and doesn't necessarily include them spreading their DNA here, I don't think conclusive proof against it will ever be found. DNA results can continue to make others who use the Solutrean Hypothesis to promote their ideas look like foolish racists though, so that's a plus.

5/17/2014 06:47:30 am

duckie, your jest could be very accurate in the context
of 70,000 B.C because the Sinai is an ancient Out of
Africa gateway, and later on, its only half a jest if the lore
of Ancient Carthage was inherited by the Arabs as Rome
rose and fell as an empire. Travel is often two-way, life is
more often a boulevard of broken dreams rather than being
an endless sequence of cul-de-sacs. lets be metaphysical.

titus pullo

5/16/2014 07:58:16 am

What I think is interesting is that the group that crossed Berangia wasn't related to current or even tribes of Siberia from 5K years ago...whomever these folks were they apparently started in Central Asia or Eastern Europe and made their way to America..you have to ask why..what pushed them into Berangia where the weather was horrible and food scarce...

5/18/2014 02:36:52 am

Often, improperly socialized people were (and are) outcast to the fringes. And then there are the adventurers. For example, Old World Swedes might be outcast to Norway, then to Iceland, then to Greenland...where the pure-at-heart adventurers might go forth even further. Maybe it was like this in most places, going back in history.

While reading a book about Mandans, I read a reference about non-conformers being banished to a particular area away from the village, sometimes only temporarily.

I think some of the earliest peopling of America (and anywhere) may have involved movements of "non-conforming adventurers," for lack of a better term. The question becomes, who goes to the fringes? In my mind, it's likely that the specific DNA-traits of humans can be fine-tuned, so that some people thrive on the fringes, and some people don't even want to give it a try. I'm talking about extra-hardiness at the fringes as a human trait, evolving over time.