Critics Blast CBC Documentary on Solutrean Hypothesis for Ignoring Racism

1/12/2018

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation came under fire yesterday for a new documentary on the Solutrean hypothesis that the network was scheduled to make available online today ahead of its Sunday television broadcast. Critics expressed concern that the network was promoting a fringe theory and giving it spurious credence without addressing the theory’s popularity with white supremacists. The network, for its part, said that it was aware of the controversy but didn’t care.

While the documentary, “The Ice Bridge,” airing as an episode of The Nature of Things, claims that the Solutrean hypothesis is an “explosive new theory,” the claim that Europeans from Iberia known as Solutreans traveled to North America 20,000 years ago is two decades old. It rests almost entirely on the superficial resemblance between Solutrean points and North American Clovis points made thousands of years later. While the leading advocate of the theory, Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian, alleges that Solutreans sailed to America in large numbers, no evidence of any Solutrean body or Solutrean genetic legacy has ever been found in North America, nor is there any evidence of Solutrean seafaring capability.

Critics are upset that the documentary depicts Stanford and his colleague Bruce Bradley as mavericks who are bravely taking on a sclerotic and unwelcoming establishment. Basically, it’s the classic fringe history template of wild idea = good, consensus based on evidence = bad. However, the producers of the documentary claim that the show’s point of view was determined in large measure by the fact that only advocates were willing to speak on camera. “The Solutrean Hypothesis, as it is known, is so toxic, and so discredited among mainstream researchers that documentary director Robin Bicknell said she could barely find anyone willing to go on camera even just to say it was wrong,” Canada’s National Post reported yesterday.

While in the United States, that would be a selling point (witness the History Channel), in Canada and in Europe, promoting fringe claims can still spark outrage. José Victor Moreno-Mayar of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen told the National Post that it was “extremely irresponsible” to promote the Solutrean hypothesis, against the weight of evidence, with the full knowledge that this advocacy serves as a fig leaf for racists. White nationalists routinely use the Solutrean hypothesis to argue that Europeans colonized the Americas before Native Americans and therefore have original title to the land. Bradley, however, disagreed with Moreno-Mayar. “We can’t stop doing science because somebody might misappropriate something,” he said.

The director of the documentary said that she purposely avoided addressing the racist misuse of the Solutrean hypothesis because she considered the racist fantasy of a “white” ancient America to be “crap.” Unfortunately, by failing to identify and engage with this element of the Solutrean hypothesis, she has accidentally created a program that gives aid and comfort to white supremacists—especially when the documentary’s key finding bypasses the fact that the Solutreans of 20,000 years ago were not white people (since white skin had not yet evolved) to argue that Native Americans are related to Eastern Europeans.

The National Post reported the findings:

The climax of the documentary is the results of a genetic analysis of teeth from ancient remains of Huron-Wendat people, which shows they have a genetic marker associated with eastern Europeans. A British geneticist claims this is proof their ancestors crossed the Atlantic Ocean. A representative of that First Nation, Louis Lesage, says this proves his people’s oral tradition about their ancestors coming from a “great salt lake” to the east. And Suzuki himself says the genetic analysis is “a window into (Lesage’s) people’s past.”

According to Moreno-Mayar, however, there is another more plausible way to account for the presence of the relevant genetic marker, which was found in three of forty teeth analyzed. This marker, known as haplogroup X, was picked up by the ancestors of Native Americans as they encountered Ancient North Eurasians on their migration northeast towards Siberia, and eventually North America. In other words, the genetic results fit with the accepted theory that Native Americans came from Asia.

It would probably be as miraculous a finding to discover that Eastern Europeans—a population in large measure descended from steppe peoples of the Caucasus and Urals—were actually related to extinct Iberians from the other side of the continent. The only way it makes sense to simply assume that without feeling the need to look for evidence to prove it is if your criteria aren’t really about population genetics but rather modern (white) European cultural identity.

37 Comments

Americanegro

1/12/2018 09:28:48 am

The Solutrean Hypothesis seems to rest on the Clovis point and the mistaken idea that people in different areas will not make similar stone tools. That's just Ludacris.

Still, it's comforting to know that Jason can tell us when white skin evolved. That's some goddam nonsense right there.

Jason Colavito link

1/12/2018 10:01:41 am

It's been a subject of scientific study for years: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heres-how-europeans-quickly-evolved-lighter-skin-180954874/

1/12/2018 10:41:18 am

While I don't side with Wolter on his knee-jerk rejection of everything Smithsonian, I've been reading the magazine for the last week or so and they get a bunch of stuff just plain wrong. I consider it a good read and interesting but not an authoritative source.

gdave

1/12/2018 10:03:02 am

See, for example, this article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/how-europeans-evolved-white-skin

Genetic evidence from remains found at numerous site across Europe indicate that "white" skin among European populations is less than 8000 years old (as is lactose tolerance).

Of course, there may be more recent work that contradicts these findings, but AFAIK, it's pretty widely accepted at this point among anthropologists.

1/12/2018 10:42:29 am

So you're contradicting both Jason AND Smithsonian Magazine. I won't interfere.

1/12/2018 12:16:46 pm

...What?

The article Jason cited from the Smithsonian Magazine cited and extensively quoted from the article I cited from Science Magazine.

Both article state that a study of genetic evidence from remains recovered from multiple sites indicate that "white" skin appeared in southern and eastern European populations less than 8000 years ago.

I will admit that I misread the Science Magazine article and misrepresented it a bit in my first comment. The article states that that the study in question indicates that genes for lighter skin were present in far northern European populations as long ago as 7,700 years ago, but only appeared in southern and eastern European populations considerably after that.

In any event, the best available evidence is that "white" skin evolved in humans after they moved out of Africa and into Europe c. 40,000 years ago, and that the Iberian populations who were crafting Solutrean spear points c. 20,000 years ago were almost certainly dark-skinned.

Saying that "Jason can tell us when white skin evolved...[is] some goddam nonsense" is, frankly, itself nonsense. There's actually quite a bit of evidence for approximately where and when "white" skin evolved in modern humans.

Denise

1/12/2018 10:08:27 am

"There are several major problems" with using the Solutrean Hypothesis to advance a white nationalist racial politics, said Stanford. The biggest, he explained, is that "even if the Solutrean hypothesis is demonstrated, there is no evidence that these people were the same race as modern Europeans; in fact, they most likely were not the same race. Their origin in Europe is a major research question. At the present, most scholars believe the people who made the European Solutrean artifacts came out of North Africa [around] 25,000 years ago."

Joe Scales

1/12/2018 10:53:22 am

"The director of the documentary said that she purposely avoided addressing the racist misuse of the Solutrean hypothesis because she considered the racist fantasy of a “white” ancient America to be “crap.” "

And shouldn't that be the way to go about it? Whether or not racists believe a theory has merit has nothing to do with its ultimate validity. It falls or stands regardless.

Uncle Ron

1/12/2018 02:12:37 pm

" Whether or not racists believe a theory has merit has nothing to do with its ultimate validity." Agreed.

On the other hand, because the material presented in the documentary easily lends itself to racist interpretations it would have been helpful to have a small segment addressing those issues. Even if it did not directly address the racist conclusions some adopt it could have addressed the issues noted in the comments above (well most of them) from the standpoint of the following scenarios have been proposed but they are not considered plausible because . . ..

1/12/2018 06:51:15 pm

Assuming the theory is false and there is no more argument, then the angle of racism would be another sort of discussion as to why people might buy into it. But to color it racist when solely examining its merits would unduly prejudice any fair analysis.

1/12/2018 08:48:48 pm

I expressed myself badly. What I meant was that by presenting the theory's faults too (without calling it racist) a rational listener would conclude that the mainstream opinion is more likely correct and the whole racist angle would be short-circuited. This is better than not including any refutation and allowing the presentation to appear to be factual and undisputed. The fact that the producers "don't care" is irresponsible of them. But, then, this is just "entertainment," right?

1/13/2018 11:37:52 am

Ironically, focusing on the racism claims could also have the unintended consequences of attracting racists to the theory. It goes both ways. But yeah, I suppose it's entertainment first and foremost, just like news these days.

1/15/2018 02:26:03 pm

No, actually. The way to go about it is to present ALL the data, not ignore some that you consider to be irrelevant just because you think it's irrelevant. The racist uses are in fact important to the theory itself, because it indicates a potential bias in the theory itself, particularly in the theory itself as it has evolved over time. It's like ignoring the fact that the guy who wrote the paper that the entire anti-vaxxer movement is based on--who is no longer a doctor and has had the paper revoked by the journal that published it--worked for a company that had a stake in those findings being exactly what they were, or like ignoring that a group investigating an archeological site in Israel is funded by a radical Christian group. MAYBE the science is good...but under the circumstances, you're better off suspicious that it isn't.

In other words, yes, in fact, whether or not racists believe something DOES impact its validity, because if their bias has been introduced, the data may not show what the scientists promoting the hypothesis say it does.

This was a concept introduced to me in the third grade, in every high school English class, and in the base-level English courses in three different colleges, not to mention every science class I've ever taken. It SHOULD be a concept you learned, as well...

1/16/2018 03:52:10 pm

Why should I listen to someone who had to take intro English in three colleges? And are they junior colleges?

1/17/2018 10:55:28 am

"In other words, yes, in fact, whether or not racists believe something DOES impact its validity, because if their bias has been introduced, the data may not show what the scientists promoting the hypothesis say it does."

Then attack the data.

Truth via ad hominem is what you learned in 3rd grade? That's actually not surprising.

Bob Jase

1/12/2018 01:53:28 pm

I have no problem believing that Solutreans cam to North America, but then, I also have no problem believeing that there were earlier migrations out of Asia too. I expect the evidence is under water on the continental shelves and may never be found.

Not that it matters either way.

Pacal

1/12/2018 03:11:00 pm

Good God! Did the documentary really raise the old haplogroup X stuff? It's been studied, it's been debated, and it provides next to zero evidence for the Solutrean hypothesis.

"While the documentary, “The Ice Bridge,” airing as an episode of The Nature of Things, claims that the Solutrean hypothesis is an “explosive new theory,” the claim that Europeans from Iberia known as Solutreans traveled to North America 20,000 years ago is two decades old."

Actually the Soultrean hypothesis is much older than that. I remember it from the Anthropology courses I took in the late 1970s.

Further The Soultrean hypothesis is even older going back to the 1940s. See Early Man in the New world, by Kenneth Macgowan And Joseph A. Hester, Doubleday, 1950, pp. 283-285.

Finally does the documentary even mention the rather embarrassing 5000 year gap between the last of the Soultrean in Europe and the appearance of Clovis in the Americas?

1/12/2018 03:24:10 pm

"the rather embarrassing 5000 year gap between the last of the Soultrean in Europe and the appearance of Clovis in the Americas"

Ice age buses ran late quite often.

1/16/2018 11:17:42 am

That's why I take the SOOOOUUUUULTRAIN!

Machala

1/12/2018 03:22:44 pm

I have never subscribed to the premise that the aboriginal migrations to the North American and South American continents were solely via the "Ice bridge" . Just as the vast oceans wash up objects from continents away, I believe that the flotsam and jetsam of humanity washed up on these shores in a variety of ways,at a variety of times, and in a variety of different places. <P>
While this may put me at variance with mainstream anthropological theory, it by no means makes me a Solutrean apologist. I believe various social groups humans settled the continents long before there were "white skinned" Central Europeans or Caucasians running around pretending to be the superior race.<P>
Just as Cro-Magnon evolved, eventually surpassed Neanderthal in the evolutionary sweepstakes, so did the paleo-ancestors of today's indigenous people, likewise migrate, coalesce, and
develop "New World" societies - without the dubious assistance of "ancient astronauts" or "pale faces".

Brady Yoon

1/12/2018 04:05:16 pm

Even if the Solutrean hypothesis is true, it doesn't necessarily mean that they were the First Americans. More likely than not, some other non-white group of people arrived at the Americans even before the Solutreans...artifacts have been found dating all the way back to 40,000 years or more and there's evidence of hominid presence near San Diego 130,000 years ago: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-what-mastodon-bones-say-about-prehistoric-california-20170426-htmlstory.html

1/12/2018 04:12:43 pm

Oops, I noticed that Jason never said that the Solutreans would have been the first, anyways, what I meant to say was that even if the Solutrean hypothesis was true, the most the white nationalists/Neo Nazis could say is that Europeans were the second to last to reach America, given that there's evidence for a human presence in the Americas predating both the Solutreans and the Northeast Asians (whose race is unknown) who came across the Bering Strait. They wouldn't be able to credibly claim they were the first.

Normandie

3/11/2019 07:56:07 pm

There is only evidence for one race of people in the Americas and they are the Native Americans, they are NOT Northeast Asians either. There is not one place in asia that could be called the ancestral homeland of the NAs. If there are early sites in the Americas, it just stands to reason that they belong to the ancestors of modern NAs, not some mytthological white people, or even black or Asian. Native Americans are their own race and the only true ethnic American Natives.

Michael

1/14/2018 11:21:34 am

The Solutrean hypothesis ???

Most folks will agree that nature seems to have found benefit in varying the skin tones of mankind.

It seems dark skin has been selected for hot sunny climes at one extreme while white skin appears to have evolved in northern climes at the opposite end of this black-white skin tone value scale being used to illustrate the point.

The rest of the human race seems to have distributed themselves between the equator and the poles more or less generally following the gradients of the scale.

Presumably, these features were fixed during the last Ice Age but have begun to thaw and mix together with the rest of the world as we warm up over the last 15,000 or so years.

If a biological rational for human skin toning generally based along Latitude lines, is a fact of nature, would the presence of the slightly darker skin tones of present natives of the American far north (as happened in Asia), not offer a possible clue to a potential displacement in the Americas ?

Lack of evidence is not evidence positive. The rise in sea levels has added to the mystery by flooding coastal regions of the day presumably exploited by ancient Euros. This fascinating controversy will continue. Who knows what future discoveries will hold.

Jason Colavito

1/14/2018 06:39:34 pm

I am a race hustler. I know the white race is the superior race. But since I married a coon I must not show that I am a racist. I am force to love the inferior monkey race commonly called niggers.

1/14/2018 08:19:52 pm

Dear Jason Wannabe,
I suggest that before you try to pose as an intelligent writer, you learn the basic rules of grammar and spelling. Aside from your xenophobic rant, your attempt at sarcasm ( if that's what it is ), and infantile racist humor displays a woeful ignorance of how the REAL Jason Colavito writes.
Every writer has a certain style that is almost impossible to imitate; difficult to disguise, and easily identifiable. <P>
To paraphrase a famous politician " I know Jason Colavito... and you're not him ! "

The Anonymous Nerd

1/16/2018 06:46:40 pm

The Archaeological Fantasies podcast people probably would have spoken to the documentary people. And/or the documentary people would have been able to listen to this episode of that podcast

https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/archyfantasies/31

and find out not only about why the theory may not be crazy but isn't likely to be correct, and also why it's dangerous because of its other proponents.

And yes this is one instance where the political underpinnings of the notion are of critical importance, because there's not too much in the way of good evidence for this, and it's mostly alive as a theory because of its unsanitary associations.

So all told the documentary people have no good excuse for treating it as they did.

-The Anonymous Nerd

nomuse

1/17/2018 09:09:21 pm

Seriously, "Ice Bridge?"

Are they adding something new, or are they trying to make fun of the LAND MASS of Beringia?

1/18/2018 12:21:37 am

Or were Templars and Cistercians getting into their stone umiaks and following the seal herds?

Speculat Hypothe

6/14/2018 01:17:54 pm

Just finishing the video, I disagree. While hardly a cutting edge documentary, and certainly mostly speculation, it only mentions some of the evidence (such as it is) and does not sweep nearly so many generalizations as is claimed by your article.

Error: It does state that the distance from Newfoundland to Brest, France is 4,000 miles. It is almost 3,700 km/2,300 miles, a big difference. New York to London is 4,000 miles. Flemish Cap (exposed in the lowest Ice Age sea levels and icebergs grounded in the southern Rockall Bank -- only the Northern was exposed -- seems to be 2,000 km/1,200 miles, as mentioned.)

For example The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus_Hill , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topper_Site , San Diego, Brazil, and other sites are not yet confirmed to the obvious degree of Clovis and Folsom, and likely not so until a skull with 200,000 to 20,000 age is found, especially with DNA.

The San Diego one is not likely human tools, but rather humanoid, and probably 130,000 year old ones at that:

"Since the bones were found with cobblestones displaying use-wear and impact marks among the otherwise fine-grain sands, intentional breakage of the bones by hominins using the stones has been suggested by the researchers." see the 21:00 minute mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5m43YRAw2k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerutti_Mastodon_site

I was unaware of the Tilghman_Island,_Maryland archaeology site before stumbling on Mr. Colavito's url and the CBC video. Thank you. What they are doing is dating a find, though not as good as actual dna.

As far as the racism goes, who cares? There is considerable evidence, and about as good compared to the Solutrean migration, to that of Australian Aborigines going down to South America.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3170959/Were-Aborigines-AMERICANS-Native-tribes-Amazon-closely-related-indigenous-Australians.html

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_america/serra_da_capivara/index.php Up to 35,000 year old paintings in Brazil.

While I am white with a mother born in Australia, there is almost certainly no Aborigine in me. Most racists would think of them as black.

So, we have a dna evidence for Australians coming to the Americas, possibly the first. Hardly conclusive evidence, but considering that at best only fragments of Solutrean or Australian or Ainu/Polynesian dna remain in native populations living or entombed, and numbers, if any at all, were always much smaller than the trans Alaskan migration we should expect that.

If true, it goes to show something common in physics and other hard science disciplines' shifts in understanding -- that it advances one funeral (of scientists) at a time.

Suzanne Beaudin

10/14/2019 12:10:39 pm

Thank you. Whether or not a specific group screams racism should not determine if science should or should not be conducted.

I appreciate your wonderful work and time you took to explain this.

SPECULAT HYPOTHE

10/14/2019 11:13:50 pm

Thank you. Of course, we have limited information. Personally, it may well be that there is only or perhaps mainly a technological link with Europe -- technology like the

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean#Hand-axe_as_a_left_over_core " spread over the entire eastern hemisphere and lasted about one million years, including several hominid species like H. Erectus, Neanderthals, and even early H. Sapiens, in relict use.

It could well be that forebearers of current Native Americans accidentally crossed the Atlantic on ice rafts (via current) and walked back with the technology, especially after repeat occurrences. It may have happened in early Roman times around Germany, related (in gossip) by Pliny the Elder:

https://www.academia.edu/36855017/The_Indians_in_Northern_Europe_On_the_Ancient_Roman_Notion_of_the_Configuration_of_Eurasia_The_Periphery_of_the_Classical_World_in_Ancient_Geography_and_Cartography_Ed._by_Alexander_V._Podossinov._Leuven_Paris_Walpole_Ma_2014_Colloquia_antiqua_12_._P._133-145.pdf

What we have are indications, no absolute situations. The populations were at best small, and most evidence is buried in deep water. Maybe someday in our lifetimes much more conclusive evidence is found. As it now stands, the French experts in Solutrean tools say it is the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

Emmet Sweeney link

11/28/2018 12:27:56 pm

Your comments present nothing but a caricature of the idea. Yes, it's unfortunate if racists try to appropriate an idea, but that by itself does not make an idea wrong. In your summation you completely ignored the most important points, which are: (a) The Palaeolithic culture of Siberia contemporary with that of North America bore no resemblance whatsoever to the American - but the latter bore a strong resemblance to that of Western Europe. This is a fact recognised by all archaeologists. (b) Some Native Americans unquestionably have part-European DNA, as demonstrated, for example, by Catlin's (and many other's) description of the Mandan people and various other tribes on North America. This evidence cannot simply be swept under the carpet.

11/29/2018 07:26:51 pm

I do not agree with it only being a caricature of the idea.

Yes, the Palaolithic culture of Siberia does bear no resemblance to that of the American circa 17,000 years ago, and does the Solutrean. However, the detractors, which I am not one, naysay this, claiming it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery. I find this difficult to believe.

However, these people currently make up the majority of professional opinion, and maybe it is only that https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/111818-science-advances-one-funeral-at-a-time.

The current method is dna, not paintings or skull shape. When we truly know about the genome, rather than poking sticks at it, all we want to know might be found, or maybe not.

And you are preaching to the choir here. The evidence can be swept under the carpet -- it is done all over the place. Mendel had his ideas dismissed if not covered up until after his death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall faced similar difficulties in the 1980's, yet now is accepted. My post was directed towards the majority who do not accept the distinct possibility of the Solutrean Hypothesis, much less that of an Australian Aborigine one.

Just last month I saw a Forbes article, which is out of place, completely dismissing the whole 'notion', which I think is about like that peer reviewed journals are up against. Probably those who are working with the ideas you (and I) possess are simply paying attention to the facts, and keeping the assessments close on hand, to avoid unnecessary battles. This is most true involving dealings outside the field, like laypeople.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferraff/2018/11/13/ancient-dna-reveals-yet-more-complicated-histories-in-the-americas/#1c1ee9454d03

12/5/2018 08:47:05 am

This was pretty interesting information over the last few days. That individual Jennifer Raff who wrote in Forbes of 'the notion of haplogroups given evidence towards the solutrean hypothesis' or words to that effect might want to read this:
https://phys.org/news/2012-11-native-americans-northern-europeans-previously.html#nRlv

"Using genetic analyses, scientists have discovered that Northern European populations—including British, Scandinavians, French, and some Eastern Europeans—descend from a mixture of two very different ancestral populations, and one of these populations is related to Native Americans. This discovery helps fill gaps in scientific understanding of both Native American and Northern European ancestry"

https://phys.org/news/2014-09-added-european-family-tree.html

"Ancient North Eurasians were a "ghost population"—an ancient group known only through the traces it left in the DNA of present-day people."

This link mentions that they went across the Bering land bridge, but it is far shorter from northern Europe to America the other way.

3/11/2019 08:18:44 pm

Native Americans have ANE not European DNA there is a difference! All this means is that Europeans descend from North east Siberian people, there is no direct ancestry fro Europe to the Americas. There is also no genomic evidence that Solutreans left Europe, and they havent been sequenced to compare to Natives. The problem right now for the European immigrant hordes in America is that they are having growing pains right now, they know they can never be true Natives, like the Native Americans, but they feel they should. They want to be able to kick out any non white people from their percieved "Homelands" without sounding like a buch of hypocrites!! So now we have the Solutrean Hyotheses, all this is , is self soothing to their wounded egos, even though there is no evdence for it. its pathetic!!

3/12/2019 04:24:49 pm

Uh, somewhat. There are some South American tribes which have specific genes marking from Andaman Islands to Australia (or maybe New Guinea) to South America. This is existing DNA, very ancient, and not really negotiable. That DNA lines would die out is not unknown. There is a mysterious dna part of ancient Europeans which died out some how, not a trace. So your blanket statement is apparently flat out false. There is Solutrean evidence, just not much of dna evidence, if any. And tools are not a good evidence of clearly a people, as people do copy, exchange, and independently invent. Whatever happened, the migration through the ice free corridor was massively dominating and possibly even the only one as you assert. That would leave those Amazon tribes out of the picture though. My assessment is that different than yours, but since there is no money involved in this kind of exchange, let's just leave it at that.

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