Re: Most recent common ancestors
- From: Scaly Lizard <scalylizard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 09:19:47 GMT
On 15 Jan 2006 22:30:33 -0800, lostcooper@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>Regarding your thoughts about the peopling of the Americas, you mention
>all of the wackiest myths around without citing a shred of evidence or
>even a reference. You are wrong about virtually everything you said.
Err, i thought i had the best info available. Let's find out.
>Mixing between groups occurred everywhere in the world, including the
>most isolated areas and certainly including the land of my father's
>ancestors.
Yes, but the mixing has historically been limited by the
economic cost of travel. Extremely insular places like
the deep Amazon and Australasian islands have only
recently been opened to scrutiny, and their genetic
makeup indicates a far older ancestry than 1,000 years.
>How this relates to the population there 2000 years ago
>escapes me. What is the original documentation for "red-haired" Native
>Americans in Florida? I've heard all of the myths about such people in
>Indiana and Illinois and Minneapolis, etc. Florida is a new one.
I haven't read about such reports in the South Great
Lakes Area, please eleborate. We might be onto
something there after all. Can you at least provide
a weblink supporting your claims abot Indiana, Illinois
and Minnesota?
>As for mixing with the Vikings, not likely for the simple reason that the
>Viking settlement in eastern Canada did not last long and was probably
>ended precisely because of the failure of its inhabitants to get along
>with the "Skraelings". Even if there was intermarriage or, more likely,
>rape of Native women there, the genetic influence would be very slight
>and possibly no longer represented among the living. Evidence does
>exist for cross-Pacific contact (with the Ainu & the Northwest Coast
>and with the voyages of Hoei-Shin around 400 CE. Again, however, the
>Ainu influence does not appear to have been biological (based on
>genetic comparisons between the two groups today) and Hoei-Shin sailed
>well after the 2000 year mark.
No significant genetic interchange is implied, nor should
be inferred from, extant reports of Viking involvement at
L'Anseaux Meadows, which is presumably the "Vinland"
reported by Leif Eriksson. But we should remember that
Viking culture was tied to the boat as a unit of social
organization, and no boat was found at L'Anseaux.
If you think all the Vikings perished like lambs to
"skraeling" spears, you're underestimating the
resourcefulness of a culture that spread from China
to Baghdad. They kept their boat in good repair as
a matter of survival and depending on the season,
they either fled north or south.
>When you cite the mixing of Europeans and Native Americans since the
>16th century, you make several errors: first, the offspring of these
>unions were not more resistant to European diseases; second, there had
>been mixing among Native Americans for thousands of years. They did not
>require a European presence to be aware of distant groups and choose
>partners from among them (nor were such unions necessarily the result
>of peaceful relations - it was traditional among many groups to take
>war captives for this purpose).
Yeah, i had hoped to allude to mankind's history of
societal rape without direct reference to it, but you
are correct: rape has been a genetically signifiicant
mechanism for gamete dispersal for many centuries
before it became a political liability.
But, including the factor of rape only bolsters my points,
rather than invalidate them. Genetic transfer increases
more quickly when armies with an advantage in
transportation conquer slower nations. The modern era
has shown us the Rape Of Nanking and Nazi "warbabies"
popping up in France and Benelux in early 1942.
>I have many friends from the various
>Pueblos of New Mexico who speak of their "Plains" ancestors as having
>arrived there in that way; virtually every Eastern Pueblo person with
>whom I have discussed these things has spoken of their war-captive or
>purchased ancestors. It should be recalled that the Pueblos were the
>people who were responsible for spreading the use of horses to the
>Plains Indians.
Yes, the traditions are the same, but the genetic stew
has changed over the years. Intrusion of half-Euros and
quarter-Euros into the Native American cultures was swift
from 1800 to 1900. The number of North Americans who
can claim certain "pure" descent from the original invaders
of an uninhabited North America is now zero.
Or perhaps you have proof otherwise?
>Your statement about the Amazon is also untrue. It is
>an entertaining Euro-American myth that there are pockets of people so
>isolated that they have never seen an outsider. No such people exist
>and, if you exclude the Europeans from discussion, no such people have
>existed in that way for a very long time, if ever. Every group knew of
>people unlike themselves and had occasional dealings with them over
>very large areas. The trade networks in the Americas spanned thousands
>upon thousands of square miles and involved the traveling of people as
>well as the passing along of trade goods.
Whoa there boy, i'm talking about occasional contact
with 'outsiders' among the most remote tribes we know
about in the Amazon. There are certainly villages we
haven't been to, ones whch retain the genetic line of
the first asiatic land-bridgers.
>Where on earth did you get
>this baloney about unknown tribes and the anthropologist women who
>would not sleep with them!? And as for hygiene, how do you think all of
>these "primitive" people compared to 16th century Europeans?
But i was speaking of 20th-Century female anthropologists,
which you seemed to overlook.
>As for all of this pseudo-anthropology, where is your documentation, your
>references for all of these wild statements? You make the usual mistake
>of underestimating the history and culture of such people. Finally,
>you need to bone up on the current theories about the peopling of the
>Americas: sites such as Pedra Furada in Brazil and Monte Verde in Chile
>show that there were people living there 40,000 years ago; the
>Brazilian site is tentatively dated at 48,000 years.
I'm aware of these reports, but chose a conservative
date of American inhabitation so as not to upset the
Kansas school boards... and other folks who want to
argue a goofy point.
>Even the old
>Bering Strait Theory has undergone a great deal of rethinking recently:
>were Asian hunters walking across the land "bridge" (it was a very
>large area, more like a subcontinent) the ancestors of Native Americans
>everywhere, or did some people come by boat from other places? Ancient
>skulls from South America suggest a Melanesian possibility while
>ancient skulls from northwestern North America suggest relations with
>the Ainu that went beyond cultural influence (of course, the most
>famous of these was someone who ended up with an arrow in his butt
>although it did not kill him). It is all being re-thought. And, of
>course, most the Native accounts never included the Bering Strait
>anyway although some were quite specific about geographic origins and
>subsequent migrations. Best, Bronwen
The theory of immigration across the Bering is the
only theory which holds water. The timing is the
sole bone of contention. I support the date 25,000
years ago. Many more sites are coming to light in the
Americas which push the inhabitation of America back
from one interglacial period to the previous one. We
just can't say for sure yet.
SL
.
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