First Americans May Have Been European

LiveScience.com ^ | 2/19/06 | Bjorn Carey

[anymouse]

ST. LOUIS—The first humans to spread across North America may have been seal hunters from France and Spain.

This runs counter to the long-held belief that the first human entry into the Americas was a crossing of a land-ice bridge that spanned the Bering Strait about 13,500 years ago.

The new thinking was outlined here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The tools don’t match

Recent studies have suggested that the glaciers that helped form the bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska began receding around 17,000 to 13,000 years ago, leaving very little chance that people walked from one continent to the other.

Also, when archaeologist Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution places American spearheads, called Clovis points, side-by-side with Siberian points, he sees a divergence of many characteristics.

Instead, Stanford said today, Clovis points match up much closer with Solutrean style tools, which researchers date to about 19,000 years ago. This suggests that the American people making Clovis points made Solutrean points before that.

There’s just one problem with this hypothesis—Solutrean toolmakers lived in France and Spain. Scientists know of no land-ice bridge that spanned that entire gap.

The lost hunting party

Stanford has an idea for how humans crossed the Atlantic, though—boats. Art from that era indicates that Solutrean populations in northern Spain were hunting marine animals, such as seals, walrus, and tuna.

They may have even made their way into the floating ice chunks that unite immense harp seal populations in Canada and Europe each year. Four million seals, Stanford said, would look like a pretty good meal to hungry European hunters, who might have ventured into the ice flows much the same way that the Inuit in Alaska and Greenland do today.

Inuit use large, open hunting boats constructed from animal skins for longer trips or big hunts. These boats, called umiaq, can hold a dozen adults, as well as several children, dead seals or walruses, and even dog-sled teams. Inuit have been building these boats for thousands of years, and Stanford believes that Solutrean people may have used a similar design.

It’s possible that some groups of these hunters ventured out as far as Iceland, where they may have gotten caught up in the prevailing currents and were carried to North America.

“You get three boats loaded up like this and you would have a viable population,” Stanford said. “You could actually get a whole bunch of people washing up on Nova Scotia.”

Some scientists believe that the Solutrean peoples were responsible for much of the cave art in Europe. Opponents of Stanford’s work ask why, then, would these people stop producing art once they made it to North America?

“I don’t know,” Stanford said. “But you’re looking at a long distance inland, 100 miles or so, before they would get to caves to do art in.”

[JohnBovenmyer]

IIRC, these people left there before the modern French had reached what is now France and made surrender into an art form.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

Vintage Skulls
Archaeology Magazine | March/April 2003 | Colleen P. Popson
Posted on 02/22/2003 12:06:38 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/849388/posts

[skimask]

I drink firewater and speak with forked tounge.

[metmom]

I recall reading of this link on another thread in the Religion forum. They'll have a hard time proving European descent from artifacts when there is DNA evidence to support otherwise. My point is NOT to start a discussion about mormonism but it was part of the thread I found it on and I felt the comment at the bottom was useful in supporting the use of the link as the link didn't seem to have anything to do with the article.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mormon16feb16,1,6504171.story?page=1&cset=true&ctrack=1&coll=la-headlines-california

DNA PROVES MORMON FAITH BASELESS -- NATIVE INDIANS HAVE NO JEWISH BLOOD -- DNA CAME FROM ASIA

[HP8753]

Who were the French running away from way back then?

Large predators with poor senses of smell or taste. ;-)

[annie laurie]

Well put.

[sine_nomine]

Long ago, Oscar Wilde said America was discovered before 1492, "but it was hushed up."

[KittyKares]

Wait til Mecha hears this.

[dread78645]

It’s possible that some groups of these hunters ventured out as far as Iceland, where they may have gotten caught up in the prevailing currents and were carried to North America.

“You get three boats loaded up like this and you would have a viable population,” Stanford said. “You could actually get a whole bunch of people washing up on Nova Scotia.”

You'd have to get quite a bit further west (Greenland) to get in the prevailing currents to end up in Nova Scotia.

[sageb1]

"Also worth noting is that the people who did the boating, hunting and fishing were not necessarily the same people who made the cave paintings."

Conservatives hunted. Liberals painted.

[ansel12]

A preliminary report from some of the Kennewick man researchers is supposed to be released this month

[Ptarmigan]

When I learned about Indians coming from the Bering Strait as a kid, I never believed it. Too simplistic for me. I tend to believe that the first Americans came by boat from the South Pacific and went north. The second wave would be from Europe, Cro-Magnon man. I remember reading Mayans, Incas, and Mapuches have the same rate of Rh negative blood as Basques, Celts, Guanches, and Berbers. In fact, when Spaniards encountered Incas, they reported seeing faired skinned and red haired people among Incas. They also found red haired mummies in Peru.

[SunkenCiv]

They'll have a hard time proving European descent from artifacts when there is DNA evidence to support otherwise.

That doesn't appear to make any sense, because the artifacts don't have DNA (presumably; I'd guess Og's skin cells probably flaked off while using the tools, but are unlikely to have been preserved).

Tangled strands of time
by G.A. Clark
Arizona Republic
Friday August 8, 1997
original, extinct link

...the work of the Paabo team is evaluated uncritically by Stringer and McKie in their article, essentially because it tends to support their biases and preconceptions about modern human origins. Other interpretations are possible. It should be noted first that molecular clock models are full of questionable assumptions. Leaving aside differences of opinion about the rate of base pair substitutions, how to calibrate a molecular clock, and whether or not mitochondrial DNA mutations are neutral, the fact that the Neanderthal sequence (and it should be kept in mind that there is - to date - only one) differs from those of modern humans does not resolve the question of whether or not moderns and Neanderthals were different species... A more convincing test of the implications of the Paabo data would be to sequence mitochondrial DNA from an unambiguously modern early European or better yet from alleged archaic and modem human fossils from the Israeli cave sites of Skhul and Qafzeh (supposedly modern) and Kebara and Tabun (supposedly Neanderthal). If the Israeli fossils all show differences with modern humans of the same order of magnitude of those between Neanderthal and moderns, that would be compelling evidence that all Upper Pleistocene hominids diverge from moderns by about the amount (evidence for continuity), and that the distinction between Neanderthals and moderns in the Levant at least is utterly without foundation... Those who would argue - like Stringer and Mickie - that Neanderthals became extinct without issue must show how it could have occurred without leaving traces of disjunction in the archaeological record and in the fossils themselves.

[SunkenCiv]

Very witty, Wilde. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

Instead, Stanford said today, Clovis points match up much closer with Solutrean style tools, which researchers date to about 19,000 years ago. This suggests that the American people making Clovis points made Solutrean points before that. There’s just one problem with this hypothesis -- Solutrean toolmakers lived in France and Spain. Scientists know of no land-ice bridge that spanned that entire gap.

The other problem is the gap in time between Solutrean points and Clovis, but that will be solved in the coming years as archaeologists dig deeper, and possibly as they explore the continental shelves.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm sure we'll see it posted soon.

[lizma]

Who cares who got here first. What gets under my skin is how much modern man underestimates ancient man.

I suspect the ancient's brain had pretty much the same abilities as ours and their knowledge concerning the world they lived in, was in a way, just sophisticated as ours.

We are not big risk takers because we don't have to be, but we see Cubans risking their lives on a regular basis to get here and other peoples do the same. I would think ancient man would take similar risks. I think it's just logical to assume that ancient man would look for a better place to live if need be.

[SunkenCiv]

PEOPLE GROUP	O	A	B	AB
Aborigines	61	39	0	0
Abyssinians	43	27	25	5
Ainu (Japan)	17	32	32	18
Albanians	38	43	13	6
Grand Andamanese	9	60	23	9
Arabs	34	31	29	6
Armenians	31	50	13	6
Asian (in USA - General)	40	28	27	5
Austrians	36	44	13	6
Bantus	46	30	19	5
Basques	51	44	4	1
Belgians	47	42	8	3
Blackfoot (N. Am. Indian)	17	82	0	1
Bororo	100	0	0	0
Brazilians	47	41	9	3
Bulgarians	32	44	15	8
Burmese	36	24	33	7
Buryats	33	21	38	8
Bushmen	56	34	9	2
Chinese-Canton	46	23	25	6
Chinese-Peking	29	27	32	13
Chuvash	30	29	33	7
Czechs	30	44	18	9
Danes	41	44	11	4
Dutch	45	43	9	3
Egyptians	33	36	24	8
English	47	42	9	3
Eskimos (Alaska)	38	44	13	5
Eskimos (Greenland)	54	36	23	8
Estonians	34	36	23	8
Fijians	44	34	17	6
Finns	34	41	18	7
French	43	47	7	3
Georgians	46	37	12	4
Germans	41	43	11	5
Greeks	40	42	14	5
Gypsies (Hungary)	29	27	35	10
Hawaiians	37	61	2	1
Hindus (Bombay)	32	29	28	11
Hungarians	36	43	16	5
Icelanders	56	32	10	3
Indians (India - General)	37	22	33	7
Indians (USA - General)	79	16	4	1
Irish	52	35	10	3
Italians (Milan)	46	41	11	3
Japanese	30	38	22	10
Jews (Germany)	42	41	12	5
Jews (Poland)	33	41	18	8
Kalmuks	26	23	41	11
Kikuyu (Kenya)	60	19	20	1

Koreans	28	32	31	10
Lapps	29	63	4	4
Latvians	32	37	24	7
Lithuanians	40	34	20	6
Malasians	62	18	20	0
Maoris	46	54	1	0
Mayas	98	1	1	1
Moros	64	16	20	0
Navajo (N. Am. Indian)	73	27	0	0
Nicobarese (Nicobars)	74	9	15	1
Norwegians	39	50	8	4
Papuas (New Guinea)	41	27	23	9
Persians	38	33	22	7
Peru (Indians)	100	0	0	0
Philippinos	45	22	27	6
Poles	33	39	20	9
Portuguese	35	53	8	4
Rumanians	34	41	19	6
Russians	33	36	23	8
Sardinians	50	26	19	5
Scotts	51	34	12	3
Serbians	38	42	16	5
Shompen (Nicobars)	100	0	0	0
Slovaks	42	37	16	5
South Africans	45	40	11	4
Spanish	38	47	10	5
Sudanese	62	16	21	0
Swedes	38	47	10	5
Swiss	40	50	7	3
Tartars	28	30	29	13
Thais	37	22	33	8
Turks	43	34	18	6
Ukranians	37	40	18	6
United Kingdom (GB)	47	42	8	3
USA (blacks)	49	27	20	4
USA (whites)	45	40	11	4
Vietnamese	42	22	30	5
Welsh

A Contribution to the Physical Anthropology and Population Genetics
L. Beckman -  *as revised by BloodBook.com 12/07/2000; 07/22/2001; 04/10/2002; 05/22/2004.

[SunkenCiv]

Diego blood system
by Dennis O'Neil

a human blood typing system in which there are 2 distinct types: Diego positive and Diego negative.  An individual inherits a Diego type from his or her parents and does not change it throughout life.  Apparently, the only people in the world who are Diego positive are some Native Americans and East Asians.

There is also the MN system (which is separate from ABO, but very rare; so rare, I've never found anything online, although I've not tried lately) and a mutation from A called Bombay Syndrome (this may not be the correct name).

[SunkenCiv]

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Dennis O'Neil