New Study On Peopling Of Americas Confirms Some Theories, Unsettles Others

CSFA ^ | 9-2001 | Loring Brace

[blam]

New Study on Peopling of Americas Confirms Some Theories, Unsettles Others

The New World was populated in at least two migrations, according to a paper presented by C. Loring Brace to the National Academy of Sciences. The settlers in the first wave, who walked across the Bering Land Bridge 15,000 years ago, were the forebears of present-day inhabitants south of the U.S.-Canadian border. The ancestors of linguistically distinct peoples including the Inuit, Aleut, and Na-Dene speakers made the watery crossing from Asia about 5,000 years ago.(The people are todays American Indian/Native Americans)

The new study by Dr. Brace, professor of anthropology and curator of biological anthropology at the University of Michigan, also finds that members of the first group are only distantly related to present-day populations on the Asia mainland, but are closely linked genetically to the Ainu (the aboriginal people of the Japanese island of Hokkaido), to their prehistoric Jomon predecessors, and to today's Polynesians.(Kennewick Man, Spirit Cave Man...others)

Descendants of the second-wave migrants, on the other hand, are closely related to current mainland populations of East Asia.(Today's American Indians/Native Americans)

Brace's findings are immense in scope. He cites artifacts that date back to the Acheulean age, more than 200,000 years ago, and he traces population movements from human origins in Africa to Europe, Asia, Australia-Melanesia, and ultimately to North America. Following are just a few of the noteworthy points of his study.

Although Brace supports his theory with archaeological evidence, he bases his findings principally on statistical analysis of craniofacial metrics. These are inherited characteristics, thus indicators of genetic links, and are unaffected by environmental pressures.

Neanderthals fashioned characteristic tools in northwestern Europe toward 200,000 years ago. Use of their tools can be traced eastward to Mongolia and Siberia, but not to China or Japan or towards Southeast Asia. Although no conclusive skeletal evidence of Neanderthals has been found in Siberia, cultural continuity implies their presence.

Brace finds evidence of a continuum of late-Pleistocene humans across the northern fringe of Europe and Asia. These are the ancestors of the first migrants to North America, who are closely linked to the Jomon, Ainu, and modern Polynesians. Thus all these people can be described as Eurasian.

Brace's study is sure to cause a stir among archaeologists and anthropologists. The announcement came too late for us to cover it in depth this issue. In the next Mammoth Trumpet we hope to explore it in detail with Brace and with other authorities whose work is affected by his findings.

[blam]

"I wonder how this fits in with Cherokee indians that arrived here, what? About a thousand years ago from an island off S. America? Makes me wonder if there were a whole lot of influences other than Asian."

Don't know about the Indians from an island. Do you have links to any articles?

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