fascinating: original inhabitants of America came from Australia

[wyldwolf]

there was very strong evidence that the first migration came from Australia via Japan and Polynesia and down the Pacific Coast of America.


Skulls of a people with distinctively long and narrow heads discovered in Mexico and California predated by several thousand years the more rounded features of the skulls of native Americans.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040906/sc_nm/science_migrations_dc

Sorry - I'm a history and archeology nerd.

[salib]

1. OK, I'm game

I always thought that the whole land-bridge thing was unnecessarily silly. It was not necessary for the first migrations into Australia. Seems to me, all this is saying is that the same people who migrated to Australia also migrated to much of the Pacific and the Americas.

Also, the time-frame is interesting 9k-12k BCE... I think it is quite possible to get to Alaska with a large raft. Currents even go that way. No bridge necessary, but could be useful as a current enhancer.

[wyldwolf]

3. I share your opinion on the land-bridge, but in addition..

...I always wondered if native Americans came from the North and migrated South, why were the more advanced civilizations in the Southwest, Mexico, Yukatan, and South America?

Seems those areas would have been settled last and, thus, be less populated. It is the Native Americans of North America who appear to have been on the outskirts - not vice versa.

[KareBear]

4. Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond

That should answer all your questions about why some places advanced faster than others throughout the world :)

[wyldwolf]

5. I have so much reading to do, so give me a few highlights...

...from the mentioned book if you have the time. Thanks!

[salib]

6. Don't forget Ice

North America was not a very hospitable place during the early days. Quite pleasant though in Central and South America. Good for cultural development, and throwing back a few cold ones, I would guess. Besides all the good stuff is "down" there: Cocoa, vanilla, coffee, allspice, tubers, maize, etc.

[smirkymonkey]

2. Interesting piece! Thanks.

KICK :kick:

[starroute]

7. Other data support a somewhat different scenario

For one thing, DNA and other evidence strongly indicate that the present day Native Americans started out somewhere in Siberia well before 20,000 years ago. Both the genetic and linguistic diversity of the Americas and the fact that Native Americas are recognizably different in appearance from any modern Asians support an early separation. There just isn't any way they could have shown up in the Americas as recently as 9000 years ago.

For another, although there is also genetic and linguistic evidence for direct connections between peoples further south along the Asian coast, like the Japanese, and certain peoples on the Pacific coast of the Americas, that evidence suggests a trans-Pacific migration well after the original settlement from Siberia. For example, this is the opinion of linguist Johanna Nichols:

"There was probably a second influx, she added. There is a narrow strip of different language families along the western coasts of the Americas that matches patterns found only in other Pacific Rim nations.

" 'They are 12,000 years old, but certainly not 40,000,' she said."

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news52.htm
http://scicom.ucsc.edu/SciNotes/9901/echoes/echoes.htm


In short, I'm prepared to believe that these long-headed groups arrived in the Americas by sea towards the end of the Ice Age -- but not that they were the original settlers.