I’m familiar with the skeletal findings that support that the earliest Americans were not of (North) East Asian stock, but I wasn’t aware that anyone actually thought these people came from Australia. I understood the thinking to be more along the lines that these early Americans and Australians might have both originally come from the same South Asian poplulations
Does anyone know more about this, what speciifically the DNA evidence is, and when it will be published?
There’s a bit more information here on Dr. Gonzalez’s work, and [url=http://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/bie/fossilmammal/majpro.htm#Americandispersals]here on this particular grant. Since the DNA work was presented at a conference only yesterday, it’s not going to be readily available for a bit. Evidently it has not yet been published.
I also would be very surprised if the genetic work shows evidence of some kind of back-migration out of Australia that ended up in Mexico. I have to assume for the moment that that is some kind of garbling of the actual data by the reporters who were present at the press conference (as frequently happens).
Thanks for the link. Misreporting does seem to be the most likely explanation. I should have been more suspicious. I’m still looking forward to seeing the details, though. I love it when anthropological theories are overturned.
I guess in a non-chesty way, as an armchair archeologist I have to ask:
Why would this be so surprising and why so unbelievable that it must be a mistake?
I get that that it is not the conventionally accepted theory at this point, but based on physical characteristics of skulls and rock Art this whole idea, really, right now is tottering on the idea of respectability and just really needs a bit of DNA evidence to make it really viable – perhaps even largely accepted. It is certainly not new:
I am not saying that this must be accepted and embraced without peer review and a full investigation (which everyone here wants): I guess I am just saying there is enough other evidence for this not to be totally unbelievable at first blush – like claiming a screw has been found deep in a coal bed or the “discovery” of man-dinosaur contemporary prints
It’s not the idea that Australian aborigines and this group and Mexico might be related that I find far-fetched, it’s the way that it’s being presented: that the two groups are the same, and that there was a migration that started in Australia and ended in Mexico or elsewhere in the New World.
It is entirely possible that there was an ancestral group somewhere in Asia, possibly South Asia, that gave rise to both the Australian aborigines and this Mexican population as the result of separate migrations. But the aborigines and the Mexicans would both be descendent populations - sister groups, in cladistic terms, or “cousins” if you will - rather than the Mexican population being direct descendents of an ancestral population that was located in Australia.
This ancestral group would probably have resembled Australian aborigines in physical characteristics, and these characteristics would have been shared by the Mexican population, so in a loose sense we could we could refer to them all as “aborigines.” But that doesn’t mean that the Mexican group was the same as the present-day Australian aborigines, or descended from Australian populations.
I think there is some confusion on the part of the science writers on these points, and this is what is leading to the way the press releases and the two articles you cite present things. This impression is reinforced in the first article you cite, which refers to the remains in Brazil as having “negroid” features, while at the same time linking them to Australia. Anthropologists refer to the aborigines as “australoids.” “Negroid” if it is used at all is restricted to African populations (the resemblances between aborigines and sub-Saharan African being entirely superficial, and mostly limited to skin color). The use of this term in the article makes me think the reporter didn’t have a good grasp of anthropology.
A couple other points. The article linked to in the OP says:
This sequence of migrations is just not very plausible. I could imagine a migration by the ancestral population from southeast Asia to Japan, and thence around the Pacific rim via coastal Alaska until they reached the Pacific coast of America. (Such a Pacific-rim migration has been postulated for pre-Clovis groups in the Americas before.) However, it doesn’t make much sense that aborigines, once in Australia, would have made a back-migration to Asia and then to Japan; or that once in Japan they would migrate through Polynesia to reach the west coast of Mexico. If they were to use Polynesia as a stepping-stone, the most likely route would be via New Guinea-Melanesia-Polynesia, and thence to the coast of South America (not Mexico) - this minimizes the number of wide stretches of open ocean that would have to be crossed.
The other articles suggest that ancient Australians might have reached South America by sea. Certainly the first people to reach Australia did so across water, and had some sea-going ability, so this idea is not outside the realm of possibility. However, the gaps that needed to be crossed from Asia to Australia were much narrower than those across the Pacific, and would require a less sophisticated sailing technology. I also find it very hard to believe that human populations could have crossed through Polynesia at so early a date without leaving some archeological traces behind en route. Also, they would probably have left a biological signature behind: When the Polynesians reached the islands, they almost immediately caused the extinction of many species of birds, as determined by finding the last fossils of the birds at the same level as the first Polynesian archeological traces. I am not aware that there is any evidence of an earlier extinction event that could have due to the passage of aboriginal-type peoples through the Pacific.
Colibri you are not only well versed – you explain very well. I agree with every point you made answering why this seemed so crazy to you. The writer has clearly misunderstood some of these things (apparently confabulating the Ainu and Polynesians) and doesn’t seem to have gotten much of this story right. Certainly your points regarding the terms he is using and the way he is describing the migration are well taken.
If your point all along was this Yahoo story is so screwed up that it cannot possibly be right, I agree.
We agree too that it has been postulated before that an “proto-Australian” people reached South America and there is some, {wouldn’t dare go “strong”} but say “some/fair/middling” skeletal and some weak other evidence that indicates that the cousins of the “proto-Australian” people were in the new world before there is indisputable evidence of “Bering Siberians”. While acknowledging the jury is out on this & that the evidence not strong: All I am/was saying it wouldn’t be SHOCKING to find that DNA bears this out.
I understand your extinction question, & no I do not know of any in the South Pacific. All I would say for sure - even anonymously on a MB - is that the “proto-Australians” reached the Solomon Islands about 28,000 BP and stopped – there is no evidence, genetic or otherwise that anyone goes the extra 8000 mis to South America. If “proto-Australians” reached South America would I expect DNA or other evidence somewhere like, say the Marquesas? Yes. Is there any? Nope.
The only other point I would make mainly strengthens the argument that the “proto-Australian” seamanship didn‘t need to be special - that in the Ice Age with substantially lower sea levels crudely boating around Australia and Near Oceania was substantially easier than today. Having said, certainly whole Islands (and any attendant evidence) in the South Pacific have also disappeared with the rising tide at the end of the last Ice Age. The Currents too are totally different -who knows how hard a trip that might have been.