[muawiyah]

The fundamental problem of cranial analysis is that there are NO genes focused exclusively on cranial shape.

There are changes through time that literally mean nothing ~ one important one has to do with ROUND SKULLS. Currently East Asians have "round skulls". So do North Asians and, lo and behold many West Asians ~ take a good look at those Eastern European skulls and darned if they don't look round. Yet, the Eastern Europeans have no more ancestors from East Asian than do Western Europeans! The only major population of "white folks" with a large East Asian background are in the Middle East, and South Asia (Pakistan, India, etc.) And virtually none of them have "round skulls" except that sometimes they find remains with round skulls.

This particular report is based on skull measurements ~ and for every item brought forward, there is, somewhere, in somebody's scientific journal, a demonstration of the exact opposite finding.

You have to go way beyond skull shape and "roundness" into fundamental individual identification points ~ which I don't see in this report although I do see facial reconstructions that do exactly that.

Makes me think the author has some other news up his sleeve, and it's going to be all about Australians and Homo habilis. You have to remember, they claim there were still wild, natural homo habilis types wandering the land as recently as 14000 years ago ~ and they have some skulls and skeletons to prove it. Now we have a report that Australian types were in the Americas.

What the Australians want to prove, and may have, is that homo habilis and local successors had the ability to sail sea worthy boats for thousands of miles!~

[Eldon Tyrell]

Gents -

The weak minds will want to use this to imagine boats - which is silly.

What it really says is that - if an earlier wave came here - they are similar in time to the wave that reached Australia, and may have similar development schedule/timeline.

Put a common group in SE Asia. Have one split and go North for America. Have one split and go South for Aussieland.

Approx same time to cover these distances - with some variation for game -rate of movement etc.

[Question_Assumptions]

Yet, the Eastern Europeans have no more ancestors from East Asian than do Western Europeans!

Ever hear of the Huns?

[ApplegateRanch]

The fundamental problem of cranial analysis is that there are NO genes focused exclusively on cranial shape.

There are changes through time that literally mean nothing ~

You trying to say that the Science of Phrenology is a crock of corky cranberries? ;-)

[1010RD]

Are you doubting the science of phrenology?

[ComputerGuy]

Round-headed vs long-headed is just one of the ways skull shapes are measured, as I'm sure you know. A great book, and one that I've had since high school is Early Man in the New World (1962) by Macgowan and Hester. They mention several South American skulls which had keeled vaults and/or heavy brow ridges - features that are largely lacking in Asian populations.
It's a fascinating subject and one that I wish had pursued. It's certainly been my main area of interest all my life.