Studies examine clues of transoceanic contact [PreColumbian voyagers]

Columbus Dispatch ^ | Sunday May 19, 2013 | Bradley Lepper

[SunkenCiv]

The Jomon culture was mentioned in other news this month. The largest ever genetic study of native South Americans identified a sub-population in Ecuador with an unexpected link to eastern Asia. The study, published in PLOS Genetics, concluded that Asian genes had been introduced into South America sometime after 6,000 years ago -- the same time the Jomon culture was flourishing in Japan.

Back in the 1960s, the renowned Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers argued that similarities between the pottery of the contemporaneous Valdivia culture in Ecuador and Japan’s Jomon culture indicated that Japanese fishermen had “discovered” America about 5,000 years ago...

Writing in 1980, Meggers expressed frustration that transoceanic contact as an explanation for cultural similarities was dismissed by dogmatic colleagues as “cult archaeology,” and she complained that “no amount of evidence” could convince them...

The discovery of an apparent genetic link between eastern Asians and Ecuadoran natives provides intriguing independent support for Meggers’ hypothesis. Moreover, the fact that Jomon pottery was used predominantly for cooking seafood suggests that Jomon fishermen would have had little trouble feeding themselves on a long ocean voyage...

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Sherman Logan]

The largest ever genetic study of native South Americans identified a sub-population in Ecuador with an unexpected link to eastern Asia.

Wouldn't such populations be more likely found in Washington or BC? Hell of a long way to Ecuador.

Kind of like the "Viking remains" found in Minnesota. Lot of work to struggle inland for such a distance.

[Madhattan]

I think it is unlikely they crossed the ocean in a linear fashion. More likely they used the Japanese current and roughly followed the North American coast and then down into Central America.

[muawiyah]

must read tomorrow jomon

[muawiyah]

Way back in the 70s the only authoried way to get OLD WORLD people to the NEW WORLD was by walking ~ but 6,000 years ago they'd had to come by boat. Most archaeologists with an interest in the jomon pottery attributed it to earlier contact, on foot, between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago.

We've seen a much more recent 'explanation' for Sa'ami genes in the Americas where another group with related ancestry, managed to cross Beringia with the ancestors of the Indians back then ~ and I think the guy even used the Jomon pottery as part of his evidence.

Will dig that one up ~

Over time there have been thousands of large Pacific tsunamis that explain all Transpacific movements of East Asians to the Americans. They didn't need to walk ~ just a debris field. Thought it interesting archaeologists had been saying the ocean currents weren't sufficient to get folks from there to here, yet those currents were able to move an entire floating dock unit from Japan to Oregon!

More importantly, the ancestors of the culture bearers among the Polynesians, the Okinawans, Taiwanese, non-Jomon Japanese, as well as the Philippinos came from the same place in China across the strait from Taiwan. The land there gradually sinks ~ the people had to learn to use satisfactory boats to continue to live among the islands and raise wheat ~ rice not being capable of being farmed there.

The Sa'ami arrived far earlier!

[muawiyah]

The Spanish benchmark in Minnesota was written in Gothic, just like the others, and carved in runes typical of semi-educated students of 15th century runes. There was a plague that killed off the rune experts, so what was passed down to folks in the early 17th century when the surveys were done wasn't all that good. Swedish survey crews were used.

Vikings may have made it to Minnesota, but the Kensington stone is like the others that've been found. A similar benchmark was designed and set up on the mississippi west florida border in 1797 by the US and Spain ~

[zeestephen]

Re: “I think it is unlikely they crossed the ocean in a linear fashion.”

I agree.

Even in modern times, open ocean adventures in small boats almost always encounter life threatening weather or seas.

And, once on land, their problems may have only just begun, not ended.

Hostile natives, disease, drought, sudden disappearance of fish or game - I mean, good luck trying to live off the land or the sea in a place you know NOTHING about.

[SunkenCiv]

perhaps the operative phrase is “not yet found” in WA or BC.

[gleeaikin]

Some years ago when at the Epcot Center in Orlando I saw a Mexican pre-Columbian exhibit which had a cup with painting I swear looked exactly like a Japanese reproduction of a male figure.

[LibertyRocks]

Perfect timing.. Just started watching that documentary show “America Unearthed”... Some fascinating stuff - nothing seems very well documented at least as they approach things for the show, but fascinating nonetheless.

I find the most compelling evidence of cultural exchanges to be some of the shared folklore/history of cultures far separated by time and geography. I think our ancestors did a lot more traveling than we think, much farther “abroad” than we’ve ever been led to believe, either...

Anyway, just thought it neat that you posted this today. We’ll see how good the rest of the show is - I do wish it was a little more solid the way the evidence is presented though. I don’t know how much goes on “off-camera” or behind the scenes, but it feels like it’s more of a “Believe it or Not” type series with no hard evidence that will really be able to prove anything one way or the other.

Has anyone else watched the series? And, what did you think about it if you did? It’s enjoyable to me regardless, so I’ll probably watch all the episodes anyway. :)

[Tainan]

Japanese in South America 6000 yrs ago ping

[bert]

america unearthed.......... what channel?

[GladesGuru]

A professor of Meso-American Studies at Columbia happened to marry an attorney who lived in Tampa, FL, - and now you know how Dr. Evelyn Kessler became “a “Kessler” and how a professor with an endowed chair at Columbia University came to be teaching a course on Meso-American Archeology in the intellectual backwater known as University of South Florida(USF).

This was before USF became notorious for having Sammi Al-Arien on faculty and a ‘colleague’ of Al_arien left the World Islamic Studies Whatever and appeared in the land of the Palisimian as leader of Palisimian Jihad.

Unlike some faculty, such as a Professor in the Wymon’s Studies Department who authored the famous “Male Lesbian” article, Dr. Kessler was what one used to expect of a first line academic.

I took the course as a source of data because a friend was having docks installed in Central America and as he put it, “half the time a bucket comes up, it has artifacts in it”.

Naturally, I was curious as to what those artifacts might signify. When I mentioned this to Dr. Kessler, she remarked that warehouses of artifacts existed. What was needed was not more such artifacts, but someone capable of understanding what the culture was that created them.

She was quite certain that well developed trade and ceremonial centers were to be found in Central America, probably about the distance a boat could travel in a day or two.

Oh, before I stop reminiscing, an old, white haired pilot was flying from Honduras to Miami, during a September when no hurricane had occurred and the water had visibility exceeding 130 feet. Over the Bay of Honduras he said he saw a pyramid top in the water and estimated the depth as in excess of 100 feet.

Lots of things were built by entire cultures which flourished and vanished with no record.

That is a warning regarding the durability of the American Republic - defend it or wind up in the dust bin of history.

[SES1066]

I remember [yes, I am that old] when I read an article in a popular news magazine (Time?) about how the LASER was fascinating but was currently “a solution looking for a problem to solve.” Similarly, the solution of the DNA puzzle in 1953 by Watson & Crick (and Franklin) was regarded as a scientific triumph but of little import outside the field that became biochemistry.

Now like the LASER, DNA has revolutionized fields from genetics to criminology!

[ThanhPhero]

“no amount of evidence” could convince them...

Irrelevant. Better would be They would not accept any "amount of evidence." There's a difference.

[ThanhPhero]

If Coronado could travel that far why not Lars?

[ThanhPhero]

The ubiquity of pyramids is because the pyramid is the structure that is a natural for tall buildings when you don’t have steel for beams and girders. You stack one layer on another. Experience early teaches that the second and subsequent layers must be of progressively less area in order for it to not disintegrate around the sides. You either build it with step sides or you fair it to smooth. Rulers always want to get above their subjects or so place their gods with whom they identify. When agricultural people have enough surplus to support rulers in idleness those rulers magnify themselves and pyramids are the natural structures to reach up to heaven.

[ThanhPhero]

Maori and Northwest Tlingit et al cultures share very similar totem poles, house architecture and use of feathers as well as many other features not in evidence anywhere else. Transoceanic travel and trade was much more widespread and much older than heretofore believed.

[JoeProBono]