Founding Fathers And Mothers: How Many Crossed The Land Bridge?

Eureka Alert/Rutgers State University ^ | 5-24-2005 | Joseph Blumberg

[blam]

Founding fathers & mothers: How many crossed the land bridge?

Contact: Joseph Blumberg
blumberg@ur.rutgers.edu
732-932-7084 x652
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Programs on the Discovery Channel and PBS have sparked fresh interest in the prehistoric peopling of the New World. Now, for the first time, we have a realistic estimate of how many ancients made that ice age trek across the long-lost land bridge from Asia to become the first Native Americans. Jody Hey, a professor of genetics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has developed a computational method that uses genetic information to create models of population divergence – where a group has split off from its ancestral population to pursue its own destiny.

In a paper appearing in the June 2005 issue of PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology, Hey disclosed his findings. "The estimated effective size of the founding population for the New World is about 70 individuals," Hey said. "Calculations also showed that this represents approximately 1 percent of the effective size of the estimated ancestral Asian population."

"Effective size" in population genetics is often thought of as the number of adults of reproductive age. One rule of thumb is the effective size might be about one third of the 'census population size' which, in this case, comes out to about 200 people.

In addition to population size, Hey's rigorous and complex methodology also generated historical estimates of when the divergence occurred. His dates are consistent with much of the archaeological record – in the range of 12,000-14,000 years ago.

He was also able to discern changes in population size and the extent of gene flow between populations, potentially representing renewed contact. Hey used nine genes in which sequences and frequencies were well documented in the scientific literature.

"The beauty of the new methodology is that it uses actual DNA sequences collected from Asian peoples and Native Americans, an approach that can provide a detailed portrait of historical populations," Hey said. The method doesn't use summary statistics or averages as some approaches do, but gleans as much information as possible directly from the genetic data.

Hey focused on the genetics of Amerind-speaking populations, one of three major language groups in the New World representing the earliest migrants who extended deep into the Americas. The other groups, the more recent Athabascan speakers and the even more recent Eskimos and Aleuts, had less comprehensive genetic information available and were not included in Hey's study.

[2banana]

The beauty of the new methodology is that it uses actual DNA sequences collected from Asian peoples and Native Americans, an approach that can provide a detailed portrait of historical populations,"

Or more commonly called the "Casino Gene"

[ZULU]

Personally, I think it was further back than he claims.
A recent show on TV indicated that a date of 20,000 years ago, using genetic factors was not unreasonable.

Lingusitics experts come up with figures older than that.

WE know that modern man reached Australia at least 40,000 years ago (Mungo Man).

[blam]

GGG Ping.

I prefer the DNA study done by professor Stephen Oppenheimer. He places the first immigrants at Meadowcroft at 25,000 years ago. It is my opinion that these are the folks that are most closely related to Kennewick Man. The Obijawi(sp) Indians have the highest % of the the "X" halotype (European) gene than all others in this country. Here is an excellent map that shows this journey as created by Professor Oppenheimer:

The Journey Of Mankind

[blam]

"Personally, I think it was further back than he claims. "

See my post #4.

[blam]

"WE know that modern man reached Australia at least 40,000 years ago (Mungo Man)."

Oppenheimer suspects humans got to Australia before the Toba explosion 74,000 years ago. His 'map' does not include this suspicion.

[Drammach]

Seems to me just from the article that the study is quite narrowly focused..

Concentrating on Asian DNA is excluding all others..
It would seem to me that this would be only the first step in a more exhaustive study that would look at other sources..

[Van Jenerette]

...wow.

[samtheman]

It's true that land bridge led to an entirely new continent. But I imagine those travellers had to pay a heavy toll.

[wildbill]

Interesting stuff. 70 adventurous folks 'go forth and multiply'

[Arthalion]

Yep, the concentration on Asian DNA makes this useless. DNA analysis already shows that the American Indians are descended from at least seven different genetic lines, meaning that there were a minimum of seven distinct migrations of people from Eurasia to North America. DNA analysis also clearly shows that several of these lines originated in the Middle East, making them genetically related more to the Persians (and other Caucasian descendant populations) than to the Asiatic ethnogroups.

I believe that much of the early human expansionism was driven by basic tribalism. There is a lot of evidence today that early humans traded a communicated widely, and why not? Without population pressures, they probably coexisted far more peacefully than we do today. The big problem in a tribal society, however, is that tribes can only grow to a certain size before they become unmanageable and are forced to split (imagine having to hunt for 500 people). It is probable that after Berengia was discovered, stories filtered back about a huge land with no people in it. Most peoples response to this is that stories of these lands would have spread extremely slowly, but the fact that the land bridge existed for 40,000 years makes that irrelevant...even assuming that the story progressed only a mile a year, the Caucasians would have heard about it in a few thousand years. For a tribe looking at splitting, migrating to a huge new land without any other people to infringe on their hunting grounds would have been an extremely appealing possibility.

I've never understood why archaeologists are so set on believing that it was just spillover growth and accidental incursions while hunting that populated North America. It would have only taken one repeated story to set off a major and deliberate migration of other Eurasian people onto the continent.

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

I hasten to add that since each man will be required to perform prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating order.

[ZULU]

Awesome.

Thanks for that link.

I did read somewhere that the so-called "Ice-free corridor" through Canada is not considered by some authorities to be a viable route. These individuals contend that the environment there was not conducive to life and unattractive to early modern man - vast frozen wastelands with iced voer lakes.

I also remember reading somewhere that linguists believe California was some kind of distribution center for early modern man in North America as the widest variety of Native American languages were located in that area.

Then there are those theorists who bring in Solutrean man from Europe and Africa and those Africanoid looking Olmec monuments as well as a recent skull found in South America with Africa features.

Perhaps the peopling of the Americas was far more complicated than formerly thought. In addition to Meadowcroft, there are other pre-Clovis sites in South America - Chile and Brazil I believe, as well as parts of North America.

Perhaps there was a European and African element in early modern man in the Americas also.

[ZULU]

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Mungo_Man.html

Indicates Mungo Man may have been around 68,000 years old. New data has revised the age backwards, and as it was found in southeastern Australia, a much earlier date is possible for the original arrival.

I find this stuff really fascinating - better than reading any novel.

[ntnychik]

Interesting article. Check out link at #4.

[gregwest]

A picture of Saint Mungo:

St Mungo, also known by the less familiar name Kentigern, was a bishop and evangelist of Strathclyde. His early teacher, Serf, may have been responsible for giving Kentigern his popular monniker of Mungo, which means 'dear one'. Source: http://www.saintmungo.org/stmungo.html

[blam]

"Indicates Mungo Man may have been around 68,000 years old. New data has revised the age backwards, and as it was found in southeastern Australia, a much earlier date is possible for the original arrival."

Yup. His age has been reduced by 22,000 years.

The 'Hobbits' found on Flores Island (Indonesia) are (at this time) considered to have been Homo Erectus however, a well worn shell necklace found in their presence (remains) dated at 80,000 years old presents a problem. Homo Erectus didn't have the mental power to do such things.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam and Wildbill for the pings, and all who are contributing to the discussion.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[wildbill]

Oh, I dunno. Maybe during the Ice Age the idea of beauty was a fat girl that burns up with heat and sweats.