[Varda]

The craniometric studies indicated that the skull did not belong in any extant catagory but was more similar to Ainu/polynesian and southeast Asian populations. That doesn't translate to Caucasoid but perhaps he comes from a population that is ancestral to it and the southeast Asians.

There is some debate about when the current races evolved. I've seen it estimated that the three major races are all post pleistocene adaptations. The oldest find with modern mongoloid morphology is only from 7000 BP (Baoji, China).

The fact that ancient and modern New World inhabitants have Lineage X (European mtDNA marker) was an exciting discovery. That doesn't mean that they're Caucasoids either but it does show that peoples flung worldwide are more related than we used to think.

I'm not accussing anyone of having a "gotcha" attitude since I had exactly the same reaction at first. What I didn't know at the time was that humanity had generic rather undiferentiated features at lot more recently then I thought. "What this means is that the earliest Americans arrived before Homo sapiens had diverged into local groups we erroneously call races. They are representatives of the human prototype from which we all sprang as little as 50,000-60,000 years ago." (James Chatters)

[shamusotoole]

Your post is well said and and you have been paying close attention. I do not disagree with any of it, because frankly, the puzzle has more complexity than I ever imagined. I'm certain more surprises will follow as rational inquiry continues. This court decision is a step in that direction.