Pause Is Seen in a Continent’s Peopling

New York Times ^ | March 12, 2014 | Nicholas Wade

[Defiant]

Using a new method for exploring ancient relationships among languages, linguists have found evidence further illuminating the peopling of North America about 14,000 years ago. Their findings follow a recent proposal that the ancestors of Native Americans were marooned for some 15,000 years on a now sunken plain before they reached North America.

This idea, known as the Beringian standstill hypothesis, has been developed by geneticists and archaeologists over the last seven years. It holds that the ancestors of Native Americans did not trek directly across the land bridge that joined Siberia to Alaska until the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago. Rather, geneticists say, these ancestors must have lived in isolation for some 15,000 years to accumulate the amount of DNA mutations now seen specifically in Native Americans.

..........

Building on Dr. Vajda’s success, two linguists, Mark A. Sicoli of Georgetown University and Gary Holton of the University of Alaska, have assessed the relationship of the two language families based on shared grammatical features, rather than vocabulary.

In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday, they report their surprising finding that Na-Dene is not a descendant of Yeniseian, as would be expected if the Yeniseian speakers in Siberia were the source population of the Na-Dene migration. Rather, they say, both language families are descendants of some lost mother tongue. Their explanation is that this lost language was spoken in Beringia, and that its speakers migrated both east and west. The eastward group reached North America and became the Na-Dene speakers, while the westward group returned to Siberia and settled along the Yenisei River.

[Defiant]

Interesting theory. Based on a scholarly article published here.

[Defiant]

Ping

[First_Salute]

My lowly two cents worth ... is, that the ancients trekked in both directions across the top, entering/leaving present day North American around both sides of present day Hudson Bay.

Some time later, some ancients trekked east/west across present day Alaska.

The preceding groups were prone to be *both* nomadic and semi-agrarian hunter-gather-er.

Other ancients were trekking north/south between present day North American and present day Central America.

These groups were prone to be less nomadic than the above groups; and these groups were more agrarian, also building longer-lasting towns and cities - many constructed on mounds (these were “the mound builders”).

The notion that any of these peoples were innocent, peace-loving agents working for old EPA regimes in order to preserve the planet for posterity ... is wrong.

When more often, they were inclined to “rub out” their enemies, though saving some as slaves and adopting fewer numbers.

I suspect that the “mound builders” became physically, relatively weaker than the more nomadic-prone (willing to hunt over great distances), which is how the “mound builders” lost many struggles between the 14th - 16th centuries ... eventually being replaced almost completely by the 17th century.

Leaving the many clans, families, and tribes encountered by settlers, starting with the 17th century.

Something like that.

[Defiant]

I agree with much of your scenario, although I do think that the most likely reason the mound builders were so depleted by the 1700s was due to disease brought from Europe. It is estimated to have wiped out up to 90 percent of the pre-Columbian population. As for the relative size of the nomadic hunter gatherers, I have read that they were not as large, and resided much further south, prior to the Spanish. After they got horses, they rode north for the buffalo hunts, ate a lot more meat, got more populous, and grew in average size and population. I have no doubt there was lots of internecine warfare as well. They were not angels, although some tribes were more warlike than others.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Defiant. Related: CU-led study says Bering Land Bridge a long-term refuge for early Americans.

they report their surprising finding that Na-Dene is not a descendant of Yeniseian, as would be expected if the Yeniseian speakers in Siberia were the source population of the Na-Dene migration. Rather, they say, both language families are descendants of some lost mother tongue. Their explanation is that this lost language was spoken in Beringia, and that its speakers migrated both east and west. The eastward group reached North America and became the Na-Dene speakers, while the westward group returned to Siberia and settled along the Yenisei River.

Na-Dene shows almost no antiquity in the form of development of variant dialects, meaning that it comes from a recent, single, small fountainhead. This in turn shows that its speakers entered the Americas long after the linguistically diverse ("delirious, kaleidoscopic riot") of points south.

[lbryce]

Peopling is way over-rated.

[Defiant]

Peopling is way over-rated.

Not when I do it.

[Alas Babylon!]

How then do they account for the age of places like Monte Verde in southern Chile, a site dated to 14,000 years ago, and at the END of any possible land migration in the Americas?

No, some people had boats, probably made of whale ribs and sealskin, and hunted marine animals close along the ocean shore. Starting immediately off the coast of northwestern Asia, just north of Japan, they could have followed the coast north and eastward until reaching the Aleutians.

Once to the Aleutians, they are basically in the Americas. Continuing eastward, and then southward from the bight of Alaska, puts them off the Pacific coast of North America, a region rich in marine mammals and fish in the millions. Following these creatures, say, only a hundred miles or so a generation, which for a marine mammal hunting culture in boats is nothing, puts them at Southern Chile with 2000 years.

Of course, during the height of glaciation, the coast was many miles out to sea from where it is now, and sea levels were about 300 feet lower than today. That means most of the camp sites, fishing villages and places to butcher and dry the catch are now under water, perhaps miles off-shore.

Someone needs to look here, using sonar to spot likely places like river mouths and formerly sandy broad beaches close to woods (for fish drying and smoking camps).

[Salvation]

“The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not.” [1925]

~~G. K. Chesterton

[Kevmo]

peopling of a continent... interesting grammar and interesting intellectual position.

[bert]

internecine warfare = survival of the fittest

A result of war is absorption. The weak are absorbed away

[Texan5]

You will be assimilated-resistance is futile...