Viruses May Offer New Line of EvidenceFor example, one type of the virus exists in people living along the Pacific coast of the Americas, he told scientists attending a session on genetic research. Its presence suggests the possibility "that the original settlement of the Americas might have been along an area that is now flooded, and that American Indians moved into both continents simultaneously -- or even South America first." Black said that populations of eastern Siberia do not have the virus, "so they must have come in after the migration to the Americas." Further, he said, the variations of the virus suggest that the three-wave theory of aboriginal settlement of the Americas is not an adequate explanation... Robert Foley of the University of Cambridge said in a presentation delivered by a colleague that genetics can only tell us about past populations that left descendants. Genetics, he noted, reveal nothing about peoples that died out. Applied to the study of early populations of the Americas, for example, Foley's message implies that the range of variation in past populations could be quite different than the range of variation now observed among living Native American populations.
Mammoth Trumpet
Vol 11, no 3 (1996)
I bookmarked this thread to my profile page.