Posted on 02/20/2006 3:32:34 PM PST by blam
Ancient People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says
Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
Sun Feb 19, 9:00 PM ET
ST. LOUIS—Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp.
The new finding lends strength to the "coastal migration theory," whereby early maritime populations boated from one island to another, hunting the bountiful amounts of sea creatures that live in kelp forests.
This research was presented here Sunday at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science by anthropologist Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon.
Today, a nearly continuous "kelp highway" stretches from Japan, up along Siberia, across the Bering Strait to Alaska, and down again along the California coastline, Erlandson said.
Kelp forests are some of the world's richest ecosystems. They are homes to seals, sea otters, hundreds of species of fish, sea urchins and abalone, all of which would have been important food and material sources for maritime people.
Although the coastal migration theory has yet to be proven with hard evidence, it is known that seafaring peoples lived in the Ryukyu Islands near Japan during the height of the last glacial period, about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago. These peoples may have traveled 90 or more miles at a time between islands.
Some scientists believe that maritime people boated from Japan to Alaska along the Aleutian and Kurile Islands around 16,000 years ago. Before that, people may have island-hopped their way to Australia 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
Scientists have discovered settlements 11,500 to 9,000 years old along the coasts of some of these Pacific islands, which also have ecologically-rich kelp forests nearby that Erlandson believes existed when people were island hopping. The remains of kelp resources have been discovered in a settlement in Daisy Cave in the Channel Islands off southern California, dated to about 9,800 years ago.
"The fact that productive kelp forests are found adjacent to some of the earliest coastal archaeological sites in the Americas supports the idea that such forests may have facilitated human coastal migrations around the Pacific Rim near the end of the last glacial period," Erlandson said. "In essence, they may have acted as a sort of kelp highway."
Kelp forests also provide a barrier between coastal settlements and the rough open seas and lessen the wave forces on beach-side settlements. Sometimes the kelp washes up on land, where land animals, which humans could kill and eat, can munch on it.
I add this because he said the short people tied their boats off shore in the kelp fields and swam ashore. The shore lines were to jagged and rough to dock boats.
GGG Ping.
Today's modern Canadian is an example of what a diet rich in kelp can do to you.
Blam, that is quite interesting! Do you happen to have a reference -- or should I go a-Googling...?
BTW, it's been a while since I thanked you for all your history and prehistory posts -- so Thank You!!!
I don't remember where I read that...so, go googling. Humboldt also said that the women were in charge of the boats and were the ones who retrieved the boats in the kelp forest and brought them to shore for the men. He assumed that was because the women had more fat and could handle the cold better than the men.
That may have been in C.D. Darlington's 1969 book titled: The Evolution Of Man And Society, but, I'm not sure.
Why does everybody automatically assume the ONLY route to North and South America was by some coastal route that followed the Bering Strait when it was a land bridge? Genotypes include individuals that were clearly similar to Polynesian islanders, and share some of the distinctive genetic makeup. Others look much like Northern Europeans, which brings up the possibility that Leif Ericsson was NOT the first to reach the banks of Nova Scotia. The Ojibway people are quite unlike their neighbors, the Dakotah, and spoke a very different language.
There is no "typical" Indian appearance. Eastern woodlands Indians were very unlike western Plains Indians, and the Mississippian culture had little in common with that of the Northwest in Washington State or British Columbia.
The Ojibway have the highest percent of the so-called 'European gene X' than all other Indians in the Americas.
ping
I'd like to know which land animals eat kelp.
My horse won't touch the stuff.
Thanks Blam.Cradle of Chocolate?Digging through history to a time before agriculture, archaeologists from Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley have found evidence of a village that was continuously occupied from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1000 as well as hints to the secret of the community's remarkable longevity.
by Roger Segelken
Oct. 8, 1998
"My guess is, it all comes down to chocolate," says John S. Henderson, professor of anthropology at Cornell and co-director, together with Rosemary Joyce of Berkeley, of the archaeological dig at Puerto Escondido, Honduras. The type of ceremonial pottery uncovered by the archaeologists points to that region of Mesoamerica as a possible "Cradle of Chocolate."
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Sounds very feasible.
True, sounds very feasible. Amend the social studies curricula now!
How did they remain motivated enough to continue? Did they see weed?
Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high...
Sounds like they were simply following the food. If they were not agricultural peoples, they'd have to get their food from hunting or fishing. These folks were near to water, so fishing or hunting maritime creatures makes perfect sense.
How did they remain motivated enough to continue?
Burma-Shave signs.
Exactly. Here's another: folks in AA relate how frequently they uprooted their families in an attempt to apply the "geographic cure" to their addiction. Could explain why Amerindians were devastated by booze once the Euros caught up with them and started pouring the firewater.
The path followed is even deeper, since the ocean levels were hundreds of feet lower.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.