Posted on 05/11/2006 5:09:23 PM PDT by blam
Ancient American Skeleton Has European DNA Link
[Original headline: Sinkhole Skeleton Skeleton’s DNA Could Shed Light on American Migrations]
Vanlue, Ohio [AP] — The discovery of prehistoric tools from an Ohio cave is one of several finds that has scientists questioning the identity of settlers thought to have moved in 11,000 years ago.
A just completed excavation of Sheriden Cave in Wyandot County, 100 miles southwest of Cleveland, revealed tools made from flaked stone and bone. The items are scheduled to go on display next year at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Kent State University archaeologist Kenneth Tankersley, who led the excavation over the past four years, said definite answers won’t come until someone finds an Ice Age skeleton and the DNA is tested.
Rare Genetic Link to Europe
“Disagreement swirls around the timing of their arrival, the nature of their migration, how fast they moved across the landscape and their relationship to contemporary Native Americans,” he said.
Some scientists think that the earliest colonizers could have started out somewhere in Europe, not in Asia as previously thought. That idea is rooted in a rare genetic link called haplogroup X - DNA passed down through women that dates back more than 30,000 years.
Recent genetic samples from remains in Illinois show that the rare European DNA was around centuries before European exploration. Today, haplogroup X is found in about 20,000 American Indians.
To some researchers, its presence suggests the Mongolian ancestors of most American Indians were latecomers. Genetic tests show the DNA is completely absent from East Asian and Siberian populations.
That could dispel the more than half-century old notion that humans migrated across a land bridge from Siberia at the end of the Ice Age, made stone tools and hunted while moving south.
Archaeologists since 1996 have found genetic indications of several migrations, along with evidence that people came from Polynesia, regions near Japan and even western Europe.
Skeleton Has Scientists Jumpy
“Frankly, it makes me nervous,” Smithsonian Institution anthropologist Stephen Loring said of the idea that the first Americans during the Ice Age were of European ancestry.
“It’s a heretical argument, and some people, unfortunately, will use it to assert the cultural superiority of Europeans. But it’s a good theory that needs to be tested.”
Tankersley and Brian Redmond, head of archaeology at the Cleveland Natural History Museum, have been seeking clues about the first colonizers from the cave, which is hidden 50 feet below cornfields.
“To find human remains of that age, 11,000 years old, is really, really rare, and I don’t think there are any in that cavern. We would have found them,” Redmond said. But he added, “Who knows what may turn up in the future. We’re certain it was a camping area.”
Farmers and landowners fear they could be tied up in litigation by preservationists and Indian tribes if old bones are disturbed.
“We know of places where you could probably find human remains up here,” said Keith Hendricks, a Hancock County sheriff’s deputy whose family owns the sinkhole where the Ice Age relics have been recovered. “But the problem is you’d be opening a Pandora’s box. It’s a sensitive issue.”
• Story originally published by •
ABCNEWS.com - November 27 2000
If the Indians were not the first people here, does that mean that they are not true "native Americans" and that they stole the land from the indigenous people?
This is an old article. It was originally posted on FR by Machman on 11-27-2000, It was 'locked-out' when JimRob changed the software.
Here's the original posting: Sinkhole Skeleton (European "Native Americans?")
a misleading headline, but interesting story
No, I won't use it to assert the cultural superiority of my ancestors, but I will use it against anybody that uses the argument, "we were here first, therefore we're entitled to __________".
That the truth is more complex than anybody realized should be the baseline assumption.
I guess we get to keep the Southwest now.
The DNA evidence suggests that there was at least some assimilation. The Obijawe(sp) Indians have the highest percent (25%) of this 'X-gene' today.
See also: the legend of the great horn
I agree but, if you follow the link, IMO, the original title was also.
kenowick man ping
I agree but, if you follow the link, IMO, the original title was also.
Had me going too. I thought is was something new.
I have been following mtDNA closely of late, as we have some data coming in that may help unravel one of the other migrations.
It's hilarious how firmly PC has metasticised in ceertain occupations.
Stephen, nothing further is need to assert the cultural superiority of Europeans or anything else that is self-evident.
What is making many individuals wet their knickers is the possibility that Europeans may soon be sending Indians a huge bill for rent for the last 12,000 years of imperial occupation, without having the brains (or the good sense) to invent writing!
I'm opening a casino!
Both the mythology and the physiognomies of the Ojibwa seem to have European echoes.
Letter From Newfoundland: Homing In On The Red Paint People
If you take this Journey Of Mankind developed from the DNA studies of Stephen Oppenheimer, near the end, he shows a group of people entering the NE US at Meadowcroft 25,000 years ago and then becoming exiled (isolated) during the subsequent Last Glacial Maximum(LGM), 18-23,000 years ago.
Now, if you believe that the oldest (undisputed) Mongoloid skeleton ever found is only 10,000 years old as Oppenheimer claims, then the people who arrived at Meadowcroft were not 'Native Americans' as defined today.
My suspicion is that they were (more or less) of the Ainu (Kennewick Man) body style (racial group) and may be the source of the halpogroup-X (some call it the European 'gene') shared only by some of today's American Indians and Europeans.
Most of the oldest skeletons & skulls (not exclusively) being found in the Americas are of the long narrow type associated with Kennewick Man. And, Oppenheimer say that the Obajiwe(sp) Indians of the NE US have the highest precent (25) of the 'X-gene' than all other Indians in the US.
So, might these people of the NE US, the Red Paint People and others (reported to be tall and lighter skinned) be remnants of this group from 25,000 years ago?
“It’s a heretical argument, and some people, unfortunately, will use it to assert the cultural superiority of Europeans.
What is this guy saying?
How does someone like this get hired at the Smithsonian?
Several early American populations invented writing.
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