Did first Americans come from Europe?

MSNBC ^ | 2/20/06 | By Bjorn Carey

[minus_273]

ST. LOUIS - The first humans to spread across North America may have been seal hunters from France and Spain.

This runs counter to the long-held belief that the first human entry into the Americas was a crossing of a land-ice bridge that spanned the Bering Strait about 13,500 years ago.

The new thinking was outlined here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Recent studies have suggested that the glaciers that helped form the bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska began receding around 17,000 to 13,000 years ago, leaving very little chance that people walked from one continent to the other.

Also, when archaeologist Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution places American spearheads, called Clovis points, side-by-side with Siberian points, he sees a divergence of many characteristics.

[Aarchaeus]

Remind me, why did the glaciers begin receding beween 17,000 and 13,000 years ago?

Global warming. Obviously, there must have been too many people with too many campfires.

[GoLightly]

Do you think each and every one of our ancestors left a genetic footprint on us? Do you think genetic research is advanced enough to identify characteristics (DNA kind, not physical attribute kind) of each & every one that did?

[ThanhPhero]

Most of the more caucasoid natives that survived the imported diseases have long long ago shed their moccasins and put on hard hats and taken up briefcases and become standard Americans(or colonials in the 1700s) with no reference to their ancestry. Many of the East Coast natives were described in the 15-1600s as light skinned and large eyed and as not looking out of place in Paris or London.

[ThanhPhero]

That guy looks Ainu. Big time.

[Alfonso1000]

I think there is strong evidence supporting the theory that people did come over the Bering Strait, but evidence emerging that people also came to America from Europe and the Pacific Islands. Indians probably came from several places.

[blam]

The Samurai And The Ainu

[blam]

Lot and lots of mixing on the steppes.

On The Presence of Non-Chinese At Anyang

"The first group to arrive are held to have come from the north because the cranial measurements of the surviving skulls of this type are affinial with the skulls of the Afanasevo culture in particular, which was located in the Sayan-Altai/North Mongolia area, and with the skull types of steppe people living much further to the west. This group is called "Proto-European" by Mair and Mallory, and it can be dated to have arrived in Xinjiang about 1800 B.C.E. or somewhat earlier."

Pretty blonde headed Mongolian girl. I wonder what her DNA would say?

[Thinkin' Gal]

This is an active/rejuvinated thread from February.

America still hasn't figured out where she came from ping.

[GoLightly]

BTW...

Earlier genetic research on the kinship of the Finns and Sami has compared the polymorphism of the nuclear genes occurring in these populations. In the 1990s, efforts to determine the extent of kinship have focused on variations in their mitochondrial DNA. These studies have included samples from Finnish Sami in the Inari region, the Skolt Lapps, and Sami from Sweden and Norway. The reference material has included samples from other Finno-Ugric peoples and also from other European populations. It can be concluded on the basis of the differences occurring in the mitochondrial DNA that the Sami differ significantly from all the other population groups included in the study. The same results have been obtained by comparing the distribution and polymorphism of nuclear genes in various European populations. The Sami genotype appears to be distinct from that of other European peoples.

A combination of three mutations was found in more than one-third of the Sami samples. This "Sami motif" was observed in only one Finnish sample and in five Karelian samples. Moreover, it was not found in any of the other populations - Indo-European, Basque, African, Inuit or Japanese. Consequently, this combination appears to be restricted to the Sami and is an indication of the common origin of the Inari Sami, the Skolt Lapps and Sami from Sweden and Norway. The Sami therefore differ genetically from the other Finno-Ugric and Indo-European peoples, but still speak a Finno-Ugric language. As a result, they have not yet been located on the European language and gene maps, and collaboration among researchers in different fields is still needed.

http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/geeneng.html

[xcamel]

Too bad you believe that, because it it were really true, we'd all still be chimps -- or something much less than that.

[CobaltBlue]

Pretty blonde headed Mongolian girl. I wonder what her DNA would say?

Oh, like Mongolians didn't invade Europe and carry off women? And like Europeans don't travel to Mongolia? And like there are no white peoples in Central Asia, like Turks and Afghanis?

Ever hear of Ockham's Razor?

[CobaltBlue]

Many of the East Coast natives were described in the 15-1600s as light skinned and large eyed and as not looking out of place in Paris or London.

Which Indian tribes were said to look like Europeans? I'm working on a history of events that took place at Jamestown, and reading right now about the Powhatan Indians, and I have yet to come across such a statement.

Have you ever seen drawings of Pocahontas? Even dressed up like a British lady, she didn't look white in the least.

[CobaltBlue]

I think what you mean to say is that "genes change", not "genes lie."

[CobaltBlue]

Forgot to mention Russians.

Yes, it would be interesting to see her DNA tested, but my money is on either Russians "mingling" with the native women or the Mongol Hordes carrying off western women.

[Wallace T.]

Many modern American Indians in the Eastern states have visible European ancestry. However, these Indians have had contact with Europeans for over 400 years in some instances. French and Scottish traders and fur trappers penetrated the interior of the Eastern states generations before white settlement began, and many of them married Indian women. In another case, the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina may well include descendants of the failed colony established by Sir Walter Raleigh. Whites who were captured in raids sometimes identified with their captors, the case of Cynthia Ann Parker in Texas being perhaps the most well-known frontier equivalent to the "Stockholm syndrome". There are also biracial and triracial communities in the East that are not considered culturally Native American, but that have considerable Indian ancestry. Examples include the Melungeons in Virginia and North Carolina and the Jackson Whites in New Jersey. While I would not entirely rule out some pre-Columban arrivals from Europe or the Middle East, it is likely that most American Indians with European genes can attribute them to post-1600 colonists.

[CobaltBlue]

I have Native American ancestry but consider myself white. My mother's mother's mother was Metis, mixed Ojibwe and French, too tangled to tease out the mixing at this late date.

She married a German/English man and the descendents have many with red or blonde hair, green or blue eyes.

[Diego1618]

Thanks for the ping. If you tell them where they came from..... they'll never believe you.

[Ciexyz]

One of the few facts I remembered from elementary school geography many years ago, was that the first Americans walked here across the Bering Strait. Unless somebody videotaped a different conclusion, the old one's good enough for me. (smile)

[GOPlibertarian]

You've got many sites that suggest a presence older than the peoples associated with the Beringian migrations, particularly in S. America. There seems to have been at least two or three waves of migration, with at least one being along the coast, and perhaps there were more. We won't really know until we start digging deeper than 13KYA, where most archaeologists simply stop because they assume there isn't anything more.

[Ciexyz]

Two or three different migrations, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!