Posted on 02/22/2003 9:06:38 AM PST by blam
VINTAGE SKULLS
Researcher Silvia Gonzalez examines a 13,000-year-old skull. (Liverpool John Moores University)
The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas.
Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
Joseph Powell, a physical anthropologist at the University of New Mexico, cautions that other explanations for the skull shape differences must be considered before jumping to conclusions about origins. "Natural selection or some other microevolutionary forces may play a role. People change when their diets change. This happened in China, for example. Ancient Chinese don't really look much like modern Chinese from the same area. It's a worldwide phenomena and it may be related to the changes at the end of the Ice Age."
Paleoindian specialist Kenneth Tankersley believes archaeology is only beginning to scratch the surface of the debate. "Variation in the languages and DNA of American Indians not only suggests there were multiple migrations from a number of different homelands, but they imply that the first wave of people arrived in the Americas more than 30,000 years ago. This suggests archaeologists should be looking in older geological strata."
DNA evidence might be the best way to know where the first Americans came from and how or why they changed over time. The researchers have planned DNA tests, though successful extraction from remains this old is challenging.--COLLEEN P. POPSON
They seem to be the same as the Jomon.
The Ainu (a group closely related to the Emishi) relocated to the Northern parts of Japan from Siberia and Manchuria about the time the Emishi appear to have been hired to become Samurai.
They moved South to Hiroshima and Fukuoka at that time.
Tajima A, Hayami M, Tokunaga K, Juji T, Matsuo M, Marzuki S, Omoto K, Horai S.
Department of Biosystems Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0193, Japan.
The Ainu, a minority ethnic group from the northernmost island of Japan, was investigated for DNA polymorphisms both from maternal (mitochondrial DNA) and paternal (Y chromosome) lineages extensively.
Other Asian populations inhabiting North, East, and Southeast Asia were also examined for detailed phylogeographic analyses at the mtDNA sequence type as well as Y-haplogroup levels. The maternal and paternal gene pools of the Ainu contained 25 mtDNA sequence types and three Y-haplogroups, respectively.
Eleven of the 25 mtDNA sequence types were unique to the Ainu and accounted for over 50% of the population, whereas 14 were widely distributed among other Asian populations. Of the 14 shared types, the most frequently shared type was found in common among the Ainu, Nivkhi in northern Sakhalin, and Koryaks in the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Moreover, analysis of genetic distances calculated from the mtDNA data revealed that the Ainu seemed to be related to both the Nivkhi and other Japanese populations (such as mainland Japanese and Okinawans) at the population level.
On the paternal side, the vast majority (87.5%) of the Ainu exhibited the Asian-specific YAP+ lineages (Y-haplogroups D-M55* and D-M125), which were distributed only in the Japanese Archipelago in this analysis. On the other hand, the Ainu exhibited no other Y-haplogroups (C-M8, O-M175*, and O-M122*) common in mainland Japanese and Okinawans.
It is noteworthy that the rest of the Ainu gene pool was occupied by the paternal lineage (Y-haplogroup C-M217*) from North Asia including Sakhalin. Thus, the present findings suggest that the Ainu retain a certain degree of their own genetic uniqueness, while having higher genetic affinities with other regional populations in Japan and the Nivkhi among Asian populations.
Tambets K, Rootsi S, Kivisild T, Help H, Serk P, Loogvali EL, Tolk HV, Reidla M, Metspalu E, Pliss L, Balanovsky O, Pshenichnov A, Balanovska E, Gubina M, Zhadanov S, Osipova L, Damba L, Voevoda M, Kutuev I, Bermisheva M, Khusnutdinova E, Gusar V, Grechanina E, Parik J, Pennarun E, Richard C, Chaventre A, Moisan JP, Barac L, Pericic M, Rudan P, Terzic R, Mikerezi I, Krumina A, Baumanis V, Koziel S, Rickards O, De Stefano GF, Anagnou N, Pappa KI, Michalodimitrakis E, Ferak V, Furedi S, Komel R, Beckman L, Villems R. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu and Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia. ktambets@ebc.ee
The Saami are regarded as extreme genetic outliers among European populations. In this study, a high-resolution phylogenetic analysis of Saami genetic heritage was undertaken in a comprehensive context, through use of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and paternally inherited Y-chromosomal variation.
DNA variants present in the Saami were compared with those found in Europe and Siberia, through use of both new and previously published data from 445 Saami and 17,096 western Eurasian and Siberian mtDNA samples, as well as 127 Saami and 2,840 western Eurasian and Siberian Y-chromosome samples.
It was shown that the "Saami motif" variant of mtDNA haplogroup U5b is present in a large area outside Scandinavia. A detailed phylogeographic analysis of one of the predominant Saami mtDNA haplogroups, U5b1b, which also includes the lineages of the "Saami motif," was undertaken in 31 populations. The results indicate that the origin of U5b1b, as for the other predominant Saami haplogroup, V, is most likely in western, rather than eastern, Europe.
Furthermore, an additional haplogroup (H1) spread among the Saami was virtually absent in 781 Samoyed and Ob-Ugric Siberians but was present in western and central European populations.
The Y-chromosomal variety in the Saami is also consistent with their European ancestry. It suggests that the large genetic separation of the Saami from other Europeans is best explained by assuming that the Saami are descendants of a narrow, distinctive subset of Europeans.
In particular, no evidence of a significant directional gene flow from extant aboriginal Siberian populations into the haploid gene pools of the Saami was found.
""The Jomon are the obvious ancestors of the Ainu but not of modem Japanese," says C. Lonng Brace, an anthropologist at the University in Michigan in Ann Arbor. "
Those differences can be as profound as skin color and body proportion ordinarily used as the standards to define "race".
Interestingly enough, several of the gene variants that enable the Eskimo to live in the far North are similar in operation to those that allow the Sa'ami to live there, but they affect different genes on the same segment.
Thought I'd mention that because it can become confusing when reading about Sa'ami living on seal and Eskimon living on seal, and how they do that. You really do have to have some "differences" in the way your body handles the surplus iron you are consuming ~ plus, when you put Sa'ami and Eskimos on a modern Western diet they both develop diabetes, heart trouble, alcoholism, and so forth.
As you know some FR threads are incredibly interesting.
I have no problem with that. It's just that I rarely even remember making a particular post from that long ago.
It's like I'm reading it for the first time and noticing that I posted it.
One of the little quirks in Japanese anthropological studies has been the indifference of so many researchers to the existence of the Emishi.
They weren't just literary devices of early story tellers. No doubt they and the Ainu are of the same ancestry as the Jomon, but the Emishi had advanced culturally to the same degree as the Yayoi and Korean invaders.
No deja vu in my mind either!
It's amazing how many times I run across FR threads while doing a search on the internet.
Recalling that the Chinese were literate, and the Hakka were not, neither were the Yayoi when they arrived in Japan.
It's somewhat later (8 centuries in fact) before the first Korean speaking Koreans arrived from Korea.
The Hakka, in five migrations, moved from Northern China to Southern China and even today are know as 'the guests'. When they began the migrations in the north, many had Caucasian features and those with those features were killed and persecuted all the way across China.
This is believed to be apocryphal.
Still, modern Japanese may be found who have a "bridge". There's also a vast number of them who have "beep" noses like Charley Brown.
Hmmm, that is going to upset Latinos who claim they are the indigenous peoples.
Also, light or curly hair.
Also, on some of the hakka web sites, I've seen them argue among themselves about whether they are Han or not.
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