Human migration into North America I have missed a number of the discussions on SW Cavers and the Texas remailer, but this is largely a response to Donald. Hope I am not stepping on some previous posts that I have missed. Donald, this has been a side interest of mine since my anthro days at UNM, but I don't keep rigorously abreast of the latest confirmed data. There has been lots of conjecture, discussions, and fist-fights over the ideas of how and when the Native Americans got here. The last decade has brought the advent of DNA identification and that, coupled with more accepted dating of archaeological sites and linguistics studies are starting to give us some answers. The bottom line is that most of the major ideas of how humans spread from Asia start to make sense to me. The only major theory that fails is the idea that there was a significant influx from the east, across the Atlantic: the so-called " Solutrean Theory". Any input from that source does not seem to have had an impact on the Native DNA, prior to the coming of Europeans after 1492. Lots of the story remains to be unraveled, but the following seems to be shaking out. The August 12, 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (referenced in the Sept 21, 2013 issue of Science News) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna-reveals-details-peopling-americas The article stated that mitochondrial DNA combined with more traditional archaeology (especially language studies) pretty conclusively shows that there were three major times of migration of peoples into the Americas from Asia. There were numerous individual groups that came east and south during each of these broad periods of migration. 18,000-15,000 years ago (perhaps even a bit earlier): by sea in small boats down the Pacific Coast line all the way to the tip of South America, spreading inland. This seeded both North and Central America and all of South America with humans. The South American DNA remained distinct from the DNA brought by later migrations into North America. All the Native Americans seem to have DNA that traces back to a child known as the Mal’ta boy, who lived near central Siberia’s Lake Baikal 24,000 years ago. This was reported in November 20, 2013 issue of Nature (summary : https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-siberian-bones-clarify-native-american-origins). 14,000 to 10,000 years ago the opening ice-free corridor in the Canadian Rockies allowed influx of big game hunters and other hunter-gatherers to move south from the Arctic. This appears to have provided the dominant wash of DNA of most North American natives, from the west coast, high plains (including the Clovis peoples), down the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf, as well as east to Nova Scotia, all along the east coast and (by some path) into Florida. This is the dominant DNA stock of North American natives south of the Arctic. This group can also trace their DNA back to Mal’ta boy, but did not make it across Central America to South America. There appear to be distinctive differences in the DNA between North and South America. Starting about 4,000 years ago, modern Inuit spread east across the Arctic (northern Canada) to Greenland. DNA from the only well-documented Clovis burial, a baby who died some 12,600 years ago, strongly indicates that this individual represents the influx from Asia after the opening of the ice-free corridor. The data reported in the Feb. 13, 2014 issue of Nature (summarized in the March 22, 2014 issue of Science News https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clovis-baby%E2%80%99s-genome-unveils-native-american-ancestry ) suggests that the Clovis people and all present-day Native North Americans came from the same genetic stock. The article does not specifically relate the Clovis DNA to the South American populations or to Naia, but I am sure someone is busily doing this. I await the results, but it fits into the general story that is emerging. If confirmed, this study does put to rest the idea of the Solutrean hypothesis, that ancient Europeans crossed the Atlantic and established the Clovis culture in the New World. Naia, the Hoyo Negro girl who inspired the latest round of posts, fits into this somehow. It sounds to me as if they are still trying to fit her DNA into the above story. Ancient Cave Skeleton Sheds Light on Early American Ancestry 5/15/2014 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/05/15/ancient-cave-skeleton-sheds-light-on-early-american-ancestry/#.U3d0pyhJikw Hope this helps. Dwight
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