Who really discovered America?

Lots of work to be done in unraveling the peopling of the Americas. If I was a young man I'd probably try to work in this field.

 

The problem with most of this is simply in finding good archaeological sites.

In the earliest histories of human migration, most tended to follow sea coasts. And because of the rise in oceans since then most of them are underwater. For example, when the first humans reached North America, what was then the coastline is now 20 miles away from the current coastline. San Francisco was simply an inland valley, and the Farallon and Santa Catalina Islands were actually part of the mainland. This makes most sites for the oldest inhabitation destroyed and underwater.

What that leaves us is finding some clues in the scattered areas inland where they were primarily "passing through". And widely scattered, like in Oregon, Virginia, North Carolina, and New Mexico. In each of these locations there is no real evidence of any kind of continuous occupation, simply bands setting up camp for a year or so then moving on again. Most likely lived as their ancestors in Europe and Asia were at that time, following bands of their prey animals from location to location.

It is only really at that point that in coastal areas that humans first started to set up permanent settlements. And those are all long erased.

 

Well all this just goes to show you who the Celtic are.
All those others did noting with it for centuries till the Protestant Scandinavian came along civilized it and made it into the greatest nation on earth. Just like we did Europe and now its gone too.
Too bad we got too civilized and lost them both.

 

nope,archeologists aren't geneticists...DNA is conclusive and definitive, due to the small number of varieties (only 15)mitochondrial DNA in indigenous people it appears they all descended from about 250 individuals...Clovis doesn't represent a distinctive genetic population just a distinct lithic/technical culture, a people can change their technology it doesn't indicate they disappeared from history.

 

"DNA is conclusive and definitive", yet the science and discovery keeps changing.

 

yeah the interior passage is looking to be a dead hypothesis, even if it was open it would a very long time before there was sufficient wildlife in the corridor to sustain a population moving through it. They just didn't one day decide "hey there's an opening through the glaciers let's go two thousand km south!" There's a mistaken belief people migrated as if they knew where they were going(they didn't), it was really a population expansion which takes a long time when people travel by foot. A population expansion through the corridor would've taken a very long time.

A relatively quick coastal expansion just makes so much more sense, skirt the mountains and glaciers by boat then expand into the interior of the continent further south. Northern populations that didn't make the coastal expansion no doubt expanded east and south through the interior route once the glaciers retreated sufficiently.

Earlier hypothesis were based on the estimates geological of interior glacial retreat, archeologists were culturally biased believing early peoples weren't technologically capable of sea travel. Those ideas got thrown out when dating of finds south of the Glaciers conflicted with the opening of the ice sheets.

 

sure, DNA is one of those discoveries and it's answering many questions and turning previous ideas upside down...archeologists love what it's telling them, it's a new wonder tool in their tool box. As the science of DNA improves more info will come into focus.

 

Most are still going off of the belief that there was just a big migration from West to East. And this still seems to be the most common theory, even as more evidence piles up that this was not the case.

For decades the belief was that the migrations started around 14kya, and continued until the land bridge vanished. Even though contact between the Inuit between Asia and North America continued until Alaska was "rediscovered" in more modern times. And in the last 20 years the dating of "First Migration" has been pushed back from 14kya to 16kya. to over 20kya.

Then you have the odd fact that the oldest sites all seem to be clustered in the Eastern US, which makes little sense if the migration came from Asia.

Today, among archaeologists there are 2 general schools of thought.

First is the "Short Chronology Theory", which holds most of the remnants of the "Clovis First" backers. To these believers, all migration started and peaked between 19-20kya, and declined then fell off by 13kya. They believe the migration to the Americas took place over a few thousand years, and the migrating humans all came through at a single point relatively quickly.

The other is the "Long Chronology Theory" believers. Who believe that the migrations started much-much earlier, possibly as long as 40kya. There have been human artifacts recovered in Pennsylvania that date to 19kya, and others in Canada that are 24kya. I believe the Long Chronology explains a lot of the inconsistencies in findings, including the Clovis Point, distribution of humans, as well as the genealogical irregularities. The latter waves of migrants from 13-14kya simply overwhelmed a small and more diverse population that had been here already for thousands of years and absorbed them.

Think of it as what happened when Europeans came thousands of years later. The Indians were simply overwhelmed and mostly blended into the gene pool until they are barely recognizable as being different other than those who made the decision to live apart from the rest of society. In less than 200 years most Indian tribes have largely vanished. Not through conquest or genocide, but simply by "leaving the reservation" and joining the rest of the "American Society". The same thing more than likely happened to each earlier wave of migrants as newer waves entered an area.

 

wikipedia:
"The Solutrean hypothesis argues that people from Europe may have been among the earliest settlers of the Americas.[2][3] Its notable recent proponents include Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter.[4]This hypothesis contrasts with the mainstream archaeological orthodoxy that the North American continent was first populated by people from Asia, either by the Bering land bridge (i.e. Beringia) at least 13,500 years ago,[5] or by maritime travel along the Pacific coast, or by both. The idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance. The hypothesis is challenged by large gaps in time between the Clovis and Solutrean eras, a lack of evidence of Solutrean seafaring, lack of specific Solutrean features and tools in Clovis technology, the difficulties of the route, and other issues.[6][7]

In 2014, the autosomal DNA of a male infant from a 12,500-year-old deposit in Montana was sequenced.[8] The skeleton was found in close association with several Clovis artifacts. Comparisons showed strong affinities with DNA from Siberian sites, and virtually ruled out any close affinity of Anzick-1 with European sources. The DNA of the Anzick-1 sample showed strong affinities with sampled Native American populations, which indicated that the samples derive from an ancient population that lived in or near Siberia, the Upper Palaeolithic Mal'ta population.[9]"

Yet another hypothesis emerging from the increasing liklihood that the 'land bridge migration from Asia 10000 years ago' isn't the whole story.

 

where sites are found isn't really relevant there are many factors to be considered...some regions are just more suitable to find sites due to geology, topography, population density...the rockies have a highly active geology due to erosion, vast difficult terrain and very low population, so discovering new sites is very infrequent and extremely difficult, the western deserts and arctic have similar difficulties.

 

yeah the The Solutrean hypothesis proponents have nothing...it was an interesting legitimate hypothesis which archeologists what are supposed to do, propose a hypothesis (thinking outside the box) and follow up and attempt to substantiate the idea.. but it's just still a hypothesis with nothing concrete to back it up.

it's like all the hoopla over Kennewick Man, researchers claiming he was european, or Ainu and in no way indigenous american that it was just impossible based on his physical morphology ...many many years later DNA conclusively ended the debate, Kennewick Man was an indigenous america

 

Wait, how can you throw out both Long and Short Chronology theories?

Unless you are believing that the first people in the Americas either evolved here or were placed here by God, there is no other way for them to have come here.

And I always laugh at the gymnastics that the Solutrean skeptics use to explain the Haplogroup X2 issue. A gene that is almost exclusively in Western European peoples, but also mysteriously is also common in Eastern American Indian cultures. This gene is almost non-existent in Asian cultures, but the skeptics want us now to believe it popped up there some 15kya, spread to the Americas, then vanished in Asia. And somehow grew to become dominant in NE tribes, yet largely vanished in the rest of North America (and is almost unfound in Mexico or south of there).



That to me screams of somebody trying to refute the evidence because it contradicts what they want to believe. To me, this is strong evidence of an earlier concentration having been in place in the NE US, which later came in contact with a group from Asia. This explains the dispersal of the Haplogroup X gene by Occam's Razor, without the need for a gene to pop up in Asia and then die out again. And also solves why the concentration is only in one area.

 

all previous hypothesis based on previous knowledge are out the window, the only valid hypothesis are ones that are supported by DNA

new genes do pop up, that's what genetic mutation is all about ...

that a certain genetic markers may not be present elsewhere doesn't mean they aren't present, Genetic testing is still very sporadic in most regions of the world...n american genetic testing is dominant dna studies...

european DNA in indigenous people of north east N america, europeans have been in the region for over 500yrs how do you suppose that dna got there...people have sex=genetic transfer
I have genetic markers from the south pacific in my very western euro body and I've never been there... but one of my grannies ancestors did about 150-200yrs ago and that's all it takes...one person comes back to europe and now hundreds of my relatives will carry the same south pacific genetic marker, and tests don't always pick up those markers.

now transfer that scenario to hundreds of thousands of single european men coming to the americas intermarrying with the indigenous population over 500 yrs...how do you find it so inexplicable that european genetic markers are spread throughout the indigenous population you want to credit a unproven, prehistoric migration with zero hard evidence. when the evidence for that genetic transfer is right before your eyes? you're contorting your logic( mental "gymnastics") in order to make it fit your personal pet hypothesis of prehistoric european migration.

Occam's Razor indeed, you're ignoring the simple obvious answer pursuing the far fetched and unsubstantiated.

there is no culture on earth that has not had a genetic transfer with the outside world regardless how isolated they appear in the last 3,500yrs...in the americas every indigenous group has had genetic transfer in the last 500 yrs, there's no need to look back 15,000yrs for it. Occam's Razor!

 

here's something you'd may find interesting, I came across another thread in the forum a link to a Genetics lecture posted in it's entirety in Other Political Discussion > History & Past Politicians Ancient DNA and the human past, posted by Third Term

ultimately we're all related, we all came from africa. We all share the same one or two women as our ancestor/s and over the centuries have split of into various family groups countless times and reconnected with each as well swapping DNA. I knew heard years back there was a connection between western european populations to native americans but nothing detailed. At the 18 minute mark of the video the speaker explains the "ghost population" of central siberia that contributed to both europeans and Native americans, who later picked up gentic contributions from eastern asian groups while on their way to the americas. That population no longer exists in central Siberia.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas

 

I think it was the natives that lived on the land in North and South America. Your inability to recognize that fact shows what a white supremacist you be.

 

Complete unknowns like rolling stones who wrote no records and built no permanent structures other than dirt mounds.

It sure would be good to get back to those days of not causing globule warming and sacrificing humans.

 

Civilizations like the Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Inca all built pyramids...

 

There are no natives in the historical sense, to North and South America.

 

Before them somebody in southern Brazil built pyramids out of sea shells.

 

Then we are all imaginary...Since humans are not native to the planet Earth.

 

Well, I was speaking of historical fact. I guess you can run down Absurdity Lane if you wish.

And then, lacking any evidence Space Aliens planted our species here, it's quite clear from the historical record, homo sapiens are Native to earth.

 

wiki? really...archeologists are far from being in agreement as to when the first people arrived in the americas

 

Of course not but we do know 16,000 years is the minimum due to physical evidence.

Far more likely to be the 40,000 figure but 16,000 is "Set in stone"

 

I can agree with that...with carbon dating at Monte Verde at around 14K it's difficult to imagine 16K not being the latest arrival time from Beringia, even then with a Pacific coastal expansion by boat a 2k yrs from Beringia to Monte Verde is still very quick...20-40K yrs dates aren't out of line either, finding the definitive hard evidence is proving elusive and controversial and the further back you go the harder it will be to find very scant evidence...my opinion 20K is the minimum