Re: Thoughts on the South- American Man

From: derek gatherer (dgatherer2002@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon 08 Dec 2003 - 09:40:02 GMT

  • Next message: Vincent Campbell: "RE: Thoughts on the South- American Man"

    > By the way isn 't the Out- of- Africa hypothesis not
    > contro-
    > versial and for some dead wrong too !?
    Of course, but the alternative homo erectus hypothesis looks increasingly unlikely in view of the recent advances in Y and mitochondrial lineages.

    > But who is that guy you talk about !?
    > Any interesting sites, maybe an email- address !?
    > Something !? Thanks anyway........

    I don't know where he is these days. But in the early nineties he was the main South American working in anthropological genetics.

    > What I understand is that a claim is being made that
    > Chinese, let's call them "boatpeople ", drift away
    > and
    > ended up at the shores of what is known now as
    > South- America.

    The problem is there is no archaeological evidence of boats until much later.

    But according to my
    > source, there were potsherds found with what we
    > can call Chinese influence, also the funny hats
    > which
    > people wear in Peru can be traced back to China,
    > he says.

    The museum of the Central Bank of Ecuador in Quito has
    (or had in 1991) an exhibit which tries to point out some similarities between pottery from Ecuador and Japanese Jomon culture pottery. However, the dating is a bit ropey, and it all seemed a little unlikely to me (rather like seeing pyramids in Egypt and Mexico and drawing the wrong conclusions). This exhibit does not reflect any mainstream view in the field, nor did it when it was constructed, probably in the late 50s.

    > Was there in " recent " geological times a
    > landbridge be-
    > tween China and the South- Americas !?

    No. 10000 years bp minimum.
     
    > there must have existed an already high advanced
    > society
    > in South- America at the time other peoples crossed
    > the
    > Alaska bridge.

    No, there's no evidence of this.

    The history of the Maya's, Azteks and
    > Olmeks makes it possible there was.

    These are much later. Olmecs are 2600BC, if I recall correctly. Mayas and Aztecs are in recent historical time.

    > What if their mutual origin was Chinese !?
    > Does makes you wonder, doesn 't it !?

    Wonder at what?

    > The fossil record shows that the Aztek- civilisation
    > was
    > there 5000 year ago, it didn 't came out of the
    > blue,

    No, the Aztecs are from Mexico and emerged around 900 AD, reaching imperial status around 1100AD.

    > Nothing excludes the possibility that a few sailors
    > wandered off and ended up in Peru where they inter-
    > breed with the locals or established an optimal
    > environ-
    > ment for themselves, stayed and laid out the
    > foundations
    > for the later South- Americas peoples........

    what excludes it is: a) no evidence of boats b) no genetic evidence c) no archeological evidence (except the spurious Jomon pot idea)
     

    but think for one minute that the hypothesis
    > of the
    > North- America migration- route is wrong, that there
    > were
    > already people in the Americas long before the
    > Alaska
    > bridge was crossed...what would be your answer !?

    My answer is just that the standard view is for 3 migrations: 1) Colvis peoples about 25000BC - descendents all South Americans and most North Americans 2) Na-Dene peoples about 8000BC - descendents many Canadians and the Apache 3) Inuit peoples about 2000BC - descendents Eskimo

    The only hard evidence for this being wrong in any way is the Kennewick man skeleton, who seems to be rather bizarrely from the South Pacific, around Tonga or somewhere. This is genuinely odd and interesting, but if he represented a major immigration the genetic legacy would be visible today, which it isn't.

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