Re: Ancient Americas bottle gourd discovery

On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:53:03 GMT, Philip Deitiker
<Donevenask@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>In sci.archaeology.mesoamerican message
>news:4977-439FB4B8-874@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx by
>Topiltzin-2091@xxxxxxxxx . . . :
>
>> Ancient humans brought bottle gourds to the Americas from Asia
>> Plants widely used as containers arrived, already domesticated,
>> some 10,000 years ago

>> CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 13, 2005 -- Thick-skinned bottle gourds
>> widely used as containers by prehistoric peoples were likely
>> brought to the Americas some 10,000 years ago by individuals who
>> arrived from Asia, according to a new genetic comparison of
>> modern bottle gourds with gourds found at archaeological sites
>> in the Western Hemisphere. The finding solves a longstanding
>> archaeological enigma by explaining how a domesticated variant
>> of a species native to Africa ended up millennia ago in places
>> as far removed as modern-day Florida, Kentucky, Mexico and Peru.

Hey, if that is not a hoax, it is amazing. As I understand it, that
pumpkin is a tropical plant. If it came from Asia to America, how did
it end up in icy northeastern Asia in the first place? And if it
didn't reach NE-Asia, how did it end up in America anyway? That makes
the migration by canoe at least a remote possibility.

I am anything but convinced, but I want to know more. There is one
detail one needs to remember: the Pacific islands were settled by the
Lapita people 1600BCE-800CE, but this was mostly because the islands
did not exist before that, they first had to emerge from the ocean.

Of course the islands existed before, but after the sea level rise at
the end of the ice age they were all flooded, except for the highest
ones. They re-emerged only after the Earth's mantle readjusted to the
additional load by the new water due to the rise, around 2000 BCE.

That could mean, of course, that they had been discovered once before,
ie before the sea level rose, at glacial maximum. Today there would be
no trace left except possibly for the highest islands, such as Hawaii.
I think this is a very long shot, but worth thinking about it.

fkoe

.

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