Re: Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American Founders

On Oct 26, 7:12 pm, Melodious Thunk <thunk.melodi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <eKtUi.105$863...@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Oct 26, 9:58 am, Melodious Thunk <thunk.melodi...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Oct 26, 3:53 am, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 26, 4:44 am, Doug Weller
<dwel...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

" the initial founders of the Americas emerged from a
single source ancestral population that evolved in
isolation, likely in Beringia....the isolation in Beringia
might have lasted up to 15,000 years. Following this
isolation, the initial founders of the Americas began
rapidly populating the New World from North to South
America."http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1952074

Beringian Standstill and Spread of Native American
Founders

PLoS ONE. 2007; 2(9): e829. Erika Tamm,1 Toomas
Kivisild,1,2 Maere Reidla,1 Mait Metspalu,1 David Glenn
Smith,3 Connie J. Mulligan,4 Claudio M. Bravi,5 Olga
Rickards,6 Cristina Martinez-Labarga,6 Elsa K.
Khusnutdinova,7 Sardana A. Fedorova,1,8 Maria V.
Golubenko,1,9 Vadim A. Stepanov,9 Marina A. Gubina,1,10
Sergey I. Zhadanov,1,10,11 Ludmila P. Ossipova,10 Larisa
Damba,1,10 Mikhail I. Voevoda,10 Jose E. Dipierri,12
Richard Villems,1 and Ripan S. Malhi13*

Now this is interesting. And it makes quite a bit of sense,
when I think about it.

The data doesn't account for the several outlier
archaeological sites older than 15,000 years ago, scattered
throughout the americas. I suppose those might be viewed as
anomalies within a broader diaspora that took place later, as
implied by the mtDNA research.

First, I am not yet convinced about the dating of the purported
outliers. While I haven't paid close attention lately, what I
have read about dating of, say, Meadowcroft or Monte Verde, does
not fill me with confidence.

What about simpler assessments of technology? 'Parking in Berengia,'
if I understand it right, for fifteen thousand years, implies that
Clovis-technology people were the first inhabitants of the Americas.
What then of technology that, apparently, is Clovis-related in gross
shape (attachment to a spear) yet not Clovis in detail (fluted
attachment point)?

Aren't there merely scores of Clovis sites, where there are a dozen or
more pre-Clovis 'outliers'? I didn't think there were overwhelmingly
more Clovis sites, I thought that widespread Clovis populations were
inferred, as an interpretation of the disappearance of other species.
In North America particularly, archaeological evidence seems very
scant; and yes I understand some of the reasons for that.

Second, part of what I find interesting in the mtDNA results is
that they supply more detail, more nuance and complexity to the
'peopling of the Americas' question. If there turn out to be
well-dated 'outliers' south of Beringia earlier than ca. 15,000
ybp, then ISTM that this would add even more detail, nuance and
complexity to the picture.

IOW, more fun, more interest and more questions to be answered!

I have no problems with 'more fun, more interest, more questions.'
That's the spice of life, from an NDN or a scientific point of view.

However, archaeologists and other -ists have been, in the deep past,
so locked into the land-bridge theory of the peopling of the Americas,
that the last twenty years of stretching that ill-fitting stereotype
have been very refreshing!

Now there's a bandwagon forming to freeze those poor folk in Berengia
until that ice-free corridor opens. While I don't know enough to
independently evaluate the evidence, it seems a lot of open-minded
thinking regarding natives of the Americas may fly right out the
window, given the way this data has been presented and is being
accepted.

So why no discussion of the popular-this-summer peopling of the
Americas via the 'kelp highway'? Does this DNA interpretation negate
that highway as a significant event? Just months ago, the highway
helped explain both the outliers and the sophistication of south &
middle-American tribes.

How do archaeologists view these mitochondrial & y-chromosome
DNA studies? I guess I'm asking, are they held on a par with
oral traditions & mythology, able to give hints but not
considered as solid evidence?

No, the various DNA studies are hard evidence. They are data;
and, while there may be questions about methodology and
applicability, they a great deal more reliable than oral
tradition and mythology.

In fact, often DNA evidence can test tradition and myth; and, in
archaeology, the science either confirms or disconfirms elements
of myth and tradition, not the other way around.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply 'the other way around.' I meant that
'myth,' more especially traditions, supplies some clues as to where to
look. Most NDNs I know look upon their 'myths' & traditions as a form
of truth; however I don't know anyone that thinks of, say, Cherokee
legend as *literal* truth, the same as tangible physical evidence.

Myth, legend, tradition, they're not tangible evidence. As opposed to
what you're telling me, that archaeologists look at DNA evidence as
hard facts. It's not supplying clues for where to look, it's telling
you what you will see. Irrefutably, at least the way its presented in
the paper and article mentioned in this thread.

Ever since the first O.J. trial, I try to keep up with genetics. And
the power of the technology is amazing... but still, it's a
statistical technology, not so different in that respect from carbon
dating or thermofluorescence technology, which *is* debated among
archaeologists, at least to the precision obtainable, subtleties of
technique, etc. I would think that the manner of interpretation for
these mtDNA and y-chromosome migration studies would be at least as
controversial as, well, mainstream genetics is.

I wouldn't have thought archaeologists to be such a trusting
bunch! ;-) But I'm here to learn. If mainstream archaeology is about
to spend another generation locked into that Berengia theory, well I
don't mind observing; but I know that sometime, science will find an
interpretation of the data that supports a common NDN 'truth,' that
we've always been here.

Thanks for replying with little words a layman writer, like me, can
understand. ;-)

I could part way argue that the group that returned could be those
that used the kelp highway to reach such places as the cave in SE
Alaska, Chumash country, Mexico, Monte Verde. Could. But someone did
travel that route and it doesn't exclude the ice-free corridor and it
doesn't exclude an over population in Berengia finally forcing some to
return or continue on via either the inland or coastal route.

.