A TRAGEDY IN OKLAHOMA, AND THE OSAGE TODAY
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
April 30, 2017


“WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? THE SHADOW KNOWS.” THE OSAGE MURDERS, THREE ARTICLES, ONE VIDEO -- EVENTS AND LEGAL ISSUES. FOR CBS SUNDAY MORNING VIDEO, SEE LAST STORY BELOW. IT WOULD BE INTERESTING IF THE OSAGE NATION TODAY WOULD FILE SUIT AGAINST EVERYONE FROM THE LOCALS WHO PROFITED, THE FBI WHO SEEMINGLY DIDN’T DO THE WHOLE JOB IN THEIR INVESTIGATION, THE OIL COMPANIES WHO ALMOST CERTAINLY ALSO PROFITED, TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WHICH CONTINUES TO VIEW AND TREAT NATIVE AMERICANS AS DISTINCTLY INFERIOR, AS THEY – WE – DO THE BLACKS. WE MUST GET THE LAWS THAT ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE UNTIL TODAY CHANGED OR ELIMINATED ENTIRELY. ALL THE ARTICLES BELOW PRESENT A PIECE OF THE PICTURE THAT NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED AS THE EVIL SYSTEM WHICH IT IS. KILLING PEOPLE FOR MONEY AND BECAUSE THEY AREN’T WHITE MUST BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL; BREAKING A TREATY WITH THE INDIAN NATIONS AFTER NEARLY EXTERMINATING THEM, SURELY IS. THIS, TO ME, IS TRULY A STORY OF THE EVIL SIDE OF THE "WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" PHILOSOPHY.


“They bought cars and built mansions; they made so much oil money that the government began appointing white guardians to "help" them spend it.”

NPR, www.npr.org/2017/04/17, Steve Inskeep.



http://www.thefreedictionary.com/white+man%27s+burden –

“white man's burden”
n.
The supposed or presumed responsibility of white people to govern and impart their culture to nonwhite people, often advanced as a justification for European colonialism.

[From "The White Man's Burden," a poem by Rudyard Kipling.]



1921 AND FOLLOWING


http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/author-in-stl-to-discuss-osage-indian-murders-of-s/article_7075930c-87a1-5d1f-af36-c2546bcba2d2.html
Author in STL to discuss Osage Indian murders of 1920s
By Joe Holleman St. Louis Post-Dispatch Apr 28, 2017

Photograph – David R. Francis, Missouri History Museum
Photograph – Joe Holleman

Author David Grann will be in STL on Wednesday to discuss his latest book, "Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI."

The book examines the systematic murder in the 1920s of the oil-rich Osage Indians, crimes that helped push the fledgling Federal Bureau of Investigation into national prominence.

The crimes, Grann and other historians contend, ultimately may have been aided by a land-division policy that legendary St. Louis politico David Francis supported.

The policy took tribal land and divided it up among individual families, which made each family more susceptible to intimidation.



http://www.npr.org/2017/04/17/523964584/in-the-1920s-a-community-conspired-to-kill-native-americans-for-their-oil-money
In The 1920s, A Community Conspired To Kill Native Americans For Their Oil Money
April 17, 20174:44 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Steve Inskeep

Photograph -- Ernest and Mollie Burkhart married in 1917. Unbeknownst to Mollie, a member of the Osage tribe, the marriage was part of a larger plot to steal her family's oil wealth. Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoman Collection/Courtesy of Doubleday
RELATED: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,
by David Grann; Hardcover, 338 pages purchase


Generations ago, the American Indian Osage tribe was compelled to move. Not for the first time, white settlers pushed them off their land in the 1800s. They made their new home in a rocky, infertile area in northeast Oklahoma in hopes that settlers would finally leave them alone.

As it turned out, the land they had chosen was rich in oil, and in the early 20th century, members of the tribe became spectacularly wealthy. They bought cars and built mansions; they made so much oil money that the government began appointing white guardians to "help" them spend it.

Killers of the Flower Moon

And then Osage members started turning up dead.

In his new book, Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann describes how white people in the area conspired to kill Osage members in order [sic] steal their oil wealth, which could only be passed on through inheritance. "This was a culture of complicity," he says, "and it was allowed to go on for so long because so many people were part of the plot. You had lawmen, you had prosecutors, you had the reporters who wouldn't cover it. You had oilmen who wouldn't speak out. You had morticians who would cover up the murders when they buried the body. You had doctors who helped give poison to people."

Interview Highlights

On how the conspiracy worked

What makes these crimes so sinister is that it involved marrying into families. It involved a level of calculation and a level of betraying the very people you pretended to love. And the way these murders would take place is that people would marry into the families and then begin to kill each member of the family. ... That's exactly what happened to [Osage woman Mollie Burkhart]. She had married a white man, and his uncle was the most powerful settler in the area. He was known as the King of the Osage Hills ... and he had orchestrated a very sinister plot played out over years where he directed his nephew, who had married Mollie Burkhart, to marry her so that he could then begin to kill the family members one by one and siphon off all the wealth.

On how Mollie Burkhart's family was killed

One day in 1921, her older sister disappeared and Mollie looked everywhere for her and couldn't find her. And about a week later, her body was found essentially in a ravine, decomposed. She'd been shot in the back of the head.

Then just a few weeks later, Mollie's mother began to grow increasingly sick. She seemed to be almost disappearing, withering in front of her. And within two months she, too, had died. And evidence later suggested that she had been secretly poisoned.

Not long after that, Mollie was sleeping in her bed in her house with her white husband; they had a couple children. And she heard a loud explosion. She got up in panic and terror. ... She had another sister who lived not far away, and in the area where her sister's house was she could see almost this orange fire ball rising into the sky. It almost looked as if the sun had burst into the night. And her sister's house had been blown up killing that sister as well as her sister's husband and a servant who lived in that house.

Photograph -- Mollie Burkhart (second from right) lost all three of her sisters under suspicious circumstances. Rita Smith (left) died in an explosion, Anna Brown (second from left) was shot in the head and Minnie Smith (right) died of what doctors referred to as a "peculiar wasting illness."
The Osage National Museum/Courtesy of Doubleday

On how far the conspirators went to cover up their crimes

Almost anyone who tried to investigate the killings — or at least stop them in the area — they, too, were killed. One attorney tried to gather evidence and one day he was thrown off a speeding train and all the evidence that he had gathered had disappeared. Another time, an oilman had traveled to Washington, D.C., to try to get help. ... He checked into a boarding house in Washington, D.C. ... He was then found the next day stripped naked. He had been stabbed more than 20 times; his head had been beaten in. The Washington Post at the time said what everyone at that point knew, which was there was a conspiracy to kill rich Indians.

On how authorities reacted to the deaths

It's really important to understand back then that there was so much lawlessness. That was one of the things that shocked me when I began researching the story, that even in the 1920s much of America remained a country that was not fully rooted in its laws. Its legal institutions were very fragile; there was enormous corruption, particularly in this era and in this area. And the conspirators were able to pay off lawmen, they were able to pay off prosecutors. There was so much prejudice that these crimes were neglected.

Mollie Burkhart beseeched the authorities to try to investigate, to get help, but because of prejudice they often ignored the crimes. And she issued money for a reward, she hired private investigators, but the crimes for years remained unsolved, and the body count continued to increase. By 1924 there were at least 24 murders alone. ...

Finally, the Osage, in desperation, they issued a resolution, a tribal resolution, beseeching the federal authorities to help. And finally a then-very obscure branch of the Justice Department intervened. It was known as the Bureau of Investigation and it was what ... would later be renamed the FBI.

On the FBI's investigation

J. Edgar Hoover ... was the new director, and it became one of the FBI's first major homicide cases that it ever dealt with. ... The bureau initially badly bungled the case. ... [Hoover] turned the case over to a frontier lawman at the time who finally put together an undercover team that included ... probably the only American Indian agent in the bureau at the time. They went undercover. ... They were able, through some dogged investigation and at great danger, to eventually capture some of the ringleaders. And those ringleaders included not only Mollie Burkhart's husband, it also included [his] uncle, a man who was seen as this great protector of the community.

On what the FBI missed in their investigation

The bureau was so anxious to wrap up the case that they ignored many, many other unsolved crimes and many, many other killers. ... When you begin to look at the documents and you begin to collect the evidence from the Osage, it becomes abundantly apparent. ...

I pulled some of the guardian papers and there was this little booklet that came out. It had a little fabric cover. All it was was essentially identifying the name of a guardian and which Osage they were in charge of. And when I opened up the book, I could see the name of the guardian and when I began to look at the names of the Osage under them I could see written next to many of them simply the word "Dead. Dead. Dead." It was almost like a ledger; it was like this forensic, bureaucratic accounting.

But when you're looking at it, you're beginning to realize you're looking at hints of a systematic murder campaign, because there's no way all these people died in a span of just a couple years. It defied any natural death rate. The Osage were wealthy, they had good doctors. ... And then when you begin to look into each of those individual cases, you start to find trails of evidence suggesting poisonings, a murder. You start to try to trace the money ... and where the wealth went. And what you begin to discover is something even more horrifying than the bureau ever exposed.

Radio producer Taylor Haney, radio editor Shannon Rhoades and digital producer Nicole Cohen contributed to this story.



THIS AVALON PROJECT LISTING OF TREATIES IS IN CHART FORM, SHOWING DATE, TITLE AND, BY LINKS, TEXT OF THE TREATIES. THIS CHART IS GOOD FOR A QUICK OVERVIEW OR, WITH THE LINKS, FOR A CLOSE STUDY OF THE TREATIES. SEE BELOW.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/ntreaty.asp
Treaties Between the United States and Native Americans
Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library
THE AVALON PROJECT: Documents In Law, History and Diplomacy




https://iltf.org/land-issues/history/
home / land issues / history

LAND TENURE HISTORY

Key factors that have shaped U.S. Indian policy and led to the fractured state of Indian land tenure in Indian Country today include countless federal laws and legislative acts. Perhaps the single most devastating federal policy was the General Allotment Act of 1887, also called the Dawes Act after Senator Henry Dawes, the Act’s lead proponent.

History of Allotment

The U.S. federal government began the policy of allotting Indian land as early as 1798. Several treaties with Indian tribes included provisions that stated land would be divided among their individual members. After 1871, however, Congress declared that no further treaties would be made and all future dealings with Indians would be conducted through legislation.

Tribe/Reservation Allotment Legislation

While some tribes were allotted under the General Allotment Act of 1887, others were allotted through treaty or tribe-, state-, or reservation-specific legislation. The interactive map above shows each tribe-reservation that was allotted, the specific allotting legislation, and the number of allotments made until 1934 when further allotments were prohibited.

Click on a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) region on the map to access allotment information for a specific tribe or reservation or click on the name of the region below the map.

Why Allotment?

There were several reasons that allotment proponents supported the policy. First, many of them considered the Indian way of life and collective use of land to be communistic and backwards. They also saw the individual ownership of private property as an essential part of civilization that would give Indian people a reason to stay in one place, cultivate land, disregard the cohesiveness of the tribe, and adopt the habits, practices and interests of the American settler population. Furthermore, many thought that Indian people had too much land and they were eager to see Indian lands opened up for settlement as well as for railroads, mining, forestry and other industries.

General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act)

The Allotment advocates eventually succeeded in convincing the federal government to adopt the policy nationally. In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act, which authorized the president (at the time Grover Cleveland) to survey Indian tribal land and divide the area into allotments for individual Indians and families. The Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act, named for Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, the Act’s lead proponent) was applied to reservations whenever, in the president’s opinion, it was advantageous for particular Indian nations. Members of the selected tribe or reservation were either given permission to select pieces of land – usually around 40 to 160 acres in size – for themselves and their children, or the tracts were assigned by the agency superintendent. If the amount of reservation land exceeded the amount needed for allotment, the federal government could negotiate to purchase the land from the tribes and sell it to non-Indian settlers. As a result, 60 million acres were either ceded outright or sold to the government for non-Indian homesteaders and corporations as “surplus lands.”

Although the General Allotment Act was the first major piece of legislation designed to allot Indian reservations across the U.S., many tribes were allotted under special legislation that was unique to their tribe or reservation. These acts usually are similar to the General Allotment Act but often contain special provisions.

grand-rush

[On the “grand rush” go to http://www.histdocs.com/home/productpages/587.php?cat=American%20Indians.”]


Origins of the Trust Relationship

Under the policy of allotment, Indian land ownership was not the same as land ownership for other homesteaders. Non-Indian settlers could sell or alienate their land because they had complete fee simple ownership. Under the General Allotment Act, Indian allottees were declared “incompetent” to handle their land affairs and the United States would retain legal title to the land as trustee for the allottee; Indian allottees only had beneficial or usufruct title. In other words, as long as the allotment was held in trust by the federal government, the Indian landholder could use the land but not sell it or lease it without the federal government’s approval. However, the Act stated that 25 years after the allotment was issued, Indian allottees would be given complete, fee simple ownership of the land. At that point, the landowner could sell or lease it to anyone.

Despite the original safeguards in place to help Indian people retain their land, the General Allotment Act caused Indian land holdings to plunge from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million acres by 1934 when allotment ended. This happened for several reasons. First, during the allotment of many reservations, the most productive land was identified as “surplus to Indian needs” and sold off to white settlers or business interests. In addition, many Indian people did not become the farmers the U.S. government wanted them to be. The General Allotment Act did not provide for agricultural education or farming equipment. In addition, the allotted land was often inappropriate for agriculture, and for some Indian groups, intensive agriculture was culturally unacceptable. Cut off from their livelihoods and their previous ways of survival, some Indian people sold their land after the 25-year trust period because they had no means of supporting themselves and had nothing else to sell.

Amendments to the General Allotment Act also made it easier for Indian land to pass into non-Indian hands. For example, in 1902 legislation known as the “Dead Indian Act” was passed that allowed Indian landowners to sell lands they inherited even if they were still in trust. In 1906, the Burke Act was passed, which authorized the secretary of the interior to decide whether an Indian person was “competent” to manage his or her lands. If the Indian person was deemed “competent,” the secretary could take the land out of trust and the land would become taxable. The secretary of the interior was authorized to do this with or without the knowledge and/or against the wishes of the allottee. Thus, many Indian people ended up having their land sold in tax forclosure auctions because they owed taxes on land they thought was in trust. With the Act of May 29, 1908, the secretary of the interior was also given power to sell the allotments of deceased Indian landowners if he deemed the heirs incompetent. In the end, 27 million acres of Indian land were lost as a result of these acts.

So much Indian land was passing out of Indian hands that even the U.S. government became alarmed. In 1928, a government report entitled “The Problem of Indian Administration” (also known as the “Merriam Report”) sharply criticized the policy of allotment and the U.S. Indian Service in general. The report provided undeniable evidence of the destructiveness of federal Indian policy and spurred significant changes in the federal administration of Indian affairs.

Allotment Ends, Challenges Remain

In 1934, the Wheeler-Howard Act (also known as the Indian Reorganization Act) was passed ending the process of allotment on Indian lands in the contiguous United States. and ensuring that all remaining trust allotments would stay in trust indefinitely. It did not, however, prevent land from passing out of trust when it was inherited by a non-Indian heir or when an allotment owner petitioned the secretary to terminate the trust status of the allotment or remove restrictions upon alienation. Furthermore, the Act did not change some parts of the General Allotment Act that had made the use of allotments increasingly difficult among Indian people:

Probates still increased fractionation with growing numbers of common interest holders in each allotment

The trust system still kept decision-making authority over the land in the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a distant and paternalistic landlord

Large percentages of reservation land were now held by non-Indians

The inherent sovereignty of Indian nations was limited to those lands held in trust

Allotment not only caused 90 million acres of Indian land to be removed from Indian ownership and control, its impact continues to have serious consequences, such as the increasingly fractionated ownership of Indian land title, checkerboard ownership patterns on many reservations and loss of access to important sacred sites, to name just a few.

The allotment of American Indian reservations was a policy put into effect by many pieces of legislation. This section provides brief summaries of and links to all general allotment legislation, including the General Allotment Act of 1887, its amendments and other related legislation. In addition to legislation that allotted land, also listed is legislation touching on a multitude of issues arising from allotment, such as leasing, the determination of heirs and disposal of allotment lands, the powers of the secretary of the interior over allotment lands, and the determination of Indian “competency.”

Historical Allotment Legislation

dawes_1880_loc The policy of allotment on American Indian reservations was put into effect by many pieces of legislation. This section provides brief summaries of and links to all general allotment legislation, including the General Allotment Act of 1887, its amendments and more recent legislation that impacts Indian land tenure.

“. . . . – DUPLICATION OF PARAGRAPH ABOVE”

Below is a list of relevant historical allotment legislation.

General Allotment Act, Act of Feb. 8, 1887 (24 Stat. 388, ch. 119, 25 USCA 331)

Relevant Provisions: Size of allotments; public domain allotments; trust land; descent and partition; trust funds; rights of way; citizenship; trust periods

Section 1: Authorizes the president to allot tribal lands to individual Indians in designated amounts on reservations created by treaty, act of Congress, or executive order. If a treaty or agreement with a tribe was made earlier and provided for larger allotments to members of that tribe, the president is authorized to allot land according to the treaty or agreement. If the lands are not suitable for farming but appropriate for grazing, the president is authorized to allot sections of land larger than the amounts specified in this section of the General Allotment Act.
Section 2: Provides that the Indian allottees themselves make their own selection of land as to accommodate those who had already made improvements or built upon a piece of land. Indian heads of families are authorized to select allotments for their children and Indian reservation agents are authorized to select land for orphans. This section also authorizes the secretary of interior to direct agents to make allotment selections for individual Indians who fail to select land within four years of the president’s direction to allot the reservation.
Section 3: Stipulates that allotments shall be made by agents, regular and special. Allotments will be certified and certificates duplicated, so that one copy is held by the Indian office, and one copy in the General Land Office.
Section 4: Allows any Indian not residing upon a reservation, or for whose tribe no reservation has been provided, to secure an allotment upon public lands.
Section 5: Provides that after an Indian person is allotted land, the United States will hold the land “in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian” (or his heirs if the Indian landowner dies) for a period of 25 years. (Land held in trust by the United States government cannot be sold or in any way alienated by the Indian landowner, since the United States government considers the underlying ownership of the land held by itself and not the tribe. After the period of trust ends, the Indian landowner is free to sell the land and is free from any encumbrance from the United States.) This section also authorizes the president to extend this period of trust wherever deemed appropriate. This section states further that:
Any contract made that involves the land before the end of the trust period is null and void; after patents have been issued to Indians for their allotments, the laws of descent and partition of the State in which the allotments are located replace tribes’ inheritance laws and are applied to the allotment; and, if there is any land on the reservation that has not been allotted, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to negotiate with the tribe for the purchase of this surplus land by the United States. These purchases have to be ratified by Congress and will be sold to white settlers in tracts not exceeding 160 acres. Money that is earned by selling the land to white settlers is to be held in trust by the government for the sole use of tribes to whom the reservation belonged but subject to appropriation by Congress for the education and civilization of the Indians.

This section also states a hiring preference for Indian people in public service who have followed the provisions of the General Allotment Act and have become citizens of the United States.

Section 6: After allotments have been made, every member of the bands or tribes to whom allotments have been made are subject to laws of the state or territory in which they reside. Every individual Indian who receives trust patents is bestowed with United States citizenship (This section was amended by the Burke Act in 1906).
Section 7: The secretary of the interior is authorized to prescribe rules and regulations for water rights on irrigated lands within the reservation.
Section 8: None of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Osage, Miamies, Peorias, Sacs and Foxes, in Indian Territory, nor any reservations of the Seneca Nation of New York, nor an executive order reservation in Nebraska, are subject to the provisions of the General Allotment Act.
Section 10: Nothing in the act is to be construed as affecting the right of Congress to grant right of way through lands granted to an Indian person or tribe, or condemn such lands to public uses, upon making just compensation.
Click here for full text in Charles J. Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, produced by Oklahoma State University Library

BETWEEN THE Act of October 19, 1888 (25 Stat. 611) AND THE BURKE ACT OF 1906, ARE SOME 30 OR MORE ACTS, MOSTLY SMALL IN COVERAGE. THE BURKE ACT IS MORE SUBSTANTIAL. A LISTING INCLUDING BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS IS AVAILABLE ON THIS SAME WEBSITE. –
https://iltf.org/land-issues/history/
home / land issues / history.




JUNE 18, 1934, Indian Reorganization Act (current amended version as codified in Title 25)

Relevant Provisions: Trust periods; surplus land; sale of allotments; alienation; public domain allotments; devise and descent; tax exemption; tribal governments

Section 1: Prohibits further allotment of Indian lands on or after June 18, 1934.
Section 2: Extends, until otherwise directed by Congress, existing periods of trust and restrictions on alienation placed on Indian lands.
Section 3: Authorizes the secretary of the interior to restore to tribal ownership the remaining surplus lands of any Indian reservation opened to sale or other disposal provided that the rights or claims of any persons to any lands such on the date of the withdrawal shall not be affected. Contains several provisos pertaining to the Papago Reservation.
Section 4: Prohibits transfers of restricted Indian land, individually-owned or otherwise, except to an Indian tribe. This section also restricts an Indian individual’s testamentary disposition of restricted Indian land to the heirs of the devisee, to members of the tribe having jurisdiction over the land, or to the tribe itself.
Section 5: Authorizes the acquisition of lands, water rights, surface rights, and interests by the U.S. government for Indians and declares that purchased lands shall be tax exempt.
Section 8: Leaves scattered Indian homesteads on the public domain out of the scope of this act.
Section 13: States that: The provisions of this Act shall not apply to any of the Territories, colonies, or insular possessions of the United States, except that sections 9, 10, 11, 12, and 16, shall apply to the Territory of Alaska: Provided, That Sections 2, 4, 7, 16, 17, and 18 of this Act shall not apply to the following-named Indian tribes, the members of such Indian tribes, together with members of other tribes affiliated with such named tribes located in the State of Oklahoma, as follows Cheyenne, Arapaho, Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Caddo, Delaware, Wichita, Osage, Kaw, Otoe, Tonkawa, Pawnee, Ponca, Shawnee, Ottawa, Quapaw, Seneca, Wyandotte, Iowa, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo, Pottawatomi, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Section 4 of this Act shall not apply to the Indians of the Klamath Reservation in Oregon.
Section 15: Relates to the Sioux Nation.
Section 18: Provides that the act as a whole should not apply to any reservation wherein a majority of tribal members voted against its application.
Click here for full text in Charles J. Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, produced by Oklahoma State University Library

Links to additional resources on the Indian Reorganization Act:

Indian Reorganization Act (current amended version as codified in Title 25)
Indian Reorganization Act (showing all amendatory changes)

. . . .

Act of August 9, 1955 (69 Stat. 540)

Relevant Provisions: leasing

Authorizes the secretary of the interior to lease allotted lands for mining purposes where the allottee is deceased and the heirs to or devisees of any interest in the allotment either have not been determined or cannot be located.

Click here for full text in Charles J. Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, produced by Oklahoma State University Library.

Recent Allotment Legislation

The information in this section revolves around the Indian Land Consolidation Act of 1983 and its amendments. These pieces of legislation are important attempts by the federal government to address the effects of allotment and to prevent the further fractionation of Indian land title.

Below is a list of recent allotment legislation.

Indian Land Consolidation Act of 1983, Public Law 97-459 (96 Stat. 2517)
Passed Jan. 12, 1983




Hodel V. Irving

Deals with the original section 207 of the Indian Land Consolidation Act of 1983, which states that undivided fractional interests in allotments that are less than two percent of the total acreage of a tract or earn less than $100 for the owner during the previous year shall revert to the tribe upon the death of the interest owner, regardless of whether the deceased owner made a will and had legal heirs. The Court held that this provision is unconstitutional. View Court Case Link here.


. . . .


1997, Babbitt v. Youpee

The Court held that section 207 of the amended Indian Land Consolidation Act that forced escheat of certain individually-owned Indian property to a tribe is unconstitutional.
Court Case Link: caselaw.lp.findlaw.com


Indian Land Consolidation Act Amendments of 2000, Public Law 106-462 (114 Stat. 1992)
Passed Nov. 7, 2000
FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, GO TO WEBSITE.

. . . .

American Indian Probate Reform Act of 2004
Passed Oct. 27, 2004

Amends the Indian Land Consolidation Act (ILCA) of 1983 and the ILCA amendments of 2000 creates a uniform, federal probate code for all reservations (except Alaska, the Five Civilized Tribes and Osage) across the U.S. Applies to all individually owned trust lands unless a tribe has its own probate code.
Expands tribal authority to draft tribal probate codes which may supersede provisions of the act.
Contains provisions for voluntary and involuntary land consolidations and sales both inside and outside of probate.

. . . .

Court Cases
cobel_court

Elouise Cobell photo courtesy of Indian Country Today.

Listed below are brief summaries of important U.S. Supreme Court cases related to allotment and Indian land tenure. Click on the case name link to read the full text of court decisions after 1893.
. . . .

Charles J. Kappler’s Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
First People, Native American Indian Agreements and Treaties
The Avalon Project from Yale University Law School
Why Treaties Matter: Dakota and Ojibwe Treaties in Minnesota
Tribe/Reservation Allotment Legislation

. . . .

Click on a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) region on the map to access allotment information for a specific tribe or reservation or click on the name of the region below the map.

Alaska, Navajo, Midwest, Eastern Oklahoma, Southern Plains, Southwest, Western, Pacific Area, Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Eastern, Great Plains
. . . .

Click here to view the American Indian History Timeline. (Please note: Due to its large size, the timeline cannot be printed directly from this website.)




CURRENT LEGAL ISSUES ON LAND ALLOTMENT

https://www.law360.com/articles/779503/the-current-battle-over-native-american-land-allotment
Expert Analysis
The Current Battle Over Native American Land Allotment

April 1, 2016, 4:24 PM EDT
Law360, New York (April 1, 2016, 4:24 PM EDT) --
David C. Smith
Dustin T. Greene

US ASSIMILATIONIST POLICIES, STATE CONDEMNORS

The assimilationist policies of the federal government toward Native Americans initiated in the late 19th century, including the allotment of tribal land, “proved disastrous,”[1] resulting in, among other things, the fractionation of Native American lands. In an effort to ameliorate the effects of this policy, Congress passed the Indian Land Consolidation Act (ILCA).[2] ILCA allows the secretary of the interior to acquire fractional interests in land previously allotted to individual Native Americans, consolidate them at the tribal level and hold them in trust for that tribe’s benefit.[3]

ILCA is increasingly coming in to conflict with efforts by states, local governments and utilities, among others (the “state condemnors”), that wish to condemn Native American lands. When initiating an eminent domain proceeding involving allotted lands the state condemnors typically rely on 25 U.S.C. § 357 which, in some circumstances, permits the condemnation of “[l]ands allotted in severalty to Native Americans.” However, federal law does not permit the condemnation by a state of tribal lands held in trust by the United States absent specific congressional approval.[4] Accordingly, those courts considering the issue have universally held that § 357 does not permit condemnation when a tribe has obtained an interest in those lands as they are no longer allotted to “Native Americans.”[5]

As ILCA has been implemented, and tribes have increased their beneficial ownership of interests in fractionated allotments previously held by individual Native Americans, those attempting to condemn Native American lands have challenged this precedent. They now insist that once lands are allotted they are always allotted for purposes of § 357 despite the subsequent change in beneficial ownership.[6] Thus, the argument goes, even if a tribe acquires an interest in an allotment under ILCA, the allotment remains subject to condemnation under § 357 because it had previously been allotted to individual Native Americans. However, such an interpretation of both § 357 and ILCA ignores basic principles of statutory construction and tribal sovereignty and the fundamental purpose behind enactment of ILCA.

. . . .

Likewise, such an interpretation disregards well accepted canons of statutory construction. First, to the extent there is any ambiguity in § 357, of which there is none, it must be construed in favor of the individual Native Americans and the tribe[15] and any statute purporting to terminate Native American property rights, as the state condemnors seek to do under their interpretation of § 357, must be interpreted narrowly.[16] Secondly, statutes authorizing the condemnation of private lands, generally,[17] and § 357, specifically,[18] must be strictly construed in favor of the owner.

Equally important, in disregarding the beneficial interests of tribes in allotted land so as to permit condemnation under § 357, one would have to ignore the longstanding principle embedded in our Native American law jurisprudence and preexisting the General Allotment Act itself, that tribal lands may not be sold absent approval of the federal government.[19] It would also render largely meaningless Congress’ subsequent enactment of 25 U.S.C. § 324, providing that no right of way across “any lands belonging to a tribe” shall be made without tribal approval.

The state condemnors also cannot avoid the fact that their interpretation of § 357 ignores well established principals of sovereign immunity. While they attempt to limit the inquiry to the original nature of the land over a century ago, they can’t disregard the fact that the condemnation has an immediate effect on the tribal owner which is a necessary party to any such proceeding.[20] They also cannot overcome the fact that there has been no waiver of the tribe’s sovereign immunity by the tribe or Congress.[21]

Finally, such an interpretation of § 357 eviscerates the purpose of ILCA, itself. ILCA was specifically designed to “allow tribes to consolidate their tribal landholdings, reduce the fractionated interests in Native American lands and reduce the further transfer of Native American lands out of Native American ownership.”[22] By consolidating previously unproductive and highly fractionated lands at the tribal level, Congress sought to foster the economic development of tribal communities through the development of industry, recreational facilities and housing.[23] In 2009, the longstanding lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, provided significant funding for ILCA so that fractionated interests could be purchased for the benefit of those communities. Nothing could be more inconsistent with that purpose than if state condemnors could then take those lands through a condemnation proceeding and use them for purposes that may be at odds with those of the tribe.

The state condemnors argue that not allowing them to condemn tribal land under § 357 will impede their own development of necessary infrastructure. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Currently under § 357 they may have to deal with hundreds or thousands of individual landowners in seeking to condemn fractionated Native American land under ILCA, many of whom may be difficult to locate. With the consolidation of those interests under ILCA, they may now be able to deal principally with the tribal government. Additionally, many projects such as pipelines and transmission lines involve both land owned solely by the tribe and land held both by the tribe and its members. It is reasonable under those circumstances to negotiate the terms of any rights of way on a unified basis and not seek to condemn some parcels and negotiate rights of ways over others. Furthermore, recognizing tribal ownership through ILCA reduces the workload of the departments of Interior and Justice who must currently handle condemnation proceedings on behalf of the many individual owners of fractionated interests under § 357. Finally, and most importantly, it requires the state condemnors to finally respect tribal nations as independent sovereigns instead of condemning property without regard to tribal interests.

—By David C. Smith and Dustin T. Greene, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP

DISCLAIMER: Smith is class counsel in Cobell v. Jewell. Smith and Greene represent the plaintiffs in Davilla v. Enable Midstream Partners LP, Case No. CIV-15-01262-M (W.D. Okla.).

David Smith is a partner in Kilpatrick Townsend's Washington, D.C., office and teaches Federal Indian Law at Wake Forest University School of Law and Notre Dame Law School.

Dustin Greene is a senior associate Kilpatrick Townsend's Winston-Salem, North Carolina, office.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the firm, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice. FOR ALL CITATIONS, SEE WEBSITE.


*THIS THORPE ARTICLE IS TOO LONG TO INCLUDE IN A BLOG, BUT IT’S AN EXCELLENT SUMMARY OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF TRIBES AND TRIBAL LANDS WITH MODERN SITUATIONS. GO TO THE THORPE WEBSITE TO READ IT.

http://thorpe.ou.edu/guide/robertson.html
Lindsay G. Robertson, June 2001
Native Americans and the Law: Native Americans Under Current United States Law

Native American tribal governments are an integral part of the political fabric of the United States. As the Supreme Court of the United States determined in its 1831 decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Peters) 1, tribal governments are not "states" in a constitutional sense, nor are they "foreign states," at least for purposes of Article III original jurisdiction. Instead, they are "domestic dependent nations," with many sovereign powers retained from the pre-contact period. As tribal governments have grown in political and economic power, the Supreme Court, the United States Congress, the federal executive, and the tribes have engaged in an increasingly important discussion to determine the scope of their powers. States, municipalities and individual citizens have all contributed to this conversation. The result is a legal regime of fascinating complexity.

. . . .



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Nation
Osage Nation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Osage Nation (English pronunciation: /ˈoʊseɪdʒ/ oh-sayj) (Ni-u-kon-ska, “People of the Middle Waters”) is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains who historically dominated much of present-day Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC among other groups in its language family. It migrated west of the Mississippi after the 16th century due to wars with Iroquois invading the Ohio Valley from New York and Pennsylvania in a search for new hunting grounds.

The term "Osage" is a French version of the tribe's name, which can be roughly translated as "warlike". The Osage people refer to themselves in their indigenous Dhegihan Siouan language as Wazhazhe, or "Mid-waters".[3]

At the height of their power in the early 19th century, the Osage had become the dominant power in the region, feared by neighboring tribes. The tribe controlled the area between the Missouri and Red River, the Ozarks to the east and the foothills of the Wichita Mountains to the south. They depended on nomadic buffalo hunting and agriculture.

The 19th-century painter George Catlin described the Osage as

the tallest race of men in North America, either red or white skins; there being many of them who are six and a half, and others seven feet.[4]

The missionary Isaac McCoy described the Osage as an "uncommonly fierce, courageous, warlike nation" and said they were the "finest looking Indians I have ever seen in the West".[5]

In the Ohio Valley, the Osage originally lived among speakers of the same Dhegihan language stock, such as the Kansa, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw. Researchers believe that the tribes likely became differentiated in languages and cultures after leaving the lower Ohio country. The Omaha and Ponca settled in what is now Nebraska, the Kansa in Kansas, and the Quapaw in Arkansas.

The Osage were forced to remove from Kansas to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the 19th century and the majority of their descendants live in Oklahoma. In the early 20th century, oil was discovered on their land. Many Osage became wealthy through leasing fees generated by their headrights, but during the 1920s, they suffered manipulation and numerous outright murders by whites eager to take over their wealth. In the 21st century, the federally recognized Osage Nation has 10,000 enrolled members, 6,780 of whom reside in the tribe's jurisdictional area. Members also live outside the nation's tribal land in Oklahoma and in other states around the country, including Kansas.

History

Image -- Map of traditional Osage lands by the late 17th century

. . . . A LONG AND FASCINATING HISTORY HAS BEEN ELIMINATED HERE BECAUSE IT IS TOO BULKY.

In 1906, the Osage Allotment Act was passed by U.S. Congress, as part of its effort to extinguish Native American tribal rights and structure, and to prepare the territories for statehood as Oklahoma. In addition to breaking up communal land, the Act replaced tribal government with the Osage National Council, to which members were to be elected to conduct the tribe's political, business, and social affairs.[35]

Although the Osage were encouraged to become settled farmers, their land was the poorest in the Indian Territory for agricultural purposes. They survived by subsistence farming, later enhanced by stock raising. They discovered they were fortunate to have lands covered with the rich bluestem grass, which proved to be the best grazing in the entire country. They leased lands to ranchers for grazing and earned income from the resulting fees.

Oil discovery[edit]

The Osage had learned about negotiating with the US government. Through the efforts of Principal Chief James Bigheart, in 1907 they negotiated to retain communal mineral rights to the reservation lands. These were later found to have great amounts of crude oil, from which tribal members benefited from royalty revenues from oil development and production. The government leased lands on their behalf for oil development; the companies/government sent the Osage members royalties that dramatically increased their wealth by the 1920s. In 1923 alone, they earned $30 million in royalties. The Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs called them "the richest people in the nation."[citation needed]

They are the only tribe since the early 20th century within the state of Oklahoma to retain a federally recognized reservation.[1]

In 2000 the Osage sued the federal government for its management of the trust assets, alleging that it had failed to pay tribal members appropriate royalties and had not historically protected the land assets and appreciation. The suit was settled in 2011 for $380 million, and a commitment to make numerous changes to improve the program.

In August 2016 the Osage nation bought Ted Turner's 43,000-acre Bluestem ranch.[37]
Federal law related to Osage government and sovereignty[edit]

. . . .

A 1992 US district court decision ruled that the Osage could vote in a process to reinstate the Osage National Council as city members of the Osage nation, rather than being required to vote by headright. But, this decision was reversed in 1997 with the United States Court of Appeals ruling that ended the government restoration.[40] In 2004 Congress passed legislation to restore sovereignty to the Osage Nation and enable them to make their own decisions about government and membership qualifications for their people.[41]

In March 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the 1906 Allotment Act had disestablished the Osage reservation established in 1872.[42] This ruling potentially affected the legal status of three of the seven Osage casinos, including the largest one in Tulsa, as it meant the casino was not on federal trust land. Federal Indian gaming law allows tribes to operate casinos only on trust land.[43]

The Osage Nation's largest economic enterprise, Osage Casinos,[44] officially opened newly constructed casinos, hotels and convenience stores in Skiatook and Ponca City in December 2013.[45][46]

. . . .

The tribe auctioned off development rights of their mineral assets for millions of dollars. According to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in 1924 the total revenue of the Osage from the mineral leases was $24,670,483.[47] After the tribe auctioned mineral leases and more land was explored, the oil business on the Osage reservation boomed. Tens of thousands of oil workers arrived, more than 30 boom towns sprang up and, nearly overnight, Osage headright holders became the "richest people in the world."[48] When royalties peaked in 1925, annual headright earnings were $13,000. A family of four who were all on the allotment roll earned $52,800, comparable to approximately $600,000 in today's economy.[49]

In the early 1920s there was a rise in murders and suspicious deaths of Osage, called the "Reign of Terror", and the Osage Indian Murders. In one plot, in 1921, Ernest Burkhart, a European American, married Molly Kyle, an Osage woman with headrights. His uncle William "King of Osage Hills" Hale, a powerful business man who led the plot, and brother Byron hired accomplices to murder Kyle family heirs. They arranged for the murders of Molly Kyle's mother, two sisters and a brother-in-law, and a cousin, in cases involving poisoning, bombing, and shooting.[33]

With local and state officials unsuccessful at solving the murders, in 1925 the Osage requested the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was the bureau's first murder case. By the time it started investigating, Molly Kyle was already being poisoned. This was discovered and she survived. She had inherited the headrights of the rest of her family. The FBI achieved the prosecution and conviction of the principals in the Kyle family murders. From 1921-1925, however, an estimated 60 Osage were killed, and most murders were not solved.[33] John Joseph Mathews, an Osage, explored the disruptive social consequences of the oil boom for the Osage Nation in his semi-autobiographical novel Sundown (1934).

Changes to law and management claims[edit]

As a result of the murders and increasing problems with trying to protect Osage oil wealth, in 1925 Congress passed legislation limiting inheritance of headrights only to those heirs of half or more Osage ancestry. In addition, they extended the tribal control of mineral rights for another 20 years; later legislation gave the tribe continuing communal control indefinitely.[33] Today, headrights have been passed down primarily among descendants of the Osage who originally possessed them. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has estimated that 25% of headrights are owned by non-Osage people, including other American Indians, non-Indians, churches, and community organizations. It continues to pay royalties on mineral revenues on a quarterly basis.[34]

Beginning in 1999, the Osage Nation sued the United States in the Court of Federal Claims (dockets 99-550 and 00-169) for mismanaging its trust funds and its mineral estate. The litigation eventually included claims reaching into the 19th century. In February 2011, the Court of Federal Claims awarded $330.7 million in damages in partial compensation for some of the mismanagement claims, covering the period from 1972 to 2000. On October 14, 2011, the United States settled the outstanding litigation for a total of $380 million.[50] The tribe has about 16,000 members.[51]

The settlement includes commitments by the United States to cooperate with the Osage to institute new procedures to protect tribal trust funds and resource management.[52]

Mineral Council[edit]

Limestone, a mineral resource for the Osage Nation

The Osage Tribal Council was created under the Osage Allotment Act of 1906. It consisted of a principal chief, an assistant principal chief, and eight members of the Osage tribal council. The mineral estate consists of more than natural gas and petroleum. Although these two resources have yielded the most profit, the Osage have also earned revenue from leases for the mining of lead, zinc, limestone, and coal deposits. Water may also be considered a profitable asset that is controlled by the Mineral Council.

The first elections for this council were held in 1908 on the first Monday in June. Officers were elected for a term of two years, which made it difficult for them to accomplish long-term goals. If for some reason the principal chief's office becomes vacant, a replacement is elected by the remaining council members. Later in the 20th century, the tribe increased the terms of office of council membersto four years.

In 1994 by referendum, the tribe voted for a new constitution; among its provisions was the separation of the Mineral Council, or Mineral Estate, from regular tribal government. According to the constitution, only Osage members who are also headright holders can vote for the members of the Mineral Council. It is as if they were shareholders of a corporation.

Modern Osage Nation[edit]

Yatika Starr Fields, Osage painter and muralist
Osage Nation before 1906[edit]

The Osage wrote a constitution in 1881, modeling some parts of it after the United States Constitution.[53]

Current government[edit]

The Osage Allotment Act of 1906, mentioned in more detail under the previous section Natural Resources and Headrights, provided for a principal chief, assistant principal chief and an eight-member tribal council as the recognized governing body of the Osage Tribe. Each allottee received 657 acres (2.66 km2) of surface rights and mineral rights were reserved to the Osage Tribe.[54] Only allottees and their descendants with headrights could vote or run for office in the tribe and, over the generations, headrights and votes became highly fractionated.

Today, the Osage Nation has 13,307 enrolled tribal members, with 6,747 living within the state of Oklahoma.[1] It has established membership based on a person's lineal descent from a member listed on the Osage Rolls at the time of the Osage Allotment Act of 1906. A minimum blood quantum is not required. But, as the Bureau of Indian Affairs restricts federal scholarships to persons who have 25% or more blood quantum in one tribe, the Osage Nation tries to support higher education for its students who do not meet that requirement.

By its new constitution in 1994, the Osage voted that original allottees and their direct descendants, regardless of blood quantum, were citizen members of the Nation. Due to court challenges, this constitution was overruled.

In 2004, President George W. Bush signed Public Law 108-431, An Act to Reaffirm the Inherent Sovereign Rights of the Osage Tribe to Determine Its Membership and Form a Government.[55] After this, the Osage Government Reform Commission formed to develop a new government. The Reform Commission held weekly meetings to develop a referendum that Osage members could vote upon in order to develop and reshape the Osage Nation government and its policies.[55] On March 11, 2006, the Constitution was ratified in a second referendum vote. By a 2/3 majority vote, the Osage Nation adopted the new constitutional form of government. It also ratified the definition of membership in the Nation.[53]

The tribal government is headquartered in Pawhuska, Oklahoma and has jurisdiction in Osage County, Oklahoma.[1] The current governing body of the Osage nation contains three separate branches; an executive, a judicial and a legislative. These three branches parallel the United States government in many ways.

The tribe operates a monthly newspaper, Osage News.[56] The Osage Nation has an official website and uses a variety of communication media and technology.

Judicial branch[edit]

The judicial branch maintains courts to interpret the laws of the Osage Nation. It has the power to adjudicate civil and criminal matters, resolve disputes, and judicial review. The highest court is the Supreme Court. This Supreme Court has a Chief Justice, currently Meredith Drent,[57] who replaced former Chief Justice Charles Lohah. There is also a lower Trial Court and more inferior courts as allowed by the tribal constitution.[58]

Executive Branch[edit]

The executive branch is headed by a Principal Chief, followed by an Assistant Principal Chief. The current Principal Chief is Geoffrey Standing Bear, and Raymond Red Corn is the Assistant Principal Chief, who were both sworn in on July 2, 2014. Administrative offices also fall under this executive branch.[59]

Legislative Branch[edit]

The legislative branch consists of a Congress that works to create and maintain Osage laws. In addition to this role, their mission is to preserve the checks and balances within the Osage government, carry out oversight responsibilities, support trial revenues, and preserve and protect the nation's environment. This Congress is made up of twelve individuals who are elected by the Osage constituency and serve four-year terms. They hold two regular Congressional sessions and are headquartered in Pawhuska.[60]

Economic development[edit]

For more details on Osage Nation's casinos, see Osage Casino.

The Osage Nation issues its own tribal vehicle tags and operates its own housing authority. The tribe owns a truck stop, a gas station, and ten smoke shops. In the 21st century, it opened its first gaming casino and as of December 2013, has seven casinos.[1] Casinos are located in Tulsa, Sand Springs, Bartlesville, Skiatook, Ponca City, Hominy and Pawhuska.[61] The tribe's annual economic impact in 2010 was estimated to be $222 million. Osage Million Dollar Elm, the casino management company, is encouraging employees in education, paying for certificate classes related to their business, as well as for classes leading to BA and master's business degrees.[62]

Osage Nation Museum[edit]

Located in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, the Osage Nation Museum[63] provides interpretations and displays of Osage history, art, and culture. The continuously changing exhibits convey the story of the Osage people throughout history and celebrate Osage culture today. Highlights include an extensive photograph collection, historical artifacts, and traditional and contemporary art.

Founded in 1938, the ONM is the oldest tribally owned museum in the United States. Historian Louis F. Burns donated much of his extensive personal collection of artifacts and documents to the museum. [64]

Representations in media[edit]

John Joseph Mathews, an Osage, explored the adverse social effects of the oil boom for the Osage Nation in his semi-autobiographical novel Sundown (1934).

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a series of children's books, known as Little House on the Prairie (1932–1943). The novel Little House on the Prairie and its TV adaptation are based on her family's pioneer days in Kansas. They squatted on Osage land and encountered members of the tribe.

Daniel H. Wilson features the Osage Nation as saving humans in his science fiction novel Robopocalypse (2011).

Notable Osage[edit]

FOR THIS LIST OF SOME 30 OSAGE PEOPLE OF LITERARY AND PROFESSIONAL IMPORTANCE, SEE THIS WEBSITE.

See also[edit]

Indigenous peoples of North America portal
Osage alphabet
Osage Treaty (disambiguation), several treaties
Sacred Sun, a 19th-century Osage woman who was among a group taken to France.


OSAGE ALPHABET -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_alphabet

MORE ABOUT LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manner_of_articulation

HUMANS IN NORTH AMERICA 100,000 YEARS AGO? IMPOSSIBLE? NOT REALLY.
COMPILATION AND COMMENTS
BY LUCY WARNER
APRIL 27, 2017


THE FOLLOWING NEWS ARTICLE FROM YESTERDAY’S NEWS ON A MODERN HUMAN PRESENCE IN NORTH AMERICA IS STARTLING. HOWEVER, IN LOOKING TO FIND ANY OTHER EARLY ESTIMATES FOR NORTH AMERICAN HUMAN POPULATIONS, I FOUND SEVERAL. MUCH OF THE PROOF HAS TO DO WITH THE AREA IN AND AROUND AUSTRALIA AND THE OTHER MELANESIAN SETTLEMENTS, AND IT’S TOO MUCH TO GO INTO, BUT THE DNA STUDIES ARE PUSHING THE DATE UP AS HIGH AS 130,000 BP. THE IDEA THAT NO MODERN HUMANS HAD EMERGED FROM AFRICA BEFORE THE 70,000 BP ESTIMATE IS BEING QUESTIONED ON ALL SIDES NOW, SO THIS ARTICLE FOR NORTH AMERICA DOESN’T SEEM IMPOSSIBLE AT ALL.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/science/prehistoric-humans-north-america-california-nature-study.html
Humans Lived in North America 130,000 Years Ago, Study Claims
Carl Zimmer
MATTER
APRIL 26, 2017

Photograph -- A side view of groove produced by percussion on a mastodon leg bone. Credit Tom Deméré/San Diego Natural History Museum

Prehistoric humans — perhaps Neanderthals or another lost species — occupied what is now California some 130,000 years ago, a team of scientists reported on Wednesday.

The bold and fiercely disputed claim, published in the journal Nature, is based on a study of mastodon bones discovered near San Diego. If the scientists are right, they would significantly alter our understanding of how humans spread around the planet.

The earliest widely accepted evidence of people in the Americas is less than 15,000 years old. Genetic studies strongly support the idea that those people were the ancestors of living Native Americans, arriving in North America from Asia.

If humans actually were in North America over 100,000 years earlier, they may not be related to any living group of people. Modern humans probably did not expand out of Africa until 50,000 to 80,000 years ago, recent genetic studies have shown.

If California’s first settlers weren’t modern, then they would have to have been Neanderthals or perhaps members of another extinct human lineage.

“It poses all sorts of questions,” said Thomas A. Deméré, a paleontologist at the San Diego Natural History Museum and a co-author of the new study. “Who were these people? What species were they?”

Some experts were intrigued by the research, but many archaeologists strongly criticized it, saying the evidence didn’t come close to supporting such a profound conclusion.

Photograph -- A boulder discovered at the Cerutti Mastodon site thought to have been used by early humans as a hammerstone. Credit Tom Deméré/San Diego Natural History Museum

“I was astonished, not because it is so good but because it is so bad,” said Donald K. Grayson, an archaeologist at the University of Washington, who faulted the new study for failing to rule out more mundane explanations for markings on the bones.

In 1992, construction workers dug up the mastodon bones while clearing earth to build a sound barrier along Route 54 in San Diego County. A team of paleontologists from the museum spent the next five months excavating the layer of sediment in which they were found.

The team discovered more scattered bone fragments, all of which seemed to have come from a single mastodon. From the start, the remains seemed unusual.

The thick bones were broken and smashed, and near the animal were five large rounded stones. Dr. Deméré and his colleagues invited other experts to help determine how the bones were broken apart.

In an effort to reproduce the markings, the researchers used similar rocks to break apart fresh elephant bones in Tanzania. The bones fractured at the same angles as the ones in San Diego, they found, and the fragments scattered onto the ground in a similar pattern.

Dr. Deméré and his colleagues rejected the idea that all these changes could be the work of predators attacking the mastodon. “It’s kind of hard to envision a carnivore strong enough to break a mastodon leg bone,” he said.

When he and his colleagues closely examined the rocks found near the mastodon fossils, they also found scratch marks. Similar marks appeared on the rocks used to smash elephant bones. Small chips at the site fit neatly into the rocks, suggesting that they had broken off while people used them as hammers.

Photo -- A bulldozer refilling the Cerutti Mastodon site after excavation and salvage of fossils was completed in 1993. Credit San Diego Natural History Museum

The bones and rocks rested on a sandy flood plain by a meandering stream. The researchers argued that these couldn’t have been brought together by a violent current, and that people must have carried the rocks to the mastodon.

Dr. Deméré speculated that the humans might have been trying to get marrow out of the mastodon bones to eat, while using fragments of the bones to fashion tools. There’s a great deal of evidence for that kind of activity at older sites in other parts of the world, he noted.

Rolfe D. Mandel, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Kansas who was not involved in the study, found it hard to see how the rocks and bones could come together without the help of people. “It could not happen naturally,” he said.

But other archaeologists said the bone fractures and rock scratches were unconvincing.

“They present evidence that the broken stones and bones could have been broken by humans,” said Vance T. Holliday, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona. “But they don’t demonstrate that they could only be broken by humans.”

Gary Haynes, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, said the researchers should have ruled out more alternatives. Some of the bone fractures could have been caused by pressure from overlying sediment, he suggested.

For years, Dr. Deméré and his colleagues struggled to figure out how long ago the mastodon died. The scientists finally contacted James B. Paces, a research geologist at the United States Geological Survey, who determined how much uranium in the bones had broken down into another element, thorium.

That test revealed, to their surprise, that the bones were 130,000 years old. Yet the fractures suggested the bones were still fresh when they were broken with the rocks.

Photograph -- Ancient Skull Suggests an Early Murder JUNE 02, 2015

Other researchers agreed that the dating methods, at least, were sound. “These results look about as good as it can get,” said Alistair W. Pike, a geochronology expert at the University of Southampton who was not involved in the new study.

If early humans really did smash those mastodon bones 130,000 years ago, scientists will have to rethink how humans came to the Americas.

For decades, archaeologists have searched North and South America for the oldest evidence of occupation. Last year, Canadian researchers reported that bones of caribou and other mammals found in the Yukon with cut marks, which they argue were man-made, date back 24,000 years.

Michael R. Waters, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University, and his colleagues reported that a stone knife and mastodon bones with cut marks found in a Florida sinkhole are about 14,500 years old.

Taken together, the findings fit what is called the Beringian Standstill hypothesis: Humans moved from Siberia onto the Bering Land Bridge linking Asia and North America about 25,000 years ago, the idea goes, but were stopped by enormous glaciers.

After several thousand years, as glaciers receded, modern humans were able to move south.

But the mastodon bones in San Diego are vastly older than any others said to show evidence of human manipulation — so old that they may not represent the work of our own species.

The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans, found in Africa, date back about 200,000 years. The ancestors of Europeans, Asians, and Australians did not expand out of Africa until somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago, according to recent studies.

But other kinds of humans might have made the journey to North America much earlier. The ancestors of Neanderthals, for example, were outside of Africa several hundred thousand years ago, and their descendants occupied a range stretching from Spain to southern Siberia.

Another mysterious lineage of humans, the Denisovans, split off from Neanderthals an estimated 400,000 years ago. Their remains have been found in Siberia.

Dr. Deméré and his colleagues say only that their findings “confirm the presence of an unidentified species of Homo,” a reference to the human genus.

To Beth Shapiro, a paleogeneticist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the idea that Denisovans or Neanderthals could have made the trek from Asia to North America is plausible.

Last month, she and her colleagues published a study showing that bison spread into North America over the Bering Land Bridge about 135,000 years ago. (The bridge has disappeared and reappeared over the millenniums as the climate changed.)

“There is no reason to suspect that a human group could not have done the same,” Dr. Shapiro said. While they might be able to make the journey, however, she agreed with critics that were good reasons to be skeptical they actually did.

“Extraordinary claims require unequivocal evidence,” Dr. Waters of Texas A&M said. Unlike the stone knife he and his colleagues found in Florida, the stones at the San Diego site are not indisputably human tools.

“Some people are just going to say it’s impossible and turn away,” Dr. Deméré acknowledged, adding that he hoped that other archaeologists would take a close look at the evidence in San Diego for themselves.

“We could be wrong,” he added. “But people have to be open to the possibility that humans were here this long ago.”



I DON’T THINK WE KNOW IN TERMS OF TACTILE PROOF WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST, SUCH AS FINDING OLD HUMAN BONES WHICH COULD BE URANIUM DATED, BUT DNA SCIENTISTS ARE REALLY PUTTING OUT NEW STUDIES FREQUENTLY NOW. IF THEIR WAY OF ESTIMATING DATES IS ACCURATE, I FEEL SURE THIS ARTICLE IS QUITE POSSIBLY TRUE. AT ANY RATE, IT’S FASCINATING. FOR INFORMATION ON THE MOST ANCIENT CURRENTLY LIVING HUMAN GROUPS GO TO GOOGLE AND SEARCH AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES, AUSTRALOIDS AND MELANESIANS.

I HAVE INCLUDED SEVERAL DATE RELATED ARTICLES, BECAUSE I THINK THE REAL PROBLEM IN THIS NEW YORK TIMES STORY IS OUR STILL FRUSTRATINGLY INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF EXACTLY WHEN H. SAPIENS ARRIVED IN SOUTHERN ASIA, WHERE HE WENT FROM THERE, AND WHETHER OR NOT HE KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT SAILING, BECAUSE THE MELANESIAN PEOPLE ARE ALMOST ALL ISLAND DWELLERS AND SAILORS TODAY. HOW DID THEY GET TO THESE ISLANDS IF THEY DIDN’T SAIL? OF COURSE, THERE IS A LAND BRIDGE BETWEEN SIBERIA AND NORTH AMERICA, AND ANOTHER ONE BETWEEN THE ISLANDS OF AUSTRALIA WHICH IS THE HEART OF ONE THEORY OF HOW THEY GOT FROM AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. THEY WALKED THE WHOLE WAY! IF ENOUGH WATER WAS TIED UP IN GLACIATION, THAT COULD HAVE PROVIDED A WALKING PATH; IN FACT, ONE THEORY I SAW YESTERDAY DOES PROPOSE A LAND ROUTE IN TIMES OF LOW WATER TO AUSTRALIA WHICH RAN ACROSS INDIA, DUE TO THE HIGH LEVEL OF GLACIATION AT THAT TIME CAUSING OCEAN DEPTHS TO BE MUCH SHALLOWER THAN THEY ARE TODAY, AND EXPOSING NICE DRY LAND. IF MR. H. SAPIENS DIDN’T HAVE TO WALK ALL THE WAY ACROSS ASIA AND THEN DOWN TO THE CALIFORNIA COAST, HE COULD HAVE MADE A QUICKER TRIP, THOUGH. AS IT IS, IT’S STILL POSSIBLE TO LEAVE AFRICA IN 100,000 BP, AND MAKE IT TO CALIFORNIA BY 130,000 BP, EVEN ON FOOT. THIRTY THOUSAND YEARS IS A LONG TIME.

SOME OF THESE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES ARE INCLUDED BECAUSE THEY GIVE BOTH DATES AND DNA INFORMATION ON THE EARLIEST KNOWN GENETICALLY AND CULTURALLY LINKED HUMAN GROUPS, WHICH IS FASCINATING TO ME, AND OF COURSE THE VERY OLDEST GROUP IS THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

THE AUSTRALOID RACE AND TRIBES IS, OR WAS, THE LOWEST CASTE GROUP IN INDIA, AND THEY HAPPEN TO LOOK VERY MUCH LIKE THE ABORIGINES. THEY ARE VERY DARK IN COLORING, AND LIVE IN POVERTY EVEN TODAY. UP TO THE VERY RECENT PAST, INDIA HAD A STRICTLY ENFORCED CASTE SYSTEM, WHICH HAS NOW BEEN DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND HAS BEEN REPLACED BY THE TERM, “SCHEDULED TRIBES,” OR SIMPLY “TRIBAL PEOPLES.” THEY ARE NOT DOING WELL SOCIALLY AND IN TERMS OF PROSPERITY, EVEN NOW. BEING “SCHEDULED” –WHATEVER THAT MEANS -- HASN’T HELPED MUCH. MAYBE THAT WILL CHANGE OVER TIME, AS IT IS VERY GRADUALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. ON THOSE INDIAN TRIBAL PEOPLE, SEE THE NEXT ARTICLE FROM THE WEBSITE “SCROLL.IN.” AUSTRALOIDS ARE APPARENTLY BEING TREATED SIMILARLY TO THE NATIVE AMERICANS ON RESERVATIONS IN THE USA, MIGRANT WORKERS, AND THE BLACK PEOPLE IN OUR INNER CITIES. IT IS VERY SAD.

SEE THIS ARTICLE ON THE ADIVASI OR “ABORIGINAL PEOPLES” –

https://scroll.in/article/773759/adivasis-indias-original-inhabitants-have-suffered-the-most-at-its-hands, Adivasis: India’s original inhabitants have suffered the most at its hands, Mohan Guruswamy,Published Jan 20, 2016.

“Their presence in India pre-dates the Dravidians, the Aryans and everyone else. Yet they have no political power and most of them live below the poverty line.

Tribal people, accounting for 8.2% of India’s population, are spread all over India’s states and union territories. Even so, they can be broadly classified into three groupings. The first consists of populations who predate the Indo-Aryan migrations, and are termed by many anthropologists as the Austro-Asiatic-speaking Australoid people. The Central Indian adivasis belong to this grouping. The other two groupings are the Caucasoid and Sino-Tibetan or Mongoloid tribal people of the Himalayan and North Eastern regions who migrated in later periods.

Article 366 (25) of the Constitution defines scheduled tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to the Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this Constitution”. The criteria for classification being geographical isolation, backwardness and having distinctive culture, language, religion and “shyness of contact”.

. . . .
The real swadeshi products

There are some 573 communities recognised by the government as scheduled tribes and, therefore, eligible to receive special benefits and to compete for reserved seats in legislatures, government and educational institutions. The biggest tribal group, the Gonds, number about 7.4 million, followed by the Santhals with a population of about 4.2 million. The smallest tribal community is the Chaimals of the Andaman Islands who number just eighteen. Central India is home to the country’s largest adivasi tribes, and, taken as a whole, roughly 75% of the India’s tribal population lives there.

The late Professor Nihar Ranjan Ray, one of our most distinguished historians, described the Central Indian adivasis as “the original autochthonous people of India” – meaning their presence in India pre-dated by far the Dravidians, the Aryans and whoever else settled in this country. The anthropologist Dr Verrier Elwin stated this more emphatically when he wrote: “These are the real swadeshi products of India, in whose presence all others are foreign. These are ancient people with moral rights and claims thousands of years old. They were here first and should come first in our regard.”

The word adivasi carries the specific meaning of being the original inhabitants of a given region and was specifically coined for that purpose in the 1930s. Clearly then, all scheduled tribes are not adivasis.

Unlike the adivasis, the other two broad tribal groupings have fared better in the post-independence dispensation. Within them, some – such as the Meenas and Gujjars of Rajasthan, and the Khasis, Mizos, Angami and Tangkhul Nagas, and the Meiteis in the North East – have done exceptionally well, which should make us wonder if they should be eligible to claim benefits as scheduled tribes anymore? Unlike the North Eastern tribes, the Meenas and Gujjars don’t even meet the stipulated criteria of geographical isolation, backwardness, distinctive culture, language and religion. Forget “shyness of contact”.

Newfound concerns

Even before Independence, the legendary adivasi leader Jaipal Singh, while welcoming the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 16, 1946, stated the tribal case and apprehensions explicitly and succinctly:

“As a jungli, as an Adivasi, I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the Resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the new comers – most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned – it is the new comers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness... The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”

The adivasis paid dearly for taking Jawaharlal Nehru at his word. Even if the provisions of the Constitution were implemented in some measure, if not all of its spirit and word, the present situation would not have come to be.

We all now know well that big government in the absence of a responsive nervous system actually means little government, and whatever little interaction the people at the bottom have with the state is usually a none too happy one. In the vast Central Indian highlands, the occasional visit of an official means extraction by coercion of what little the poor people possess. It doesn’t just end with a chicken or a goat or a bottle of mahua, it often includes all these and the modesties of the womenfolk.

. . . . What little the Indian state apportions to the welfare and development of indigenous people gets absorbed in the porous layers of our public administration. Quite understandably then, there is a raging fire of discontent and anger in these adivasi homelands. The State’s response is to treat it as a law and order problem and quell the discontent by force, without trying to address it.

. . . . The lament of the adivasi about their role in their government is well known. It is the subject of many folk songs. A popular Gond song goes:
“And the Gods were greatly troubled/ in their heavenly courts and councils/ Sat no Gods of Gonds among them. / Gods of other nations sat there/ Eighteen threshing-floors of Brahmins/ Sixteen scores of Telinganas/ But no Gods of Gonds appeared there/ From the glens of Seven Mountains/ From the twelve hills of the valleys.”

THAT’S A VERY IMPRESSIVE SPEECH FOR A LOWER CASTE PERSON TO BE ABLE TO MAKE. HE WAS, OF COURSE, LEGENDARY; HOWEVER, THE GOND POEM ABOVE HAS CONSIDERABLE BEAUTY ALSO. IT’S LIKE THE BLUES OF OUR USA BLACKS AND THE BLUEGRASS MUSIC OF THE OFTEN GRINDINGLY POOR APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN WHITES. THEIR PAIN PRODUCES EXQUISITE ART.



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160317150805.htm
Science News
from research organizations
Ancient Denisovan DNA excavated in modern Pacific Islanders
Substantial genomic remnants of the extinct Denisovans recovered in Oceania populations
Date:March 17, 2016
Source:University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine

Photograph -- At the University of Washington, population geneticists Joshua Akey and Benjamin Vernot go over human evolutionary models. They are currently studying the influence of Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA on mode. Credit: Clare McLean

Source: University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine Summary: Archaic Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA that persists in modern Pacific islanders of Melanesia, far from the Siberian cave where Denisovan fossils have been found, is a source of information about early human history. Equally informative are genome regions where DNA from extinct, human-like species has vanished and been replaced with sequences unique to people. These large regions have genes for brain development, language and brain cell signalling. Retained archaic DNA in human genomes may confer infection-fighting advantages.

The archaic Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA that persists in modern individuals from the Pacific islands of Melanesia could be a source of new information about early human history, according to a report published this Thursday in the Early Release edition of Science.

Equally as informative, according to Joshua Akey, a UW Medicine expert on human evolutionary genetics, are regions where DNA from extinct, human-like species has vanished from the genome and has been replaced with sequences unique to people.

Denisovans are related to, but distinct from, Neanderthals. This prehistoric species was discovered less than a decade ago through genetic analysis of a finger bone unearthed in northern Siberia. Named for the mountain cave where that fossil, and later, two teeth, were found, Denisovans became a new addition to our ancient cousins on the evolutionary tree.

Substantial amounts of Denisovan DNA have been detected in the genomes of only few present-day human populations so far. They are all living in Oceania, thousands of miles away from that Siberian cave.

"I think that people (and Neanderthals and Denisovans) liked to wander," said Benjamin Vernot, a UW postdoctoral student in genomic sciences who led the project. "And yes, studies like this can help us track where they wandered."

"Denisovans are the only species of archaic humans about whom we know less from fossil evidence and more from where their genes show up in modern humans," Akey said.

Denisovan DNA could make up between 2 percent to 4 percent of the genome of a native Melanesian. Lower levels of Denisovan ancestry, other recent studies suggest, may be more widespread in the world.

Akey, a University of Washington professor of genome sciences, and Svante Paabo, of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, oversaw the Melanesian genome project. It was a collaboration with researchers in medicine, anthropology, statistics and biotechnology from several other universities.

Many recent studies have tried to understand when and where archaic hominins and our modern ancestors co-existed and interbred. Most of this research has been intent on cataloging Neanderthal gene sequences remaining in the genomes people of European or Asian descent.

According to Vernot, "Different populations of people have slightly different levels of Neanderthal ancestry, which likely means that humans repeatedly ran into Neanderthals as they spread across Europe."

Where the ancestors of modern humans might have had physical contact with Denisovans is debatable. The best guess, Akey said, is that Denisovans may have had a broad geographic range that extended into East Asia. Early humans with both Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry could have traveled along South East Asia. Eventually, some of their descendants arrived on the islands north of Australia.

"Little is known about the organization and characteristics of Denisovan DNA in modern humans, which is why we wanted to study genome samples from Melanesians," Akey said.

"We developed an approach to identify DNA inherited from multiple archaic hominin [human-like] ancestors, and applied it to whole-genome sequences from 1,523 geographically diverse individuals," the authors wrote in their paper. The analysis included the genomes of 35 individuals from 11 locations in the Bismarck Archipelago of Northern Island Melanesia, Papua, New Guinea.

With this study, Vernot explained, researchers advanced the understanding of archaic DNA in people beyond a single species of hominins. Previously, researchers had located large regions of the genome where no humans carried any Neanderthal sequences.

"We now know that some of those regions are also devoid of Denisovan sequences, " he said. Vernot referred to those regions as "archaic deserts" that strengthen the argument that something there is uniquely human. The size of those regions might mean that selection against archaic sequences -- or other reasons for gene depletion -- was strong, maybe stronger than one might expect, Vernot said.

Those same regions on the modern human genome contain hundreds of genes, many of which have been linked to language, the brain and its development, and brain cells signals.

"These are big, truly interesting regions. It will be a long, hard slog to fully understand the genetic differences between humans, Denisovans and Neanderthals in these regions and the traits they influence," Akey noted.

The research team also identified genes inherited from Neanderthals and Denisovans that conferred advantages to the ancestors of modern Island Melanesians. Five of these regions have immune-function genes that may have protected against local pathogens unfamiliar to recently arrived humans.

This study team also developed new, rigorous methods for labeling which archaic DNA sequences were Neanderthal, Denisovan, or of uncertain origin.

"The classification is tricky and not a trivial exercise," Akey said, "Mislabeling could lead to erroneous conclusions."

The authors also emphasized that no one study can tell a complete story. This project, Akey said, helps realize the influence of hybridization with other species on the trajectory of human evolution.

"Some of the sequences modern humans inherited from Neanderthals and Denisovans helped our ancestors survive and reproduce," Akey said.

This type of study gives perspective on human expansion across Eurasia, and possibly what sort of conditions those humans encountered on their way, Vernot said. He also mentioned that the work "demonstrates how we can learn about human history, and our archaic relatives, by studying ancient and modern DNA."

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine. Original written by Leila Gray. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.



A VERY INTERESTING COMMENT IN THIS NEXT WIKI ARTICLE ON MELANESIANS IS THAT THEY CARRY IN THEIR GENES, ". . . . “a mysterious third archaic Homo species along with their Denisovan (3-4%), and Neanderthal (2%), ancestors.”

TWENTY YEARS AGO ANTHROPOLOGISTS SAID THAT FERTILE BREEDING BETWEEN HOMO SAPIENS AND NEANDERTHAL MAN WAS IMPOSSIBLE, BECAUSE OF CHROMOSOME NUMBER I THINK, AND NOW JUST LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ARE OUR KIN. THERE IS NO END TO WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM WIKIPEDIA, NOR I FEEL SURE, TO THE DEPTH OF THE LIFE FORCE IN OPERATION HERE !


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesia
Melanesia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Melanesia (UK: /ˌmɛləˈniːziə/; US: /ˌmɛləˈniːʒə/) is a subregion of Oceania (and occasionally Australasia) extending from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji.

The region includes the four countries of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea.

Besides these independent countries, Melanesia also includes:
New Caledonia, a special collectivity of France
Western New Guinea Region of Indonesia, within Papua Province and West Papua Province on western New Guinea island and adjacent small islands.

The name Melanesia (in French "Mélanésie" from the Greek μέλας, black, and νῆσος, islands) was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands whose inhabitants he thought were distinct from those of Micronesia and Polynesia.

Etymology[edit]

Distribution of Melanesians according to Meyers Konversations-Lexikon

The concept among Europeans of Melanesia as a distinct region evolved gradually over time as their expeditions mapped and explored the Pacific. Early European explorers noted the physical differences among groups of Pacific Islanders. In 1756 Charles de Brosses theorized that there was an 'old black race' in the Pacific who were conquered or defeated by the peoples of what is now called Polynesia, whom he distinguished as having lighter skin.[1]:189–190 In the first half of the nineteenth century Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent and Jules Dumont d'Urville identified Melanesians as a distinct racial group.[2][3] :165

Over time, however, Europeans increasingly viewed 'Melanesia' as a distinct cultural, rather than racial, area. Scholars and other commentators disagreed on its boundaries, which were fluid. In the nineteenth century Robert Codrington, a British missionary, produced a series of monographs on 'the Melanesians' based on his long-time residence in the region. In works including The Melanesian Languages (1885) and The Melanesians: Studies in Their Anthropology and Folk-lore (1891), Codrington defined Melanesia as including Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, and Fiji. He did not include the islands of New Guinea because only some of its people were Melanesians. Like Bory de Saint-Vincent, he excluded Australia from Melanesia.[4]:528 It was in these works that Codrington introduced the cultural concept of mana to the West.

Photograph -- A pan flute from the Solomon Islands, 19th century

Uncertainty about the delineation and definition of the region continues. The scholarly consensus now includes New Guinea within Melanesia. Ann Chowning wrote in her 1977 textbook on Melanesia that there is

"no general agreement even among anthropologists about the geographical boundaries of Melanesia. Many apply the term only to the smaller islands, excluding New Guinea; Fiji has frequently been treated as an anomalous border region or even assigned wholly to Polynesia; and the people of the Torres Straits Islands are often simply classified as Australian aborigines".[5]:1

In 1998 Paul Sillitoe wrote of Melanesia: "it is not easy to define precisely, on geographical, cultural, biological, or any other grounds, where Melanesia ends and the neighbouring regions... begins".[6]:1 He ultimately concludes that the region is

"a historical category which evolved in the nineteenth century from the discoveries made in the Pacific and has been legitimated by use and further research in the region. It covers populations that have a certain linguistic, biological and cultural affinity – a certain ill-defined sameness, which shades off at its margins into difference".[6]:1

Both Sillitoe and Chowning include the island of New Guinea in the definition of Melanesia, and both exclude Australia.

Most of the peoples in Melanesia have established independent countries, are admistered by France or have active independence movements (in the case of West Papua). Many have recently taken up the term 'Melanesia' as a source of identity and "empowerment." Stephanie Lawson writes that the term "moved from a term of denigration to one of affirmation, providing a positive basis for contemporary subregional identity as well as a formal organisation".[7]:14 For instance, the author Bernard Narokobi wrote about the "Melanesian Way" as a distinct form of culture that could empower the people of this region. The concept is also used in geopolitics. For instance, the Melanesian Spearhead Group preferential trade agreement is a regional trade treaty among Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji.

Main article: Melanesians
Photograph -- Sailors of Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, 1846

The people of Melanesia have a distinctive ancestry. Along with the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, they are believed to derive from the Proto-Australoids who emigrated from Africa between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago and dispersed along the southern edge of Asia, giving rise to Australoid populations in various places, including South India, Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, the Philippines, and others. The limit of this ancient migration was Sahul, the continent formed when Australia and New Guinea were united by a land bridge as a result of low sea levels. The first migration into Sahul came over 40,000 years ago. A further expansion into the eastern islands of Melanesia came much later, probably between 4000 B.C. and 3000 B.C.

Particularly along the north coast of New Guinea and in the islands north and east of New Guinea, the Austronesian people, who had migrated into the area somewhat more than 3,000 years ago,[8] came into contact with these pre-existing populations of Papuan-speaking peoples. In the late 20th century, some scholars theorized a long period of interaction, which resulted in many complex changes in genetics, languages, and culture among the peoples.[9] This Polynesian theory, however, is contradicted by the findings of a genetic study published by Temple University in 2008. It found that neither Polynesians nor Micronesians have much genetic relation to Melanesians. It appeared that, having developed their sailing outrigger canoes, the ancestors of the Polynesians migrated from East Asia, moved through the Melanesian area quickly on their way, and kept going to eastern areas, where they settled. They left little genetic evidence in Melanesia.[8] . . . .

Genetic studies[edit]

Melanesians were found to have a mysterious third archaic Homo species along with their Denisovan (3-4%), and Neanderthal (2%), ancestors in a genetic admixture with their otherwise modern Homo sapiens sapiens genomes.[citation needed] Their most common Y-chromosome haplogroup is M-P256.



SO, WHO WERE THESE PROTO-AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES? DID THEY EVOLVE MUCH MORE AFTER LEAVING AFRICA? THEY SEEM TO BE A MORE OR LESS GENETICALLY PURE GROUP, COMPARED TO OTHERS IN THE AREA. SEE THE ARTICLE BELOW.

https://phys.org/news/2016-02-genetics-reveal-years-independent-history.html
Genetics reveal 50,000 years of independent history of aboriginal Australian people
February 25, 2016

More information: Current Biology, dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.028
Journal reference: Current Biology
Provided by: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

The first complete sequences of the Y chromosomes of Aboriginal Australian men have revealed a deep indigenous genetic history tracing all the way back to the initial settlement of the continent 50 thousand years ago, according to a study published in the journal Current Biology today.

The study by researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and collaborators at La Trobe University in Melbourne and several other Australian institutes, challenges a previous theory that suggested an influx of people from India into Australia around 4-5 thousand years ago. This new DNA sequencing study focused on the Y chromosome, which is transmitted only from father to son, and found no support for such a prehistoric migration. The results instead show a long and independent genetic history in Australia.

Modern humans arrived in Australia about 50 thousand years ago, forming the ancestors of present-day Aboriginal Australians. They were amongst the earliest settlers outside Africa. They arrived in an ancient continent made up of today's Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, called Sahul, probably thousands of years before modern humans arrived in Europe.

Five thousand years ago, dingos, the native dogs, somehow arrived in Australia, and changes in stone tool use and language around the same time raised the question of whether there were also associated genetic changes in the Australian Aboriginal population. At least two previous genetic studies, one of which was based on the Y chromosome, had proposed that these changes could have coincided with mixing of Aboriginal and Indian populations about 5 thousand years ago.

Anders Bergstrom, first author on the paper at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: "We worked closely with Aboriginal Australian communities to sequence the Y chromosome DNA from 13 male volunteers to investigate their ancestry. The data show that Aboriginal Australian Y chromosomes are very distinct from Indian ones. These results refute the previous Y chromosome study, thus excluding this part of the puzzle as providing evidence for a prehistoric migration from India. Instead, the results are in agreement with the archaeological record about when people arrived in this part of the world."

Dr John Mitchell, Associate Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, explained: "Clearly there is keen interest in the Aboriginal community to explore their genetic ancestry and without them this study would not be possible - our first step was to return their results to them, before the scientific article was published. This collaboration in genome sequencing, to explore their ancient history, was made possible by years of engagement beforehand with Aboriginal communities."

Further study is needed to answer questions such as how the dingo did get to Australia and why other people such as the seafaring Polynesians didn't settle on the continent. Expanding the genetic analyses beyond the Y chromosome and to the whole genome will also be necessary to completely rule out external genetic influences on the Aboriginal Australian population before the very recent times.

Lesley Williams, who was responsible for the liaison with the Aboriginal community, said: "As an Aboriginal Elder and cultural consultant for this project I am delighted, although not surprised, that science has confirmed what our ancestors have taught us over many generations, that we have lived here since the Dreaming."

Dr Chris Tyler Smith, group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute added: "By fully sequencing and analysing Y-chromosomal DNA, we have been able to trace ancient human migrations and inform living people about their ancestry. We are using the latest technology to genetically unearth our ancient history - something that has only become possible in the last decade. We look forward to further collaborations to understand more of this unique heritage."

Explore further: Fires did not destroy (as fast as we thought)

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-02-genetics-reveal-years-independent-history.html#jCp



INDIA’S CONNECTION WITH AUSTRALIANS

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/07/24/2635149.htm
DNA confirms coastal trek to Australia
Friday, 24 July 2009 Nicky Phillips
ABC

DNA evidence linking Indian tribes to Australian Aboriginal people supports the theory humans arrived in Australia from Africa via a southern coastal route through India, say researchers.

The research, lead by Dr Raghavendra Rao from the Anthropological Survey of India, is published in the current edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology.

One theory is that modern humans arrived in Australia via an inland route through central Asia but Rao says most scientists believe modern humans arrived via the coast of South Asia.

But he says there has never been any evidence to confirm a stop-off in India until now.

Rao and colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of 966 people from traditional tribes in India.

They report that several of the Indians studied had two regions of their mitochondrial DNA that were identical to those found in modern day Australian Aboriginal people.

The team compared Indian sequences with those from Aboriginal Australians collected in past studies.

Rao and colleagues used computer programs to predict that a common ancestor existed, between the Indian population and Aboriginal Australians, up to 50,000 years ago.

Skeletal remains, dating back between 40-60,000 years from Lake Mungo in New South Wales, also support the theory that modern human arrived in Australia at least as far back as this, he says.

Link through mothers

Rao says he and colleagues sequenced mitochondrial DNA because it is the best type of DNA to use for ancestral studies.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed on by mothers only and does not change much over time.

Evolutionary biologist Dr Jeremy Austin, of the University of Adelaide, says the new data "definitely supports the coastal route hypothesis".

He says that before this research was published, genetic markers from Aboriginal Australians were known to be closely related to markers from traditional Indian and South East Asian peoples.

"But this is the first time people have been able to find these exact same mitochondrial DNA types inside and outside Australia," says Austin.

He says now that a mitochondrial DNA link has been found between tribal Indian populations and Aboriginal Australians it would be interesting to see if a connection exists through the Y chromosome, where DNA is passed only from fathers to sons.

Tags: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, anthropology-and-sociology, archaeology, evolution, research, dna


REDATING THE EMERGENCE FROM AFRICA TO 70,000 BP, BUT IN TWO WAVES

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/09/23/3323640.htm
Aboriginal DNA dates Australian arrival
Friday, 23 September 2011
Dani Cooper ABC

DNA sequencing of a 100-year-old lock of hair has established that Aboriginal Australians have a longer continuous association with the land than any other race of people.

Sequencing of a West Australian Aboriginal man's hair shows he was directly descended from a migration out of Africa into Asia that took place about 70,000 years ago.

The finding, published today in Science , rewrites the history of the human species by confirming humans moved out of Africa in waves of migrations rather than one single out-of-Africa diaspora.

The study is based on a lock of hair donated to British anthropologist Alfred Haddon by an Aboriginal man from the Goldfields region of Western Australia in the early 20th century.

The genome, shown to have no genetic input from modern European Australians, reveals the ancestors of the Aboriginal man separated from the ancestors of other human populations some 64,000 to 75,000 years ago.

Aboriginal Australians therefore descend directly from the earliest modern explorers — people who migrated into Asia before finally reaching Australia.

Co-author Dr Joe Dortch, an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia, says the work is significant because it shows the timeline for people in Australia is more than 50,000 years.

"So far there are no [archaeological] sites that are over 50,000 years old so it puts a time limit on that and focuses our future efforts," he says.

Dortch believes the finding will foster a sense of pride in modern Australian Aborigines.

"It shows Aboriginal Australians have the longest branch of history in one particular place of anyone in the world.

"No one else in the world can say 'I am descended from people who have been here 75,000 years'."

Early explorers

Dortch says there has been debate among researchers as to whether there was a single migration wave out of Africa into Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Under that view, the first Australians would have branched off from an Asian population already separated from the ancestors of Europeans.

However, this study shows that when ancestral Aboriginal Australians began their journey, the ancestors of Asians and Europeans had not yet differentiated from each other and were still in Africa or the Middle East.

Dortch says the study shows a high level of sophistication among these early explorers.

"Their arrival in Australia required an incredible degree of planning and foresight," he says.

"You can't see Australia from Indonesia, you have to infer it is there. This was a colonisation journey and that is modern behaviour happening more than 50,000 years ago."

Fellow co-author David Lambert, a professor of evolutionary biology at Griffith University, agrees.

"Aboriginal people were in Australia before people got to Europe and already had very complex societies by that time," Lambert says.

He says the closest populations to Australian Aborigines from that first early dispersal migration can be found today in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and the Aeta people of The Philippines.

Indigenous partnership

Lambert says the "landmark paper" breaks new ground in its approach in consulting and working in partnership with indigenous groups.

The research is endorsed by the Goldfields Land and Sea Council (GLSC), the organisation representing the traditional owners for the region where the male donor lived.

"We know this hair sample was taken voluntarily and that an Aboriginal man gave his consent in 1923, and the people that represent the area he was from in 2011 have given their consent," says GLSC research manager Dr Craig Muller.

Muller says the Goldfields people are proud the research highlights the longevity of Aboriginal Australian occupation of the land.

"The Aboriginal people of the Goldfields area knew that anyway, but they like the fact the broader community is being reminded of [the length of our connection]," he says.

Muller says the people of the region have also told him they are eager to collaborate on further research.

IMAGE: Creating a genetic road map -- Murdoch University's ancient DNA expert Dr Michael Bunce and hair analysis expert Silvana Tridico also contributed to the project.

"It really is remarkable the recent advances in technology that now enable us to convert an old lock of hair into a complete genome - the information encoded in the DNA can tell us a lot about how humans explored the globe," says Bunce.

"The great news is that there is so much more we can discover both from this sample."

Tridico says the sample not only yielded information on the donor's ancestry, but also his own personal history.

"I was able to see features like ochre still attached to the hair shafts and weathering from the harsh outback conditions," Tridico says.

So far the only ancient human genomes have been obtained from hair preserved under frozen conditions.

The researchers have now shown that hair preserved in much less ideal conditions can be used for genome sequencing without risk of modern human contamination that is typical in ancient bones and teeth.

Tags: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, anthropology-and-sociology, genetics


ON THE SUBJECT OF YESTERDAY’S ARTICLE ON A HOMO SAPIENS PRESENCE IN NORTH AMERICA BEFORE THE TRADITIONALLY ACCEPTED DATE OF THEIR IMMIGRATION IN TO THE AREA, COULD THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN NEANDERTHAL? OR IS THE WHOLE DATE IDEA SIMPLY INCORRECT? THE MOST LIKELY FACTOR, IN MY VIEW, MAY BE THAT THE CUTOFF POINT OF 100,000 FOR HOMO SAPIENS TO HAVE EMERGED FROM AFRICA IS THE PROBLEM.

IT’S SET MUCH TOO EARLY TO SAY THAT WE KNOW ALL WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TIME SCALE. IN FACT, WHY HAVE A CUTOFF AT ALL? WE HAVE A LARGE AMOUNT OF THEORY AND A LITTLE FACT ON WHICH TO BASE NEW CONCLUSIONS. THAT’S WHY SCIENTISTS ARE CUTTING OFF POSSIBILITIES BECAUSE WE DON’T “KNOW” WHAT A LEGITIMATE DATE MIGHT BE. WE NEED TO KEEP DIGGING FOR NEW INFORMATION, INSTEAD, SUCH AS THIS POSSIBLE 130,000 YEAR OLD AMERICAN, EVEN AS WE WRITE NEW BOOKS. WRITE THEM, YES, BUT DON’T BELIEVE THAT THE INFORMATION IN THEM CAN BE FINALIZED LIKE COUNTING OUR MONEY. DISCOVERY GOES ON.

FROM WHAT I KNOW OF PEOPLE, WE TEND TO PICK UP AND GO WHEN WE WANT TO, UNLESS A PHYSICAL CRISIS WOULD HAVE MADE STAYING IN AFRICA UNTENABLE, SUCH AS STARVATION OR A POGROM, IN WHICH CASE A LARGE NUMBER OF MIGRANTS WOULD LIKELY HAVE SET OFF TOGETHER AS THE PREDOMINANT THEORY GOES. I WOULD BE WILLING TO BET THAT GENETICISTS EVEN WITH THEIR COMPUTERS CAN’T DISCOUNT THE POSSIBILITY, THOUGH, THAT SMALL GROUPS OF H. SAPIENS SAPIENS DID EXACTLY THAT, AND ESTABLISHED THEIR GENES ALONG THE WAY A LITTLE AT A TIME. FINDING THEIR TRACES MAY VERY LIKELY NEVER HAPPEN, BUT IT DOESN’T PROVE THAT THERE WERE NO MODERN HUMANS IN NORTH AMERICA BEFORE A RIDICULOUSLY LOW 15,000 YEARS! THE SEARCH IS THE THING, THOUGH. IT’S AN ACT OF FAITH IN THE WORSHIP OF THE LIFE FORCE. EVERYTHING I FIND OUT GIVES ME MORE FAITH.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans.
Development[edit]
Main articles: Anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens

“ . . . .

Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa by about 200,000 years ago. The trend in cranial expansion and the acheulean elaboration of stone tool technologies which occurred between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene (around 250,000 years ago) provide evidence for a transition from Homo erectus to H. sapiens.[13”



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations
Early human migrations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Earliest human migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents began 2 million years ago with the migration out of Africa of Homo erectus. This was followed by the migrations of other pre-modern humans including H. heidelbergensis, the likely ancestor of both modern humans and Neanderthals. Finally, Homo sapiens ventured out of Africa around 100,000 years ago, spread across Asia around 60,000 years ago and arrived on new continents and islands since then
Knowledge of early human migrations, a major topic of archeology, has been achieved by the study of human fossils, occasionally by stone-age artifacts and more recently has been assisted by archaeogenetics. Cultural and ethnic migrations are estimated by combining archaeogenetics and comparative linguistics.