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.