Earliest Americans could not have arrived by dry land, study indicates

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Earliest Americans could not have arrived by dry land, study indicates

Research shows that ice age corridor between Siberia and Alaska
would have been too inhospitable a migration route, contradicting
longstanding theory

Tim Radford
Wednesday 10 August 2016 18.00 BST

The first Americans – the earliest people to cross from Siberia to Alaska and begin the colonisation of two vast continents linked by a narrow isthmus – could not have simply followed the deer and the buffalo across dry land during the last ice age 13,500 years ago. They would have been in the right place, but at the wrong time, a new study shows.

What is now the Bering Strait would indeed then have been dry land. There was, as scientists have known for many years, an open 1500km corridor of grassland between two great ice sheets that would have made migration deep into North America possible.

But, according to a new study in Nature, this route wasn’t fully open for traffic until 12,600 years ago.

This means the very first pre-Columbian settlement of America, perhaps by people known to archaeologists as the Clovis culture, must have been either by sea, or by hugging the Pacific shoreline, long before the ice sheets retreated and the ocean closed in to flood the Bering Strait and separate the Old World from the New.

Studies based on radiocarbon dating, pollen, fossils and ancient plant and mammal DNA from lake sediments, found that before 12,600 years ago, there were no grasses, trees, bison, woolly mammoth or rabbits to serve as food and shelter along the corridor.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/earliest-americans-could-not-have-arrived-by-dry-land-study-indicates

Related: Postglacial viability and colonization in North America’s ice-free corridor (Nature)

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. I think that agrees with a study that I saw several years ago.

The conjecture was that boats were used to hug the shorelines.

There's plenty of food to be found at sea.

DNA studies most closely link Native Americans with people who live on an island of Japan. At least that's what I read a few years ago.

[Xithras]

2. You're thinking of the Ainu, but they're not the only ones.

Basically, there's a bit of evidence suggesting that the Ainu, the Taiwanese aboriginal cultures, and Native Americans are the surviving remnants of the once more widespread Jōmon culture. The Jōmon were hunter gatherers and fisherman who once spread well into Siberia and Southeast Asia. They were later largely displaced by the ethnically and culturally distinct Southeast Asian peoples. While there's still a lot of debate about who displaced who, there's little debate that the Jōmon were a dominant population in eastern Asia...and controlled much of Siberia...when the first Native American populations appeared in North America. Add into that the fact that the Jōmon would not have been herd-dependent, and the fact that some of the earliest pottery found in North America (Valdivian) is very similar to Jōmon pottery, and the probability of a relationship between them increases even further.

And yes, DNA studies have been done, and they have found Jōmon mtDNA in about 20% of Native Americans. Why not 100%? Probably because the migrations happened in waves, and while the proto-Jōmon may have been the first people to settle North America, they certainly weren't the last. In all probability, other populations DID migrate over after the weather warmed a bit more and the herds could cross.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Thanks. I'm not surprised by the "messiness" of it, but actually expect it.

As long as people don't have those damn Denisovan genes, I'm okay with them.

I'M JOKING!!!!

[byronius]

5. Well, I sincerely learned something fascinating there.

Gracias.

[Warpy]

6. Not DNA, specifically, more like skull morphology

and other traits. Perhaps the DNA has been run by now, but previously it was thought most are related to the Ainu people of northern Japan, something that does make a great deal of sense.

I've mentioned the island hopping theory of western hemisphere population before and been scoffed at by people who still cling to the silly land bridge theory. While some people with adequate supplies of dried and frozen reindeer meat might have made it across, it's highly unlikely, especially with the mile thick ice sheets they'd have faced on either side. Reindeer themselves can survive on lichens in the far north of Siberia, but the snow has to be shallow. Reindeer had to be imported into Alaska, no gang of hunters chased them here and there wasn't much else that could possibly have survived the trip.

ETA: Thanks, Xithras, I didn't know about the Jomon DNA. It makes sense, given the strong pottery tradition in the Americas. If anyone wants a treat, look up Jomon pottery. There's an enormous variety, no two ceramics ever alike, and a great deal of humor in some of it.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

7. DNA analysis has been done as well.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11543902

Interestingly, an indigenous population in North Japan, Ainu, was placed relatively close to Native Americans in the correspondence analysis.

We have proposed that various ancestral populations in East Asia, marked by different HLA haplotypes, had migrated and dispersed through multiple routes. Moreover, relatively small genetic distances and the sharing of several HLA haplotypes between Ainu and Native Americans suggest that these populations are descendants of some Upper Paleolithic populations of East Asia.

[tonyt53]

3. They could see Alaska from Siberia. Must be so, a person in Wasila can see Russia.

They just hopped in their boats and in a couple of hours they were in Alaska. Sarah Palin would never mislead. I will say though, that Wasila does have a nice view all around it.

[AlbertCat]

8. before 12,600 years ago, there were no grasses, trees, bison, woolly mammoth or rabbits ...

... to serve as food and shelter along the corridor.


Oh c'mon. There were several 4 and 5 star hotels with a variety of restaurants and cafes....

But I suppose one of the huge cruise ships is more economical.

[Warpy]

9. You still have to island hop to get to a lot of them

There really aren't that many convenient roads.