Scientists Trace an Ancient Connection Between Amazonians and Australasians

a reply to: dreamingawake

Quite possible, as more recent studies share, that Neanderthal influence helped that along as it did with characteristics seen in Denisovan mixed populations.

Yeah, it appears it was the Neanderthal that developed blue eye's, blonde hair and light skin. Which actually makes sense, since apparently the Neanderthal specifically evolved for at least 1 million years to survive in a cold climate.

This issue is actually really close to me, since both my parents have brown eyes and dark hair. Yet I (the first born) just popped out with blue eyes and blonde hair. (lol, I mean... was it just the postman or what?)

But after much research, it turns out that blue eyes are 'recessive'. Which means that two sexually viable people with blue eyes will 'always' produce blue eyed offspring, but also that blue eyed offspring can be produced by two people who don't possess blue eyes.

Blonde hair works the same, in that two people who don't possess blonde hair can produce blonde offspring. But blonde hair is not repressive, which just means that two people with blonde hair doesn't guarantee blonde haired offspring.

Either way.... my personal theory is that the homo sapiens, who were an extremely agile species and evolved to survive in tropical grass lands. breed with the Neanderthals, which allowed us to survive in cold climates and created the traits of blue eyes, blonde hair and light coloured skin within our species.

The fact that Neanderthals possessed much more muscle mass than us, just meant that we could easily survive on 1800 calories a day, well they needed over 5 thousand calories. All of these factors allowed Homo Sapiens to become the dominate species to inhabit this earth.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

While a constant struggle for survival might be stimulating, I'm not really sure that it would be more fulfilling. Skeletal remains typically point to people living short, hard lives.

Exactly. The number of healed fractures that I have seen in Neanderthal remains is absolutely amazing. Multiple, repeated fractures, arms, legs, ribs...often times poorly set or not set at all. It was grueling. the way they hunted up close made for an extremely hard life and injury was almost a guarantee depending on what was on the menu that night. There is nothing idyllic about the "noble savage" most people seem to think of when looking at archaic populations.

originally posted by: peter vlar

originally posted by: theantediluvian

While a constant struggle for survival might be stimulating, I'm not really sure that it would be more fulfilling. Skeletal remains typically point to people living short, hard lives.

Exactly. The number of healed fractures that I have seen in Neanderthal remains is absolutely amazing. Multiple, repeated fractures, arms, legs, ribs...often times poorly set or not set at all. It was grueling. the way they hunted up close made for an extremely hard life and injury was almost a guarantee depending on what was on the menu that night. There is nothing idyllic about the "noble savage" most people seem to think of when looking at archaic populations.

Yes, that's the Neanderthals. But they were only adapted to living in cold hostile climates.

What evidence do you have that the Australian Aboriginal nomads lived anything else but perfect lives?

a reply to: SLAYER69

From the University of Copenhagen press release:

The study reports a signal of gene flow between some Native Americans and groups related to present-day East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, the latter including Papuans, Solomon Islanders and South East Asian hunter-gatherer groups. While the signal is weak, it presents an intriguing scenario of a distant Old World connection to Native Americans after their split from one another and after the latter had peopled the Americas.

“It's a surprising finding and it implies that New World population were not completely isolated from the Old World after their initial migration. We cannot say exactly how and when this gene flow happened, but one possibility is that it came through the Aleutian Islanders living off the coast of Alaska.” says Lundbeck Foundation Professor Eske Willerslev from Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen, who headed the study.

In my opinion genetics is catching up with the "fringe" of anthropology/archaeology. There's a wealth of evidence of contact between old and new world cultures that's much more recent than 15 kya. One example that comes to mind is the link between the Valdivia culture in Ecuador and Japan’s Jōmon culture, occurring ~5-6 kya as proposed by Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers in the 1960's, supported in large part by similarities in pottery. Recent genetic research seems to add some support to this theory.

Consider that Y haplogroup C-M217, which has been the subject of a lot of speculation surrounding possible links to Genghis Khan, is thought to have arisen within the last 15 thousand years or so and is found in the greatest concentrations among the following peoples (from Wikipedia):

C-M217 Typical of Mongolians, Kazakhs, Buryats, Daurs, Kalmyks, Hazaras, Manchus, Sibes, Oroqens, Koryaks, and Itelmens; with a moderate distribution among other Tungusic peoples, Koreans, Ainus, Han Chinese, Vietnamese, Nivkhs, Altaians, Tuvinians, Uzbeks, Nogais, and Crimean Tatars

Notice in that list is the Ainus; its found in relatively high concentrations among Ainu from the Kyūshū region of Japan. In recent years, isolated pockets of C-M217 have been discovered in South America. For example, among the Wayuu people of Colombia and Venezuela and also in small clusters among the Huarani/Waorani and Kichwa in Ecuador — in close proximity to where the pottery cited by Meggers was found.

From a 2013 paper published in PLOS Genetics, Continent-Wide Decoupling of Y-Chromosomal Genetic Variation from Language and Geography in Native South Americans:

We observed a considerable number of C3* haplogroup carriers in our study (n = 14). These were confined to the northwest where C3* was found at substantial frequency in two culturally very distinct native groups from Ecuador, namely the Kichwa (26%) and the Waorani (7.5%). The C3* haplogroup was absent from all other samples. Previously published data [20], [25], [66], [67], [70], [75]–[77] indicate that C3* occurs at a high frequency throughout continental East Asia (Figure 4) and is most prevalent in Kamchatka (38% in Koryaks) and in Outer and Inner Mongolia (36% and 38%, respectively). At the Pacific coast, the average C3* frequency is higher in Korea (10%) than in Japan (3%), with the notable exception of 15% for the Ainu from Hokkaido, representing the aboriginal people of Japan. In striking contrast, this haplogroup is apparently absent from the whole of North and Central America, with the exception of a single C3* carrier of self-reported indigenous ancestry from Southeast Alaska [67], as well as from Melanesia east of Borneo and Polynesia.

In view of the above, two scenarios for the introduction of C3* into Ecuador seem credible: (i) one or more late migratory waves that quickly passed North and Central America without leaving a trace of C3*, and (ii) long-distance contact with East Asia. As regards the second scenario, there appears to be at least some archaeological evidence for a pre-Columbian contact between East Asia and South America [43]. In particular, the similarity of ceramic artifacts found in both regions led to the hypothesis of a trans-Pacific connection between the middle Jōmon culture of Kyushu (Japan) and the littoral Valdivia culture in Ecuador at 4400–3300 BC. In view of the close proximity of the spotty C3* cluster to the Valdivia site, which was considered at the time to represent the earliest pottery in the New World [40], it may well be that C3* was introduced into the northwest of South America from East Asia by sea, either along the American west coast or across the Pacific (with some help by major currents). The considerable differences between the extant Y-STR haplotypes of Ecuadorian and Asian C3* carriers would clearly be explicable in terms of their long divergence time. The differences between C3* chromosomes carried by different ethnic groups in Ecuador, on the other hand, highlight that population splits followed by limited gene flow are characteristic of the genetic structure of South American natives [88].

There are only a few possible explanations for the appearance of C-M217 in South America: mutations arising separately among (relatively) unrelated populations, relic of a founding population from > 12 kya persisting in isolation or more recent admixture with a small group. If it's the latter, which seems the most plausible imo, there are basically two prevailing hypotheses; either a group that hauled ass through Siberia and across North and Central America, leaving no genetic traces in their wake or trans-Pacific contact.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

Do you think that it was a paradise when they reached Australia and there was megafauna like a 30 ft long relative of today's Komodo dragon? How about the 20 ft long crocodile that had legs beneath its body so that it could run down large mammals? Or maybe the 11 foot tall, 1000 lb. carnivorous bird or 10 ft tall carnivorous kangaroos all made their existence pure sweet dreams? Those are just a few examples out of dozens of currently extinct megafaunal species inhabiting Australia and Tasmania when humans first arrived there 50-60 KA and doesn't even touch on still living deadly creatures that the aboriginal population had to deal with or the drastic climatic changes they faced during the severe arid conditions that existed during the LGM. This was no walk in the park and life was by no means easy for these people.

Not really that surprising when you think about it... Pangea

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
Yeah, it appears it was the Neanderthal that developed blue eye's, blonde hair and light skin. Which actually makes sense, since apparently the Neanderthal specifically evolved for at least 1 million years to survive in a cold climate.

Either way.... my personal theory is that the homo sapiens, who were an extremely agile species and evolved to survive in tropical grass lands. breed with the Neanderthals, which allowed us to survive in cold climates and created the traits of blue eyes, blonde hair and light coloured skin within our species.

The fact that Neanderthals possessed much more muscle mass than us, just meant that we could easily survive on 1800 calories a day, well they needed over 5 thousand calories. All of these factors allowed Homo Sapiens to become the dominate species to inhabit this earth.

Some Neanderthal did have light skin, various hair colors including red hair and very likely blue eyes but they didn't pass those traits on to us. The genes that code for red hair and melanin are different than the genes that code the same variations in HSS. Likewise, the mutation for blue eyes appeared near the black Sea only 6-10,000 years ago in modern European populations and their derivatives. These are examples of convergent evolution. The same adaptation appearing in different populations at different times with differing genetic presentation but possibly a result of similar impetus though it's very difficult to say for sure as yet.

a reply to: AlexJowls

except that Pangaea hasn't existed for 175 million years and this topic involves events that occurred in the range of the low end of 10's of thousands of years. Completely unrelated.

a reply to: peter vlar
Hmmm.... but they were master hunters and used fire and there hunting skills to eliminate the mega fauna.

By the time Europeans arrived, the only dangerous creatures that survived was the salt water croc, which is easy to stay clear of. Plus one species of spider that only inhabits the sydney region (the funnel web) and a few deadly snakes, which the nomadic people would of been extremely skilled at identifying and staying well clear from.


Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the theory of modern culture being an easier lifestyle than what nomadic people lived. But the evidence to prove this theory correct is significantly lacking.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
a reply to: peter vlar
Hmmm.... but they were master hunters and used fire and there hunting skills to eliminate the mega fauna.

Earliest definitive evidence of human habitation in Australia is 55KA. Many of the currently extinct megafauna survived until 18ka BP when climate dramatically shifted to a much more arid environment. It's not as if people showed up and burned the entire continent to the ground and killed everything in one fell swoop. It was a process that took 10's of thousands of years in some cases. If they had to go so far as to cause widespread fires to help kill off the megafauna, how idyllic was their coexistence in the first place? It doesn't seem like they were getting along very well. I'm not debating that their over hunting helped speed up or in some cases, was the sole cause for extinction of some species but to downplay the interaction of coming face to face with an entirely foreign ecosystem with massive creatures of deadly skill is just ignoring the reality of the situation.

By the time Europeans arrived, the only dangerous creatures that survived was the salt water croc, which is easy to stay clear of. Plus one species of spider that only inhabits the sydney region (the funnel web) and a few deadly snakes, which the nomadic people would of been extremely skilled at identifying and staying well clear from.

You don't seem to appreciate the 55,000 year window between their initial arrival in Australia and the subsequent arrival of Europeans.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the theory of modern culture being an easier lifestyle than what nomadic people lived. But the evidence to prove this theory correct is significantly lacking.

When did this become a theory? It's just my opinion as an Anthropologist that living in a house with central air to cool your home and a furnace for heat, insulation to keep the heat or cool air in, windows and doors to keep out predators and insects, electricity, refrigeration and freezers for storing food, stoves and ovens to cook the food that you are storing after driving to the supermarket to purchase said food and access to a wide variety of entertainment at the literal tips of your fingers in the form of smart phones, laptops, desktops, youtube, Netflix, HD Cable or satellite TV, comfy couches to sit on while being entertained and soft memory foam pillow top mattresses with the equivalent pillows and cars or other forms of motorized transport to take you from place to place.

I don't think it's much of an argument to say that it is far easier than living in the open beneath a basic constructed shelter because you're going to move again to follow the herds you depend on for sustenance, around a fire for warmth and cooking (provided the wood is properly cut, dried and cured), no way to store food for long term use except for smoking and curing meat which in and of itself attracts predators and isn't always the easiest setup when you're moving frequently. You have no guarantee of catching prey on any given day despite having trekked miles and miles across open territory filled with the above mentioned predators that are as likely to be hunting you as you are them putting your entire hunting party in constant danger as well as placing those behind at your campsite in danger because the hunters are out in search of food leaving them vulnerable against predation as well as at the mercy of your hunt.

If you bring home no food, everyone suffers, if you die and don't return, everyone suffers. That's not to say there wasn't time for culture and tradition to develop and time to relax and have fun as well but I think you drastically underappreciate just how difficult that type of life was compared to how we live our lives now. And honestly, as you were the first one to discuss how Idyllic the HG lifestyle is, the onus actually lies on you to demonstrate just how easy it was. Your initial thought on it was rather generalized an open ended to just nomadic HG's until you moved the goal posts to specify Aboriginal Australians so to rephrase your question to me... what evidence do you have that they did in fact have such an easy uneventful lifestyle as you seem to imply they in fact lived?

And my apologies for the paragraph long run on sentence.

Another thought I wanted to address was your comment about agriculture being born of necessity not desire. The earliest examples of agriculture in the archaeological record would appear to be from making alcoholic beverages at Gobekli Tepe. Was getting wasted a necessity 13KA or was it just a bonus?

originally posted by: peter vlar

a reply to: peter vlar
Was getting wasted a necessity 13KA or was it just a bonus?

Based on the fact that Gobekli Tepe was a religious centre, I would say necessity

a reply to: Marduk

I should've anticipated that response haha! I can give you that one.

a reply to: peter vlar

I would argue that making alcohol was a happenstance of food storage and a sedentary lifestyle, at GT, and the onset of the younger dryas. It was during the YD that we see widespread seed gathering becoming prevalent, even in north America its at the onset of the YD we see gathering of grass seeds becoming a mainstay of people in marginal environments.
At GT, I believe it was the grass that brought people there first, it was the grasses that drew the wild bovine that were first hunted and ultimately domesticated, when the climate changed, literally overnite, the grass seeds became mainstay of the early foragers diet.
It was from storing or softening the seeds that beer was born, that was the case in asia, except it was berries being stored that lead to "wine" as is attested to by very early pottery(17kya?) found in southern china.
What I find interesting is that in the new world, in contrast to the old world, bread does come before beer, as various roots were ground up into "flour" cooked.

Anyhoo,
back to OP, both papers even though they reach differing conclusions, are still trying to force the peopling of the new world into the old paradigm, as they are ignoring the physical evidence. There are plenty of sites that pre date their 15k-23kya divergence of native americans. 23k years ago someone was killing and butchering mammoths, gathering saltwater and freshwater shellfish, sea mammals and shore birds and leaving their remains in a midden several miles from the shoreline, on the Monterey peninsula.
16K years ago people were living on the west shore of China lake in the Mojave desert, and had been topper and meadowcroft for several thousand years, then their are the south American sites.
I think the extreme mobility of some of the early groups has skewed the genetics making it appear as though everybody is related from the beginning.

a reply to: peter vlar

If you bring home no food, everyone suffers, if you die and don't return, everyone suffers. That's not to say there wasn't time for culture and tradition to develop and time to relax and have fun as well but I think you drastically underappreciate just how difficult that type of life was compared to how we live our lives now. And honestly, as you were the first one to discuss how Idyllic the HG lifestyle is, the onus actually lies on you to demonstrate just how easy it was. Your initial thought on it was rather generalized an open ended to just nomadic HG's until you moved the goal posts to specify Aboriginal Australians so to rephrase your question to me... what evidence do you have that they did in fact have such an easy uneventful lifestyle as you seem to imply they in fact lived?

I'm not denying for one second that our modern lives may be far easier than what Aboriginals lived, but that doesn't automatically equate to being more fulfilling. Besides, you have to consider that it took thousands of years of extreme hardship to get to where we are at today.

Nomadic people (I'm specifically referring to Australian aboriginals here) didn't actually rely on meat as much as you may assume, there main source of nutrition was plants. Collecting plants was a job for females.

It's established fact that a female was able to spend about an hour of her day collecting tubers that would feed her entire family for the day. Well at the same time cultures that farmed there food would spend up to 12 hours a day doing back breaking labour to produce enough food for there family.

Then when you consider that there crops were regularly completely wiped out by disease or the elements, causing the family to starve, it becomes perfectly clear that the nomadic life style was a far easier way of life for the majority of human evolution.

Another thought I wanted to address was your comment about agriculture being born of necessity not desire. The earliest examples of agriculture in the archaeological record would appear to be from making alcoholic beverages at Gobekli Tepe. Was getting wasted a necessity 13KA or was it just a bonus?

Getting pissed is obviously not a necessity. But obviously it was a necessity to farm to be able to produce the desired amount of alcohol for the people you speak of.

The idea that we somehow just realized that putting a seed in dirt would create a plant only 15 thousand years ago, is incredibly arrogant and short sighted. Nomadic people had a far better understanding of plants than the majority of people do today. The nomadic people were just able to produce all there needs by hunting and gathering and had no need to produce crops.

This fact can be clearly established by the fact that mainland aboriginals generally lived entirely off the land. But torres straight islanders who lived on large islands and had limited access to the mainland, lived on both cultivated crops and hunting and gathering. Where as torres straight islanders who lived on small islands and had no access to the mainland, lived entirely off cultivated crops.

Well duh, we all migrated from Mars.