Do coconut genomes indicate pre-Columbian settlement of America?

a reply to: wisvol

I am assuming that "descendants of monkey's" comment is being facetious? Because no Homo sapien (or hell genus Homo) is a descendant of a monkey

a reply to: Noinden

Again, we clearly aren't descendants of monkeys in my opinion either.

The original quote of mine asking so is a question, and was aimed at finding out whether we had a Peter Vlar in our midst, before continuing the conversation about the settlement of America.

a reply to: wisvol

And why would his pressence matter? We are on a set of fora that has a high level of Luddites with regards to evolution So it is not beyond the realms of probability that some racist hick thought the "other races" are monkey descendants

a reply to: Noinden

And Kangaroo descendants, unless someone brought monkeys to Australia that diverged only into the homo genus.

Plus clearly PRISM has its own share of those guys, I said so to avoid saying this:

understanding how creatures end up where they do or did or shall is complex business, and much resources and time have been spent skewing this understanding in most children, who end up as adults with degrees and cars and offices but still base their answers on those bestowed upon them, correct or not

a reply to: wisvol

Humans are easy, genomics show us they came via Africa, bumping uglies with some close relatives above the Sahara

a reply to: wisvol

May I ask what exactly you are trying to say with respect to the thread topic? Because, frankly, it is not at all clear.

The study of species diffusion using genetic tracers is, I understand, a pretty well established technique in evolutionary biology. Here, it has been used to work out from where coconuts came to the New World.

Are you saying the study authors are mistaken in their interpretation of the data or are you questioning the technique itself? In either case, please explain why. It would be interesting to hear your reasons -- particularly if you hope to convince anyone that you are right.

If you mean something altogether different, then I am afraid I have no idea what it is. But I'm sure it's very interesting, so it would be a shame if people failed to understand you. Why not try to make your meaning a little plainer?

a reply to: Astyanax

Gladly
I've written it and so it is said, and I now expand:

While genes are fascinating, the popular understanding of genes as of today in public schooled American folk tends to be spinned just a little bit out of reality. It doesn't take much to miss the point.

Life forms are made of meat, or wood, or blob.
If we zoom in, they're made of coal and water.
If we zoom out but not too much, the coal and water are organized in specific blobs, and some are genes.

Differing from other life forms' genes in some ways and similar in chemical composition, resembling sibling's in more ways than cousins', and even more ways than other types of creatures'.

Therefore genetic analysis will provide insight as to whether individuals are related, and whether two are related in a closer sense than a third, with a degree of precision reasonable in the case of a parent-offspring analysis, less than conclusive in a sibling analysis and way impractical in a cousin analysis. Ask your local lab to tell which two of three blood samples are cousins, you'll see.

To clarify: a coconut tree has genes, like us. An analysis will reveal that the coconut's genes while similar in nature aren't ordered exactly in the same way, and experience will allow the geneticist to identify a coconut's entire genome as being a coconut's and a human's a being that based on the structure of the genes' grouping and general architecture.
Now two coconuts will have genomes so strikingly similar that to know which is which, differences are sought in peculiar narrow and variable corners, which not the entire structure is (variable, assuming viability of the procreature).

A group of life forms able to procreate with others of said group is named a species.
Among a species, say cocos nucifera, individuals will bear more similarity to their immediate relatives in general, but not always: sometimes are born a greener one and a hairier one.

In the case where a subgroup of cocos nucifera, say individuals found on the American continent, have specific characteristics shared with another subgroup of the same species found elsewhere, as the article depicts, it is somewhat sensible to suppose that they may be related more directly then both subgroups would be related to members of their species not sharing those specific characteristics.

This is already speculation because not all down syndrome, or dwarf, or different kids are brothers and sisters or come from the same island, but let's roll with the premise, and suppose all redheads originated in Scotland, to keep with the human comparison.

This relation does not say which of the two aforementioned locations their specificity originates from in any scientific way because unlike Scots, cocos nucifera do not communicate their history with us, which allows us to say American redheads have Scottish ancestors instead of the contrary, but not where the first green coconut bloomed even if more green coconuts are borne by cocos nucifera in Haiti for instance, as there could very well be more redheads in America at some point too.

It does however indicate the possibility that these trees may have been planted for their nutritive and crafty qualities by people who brought seeds as luggage/food/floaters/rope reserve/& c. either to or from America.
Before Columbus, who enjoyed cocos nucifera's juicy gifts as per his diary but did not plant any.

As a side note, I do insist that other possibilities include:

. Maybe the origin of species is other species, some of which evolved into cocos nucifera independently on several instances and locations and coconuts were or weren't transported by wind or boat or swallow. This seems unlikely to me because genetic variations through generations include both albinos and two headed people but not different species as far as experience goes: stages intermediary to the amoeba-people theory aren't viable at all as per their theoretical genetic structure, and besides it just doesn't make sense: time doesn't work that way and life wasn't here for as long as some public schools teach, and even then.

. Maybe the origin of species is other species, some of which evolved into cocos nucifera in only one instance (first evolving into ferns or orchids or mango trees through waiting a lot) and were transported into a coconutless America as would have been cows, grain, people, and anything able to reproduce with anything from beyond oceans.

. Maybe edible fruit and food in general is a corollary of human life, and botanically inclined people do carry seeds they find interesting only to find existing genetically compatible fruit and people on the other side of oceans.

. & c. including Maybe the origin of species is other species, and people and coconuts evolved together from amoeba, like in that music video from Norman Cook aka fatboy slim called "right here, right now", but I think it was photoshopped.

Spacetime is a beautiful world, and planting seeds of fruits of trees with appreciated specificity, while it is substantially more likely to yield similarly appreciable fruit in the future, will not, even if one waits a lot, produce a different type of tree, nor a platypus, in my opinion.

Thank you for your attention

originally posted by: peter vlar
a reply to: Byrd
The only way that would work is if there were established trade routes along the coast lines. I haven't seen any evidence of that and if it occurred, those coastline are under 20-30 meters of water.

The product wouldn't survive the journey of that kind of distance. You couldn't plant it at the end of the trip... and remember cocoanuts aren't found in the Clovis First areas...they're found farther south.

a reply to: wisvol

Thanks for trying to explain: though a single sentence -- 'I question the validity of the technique' -- would have been a little kinder to your readers.

I will not attempt to dissuade you from your views and I earnestly request others not to either.

Let's stay on topic, folks.

a reply to: Astyanax

Hmm. Apparently handling potential off-topic arguments with tact can kill your thread.

Alas, humanity! This place has turned me into Coriolanus.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: peter vlar
a reply to: Byrd
The only way that would work is if there were established trade routes along the coast lines. I haven't seen any evidence of that and if it occurred, those coastline are under 20-30 meters of water.

The product wouldn't survive the journey of that kind of distance. You couldn't plant it at the end of the trip...

Fair enough. I tried looking but was unable to find any information indicating the longevity and viability of a coconut aside from there still needed to be milk inside for it to properly germinate. This is what happens when I let my mind wander without proper due diligence. With the above in mind, it is indeed extraordinarily unlikely

and remember cocoanuts aren't found in the Clovis First areas...they're found farther south.

True again. However, I was postulating, apparently only in my own head, that the trees and seeds would have arrived earlier than Clovis. Monte Verde is something in the neighborhood of 5000 miles from Beringia I believe and that predates the earliest Clovis sites in N. America by over 1000 years and if the older dates attributed to Topper ever hold true we would be looking at a significantly earlier dates in the 30-50 KA range. Still... none of that shows that coconuts were carried on foot across Beringia and down the coast. I don't normally speculate this much but a trip by boat that far back isn't entirely out of the question. We know that Neanderthal made it to islands that were in no way able to be reached by swimming at even the lowest sea levels and there are some places that they made it to by boat that were not visible by land indicating that they had at least some navigational prowess. Just to clarify, I realize that everything I mentioned is extraordinarily speculative and at the very reaches of improbability that they are highly unlikely.

a reply to: peter vlar
A while back member hanslune and I , in our roundly round conversations on the origins of "Polynesians",,
this paper came up. In the course of doing some research I found an interesting conundrum regarding coconut domestication, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.
One I do remember is that there are no wild coconuts in the Andaman islands. The reason being, the islanders would collect washed up coconuts and eat them before they could germinate.
I belive that would constrain the age depth of domestication in the Indian ocean basin, humans have only been in the Andamans for a little over 2k years.

a reply to: punkinworks10

I do believe I recall that coming up awhile back. That's a poster I miss seeing on here. I've had some pretty amazing conversations with him and he gave me some really good tips a couple of years ago when I went to the Yucatan to visit some Mayan sites. Since it was a little out of my wheel house and he had worked down there, it was invaluable information for sure.

Off topic,
Is it just me or has ATS's new adware turned into a nightmare?
I can't even get into the site from a pc anymore as the popups bury my browser and lock it up, when I click of certain buttons like my ats it gets redirected to a merry go round of ads.
This is BS.

a reply to: punkinworks10

I thought it might've been something I downloaded by accident but I get the same issues if I have ATS open in my browser it constantly crashes IE. Tablet and phone have no issues but PC I'm dead in the water half the time.

a reply to: peter vlar
So it's not just me then, and it is ATS, it appears as though it has downloaded some sort of hidden software, WHICH IS SO NOT COOL.

a reply to: punkinworks10

No it's not just you. I thought some of my malware software might've been out of date and that I was getting viruses from torrent sites but everything ran just fine until I opened up more than one window with ATS. then things got a little hinkey. I don't know enough about all of this to get into a correlation equals causation scenario but circumstantially it seems to be the root of the issues I've had.