[Aztlan] R: The First Americans and the Ainu

Sat Jan 10 21:30:53 CST 2009

I accidentally replied only to Mike, but intended it as a general discussion.

Could be. But the earliest fossils like Peñon woman and Luzia have all actually tested closer to populations like the Pericu, the Fueguians and were almost perfect matches to populations of the Amazon like the Botocudo. If anything we just share common ancestry, not one preceding the other.

Neves' first study of ancient Lagoa Santa remains pointed to Africans. His second study pointed to the Tolai, Tazmanians, Australains and Eskimos.  But the last study done just last year, showed they were just a part of the same continuum.  And Neves protege, Joao, also did a craniometric study that confirmed this.
Neves in  1999 claimed the Africans as closest.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1415-47571999000400001&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en
Then in 2005 it was the Tolai of New Guinea
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/51/18309.abstract
Note that the Eskimo were like the fourth closest.
Note that just the year before, his protégé Paolo Atui was there with him:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0034-77012004000100005&script=sci_abstract&tlng=en

But he was always criticized for not using a larger Native American sampling.

The late Dr. Wade Wofford stated:
"Oh, there is proof of admixture..... the only question is whether they were a different stock in the first place, or whether the "admixture" was among differentiated sub-populations all equally descended from the same first arrivals.

The Paleo-Indian Lagoa Santa people (Luzia's folk) overlap American Indian & East Asian features MORE than they do anybody else. And there is an Indian tribe called the Botocudo, from the same region of Brazil that the Lagoa Santa remains were found, who are described as having originally (the tribe has no full bloods nowadays, but they DO have a good collection of older crania from full-blooded tribal members) been close matches for Lagoa Santa. I've REALLY wondered why Walter Neves didn't include them in his craniometric comparisons......

The Pericu of Baja California (only "recently" killed off, by the Spanish) show strong craniometric affinities to the Lagoa Santa Paleo-Indians, AND even closer ones to Paleo-Indian (like Penon Woman) Archaic era samples from the Valley of Mexico. These Paleo-Indian/Archaic samples, in turn, closely match modern Aztec samples. (Can you spell "biological continuity?")

Something to recall is that if you don't sample the most related groups, OF COURSE you won't necessarily "find" local affinities in your studies. The big fuss over Luzia & her kin came about because they were compared MOSTLY to Old World peoples..... & the Australian/Melanesian/Negrito/African (depending on who you asked) affinities were thus noted. This was in the context of claiming a "different" origin for them than for other "Mongoloid-type" Native Americans (who aren't actually mongoloid, but that's another story). Less mentioned, even today, is that the Lagoa Santa people (AND the Pericu) match up to other Native American tribes MUCH more closely than they match anybody in the Old World..... WHEN you use a decent sampling of Native American populations in the studies!

So, regardless of whether several different populations migrated to the New World, or whether a single population came over and fragmented (sub-groups differentiating in isolation), the various "different types" of Paleo-Indians all mixed together & modern Native Americans are ALL descended from ALL of them, to varying degrees depending on geographic location.

BTW, every single DNA study of Paleo-Indian remains HAS revealed the common Native American mtDNA haplogroups. DNA studies haven't yet been ompleted on the Pericu per se, but we DO have them on a closely related tribe (much intermarriage, lived just north of them) called the Guaycura & for MANY 
surrounding tribes. The data reveals a SOLID cline of admixture, with no genetic discontinuities between the Pericu and any of their neighbors. 

Fuegians & Patagonians have also been claimed to show affinities to Lagoa Santa, and we DO have DNA studies on those. "Surprise" (not!)...... they possessed only the "normal" Native American mtDNA haplogroups.

Etc, etc. The fact is that American Indians are quite variable, and while you CAN find "extreme forms" here & there that don't match people's stereotypes of what Indians should look like, you ALSO find intermediates linking the extremes to the rest of the Native American population."

It is not the basic aspects of your reconstruction as much as your soft tissue assumptions and your assumption of a "Negroid" phenotype that somehow got replaced that I find problematic based on current evidence today."

A recent study by Paolo Atui confirms this
http://www.jornaldaciencia.org.br/Detalhe.jsp?id=32121

As well as this study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18481303

The Botocudos are not extinct, and they go by the name of Krenak now. And in correspondence with Paolo to this day, he has stated he has seen this 
same affinity in other Central Amazonians.  Invalidating the claim that it was relacement of population. Just the huge variation within the morphology 
of Native Americans.

Even if you look at Neves' 2005 studies, and look at the charts and compare them to the Ainu or the Negrito populations you realize they are not a match.

http://thestudyofracialism.org/forum/127/nevesfinal.jpg

Look at where the Andamanese Negritos and Ainu fall compared to Lagoa Santa and other archaic Americans.  (Phillipino Negritos actually fall within the range of Polynesian craniometrically)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rwar/2006/00000038/00000001/art00008
The study states:
"As noted towards the start of this paper, Coon's (1962) proposal of 'Australoid' relics in Southeast Asia is not supported by modern studies in physical anthropology. In addition, studies in craniometry have consistently found that Philippine 'Negritos' cannot be distinguished from other East Asian populations (e.g. von Bonin 1931; Hanihara 1993; Bulbeck and Adi 2005; and see below). Yet the belief that the Negritos of Island Southeast Asia represent an Australoid population that held sway before a mid to late Holocene Mongoloid immigration is widespread, and not infrequently cited as straightforward fact (e.g. Diamond 1997: 332-8). We suggest that this view is a retention of the hoary belief that human races can be classified by skin colour, given that a dark skin (along with a different hair form) sets the so-called Negritos apart from other Southeast Asians."

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "michael ruggeri" <michaelruggeri at mac.com>
> To: <aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 4:37 PM
> Subject: [Aztlan] The First Americans and the Ainu
> 
> 
>> Listeros,
>>
>> The story forwarded to Aztlan by listero Ed Allen furthers the concept
>> that the First Americans have ties to the Ainu of northern Japan and
>> this furthers the concept that the "Caucasoid" characteristics found
>> in Kennewick Man and other early American human fossils very well may
>> have their origin with the Ainu people.
>>
>> Mike Ruggeri
>>
>>
>>
>> Mike Ruggeri's Pre-Clovis and Clovis World
>> http://tinyurl.com/2m8725
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>> Breaking Pre-Clovis and Clovis News
>> http://community-2.webtv.net/Topiltzin-2091/MikeRuggerisPre/
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