Human Migration

[1dave]

What is our human history? When did we first learn to cross the oceans?

ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php
ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php?type=webpage&id=50





Present accepted best guess.

a look at Australia may give an initial glimpse.

genographic.nationalgeographic.com/migration-to-australia/

Migration to Australia

About 50,000 years ago, a small band of humans landed in northern Australia, arriving on a primitive boat or raft. It is likely that the journey was planned because enough men and women arrived to found a new population there. Perhaps guided by rivers, the group ventured deeper inland, where they found giant mammals, birds, and reptiles ripe for hunting, and no other humans to challenge them. This intrepid group had stumbled upon a new continent, and they had it all to themselves.

The ocean crossing from Asia to Australia is one of humanity’s great early achievements, but it’s one that is shrouded in mystery. Why modern humans made the journey, and when, are still open questions that scientists are keen to answer because they could hold the key to understanding when our ancestors first left Africa and whether they did so in one wave or in a staggered exodus spread out over millennia.

Archaeological evidence reveals that modern humans had spread into Southeast Asia from Africa by about 60,000 years ago, and that they were in Australia by about 50,000 years ago. The earliest known evidence of human occupation in Australia is a rock shelter in the Northern Territory that is about 55,000 years old, while the oldest human fossils ever discovered in Australia are about 10,000 years younger. Spencer Wells, a geneticist and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, has speculated that the first Australians landed in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea—then part of the same landmass—and gradually moved inland by following the river systems of Queensland and southern Australia.

The First Explorers?

Anthropologists have long debated whether modern humans left Africa only once and then radiated around the globe, or if there were multiple journeys out of the continent. Previously, the most widely accepted theory was that all modern humans derive from a single out-of-Africa migration wave into Europe, Asia, and Australia. According to this model, the first Australians branched off from an Asian population that had already separated from the ancestors of Europeans.

But in 2011, this conventional wisdom was challenged by a new discovery. Using modern gene sequencing techniques, researchers sampled the DNA from a lock of hair that a young Aboriginal man had donated to a British anthropologist in 1923. When DNA in the hair was compared with the genomes of people living in Asia, Europe, and Africa, scientists discovered that Aboriginal Australians are more closely related to Africans than they are to modern Asians and Europeans.

This suggests humans migrated into Eastern Asia in multiple waves and that today’s Aboriginal Australians are descended from an early wave that left Africa about 70,000 years ago, before the ancestors of Asians and Europeans. If confirmed, the finding means that present-day Aboriginal Australians are the oldest population of humans living outside of Africa.

A Meandering Route

Another mystery is the route early modern humans took while traveling from Africa to Australia. It was previously thought that after leaving Africa, humans stayed close to the coasts, with some of them traveling southward until they reached Indonesia and Australia. But in August 2012, scientists reported the discovery of human skull fragments in a limestone cave in northern Laos that date back to between 46,000 and 63,000 years ago. The finding was surprising, because it indicated early humans roamed far and wide across Asia after leaving Africa, venturing north and northeast across rough mountainous terrain into Laos and perhaps even China, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Reaching Australia would have presented significant challenges for ancient humans. An ocean has always separated Asia and Oceania, and travel between the two continents would have required humans to navigate dozens of miles of open water. Whether humans colonized Australia intentionally or by accident—after being blown there by monsoon winds, for example—is unknown, although National Geographic’s Wells thinks the former scenario is more likely.

Another mystery is what kind of water vessels early humans used to reach Australia. None of the boats used by Aboriginal people in ancient times are suitable for major voyages, and some have suggested early humans reached the continent on rafts made of bamboo, a material common in Asia.

Fire and Death

However humans reached Australia, their arrival triggered dramatic and permanent changes to the continent’s landscape and its wildlife. Roughly 60 species of the continent’s large mammals and birds became extinct around 45,000 to 50,000 years ago as a result of massive fires that were likely set by early humans. The purpose of the fires is unknown, but they may have been used to clear land, to signal other tribes, or to flush out game during hunts.

What is clear is that those early man-made fires altered the Australian landscape forever, transforming it from one covered by drought-adapted forests and shrubs to the fire-resistant plants that dominate today. Early humans may also have played a decisive role in driving some of Australia’s large land animals—including giant kangaroos and marsupial lions, as well as giant birds and reptiles—to extinction through over hunting.

[1dave]

Phoenician Travels - Thre is speculation that they reached America.

ageofex.marinersmuseum.org/index.php?type=navigationtool&id=7

[1dave]

World map of human migrations, with the North Pole at center. Africa, harboring the start of the migration, is at the top left and South America at the far right. Migration patterns are based on studies of mitochondrial (matrilinear) DNA. Dashed lines are hypothetical migrations.

Numbers represent thousand years before present.

The blue line represents area covered in ice or tundra during the last great ice age.

The letters are the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (pure motherly lineages); Haplogroups can be used to define genetic populations and are often geographically oriented. For example, the following are common divisions for mtDNA haplogroups:

African: L, L1, L2, L3
Near Eastern: J, N
Southern European: J, K
General European: H, V
Northern European: T, U, X
Asian: A, B, C, D, E, F, G (note: M is composed of C, D, E, and G)
Native American: A, B, C, D, and sometimes X

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_islands_by_first_human_settlement

The following table shows any geographical region at some point defined as a country – not necessarily a modern-day sovereign state – or any geographically distinct area such as an island, with the date of the first known or hypothesised human settlement. Dates are, unless specifically stated, approximate. Settlements are not necessarily continuous; settled areas in some cases become depopulated due to environmental conditions, such as glacial periods or the Toba volcanic eruption.[9] Where applicable, information is also given on the exact location where the settlement was discovered, and further information about the discovery. Some dates are based on genetic research (mitochondrial, or matrilinear DNA), and not on archaeological finds.

Contents

1 The list
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

The list
Country Date Place Notes Ref(s)

Ethiopia 195,000 BP Omo Kibish Formation The Omo remains found in 1967 near the Ethiopian Kibish Mountains, have been dated as ca. 195,000 years old, making them the earliest human remains ever found. They are older than the remains found at Herto Bouri, Ethiopia (155–160,000 BP). [1]

Morocco 90,000–190,000 BP Jebel Irhoud Anatomically modern human remains of uncertain date [10]

Sudan 140,000–160,000 BP Singa Anatomically modern human discovered 1924 with rare temporal bone pathology [11][12]

United Arab Emirates 125,000 BP Jebel Faya Stone tools made by anatomically modern humans [13]

South Africa 125,000 BP Klasies River Caves Remains found in the Klasies River Caves in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa show signs of human hunting. There is some debate as to whether these remains represent anatomically modern humans. [14][15]

Israel 100,000 BP Skhul/Qafzeh Discovered in 1929-1935; remains exhibit a mix of archaic and modern traits and may represent an early migration from Africa that died out by 80,000 years ago. [16]

Oman 75,000–125,000 BP Aybut Tools found in the Dhofar Governorate correspond with African objects from the so-called 'Nubian Complex', dating from 75-125,000 years ago. According to archaeologist Jeffrey I. Rose, human settlements spread east from Africa across the Arabian Peninsula. [2]

Democratic Republic of the Congo 90,000 BP Katanda, Upper Semliki River Semliki harpoon heads carved from bone. [17]

India 70,000 BP Jwalapuram, Andhra Pradesh Recent finds of stone tools in Jwalapuram before and after the Toba supereruption, may have been made by modern humans, but this is disputed. [3][18]

Philippines 67,000 BP Callao Cave Archaeologists, Dr. Armand Mijares with Dr. Phil Piper found bones in a cave near Peñablanca, Cagayan in 2010 have been dated as ca. 67,000 years old. It's the earliest human fossil ever found in Asia-Pacific [19]

Libya 50,000–180,000 BP Haua Fteah Fragments of 2 mandibles discovered in 1953 [20]

Egypt 50,000–80,000 BP Taramasa Hill Skeleton of 8- to 10-year-old child discovered in 1994 [21]

Taiwan 50,000 BP Chihshan Rock Site Chipped stone tool similar to those of the Changpin culture on the east coast. [22]
Brazil 41,000–56,000 BP Pedra Furada Charcoal from the oldest layers yielded dates of 41,000-56,000 BP. [23]

Australia 48,000 BP Devil's Lair The oldest human skeletal remains are the 40,000-year-old Lake Mungo remains in New South Wales, but human ornaments discovered at Devil's Lair in Western Australia have been dated to 48,000 BP. Ochre fragments at Malakunanja II in Northern Territory are dated to ca. 45,000 BP. [24][25][26]

Japan 47,000 BP Lake Nojiri Genetic research indicates arrival of humans in Japan by 37,000 BP. Archeological remains at the Tategahana Paleolithic Site at Lake Nojiri have been dated as early as 47,000 BP. [3][27]

Laos 46,000 BP Tam Pa Ling Cave In 2009 an ancient skull was recovered from a cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos which is at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia [28]

Borneo 46,000 BP (see Malaysia)

Greece 45,000 BP Mount Parnassus Geneticist Bryan Sykes identifies 'Ursula' as the first of The Seven Daughters of Eve, and the carrier of the mitochondrial haplogroup U. This hypothetical woman moved between the mountain caves and the coast of Greece, and based on genetic research represent the first human settlement of Europe. [5]

Italy 43,000–45,000 BP Grotta del Cavallo, Apulia Two baby teeth discovered in Apulia in 1964 are the earliest modern human remains yet found in Europe. [4]

Indonesia 45,000 BP Early humans travelled by sea and spread from mainland Asia eastward to New Guinea and Australia [29]

United Kingdom 41,500–44,200 BP Kents Cavern Human jaw fragment found in Torquay, Devon in 1927 [30]

Germany 42,000–43,000 BP Geißenklösterle, Baden-Württemberg Three Paleolithic flutes belonging to the early Aurignacian, which is associated with the assumed earliest presence of Homo sapiens in Europe (Cro-Magnon). It is the oldest example of prehistoric music. [31]

Lithuania 41,000–43,000 BP Šnaukštai (lt) near Gargždai A hammer made from reindeer horn similar to those used by the Bromme culture was found in 2016. The discovery pushed back the earliest evidence of human presence in Lithuania by 30,000 years, i.e. to before the last glacial period. [32]

East Timor 42,000 BP Jerimalai cave Fish bones [33]

China 39,000–42,000 BP Tianyuan Cave Bones found in a cave near Beijing in 1958 have been radiocarbon dated at between 39–42,000 years old. [34]

Tasmania 41,000 BP Jordan River Levee Optically stimulated luminescence results from the site suggest a date ca. 41,000 BP. Rising sea level left Tasmania isolated after 8000 BP. [35]

Hong Kong 39,000 BP Wong Tei Tung Optically stimulated luminescence results from the site suggest a date ca. 39,000 BP. [36]

Malaysia 34,000–46,000 BP Niah Cave A human skull in Sarawak, Borneo (Archaeologists have claimed a much earlier date for stone tools found in the Mansuli valley, near Lahad Datu in Sabah, but precise dating analysis has not yet been published.) [37][38]

New Guinea 40,000 BP Indonesian Side of New Guinea Archaeological evidence shows that 40,000 years ago, some of the first farmers came to New Guinea from the South-East Asian Peninsula. [3]

Romania 37,800–42,000 BP Peștera cu Oase Bones dated as 38–42,000 years old are among the oldest human remains found in Europe. [39][40]

Sri Lanka 34,000 BP Fa Hien Cave The earliest remains of anatomically modern man, based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal, have been found in the Fa Hien Cave in western Sri Lanka. [41]

Canada 25,000–40,000 BP Bluefish Caves Human-worked mammoth bone flakes found at Bluefish Caves, Yukon, are much older than the stone tools and animal remains at Haida Gwaii in British Columbia (10-12,000 BP) and indicate the earliest known human settlement in North America. [42][43]

Okinawa 32,000 BP Yamashita-cho cave, Naha city Bone artifacts and an ash seam dated to 32,000±1000 BP. [44]
France 32,000 BP Chauvet Cave The cave paintings in the Chauvet Cave in southern France have been called the earliest known cave art, though the dating is uncertain. [45]

Czech Republic 31,000 BP Mladeč caves Oldest human bones that clearly represent a human settlement in Europe. [46]

Poland 30,000 BP Obłazowa Cave A boomerang made from mammoth tusk

Buka Island, New Guinea 28,000 BP Kilu Cave Flaked stone, bone, and shell artifacts [47]

Russia 28,000-30,000 BP Sungir Burial site

Portugal 24,500 BP Abrigo do Lagar Velho Possible Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon hybrid, the Lapedo child [48]

Sicily 20,000 BP San Teodoro cave Human cranium dated by gamma-ray spectrometry [49]

United States 16,000 BP Meadowcroft Rockshelter Stone, bone, and wood artifacts and animal and plant remains found in Washington County, Pennsylvania. (Earlier claims have been made, but not corroborated, for sites such as Topper, South Carolina.)[50] [51]

Chile 14,800 BP Monte Verde Carbon dating of remains from this site represent the oldest known settlement in South America. [52]

Peru 14,000 BP Pikimachay Stone and bone artifacts found in a cave of the Ayacucho complex [53]

Santa Rosa Island 13,000 BP Arlington Springs site Arlington Springs Man discovered in 1959. The four northern Channel Islands of California were once conjoined into one island, Santa Rosae

Cyprus 12,500 BP Aetokremnos Burned bones of megafauna [54]

Colombia 12,400 BP El Abra Stone, bone and charcoal artifacts

Norway 9,200 BC Aukra The oldest remnants of the so-called Fosna culture were found in Aukra in Møre og Romsdal, and date from this period. [55]

Argentina 9,000 BC Piedra Museo Spear heads and human fossils [56]

Estonia 8,900 BC Pulli The Pulli settlement on the bank of the Pärnu River briefly pre-dates that at Kunda, which gave its name to the Kunda culture. [57]

Bioko 8,000 BC Early Bantu migration [58]

Northern Ireland 7,700 BC Mount Sandel Carbon dating of hazel nut shells reveals this place to have been inhabited for 9,700 years. [59][60]

Cambodia 7,000 BC Laang Spean Laang Spean cave in the Stung Sangker River valley, Battambang Province [61]

Zhokhov Island 6,300 BC Hunting tools and animal remains in the High Arctic [62][63]

Tuvalu 6,000 BC Caves of Nanumanga Evidence of fire in a submerged cave last accessible 8000 BP [64]

Malta 5,200 BC Għar Dalam Settlers from Sicily brought agriculture and impressed ware pottery. [65]

Trinidad 5,000 BC Banwari Trace Stone and bone artifacts mark the oldest archaeological site in the Caribbean. [66]

Puerto Rico 4,000 BC Angostura site Carbon dating of burial site [67]

Mariana Islands 3,000 BC Carbon dating of charcoal [68]

Greenland 2,000 BC Saqqaq Saqqaq culture was the first of several waves of settlement from northern Canada and from Scandinavia. [69]

Baffin Island, Canada 2,000 BC Pond Inlet In 1969, Pre-Dorset remains were discovered, with seal bones radiocarbon dated to 2035 BC [70]

Wrangel Island 1,400 BC Chertov Ovrag Sea-mammal hunting tools [71]

Tonga 1,180 BC Pea village on Tongatapu Radiocarbon dating of a shell found at the site dates the occupation at 3180±100 BP. [72]

Fiji 1,095 BC Bourewa Radiocarbon dating of a shell midden at Bourewa on Viti Levu Island shows earliest inhabitation at 1220-970 BC. [73]

Canary Islands 1,000 BC Genetic studies show relation to Moroccan Berbers, but precise date uncertain. [74]

Vanuatu 1,000 BC Teouma etc. Lapita pottery found at Teouma cemetery on Efate and on several other islands. [75]

Samoa 1,000 BC Mulifanua Lapita site found at Mulifanua Ferry Berth Site by New Zealand scientists in the 1970s. [76]

Hawaii 290 AD Ka Lae Early settlement from the Marquesas Islands [77]

Madagascar 500 AD The population of Madagascar seems to have derived in equal measures from Borneo and East Africa. [78]

Comoros 550 AD

Faroe Islands 600 AD Agricultural remains from three locations were analysed and dated to as early as the sixth century A.D. [79]

Bahamas 850 AD Three Dog Site (SS21), San Salvador Island Excavated midden includes quartz and Ostionoid ceramic artifacts, wood and seed remains, etc., dated to 800-900 AD. [80]

Iceland 874 AD Reykjavík Ingólfr Arnarson, the first known Norse settler who came from mainland Norway, built his homestead in Reykjavík this year, though Norse or Hiberno-Scottish monks might have arrived up to two hundred years earlier. [8]

Huahine, French Polynesia 960 AD Fa'ahia Bird bones dated to 1140±90 BP [81]

Raiatea, French Polynesia 1000 AD Taputapuatea marae Stone religious structures established by 1000 AD.

Pitcairn Island 1050 AD Settled by Polynesians in the 11th century, later abandoned. Resettled by British and Polynesians 1790.

Easter Island 500-1200 AD Anakena Settled by voyagers from the Marquesas Islands, possibly as early as 300 AD. [82]

New Zealand 1250–1300 AD Wairau Bar Though some researchers suggest settlements as early as 50–150 AD, that later became extinct, it is generally accepted that the islands were permanently settled by Eastern Polynesians (the ancestors of the Māori) who arrived about 1250–1300 AD. [83][84]

Norfolk Island 1300 AD Emily Bay Settled by Polynesians, later abandoned. Resettled by British 1788. [85][86]

Auckland Islands 1300 AD Sandy Bay, Enderby Island Settled by Polynesians, later abandoned. Resettled from the Chatham Islands in 1842, later abandoned. [86]

Kermadec Islands 1400 AD Settled by Polynesians, later abandoned. Resettled by Europeans in 1810, later abandoned.

Madeira 1420 AD Settlers from Portugal.

Azores 1439 AD Santa Maria Island Settlers from Portugal led by Gonçalo Velho Cabral. [87]

Cape Verde 1462 AD Cidade Velha Settlers from Portugal.

São Tomé and Príncipe 1485 AD São Tomé Portuguese settlement in 1485 failed but was followed in 1493 by a successful settlement led by Álvaro Caminha. [88]

Saint Helena 1516 AD Settled by Fernão Lopes (soldier). Later populated by escaped slaves from Mozambique and Java, then by English in 1659. [89]

Annobón 1543 AD Alvaro da Cunha requested Portuguese royal charter in 1543 and by 1559 had settled Africans slaves there. [90]

Chatham Islands 1550 AD Moriori settlers from New Zealand. This was the last wave of Polynesian migrations. [91]

Bermuda 1609 AD Settled by English survivors of the Sea Venture shipwreck, led by George Somers.

Svalbard 1619 AD Smeerenburg Settled by Dutch and Danish whalers 1619-1657. Longyearbyen founded 1906 and continuously inhabited except for World War II. [92]

Mauritius 1638 AD Vieux Grand Port First settled by Dutch under Cornelius Gooyer. [93]

Réunion 1642 AD Settled 1642 by a dozen deported French mutineers from Madagascar, who were returned to France several years later. In 1665 the French East India Company started a permanent settlement.

Rodrigues 1691 AD Settled 1691 by a small group of French Huguenots led by François Leguat; abandoned 1693. The French settled slaves there in the 18th century. [94]

Falkland Islands 1764 AD Puerto Soledad Settled by French during the expedition of Louis Antoine de Bougainville. [95]

Seychelles 1770 AD Ste. Anne Island Although visited earlier by Maldivians, Malays and Arabs, the first known settlement was a spice plantation established by the French, first on Ste. Anne Island, then moved to Mahé. [96]
Tristan da Cunha 1810 AD First settled by Jonathan Lambert and two other men. Continuously inhabited since then except 1961-1963 evacuation due to volcano. [97]

Ascension Island 1815 AD Settled as a British military garrison.

Bonin Islands 1830 AD Port Lloyd, Chichi-jima Some evidence of early settlement from the Marianas, but the islands were abandoned except for occasional shipwrecks until a group of Europeans, Polynesians, and Micronesians settled Chichi-jima in 1830. [98]

Lord Howe Island 1834 AD Blinky Beach Whaling supply station. [86]

Île Saint-Paul 1843 AD Although now uninhabited, there have been attempts at settlement. In June, 1843, a French garrison was established under the command of Polish-born Captain Adam Mierolawski, but it was soon abandoned. In 1928, a spiny lobster cannery was established, with the last two or three settlers rescued in 1934. [99][100]

Île Amsterdam 1871 AD Camp Heurtin Following various shipwrecks and visits by sealers and scientists in the 18th and 19th century, a short-lived settlement was made in 1871 by Heurtin, a French resident of Réunion Island. A French scientific base has been maintained since 1949. [101]

South Orkney Islands 1903 AD Orcadas Base Visited by sealers and whalers in the 19th century. Scientific base founded by Scottish National Antarctic Expedition and sold to Argentina in 1904.

South Georgia 1904 AD Grytviken Visited by sealers in the 19th century. Carl Anton Larsen founded a permanent whaling station in 1904.

Jan Mayen 1921 AD Eggøya Visited by whalers in the 17th century, with some overwinter sojourns in 1633, 1882, and 1907. Weather station at Eggøya established 1921, followed by other weather and military stations. The current station, Olonkinbyen, has been continuously inhabited since 1958. [102]

Kerguelen Islands 1927 AD Port-Couvreux After occasional sojourns and shipwrecks in the 19th century, three families settled in a sheep-farming colony but were evacuated in 1934. Scientific station at Port-aux-Français has been continuously inhabited since 1950.

South Shetland Islands 1947 AD Captain Arturo Prat Base Visited by sealers and explorers in the 19th century. Chilean naval base staffed continuously 1947-2004.

Prince Edward Islands 1947 AD Transvaal Cove Visited by sealers and shipwrecks in the 19th century. South Africa occupied the islands in 1947 and established a meteorological station. [103]

Antarctica 1948 AD Base General Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme First permanent base in mainland Antarctica, operated by the Chilean Army.

Macquarie Island 1948 AD Macquarie Island Station Occasional sojourns and shipwrecks in the 19th century, continuously inhabited since 1948.

Crozet Islands 1963 AD Alfred Faure Occasional shipwrecks and visiting sealers and whalers in the 19th century, continuously inhabited since 1963.

[Fossilman]

The continents were much closer together too,making travel much easier.....Some scientists don't believe in the continental drift though...So its all theory,as they say......
I still like hearing and reading the history of earth though....

[Rockoonz]

The theories are interesting.
I wonder if they are mostly based on what evidence preserved the best.
Some of the lost technologies may have been advanced far beyond what we think, but all evidence destroyed by time.
As stated by the Firesign Theatre, Everything you know is wrong.
or at least potentially erroneous.

[1dave]

I find DNA Group "B" in Japan interesting. 35-25 MYA, but also present same time in southeastern US!

EDIT: And on coast of Peru/Northern Chile.

[gemfeller]

1dave , I think the notion that human-caused fires devastated the Australian megafauna is a gigantic logical leap. Possible, yes, but what's the evidence? The raging fires that cause so much damage in present-day Australia are lighting-caused mainly.

I have the same problem with the popular notion that early human hunters devastated North American megafauna. Yes, they've found early arrowheads associated with mastodon bones but that doesn't prove anything except that humans hunted mastadons. The idea that a relatively small human population did away with all the big animals while leaving most of the smaller, more easily-hunted species intact strains my credulity. There's increasing evidence of a catastrophic event at that time, possibly a big meteorite hit, that seems more likely to me. Smaller animals probably survived because they didn't need the massive amounts of food required by the giants. Once the giant herbivores were gone, the large prey animals also perished.

[gemfeller]

New research challenges the idea that early Australians migrated there by boat. Instead it suggests that Australia was once linked to nearby land masses due ocean depths receding to sea water being converted to Pleistocene ice sheets:

"We find that Papuan and Aboriginal Australian ancestors diversified 25–40 thousand years ago (kya), suggesting pre-Holocene population structure in the ancient continent of Sahul (Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania)."

New DNA research shows that Australian aboriginals bear the genes of a completely unknown and vanished branch of humans, and are apparently also linked to the Denisovans, another very elusive branch of humans recently discovered in Siberia. They were apparently contemporary (and inbred with) Neanderthals. All very confusing.

www.news.com.au/technology/science/evolution/dna-reveals-new-history-of-who-first-australians-were-with-mystery-of-an-early-human-unearthed/news-story/f55cfc4ee21b4ac8fd866bf53074c7fa

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v538/n7624/full/nature18299.html

What's more, new DNA work with several tribes in the Amazon shows a strong link to Australasians!

www.news.com.au/technology/science/evolution/genetic-study-challenges-americas-settlment-theories-by-linking-amazonians-and-australasians/news-story/33a00624e927aecfe88e6ca88824810d

Underscoring it all, Chinese scientists now make a strong fact-based argument that humans origined in Asia, not Africa. That's a thought I've personally harbored since reading about the discovery of mysterious fossil humans known as Peking Man (now Beijing Man) -- forget the "sexism;" there must have been women too.  Those important fossils disappeared during WWII.

www.news.com.au/technology/science/evolution/chinese-academics-point-to-fossil-finds-as-evidence-modern-humans-evolved-in-southeast-asia/news-story/759392de611a3c7ffb5e57f97a2d4c1a

As Rockoonz suggested upthread, everything you know is probably wrong and subject to change.

[mohs]

Another mind-boggling entertaining thread

The one thing bi-pedal sapiens are good at is
exploiting living niches.
Geez how that was done in the past is a marvel.

The HOW? Blood sweat & tears for sure

Look at us now. Is there any doubt that we will exploit and colonize space?
Underwater? What about the virtual world?
There is no place mankind will not go. Consciousness is everywhere.

It still boggles my mind that the prevailing theory
of the Bearing Strait migration for the peopling of the America’s.
Were they following herds of animals?

It is also discouraging that theories indicate early man hunted to extinction
so many types of animals. Neanderthals, included.

Anyway I will apply my resources and try to add something insightful to this discussion.
But I’m not even sure how I got --- where I am at…



mostly

[Rockoonz]

Jun 15, 2017 12:53:12 GMT -5 1dave said:

I find DNA Group "B" in Japan interesting. 35-25 MYA, but also present same time in southeastern US!

Fossil DNA?
Intriguing, how is that done? How are results verified?
Better question is, does the researchers income fluctuate based on how many "new discoveries" they make?
Outcome based science?

[1dave]

Jun 15, 2017 15:19:35 GMT -5 Rockoonz said:

Jun 15, 2017 12:53:12 GMT -5 1dave said:

I find DNA Group "B" in Japan interesting. 35-25 MYA, but also present same time in southeastern US!

Fossil DNA?
Intriguing, how is that done? How are results verified?
Better question is, does the researchers income fluctuate based on how many "new discoveries" they make?
Outcome based science?

Very difficult since flesh, skin, and bones disappear so rapidly in most circumstances.

[1dave]

Jun 15, 2017 14:03:43 GMT -5 gemfeller said:

1dave , I think the notion that human-caused fires devastated the Australian megafauna is a gigantic logical leap. Possible, yes, but what's the evidence? The raging fires that cause so much damage in present-day Australia are lighting-caused mainly.

I have the same problem with the popular notion that early human hunters devastated North American megafauna. Yes, they've found early arrowheads associated with mastodon bones but that doesn't prove anything except that humans hunted mastadons. The idea that a relatively small human population did away with all the big animals while leaving most of the smaller, more easily-hunted species intact strains my credulity. There's increasing evidence of a catastrophic event at that time, possibly a big meteorite hit, that seems more likely to me. Smaller animals probably survived because they didn't need the massive amounts of food required by the giants. Once the giant herbivores were gone, the large prey animals also perished.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-a-comet-cause-die-off/

Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago?

Tiny hexagonal diamonds suggest a massive impact during the late Pleistocene that could have wiped out the Clovis people, mastodons and other continental inhabitants--but the geologic evidence falls short for some skeptics

By Brendan Borrell on July 20, 2009 10

Credit: UC SANTA BARBARA

Researchers have found shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds on one of California's Channel Islands, which they say is the strongest evidence yet that a comet exploded in the atmosphere above North America, causing widespread extinctions there around 12,900 years ago. Skeptics, however, say the debate is far from over.

In 2007 researchers theorized that a comet set off continental fires that led to the mysterious disappearance of the Clovis people and the extermination of 35 mammal genera, including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths and camels. The team documented a "black mat" of charcoal throughout North America that contains high levels of iridium, magnetic spheres, and nano-diamonds, which are consistent with such an airburst. The controversial theory also gibes with the 1908 Tunguska atmospheric detonation (also thought to be from a comet or meteorite) that leveled trees in Siberia, and it echoes the extraterrestrial impact widely believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Today, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the same team reports on shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds, known only from meteorite and other impact events, in a soot layer from Arlington Canyon on Santa Rosa Island in California. The canyon is famous for containing the earliest human remains in North America, dating back to 13,000 years, and the soot layer coincides with the disappearance of the pygmy mammoth from the island. In a documentary shown earlier this year on the Public Broadcasting Service's NOVA science show, the team also claimed that they discovered similar diamonds from the Greenland Ice Sheet dating to the same period.

But the evidence does not convince everyone. "I don't think much of this whole story," says geochemist Christian Koeberl of the University of Vienna in Austria, "Diamonds of any sort are not uniquely characteristic of impact events." He says that the major lines of evidence are still missing, including the presence of shocked minerals, including breccias and tektites as well as an impact crater. "At least three other groups searched for similar evidence in the same or similar samples and found none," he adds.

Briggs Buchanan, an archaeologist from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, disputes the notion that humans declined following the purported impact. "We have shown that in California, specifically, that there [was] no severe decline in the resident population." He adds that other researchers have shown that the black mat varies in age across the continent and appears to have a variety of geologic origins.

What does the research team have to say about their doubters? "I'm so skeptical about the skeptics," says marine geologist James Kennett of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "We work in a different paradigm where different materials result from different kinds of impacts."

[1dave]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis

www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4457530/Mini-Ice-Age-wiped-cvilisation-13-000-years-ago.html

Is this stone proof an asteroid wiped out a civilisation just like ours 13,000 years ago ... and does it vindicate the maverick scholar who says a giant meteorite will destroy us in 2030?

Maverick archaeologist Graham Hancock insists a human race existed before
He said an evolved human civilisation was wiped out by a global catastrophe
His book, Magicians Of The Gods, argues a mini Ice Age swept the planet 13,000 years ago
Now he claims the same could happen again in less than two decades time

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4457530/Mini-Ice-Age-wiped-cvilisation-13-000-years-ago.html#ixzz4k6im4Iqb
Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Suppose all the wildest theories and historical conspiracies of novelist Dan Brown were proven true. And the mind-reading, spoon-bending claims of Israeli psychic Uri Geller all turned out to be real as well.

That wouldn’t be half as extraordinary as the announcement in an obscure scientific journal this month that vindicated 20 years of maverick research and best-selling books by the eccentric archaeologist Graham Hancock.

His insistence that a highly evolved human civilisation was wiped out by a global catastrophe, remembered now only in myths and Biblical accounts such as the story of Noah and The Flood, has been mocked and dismissed by mainstream experts since he first spoke out in the mid-Nineties.

His latest book, Magicians Of The Gods, presented findings from all over the world as he argued that a mini Ice Age had swept the planet around 13,000 years ago, following a comet strike that caused devastating earthquakes and tsunamis.

Some of his most convincing, if rather arcane, evidence was discovered at a dig in Turkey known as Gobekli Tepe — which literally means Potbelly Hill. At this site close to the Syrian border, said Hancock, was found the most ancient work of monumental architecture on Earth.

Twice as old as Stonehenge, its engineering was far more skilled. Astronomical carvings and inscriptions on the stones served as aids for prehistoric stargazers, but also told stories. And one was of a comet that fell from the heavens, all but wiping out the human race.

Despite the painstaking construction of the book, which argues each point exhaustively, Hancock was met with the usual hoots of derision when Magicians Of The Gods appeared in 2015.
His latest book, Magicians Of The Gods, presented findings from all over the world as he argued that a mini Ice Age had swept the planet around 13,000 years ago, following a comet strike that caused devastating earthquakes and tsunamis
+7

His latest book, Magicians Of The Gods, presented findings from all over the world as he argued that a mini Ice Age had swept the planet around 13,000 years ago, following a comet strike that caused devastating earthquakes and tsunamis

He was derided as a fantasist, a deluded amateur, and much merriment was poked at his long-held belief that hallucinogenic drugs are intellectual stimulants. This nonsense was archaeology for trippy hippies, laughed Hancock’s detractors.

So when research appeared last week that vindicated many of his claims and proved that this lone voice had been right for 20 years, perhaps it isn’t surprising that the announcement was as low-key as humanly possible. The carvings at Gobekli Tepe do indeed describe a comet strike, in 10,950BC, said some staid and very serious experts from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering. Their report appeared as a paper in the little-known International Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, published by the University of the Aegean.

But the obscurity of the source cannot mask the scale of the scientific back-tracking. Hancock’s claims sound like a Hollywood disaster movie, a sci-fi epic and a detective thriller all rolled into one. His theories encompass the meaning of the pyramids and the future destruction of the planet.

If more conventional archaeologists are going to start agreeing with him, that amounts to a seismic shift of direction.

As the Telegraph newspaper report into the new scientific findings noted: ‘The idea had been originally put forward by author Graham Hancock in his book Magicians Of The Gods.’

What hasn’t changed is the starting point for all these theories. Just after 11,000BC, experts have long agreed, when the Earth was gradually emerging from the last Ice Age, a cataclysmic event caused sudden, shocking climate change. This ushered in a big chill known as the Younger Dryas, which lasted about 1,500 years.
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Scientists had numerous theories to explain this but, in Magicians Of The Gods, Hancock argued that we had all the proof we needed: more than 200 ancient myths, belonging to tribes from the Arctic to the Equator, telling of an advanced human civilisation destroyed by flood and fire.

Added to this was compelling physical evidence, in the form of giant boulders, platinum deposits and tiny diamonds found across North America — the detritus of a colossal impact.

There was only one explanation, said Hancock, and it matched the account carved into the limestone pillars at Gobekli Tepe . . . an account now verified by the team at Edinburgh University.

Our planet was hit by a comet. A blazing asteroid plunged out of the firmament and struck with the force of several thousand nuclear bombs bursting simultaneously. It wiped out many larger animal species, including the woolly mammoth and the sloth bear, and it almost destroyed humanity. Some people did survive, including the ancestors of the Ojibwa tribe of the Canadian grasslands, who still tell the story of the Long-Tailed Heavenly Climbing Star which swept out of the sky to scorch the earth. Their myths relate that it left behind ‘a different world.

After that, survival was hard work. The weather was colder than before’.

As Edinburgh’s Dr Martin Sweatman puts it: ‘One of the pillars at Gobekli Tepe seems to have served as a memorial to this devastating event — probably the worst day in history since the end of the Ice Age.’

Part of the Gobekli carving shows a headless man, a graphic symbol of human carnage.
Some of his most convincing, if rather arcane, evidence was discovered at a dig in Turkey known as Gobekli Tepe — which literally means Potbelly Hill. At this site close to the Syrian border, said Hancock, was found the most ancient work of monumental architecture on Earth
+7

Some of his most convincing, if rather arcane, evidence was discovered at a dig in Turkey known as Gobekli Tepe — which literally means Potbelly Hill. At this site close to the Syrian border, said Hancock, was found the most ancient work of monumental architecture on Earth

The key finding was a series of animal carvings on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, which represent constellations of stars as well as the comet itself. The stars were not represented as we would see them in the sky today, but as they were in 10,950BC — enabling the scientists to point with certainty to the date of the comet strike.

This means that when the Gobekli stones were made, around 9,000BC (that is, approximately 11,000 years ago), the sculptors had the astronomical know-how to backdate the constellations, shifting their pattern by a couple of millennia. And they were working with information that had been passed down over 2,000 years.

That shows spectacular sophistication. Yet according to common wisdom, humans were savages at this time, hunter-gatherers no more advanced than cavemen, without any knowledge of engineering or mathematics.

Most archaeologists struggle to explain how such a primitive culture could have built Gobekli Tepe. Now that the notion of a comet strike is beyond dispute, the thinking is that abundant wild crops of wheat and barley were wiped out by plunging temperatures.

Nomadic tribes were forced to combine, sharing their knowledge and co-operating to survive as they developed techniques to grow enough food to survive.
Despite the painstaking construction of the book, which argues each point exhaustively, Hancock was met with the usual hoots of derision when Magicians Of The Gods appeared in 2015
+7

Despite the painstaking construction of the book, which argues each point exhaustively, Hancock was met with the usual hoots of derision when Magicians Of The Gods appeared in 2015
+7

Despite the painstaking construction of the book, which argues each point exhaustively, Hancock was met with the usual hoots of derision when Magicians Of The Gods appeared in 2015

But as Hancock points out, this would have been an all-consuming challenge for people used to living in small, roaming groups. The switch from hunting to agriculture, and from mobile tent villages to settlements, would demand every ounce of energy, diplomacy and ingenuity our ancestors could muster.

How would they find the time to invent complex maths, plot the heavens, master architecture and learn intricate stone-working? All those skills and more were needed to build Gobekli Tepe.

Stonehenge, which was built around 5,000 years ago, consists of rough-hewn slabs. It is ingenious, but compared to Gobekli Tepe it’s like a parish church beside Chartres Cathedral.

For 20 years, Hancock has insisted that there is only one explanation for this explosive intellectual evolution. All that knowledge already existed. Earlier investigators, such as the Swiss author Erich von Daniken, proposed that Earth was visited by extra-terrestrial pioneers, aliens who brought intergalactic gifts of technology. Hancock’s theory is much more plausible: he believes a human civilisation predated the comet strike, one at least as advanced as the Romans.

We don’t know what language they spoke, nor how they recorded their knowledge. But unless a band of refugee hunters in Turkey 11,000 years ago suddenly cracked every major branch of human learning, all at the same time, that elder civilisation must have existed.

Sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke famously said that, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. And the knowledge that survivors of the comet possessed must have seemed like pure sorcery to the ordinary nomad.

Perhaps that’s why, even now, we humans have an instinctive urge to believe in magic and feel sure it must have existed during some golden age — because to our ancient forebears, magic was a very real phenomenon.

The possessors of that inexplicable power, the ones Hancock calls the Magicians Of The Gods, must have worked out how to share their knowledge without giving away their tricks.
For 20 years, Hancock has insisted that there is only one explanation for this explosive intellectual evolution. All that knowledge already existed. Earlier investigators, such as the Swiss author Erich von Daniken, proposed that Earth was visited by extra-terrestrial pioneers, aliens who brought intergalactic gifts of technology
+7

For 20 years, Hancock has insisted that there is only one explanation for this explosive intellectual evolution. All that knowledge already existed. Earlier investigators, such as the Swiss author Erich von Daniken, proposed that Earth was visited by extra-terrestrial pioneers, aliens who brought intergalactic gifts of technology

Post-apocalypse, they would have been fighting to survive in a very dangerous world. It seems likely that they posed as wizards, using showmanship to heighten the impact of their secrets. Carvings discovered at sites as far-flung as Bolivia, Mexico, Turkey and Iraq depict human figures in fish-like robes, wearing garments patterned with scales.

The mythical Oannes of Mesopotamia, for instance, had ‘the whole body of a fish, but underneath the head of the fish there was another head, a human one. It had a human voice.’

Oannes was accompanied by seven sages, who taught chemistry, medicine, stone-cutting and metal-working.

At the Temple of Horus in the Egyptian city of Edfu, ancient inscriptions also tell of seven sages. They were the last survivors of a sacred place, ‘the mansions of the gods’, whose home world had been destroyed by flood and fire. These sages had escaped death only because they were at sea when the catastrophe struck.

According to Arab traditions, the wisdom of these sages was stored in the pyramids of Giza, built to be a library for their books of knowledge. These included technologies that sound modern even to our ears: ‘[Military] Arms which did not rust, and glass which might be bent but not broken.’

All of this, the ideas that Hancock has been popularising since he published Fingerprints Of The Gods in 1996, has always seemed improbable to the conventional scientific community, which tended to dismiss his claims en masse.

With the discovery that the cornerstone of his theories was right, his other speculation is suddenly much less far-fetched.

But there is one aspect of his studies that is still too controversial to be given credence by mainstream scholars. And if he’s right about it, nothing else matters. The comet, the magicians, the messages across the millennia will all be irrelevant.
Hancock’s theory is much more plausible: he believes a human civilisation predated the comet strike, one at least as advanced as the Romans
+7

Hancock’s theory is much more plausible: he believes a human civilisation predated the comet strike, one at least as advanced as the Romans

Hancock believes the Gobekli stones not only describe an ancient cosmic collision, but predict another.

He thinks that what hit Earth in 10,950BC was actually a massive piece of debris in the Taurid meteor stream, a belt containing millions of space rocks.

Hidden within that belt, according to astrophysicists, is an unexploded bomb of a planetoid, a superheated rock like an orbiting hand grenade.

Sealed inside its thin crust is a boiling mass of tar, building up pressure until it detonates. Thousands of white-hot boulders, a mile or more across, will be set spinning through the meteor stream . . . but we cannot say for certain when that will occur.

Many of these asteroids could be three times the size of the one that hit our planet 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs.

If one of those strikes, it could quite literally bring about the end of the world. And we are due to cross the Taurid meteor stream in 13 years, around 2030.

For many observers, the leap that Hancock makes from imaginative interpretation of solid evidence, to doom-laden predictions of global obliteration, is just too extreme. It is, quite literally, unthinkable.

But thanks to the Gobekli Tepe findings, mainstream science is being forced to get its head round the Hancock hypothesis.

Maybe it’s time to give more credence to all his theories . . . before it’s too late.

The Magicians Of The Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom Of Earth’s Lost Civilisation, by Graham Hancock (Coronet).

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4457530/Mini-Ice-Age-wiped-cvilisation-13-000-years-ago.html#ixzz4k6jICyfK

[coloradocliff]

Jun 15, 2017 15:19:35 GMT -5 Rockoonz said:

Jun 15, 2017 12:53:12 GMT -5 1dave said:

I find DNA Group "B" in Japan interesting. 35-25 MYA, but also present same time in southeastern US!

Fossil DNA?
Intriguing, how is that done? How are results verified?
Better question is, does the researchers income fluctuate based on how many "new discoveries" they make?
Outcome based science?

Publish or Perish in many colleges and Universities is bad for valid science.

[agatemaggot]

There is a good book out titled (ACROSS ATLANTIC ICE) , gives a lot of proof that the Americas were populated from the So0utheast to the North west. This is just the opposite of what is being taught. If you can get a copy, read it and you will be convinced !

[1dave]

Jun 15, 2017 18:53:31 GMT -5 agatemaggot said:

There is a good book out titled (ACROSS ATLANTIC ICE) , gives a lot of proof that the Americas were populated from the So0utheast to the North west. This is just the opposite of what is being taught. If you can get a copy, read it and you will be convinced !

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/79138/archaeology-mexico?page=2&scrollTo=933453

[1dave]

The saga of Kennewick Man testifies how hard it is to get any information about the past.
First, not that many bones were preserved.
Second, politics almost always gets involved.

He looked a lot like "Jean-Luk Picard."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

Kennewick Man is the name generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, United States, on July 28, 1996.[1] It is one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Radiocarbon tests on bone have shown it to date from 8.9k to 9k calibrated years before present.
. . .
The discovery of the remains led to considerable controversy for more than a decade. The Umatilla people and other tribes have wanted the remains returned to them for reburial under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The law was designed to remedy long-standing wrongs done to tribes and to facilitate the return of human remains and cultural objects unlawfully obtained or taken from them. In this case, the archaeologists who discovered the bones, James Chatters and Douglas Owsley, the latter with the Smithsonian Institution, both asserted that the bones were unrelated to today's Native Americans. They said the remains had features that more closely resembled Polynesian or Southeast Asian peoples, a finding that would exempt the bones from NAGPRA.

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/

The storm of controversy erupted when the Army Corps of Engineers, which managed the land where the bones had been found, learned of the radiocarbon date. The corps immediately claimed authority—officials there would make all decisions related to handling and access—and demanded that all scientific study cease. Floyd Johnson protested, saying that as county coroner he believed he had legal jurisdiction. The dispute escalated, and the bones were sealed in an evidence locker at the sheriff’s office pending a resolution.

. . .
I asked Schneider why the corps so adamantly resisted the scientists. He speculated that the corps was involved in tense negotiations with the tribes over a number of thorny issues, including salmon fishing rights along the Columbia River, the tribes’ demand that the corps remove dams and the ongoing, hundred-billion-dollar cleanup of the vastly polluted Hanford nuclear site. Schneider says that a corps archaeologist told him “they weren’t going to let a bag of old bones get in the way of resolving other issues with the tribes.”


Read more: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/#IlKlO3WuGBtY2lJF.99

[gemfeller]

Jun 15, 2017 18:53:31 GMT -5 agatemaggot said:

There is a good book out titled (ACROSS ATLANTIC ICE) , gives a lot of proof that the Americas were populated from the So0utheast to the North west. This is just the opposite of what is being taught. If you can get a copy, read it and you will be convinced !

I haven't read the book but will. It sounds a little like the Solutrean Hypohesis that contends settlers from Europe predated the Clovis culture.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis

At this point I don't trust much of anything out of academia, especially on this highly controversial subject. Consider how many years the "Clovis first" theory was seemingly unchallengeable. There's a belief, which I hold, that new academic ideas can't emerge until the old academicians die off. They have too many textbooks to sell and are very protective of their own research/ideas and reputations. Of course it's a recurring problem because each new generation protects its own dogma. And then there's politics, as 1dave outlines above. 

[jamesp]

There may be a correlation of the farm plow to the amount of Clovis.
And water availability, early manhood had to have water close by.
The east has the water and a great deal of land has been exposed by farming.
This may explain the heavy artifact findings east.

The carbon daters have had a big change in their findings, namely that human artifacts past 8000 years are very rare on a statistical basis.
Only in isolated arguments are human artifacts older than 8000 years.

[Deleted]

Geller is a magician pretending to be something else.