Excerpted Anthropological Research Articles 1996
compiled with notes by Pardner Hicks; AMH
(please see original article s for proofs)
Alvah M. Pardner Hicks
9788 Random Canyon Way
Creston, CA 93432
Phone (805)235 - 8075
Fax: (805) 466 - 3256 ATTN:Hicks
email: pardnerh@hotmail.com
Background
The following collections of quotes were gathered as part of a research strategy aimed at
exploring a New World alternative to human origins. They represent a diverse array of
anthropological studies and subjects helping provide background information for perspectives
held by the compiler. Primarily, they represent "warranting evidence" in support of the
compiler's contention that; Amerindian populations should be examined as a potential source for
both recent and ancient Homo sapien radiations into what we have come to accept as the "Old"
World. More specifically, separate Amerindian radiations are proposed to have led to, (i) the
"total replacement" of Old World Hominids beginning less then 50,000 years ago, (ii)
subsequent post Holocene Amerindian migration into Siberia resulting in admixture with
northeast Asians, and (iii) the initial arrival of man (American Indians) into Polynesia ~3,600
years ago.
These articles are broken down into geographic areas of study. I am deeply indebted to
the subjects studied, to the authors who have acknowledged their contribution and, to the
researchers themselves who have compiled and analyzed the data used in furthering this present
study. However, it has come to my attention that many of the ideas and opinions represented as
supporting my (the compiler) contentions are not optimistically pursued by the original authors.
By this, any inconsistencies that might be found in this compilation should not be attributed to
those researchers and/or the publication they were drawn from. Moreover, further use of these
quotations should not be made without referencing the material directly since a full appreciation
and interpretation of these "selections" should be drawn from the original sources.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES
2
BACKGROUND IDEAS AND OPINIONS
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
SIBERIA
AFRICA
EUROPE
29
NORTHEAST ASIA
POLYNESIA
AUSTRALIA
1
5
7
19
22
24
39
43
46
GENETICS
SCIENCE GEOGRAPHY
SCIENCE
PRIMATES
49
55
56
61
INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES
The following two excerpted articles provide a superb backdrop to the New World Pleistocene
archaeology debate. Understanding the essence of this debate is central in surveying genetic,
linguistic, dental, and related anthropological information contained in this compilation of
research articles gathered from throughout the world and published 1996. My own "Comments
by the compiler" provide a backdrop for my theoretical interpretations. This is the second year I
have provided my closest colleagues with "excerpted articles" from the UC Santa Barbara
Library's "current periodicals"' listings. You can find 1995's and earlier "excerpted articles" on
my "web page" soon. Enjoy them at your own risk!
__________________________________________________________________
Archaeology Magazine, pp. 60-63, March/April 1997
Book Review by Brian M. Fagan
Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, by Tom Dillehay
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.
For more than a century archaeologists have battled over when the Americas were first settled.
The debate has been remarkable for its passion, rancor, and lack of hard archaeological data.
Perhaps this is because conferences are easier to organize than excavations, but the fact remain
that only a handful of archaeological sites document early occupation. Few are thoroughly
published. Monte Verde is an exception.
Monte Verde is an open-air wetland residential site with bone and wooden artifacts, hut
foundations, and ecological evidence preserved under a peat layer dating to about 13,000 years
ago (p. 60).
The carbon dates place the main cultural component between 12,300 and 12,800 years ago. A
much earlier layer, opened up on a limited basis and possibly of cultural origin, dates to between
32,840 and 33,900 b.p. (p. 61).
Later chapters study cordage and used ground surfaces, present-day and ancient plants,
and stone tools. The latter include four simple bifaces, perforators and bola stones, and many
expediently used stone fragments such as convenient, sharp-edged flakes picked up and used for
such tasks as cutting hide or scraping wood. The closest analogies come from the Taima Taima
site in distant Venezuela. Wisely, Dillehay does not pursue the general similarities closely. The
Monte Verde team made microwear observations on 242 stone tool, finding evidence for
processing of materials such as plants and softwoods. An exhaustive study of the animal
remains, down to cut marks on individual fragments, identified six or seven mastodon, and
paleo-lama, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, even bird eggshell. Animal tissue samples include
shreds of hide associated with dwellings and pieces of mastodon flesh. Two concluding chapters
summarize evidence for seasonal occupation, social organization, and economic diversification
necessitated by spreading temperate forest (pp. 61-62). (all emphasis added)
2
In the epilogue, Dillehay stresses the diversity of early human settlement in the New World.
Monte Verde paints a very different picture of first settlement from northern Paleoindian kill
sites. . . The Monte Verdeans used a great variety of resources within three miles of their
settlement. They combined foraging with specialized plant collecting. Interestingly, studies of
different houses revealed variations in the use of local and nonlocal materials, as if the Monte
Verdeans were exploring new and little-known habitats within their circumscribed territory.
Dillehay believes the people used a simple technology to gather and experiment with diverse
food resources. They exploited a large territory yet used minimal technology to do so. Perhaps
they had what Dillehay calls a "learning economy," with contacts with other groups living at
some distance. Alternatively, they may have practiced a strategy common in later times-the
exploitation of different ecological zones to reduce risk should the resources of any one zone fail
(p. 62). (emphasis added)
Monte Verde was so unexpected that some archaeologists, this reviewer among them wondered
if the site really was an undisturbed cultural layer. We were wrong, Dillehay has proved Monte
Verde is a settlement, probably at the threshold of colonization of the Americas. He has also
shown that we must think of the initial settlement of the New World not as a set of simple
migrations, but as a process of complex and diverse adaptation to a myriad of unfamiliar
environments. Monte Verde, a humble yet complex settlement, reveals the first Americans for
what they really were: small, highly diverse human groups capable of adapting to almost any
environment (p. 62). (emphasis added)
Dillehay and his colleagues---some 70 scientists from many academic disciplines and different
nations--- have been at pains to put any doubts about the authenticity of the site. This is how it
should be, given the very early date of Monte Verde and its enormous importance to our
knowledge of the first settlement of the Americas.
The Monte Verde monograph does far more than record and authenticate an
archaeological site of international significance. Dillehay and his colleagues have set the
standards to be expected when documenting a site which purports to chronicle early settlement
(p. 63).
He has done brilliantly with Monte Verde, and this volume is a remarkable testimony to a fine
archaeologist and to what modern archaeological teamwork can achieve. Would that others
would follow Dillehay's example (p. 63). (emphasis added)
Comment by the compiler "Would that others would follow Dillehay's example." "Wisely,
Dillehay does not pursue the general similarities closely." Both of these statements epitomize the
same "rancor" Fagan has himself criticized. Perhaps a "TRUCE" should be called.
What Monte Verde provides is: a verified site to now compare other less well preserved
potential habitations to. Certainly, everyone should have an archaeological site set in peat! The
acceptance of Monte Verde as a late Pleistocene site must be attributed to not only the
painstaking energy of the discoverer but to the viability of the archaeological signature left
behind (preserved in the peat) by the inhabitants 13,000 years ago. Fagan suggests that
discriminating archaeologists would believe that other - early New World - sites exist if
researchers were as thorough as Dillehay's team. That it has taken over 20 years - from the
initial discovery in 1976 - for archaeologists to finally accept Monte Verde as a late Pleistocene
human settlement does not surprise other archaeologists with "pre-Clovis" discoveries - not
preserved in peat.
3
As for the activities associated with Monte Verde, could they represent a specialized form
of subsistence economy born from generations of occupation of the Americas? The evidence
shows little, if any, of the signatures suggesting contact with Old World hunter/gathers, in direct
conflict with the now disproved theory being; "Clovis First." A new theory must emerge from
the "rancor" of the past century by developing a paradigm to test the relationships that now do
not link the first Americans as descendants of Old World Paleolithic hunters. The subsistence
behavior defining Monte Verde's "learning economy" may represent the ancestral condition the
human primate was born into. The untested hypothesis - offering an autochthonous isolation for
the human species within the confines of the Americas - is compatible with Monte Verde's
Pleistocene definition as a definition supporting an ancient lifeway. The "replacement" of Old
World hominids by modern humans from the Americas requires that we interpret the
significance of a Pleistocene Amerindian presence. As Fagan asserts, the archaeological
signatures from Monte Verde requires we deliberate their "international significance." They also
should allow Americanists a comparison for validating what are "simple technologies" being
employed by "highly diverse human groups capable of adapting to almost any environment (p.
62)."
Monte Verde promises to offer to New World archaeologists what Jackie Robinson did
for African American athletes and baseball. It will grow beyond these first steps - allow new
sites onto the playing field - and provide a new measure for the verification of what we should
and should not expect in accepting New World Pleistocene sites. The significance of Monte
Verde may never be repeated in either, the magnitude its acceptance holds in dismantling
barriers "consensus opinion" has brought mid-Pleistocene human occupation of the Americas,
or, the treasure of scientific information the authors have uncovered in substantiating the early
ecological balance man once held with-in this, as this author believes, his primordial niche.
______________________________________________________________________________
Fossils & the Folsom Cowboy
Natural History 2/97. by Douglas Preston, pp. 16-22
In September 1908, a cowboy named George McJunkin, foreman of the Crowfoot Ranch
in eastern New Mexico, encountered a fencing problem. . . While pondering how to fix the fence,
McJunkin noticed some freshly exposed bones at the bottom of the trench.
He climbed down into the arroyo and, using his pliers, dug out a couple of bones, which
he tied behind his saddle and brought back to the ranch house.
Some four months after McJunkin's death [January 1922] Carl Schwachheim and Fred
Howarth decided to visit the McJunkin bone pit. ...
In January 1926, Howarth had to deliver some cattle to a stockyard in Denver. He hired
Schwachhgeim to look after the cattle on the train trip, and in Denver the two men carried the
sack of bones over to the Colorado Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of
Natural History). They were ushered into the office of Jesse D. Figgins, the museum's director,
and unwittingly stepped into the center of one of the most controversial scientific questions of the
day: the antiquity of human beings in the New World (p.18). (emphasis added)
At the time, Ales Hrdlicka, curator of the Smithsonian's Division of Physical
Anthropology, dominated the field of anthropology. In the nineteenth century, many
unsupported claims had been advanced "proving" the Indians had been in the New World for
tens and even hundreds of thousands of years. But by Hrdlicka's time, a powerful reaction
against such claims had developed. Hrdlicka became the leader of the skeptics, undertaking a
4
crusade to debunk what he considered bad science. His view, based on skull morphology, was
that Indians had arrived in the New World no earlier than 1,000 B.C. When any unfortunate
archeologist made an assertion to the contrary, Hrdlicka reacted so vigorously that he sometimes
ruined the career of his target. By 1925, the atmosphere was such that most archeologists were
too intimidated to make a report. The subject of early humans in America was effectively taboo
(p. 18). (emphasis added)
McJunkin's bone pit was one of the most important archeological discoveries made in America,
and it caused a permanent shift in the prevailing paradigm. All of a sudden, archeologists had
another 7,000 years of human history account for. The find also made the search for early
Americans respectable again, and it provided a time span that was sufficient to explain the
bewildering diversity of languages and customs of Native American tribes.
Once such a shift occurs, a flood of new discoveries and a reevaluation of older ones
often follow. In the tow decades after the Folsom find, dozens of Paleo-Indian sites came to
light, and papers came pouring out of museums and universities across the country. The fluted
Folsom points had been turning up for years-only nobody had recognized them for what they
were. The Folsom find led directly to the discovery of an even older culture, the Clovis
mammoth hunters, who were the immediate ancestors of the Folsom people. Hrdlicka found
himself increasingly isolated, and yet the grumpy old warlord of physical anthropology would
not admit his error. When the association of human artifacts with Pleistocene mammoths,
horses, camels, and bison could no longer be denied. Hrdlicka suggested that these animals had
become extinct far more recently than was supposed. Like the Swiss zoologist and geologist
Louis Agassiz, who went to his deathbed denying Darwin's theory of evolution, Hrdlicka never
accepted the antiquity of human beings in the New World (20-21). (emphasis added)
Half a century after his death, McJunkin was still held in high regard by the citizens of Folsom,
who, while knowing little about the scientific revolution he had caused, remembered with great
affection the remarkable black cowboy with the telescope, bones, and scientific books.
Comment by the compiler The initial "settlement of the Americas" has long been set against the
backdrop of the consensus paradigm: that Clovis hunters were the New Worlds first human
inhabitants. This view has been in vogue for over 60 years while even this limit was difficult to
establish at first, as Preston points out. Mirroring the difficulty Clovis proponents had in
establishing an Ice Age presence of Mankind in the Americas are the researchers of Monte
Verde, led by Tom Dillehay. The acceptance of even earlier inhabitants then the Clovis
mammoth hunters has been gaining steam over the past century and, as the train finally arrives
at the station - a little late and a little worn from the journey - these site's discoverers are
certainly ready to rejoice in the shadows of the pristine evidence substantiating Monte Verde.
The first quarter of the century and the reputations that were both won and lost have no less of a
parallel in today's marketing of Amerindian Pleistocene occupations. Dillehay and his team may
have won the battle of attrition as the growing acceptance of Monte Verde only promises to
redirect the efforts others have championed in establishing a mid-Pleistocene occupation of the
Americas.
BACKGROUND
IDEAS and OPINIONS
5
______________________________________________________________________________
Journal of Social and Evolutionary systems 18(1):87-93 1996. J.C. Lester
Popper's Epistemology versus Popper's Politics: A Libertarian Viewpoint
Let us briefly recapitulate Popper's scientific epistemology and methodology. As Hume
showed, to support a universal theory with evidence is logically impossible. All corroborating
evidence, even if accurate, is an infinitely small proportion of what the theory predicts. But one
counter-example shows a universal theory to be false. Thus, the only rational way to pursue
truth is to conjecture without evidence and then deliberately to seek refutation. The bolder the
conjecture (compatible with background knowledge), the greater the chance of capturing more
truth. The scientific community is more or less a libertarian anarchy: anyone can form a theory
and test it, and the evidence can be accepted or ignored by other individual scientists (though the
individual scientist seeks intersubjective agreement) (pg. 87). (emphasis added AMH)
If the scientific community were run democratically (say, in a majority-rules mode), it
would be as great a disaster for the discovery of truth as democracy is a disaster for the
promotion of liberty and welfare. Polanyi (1951) shows the deleterious effects on science of
greater state-regulation (pg. 88).
Comment by the compiler We must accept the fact that a uniform theory conforming solely with
an Old World origin for mankind has yet to resolve the issue of human origins. Certainly, we
should never abandon what we have already learned in order to develop a new paradigm. I am
not asking that we do this, i. e. the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot. What I want others
to explore is a new hypothesis, to build from the past a paradigm that can meaningfully adopt
the lessons detected in previous endeavors. Understanding that there exists for many
investigators unresolvable discrepancies - that this may be inherent with the Old World ideology
used to define it as the source of our own humanity - should itself propel us to seek new choices.
By endorsing the limitations gained in defining these interpretations they become part of the
solution. An outline can be drawn, methodologically biased into the structure of a developing
theory, by accepting that an unexplored alternative exists. This compilation aims to investigate
(what has been a long dismissed alternative) the potential resolution a greater antiquity
affording Native Americans offers the science of human evolution.
______________________________________________________________________________
Kenneth M. Weiss
Is There a Paradigm Shift in Genetics? Lessons from the Study of Human Diseases
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 259-265,
1996
Thomas Kuhn (1962) made the word "paradigm" a part of the working vocabulary of
science. In his assessment, major progress occurs when an accepted theory, or paradigm, can no
longer accommodate the accumulating facts in the field. Facts are always collected to work
away at the edges of understanding. Mostly, these facts lead to incremental advances, but there
are always some facts that do not easily fit the theory. For a time, scientists struggle to force
these facts into the theory, but eventually a new way to view the data–a new paradigm–is
proposed. Suddenly, all the existing facts fall into a new order, and a new phase of normal
incremental science begins. The old model becomes a subset of the new. There has been a
scientific revolution (pg. 259).
6
Continental drift, the Copernican astronomy, relativity, spherical geometry, and the atomic
model of matter are other examples of transforming paradigm shifts (pg. 259).
______________________________________________________________________________
In the Mind of the Beholder, Natural History, 2/94, pps. 14-23
Stephen Jay Gould
But scientists who make the discovery rarely follow the optimal pathway of subsequent logical
reconstruction. Scientists reach conclusions for the damnedest of reasons: intuitions, guesses,
redirections after wild goose chases, all combined with a dollop of rigorous observation and
logical reasoning to be sure–context of discovery (p. 14). (emphasis added AMH)
In the most celebrated use in a social sense, T.S. Kuhn referred to the shared worldview of
scientists as a paradigm (see his classic 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
Such paradigms, in Kuhn's view, are so constraining, and so unbreakable in their own terms, that
fundamentally new theories must be imported from elsewhere (insights of other disciplines,
conscious radicalism of young rebels within a field) and must then triumph by rapid replacement
(scientific revolution), rather than by incremental advance (p. 16).
But in so disproving the original claim, correction only dictated agnosticism, not a contrary
conclusion–that is, the new trees are consistent with origin in a single place, but Africa cannot be
affirmed as the clearly preferred spot, although Africa remains as plausible as any other place by
this criterion (p. 21). (emphasis added AMH)
I can only suppose that we want to segregate humans off as something special. We wish
to see our evolution, particularly the late expansion of our brain to current size, as an event of
more than merely local significance. We do not wish to view our global triumph as so
fortuitously dependent upon the contingent history of a small African population; we would
rather conceive our exalted intellect as so generally advantageous that all populations, in all
places, must move in adaptive unison toward the same desired state (p. 22).
For truth is the daughter of time (p. 23).
Maybe my horse is coming in. But maybe I am only riding a gelding named "fashion," a nag
destined to stumble at the gate next season at Hialeah as the Seabiscuit or Secretariat of
deterministic gradualism comes thundering down the homestretch (p. 23).
(emphasis added AMH)
Comment by the compiler All these quotes come from the same article, being what I believe is
Gould at his best.
NORTH AMERICA
______________________________________________________________________________
Native American Oral Traditions and Archaeology
Rodger Anyon, T. J. Ferguson, Loretta Jackson, and Lillie Lane
SAA Bulletin, Volume 14, March/April 1996, No. 2
7
Tessie Naranjo (1995, Thoughts on Migration by Santa Clara Pueblo. Journal of
Anthropological Archaeology 14:247-250) recently pointed out that Native American oral
traditions are often axiomatic rather than hypothetical. Whereas scientists search for exclusive
and universal truth (pg. 15).
These methodologies need to be incorporated into archaeological method and theory to establish
the scholarly basis for using oral traditions in historical research.
Good scientific research uses a methodology based on the falsification of hypotheses. In
essence, archaeologists disprove what they can, and then create theories to explain the residual
hypotheses (pg. 15).
Oral traditions and scientific knowledge both have validity in their own cultural context.
Scientific knowledge does not constitute a privileged view of the past that in and of itself makes
it better than oral traditions. It is simply another way of knowing the past.
Even in situations where oral traditions are not used in archaeological research, archaeologists
should be sensitive to both the inherent limitations of scientific knowledge with respect to
cultural heritage (pg. 15).
______________________________________________________________________________
The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways, Robert L. Kelly.
Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 446 pp. Reviewed in American
Anthropologist, Vol. 98, No. 4, December 1996, p. 913
Reviewed by John M. Lindly and Geoffrey A. Clark
This is an important book, not because of path-breaking original research (there is little
new here), but because Kelly presents a current, insightful, and well-written critique of the
disparate approaches to research on what are known to anthropology as hunter-gatherers. He
adopts the conceptual framework of behavioral ecology, defined by a focus on relationships
between behavior and environment, firmly grounded in evolutionary theory, and distinguished
from cultural ecology by an explicit concern with process questions. Since this foregrounds the
relationships among human subsistence activities, biological reproduction, and learning in a
social context, Kelly argues that behavioral ecology can best account for modern humans as
biological and cultural animals and can best explain how we came to be the way we are today
(p. 913).
Comment by the compiler The robust but simplistic archaeological signature uncovered from
Chile's "Monte Verde" just 13,800 bp may be atypical of the type of human subsistence activities
delineating other mid-Pleistocene occupations of the Americas. It can be argued that this kind of
behavior is unrelated to Paleolithic occupations from contemporary Old World sites. That these
early New World activities do not appear to be descendent of Old World hunter /gatherer
societies - 30,000 years in the making - does not require that we dismiss them, (because of the
limited evidence supporting mid-Pleistocene occupations), as archaeological sites. As Owen
points out in Smith/Spencer (1984), until we can define a theory to help guide us, the meaning
and/or verification of pre-Clovis will be difficult to process. By arguing that mid-Pleistocene
8
occupations represent a more simplistic behavior a new relationship can be suggested from
these occupations. That relationship could represent an ancestral condition, a kinder/simpler
human subsistence activity that remained isolated from specialized hunter/gatherer subsistence
activities that we know evolved during mankind's expansion into what was once a new Old
World.
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Book Reviews, American Anthropologist, 1996, pps. 650-706.
John Mohawk
Review of Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact by
Vine Deloria Jr., 1995.
His target is established anthropology and three of its theories: human migration across a
Bering land bridge as the origin of all Amerindian populations of the Americas; the extinction of
many species of North America's megafauna at the hands of paleo-Indians; and the accuracy of
radiocarbon dating technology. With the style of a lawyer–he is, foremost, a social historian
with a law degree–he launches a barrage of attacks at anthropologists who have promoted or
abided these theories. p. 650
He goes on to suggest that anthropologists should pay more attention to American Indian stories
about what happened in the remote past for clues (p. 650).
By inference, all of his arguments may be denounced as mendacious anthropology-bashing.
Although this seems certain to happen in some instances, it would be extremely unfortunate if
mainstream anthropology leaves it at that and does not address the points he makes at the core of
his argument.
When advocates of anthropology reply that Deloria's characterizations of their profession
as a narrow-minded intellectual hierarchy are overstated, they should also concede that dissent is
narrowly tolerated and often heartily punished within the established order (p. 650).
It is more likely that when anyone saw one of those creatures he or she was more interested in
getting out of its way than in killing it, and it is much more likely that climate changes or some
kind of biological chain reaction set the stage for the extinctions (p. 651)
Comment by the compiler What effect, play-tell, does the introduction of hunting technologies
from the Old World signify if, as the myth goes, 'Native Americans were disobedient in going
north, out beyond the Americas for the first time, nearly 40,000 years ago.' As I see the Native
American' sees it, 'some of us left the Americas and some of them stayed behind.' That we met for
the first time following this separation - at the end of the last Ice Age - cannot be denied if we
test our theories in accordance with Native American beliefs including an Autochthonous origin
for mankind from the Island that is - the Western Hemisphere. (emphasis added AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Late Pleistocene Human Friction Skin Prints From Pendejo Cave, New Mexico
American Antiquity, 61(2), 1996, pp. 357-376
9
Donald Chrisman, Richard S. MacNeish, Jamshed Mavalwala, and Howard Savage
As she screened the sediments of zone I, Vennes noticed a peanut-sized piece of burned
clay that had unusual markings. Cunnar (1992), who supervised the entire excavation of Pendejo
Cave, suspected that these markings represented a fingerprint. During the daily review of
excavation results, MacNeish examined the clay, using tweezers and magnifying glass, and
confirmed Cunnar's suspicion (Figures 3 and 4). (361)
At the southern edge of this clay slab he found, in situ at E0.99S1.21, a piece of fractured
horse phalange and a small crescentic burned clay fragment with a tiny imprint (Figures 5 and
6). Nearby was a worked flake of lithic material foreign to the cave (Clemons 1992). A second
slab of burned clay had charred oak remains that were dated to 32,000 ± 1200 B.P. (charcoal,
UCR 2645); a duplicate sample went to BETA (44296) and was dated at 35,960 ± 790 B.P. The
party now believed it had all the elements Griffin had required–a very probable human
fingerprint in situ in a definite stratum with a clear date. This specimen was, furthermore,
associated with botanical and faunal remains of species no longer present in the area–Quercus
sp., the middle phalange of extinct Equus alaskae–and cultural remains in the form of the
worked flake (pg. 361).
In this area the ashy sediment of zone K was cemented; within the compacted fill we
found two lithic artifacts and an Equus first phalange with a pointed bone fragment imbedded in
it. Carbon in S2E2 yielded a radiocarbon date of >35,900 B.P. (charcoal, UCR 2647).
Moreover, in the same zone K, carbon from square S2E1–1 m east of the print–yielded a bone
with a probable human cutmark and a radiocarbon date of >35,600 B.P. (charcoal, UCR 2648);
two samples of charcoal taken 1 m north gave radiocarbon dates of >36,400 B.P. (UCR 2591B)
and >36,920 B.P. (BETA 43721) (pg. 363).
Twelve other friction skin imprints were found while cleaning the west niche; four of
these prints came from zone C2 (Figure 1), which yielded radiocarbon dates of 12,240 ± 70 B.P.
(UCR 3276B), 12,370 ± 80 B.P. (UCR 3276A), both from hair, and 12,970 ± 170 B.P. (UCR
2603) from charcoal in a square 4 m east of the prints (pg. 363).
A more unusual print was recovered from the gray soil of the middle of the west wall of
square W4N1. This article will later show that this specimen not only bears a friction skin
imprint, but also may have incisions and punctations that suggest it was an effigy formed of clay
that was later fired. Although few faunal remains or artifacts occurred in these squares, we did
recover hairs that microscopic examination showed to be human in origin. Also recovered were
two pieces of cordage (pg. 3).
This chronometric sequence (Table 1) not only directly dates the zones where friction
skin imprints were found, it also brackets them with a column of 46 radiocarbon dates, 36 of
which are in chronological order–a better sequence than can be found for any other Paleoindian
site (Haynes 1967; Waters 1985). These dates adequately meet the chronological requirement of
Griffin (pg. 365, emphasis added).
The remains of fauna recovered from the various zones at Pendejo provide ample
evidence of fauna–some now extinct–associated with friction skin imprints. In addition, this
record reflects convincing evidence of climatic changes over the millennia (pg. 367).
10
These floral remains provided evidence that supported that of the fauna. Zones L to O
had flora typical of a warm, dry climate–Opuntia (prickly pear), Echinocereus (hedgehog
cactus), Prosopis (mesquite), Euphorbia (spurge), and Cucurbita foetidissima (buffalo gourd).
In zone K the floral remains, like the faunal, indicate a shift to a more wooded vegetation and a
cooler, wetter climate. Among these remains were Pinus edulis (pine), Celtis laevigata
(hackberry), Quercus (oak), and acorn shells, three of which were found in the same square as
the zone K friction skin imprint (pg. 367).
The lithic artifacts we have described from Pendejo Cave have been criticized as being so
crude they cannot be accepted as artifacts. Nevertheless, the provenance of these lithic remains
analyzed by the mineralogist, the late R. Clemons, is significant to the whole ecology of the
cave. He found that about half of the stone objects recovered were exotics, that is, their
composition was of minerals foreign to the cave. These lithics, especially the five anvils, one
weighting over 4.5 kg, must have been brought to the cave by some agency. Their size points in
the direction of transport by humans, not by wind, water, or an animal. Although most of these
possible lithics are not skillfully worked, they may have served as expedient tools, and Clemons
describes them as such in another publication (Clemons 1992) (pg. 368).
Of these tools, 19 were recovered from the southern activity zone associated with the
friction skin imprint. In the same square (S2E2) as the print, only a horse phalange with an
imbedded wedge and two convex worked unifaces were discovered (pg. 368).
When the phalange of the extinct horse was X-rayed and imaged three dimensionally by
computerized tomography, the tip of a probable bone wedge or projectile point could be seen
deep in its marrow cavity. In addition, a nearby fragment of a small long bone shows a long Vshaped line between its cut ends. Both these bones may exhibit human modification (pg. 368).
Zone C2. Cultural remains in association with the four imprints found in zone C2
included some 40 fragments of hair that forensic specialists H. Savage and A. Tessaralo have
identified as histologically human. Among the 15 artifacts in the zone were 2 two-ply cords, Sand Z-twisted, both of yucca fibers (pg. 368).
Only the first two of the 16 nodules with imprints (eight pre-Clovis, eight post-Clovis)
were discovered in the screen; the rest were found in situ. After that first experience, the
excavating teams were alerted to the need to look hard for such small items as bits of clay, hair,
and fibers (pg. 368).
The color, hardness, and consistency of these clay lumps were similar to what was
obtained by baking wet clay from the gully in front of the cave to 150°-250°C in an oven.
Comparison with modern molded clay obtained from the valley just below Pendejo Cave, baked
at increments from 100° to 400°C, showed that the nodules were probably baked at temperatures
between 120°C and 300°C (pg. 369).
The prints from Pendejo Cave measure 13 to 19 per linear centimeter; those of the great
apes, Asiatic langurs, and the howler monkey (Alouatta) of Brazil measure 20 ridges per
centimeter or more, but are near the human range (Cummins and Midlo 1943:32). However, no
bones of great apes or New World monkeys have been found in Pleistocene excavations in New
11
Mexico, nor were there tropical forests or suitable habitats to support them there. In the absence
of other primates, the size of the prints and the patterns of ridges and sweat pores have led us to
conclude that these friction skin imprints are probably human in origin (pg. 373).
Comment by the compiler AMH The mid-Pleistocene archaeological record has
significant implications if we apply theory to help guide our observations. This record may be
representative of a pre-Paleolithic habitation accordant with an in-situ evolutionary process
conforming, in theory, with a human origin within the Americas. If this type of archaeological
record is indicative of our ancestral condition then we cannot dismiss its simplicity by judging it
against the backdrop of archaeological signatures of contemporary Upper Paleolithic Old
World populations. The revealing archaeological proof -- what we have come to expect in
defining and accepting Old World Paleolithic behaviors -- may be missing in the ancestral (> 50
ky) and contemporary (50-12 ky) Amerindian habitations because of isolation due to the
resurgence of Glaciation (~45 ky). It is proposed that glacial isolation lasted until the end of the
last Ice age when, for the first time following mankind's inaugural exit from the Americas,
glacial barriers separating the two worlds waned.
Mid-Pleistocene New World archaeological contexts (>12 ky) and the implications
derived by accepting them suggest that; the behaviors of early early man in the Americas was
not influenced by Old World modern human achievements - until the end of the last Ice Age.
Could Mid-Pleistocene behaviors have been ancestral and thus, a forerunner to later evolving
Old World hunter/gatherer behaviors? Simply, the modus operandi defining mid-Pleistocene
Amerindian habitations should be lacking the level of sophistication found in , as I propose,
descendent populations of the Old World. As modern man explored he left behind more
advanced signatures of his adeptness in dealing with changing environments. Was it glacial
expanse that delayed the Amerindians from leaving the New World until 50,000 years ago?
Could the original People of the Americas (being also the ancestors of the first modern humans
of the Old World) have remained isolated from evolving Old World advancements? Is it possible
that the main problem facing archaeologists is: defining a paradigm to accept mid-Pleistocene
occupations?
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol. 274, October 4, 1996
Ann Gibbons
The Peopling of the Americas
Chalk up one more disagreement to one of the most contentious issues in human
prehistory: the question of who settled the Americas (pg. 31).
Most anthropological studies use this mtDNA because it mutates faster than nuclear
DNA, allowing researchers to distinguish populations that recently separated. The mtDNA is
also inherited only from mothers and so avoids the gene shuffling that can obscure the
evolutionary trail of most nuclear genes (pg. 31).
"You wont' pick out the [same combination of] rare types three of four times if you reach
in randomly (pg. 32)."
Once in America, this wave of settlers spread out. Some pushed south, but others stayed
in the northwest, where their numbers were drastically reduced–perhaps by bitter cold during the
12
last glacial period that ended about 11,500 years ago. As a result, the northern populations, the
ancestors of the Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleuts, lost their original genetic diversity. Their
numbers eventually bounced back, but with fewer copies of haplogroups B, C, and D than
carried by their southern relatives (pg. 32).
This scenario allows for either one or two migrations into North America, depending on
whether the homeland of the surviving northerners was in North America or Siberia. Forster
says: "We call it a re-expansion. It's a matter of taste whether you call it a separate migration
(pg. 33).
Even on the number of migrations, there is no consensus. Satoshi Horai of the National
Institute of Genetics in Mishima, Japan, for example, notes that his analyses of the genetic
distance among native American people suggests that there are four groups that have been
isolated for a relatively long period of time. He concludes that there were four separate
migrations (pg. 33).
Comment by the compiler The presence in Northeast Asia of common Amerindian mtDNAs
could support Franz Boas "Eskimo wedge theory", that is, a post Ice age (i.e. Holocene, <12,000
ky) movement of Amerindians into Siberia. This interpretation can also find support in
Traditional Athapaskan and Eskimo mythologies and the genetic data linking Northeast Asians
and Native North Americans. (ii) AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
The Settlement of the Americas: A Comparison of the Linguistic, Dental, and Genetic
Evidence, Current Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 5, December 1986, pps. 477-495
Joseph H. Greenberg, Christy G. Turner II, and Stephen L. Zegura
Both the internal and the external evidence point to the original habitat of the Aleut-Eskimo as
being on the southwestern coast of Alaska. Within Eskimo itself, the vast Inuit distribution from
Central Alaska to Greenland with shallow internal differences suggests a very recent migration
from the far western end of the present distribution. The other branch, Yuit, is found in the
central and southwestern coastal areas of Alaska. It is also spoken in Siberia. If Sirenik, which
in certain respects is drastically different from the rest of Eskimo, should prove to have separate
genetic status, it even becomes plausible that Eskimo or even Aleut-Eskimo originated in
northeastern Siberia. However, the position of Aleut suggests rather an origin east of Bering
Strait with Siberian Eskimo as a subsequent reflux. p. 479
There are some indications that Eurasiatic and Amerind are closer-genetically than either is to
Na-Dene. On the basis of a suggestion of Sapir, Shafer (1952) presented some evidence for a
connection of Na-Dene with Sino-Tibetan. Both of these proposals require further investigation.
If they should prove to be true, they would point to a more southerly ultimate place of origin in
Asia. (p. 479)
[Comment by the compiler Why do the Na-Dene have to be descendent of the Tibetans.
Language sharing and gene flow can emanate from either direction. This is an old paper
now, while theories accepting the existence of New World isolation have not been tested.
This may be because we have to first verify a set of sites before we can synthesize the
corresponding data that might be found to collaborate them? AMH]
13
Glottochronology, the one available method for dating the separation of linguistic stocks
in the absence of written records, was first devised about 1950 (Hymes 1960). By examining the
rate of retention of a specific list of 200 words it was determined that slightly more than .80 of
this list was retained over 1,000 years. If two languages diverged from a single ancestral
language and evolved independently, after 1,000 years they would be expected to have related
forms in approximately .802 of the list. The process was hypothesized to follow a decay function
so that after n millennia the proportion of cognate forms between two languages would be .82n
(p. 479).
The third observation, namely, that New World teeth are more like those of eastern Asia
than like those of Europe, provides a solid basis for challenging the archaeological view that
Paleo-Indians originated in Europe because their methods of stone tool manufacturing were like
those used by late Pleistocene Cro-Magnon hunters such as the Kostienki or Sunghir tribes. The
four European samples of table 1 and figure 1 are very similar among themselves and least like
the New World groups. There is no support in this genetically sensible spatial pattern for
theorizing that Native Americans originated in Europe or that they are some form of EuropeanAsian hybridization (p. 480).
Comments
By Lyle Campbell
The dental and genetic correlations are unconvincing–at worst irrelevant, at best consistent
with other interpretations. Repetition of the obvious seems required: there is no deterministic
connection between language and gene pools or culture. A single language can be spoken by a
genetically and/or culturally diverse community; a culturally and/or genetically homogeneous
population can speak more than one language. That is, language shift and multilingualism are
facts of linguistic (and cultural) life; genes neither cause nor cater to them (p. 488).
(emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
The Northwest Coast has few attested Na-Dene groups and many others. It is a notorious
linguistic (and cultural) diffusion area, with multilingualism, borrowing of linguistic traits,
slaving, and intermarriage. Here, language and genetic traits should not be expected to match (p.
488).
Comments
by W.S. Laughlin
Compounding 11 subgroups into three, with a separate migration for each, Greenberg cogently
notes that it is defensible to hypothesize that the Proto-Aleut-Eskimo community arrived as an
internally undifferentiated unit before the coming of the Na-Dene. He discards the possibility of
one migration with elapsed time so great that all traces of affinity among any of the groups have
been effaced.
The dental evidence is displayed in a dendrogram that carries no hint of a triple division
but rather is eloquent evidence of a single migration, with minor subdivisions in America.
Clearly, dental evidence comprehends greater time depth than linguistic evidence (p. 490).
14
The differences between American populations are not large enough to postulate more
than one migration; the taxonomic category of American Indian easily embraces all of them. A
single small migration some 16,000 years go appears most parsimonious. Researchers who flirt
with trinities should be reminded that Eskimos have walked on water for 10,000 years. They
wait for it to freeze, and when on thin ice they avoid creating unnecessary waves (p. 490).
[Comment by the compiler Similariteis in Native Americans does not denote lateness if
this is evidence of a population at "equilibrium" (Chakraborty and Weiss 1991)
(All emphasis added by the compiler)]
Comments
by Emoke J.E. Szathmary
Although their perspectives are offered in sections subtitled "The Linguistic Evidence," "The
Dental Evidence," and "The Genetic Evidence," very little evidence is presented. Rather, we are
given conclusions based on research, their own and that of others, published elsewhere. This is
legitimate if one regards Greenberg, Turner, and Zegura's joint effort as a "position paper" that
will generate more hypothesis-testing research on their much-debated subject. I think this is
necessary, for the material presented here does not convince me that there have indeed been
three waves of migration into the Americas (p. 490)
Turner's equating the label "Na-Dene" with the Greater Northwest Coast group suggests that he
is not prepared to question, let alone to reject, the three-migration hypothesis whatever the
results of his calculations. Rather, he interprets his analytic results in the light of a preexisting
hypothesis that he simply assumes to be true (p. 490).
It is worth noting that cluster analysis of the genetic distances derived from the same Gm data as
used by Williams et al. (1985) shows that Athapaskan-speakers (Haida and Tlingit Gm
distributions are unknown) are consistently intermixed with Eskimos and Chukchi (Szathmary
1986). Other Indians are consistently separate. This certainly does not support a tripartitemigration model but lends itself to the notion that Athapaskan-speakers are genetically closer to
Eskimos than are other Indians (p. 491).
In my opinion, postulation of the precise number of "waves" is an exercise in hypothesis
generation. May there always be creative individuals who propose models, and may there
always be scientists whose testing will finally allow us to select the scenario that is most likely
(p. 491). (emphasis added AMH)
Comments by Kenneth M. Weiss and Ellen Woolford
If one branch of a language group is in contact with an unrelated group, it is likely to change
faster than its sister languages and in a different direction. It may thus appear by
glottochronology to have diverged from its sisters at an earlier date than is actually correct.
Renewed contact between branches of the same group can result in borrowings that will make
the branches appear to have diverged more recently than is really the case. Extreme contact
situations such as those which result in the formation of a pidgin can throw off the results of
glottochronology entirely and may even create a false bridge between two unrelated language
stocks. An application of glottochronology to English and the English-based pidgin of Papua
15
New Guinea, Tok Pisin, gives a separation date of something like 2,000 B.P., but Tok Pisin has
not existed a tenth of that time. Moreover, the fact that Tok Pisin contains words from Malay
and Tolai as well as English might convince a scholar from the future that these stocks were
closely connected (p. 491).
If there has been gene flow, as is reflected in the genetic marker pattern, why is this not also
reflected in the dental traits? One reason might be selection–but if that has occurred, the
rationale is lost for most historical-phylogenetic analysis, since selection can obscure migration
and drift patterns. Indeed, O'Rourke, Suarez, and Crouse (1986) and Piazza, Menotti, and
Cavalli-Sforza (1981) believe that gene-frequency patterns reflect climatic selection, resulting in
latitudinal patterns which may be highly relevant in the American case (p. 492).
Reply
by Joseph H. Greenberg, Christy G. Turner II, and Stephen L. Zegura
We also concur with Weiss and Woolford's call for more genetic data (especially from
restriction-enzyme studies of DNA) collected from both sides of the Bering Strait. These
nuclear and mitochondrial DNA fragments may provide the crucial genetic data test of our threemigration hypothesis, wherein substantial population diversity originated in Asia, against
Laughlin's plausible alternative of a single small migration 15,000–16,000 years ago with
subsequent diversification taking place in the Americas. It is clear that Szathmary would
heartily endorse such a test (p. 493).
Even if the Na-Dene are genetically closer to the Aleut-Eskimos than are the rest of the
Amerinds, this by itself does not logically falsify our qualitative trichotomy or our three-wave
model (perhaps the Na-Dene and Aleut-Eskimo shared a most recent ancestor in Asia before the
bifurcation event) (p. 494).
As indicated in our paper, at least two East Siberian population systems can be proposed on
archaeological grounds–blade-making sea-mammal-hunting and fishing folk of the lower Amur
and Hokkaido and the terrestrial- and riverine-resource-based Diuktai people between the Amur
and the Lena basin. It seems well established that members of both of these groups reached
Alaska. The all-important stratigraphy of the Dry Creek site near Fairbanks, Alaska,
demonstrates that both were almost certainly preceded by Paleo-Indians. If all Native American
variation arose from a single founding population, then why is the Uto-Aztecan premolar never
found in Na-Dene, Northwest Coast, Greater Northwest Coast (or whatever label one chooses to
identify the far western prehistoric Canadian and Alaskan people), or Aleut-Eskimo crania?
(p. 494).
Until a different evolutionary scenario better explains our similar linguistic, genetic, and dental
classifications, a multiple-, preferably three-, migration hypothesis most adequately accounts for
the data presented by the commentators and ourselves (p. 494).
Comment by the compiler Because the "Uto-Aztecan premolar " is older in them then is the time
from when sea mammal hunting Eskimos and Boreal adapted - forest dwelling - Athapascans
came to inhabit their respected deglaciated Holocene locals. emphasis added AMH
16
______________________________________________________________________________
Distribution of Four Foundling mtDNA Haplogroups Among Native North Americans,
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 101, 1996, pps. 307-323.
Joseph G. Lorenz and David Glenn Smith
Thus, assuming a recent mutation is not responsible, native haplogroups other than A, B, C, and
D, while rare, apparently existed. A higher resolution screening of these other haplogroups
might indeed show some to be Native American in origin, probably resulting from recent
mutation at the diagnostic haplogroup restriction sites. However, haplotypes identified by high
resolution analysis (e.g., see Torroni et al., 1993a) tend to be autapomorphies and hence of no
use in determining relatedness among groups, and they were excluded from the analysis whose
results follow (p. 313).
Haplogroup D, the rarest of the four haplogroups in North America at 7%, is the most prevalent
in the northern Paiute/Shoshone, in which its frequency exceeds 40%. It is present at very low
frequencies (<6.0%) everywhere except in the Northwest Coast and California/Great Basin
Regions, where it reaches frequencies of 18% and 22%, respectively (p. 315).
The present analysis, while not designed to test Greenberg's hypothesis, points to a fundamental
split among the Eskimo/northern Na-Dene, Amerinds from the southwestern states of the U.S.,
and all other Amerinds. The clustering of the Eskimo and northern Na-Dene, who speak
unrelated languages, together (cluster I) in the phenetic and q analyses is consistent with the
conclusions of previous genetic studies (Szathmary and Ossenberg, 1978; Shields et al., 1993;
Szathmary, 1996) and does not support the three migration hypothesis. Although most Amerind
groups, including those in Central and South America (Merriwether et al., 1995), fall in clusters
II-IV, the major division in the phenetic tree separated most Hokan-speaking and Uto-Aztecanspeaking Amerinds (cluster IV), whose languages are not regarded as closely related, from all
other groups. Moreover, no two Amerind language families exhibited homogeneous haplogroup
distributions. Thus, our data do not support "the unity of Amerind" (Greenberg, 1987) (p. 318).
(all emphasis added by AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
The Great DNA Hunt, Part II - Colonizing the Americas, Archaeology, November/December
1996, pps. 59-68
Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose
They found that the Siberian populations had the A, C, and D lineages found in Native
Americans but that they were slightly different, suggesting to Torroni and Schurr that mtDNA
variations present today in Native Americans developed after they separated from an ancestral
Siberian population (p. 60).
Comment by the compiler Perhaps Amerindian A, C, and D, lineages represent
evidence of referse migration at the end of the last ice Age. (emphasis added
AMH)
Oddly, the Siberian populations lacked the B mtDNA group found in Native Americans.
Torroni and Schurr concluded that either it had become extinct in Siberia after the split between
the ancestral Siberian and Native American populations, or its presence in Native Americans
represented a distinct migration (p. 60).
17
It was unlikely that the lineage could become extinct in all Siberian populations; furthermore,
how could it spread throughout the Americas if it arrived in a later migration? The B lineage
remained something of an anomaly (p. 62).
Geneticist Svante Paabo of the University of Munich also identified a variant, possibly X6 or
X7, in the brain tissue of an Archaic-period Indian, more than 7,000 years old, found in 1988 in
Little Salt Spring, Florida. Anne Stone, of Pennsylvania State University, has determined that an
8,000-year-old Paleoindian skeleton found in a cave in Colorado's White River National Forest
has the B lineage (p. 64).
Polynesians and Amerinds
Hagelberg's group determined that certain mutations present in the DNA of Polynesians
are not known from the New World, indicating that settlement from South America was unlikely
(p. 65).
Cann concludes by posing a number of questions that seem to point toward PolynesianAmerind contact. Why, she asks, is the B lineage, shared by Polynesians and Amerinds, not
found in the north? Anne Stone of Pennsylvania State University has recently examined the
mtDNA from an 8,000-year-old Paleoindian skeleton found in a cave in Colorado's White River
National Forest. The Colorado individual has the B lineage–strong evidence that the lineage is
ancestral because Polynesia was not occupied until about 6,000 years ago and the far eastern
Pacific Islands until about 1,000 years ago, both much later than the Colorado remains. The
Paleoindian B lineage cannot have come from the Polynesians (p. 65).
Comment by the compiler “Certain mutations present in the DNA of Polynesians” could have
developed after seperation from the Americas. Just the same, if these mutations were already
present in Polynesians then they could not have been the descendants of the “out of Southeast
Asia” hypothesis for iether the Amerindians with type B mtDNA or Polynesians.
______________________________________________________________________________
William S. Dancey, Editor. Reviewed by Michael J. Shott, University of Northern Iowa.
The First Discovery of America: Archaeological Evidence of the Early Inhabitants of the
Ohio Area. American Antiquity [Vol. 61, No. 1, 1996]
Disturbingly, samples occur in a stratum dated elsewhere at Burning Tree to ca. 12,000
B.P. Somewhat uncertain dating and absence of stone tools render the argument plausible but
inconclusive (pg. 171 emphasis added).
Five AMS dates from the postmold resolve, using an obsolete averaging method, into
distinct populations ca. 12,150 and 10,980 B.P. Brose reasonably favors the latter to date the
Paleoindian occupation. But two extensively dated features span several radiocarbon millennia,
and the favored date is obtained by rejecting half the results from a feature. Paleo Crossing is a
major Gainey Site that deserves the more extensive investigation sought (pg. 171).
18
Comment by the compiler Again note, the "absence of stone tools" confounds for many, what
should be expected in hypothesizing a Pleistocene colonization of the New World. The
inconsistency of the expected presence of stone tool traditions should be tossed out but not the
baby as Amerindians, for one reason or another, did not manufacture stone tools to aid
archaeologists in their discovery or understanding of the nature of - mankind's earliest
subsistence behaviors - those defining mid-Pleistocene Amerindian habitations. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Dental Variation Among Four Prehispanic Mexican Populations.
Rebecca Haydenblit
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 100:225-246 (1996)
When the four samples were compared to other Mongoloid populations, either univariately
or multivariately, it was observed that the Mexican groups did not follow a strict Sinodont
(characteristic of Northeast Asia)/Sundadont (characteristic of Southeast Asia) classification
(Turner [1979] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 51:619-636). From the traits examined, 27% presented
frequencies consistent with Sinodont variation, while 73% of the traits showed similar incidence
to Southeast Asian groups. Multivariately, the Mexican populations were found to fit an overall
Sundadont classification (pg. 225).
For the present study, observations of 28 morphological dental traits were made on more
than 200 prehispanic Mexican Indians. In this paper, I have 1) described the morphological
features of permanent teeth of prehispanic Mexican Indians, 2) compared the variability in dental
morphology among four prehispanic groups, and 3) analyzed the..
(pg. 36, I lost pg. 327 see reference for more).
It should be pointed out that the Sinodont/Sundadont classification is largely defined on
the basis of a few dental traits. Eight key morphological traits distinguish these two patterns:
shoveling and double shoveling of maxillary incisors, enamel extension of maxillary first molars,
root number of maxillary second pre-molars, peg/reduced/congenital absence of maxillary third
molars, deflecting wrinkle and root number of mandibular first molars, and groove pattern of
mandibular second molars. The Sinodont pattern exhibits these traits more intensively, whereas
the Sundadont pattern exhibits simplification of these features (pg. 237).
The discriminate analysis examines whether it is possible to classify a number of cases
into specified groups (in this case Sinodont and Sundadont) on the basis of a group of
independent variables (the dental trait frequencies) and calculates how this classification
compares with the actual group (Sinodont/Sundadont) each population belongs to. Therefore,
this analysis had three aims. First, to assess whether it was possible to derive a discriminant
function that separates Sundadont and Sinodont populations from Turner's data; second, to assess
which dental traits contribute most to his separation; and third, to use the discriminant function
derived from Turner's data to determine to which group (Sinodont/Sundadont) the prehispanic
Mexican samples can be statistically allocated (pg. 237).
In other words, the following populations were classified in the Sinodont pattern: Amur,
Archaic Canada, Athapaskan, California, Eastern US/Canada, Gulf of Alaska, Hong Kong,
Japan, Lake Baikal, NE Siberia, NW Canada/US, Southwest US; and in the Sundadont pattern:
Burma, Early Malay, Early Mainland (SeA), Indomalaysia, Jomon, Nepal, Philippines, South
19
China 1 and 2, South East Asia, Thai, Taiwan; and Europe was classified as a group alone (pg.
237 and 239).
Again, Cholula was the only population that was classified as Sinodont. In summary,
these results indicate that among New World populations there are some populations that fit the
Sundadont pattern, suggesting extensive dental morphological variation among American
Indians (pg. 239).
Previous studies have shown that American Indian populations follow the Sinodont
pattern (Scott et al., 1983; Turner, 1983, 1985a 1986a). The results of the discriminant analysis
performed indicate that certain New World populations show frequencies of dental traits most
consistent with the Sundadont pattern, suggesting extensive dental morphological variation
among American Indians (pg. 243).
Conclusions
This study describes and compares the dental morphology of four prehispanic
Mesoamerican populations.
Two main conclusions are derived from this work:
1. Tlatilco, the oldest of the populations studied, exhibits a different dental morphology
from the other Mesoamerican populations.
2. The prehispanic Mesoamerican populations follow the Sundadont dental pattern,
suggesting that there is extensive dental variation among American Indian populations (pg. 243)
(emphasis added AMH).
Comment by the compiler The finding of the "sundadont dental pattern" in Native Central
Americans could draw new light concerning shared affinities, this being; an Amerindian
contribution to the formation of Polynesian populations and a diffusion of these and other
genetic traits into coastal regions of southeast Asia and beyond. This lateness of the expansion
of Polynesian motifs should provide an alternative explanation for "Amerindian" characteristics
found in coastal Melanesia, Borneo, aboriginal Taiwanese, Madagascar, and Hawaii; (see
Background, migration iii). Interior continental migrations (of recent arrivals from the coast)
into Nepal (10% of the Tharu) and from Madagascar into the Zimbabwe River populations of
Africa (2%) can also be used to explain the presence of the isolated genetic marker, the 9bp
Deletion. The detection of the sundadont dental pattern in pre-Hispanic Mesoamericans helps
identity another genetic link possibly connecting Amerindians with Polynesians and they in turn
with coastal southeast Asians and they in turn with possibly aboriginal Taiwanese, and other
coastal peoples. AMH
(for more on this see Cann and Lum 1996 pg. of this collection)
______________________________________________________________________________
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 100:355-365, 1996
Edward D. Shields and Gregory Jones
Heterochronic Quantitative Microevolution: Dental Divergence in Aboriginal Americans
The dental traits were sexually dimorphic, the effect being more pronounced in
aboriginal Americans, with male teeth having robust roots and thin enamel compared to the
female. Southeast Asians were isometrically related. The prominence of sexual dimorphism and
20
the importance of sex-linked genes in the determination of the dental phenotypes suggest that
sexual selection was one evolutionary force acting on early Asian populations (pg. 355).
ANOVA, along with plots of canonical discriminate analysis distances of the metric traits
for each tooth element, showed that the population samples were easily separable, the sexes
assorted by ethnic stock, and all populations were sexually dimorphic. The general impression
of the overall dental phenotype given by the canonical plots is that the stocks are equally
distanced (pg. 358).
A fevered mind could generate numerous hypotheses, some even testable, as to how
sexual selection for one seemingly unrelated trait could then influence another. This putative
selective force would have subsequently been relaxed in the Southeast Asian population. If
megafauna extinction (Vantanyan et al., 1993) and rapid environmental change (Allen and
Anderson, 1993; Alley et al., 1993; Levesque et al., 1993; Roberts et al., 1993) were factors prior
to Paleoindian immigration, environmental directional selection may have been an additional
evolutionary force in the potential small founder population from which both the Paleoindians
and the Western Eskimos were eventually drawn. Genetic bottlenecks and rapid population
expansion and dispersion were clearly important in the genetic history of aboriginal Americans.
Thus, the likelihood is high that much of the observed evolution between the American samples
was the result of random genetic drift (pg. 364).
Comment by the compiler I couldn't help but follow the last article suggesting "certain New
World populations show frequencies of dental traits most consistent with the Sundadont pattern,
suggesting extensive dental morphological variation among American Indians (Haydenblit pg.
2431996)." with this one implying virtually just the opposite.
SOUTH AMERICA
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol. 273, pp 709-840, August 9, 1996
Fidias E. Leon-S., Amparo Ariza-Deleon, Martha E. Leon-S., and Adriana Ariza-C.
Peopling the Americas (_?_)
Our contribution, however, would seem to go further than that because we have pointed
out that transpacific routes from Asia, and more specifically from Japonesia, toward South
America could be important in understanding the differences between North American and
South American Natives (SAN) (1).
People with the so-called "new" (according to Parham and Ohta) allele, such as the
Cayapa or Chachi from Ecuador, also display an aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency that is
molecularly similar to that found in Southeast Asian and Japanese people, but absent in
Northeast Asians (2).
Curiously, HTLV-I strains from Japan are related in their molecular structure to those
found in South America (for example, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil), and HTLV-II present in
SAN and in some Japanese groups is also absent in the far eastern part of Siberia (3).
21
On the other hand, the a-globin gene haplotype distributed in SAN—similar to that
observed in Southeast Asian and Pacific Island populations—does not have a-globin gene
deletions, and this suggests that malaria was not present in the ancient SAN (4). Further
similarities in major histocompatibility complex type I (MHC-I), as well as type II, haplotypes
and in mitochondrial DNA are observed in Japanese, Pacific (for example, Polynesians), and
SAN (for example, Mapuches) populations, but are absent in the far eastern part of Siberia (5).
These similarities add strength to the proposal that ancient voyagers could follow the Pacific sea
currents that join Japan to South America, as well as other routes (1).
Peter Parham
Response
The theory of transpacific contacts expounded by Leon-S. and his colleagues (1, 2) holds
that genetic differences observed between North and South American Natives may in part stem
from an ancient admixture of the SAN with sea voyagers from the south of Japan. In the course
of examining the HLA class I data, we have periodically confronted this possibility. For
example, A*0211, which was first discovered in a Southeast Asian individual (3) and then found
in the Guarani Amerindians of Brazil (4), initially provided a candidate for an allele that had
arrived in South America by transpacific contact.
The potential for recombination between HLA class I alleles and genes makes it likely,
perhaps inevitable, that certain recombinant alleles have been formed independently in different
populations. In such instances, the sharing of an allele would be the result of convergent
evolution and not shared descent.
The many linked, highly polymorphic genes of the HLA complex provide the potential
for resolving the issues of time and place of population admixture that go well beyond simple
observations of allele sharing.
Comment by the compiler The motifs linking the populations in southeast Asia with those from
the New World could represent Amerindian (Polynesian) migrations into Asia. The FACT that
numerous similarities exist does not, nor should not, predetermine that the relationship stems
from movements of Asians into the Americas when it might better fit a model of Amerindian
movements into, in this case, Polynesia and southeast Asia (iii).
As discussed earlier migrations from Polynesia into coastal expanses of the Old World
provide an alternative explanation for source populations that may have admixed with earlier
founding populations. Where islands are concerned the preservation of pre-existing populations
following Polynesian contact can be demonstrated as a dichotomy between genetic markers in
earlier and later populations can be confirmed. The examples best identifying this occurrence
are found in studies differentiating Highland Populations in Borneo and New Guinea and as
well, Australian Aborigines from coastal groups. Here the original Pleistocene populations are
seen as remnant populations surviving the coastal pressures of later arriving people, migratory
Polynesians. Taiwanese aboriginals may be primarily Polynesians and not a mostly remnant
Pleistocene population, while in Madagascar, 70% of the population is Polynesian and 30%
African in there mtDNAs, this because the Polynesians were the first to people Madagascar, an
island that lies nearly 800 miles from the African coast. AMH
22
______________________________________________________________________________
Karen Olsen Bruhns
Ancient South America
Latin American Antiquity [Vol. 6 No. 4,1996]
Reviewed by Thomas F. Lynch
When she is not so good, it seems almost deliberate, as in chapter 18, "Intercontinental
Movements before Columbus." Here Bruhns is one-sided, even polemical, nearly branding all
diffusionism as racist. Perhaps this is in reaction to editorial insistence that she say something
about all those fascinating ideas on early oceanic traffic. Such reaction would be an
understandable, if naughty, response to an editor who confused the Guiana Highlands with the
Guinea region of western Africa throughout chapter 3 (pg. 375).
Comment by the compiler An ongoing problem that persists within academia, one that retards
the exploration of potentially viable alternatives, is that one must conform to the consensus or
suffer the pains of unbridled ridicule. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Marta M. Lahr
Who Were the First Americans?
Mammoth Trumpet - October 1996
There's an argument going on regarding whether the eastern and western populations of
Tierra del Fuego represent two separate dispersals, or whether their differences were acquired
from an original point of colonization. The western group, the canoe Indians, are relatively more
gracile, and there were important differences in terms of subsistence strategy, and the two
populations were virtually isolated from each other. This argument still goes on, and really until
there is material with associated dates that cover the Holocene, I don't believe the issue will be
resolved. From the recent bones, I'd say they represent the same population that has acquired
certain differences in place (pg. 5-6).
For me, the actual source of the ancestors of Amerindians within Asia is still unknown.
Along the Asian Pacific Coast there were generalized Mongoloid populations that could have
been a source for the Paleoindians.
From more mainland areas, there were typical Mongoloid populations that could have
been the source for such groups in the Americas. And, from Mongolia, in late-Pleistocene times,
there were populations with Eurasian affinities that could have been yet another source, as the
metric analyses of W.W. Howells and the genetic analyses of L.L. Cavalli-Sforza would point
out. It should be noted, however, that other morphological and genetic sources don't point to a
Eurasian contribution in the makeup of Amerindians (pg. 6).
23
I have no strong feelings about the timing of entry to the Americas, and at the time I drew
those maps I thought the evidence from Pedra Furada was pretty strong. I have since been told
by several people that it is really not enough to make a case, and I have been treating the
colonization of the Americas as a process of the last 15,000-12,000 years. The morphology can
be accommodated either way (pg. 6).
Comment by the compiler (emphasis added) There exists in the American Indians a great deal
of variance in cranial morphology. Do references to Eurasian or Asian types indicate
primogenitor continental similarities due to small founding populations? If individual New
World tribal affinities are as variant as many have come to believe then one could suppose
greater time depth for geographic locals with the differences evidence of great time depth. This
is concordant with linguistic isolates separating regional population differentiation. We will find
in this -- and my earlier compilation -- that dental, genetic, and linguistic data can be seen to
support individual differences where geographically isolated population retains a unique set of
differences. Ryk Ward et al. (1991) suggested that the discovery of "extensive genetic diversity"
represented in his published study of the mtDNAs of the Nu-Chal-Nulth was not unique to them
in that the still unpublished data on the Maya mtDNA suggests that they too maintained
extensive genetic mtDNA diversity. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Alan L. Bryan
Praehistoria No. 1
Latin American Antiquity [Vol. 6 No. 4, 1996]
Obsidian, basalt, chert, and other exotic stones had been carried into the cave. In a
separate analysis of the flaking debris from the lowest component, Estela Cuneo, on the basis of
her identification of bifacial thinning flakes, suggests that the occupants had made bifacial
preforms and projectile points; but the lack of broken bifaces seems odd. The nearby Cueva
Cuyin Manzano yielded a few retouched flakes and scrapers, but no finished bifacial artifacts in
the oldest deposits dated between 10,000 and 8,000 B.P. Rita Ceballos (El Sitio Cuyin Manzano,
Serie Estudios y Documentos, No. 9, Centro de Investigaciones Cientificas de Rio Negro,
Viedma, Argentina, 1982) was most likely correct when she suggested that the earliest occupants
of the region fashioned only unifacial artifacts (pg. 374).
Comment by the compiler Stone tool hunting industries developed later in the New world then it
did in the Old World. This is consistent with my believe that the subsistence strategies found in
the American mid-Pleistocene was not descendent of an Old World industry but that the
sophistication derived from mans exploration of the Old World was isolated by the geographic
barrier that did not wane until the end of the last Ice Age. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
M.A. Zago, M.H. Tavella, B.P. Simoes, R.F. Franco, J.F. Guerreiro and S.B. Santos
Racial Heterogeneity of DNA Polymorphisms Linked to the A and the O Alleles of the
ABO Blood Group Gene (pgs. 67-72)
24
Some restriction sites described here re common for the A and O alleles, indicating that
they may predate the A-O divergence, while other polymorphisms may be more recent since they
are different fro the two alleles (pg. 70).
The demonstration of polymorphisms linked to the ABO blood group in Amerindians is of
additional interest, since these populations have only O blood group (Roychoudhury & Nei,
1988). We have recently demonstrated that the O mutation observed in Indians is the same that
predominates among Caucasoids and Blacks, i.e. a single-nucleotide deletion in the
glycosyltransferase gene (France et al. 1994). Our present results reveal that the O allele is
polymorphic among the Indians, and the two haplotypes have different frequencies from those
observed among Caucasians (pg. 71).
Comment by the compiler The scenario that best fits the explanation I endorse is; that the
ancestral condition for our species was the O blood group. That Old World people would
develop new polymorphisms linked to the ABO blood groups would follow the logical expansion
of our species into a new set of environments, i. e., the continents of the Old World. The
adaptations secured in the Old World could have led to resistance's not accumulated in the
ancestral populations of the new World. In the same vain, the polymorphisms already present in
an isolated population' might arrive into another hemisphere, unwelcome, and, as a result, might
have led to the extinction of that worlds original Hominid populations. I am referring here to an
accidental cause for the inevitable extinction of Homo erectus populations that may have
resulted from an exodus of Homo sapiens from the Americas. AMH
SIBERIA
______________________________________________________________________________
Maureen L. King and Sergei B. Slobodin
A Fluted Point from the Uptar Site, Northeastern Siberia Science Vol. 273, pgs. 234-236
The earliest firmly documented tradition in the New World, the Paleoindian tradition
(11,200 to 8500 years B.P.), begins with a distinctive series of fluted lanceolate bifacial points.
Data from northeastern Siberia are too few to indicate much about the colonization of Beringia
(3); however, the earliest firmly documented tradition in eastern Siberia (the Upper Paleolithic
Diuktai culture from the Aldan basin, 35,000 to 10,000 years B.P.) (4) is thought (5-7) to bear
little resemblance to Paleoindian traditions. The origin of fluting has been controversial and
involves a debate not only about the source of a distinctive technology, but also about the
peopling of the Americas (8) (pg. 634).
One of the bifaces is a fluted point (Figs. 3 and 4). The point is finished, although there is
a lateral fracture across the blade. This break occurred sometime after the flute was removed.
The two fragments were found directly beneath the tephra and were ~ 4 m apart. A longitudinal
channel flake scar on one face of the point extends from the base to just below the tip where it
terminates in a stepfracture. The channel flake appears to have been removed with sufficient
force to cause most of the platform to collapse and to detach a small flake on the reverse face.
Additional damage is evident at the tip, but this is recent.
25
Although the Uptar collection shares some affinities with early Beringian complexes, it
does not fit squarely within any of them. The presence of lanceolate points offers a tempting
link with the Paleoindian tradition in the Americas. However, the morphology of the points does
not fit the classic Paleoindian form: they are smaller in size and lack grinding on the edges and
base. Furthermore, other elements of the Paleoindian tool kit are lacking (for example, gravers).
Comment by the compiler The dominant paradigm that continues to be tested is the Asian origin
for Paleoindian Traditions. The alternative explanation, that is striving to be fully tested, is a
northern movement into deglaciating North America of populations who developed Paleoindian
tradition from within the Americas.
______________________________________________________________________________
M. Ilyas Kamboh, Michael H. Crawford, Christopher E. Aston, and William R. Leonard.
Population Distributions of APOE, APOH, and APOA4 Polymorphisms and Their
Relationships with Quantitative Plasma Lipid Levels among the Evenki Herders of Siberia
The complete absence of the APOA4*2 allele, which is a unique marker of white
populations, provides further evidence that the Evenki are genetically isolated from other
population groups of Russia. The near complete absence of the APOA4*2 allele in aboriginal
populations of America has been noted previously (Kamboh et al. 1991; De Knijff et al. 1992).
A relatively high frequency of the APOH*3, APOA4 HincII -, and APOA4 insertion alleles in
the Evenki may have been attained through genetic drift.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Four Founding Lineage Hypothesis for the New World: A Critical Reevaluation,
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 241-246, 1996.
D. Andrew Merriwether and Robert E. Ferrell
The four lineages can be defined as follows (see Table 1): lineage A by a HaeIII site gain at nt
663; lineage B by a 9-bp deletion between the genes for cytochrome oxidase II and the tRNA for
lysine; lineage C by a HincII site loss at nt13259 and an AluI site gain at nt13262; and lineage D
by an AluI site loss at nt 5176. The mutations defining lineages A and B are largely Asianspecific, while those defining lineages C and D are found in both Asian and non-Asian
populations. The mutations for lineages C and D are Asian-specific when accompanied by an
AluI site gain at nt 10397 and a DdeI site gain at nt 10394. More recently, Bailliet et al. (1994),
Bianchi and Rothhammer (1995), and Merriwether et al. (1994) have suggested that lineages A,
C, and D may be broken into A1, A2, C1, C2, D1, and D2 by the presence or absence of a HaeIII
cut at nt 16517 and that all these variants entered the New World, and not just one representative
of each haplogroup as suggested by Torroni et al. (1992a, 1993a,b; Torroni and Wallace, 1995).
p. 241
One can see in Fig. 2 that many of the populations have all four founding lineage types (a
number even have all of the subtypes) and that all types can be found in North, Central, and
South America. Multiple lineage variants are found in all three putative waves of migration
(Amerind, NaDene, and Eskaleut). We believe that this distribution is most consistent with a
single wave of migration. It is neither realistic nor parsimonious to believe that the same
lineages ended up in all these populations, across two continents, by two, three, or more separate
26
migrations. Further, Merriwether (1993) demonstrated that there was little or no gene flow
between many of the Chilean and Peruvian samples in this study, indicating that there is
considerable population structure in many New World populations, inconsistent with a
panmictic model of Amerindian variation and dispersal. Therefore, the data can best be
interpreted to support a model where a single migration peopled the New World (p. 245).
Because lineage B is absent from Siberian populations, and virtually absent from Alaskan
populations, we do not find Siberia to be a likely home for the founding population for the New
World. We hypothesize that the founding population for the New World should have had all
these major variants, and that the present day descendent population in Asia which has the
highest percentage of New World haplotypes is the best choice for the founding population (p.
245).
Comment by the compiler The choice of reflecting on witch direction gene flow emanates can
be challenged here by adopting Boas' "Eskimo wedge theory" (1905, 1910). By this, it is implied
that Native Americans migrated north throughout the Holocene. The evidence for the presence
of people south of the Ice Sheets 12,000 years ago must be entertained. The genetic evidence
could be seen to dovetail with this direction in gene flow considering that (1) evidence for
isolation is likely and (2) that the intersecting of post Ice Age populations was set primarily west
of the Bering Strait. Simply put, in adopting the mtDNA findings into Franz Boas' theory, we find
that Amerindian migrations into Siberia should not be just entertained, but endorsed.
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
AFRICA
______________________________________________________________________________
mtDNA Control-Region Sequence Variation Suggests Multiple Independent Origins of an
"Asian-Specific" 9-bp Deletion in Sub-Saharan Africans, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 1996, pgs.
595-608.
Himla Soodyall, Linda Vigilant, Adrian V. Hill, Mark Stoneking, and Trefor Jenkins
One wave of migration, associated with western Bantu culture, is thought to have arisen in
the region of the Cameroon grassland ~1600-700 B.C., before spreading to parts of west-central
Africa and southwestern Africa (Vansina 1984). If the 9-bp deletion was present in the founding
population of western Bantu-speakers, then we would expect to find the deletion in southwestern
Africa populations tested (fig. 1). However, the 9-bp deletion is rarely found in southwestern
African and western African populations (fig. 1), suggesting that the deletion was not present in
the Bantu homeland prior to the Bantu expansion. The presence of the deletion in some western
Africans (Merriwether et al. 1994) could be due to recent gene flow or an independent origin of
the deletion (p. 605).
In conclusion, the 9-bp deletion in sub-Saharan Africans and that in Asians have different
origins, and, in fact, several lines of evidence suggest that the deletion arose in Africa more than
once. The distribution and the frequencies of the 9-bp deletion in sub-Saharan African
populations suggest that its spread in Africa may be due to the recent "Bantu expansion." The 9bp deletion, in conjunction with control-region sequence data, should thus be a useful mtDNA
marker for examining the routes of migration of Bantu-speakers that have been hypothesized on
the basis of linguistic and archaeological evidence (p. 606).
27
Comment by the compiler The Bantu have been linked with Phoenician Mediterranean
populations while this sumation should not surprise readers of my work; that Phoenicians could
be related to Polynesians since Phoenicians are known as the "People of the Sea" and the
Polynesians Motif is found in the first people to settle Madagascar. That the background for
African populations with the Polynesian motif is not indicative of other more direct Melanesian
subset of mtDNAs is intriguing. The consequences of admixture in Africa and Asia, for
expanding Polynesian populations, should be entertained.
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Diagenesis of bone from Border Cave: implications for the age of the Border Cave
hominids, Journal of Human Evolution, 31, 1996, pps. 499-506
Andrew Sillen and Alan Morris
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) sequence at Border Cave (KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa)
has been purported to contain very early examples of anatomically modern Homo sapiens
(amHs), supporting the idea that anatomically and behaviorally modern people appeared first in
Africa (Beaumont et al, 1978; Rightmire, 1979). A number of specimens are central to this
argument including BC3, the well-preserved skeleton of an infant recovered in 1941 from a
burial associated with MSA layers (Cooke et al., 1945), and BC5, an anatomically modern
mandible also associated with the MSA excavated in 1974 (Beaumont et al., 1978; Beaumont,
1980; de Villiers, 1976). The bearing of these and other Border Cave hominids on the timing
and location of the emergence of amHs depends upon the demonstration that they are of the
same age as the sediments from which they were derived. Some investigators have argued that
BC3 and BC 5 are somewhat better preserved than faunal remains from the MSA layers of
Border Cave, suggesting that the human specimens might be derived from more recent intrusive
burials (Klein, 1989; Parkington, 1990). Unfortunately efforts to directly date the BC5 mandible
using AMS 14C dating have been unsuccessful because of insufficient collagen (Stringer, pers.
comm.). (p. 499)
Comment by the compiler The evidence of "more recent intrusive burials" for the Border Cave
amHs samples parallel's similar findings of amHs from Klaisies River Mouth in southern Africa.
This is worth noting. Contrarily, the indications of intrusion for evidence of human hearths and
fingerprints in New Mexico's Pendejo Cave is readily implied but far from proven. In contrasting
these examples; the implications for a 90 to 200 ky presence for modern human occupations in
the Old World are widely publicized (though scholars have "critiqued the evidence of the
consensus view") while comparable definitive proof of mid-Pleistocene Amerindian occupations
are incontrovertibly brushed aside. Perhaps the presence of people in the Americas before they
can be proven to be in the Old World (i. e. > 45 ky) is relevant and worthy of further scientific
scrutiny into the significance such an occupation might warrant evolutionary theory.
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Race and Three Models of Human Origin, American Anthropologist, Vol. 97, No. 2, June
1995, pps. 231-240.
Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda C. Jackson
28
Studies of several Y-specific sequences (using polymorphic DNA probes) suggest that the
smallest allele represents the original form of any sequence in question. The diminutive Bi-aka
people of Central Africa were found to have retained the least derived (and hence most ancestral)
form of the many Y-chromosome polymorphisms currently expressed in world populations
(p. 235).
______________________________________________________________________________
Current Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 1, February 1986 pgs. 56-62
Ronald Singer and John Wymer
On Binford on Klasies River Mouth: Response of the Excavators
In his Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth, Binford (1984) aims at "evaluating the
relative roles of scavenging versus hunting in the subsistence tactics of ancient hominids," in this
case the populations of the Tzitzikama Coast of South Africa in the Late Pleistocene. With an
attitude of "healthy skepticism" he has questioned and contradicted the conclusions of Klein
(1976) and considers these people of the South African Middle Stone Age not efficient hunters
of large game but in a transitional stage between a virtual reliance on scavenging and the
development of elementary hunting techniques that at least allowed them to take small antelopes.
This is a surprising conclusion, but, as he stresses, our surprise may be conditioned by more than
a century of equating in our thoughts "ancient man" and "man the hunter." Perhaps it is true, and
our ancestors were not truly equipped to bring down the larger mammals, including elephant,
until the relatively sophisticated times of the Upper Palaeolithic. Alternatively, as the sharptongued Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed it in considering a person's self-adjudged genius, "the
contrary is, of course, possible (pg. 56)."
In the process of looking at the contexts of the faunal remains, Binford has (1) turned the
stratigraphical sequence virtually upside down, (2) rejected the early date for the mandibular
fragment of Homo sapiens sapiens, and (3) cast doubt on the ability of the Middle Stone Age
knappers to make and use formidable projectile points. We think that he is wrong in doing so,
and, clearly, on the first item his study stands or falls. We will take the three points in turn,
recognizing that unless one consults our excavation report (Singer and Wymer 1982) much of
the reference to particular parts of the site or archaeological levels and assemblages will be
difficult to follow. We hope that serious students will not take our word or Binford's but check
for themselves (pg. 56).
2. The early date for H. sapiens sapiens. The above discussion vindicates the assignment
of a very early date to a gracile mandible of H. sapiens sapiens in Layer 10 of Shelter 1B, in fact
the earliest date for modern man so far from any site in the world and one corroborated to some
extent by the material from Border Cave (Butzer, Beaumont, and Vogel 1978, De Villiers 1976).
Thus we reject Binford's statement (p. 242) that "there is simply no factual basis for any claims
for great antiquity of the gracile human remains nor of the industrial facies called Howieson's
Poort (pg. 56)."
Reply by Lewis R. Binford
29
They present this property of the lithic assemblage as diagnostic of MSA I in spite of the
fact that it occurs in Level 24 of Shelter 1A, which is classified as MSA II. I think it should be
clear that they do so simply because they consider the bottom levels of Cave 1 and Shelter 1B
roughly contemporary. In short, they select this property to warrant their position; it is not an
independent fact demonstrating a temporal trend. We see here the operation of an assumption
accepted as being "true" by the excavators, namely, that contemporary archaeological remains
should be similar (pg. 57).
It should also be noted that shifts in proportional frequencies of denticulates and scrapers
have repeatedly been shown not to be indicative of general temporal trends in early
archaeological contexts (Volman 1981). Against this knowledge, should we uncritically accept
this fact in support of the argument that the original chronological proposals of Singer and
Wymer are the most probable? The rational answer to this question must be a resounding no; to
do so would be to commit the logical fallacy of the affirmation of the consequent (pg. 58).
They assert that my chronological suggestions are based on "theoretical faunal seriation"
and a higher 18O/16O ratio "on one shell" from Shelter 1B. The faunal seriation to which they
refer is, however, not "theoretical"; it is controlled by the stratigraphy of Cave 1. Because
Shelter 1B is not stratigraphically related to Cave 1, the only way to estimate its age is to
compare its formal properties with properties of other assemblages whose chronology is
controlled in a stratigraphically documented sequence, and I did just that for the relative
proportions of bush-loving species versus grassland-loving species (Binford 1984:43).
Moreover, as I have pointed out, the 18O/16O value for the only specimen tested from Shelter 1B
does not correspond to the values obtained from other specimens submitted in order to date the
MSA I assemblage and would as easily fit a sea-temperature condition after the Howieson's
Poort occupation of Shelter 1A. That the Shelter 1B specimen was lumped with the MSA 1
suggests that the only criterion for dating the Shelter 1B materials was the fact that they rested
on the same shingle beach notch as the Cave 1 sequence. It is almost an archaeological truism
that when geologically dated surfaces are used as chronological indicators, nothing predating the
formation of the surface should occur on the surface but anything postdating the formation could
occur on that surface. This fact is not inconsistent with a Howieson's Poort-MSA III dating for
the Shelter 1B deposits, and there is no compelling reason to accept the deposits as having
accumulated contemporaneously with other deposits resting on similar surfaces. The excavators
have assumed a continuous period of accumulation for the entire Klasies River Mouth site
despite the fact that in their site description they recognize a phase of weathering of
undetermined duration at Level 13a (Singer and Wymer 1982:24-25). The chronological
lumping of stratigraphically distinct levels without analytical justification is a questionable
strategy at best (pg. 61).
There is no demonstrable trend in the frequency of trimmed butts unless one first
assumes a date for the Shelter 1B materials; relative frequencies of scrapers versus denticulates
are notoriously unreliable as chronological indicators in other known sequences; and the simple
analogous placement of deposits on a common surface does not indicate contemporaneity. I
therefore conclude that all the evidence based on demonstrable trends (judged as reliable
temporal indicators) through the Klasies stratigraphic units yields a consistent and reinforcing
pattern in which Shelter 1B fits between Howieson's Poort and MSA III (pg. 61).
30
The fascinating Howieson's Poort assemblage yielded (in some of its expressions) tool
forms that are generally unknown worldwide from assemblages dating prior to 35,000. Even
more surprising is the occurrence of some tool forms that are generally unknown from most
other parts of the world prior to 20,000 years ago. If future research sustains (a) that Howieson's
Poort is a temporal "phase" and not an alternating facies within a variable Middle Stone Age
suite of assemblages and (b) that this "phase" is dated prior to 35,000 years ago, these findings
will be surprising in and of themselves. In my book I suggested that the climatic interpretations
of faunal frequencies that have been both used to date sites (given a vague and conflicting
understanding of climatic changes through the last glacial era) and cited in support of Butzer's
environmental interpretations were quite likely to be erroneous, since the shifts in faunal
frequency at Klasies River Mouth were related to directional changes in the way hominids
exploited animals in their subsistence and not a direct reflection of climatic events as had been
supposed.
The interpretive problems that have been created by the uncritical acceptance of
propositions regarding the absolute age and the relative chronology at Klasies River Mouth will
not quickly be resolved. I cannot help but be surprised by the excavators' suggestion as to how
this resolution might be achieved: by my digging the remnant deposits. First, this is already
being done by Jannett and Hillary Deacon. More important, further excavation is not the answer.
The problems we face have arisen from the meanings assigned to archaeogological facts by the
excavators and their research collaborators. Collecting more archaeological facts does not
impact the important act of inference, upon which depends the conversion of archaeological
observations into statements of absolute age, the relative chronological placement of
stratigraphically unrelated deposits, and the meanings given to frequency variations in artifacts,
fauna, and molluscs. Those meanings are given by us, and their accuracy is dependent on how
we use knowledge, on our general understanding, and on the state of the middle-range research
to which we appeal for justification of our interpretations (pg. 61-62).
Comment by the compiler The primary reason I bring to this discussion Africa's Klaisies River
mouth site is that it is often identified as the quintessential early occupation for Homo sapiens
sapiens in Africa. Accepting the evidence of a modern human occupation as defined by the
Howieson's Poort Industry is not a matter of dispute. However, what is disputed is the evidence
behind suggesting that this occupation dates to 90 thousand y.b.p. Binford addressed this and
other issues in his 1984 book, Faunal Remains from Klaisies River Mouth and in his "Response
here to the excavators response to his book.. Binford and Singer and Wymer both identify that
the HP Industry is a true example of modern human behaviors while contesting that this
occupation is no more than a contemporary to modern human occupations of Europe or
evidence for modern humans in Africa 50 thousand years earlier. Binford and others, including
Parkington 1989, have challenged the "consensus view" that , following Singer and Wymers
1982 publication, would ask readers to accept an earlier time frame for modern man in southern
Africa then can be truly established by archaeological evidence (90,000 y.b.p.). Binford and
others have successfully established that Homo erectus was still occupying the site 36,000 y.b.p.,
while identifying that the modern human jaw bone found in the, supposed, earlier contexts was
most likely the result of intrusion or mixing of Homo erectus' Middle Paleolithic with the more
recent modern human' Later Stone Age archaeological contexts. I would find that the original
excavators C-14 dating of the HPI levels, are a reliable indicators of the modern human
occupation's actual age, this being between 36,200 and 26,400 years ago.
31
While conservative archaeologists are inclined to dismiss mid-Pleistocene occupations in
the Americas we are, alternatively, less critical of earlier dates for modern human occupations
from the Old World. Is there evidence of bias ? This example is offered as case in point. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Francisco J. Ayala and Ananias A. Escalante
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 188-201, 1996
The Evolution of Human Populations: A Molecular Perspective
We evaluate studies of mtDNA, Y-chromosome, and microsatellite autosomal
polymorphisms and conclude that they are consistent with the MHC result that no narrow
population bottlenecks have occurred in human evolution. The available molecular information
favors a recent African origin of modern humans, who spread out of Africa approximately
100,000 to 200,000 years ago (pg. 188).
The HLA Complex
The human leucocyte antigene (HLA) complex consists of about 100 genes located in
chromosome 6, within a DNA segment of four million bp in length. The HLA genes specify
molecules with a critical role in tissue compatibility and the defense against foreign substances.
These genes are arranged in two distinct groups, class I and class II, separated by several score
genes that have functions mostly unrelated to the immune response (Fig. 1) (pg. 188).
The HLA complex is homologous to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of
mammals and other vertebrates (Kaufman et al., 1995; McDevitt, 1995; Schwaiger and Epplen,
1995). MHC molecules present on the surfaces of certain cells bind fragments of proteins
(antigens) and present them to thymus-derived lymphocytes (T cells) expressing T-cell receptors
on their surfaces. The clone of T lymphocytes that bear receptors matching a particular
combination of protein fragment and MHC molecule is stimulated, by the contact with the
antigen-presenting cells, to proliferate and to initiate the specific arm of the immune response,
including the secretion of specific antibodies. The MHC molecules thus protect against
pathogens and parasites in general (pg. 188).
Some proponents of this African replacement model argue further that the transition of
archaic to modern H. sapiens was associated with a very narrow bottleneck, consisting of only
two or very few individuals who are the ancestors of all modern mankind. Thus proposal is
buttressed by an interpretation of mitochondrial DNA analysis showing that the diverse
mitochondrial DNA sequences found in modern humans coalesce to one ancestral sequence, the
"mitochondrial Eve" or "mother of us all," that existed in Africa about 200,000 years ago (Cann
et al., 1987; Stoneking et al., 1990; Vigilant et al., 1991). This conclusions has been challenged
on grounds concerning (i) whether the coalescence is to Africa, (ii) the time of the coalescence,
and (iii) the inference of a population bottleneck (e.g., Templeton, 1992) (pg. 195).
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
EUROPE
______________________________________________________________________________
32
A View of the Neolithic Demic Diffusion in Europe through Two Y Chromosome-Specific
Markers, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:, 1996, pps. 964-968.
Ornella Semino, Guiseppe Passarino, Agnese Brga, Marc Fellous, and A. Silvana SantachiaraBenerecetti
By performing principal components analysis on numerous classical markers, synthetic
maps were constructed for Europe and the Near East (Menozzi et al., 1978), which show the
Near East as the center of concentric clines of decreasing gene frequencies and give value to the
theory of demic spread of agriculture.
Further support to this theory is given by a large population survey we carried out on some
Y-specific polymorphisms. Two markers have been found, the distribution of which illustrate
well the process of "wave of advance." p. 964
This makes the 8-kb allele an indictor of the neolithic demic diffusion of the farming culture in
Europe. It is worth noticing that, outside Europe, this allele was only found in areas where
migrations from the Near East took place, (Tunsia and Algeria for the Phoenician migration,
India for the Indo-European, and Ethiopia for that of Geeze speakers) (Renfrew 1989; CavalliSforza et al. 1994).
On the other hand, the 49a,f/TaqI-Ht15, which is only sporadically found outside Europe,
shows a gradient of frequencies opposite in direction to that of the 8-kb allele, having its
maximum value in northwestern Europeans. The geographic distribution of this haplotype is
quite similar to the first sinthetic map for Europe, which, according to Cavalli-Sforza et al.
(1994), is that of the preneolithic European gene pool. It is intriguing that its highest frequency
(60%) was observed among Basques (Santachiara-Benercecetti et al. 1994), a very ancient
European population that has been in the present place for a long time, evading contact with
neolithic and subsequent migrations (Aranzadi 1889; Boshc-Gimpera 1943; Cavalli-Sforza 1988;
Piazza 1988; Bertranpetit and Cavalli Sforza 1991). The 49a,f-Ht 15 can therefore be considered
a proto-European haplotype, which was diluted by the gradual mixing with the neolithic
newcomers. It is worth noticing that in ~300 observations of Ht15 we have never found this
haplotype on Y chromosomes carrying the p12f2-8-kb allele.
In conclusion, this study has revealed two distinct Y-chromosome markers, the p12f2-8-kb
allele, specific to Caucasoids and the 49a,f-Ht 15, specific to Europeans, which are valuable to
detect genetic admixtures. They show an opposite gradient of frequencies from the Near East to
western Europe, illustrating well the "wave of advance" of the neolithic demic expansion in
Europe. Moreover, the haploid condition of the Y chromosome, and therefore the absence of
recombination, makes the proto-European Ht 15 an important tool in evaluating the contribution
of European paleolithic males in the present day populations in Europe (p. 966-967).
Comment by the compiler The expansion into Europe may have originated from Asia and not
Africa. This conclusion can find archaeological support in the development of more refined
Paleolithic tools across the russian steep westward as the upper Paleolthic become it's distintive
self. Subsiquent admixture during the neolithic might have gone iether direction when
considering pre Neolithic expansion of Upper paleolithic europeans into northeast Asia. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
The First Europeans, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 36-44.
Jean-Jacques Hublin
33
Neandertal skulls and mandibles display a singular morphology. Although some of their features
can occasionally be found in other hominids, the combination of characteristic traits is unique.
European Neandertals are rather short and sturdy, with a long trunk and short legs. The skeleton
is robust, and the muscle attachments imply a powerful body. The head is remarkable. It is big,
enclosing a brain comparable in volume to that of modern humans, but the braincase and face are
very long, the forehead is low, and the browridges protrude. The mandible is strong and lacks a
projecting chin. Seen from the rear, the braincase has a rounded, almost circular shape in
contrast to the pentagonal shape observed in both the earlier Homo erectus and modern humans.
The face is structured around a large nasal cavity, and its middle part projects forward. The bone
below the eye socket is flat or even convex, receding laterally. The cheekbones are weak and
oriented obliquely. This projecting face contrasts strongly with the short, flat face of the first
modern humans. Other anatomical details of the ear area and rear and base of the skull are
unique to Neandertals. The occipital bone, at the back of the skull, is marked by a conspicuous
depression called the supra-iniac fossa (p. 38).
The long biological continuity is echoed in the archaeological record. For nearly a
century, archaeologists separated the Middle Palaeolithic (then thought to be limited to between
80,000 and 40,000 B.P.) from an earlier, more primitive Lower Palaeolithic. With the
excavation and study of new sites, this boundary has become more and more difficult to draw.
In contrast, the arrival of modern humans in Europe is reflected in the sharp division between
the Middle Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Upper Palaelothic (ca. 40,000 B.P.). The
former, mainly represented by the Mousterian assemblages, are basically composed of sidescrapers, points, notches, and denticulates shaped from flint flakes. Bone objects are rare and
very simple. The dwelling sites do not seem very structured. In the Upper Palaeolithic there is a
large variety of flint tools, many shaped from elongated blades and bladelets. There are
numerous bone and antler objects, especially spear points. It is the time of prehistoric art, of
symbolism, of well-structured dwellings. It is quite likely the time of a new social organization
(p. 43).
Comment by the compiler Recent verification of an old theme. Contriving amHs from these
earlier European inhabitants is definitively more procrustean then is my theory that attempts to
unify human origins to the Americas by supposing relative continuity of form over time in
accordance with theories proposed by A. R. Wallace and Sir Arthur Keith. AMH (All emphasis
added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Sequence Diversity of the Control Region of Mitochondrial DNA in Tuscany and Its
Implications for the Peopling of Europe, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1996,
pps. 443-460.
Paolo Francalacci, Jaume Bertranpetit, Francesc Calafell, and Peter A. Underhill
34
The results from various independent approaches point to a remarkable homogeneity among
several European populations, namely Basques, Sardinians and Britons, but also reveal some
differences caused by the geographic location and cultural past which have influenced their
population history. As shown by different parameters (average number of individuals per
haplotype and diversity coefficient, H'), the variability among individuals in Tuscany is
intermediate between the more variable Middle Easterners and the European populations
mentioned, the Basques having the lowest degree of heterogeneity. p. 457
The pattern found is compatible with the effects of a migration wave originating in the Middle
East and reaching distant places in Europe including the western part and the islands. This
pattern of expansion has been proposed with a very clear archaeological basis for the Neolithic
expansion (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984) and for the expansion of anatomically modern
humans, inferred from paleoanthropoligical data (Stringer, 1989) (p. 458).
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Treasure of the Sierra Atapuerca, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 45-48.
Paul g. Bahn
These bones represent about 90 percent of all pre-Neandertal bones ever found in Europe,
and they provide an extraordinary chance for specialists to study such early humans. They seem
to have been robust, with males between five feet, seven inches and more than six feet tall and
weighing an average of about 140 pounds. The teeth are very worn from chewing plants, but
there are not cavities and overall the bones show very few signs of illness or trauma. The
remains include three remarkably well preserved skulls, found in July 1992, with large
Neandertal-like browridges and projecting faces, though very different from Neandertals in
overall shape. One skull has a capacity of 1,390 cubic centimeters, which is bigger than Homo
erectus and early Homo sapiens and lies within the range (1,200-1,700 cubic centimeters) of
modern populations (p. 48).
Comment by the compiler Highlighted are examples of terms that have lumped inappropriately,
anatomically modern humans with earlier European hominids that are certainly, in the view of
most anthropologists, not the same species. Wolpoff would like us to lump all the hominids
together into one taxonomy when the differences definitively confirm that we are anatomically
and behaviorally, a separate species. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Neandertals of the Levant, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 49-50.
Erella Hovers, Yoel Rak, and William H. Kimbel
Base of infant Neandertal skull from Amud Cave, Israel, has oval foramen magnum, though
which the spinal cord passed, a genetic characteristic indicating Neandertals did not evolve into
modern humans, whose foramen magnum is round (p. 49).
In the past decade innovative dating techniques have shattered the belief that Neandertals
were precursors of modern humans. We now know that modern humans existed in Skhul and
Qafzeh caves as long as 120,000 to 90,000 years ago, while the Neandertal skeleton from Kebara
35
Cave dates to only 60,000 years ago. What was the relationship between the two groups? How
different were they biologically? What were their behavioral differences and similarities? We
began excavating at Amud in 1991, hoping to answer these questions (p. 50).
We discovered the Amud infant during our second field season. The child's remains bear
classic Neandertal traits. First, it has no chin. Second, the foramen magnum, the large hole at
the base of the skull through which the spinal cord and blood vessels pass, is oval. This trait
appears to be accentuated in Neandertal babies, less so in mature individuals, but in both cases it
differs from the round foramen magnum of modern humans. Third, masticatory muscles left
massive insertion marks on the inside of the jaws in a pattern characteristic of adult Neandertals
in the Levant and Europe, but not found in modern humans (p. 50).
Comment by the compiler I and others beg to differ that we "now know that modern human
existed in Skhul and Qafzeh caves as long ago as 120,000 to 90,000 years ago" when "Continued
facial reference to Skhul and Qafzeh as craniometrically 'fully anatomically modern' is not
responsible to the craniometric data (Corruccini 1992 pg. 437)" as it is confusing to everyone,
both layman and specialist - to infer that they are the same species as our own by referring to
them as early amHs, proto Cro-Magnons, archaic Homo sapiens or whatever (see Corruccini
(1992) on page 2 of my compilations from 1995). (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
The Great DNA Hunt, Archaeology, September/October, 1996, pps. 37-44
The Eve study was criticized almost immediately on methodological grounds. Alan
Templeton, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed out flaws in the statistical
tests and sampling methods used. Its results, he argued, were in part dictated by the order in
which the information was fed into the computer. The same data could produce simpler trees,
one of which also included Asians in the deepest root. Others questioned the reliability of
"molecular clocks" and the rate of mutation in the human mtDNA used in calculating Eve's date
(p. 40).
Renfrew's book sparked intense debate, receiving some acceptance among fellow archaeologists
but rejection by many linguists. Even so, the peopling of Europe seemed to have taken place in
two stages: the replacing of Neandertals by modern humans by about 30,000 years ago,
followed by the spread of farming peoples, speaking Indo-European or not, beginning about
9,000 years ago (p.42).
Surprisingly, four of the five groups (1, 3, 4, and 5) date to well before the last glacial peak, with
ages ranging from 35,000 to 25,000 years ago. The fifth group (2), however, is much younger in
Europe (6,000 to 10,000 years Ago) but has clear affinities to Near Eastern mtDNA sequences
(p. 44).
Sykes and his colleagues propose that these are genetic echoes of the spread of agriculture, and
they are fairly weak. They conclude that , far from being overwhelmed by incoming farmers, the
indigenous hunter-gatherer population remained intact and learned how to farm. (p.44).
Often thought to be a remnant of the Palaeolithic population, they speak a non-Indo-European
language and have a relatively rare blood type, Rh negative, in a much higher percentage than
36
other Europeans. According to Sykes, the evidence suggests that it was largely farming, not
farmers, that spread across the continent (p.44).
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
N. Cappello, S. Rendine, R. Griffo, G.E. Mameli, V. Succa, G. Vona and A. Piazza
Ann. Hum. Genet. (1996), 60. 125-141
Genetic Analysis of Sardinia: I. Data on 12 Polymorphisms in 21 Linguistic Domains
The first inhabitants of Sardinia were pre-Neolithic: a date for human settlement of
9120±380 years ago in the north-central part of the island (Spoor & Sondaar, 1986) is also the
earliest date for any island in the Mediterranean (pg. 126).
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:185-203, 1996
Martin Richards, Helena Corte-Real, Peter Forster, Vincent Macaulay, Hilde Wilkinson-Herbots,
Andrew Demaine, Surinda Papiha, Robert Hedges, Hans-Jurgen Bandelt, and Bryan Sykes
Paleolithic and Neolithic Lineages in the European Mitochondrial Gene Pool
Consideration of the diversities and geographic distribution of these groups within
Europe and the Middle East leads to the conclusion that ancestors of the great majority of
modern, extant lineages entered Europe during the Upper Paleolithic. A further set of lineages
arrived from the Middle East much later, and their age and geographic distribution within
Europe correlates well with archaeological evidence for two culturally and geographically
distinct Neolithic colonization events that are associated with the spread of agriculture. It
follows from this interpretation that the major extant lineages throughout Europe predate the
Neolithic expansion and that the spread of agriculture was a substantially indigenous
development accompanied by only a relatively minor component of contemporary Middle
Eastern agriculturalists. There is no evidence of any surviving Neanderthal lineages among
modern Europeans (pg. 185).
The overall topological similarity between the genetic map produced by the first principal
component and an archaeological map of radiocarbon dates tracing the spread of farming from
the Near East led to the formulation of the demic diffusion model (Ammerman and CavalliSforza 1984). In this model, there is a slow expansion of people from the Neolithic source
population into Europe that is driven by population growth resulting from agricultural surpluses
and either displacing or absorbing the less numerous Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations as it
proceeds (pg. 185).
Its opposing model, cultural diffusion, proposes that, on the contrary, there was minimal
intrusion of people from the Near East but that some of the local hunter-gatherer groups in
Europe entered the Neolithic either independently or as a result of the diffusion of ideas and the
trade of crops (Dennell 1983). An intermediate model, pioneer colonization, assumes some role
for migrations from Western Asia to Europe but sees this in terms of selective colonization by
fairly small groups (Zvelebil 1986; Willis and Bennett 1994; van Andel and Runnels 1995).
37
Here we examine which, if any, of these models best explains the observed distribution
of mtDNA lineages in Europe (pg. 185).
Group 5 lineages are also uncommon but widespread in Europe, at around 7%, but are
unusually common in Finland, where they reach 21%, possibly suggesting Saami influence
(Sajantila et al. 1995). Like group 4, they are absent in other parts of the world sampled to date.
Group 3 lineages are even less frequent in Europe, and 3A lineages are confined within our
sample mainly to Britain. They are also found in the Middle East, and most 3A members share
transitions at 129-223-311 with Papuan lineages (Sykes et al. 1995) (pg. 194).
It is striking that, in the Middle East, but not elsewhere in the world, we find the two
missing ancestral haplotypes that link the western and central European clusters (pg. 194).
With this treatment, group 3 emerges as the oldest of the European lineage clusters, with
a divergence time of 50,500 years, although whether this divergence occurred entirely in Europe
is open to question, since this group includes several singly occurring outliers resembling
modern African and Asian haplotypes (in the data of, e.g., Horai et al. 1991; Vigilant et al. 1991;
Graven et al. 1995; Sykes et al. 1995) (pg. 194).
Among group 1 lineages there was a conspicuous absence of the root (CRS) haplotype in
the Middle East sample, although a reduced median network for the Middle East (not shown)
reveals that, even though not in the sample, it is present as an intermediate node separating
groups 2 and 3. This suggests that, although the source of group 1 had its origins in the Middle
East, the bulk of the current diversity arose in Europe and the correlation between age and
arrival/expansion time is not unduly distorted (pg. 194).
Furthermore, no individual lineages in our extensive data set are sufficiently diverged to
be realistically attributed to Neanderthal ancestors. We conclude (in agreement with Torroni et
al. 1994) that there are no surviving Neanderthal lineages among the sample, supporting the view
that Neanderthals became extinct (Mellars 1992) and, though coexisting in Europe with
anatomically modern humans, did not interbreed to any significant extent (pg. 196).
However, these three lineage groups account for <20% of the modern European sample.
The major groups, 1 and 4, which together comprise nearly 70% of European haplotypes, are
considerably younger. Both show starlike patterns of expansion from their respective root
haplotypes at some time since 25,000 years ago (pg. 196).
Of the three models for the spread of agriculture outlined earlier, our interpretation favors
the pioneer colonization model, whereby there was selective penetration by fairly small groups
of Middle Eastern agriculturalists of a Europe numerically dominated by the descendants of the
original Paleolithic settlements. The ensuring conversion of this population from a huntergatherer-fishing economy to one based on agriculture would than have been achieved by
technology transfer rather than large-scale population replacement (pg. 197).
It may be that the Basque population appears as a distinctive outlier in most classical
genetic analyses not because it is the sole relict of a pre-Neolithic population but rather because
of a long period of isolation and genetic drift that has accentuated allele frequency differences at
some loci compared with other European populations. It is interesting that the small sample of
38
Finns, who also speak a non-Indo-European language, do not resemble the Basque pattern but
are distinguished by an unusually high frequency of group 5, which may be attributable to Saami
influence, since group 5 includes a haplotype motif present at high frequency in the Saami
(Sajantila et al. 1995), who also speak a Finno-Ugric language (pg. 197).
Comment by the compiler This represents a good example of the "Replacement Model" with
evidence for the spread of agriculture overlying the original population makeup that originated
outside of Europe. That is, Neandertals are not believed to have contributed to the formation of
modern humans in Europe. I have italicized some major themes associated with the
"Replacement Model."
______________________________________________________________________________
Archaeology, Vol. 49 No. 1, January/February 1996 pg. 2
IN THIS ISSUEPeter A. Young, Editor-in-Chief
Hustling Hominids
Late nineteenth-century Europeans believed humans evolved on their continent and
sought to identify a forerunner of the handsome Cro-Magnon hunters, they being a more
honorable and acceptable ancestor than the brutish Neandertal. How far we have evolved in a
mere hundred years (pg. 2).
Comment by the compiler Many turn-of-the-century Americanists championed the idea that
Cro-Magnon predecessors originated in the Americas. Among these authorities were Alfred
Wallace, Charles Lummis, Florentino Ameghino, J. D. Whitney, and Alexander Chamberlain the
first student to graduate from an American university with a degree in Anthropology. Native
Americans have long believed in an autochthonous origin though science has yet to adequately
test this alternative. It has adequately dismissed any notion to test this alternative to this day
despite nearly 170 years of human origin research that has focused solely on the Old World,
continuing to find only, that no resolution is in sight. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Scientific American, April 1996
Science and the Citizen - Out of Food?
Although Neanderthals carved up corpses some 200,000 years ago–whether for food or
ritualistic purposes is not known–the signs of butchery in the Spanish bones seem to indicate a
gruesome early record of cannibalism (pg. 20).
Comment by the compiler The behavior of these non-humans would be that that many
anthropologists would have us accept as our human ancestors. The alternative explanation of
pre-Upper Paleolithic behaviors might be those defining the limited definitions supporting a
39
more simplistic behavior akin to what is suggested from the peat bog of Chile's mid-Pleistocene
sight at Monte Verde. Here it is no longer presumed that humans lived along side Pleistocene
fauna with no visible evidence for developed hunting technologies defining contemporary Upper
Paleolithic occupations of Europe. A new modus-operandi for our earliest ancestors behavior,
an alternative to that defined above. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Robert R. Sokal, Richard L. Jantz and Barbara A. Thomson
Am. J. P. Anthro. 100:35-47 (1996)
Dermatoglyphic Variation in Europe
There is some support for demic diffusion from the southeast in finger patterns and ridge
counts. We compare these results to those of previous studies and note that Lapps and
Icelanders are outliers with respect to both genetics and finger tip variables, whereas Tatars are
outliers with respect to craniometrics and dermatoglyphics (pg. 35).
Closer examination of the factor scores reveals that for most factors there is considerable
concentration of values near the middle of the sample distribution and that there are only a few
outliers. As we have seen, these outliers include Tatars, Faeroese, Lapps, Icelanders, Orkney
Islanders, Aland Islanders, and various West Finnic populations (pg. 43).
The data from all three classes of variables in our studies are consistent in presenting most
European populations as a central undifferentiated cluster (pg. 45).
Comment by the compiler Are the northern Europeans representative of the earliest Europeans,
survivors of the Neolithic revolution, or both? AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Elisabeth J. Manderscheid and Alan R. Rogers
Am. J. P. Anthro. 100:1-5 (1996)
Genetic Admixture in the Late Pleistocene
Contemporary human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is strikingly uniform. Published
literature now includes data from several thousand mitochondria, all of them so similar that they
might have come from a population of a few thousand individuals (pg. 1).
Consequently, if archaic mitochondria exist in the modern gene pool, they probably differ
from other modern mitochondria at several times the number of sites that we are used to seeing
in pairwise comparisons. We will refer to such mitochondria as "divergent," and we emphasize
that no one has ever found one (pg. 2).
______________________________________________________________________________
Eudald Carbonell, Marina Mosquera, Xose Pedro Rodriguez, and Robert Sala
Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 51, 1995
The First Human Settlement of Europe
Human paleontologists have been researching and debating the place and age of the origin
of our genus for decades. In the last years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth, Asia was accepted as the birthplace of humankind (Dubois 1894). Later the focus
40
shifted to South Africa (Dart 1925; Broom and Schepers 1946). In the 1960s, Central and
Eastern Africa picked up the leadership position in terms of antiquity (Leakey 1971). Currently,
few scholars doubt the African origin of humankind, with all its implications (pg. .
Once the place of origin was clarified, questions have arisen concerning the age of the first
human occupations of the Eurasian continent.
Comment by the compiler No mention of the perspective endorsed by this compiler. If we looked
into this alternative would the evidence from the Old World fall into place, i. e. two separate
evolution of hominids isolated by oceans with replacement of one by another a viable alternative
to punctuated equilibrium? AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Guido Barbujani, Michele Stenico, Laurent Excoffier, and Loredana Nigro
Human Biology, April 1996, v. 68, no. 2 pp. 201-215
Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation across Linguistic and Geographic Boundaries in
Italy
Analysis of Molecular Variance. Sequence heterogeneity among localities and between
groups of localities was assessed by means of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA)
(Excoffier et al. 1992). In this method sums of squared sequence differences between
individuals are compared within populations, between populations of the same (geographic or
linguistic) group, and between such groups. The significance of the observed variances is
calculated by a nonparametric randomization approach. Haplotypes are assigned to random
locations, and the appropriate molecular variance is recalculated; the procedure is repeated until
an empirical null distribution of variances is obtained. The observed variances are finally
compared with the null distribution (pgs. lost).
Along the course of the Po River in a region where distributions of nuclear allele
frequencies indicate barriers to gene flow, mtDNA sequences show a different spatial pattern.
Localities separated by physical or linguistic barriers do not seem to have exchanged fewer
migrants than random pairs of localities. Estimated allele genealogies do suggest a slight excess
of migratory movements within the three areas defined by physical or linguistic boundaries;
however, this excess is far from being statistically significant and can be accounted for by the
effects of isolation by distance (pg. lost).
On the other hand, so far, most studies on DNA have compared samples collected at
distant locations, such as the Near East and Sardinia (Di Rienzo and Wilson 1991); it comes as
no surprise that substantial genetic differences between samples were detected. On a smaller
geographic scale the picture is far from clear, but it is known that there is little mtDNA diversity
between European populations (Excoffier 1990; Bertranpetit et al. 1995). Therefore it seems
important to ask whether mtDNA sequence differences show significant structure in small areas,
provided that these areas can reasonably be suspected to harbor substantial genetic diversity
(pg. lost).
Comment by the compiler The situation from New World genetic studies suggests that
Amerindian populations maintain "extensive genetic diversity" with little evidence for
"bottlenecks" unless you accept the evidence of a dramatic founding effect that the Wallace lab
41
does not itself continue to endorse. The common genetic heredity for the founding population in
the Old World better serves the perspective of a bottleneck there then in the New World where
Rebecca Cann herself once stated there appears to be 33 Eves! AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Ancestry and interrelationships of the Indians and their relationship with other world
populations: A study based on mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms, Ann. Hum. Genet., 60,
1996, 409-422.
S. Barnabas, R.V. Apte and C.G. Suresh
A comprehensive analysis of the mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms supports the identification
of three major world ethnic groups, the Africans, the Asians and the Caucasians (Merriwether et
al. 1991). p. 409
In his dendrogram, the Indians cluster closer to Sihalese, Iranians and Afghans than to Malays,
Chinese and Bhutanese. p. 410
A study of the Indian mtDNA types observed by us points to a population which shares a
common lineage with the Caucasians and Asians, rather than of a population which has been
separated for a longer period. Thus it is possible that migrations of modern man into the
subcontinent, from a lineage shared with the Caucasians would have given rise to the present day
Indian populations (p. 420).
______________________________________________________________________________
F. Calafell, P. Underhill, A. Tolun, D. Angelicheva, and L. Kalaydjieva
Ann. Hum. Genet. (1996). 60. 35-49
From Asia to Europe: mitochondrial DNA sequence variability in Bulgarians and Turks
Current mutation rate estimates date this expansion in times ranging between
50 000 and 100 000 years ago and, thus, would correspond to the arrival of anatomically modern
humans in Europe (pg. 35).
Most clusters contain strings of sequences linked by one or two base differences. This
pattern would be expected if the central sequence were ancestral to the rest. In that case, the
mean number of differences between the sequences in a population and their putative ancestor
would follow a Poisson distribution with a mean l = mlt, where m is the mutation rate per
nucleotide per generation, l is the sequence length and t is the coalescence time, e.g. the time (in
number of generations) elapsed since the first mutation event created a sequence different from
the ancestral (Hudson, 1990) (pgs. 44-45).
This may indicate that most of the Indian sequences sprang from an ancestral sequence
that was different from the reference. The coalescence time mentioned above agrees with the
replacement model for the diffusion of anatomically modern humans into Europe (Stringer,
1989), rather than with the multi-regional model advocated by Wolpoff (1989), which implies
coalescence times of at least 500 000 ya (pg. 45).
42
Cluster 4 was again mainly Indian, and included nearly all the sequences with a T at
position 16223. This substitution is found in frequencies of 4•4% in Basques, under 20% in other
Europeans, up to 60% in Asians and Oceanians, and between 60% to 100% in Africans (pg. 4546).
Two major East-West expansions could account for the observed pattern: the occupation
of Europe by anatomically modern humans about 40 000 ya (Klein, 1989) and the diffusion of
agriculture into Europe in the Neolithic, 10 000 to 4000 ya (Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza, 1984)
(pg. 47).
Our population trees allow only the distinction between Indian and non-Indian populations and
reveal the close relationship between populations across the European continent. After the
expansion of modern humans in Europe, high levels of migration, and especially the Neolithic
demic diffusion might have contributed to the homogenization of the genetic landscape of
Europe (Menozzi et al. 1978; Rendine et al. 1986; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1993). Identical or
closely related mtDNA sequences tend to occur in different European populations, revealing that
sequence lineages have frequently moved from one population to another (pg. 48).
Comment by the compiler Europe seems more homogeneous when compared to populations of
from the Americas. By themselves the "proposed founding lineages" that continue to grow in
number, are much more divergent from each other then those that make-up continental
populations of the Old World. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Human Biology, April, v. 68, no. pp. 217-229
Orosomucoid (ORM1) Polymorphism in Arabs and Jews of Israel: More Evidence for a
Middle Eastern Origin of the Jews
S. Nevo, A. Picornell, A. Miguel, J.A. Castro, A. Joel, N. Heno, M. Liron, and M.M. Ramon
Another allele attaining polymorphic frequencies was observed mainly in East Asian
populations (Japan, China, Taiwan, and others). This is a duplication of the *F1 and *S alleles,
*dF1,S, also designated ORM1*2,1 (Yuasa et al. 1987). This allele reaches frequencies of up to
16% in Japan (Umetsu et al. 1988a,b; Yuasa et al. 1990a,b) but was observed as a rare allele in
non-Asian populations (Sebetan and Sagisaka 1988; Umetsu et al. 1989a).
The finding of the *dF1,S Asian allele in three Amerindian populations (Salzano et al.
1990; Umetsu et al. 1989b) fits the Asian origin of those populations (pg. lost).
Comment by the compiler Alternatively, these links could be related to Amerindians by arguing
recent migration from the Americas. Again, the Polynesians must be interpreted as having
explored the Mediterranean and of having left an genetic impact there as they were the first
people to discover Madagascar. There are simply to many genetic similarities shared between
coastal southeast Asians, Polynesians, and Amerindians to continue to disregard alternatives to
the consensus opinions linking of similarities shared by remotely related populations. AMH
NORTHEAST ASIA
______________________________________________________________________________
43
HLA Class II Alleles in Ainu Living in Hidaka District, Hokkaido, Northern Japan,
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1996, pps. 1-8.
Makoto Bannai, Katsushi Tokunaga, Tadashi Imanishi, Shinji Harihara, Kiyoshi Fujisawa,
Takeo Juji, and Keiichi Omoto
Principal component analysis of various populations based on HLA class II allele frequencies
places the Ainu population midway between other east Asian populations, including Wajin, and
Native Americans. These observations may support the hypothesis that the Ainu people are the
descendants of some Upper Paleolithic populations of northeast Asia from which Native
Americans are also descended (p. 1).
[Remember, Amerindians might have migrated into Northeast Asia in Holocene times
and have admixted withh late Asian Upper Paleolithiooc decendents of the Ainu. AMH]
Although HLA antigens play a key role in the recognition of foreign antigens, there is
evidence that each haplotype has been well conserved during human evolution (Tokunaga et al.,
1988). Because of these features, HLA alleles and haplotypes serve as powerful markers in the
field of human population genetics (Tokunaga et al., 1996). Accordingly, we also compare the
similarity of Ainu to a number of Asian and American populations (p. 2).
The first four components were extracted, and contributed 44.7%, 13.0%, 10.9%, and 7.4%,
respectively (76.0% cumulative), to the total variance. For the first PC (Fig. 2A), the Ainu had
the sixth-highest score (0.19), following those of five Native American populations, Xavantes
(2.07), Tlingit (1.71), Mataco-Wichi (1.55), eastern Toba (1.20), and North American Indians
(0.77) (p. 4).
The Ainu were close to some Native American populations for the third PC and close to east
Asian and some Native American populations for the fourth PC. On the whole, the Ainu did not
constitute a cluster with any other ethnic group in this analysis. On the contrary, in terms of PC
analysis, the Ainu were situated midway between Native Americans and a cluster of east Asian
populations including Japanese (Wajin) (p. 4).
(emphasis added AMH)
[Comment Are the Ainu - another - Asian population admixed with Amerindian ?
AMH]
It should be noted that a small tribe sometimes appears to be distantly related to closely
related ethnic groups for certain reasons. . . . A similar situation was observed in Native
American tribes, and possible reasons which have been proposed include a small number of
founder individuals, selective advantage of some alleles in terms of resistance to illness, or
random genetic drift in the gene pool in isolated tribes (Cerna et al., 1993). These genetic factors
could affect the principal component analysis results (p. 6).
Comment by the compiler The evidence from the New World continues to indicate that Tribal
populations are at least as diverse as the southern Basque and the Scandinavian Sammi are from
each other in Europe. If separate waves can not be demonstrated for these earliest Europeans
then we need not conclude that their age is any younger then is the duration of the Pleistocene the time separating the initial European arrival of amHs - marking the dawn of the Upper
Paleolithic - and the later Neolithic settlement 9,000 years ago. AMH
44
______________________________________________________________________________
The Peopling of Japan in Archaeology September/ October 1996 pg. 43
Mark Rose - managing editor; Archaeology Mag.
Hybridization theories claim that modern Japanese are descended from both groups, in
which case they should have genes deriving from both the Jomon and Yayoi people.
Transformation theories posit that modern Japanese people gradually evolved from the Jomon.
Proponents claim that much of the variation present today in Japanese existed in the original
Jomon population. They believe the chief contribution of the Yayoi was cultural rather than
genetic.
The ancestors of all men with Y2 were traced to Henan Province in northern China.
According to Hammer and Horai, this indicates that people from northern China, the ancestors of
the Yayoi, migrated through Korea to Japan, where they contributed to the genetic makeup of
modern Japanese. This contradicts transformation theories that hold Japanese populations are
derived solely from Jomon people with no Yayoi admixture.
The Ainu, who pursued a hunter-fisher life-style through the last century, may retain much
of the genetic background of the Jomon. If so, Hammer and Horai predict that Ainu will
genetically resemble the Okinawans.
______________________________________________________________________________
A Discordance between mtDNA Diversity and Blood-Protein Heterozygosti yin Northern
Siberian Populations, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59, 1996, pps. 1167-1168.
Boris A. Malyarchuk
Jorde et al. (1995) reported a discordance between mtDNA and nuclear DNA (nDNA)
sequence diversities among Africans, Asians, and Europeans. These authors noted that the
degree of relatedness estimated for these groups, as displayed in neighbor-joining trees, differs
depending on whether mtDNA or nDNA data are used.
A similar discordance is observed between northern Siberian aboriginal populations.
Among northern Asian peoples, the greatest degree of heterozygosity in blood-protein genes is
found in the northernmost groups, with decreasing nDNA diversity at these loci in the more
southerly groups (Solovenchuk 1989) (p. 1167).
Sequence diversity in mtDNA control regions is low in circum-Arctic peoples (Shields et
al. 1993). Significantly, however, this diversity increases in more southerly populations, in
marked contrast to the pattern seen in nDNA (p. 1167).
Their data describe 11 RFLPs that define four mtDNA haplotypes. Diversity (simle h; Nei and
Tajima 1981) calculated from table 1 of Torroni et al. (1993) ranges as follows: Eskimo (n = 50),
.338 ± .077; reindeer Chukchi (n = 24), .796 ± .046; and Koryak (n = 46), . 819 ± .026.
Differences between these diversity values were not determined, because of the small sample
sizes involved, but the geographical trend toward higher nDNA diversity and lower mtDNA
diversity in more northerly Siberian groups appears to be real and consistent (p. 1168).
45
As Jorde et al. (1995) note, mtDNA polymorphisms might not be selectively neutral, and it is
possible that the loss of mtDNA diversity in northern populations reflects a greater degree of
selection for optimal mtDNA haplotypes under more extreme conditions. Other models may be
proposed. In any case, the problem of discordance between mtDNA and nDNA diversities will
require further study.
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:579-590, 1996
Satoshi Horai, Kumiko Murayama, Kenji Hayasaka, Satoe Matsubayashi, Yuko Hattori,
Goonnapa Fucharoen, Shinji Harihara, Kyung Sook Park, Keiichi Omoto, and I-Hung Pan
mtDNA Polymorphism in East Asian Populations, with Special Reference to the Peopling
of Japan
The intergenic COII/tRNALys 9-bp deletion was observed in every East Asian population
with varying frequencies. The D-loop sequence variation suggests that the deletion event
occurred only once in the ancestry of East Asians (pg. 579).
Of note is the finding that 50% of the mainland Japanese had continental specificity in
which Chinese or Koreans were dominant, while <20% of either Ryukyuans or Ainu possessed
continental specificity (pg. 579).
Many of the Chinese who inhabit Taiwan are known to be direct descendants of migrants
from mainland China after the seventeenth century. Moreover, the present Chinese samples do
not include those from Taiwanese aboriginal populations who show linguistic and physical
affinity to the Austronesian-speaking populations of Southeast Asia (Bellwood et al. 1995) (pg.
280). (emphasis added AMH)
It is worth noting that the Ainu and Ryukyuans did not possess any sequence types in
common, though these two populations are considered to be direct descendants of the Jomon
people (discussed in Relationships between the Ainu and Ryukyuans) (pg. 582).
By contrast, 9.8% of the Ainu sowed both Chinese and Korean specificity. Ryukyuans
showed almost the same breakdown in specificity (10% Chinese and 8% Korean). It is relevant
to note that one third (17 individuals) of the Ainu exhibited the two dominant clusters (C1 and
C16), and 50% of the Ryukyuans showed Ryukyuan specificity, indicating unique phylogenetic
affiliation for the two ethnic groups of Japan (pg. 582).
A total of 34 East Asians exhibited the 9-bp deletion, and all of them were included in the
C2 cluster in the phylogenetic tree based on D-loop sequences (fig. 2). This indicates that the
deletion event occurred once in the ancestry of East Asian lineages (pg. 584).
46
These results lend support to the hybridization theory on the origin of mainland Japanese.
The transformation theory contends that genetic variation in mainland Japanese derives solely
from their Jomon ancestors and does not reflect a Yayoi admixture (Suzuki 1981; Mizoguchi
1986). Since the mtDNA sequence polymorphism found indicates that the mainland Japanese
have been considerably influenced by a continental gene flow, the transformation theory
obviously is incompatible with the present results (pg. 584).
A phylogenetic tree indicated that the Ainu and Ryukyuans are closest to each other and
are also closely allied with the mainland Japanese and Koreans. However, the three Japanese
populations were quite distinct from contemporary Southeast Asians in the phylogentic tree (pg.
584-585).
Nei (1995) favors a modification of the transformation theory (called the "out-ofnortheast-Asia hypothesis") that posits: (1) modern human first entered into Japan ~30,000 years
ago from northeast Asia; (2) an occasional gene flow from northeast Asia continued until 12,000
years ago, when the Japanese archipelago disconnected from the Asian continent; and (3) the
Yayoi migration, while making a large cultural contribution, had little influence on the gene pool
of modern Japanese (pg. 585).
Substitution of the frequencies of continental specificity into this equation yields the
following results: the proportion of mtDNAs derived from the Yayoi is 65%, and the proportion
derived from the Jomon is 35%. Therefore, the mtDNA data support the hybridization
hypothesis that migrations during the Yayoi Age (2,300—1,700 years ago) and the subsequent
Kofun period (1,700—1,400 years ago) made a significant maternal contribution to the gene pool
of modern Japanese (Yamaguchi 1982; Hammer and Horai 1995) (pg. 585).
The results strongly suggest that ancestral populations for the present Ainu and
Ryukyuans must have existed as different populations when the Yayoi migration took place
~2,300 years ago. Analysis of shared sequence types showed that the Ryukyuans shared one
type each with the mainland Japanese and Koreans, and two types each with both the mainland
Japanese and Koreans (table 1). In contrast, the Ainu shared three types with the mainland
Japanese and one type each with Koreans and Chinese. Furthermore, the common types shared
among three populations observed in the Ainu and Ryukyuans are different. These results imply
that, in the Yayoi Age, some ancestral Ryukyuans might have stayed in the western part of
Japan, whereas the ancestral Ainu population already was inhabiting Hokkaido, even if some of
the Ainu and Ryukyuans descended from a common ancestral Jomon stock (pg. 586).
Comment by the compiler The dominance of the Island's Population (65%) by Yayoi people in
less then 3,000 years suggests that similar displacement of the original Late Paleolithic
populations may have occurred - elsewhere. The survival of - interior groups - in New Guinea,
Australia, Borneo, and other previously occupied Islands may represent a lasting occupation of
earlier Paleolithic peoples. The similarity shared between Taiwanese and the linguistic
similarity to Austronesian speakers may represent replacement following the arrival of coastal
oriented Polynesians into Taiwan. Replacement in Japan remains a different story altogether.
AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. of Physical Anthropology, 100:523-530, 1996
P.L. Tsai, J.W. Hsu, L.M. Lin, and K.M. Liu
47
Logisitic Analysis of the Effects of Shovel Trait on Carabelli's Trait in a Mongoloid
Population
The Mongoloid group selected for study was the Bunun tribe of aborigines who inhabit
an alpine area in Taiwan. The effects of sex and age on Carabelli's trait were controlled in this
investigation, as was the association between tooth size and Carabelli's trait. Results show that
males were more likely to have Carabelli's trait expressed on teeth than females. The
buccolingual diameter of Carabelli's trait teeth was larger than that of teeth without the trait.
After adjusting for sex, age, and tooth size, the existence of the shovel trait increased the
likelihood of having Carabelli's trait by a factor of three, an effect that is significant (pg. 523).
Shovel trait occurs almost universally, and occurs particularly frequently in all
Mongoloid groups, including Bunun aborigines, Chinese, Eskimos, and American Indians
(Hrdlicka, 1920; Dahlberg, 1951; Hanihara, 1968). Carabelli's trait is less commonly found in
these populations (Lee and Goose, 1972). On the other hand, populations derived from Europe,
such as American whites, have a low frequency of shovel trait and a high frequency of
Carabelli's trait (Hrdlicka, 1920; Lee and Goose, 1972; Mayhall et al., 1982). The literature
shows that Caucasoid and Mongoloid population frequencies differ remarkably in the expression
of Carabelli's trait on the upper right first molar and shovel trait on the upper right central incisor
teeth (Koski and Hantala, 1952; Moorrees, 1957; Lee and Goose, 1972). As a consequence of
this, shovel and Carabelli's traits have been regarded as dental markers of Mongoloid and
Caucasoid ancestry. Understanding the real interaction between these two prominent dental
markers is therefore of biological and anthropological interest (pg. 528). (emphasis added
AMH)
Comment by the compiler Question, what is the relationship to be surmised when identifying
derived traits and/or lost similarities due to adaptation, selection and/or the maintenance of
"primitive characteristics? What does this tell us about other similarities when defining
relationships based on common or divergent trait analyses.?
POLYNESIA
______________________________________________________________________________
The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol 26 (1992)
Hawaiian Customs on Kaho'Olawe
Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli
Oral traditions identify Lae O Kealaikahiki as the major departure point from where
Hawaiians left when they traveled between Hawaii and Tahiti in the 13th century. The name
translates into Point of the Pathway to Tahiti. The Hawaiians probably waited here for the ideal
winds, currents, and other conditions to launch their voyages to Tahiti in the strong southerly
Kealaikahiki Channel and current (pg. 243).
Peter Buck concluded through his research that Ke-ala-i-kahiki was the primary
departure point for voyages to Tahiti:
48
The point of departure for the south was the passage between Kahoolawe and
Maui which was named Ke Ala i Kahiki (the Course to Tahiti). In a translation
from Kamakau, Alexander (181b) refers to the southern sailing directions.
Holupaa, the North Star, was left directly astern; and when Hokupaa sank below
the northern horizon on reaching the Piko o Wakea (the Equator), Newe became
the guiding star to the south. No sailing directions were given for the return
voyage to the north. (pg. 245)
Two known accounts also place Kealaihahiki as a point landing in Hawaii after the long journey
from Kahiki. Placing Kealaikahiki as a point of arrival would coincide with the oral tradition
related in the chant shared above from Harry Kunihi Mitchell (pg. 245).
The first caught fish were given as offerings on the ko'a, upon returning from a day of
fishing as gratitude for the guidance of deity of the shrine. The ko'a serve as land markers for
ocean fishing grounds. In some cases, the fish were fed at certain grounds to assure that they
would be plentiful in those designated areas, and the ko'a serves as a land marker (pg. 247).
Comment by the compiler The use of "indigenous knowledge" and the maintenance of this
through oral tradition can only continue to help scientific interpretations and the identification
of novel ideas to test. Like the use of the sweet potato in providing a platform in moving the
stone monuments of Easter Island, the verification of ancient history can be sustained when
applying scientific testing to stories based on translations passed down by myth. Perhaps we
should continue to test the believes of the people studied with more vigor. (emphasis added
AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:253-256, 1996
Sandro L. Bonatto, Alan J. Redd, Francisco M. Salzano, and Mark Stoneking.
Lack of Ancient Polynesian-Amerindian Contact
In the second, two mtDNA Polynesian sequences not related to the B lineage matched
sequences from Amerindians and were postulated to be evidence of contact (Sykes et al. 1995)
(pg. 253-254).
Among B lineage sequences, the CR variable sites in Polynesians are distinct from
Amerindians. The suite of sites common in Polynesians (Hagelberg and Clegg 1993; Hagelberg
et al. 1994; Lum et al. 1994; Redd et al. 1995; Sykes et al. 1995)–the Polynesian motif–includes
three HVS-I substitutions: a C at position 16,217, a G at position 16,247, and a T at position
16,261 (relative to the reference [Anderson et al. 1981]). The Polynesian motif has been
postulated to be of recent origin and to have increased in frequency together with the expansion
of proto-Polynesian populations (Redd et al. 1995). In contrast, Amerindian CR sequences of
the B lineage commonly have only one of these variable sites (C at 16,217), which is common in
49
Southeast Asia (Melton et al. 1995). In our Amerindian sample no CR sequences have the
Polynesian motif, although one individual from Amazonia has two of the variable sites but lacks
the G in position 16,247. This Amerindian individual also lacks a C at position 146 in HVS-II, a
polymorphism that is common in Polynesian motif sequences (Redd et al. 1995). (emphasis
added AMH)
Two possible explanations for the sharing of identical sequences between Polynesians and
Amerindians are (a) retention of an ancestral Asian sequence and (b) admixture (ancient or
recent) (pg. 254).
The Tahitian lineage 47 (Sykes et al. 1995) is identical to an Argentine Mapuche (Ginther
et al. 1993), a Central American Kuna (Batista et al. 1995), a Mongolian (Kolman et al. 1996),
and a Siberian Chukchi (Shields et al. 1993). The B lineage Tongan 33 HVS-I sequence (Redd
et al. 1995) is identical to one of the two most frequent Amerindian sequences and occurs in the
three American subcontinents. However, the HVS-II sequence of this Tongan is different from
all HVS-II Amerindian sequences described thus far. The last case of sharing is the Cook Island
lineage 45 (Sykes et al. 1995). This sequence is different from all of the completely sequenced
HVS-I Amerindians (~600 individuals) but is identical to a Chilean Mapuche (Horai et al. 1993),
whose first 100 bp of the HVS-I were not sequenced. If we disregard these first 100 bases for all
other known human sequences, this sequence is also identical to a North American Athapascan
(Shields et al. 1993), two Siberians (Torroni et al. 1993b), a Mongolian (Kolman et al. 1996),
and one Asian from Tibet (Torroni et al. 1993a). Therefore, all the shared sequences between
Polynesians and Amerindians are much more likely explained as a retention of ancestral Asian
sequences by both descendant populations than by an ancestral or recent post-divergence
admixture (pg. 254-255).
The results (table 1) indicate that Polynesian populations have a much more recent origin
than Amerindian populations and that the two diverged ~30,000 years ago. This divergence
estimate is considerably older than the date of 3,500 years ago associated with early Polynesian
archaeological sites (Bellwood 1989).
In conclusion, the presence of the B lineage and the mating of three other sequences
between Polynesians and Amerindians probably reflect a shared Asian origin rather than direct
contact (pg. 255). (emphasis added AMH)
Comment by the compiler The predilection of the authors; that the "the mating of three other
sequences between Polynesians and Amerindians probably reflect a shared Asian origin rather
than direct contact (pg. 255)" does not disprove the alternative (see my Background iii
disposition) as the high mutation rate of mtDNA could explain the recent derivation of "the
Polynesian motif." That lineage B mtDNAs are associated with more ancient Amerindian
distributions would identify the likelihood that this marker is evidence of a Amerindian founding
population for the Polynesians. Post Polynesian expansion/exploration into coastal Asia (and
other remote areas of the Old World) is a viable explanation for the widespread distribution of
type B Amerindian mtDNAs. Here Bonatto et al. suggest that a single southeast Asian mtDNA associated with the recent expansion of Austronesian speakers - would be the only founding
marker associating an Amerindian derivation from the discernible pool of southeast Asians
mtDNAs. Separate migrations from the Americas into Siberia and Polynesia continue to be
ignored in light of conflicting evidence to the contrary. Rebecca Cann and others are now
entertaining these long dismissed alternatives as the following "Reply" articulates. AMH
50
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:256-258, 1996
R.L. Cann and J.K. Lum
Mitochondrial Myopia: Reply to Bonatto et al.
Further, they admit that their analysis cannot exclude sex-biased dispersal, which could be
tested with additional nuclear genetic markers (specifically, short-tandem-repeat or Ychromosome haplotypes) and sequences from viral isolates, such as HTLV-1 (Miura et al. 1994)
(pg. lost ).
At best, Bonatto et al. can say only that their restricted subset of Polynesian lineages may
not have been in direct contact with the Americas.
Even the "at-best" scenario is flawed, on the basis of sequences that we have detected in
the Pacific. The common B-lineage sequence found in Amerindian populations (16217) is found
in 3% of Samoans and in 74% of the Kapingamarangis whom we have studied. It is also found
in 80% of the eastern Micronesian population (3%-33%) and in two of the three western
Micronesian (7%-14%) populations that we have sampled. In addition, two substitutions found
in an Amazonians (16217 and 16261) are also found in Pacific populations throughout Polynesia
(Samoa at 20%, Kampingamarangi at 26%, Hawaii at 11%, and Rapa Nui at 7%). This lineage
is also found in 9 of 10 eastern Micronesian populations (7%-50%) and in western Micronesians
(2%-17%).
Therefore, the analysis may be consistent with either the retention of ancestral lineages in
both groups or direct contact that spread the same lineages into both groups. Bonatto et al.
clearly favor the first explanation, on the basis of the nodal position of shared lineages in the
neighbor-joining tree. They ignore the frequency of those lineages within populations, yet we
and Sykes et al. (1995) have found that the nodal lineages are the most frequent sequences
detected in populations of the Pacific.
The neighbor-joining method (Saitou and Nei 1987) used here has the advantage of being
computationally fast–but has the distinct disadvantage of occasionally performing the
biologically impossible, in that it can assign a negative length to a branch (Swofford and Olsen
1990). Thus, the accuracy and precision of Bonatto et al.'s phylogenetic test remains open to
question.
We think that it is wiser to admit that the hypothesis of direct contact has not been
adequately tested. Why is the B-lineage clade, a clade most common on the western coast of the
Americas, not found in Beringia? Why does the B-lineage clade have lower sequence diversity
and a different mismatch distribution than do the major A, C, and D clades (as well as others
recently documented by T. Schurr and colleagues) in Amerindians? Why are other lineages, not
just in the B group, found in Pacific and Amerindian populations? Finally, how do we account
for the prehistoric distribution of the sweet potato in Oceania (Yen 1974)?
Just as current mtDNA data alone may be insufficient to answer the question of
"Neanderthal" gene continuity with modern European populations, the question of whether there
was limited gene flow between Native Americans and Oceanic populations is unresolved.
Comment by the compiler Shared markers should not bias the scientific testing of where they
originated. Simply put - who were first - the Amerindians or the Polynesians? And from what
51
direction does the current flow across the Pacific - towards southeast Asia. Why do we test the
similarities found between the two hemispheres' Peoples against data that is compatible with
western movements ONLY? Is there a case for separate Amerindian migrations into Siberia and
Polynesia? "All is not well in Denmark!" AMH
AUSTRALIA
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol 274, October 4, 1996
Constance Holden
Art Stirs Uproar Down Under
But that's a big if. The significance of the site hinges on its age, and many scientists are
skeptical about the dating, which was done with a relatively new technique called
thermoluminescence (TL). "Unbelievable," says archaeologist John Beaton of the University of
California, Davis. These dates are wildly out of line with everything else we know." Even
archaeologist Rhys Jones of the Australian National University in Canberra, who last year made
waves by dating two other Australian sites to 60,000 years with the same method (Science, 31
March 1995, p. 1908), warns that until more tests have been done, "we do not know how valid
the present TL claims are (pg. 33)."
Comment by the compiler The evidence suggesting an earlier presence of modern human
behavior in Australia requires a theory to go along with the TL dates as this type of human
achievement is believed to be less then 50 ky old in Asia, Europe, or Africa, (let's not mention the
Americas).
(OK, if you insist) My hypothesis for accepting an in-situ origin for mankind within the
Americas - collaborating the very early dates from Brazil, Chile, and North America - follows
that, sophisticated behaviors archaeologically associated with the first modern peopling of the
Old World was produced as a result of adaptation brought on by the exploration of the Eastern
Hemisphere. The theory suggests that makinds earlier ancestral behaviors can be traced to the
limited definitions associated with mid-Pleistocene Amerindian occupations, (not that Chile's
Monte Verde is a limited definition - though it would be if we didn't have the abundance of
eveidence preserved in the peat layer dating to 13,000 bp). The development of new subsistent
stratagies - associated with modern human occupations of the Old World - were isolated from
the Americas until the end of the last Ice Age when the refinments defining the PaleoLITHIC
found there way into the Americas, distinguishing the dawn of Paleoindian Industries. AMH
______________________________________________________________________________
J.M. Roberts-Thomson, J.J. MArtinson, J.T. Norwich, R.M. Harding, J.B. Clegg, and B.
Boettcher
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58:1017-1024, 1996
An Ancient Common Origin of Aboriginal Australians and New Guinea Highlanders Is
Supported by a-Globin Haplotype Analysis
Australians have a haplotype repertoire that is shared with New Guinea highlanders, a fact
that strongly supports a common origin of these two populations. Further, Australians and New
Guinea highlanders have a different set of a haplotypes from Southeast Asians and a lower
52
genetic diversity. This, coupled with the presence of many locally specific central Australian
haplotypes, suggests that much of the original diversity was lost in a population bottleneck prior
to or during the early colonization of Sahul and that subsequent recovery of diversity has been
accompanied by the generation of new haplotypes. These conclusions contrast with some
previous genetic studies suggesting links between Australians, coastal New Guineans, and
present-day Southeast Asians. Much of this discrepancy appears to be due to more recent
Southeast Asian [Melanesian/Polynesian] admixture on the north coast of Australia (pg. 1017).
(emphasis added AMH)
At times of lowered sea levels due to glaciation, the islands of Java, Borneo, and Bali were
joined with Vietnam and the Malayan peninsula to form the large continent of Sunda. For any
expanding or displaced Asian population of modern humans with seafaring abilities, Sahul was
accessible throughout the late Pleistocene, requiring, on occasion, a sea voyage of perhaps only
70 km. The archaeological record suggests that migration also continued eastward of New
Guinea, resulting in the occupation of the Bismarck archipelago and the northern Solomon
Islands by 30,000 years ago (Bellwood 1978; Gosden 1993) (pg. 1017). (emphasis added AMH)
A lack of association between aboriginal Australians and New Guinea highlanders was
also observed for mtDNA (Stoneking and Wilson 1989; Stoneking et al. (1990) and in early
studies on allelic variation at the HLA system (Serjeantson 1985) (pg. 1018).
In the present study, we have characterized the a-globin gene complex of Australians from
one tribe in central Australia. In contrast to Tsintsof et al. (1990), we find convincing evidence
of strong links with New Guinea highlanders, implying that migrations into ancient Sahul
originated from a single source population. We suggest that more recent gene flow from island
Southeast Asia, resulting in the aboriginal populations on of the north and northwest coasts of
Australia becoming admixed, explains some of the ambiguous results of previous studies (pg.
1018. (emphasis added AMH)
This study demonstrates that the a-globin haplotype composition of central Australians is
similar to those of the coastal and highlands populations of New Guinea. All these populations
feature high frequencies of the IIIa Haplotype and the presence of IVa and IVb haplotypes. The
distribution of group III and IV haplotypes is relatively restricted outside of Australia and
Melanesia, although they are found in some African populations. The central Australian
population is closest to the New Guinea highlanders, consistent with other genetic and
archaeological data suggesting that the early occupation of Sahul included both Australia and
New Guinea and that these people migrated from a common Southeast Asian source (pg. 1021).
The central Australians, by contrast, have negligible levels (1/200) of the most common
haplotypes that characterize Southeast Asians, and, conversely, the rare haplotype groups found
in central Australians have never been observed in Southeast Asia (authors' unpublished
observations). All these findings imply that central Australia has remained isolated from island
Southeast Asia for many millennia (pg. 1022).
Both aboriginal Australians and New Guinea highlanders have notably low genetic
diversity at a-globin and other loci, and this has been interpreted in previous studies as a result of
isolation and long-term small population sizes. However, it is possible that the original diversity
was lost in a population bottleneck prior to or during the occupation of Sahul. Also, it is likely
53
that the genetic differences found between central Australians and the New Guinea highlanders
are due to the accumulation of new haplotypes, generated by mutation and recombination, rather
than to drift in generational sampling, as would be expected if population sizes remained small.
There is no evidence that these rare haplotypes derive from populations now settled in island
Southeast Asia. The presence of locally specific haplotypes suggests moderate population sizes
and low rates of gene flow among these regions. The nonequilibrium distribution for the central
Australian aboriginal sample is consistent with population expansion, generated by natural
recruitment rather than immigration. Following the bottleneck that occurred in an ancestral
population of both Australia and New Guinea, diversity has been recovering by the incorporation
of new haplotypes (pg. 1023). (allemphasis added AMH)
Comment by the compiler There are several inferences I would like to draw from the data
presented here. One is that coastal populations in Melanesia resemble Polynesians more than
the interior groups discussed here. The second is that, the original Southeast Asians, New
Guineas, and Central Australians are believed to have shared an earlier common ancestry that
has diverged following the formation of the present interior populations, including interior
Southeast Asians. Finally, the sharing of lineages with African populations does not require that
we assume that the African populations were the ancestors of the Asian population that gave rise
to New Guineas and Central Australians if the supposed "mitochondrial Eve" was not from
Africa (see Johnson et al 1983; Templeton 1993). AMH
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
David J. Betty, Amy N. Chin-Atkins, Lynn Croft, Michaela Sraml, and Simon Easteal
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58:428-433 Letter to the Editor
Multiple Independent Origins of the COII/tRNALys Intergenic 9-bp mtDNA Deletion in
Aboriginal Australians
The deletion occurred in 4 of 156 Aboriginal Australians from Western Australia: two
(AK27 and AK1110) from the Kimberley region and two (AW218 and AW220) from the
western desert population. None of the 134 individuals screened from the Northern Territory
had the deletion, but it did occur in 4 of the 20 Cantonese (HK3829, HK3850, HK3919, and
HK3992) (pg. 429).
None of the eight individuals we found with the deletion shares the "Polynesian motif"
comprising the C at position 16217, plus G at position 16247 and T at position 16261 (pg. 429).
This result has several possible interpretations. If the AW222 mitochondrial genotype
does form part of the major Asian-derived clade, then it may represent either an ancient
divergence or a later introgression, or both. Alternatively, the few shared variable sites
described above could represent homoplasy in a region with known high rates of mutation; in
this case, AW222 could represent a third independent origin for the deletion (pg. 431).
In summary, analysis of control region sequences from four Aboriginal Australians with
the 9-bp deletion indicates that three of them represent two independent origins for the deletion.
These findings are consistent with the time depth of occupancy of the continent: humans have
been in Australia and New Guinea for at least 50,000 years (Roberts et al. 1990; Flood 1995),
with little apparent intermarriage with later Southeast Asian or Pacific populations. The fourth
54
Australian mtDNA genotype with the deletion could be part of a widespread Asia-Pacific clade,
representing either later introgression or an early divergence from the main Asian-derived clade
with the deletion [or the source being Amerindians, see Cann and Lum 1996] (pg. 431).
Comment by the compiler The "Polynesian Motif" is not found in association with Continental
Amerindian Populations indicating that it arose in Polynesians following the bottleneck that
must have occurred during their initial expansion into Polynesia. This motif's fixation
proceeded subsequent Polynesian dispersals into Melanesia, coastal Southeast Asia, Taiwan,
and Madagascar. The Region V mt DNA deletion does not appear to be a founding lineage for
any Old World interior populations suggesting to me that it may be evidence of an Amerindian
contribution to the founding population of Polynesia. There are many other genetic links (HLAs
HVS-1 and other nuclear DNA markers) that distinguish the more recent coastal Melanesians
with more native Central American populations AMH
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
GENETICS
______________________________________________________________________________
Ancient DNA, Book review in International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Vol. 6, pp. 421-423,
1996.
Edited by Bernd Herrmann and Susanne Hummel. Springer-Verlag, 1994.
The author clearly notes the general advantages of using mtDNA in aDNA studies (high copy
number, exclusive maternal inheritance, high rate of substitution) as well as the disadvantages
(as a single molecule, phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA yields a gene tree, not necessarily a
species tree (p. 421).
______________________________________________________________________________
Mutational Analysis of the Human Mitochondrial Genome Branches into the Realm of
Bacterial Genetics, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59, 1996, pp. 749-755
Neil Howell
For example, it now may be feasible to analyze the effects of selection on transmission and
segregation of this deletion and, perhaps, other mtDNA mutations as well. Second, and at a
broader level, the approach of Shenkar et al. should find widespread applicability to the study of
other mtDNA mutations. It has been recognized for several years that mammalian mtDNA
mutates much more rapidly than nuclear DNA (e.g., see Brown et al. 1979), a phenomenon with
potentially profound evolutionary implications (p. 749). (emphasis added AMH)
The conservative segregation model remains the most attractive explanation for the lack of
variance in these experimental systems, because of its compatibility with the physical
characteristics of organellar DNA molecules, but additional processes (e.g., intracellular
selection or a high threshold for phenotypic expression) also may have been contributory factors
(p. 751).
55
There is an intriguing parallel between mitochondrial genomes and endosymbiotic
bacteria, which indirectly supports the possibility that the rapid rate of human mtDNA mutation
may engage Muller's ratchet. In her important, recent study, Moran (1996, p. 2873) has made
the following statement: "cytoplasmically inherited endosymbionts have tiny populations; in
most a bottleneck occurs each host generation when progeny are inoculated. They are
effectively clonal since no recombination can occur between lineages sequestered in different
hosts and since horizontal transfer between hosts appears to be either absent or extremely rare"
(p. 752).
Rand and Kann (1996) have reached a similar conclusion, but they also have suggested that there
are opposing evolutionary "pressures" that act on different regions of the mitochondrial genome
and that there are differences in evolutionary processes among different taxa. Aris-Brosou and
Excoffier (1996) have provided some interesting insights into both the complexity of evolution in
the human noncoding D-loop and the difficulties of detecting significant departures from
neutrality. (emphasis added AMH)
Finally, the hypothesis of Muller's ratchet assumes that there is a negligible rate of mutations that
have beneficial effects and that a substantial proportion of new mitochondrial mutations may
increase fitness. Further experimental and theoretical analysis of these important topics–and of
related questions of mtDNA evolution and genetics–may hinge on the implementation of the
approaches that are reported by Shenkar et al. in this issue of the Journal. (p. 753).
(emphasis not added AMH)
Comment by the compiler That "new mitochondrial mutations may increase fitness" is intriguing
when studying the divergence of mtDNA types and Regional population differences.
(all other emphasis was added AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
The Promise of Plant and Animal DNA Archaeology September/ October 1996. pg. 41
Tabitha M. Powledge - contributing editor, Mark Rose - managing editor; Archaeology Mag.
These are startling results because cattle in the Near East were not domesticated until
about 9,000 years ago, and cattle in India and Africa were genetically distinct before then. The
latter two could not possibly be descended from domesticated Near Eastern cattle, as was
thought, but must have been domesticated independently. This discovery may reignite an old
debate in archaeology about whether plants and animals were domesticated in single locations
and then taken from one culture to another (a "diffusionist" approach), or, as appears to be the
case with cattle, were domesticated in more than one place (a "multiple centers" approach).
(emphasis added AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1996 pp. 202-219
Maryellen Ruvolo
A New Approach to Studying Modern Human Origins: Hypothesis Testing with
Coalescence Time Distributions
56
What does a molecular divergence time tell us? As we follow the history of genetic
lineages back through time, all of the lineages in a population join up or coalesce into a common
ancestral type, known as the coalescent (Kingman, 1982; Hudson, 1990), and the age of this
common genetic ancestor is known as the coalescence time (pg. 203).
We can look forward to further improvements in how to extract information about the
past from molecular data. Those who study humans will lead the way in the pursuit, because
having a wealth of data forces one to think more about how to interpret the data and to develop
new analytical methods (pg. lost). (emphasis added AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1996
David Pilbeam
Genetic and Morphological Records of Hominoidea and Hominid Origins: A Synthesis
This means that a hominid–chimp split at 5 or 6 Ma implies a monkey–hominoid
divergence no greater than about 20 to 25 Ma, not the 40 Ma required by Andrews' African
hominoid radiation at 10 Ma. Andrews' 24-Ma hylobatid and 13-Ma plus orang divergences
imply a 35-Ma cercopithecoid-hominoid divergence. These estimates cannot be considered in
isolation, for 35- to 4-Ma catarrhine ancestors imply a latest anthropoid common ancestry at 60
to 80 Ma. Preceding this would have to be a well-documented and lengthy common anthropoid
stem following the divergence of tarsioids (well over 30% and perhaps closer to 60% of the time
depth of the anthropoid radiation), implying primate origins implausibly far back in the
Cretaceous (pg. 159).
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol. 273, August 30, 1996
Adam D. Richman, Marcy K. Uyenoyama, Joshua R. Kohn
Allelic Diversity and Gene Genealogy at the Self-Incompatibility Locus in the Solanaceae
Balancing selection can maintain large numbers of alleles within populations (1, 2), and
this polymorphism persists much longer than does selectively neutral genetic variation (3, 4). At
the S locus, the transmission rate of an allele is inversely proportional to its frequency, and
populations commonly harbor as many as 30 to 50 alleles (5, 6). Alleles at this locus can be
extremely old, as reflected by their extreme sequence variability (7) and by phylogenetic
analyses that have found that an allele from one species may be more closely related to an allele
from another species or genus than to other alleles from the same species, a pattern called transspecific evolution (3, 8). Thus, historical events such as changes in population size leave an
impression that persists much longer for variation subject to balancing selection than for neutral
variation (4, 9, 10). At the major histocompatibility complex loci of vertebrates, extensive transspecific variation is found in both the cichlid fishes in Lake Malawi (11) and in humans and
other primates (12), which indicates that severe population constrictions, such as those invoked
by models of founder-event speciation, cannot have been important during speciation of these
taxa.
57
Two estimates of Ne can be derived from S-allele variability (1, 9, 10, 13). The number
of alleles present in a population reflects a short-term estimate because of strong selection for
novel alleles in populations below equilibrium and rapid relaxation to an equilibrium of diversity
after population restriction (9). In contrast, the number of trans-specific lineages inferred from
allele genealogy evolves over millions of generations (1), because the loss of trans-specific
lineages requires the extinction of all representatives of a lineage within a species. Nevertheless,
in restricted populations the loss of alleles and of trans-specific lineages will be accelerated (9).
After a bottleneck, newly generated alleles will lack the trans-specific evolutionary pattern, and
the average sequence divergence among alleles within the species will be low relative to taxa
that have not experienced a bottleneck event (pg. 1212-2114).
However, this origination rate is unable to support the extensive S-allel diversity
observed in small, isolated populations (1, 10, 13, 26). In view of the data on allel number,
which indicate a large recent Ne for P. crassifolia, we conclude that patterns of lineage
persistence within species are most likely explained by a historic population restriction that
resulted in the loss of most S-allele diversity in P. crassifolia, followed by rediversification after
the bottleneck event (pg. 1215).
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:501-509, 1996
Neil Howell, Iwona Kubacka, and David A. Mackey
How Rapidly Does the Human Mitochondrial Genome Evolve?
Segregation toward the homplasmic state can occur within a single generation in some of
these descendants, a result that suggests rapid fixation of mitochondrial mutations as a result of
developmental bottlenecking (pg. 501). (emphasis added AMH)
We describe here the use of one such empirical approach for the estimation of the rate of human
mtDNA evolution in both the D-loop and coding regions and for the analysis of the origin and
fixation of mutations within the mitochondrial genome (pg. 502).
Nachman et al. (1996) also concluded that pathogenic mitochondrial mutations may
increase the ratio of replacement polymorphisms to silent polymorphisms, although not all of
their "disease"-group individuals (Nachman et al. 1996, table 8) carried mitochondrial mutations
whose pathogenicity has been unambiguously established (pg. 506).
If a rapid divergence rate of mtDNA is confirmed, previous studies that have used D-loop
sequences for geographical and chronological studies of human evolution will have to be
reevaluated. As noted earlier, phylogenetic or relative-branch-length approaches indicate that
the time since the most recent common ancestor is in the range of 0.2–0.6 Myr. The present
results, as well as those of Lundstrom et al. (1992), suggest either a much more recent origin of
modern humans or that evolution of the mitochondrial genome is not a reliable "evolutionary
clock" (on this latter point, see Donnelly and Tavare 1995) (pg. 507). (emphasis added AMH)
The present studies provide additional evidence that mitochondrial mutations are fixed
rapidly in individuals because of "bottlenecking" during oogenesis (Hauswirth and Laipis 1982;
Howell et al. 1992). According to this model, only a small subset of the mitochondrial genomes
58
in the female germ-line pool are transmitted to an offspring. As a consequence of bottlenecking,
therefore, only a fraction of new mitochondrial mutations will be transmitted to subsequent
generations, but the rate of fixation for that transmitted fraction will be much more rapid than it
would be if bottlenecking were absent. Thus, the rate of mitochondrial mutation is likely to be
substantially higher than the rate of divergence, particularly if a significant proportion of
mutations that are fixed in individuals are not fixed within the populations (see above). In our
opinion, the evolutionary implications of bottlenecking have not received sufficient attention (pg.
507).
Comment by the compiler The worldwide distribution of the Amerindian/Polynesian Lineage B
may be evidence of admixture into indigenous groups with retention of original mtDNA diversity
retained in the primary population.
"Knowledge is inherent in all things.
The World is a library..."
Chief Luther Standing Bear
Ogala Sioux
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:493-496, 1996
Svante Paabo
INVITED EDITORIAL
Mutational Hot Spots in the Mitochondrial Microcosm
The observation of two germ-line mutations among some 50 individuals studied suggests
a mutation rate of 1 event/25 generations in a DNA segment where phylogenetic comparisons to
the chimpanzee have suggested a frequency of ≤1 event/200 generations. In the same vein,
Howell et al. elsewhere have described two mutations in coding regions of the genome in
families, and they now describe a third one. This indicates a 200-fold-higher rate of mutations in
the mitochondrial structural genes than has been derived from phylogenetic comparisons. These
observations receive support from another group, which similarly has found a high rate of
mitochondrial mutation (Lederberg et al. 1995), and from reports suggesting that heteroplasmy—
that is, the occurrence of two or more types of mitochondrial sequences within an individual—
may be more common in humans than previously had been thought (Gill et al. 1994; Comas et
al. 1995; Ivanov et al. 1996). When these studies are pooled, the number of mutations observed
is still very small, whereas the uncertainty of the rate estimates is correspondingly huge.
Nevertheless, the high mutation rate represents an impressive discrepancy with the received
wisdom among evolutionists (pg. 494).
The new rates that will emerge when more mutations have been detected in families are
therefore not likely to revise our understanding of the origin of the human mitochondrial gene
pool dramatically, but they may cause a reinterpretation of more recent events—for example, the
population-size expansion that is indicated by a peak in histograms of pairwise sequence
differences. This expansion has been dated to ~40,000 years ago (Rogers and Harpending 1992;
Rogers 1995). Here, a faster rate may allow a more adequate approximation of the actual
mutations having taken place and may indicate that this expansion is associated with the
agricultural revolution that occurred some 10,000-5,000 years ago. Support for this idea comes
from observation that the signature of the expansion is absent in groups in India, Scandinavia,
59
and Africa that live from food gathering rather than from food production (Mountain et al 1995;
Sajantila et al 1995; Watson et al. 1996) (pg. 494-495).
Thus, the biochemical basis for population variation can be studied, and the relative
contributions that mutational processes and selection make to genomic change can be better
understood. In this, developments in the mitochondrial microcosm will again be ahead of
developments in the more complex macrocosm of the nuclear genome (pg. 495).
______________________________________________________________________________
Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:437-444, 1996
Elizabeth Watson, Karin Bauer, Rashid Aman, Gunter Weiss, Arndt von Haeseler, and Svante
Paabo
mtDNA Sequence Diversity in Africa
We suggest that this reflects subsistence patterns in that the populations that have
expanded in size are food producers whereas those that have not are hunters and gatherers (pg.
437).
Much interest has focused on mtDNA variation as a tool to unravel the past of modern
humans. The main reason for this is that the absence of recombination and the high evolutionary
rate of the mitochondrial genome offer a resolving power unparalleled by any other single
genetic locus in the human genome (pg. 437).
Among the groups analyzed, the Mbuti, Biaka, and !Kung rely on hunting and food
gathering for their subsistence, whereas the other groups practice agriculture and animal
husbandry. The data suggest that the genetic diversity and demographic history of these two
groups are dramatically different in at least four respects.
First, the 3 food-gathering groups have bumpy distributions and a high proportion of
identical lineages, whereas the 10 groups that rely on agriculture and/or cattle herding have bellshaped distributions and few identical lineages (fig. 2). These patterns of distribution of pairwise
sequence differences are reminiscent of the situation in other parts of the world (pg. 443).
Thus, it seems to be a general pattern that food-producing populations have bell-shaped
distributions of pairwise sequence differences, whereas food gatherers have rugged distributions
and many identical sequences443).
Second, the pattern of mitochondrial sequence variation in food-producing groups
suggests that these populations have experienced an enlargement in size, whereas the food
gatherers have been of constant population size for a long time (pg. 443).
(emphasis added AMH)
Third, the mitochondrial diversity in Africa indicates a substantial differentiation
between food gatherers and food producers (Table 2) (pg. 443).
Consequently, the groups that are hunter-gatherers today can be expected to have
persisted as such for a long time. This is reflected in their extensive genetic differentiation from
food-producing groups and from each other (pg. 443).
60
Fourth, the data indicate that the food-gathering groups have been isolated from each
other over a long period, whereas food-producing groups differ much less from each other. This
may be due to the common origin(s) of food-producing groups, which is associated with both the
domestication of major crops (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984) and a lower amount of
genetic drift in the larger populations. It may also be due to more extensive female gene flow
between food-producing groups, whose larger numbers and, in some cases, pastoralist lifestyle
may facilitate contacts over large geographic distances (pg. 443).
______________________________________________________________________________
Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose
The Great DNA Hunt (pgs _______ lost)
The Eve study was criticized almost immediately on methodological grounds. Alan
Templeton, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed out flaws in the statistical
tests and sampling methods used. Its results, he argued, were in part dictated by the order in
which the information was fed into the computer. The same data could produce simpler trees,
one of which also included Asians in the deepest root. Others questioned the reliability of
"molecular clocks" and the rate of mutation in the human mtDNA used in calculating Eve's date.
(emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
The Promise of Plant and Animal DNA
These are startling results because cattle in the Near East were not domesticated until about
9,000 years ago, and cattle in India and Africa were genetically distinct before then. The latter
two could not possibly be descended from domesticated Near Eastern cattle, as was thought, but
must have been domesticated independently. This discovery may reignite an old debate in
archaeology about whether plants and animals were domesticated in single locations and then
taken from one culture to another (a "diffusionist" approach), or, as appears to be the case with
cattle, were domesticated in more than one place (a "multiple centers" approach). – T.M.P. and
M.R.
Renfrew's book sparked intense debate, receiving some acceptance among fellow
archaeologists but rejection by many linguists. Even so, the peopling of Europe seemed to have
taken place in two stages: the replacing of Neandertals by modern humans by about 30,000
years ago, followed by the spread of farming peoples, speaking Indo-European or not, beginning
about 9,000 years ago.
The Peopling of Japan
Hybridization theories claim that modern Japanese are descended from both groups, in which
case they should have genes deriving from both the Jomon and Yayoi people. Transformation
theories posit that modern Japanese people gradually evolved from the Jomon. Proponents claim
that much of the variation present today in Japanese existed in the original Jomon population.
They believe the chief contribution of the Yayoi was cultural rather than genetic.
The ancestors of all men with Y2 were traced to Henan Province in northern China.
According to Hammer and Horai, this indicates that people from northern China, the ancestors of
the Yayoi, migrated through Korea to Japan, where they contributed to the genetic makeup of
modern Japanese. This contradicts transformation theories that hold Japanese populations are
derived solely from Jomon people with no Yayoi admixture.
61
The Ainu, who pursued a hunter-fisher life-style through the last century, may retain much
of the genetic background of the Jomon. If so, Hammer and Horai predict that Ainu will
genetically resemble the Okinawans. – M.R.
Surprisingly, four of the five groups (1, 3, 4, and 5) date to well before the last glacial
peak, with ages ranging from 35,000 to 25,000 years ago. The fifth group (2), however, is much
younger in Europe (6,000 to 10,000 years Ago) but has clear affinities to Near Eastern mtDNA
sequences.
Sykes and his colleagues propose that these are genetic echoes of the spread of agriculture,
and they are fairly weak. They conclude that , far from being overwhelmed by incoming farmers,
the indigenous hunter-gatherer population remained intact and learned how to farm..
(emphasis added AMH)
Often thought to be a remnant of the Paleolithic population, they [Basque] speak a nonIndo-European language and have a relatively rare blood type, Rh negative, in a much higher
percentage than other Europeans. According to Sykes, the evidence suggests that it was largely
farming, not farmers, that spread across the continent.
SCIENCE
GEOGRAPHY
______________________________________________________________________________
Large Arctic Temperature Change at the Wisconsin-Holocene Glacial Transition, Science,
Vol. 270, October 20, 1995, pps. 455-458
Kurt M. Cuffey, Gary D. Clow, Richard B. Alley, Minze Stuiver, Edwin D. Waddington,
Richard W. Saltus
The low value of a that we find for the deglacial transition is well-constrained (Fig. 3) and
insensitive to changes in ice dynamical parameters (Table 1). The average temperature
difference between the Wisconsin Glaciation and the Holocene is therefore large (Fig. 1), 14° to
16°C, and the coldest periods of the last glacial were probably 21°C colder than at present (Fig.
1). The climatic deglacial temperature change (at constant elevation) may be 1° to 2°C larger
than this because the Greenland ice sheet was probably thinner during the glacial as a result of a
substantial reduction in accumulation rate. Geologic evidence suggests that the margins of the
ice sheet retracted by about 100 km during the Wisconsin-Holocene transition (35). p. 456
By contrast, we have shown that the temperature change in central Greenland was three to four
times larger than that in the tropics, a result that is consistent with borehole temperature analyses
at Dye 3 in southern Greenland (42). Many models have suggested that initially minor changes
in global temperature will be magnified in the Arctic, with possibly major consequences for sea
level and planetary albedo (43). Our data not only confirm that such amplification happened in
the past but also show this amplification to be larger than generally thought.
62
______________________________________________________________________________
Ice Rhythms: Core Reveals a Plethora of Climate Cycles, Science, Vol. 275, October 25,
1996, p. 499.
A record of climate extracted from Greenland's ice is changing all that by laying out the whole
spectrum of midrange climate variations, from the well-known Milankovitch cycles of about
40,000 and 23,000 years, driven by the tilting and wobbling of Earth's axis, down the scale to
cycles of 11,100, 6100, and 1450 years (p. 499).
And for the 1450-year rhythm–which seems to cause abrupt shifts in climate–they make the
intriguing suggestion that the waxing and waning of the sun may be the trigger (p. 499)
In addition to the 40,000- and 23,000-year Milankovitch cycles, the team found 11,100and 6100-year cycles previously reported from marine sediments (p. 499).
For example, the 23,000-year cycle, driven by the wobbling or precession of Earth's axis,
redistributes sunlight so as to alternately intensify summer heat in the Northern and Southern
hemispheres. Land masses straddling the equator might then pick up temperature maxima from
both hemispheres, producing a maximum in the tropics every 11,000 years or so (Science, 14
January 1994, p. 174) (p. 499).
The New Hampshire group, however, has 12 peaks of this cycle in the past 70,000 years, and
notes that seven of these peaks coincide with the seven great gushings of icebergs into the North
Atlantic during the last ice age, called Heinrich events (Science, 6 January 1995, p. 27) (p. 499).
Comment by the compiler I don't think we have investigated adequately the availability of Ice
free corridors - in the 32,000 to 45,000 year rage - against the parameters Amerindian
migrations into another new Old World might require we do so test. It's not as if this window
might not have anything to do regaurding human dispersals at this time - in - as most theories
suggest or - out - of the Americas, as I'm am proposing. Certainly this time-frame is paramount
in recognizing the rapid settlement by a new "modern" man of the Eastern Hemisphere.
(emphasis added AMH)
SCIENCE
______________________________________________________________________________
Smithsonian Perspectives, Smithsonian Magazine Secretary Heyman's comments, p. 8
Anthropology is an embracive social science most broadly defined as the study of the origin of
humans and of their physical, social and cultural development. Smithsonian anthropology
started as the study of Native American cultures, languages and history. In 1846, the Regents
asked that collections be procured for the Institution "illustrating the natural history of the
country, and more especially the physical history, manners and customs of the North American
continent." Enormous collections followed (p. 8). (emphasis added AMH)
63
Meanwhile, the NMNH's Department of Anthropology focused on adding to and caring for the
enormous collections of cultural, physical and biological objects, and organizing exhibitions.
Most of these had to do with the Americas. Starting in the 1950s, however, anthropological
research and curatorship was extended to the Pacific, Asia and Africa (p. 8).
(emphasis added AMH)
This is illustrated by the groupings within the American Anthropological Association, which
include, for instance, ones concerned with psychological, urban, visual, environmental, feminist
and nutritional anthropology (p. 8).
______________________________________________________________________________
17th-Century Issues, Science, Vol. 274, 15 November 1996, pp. 1148-1149
Book review of Steven Shapins book, The Scientific Revolution, by David C. Lindberg
Shapin concentrates on the overthrow of ancient cosmology and natural philosophy by
Copernicus, Galileo, and their fellow heliocentrists; the creation of the mechanical philosophy by
Descartes, Boyle, and others, and the mathematization of nature by Kepler and Newton.
Of course, Shapin joins everybody else who has ever written on the topic in considering the
central question of how inference from particular observations can lead to knowledge of
universal causes and the attendant question of the level of certitude thus achievable.
Shapin believes that science is "the contingent, diverse, and at times deeply problematic product
of interested, morally concerned, historically situated people" (p. 165). It follows that the
traditional view of science as an objective account of external reality, totally uncontaminated by
human interests or passions, is untenable.
______________________________________________________________________________
Anthropology and the Crisis of the Intellectuals, Critique of Anthropology, 1994, Vol. 14(3),
pps. 227-261.
Anna Grimshaw and Keith Hart
It might be said that anthropology has been in crisis for as long as anyone can remember,
certainly since the wave of independence movements shattered its empirical base and posed
serious intellectual and political challenges to many of its fundamental assumptions. p. 227
Our impetus then comes from the desire to address a younger (and broader) audience, one
drawn to the universalism of anthropology and yet so often frustrated by its narrow
specialization and arcane professional language. This essay is animated by a commitment to
rediscovering what was new and radical in anthropology at the turn of the century (p. 228).
Moreover, objectification of other people is linked to political hierarchy, an uncomfortable
reminder of anthropology's affinity for the world's dominant classes, beginning with its
association with European colonial rule (pps. 228-229).
Popular resistance to dominance by experts is manifested in negative beliefs which bid fair to
replace their legitimating predecessors as common currency: that scientists endanger the
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environment, doctors are bad for your health, economists' predictions are wrong, the law is an
expensive farce and so on. Professors, who have long been known to be inarticulate and
incompetent, are now suspected of having nothing to say at all. Certainly, the number of people
who depend on humanist intellectuals as the arbiters of civilization and taste is dwindling.
Anthropologists suffer more than most from their own variant of this problem; for they
have always derived their intellectual authority from direct experience of social life. From the
beginning, anthropologists' claim to special expertise rested on reporting the activities of
unknown peoples to both lay and academic audiences at home (p. 229).
It is, therefore, not surprising that anthropologists today, even more than most other branches of
the academic division of labour, find themselves in a quandary when asked to explain how they
contribute to understanding the world we all live in (p. 230).
The method of scientific ethnography required the invention of a new literary form. The
distinctive innovation of scientific ethnography was to make ideas seem to emerge from
descriptions of real life. We may call this contradictory illusion the synthetic a posterior, being a
hybrid construct of Kant's famous distinction between the mental forms we bring to an enquiry,
the synthetic a priori, and the empirical inferences we make subsequently, the analytical a
posterior (p. 234). (emphasis is not added but original)
Over the years this commitment to go out and live has worn rather thin; and the balance now
once more decisively favours the world of books (p. 259).
We hold that social life, for all its confining dividisons, is integrated and that the process of
integration is ultimately global. It is anthropology's great merit that it has the scope to increase
our self-consciousness of human unity in diversity. This universality, however, must be
conceived of anew, not as a form of Western dominance nor as a thoughtless merger of the
general and the specific, but as a process of extension from the particulars of individual and
collective experience.
It is entirely conceivable that the next century will have no place for a class of specialist
intellectuals, called anthropologists, with a mission to tell people what is going on in their world.
For academic anthropology has never succeeded completely in eliminating the early ethos of the
amateur from its professional practices. Moreover, it might be said that, compared with the other
sciences and humanities, anthropology has remained in important ways an anti-discipline, taking
its ideas from anywhere, striving for the whole, constantly reinventing procedures on the move.
Thus, as the boundaries defining specialist disciplines give way, anthropology contains within
itself many elements of a more flexible, constructive approach to learning about the world.
These are its strength and creative source.
Above all, we believe that the problem of devising new forms of anthropological enquiry
has to be solved at the level of social practice, not ideas. In particular, it is time for
anthropologists to rethink the wisdom of having committed the future of their collective project
so completely to the institutions of academic bureaucracy (p. 259).
Comment by the compiler Lets get on with empowering the way we live (and choose to live) with
the lessons we have learned.
______________________________________________________________________________
Human Evolution, 1995, by Milford H. Wolpoff, Book review by Henry M. McHenry
65
The ideas expressed in the text are often those developed by the author and not necessarily those
of the majority of paleo-anthropologists. For an explanation of the consensus view among
scholars on this field, the reader would do well to turn elsewhere.
Like the 1980 edition, the book is divided into four parts: the basis for human evolution,
the appearance of the hominid line, the development of the human pattern, and the evolution of
modern people (p. 301).
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol. 272, May 24, 1996
Kim Peterson
Mammal Diversity Takes a 20-Million-Year Leap Backwards
The 70 fossils were sandwiched between two layers of ancient marine rocks preserving
extinct species of oysters and bony fish. From dating at other sites, researchers knew that some
of these marine species died by 85 million years ago, implying that Nessov's fossils were at least
that old. Says Archibald: "Everything about the site argues for late, but not the latest,
Cretaceous (pg. 1102)."
______________________________________________________________________________
Science, Vol. 273, September 20, 1996
Frank von Hippel and Ted von Hippel
Past Life on Mars?
Given that life on Earth thrives kilometers deep of times atmospheric pressure living off
hydrogen sulfides and that life thrives in boiling hot springs and far below the surface in Earth's
crust, the ubiquity of life in the universe should not be surprising.
Comment by the compiler We should be more open in choosing our primate forbears, Yes!
______________________________________________________________________________
Virginia Morell
Genes vs. Teams: Weighing Group Tactics in Evolution
And although the idea of group selection was discredited more than 30 years ago, a
growing number of researches say that it deserves a fresh hearing. Group selection, they say,
may explain patterns ranging from how cells are kept in check in a developing organism, to the
evolution of honeybee dancing, to the way plants grow in a crowded field.
But those who favor individual selection are dubious. "I don't see how you can test his
model against empirical data," complains Brian Charlesworth, a population geneticist at the
University of Chicago. In fact, says Charlesworth, that is a problem with all of the new
theoretical models. "This group selection could be going on all the time, but since we have no
way of documenting it, how do you know it's ever happened?" (pg. 740)
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"It's very abstract and confused right now because there are a lot of different definitions
about what group selection is," says Harvard University's Stephen Jay Gould. "But it is also
vitally important to evolutionary theory; it will sort itself out." Perhaps a few rounds of
selection among competing bands of evolutionary biologists will do the trick. May the best
group win.
(emphasis added AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Mehran Kardar
Which Came First, Protein Sequence or Structure?
Each protein is composed of a specific sequence of amino acids (its primary structure).
However, its functionality is determined by its full three-dimensional structure (secondary and
tertiary structure). The relation between the one-dimensional sequence and the final structure is
part of the puzzle of protein folding. The possible number of sequences is enormous: 20400
potential proteins of length 400 can be constructed from 20 amino acids.
On page 666 of this issue, Li et al. (1) provide an alternative perspective: The observed
protein structures are special because they can be easily coded (designed) and are stable against
mutations in the sequence.
For example, considerable modeling has focused on polymers of length 27, occupying all
sites of a 3 x 3 x 3 cube. [This model was first suggested by Shaknovich and Gutin (2) and is
now considered standard.]
Thus, the direct association of designability to the structural elements such as "superfolds"
(5) is a bold new direction for protein-folding studies.
Like most fertile concepts, it immediately suggests various tests and experiments to check
its viability.
______________________________________________________________________________
Scientific American, August 1996
In Brief
Case Closed
After 84 years, the Piltdown hoax may be solved. In 1912 Arthur Smith Woodward–keeper of
paleontology at London's Natural History Museum–hailed bones from Piltdown, England, as the
Missing Link. But some 50 years later it became clear that a criminal–and not evolution–had
joined the human skull and orangutan jaw. Recently two scientists analyzed similarly stained
specimens in an old trunk bearing the initials M.A.C.H. and, at last, fingered the perpetrator:
Martin A. C. Hinton, a curator of zoology, who had warred with Woodward over wages (pg. 22).
Comment by the compiler I have always hoped it wasn't Keith as he once championed the idea
of "continuity over time for the modern human anatomy."
(All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune (AP)
67
Anthropologists have a new snapshot for the human family album, and she's got a face
only a mother could love: gaping, squarish eyes, a protruding mouth and not much of a
forehead.
But who looks attractive after being buried for 10 million years?
Ankarapithecus meteai, a 60-pound, fruit-eating ape that roamed the woodlands of central
Turkey long before the evolutionary split that separated humans from chimps, actually looks
pretty good to people who study human evolution (pg. lost).
The species is named for the city of Ankara, 30 miles south of the site where the fossil was
found, and a geological sciences institute there. The "pithecus" part comes from the Greek word
for ape.
The actual common ancestors of humans are thought to have lived in Africa at the time
that Ankarapithecus meteai occupied Turkey. But fossils of those creatures may never be found,
Pilbeam said. Fossil-preserving rocks of the proper age simply aren't exposed on the ground
surface anywhere in Africa (pg. lost).
Comment by the compiler Or the New World, for that matter! (All emphasis added by the
compiler, AMH)
______________________________________________________________________________
Eric Delson
Nature VOL. 332 17 MARCH 1988
One Source Not Many
Modern humans are unknown from western Europe or Australia before about 35,000 years
ago, when the fossils already have at least some regional characteristics (the interpretation that
the archaic appearance of some Australian crania may be due to cultural practices of deformation
rather than persistence of H. erectus features is gaining ground) (pg. 206).
______________________________________________________________________________
Tatu Vanhanen. Reviewed by Iver Mysterud.
Book Reviews, (source lost)
Another look at . . . On the Evolutionary Roots of Politics
How can one, for example, ensure that the next generation will live within a democratic
society and not an autocratic one? Vanhanen states that "it would be possible to create better
environmental conditions for democratic political structures by distributing the same resources
among competing groups and wide sections of the population. . . . People must have some basic
security and independence from power holders before they can take part in politics
independently. In other words, a certain level of resource distribution among individuals and
social groups seems to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the emergence of democratic
power structures" (p. 158) (pg. 203).
PRIMATES
______________________________________________________________________________
68
Alan Mann and Mark Weiss
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 169-181, 1996
Hominoid Phylogeny and Taxonomy: A Consideration of the Molecular and Fossil
Evidence in an Historical Perspective
"It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied
to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is
somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than
elsewhere. (1871:520) pg. 169 (pg. 169).
Buffon, one of the great naturalists of the 18th century, recognized the anatomical
resemblances that were being documented between humans and apes, but believed that humans
should be considered as on an entirely different level compared with even these creatures. In his
Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804), he remarked that:
This orangutan-outang or pongo [most likely a chimpanzee] is only a brute, but a brute
of a kind so singular, that man cannot behold it without contemplating himself. . .
The tongue, and all the organs of speech, for example are here the same as in man; and
yet the orangutan-outang enjoys not the faculty of speaking; the brain has the same figure
and proportions; and yet he possesses not the power of thinking. Can there be a more
evident proof than is exhibited in the orangutan-outang, that matter alone, though perfectly
organized, can produce neither language nor thought, unless it be animated by a superior
principle. . .
We have often remarked Nature proceeds in her operation by imperceptible degrees.
This truth, which otherwise admits of no exception, is here totally reversed. Between the
faculties of man and those of the most minute animal, the distance is infinite. (Quoted in
Slotkin, 1965:182-183) (pg. 171)
The number of recognized primate species, including hominoids, increased markedly
during the first half of the 19th century. For example, Tyson had referred to the chimpanzee as
Homo sylvestris, and Linnaeus was most probably referring to chimpanzees in employing the
term Simia satyrus; others had called it Pongo, Jocko, or satyr. It was given its present genus
designation, Pan, by Oken, in 1816, and by this time, it was clearly differentiated from the
orangutan (Stiles and Orelman, 1927:28). The existence of the gorilla as a distinct genus,
Gorilla, was recognized in 1847. (The final large-bodied hominoid to be classified, the pigmy
chimpanzee, was officially recognized in 1929 (Reynolds, 1967) (pg. 171).
Genet-Varcin, in her 1963 edition of les Singes Actuels et Fossiles, described all of the
large-bodied apes together, and after examining the fossil evidence, suggested that the
divergence between the ape and human lineages occurred before the Oligocene (1963:223). She
also presented an evolutionary chart of the primates (220-221) in which all the apes, including
the gibbons, have a separate evolutionary origin from the line leading to humans. Neither
chimpanzees, gorillas, nor orangs are more closely related to humans than any of the others (pg.
174).
However, as Rogers (1993) cautions, not all the data point to this conclusion, and there is
still need for some caution. At a general level, one must realize that most of the sequence
69
comparisons are based on single individuals and do not allow for polymorphic variation within
living species. It may be possible to find other alleles within each that would imply alternative
phylogenies. Ancestral species were undoubtedly polymorphic too. If one considers a situation
where two of three extant species share a more recent common ancestor, it is possible that drift
at any particular locus could obscure the true phylogenetic relationships. The true out-lier and
one other population might actually have reached fixation for an identical allele, while the third
population became fixed for an alternate allele. There is then room for contradictory and
ambiguous results. The ultimate resolution is a statistical one (pg. 175).
(emphasis added AMH)
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