Footprints of 'first Americans' By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter Human settlers made it to the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence. A team of scientists came to this controversial conclusion by dating human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico. They say the first Americans may have arrived by sea, rather than by foot. The traditional view is that the continent's early settlers arrived around 11,000 years ago, by crossing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Details of the latest findings were unveiled at the UK Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition. Ancient lake Dr Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool's John Moores University and her colleagues found the footprints in the quarry, some 130km (80 miles) south-east of Mexico City, in 2003. But they have only finished dating them this year. The footprints were preserved as trace fossils in volcanic ash along what was the shoreline of an ancient volcanic lake. They were soon covered in more ash and lake sediments and, when water levels rose, became as solid as concrete. Dr Gonzalez was under no illusions that the finding would be controversial: "It's going to be an archaeological bomb," she told the BBC News website, "and we're up for a fight." The team used several methods to date a variety of material from the site near Puebla, Mexico, in order to be sure they were right about the age. "We have materials that have been dated below the footprint layer, the footprint layer itself and on top of the footprint layer. Everything is making sense," said Dr Gonzalez. The researchers used radiocarbon dating on shells and animal bones in the sequences and dated mammoth teeth by a technique called electron spin resonance. The sediments themselves were dated by optically stimulated luminescence. "Some lake sediments were incorporated into the ash and were baked. They look like small fragments of brick and these were the ones we dated in the footprint layer. They gave us a result of 38,000 years," Dr Gonzalez. Land crossing Under the traditional view, humans trekked from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that linked these land masses at the end of the last ice age (between about 10,000 and 12,500 years ago). Central to the theory, called the Clovis First model, are Clovis points - the tools these settlers used to hunt large beasts, or megafauna, such as mammoths and mastodons. "The existence of 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico means that the Clovis First model of human occupation can no longer be accepted as the first evidence of human presence in the Americas," said co-investigator David Huddart, of Liverpool John Moores. Dr Michael Faught, an expert in early American archaeology, was reserving judgment until evidence was published: "It would be significant if it were demonstrated, but usually those (early) sites don't hold up well," he told the BBC News website. But, he added: "There's more and more evidence that Alaska was not the only place people came into the continent." Dr Gonzalez is a proponent of the Coastal Migration Theory. This proposes that people arrived on the west coast in boats, hugging the coastline from North to South. But where these settlers came from is still a mystery, she says. Some have proposed that the earliest humans to reach the continent could have come from south-east Asia or even Australia. Genetic studies of present-day Native American populations support a recent arrival from north-east Asia, which agrees well with an entry through the Beringian land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age. Dr Gonzalez suggests that the earliest settlers may have become extinct, leaving no genetic legacy today. She thinks these hunters may have been highly mobile, living in small groups, perhaps explaining why they left scant trace of their presence. Dr Gonzalez and ancient DNA expert Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, have managed to extract genetic material from three molars belonging to Peñon Woman III, a 13,000-year-old partial skeleton from Mexico. The analysis is still underway.
The National Geographic CHannel did a LONG, in-depth, very good special on Zhang He, not sure fi they showed it here but they showed it a bunch in Asia last year, worth catching if you can see it.
The Vikings did try to leave behind a few colonies, but the Natives turned the tables and routed them off the map.
Who Were The First Americans? Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News September 3, 2003 A study of skulls excavated from the tip of Baja California in Mexico suggests that the first Americans may not have been the ancestors of today's Amerindians, but another people who came from Southeast Asia and the southern Pacific area. The question of who colonized the Americas, and when, has long been hotly debated. Traditionally, Native Americans are believed to have descended from northeast Asia, arriving over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska some 12,000 years ago and then migrating across North and South America. But recent research, including the Baja California study, indicates that the initial settlement of the continent was instead driven by Southeast Asians who occupied Australia 60,000 years ago and then expanded into the Americas about 13,500 years ago, prior to Mongoloid people arriving from northeast Asia. The skulls from Baja California, which may date back only a few hundred years, have slender-looking faces that are different from the broad-cheeked craniums of modern Amerindians, the descendants of the Mongoloid people. "Our results change the traditional idea that all modern Amerindians present morphological affinities with East Asians as a result of a single migration," said Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona, Spain, who led the study. "The settlement of the New World is better explained by considering a continuous influx of people from Asia." The new study is reported in this week's issue of the science journal Nature, and could further fuel the controversy surrounding the origins of the first Americans, which is a controversial issue for American Indians in particular. Challenging Clovis Conventional wisdom says that Native Americans descended from prehistoric hunters who walked from northeast Asia across a land bridge, formed at the end of the Ice Age, to Alaska some 12,000 years ago. American Indians resemble the people of Mongolia, China and Siberia. In the 1930s, archeologists found stone spear points among the bones of mammoths near Clovis, New Mexico. Radio carbon dating in the 1950s showed that the oldest site was 11,400 years old. The sites were assumed, for years, to be the first evidence of human occupation in the Americas. But more recent discoveries challenge the Clovis story. In 1996, archeologists in southern Chile found weapons and tools dating back 12,500 years. In Brazil, they found some of the oldest human remains in the Americas, among them a skeleton—named Luzia—that is more than 11,000 years old. Luzia did not look like American Indians. Instead, her facial features matched most closely with the native Aborigines in Australia. These people date back to about 60,000 years and were themselves descended from the first humans who probably originated in Africa. The researchers believe Luzia was part of a people, referred to as "Paleoamericans," who migrated into the Americas—possibly even by boat—long before the Mongoloid people. These Paleoamericans may later have been wiped out by or interbred with Mongoloids invading from the north. Evolving in Isolation The late skulls found in Baja California are similar to Luzia and the Paleoamerican skulls found in South America. Their craniums are characterized by long and narrow vaults, with faces short and low in relation to the neurocranium. "Skeletal studies demonstrate that skeletal remains do not fit the Mongoloid set of traits that is determinant of the modern Amerindian morphology," said González-José. "Our results demonstrate that not only are some early remains not Mongoloid, but also some modern groups, like those of Baja California." The study suggests that Baja California was one of many isolated pockets throughout the Americas were Paleoamerican traits survived. The Paleoamericans might have split at one point, with one group going down to Baja California. This group may not have come in contact with Paleoindians for millennia. Some experts, however, find it difficult to believe that such a population could have evolved in isolation. "I don't doubt there's skeletal diversity and that it's probably coming out of old world Asia," said Tom Dillehay, an archeologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, who commented on the study in a separate article for Nature. "But I am very skeptical of a population, particularly close to a coastline, that could have been isolated for more than 10,000 years." Kennewick Man The identity of the first Americans is an emotive issue for American Indians, who believe their ancestors were the first to inhabit the Americas. Controversy erupted after skeletal remains were found in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996. This skeleton, estimated to be 9,000 years old, had a long cranium and narrow face—features typical of people from Europe, the Near East or India—rather than the wide cheekbones and rounder skull of an American Indian. A coalition of Indian tribes, however, said that if Kennewick Man was 9,000 years old, he must be their ancestor, no matter what he looked like. Invoking a U.S. federal law that provides for the return of Native American remains to their living descendants, the tribes demanded a halt to all scientific study and the immediate return of the skeleton for burial in a secret location. The matter is still stuck in the courts.
That's a pretty interesting article No Worries since genetically the Aborigines are among the oldest people known whose closest relatives are the !Xung Bushmen who are considered the oldest people.
I hadn't heard that all records were destroyed. The Chinese are fairly fastidious record keepers and if the originals were destroyed I'm guessing there were copies. Anyway the records of Zheng He's voyages aren't just in China but are also recorded in many of the countries that he stopped at. I didn't just say that they were for those but trade was also a big issue. As for establishing colonies and projecting power you just have to look at the size of Zheng He's armadas and what he brought along. If I recall Zheng He did also sign treaties with many Southeast Asian countries and exerted Chinese suzereignity over those countries. The Peranakan Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia are also descendents of Chinese who came with Zheng He.
If anybody cares here are some detailed complaints about the map from a professor who points out a number of anomolies which would tend to bring into question the story of the map as told by it's champion.
There have been quite a few sources that claimed this Irrelevant. Besides, the Peranakan settled in the parts of Indonesian and Malaysia that were basically unpopulated. In fact, the Chinese founded the city of Malacca and Zheng He's navigators were the first people to realize the Straight of Malacca's strategic importance. And aside from backing a local king/chieftan against rebels the Chinese pretty much left the locals along. Hardly the thing to do when you are trying to project power, especially considering that Zheng He's fleet is more powerful than the rest of the world combined (not a single other country is able to claim that in history). Also, are you exerting suzereignity over those countries when you are paying them (which is one major reason why the missions cost money)? I'd call it a bribe. Remember that Zhu Di just became the emperor right before the first voyage by um, displacing his nephew. His legitimacy was being challenged. The trips were more to "show the people that others accept his reign" as supposed to power projection. While others can blame it on "neo-Confucianism" all they want, had the latter happened, I doubt anybody would object to the voyages.
