[Moontanman]

This link indicates they may have come from Europe!

First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests

[Turtle]

Moontanman said:

This link indicates they may have come from Europe!

First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests

It's not clear from the article that they found clovis points in the islands? Anyway, there is a program running on cable that talks about movement into N. America from the South. I can't seem to find the thing online just now; sorry.

Anyway, they talked about Clovis points and noted that the only similar points elsewhere (or maybe the oldest examples?) came from France. Intersting stuff all-around.

[Flying Binghi]

This heathen (as in, not a scientist) has got to ask - Does it really matter where they came from ?

My understanding is that all humans can trace their ancestry back to one 'mother' ...Does it matter if humans arrived in North America from the west, or the East ???

[Turtle]

Flying Binghi said:

This heathen has got to ask - Does it really matter where they came from ?

My understanding is that all humans can trace their ancestry back to one 'mother' ...Does it matter if humans arrived in North America from the west, or the East ???

Matter? It's a matter of curiosity. Something akin to what led you to know about tracing human ancestry in making your observation. I do think the current genetic tracing data reveals 3 mothers though, not one. One of us should Google it & check.

[Michaelangelica]

Surprising proposal, American Indians look more Asian than European.
There are probably some genetic studies somewhere

Of course there are two ends to the Americas

Quote

'First Americans were Australian'

. . .]

However, the new evidence shows that these people did not arrive in an empty wilderness.
Stone tools and charcoal from the site in Brazil show evidence of human habitation as long ago as 50,000 years.

BBC News | Sci/Tech | 'First Americans were Australian'

This Brazilian cave art looks very similar to ancient Australian Aboriginal Art.

Quote

The identity of the first Americans is an emotive and controversial question.
But the evidence from Brazil, and a handful of people who still live at the very tip of South America, suggests that the Americas have been home to a greater diversity of humans than previously thought - and for much longer.

Ancient Voices: The hunt for the first Americans(BBC Documentary)

Wiki further complicates the picture
Pre-Siberian American Aborigines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Moontanman]

Michaelangelica said:

Surprising proposal, American Indians look more Asian than European.
There are probably some genetic studies somewhere

Of course there are two ends to the Americas

Quote

However, the new evidence shows that these people did not arrive in an empty wilderness. Stone tools and charcoal from the site in Brazil show evidence of human habitation as long ago as 50,000 years.

BBC News | Sci/Tech | 'First Americans were Australian'

This Brazilian cave art looks very similar to ancient Australian Aboriginal Art.

Yes, I've seen some stuff that suggests that Australian Aborigines may have made it to South America long ago. (I've often wondered what would have happened if Neanderthals had colonized the western hemisphere a 150,000 years ago but of course what if a frog had wings) It is how ever possible that the people we call Native Americans ( much of my ancestry ) may have been just the latest wave of emigrants.

[Flying Binghi]

Quote

Brazilian cave art looks very similar to ancient Australian Aboriginal

Would'nt all human early art look simular ? much like the first drawings of children look simular.

[Turtle]

Flying Binghi said:

Would'nt all human early art look similar ? much like the first drawings of children look similar.

I think no. Here's a tour to illustrate my contention: >> The cave of Lascaux

[Michaelangelica]

Flying Binghi said:

Would'nt all human early art look simular ? much like the first drawings of children look simular.

Perhaps, but Australian Dreamtime Art if fairly unique- and big business.
Petyarre tags - Aboriginal Art News
One painting (modern) just sold for over $40,000.

Also there is other archaeological evidence of Aboriginal SA settlement (skulls etc) -see link I gave.

[Turtle]

Who'd a thunk it? More evidence that humans have been crapping up North America for longer than we though.

JOE ROJAS-BURKE said:

Near the marshy edge of an ancient lake in south-central Oregon, wandering Stone Age hunters took shelter in a shallow cave at the foot of a basalt ridge.

They camped only briefly, leaving little evidence of their stay: a flaked-stone spear or arrow point, a few shards suggesting tool-making or sharpening, a grinding stone and -- most important for researchers -- several piles of excrement preserved in the dry cave floor.

From these unintended time capsules, scientists say they've extracted DNA that is unquestionably human. And carbon dating suggests that people first occupied the caves 14,300 years ago -- more than a thousand years before the rise of the Clovis hunters, long presumed to be the first Americans. ...

Oregon site may hold signs of 1st Americans - OregonLive.com

[Michaelangelica]

Quote

ince the 1930s textbooks have taught that the New World's first inhabitants, known for the town in New Mexico where their spear points were discovered, walked from Siberia to Alaska about 13,300 years ago. The Clovis people were believed to be highly mobile nomadic hunters, never settling in one place, instead surviving on massive mammoths, mastodons and ancient bison.

But in excavations starting in 1998 Gault has revealed that Clovis people lived at the site for extended periods over a span of 300 years, says Michael Collins, a research associate with the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory. The evidence? Scientists have found numerous tools manufactured from local stone, used until they were worn, then repaired repeatedly until they finally were discarded. In other words, Paleo-Indians were members of a settled community. "We're redefining Clovis," Collins says.

Texas Archaeological Dig Challenges Assumptions about First Americans: Scientific American

J

Quote

uly, 2008 in Biology | 39 comments | Post a comment
The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents
DNA furnishes an ever clearer picture of the multimillennial trek from Africa all the way to the tip of South America

By Gary Stix
Scanning broadly has produced global migratory maps of unprecedented resolution, some of which have been published only during recent months. The research provides an endorsement of modern human origins in Africa and shows how that continent served as a reservoir of genetic diversity that trickled out to the rest of the world. A genetic family tree that begins with the San people of Africa at its root ends with South American Indians and Pacific Islanders on its youngest-growing branches.

The study of human genetic variation—a kind of historical Global Positioning System—goes back to World War I, when two physicians working in the Greek city of Thessaloníki found that soldiers garrisoned there had a differing incidence of a given blood group depending on their nationality. Beginning in the 1950s, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza started formalizing the study of genetic differences among populations by examining distinct blood group proteins. Variations in proteins reflect differences in the genes that encode them.

The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents: Scientific American

[belovelife]

i heard a rumor ( i cannot state the source)
that originally back 4,000 years ago or so
when china had intercontinetal boats, then they decommision them
and only sailers were allowed them (for fishing)
then there was a spiritual trail
(similar to herman hesse's book journey to the east)
that was a world wide thing
so all the best artist, masons, astronimers, etc. once they were journey men
had the option of going on this trail
hawaii was the ALOHA
hi or bye
and you either too the ship back or went on to the americas

[Michaelangelica]

When Captain James Cook did his remarkable voyages criss-crossing the Pacific he picked up a native shaman. (Sorry I don't remember his name) who travelled with them for a while.
This shaman was able to draw a remarkably accurate map of all (?) the islands in the Pacific. Using this native drawn map Cook was able to find the Pacific Islands drawn on it.
Remember, that Cook was the first to use the newly discovered science of longitude. So, like few other seafarer-explores before him, he knew exactly where he was(!) Many of Cooks maps were so accurate they are still in use today.

So how did the native peoples of the Pacific acquire such detailed knowledge of the huge Pacific Ocean, that helped Cook so much?
No longitude, or even latitude, here?

Another interesting theory comes from a German archaeologist who found traces of nicotine and cocaine in the bodies of Ancient Egyptian mummies.
Some one pointed out that there was an African plant that contained Nicotine. But the cocaine has not been satisfactorily explained. Both Nicotine and Cocaine are native only to the Americas.
So was there an ancient trade route across the Pacific to S. America?
If so, why only trade in cocaine and tobacco ?
Why not chillies, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, capsicums?
It is interesting that the Habanero Chilli (from the Caribbean Islands)was given the name Capsicum Chinensus" as it was said to have been discovered by a botanist in China in the 15C. Strange as it is not the Chilli now used in hot Chinese Cooking. Was the botanist right?, lost?, or hallucinating?

Then there is the story of very old 30,000+ BP(?) Australian aboriginal artefacts found in S. America.

If the Americas had a population rivalling Europe and the old Mediterranean world, as we now suspect, perhaps there was some push for exploration?

What was the weather like in the "Pacific" 4,000 years ago?
Was it extra pacific (peaceful) encouraging exploration and inter-island trade?

The Marois must have been amazing navigators and Astronomers of the Southern (& Northern?) Sky. to find and settle NZ "The Land of the Long White Cloud"
(Many early European explorers travelled down the African coast until the stars changed- got scared and went home!)

All interesting speculation until we know more

If only the Catholic "Christian" Spanish had not burned the Amerindian scroll libraries, we might know a bit more.

[Turtle]

Michaelangelica said:

When Captain James Cook did his remarkable voyages criss-crossing the Pacific he picked up a native shaman. (Sorry I don't remember his name) who travelled with them for a while.
This shaman was able to draw a remarkably accurate map of all (?) the islands in the Pacific. Using this native drawn map Cook was able to find many/most pacific Islands drawn on it.
Remember that Cook was the first to use the newly discovered science of longitude. So, like few other seafarer-explores before him, he knew exactly where he was. Many of Cooks maps were so accurate they are still in use today.

So how did the native peoples of the Pacific acquire such detailed knowledge of the huge Pacific Ocean, that helped Cook so much?
No longitude, or even latitude, here? ...

Polynesian Stick Charts

Quote

The Polynesians, scattered as they were over 1,000 islands across the central and southern Pacific Ocean, were master navigators who tracked their way over a huge expanses of ocean without any of the complex mechanical aids we associate with sea fairing. They didn’t have the astrolabe or the sextant, the compass or the chronometer. They did however have aids of a sort, which though seemingly humble, were in fact the repositories of an extremely complex kind of knowledge. Called Rebbelibs, Medos. and Mattangs, today we call them simply “Stick Charts.”

[Michaelangelica]

Amazing.
Totally new to me.
Thanks.
I will have a good read
So was a Egypt -S. America trade feasible? possible? ( yes & yes?) happened? at some time?
Any records, archaeological evidence?
Did the Indians from Northern/S. America part of this trade? What were their boats like?
What did the pacific Islanders get in return for what they traded?