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From: tmh@ihldt.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: re:Native American Origins
Message-ID: <1967@ihldt.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Sep-83 13:37:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihldt.1967
Posted: Thu Sep 15 13:37:48 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Sep-83 22:51:48 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 77

Subject: re: Native American Origins

Boy! do I have problems with some of the things that J. D. Jensen said.
Having studied Anthropology and been a practicing North American 
Archeologist I can say that the Bering Strait theory has been born out
by recent comparative study between Soviet Excavations and the earliest
North American findings.  Granted these findings are sparse, but that is
to be expected as the most likely sites are now underwater.  At any rate 
by about 20000 B.C (end of the last glaciation and flooding of the land
bridge) all of North America south of the glaciers is populated and by
about 14000 B.C. South America is populated (both admittedly thinly).  
>From this point on there is no hard cultural evidence of any mass 
migration to the New World until the palefaces show up plague the
Amerinds and take over.  Note that I don't and no Archeologist I know
precludes the possibility of an accidental Atlantic or Pacific crossing
by a fisherman or shipwrecked sailor, but there is no evidence of any
deliberate organized crossing (until the Vikings who are driven off by
the locals rather quickly) and no evidence of any large outside (the New
World) influence on the Amerind cultures (until Columbus).  The most 
likely origin for such an Atlantic crossings anyway is not the 
Mediterranean Area, but west Africa (Gulf stream blocks most crossings
to the north).  People may bring up Thor Heyerdahl's Ra expeditions as proof
other wise, but no mediterranean mariner (you never need to be far from
land in the Med) would deliberately go west away from known land for the
time needed to reach the Americas (Columbus had a hard enough time in 1492
and he had Ocean going vessels which the Ra wasn't, and he had some
navigational aids like a compass and sextant which the ancients didn't).
For them to go involuntarily would mean storms and the Ra II almost didn't
make it through a small one (see the NG special).  At any rate if there
were any migration of a semitic peoples it would be bronze age technology
(meaning the Amerinds assuming they came from this semitic migration would 
have started as a Bronze age culture), which would be impossible to miss.  
Archeology is a science and works with the excavated data and uses Occam's
razor to come up with its theories.  Archeology does not hold any theory
unchangeable, but it does hold a theory that has evidence above one which
has none.  Unless someone can come up with some hard evidence to the 
contrary Archeology will stick with the Bearing Strait Theory, because 
it has hard evidence and Occam's razor precludes accepting others.

	"Early Man in North America a circum-pacific
	perspective" is a good source for current Arch.
	studies on the matter.  It isn't 22 years old or
	an encyclopedia (gee, I haven't been allowed to
	use one of those as a source since before High School
	(sorry couldn't resist one jab in reply to the dispersions
	cast upon my former colleagues and teachers)

On Blood Groups:
>From J.D.Jensen:
	As to the hypothesis, it is fairly well known by now that the
	predominant blood-type among the Mongols is B, a type which is	
	extremely rare among the Indians, whose dominant blood-type is A,
	that being found among 91.3% of the pure-blooded North American
	Indians. "Here is a mystery," writes Beals commenting on the 
	disturbing phenomenon, "that requires much pondering and
	investigation." 
    The Amerinds, because relatively few people actually crossed the 
land bridge, are bound to show instances of genetic drift.  Also 
paleolithic peoples typically work in extended family groups (this 
being best for big game hunting) which would increase the noticeable
genetic drift among the people crossing the land bridge.  We also have
no idea what the blood group typing of the Kamchatka region was at 20000
B.C. it may have already had a local variance in favor of type A (it is
also NE Asia i.e. remote from the current highest B blood concentration).
While  Blood typing is a powerful Cultural Anthropology tool it is not a
good Archeological one (you can't blood type a skeleton).  Also to quote
Jensen's article "In the ABO system a high frequency of group O is found
in ... the Indians of south and central America" which shows that the use
of blood types as a tracer of population movement is faulty, since no one
denys that the Indians of North America and South America are descended from
the same peoples, yet their blood types show marked differences (i.e.
Jensen has shown within his article a contradiction to his own theory).

				(sung to the tune of I'm a lumberjack)
				OH, I'm an Archalog and I'm OK...,
					Tom Harris
					ihnp4!ihldt!tmh