Schlegel wrote:The mitochondrial DNA has nailed this down pretty well. About 6k years ago there was a migration from around Taiwan to islands near New Guinea. 3K years ago a migration from there to Polynesia occurred. There doesn't seem to be any significant DNA exchange between the Western Pacific of the Americas and Polynesia. just 2 out of about 1,200 Maori tested, for example had any haplotypes that matched anybody in the Americas. If the migration had gone to the Americas first, this would be a very, very , very unlikely result.
Yes, this is true. The Polynesian haplotype comes from Asia via Taiwan, I believe I've said as much elsewhere on here. But, that doesn't tell the whole story at all. For example, look at Rapanui. They were Polynesians, and Polynesians have no writing, but they came up with a form of writing that isn't found anywhere else called rongorongo. Where did they get the idea from? It's possible they just came up with it independently, but extremely unlikely. However it doesn't take mass migrations to transmit important cultural concepts. Here's what it looked like:
And that's just one possibility. Virtually all Polynesian populations were devastated by contact with Europeans and diseases they transmitted...the bloodlines carrying other genetics could have easily just been wiped out when you are talking about 95% reductions in population. For example, in Hawaii the population went from between 400,000 and 1,000,000 down to just 40,000 in a generation, mostly due to disease.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying nobody made the trip ever. Just that the migration wasn't that way. The distance was obviously too long for regular trade, but not necessarily an exploratory voyage. The DNA studies have turned up some interesting stuff, and one thing is that ideas spread faster and further than populations- for example, they used to think that at the dawn of the agricultural age, the farmers spread out from Mesopotamia and displaced the native hunter/gatherers. But DNA studies of both Mitochondrial and Y chromosome lineages showed that the populations didn't move, they just adopted new practices.
As far as other bloodlines being wiped out, it's possible. But for disease to get every example of a certain haplotype, even in a drastic reduction, would mean that haplotype was present only on a small percentage. And actually, if the Hawaiians wanted to do it, extant pre-contact bones could be tested. They've got the technique down now for extracting DNA from inside quite old bones. Thousands of years old is doable now.
Have your seen the petroglyphs at sacred falls? There is a huge rock with petroglyphs in the park. I remember going there as a kid and swimming in the pool below the falls.
Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of the free man from the slave.
No, although I may have seen photographs. Sacred Falls has been sealed since Mother's Day 1999 when a landslide killed 7 people there. I used to love going there.
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy.
It is our job to see that it stays there." - George Orwell
Schlegel wrote:The mitochondrial DNA has nailed this down pretty well. About 6k years ago there was a migration from around Taiwan to islands near New Guinea. 3K years ago a migration from there to Polynesia occurred. There doesn't seem to be any significant DNA exchange between the Western Pacific of the Americas and Polynesia. just 2 out of about 1,200 Maori tested, for example had any haplotypes that matched anybody in the Americas. If the migration had gone to the Americas first, this would be a very, very , very unlikely result.
Yes, this is true. The Polynesian haplotype comes from Asia via Taiwan, I believe I've said as much elsewhere on here. But, that doesn't tell the whole story at all. For example, look at Rapanui. They were Polynesians, and Polynesians have no writing, but they came up with a form of writing that isn't found anywhere else called rongorongo. Where did they get the idea from? It's possible they just came up with it independently, but extremely unlikely. However it doesn't take mass migrations to transmit important cultural concepts. Here's what it looked like:
And that's just one possibility. Virtually all Polynesian populations were devastated by contact with Europeans and diseases they transmitted...the bloodlines carrying other genetics could have easily just been wiped out when you are talking about 95% reductions in population. For example, in Hawaii the population went from between 400,000 and 1,000,000 down to just 40,000 in a generation, mostly due to disease.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying nobody made the trip ever. Just that the migration wasn't that way. The distance was obviously too long for regular trade, but not necessarily an exploratory voyage. The DNA studies have turned up some interesting stuff, and one thing is that ideas spread faster and further than populations- for example, they used to think that at the dawn of the agricultural age, the farmers spread out from Mesopotamia and displaced the native hunter/gatherers. But DNA studies of both Mitochondrial and Y chromosome lineages showed that the populations didn't move, they just adopted new practices.
As far as other bloodlines being wiped out, it's possible. But for disease to get every example of a certain haplotype, even in a drastic reduction, would mean that haplotype was present only on a small percentage. And actually, if the Hawaiians wanted to do it, extant pre-contact bones could be tested. They've got the technique down now for extracting DNA from inside quite old bones. Thousands of years old is doable now.
It would be fantastic if they could do some genetic surveys of deceased Hawaiians but they are notoriously touchy about remains, so it is unlikely.
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy.
It is our job to see that it stays there." - George Orwell
More to the point, I agree with you about ideas traveling faster than blood. Did you see the reports recently about proto-Elamite cuneiform? Like this one?
Dr Dahl says that one of the really important historical significances of this proto-Elamite writing is that it was the first ever recorded case of one society adopting writing from another neighbouring group. But infuriatingly for the codebreakers, when these proto-Elamites borrowed the concept of writing from the Mesopotamians, they made up an entirely different set of symbols. Why they should make the intellectual leap to embrace writing and then at the same time re-invent it in a different local form remains a puzzle.
So they didn't actually borrow cuneiform from the Sumerians, they borrowed the concept of writing, and came up with their own methods. Pretty much exactly what you were saying.
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy.
It is our job to see that it stays there." - George Orwell
Schlegel wrote:The mitochondrial DNA has nailed this down pretty well. About 6k years ago there was a migration from around Taiwan to islands near New Guinea. 3K years ago a migration from there to Polynesia occurred. There doesn't seem to be any significant DNA exchange between the Western Pacific of the Americas and Polynesia. just 2 out of about 1,200 Maori tested, for example had any haplotypes that matched anybody in the Americas. If the migration had gone to the Americas first, this would be a very, very , very unlikely result.
Yes, this is true. The Polynesian haplotype comes from Asia via Taiwan, I believe I've said as much elsewhere on here. But, that doesn't tell the whole story at all. For example, look at Rapanui. They were Polynesians, and Polynesians have no writing, but they came up with a form of writing that isn't found anywhere else called rongorongo. Where did they get the idea from? It's possible they just came up with it independently, but extremely unlikely. However it doesn't take mass migrations to transmit important cultural concepts. Here's what it looked like:
And that's just one possibility. Virtually all Polynesian populations were devastated by contact with Europeans and diseases they transmitted...the bloodlines carrying other genetics could have easily just been wiped out when you are talking about 95% reductions in population. For example, in Hawaii the population went from between 400,000 and 1,000,000 down to just 40,000 in a generation, mostly due to disease.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying nobody made the trip ever. Just that the migration wasn't that way. The distance was obviously too long for regular trade, but not necessarily an exploratory voyage. The DNA studies have turned up some interesting stuff, and one thing is that ideas spread faster and further than populations- for example, they used to think that at the dawn of the agricultural age, the farmers spread out from Mesopotamia and displaced the native hunter/gatherers. But DNA studies of both Mitochondrial and Y chromosome lineages showed that the populations didn't move, they just adopted new practices.
As far as other bloodlines being wiped out, it's possible. But for disease to get every example of a certain haplotype, even in a drastic reduction, would mean that haplotype was present only on a small percentage. And actually, if the Hawaiians wanted to do it, extant pre-contact bones could be tested. They've got the technique down now for extracting DNA from inside quite old bones. Thousands of years old is doable now.
It would be fantastic if they could do some genetic surveys of deceased Hawaiians but they are notoriously touchy about remains, so it is unlikely.
American Indians have the same hang ups. Look up Kenniwick man. The bones of a thousand years old man was found in a river. The only problem with the body is that the bones were of a white man. The local tribe has tried to suppress the evidence ever since. Because it challenges the idea that American Indians were here first, their origins, and or both.
In South America , the remains of thousand year old humans with African DNA and features have been found. No one knows how they got there.
Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of the free man from the slave.
Yeah the crowd sourcing to solve proto-Elamite will be awesome if it works. That might be about the last significant body of untranslated "real" writing known to exist.
Yup yup. I, for one, welcome our new Afro-Meso-American lords.
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy.
It is our job to see that it stays there." - George Orwell
