No, I'm not going to dignify the nonsense that apparently found its way into Nature's previously prestigious journal where there are claims of humans--or hominids--in this hemisphere from over 100,000 years ago. I'm dumbfounded somebody slipped it past the editors, and my source, MichaelM, offered me a link to an article quoting from all the "luminaries" on that "extraordinary" story.

(insert old joke on how in polite company one says "Incredible!" rather than "Bull $#!%)

Instead, this one offers some very probable linguistic connections between the "Ket People" of Siberia and the Athabaskan languages found in Alaska and the Yukon as well as among the Navajos in the Four Corners region. Dr. Edward Vadja is the scientist doing the seminal work. When I first came to RFM, the conventional wisdom was that the separation between Siberians and Native Americans took place too long ago, and any similarities in language would've faded over time. That may not be the case...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETm2e4M7T4c&t=69s

As I watched this, I was struck by a parallel between Russian and U.S. history in their treatment of indigenous peoples. The Ket language is "endangered" because the children were enrolled in boarding schools and forced to speak Russian.

Our government treated Native Americans similarly until recently, and to bring this back to "on topic," the Mormon Church's "Lamanite Placement Program" was equally toxic to actual Indian heritage.

and I've heard of the possible Ket language link.

BTW, check out a movie called "Dersu Uzala." You might like it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2017 12:55AM by anybody.

anybody Wrote:
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> BTW, check out a movie called "Dersu Uzala." You
> might like it.

DERSU UZALA is one of my All-Time Favorite Films!!!

One of the greats of cinema history, with a wonderful human story.

[A Russian production, with sub-titles in English for viewing here.]

My personal scorn for romantic notions of ancient seafarers is known to most here; the technology required for a transoceanic voyage requires generations and unique circumstances for it to develop and take place. There's a multitude of reasons such ideas strike me as impossible and ludicrous.

I'm "up to speed" on the Vikings' settlement at l'Anse aux Meadows in Northeastern Canada, and it appears the Polynesians, a seafaring people whose bodies show actual physical adaptation to long ocean voyages, may well have made landfall in South America (apparently there is DNA evidence of Native American contact among Easter Islanders). We do find the sweet potato, which originated in South America, cultivated across the Pacific.

That's it, as far as I'm concerned. Hyper-diffusionists in general give me gas, and you're welcome to read my post from several years ago on BYU professor John L. Sorenson's claims of "Biological evidence for pre-Columbian Old World/New World contacts." It's from the old site and can be found in the Short Topics section, #606. That's Part I, and Part II is still on my computer desktop. I'm a bit bored debunking LDS nonsense, honest, but I'll finish it one of these days.

However, the claim you just mentioned was apparently featured in Nature magazine and involved some "evidence" of ancient hominids (presumably that's where your "Neanderthals" idea comes from, but given what we know about where those folks lived, my view is would've had to be another species of hominid).

Here you go (big time bullchip warning); another RFM colleague sent it to me, and he and I share the view that it won't survive long before it is utterly debunked by the peer review process.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v544/n7651/full/nature22065.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-bones-spark-fresh-debate-over-first-humans-in-the-americas/?WT.mc_id=SA_TW_EVO_NEWS

>A study of remains found in southern California puts an unknown human species in the New World more than 100,000 years earlier than expected—but critics aren’t buying it

My take is the "remains" which SA implies were hominid--they weren't--can be explained by "natural causes," and the stone articles are "geo-facts," i.e. stones that resemble tools but were produced by natural events rather than man-made.

One expert on this subject is Gary Haynes, now retired but fomerly at the University of Reno. He did extensive work on elephant bones in Africa and showed how what looked liked "butchering" wasn't. I corresponded with him last fall, and like me, he doesn't believe Monte Verde is as ancient as the "blue ribbon committee" claimed it was. Other very credible sorts in the archeology community including Anna C. Roosevelt, Stuard Fiedel, Dina Dincauze, and C. Vance Haynes agree with that point of view. Roosevelt's video is available on YouTube.

Of course I'm just a "science reporter," but it is an area I have a strong interest in, and I did help Simon edit his contribution to the peer-reviewed online "Global History of Human Migration."

Sea-faring Homo Erectus? Sheesh, Von Däniken's spaceships are almost more believable.

I'm not going to defend the article because I haven't read it and am not familiar with the authors. However, I want to point out that, while this is preliminary and skimpy (sketchy?) evidence, the possibility of archaic humans in that part of the new world, at that time period, isn't completely insane.

Has anyone actually posited that the potential proto-humans were sea farers? I agree that is a complete non-starter. However, there is substantial evidence for genetic transfer through Beringia over the eons, at least for plants and animals. The land bridge appears and disappears over thousands of years. Apparently there was a land bridge sometime before 135ky bp. It is possible that hominids of some kind -- almost certainly not anatomically modern humans -- made it to the new world via a Pacific coastal route, stayed in that area for some time, and then died out.

Archaeology of a Pacific coastal route is difficult due to rising sea levels, tectonic activity, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas#Pacific_coastal_route

Again, I'm not defending the particular article or the archaeological site, I'm merely suggesting that it's not completely out of the question.

Is the presence of hominids in Beringia other than Homo sapiens ~15-20,000 years ago.

Don't tell the "Sasquatch Lives" crowd, however. They're banking on that one.

Anyone who has doubts about the longevity of oral traditions should consider that "Ring around the Rosie" has been passed down by children since the Middle Ages. Just think what adults can do.

Were you thinking that it has something to do with the Black Death?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses

Wikipedia says that such a link is rejected by experts and that there is no evidence of the song before the 18th century.

Evidence for an oral tradition is near impossible, since the first bit of evidence that arises coincides exactly when the tradition is no longer only oral. The first written instance of an oral tradition is like a small tip of an iceberg, which is visible while the vast bulk of the iceberg is submerged and unseen; in the case of an oral tradition, unseeable.

Even serious scholars make serious errors around this problem, easily seen in Shakespeare scholarship.

I don't remember the numbers, but The First Folio has a significant amount of words that appear for the first time in print. Therefore, Shakespeare made up those words and was a prolific word-coiner, right? It's shocking how many assert that.

What to me is obvious, is that Shakespeare was merely coining the spoken language around him into our written system. The audience was hearing their normal, everyday language, whereas the few readers of the time would be seeing the 'folk' language set down into our alphabet for the first time.

And a note on Shakespeare's first readers: it is extremely difficult for us to think of a time when nearly everyone was illiterate. Mass literacy is really a 19th century project that wasn't realized until well into the 20th century.

But 'folk' weren't any less intelligent for all that illiteracy. In Europe, they passed down stories in their own languages for centuries while the literate few were reading and writing Latin with some Greek. In the 19th century a few people got very exited and tried to write these stories down.

But how far back do the actual stories go? Folklorists debate, but they can't really know. The bottom line is, we can't "debunk" tthe claim that ring around the roses is medieval in origin. That is unknowable with any certainty.



And the wiki link adds nothing to the debate. It simply references a "fact checker" from Snopes as its source. And that entry isn't scholarly, to say the most for it.

Human, speaking and singing eons longer than writing

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and they ain't got it. Kinda reminds me of the now de-bunked claims from the Calico Site. Also in S.Cal.

Were you speaking to the just-published-in-Nature claims about hominids on the West Coast ~100,000 years ago, or Dr. Vadya's work (which I've followed for seven years now)?

Because in the latter case that borrowed Sagan soundbite doesn't invalidate the connection, and the connection is on the order of 6,000 years ago, which is consistent with the Athabaskan presence in Alaska and the Yukon.

I was speaking of the 100k+ claims. The Ket/Athabascan connection is well established as you pointed out.

Fascinating. Thanks, Cabbie.

Hmmmm, Interesting reads both but I first looked at them about 2 hours ago and then promptly went down the rabbit hole of clicking other links within the articles. Thanks, Cabbie ;)

Looks like this report of early man in the Americas is pretty much DOA.

https://cennathis.com/2017/04/28/three-reasons-the-cerutti-mastondon-was-not-manipulated-by-hominins/?preview_id=1362&preview_nonce=0f7bc2b7a8

Unfortunately, with the reality of the Internet Age, the old Winston Churchill observation of a lie traveling halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on is the operating motif. In fact, this one has probably circled the globe several times already.

I like YouTube (being the addictive sort I am, I'm using it as a substitute for the "heroin of politics" these days), and there are some really good "shows," but there's also a ton of nonsensical crap from headcases who've somehow managed to learn to operate the video editing software.

I was prompted last night with half-a-dozen short pieces hyping these claims, and I guess they'll just have to run their course.

I see Gary Haynes (one of my evil "Clovis First" heroes; I corresponded with last fall when I was in Reno, but alas, he'd just retired and didn't have an office) is quoted in the article. and he's an expert's expert as far as I'm concerned.

Thank you for giving props to Ed Vadja at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.

When I was the director of research and sponsored programs there it was an honor to see, and visit with Dr. V who created a written dictionary in Ket. He is brilliant and gifted.

I once suggested that it would be a good idea to have him as a speaker at an Exmormon conference to explain his linguistic connections to Ket and N. American first nations people.

For more exciting information look up his website on the Western Washington University site.

Thank you SL Cabbie for mentioning Dr. V