DNA evidence rocks the boat

Genetic analysis on Native American DNA samples began in the 1980s. However, the research effort greatly accelerated in the 1990s due to rapid technological progress in the field. In fact, the early results confirmed the generally accepted theory showing a clear link between Native Americans and DNA samples collected from native peoples in Siberian-Asia. Nevertheless, as the studies both deepened and broadened to include Asians across the continent, the increasing data revealed that the migration pattern had been more complex than anthropologist's had envisioned.

The early results showed that Native American tribes were comprised of four distinct mtDNA haplogroups, A, B, C, and D. The haplogroup designations represent four different (maternal) lineages. These four lineages are found throughout North, Central and South America. However, only three of them A, C, and D were discovered in the Siberian-Asian populations. The B haplogroup was traced to aboriginal population groups in Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Melanesia, and Polynesia.

Before proceeding we should briefly clarify what mtDNA is. There are two types of genetic material used for analysis, cellular and mtDNA, the latter is found in human mitochondia outside the nucleus of cells and is only transferred down generations through females, hence mtDNA stands for maternal DNA. This type is simpler than the cellular DNA and it evolves faster,so it is used to distinguish human groups that evolved in separate geographic areas.

Genetic researchers determined that 96% of Native Americans fell into one of the four A-D haplogroups and while these mtDNA types were also found in Asia they are not present in Europe or Africa. This too indicates that Asia was the ancestral region of most Native American tribes. Then in 1997 another lineage was discovered, which geneticists dubbed X. This discovery ignited a storm of controversy that has not died down to this day. The X haplogroup needs careful,thoughtful, and deep historical analysis because this group may well hold one of the most important keys to unlocking the secrets of our collective past.

Obviously about 4 percent of Native Americans, from Alaska to the tip of South America, do not fall into one of the four major haplogroups. Scientists assumed that these minority lineages came from interactions with European and African groups since the time of Columbus. This proved to be true for about 1.5% of Native Americans however 2.5% were found to belong to the X lineage. Once this small mtDNA group was identified as a distinct genetic type, the race was on to ascertain their place of origin.

This is where the mystery really gets complicated and interesting. In spite of the fact that the previous genetic data was forcing the orthodoxy to make some alterations in their migration scheme and chronology, as we saw their basic paradigm had been confirmed. But the discovery of the X haplogroup changed that situation dramatically. It was known to exist in Europe in about 5% of the population and unknown in Asia and Africa at the time. The X lineage was ascertained to have arrived in the Americas from about 38,000 to 10,000 years ago. What could this mean?

At first anthropologists argued that since Europeans had not traveled across the Atlantic at such a remote point in time the X group had to be the outcome of post Columbus contact and intermarriage. However when researchers analyzed ancient DNA samples, found in the Great Lakes (Mound Builder) region, which dated back long before Columbus they identified some of the samples as belonging to the X group. This proved they were not the outcome of any post-Columbus contact and were not of recent origin.

When investigators compiled the genetic data on the distribution of the X haplogroup in the America's what they discovered sent shock waves through the conventional and alternative history camps. The X lineage was only found in a handful of tribes scattered across the country, the Yakima and Sioux in the northwest and the Navajo in the southwest, in about 5% of their populations. However, the greatest concentrations by far occurred in the Ojibway, Oneota and Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribes where almost 25% of the tribal members fell into the X lineage.

Moreover, the vast majority of tribes contained no X members. In fact, it was not found in any native tribes in Central or South America. Again, what did these patterns mean? Independent researchers associated with the Edgar Cayce Association (A.R.E.) quickly pointed out that the data supported some of the material found in the Atlantis readings that the 'sleeping prophet' had given in the 1930s. Cayce noted that some Atlantis refugees had immigrated to the northeastern region of the United States and later formed the Iroquois nation. It was in those tribes that the highest concentration of the X haplogroup was found.

The apparent widespread presence of the X lineage across what is now known as the United States appears to show a wide initial dispersal. One could postulate a west-east migration of this haplogroup from Siberian Asia. But that scenario poses two serious obstacles:1) the greatest concentration of this group is found in the northeastern region of the United States and 2) X is virtually absent in Asia.

Like a good detective novel, all of the clues had not been uncovered in the late 1990s when the X group had been identified and was being hotly debated. Geneticists pressed forward and launched a probe into the Altai tribe located in the Gobi desert and found the X lineage in small numbers. This is the only population in Asia that exhibits this haplogroup and as such they comprise a tiny, isolated genetic island. Orthodox anthropologists were elated when the news reached their ears. They seized on this finding as smoking gun proof that the X group in North America had its ancestral roots in Siberian Asia, end of story.

To say that this was an unscientific rush to a final conclusion that just happened to agree with their long held beliefs is an understatement. Let us pause and use logic and commonsense and try to walk through what we are being asked to accept. The Gobi Desert is about 8,000 miles from the northeastern section of the United States. We are being told that this tribe trekked that distance and transferred their genes from their ancestral homeland to the Great Lakes without depositing the X group genes in any other part of Asia, Alaska, Canada, and the region between Washington and the Northeast America.

Everyone agrees that any such migration would have taken place during the harshest of conditions since the Ice Age still held this entire region in its frigid grip. Furthermore, we are being asked to suspend our disbelief raised by the notion that a tiny tribe trekked these vast distances across a frozen landscape for unknown reasons. Why would any small tribe risk everything and wander half way around the globe during an ice age when they did not know what lay beyond the next horizon? In fact, anthropologists and historians know that this is not the way human tribes have operated since the dawn of time.

On February 16, 1932 Cayce related some information during a reading that is extraordinarily cogent to this unfolding genetic mystery story. When asked about the position of the continent of Atlantis he replied:

"The position the continent Atlantis occupied, is that as between the Gulf of Mexico on the one hand - and the Mediterranean upon the other. Evidences of this lost civilization are to be found in the Pyrenees and Morocco on the one hand, British Honduras, Yucatan and America upon the other."

Now, we must pick up the trail of clues on the other side of the Atlantic. Let us keep in mind that when Cayce gave this reading DNA had not yet been discovered and there was no such thing as mtDNA analysis. Nevertheless, he mentioned "evidences" in two specific locales, the Pyrenees, a mountain range sandwiched in between France and Spain where the Basques live, and Morocco where another ancient group, the Berbers resides. Astonishingly, these two populations contain the highest frequencies of the X lineage found in Europe and North Africa.

The Basques have long puzzled anthropologists, linguists and historians because, although they are Caucasian they do not fit in with the rest of the European populations. Their language is not related to any other tongue in the world. Prior to the advent of genetic research tools investigators used the ABO blood groups to study the relationships between human populations as well as their migration patterns. The Basques turned out to be unique in terms of blood types as well. As a population they contain the highest levels of Rh- 'O' negative blood in the world and among the lowest type B.

Now, what Cayce was suggesting is that some of the people that fled the sinking continent went west and settled and became the Iroquois. Others went east to the Iberian Peninsula then the Pyrenees (Basques), and the West Coast of North Africa then the Atlas Mountains (Berbers). Turning to the Berbers we find yet another group that contains the highest frequency of haplogroup X in the world. Is it a coincidence that these disparate peoples share a very rare mtDNA lineage?

It is unfortunate that the Berbers have never received much attention from science over the years. Here we have a Caucasian race living in North Africa of all places. Anthropologists dismissed them because they did not fit well into the 'Out of Africa' scenario and it was assumed that they had back immigrated southward from somewhere in Europe. However, that theory has been abandoned and scientists now accept the fact that they are an indigenous people, which they believe go back to the Stone Age. But how can this be we must ask since the rest of the continent below the Sahara is black African?

However, there are more and more scientists that are contesting the Beringia Land Bridge theory as the only means by which humans came to the Americas. In fact, some maintain that new evidence suggests that there were a variety of routes from different directions that were possibly taken by groups of ancient peoples. Others have disproved the theory of migration through the ice-free corridor at the times when travel was assumed to have taken place.

Geologist Alejandra Duk-Rodkin of the Geological Survey of Canada has completed extensive research of the Mackenzie River Valley, the area commonly assumed to be where an ice-free corridor was open for ancient peoples to walk through. She has found strong evidence to prove that this journey was not possible without the aid of boats between 30,000 to 10,000BP. Read about the results of her research in Chapter 21 “The Corridor That Wasn’t” in Bones: Discovering the First Americans by Elaine Dewar (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2001).

The problem with this hypothesis is that, while there are many Clovis sites found in North and South America, no evidence has ever been found in the area of the ice-free corridor, within the correct time frame, to support this theory of migration. However, as no alternate theories had been found acceptable, though a minority of archeologists clamored for recognition of an earlier migration, this theory had become standard thought. This was before the artifacts at Monte Verde came to light, a discovery that threw an unexpected spanner into the works of current archeological thought on the populating of the Americas.

7,500 miles from Beringia you’ll find MVII, the site number for an archeological dig at Monte Verde in southern Chile. Carbon dating from MVII has resulted in dates of 12,500 BCE. These findings caused a bit of a stir, as it was evident that people were dining on Pleistocene llamas and fish in Monte Verde 1000 years before the opening of the ice-free corridor. Upstream from MVII there would be more evidences to stir the pot. MVI, about 35 miles away, consisted of stone tools and hearths as much as 33,000 years old. Though the MVI date was, and still is, severely contested, it was obviously time to reevaluate the accepted theory of migration.

The rate of sea level rise slowed between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago during the Younger Dryas cold period and was succeeded by another surge, "meltwater pulse 1B", 11,500-11,000 years ago, when sea level may have jumped by 28 m according to Fairbanks,

"This event happened near the end of the last Ice Age, a period of de-glaciation that lasted from about 21,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago," Clark said. "The average sea level rise during that period was about eight millimeters per year. But during this meltwater pulse there was an extremely rapid disintegration of an ice sheet and sea levels rose much faster than average."

The amount of sea level rise that occurred during a single year of that period, Clark said, is more than the total sea level rise that has occurred in the past 100 years.

Q. Was Atlantis one of the five points at which man appeared in the beginning, being the home of the red race?

A. One of the five points. As has been given, in what is known as Gobi, India, in Carpathia, or in that known as the Andes, and that known as in the western plain of what is now called America -- the five places. In their presentation, as we find, these -- in the five places, as man (Let's get the difference in that as first appeared (as thought forms) in what is known as Atlantis, and that as man appearing from those projections in the five places -- and, as has been given, from their environ took on that as became necessary for the meeting of those varying conditions under which their individualities and personalities began to put on form) -- one in the white, another in the brown, another in the black, another in the red. These, as we find, taking that form -- Would snow be the place for the black? or the sun the place for the white? or the desert and the hills for the white or the black? as were partakers of those things that brought about those variations in that which enters, or becomes as the outer presentation, or the skin, or the pigment that is presented in same.

Q. Did the appearance of the five races occur simultaneously?

A. Occurred at once.

Q. Describe the earth's surface at the period of the five projections?

A. This has been given. In the first, or that known as the beginning, or in the Caucasian and Carpathian, or the Garden of Eden, in that land which lies now much in the desert, yet much in mountain and much in rolling lands there. The extreme northern portions were then the southern portions, or the polar regions were then turned to where they occupied more of the tropical and semi-tropical regions; hence it would be hard to discern or discriminate the change. The Nile entered into the Atlantic Ocean. What is now the Sahara was an inhabited land and very fertile. What is now the central portion of this country, or the Mississippi basin, was then all in the ocean; only the plateau was existent, or the regions that are now portions of Nevada, Utah and Arizona formed the greater part of what we know as the United States. That along the Atlantic board formed the outer portion then, or the lowlands of Atlantis. The Andean, or the Pacific coast of South America, occupied then the extreme portion of Lemuria. The Urals and the northern regions of same were turned into a tropical land. The desert in the Mongolian land was then the fertile portion. This may enable you to form some concept of the status of the earth's representation at that time! The oceans were then turned about; they no longer bear their names, yet from whence obtained they their names? What is the legend, even as to their names?

Q. Are the following the correct places? Atlantean, the red?

A. Atlantean and American, the red race.

Q. Upper Africa for the black?

A. Or what would be known now as the more western portion of upper Egypt for the black. You see, with the changes -- when there came the uprisings in the Atlantean land, and the sojourning southward -- with the turning of the axis -- the white and yellow races came into that portion of Egypt, India, Persia and Arabia.

Archaic African and Asian lineages in the genetic ancestry of modern humans.
R M Harding, S M Fullerton, R C Griffiths, J Bond, M J Cox, J A Schneider, D S Moulin, and J B Clegg
MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom. rharding@vax.ox.ac.uk

Abstract
A 3-kb region encompassing the beta-globin gene has been analyzed for allelic sequence polymorphism in nine populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A unique gene tree was constructed from 326 sequences of 349 in the total sample. New maximum-likelihood methods for analyzing gene trees on the basis of coalescence theory have been used. The most recent common ancestor of the beta-globin gene tree is a sequence found only in Africa and estimated to have arisen approximately 800,000 years ago. There is no evidence for an exponential expansion out of a bottlenecked founding population, and an effective population size of approximately 10,000 has been maintained. Modest differences in levels of beta-globin diversity between Africa and Asia are better explained by greater African effective population size than by greater time depth. There may have been a reduction of Asian effective population size in recent evolutionary history. Characteristically Asian ancestry is estimated to be older than 200,000 years, suggesting that the ancestral hominid population at this time was widely dispersed across Africa and Asia. Patterns of beta-globin diversity suggest extensive worldwide late Pleistocene gene flow and are not easily reconciled with a unidirectional migration out of Africa 100,000 years ago and total replacement of archaic populations in Asia.

Templeton's views on human evolution spark heated debate. But reservations about the power of current DNA studies to describe human evolution are not uncommon.

Mountain, who views accumulated genetic evidence as moderately supportive of a recent African origin for humanity, still sees a pressing need for improved analyses of large DNA samples.

"Far too often, anthropological geneticists draw conclusions about human evolutionary history without testing hypotheses or exploring alternate models," Mountain remarks. "In some cases, this is because data are insufficient. In other cases, the immediate impression generated by the data blinds us to alternatives."

Hammer, who remains undecided on how modern humans evolved, suspects that investigators will increasingly experiment with statistical formulas for weighing the contributions of natural selection and other factors to DNA diversity.

"Over the next 10 years, more complex genetic models will emerge," Hammer says. "DNA research has not solved the mystery of human origins."

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Fascinating Hollywood11

I always assumed that the missing part of that would have been the polinsions since Thor proved they could sale great distances, any follow up info on them being the missing link so to speak.
No Pun intended

Originally posted by Hollywood11
Again, the history books don't really know much and can't explain human history accurately.