Did the First Americans Come From, Er, Australia?

I have in my experiences, come across people who at first glance seemed to be oriental in origin, however upon speaking with them found out they were from South America. So I have always held the opinion that the first South Americans came from orient. New research suggests that this may be true, that the first Americans came from Japan, through Australia to America.

Anthropologists stepped into a hornets' nest on Monday, revealing research that suggests the original inhabitants of America may in fact have come from what is now known as Australia.
The claim will be extremely unwelcome to today's native Americans who came overland from Siberia and say they were there first.

But Silvia Gonzalez from John Moores University in Liverpool said skeletal evidence pointed strongly to this unpalatable truth and hinted that recovered DNA would corroborate it.

"This is very contentious," Gonzalez, a Mexican, said with a smile at the annual meeting of the British association for the Advancement of Science. "They (native Americans) cannot claim to have been the first people there."

She said there was very strong evidence that the first migration came from Australia via Japan and Polynesia and down the Pacific Coast of America.

Full Story

Originally posted by William One Sac
I have in my experiences, come across people who at first glance seemed to be oriental in origin, however upon speaking with them found out they were from South America. So I have always held the opinion that the first South Americans came from orient. New research suggests that this may be true, that the first Americans came from Japan, through Australia to America.

Anthropologists stepped into a hornets' nest on Monday, revealing research that suggests the original inhabitants of America may in fact have come from what is now known as Australia.
The claim will be extremely unwelcome to today's native Americans who came overland from Siberia and say they were there first.

But Silvia Gonzalez from John Moores University in Liverpool said skeletal evidence pointed strongly to this unpalatable truth and hinted that recovered DNA would corroborate it.

"This is very contentious," Gonzalez, a Mexican, said with a smile at the annual meeting of the British association for the Advancement of Science. "They (native Americans) cannot claim to have been the first people there."

She said there was very strong evidence that the first migration came from Australia via Japan and Polynesia and down the Pacific Coast of America.

Full Story

well it should get a few minds thinking.
you can also find the story herewww.abc.net.au...

Think Gondwanaland, baby. The jigsaw fits together very nicely - how far down the evolutionary chain were we, and are there really remnants of the ancient civilization under the Antarctic ice?

No-one really looks as the Australian Aboriginals look. How do these long term custodians of the Australian continent fit this picture?

I posted about this a few days ago in this thread but nobody seemed to pick up on it. It's been "common knowledge" for about 6 years that DNA evidence points to a common ancestral link between South American & Australian natives coming from Africa over 15,000 years before asians migrated from the Alaskan bridge into North America. The thing that holds everything back is the extremely slow acceptance to new evidence or population models by US archeologists and anthropologists. It's an old boys club where most new ideas and theories take decades to gain acceptance.

Tierra Del Fuego,

There are still people down there, in South America, with Mitochondrial
Linkage to the Australians. Probably BOTH shared a common ancestor
From Africa a few tens of thousands of years ago.

This is not the ORIGINAL common Ancestor I'm talking about. from the first migration out of Africa.

This a a later Migration...A direct Boat trip.

American Aborigines

I wouldn't be surprised.

Similarly some of the Islanders and New Zealanders look very Asian. Backs up your theory William.

Personally I buy the Bering Straight theory. Asians came across the Bering Straight, while frozen over.




[edit on 7-9-2004 by intrepid]

I'm sure that eventually it will be accepted that there were a series of human migrations into the Americas - both before and after the LGM. The earliest migration - maybe as long as 40,000 years ago - would have been of people much more closely related to the Australians than the more recent, post ice age migration of the 'Clovis' people.