origins

i finally finished that Settlement of the Americas book.
dillehay opened my eyes even moreso to the possibility of people predating the Clovis expansion into the New World.
in fact, he's so matter of fact about it that you eventually take it as a truth.

there are many sites in south america that predate or existed around Clovis time in south america.
some stone tool assemblages were so different that it's hard to see a north american connection.

so what dillehay proposes (i think. i don't think i came up with this on my own) is that the clovis were a late-coming migration movement across beringia.
strangely burials aren't common with these people and even less common in sites that predate clovis.

his theory is that the climate has a lot to do with erasing cultural remnants.
melting glaciers just before the clovis came into the new world covered up a lot of living sites and midden left behind by the people that predate the clovis.
he considers the possibility of an initial wave of migrating people as far as 20,000 years ago.
although there isn't much archaeological data to support this.
but what i also enjoy is the fact that dillehay doesn't fully give the original migrants' nationality as siberian or mongoloid.
he's open to the suggestion that there could have been multiple waves from various sources: europe, africa, and southeast asia, japan, and oceania, along with the most common progenetors previously mentioned.

he mentions (vaguely) about mtDna sequences that native americans have that are only found elsewhere in europe (he's talking about the X mtDNA, but he didn't mention it by name). then he also mentioned Kennewick man whose cranial morphology neither resembled a mongoloid nor a modern-day native american. i believe it was something closer to someone from the south pacific.
however, this is only one sample, and doesn't fully reflect the span of differences of the people in america 9,000 years ago.
however, there were other differences in south america, where western cranial samples were more robust and eastern samples were more gracile. maybe a product of their environment(?) but maybe also different origins.

there are archeaologists in south america that have found sites that date to 40,000 years ago and another to even 300,000 years ago in brazil.
interestingly enough. 40,000 is about the rise of the neandertal. 300,000 is beyond the scope of modern human beings. Homo sapiens were around, but not in the "advanced/evolved" form that you see today.
but the dates given here seem kinda sketchy. even if they were done in 1987 which is somewhat resent, there's just something that doesn't want me to accept these dates. maybe it's that the record that dillehay puts down doesn't show from where the sample was taken and what the sample was.
also, beyond 40,000 years, C14 dating goes to crap and other methods like potassium-thorium dating are required.

but there you have it.
the point he tries to get across here is that migration isn't a single solid instance, but probably a flow of many different peoples at many different times.
even in the near past wars and migration have changed the people inhabiting a given area. what sticks in my head the most are the people of the near east and mediterranean.
in the "beginning", these homeboys were white-ass-white.
enter muslims.
now in spain, italy, greece, and turkey you have people with darker complexions. all thanks to a little friendly jihad or crusade.
but who could predict that a little religious skirmish changed the face of damn-near everyone living around the mediterranean.
it's the same around the world: africa, india, polynesia, southeast asia. everywhere.
give a few centuries or a millenia and things dramatically change.
so how do you get it straight?
fuck if i know.
dig deeper....