Tag: Migration

Reconstruction of Mexico Ice Age Woman suggests Several Migration Waves

la mujer de las malmas underwater skeleton and reconstruction Scientists have made a reconstruction of a 10,000 year old ancient woman, based on the skeletal remains found near Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Surprisingly, the reconstruction resembles people from Southeastern Asia,rather than Northern Asia.

In 2002, divers discovered the remains of an Ice Age woman at an underwater cave 4.5 km from Tulum, on the Ycutan Peninsula. The well-preserved remains 90% complete are estimated to be between 10,000 and 12,000 years old.

Based on the skeleton, experts have now reconstructed what Mujer de las Palmas (The Woman of the Palms) must have looked like with surprising results. The body structure, skin and eyes are similar to those of Southeast Asia people. According tothe scientists, this reinforces the hypothesis of multiple migration waves to the Americas, not just from Northern Asia but also from the Central and Southern areas. Additional, local ‘micro-evolution’ was just as important as migration.

Based on the skeleton remains, anthropologists and archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) concluded the woman named Mujer de las Palmas, after the cave where she was discovered- was 1m52 tall, weighed approximately 58 kilos and was between 44 and 50 years old at time of death.

After extensive study of the skull, the researchers found that its physical features do not correspond with the characteristics of Mexican indigenous population, nor with ancient inhabitants of America. Her face is more similar to people from Southeast Asia, says Alejandro Terrazas, anthropologist at the National University of Mexico.

Terrazassays this indicates that American Continent was populated by several migratory movements, rather than by one or two waves from Northern Asia that arrived through Bering Strait, as most theories say happened.

History is not that simple, there were a lot of movements, Terrazas explains. What Mujer de las Palmas reveals is that there were more migrations from Southern and Central Asia that resulted in a local evolution in America, producing a great diversity of populations that already existed when the Clovis Culture developed (13,500 years ago).

Our position at present, based on the study of Mujer de las Palmas, is that the model of two migrations of Paleoamericans and Amerindians is very limited, he continuous.

Yet, the anthropologist cautioned that although the scientific reconstruction is based on skull measurements and calculations of the muscle and other tissue that once covered her face – one can never be completely sure.

Ten millennia ago, the Yucatan area was very different from the peninsula we know today.The landscape was more desert prairie than jungle, and the Las Palmas cava was not yet flooded. Animals as well as people would havesought shelter and water in the caves.

The reconstruction of la Mujer de las Palmas is on display at the ‘Altered Planet: Climate Change and Mexico’ exhibition in Guanajuato, together with virtual reconstructions of central Mexico’s other ‘oldest remains’: el Hombre de Tepexpan (about 4,000 years old), la Mujer del Pen (more than 10,000 years old) and el Hombre del Metro Balderas (also about 10,000 years old).

New World Settled Twice: Two-migration Scenario for the Americas

The two-migration scenario according to the study. A new analysis of Early American skeletons concludes that the large anatomical difference seen between ancient and recent Native Americans is best explained by two colonisation events of the New World.

The study suggest that the latest common ancestor between Early and Late Native American groups must have been located outside the continent: an other group of individuals arrived in the New World before the primary ancestors of today’s Native Americans.

The team studied a series of skeletons from South and Central America between 7,500 and 11,5000 years old, comparing them with those of more than 300 Amerindians, dating to 1000 years ago.The morphologicaldata wasthen compared against six possible scenarios for the settlement of the New World, including a single migration scenario, a single migration with subsequent evolutionary change through time, and two migrations into the Americas.

The comparison results suggest that the last common ancestor between Early and Late Native American groups must have been located outside the continent, and that a scenario considering two distinct migrations from Northeast Asia explains the observed differences best.

We found that the differences seen between Early and Late Native American groups match the predictions of a two-migration scenario far better than they do those of any other hypothesis, even taking into account local evolution through time. In other words, these differences are so large that it is highly improbable that the earliest inhabitants of the New World were the direct ancestors of recent Native American populations explain the authors of the study, published in PloS One.

In such a scenario, an early migration from North-East Asia and through the Bering Strait into the continent could have given rise to the Early American populations found in South and Central America.

This first dispersal between Paleoamericans and Amerindians probably occurred before the evolution of the distinctive cranial morphology that characterizes Native Americans today. This morphology would have been brought into the continent in a second wave of migration, again from East Asia and following much the same route.

The research by professors Katerina Harvati (University of Tubingen), Mark Hubbe (University Catlica del Norte) and Walter Neves (San Paulo University) indicates an elaborate scenario for the settlement of the New World: “What we actually demonstrate is that the processes associated with the settlement of the Americas appear to have been more complex than is often proposed.”

Test Your DNA as Part of National Geographic and IBM’s Unique Genographic Project

When it comes to our roots, most of us think we know where our early ancestors came from the continent if not the country. Most people have clear ideas on their nationality and they see it as a defining part of themselves and their identity. The Genographic Project, launched by National Geographic, IBM and scientist Dr Spencer Wells, seeks to challenge what we think we know about our very distant past – and our very notions of who we are.

Studies of DNA have suggested that all humans today are descended from one group of ancestors who lived about 60,000 years ago in Africa although their migratory routes from Africa to the most far-flung parts of the globe are not clear. A DNA-testing project has just been launched to try and gain more data about the migratory history of the human species and the public is invited to participate.

It will be DNA-testing ‘indigenous’ and traditional people from around the world but it’s also asking the general public to get involved by sending in a DNA swab to be tested in IBM’s labs. To do this you need to buy a Genographic participation kit, which includes project literature and a swab to be taken from inside your mouth but, at $99.95, it doesn’t come cheap.

Who are the ‘Indigenous’ People?

The issue of where we come from was in the news after Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, was challenged on the BBC’s Question Time to define what he meant by the ‘indigenous’ peoples of Britain. As the American playwright and British Museum trustee Bonnie Greer said on the programme, screened on 22 October: the idea of ‘indigenous’ people just doesn’t exist.

Griffin’s attempt at a definition may have had archaeologists ‘tearing their hair out’, as Madeleine Bunting points out in the Guardian, but the Genographic DNA test could provide some interesting clarity on this political question. Would Mr Griffin rethink his party’s policies if it transpired that his own ancestors originated far away from the small island called Britain? It’s worth $99 to find out.

San Diego’s Museum of Man

In San Diego’s Museum of Man, the first Genographic Project exhibit has gone on display. A giant map on the exhibition floor shows migratory patterns around the world, while the exhibition gives a full explanation of how DNA can be used to understand the interconnectedness of the human species.

To mark the exhibit opening, the project director, Dr Spencer Wells, is presenting a public lecture at the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan Theater at the nearby San Diego Natural History Museum on 11 November at 6:30pm. The lecture is free but booking is required. Call +1 619-239-2001, ext 10 or email mtaylor@museumofman.org.

Photos by Alan1954 from the Heritage Key Flickr pool, and Tim Stahl, Stahl Photographics.