First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
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First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
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Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#2Here are two much more recent papers on the topic:
Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu...
Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/aab3884.abstract
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#3Here are two much more recent papers on the topic: Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu... Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/aab3884.abstract
Back in 2010, I had a chat with Nick Patterson (one of the authors on that Nature paper) about the admixture problem. At the time, he was looking for an efficient algorithm for reconstructing ancestral trees subject to admixture. What he didn't realize at the time was that he was trying to solve a special case of Steiner Tree!
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#4Here are two much more recent papers on the topic: Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu... Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/aab3884.abstract
That Nature article makes Thor Heyerdahl right even if in reverse. That's ... amazing.
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#5It's a small world after all. Interestingly, DNA from Aboriginal Australians suggests Australia experienced a wave of migration from India about 4,000 years ago.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/01/aborigin...
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#6Also Kon-Tiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#7Also Kon-Tiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
Kon-Tiki was interesting, but I can't handle the implication of Heyerdahl's beliefs - that the Polynesian people, supreme sailors and navigators who travelled huge distances across the open ocean while Europeans were still hugging the coast, were somehow incapable of sailing to South America and back.
We know that there has been some contact between the Americas and Polynesia, for example, the staple food of the Maori of New Zealand was the kumara, a sweet potato, which are native to the Americas.
His main objection was based, I believe, on predominating currents and winds. However, in an El Nino year, the currents shift and winds shift, and there is evidence that Polynesian migrations eastward coincided with El Nino events.
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#8Here are two much more recent papers on the topic: Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu... Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/aab3884.abstract
Wish I could get around the paywall. Do you have anything beyond the abtract? I'll really like to read the whole thing
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#9Here are two much more recent papers on the topic: Nature http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/natu... Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6250/aab3884.abstract
Wish I could get around the paywall. Do you have anything beyond the abtract? I'll really like to read the whole thing
I was able to find one of them googling: http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Welcome_file...
Re: First South Americans Were Australian Aborigines (1999)
#10Also Kon-Tiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition
Kon-Tiki was interesting, but I can't handle the implication of Heyerdahl's beliefs - that the Polynesian people, supreme sailors and navigators who travelled huge distances across the open ocean while Europeans were still hugging the coast, were somehow incapable of sailing to South America and back. We know that there has been some contact between the Americas and Polynesia, for example, the staple food of the Maor…
Australians != Polynesians. Polynesian migrations are relatively recent, starting 3000BC ~ 1000BC from Taiwan. They got to New Zealand and Easter Island only about 1200 AD, which is only 300 years before Columbus. I don't recall any evidence that they sailed all the way to the Americas between 1200AD and 1500 AD, the time of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia#Origins_and_expansio...