back to article Native Americans were actually European - BEFORE the Europeans arrived!

DNA from a prehistoric Siberian boy could reveal exactly where Native Americans - the people who occupied the American continents before Europeans crossed the Atlantic - actually came from. Everybody's pretty clear that the Native Americans arrived across the ancient land bridge from Asia, the location of the present-day …

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  1. Alan Bourke

    Columbus?

    Is this the same Columbus that not only didn't discover America but never set foot on what is now the United States?

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Columbus?

      "Christopher Columbus: Couldn't figure out where he was going, no clue where he was, and he did it on borrowed money. Now THERE'S an American hero!"

      1. Joe User
        FAIL

        Re: Columbus?

        "Christopher Columbus: Couldn't figure out where he was going, no clue where he was, and he did it on borrowed money. Now THERE'S an American hero!"

        Columbus was an Italian, working for Spain. Try opening your history book before opening your mouth....

      2. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Columbus?

        Just not a hero of Native Americans.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Columbus?

          "Just not a hero of Native Americans".

          Or decent human beings. Or halfway decent human beings. Or human beings with any flickering of an idea that something like decent behaviour exists. Or rats, hyenas, jackals... ants... amoebae...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Columbus?

      Sometimes its easier just to run along with what the average Seppo thinks is their history than try to explain it to them yet again.

      1. Eddy Ito

        Re: Columbus?

        "Sometimes its easier just to run along with what the average Seppo thinks is their history than try to explain it to them yet again."

        A bunch of thieves stumbled across a place they didn't know existed and proceeded to rape and pillage in the name of some far off king and god destroying the culture and impoverishing the people that existed before they arrived and continue to do so. Before that it was likely a bunch of nomads looking for a place to find new and interesting plants and animals and eat them. What's to explain?

    3. Peter Mount

      Re: Columbus?

      That's the one.

      The oatmeal put up a good description on him which also dispels that myth:

      http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

      Says it all really

      1. BlueGreen

        Re: Columbus?

        To others, that oatmeal link is well worth a read. I had no idea.

  2. Florida1920
    Pirate

    Re: Columbus?

    And got the capital of Ohio and a "circle" in NYC named for him, among other stuff.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Columbus?

      Well by that metric I have an entire Virginia named after me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Columbus?

        Because you're still a virgin?

    2. Mike Moyle

      Re: Columbus?

      At least we didn't officially name our COUNTRY after him, unlike some I could mention...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Exactly where the Native Americans - the people who occupied the American continents before Europeans crossed the Atlantic - actually came from is a hotly debated topic among scientists."

    Maybe when the earth surface was one continent?

    1. Bumpy Cat

      Oh dear

      Pangea broke up into multiple continents about 200 million years ago.

      Modern hominids evolved about 5 million years ago.

      Modern humans have only walked the earth with the continents in their current locations.

      1. Mtech25
        Alien

        Re: Oh dear

        The theory is that there was a land bridge from america to east asia during the end of the last ice age about 30 000 years ago... or it could be aliens

        1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

          Re: Oh dear

          "or it could be aliens"

          It was. Illegal aliens invaded, disposing of the poor Clovis people. ;)

          1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

            Re: Oh dear

            There's plenty of evidence of pre-Clovis cultures.

  4. Suricou Raven

    Awaiting politics.

    How does this affect the sillyness of US law?

    'You get to have some casino profits because my government gave your tribe a monopoly in apology for my ancestors killing some of your ancestors.'

    With the reservations and such, they've effectively got independent legal systems based on ancestry.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Awaiting politics.

      Obviously if native Americans and Europeans had common ancestors then Europeans get to run casinos as well.

      Although apparently it's racist to claim that 1st nations came from Africa via Asia via an Alaskan land bridge. Their sincerely held beliefs are that they originated here on the land and so have absolute rights to it.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Awaiting politics.

        Racism is a modern sin. Apparently its worse to treat someone badly if they look slightly different from yourself, if they have a darker skin-tone than yourself, than if they are the same or lighter.

        I don't really get that. Abuse is abuse and I have no time for "grading" an evil action based on motivation. It is not better to beat someone in order to take their wallet than it is to beat them because they are foreign.

        I don't care about your colour or your slave's colour. Slavery is wrong.

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Racism is a modern sin

          So for you, anything that exists since, oh, around at least 2000 years is modern ?

          Or have you never heard of that obscure book called the Bible, where Jews were enslaved by the Egyptians of the time ?

          Just saying.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Awaiting politics.

        "Although apparently it's racist to claim that 1st nations came from Africa via Asia via an Alaskan land bridge. Their sincerely held beliefs are that they originated here on the land and so have absolute rights to it."

        But I thought the geneticists had proved we were all derived from Africa? I'm not sure what to put on the census, or the employer diversity forms any more. The fools keep on putting choices like "White British" of "Black AFrican/Caribbean". Perhaps they should separate colour and ethnicity. We could all then tick "African", and then whatever colour we felt today.

        And another thing! I'm not white, I'm pink. Dead people, they're a sort of off-white. Now where's my box for "Pink African"?

    2. btrower

      Re: Awaiting politics.

      @Syrucou Raven:

      Re: "With the reservations and such, they've effectively got independent legal systems based on ancestry."

      I used to think the same way before I became acquainted with how shamefully the indigenous population got ripped off. The rip-off is ongoing. It would not be us giving them something we both inherited. It would be us recognizing their ownership which was never legally transferred. It is *still* their land.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Awaiting politics.

        Don't worry, these people are playing the long game. The eye of the eagle sees a wider horizon and all that. I have relatives with Lakota blood in their veins, their stories tell of a time yet to come, not for revenge, but for resetting the status quo. Some of the precarious lives lived today are but short and sad moments that will never be forgotten but you cannot rush an eternal spirit.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Awaiting politics.

        Same thing applies everywhere.

        We have had a 1000years of Norman/Southern oppression which is still continuing - and we don't get Casinos.

        Time to throw off the oppressors, kill anyone called Piers and take back our land.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Awaiting politics.

          "We have had a 1000years of Norman/Southern oppression which is still continuing - and we don't get Casinos."

          I though Manchester and Sheffield have some very fine casinos

          signed

          Piers

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Awaiting politics.

      "With the reservations and such, they've effectively got independent legal systems based on ancestry."

      And all those countries around the world aren't examples of the same thing?

  5. starnavig8r

    Ooops!

    Many think it was divine intervention plus 5000 years . . . or maybe an alien ark?

  6. Petrea Mitchell
    Boffin

    Modern Europeans weren't...

    ...at the time. Keep in mind that the ancestors of most of today's Indo-European-speaking European inhabitants didn't actually arrive in Europe until at most 3-4000 years ago. What we're talking about here is a population where one part headed west for new lands across Beringia, and another part just kept bouncing around inner Asia for the next several thousand years.

    1. Petrea Mitchell
      Facepalm

      Re: Modern Europeans weren't...

      Argh, I mean "...headed EAST for new lands across Beringia...". Muphry's Law [sic] strikes again.

  7. chris lively

    Continued proof that first to market doesn't always mean you keep dominating it. You still have to innovate or your competitors will take it all away.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "Continued proof that first to market doesn't always mean you keep dominating it. You still have to innovate or your competitors will take it all away."

      Or just rape, murder and infect you with diseases you don't have any immunity to.

      Which works pretty well too.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Or just rape, murder and infect you with diseases you don't have any immunity to. Which works pretty well too."

        But this new research says that the two groups had similar genetic origins, so that makes it all OK,

  8. eulampios

    if I remember correctly

    Wasn't there some kind of (still debated) evidence that the mysterious Clovis culture might have come from somewhere in the Northern France during the Ice Age? There are a number of pretty well done BBC, Nova and other nice documentaries on this out there.

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: if I remember correctly

      "Wasn't there some kind of (still debated) evidence that the mysterious Clovis culture might have come from somewhere in the Northern France during the Ice Age? There are a number of pretty well done BBC, Nova and other nice documentaries on this out there."

      I'll have to look for those. Never heard that one before.

      Stranger things have happened in human history.

    2. disgruntled yank

      Re: if I remember correctly

      There was a Clovis in northern France, but he was a) a King of the Franks, and b) a long time after the Ice Age.

      1. eulampios

        Re: if I remember correctly

        Yes indeed, Clovis was the first Catholic Frankish or French King. Yet, there is a Clovis culture, the oldest found in North America (peculiar shapes of arrow heads etc) . One hypothesis uses the fact that unlike the later cultures in the Americas, Clovis is very reminiscent of those found in Northern Europe and asserts that it was a result of migration of people from the Ice Age Europe that eventually settled in in North America.

        So, Northern France comes up there pretty coincidentally. It's quite likely that the Atlantic ocean was much better navigable at the time, so the coast of Normandy is a pretty good candidate.

  9. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    IT Angle

    "....Native Americans were in part merely an earlier wave of European colonisation,"

    " So it appears that the Native Americans were in part merely an earlier wave of European colonisation,"

    If human life started in Africa, aren't we *all* simply the product of African colonisation?

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: "....Native Americans were in part merely an earlier wave of European colonisation,"

      That's why I always put "African ancestory" on forms.

  10. YARR

    Solutreans are the oldest native peoples of the Americas

    This article makes no mention of the discovery of Solutrean (European) artifacts on the east coast of America dating back approx. 19,000 - 26,000 years ago. The oldest known settlers of the Americas were believed to have crossed the frozen shores of the North Atlantic from modern day France/Spain at the height of the last Ice Age glaciation.

    Unless there is evidence that the Solutrean settlers died out before the Asiatic settlers arrived, then it is most likely that the ethnic peoples who consider themselves indigenous Americans today are partly descended from the Solutrean settlers.

  11. RLWatkins

    Why is this a surprise?

    Europeans crossing the Atlantic were trying to colonize North America for five or six hundred years before Columbus got anywhere near here. Mostly Vikings, mostly got the pants beat off them by the Americans.

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Why is this a surprise?

      "Mostly Vikings, mostly got the pants beat off them by the Americans."

      Actually, losing Vineland (now called Greenland) as a way station due to glacier growth and colder climate sent them packing.

      Remember, they needed lines of communication back home to send church tithes.

      The Roman Catholic church actually proved Viking colonization of Greenland via the tithe ledgers.

    2. Nigel 11

      Re: Why is this a surprise?

      The Vikings weren't particularly hot on writing down their history. I think it's quite likely that more of them went further in North America than is generally realized. Genes don't record who raped who. (And propaganda being what it is, if there had been peaceful, occasionally loving, co-existence between native Americans and Vikings, the warmongers on both sides would call them traitors and erase them from the verbal histories as soon as possible).

      BTW the Chinese discovered the West coast of North America before Columbus. In a parallel universe, the emperor didn't order these explorations to cease, didn't burn the fleets to make sure, and it was the Chinese empire not the British empire where the industrial revolution took place.

      1. Petrea Mitchell
        Boffin

        Re: Why is this a surprise?

        "Genes don't record who raped who."

        ...unless they're in mitochondria or Y chromosomes.

  12. dssf

    All of this has

    Happened before, and alll of this will happen again.

    After all, Deanna's model spawned Xena when the. last Deanna got sick and tired of being chased by Cavil's forces, and before that, having her head bashed in by a chunk of concrete, hehehehe.

    Some that DNA bombshell may be from Hera Agathon....

    hehehehehe....

  13. dssf

    By the way, if by chance BSG TRS were more relevant than the Bible

    Then, in the future, we'll probably see offshoots of our species, less mixed with prehistorics of our planet. Per BSG TRS, Galactica left behind on at least TWO planet some number of personnel and equipment (tho no specified equipment in dialog). On top of that, despite the Cylon Hybrid claiming complete destruction of the colonies ("The colonies of Man lie tampled at our feet", more or less), for episodic/dramatic reasons, there were survivors on Caprica, people left behind on New Caprica, people abandoned in space, and unaccounted-for humans captured or experimented on, not to mention the possibility of Cain's civilian fleet having a few ships jump away as soon as they realized (if they had the chance or time) that Cain was stripping ships of their FTLs. Of course, any escapees would have to luckily jump away repeatedly, too far from, and time-wise uneconomical for Cain to pursue them. AND, they'd have to be luckier at landing on a planet better than an algea planet on whatever jumps they could do with limited fuel.

    Ahh, yes, it seems to me that even tho the BSG writers are accused of (and admitting) making up stuff as they went along, some of it nicely retroactively fits like puzzle pieces intentionally left out. If taken literally, they'd make a little more sense than most Bibles/Testaments seem to. I'd LOVE to be found linked to Hera or Cylon DNA. Maybe, if not killed or inadvertently stuck down, I might live to reach age 133, with a little help along the way.

    Theoretically, this could in 5 or 8 years help BSG re-download the way STTNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT sprang up, though as franchises, not as alt-timeline spawns, per se.

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