October 31, 2015

11,500 Year Old Infant Burials in Alaska Studied

Archaeologists have found two infants buried with a stone cutting tool and animal antlers with spear points in an 11,500 year old burial at the Upward Sun River site in Alaska. They belong to two genetic groups. Their genetic makeup lends itself to the idea that humans lived in a dry area that existed between Siberia and Alaska 30,000 years ago called Beringia. Humans may have spent as many as 10,000 years in Beringia before moving rapidly into America 15,000 years ago. Since the two lineages represented by the two infants lived so far north so long ago, their genes support the “Beringian Standstill Model.” The genetic variation of the two may be showing that the 10,000 year hiatus in Beringia gave rise to genetic diversity before they came into the Americas. The lineages of the infants are not found in Siberia or Asia, so they must have drifted from Asiatic groups during those 10,000 years in Beringia.
Genetic material has been found at eight sites in North America older than 8,000 years. In these eight sites, all five major lineages of Native Americans are present, indicating the the Beringian population gave rise to all of the lineages. One of the two infants is the ancestor of tribes in Arizona, California, Bolivia, Tainos and in Illinois. The other infant is the ancestor of Washington, Arizona, California and Peruvian tribes.

(my note; The idea is that populations in Beringia could not move into the Americas during those 10,000 years of the standstill due to a huge untrekkable area of ice that stood between them and the Americas. This still does not preclude the idea that other Asiatic peoples escaped this standstill by taking a canoe route down the Pacific Coast in earlier times. The Pre-Clovis finds at Monte Verde, Chile and Paisley Cave in Oregon would be examples of these earlier arrivers).

My Pre-Clovis and Clovis web site has a section on Beringian studies, published before this research, as well as on Paisley Cave and Monte Verde, for further elucidation.

Mike Ruggeri’s Pre-Clovis and Clovis World
http://bit.ly/11wqze5

The Daily Mail has the report on the two infants with their usual great illustrations;
http://dailym.ai/1PbgKON