meet the Ainu - 12.3.02
More evidence of Pre-Amerind population in America
When I was an anthropology student (back in the day) I often speculated that the first human population of the Americas would probably not be big game hunters, but more likely would be a maritime people. Coastlines are rich in food resources, have relatively mild weather and are therefore the likeliest place for the first human populations to develop, at least in northern climes.
This speculation was based on a thought experiment. One of my jobs as a field assistant was guessing the locations of undiscovered sites; especially ones that had been totally hidden for one reason or another and therefore were undisturbed by plows and pothunters. Thinking about this, and looking at the experiences of other people who'd been successful finding previously undiscovered sites, I noticed a couple of things - one obvious and another not so. The obvious one: people like to live near water. It's useful, and there's usually food around it. Here's the less obvious, but related point: people like to live somewhere that's pretty...even spectular. An appreciation for the beauty of nature isn't a modern idea; quite the contrary - if anything our senses have been dulled by strip malls, TVs and all the various rip-rap of our modern culture.
Ancient societies not only appreciated the beauty of nature, they typically worshipped it. I suppose (if one wants to get all scientific about it) it's even possible that places we think of as beautiful - say a lakeshore, a waterfall, a particularly rich prairie, or a mountain glen- may even be better places to live in the sense of fostering a higher survival success rate.
So, to the point. What part of North America is more beautiful than the Pacific coast? It's dramatic. has relatively mild weather, and is rich in food resources. It's also a whole lot like the Pacific coast in Japan. People who live along the coast, and exploit its food resources (salmon, shellfish, kelp, urchins, whatever) are sooner or later going to figure out ways to get out to that next rock to raid those birds nests, or get past the next headland to get at those unclaimed salmon. Next thing you know they're island hopping. Then one day some poor family gets caught in a storm for a week, and ends up in an undiscovered (but pretty familiar) world. The new world.
Pure speculation, of course, but in the course of time anything that can happen does - kind of a corollary of Murphy's law. So this brings us to recent discoveries that make it seem that some of the earliest people in North America may have been genetically related to the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, the Ainu. See: Human skulls are 'oldest Americans' - [12.3 - BBC]
The Ainu bloodline is known to extend to at least 7k BP in Japan. Later waves of immigrants from the mainland took control of the islands, but some small remnant populations of Ainu remain. To find out a bit about the Ainu try the Ainu Museum. It's worth noting, for example, that they spent a considerable amount of time fishing for salmon, therefore it wouldn't be surprising if they found there way to some of the best salmon areas in the world: the Pacific Northwest.
Some writers consider it possible that the Ainu are related to some other light skinned aboriginal groups, most notably the Basques of western Europe. The Mandans of the Great Plains are another possible surviving link to this lost time.
That's all the time I have right now - but in the next few weeks I'll be looking for more information about the Ainu, the Basques, the Mandans, and whether they might represent links to an earlier phase of humans on this planet.
