Did Ancient Siberian Whites Cross the Bering Land Bridge?
RECENT DNA TEST RESULTS DONE ON THE ONLY KNOWN SKELETON of a Clovis-culture human on American soil—found in Montana and dated to about 10,600 B.C.—have the Native Americans First movement in a tizzy. The DNA showed the 18-month-old boy had ancestors that came from Siberia and genes that are found in most Central and South American Indian populations. Case closed. The Mongols got here first. The problem for the mainstream theory is that the ancient DNA that proves their case came from Europe. Take the case ofthe bones of a similar four-yearold little boy uncovered at the Marta archeological site in Siberia. This ancient white child (24,000 B.C.) is now considered to be a direct ancestor of all North American Indians.
by Jenifer Dixon
Years before the Siberian Ice Princess roamed the wilds of what would become Russia (see TBR, March/April 2014), a young boy of similar ancestry did also. Another archeological find at the Mal'ta archeological site in southcentral Siberia excavated in the 1920s and since then kept at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, yields another surprise. The skeleton of a four-year-old boy shows a DNA signature shared by modern Europeans and American Indian populations.
The ancient boy's DNA profile also may help explain why a "European" strain of genetic material can be found among today's New World indigenous communities.
Up until now, the Solutrean theory explained the possible presence of ancient Europeans in the New World. The theory is based on the idea that boat-using tribes of seal-hunters from ancient Europe, members of the Solutrean culture, found in Spain, France and Portugal between 22,000 and 16,000 years ago, might have migrated westward to the Americas along a North Atlantic ice edge. The Clovis culture found in the southeastern United States of some 13,000-14,000 years ago produced very similar stone flint tool technology, indicating that the producers might easily have traveled along the coastline of glacial ice that existed at that time. It has been thought to be the earliest remains of a Europoid people in the New World.
But the latest find indicates that there were other Caucasoid or part-Caucasoid immigrants in the Americas and that they traveled east across the vast Eurasian land mass and the Bering land bridge.
The Marta boy's DNA matches that of Western Europeans, showing that, during the last Ice Age, people from Europe had reached farther east across Eurasia than previously supposed. Although none of the Mal'ta boy's skin or hair survive, his genes suggest he would have had brown hair, brown eyes and freckled skin.
The big surprise is that his DNA also matches a large proportion—some the DNA of living Native Americans. However, the results were at first confusing. The boy's mitochondrial DNA belonged to the lineage known as U, which is commonly found among the modern humans who first entered Europe some 44,000 years ago. The lineages found among Native Americans are those designated A, B, C, D and X.
So the Mal'ta people did not pass on their mitochondrial DNA because the U lineage is unknown among
Native Americans. Because mitochondrial DNAis passed down only through the female line, the population ancestral Native Americans could have been formed by men of the Mal'taculture who acquired East Asian wives.
And yet another surprise from the Mal'ta boy's genome was that it matched both Europeans and Native Americans but not East Asians. The investigations of Danish archeologist Eske Willerslev revealed that the ancestors of "Native" Americans had already separated from the East Asian population when they interbred with the people ofthe Mal'ta culture, and that this admixed population then crossed over the Beringian land bridge that then lay between Siberia and Alaska to become a founding population of"Native" Americans.
It is estimated that 14% to 38% of American Indian ancestry may originate through gene flow from this ancient population, so it is not a minor or incidental find.
The Mal'ta boy, like the Ice Princess of a much later time, was not plainly attired for his burial. He was wearing an ivory diadem, a bead necklace and a bird-shaped pen dant. Elsewhere at the same site some 30 Venus fertility figurines were found of the kind produced by the Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe.
The Mal'ta people built houses that were partly under ground, with bone walls and roofs made of reindeer antlers. The reindeer, which plays such an importantpart of Eurasian culture, is seen in the tattoos of the Ice Princess discussed in the last issue of The BARNES Review. The three-foot-tall headdress in which the ice princess was buried was covered with carvings of animals, notably the horse and the goat, but most, especially the reindeer. Scythian carvings in gold often depict the reindeer. A characteristic of the Ice Princess's tattoos and Scythian gold items is the elaborate working of the antlers.
In later years, Hungarian myths speak of their ancestors coming from the south, following a white stagintothe part of the world that would eventually become Hungary.
The reindeer is an ancient theme running through our culture and is incorporated into the myth of Santa Claus. ♦
THE BARNES REVIEW • MAY / JUNE 2014 • WWW.BARNESREVIEW.COM • 1-877-773-9077
RECENT DNA TEST RESULTS DONE ON THE ONLY KNOWN SKELETON of a Clovis-culture human on American soil—found in Montana and dated to about 10,600 B.C.—have the Native Americans First movement in a tizzy. The DNA showed the 18-month-old boy had ancestors that came from Siberia and genes that are found in most Central and South American Indian populations. Case closed. The Mongols got here first. The problem for the mainstream theory is that the ancient DNA that proves their case came from Europe. Take the case ofthe bones of a similar four-yearold little boy uncovered at the Marta archeological site in Siberia. This ancient white child (24,000 B.C.) is now considered to be a direct ancestor of all North American Indians.
by Jenifer Dixon
Years before the Siberian Ice Princess roamed the wilds of what would become Russia (see TBR, March/April 2014), a young boy of similar ancestry did also. Another archeological find at the Mal'ta archeological site in southcentral Siberia excavated in the 1920s and since then kept at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, yields another surprise. The skeleton of a four-year-old boy shows a DNA signature shared by modern Europeans and American Indian populations.
The ancient boy's DNA profile also may help explain why a "European" strain of genetic material can be found among today's New World indigenous communities.
Up until now, the Solutrean theory explained the possible presence of ancient Europeans in the New World. The theory is based on the idea that boat-using tribes of seal-hunters from ancient Europe, members of the Solutrean culture, found in Spain, France and Portugal between 22,000 and 16,000 years ago, might have migrated westward to the Americas along a North Atlantic ice edge. The Clovis culture found in the southeastern United States of some 13,000-14,000 years ago produced very similar stone flint tool technology, indicating that the producers might easily have traveled along the coastline of glacial ice that existed at that time. It has been thought to be the earliest remains of a Europoid people in the New World.
But the latest find indicates that there were other Caucasoid or part-Caucasoid immigrants in the Americas and that they traveled east across the vast Eurasian land mass and the Bering land bridge.
The Marta boy's DNA matches that of Western Europeans, showing that, during the last Ice Age, people from Europe had reached farther east across Eurasia than previously supposed. Although none of the Mal'ta boy's skin or hair survive, his genes suggest he would have had brown hair, brown eyes and freckled skin.
The big surprise is that his DNA also matches a large proportion—some the DNA of living Native Americans. However, the results were at first confusing. The boy's mitochondrial DNA belonged to the lineage known as U, which is commonly found among the modern humans who first entered Europe some 44,000 years ago. The lineages found among Native Americans are those designated A, B, C, D and X.
So the Mal'ta people did not pass on their mitochondrial DNA because the U lineage is unknown among
Native Americans. Because mitochondrial DNAis passed down only through the female line, the population ancestral Native Americans could have been formed by men of the Mal'taculture who acquired East Asian wives.
And yet another surprise from the Mal'ta boy's genome was that it matched both Europeans and Native Americans but not East Asians. The investigations of Danish archeologist Eske Willerslev revealed that the ancestors of "Native" Americans had already separated from the East Asian population when they interbred with the people ofthe Mal'ta culture, and that this admixed population then crossed over the Beringian land bridge that then lay between Siberia and Alaska to become a founding population of"Native" Americans.
It is estimated that 14% to 38% of American Indian ancestry may originate through gene flow from this ancient population, so it is not a minor or incidental find.
The Mal'ta boy, like the Ice Princess of a much later time, was not plainly attired for his burial. He was wearing an ivory diadem, a bead necklace and a bird-shaped pen dant. Elsewhere at the same site some 30 Venus fertility figurines were found of the kind produced by the Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe.
The Mal'ta people built houses that were partly under ground, with bone walls and roofs made of reindeer antlers. The reindeer, which plays such an importantpart of Eurasian culture, is seen in the tattoos of the Ice Princess discussed in the last issue of The BARNES Review. The three-foot-tall headdress in which the ice princess was buried was covered with carvings of animals, notably the horse and the goat, but most, especially the reindeer. Scythian carvings in gold often depict the reindeer. A characteristic of the Ice Princess's tattoos and Scythian gold items is the elaborate working of the antlers.
In later years, Hungarian myths speak of their ancestors coming from the south, following a white stagintothe part of the world that would eventually become Hungary.
The reindeer is an ancient theme running through our culture and is incorporated into the myth of Santa Claus. ♦
THE BARNES REVIEW • MAY / JUNE 2014 • WWW.BARNESREVIEW.COM • 1-877-773-9077
