Maize (Corn) May Have Been Domesticated In Mexico As Early As 10,000 Years Ago

ScienceDaily discussed new findings about the domestication of maize in Mexico.

Now, in addition to more traditional macrobotanical and archeological remains, scientists are using new genetic and microbotanical techniques to distinguish domesticated maize from its wild relatives as well as to identify ancient sites of maize agriculture. These new analyses suggest that maize may have been domesticated in Mexico as early as 10,000 years ago.

Ancient "Human Sacrifices" Found in Peru, Expert Says

National Geographic News for June 4, 2008 reported on 4000 year-old skeletons found in Peru.

The apparently mutilated, partial skeletons (see photos) could overturn the peaceful reputation of the Pre-Ceramic period (3000 B.C. to 1800 B.C.) in the Andes mountains—a time generally seen as free of ritualized killing and warfare.

Early Americans Arrived Thousands of Years Earlier Than Previously Believed

ScienceDaily for March 21, 2008 reported on new dates for the arrival of the early Americans.

A team led by two Texas A&M University anthropologists now believes the first Americans came to this country 1,000 to 2,000 years earlier than the 13,500 years ago previously thought, which could shift historic timelines.

New Zealand's Colonization 1000 Years Later Than Previously Thought?

ScienceDaily for June 4, 2008 reported on new dating of the colonization of New Zealand.

An international team of researchers, led by Dr Janet Wilmshurst from Landcare Research, spent 4 years on the project which shows conclusively that the earliest evidence for human colonisation is about 1280-1300 AD, and no earlier. They based their results on new radiocarbon dating of Pacific rat bones and rat-gnawed seeds. Their results do not support previous radiocarbon dating of Pacific rat bones which implied a much earlier human contact about 200 BC.

The National Geographic News article is here.

Parallel: Migrations to the Americas - Part 6

Previous parts to this post have concerned migrations to the American continents. In this part I discuss the DNA analysis of a migration to Europe and its parallel with the migration of the Lehites to the Americas as described in the Book of Mormon.

As explained in Earliest European Farmers Left Little Genetic Mark On Modern Europe, the first settlers in Europe are believed to have been Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived about 40,000 years ago. About 7,500 years ago people migrated to Europe and brought farming to that area. The question thus arises, are modern Europeans descended from the hunter-gatherers, the farmers, or both?

DNA was obtained from skeletons of early farmers, and the DNA contained "genetic signatures that are extremely rare in modern European populations. Based on this discovery, the researchers conclude that early farmers did not leave much of a genetic mark on modern European populations." In fact, '"Our paper suggests that there is a good possibility that the contribution of early farmers could be close to zero," said Science author Peter Forster from the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK.'

The situation given in the Science article is that of two migrations to an area, and the DNA of the later migration not occurring in the people presently living in that area. Since Europe, today, is an agricultural society, the early farmers in the later migration had a significant impact on that area, even though they left basically no genetic evidence of their existence. "It's interesting that a potentially minor migration of people into Central Europe had such a huge cultural impact," said Forster."

This is an interesting parallel with the Book of Mormon. Science tells us of early migrations to the Americas from Asia via the Bering Strait. The Book of Mormon tells of a later migration (the Lehites) from the Mediterranean area. However, DNA studies of modern Native Americans show that the Native Americans who were studied have no DNA markers from the Mediterranean area. Apologists for the Book of Mormon have explained that DNA markers from a group of people could die out and thus not be found in modern people (see, for example, Addressing Questions). We now have from science an example of DNA from a later migration not occurring among modern people currently living in that area.

Ancient Eskimos Came from Asia, Study Says

National Geographic News for May 29, 2008 reported on the origin of ancient Eskimos.

The research is based on DNA analysis of ancient hair from a so-called Paleo-Eskimo, which was found preserved in permafrost soil in the Disco Bay area in the 1980s.

Earliest European Farmers Left Little Genetic Mark On Modern Europe

ScienceDaily for November 13 2005 reported on the DNA of early European farmers.

The farmers who brought agriculture to central Europe about 7,500 years ago did not contribute heavily to the genetic makeup of modern Europeans, according to the first detailed analysis of ancient DNA extracted from skeletons of early European farmers.

Tracing Humanity's Path

ScienceNOW for May 23, 2008 reported on a new, DNA based, theory about migrations out of Africa.

The study came up with two unexpected findings. One is that the people of the Orkney Islands, to the north of Scotland, share some ancestry with Siberians, possibly because some ancestors of modern Orcadians ventured to Asia via the Arctic Circle. The team also found that North and South America were colonized independently by at least two different waves of migration from different parts of Asia, although both waves appear to have arrived via the Bering Strait. This conclusion contradicts the conventional view, which postulates just one migratory wave out of Asia.

Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?

Sub-heading: Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago.

Discover for May 20, 2008 reported on the theory that early Americans island-hopped as they migrated to the Americas.

Until recently most researchers would have dismissed such talk of Ice Age mariners and coastal migrations. Nobody, after all, has ever unearthed an Ice Age boat or happened upon a single clear depiction of an Ice Age dugout or canoe. Nor have archaeologists found many coastal campsites dating back more than 15,000 years. So most scientists believed that Homo sapiens evolved as terrestrial hunters and gatherers and stubbornly remained so, trekking out of their African homeland by foot and spreading around the world by now-vanished land bridges. Only when the Ice Age ended 12,000 to 13,000 years ago and mammoths and other large prey vanished, archaeologists theorized, did humans systematically take up seashore living—eating shellfish, devising fishing gear, and venturing offshore in small boats.

New Evidence From Earliest Known Human Settlement In The Americas

ScienceDaily for May 9, 2008 reported on what is believed to be the earliest human settlement in the Americas.

New evidence from the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile confirms its status as the earliest known human settlement in the Americas and provides additional support for the theory that one early migration route followed the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago.

Ancient seaweed chews confirm age of Chilean site

NewsDaily for May 8, 2008 reported on the age of chewed seaweed found in Chile.

Bits of chewed-up or burned seaweed discarded more than 14,000 years ago confirm that people were in Chile at least that long ago and shed light on what their culture was like, researchers reported on Thursday.

Ancient Sunflower Fuels Debate About Agriculture In The Americas

ScienceDaily for April 30, 2008 reported on the domestication of the Sun Flower in America.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Florida State University have confirmed evidence of domesticated sunflower in Mexico — 4,000 years before what had been previously believed.

The National Geographic News article is here.

Ancient Maya Tomb Yields "Amazing" Fabrics

National Geographic News for April 25, 2008 reported on the discovery of fabric in a Mayan tomb.

Some of the fabrics found within her tomb have thread counts of over 80 weft yarns per inch, said Margaret Ordonez, a textile expert at the University of Rhode Island who studied the cloth.

The ScienceDaily article is here.

Ancient Site Found in Colombia

A video from National Geographic News for April 24, 2008 reports on a new discovery in Columbia.

Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a 2,000-year-old pre-Colombian settlement near Bogota, a find that may reveal information about the area's mysterious ancient inhabitants.

Earliest Mixtec Cremations Found; Show Elite Ate Dog

National Geographic News for April 9, 2008 reported on 3,000 year-old cremations in Mexico.

The find represents the earliest known hints that Mixtecs used this burial practice, which was later reserved for Mixtec kings and Aztec emperors, according to researchers who excavated the site.

Pre-Clovis Human DNA Found In 14,300-year-old Feces In Oregon Cave Is Oldest In New World

An article in ScienceDaily reported on human DNA found in Oregon that dates back 14,300 years ago.

DNA from dried human excrement recovered from Oregon's Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World -- dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years before Clovis culture -- and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia, according to an international team of 13 scientists.

The NewsDaily article is here. The National Geographic News article is here. The LiveScience article is here.

Aztec Math Used Hearts and Arrows

Scientific American for April 3, 2008 reported on Aztec math.

The Aztecs had more numbers than we do, or at least symbols denoting numerical concepts. When it came to measuring land—critical for levying the proper tax or tribute—these medieval Mesoamericans used arrows, hearts, hands and other units representing fractions, according to a new study in Science.

Click the link for a paper written by Ajaz Siddiqui in 2004 on The Aztec number system.

The ScienceNOW article is here. The NewsDaily article is here. The National Geographic News article is here.

Siberian, Native American Languages Linked -- A First

An article in National Geographic News for March 26, 2008 reported on language similarities between people in Siberia and Native Americans.

The finding may allow linguists to weigh in on how the Americas were first settled, according to Edward Vajda, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Gold Scroll Discovered: Earliest Evidence Of Jewish Inhabitants In Austria

ScienceDaily for March 18, 2008 reported that

Archaeologists from the Institute of Prehistory and Early History of the University of Vienna have found an amulet inscribed with a Jewish prayer in a Roman child’s grave dating back to the 3rd century CE at a burial ground in the Austrian town of Halbturn.

Estimates for peopling of Americas getting earlier

World Science for March 13, 2008 reported on migrations to the Americas.

The mainstream view pre­vail­ing in the past sev­er­al dec­ades holds that hu­mans en­tered the con­ti­nent about 12,000 years ago us­ing a tem­po­rary land bridge from north­east­ern Asia to Alas­ka. These mi­grants would have giv­en rise to a cul­ture of mam­moth hunters known for their un­ique stone pro­ject­ile-points and dubbed Clo­vis, af­ter re­mains found near Clo­vis, N.M., in the 1930s.

But in re­cent years ev­i­dence has turned up that the first Amer­i­cans might have been con­sid­erably old­er, some ar­chae­o­lo­gists ar­gue.