I have heard many times the theory that Native americans came to the US across the land bridge from alaska to russia. Today when I was at an archeological dig, the guy in charge of the dig told us about different archeological digs around North america. He said the oldest digs found were actually on the US mainland, and that they havn't found any that old in Canada. He said that had to mean probably, that the native americans did not come in through russia. Where else could they have come in from then?

I don't know where else they could have come from, or why there aren't any artifacts further north, but there is additional evidence pointing towards a 'Russian' origin.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed on from mother to child with mutation, but no mixing (I've gone and forgotten the scientific word for that). Because of this, it can be used to track the relations of groups and estimate how long ago their most recent common female ancestor was. There is one pattern of mitochondrial DNA referred to as the X or Xena pattern. It is found among Russian populations that are known to have been in the area for a long time; it is rare among Europeans; and it is found among Native Americans. This strongly suggests that people migrated from Russia to the Americas. I would be surprised if they jumped to PA without travelling through more northern and western areas (Yafa mentioned that these digs are in PA in another conversation... I'm not just pulling that from nowhere ).

I'm more inclined to believe the presence of evidence (mtDNA) than the lack of evidence (missing artifacts).

For more information, I suggest The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes.

[This message was edited by methos5000 on 06-24-03 at 08:44 PM.]

Personally, I would think that artifacts in the north would be preserved better then the ones in pennslyvania. Btw, the dig I am refering to is the one in medowcroft pennsylvania. Mike, is there a chance though, that maybe they came through china to california? Maybe there was a bigger ice sheet? or maybe they used rafts? that could maybe explain the lack of artifacts in canada, but thier exsistence in the US area.

As far as I know, the mtDNA doesn't exclude that possibility, but I'm not sure of that.

The distance to China from California is far to great and too far south for their to have been an ice bridge.

Travelling by boat directly from China to Claifornia was probably possible, but seems unlikely given the relatively small number of islands on that path.

I did some checking and found the dominant theory of those who reject the Bering Strait theory. Basically, people travlled up the coast of Asia by boat until they got to the ice bridge. Then they hugged the edge of the ice bridge and then followed the North American shoreline south. This theory generally also includes some hunters crossing via the land bridge at a later time.



As far as preservation.... artifacts in the north might be better preserved, but there are other reasons why they would be unlikely to be found. The people who crossed the strait were nomadic, and remained nomadic while living in the north. Nomads leave few artifacts.

Muskox, lemmings, and mammoths all crossed the ice bridge. This shows that it was crossable, but doesn't prove that humans crossed it.

There are physical remains in South America that suggest an Austraian Aborigine or Polynesian origin. There are living people in Tierra del Fuego who seem to support this theory. I am not aware of DNA evidence for them yet but I'm sure it must have been done by now so I'll have a look.

There is one body, found on the West Coast, which seems closest to Ainu in morphology. They are Asiatic but not Mongol (they are white).

A land bridge is not necessary. People in skin boats hunting walrus and other sea mammals can follow a coastline and cross surprisingly large bodies of open water. This is how Iceland was settled (before Eric the Red, etc.) Of course, to take women and children along is a little tougher.

Here's a quick hit. I'll keep looking.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9002668&dopt=Abstract

Here is some new information related to this topic.

I heard a very theoretical idea that the first peoples on the North American continent were not Russian, but Scandinavian. The idea was the very early Scandinavian people came to the opposite coast of the continent in boats.

Given that it's known they had boats, and that they were as far over as Iceland, I would say it's wholly possible they were here first. Also, being as I live in Alaska and know how dang cold it is here most of the time (it's already snowed up north!!) I'd hope they went to the more mild Canadian coast first!