Peopling of the Americas (excuse the font issues - I cannot figure out how to resolve them)
Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, I took a two year long course with Christy Turner on the peopling of the world. Each one of us - or a team in some cases - took a continent. I selected South America.
It was fascinating to try to figure things out. First I had to try to develop an understanding of the geography and climate as they existed at the time after the ice corridor opened
If the corridor in the ice in Canada did not open until about 10,000 years ago - which is what was estimated at the time - and that was the only way people got to the Americas, which was sort of what they assumed then, that had to be my start date. I assumed they didn't run like 20 year old track stars for the tip of South America - although they seemed to have been present then some 8-9,000 years ago.
Once migrating people arrived in Central America they would have, if they had settled there, created a bottle neck that would have made it difficult for anyone else to get into South America.
However, as people obviously got past the bottle neck, they would have had some problems getting very far into South America. They would have had problems going down the west coast, as Colombia doesn't have a large or inviting coastal plain. If they had gone to the east, they would soon have run into the Orinoco Drainage. Crossing it would have required some sort of boat. If they had gone down the middle, they had to climb up the side of the Andes. They would have had to climb quite high to reach the intermountain valleys, some of which were blocked by glaciers. If they had somehow made it to Ecuador's coastal plain, which is quite large, they would have had to cross several rivers - the Esmeraldas and the Guayas. If they had tried to continue down the coast, lack of water would have been a problem. Little rain falls around Lima and along the coast of Chile they would have encountered few rivers flowing to the sea. Consequently, finding fresh water would have been problematic.
I also looked at culture and found that objects like the Jew's Harp was used in the Amazon. There were other similarities with the cultural practices of Australia (assuming the Pacific Islands were not populated until much later).
Further, it was of interest that - if my memory does not fail me - that the coast of Antarctica was land not ice early on - some 6,000 years ago. I began to wonder if some people had not traveled from Australia, via Antarctica, to the tip of South America and then up into the Amazon Basin. Early anthropologists did consider that to be a possibility; however for some reason the idea was dropped. I am sure the reasons were good one; however, today I read that indigenous people in South America do share ancestry - genes -with Australians. The researchers assumed that the ancestors from Australia had traveled via the Bering Strait. I wonder if some didn't come north, via Antarctica. Only time and more evidence can reveal such patterns. Certainly, I ended up feeling that sea travel had occurred earlier than we thought at the time.
Long ago, perhaps in the 1960s Betty Megger argued that the Japanese visited the coast of South America. She claimed that she had found similarities in language and anchors that were identical to those used in Japan. Once we had some visitors from Japan and when I showed them a picture of a Valdivia figurine from Ecuador's Sta Elena Province (c. 3000 BC) they immediately said "Jomon". However, her ideas were rejected as "cult anthropology."
Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis
ABSTRACT
Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) thesis, that storm-tossed Jomon fishermen drifted across the North Pacific to the coast of Ecuador and introduced pottery-making at the Valdivia site, is presented. The thesis is examined from the standpoint of the mechanics of such a voyage. The nature of the surface current patterns in the North Pacific are discussed, together with the weather conditions found along the presumed route, the types of vessels known archaeologically for the early Jomon, and the suitability of such vessels for a trans-Pacific crossing. Finally, the survival problems faced by a crew adrift in an open boat on the North Pacific are presented. It is concluded that contact between Jomon and Valdivian peoples was unlikely to have occurred in the manner suggested by Meggers, Evans, and Estrada. Several possible alternative routes and explanations are advanced.
Archaeology | Studies examine clues of transoceanic contact
Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.
https://www.dispatch.com/article/20130519/news/305199804
Pottery offers a bonanza of information for archaeologists. It represents a revolution in container technology, and the clay from which it is made provides a canvas with many possibilities for self-expression. As a result, differences and similarities in pottery decorations can offer clues about cultural relationships over space and through time.
Residues on pots reveal important clues to how people used their pottery. An international team of scientists reported last month in the journal Nature the results of chemical analyses of the charred gunk on the surfaces of pottery shards from Jomon period sites in Japan. They determined it was composed mostly of the oily residue from cooking ocean fish.
The Jomon culture was mentioned in other news this month. The largest ever genetic study of native South Americans identified a sub-population in Ecuador with an unexpected link to eastern Asia. The study, published in PLOS Genetics, concluded that Asian genes had been introduced into South America sometime after 6,000 years ago -- the same time the Jomon culture was flourishing in Japan.
Back in the 1960s, the renowned Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers argued that similarities between the pottery of the contemporaneous Valdivia culture in Ecuador and Japan’s Jomon culture indicated that Japanese fishermen had “discovered” America about 5,000 years ago.
Few archaeologists took this idea seriously. Gordon McEwan and Bruce Dickson, writing in a 1978 issue of American Antiquity, pointed out significant flaws with the hypothesis.
First of all, Pacific Ocean currents did not provide a direct route from Japan to Ecuador. Second, Jomon dugout canoes were unlikely to have been sufficiently seaworthy to allow a crew to survive an extended voyage across the ocean. Finally, food and fresh water would have been difficult to obtain.
Writing in 1980, Meggers expressed frustration that transoceanic contact as an explanation for cultural similarities was dismissed by dogmatic colleagues as “cult archaeology,” and she complained that “no amount of evidence” could convince them.
I can appreciate Meggers’ frustration, but although it’s likely that no amount of the same type of evidence that she marshaled in support of her original argument could make a thoroughly convincing case, I believe that most archaeologists could be convinced if compelling new evidence for transpacific contact were uncovered.
The discovery of an apparent genetic link between eastern Asians and Ecuadoran natives provides intriguing independent support for Meggers’ hypothesis. Moreover, the fact that Jomon pottery was used predominantly for cooking seafood suggests that Jomon fishermen would have had little trouble feeding themselves on a long ocean voyage.
Transoceanic contact long has been a popular explanation for cultural similarities, such as the occurrence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mexico. Archaeologists have demonstrated, however, that such similarities are largely superficial and meaningless. When closely examined, Egyptian and Mayan pyramids turn out to be fundamentally different things.
Meggers might prove to have been right after all about the origins of Valdivia pottery, but she was wrong to attribute the rejection of her ideas to scientific dogmatism. Meggers simply didn’t have the extraordinary evidence to support her extraordinary claim.
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