Re: Ancient Caucasian in Oregon?

Dan Barnes (dbarnes@liv.ac.uk)
Wed, 23 Oct 1996 16:57:42 GMT

In article <54eimq$5n6@ash.ridgecrest.ca.us>,
b_keeter@owens.ridgecrest.ca.us says...
>
>Is it possible that the "Caucasian" race, whatever that might
>actually be, was actually originally spread as far as northern
>Asia before being displaced by the now-Siberians (Mongolian) at
>a very early time? If so, could it not be that some of the
>initial trekkers across Berengia (or seal hunters in boats)
>could have had more than a little "Caucasian" DNA floating
>around?
>

It would appear that southern Siberia, Tuva, etc. was colonised from the West. I
don't understand why there was so much suprise that the earliest inhabitants of
the Americas resembled these people. They had spread from the Near East
about 50-60 ka NE around the formidable Gobi/Himalyan barrier eventually
reaching the Pacific c. 15-20 ka. If you look at a map of the distribution of the
tool industries in the Palaeolithic you can see a general E-NE trend with time.
Articles covering this topic are:

Astakhov, S.N. (1986) The Palaeolithic of Tuva. Nauka, St. Petersburg.

Goebel, T., Derevianko, A.P. & Petrin, V.T. (1993) Dating the
Middle-to-Upper-Paleolithic transition at Kara-Bom. Current Anthropology. 34
(4). 452-8.

Larichev, V., Khol€ushkin, U. & Laricheva, I. (1987) Lower and Middle
Palaeolithic of Northern Asia: Acheivements, problems and perspectives.
Journal of World Prehistory. 1. 415-64.

Larichev, V., Khol€ushkin, U. & Laricheva, I. (1988) The Upper Palaeolithic of
Northern Asia: Acheivements, problems and perspectives.1. Western Siberia.
Journal of World Prehistory. 2. 359-96.

Larichev, V., Khol€ushkin, U. & Laricheva, I. (1990) The Upper Palaeolithic of
Northern Asia: Acheivements, problems and perspectives.2. Central and
Eastern Siberia. Journal of World Prehistory. 4. 347-85.

Morell, V. (1995) Siberia: Suprising home for early modern humans. Science.
268 (5215). 1279.

Vasil€ev, S.A. (1993) The Upper Palaeolithic of Northern Asia. Current
Anthropology. 34 (1). 82-92. (which contains a good map).