First humans in North America?

[hobbyguy]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58638854

"Humans reached the Americas at least 7,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new findings.

The topic of when the continent was first settled from Asia has been controversial for decades.

Many researchers are sceptical of evidence for humans in the North American interior much earlier than 16,000 years ago.

Now, a team working in New Mexico has found scores of human footprints dated to between 23,000 and 21,000 years old."

SNIP

"Dr Andrea Manica, a geneticist from the University of Cambridge, said the finding had important implications for the population history of the Americas.

"I can't comment on how reliable the dating is (it is outside my expertise), but firm evidence of humans in North America 23,000 years ago is at odds with the genetics, which clearly shows a split of Native Americans from Asians approximately 15-16,000 years ago," he told BBC News.

"This would suggest that the initial colonists of the Americas were replaced when the ice corridor formed and another wave of colonists came in. We have no idea how that happened."

[nucksRnum1]

I think it is awesome that there are studies revealing the true history of the indigenous here in the Americas.

[Glacier]

Cool, so the Indigenous of today were colonizers!

[Bsuds]

Cool, so the Indigenous of today were colonizers!

Damn, that means we've given all that money to the wrong people!

[hobbyguy]

Cool, so the Indigenous of today were colonizers!

It has been said that humans are the ultimate invasive species. The science says that only in Africa are we a "native" species.

The history of life is one of replacement as species and variations of species find favorable ecological niches.

Camels are an interesting historical example. They evolved in North America, but lost the ongoing predator/prey war in North America. Yet in other areas, such as western China, the Bactrian (two hump) camel survives in the wild. Yet the Bactrian camel is limited in range, and elsewhere in the Arabian peninsula region and Africa, the Dromedary (one hump) camel is the surviving sub species. In South America camels survive as Llamas et al. In all cases with camels that survive today, they have been pushed into what we would consider as harsh environments - either desert or high altitude semi-desert - ecological niches where life is very tough for predators. The adaptation to those harsh environments has allowed introduced camels to survive and become established in the ecosystem in parts of Australia.

The story of human migration has been similar - but also heavily influenced by technological changes and social changes that have exploded our population by opening up and creating new ecological niches. Our human technology has unleashed a new kind of evolutionary pressure. Humans are not limited by their ability to have powerful jaws, or dangerous horns, ruminant ability, speed, or even super powerful immune systems (crocodylians have incredible immune systems that dwarf ours).

As our technologies and societies have evolved, and climatic shifts took place, that has shifted the balances between human societal groups and species variations. Simpler examples are the Neanderthals and Denisovians. The more technologically adapted "modern" humans displaced them - but they are not "gone" (e.g. https://www.science.org/content/article ... human-rev2 ).

Colonization and other such terms are concepts that are human societal constructs essentially describing a process that takes place in nature on a constant basis and has been a fixture of life ever since the primordial soup days billions of years ago. Life competes. Favorable adaptations replace less favorable ones, conditions change, and the balance shifts all over again. If there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it. Pretty much from the start of the evolution of life there have been "attackers" like viruses. In that competition and constantly changing environment, and remember that life changes the environment and ecology, there has usually been a slow but steady pace of changes - but with periodic disruption such as the Permian extinction.

The development of human societies, with their tension between self interest(s) and group interest(s), is a very recent one - and is in itself an experiment of evolution that is ongoing. Human societies have enabled technological revolutions and the combination of societal evolution and technological revolution create a massive life evolution experiment - not yet on the scale of the Permian extinction, but?

At any rate, the human species has exploded in a very short period and at an accelerating rate. Similar to all species that do that, conditions must be right, and some subspecies or strains predominate. It gets complicated with humans as our success depends on evolution of societies and technology in tandem. Technologies are increasingly transferable across societies over relatively short time frames. Societies depend very much on accumulated cultural knowledge (something we often forget, and which includes technological advancements).

That underpinning of the success of humans as a species, accumulated cultural knowledge, is often under appreciated. Like the genetic learning in our bodies that knows and can be taught and added to as a survival mechanism, accumulated cultural knowledge is best served by growing abilities.

From that perspective, it makes no sense to argue and split hairs over an artificial construct such as "colonization". What matters is that we are all humans, and we all face challenges - and ones that can be better dealt with by diversity and understanding each others accumulated cultural knowledge. All of us will be better off if we discard the tribal bickering and instead accept that diversity (a place for all) that can build more extensive and robust accumulated cultural knowledge is in both our own self interest(s) and societal interest(s) - and in ways none of us fully understand. It is sufficient to understand that the core strength of the human species is accumulated cultural knowledge.

[Catsumi]

HG wrote:

“All of us will be better off if we discard the tribal bickering and instead accept that diversity (a place for all) that can build more extensive and robust accumulated cultural knowledge is in both our own self interest(s) and societal interest(s) - and in ways none of us fully understand. It is sufficient to understand that the core strength of the human species is accumulated cultural knowledge.”

Agreed. And yet, according to Wade Davis, et al, native languages are being lost at an ever accelerating rate. With loss of language goes accumulated knowledge of the tribe. Plant knowledge and the curatives therefrom, are our loss too.

[JLives]

HG wrote:

“All of us will be better off if we discard the tribal bickering and instead accept that diversity (a place for all) that can build more extensive and robust accumulated cultural knowledge is in both our own self interest(s) and societal interest(s) - and in ways none of us fully understand. It is sufficient to understand that the core strength of the human species is accumulated cultural knowledge.”

Agreed. And yet, according to Wade Davis, et al, native languages are being lost at an ever accelerating rate. With loss of language goes accumulated knowledge of the tribe. Plant knowledge and the curatives therefrom, are our loss too.

Not lost. Evolving. We can't keep everything forever. The only thing constant is change.

[Jlabute]

Footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico provide the earliest unequivocal evidence of human activity in the Americas and provide insight into life over 23,000 years ago, scientists report.

This would peg it during the last glacial maximum. It sure is a lot of ice to bypass before finding arable land. I wonder what route they used... along the pacific edge? Even New Mexico is fairly far south of the ice sheet extent. Still a lot more to find I bet.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/25/ ... l-maximum/