A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas | Hacker News Reader

A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas

sapiens.org

47 pointsbenbreen33 comments

Maps showing the flow of people into North America fill me with a swell of emotion deep in my heart. I’m Aleut, from Alaska, and it is very humbling to think of the thousands of years of continuous living here. To think of how related we are to other Native groups, and perhaps not so related the further off it goes, is endlessly fascinating to me. There is a sense of connectedness hard to quantify.

Aleuts were not continuously(from times of Beringia) living on those islands. Aleuts are very closely linked to Inuits and the understanding about Inuits is that they started to expand 3000 years ago. One of the initial drives to that 3000 year old expansion was because of new technologies(at that time), that helped to survive in North and that coincides with migration of N-Tat people(most of them nowadays are living in NE Europe). Genetically Aleuts are more related to Asian Eskimos and Chukchi, than to American Eskimos and Kamchatkian natives, so their spread is "recent"(no more than 3000 years). Nowadays Aleuts by patrilinear line are more related to Europeans - which started from Russian colonisation and mixing with Russians.

The thing about migratory highways is that people who live there(on migration highway) are not be able to continuously be connected to that place, due to constant influx of new people that pushes them along, like waves in ocean. But nonetheless - all people are related to other people and have very deep and long and unique ancestry. And the unique is what matters - and story that comes with it. But in this case those early Beringia inhabitants are more closely linked to American natives in Brazil, than to Aleuts.

There is not much I can say to any of that, but I do find it interesting. Unfortunate, but interesting. I would still say I am Aleut and that the Aleutian Islands are our original, true home. There has been evidence of people for thousands of years, no it’s not necessarily one singular bloodline, but I still stand by the sense of how much history there is, and I feel I have ties to it. Too often, Native claims to land are argued with, invalidated, or dismissed as far as “we’re all from somewhere else.” I am distrustful of genetic testing/results for the second to last paragraph there—we’ve really been nearly wiped out compared to e.g. Inupiat who still have a fair number of full blooded individuals. Aleuts were enslaved and carted across the coast of Alaska by Russians and our genetic history — to say little of oral history, traditions, and culture — is not perfectly clear as a result.

Edit: I am not trying to sound arguing or anything—just am apprehensive for this kind of thing, I always hesitate to comment on Native-related things because it is a near and dear issue for me. I’ve always thought Far East groups had similarities in boat design and such, it makes sense to me that there are such waves of flow.

You are here, so it is fortunate for you. Or unfortunate, compared to those who are dead. It all depends what angle is chosen.

>>Too often, Native claims to land are argued with, invalidated, or dismissed as far as “we’re all from somewhere else.”

I do not know of any other people(with exception of US and Russia, that have split Aleut lands between them) that _currently_ have claims on Aleut lands, so Aleut claims as primary claims are still very valid. The main issue is that Aleut numbers are small and dwingling to make that claim into independence - a top achievement to any people.

To be fair, this claim is argued mainly for any country, where migrants want to enter, because we are living in times, where US is going through "cultural revolution" and migrants are "new oppressed"(because true working class is too rich and independent and not stupid), whether they like it or not - their opinion is of no matter, where political influence is at play. Coincidentally some natives who play along also can gain something from it, but to an extent of course.

>>I am distrustful of genetic testing/results for the second to last paragraph there—we’ve really been nearly wiped out compared to e.g. Inupiat who still have a fair number of full blooded individuals. Aleuts were enslaved and carted across the coast of Alaska by Russians and our genetic history — to say little of oral history, traditions, and culture — is not perfectly clear as a result.

Judging from the contents of sapiens.org, they are making that statement as a sum of all natives of both Americas - not specifically from Beringia. More or less nowadays 50% of indigenous people have 50% European patrilinear lineage, though 10%+(more than native numbers) of non-native inhabitants carry native patrilinear lineages, so it is something that goes both ways.

In case of Aleutians, it was something, that made me realize, that Russian colonization was not as much different from rest of Siberia(where cossacks left wastelands of bodies that even nowadays are still not repopulated), and contradicts happy picture what can be gained from media, that tells about Russian times in Alaska. But, to be fair - let's not make myth, that Aleuts were peace loving people and that they dwingled, because they were peaceful - they dwingled in numbers, because Russians were more ruthless and had better weapons - Aleuts initially expanded, because they were better at something - including warfare.

Personally to me genetic results was shattering some myths, that I had and I could rediscover history of my own, as my relatives were afraid to talk about past. Also in USSR people were robbed of history and not allowed to have memory, so that is an awakening for me.

I think that understanding history, that can't be changed and not hiding from it is what makes strong people, as the truth and understanding of past is the only foundation on which to build future. Without understanding past, there is only repetition of the same errors - again and again. Even with all the might and power Russians are still in agony, as they can't built their own future and are making same mistakes, because time does not stand still and others who are learning from their mistakes and errors have grown, while Russians have learned nothing and are declining their own growth(and numbers), by living in glorious past - or rather still undecided on which glorious past to live in.

Well, anyway - I think, that nowadays Aleuts in US can do more, compared to Aleuts in Russia and it is up to youth if they want to be Aleuts in future or not - just the same as anywhere else. Yeah, I'm wondering if Aleuts of US are making contacts with Russian Aleuts, but then again - probably now it is a bad time to do so, as Russia is descending into totalitarian state again.

I love that the comparative genetic data can illuminate some interesting information this way.

One thing that jarred to me as I read the article: the capitalization of what to me are not proper nouns, like "Indigenous peoples", "Traditional Histories", "Oral Traditions" or "Native". Other capitalizations seemed like the standard capitalization of proper nouns in English e.g. "Na-Diné". For example I consider myself an immigrant, not an Immigrant.

Is this just a quirk of the author or is this a kind of jargon in anthropology? To me it certainly gave the otherwise fascinating article a whiff of "1066 and all that".

I refer to this as the "things I consider important/am passionate about" capitalization style, which happens to be popular in Government.

It's a form of modern institutional racism. See the AP's argument for capitalizing 'Black' but not 'white' https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-cultures-race-and-e.... It's obviously nonsense, done for political reasons and a misuse of the English language.

> It's obviously nonsense, done for political reasons and a misuse of the English language.

Is there any chance that people who have different opinions than you might have other motives or legitimate ideas?

>Is there any chance that people who have different opinions than you might have other motives or legitimate ideas?

Of course! But in this case, it is absolutely europhobic, anti-White racism. It's the racism de jure that's all the rage today among academia and inteligencia.

It's mostly a jargon thing to distinguish that they're using an academic term of art rather than just colloquial lay term.

Thanks! Some people consider jargon exclusionary, but really between two people in a field it is simply a way of saving time and removing ambiguity (as in this case).

So I don’t feel opressed by this jargon: it’s just extra domain-specific info that whooshed over my head.

>>"Na-Diné"

Only it is Na-Dene(because it is constructed word - just like Google, Meta, Apple, and Giigle, Mita, Ipple could be names of different companies - and in the case of article to something else, that is only in the head of author) and this and other mistakes are making me look on sapiens.org as entertaining article and not scientifically reliable source. I would suggest for everyone to read something else on that topic - this is close to the truth, but nothing new and can not be regarded as news.

> Like all their children, the 2-year-old boy was treasured by his people. To honor him, they buried him underneath a rock shelter with great care and love, sprinkling his body with red ochre. Everyone in the community contributed to the toolkit that he would take with him into the afterlife: Some placed carefully flaked finished tools—projectile points, knives, and scrapers for hides—others left the cores that he would need to make new ones. His parents placed carved elk bone rods into the grave to mark his connection to their ancestors. This burial site was honored by their descendants for generations, who paid their respects to the boy every time they passed it.

To me it seems like human sacrifice. My guess is that without modern medical care, 2 year olds dying was not uncommon. The fact that his body underwent such elaborate burial routines, and he was buried with a lot of artifacts, and that his burial site was venerated, seems more likely with human sacrifice than if he had just died of natural causes.

"My guess is that..."

Would you be able to provide some of the evidence that led you to this guess? Or maybe you could give us your credentials, whatever education and experience you have that qualifies you to make guesses in the field of pre-Columbian Neolithic archaeology?

Let me make it simpler: How do YOU know that 2-year-old death was "common" among these people, at this time? What supporting sources to this putative fact?

I can understand being skeptical of the article author's conclusion, if they did a poor job explaining themselves... But your counter-hypothesis is just creative writing, without something a little more solid to back it up.

It'd be surprising if a 2-year-old's death was not common. Before 1900 or so, children in every society died like flies before reaching adulthood. It's why societies are so protective of their children, and why people had large families.

The issue isn’t so much about arguing about commonness of 2 years old. Of course it was common.

The giant leap is to conclude that it was human sacrifice. You need some credentials or provide more information to arrive to this conclusion. That’s what the argument was about.

But most infant deaths before 1900 were from infectious diseases that didn't even exist in human populations until our ancestors lived in large enough groups to become disease reservoirs.

But your response just proves the meta-point I made, in my earlier comment... If you don't have any qualifications in Neolithic anthropology, and you're not citing any evidence from people who DO have those qualifications, then your uninformed speculations are just fairy tales.

In not against unqualified speculation... Just don't be surprised when people point out that you have no idea what you're talking about, and that you're probably wrong.

The author took some poetic license with the narrative bits. The reality is that the anzick site was completely destroyed by amateur collectors. We don't actually know if the artifacts and the bones are associated, nor do we have enough to say much about the cause of death beyond ruling out some basic diseases. However, human sacrifice is incredibly rare historically while natural deaths aren't. The balance of probabilities suggests the latter.

Human sacrifice was not incredibly rare, it was widely practiced all over the world going as far back into prehistory as we can see.

It certainly was compared to natural causes and our evidence for particular sacrifice is even more scarce. I've surveyed and excavated many ancient graves, but very few (1, possibly 2) had anything to suggest human sacrifice, both of which were for ideological reasons that don't make sense for Anzick. Quoting Porter's "Mortal Mirrors" from the standard book on archaeology of sacrifice, Sacred Killing:

    But the evidence for human sacrifice is actually very rare in the period when cross-cultural comparisons suggest it is most likely to occur—the formative stages of complex society—and when it does occur, it is very individual in practice.

Dr. Porter goes on to talk about how this is of course the result of our ability to detect and recognize sacrificial activity in the material record and so on. The book is worth perusing if this topic interests you.

And of course, in context we should expect it to be essentially irrelevant on a population level because population growth for most of the Paleoindian period is close to flat. A significant difference in infant mortality rates from culturally-specific factors would probably lead to pretty quick population turnover during the millennia of competition with everyone else that has similar technology and resources.

So while it did occur, there's little reason to think it occurred at rates anywhere near that of non-sacrificial mortalities.

Could just as likely have been a high status individual, say the child of some other high status people, or someone chosen to have been a religious figure (as happens with Lamas in Tibetan Buddhism), or someone who died in an unlucky way (so a special burial might have been to try to ward off bad luck) or perhaps they had some organic disability that doesn't show up in the bones (as some cultures consider epileptics to have been touched by a god).

Impossible to tell today, though anthropologists likely have behavioral clues that makes their conjectures slightly more likely than the random ones I and you thought up.

People loving their children is a cultural universal. Human sacrifice is a relatively rare cause of death. The probabilities seem in favor of the ordinary explanation rather than the extraordinary.

I find this kind of genetic analysis fascinating. Does anyone have a tree of the other side of the gap? I'm interested in reading about the trees of Chinese and South-East Asian peoples.

Good podcast episode interviewing the book's author: https://overcast.fm/+Jf3pmRSrw

the Polynesians may well have been the first from the old world to make it to the new world in South America, maybe a group got shipwrecked off the coast. The Polynesians were very good sailors who knew how to sail between far flung islands in the enormous Pacific Ocean, as can be attested by their ancestral travels outwards from Asia to Australia, the last being the Maori who made it to New Zealand in the 1300s.

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