The origin of the American man: the polygenetic theory
In recent years, the theory that American man has had multiple origins has been developed in the scientific field.
The initial hypothesis, the idea that groups of Sapient Homines crossed the Beringian grassland (the current Bering Strait) approximately 14 millennia ago, has not been put aside, but must be complemented by other theses. Until a few years ago, although out of pure nationalism, many American scholars indicated the site of Clovis in New Mexico as the place where the mother culture of all America originated (13.2 millennia ago).
However, in recent years, after surprising discoveries made in South America (Pedra Furada, Brazil, Monte Verde, Chile and the Pedra Pintada Cavern, in Brazil) just to name a few, it was concluded that Homo Sapiens, arrived first in South America and only after several millennia, in North America.
The second theory, called the African theory, is supported by the findings of Pedra Furada, in Piauí (Brazil), studied by the archaeologist Niede Guidon. Human bones dating back 12,000 years were found, which prove the presence of man in modern-day Brazil, contemporaneously with the Clovis culture of North America.
In addition, some remains of bonfires (dated with the carbon 14 and luminescence method) have proven that the site was inhabited 60 millennia ago. Who were the ancient inhabitants of Piauí, and where did they come from? According to Niede Guidon, they were archaic Sapiens, no more than a few thousand, whose origin was northern Africa, from where they coincidentally arrived on rustic boats to the coasts of the New World.
These considerations were supported by researchers Walter Neves and Danilo Bernardo (from the Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), who have identified, in the skulls found in Piauí, the archaic Sapiens human type (present in Africa since 130 millennia).
The third theory, which indicates the origin of American man in Melanesia and Polynesia, is supported by anthropological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence.
The first theory is based on the remarkable similarity between various groups of current indigenous Americans and the Melanesian and Polynesian human type. To give an example, we can cite the Tunebo of Colombia, who according to eminent scholars have extraordinary similarities with natives of New Guinea, or the Sirionó of Bolivia, who have Melanesian morphological characteristics. There is some indirect morphological evidence, such as the famous Olmec heads from Mexico, or the statues of Saint Augustine in Southern Colombia, which present marked Negroid, and therefore Melanesian (or African) characteristics.
There is also some ethnographic evidence. Regarding this, the eminent scholar Erland Nordenskiold has identified numerous instruments, uses and customs typical of various native American cultures, strangely similar to others, typical of ethnic groups from New Guinea, Melanesia and Polynesia, for example: blowguns, mallets, bows, arrows, spears, slingshots, liana bridges, oars, rafts, huts, ceramics, mortars, hammocks, mosquito nets, combs, textile procedures, ponchos, phallic cases, nasal ornaments, pectoral plates, archaic numbering systems such as the quipu, wooden drums and leather, wooden masks, tattoos, use of jade stones embedded in teeth, deformations of the skull and knees by means of strange bandages and finally the use of shells as a means of exchange.
The French ethnologist and linguist Paul Rivet (1876-1958) has also proven, with profound philological studies, that the American languages have extraordinary analogies with those of the Indonesians, Melanesians and Polynesians. Rivet has studied the Hoka linguistic group that includes the now extinct Shasta language of Oregon, the Chantal of the Tehuantepec isthmus, the Subtiaba of Nicaragua and the Yurumangui of Colombia. Comparing Hoka with the Malesio-Polynesian languages, Rivet has found more than 280 similarities in words and grammatical forms.
It is very difficult, once the veracity of such evidence is admitted, to identify how the Melanesian and Polynesian peoples arrived in America, what routes they followed, and above all where and when they landed.
Several scholars have proposed that, unlike the African theory, the migrations of oceanic peoples have developed repeatedly and not occasionally. In fact, the Polynesians were always excellent navigators and it would not seem strange to admit that they have sailed from one island to another, probably leaving from New Guinea. Through the study of the indigenous American languages, analyzing those that show more analogies with the Melanesian ones, the conclusion is reached that there were numerous landings in many places: Oregon, Mexico, southern Colombia, Ecuador. These landings probably covered a time range that goes from 12,000 to 1,000 BC.
The fourth theory that attempts to explain the settlement of the Americas is based on the fact that some groups of Australoid Sapiens arrived in America from Australia 6 millennia ago.
The philological evidence of this ancient emigration dates back to 1907, when the Italian scholar Trombetti pointed out that the languages of Tierra del Fuego, belonging to the Chon linguistic group, typical of the Patagonian and Ona ethnic groups, had surprising affinities with the Australian languages. Trombetto found 93 affinities of words and grammatical rules.
There is some ethnographic evidence that links the archaic Australoids with the indigenous Americans, for example with the Fuegian culture, from Tierra del Fuego, similar to that of the Australian aborigines. Both peoples ignored pottery and the hammock, and used boomerangs and leather blankets to protect themselves from the cold.
It is difficult to determine the oceanic route that was undertaken by these ancient Australoid inhabitants to reach the southern cone of the American continent. In fact, unlike the Melanesians and Polynesians, the ancient Australians were never expert navigators and this complicates matters.
If we analyze the ocean currents of the Pacific, we realize that, while in the northern hemisphere they have a clockwise circulation, in the southern hemisphere the opposite happens. This explains why the Melanesians and the Polynesians, together with the ancient Japanese, as we will see later, have reached the coasts of North America as far as the Equator, while the Australoids, admitting the hypothetical expertise in navigation, landed in the area of South America that goes from the southern cone to southern Peru.
The Portuguese anthropologist Méndes Correa imagined a strange theory. According to him, the archaic Australians would have reached the southern cone of South America following the route Australia-Tasmania-Macquarie Islands-Antarctic continent-Tierra del Fuego.
According to this assumption, the ancient Australians found themselves facing not very extensive arms of the sea, a maximum of 200 kilometers, considering that during the last ice age (which began 130 millennia ago and lasted until 11.5 millennia ago) the sea level was much lower than the current one (more or less 120 meters). Is it plausible that they followed this itinerary? According to Correa, the climate of Antarctica (whose glaciers began to melt 17 millennia ago) was not always the same as today. According to eminent climatologists, during the Wisconsin-Wurm glaciation, most of the planet's glaciers would have been concentrated in the Arctic polar dome of the northern hemisphere, but not in the Antarctic. Always based on these assumptions, some archaic Australians would have been able to live adapting to the harsh climate in a similar way to the Inuit of the Arctic. When the climate of Antarctica later became colder, they looked for new lands to colonize and through the Antarctic Peninsula they sailed to Tierra del Fuego.
The fifth theory about the population of the Americas is based on the fact that archaic Japanese of the Jomon culture arrived in America around 3000 BC, surrounding the coasts of the northern Pacific, reaching the coasts of present-day Ecuador. This thesis was supported by the archaeologists Evans, Megger and Estrada, around 1950.
The Jomon culture, which developed from the tenth millennium BC. C. distinguished itself by being the first in the world to use ceramics, but adopted intensive agriculture only in later times.
The surprising similarities with the ceramics of the Valdivia culture of Ecuador have pushed some scholars to consider this immigration as possible. The similarities are not only in the decorations, but also in the shape of the vessels. The dates also collide: the Jomon culture had its central period from 4835 to 1860 BC. C. while the classic period of the Valdivia culture was from 3600 to 1500 BC.
However, there are some dark points.
Why did the Japanese of the Jomon culture, after having sailed approximately 13,000 km surrounding the coasts of Alaska, Oregon, California, Mexico, Central America and Colombia, stopped precisely in Ecuador? Is it possible, for a people that has not yet mastered agriculture, and therefore cannot supply its ships with grain, to make such long trips?
It is not easy to imagine the environmental conditions of these transpacific voyages, nor the reasons that pushed prehistoric navigators to begin them, with an unknown destination.
It would need to be considered, however, that, rather than migrations, these explorations were undertaken by limited groups of people. The population of prehistoric America was so limited that the arrival of a dozen men with few women, on a single boat, could have been enough to leave significant changes in the genetic history of entire regions.
Because if it was so simple for the prehistoric African, Melanesian, Polynesian, Australian and Japanese peoples to cross large oceans without having acquired the typical conquests of Western civilization, such as agriculture and the use of iron, why was not equally easy for Europeans to navigate the Atlantic, something they did only from the year 1000 AD with the voyage of Leif Erikson (the son of Erik the Red) and in 1492 AD with the expedition of Christopher Columbus?
It must be considered that Western civilization, with the cultures of the Sumerians, the Egyptians and then the Greeks and the Romans, was centered above all on the Mediterranean, a huge sea practically closed and connected to the Atlantic Ocean only through the Strait of Gibraltar. It was precisely the geographical configuration of the Mediterranean that contributed to not disseminating oceanic navigation techniques too much, with the exception of the Phoenicians who, according to Erodotus, circumnavigated Africa in the 7th century BC.
However, there is no certain evidence of contacts between the Phoenicians and the peoples of the New World, although some researchers claim that the ancient city of Tartessians, in present-day Andalusia (Spain), was the base port in ancient times for transatlantic navigations.
As can be seen, the key to understanding the multiple origins of Native Americans lies in the study of anthropology, ethnography, linguistics and now also genetics, through which in the future the entire genome of many indigenous people of the New World will be deciphered, further understanding its origins and finally revealing one of the greatest mysteries of archaeology.
Unfortunately, the disappearance of dozens of Native American groups, especially since the 20th century, has forever canceled the possibility of learning more about their ancestral history and origins. By preserving the last indigenous people, who fortunately are still numerous in South America, we could shed light on one of the most captivating enigmas of man's adventure on planet Earth.
YURI LEVERATTO
