The Solutrean Theory

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I am well aware that this is a controversial topic but this thread is about the Solutrean Theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_theory

The Solutrean Theory is the theory that European people crossed the Atlantic during the ice age, ended up in North America, later had conflicts with the people we now call Native Americans, and occasionally made love with Native Americans. The implication is that some parts of North America were colonized by Europeans before Native Americans got there and that many Native Americans have some European ancestry.

This is a thread to discuss whether or not the Solutrean Theory is true. This is not about who deserves to own what land. This is not PPR.

There is little or no evidence to support this theory.

ruveyn

I thought this was going to be about 70's R&B

Yes, because clearly it's impossible that both the Europeans and the Native Americans could have developed stone tools independently. The technology is just too complex.

The archaeological evidence shows that Humans moved over the Bering land bridge, making their way along the coast and through gaps in the massive glacial cover. Most of the East Coast of Canada and some of the North-East US (I think) were covered by glaciers and were not inhabited until around 13,000. In fact, the area I live, Montreal, was once covered by a glacial lake called Lake Iroquois, the last remnant of this body of water is the Ottawa river. I can assure you, though the appearance of the tools may be similar, they are chronologically not compatible. And like someone said earlier in the thread, stone tools aren't that hard to make. I've actually made tools using the ancient fashion of flaking. Stone tools are often distinctive, but there are often analogues between different tool cultures, and its unsurprising to me that some tools from one culture look the same as another.
There is a theory that I do find interesting, about other routes to the Americas- I don't believe in the Solutrean theory, but there is anecdotal evidence that Polynesians reached South America around 1000 C.E., and possibly earlier.

interesting but doubtful.

The arctic small blade tradition is what the paleoindians broght with them across the bering straight from Asia.

Basically big pieces of wood studed with lots of small toothlike blades.

A very different mentality from the Covis technology with its single large blades.
Clovis is much more tike the solutrean than the small blade traditon from artic Asia.

But there are too many other problems with the theory. The dating is wrong. The distances across the ocean are too great. Lack of other evidence of cross atlantic migratrons- lack of both racial and other cultural infusions from stoneage Europe into the Americas.

People do indenpendently invent similar things.
Aztec pyramids are outwardly similar to both Egyptian pyramids and to Babylonian ziggarauts. But the aztecs built thier edifices thousands of years after their old world counterparts and were unlikely to have been influenced by them.

The architectures are quite distinct. Egyptian pyramids did hot have external stairways. The stairways and ramps in the Egyptian structures are internal.

Also the method of construction is quite different and the materials are different.

ruveyn

Wouldn't a genetic study on Native Americans to see how much European ancestry they had resolve this question? Of course, said study would have to figure out whether any European ancestry it found was pre-Columbian or not.

They have done genetic studies and shown that the Ainu (I believe) are the closest ancestors to native Americans; the Ainu live in Japan. Also, I always get tired of hearing about the pyramids, its freaking giant lego set as far as I'm concerned. All it takes is basic geometry and thousands of willing laborers (not slaves, despite common belief, at least in Egypt) to build a pile of over-sized bricks.

It is a major managerial task. Thousands of tasks must be scheduled in the correct sequence and the food and water for thousands of workers must be delivered on time and in the right places. Even by todays computerized means and technologies it is a major undertaking.

It is not clear that moderns would or could do a better job of building granite block pyramids than did the ancients.

ruveyn

I'm pretty certain we could do it even better. If I had a crane and a few million bucks to buy blocks I would do it by myself

Never heard that about the Ainu.
Thats interesting.
Differing groups of asians have been peged as related to Amerindiians.
Discover magazine quoted a scientists who said that a certain mountain range on the soviet chinese border "was the homeland of the american Indian."
In some ways the Ainu are logical as cousins to amerindians,
They are an ancient race. They might be related to the orignial inhabitants of east asia who crossed into the americas, but latter got swamped by later asians within asia itsself.
But theres one problem.
The Ainu are more hairy than Japanese and other east asians. But American Indiian men have even less facial and body hair than even most East Asians.

Im inclined to agree with you about stone masonry. Stacking big cubes of rock is pretty simple.Taking stone and making it soar in ways that enclose space - like Chartes Cathedral, or especially like the Taj Mahal,- thats more of an achievement.

Perhaps the gene for facial hair is something the Ainu and the proto-Amerindians don't share because the Ainu developed it after their 'split'? Something else I find interesting is the way the migration over the Being range actually worked. There were some groups that actually returned to Asia, such as Aleuts, and then their descendants eventually made the trip back to America. I don't think any one region of Asia is responsible for all of the native American cultures personally.

[quote="Vigilans"]Perhaps the gene for facial hair is something the Ainu and the proto-Amerindians don't share because the Ainu developed it after their 'split'? Something else I find interesting is the way the migration over the Being range actually worked. There were some groups that actually returned to Asia, such as Aleuts, and then their descendants eventually made the trip back to America. I don't think any one region of Asia is responsible for all of the native American cultures personally.[/quote

I agree.
I think that there were atleast three waves of migration out of Asia into the Americas.

The Eskimos and Aleuts are the most recent invaders from Asia.

The Athabascan speaking tribes are the second youngest. They remain in the interior of Alaska and the western subartic forests of Canada ( close to Asia)- but some groups ventured down to arizona and became the Apache and the Navajo. The oldest wave became all of the rest of the native americans who occupied the rest of North, and all of South America- the Iroquois and the Inca etc. But even this group might turn out to be have more then one date of entry into america.