The Origin of the Amerindians

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated November 27. I am republishing this post because I added a lot of new photos and text. Enjoy.

As we noted in an earlier post, the view is converging that Amerindians can be traced back to the Altai Mountains in Southwest Siberia where China, Mongolia and Russia all come together.

Yet another study found that of all Asians, the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Sayan Mountains (west of the Altai Mountains and north of northwestern Mongolia) are the closest to the Amerindians. This group includes the Shor, the Tofalar, the Altai, the Khakass , the Soyots and the Tuva. The Mongolic-speaking Buryats are also included.

The Altai live in the Sayan Uplands. The Soyots and the Buryats are from the Eastern Sayan Mountains. The Shor and the Khakass are from the northwest slopes of the Sayans. The Tofalar are from the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayans. The Tuva are also from the Sayans.

This is an ensemble of Khakass singers called the Sume-r Ensemble. They sure look like Amerindians, don't they. The Khakass, Turkic speakers of the Sayan Mountains, are related to Amerindians. The Khakass language is in good shape, with 60,000 speakers. The Khakass belong to the Central Asian Mongoloid group. They have wide faces and cheekbones are not very prominent. They are short, with dark skin, and are able to grow beards.


This is a traditional shaman woman of the Altai-Kizhi group of the Altai. Of all of the groups listed above, the Altai are one of the closest of all to the Amerindians. As you can see, this woman looks very Amerindian, all the way down to the face paint. She's even beating on a drum. I can't believe that there is something like a tepee in the background.

Another powerful connection is that all of these groups practiced Shamanism very prominently. And we know what the aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were - forget all that "Great Creator" crap - most of that was lobbed on recently after they became Christians. The aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were animism and shamanism, combined.


Bama Kanda, a famous Buryat. I believe she is a singer. Although the Buryat look a lot more like typical Asians (note the resemblance to a Mongolian or a Korean here) several studies have now related them to the Amerindians. Strangely enough, the Buryats have an oral tradition that says that a group of them went to the Americas long ago.


From a book called The Last of the Shor Shamans. He looks quite Amerindian. It showcases a few remaining Shor elders who still practice Shamanism and looks into their worldview. The Shor language is doing ok, but it is on the decline all right. Quite a few kids are still speaking it.

The Shor are Uralics, but they have Mongoloid features. They are short, with broad, flat faces. They have light skin and light eyes and can grow a thick beard. The Shors have not done well, and alcoholism and VD are devastating them.


Galina Innokentievna Adamova, a member of the Fast Reindeer folksinging group. She looks like an Amerindian, and her costume even looks Amerindian. The Tofalar language is not doing well. It's not being spoken by kids. About 30% of the Tofalar speak the language, almost all elderly.

It's being taught for 1 hour a week in some elementary schools, and the teacher is not even fluent in Tofalar. She conducts the class in Russian. Other villages do not even have schools, and the kids are shipped away to boarding schools.

We have to conclude that once a language is no longer spoken in the home and is reduced to a subject in school, it's probably on its way out.

The Tofalar are also members of the Mongoloid Central Asian race. They are short, with high, flat faces, without prominent cheekbones.


Nikolay Sergeevich Bakanaev, an expert in Tofalar fairy tales. I can't believe how much this guy looks like an Amerindian.

The Ket and Selkup are also related to Amerindians, though they are now to the north of the Altai. However, a long time ago, the Ket and Selkup lived in the Altai, and they only moved north later on.

Katun River in the Altai Mountains, origin of the vast majority of the Amerindians. The ancestors of the Amerinds probably left this region to come to the Americas about 16-30,000 years ago.

Another paper has found that there were two waves to the Americas - the first wave, mentioned above, traced back to the Tuva of the Altai, occurred 20-30,000 years ago, not 16,000 years ago as suggested in the paper above. This group moved first to the Chukotka Peninsula, and then into the Americas. They constitute the Amerind speakers of North, Central and South America.

A Tuvan family, ancestors of the vast majority of Amerindians. Tuvans, who live in the Altai Mountains where Russia, China and Mongolia all come together, have one of highest rates of syphilis in the world, attributed to an old shamanistic tradition that encouraged promiscuity among females. The more sex partners a woman had before marriage, the more fertile she would be. It's obviously not scientifically based.


A Selkup woman. Galina Vladimirovna Kusamina (nee Tamelkina), age 47. Photographed at the Farkovo settlement. The Selkups are not doing well. There is high unemployment, an extremely high rate of alcoholism, and they are victims of racial discrimination. The Selkup are members of the Uralic Race. The origins of the Uralics are pretty obscure. Their language is Samoyedic. Samoyedic is very distantly related to Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian.

Some say that this race is neither Mongoloid nor Caucasoid. Genetically, they do seem to fall in with the Asians. They are short and have short skulls. Asian traits are diminished, and their skin is fairer than in surrounding groups. These people, along with the Ket, are also ancestors of the Amerindians.

This paper also found evidence for a second wave of Siberians to the Americas. This wave came out of the Lower Amur River region near Sakhalin Island, where Russia, China and Korea all together. This wave gave rise to the Na-Dene speakers and the surrounding populations of Amerinds.

The Lower Amur River region, where the ancestors of the Na-Dene came from. The Amur is said to be one of the world's 10 great rivers.

The Na-Dene migration occurred about 6-7,000 years ago. Some peoples who live in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi , and Orok and the Udeghe. This paper found that the Negidal and the Ulchi were the progenitors of the Na-Dene.

Click to enlarge. The Lower Amur region of Russia can be seen to the left of Sakhalin Island. On this map, tribes residing in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi, the Nivkhi, the Oroch, the Udeghe and the Nanai.


D. I. Nadeina, a Negidal elder who has been working with linguists in Vladimirovka village, north of Japan near Sakhalin Island. The Negidal language was devastated by the post-Stalin USSR which sent the kids off to boarding schools.

10-30% of the Negidal have a command of the language, but only 10% are speakers, all older adults. Younger adults can understand Negidal but not speak it. Kids speak only Russian. There are only 500 of them left. The language is not written and there is no instruction in it. You can see that she looks Japanese, but anthropologically, thees people are called Paleo-Siberians, members of a group called Baikals. These people are the ancestors of the Na-Dene and surrounding tribes of Amerindians.


Ulchi children in native dress. They look pretty Japanese to me, but the picture does not have good resolution. The Ulchi are ancestors of the Na-Dene Amerindians.


Ulchi women being baptized into Christianity. At first glance I thought that they looked Japanese, but now I am going to say Korean. Anthropologically, they are just said to be Mongoloids of no pure type. Part of them belong to a type called Sakhalin-Amur . These types are short, with a broad, flat face and relatively dark skin. The men may have thick beards.

The Ulchi live, like the Negidal, in the Khabarovsk Krai District of Russia along the lower Amur River north of Japan and northeast of Manchuria, west of Sakhalin Island. The capital of the area is Bogorodskove, about 470 miles north of Japan.

30-40% of the Ulchi have command of the language. Older speakers know it well, the middle-aged less well, adolescents and young adults understand it passively. People under age 20 are not able to speak the language. There is a script and it is taught in schools. The language is used in the home. They are known to hunt seals.

Researching classic genetic markers reveals an interesting story. M130 goes out of Africa, to India and SE Asia (these are the Negritos), then up the coast to North America and the Na-Dene. Originally, M130 is obviously Australoid-Negrito but they go to NE Asian at some point (probably about 9,000 years ago).

Theirs must have been a coastal migration. The remains are in Northwest Canada, Oregon and the Northern California coast, but most of them are probably underwater. They must have gone inland at some point to become the Navajo - Apache. This is the same Lower Amur line that went to the Na-Dene in the paper above.

We know that the original lines in the Lower Amur region came from SE Asia. This mirrors the theories about the Ainu Jomon culture originating in Thailand 16,000 years ago. This correlation is based on a comparison of skulls from Thailand 16,000 years ago with the Jomonese who showed up in Japan shortly after and with the present day Ainu. All three seem to line up.

The tribes of the Lower Amur seem to have a similar provenance to the Ainu.

Ainu men with full beards. As you can see, they do look somewhat Caucasian. However, analysis of their skulls shows that they are Australoid. Their genes are Asian, showing relations to the Andaman Islanders (!) and Tibetans. The Andaman Islanders are the remains of the very first men out of Africa. If the Ainu are related to them, this shows that the Ainu are very ancient indeed.

The tribes of the lower Amur region probably derive from the Ainu. Genetics shows that this line came from SE Asia. A good theory is that the Jomon Culture, which showed up in Japan 16,000 years, is derived from a culture that existed in Thailand at the same time. The archaic Thai left Thailand and came up to Japan, possibly by boats. The skulls of the archaic Thai, the Jomonese and the Ainu all line up.

So the ancestors of the Ainu lived in Thailand 16,000 years ago and earlier and left to come up to Japan to become the Jomonese. It seems that the Ainu were on the move at this time. The Ainu also seem to be connected to the Murrayans, who arrived in Australia, possibly from either Thailand or Japan between 15-20,000 years ago. There is also evidence that they stopped by the Philippines on their way to Australia from wherever.

This is probably the same group as the proto-Australoids, the second group to come to the Philippines. So the Ainu are probably the ancient Thai from 16,000 years ago, the Jomonese from the same time, the Murrayans who arrived in Australia 15-20,000 years ago, the proto-Australoids who came to the Philippines around the same time and the proto-SE Siberians, who probably showed up there around 16,000 years ago.

The earliest Amerindians from 9,000-12,5000 years ago also look like Ainu. It seems that from 9,000-16,000 years ago in Asia, the proto-Ainu were really on the move.

Traditional, older anthropology has held that when the Ainu came to Japan, possibly 16,000 years ago, Japan was already inhabited. It is thought that Japan was inhabited by Negrito types prior to 16,000 years ago.

The Ainu replaced these Japanese Negritos, probably by killing them off. These people were called by the Ainu the pit-dwellers or koro-pok-guru (men with sunken places). These koro-pok-guru were said to be so small as to be considered dwarfs. The only logical interpretation is that these people were Negritos.

An Ainu man with full beard. The Ainu came to Japan from the Kuril Islands to the north, possibly 16,000 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers and liked to eat meat. They were deerskin leggings and salmon skin boots. Their religion was animism. They were said to be very dirty people who seldom washed for some reason. A man who lived with them 100 years ago for six weeks said they never bathed in that time and never washed any utensils.

They worshiped the bear. Every year they had a Bear Festival and their highest compliment was to compare a man to a bear. The Ainu are pretty unique in this regard, as worship of bears is not common. On the other hand, the Ainu hunted bears, wore their skins and ate their meet. They were said to be a peaceful, kind people and did not practice capital punishment - although someone guilty of murder was mutilated, they were allowed to live.

Along the same lines, another paper found that Amerindians trace back to Mongolia, Manchuria and far southeastern Siberia (the Lower Amur River). The Altai and Buryat populations (just north of Mongolia) were included in the founders. This paper said that Amerindians came 22-29,000 years ago. There are very early sites in Beringia dating back 30,000 years, but they are controversial.

Beringia is now inhabited by Eskimos or Inuit. They are quite close genetically to Asians and they are not really Amerindians. They came quite late. Notice the resemblance to, say, Japanese.

This study found a single 30,000 year old gene in Amerindians. Based on this gene and an earlier study of classic genetic markers that suggested a time of entry at 32,000 years, this study postulated that Amerindians arrived in the Americas 30,000 years ago.

This study (broken link) found a single wave of entry 23-27,000 years ago populating the Americas.

It is now commonly agreed that the first Amerindians were Australoids. These are the Paleo-Indians. They are represented today in the Fuegians.

The Ona of Argentina are thought to be a remaining example of the Paleoindians whose skulls most resemble Australoids.

The skulls of the extinct tribe the Pericu also show similar affinities, as do very old skulls from the Americas about 12-13,000 years ago such as "Luiza" from Brazil and another from Mexico City. These skulls, and the Fuegians, line up with Melanesians, Negritos, Papuans and the Ainu.

Probably around 9,000 years ago there is yet another transition, this time to a more Polynesian type, though affinities with the Ainu remain. The famous Kennewick Man is illustrative of this type. White nationalists love to claim Kennewick man in order to prove that Whites beat Indians to the Americas and therefore this is our land and the Indians are trespassers (I kid you not!).

It is true that Kennewick does look somewhat Caucasian, but so do the Ainus. Kennewick man was not White or Caucasian. This paper definitively measures Kennewick Man's skull and shows his nearest relations. One thing we should point out here is the Kennewick Man is a member of a race that no longer exists.

He had 64% affinity to Polynesians and 24% affinity to Ainu. There are also affinities to Southern Japan (Okinawans), the Moriori (a Maori Polynesian split-off from the Chatham Islands off the coast of New Guinea) and Easter Island (Polynesians). The Ainu are thought to have originated in the South Asia - South Pacific region.

Kennewick Man is also somewhat close to Papua New Guinea (Australoids), the Marquesas Islands (Polynesians) and the Society Islands (Polynesians). He has no affinities to Caucasians at all, unless you consider Ainus White, which they are not.

It is mysterious why the Ainus appear Caucasoid, but one theory is that when you mix an Australoid with a Mongoloid, you end up with a phenotype that can appear somewhat Caucasoid.

Kem Sokha, a Cambodian politician. If you look at him closely, you can see he looks almost Caucasian. This is probably due to a Mongoloid-Australoid mix, in my opinion.


Another photo of Kem Sokha. Forgetting about his eyes for a moment, he looks even more Caucasian in this pic.

The more modern Amerindian types, who resemble Mongoloids and not Australoids, seem to appear about 6-7,000 years ago.

This paper indicates that there were possibly many survivors of the Paleo-Indians into more modern times, and that they did not all transition over around 6,000 years ago. They found "Archaic Colombian" skulls until 3,000 years ago that line up with Australoids.

A Shoshone woman, typical of the southwestern Amerindian. Their skins can be quite dark.


A Yanonami child from the Amazon. This type typically has a very Mongoloid or Asian appearance. They could easily pass for, say, Filipinos.


This is an Inca. This type is distributed up and down the western part of South America from Chile through Peru to Ecuador and Colombia. A different phenotype.


An Apache warrior, Chief Victorio or Apache Wolf. Though these are Na-Dene speakers, this phenotype is common in the West. Prognathism may be present, along with sharply defined, angular features. Can be quite tall.


A Mexican Indian. Short and often has fairly dark skin. This is the phenotype from which many of the Hispanics in the US of Mexican origin are derived.


Floyd Red Crow Westerman, a well-known Sioux Indian from the Plains. This is a typical Plains Indian phenotype. Strangely enough, they can have a Caucasian appearance. Skin can be quite light also. Can be quite large and well-built.

References

Lell, JT, Sukernik, RI, Starikovskaya, YB, Su, B, Jin, L, et al. 2002. The Dual Origin and Siberian Affinities of Native American Y Chromosomes. American Journal of Human Genetics, 70(1), 192-206.

Neel, J.V., Biggar, R.J., Sukernik, R.I. 1994. Virologic And Genetic Studies Relate Amerind Origins To The Indigenous People Of The Mongolia/Manchuria/Southeastern Siberia Region Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAC), Genetics, Vol 91: pp. 10737-10741.

Underhill, Peter A., Jin, Li, Zemans, Rachel, Oefner, Peter J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca. 1996. A Pre-Columbian Y Chromosome-Specific Transition And Its Implications For Human Evolutionary History Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAC), Genetics, Vol 93, pp. 196-200.

Powell, Joseph F. and Rose, Jerome C. 2004. Chapter 2, Report on the Osteological Assessment of the "Kennewick Man" Skeleton (CENWW.97.Kennewick), in McManamon, F.P. Kennewick Man. Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Archeology Program.

Neves, Walter A., Hubbe, Mark, Correal, Gonzalo. 2007. Human Skeletal Remains From Sabana De Bogotá, Colombia: A Case Of Paleoamerican Morphology Late Survival In South America? American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol 133:4:1080-1098.

Zakharov, Ilia A. et al. 2004. Mitochondrial DNA Variation In The Aboriginal Populations Of The Altai-Baikal Region: Implications For The Genetic History Of North Asia And America. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1011:21-35

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A North-South Chinese Mix Cline in SE Asia?

A question from the comments about the Are SE Asians Australoids? article:

Aren't Khmer a little more Australoid than people in Vietnam (at least Northern Vietnamese), most Thai, and Laotians? There seems to be a clear cline in Southeast Asia, the areas bordering China seem to have more NE Mongoloid Admixture than those of the Malay archipelago and the Khmer. I'm basing this on appearance and not genes, which you pointed out, rightly so, as being misleading.

This question keeps popping up because so many folks are convinced, based primarily on appearance, that many SE Asians are part-Australoid.

First of all, the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Thai and Khmer are all quite close to the Southern Chinese genetically. Of these, believe it or not, the Filipinos are possibly the closest of all. The Vietnamese are also very close, but I don't have any figures. Both the Filipinos and the Vietnamese are very close to the coastal Southern Chinese of Fujian and Guangdong Province bordering the Taiwan Strait.

Next come the Thai, Lao and the Khmer. These groups are much closer to the Southern Chinese than Malays or Indonesians. All of them are about the equidistant from the Southern Chinese. Filipinos are much closer to the Southern Chinese than these three groups.

The Thai and Lao are primarily a Southern Chinese group called the Tai that came down into that area in a massive wave about 800 years ago. To some extent they bred in with whatever people were already there. This Tai group came from Yunnan.

The Vietnamese are very closely related to the Southern Chinese. A huge wave of Southern Chinese poured into Vietnam 2,200 years and bred in with existing people. This group came from the Taiwan Strait - the area north of Vietnam along the coast.

The Khmer came down into the area possibly 5,000 years ago with the first wave of Austroasiatics. They also came from Southern China, probably Yunnan once again, but longer ago than their neighbors the Thai, Lao and Vietnamese. The Austroasiatics are considered to be some of the original people of the SE Asia.

The Zhuang of South China are probably the purest relatives of the original Austroasiatics. They came from Central China (possibly originally as the Dai) to Yunnan about 5,000 years ago. One line went to the Zhuang in Guangxi in Southwest China and another line went to the modern Tai-Dai in Yunnan.

Also, the Khmer bred in much more than their neighbors with people from India who came about 1,500 years ago. So, the Khmer contain more of the original Austroasiatic group and less of recent Southern Chinese mixture than the Thai, Lao and Vietnamese. This accounts for their appearance.

Filipinos are closer to Southern Chinese (Guangdong) than any of the groups above except maybe Vietnamese. They are also very close to Taiwan aborigines. Most people have a hard time understanding this because they look so different from most Southern Chinese. But there are Chinese from around Fujian and Hong Kong who look quite dark and, to my mind, SE Asian-looking.

Malays are Taiwan aborigines in large part (Austronesians), and are also are made up of Southern Chinese who came down 4,000 years ago as Austroasiatics.

The Austronesians came through the Philippines, down into Borneo and Sumatra and then up into Malaysia about 2,000 years ago. The Malay do have some Papuan genes, but so do the Southern Chinese and the coastal Vietnamese. Once again, the Malays have less recent Southern Chinese admixture and more archaic Southern Chinese admixture (Austronesian and Austroasiatic).

Malays also definitely have Australoid ancestors in the Semang, the proto-Malay and the Senoi, although we can't see it in their skulls or much of it in their genes.

The Indonesians in the Center and East of the country have quite a few Melanesian Australoid genes, but the ones in the West have almost none. The ones in the West appear to be Taiwanese aborigines similar to Filipinos.

It's really a common fallacy that there is such a cline in SE Asia, with folks becoming more Australoid and less Chinese as you go south. What there is is that in some places, you find more recent Southern Chinese mixture and towards the South, you get more archaic Taiwanese and archaic Southern Chinese mixture.

A modern Southern Chinese woman from Chengdu Province. Isn't she beautiful? God I love this kind of woman. It's possible she may use some sort of skin whitener to make her skin look more white, or she may just stay out of the sun. White skin has been highly valued for a long time, and my blogging colleague Dragon Horse (feel free to check him out - he's smart as Hell) notes that it had been highly valued long before Chinese even knew much about Europeans.

In other words, Chinese were not trying to look like White Europeans - they hardly even knew who they were. A preference for lighter skin was simply an independent development in China based on their own considerations and values. Many will look at this woman and say she has a NE Asian facial type. Well, that may be so, but Caucasians are closer to NE Asians than she is as a Southern Chinese. The genetic distance between Southern Chinese and Northern Chinese is vast.

We only find a few Australoid genes in SE Asians and even then only in Southern Chinese, coastal Vietnamese and Malays. Skull-wise, nothing exists, except that the Senoi of Malaysia do have Australoid skulls.

I guess people say this based on appearance. There is a SE Asian native type characterized most prominently by Malays, Khmer, Filipino, Western Indonesians, etc. that people think looks a bit primitive, and they associate that with Australoids.

Really it's just a native indigenous development, although it does seem to represent a more archaic type - either archaic Taiwanese or archaic South Chinese - and has nothing to do per se with Australoids.

Recall however that the whole region slowly transitioned from Australoid types to modern SE Asian types about 5000 years ago, and that's later than most groups. Maybe that is what people are seeing. But there's nothing we can measure in genes or skulls.

Thai, Lao and Vietnamese don't have any NE Asian mixture that we can see. There is a Southern Chinese look that can resemble Northern Chinese, but the two groups are very far apart. Even Southern Chinese don't have much northern mixture, but there are some groups that are more northern than others.

The Wa (Va) of Yunnan and Burma are about 50-50 Northern and Southern Chinese, and the Hmong have more Northern Chinese than other Southern Chinese groups.

A Hmong woman. We have a huge Hmong population here in the Central Valley. By and large, they are good people and I like them a lot. The Hmong are interesting among Southern Chinese in that they have more Northern Chinese than most of the rest of the Southern Chinese. They also have a unique genetic line going back up to 42,000 years (!). It's pretty incredible that some sort of proto-Hmong have been evolving for that long.

The website I got this off described Hmong as partly Australoid, but I think that's silly. They are saying this by looking at the faces and saying that the face looks somewhat Australoid. The Hmong are probably less Australoid than that Chengdu woman above.

I find some of these Hmong women, like this one, to be really beautiful. They definitely look different. They have round, moon-shaped faces, and short, stocky, bodies. Character-wise, they are very Chinese-like.

Their IQ in the US is only 82.5 (lower than US Blacks) but that must be due to language difficulties. Their verbal IQ was insanely low, while their performance IQ was quite high. The Hmong have also been living like hillbillies for centuries, so there is probably a lot of potential for Flynn Effects in the US. That's a traditional costume she is wearing.

Caucasians are closer to Northern Chinese than Southern Chinese are.

A classic NE Asian, in this case a Manchu woman. What's interesting is that these people are genetically very close to Caucasians (while Southern Chinese are extremely distant). They don't have any Caucasian genes, but when we plot them on graphs, their genetic structure is quite close to Caucasians. The Caucasians that they most resemble are Northern Turkics such as some of the people in the Altai and the residents of the Stans.

They are part of what I call an Asian-Caucasian Divide, where these two great races are so close that it is often hard to tell which category to throw them into. This divide ranges from Turkey through the Stans, to Mongolia and out to Chukotka.

I can't see much difference in phenotype between her and the Southern Chinese beauty above, but maybe folks who understand Asian phenotypes better can see these things. These people are also quite close genetically to Amerindians. Koreans, Japanese and NE Chinese are all quite genetically close, although I guess they mostly hate each other and would not want to believe that.


A Tajik man. Boy, does he look Jewish or what? These people are quite closely related to NE Asians and also to Northern Indians. They are closest to Iranians. A very interesting people, they are thought to be the original Aryans. Funny how Aryans White Power types go back to Aryan dudes who look like nice Jewish boys. Wonders never cease.

People base so much popular anthropology on superficial appearances, but that's not really scientific.

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