Prehistoric migrations
We know people have lived in the New World Arctic for about 5,000
years. Archaeological evidence clearly shows that a variety of cultures
survived the harsh climate in Alaska, Canada and Greenland for thousands of
years. Despite this, there are several unanswered questions about these people:
Where did they come from? Did they come in several waves? When did they arrive?
Who are their descendants? And who can call themselves the indigenous peoples
of the Arctic? We can now answer some of these questions, thanks to a
comprehensive DNA study of current and former inhabitants of Greenland, Arctic
Canada, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Siberia, conducted by an international
team headed by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of
Denmark, University of Copenhagen. The results have just been published in the
leading scientific journal Science.
Looking for ancient human remains in northern Greenland.
The North American Arctic was one of the last major regions to be
settled by modern humans. This happened when people crossed the Bering Strait
from Siberia and wandered into a new world. While the area has long been well
researched by archaeologists, little is known of its genetic prehistory. In
this study, researchers show that the Paleo-Eskimo, who lived in the Arctic
from about 5,000 years ago until about 700 years ago, represented a distinct
wave of migration, separate from both Native Americans – who crossed the Bering
Strait much earlier – and the Inuit, who came from Siberia to the Arctic
several thousand years after the Paleo-Eskimos.
- Our genetic studies show that, in reality, the Paleo-Eskimos –
representing one single group – were the first people in the Arctic, and they
survived without outside contact for over 4,000 years, says Lundbeck Foundation
Professor Eske Willerslev from Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History
Museum, University of Copenhagen, who headed the study.
- Our study also shows that the Paleo-Eskimos, after surviving in
near-isolation in the harsh Arctic environment for more than 4,000 years,
disappeared around 700 years ago – about the same time when the ancestors of modern-day
Inuit spread eastward from Alaska, adds Dr. Maanasa Raghavan of Centre for
GeoGenetics and lead author of the article.
Migration pulses into the Americas
Greenlandic Inuit from the 1930s pictured in their traditional boats
(umiaq), used for hunting and transportation.
In the archaeological literature, distinctions are drawn between the
different cultural units in the Arctic in the period up to the rise of the
Thule culture, which replaced all previous Arctic cultures and is the source of
today's Inuit in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. The earlier cultures included
the Saqqaq or Pre-Dorset and Dorset, comprising the Paleo-Eskimo tradition,
with the Dorset being further divided into three phases. All of these had
distinctive cultural, lifestyle and subsistence traits as seen in the
archaeological record. There were also several periods during which the Arctic
was devoid of human settlement. These facts have further raised questions
regarding the possibility of several waves of migration from Siberia to Alaska,
or perhaps Native Americans migrating north during the first 4,000 years of the
Arctic being inhabited.
- Our study shows that, genetically, all of the different Paleo-Eskimo
cultures belonged to the same group of people. On the other hand, they are not
closely related to the Thule culture, and we see no indication of assimilation
between the two groups. We have also ascertained that the Paleo-Eskimos were
not descendants of the Native Americans. The genetics reveals that there must
have been at least three separate pulses of migration from Siberia into the
Americas and the Arctic. First came the ancestors of today's Native Americans,
then came the Paleo-Eskimos, and finally the ancestors of today's Inuit, says
Eske Willerslev.
Genetics and archaeology
The genetic study underpins some archaeological findings, but not all
of them.
It rejects the speculation that the Paleo-Eskimos represented several
different peoples, including Native Americans, or that they are direct
ancestors of today's Inuit. Also rejected are the theories that the
Greenlanders on the east coast or the Canadian Sadlermiut, from Southampton
Island in Hudson Bay, who died out as late as 1902, were surviving groups of
Dorset people. Genetics shows that these groups were Inuit who had developed
Dorset-like cultural traits.
The study clearly shows that the diversity of tools and ways of life
over time, which in archaeology is often interpreted as a result of migration,
does not in fact necessarily reflect influx of new people. The Paleo-Eskimos
lived in near-isolation for more than 4,000 years, and during this time their
culture developed in such diverse ways that it has led some to interpret them
as different peoples.
- Essentially, we have two consecutive waves of genetically distinct
groups entering the New World Arctic and giving rise to three discrete cultural
units. Through this study, we are able to address the question of cultural
versus genetic continuity in one of the most challenging environments that
modern humans have successfully settled, and present a comprehensive picture of
how the Arctic was peopled, says Dr. Raghavan.
The first inhabitants
The study was unable to establish why the disappearance of the
Paleo-Eskimos coincided with the ancestors of the Inuit beginning to colonise
the Arctic. There is no doubt that the Inuit ancestors – who crossed the Bering
Strait about 1,000 years ago and reached Greenland around 700 years ago – were
technologically superior.
The Inuit's own myths tell stories of a people before them, which in
all likelihood refer to the Paleo-Eskimos. In the myths, they are referred to
as the 'Tunit' or 'Sivullirmiut', which means "the first
inhabitants". According to these myths they were giants, who were taller
and stronger than the Inuit, but easily frightened from their settlements by
the newcomers.
Co-author Dr. William Fitzhugh from the Arctic Studies Centre at the
Smithsonian Institution says:
- Ever since the discovery of a Paleo-Eskimo culture in the North
American Arctic in 1925, archaeologists have been mystified by their
relationship with the Thule culture ancestors of the modern Inuit. Paleo-Eskimo
culture was replaced rapidly around AD 1300-1400, their only traces being
references to 'Tunit' in Inuit mythology and adoption of some elements of
Dorset technology. This new genomic research settles outstanding issues in
Arctic archaeology that have been debated for nearly a century, finding that
Paleo-Eskimo and Neo-Eskimo people were genetically distinct, with separate
origins in Eastern Siberia, and the Paleo-Eskimo remained isolated in the
Eastern Arctic for thousands of years with no significant mixing with each
other or with American Indians, Norse, or other Europeans.
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