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A "LOST TRIBE" that reached America from Australia may have been the
first Native Americans, according to a new theory.
If proved by DNA evidence, the theory will shatter long established
beliefs about the southerly migration of people who entered America across
the Bering Strait, found it empty and occupied it.
On this theory rests the authority of Native Americans (previously
known as Red Indians) to have been the first true Americans. They would be
relegated to the ranks of
also-rans, beaten to the New World by Aboriginals in boats.
To a European, this may seem like an academic argument, but to
Americans it is a philosophical question about identity, Silvia Gonzales,
of Liverpool John Moores University said .
Her claims are based on skeletons found in the Baja California
Peninsula of Mexico that have skulls quite unlike the broad Mongolian
features of Native Americans. These narrow-skulled people have more in
common with southern Asians, Aboriginal Australians and people of the
South Pacific Rim.
The bones, stored at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, have
been carbon-dated and one is 12,700 years old, which places it several
thousand years before the arrival of people from the North. "We think
there were several migration waves into the Americas at different times by
different human groups," Dr Gonzales said. "The timing, route and point of
origin of the first colonization of the Americas remains a most contentious topic in human
evolution."
But comparisons based on skull shape are not considered conclusive by
anthropologists, so a team of Mexican and British scientists, backed by
the Natural Environment Research Council, has also attempted to extract
DNA from the bones. Dr Gonzales declined yesterday to say exactly what the
results were, as they need to be checked, but indicated that they were
consistent with an Australian origin.
She believes that they arrived by boat, settled in what is now Mexico
and at other points along the Pacific coast, and survived for thousands of
years. The first Spanish colonists and missionaries described the people
they found in the area, the Pericue, as slim hunter-gatherers. They lacked
much culture, but did have burial customs in which bodies were laid out in
the sun before being painted with ochre and buried.
The Spanish collected the people into missions, where they died out in
the 18th century.
(Agencies) |
一種新理論認為，一個來自澳大利亞的“迷失部落”可能是美洲最早的土著居民。
如果DNA檢測證實了這個理論的話，這將動搖長期以來人們一直堅信的觀點：一群往南遷徙的移民穿過白令海峽進入美洲后，發現無人在此居住，便占領了它。
關于美洲土著居民（以前被稱為紅印地安人）是首批真正的美洲居民的說法就是以這種理論為依據的。他們可能也會被視為逃亡者，可能是被戰船上的土著人打敗后來到新大陸的。
利物浦約翰摩爾大學的西爾維亞·岡薩雷斯表示，對于歐洲人來說，這也許看上去只是學術上的爭論，但是對于美國人來說，這是一個關于他們身份的哲學問題。
她的說法是以在墨西哥的下加利福尼亞半島發現的骨骼為依據的，因為這些頭骨和美國土著居民那種蒙古人寬頭骨的特征極為不同。這些窄頭骨的人種和南亞人、澳洲土著和環南太平洋國家的人種有更多共同點。
這些骨骼被保存在墨西哥城國家人類學博物館里，并經過了碳元素年代測試，其中有一個已經有12，700年的歷史了，這比北部移民到達美國的時間還早了幾千年。岡薩雷斯博士說：“我們認為在不同時期，經過幾次移民潮，有不同的人群遷徙到美洲。在人類進化史上，最早在美國進行殖民活動的時間、路線和人口來源是一個最有爭議的話題。”
但是人類學家認為頭骨形狀的比較并不能成為確鑿證據，所以一個由墨西哥和英國科學家組成的小組在自然環境研究委員會的支持下，試圖從這些骨骼中提取DNA。昨天，岡薩雷斯博士拒絕透露確切的結果，因為研究結果還需要核對，但是他暗示這些DNA和澳大利亞人的血統是吻合的。
她認為他們是乘船來到美洲的，然后在今天的墨西哥和太平洋沿岸地區定居，并且存活了數千年。早期的西班牙殖民者和傳教士將他們在這一地區發現的人（Pericue）形容成“瘦小的獵人和采集者”。他們沒有太高的文化，卻有埋葬儀式，尸體被放在太陽下，然后涂上赭土下葬。
西班牙人曾把他們聚集起來進行傳教，后來這些土著人在18世紀滅絕了。
（中國日報網站譯） |
Updated: 2004-09-09 09:32
