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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(rèn)為，一個(gè)來(lái)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(cè)證實(shí)了這個(gè)理論的話，這將動(dòng)搖長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)人們一直堅(jiān)信的觀點(diǎn)：一群往南遷徙的移民穿過(guò)白令海峽進(jìn)入美洲后，發(fā)現(xiàn)無(wú)人在此居住，便占領(lǐng)了它。
關(guān)于美洲土著居民（以前被稱(chēng)為紅印地安人）是首批真正的美洲居民的說(shuō)法就是以這種理論為依據(jù)的。他們可能也會(huì)被視為逃亡者，可能是被戰(zhàn)船上的土著人打敗后來(lái)到新大陸的。
利物浦約翰摩爾大學(xué)的西爾維亞·岡薩雷斯表示，對(duì)于歐洲人來(lái)說(shuō)，這也許看上去只是學(xué)術(shù)上的爭(zhēng)論，但是對(duì)于美國(guó)人來(lái)說(shuō)，這是一個(gè)關(guān)于他們身份的哲學(xué)問(wèn)題。
她的說(shuō)法是以在墨西哥的下加利福尼亞半島發(fā)現(xiàn)的骨骼為依據(jù)的，因?yàn)檫@些頭骨和美國(guó)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(huán)南太平洋國(guó)家的人種有更多共同點(diǎn)。
這些骨骼被保存在墨西哥城國(guó)家人類(lèi)學(xué)博物館里，并經(jīng)過(guò)了碳元素年代測(cè)試，其中有一個(gè)已經(jīng)有12，700年的歷史了，這比北部移民到達(dá)美國(guó)的時(shí)間還早了幾千年。岡薩雷斯博士說(shuō)：“我們認(rèn)為在不同時(shí)期，經(jīng)過(guò)幾次移民潮，有不同的人群遷徙到美洲。在人類(lèi)進(jìn)化史上，最早在美國(guó)進(jìn)行殖民活動(dòng)的時(shí)間、路線和人口來(lái)源是一個(gè)最有爭(zhēng)議的話題。”
但是人類(lèi)學(xué)家認(rèn)為頭骨形狀的比較并不能成為確鑿證據(jù)，所以一個(gè)由墨西哥和英國(guó)科學(xué)家組成的小組在自然環(huán)境研究委員會(huì)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(jié)果，因?yàn)檠芯拷Y(jié)果還需要核對(duì)，但是他暗示這些DNA和澳大利亞人的血統(tǒng)是吻合的。
她認(rèn)為他們是乘船來(lái)到美洲的，然后在今天的墨西哥和太平洋沿岸地區(qū)定居，并且存活了數(shù)千年。早期的西班牙殖民者和傳教士將他們?cè)谶@一地區(qū)發(fā)現(xiàn)的人（Pericue）形容成“瘦小的獵人和采集者”。他們沒(méi)有太高的文化，卻有埋葬儀式，尸體被放在太陽(yáng)下，然后涂上赭土下葬。
西班牙人曾把他們聚集起來(lái)進(jìn)行傳教，后來(lái)這些土著人在18世紀(jì)滅絕了。
（中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)站譯） |
Updated: 2004-09-09 09:32
