Book Hippo

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Prehistoric Wanderers

I have a big interest in prehistoric news. So I was thrilled to read a book about the new findings about how people came to the west coast of North America.

Now, ever since I was a child I've heard about the ice-free corridor that was supposed to exist. I've wondered about that and tried to imagine how it would be possible to have such a thing.

Well, according to new studies, there was no corridor. They have never found implements or tools anywhere that would indicate where it was.

One fellow, though, reached into the sea. As oceans were lower back then, he did his searching by lowering buckets into the water and dredging the bottom. He found blackened ash where they built their fires and tools they had made. He found remains of cooked meals, mostly shells from what they were eating and he even found some human bones.

His conclusion: people reached North America by boat. They sailed around by the shoreline and got off pretty much where they felt like going ashore.

And who were these people? Well, from skeletons found, they were most probably Jomo people from Japan. These days they're called the Ainus and they're the indigenous people of Japan.

Some of their skeletons have been found to date back before the peopling of North America. So it seems prehistoric peoples were great travelers.

Personally, I think the people of the Himalayas tend to look like the Apache, who look like the Dene, so I suppose they came from all over Asia to here; in boats.

It would be interesting to find a prehistoric boat, they have found some from Christ's time but a prehistoric boat would be so thrilling. I guess it isn't likely, but, it's nice to dream.

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