I think this Montana Man article first appeared several years ago and it’s already very dated. The interpretation from CRI Genetics is distinctly dubious. When we look at the distribution of haplogroups of living people it tells us where those haplogroups are found today and not where they were tens of thousands of years ago. All human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups coalesce at a point around 200,000 years ago or so everyone has mtDNA which is ancient. In any case Y-DNA and mtDNA only represent a tiny subset of our family trees. Even if we go back just a thousand years we all have about a billion ancestors. You therefore can’t use Y-DNA and mtDNA to make inferences about ancient human origins.

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The earliest arrival of humans in America is now known to date back over 20,000 years following the discovery of some footprints in New Mexico:

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Jennifer Raff, a highly respected forensic geneticist, has a book out in February next year called “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas”:

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This is likely to be by far and away the best and most up-to-date overview of the peopling of the Americas.

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Debbie Kennett

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Thanks, Debbie!

Let's hope the book Debbie mentions manages to address the evidence that some people came to North America from Europe during the last ice age.?? This review in advance doesn't say if it does or not, which raises my hackles, and it has been my sad experience that many books leave out half the evidence on the topic.? I really want to know how comprehensive is this book before I invest $30 in it.

As to what creates community and identity in indigenous communities (a topic raised in the book, not in the Newsweek article), an experience with one of my brother's Y DNA matches is very instructive.?? My brother has an Amerasian match who lost interest when he discovered his father is by DNA 2/3 West African.?? What he notably does NOT have is American Indian DNA.?? Yet most of his 2nd and 3rd? cousin matches belong to a state recognized Native American community in southern Delaware, that has existed for a long time, and takes great pride in preserving the heritage and the technologies of the Indians who lived there.?? They can identify four actual Native Americans they are or should be descended from.?? However, most of their DNA appears to come from escaped slaves who lived in the swamps in that area and formed community with what Native Americans survived, and those slaves were a mix of West African and European. The result is a full fledged Native American community that remembers ancestral Indian ways and passed on ceremonies and technology used by those Indians but has no Native American DNA.?

That sort of thing is why Jewish identity is inherited through the mother.? Sometimes cultural traditions such as insisting that Indian identity is about community, not genetics,? are designed to ignore historical elephants in the room as to how much actual ethnic affinity has been lost.?

Yours,

Dora Smith

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?

I think this Montana Man article first appeared several years ago and it’s already very dated. The interpretation from CRI Genetics is distinctly dubious. When we look at the distribution of haplogroups of living people it tells us where those haplogroups are found today and not where they were tens of thousands of years ago. All human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups coalesce at a point around 200,000 years ago or so everyone has mtDNA which is ancient. In any case Y-DNA and mtDNA only represent a tiny subset of our family trees. Even if we go back just a thousand years we all have about a billion ancestors. You therefore can’t use Y-DNA and mtDNA to make inferences about ancient human origins.

?

The earliest arrival of humans in America is now known to date back over 20,000 years following the discovery of some footprints in New Mexico:

?

?

Jennifer Raff, a highly respected forensic geneticist, has a book out in February next year called “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas”:

?

?

This is likely to be by far and away the best and most up-to-date overview of the peopling of the Americas.

?

Debbie Kennett

?

Thanks, Debbie!

Let's hope the book Debbie mentions manages to address the evidence that some people came to North America from Europe during the last ice age.?? This review in advance doesn't say if it does or not, which raises my hackles, and it has been my sad experience that many books leave out half the evidence on the topic.? I really want to know how comprehensive is this book before I invest $30 in it.

As to what creates community and identity in indigenous communities (a topic raised in the book, not in the Newsweek article), an experience with one of my brother's Y DNA matches is very instructive.?? My brother has an Amerasian match who lost interest when he discovered his father is by DNA 2/3 West African.?? What he notably does NOT have is American Indian DNA.?? Yet most of his 2nd and 3rd? cousin matches belong to a state recognized Native American community in southern Delaware, that has existed for a long time, and takes great pride in preserving the heritage and the technologies of the Indians who lived there.?? They can identify four actual Native Americans they are or should be descended from.?? However, most of their DNA appears to come from escaped slaves who lived in the swamps in that area and formed community with what Native Americans survived, and those slaves were a mix of West African and European. The result is a full fledged Native American community that remembers ancestral Indian ways and passed on ceremonies and technology used by those Indians but has no Native American DNA.?

That sort of thing is why Jewish identity is inherited through the mother.? Sometimes cultural traditions such as insisting that Indian identity is about community, not genetics,? are designed to ignore historical elephants in the room as to how much actual ethnic affinity has been lost.?

Yours,

Dora Smith