I've had the opportunity to watch a fascinating BBC documentary on the first Americans, called Paleo-Indians, a few months ago. It is based on research conducted in Brazil (Pedra Furada, the now famous Luzia skull, and other such sites in the area).
The researchers cited in this program argued that the first Americans were not of Mongoloid origin, but were in fact Australoids...
That would seem to be a very bold assertion, but in fact their arguments are quite convincing...
Here is the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/430944.stm
-"
Images of giant armadillos, which died out before the last ice age, show the artists who drew them lived before even the natives who greeted the Europeans."
-"
The skull dimensions and facial features match most closely the native people of Australia and Melanesia. Those people date back to about 60, 000 years ago, and were themselves descended from the first humans, who left Africa about 100, 000 years ago.
But how would the early Australians have travelled more than 13, 500 kilometers (8, 500 miles) at that time? The answer comes from more cave paintings, this time from the Kimberley, a region at the northern tip of Western Australia.
Here Grahame Walsh, an expert on Australian rock art, found the oldest painting of a boat anywhere in the world. The style of the art means it is at least 17, 000 years old, and it could be up to 50, 000 years old.
And the crucial detail is the high prow of the boat. This would have been unnecessary for boats used in calm, inland waters.
The design suggests it was used on the open ocean.
Archaeologists speculate that such an incredible sea voyage, from Australia to Brazil, would not have been undertaken knowingly but by accident.
Just three years ago, five African fishermen were caught in a storm and a few weeks later were washed up on the shores of South America. Two of the fishermen died, but three made it alive.
The shape of the skulls changes between 9,000 and 7, 000 years ago from being exclusively negroid to exclusively mongoloid. Combined with rock art and evidence of increasing violence at this time, it appears that the mongoloid people from the north invaded and wiped out the original Americans.
The only evidence of any survivors comes from Terra del Fuego, the islands at the remotest tip of South America.
The pre-European Fuegeans who lived Stone Age style lives until this century, show hybrid skull features which could have resulted from intermarrying between mongoloid and negroid peoples. Their rituals and traditions also bear resemblance to the ancient rock art in Brazil."
I wonder what would have happened if these Paleo-Indians had not been wiped out by the ancestors of modern Native-Americans...