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The American Indian: Part 2: Types ContinuedThomas Allen
A. C. Haddon (1925) identifies six racial types of the American Indians. They are the Eskimo, Northwest Coast Amerind, Northern Amerind, Neo-Amerind, Tehuelche, Paleo-Amerind or Lagoa Santa type. A description of each type follows:
1. Eskimo:[41] Skin color: brownish- or reddish-yellow. Head hair: black, straight, leiotrichy. Face: flat, very broad; prominent cheekbones. Eyes: black, straight; epicanthic fold occasionally occurs. Head shape: very dolichocephalic; some mesocephalic; very low; very high. Feet and Hands: relatively small hands and feet. Stature: short to medium.
Eskimos range along the Arctic Coast from Greenland across Canada and Alaska into extreme northeast Asia.
2. Northwest Coast Amerind:[42] Skin color: lighter than Northern Amerind. Head hair: lighter than Northern Amerind; frequently brownish; frequently slightly wavy; leiotrichy. Face: very broad; moderate height in north to great height in south. Nose: in north: concave or straight, rarely convex, of slight elevation; in south: very high, rather narrow, frequently convex. Head shape: brachycephalic. Body characteristics: short body; long arms. Stature: medium (below average in south; above average in north).
Northwest Coast Amerinds are found along the northwest coast of North America from the northern border of Washington to 60̊ north latitude. The Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl are of this type.
3. Northern Amerind:[43] Skin color: yellow-brown. Head hair: black; long; straight; leiotrichy. Nose: straight or aquiline. Head shape: dolichocephalic; mesocephalic with tendency toward brachycephalic. Stature: tall.
Northern Amerinds are the Indians of the Plains and northern and eastern woodlands of North America. North Amerinds include the Cree, Ojibway (Chippewa), Sioux, Fox, Micmac, Huron, and Iroquois.
4. Neo-Amerind:[44] Skin color: warm yellowish brown; cinnamon. Head hair: black; long; straight; leiotrichy. Nose: straight or concave; rarely aquiline. Head shape: brachycephalic. Stature: short to tall.
Neo-Amerinds are the Indians of the North American plateau, Central America, and South America. Among the Neo-Amerinds are the Huaxteca, Totonac, Warrau, Arawak, Wapiana, and Carib.
5. Tehuelche:[45] Skin color: brown, dark coppery. Head hair: black; long; straight; lank; leiotrichy. Head shape: brachycephalic. Statue: very tall.
Tehuelche are found in Patagonia south of Rio Negro and in Tierra del Fuego. The Tehuelche and Pampeans of Patagonia are of this type. The Ona of Tierra del Fuego and the Borroro of Matto Grosso are also of the Tehuelche type.
6. Paleo-Amrind:[46] Skin color: yellow, brownish, or reddish-yellow. Head hair: black; wavy or curly, smooth; leiotrichy. Face: prominent brow ridge; narrow fore-head; long face. Eyes: deep set. Nose: leptorrhine; sunk; narrow at root. Head shape: formerly very dolichocephalic, now mostly mesocephalic; hypsicephalic with high vault; small skull, archaic. Stature: short.
Although Paleo-Americans ranged over a large area in the past, today they are found in only a few places in South America. In eastern Brazil they are found among the Tapuya, such as Botocudo (Aymoro or Buru). This type is also found in southern Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, the islands of western and southern Chile and the coast of Ecuador. Besides the Botocudo, the Yaghan and Alakaluf are also of this type.
Remy Cottevieille-Giraudet (1928)[47] identifies five basic racial types of American Indians. They are H. s. atlanticus or Cro-Magnon, which corresponds to Deniker’s North American; H. s. asiaticus, which corresponds to Deniker’s Central American; H. s. oceanicus, which corresponds to Deniker’s South American or Lagoa Santa; H. s. australensis, an Australoid, which is nearly extinct; and H. s. hyperboreus or Eskimo.
A description of each of the first three subspecies follows:
H. s. atlanticus: “Very tall dolichocephals with short, extremely wide face, protruding cheekbones, prominent and leptorrhine nose, well-defined chin, stiff black hair, normal eyes, dark reddish skin.”[48]
H. s. asiaticus: “Short stature, brachycephals, with euryene, flat and rounded face, prominent cheekbones, wide flattened nose, stiff dark hair, eye with epicanthic fold, yellowish skin.”[49]
H. s. oceanicus: “Hyperdolichocephals of medium height, with small skull, short and wide face pyramidal in appearance; mesorrhine nose, sometimes concave; wavy hair; brownish skin.”[50]
J. Imbelloni (1943) provides one of the most extensive classifications. He identifies eleven racial types of American Indians. They are as follows:
1. Subartids (Eickstedt's Eskimids, Sergi’s Hesperanthropus Columbii eskimensis, Biasulti's H. sapiens neo-arcticus, Brinton’s Arctic Group, Deniker’s Eskimo, Haddon’s Eskimo): Skin color: yellowish-brown. Head hair: black, coarse and stiff. Face: pentagonoid; broad; extreme development of the jaws and cheekbones. Eyes: epicanthic fold present in a large percentage. Nose: rather prominent. Head shape: mostly dolichocephalic although there are meso- and even brachycephalic occur in Alaska; keel-shaped. Body characteristics: plump and sturdy; arms and legs relatively short; the Mongolian or sacral spot is frequently present. Feet and hands: small. Statue: medium.
“They inhabit the Arctic coast from northeast Asia to Greenland.”[52]
2. Columbids (Eickstedt's Pacijids, Biasutti's Aleutian race, Briton’s Northern Pacific Group, Deniker’s Pacific North American, Haddon’s Northwest Coast Amerind):[53] Skin color: light. Facial hair: sparse. Head shape: very brachycephalic. Body characteristics: the trunk is short and compact; very long arms and short legs. Stature: tall or medium.
“They occupy the North American northwest on the Pacific coast from Alaska to the Columbia River.”[54]
3. Planids (Eickstedt's Sylvids; Sergi’s H.c. planitiae, Biasutti's Dakota race, Brinton’s North Atlantic Group, Deniker’s Atlantic North American, Haddon’s Northern Amerind):[55] Skin color: reddish-brown skin, rather light. Head hair: dark. Face: high cheekbones; extreme physiognomic sexual dimorphism. Eyes: dark iris. Nose: long and aquiline. Chin: square, heavy, protruding. Head shape: mesocephalic. Stature: tall.
“They inhabit the region in North America from Alaska to the Atlantic bounded on the north by the Arctic zone and on the south by the Rocky Mountains and Alleghenies, penetrating deeply into the Mississippi basin.”[56]
4. Sonorids (Eickstedt's Margids, Biasutti's Sonorid race, Sergi's H.c. sonorae, Brinton’s North Pacific and Mexico Groups, Deniker’s Pacific North American and Atlantic North American): Skin color: much darker than Planids, with reddish highlights. Face: narrow receding forehead; face with rounded contours. Head shape: mesocephalic; small head. Body characteristics: macroskelia. Statue: rather tall.
“They occupy the Pacific Coast south of the Columbia River, that is, the States of Oregon and California and also the State of Sonora (Mexico), west of the occidental Sierra Madre."[57]
5. Pueblo-Andids (Eickstedt's Andids, Sergi's H.c. andinus, Biasutti's Pueblo-andid race, Brinton’s North Pacific and Mexican Groups [Pueblo] and South Pacific Group [Andids], Deniker’s Pacific North American [Pueblo] and South American [Andids], Haddon’s Neo-Amerind):[58] Skin color: variable with dark pigmentation predominating. Head hair: straight, coarse; black. Body hair: sparse. Face: short face; large bizygomatic diameter. Nose: broad base but prominent bridge. Head shape: meso- and brachycephalic; small head without platycephaly. Body characteristics: extremely developed trunk in relation to the extremities. Stature: short.
“They are found in two areas; the so-called Pueblo Indians live to the north in the basins of the Grande, Colorado, and part of the Gila and Salado Rivers (Arizona, New Mexico). In the south they inhabit the Andean highlands of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and Argentina. These are called the Andids.”[59]
6. Isthmids (Eickstedt's Centralids, Biasutti's Pueblo-andid race, subrace Isthmid, Brinton’s Inter Isthmus Group, Deniker’s Central American, Haddon’s Neo-American):[60] Head hair: black; straight, coarse. Face: broad and short. Eyes: black, extremely pigmented iris. Nose: wide at the base and platyrrhine. Head shape: brachycephalic. Chin: receding. Body characteristics: brachyskelic. Statue: short.
“They inhabit the south of Mexico and extend as far as Colombia, although the limits in this zone are rather uncertain.”[61]
7. Amazonids (Eickstedt's Brasilids, Sergi's H.c. amazonicus, Biasutti's Amazonid race, Brinton’s South Atlantic Group, Deniker’s South American, Haddon’s Neo-Amerind):[62] Skin color: varying skin tones with a yellow base. Head shape: dolichoids tending to bracycephaly. Body characteristics: robust body; long strong arms and relatively weak and short legs. Statue: medium or short.
“They occupy a very broad zone from west to east that extends from the Andes to the Atlantic, including the Amazon and Orinoco basins, infiltrating to the south by way of the Paraguay River to the Rio de la Plata.”[63]
8. Pampids (Eickstedt's Patagonids, Sergi's H.c. patagonicus, Biasutti's Pampid race, Brinton’s South Atlantic Group, Deniker’s Pampeans, Haddon’s Tehulche):[64] Skin color: intense skin pigmentation with reddish tones. Head hair: straight, coarse. Face: long face; heavy protruding cheekbones. Nose: leptorrhine. Chin: heavy and pronounced. Head shape: brachycephalic in the case of deformed skulls while the Onas and also the inhabitants of the Chaco are dolichocephalic; the skull is large and very thick. Body characteristics: robust skeleton, at times enormous but harmonious in proportions. Statue: tall and even very tall.
“They are localized in a zone of the Matto-Grosso, Brazil, the central plains of Argentina including the ‘banda oriental or eastern belt,’ and the southern steppes as far as Tierra del Fuego.”[65]
9. Laguids (Eickstedt's Lagids Biasutti’s Lagid, Brinton’s South American Group, Deniker’s South American):[66] Face: wide, low face. Nose: platyrrhine. Head shape: markedly dolichocephalic; high cranial vault, hypsicephalic. Body characteristics: the shoulders, chest, arms and legs more developed and muscular than in the Amazonids; sexual dimorphism quite marked. Statue: short.
“They inhabit the eastern highlands of Brazil, besides certain isolated nuclei in the southernmost part of the California Peninsula, ancient burials in Coahuila (Mexico), various shell mounds along the Chilean coast, etc.”[67]
10. Fueguids (Eickstedt's Lagids, Biasutti’s Magallanic or Fueguid race, Brinton’s South Atlantic and South Pacific Groups, Deniker’s Paleo-American, Haddon’d Paleo-Amerind):[68] Face: narrow forehead, long face; well developed brow-ridges. Nose: leptorrhine. Head shape: dolichocephalic; platycephalic. Body characteristics: under-developed legs. Statue: short.
“The area of dissemination is discontinuous as occurred with the Pueblo-Andids. Their principal focus is in Tierra del Fuego, but they have also been found on the Chilean coast, in shell mounds of Valdivia, Talcahuano, Coquimbo; among the Piaroa, Goajiro and Motilon Indians of Colombia; in northern California; among the Botocudos of the Atlantic Coast and the extinct Sambaquis.”[69]
11. Appalachids (Eickstedt’s Sylvids, Biasutti’s Alleganys or Appalachids, Brinton’s North Atlantic, Deniker’s North American, Haddon’s Northern Amerind) are the Huron-Iroquois. Comas does not provide Imbelloni’s description. A compilation of various sources yields the following description: Face: high protruding forehead; low, broad orbits; prominent cheekbones; short extremely wide face. Nose: medium narrow; generally aquiline. Chin: pronounced. Head shape: dolichocephalic; pentagonoid skull. Statue: tall.
They inhabit the region from Newfoundland to South Carolina in the east and Louisiana and Mississippi in the west and from the Atlantic to east Illinois and Louisiana in the west.[70]
Carleton S. Coon (1965) like Brinton sees uniformity among the American Indians. He identifies two racial types: Eskimos and Aleuts and all the other Indians. Eskimos and Aleuts are Siberian Mongoloids. The remainder are Mongoloids who descended from a small band that crossed the Bearing Straight toward the end of the Wisconsin glaciation.[71]
Endnotes ‒ Continued
41. A.C. Haddon, The Races of Man and Their Distribution (New York, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1925), p. 31.
42. Ibid., p. 36.
43. Ibid., pp. 32-33.
44. Ibid., p. 35.
45. Ibid., pp. 35-36, 145.
46. Ibid., p. 24.
47. Juan Comas, Manual of Physical Anthropology, Revised and enlarged English edition (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas • Publisher, 1960). pp. 634-635.
48. Ibid., p. 634.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p. 635.
51. Ibid., pp. 637-638.
52. Ibid., p. 637.
53. Ibid., p. 639.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., p. 640.
59. Ibid., pp. 639-640.
60. Ibid., p. 640.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., pp. 640-641.
65. Ibid., p. 640.
66. Ibid., p. 643.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Carleton S. Coon, and Edward E. Hunt, Jr., The Living Races of Man (New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1965), pp.152-154.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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The American Indian: Part 3
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The American Indian: Part 3:OriginsThomas Allen
Several hypotheses have been proposed for the origins of the American Indians. These hypotheses consist of five groups: Asiatic, Asiatic-Oceanic, Asiatic-European, autochthonous, and mythical.
According to the Asiatic hypothesis, all the Indians of America are descended from various Turanian racial types or peoples who crossed from Siberia to Alaska in several waves of migration. This hypothesis is the most widely held hypothesis.
According to the Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis, most Indians are descended from various Turanians crossing from Siberia to Alaska. However, some Indians are descended from Australians (Indo-Australian). This hypothesis has several variants. Some have the Australians entering South America by a southern route. Others have them entered America by crossing from Siberia to Alaska. Still others claim that in addition to Australians entering through Alaska, Melanesians also came to South America. Another variant is that while some of the ancestors of the American Indian came through Alaska, others cross the equatorial Pacific to settle in Central and South America. This hypothesis is second only to the Asiatic hypothesis in popularity.
According to the Asiatic-European hypothesis, some American Indians are descended from Turanian immigrants from Asia. The others are descended from immigrants from Europe — probably Cro-Magnards or people related to Cro-Magnards. (Cro-Magnards were of the Melanochroi species.) The European immigrants most likely came across the North Atlantic although some hold that they came through Alaska. A variant of this hypothesis substitutes North Africa for Europe. This hypothesis has few followers.
According to the autochthonous hypothesis, American Indians originated in America. Autochthonous creationists hold that the original ancestors of the American Indian were created in America. Autochthonous evolutionists hold that the American Indian evolved from a pre-Homo sapiens humanoid or from a very primitive Homo sapiens who had not yet evolved into races. Not many people hold this view. This hypothesis is perhaps the lease favored one.
According to the mythical hypothesis, at least some Indians are descendants of people from Atlantis or Mu who fled to America when Atlantis or Mu sank. Although this hypothesis is popular in some circles, it currently has little to support it.
Several other hypothesis, which are not discussed in this article in any detail, have been proposed. They included:
1. The Lost-Tribe-of-Israel Hypothesis: The lost tribes of Israel came to America and created the civilization of Mexico and Central America. Some maintain that they were the progenitors of all Indians. They probably came by way of the Bering Straight although they might have come across the Atlantic.[72]
2. The Malay Hypothesis: The Malays came to Mexico and Central America and established the civilizations there.[73]
3. The Phoenician Hypothesis: The Phoenicians are the originators of the Mexican and Central American civilizations.[74]
Asiatic Hypothesis
The Asiatic Hypothesis is perhaps the most widely accepted hypothesis for explaining the origins of the American Indians. According to this hypothesis the original ancestors of the American Indian is found in Asia.
Edward Brerewood (1622)[75] was perhaps the first to identify the American Indians with Turanians. He concluded that they were related to the Tatars.
George Louis Leclerc, Conte de Buffon (1749)[76] is among the earliest advocate of the Asian origins of the American Indians. He bases his conclusion on the morphological resembles that he recognizes between Indians and Turanians, such as Japanese, Chinese, and Turks.
Johann F. Blumenbach (1775)[77] is another early supporter of the Asian origin theory. He believes that the American Indians originated in northeastern Asia as Mongoloids (Turanians). These Asians came to America in several migrations and at different times. Eskimos are the most recent arrivals and resemble the Asian Mongoloids the most.
Oscar Peschel (1885)[78] maintains that ancestors of the American Indians entered America by crossing the Bering Strait. At the time of the crossing, mostly an isthmus occupied what is now the Bering Strait. The Arctic Ocean did not connect with the North Pacific; thus, the climate was much milder then than now. However, even if the geography of this region was in ancient times as it is now, early man could have crossed the strait in boats. As land in America could be seen from Asia, the voyage was not a leap into the dark, but a journey to visible land. The greatest proof that the ancestors of the Indians originated in Asia, the land of the Turanian species, is the Mongoloid characteristics of the present Indians.
O. T. Mason (1894)[79] believes that the American Indian is the progeny of Indo-Malaysians. People from Indo-Malaysia skirted the East Asiatic and American Northwest coast until they reached the Columbia River or some adjacent area. From this region, these people spread across the Americas to become the American Indians. These voyages from Indo-Malaysia continued for thousands of years until the Chinese and other civilized people settled along the Asiatic coasts and halted them. To support his theory, he notes the physical similarities between Malayans and Indians and possible linguistic affinities along the primeval route, and similarity of social institutions, arts, and industries.
Ales Hrdli�ka (1917)[80] maintains that the American Indians are of northeast Asian origin and that they are exclusively Mongolian immigrants, who came in successive waves. He links various Neolithic men from eastern Siberia to tribes of America. The southern Eneolithics resemble the high-vaulted Algonkin type. Contemporary Chukchi are related to the Bering Sea Eskimo. The Aleuts descended from the round-headed Tungus. Their path of migration was across the Bering Straight. They came by water, not by land. He supports the late arrival of man in America. The arrival of the first wave was after the Wisconsin glaciation, the last North American glaciation, which is approximately 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, and most likely no earlier than 3000 years ago.
A.C. Haddon (1925)[81] supports, like Hrdli�ka, the north Asiatic route for the progenitors of the American Indian and holds that they are all Turanians. He eliminates Europe as the home of any of their ancestors.
Haddon identifies several migrations of people from Asia. First the pre-glacial people are the paleo-ethnic inhabitants of America. They are the Lagoa-Santa type of South America, who are short in stature with a high and narrow head. They are found in eastern Brazil, in southern Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego, on the islands of western and southern Chile, on the Ecuador coast, and in southern California. He identifies the descendants of these people as the Paleo-Amerinds.
The second pre-glacial people are the inhabitants between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. They are tall in stature with a head that varies about the lower limit of bracycephaly. They probably migrated to North America by the north Pacific bridge before the last glacial period. They are the ancestors of the North American Indians.
Later came a more brachycephalic (i.e., round-headed or broad-headed) people from Asia. These immigrants moved down the Pacific Ocean and settled in Central and South American and the southwestern United States. The Neo-Amerind descended from them.
Robert B. Bean (1932)[82] identifies four basic migrations to or invasions of America. These migrations to America began during the Paleolithic era and continued into the Neolithic era. During the Paleolithic era, man began migrating from the Iranian Plateau and across the plateaus of Turkestan and Siberia. From these plateaus, the population gradually spread over northern Asia and then into America. Part of these people crossed into Alaska and spread over the Americas. These early Paleolithic immigrants were followed by Neolithic immigrants.
The first people to enter America were long-headed (dolichephic). Their descendants include the Algonquin, Iroquois, Shoshonean, and Prman Aztec tribes. The Lagoa Santa race were part of this first invasion.
Next came a brachycephalic type from whom came the Toltecs. People of this second invasion settled along the northwest coast and in the Gulf States, Mexico, Central America, and Peru.
The third invaders were the Athapascan. They spread across Alaska and northwest Canada. They were also brachycephalic people. Although most remained in Alaska and Canada, some migrated south. The Hupa, Navaho, and Apache are descendants of these southern migrants.
Finally came the Eskimo. They came from the extreme northeast corner of Asia and adjacent Alaska. They spread across the northern part of North America to Greenland.
Christy Turner (1985)[83] uses dental studies to support the Mongoloid Asiatic origins of American Indians. Turner’s studies show that the teeth of ancient Americans closely resemble the teeth of northeastern Asians. The teeth of these Mongoloids distinctly differ from the teeth of other races of men.
The ancestors of the American Indians originated in northern China. From here they spread into eastern Mongolia. Then they migrated northward through the Vitim and Lena river basins until they reached the Laptev Sea, which would have been the western edge of Beringia. At this time Beringia was an extremely cold tundra steppe. They then turned east and traveled across Beringia to Alaska where they arrived about 10,000 to 13,000 B.C. From here they eventually spread across North and South America. These first arrivals were the Paleo-Indians. From them all other Indians descended except the Aleuts and Eskimos and the Greater Northwest Coastal Indians.
Next to arrive were the Aleuts and Eskimos. Their ancestors also originate in northern China. They cross Manchuria and traveled down the Amur river basin to the Sea of Okhotsk. From here they gradually migrated around the Kamchatka Peninsula and finally crossed into Alaska before 3000 B.C.
The third and final group of Asiatics to enter America were the Athapaskans (Na-Dene), the Greater Northwest Coast Indians. They came from eastern Siberia.
Stephen Zegura (1985)[84] believes that the ancestors of the American Indians crossed Beringia into Alaska sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. Their descendants spread across North and South America. The ancestors of the Athapaskans and the Aleuts and Eskimos arrived at a much later date. As no Aleut or Eskimo skeletal remains dating before 2000 B.C. have been found, the arrival of their ancestors was probably not much before then.
Dumond (1987)[85] dates the movement of the Athapaskans southward to the northwest coast to be about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. About 4,500 years ago, the Aleuts and Eskimos appeared in Alaska.
M.S. Schanfield (1990)[86] uses genetic evidence (immunoglobulin variations in Siberian, Eskimo, and American Indian populations) to identify four migrations from Asia. The earliest group is the ancestor of the South American Indians. The third group is the Athapaskans. Last are the Aleuts and Eskimos.
R.A. Roger and E.C. Pielou (1991)[86] argue that the Asians entered by coastal routes. Coastal routes had to be used because the ice-free corridor would not have provided adequate food, clothing, or firewood.
Crawford (1998)[88] hypothesizes that the ancestors of the American Indians came from Asia and were Mongoloids. He bases his conclusion on genetic similarities, morphological resemblance in contemporary populations, craniometric affinities, and cultural similarities.
In kind and frequency of genetic markers of the blood, Indians resemble Mongoloids of northeast Asia. Several genetic makers occur only in American and Asian populations. These makers includes Diego allele, DI*A; gamma globulin allotypes, GM*A T; Factor 13B*3; transferrin, TF*C4; and complement, C6*B2 alleles. (These makers do not occur in every individuals or population group; however, they do occur in a high frequency in both Turanians of Asia and Indians of America.) Crawford identifies several other genetic markers that these two populations have in common.
Another genetic trait that American Indians share with Asian Mongoloids is a high frequency of dry or brittle earwax. In the other species of men, sticky or wet earwax is the type most common.
Among the morphological characteristics that American Indians generally share with Asian Mongoloids are straight black hair, sparse beards and body hair, and Mongoloid sacral spot. The face of both is relatively flat with small brow ridges and broad zygomatic arches, which gives a high-cheekbone appearance. The epicanthic fold is common in Asian Mongoloids and some American Indians. Shovel shape incisors is common in both populations, but occurs at a much lower frequency in Aryans and Negroes.
Cultural similarities exist between northeastern Siberians and Americans. Both hold a belief in spirits who must be placated with ritual. Both have shamans or medicine men, who have visionary power given to them by direct contact with the supernatural. Their primary function is curing disease. The Plains Indians and Taiga of Siberia have a similar type of dwelling. Both use calendar sticks.
Crawford identifies two times that a land bridge occurred between Siberia and Alaska. They were between 45,000 and 70,000 years ago and between 25,000 and 14,000 years ago. The absent of a land bridge, however, would not necessarily deter human migration. During severe winters the sea between Asia and Alaska freezes sufficiently to allow human migration.
Once man crossed the land bridge, he needed the opportunity to migrate southward. The glaciation that lowered the sea level to create the land bridge also resulted in glaciers covering much of Canada into the northern part of the United States. During the Wisconsin glaciation, which occurred between 12,000 and 70,000 years ago, two great ice sheets covered much of northern North America. The smaller one covered the central mountains of British Columbia and stretched from the Aleutian Islands to the Columbian River valley. The larger one extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Ohio River valley and from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. At peak periods of glacial expansion, the two sheets most likely meet. These peak periods occurred between 15,000 to 18,000 years ago and 62,000 and 65,000 years ago. During these periods, human migration southward would have been blocked. (Even when the corridor was open, Fladmark questions whether it was used. He doubts that the corridor was large enough to support the herds necessary to sustain hunters as they migrated from Alaska to the central plains.) Crawford concludes that Asian Mongoloids entered America between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago in a minimum of three or four migrations.
A major problem with the Asiatic Hypothesis is the total lack of interchange of useful commodities between the Old World and the New World. The people of the Americas did not receive from Asia silk, iron, cereals, such as wheat, rice, and millet, from Asia, or beasts of burden, such as the horse, donkey, and camel. The people of Asia did not receive from the Americas such useful foods as maize, potatoes, and tomatoes or such desirable products like tobacco. This criticism is especially true for theorists who have large scale migrations to America of the Neolithic era. Of coarse, if man came from Asia during the Paleolithic era or early to mid Neolithic era as many of the Asiatic theorists hold, they can rightly claim that these useful items had not yet been discovered or developed in the Old World. However, why should man cease coming from the Old World to the New World during the Neolithic era? After all, as time past, man’s ability to navigate both on water and land increased. Furthermore, why were the migrations essentially one direction, from Asia to America?
A significant problem with HrdliÄ�ka’s hypothesis, and those who have followed him, is that it is based on the hypothetical existence of an average American Indian type. He compared this representative type to Turanians of northeast Asia. He relies primarily on tegumentary characteristics (external appearances) and generalizations, many of which have not been proven statistically. He also fails to consider essential points of differences pertaining to the skeleton and skull, such as height and orbital, cormic, and facial indices. His major flaw is that he lumps all American Indians together as one racial type. He ignores the great somatic variation displayed in American Indians.
A problem with Mason and many other Asiatic theorists is either the inability or failure to account for the presence of two types of primitive man in southern South America.
Furthermore, except for the Eskimos and Aleuts, the languages of the American Indians do not resemble any of the languages of the Old World.
Asiatic-Oceanic Hypothesis
Although not as popular as the Asiatic hypothesis, the Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis does a better job of explaining the racial differences of the American Indian. According to this hypothesis, most Indians are of Turanian origin. However, the ancestry of some important racial types among the American Indian seems to come from Australians or Melanesians of Oceania..
Paul Rivet’s (1925)[89] maintains that the Indians of America are the result of migrations of four racial types. The Mongolian and Eskimo elements migrated across the Bering Straight. The Australian and Melanesian (Malayan-Polynesian) elements entered the southern part of South America via a southern route. He dates the Australian arrival to have occurred about 4000 B.C. The Mongolian type represents the preponderance of the immigrating groups who arrived in several waves over an extended period, usually via the Bering Straight.
To support his thesis, Rivet uses osteometric and somatometric characteristics of various tribes who inhabit the southern extremes of South America. He compares these characteristics to Australians. He also compares languages of South American tribes to those of the Australians.
Besides Australian elements in South America, Rivet also identifies a Melanesian element. This element is identified with Paleo-Amerindian or Lagoa-Santa type. This race has been formerly found from Lower California through the southwest United States and as far as Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Skulls of these Indians clearly resemble those of Melanesia. He also uses linguistic and ethnographic data to support his thesis.
Unlike the Australians, the Melanesians were excellent navigators and skilled boatmen. They could have reached South America — especially since currents and winds are favorable for such a trip.
A. Mendes Corrêa (1925)[90] suggests the possibility of Australian Tasmanians migrating across Antarctica to South America. If in an earlier epoch, the climate of Antarctica was more favorable than now, which it probably was, the journey could be made following the then existing string of islands, straights, peninsulas, and channels. This route eliminates the need for long transoceanic voyages. This explanation of the route taken by the Australians eliminates a major difficulty with Rivet’s thesis. (Rivet believes that Mendes Corrêa adequately explains how the Australians traveled to South America.)
G. Montandon (1933)[91] provides a different explanation of how Australians came to South America. Polynesians enslaved Australians to build megalithic monuments like those on Easter Island. Perhaps Polynesians brought Australians to South American to procure raw materials. On one of these voyages, some of the Australian slaves escaped. From these escaped slaves came the Indian tribes descended from the Australians.
J. Imbelloni (1938)[92] identifies seven waves of immigration. First came the Tasmanian Australian. Imbelloni believes that the Australians migrated northward along the Asiatic coast, crossed the Bering Strait, and then migrated down the American coast to the southern part of South America. They were dolichocephalic (i.e., long-headed or narrow-headed) and short. From these people came the Fuegians — the extant Yamana, Alakaluf, and Chono, and extinct tribes who lived on the coast of Chile and northern California.
Melanesians, who came by land, comprised the second wave. They were short with an exceptionally high cranial vault and pronouncedly narrow temples and ultradolichocephalic. The ancient skulls found in Lagoa Santa, Punin, Texas, and Lower California are theirs. Culturally, these people were seed gathers. They were the ancestors of the Laguian racial type of Brazil.
The third wave was a very tall, dolichocephalic people similar in part to the Australian type. They also entered by land. Culturally they were nomadic hunters. They were the progenitors of the Dakota (Plains Indians) of North American and Pampeans of South American.
The fourth group were a Proto-Malayan (or Proto-Indonesian) people, who were of medium height and dolichocephalic. These people arrived by sea. Their culture ranged from head-hunters like that of Borneo to agriculturalists like that Indonesia. Settling in South America, they became the progenitors of the Amazonians of South America.
The fifth contingent was predominately Mongoloid, probably Tungus or Paleo- Siberians. They were the ancestors of the Pueblo-Andeans. Culturally, they practiced intensive agriculture and had patrilineal institutions.
The sixth component resembled the most civilized people of Indonesia, the Deutro-Malayans. Their characteristics were identical with the Pueblo-Andeans, but they were more intensive. That is, they were of lower height and greater brachyskelia (short legs and a long trunk) and were ultrabrachycephalic. They arrived in the first century A.D. and created the Middle American Civilization. They were the progenitors of the Isthmians.
The seventh wave consisted of the Aleutians (or Columbians) and Eskimos.
Thus, Imbelloni identifies seven waves as constituting 10 racial types of American Indians. These waves consisted of at least six racial types of two different species of men entering America. They are the Tasmanian and Melanesian types of the Australian (Indo-Australian) species and the Proto-Malayan, Deutro-Malayan, Tungus, Paleo-Siberian, Eskimo, and perhaps other types of the Turanian species. Based on his thesis, the Fuegians and Laguians are Australians, and the remainder are Turanians.
Harold S. Gladwin (1947)[93] offers an interesting and unusual Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis. He identifies six migrations consisting of several races. These migrations began around 25,000 years ago and ended about 500 A.D.
The first migration to America began about 25,000 years ago, plus or minus 5000 years, and continued for several thousand years. These first immigrants were Australoids. Physically, they were dolichocephalic with long, narrow faces, broad flat noses, prominent overhanging brow ridge, and protruding muzzles. They came out of eastern Asia, crossed into North America via the Bering Isthmus, and migrated southward along the Pacific coast to southern California. From here some spread eastward into Texas and eventually scattered over much of the United States. Others continued into Central and South America and eventually scattered over much of South America. Most of these immigrants settled in the southwest United States, northern and eastern Mexico, eastern Central American, Ecuador, northern South America, and eastern Brazil.
The second migration began about 15,000 B.C. These immigrants were Negroids. These Negroids, who were related to the Negritos and Melanesians, came from southeast Asia. They crossed the Beringia into Alaska, migrated through the Yukon and Mackenzie valleys into the western plains, and scattered over much of the United States. Folsom man and related people descended from these Negroids.
The third immigrants were the Algonquins. Beginning around 1000 B.C., the Algonquins started migrating from Siberia to Alaska. This migration lasted until about 500 B.C. The Algonquins followed the route used by the Negroids into the western plains. From here they spread across the northern United States and southern Canada. From these immigrants descended the Mohican, Delaware, Shawnee, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Ojibway, Cree, Blackfoot, Kootenay, and Salish.
The fourth immigrants were the Eskimos. About 500 B.C., at the end of the Algonquin migration, came the Eskimos. They came from Siberia and spread across Alaska and northern Canada into Greenland. This migration lasted about 200 or 300 years. These people had an unusually long and high skull, a broad flat face with prominent cheekbones, a very narrow nose, and an epicanthic eye fold. They were the first true Mongoloid people to enter North America. The Eskimos were the first people to arrive in the Americas who possessed truly Mongoloid physical features or any evidence of Mongoloid culture.
The fifth migration to America began about 300 B.C. and lasted until around 600 A.D. These immigrants were Mongoloids. Physically these people were brachycephalic broad-headed with brown eyes, slanted eyelids, prominent cheekbones, straight black hair, scant facial hair, and yellowish-brown skin. Although some may have come from southeast Asia, most probably came from northern China. They crossed into Alaska, traveled through the Yukon and Mackenzie river basins into the plains east of the Rocky Mountains. Then they spread southward and eastward. (The Uto-Aztecans followed a different route. They came down the western side of the Rockies.) Some migrated into Mexico; a few continued farther south into Columbia and down the Pacific coast of South America. From these Mongoloids came the Penutian, Uto-Aztecan, and Athabascan tribes. The fifth wave of immigrants were probably the progenitors of the people whom Haddon describes as Neo-Amerinds, and Dixon, as Paleo-Alpines.
The sixth migration began about 300 B.C. and lasted until about 500 A.D. These immigrants were Polynesians and Melanesians, both of whom Gladwin considers a polyglot of Greeks, and various people of the Middle East, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. From these people descended the Arawaks, who were more closely related to the Polynesians, and the Caribs, who were more closely related to the Melanesians. These immigrants crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed along the coast of Central and South America. Some of these Polynesians also settled along the coast of British Columbia.
Calvin Kephart (1960)[94] also presents an Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis. He believes that perhaps the earliest people to arrive in America were Pre-Dravidians (i.e., people of the Australian species). These people originated in India and migrated through Farther India and across Indonesia to Australia. From here they moved to South America across the South Pacific during the height of the glacial period when mountain peaks projected above the water. This migration probably occurred during the Buhl glacial advance about 10,000 years ago.
They were the ancestors of the Aymara and other Quichua-speaking people, including the Incas. These people have quite a broad nose and appear intermediate between the Veddas and Papuans (two racial types of Australians). At one time the descendants of these Pre-Dravidians spread over much of South American. They may have ranged as far north as southern California.
They were also the ancestors of other tribes in the eastern Brazil highlands, Ecuador, and Peru, who show an affinity to the Veddas. These people are short. They are dolichocephalic with a small and very high skull. Their face is short and wide with a concave nose of medium width and prognathic profile. They have yellowish-brown skin and long black wavy or curly hair. These non-Turanian Indians of South America constitute Haddon’s Paleo-Amerinds.
The first Turanian immigration to American occurred about 20,000 years ago across the Bering Sea. The earlier immigrants were tall to medium height and dolichocephalic. Most of the later arrivals were short and brachycephalic.
With the exception of the Eskimos, most of the dolichocephalic Turanians were of the Min racial type. Mins are a racial type of the Turanian species who originated in Szechwan province of China. This is the predominate racial type of this province today. While most Turanians are brachycephalic, Mins are dolichocephalic.
Over the centuries various tribes of Mins from Szechwan spread across much of China and into eastern Siberia. Some of these tribes continued northeastward. About 20,000 years ago some of these Mins crossed the Bering Straight, traveled through the Yukon and Mackenzie River valleys, and eventually settled in Colorado and New Mexico along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Other tribes of Mins continued to arrive in North American until about 6500 B.C. After the initial contingency of Mins arrive, the second contingency came in several waves between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago. Perhaps the most significant contingency came around 8000 B.C. As these various waves of Mins came, they spread over the central plains of Canada and the United States, the Mississippi valley, and the northern and eastern woodlands. Among the descendants of the Mins are the Indians of New England, Lenni-Lenape, Iroquois, Chippewa, Blackfoot, Kootenai, Apaches, and probably the Pimas, and Otomi. Most, if not all, tribes of eastern and central North America are their descendants. These Indians constitute Haddon’s Northern Amerinds.
The later Min tribes to arrive were a mix of Mins and Ugrians. Unlike the Mins, who were dolichocephalic, the Ugrians were brachycephalic. They were also shorter. These people migrated southward into Central and South American. They were the progenitors of the Patagonians (Tehuelche), Pampeans, and Borroro tribes of Matto Grosso, Brazil.
The second distinct Turanian migration was more purely Ugrian in racial type although some tribes may have been mixed with Tunguses. These Ugrians entered North America via the Aleutian Islands and migrated southward along the Pacific coast to Central and South America. Among their descendants are the Papago, Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Huaxteca, and Totonac of Mexico and Central America. They were also the progenitors of the Indians of Guiana and the Arawaks of the West Indies. These Ugrians constituted part of Haddon’s Neo-Amerinds.
The third distinctive Turanian migration to North American was the Tunguses. The Tunguses were primarily brachycephalic. They came from Mongolia. The earlier arriving Tunguses probably included the most brachycephalic of Haddon’s Neo-Amerinds. They settled on the American plateau and in Mexico and Central and South America. The later arriving Tunguses settled along the Pacific coast from
60̊ north latitude southward to the United States border. These later arriving Tunguses constitute Haddon’s Northwest Coast Amerinds.
The fourth and final distinctive migration was that of the Eskimos. About 3000 B.C. Eskimos were driven from the Khingan Mountains to northeast Asia. From here they later crossed into North America and spread across the northern Alaska and Canada to Greenland. Their arrival in the Arctic may not have occurred until after the first century A.D.
A major difficulty with the Australians is explaining how they arrived. Arrival by way of the Bering Straight is highly unlikely. These primitive people would have had to travel tens of thousands of miles through hostile environments and hostile people. They had little or no knowledge of navigation. Without such knowledge, it is inconceivable that they could have crossed the Pacific Ocean on their own.
Another problem with Rivet’s hypothesis is that he dates the arrival of the Australians at about 4000 B.C. Yet evidence shows humans inhabiting Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego before 8700 B.C. A major short-coming of hypothesis like Mendes Corrêa’s that have an Antarctic migration route is that it lacks archeological proof to support the Antarctic route.
A major problem with the Polynesian slave theory is that Polynesians do not appear to have reached Easter Island until about 400 A.D. Moreover, evidence that man occupied islands of the southeastern Pacific early enough to serve as a staging point for colonization of the Americas is lacking. The distances from the islands of the south Pacific to South America are great (Easter Island, one of the closest, is about 2000 miles from Chile). Although evidence has been found indicating that people from the South Pacific did land in South America, they arrived long after others had inhabited the continent.
Endnotes ‒ Continued72. John D. Baldwin, Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology (New York, New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1872), pp. 166-167. Brinton, American Race, p. 18. Wauchope, pp. 50ff.
73. Ibid., pp. 167-171.
74. Ibid., pp. 171-174.
75. Kenneth MacGowan, Early Man in the New World (New York, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1950), p. 12.
76. Michael H. Crawford, The Origins of Native Americans: Evidence from Anthropological Genetics (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 3.
77. Ibid., p. 3.
78. Oscar Peschel, The Races of Man, and Their Geographical Distribution (New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885), pp. 400-401.
79. Keane, Ethnology, p. 365.
80.Comas, pp. 625-628. Crawford, pp. 27-28. Jeffrey Goodman, American Genesis: The American Indians and the Origins of Modern Man (New York, New York: Summit Books, 1981), pp. 43-44;
MacGowan, pp. 15-17.
81. A.C. Haddon, The Wandering of Peoples, 1912; reprint. (Washington, D. C.: The Cliveden Press, 1984), pp. 74-114.
82. Bean, pp. 62, 66, 81.
83. Crawford, pp. 221-223. Christy G. Turner II, “The Dental Search for Native American Origins,” Out of Asia: Peopling of the Americas and the Pacific, Editors Robert Kirk and Emöke Szathmary (Canberra, Australia: The Journal of Pacific History, Inc., 1985), pp. 30-58.
84. Stephen Zegura, “The Initial Peopling of the Americas: An Overview,” Out of Asia: Peopling of the Americas and the Pacific, Editors Robert Kirk and Emöke Szathmary (Canberra, Australia: The Journal of Pacific History, Inc., 1985), p. 13.
85. Crawford, p. 30.
86. Ibid., p. 22.
87. Ibid., p. 13.
88. Ibid., pp. 4ff.
89. Comas, pp. 628-629. MacGowan, p. 169.
90.Comas, pp. 629-632. MacGowan, p. 169.
91. Comas, pp. 632-633.
92. Comas, pp. 633, 635-637. MacGowan, p. 170.
93. Harold S. Gladwin, Man Out of Asia (New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1947), pp. 65-69, 87, 93, 95, 97-100, 136-139, 148, 150, 158-162, 164-166, 172-175, 226, 245, 252, 261, 335, 349. MacGown, pp. 170-174.
94. Calvin Kephart, Races of Mankind: Their Origin and Migration (New York, New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1960) pp. 93-97, 99, 103-114.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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Several hypotheses have been proposed for the origins of the American Indians. These hypotheses consist of five groups: Asiatic, Asiatic-Oceanic, Asiatic-European, autochthonous, and mythical.
According to the Asiatic hypothesis, all the Indians of America are descended from various Turanian racial types or peoples who crossed from Siberia to Alaska in several waves of migration. This hypothesis is the most widely held hypothesis.
According to the Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis, most Indians are descended from various Turanians crossing from Siberia to Alaska. However, some Indians are descended from Australians (Indo-Australian). This hypothesis has several variants. Some have the Australians entering South America by a southern route. Others have them entered America by crossing from Siberia to Alaska. Still others claim that in addition to Australians entering through Alaska, Melanesians also came to South America. Another variant is that while some of the ancestors of the American Indian came through Alaska, others cross the equatorial Pacific to settle in Central and South America. This hypothesis is second only to the Asiatic hypothesis in popularity.
According to the Asiatic-European hypothesis, some American Indians are descended from Turanian immigrants from Asia. The others are descended from immigrants from Europe — probably Cro-Magnards or people related to Cro-Magnards. (Cro-Magnards were of the Melanochroi species.) The European immigrants most likely came across the North Atlantic although some hold that they came through Alaska. A variant of this hypothesis substitutes North Africa for Europe. This hypothesis has few followers.
According to the autochthonous hypothesis, American Indians originated in America. Autochthonous creationists hold that the original ancestors of the American Indian were created in America. Autochthonous evolutionists hold that the American Indian evolved from a pre-Homo sapiens humanoid or from a very primitive Homo sapiens who had not yet evolved into races. Not many people hold this view. This hypothesis is perhaps the lease favored one.
According to the mythical hypothesis, at least some Indians are descendants of people from Atlantis or Mu who fled to America when Atlantis or Mu sank. Although this hypothesis is popular in some circles, it currently has little to support it.
Several other hypothesis, which are not discussed in this article in any detail, have been proposed. They included:
1. The Lost-Tribe-of-Israel Hypothesis: The lost tribes of Israel came to America and created the civilization of Mexico and Central America. Some maintain that they were the progenitors of all Indians. They probably came by way of the Bering Straight although they might have come across the Atlantic.[72]
2. The Malay Hypothesis: The Malays came to Mexico and Central America and established the civilizations there.[73]
3. The Phoenician Hypothesis: The Phoenicians are the originators of the Mexican and Central American civilizations.[74]
Asiatic Hypothesis
The Asiatic Hypothesis is perhaps the most widely accepted hypothesis for explaining the origins of the American Indians. According to this hypothesis the original ancestors of the American Indian is found in Asia.
Edward Brerewood (1622)[75] was perhaps the first to identify the American Indians with Turanians. He concluded that they were related to the Tatars.
George Louis Leclerc, Conte de Buffon (1749)[76] is among the earliest advocate of the Asian origins of the American Indians. He bases his conclusion on the morphological resembles that he recognizes between Indians and Turanians, such as Japanese, Chinese, and Turks.
Johann F. Blumenbach (1775)[77] is another early supporter of the Asian origin theory. He believes that the American Indians originated in northeastern Asia as Mongoloids (Turanians). These Asians came to America in several migrations and at different times. Eskimos are the most recent arrivals and resemble the Asian Mongoloids the most.
Oscar Peschel (1885)[78] maintains that ancestors of the American Indians entered America by crossing the Bering Strait. At the time of the crossing, mostly an isthmus occupied what is now the Bering Strait. The Arctic Ocean did not connect with the North Pacific; thus, the climate was much milder then than now. However, even if the geography of this region was in ancient times as it is now, early man could have crossed the strait in boats. As land in America could be seen from Asia, the voyage was not a leap into the dark, but a journey to visible land. The greatest proof that the ancestors of the Indians originated in Asia, the land of the Turanian species, is the Mongoloid characteristics of the present Indians.
O. T. Mason (1894)[79] believes that the American Indian is the progeny of Indo-Malaysians. People from Indo-Malaysia skirted the East Asiatic and American Northwest coast until they reached the Columbia River or some adjacent area. From this region, these people spread across the Americas to become the American Indians. These voyages from Indo-Malaysia continued for thousands of years until the Chinese and other civilized people settled along the Asiatic coasts and halted them. To support his theory, he notes the physical similarities between Malayans and Indians and possible linguistic affinities along the primeval route, and similarity of social institutions, arts, and industries.
Ales Hrdli�ka (1917)[80] maintains that the American Indians are of northeast Asian origin and that they are exclusively Mongolian immigrants, who came in successive waves. He links various Neolithic men from eastern Siberia to tribes of America. The southern Eneolithics resemble the high-vaulted Algonkin type. Contemporary Chukchi are related to the Bering Sea Eskimo. The Aleuts descended from the round-headed Tungus. Their path of migration was across the Bering Straight. They came by water, not by land. He supports the late arrival of man in America. The arrival of the first wave was after the Wisconsin glaciation, the last North American glaciation, which is approximately 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, and most likely no earlier than 3000 years ago.
A.C. Haddon (1925)[81] supports, like Hrdli�ka, the north Asiatic route for the progenitors of the American Indian and holds that they are all Turanians. He eliminates Europe as the home of any of their ancestors.
Haddon identifies several migrations of people from Asia. First the pre-glacial people are the paleo-ethnic inhabitants of America. They are the Lagoa-Santa type of South America, who are short in stature with a high and narrow head. They are found in eastern Brazil, in southern Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego, on the islands of western and southern Chile, on the Ecuador coast, and in southern California. He identifies the descendants of these people as the Paleo-Amerinds.
The second pre-glacial people are the inhabitants between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. They are tall in stature with a head that varies about the lower limit of bracycephaly. They probably migrated to North America by the north Pacific bridge before the last glacial period. They are the ancestors of the North American Indians.
Later came a more brachycephalic (i.e., round-headed or broad-headed) people from Asia. These immigrants moved down the Pacific Ocean and settled in Central and South American and the southwestern United States. The Neo-Amerind descended from them.
Robert B. Bean (1932)[82] identifies four basic migrations to or invasions of America. These migrations to America began during the Paleolithic era and continued into the Neolithic era. During the Paleolithic era, man began migrating from the Iranian Plateau and across the plateaus of Turkestan and Siberia. From these plateaus, the population gradually spread over northern Asia and then into America. Part of these people crossed into Alaska and spread over the Americas. These early Paleolithic immigrants were followed by Neolithic immigrants.
The first people to enter America were long-headed (dolichephic). Their descendants include the Algonquin, Iroquois, Shoshonean, and Prman Aztec tribes. The Lagoa Santa race were part of this first invasion.
Next came a brachycephalic type from whom came the Toltecs. People of this second invasion settled along the northwest coast and in the Gulf States, Mexico, Central America, and Peru.
The third invaders were the Athapascan. They spread across Alaska and northwest Canada. They were also brachycephalic people. Although most remained in Alaska and Canada, some migrated south. The Hupa, Navaho, and Apache are descendants of these southern migrants.
Finally came the Eskimo. They came from the extreme northeast corner of Asia and adjacent Alaska. They spread across the northern part of North America to Greenland.
Christy Turner (1985)[83] uses dental studies to support the Mongoloid Asiatic origins of American Indians. Turner’s studies show that the teeth of ancient Americans closely resemble the teeth of northeastern Asians. The teeth of these Mongoloids distinctly differ from the teeth of other races of men.
The ancestors of the American Indians originated in northern China. From here they spread into eastern Mongolia. Then they migrated northward through the Vitim and Lena river basins until they reached the Laptev Sea, which would have been the western edge of Beringia. At this time Beringia was an extremely cold tundra steppe. They then turned east and traveled across Beringia to Alaska where they arrived about 10,000 to 13,000 B.C. From here they eventually spread across North and South America. These first arrivals were the Paleo-Indians. From them all other Indians descended except the Aleuts and Eskimos and the Greater Northwest Coastal Indians.
Next to arrive were the Aleuts and Eskimos. Their ancestors also originate in northern China. They cross Manchuria and traveled down the Amur river basin to the Sea of Okhotsk. From here they gradually migrated around the Kamchatka Peninsula and finally crossed into Alaska before 3000 B.C.
The third and final group of Asiatics to enter America were the Athapaskans (Na-Dene), the Greater Northwest Coast Indians. They came from eastern Siberia.
Stephen Zegura (1985)[84] believes that the ancestors of the American Indians crossed Beringia into Alaska sometime between 30,000 and 15,000 years ago. Their descendants spread across North and South America. The ancestors of the Athapaskans and the Aleuts and Eskimos arrived at a much later date. As no Aleut or Eskimo skeletal remains dating before 2000 B.C. have been found, the arrival of their ancestors was probably not much before then.
Dumond (1987)[85] dates the movement of the Athapaskans southward to the northwest coast to be about 10,000 to 8,000 years ago. About 4,500 years ago, the Aleuts and Eskimos appeared in Alaska.
M.S. Schanfield (1990)[86] uses genetic evidence (immunoglobulin variations in Siberian, Eskimo, and American Indian populations) to identify four migrations from Asia. The earliest group is the ancestor of the South American Indians. The third group is the Athapaskans. Last are the Aleuts and Eskimos.
R.A. Roger and E.C. Pielou (1991)[86] argue that the Asians entered by coastal routes. Coastal routes had to be used because the ice-free corridor would not have provided adequate food, clothing, or firewood.
Crawford (1998)[88] hypothesizes that the ancestors of the American Indians came from Asia and were Mongoloids. He bases his conclusion on genetic similarities, morphological resemblance in contemporary populations, craniometric affinities, and cultural similarities.
In kind and frequency of genetic markers of the blood, Indians resemble Mongoloids of northeast Asia. Several genetic makers occur only in American and Asian populations. These makers includes Diego allele, DI*A; gamma globulin allotypes, GM*A T; Factor 13B*3; transferrin, TF*C4; and complement, C6*B2 alleles. (These makers do not occur in every individuals or population group; however, they do occur in a high frequency in both Turanians of Asia and Indians of America.) Crawford identifies several other genetic markers that these two populations have in common.
Another genetic trait that American Indians share with Asian Mongoloids is a high frequency of dry or brittle earwax. In the other species of men, sticky or wet earwax is the type most common.
Among the morphological characteristics that American Indians generally share with Asian Mongoloids are straight black hair, sparse beards and body hair, and Mongoloid sacral spot. The face of both is relatively flat with small brow ridges and broad zygomatic arches, which gives a high-cheekbone appearance. The epicanthic fold is common in Asian Mongoloids and some American Indians. Shovel shape incisors is common in both populations, but occurs at a much lower frequency in Aryans and Negroes.
Cultural similarities exist between northeastern Siberians and Americans. Both hold a belief in spirits who must be placated with ritual. Both have shamans or medicine men, who have visionary power given to them by direct contact with the supernatural. Their primary function is curing disease. The Plains Indians and Taiga of Siberia have a similar type of dwelling. Both use calendar sticks.
Crawford identifies two times that a land bridge occurred between Siberia and Alaska. They were between 45,000 and 70,000 years ago and between 25,000 and 14,000 years ago. The absent of a land bridge, however, would not necessarily deter human migration. During severe winters the sea between Asia and Alaska freezes sufficiently to allow human migration.
Once man crossed the land bridge, he needed the opportunity to migrate southward. The glaciation that lowered the sea level to create the land bridge also resulted in glaciers covering much of Canada into the northern part of the United States. During the Wisconsin glaciation, which occurred between 12,000 and 70,000 years ago, two great ice sheets covered much of northern North America. The smaller one covered the central mountains of British Columbia and stretched from the Aleutian Islands to the Columbian River valley. The larger one extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Ohio River valley and from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. At peak periods of glacial expansion, the two sheets most likely meet. These peak periods occurred between 15,000 to 18,000 years ago and 62,000 and 65,000 years ago. During these periods, human migration southward would have been blocked. (Even when the corridor was open, Fladmark questions whether it was used. He doubts that the corridor was large enough to support the herds necessary to sustain hunters as they migrated from Alaska to the central plains.) Crawford concludes that Asian Mongoloids entered America between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago in a minimum of three or four migrations.
A major problem with the Asiatic Hypothesis is the total lack of interchange of useful commodities between the Old World and the New World. The people of the Americas did not receive from Asia silk, iron, cereals, such as wheat, rice, and millet, from Asia, or beasts of burden, such as the horse, donkey, and camel. The people of Asia did not receive from the Americas such useful foods as maize, potatoes, and tomatoes or such desirable products like tobacco. This criticism is especially true for theorists who have large scale migrations to America of the Neolithic era. Of coarse, if man came from Asia during the Paleolithic era or early to mid Neolithic era as many of the Asiatic theorists hold, they can rightly claim that these useful items had not yet been discovered or developed in the Old World. However, why should man cease coming from the Old World to the New World during the Neolithic era? After all, as time past, man’s ability to navigate both on water and land increased. Furthermore, why were the migrations essentially one direction, from Asia to America?
A significant problem with HrdliÄ�ka’s hypothesis, and those who have followed him, is that it is based on the hypothetical existence of an average American Indian type. He compared this representative type to Turanians of northeast Asia. He relies primarily on tegumentary characteristics (external appearances) and generalizations, many of which have not been proven statistically. He also fails to consider essential points of differences pertaining to the skeleton and skull, such as height and orbital, cormic, and facial indices. His major flaw is that he lumps all American Indians together as one racial type. He ignores the great somatic variation displayed in American Indians.
A problem with Mason and many other Asiatic theorists is either the inability or failure to account for the presence of two types of primitive man in southern South America.
Furthermore, except for the Eskimos and Aleuts, the languages of the American Indians do not resemble any of the languages of the Old World.
Asiatic-Oceanic Hypothesis
Although not as popular as the Asiatic hypothesis, the Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis does a better job of explaining the racial differences of the American Indian. According to this hypothesis, most Indians are of Turanian origin. However, the ancestry of some important racial types among the American Indian seems to come from Australians or Melanesians of Oceania..
Paul Rivet’s (1925)[89] maintains that the Indians of America are the result of migrations of four racial types. The Mongolian and Eskimo elements migrated across the Bering Straight. The Australian and Melanesian (Malayan-Polynesian) elements entered the southern part of South America via a southern route. He dates the Australian arrival to have occurred about 4000 B.C. The Mongolian type represents the preponderance of the immigrating groups who arrived in several waves over an extended period, usually via the Bering Straight.
To support his thesis, Rivet uses osteometric and somatometric characteristics of various tribes who inhabit the southern extremes of South America. He compares these characteristics to Australians. He also compares languages of South American tribes to those of the Australians.
Besides Australian elements in South America, Rivet also identifies a Melanesian element. This element is identified with Paleo-Amerindian or Lagoa-Santa type. This race has been formerly found from Lower California through the southwest United States and as far as Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. Skulls of these Indians clearly resemble those of Melanesia. He also uses linguistic and ethnographic data to support his thesis.
Unlike the Australians, the Melanesians were excellent navigators and skilled boatmen. They could have reached South America — especially since currents and winds are favorable for such a trip.
A. Mendes Corrêa (1925)[90] suggests the possibility of Australian Tasmanians migrating across Antarctica to South America. If in an earlier epoch, the climate of Antarctica was more favorable than now, which it probably was, the journey could be made following the then existing string of islands, straights, peninsulas, and channels. This route eliminates the need for long transoceanic voyages. This explanation of the route taken by the Australians eliminates a major difficulty with Rivet’s thesis. (Rivet believes that Mendes Corrêa adequately explains how the Australians traveled to South America.)
G. Montandon (1933)[91] provides a different explanation of how Australians came to South America. Polynesians enslaved Australians to build megalithic monuments like those on Easter Island. Perhaps Polynesians brought Australians to South American to procure raw materials. On one of these voyages, some of the Australian slaves escaped. From these escaped slaves came the Indian tribes descended from the Australians.
J. Imbelloni (1938)[92] identifies seven waves of immigration. First came the Tasmanian Australian. Imbelloni believes that the Australians migrated northward along the Asiatic coast, crossed the Bering Strait, and then migrated down the American coast to the southern part of South America. They were dolichocephalic (i.e., long-headed or narrow-headed) and short. From these people came the Fuegians — the extant Yamana, Alakaluf, and Chono, and extinct tribes who lived on the coast of Chile and northern California.
Melanesians, who came by land, comprised the second wave. They were short with an exceptionally high cranial vault and pronouncedly narrow temples and ultradolichocephalic. The ancient skulls found in Lagoa Santa, Punin, Texas, and Lower California are theirs. Culturally, these people were seed gathers. They were the ancestors of the Laguian racial type of Brazil.
The third wave was a very tall, dolichocephalic people similar in part to the Australian type. They also entered by land. Culturally they were nomadic hunters. They were the progenitors of the Dakota (Plains Indians) of North American and Pampeans of South American.
The fourth group were a Proto-Malayan (or Proto-Indonesian) people, who were of medium height and dolichocephalic. These people arrived by sea. Their culture ranged from head-hunters like that of Borneo to agriculturalists like that Indonesia. Settling in South America, they became the progenitors of the Amazonians of South America.
The fifth contingent was predominately Mongoloid, probably Tungus or Paleo- Siberians. They were the ancestors of the Pueblo-Andeans. Culturally, they practiced intensive agriculture and had patrilineal institutions.
The sixth component resembled the most civilized people of Indonesia, the Deutro-Malayans. Their characteristics were identical with the Pueblo-Andeans, but they were more intensive. That is, they were of lower height and greater brachyskelia (short legs and a long trunk) and were ultrabrachycephalic. They arrived in the first century A.D. and created the Middle American Civilization. They were the progenitors of the Isthmians.
The seventh wave consisted of the Aleutians (or Columbians) and Eskimos.
Thus, Imbelloni identifies seven waves as constituting 10 racial types of American Indians. These waves consisted of at least six racial types of two different species of men entering America. They are the Tasmanian and Melanesian types of the Australian (Indo-Australian) species and the Proto-Malayan, Deutro-Malayan, Tungus, Paleo-Siberian, Eskimo, and perhaps other types of the Turanian species. Based on his thesis, the Fuegians and Laguians are Australians, and the remainder are Turanians.
Harold S. Gladwin (1947)[93] offers an interesting and unusual Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis. He identifies six migrations consisting of several races. These migrations began around 25,000 years ago and ended about 500 A.D.
The first migration to America began about 25,000 years ago, plus or minus 5000 years, and continued for several thousand years. These first immigrants were Australoids. Physically, they were dolichocephalic with long, narrow faces, broad flat noses, prominent overhanging brow ridge, and protruding muzzles. They came out of eastern Asia, crossed into North America via the Bering Isthmus, and migrated southward along the Pacific coast to southern California. From here some spread eastward into Texas and eventually scattered over much of the United States. Others continued into Central and South America and eventually scattered over much of South America. Most of these immigrants settled in the southwest United States, northern and eastern Mexico, eastern Central American, Ecuador, northern South America, and eastern Brazil.
The second migration began about 15,000 B.C. These immigrants were Negroids. These Negroids, who were related to the Negritos and Melanesians, came from southeast Asia. They crossed the Beringia into Alaska, migrated through the Yukon and Mackenzie valleys into the western plains, and scattered over much of the United States. Folsom man and related people descended from these Negroids.
The third immigrants were the Algonquins. Beginning around 1000 B.C., the Algonquins started migrating from Siberia to Alaska. This migration lasted until about 500 B.C. The Algonquins followed the route used by the Negroids into the western plains. From here they spread across the northern United States and southern Canada. From these immigrants descended the Mohican, Delaware, Shawnee, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Ojibway, Cree, Blackfoot, Kootenay, and Salish.
The fourth immigrants were the Eskimos. About 500 B.C., at the end of the Algonquin migration, came the Eskimos. They came from Siberia and spread across Alaska and northern Canada into Greenland. This migration lasted about 200 or 300 years. These people had an unusually long and high skull, a broad flat face with prominent cheekbones, a very narrow nose, and an epicanthic eye fold. They were the first true Mongoloid people to enter North America. The Eskimos were the first people to arrive in the Americas who possessed truly Mongoloid physical features or any evidence of Mongoloid culture.
The fifth migration to America began about 300 B.C. and lasted until around 600 A.D. These immigrants were Mongoloids. Physically these people were brachycephalic broad-headed with brown eyes, slanted eyelids, prominent cheekbones, straight black hair, scant facial hair, and yellowish-brown skin. Although some may have come from southeast Asia, most probably came from northern China. They crossed into Alaska, traveled through the Yukon and Mackenzie river basins into the plains east of the Rocky Mountains. Then they spread southward and eastward. (The Uto-Aztecans followed a different route. They came down the western side of the Rockies.) Some migrated into Mexico; a few continued farther south into Columbia and down the Pacific coast of South America. From these Mongoloids came the Penutian, Uto-Aztecan, and Athabascan tribes. The fifth wave of immigrants were probably the progenitors of the people whom Haddon describes as Neo-Amerinds, and Dixon, as Paleo-Alpines.
The sixth migration began about 300 B.C. and lasted until about 500 A.D. These immigrants were Polynesians and Melanesians, both of whom Gladwin considers a polyglot of Greeks, and various people of the Middle East, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. From these people descended the Arawaks, who were more closely related to the Polynesians, and the Caribs, who were more closely related to the Melanesians. These immigrants crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed along the coast of Central and South America. Some of these Polynesians also settled along the coast of British Columbia.
Calvin Kephart (1960)[94] also presents an Asiatic-Oceanic hypothesis. He believes that perhaps the earliest people to arrive in America were Pre-Dravidians (i.e., people of the Australian species). These people originated in India and migrated through Farther India and across Indonesia to Australia. From here they moved to South America across the South Pacific during the height of the glacial period when mountain peaks projected above the water. This migration probably occurred during the Buhl glacial advance about 10,000 years ago.
They were the ancestors of the Aymara and other Quichua-speaking people, including the Incas. These people have quite a broad nose and appear intermediate between the Veddas and Papuans (two racial types of Australians). At one time the descendants of these Pre-Dravidians spread over much of South American. They may have ranged as far north as southern California.
They were also the ancestors of other tribes in the eastern Brazil highlands, Ecuador, and Peru, who show an affinity to the Veddas. These people are short. They are dolichocephalic with a small and very high skull. Their face is short and wide with a concave nose of medium width and prognathic profile. They have yellowish-brown skin and long black wavy or curly hair. These non-Turanian Indians of South America constitute Haddon’s Paleo-Amerinds.
The first Turanian immigration to American occurred about 20,000 years ago across the Bering Sea. The earlier immigrants were tall to medium height and dolichocephalic. Most of the later arrivals were short and brachycephalic.
With the exception of the Eskimos, most of the dolichocephalic Turanians were of the Min racial type. Mins are a racial type of the Turanian species who originated in Szechwan province of China. This is the predominate racial type of this province today. While most Turanians are brachycephalic, Mins are dolichocephalic.
Over the centuries various tribes of Mins from Szechwan spread across much of China and into eastern Siberia. Some of these tribes continued northeastward. About 20,000 years ago some of these Mins crossed the Bering Straight, traveled through the Yukon and Mackenzie River valleys, and eventually settled in Colorado and New Mexico along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Other tribes of Mins continued to arrive in North American until about 6500 B.C. After the initial contingency of Mins arrive, the second contingency came in several waves between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago. Perhaps the most significant contingency came around 8000 B.C. As these various waves of Mins came, they spread over the central plains of Canada and the United States, the Mississippi valley, and the northern and eastern woodlands. Among the descendants of the Mins are the Indians of New England, Lenni-Lenape, Iroquois, Chippewa, Blackfoot, Kootenai, Apaches, and probably the Pimas, and Otomi. Most, if not all, tribes of eastern and central North America are their descendants. These Indians constitute Haddon’s Northern Amerinds.
The later Min tribes to arrive were a mix of Mins and Ugrians. Unlike the Mins, who were dolichocephalic, the Ugrians were brachycephalic. They were also shorter. These people migrated southward into Central and South American. They were the progenitors of the Patagonians (Tehuelche), Pampeans, and Borroro tribes of Matto Grosso, Brazil.
The second distinct Turanian migration was more purely Ugrian in racial type although some tribes may have been mixed with Tunguses. These Ugrians entered North America via the Aleutian Islands and migrated southward along the Pacific coast to Central and South America. Among their descendants are the Papago, Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Huaxteca, and Totonac of Mexico and Central America. They were also the progenitors of the Indians of Guiana and the Arawaks of the West Indies. These Ugrians constituted part of Haddon’s Neo-Amerinds.
The third distinctive Turanian migration to North American was the Tunguses. The Tunguses were primarily brachycephalic. They came from Mongolia. The earlier arriving Tunguses probably included the most brachycephalic of Haddon’s Neo-Amerinds. They settled on the American plateau and in Mexico and Central and South America. The later arriving Tunguses settled along the Pacific coast from
60̊ north latitude southward to the United States border. These later arriving Tunguses constitute Haddon’s Northwest Coast Amerinds.
The fourth and final distinctive migration was that of the Eskimos. About 3000 B.C. Eskimos were driven from the Khingan Mountains to northeast Asia. From here they later crossed into North America and spread across the northern Alaska and Canada to Greenland. Their arrival in the Arctic may not have occurred until after the first century A.D.
A major difficulty with the Australians is explaining how they arrived. Arrival by way of the Bering Straight is highly unlikely. These primitive people would have had to travel tens of thousands of miles through hostile environments and hostile people. They had little or no knowledge of navigation. Without such knowledge, it is inconceivable that they could have crossed the Pacific Ocean on their own.
Another problem with Rivet’s hypothesis is that he dates the arrival of the Australians at about 4000 B.C. Yet evidence shows humans inhabiting Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego before 8700 B.C. A major short-coming of hypothesis like Mendes Corrêa’s that have an Antarctic migration route is that it lacks archeological proof to support the Antarctic route.
A major problem with the Polynesian slave theory is that Polynesians do not appear to have reached Easter Island until about 400 A.D. Moreover, evidence that man occupied islands of the southeastern Pacific early enough to serve as a staging point for colonization of the Americas is lacking. The distances from the islands of the south Pacific to South America are great (Easter Island, one of the closest, is about 2000 miles from Chile). Although evidence has been found indicating that people from the South Pacific did land in South America, they arrived long after others had inhabited the continent.
Endnotes ‒ Continued72. John D. Baldwin, Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology (New York, New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1872), pp. 166-167. Brinton, American Race, p. 18. Wauchope, pp. 50ff.
73. Ibid., pp. 167-171.
74. Ibid., pp. 171-174.
75. Kenneth MacGowan, Early Man in the New World (New York, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1950), p. 12.
76. Michael H. Crawford, The Origins of Native Americans: Evidence from Anthropological Genetics (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 3.
77. Ibid., p. 3.
78. Oscar Peschel, The Races of Man, and Their Geographical Distribution (New York, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885), pp. 400-401.
79. Keane, Ethnology, p. 365.
80.Comas, pp. 625-628. Crawford, pp. 27-28. Jeffrey Goodman, American Genesis: The American Indians and the Origins of Modern Man (New York, New York: Summit Books, 1981), pp. 43-44;
MacGowan, pp. 15-17.
81. A.C. Haddon, The Wandering of Peoples, 1912; reprint. (Washington, D. C.: The Cliveden Press, 1984), pp. 74-114.
82. Bean, pp. 62, 66, 81.
83. Crawford, pp. 221-223. Christy G. Turner II, “The Dental Search for Native American Origins,” Out of Asia: Peopling of the Americas and the Pacific, Editors Robert Kirk and Emöke Szathmary (Canberra, Australia: The Journal of Pacific History, Inc., 1985), pp. 30-58.
84. Stephen Zegura, “The Initial Peopling of the Americas: An Overview,” Out of Asia: Peopling of the Americas and the Pacific, Editors Robert Kirk and Emöke Szathmary (Canberra, Australia: The Journal of Pacific History, Inc., 1985), p. 13.
85. Crawford, p. 30.
86. Ibid., p. 22.
87. Ibid., p. 13.
88. Ibid., pp. 4ff.
89. Comas, pp. 628-629. MacGowan, p. 169.
90.Comas, pp. 629-632. MacGowan, p. 169.
91. Comas, pp. 632-633.
92. Comas, pp. 633, 635-637. MacGowan, p. 170.
93. Harold S. Gladwin, Man Out of Asia (New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. 1947), pp. 65-69, 87, 93, 95, 97-100, 136-139, 148, 150, 158-162, 164-166, 172-175, 226, 245, 252, 261, 335, 349. MacGown, pp. 170-174.
94. Calvin Kephart, Races of Mankind: Their Origin and Migration (New York, New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1960) pp. 93-97, 99, 103-114.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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The American Indian: Part 4
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The American Indian: Part 4: Origins ContinuedThomas Allen
Asiatic-European Hypothesis
The Asiatic-European hypothesis is another hypothesis that considers the American Indians to be comprised of more than one species. According to this hypothesis, most Indians are of Turanian origin. However, the ancestry racial types of at least some American Indians seems to come from Europe. This hypothesis is not nearly as popular as the previous two and has few supporters.
Fray Gregorio Garcia (1607)[95] is perhaps the first to conclude that the America Indians had several different ancestors who came from diverse places and arrived at different times in America. He hypothesizes that some were descended from Carthaginians, while others descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, and other Israelites. Others were the progeny of Greeks and Phoenicians while some tribes could claim the Chinese or Tatars as their ancestors. Even the Atlanteans were ancestors of some tribes. Thus, American Indians have a complex origin. Rather than being a uniform people, they are racially diverse.
Andrews Retzius (1880)[96] claims that the American Indian can be divided into two great groups: western or highlands and eastern or lowlands. The western group occupies the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains and Andes and the lands westward to the Pacific Ocean. This group is brachycephalic and descended from the Mongolians and Malays of Asia and Australasia. The eastern group occupies the lands from the Atlantic to the western uplands. This group is dolichocephalic and descended from North Africans.
Daniel G. Brinton (1901)[97] eliminates Siberia as a possible route for the peopling of America until late Neolithic times because glaciers covered Siberia before then. The ancestors of the people who were living in North and South America at the close of the glacial age must have come by some other route. He believes that the ancestors of the Indians came before or during the ice age. As no land bridge existed across the North Pacific, they must have come by a land bridge across the North Atlantic. To support a North Atlantic land bridge, he cites (1) evidence of the northern part of North American and the North Atlantic were 2000 to 3000 feet higher than now, (2) glacial striae on the rocks of islands of the North Atlantic, and (3) similarity of, and in some instances identical, flora and fauna on both sides of the Atlantic.[98] He holds that American Indians comprise a singular homogeneous race from the Arctic to the Antarctic with only slight variation. Brinton concludes that the progenitors of these early people came from Europe. By maintaining that all the progenitors of the Indians came from Europe and none from Asia, he carries the European origin to its extreme.
A.H. Keane (1908)[99] identifies two general migrations from the Eastern Hemisphere to North America. Two general elements have combined to form the American Indians. One, a dolichocephalic people, came from the east. The other, a brachycephalic people, came from the west. From Europe came the paleolithic dolichocephals. They crossed via a land bridge that connected Britain, the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland. From Asia came the neolithic brachycephals. They crossed at the Bering Straight. Although the Asiatics came later, they came in larger numbers, which explains the predominance of low stature and round heads along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Chile. Thus, the American Indian is a composite race in which the Mongolian (Asiatic) traits slightly exceed the Caucasian (European).
Ronald Dixon (1923)[100] identifies numerous races arriving in America where they interbred to form the American Indian. All came by way of the Bering Straight.
A branch of proto-Australoid, who originated in the tropical southeast Asia, migrated northward through the east Asian coastal region, crossed into America, and migrated southward along the Pacific Coast to southern California. These Proto-Australoids are among the ancestors of the Iroquois and southern Algonkian tribes of the East. Proto-Negroids were also ancestors of these same tribes.
He also identifies two other races, the Caspian and Mediterranean. The Caspians may have arrived at the same time as the Proto-Australoids, if not earlier. Elements of this race are found among the Eskimos and various place in British Columbia. Descendants of the Caspians are scattered across South America. Evidence of the Mediterranean race is found among the Eskimo and among Siouan and Shoshonean tribes.
The brachycephalic characteristic of the American Indian was acquired from Paleo-Alpines and Alpines. Mongoloids contributed little to the makeup of the American Indian.
Ancestors of the South American Indians arrived by two routes: the Isthmus of Panama and the Antilles. Those who came by way of Panama traveled along the Carribean coast or the Pacific coast or up the valleys of the Cauca or Magdalena. The inhabitants of the places south of the Amazon basin most likely descended from these people. Those who came by way of the Antillean Islands landed at the delta of the Orinoco. They spread across the Amazon basin.
As with the North Americans, the dolichocephals came first (the Mediterranean and Caspian types followed by the Proto-Australoid and Proto-Negroid). Then came the brachycephals, who pushed the dolichocephals to less desirable areas.
Earnest Hooton (1930)[101] opines that probably soon after the last glacial retreat, a hybrid people entered North America via the Bering Strait. These people were a mix of Mediterranean, Australian, and Negroid (but not Negro) elements. The dolichocephalic skulls are the remains of these people. They must have left East Asia before the arrival of the Mongoloid people as they lack any Mongoloid characteristics. Later various groups of Mongoloids came to America. Some of these Mongoloid people were essentially pure. However, most were a hybrid people — a mix of Armenoid, Proto-Nordic, or perhaps some other group; from them came the high-bridged and often convex nose. Last came the Eskimo, who were already mixed with some non-Mongoloid strain.
Remy Cottevieille-Giraudet (1931)[102] believes that Cro-Magnards migrated to North America and became the progenitors of the American Indians of the northeast. He arrives at this conclusion by somatic similarities between the European Cro-Magnards and the “Redskins” (Sioux, Huron, Iroquois, Cherokee, Lenape, Delaware, etc. — basically those Indians identified as the Appalachian and Plains racial types, which Deniker calls North American and Haddon, North Amerind.).
M. R. Harrington (1933)[103] states that Magdalenian man of glacial and postglacial Europe may have crossed the North Atlantic and became the progenitors of the Eskimo. These people could have crossed the Atlantic by way of Iceland and Greenland and various ice bridges and land bridges.
Joseph Birdsell (1951)[104] hypothesizes that American Indians are a mix of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. What separates him from most Caucasoid theorists is that he has the Caucasoids entering from Asia instead of Europe. He claims that the Amurians, whom he identifies as proto-Caucasoid and progenitors of the Ainu, are one of the ancestors of American Indians. The second ancestry contributor are Turanians of Siberia.
E. F. Greenman (1963)[105] argues that man came to America from Europe by canoes. He supports his theory by the many similarities between the artifacts of the Paleo-Indians and the artifacts of Upper Paleolithic period (35,000 to 12,000 years ago) of Europe. Paleolithic Indian artifacts have little in common with artifacts of Siberia or Asia. He identifies numerous similarities between artifacts found along the North Atlantic in North America and Europe, and concludes men from France and Spain crossed the Atlantic in deep-water skin canoes and settled on the Atlantic coast of North America; probably, they first landed in Newfoundland and from here spread across the United States into Mexico. Furthermore, similarities in skull shape are found between the Indians of North America and Cro-Magnards of Europe.
Europe has been separated from North America for hundreds of thousands of years by the Atlantic . Means of traversing the Atlantic by boat did not exist at the time man was known to be living in the New World. The lack of evidence of ocean-going boats at the time the Atlantic crossing were supposed to have occurred is a major flaw in Greeman’s theory.
Furthermore, if man was able to cross the North Atlantic to Iceland, then to Greenland, and to Canada, his route would have been blocked by glaciers. An ice bridge could have provided a way to travel from Greenland to Canada if the traveler carried enough provisions to survive the journey. Getting to Greenland still remained a problem. Large stretches of ocean had to be crossed to reach Iceland and to go from Iceland to Greenland.
A fact that argues against Retzius’ hypothesis is that both dolichocephals and brachycephals are intermingled in every part of the continent.
Brinton may have erred in claiming that no land bridge existed in the northern Pacific during the time of the ice age. Many authorities claim that such a land bridge did exist. It may have laid farther south than the Bering Strait and stretched from Kamchatka to British Columbia. This land bridge provided a route for the Asians. If Briton is correct, then Turanians must have migrated through Europe and across the North Atlantic. Most believe that the vast majority of the American Indians are Turanians.
A major flaw of Birdsell’s hypothesis is that Ainus are Caucasoids. Genetic studies show that they are more closely related to Turanians, primarily Japanese, than Europeans. (Few now consider the Ainus to be Caucasians. Most likely, the Ainus are a racial type of the Australian species. That they have so many genetic makers in common with Turanians is probably the result of genocide via miscegenation that the Ainus have endured for centuries.)
Autochthonous Hypothesis
The autochthonous hypothesis holds that the American Indian originated in the Western Hemisphere. His ancestors did not come from Europe or Asia. To the contrary, modern Asians and Europeans probably descended from people coming from America who crossed into Siberia. The autochthonous hypothesis has few adherents.
Jeffery Goodman (1981)[106] believes that early man may have appeared in America about 500,000 years ago and that fully modern man first appeared in American around 70,000 years ago, or about 35,000 years before he appeared in Europe. Contrary to the popular belief that man crossed Bering Straight from Asia into America, he maintains the reverse: Modern man crossed from America into Asia. From these men descended the Cro-Magnards.
He emphatically rejects the theory of Indians descending from Mongoloids crossing Bering Straight. He offers several reasons for rejection of that theory. First are Indian myths. According to the myths of some Indians, they originated in the Americas. Others came from islands in the Pacific or Atlantic. None seem to arrive via the Bering route.
Further evidence is the physical difference between American Indians and other races, especially East Asians. Their blood type, finger prints, and prominent convex nose suggest that they are not descendants of East Asians.
He also points to the large number and great variations of American Indians as evidence to support his autochthonous theory.
To these he adds a lack of evidence, such as stone, bone, or wood tools, that the first men would have carried. No direct evidence support the Bering route theory.
Furthermore, radiocarbon dating shows that the corridor between Alaska and the Great Plains was not opened until 6000 B.C. instead of 10,000 B.C. Even after it opened, its climate would have been too severe to provide much food for traversing bands. The corridor would have been almost void of food and fuel, its climate being more severe than that on top of the ice sheet. Bands probably could not have carried enough provisions to support themselves as they passed through the corridor.
Evidence exist suggesting man lived in southern California 70,000 years ago. If he entered via the Bering route, he would have arrived in Alaska more than 70,000 years ago. The next opportunity for the trip from Siberia to Alaska would have been between 35,000 to 27,000 years ago and 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. These opportunities occurred too late. Furthermore, the earliest sites are not found in the north, but in the south. By 30,000 ago, modern man seemed well established in North and South America.
He holds that Paleo-Indians migrated to Siberia and then spread across Asia and Europe. From these Paleo-Indians came the Cro-Magnards of Europe and the Mongoloids of Asia.
The autochthonous hypothesis suffers problems similar to the Asian hypothesis. Why would traffic have been only one way — this time from America to Asia. Why did no interchange of useful commodities between the Old World and the New World occur? The evidence seems to show man in the Old World at least as early if not earlier than in the Americas.
Mythical Hypothesis
According to the mythical hypothesis, the American Indians are the progeny of the inhabitants of Atlantis or Mu or both.[107] Atlantis was a mythical continent in the North Atlantic between North American and Europe and North Africa. Mu, or Lemuria as this continent is sometimes called, was a mythical content in what is now the central part of the Pacific Ocean. (Ernst Heinrich and Helena Blavatsky placed Lemuria in the Indian Ocean. Most advocates of Lemuria now place it in the Pacific where it essentially coincides with Churchward’s Mu.) Both of these continents developed a high state of civilization. (Some believe that these civilization were more technologically advanced than today’s.) Both continents suddenly vanished beneath the ocean as the result of a catastrophe. Some of the survivors managed to escape, either just before or just after, the catastrophe. From these survivors came most, if not all, of the American Indian. A variant is that the American Indians descended from colonists of either or both of these continents.
A major flaw with this hypothesis is that the evidence to support the existence of either of these continents is extremely weak. As of yet, little geological or archeological evidence has been found to support the existence of either Atlantis or Mu. Geology of the central Pacific argues against any submerged continent in that region.
Another problem of this hypothesis is that the American Indians lived in a primitive state while the inhabitants of Atlantis and Mu were highly advanced culturally and technologically. Both had a high state of civilization with large cities, aircrafts, and technologies of which today’s man is still ignorant. Atlantis is often described as having reached the nuclear age and perhaps even having advanced beyond it. Yet with the sinking of Atlantis, the survivors reverted to a primitive neolithic, and in some instances paleolithic, culture. To avoid this problem, some supports of the mythical hypothesis, especially those of Mu, claim that the survives quickly reverted to savagery.
Timing is also a problem, especially for Atlantis. Atlantis supposedly sank about 10,000 years ago. The sinking of Atlantis occurred long after much of North and South America were inhabited.
[Editor's note: The appendix defining anthropological indices and list of references in the original are omitted.]
Endnotes ‒ Continued
95. MacGowan, p. 12.
96. A.H. Keane and E.C. Huntington, “Indians, American,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago, 1890), XII, p. 823.
97. Briton, American Race, pp. 31-32. Briton, Races and People, pp. 247-248. Haddon, Wandering People, pp. 74-75.
98. Briton, American Race, p. 30.
99. Keane, Worlds People, p. 226-227.
100. Dixon, pp. 395ff, 446ff. MacGowan, pp. 164-165.
101. MacGowan, p. 163-164.
102. Comas, pp. 633-635.
103. MacGowan, p. 21.
104. Crawford, p. 3.
105. Goodman, pp. 66-67.
106. Ibid., pp. 17-18, 38. 42-43. 59. 65. 80. 114-115.
107. Baldwin, pp. 174-184; Brinton American Race, pp. 18-19. Reader’s Digest. Mysteries of the Ancient Americas: The New World Before Columbus (The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1986), p. 47-49.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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Asiatic-European Hypothesis
The Asiatic-European hypothesis is another hypothesis that considers the American Indians to be comprised of more than one species. According to this hypothesis, most Indians are of Turanian origin. However, the ancestry racial types of at least some American Indians seems to come from Europe. This hypothesis is not nearly as popular as the previous two and has few supporters.
Fray Gregorio Garcia (1607)[95] is perhaps the first to conclude that the America Indians had several different ancestors who came from diverse places and arrived at different times in America. He hypothesizes that some were descended from Carthaginians, while others descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, and other Israelites. Others were the progeny of Greeks and Phoenicians while some tribes could claim the Chinese or Tatars as their ancestors. Even the Atlanteans were ancestors of some tribes. Thus, American Indians have a complex origin. Rather than being a uniform people, they are racially diverse.
Andrews Retzius (1880)[96] claims that the American Indian can be divided into two great groups: western or highlands and eastern or lowlands. The western group occupies the main ranges of the Rocky Mountains and Andes and the lands westward to the Pacific Ocean. This group is brachycephalic and descended from the Mongolians and Malays of Asia and Australasia. The eastern group occupies the lands from the Atlantic to the western uplands. This group is dolichocephalic and descended from North Africans.
Daniel G. Brinton (1901)[97] eliminates Siberia as a possible route for the peopling of America until late Neolithic times because glaciers covered Siberia before then. The ancestors of the people who were living in North and South America at the close of the glacial age must have come by some other route. He believes that the ancestors of the Indians came before or during the ice age. As no land bridge existed across the North Pacific, they must have come by a land bridge across the North Atlantic. To support a North Atlantic land bridge, he cites (1) evidence of the northern part of North American and the North Atlantic were 2000 to 3000 feet higher than now, (2) glacial striae on the rocks of islands of the North Atlantic, and (3) similarity of, and in some instances identical, flora and fauna on both sides of the Atlantic.[98] He holds that American Indians comprise a singular homogeneous race from the Arctic to the Antarctic with only slight variation. Brinton concludes that the progenitors of these early people came from Europe. By maintaining that all the progenitors of the Indians came from Europe and none from Asia, he carries the European origin to its extreme.
A.H. Keane (1908)[99] identifies two general migrations from the Eastern Hemisphere to North America. Two general elements have combined to form the American Indians. One, a dolichocephalic people, came from the east. The other, a brachycephalic people, came from the west. From Europe came the paleolithic dolichocephals. They crossed via a land bridge that connected Britain, the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes, Iceland, and Greenland. From Asia came the neolithic brachycephals. They crossed at the Bering Straight. Although the Asiatics came later, they came in larger numbers, which explains the predominance of low stature and round heads along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Chile. Thus, the American Indian is a composite race in which the Mongolian (Asiatic) traits slightly exceed the Caucasian (European).
Ronald Dixon (1923)[100] identifies numerous races arriving in America where they interbred to form the American Indian. All came by way of the Bering Straight.
A branch of proto-Australoid, who originated in the tropical southeast Asia, migrated northward through the east Asian coastal region, crossed into America, and migrated southward along the Pacific Coast to southern California. These Proto-Australoids are among the ancestors of the Iroquois and southern Algonkian tribes of the East. Proto-Negroids were also ancestors of these same tribes.
He also identifies two other races, the Caspian and Mediterranean. The Caspians may have arrived at the same time as the Proto-Australoids, if not earlier. Elements of this race are found among the Eskimos and various place in British Columbia. Descendants of the Caspians are scattered across South America. Evidence of the Mediterranean race is found among the Eskimo and among Siouan and Shoshonean tribes.
The brachycephalic characteristic of the American Indian was acquired from Paleo-Alpines and Alpines. Mongoloids contributed little to the makeup of the American Indian.
Ancestors of the South American Indians arrived by two routes: the Isthmus of Panama and the Antilles. Those who came by way of Panama traveled along the Carribean coast or the Pacific coast or up the valleys of the Cauca or Magdalena. The inhabitants of the places south of the Amazon basin most likely descended from these people. Those who came by way of the Antillean Islands landed at the delta of the Orinoco. They spread across the Amazon basin.
As with the North Americans, the dolichocephals came first (the Mediterranean and Caspian types followed by the Proto-Australoid and Proto-Negroid). Then came the brachycephals, who pushed the dolichocephals to less desirable areas.
Earnest Hooton (1930)[101] opines that probably soon after the last glacial retreat, a hybrid people entered North America via the Bering Strait. These people were a mix of Mediterranean, Australian, and Negroid (but not Negro) elements. The dolichocephalic skulls are the remains of these people. They must have left East Asia before the arrival of the Mongoloid people as they lack any Mongoloid characteristics. Later various groups of Mongoloids came to America. Some of these Mongoloid people were essentially pure. However, most were a hybrid people — a mix of Armenoid, Proto-Nordic, or perhaps some other group; from them came the high-bridged and often convex nose. Last came the Eskimo, who were already mixed with some non-Mongoloid strain.
Remy Cottevieille-Giraudet (1931)[102] believes that Cro-Magnards migrated to North America and became the progenitors of the American Indians of the northeast. He arrives at this conclusion by somatic similarities between the European Cro-Magnards and the “Redskins” (Sioux, Huron, Iroquois, Cherokee, Lenape, Delaware, etc. — basically those Indians identified as the Appalachian and Plains racial types, which Deniker calls North American and Haddon, North Amerind.).
M. R. Harrington (1933)[103] states that Magdalenian man of glacial and postglacial Europe may have crossed the North Atlantic and became the progenitors of the Eskimo. These people could have crossed the Atlantic by way of Iceland and Greenland and various ice bridges and land bridges.
Joseph Birdsell (1951)[104] hypothesizes that American Indians are a mix of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. What separates him from most Caucasoid theorists is that he has the Caucasoids entering from Asia instead of Europe. He claims that the Amurians, whom he identifies as proto-Caucasoid and progenitors of the Ainu, are one of the ancestors of American Indians. The second ancestry contributor are Turanians of Siberia.
E. F. Greenman (1963)[105] argues that man came to America from Europe by canoes. He supports his theory by the many similarities between the artifacts of the Paleo-Indians and the artifacts of Upper Paleolithic period (35,000 to 12,000 years ago) of Europe. Paleolithic Indian artifacts have little in common with artifacts of Siberia or Asia. He identifies numerous similarities between artifacts found along the North Atlantic in North America and Europe, and concludes men from France and Spain crossed the Atlantic in deep-water skin canoes and settled on the Atlantic coast of North America; probably, they first landed in Newfoundland and from here spread across the United States into Mexico. Furthermore, similarities in skull shape are found between the Indians of North America and Cro-Magnards of Europe.
Europe has been separated from North America for hundreds of thousands of years by the Atlantic . Means of traversing the Atlantic by boat did not exist at the time man was known to be living in the New World. The lack of evidence of ocean-going boats at the time the Atlantic crossing were supposed to have occurred is a major flaw in Greeman’s theory.
Furthermore, if man was able to cross the North Atlantic to Iceland, then to Greenland, and to Canada, his route would have been blocked by glaciers. An ice bridge could have provided a way to travel from Greenland to Canada if the traveler carried enough provisions to survive the journey. Getting to Greenland still remained a problem. Large stretches of ocean had to be crossed to reach Iceland and to go from Iceland to Greenland.
A fact that argues against Retzius’ hypothesis is that both dolichocephals and brachycephals are intermingled in every part of the continent.
Brinton may have erred in claiming that no land bridge existed in the northern Pacific during the time of the ice age. Many authorities claim that such a land bridge did exist. It may have laid farther south than the Bering Strait and stretched from Kamchatka to British Columbia. This land bridge provided a route for the Asians. If Briton is correct, then Turanians must have migrated through Europe and across the North Atlantic. Most believe that the vast majority of the American Indians are Turanians.
A major flaw of Birdsell’s hypothesis is that Ainus are Caucasoids. Genetic studies show that they are more closely related to Turanians, primarily Japanese, than Europeans. (Few now consider the Ainus to be Caucasians. Most likely, the Ainus are a racial type of the Australian species. That they have so many genetic makers in common with Turanians is probably the result of genocide via miscegenation that the Ainus have endured for centuries.)
Autochthonous Hypothesis
The autochthonous hypothesis holds that the American Indian originated in the Western Hemisphere. His ancestors did not come from Europe or Asia. To the contrary, modern Asians and Europeans probably descended from people coming from America who crossed into Siberia. The autochthonous hypothesis has few adherents.
Jeffery Goodman (1981)[106] believes that early man may have appeared in America about 500,000 years ago and that fully modern man first appeared in American around 70,000 years ago, or about 35,000 years before he appeared in Europe. Contrary to the popular belief that man crossed Bering Straight from Asia into America, he maintains the reverse: Modern man crossed from America into Asia. From these men descended the Cro-Magnards.
He emphatically rejects the theory of Indians descending from Mongoloids crossing Bering Straight. He offers several reasons for rejection of that theory. First are Indian myths. According to the myths of some Indians, they originated in the Americas. Others came from islands in the Pacific or Atlantic. None seem to arrive via the Bering route.
Further evidence is the physical difference between American Indians and other races, especially East Asians. Their blood type, finger prints, and prominent convex nose suggest that they are not descendants of East Asians.
He also points to the large number and great variations of American Indians as evidence to support his autochthonous theory.
To these he adds a lack of evidence, such as stone, bone, or wood tools, that the first men would have carried. No direct evidence support the Bering route theory.
Furthermore, radiocarbon dating shows that the corridor between Alaska and the Great Plains was not opened until 6000 B.C. instead of 10,000 B.C. Even after it opened, its climate would have been too severe to provide much food for traversing bands. The corridor would have been almost void of food and fuel, its climate being more severe than that on top of the ice sheet. Bands probably could not have carried enough provisions to support themselves as they passed through the corridor.
Evidence exist suggesting man lived in southern California 70,000 years ago. If he entered via the Bering route, he would have arrived in Alaska more than 70,000 years ago. The next opportunity for the trip from Siberia to Alaska would have been between 35,000 to 27,000 years ago and 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. These opportunities occurred too late. Furthermore, the earliest sites are not found in the north, but in the south. By 30,000 ago, modern man seemed well established in North and South America.
He holds that Paleo-Indians migrated to Siberia and then spread across Asia and Europe. From these Paleo-Indians came the Cro-Magnards of Europe and the Mongoloids of Asia.
The autochthonous hypothesis suffers problems similar to the Asian hypothesis. Why would traffic have been only one way — this time from America to Asia. Why did no interchange of useful commodities between the Old World and the New World occur? The evidence seems to show man in the Old World at least as early if not earlier than in the Americas.
Mythical Hypothesis
According to the mythical hypothesis, the American Indians are the progeny of the inhabitants of Atlantis or Mu or both.[107] Atlantis was a mythical continent in the North Atlantic between North American and Europe and North Africa. Mu, or Lemuria as this continent is sometimes called, was a mythical content in what is now the central part of the Pacific Ocean. (Ernst Heinrich and Helena Blavatsky placed Lemuria in the Indian Ocean. Most advocates of Lemuria now place it in the Pacific where it essentially coincides with Churchward’s Mu.) Both of these continents developed a high state of civilization. (Some believe that these civilization were more technologically advanced than today’s.) Both continents suddenly vanished beneath the ocean as the result of a catastrophe. Some of the survivors managed to escape, either just before or just after, the catastrophe. From these survivors came most, if not all, of the American Indian. A variant is that the American Indians descended from colonists of either or both of these continents.
A major flaw with this hypothesis is that the evidence to support the existence of either of these continents is extremely weak. As of yet, little geological or archeological evidence has been found to support the existence of either Atlantis or Mu. Geology of the central Pacific argues against any submerged continent in that region.
Another problem of this hypothesis is that the American Indians lived in a primitive state while the inhabitants of Atlantis and Mu were highly advanced culturally and technologically. Both had a high state of civilization with large cities, aircrafts, and technologies of which today’s man is still ignorant. Atlantis is often described as having reached the nuclear age and perhaps even having advanced beyond it. Yet with the sinking of Atlantis, the survivors reverted to a primitive neolithic, and in some instances paleolithic, culture. To avoid this problem, some supports of the mythical hypothesis, especially those of Mu, claim that the survives quickly reverted to savagery.
Timing is also a problem, especially for Atlantis. Atlantis supposedly sank about 10,000 years ago. The sinking of Atlantis occurred long after much of North and South America were inhabited.
[Editor's note: The appendix defining anthropological indices and list of references in the original are omitted.]
Endnotes ‒ Continued
95. MacGowan, p. 12.
96. A.H. Keane and E.C. Huntington, “Indians, American,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago, 1890), XII, p. 823.
97. Briton, American Race, pp. 31-32. Briton, Races and People, pp. 247-248. Haddon, Wandering People, pp. 74-75.
98. Briton, American Race, p. 30.
99. Keane, Worlds People, p. 226-227.
100. Dixon, pp. 395ff, 446ff. MacGowan, pp. 164-165.
101. MacGowan, p. 163-164.
102. Comas, pp. 633-635.
103. MacGowan, p. 21.
104. Crawford, p. 3.
105. Goodman, pp. 66-67.
106. Ibid., pp. 17-18, 38. 42-43. 59. 65. 80. 114-115.
107. Baldwin, pp. 174-184; Brinton American Race, pp. 18-19. Reader’s Digest. Mysteries of the Ancient Americas: The New World Before Columbus (The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1986), p. 47-49.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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Calhoun and Concurrent Majority
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Calhoun and Concurrent MajorityThomas Allen
John C. Calhoun is perhaps the greatest and most original political thinker ever produced by the Western Hemisphere. Born in South Carolina, Calhoun was more of a realist than an idealist. He tended to set class economics above abstract humanitarianism. Caring little for egalitarian doctrine, he objected strongly to the assertion that all men were created free and equal. Such an assertion was contrary to all biological and social facts. He set forth the principle of concurrent majority, which is perhaps the most original political principle ever espoused by an American.
In 1828, he broke away from Henry Clay’s nationalism of federal intervention and consolidation to become one of the greatest minds, perhaps the greatest, that the South has ever produced. The issue was tariffs. Tariffs were protecting the industrial North from foreign competition at the expense of the agricultural South. As a result of the tariffs, the North was prospering while the South was in a depression.
Calhoun realized that the United States were drifting towards consolidation and an uncritical faith in numerical majorities. Under such conditions the minority position of the South could not be protected. Contrary to what most Americans believed then, and unfortunately still believe, the principle of political democracy offers no safeguard against the dangers of arbitrary government. When unrestrained by constitutional limitations on its will, numerical democracy is the enemy of political justice. The measure of protection given to the weakest citizen is the critical test of every government. Judged by this test, a democratic state becomes little more than a tyrant as power is centralized into the hands of a few. The majority inevitably becomes irresponsible in its unrestraint. The more power it wields, the more vicious its disregard of minority opinion becomes. To Calhoun the perennial problem of constitutional government was how to restrain it by constitutional checks to keep it just. With this point of view, Calhoun addressed himself to the problem of restraining the majority and protecting the rights of the minority.
Calhoun built his political principle upon the meshing of the Jeffersonian Republican doctrine of States’ rights and the Montesquieuian Federalist doctrine of static government resulting from exacting balanced powers. He believed that both doctrines were sound in their major premises, but they had strayed in certain important deductions. Experience had taught him that consolidation was extremely dangerous and that the existing checks on the federal government were insufficient. The Jeffersonians were mistaken in their belief that the democratic majority necessarily served the cause of political justice. The Federalists were mistaken in their belief that the division of power provided in the U.S. constitution was adequate to prevent arbitrary government. His solution to these mistakes was to provide an additional check. This check was the right of individual States to veto acts of the federal government. The veto power was the hallmark of constitutional government. Thus, he brought together two basic philosophies upon which the United States had been founded and strengthen them with the concept of concurrent majority.
Confusion on the interpretation of “the people” and “government” has done immeasurable harm to liberty and has brought untold oppression. In a republic sovereignty is intrinsic in the people. All authority is delegated. Government is merely an agent with strictly defined fiduciary powers. All its acts are subject to review by the principal. Depending on constitutional system of government, the review may be immediate and full or removed and limited. Where most political philosophers fall short is that they tend to treat “the people” as a homogenous body with a common interest. Calhoun realized that this was not the case. “The people” are an aggregation of individuals, groups, classes, and factions with diverse and often antagonistic interests. Most political philosophers also error in treating government as a sacred entity, the inheritor of sovereignty, which cannot be criticized without committing a crime against the sovereign. Again Calhoun realized that this was not the case. In a republic officials are invested with temporary power, and these officials are guided by motives common to all men. Unlike many political thinkers, Calhoun understood the meaning of “the people” and “government.”
To Calhoun the common fallacy of treating “the people” as a homogenous body with a common interest was an egregious danger that obscured the economic basis of society and confused the whole problem of government. The Jeffersonians had contributed to this problem by assuming a clear division between ruler and subject and by appealing to a common democracy against the aristocracy in their struggle against consolidation. Although the Federalist understood the economic origins of political power and the economic ends served by the political state, they concealed their designs by deceptive appeals to patriotism and made their knowledge serve their own interests. Calhoun knew that “the people” is a political fiction. Society is composed of a multitude of individuals, each with his own interest. They can never be merged into a united whole no matter how they are grouped or classified. To assume that government rests on the will of the people or represents the people is dangerous and fallacious. The political state is partisan to those who administer it. The diversity of the people and the errancy of treating them as one whole Calhoun acknowledged. This acknowledgment led him to devise his principle of concurrent majority, which compels the various segments and factions of the community to cooperate while preventing a majority of them from combining to oppress or exploit the rest of the community.
Just as Calhoun’s understanding of “the people” exceeds that of most political thinkers, so does his understanding of “government.” He knew that power corrupts and that governmental officials often become drunk with power. Once safely in office these agents begin assuming all the prerogatives of the principal and cloth their acts with the sanctity of sovereignty. With the power of taxation, these agents benefit their friends and favorites while penalizing and exploiting their enemies and the politically weak. Without an adequate defense to protect themselves, the weaker interest suffer legal exploitation and oppression. The popular government of the Jeffersonian Republicans changed only the outward form of the selfish struggle for power. It substituted party rule for class rule. The more democratic government becomes, the more callous and vicious majority rule becomes. All systems of checks and balances that fail to obstruct sufficiently this innate tendency of party rule prove to be unsuccessful. Separation of powers among executive, legislature, and judiciary, as the Montesquieuian Federalist had done, is not enough. The reigning majority can come to control all three and, thus entrenched, oppress the minority. Knowing how political leaders and political parties behave once they acquire power, Calhoun offered the minority, with his doctrine of concurrent majority, away to thwart this behavior.
Calhoun regarded freedom as the ultimate goal and most precious aspect of civilization. By freedom he did not merely mean legal restraints on tyranny, such as habeas corpus, he meant freedom from legal exploitation and statutory dictatorship. In his words, “The abuse of delegated power, and the tyranny of the stronger over the weaker interests, are the two dangers, and the only two to be guarded against; and if this be done effectually, liberty must be eternal. Of the two, the latter is the greater and most difficult to resist.” He acknowledged that two powers were necessary to the existence and preservation of a free state. One is the power of the governed to prevent their governors from abusing their authority and to compel them to be faithful to their constituents. This power is attained through suffrage. The other is the power to compel the various factions of the community to be just to one another by requiring them to consult the interest of each other. This power can only be achieved by requiring the concurrence of all the great and distinct interest of the community. With these two powers freedom can be safeguarded.
The method used to implement this second power to preserve liberty and prevent conflict between diverse parts of the community brought forth Calhoun’s great contribution to political science — the principle of concurrent majority. His solution to the preservation of liberty was to superimpose the will of a geographical majority upon the consolidated, indiscriminate majority. His solution collected not only the sense of the majority, but it also considered the various interests of the community. In “A Disquisition on Government,” Calhoun proclaimed,
Copyright © 1987 by Thomas Coley Allen.
John C. Calhoun is perhaps the greatest and most original political thinker ever produced by the Western Hemisphere. Born in South Carolina, Calhoun was more of a realist than an idealist. He tended to set class economics above abstract humanitarianism. Caring little for egalitarian doctrine, he objected strongly to the assertion that all men were created free and equal. Such an assertion was contrary to all biological and social facts. He set forth the principle of concurrent majority, which is perhaps the most original political principle ever espoused by an American.
In 1828, he broke away from Henry Clay’s nationalism of federal intervention and consolidation to become one of the greatest minds, perhaps the greatest, that the South has ever produced. The issue was tariffs. Tariffs were protecting the industrial North from foreign competition at the expense of the agricultural South. As a result of the tariffs, the North was prospering while the South was in a depression.
Calhoun realized that the United States were drifting towards consolidation and an uncritical faith in numerical majorities. Under such conditions the minority position of the South could not be protected. Contrary to what most Americans believed then, and unfortunately still believe, the principle of political democracy offers no safeguard against the dangers of arbitrary government. When unrestrained by constitutional limitations on its will, numerical democracy is the enemy of political justice. The measure of protection given to the weakest citizen is the critical test of every government. Judged by this test, a democratic state becomes little more than a tyrant as power is centralized into the hands of a few. The majority inevitably becomes irresponsible in its unrestraint. The more power it wields, the more vicious its disregard of minority opinion becomes. To Calhoun the perennial problem of constitutional government was how to restrain it by constitutional checks to keep it just. With this point of view, Calhoun addressed himself to the problem of restraining the majority and protecting the rights of the minority.
Calhoun built his political principle upon the meshing of the Jeffersonian Republican doctrine of States’ rights and the Montesquieuian Federalist doctrine of static government resulting from exacting balanced powers. He believed that both doctrines were sound in their major premises, but they had strayed in certain important deductions. Experience had taught him that consolidation was extremely dangerous and that the existing checks on the federal government were insufficient. The Jeffersonians were mistaken in their belief that the democratic majority necessarily served the cause of political justice. The Federalists were mistaken in their belief that the division of power provided in the U.S. constitution was adequate to prevent arbitrary government. His solution to these mistakes was to provide an additional check. This check was the right of individual States to veto acts of the federal government. The veto power was the hallmark of constitutional government. Thus, he brought together two basic philosophies upon which the United States had been founded and strengthen them with the concept of concurrent majority.
Confusion on the interpretation of “the people” and “government” has done immeasurable harm to liberty and has brought untold oppression. In a republic sovereignty is intrinsic in the people. All authority is delegated. Government is merely an agent with strictly defined fiduciary powers. All its acts are subject to review by the principal. Depending on constitutional system of government, the review may be immediate and full or removed and limited. Where most political philosophers fall short is that they tend to treat “the people” as a homogenous body with a common interest. Calhoun realized that this was not the case. “The people” are an aggregation of individuals, groups, classes, and factions with diverse and often antagonistic interests. Most political philosophers also error in treating government as a sacred entity, the inheritor of sovereignty, which cannot be criticized without committing a crime against the sovereign. Again Calhoun realized that this was not the case. In a republic officials are invested with temporary power, and these officials are guided by motives common to all men. Unlike many political thinkers, Calhoun understood the meaning of “the people” and “government.”
To Calhoun the common fallacy of treating “the people” as a homogenous body with a common interest was an egregious danger that obscured the economic basis of society and confused the whole problem of government. The Jeffersonians had contributed to this problem by assuming a clear division between ruler and subject and by appealing to a common democracy against the aristocracy in their struggle against consolidation. Although the Federalist understood the economic origins of political power and the economic ends served by the political state, they concealed their designs by deceptive appeals to patriotism and made their knowledge serve their own interests. Calhoun knew that “the people” is a political fiction. Society is composed of a multitude of individuals, each with his own interest. They can never be merged into a united whole no matter how they are grouped or classified. To assume that government rests on the will of the people or represents the people is dangerous and fallacious. The political state is partisan to those who administer it. The diversity of the people and the errancy of treating them as one whole Calhoun acknowledged. This acknowledgment led him to devise his principle of concurrent majority, which compels the various segments and factions of the community to cooperate while preventing a majority of them from combining to oppress or exploit the rest of the community.
Just as Calhoun’s understanding of “the people” exceeds that of most political thinkers, so does his understanding of “government.” He knew that power corrupts and that governmental officials often become drunk with power. Once safely in office these agents begin assuming all the prerogatives of the principal and cloth their acts with the sanctity of sovereignty. With the power of taxation, these agents benefit their friends and favorites while penalizing and exploiting their enemies and the politically weak. Without an adequate defense to protect themselves, the weaker interest suffer legal exploitation and oppression. The popular government of the Jeffersonian Republicans changed only the outward form of the selfish struggle for power. It substituted party rule for class rule. The more democratic government becomes, the more callous and vicious majority rule becomes. All systems of checks and balances that fail to obstruct sufficiently this innate tendency of party rule prove to be unsuccessful. Separation of powers among executive, legislature, and judiciary, as the Montesquieuian Federalist had done, is not enough. The reigning majority can come to control all three and, thus entrenched, oppress the minority. Knowing how political leaders and political parties behave once they acquire power, Calhoun offered the minority, with his doctrine of concurrent majority, away to thwart this behavior.
Calhoun regarded freedom as the ultimate goal and most precious aspect of civilization. By freedom he did not merely mean legal restraints on tyranny, such as habeas corpus, he meant freedom from legal exploitation and statutory dictatorship. In his words, “The abuse of delegated power, and the tyranny of the stronger over the weaker interests, are the two dangers, and the only two to be guarded against; and if this be done effectually, liberty must be eternal. Of the two, the latter is the greater and most difficult to resist.” He acknowledged that two powers were necessary to the existence and preservation of a free state. One is the power of the governed to prevent their governors from abusing their authority and to compel them to be faithful to their constituents. This power is attained through suffrage. The other is the power to compel the various factions of the community to be just to one another by requiring them to consult the interest of each other. This power can only be achieved by requiring the concurrence of all the great and distinct interest of the community. With these two powers freedom can be safeguarded.
The method used to implement this second power to preserve liberty and prevent conflict between diverse parts of the community brought forth Calhoun’s great contribution to political science — the principle of concurrent majority. His solution to the preservation of liberty was to superimpose the will of a geographical majority upon the consolidated, indiscriminate majority. His solution collected not only the sense of the majority, but it also considered the various interests of the community. In “A Disquisition on Government,” Calhoun proclaimed,
It results, from what has been said, that there are two different modes in which the sense of the community may be taken: one, simply, by the right of suffrage, unaided; the other, by the right through a proper organism. Each collects the sense of the majority. But one regards numbers only, and considers the whole community one unit, having but one common interest throughout; and collects the sense of the greater number of the whole, as that of the community. The other, on the contrary, regards interests as well as numbers; — considering the community as made up of different and conflicting interests as far as the action of the government is concerned; and takes the sense of each, through its majority or appropriate organ, and the united sense of all, as the sense of the entire community. The former of these I call the numerical, or absolute majority; and the latter, the concurrent, or constitutional majority.Calhoun’s political philosophy is based on the principle that property rules by reason of its inherent power and that political justice is attainable only with a precise system of checks and balances that provides each important group with a veto. He has offered a mechanism by which minorities can protect themselves from oppression and exploitation without having to resort to armed conflict. With his principle of concurrent majority, Calhoun bequeathed his beloved South with a barrier to protect herself from political consolidation, standardization of society, and the universal monetary evaluation of life. Unfortunately for the South, and perhaps the rest of the world as well, this barrier was utterly destroyed in 1865. For the sake of liberty, the time has come to resurrect the lost principle of concurrent majority.
Copyright © 1987 by Thomas Coley Allen.
12 Ekim 2012 Cuma
Winter slice
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Apricot blooming in azure skies
Sweet peas: so called "fragrant mix", I think I'll stick with 'Cupani' next year
Howdy,
Our non-winter winter has sprung and early. Perhaps you keen gardeners here in So Cal have seen this too. Things are early. One plant that seems so regular to me was pink jasmine, Jasminum polyanthum. I started to see this guy blooming a month ago, when normally it begins to grace us with its banana-bubble gum fragrance in the later half of February.
Anyway, I'm totally enjoying the warm weather all the same, even if it has plants out of what I think is their normal cycle. Today I was enjoying the early blooms of my apricot trees and sweet peas. Actually the sweet peas are pretty much on time, since I started them early autumn and put them in my sunniest winter spot to get early bloooms. I was disappointed with this "fragrant mix" that was so not fragrant. Next year I go back to 'Cupani' the original sweet pea from Italy. 'Cupani' may have short legs (stems are so short sometimes hard to put in a vase) but damn what a awesome smell!
One other thing I will mention, I'm a bit worried about the apricot, as I see no bees around. No bees, no apricots! Maybe they are making their visits surreptitiously. All I can do is hope.
Apricot blooming in azure skiesSweet peas: so called "fragrant mix", I think I'll stick with 'Cupani' next yearHowdy,
Our non-winter winter has sprung and early. Perhaps you keen gardeners here in So Cal have seen this too. Things are early. One plant that seems so regular to me was pink jasmine, Jasminum polyanthum. I started to see this guy blooming a month ago, when normally it begins to grace us with its banana-bubble gum fragrance in the later half of February.
Anyway, I'm totally enjoying the warm weather all the same, even if it has plants out of what I think is their normal cycle. Today I was enjoying the early blooms of my apricot trees and sweet peas. Actually the sweet peas are pretty much on time, since I started them early autumn and put them in my sunniest winter spot to get early bloooms. I was disappointed with this "fragrant mix" that was so not fragrant. Next year I go back to 'Cupani' the original sweet pea from Italy. 'Cupani' may have short legs (stems are so short sometimes hard to put in a vase) but damn what a awesome smell!
One other thing I will mention, I'm a bit worried about the apricot, as I see no bees around. No bees, no apricots! Maybe they are making their visits surreptitiously. All I can do is hope.
Kraut chronically...err.. I mean chronicles
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October a seed is planted
November a seedling transplanted
February a kraut fermented
For those of you who give a crap about cabbage, today would have given you joy. Waiting this long has really build up a lot of anticipation. They have become like family pets, sitting, waiting out there. If only they knew what I had planned for them...
A brutal beheading happened here today, I callously cut three likely heads of cabbage from my patch.
I'm salivating at the thought of the alchemy that is sauerkraut. Essentially sauerkraut is only these two things; cabbage, and salt. Everything else is created by microorganisms and time, beautiful right? There are multiple organisms needed to take plain cabbage to the state that is sauerkraut, all of which are naturally present on cabbage (thank you kraut goddesses).
The sauerkraut process is simple:
Shred a cabbage (or three).
Add salt.
Pound into a container.
Keep air off proto-kraut ( I can make up my own words if I want).
Store in a place that isn't too cold.
Wait a week or so.
Enjoy.
October a seed is planted
November a seedling transplanted
February a kraut fermented
For those of you who give a crap about cabbage, today would have given you joy. Waiting this long has really build up a lot of anticipation. They have become like family pets, sitting, waiting out there. If only they knew what I had planned for them...
A brutal beheading happened here today, I callously cut three likely heads of cabbage from my patch.
I'm salivating at the thought of the alchemy that is sauerkraut. Essentially sauerkraut is only these two things; cabbage, and salt. Everything else is created by microorganisms and time, beautiful right? There are multiple organisms needed to take plain cabbage to the state that is sauerkraut, all of which are naturally present on cabbage (thank you kraut goddesses).
The sauerkraut process is simple:
Shred a cabbage (or three).
Add salt.
Pound into a container.
Keep air off proto-kraut ( I can make up my own words if I want).
Store in a place that isn't too cold.
Wait a week or so.
Enjoy.
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