Enigma of the North Atlantic Crescent

A group of scientists who recently formed the North Atlantic Bio-Cultural Organization (NABO) have made it clear that Asiatic migration is not the only possible path taken by prehistoric peoples into the New World. They posed the question "Could Kennewick Man, the 10,000 year old Caucasian-like skeleton found in the Columbia River in Washington State, be related to the oldest cultures of Western Europe?" This question is part of a new theory emerging about how North America developed, and how the dispersal of peoples across the North Atlantic could have formed a circumpolar Mesolithic culture which was responsible not only for mass migration between the two major continents, but also the interbreeding and establishment of hybrid cultures. The Center for the Study of the First Americans at Oregon State University recently began to process genetic testing of human remains found both in Eastern North America and Western Europe. Further examination of the human mitochondrian cells, may now prove a Caucasoid link to the origins of the first Americans dating as far back as 28,000 BC. Known as the "power packs" of DNA, these cells helped scientists form four categories of ancestral groups or lineages which are viewed as the founding genetic material on which Native Americans are based. Congruent with existing dogma, and fueling the argument in favor of Asiatic origins for the New World population, they could be traced back to Siberia and northeast Asia, specifically in the Baikal and Altai-Sayan regions. However, there is a fifth lineage that is also credited as one of the founding genetic strains of present-day Native Americans. Known as the "haplogroup X," this genetic signature is the vestige of either a later population found in Europe and the Middle East or a possibly primeval population of Caucasoid ethnic groups that inhabited Asia and was also part of the tribes that followed the coastline on small boats to a point where they could disembark and settle. Kennewick and Spirit Cave Man, are one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the idea that Europeans settled and lived in North America thousands of years before the first Viking expeditions. Such widely-distributed journals as Ancient American magazine have been instrumental in validating and bringing to light the idea of contact between Old World and New World cultures before Columbus, but such finds make even these ancient dates seem relatively recent. If the genetic testing is correct, than our attitude towards Native Americans and are whole view of the world must inevitably change for good or for bad. I hope this brief article has prompted more curiosity about this subject. My curiosity is already peaked. ■