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Credit Eric S. Carlson
An illustration of ancient Native Americans in central Alaska. The 12,000-year-old skeleton of an infant girl found there offers genetic clues to how people arrived in the Americas. |
OPINION
WE DON'T KNOW their actual names, but the Alaskan natives who live in Central Alaska today call one of the girls Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gaay (Sunrise child-girl) and the other Yełkaanenh t’eede gaay (Dawn twilight child-girl). Their remains were discovered a few years ago at a site known today as the Upward Sun River.
About 11,000 years ago, a grieving family buried their six-week-old baby girl, a three-year-old child, and a preterm female fetus. According to their ancient traditions, the children were buried under a hearth inside their home along with the carefully crafted stone points and bone foreshafts of hunting lances.
Scientists earlier this year, scientists published results of their DNA study of the two girls provides biological evidence and confirms the archaeological remains that the early people of the Americas came from Asia and their DNA can be found in descendants of the original inhabitants who would spread through the millennia to North and South America.
“These are only the second-oldest human remains in the New World where we have this full nuclear genomic analysis, so this is really kind of new territory,” explains coauthor Ben Potter, an archaeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “With archaeology, we have bits of detritus left behind. We get clues that we [use] to build inferential arguments in a forensic sort of way. Just the fact that we have these human remains opens up amazing windows” into these people’s lives, he adds.
As we feast this day on turkey and the ethnic dishes Asian Americans like to include for special occasions (for us it is the Filipino lumpia and pancit), most Native Americans, to whom recent discoveries link to Asians, are in mourning.
The day in 1621 when the 90 members of the Wampanoag shared food with the Pilgrims, celebrated today as Thanksgiving by the descendants of that radical religious group from Europe, people of the First Nations see the day as the beginning of the demise of their way of life.
The years that follow will see countless broken treaties, driven from ancestral lands, unfulfilled promises, starvation, disease and futile war.
While watching the movie, Map of the Human Heart, starring Jason Scott Lee, I was startled when I heard a familiar word as the actors spoke the Inuit language called Inuktikut. The actors talk about their children, using the word "anak." What made me sit up and make notice was knowing that "anak," also means children in Tagalog, one of the dialects of the Philippines.
Oh .. the connections.
About 11,000 years ago, a grieving family buried their six-week-old baby girl, a three-year-old child, and a preterm female fetus. According to their ancient traditions, the children were buried under a hearth inside their home along with the carefully crafted stone points and bone foreshafts of hunting lances.
Scientists earlier this year, scientists published results of their DNA study of the two girls provides biological evidence and confirms the archaeological remains that the early people of the Americas came from Asia and their DNA can be found in descendants of the original inhabitants who would spread through the millennia to North and South America.
“These are only the second-oldest human remains in the New World where we have this full nuclear genomic analysis, so this is really kind of new territory,” explains coauthor Ben Potter, an archaeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “With archaeology, we have bits of detritus left behind. We get clues that we [use] to build inferential arguments in a forensic sort of way. Just the fact that we have these human remains opens up amazing windows” into these people’s lives, he adds.
As we feast this day on turkey and the ethnic dishes Asian Americans like to include for special occasions (for us it is the Filipino lumpia and pancit), most Native Americans, to whom recent discoveries link to Asians, are in mourning.
The day in 1621 when the 90 members of the Wampanoag shared food with the Pilgrims, celebrated today as Thanksgiving by the descendants of that radical religious group from Europe, people of the First Nations see the day as the beginning of the demise of their way of life.
The years that follow will see countless broken treaties, driven from ancestral lands, unfulfilled promises, starvation, disease and futile war.
While watching the movie, Map of the Human Heart, starring Jason Scott Lee, I was startled when I heard a familiar word as the actors spoke the Inuit language called Inuktikut. The actors talk about their children, using the word "anak." What made me sit up and make notice was knowing that "anak," also means children in Tagalog, one of the dialects of the Philippines.
Oh .. the connections.
The linguistic link with the Inuit and Southeast Asia is just another piece of evidence of our similarities although the environment we live in are so different.
Today, in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, recalled the disease, racism and oppression that the European settlers brought.
It’s the 49th year that the United American Indians of New England have organized the event on Thanksgiving Day.
Moonanum James, a co-leader of the group, says: “Native people have no reason to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims.”
Today we remember Sunrise and Dawn for reminding us of our human connections and remind Asian Americans of our commonality with Native Americans.
The real history of native peoples and their interactions with people from Europe, sadly, come to the same conclusion -- whether they be the Aztecs, Incas, Cherokees, Seminole, Seven Nations or the Wampanoag.
It’s the 49th year that the United American Indians of New England have organized the event on Thanksgiving Day.
Moonanum James, a co-leader of the group, says: “Native people have no reason to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims.”
Scientists call the two girls' people the Ancient Beringians, who used the long-sunken land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. About 25,000 and 36,000 years ago, they gradually broke from their East Asian ancestors. Between 18,000 and 22,000 years ago, the Beringians broke with the populations of other Native Americans and were probably absorbed into peoples who arrive later.
But the research suggests that today's Native Americans are linked to those early peoples -- as are we Asian Americans.
As new immigrants from Asia come to our shores, they are continuing the long historical trek first taken by long-forgotten hunter-gatherers always seeking greener pastures. They share the same goals and dreams of today's migrants, whether they come from Asia or Central America.
Today we remember Sunrise and Dawn for reminding us of our human connections and remind Asian Americans of our commonality with Native Americans.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views with an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.
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