Brazil, ancient sites and Homo erectus in America, a 1992 paper

An old article published in 1992, by Spanish archaeologist Gabriela Martin Avila, La antiguedad del hombre en el Nordeste de Brasil (The antiquity of Man in the northeast of Brazil, Rev. do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, S. Paulo, 2:7-12, 1992), explores the possibilities, not only of pre-Clovis sites in America, but also even older dates.

Martin mentions that "...the most advanced theories even suggest the possibility that Homo erectus arrived in America 200,000 or 300,000 years ago." To support this statement, she cites Argentine archaeologist Juan Schobinger, and his 1988 essay "200.000 años del hombre en América: ¿Que pensar?" (200,000 years of man in America: What to think?). Schobinger, according to Martin analyzed several sites in North America, and suggested that there were "chances that Homo erectus had reached the American continent thousands of years before the Homo sapiens sapiens."

The sites are the following: Old Crow in the Canadian Yukon, excavated William Nathaniel Irving; Texas Street in San Diego (see my post on it), the Calico Site in California (I posted on it back in 2011), and Valsequillo (see my post), and Toca da Esperanca site in Brazil (more on this site below).

Pedra Furada Site

Gabriela Martin then mentions some more recent sites, equally controversial, dated to around 50 kya, like Piedra Furada in Brazil, and other more recent ones of pre-Clovis age, and concludes that:

"It is necessary to await for new evidence, always with an open mind to any new theory that may be confirmed. It is also valid to ask, "Why not?" If we know today that descendants of the Chou-Ku-Tien man, or those related to the Sinanthropus [here she refers to the H. erectus from China, the Peking man] adapted to extremely cold Siberian climates, nothing prevents them from crossing Beringia before the last interglacial period if they knew how to make fire. The case of the Australians who sailed great distances is also frequently cited when arguing for the possibility of reaching America via oceanic routes during the Pleistocene era.
An interesting theory, though still in the realm of conjecture, would be that if the [erectus] ancestors of Homo sapiens managed to reach America, they may have been small groups that became extinct, giving rise to the long gap that preceded the arrival of other waves around 50,000 years ago. These new groups, dispersed across different regions of the continent, may also have become extinct, which would explain the long periods of unoccupied sites observed at some sites that we could call strategic, indicating gaps of 10,000 to 20,000 years. This would be the case of Boqueirão da Pedra Furada, in southeastern Piauí, to cite the most important archaeological site in northeastern Brazil, in terms of chronological sequence.
Based on the data known today, it cannot be denied that northeastern Brazil was populated by humans at least 50,000 years ago. These people, without specialized projectile points, used crude stone tools, wooden points, and traps to hunt mastodons, giant sloths, horses, llamas, and other smaller animals, including a large number of rodents and birds. Further evidence of their presence is only a matter of time."

An interesting combination that proposes not only an Homo erectus migration into America or even a transpacific voyage from Australia, but also that the erectus became extinct before modern humans reached America much more recently.

Toca da Esperanca Site

Another research paper from that period gives a thorough review, country by country of the alleged pre-Clovis sites in South America. (Lynch, T. F. (1990). El hombre de la edad glacial en suramérica: una perspectiva europea. Revista de Arquelogía Americana, 141-185). In the case of Brazil, it mentions the Toca da Esperanca site:

"...now that it has been reported in South America [about] an association of primitive quartzite tools with Pleistocene fauna, dated between 204,000 and 295,000 years ago (Beltráo and Danon 1987; de Lumley et al., 1988; Weber 1989). The Esperança Cave was first explored and appropriately named by Beltráo in 1982 and has been excavated since 1985. The preliminary results were presented at conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Turin, and Mainz in 1987 and quickly published in France, as well as in Brazil. The depth of the deposit is given as only 1.0 to 1.5 m [3 to 5 ft], but it yielded dates ranging from 2020 ± 130 BP. (radiocarbon at the highest Level 1) to 295,000 years (by the uranium-thorium method, at the lowest level)...
The Franco-Brazilian team identifies two pebble tools and a chopper from Level IV, as well as a hammer and several fáo and Danon (1987) state that at least one is specifically Clactonian in type. They also mention molds of human teeth (?), bone tools, hearth structures, and charcoal at all levels, but do not mention these in the subsequent French publication. More significantly, both reports specify that the quartz and quartzite artifacts are from rocks found only within 10 km of the cave.
The deposit is thin and the artifacts are simple, but at first glance, there seems to be no good reason not to accept this discovery of Middle Pleistocene man in America (Homo erectus?).
According to these researchers, "It is therefore not surprising that the Homo erectus who occupied the Chinese continent at least 700,000 years ago... and who domesticated fire 400,000 years ago (Chou-Kou-Tien), crossed the Bering Strait repeatedly" (de Lumley et al., 1988:245). However, it is necessary to mention that there is a serious dispute about whether Middle Pleistocene man (and specifically Peking Man) was in systematic possession of the use of fire, which is thought to have been present at Cueva Esperança, and whether it was necessarily the man who had to cross the Bering Strait (Binford and Ho 1985; Binford and Stone 1986; James 1989). Thus, the discovery at Esperanca should have implications for the archaeology of the Old World, as well as for that of the New World."

There seems to be some hesitation in the text: charcoal and hearths which were reported but then omitted in the French language paper, or the fact that we aren't sure if H. erectus mastered the art of fire making. But the dates 204 to 205 ky for the lowest levels, with "Clactonian" tools, which some belive were made by H. erectus while others support the notion that they were made by H. heidelbergensis. The age of this industry is 420 to 380 kya, and it predates modern humans.

Schobinger in his work also expresses his doubts about this site: "Let's admit it's difficult to accept an age of almost 300,000 years for materials found at a depth of only about 1.30 m [4.3 ft]. It's true that they are sealed by a carbonaceous-calcareous layer (and in that sense, it's in situ material), but we are told that this layer formed not much more than 20,000 years ago (Lumley et al., 1987: 929). What happened before then? Is the association of the very few quartzite stone fragments with the bones on which the U/To dating was performed reliable? Is this method entirely dependable?"

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Malaria and the Peopling of America

Today's post will explore the pathogens that cause Malaria, and how they reached America.

A paper published in April 2021 (Population genomic evidence of a Southeast Asian origin of Plasmodium vivax J. Daron, A. Boissière, L. Boundenga, B. Ngoubangoye, S. Houze, C. Arnathau, C. Sidobre, J.-F. Trape, P. Durant, F. Renaud, M.C. Fontaine, F. Prugnolle, V. Rougeron. bioRxiv 2020.04.29.067439; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.067439 Now published in Science Advances doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abc3713) proposed a Southeast Asian origin (below we will see two other papers, one, suggesting an African origin, the other an Asian one.)

The paper includes the following phylogenetic tree. Notice how America forms one of the three branches, with two separate clades, and the other two branches are: Most Asian countries, and India, Madagascar and Africa (perhaps linked by trade across the Indian Ocean).

P. vivax phylogenetic tree. Fig. 3 in Daron et al.

For America the authors suggest two possible explanations: "Across the Americas, P. vivax strains were structured in two distinct ancestral populations (Fig. 3, B to D). This is consistent with two putative evolutionary scenarios of the parasite in America. The first scenario hypothesizes that both ancestral populations originated from the isolation between Amazonian and non-Amazonian populations, after a single introduction during the European colonization in the 15th century. In the second scenario, two distinct waves of introduction occurred from the same or from different sources. Disentangling these two hypotheses will require more samples and statistical population genetic modeling."

The original online publication in Bioarxiv included text that was ommitted in the Science publication:

"Across the Americas, P. vivax strains were structured into two distinct ancestral populations. This is consistent with recent findings suggesting two successive migratory waves responsible for the introduction of P. vivax in America (37). The first wave has been suggested to occur following a reverse Kon-Tiki route, with a long-range oceanic crossing from the Western Pacific to the Americas. The second wave, has been recently attributed to an introduction by the European colonization of the Americas during the 15th century, and represents the major genetic contributors to the New World P. vivax lineages."

The paper cited as (37) is the following: Rodrigues, P. T., Valdivia, H. O., De Oliveira, T. C., Alves, J. M. P., Duarte, A. M. R., Cerutti-Junior, C., ... & Ferreira, M. U. (2018). Human migration and the spread of malaria parasites to the New World. Scientific reports, 8(1), 1993.🔓

The paper analyzes the genetics and relationship between the different lineages of malaria-causing parasites. It says it originated in Africa ("Plasmodium falciparum is currently hypothesized to have originated from a lateral transfer from gorillas to humans in Western Africa between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago" and spread globally.

In the case of American variants it notes that: "The TMRCA estimates for SAM populations of P. falciparum (37,002 years; 95% HPD interval, 21,385–56,606 years before present) and P. vivax (52,149 years; 95% HPD interval, 29,896–60,659 years before present) indicate that the hypothetical most recent common ancestor of New World malaria parasites largely predates the first human migrations to the continent."

Ah! the question of the arrival in America makes them say that being 37 or 52 ky old means that they "predate the first human migration" into America. Why not accept the facts, and suppose that there were humans in America 37-52 ky ago and that these parasites evolved there, in America?

They continue the analysis looking at the African variant (AFR) and point out that "Moreover, these estimates are rather similar to those obtained for populations of AFR P. falciparum (35,384 years; 95% HPD interval, 21,101–54,974 years before present) and P. vivax (41,685 years; 95% HPD interval, 28,630-57,563 years before present). Therefore, skyline analysis and TMRCA estimates argue against a severe population bottleneck associated with the recent malaria parasite migration to the Americas; to the contrary, SAM lineages appear to have retained much of the diversity that preexisted in their ancestral populations." Which is interesting: the parasite didn't have a bottleneck like the one that is always argued, happened to the humans that peopled America -and carried it there. And also, that the American variant is as old as the Old World African clade.

The paper concludes that slave trade and European navigation brought malaria parasites from Africa to America, and from India and Asia via Madagascar, and South Africa. There may have been a transpacific route from Asia to Central America. They also note that Melanesian variants could have also reached America in pre-Hispanic times: "We found evidence of a significant contribution of African and South Asian lineages to present-day New World malaria parasites with additional P. vivax lineages appearing to originate from Melanesia that were putatively carried by the Australasian peoples who contributed genes to Native Americans... While enslaved Africans were likely the main carriers of P. falciparum mitochondrial lineages into the Americas after the conquest, additional parasites carried by Australasian peoples in pre-Columbian times may have contributed to the extensive diversity of extant local populations of P. vivax."

However, the great diversity observed in America surprises them and they try to explain it as sampling errors or, the successive waves from different places: "The lack of an apparent bottleneck in South American populations of P. falciparum is somewhat surprising. Not only parasite migration events, but also selective sweeps induced by large-scale antimalarial use in more recent years could have drastically reduced parasite diversity in this continent. We argue, however, that the current diversity levels have originated from the very many introductions of this parasite into the continent over centuries, from several different source populations in Africa. The substantial differentiation between present-day SAM and AFR lineages of P. falciparum likely results from the fact that we have not sampled all potential AFR source populations (Supplementary Fig. 15) or all P. falciparum subpopulations currently found in the Americas."

But looking at the phylogenetic tree from this paper, below, we see that the American (and the Atlantic rainforest simian variety) clades clearly are nested within the SE Asian and Melanesian clades, while the African and some other Asian clades form a different branch (with some -few- American samples, these surely came with the Slave Trade.

Global Malaria phlogenetic tree. Adapted from Fig. 2 in Rodrigues et al.

Polynesian - Melanesian migration?

As mentioned above, this paper also mentions the transpacific route and also adds: "Carter has speculated that a relapsing parasite such as P. vivax might have survived long-range, pre-Columbian oceanic crossings from the Western Pacific to the Americas through a reverse Kon-Tiki route." citing: Carter, R. Speculations on the origins of Plasmodium vivax malaria. Trends Parasitol. 19, 214–219 (2003).🔒

Carter suggests a South Asian origin for P. vivax" from where it moved aroun 1 million years ago into Europe and Africa, surviving in warm, humid places until humans were infected some 10 to 20 ky ago.

Closing Comments

There are three separate clusters, or branches on the malaria pathogen tree: Africa, Asia, and America. If the parasites originated in Asia and moved to Africa 20-50,000 years ago (or vice versa) and originated a seprate branch there, it took 20 to 50 ky to acquire its present diversity. So, why are we expected to imagine that these same pathogens came to America barely 400 years ago and suddenly evolved into another separate branch with equally enormous diversity?

Perhaps the pathogens reached America 50 ky (or even 100, or 200 ky earlier, via a migration from Asia by infected Neanderthals, Denisovans, or even older hominins like H. erectus then they diversified there, in the New World, where they infected monkeys in the Brazilian rainforests.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Phoenicians Discovery of America (Book from 1892) and Votan

Thomas Crawford Johnson wrote a short essay titled "Did the Phoenicians Discover America?", published in 1892 by the Geographic Society of California.

This essay is a short read, and suggests among other things, that the Phoenicians knew how to navigate using the magnetic compass (p.14), that their voyages for the Jewish kings took 3 years, and this time would imply that they sailed to America's western coast (p. 22) via Melanesia and Easter Island to Peru, and the coast of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Central America.

One would have expected them to sail across the Atlantic, from Gades (Cadiz) to Mexico, but they didn't they took the longer route, along the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Bengal, skirted Java and Sumatra, sailed between Australia and New Guinea, across Polynesia and the Pacific all the way to Northern Chile.

The image below from Crawford Johnson's work shows the route taken by the Phoenicians:

Route taken by the Phoenicians to America. Source

The book mentions a voyager recorded by the Native Americans called Votan (p.28): ""Votan, it seems, came from a foreign land, and found the whole country, from Darien to California, occupied by a barbarous people. Votan and his followers arrived in large ships, and wore long, flowing garments." According to one document by Ordonez this event is laid a thousand years before Christ. It is desirable to notice that this date corresponds exactly with the dates given in the Bible narrative of the historic voyages of Hiram and Solomon, and the building of the temple, which was about l000 B. C. " This journey to America from their native country was a long and painful one and indicates that seas and lands intervened between them. The tradition reports it to be in the far East, and that the first comers filled seven ships.""

This is a quote of someone named Ordonez (actually Ordoñez). This person was Father Ramon Ordonez de Aguilar, a Catholic priest who served in the Maya region and wrote a book called "Probanza de Votan" (more on him further down).

Crawford's text also suggests that the gold and silver brought to Israel came from Mesoamerica, the only possible source for such wealth. Finally it mentions the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (p.30) "The native traditions held that Quetzalcoatl traversed the peninsula, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and on reaching the last ocean, sent back his companions to tell the Cholulans that in a future age his brothers, white men and bearded like himself, would land there from the sea, where the sun rises, and come to rule the country." Suggesting that the Phoenicians would return from the East, crossing the Atlantic Ocean,

Votan - the Civilizing Gold

The Probanza de Votan was a native text, surely a codex, written in the native Tseltal language and it was illustrated. The Spanish authorities held it until the 18th Century when it mysteriously got lost. It seems that Votan was the Mayan equivalent of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl. He founded Palenque, navigated in a boat with his family during the Universal Flood, brought his people to settle Yucatan among the natives. There was even a day in the Maya calendar named after him.

There have been wild conjectures about Votan being Woden (similar sounding names) or Odin of the Scandinavians (see p. 81 in Historia Antigua de la Conquista de Mexico by Manuel Orozco y Berra, 1880) or even Buddha! (see chapter V in the same book).

A serious, scholarly paper on the subject was published in 2009 by a Historian, Díaz Perera, Miguel Angel (Tras las huellas de Palenque: las primeras exploraciones. LiminaR, 7(1), 104-134. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1665-80272009000100007&lng=es&tlng=es). He mentions the Probanza de Votan text and that Ordoñez had written about "A white, bearded Christian priest named Votán, who arrived by sea and founded Nachán (Palenque) after having traveled through Spain, Rome and Jerusalem." In his paper, Diaz Perera mentions research by Frederic Waldeck, published in 1832 after he visited Palenque and interviewed the natives there:

"The traditions that have been communicated to me by the misanthrope of the ruins seem worth recording [...] The true name of the ruins of Palenque is Natchan, and not Otitoiun, which is a foreign word in the Chol language, and which would be more accurately described as Mayan, a language derived from it. Around ten centuries before the birth of Christ, three white, bearded individuals came from the place where the sun rises: the first, the sage Ymas; the second, Ik; and the third, Vot&aacut;en, the one who attained all the renown that tradition bestowed upon him. Although corn is indigenous, it was not as prevalent in the landscape as it was in his time, and it was Votán who brought them this marvel; he united it with civilization and the arts. The time of his death is a problem; tradition, if it is accurate, says he died violently, and nine kings succeeded him, each to reign for half a century, according to the custom he himself had prescribed. An ambitious one succeeded him, and his name was Chanan (5). Those who came after were Abaghu (6), Bem (7), Hix (8), Tzequin, Chabin, Chinax, Cahagh, and Akbal. It was under this last king that Natchan was destroyed by the nation of Tula, a city that had been founded by Votan and which later became an enemy of Natchan (referring to Tonina). Its ruins are near Ocosingo."

There is however a book by Ordoñz, published online where he mentions the "Probanzas de Votan" and its loss, and also provides more information on Votan on p.14.

I hadn't heard about Votan until now. He seems to be a civilizing demigod similar to Amalivaca, who brought civilization to the Orinoco River natives in Venezuela, Viracocha among the Incas and, of course, Quetzalcoatl.

In my next post I will comment on the details about Votan published by abbot Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1857-59, and some other comments, including von Humboldt on Votan from 1810.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Colombian Natives and their Transpacific origin (2025 paper)

Ijust came across a paper published nearly one year ago (February 2025) with a suggestive title: The Origin of Amerindians: A Case Study of Secluded Colombian Chimila, Wiwa, and Wayúu Ethnic Groups and Their Trans-Pacific Gene Flow by Arnaiz-Villena A, Lledo T, Silvera-Redondo C, Juarez I, Vaquero-Yuste C, Martin-Villa JM, Suarez-Trujillo F.. published in Genes. 2025; 16(3):286. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes16030286)

I have mentioned the Wayúu, in a post many years ago which dealt with Y-chromosome haplogroup C, and a probable transpacific origin of these natives! The 2025 paper looks at their HLA.

Arnaiz-Villena et al. wrote the following (I underlined the relevant text to highlight it):

"Results: The results obtained place the Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa populations phylogenetically close to the other North and South Amerindian populations included in this study. Amerindians are genetically separated from the rest of the world’s populations. Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa present unique extended HLA haplotypes and specific alleles, such as HLA-B*48 or HLA-A*24:01, shared with Oceanian populations. Conclusions: These genetic results and anthropological data support prehistorical trans-Pacific (bidirectional) contacts that contributed to the settlement of America and also suggest that the effects of ancient European gene flow cannot be discarded"

The paper mentions the HLA peculiarities and its similarity with Polynesian variants:

"The Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa samples studied in the present work revealed the presence of HLA-A*24 (A*24:02) and - B*48 alleles in their genetic profile at varying frequencies. Noteworthily, these alleles are characteristic of populations inhabiting Southeast Asia and the Asian and Pacific islands; they are found in Polynesian and Easter Islander genetic profiles, even in some sites located over 4000 km from the Pacific coast of South America...
If these alleles had been introduced via the Beringian migration route, they would likely be more evenly distributed across the continent rather than being concentrated along or near the Pacific coastline. This suggests the existence of direct genetic and population exchanges between Pacific Islanders and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, though it remains unclear whether these interactions were bidirectional or one-way.... [transpacific contact] could explain why the HLA-A*24(:02) and -B*48 alleles are in the Amerindian populations studied in the present work and also in others distributed along or close to the Pacific coast of America, such as Quechua (Peru and Bolivia, Aymara (Peru and Bolivia), Mayo (Mexico), and Mapuche (Chile), among others. This distribution supports the hypothesis that the settlement of America did not occur only from Asia (through the Bering Strait) but that the peoples of the continent had Pacific transoceanic contacts with other populations.

I am surprised at the remark about HLA-B*48, because in a recent post I included data about the global distribution of this variant and it was not high among Polynesians.

For HLA-A*24 the situation is different, it has a clear distribution that is trans-pacific: Japan, Taiwan, Melanesia, Polynesia, and some spots in America, as you can see in the following map (red circles mark higher frequency in the population, blue is lowest).

HLA-A*24 distribution map. Source

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Bark Cloth - Conclusion

I will try to wrap up the series of posts on bark-cloth in the Pacific region.

I have given examples and mentioned the different bark-cloth traditions found in Indonesia (Sualwesi - Celebes), Polynesia, Mesoamerica (Mayas and Aztecs), Northwestern Pacific coast of North America (British Columbia and Canda). The use of bark cloth was frequent in these societies before the arrival of Europeans, who replaced them with linnen, and cotton garments (Polynesia, Asia and NW North America - in Mesoamerica cotton was used in textiles by the upper classes) and with European paper.

Non woven textiles: Beaten Bark cloth

Beating bark to produce a fine and soft non-woven fiber which is shaped to produce barkcloth has been a common practice in many cultures around the world.

It is ancient, and predates weaving (interlacing threads in a crisscross pattern). The discovery of beaten bark may be very ancient, and originate in different places in a convergent independent discovery process, or, perhaps, a shared ancient knowledge like fire-making, or fish hook making, stone knapping, part of the survival kit of our ancestors.

Africa

The Mbuti pygmies of the D.R. of Congo in Africa have made and used barkcloth since antiquity (known as "pongo" in Kimbuti language and "molumba" in Kiswahili), they used it for their loincloths and traded it with farmers for food. They are made from bark of different trees, pounded with ivory hammers and painted by the women (Learn more: Barkcloth Designs of Mbuti Women, Barry S. Hewlett and L.L. Cavalli-Sforza (1991) Human Mossaic, Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2).

Southeast China and into Polynesia

The Southeastern China barkcloth beaters dating back almost 8,000 years were found in Dingmo, Guangxi (Dawei Li, Wei Wang, Feng Tian, Wei Liao, Christopher J. Bae, (2014). The oldest bark cloth beater in southern China (Dingmo, Bubing basin, Guangxi), Quaternary International, Vol 354, 15 December 2014, ps 184-189.) Dingmo site is SW China (see Google Map) produced a beater excavated from a layer dated to 7898 ± 34 BP. This is roughly 1,300 years older than the previous oldest beater, found at the Xiantouling Site in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China (close to Hong Kong).

These were neolithic modern humans, who spoke an Austric language (this was long before the current Han-Chinese appeared). They originated the proto-Austronesian people and language, which later spread south across Indonesia, Melanesia, and Poloynesia.

Current consensus (Source) is that the bark cloth technology that originated in SE China, spread from there to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and with the outflow of Austronesians, into Papua New Guinea, and the near Pacific Islands Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, and then into Polynesia, Niue, Cook Islands, Salomon Islands, Hawaii, and New Zealand. These peoiple made "Tapa cloth" and used the bark of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) of the Moraceae family. Surprisingly, Africans also use ficus trees from the Moraceae family like Ficus natalensis (Mutuba) and Antiaris toxicaria (Kilundu).

A paper published in 2015 used DNA to track the trees used in barkcloth across SE Asia, Melanesia and Polynesia, suggesting that the migrants who moved from Taiwan into this region, took the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) with them together with their dogs, chickens, and pigs (C. Chang,H. Liu,X. Moncada,A. Seelenfreund,D. Seelenfreund, & K. Chung, (2015). A holistic picture of Austronesian migrations revealed by phylogeography of Pacific paper mulberry, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (44) 13537-13542, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1503205112.)

The study reported that "Using chloroplast DNA sequences, we demonstrate a tight genealogical link between its populations in South China and North Taiwan, and South Taiwan and Remote Oceania by way of Sulawesi and New Guinea, presenting the first study, to our knowledge, of a commensal plant species transported to Polynesia whose phylogeographic structure concurs with expectations of the “out of Taiwan” hypothesis of Austronesian expansion..."

But barkcloth didn't catch on in New Zealand. (Source) the ancestors of the Maoris brought their paper mulberry with them, which they called "aute" but it didn't gro well there, and bark cloth which was suitable in a Tropical climate didn't stand up to the colder and wetter New Zealand weather.

The Maori used local species like houhi, whauwhi, or houhere to replace the aute, but eventually they plaited and knitted strips of bark, and fiber from different vines and grasses to knit their skirts and capes-

Bark cloth in Mesoamerica

The Maya used different ficus species to make bark paper (Source). The main source for bark paper was the amate tree. Paper which they used for codices (books) and clothing for the poor. They also used bark from non-ficus trees for this purpose.

The Aztec people also used ficus and jonote, as well as a species of yucca, and maguey fiber. For paper and also for fiber which, they wove into mats and clothes for the lower classes. Notice the emphasis in the word "wove". The Aztecs had deep textile knowledge, and weaved cloth using not only maguey fiber, but also cotton, and wool. This wasn't beaten bark, it was a fiber fashioned from beaten plant fiber (maguey). Their paper was indeed beaten bark. But not used for clothes amont the Aztecs.

Northwestern North America

The natives along the Pacific coast of Canada and Alaska used the bark of redwoods (cedar) to make beaten bark textiles. The texts that I found show that they wove it, without using a loom, so it was similar to the Mexican textiles: it was woven, this makes it different to the Polynesian "tapa" wich was a non-woven textile.

Amazon Ashenikas

The Ashenika people who live in the Peruvian Amazon (Google Maps), wear a tunic called cushma. It is their typical dress, and it is made with woven cotton. Perhaps they adopted weaving after their contact with the advanced Inca civilization that lived to the west. But it seems likely that they originally used beaten bark for their clothing.

Sø Hvalkof, a researcher from Copenhagen University acquired a barkcloth cushma made in the Ene region. The natives told him that similar bark cloth cushmas were still used in the remote jungle areas between the Tambo River and the Gran Pajonal.

The Ashéninka Indians produced barkcloth cushmas in the past, and this fact was recorded by John Elick, 1970¹ who reported having seen children in the hills east of the Nevati river wearing rough cushmas of barkcloth in the 1950s. They were made from a ficus the natives called llanchama, (Olmeida aspera), a Moracea They told Hvalkof in the 1980s that they still knew how to make them, but that they lost their shape when the got wet, and preferred woven cotton clothes. Source and Source

¹ Elick, John William. 1970. An ethnography of the Pichis Valley Campa of Eastern Peru. Los Angeles: University of California dissertation. (297pp.).

Conclusion

Human beings are resourceful creatures who learn how to use what nature has to offer. The beaten bark fiber used by Africans, Asians, and Amerindians seems to be either an ancestral knowledge, or one fruit of independent discovery. The Melanesians and Polynesians seem to be the only group who received it as part of the Austronesian culture, as their ancestors moved across Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, into New Guinea, and the South Pacific Islands.

I don't think that the Polynesians took their beaten bark techniques to America.

Bark cloth Pacific rim. Fig. 2. Judith Cameron

As mentioned in my previous post, Judith Cameron (Trans-oceanic transfer of bark-cloth technology from South China-Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica?, 2008, in Islands of inquiry: colonisation, seafaring and the archaeology of maritime landscapes (Terra Australis 29). Editors, Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach & Sue O'Connor, PublisherANU ePress, pp.203-210. Vol 1.) suggested an independent discovery of barkcloth:

"Notwithstanding the above-mentioned parallels, there is also the possibility that the Meso-american archaeological bark-cloth beaters belong to an independent cultural tradition that has no links with Southeast China or Southeast Asia... An... explanation is that prehistoric groups in Mesoamerica independently developed stone bark-cloth beaters..."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Bark Cloth among the Mesoamericans (amate)

Today's post is part of the series on paper made from beaten bark in the Americas, Asia, and Polynesia, and the possible common trans-pacific origin for this prehistoric industry.

Yesterday's post looked into the British Columbian and Alaskan beaten bark traditions. This post will explore the Mesoamerican paper.

Maguey

Maguey or agave (Agave americana) is well known because its starches, after processing, become alcohoic beverages like pulque, tequila, and mezcal. The natives used them for many purposes, from construction and food, to medicine and as a source of textile fiber and paper. Below is a picture of a maguey.

During the conquest of the Aztec empire, chroniclers like Francisco López de Gomara (Historia de la Conquista de México, p.449) described the use of maguey fiber. de Gomara wrote in 1552: "Metl is a tree that some call maguey and others call cardón... From the leaves of this plant they make paper, which is used everywhere for sacrifices and painters. They also make espadrilles, mats, blankets, girths, halters, and finally, it is hemp and is spun."

Friar Toribio de Motolinia (1482-1569), in his Memoriales (p. 317) gives a similar account, calling the maguey "metl": "From those maguey leaves, thread for sewing is obtained; they also make cords, ropes, hawsers, girths, and halters, and everything made from hemp is made from metl. They make clothing and footwear from it, because the Indians' footwear is apostolic, for they are properly sandals: the Indians call them cactli. They also make espadrilles like those of Andalusia. They make blankets and capes from this metl... From these agave leaves they make a paper of glued cotton, as thin as a fine veil, and on this paper, resting on top of an agave stalk, they carve all their drawings, and it is one of the principal tools of their trade."

In the 1700s Francisco Javier Clavijero also mentioned the use of maguey for paper manufacture. (Source) on p. 383 and 420. It also provided fiber for clothes (p. 383). He also described the use of paper as garments, and flags in relgious ceremonies and funerals (p.317, 330).

Clavijero describes how they made paper from maguey leaves, and from a palm called iczotl (p. 410) he added that "I have held in my hands many sheets of this Mexican paper. It is quite similar to European cardboard, although much softer and smoother, and one can write on it comfortably. The sheets of this paper were enormous."

Below is a photo of an iczotl, Yucca aloifolia.

Regarding maguey cloth, the image below shows a man selling maguey cloth known as áyatl. The text on the upper side of the image says "maguey thread". The Spanish text captioning the picture is the following: "And the blankets she sells are white, coated with dough, burnished, well-crafted, and have wide or narrow legs, long or elongated, thick or fat, stiff or sturdy; in short, all the maguey blankets that have designs. Some she sells that are very sparse, that look like nothing more than a headscarf, such as the very thin blankets woven with nequén fiber, and those made of twisted thread. And on the contrary, some are thick and very dense, and well-crafted, and others coarse and thick, whether made of pita or maguey thread." This image and text are part of the Florentine Codex (Book 10, folio 53r), compiled in Spanish and Nahuatl languages around 1575.

Ficus Tree paper, Amate or Amal

Other contemporary writers reported paper; Díaz del Castillo (1496-1584), in his True History of the Conquest of New Spain, tells about the conquest of the Aztec empire, in which he took part, and mentions "amal" (p. 160): "I remember that at that time his [Montezuma's] chief steward was a great chieftain, whom we named Tapia, and he kept an account of all the income that was brought to Montezuma with his books, made of their paper, which is called amal, and they had a large house of these books."

Amate paper was used for writing by the Mesoamerican pre-Hispanic civilizations, the Mayas, and the Aztecs its use survived the Spanish conquest and was used well into the 16th century, when European paper-making techniques replaced it.

Amate was made from the bark of trees belonging to the ficus genus, the red and the white jonote (Heliocarpus appendiculatus) called amacuahuitl in the Nahuatl language.

The bark was stripped from the trees, soaked in water and cooked. Then it was rinsed and pressed dry. The bark fiber was placed on a wooden board and beaten with wood or stone beaters called amahuitequini. The bark fiber was flattened and spread, softened and given a relatively smooth texture. Then it was dried. Color of amate ranged from white to pale yellow.

Tro-Cortesiano Codex, AD 1250-1500. Museo de América. Source

Paper manufacturing was an industry, its use was widespread in the Aztec region in the 15th century. Part of the tribute paid by those conquered by the city-states of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan was in the form of paper, up to 400,000 reams of paper each year, produced in more than 50 villages as detailed in the Mendoza codex, a detail of tax revenue. (see p. 50, 51, 52, 53, etc.)

Amate was used not only in ceremonies, but also for records. The famous "codices", of which roughly 500 have survived the massive burning of books conducted by the Spaniards (the Inquisition and the Catholic church wanted to erradicate all traces of the pagan religions).

The jonote is still used in basket-making. Below is a picture of a man stripping bark from a jonote tree. (Source).

Maguey, Yucca, Jonote and Fusang (T'ung) Tree

Were the maguey or the jonote the trees described in the Fusang account (a mysterious land to the East of China, perhaps America?).

The original Fusang text mentions the paper and the tree: "The kingdom of Fusang lies 20,000 li east from Tahan, and directly east from China. The name of the country is derived from the tree of this name (Fusang), which grows there in abundance. Its leaves resembles those of the tree T'ung. The young sprouts are like those of the bamboo, and are eaten. The fruit resembles a pear, and is of a red colour. Cloth is made out of the bark, and paper is also prepared from it" (p. 168).

The T'ung tree is the Paulownia tomentosa (more on the T'ung in this external link), and looks similar to the jonote trees, so maybe the Buddhist monk thought they were the same species.

Tomorrow we will close this series on bark cloth with a final post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Bark Cloth in British Columbia and Alaska

Continuing with the subject of the bark coloth and beaten bark that seems to be a pan-Pacific industry, found in Indonesia, Polynesia, China, Southeast Asia, Mexico and the Northwestern coast of North America, this post deals with the latter, the beaten bark of the natives of Alaska, British Columbia.

The book Cedar: Tree of Life to the Northwest Coast Indians By Hilary Stewart (see p. 143) shows images of different types of clothes, like aprons, skirts, capes, and blankets fashioned by the natives in cedar bark. It also mentions Captain Cook's and John Jewitt's accounts about these woven bark mats and textiles.

Captain James Cook visited this region during his final (third) voyage (1776-1780). He carried an artist to record the events of his expedition, John Webber, who drew several images, some nicely watercolored, of the expedition's stop in Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island, in what is now Canada. The two ships, Resolution and Discovery anchored there between March 29 and April 26, 1778.

Further down, the illustration of the interior of a Nootka home, shows the natives, wrapped in mats of woven bark, seated on mats, weaving, and cooking. Smoked salmon can be seen under the ceiling. Below is what Cook wrote at that time, as recorded in The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. VI. Being the Second of the Third Voyage, by James Cook, p. 298.

"The flaxen and woollen garments, with which they cover themselves, must necessarily engage their first care, and are the most material of those that can be ranked under the head of manufactures. The former of these are made of the bark of a pine-tree, beat into a hempen state. It is not spun, but, after being properly prepared, is spread upon a stick, which is fastened across to two others that stand upright. It is disposed in such a manner that the manufacturer, who sits on her hams at this simple machine, knots it across with small plaited threads, at the distance of half an inch from each other. Though, by this method, it be not so close or firm as cloth that is woven, the bunches between the knots make it sufficiently impervious to the air, by filling the interstices, and it has the additional advantage of being softer and more pliable. The woollen garments, though probably manufactured in the same manner, have the strongest resemblance to woven cloth. But the various figures which are very artificially inserted in them, destroy the supposition of their being wrought in the loom; it being extremely unlikely that these people should be so dexterous as to be able to finish such a complex work, unless immediately by their hands. They are of different degrees of fineness; some resembling our coarsest rugs or blankets, and others almost equal to our finest sorts, or even softer, and certainly warmer. The wool of which they are made, seems to be taken from animals, as the fox and brown lynx; the last of which is by far the finest sort, and, in its natural state, differs little from the colour of our coarser wools; but the hair, with which the animal is also covered, being intermixed, its appearance, when wrought, is somewhat different. The ornamental parts or figures in these garments, which are disposed with great taste, are commonly of a different colour, being dyed, chiefly, either of a deep brown, or of a yellow; the last of which, when it is new, equals the best in our carpets, as to brightness."

The Inside of a House in Nootka Sound. Webber

In the case John Rodgers Jewitt (1783-1821), we have his account, The adventures and sufferings of John R. Jewitt, only survior of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound. With an account of the manners, mode of living, and religious opinions of the natives (see p. 72 below).

"From bark they likewise make the cloth for their garments, in the following manner : A quantity of this bark is taken and put into fresh water, where it is kept for a fortnight, to give it time to completely soften; it is then taken out and beaten upon a plank, with an instrument made of bone, or some very hard wood, having grooves or hollows on one side of it, care being taken to keep the mass constantly moistened with water, in order to separate, with more ease, the hard and woody from the soft and fibrous parts, which, when completed, they par cel out into skeins, like thread. These they lay in the air to bleach, and afterwards dye them black or red, as suits their fancies, their natural colour being a pale yellow. In order to form the cloth, the women, by whom the whole of this process is performed, take a certain number of these skeins, and twist them together, by rolling them with their hands upon their knees into hard rolls, which are afterwards connected by means of a strong thread, made for the purpose.
Their dress usually consists of but a single garment, which is a loose cloak or mantle (called Kutsack) in one piece, reaching nearly to the feet. This is tied loosely over the right or left shoulder, so as to leave the arms at full liberty.
Those of the common people are painted red with ochre, the better to keep out the rain, but the chiefs wear them of their native colour, which is a pale yellow, ornamenting them with borders of the sea-otter skin, a kind of grey cloth, made of the hair of some animal which they procure from the tribes to the South, or their own cloth wrought or painted with various figures in red or black, representing men’s heads, the sun and moon, fish and animals, which are frequently executed with much skill. They have also a girdle of the same kind, for securing this mantle, or Kutsack, around them, which is in general still more highly ornamented, and serves them to wear their daggers and knives in. In winter, however, they sometimes make use of an additional garment, which is a kind of hood, with a hole in it for the purpose of admitting the head..."

Jewitt had been an armourer and blacksmith on board an American ship, the "Boston" on a trading expedition around the world. The natives attacked the crew in March 1803, sparing Jewitt as they needed his know-how as an armourer. He was held captive for 28 months when he managed to escape aboard another ship that was visiting Nootka Sound.

Ninety years later, the Report on Population and Resources of Alaska at the eleventh census: 1890, by Robert P. Porter, published in 1893 (see p. 57-58), indicated that the natives still continued with this tradition:

" The early visitors to the Alexander archipelago [see Google Maps] found the natives of both sexes wearing conical or truncated hats woven of grass or finely split spruce root, and painted with totem shapes in different colors, generally black and red. From the same material, blankets and mats ornamented with grotesque designs were manufactured and found in general use. They also had a rain coat or rather blanket with a central aperture for inserting the head [like a poncho].
These garments were woven from coarse grass with the shaggy side exposed to the rain. The inhabitants of the southern part of the archipelago substituted the more pliable material obtained from cedar bark for grass and roots. Mats and cloths manufactured in this way are still in general use throughout the Thlingit tribe and they are applied to every imaginable purpose from carpeting a house and lining a canoe to packing cases bags and coverings. In cases of emergency they also serve as garments and bedding while nearly everything the Thlingit brings for sale to the settlement is carefully wrapped in cedar matting."

Below is an image of one of these cedar bark mats

Cedar bark mat, late 1800s–early 1900s from Alaska or British Columbia, Canada. Material+technique: cedar bark; weaving. Dimensions: (Length x Width): 106 x 49.5 cm (19.5 x 41-75 in.). Source

But, they also made sophisticated clothes, as you can see below, and not only coarse mats.

Tunic and leggings, Date: ca. 1890. Alaska, United States. Tlingit, Native American Medium: Cedar bark, mountain sheep wool and dye. Source

Woven Bark and also wool

In their book, The Tlingit Indians, George Thornton Emmons and Frederica De Laguna (see p. 222), describe how the Tlingit wove cedar bark into mats and "cloth". They also used animal wool to weave blankets, like the famous Chilkat blanket (see this online source for more details about the blanket).

Comments

To my non-scholar eyes, these mats and cedar bark mats and rugs of the Tlingit natives seem less sophisticated than the Celebes-Sulawesi paper (the key here is "paper") garments. The Indonesians beat bark into a paper pulp and then fashioned it into clothing. The Tlingit wove (the key here is "weaving") the bark, they used very primitive looms (if the word loom could be used), actually frames onto which they wove the bark. The only similarity is that they used a plant fiber to make clothes. But the processes seem different.

My next post on the Mesoamerican beaten bark will show that they made paper from the bark. So Mexican bark-cloth is similar to the Indonesian product.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Haida, Tlingit and Polynesians in a text from 1894

Continuing with research on the link between Polynesians and natives from the Northwestern coast of North America, in this post I will share an article published in 1894 (The American Antiquarian, Vol XVI, No. 1, Jan. 1894, Origin of the Indians, p. 8, Cyrus Thomas), that mentions the similarities between both groups, Polynesians and Amerindians.

An 1894 Article

The article mentions other books as refrences (underlined by me in the text, and commented further down), which widens the bibliography on this subject.

"No one has failed to remark the strong resemblance in many respects of the arts customs etc. of the people of the west coast especially of the Haida Indians and cognate tribes with those of the South Pacific islanders particularly the Melanesians and Polynesians.
If we compare the arts customs and traditions of some of the west coast tribes with those of the South Sea Islanders we shall find such striking coincidences as to render the supposition that they are accidental highly improbable.
The comparison made by Ensign AP Niblack in his recent work 'The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia', between the Maori of New Zealand and the Haida Indians of our northwest coast brings out a series of coincidences which to say the least is, remarkable. And what renders this comparison of special interest is the fact that it is not made to sustain a theory, as the author is not an advocate of the idea of relationship or even contact between these widely separated tribes. It is thus he brieflly summarizes them: "In point of physical resemblance both are of the Mongoloid type, and both live on groups of islands whose climates are remark ably similar... Their political organization of the tribe, their ownership of land, and their laws of blood revenge are similar. The men tattoo with designs intended to identity themselves with their subtribe or household and they ornament their canoes, paddles, house fronts, etc., in somewhat the same manner as on the northwest coast... Under the head of "Rain Cloaks", Dixon (1787) is quoted as saying that the cloaks of the Haida and Tlingit were the same as those worn by the New Zealanders... Also a statement [from the same authority] that a Haida fortified house on an island of the Queen Charlotte group was built exactly on the plan of the hipah of the savages of New Zealand... and that the adzes of the Tlingit and Haida made of jasper were the same as those used by the New Zealanders. The cloaks of shredded inner bark in the National Museum from New Zealand and the Queen Charlotte Islands are so much alike that it takes a close inspection to distinguish them. In plate XXXII Fig 167 a New Zealand paddle is reproduced with a few from the northwest coast. The resemblance is marked and interesting... But it is safe to say that while this is not accidental, yet the resemblances and similarities are as likely to have arisen from the like tendencies of the human mind under the same external conditions or environment to develop a long parallel line, as through contact of these tribes or through a common origin."

The bibliography quoted by Cyrus Thomas

This work quotes a book by Ensign Albert P. Niblack, of the U.S. Navy, his book published in 1890 "The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia." Which in its Chapter XV (General Notes: Relations and affinities of the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl —the Haida— Remarks on the Maori of New Zealand —the Kaigani- Ethnological work to be done.) starting on p.382, explores the similarities between Polynesians and NW Coast natives. The text quoted by Cyrus is found on p. 385. And the plate XXXII mentioned by Cyrus Thomas is shown below (adapted, only displaying the New Zealand and NW coast paddles).

Fig XXXII in A.P. Niblack, E (1890), p.292

Niblack also quotes Dixon; you can see the original text by Dixon in "Voyages" (1787), p.266: "Besides their ordinary dress, the natives at this place have a peculiar kind of cloaks made purposely to defend them from the inclemency of the weather. I had no opportunity of examining them minutely, but they appear to be made of reeds sewed very closely together, and I was told by one of our gentlemen who was with Captain Cook during his last Voyage, that they are exactly the same with those wore by the inhabitants of New Zealand."

The reference to the fortified houses built by the Haida, given by Dixon can be found on p. 206 "Captain Dixon no sooner saw the fortified hut just mentioned, then this suspicion was strengthened, as it was, he said, built exactly on the plan of the hippah of the savages at New Zealand."

Captain Cook, in February of 1777, visited a hippah, a fortified village with buildings made from reeds, on Motuara Island, New Zealand. It was unoccupied at that time. John Webber drew some sketches of the huts, and they were printed as engravings after Cook's death by B. T. Pouncy. Below is the engraving (Source).

To be continued. See my previous post on this subject.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Alaska and Hawaii another trans-Pacific link

A reader posted a comment after reading about Inca Tupac Yupanqui's voyages in the Pacific, asking " I was wondering if you have noticed that by dropping a few letters from Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands Canada) you get Hawaii. They also have similar artifacts and customs like we had here in Hawaii."

No, I was not aware of any similatrities between the Haida Gwaii and Hawaii. So I set out to learn more about them.

This custom Google map shows the spots and places mentioned in this post.

Searching for a link between Hawaii and the Nothwestern coast of North America I came across a blog post (Connections, by Peter T. Young, Nov. 19, 2023, in ) which discusses the peopling of Hawaii. It included the following text:

"Solomon Lehuanui Kalaniomaiheuila was the son of Peleioholani (uncle to the Kings Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V) and Piikeakaluaonalani (mother.) For many, Peleioholani was considered an important Hawaiian antiquarian and the final word in Hawaiian genealogy, especially of the chiefs and royal families.
He wrote of the Hawaiian history. One of Peleioholani’s theories notes, “The ancestors of the Hawaiian race came not from the islands the South Pacific – for the immigrants from that direction were late arrivals there – but from the northern direction (welau lani,) that is, from the land of Kalonakikeke, now known as Alaska.”

The post also gave some additional information on the British Columbia natives, of Haida Gwaii "Peter Marsh makes several Canadian connections to Pacific Islands, noting, that archaeological and cultural evidence suggests that there is a strong connection between Coastal Canada and Polynesia. Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) is an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, Canada."

It lists the similarities between both people, Polynesians and Haida Gwai'i:

• Tahitian and Haida stone pounders, stone bowls from Kauai and Bella Coola Valley
• The war clubs with an angry mouth on the handle of Maori and NW Britich Columbian Coastal natives.
• Tattoos: "Polynesian skit derived from Haida tattooing implements."
• Fish hooks, fish hook pendants, rock art, Tiki-like carvings, totem poles with figures whose toungues are sticking out, like the Maoris. Inlaid shell in figures
• Carvings with similar eyes and mouths in BC and the Marquesas Islands.
• Similar war canoes. Use of hot rocks to steam and shape canoes.
• Use of squash gourds to carry water instead of ceramic bottles.
• Nose rubbing to greet.
• Pit ovens heated with hot stones
• " The use of the glottal stop in speech is similar e.g.; Hawai‘i and Haida Gwai‘i."

I decided to find the sources of both the Alaskan and the Haida Gwai'i refrences.

The Alaskan link

A website called polynesianprehistory.com has the following text:

"The ancestors of the Hawaiian race came not from the islands the South Pacific – for the immigrants from that direction were late arrivals there. – but from the northern direction (welau lani), that is, from the land of Kalonakikeke, now known as Alaska.
The very first man and woman who came from Kalonakikeke to the continent of Ka-Houpo-o-Kane, they were Kalonakikeke (“Mr Alaska”) and his wife Hoomoe-a-pule (“Woman of my dreams”). They were said to both be high chiefs of Kanaka-Hikina (people of the east) and Kanaka-Komohana (people of the west) and were descended from the great great ancestor Huka-ohialaka.
They arrived at Ka Houpo-o-Kane before it was disrupted by a great flood that occurred during the reign of Kahiko-Luamea. This great flood carried away a floating log of wood named Konikonihia. On this log was a precious human cargo and it came to rest on the land of Kalonakikeke (Alaska).
‘Many generations later, Nuu, travelled from Alaska with his wife, Lilinoe, their three sons and their three wives in a canoe called Ka-Waa-Halau-Alii-O-Ka-Moku (the royal canoe of the continent), and it rested apon Mauna Kea (white mountain), on the island of Hawaii. They were the first Hawaiians.
From ‘The Ancient Hawaiian History of Hookumu Ka Lani & Hookumu Ka Honua’, by Solomon L.K. Peleioholani."

This is a direct reference to Solomon Peleiholani and his work. The book can be found online here. The text quoted above is found on page 35, and continues on page 36 with the floating log and deluge. The text was written using a typewriter, and is stamped by the Bishop Museum, uploaded on Jan. 14, 2004 and authored by Solomon Lehuanui Kalaniomaiheuila Peleioholani (1844-1916).

This text implies that the first Hawaiians (Menehune?) came from Alaska. The flood myth is universal, reflecting the submersion of the continental shelves during the period of deglaciation after the last Ice Age, when sea levels rose by over 120 m (400 ft.). Does it refer to the coastal plains by the NW coast of America? Sundaland or Sahul in SE Asia and Australia-New Guinea?

Tlingits, Haida, and Polynesians

The site polynesianprehistory.com has a second link between Polynesia and NW America. It says the following:

"The following Tlingit legend confirms that the female mitochondrial DNA found in Polynesian and Tlingit genes, came from across the Western Ocean (North Pacific). The possibility that the 7km/hr Kuroshio Current, a virtual ‘river of the Ocean', which flows from Taiwan to Alaska, played a part in this migration is extremely likely. There is an old story that says how some strange people came from the Western Ocean. Among them were two sisters. They landed on Dall Island in Southeastern Alaska. There the sisters met and married men whose people were coming down the rivers from interior North America. One sister-went with her family to Haida-gwaii or the Queen Charlotte Islands. Her children grew and multiplied into the Haida Nation. The other sister went with her family to Prince of Wales Island. She became the ancestress or Mother of the Tlingit Nation.
From ‘The Proud Chilkat', by Brendan and Lauri Larson."

The Tlingit people (also Tlinquit) are a Native American tribe that speaks a Na-Dené language. They live on the narrow southern strip of Alaska, known as the "Alaskan panhandle".

The Tlingit and Haida people have been living on the coast of NW America for at least 10,000 years. An article published in Science in 2017 clearly stated that " DNA of 10,300-year-old human remains from On Your Knees Cave in Alaska have found that he was closely related to three ancient skeletons found along the coast of British Columbia in Canada. These three ancient people were in turn closely related to the Tsimshian, Tlingit, Nisga'a, and Haida tribes living in the region today. The new finding reveals a direct line of descent to these tribes, and it shows—for the first time from ancient DNA—that at least two different groups of people were living in North America more than 10,000 years ago."

HLA-B*48

It does not mention Polynesian mtDNA in the Tlingits. However, I found a reference linking Tlingits and Polynesian genetics but it involves HLA: (Source). However, the original source of the quote is not given!

"One particular DNA haplotype - the human lymphocyte antigen (HLA)Bw48 is commonly found in Polynesian populations, but occurs only sporadically in Melanesia (Polynesian outliers). The only other known population with an appreciable frequency of HLA-Bw48 is that of the North American Indians or more specifically the Tlingit of Alaska.
"This DNA evidence is supported by cultural and archaeological evidence showing a definite link between Eastern Polynesia and the Tlingit, Kwakuitl and Haida of the islands off Alaska and Canada."

HLA-Bw48 is now known as HLA-B*48. Searching for the HLA B*48 allele (online, Allele Frequencies in World Populations) did not turn up any Tinglits!

HLA B*48 frequencies across the World. Source

It shows that this HLA variant is found in Amerindians, but it does not mention Tinglit people. It does not appear among Polynesians, though it is found in Asia (Armenia, India, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Russia). It does not provide anyd evidence to support the idea of admixture or a shared origin for Tinglit people and Polynesians, or any reference of common mtDNA, or unique HLA variant.

This is ongoing work, so I will follow it up in a future post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Ancient Japanese influence in prehistoric South America

My previous post explored the junk shipwrecks and Japanese castaways found along the coast of Northwestern America (Alaska, Canada, the U.S), and also Hawaii. Today we will look into the ancient links between Japan and South America.

Back in 2014 I posted about the Jomons and Ecuadorian Valdivias, and mentioned a paper published in 1962 (Emilio Estrada, Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers, Possible Transpacific Contact on the Coast of Ecuador. Science135,371-372 (1962). DOI:10.1126/science.135.3501.371)

Betty Jane Meggers (1921-2012) suggested that trans-Pacific contact some 5,000 years ago, linking Japan and Ecuador. She based her hypothesis on the similarities between the Japanese Jomon people and the Valdiviann people of Ecuador.

In a paper putting forward this idea was published 60 years ago: Transpacific origin of Valdivia Phase Pottery on Coastal Ecuador (Clifford Evans and Betty J Meggers, XXXVI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas de España 1964, Vol 1, 1966), Meggers and her colleague Evans outline how the contact took place:

"Consolidation of evidence relevant to the origin of the Valdivia Phase leads to a reconstruction of events somewhat as follows. Some 5000 years ago the coasts of Japan and western America were occupied by small groups of people who subsisted by fishing and shellfish gathering supplemented by hunting of ter restrial mammals.
In addition to gathering of plants they may have taken initial steps toward cultivation.
Their tools and utensils though differing in details of construction were of similar kinds fishhooks awis choppers flakes sinkers hammerstones indicating a similar level of technological competence and a similar ecological adaptation.
In Japan sites are found not only along the coast but up river valleys into the interior where salmon fishing hunting of terrestrial fauna and an unusually rich edible flora seem to have approximated wild food conditions on the northwest coast of North America. Bones from the refuse indicate that deep sea fishing provided part of the food supply from early times and dugout canoes have been found that provide information on the type of water craft used.
If a boatload of Early Middle Jomon fishermen left the sheltering bays of Kyushu and went out into the sea off the southeastern coast in October or November they would have entered a zone with some of the strongest currents in the northern Pacific running northeastward at 24 43 miles per day. Records for the 40 year period between 1901 1940 tabulate 802 typhoons of which 130 were in October and 67 in November. A canoe caught too far from shore by one of these storms might easily be swept by the combined northeasterly pressure of wind and current far out to sea before control was regained. Even if the occupants retained possession of their paddles they might have been unable to turn back. During the month of November westerly and northerly winds pre dominate in the northern hemisphere and are steadiest and of greatest force between about the 40th and 55th parallels In addition the percentage of gales increases during November in high latitudes occurring at an average frequency of one every 8 10 days over the greater part of the northern Pacific except near coasts. A combination of these forces would have borne a canoe eastward along the great circle route which on a flattened map curves far north of Hawaii Records during the past century demonstrate the feasibility of such a drift vessel reaching land with living passengers after a voyage of 11 months (Sittig 1896 p 530). Indeed the possibility of survival would be stronger for people accustomed to living from the sea than for land oriented agriculturalists of more recent times. Arriving on the Ecuadorian shore the travelers were met or soon found by the local residents who presumably were living much the same kind of life as had been left behind on Kyushu fishing shellfish gathering a little hunting and gathering of plants for food and fiber. The results make it apparent that the newcomers were welcomed and incorporated into the community. In the process they introduced the art of pottery making and very probably new religious practices that are reflected in the Valdivia stone figurines. Other new ideas may also have been incorporated but no tangible evidence has been recognized The Valdivians quickly became skillful potters and in fact the most striking aspect of the ware is its superiority in quality and artistry to pottery not only of contemporary Kyushu but also of other very early ceramic complexes in the New World. It is an ironical fact that attempts to relate Valdivia ceramics to those of Guañape on the coast of Peru Monagrillo on the Pacific coast of Panama or Puerto Hormiga on the Caribbean coast of Colombia involve more tenuous comparative evidence than can be brought to support the inference of Jomon Valdivia connections.
Undoubtedly this situation if properly under stood would shed light on the kind of contact that underlay diffusion of pottery making both north and south from the coast of Ecuador."

The idea sounds interesting, and it also accounts for the "figurines" or female statuetes (Venus) found in Ecuador.

More recently (see Betty J. Meggers. 2005. The Subversive Significance of Transpacific Contact. The NEARA Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Winter): pp. 22-29.), twenty years ago, Meggers mentions the common variety of Human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-1), as "another pathology shared by Japanese and Andeans... which is transmitted between adult males and females by sexual contact and between nursing mothers and infants. Today, the highest occurrence in the world of carriers of the HTLV-1 antibody is in Japan, where it reaches a frequency of 6% in Kyushu... Among modern populations in the Americas, it is restricted to the Andean area. Like the parasites, a post-Columbian introduction is ruled out by its presence in the bone marrow of 1500-year-old Chilean mummies... Among modern carriers are the Nanoama, an indigenous group that lives on the lower San Juan River, which drains into the Pacific coast of Colombia."

Meggers added that a study sound genetic similarities between these Nanoma people and the Jomons: "A comparison of the global distribution of 13 genetic markers also identifies the closest affiliation of the Nanoama with people of Jomon ancestry in Japan."

Meggers also suggests that the bottle gourd (Lagenaria sicerania) was brought to America by the Jomons: "an Old World cultigen that appeared in the Americas ca. 6000 B.P.—was among the Jomon introductions is supported by its presence in Japan by the Initial Jomon Period."

Regarding the ceramics, Meggers pointed out "the discovery of another intrusive complex of similar age on the north coast of Colombia, known as San Jacinto."

However, not everyone agrees with this theory. For instance, Scott, G. R. et al., (2021). Peopling the Americas: Not “Out of Japan.” PaleoAmerica, 7(4), 309–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/20555563.2021.1940440, refute it, without mentioning the Jomons or Ecuador and Colombia. Instead it focused on stone knapping techniques which seem similar in both Jomon Japan and North America:

"A widely accepted model for the peopling of the Americas postulates a source population in the Northeast Asian maritime region, which includes northern Japan. The model is based on similarities in stone artifacts (stemmed points) found in North American sites dating as early as 15,000 years ago and those of comparable age in Japan and neighboring regions of Northeast Asia. Here we show, on the basis of data and analyses in biological anthropology, that the people who made stemmed points in northern Japan (labeled “Incipient Jomon” in the archaeological literature) represent an unlikely source population for the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere."

Even the origin of the ceramics style is disputed, (Kanomata Y, Marcos J, Popov A, Lazin B, Tabarev A. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/new-data-on-early-pottery-traditions-in-south-america-the-san-pedro-complex-ecuador/8885FD3A582F285F93728325C4945B66. Antiquity. 2019;93(369):e17. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.56), says it originated in a pre-Valdivian culture in Ecuador: "These new data on San Pedro pottery from Real Alto demonstrate its stratigraphical, typological and chronological identity as one of the earliest ceramic forms in the Americas, and they confirm the existence of Early Formative cultural variability in Ecuador." Meaning they may seem similar Jomon and Valdivian, but they have different origins.

Regarding genetics, as mentioned in my 2014 post, there are similarities regarding what then was known as the Y-chromosome haplogroup C3* (nomenclature has changed since then, but the concept is still valid). C3* is rare in America, it is found among the Jomons and also among Ecuadorian and Colombian people, but not elsewhere in America. Surprisingly, the Japanese C3* variant is different to the one found in Colombia and Ecuador.

The American variant is now known as subclade C-P39 (formerly C3b). A paper (Insights into the origin of rare haplogroup C3* Y chromosomes in South America from high-density autosomal SNP genotyping, Mezavilla et al., 2015) studied the matter: "C3* Y chromosomes were discovered in two nearby Native American populations from Ecuador. Since this haplogroup is otherwise nearly absent from the Americas but is common in East Asia, and an archaeological link between Ecuador and Japan is known from 6Kya, an additional migration 6Kya was suggested. Here, we... evaluate three hypotheses: a recent migration from Japan, a single pulse of migration from Japan 6Kya, and no migration after the First Americans... Our simulations revealed good power to detect recent admixture, and that ≥5% admixture 6Kya ago could be detected. However, in the experimental data we saw no evidence of gene flow from Japan to Ecuador. In summary, we can exclude recent migration and probably admixture 6Kya as the source of the C3* Y chromosomes in Ecuador, and thus suggest that they represent a rare founding lineage lost by drift elsewhere." The map below is from this paper.

Hypotheses to explain the presence of C3* Y chromosomes in Ecuador but not elsewhere in the Americas. Green line: the chromosomes were carried by the First American founder population 15–20Kya, but have been lost by drift from other present-day Native American populations examined. Blue line: they were introduced from Japan by a migration identified by archaeologists around 6Kya. Orange line: they were introduced from East Asia in the last generation or two. The violet line represents an ancestral population that split around 25–27Kya into the ancestors of present-day East Asians and Native Americans, and is incorporated into the demographic model used in this work.. From Mezavilla et al. (2015)

They rejected the Jomon admixture 6,000 years ago yet mentioned that "The estimated TMRCA for the combined Ecuadorian C3* chromosomes was 5.0–6.2Kya. The finding of this haplogroup in Ecuador was surprising because C3* is otherwise unreported from the Americas (apart from one example in Alaska), but is widespread and common in East Asia."

The sensitivity of the study is low. Imagine a boatload of Jomon people mixing into Native Americans, they would represent a low percentage of the total population, the study is not sensitive enough to measure low introgression rates: "The power to detect ancient admixture at these levels therefore depends on the sensitivity to detect the reduced admixture in the present-day population. For example, if 0.1% mean population admixture can be detected in the present-day population, we have ∼80% power to detect 5% ancient admixture and ∼100% power to detect 10% ancient admixture. If, instead, we could only detect 0.5% mean admixture in the present-day population, we have ∼0 power to detect 5% ancient admixture and ∼35% power to detect 10% ancient admixture... Immediately after a pulse of 10% migration, almost all individuals in the Admixed population have >5% and >1% admixture. 6Ky later, in the present-day population, about 1% of the Admixed individuals retain 5% admixture, and about 17% retain 1% admixture. In all simulations, negligible admixture is detected in the Control population. Overall, we have good power to detect 10% admixture that took place 6Kya, and some power to detect 5% ancient admixture." The authors indicate that "had good power to detect 1% recent admixture and 10% ancient admixture, with some power to detect 5% ancient admixture" which seems rather high, surely the impact of Jomon people would have been lower, probably it was amplified by genetic drift. Perhaps their Asian genes added some immunity to the Amerindians and this gave them a selective benefit when confronted with Spanish-introduced diseases after 1492.

It is interesting to point out that the Valdivia people lived (see google map) very close to the spot (Manta) where Inca Tupac Yupanqui learned that people in big boats came to trade with the local natives, and which have been assumed to be Polynesians. But, what if they were Japanese? Merchants who had kept up the transpacific contact for millennia...

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