Recently, there has been new evidence about Turtle Island and South America. Now it is thought that migration to the "New World" might have actually come from two sources:
Once in South America, it is thought that the new peoples spread in all directions over the millennia. DNA markers will help sort this all out. The Algonquian natives have legends about mass movements from the East.
DNA evidence shows that the Mohawks (Iroquois) have blood like those from North, Central, and South America in their A (4 parts), B (1 part), C (2 parts), and D (0 parts). A, B, C, D accounts for four common genetic variants called haplogroups. Lineage X is mostly in Mohawks (3X), Chippewa (2X), Cherokee (4X), and Cosmopolitan Mexican Blood (1X). The Iroquois were said to have traded with the Mexicans for many centuries before Columbus arrived in the Americas. They were thought to have traveled by staying close to the Atlantic coast. They could get to Mexico via this route by going around Florida up into the Gulf of Mexico, or by traveling the Mississippi river. The Mississippi is named from the old Ojibwe word misi-ziibi meaning "great river" (gichi-ziibi or "big river" is what it is called at its headwaters). The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States. The Missouri River is the Mississippi's longest tributary, which flows into the Mississippi. Together, they form the largest river system in North America. Together, the length of the Missouri-Mississippi combination is approximately 3900 miles (6300 km). This makes the Mississippi-Missouri combination the 3rd longest river in the world. The Mississippi originates at Lake Itasca at 1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park located in Clearwater County, Minnesota, and it flows down to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Great Lakes could take the Iroquois from the present day Akwesasne Mohawk First Nation down Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario they canoed into Lake Erie. The lake is named after the Erie tribe of Native Americans who lived along its southern shore before being killed off or driven away by European settlers. Lake Erie is primarily fed by the Detroit River (from Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair) and drains via the Niagara River and Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario. The Détroit River or "River of the Strait" was named thus by the French . The name is a reference to the fact that the river connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. The French voyageurs, the first non-natives to navigate the river and land on Detroit's shores. Canoes made of birch or elm bark were a common mode of travel across the river. From the Detroit River they French and the Indians could both paddle up Lake Huron until they came to the Straits of Mackinaw, where Lake Michigan joins Lake Huron. They would then travel from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan until they came to the Menominee River. The Menominee would take them near the copper areas. The name of the river comes from the name of an Algonquian language term meaning "wild rice," or "in the place of wild rice," named for the Menominee tribe who lived in the area and subsisted on the plant.
Copper artifacts show that long before Europeans arrived, native Americans throughout the upper midwest used the metal for making a variety of ornaments,
tools, utensils, and weapons. It is probable that numerous tribes made summer pilgrimages to the Upper Peninsula to get supplies of the precious metal.
They used Copper for jewelry and amulets. The Indians had not mined the copper but had found it scattered on the surface west of Pictured Rocks. They cou;d have reached the Pictured Rocks via Lake Michigan by traveling up the Menominee River and then over land until they came to the Mosquito River which emptied out to Lake Erie. This is not clear. However, since Lake Superior was a dangerous lake they most likely would not travel its shorelines.
To continue about the genetics, the X gene is found in Shoshone (1X) and Lakota (1X) blood, but in a lesser degree. Iroquois legends tell of trade between the Lakota and the Iroquois. The X gene stands for those that came from Eurasian blood, as an ancient link. The X factor is common in Asia or Northeastern Asia. Modern Taino (1X) Native American Indians have this gene in a small amount, while the ancient Taino had only the C and D variants. The Taino Indians might have been a stop on their way to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Inuit only have the A gene, while the Bellacoola and Athabaskan only have 1/2 of 1 of this X gene.
This would seem to prove the theory that the Chinese came to this continent.
Since Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia and includes the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic and volcanic activity.
The Indian Ocean is much calmer than the Atlantic so travel through this area would have been easier.
Southeast Asia consists of the Asian mainland, and island arcs and archipelagoes to the east and southeast. The Asian mainland section consists of Cambodia, Laos, a part of Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. These people are primarily Tai peoples and Austroasiatic peoples. Their dominant religion is Buddhism. The Southeast Asian archipelago consists of Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Austronesian peoples predominate in this region, and the dominant religion is Islam followed by Christianity.
The region's chief cultural influences have been from either China, or India, or both, with Myanmar being notably a part of undivided India and Vietnam considered by far the most Chinese-influenced.
The Chinese traveled to Austraila often after the first trip was made by Zhou Man.
In Gavin Menzies' book, he says:
"The fleets of Hong Bao and Zhou Man would have sighted the coast of what is now Brazil approximately three weeks after leaving the Cape Verde Islands." It was said the they named this continent Fusang after the pear trees that grew there. The red pears, had edible shoots and bark the inhabitants used for paper and clothing. Fusang was the maguey trees that grow only in Central and South America.
What is interesting is that Mayan names for the birds (Kek or Ki) are the same in Chinese. The first Europeans were surprised to see that many plants and animals that were unique to China were also unique to South America. It is not sure whether South American plants were taken back to China, before Europeans went there; or whether Chinese plants were taken to South America. Asiatic chickens lay blue eggs and so do they in Chile and Mexico, whereas European hens lay white or off-white eggs. Many Asian chickens were also found in South America when early Europeans arrived. Maize originated in the Americas and was unknown in China before Zheng He's voyages. There is strong evidence that maize was taken to China before 1496, when Christopher Columbus "discovered America." The Chinese were in South America in 1421, some 21 years before.
Sources:
Menzies, Gavin. 1421 The Year China Discovered America.New York: William Morrow, 2002.
Schurr, Theodore G. "Miochondrial DNA Diversity in Southeast Asia Populations," Human Biology - Volume 74, Number 3, June 2002, pp. 431-45.
Schurr, Theodore G. The Peopling of the New World: Perpectives from Molecular Anthropology. 2004.
This page was last updated on February 4, 2007
