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Monday, October 15, 2007

Ancient Tibetans in America, or Vice-Versa?

It goes something like this: ending roughly 11,000 years ago, depending upon what you choose to believe, there was a long period of human migration from Asia to the Americas across the Bering Straits land bridge. The precise modalities of this are, of course, hotly debated in scientific circles, but we do know there was some form of migration---that fact, at least, is "carved in the bones" we find in the United States. In this country we find the bones of camels and so forth, and we also do DNA analysis of human remains. We also find striking similarities between certain aspects of the Tibetan culture and that of the Native Americans. Taken as a whole, the suggestion is that ancient peoples from what is now Tibet (or was until the Chinese got hold of it) crossed the land bridge to become the first settlers in America.

Still, recent discoveries--- of 50,000 year old "native" Americans--- suggest another possibility: what if the migration went in the other direction?

Fun to think about, isn't it?