Linguistic Light on a Continent=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Peopling (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Linguistic Light on a Continent’s PeoplingBy NICHOLAS WADEMARCH 12, 2014
NYT

Using a new method for exploring ancient relationships among languages,
linguists have found evidence further illuminating the peopling of North
America about 14,000 years ago. Their findings follow a recent proposal
that the ancestors of Native Americans were marooned for some 15,000 years
on a now sunken plain before they reached North America.

This idea, known as the Beringian standstill hypothesis, has been developed
by geneticists and archaeologists over the last seven years. It holds that
the ancestors of Native Americans did not trek directly across the land
bridge that joined Siberia to Alaska until the end of the last ice age,
10,000 years ago. Rather, geneticists say, these ancestors must have lived
in isolation for some 15,000 years to accumulate the amount of DNA
mutations now seen specifically in Native Americans.

Access full article below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/science/linguistic-study-sheds-new-light-on-peopling-of-north-america.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=0
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