American Indigenous languages and Chinese influences in the pre-colonialism

October 30, 2013

English 8005

Pidgins and Creoles in the Caribbean

Dr. Alleyne

Analysis by: Pablo Fernández Colón

842-74-3010

While analyzing different readings, articles and various

types of documents (such as ppt, videos and others alike),

different theories concerning American Indigenous languages

and Chinese influences in the pre-colonialism are reviewed

and discussed in this paper.

Origins of Amerindians and other indigenous inhabitants in

America:

On the following link:

http://www.monografias.com/trabajos26/asia-y-america/asia-y-

america.shtml#ixzz2hw5ynxSH, there are basically three (3)

theories concerning the routes used by the first setlers of

the Americas. The most accepted one has been the coming

through the Bering Passage around 1,400 – 1,200 years ago

during the Post glaciar age, when the northern region of

Asia (Siberia) was connected to the Northern Region of

America (Alaska, Canada, US), around 10,000 years ago. (see

illustration below) as defended by Joseph de Acosta a

Jesuist by end of XVI century. About 300 years later, it was

also defended by the Austrian-American Alex Hrdlicka

http://www.buenastareas.com/ensayos/Teor%C3%ADas-Sobre-Los-

Primeros-Pobladores-De/1292079.html.

Based on DNA mitocondrial, Rothhammer postulated that:

‘…una sola gran migración hacia América, iniciada hace unos

25 mil años, pobló nuestro continente cruzando desde lo que

hoy es Asia a través del estrecho de Bering”; this is that a

single migration came from Asia to America near 25,000 years

ago; coming through the Bering Passage or Estrecho de Bering as

cited on:

http://www.escolares.net/historia-universal/teorias-

poblamiento-americano/.

A secong hypothesis was the one presented by Paul Rivet that

argues they came from the Transpacific or transoceanic

islands (Polinessian to Western America) as illustrated

below. This position serves as base to sustain the

similarities between Polinessians American Aborigens in

terms of physical, cultural and linguistic traits.

And finally the third theory which considers their coming

from Asia to Australia and from Australia, by the Antartic

Ocean, to South America, proposed by George Montandon.

Based ot this third theory (The Antartic Theory) the first

american setlers came from Asia via Antartida and populating

the Americas from South to North, as opposed to the Bering

Theory. Mendes Correa a Portuguese anthropologist was the

first defendant of the Polinessian theory.

http://www.banrepcultural.org/museo-del-oro/sociedades/

primeros-pobladores/colombia-puerta-de-ingreso-a-suramerica

“La Teoría Antártica reconoce el origen asiático de los

americanos, pero postula que pudieron pasar desde Australia

a la Antártica, gracias a una regresión glacial, que

permitió su sobrevivencia en ese continente, y de allí a

América poblándola de sur a norte” as opposed to the Bering

Theory which established:

“La llegada de grupos humanos al continente americano se calcula hace 30.000

o 40.000 años, edad propuesta en base a numerosos hallazgos en la región

noroccidental del continente (Estrecho de Bering, Alaska, Canadá y Estados

Unidos) que, además, ratifican a Asia como la región de origen de estos

pobladores ”(See illustrations above).

From these three main theories a series of studies

concerning DNA traits of Asians and Amerindians, mainly

Perubians in the Pacific coast of South America (Perú,Chile

and Colombia) have shown close similarities in terms of

their Blood type (mainly O) as well as physical traits

(http://www.escolares.net/historia-universal/teorias-

poblamiento-americano/,

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/22/dna-study-traces-

ancestry-of-native-americans-to-beijing/ and

http://descubriramerica.wordpress.com/).

Before Christopher Columbus, Chinese were also in America:

as it is cited next:

“Looking westward from America across the Pacific to China,

let us next consider another bit of pre-Columbian

navigation. Zheng He departed China in A.D. 1430 commanding

a fleet of sixty vessels manned by a crew of 27,000 men. His

flagship measured 140 meters long (one-and-a-half times the

length of a modern football field) and could sail against or

with the wind.[15] Such massiveness was not reached again in

the known history of navigation until we began to build

aircraft carriers in this century. Following visits to

Arabia and East Africa, Zheng He returned to China. On one

trip his cargo included a live giraffe for the imperial zoo

that was recorded in an extant contemporary painting.

[15] The exhibition catalog China: 7000 Years of Discovery

(Toronto, 1982), pp. 8–9, discusses Zheng He’s seven voyages

into the western oceans 1405–1433, and shows a photograph of

a model of his flagship and a map of his routes. The

exhibition itself, which I visited twice in the summer of

1985 at Boston’s Museum of Science, was outstanding.

Unfortunately, but characteristic of a line of modern

thinking about ancient navigation, the catalog text ends its

discussion of Zheng He’s achievements with this unwarranted

assumption (demonstrably erroneous for numerous ancient

voyages): “None of these triumphs of navigation would have

been possible without the compass which had been invented in

China.”

Certain cultural parallels between ancient China and Peru

suggest Chinese influence in the Cupisnique-Chavin, Moche,

Nazca, and Chimu cultures that existed along Peru’s coastal

desert from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 1400. Numerous

nineteenth- and twentieth -century scholars have observed

linguistic, epigraphic, artistic, religious-cosmological,

and technological parallels suggestive of such influence.

[16] .

[16]See George Carter’s good summary, “Chinese Contacts with

America,” Anthropological Journal of Canada 14, no. 1 (1976), pp.

10–24; Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4

(Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1971, Part

III, esp. pp. 540–43; R. A. Jairazbhoy, Ancient Egyptians and

Chinese in America (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield,

1974); Paul Shao, Asiatic Influences in Pre-Columbian American Art

(Ames, Ia.: Iowa State University Press, 1976); and recently

deceased Henriette Merz’s more speculative Pale Ink: Two Ancient

Records of Chinese Exploration in America (Chicago: Swallow Press,

1953; revised 1972).

More recently studies have shown additional insights in

these regards:

“Present-day Asians and Native Americans are descended from a group of people

who were already in China 40,000 years ago, according to an analysis of fossil

DNA published this week” Svante Paabo, of the Max Planck

Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology cites: The genetic

analysis from the ancient bone showed similarities to genetic profiles from

modern-day Asians and Native Americans, the researchers explained.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/, By Agence France-Presse

posted on: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 21:10 EDT.

Additional DNA traits were reviewed in Periódico Mercurio from

Chile signaling the following conclusions:

“En un artículo publicado por el Mercurio, se dice que en el pueblo Chinchorro,

que habitó desde lo que hoy es Ilo (Perú) a Antofagasta, entre los años 6 mil y 2

mil Antes de Cristo, podrían estar las claves del poblamiento aborigen de nuestro

país, según modelos paleomigratorios elaborados por el Programa de Genética

Humana de la Universidad de Chile.

Científicos descifran datos genéticos conservados gracias a técnicas mortuorias

desarrolladas por ese pueblo de pescadores y recolectores, que habito el norte

chileno entre el 6 mil y el 2 mil antes de Cristo”.

How the Perubians acquired their DNA similarities with other

North and Central Indigenous?

According to the studies conducted by Rothhammer,

(Transpacific Theory), he established the following:

“En relación al poblamiento de Sudamérica, su modelo plantea que hubo una migración única al subcontinente iniciada hace unos 15 mil años. Desde el istmo de Panamá un grupo paleoindio se desplazó hacia el sur para asentarse en el Altiplano, mientras que otro se internó hacia la floresta tropical del este.

Cerca del 2 mil Antes de Cristo un grupo proto arawak se desplazó por el río Amazonas hasta la ceja de selva boliviana y subió al Altiplano para mezclarse con el grupo anterior en torno al lago Titicaca. De estas poblaciones, algunos grupos se desprendieron al Pacífico.

“Esta mezcla de grupos paleoindios y proto arawak habría dado origen a la población andina que, a juicio de Rothhammer, es base en los aportes genéticos

de los aborígenes chilenos.” http://www.escolares.net/historia-universal/teorias-poblamiento-americano/.

Aleš Hrdlička (1869-1943), as well as the works done by the

linguist Joseph Greenberg, paleoantropólogist Christy Turner

and genetist Stephen Zegura, in a co-authors work published

in "El Poblamiento de América: Una comparación de la evidencia lingüística,

dental y genética".6. .: GREENBERG; TURNER; & ZEGURA (1986)

They provide abundant inputs to the theory of Asian-

Amerindian genesis. Each one of them provides information

regards to Linguistics, Anthropological and Genetic (Blood

group studies).

Moreover, other anthropologists suggest that Colombia was

the “gate to the Asians into the Americas Colombia: la

puerta de ingreso a Suramérica ,

http://www.banrepcultural.org/museo-del-oro/sociedades/prime

ros-pobladores/colombia-puerta-de-ingreso-a-suramerica.

http://www.banrepcultural.org/museo-del-oro/sociedades/

primeros-pobladores/colombia-puerta-de-ingreso-a-suramerica

According to this theory, Colombia in the Post-glaciar age

(30,000 to 40,000 years ago), as the Bering Passage, it also

had diferent geographical conditions as cited herein:

“Colombia -que dado su carácter de país simultáneamente

centroamericano, caribeño y andino ha sido siempre un eje de

flujo e intercambio entre las dos Américas- fue un punto

estratégico de penetración y colonización de todo el sur del

continente.”

This is, because Colombia shares access to both North and

South America, as a Central-American, Caribbean and Andino

country, a logical and estrategical route to the Americas it

should certainly be (Colombia).

The evidence presented for the sustainability of this thesis

is based on the following:

“En Colombia se han hallado vestigios de estos primeros

pobladores desde hace 16.000 años. Hace 5.000 años, según

huellas registradas por los arqueólogos, muchos grupos

decidieron asentarse y poner en práctica su gran

conocimiento del medio para empezar a cultivar. Las

poblaciones crecieron y con el tiempo nombraron líderes y

caciques para coordinar su vida política y ritual. Hace sólo

unos 2.500 años, estos líderes empezaron a usar la

orfebrería como símbolo de su poder.”

This is, archeological findings as far as 16,000 years old

demonstrates the presence of ancient setlers in Colombia,

mainly agriculture-related wokers who, between 5,000 to

2,500 years ago, had workedtheir land and had left in their

arts as a symbol of their power

http://www.banrepcultural.org/museo-del-oro/sociedades/prime

ros-pobladores/colombia-puerta-de-ingreso-a-suramerica.

If we combine Rothhammer’s, Mendes Correa’s and George

Montandon’s theories as a second or subsequent emigration

from earlier pacific polinessian-chinesse-asians who came to

South America via Australia-Antártica in its “óptimun

climáticus”, and establised themselves first in the souther

region of Chile: The Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego as it is

cited:

“Casi al mismo tiempo esclavos australianos provenientes de

Polinesia penetraron el continente americano a través de

Tierra de Fuego en pequeñas embarcaciones marinas, esta

hipótesis se sustenta en hallazgos con vestigios humanos en

Monte Verde, Chile que datan de hace 13,000 años”

http://answers.yahoo.com/activity?

show=OTIQBSL42H5N6WOHTABRPWL2S4&t=g, and afterwards, moved

north up to Colombia and North America, a second proposed

route almost simultaneously to the proposed by George

Montandon of Chilenian coast, can be reunited as the South

American Route, near 13,000 years ago.

Other scientists still suggest the idea of a Unified Theory, as

it is directly cited:

“Teoría unificada: La teorías más aceptada hasta la fecha

indica que los primeros pobladores llegaron a América

provenientes de Asia principalmente de la región de Siberia

y el sudeste asiático y penetraron el continente americano a

través del estrecho de Bering o Beringia hace

aproximadamente 13,000 años dispersándose hacia el sur a

través de dos rutas de migración, una por la costa este del

Pacifico y otra a través de una zona libre de hielo por el

centro de Canadá.” As it is suggested in the following link:

http://answers.yahoo.com/activity?

show=OTIQBSL42H5N6WOHTABRPWL2S4&t=g.

But certainly one common element is present in all the

possible theories previously discussed: The existence of an

Asian-American contact in years 13,000 or so; much more

earlier than the “discovery” of America by Christopher

Columbus in the years 1492 and 1493 coming from the East of

Spain: leaving from Puerto de Palos.

Concluding paragraph: as it has been suggested by REICH,

David, et. al. 2012 Reconstructing Native American

population history Nature 2012 DOI: doi:10.1038/nature11258,

whatever has been establish as the history of America and

its earlier setlers, needs to be reconstructed. A second

consideration would be the proposed by CAVALLI-SFORZA, L.

L., et. al. (1988). «Reconstruction of human evolution:

Bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic

data».

«A new genetic map of living humans in interconnected world

regions». DNA Tribes.