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.