Mapuches take UN see in Chile

This happens after two days ago they briefly took other UN offices in Santiago (International Work Organization and Economic Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean). 

As the hunger strike of Mapuche prisoners goes beyond the 70 days and government and prisoners failed to reach an agreement last Friday, native organization Maulen Huanchu took yesterday the offices of the United Nations in Santiago de Chile with intent of remaining there indefinitely.

Source: Gara.

Hoabinhian neolithic site

Issue #36 of Stone Pages' bulletin, Archaeo News, has arrived to my mailbox with at least one item worth mentioning

New Neolithic (Hoabinhian) site found in North Vietnam

The cave, known as Tham Choong, (Na Hang district, Tuyen Quang province) is dated to 8000-7000 years ago. The tools belong to the Hoabinhian culture, which lasted from some 34,000 years ago to c. 2000 BCE, spanning through Paleolithic and Neolithic.

The thousand or so stone tools recovered served for cutting, chopping and grinding. Bone tools were also found, including a sharply pointed one that archaeologists believe was used for stitching the bark clothes they probably used.

Source: Vietnam News.

Other news

Check the newsletter for other news, such as digs in North America (Utah, already mentioned here from another source, Wyoming, Wisconsin) and Britain (Bronze Age cremation cemetery at projected commercial center near Inverness, Scotland, Bronze Age person from the Isle of Man died violently, trekking path projected between Avebury and Stonehenge, etc.) 

There's also a mention on Timothy Taylor's hypothesis on the baby sling being a decisive invention in human evolution (I'm a bit skeptic but who knows?)

More importantly maybe, Paola and Diego mention that they are heading again to Sardinia, accompanied by archaeologist George Nash, with the intention of persuading the authorities to open the badly sealed and spectacular Tomba della Scacchiera (image below), a Megalithic site that has serious conservation risks and also has a strong touristic potential (already mentioned at Leherensuge).

'Clovis impact' theory finds new support

I briefly mentioned two weeks ago that the Clovis impact theory had been rejected. The argument being that nanodiamonds (lonsdaleite or n-diamonds) were not such but mere graphene.

But now researchers from US universities, working with Greenland ice cores, have found the controversial "diamonds" in an ice layer roughly dated to that same fateful date of c. 12,900 years ago. Furthermore, the analysis seems to confirm these are genuine n-diamonds and that:

... the shape and size of the Greenland n-diamonds suggest that they formed not by shock metamorphism but rather by processes such as high-temperature CVD and/or high-explosive detonation, which duplicate conditions known to occur during a cosmic impact.

The authors also examined lonsdaleite from Caravaca (Spain) and Needles Point (New Zealand), concluding that they also seem to support the impact theory.

Of course, it is possible that the NDs in Greenland formed through some as-yet undiscovered natural process other than cosmic impact; however, that seems unlikely, since intense diamond research spanning more than a century indicates that the formation of NDs, and lonsdaleite in particular, requires extraordinary temperature, pressure and redox conditions that rule out natural processes that occur either on or below the surface of the Earth (DeCarli and others, 2002).

The theory known as 'Clovis imapact' or 'Younger Dryas event' claims that a sizable meteorite hit Earth, possibly in North America, c. 12,900 years ago, causing the cold millennium known as Younger Dryas, just before the definitive post-glacial warming that marks the beginning of the end of the Paleolithic era. This impact would have been decisive in the megafauna extinctions that defined that time

Ref. Andrei V. Kurbatov et al., Discovery of a nanodiamond-rich layer in the Greenland ice sheet. Journal of Glaciology, 2010. (Direct PDF link).

Found originally at Science Daily.

Mapuche prisoners: 52 days in hunger strike

The hunger strike of Mapuche prisoners in Chile reaches today the 52nd day. In practical terms this means that they are beginning to notice the hard effects of the fast, losing muscle tissue and beginning to affect major organs as the liver, kidneys and heart. Their life is at risk.

The strikers demand the abolition of the anti-terrorist law by which they are being judged, under accusations of attacks and road blockades demanding that their ancestral lands be returned to the Mapuche communities.

The government is showing signs of weakness in this nonviolent struggle, and is asking, since tuesday, that the prisoners stop their hunger strike on promises of law reform. This announcement was welcomed by Mapuche organizations that demand hurrying up the procedure.

The strike began on July 12 in the prisons of Concepción and Temuco and has been joined by other prisoners gradually. The anti-terrorist law is a fascist law passed by Pinochet dictatorship and allows the imprisonment of suspects without charges for unlimited periods. If found guilty, the penalty is multiplied by three automatically.

The law is seldom applied to white Chileans but is systematically used against Mapuches, who are fighting for the return of their communal lands and their right to self-rule. The independent Mapuche polity was invaded by Chile in the 19th century and has no recognized autonomy.

The Appeal Court authorized prison guards to use forced feeding on striking prisoners.

Source: Gara.

This fight has, as so many other important news, got no room in mainstream media, either in Spanish or English. Many wonder if this happened in Cuba or Venezuela, what kind of media reaction would it trigger. This in turn causes deep concern for the situation of freedom of speech and journalism in general in the so called Western World. And this is not the only case: what do you know of the real situation Louisiana oil spill and its real effects on the people living at the Gulf of Mexico? If you are only following mainstream media: nothing at all! A very bad situation for information freedom the one we have.

'Clovis impact' theory rejected

No nanodiamonds are found.

I reported last year on the novel theory that a meteorite may have caused megafauna extinction in North America (specially) at the end of Pleistocene. This theory relied heavily on alleged evidence of nanodiamonds (carbon spherules containing lonsdaleite, a carbon crystal likened to diamonds and found only in meteorites).

This evidence seems now to be nowhere. That is at least what Tyrone Daulton of Washington University claims: that it is nothing but graphene (graphite) what has been mistaken for lonsdaleite, an error that had happened before.

Source: Science Daily (no paper linked and too lazy to search it myself).

Utah mesolithic

From Science Daily (press release, no known paper).

People inhabiting southern Utah's Escalante Valley used hand mills some 10,000 years ago to grind seeds to make flour. This kind of economy is generally considered Mesolithic¹ (transitional from Paleolithic hunter-gatherer to Neolithic "production" economy) in other contexts and it is very revealing to find ancient Native Americans doing the same that their contemporaries in West Asia, North Africa or China were doing about that same time.

Hunt continued however but it's very possible that the millers of Utah were already creating the conceptual and economical scenario for the eventual Neolithic revolution (farming) in America.

Update: Julien Riel-Salvatore has a nice article on these findings.

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¹ Note: I follow the school that uses the term Mesolithic only for cultures that do display that transitional economy, other contemporary cultures that do not show any sign of transition towards Neolithic are best called Epipaleolithic. However I must mention that others use the term Mesolithic indiscriminately for all post-Glacial pre-Neolithic cultures.

Oaxaca: police attacks civilians at San Juan Copala

The communities in resistance of the Triqui people or Oaxaca, Mexico, whose uphill struggle against the paramilitaries of UBISORT, supported by the state, was mentioned here before on two occasions, denounced yesterday that the state police has attacked the people of San Juan Copala, murdering two young sisters: Selena and Adela Ramírez López, 18 and 15 years old respectively. Two men are also reported missing: Alfredo Martínez and Hipólito Merino.

The attack happened at noon (12:15 local time) when groups of heavily armed UBISORT militias and state policemen entered the autonomous village of San Juan Copala, taking the town hall by force.

Earlier, on July 26th, UBISORT paramilitary groups shot for hours against the village, injuring María Rosa Francisco, 35, when she went for wood. She is still missing. They also killed dozens of domestic animals.

On July 29th, Anastacio Juárez, brother of the leader of UBISORT Rufino Juárez, was murdered. The murder bears, according to the locals, the signature of an guvernamental execution, as there are precedents in which high leaders of repression have been murdered so they cannot speak in court and this serves also to rally the paramilitary bandits and to criminalize the popular movement that has been so far strictly nonviolent.

By 14:20 yesterday, the state police left the town but the paramilitaries are still entrenched in the town hall.

Full communications at La Haine (in Spanish).

Las Palmas woman and sloppy anthropometry

I read today that some authors are casting controversy on the origin of Native Americans on the grounds of a tentative reconstruction of the Las Palmas woman, a quite complete skeleton found in 2002 at Tulum (Quintana Roo, Mexico) dating to c. 12,000 years ago.

The woman, who died in her 40s, is said to be more related by phenotype to modern inhabitants of SE Asia than to those of NE Asia or Siberia. However some of the descriptions I read of the details appear totally meaningless, for instance (cited at The Guardian and Yahoo News from AP):

Her body structure, skin and eyes are similar to the population of Southeast Asia.

Hold on! Her skin?! How on earth can they know absolutely anything about her skin?! It's plainly impossible. And what about the eyes: the only thing they can know about the eyes refers to the eye sockets, nothing else: they can't know eye color, intensity of epicantic fold, etc.

So what do we have left? Body structure. And there is not even a single link to any paper dealing with the matter, so we can ponder how serious and well pondered is this claim (it doesn't look very serious considering context, right?)

Whatever the case, this is the reconstruction made in Paris following the patterns given by Mexican anthropogists of the Las Palmas woman:




And this is the original skull when it was still laying in the inundated cave of Las Palmas:


I'm not really sure if a woman in her 40s would look so elderly, with grayed eye and all, nor much less that her skin would be so white, considering what is common today among Native Americans but whatever.

One good point is made by Susan Gillespie (cited at Red Orbit):

You have to find skeletons of the same time period in Asia, or use genetic reconstructions, to make a strong connection, and cannot rely on modern populations. Do we have any empirical data on what Southeast Asian women looked like ... 10,000 years ago?

Anyhow, let's assume for a moment that the speculation is correct, cannot it be that the SE Asian phenotype range actually reflects an older type, let's call it proto-Mongoloid, once widespread in all Eastern Asia and only later evolved into/displaced by the modern Mongoloid archetype somewhat common now in NE Asia? I am pretty much for that explanation because in my humble opinion some Amerindians do resemble more some non-central East Asians than archetypal Mongoloids from around Beijing. Not only SE Asians (also) but sometimes peripheral Central Asian populations like Tibetans too.

Of course, the phenotype variability among Native Americans is so wide that it's not like we can consider any single unique phenotype. Some are big nosed with angular heads (typical of the Andes for instance) not reminding at all of the usual Mongoloid archetype, others instead are pretty close to the Mongoloid standard and many indeed give a SE Asian vibe while yet others are intermediate between these and other categories, even with some cases of extreme short size tendencies only comparable to Pygmies in this aspect (some Maya groups). There is not any unique Native American phenotype nor there is any unique East Asian phenotype either, even if there are often elements of convergence between the various groups and individuals.

And of course we have only a very limited sample of ancient individual phenotypes, which can at best give us with a most diffuse impression of how Paleolithic East Asian and Native Americans might have looked.

So please... let's be very cautious.

Mitochondrial lineage C1d in South America questions the two migrations hypothesis

An interesting new paper for those interested in the process of colonization of America.

Hugo A. Perego et al. The initial peopling of the Americas: A growing number of founding mitochondrial genomes from Beringia. Genomic Research, 2010. Open access.


Abstract

Pan-American mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup C1 has been recently subdivided into three branches, two of which (C1b and C1c) are characterized by ages and geographical distributions that are indicative of an early arrival from Beringia with Paleo-Indians. In contrast, the estimated ages of C1d—the third subset of C1—looked too young to fit the above scenario. To define the origin of this enigmatic C1 branch, we completely sequenced 63 C1d mitochondrial genomes from a wide range of geographically diverse, mixed, and indigenous American populations. The revised phylogeny not only brings the age of C1d within the range of that of its two sister clades, but reveals that there were two C1d founder genomes for Paleo-Indians. Thus, the recognized maternal founding lineages of Native Americans are at least 15, indicating that the overall number of Beringian or Asian founder mitochondrial genomes will probably increase extensively when all Native American haplogroups reach the same level of phylogenetic and genomic resolution as obtained here for C1d.

Fig. 2
In parenthesis percentage of sequences at SMGF database,
from which the regional apportions are deduced

Update: Speaking to La Voz de Galicia[es], one of the co-researchers, Antonio Salas, claims that the molecular clock estimates they got imply not only that the Paleolithic colonization of America happened between 15 and 18 thousand years ago but also that the colonists spread extremely rapidly across the double continent: in less than one thousand years (found at Pileta de Prehistoria).

Canada's Aboriginal "insurgency"

Something I noticed a few days ago when reviewing the last year at Leherensuge was that I have proportionally many Canadian readers. With 34 million people, Canada cannot be considered a large country by population (it is by mere geographic size, of course) but still lists 4th among the readers of this blog, with some 1500 visits in the last 12 months.

So I imagine that they may be interested in reading this article by Jon Elmer at Al Jazeera on what seems to be growing conflict between the Aboriginal minority and the state on a long trail of unsolved problems such as poor services, poverty and effective inequality with other Canadians. They may also want to give their opinion, which I am interested in and I welcome.

Very briefly: Elmer points to the latest history where Aboriginal Canadians have resourced to blockades (what reminds me a bit of the actions of Native American communities elsewhere in the continent, particularly in Bolivia but also in other countries) threatening the economical infrastructure of Canada, largely based on extraction of natural resources and transport through nearly empty swathes of land that are mostly populated by Aborigines.

Aboriginal peoples constitute the largest ethnicity in the areas shaded in brown and magenta (this last represents Inuits)
(from Wikipedia)

This has been occasionally considered "insurgency" and suggested to be dealt as such via counter-insurgency methods such as those used in Afghanistan.

He also mentions how the number of Aboriginal Canadians in prison is totally disproportionate and that ethnic gangs are recruiting there. These gangs seem to be increasingly politicized and often resort to "Robin Hood" style of crime: robbing the rich and white to give, at least partly, to the poor and native.

The most recent case of blockade I know of happened just nine days ago, with police arresting the demonstrators including Acting Chief Benjamin Notaway of the Algonquin nation. While I don't know all the details it seems from the news article that the government is using in this case the typical Latin American method of promoting a corrupt minority faction as the official "representation". Well, actually that happens also here in the Basque Country... so not really surprised.

Feel free to discuss because to me it is a rather ill-known development (you won't read about this growing conflict usually in international media) but one which should not be hidden and that can eventually has important repercussions, I imagine.

Oaxaca caravan stopped

I reported yesterday on the solidarity caravan with the Triqui people of Oaxaca, that has constituted itself in autonomous municipality in order to confront the many abuses of the oligarchy, suffering since then the attacks and total siege of a paramilitary gang called UBISORT, which is supported by the authorities and oligarchs.

The caravan made most of its planned journey in spite of police harassment while solidarity demonstrations took place in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Greece. However upon arrival to the Triqui district they decided to stop and go back to Huajanapan de León because it was very apparent that UBISORT militias were ready to ambush them, shooting at the distance in sign of warning.

The demonstration at Mexico DF was also attacked and the reports say that Oaxaca City is now full of policemen in plain clothes.

The caravan has yet to decide if they make a second attempt to breach the paramilitary siege of the indigenous community, which is in dire need of everything.

More information (in Spanish) at La Haine, Indymedia Chiapas and Radio Plantón (audio).

Civilian caravan set to breach paramilitary control in Oaxaca

Not substantially different from what happened this past week at the Mediterranean but much less likely to reach the front pages, or even any page at all, of the international media.

I already reported a month ago on how a paramilitary gang, UBISORT, at the service of the Oaxacan oligarchy, lead by Governor Ulises Ruiz, attacked a civilian caravan in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, when they tried to breach their siege of the indigenous autonomous municipalities, murdering two, Betty Cariño and Jiry Jaakola.

Now the civil society of the southern Mexican state is willing again to risk their lives to challenge the impunity of the death squads and to bring emotional and material support to the isolated indigenous community of San Juan Copala, where several journalists and activists have already been murdered in the struggle between the democratic self-rule of the people and the landlords.

The risk is huge, like the Zionists, the paramilitary gangs at the service of the Mexican and multinational oligarchy are ready to kill. The members of the Misión Copala know this but still they march.

The Triqui people have no water, electricity, food nor medicines because of the siege by the death squads.

Spanish alternative information site La Haine is covering this new caravan on daily basis starting today (in Spanish language only).

Some archeological news

Stone pages' Archaeo News bulletin is back to normality and I think these items are worth mentioning:

• England: discovered cairn complex at Otley, Yorkshire. More at The Northern Antiquarian.
• Australia: ongoing research at Kimberley hopes to find clues of earliest inhabitants. More at The Australian.
• USA: underwater black chert source at North Carolina suggest coastal migration of Paleo-Indians. More at Star News.
  
• Oman: a 5000 years old cemetery. More at Gulf Times.
• Bahrain: Dilmun culture's burial mounds will be researched before massive development destroys them. More at Gulf Daily.
• India: stone circles' complex largely destroyed in development at Thiruporur, Tamil Nadu. More at the Megalithic Portal (another reference site).

One of the surviving stone circles of Thiruporur (from the Megalithic Portal)

You can discuss these news and much more at Stone Pages' forums.

Mapuche nation creates Parliament

In January 29th, representatives of the Mapuche communities, accompanied by their lawyer, went to the presidential palace in Santiago de Chile to inform of this constituent action that they hope is not again accused of "illicit association".

The Parliament has as goals to be active participants of the constitutional recognition of the Mapuche nation and the implementation of convention 169 of the International Labour Organization.

For Jorge Huenchullan, Werken (president) of the new Parliament says that its creation means a new uprising of the Mapuche communities that are really in the struggle for land recuperation and reivindication and for regaining the civil rights that have been denied to the Mapuche in Chile. He states that the first goal of the Mapuche Parliament will be to expel the logging companies from the lands they have usurped, as well as the colonists in Mapuche territory. They plan to do so by legal means.

They also intend to work against the political repression they are suffering with indiscriminate arrests and even murders.

They are realist enough to acknowledge that the Chilean government has no intention of solving the conflict in any way that might favor the Mapuche nation. They denounce that the new Chilean president, Piñera, is a repressor who has direct interests with the logging companies and the death squads they maintain.

Source: Rebelión.

Anti-Mapuche repression in Chile reaches Basques

Basque writer and musician Asel Luzarraga was arrested on December 31 accused of participating in a bomb attack against an official building in Temuco (Mapuche Country). Yesterday the Chilean authorities ratified the arrest, claiming that Asel is a "danger for society".

Asel Luzarraga

The Basque writer has since the beginning rejected any relation with the attack. According to his family he is alright but "in state of shock" because of the unexpected accusations and arrest.

The Uruguayan NGO, Euskal Herriaren Lagunak (Friends of the Basque Country) has presented a writ at the Chilean embassy in Montevideo supporting his innocence and demanding his immediate liberation. His acquaintances have also created a blog asking for signatures in support of his freedom. The Basque Pen Club also asked for his release.

Internationalist NGO Askapena (Freedom) has declared that the only and true reason for Asel's imprisoning is that the Chilean regime does not want witnesses of its aggression against the Mapuche nation.

The Mapuche (also known as Araucanians) are a proud native nation of South America that remained independent, under just formal Spanish overlordship, until the 1880s, when Chile invaded the country. As result, the Mapuche people have suffered since then extreme poverty and marginalization, seeing their lands robbed by the Chilean state and colonists.

In the last decades though the Mapuches have repeatedly confronted the central state by either nonviolent or violent means, the return to democracy of Chile only saw makeup reforms in what regards to the indigenous nation and hence the conflict has spiralled, with brutal repression from the state that nevertheless has seen nearly no echo in the international media.

There are many parallels between Basque and Mapuche history in spite of being so different peoples: we are both aboriginal nations, invaded by foreigners and impossed alien laws against our will and our sovereign rights as nations.

Source: Gara.

Agriculture spread through cultural diffussion in SW USA

This should not be really surprising to those who have read for instance George Catlin's diary, who reports seasonal use of green maize as complement to an otherwise hunter diet among the Mandan (a people from further north anyhow). Some peoples in the early stages of transition to agriculture may have adopted only certain, more profitable aspects of the new technology, making a slow transition.

William R. Merrill et al., The diffusion of maize to the southwestern United States and its impact. PNAS 2009. Not open access yet, news article at Science Daily anyhow.

The authors conclude that the American staple crop was passed from forager group to forager group through the Southwest of the USA (Texas, etc.) and has no relation with the spread of Uto-Aztecan languages, which in fact pre-dates agriculture and was a north to south migration. SW peoples also show a gradual independent transition to making pottery.

More evidence for Clovis-age meteorite impact

The controversial extra-terrestrial explanation for the extinction of North American megafauna some 13,000 years ago, has now got further evidence.

A team lead by Douglas J. Kennet has found nanodiamonds mixed with sooth in sediments dated to 12,900 years ago at the Channel Islands of California. These nanodiamonds are typically created under the massive pressures and heat of a meteoric impact, as the one some believe caused the pre-Clovis extinction.

The smoking gun?

The date of this event matches with the extinction of the of so many American large mammals, like the horse. Earlier this year, the same team found similar nanodiamonds at several North American locations.

The findings suggest that it was not humans who massacred the megafauna but actually something much more powerful arriving from outer space.

Source: Science Daily.
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Skull and Bones. Geronimo's ones, it seems.

Very curious, albeit brief, news item I just spotted at BBC:

US tries to stop Geronimo lawsuit

US officials have moved to block a legal bid by descendants of Apache leader Geronimo to have his remains reburied.

Geronimo's relatives say some body parts were stolen almost 100 years ago by members of a society linked to Yale University to keep in their clubhouse.

The relatives want to rebury the warrior, who died in 1909, near his birthplace in New Mexico.

But the justice department has asked a federal judge to dismiss their lawsuit.

The society, known as Skull and Bones, is alleged to have stolen some of Geronimo's remains from a burial plot in Oklahoma in 1918.

Remember when the electoral debate was raging in the USA some five years ago and the aspirant Mr. Kerry was asked what did it mean that both he and Mr. Bush had been members of the same elitist secret society at Yale Uniuversity? He rapidly dismissed the issue with a sharp answer: "nothing". But this did not stop people from researching and speculating on the meaning and importance of this society.

Since 1982 the records of members of this society are secret.

It is at least surprising that the US justice department has been so quick in intervene in this issue, confirming somehow the suspicions that float around the club.
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Peru massacres natives in oil-related protests

20-22 citizens and 9-12 policemen are said to have died in violent incidents at the Amazonian town of Bagua, near Ecuador. Other 30-36 civilians were also injured. Figures vary depending on sources.

The locals had been protesting against the new Peruvian laws that would allow for easier exploitation of Amazonian oil, lumber and mining resources by multinational corporations with no respect for the ecology of the rainforest or the health and rights of the natives.

Eventually the Peruvian government sent armed helicopters that opened live fire on the protesters killing many. This act has been denounced as the largest genocidal action in the alst 20 years.

The new ultracapitalist laws that the Peruvian parliament is set to approve have been massively rejected by the natives, who make up a sizeable fraction of all Peruvians, and the subsequent revolts have brought the government to declare the state of emergency in 5 regions.

Sources: Rebelión , BBC, Al Jazeera.
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Did a meteorite impact North America at the end of the Ice Age

That's what some scientists think, on light of the many micro-diamonds and other impact debris found at certain geological layer dated some 12,900 years ago across North America. They sustain that this event caused the extiction of megafauna and the end of Clovis culture.

Others are skeptical though, arguing that such a widespread distribution appears to violate our understanding of cosmic impacts.