A while back, I was surfing the net, looking for information on the colonization of the Americas. I think it was your fault Dane, because you were looking for Neolithic/Archaeic clothing ideas, and that got me started. I found some interesting stuff. The established theory was that the Americas were colonized from Asia in three unrelated waves, represented by South American, North American, and Arctic Natives, with the first wave being about 12,000 years ago. In contrast, genetic marker studies of those three groups indicate that they are all closely related and have been separated from Asian populations for over 20,000 years, and that North America and the Arctic were colonized from the south, with some Arctic natives passing back into Siberia from Alaska. Another item I found was information on Kennebec Man, the remains of an 8000 year old "Caucasoid" man from Oregon, complete with a healed over piece of stone spearpoint lodged in his hip. His discovery opened a can of worms over the possibility of Paleolithic Europeans colonizing America. One Archeologist came forward with the claim that 10000 years ago, that shape of skull was common throughout the world and the regional variations in skull shape we see today arose during the neolithic and later, when people settled down. If that is true, it indicates to me that paleolithic people spread far and fast, taking their technology with them, before they had much chance to develop the regional variations we like to refer to as Races. Things like skin pigmentation would have been among the first to change, in response to low light levels, for Vitamin D production, but changes in bone structure took longer to occur. I think we see so many similarities around the world in Stone Age technology, because early humans spread across the globe so quickly. JMHO Jude
