Academia, Science

Our Ancestor, Naia, The Paleoamerican “Water Nymph”

220px-Naiad1If you are a creationist and believe that the Earth is just 5000 years old, stop reading now. However, for the rest of humanity there is a very very cool study out on a teenage girl named Naia. Naia is now nearly 13,000 years old. Her skeleton was found in an underwater cave system in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. She is believed to a key link to North Americans who first settled in this continent. (No, she did not look like Naiad of the painting by John William Waterhouse but I like the painting so the researchers will have to forgive me).

Scientists believe that Naia was looking for water in the cave when she fell into a pit in the dark. She is a representative of a people only known as Paleoamericans. James Chatters of Applied Paleoscience, who was the lead author of the study, says that the find establishes that “Native Americans and Paleoamericans share a homeland,” They both lived in an area called Beringia, named after the Bering Land Bridge that existed between Siberia and Alaska. Other finds establish that people from Siberia landed in eastern Beringia between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago. The DNA analysis shows that she has unique markers for North Americans that was passed from mothers to children and stored in the mitochondria. Her mitochondrial DNA belongs to Haplogroup D1, a category only found in the Americas and originally came from an Asian lineage.

Naia’s physical features included an angular head and a small, relatively narrow face.

The cave site was believed to be dry until about 10,000 years ago when it flooded because of glacial melting. They named her Naia after the Greek word for “water nymph.”

This site has some incredible pictures from the cave.

Source: CNN

 

10 thoughts on “Our Ancestor, Naia, The Paleoamerican “Water Nymph””

  1. They both lived in an area called Beringia, named after the Bering Land Bridge that existed between Siberia and Alaska. Other finds establish that people from Siberia landed in eastern Beringia between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago.

    I’m so happy you mentioned the land bridge that once existed between Asia and North America.

    Anyone know where the land bridge is now? Submerged deep beneath the Bering Sea.

    However did the land bridge get beneath the Bering Sea? Sea level rise.

    Sea level rise? Earth’s oceans over the last 18,000 years (since the beginning of the end of Earth’s last glaciation and still rising) have risen by over 400 ft.

    400 ft.? Due to the melting of the miles thick sheets of ice that once covered parts of Europe, Asia and North America.

    Miles thick sheets of ice melting? Climate change brought about the end of Earth’s last glaciation beginning 18,000 years ago. Long before humans began burning fossil fuels in intrenal-combustion engines.

    Climate change has been with Earth for billions of years long before hubristic hairless primates began running in circles and flailing about.

    http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

  2. “If you are a creationist [sic] and believe that the Earth is just 5000 years old, stop reading now. ”

    Nice arbitrary age of the Earth that us Creationists are supposed to believe. And yes, I’ll stop reading now – mainly because I know what follows is more SWAG science (Scientific Wild A– Guess) or pseudoscience, or the usual rubber ruler method of dating things.

    Ironic – not only can the “scientists” fail to date things accurately and can’t really agree on the ages of things (The alleged age of the Earth has increased exponentially over the past few decades), but the “scientists” claptrap can’t even get the correct age that they think the Creationists believe the age is.

  3. “The cave site was believed to be dry until about 10,000 years ago when it flooded because of glacial melting.”

    Her death was no accident. She was the very first scientist with evidence of global warming and was peer-reviewed right into the hole. The rest, as they say, is history.

  5. “Settled the continent.”

    Is that the same as or distinct from the activities of nomads and hunter-gatherers? There seems to be a legal connotation to that usage. Certainly these few people didn’t definitively “settle” the wildlife as it appears to have been extant.

    Given the “land bridge,” is it possible that Native Americans are not native at all? Would they then be illegal aliens or undocumented workers? What would their status be under British Colonial/American law?

    Did not the Annunaki deliberately alter and upgrade the DNA of humanoid species on earth eons ago?

    Did not the Sumerian cuneiform tablets say that the Annunaki occupied earth in a search for gold to address loss of atmospheric UV protection on their planet due to nuclear war? Did not the Annunaki create a race of humanoids to mine the gold?

    Did not a huge, inexplicable leap of “evolution” occur in the last 20 -50K years, approx.?

  8. Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter

    Oh, I am so glad to see you have an appreciation of the pre – Raphaelites!!!
    …
    ============================
    Yep.

    Her first boyfriend was named Raphael lite.

    Sounds like yours was too!!! 😉

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