Excerpts from Wikipedia.org
Momia Juanita (Spanish for "Mummy Juanita"), better known in English as the "Ice Maiden," is an Inca mummy of a girl, between 12-14 years old, who died sometime between 1440 and 1450.
In 1995, during an ascent of Mt. Ampato, Reinhard and Zarate found inside the summit crater a bundle that had fallen down from an Inca site when the ridge had collapsed due to the melting caused by volcanic ash that has fallen from the nearby erupting volcano of Sabancaya. To their astonishment, the bundle turned out to contain a remarkably well-preserved mummy of a young girl. In addition, they found—strewn about the mountain slope down which the mummy had fallen—many items that had been left as offerings to the Inca gods, such as statues and food items. A couple of days later, the mummy and the objects were taken to Arequipa; the remains of the mummy were initially kept in a special refrigerator.
The mummy caused a sensation in the scientific world due to the well-preserved state in which it was found.
It is believed by some archaeologists that the Ice Maiden was in fact a human sacrifice to the Inca mountain god (Apus). The Ice Maiden was then buried by the Inca priests atop Mount Ampato (20,700 feet, or 6,309 m) in Peru, and left undisturbed until discovered by Johann Reinhard in 1995.
The scientists of Maryland's Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) performed laboratory tests on Juanita's body and were able to recover the heart tissues of the young girl. These tests served to identify her DNA and compare it with the Human Genome Project.
The studies demonstrated that Juanita had a close relationship with the Ngoge (spelling error? Ngobe) tribe of Panama and with old Taiwanese and Korean races
(Misiones Ngobe Bugle on YouTube; The Ngöbe by Ngöbe Botanical Garden; Ngobe-Bugle by southernhorizons.com; Helping the Ngobe Keep Their Land by culturalsurvival.org).
* Taiwanese Aborigines
* Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
* Models of Migration to the New World
* The Ice Maiden of Mt. Ampato by The Mountain Institute
* Ancient DNA
* Prehistory of Taiwan
* Archaeological Theory; Taiwan Seen As Ancient Pacific Rim By FCJ Editors
* Nanying the Earliest human (台灣最早的人類--左鎮人與左鎮化石) by the Tainan County Government Information Division
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (aka "Lucky Lindy"; "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and peace activist who, on May 20–21, 1927, rose from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame as the result of his exploits as the pilot of the first nonstop Transatlantic flight from New York (Roosevelt Field) to Paris (Le Bourget Field) made in the single seat, single engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis.
From 1957 until his death in 1974, Lindbergh had an affair with German hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer who lived in a small Bavarian town called Geretsried (35 km south of Munich). On November 23, 2003, DNA tests proved that he fathered her three children: Dyrk (1958), Astrid (1960) and David (1967). The two managed to keep the affair secret; even the children did not know the true identity of their father, whom they saw when he came to visit once or twice per year using the alias, "Careu Kent." Astrid later read a magazine article about Lindbergh and found snapshots and more than a hundred letters written from him to her mother. She disclosed the affair after both Brigitte and Anne Morrow Lindbergh had died. At the same time as Lindbergh was involved with Brigitte Hesshaimer, he also had relationship with her sister, Marietta, who bore him two more sons – Vago and Christoph. Lindbergh had a house of his own design built for Marietta in a vineyard in Grimisuat in the Swiss canton Valais.
A 2005 book by German author Rudolf Schroeck, Das Doppelleben des Charles A. Lindbergh (The Double Life of Charles A. Lindbergh), claims seven secret children existed in Germany. It says Lindbergh "came and went as he pleased" during the last 17 years of his life, spending between three to five days with his Munich family about four to five times each year. "Ten days before he died in August 1974, Lindbergh wrote three letters from his hospital bed to his three mistresses and requested 'utmost secrecy'," Schroeck writes, whose book includes a copy of that letter to Brigitte Hesshaimer.
Two of the seven children, were from his relationship with the east-Prussian aristocrat Valeska, who was Lindbergh's private secretary in Europe. They had a son *1959 and a daughter *1961. She had been friends with the Hessheimer sister and was the one who introduced them to Charles Lindbergh. In the beginning, they lived all together in his apartment in Rome. However, the friendship ended when Brigitte Hesshaimer became pregnant from him as well. Valeska lives in Baden-Baden and wants to keep her privacy, as mentioned in many German newspaper articles, in Rudolf Schroek's book and a TV documentary by Danuta Harrich-Zandberg and Walter Harrich.
In April 2008, Reeve Lindbergh, his youngest daughter, will publish Forward From Here, a book of essays that includes her discovery in 2003, of the truth about her father's three secret European families and her journeys to meet them and understand an expanded meaning of family.
* Lindbergh Kidnapping
Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet, and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often popularly called the "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. Petrarch is credited with perfecting the sonnet, making it one of the most popular art forms to date. His sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poems. Petrarch was also known for being one of the first people to call the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.
In European historiography, the term Dark Age(s) refers to the Early Middle Ages, the period encompassing (roughly) 476 to 1000 AD.
This concept of a Dark Age was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Classical Roman Antiquity and the High Middle Ages, including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general (for example, as shown in the impoverishment of technologies, such as pottery. Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.
In November 2003, it was announced that pathological anatomists would be exhuming Petrarch's body from his casket in Arquà Petrarca, in order to verify 19th century reports that he had stood 1.83 meters (about six feet), which would have made him very tall for his period. The team from the University of Padua also hoped to reconstruct his cranium in order to obtain a computerized image of his features to coincide with the poet's 700th birthday. The tomb had been opened previously in 1873 by Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also of Padua University. When the tomb was opened, the skull was discovered in fragments and a DNA test revealed that the skull was not Petrarch's, prompting calls for the return of Petrarch's skull.
The researchers are fairly certain that the body in the tomb is Petrarch's due to the fact that the skeleton bears evidence of injuries mentioned by Petrarch in his writings, including a kick from a donkey when he was 42.
As a child, Lincoln was tall for his age. He reached his adult height of 6 feet 3.75 inches (1.924 m) no later than age 21. Friends noticed that his arms, legs, hands, and feet were long. Although well muscled as a young adult, he was always thin. Fragmentary evidence says he weighed 160–180 pounds before the Presidency, but lost weight while in the White House.
Based on Lincoln's unusual physical appearance, Dr. Abraham Gordon proposed in 1962 that Lincoln had Marfan syndrome. Lincoln's unremarkable cardiovascular history and his normal visual acuity have been the chief objections to the theory, and today the diagnosis is considered unlikely. Testing Lincoln's DNA for Marfan syndrome was contemplated in the 1990s, but was not done.
In 2007, Dr. John Sotos proposed that Lincoln had a marfan-like disease called multiple endocrine neoplasia, type 2B (MEN2B or MEN 2B). This theory suggests that Lincoln had all the major features of the disease: (1) a marfan-like body shape, (2) large, bumpy lips, (3) constipation, (4) muscular hypotonia, (5) a family history of the disorder (his sons Eddie, Willie, and Tad, and probably his mother), and (6) a history compatible with cancer. The "mole" on Lincoln's right cheek, the asymmetry of his face, his large jaw, his drooping eyelid, and "pseudo-depression" are also suggested as manifestations of MEN2B. Lincoln's longevity is the principal challenge to the MEN2B theory, which could be proven by DNA testing.
Other illnesses include: frostbitten feet, malaria, traumatic unconsciousness, and smallpox. Claims that Lincoln had syphilis about 1835 have been controversial, but a recent analysis finds them credible.
There are several known instances of Roman soldiers being captured by the Parthians and transferred to the East for border duty. According to Pliny, in 54 BCE, after losing at the battle of Carrhae, 10,000 Roman prisoners were displaced by the Parthians to Margiana to man the frontier (of the 40,000 troops under Crassus, half had lost their lives, one quarter escaped, and one quarter were taken prisoner):
- "It was to this place (Margiana) that Orodes conducted such of the Romans as had survived the defeat of Crassus" (Plin. Hist. Nat. 6. 18)
About 18 years later the nomadic Xiongnu chief Zhizhi established a state in the nearby Talas valley, near modern day Taraz. The Chinese have an account by Ban Gu of about "a hundred men" under the command of Zhizhi who fought in a so-called "fish-scale formation" to defend Zhizhi's wooden-palisade fortress against Han forces, in the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BCE. The historian Homer Dubs claimed that this might have been the Roman testudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, were able to found the village of Liqian (Li-chien) in Yongchang County.
Yongchang County (永昌县) is a county located in the province of Gansu in China. It belongs to the prefecture of Jinchang. The ancient North Silk Road passes through Yongchang County; numerous Han envoys were sent west along this trackway, some parties exceeding 100 members late in the first millennium BC. The Han Dynasty sent one mission to Parthia, which was reciprocated at around 100 BC: Roman emissaries were captured by the Chinese in 30 BC along the Silk Road at Yongchang.
During recent years, the county has entered the sight of media because many of the inhabitants of Liqian village (骊靬) are thought to be descendants of a Roman legion. The history records of the town indicate that it was founded by captured combatants of the Battle of Zhizhi during 36 BC. In a geography book of the eastern Han Dynasty it is recorded that "Local people call the ancestors of the Roman prisoners-of-war Lijian, the word Lijian being the Chinese name for something or someone of Greco-Roman origin. A number of the town's inhabitants still bear some features of Europeans. A DNA test is being conducted in early 2007 in the attempt to find genetic evidence supporting this claim.
* DNA tests for China's legionary lore by Richard Spencer
The result of this specific study is negative. The study concludes: "Overall, a Roman mercenary origin could not be accepted as true according to paternal genetic variation, and the current Liqian population is more likely to be a subgroup of the Chinese majority Han".
Habsburg Lip
Pathologic mandibular prognathism is a potentially disfiguring, genetic disorder where the lower jaw outgrows the upper, resulting in an extended chin.
The condition colloquially is known as Habsburg jaw, Habsburg lip or Austrian Lip due to its prevalence in that bloodline. The trait is easily traceable in portraits of Habsburg family members. This has provided tools for people interested in studying genetics and pedigree analysis. Most instances are considered polygenetic.
It is alleged to have been derived through a female from the princely Polish family of Piasts, its Masovian branch. The deformation of lips is clearly visible on tomb sculptures of Mazovian Piasts in the St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw. However this may be, there exists evidence that the trait is longstanding. It is perhaps first observed in Maximilian I (1459-1519).
Traits such as these that were common to royal families are believed to have been passed on and exaggerated over time through royal intermarriage which caused acute inbreeding. Due to the large amount of politically motivated intermarriage among Habsburgs, the dynasty was virtually unparalleled in the degree of its inbreeding. Charles II of Spain is said to have had the most pronounced case of the Habsburg jaw on record. His jaw was so deformed that he was unable to chew.
Whether Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings is the subject of considerable controversy. Regarding marriage between blacks and whites, Jefferson wrote that "[t]he amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent." In addition, Hemings was likely the half-sister of Jefferson's deceased wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The allegation that Jefferson fathered children with Hemings first gained widespread public attention in 1802, when controversial journalist James T. Callender, wrote in a Richmond newspaper, "...[Jefferson] keeps and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally." Jefferson never responded publicly about this issue but is said to have denied it in his private correspondence.
A 1998 DNA study concluded that there was a DNA link between some of Hemings descendants and the Jefferson family, but it did not conclusively prove that Jefferson himself was their ancestor. Three studies were released in the early 2000s, following the publication of the DNA evidence. In 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello, appointed a multi-disciplinary, nine-member in-house research committee of Ph.D.s and an M.D. to study the matter of the paternity of Hemings's children. The committee concluded "it is very unlikely that any Jefferson other than Thomas Jefferson was the father of [Hemings's six] children."
In 2001, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society commissioned a study by an independent 13-member Scholars Commission. The commission concluded that the Jefferson paternity thesis was not persuasive. On April 12, 2001, they issued a report; at 565 pages, it was far longer than the Foundation report, though many of those pages were devoted to a review of the evidence that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation study examined. The conclusion of most of the Scholars Commission was that "the Jefferson-Hemings allegation is by no means proven"; those members' individual conclusions ranged from "serious skepticism about the charge" to "a conviction that it is almost certainly false." The majority suggested the most likely alternative is that Randolph Jefferson, Thomas's younger brother, was the father of Eston.
The National Genealogical Society Quarterly then published articles reviewing the evidence from a genealogical perspective and concluded that the link between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings was valid.
* Jefferson DNA Data by Wikipedia.org
The exact place and date of birth of Christopher Columbus have been the source of some speculation although most historians believe that he was Genoese. There are several competing theories regarding his national origin.
The question of Columbus's nationality became an issue after the rise of nationalism; the matter was scarcely raised until the time of the quadricentenary celebrations in 1892 (see World's Columbian Exposition), when Columbus' Genoese origins became a point of pride for some Italian Americans. In New York City, rival statues of Columbus were underwritten by the Hispanic and Italian communities, and honourable positions had to be found for each, at Columbus Circle and in Central Park.
* Origin Theories of Christopher Columbus by Wikipedia.org
* Columbus DNA (video) by National Geographic
* Seeking Columbus’s Origins, With a Swab by Amy Harmon
* Genetic Study Bolsters Columbus Link to Syphilis by John Noble Wilford
Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty.
Hatshepsut's remains were long considered lost, but in June 2007 a mummy from Tomb KV60, was publicly identified as her remains by Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Evidence supporting this identification includes the results of a DNA comparison with the mummy of Ahmose Nefertari, Hatshepsut's great-grandmother and the matriarch of the 18th dynasty. Further conclusive evidence includes the possession of a molar with one root that fit the mummy's jaw as it had a gap that had one root as well. This molar was found inside a small wooden box inscribed with Hatshepsut's name and cartouche: Zahi Hawass's team's CAT scan revealed that this tooth exactly matches this mummy's jaw. Modern CT scans of that mummy believed to be Hatshepsut suggest she was about fifty years old when she died from a ruptured abscess after removal of a tooth. Although this was the cause, it is quite possible she would not have lived much longer; there are signs in her mummy of metastatic bone cancer, as well as possible liver cancer and diabetes. Egyptologists not involved in the project, however, have reserved acceptance of the findings until further testing is undertaken.
* Egypt's Most Famous Female King Found (video) by National Geographic
* New Mummy Faces DNA Scrutiny by A. Johnson
* Egyptology Online
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart) (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His output of over 600 compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire.
Mozart died at 1 in the morning on December 5. The New Grove describes his funeral thus: "Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St Marx cemetery outside the city on 7 December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild."
* DNA Tests Inconclusive on 'Mozart' Skull by The Associated Press
Niall of the Nine Hostages (Irish: Niall Noigíallach) was a High King of Ireland who ruled from the mid 4th century into the early 5th century. The date of his death, according to medieval Irish sources, is c. 405. He is said to have made raids on the coastlines of Britannia and Gaul. The roughly contemporary dates have lead some to suggest a link with the kidnapping of Saint Patrick as a youth.
The Northern and Southern Uí Néill dynasties, which provided most of the High Kings for centuries, descended from Niall. Other famous descendants include Niall's great-great grandson Saint Columba, Saint Máel Ruba, the Kings of Scotland, the Kings of Ailech, the Kings of Tir Eogain, The Kings of Tír Conaill, Chieftain and Earl Hugh O'Neill, Clan Chief and Earl Red Hugh O'Donnell of the O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, military leaders of Confederate Ireland Owen Roe O'Neill and Hugh Dubh O'Neill and Sir Phelim O'Neill, Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland Aodh MacCathmhaoil, Spanish Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell 1st Duque de Tetuan, Sir Cahir O’Doherty, Sir Donnell Ballagh O'Cahan, musician Turlough O'Cahan, Shane O'Neill, Sir William Johnson of the O'Neills of the Fews, in addition to numerous officers in the armies of France, Spain, and the Austrian Empire.
The current British royal family claims a link.
African American scholar and historian, Professor Henry Louis Gates is a descendant of Niall through slavery.
In January 2006, scientists suggested that Niall may have been the most fecund male in Irish history, and second only to Genghis Khan worldwide. In northwest Ireland as many as one-fifth of men have a common Y chromosome haplotype that lies within the haplogroup R1b.
Haplogroup R1b1c7, was shown to be especially common among family names which claim a descent from Niall, e.g. O'Boyle, Bradley, Campbell, Cannon, Mongan, McCaul, McCawell, Connor, O'Doherty, O'Donnell, O'Gallagher, Flynn, McKee, Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, McGovern, Hynes, O'Kane, McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, Muldoon, O'Neill, O'Reilly, O'Rourke,O'Lunny and Quinn.
* YSTR27 Test by EthnoAncestry
Viking refers to a member of the Norse (Scandinavian) seafaring traders, warriors and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late 8th to the 11th century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansion is commonly referred to as the Viking Age of Scandinavian History. While once thought to be part of the "barbaric North", with traditionally accepted ideas of Viking culture remaining in popular culture even today, the historical image of the Vikings has evolved somewhat to show the Vikings as sophisticated, technologically advanced peoples, proficient sailors, ship and town builders.
The Vikings’ prolific expansion is still exhibited in modern genetics. Relatively high frequencies of Haplogroup R1a1 are found in Northern Europe, the largest being 23% in Iceland, and it is believed to have been spread across Europe by the Indo-Europeans and later migrations of Vikings, which accounts for the existence of it in, among other places, the British Isles.
* YSTR27 Test by EthnoAncestry
Genghis Khan was the founder, Khan (ruler) and posthumously declared Khagan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history.
Temujin came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of north-east Asia. After founding the Mongol Nation and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he pursued an aggressive foreign policy by starting the Mongol invasion of East Asia and Central Asia. During his life, the Mongol Empire eventually occupied most of Asia.
Temujin died in 1227 while campaigning against the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in his native Mongolia. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia, conquering all of modern-day China and Mongolia, as well as substantial portions of modern Russia, southern Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Descent from Genghis Khan is traceable primarily in Central Asia. His four sons and other immediate descendants are famous by names and by deeds. Later Asian potentates attempted to claim descent from the House of Borjigin even with flimsy grounds. In the 14th century, valid sources all but dry up. With the recent popularity of genealogical DNA testing, a wider circle of people started to claim descent from the great conqueror.
Zerjal et al [2003] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by diffusion, and must therefore be the result of selection. The authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan and his close male relatives, and that it has spread through social selection.
According to Family Tree DNA, Genghis Khan is believed to have belonged to Haplogroup C3.
* Descent from Genghis Khan
* The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols by Tatiana Zerjal, et al.
* YSTR27 Test by EthnoAncestry
Cheddar Man is the name given to the remains of a human male found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. The remains date to approximately 7150 BC, and it appears that he died a violent death, perhaps related to the cannibalism practiced in the area at the time. He is Britain’s oldest complete human skeleton.
The remains were excavated in 1903, and currently reside in the Natural History Museum in London, with a replica in the "Cheddar Man and the Cannibals" museum in Cheddar village.
In the late 1990s, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University first sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Cheddar Man, with DNA extracted from one of Cheddar Man's molars. Cheddar Man was determined to have belonged to a branch of mitochondrial haplogroup U, a haplogroup which is especially common in Britain, Ireland and the Basque Country of northern Spain and south western France. Haplogroup U is generally found to be most common in southern and western Europe and may have originated in West Asia. Bryan Sykes' research into Cheddar Man was filmed as he performed it. As a means of connecting Cheddar Man to the living residents of Cheddar village, he compared mitochondrial DNA taken from twenty living residents of the village to that extracted from Cheddar Man’s molar. It produced two exact matches and one match with a single mutation. The two exact matches were schoolchildren, and their names were not released. The close match was a history teacher named Adrian Targett.
This modern connection to Cheddar Man (who died at least three thousand years before agriculture began in Britain) makes very credible the theory that modern-day Britons are not all descended from Middle-Eastern migratory farmers, but rather modern Britons are descended from ancient European Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer tribes who much later on adopted farming.
* British Teacher Finds Long-Lost Relative: 9,000-year-old man by The Associated Press
Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, USA on July 28, 1996. The discovery of Kennewick Man was accidental: a pair of spectators (Will Thomas and David Deacy) found his skull while attending the annual hydroplane races.
The remains became embroiled in debates about the relationship between Native American religious rights, archaeology and other interested stakeholders. Based on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), five Native American groups (the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama, Wannapum, and Colville) claimed the remains as theirs, to be buried by traditional means. Only Umatillas continued further court proceeding. In February 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a cultural link between the tribes and the skeleton was not met, allowing scientific study of the remains to continue.
In July 2005, a team of scientists from around the United States convened in Seattle for ten days to study the remains, making many detailed measurements, and determined the cause of death.
Photographs of a facial reconstruction showed a middle-aged man who looked more like a "European accountant than a Paleo-Indian hunter". To further investigate the mystery of the Kennewick man and help to find out if the skeleton does in fact belong to the Umatilla Native American tribe, an extraction of DNA was analyzed but could not be completed because it contradicted Native American values protected under NAGPRA. Anthropologist Joseph Powell of the University of New Mexico was finally allowed to examine the remains and his conclusions were contradictory. Kennewick Man was in fact not European but rather resembled south Asians and the Ainu people of northeast Asia. The results of a graphic comparison, including size, of Kennewick Man to 18 modern populations conducted by Chatters et al. to determine the skeleton’s relation to modern ancestry showed that he was most closely related to the Ainu. However, when size was excluded as a factor, no association to any population was established.
The discovery of Kennewick Man, along with other ancient skeletons, has furthered scientific debate over the exact origin and history of early Native American people. The prevailing theory holds that a single wave of migration occurred, consisting of hunters and gatherers following large herds of game wandered across the Bering Strait land bridge around 12,000 years ago. Other theories contend that there were numerous waves of migration to the Americas. The apparent diversity of ancient skeletal remains, which may include traits not typically associated with modern Native Americans, has been used as evidence to support these rival theories.
* Origins of Paleoindians
* Pre-Siberian American Aborigines
* Native Americans in the United States
Ötzi the Iceman, Frozen Fritz, and Similaun Man are modern nicknames of a well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC (53 centuries ago), found in 1991 in the Schnalstal glacier in the Ötztal Alps, near Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy. The nickname comes from Ötztal, the region in which he was discovered. He is Europe's oldest natural human mummy, and has offered an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Europeans.
Ötzi was found by two German tourists from Nuremberg, Helmut and Erika Simon, on 19 September 1991.
Initially it had been believed that Ötzi died from exposure during a winter storm. Later it was speculated that Ötzi had been a victim of a ritual sacrifice, perhaps for being a chieftain. This explanation was inspired by theories previously advanced for the first millennium B.C. bodies recovered from peat bogs, such as the Tollund Man and the Lindow Man. In 2001 X-rays and a CT scan revealed that Ötzi had an arrowhead lodged in one shoulder when he died, and a matching small tear on his coat. The discovery of the arrowhead prompted researchers to theorize Ötzi died of blood loss from the wound, which would likely have been fatal even if modern medical techniques had been available. Further research found that the arrow's shaft had been removed prior to death, and close examination of the body found bruises and cuts to the hands, wrists and chest and cerebral trauma indicative of a blow to the head. One of the cuts was to the base of his thumb that reached down to the bone but had not had time to heal before his death. Currently it is believed that death was caused by a blow to the head, though researchers are unsure if this was due to a fall, or from being struck with a rock by another person. DNA analysis revealed traces of blood from four other people on his gear: one from his knife, two from the same arrowhead, and a fourth from his coat. Interpretations of the findings was that Ötzi killed two individuals with the same arrow, and was able to retrieve it on both occasions, and the blood on his coat was from a wounded comrade he may have carried over his back. Ötzi's unnatural posture in death (frozen body, face down, left arm bent across the chest) suggests that theory of a solitary death from blood loss, hunger, cold and weakness is untenable. Rather, before death occurred and rigor mortis set in, the Iceman was turned on to his stomach in the effort to remove the arrow shaft.
The DNA evidence suggests that he was assisted by companions who were also wounded, pollen and food analysis suggests that he was out of his home territory. The copper axe could not have been made by him alone. It would have required a concerted group tribal effort to mine, smelt and cast the copper axe head. This may indicate that Ötzi was actually part of an armed raiding party involved in a skirmish, perhaps with a neighbouring tribe, and this skirmish had gone badly. It may also indicate that he was ambushed or attacked by a rival tribe's raiding party on his way to deliver the axe. When the Iceman's mitochondrial DNA was analyzed by Franco Rollo and his colleagues, it was discovered that he had genetic markers associated with reduced fertility. It has been speculated that this may have affected his social acceptance.
* Infertility Link in Iceman's DNA by Rebecca Morelle
Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. After his death, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West.
During his lifetime, Jesse James was largely celebrated by former Confederates, to whom he appealed directly in his letters to the press. Indeed, some historians credit him with contributing to the rise of Confederates to dominance in Missouri politics (by the 1880s, for example, both U.S. Senators from the state had been identified with the Confederate cause). His return to crime after the fall of Reconstruction, however, was devoid of political overtones, but it helped cement his place in American memory as a simple but remarkably effective bandit. During the Populist and Progressive eras, he emerged as America's Robin Hood, standing up against corporations in defense of the small farmer. This outlaw image is still seen in films, as well as songs and folklore. Although he remains a controversial symbol in the cultural battles over the place of the Civil War in American history, he is regarded as a hero by the neo-Confederate movement.
Rumors of Jesse James's survival proliferated almost as soon as the newspapers announced his death. Some said that Robert Ford killed someone other than James, in an elaborate plot to allow him to escape justice. Some people believe that Jesse James hid in the attic of a two story house in Dublin, Texas while he was hiding from the law. Some stories say he lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as late as 1948, and a man named J. Frank Dalton, who claimed to be Jesse James, died in Granbury, Texas, in 1951 at age 103. Some stories claim the real recipient of Ford's bullet was a man named Charles Bigelow, reported to have been living with James's wife at the time.
These tales received little credence, then or now. None of James's biographers accept them as plausible, and Jesse's widow, Zee, died alone and in poverty. The body buried in Missouri as Jesse James was exhumed in 1995 and, according to a report by Anne C. Stone, Ph.D., James E. Starrs, L.L.M., and Mark Stoneking, Ph.D., entitled Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the Presumptive Remains of Jesse James, does appear to be the remains of Jesse James. (A court order was granted in 2000 to exhume and test Dalton's body, but the wrong body was exhumed.)
In 1995 the body of Jesse James was exhumed and compared to two known living relatives, making a perfect match on both counts.
Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia (Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova; June 18 1901 — July 17, 1918), was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna.
Anastasia was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana and Grand Duchess Maria, and was an elder sister of Alexei Nikolaievitch. She is presumed to have been murdered with her family on July 17, 1918, by forces of the Bolshevik secret police. However, rumors have persisted of her possible escape since 1918, fueled by reports that two sets of remains, identified as Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and either Anastasia or her elder sister Maria, were missing from a mass grave found near Ekaterinburg and later identified through DNA testing as the Romanovs. In January 2008 Russian scientists announced that the charred remains of a young boy and a young woman found near Ekaterinburg in August 2007 are most likely those of the thirteen-year-old Tsarevich and one of the four Romanov grand duchesses. Final results of the DNA testing are scheduled to be announced later in the spring.
Anastasia Manahan, usually known as Anna Anderson (c. 22 Dec 1896 — 12 February 1984), was the best known of several women who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia. Most historians believe that Anderson was actually Franziska Schanzkowska, a Kashubian factory worker. A private detective investigation had identified Anderson as Schanzkowska, who was born on December 26, 1896, in Pomerania, East Prussia (now modern-day Poland), as early as the 1920s. Anderson's mitochondrial DNA is also a match to the Schanzkowski family, which indicates that she was most likely Schanzkowska. Some of her supporters continue to deny that she was Schanzkowska in spite of the two separate DNA tests conducted that matched Anderson's DNA to the Schanzkowski family.
Anderson's body was cremated upon her death in 1984. Following Anderson's death, the DNA tests were conducted on samples of her tissue that had been stored at a Charlottesville, Virginia hospital following a medical procedure. The DNA tests showed that Anderson's DNA did not match the Romanov remains or Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (a relative of the Romanovs), but was consistent with the mitochondrial DNA profile of Karl Maucher, a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska.
* DNA Tests May Solve Mystery of Last Czar’s Heirs by Stephanie Reitz
* Official: DNA Tests Confirm IDs of Russian Czar's Children by Mike Eckel |
