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Olmecs

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Brooke
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« on: February 22, 2007, 11:14:13 pm »

Hi Andrew, well, better late than never!!

This isn't the one I was looking for, there was an article that had a ver specific link to a tribe in Africa but this one makes for a nice introduction.  Bear in mind, this is probably one case where traditional science is wrong and that shall be borne out later:

Olmec as Africans

Some writers claim that the Olmec were related to peoples of Africa based on interpretation of a wide range of skeletal, linguistic, epigraphic, religious and anthropological data. Some researchers specifically identify the Olmecs with the Mandé people of West Africa.
The idea that the Olmecs are related to Africans is an old one. José Melgar, who discovered the first colossal head at Hueyapan (now Tres Zapotes) in 1862, subsequently published two papers that attributed this head to a "Negro race".[1]
Osteological evidence
Some researchers have seen evidence for African skeletons at prehistoric sites in Mexico. Constance Irwin and Dr. Wiercinski (1972b) have both reported that skeletal remains of Africans have been found in Mexico. Constance Irwin, in Fair Gods and Stone Faces, says that there are "distinct signs of Negroid ancestry in many a New World skull.". Dr. Wiercinski (1972b) claims that some of the Olmecs were of African origin [2]. He supports this claim with skeletal evidence from two Mesoamerican sites: Tlatilco and Cerro de las Mesas.
•   Tlatilco is a site in the Valley of Mexico. Although outside the Olmec heartland, Olmec influences appear in the architectural record. The skeletons were from the Pre-Classic period, contemporary with the Olmec.
•   Cerro de las Mesa is within the Olmec heartland, although according to Wiercinski, "the series . . . is dated on the Classic period."[3] The Classic period is generally defined to start around 300 AD, or 700 years after the demise of the Olmec.

Site   Skeletons   Time Period
Tlatilco
100   Pre-classic
Cerro de las Mesas
25   Classic


Wiercinski claimed, based on his comparisons, that 13.5% of the skeletons from Tlatilco and 4.5% of the skeletons from Cerro de las Mesas were of West Africans.
To determine the racial heritage of the skeletons, Dr. Wiercinski (1972b) used classic diagnostic traits, determined by craniometric and cranioscopic methods, as well as the Polish Comparative-Morphological School skeletal reference collection (SRC). These measurements were then compared against three crania sets from Poland, Mongolia and Uganda to represent three racial categories. The only European type recorded in this table is the Alpine group which represents only 1.9 percent of the crania from Tlatilco. The other alleged "white" crania from Wiercinski's typology of Olmec crania, represent the Dongolan (19.2 percent), Armenoid (7.7 percent), Armenoid-Bushman (3.9 percent) and Anatolian (3.9 percent). The Dongolan, Anatolian and Armenoid terms are euphemisms for the so-called "Brown Race", "Dynastic Race", "Hamitic Race", etc., which some claimed were the founders of civilization in Africa. [4] Carlson and Gerven (1979),[5]and MacGaffey (1970) [6]have claimed that these people were Africans or Negroes with so-called 'caucasian features' resulting from genetic drift and microevolution [7]. If supported, this would imply that the racial composition of 26.9 percent of the crania found at Tlatilco and 9.1 percent of crania from Cerro de las Mesas were of African origin. The races recorded by Wiercinski are based on the Polish Comparative-Morphological School (PCMS). The PCMS terms are misleading. As mentioned earlier the Dongolan, Armenoid, and Equatorial groups refer to African people with varying facial features which are all Blacks.
Wiercinski (1972b) compared the physiognomy of the skeletons to corresponding examples of Olmec sculptures and bas-reliefs on the stelas[1]. For example, Wiercinski states that the colossal Olmec heads represent the "Dongolan" type.[8] The empirical frequencies of the Dongolan type at Tlatilco calculated by Wiercinski was 0.231, more than twice as high as Wiercinski's theoretical figure of 0.101, for the presence of Dongolans at Tlatilco. The other possible African type found at Tlatilco and Cerro were the Laponoid group. The Laponoid group represents the Austroloid-Melanesian type of (Negro) Pacific Islander, not the Mongolian type.
Many of the 125 skulls show cranial deformations according to Pailles, yet Wiercinski (1972b) was able to determine the ethnic origins of the skulls. Marquez (1956, 179-80) made it clear that a common trait of the African skulls found in Mexico include marked prognathousness; prominent cheek bones are also mentioned [9].
Wiercinski's research is not accepted by the vast majority of Mesoamerican scholars.
Genetic evidence
According to some researchers, contemporary Maya and other Amerind groups show African characteristics and DNA. Underhill, et al. found that the Mayan people have an African Y chromosome [10]. Some researchers claim that as many as seventy-five percent of the Mexicans have an African heritage,[11] although "this gene flow is largely (but not necessarily exclusively) due to the effects of the Atlantic slave trade".[12]
James l. Gutherie (2000) in a study of the HLAs in indigenous American populations, found that the Vantigen of the Rhesus system, considered to be an indication of African ancestry, among Indians in Belize and Mexico centers of Mayan civilization. Dr. Gutherie also noted that A*28 common among Africans has high frequencies among Eastern Maya. It is interesting to note that the Otomi, a Mexican group identified as being of African origin and six Mayan groups show the B Allele of the ABO system that is considered to be of African origin [13]
Lisker et al, noted that “The variation of Indian ancestry among the studied Indians shows in general a higher proportion in the more isolated groups, except for the Cora, who are as isolated as the Huichol and have not only a lower frequency but also a certain degree of black admixture. The black admixture is difficult to explain because the Cora reside in a mountainous region away from the west coast”. Green et al (2000) also found indigenous natives with African genes in North Central Mexico, including the L1 and L2 clusters. Green et al (2000) observed that the "discovery of a proportion of African haplotypes roughly equivalent to the proportion of European haplotypes [among North Central Mexican Indians] cannot be explained by recent admixture of African Americans for the United States. This is especially the case for the Ojinaga area, which presently is, and historically has been, largely isolated from U.S. African Americans. In the Ojinaga sample set, the frequency of African haplotypes was higher that that of European hyplotypes”. In a discussion of the Mexican and African admixture in Mexico Lisker et al (1996) noted that the East Coast of Mexico had extensive admixture. The following percentages of African ancestry were found among East coast populations: Paraiso - 21.7%; El Carmen - 28.4% ;Veracruz - 25.6%; Saladero - 30.2%; and Tamiahua - 40.5%. Among Indian groups, Lisker et al (1996) found among the Chontal have 5% and the Cora .8% African admixture[14].The Chontal speak a Mayan language. According to Crawford et al. (1974), the mestizo population of Saltillo has 15.8% African ancestry, while Tlaxcala has 8% and Cuanalan 18.1%.[15] In the Olmec heartland region of the current states of Veracruz and Tabasco, Lisker[16] finds these percentages of African ancestry: Paraiso - 21.7%  ; El Carmen - 28.4% ; Veracruz - 25.6% ; Saladero - 30.2% ; Tamiahua - 40.5%. Paraiso is in Tabasco and Veracruz is, of course, in the state of Veracruz. Tamiahua is in northern Veracruz. These areas were the first places in Mexico settled by the Olmecs. I'm not sure about Saladero and El Carmen. Given the frequency of African admixture with the Mexicans a comparison of Olmec mask, statuettes and other artifacts show many resemblances to contemporary Mexican groups. But a comparison of Olmec figures with ancient Mayan figures, made before the importation of hundreds of thousands of slaves to Mexico during the Atlantic Slave Trade show no resemblance at all to the Olmec figures. This does not mean that the Maya had no contact with the Africans. This would explain the "puffy" faces of contemporary Amerinds, which are incongruent with the Mayan type associated with classic Mayan sculptures and stelas.
There is little support for this work among mainstream Mesoamerican researchers.
Epigraphic evidence
Dr. Leo Wiener, in Africa and the Discovery of America, suggested that the Olmec probably used a Mandé writing system. Dr. Wiener concluded that glyphs on the Tuxtla Statuette were analogous to Manding writing engraved on rocks in Mandeland and identical to the Manding (Malinke-Bambara) writing used in Africa. [17]
Dr. Clyde Winters compared the symbols on the Tuxtla Statuette and the celts in Offering 4 at La Venta to each other and found the symbols similar to those of the Vai script.
There are many inscriptions written in this script spreading from the Fezzan to the ancient Mande cities of Tichitt.[18] Mauny and others have identified the North African petroglyphs as writing connected to Vai, an African language, which Delaffose has noted was created in ancient times according to Vai informants [19]. The writing found among the Vai and along the Chariots routes leading to Tichitt is related to the Libyco-Berber writing. Many of these inscriptions like the inscription at Oued Mertoutek date back to Olmec times. Using the Vai characters, Dr. Clyde Winters claimed to have deciphered the Olmec script in 1979, claimed that Olmec symbols are a script that encodes a Mande language. [20][21] Dr. Winters claims that as a result of his decipherment the Olmec called themselves 'Xi" or "Si".
For many reasons, these assertions have found little support among Mesoamerican researchers. While scholars have made significant progress translating the Maya script, researchers have yet to translate Olmec glyphs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_alternative_origin_speculations#_note-1
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