Montana Boy: Bones Show Ancestral Links to Europe

It must have been a pretty special child, otherwise the two-year old wouldn't have been buried in such a ceremonious manner. The boy was sprinkled with celebratory red dust and given distinctive stone artifacts for his last journey.

The characteristic fluting of the stone weapons serve as archeological evidence that the boy, who died some 12,600 years ago, came from the Clovis culture. It was one of the earliest New World groups, disappearing mysteriously a few centuries after the child's burial in present day Montana. From the summit of a hill towering over the burial site near the Yellowstone River, the boy's Ice Age contemporaries could monitor their hunting grounds for mammoth and bison.

Now a team of scientists led by the Danish geneticist Eske Willerslev has analyzed the boy's origins and discovered that he descends from a Siberian tribe with roots tracing back to Europe. Some of the boy's ancestors are likely even to have lived in present-day Germany.

It's been known for quite a while that there are no truly native Americans. We all came from somewhere else at some point in time. The Clovis group were some of the first to cross the Siberian/Alaska land bridge and migrate southward toward the middle of north america. In a recent TV program it was surmised that one of the biggest reasons the americas did not advance as rapidly as cultures in Asia, north Africa and Europe was a lack of rapid transportation (the horse).

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

In a recent TV program it was surmised that one of the biggest reasons the americas did not advance as rapidly as cultures in Asia, north Africa and Europe was a lack of rapid transportation (the horse).

They also never figured out the wheel.

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