{"id":10595,"date":"2014-05-17T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=10595"},"modified":"2014-05-17T01:02:21","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T17:02:21","slug":"prehistoric-girls-bones-in-underwater-cave-helps-link-ancient-and-native-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/17\/prehistoric-girls-bones-in-underwater-cave-helps-link-ancient-and-native-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Prehistoric girl\u2019s bones in underwater cave helps link ancient and native Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yucatan<\/a>
Yucatan peninsula. Photo from NASA \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014The pristine skeleton of a teenaged girl who lived about 13,000 years ago, discovered in a deep, water-filled underground cavern in the sprawling cave system in Mexico\u2019s Yucatan Peninsula, is providing archeologists with an unprecedented glimpse into the history of the early inhabitants of the Americas.<\/p>\n

Given the name Naia, Greek for \u201cwater nymph,\u201d the remains of the 15- or 16-year-old girl were found at the bottom of the boulder-strewn, underwater chamber dubbed Hoyo Negro\u2014\u201dblack hole\u201d in Spanish\u2014along with the scattered bones of 26 large animal species, among them sabre-tooth tigers, giant ground sloths and cave bears.<\/p>\n

\u201cSealed off by water and darkness for over 8,000 years, it is a time capsule of the environment and human life in central America at the end of the Ice Age, when glaciers across the globe trapped massive amounts of water as ice and sea level was far lower than it is today,\u201d said American paleontologist Jim Chatters, head of an international research team investigating the site and its archeological treasures.<\/p>\n

Chatters, the first scientist to study the prehistoric skeleton known as Kennewick Man that was found in Washington state in 1996, described Hoyo Negro as being like a miniature of California\u2019s La Brea tar pits, \u201conly without the tar and with considerably better preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of Naia\u2019s death, the caves would have been dry and accessible, he told a media teleconference. \u201cPerhaps seeking fresh water in the dark passages, animals and at least one human fell into this inescapable … trap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naia\u2019s remains were discovered in 2007 by three Mexican cave divers exploring an underwater cavern, deep in the Yucatan jungle about eight kilometres from the Caribbean coast. In a 50-metre-deep sinkhole within the cavern, the girl\u2019s skull was resting on a boulder, \u201claying upside-down with a perfect set of teeth and dark eye sockets looking back at us,\u201d said diver Alberto Nava.<\/p>\n

After the divers reported their find to the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico, a consortium of 16 scientists and cave explorers from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada was formed in 2011 to photograph and document the site, and to collect fossilized flora and fauna samples for testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of it has just been trying to map the locations of things and get the shape of the tunnels and cavern, and mapping locations of human bones and animal bones,\u201d said Ed Reinhardt, a professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton who is part of the research team. His role is studying microfossils, such as those of single-celled animals, and water salinity, within Hoyo Negro.<\/p>\n

But beyond the stunning discovery of Naia\u2019s skeletal remains in her watery grave, reported Thursday in the journal Science, is what DNA from her bones is telling researchers about the origins of the Western Hemisphere\u2019s first peoples and their link to modern-day native Americans.<\/p>\n

Based on carbon-dating and other chronology testing, the researchers estimate \u201cthe small, slight\u201d girl lived between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

DNA was extracted from one of Naia\u2019s teeth and scientists sequenced what\u2019s called mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to child.<\/p>\n

The results show the girl is related, maternally at least, to today\u2019s native Americans, meaning both would trace their lineage to Beringia\u2014the land masses on either side of the ancient land bridge now covered by the Bering Sea that was used by prehistoric people to migrate from northeast Asia into what is now Alaska and southward into Central and South America. Those first migrants have been dubbed the Clovis people.<\/p>\n

Whether all early inhabitants of the Americas came across the Bering land bridge or somehow migrated from elsewhere in the world remains a controversial question because of the differences in skull shape and facial features among prehistoric fossilized remains discovered across the Americas and modern-day indigenous populations.<\/p>\n

Naia\u2019s skull shape and facial features are considered \u201cPaleoamerican\u201d and differ from native Americans living today in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause she exhibits the distinctive Paleoamerican skull and facial features, the study shows for the first time that Paleoamericans with these distinctive features can have Beringian ancestry,\u201d said Deborah Bolnick, a genomic anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n

Bolnick said the physical differences between them are likely due to evolutionary changes that occurred either in Beringia or in the Americas over the last 9,000 years, rather than the two groups having separate origins.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitochondrial DNA for this individual does not exclude the possibility of separate ancestry for some Paleoamericans, but our results provide no evidence for an early migration to the Americas from other regions of the world\u2014southeast Asia, Australia or Europe\u2014as some have proposed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, our results suggest that Paleoamericans and contemporary native Americans both have Beringian ancestry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reinhardt of McMaster said Hoyo Negro, which is now off-limits to the public because unauthorized divers have disturbed the artifacts, said the cathedral-like site is breathtakingly beautiful, with crystal-clear water surrounded by white limestone walls.<\/p>\n

But for Naia, who may have been seeking fresh water in the cavern and accidentally plunged into the sinkhole and could find no escape, it must have been a terrifying experience, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re diving the site, it\u2019s spectacular, but the reality is this pit was a bit of a house of horrors in the sense that you would drop and perhaps survive the fall but not have any light. You wouldn\u2019t know the extent of the cavern. You\u2019d be in a pool of water (at the bottom), kind of thrashing around trying to get out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it would have been a pretty awful way to die for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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