To keep the amateur spelunkers out but I doubt that the scientists would resort to that.

Once told me it was his people's belief they came from the Black Hills and never crossed the ancient land bridge between Asia and America. When I asked him to clarify he said, those were sacred mountains, and his people emerged from the hills. He also said other tribes may have crossed the land bridge, but his people definitely did not.

He said a Tribe Elder told him his people emerged from the black Hills. I wasn't about to get into an argument with him, and If that is his people's belief, who am I to argue?

But note that in less than 300 years--probably far less--the traditional narratives have been thoroughly rewritten with few traces of anything that was there. The attempted genocide of the pre-existing population is gone, and it makes it look like there was a kind of permanent golden age. It's completely self-serving. When the traditions were adapted, it may have been intentionally self-serving; or perhaps it wasn't. Can't tell, no point having an opinion on the matter.

However, do keep that in mind whenever you hear traditional narratives touted as absolute truth. The Lakota's claims to being indigenous there are to be somewhat less respected than a Boston Brahmin's claims to being "indigenous" to Massachussetts and his kind have always been there.

Some traditional narratives stay changed over long periods of time. Some Zuni rites are were unintelligible a century ago, but reflect a far older state of the language. Other "traditional narratives"--the examples that I've heard of were in West Africa--that were documented in the early 1900s were re-documented in the 1970s and '80s and found to already be completely revamped and revised to suit modern requirements, with no suggestion on the part of those telling them that there was any change.

Lest somebody say, "You just don't like indigenous peoples," here's a similar kind of example. There's an odd belief called Anglo-Israelism, that somehow the British royal family and much population is somehow derived from the ancient Israelites. How this happened varies slightly from version to version. This roots British authority in the Bible and in God's promises to Israel. Blake lived at a time when this was a common tale, hence his poem and the anthem based on it.

There's a similarly odd narrative called the Arthur Tale. This roots British authority in long-standing tradition and history.

The two are in complementary distribution over time. When British authority was expanding and looking outward, divine Xian authority was what was often promulgated as justification. When under seige and digging in, they were Arthur's heirs, beseiged and trying to overcome hurdles to build a bright future.

Similarly, in the Monumenta (minor) series there's an Austrian chronicle, in Medieval Latin, that tells of the history of the Bavarians. Laying claim to that land and to long presence there (Slavs were still numerous and also laid claim to the land), the monkish chronicler traces his tribe's roots to an unmentioned son of Abraham, who allegedly sojourned in that land and to whose multitudinous offspring the biblical promises also applied. This easily overrode any claim that the Slav's had to their invasion, perhaps only 700-800 years before and recorded in Byzantine chronicles.

Beliefs are fine. You respect them to the extent that you don't foist your own on them. But there's no reason to assume that they're true. The sacred, ancestral status Lakota want to attribute to terrain they weren't aware of 300 years ago shoudn't be controverted. Until, of course, that status is a constraint on how others use that land. Then a known falsehood is being used to impose a current demand on others' behavior. If they get offended at the ahistorical nature of their beliefs and pissed off that they're not obeyed by outsiders, oh, well. That's life.

elder was wrong, nor try and reason with him that his ancestors didn't suddenly appeared out of thin air. (Hey, for all I know they came to this planet by UFO, and generations later, they had all but forgotten that..)

That would be like me arguing with a Shinto or Buddhist Priest that all his beliefs are baloney, I would never do that, as I respect my culture too much. I saw a video once that was cringe worthy. There was a British reporter for the BBC doing a documentary on an ancient Shinto shrine in Japan, and at one part of the documentary, he thought it would be amusing to see if he could crawl through an ancient hollowed out beam, made from a giant tree that was helping to hold up part of the holy shrine. He was probably lucky, that no officials were around, but he nearly got stuck doing this stunt. It probably was disrespectful to do this, and he probably would have been told to leave... that kind of snobby disregard for spiritual things kind of attitude, I really don't understand. The place is a holy site, you just don't desecrate it because to you its unscientific and not part of your beliefs! I just hope he is never allowed on the grounds again. Some Japanese shrines go back hundreds of years.. and are holy for a reason, and to do what he did was disrespectful to the people who use that shrine on a daily basis.

You should really visit Japan sometime and get to know your culture. Climbing through the beam is a famous tourist attraction in Nara. It's at a temple not a shrine.



BTW where do you practice Shinto in SF? are there any priests or shrines?

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(for there are some in Hawaii) is in Oregon. As I understand it, to be a real Japanese shinto shrine, it has to be brought (the entire shrine) to America. You simply don't build one here and call it a Shrine. (Though Buddhist temples don't have that restriction.) I read an interview with the Priest up in Oregon how he had to get permission from his family, and his ancestors (presumably though prayer)to get permission to move the Shrine from Japan to the United States.

In answer to your question, I don't practice Shinto or Buddhism here because there is no place for a Jodo Shinshu to go. There are some Buddhist temples...most are Chinese and spoken in Mandarin and Cantonese. There is also a Thai buddhist temple here. There is a Japanese buddhist temple near nihonmachi, but is not my sect. My parents are from Hawaii and there are both Shinto and Buddhist places there but I have never been. I would love to go.. or even visit Japan some day.

Their origin stories always put them right here since the beginning of time.

I don't buy the land bridge theory, either, it would have been under a mile or so of ice and there would have been nothing to eat. If they did come by a northern route (and some did, most likely), it was in skin boats, following fish, seals, and other aquatic life. The southern route was 100% island hopping.

ETA: It would be fascinating if there is any evidence in the sediment in that cave about what might have caused the Younger Dryas. That has been a deep mystery for too long.

but mine are based on how the Yupik got around up to about 100 years ago. Crossing a land bridge near the Arctic Circle during an ICE AGE just doesn't make any sense. They wouldn't have followed any herds, those herds would have starved to death before they got there.

and it was a bone of contention among them and the Aleuts during the Cold War that they weren't able to see their more distant relatives across the strait.

It's the same sort of folklore that has ingrained those "wagonloads of smallpox contaminated blankets" to Indian tribes. Uh, that virus is too fragile to exist outside a human body or human tissue culture for more than a few hours and then only in optimum conditions. Never happened, but people will fight you to the death over it.

Again, land bridges don't offer much in the way of tansport when they're buried under glaciers.

When I took physical anthro as an undergraduate, my professor was a specialist in ancient "Eskimo" remains. (I'll use that term for simplicity even though it's not correct). The conventional date for Eskimo presence in Alaska was at that time believed to be about 2,000 years. There was very little difference among these peoples as they spread westward across Greenland. Greenlandic is hard for an Aleutian Eskimo to understand, sort of like the gradation of differences in language as you move from Naples to Paris.

Anyway, he argued that the date really should be 4,000 years BP, and there was no thought of them crossing the land bridge. The Eskimo immigration is an entirely separate event from the "Indian" immigration.

In fact, I expect that there were several populations that ended up here. Kennebec Man, for example, looks a lot like a proto-caucasian. There are many other anomolies. I also think that Pacific Northwest Indians were in contact with Polynesian culture, but that's a whole 'nother story.

and the fact that there was both a northern and southern route isn't disputed, AFAIK. I know some of the "Caucasian" remains were found to have much more in common with the Ainu in Japan once forensic paleontologists got hold of them.

I still say following fish was the way to get across the northern route, giving them something to eat along the way, while traversing a glacier would not.

As for language, here's another factoid. Athabascan and Dine (Navajo) still have enough in common that the two populations can get the gist when they get together.

One thing you can say about the human species, we do tend to wander around a lot.

And you're no doubt right about the Ainu connection; in my era of physical anthro (haven't kept up with it much), the Ainu were described as a proto-caucasian population.

It's my impression that there were forests on top of the glaciers, growing there in soil that the glaciers had dug up in their advance, with some game critters (think mammoths) also growing there.

I spent decades in Alaska. Eskimo is an incredibly offensive term to them and none of the people up there, white or native, use it. Your professor is a fraud or his specialty only came from books.

but was looking for a collective term for the Inuit, Yupik & Aleuts.

Here's Wikipedia.

My next door neighbor was Athabaskan. My best friend Paul's wife was Y'pik, and I am telling you NO ONE calls themselves "Eskimo" and they consider the term as offensive as calling a black person the n-word. The proper term is "native Alaskan", period. I worked with these people in my job and I hunted near their villages. Why do you throw wikipedia at me when I am telling you I was there and what you believe is wrong?

so people will have a vague idea of where they're from. If you catch on quick, they don't use it any more.

that covered much of the northern hemisphere, especially close to the Arctic. When they developed seaworthy boats, across they came, following fish.

You have to admit it makes sense.

Thank gosh for dna.

Wow. The things you learn on DU.

And this is news to me. Thanks for posting this

I'm amazed that the Park service kept this so quiet for so long but it sounds like a really interesting find.

Hey come on the earth is only 6000 years old. How could they find bones 11000 years old.

I visited Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park when I was a kid in the 1960s. I have been a cave exploring nut from the time I was 12. Jewel and Wind caves are among the longest in the world and extremely complex. Explorers have pushed the length of Wind Cave to nearly 140 miles of passage and Jewel Cave is now over 175 miles of mapped passageways (with plenty of unexplored leads left in each).

That was years ago so I don't know if that's been solved.

Not all made ready for large school group and the like
Hope they remain that way or perhaps the new one will