
Kelp Highway Hypothesis - bryanrasmussen
http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/research/paleocoastal-research-project/kelp-highway-hypothesis
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idlewords
Kelp forests are incredible marine ecosystems. Kelp looks like a chaotic
disaster on the surface, but under the water resolves into tall, tree-like
forms that are full of wildlife. It's well worth making a trip to Monterey, CA
(about a 3 hour drive from San Francisco) to see the beautiful kelp forest
exhibit at the aquarium there.

If you're a scuba diver, Monterey is also the best place to see this world
firsthand. Unfortunately, it can take a few dozen dives before you have a day
with clear enough visibility for a real underwater panorama, but once you see
it, you'll be hooked.

Be sure to dive with someone experienced, rent proper cold-water gear, and get
the briefing on how not to get stuck in kelp on the surface. It's not
dangerous, but it can take all the fun out of diving.

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jbattle
A recommendation for the book 1491
([http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491)).
It covers a _lot_ of ground in 500 pages but spends at least a chapter on
various theories for how the Americas were first populated (and whether they
were populated multiple times). Later chapters focus on major New World
cultures. I thought I knew a fair bit about the pre-contact Americas but I
learned a lot

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defen
No mention of the recent genetic studies that show genetic similarity between
deep-Amazon Native Americans and indigenous _Australo-Melanesian_ people,
which would seem to support this hypothesis[1]. It seems like there were at
least two (actually probably 4) waves of non-European colonization of the
Americas - the "Kelp Highway" one described here, followed by the big-game
hunters who eventually wiped out that initial wave almost everywhere except in
the marginal lands deep in the Amazon jungle. There was also the Athabaskan /
Dené and the Eskimo after that.

13,000-15,000 years ago: Kelp Highway settlers

11,000-13,000 years ago: Big-game hunting ancestors of majority of Native
Americans (Clovis culture) at time of European contact arrive and mostly wipe
out the first wave of settlers except in isolated areas like the Amazon jungle

[somewhere in between]: Athabaskan / Dené come across from Siberia and occupy
Alaskan / Canadian interior, as well as parts of the Pacific Northwest and
American Southwest (not sure how they got there)

~3,000 years ago: Inuit / Inupiat / Yupik migration and settling of the
circum-polar region

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7567/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7567/full/nature14895.html)

