Sunday, June 7, 2020

The first Cubans

The Caribbean isn't well understood in archaeology - so the geneticists are having a go at it. Although their stock picture of modern AfroCubanas is wrong and lazy.

The researchers, less lazy, tell us that the indigenous population wasn't just that 800 BC movement from South America. There was also a North American presence, in the western Caribbean starting from 1200 BC in the remains. That would be Cuba and Jamaica, maybe Haiti. In fact there were two intrusions from El Norte. They shared no admixture with the south - the protoCaribs and Arawaks - as can be expected of a severe language-barrier. I suppose that, at first, an agreement was accepted on who got which islands.

The researchers are not telling us which North Americans. There's a wide empty Gulf, full of tropical storms, so our choices are the Florida and Yucatan peninsulae. I'd expect more Olmeclike remains if there was any back-and-forth with Yucatan. So I have to assume, Florida. Florida does have that leading edge of Key West islands, to train boaters. Although, they hadn't ever got to the Bahamas, because the Lucayan found there were just 12th-century Arawak.

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