Text 24138, 51 rader
Skriven 2009-05-17 15:37:31 av Carol Shenkenberger (30719.cooks)
     Kommentar till en text av Glen Jamieson (29756.cooks)
Ärende: WILD SHEEP  90411
=========================
    
 >  GJ>   I am surprised that wild sheep inhabited that part of USA, as
 >  GJ> I have never read of them being part of the traditional diet of the
 >  GJ> original inhabitants.  I thought they were a Eurasian animal.

Lots of oddities.  Horses developed here, spread to Asia and Europe, then
died out here only returning with the European settlers.  They run wild here
now and are not endangered at all.


 >  DD> I suspect that they came across the land bridge from Asia back when
 >  DD> the Aleutian Islands were part of an isthmus ... sort of like the
 >  DD> "native Americans" who displaced the proto-humans who had the run of
 >  DD> the place up until then.
 > 
 > What happened to these "proto-humans"?  Are there any remains which
 > could identify them?   Were there ever any apes or monkeys in North
 > America?  (Apart from politicians, of course!)

Actually the American continents (north and south) never had 'proto-humans'.
There is some debate on just when men came here but most top out at earliest
of 15,000 years even on the most radical side.  13,000 seems generally
accepted.  Well into the 'homo sapiens sapiens' era.

Yes, we have 'new world monkeys' here native.  Mostly seen in lower mexico
through south america.  Ours have prehensile tails (old world ones dont).

Geologically, OZ separated well before the Americas from 'Pangea' but we seem
to be pretty much next after it when you get to larger land masses.  Unlike
OZ, we've had a sporadic land channel for a very long time though so it's not
as obvious.  Mammals won here for example.  South American before it joined wi 
th North America was noted for marsupials, most of which subsumed to mammals
over time but we have some of the remaining ones that arent of OZ origin. 
(Possum pie anyone?).

How did Man get here?  It's still under debate but logistically it may well
have come from 3 places with a possible 4th.  Bering Straits and the
snow-line arctic Inuit, sea going polynesians (same group as OZ), and Europe
across Greenland-Iceland route to Canada.  During some times that route from
Europe would have been fairly small hops.

Some evidence leads well to Bering straights and man moving down from there
and other evidence seems to indicate dual settlement of polynesian in south
america, and Asian/European in North which met and blended in middle america
roughly.

The only thing certain here in the Americas, is they came in waves.
              xxcarol

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