Another bit that keeps coming to my mind is how (at least at first) the examiners of Kennewick Man said he was Caucasian, and up until fairly recently the same was said of the Ainu. Why? Is it simply an ethnocentric assumption going on, namely that if they’re not obviously Native American or Japanese they must be Caucasian?

What is indeed interesting is the probably Caucasian-Mongolian genetic inheritance of the Ainu people, which I have long suspected was also originally the genetic history of the Anu tribe. The Anu tribe is actually spoken of in the Rig Veda and was one of the ten tribes that lost the famous ‘War of Sudas.’ The Rig tells us that 6,666 members of the Anu tribe were slain, and the remainder were driven out of India on the grounds that the Brahmins considered them a ‘fallen race.’ (This is perhaps no big deal as the Brahmins considered anyone who ate the meat of cattle as ‘fallen.’) The ancient War of Sudas seems to take place during the age of the Great Floods, i.e. during the Ice Age melt down.

During the Ice Age, India and the supposed now inundated land masses south of India called Kumari Kandam in the Tamil-Dravidian tales (made famous in Graham Hancock’s book, Underworld) was a destination for many Ice Age cultures. This sunken land mass supposedly stretched from Australia to Madagascar and would have been one of the only inhabitable places in the entire Northern Hemisphere during the Ice Age. Undoubtedly people from Europe, Russia, Mongolia, China, Anatolia and the Middle East made their way south to this region in search of a warmer climate. India and the now inundated lands to the south would have truly been the melting pot of the world during the Ice Age, and this same low-lying land mass undoubtedly suffered horrific floods and eventual inundation when the Ice Age came to an end.

In the Vedic texts, it is Manu who is saved from the flood, but no doubt, anyone who could either traveled north into mainland India to escape the flooding or they built some sort of sailing vessel to escape their flooded lands. No doubt there was a great migration to many different parts of the world at that time in history. The Ainu people could have realistically split from the main body of the Anu tribe at that time and made their way by sea to the island of Japan.

It’s exceptionally interesting that the Ainu venerate the bear, for it was the Great Bear, or more notably the seven major stars of the Big dipper that symbolically stood for the Seven Rishis; the great sages of India’s past. It seems to be a clear sign that the Ainu people may have one time been part of the people that made it to the Southern India and Kumari Kandam to survive.

Unfortunately, the main body of the Anu people eventually became very warlike and it’s more than apparent that after they were exiled from India, they made their way into the Middle East, murdered the local ruler, Alalu, who was probably one and the same with the original Lord Apsu (or ‘Abzu Rishtu’ depending on the translation) in the Babylonian Creation Text, the Enuma Elish. I suspect, however, that the Ainu branch of Japan had split from the main body of the Anu tribe long before this time.

There is every reason to believe that the original Ainu-Anu-An people became great maritime sailors and explorers and made it to very, very far-reaching destinations at a very early time, long before standard historians even consider ocean voyages possible.

Did one branch of the Ainu people of Japan sail north, skirting the Pacific coastlands of Eastern Russia and eventually make their way to Alaska, the crossed the Bearing Strait and then down to the Pacific Northwest, where Kennewick Man was found?

I’d say it’s entirely possible!

One of the things that strikes me about the Kennewick man is that here you have a prehistoric person who shows some interesting traits.

First, The time frame, 9,000 years ago, obviously means that this was not a per-Clovis person, but it does show that neither was he with the original Clovis migration and the method of his migration was through seafaring means. This last part is perfectly feasible as others here have mentioned. Although prehistoric Ainu movements are not always clear, there is nothing to say that an Ainu could not somehow make a seafaring route.

Also, depending on how much stock you put into studies on the morphology of the skeleton, you have in the Kennewick Man a person who is apparently physically different from other Paleo Indians, either Clovis or per-Clovis, and therefore possibly of a different lineage from the Native Americans we know of. Although it is debatable, everything seems to point to the Kennewick remains being of Ainu origin rather than the prehistoric peoples generally attributed to originally populating the New World. It shows interesting potential for learning more about Ainu migrations and movements and which people were making it to the New World.

All of this suggests to me that the patterns and diversity of prehistoric people migrating to the New World is complex. I tend to think that there could have been pre-Clovis seafaring migrations, followed by a land bridge migration, and then as the Kennewick Man seems to show, subsequent seafaring migrations by other prehistoric peoples, including who are perhaps not always thought of when talking about who inhabited North America in the past (like Ainu). When, where, and importantly, by whom the New World was variously inhabited seems to be something that is not completely simple and straightforward. Certainly there is overwhelming evidence that North America was not solely populated by one land migration or any one people.

All of the added insights posted here, and I very much appreciate the archeologists’ perspectives, tie into my fascination about the movements of prehistoric peoples. They were far more mobile and wide ranging than may have been previously thought.

However, none of these ideas are watertight. There have been some issues with the dating of pre-Clovis finds, with some disputing the age of supposed pre-Clovis artifacts, and the challenge of now submerged entry routes making it difficult to properly study potential sites. This is still an area that is debated within archeology and anthropology, but I tend to feel that more and more, the evidence is going to lean further away from the idea of a solitary “short chronology” migration hypothesis. It is true that seafaring migration is gaining more traction as a possibility, but it and the idea of multiple entry routes it is still not without detractors.

The wording at the end didn’t come across the way I expected. I suppose in my wrap up to the article, I should have said that finding an Ainu in North America would shake to the core the long standing (and still argued by some) idea that all prehistoric people’s inhabited the continent in one land migration rather than ideas on New World migrations in general. A reliable find of an Ainu in America shows that it would be completely feasible for ancient people to populate North America in this manner.

The Kennewick Man would certainly be evidence of this, and seems to fit into the idea that multiple migrations by various routes happened. Then again, like some have said, maybe it was a fisherman blown off course, or an Ainu explorer that went up along the Arctic Circle and found himself in North America. It is thought provoking to me.

Who was the Kennewick Man? Why was he there? Was he alone, and if not where are the others? What does he tell us about the travels of the Ainu and what evidence does he give us in terms of migrations to America? I think there are a lot of interesting questions posed in the case of the Kennewick Man, and it is a fascinating find in my opinion.

Boats were necessary for people to populate Australia, so suitable boats must have been available at least fifty thousand years ago. Sites in South America are coming in at thirty thousand years ago.

The thing to remember is that the Ainu of today aren’t the Ainu of 9 kya. Nobody stopped changing over time on any side, and like the “black swan” example from the recent economic press has shown that there is a human bias towards gradualism and continuity, when even in our short history there have been drastic changes in populations’ geographic extent. Case in point the Magyar tribes now settled in the Danube Basin, who arrived with the Mongol Hordes and replaced the Celtic tribes already there. The Uighurs of the Xinjiang desert, who are Caucasians with a long history in the area, including the Red Haired mummies of the desert, are now subjects of China’s unfriendly communist government.

The upshot is that people, language, and technology are independent variables and the archaeological record is harsh. Add to that the cognitive needs of advancing political and social systems and the mythologies used to maintain and increase groups’ cohesiveness and numbers and it is easy to see how the story gets hard to untangle.

I would also say there was most definitely some cultural exchange between the Jomon and Ainu. There are differences between the Jomon and Ainu, though. Some archeological evidence suggesting significant differences such as a clear difference in pottery styles, and influences by the Northeast Okhotsk culture exist.

It is thought that the Ainu culture developed from what is called the “Satsumon culture,” which appeared in Hokkaido around AD750 to AD1150. Satsumon culture probably derived from a Jomon related society that was influenced but not replaced by the Yayoi, and it became a sort of intermediate stage between the Jomon, Yayoi, and Ainu cultures. This culture became widespread in the north and borrowed some elements from Okhotsk culture. It is thought that later the Ainu culture derived from this Satsumon culture.

Anyway, the exact relationship between Jomon, Okhotsk, and Ainu people is not completely clear, and in some ways the Ainu remain mysterious as ever. Anyway, thank you for your added insights and ideas, as well as the information regarding those South American cultures.

semillama- I tend to agree with that conclusion, that there were various different migrations to the continent, but only a few retained viable populations. In many ways, it makes a lot of sense. Things like the Kennewick Man skeleton could perhaps represent a specimen of such a group, like the Ainu, who did not establish a long term population there. I also agree it is hard to determine origins based on such a small sampling of skeletons, but the Kennewick Man and its suggestion of a possible link between the Ainu and North America is still fascinating for me. Anyway, I appreciate your perspective here!

I just wanted to say that I am very pleased that people are enjoying this article, and I appreciate the added insights that commenters have been posting. I am professionally a biology guy, not an archeologist, but I really enjoy studying and researching about the Ainu and things like the Kennewick Man, so it has been my great pleasure to guest blog these articles. I am happy that others here seem to share that interest.

Hopefully you have enjoyed this article and thanks again for the good comments and support.

The link between the Ainu and Native Americans may be even stronger than Kennewick Man, at least if we accept the notion that the Jomon were their predecessors or relatives. Studies of ancient pottery from the Valdivian culture in Ecuador and Peru have shown very strong links to Jomon pottery, and like them, the Valdivians were a maritime, coastal culture. Further, the Pericu of Baja California, who survived until the 1700’s, were noted as being both culturally and physically distinct from their clearly Amerindian neighbours. Studies of Pericu skulls just a few hundred years old strongly suggest a similarity to the Ainu, although I don’t know if their culture did, save that they were also a coastal people.