Native American 'missing link' was from Asia: Study

The place in Montana where the burial site was found. — AFP

Artifacts taken from the site. — AFP

PARIS (AFP) — Nearly 13,000 years ago, a baby boy died in what is Montana today.
Mourners stained his tiny body with red ochre and entombed him with artefacts that had likely been in his family for generations.
After lying undisturbed for millennia, the infant's body was dug up by accident at a construction site in 1968 — the oldest skeleton ever found in the Americas.
Now, scientists say the remains have helped them settle a long-standing debate about the lineage of indigenous Americans, and shed light on the settlement of the last continent to be populated by modern humans.
After decoding the child's genome, an international team of experts said they can confirm that modern Native Americans are direct descendents of the first people to have settled the continent from Asia some 15,000 years ago, and not migrants from Europe.
"The genetic data... confirms that the ancestors of this boy originated from Asia," said Michael Waters of the Texas-based Center for the Study of the First Americans, who co-authored the report in the journal Nature.
The child's family, in turn, were "directly ancestral to present-day Native Americans".
The boy had been a member of the so-called Clovis culture which lived in North America between 13,000 and 12,600 years ago and is known for its distinctive hand axes, blades and bone and ivory tools.
There has long been a dispute as to where the group's ancestors came from.
Some believed Clovis forefathers came from east Asia, crossing the Bering Strait, which about 15,000 years ago formed an ice bridge.
Others claimed to have found evidence that Native Americans derived from a cross-Atlantic migration of southwestern Europeans during the Last Glacial Maximum some 21,000 to 17,000 yeas ago, when vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and Asia.
Genetic analysis showed the boy, who was 12-18 months old when he died about 12,600 years ago, was more similar to Siberians than other Eurasians or any other people in the world, the scientists reported.
"The study does not support the idea that the first Americans originated from Europe," said Waters.
"A single migration of humans introduced the majority of the founding population of the Americas south of the ice sheet at the close of the last Ice Age."
According to co-author Eske Willerslev of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, the child's family was "directly ancestral to so many peoples in the Americas.
"It is astonishing. We don't have of course genetic information from all tribes, but you could say that just a very, very rough estimate would be about 80 percent deriving from that group. It's almost like a missing link."
Examination of the remains have also yielded new insight into the cultural practices of the first inhabitants of the Americas.
The child's remains had been found buried under 125 artefacts that included spear points and tools made of elk antler.
The skeleton as well as the relics, which were dated to about 13,000 years ago, had been covered in powdered ochre, a type of mineral.
"The difference in age between the skeleton and the... tools as well as the fact that this (elk) was a rare animal, suggest that the artefacts were very special ritual objects or heirlooms passed down over generations," said Waters.
Researchers on the team said they were eager to build closer ties with Native American groups in their future scientific pursuits.
"We want to bring American Indians to the table with this research so they can help guide the most respectful and appropriate way to do this kind of research," said Shane Doyle of Montana State University.
The child's remains are to be reburied later this year.

Floating school offers hope in 'Venice of Africa'

Venice of Africa

LAGOS — It's been dubbed the "Venice of Africa" but comparisons between the sprawling Lagos community of Makoko and the historic Italian city begin and end at the water's edge.
Makoko's makeshift huts rise from the murky waters of the lagoon around Nigeria's biggest city, a far cry from the ornate bridges and buildings that mark out Venice's cultural and commercial past.
The arts transformed Venice and sealed its reputation as one of the most important centers of the European Renaissance.
Now it is hoped that education, with the help of innovative architecture, can help create a better future for the children of Makoko.
The prospect comes in the shape of a floating school, built entirely by locals and launched last year, whose triangular frame rises from the water like a half-built house submerged in a flood.
The project, backed by the UN Development Fund, the Nigerian government and the Heinrich Boell Foundation, is the brainchild of local architect Kunle Adeyemi.
His design was inspired by life in the so-called "slum on stilts" and he said that improving the neglected area required a new approach more in tune with local customs and the environment.

The floating school in Makoko

"Living on water is actually a way of life... so, the question is then how do you improve that condition, how do you address the challenges of living on water in a safe, healthy and environmentally sound way?" he told AFP TV.
Unlike Venice, which attracts millions of tourists from around the world every year, few visitors to Lagos are likely to find their way to Makoko.
From the Third Mainland Bridge which snakes nearly 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) through the lagoon, thick wood smoke and fumes from diesel-powered generators can be seen hanging above the patchwork of corrugated iron and tarpaulin roofs.
Fishermen on the lagoon scour the waters in search of the day's catch. Wooden canoes —the only way to get around — ply the watery strips between the flimsy lean-to shacks and washing lines.
The new school is also visible from the bridge, floating on 250 empty blue barrels fixed under its wooden base designed to get around the problems of periodic flooding in the area.
Its three storeys make it the tallest structure in Makoko and with 220 square meters (2,370 square feet) of floor space, it is also the neighborhood's biggest communal facility.
Fishermen can tether their canoes to the base and come just to mend their nets, as much as children wanting to learn — often for the very first time — or play.

Side view of the floating school

From the top of the A-frame, under its solar panels, the high-rise buildings and lights of Lagos Island — the heart of Nigeria's financial hub — can be seen in the distance.
The people of Makoko eke out a living by fishing and trading. Few of the estimated 150,000 people who live in the neighborhood can aspire to escape a life of poverty.
Jeremiah Oleole Austin is one of the few young people to have gone on to further education.
"I was born and brought up here so I know how the people suffer, I feel their pain, I feel their cry and I also know their happiness," said the art student, who is also known as "Big Babba".
"I know what they really need in this community and which is not capable for us to do it. Without some... training or skills, how can they go places?
"There's only a few of us that went out into the city to see more... If there are more schools, I believe there is going to be changes in the community."
Headteacher Noah Shemede couldn't agree more.

Kunle Adeyemi

"Every child deserves an education wherever they are," he said. "We are on water and that doesn't mean that we can't go to school on water. We have to.
"We need more schools to accommodate thousands of children that are at home. We need more schools."
Adeyemi for his part said the building could also be used differently — both in Nigeria and beyond.
"Its main aim is to generate a sustainable, ecological, alternative building system and urban water culture for the teeming population of Africa's coastal regions," his firm, NLE, said on its website.
"It is really just a structure that could actually be used for different forms of uses," added the architect.
"It could be a home, you could use the same prototype and develop that into homes, you could develop it into hospitals, you can develop it into a theater, a restaurant, all kinds of facilities.
"The key thing is that we have developed a prototype of building and architecture on water using local materials and local resources and available technology." — AFP

Double take: Twins galore on Havana street

By Andrea Rodriguez


 HAVANA (AP) — Some say it could be something in the water. Others point to a tree with mystical significance for locals. Maybe it's just chance. But neighbors all marvel at the 12 sets of twins living along two consecutive blocks in western Havana, ranging in age from newborns to senior citizens.

In this Sept. 29, 2013 photo twins pose for a portrait near a Siguaraya tree. — AP

 "We were the first ones," said Fe Fernandez, 65, who wears her gray hair closely cropped. "It's incredible!" said her identical sister, Esperanza, who shares the same features but whose black-dyed hair falls to shoulder length. At first blush there isn't much about 68-A Street to mark it as different from anywhere else in the city. But if you spend any amount of time here, before long you might think you're seeing double.
 "Hi, I'm Carla, and this is my sister Camila," said Carla Rodriguez, a smiley, bespectacled 9-year-old. "We're twins and we love living on this block because we have twin friends."
"I never expected it. No fertility treatments. It was my first pregnancy, and at five weeks they did an ultrasound and I was carrying twins," said Tamara Velazquez, who's been busy raising 6-year-old identical sisters Asley and Aslen.
"It's a lot of work. It requires a lot of patience," Velazquez said. "They are very active and dominant, although each has a different character." Ten of the twin sets here are identical, and the other two fraternal. None of the mothers interviewed by The Associated Press said they had received fertility treatments. None of the families are related to each other.

Twins on their way to school in Havana. — AP

All but one of the sets were born into these homes, and the lone newcomers moved into a house that was vacated by twins who moved to Spain. Others have died or moved away over the years. "Twins leave, twins come," Fe Fernandez joked.
The 70 or so houses on these two short blocks are home to around 224 people, extrapolating from national statistics on average household size. That works out to about one set of twins for every 20 people. Historically the rate has been about one per 80 live births, though experts say that's rising globally, primarily in developed countries where fertility treatments are more readily available. It's impossible to say what could be behind the high number of twins here, or whether there is any cause at all.
Scientists say a variety of factors play into twin births, such as race, the mother's age and diet. Western Africa, from where many Afro-Cubans can trace their ancestry, has significantly elevated rates of twinning.
Meanwhile statisticians caution against the human tendency to seek patterns of serendipity in a random world. "Something could definitely be there, it could be a combination of various factors," Andrew Gelman, a statistics professor at Columbia University, said via email. "In addition, opportunistic counting can make a small and natural pattern appear larger."
For example focusing on these two blocks without considering other surrounding ones, he added, "puts the spotlight on a small subset." While there's been no scholarly study of the twins on 68-A Street, they nonetheless consider themselves part of a special community.
Some look to faith for an explanation.
"There are neighbors who are religious. Many say it's the Siguaraya tree, which people ask for things and is in one of the homes," Fe Fernandez said. "The people believe in it strongly." Leafy and embellished with delicate white blossoms, the Siguaraya is considered sacred in the syncretic Afro-Cuban Santeria faith and is associated with a powerful "orisha," or spirit.
Others, like Mercedes Montero, mother of 21-year-old Xavier and Lorena, chalk it up to the luck of the draw. "It's a very big coincidence," Montero said, "one of those strange things in life."