"Asian Ancestors Detected in DNA Study in Mexico " Topic

"IRAPUATO, MEXICO—According to a report in Science Magazine, population geneticist Juan Esteban Rodríguez and his advisor, Andrés Moreno-Estrada, of the National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity, used data collected from the genomes of 500 living Mexicans to look for traces of Asian immigrants to Mexico. The scientists expected to find traces of nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants who lived in northern Mexico, and so were surprised to find that about one-third of the people in the sample who live in the Pacific coastal state of Guerrero also had significant Asian ancestry. Their DNA resembled that of present-day populations from the Philippines and Indonesia. Historic records suggest their ancestors may have been enslaved and carried from Asia to Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on Spanish galleons. "We're uncovering these hidden stories of slavery and people who lost their identities when they disembarked in a whole new country," Moreno-Estrada said. For more on the colonial history of Mexico, go to "Conquistador Contagion."
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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting. My ex-wife, a Filipina, was often confused with being Mexican. Sometimes random people would start speaking to her in Spanish, much to her confusion.

How does one differentiate more recent Asian DNA from the ancient DNA that would have crossed over the Bering land bridge from Siberia? The number of mutations in the mitochondria?

Interesting. I think this requires more explanation than they are offering. We get to re-write some more pre-history, which is always good. It sounds like it was interesting…

I once read somewhere of there having been a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana known as the "Spanish Village," the inhabitants of which were supposed to have been of part Philippino ancestry, descended from men forced to serve as sailors on Spanish ships.

Attilathepun47

The Filipinos there did speak Spanish back then. Some older members still do, or did to some extent, back when I visited in the early 1980s.

Also, I've spoken with very elderly Filipinos in various places around the globe and they speak beautiful Spanish. I love their accents and proper grammar.

Dan
PS. I learned from linguists in Mexico years back that there are small pockets of rural populations there who speak languages completely unrelated to any other local group, and which exhibit many similarities to languages in Asia.

Hi Dan,

I'm from the Pacific Northwest, where there have historically been several instances of Asian vessels carried by storms and the Japanese current to the Northwest coast. Sometimes they were "ghost" ships with a crew of skeletons, but other times with living survivors. Who is to say that some such vessels, unable to return the way they came, might not have followed the coast down to Mexico in times before there was any European presence in the Northwest. The famous Manila galleons deliberately sailed nearly such a course on their eastward voyages, aiming for a landfall at Cape Mendocino in northern California before turning south, bound for Acapulco.

It was very interesting to hear of a continuing Spanish linguistic heritage among the mixed ancestry population of the Spanish Village in Louisiana as recently as the 1980's.

Are there many American Indian words in modern Mexican?

The whole topic is one I do not know much about.
I wonder if the American Indians were forbidden to speak their native tongues by their conquerors like the Scots Gaels were?

Given the smallish number of Spaniards it is a wonder, *they* didn't end up speaking an Indian language. The Normans, after all, eventually spoke English.

My DNA test showed both my Mother's & Father's DNA line started somewhere in East Africa, i.e. Somalia, Kenya, etc. Some 100,000 to 180,000 years ago.

So I'd think many on the planet could trace their long distant DNA linage to somewhere in Africa.

So Asian DNA in Mexico, etc., as some here point out with trade, exploration, etc., would really be no surprise I'd think …

Also in a recent airing on the Travel Channel or PBS, the show highlighted the presence of light skinned, red haired people living IIRC, Peru, etc. In certain villages, regions, etc. With the obvious explanations.

Legion 4: "My DNA test showed both my Mother's & Father's DNA line started somewhere in East Africa, i.e. Somalia, Kenya, etc. Some 100,000 to 180,000 years ago."

I didn't know they had been able to recover DNA from remains of that many populations from that specific area and from that time. :)

Dan
PS. Sometimes they sound so sure of their dates and locations, and sometimes they don't. I guess it all depends on which assumption they start with:
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So I'd think many on the planet could trace their long distant DNA linage to somewhere in Africa

All humans have African origins, of course.

From 60 000 years ago (if you agree with the Out of Africa scenario) or earlier if you lean towards Multi-region theory.

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recover DNA

They don't need ancient remains. Everyone's DNA provides a "road map" of their origins & the path their ancestors took. It's done by noting mutations in the mitochondrial record.

Seeing I didn't get a response to my question about Native American words in Latin American Spanish, I found this:
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Not a lot….the Latino people seem to have ditched most of their Indian culture. This does seem odd to me.

I didn't know they had been able to recover DNA from remains of that many populations from that specific area and from that time. :)

Don't know how they did it … I just read the online report … I ain't no scientist scientific type person/kind'a guy … DOH !

They also could tell if I had any Neanderthal in my DNA. I had very little. Again based on the report. Neanderthals mainly were from Northwest Europe, i.e. France and Germany [of course hence the name Neanderthal where their remains were first found, AFAIK].

My DNA basically is from around the Med, i.e. Italy[@ 70%], Serb-Croat [@ 12.5%], Iberian [@ 1.5%], North African [@ 2.7%], Mid Eastern[@ 1.5], etc. …

Of course working in/managing a gym for 16 years in my past @'91-'06. I didn't need a DNA test to tell me if some of the members had any Neanderthal in their DNA !

If you're worried about some aspects of your health, Ralph, blame your Neanderthal ancestors:
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They also could tell if I had any Neanderthal in my DNA. I had very little.

I think with the advent of ancient DNA analysis, the anthropologists are starting to realize "Wow, people really slept around a lot way back when!"

;-)

"Wow, people really slept around a lot way back when!"

As they do "way back NOW".

"Wow, people really slept around a lot way back when!"

They didn't have electricity, so no Color Cable TV, Internet, etc.

Just like when there is a blackout … the birth rate goes up. 9 months later, whining babies 'n everywhere !