Jennifer Raff is a well-regarded researcher of ancient genomes, and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. A quick online search reveals an extensive publication record that benefits her scholarly peers pondering vexing questions about the arrival and early presence of people in the Americas. Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas brings her inquiries to the broader public, which has an interest in this arcane puzzle but does not have the requisite skills to tease out new knowledge from relict genes.
Once past the title page and the dedication, the table of contents presents the tripartite division of the narrative that makes up this volume. There is a Land Acknowledgment Statement in front of a short poem by Roger Echo-Hawk that create an eclectic segue to the introduction. Three chapters in Part I chronicle the span of archaeological thought during its early history in North America. Two short chapters in Part II shed light on the arcane laboratory techniques used to collect and extract the samples of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from the bones and teeth of ancient humans. Part III is set apart for interpretations of data accumulated by researchers in a relatively young discipline.
Raff starts with an anecdote recounting the discovery of ancient human remains at the site in southeastern Alaska given the Tlingit name Shuká Káa (Man Ahead of Us) Cave, and once called On Your Knees Cave. Formerly, scholars who saw no connections between modern tribes and skeletons removed from the archaeological record ignored Tlingit and Haida perspectives. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) changed all that because the arc of legal discourse no longer bent in absolute favor of science. Replacing a legacy of distrust with respectful dialogue is the metanarrative illustrating how partnerships between Indigenous people and scientists can produce vibrant research to the benefit of both parties.
In ancient times, caves were the favored habitation of our ancestors. So, with painstaking clarity, Raff provides a step-by-step guide to examining the musty environs of the underworld. The confined, dark caverns that once hosted religious leaders conducting ceremonies over their dead have their modern analogues in the bleachy, cramped labs where scientists observe protocols for retrieving pristine samples of DNA. Ensuring that no molecular contaminants will survive these sterilized milieux is necessary for producing results that will withstand critical scrutiny. Genomic studies are more than proxies of a time long past. Indigenous people still bear the burden of resentful politics and social policies, such as the controversy regarding the discovery of human remains in Kennewick, Washington, that discriminate against their claims to their ancestral homelands, so increasingly they turn to archaeology and genomic studies to provide that evidence.
Scientific writing features a formulaic approach that influences this author's style. Just as every chapter begins with stating the problem (Part I), prior to describing the methods for amassing data (Part II), so, too, does Part III of this book contain the interpretation these data inspire. Chapter 6 opens with the caveat that religious advocates will find disappointing. Genomic studies operate within an evolutionary framework that relies on the logical investigation of evidence that points to the dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa. There is no evidence of parallel evolution from the primates in America. So, Asia is the middle ground; the place where the immediate ancestors of Native Americans emerged. Although there are hints, traces, and clues, there is no epicenter identifying a homeland where history began for Indigenous people. Genetic history does point to new discoveries in Siberia, such as the people in Beringia who produced no descendants. There is tantalizing evidence that, even in those long-ago days, dogs were our best friends.
Whatever routes brought people past the continental glaciers during the last Ice Age, they reached the heart of a continent where they discovered diverse environments. And, of course, there was South America. Genetic studies of the earliest people there show close relations with their kin to the north. The last places in America that people occupied were the high Arctic and the Caribbean archipelago, and despite the relatively recent eras when people claimed these lands, only broad outlines of these migrations are known. Future research will fine-tune our understanding of population movements and clarify their connections to their sources. For now, researchers can only continue their work and follow the evidence to where it leads.
