Travelin' Man

Fiorella is fascinated, as she is by many things, by the saga of the Kennewick Man, whose 9,300 year-old skeleton was discovered in the bank of the Columbia River in 1996.  It seems, judging by his diet and the shape of his skull, he didn't come from the inland valley where his remains were found, but from the coast.  And he was more closely relate to the Japanese Ainu than modern-day Native Americans.

Interesting, interesting.  To Fio, that means that even way back when, there was a whole lot of travelin' goin' on.  In fact, probably more than today because people had to follow their food.  And then there were always those dangerous-looking new neighbors to avoid.  Besides, it musta been exciting to  pick up and move to a new place.

And Kennewick Man was one of those who REALLY got around..

DNA Discoveries

Fiorella was surprised that the Australian Aborigine DNA had not been sequenced until recently, and now she's wondering about other unique populations, like the hairy Ainu, the African pygmies, some of the primitive tribes of India.

It's exciting, after years of political correctness about us all being exactly the same except for genetic accidents of skin color, to learn that we are all different.

But then, Fiorella has always been unique.