Roger wrote:

The message
from Terry Fields contains these words:

snip

Not a program I ever remember watching but have you any evidence that
DNA relating to the Solutreans or native Americans of similar antiquity
has ever been extracted?

The US scientist who was following this showed the DNA traces, and
again AFAIIA they have not been seriously challenged.

See above. Where have I said that they have?

It was a comment, not an accusation.

More of a red herring. What has been challenged is the route by which
that DNA reached America.

The programme was about the 'Clovis point spear', which was first
discovered in North America. Later, it was related to the identical
spear-point developed by the Salutrians, but 10,000 years previously.

You are really getting very careless Terry. Hand made artifacts are
never identical, even when made by the same hand. What seems convincing
is the technique for making the spear points which was the same and more
sophisticated than what followed on in Europe. The 10,000 years you use
is also way out.

It was 'identical' in that no substantive differences could be found
in shape or manner of shaping. Not being an expert on stone
tool-working, I took an expert's view that the limited number of ways
that the point could be made would have resulted in noticeable
differences, of which there seemed to be none.

A very unscientific version of identical. And it is not beyond the
bounds of possibility that the technique was established independently
in separate areas. However I am with you on the point that the
similarities of the spear points points to some sort of connection
between Europe and America.

The search was on for a connection between the Salutrians and North
America, and it was some time before the scientist, who was working on
other programs at the time, realised that he had not only the DNA from
the Salutrians (or possible their descendents, I can't recall which),
but that it was matched by that of a single tribe of NA Indians, the
inplication being that the Salutrians took their spear-point design to
North America.

So the real Terry Field is coming out of the shadows regurgitating half
remembered 'facts' gleaned from a TV program when a quick google would
have shown how wrong said 'facts' are.

What make you believe that is worse that regurgitated 'facts' from
Wikipedia?

The information is readily available from a variety of sources. You got
Wikipedia as it was the last site I visited. If you don't like Wikipedia
you could easily follow up the footnote references.

But 20,000 years ago, the ice-cap stretched from France to NA, and
gave rise to the speculation that the Salutrians, who lived in a style
much like the Innuit, could have paddled along the edge of the
ice-cap.

Solutrean BTW, not Salutrian. Sticking to your wrong spelling is a
further demonstration of how impervious you are to reality.

The BBC is good at turning supposition into concrete fact - vis walking
with dinosaurs.

You've just shot down the BBC's programme shown last Sunday, that set
out to show how fake the anti-global-warming debate is, and which was
mentioned earlier in this thread.

As for alternative routes for DNA, the obvious one is a minor European
contamination of the largely Asian DNA of the Native Americans.

The possibility of contamination wasn't mentioned in the programme, so
I can't comment.

Technically not contamination but I was looking for a short way of
expressing a very minor element in the genetic make-up of modern native
Americans.

From Wikipedia:

"In addition, certain mtDNA anomalies in pre-Columbian Amerind
populations leave open the possibility of alternate migration patterns
into the Americas. Geneticist Douglas Wallace of Emory University,
studying the mitochondrial DNA of Native Americans, found an mtDNA type
called X. Geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer reports that X occurs 'only
among Europeans and Native Americans, with a single report from southern
Siberia, but the link between the Old and New Worlds is up to 30,000
years old'[3]. However, the most recent study of complete genomes
suggests a single founding population, including type X, arriving via
the Beringia route from Asia.[4]

Ah, Wikipedia again.

Why not. Or are you on your bad research kick as it doesn't agree with
your beliefs.

In short, the idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains rather
controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance. The hypothesis is
challenged by large gaps in time between the Clovis and Solutrean eras,

....which I mentioned.

No, you claimed a much longer gap.

a lack of evidence of Solutrean seafaring,

I mentioned kayaking, for which 'seafaring' - a term you haven't
defined - may not be necessary.

You are clutching at straws. They certainly couldn't have used inland
waterways. Anyway there is no evidence that kayaks date back anywhere
near that far. The hypothesis that you are trying to ape seems to
confine itself to skin boats and and a resemblance to Inuit lifestyle.
But they could have walked all the way and confined their
fishing/hunting to the edge of the ice sheet.

lack of specific Solutrean features in Clovis technology,

Apart from the striking similarity of the spear-points, and a time
defference, mentioned by you above, that would have allowed the
transfer to take place.

and other issues."

I'm bowled over.

Oh really? Bowled out more like. You had a tall tale about a misnamed
people migrating by boat along the the edge of the ice as fact when in
reality it is highly contentious. You tried to bolster this by
misrepresenting the DNA evidence and you have ignored the bit above
about the latest evidence from studying complete genomes.

Perhaps the mistake I really made was to make a throwaway remark about
stone spears to illustrate that 20000 years ago the ice cap extended
down to circa mid north atlantic levels, and followed with a question
that asked what mechanisms warmed the planet at that time, and whether
they operate today.

No-one, including yourself, has sought to answer that, but you seem to
be keen on picking up spelling errors and quoting wikipedia while
rubbishing TV, unwilling to admit that both are ways of distributing
information whether good, bad, indifferenet, or biassed.

Take one of your statements above: "there is no evidence that kayaks
date back anywhere near that far"; got a reference for that?

Take another: "The hypothesis that you are trying to ape seems to
confine itself to skin boats and and a resemblance to Inuit
lifestyle"; can you cite any other actual method of living on a polar
ice cap?

Take another: " Technically not contamination but I was looking for a
short way of expressing a very minor element in the genetic make-up of
modern native Americans." Got a cite for 'minor element'?

No wikipedia 'references', please.