Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Genetics, Linguistics, and Prehistoric Migrations [DNA Analysis] Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 32 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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34 — Journal of Catifornia and Great Basin Anthropology . Vol. 26, No. 1 (2006) Depending on the origins of the respective groups prior to their settlement adjacent to one another, one might be able to detect differences between prehistoric patterns in the region and determine which lineages were once associated with each group prior to their intermarriage with one another. Based on these different expected outcomes, one can examine the actual patterns of mtDNA variation among California ethnolinguistic groups in order to reconstruct past processes of cultural change and compare these to aspects of the archaeological record. It is important to point out, however, that informative as they potentially can be, mtDNA patterns present among California Indians were very dependent on the form of post-marital residence practiced by the different groups. Since mtDNA is only inherited maternally, groups that practiced patrilocal post-marital residence would be likely to share maternal lineages with adjacent groups, whereas groups in which matrilocal post-marital residence predominated would preserve mtDNA distinctiveness over many generations. Our ability to differentiate between the different cultural processes that led to language change and distinctive mtDNA patterns would be obscured in patrilocal cases where wives moved across linguistic boundaries to take up residence in their husband’s local group. Generally,two patterns ofsocial organization prevailed in Native California: (1) group affiliation based on bilateral descent in Northern California, and (2) group affiliation based on patrilineal descent with concomitant patrilocal residence in Central and Southern California (Jorgensen 1980; Kunkel 1976). It has been recently argued that even in Northern California, the predominant form of social organization was “patrifocal,” although greater flexibility in post-marital residence occurred there (Burton, Moore, and Romney n.d.). The principal exceptions to the overall patrifocal emphasis in aboriginal California societies were the Central and Island Chumash peoples, where a matrilocal residence pattern predominated (Johnson 1988; 2001). Given these differences in California Indian postmarital residence preferences, one would expect a greater degree of mitochondrial DNA distinctiveness among Chumashan groups than might prevail elsewhere in Native California, where patrilocal residence or bilateral kin groups occurred. Golla (in press) has summarized our current understanding of California’s linguistic prehistory— following more than a century of investigation—to reconstruct probable scenarios that resulted in the configuration of languages existing at the time of European contact. Some of these proposed reconstructions are amenable to testing using mitochondrial DNA research. The sample utilized for this study (see below) is most informative for Central and Southern California, because we have not yet had the opportunity to conduct research among Northern California’s indigenous peoples. Only six lineages characterized here pertain to the region north of San Francisco (see “Sample Descriptions” below). Thus, Golla’s hypotheses pertaining to the Algic, Athabaskan, Wintuan, Maiduan, and Yukian families and the dispersed Northern Hokan languages are not amenable to testing using our dataset. Three groups in the Central and Southern California regions, however, probably do possess large enough samples to begin to inform us about past genetic relationships among ethnolinguistic groups. These include the Chumashan family, the Uto-Aztecan family, and the hypothesized Yok-Utian branch of the Penutian superfamily. Also, a modest number of samples from central and southern Hokan peoples (Salinan, Esselen, and Yuman-Cochimf) permit comparisons with adjacent groups that possess larger numbers of samples. Golla has proposed that because of its linguistic distinctiveness and lack of established relationships to other language families of the Americas, the Chumashan family might well constitute one of the “basement” language families of California (Golla 2000c). In contrast to Chumashan peoples, the spread of Uto-Aztecan languages into California appears to have occurred during a later period of prehistory, perhaps ‘beginning four millennia or more before present. One currently accepted scenario, based on linguistic evidence, derives their origins from a region in Mexico. The resultant dispersal of Uto-Aztecan languages northward occurred with the spread of maize agriculture into the American Southwest. As populations budded off from these agricultural communities into desert areas unfavorable for growing crops, the descendant groups retumed to a hunting and gathering adaptation, spreading into the southern San Joaquin Valley and adjacent southern Sierra Nevada (Diamond and Bellwood 2003; Hill 2001, 2002). Both Salinan and Northern Chumash languages,