Ancient Odyssey

This article was the cover story of the October/November 2010 issue of the Australian science magazine, Cosmos, where I was Deputy Editor.

In early 2010 I travelled to Brazil (the trip was actually for another story - I joined an expedition searching for the most Southern population of Jaguars) where I also met Walter Neves, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo. He had just finished 10 years worth of excavations, cataloguing hundreds of skeletons and was pushing a controversial theory about the peopling of the Americans.

In the piece, "Ancient Odyssey", I describe his theory: prior to the arrival of the ‘Clovis people’ from Asia, who were the ancestors of the Native Americans, the Americas had been colonised by people closely related to the Australian Aborigines. The story moved naturally to the field of molecular archeology, studying Ancient DNA for insights into the history of humanity.

In Australia, this story was covered by popular TV programs, major newspapers, and major radio stations around Australia. Internationally, many newspapers picked up and reprinted my story, as did other science magazines, including Wired, Discovery Online and Archaeology Daily.

After my story ran, scientists indirectly studying similar areas, such as molecular archaeology, have told me they are looking into Neves’ work.

Ancient odyssey_JHayes.pdf

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