[jinx]

Flint, I gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed with your point. I thought you were really gonna go somewhere, show us some new stuff, or something... Your facts are exactly what I was taught in school.

And further;

Originally Posted by Flint

I didn't invent the term Native American. It has a universally accepted meaning.

No it doesn't.

In April 2005, United States Senator John McCain introduced an amendment to NAGPRA which, in section 108, would change the definition of "Native American" from being that which "is indigenous to the United States" to "is or was indigenous to the United States."[4] By that definition, Kennewick Man would be Native American, whether or not any link to a contemporary tribe could be found. Proponents of this argue that is in accord with current scientific understanding, which is that it is not in all cases possible for prehistoric remains to be traced to current tribal entities, not least because of the social upheaval, forced resettlement and extinction of entire ethnicities caused by disease and warfare in the wake of European colonization. Doing so, however, would still not remove the controversy surrounding Kennewick Man as then it would have to be decided which Native American group should take possession of the remains if he could not be definitively linked with a current group. To be of practical use in a historical and prehistorical context, some argue further that the term "Native American" should be applied so that it spans the entire range from the Clovis culture (which cannot be positively assigned to any contemporary tribal group) to the Métis, who only came into being as a consequence of European contact, yet constitute a distinct cultural entity.

Originally Posted by blue

Yeah, and mankind starting in Africa is a theory. A widely-accepted theory, but a theory nonetheless.

Widely accepted because there is no evidence of it starting anywhere else. Sort of like the clovis first theory being based on a lack of evidence of anyone coming before, until recently. Its amazing, but for almost a century no one bother to dig past the clovis layer because they assumed there would be nothing there. Crazy.

One theory of pre-clovis people suggests that the first americans were austrailians.