<< It is a controversial theory because most scientists believe that
Neanderthals were an evolutionary dead-end >>

I do not agree that this theory is as controversial as this article suggests.
Milford Wolpoff, the preeminent proponent of this theory, is an eminent
figure in Anthropology, authoring texts that are used as textbooks in many
universities.  This theory is known as the "multi-regional" theory of
evolution and is in contrast to the "out of Africa theory."  Gunter Brauer
has proposed a similartheory of partial replacement as well.  My review of
the evidence leads to me to conclude that either of these theories explain
the evidence better than an exclusively African origin.

However, I do not agree that the Asian populations are descendants of
Neanderthals.  Rather, I think it is more likely that both populations have
common ancestors.

The article also says
<<Although just a few years ago everyone agreed no humans lived in the New
World until about 11,000 years ago>>

This is not true either.  This idea has been around for years -- since the
70's I think.  There was not enough physical evidence to be able to say that
something like a coastal migration was possible before the land bridge
opened.  Further some anthropologists have held for years that a land bridge
was opened even at around 18K yrs ago.

The article also says
<<using a ``molecular clock'' that tracks the rate of mutations in DNA, dates
some of them back as far as 25,000 >>\

I have not seen this study so take this with a grain of salt, but, I know
that some genetic dating techniques used in the past have come under heavy
criticism and many researchers in the field now place reduced emphasis on
them.  If someone is familiar with more current studies and how well they are
being received in the scientific community, please enlighten me.  Yet, I
might also say that this genetic dating does not mean that these populations
were living on this continent for 25K yrs.  If the lineages were living near
each other in Asia and then later moved over to America, would not the dating
be the same?  I am presuming that this study also used mitochondrial DNA,
again, if you know better, please share!

I think a similar criticism applies to the linguistic data as well.

Nick Schultz