134 replies to this topic

[Ironhand]

Scientist: Man in Americas earlier than thought
Archaeologists put humans in North America 50,000 years ago
By Marsha Walton and Michael Coren
CNN

Archaeological dig suggests that humans settled in the Americas about 50,000 years ago

(CNN) -- Archaeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years.

But their interpretation is already igniting controversy among scientists.

An archaeologist from the University of South Carolina on Wednesday announced radiocarbon tests that dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago -- at least 25,000 years before other known human sites on the continent.

"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

If true, the find represents a revelation for scientists studying how humans migrated to the Americas.

Many scientists thought humans first ventured into the New World across a land bridge from present-day Russia into Alaska about 13,000 years ago.

This new discovery suggests humans may have crossed the land bridge into the Americas much earlier -- possibly during an ice age -- and rapidly colonized the two continents.

"It poses some real problems trying to explain how you have people (arriving) in Central Asia almost at the same time as people in the Eastern United States," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum.

"You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion ... We're talking about a very rapid movement of people around the globe."

Schurr said that conclusive evidence of stone tools similar to those in Asia and uncontaminated radiocarbon dating samples are needed to verify that the Topper site is actually 50,000 years old.

"If dating is confirmed, then it really does have a significant impact on our previous understanding of New World colonization," he said.

But not all scientists are convinced that what Goodyear found is a human settlement.

"He has a very old geologic formation, but I can't agree with his interpretation of those stones being man-made," said Michael Collins of the Texas Archeological Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Collins disputes that the stone shards at the site show signs of human manipulation.

But whether the Topper site proves valid, Collins said most archeologists now believe people settled in America before 13,000 years ago, refuting a theory that has held sway for 75 years.

Since the 1930s, archaeologists generally believed North America was settled by hunters following large game over the land bridge about 13,000 years ago.

"That had been repeated so many times in textbooks and lectures it became part of the common lore," said Dennis Stanford, curator of archeology at the Smithsonian Institution. "People forgot it was only an unproven hypothesis."

A growing body of evidence has prompted scientists to challenge that assumption.

A scattering of sites from South America to Oklahoma have found evidence of a human presence before 13,000 years ago -- or the first Clovis sites -- since the discovery of human artifacts in a cave near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936.

These discoveries are leading archaeologists to support alternative theories -- such as settlement by sea -- for the Americas.

Worldwide, ideas about human origins have rapidly changed with groundbreaking discoveries that humans ranged farther and earlier than once believed. Fossils in Indonesia nearly 2 million years old suggest that protohumans left their African homeland hundreds of thousands of years earlier than first theorized.

Modern humans, or homo sapiens, most likely emerged between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago in Africa. They quickly fanned out to Australia and Central Asia about 50,000 years ago and arrived in Europe only about 40,000 years ago. Ancestral humans -- hominids like australopithecines and Neanderthals -- have never been found in the New World.

Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal next year, which is the standard method by which scientists announce their findings. Until research is peer-reviewed, experts in the field may not have an opportunity to evaluate the scientist's methods, or weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.

Archaeologists will meet in October of 2005 for a conference in Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss the earliest inhabitants of North America, including a visit to the Topper Site.

Goodyear has been excavating the Topper dig site along the Savannah River since the 1980s. He recovered many of the artifacts and tools last May.

Goodyear dug four meters (13 feet) deeper than the soil layer containing the earliest North American people and began uncovering a plethora of tools. Until recently, many archeologists did not dig below where Clovis artifacts were expected to be found.

Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed hundreds of possible implements, many appearing to be stone chisels and tools that could have been used to skin hides, butcher meat or carve antlers, wood and ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance called chert, a flint-like stone found in the region.

Goodyear and his colleagues began their dig at the Topper Site in the early 1980s with the goal of finding out more about the Clovis people. Goodyear thought it would also be a good place to look for earlier human settlers because of the resources along the Savannah River and the moderate climate.

[Argrath Dragonspear]

Well, if this chap gets anything published in any scientific journal then I'll eat my hat!
There is a real 'conspiricy' around hushing up finds which contradict the established line of thought around man's supposed age.
For a very good idea about this I suggest reading 'Forbidden Archeology' by Cremo and Thompson. They have carried out very thorough and extensive research of a great amount of material documenting what can only be described as a cover-up around archeological finds which appear to show that man is much older than the 5 million years claimed so far. As for finds in both North America and South America, there have been some very interesting discoveries from Canada to Argentina. Some of these date from 80,000 to near 300 Million years ago!!! And none other than Louis Leekey found at the Calico site in the USA objects dating from at least 80,000 years ago.
You will find if you do some digging around, that most dating of finds will be dated to a period which does not cause any upset. For instance if a archeologist were to find impliments in strata that dates from say 2 million years to 2 Hundred thousand years, they will always assign the finds a date of 200,000 years on the basis that if they assigned them a 2 million year date they would receive so much flak from their peers that they would in all likelyhood have to leave the profession. I myself queried the dating of a recent find here in the UK and was met by stony silence. Despite many emails requesting information on the find, it position in the geological strata, methods of dating etc, I have never received a reply. Yet, when I asked a friend to email the same person with just a general query they received a reply with no problems. Too many people have careers invested in the estabished theory of mankinds origins that if anyone dares to rock the boat they will find themselves ridiculed and hounded.

[Zula]

Ya know, it always amazes me that scientists think themselves so rational, and yet when it comes to their particuar 'devotion' they can be so closeminded. That whole carbon dating tom-foolery isn't relaible, and yet so many people stake so much on it, a kind of do or die mentality. Must be the same bunch of people that think we come from monkeys or something, I dunno.

[Rusty]

I've often wondered this myself. Why are scientists so unwilling to accept new findings and investigate them with an open mind? I guess there are some that are so self centered that they will not accept the fact that what they believe may be wrong. No one knows how old the earth really is and no one knows how long ago humans first started settling in North America. I'm not too sure I even buy into the whole "Land Bridge" thing. Unless these hunters dragged their women and children along (and that kinda goes against the whole "Hunter/Gatherer" concept of the men going out hunting and the women staying behind caring for the children and tending the homefront) then I really don't see how they could have been tagged as the first settlers of the Americas. If they didn't bring their women and children along then how did they reproduce? Unless there were already humans in the Americas and they "inter-mingled" with them. Could be. And that still leaves the question unanswered... who were the first settlers and where did they come from. If these scientists continue to bicker among themselves and look at things with closed minds then we may never know the answer. Just my two cents.

[TroceroQuijas]

No disrespect, but I read this whole thread, replys and all, and dont see the reference to REH, Conan, or gaming.

And if there is, please quote.

[Ironhand]

No disrespect, but I read this whole thread, replys and all, and dont see the reference to REH, Conan, or gaming.

And if there is, please quote.

This thread was originally two different threads: "Gaming" and "The Hyborian World", which carried threads devoted to anthropology and archeology. For some reason, the moderators decided to merge the two threads. The Hyborian World devotees continue to discuss Atlantis and other ancient stuff.

[Ironhand]

I'm not too sure I even buy into the whole "Land Bridge" thing. Unless these hunters dragged their women and children along (and that kinda goes against the whole "Hunter/Gatherer" concept of the men going out hunting and the women staying behind caring for the children and tending the homefront) then I really don't see how they could have been tagged as the first settlers of the Americas. If they didn't bring their women and children along then how did they reproduce? Unless there were already humans in the Americas and they "inter-mingled" with them. Could be.

Obviously they did bring their women and children with them when they migrated to better hunting grounds. That's what migration was all about. On a given day, a hunting party might leave the women and children behind, but as the seasons and the years progressed, and whole tribes would move to better hunting ground, of course they would bring the women and children along. How could they leave them behind if they were never coming back? The Bering Strait land bridge theory is based on geologic evidence, and the great simiilarity between Siberian and Eskimo tribes in racial characteristics, culture, technology, religion, etc.

REH was very interested in migrations.

[Ironhand]

Ya know, it always amazes me that scientists think themselves so rational, and yet when it comes to their particuar 'devotion' they can be so closeminded.  That whole carbon dating tom-foolery isn't relaible, and yet so many people stake so much on it, a kind of do or die mentality.  Must be the same bunch of people that think we come from monkeys or something, I dunno.

Radiocarbon dating is quite accurate, and when fossils are too old for carbon dating to work, they use potassium dating.

[Argrath Dragonspear]

All current dating methods have problems associated with them, Carbon14, Florine, Potassium etc. This is often compounded by contamination of the objects by the finders who do not wear protective equipment when handling the items. In several very well known cases Carbon dating of items by different teams has produced very pronounced differences in dates. All that can really be said is that an object was found in geological strata which has a known date range.

[Kane]

I'm not too sure I even buy into the whole "Land Bridge" thing.

I wish I could find an old article that I once read.
It gave an alternative explaination of the first humans to come to North Amercia.
The idea was that eary europeans jumped across the atlantic, going from the mainland through Ireland to Iceland then Greenland to what is now Canada.
Since this was during the Ice Age sea levels were lower and the distance between the islands were not as great.
However, because NA was in the grip of the Ice Age, these people were later absorbed into the mix of the people coming from Asia.

[Orkin]

I think it's got to do with the Clovis point, a distinctive flint spearhead style that is found all over North America. Nothing like it appears in Siberia at that time; a spearhead was built up in a fundamentally different manner. Some have noticed how a spearhead used in Europe resembles the Clovis point, so they began to open their minds...

[Zula]

[quote name='Ironhand' date='Nov 23 2004, 09:31 AM'][quote name='Zula' date='Nov 23 2004, 02:25 AM'] Ya know, it always amazes me that scientists think themselves so rational, and yet when it comes to their particuar 'devotion' they can be so closeminded.  That whole carbon dating tom-foolery isn't relaible, and yet so many people stake so much on it, a kind of do or die mentality.  Must be the same bunch of people that think we come from monkeys or something, I dunno. [/quote]
Radiocarbon dating is quite accurate, and when fossils are too old for carbon dating to work, they use potassium dating. [/quote]
[QUOTE]
Accurate how?
At 50,000 years of age, there should be no detectable 14C left to see. And since this is only detectable in once-living things due to the exchange of chemicals/elements, it can't be used for inorganic things, such as rocks, spearpoints, et al.
If you are seeing 14C in something then it is not very old at all.

[Ironhand]

That's why they switch to Potassium for the older stuff. I think it's Potassium-40.

[Rusty]

The Bering Strait land bridge theory is based on geologic evidence, and the great simiilarity between Siberian and Eskimo tribes in racial characteristics, culture, technology, religion, etc.

There is no disputing that fact. There are many similarities, especially in their facial features. But I still hold firm to my belief that there were other peoples already inhabiting the Americas before then.
Kane, if you do find that article I would really like to read it. Sounds interesting!

[Ironhand]

The Bering Strait land bridge theory doesn't exclude the possibility of other tribes having migrated earlier, by whatever means.

[Rusty]

Good point Ironhand. And it will be interesting to see what comes of the research talked about in the original post.

[massive cod piece]

when did the gaming section become anthropology 101

[budgie]

when did the gaming section become anthropology 101

It has drifted a little, hasnt it

Moderators, how about a new catagory to cover things like this, its an interesting sideline

Budgie

[Orkin]

There used to be a Hyborian Age section, but this was merged with the gaming section.

[Argrath Dragonspear]

On the surface it might seem that this thread has little to do with REH or gaming in the Conan world. However, lets remember that in the history of the Hyborian world REH wrote he mentions geological events that he could not have known about, yet many years after his death they have been proven i.e. there was more than one cataclysm after the last ice age. REH was in correspondance with a group of people who had a wide range of interests and knowledge, including that of the occult. REH himself has stated in several letters that he often felt a 'real' Conan stood behind him as he wrote his tales, almost dictating them.
Was it at all possible that REH was tapping into some sort of 'racial memory' of events long forgotten when he wrote Conan's saga?