Slashdot Mirror
Oldest American Skull Found in Mexico
MaximumBob writes "While digging a well near the Mexico City airport, crews found this skull, believed to be the oldest human skull ever found in the Americas. What's especially exciting is that since it was found outside the United States, it's not subject to U.S. laws which allow local tribes to rebury remains and keep them from being studied. The skull will be studied by scientists and may shed new light on alternatives to the "land bridge" hypothesis of American settlement."
This find is being interpreted as (very preliminary) evidence for a newer theory - that the Americas were inhabited by people related to the Ainu, long BEFORE the people we now call "Native Americans" showed up.
What happens to that 'Native Americans get dibs on any old bones found in the U.S.' law if the earlier-Ainu theory pans out? This could get into some really interesting "politically unacceptable scientific facts"...
It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
... it's only a matter of time until Strom Thurmond kicks the bucket and takes your crown.
Whatever happened with Kennewick man anyway?
I have to say the whole situation surrounding that. I remember an interview with one of the tribal elders where he stated that scientists shouldn't be allowed to study him to figure out where he came from and what kind of life he lived because their oral history made it clear that they were the first, and that there were no others, so he must have been one of them QED.
It's always a tragedy when, esentially, religion pushes science around and prevents us from expanding upon our understanding.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
The "Peñon Woman III" -- which scientists believe is now the oldest skull from the New World -- has been sitting in Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology since 1959.
They just re-dated it.
First off, this is not surprising, being that there is a lot of old crap in Mexico. What is surprising, however, is that they cite evidence of migration from a land bridge previously existing between Siberia -> Alaska. Everyone knows that humans have alway migrated out of Mexico, not in. I have seen this myself in the suburbs of San Diego. Furthermore, what's to say that this skull find isn't really a snitch killed by the mafia or somesuch??
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
This is what we have to do. The behavior of the American aborigines is grotesque. We know that it is the result of special status and power plays and that they all know of Caucasian peoples were in America before them. Most people care little about science but enjoy its benefits, but the groups generated by liberals will destroy scientific treasures, teachings, religions, the constitution and any value of the Western world just to get their way for the moment. For them I do not think such corrupted minds should be shown any mercy. Just look at history-it is precisely such amassed groups who have destroyed every civilization during the last 100,000 years.
...in the head of Strom Thurmond.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I don't like the posters tone in saying that american natives don't 'get to rebury' the skull and stop all scientific progress. I am a big believer in scientific study but, I don't believe in desecrating a person's final resting place just to find out - He was old!!
This story seems somewhat confused and contradicts other things I have read on the subject. I am not convinced the actual interpretation of this find is very reliable.
The most modern theories about the origns of humans in north america, prior to this find, as far as I understand them are as follows. The first humans came across the land bridge between alaska and asia during the last ice age, about 17,000 years ago. They were caucasians, closely related to the Jomon, the prehistoric inhabitants of Japan, whose modern couterparts are the Ainu of Hokkaido. They penetrated throughout north and south america in a 1,000 years or so. Later, about 3,000-4,000 years ago, another group crossed the bering strait in boats. These people were closely related to the modern Chinese and Mongolian people and only penetrated north america. Their descendents are principly the Eskimo and Aleut, but some penetrated futher south such as the Navajo. See here for details.
This find seems to just seems to add extra conformation to the above hypothesis. Finding a 13,000 year old skull does not mean that there had to be human in the americas 25,000 years ago. Nor does the skull contradict the theory that the first humans used the land bridge to cross to alaska during the last ice age. The evidence of camps -- man-made tools, a human footprint and huts dating back 25,000 years are totally separate from this and obivously need explaining, but this find has no real bearing on that debate.
While digging... near the Mexico City airport, crews found this skull, believed to be the oldest human skull ever found in the Americas.
Perhaps *now* the airlines will admit that interflight delays are getting out of hand?
The BBC version of this story is more detailed and has somewhat less wild speculation.
..but don't let them bury their ancestors, if they want to. Surely, they let some remains be studied.
I agree man.....I agree with u!!!! thats for sure....
Too often, I find that these press releases result in a correction or retraction,(later, quietly buried on page 27) and they are usually tied to either a funding request for the project, or an ego trip. Just a skull does not a culture make. The skull, while it may be 13,000 years old, may not have been in place for 13,000 years. And as both "Native American" and a scientist, I think its a shame to let modern beliefs interfere with the discovery of where we came from.
Some examples of wildly wrong results from C14 dating:
Got Wisdom?
Do you think that people carried around skulls for hundreds or thusends of kilometers then?
The most likely explanation is that the owner of the skull either lived or was travelling in today's Mexico City area long time ago, earlier than previously belived.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... we have other methods to corroborate if C14 dating is the right ball park.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Except that the "Native Americans" weren't native. They came over just like the Europeans. They stole the land, then had it stolen from them. They've just had better PR.
Interestingly enough, in 1976 a trip was taken to simulate what a crossing like this could have been like. Check this out:
...the aboriginal americans gave tobacco to my ancestors.
Later, my relatives created an effective vaccine for smallpox.
What have the AAs done for tobacco?
Which has killed more since they met?
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
This summer I finally got my ass in gear and went back to school for those two credits I needed for my Anthropology major. Had to take an archaeology course and decided on one called Alberta Archaeology. I figured it would be interesting as Alberta really acted as the gateway to the Americas for early man entering through the Ice Free Corridor.
What I ended up learning was that the Ice Free Corridor hypothesis is growing more and more tenuous as the evidence piles up. The preponderance of new archaeological evidence is starting to suggest that the first known migrants to the Americas arrived via boat, making their way down the coast from Alaska all the way to Northern California or Oregon and then pressing inland.
One of the major problems facing Archaeology of the Ancient Americas is that it seems there has to have been Pre-Clovis people somewhere in the Americas, but there is NO definitive evidence of them anywhere. The Clovis people, where ever they came from seem to have exploded onto the scene somewhere between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago nothing yet has been discovered to definitively prove that people where here before that. Every find that suggests earlier occupation of the Americas has somehow landed in controversy. (Not to say that they're not valid data, just that they're not definitive data.)
However, with each new early find, it seems more and more likely that people didn't come down through the Ice Free Corridor. The timing for the corridor to have been open just doesn't add up to the times people seem to have been here. Further, with the Ice Free Corridor hypothesis, one would expect to find most of the really old evidence in Alberta, Montana and Saskatchewan and that just isn't the case.