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Humans in America 25,000 Years Ago?
Ephboy writes "A researcher in South Carolina has found stones that appear to be man-made stone tools that date from 25,000 years ago, about twice as old as the best documented evidence of human settlement in North America."
did the submitter RTFA? It clear states that the stones date from 50,000 years ago. 25,000 years earlier than previously thought.
fp?
If this is actually true, then it's really quite challenging to the accepted idea of how modern man spread throughout the earth. Twenty-five thousand years ago is quite close to when man is thought to have arrived in central Asia (from Africa).
Either modern humans developed somewhat earlier than we thought, or else they spread over the earth in a flash, like some extremely virulent form of kudzu or something.
Most anthropologists I've studied under, worked with, and recently read, will readily agree to a coastal migration route, either concurrent with the recession of the glacial mass (The Ice Free Corridor- Beringia isn't the time limiting factor with the land bridge model, the fact that Beringia ran straight into a glacier that didn't clear up a free corridor till 11,500ya is), or before it.
Most everyone accepts at least the reasonable possibility of a pre-clovis occupation.. I'd say most find it likely, but prefer to withold their theories till more evidence can be discovered.
However- One thing that most of the people I know will agree to: The European route isn't that likely. It's not a matter of denying it because of it's antiquity, nor is it denying that one COULD skirt the ice, had one a significant maritime adaptation- It's the fact that there's no evidence of any Solutrean (European, at this time) maritime adaptation whatsoever. No evidence of reliance on seafood, and very little coastal occupations in the first place.
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You have to date stone by dating its context. The best way to do it is to sandwich the stones between clearly datable layers, but lots of times you have to just date stuff the stone is "associated with".
Also, as I understand things 50Kybp is just about at the limit of what you can reliably test with carbon dating.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I mean, its one thing to accidentally expose a person to a disease that they had not been exposed to, but completely another to do it intentionally.
On July 16, 1763 General Amherst wrote in a letter to Colonel Bouquet;
"You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."
There are several other confirmed examples as well. Have a look at The Staight Dope for more about this one. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Recently the PBS show "NOVA" had a whole show about the possiblity of people comming over earlier than first thought, and the possibility of them actually boating accross from Europe along the glacier that would of stretched from the north pole as frar down as Iceland.
There is RNA evidence that some native peoples here in the U.S. might have come from a population that was from the area that is now France.
link below to NOVA web site with the program
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/
The US wasn't the first to use disease infected blankets. Credit for that goes to the British.
BBC link
Oh, Edmund, can it be true? that I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest green?
Carbon dating only works on organic material, they aren't carbon dating the stone. The method employed only works in undisturbed finds, where they carefully remove the surrounding materials and carbon date organic materials found in the same strata as the tool.
Troll, but I'll bite.
You've apparently forgotten that all recent genetic evidence shows that we are all descended from Africans. So not only could "negroids" leave their home continent of Africa, but they did so and reached every continent on earch, evolving as they went. BTW, you're one of "them", and so is everyone else.
Most of the Eastern tribes were nearly eradicated by European diseases before the arrival of the "Pilgrims."
Before departing England the Pilgrims actually offered thanks to God for the devistating plauge that had depopulated the New World, leaving it open for them.
Before departing England Squanto (yes, Squanto came from England to meet the Pilgrims, and spoke with them in perfect English) had intended to rejoin his native people, but upon his arrival found that they had been wiped out by disease, hence his hooking up with the Pilgrims in a sort of mutual survial pact in the first place.
I'm afraid that the US can't really take credit for any brilliance in military strategy here. It was mostly an accident and the later intentional germ warfare conducted against native tribes was informed by previous unintentional example.
For the most part you out strategied us every step of the way (except, perhaps, for being too nice) and we simply used a very crude, but very effective, method to deal with those of you that remained after the various plagues.
We swept over you like a flood.
The story isn't entirely unique I'm afraid. The Tartars did the same thing to my Causcasian ancestors, so thouroughly that the very word used to describe an endentured state is my people's name.
KFG
Scalping WAS a bounty hunter thing. You see it started with you got $10.00 for every "Red Skin" (thus the term Red Skin) of a male you brought in and $5.00 for every female or child "Red Skin" you brought in. When these piles of skins started to stink and were also to hard to carry around and trade. They reduced it to scalps. so scalping started.
Point of intrest.... Isn't it great that our Nations Capital's football's team is named after this. see the Indian wars still do exist.
Yes we can be "savage" but all in all our cultures are peaceful. We were too nice and had bad immigration laws. One thing that is differant between the two cultures is we NEVER KILLED CHILDREN! and with that thought who really was the Savage????
Where have they all gone???? WE ARE STILL HERE!
Yes I am Cherokee and proud of it!
The Indians first encountered in North and South America by colonists were NOT tribal. The Aztec Empire, the Iroquois Five Nations and the Pohantan were powerful civilizations in their own rights.
The Aztec were bloody and brutal (the Spaniards conquered them so easily because lots of surrounding Indian nations pitched in their eager help). The Iroquois were master politicians who successfully played the British and French against each other for over a hundred years, and the Pohantan were trade warriors, exercising power by keeping secret their knowledge of the New England waterways (it was the main reason they were upset with John Smith; they were afraid he was discovering their water ways and would sell the information to the Iroquois.)
The "tribal" Indians were the nomadic peoples in the great plains and the desert southwest and the small communities of the Pacific Northwest.
Your condescending attitude aside, only one of us is speaking from ignorance it would appear, cloaking it in sophistry and rhetoric.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.