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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."
It's a stone tool. How do we know they are carbon dating the TOOL and not the STONE?
In "Guns, Germs and Steel", Jarod Diamond details how the pacific rim was populated very early on in human history: every single island larger than a beached whale was touched by nomadic seafarers in fishing boats, they even got to Hawaii. So why exactly did we think the population of the new wold required the land bridge to be exposed between Siberia and Alaska? Did we think it too hard to island hop along the Aleutians? Apparently it wasn't... alternatively, as I recently saw on Nova, these first explorers came from France, the same people who painted the fameous Lascaux caves. Go figure, just don't underestimate our ancestors.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
I first read references about a 50,000 year old "New World" culture in a 1999 BBC documentary. They claim that the closest surviving relatives of these original inhabitants are Australian Aborigines.
The dates listed in this documentary match up to the correct dates from the CNN story (as opposed to the incorrect dates in the story summary).
Here is a link a BBC article about the documentary.
I did hear some interesting theories, apparently based on DNA studies of indigenous people on islands of the cost of South America and some archeological finds, that the first peoples to settle in the americas were not the people now know as native amaericans.
They were nergoid rather then mogoloid, and thought to have come across the sea rather than the land bridge. The theory went that the Native American's ancestors had gone south and driven out and killed the first wave on inhabitants, a few of whom survied on the islands.
I don't know enough about archeology to have an informed opinion on how likely it is, but it was interesting. Certainly more plausable than the supposed wacky white "mound builder" culture ideas.
I just saw this on an episode of Nova. (Its what I watch at 5am in the morning)
They also linked the stones to European tool-making, and believe they may have used boats to travel to North America. Yeah, so maybe its a stretch, but still a possibility.
The evidence was really believable, but its was ONLY based on the tools. The artwork and other survival methods did not make the trip, so who knows.
Very interesting special episode though, and being half Native American, I'd like to think there's at least some cultural link between my parents
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Finding new skeletons in older rock can be easy. Finding fossilized skeletons- the same age as the rock- that would be interesting.
For more reading, check out the whole index of standard creationist claims, as well as their good set of FAQS, including How do we know the age of the earth?, and fossil hominids.
As to humans making it out to the New World that much earlier than previously known, I'm not surprised... we're a wandering species (and genus), going way back. Modern Homo sapiens was poking about in odd places by 100k years ago, so there isn't any inherent reason why we shouldn't have been there. However, generally when humans arrive in force we tend to leave evidence (like stone age habitats or megafauna extinctions), so these potential first North Americans were keeping fairly quiet, archeologically-wise.
Your knowledge of archelogy is very out of date - your prejudices reflect the kinds of orthodoxies that were old and outdated 30 years ago; they are positively antedeluvian today.
There's plenty of pre-13,000 old human archeological remains in the Americas. It has been discovered and researched by scores of reputable academic researchers. It's not "bogus science journalism" - it's the new status quo, almost, still fighting battles against the rearguards of orthodoxy, of whom, you, apparently, are an unwitting member.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nice to see another archaeologist around (though I'm still a student) :) But seriously, there's some evidence that when the Toba volcano on Sumatra blew around 70kya it would have wiped out any of the Asian branch of Homo erectus still hanging out. By the time Homo sapiens could get out of their refugium in Africa, it was easy as pie to go through these areas with no one there to bother them. It was still chilly, but they didn't encounter any hostile natives. Steven Ambrose wrote a really good paper on this event and the human genetic bottleneck that resulted. It's a great read if you haven't seen it already!
I don't mean to be inflammatory - I'm part Native American myself - but AFAIK it wasn't the Europeans who invented scalping. Many (though certainly not all) of the Native American tribes were ruthless warriors who did all they could to eradicate each other. War was not unknown to this people; I hesitate to agree that it was their 'niceness' that failed them.
That's not to say that the Europeans (and later the U.S.) did not do some atrocious things. Some of what was done was unforgiveable. Thank goodness we as a society have come a long way since then.
To be a bit more accurate, whether there was a population in North America earlier than 15-20,000 years ago, there is no genetic markers to support it.
Saying that there were no people in North America before this, is akin to claiming a mathematical proof by absense of a counter example is valid. It isn't a proof, it is a lack of a counter example.
Likewise there appear to be situations where there are genetic markers which do not match the 15-20,000 year window, and appear to be branches frome Europe, rather than Asia. There are questions as to exactly where and when these markers actually come from as there are very few Europeans who have enough of these genetic markers to do an accurate assesment of when the branch happened, or even to confirm it is a good match. Note that since I am neither an Archaeologist, nor a geneticist, I am not a solid source for this information.
-Rusty
You never know...
So many people bash Christianity and God based on what crackpots and holly-rollers say.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the crackpots and holy-rollers seem to be in charge of christian PR these days. If you want us non-cristians to have more respect for christianity, you'd best clean your own house.
Seldom a day goes by without some christian trying to reform government around his own peculiar ideas, putting ten commandments in courthouses, dropping opening prayers at government meetings as soon as some non-christian signs up to deliver it, dropping even the word evolution from science textbooks, the list goes on and on.
They are winning the PR battle to represent christianity. You need to clean your own house before trying to clean the world.
Infuriate left and right
" this idea of all native tribes being peaceful and cooperative"
Well, only doe-eyed new age pseudoliberals really express that sentiment.
The Iriquois Confederacy, or the Haudenosaunee, consists of six nations, the Mohawk merely being one of the more publicised. The US Constitution borrows heavily from their political organization, which was extremely sophisticated for the 1700's.
The Ojibway (chippewa, pick yer anglicization), one of the largest indigenous nations on the planet geographically, were, like nearly all other nations, at war at various times with their neighbours over territory. War is never pretty.
I think the crucial difference is between the war-of-honour typically waged by tribal societies and the total war of civilization, which dispenses with honour in favour of expediency and victory.
I strongly object to your assertion that the locals on this continent never "learned the principles of advanced agriculture."
Do a survey of your kitchen and pantry, and tally the percentage of foodstuffs that were developed in the Americas by the locals-- you'll find it's disproportionately American. For example, the Incas had over 5000 varieties of potato when they were invaded, cunningly used to stagger plantings, adapt to many microclimates, survive pests, provide variety in nutrition, texture, and storage capablilities, etc. Where I live now is near the former site of an enormous corn plantation, collectively run with many smallholder parcels, hugely and sustainably productive and both biologically and socially complex, well before "contact." There are endless examples of staple cultivars: squashes, pineapples, beans galore (incl. soy), corn/maize, 'taters, sweet potatos, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, squashes, sunflower, cucumber, etc. etc., and of course, cocoa and cotton.
Also, examine the early sketches and engravings of unconquered settlements in east N.A. -- they look pretty darn advanced, to a subsistence farmer's eye.
Your guage of intelligence is extremely instrumentalist, which is one of the root causes of the problems we find ourselves in now.