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."

Comments

Where have they gone?

[Hot Summer Nights]

Why is there no intelligent life in America today?

Re:Where have they gone?

[peculiarmethod]

There is.. go to your local Casino. They are called Tribes. They are independant nations inside the US numbering in the thousands.. they were nice systems that were too nice, and were thusly erraticated due to brilliant warfare waged by early US. (see first biological warfare- also: pox ridden blankets)

oh.. and I'm Chippewa, BTW.. card carrying, voting, and casino owning.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Breakfast Pants]

"(see first biological warfare- also: pox ridden blankets)" No. At least as early as the middle ages people used to load dead, disease ridden bodies into catapults and hurl them into catles they were seiging.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Tezkah]

And its also doubtful that they did it on purpose. 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. It killed tons of people in Europe, and the effect was simply delayed in North America.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Vellmont]

Yah, and I'm still pissed at the Romans for enslaving my ancestors and feeding them to lions. Get over it buddy, the issue is buried and long dead. You're just another American just like me.

Re:Where have they gone?

[ozmanjusri]

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

Re:Where have they gone?

[Draveed]

The US wasn't the first to use disease infected blankets. Credit for that goes to the British.
BBC link

Re:Where have they gone?

[kfg]

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

Re:Where have they gone?

[70Bang]

Finding "stones" meant they found male ancestors. What proof do they have there were females back then? ;)

Re:Where have they gone?

[Mattcelt]

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.

Re:Where have they gone?

[operagost]

I don't think the Apaches, Iriquois ("Mohawk"), and Aztecs were very nice. No offense to the Chippewa nation, but this idea of all native tribes being peaceful and cooperative while the palefaces ran roughshod over them is fallacious.

Native Americans never sailed the seas, invented gunpowder, learned the principles of advanced agriculture, or created vaccines. Many didn't even invent the wheel or written language. Again, no offense to your peoples, but cultures that you allege are more intelligent than the largely European based one currently dominating America should have done more of these things.

To your credit, you have figured out how to feed the destructive gambling habit of your white enemies in return for their enabling your destructive alcoholism.

Re:Where have they gone?

[operagost]

No sweat here, I never gave a disease-ridden blanket to a native American. My ancestry is not even Anglo-Saxon.

Re:Where have they gone?

[flyneye]

I wonder where these tribes came from? From evidence I have heard/seen over the last decade or so,everyone from everywhere was here bringing their culture with them.Minoan villages in New England.Chinese anchorstones along the pacific coast.Ogam (celtic writing) on stone riverbank walls across the U.S.,used to mark territory or kingdoms if you will.Early Celt culture probably was the origination of Indian culture as we know it.Vikings,Africans,Egyptians(speculated) all have been found in evidence or historical writing to have been to North America.That doesnt even count South America.
So since we evidently have the same ancestors,how about giving me a slice of that casio pie,brother? Blankets are all the same for you and me at Wal-Mart.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Oh my god. All those poor people living tens of thousands of years ago, who are going to Hell because they never accepted Jesus.

Re:Where have they gone?

[b-baggins]

Anyone who thinks the American Indians were a universally "nice" people living in some sort of "one with nature" utopia needs to lay off the kool-aid.

They were and are humans just like everyone else and suffered from the same vices, power struggles, warfare and savagery as every other example of humanity throughout history.

Re:Where have they gone?

[pedaws]

"other confirmed examples"?

from that page:
We don't know if Bouquet actually put the plan into effect, or if so with what result. We do know that a supply of smallpox-infected blankets was available, since the disease had broken out at Fort Pitt some weeks previously. We also know that the following spring smallpox was reported to be raging among the Indians in the vicinity.

Re:Where have they gone?

[shinma]

but AFAIK it wasn't the Europeans who invented scalping.

Actually, scalping was invented by European bounty hunters.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Cro Magnon]

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

Not quite. They made one major tactical error. Never bring a bow & arrows to a gun fight!

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

But you reap the benefits, isn't that nice?

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

the issue is buried and long dead

No it isn't. It's an ongoing problem that's tied up in courts, classrooms, bars, highways, and the wilderness. Genocide takes a while to fade.

Spoken like a true settler, though.

Re:Where have they gone?

[kfg]

Never bring a bow & arrows to a gun fight!

That would be why Joseph Brant brought a Brown Bess and Crazy Horse brought a Winchester. They had access to firearms almost from day one.

And frankly, until the mid 1700s, in the Eastern woodlands where fighting was almost never done in the open field the bow and arrow was actually a superior weapon to the firearms of the time (plate armor already being extinct), being more reliable, more accurate and with a greater rate of fire.

A Wrist Rocket would have been a completely bitchin' thing to have at the time.

No, their primary military mistake was in holding to a chivalric code that held combat to be a matter of personal honor between combatants, rather than a clash of nameless cannon fodder.

By the time they figured out how to deal with an army (and that they would have to, like it or not) they were already few in number, and we already in the millions.

KFG

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

" 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.

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

And which Ultimate, Original Native Americans did the Native Americans take the land from? Don't they get a say also?

OK troll, I'll bite: many of those issues are actually being dealt with in courts and treaty negotiations, where the extant peoples in question are still making claims against other indigenous nations. We aren't talking about stuff that happened thousands of years ago, we're talking about right now. Your ignorance is no excuse for claiming that two wrongs make a right.

Re:Where have they gone?

[GreyWolf3000]

They did leave us with lacrosse.

I find it disgusting that to this day we still have people claiming that the exploitation of the natives wasn't as bad as history tells us.

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

They were and are humans just like everyone else and suffered from the same vices, power struggles, warfare and savagery as every other example of humanity throughout history.

This is a quaint quasi-humanist notion that equates tribal society with civl society. They're fundamentally different in structure, values, and effects on the landscape and neighbours. Some tribal values persist in civilization, but they're usually the nasty ones, which provides nice fodder for the ideology of justified expansion over top of tribal peoples that is still well under way.

History doesn't generally include tribal societies, as history is primarily the story of cities. You can't extend that history to a time and place of which you're ignorant.

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

Actually as far as I'm concerned, anything more than a single human lifetime may as well be equivalent. As long as there isn't a single person alive that was a player in that era, its irrelevant to me, be it 100 years or a 1000 years.

That's completely irrational. Do you mean to say you do not partake of any of the spoils of genocide? You don't drive on highways, use metals or electricity, or participate in government institutions? Do you speak the local language, or english?

Go ahead and deny the continuity of society and its institutions, and claim no part in it, but you'll be a hypocrite. The notion of a statute of limitations implies that a thing is finished: however, this process of colonization is far from over, and culpability for it rests with those who continue to accrue privilege based on it.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Lemmy Caution]

At the same time, if one brings up the misbehavior of the state of Israel as a way of minimizing the horror of the Holocaust ("Jews aren't nice people, either...") I think you could describe that as a pretty messed-up position to take.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Alaska Jack]

I'm a little confused about this. You say

"There are several OTHER CONFIRMED [my emphasis] examples as well."

But the "example" you provided doesn't back up either of these points (that there were other examples, and they are confirmed). In the one single example Cecil Adams provides, he himself takes pains to point out that there is no proof Amherst actually DID it -- only that he CONSIDERED it.

Obligatory disclaimer: I have no idea whether it was actually done or not, and can easily believe there were plenty of whites who thought Indians should be exterminated. Like the guy who wrote Cecil, I'm just a natural skeptic. If you provide an actual "confirmed example," I'd be happy to revise my stance accordingly.

- Alaska Jack

Re:Where have they gone?

[Alaska Jack]

Only in the sense that we reap all the benefits of everything that has happened in human history, ever. Not really very profound.

- Alaska Jack

Re:Where have they gone?

[b-baggins]

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.

Re:Where have they gone?

[hawkfish]

From a linked page:

Trent's entry for May 24, 1763, includes the following statement: ... we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect.

Re:Where have they gone?

[dasunt]

Anyone who thinks the American Indians were a universally "nice" people living in some sort of "one with nature" utopia needs to lay off the kool-aid.

They were and are humans just like everyone else and suffered from the same vices, power struggles, warfare and savagery as every other example of humanity throughout history.

Living in North Dakota, I've seen the local Dakota (Souix) Indians complain about how the US Government stole their land -- ignoring that they stole the same land from other plains Indians after fighting a long war with the Ojibwa over land and rice in the woodlands of Minnesota and losing.

Re:Where have they gone?

[beta64]

Actually back then the bow and arrow was a superior weapon compared to the musket. A commanche could shoot and hit 10 settlers before a settler could reload their musket and shoot one commanche. It wasn't until the invention of the six shooter that the bow and arrow went the way of the do-do.

Re:Where have they gone?

[phyruxus]

>>I don't think the Apaches, Iriquois ("Mohawk"), and Aztecs were very nice.

Well, the Aztecs were bad ass, sacrificed people, required tribute and people from neighbors to sacrifice.

As for the "idea of all native tribes being peaceful and cooperative while the palefaces ran roughshod over them", you're mixing history up. First of all, the native americans conducted themselves with honor in the face of a highly disrespectful, arrogant, aggressive invader. Christians worked themselves up with all kinds of BS about native Americans eating babies, slaughtering towns, etc, then would go raze a tribe brutally and without mercy. Whites made treaties, gathered forces, then broke the treaties just to make another treaty, repeat. And frankly, the white man did run roughshod over the red man. After a while, the native americans got totally sick of this. Some nations made more war than others, but many *were* quite peaceful.

If you research thoroughly the interactions of whites and native americans, you'll find that most of the abusive, intolerant, provocative behavior was on the part of whites.

I know I can't change the anglo-centric view of some people, but I have two thoughts to leave this post on:

White people are increasingly outnumbered, and the trend is steepening. This world has seen many tens of thousands of years of human history, and nothing is forever. Someday we will be wiped out. I hope people who poo poo any awareness of how savage and immoral and hypocritical WE have been as liberal whining get treated the way their ancestors treated the black man and the red man. It might be 500 years, but how do you feel about the prospect of YOUR descendants being starved, force marched out of their homes, and settled on the worst land? Read up on american history, not some apologetic "we had to save the savages from themselves, they don't even pray to Jesus" account written by somebody who cuts checks to the GOP and the KKK.

The other thought is that: "Only after the last tree has been cut down,

only after the last river has been poisoned,

only after the last fish has been caught,

only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten."

You may or may not know just how badly we've behaved. If you really think the settlers only acted in self defense, or that we treated the native americans with ANY semblence of human dignity, you're sadly sadly misinformed. If you actually know what went down, even a tenth of it, and you still think that way, excuse me while I retch in disapproval.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Mr. Shiny And New]

You need to read "Guns, Germs and Steel" to put your views about farming into perspective. Farming technology was way more advanced in the rest of the world; that's the primary reason why it was the Europeans who were able to build up superior armies and population centers (more people = more disease). The book explains lots of theories about why the Europeans has such large advantages (like horses, for example) while the Natives had none (no pack animals, no wheels, etc).

Re:Where have they gone?

[Peaceful_Patriot]

I am confused by the date of this quote. If I remember my biology classes correctly, the concept of 'germs' (inivisible bugs which could make you sick, and capable of lingering on non-living items, like blankets) wasn't accepted until after the US Civil War (mid 1860s).

I remember reading that Civil War doctors would not even wash their hands or instruments between surgeries and thus most deaths were from infection.

It seems that most people believed (including doctors) that disease was caused by God, or perhaps 'bad air' or 'bad blood'.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Peaceful_Patriot]

I'm going to get modded to hell for this, but oh well:

Before Euorpeans ever arrived in North America, the Native Peoples had been warring, raiding, stealing, killing, enslaving etc. eachother for thousands of years. The tribes that were here were the survivors. The strongest, smartest or most isolated groups.

The 'evil white man' stereotype would have more meaning to me if the Native Peoples were not already commiting similar atrocities to each other.

Re:Where have they gone?

[weighn]

Credit for that goes to the British.

Yep. They did a great job in Australia too.

Re:Where have they gone?

[sumdumass]

Interestingly enough, while true, this doesn't discount the "feel sorry for me" syndrone that seems to effect most of the tribes. I hve also seen this in ceretain other minority groups. i actually had a person claim that i supported slavery or somethign like that when i didn't give hime a ride. Actually it was a "you don't like blake people" and then he tried to get me to prove that i didn't have any problems with blacks by driving him into a neiborhood were i wouln't last 5 minutes after dark. Actualy my reaosning was because i didn't have enough gas and the neiborhood scared me but somehow I was racist number one when i wouldn't take him there and i had to take him ther to prove other wise.

On reality it is little mor ethen a "feel sorry for me" and "lets see what we can get from then when we make them feel guilty". My guess is that i will get modded more for this but i will also go as far as saying that the whites only did what the indians were doing but wew better at it.

Re:Where have they gone?

[sumdumass]

dude, people and morals change threwout the times. Indians werent' even considered human at one point and for a while they were only part human. This is klind of like the blacks at one point of time. You cannot judge the past by the morals you understand today and think it justifies what happened. You also have to let some leviency go when it turned the other way. We know it was bad no because society has decided it was. it was perfectly acceptable at the time though. If we hadn't changed it would be perfectly acceptable now too.

Settlers acted thge way they did because they were scared about what they heard the indian did or because they have seen first hand. Several case existed were indians attacked just because someone was passing through a territoy they considered thier. Several cases existed were settlers attacked becasue they had nothign better to do. One thing you have to realize is that European's felt as if they were better then the rest of the would at that time. This is no longer the case but com'on we enslaved a race of people because they were part animal. Things change and the people of today are not the same as yesterday.

I would say get over it. don't forget about it but get over it.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Breakfast Pants]

No, they knew diseases could be contagious. Even the bible has references to leper colonies etc.

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

"only one of us is speaking from ignorance it would appear"

Yes, I concede that the mesoamerican civilizations and the inca were famously brutal, and more civil than tribal; I was referring to vast majoriy of the Americas. These civilizations, however, were not the first contacts for explorers, as the outlying peoples were all tribal.

A strong case can be made that the Iroquois are not and never have been a civilization, since their settlements never got beyond large villages, by design. That they were politically advanced and had strategic advantage over the newcomers is no indication of civil order; in most respects, their daily lives and values resembled their unquestionably tribal neighbours far more than any city-dwellers.

Likewise with the Powhatan, who were village folk with a typical Woodlands lifestyle, seeming more like a civilization because of not having to be nomadic. The peoples of the Pacific NW at that time, by the way, were far more numerous and socially developed than you seem to think, and some of those communities are still pretty big.

I maintain my position that the Americas were tribal in outlook, with a vastly different experience of "vices, power struggles, warfare and savagery" than the civil societies of Europe, or of civilized history in general.

Re:Where have they gone?

[zobier]

What people's name would that be?

Re:Where have they gone?

[kfg]

What people's name would that be?

Slav(e)

KFG

Re:Where have they gone?

[plog]

Look, Mr. Coward, the genocide is ongoing; the effects of being denied your livelihood, mother tongue, cultural traditions, trade relations, rights to stewardship, ecological niche, etc., carries on for generations, and those who uphold the institutional frameworks that maintained these strategies are complicit. On much of the continent, the theft and lies didn't end hundreds of years ago, but continue to this day, and they are morally continuous with the slaughter of entire villages in the 1600's.

This is a question of the unresolved abuses to sovereignty of existing peoples, with a persistent and extant connection to the land despite various forms of defeat and outright opression. You can't belittle it by trying to reduce it to the same status as nationalizing property owned by fascistic foreign corporations or events thousands of years old that have been resolved.

But, it is very much in the interest of any settler state ideology to find ways to obscure the nature of active settlement, so I expected your answer, from someone.

It's a cheap trick to say "get over it, it's a done deal" when a) it's not a done deal and b) you continue to reap economic and social benefits from the dishonourable and deployed plans of your immediate predecessors.

Re:Where have they gone?

[zobier]

Thanks for enlightening me, I never noticed that. From which slavic country does your heritage derive?

Re:Where have they gone?

[zobier]

I found an interesting discussion of this in the Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_peoples#Naming _and_etymologies

[T]he origin of the word "Slav" remains controversial. In Slavic languages that word is "Slowianie", "Slovene", or something similar, with obvious similarities to word slowo or slovo meaning "word". Slowianie would mean "people who can speak", as opposed to the Slavic word for Germans, "Niemcy", that is, "dumb", "people who cannot speak" (compare the Greek coinage of the term "barbarian"). Another obvious similarity links "Slavs" to the word slawa or slava, that is "glory" or "praise" (with a root in common with slowo - someone glorious has a word, a tale, spreading about him). Some linguists believe, however, that these obvious connections mislead, despite the early translation of the Greek word orthodoxos ("Correct/right", "glorifying/praising") having its equivalent in pravoslavni with pravo meaning "right" or "correct" and slavni meaning "those who praise" or "those who glorify" [God].

It is believed that the English word "slave" has its root (from Latin Sclavus and Greek Sklabos) in the Slavic ethnonym, because in the early middle ages Slavs were often used as slaves. See this external etymology

Re:Where have they gone?

[CaptRespect]

Wow dude, you're totally right, We should all move back to Europe and give the indians back thier land because the lost thier land in a war a long time ago.

What's you're solution? Give them all one hundred dollars? A thousand? A million? How about if we perform experaments on thier dead so maybe they can live again.

Fuck that.

What's the point of even having a war if you don't get to claim the right to what you were fighting about? Sorry that the indians were dancing around fire and banging drums like stupid hippies instead of inventing guns. Obvoisly the people back then didn't get along, they both needed the land, we fought, we won, they lost. That means that we get to tell them what to do.

I'm not going to deny the "continuity of society and it's institutions" it's the same old survial of the fittest. Our society was smarter and stronger than theres so they were wiped out. It's natural. Don't you hippies love nature?

And this guy is right. If your great-grandfather robs a bank gives the money to his son and invests it and makes a shit load of money which makes you're father rich, and then he pays for your college with that money, should you quit school? Shouldn't you be eating out of barrel for the rest of your life? How about your kids?

And I think you're ancestor caveman once killed once killed my ancestor caveman, so gimme some money.

Re:Where have they gone?

[kfg]

Belarus mostly, with a bit of Poland and Romania.

That's on my mother's side. My father's is the basic English/French thingy. I'm pretty much just a Euromutt who can't claim to be anything, but can claim to be everything.

Except Native American. So far as I know there ain't a drop of that in me.

KFG

Re:Where have they gone?

[Mr. Slippery]

I'm still pissed at the Romans for enslaving my ancestors and feeding them to lions. Get over it buddy, the issue is buried and long dead.

Terrible analogy. The government of Rome (the city-state of history, not the Italian city of today obviously) is gone, but both the United State and (some of the) Native nations still exist. pThis isn't just about what happened to people's distant ancestors. A former housemate of mine's father is full blooded Mohawk. He was taken from his parents while an infant and given to "decent white Christian" parents to be raised. Only recently was he able to track down and reunite with his biological parents.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Mr. Slippery]

i will also go as far as saying that the whites only did what the indians were doing but wew better at it.

Certainly the Native nations made war against each other, and myth of the "noble red man" holds no more water than other sterotypes.

However, AFIAK Native nations never performed the sort of wholesale treaty-breaking or genocidal practices that the U.S. governement did. It took American ingenuity to come up with the Trail of Tears.

Re:Where have they gone?

[Mr. Slippery]

Our society was smarter and stronger than theres so they were wiped out. It's natural. Don't you hippies love nature?

So if I kill you and take your stuff, it's proof that I am smarter and stronger than you, it's "natural", and you've got no problem with it? Cool. Be seeing you soon.

Anyway, they weren't "wiped out". This isn't just an issue of the past. Native nations still exist, and there are living today persons of Native ancestry who have suffered from rascist, even genocidal, actions of state and federal governments.

What's you're solution?

("Your", not "you're.")

First, the United States must honor its treaty obigations to the Native nations, and make reparations to extant nations with whom it has broken treaties. Second, reparations to those citizens of Native ancestry who have been victims of rascist government policies. Third, a general cultural acknowledgement that genocide was a bad thing. Get Andrew Jackson - who brought history the "Trail of Tears" - off the $20 bill for starters.

Re:Where have they gone?

[sumdumass]

Well the trail of tears was only there because they were alowed to live. Yes in most histroy books i have read, the conlusion after war between differing indian tribes were usually death to all the men and the women were absorbed into the tribe. Granted some of the indian probable found peace between themselves and settled the wars before it came to this but a defeated warior almost never lived.

Re:Where have they gone?

[angel'o'sphere]

The term germs probably was not accepted ... however "everybody" knew that you have to stay away from ill people and everything thy have touched, or you very likely got ill as well.

It does not matter if they "believed" in germs or black magic.

Biological war fare was done all the time ... oldest reports are from egypt wars at pharao times. The priests (medicals) opened dead corpses to gather liquids. Those where later hurled into sieged castels and cities by catapults ...

In america numberous insidents are recorded. Many are far older than the USA ... allready 16xx in canada and "usa" around the great seas frensh and british troops (fighting each other over canada) deliberately extincted native inhabitants by distributing "contaminated" stuff to them.

angel'o'sphere

I've been there....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh yes, South Carolina. I remember it well. That's where I buried all those stone tools I bought at the open-air market in Lambeth.

Re:I've been there....

[l810c]

Actually, NOVA on PBS had a similar story that aired on Nov. 9th

A quote from that show:

One team even proposes that the first Americans came from Europe, not Asia

did the submitter...

[Anonymous Coward]

did the submitter RTFA? It clear states that the stones date from 50,000 years ago. 25,000 years earlier than previously thought.

fp?

Re:did the submitter...

[Anonymous Coward]

It just goes to show that whilst man may have been in the United States from 50,000 year ago, intelligence is yet to be found.

Re:did the submitter...

[Scaba]

It doesn't matter. Now that the religious right has taken over, America no longer believes in 25,000 years ago. We only believe back to 23 October 4004 BC, when God intelligently designed the world. To claim otherwise is heresy, and will only result in you being interned at a Bob Jones Biblical Prison Camp.

Re:did the submitter...

[rock_climbing_guy]

I used to live in South Carolina and drove past Bob Jones University on a daily basis. During a high school field trip about 6 years ago, I remember another student remarked that the iron fence around the campus was to make sure no one escaped.

Re:did the submitter...

[Sai Babu]

AP story from Yahoo news has some additional info.

Re:did the submitter...

[pohl]

You sure about that? I did a search on the entry for radiocarbon dating, and I couldn't find the word "guess" anywhere.

Re:did the submitter...

[Oligonicella]

They haven't. You're a jackass.

Re:did the submitter...

[jocknerd]

Al Franken has a hilarious chapter on Bob Jones University in his book 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'.

Re:did the submitter...

[jav1231]

Carbon dating isn't perfect. I realize that insistance on it's infalibility is what many scientists (not all) bank on. Besides, the great "window" of time used has to make one wonder sometimes. I think, however, that more and more data comes available that does shoe that man's presence on earth is out of kilter with previous thought. There have been fossil evidence, for instance, putting man's existense in time with many ancient animals that were thought to be long before our existence. The point is, man's knowledge changes and he has to rethink his previously held ideas based on the evidence that is presented to him. And adjusting timelines isn't new, even with carbon dating involved.

Re:did the submitter...

[Wyatt Earp]

It's not the Judeo-Christian folks who won't listen to evidence of older or different Indian evidence in the United States, it's the traditionalist Indian folks.

Like Kennewick man or anything that puts the current dogma into question is ignored or attacked. The 60 Minutes piece about Kennewick man was very good, there was an offical from the tribe up in Washington who was sueing to supress the evidence and when asked, why not let it be examined he said, well religion tells us this thing, so there is no point in looking at the evidence because it's wrong.

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/kman/kman_ ho me.htm
http://www.cr.nps.gov/aad/kennewick/

I'm from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, you know some of the folks who claim the Black Hills of South Dakota and want money for all that gold and silver because they claim they sprung from the Earth there. Well the claim is idiotic, because they didn't even get to western South Dakota until the 1770s. But you can't talk facts with some people.

It's not fair to paint this sort of ignorance as a religous right thing in the US, because the left is just as ignorant in some places.

Re:did the submitter...

[Megaweapon]

It's not fair to paint this sort of ignorance as a religous right thing in the US, because the left is just as ignorant in some places.

What does the "left" have to do with your post?

Re:did the submitter...

[roalt]

did the submitter RTFA? It clear states that the stones date from 50,000 years ago. 25,000 years earlier than previously thought.

These are american years, the metric years are in fact 25,000 years ago.

Re:did the submitter...

[stanmann]

I know personally individuals who were asked to discontinue their attendance at that illustrious institution.

Re:did the submitter...

[Wyatt Earp]

What's the left have to do with it?

Well...typically your Indian Reservations vote overwhelmingly Democratic, support of welfare, etc. So that would have them be on the Left now wouldn't it?

I get this feeling, not from you, but in general, that it's OK to blame anything on the Right you want, global warming on Mars, two-headed cows, etc. But if you are going to bring blame onto the Left, you need some MLA formated citations and be prepared to defend your thesis.

Re:did the submitter...

[A nonymous Coward]

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.

Re:did the submitter...

[Megaweapon]

Well...typically your Indian Reservations vote overwhelmingly Democratic, support of welfare, etc. So that would have them be on the Left now wouldn't it?

But your original point was regarding how claims were being made based on putting facts aside due to religious beliefs. If anything that is "Right-ist" mentality.

I get this feeling, not from you, but in general, that it's OK to blame anything on the Right you want, global warming on Mars, two-headed cows, etc. But if you are going to bring blame onto the Left, you need some MLA formated citations and be prepared to defend your thesis.

That means you are listenting to the Right too much. There's plenty of baseless rhetoric done in many camps trying to cast blame to others. Besides, you were replying to an obvious joke and perhaps you took it a little bit too seriously.

Re:did the submitter...

[IceAgeComing]

Your comment got me interested in the question of how inaccurate the process can be, and how these inaccuracies are validated and quantified. One method, which I find compelling, is to date trees, such as bristlecone pines, which live for thousands of years and which also reliably create one ring per year. If you find such a tree that still alive, you can count the rings and know which year each ring was produced. Also, you can use dead trees by correlating tree ring thicknesses (climate-related growth rate) between live and dead trees that were at one time alive simultaneously.

Refer to the following for more info:

http://www.rlaha.ox.ac.uk/orau/calibration.html

Anyway, it appears that the standard deviation for radiocarbon dating is +/-50 years for something that is 5000 years old, or in other words, +/- 1%. That's going to get you within the correct century for anything up to 100,000 years old.

I understand that I can't *prove* this, but I find the evidence compelling. I will keep my mind open for stronger evidence to the contrary. At the moment, I don't see any.

Re:did the submitter...

[Puff Daddy]

perhaps because China is the PR "leader" for Communism these days, I should believe that Communism has no merit because the most powerful Communist government in the world right now has committed horrible atrocities.

What if some of those Chinese Communists started committing atrocities here with the governments approval? I'd be pretty pissed.

Re:did the submitter...

[jav1231]

That's cool. I think there are those who look at C14 dating as good back to a given time frame, and I forget just how far. It's interesting how you have to move to the hypothetical to build a timeline going back into the hundreds of thousands of years because of of possible and probably events like effects of radiactive activity and such. They may be correct, but understanding that you will likely be subject to such shifts in theory because of inconsistancies and willing to re-think your previous positions will just make you a better thinker is important.

Re:did the submitter...

[the phantom]

Radiocarbon dating is good to maybe 65-75 thousand years. Beyond that, the amount of C14 in a sample is generally small enought that it is very, very hard to count... remember that C14 has a half life of less than 7,000 years.

Re:did the submitter...

[Wyatt Earp]

"But your original point was regarding how claims were being made based on putting facts aside due to religious beliefs. If anything that is "Right-ist" mentality"

Oh, that's nonsense. For example, the American Indians dogma that they were here first, sprung from the ground, Black Hills or Buffalo spawned is religous.

Likewise Eco-groups holding the Mother Earth as sacred, animal rights are equal to human rights are a religion every much as much as what Pat Robertson says on the 700 Club.

Re:did the submitter...

[BeatlesForum.com]

Sort of like partial birth abortions...

Re:did the submitter...

[DaFallus]

See, this is hilarious. I didn't even vote for Bush, yet because I'm tired of hearing you pussies cry all the time that makes me a Republican. Bringing up Bush and Republicans has nothing to do with this topic. And people modding me down because I'm tired of hearing people cry about Republicans, which last time I checked, have NOTHING TO DO WITH EVIDENCE OF HUMANS FROM 50,000 YEARS AGO BEING DISCOVERED IN AMERICA. Yet I am the one who is modded down for being off topic...

Re:did the submitter...

[CaptainAvatar]

There have been fossil evidence, for instance, putting man's existense in time with many ancient animals that were thought to be long before our existence.

Such as?

Re:did the submitter...

[hunterx11]

NWO? WCW? I knew it!

The wrestlers will inherit the Earth!

Re:did the submitter...

[hunterx11]

There is only one authority for Christianity--the Bible.

Well then, it's a good thing the Bible was written in such clear, unambiguous terms and that everyone agrees on what the text of the Bible is and what it means, I mean, otherwise you'd have all sorts of craziness. We can't have Christians believing in things like the Holy Trinity that aren't actually in the Bible--oh, no.

Creationism and Darwinism

[Scorillo47]

Hmmm... which one of these currents can use this as a proof?

Re:Creationism and Darwinism

[SFBwian]

It seems to me that God needs to see a shrink.

Used for voting

[plierhead]

Those are neolithic tools that were used for voting. Early Americans used them to punch out the chads on the stone tablets used in elections to select their leaders. Of course things have moved on somewhat since then...

Re:Used for voting

[Lurker McLurker]

Stone tablets were often used in voting in ancient times. It's not generally known that the Ten Commandments were actually a voting slip, nad the Israelites were only supposed to pick one, not keep the lot.

Re:Used for voting

[pchan-]

these early south-carolinians, homo-courouge as they were dubbed by researchers, exhibit some peculiar behaviour not found in other native tribes. several skulls have been found that seem to have an imprint of a cylinder which was crushed on their foreheads. archeologists have also found early versions of spear-racks, presumably for mules or horses, large rusty ornamental iron works (perhaps religious icons) which were stored on blocks in front of their dwellings, as well as cave painting of an early strom thurmand election poster. we may never know how they lived, but their remains leave us with fascinating clues into the ways of a civilization now gone forever.

Re:Used for voting

[EvanTaylor]

I think you haven't been keeping up with the times then, the IDF has indeed picked only one, but im not sure which.

Re:Used for voting

[sryx]

The REAL Christians know that there are actually 15 Commandments :)
-Jason

Re:Used for voting

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up, it is absolutely hilarious (btw. "courouge" comes from french words "cou" (neck) and "rouge" (red) ... homo-redneck :D ... brilliant, mr. pchan-.

Re:Used for voting

[AndroidCat]

That would explain the circles of hanging stones. Obviously the site of an ancient recount.

Re:Used for voting

[Edward Faulkner]

Heh. I didn't figure out this was a joke until I got to the mules and horses part... there weren't any of either in the Americas until the Europeans brought them over.

Re:Used for voting

[MrCreosote]

Moses comes down from the mountain and addresses the Israelites.

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is - I've knocked him down to ten. The bad news is - adultery is still in"

How much you're willing to bet...

[WegianWarrior]

...that the loudest arguments will not be over how old these remains are, but there they came from, and if they are indian (native american) or not in origin...

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[killjoe]

Depends on who you talk to. For creationists the world was created just a few thousand years ago. They will be arguing that these stones are less then ten thousand year old.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[Vellmont]

Yah, I think the same thing whenever a new space probe is launched and the geocentrists get all uppity and claim it'll crash into the the crystal spheres.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[Mant]

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.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[Hognoxious]

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 saw a documantary many moons ago which suggested, IIRC, that they were related to the Australian aboriginals (who are black, but not negroid). There are isolated pockets of people with genetic markers supporting this, which get more common as you approach Patagonia.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[The Limp Devil]

Actually, so far the debate centers on whether these are actually stone tools as claimed or just naturally chipped stones.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[Raffaello]

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.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[superyooser]

You've apparently forgotten that all recent genetic evidence shows that we are all descended from Africans.

Heh, recent science catches up with ancient wisdom. Yes, we are one human race.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[Duct Tape Pro]

we are all descended from Africans.

I actually thought the poster was referring to established cultures in Africa and Mongolia (well, as established as you can get back then) sending people over, rather than the ultimite origin of the people. Granted that the Mongolians are also African, I would agree that the people are from two different cultures if they came by ship from Africa instead of walking across a land bridge from Mongolia

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[DunbarTheInept]

Idiot. (I am referring to your adovocating that site you linked to).

So, racism got worse because of teaching evolution, huh? So, shipping slaves from africa to the new world was somehow less racist than what came afterward??? Suuurrrrre.....

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[the phantom]

The most recent DNA studies, utilizing mtDNA, show fairly conclusivly that people came to the New World from Asia. Furthermore, there is very little evidence of people in the Pacific until well after the Americas were settled (the eastern parts of the Pacific, i.e. Hawi'i and Easter Island, were not settled until maybe 1000 years ago), and there is almost no evidence that any of the 'negroid' peoples of Africa had any kind of long distance sea faring capacity until very recently. The distinctions of 'negroid', 'mongoloid', and 'caucasion' are based primarily on skull morphology. The skulls of the earliest people in the Americas (based on a very small sample of maybe a dozen or two) are very different from anything that now exists. 'Mongoloid' skulls tend to cluster around certain traits, as do 'negroid' and 'caucasion' skulls. However, these clusters appear much less distinct when compared to 11,000 year old Americans, such as Kenniwick Man or Spirit Cave Man.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[incom]

...and there is almost no evidence that any of the 'negroid' peoples of Africa had any kind of long distance sea faring capacity until very recently.

So whats the deal with the aborigines in australia, and the tribes in new guinea, and probably other places. I always thought they were from africa.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[hymie3]

At the bottom of this post is an excerpt from the book that was the keypoint of Scopes. Pay attention to the last sentence. If you don't read anything else from this post, read the last sentence.

I say that, yes, the racism of the early 20th century was worse than that of the late 19th century. Before evolution, slaves were just animals, savages. Elitist, yes, but not racist. There were attempts to tie "science" to the white man's *obvious* superiority (phrenology comes to mind), but it was mainly grounded in a tautological begging the question "of all the ways of life and civilizations of the world, ours is the best, therefore we are the best".

Post Darwin, there was *"real" science* that showed that even if you dressed the noble savage and taught him table manners, there was something fundamentally *inferior* in him that could not be removed, a taint that was tied to race.

So, yes, racism got worse because of teaching evolution. It's not that evolution was or is racist, it's just that as a tool for hate-mongering and promoting racist agenda, it was so much more effective than what existed before.

http://www.
thezephyr.com/scopes.htm
The Races of Man. -- At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[DunbarTheInept]

the racism of the early 20th century was worse than that of the late 19th century. Before evolution, slaves were just animals, savages. Elitist, yes, but not racist.

You just lost all credibility. I was right, you are an idiot. No, I won't bother reading to the end of your message.

Re:How much you're willing to bet...

[the phantom]

Getting to Austarialia did and New Guinea did not require long distance sea faring capacity. At the height glacial advance, about 60,000 years ago (give or take), Australia and New Guinea were joined, and were only seperated from Asia by about 60-90 miles of water. A fair bit no doubt, but certainly crossable (look at Cubans fleeing to Florida).

Most anthropologists tend to believe that everyone came from Africa (well, at least a large portion do -- there are other theories). Modern Homo sapiens seemed to migrate out of Africa about 100,000 years ago. People hit southern Asia maybe 60-70 kBP, Europe around 40 kBP, Central Asia about 25,000 years ago, and the Americas around 15-20 kBP. The Pacific Islands were slowly populated from west to east, ending within the last 1,000 years (Easter Island was the last place to be reached, about 700 years ago).

Please note, however, that these dates are all from the top of my head, and may be off by a bit... it has been awile since I took human evolution or biological anthropolgy. Also, these figures are in line with the 'Out of Africa' theory. There is another widespread theory that states that modern Homo sapiens evolved locally from Homo erectus. Either way, there is no evidence of people in Australia before 60 kBP, and very scant evidence before 40 kBP.

This is an interesting finding

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[darkewolf]

25k years ago for man arriving in central asia can't be entirely right. The australian aboriginals have been around in this country for 40-60k years, and its theorized they came via an asian landbridge.. Unless of course the SE Asian humans were around before the Central asian.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[mrchaotica]

If this is actually true, then it's really quite challenging to the accepted idea of how modern man spread throughout the earth.

Although it's admittedly barely on the fringes of credible science, there is evidence of a global technologically-advanced culture a long time ago. Stuff like similar pyramids in Egypt and South America, golden Mayan sculptures that the Spanish thought were of birds but actually look more like jet aircraft, myths of Atlantis, a fused-glass "floor" found in a core sample taken in India (I think -- it could have been somewhere in the middle east) of the kind that has otherwise only been observed after nuclear explosions, etc.

It would be absurd to believe anything based on this meager evidence, but it's an interesting possibility to think about, isn't it?

[I read about all this stuff in the works of Charles Berlitz, author of "The Bermuda Triangle." For all I know he's a lunatic, but who's to say?]

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Dusabre]

Your discovery of Van Deniken pseudo-science is as (third) eye-opening as finding out pro wrestling is not real.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Mant]

Stuff like similar pyramids in Egypt and South America

That's becuase if you are going to build a big structure with stone the best way is make it wider at the bottom.

It's like saying people on different continents built houses, so they must have come from the same culture. This isn't from the fringes of science, it's from the bookstore. The nearest it comes to creadability was when they swiped the idea for the AvP film.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[mrchaotica]

If I recall, the similarities go deeper than that -- some of the measurements correspond, or something. It was something that suggested that the builders had communication with each other, not just that they were subject to the same constraints and had the same inspiration.

I just want to reiterate that I realize the whole thing could be a complete fiction -- I don't need to be told so.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[CmdrGravy]

He is equally as bad as Von Daniken and Hancock.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Arker]

Twenty-five thousand years ago is quite close to when man is thought to have arrived in central Asia (from Africa).

Bzzzt. Wrong answer.

First off, try reading the article. The slashdot blurb is so wrong it isn't even funny. The tools appear to be 25,000 years than the previous earliest known in the new world - which was NOT Clovis. These things are from about 50,000 years ago. Humans in the new world 25,000 years ago has been known for many years. The population just seems to have been tiny, prior to the asian immigrations starting ancestral to Clovis - but there were people here. Just not very many.

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.

Wrong again, even the 50,000 years ago figure is in no way threatening to Old World chronologies, and there have been humans in central Asia for FAR more than 50,000 years. The article itself says this, but it is laughably wrong - the journalist in this case clearly misunderstood his source. Human inhabitation of central asia goes back at least twice that far.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Raffaello]

Spencer Wells' work on male genetic markers suggests that there were two routes out of Africa - one along the coast of south asia, the other through SW asia (a.k.a., the Midde East) and into Central Asia. The South asian coastal route led to Australia. It is perfectly possible that people first reached both places (Central Asia and Australia) at around the same time. They just moved first along the coastal route probably because they were not slowed by the need to create a whole new set of material adaptations as they went. Lving in Central Asia requires a completely different set of tools, clothing and skills than living in coastal Northeastern Africa (the point of departure). Living in coastal South Asia and Coastal NW Australia does not.

Wells believes that the wave of migration leading to Australia began some 60,000 years ago. The wave leading to Central Asia dates to significantly later, probably 45,000 - 40,000 years ago.

To bring this fully on topic, genetic evidence indicates that people could not have reached North America much earlier than 15,000 - 20,000 years ago, so I'm inclined to believe that the article's suggested 50,000 year date for a hearth is simply wrong. It is probably just a natural feature (remains of a naturally ocurring fire) and the purported "tools" are probably just naturally fractured rocks. You'd be amazed at the broken rocks that some archaeologists (I'm an archaeologist by training) will call "tools." Only microscopic wear pattern analysis of sample edges can begin to establish that some randomly fractured hunk of rock is really a tool. I didn't see any mention that this has been done in the article. Another possibility is stratigraphic mixing (different levels of the site have been disturbed or moved by the activities of burrowing animals).

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Raffaello]

I know this won't put this to rest, because people love to believe in flaky sillyness rather than the relatively boring facts but here goes.

Have you ever excavated a Native American "pyramid?" I have. They bear no resemblance to Egyptian pyramids:

Egyptian Pyramids:
1. pointed on top.
2. built entirely of solid stone.
3. No structures on top.
4. Chambers always inside pyramid.

American "Pyramids"
1. Flat on top (that's why I put "pyramid" in quotes).
2. Built mostly of rubble (i.e., dirt and garbage). Sometimes, though by no means usually, faced with stone. Most often faced with plaster of Lime or clay.
3. Structures always on top.
4. Chambers inside rare.

They show no real signs of having a common cultural origin. Any superficial similiarities are explained, as a previous poster noted, by the fact that building tall structures without the benefit of modern physics and civil engineering techniques is most easily accomplished by making your structure wider at the base than at the top.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[orasio]

It's easy to find or create insightful coincidences.
Some people claimed that the mayan pyramid builders knew the value of Pi, and could easily predict solstices, so they should have some very advanced technology.

Those things are quite obvious. To measure a long distance it's nice to use a wheel -> Pi, and if you are going to build a monument to a deity related to the sun, you must be very interested in the sun, and know when it will be higher.

Mayans had a technology much more advanced compared to europeans of the time, in many regards, but inferior in the ones that did matter for their survival against aztecas, and spanish people. Some technology might have been lost with their destruction, but nothing advanced compared to what we have today.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Raffaello]

No, inhabitation of Central Asia does by Homo Sapiens Sapiens does not go back to 100,000 years ago as you suggest.

We need to distinguish between fully modern humans, and other hominid species. Fully modern humans did not reach Central Asia till at most 40,000 years ago. Modern humans did not begin their migrations out of Africa until 60,000 years ago.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[SaV]

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!

Re:This is an interesting finding

[rusty0101]

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

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Alan Hicks]

This is really hair-brained of me and I probably shouldn't bother posting, but is it possible that early man did not in fact originate in Africa as we have believed for a very long time? Coule early man have originated in say Asia, migrating to North America and Africa, died out in Asia, and then migrated back there or something else equally absurd?

Fact is we are a bit of an amnesic species when it comes to history and there is far too much that we don't know to make even a reasonable guess at human origins, IHMO.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[thisissilly]

For those looking for more on Spencer Wells' work:
Map of Homo Sapien's spreading
The info about the Nat Geo. documentary
The book at amazon.com.

Re:This is an interesting finding

[Tony-A]

Within any population, there will be some few who are more adventurous than most. Finding traces of their existence will be difficult, a few orders of magnitude more difficult than finding traces of mass migrations which in turn is a few orders of magnitude more difficult than finding traces of where the descendants flourished. It's like finding traces of mountain men and trappers from a couple of hundred years ago.

There are a few bits of evidence, like traces of tobacco in Egyptian mummies.

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.

I'd say it's closer to claiming the odds that with 35 people in a room, the odds are about 1:10 of two having the same birthday. The Americas have probably been "discovered" many times in the past. The thing is, without very good evidence that will be very hard to find, we have no idea who went from where to where and what happened to to them.

Old joke

[SuneSpeg]

Old joke, the ./ way:

German scientists dug 50 meters down and discovered small pieces of copper.
After studying these pieces for a long time, Germany announced that the ancient Germans 15,000 years ago had DSL.

Naturally, the Russian government was not that easily impressed. They ordered their own scientists to dig even deeper.
100 meters down they found small pieces of glass and they soon announced that the ancient Russians 20,000 years ago already had a nation-wide fiber net.

American scientists were outraged by this. They dug 200 meters down & found absolutely nothing.
They happily concluded that the ancient Americans 25,000 years ago had wireless network.

Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must I be forced to send my children to schools where the teachers insist that we are descended from apes?

The very idea is utterly ridiculous. A cursory glance at ape anatomy shows that it is impossible for man to have 'evolved' from one. It is just a rubbish idea. Everyone with any education at all knows that man actually comes from australopithecus.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Orgazmus]

And australopithecus came from where?

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[orthogonal]

Why must I be forced to send my children to schools where the teachers insist that we are descended from apes?.... Everyone with any education at all knows that man actually comes from australopithecus.

Beee-yooo-ti-ful non-troll troll.

Mod parent up, up, up, up.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[CAIMLAS]

Of course. Just like a jackelope is a conceiveable ancestor of either deer or the rabbit, if half an antler were found near a rabbit's foot 10 feet down near some old pottery - in the same layer of soil which was dated by the bones found in it 100 yards away belonging to a sabertooth tiger, which as everyone knows died out 3 million - 10,000 years ago (and thus giving a nice small ballpark for us to reach a conclusion from).

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Sai Babu]

"Why must I be forced to send my children to schools where the teachers insist that we are descended from apes?"

Jesus Dood, it's too bad you don't live in the USA. Here you can home school the interplanetary origin of man and with the cooporation of lke minded individuals start your own school to teach this 'fact'.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[commodoresloat]

Australopithecus was created by God. Intelligent design at work. Humans are actually an evolutionary step backwards.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[eddeye]

A cursory glance at ape anatomy shows that it is impossible for man to have 'evolved' from one.

From my observations of both ape and human behavior, the only reasonable conclusion is that apes evolved from us. :)

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Colonel Cholling]

Yeah, too bad fossil evidence is only one tiny piece of the total overwhelming evidence for evolution. Come back when you've actually read something about evolution written by actual evolutionists, as opposed to the straw man argument the creationists like to knock down.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[wayward_son]

Of course man did not descend from apes.

Man descended from lemmings. Or perhaps sheep.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[JamesP]

Yes, the idea is ridiculous BECAUSE NO SCIENTIST SAID THAT

YOU have distorted what the scientists have said, to make it look ridiculous.

The correct explantion is: Man and ape HAD A COMMON ANCESTOR!

NOT! Man descended form Ape

And you better stop using your computar, since it's a Devil's thing, ok! Alan Turing was a Fag. You're using the product of the Devil's son there.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[mothlos]

Well, considering that there is so little funding for archaeological research of ape species that aren't linked (nomatter how dubiously) to human ancestry, it is quite conceivable that australopithecus and modern man did not evolve from apes.

This could mean that we perhaps didn't climb out of the trees, but that pre-humans climbed into the trees.

Basically the archaeological record is so full of holes and politics that everything is a guess.

However, the physological similarities between apes and humans abound, particularly in skull and shoulder structure making it a pretty clear case that humans and apes are relatively closely related.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[radtea]

Penguins! After all, where else in nature to we find upright bipedalism and a great affinity for water?

--Tom

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Suidae]

The intelligent design argument is beautiful. For the thiest, everything was designed by his god (or by man, depending on the thiest), so there are no undesigned things against which to compair. Its an argument he cannot lose.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[dorsey]

I wonder what it's like to live without a sense of humor. Would you tell me what it's like?

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[Cro Magnon]

Man and apes clearly have nothing in common. One of them takes great fun in throwing their own poo at each other!

I'm glad this election is over. :)

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[CAIMLAS]

So how exactly is the rhetoric of what I said incorrect?

Either bad fossil evidence and jackalope-type fossil creation exists, and thus largely invalidates many evolutionary claims, or it doesn't.

You want more evidence? What about the so-called genetic progress that is claimed by evolutionists, when no genetic changes have been observed outside of mutations within a pre-defined range, and plain degregation/minimalization/consolidation of the genetic material?

There's a huge difference between basing your science of pre-conceived assumptions and basic your science on emperical evidence. Current evolutionary science practices tend to lean towards the former of the two by relying on the accepted theories of the day. This is the same kind of nonsense that was behind hundreds of years of the flat-world model of geography.

Your use of the term 'straw man argument' makes itevidently clear that you have no concept of what a strawman arguement is, let alone what a logical fallacy might be.

Re:Man did *not* descend from apes.

[CaptainAvatar]

Either bad fossil evidence and jackalope-type fossil creation exists, and thus largely invalidates many evolutionary claims, or it doesn't.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. If "jackelopes" were common, then it might. If they are rare - and I submit that they are - then to say this "largely invalidates many evolutionary claims" is unlikely to be true. You have to get specific here, you can't rely on generalities.

You want more evidence? What about the so-called genetic progress that is claimed by evolutionists, when no genetic changes have been observed outside of mutations within a pre-defined range, and plain degregation/minimalization/consolidation of the genetic material?

Creationist hogwash. Where does this "pre-defined" range come from? You can take any measurable genetic change and say it falls within a "pre-defined range" - even if that's the difference between an ant and an antelope. "What about ... plain degregation/minimalization/consolidation of the genetic material?" Yeah, what about it? What does this even mean?

There's a huge difference between basing your science of pre-conceived assumptions and basic your science on emperical evidence.

Any pre-conceived assumptions you'd like to admit to? You wouldn't happen to be a Christian by any chance, would you?

Current evolutionary science practices tend to lean towards the former of the two by relying on the accepted theories of the day. This is the same kind of nonsense that was behind hundreds of years of the flat-world model of geography.

You don't think it's odd that creationism was the accepted theory prior to the 19th century, and that evidence to the contrary accumulated, scientists began to favour evolutionary theories despite much resistance? Perhaps its because evolution fits the evidence better than creationism does? No, perish the thought: scientists much just be stupid.

Creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

This only goes to further the proof of Creationism!

Clearly this "evidence" of humans in America 25,000 years ago was only created when the world was created 6,000 years ago. QED.

Re:Creationism

[javiercero]

No... no.. no! Get with the program! It is no longer "creationism" but rather "inteligent design"! Same old creationism, but half the carbs!

Re:Creationism

[Drachemorder]

Creationism and intelligent design are NOT the same thing.

Creationism is the belief that God created the universe from nothing. Intelligent design is the belief that living organisms are too complex to have arisen by random chance. They're complementary, to be sure, but they are not the same thing. One might be a deist, for example, and believe that God created the universe originally and then left it to run on its own --- which would imply that one believes in creation but NOT ID. Or, one might believe that some entity other than what we think of as "God" designed life on Earth, in which case one might believe in ID but not creation.

Creationism is a religious belief which is not testable and depends on fundamental assumptions that are at odds with mainstream science. ID, however, does not require those assumptions, and it does have some implications that can be tested and discussed from a scientific standpoint. It postulates, for example, that there is no possible mechanism for certain complex biological constructs to have evolved from simple molecules. Such a hypothesis could potentially be proved or disproved by applying known physical and chemical laws to the problem.

This is not meant to judge the truth of this stuff, merely to explain what it is. There's a ton of misunderstanding on all sides of the issue.

Re:Creationism

[aiabx]

Allow me to summarize Intelligent Design:
1) I am really smart.
2) I don't understand how X could happen.
Therefore
3) X must have a supernatural explanation.

If that's what passes for science, we might as well start praying to Zeus to stop throwing those lightning sticks at us.
-aiabx

Re:Creationism

[rk]

I don't believe in intelligent design but given the way body seems to function and all the failure modes it seems to have, I'm willing to give "unintelligent design" the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Creationism

[aiabx]

How does X have to be supernatural? Couldn't the "intelligent designer" have been a superior alien life form that designed DNA and used this planet as a giant test bed for it? As the gp said, intelligent design has nothing to do with religion, although Christians tend to latch on to it as their own. There are other possibilities as to who the designer was.

Well, here are two possibile thought processes. You decide for yourself which is good science.
a) I don't understand how this could happen. My understanding of the process is incomplete, so I will look harder for evidence that will help me understand. If I find contradictory evidence, I will modify my theory accordingly.
b) I don't understand how this could happen. It is therefore inexplicable, and was most likely caused by God/Gods/Mad Scientists/Superior Alien Life Forms. What evidence do I have for this conclusion? Well, it's inexplicable, isn't it?

Call me up when you find the glacier signed Slartibartfast, or the spare DNA strand that reads "Copyright UBM".
-aiabx

Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a stone tool. How do we know they are carbon dating the TOOL and not the STONE?

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[the_2nd_coming]

apparently so are the moderators.

perhaps we know they are dating the tool and not the stone because if they were dating the stone it would be a hell of a lot older than 25,000 years old.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[kevinatilusa]

My guess would be that they're performing the dating on once-living objects found in the same strata as the "tools". Since objects in the same strata are approximately the same age, carbon-dating those objects would provide an estimate to when the tools were first in existence.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[farmhick]

Not having read the article, I'll say this:

Usually, you can't carbon date stone. You carbon date organic stuff around the stone. That is why the scientists love to find prehistoric garbage pits and latrines. They find a lot of organic material, that is put there by a specific group, and all stone or pottery artifacts are almost certainly from that group.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[nbert]

AFAIK radiocarbon dating can only be used on plants or bones (or anything else which used to live)

According to the CNN article the scientists dated the site it was found, so they might have used this method on something which has been found with the stone. However, I'm apparently clueless ;)

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[Panaflex]

Wouldn't of happened to be slightly over cooked possum bones near by?

Just checkin

Pan

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[logic-gate]

Classic, a comment saying the moderators are stupid got moderated up :).

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[fireboy1919]

Of course, whoever put it there buried it themselves, or there was a massive upheaval followed by a quick settling...I've heard there are a number of possible causes for error using this method, though I can't remember any of the others at the moment (high school was a long time ago).

They've found trees that span enough strata to be considered to have different segments actually living during different time periods if they dated it this way (which is actually impossible).
Dating using this method is mostly guesswork.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[plnrtrvlr]

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.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[rusty0101]

As I understand it, and I am not an Archaeologist by training, the usual method for 'carbon dating' tools is to track the apparent layer for a firepit approximating the same layers as the tools were found in.

Most 'digs' are done at locations where every so often a 'layer' is added covering already existing layers. Examples being cave openings where material from further up the cave is washed over the existing layers in the cave, and stream juncturs where annual spring flooding adds layers of silt to the area.

One of the complaints in some areas is that fire pits (the remaining charcole is generally a good carbon dating source as it is organic carbon, and primarily what is left is carbon) may be contaminated with naturally occuring coal in the area. West Virginia sites are occasionally accused of being affected. The idea being that if you are not certain that the charcoal in question is not the remains of coal being burned, your sample age goes from 13-15,000 years to hundreds of thousands of years with little trouble. (Except to the archaeologist trying to date the percieved tools in the area.)

Hope this helps.

-Rusty

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[tepples]

Of course, whoever put it there buried it themselves, or there was a massive upheaval followed by a quick settling

I'm guessing the latter, a major flooding event.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[Unnngh!]

There are other methods to attempt to date the artifact itself but AFAIK none are considered very accurate--carbon dating of organic material via estimated decay rate is the best we have.

Even so, this method has yielded evidence of human inhabitance in South America up to 70,000-100,000 years ago. Very few people take these numbers seriously. In short, this study could easily be 25000 years off, leaving no spectacular findings.

Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but...

[KennethE]

What if those tools are the remains of an early archelogical excavation site from 25,000 years ago.

Can't Be True

[SEWilco]

Nope, the science is settled. Everyone agrees humans got here not long ago, so obviously this study is wrong. We won't let reality interfere with history.

Re:Can't Be True

[kevinatilusa]

The science may not be settled yet, but the burden of proof here still lies on the researcher.

Whenever a scientist gets experimental results that are far outside what was previously known and expected, the proper response is to either wait for independent verification (in this case, similar dating results from digs elsewhere in North America at the same depth) or subject the experimental procedure to intense scrutiny. Here, I would expect him to be able to justify

1) That the artifacts really came from the time he claims them to be from (probably easily doable via an independent dating test)
2) That the artifacts really came from the place he claims them to be from
3) That the artifacts are manmade.

Until each of these points is well supported, and barring the independent verification mentioned above, I'd hold out on adjusting the history textbooks.

Re:Can't Be True

[eclectro]

Everyone agrees humans got here not long ago, so obviously this study is wrong. We won't let reality interfere with history.

Agreed. The only date that matters is the date whitey got here.

Re:Can't Be True

[bakes]

Whenever a scientist gets experimental results that are far outside what was previously known and expected, the proper response is to either wait for independent verification (in this case, similar dating results from digs elsewhere in North America at the same depth) or subject the experimental procedure to intense scrutiny.

Yes, that's the proper response, but what then? We often see similar situations where a new piece of evidence - even after independent verification - does not conform to the accepted theory that some historian has spent his life working on. What happens? The new evidence is ridiculed, the discoverer vilified, and we continue teaching our kids the 'accepted' theory which has now been proven at least partially incorrect.

Unfortunately, science nowadays is all about politics. Nobody at the top level seems to want to say 'Ah yes, you are right - I need to revise my theory'.

Apologies to the researchers reading this who still pursue their science for the wonder of discovery.

Re:Can't Be True

[bakes]

No, I didn't miss the point. The first thing I said is that I agreed that you need decent proof.

*My* point is evidence is not enough.

Dickhead.

Uh-oh

[SbooX]

Anyone else suspicious about anything regarding evolution that comes out of South Carolina?

Speaking of Chippewa,

[farmhick]

Does that one country song drive you crazy?

Not "Kill the white man" crazy, more like "Cut off my ears so I can't hear it anymore" crazy?

I forget who sings it, but he's "half Cherokee and Choktaw" and his "baby's Chippewa". For all I know the singer is native, so please excuse my ignorance. I just wonder about this when it plays on the radio.

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[killjoe]

"'"Cut off my ears so I can't hear it anymore" crazy?"

All country music does that to me. I call it bumper sticker music. Every song is can be summed up on a bumper sticker.

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[krymsin01]

I always thought he was saying (Chick)awa, which I find more disrespectful.

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[coolgeek]

I've heard the music can actually be uplifiting, if you play it in reverse.

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[heybo]

No he isn't really Native, and yes Native People HATE! the song and the asshole that wrote it!

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[PalmKiller]

Actually 3 people wrote it, and links to bios are below so the few remaining american indians can see the enemy is indeed not the singer, its the record label and the three guys below :P

Indian Outlaw
(Tommy Barnes/Gene Simmons/John D. Loudermilk)

http://www.alamhof.org/barnest.htm
http://www.r ockabillyhall.com/GeneSimmons1.html
http://member s.chello.nl/~k.vanderhoeven/Lied.html

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[PalmKiller]

Nope:

INDIAN OUTLAW LYRICS
(tommy barnes/gene simmons/john d. loudermilk)

I'm an indian outlaw
Half cherokee and choctaw
My baby she's a chippewa
She's one of a kind

All my friends call me bear claw
The village cheaftin' is my paw-paw
He gets his orders from my maw-maw
She makes him walk the line

You can find me in my wigwam
I'll be beatin' on my tom-tom
Pull out the pipe and smoke you some
Hey and pass it around

'cause I'm an indian outlaw
Half cherokee and choctaw
My baby she's a chippewa
She's one of a kind

I ain't lookin' for trouble
We can ride my pony double
Make your little heart bubble
Lord like a glass of wine

I remember the medicine man
He caught runnin' water in my hands
Drug me around by my headband
Said I wasn't her kind

'cause I'm an indian outlaw
Half cherokee and choctaw
My baby she's a chippewa
She's one of a kind

I can kill a deer or buffalo
With just my arrow and my hickory bow
From a hundred yards don't you know
I do it all the time

They all gather 'round my teepee
Late at night tryin' to catch a peek at me
In nothin' but my buffalo briefs
I got 'em standin' in line

'cause I'm an indian outlaw
Half cherokee and choctaw
My baby she's a chippewa
She's one of a kind

Cherokee people
Cherokee tribe
So proud to live
So proud to die

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[robertdh]

Reminds me of a joke: What do you get when you play country music backwards? You get your wife back, you get your truck back, you get your money back...

Re:Speaking of Chippewa,

[Monf]

Didn't Paul Revere and the Raiders sing this in like 1970?

ok, so

[the_2nd_coming]

a proto-native american man picks up a nice looking stone in asia, on his way across the land bridge. when he dies, his son takes it as he migrates south. over the years it ends up in the location it was found.

there mystery solved.

Re:ok, so

[farmhick]

So you're saying this tribe passed down stone tools from father to son for thousands of years, only to throw them away after all that time. Pretty impressive.

My wife complains when I can't find the socks I wore this morning. So I can't even fathom this scenario.

Re:ok, so

[sidesh0w]

SOLDIER #1:
Are you suggesting stone tools migrate?
ARTHUR:
Not at all. They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1:
What? A swallow carrying a chisel?
ARTHUR:
It could grip it by the handle!
SOLDIER #1:
It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound stone tool.
ARTHUR:
Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1:
Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
ARTHUR:
Please!
SOLDIER #1:
Am I right?
ARTHUR:
I'm not interested!
SOLDIER #2:
It could be carried by an Asian swallow!
SOLDIER #1:
Oh, yeah, an Asian swallow maybe, but not an American swallow. That's my point.
SOLDIER #2:
Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
ARTHUR:
Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
SOLDIER #1:
But then of course a-- Asian swallows are non-migratory.
SOLDIER #2:
Oh, yeah.
SOLDIER #1:
So, they couldn't bring a chisel back anyway.
[clop clop clop]
SOLDIER #2:
Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?
SOLDIER #1:
No, they'd have to have it on a line.
SOLDIER #2:
Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
SOLDIER #1:
What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
SOLDIER #2:
Well, why not?

Re:ok, so

[Gopal.V]

Of course, we're talking about African swallows here because everyone know they have the highest air speed velocity.

It is predicted that humans were throwing these so called tools at some swallows down in the Rift Valley when ....

Re:ok, so

[kfg]

Leaving the mystery of how South Carolina chert got to Asia to be picked up and carried back to South Carolina. Damn, this really could turn our entire conception of history on its head. There must have been a Great Chert Road 60,000 years ago. The cultural implications are also staggering, since one must, necessarily, posit some religious reason for "carrying coals to Newcastle" and back again (since there's plenty of the stuff in both China and America).

And, of course, still leaving the mystery of how it got placed in its resting place 50,000 years ago (which is what the evidence actually suggests, a fact that a distressingly small number of posters seem to grasp). Your suggestion solves nothing since it doesn't even address the actual mystery (of course, judging from your earlier post on carbon dating you already knew that, didn't you? :))

But here's the real flaw in your hypothesis:

Dude, chert ain't nice lookin'.

KFG

Re:ok, so

[Hognoxious]

Leaving the mystery of how South Carolina chert got to Asia to be picked up and carried back to South Carolina.

No mystery, just basic economics: why employ an American flint-knapper for two rabbits a week when you can outsource the work for two shiny pebbles and an eggshell?

Re:ok, so

[halivar]

a proto-native american man picks up a nice looking stone in asia, on his way across the land bridge. when he dies, his son takes it as he migrates south. over the years it ends up in the location it was found.

Easy. Just look on the tools for a "Made in the USA, Stone Workers #502" stamp.

Mormon twist?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I know it's obviously going to modded down as flame bait, but my first response to this was, "What's the mormon response going to be?"

Being here THOUSANDS of years before they claim the nephites showed up, that's gotta hurt the ol' church.

Re: Mormon twist?

[Black Parrot]

> Being here THOUSANDS of years before they claim the nephites showed up, that's gotta hurt the ol' church.

Since when have contrary facts hurt religions?

Re:Mormon twist?

[Buzh]

Many of the monotheistic sects like mormons, jehovas witnesses and others of the evangelical (in the menaing of "interpreting the bible literally") persuasion claim that the earth is only a few thousand years old and "prove" this by tracing the genealogy of the bible from a person that can be more or less accurately placed on the timeline and all the way to Adam&Eve. 6000 years is a number that keeps turning up.

Discoveries like this and others facts that disprove their theories are not going to change their views, as they claim that god created the world at $time with everything, including fossils, geological features and other dateable items intact.

I can however assure you that they are NOT correct, as I know that the giant creator-wombat created the world out of a can of spam and some duct tape, with people, rocks, birds, the thoughts in your head, absolutely everything intact only 5 minutes ago. Go on, try to disprove it.

Re: Mormon twist?

[killjoe]

Amen brother. The faithful will never let science interfere with their belief.

Re:Mormon twist?

[tehdaemon]

You obviously don't know much about mormon theology then. According to the Book of Mormon (the book about, and written by the Nephites) a group of people came to the americas direct from the tower of babel, and destroyed themselves between 600 and 200 BC. (Nephites arrived a little after 600 BC)

And Secondly, Mormon theology says that the garden on eden was actually in the americas too, and somewhere between Adam and the flood, (inclusive I guess) Noah ended up in the old world.

Re:Mormon twist?

[MysteriousPreacher]

I can however assure you that they are NOT correct, as I know that the giant creator-wombat created the world out of a can of spam and some duct tape, with people, rocks, birds, the thoughts in your head, absolutely everything intact only 5 minutes ago. Go on, try to disprove it.

Infidel! The wombat was not our creator, he was just a prophet.

Re:Mormon twist?

[suresk]

Uhh, even the old date was too far back. IIRC, Mormon scriptures claim the Nephites came here around 2500 years ago, or so. Of course, this same book claims that the Nephites (Semitic people) were the principal ancestors of the Native Americans. This can clearly be seen by the abundance of Semitic DNA in Native Americans and the fact that they celebrate Chanukah. Oh wait. Nevermind.

Re:Mormon twist?

[darkstream]

First of all, Mormons would hold out panicking about this until the scientists all agreed on the age of the artifacts (as the article shows that they don't agree). Then Mormons would argue that Adam and his people began here in the Americas anyway so this isn't much of a surprise. They would also point out that the Nephites weren't the first people to settle back in the Americas since the Jaredite civilization had wiped itself out just as the Nephites discovered them and that there is no reason to believe that the Lord didn't bring other people here before the Jaredites, nevermind mentioning that there was a great antediluvian civilization here in the Americas before it was wiped out.

Civilizations rising and falling throughout the history of mankind is a common theme in Mormon literature. In fact, the lost book of Enoch has fragments that have survived to this day that detail the knowledge these civilizations had. Some of the apocryphal ones hint at ancient civilizations with strange technologies and polutions. Although that is fanciful even to Mormons, it is common belief that in almost every dispensation a prophet was shown all of the Lord's creations and how the worlds were made, thereby teaching the Lord's people about astronomy and the place the Earth has in the cosmos. This knowledge is lost when the Lord's people wane into carnality and reject the teachings of the prophets. Then they are wiped out by another, usually barbarous, civilization.

So discovering ancient people's in the Americas before the time of the Nephites really wouldn't hurt "the ol' church". However, they would take issue with the dating.

Re:Mormon twist?

[darkonc]

My question for the creationists is: How long was god's first day?? He didn't create the sun until day 4. Even then, there was no need for a day to be 24 hours long.

For all we know, day 1 could have been 4 billion human years.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Draveed]

You're forgetting about the Jaredites. They wiped themselves out in generations of warfare before the Nephites & Lamanites showed up in the Americas.

But anyway the other posters are right. Facts have no place in organized religion, so this news doesn't make any difference to any church.

Re: Mormon twist?

[Empiric]

...or the advocates of the preceding scientific model?

Re:Mormon twist?

[bertas28]

Giant Creator-Wombat: "I refuse to prove that I exist, because proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
Man: "Ah, but the Babel fish is so incredibly useful that it absolutely proves you exist. Thereby, according to your own argument, you don't."
Giant Creator-Wombat: "Oops, I hadn't thought of that."

Whereupon Giant Creator-Wombat disappears in a puff of logic. Man goes on to prove that up is down, black is white, and promptly gets himself killed at the next traffic crossing.

QED

Re:Mormon twist?

[Anders Andersson]

I can however assure you that they are NOT correct, as I know that the giant creator-wombat created the world out of a can of spam and some duct tape, with people, rocks, birds, the thoughts in your head, absolutely everything intact only 5 minutes ago. Go on, try to disprove it.

Well, in fact the world won't be created until next year, and what we experience here is a mere computer simulation of ourselves and our future "past" as we are about to enter "recorded" history in preparation for that major event. The Editors are being extremely careful not to reveal Themselves to their creation this time, so much that they won't even touch explicit references to Them that have come about by means of the simulation.

Re:Mormon twist?

[complete loony]

"... including fossils ..."
Er, no. That's what noah's flood did to the world. Ever shaken up a beaker of water and soil?

A creationist would question the methods used to obtain a date of 75,000 years (I haven't RTFA). How do we really know that a certain percentage of C14 means a rock or bone is a certain age? Can we be certain how much C14 was around when the rock / bone was formed? These are perfectly valid questions. Scientists assume that the world has always had x% C14 in the air. How do we know?

Creationists have assumptions, and scientists have assumptions. The evidence is the same, but the interpretation is different.

The existance of god cannot be argued based on the assumptions of the observer as the evidence can always be interpreted to fit a given model, or the model adjusted (as we see in TFA, oh look 25K years before previously thought) to fit the new observed evidence.

Science has not, and cannot disprove god. All science can hope to answer is the How question, not the why questions. Science cannot remove a possible theory (like the existance of god) without sufficient proof, and I have not seen any evidence that does not fit in the 6000 year old earth model.

Show me the raw data and the processes used to produce this particular interpretation, and I could probably show you a number of assumptions that have no basis in observation that would cast sufficient doubt on the "facts" of the evidence.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Colonel Cholling]

This can clearly be seen by the abundance of Semitic DNA in Native Americans and the fact that they celebrate Chanukah. Oh wait. Nevermind.

There is no such thing as Semitic DNA. Or Caucasian DNA, or Negro DNA, or Asian DNA. Those things you call "races" are artificial distinctions with no basis in biology. Basically, they're the result of saying "traits X and Y are more common in this area than they are in that one, so let's call the people over here 'race XY' for simplicity." There are no genes such that the possession of them constitute necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in any "race".

Re:Mormon twist?

[Hognoxious]

There are no genes such that the possession of them constitute necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in any "race".

So why do Asian people have Asian babies, and African people have African babies? It can't be the environment, since even when people emigrate they tend to have children very similar to themselves.

And just because the lines between races can be blurred doesn't mean they don't exist - lurchers exist, but so do sheepdogs and greyhounds[1].

Those who claim that there's no such thing as race are usually arguing from wishful thinking, supposing that if everyone believed their theories we'd all get along fine. Oh, and before anyone starts, belief in races is not the same as advocating racism.

[1]Yes those are dogs. Yes they are breeds. Breed is the subspecies divison in dogs and other domestic animals, so it's the equivalent of race in humans.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Colonel Cholling]

Are Germans taller and blonder than Italians? Yes they are.

There are quite a few tall, blonde Italians (in parts of Italy they are even predominant) as well as a good many short, dark Germans. Anyway, the point of the original post, let me remind you, was that there is no such thing as "Semitic DNA" or "Caucasian DNA." It's going a long way from pointing out the prevalence of certain traits in a certain region to claiming that a gene carrying the blonde-haired trait is a "German gene."

all of which are genetic and all of which are associated with people originating from certain areas (not races, but a good proxy for it)

If you took a million Norwegians and moved them to an area where malaria was rampant and modern medicine was unavailable, within a few generations you would likely see many of them become succeptible to sickle cell anemia. This is because the same gene which carries the sickle cell trait also provides resistance to malaria, and is selected for in regions where malaria is rampant regardless of "race".

Re:Mormon twist?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Actually, I forgot about the whole Noah being from the Americas part. Oops.

Re:Mormon twist?

[TheLink]

He could even have paused the Universe Simulator 3.2 and spent some "time" (whatever that is) tweaking a few parameters. Not that I'm saying he did that or anything similar.

Those who believe they can take the Bible 100% literally are _sheep_ just as literally. There are some advantages to being as dumb as sheep, still it would be for the best if they kept quiet and stuck to following their Shepherd.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Ithelrand]

Actually, the book of Ether in the Book of Mormon records the history of the Jaredite people, who came to America thousands of years before the Nephites.

Re:Mormon twist?

[chochos]

Discoveries like this and others facts that disprove their theories are not going to change their views, as they claim that god created the world at $time with everything, including fossils, geological features and other dateable items intact.

Yes but don't forget that it was Slartibartfast who made those nice fjords.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Suidae]

The existance of god cannot be argued

You can stop right there and have a true statement. God is pretty much unprovable by definition. Most athiest and thiest I know agree on this point.

Science cannot remove a possible theory [...]

Science is not an actor, it doesn't do anything and has no agenda.

Those who understand scientific practices know this, and wouldn't try. Science is the process of finding explainations that fit what has been observed, and that have predictive power. Thats it, there isn't anything more than that.

I have not seen any evidence that does not fit in the 6000 year old earth model.

Nor will you, because such evidence is impossible. You will also not see any evidence that the world is not 5 minutes old. However, these theories provide no predictive powers, and so are uninteresting to people who want to learn more about how the world works through observation, prediciton and empirical results(we usually call these people 'scientists').

Religious theories are uninteresting to these people because the are generally not predictive, and not replicable.

[...]I could probably show you a number of assumptions that have no basis in observation that would cast sufficient doubt on the "facts" of the evidence.

All knowledge rests on some set of assumptions. This is well known and is not in dispute. Most scientists are well aware of the fact that our theories are just approximations of the 'Truth' of how things actually work. But most also know that this knowledge is the best we have, and that there is no other known way to actually find the 'Truth'.

The practice of scientific methods of gaining knowledge and religious beliefs are not, and never have been, at odds. From your comments, it seems that you know this.

Personally, I choose to not believe in those things for which I cannot have, at least in principle, empirical evidence. There are too many things that are possible, but for which I cannot have evidence, and many of them conflict. Thats not to say I deny their existence, I don't claim that gods cannot exist, just that I have no evidence that they do, so until such time that I can have a rational test for their existance, that fits within my current body of knowledge, I will assume that they do not.

Re:Mormon twist?

[AmazingDisgrace23]

I doubt that the church would be bothered by that, since the Book of Mormon doesn't claim that the Nephites were the first people in the Americas. Even in the record of the Jaredites' arrival (at the time of the Tower of Babel) nobody says they were the first people there either. As for the age of the Earth, I have yet to meet any scientifically minded Mormon who believes the "six days" were anything other than undefined periods of time which put the earth at about 4.6 billion years old.

Re:Mormon twist?

[bheerssen]

The great Bill Hicks did a sketch where he assumed the persona of a modern day Jesus in Heaven and said "Fuck 'em, Dad. Let's go bury some more dinosaur heads." This was in response to the Christians using a cross as their symbol; as if Jesus would want to see another cross if he were to come back.

I think of that sketch everytime the evangelicals start mouthing off about evolution.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Buzh]

I've obviously been too quick at pointing to them as believing in this particular piece of crud, I must have confused them with some other sect.

However, many of their practices and beliefs are highly questionable, if not downright destructive. YMMV between members and local groups, but there is no denying that the Watchtower org doctrines have major issues reality-wise. One ex-witness has gathered quite a lot of info here

Re:Mormon twist?

[Buzh]

Science has not, and cannot disprove god.

Neither can it disprove Santa Claus. That does not make either's existence more likely.

Science would never try to disprove a deity, because no scientific method could do so.

Assumptions are made by people, after the science.

Assumptions are to science what fear of heights is to gravity.

Sometimes assumptions are productive, sometimes destructive.

In the case of assuming all science that threatens your religion is buff, I contend that is destructive without exception.

If your system of belief was worth it's salt, it would not be threatened by new scientific discoveries.

Re:Mormon twist?

[Bryan Gividen]

1) You'll be hard pressed to find an educated person of the LDS church who fully believes that God created the entire universe in seven literal days, only 6,000 years ago. Not a single professor I've spoken with at BYU (Mormon college) believes it and I most certainly don't.

2) The highest ranking church officials made a statement about 100 years ago in 1907 that states the Church doesn't have a stance for or against biological evolution, simply that however man was created, God had a role in it... or more aptly put, God had THE role in it.

3) How friggin sweet would it be if God were a wombat... really. (Side note: The LDS church believes God to look like man... or more aptly put... that man looks like God.)

Re:Mormon twist?

[MemoryDragon]

Haha... if you run into one of thos nutwits, try to tell them that they deny the greatness of god by bringing up fairytales written down by native people around 3000 years ago, while evidence of some greater making reaching millions and billions of years can be found left and right :-D

Re:Mormon twist?

[darkstream]

Man, I am sooo lucky I didn't have anything in my mouth when I read that! LOL I would have covered my screen with it. Too bad others didn't get your post. If I had mod points I would have given them all to you. +5 funny. :)

Re:Mormon twist?

[tehdaemon]

Since when are the Americas near the River Euphrates? (Gen 2:14)

The first name for New York City was New Amsterdam. Since when was new york in the netherlands? Or when was the east coast of the US in england? (York?) Or Idaho in europe? (Paris, Idaho)

People reuse names, What makes you think that they would not reuse a river name? Besides, only two of the four rivers mentioned in Genisis exist in Iraq, and they do not match the (scanty at best) descriptions in Genisis. Considering the usual quality of theological arguments, this one is almost foolproof - and poses no threat to the LDS faith.

The finding has been disputed

[jd]

Apparently, not everyone is convinced. Some geologists believe the stones to be naturally weathered and not artificially carved. (Did you seriously expect the scientific community to agree on anything?)

More data is needed, no matter who is right. I do believe American civilization is a lot older than the previously-accepted figure, but 25,000 years means people discovered America about the same time they discovered northern Europe. Assuming that date is accurate, and there are some good reasons for questioning that, too.

Part of the problem is that archaeology is seriously underfunded. Where I grew up, they are currently conducting an excavation of a large Iron Age settlement (4000+ inhabitants) with evidence it was first built 12,000 years ago. The site seems to have been the center of commerce for the whole of the North of Britain from the end of the Ice Age through to the Roman Occupation. That's one big, important site. Total funding: $44,000 a year, to cover site surveying equiptment, excavation equiptment, preservation efforts, education of the locals, pay for the full-time archaeologists on-site, paying the farmers whose fields are getting dug up...

In South Carolina (where I lived for a while), things are a whole lot worse. The self-proclaimed "Holy City" of Charleston is definitely unlikely to fund work that contradicts the idea the world was created in 4004 BC. And that's one of the more liberal areas!

Nor is South Carolina a place filled with philanthopists. Charleston, Mount Pleasent and West Ashley are all fighting bitterly over who gets to keep the Civil War submarine "The Hunley". None of them want to pay for it, they just want to have it.

If they're not willing to pay for a serious conservation + museum for a part of history they are tightly intertwined with, they're certainly not going to pay some archaeologist to traipse across the countryside digging up fossil remains that largely serve to remind them that they are just a bunch of tourists in comparison to the settlers who were there first.

Re:The finding has been disputed

[the_2nd_coming]

the reasons the dates don't jive is because Lemurians did a good job of hiding their existence from us.

Re:The finding has been disputed

[grolschie]

Of course not everyone is conviced. This is obviously the work of satan meant to deceive people into thinking that God did not actually create the world in 7 days.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but the biblical view is the God created the world and everything in it in 6 days. ref: Ex 20:10

Re:The finding has been disputed

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

All right, I'll take any snide comments made about the Palmetto State, but your stepping on some thin ice going after Charleston. The "Holy City" title is well deserved, there are over 14 denominations in Charleston that have had continuously meeting congregations since the early 18th century, some since the late 17th century. The moniker actually has to do with the number of steeples visible in the skyline which is also why you can't usually build anything over 5 stories in the city. Charleston is the home to the fourth oldest Jewish congregation (Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim) and second oldest Synagogue in America (oldest in continuous use) and the birthplace of Reform Judaism. We were quite fine with religious differences in a period where all you Europeans were slaughtering each other over them (the 30 years war killed 1/3rd of all Germans), the French Huguenots started worshiping there in 1687. Charleston also has the first building actually built for the purposes of a theatre in America (the 18th century Dock Street Theatre, not the 19th century one), some of the oldest museums and the oldest municipal College in America (University of Charleston). One of the oldest African American congregations in the country is still meeting in Charleston.

As someone who personally knows quite a few philanthropists in Charleston, your comments are unfounded. Perhaps you should visit some of the museums there that record and document the Native Americans that originally lived in the area. Charleston is very mindful of it's history, warts and all. Claiming that some sort of religious reasons would hamper scientific investigation might fly in the rest of South Carolina, but it's utter crap to try and make that claim about Charleston. So to reiterate, piss on the rest of that backassward state all you want, but you better get your information straight before leveling charges against the "Holy City".

I've wondered at this myself

[Capt'n Hector]

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.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Tarrek]

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.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Tarrek]

The Atlantic crossing model may have gotten a lot of attention in the media in the past few years, but it's just not well accepted in the biz, so to speak.

Now, talk about skirting the pacific way the hell before clovis- Well, that's another story entirely.

Re: I've wondered at this myself

[Black Parrot]

> alternatively, as I recently saw on Nova, these first explorers came from France, the same people who painted the fameous Lascaux caves.

Actually, that's one scientist's pet hypothesis, and is not generally accepted at present.

> Go figure, just don't underestimate our ancestors.

Good advice.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's bassackwards thinking.

There's no evidence of Solutrean maritime adapation because it's all underwater.

By definition, the only Solutrean artifacts we are going to find are those that were well inland during the last Ice Age; all coastal Solutrean artifacts would have been buried under water long ago.

Of course, these people might not have been "Solutrean" since by definition the only artifacts we have are going to be of inland peoples. The coastal peoples of Europe could have had a totally different culture from the Solutrean, but maybe borrowed some of their technology (ie, the "pre-Clovis" Solutrean stone tools) which they took with them to America.

Either you believe that the same stone technology was invented independently, TWICE in two places without any connection to each other, or you have to admit that a coast migration along the artic ice shelf between Europe and America might in fact have happened.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[dajak]

The 'oldest boat of the world', the Pesse canoe, is from the Netherlands in NW-Europe and carbon-dated 8825 ± 100 BP.

Many however doubt it is a functional boat, and even the date is challenged. I certainly wouldn't cross anymore than a puddle in it.

I never heard of a 'European route' theory in Europe.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Tarrek wrote:

Most anthropologists I've studied under, worked with, and recently read,[SNIP]

OK, serious question, how do you date a scratch in a rock? I mean, the rock is going to be nearly as old as the earth, someone or something erodes part of it, and you are left with something really old with a piece gone... how do you date when the piece went missing accurately?

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Hognoxious]

pacific rim was populated very early on in human history: every single island larger than a beached whale was touched by nomadic seafarers [...] 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?

South Pacific warm. Bering Strait cold. You would need much more advanced technology - a ship big enough to have a cabin, warmer clothing, preserved food etc etc to make a journey of equivalent distance up there.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[SaV]

Actually, Solutreans on the Iberian coast did exploit marine life including fish, molluscs, shellfish, and even seals. This is not to say that they had huge boats capable of traversing the Atlantic, far from it! However, it is obvious that they were familiar with the waters just off the coast. If you want to read more I would suggest
Straus, Lawrence G.
1991 Southwestern Eurpoe at the Last Glacial Maximum. Current Anthropology, 32 (2): 198-199.
It's a pretty nice article all told :)

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[AndroidCat]

You don't date the rock. (At least, not with radio-carbon which depends on living processes to concentrate an isotope of carbon.) You date the organic stuff around it. That's why it's important to find an undisturbed strata with few gopher holes, or 22,000 year old archaeology sites. (And everyone knows that digging a flower bed will suck the rocks through the soil for quite a distance.)

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[Tarrek]

At this site, there was a large carbon deposit in the same strata as these tools, thought (by Al Goodyear, at least) to be a wood burning hearth.

Sadly, no one knows this, because Al is playing Archaeology By Press Release- not a popular game these days. The report on Topper that he's been working on for several years now is due out in the immediate future, but, this new date won't be up for debate till an Oct 2005 conference.

Re:I've wondered at this myself

[the phantom]

First, _Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel" is an excellent read. It contains some very interesting ideas about the rise of European dominance in the world. However, you got one fact wrong. Yes, just about everything larger than a beached whale was settled, however most of that happened with the rise of Polynesian sea faring technology, only a few thousand years ago. It is widly understood that Hawai'i was not settled until maybe 1,000 - 1,500 years ago. Also, there are two competing models about how the Americas were settled -- the Coastal Migration Route and the Ice Free Corridor Route. Both, however, assume that early Americans came from Asia. This has been backed up by mtDNA evidence, which, while not 100% conclusive, seems to strongly agree with and Asian origin of 'Native Americans' (Indians, Aleuts, Inuits, et cetera). Furthermore, the 'early' population of the Pacific Rim depends upon how you define 'early'. Australia was likely not settled until 60 kBP, and the best evidence is that the Americas were not settled until 15 kBP (11.4 kBP radiocarbon years is the magic number that gets quoted a lot). Humans have been around for at least 100 k years, perhaps longer, depending on how you define humans.

What are you smoking?

[serutan]

He picks up a stone tool that is already 25,000 years old, which he finds on top of the ground, lying at his feet. Yeah, that's bloody convincing. I'm always having to kick those damned ancient artifacts out of my way when I mow my lawn.

I'm ignorant

[gowen]

... but I thought carbon dating only worked on organic matter (since its the death of the matter that stops the carbon cycle refreshing the C14 percentage in the tissue). How does this work on stone tools?

(As to the creationism / darwin debate, people forget that the fact that new evidence can make us throw away previous scientific belief is what's good about science, not what's bad)

Re: I'm ignorant

[Black Parrot]

> ... but I thought carbon dating only worked on organic matter (since its the death of the matter that stops the carbon cycle refreshing the C14 percentage in the tissue). How does this work on stone tools?

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.

Re:I'm ignorant

[KillerCow]

adding to this...

I saw this story on T.V. a few times today. The reports said that the tools were found in what appeared to have been an ancient fire-pit or something along those lines.

I thought that carbon dating wasn't accurate when the material had been exposed to fire. That is supposedly why the Shroud of Turin can't be accurately dated.

Re:I'm ignorant

[Hognoxious]

I thought that carbon dating wasn't accurate when the material had been exposed to fire.

This is news to me. Maybe the fire introduces new, fresh carbon to the object - but itn that case it would be irrelevant if the fire was roughly contemporaneous with the object anyway.

Re: I'm ignorant

[gowen]

You have to date stone by dating its context.

I see; that's what I guessed might be the answer.

Gosh, its depressing to see "I'm ignorant, by gowen" marked "Insightful" :)

Warning Label

[harriet nyborg]

This article contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered....

Re:Warning Label

[Spoing]

1. This article contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered....

By chance, you don't happen to live under a bridge...do you?

(checks posting history) Well! I guess you do!

Re:Warning Label

[CAIMLAS]

No no, we can't do that.

We all belong to the Church of Divine Humanity, here. You know, God is Dead, and Man is God. Keeping an open mind is something a scientist would do, not someone that has an emotional investment in there not being an alternative which might in some way make us responsible for our decisions.

Re:Warning Label

[orthogonal]

By chance, you don't happen to live under a bridge...do you?

The grandparent poster is making reference to a sticker that one of the southern states (Texas? Alabama?) wants to put on high-school science texts which discuss evolution.

Presumably, the grandparent poster is underscoring the absurdity of such "governemnt warning labels" for unpopular thought, by demostrating that in any context other than a high-school text, such a warning is and should be treated, as the parent did, as ridiculous.

Yes, Virginia, it's (frequently) possible to be too subtle for Slashdot commenters. But we love them anyway.

Re:Warning Label

[8400_RPM]

Good point. There are many open questions that would lead one to conclude evolution may not right.

Here are some questions to ask yourself. There are more holes, but this is a good start:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution 7.htm

- "Question 1: How Does Evolution Add Information?"
"How can point mutations create new chromosomes or lengthen a strand of DNA? It is interesting to note that, in all of the selective breeding in dogs, there has been no change to the basic dog genome."

- "Question 2: How Can Evolution Be So Quick?"
"Let's take Carl Sagan's statement that "A characteristic period for the emergence of one advanced species from another is perhaps a hundred thousand years, and very often the difference in behavior between closely related species -- say, lions and tigers -- does not seem very great." In 65 million years, there are only 650 periods of 100,000 years -- that's 650 "ticks" of the evolutionary clock.

Imagine trying to start with an opossum and get to an elephant in 650 increments or less, even if every increment were perfect. An elephant's brain is hundreds of times bigger than an opossum's, containing hundreds of times more neurons, all perfectly wired. An elephant's trunk is a perfectly formed prehensile appendage containing 150,000 muscle elements... "

- "Question 3: Where Did the First Living Cell Come From?"
"Could life arise spontaneously? If you read How Cells Work, you can see that even a primitive cell like an E. coli bacteria -- one of the simplest life forms in existence today -- is amazingly complex. Following the E. coli model, a cell would have to contain at an absolute minimum:

A cell wall of some sort to contain the cell
A genetic blueprint for the cell (in the form of DNA)
An enzyme capable of copying information out of the genetic blueprint to manufacture new proteins and enzymes
An enzyme capable of manufacturing new enzymes, along with all of the building blocks for those enzymes
An enzyme that can build cell walls
An enzyme able to copy the genetic material in preparation for cell splitting (reproduction)
An enzyme or enzymes able to take care of all of the other operations of splitting one cell into two to implement reproduction (For example, something has to get the second copy of the genetic material separated from the first, and then the cell wall has to split and seal over in the two new cells.)
Enzymes able to manufacture energy molecules to power all of the previously mentioned enzymes "

"To try to imagine a primordial cell with these capabilities spontaneously creating itself, ..... "

Re:Warning Label

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Well, here are some answers you should consider:

- "Question 1: How Does Evolution Add Information? "How can point mutations create new chromosomes or lengthen a strand of DNA?"
Wrong on many levels. Point mutations obviously don't create new information. Consider duplications, deletions, etc. Chromosomes can duplicate, polyploidism is possible, etc. ect... Enough mechanisms to add new information.

"Question 2: How Can Evolution Be So Quick?"

Evolution of large structures does not work on the level of single genes, but rather on the level of blocks of genes, regulated by the so-called homeobox regulatory sequences. This homeobox genes are responsible for the development of large anatomical structures such as fingers, arms, etc. Mutations on the homeobox level have profound impact on the whole construction of organisms, enabling rather large developmental leaps

- "Question 3: Where Did the First Living Cell Come From?" "Could life arise spontaneously? If you read How Cells Work, you can see that even a primitive cell like an E. coli bacteria -- one of the simplest life forms in existence today -- is amazingly complex.

E. coli is by no means the simplest possible living system. You give a list of requirements that a primordial cell has to develop spontaneously, that is blown way out of proportion.
The RNA theory of early evolution posits that primordial living systems were build just from RNA, which is able to carry genetic information and also able to act as a catalyst, and a lipid layer as a boundary to the environment. Much simpler. Below that are systems of self replicating molecules, which one would not consider alive per se, but which could be precursors to more complex systems. There is no need to assume the spontaneous emergence of a high level of complexity.

Re:Warning Label

[aaron_ds]

Conversely, Creationism is neither scientific law nor theory.

Re:Warning Label

[MrCreosote]

This bible contains material on divinity and theology. There are many competing theories of divinity and theology. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered. You should study all competing theories of divinity and theology before drawing your own conclusions as to the validity of the material contained in this bible.

$5 says they found...

[leroybrown]

Strom Thurmond

Let's hope the Army Corp. of Engineers

[unassimilatible]

doesn't try to bury this one like Kennewick Man. "Couldn't fuckin' believe that one."

Re:Let's hope the Army Corp. of Engineers

[ad0gg]

Kennewick man was quickly buried because the remains were of european decent. They also predate any native american remains. [Disclaimer: I'm not white so don't call me a racist, just pointing out the facts].

Reperations

[deft]

wow, they find the decendants of this one and i know where all those native american casino profits are going.

damn, trying to keep the cave man down.

I am a little skeptical.

[Anonymous Coward]

50,000 years is stretching carbon dating. That's a whole lot of half lives. Identifying it as a tool is also a stretch. Tools that old look a lot like cracked rocks. I have doubts about searfaring being that old. Where are the older cites closer to a land route?

Re:I am a little skeptical.

[ilduce]

If you remember the recent "halfling" finding on the island of Flores, it is believed that they (pre-homo sapiens) may very well have arrived there by boat given that no land bridge would have ever existed to the island and they would have been too large to arrive by other means.

Add three more "up"s

[mrchaotica]

Mod parent 7-Up, the Un-Troll!

1999 BBC Documentary

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:1999 BBC Documentary

[x3r0ph00l]

At school we were taught the Aborigines were in Australia up to 40000 years ago, by the time I got to the sixth grade, we were being taught 80000 years.

Re:1999 BBC Documentary

[Evil Pete]

Yes I saw that. The doco argued that humans had ocean going navigation a long time ago ... not surprising considering even homo floriensis had to do something like that 500,000 years ago. Anyway the doco argued that north and south America were occupied by these people but that the people from Mongolia i.e. the current Native Americans came in and made short work of them. Look it wouldn't surprise me. These days we really underestimate how much nomadic peoples move .. even on a continental scale. For instance, people suspiciously like the Celts (as in red hair) lived in Western China 2,000 years ago ... and the Celts came from the East. My point is many people have not occupied their current 'homeland' indefinitely, some have been there a very long time (to the point where it doesn't matter) but lots of othe peoples move about with a passion. Don't be surprised if the skeletons you find from 10,000 or 20,000 or more years ago have nothing to do with the current indigenous peoples.

Re:1999 BBC Documentary

[Paradise Pete]

At school we were taught the Aborigines were in Australia up to 40000 years ago, by the time I got to the sixth grade, we were being taught 80000 years.

That's what happens when you get held back 39,994 times.

Re:1999 BBC Documentary

[flyneye]

Celts left their mark on our (U.S.) riverbanks to be found to this day.The same marks that deliniated territorial ownership(king celt ruled from river A to river B.) Almost certainly left their DNA and culture to be called indians later on.

Older evidence exists

[Lord Kano]

During the California gold rush, a few skeletons of modern looking humans were unearthed from rock that was millions of years old.

LK

Re:Older evidence exists

[CAIMLAS]

This would mean that humans likely lived on the earth at the same time as the dinosaur epochs. Wouldn't this shoot holes all through the "man evolved from apes" argument?

I'd be interested in seeing information on this. I've seen other evidence that supports man and dinosaur living together both in harmony and contrition from throughout the world (well, pictures of it, anyway) as early as the last several hundred years. I wonder how far back it goes?

Personally, I find it hard to believe that humans lived millions of years ago at all, regardless of what world view model is being used. It makes me wonder whether or not carbon dating is an accurate method.

Re:Older evidence exists

[Mycroft_VIII]

Carbon dating isn't perfect, but other methods do exist that rely on other principles. Testing them against each other has resulted in higher confidence in thier respective reading and a better understanding of thier margins of error.
In this case c14 dating wouldn't apply directly as stone is not the result of organic processes so something else they believe of the same time period for good reason(we hope) must have been dated. Say if the tools were found burried with someone they would have dated his/her bones.

Mycroft

Re:Older evidence exists

[grolschie]

Dude, evolutionists don't believe "man evolved from apes". That is an easy boo-boo for them to shoot down. They believe that man and ape share a common ancestor, in the same way that goldfish and rubber plants also share a common ancestor.

Re:Older evidence exists

[Gallowsgod]

This would mean that humans likely lived on the earth at the same time as the dinosaur epochs.

Of course it wouldn't. Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, so a human born two or three million years ago would still be a few million decades to late to get bothered by them.

Wouldn't this shoot holes all through the "man evolved from apes" argument?

You obviously mean the "man and apes evolved from a common ancestor" argument, but to answer your question; no, it wouldn't

Re:Older evidence exists

[corbettw]

Dude, evolutionists don't believe "man evolved from apes". That is an easy boo-boo for them to shoot down. They believe that man and ape share a common ancestor

I'm not an expert in evolution, so I'm curious: why the distinction? As I understand it, humans and chimpanzees last shared a common ancestor ~4.5 million years ago. And the artist renderings of that creature definitely looked "ape-like" (furry, big canines, walked stooped). So if we, and modern great apes, are descended from that beast, and it was an ape, why is it wrong to say we evolved from apes? Is it just to avoid the counter-argument that we couldn't've evolved from gorillas?

Re:Older evidence exists

[ViolentGreen]

In the Bible (book of Job I think,) there is a passing reference to a creature with a tail like the trunk of a tree. I don't remember much detail about this but I think it was mentioned in a list of creatures meant to be inclusive of all creaters.

I just thought you may find that intersting if you haven't heard that before, especially since many people consider Job to be the oldest book in the Bible.

Re:Older evidence exists

[TheLink]

He's probably thinking of the "man evolved from monkeys" booboo.

But who knows what he's actually thinking?

Re:Older evidence exists

[Lord Kano]

Wouldn't this shoot holes all through the "man evolved from apes" argument?

Which is precisely why it gets ignored.

Evidence of extreme human antiquity goes against the agendas of creationists and darwinists. Since it doesn't fit in with any particular agenda, everyone just pretends that it doesn't exist.

LK

Re:Older evidence exists

[ViolentGreen]

The Laviathian was in the sea I think..

I am talking about the Behemoth in Job 40:15-24

It "eats grass like an ox."

It "moves his tail like a cedar."

Its "bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron."

"He is the first of the ways of God."

"He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh."

Re:Older evidence exists

[CaptainAvatar]

The point is that we didn't evolve from the species of apes (or monkeys) currently living - we both evolved from common ancestors. This is obvious when you think about it, but creationists will point to a monkey, snort in derision, and say, "Do you seriously believe we descended from THAT?" when of course no evolutionist is saying any such thing.

Whether that common ancestor is ape-like enough to technically count as an ape is an interesting question, I don't know - is there a doctor of zoology in the house?

Re:Older evidence exists

[CaptainAvatar]

Personally, I find it hard to believe that humans lived millions of years ago at all, regardless of what world view model is being used.

Why? I find it very easy to believe, myself. But more importantly, it's what the evidence clearly points to.

No longer news.

[SoupIsGood Food]

It's almost a given that the "Clovis horizon" has been broached. This is only the latest in a long string of discoveries of non-Clovis paleolithic artifacts predating 11000-13000ybp. Arguing against earlier settlement is a bit like sticking to Epicycles after Einstein at this point - completely counter-productive.

The current model must be updated to show progressive waves of settlement, rather than a single event, and try to discern differences between each of the successive cultures, and try to find where they cross-influenced each other.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:No longer news.

[Johnny318]

Right. Tracing Clovis artifacts around the Americas is interesting to trace the migration of a technology, not just migration of people. Maybe the folks were already there, and Bob came back from a long scouting expedition with a bunch of arrowheads... "CHECK THIS SH*T OUT, GUYS!!!"

Is it finally God vs Science ?

[Gopal.V]

remind them that they are just a bunch of tourists in comparison to the settlers who were there first.

I just wanted to emphasize the tourists part with a few Golgafrinchan comments about how us humans came to this planet ... But I don't carry my HHG2G bible (in an Orange cover to boot) around.

Now since the God is in the White House , anything that challenges Biblical Creationism might get the short stick ?. Sadly even education seems to teaching creationism rather than darwinism. I hate how these people try to explain dinosaur fossils with the great flood.

It really sucks when religion clouds Science !!. Even the hard-core Hindutva does not enforce creationism as the entire tantric cycle is based on evolution of a single unit mind into a human yogi. Even Einstein allowed it and said "God does not play dice with the universe" . Stephen Hawking takes the high road by "God did have a choice in the initial state of the universe" (and he set rules too, so science IS GOD).

"Damn American tourists" ... (repeat in whatever native language for maximum effect)

BFD

[CAIMLAS]

Big freaking deal. They've found human footprints, tools, and ceramic artifacts in the SouthWest US, as well as in various parts of Central America, that date that old.

ok, what's the deal?

[CAIMLAS]

Ok, what's the deal here? The article says 50,000 years ago, while the slashdot writeup says 25,000. Either this was an intentional snafu to catch people that don't read the articles - an inside joke - or it was severe stupidity.

Well, after this election, I'll believe anything... :P

Re:ok, what's the deal?

[Bloody Pulp]

Ok, what's the deal here? The article says 50,000 years ago, while the slashdot writeup says 25,000. Either this was an intentional snafu to catch people that don't read the articles - an inside joke - or it was severe stupidity.

The CNN article states: "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."

I think that they probably just misread the article.

Did you mean Law?

[Grithok]

Let us note that even though Evolution is a theory, the proper thing to say is that it is not a law. The definitions from www.M-W.com Theory- a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena. Law- statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions. A Theory is based on facts. On this note, gravity is just a theory, not a law.

Re:Did you mean Law?

[novakyu]

I think you got some things, er, mixed up. Gravity is a law. Why do you think they call it, "The Law of Universal Gravitation"?

In context of physics, laws are experimental findings that cannot be explained or derived from other more fundamental equations. Examples are: Coulomb Force Law (Gauss's law is an...almost equivalent law--considered to be more fundamental in electromagnetism); Ampere's law; Biot-Savart Law; Lorentz-Force law (heh... mostly EM examples, since that's what I'm studying now).

Of course, names are sometimes just plain deceptive. A non-example: Ohm's law--which is not a fundamental law but something that can be derived from other force laws and a few more assumptions about the property of the material.

Anyway. A good example of theory is, say, theory of special relativity. The whole theory starts out with two postulates, i) fundamental laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames, and ii) speed of light in vacuum is a constant.

Egh. But what's the point of arguing on semantics. The public may call different things whatever they want, and we physicists will go by our own definitions (public be damned....).

Besides, I don't think the so-called "theory of evolution" really measures up to the standards and definitions used in physics: it may have some quasi-postulates and principles (such as the survival of the fittest), but what quantitative predictions has it made that can be verified experimentally?

Oldie but Goodie

[taj]

Genus: Stupidious Maximus

The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport, RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds. This guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institution. Bear this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.

Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull." ...

http://www.wilk4.com/humor/humorm20.htm

Re:Oldie but Goodie

[Ohreally_factor]

This guy really exists and does this in his spare time!

Sorry to spoil your fun, but the link that you provided states that this is an urban legend. Anyway, it was funny, so thanks.

Re:Oldie but Goodie

[Xtifr]

To be fair to -taj-, he was merely quoting the top of the page he linked to, where it does indeed have the claim that the guy is real. And the link at the bottom about it being an urban myth seems to be semi-broken. Here's what Snopes has to say, though.

Also note...

[Dimensio]

Gravity is also a theory, not a fact, regarding the attraction of masses. The belief that you will not suddenly go flying off of the earth for no discernable reason should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Re:Also note...

[ByteSlicer]

The way gravity works is a theory. That it works is a fact.

Re:Also note...

[matria]

How we got here is a theory. That we got here is a fact.

Re:Also note...

[srleffler]

There is.

Re:Also note...

[Dimensio]

The way gravity works is a theory. That it works is a fact.

Just like evolution!

Re:So...

[koi88]

10,000 Monkeys did not produce Shakespeare. Instead they produced the 10 commandments?

10.000 monkeys couldn't live on the top of Mount Sinai. What would they eat? And where have the typewriters come from?

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[paulydavis]

"Sadly even education seems to teaching creationism rather than darwinism"

Name one public american school that does that!

To say evolution is a theory is one thing (which is wrong in my opinon).. to say its wrong and creationism is right is not taught in one public school... it is against the law!

But....

[richy freeway]

Ok so they were there all that time ago, but when did they leave and where did they go? ;)

Re:So...

[citog]

And where have the typewriters come from?

Intelligent design obviously ...

Uh huh

[eddeye]

So people came to South Carolina 25,000 years ago and left no traces on the rest of the continent for 12,000 years? Yeah right. Off the top of my head, here are several more likely explanations:

• Are the stones really man-made or just geofacts (naturally occuring rocks that almost sorta look like primitive stone tools if you squint your eyes really hard. After botched Lasik surgery.)? Sounds likely from the CNN writeup.
• Did they date enough samples? You need several samples that return the same age to be reliable.
• If so, were the samples contaminated? Carbon isn't exactly rare, particularly if it was in the Appalachians (coal deposits).

INAABMFWIARDL (I'm not an archaeologist but my friend works in a radio-carbon dating lab). People have been scouring the continents for over 50 years and found nothing earlier than ~13,000 BP and suddenly these guys stumble across something twice as old? Even if the site is legit it's gonna take a lot more finds to convince archaeologists people were here that early. People don't exactly confine themselves to small areas and leave no traces for thousands of years.

Sounds to me like more bogus science "journalism". Write about the crazy new theory to draw eyeballs and devote two paragraphs to the established consensus that this guy's a nut. The author oughta be run out of town on a rail.

Re:Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Uh huh

[mrsev]

I seem to remebmeber there was an iceage in between. Somebody correct me please.

Ice ages tend to cause sotherly migrations. I dont know if the sheets would have got as far as SC.

Maybe the populaiton was very small. Do not forget that we are highly mobile as a species. I find it funny when people say it took 20,000 years to get from A to B. I mean it takes a few years at a very leasurly pace to walk across europe! (30km/day - 10000km per year)

Re:Uh huh

[Rinikusu]

Most archaeologists don't bother digging below the Clovis strata in the earth, so they don't actually get to the layers that would contain Pre-Clovis artifacts (from the article). While I won't comment on the specifics of this particular "find", I did some recon/survey of several potential sites for an archaeology class. On one side of a creek was a typical "modern" settle, from around the mid-1600s based upon the various items we found (chucky stones, various points, pestle, etc). On the other side of the creek was another site, much much much older. It's extremely interesting how various peoples pick the same spots over and over for habitation, eh? Even sites such as that one, which didn't seem particularly close to any major body of water, didn't offer any real discernible advantages. Neither settlement was very big...

Maybe the key is, we should start digging deeper and see what we come up with.

Re:Uh huh

[pipingguy]

So people came to South Carolina 25,000 years ago and left no traces on the rest of the continent for 12,000 years? Yeah right. Off the top of my head, here are several more likely explanations:

[I didn't write this, it is an email classic]

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078


Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it's modern origin:

# 1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

# 2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

# 3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

# A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

# B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities

Re:Uh huh

[radtea]

Conversely, how plausible is it that the Clovis finds of 1936 just happened to constitute the genuinely oldest artefacts of North American settlement?

Consider: let's suppose there were a few thousand early human sites in North America between 50,000 and 13,000 years ago. Random events will by definition have more time to erase evidence of older sites--that's what "older" means: there is more time between then and now.

Now make an extremely sparse sampling of those sites. What are the odds that the oldest site in your sample is anywhere near as old as the oldest site in the underlying data?

The answer, of course, is "extremely low." If you have a solid grasp of sampling statistics you'll see it would be absolutely astonishing if the Clovis Point people were the earliest North American settlers, because the number of sites sampled at the time of their discovery was extremely small. Far from being surprised that older sites have been found, a scientist looking at these data will say, "Well, yeah. We still need to verify the dating, but it's hardly a shock that there are sites far older than the oldest currently known, given the sparseness of the sample."

--Tom

Re:Uh huh

[standsolid]

see sig

Re:Uh huh

[the phantom]

A classic email!? This one has been around since long before email was around.

Re:Uh huh

[the phantom]

Sorry, but wrong.

Most archaeologist excavate until one of three things happen: they dig until they stop finding things (say 1 m below the last thing they find, depending on the site); they hit bedrock; or funding runs out.

Just about every archaeologist in the country would love to resolve the Clovis vs. Pre-Clovis debate one way or the other. This means keep on digging. The fact is that almost nothing has been found that indicates Pre-Clovis settlement. The things that have been found generally have problems with them: the Calico site is old, but contains geofacts that look like artifacts (not man made); Monte Verde suffers from a whole slew of methodological problems; Meadowcroft is probably contaminated with 'dead' carbon from coal deposits; et cetera.

However, the folk working on the Topper site have done a pretty good job with their work, and have published a bit in the academic journals. Their methodology looks good, and their dates look good -- the only real question is whether or not the artifacts were man made. Not having seen them myself, I cannot address that question, however it seems unlikely to me, based upon the overwhelming lack of evidence of Pre-Clovis people.

Re:Uh huh

[the phantom]

However, the sample does not seem to be that small. There are thousands of Clovis sites in North America, and hundreds of thousands of pre-historic sites. Clovis is seen as a cut off because there are many, many sites found later, and nothing found earlier. If people were leaving traces on the landscape prior to Clovis peoples, it seems very unlikely that we would not have found any of their sites by now.

Re:Uh huh

[pipingguy]

I suppose I could have claimed to have written it myself or left out the fact that I found it somewhere else.

snopes traces it to 1995. Do you have any info to add? I'm sure they'd love to hear from you if you do.

Re:Uh huh

[MemoryDragon]

First of all, given that some people already posted that old artefacts can be found left and right, you are too narrow minded. First of all look at the climate, 10000 years ago the ice age ended, during ice age the possiblity to settle down was limited, same goes for moval, the major tribal moves happened at the beginning of the ice age. Second we now have humans in billions on this planet, during the ice age the population of humans were a few hundred thousand on the entire planet, so expect tribes the size of families and expect that once land was found which could feed the entire tribe it would not move until the climate forced them to. So if a few tribes reached the continental US, they probably would have settled down at a place, the climate would have kept them to low numbers or even would have eradicated them and at the end of the ice age the climate would have changed to mor humanly conditions helping to feed more people.

Re:Uh huh

[eddeye]

satire

Nova Episode

[oskard]

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

Re:Nova Episode

[oskard]

Solutrean, thank you for refreshing my memory. Yeah... I find it disturbing that I've never heard of this culture. I never even knew there were cave paintings and signs of pre-historic life in France and England. Sounds like really interesting stuff I'll have to research some time. Kind of exciting, huh

NOVA on PBS had a special about this field

[Danathar]

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/

Re:NOVA on PBS had a special about this field

[N8F8]

I saw the same special. I found the part where they tried to tie arrowhead techniques used in prehistoric France with the same technique used in prehistoric North America. Fascinating stuff.

You mean creationist claims #CC111?

[geekotourist]

While claims have been made about skeletons in older rock, or of human and dinosour interactions, these claims aren't corroborated- they are disproved.

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.

Re:You mean creationist claims #CC111?

[AndroidCat]

Ummm .. if you place them side-by-side, you are comparing them. ;)

Not only funny but accurate

[Evil Pete]

Humans of course are not descended from apes but from a common ancestor ... which was not an ape.

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[Arker]

Depending on the exact definition of 'ape.' A case can be made that humans are most properly considered a species of great apes ourselves, after all.

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[operagost]

Even though male gorillas outweigh the average man by over 200 pounds, we have bigger weiners. Now THAT'S an advancement.

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[B3ryllium]

We're not that great. Get over yourself. ;-)

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[tepples]

Gorillas have no Wieners; otherwise, the Vienna Zoo animal listing would have mentioned gorillas. There is an orangutan however.

("Wiener" and "Viennese" are synonyms.)

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Pound for pound, humans have the longest and thickest schlongs of all primates. The more you know.

Re:Not only funny but accurate

[the phantom]

Check out Bonobos -- they should give you a run for your money. ^_^

When did they...

[Trinition]

...start condiering South Carolinians to be humans in the first place?

Re:When did they...

[adzoox]

Hey, I resemble that remark ...

ADZOOX located in Greenville South Carolina

But before you say stuff like that, you should know that BMW makes cars here - Space shuttle tiles are made here - more advanced research than MIT of Robotics goes on here - human skin was recently printed with a standard HP printer here - and we have the lowest gas prices in the country (currently $1.64 at the low end) - So there :P

"start condiering South Carolinians to be humans in the first place?"

And at least we can spell. I imagine you meant "considering"

Re:When did they...

[Colonel Cholling]

...start condiering South Carolinians to be humans in the first place?

"Condiering"? That there must be one 'o dem dang-ol' high-fallutin' cityfied words. Us stump-jumpin' knuckle-draggin' rednecks still use old-timey words like "considering."

Re:When did they...

[sebi]

Hey, I resemble that remark ...

I imagine you meant "resent."

Re:When did they...

[adzoox]

ummm ... well yes and no - it was a sarcastic cliche

Re:When did they...

[Trinition]

Well, before one judges too quickly, Google seems to have lots of matches for the word "condier" :)

And, for what its worth, I used to be your neighbor, living in Charlotte, NC.

Re:So...

[hazem]

10.000 monkeys couldn't live on the top of Mount Sinai. What would they eat?

Don't you know? They would eat coconuts dropped by tired swallows.

Seriously, who cares about them....

[hajihill]

Who listens to creationists anyways?

The only way I even hear about them is in reference to their ridiculous assertions, usually by something along the lines of a slashdot post. No one takes them seriously, and really we should just stop discussing them altogether.

If they want to go start a neo-scientific coven in a mountain cave somewhere that is fine. Let them leave us scientific types to use our fancy nukes and blow ourselves to hell. They can come out then and take over, but no sooner.

Re:Seriously, who cares about them....

[Raffaello]

Sadly, they are successfully agitating to have their unfounded trash taught as the equal of evolution in public schools to young children who do not know enough to see that creationism, a.k.a. "intelligent design" fails to be science in a number of crucial respects, and is, rather, a thinly disguised version of the Book of Genesis.

This is a lot more scary if you have children, or if you care what the intellectual make up of the US will look like in just a decade or so.

Re:Seriously, who cares about them....

[Vellmont]

Who listens to creationists anyways?


Mostly people in the south, and in rural areas. There's still a lot of ignorant people out their that cling to their beliefs and refuse to even bother learning anything about evolution.

They really should be ignored on Slashdot though. They represent a threat to education, but fight those battles where they need to be fought.

Re:Seriously, who cares about them....

[geoffspear]

And this is why the vast majority of liberals can't understand why Bush won.

Whatever you personally might think of these people or how seriously you take their beliefs, there are a lot of them, and they control the nukes.

Re:Seriously, who cares about them....

[killjoe]

" And this is why the vast majority of liberals can't understand why Bush won."

Yes. I don't understand at all. The ignorant masses treated this election like a beauty paegant. Instead of voting for the guy who was smarter, had a better plan or whatever they voted for the guy they "liked better". I don't understand it at all.

"Whatever you personally might think of these people or how seriously you take their beliefs, there are a lot of them, and they control the nukes."

Yes, and it's going to be sad to watch this country slide into theocracy because of them. Yesterday they had a Pray In for specter.

You have all got it wrong

[hal9k]

These tools were simply really old heirlooms that were brought over with early explorers

Oh come on, mod this funny!

[denjin]

Seriously people, they are using something verbatim I saw in the news!

See this article in Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml ?type=scie nceNews&storyID=6803353

Re:Old joke

[Anonymous Coward]

The ancient Americans did have a wireless network... smoke signals! :)

Mormon revisionism

[Colonel Cholling]

Given Mormonism's history of caving in to popular demands with regard to unpopular belief, we might see more revisionism. After all, God told them polygamy was acceptable up until Utah was in danger of not gaining statehood, at which point God apparently changed his mind and made it a sin. God also told them that black people bore the mark of Cain and were ineligible for priesthood, until the tax-free religious status of the LDS church was in danger of being revoked. Then apparently the President of the Church had a long heart-to-heart with God and convinced him to allow blacks to participate in the Church.

Re:Mormon revisionism

[mike_stay]

The way Mormon theology works is that leaders preach whetever they think is right over the pulpit. It's up to the members to decide whether they want to believe it or not. We don't even think scripture is inerrant, unlike most Christians. We believe that the prophet is authorized to interpret scripture when there's an argument as to what it means. Every now and then the prophet will make doctrinal statements for clarifying certain issues ("Statements of the First Presidency"). We believe that sometimes, God will reveal His will on something; that that revelation is to the members of the church at that time, in that place, in their situation. We believe Paul's comments on how women should dress fall into that category. The leaders of the church certainly preached that blacks were descended from Cain and would never have the priesthood, etc. It was a popular point of view, a convenient explanation for the racism that was prevalent. But there was never a revelation or doctrinal statement issued by the First Presidency concerning it until 1978. In fact, Joseph Smith ordained a few black men to the priesthood. It was not allowed to ordain slaves, since they were not free to perform the duties. In 1844, Joseph Smith, Jr. ran for President of the United States on an anti-slavery platform aimed at ending all slavery by the year 1850 by having the government buy the freedom of slaves using money from the sale of public lands. Regarding polygamy: the question was not whether polygamy would be allowed when Utah was a state; a congressional act was passed giving the U.S. government power to seize and administer the property of the Mormon church. The seized property was not returned until 1896 when the church renounced the practice of polygamy. The debate about becoming a state was mostly related to whether the people would have the right to homeschool. As it is against the law, the Church forbids it and excommunicates anyone who practices polygamy. It's unclear what the position of the Church would be if polygamy were legalized again. Mormons still believe in polygamy in a sense: marriage can be made an eternal relationship when performed by priesthood authority. Thus a widower may remarry after his wife's death and expect that the relationship with both wives will continue in the afterlife.

Parody, not Flamebait

[Colonel Cholling]

For those of you who don't know, this poster was parodying the "warning labels" proposed for inclusion in biology textbooks in several states. I do not think this was intended as a flame. Mod it "Funny," not "Flamebait."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:So...

[hotbutteredhtml]

Would that be the European, or the African?

Other finds

[wayward_son]

Rumor has it they also found a bumper sticker that said "Re-elect Strom"

DNA does indicate race

[adzoox]

This is the most uninformed post I have read all day.

Race is based in DNA.

By blood sample alone I can tell the race of the person it came from.

DNA is not just the common thread between us, it is the fiber of the individual as well.

In that sample will most likely be disease evidence or potential, eye color, and blood type distinctions that are all common to certain races. Few African origin races have blue eyes for instance.

It is actually quite easy to attain someone's race from a good DNA sample. (Easy to the qualified researcher that is)

Re:DNA does indicate race

[Colonel Cholling]

By blood sample alone I can tell the race of the person it came from.

Can you? Teach me, O Euthyphro.

Few African origin races have blue eyes for instance.

I can name several: Norwegians, Germans, English, Poles, Danes. The all came out of Africa eventually. They, and all humans, share a common genetic stock. The fact that certain clusters of traits came to be more prevalent in some areas than others does not mean that they have developed into separate and distinct entities called "races." It's never even been generally agreed how many races there are, let alone whether a given individual belongs to one or another.

When people claim to be identifying the "race" of an individual based on certain traits or features, what they are really saying is "if you define a black person as someone with features A, B, and C, and a white person as someone with features X, Y, and Z, this person has more in common with the black person than with the white person." That's a long way from necessary and sufficient conditions. Contrast that with biological sex: the presence of an XY chromosome pair is a necessary and sufficient condition for a person to be considered male, even though in some cases the individual's bodily appearance may not match that categorization due to hormonal disorders or plastic surgery.

Re:DNA does indicate race

[Colonel Cholling]

Mind telling me how many Ethopians or Native Sudanese have blue eyes?

Not many. Just like bikini tanlines are more common in Miami than in Copenhagen-- but not because of racial differences. Eye color does not directly correlate with genetics; it is related to levels of melanin. Hence native Indians, usually classified as Caucasian, can be as dark of skin and eye as any African.

Re:DNA does indicate race

[tepples]

Eye color does not directly correlate with genetics; it is related to levels of melanin.

If levels of melanin in the iris aren't genetic, then how come children tend to have the same eye color as their parents?

Murrayian Protocaucasoid was first in America?

[Cryofan]

Holpfully, this dig will confirm that the first people in America were not the ancestors of the current Native Americans, but of another race, so to speak.

It appears that the first homo sapiens settlers of Asia and of North America were related to some of the Australian aborigines, specfically, the Murrayians, which were a mix that included a protocaucasoid type.

You can see a picture of what these amazing people may have looked like here.

THey are also related to the Ainu of Japan.

They conquered Asia, Indonesia, Australia and then the Americas long before the ancestors of the present Asians moved across the Bering Straits.

Traces of them have been found in the Americas, however. The Kennewick man was likely related to them. In the next year or two, new research out of mexico will likely confirm their presence. Some traces of the typical Murrayian skeletal features (but their genetics) have been seen in current (or recent) native Americans in Baja California and Tierra Del Fuego (see here for more.

THey may have been the first homo sapiens out of Africa. However the Negritos may have been before them.

Re:So...

[koi88]

Would that be the European, or the African?

I don't know... aaaaahhh!

Did you watch that show on PBS too?

[CRPietschmann]

Did you watch that show on PBS too?

Re:So...

[Reducer2001]

No, divine intervention!

old news.

[Robocoastie]

Funny how info likes this only gets picked up mainstream sites AFTER PBS reports. PBS ran a story about this two weeks ago, archeaologists call these people "pre-clovus". Not all agree though, some have other explenations for the date discrepencies and they also question why no other signs of human prescence other than the spear heads appear in those layers of strata. So the juries still out.

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[LurkerXXX]

I'm sorry, you need to stop calling them dinosaurs. Along the guidlines for the new church based educational systm in the U.S., they are now to be termed 'Jesus Horses'.

Xenu twist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal. L. Ron Hubbard said that 75 million years ago, the Earth (or Teegeeak as it was called) had a population of roughly 178 billion people.

the certain evidence will be bones

[peter303]

Scientists will argue endlessly whether a charcoal deposit is a hearth or natural fire, rock chips are artifacts or flood debris. There is a similar debate in Australia where some potential sites are nearly double the age of the oldest bones.

Western Civilization

[pipingguy]

Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948):

"I think it would be a good idea."

Re:Old joke

[Mostly a lurker]

Unfortunately, the bandwidth was inadequate to deal with a slashdotting!

Mormon History

[CovertPenguins]

I'm not a Mormon, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night...

Don't the Mormons say that they sent peoples to "Ancient America" however many years ago? I wonder if their history is going to bend to add this new discovery to their credit.

Re:Mormon History

[Bryan Gividen]

Kind of, but not really.

According to Mormon religion, a group of people around 600 BC left the Mid-East and sailed to the American continent.

Things you're missing...
-There was also a group of people who inhabited the Americas at a very early stage in civilized man, also believed by the LDS church to have been directed by God.
-Just because a group is sent, doesn't mean another can't inhabit it as well. Though no mention of non-Israelite tribes is made in the Book of Mormon, it does not mean there were others inhabiting the same area, who could have very well traveled to the Americas before, after, or between the two groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon.
-(Note, I am a member of the LDS aka Mormon church, so this is a bias perspective, I know)... Within the church, the church leaders do a good job of leaving the Book of Mormon up to personal interpretation. That it is to say that there IS a set of actual events that happened (this goes for the Bible as well), however, the church does not hardline people on what they do or don't say has happened. There are times when people are out of line in their thoughts and will be corrected, but that is only in extreme cases (which I can't cite for lack of memory). I am at Brigham Young University, an LDS college, and amongst the faculty there are MANY varying opinions on the words of the Old Testament and Book of Mormon. I haven't found a single science professor who says that the Earth was made 6,000 years ago. Most also believe in evolution through natural selection. All professors are interviewed by one of our highest church officials before they are allowed to teach at BYU. An anthropology teacher who I had was very nervous about her interview because she wasn't sure what to say if they asked her about evolution. It was a job she wanted, but she felt she couldn't lie. When being interview by the church official and the topic came up, she responded that she did believe in evolution and that even though she believed in it, she firmly felt that God had a hand in how evolution occured. The church official responded, "Good. So do I."

We're not all crackpot, polygamist musical people. Some are very well grounded and believe most of all in the benevolence of God, the atonement of Jesus Christ, and the ideaology of love, forgiveness, and selflessness. After that, science is fair game.

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[Oligonicella]

"Why? Do you have any scientific evidence to dispute it? "

Well, yes. There is no evidence for the supposed flood and plenty that dinos are immensly older than mankind.

Its funny...

[manonthemoon]

that many people think that Mormon/LDS theology is so reactionary and ignorant when it happens to be accomadating and progressive. While the morality espoused by the church may be traditional, its theology is a whole different matter.

The most important point relevant to this discussion is that when the scriptures and prophets are silent the church doesn't try to enforce some kind of *assumed* doctrine. The Bible really isn't clear that the '7 days' are actually days as we know them. In fact God often notes that his time is not our time- so most Mormons I know have no affinity for 7 days literalism.

Similarly, nowhere in the Book of Mormon does it say the North and South American continents were otherwise empty of people other than those whose record it contains. It is completely silent on the subject. So neither I nor anyone else I know in the Church have any reason to assume that they were.

Anything prior to Abraham in scripture is not connectable to the rest of the historical record and its not particularly useful to try until either history or religion gives us some new information.

Who listens? Congress, of course (RANT!)

[phyruxus]

Congress listens to the freaky freakies on the radical right.

Here's the problem as I see it: (short version) Theists want everyone to believe they know the One Absolute Truth Praise God. Scientists actively research That Which Exists And How It Works. Occasionally, science discovers something that doesn't fit with the posited "One Absolute Truth". I'm just going to step over how the hyper-religious react, because I could rant all day about that. The problem we face isn't so much in that they attack us for the discovery; that washes out with time. No matter how pissed off the religious are, they don't dare say that the sun orbits the earth. They'd like to, but they know that 95% of the world would laugh at them. The problem is that with each discovery, they retrofit their dogma, with God still the omnipotent creator, and gloss over the fact that they were wrong.

1000 years from now if this continues, the conversation about evolution/artifacts could potentially be unchanged; We could know an overwhelming amount of detail about what happened and when, and how; and the religious people, after being soundly beaten, will just respond "Oh, but that's how God wants it to be. He made it that way when he created the world because he wanted to test our faith/remain mysterious/because god is unfathomable". This is the argument that needs to be attacked. David Hume showed that all the proofs of God beg the question of God's existence. As long as they cheat and we play by the rules, ignorance will win out over wisdom, because ignorance will wear any mask, even pretending to be wisdom itself.

When the religious right attacks science, the debate needs to be held in a forum where proper rhetorical practices are observed, otherwise they'll always appeal to emotion, and we'll always have to back down so we don't get labeled.

Unfortunately, even if we beat them in debate, they'll still pretend they're right. We need to frame this issue in the popular mind, because there's no arguing with angry people. They ignore, then they attack. And at the extremes they cheat too: If you win, they get teary and ask why you hate the baby jesus, why you serve the devil, why you won't let them have their beliefs. In fact, none of that is true; they can still have their beliefs. But they make it look like you're attacking them, and so draw sympathy for their side. If you lose (as in, if they get public sympathy against you) then they attack you as a "sinner", and an "atheist", and insult and slander you for not being one of them. In other words, they try to force you to give up your beliefs (which is absurd when you've seen the evidence yourself, viz Galileo).

The reason I dislike the western church so much (the organization, not the teachings) is that the western church is basically a political organization predicated on greed, hate, fear, and studied ignorance. And personally, my personal opinion that God is more likely a verbal construct than a literal being comes from the continued bad behavior of the church; If God existed, "He" wouldn't let the church get away with all that crap in His name. When people tell me I "have to" believe in God, because He *is* real yadda yadda yadda, I want to hit back with "Oh yeah, well, ERIS is REALLY real, and predates your religion by 1000 years! so HAH!" But I haven't had a good opportunity. One time I told some evangelists that "I already have a deity", though :)

HEATHEN AND LOVING IT! :P

Re:Who listens? Congress, of course (RANT!)

[FictionPimp]

I'd mod you up if I had mod points.

new?

[my_fake_account]

I thought I saw something on PBS last year about new Alaskan digs that suggest that settlement was around 50,000 years ago-- which is what they're claiming too.

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[jd]

A small correction. There is evidence of catastrophic floods, throughout the world. The end of the last ice age was probably the worst in the time humans have walked the Earth.

It would be more correct to say that there is no evidence of the Biblical "Great Flood", in which all life (other than that in the Ark) perished. That would require not only far more water than exists on Earth, but it would require that water to be polluted to toxic levels.

Evidence for evolution comes not just through the evidence of form being a direct function of time (which is a pretty solid piece of evidence) AND similar forms appearing in areas that were once connected but no longer are AND dissimilar forms appearing in all cases, without exception, where no migration was possible. It also comes from genetics, where it is possible to show common ancestory in the DNA that matches the evolutionary record established through fossils, natural history, etc.

As scientific models go, evolution is pretty damn watertight.

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[jd]

Huh? Sorry, God created the universe and set the rules whereby it operates, but your statement that science is God is pure BS.

According to the standard Greek translation of the Latin translation of the Old Testament. If you include the Apocrophea, the Gnostic Gospels and other such Biblical works, I know at least five different creation stories. At least one story makes the creation of the Universe, the World and all that lives on it the work of Satan as a corrupt, degenerate version of Heaven.

You know what? Perhaps Creationism should be taught in schools. But let's do this fairly. Let's teach ALL the Judeo-Christian creation stories. Every last one of them! Hey, stop looking at me like that! If one Judeo-Christian theory is good, then five or ten totally different theories must be better!

The Silent Majority

[jafac]

I know, I know, flamebait. . . (proceed with the flamebait. . . )

This article is obviously false, because 60 Million American Voters agree that the Creation story in the Bible is the truth, and this junk science BS is just more communist propaganda designed to undermine Traditional Judeo-Christian American Values. No way is the earth 25,000 years old. God pulled it out of a cracker jack box last week!

Not Likely based on genetic data...

[fdragon]

This Article in Discover Magazine has data against this. It additionally puts an upper limit on the time to approximately 20,000 years ago and a lower limit of approximately 17,000 years.

This data is based on genetic mutation in the Y chromosome. This works as it is passed father to son almost without change. (Some genetic variation happens due to random mutation.)

Re:Not Likely based on genetic data...

[Eisvogel]

Genetics are indeed an interesting source for history. The problem is, that as soon as you gou more than say 6000 into the past the interpretation of the data becomes problematic.

1. Different regions have different stress factors like animals, population density etc..
2. Food/nutrients/water have a great impact on the error correcting mechanisms
3. The sun has complex imacts. It increases the mutation rate and at the same time is essentail for some biochemistral reactions

For short periods like 6000 years you might neclect/ignore those facts, but as soon as you go back that many generation those influences have to be accounted for.

Genetic can provide you with data - as usually the interpetion is the key! Statistics can tell you aprox. how many mutations accured but how long it took stands on a different sheet.

Thankyou Mr Harrison for a wonderful story!!

[crivens]

This is an easy one. These first peoples in America that they are claiming, are simply travellers from way in the future. They travelled back in time to meet the first peoples in America to make a film.

Thankyou Mr Harrison for a wonderful Viking story!

Relativity and time dilation?

[tepples]

Perhaps the inflation happened over what some cosmologists call billions of years, but as seen from a point on the surface of what would become Earth, it actually did take only six days to get to the point when Adam woke up out of the dust.

Re:Relativity and time dilation?

[Stephen Samuel]

There is absolutely nothing in the bible that says that God's days were 24 hours long. There's absolutely no reason why a god with an infinite lifetime doesn't have days of what most humans would consider infinite length. Giving god 8-hour shifts (so to speak) is not taking the bible literally. It's adding something that is not there.

This isn't an argument for taking the bible 'literally' just pointing out that those who claim to take it literally aren't really doing that.

Boy are you wrong

[heybo]

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!

Re:Boy are you wrong

[GCP]

One thing that is differant between the two cultures is we NEVER KILLED CHILDREN! and with that thought who really was the Savage????

Utter nonsense. How nice it must be to walk around with such delusions about your glorious ancestors.

I had German farmer ancestors in Pennsylvania in the 1700s who had children murdered in Indian raids.

I'm also part Naragansett and part Wampanoag. These ancestors of mine engaged in non-stop violence against one another before the coming of any significant number of Europeans. My Wampanoag ancestors were so friendly to my Pilgrim ancestors because they wanted military allies to help them kill more of my Naragansett ancestors.

Tribal warfare was so ubiquitous among Indians that anytime they got more than a few thousand in number (usually more like a few hundred), internal violence would fork them into two (or more) "warring tribes".

This is your "we were too nice" fantasy. We were not too nice. We were like the violent street gangs of L.A. facing a corrupt, brutal, but cohesive and capable police force. The cops won, but not because the gangs were such spritually enlightened peaceniks unaccustomed to facing violence.

There's plenty of reality to have to face on all sides.

Re:Boy are you wrong

[heybo]

You took that out of context.....

We never killed children BEFORE the euros got here! You said Indian people killed German children. You are most likely right. Tell me a case where Indian people killed the children of other Indian people. what happened to the Indian people by these Germans before this killing???

Killing of children was taboo. It wasn't until after the euros got here and started killing our children that we started killing their children.

I never said that we were peaceniks. Hell I'm the first to say that even today you put 5 Indian men in a room for more than 3 hours you will have an arguement. Matter of fact this WAS our down fall. We could never band together as a whole. Even with my own tribe (Cherokee) we would rather side with the US an with the Creeks. We fought the Creeks for hundreds of years. Yet we also married their women.

You are right in the fact that our wars were more like street gangs fighting than real war. don't tell me their is no difference I have been in both. both can be brutal and deadly, but war is the true horror. Street gangs may fight in LA but you don't see combined forces coming into LA burning it to the ground and killing everything that moves. In war this happens on a day to day basis.

Even with all that one big thing is we NEVER killed in the name of God. didn't your Pilgrim ancestors kill in the name of God? War is something between people and only people.

You also missed or didn't bring up my point about the White man keeping his word. Yes your Wampanoag ancestors sided with the Pilgrims but after the Naragansett where gone didn't the Pirgrims then turn against the Wampanoag????

I'm not knocking your people mine did the same we helped Andrew Jackson win his war of 1812 aganist the Creeks and the British and for our help we got removed!

However, genetic timelines are set

[mveloso]

It's my understanding that genetic-based timelines (mDNA, etc) are set and calibrated to archaeologist-created timelines. Using genetic timelines to disprove c-14 dating may be spurious.

Quantum dithering

[tepples]

Einstein said "God does not play dice." Many modern physicists would claim that the uncertainty of quantum physics counteracts that. I contend that quantum uncertainty could be the effect of dithering on the data structures through which God simulates our world.

Microevolution in young earth creationism

[tepples]

Evidence for evolution comes not just through the evidence of form being a direct function of time (which is a pretty solid piece of evidence)

Either that, or God put really generic genes in the DNA of proto-wolves, such that they could become all sorts of dogs over time by adapting to their environment and discarding useless genes through natural and/or artificial selection.

Off by factor of 10...

[IceAgeComing]

I just realized I should have written "That's going to get you within the correct millennium for anything up to 100,000 years old."

Dinosaurs

[tepples]

"Behemoth" and "Leviathan" are the biblical names for those dinosaurs too large to fit in Noah's ark. "Birds" are the ones that survived to the present day.

You arrogant asshole

[heybo]

Everything you had to say is total bullshit through and through and attiudes like this is way the world is so fucked up with "Americanisum". People like you think you are so high and mighty. It will also be your fall. People like you have your head up your ass too far to see how really stupid you really are.

We did sail the sea. Asked any Native that their people lived on the coasts. Where do you think Kayaks came from??

The Chinese invented gun power. You all just stole the technology like everything else you have.

Advanced Agriculture??? Hell where do you think corn came from? Not only corn, but potatoes, tomatoes, beans, squash. You see I am Cherokee our whole culture was based on agriculture. We never hunted buffalo. We where farmers! Corn is NOT a natural plant in the state we all know it now. We changed it into what we have now that feeds most of the world. If it wasn't for our advanced agriculture you all would have starved when you got here.(See we were too nice. We should have let you starve)

Created vaccines? For one thing vaccines didn't come around until the 20th century dude... Fact! more than half of the medicines in use today came from a natural cure invented by Native People. Remember you good Christians burned all your Healers as Witches!

No we didn't have a written language until you all got here. You see we had no need for it. A person was as good as their words so we had no need of contracts to support truths and law suits. Another note. After you all got here and we did have a need of talking leaves (paper) One man is less than a year invented our written language. After its adoption had the tribe in less than 6 weeks most of the tribe was literate! Took you people centuries to develope your writting and at the time of your coming MOST of you COULDN'T READ OR WRITE!

Face it the only thing you brought with you were your diseased bodies and your total lack of respect for life and the attiude that you are above all things. The rest you either stole or outright took by force. Unfortunately this attiude is still alive and well and living in the US. You just proved that. This attiude is what has the rest of the world pissed off at us. (or people like you)

BTW there are ships and planes leaving hourly. Please get on one, and PLEASE take Bush with you. I'll even bet you voted for him

Re:If god created the used condom in my garbage. .

[ginbot462]

There is no god, Only Dude. - MST3K

AI Learning Curve

[PingPongBoy]

Human intelligence has been roaming the planet on the order of 10 Kyr to 100 Kyr yet it seems that the greatest breakthroughs in knowledge occurred only in the order of 100 yr.

Let N be the year that AI awakens. Assume Moore's Law is valid to infinity. Let M be the first AI machine. Let's say in this fantasy that M is 1/1024 as smart as average man or perhaps 1/4096 as smart as genius man, according to the time required to run a plethora of benchmark activities. A machine M_67108864 denotes a computer 67108864 = 2^26 times as powerful as M. In one year of learning M_67108864 gains the knowledge equivalent to 65536 years of operation of 1024 * M = 1 average man.

Thus if we let our computational progress run its natural course we'll build M_67108864 at the year N + 52, which will grind away for the better part of the year doing very little but by Novemberish time learn enough to catch up to us as we are in 2004 and perhaps by Christmas keep up with average mankind of the year N + 52.

Comical corollary. From these calculations N must be around 2020.

Of course a well taught M_1024 or perhaps even M_16 would pass the Turing test. This is a sharp contrast in the time required for a species to independently discover knowledge and new members to learn the status quo.

Since a computer tends to be fairly consistent, it seems optimal to determine a set P of fundamental principles that M should govern its reasoning with.

Has humanity compiled a subset of P?

A Warning for the Godless Unamerican Masses

[FreeUser]

"This country contains people dummer than the common stump, even dumb enough to believe Creationist psuedo-science. This is a fact, not a theory, regarding the origin of many of the world's problems. These people should be approached with caution, studied carefully, and critically considered undependable, irratic, and quite dangerous."

And lest someone to the right of Adolf Hitler (slightly more than 50% of the voting public if election results are to be believed) get their panties in a knot, IAAA (I Am An American).

not possible

[h4x0r-3l337]

25000 years? This is simply not possible, as more than half of the United States population well knows: the Earth was created about 7000 years ago. Anyone claiming differently will surely go to hell.

Re:not possible

[narcc]

Shouldn't that be 6008? (not 7000) as A.L. would be 4000 + the current year, but that was changed from 4004 to make the math easier. (We'll use the "harder" form.)

(speculation on the actual month and day still abounds...)

Check your facts before you spout

[Sygnus]

Created vaccines? For one thing vaccines didn't come around until the 20th century dude... Fact!

Wrong. The smallpox vaccine was invented in the 18th Century dude... Fact!

Dr. Jenner researched and experimented with the Cowpox disease for several years. He found out there were actually two forms of the disease, but only one form could possibly provide a human body with an immunity to Smallpox.

On May 14, 1796, a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes visited Dr. Jenner for the treatment of Cowpox. Dr. Jenner decided it was time to test his vaccination, and he tested it on his gardener's son, an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps. (He got the term "vacca" from the Latin word for "cow.") The boy did contract Cowpox, but he recovered from it within a few days. Dr. Jenner then waited eight weeks for the boy's body to build an immunity. To complete his experiment, Dr. Jenner exposed James to Smallopx. Amazingly, the boy did not contract the deadly disease, and the doctor claimed success.

Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine

Re:Check your facts before you spout

[heybo]

OK!

I missed one hurrah for Dr Jenner.... Still dispute the rest. Still most medicine does come from natural sources that Native healers found a long time ago. Here's you one. Next time you take asprin thank a Native American. It orginally comes from willow bark tea.

Another fact 6,238 treaties have been entered into by the US with Indian people and NOT ONE has been fully honored. Not true to you word nor your paper. Maybe you did have writing skills before us but the fact remains you have trouble following your own writing.

good read

[sewagemaster]

perhaps not 25000 years ago, but nevertheless a good read.

1421 : The Year China Discovered America

it's written by a man formally in the britian's royal navy (not chinese). lot of interesting revelations and details

Re:good read

[timjdot]

Drastic biological diversities seem to require separations within a species; yet Asia and Europe have not been separated. Probably Asians, or Whiteys, originated in the Americas. One or the other. Not both.

Humans in America in 21st century?

[heffrey]

Has anyone seen any?

Dominating the news in South Carolina...

[samdu]

...is not this story. The dominating news in the state is Steve Spurrier becoming the head coach of the USC Gamecocks.

Re:Is it finally God vs Science ?

[Suidae]

Science is supposed to be the search for the truth

Not really. Science is the process of forming predictive theories from empirical evidence. Truth is a slippery thing, scientific knowledge is generally regarded to be a simply be an approximation of the 'truth'.

when so-called scientists put forward theories that are unsupportable by evidence and insist that the theories are true anyway, that is hardly science

Well, not all theories are strongly supported, and what one person calls strong support, someone else may call weak support. Science is much like religion in that there is no one single accepted version of anything, and its certainly possible that those who hold a particular view may be irrationally attached to it (few people like to have something into which they've invested much time show to be wrong (although there are many researchers who know that mistakes will be made, and don't form those kinds of attachments to a theory).

Every dating method we have has been shown to be questionable. But do they examine the questions and see if a better method can be found, or do they attack those who dare to point out the the methods are flawed?

All knowledge is questionable. It is more productive to attempt to advance on a foundation that is known to be incomplete than to attempt the impossible task of building a perfect foundation.

The dating methods used, when used properly, are reliable within their accepted margins of error. If you have strong evidence that shows that a particular dating technique is invalid, I'd suggest you publish it. I suspect that you, like most people, know very little about how hard many other people have worked to make sure that the dating techniques used are as accurate as possible.

Faith is God in never against science.

True enough. The principles of rationality that many who practice scientific methods hold may lead them away from beliefs of faith, but the two are certainly not incompatible. Many religious scientists find creation all the more humbling the more they learn about its details.

But false science (Evolution) is against God

You'll be hard pressed to demonstrate that the theory of evolution is false science. Many people have done much sound research that supports the theory, that makes it good science. That doesn't make it right, it just means it isn't false science. False science is what the hucksters like Joseph Newman push. A theory can be wrong even if sound scientific methods went into its generation.

False science done with the intention of defrauding others may certainly be against God's wishes, but I don't see how good science that leads one to the wrong conclusion could be. Unless of course it is now a sin to be mistaken.

Yes, some supporters of evolution have falsified data and lied, actions that are decitful and wrong. That does not invalidate the entire theory, which has many interlocking strong lines of evidence.

so typical

[phyruxus]

of southern christianity.. to put the word "Lord" in the mouth of a character who is Native American. Besides being an insult to a people who had their own value system, governments and spiritual beliefs for thousands of years thank you very much, it also implies that Native Americans are christians. The history of this country's interactions with them is about as honorable and honest as mugging an old lady in a dark alley. BIA anyone?

Earliest evidence of outsourcing!

[sl0wp0is0n]

True, these tools are 50000 years old. Actually the early men that came to America 25000 years ago from the third world, brought these (then) 25000 year old tools with them. They were the earliest paleontologists and moved to America as temporary workers because there was a sheer shortage of palentologists in America. America had started this (then) new concept of temporary visas like F(OB)-1 and H(obo)-1. Later when they found that the American youth were by and large moving to specializing in artsy stuff like cave drawings and inventing tribal dances or giving in to some intoxicaitng herbs illegally imported from some poor civilizations across the seas and were less and less taking on scientific fields like paleontology, they put a ban on H-1 and F-1 visas. But soon they found out that the American Palentologists were too expensive... and had to outsource studying all the dinosaur fossils to India and China.

I bet you feel like a big man

[phyruxus]

..pointing out that one error. Yup, he isn't omniscient... huzzah for you.

The greater fact remains however that white americans treated (and still do treat) red americans as inferior, and screw the red man every chance they get. The reservations get smaller every year. The treaties we have are still not adhered to.

This is christian morality; fuck em all, and take their stuff, then demonize em and laugh at em. I'm sure Jesus would be just so proud.

Re:I bet you feel like a big man

[sumdumass]

Actually the christian mentality is more like "kill'em all and let god sort it out".

I think you are totaly wrong about the impresion of whites and the way they act towards native americans. Most whites that i have ever seen actually admire the redskined people. It is the attitudes liek yours they don't like. Luckily not every indian has that attitude. I have had the pleasure to meet several real indians and can't say enough good about them. I meet a indian activist once and couldn't stand him..

Re:I bet you feel like a big man

[heybo]

Actually I am a nice person and respect others that respect me and my culture. Respect is earned not given with me. Their bad attitude breeds my bad attitude, and I will not lay back quietly and let such people spout their BS. If they don't like what I have to say then they should remain quite.

Re:I bet you feel like a big man

[sumdumass]

If they don't like what I have to say then they should remain quite.

I guess that can go both ways.

I have no problem with earning someones respect. Generaly i'm not looking for thier respect when i have normal everyday encounters with thiem. I will not kiss thier ass to make them like me though. Generally i treat other like i would want to be treated. Some people are on a high horse and think others should worship the ground they walk on. There is a fine line between getting respect form other and demanding respect. the later is usually the ones with the problems. Also they usually don't deserve the respect.

Re:I bet you feel like a big man

[heybo]

You are right it goes both ways. They have a right to their words and I have the right to speak back. What I have is truth and you can't argue with that...

Respect??? No I'm not looking for it either. High horse? Nope I don't own a horse. Hell I ain't nobody. Just another Indian. We can argue over perspectives but the point was in the begining of this post was utter bullshit. I did what I needed to do... Point it out.

All I was saying is I have no respect for the orginal poster and that is my choice. You are entitled to yours.

You know I read in one of your other posts you said "In the history book that I read." History is written by the winner. What I know about the Trail of Tears didn't come from a history book It happened to MY family!!! What I know of Native culture and history didn't come from a book. It is me. That doesn't make me anybody special. It is just who I am.

All I'm saying is if your going to spout bullshit expect a response!

Re:Old joke

[Darby]

Unfortunately, the bandwidth was inadequate to deal with a slashdotting!

No, because smoke signals inherently implement multicasting, hence eliminating bandwidth worries.

Re:I am a 'Mormon'...

[mike_stay]

I'm a Mormon, and I think you're full of it. "Mormon" is a perfectly good word to describe the church and members of it. I think evolution is a perfectly good way to create stuff; go download some alife programs and have a go at it yourself. The earth was certainly created over a few billion years. We can see planet formation going on in other places. Why assume that God did it differently for this world?

Your sig

[Darby]

The Northwest Angle on Lake of the Woods?

Do I get a cookie?

Re:Your sig

[farmhick]

Oh great, now I have to change my sig. Thanks a lot. ;^)

Re:Your sig

[Darby]

If it's any consolation, I had no idea and googled it ;-)

evolution vs. creation

[NateKid]

If the emergence of humans occurred further back than assumed, all it means is that the emergence of humans occurred further back than assumed.

It need not offend the darwinists since our evolution still could have occurred according to his posited algorithm, just at a slower or quicker pace.

It need not offend the creationists since He might have placed the bones in the coal in accordance with His wisedom.

All it means is that science - which under ideal conditions freely admits to not having all the facts - doesn't have all the facts. This is NOT the equivalent to having a flawed premise to start with...

Re:evolution vs. creation

[Lord Kano]

It need not offend the darwinists since our evolution still could have occurred according to his posited algorithm, just at a slower or quicker pace.

If modern humans existed before the emergance of those that evolutions posits we descended from, it renders all of the "evidence" of human evolution moot.

It need not offend the creationists since He might have placed the bones in the coal in accordance with His wisedom.

If they believe that all of creation is less than 20,000 years old, a two million year old modern human destroys their assumptions.

LK

Re:evolution vs. creation

[NateKid]

If modern humans existed before the emergance of those that evolutions posits we descended from, it renders all of the "evidence" of human evolution moot.

No...it could just mean it occurred at a different pace, or earlier branch. Much like those "modern" humans you're arguing about, the supposed ancestors could also have existed earlier than supposed. Big deal, science got another bunch of dates wrong. We know enough from the dna evidence that some common ancestor exists. Maybe it's this guy, maybe someone older, but the darwinists live to fight another day.

If they believe that all of creation is less than 20,000 years old, a two million year old modern human destroys their assumptions.

No, as I said they could argue that he placed the bones there. Since it's not inconcievable that an omnipotent being could fsck with carbon dating the creationists live to fight another day.

So both the darwinists and creations survive this little shakeup as they would evidence that human life was planted by et or any other conspiracy theory out there. These battles will be then fought in mid-west courtrooms for quite some time until ignorance eventually prevails...

Re:evolution vs. creation

[NateKid]

Also meant to say that through speciation a species and its ancestor might happen to simultaneously exist. Doesn't necessarily disprove its ancestor's status as ancestor...

Re:I am a 'Mormon'...

[Buzh]

Just don't crtiticize 'blind faith' in religion while practicing blind faith in science,(which, btw, is in incredible flux).

Science will never answer the really important questions, and you are (as far as I'm concerned) dead on about people having to find out for themselves.

However, there comes a point where religion and faith stands in the way of truth, peace and understanding. It happens when people feel threatened because consensus reality or science seems to undermine something that person has invested his or her identity in, such as creationism.

Situations where scientific truths (or at least functional approximations) dispute the simplistic explanations that clergy and the likes make up in order to defend their product will continue as long as religion is interpreted deterministically.

Having a religion such as yours as a belief-system that divines right from wrong and provides comfort and security throgh answers to the really tough questions is fine, even good and useful. There is no denying the benfits of having a structure of parsing life, the universe and everything. I have such a system myself, although derived from very different sources. As do everyone, of any conviction.

Trouble ensues when people, organizations or states want to impose the answers from their diving onto others, whether as interpretations of significant texts or as words straight from the deitys' mouth. And it gets worse when simple answers are tailored to answer the tough questions.

Religion is for answering the questions science can't. And since science is answering new questions all the time, it is a recipie for disaster when religion is taken as literally as creationists do.

Your books of faith should be read to inspire you to act in accordance with what YOU believe is right and wrong, read to put things in perspective and to allow you to see through the eyes of someone else. Read it and interpret it yourself, and take the extra time to see if your initial gut reaction can possibly be flawed. If the face value is wrong. If the interpretation you subscribe will stay the same if you did a complete re-install, so to speak.

For the record: the short-short version of my views on faith: "Do what thou wilst", don't "do onto others".

It takes a few years of meditating on the implications of that tho.

Re:Old joke

[incom]

But the transfer rates were abysmal, limited to several bytes per hour.

Hell yeah it's nice!

[CaptRespect]

You bet! I, for one, am glad that I'm not living in some mud hut because people had the sense to kill off a bunch of dirty savage hippies. They created the most prosperous country in the world. They allowed me to buy a nice little house, drive me a nice car and sit on my ass and play Half-Life 2.

Do you realize that there probably wouldn't even be a Half-Life 2 if they didn't give all the Indians small pox? Did you even consider it?

Imagine sitting a stupid mud hut... starving from a bad winter... not playing Half-Life 2.

Re:I am a 'Mormon'...

[bobobobo]

I'm Mormon too, and although I myself don't find it offensive. I do find it is often used in a pejorative manner.

Keep it quiet!

[Snaller]

You can see why some people wish to keep the theory of evolution a secret