Humans In NorthAm A Thousand Years Before Clovis

[Rich Travs]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080403-first--
americans.html

It's no load of crap: Scientists have discovered the earliest
evidence of humans in North America—in 14,300-year-old
fossilized feces.

The discovery of the preserved scat fragments, known as
coprolites, levels a major blow against the popular
Clovis-first theory of how people first came to the Americas.

Since the summer of 2002, University of Oregon archaeologist
Dennis Jenkins and his research team have uncovered about 700
coprolite samples from a group of bone-dry caves in the desert
of central Oregon, including several from humans.

After repeated radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses, the
scientists concluded that the oldest of the human-produced
material was deposited at least a thousand years before the
so-called Clovis culture, according to a paper appearing in
this week's issue of the journal Science. ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403141109.htm
DNA from dried human excrement recovered from Oregon's Paisley
Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World -- dating to
14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years before Clovis culture --
and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia,
according to an international team of 13 scientists. ...
During the two summers of fieldwork, Jenkins, colleagues and
students, working in four of the caves, retrieved manufactured
threads of sinew and plant fibers, hide, basketry, cordage,
rope, wooden pegs, animal bones, two forms of projectile point
fragments and diverse kinds of feces. These items were found
"in an unbroken stratigraphic sequence spanning the late
Pleistocene and Holocene," the researchers wrote in the study.
Some of the thread is narrower than that holding buttons on
many shirts today and date back 12,750 years, Jenkins said.

"To find these threads was just incredible," said Jenkins, who
directs the Northern Great Basin Archaeological Field School.
"We found a little pit in the bottom of a cave. It was full of
camel, horse and mountain sheep bones, and in there we found a
human coprolite. We radiocarbon-dated the camel and mountain
sheep bones, as well as the coprolite, to 14,300 years ago."

With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added. Such
a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same time period
as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...

[David]

On Apr 4, 10:46=A0am, Rich Travsky
<traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
>... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
>materials date bac=
k to
> about 14,400 years ago, he added. Such a dating puts the
> Oregon site into =
about
> the same time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...

Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!

Prof. Ni=E8de Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/te-
xt-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...

I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where such
humans came from at such an early date?

***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis Can it
be given any plausibility?

David Christainsen

[Quadibloc]

Even if there's much older evidence of some humans, the fact
that this is DNA,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403141109.htm

means that they were able to find that these *pre-Clovis*
humans had ancestors who came from somewhere in eastern Asia.
This means that the racist notion that the Indians, when they
came over the Bering Strait however many years ago, stole the
New World from *white* pre-Clovis humans, and so they have no
claim against us to give it back to them, is demolished.

John Savard

[Rich Travs]

David wrote:
>
> On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
> <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> >... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
> >materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added.
> >Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same time
> >period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> Prof. Niède Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/te-
> xt-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...

Your link got chopped, doesn't work - try
http://www.tinyurl.com

> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where

There's some contention with the older material, tho.

> such humans came from at such an early date?

Well, see, there's a Mommy human, and a Daddy human, and when
they love each other very much...

> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis Can
> it be given any plausibility?

The Africa-to-Brazil notion has been floated before...

[David]

On Apr 4, 11:38=A0am, Rich Travsky
<traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> David wrote:
>
> > On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
> > <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> > >... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years,
> > >the materials date=
back to
> > > about 14,400 years ago, he added. Such a dating puts the
> > > Oregon site i=
nto about
> > > the same time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> > Pedra Furada - =A036,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> > Prof. Ni=E8de Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter5-
> > 4/text-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>
> Your link got chopped, doesn't work - try
> =A0http://www.tinyurl.com

Acknowledged - I add:

http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-PedraFurada/text-P-
edraFurada.htm#= guidon

> > I am convinced by her evidence. =A0What puzzles me
> > is where
>
> There's some contention with the older material, tho.

No kidding! It was one royal brouhaha.

> > such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> Well, see, there's a Mommy human, and a Daddy human, and
> when they love ea=
ch
> other very much...
>
> > ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
> > Can it be given any plausibility?
>
> The Africa-to-Brazil notion has been floated before...

I'll check the Archives but I would have liked your opinion.

David Christainsen

[George]

On Apr 5, 3:38 am, Rich Travsky
<traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> David wrote:

> > such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> Well, see, there's a Mommy human, and a Daddy human, and
> when they love each other very much...

Swine. :-) Now he knows there'll be no starting him

[Quadibloc]

On Apr 4, 9:30=A0am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Pedra Furada - =A036,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> Prof. Ni=E8de Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/t-
> ext-PedraFurada=
/text-PedraFura...
>
> I am convinced by her evidence. =A0What puzzles me is where
> such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis Can
> it be given any plausibility?

=46rom Africa in boats? They would need very good boats, as
=good as the
boats Columbus had. There is no plausible evidence of such
technology that far back.

And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
40,000 years at that.

Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in Asia, it
would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus to have warmed
up, and for H. erectus to have crossed over to the New World
at some very ancient date. Modern humans, pre-Clovis or not,
would likely have displaced them.

John Savard

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 4, 4:56 pm, Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@sum.co.nz>
wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> >> Prof. Ni=E8de Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter5-
> >> 4/text-PedraFur=
ada/text-PedraFura...
>
> >> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
> >> such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> >> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
> >> Can it be given any plausibility?
>
> >From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats, as
> >good as the boats Columbus had.
>
> Not really. Quite a number of lesser craft have made their
> way by accident to SA from Africa over the years. You musn't
> forget that although Columbus's voyage was deliberate it
> does not rule out lesser accidental voyages from more
> favourable starting points.
>
> >There is no plausible evidence of such technology that
> >far back.
>
> >And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
> >40,000 years at that.
>
> >Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in Asia,
> >it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus to have
> >warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed over to the
> >New World at some very ancient date. Modern humans,
> >pre-Clovis or not, would likely have displaced them.
>
> >John Savard
>
> Eric Stevens

God knows, Thor Heyerdahl tried every possible idea in
that line.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Number=3D973780

[Eric Steve]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Pedra Furada -  36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>>
>> Prof. Niède Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/te-
>> xt-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>>
>> I am convinced by her evidence.  What puzzles me is where
>> such humans came from at such an early date?
>>
>> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis Can
>> it be given any plausibility?
>
>From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats, as
>good as the boats Columbus had.

Not really. Quite a number of lesser craft have made their way
by accident to SA from Africa over the years. You musn't
forget that although Columbus's voyage was deliberate it does
not rule out lesser accidental voyages from more favourable
starting points.

>There is no plausible evidence of such technology that
>far back.
>
>And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
>40,000 years at that.
>
>Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in Asia,
>it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus to have
>warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed over to the New
>World at some very ancient date. Modern humans, pre-Clovis or
>not, would likely have displaced them.
>
>John Savard

Eric Stevens

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 4, 12:33=A0pm, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> Even if there's much older evidence of some humans, the fact
> that this is DNA,
>
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/08040314-
> 1109.htm
>
> means that they were able to find that these *pre-Clovis*
> humans had ancestors who came from somewhere in eastern
> Asia. This means that the racist notion that the Indians,
> when they came over the Bering Strait however many years
> ago, stole the New World from *white* pre-Clovis humans, and
> so they have no claim against us to give it back to them, is
> demolished.
>
> John Savard

That is a notion that I had not considered, John. Are you
speaking of the idea that Clovis culture originated in
Europe, and passed over the North Atlantic? And if it's not
asking too much of you, are you an L.S.L. alumnus?

Daryl Krupa Class of '74

[Quadibloc]

On Apr 4, 9:33 pm, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> That is a notion that I had not considered, John. Are you
> speaking of the idea that Clovis culture originated in
> Europe, and passed over the North Atlantic?

I just remember that when there were news items about
discoveries of human remains that pre-dated the arrival of the
North American Indians, some people went off and claimed that
those remains were of white people - and so this demolished
any moral claims the Indians might have as indigenous people.

Evidence from DNA that pre-Clovis humans belonged to the same
basic racial stock as Native Americans demolishing that is
pleasant news.

> And if it's not asking too much of you, are you an L.S.L.
> alumnus?

No, I went to the U of A, here in Edmonton, Alberta.

John Savard

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 5, 2:37=A0am, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Apr 4, 9:33 pm, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > =A0 That is a notion that I had not considered, John. =A0
> > Are you speaking of the idea that Clovis culture
> > originated in Europe, and passed over the North Atlantic?
>
> I just remember that when there were news items about
> discoveries of human remains that pre-dated the arrival of
> the North American Indians, some people went off and claimed
> that those remains were of white people - and so this
> demolished any moral claims the Indians might have as
> indigenous people.
>
> Evidence from DNA that pre-Clovis humans belonged to the
> same basic racial stock as Native Americans demolishing that
> is pleasant news.

Yes, it is; I believe that you were referring to the early,
and inaccurate, identification of Washington's Kennewick
Man as being "Caucasoid" (which is essentially meaningless,
being based on a simple tripartite racial classification
developed by a small-town German pseudointellectual who
decided that humanity could be divided into black people,
Mongolians, and his opwn group, whom he decided to name
after the ethnic group that produced the women most desired
by the managers of the Turkish Sultan's harem, who were
reputed by a French traveller of the 17th c4ntury to be
derived from somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains area of
the world). All that that term means, in essence, is that
he looked like he was related to Elizabeth Taylor or
Catherine Zeta-Jones or yout average modern Goth. Of
course, Kennewick Man was not older than the oldest
evidence of human occupation in the Americas, just a very
old set of human remains.

> > =A0 And if it's not asking too much of you, are you an
> > L.S.L. alumnus?
>
> No, I went to the U of A, here in Edmonton, Alberta.

Ah, yes, I was confused. I was thinking of one who knew
you there.

Also a U of A alumnus, Daryl Krupa

[Jerry Warn]

David wrote:

> On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
> <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> >... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
> >materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added.
> >Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same time
> >period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> Prof. Niède Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/te-
> xt-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>
> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
> such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis Can
> it be given any plausibility?
>

Did Jesus send you? Where have you been all these years.

>
> David Christainsen

[Eric Steve]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 14:08:52 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthicum@earthlink.net> wrote:

>On Apr 4, 4:56 pm, Eric Stevens
><eric.stev...@sum.co.nz> wrote:
>> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>>
>> >> Prof. Niède Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54-
>> >> /text-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>>
>> >> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
>> >> such humans came from at such an early date?
>>
>> >> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
>> >> Can it be given any plausibility?
>>
>> >From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats, as
>> >good as the boats Columbus had.
>>
>> Not really. Quite a number of lesser craft have made their
>> way by accident to SA from Africa over the years. You
>> musn't forget that although Columbus's voyage was
>> deliberate it does not rule out lesser accidental voyages
>> from more favourable starting points.
>>
>> >There is no plausible evidence of such technology that
>> >far back.
>>
>> >And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
>> >40,000 years at that.
>>
>> >Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in
>> >Asia, it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus to
>> >have warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed over to
>> >the New World at some very ancient date. Modern humans,
>> >pre-Clovis or not, would likely have displaced them.
>>
>> >John Savard
>>
>> Eric Stevens
>
>God knows, Thor Heyerdahl tried every possible idea in
>that line.
>
>http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Number=973780

Heyerdahl tried out a number of generally lousy ideas. That
doesn't mean that he exhausted the list of good ideas.

Eric Stevens

[Tom McDona]

jerry warner wrote:
>
> Rich Travsky wrote:
>
>> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080403-fir-
>> st-americans.html
>>
>> It's no load of crap: Scientists have discovered the
>> earliest evidence of humans in North America—in
>> 14,300-year-old fossilized feces.
>>
>> The discovery of the preserved scat fragments, known as
>> coprolites, levels a major blow against the popular
>> Clovis-first theory of how people first came to the
>> Americas.
>>
>> Since the summer of 2002, University of Oregon
>> archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and his research team have
>> uncovered about 700 coprolite samples from a group of
>> bone-dry caves in the desert of central Oregon, including
>> several from humans.
>>
>> After repeated radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses, the
>> scientists concluded that the oldest of the human-produced
>> material was deposited at least a thousand years before the
>> so-called Clovis culture, according to a paper appearing in
>> this week's issue of the journal Science. ...
>>
>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403141109.-
>> htm DNA from dried human excrement recovered from Oregon's
>> Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World --
>> dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years before Clovis
>> culture -- and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or
>> Asia, according to an international team of 13 scientists.
>> ... During the two summers of fieldwork, Jenkins,
>> colleagues and students, working in four of the caves,
>> retrieved manufactured threads of sinew and plant fibers,
>> hide, basketry, cordage, rope, wooden pegs, animal bones,
>> two forms of projectile point fragments and diverse kinds
>> of feces. These items were found "in an unbroken
>> stratigraphic sequence spanning the late Pleistocene and
>> Holocene," the researchers wrote in the study. Some of the
>> thread is narrower than that holding buttons on many shirts
>> today and date back 12,750 years, Jenkins said.
>>
>> "To find these threads was just incredible," said Jenkins,
>> who directs the Northern Great Basin Archaeological Field
>> School. "We found a little pit in the bottom of a cave. It
>> was full of camel, horse and mountain sheep bones, and in
>> there we found a human coprolite. We radiocarbon-dated the
>> camel and mountain sheep bones, as well as the coprolite,
>> to 14,300 years ago."
>>
>> With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
>> materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added.
>> Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same time
>> period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> The new analytical evidence is good but the basic facts were
> already known. One basic fact (glaring) is the Clovis
> technology itself. No advanced technology like that is the
> first! Or even close to the first. Possessors of Clovis were
> late arrivals and pretty high on the food chain. Very likely
> they carried a culture similarly advanced for the time.
>
>
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that
there had to be a Clovis precursor? That is unremarkable.

Or are you saying that the folks who first came to North
America (at least that part of North America that Clovis
inhabited) would have had a significantly less sophisticated
technology than Clovis? That would be interesting, but is not
necessary.

OTOH, many of the purported earlier 'tools' found in the
Americas would have been remarkably primitive nearly anywhere
in the contemporaneous world, if they are really tools at all.
That's one of the reasons for caution about some of the
disputed very early sites in the Americas.

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 6, 2:00 pm, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2...@charter.net> wrote:
> jerry warner wrote:
>
> > Rich Travsky wrote:
>
> >>http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080403-fi-
> >>rst-american...
>
> >> It's no load of crap: Scientists have discovered the
> >> earliest evidence of humans in North America--in
> >> 14,300-year-old fossilized feces.
>
> >> The discovery of the preserved scat fragments, known as
> >> coprolites, levels a major blow against the popular
> >> Clovis-first theory of how people first came to the
> >> Americas.
>
> >> Since the summer of 2002, University of Oregon
> >> archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and his research team have
> >> uncovered about 700 coprolite samples from a group of
> >> bone-dry caves in the desert of central Oregon, including
> >> several from humans.
>
> >> After repeated radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses, the
> >> scientists concluded that the oldest of the
> >> human-produced material was deposited at least a thousand
> >> years before the so-called Clovis culture, according to a
> >> paper appearing in this week's issue of the journal
> >> Science. ...
>
> >>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403141109-
> >>.htm DNA from dried human excrement recovered from
> >>Oregon's Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New
> >>World -- dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years
> >>before Clovis culture -- and provides apparent genetic
> >>ties to Siberia or Asia, according to an international
> >>team of 13 scientists. ... During the two summers of
> >>fieldwork, Jenkins, colleagues and students, working in
> >>four of the caves, retrieved manufactured threads of sinew
> >>and plant fibers, hide, basketry, cordage, rope, wooden
> >>pegs, animal bones, two forms of projectile point
> >>fragments and diverse kinds of feces. These items were
> >>found "in an unbroken stratigraphic sequence spanning the
> >>late Pleistocene and Holocene," the researchers wrote in
> >>the study. Some of the thread is narrower than that
> >>holding buttons on many shirts today and date back 12,750
> >>years, Jenkins said.
>
> >> "To find these threads was just incredible," said
> >> Jenkins, who directs the Northern Great Basin
> >> Archaeological Field School. "We found a little pit in
> >> the bottom of a cave. It was full of camel, horse and
> >> mountain sheep bones, and in there we found a human
> >> coprolite. We radiocarbon-dated the camel and mountain
> >> sheep bones, as well as the coprolite, to 14,300 years
> >> ago."
>
> >> With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
> >> materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added.
> >> Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same
> >> time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> > The new analytical evidence is good but the basic facts
> > were already known. One basic fact (glaring) is the
> > Clovis technology itself. No advanced technology like
> > that is the first! Or even close to the first. Possessors
> > of Clovis were late arrivals and pretty high on the food
> > chain. Very likely they carried a culture similarly
> > advanced for the time.
>
> I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying
> that there had to be a Clovis precursor? That is
> unremarkable.
>
> Or are you saying that the folks who first came to North
> America (at least that part of North America that Clovis
> inhabited) would have had a significantly less sophisticated
> technology than Clovis? That would be interesting, but is
> not necessary.
>
> OTOH, many of the purported earlier 'tools' found in the
> Americas would have been remarkably primitive nearly
> anywhere in the contemporaneous world, if they are really
> tools at all. That's one of the reasons for caution about
> some of the disputed very early sites in the Americas.

Pre-Clovis Breakthrough April 3, 2008 by Andrew Curry

Ancient human coprolites yield surprisingly early dates

An unlikely source of information is helping to settle one
of the most contentious debates in American archaeology:
Who were the first people to colonize the Americas and
when did they do it? Were they the mammoth-hunting Clovis
people who lived 13,000 years ago, or some earlier group
who archaeologists are just beginning to understand? A
recent discovery in the Oregon desert announced in the
April 4 edition of Science may end the debate once and for
all. ARCHAEOLOGY contributing editor Andrew Curry visited
Oregon's Paisley Caves in January to find out more. An
excerpt of the story he filed is included here. Look for
the full report in the July/August issue of ARCHAEOLOGY
magazine.--The Editors

[image]

Dennis Jenkins excavating part of Paisley Caves. Jenkins found
bones, stone tools and hundreds of coprolites--fossilized
feces--at the Oregon site. (Dennis Jenkins)

On a sunny, freezing-cold afternoon in late January, I turned
my rented SUV off Oregon State Highway 31 and onto an unmarked
dirt road. I was soon bumping through sagebrush and snow
across a rutted lakebed that's been dry for the last 12,000
years. After about 20 minutes, I pulled into the shadow of a
brown butte where I met Dennis Jenkins, an archaeologist from
the University of Oregon.

Jenkins led me halfway up the butte over a cascade of sharp
gravel to a trio of dusty caves. They are nothing special to
look at: just a few meters deep and barely tall enough to
stand up in, they would have been temporary shelters at best.

Which is fine, because a few minutes would have been all
someone needed to leave behind what may be the oldest evidence
of human presence in the Americas 14,300 years ago. In a study
published April 4 in the journal Science, Jenkins and
University of Copenhagen geneticist Eske Willerslev argue that
the artifacts were made by the ancestors of modern Native
Americans, then deliberately left behind in southern Oregon's
Paisley Caves.

Which is not surprising, really, because the artifacts in
question are pieces of crap.

Literally.

[image]

University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins holds a
human coprolite found at Paisley Caves. (Andrew Curry)

This unlikely story starts in 2002, when Jenkins was leading a
field- school excavation of Paisley Caves, a row of eight
shallow basalt holes overlooking a prehistoric lakebed. Six
feet below the cave floor, Jenkins and his 26 students
uncovered fragments of prehistoric life: camel and horse
bones, sage grouse, mountain sheep and antelope bones with cut
marks on them, tiny fragments of sewing thread, a handful of
what looked like stone tools and more than a dozen oval,
organic items that were exactly what they looked like:
dried-up feces. (Polite archaeologists like to call them
"coprolites" when writing up excavation reports and grant
applications.)

By themselves, coprolites are nothing unusual. So when Jenkins
got a call from a contact at the Bureau of Land Management
saying an Oxford University graduate student was interested in
experimenting on coprolites with a new DNA extraction
technique, Jenkins was willing to give him a shot--but
extremely skeptical anything would come of it. "I didn't know
this guy from Adam," Jenkins says. "I'm open to new science,
but not open to being labeled some kind of fringe scientist."

The grad student--Willerslev, an enthusiastic Dane known among
his colleagues for his friendly personality, foul mouth and
outstanding research--flew to Oregon in 2004 to take samples.
"I was positively surprised. Some of the animal bones still
had soft tissue on them, which indicated it was a really good
preservation environment," Willerslev says. "And I'm not a
morphologist, but some of the coprolites looked pretty human."

And that was that, for a while. In 2005 Willerslev moved home
to Denmark, where he became the youngest full professor at the
University of Copenhagen thanks to his pioneering work on
ancient DNA. The Paisley coprolites sat in storage while
Willerslev and his team searched for DNA at the bottom of the
Greenland ice cap and teased mammoth DNA from grains of
Siberian permafrost. "The coprolites were lying in my freezer
for quite some time," Willerslev admits. "To be honest, I
didn't think they would be that interesting."

[image]

Eske Willerslev in his University of Copenhagen lab.
Sequencing ancient DNA requires tightly controlled conditions
to prevent contamination. (Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson)

Meanwhile, Jenkins went back to his day job as an
archaeologist at the Oregon State Museum of Natural and
Cultural History. Almost two years passed, and by the summer
of 2006 Jenkins had almost forgotten the whole DNA business.
Then one morning he received an e-mail from Willerslev. The
Dane wanted to know how old the Paisley coprolites were.

In his lab in Copenhagen, Willerslev and a colleague had come
up with stunning results. Six of the turds contained
undeniably human DNA. Not only that, they bore certain genetic
markers found only in Native American populations. Willerslev
agreed to pay labs in Oxford and Florida to radiocarbon date
each coprolite.

The results, Jenkins says, were "earth-shaking." Both labs
agreed that the coprolites were left 14,300 years ago--almost
1,500 years before the earliest agreed-upon evidence for human
presence in the Americas. "For the first time, we are actually
radio-carbon dating human remains that are pre-Clovis,"
Jenkins says. "There are older radiocarbon dates on sites in
North America, but not directly on human remains."

The find's implications are tremendous. For almost a century,
archaeologists believed that people arrived in North America
13,000 years ago--a conclusion based on dating sites with a
distinctive stone tool type first found near Clovis, New
Mexico in the 1930s. For the last two decades, the
"Clovis-first" idea has been under steady assault. Call it
revisionist prehistory: researchers have turned up evidence
they say supports everything from a much earlier migration
from Asia to a sea-borne invasion from Europe.

The coprolites Jenkins found in the Paisley caves may well be
the final nail in Clovis' coffin. While other supposed
pre-Clovis sites have been bogged down in arguments over
whether stone tools were made by people or by accident,
there's no doubt who made the coprolites Jenkins found in the
Paisley cave. "It's a much more compelling case than this
odd-looking rock found next to that piece of charcoal. We know
a human made this turd, whereas we don't know if that was a
campfire," says Southern Methodist University archaeologist
David Meltzer. "The pre-Clovis genie is sort of out of the
bottle, and there's no way of stuffing it back in."

Contributing editor Andrew Curry is based in Berlin, Germany.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/coprolites/

[Rich Travs]

David wrote:
> On Apr 4, 11:38 am, Rich Travsky
> <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> > David wrote:
> >
> > > On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
> > > <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> > > >... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years,
> > > >the materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he
> > > >added. Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about
> > > >the same time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
> >
> > > Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
> >
> > > Prof. Niède Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter5-
> > > 4/text-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
> >
> > Your link got chopped, doesn't work - try
> > http://www.tinyurl.com
>
> Acknowledged - I add:
>
> http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-PedraFurada/text-
> -PedraFurada.htm#guidon
>
> > > I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
> >
> > There's some contention with the older material, tho.
>
> No kidding! It was one royal brouhaha.
>
> > > such humans came from at such an early date?
> >
> > Well, see, there's a Mommy human, and a Daddy human, and
> > when they love each other very much...
> >
> > > ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
> > > Can it be given any plausibility?
> >
> > The Africa-to-Brazil notion has been floated before...
>
> I'll check the Archives but I would have liked your opinion.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH-
8-47MHSJ5-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=-
c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cc-
6b38d0c19f9600fb44c4570333109a

or http://tinyurl.com/59jhth

Journal of Archaeological Science Volume 30, Issue 3, March
2003, Pages 351-354

Some Evidence of a Date of First Humans to Arrive in Brazil

Abstract

A calcite formation was found on a rockwall painting at Toca
da Bastiana rockshelter at Serra da Capivara National Park,
Piaui, Brazil. Thermoluminescence and EPR dating of this
calcite gave an age of 35 to 43 ka, indicating that humans
lived there prior to 35 ka ago. This result supports the
radiocarbon dates ranging up to 48 ka BP found earlier for
this site.

[Rich Travs]

Quadibloc wrote:
> On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
> >
> > Prof. Niède Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/t-
> > ext-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
> >
> > I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
> > such humans came from at such an early date?
> >
> > ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
> > Can it be given any plausibility?
>
> From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats, as
> good as the boats Columbus had. There is no plausible
> evidence of such technology

No, the Kon Tiki level could work.

> that far back.
>
> And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
> 40,000 years at that.
>
> Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in Asia,
> it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus to have
> warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed over to the
> New World at some very ancient date. Modern humans,
> pre-Clovis or not, would likely have displaced them.

[David]

On Apr 6, 3:39=A0am, jerry warner
<"warner(na)"@mchsi.com> wrote:
> David wrote:
> > On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
> > <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
> > >... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years,
> > >the materials date=
back to
> > > about 14,400 years ago, he added. Such a dating puts the
> > > Oregon site i=
nto about
> > > the same time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>
> > Pedra Furada - =A036,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> > Prof. Ni=E8de Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter5-
> > 4/text-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>
> > I am convinced by her evidence. =A0What puzzles me is
> > where such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> > ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
> > Can it be given any plausibility?
>
> Did Jesus send you? Where have you been all these years. ...

More never-ending Jerry Warner bunk!

[David]

On Apr 7, 12:47=A0am, Rich Travsky
<traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
>... Journal of Archaeological Science Volume 30, Issue 3,
>March 2003, Pages 351-354
>
> Some Evidence of a Date of First Humans to Arrive in
> Brazil ,,,

Thanks for a great cite. The questions remains - how did they
get there? AFAIK nobody has the slightest idea.

[Tom McDona]

Rich Travsky wrote:
> David wrote:
>> On Apr 4, 11:38 am, Rich Travsky
>> <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
>>> David wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 4, 10:46 am, Rich Travsky
>>>> <traRvE...@hotmMOVEail.com> wrote:
>>>>> ... With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years,
>>>>> the materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he
>>>>> added. Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the
>>>>> same time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
>>>> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier! Prof.
>>>> Niède Guidon http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text--
>>>> PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>>> Your link got chopped, doesn't work - try
>>> http://www.tinyurl.com
>> Acknowledged - I add:
>>
>> http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-PedraFurada/tex-
>> t-PedraFurada.htm#guidon
>>
>>>> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is where
>>> There's some contention with the older material, tho.
>> No kidding! It was one royal brouhaha.
>>
>>>> such humans came from at such an early date?
>>> Well, see, there's a Mommy human, and a Daddy human, and
>>> when they love each other very much...
>>>
>>>> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical hypothesis
>>>> Can it be given any plausibility?
>>> The Africa-to-Brazil notion has been floated before...
>> I'll check the Archives but I would have liked your
>> opinion.
>
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6-
> WH8-47MHSJ5-7&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&v-
> iew=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&-
> md5=cc6b38d0c19f9600fb44c4570333109a
>
> or http://tinyurl.com/59jhth
>
> Journal of Archaeological Science Volume 30, Issue 3, March
> 2003, Pages 351-354
>
> Some Evidence of a Date of First Humans to Arrive in Brazil
>
> Abstract
>
> A calcite formation was found on a rockwall painting at Toca
> da Bastiana rockshelter at Serra da Capivara National Park,
> Piaui, Brazil. Thermoluminescence and EPR dating of this
> calcite gave an age of 35 to 43 ka, indicating that humans
> lived there prior to 35 ka ago. This result supports the
> radiocarbon dates ranging up to 48 ka BP found earlier for
> this site.

Alternatively, a very interesting paper, with Niéde Guidon as
an author (and one of the two authors who did the actual
sample collection from the Toca do Serrote da Bastiana rock
shelter in Brazil) comes to a very different conclusion about
the age of the calcite and the underlying painting:

"AMS Radiocarbon Ages of an Oxalate Accretion and Rock
Paintings at Toca do Serrote da Bastiana, Brazil"

Karen L. Steelman,* Richard Rickman,* Marvin W. Rowe,* Thomas
W. Boutton† Departments of Chemistry* and Rangeland Ecology
and Management†, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
77843, U.S.A.;

Jon Russ, Department of Chemistry, Arkansas State University,
State University, AR 72467, U.S.A;

and

Niéde Guidon, Fundação Museu do Homem Americano (FUMDHAM) Saõ
Raimundo Nonato, Piaui, Brazil

IN: Jakes, K. (Ed.). 2002. Archeological Chemistry, pp. 22-
35. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC.

"Conclusions

"Unfortunately, our radiocarbon dates on the oxalate crust and
organic matter in the paint layer cast doubt on the exciting
ESR and TL dates obtained for the red anthropomorph pictograph
at Toca do Serrote da Bastiana. An AMS radiocarbon date on an
oxalate crust covering the red anthropomorph yielded a minimum
date of 2490 ± 30 years BP for the painting. Another AMS
radiocarbon age of 3730 ± 90 years BP on organic material in
the underlying paint layer is consistent not only with the
oxalate result, but with four direct radiocarbon dates
obtained on organic matter extracted from other rock paintings
in the same shelter."

Full paper at:

http://rangeland.tamu.edu/people/boutton/Steelman%20Rickman%2-
0et%20al%202002.pdf

Or:

http://tinyurl.com/4nnorr

The paper discusses the findings, including considerations of
what could have affected both their dating and the dating from
the earlier ESR and TL techniques. Their conclusion is that
their AMS 14C dates seem better supported than the earlier
ESR/TL dates.

Since this paper includes Guidon as an author, and does not
include a dissenting opinion by her in any regard, I suspect
these AMS 14C dates are likely to be relatively robust, both
from a scientific and a political view.

[Jean]

Jack Linthicum a écrit dans le message ... On Apr 6, 3:46 am,
Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@sum.co.nz> wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 14:08:52 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
>
>
>
> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >On Apr 4, 4:56 pm, Eric Stevens
> ><eric.stev...@sum.co.nz> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> >> <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >> >On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com>
> >> >wrote:
>
> >> >> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>
> >> >> Prof. Niède
Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-PedraFurada/-
text-PedraFura. ..
>
> >> >> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is
> >> >> where such humans came from at such an early date?
>
> >> >> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical
> >> >> hypothesis Can it be given any plausibility?
>
> >> >From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats,
> >> >as good as the boats Columbus had.
>
> >> Not really. Quite a number of lesser craft have made
> >> their way by accident to SA from Africa over the years.
> >> You musn't forget that although Columbus's voyage was
> >> deliberate it does not rule out lesser accidental voyages
> >> from more favourable starting points.
>
> >> >There is no plausible evidence of such technology that
> >> >far back.
>
> >> >And anatomically-modern humans have only been around for
> >> >40,000 years at that.
>
> >> >Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in
> >> >Asia, it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus
> >> >to have warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed
> >> >over to the New World at some very ancient date. Modern
> >> >humans, pre-Clovis or not, would likely have displaced
> >> >them.
>
> >> >John Savard
>
> >> Eric Stevens
>
> >God knows, ThorHeyerdahltried every possible idea in
> >that line.
>
> >http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Number=973780
>
> Heyerdahltried out a number of generally lousy ideas. That
> doesn't mean that he exhausted the list of good ideas.
>
> Eric Stevens

Such as this one? I do question how well a sluggish pile of
hay would be able to tack into the wind. Some pretty rigid
"wooden holes" 1/ weren't able to do so.

1/ Based on the saying that "a boat is a wooden hole into
which you pour money"

1/1/2007 11:47 AM ABORA ABANDONED Reed Boat Expedition Gives
Up in the Atlantic Ocean

The crew of the Abora III had hoped to sail the reed boat
across the entire Atlantic Ocean from west to east. But on
Wednesday, with the weather uncooperative and the boat falling
apart, they gave up. SNIP

"The former biology teacher had been hoping to follow in the
tracks of Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed in the balsa-wood raft
Kon Tiki 4,300 miles across the South Pacific in 1947" Thor
Heyerdahl was smart enough to know that the current ran east
to west or from S.America to Polynesia. He also knew that the
current from the Azores to the Caribe also went east to west
or from N. Africa to the Caribe. I believe that was the route
that Heyerdahl took ( in a pile of hay "reed boat")to prove
that people could have came from N. Africa to the "new world".

If our good teacher had wanted to go from the "new world" to
old he should has used the gulf stream up towards Greenland
and then over to La Manche.

"Heyerdahl built a replica of an ancient reed ship and with an
international crew of six, managed to easily cross the
Atlantic Ocean from the coast of North Africa to the New
World. Following the winds and currents, this journey from the
port of Safi in Morocco to Barbados took less than two months"
http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/RAX.html JL

[Eric Steve]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 04:19:34 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthicum@earthlink.net> wrote:

>On Apr 6, 3:46 am, Eric Stevens
><eric.stev...@sum.co.nz> wrote:
>> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 14:08:52 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
>>
>>
>>
>> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >On Apr 4, 4:56 pm, Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@sum.co.nz>
>> >wrote:
>> >> On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 13:37:56 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> >> <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >> >On Apr 4, 9:30 am, David <pchristain...@yahoo.com>
>> >> >wrote:
>>
>> >> >> Pedra Furada - 36,000 years BP or even way earlier!
>>
>> >> >> Prof. Niède Guidonhttp://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapte-
>> >> >> r54/text-PedraFurada/text-PedraFura...
>>
>> >> >> I am convinced by her evidence. What puzzles me is
>> >> >> where such humans came from at such an early date?
>>
>> >> >> ***Was it from Africa in boats?*** - radical
>> >> >> hypothesis Can it be given any plausibility?
>>
>> >> >From Africa in boats? They would need very good boats,
>> >> >as good as the boats Columbus had.
>>
>> >> Not really. Quite a number of lesser craft have made
>> >> their way by accident to SA from Africa over the years.
>> >> You musn't forget that although Columbus's voyage was
>> >> deliberate it does not rule out lesser accidental
>> >> voyages from more favourable starting points.
>>
>> >> >There is no plausible evidence of such technology that
>> >> >far back.
>>
>> >> >And anatomically-modern humans have only been around
>> >> >for 40,000 years at that.
>>
>> >> >Now, of course, since H. erectus fossils are found in
>> >> >Asia, it would not be impossible for the Bering isthmus
>> >> >to have warmed up, and for H. erectus to have crossed
>> >> >over to the New World at some very ancient date. Modern
>> >> >humans, pre-Clovis or not, would likely have displaced
>> >> >them.
>>
>> >> >John Savard
>>
>> >> Eric Stevens
>>
>> >God knows, ThorHeyerdahltried every possible idea in
>> >that line.
>>
>> >http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Number=973780
>>
>> Heyerdahltried out a number of generally lousy ideas. That
>> doesn't mean that he exhausted the list of good ideas.
>>
>> Eric Stevens
>
>Such as this one?

What Heyerdahl didn't do was really study and come to
understand the technology he was trying to use. To an extent
that is understandable as such things take time. Nevertheless
he demonstrated lots of ways that his ideas would not work
unless aided or rescued by modern technology. At the most,
what he succeeded in doing was demonstrating that his ideas
might eventually have some validity.

>I do question how well a sluggish pile of hay would be able
>to tack into the wind. Some pretty rigid "wooden holes" 1/
>weren't able to do so.

You musn't overlook that the so-called 'wooden holes' were
largely developed in an era when winds and currents were known
and sailing down-wind was the norm. There have always been
boats which were capable of sailing to windward but at the
time to which you referred deep-bellied fat-gutted
square-rigged cargo carriers with no hope of sailing to
windward were the norm.
>
>1/ Based on the saying that "a boat is a wooden hole into
> which you pour money"
>
>
>
>09/06/2007 11:47 AM ABORA ABANDONED Reed Boat Expedition
> Gives Up in the Atlantic Ocean
>
>The crew of the Abora III had hoped to sail the reed boat
>across the entire Atlantic Ocean from west to east. But on
>Wednesday, with the weather uncooperative and the boat
>falling apart, they gave up.
>
>Even before he set sail from New York, Dominique Görlitz's
>plan seemed almost negligently ambitious. He and his crew of
>11 wanted to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a boat made
>entirely of reeds to prove that trans-Atlantic trade was
>possible as long as 14,000 years ago.
>
>Nature did what she could to make the crossing more
>challenging than even Görlitz thought it would be. A long
>period of no wind was followed by two storms in rapid
>succession. Damage to the Abora III was severe, and on
>Wednesday, after having sailed 1,489 kilometers from their
>starting point, the expedition was still some 900
>kilometers off the Azores Islands, located well off the
>coast of Portugal in the middle of the Atlantic. They
>decided to give up.
>
>"We have decided to transfer to our escort boat," Görlitz,
>originally from Chemnitz in Eastern Germany, told the
>Süddeutsche Zeitung by satellite telephone on Wednesday. "One
>just has to know when it's over."
>
>Aside from sailing in a boat made completely out of grass --
>employing a design used by Bolivian Indians on Lake Titicaca
>-- the expedition ran into a number of weather-related
>difficulties. Early in the voyage, the boat's leeboard --
>which helps maintain direction when tacking into the wind --
>broke. Then after one of the storms, the boat's stern had to
>be repaired -- and the cost of significantly shortening the
>12.5-meter-long (41 feet) boat. At that point it became clear
>that the next storm would be the end of the trip. With a
>large low-pressure zone now approaching, Görlitz decided
>enough was enough.
>
>The former biology teacher had been hoping to follow in the
>tracks of Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed in the balsa-wood raft
>Kon Tiki 4,300 miles across the South Pacific in 1947.
>Heyerdahl wanted to prove that people from Polynesia could
>have settled the west coast of South America; Görlitz was
>attempting to demonstrate that trans-Atlantic trade had been
>possible many thousands of years earlier than presumed.
>
>Prior to the trip, Görlitz cited to SPIEGEL ONLINE the fact
>that tobacco traces had been found in Egyptian tombs --
>plants indigenous to the New World -- and said that
>14,000-year-old cave drawings showed knowledge of Atlantic
>ocean currents.
>
>And the mission did accomplish one important item on
>Görlitz's checklist: It showed that even a clumsy reed boat
>like the 12-ton Abora III could tack into the wind, an
>important maneuver if traders from Europe hoped to make it
>back home.
>
>Görlitz and his crew, for their part, decided that if they
>wanted to make it back home, abandoning ship was the only
>option. On Thursday they were planning on completing the
>transfer of as much of their equipment as possible from the
>Abora III for a possible exhibition later. As for the reed
>boat itself, the crew is going to leave it to bob around the
>Atlantic until it goes under -- with a radar reflector to
>warn approaching ships of its presence.
>
>cgh
>
>URL:
>
> * http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,5-
> 04202,00.html
>
>

Eric Stevens

[Jerry Warn]

Tom McDonald wrote:

> jerry warner wrote:
> >
> > Rich Travsky wrote:
> >
> >> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080403-f-
> >> irst-americans.html
> >>
> >> It's no load of crap: Scientists have discovered the
> >> earliest evidence of humans in North America—in
> >> 14,300-year-old fossilized feces.
> >>
> >> The discovery of the preserved scat fragments, known as
> >> coprolites, levels a major blow against the popular
> >> Clovis-first theory of how people first came to the
> >> Americas.
> >>
> >> Since the summer of 2002, University of Oregon
> >> archaeologist Dennis Jenkins and his research team have
> >> uncovered about 700 coprolite samples from a group of
> >> bone-dry caves in the desert of central Oregon, including
> >> several from humans.
> >>
> >> After repeated radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses, the
> >> scientists concluded that the oldest of the
> >> human-produced material was deposited at least a thousand
> >> years before the so-called Clovis culture, according to a
> >> paper appearing in this week's issue of the journal
> >> Science. ...
> >>
> >> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/08040314110-
> >> 9.htm DNA from dried human excrement recovered from
> >> Oregon's Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New
> >> World -- dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years
> >> before Clovis culture -- and provides apparent genetic
> >> ties to Siberia or Asia, according to an international
> >> team of 13 scientists. ... During the two summers of
> >> fieldwork, Jenkins, colleagues and students, working in
> >> four of the caves, retrieved manufactured threads of
> >> sinew and plant fibers, hide, basketry, cordage, rope,
> >> wooden pegs, animal bones, two forms of projectile point
> >> fragments and diverse kinds of feces. These items were
> >> found "in an unbroken stratigraphic sequence spanning the
> >> late Pleistocene and Holocene," the researchers wrote in
> >> the study. Some of the thread is narrower than that
> >> holding buttons on many shirts today and date back 12,750
> >> years, Jenkins said.
> >>
> >> "To find these threads was just incredible," said
> >> Jenkins, who directs the Northern Great Basin
> >> Archaeological Field School. "We found a little pit in
> >> the bottom of a cave. It was full of camel, horse and
> >> mountain sheep bones, and in there we found a human
> >> coprolite. We radiocarbon-dated the camel and mountain
> >> sheep bones, as well as the coprolite, to 14,300 years
> >> ago."
> >>
> >> With radiocarbon dating adjusted to calendar years, the
> >> materials date back to about 14,400 years ago, he added.
> >> Such a dating puts the Oregon site into about the same
> >> time period as Chile's Monte Verde site. ...
> >
> > The new analytical evidence is good but the basic facts
> > were already known. One basic fact (glaring) is the
> > Clovis technology itself. No advanced technology like
> > that is the first! Or even close to the first. Possessors
> > of Clovis were late arrivals and pretty high on the food
> > chain. Very likely they carried a culture similarly
> > advanced for the time.
> >
> >
> I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying
> that there had to be a Clovis precursor?

of course.

> That is unremarkable.
>
> Or are you saying that the folks who first came to North
> America (at least that part of North America that Clovis
> inhabited) would have had a significantly less sophisticated
> technology than Clovis?

yes.

> That would be interesting, but is not necessary.
>

If I am correct, the origin of Clovis is Europe, not America.
Clovis was an import. Obviously other peoples were here
before that.

>
> OTOH, many of the purported earlier 'tools' found in the
> Americas would have been remarkably primitive nearly
> anywhere in the contemporaneous world, if they are really
> tools at all. That's one of the reasons for caution about
> some of the disputed very early sites in the Americas.

Understood.

Jerry

[Eric Steve]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:36:11 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthicum@earthlink.net> wrote:

--- snip ----

>Which would explain why one sanctimonious type in another
>newsgroup contended that before the lateen sail was used by
>Europeans, sailing to windward, such as back from the West
>Coast of Africa, was impossible. The Carthaginians and
>Phoenicians must have realized this and kept their actually
>doing it a secret.

I hope the sanctimonius type is only suggesting that Europeans
could not sail to windward because certainly others could.
Even then, that person is almost certainly wrong. Both the
ancient norse and polynesians demonstrated the ability to sail
to windward when it was required. Apart from that it is
possible to circumnavigate most of the major ocean routes
without needing to be able to sail to windward.

http://www.incois.gov.in/Tutor/science+society/lectures/illus-
trations/lecture26/gyre.jpg shows the major gyres in the north
Atlantic. The norse routinely exploited the sub-polar gyre and
there is evidence that the Phoenecians (and perhaps others)
took advantage of the sub-tropical gyre around the Azores.

Eric Stevens

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 7, 9:10 pm, Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@sum.co.nz>
wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:36:11 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
>
> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> --- snip ----
>
> >Which would explain why one sanctimonious type in another
> >newsgroup contended that before the lateen sail was used by
> >Europeans, sailing to windward, such as back from the West
> >Coast of Africa, was impossible. The Carthaginians and
> >Phoenicians must have realized this and kept their actually
> >doing it a secret.
>
> I hope the sanctimonius type is only suggesting that
> Europeans could not sail to windward because certainly
> others could. Even then, that person is almost certainly
> wrong. Both the ancient norse and polynesians demonstrated
> the ability to sail to windward when it was required. Apart
> from that it is possible to circumnavigate most of the major
> ocean routes without needing to be able to sail to windward.
>
> http://www.incois.gov.in/Tutor/science+society/lectures/ill-
> ustrations... shows the major gyres in the north Atlantic.
> The norse routinely exploited the sub-polar gyre and there
> is evidence that the Phoenecians (and perhaps others) took
> advantage of the sub-tropical gyre around the Azores.
>
> Eric Stevens

The guy is a "man of one book", if he has a reference on the
net that says the reason the Europeans didn't reach America or
sail around Africa because they didn't have the lateen sail,
that is truth. I have tried to lever him out of a series of
very strange beliefs and failed.

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 8, 12:01=A0am, jerry warner <"warner(na)"@mchsi.com>
wrote: <snip>
> If I am correct, the origin of Clovis is Europe, not
> America.
<snip>

Ah, but you are not correct. You are thinking of the Iberian
Solutrean culture as the origin of Clovis culture. The
youngest evidence of Solutrean culture is at least 4000
years older than the oldest evidence of Clovis culture.

If Solutreans morphed into Clovians, then they hid out in
some unknown place for 4 millennia without leaving evidence
of their existence during that time span.

You can read more about the Solutrean-to-Clovis
hypothesis here:

http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_test/research_iberia.html

A wide range of more-general info on Clovis and Solutrean
cultures is here:

http://www.learnersportal.com/CanadaFP/Origins/theory.html

If Solutreans became Clovians, then they probably did that
while traversing Europe and then Siberia to Alaska.

- Daryl Krupa

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 8, 3:43 pm, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 8, 12:01 am, jerry warner <"warner(na)"@mchsi.com>
> wrote: <snip>> If I am correct, the origin of Clovis is
> Europe, not America.
>
> <snip>
>
> Ah, but you are not correct. You are thinking of the
> Iberian Solutrean culture as the origin of Clovis culture.
> The youngest evidence of Solutrean culture is at least
> 4000 years older than the oldest evidence of Clovis
> culture.
>
> If Solutreans morphed into Clovians, then they hid out in
> some unknown place for 4 millennia without leaving
> evidence of their existence during that time span.
>
> You can read more about the Solutrean-to-Clovis
> hypothesis here:
>
> http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_test/research_ibe-
> ria.html
>
> A wide range of more-general info on Clovis and Solutrean
> cultures is here:
>
> http://www.learnersportal.com/CanadaFP/Origins/theory.html
>
> If Solutreans became Clovians, then they probably did that
> while traversing Europe and then Siberia to Alaska.
>
> - Daryl Krupa

Here is another candidate

For researchers who believe the Clovis were truly the first
Americans, the site of Ushki Lake on Russia's Kamchatka
peninsula has been a critical piece of evidence. One of the
few late ice age sites in north- eastern Asia, it was
discovered in 1964 by Nikolai Dikov, a Siberian
archaeologist, who ran a secretive dig for 25 years. "He
rarely invited anyone out to the site apart from trusted
colleagues and students," says Ted Goebel,
palaeoanthropologist at the University of Nevada, Reno. But
word began to filter out and in 1978 Mr Dikov, in his first
English publication on Ushki, offered some brief but
tantalising descriptions of what he had found.

One layer at the site, dated to 12,600 years ago, included
wedge- shaped cores, tiny stone blades and burins - pointed
tools for carving bone and antler. Beneath the floor of an
earthen shelter, next to human bones, Mr Dikov also discovered
a different collection of implements, including flaked cores,
chipped bifacial points and stone beads that he called wampum.
Most striking was the date: charcoal in the grave was dated to
16,800 years ago. If Mr Dikov was right, Ushki's earliest
inhabitants, even though their stone points are shaped
differently from those of the Clovis, might have provided one
ancestral Clovis strand.

Wondering if the site had more secrets to reveal, Mr Goebel
contacted Mr Dikov's widow, archaeologist Margarita Dikova of
the North- east Asian Interdisciplinary Research Science
Centre in Magadan, who agreed to a joint expedition in 2000.
Joined by Michael Waters of Texas A&M University in College
Station, they spent three weeks sampling and mapping the
sediments at Ushki Lake. Mr Goebel came away with a new
appreciation of Mr Dikov's work. "Everything he did was
impeccable," he says. Everything except one thing: new
analyses of charcoal fragments showed that the grave is only
about 13,000 years old - six centuries later than the first
Clovis points. "I was pretty shocked," says Mr Goebel.

Thus the Ushki Lake inhabitants themselves cannot be ancestors
of the Clovis people. But, to Mr Goebel and his team, Ushki's
dating facelift does not rule out Clovis origins in Beringia,
the area around the Bering Strait. Mr Goebel notes that the
most ancient known Beringians are those of the Nenana culture,
who fashioned small biface points and knives; their oldest
site, Broken Mammoth in central Alaska, is dated to 14,000
years ago, though no one is certain when or from where they
reached Alaska.

It is possible, says Mr Goebel, that these Beringians raced
down into the North American plains over a few centuries,
developing into Clovis as they went - a sprint worthy of
the Tour de France. "I do not see this as a dilemma," says
Vance Haynes, geochronologist at the University of Arizona
in Tucson.

Mr Haynes says recent dating suggests that the Clovis culture
may be a few centuries younger, making the run from Alaska
somewhat more plausible. According to Haynes, mammoths and
other large animals encountered along the way would have
required new hunting strategies and weapon designs that might
have spurred the development of the Clovis point.

The other possibility, the authors say, is that there is no
link between Clovis and the cultures of Ushki and Nenana -
raising other possibilities for the peopling of the Americas.
Some Bering enthusiasts favour an earlier migration across the
land bridge - before the last glacial maximum 24,000 years ago
- leaving plenty of time to reach Monte Verde. "I think with
time we will find a link between Siberia and America, but it
will be a much older link," Mr Waters says.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm

plus

http://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&pg=PA244&lpg=PA-
244&dq=ushki+nikolai+dikov&source=web&ots=pYAB40OcM1&sig=FhSa-
NzdIRzZBr2jG2961X5dbOLI&hl=en http://209.85.165.104/search?q=-
cache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthropology.tamu.edu/faculty/goebel/Ushki-
/index.htm+ushki+nikolai+dikov&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

IIRC One of the authors of the latter, Ted Goebel, was also
part of the Beringa-DNA study group.

[David]

On Apr 7, 1:37=A0pm, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2...@charter.net> wrote:
>... Alternatively, a very interesting paper, with Ni=E9de
>Guidon as an author (and one of the two authors who did the
>actual sample collection from the Toca do Serrote da Bastiana
>rock shelter in Brazil) comes to a very different conclusion
>about the age of the calcite and the underlying painting: ...

I strongly recommend for your reading -

2005 interview with Dr. Ni=E9de Guidon
http://www.maria-brazil.org/niede_guidon.htm

"Arara - Do American archaeologists accept these datings and
are they convinced now that it's time to push back the date of
human settlement of our continent?

Dr. Guidon - Some American colleagues have always accepted
them. Some, especially the geneticists, don't want to
accept them. But now the evidence is accumulating. In
Mexico, some 40,000-year-old human footprints were found
and I read in Nature that there may be evidence of Homo
erectus presence there; in South Carolina, on the East
Coast of the United States, there is a site called Topper,
where radiocarbon tests indicate the presence of humans
50,000 years ago. Americans were always looking on the
West Coast, because the theory said that humans came
through the Strait of Bering 13,000 years ago, and now
they find the country's oldest site on the opposite side!
OUR DATA TO-DATE SUGGESTS THAT THE FIRST HUMANS CAME TO
NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL AND THE CARRIBEAN FROM AFRICA [caps
mine]. Other groups could have come from Australia or
Japan, from island to island, to the Pacific coast of
South America. Some could have come later through
Patagonia. And I think that when it got warmer in the
northern part of North America, that's when they crossed
into the continent there. That's why datings there are
more recent."

All the best, David Christainsen

[Johansson]

"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@earthlink.net> skrev i
meddelandet news:a360821e-3afb-4867-91e5-a5584cbb8b95@d1g2000-
hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 7, 9:10 pm, Eric Stevens
> <eric.stev...@sum.co.nz> wrote:
>> On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 15:36:11 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum
>>
>> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> --- snip ----
>>
>> >Which would explain why one sanctimonious type in another
>> >newsgroup contended that before the lateen sail was used
>> >by Europeans, sailing to windward, such as back from the
>> >West Coast of Africa, was impossible. The Carthaginians
>> >and Phoenicians must have realized this and kept their
>> >actually doing it a secret.
>>
>> I hope the sanctimonius type is only suggesting that
>> Europeans could not sail to windward because certainly
>> others could. Even then, that person is almost certainly
>> wrong. Both the ancient norse and polynesians demonstrated
>> the ability to sail to windward when it was required. Apart
>> from that it is possible to circumnavigate most of the
>> major ocean routes without needing to be able to sail to
>> windward.
>>
>> http://www.incois.gov.in/Tutor/science+society/lectures/il-
>> lustrations... shows the major gyres in the north Atlantic.
>> The norse routinely exploited the sub-polar gyre and there
>> is evidence that the Phoenecians (and perhaps others) took
>> advantage of the sub-tropical gyre around the Azores.
>>
>> Eric Stevens
>
> The guy is a "man of one book", if he has a reference on the
> net that says the reason the Europeans didn't reach America
> or sail around Africa because they didn't have the lateen
> sail, that is truth. I have tried to lever him out of a
> series of very strange beliefs and failed.

Well on this one he most certainly loose. The first boats
carrying sails goes back to 3500 BC... Egypt and Mesopotania.
The first big sailingships are thought to have been sailed on
regular basis during Roman Empires early days. The 4-squar
sail were used in Mediterannian up to 6th century here in
Scandinavia it was used into Modern Age. No matter which,
sails used on boats and ships been used more than 2000 years
here in Europe. http://www.abc.se/~pa/bld/skepsbyg.htm

Inger E

[Jerry Warn]

Daryl Krupa wrote:

> On Apr 8, 12:01 am, jerry warner <"warner(na)"@mchsi.com>
> wrote: <snip>
> > If I am correct, the origin of Clovis is Europe, not
> > America.
> <snip>
>
> Ah, but you are not correct. You are thinking of the
> Iberian Solutrean culture as the origin of Clovis culture.
> The youngest evidence of Solutrean culture is at least
> 4000 years older than the oldest evidence of Clovis
> culture.
>

Not sure what you are saying here in terms of actual dates. I
guess you are saying the two cultures could not overlap.

>
> If Solutreans morphed into Clovians, then they hid out in
> some unknown place for 4 millennia without leaving
> evidence of their existence during that time span.
>
> You can read more about the Solutrean-to-Clovis
> hypothesis here:
>
> http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_test/research_ibe-
> ria.html
>
> A wide range of more-general info on Clovis and Solutrean
> cultures is here:
>
> http://www.learnersportal.com/CanadaFP/Origins/theory.html
>
> If Solutreans became Clovians, then they probably did that
> while traversing Europe and then Siberia to Alaska.
>
> - Daryl Krupa

Thanks for the links. The number of Clovis sites in the New
World is expanding but still small with the apparent epicentre
in the So West. Some think it's an independent invention.

The points themselves seem specialised to me. Clovis points
are not a general purpose point. This suggests some specific
application in a particular hunting regime. To the extent that
similar hunting regimes existed in Old World vs New then the
same technology could have developed independently in both
places. Similar processes generate similar outcomes.

There seems to be evidence Clovis radiated north and east from
the So East, not moved into the So East from outside. This
suggest an independent invention.

The basic form of the Clovis point is not that unique. Its
localised form as a Clovis variant, is what is unique. It
could easily have emerged without any specific precurssor
other than the general ability to make points of this
catagorical type.

Stone tools alone will never settle this issue. Only DNA will.

Jerry

[Elijahovah]

anything after 2370 BC when the layer of water fell is going
to date from 20,000 years even though it is only 4400 years
old. With 2320 BC dating as 10,000 BC a 14,000 year old feces
is thus going to factually all some where about 2330 BC. Its
amazing that in 50 years after the Flood that people made it
from Ararat to Chile etc. But is it human DNA. Do you think it
means people survived in South America without Noah knowing
it. I doubt it. And it doesnt prove a family reached this far,
just one man who had to take a crap.

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 8, 1:51=A0pm, Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
> the grave is only about 13,000 years old - six centuries
> later than the first Clovis points.
<snip>
> http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm

So Clovis is as much as 12,400 years old.

That site says this: " Clovis scattered their distinctively
fluted projectile weapons across North America starting
about 13,600 years ago ... "

So Clovis is as much as 13,600 years old.

> plus
<snip>
> http://209.85.165.104/search?q=3Dcache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthrop-
> ology.tamu.e...=

<snip>

That site says this: " Clovis, the earliest unequivocal
culture in North America, dated to as early as 11,500
years ago. "

So Clovis is as much as 11,500 years old.

According to these three sources, Clovis is 13,600 years
old, 12,400 years old, and 11,500 years old.

Which is correct?

- Daryl Krupa

P.S.: This reminds me of a European who came to America by
way of Russia: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/his-
tory_culture/lawrence_welk/the_last.ht= ml

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 9, 12:56=A0am, jerry warner <jwarn...@mchsi.com> wrote:
> Daryl Krupa wrote:
<snip>
> > The youngest evidence of Solutrean culture is at least
> > 4000 years older than the oldest evidence of Clovis
> > culture.
> Not sure what you are saying here in terms of actual dates.
> I guess you are saying the two cultures could not overlap.

Yes, that is what I said.

<snip>
> The number of Clovis sites in the New World is expanding but
> still small with the apparent epicentre in the So West. Some
> think it's an independent invention.
<snip>
> There seems to be evidence Clovis radiated north and east
> from the So East, not moved into the So East from outside.
<snip>

Not sure what you are saying here in terms of actual
geography. I guess you are saying that Clovis was centred in
the Far West and radiated out from a centre in the Far East.

Which is correct?

- Daryl Krupa

P.S.: This reminds me of a Rudyard Kipling quotation:
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/04/040915-6.htm

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 9, 3:47 pm, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 8, 1:51 pm, Jack Linthicum
> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
>
> > the grave is only about 13,000 years old - six centuries
> > later than the first Clovis points.
> <snip>
> >http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm
>
> So Clovis is as much as 12,400 years old.
>
> That site says this: " Clovis scattered their
> distinctively fluted projectile weapons across North
> America starting about 13,600 years ago ... "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 13,600 years old.
>
> > plus
> <snip>
> >http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthropo-
> >logy.tamu.e...
>
> <snip>
>
> That site says this: " Clovis, the earliest unequivocal
> culture in North America, dated to as early as 11,500
> years ago. "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 11,500 years old.
>
> According to these three sources, Clovis is 13,600 years
> old, 12,400 years old, and 11,500 years old.
>
> Which is correct?
>
> - Daryl Krupa
>
> P.S.: This reminds me of a European who came to America by
> way of Russia:http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/hi-
> story_culture/lawrence_welk/the_...

This guy conducted an archaeological project in the heart of
the most secret part of the Soviet Union for 25 years and you
expect consistency? Why does one date have to be correct, if
you accept the oldest, 11,600 BC it coincides with this study:

"Redefining the Age of Clovis: Implications for the
Peopling of the Americas Michael R. Waters1* and Thomas W.
Stafford, Jr.2

The Clovis complex is considered to be the oldest unequivocal
evidence of humans in the Americas, dating between 11,500 and
10,900 radiocarbon years before the present (14C yr B.P.).
Adjusted 14C dates and a reevaluation of the existing Clovis
date record revise the Clovis time range to 11,050 to 10,800
14C yr B.P. In as few as 200 calendar years, Clovis technology
originated and spread throughout North America. The revised
age range for Clovis overlaps non-Clovis sites in North and
South America. This and other evidence imply that humans
already lived in the Americas before Clovis."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5815/1122

and if Clovis was in the Americas in 11,600 BC it must have
been here in 10,400 and 9,500.

"Most archaeologists still believe the Clovis people inhabited
North America for at least 500 years, starting about 13,300
years ago." http://www.archaeology.org/0801/topten/clovis.html

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 9, 3:47 pm, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 8, 1:51 pm, Jack Linthicum
> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
>
> > the grave is only about 13,000 years old - six centuries
> > later than the first Clovis points.
> <snip>
> >http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm
>
> So Clovis is as much as 12,400 years old.
>
> That site says this: " Clovis scattered their
> distinctively fluted projectile weapons across North
> America starting about 13,600 years ago ... "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 13,600 years old.
>
> > plus
> <snip>
> >http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthropo-
> >logy.tamu.e...
>
> <snip>
>
> That site says this: " Clovis, the earliest unequivocal
> culture in North America, dated to as early as 11,500
> years ago. "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 11,500 years old.
>
> According to these three sources, Clovis is 13,600 years
> old, 12,400 years old, and 11,500 years old.
>
> Which is correct?
>
> - Daryl Krupa
>
> P.S.: This reminds me of a European who came to America by
> way of Russia:http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/hi-
> story_culture/lawrence_welk/the_...

??? I know a lot of Europeans who came to to America by way of
Russia, Manchuria, China, its the way people left in 1917 to
1924 or so.

[Eric Steve]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2008 12:47:00 -0700 (PDT), Daryl Krupa
<icycalmca@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Apr 8, 1:51 pm, Jack Linthicum
><jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
>> the grave is only about 13,000 years old - six centuries
>> later than the first Clovis points.
><snip>
>> http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm
>
> So Clovis is as much as 12,400 years old.
>
> That site says this: " Clovis scattered their distinctively
> fluted projectile weapons across North America starting
> about 13,600 years ago ... "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 13,600 years old.
>
>> plus
><snip>
>> http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthropo-
>> logy.tamu.e...
> <snip>
>
> That site says this: " Clovis, the earliest unequivocal
> culture in North America, dated to as early as 11,500
> years ago. "
>
> So Clovis is as much as 11,500 years old.
>
> According to these three sources, Clovis is 13,600 years
> old, 12,400 years old, and 11,500 years old.
>
> Which is correct?

Probably all of them - and then none of them. I very much
doubt that it is possible to date Clovis artifacts of that
general age to such a level of precision that the differences
in dates are really meaningful.

>
>- Daryl Krupa
>
> P.S.: This reminds me of a European who came to America by
> way of Russia: http://www.lib.ndsu.nodak.edu/grhc/hi-
> story_culture/lawrence_welk/the_last.html

Eric Stevens

[Cory Albre]

Elijahovah wrote, on 2008-04-09 05:54:
> anything after 2370 BC when the layer of water fell is going
> to date from 20,000 years even though it is only 4400 years
> old. With 2320 BC dating as 10,000 BC a 14,000 year old
> feces is thus going to factually all some where about 2330
> BC. Its amazing that in 50 years after the Flood that people
> made it from Ararat to Chile etc. But is it human DNA. Do
> you think it means people survived in South America without
> Noah knowing it. I doubt it. And it doesnt prove a family
> reached this far, just one man who had to take a crap.

Hey, Elijahovah, have you given up predicting when that
asteroid is supposed to crash into us and destroy
civilization? You never did get back to me on the date for
that - <http://groups.google.ca/group/talk.origins/browse_frm-
/thread/a179fffd5ca0a650/40eda610f9d0db6a?lnk=gst&q=Elijahova-
h+Cory&rnum=1&hl=en#40eda610f9d0db6a>

Elijahovah wrote, On 2007/05/28 14:18:
> I am the one appoint ed to judge you for the death you are
> about to bring on yourself and children next year. Blood is
> what you will see. You fools.

Not quite 1 year ago you made that prediction, less than 9
months left for it to happen. Can O assume that our coffee
date for 1 January 2009 is still on? It would be really rude
of you to cancel and not tell me. :-)

[Cory Albre]

Elijahovah wrote, on 2008-04-09 05:54:
> anything after 2370 BC when the layer of water fell is
> going to date from 20,000 years even though it is only 4400
> years old.

BTW, got an actual proof of the water canopy, other than "The
Bible says so"? Oh, and numerology != proof.

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 11, 8:54=A0am, Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
> What you are saying is you believe the statements I made are
> untrue in accordance with your beliefs.
<snip>

Actually, what I believe is that you have uncritically
recommended contradictory information by the same author.
You suggested that we read Goebel citing Clovis culture
starting at 13,600 years ago and also at 11,500 years ago.
That is a significant discrepancy, because the subject of
the thread is "A Thousand Years Before Clovis". My bogus
calculation of 12,400 years ago was just to see if you were
paying attention, which you weren't.

> I believe things change as evidence changes.

Yes, "things", including personal credibility. So, again, I
am confused as to your motive in citing these contradictory
statements (that's motives, not beliefs, you'll note; I'm
not interested in matters of personal faith). Were you
trying to damage Goebels' reputation?

- Daryl Krupa

P.S.: My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago was intended
to let you catch me in my own discrepancy, which you
didn't. Please read more carefully.

[Jack Linth]

On Apr 12, 6:08 am, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Apr 11, 8:54 am, Jack Linthicum
> <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>> What you are
> saying is you believe
> > the statements I made are untrue in accordance with your
> > beliefs.
>
> <snip>
>
> Actually, what I believe is that you have uncritically
> recommended contradictory information by the same author.
> You suggested that we read Goebel citing Clovis culture
> starting at 13,600 years ago and also at 11,500 years ago.
> That is a significant discrepancy, because the subject of
> the thread is "A Thousand Years Before Clovis". My bogus
> calculation of 12,400 years ago was just to see if you
> were paying attention, which you weren't.
>
> > I believe things change as evidence changes.
>
> Yes, "things", including personal credibility. So, again,
> I am confused as to your motive in citing these
> contradictory statements (that's motives, not beliefs,
> you'll note; I'm not interested in matters of personal
> faith). Were you trying to damage Goebels' reputation?
>
> - Daryl Krupa
>
> P.S.: My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago was
> intended to let you catch me in my own discrepancy,
> which you didn't. Please read more carefully.

Oh yes, I did try to find where you got that number, decided
it was futile. Like the ice free corridor you like things
that aren't there and argue for them. Any mea culpa on the
sentence I cited or is that another example of your etched in
stone attitude?

"If Mr Dikov was right,Ushki's earliest inhabitants, even
though their stone points are shaped differently from those of
the Clovis, might have provided one ancestral Clovis strand."

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 12, 4:21=A0am, Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:08 am, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Apr 11, 8:54 am, Jack Linthicum
> > <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>> What you are
> > saying is you believe
> > > the statements I made are untrue in accordance with your
> > > beliefs.
>
> > <snip>
>
> > =A0 Actually, what I believe is that you have uncritically
> > recommended contradictory information by the same author.
> > =A0 You suggested that we read Goebel citing Clovis
> > culture starting at 13,600 years ago and also at 11,500
> > years ago. =A0 That is a significant discrepancy, because
> > the subject of the thread is "A Thousand Years Before
> > Clovis". =A0 My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago was
> > just to see if you were paying attention, which you
> > weren't.
>
> > > I believe things change as evidence changes.
>
> > =A0 Yes, "things", including personal credibility. =A0 So,
> > again, I am confused as to your motive in citing these
> > contradictory statements (that's motives, not beliefs,
> > you'll note; I'm not interested in matters of personal
> > faith). =A0 Were you trying to damage Goebels' reputation?
>
> > - Daryl Krupa
>
> > =A0 P.S.: =A0My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago was
> > intended to let you catch me in my own discrepancy, which
> > you didn't. Please read more carefully.
>
> Oh yes, I did try to find where you got that number, decided
> it was futile. Like the ice free corridor you like things
> that aren't there and argue for them. Any mea culpa on the
> sentence I cited or is that another example of your etched
> in stone attitude?
>
> "If Mr Dikov was right,Ushki's earliest inhabitants, even
> though their stone points are shaped differently from those
> of the Clovis, might have provided one ancestral Clovis
> strand".

I have no idea in what way I might be considered to have
been culpable for that quotation, or for your citation of
that quotation. That attitude of mine is not "etched in
stone", as I have no knowledge of any connection between me
and that sentence. I also have no idea what you mean when
seem to say that there never was an "ice-free corridor"
between the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets, because
there is abundant evidence that those two ice sheets were
conjoined, and later separated, creating a narrow ice-free
zone between them for a time, which has been called an
"ice-free corridor" (although I do not "like" that term,
myself). You might mean my occasional mention of the
possibility that until about 25,000 years ago, the
Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets might never have been
conjoined, which would mean that land-based migration into
southern North America might have been possible before then.
As to your explanation that your comment that "Clovis" would
have existed in North America less than 9000 years ago meant
that Clovis artifacts existed up until 72 years ago when the
first Clovis artfact was named, I will poijnt out that the
subject of discussion was the oldest age of Clovis cultural
remains, not the oldest age of archaeological activity in
Clovis, New Mexico. I had responded to another's comment on
the source of Clovis culture with a reference to the age of
oldest Clovis culture. You responded with a reference to an
obviously-wrong date for the age of oldest Clovis culture,
so I challenged that authority. Then you responded with an
age of Clovis culture that apparently continues into the
future, which, by extension, makes Solutrean artifacts
contemporaneous with Clovis culture and also Hip-Hop
culture. I don't think that you have helped to clear up the
matter of the relative ages of Solutrean and Clovis
artifacts.

- Daryl Krupa

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 12, 4:21 am, Jack Linthicum
<jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:08 am, Daryl Krupa <icycal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Apr 11, 8:54 am, Jack Linthicum
> > <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>> What you are
> > saying is you believe
> > > the statements I made are untrue in accordance with your
> > > beliefs.
> > <snip> Actually, what I believe is that you have
> > uncritically recommended contradictory information by the
> > same author. You suggested that we read Goebel citing
> > Clovis culture starting at 13,600 years ago and also at
> > 11,500 years ago. That is a significant discrepancy,
> > because the subject of the thread is "A Thousand Years
> > Before Clovis". My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago
> > was just to see if you were paying attention, which you
> > weren't.

> > > I believe things change as evidence changes.

> > Yes, "things", including personal credibility. So,
> > again, I am confused as to your motive in citing these
> > contradictory statements (that's motives, not beliefs,
> > you'll note; I'm not interested in matters of personal
> > faith). Were you trying to damage Goebels' reputation?

> > - Daryl Krupa

> > P.S.: My bogus calculation of 12,400 years ago was
> > intended to let you catch me in my own
> > discrepancy, which you didn't. Please read more
> > carefully.

> Oh yes, I did try to find where you got that number, decided
> it was futile. Like the ice free corridor you like things
> that aren't there and argue for them. Any mea culpa on the
> sentence I cited or is that another example of your etched
> in stone attitude?

> "If Mr Dikov was right,Ushki's earliest inhabitants, ven
> though their stone points are shaped differently from those
> of the Clovis, might have provided one ancestral Clovis
> strand".

I have no idea in what way I might be considered to have
been culpable for that quotation, or for your citation of
that quotation. That attitude of mine is not "etched in
stone", as I have no knowledge of any connection between me
and that sentence. I also have no idea what you mean when
seem to say that there never was an "ice-free corridor"
between the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets, because
there is abundant evidence that those two ice sheets were
conjoined, and later separated, creating a narrow ice-free
zone between them for a time, which has been called an
"ice-free corridor" (although I do not "like" that term,
myself). You might mean my occasional mention of the
possibility that until about 25,000 years ago, the
Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets might never have been
conjoined, which would mean that land-based migration into
southern North America might have been possible before then.
As to your explanation that your comment that "Clovis" would
have existed in North America less than 9000 years ago meant
that Clovis artifacts existed up until 72 years ago when the
first Clovis artfact was named, I will poijnt out that the
subject of discussion was the oldest age of Clovis cultural
remains, not the oldest age of archaeological activity in
Clovis, New Mexico. I had responded to another's comment on
the source of Clovis culture with a reference to the age of
oldest Clovis culture. You responded with a reference to an
obviously-wrong date for the age of oldest Clovis culture,
so I challenged that authority. Then you responded with an
age of Clovis culture that apparently continues into the
future, which, by extension, makes Solutrean artifacts
contemporaneous with Clovis culture and also Hip-Hop
culture. I don't think that you have helped to clear up the
matter of the relative ages of Solutrean and Clovis
artifacts.

- Daryl Krupa

[Daryl Krup]

On Apr 9, 3:19=A0pm, Cory Albrecht
<coryalbre...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Daryl Krupawrote, on 2008-04-09 15:47:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 8, 1:51 pm, Jack Linthicum
> > <jacklinthi...@earthlink.net> wrote: <snip>
> >> the grave is only about 13,000 years old - six centuries
> >> later than the first Clovis points.
> > <snip>
> >>http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7265-12.cfm
>
> > =A0 So Clovis is as much as 12,400 years old.
>
> > =A0 That site says this: " Clovis scattered their
> > distinctively fluted projectile weapons across North
> > America starting about 13,600 years ago ... "
>
> > =A0 So Clovis is as much as 13,600 years old.
>
> >> plus
> > <snip>
> >>http://209.85.165.104/search?q=3Dcache:bzREhdHHAHoJ:anthr-
> >>opology.tamu.e.=
..
> > =A0<snip>
>
> > =A0 That site says this: " Clovis, the earliest
> > unequivocal culture in North America, dated to as early as
> > 11,500 years ago. "
>
> > =A0 So Clovis is as much as 11,500 years old.
>
> > =A0 According to these three sources, Clovis is 13,600
> > years old, 12,400 years old, and 11,500 years old.
>
> > =A0 Which is correct?
>
> Question: Did you make any attempt to go beyond those
> secondary sources to any primary ones to find out what the
> error bars on the datings were, and what the explanations
> the original researcher would have included for possible
> things that would cause the dating to produce an erroneously
> old or young result?

Answer: Yes. The problem is not the statistical
uncertainty inherent in radiocarbon dating, nor is it
contamination or reservoir effects on radiocarbon dating.
The problem is the failure of Goebel and Waters to
distinguish between uncalibrated radiocarbon dates and
calibrated radiocarbon dates. That is not a problem with
radiocarbon dating. That is a problem of intellectual
inadequacy. What Goebel and Waters reported as a date of
11,500 years ago in 2000 should have been 11,500
radiocarbon years Before Present. Calibrating that
radiocarbon date might produce a date such as that given
in 2003 by Goebel, i.e. about 13,600 years ago. Because
calibration around that time is disputable, due to
variations in the amount of atmospheric radiocarbon
available at any one time, it would be adviseable to use
only uncalibrated radiocarbon dates. A further
complication is the marine reservoir effect on datable
material at least partially derived from marine sources,
e.g. bones found near a seashore; if only calendar ("years
ago") dates are given, then one does not know which marine
reservoir effect correction was chosen to be applied to a
date calibrated according to an unknown calibration scale.
That's bad enough, but reporting uncalibrated radiocarbon
dates as if they were calibrated radiocarbon dates, i.e
pretending that there is no need for calibration of
radiocarbon dates from Ushki or of all radiocarbon dates
relating to Clovis culture, is unprofessional, unreliable,
and worse than useless.

> Those error bars are important, because without which it is
> nearly impossible to compare different dating results. What
> is the possibility that, with the error bars, those three
> dates all overlap at, say, 12 550 YBP?

None, whether you mean, by "YBP", "years ago", "years before
1950 A.D.", or "apparent age deduced by analysis of the
ratios of remanent radioactive carbon to non-radioactive
carbon and expressed as years before 1950 A.D. with the
proviso that such an age does not directly indicate an
absolute calendar date".

> I not that the cdi.org URL up a bove is a copy of a 5 year
> old article from the Financial Times which is a newspaper
> rather than a peer-reviewed archaeological journal. Surely
> you know that one must *always* take science journalism with
> a pinch of salt as the writers ar journalists who are simply
> "interested in science" with little or no actual science
> training and education beyond high school. It is well known
> that "science" journalists often choose the older end or
> younger end of the error bars, rather than the more likely
> middle, based simply on what they think will generate the
> most interest in their readers.

The problem in this instance is not the interviewer. The
problem is the interviewee. The problem is not the "science"
journalist, but rather the "scientist" he interviewed. Don't
blame the messenger for this mess.

Daryl Krupa "Don't shoot me, I'm only the keyboard typer."