More clues for earlier than Clovis

[rich]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_ ... paUlciANEA

Quote from Yahoo:

"Researchers date the seaweed found at Monte Verde to more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the well-studied Clovis culture.

And the report comes just a month after other scientists announced they had found coprolites — fossilized human feces — dating to about 14,000 years ago in a cave in Oregon.

Taken together, the finds move back evidence of people in the Americas by a millennium or more, with settlements in northern and southern coastal areas."

Also from yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080508/sc ... ufSYhxieAA

[Minimalist]

with settlements in northern and southern coastal areas."

Which means, of course, that unless someone made a beeline from Oregon to Southern Chile the odds of foot travel between the two drop dramatically.

Boats, anyone?

[Rokcet Scientist]

I think we expect Monte Verde to be blown out of the water if a proper write up, plotting, catalogueing, and, of course, dating (stratification?) of Charlie's treasures is published. A monumental task, to be sure.

[rich]

Min - not boats - body board surfing

[Minimalist]

I might have to agree with the Club if they come out against that theory!

[rich]

The sick part of it is they'd get wind of it and latch onto it like a starved tiger with a hunk of deer meat and leave you banging your head against a wall. It would be like them.

[kbs2244]

When I look at the ocean currents I can see the pacific coast of NA settled by boat from north east Asia. They are basically a big clockwise drift.
But once you cross the Equator, in fact once south of Baja, the current reverses to counter-clockwise.
This means paddling into the current if you were coming from the North on your way to Chile.
Do we have any DNA similarities, or differences, as to the these west coast inhabitants?
Anything that may show a common or different point of origin?
It would be a much longer, and all blue water, trip from Polynesia or New Zeland to Chile, but those were people used to that kind of thing.

[Cognito]

Do we have any DNA similarities, or differences, as to the these west coast inhabitants?
Anything that may show a common or different point of origin?
It would be a much longer, and all blue water, trip from Polynesia or New Zeland to Chile, but those were people used to that kind of thing

KB, you are looking at two separate marine points of entry - the northern route and southern Pacific. Genetic differences between pre-Columbian North and South American populations are beginning to emerge (I am referring to Andy Blackard's comments elsewhere on ancient Quechua B4 populations in Peru). In addition to boating (which was easier) I am convinced some also walked across Beringia. So you have one land route and two main sea routes.

The southern trip would have been easier with a 400 foot drop in sea level during the late Pleistocene, thereby providing more land for island hopping. Marine seafood migrations probably provided plenty to eat along the way. Some native myths refer to the islands being swallowed up after they arrived at their new homeland, a reference to the onset of the Holocene.

[Sam Salmon]

The Chilean island of Chiloe had some tentative Polynesian connections.

This from Wikipedia "Polynesian contact with the prehispanic Mapuche culture in central-south Chile has been suggested because of apparently similar cultural traits, including words like toki (stone axes and adzes), hands clubs similar to the Maori wahaika, the sewn-plank canoe as used on Chiloe island, the curanto earth oven (Polynesian umu) common in southern Chile, fishing techniques such as stone wall enclosures, a hockey-like game, and other potential parallels. Some strong westerlies and El Niño wind blow directly from central-east Polynesia to the Mapuche region, between Concepcion and Chiloe. A direct connection from New Zealand is possible, sailing with the "roaring forties". In 1834, some escapees from Tasmania arrived at Chiloe Island after sailing for 43 days"

If they did it in modern times with stone age technology then it was possible in days of yore.

[Cognito]

Just imagine - Pre-Columbian trade between two great empires. What a concept:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/MIT_D ... s_999.html

Oceangoing boats and rafts were the norm, not the exception.

[Minimalist]

The voyages likely took six to eight weeks, and the trade winds only permit the voyages during certain seasons of the year, so the travelers probably stayed at their destination for six months to a year each trip

Plenty of time for DNA exchanges!

[Rokcet Scientist]

Just imagine - Pre-Columbian trade between two great empires. What a concept:

The hair of one third of over 700 ancient Egyptian mummies* examined by a German professor at the University of Munich was found to be heavily contaminated with tetrahydrocannabinol (cannabis), tobacco nicotine, heroin, and cocaine. So the Egyptian upper classes were junkies! And in order to become a junkie you need a regular supply. They apparently had that! Enough to become junkies. And cocaine and tobacco come from the New World! The Americas!
So there must have been regular global trade across oceans!

*dating from 500 to 1500 BC

[kbs2244]

So not much has changed?
If you have a habit and money, someone will find a way to supply you.
A global drug trade. What a concept.
Sailors have spent over a year away from home for less lucrative things.
Across the Pacific, through Indonesia, across the Indian Ocean, up the Red Sea, over to the Nile, and to the back door of the Pharaohs palace.
Quite a trip. Literally half the world.
But with enough changing hands along the way to make it possible and profitable.

[Rokcet Scientist]

A global drug trade. What a concept.

It's nothing new, of course. We all learnt about it in school. Only, the word 'drugs' was a no-no, of course. So they used a euphemism: we were taught about the 'spice trade'... Remember that? The 'spice trade' is what made us, in western Europe, rich in the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries! But I never understood how we could have gotten so rich off of trading mere spices. But now that you can replace 'spices' with 'drugs' – which are, after all, also spices – the dime drops and suddenly it all makes sense!

[Forum Monk]

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... +drugs#760

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewt ... mies+drugs

Discussed in the past.