Upheavals in the Third Millenium BCE

[Minimalist]

The original discoverer of the Ohio furnaces claims to have found Clovis and Folsom points in association with the pits.

That does not seem logical. If you have discovered metal you don't need to still be making stone points. You can make 5 points in one casting if you like.

[Digit]

There's always someone who comments 'what was good enough for my grandfather is good enough for me', Min and I imagine metal and stone would have run side by side for a time at least.

[Charlie Hatchett]

The original discoverer of the Ohio furnaces claims to have found Clovis and Folsom points in association with the pits.

That does not seem logical. If you have discovered metal you don't need to still be making stone points. You can make 5 points in one casting if you like.

I've noticed the Old Copper Culture, which could also date back to Pleistocene times, made points out of both copper and stone:









http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/archeo/c ... v79-8.html

[Forum Monk]

That does not seem logical. If you have discovered metal you don't need to still be making stone points. You can make 5 points in one casting if you like.

I agree with your statement, but in the early days of smelting, they were not actually melting iron, rather, they were melting all the other minerals and elements attached to the iron, leaving a chunk of shapeless, red-hot iron. This chunk could be removed and hammered into some useful or ritualistic shape. Melting and casting was the next quantum leap in iron technology.

[Digit]

That's correct Monk, and the various 'inclusions' in the iron would mean reheating followed by further working before an 'edge' could be worked on it which is why most early iron seems to have been used for decoration. The 'edge' that could be put on such a piece of iron whould be vastly inferior to that on flint.

[Charlie Hatchett]

That's correct Monk, and the various 'inclusions' in the iron would mean reheating followed by further working before an 'edge' could be worked on it which is why most early iron seems to have been used for decoration. The 'edge' that could be put on such a piece of iron whould be vastly inferior to that on flint.

I agree, though Steve Kissin seems to think these were pourings (i.e.- melted):

Magnetic artifacts recovered from the lower strata of Lima-Igl (the iron stained and charred cobble stratum):




http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... t%2012.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 1- Dorsal View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... t%2011.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 1- Lateral View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20139.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 1- Ventral View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... t%2097.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 2- Dorsal View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20140.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 2- Ventral View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20141.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 2- Lateral View- Lima-Igl




http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20136.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 3- Dorsal View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20137.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 3- Ventral View- Lima-Igl



http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20138.jpg

PreClovis Iron Artifact 3- Lateral View- Lima-Igl

These artifacts ping iron, zinc and silver, on a hobbyist metal detector.

However, these are definitely ornamental versus utilitarian.

[kbs2244]

Just over the state line from me in Kenosha, WI they have a museum with a diorama of a family cutting up a Mammoth. Well done, with the little ones crawling inside the rib cage, etc. It is publicizing the discovery of some bones found about 20 miles inland from the Lake Michigan shore with butcher marks on them and dated to 12,500 BP

This is from their website:

Mammoth and Man
In 1992, a KPM archaeologist began excavating a wooly mammoth skeleton just 10 miles away in western Kenosha County. Those bones revealed vital new clues about our history - you can see cut marks on the bones indicating the animals were butchered by humans using stone tools. Carbon dating of those bones indicates their age to be 12,500 years old - 1,000 years earlier than the previously accepted presence of humans in the Americas. The bones are displayed as they were found at the excavation site. See a life size skeletal replica of the largest Ice Age inhabitant of North America, the wooly mammoth.



http://www.kenosha.org/museum/exhibits.html

[Rokcet Scientist]

See a life size skeletal replica of the largest Ice Age inhabitant of North America, the wooly mammoth.

Mammoths are unfailingly called wooly mammoths. As if there also were non-wooly mammoths.
But were there ever?

[Minimalist]

I think "mammoth" is the generic term. There were a lot of mammoth species, Jefferson, Columbian, and Wooly come to mind but I'm sure there were others.

[Forum Monk]

The evidence of third millenium catastrophism is great enough to support a conference of leading scientists to present finding supporting the view:
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/cambconf.htm
The link above allows you to read the abstracts but you must be a member of SIS to download the proceedings.

http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword04m.htm

During the last two decades, researchers have discovered compelling evidence for abrupt climate change and civilization collapse in addition to sea level changes, catastrophic inundations and widespread seismic activity in many areas of the world at around 2200/2300 BC. Climatological proxy data together with sudden changes in lacustrine, fluvial and aeolian deposits have been detected in the archaeological, geological and climatological records. The most comprehensive survey of this particular climate disaster which coincided with (and most likely caused) the collapse of mankind's first urban civilizations can be found in the above mentioned volume on "Third Millennium BC Climate Change and Old World Collapse." Although there is still considerable disagreement about the "absolute" date of this catastrophe, a growing number of scholars agree that we are indeed dealing with an abrupt natural disaster with devastating effects on civilizations in West Asia, Europe and North Africa, but which was perhaps a global event.

When, between 1980 and 1988, the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) published Moe Mandelkehr's pioneering research papers on archaeological, geological and climatological evidence for global climate and social catastrophes at around 2300 BC, Moe had gathered more than 350 references to back up his hypothesis with scientific data.

Now, almost 20 years later, 40 researchers from around the world have compiled the a.m. volume on the same event(s), analyzing and summarizing some 1700 references on abrupt climate change and social collapse around 4200/4300 BP.

[Digit]

If you speak of Mammoths as being proboscideans they were a world wide genus. As for man having wiped them out I have my doubts as the modern elephants of Africa and Asia are the only forms left of what was quite a large genus. Climate change would seem a better reason I feel.

[Forum Monk]

Estimates of the numbers of dead mammoths in siberia is in the millions! Could early man of been that devastating? I tend to go along with another causation for their demise.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Estimates of the numbers of dead mammoths in siberia is in the millions! Could early man of been that devastating? I tend to go along with another causation for their demise.

I suspect that, as usual, it wasn't just this cause or that one, but all of 'm combined. They're all true, imo. In varying combinations. And none exclusively.

[Cognito]

I suspect that, as usual, it wasn't just this cause or that one, but all of 'm combined. They're all true, imo. In varying combinations. And none exclusively.

Yes, check Box E ... predators do not run a species to extinction due to feedback mechanisms unless they hunt for other reasons (such as the purposeful decimation of the buffalo in the west to starve Plains Tribes). However, climate, disease and other factors seem to have more to do with extinctions in ancient times. At best, humans might have been able to tip the balance just a little, nothing more.

[Digit]

Those people who met the Mammoth, and other large animals were hunter gatherers, like the native Americans. I know of no example where HG groups multiplied to the extent that they became too numerous for their environment.
The native Americans didn't wipe out the Bison, and their counterparts in Europe didn't wipe out the Auroc, Moose, Elk, Musk Ox or Caribou.
Like GW, everything that goes wrong, somebody wants to blame HSS.
Three wet winters in a row would have decimated the Northern Proboscideans as they were adapted to dry cold conditions, THEN HSS may have finished them off!