Chris Hardaker's The First American

[Digit]

Are! Them, those who take the credit as team leader whilst others get their hands dirty. Those the ones you mean Min?

[Minimalist]

my own experience is of individuals who believe that there reputation is more important than than advancing the discipline they represent.

That's as good a definition of The Club as I've seen, Dig.

Zahi Hawass comes to mind.

[Minimalist]

Here's a quote from Hardaker's book (pg 55).

When I began my archeology schooling during the 1970's, the price for claims of 14-40000y sites was academic hellfire. Indeed, one of my first instructors threatened us with expulsion from the anthropology program if we expressed interest in such crazy things. To find out that such opinions were quite openly expressed just a decade before mystified me. What happened between the early '60's and early '70's to forbid the very act of engaging in questions about pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas? Why were students never told of the Valsequillo findings?

[Charlie Hatchett]

http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HardakerC1.php

The modern period starts with the Old World Upper Paleolithic period, around 30-40,000 years ago. This was the beginning of modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens, "man who thinks he thinks." The blade-to-biface revolution happened over there also. And now for the first time in the New World, this critical phase of technological evolution turns up in the New World, in Central Mexico. This was huge in itself. The theoretical potentials of such discoveries would be shattering.

An article by Chris Hardaker is posted on the Graham Hancock site. Link from the Daily Grail. Very good. Also a link to buy his new book.

Nice snag, Beag.

That is a good article. I like this part:

The modern period starts with the Old World Upper Paleolithic period, around 30-40,000 years ago. This was the beginning of modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens, "man who thinks he thinks." The blade-to-biface revolution happened over there also. And now for the first time in the New World, this critical phase of technological evolution turns up in the New World, in Central Mexico. This was huge in itself. The theoretical potentials of such discoveries would be shattering.

If Berkeley is correct, then biface projectile point production occured about 800,000 B.P. earlier... in Mexico. Biface projectile production started happening in Africa (as far as we know to date) perhaps as early as 300,000 B.P. (Lupemban technology- Congo forest belt).

One can start to appreciate why Valsequillo is an anthropological "forbidden zone". It completely messes up a nice, neat story about how man evolved. Kinda like Clovis First.

This part is good:

The artifacts, the art and the sandy-silt matrix immediately challenged the Clovis Firsters. Dr. Wormington even conceded that Valsequillo could be 40,000 years. Everyone agreed however, that it could not be earlier than 40,000 years because only modern man was intelligent enough to manage the trip from Siberia to the New World. It was common knowledge.

And we've been "fighting" the Clovis-first paradigm for close to 40 years. That's enough to piss off any honest scientist. Here, at Valsequillo, 40 years ago, we had damn good evidence of man being in North America 40,000 B.P. 40 years later we're struggling to get the majority of "scientists" past 25-30,000 B.P.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Well....right off the bat he describes how the Club heard the geologic evidence for the date and packed up its tents and went home rather than subject themselves to ridicule.

Nothing like an unbiased view of the evidence.

Here's a quote from Hardaker's book (pg 55).

When I began my archeology schooling during the 1970's, the price for claims of 14-40000y sites was academic hellfire. Indeed, one of my first instructors threatened us with expulsion from the anthropology program if we expressed interest in such crazy things. To find out that such opinions were quite openly expressed just a decade before mystified me. What happened between the early '60's and early '70's to forbid the very act of engaging in questions about pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas? Why were students never told of the Valsequillo findings?

Grrrrrrr...

[Digit]

The one thing I have never been able to understand is WHY some people are so unwilling to accept the idea that man was capable of doing all these things earlier than last week! What the Hell is the problem?
If Chimps can fashion tools, if Crows can use tools, if hunting dogs and Chimps can learn to operate as a team, why are we supposed to be so bloody stupid?
Frankly, I find it insulting.

[Charlie Hatchett]

The one thing I have never been able to understand is WHY some people are so unwilling to accept the idea that man was capable of doing all these things earlier than last week! What the Hell is the problem?
If Chimps can fashion tools, if Crows can use tools, if hunting dogs and Chimps can learn to operate as a team, why are we supposed to be so bloody stupid?
Frankly, I find it insulting.

I share your frustration, Digit.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Another couple of good quotes from Chris' article:

The bone dates from the Tetela sites were 250,000 years old! And so opened up one of the craziest archaeological wormholes in history. That's a quarter million years old! Modern man didn't live back then, and all the artifacts from Valsequillo were fancy spearheads and blades - things we Mods didn't know how to make until 30-40,000 years ago. And there was art! And Valsequillo was 250,000 years old? That's Homo erectus Time!! And there's art?

In the end the archaeologists won through silence. Irwin-Williams never published an official volume; not even site reports. And the curiousity that raged through the professional community was calmly checked at the door of credibility.

[Cognito]

LIVE FROM LA QUINTA INN, Salida, CA:

Charlie, I am up on Modesto at the US Club Nationals semis with my 13yo daughter's club team. My copy of the book came in during the week and I am about half way through it. Chris has done a great job of putting Valsequillo back into the forefront. I enjoy reading about Virginia and he did a nice job on Calico and Fred Budinger.

Your site stands geographically between Calico/Texas Street and Valsequillo. Have you received any dates back yet? With renewed interest and research for these sites your site becomes very important.

Patrick

[Charlie Hatchett]

LIVE FROM LA QUINTA INN, Salida, CA:

Charlie, I am up on Modesto at the US Club Nationals semis with my 13yo daughter's club team. My copy of the book came in during the week and I am about half way through it. Chris has done a great job of putting Valsequillo back into the forefront. I enjoy reading about Virginia and he did a nice job on Calico and Fred Budinger.

Your site stands geographically between Calico/Texas Street and Valsequillo. Have you received any dates back yet? With renewed interest and research for these sites your site becomes very important.

Patrick

Hey Pat.

I assume you and your kiddos are at a soccer tournament.

No word, Bro. I may give Warren a call just to get an unofficial update.

Chris is an excellent writer and has been very much in the know about Valsequillo since the 70's. He conveys much hard to find information: Field reports, personal interviews, artifact collections, data, etc...Lap it up!

[Digit]

You're one Hell of a lucky man Charley. You and some of your people are in a position to help widen our knowledge of our past, to help answer the BIG questions, who are we? Where did we come from?
Give it a bit longer and some of the big names on your side of the pond will be wanting to take control and tell us they agreed with you all along really.
They just hid it well!

[Charlie Hatchett]

You're one Hell of a lucky man Charley. You and some of your people are in a position to help widen our knowledge of our past, to help answer the BIG questions, who are we? Where did we come from?
Give it a bit longer and some of the big names on your side of the pond will be wanting to take control and tell us they agreed with you all along really.
They just hid it well!

You're probably right, Digit.

[Minimalist]

Give it a bit longer and some of the big names on your side of the pond will be wanting to take control and tell us they agreed with you all along really

As Art Buchwald said, "criticize the establishment long enough and they will make you part of it."

Maybe they'll give Charlie an honorary PH. D. of something?

[hardaker]

Howdy Folks,
It is great to see such interest in this most potent of subjects in New World archaeology, namely,
Who's on First? I am glad to find I am not alone in being amazed at the institutional denial about the Valsequillo artifacts.

I can understand -- though not accept -- why the orthodox ran away from Calico -- they simply never saw those kinds of artifacts before. (Ignoring the positive assessments of the Calico specimens by giants like Francois Bordes and Mary Leakey is something else altogether; something we should get a bead on in a year or so as we get back into the Calico archives.)

But Valsequillo?? Oh well, welcome to old school gringo archaeology. Like Naeser, I too am embarrassed that the orthodox found it necessary to practice the same strategy as the knights in Monty Python's Holy Grail, namely, "run away, run away." But until I hear something different, this is what happened. I pray I am wrong, and that some historian stomps on me with evidence to show me something different. In that event, the next edition will headline my bonehead mistake and I will seek forgiveness a hundred ways. But right now, I see nothing to suggest that if Marshall Payn did not get involved with this discovery almost ten years ago, there would still be nothing provided from the orthodox sector. sigh...

I hope you enjoy the book and hopefully down the road there will be many photos and illustrations posted somewhere on the web, like
http://www.valsequilloclassic.net/

More hopefully, there will be continued work at the reservoir, and the biggest hope of all, of course, will be the future recovery of the dozens of missing artifacts and art. And please pray they have not been destroyed.

Thanks again for the interest,
Chris Hardaker
Tucson, AZ
The First American
http://www.amazon.com/First-American-Su ... 1564149420
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NATIVE AMERICAN GEOMETRY
http://earthmeasure.com

[Minimalist]

So far, Chris, I'm enjoying it immensely.

Welcome to the site.