Dr. Borde and Acheulean/Oldowan Tools in North America?!

[rick doninger]

thanks for your input about the scale, keep in mind that the vast majority of the pieces are designed to be held between the thumb and first two fingers for cutting, scrapeing, incising,etc. Very few lower and middle paleo points were used as projectiles in fact many tools that are classified as points are not even pointed per se.
Points were just a small component in the lithic industry and to have a clear idea of the complexity of a mousterian of acheulean assemblage one would have to have either seen or have posession or possibly studied such an assemblage to make an accurate assessment of the lithics.
There are few individuals who have actually seen and handeled the type of artifacts that I am describing. Most have only viewed pictures which are very limited . A quick google search of images of mousterian, levallois, acheulean, middle paleo, will yield more illustrations than actual photos of the artifacts found in neandertal sites worldwide. It seems that to see man's earliest tools you have to either pay to buy a publication, visit a museum, or purchase a book all of which i have done and none of which compare to having the actual industry.
Overstreet's Arrowhead Guide has a section in the rear of the book that shows Old World artifacts and current auction prices with fairly good photos. I can produce matching tools for most of those shown all from here in the U.S.
The sample photos i have posted are but a very few of the whole assemblage. Michelle should have some more of the pics if she should choose to post them. I don't think it would be apprpriate to fill this site forum with photos which i could do. I am planning on having a show asap
but the time and location is still undecided.....rick d.

[Cognito]

I am rather curious to hear what the readers think they are looking at, I can tell you that they are mostly flint, with the exception to the few pieces of bone and petrified wood. Due to the picture quality , much detail is missed but virtually every piece has clear evidence of human manufacture such as bulbs of percussion, impact marks, retouch,etc.

Rick, most of the obvious human-made pieces you show appear to be chalcedony, a variety of chert. Those very sharp, nasty looking pieces are burins, primarily for scoring or carving wood by hand, etc. similar to this:



What is the provenance of your find? Bearing in mind that there are no hand-axes in North America, do you have any in your collection?

[Minimalist]

Rick, I'm curious about something.

Have you ever gone through your collection to see if any of the tools fit better into your left hand rather than your right?

[Digit]

That's an interesting thought Min, I await the results of that with considerable interest.

Roy.

[rick doninger]

The provenance of the collection is i found every piece personally. Images 003.jpg and 072.jpg were not from indiana but tennessee for the most part. I found the remainder of the pieces near my home in southern Indiana.
I have to contest the idea that there are no handaxes in North America because I have found dozens of them. I have examined every piece in detail and they definitely are designed right or left handed with some being designed to be used with both the right or left. Many of the tools are multi tools with multiple functions...point, scraper, burin, spokeshave all on one piece. some have as many as three blade edges. whoever the makers were in this particular location, debitage is rare as it seems they utilized nearly every flake from the first strike off of a core down to the last remaining core fragment.
Just out of curiosity where were the pieces found in the previous post?

[Minimalist]

I have examined every piece in detail and they definitely are designed right or left handed

Thanks, Rick. See when I was visiting Charlie and looking at his collection a package arrived from Cogs and one of those fit comfortably into the left hand whereas it was awkward with the right (the usable edge was at the wrong angle.)

If I had a "Eureka moment" in the trip, that was it. This stuff is designed by human artisans.

[rick doninger]

Cognito, where are those pieces from in your post? The more I looked at them the more familiar they were .

[Cognito]

Just out of curiosity where were the pieces found in the previous post?

Near Newberry Springs, California. Dated to 18-20,000bp.

After looking at untold thousands of sharp rocks it isn't very difficult to identify tool sites. The people making these were probably those elusive Paleo Indians who preceeded Clovis and could have been in the Americas up to 40,000 years ago. Charlie Hatchett would claim that hominids were in the Americas far earlier than that.

As mentioned by Min, some of the tools are definitely left-handed while others are right-handed or uni-handed. After finding a tool assemblage in this area (generally in a circular pattern) I can tell how sophisticated the maker was.

Many of the tools are multi tools with multiple functions...point, scraper, burin, spokeshave all on one piece.

Ah, you mean like an early day version of a Swiss Army Knife? This puppy can be used as a point, a scraper, a burin, and can straighten a wooden shaft (Chert - 2" x 3½"):

[rick doninger]

Cogs, how did you arrive at your dates? I can tell you that the handaxes you showed in the post were very likely made by the same kind people that made my stuff. I have a matching piece for each of the ones you show. Personally, I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that in a side by side comparison with the mousterian of acheulean toolkits, it would be very difficult to tell the difference. I believe the tools are quite possibly neanderthal. I do have some yet to be identified bone material, the skull of an extinct species of pig and a lot of other material that i have no idea what it is.
I believe this challenges the out of Africa theory at the very least. I also have some other stuff that screams Oldewon. Now you all can really call me a nut.
I have a ton of what may be datable stuff but I really don't know how to go about it.
I would like to have the first " Early Man In America Artifact Show" and bring every body together and display an entire lithic industry that has yet to be seen in this country. The one thing that all the supposed preclovis sites lack is a "coherent set of lithics" to match the dates.
I think if we brought the individual collections together they would speak for themselves. Let's hear your thoughts guys....rick d

[Cognito]

Rick, I am giving you a conservative minimum date. However, I haven't been to the site and was waiting for the following report by Marith Reheis:

http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/mojave/drainage.html

Marith was at Lake Manix last October with the Friends of the Pleistocene's annual convention and a variety of others from the USGS. Her goal was to re-date the last high shoreline stand. She performed studies in the area for most of the year.

The tools I recovered are from 10 meters above the 543 meter shoreline level on a Pleistocene lake that quickly drained due to a rapid incision of a canyon downstream. Tools are found above the ancient shoreline, but not below. The old, minimum date was 18-20,000bp. The new date now appears to be minimum 24,000bp. The tools could be much older since they are eroding from a hillside, but I'm not planning on footing the bill for TL dating, etc. The above is a minimum age - they could be far older. Due to the high acidic content of the soil, I have yet to find any organics.

Charlie Hatchett's tools from Central Texas look very similar to the ones that I recovered in Southern California. On the map, my site is located on the island in the middle of Lake Manix. It would have been a safe place to camp and sleep - away from predators.

[rick doninger]

cogs, looking at your pieces it appears that the material being used was suitable for levallois style core prep and i suspect that you have found some points from those cores. If you have pics of any of the points i'd love to see them.
There is also a vascular surgeon in georgia who says that he has found the same type of tools. He is an avid collector of 40 years and has a large collection of artifacts from clovis and all the later periods and claims to have found another levallois style industry that he has never seen.
I dont think that the lower and middle paleolithic tools are not here in the states, i just think that it has been a matter of recognition of what has been there all along. It seems to be more of a revealing than a discovery, but then that's just me.....rick d.

[Cognito]

Rick, I was touring a group from LA City College over a year ago and the professor picked up a 4" Levallois blade. He told me, "If I wasn't a believer before, I am now. This is classic Levallois." Being on BLM land at the time, we put it back. However, most of the well-formed tools at the site appear to be Mousterian-like technology.

I'll see what I have that looks Levallois and prep pics as appropriate. If tool makers were in the Americas hundreds of thousands of years ago, they didn't leave much of a trace. Nor would they be expected to do so.

[rick doninger]

Traditional archaeology will have a hard time displaying much that would be considered an early man assemblage of artifacts. When a site such as Topper or Meadowcroft is found it is years before enough material is assembled to actually constitute a recognizable industry. Although employment security for those involved in such a dig is an obvious advantage to the painstaking dental picking of the most minute fragments of what may be an artifact. It sure hinders any identification of a particular culture in a timely fashion.
For me, time is an important issue as I am past 50 years old and have a spinal cord condition that may be progressively getting worse. Had I left this site to traditional excavation methods it would have been years before an identifiable industry was uncovered.
There are many sites where millions of university dollars are being spent to scientifically yield mere fragments of artifacts. Those doing the digs have to have something to show for the investment.
"THEY" certainly don't seem to want to accept that amateurs have possibly found what so many professionals have spent their life and so many resources searching for....rick d.

[Cognito]

Rick, unfortunately the bias of William Henry Holmes and Ales Hrdlicka have damaged North and South American archaeology to the point where it could take decades to get decent scientific investigations launched in a multitude of geographical areas that deserve study. Bering Land Bridge my ass.

My next door neighbor (a former San Bernardino County Supervisor) walked the perimeter of Lake Manix with Louis Leakey when he was in the area, uncovering Pleistocene camp sites along the way. However, even if the hearths are submitted as evidence of occupation, skeptics will say that they were made by lightning and state that the tools found at the same locations are "sharp rocks". I have a brother who lives in San Diego, about a mile from the Texas Street site – I’ve been there and picked up a few artifacts. However, nobody will touch the site since George Carter reported Pleistocene tools in the 1950s and was ridiculed for his “Carterfacts”. Calico, California is still snubbed by mainline archaeologists, but I happen to believe it will eventually be exonerated. If Fred Budinger & Co. keep at it, eventually datable human material will be found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_Early_Man_Site

It is reasonable to assume that Paleo Indians occupied the Americas from at least 40,000 years ago, entering the Americas primarily by boat – humans made it everywhere else on the planet by that time – why not the Americas? Beyond that, Charlie Hatchett is certain that some form of hominid was in Texas very early. One of Charlie’s tools was dated to 143,000bp by J. Bischoff, but subsequent passes did not have enough material to date. And I don’t believe the Valsequillo site will ever be forgotten thanks to Chris Hardaker and his recent book, The First American. There must be more to be found there.

The key to resolving this issue is human bones. Until such time as human bones are discovered and dated in situ, skeptics will prevail. Being skeptical has its benefits since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but I strongly disagree with the closed-minded approach of some archaeologists who maintain that “There are no hand axes in the Americas!” when you, myself and others have beautiful bifacial hand axes to show them.

[Minimalist]

Bravo, cogs...well said. I'll drink to that.