levallois in the United States

[JSteen]

I'd normally be all over hints of sexism but to be fair, points are the most recognizable tools. Pounders and scrapers just don't look impressive to a lay person. A nice spear or arrow point is unarguably person-made, not an accident of geology. And yes, there is a lot of emphasis on pots too - female domain - because they are also visually impressive.

[Digit]

because they are also visually impressive.

Indeed. But from an educational viewpoint, which is an important part of a public museum's function, this does give an unbalanced view.
My main interest in archaeology is not about collecting artefacts, but what those artefacts can tell us about people. How they lived, why they did what they did, what did they look like etc?
For this we need the broadest canvas possible, it's time, IMO, that museums moved away from the early competion to display the largest collections.
An example of this is the study of coprolites, not the sexiest thing to study, but it advances our knowledge in a way that vast collections of pointy things never will.

Roy.

[uniface]

Or unless it's covered by sediment.

In a peat bog, yes. Otherwise, no.

Sex-ism :

There is only so far you can usefully go in reducing reality to abstractions, and treating them as if they were independent realities unto themselves.

Mass, energy, momentum, volume, acceleration &c. are the kind of abstractions that "work." Because they are inorganic.

When you take that approach in the realm of the organic, your abstractions not only stop usefully corresponding to the reality they came from, they actually invert, becoming parodies of themselves that produce results opposite of what is intended (or at least purportedly intended). And thus "justice" imperceptably becomes "affirmative action."

Nature is sexist. Attempting to negate this in pursuit of some utopian ideal is mental illness -- a mistaking of distorted images in a hall of mirrors for the reality they reflect.

[E.P. Grondine]

A fascinating discussion, but...

There don't seem to be any firm dates so far.

Modern Native American populations have C, A, B, D, and X mt DNA. Where they came from is thus well demonstrated.

The earliest across based on distribution would appear to have been C, via Berringia. Thus, in my opinion, you would have to show a similar tool industry in north eastern Asia to clinch your case.

Or you could explain the disappearance of en earlier hominid. For the later you would have to show an earlier land bridge.

And no sites with associated bone tool remains. And no indication of prey animals, nor any statement of the total environments, and other food sources.

But the points shown here do look pretty convincing.

For the time being, I will hold with the earliest crossings being HSS, C mt DNA, sometime after 50,000 BCE.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
(which book does contain a short summary on the possible effects of the larger impacts on human evolution.)

[uniface]

Modern Native American populations have C, A, B, D, and X mt DNA. Where they came from is thus well demonstrated . . . For the time being, I will hold with the earliest crossings being HSS, C mt DNA, sometime after 50,000 BCE.

Fine. Good. But the Lenape/Allegwi Race War (which has left traces all over the eastern-central US) cannot have been the only one in (your estimate) something under 50,000 years. That the ancestors of the survivors came then, and from Siberia, would be unobjectionable.

But, it would seem, there were others as well. And when they might have gotten here (assuming they weren't authochonous) remains imponderable.

It seems well to not conflate the two (or more).

(?)

[E.P. Grondine]

Fine. Good. But the Lenape/Allegwi Race War (which has left traces all over the eastern-central US) cannot have been the only one in (your estimate) something under 50,000 years.

Indeed, it was not. But I would like to point out that genocide was the exception in North America, and that generally assimilation took place.

That the ancestors of the survivors came then, and from Siberia, would be unobjectionable.

Actually, B and D came from SE Asia, most likely via boat.

But, it would seem, there were others as well. And when they might have gotten here (assuming they weren't authochonous) remains imponderable. It seems well to not conflate the two (or more). (?)

Its not imponderable: we're here pondering it, uniface. But again, if you're hypothesizing an earlier crossing by an earlier hominid, you're going to have to demonstrate the population/culture/technologies in Asia, and provide a crossing mechanism.

[uniface]

Excellent points.

Not to get all new-agey on you, but I seem to recall having read that when the Eskimos were asked by the first whites they encountered where they had come from originally, they said they had been brought there by big silver birds.

Susquehannock lore takes Sky Canoes for granted, distinguishing between the benign sort (white in color) and the hostile ones (red).

As matters currently stand, your position is airtight, and I'm not arguing against it -- just spacing around, riffing on it. I wonder, though, the way technology is advancing, if there won't be some surprises we'll see down the road before we check out. The cutting edge of sophisticated technology was once blood groups A, AB, B and O . . .

[Rokcet Scientist]

they said they had been brought there by big silver birds.

From Nibiru, of course.

[uniface]

You seem to know more about it than I do.

[Rokcet Scientist]

You seem to know more about it than I do.

Go watch the movie "2012" (disaster porn) and you'll know more than me. As do/will millions of movie-goers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz86TsGx3fc

[Minimalist]

When Rick mentioned Professor Broster I set up a Google notification for him.

This is the first hit to come of it.

http://www.c-dh.net/articles/2010/01/17 ... lstyle.txt

Rex Moore of Waynesboro will have a big display of tools and points collected from a paleo chipping site in Wayne County. They are reported to be more than 12,000 years old.

[kbs2244]

Certainly a “low visibility” occasion.

But attended by a “Tennessee State archaeologist”
So that gives it some respectability.

You have to start somewhere.

[rick doninger]

Since my last post, samples of similar levallois lithics from Indiana and another site in Tennessee have been sent to a lithics expert associated with Sussex Univ. in England. I received the preliminary report on the pieces a few weeks ago and am happy to say there is at least one British pro who has assessed the tools hands on and agrees they are in fact levallois. Having had extensive experience with sights such as Boxgrove and Beedings he has expressed his curiosity at the lack of interest shown by mainstream archaeology on this side of the pond. So much so, that he says he has written the good Dr.'s Stanford, Toth, Schick, Dibble and others and after a few weeks now he has had no response to his request for help in understanding what he calls quite a "conundrum" in regard to when and who may have made such tools.
I told him that he should not be surprised if he did not receive a response as this has been a common reaction to such "forbidden archaeological" questions historically, especially when such questions are instigated initially by amatures.
Time will tell as the artifact assemblages from Tennessee, Indiana, and Texas are growing and the industry is becoming ever more visible with each specific tool type found, displaying more and more clearly the reduction sequence from prepared core technology previously found only on late lower and middle paleo sites abroad. One thing that is being seen is that Dibbles' take on the mousterian tool production is pretty right on. It takes thousands of artifacts to see such production clearly and we have them whether the club likes it or not. The truth in this particular case is literally written in the stones.
I just read recently that an amazing fact in regard to these type lithics in particular is that regardless of where they are found abroad despite the thousands of miles that separate the sites, the tools are undeniably unique in technology.
What is the great fear of acknowledging their presence here in the states? Dating of secure context will come, maybe with Dr. Broster in Tn. There is bone to be analyzed that may hold the answers to who made the tools, we'll see. There is certainly more provacative evidence within these assemblages than spending obscene amounts of university and donor money chasing a solutrian into clovis theory based on little more realistically than a similarity in knapping of one type of blade point. It is more than obvious, even to the amature that WHO presents the theories garners much more wide eyed attention than rock solid lithics that can be held and studied and understood.
Wouldn't it be a hoot if the British were to come over to the states and uncover our earliest inhabitants and their entire tool industry.....We have certainly spent our share of time and resources scratching around in foreign soil only to find more of what's already been found there for decades.
I simply have to stop...........No matter what is found here it seems, it will be discredited by those that don't find it and criticized by those who have never seen it........BUT! WE DO HAVE THE ARTIFACTS.......later......rick

[Digit]

Perhaps a deafening silence is better than experts slagging each other off.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

We need a lot more funerals, Dig!


Keep waving the flag, Rick.