Northwest Passage?

[Minimalist]

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/ ... story.html

Two U.S. scientists have published a radical new theory about when, where and how humans migrated to the New World, arguing that the peopling of the Americas may have begun via Canada's High Arctic islands and the Northwest Passage -- much farther north and at least 10,000 years earlier than generally believed.

The hypothesis -- described as "speculative" but "plausible" by the researchers themselves -- appears in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, which features a special series of new studies tracing humanity's proliferation out of Africa and around the world beginning about 70,000 years ago.

[archaeo]

... a radical new ... hypothesis -- described as "speculative" but "plausible" by the researchers themselves -- appears in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, which features a special series of new studies tracing humanity's proliferation out of Africa and around the world beginning about 70,000 years ago.

Would like to know about the other "special series" articles too! 70 kya is the Toba bottleneck, perhaps more on that.

... "Going back 30,000 years requires you to speculate," he says, "because we really don't have much of an idea what was going on."

But he added that Bluefish "has got to tie into the solution somehow."... -Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service

Ust'Mil, a Dyuktai cultural site on the Aldan River, Yakutia, Siberia, dates to 30 kya, so we do know some of what was going on then.

Glacial maximums occurred around 14,000, 30,000, 42,000, and 55,000 years ago, with a land bridge available for periods of from about 5,000 to 10,000 years during each maximum ....

... Another aspect of the paleoenvironment is climatic variation due to topography and proximity to oceans. Climatic extremes are buffered in coastal areas by the warmer temperatures and sheer mass of the ocean, and these areas are not subject to the marked seasonality of continental climates. Rogers et al. (1992:291) write, "the coast would provide the pathway of least technological resistance to Ice Age people.... it would be the likely route of earliest entrance." Evidence of possible Ice Age migrations along the coast would have been impacted by rising sea levels, so this hypothesis cannot be easily tested archaeologically. ...

.. Bluefish Caves, Yukon, contains cultural materials, including lithic artifacts, bone alteration from butchering, bone tools and examples of bone reduction by flaking (Cinq-Mars and Morlan 1999:203). A mammoth bone flake and its core were studied, and Cinq-Mars and Morlan (1999:205-206) concluded that the bone evidences butcher marks and fresh-state fracture, and that the flake was reduced bifacially and diagonally in a step-by-step ordered sequence. The bone collagen and flake were AMS dated to an average age of 23,500 B.P. (Cinq-Mars and Morlan 1999:205). The radiocarbon dates from Bluefish Caves are considered reliable. The relation between the age of the bones and the time of their use as artifacts is questioned by Late-Entry advocates (Hoffecker, et al. 1993:50). ...

... Early Upper Paleolithic sites in southern Siberia, found below 55 degrees latitude and dated from 42,000 to 30,000 B.P., correspond to the Malokheta interstade, a relatively warm interval in the mid-Upper Pleistocene (Goebel 1999:213). ...

... The Beringian Tradition represents the original peopling of Beringia and all the Paleolithic sites in the time frame from 35,000 to 9,500 B.P. (West 1981, 1996:549). Mochanov defined, principally from sites on the Aldan River, a variant of the Siberian Upper Paleolithic tradition, the Diuktai culture, which he views as dominating all of eastern Siberia during the Late Pleistocene (Dumond 1980:988). Mochanov (1978:65) interprets the roots of the Diuktai complex as going back to the Levalloiso-Aucheulean cultural stratum in Asia.

The Diuktai Cave research delineated northeast Asia’s characteristic core-and-blade and biface industry in context with late Pleistocene megafauna. Diuktai Cave produced numerous flaked tools, including bifacial willow-leaf and subtriangular spearheads and oval knives (Mochanov 1980:122). The Diuktai Culture, a culture of hunters of mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, horse, musk oxen and reindeer, is characterized by bifacial, willow-leaf, lancet-shaped, and subtriangular flint spearheads, as well as oval and semilunar knives, accompanied by end scrapers, burins, choppers, mammoth tusk spearheads, bone needles, wedge-shaped cores, and flint blade points (Mochanov 1980:123).

The Diuktai Culture existed in northeast Asia from 35,000 to 10,500 B.P. (Ikawa-Smith 1982:25). Mochanov includes Hokkaido and Sakhalin Islands in the east Asian Diuktai Tradition. The Diuktai variant is represented at Angara, Amur, Indigirka, Kolyma, Kamchatka, Kukhtui, as well as other sites in Asia from the southern Urals to Mongolia and China, in Japan, and in North America (Mochanov 1978a:65).

The most ancient Diuktai Culture sites on the Aldan River (UST-Mil 2 and Ikhine) date to the base of the Upper Paleolithic, near 35,000 B.P. (West 1996:543). ... -http://jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleoamerican_origins.html

Blueish Caves can be explained as Beringian exploration without venturing into the glaciated areas. The Beringian arctic desert reached that far, while areas further east and south were glaciated. Even though Alaska was accessible like Beringia, Alaska was part of Beringia literally, there are no early sites like Bluefish. Evidence of humans at Bluefish Caves is NOT evidence of people in the Americas; not when it was Beringia there then. However, there are sites to the south to explain a Pacific margin migration before Monte Verde, Paisley Caves, and Meadowcroft.

... Twelve stone artifacts from UST-Mil II-C (30,000 to 35,000 B.P.) include Diuktai Paleolithic complex wedge-shaped cores and bifacial knives and speartips in association with mammoth, rhinoceros, bison and horse (Mochanov and Fedoseeva 1996b:177). Bifacially worked tools appear in the Aldan drainage at the Ezhantsy site about 35,000 B.P. (Mochanov 1978a:65). The Diuktai people began making bifacially-worked spear points by at least 18,000 B.P. (Mochanov 1978a:65). Bifacial flint spearheads and knives are known from the Troitskaya sites in deposits dated to 18,300 to 17,680 B.P. (Mochanov 1980:123). ...

... The Ushki site is located in central Kamchatka, at a more southerly latitude (57 degrees) than the Beringian sites discussed above. Ushki I, Level VII, dated to 14,300 to 13,600 B.P., evidences two large dwellings covering 100 sq. m and 75 sq. m, stemmed arrow points, spearheads, bifacial knives, scrapers, cores, stone beads, and pendants (Dikov 1978:68). The fifty stemmed projectile points are the earliest bifacial stemmed points in Eurasia and are considered by Dikov (1996:250) as similar to the stemmed projectile points in North America. ...

New hypotheses ought at least recognize the evidenciary context.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi min -

Jacques Cinq-Mars, the excavator of Bluefin, ran a site on paleo-anthropology, which is now undergoing re-organization, but the archive may be found here:

http://www.palanth.com/legacy/

I am sorry I did not bring this site to all of your attentions earlier.

Somewhere in that site there are pointers to maps of the glacier extents through time, and detailed studies of the northern paleo climates.

Bottom line, at least for now (and I have been wrong before) the C mt DNA appears to have been land based, and spread by land routes, with A mt DNA showing up later along the coast.

But I have no idea when skin covered boats were invented, nor what materials were used.
Perhaps mammoth rib bones formed their frames at first, but no one knows.

First must have been felled trees/rafts, then duguots, then sail (skin sails), then dugout catamarans.

[uniface]

Without the least intention of arguing against you, the "march of progress" idea is so ingrained in us that we sometimes don't question whether it may be skewing our conjectures. In this case, Cloth-Clad Clovis is not such a far-fetched idea today as it would have seemed even 10 years ago.

[E.P. Grondine]

Without the least intention of arguing against you, the "march of progress" idea is so ingrained in us that we sometimes don't question whether it may be skewing our conjectures. In this case, Cloth-Clad Clovis is not such a far-fetched idea today as it would have seemed even 10 years ago.

Hell, uniface, no worries. I'll drop a hypothesis shortly after being confronted with firm evidence against it, and then determining that it is firm.

Though I've never given it much thought, I don't know when looms, spindles, needles first appeared - one might assume that the first needles were used with skins, and that the first ropes were made of skin strips, but who knows.

At some point plant materials would have been adopted. Would weaving mats for dwellings have led to cloth? Who knows?

[Minimalist]

An interesting thought, EP and apparently there has been some work done on it.

From Wiki, not usually the greatest source but they do give their sources this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... evelopment

Interest in prehistoric developments of textile and clothing manufacture has resulted in a number of scholarly studies since the late twentieth century, including Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean,[3] as well as Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times.[4] These sources have helped to provide a coherent history of these prehistoric developments. Evidence suggests that human beings may have begun wearing clothing as far back as 100,000 to 500,000 years ago.[5]

Genetic analysis suggests that the human body louse, which lives in clothing, may have diverged from the head louse some 107,000 years ago, evidence that humans began wearing clothing at around this time.[6]

Possible sewing needles have been dated to around 40,000 years ago.[7] The earliest definite examples of needles originate from the Solutrean culture, which existed in France from 19,000 BC to 15,000 BC. The earliest dyed flax fibers have been found in a cave the Republic of Georgia and date back to 36,000 BP.[8][9]

The earliest evidence of weaving comes from impressions of textiles and basketry and nets on little pieces of hard clay, dating from 27,000 years ago and found in Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic.

At a slightly later date (25,000 years) the Venus figurines were depicted with clothing.[10] Those from western Europe were adorned with basket hats or caps, belts worn at the waist, and a strap of cloth that wrapped around the body right above the breast. Eastern European figurines wore belts, hung low on the hips and sometimes string skirts.[11]

Archaeologists have discovered artifacts from the same period that appear to have been used in the textile arts: net gauges, spindle needles and weaving sticks.[12]

[Ishtar]

Thought you guys might want to take a look at our Maps and Migrations thread, which has maps showing the outlines of landmasses as they were thought to be during the last LGM, with much lower sea levels.

For instance, this one showing the British Isles is quite enlightening:



Also, Alan Cannell had a play around with Google Earth and reduced the sea levels by 120m ~ as geologists tell us they were around 100,000 years ago, and you can find those posts here. Feasibility of Transpacific Voyaging 100,000 Years Ago

Check out the Aleutian islands!

[Rokcet Scientist]

Thought you guys might want to take a look at our Maps and Migrations thread, which has maps showing the outlines of landmasses as they were thought to be during the last LGM, with much lower sea levels.

For instance, this one showing the British Isles is quite enlightening:



Also, Alan Cannell had a play around with Google Earth and reduced the sea levels by 120m ~ as geologists tell us they were around 100,000 years ago, and you can find those posts here. Feasibility of Transpacific Voyaging 100,000 Years Ago

Check out the Aleutian islands!

There were many glacial maximums in the past 2 million years, before the last one that ended approx. 14,000 kya. All with very much lower sea levels than today. Up to 400 feet lower. So hominids could, and did, migrate – on foot – to all the corners of the globe – including the Americas!, along the contemporary coastlines (now faaar out to sea; under 400 feet of seawater). Until they developed boating/sailing, which must have been before 800,000 kya (Bednarik/HF), probably induced by rising sea levels and dramatically changing coastlines. So for now I peg the beginning of hominid (HE) boating/sailing at around 1 mya.

[Digit]

So for now I peg the beginning of hominid (HE) boating/sailing at around 1 mya.

Based on? Not that I might disagree but winding you up is a hobby of mine!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Always good to have a hobby.

[Ishtar]

So for now I peg the beginning of hominid (HE) boating/sailing at around 1 mya.

Well, we have Malaysian handaxes dated to 1.8 million years old. So if you subscribe to the view that every single type of hominid came out of Africa at some point, which we know the Club does, you could be looking at pegging the beginning of hominid sailing to 2 million years ago.



View topic ~ 1.8 million year old handaxes found in Malaysia

[Digit]

Africa has a lot of lakes.

Roy.

[Ishtar]

Don't quite follow you, Roy.

As I understand it, the oldest handaxes in Africa are dated to 1.6 million years old, compared to the 1.83 million year old Malaysian ones.

[Digit]

I would have thought it highly unlikely that HE's first enterprise with open water was his leaving Africa, whether via the Nile or the Red Sea.
Common sense would suggest that he was already an accomplished matelot.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

So for now I peg the beginning of hominid (HE) boating/sailing at around 1 mya.

Well, we have Malaysian handaxes dated to 1.8 million years old. So if you subscribe to the view that every single type of hominid came out of Africa at some point, which we know the Club does, you could be looking at pegging the beginning of hominid sailing to 2 million years ago.

If you subscribe to the concept that Java was always separated (well, at least for the last 10 million years) from Malacca by deep and wide channels/straits, then HE must have been capable of sailing/boating before 1,57 mya (Meganthropus paleojavanicus). If you, however, subscribe to the concept that the SE Asian continental plateau/plain was – then – dry land, though – as I do, then MP could/must have walked to Java. And could have developed sailing/boating later, e.g. when/because the Wallace fault line developed. That must have been before 800 kya (Bednarik/HF). Hence my hypothesized 1 mya for the advent of sailing/boating.

For now, either scenario is good enough for me, though. Consequently, the scenario wherein hominids only developed sailing/boating in the last 100,000 years – let alone only in the last 10,000 years – is well and truly passé for me.