Tasmanian Site Discovery

[Rokcet Scientist]

I think of people as primarily lazy.

So how did it take just 150 yrs for the US to reach from coast to coast Min?
The lazy ones stay home and hope things will get better, what drove men like your early settlers to move west, passage in a wagon train couldn't have been cheap so they must have given up a lot.
We have colonised this entire planet Min, and we did it before population pressures forced us onwards. Take your Channel Islands, they were occupied almost as soon as man reached the Americas, and they were too far from the mainland for wading to, so why cross the waters when the whole of the continent was available?
Why have some people dedicated their lives to space travel?
All these events are, IMO, a reflection of our innate desire to explore.
The movement of people from Asia into Alaska 'following the herds' I suspect is wrong, by the time the white man reached your country the Bison had a well defined migration pattern, they didn't suddenly head for Cocpacabana once the land bridge formed, and I see no reason to assume that Mammoth etc changed their migration pattern simply because an ice free path cleared between the two continents.
In fact, as far I am aware, the only major migration was human.
I rest my case!

Roy.

And migration is also progress. Take the Greeks. The current Greeks. There are 20 million of them. Since WWII 10 million of those have emigrated from Greece to all over the world to new lands like the US, South Africa, and Oz. They are the enterprising Greeks. They take chances, they work hard, and they generally succeed. The other 10 million are the ones still in Greece today, obviously. The not-enterprising. And behold: 60% of the working population in Greece are overpaid civil servants, teachers, nurses, care givers, etc. etc.! Costing and spending billions while not being productive at all. That's why Greece is in an economic mess right now. They overspent. On civil servant's salaries. It's a cultural mentality. But particular to the not (e)migrating Greeks!

[Digit]

This has moved off of Tasmania somewhat but I'm rather surprised that no one has taken up my comment about human migration via Beringia.
As I pointed out there seems to have been no animal migrations of consequence in either direction, this to me suggests that there may well have been no human migration via Beringian lands.
An example....
no animal migrations of consequence to and from Oz, likewise Asia/north America, but....there was, and is, via Panama.
The logical deduction from this is that there was no usable land connection between Asia/Oz or Asia/north America.

Roy.

[Sam Salmon]

The Mayas (sic) (most moved)

I must take exception-while it's true they moved most of them only moved back into the forest onto small plots of land away from the cities-they didn't migrate to new strange lands far over the horizon.

In fact most are still there today.

[Minimalist]

See, that's my problem. Why would they voluntarily leave an area that was meeting their needs? Could a small group really deplete an environment and force themselves into a 'move or die' situation?

The Mayas (most moved), the Rapa Nuians (most died), and the Khmer (most moved) did it! Among countless others.

And even ish's example about rapid climate change isn't rapid enough. We're assuming an HG type of living. There is no planning for the future in any real sense. Every day its kind of like when my kids were young. They'd stare into the refrigerator and wonder what nature had provided? But a couple of years would be an eternity for an HG group. They would be impacted by a single season without rain. One could fall back on the old 'following-the-animals' adage but that only goes so far. Animals didn't cross the sea. They might not even cross a large river. But man did.

Animals cross rivers and lakes – and, yes, seas – all the time. How about seasonal treks/migrations of land-based animals? Take for instance a couple million wildebeest. Everybody knows the scene where they stampede across a wild river that's infested with hungry crocs!
Yet they do it twice a year, every year. Have done for millennia.
One Zimbabwe elephant herd swims many miles to islands in the middle of a very large lake, and back. Every year, when some particular kind of fruit trees on those islands are ripe, afaik.
Amazonian fire ants hook up, literally, in the hundreds to form floating rafts to cross rivers and lakes. Etc. etc.

We don't really know why the Maya abandoned their cities. There is a lot of speculation and it may even be a case of different reasons in different places at different times.

I've seen those videos of the Zambesi river crossing. The Nile, or the Congo, or the Amazon, or the Volga it isn't. Digit is right. Natural barriers prevent animals from crossing. Man will make it when he has to but I just don't think they do it for the hell of it.

[Minimalist]

As I pointed out there seems to have been no animal migrations of consequence in either direction, this to me suggests that there may well have been no human migration via Beringian lands.

Let's not forget that with Beringia we are asked to believe that ancient man crossed into a kind of cul-de-sac in northern Canada and stayed there until an 'ice-free' corridor opened up.

The lack of animal migration is striking, though.

[Digit]

The lack of animal migration is what first drew my attention Min, so I did some checking.
How did the 'walk through Berengia,' come about?
Turns out it started with an assumption. Man knew nothing about boats, therefore he must have walked, fortunately about that time the evidence of an opening in the ice sheet came up.
Ipso facto, man walked!
We'll just ignore the animal problem and hope nobody notices.
Snag now of course is that sites in south America predate the ice free corridor, but people are as reluctant to give up a comfortable idea as they are to give up a comfortable arm chair.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

The lack of animal migration is what first drew my attention Min, so I did some checking.

It also means that animals were smart enough to avoid Beringia but man wasn't? Who, in their right mind would walk TOWARDS a glacier?

These people were survivalists to a prime degree. Surely they would have noted that the animals were going the other way?

[Digit]

Experts! The ice sheet on a map is one thing, staring at it at ground level strikes me as an entirely different kettle of fish.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Yes, I mean it is not as if we don't have glaciers today. Do animals flock to them to enjoy the weather?

[Digit]

I would expect the scene to be something like this....
a wall of ice thousands of feet high, in front of the ice alternately frozen ground then, in season, marshy ground due to the melt water run off. Further south I would expect grassy plains then scrub to be followed by conifers then eventually a more temperate flora and fauna.
I can see no point what so ever in attempting to live at the foot of the ice sheet, further south the woodland would provide food and fuel plus access to the fauna of the tundra.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

We are in agreement.


Which means, carrying the thought to its logical conclusion, that the Clovis-First crowd thinks ancient Asians deliberately ignored all that and marched north anyway...to an uncertain future...because..... because......

[Digit]

Which inevitably leads to another conclusion based on the dates of sites along the western sea board of the N and S America, that water craft was the method of colonisation.
The skulls at the earliest sites are also non-mongoloid, rather southern Asiatic.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

The oceanic ice edge provides a clear distinction to the land ice edge. Aquatic mammals can drag themselves up when they need to rest and there are plenty of fish in the ocean at feeding time. Can you imagine a pack of ice age hunters spotting a herd of seals hanging out on the ice? Pick one and go for it while the others scatter. Hunter's paradise.

[Digit]

Yes indeed Min, and I can't help wondering how long it will be before the animal problem is faced, along with the difficulties faced with the skulls and the site dating, and a fresh plan drawn up.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Clovis-First has taken a beating in recent years. Are there any young "Clovis-Firsters?" Keep watching the obit pages.