Solutrean Connection

[Cognito]

Roy, the picture for the Americas is somewhat confusing since archaeological research was hamstrung for many decades. First, Ales Hrdlcka of the Smithsonian would not allow any discussion of entry other than by Siberia to Alaska no more than 3-6,000 years ago, then came the Clovis First crowd who pushed entry back to 13kya. The current paradigm for entry is now 18-20kya, but sites keep cropping up that are far older.

And it appears that there wasn't just one entry point. People crossed Beringea on foot, sailed the North Pacific current and quite possibly the South Pacific also with landfall near Chile. Then there are the tradewinds that take one across the Atlantic from West Africa to South America where Pedra Furada appears to date from circa 50kya. Genetic analysis indicates multiple entries instead of a clean and simple explanation. The "Whodunnit" remains a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing.

[Digit]

I understand that Cogs, but the majority are still arguing for 15000 yrs ago for the north western land route and seemingly ignoring the evidence for earlier dates in western south America.
The only way these various dates stand up is multiple sea borne entries! The one thing they all have in common is colonisation, lost/wandering fishermen are unlikely to be carrying women with them.
RS was the great opponent of sea borne migrations, but boat hopping along the shore line, which seems to have been the method used means easier, safer travel. You can carry more with you in a boat than on your back or pulling a sled.
It appears to me that, accepting sea level rises in the interim, that nearly all the early sites are coastal, and then strangely enough most settlements were riverine. I do not believe that this is coincidence.
It all points to sea borne travel, then the world is your Oyster.
But let's face it Cogs, the establishment takes 20 yrs to spot the obvious!

Roy.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Cogs, Digit -

"Ales Hrdlcka of the Smithsonian would not allow any discussion of entry other than by Siberia to Alaska no more than 3-6,000 years ago, then came the Clovis First crowd who pushed entry back to 13kya. The current paradigm for entry is now 18-20kya, but sites keep cropping up that are far older." That is pretty much it: Hrdlcka imposed his view, and did so for years.

Sea Turtles are the migrating animal.

Let me clear up the southern Atlantic crossing:
http://www.conserveturtles.org/images/s ... tracks.gif

Unlike most fishermen, sea turtle hunters tended to fish as a family unit.

As near as I can make out now, B mt DNA came across early along the Pacific coastal route, while A mt DNA came across the same route much later on, the A Algonquin along the coast, the A Sioux hunting inland.

My current guess is that D mt DNA was a direct South Pacific crossing, while C came over Beringia sometime around 50,000-40,000 BCE.

As far as the use of the term "Red Paint" goes, it all depends on where you are at, since it has regional definitions. Here in Illinois, "Adena" was called "Hopewell" for many years, and definitions of late Paleo and Early Woodland currently depend on state boundaries.

As far the spread of the Andaste, their arrival further south along the Atlantic coast is marked by the appearance of Dalton Maritime Archaic points, not to be confused at all with the mid-continent Dalton points.

It is stunning to me how poorly known early colonial ethnology is. "Susquehannock" was Captain Smith's Algonquin guides' word for the river at whose mouth the Andaste were living.

Thanks for the additional info on the Black Sea flooding. The Eurasian glaciers melted at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and the water went somewhere.

The water route from Lake Baikal to the Black Sea is very interesting.

[Digit]

The migration routes of the various Atlantic marine Turtles follows the Atlantic gyre, and undoubtedly would permit of human hunter migration, after all, the Irish claim they took the north Atlantic route by following the Great Auk.
But there appears to be number of questions here EP that you may be able to add some enlightenment on.
Firstly why would they follow the Turtles as they seem to pass any given point on any day of the year as opposed to moving like Reindeer, seasonally?
What type of stone points did these people use, do they match those found on the eastern seaboard?
Do similar points to those found on the eastern seaboard show up elsewhere than France/Spain/Portugal?

Roy.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Roy -

The area that needs work is the river mouths on the coast of Northwest Africa, where an armed dispute has been going on for quite a while.

See my post "What's for dinner?" for more information on Sea Turtles.

[Cognito]

Thanks for the additional info on the Black Sea flooding. The Eurasian glaciers melted at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and the water went somewhere.

Two primary melt epochs post-LGM with the YD providing the most notable hiatus from 12.9kya to 11.6kya.

The following map shows the beginning of glacial melt post-LGM directly after 18kya. Note that the Baikal discharged into the Ob Basin which at the time was a shallow fresh water inland sea, then on to the Aral, a swollen Caspian, through the Manych Straits into the Black and finally out to the Med. Glacial melt flowed south for thousands of years along that pathway until the northern glaciers had melted enough to where the discharge could release north. There were a series of Altay megafloods that came roaring through the Aral-Caspian-Black areas that destroyed everything in their path ... and it would have been a good idea to get the hell out of the way at the time.


Image Courtesy of Don's Maps

The Russians have studied Eurasian flood geology extensively, but much of this is relatively unknown and/or underappreciated in the west. And by the way, with all those lakes I am sure there was plenty of boating.

(This response would otherwise go into the Old Word section, but we are discussing the origin of mtDNA X2a)

[E.P. Grondine]

Two primary melt epochs post-LGM with the YD providing the most notable hiatus from 12.9kya to 11.6kya.

Interesting. As the Atlantic cooled due to the melting of the North American glaciers, it slowed down the melting of the Eurasian glaciers.

The following map shows the beginning of glacial melt post-LGM directly after 18kya. Note that the Baikal discharged into the Ob Basin which at the time was a shallow fresh water inland sea, then on to the Aral, a swollen Caspian, through the Manych Straits into the Black and finally out to the Med. Glacial melt flowed south for thousands of years along that pathway until the northern glaciers had melted enough to where the discharge could release north. There were a series of Altay megafloods that came roaring through the Aral-Caspian-Black areas that destroyed everything in their path ... and it would have been a good idea to get the hell out of the way at the time.


Image Courtesy of Don's Maps

The Russians have studied Eurasian flood geology extensively, but much of this is relatively unknown and/or underappreciated in the west. And by the way, with all those lakes I am sure there was plenty of boating.

(This response would otherwise go into the Old Word section, but we are discussing the origin of mtDNA X2a)

Yeah, and I have had some "less than gifted' retards screaming about X2A in the Altai. Well, guess the f*** what.

You know, Cogs, when you're out hunting mammoth or mastodon, its a good idea to know the landscape. The problem with this map is that it shows known mammoth grazing grounds as being under ice or water. For amateurs such as myself, that can be confusing.

Hunting tip for the day: It is not simply a coincidence that there is a peak in 14C dates for mammoth fossils at 10,750 BCE.

I think research will progress more rapidly along the Black Sea than in Siberia. As much as I'd like to visit Irkutsk, they have beaches in Odessa, and I don't own electrically heated long johns. Look how close those early Black Sea shores are to the current ones. Find the chert quarries nearby, and piece of cake...

[Cognito]

You know, Cogs, when you're out hunting mammoth or mastodon, its a good idea to know the landscape. The problem with this map is that it shows known mammoth grazing grounds as being under ice. For amateurs such as myself, that can be confusing.

Under ice and under water. The geography of Eurasia post-LGM was totally different than that of today and rarely do you see any accurate depictions. Here is an artist's drawing of Lake Ob, the huge Siberian Lake that was fed by glacial melt from the Altay region and Kara glaciers with a depth of 100 meters or greater. It flowed through a narrow channel past current day Tumen into the Aral Sea.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Cogs -

You ought to try comparing the geological maps and point find maps for New York and Eastern Canada sometime. Or fossil find maps.

In the meantime,
http://rt.com/news/paint-asteroid-earth-nasa-767/

which gives everyone plenty of time to buy and read a copy of my book,
"Man and Impact in the Americas" before it hits.

[Digit]

After some careful research and thought I am still left with a number of problems concerning the idea that the tool manufacturers of the NA east coast were African Turtle hunters.
What led Stanford et al to a possible Solutrean connection was the stone tools and the close similarity between the two assemblages.
Stone age cultures are currently defined by these self same stone artifacts, and inherent in this understanding is that no two different goups produce near identical tools!
Thus either this stands, and the NA east coast does have a Solutrean connection, or the traditional view of different tools meaning different cultures becomes suspect.
Secondly the Turtle hunting leaves me uncomfortable. As I understand it the Turtles do not have a migratory season, that they circle the North Atlantic gyre year round, that like public transport, if you miss one another will be along shortly, so why chase them all over the North Atlantic?
A full circuit of the gyre would take many months, and in an open boat it seems a very odd way to make a living.

Roy.

[E.P. Grondine]

Roy -

See the NW Africa - South America sea turtle routes in the links I gave in "What's for dinner?"
Then work your way north from there.

Then start to work on Yuchi and Oconachee.

The problem is the lack of field research in coastal NW Africa.

[Digit]

I did read the article EP. The lack of research is unfortunate, but unless we give up the idea that distinctive tool assemblages represent different cultures my concerns still stand I'm afraid.
I know of no two similar tool assemblages that are representative of different peoples, or am I wrong?
The way I see it is that there can only be two alternatives to the NA east cost sites, European influence, or we reject the concept of tools being representative of distinct cultures

Roy.

[E.P. Grondine]

I did read the article EP. The lack of research is unfortunate, but unless we give up the idea that distinctive tool assemblages represent different cultures my concerns still stand I'm afraid.
I know of no two similar tool assemblages that are representative of different peoples, or am I wrong?
The way I see it is that there can only be two alternatives to the NA east cost sites, European influence, or we reject the concept of tools being representative of distinct cultures

Roy.

Hi dig -

Earlier archaeologists had no way to connect material cultures with ethnicity. Heck, they did not even have reliable physical dating mechanisms available to them. Now, between comet and asteroid impact, and DNA testing, that can be done. Detailed contact era ethnological work provides the final link.

"Clovis" fluting was adopted by many peoples, as were "serated edge" technologies 7,000 years or so later, along with stone grinding and polishing technologies at the same time.

In a way, this is like Renfrew's diffusion model, but at far earlier time periods, involving lithics technologies instead of crops and domesticated animals.

One is left with charting the diffusion routes, and dating them accurately, as the rate of DNA change is not really known well yet. And that is where impact events come in.

In this case, the authors tried to link X mt DNA to an early Atlantic crossing, but there is another better diffusion path for that lithic technology, one that agrees better with gross ethnological features, though it is unsampled on the DNA level yet because of the low surviving populations.

As X mt DNA can be tied to the Canadian Maritime Archaic, their hypothesis fails immediately.
Once that diffusion route is eliminated, one other remains, the one I set out.

[hardaker]

In terms of motivation to make the Atlantic crossing in large numbers, what if there was a spell when the Gulf current stopped, making W. Europe more like Siberia. Just a thought.
Also, NW Africa has some pretty nice projectile point that seem to be pre-Solutrean, and that seem to be the only fancy thing in the area that might have evolved into Solutrean -- can't remember their name.

This was my favorite story about theories on Atlantic crossing. It begins in the Canary Islands.
________

British pair becomes first mother and daughter team to cross Atlantic in rowboat
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
(05-05) 09:03 PDT BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) –
Sarah and Sally Kettle have become the first mother-daughter team to cross the Atlantic in a row boat.
The British pair set off in a 23-foot plywood boat, the Calderdale, from the Canary Islands on Jan. 20, along with 13 other boats racing in the Ocean Rowing Society's Atlantic Rowing Regatta.
Sarah, 45, and Sally, 27, arrived late Tuesday night in Barbados after the 2,907-mile journey.
"Fantastic, absolutely fantastic," Sarah Kettle said.
She said the trip was fueled by chocolate.
"We ate so much chocolate. I never ate so much chocolate until now," she said.


also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Rowing_Race

[Digit]

Two points there Chris. The Gulf Stream can not stop! Second point, the article you posted was a one way trip, unless all those circling in the gyre stayed in NA they would have had to complete the circle, as the GS flows at about 4 knots they could not have opposed it by turning back, in fact once in the GS they would not have had to do anything, the current would have returned them to Europe.

Roy.