Contact Early Possible European Descendants

Digit · Post by **Digit** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 4:43 pm

No! They were trying to get away from the mother in law!

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:02 pm

Hmmm....I can hear the Club saying that these are clearly ceremonial pots...not boats, Charlie.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:38 pm

They could easily be drafting plans for currachs, from what I see.
Too easily. And too perfect. Imo.
Makes my hair stand on end.
I'd be very interested in thorough dating research and theories.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:42 pm

And of course the Solutrean boat cave paintings only amplify the possibility that they reached America. But since most of those cave paintings have very widely varying ages: how old were those boat paintings exactly?

Here's a few refs concerning La Pileta, where the jib sailboat was painted:

Nonetheless, there are some 25 palaeolithic decorated sites in Andalucia, two of which have recently produced AMS dates: 20,130 +/- 130 uncal. BP for the depiction of an aurochs at La Pileta (together with other more recent dates), and 19,900 +/- 210 uncal. BP for charcoal close to the painting of a stag at Nerja. Stylistically, these figures have been attributed to the Spanish Solutrean, and the dates seem to confirm this cultural association (Sanchidrián et al 2001).

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/past39.html

Venerable Emerson Greenman of U. Michigan found canoe, kayak, and dugout types painted in red or black in Pleistocene Spanish caves La Pasiege, Castillo, and La Pileta, which included the midship gunwale peak characterizing Beothuk watercraft of Newfoundland.

http://www.wfu.edu/~cyclone/THE%20SOLUT ... ESTION.htm

As will be seen, in successive stages of the Upper Paleolithic, the characteristic art was: first the deep engravings in the daylight zone of caves (Abrigo de la Vi–a, La Lluera and Chuf’n); the groups of red outline or dotted line figures of Solutrean age (ie 21,000 to 16,500 BP) found in caves like Llon’n, La Pasiega, Covalanas, Arco and Arenaza. These are often associated with quadrangular abstract signs, frequently subdivided internally, or with lines of dots, found therefore in the same sites and also in Chimeneas and El Castillo.

http://www.muse.or.jp/spain/eng/caveart4.html

A second group is found in the inland hills of eastern Andalucia. So far, it seems that the art of the inland group (La Pileta and Do–a Trinidad) tends to be of an archaic style, whereas a more recent Magdalenian style is more common on the coast, in the caves of Nerja, El Higuer—n, El Toro and Cueva Navarro.

http://www.muse.or.jp/spain/eng/caveart4.html

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/8021u5235011j046/

El Castillo Cave (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria)
Discovered by Alcalde del Río in 1903, this site contains a wide range of cave art as well as a hugely important deposit, with archaeological levels covering the periods from the Acheulian to the Chalcolithic. The sequence provides important data for the greater understanding of the transition between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, and similarly between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Great attention is given to the chronology and the processes that were involved in the substitution of human types and cultural layers.

http://museodealtamira.mcu.es/ingles/colecciones.html

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:53 pm

Minimalist wrote:

Hmmm....I can hear the Club saying that these are clearly ceremonial pots...not boats, Charlie.

Guess they could, but why would you draw pots on a cave wall?

I wonder what the red dots mean?

Forum Monk · Post by **Forum Monk** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:56 pm

Here is the quasi land bridge to Australia during the last glacial maximum. Sea Levels -120 meters:

Nothing like this exists in northern passage between europe and north america. That crossing would have been either ice or sea. Nothing else.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:59 pm

Impressive. You certainly seem to know your cave paintings, Charlie. It's probably going to take me a couple years studying before I'll be able to fully appreciate and digest all that.
Let alone comment on it.

I did get the impression that all dating references seem to rest on a logic system of coincidences, likelihoods and inferences. There isn't any indication of technology based dating research. Haven't 'they' ever done that? Scraped bits off to analyse in the lab and under the microscope?

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:00 pm

I wonder what the red dots mean?

Radishes.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:39 pm

Rokcet Scientist wrote:Impressive. You certainly seem to know your cave paintings, Charlie. It's probably going to take me a couple years studying before I'll be able to fully appreciate and digest all that.
Let alone comment on it.

I did get the impression that all dating references seem to rest on a logic system of coincidences, likelihoods and inferences. There isn't any indication of technology based dating research. Haven't 'they' ever done that? Scraped bits off to analyse in the lab and under the microscope?

Well, we are dealing with art, which is subjective to begin with. But many supposed Solutrean art "experts" agree the following dating probably applies to the boat depictions as well:

Nonetheless, there are some 25 palaeolithic decorated sites in Andalucia, two of which have recently produced AMS dates: 20,130 +/- 130 uncal. BP for the depiction of an aurochs at La Pileta (together with other more recent dates), and 19,900 +/- 210 uncal. BP for charcoal close to the painting of a stag at Nerja. Stylistically, these figures have been attributed to the Spanish Solutrean, and the dates seem to confirm this cultural association (Sanchidrián et al 2001).

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/past39.html

The red dots, or radishes as Min called them (

) surrounding the boats at Castillo are pretty much expected to have "gone out of style" by the end of the Solutrean, or early Magdalenian (18,000- 16,000 B.P.).

Like I mentioned earlier, an in situ boat find, in Spain or France, dating in the 20,000 B.P. range would strengthen the case quite a bit. In the meantime we keep digging.

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:51 pm

Science is missing in that equation. And when I look again at those currach drafting plans I still have gooseflesh.
I've learnt to heed my hunches.

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:54 pm

Rokcet Scientist wrote:I miss science in that equation. And when I look again at those currach drafting plans I still have gooseflesh.

Yeah, it's definitely not a proven case, but worthy of further research, imo.
I call it following the trail that makes most sense. If it dead-ends, we start fresh...

Rokcet Scientist · Post by **Rokcet Scientist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 7:45 pm

Charlie:

An in situ, 20,000 B.P. boat recovery from Spain or France would cinch the case (one like 151, plate 8 in Greenman's paper above). Hell, a 20,000 B.P. boat recovery in N.A., with 4-5 Solutrean points in the same context would be very cool.

I'm keeping my eyes open.

But don a diver's helmet first, please, Charlie!

As Monk picture illustrates, coastlines were very different then. Any boats would be on the coastline methinks. That coastline then is now under 300 to 600 feet of water!
And a 100 miles out in open sea, minimum.

That's what "in situ" would entail.

So, like it or not, but we need Bob Ballard!
(Never thought I'd say that).

Charlie Hatchett · Post by **Charlie Hatchett** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 7:48 pm

Rokcet Scientist wrote:Charlie:
An in situ, 20,000 B.P. boat recovery from Spain or France would cinch the case (one like 151, plate 8 in Greenman's paper above). Hell, a 20,000 B.P. boat recovery in N.A., with 4-5 Solutrean points in the same context would be very cool.

I'm keeping my eyes open.
But don a diver's helmet first, please, Charlie!

As Monk picture illustrates, coastlines were very different then. Any boats would be on the coastline methinks. That coastline then is now under 300 to 600 feet of water!
And a 100 miles out in open sea, minimum.

That's what "in situ" would entail.

So, like it or not, but we need Bob Ballard!
(Never thought I'd say that).

Unless we might find a boat in a river alluvium, "inland" a bit.

If someone here is motivated enough, you could look up rivers that feed into the Atlantic and Med, in the Iberia area, preferably close to Castillo or Pileta.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:01 pm

UNless someone once made a stone boat, I doubt there would be much left of a wooden one after 20,000 years submerged in sea water.

john · Post by **john** » Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:10 am

All -

Doesn't have to be either-or.

Both the Arctic and Clovis cultures - I'm speaking verry generally here -
seem to share a mainshaft/foreshaft/point paradigm in terms of their techne.

So I'll say this. For the lithic tradition to arrive so abruptly in North America, especially as the highest concentration of Clovis points is in SE North America, would argue a Spain to Florida maritime tradition. Direct.

The second road would be around the Euro-Artic curve and down into Northern North America. Bone points, but still mainshaft/foreshaft. And, interestingly enough, that thar European haplogroup showing up in NE American tribes, but not SE. The solutreans being that much earlier that we don't have a haplogroup for them, just an identifiable lithic techne.

Now, just to confuse the shit out of everything, I'll make the same argument from the Asian/Pacific side; one group following the Siberian/Aleutian/Alaskan side, and a far earlier group coming direct overseas from Japan. Creating islands of humanity from Monte Verde to Baja California to - perhaps - the Chumash. The second group forming the mainstream westcoast indian cultures which the european invasion of the 16th/17th centuries ran smackdab into.

John