Deleted

[Forum Monk]

He does this all the time, Digit, he stirs up a bunch of hornets and goes out for the evening. Leaving the rest of us swatting.

[Digit]

I can live with it Monk.

[Minimalist]

He does this all the time, Digit, he stirs up a bunch of hornets and goes out for the evening. Leaving the rest of us swatting.

That's our Charlie....

[Charlie Hatchett]

How comes so much stuff from one locality Charley? Was it washed in? How large is the dig?

Hi Dig.

I believe many of the artifacts were washed into the creek, from higher ground, back in the Pleistocene, during a major alluvial event (ice cap melt down?), though many of them could have been in the creek to begin with. The Pleistocene gravel cap was then covered by topsoil during the late Pleistocene and Holocene.

[Charlie Hatchett]

He does this all the time, Digit, he stirs up a bunch of hornets and goes out for the evening. Leaving the rest of us swatting.

Who, moi?

[Beagle]

Great answer Charlie! You da man.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Ha! I told you Min, I'm half rascal.

[Beagle]

Half??

[Charlie Hatchett]

Great answer Charlie! You da man.

I have to credit Virginia for helping me interpret the situation.

BOING!

I may not have the fastest synapses in the world, but something just clicked.

Charlie found one in situ stemmed projectile point in the gravel cap underlying (older than) fine-grained sediments in which Clovis points have been found by others and dated by them at ca. 12,000 years. Said tool (archaic [not! VSMcI] 20) has remnants of a carbonate coat covering the flake scars. (flake scars = tool shaping = older than carbonate coat = older than gravel cap = older than Clovis = older than 12,000 years). Other stemmed tools from nearby float (out of context) also have remnants of carbonate coats covering flake scars, as do many other float specimens showing various flaking technologies. He finds other artifacts in the overlying fine-grained sediments, the ones that have produced Clovis points at a nearby site, but none of them have remnants of a carbonate coat. We can assume they are younger than the carbonate coat episode.

But carbonate coats don't start out as relatively thick spots on flake scars; they start out as thin films covering the whole piece and thicken slowly over time. And nature doesn't treat an artifact as an artifact; she treats it as a piece of gravel. So we can further assume that, after these pieces were made, they rested a long time in the place they were dropped, and that the climate at that time was hot and dry, with intermittent moisture (for the carbonate to be moved in solution and later deposited on the tools. Sangamon Interglacial?) Then the climate got a lot wetter (Wisconsin time?) This in order to erode the sediments containing the tools, concentrate them, and move them along in a relatively high energy environment to their current position in the gravel cap, knocking off most of their carbonate coats in the process.

So, these tools Charlie is finding will have to be older than the gravel cap out of which they are now eroding. And they can be of various ages. Two especially, if those chip marks aren't natural, have had flake scars modified by water transport, i.e. dulled edges, before the carbonate coat was added (paleo 20, photo 2010a; preclovis 2019). Others may have been recycled at a later date (preclovis 20190, preclovis 20206).

And we have the same or similar carbonate thing in Mexico! At Hueyatlaco, above (younger than) the Tetela brown mud layer with dated pumice at the top of the sediment column is a layer of large carbonate nodules (concretions) that caused me a headache at first -- I thought they were pumice lumps. They overlie (are younger than) the artifact sequence at Hueyatlaco, both unifacial and bifacial tools. Here you have a time, perhaps long after the artifacts were dropped, when calcium carbonate was deposited in the soil somewhere (relatively dry climate) and later mobilized in solution (wetter) to be deposited as carbonate concretions. See my unpublished manuscripts section for mention of this. Silvia González told me in 2002 that she found the same large carbonate concretions ringing the Valley of Mexico at a relatively high elevation.

So what might be productive for Charlie to do is look for local, thick caliche layers in sediments OLDER than the gravel cap, then look closely for in situ tools there. They will be hard to spot because they will be covered with that caliche coat. Also he should check with the local state soils and geological survey offices for help with potential areas to investigate and, perhaps, background information on caliche formation. (Your state soils office would probably have the most detailed information.)

Photos of Cynthia's artifacts appear in one of her early articles; can't recall which one at the moment. It should be posted on the website soon.

Virginia

[Charlie Hatchett]

Half??

O.K., more than half.

[Beagle]

Charlie, you confess too quickly.

[Minimalist]

Just keep stirring!

[Charlie Hatchett]

Just keep stirring!

A man after my own heart.

I'm writing a short paper review for a human migrations forum I've been visting. They talk about the very lastest genetics issues, and a couple of pro's ,with published material, contribute quite a bit:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HumanMigrations/

I'll also post the review here when I'm done...30-40 minutes.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Here we go:

Comments on Tony Baker's paper:

1. Note Wormington's Anagenetic Model includes a technology
called Sandia, predating Clovis. Sandia technology has been scoffed
at, and basically swept under the rug after dates of 250,000 B.P.
were announced by geochronology types.

2. Wormington also worked on a site in central Mexico,
Hueyatlaco, where a Sandia type point was found in situ. Again,
geochronology types dated the strata containing the point
(among other tools) at a minimum of 250,000 B.P. Again, the
site was scoffed at, and swept under the rug, until very recently.
USGS, Berkeley, Texas A&M and INAH have reopened investigations at
the site, some 30 years later.

3. Note in Frison's Anagenetic Model, the Sandia technology is
dropped

4. Note the dual pointed El Jobo points date to ca. 16,000
B.P., and Clovis to as old as 15,000 B.P. Most "orthodoxista's" in
the archeological field will tell you Clovis is only as old as
13,700 B.P., max.

http://www.ele.net/art_folsom/pre-clovi ... 4dates.gif

5. I find this statement by Tony very enlightening: "My
complaint against C-14 dates is the way archaeologists "cherry pick"
the data. How many dates have never been published because they
did not match the investigator's anagenetic model? How many
published dates have been scrutinized and attacked because they were
inconsistent with the anagenetic model?

6.And this statement: "Now I can accept the concept that a
thick-bodied projectile existed at the same time as Clovis. The two
were contemporary on the North American Continent and there is a
strong possibility that the thick-bodied projectile was the
archetype."

From observations I've made, I agree with Tony. Thick-
bodied, dual pointed projectiles predate Clovis, and
Clovis peeps may have used the older prototype, and then
put a new twist on the technology, creating a cladogenetic situation:

A. Hueyatlaco (dated at 250,000 B.P., minimum):

http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.com/00043.png

http://www.valsequilloclassic.net/photo ... fact_1.jpg


B. Sandia (226,300 B.P.):

"Sandia Cave is located just outside of Albuquerque,
New Mexico and was excavated by the University of New
Mexico (UNM) during the years 1936-1940 (Hibben
1941b:3). The first article concerning the Cave and associated
work appeared in April 1937 (Hibben 1937:260-263).
Frank Hibben, who is considered the principal investigator and
life-long proponent of the Sandia Cave findings,
authored it. The next article on the Cave by Wesley Bliss (1940a:200-
201), began a controversy in North America archaeology that
raged for many years. By the 1980s, the raging controversy had become
a few smoldering coals as Sandia Cave was disappearing from the
modern literature. The decline in interest was because most
academics did not believe the reported findings from
the Cave, so they didn't write and/or teach about the subject. Now,
in 2005, I am not sure a new archaeological student would
recognize the terms "Sandia Cave" or "Sandia Man"."

http://www.ele.net/sandia_cave/elephant.htm

Written by Tony Baker.


C. El Jobo (16,000 B.P.):

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journ ... -taima.gif

http://www.ele.net/art_folsom/pre-clovi ... 4dates.gif

D. Central Texas Point:

http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20181.jpg

http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20180.jpg

http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20182.jpg

http://cayman.globat.com/~bandstexas.co ... %20183.jpg

Technology very similar to the Sandia and Hueyatlaco technologies.
Roughly dated somewhere between the Illinoisan and Sangamonian
Interglacial by geochronology types. One artifact from the same
strata has been roughly dated at 147,500 B.P., via U/Th
analyses, by the USGS. Berkeley Geochronology Center is
currently analyzing 6 more specimens from the strata.

7. There are thick-bodied projectiles, which are associated
with microblades, in Upper-Paleolithic of Siberia. Therefore, there
is an ancestral source for thick-bodied points in the New World. For
example at Dyuktai Cave they are dated between 12,100 +120 and
13,200 +250 rcybp (Mochanov and Fedoseeva 1996:165&169). I propose
that in the New World some thick-bodied,unfluted projectiles split
off and evolved into thick-bodied, fluted projectiles, which I have
termed Old Clovis. Others remained thick-bodied Agate Basin-like.
Old Clovis evolved into thin-bodied New Clovis and then into
thin-bodied Folsom. (Again, see my Clovis/Folsom Transition
webpage.) Finally, Folsom disappeared, but Agate Basin and other
thick-bodied projectiles did not. They became the later Paleoindian
types.


So, in summary, although the Clovis–First camp is most
likely in error, evidence to date suggests that Siberia
first may be correct. Some outliers even suggest West
Africa First may be correct, and the technology migrated northward,
from North America to Siberia.

[Minimalist]

from North America to Siberia.

That is not going to get pasted on the Club House wall, Charlie!