Lower Palaeolithic Art in Britain?

[Charlie Hatchett]

Re-reading your comments I realised that a lot of the material in your neck of the woods is like limestone(?) and I guess harder to read than flint especially when as you say it has often been intentionally smoothed too. Mostly I am dealing with flint and therefore the confidence level is greater. So I guess I am not really disagreeing - when it starts getting soft my interest wanes.

Yup, we're on the same page. Most of the time, it's hard to have have a high confidence level when it comes to limestone, though sometimes, there's no doubt:



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[Charlie Hatchett]

Ooh, wait. I never suggested that they weren't. My complaint with The Club is that they do not use their intelligence. They are far too ready to dismiss anomalies (let's not even call it "evidence" at this point) which might challenge their existing theory. They also apply an arbitrary and impossibly high standard of evidence to finds which appear to contradict existing theories on the grounds that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." However, in a number of cases the evidence to sustain orthodox claims would not meet that standard in the first place. Hence we get to such statements as "Khafre built the sphinx because his pyramid is nearby and they found a statue of him in a hole" and "there are no hand axes in North America."

Yup, this bowing to theory, which is so prevelant in mainstream archeology...at least currently. Several mainstream archeologists, however, are eager to rewrite theory:

Archeologist digs up new truths in Central Texas

Dr. Michael Collins, a research associate at the University’s Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL), has discovered some fascinating artifacts during his career. He has also discovered that old archeological theories can be as hard to break as the rock that holds those artifacts. After years of dedicated research, Collins has amassed substantial evidence to challenge 20th-century scientific thought on the origins of humankind in the Americas.

The saga began in 1990 with a phone call from a fossil-casting expert in Illinois. The man told Collins that an archeological antiquities collector had asked him to cast copies of some prehistoric spearheads and engraved stones unearthed at a site in Central Texas. The location, now known as the Gault site, had been plundered for years by collectors looking for ancient artifacts. The spearheads and stones were special because they indicated that the earliest known inhabitants of the Americas, known as the Clovis people, lived on the site between 12,500 and 13,500 years ago.

Things got really interesting a few years later when the Gault site changed hands and the new owners conducted their own dig. Uncovering the mandible of a mammoth and knowing they could not remove the find without destroying it, they called Collins. By then, he knew the site was rich with archeological information. Even though collectors had removed evidence of the last 9,000 years of human existence at the location, they hadn’t dug far enough to get to the era of the Clovis people. Collins and TARL were able to lease 34 acres of the site for three years, and in that time they roughly doubled the number of Clovis-era artifacts excavated to date in North America.
Recovered from the Gault site in Bell County, these tools were used by humans thousands of years ago to kill game, cut wood, and gather food.
Click here for larger image.

The artifacts tell a story far different from accepted thought on the earliest dwellers in the Americas. Until Gault, most archeologists subscribed to what is known as the Clovis First Theory, which holds that the first humans in the Americas arrived here some 13,500 years ago, making their way from Siberia to Alaska by walking over a now submerged land bridge in the Bering Strait. These migrating peoples traveled down a narrow corridor between two towering ice sheets into the Great Plains, which were teeming with prey, and began populating the Americas as a highly mobile, game hunting people.

Researchers began poking holes in the Clovis First Theory in the late 1970s with the discovery of the Monte Verde site in Southern Chile. Collins, who was associated with that project for more than 20 years, says Monte Verde’s inhabitants were settled tent dwellers and not nomads. Carbon dating indicates they lived there about 14,500 years ago, a thousand years earlier than the Clovis First Theory postulates.

Then came the Gault site, which Collins describes as “the poster child for debunking the Clovis First Theory. You couldn’t have designed a more perfect site.” Archeological excavation there — led by teams from TARL — shows that rather than being specialized, roaming mammoth hunters, Gault’s Clovis inhabitants lived at the site off and on for 200 to 300 years. They used stone tools to kill game, cut meat, work hide, and gather plants.

Clovis First has suffered other blows. The latest scientific studies show that the ice-free corridor into the Americas probably didn’t appear before 12,000 years ago. And because of Monte Verde and several digs in North America, Collins says, “we now believe people arrived in the Americas considerably earlier than we once thought — perhaps as long ago as 20,000 years.”

How they got here remains uncertain. But Collins and others believe the first Americans likely arrived by boat, and the scenarios vary as to how this happened. “Gault is having its intended effect and the Clovis First Theory is becoming less and less defensible,” says Collins. “But when you dismantle a paradigm, you’ve got to replace it. We’ve got a long way to go in formulating a new theory.”

The questions that must be answered, he says, are who were the first Americans, when did they get here, where did they come from, and how did they arrive? “When we answer these questions, our answers have to withstand the scrutiny of archeologists, human biologists, linguists, geologists, oceanographers, and paleoclimatologists,” he says. “We’ve got a big order.”

Much of the work done by Collins and his team of six researchers and scores of volunteers has come from private philanthropy. In fact, Collins’ father Walter, an independent oil and gas man who died in January, was a significant contributor. “He got me interested in archeology when I was a child,” Collins says, recalling that the two collected spearheads and other artifacts and studied them together. “He worked in his oil and gas office almost until the day he died at the age of 98. He was a pretty remarkable guy.”

[Minimalist]

He needs to write a book to bring this to the general public.....THAT always pisses off THE CLUB!

[Charlie Hatchett]

He needs to write a book to bring this to the general public.....THAT always pisses off THE CLUB!

Oh, I think he plans to. He already has his preClovis research in press for Wilson-Leonard, though I think he's holding off on releasing it. He also found preClovis at Gault, ca. 25 miles north. I have a feeling he's going for the slam dunk. He's been holding this stuff very close to his chest. He just finished digging at Gault. Give it a year or so for him to write it up, and I bet he releases both research papers in tandem.

That's my prediction, anyway. We'll see how it pans out.

[AD]

Hi Charlie...

I have a feeling he's going for the slam dunk.

I wouldn't hold my breath. I'd bet a few bucks that Gault (and probably your site), as large and extensively inhabited as it was, has a fair amount of "preClovis" artifact material, but how likely is it that he would recognize this? Remember, Collins (very much a "Club" member) is the guy that told you limestone artifacts of greater than "Clovis" age could not possibly survive. Anyway, the presence of pre-Clovis artifacts in North America has been old news for some time now, and the Topper site in South Carolina currently seems to have the best-confirmed evidence of this, although Collins sees only geofacts there. (Yes, they are artifacts. I had a close look at them about a year ago; the overall form and fabrication marks are quite evident.)

Alan
http://www.daysknob.com

[Charlie Hatchett]

I wouldn't hold my breath. I'd bet a few bucks that Gault (and probably your site), as large and extensively inhabited as it was, has a fair amount of "preClovis" artifact material, but how likely is it that he would recognize this? Remember, Collins (very much a "Club" member) is the guy that told you limestone artifacts of greater than "Clovis" age could not possibly survive. Anyway, the presence of pre-Clovis artifacts in North America has been old news for some time now, and the Topper site in South Carolina currently seems to have the best-confirmed evidence of this, although Collins sees only geofacts there. (Yes, they are artifacts. I had a close look at them about a year ago; the overall form and fabrication marks are quite evident.)

Alan
http://www.daysknob.com

Yeah, but how do you explain this:

"Stratigraphic, Chronometric, and Lithic Technological Evidence for PreClovis at Wilson-Leonard, Texas. Current Research in the Pleistocene."

Dr. Mike Collins- In press since 2004

Or this:

[Fig.5: Chipped stone artifacts from layers below well defined Clovis deposits at Gault; it is not yet known whether these are earlier Clovis or preClovis cultural remains (photo: Gault Archeological Project).]

http://www.athenapub.com/10gault.htm

Note, the photo is missing.

Mike knows he has preClovis. Watch his actions.

Remember, Collins (very much a "Club" member) is the guy that told you limestone artifacts of greater than "Clovis" age could not possibly survive.

Yup. I don't listen to what Collins says, I watch what he does. He plays his stuff very close to his chest. We knew that Collin's knew limestone artifacts could survive at least from Clovis times. He's got a bunch we've already talked about:













He found these same type pieces at Wilson-Leonard in Clovis (11,500 B.P.) and Wilson (10,500 B.P.) contexts.

[Minimalist]

Remember, Collins (very much a "Club" member)

Hold on, Alan. Maybe his thinking is evolving based on new evidence?
I can't hang someone for what he wrote or said in the past if he/she is willing to re-evaluate that position on the basis of later finds. If the whole CLUB was willing to do that I wouldn't have any problem with them.

[AD]

He plays his stuff very close to his chest.

Like any true scientist?

Mike knows he has preClovis. Watch his actions.

Ok. It will be fun to watch, particularly if he has verifiable pre-Clovis artifacts looking like the Topper material he has declared to be just rocks.

Maybe his thinking is evolving based on new evidence?

Nothing wrong with that...

[Manystones]

Refocusing for a moment on a topic discussed earlier, the question of whether or not one should summarily dismiss as natural an apparent zoomorphic or anthropomorphic figure because it is not entirely lifelike, consider this quote from Dr. Marija Gimbutas' "The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe" with regard to simple Neolithic sculpture:

"The artist's reality is not a physical reality, though he endows the concept with a physical form, which is two-dimensional, constrained and repetitive. Supernatural powers were conceived as an explanatory device to induce an ordered experience of nature's irregularities. These powers were given form as masks, hybrid figures and animals, producing a symbolic, conceptual art not given to physical naturalism."

Of course in speaking of the Neolithic, she describes "art" that is more refined than what we are considering, but would someone like to make the case that the impetus to and capacity for symbolic representation somehow occurred suddenly and spontaneously at the end of the Mesolithic?
And, by the way, her book has many photos of small Neolithic hybrid bird-human sculptures. Here is one of them:

Alan
http://www.daysknob.com

Now where are the club members when you need them?

[Charlie Hatchett]

Now where are the club members when you need them?

I understand your frustration, Richard and Alan. I've been sitting on what I believe to be preClovis iron smelting facilities and artifacts. And every time it rains, the structures erode a little more...very, very frustrating. Luckily, several geologists have taken interest, and performed analyses. Two of the geologists have made plans to visit the site this spring.

Have you tried to solicit help from a geologist? They tend to be a lot more objective.


As to Collins, he has been a defender of the antiquity of Monte Verde since the 80's (presently dated to 33,000 B.P.):

This is a bona fide archeological assemblage, it is very old, and it has profound implications for American prehistory.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/featu ... llins.html

I think he's on the right track, though not moving fast enough for my taste:

But when you dismantle a paradigm, you’ve got to replace it. We’ve got a long way to go in formulating a new theory.”

The questions that must be answered, he says, are who were the first Americans, when did they get here, where did they come from, and how did they arrive? “When we answer these questions, our answers have to withstand the scrutiny of archeologists, human biologists, linguists, geologists, oceanographers, and paleoclimatologists,” he says. “We’ve got a big order."

[Charlie Hatchett]

Ok. It will be fun to watch, particularly if he has verifiable pre-Clovis artifacts looking like the Topper material he has declared to be just rocks.

I've heard that one of the pieces is a biface. That's about all I've been able to figure out.

[Frank Harrist]

Dr. Collins is my hero! He's close enough to "the club" for them to listen when he talks, but he's just maverick enough to shoot down old ideas and advance his own. Plus, he's a really nice guy. He invited me down there to TARL and to the site where he is working. I'm unable to make it for a while, but I do intend to take him up on that offer. I work closely with TARL when I record a new site. They keep up with my site records, and assist me in any way they can. TARL is the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory. They are part of the Texas Historical Commision and the THC Archaological Stewardship program. For those of you who do not know, I am a steward in that program. That's probably why Dr. C. took the time to listen to me when I told him about Charlie's site. He's very busy with his own stuff right now, so he hasn't the time to check it out as he should so I plan to go down there and do that too. I'll need at least a week to do all this so maybe when I get a vacation, in about a year, I'll spend it in Austin with Charlie and Dr. Collins. Maybe Dr. C. will have published by then. (Maybe he'll give me a free copy!)

[AD]

Hi Frank and Charlie...

(From Frank) That's probably why Dr. C. took the time to listen to me when I told him about Charlie's site.

Hence all the cheerleading - fair enough. It would be great if you could use your connections to engage someone with the resources to properly sort out Charlie's stuff, as this certainly warrants it. And yes, the pros have little time for their own projects, with everything that is out there. That certainly is the case here in Ohio, and here they also have a severe lack of manpower and money, even for the popularly recognized "Indian" stuff - not to mention the career hazards inherent in considering anything outside the established paradigms.

What sends me into orbit is something I see over and over again - the pros do not like amateurs venturing into their domain, particularly when these seem to be onto something they would much prefer to be their own discovery, and the first thing the pros do is throw out something patently bogus in an attempt to short-circuit the amateur's efforts (e.g., limestone couldn't possibly survive, etc.). And it's not a uniquely American phenomenon by any means. Richard (a.k.a. Manystones) was just recently treated to this wretched display by a prominent British archaeologist who told him his material could not possibly be artificial because the origin of the rock of which it is composed predates the arrival of humans. (So much, then, for all our nice flint triangles we have been assuming to be arrowheads, etc.)

I apologize for my unseemly grumpiness - it's due to a mild disorder I have, diagnosed as bullshit intolerance.

(From Charlie) Note, the photo is missing. ... I've heard that one of the pieces is a biface. That's about all I've been able to figure out.

Contrast this with Dr. Albert Goodyear's putting his Topper finds out on display for everyone, including amateurs like me, to fondle and photograph at will. (See http://www.daysknob.com/Topper_A.htm )

(From Charlie) I understand your frustration, Richard and Alan. I've been sitting on what I believe to be preClovis iron smelting facilities and artifacts. And every time it rains, the structures erode a little more...

Frustrating indeed. And "preClovis" or not, any such evidence predating European contact is remarkable and very important. This past summer, I've diverted a great deal of effort from my own project to working with Dave Gillilan, also in southern Ohio, who has a lot of similar and obviously artificial metallic material (apparently iron) 1.5 meter (5') down in undisturbed terrain, in direct context with a cache of diagnostically (professionally identified) Late Archaic lithic artifact material. The state archaeologists were at first eager to register the find, but when they saw photos of the metal, they immediately dismissed the site as a nineteenth century landfill, although absolutely nothing resembling trash of this or any other era appears in the vicinity. We hired a professional geomorphologist to verify the stratigraphy ($800 including backhoe rental), so we now have documentation that the terrain adjacent to the find is undisturbed glacial till (not counting a shallow plow zone). (And Dave had earlier dug up thousands of cubic feet of the immediate area to lay utility lines for a construction project, finding absolutely no trash.) The "professionals'" response to this was that there must be a landfill there somewhere - just keep looking. (I really love this common archaeological variation on the scientific method applied to something heretofore unaccepted - start with an a priori conclusion and work back through the evidence, adjusting this accordingly.)

(From Charlie) Have you tried to solicit help from a geologist? They tend to be a lot more objective.

Damn right. Been doing this for some time now - only way to go. (See http://www.daysknob.com/H05.htm ) At least my own project has been officially designated as an archaeological site (33GU218), although there is currently no interest in a proper professional excavation because only a few flint pieces (nonlocal) are present, despite professionally (petrologist) identified worked material of other lithologies, and such things as worked bone and human hair. Fun and games...

Anyway, thank you both for your comments and observations. I wish you luck in your endeavor - we all need a lot of it.

Regards, Alan

[AD]

I forgot to mention: Far as I know, Richard has not yet run his material past any physical scientists, although this is on the agenda. At this point, he's still just talking with archaeologists.

Incidentally, Richard and his wife are expecting a new member of the household any time now, so if he disappears for a bit, no surprise.

[War Arrow]

I don't know. It strikes me that all it might take is for one site (or even object) to be taken seriously, to be proven valid in such a way that not even the most hardened club naysayer can deny without looking extremely foolish, and given the amount of stuff that seems potentially preclovis - there could be a landslide. It's not like anybody's trying to argue for a preclovis people on the strength of a single bird shaped flint and half a bit of stick. There seems to be so much of this stuff that's worth investigating that I don't belive it can stay buried forever (pardon the pun). What I'm trying to say is be optimistic. If there's anything in this idea (and I didn't think there was before I came to this forum) then I'm sure it'll come through, and probably sooner rather than later.