Archaeologica.org

Well, for a start, what is a race? I'd argue that it is basically a sociological concept, not a physical one.

Doug, I could fill a couple of pages with physical differences between the races. There are a couple of anthropologists calling for an end of discussion about the differences in races, and while I admire their motive,
it's just scientifically incorrect.

Without making a long list, let me ask you how scientists were able to determine that Kennewick Man was closely related to the Ainu? And those were only bones. Race can be determined clear down to the genes.

It really doesn't seem that it would be that much of a mystery. As noted, aside from skin color there are skeletal differences.

http://www.nauvoo.com/cgi-bin/printer_f ... stman.html

The article centers around the finding of "Kennewick Man," a skeleton washed out of a riverbank by flooding of the Columbia River. Preliminary study yielded the firm conclusion that the skeleton was 9,000 years old, of caucasoid physical structure, and linked by an arrowhead to "Clovis man," a culture lacking in skeletons and of evidence of development here in America. The hypotheses of the anthropologists involved a European origin, and even an icebridge over the north Atlantic, though other evidence (including a possible link to the Ainu of Japan) points back to the Bering Strait but has a racially different people doing the first crossing.

genetically different or
physiologically different are not the same
as racially different.

Best not to call it race, but just say that people have
certain characteristics in common.
IMHO.

I appreciate where you're coming from Stan. Although all scientists still use the words caucasian, etc., just as we do here, there is common agreement to avoid the word race.

Words like social construct and clade are substituted in the effort to be politically correct. It doesn't change the fact that humans are easily identifiable as belonging to one or the other of mankinds "groups".

The more important thing to do, I think, is to never infer one is somehow superior to another.

Arch/Anthro sciences are trying to clean up what once was a pretty ethnocentric science, and rightfully so.

I love reading these good discussions where everyone gets along even if they don't agree. This is the type of thing this board was made for. As long asd we acknowledge one another's intelligence and right to opinions and beliefs it can be this way. Keep this up! Great posts here! Sorry this was off topic but ya'll deserved a compliment.



GOLD STARS FOR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(Where did I put those damn gold stars?)

Frank Harrist wrote:I love reading these good discussions where everyone gets along even if they don't agree. This is the type of thing this board was made for. As long asd we acknowledge one another's intelligence and right to opinions and beliefs it can be this way. Keep this up! Great posts here! Sorry this was off topic but ya'll deserved a compliment.



GOLD STARS FOR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(Where did I put those damn gold stars?)

Up yours, Frank!

Hi - I'm new to this forum, and I haven't read all the posts in this thread, sorry if I'm reapeating anything already covered:

The identification of Kennewick Man with the Ainu was based on the dentition patterns.

About the Solutrean migration - a big part of that theory was based on the existence of mtDNA haplogroup "X" in native populations, which was thought to originate only in Europe. Since then, haplogroup "X"X has also been found in Siberian populations, so there is no need for a European migration to explain the DNA.

As for the timing, glaciation was in full swing up to around 30k years ago, but with the water levels being so low at that time, a lot of evidence for pre-Clovis migration is probably a few miles out to sea. If id did happen that early, it probably happened many miles south of the current Bering Strait.

Interesting NG - I wsh I had found it sooner.

Cheers

Jim

Welcome Oldarchystudent ,
There is another thread running where the difficulties of marine archaeology ,and how much info we are missing because of it , have been argued over . If we were able to excavate that area it might answer a lot of questions, but I dont see it happening soon .
My problem with the clovis theory is If Clovis people radiated south after entering America and eventually ended up at the southern tip of South America by 11k years ago, this leaves only a short time span to populate the entire SA . Also when they inspected the Monte Verde site the radiocarbon evidence predated Clovis by at least 1,000 years. This makes it difficult to defend the theory of a north-to-south population movement.

Tech wrote:Welcome Oldarchystudent ,
There is another thread running where the difficulties of marine archaeology ,and how much info we are missing because of it , have been argued over . If we were able to excavate that area it might answer a lot of questions, but I dont see it happening soon .
My problem with the clovis theory is If Clovis people radiated south after entering America and eventually ended up at the southern tip of South America by 11k years ago, this leaves only a short time span to populate the entire SA . Also when they inspected the Monte Verde site the radiocarbon evidence predated Clovis by at least 1,000 years. This makes it difficult to defend the theory of a north-to-south population movement.

It makes it difficult to defend north-south in the traditional timeframe (10 - 13k YA). To do that the population growth rate would have to be 3-4 times the norm for modern populations. Migrating that far, that fast, and still occupying the territories behind the migration front would be just impossible when you factor in reasonable infant mortality rates of the time. However, that migration route makes sense if you bump it back to when a dry-land route was first becoming available, circa 25-30k YA.

So I do believe the Beringia route is the only viable option based on the evidence we have to date, I just don't believe the timespan. I think it is much older than 13k years.

That may be the case as the established timeline is changing constantly as new finds are made , ie:

The news from Virginia, reported by Mammoth Trumpet, is not good for advocates of the Clovis Horizon as first Amerind settlement of North America. Two sites with clear stratigraphy contained levels below the Clovis Horizon and with dates just too old to be accomodated by Clovis theory.
What are the sites? In eco-logically distinct areas of Virginia. The first is Cactus Hill in the tidewater ('Nieder-länder') area of southeastern Viginia, 45 miles south of Richmond. There were found one or two cultural levels beneath an established Clovis level. The finds were "simple stone tools -- blades and cores"; the pre-Clovis level has been dated to 15,070 BP by AMS procedures (accelerator mass spectrometer) but the Clovis levels were also dated by C14 (10,920 ya) and by the presence of white pine charcoal. That tree has not been in the tidewater for 10,000 years, said a Yale paleobotanist (McWheeny). Negative aspects of the site include sand dunes and the extensive looting of the upper levels or over 400 of 1400 square feet of site or 30% ±.
The other site is Saltville in southwestern Virginia in a valley of the Appalachian Mts. Here were found "stone and bone tools, mastodon bones and ivory, fire-cracked rock, and other evidence". While the site was dated by C14 to 13,990 ± 70 on a "twig in a sand lens that integ-rates a variety of presumably cultural material", it also had a C13-adjusted date of 13, 950 ± 70. That is the better part of 14kya. The principal investigator was research associate in paleo-biology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. His name is Jerry N. McDonald. His team has been laboring away at the site for fifteen years.

If you are really interested in this stuff and can stand a long post - this is from a paper I wrote last year.....

Pendejo Cave
Beyond the interest raised by early 14C dates, including human hair dated to 12,240 ± 70 years BP (MacNeish and Libby 2003: 420) Pendejo Cave has been at the centre of an additional controversy regarding a series of apparently human friction skin prints in association with charred oak remains radiocarbon dated to as early as 35,960 BP (MacNeish and Libby 2003: 418). In the site report Dr. MacNeish et al. explain the extraordinary lengths to which the team went to ensure the scientific integrity of the finds, including experiments that involved impressing modern fingerprints into clay and firing the piece before burying it in soils from Pendejo to compare them to the ancient prints, confirming that the artifact impressions were made before the clay was baked (MacNeish and Libby 2003: 422). The Harris Matrix reveals a straight line of stratigraphic boxes, proving a reliable relative chronology for the site (MacNeish and Libby 2003: 185).

The findings were inevitably challenged. A “guest” excavator questioned the claims of sealed deposits and primary context for the lot in which the artifacts and prints were found, alleging a loss of stratigraphic integrity due to rodent burrowing (Dincauze 1997: 555). Defenders of the original findings state that Dr Dincauze was not working in the portion of the unit associated with the human prints, that the rodent intrusion was not as widespread and compromising as she suggests and they stand by the primary context of the finds (Chrisman: 1997-B: 557). Another question was raised around the number of epidermal ridges per linear centimeter in the human fingerprint. A close analysis of the pictures of the prints included in the site report revealed, according to the detractors, ridge counts ranging from 5 to 70 per linear centimeter, where the site report claimed a count within the adult average is 13-19 (Shaffer and Baker 1997: 560). Dr. Chrisman counters that their measurements were made directly from the artifacts themselves, not from photographs, and that shrinkage of baked clay can skew the measurements (Chrisman: 1997-A: 561). The integrity of the fingerprints would seem to bear up under even the tightest of scrutiny.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter
In the extensive and ever-expanding body of pre-Clovis publications, no site seems to be more hotly contested than this shelter in Pennsylvania, reported by the excavating team to contain Paleo-Indian artifacts dated to 17,650 ± 2400 BC (Adovasio et al. 1980-B: 101). The findings were challenged based on a lack of analysis of the ecofacts for confirmation of the artifactual dates (Mead 1980: 581) and with allegations of sample contamination from natural sources of particulate coal and coal-derived humates (Tankersley and Munson 1992: 322). In a series of replies to critics of the site, Dr. Adovasio et al. must repeatedly document the sealed nature of the lowest artifact bearing levels (Adovasio et al. 1980-C: 589), the internal consistency of the radiocarbon chronology (Adovasio et al. 1990: 349) and the absence of coal seams in the shelter (Adovasio et al. 1980-C: 590). After some 15 years of reiterating the same facts we can sense the frustration in the Adovasio et al. 1992 reply to a range of critics, partly titled “Never Say Never Again”.


Monte Verde
South America’s counterpart to Meadowcroft is surely Monte Verde, Chile. This site has gained perhaps the widest acceptance as a pre-Clovis evidential site with a conservative date of 12,500 BP (Hoffecker and Elias 2003: 47). In an extraordinary show of confidence following challenges to the actual archaeological nature of the site, Dr. T. Dillehay and his associates invited a diverse and independent team of observers to Monte Verde to examine the findings from the viewpoints of artifacts, sediments, stratigraphy and any possible contamination or redeposition of the materials used for 14C determinations. While the focus was on the later, 12,500 BP deposits in the MV-II level, the earlier MV-I level (with contentious occupation dates as early as 33,000 BP) were also open for debate (Meltzer et al. 1997: 660). Following a review of documentation, presentations on and first hand examination of the various materials recovered at the site, and a visit to Monte Verde itself, this independent team, which included some pre-Clovis doubters, reached general consensus on the following:
1. MV-II is archaeological and there is no good reason to doubt the integrity of the carbon dates. This point met with unanimous agreement.
2. Publication of the Monte Verde findings set a new and higher standard for reporting on sites that challenge the Clovis paradigm.
3. Lithic finds from MV-II were indeed artifactual and included projectile points and grooved spheres that could only be created by human activity.
4. The artifactual nature of some wood artifacts could not be agreed upon.
5. A footprint from MV-II was clearly human (Meltzer et al. 1997: 660-662).

In addition, discussion and examination of the older MV-I materials leads Dr. Meltzer to report that some finds in this early level are clearly human artifacts, show no evidence of contextual disturbance, and are associated with radiocarbon determinations at least 33,000 years old. Preferring to deal with the less controversial MV-II results, Dr. Dillehay is reticent when discussing MV-I, but with the encouragement of observers like Dr. Meltzer to continue with further excavations at this intriguing site, we can perhaps look for definitive answers from MV-I in the near future (Meltzer et al. 1997: 662).

Although Dr. Dillehay avoids the term, the lithic assemblage at Monte Verde falls into the general category know as “El Jobo”, from the original type site, El Jobo in Venezuela. Difficult to identify, El Jobo points generally display a rounded base and a serrated edge formed by a “coarse” flaking technique. The fluting that typifies Clovis points does not appear in El Jobo assemblages. This industry has been dated as late as 8,000 BP, but El Jobo points found in association with burned bone at the Muaco site in Venezuela have been dated to 14,780 BP, and lancolates that appear similar in conformation to El Jobo from Santa Isabel de Ixtapan in Mexico produce a date of 33,000 BP (Jackson 1999: 41). This determination becomes all the more intriguing when we recall the 33,000 BP date discussed for MV-I noted above.

Archaeological Inferences of Monte Verde:
Even without the sensation that a verified result from MV-I would create, the peer-reviewed and confirmed finds of MV-II, some 16,000 kilometers from the land bridge of Beringia, are by themselves sufficient to push back the occupation of the Americas well beyond the Clovis horizon. What does this mean for the rest of the New World? Given the distance from Alaska, and the arguments set forth in this paper dismissing all but the Beringian migration routes, one could expect a series of sites supporting the pre-Clovis hypothesis throughout both North and South America. Why then are purported pre-Clovis sites so few in number relative to Clovis finds?

There are two possibilities. One is the presumed loss of sites on the continental shelf formed by the LGM which are now far out to sea in the submerged portions of Beringia and the west coast. The other may go to the pre-disposition of archaeologists to work within the framework of Clovis and to find nothing older. In the face of such a dogmatic approach, researchers such as Dillehay, MacNeish and Adovasio must seem mavericks indeed.

Other Sites of Note:
1. Cactus Hill, Virginia. At depths of 7 to 20 centimeters below a Clovis occupation floor, and in a number of different areas throughout the site, excavators discovered several quartzite points, blades and cores in close association with charcoal deposits between 15,070 ± 70 14C yr BP and 16,670 ± 730 14C yr BP (Wagner and McAvoy 2004: 297).

2. Little Salt Spring, Florida. During the Upper Paleolithic this pond was a freshwater cenote that attracted wildlife and early human inhabitants. A shell from an extinct giant tortoise was discovered here with a sharpened wooden stake imbedded just behind the right foreleg. The presence of fire-hardened clay beneath the tortoise suggests the animal was cooked in situ. Wood from the pointed stake has been radiocarbon dated to 12,030 BP, presenting the same “rapid expansion” challenge to the Clovis-first theory as Monte Verde (Clausen et al. 1979: 609-610).

3. Bluefish Caves and Old Crow Flats, Yukon Territories. Both of these sites have yielded bone fragments consistent with human breakage by either flaking or spiral fracturing. Old Crow has been harshly criticized, however Bluefish cave artifacts include a mammoth bone core and the associated bone flake formed by percussion flaking, dated to 23,200 ± 250 14C yr BP (Morlan 2003: 129).

4. Big Eddy, Missouri. Excavations in 1999 at this Ozark/Eastern Plain border site recovered seventeen pieces of stone flaking waste (debitage) and two stone tools described as a possible hammerstone and anvil, in levels below Clovis-era occupation strata yielding carbon dates between 11,375 ± 80 BP and 12,590 ± 85 BP (Ray et al. 2000: 69).

5. Hebior and Schaefer sites, Wisconsin. Hebior contained butchered mammoth remains in association with two chert biface tools and debitage of chert and dolomite. Bone collagen was extracted, purified and radiocarbon dated to 12,480 ± 60 yr BP. A mammoth specimen from nearby Schaefer was recorded with similar dating results, a single broken biface and debitage (Overstreet and Kolb 2003: 94).

6. Topper, South Carolina. Dr. Goodyear of the University of South Carolina has presented evidence for human occupation of this site circa 50,000 BP. Stone flakes dated to 16,000 were found in the initial stages of the excavation, but the dramatic older date is based upon carbon dated charcoal deposits some 13 feet below the Clovis layers. Doubts have been raised regarding the human origin of the flakes, and it has been suggested that the charcoal was the result of natural deposition rather than the creation of a firepit. (Powell, topper.html). Excavations continue.

Cheers

Jim

Nice re-cap, OAS.

Nothing against long posts here .
Interesting reading , I have come across some of those results from other sources . There does seem to be enough evidence to support a 17k- 15k Bp dating but I think they really need fossil or artifact evidence to verify the 35k Bp . Hopefully not all the required evidence is sitting on the continental shelf .

Thanks guys.

Evidence will be tough to find even on dry land. Migrating people often follow water routes, which when the glaciers began to melt would have swollen with meltwater and washed away a lot of evidence, so even if evidence is turned up the chances of it being in primary context would be pretty slim. Second thing here is that we're probably talking about small hunter gatherer groups so they wouldn't leave a lot behind. My other concern is that with a Clovis first paradigm in place, I often wonder if archaeologists stop digging once they hit a Clovis horizon.

35k is the earliest in my opinion. I am really interested to see what happens at the Topper site but to me 50K years is pushing it as that would predate the glaciation needed to make Beringia passable AND have occupation in Siberia.

oldarchystudent wrote:Thanks guys.

Evidence will be tough to find even on dry land. Migrating people often follow water routes, which when the glaciers began to melt would have swollen with meltwater and washed away a lot of evidence, so even if evidence is turned up the chances of it being in primary context would be pretty slim. Second thing here is that we're probably talking about small hunter gatherer groups so they wouldn't leave a lot behind. My other concern is that with a Clovis first paradigm in place, I often wonder if archaeologists stop digging once they hit a Clovis horizon.

35k is the earliest in my opinion. I am really interested to see what happens at the Topper site but to me 50K years is pushing it as that would predate the glaciation needed to make Beringia passable AND have occupation in Siberia.

oldarchstu -

my reference to the "northern gate being locked" is that we had a continuous ice sheet descending to, at least, a couple hundred miles south of the present us/canadian border.

my argument is that the early people would have taken the path of least resistance/best food source. which in all likelyhood would have not included continuous ice sheets, but travel on and subsistence from the ocean, until a liveable land-based existence was found. in short, coast hopping.

rather than taking the trite argument that human occupation of the americas went from tierra del fuego north - for lack of a better term- i think that we will find that early groups fetched up on both the eastern and western shores of the americas in a "radial" fashion, following the path of least resistance. which means that, as we don't really know the extant microclimates of the sea and land at that time, we don't have a way to predict the landings on the eastern and western seaboards, and subsequent establishment of viable populations. given the much lower sealevels of that time, it will be close to a miracle to ever establish a continuous sequence of habitation.

i agree with you about 35k being the early horizon.

time will tell.

john