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Seeing What There?

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:01 pm
by fossiltrader
My problem with seeing what Charlie could see is actually based on my having located for the Forests And Mines Department The National Parks And Wildlife in three states and The Aboriginal Land councils over here for quite a few years sites and artefacts now in fact it is mine and several of my friends private research into Homo Erectus In Australia that keeps us as a group slightly laughed at.
There we are lucky though as Mike Morewood himself believes that Erectus made it to our mainland and he has spoken of this several times.
The ability to SEE sites and artefacts where otheres dont in fact is how i make my living so far i have a clean record in fact when asked how i do it i usually say a little shyly its just a feel.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:27 pm
by Digit
A story for you MS, Dr Hans Reck of the Berlin university visited Olduvai Gorge long before Leakey and stated that no stone tools were known there. Leakey bet him 10 pounds that he would find some within 24 hrs.
He won!
Reck was a world expert on flint tools so why could he find none?
Simple, no flint in east Africa and he did not recognise other materials, in fact he took a stone tool back to Berlin as a rock sample!
Leakey was raised in east africa and had never seen flint, but he knew a stone tool when he saw one.

Re: Seeing What There?

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:59 pm
by Manystones
Nice story Digit.

I think FT's candid comment says it all....
fossiltrader wrote:when asked how i do it i usually say a little shyly its just a feel.

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:15 pm
by john
"Seek and ye shall find".

Raymond Alf, the Webb School Peccary Society,

about 1956.

"Laudate Deum"!


Side Question:

Any Peccary Society post-graduates out there?


john

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:21 am
by Beagle
http://www.alfmuseum.org/visitorpages_peccary.html

No one that I know of john. Maybe you are? Sounds interesting.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:50 am
by Digit
Not over here John.

HE

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:06 am
by Cognito
Now for some other stuff to think about. How far north has Asian HE been found? Have any fossils been found far enough north to be in a position to spread across the Bering land bridge? I also wonder if HE had the sophistication to stay warm at such northern latitude. HSS is able to weather such conditions, but we use clever tricks like blubber oil lamps and carefully crafted skin clothing to pull it off.
Mike Waters of Texas A&M dated the Diring Site, Siberia artifacts at 260,000 years old. Diring is due west of Anchorage, Alaska.

F/T, since you never visited the Calico site I am surprised that you referred to the tools as Oldowan. Plenty of Acheulean type tools are to be found there and pictures of Calico bifacial handaxes have been published previously on this site. When I was giving a tour to students at the Los Angeles City College last December the professor picked up a surface lithic and said, "If I wasn't a believer before, I am now. This is a classic example of Lavallois technique!" Who made this? I don't know.

Until bones are located, people will be concerned about sharp rocks; however, the Calico hillside will likely never yield bones since the soil is too acidic. Near the Lake Manix shoreline (5 miles east) there are areas that are suitable for preservation, but nobody has been looking since Leakey assumed room temperature in 1972.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:12 am
by Minimalist
since Leakey assumed room temperature in 1972.

I never quite heard it put that way before!

:lol:

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:14 pm
by Digit
Like I said Cog, HE knocked on the door, I just don't see him remaining on the door step!

HE

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:54 pm
by Cognito
Like I said Cog, HE knocked on the door, I just don't see him remaining on the door step!
So far, Digit, there isn't enough information to determine who made the tools that keep showing up in very old American geological strata. Until bones are discovered, there is no tidy package for archaeologists. However, nature cannot produce a bifacial, percussion-flaked hand axe in a classic teardrop form and drop it onto a hilltop to be discovered years later under a 200kya stratum. 8)

By the way, your question is fair: where does HE stop and HSS begin? And how much overlap was there? The transition seems to be very blurred. :?

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:05 pm
by Digit
We need a DNA sample and a standard to measure by Cog.

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:41 pm
by Minimalist
nature cannot produce a bifacial, percussion-flaked hand axe in a classic teardrop
Certainly not in North America where there are NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:51 pm
by Digit
I'm beginning to believe you Min! :lol:

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:19 pm
by Minimalist
Well....smack me when I start to believe it!

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:35 pm
by Rokcet Scientist
People need religion: believe it!

Hey, it's more of an intellectual challenge than those pansy-based smoke & mirrors religions of the millions!

And those serve to show you how far belief can go . . .

8)