Archaeologica.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_Salinity_Crisis

About 5.4 million years ago, at the start of the Pliocene period the barrier at the Strait of Gibraltar broke, permanently reflooding the basin.

From the above, a little before our time I think.

Wrong, Roy: until 100 years ago most Inuit lived their entire lives on the ice, never even touching dry land.

So where did they get their stone from?

However, they couldn't swim, and hardly 'boat'. So they did what they knew how to do: walking!

Did you bother to read the PS I posted?

If they spent that amount of time actually on the ice they would have run out of land based supplies.


They didn't need any.

Short of a zippo lighter how did they make fire?

Roy.

Digit wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_Salinity_Crisis

About 5.4 million years ago, at the start of the Pliocene period the barrier at the Strait of Gibraltar broke, permanently reflooding the basin.

Afaik scientists have good reason to think the Pillars of Hercules broke between 10,500 and 11,500 BCE when it burst under the ginormous pressures generated by the very fast rising sea levels (meltwater from the Würm) in the oceans.
(As an aside: the Bosporus and Dardanelles 'burst through' into Lake Euxine – present day Black Sea – between 6,500 and 7,500 BCE; the amalgam of these events, and others, merged into the religious 'Great Flood' myths).

So where did they get their stone from?

Short of a zippo lighter how did they make fire?

I haven't a clue. I'm not Inuit. Ask them! They licked the problem! That's all I need to know: it's a lickable problem. And the Inuit licked it, millennia before Zippo lighters. So the Solutreans could – and did – just as well.
But I'm not interested in either's preferred sunblocker level or how many sugars they like in their tea...

They licked the problem!

Yep! They used stone and wood. Neither of which is available on the ice other than drift wood.
In Igloos they had no fire.

http://www.ssplprints.com/image.php?id= ... earch=true

http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/aagreenleaf/Inui ... /page6.htm

The Inuit hunted there food with different tools and weapons.The spear was used for hunting caribou and sometimes polar bears.Spears where made from flint. A bow and arrow was used to hunt at a range the sharp parts where flint

They have never ceased their dependence on the land.

Roy.

Eating most of your food raw reduces the requirement for fire and fire making by a magnitude or two. And if there were nomadic groups dotted all along the pack ice edge – with staked out hunting ranges, as people do – I would expect some sort of trade, maybe even 'caravans', like in the Sahara, to spring up. These could easily bring in the minimal amounts of flint required. Traded for food.
As for wood: there's more than enough wood floating in the ocean to get small fires going. Ice edge hunter Solutreans probably collected an armful of driftwood each day.

Easy Peasy

And if there were nomadic groups dotted all along the pack ice edge –

If there were, and if the Solutreans either maintained a contact with the old or new world. In each case there is no evidence to support either view. Drift wood needs drying before it will burn, and unless it was delivered in nice little stick form it would need stone tools to cut it.

Roy.

Hunting from boats.
Firstly there is a common misconception that sea mammals are killed with a harpoon, they are not!
What is the point of stabbing something with a weapon that you cannot retrieve?

This is not convincing. Somehow, I can see the hunters using boats for mobility but landing and making their attack on a beached herd. In much the same way as predators attack a herd, today. Pick a target on the edge and try to disable it before it can flee.

Meanwhile, Stafford's theory calls for hunters in boats. He never envisioned any sort of Long March.

I'd still like to know why they made the journey Min. To a population of their size the sea's riches were limitless. Collect fish off the coast and another lot will take their place if there's food for them.
Also north Africa was a damn sight nearer than the Americas, in addition, by the time they had advanced west by more than a few miles any area that they had exhausted would have been replenished by fresh species moving in.
Till early in the twentieth century west Wales was 'fenced in with Herrings'.
Food shortages do not seem to be the answer anymore than it seems to be the reason that man crossed into Australia.

Roy.

Would be pure speculation on my part, Dig.

Would be pure speculation on my part, Dig.

and everybody else's as well Min. According to the DNA evidence for both Oz and America the number of colonists was very small, so small that their loss would have had no significant effect on either population density or food supplies.

Roy.

Digit wrote:

And if there were nomadic groups dotted all along the pack ice edge –

If there were, and if the Solutreans either maintained a contact with the old or new world. In each case there is no evidence to support either view.

Indeed. No direct evidence. As that lies 2 miles deep. But certainly parallel evidence: the Inuit, the Polynesians, etc. Enough to build a solid hypothesis on.
And then there are those pesky 'Solutrean points' in America, aren't there? Which makes it definitely more than a hypothesis.

Drift wood needs drying before it will burn

Driftwood can burn after 24 hours of exposure to the bone dry air on the ice.

and unless it was delivered in nice little stick form it would need stone tools to cut it.

Sheesh, Roy, did you really miss the seventies and eighties? Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude van Damme? Get a couple DVDs to learn how to make tinder of everything around you without stone tools, will you?

Oh, and not to spoil the party: they just discovered that DNA code consists not of 4, but of 5 nucleotides. I.o.w. all previous analyses are void and need to be re-examined in light of this new knowledge...

I'd be more inclined to speculate about political troubles, either internal or external, forcing a small band of refugees to head for the hills and noting that there was a decent food supply along the way could only help.

Any genetic contribution would not have survived the comet. There were none of them left when the Asian-based migrants arrived.

And then there are those pesky 'Solutrean points' in America, aren't there? Which makes it definitely more than a hypothesis.

After they got there, we were discussing getting there. If they took generation getting there they would have run out of srone and sending people back hundreds of miles to collect some sounds unlikely.

Sheesh, Roy, did you really miss the seventies and eighties? Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude van Damme? Get a couple DVDs to learn how to make tinder of everything around you without stone tools, will you?

I'll ignore that one.

Driftwood can burn after 24 hours of exposure to the bone dry air on the ice.

That would depend entirely on the ratio of surface area to volume of the timber and whether the atmosphere was bone dry, in sea mist etc very unlikely. Not a very reliable resource I think.

Oh, and not to spoil the party: they just discovered that DNA code consists not of 4, but of 5 nucleotides. I.o.w. all previous analyses are void and need to be re-examined in light of this new knowledge...

Granted, but that does not mean the results will be significantly different does it? Let's wait and see shall we?

Still awaiting your comments on the PS I posted though.

Any genetic contribution would not have survived the comet. There were none of them left when the Asian-based migrants arrived.

According to my reading what kicked off the theory Min was the discovery of such DNA markers in the native population of America.

Roy.

Digit wrote:

And then there are those pesky 'Solutrean points' in America, aren't there? Which makes it definitely more than a hypothesis.

After they got there, we were discussing getting there. If they took generation getting there they would have run out of srone and sending people back hundreds of miles to collect some sounds unlikely.

In those days you made everything on the spot, Roy. Out of available materials. The templates/designs for those tools, however, had already been imprinted in their collective memory, their oral tradition, and, possibly, their pictoral culture, for millennia. And were highly mobile. No need to go back across to get those.

Driftwood can burn after 24 hours of exposure to the bone dry air on the ice.

That would depend entirely on the ratio of surface area to volume of the timber and whether the atmosphere was bone dry, in sea mist etc very unlikely. Not a very reliable resource I think.

Yes, you'think', Roy. Because that's 'Reiner Theorie'. I've actually done it: burnt driftwood, that I fished out of the sea myself the previous day and had dried (on top of a permanent ice pack!), in an open fire! It burnt well, if a bit smokey at times. 48 hours of drying would have taken care of that too.
That was in Antarctica, but it applies in the north just the same.

Oh, and not to spoil the party: they just discovered that DNA code consists not of 4, but of 5 nucleotides. I.o.w. all previous analyses are void and need to be re-examined in light of this new knowledge...

Granted, but that does not mean the results will be significantly different does it?

It certainly doesn't mean the results will be significantly the same.

In those days you made everything on the spot, Roy. Out of available materials. The templates/designs for those tools, however, had already been imprinted in their collective memory, their oral tradition, and, possibly, their pictoral culture, for millennia. And were highly mobile. No need to go back across to get those.

You've missed my point. If they took generations to get there and did so by sending people back to Europe for supplies BEFORE they got there is what I meant. They could not have made stone tools on the ice there is NO stone on the ice. They either carried it with them, sent back for supplies or arrived before their stocks ran out!
Which was it?

Drift wood can become so saturated that it eventually sinks, that would require some time of drying. In the open air in northern latitudes the lowest moisture figures that can be obtained in timber is 20%.

And you still haven't commented on the PS I posted by those who originated the theory and the mechanism that you so vigorously reject, why is that?
I ask again, why would a people with a maritime culture dump it and walk everywhere?

Roy.

They either carried it with them, sent back for supplies or arrived before their stocks ran out!

"Sending back" implies a logistical train that we just cannot assume existed.

The idea of Solutreans showing up at Cactus HIll in Virginia and finding a usable stone to make some spear points is quite reasonable. But, they would still have to be able to recall how to make them and, I think, that dismisses the possibility of a multi-generational migration.