New species?

[Frank Harrist]

http://www.bfro.net/legends/

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/legends.htm

Sorry I'm not contributing much recently. Not feeling too well. Carry on, though, please.

[Minimalist]

Well feel better big guy...because if Bigfoot IS out there, he's getting away!

[jw1815]

No need to apologize while recovering, Frank. Just get well.

Thanks for the great links. I added them to my favorites.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Big One has cultural, psychological, and spiritual value and meaning for many Native people in North America. The only question in my mind is whether he’s a physically real being – ape, hominid, bear – or once was and went extinct, remaining only as a cultural memory in legends.

I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest forests, but have been to the Allegheny National Forest in PA and NY’s Allegheny State Park, an extension of the PA forest over the state border. The NY park is pretty tame. Several campsites, a few beaches (artificial lakes), hiking trails, etc. You’re seldom far away from other people there. Bear sightings are a rarity.

The PA section is mature second growth forest, with pockets of old growth, for about 513,000 acres (had to look that up; my knowledge of it isn’t that good) or over 800 square miles, a world unto itself beyond the public camping and recreation areas. The modern city, suburban, or rural dweller – even those who camp and hunt – often aren’t accustomed to that level of isolation with Nature in its own state over such a large area. So when I hear visitors to these forests tell of night time experiences with huge beings and unearthly screams, I wonder if they didn’t hear a wildcat or owl, then see a shadow and scare themselves silly with Bigfoot tales. Not to demean them. I’d probably get scared in the same circumstances, but my imagination would run toward the more mundane – some kind of wild animal, how many, how near, how to protect myself if necessary, etc.

Before Europeans showed up, Native people living near or in forested areas were aware of and accustomed to natural sights and sounds from intimate living with and interaction with the environment that they depended on and tended. It was only a wilderness to the European newcomers, who were used to fences and unaware of Native land management and use practices. Like people everywhere, Native North Americans developed stories about Nature’s creatures – as entertainment, children’s lesson stories, and sacred spiritual legends. So, to me, Native Bigfoot legends are either cultural stories of psychological/spiritual/social value or they’re real accounts of encounters with a real creature. Since wild man cultural stories have existed around the world throughout time, I see Bigfoot that way rather than as a real physical being.

But…….in such large tracts of deep forest, many sections of which rarely if ever have human visitors, who knows? Maybe a human-phobic species could exist undetected except for occasional encounters with people.

BTW, I’ve seen Thunderheart and have a copy of the book. I don’t remember reading about the Big Guy in it. Have to go back and look again.

Got any good links to the Asian side of the story?

Now, get well enough to answer this lengthy post with a Bigfoot femur full of new species DNA.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Before Europeans showed up, Native people living near or in forested areas were aware of and accustomed to natural sights and sounds from intimate living with and interaction with the environment that they depended on and tended.

Come on! They didn't "tend" nature, as if they were the "noble savages" of popular lore. That's a big crock. They simply took and used from nature what they could and had a clue how to.
And sometimes they went too far. Like the Mayas in Yucatan, or the Easter Islanders, who totally wrecked their environment – "nature" – by over exploiting it!

[jw1815]

Come on! They didn't "tend" nature, as if they were the "noble savages" of popular lore. That's a big crock. They simply took and used from nature what they could and had a clue how to.

"Noble savage" stereotypes aren't any more accurate than just plain "savage" (subhuman) stereotypes in describing pre-Columbian people in America. So, I don't have any use for either one.

The term "Native American" can apply to hundreds of cultures in the Americas. What's true of one group isn't true of all. But, a few things were common practice among many pre-Columbian Native Americans. Those who lived outside of the Mesoamerican and South American civilizations were more directly dependent on their natural environment for survival, so it was in their best interests to influence it in whatever ways they could - just as people have done in other parts of the world. Nothing to do with being "noble," everything to do with looking after one's own interests. There's no reason not to believe that Native Americans manipulated their environment to their advantage in order to preserve what enhanced their lifestyles, and a lot of evidence that they did.

The PA National Forest that I mentioned earlier, for example, has evidence of how Woodland Native people planted certain types of trees along river and creek banks in order to prevent erosion of the banks. Water routes were an important means of travel and food.

Old growth forests - the kind that once existed in large parts of North America - have a lot of shrub undergrowth that attracts pests, e.g. rodents, mosquitos, gnats, etc. Native people who lived in forested areas periodically burned the undergrowth without destroying the forest. That eliminated some of the pests, gave them access paths for travel and hunting expeditions, and enriched the soil for farming, as well as discouraging pests that would eat their crops. They set traps to catch crop eaters - preserving the crops and gaining meat and fur. Away from their crops, they encouraged the growth of plant life that attracted the animals they wanted to hunt, e.g. deer. That's a type of wildlife management that often leads eventually to domestication of wild animals, which might have happened on its own if not interrupted by the arrival of people who already had their own domesticated animals. They selected trees for use according to desireable wood qualities, but also protected and preserved the continued growth of the types of trees they relied on. They planted nitrogen producing plants with nitrogen using plants in order to preserve the soil fertility as long as possible. They didn't need chemical analyses of the soil or knowledge of nitrogen, just observation and experience. Some Northeastern cultures used fish as fertilizer.

In other regions - Plains, the Southwest, Pacific Northwest - other patterns of use and preservation existed, related to the specific environment.

A society that destroys its own environment, food, shelter, and water resources doesn't survive for very long.

The customs were incorporated into religious beliefs and rituals for cultural unity and preservation of customs. Corn, beans, and squash (the nitrogen complex) were sacred to many farming societies. The buffalo was sacred to Plains people who relied on it.

Many people point to the extinction of the large mammals as "evidence" that Native Americans were wasteful and not ecologically minded. Comparing Paleoindians to the ones European colonists and explorers encountered is like comparing Cro-Magnon customs to those of French citizens. Large mammals went extinct in other parts of the world as well, where Paleoindians didn't hunt them. Was it over hunting or climate change? And, if over hunting, perhaps their descendants learned from their ancestors' experience.

[Frank Harrist]

Bravo, JW! You wrote, and very well, I might add, exactly the same things I was thinking. Saved me a lot of typing. Have you read 1491? Welcome to the forum and keep up the great work!

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] a few things were common practice among many pre-Columbian Native Americans. Those who lived outside of the Mesoamerican and South American civilizations were more directly dependent on their natural environment for survival, so it was in their best interests to influence it in whatever ways they could - just as people have done in other parts of the world. Nothing to do with being "noble," everything to do with looking after one's own interests. There's no reason not to believe that Native Americans manipulated their environment to their advantage in order to preserve what enhanced their lifestyles, and a lot of evidence that they did.

The PA National Forest that I mentioned earlier, for example, has evidence of how Woodland Native people planted certain types of trees along river and creek banks in order to prevent erosion of the banks. Water routes were an important means of travel and food.

Old growth forests - the kind that once existed in large parts of North America - have a lot of shrub undergrowth that attracts pests, e.g. rodents, mosquitos, gnats, etc. Native people who lived in forested areas periodically burned the undergrowth without destroying the forest. That eliminated some of the pests, gave them access paths for travel and hunting expeditions, and enriched the soil for farming, as well as discouraging pests that would eat their crops. They set traps to catch crop eaters - preserving the crops and gaining meat and fur. Away from their crops, they encouraged the growth of plant life that attracted the animals they wanted to hunt, e.g. deer. That's a type of wildlife management that often leads eventually to domestication of wild animals, which might have happened on its own if not interrupted by the arrival of people who already had their own domesticated animals. They selected trees for use according to desireable wood qualities, but also protected and preserved the continued growth of the types of trees they relied on. They planted nitrogen producing plants with nitrogen using plants in order to preserve the soil fertility as long as possible. They didn't need chemical analyses of the soil or knowledge of nitrogen, just observation and experience. Some Northeastern cultures used fish as fertilizer.

In other regions - Plains, the Southwest, Pacific Northwest - other patterns of use and preservation existed, related to the specific environment.

A society that destroys its own environment, food, shelter, and water resources doesn't survive for very long.

The customs were incorporated into religious beliefs and rituals for cultural unity and preservation of customs. Corn, beans, and squash (the nitrogen complex) were sacred to many farming societies. The buffalo was sacred to Plains people who relied on it.

I.o.w. they used nature as much as they could for their own benefit! They didn't 'tend' nature for its benefit!

Many people point to the extinction of the large mammals as "evidence" that Native Americans were wasteful and not ecologically minded. Comparing Paleoindians to the ones European colonists and explorers encountered is like comparing Cro-Magnon customs to those of French citizens. Large mammals went extinct in other parts of the world as well, where Paleoindians didn't hunt them. Was it over hunting or climate change? And, if over hunting, perhaps their descendants learned from their ancestors' experience.

I.o.w. the extinction of mega-fauna wasn't typical for (paleo) indians. It was typical for all human populations (only it happened a little later in north America). It was for instance what drove the Solutreans onto the north Atlantic ice shelf (it was the Würm ice age) to hunt for nutritious, protein rich, and easy prey, which had become scarce on terra firma.

[kbs2244]

Re:
The “Native Americans” and their interest in “living in tune with nature.”

http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=021306-1

[jw1815]

I.o.w. they used nature as much as they could for their own benefit! They didn't 'tend' nature for its benefit!

Where are you getting your misinterpretation of my posts from? I said that Pre-Columbian Native Americans tended and managed nature. I didn’t say or imply that they did it for nature’s benefit. I did specifically say that they did it for their own benefit. I also said that other societies have done (and continue to do) the same thing. Do you have some kind of stereotypical image of people who discuss Native American customs that you’re trying to fit me into? If so, please reconsider, because you’re putting a spin on my posts that isn’t there.

It was for instance what drove the Solutreans onto the north Atlantic ice shelf (it was the Würm ice age) to hunt for nutritious, protein rich, and easy prey, which had become scarce on terra firma.

And your evidence, besides the mid 90’s speculations of Dennis Stanford on how a “Caucasian” Kennewick Man arrived nearer the Pacific coast of North America than the Atlantic?

Is this a Solutrean version of the Biblical Hebrews wandering in the wilderness for 40 years to found a nation? Solutreans wandered 3000 miles of Atlantic ice shelf for 6000 years before arriving in the promised land, full of pagan megafauna to kill off with their almost-but-not-quite Clovis points, in order to prepare the land for a European-based nation 15,000 +/- years later.

Speculating is fun, but at some point, it has to have a foundation. My analogy to the Biblical Exodus isn’t all tongue in cheek. I do have concerns that the foundation for this hypothesis seems to be driven more by ethnic/racial pride than facts or evidence – at this point, anyway. And that’s a little disturbing, considering what happened the last time that a nation politicized anthropological research.

Note to Min: This is what I meant in my introductory post about sometimes disagreeing with you. (A few, but not many, points about Neanderthal are another area of disagreement, but not for this thread.)

For the record: I believe that people were in America before Clovis. Dates at numerous sites support this. I think it’s possible that some people reached America from Europe and Africa as well as from Asia, but in small numbers and at an as yet unknown time. I think that Clovis tool technology was developed in America, not carried into America by the first people to get here. I suspect that it was developed south of North America, or perhaps in the southeastern region of the modern US. The locations of pre-Clovis sites and of later Clovis sites seem to support this, but very tentatively so far. I don’t believe that it’s related to the Solutrean tool culture. I don’t know of anything, outside of hypotheses, that supports a Solutrean source, not even mtDNA haplogroups – especially not mtDNA haplogroups.

But, that’s what investigations are for – to find evidence that sorts fact from fiction. And speculations lead to investigations. I just don’t think they should lead to conclusions until a lot of solid evidence is in.

[jw1815]

Re:
The “Native Americans” and their interest in “living in tune with nature.”

Is that what you think I’m talking about? As far as I’m concerned, my posts are about the ways that human beings adapt to their environments and adapt their environments to themselves. I haven’t used the phrase or the concept of “living in tune with nature.” There seem to be some subjective baggage and assumptions intruding.

Sometimes in their zeal to debunk the Noble Savage stereotype, people present a Wild Savage stereotype in its place. Neither one fits.

[jw1815]

Have you read 1491? Welcome to the forum and keep up the great work!

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes, I've read 1491, or most of it. But long before that, I'd read up on Pre-Columbian Native American societies, sometimes in formal coursework and sometimes on my own. Sometimes from textbooks, and sometimes from "the horse's mouth" so to speak, by reading NA forums, asking questions, visiting reservations, etc. I had an instructor who was also a friend, whose specialty as an anthropologist was NA cultures of North America. Well respected in his field, very informative, and he had a rare ability to combine scientific objectivity with a genuine liking for human beings in all our various cultural forms.

[Minimalist]

Stanford's case is a bit more than mere speculation, jw.

Jim Adovasio found stone blades and cores near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which he dated to 16,000BP. Archaeologists Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley concluded that the Clovis point did not derive from any stoneworking tradition from Asia known from the archaeological record. Instead, they traced a line of stone artefact development starting with the points of the Solutrean culture of southern France (19,000BP) to the Cactus Hill points of Virginia (16,000BP) to the Clovis point. This would mean that people would have had to move from the Bay of Biscay across the edge of the Atlantic ice sheet to North America. This journey appears to be feasible using traditional Eskimo techniques still in use today, technology which would have been available to the Solutrean people.

The Cactus Hill artifacts cannot simply be discounted because they upset the Club or because there are no neat and pat answers. Stanford never suggested any sort of "The-Goths-Are-Coming" mass migration. What he suggested was isolated groups of hunters working their way along the edge of the ice sheet. Somewhat different.

Sometimes, the text books DO have to be re-written.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Thanks, Min.

[jw1815]

Min,

I have no axe to grind for “the club.” I don’t have a career investment in traditional theories. I’m neither anthropologist nor archaeologist. Adovasio and Stanford have just as much of a career investment in making special marks for themselves as “the club” has in protecting its turf. The political intrigues of career maneuverings don't interest me. The science does.

I don’t dismiss the Cactus Hill artifacts. I do question the interpretation that they derive from Solutreans as an external source of Clovis.

Clovis served a useful purpose for a time. It provided a more scientifically based explanation about people in America than notions that Indians are the lost tribes of Israel or the descendants of aliens from other planets. I don’t reject older dates. I look forward to them providing more information than we’ve had in the past. But with both traditional theories and new hypotheses, the same scientific rules apply about basing interpretations and conclusions on logic, probability, testing of hypotheses, use of existing and new evidence, and accumulation of evidence that supports or refutes hypotheses and theories. I’m quite willing to accept new hypotheses – if and when convinced of the validity of the evidence and the interpretations. In the case of Clovis first, it’s not difficult for me to abandon it since I never fully bought into it for a number of reasons.

The timeline didn’t seem long enough to account for the diversity of cultures and linguistic families in North and South America, or the expansion from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in the short time that Clovis proposed. Other animals crossed back and forth across Beringia at earlier times, so why not humans? The pattern of dates at various sites didn’t always support Clovis first. Waterways sometimes are more of a highway than a barrier, so coastal travel was possible.

I discussed those points with people on Adovasio’s staff during a couple visits to the Mercyhurst Archaeolgical Institute. At that time (around 1995-96), they favored a coastal hypothesis on the southern shores of Beringia. I still do. I don’t know what Adovasio’s view was then since he wasn’t there at the time and his views weren’t mentioned by anyone else. I do remember that I asked about a possible alternative – crossing the ice of the North Atlantic. The people I talked with didn’t believe it was feasible because of the harsher conditions of the North Atlantic compared with Beringia. I still agree with that view.

A Beringian coastal migration doesn’t have the exciting novelty of an Atlantic crossing, but it does answer a lot of other questions and it explains a lot of existing and new evidence. It fits DNA studies better – including the X haplotype. It offers a quicker route of travel through the Americas and a large enough number of first migrants to eventually expand to populate both continents. It also explains the absence of a Clovis point culture in Asia near the crossing points.

If the first migrants were a coastal, marine-adapted people on the southern shores of Beringia, they were relying primarily on fish and sea mammals, not big game on land, although they might have supplemented their food supply occasionally with smaller game on land. Conversely, if Solutreans had become enough of an arctic, marine-adapted people to live off of the sea alone for 3000 miles, then they would have abandoned big game land hunting and its tools instead of bringing them to America.

[jw1815]

Earlier than Clovis dates, independent development of Clovis in America

If you look at a map of the Asian Pacific coast and its continental shelves that were exposed during periods of glaciations, you’ll see the land connections between the mainland and Japan, the Philippines, and other islands all the way to Malaysia, as well as the breadth of Beringia at its peak of exposure and the connections or close proximity of islands off Alaska. It takes time for land bridges to form and conversely, disappear before and after peaks of glaciation. So parts of Beringian land were exposed before the climate became harsher. Coastal regions would have been a little milder than inland ones. The Beringian land bridge would have kept the southern coast of Beringia milder than the interior by blocking off the icy Arctic currents. Coastal people would have a land base to fall back on for rocks to replenish tool supplies, land game to supplement fish or sea mammals, shelter from storms, occasional wood supplies, and plants that Beringian animals grazed on. All of this allowed larger numbers to reach America and to maintain a back and forth connection with Asia, which DNA studies support.

And if a coastal people could follow Beringia to North America, their ancestors might have sailed across the short distance much earlier (like Australians sailed a short distance of open sea) – before the Beringian land mass formed, making entry into America much earlier. Early enough to have been here before glaciations made the interior northern regions of America uninhabitable. Early enough to have evolved an independent tool technology like Clovis, capable of hunting big land game once people had expanded inland along river routes south of the glaciers.

Stanford dismisses independent development of Clovis tools in America, but doesn’t give any reason for it other than some general similarities to Solutrean tools, but not specific ones. Bifacial, pressure-flaked tools were around much earlier than Solutrean times, as long ago as the Olduwan tool assemblage of 2 MYA. The Acheulian and Mousterian (our friend, HN) tool cultures were more advanced in their use of prepared cores, bifacial points, and pressure flaking. Not as refined as Solutrean. Not as refined as Clovis. But the basic technology existed which could be refined, independently in America. Big game would have provided the incentive for doing it.