Archaeologica.org

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps ... 004&theme=

The term Clovis designates an era when the first human beings supposedly migrated to North America from Siberia, no earlier than 13,000 years ago. Thanks to recent eureka moments, that geography and timeframe are both in dispute.

"The Siberians are thought to have evolved into Clovis people," Timreck explains. "The question of pre-Clovis in the New World is the big issue now, however. Who they might have been is up in the air."

While an identity remains elusive, he acknowledges, "We're finding artifacts that carbon-date at 16,000 to 17,000 years old."

Not only is it older, but they came from the East.
Carried rocks 1600 miles from Labrador.

Glacial max was 18,000 yrs BP. The best opportunity for ice pack hunters to trek from Europe to America. So 17,000 yr old artefacts would dovetail very nicely with that.

Yes it does. Wonder what Stafford thinks?

Here I come with my two pennorth again! 'Late' Siberian tools as I understand it are microlithic, nothing like classical Clovis, nor, as far as I know, has any evidence of a transition from one form to the other shown up in NA.
BUT, interestingly, as I understand it, and I am perfectly willing to be corrected, Erectus used large flake type tools in southern and central China with the microlithic tools coming much later with HSS.
What does that suggest?

I thot I read that all of the NA Y chromosome came from men that still live in Mongolia.

Granted DB, that makes it more of a puzzle than ever.
The only solution, heresy, that makes sense, if my info isn't dated, is that NA was colonised by people using large flake technology before the ice got in the way and were followed by a later people who perhaps changed from microlithic to flake tech, I don't know.
Like I said, it's a puzzle!

I've read that all the NA Y chromsome comes from Mongolia.
I've also read that some of the mitochondria looks Magdalinean.

Ergo, classic alpha male warrior tactic of murdering all the men, and taking all the women.

However, I doubt that *all* of the NA Y chromosome is Mongolian; It makes sense that even if the above policy was carried out, that some women would have been taken that were already pregnant, but the warriors, unaware of the gestation period would have accepted it into the tribe. This would result in some tiny fraction of the Y chromosome that was not Mongolian.

And of course, their Mongolian kin under Genghis Khan had the same attitude.

Before DNA typing was developed DB, the best tool available for tracing people's movements was by the spread of their technology.
Looking at Charlie's finds they seem nearer Acheulian than anything else. That means Erectus!
Evidence is building that Erectus did reach the western sea board of NA, that would explain Charlie's finds.
DNA says that people crossed from Mongolia, but currently there is no physical evidence of their doing so, unless the DNA of late Erectus is the same as HSS's!
That would eliminate all the contradictions.

Evidence is building that Erectus did reach the western sea board of NA, that would explain Charlie's finds.

Texas is a long way from the West Coast. Erectus was here for a long time and spread a long way if those artifacts are his.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/f ... 635?ck=nck
If not Erectus Min, then who?
Stone tools as crude as those recovered by Charlie seem normally to be credited to Erectus, after all Min, he would have had time on his side.

If people crossed from Siberia, they either camped on the ice, or on the land, and any land they camped on is now under 300 feet of water. Has anyone looked along the submerged channels of pre-historic waterways?

As for crude tools, there were 19th century anthro reports of some pretty primitive technologies still in use. by homo sapiens.

Digit wrote:http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/f ... 635?ck=nck
If not Erectus Min, then who?
Stone tools as crude as those recovered by Charlie seem normally to be credited to Erectus, after all Min, he would have had time on his side.

I agree, Dig. Your original point was that Erectus reached the West Coast.

If those artifacts are Erectus related in Texas then he got a lot further than the West Coast.

Agreed DB, but tech that crude would not have meant no development of finer tech, but an actual regression if Homo arrived as late as some insist.
By 20000yrs ago China and Mongolia were producing much finer flakes than Charlie's items so logic requires an earlier arrival or a regression in tool technology!
Erectus was the great explorer, compared with him HSN and HSS were parochial.

If Solutrean HSS could trek west to NA across the Atlantic ice pack during the height of the Wisconsin/Würm ice age, imo Asian HE would have been capable of exactly the same thing in the opposite direction: trekking across the ice pack from Asia to NA's west coast. According to this graph, he had at least 4 ice ages 'available for that purpose in the past half million years: