Archaeologica.org

Spinning Early Man Wheels in the New World:
a comment on K. Kris Hirst’s,
“Why 50,000 bp is a "Crazy Date" for Topper”
http://archaeology.about.com/b/2009/02/ ... topper.htm

by Chris Hardaker

We are all familiar with “spin.” Generally its practitioners emphasize only the selective evidence required to prove a larger point, while disregarding all the other evidences that would make the argument mute. It doesn’t just happen on the news and during political campaigns, but often in daily life as well, like whenever we are trying to deceive others or even ourselves. But generally, spin is used to gain favor for one’s own side of the issue, and a nice pat on the head for an argument well done. Here the spin relates to the first Americans, and it is in full flight. And it is sponsored by the New York Times.

The keyword is “crazy.” “Crazy,” as used here, can be defined as something or some claim that so over the top that one ought not be considering such a thing even in the most alcoholic of stupors. It means something is wrong with the entire apparatus consigned to one’s own thinking and judgment, i.e. credibility. To consider a 50,000-year-old marker for New World antiquity is to remove oneself from the circle of authorities “who matter,” or to remove the possibility that you will ever be a part of that circle in the future. It is academic suicide. Like reporting on UFOs or spotting Nessie. Little green men. Pink elephants.

Calling the other side crazy is great if you can get away with it and/or if it is actually true. The problem with it is, if it backfires, you get a fresh omelet pie in the face, or at least deserve one. When dishing out such a vicious academic term as “crazy” towards one of the finest pre-Clovis archaeology operations going on in the New World, this becomes a terribly serious matter, especially when that operation relies on any and all funding avenues it can find. In this case, her use of “crazy” is dead wrong, at least the way she argues it. Instead, I would in turn qualify her essay as “a desperate screed.”

Kris, in citing that the oldest sites in Siberia are ca. 27,000 years, effectively asks, 'so how the heck can we even consider an archaeology twice that old in South Carolina?' Sheeesh! The noive. Her attitude is like, everybody knows that! 'Where do the Topper crew and its fearless leader get off on ignoring that singular-death-blow fact?' she seems to be asking. In fact, in Kris’s mind, Siberia seems to be the central measure to any and all arguments regarding any early date in the New World. 'If it is older than the earliest dates in Siberia, then forget it,' she seems to be saying. In fact, it is the only thing she is saying.

“In fact, the oldest site known in Siberia is the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site, some 27,000 years ago. This makes 50,000 years of human occupation in America very unlikely."

Now we get to the nubbins of the deep problem with Kris’s report. Two strange words on Google show just how blinded she is with the faith and loyalty she lavishes on the new and improved Clovis First theory, aka “Clovis Almost First,” which I will define as nix to any American immigrant prior to 40,000 years ago – that magic age that conservative American Pleistocene archaeologists regard as the birth of the modern humans and therefore the first with the smartz to muster the crossing of Beringia. If anybody arrived prior to that date, the conservative judgment would conclude that there were pre-Sapiens sapiens on American soil.

Kris’s 27,000 year old citation for the earliest Siberian residents is well within that theoretical threshold IF and ONLY IF she ignores those two strange words: Diring+Yuriakh. And it is all the more strange when we look at what comes up first on Google – it is her very own website:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clie ... tnG=Search

This one.
http://archaeology.about.com/od/dterms/g/diring.htm

In 2005, Mike Waters told me that Diring Yuriakh is a Middle Paleolithic site closer to a minimum of 400,000 years, than the roughly250- 350,000 year-old dates mentioned. Regardless, this puts Diring at roughly the same age, and 60-degree latitude, e.g. cold, as the Schoeningen site in northern Germany where wooden javelins were found, indicating pre-Mod group hunting, also dated to about 400,000 years old. Suspect: Homo heidelbergensis.

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc97/3_1_97/fob2.htm

Kris will undoubtedly bluster that Diring Yuriakh is still a very, very, very, very, controversial site, and should not be mentioned in polite company. But, however controversial the findings have turned out to be – which of course is a subjective feeling – the reports were not too controversial or over-the-top to be accepted by Science.

cf. Waters, M.R., Forman, S.L., & Pierson, J.M. (1997). Diring Yuriakh: A Lower Paleolithic site in Central. Siberia. Science, 275, 1281–1284

At a minimum, the discoveries are older by a factor of ten than the 27k-age she presents in her essay as unassailable fact re: the first Siberians. But here the Diring dates are, listed right on Kris’s website. At the very least, she should have done what any good scientifically minded person should have done, namely, before playing the academically damning “crazy” card: she should have at least referred to Diring Yuriakh as a controversial but so-far materially valid discovery instead of omitting it altogether. Even a rookie New York Times reporter knows better than that.

Chris Hardaker
POB 9982
Redlands, Ca 92375
chardaker@earthmeasure.com

Thanks for posting this Chris.

If Topper turns out to be 50,000 years old, then everything we understand about the world and its population will have to be re-addressed.

He seems terrified by the prospect that his paradigm is in jeopardy. He should look upon it as job security.

Minimalist wrote:Thanks for posting this Chris.

If Topper turns out to be 50,000 years old, then everything we understand about the world and its population will have to be re-addressed.

He seems terrified by the prospect that his paradigm is in jeopardy. He should look upon it as job security.

Thanks again Chris for your post. The good news is that the Topper Stratigraphy Report has been peer reviewed and accepted. So Goodyear has proven his case about the age of the 50,000 + yr. old artifacts/geofacts.

I have not yet gotten my hands on the full paper. I think Charlie has or is about to and I'll try to get it up. Otherwise I may copy one of Charlie's posts. The report is accepted by everyone but the artifacts still have their detractors, mainly Waters at this point. He feels that they could have been formed by a freeze/thaw process. But - seeing is believing for myself. It's a good day for the Topper expedition. Hats off to Al Goodyear!

If Topper turns out to be 50,000 years old, then everything we understand about the world and its population will have to be re-addressed.

So what? Like it's a big problem to re-address the status quo? That's what good science is all about, Buckwheat.

We have a systemic failure in American archaeology to adequately address all of the anomolies being presented by the landscape. Instead of allowing that earlier forms of Homo could have been in the Americas, certain myopics choose to attack the data instead. The Southwest US has a sharp rock factory that has been producing "artifact-like" items for tens of thousands of years that cannot enter the mainstream for debate since pulpits on high have ordained that they do not exist.

Sounds like religion to me.

Thanks, Chris (Hardaker). Diring is real, currently being ignored, but not going away. Schoeningen is priceless. Imagine the audacity of those ancients making javelins from spruce and chucking them at horses 400kya for 62 degrees north latitude. Ever been in Northern Germany during the dead of winter - even in the Holocene? It's colder than witch's tit!! Certainly ruins the naked caveman prototype - his jewels would flash freeze and shatter.

Hell Beag where you been. Missed you!

Roy.

Hey, Beags.

Que pasa?

Hell Beag where you been.

A little burned out mostly. I'm not cut out for over two years of solid posting.

Hey, Beags.

Que pasa?

I've been studying my favorite things. Mostly back to my roots. Neanderthals - and now, comets and 50,000 yr. old people in America.

Now we finally have some actual reports coming out. As you guys know, I got to take a good look at that 50kyo artifact when I was at Topper. Only two things can be contested. One is that it is not that old. The other is that it is not of human agency. So, this is big news. Al Goodyear has proven the first point. As to the latter, I can say that there was a constant stream of scientists coming to examine the alleged core in situ when I was there. They still do I imagine. According to the staff there, they all agree that it looks genuine.

Waters, however, is relying on the force of nature with his freeze/thaw hypothesis. This has never been demonstrated, and it is upon him to duplicate it somehow. So - time will tell.

I'm still looking for that PDF. Nice to see you guys.

Waters, however, is relying on the force of nature with his freeze/thaw hypothesis. This has never been demonstrated, and it is upon him to duplicate it somehow.

It doesn't sound as if it would be that difficult an experiment to construct.

Place a similar kind of stone in a wet bank of soil and alternately freeze and heat it.

I recall looking at Charlie's collection and noting how many flakes had been removed and realizing that there is NFW that these were natural processes. But, by all means, he should prove his hypothesis.



(If he can!)

"The good news is that the Topper Stratigraphy Report has been peer reviewed and accepted. So Goodyear has proven his case about the age of the 50,000 + yr. old artifacts/geofacts."

" The report is accepted by everyone but the artifacts still have their detractors, mainly Waters at this point. He feels that they could have been formed by a freeze/thaw process. But - seeing is believing for myself."

Hi Beagle,

It is either crass or amazing that folks like Waters and Vance Haynes always seem to want to poison the water with detractions like this, instead of doing the manly man thing of going out and actually testing the hypothesis, in this case freeze/thaw. You would think they would have done it decades ago if they were truly honest in their quest for establishing standards for geofacts and artifacts. But all they do is spit phlegm into good wine (valid challenges to the status quo) and consider their work done. Waters did the same thing with the Pedra Furada polish-striations data Robson Bonnichsen assembled before he passed away; he sent a negative report, virtually ignoring Robson's work. Ugly, ugly stuff.

On the other hand, Goodyear and his crew are the right stuff. Hope they have a great season.

Chris

Nice to have you back Beag!

Roy.

Beags, welcome back! However, don't you think it's time to change that coat? It's probably full of critters.

Thanks Roy and thanks Pat. I've just been on a bit of a sabbatical. No big deal. I have a lot of other things going on in my life right now and can't be here as I was earlier.

One of the last posts I remember seeing was that because Neanderthals had such big brains - they were psychic!

Anyway, as I've said, I confine myself to a few specific area of interest. So bring on the testing of the freeze/thaw hypothesis!

Hello Beagle

It's good to see you again.

I think that when you were last around, we were beginning to discuss the cognition of early HSS and the Neanderthals. Of course, it's virtually impossible to understand how they thought. We can only look at what they produced to give us a clue - like the rock art and the cave paintings. But some of the motifs on these cave paintings and pieces of rock have come down to us in shamanic ritual and, later, religious iconography. This led some of us on to discussing whether early man and/or the Neanderthals practised some sort of ritual activity connected to what we call shamanism. There is a huge school of thought that is also examing this same area, so we weren't in any way out of the step with the zeitgiest.

We also felt that it would hardly be surprising if early man's brains did have the capacity to think shamanically, as our own brains do too, and we descend from them ... well, HSS at least (sorry, Roy!). And in the oldest civilisations on earth that we can find, shamanism is practised and has been as far back as anyone in those tribes can remember ... and with the oral tradition of storytelling, these tribes have long memories.

Thus this was our basis for wanting to discuss the cognition of early HSS and the Neanderthals, and I don't think we ever really reached any conclusion with it ... I certainly don't remember anyone saying that the Neanderthals were psychic .... possibly we may have wondered if there was a connection with brain size in our stumbling around in the dark grasping at clues ... but if we had managed to prove that, we'd probably all be up for Nobel prizes by now!

So I think the cognition of early man was - and is - a legitimate area of enquiry and as you will know, one that is going on anyway, in the field.

However, I wanted you to know that I'm no longer on this board as I have my own forum now. And so if these sorts of discussions have been a factor in preventing your return, please rest assured that they are less likely to occur now ... unless someone else with this same interest joins the board, of course.

So bring on the testing of the freeze/thaw hypothesis!

Over my lifetime I have noticed the impact of harsh weather extremes on lithic material. It is obvious that the expansion of water molecules due to its transition from liquid to solid (i.e. freezing) will split rocks - that is part of the erosion process. However, I fail to understand how the freezing process can create a percussion strike, percussion bulb and percussion ripples in any rock. The freezing process is not a percussion process - Waters appears to be convoluting physics.

Waters' freeze/thaw comments do not yet rise to the level of hypothesis since he apparently hasn't performed any tests that could be independently performed, accepted and/or refuted. This isn't bad science, it's no science.