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By about 8,000 years ago, inhabitants of what is now the United States were making and wearing sophisticated sandals and slip-on shoes

[...]

"The design and weaving observed in the oldest specimen are about as complex as what we see in later ones that we've dated to around 1,000 years ago,"

I.o.w. no progress whatsoever in 7,000 years, while the rest of the world built cities, states, and invented and developed writing, watermills, windmills, the wheel, the laws of physics, concrete, computers, etc. etc. etc. Isn't that the very definition of backwardness?

Or they haven't found any earlier examples. I warned before about taking the earliest known examples as being the patent example.

Roy.

Digit wrote:Or they haven't found any earlier examples.

If they had, that 7,000 year period of apparent non-development would be even longer, Roy...

So apparently that period was at least almost twice as long, because afaik Clovis wore woven clothing (13,000 kya), while north-American indians didn't even have woven clothing when the white man encountered them in the 16th century, 12,500 years later!

I was referring to this bit RS...

By about 8,000 years ago, inhabitants of what is now the United States were making and wearing sophisticated sandals and slip-on shoes

Roy.

Rokcet Scientist wrote:

By about 8,000 years ago, inhabitants of what is now the United States were making and wearing sophisticated sandals and slip-on shoes

[...]

"The design and weaving observed in the oldest specimen are about as complex as what we see in later ones that we've dated to around 1,000 years ago,"

I.o.w. no progress whatsoever in 7,000 years, while the rest of the world built cities, states, and invented and developed writing, watermills, windmills, the wheel, the laws of physics, concrete, computers, etc. etc. etc. Isn't that the very definition of backwardness?

RS, if it works, you keep using it. Take fish hooks, for example.

Everyone appears to be in a bad mood this morning.

RS, you're forgetting the other advances that were made while footwear remained the same.

E.P. Grondine wrote:

Rokcet Scientist wrote:

By about 8,000 years ago, inhabitants of what is now the United States were making and wearing sophisticated sandals and slip-on shoes

[...]

"The design and weaving observed in the oldest specimen are about as complex as what we see in later ones that we've dated to around 1,000 years ago,"

I.o.w. no progress whatsoever in 7,000 years, while the rest of the world built cities, states, and invented and developed writing, watermills, windmills, the wheel, the laws of physics, concrete, computers, etc. etc. etc. Isn't that the very definition of backwardness?

If it works, you keep using it. Take fish hooks, for example.

Weaving and sophisticated footwear worked for Clovis, 13,000 years ago, E.P. Yet the indians following them in all those millennia somehow managed to 'forget' the technology and didn't use weaving and sophisticated footwear by 500 years ago...!

Of course the 'old world' managed to forget about e.g. concrete (for well over 1,000 years) and about computers (for almost 2,000 years). But that was vastly more sophisticated technology, the period of 'forgetfullness' was 10,000 years shorter, and they re-discovered the technologies under their own steam. They weren't re-introduced by a completely alien culture like technologies in north-America were.

Hadn't realized so much technology was lost after Clovis. Is there any evidence of bow and arrow technology at clovis sites? Points better suited to arrows than darts? I know B & A technology is supposed to be about only 10,000 yo or so old, and only showed up in the new world 2500 - 3000 years ago. Any info?

There are very diminutive Clovis (and Folsom) points sometimes found deeply embedded in kills such as at Blackwater draw. No one has ever much accounted for them.

So, who knows ?

wxsby wrote:Hadn't realized so much technology was lost after Clovis. Is there any evidence of bow and arrow technology at clovis sites? Points better suited to arrows than darts? I know B & A technology is supposed to be about only 10,000 yo or so old, and only showed up in the new world 2500 - 3000 years ago. Any info?

No one can accurately say that the technology was "lost" because the kind of articles we're speaking of were made of biodegradeable material. It would be a miracle if anything that old had survived. They have found bits and pieces in bogs in Florida, but not nearly enough. Stone on the other hand, last forever.

Leona Conner wrote:No one can accurately say that the technology was "lost" because the kind of articles we're speaking of were made of biodegradeable material. It would be a miracle if anything that old had survived. They have found bits and pieces in bogs in Florida, but not nearly enough. Stone on the other hand, last forever.

Dino feathers were biodegradeable too, Leona, yet we have 'found' (inferred) them. 64,990,000 years older than Clovis!
So imo it's just a matter of time before we find, or can confidently infer, biodegradable materials and/or objects from Clovis (and others).

My bad, I was under the impression we were talking about man-made objects. You know, the kind of stuff that just gets disgarded after its usefulness has past. In order for something like that to survive it would have to have been covered quite heavily and quickly in order to keep the oxygen away and that usualy doesn't happen when you just toss something aside.

Leona Conner wrote:My bad, I was under the impression we were talking about man-made objects. You know, the kind of stuff that just gets disgarded after its usefulness has past. In order for something like that to survive it would have to have been covered quite heavily and quickly in order to keep the oxygen away and that usualy doesn't happen when you just toss something aside.

It happens more than you're apparently aware of, Leona: it's what's 'given' us millions of fossils, including flash-frozen mammoths, etc. etc.
All 'bio-degradable'.

How long would a mammoth last just lying there exposed on top of the ground, without being "fash-frozen?" I doubt that we would find them in all their glory after a couple of years much less 10,000. Sorry the only fossils I have seen in person were those dug out of the La Brea Tar Pits, and those in museums but I've often wondered if those were repros and not the real thing.