Calico in California
The history books may need to be completely rewritten on when man first entered the Americas if some 50,000 year old bones from Calico in California turn out to be human.
Until now, there’s been something of stand-off in this debate between what are known as Clovis and Pre-Clovis supporters, which centres around dates of between 9,000 and 14,000 years ago.
But these bones at Calico Early Man archaeological site could blow that debate out of the water.
The bones were originally found at Calico between 1963 and 1972, when the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey was in charge, and they have been locked away in a vault ever since.
Louis Leakey
Because of the depth of the strata in which they were discovered, they are thought to be around 45-55,000 years old, but they haven’t yet been carbon dated.
Now a Native American geologist has written to Calico asking for the bones to be brought out of the vault and tested to determine their age and whether or not they’re human, which she has the right to do under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Ren Lallatin, a Mohawk Cherokee Choctaw, has been researching at the Calico site for the past four years. She is insisting that the bones be examined through an independent and impartial research facility, and not the ‘biased personnel’ of a local museum.
Of particular interest is a large bone ~ four inches long and one inch wide ~ which is still partially embedded in the matrix, and which is thought to be human.
It will be interesting to see how events develop.
A story about this has just been published in the Pleistocene Coalition News, Volume 3, Issue 1, January-February 2011 which has more details. Go to the Pleistocene Coalition website.
