A 130,000-year-old arch site in southern California

[hardaker]

A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v ... 22065.html
[Scientific tags: hooyah, cowabunga, omg, whoa]
[discussed in my book, The First American, Chapter 5.6: Dancing With Bison, https://www.amazon.com/First-American-S ... 1564149420

[Cognito]

Chris, you were aware of this find years ago and so was I. It's fascinating to see it pop up now in a paper and I simply cannot wait for all of the nitpicking to start from the Clovis Crowd (I think they are down to a few members by now).

Get to your seat and have your drink and popcorn at the ready. This should be fun!

[hardaker]

The Cerutti Mastodon Site Press Conference + Videos
https://www.facebook.com/SanDiegoNatura ... al&fref=nf

oh yeah. Waters apparently already sent a text to the museum criticizing it, but waiting on getting the full text before it leaves the rumor stage. he doesn't like it that there's no stone tools -- but that means Mike doesn't believe in anvils or hammerstones.

Of all the "really" old sites on the shelf to break through the iron clad 20k limits of the mainstream ex-Clovis experts, this site has got to be the most innocuous and unexpected. This group of scientists were faced with a cluster of geological and paleontological anomalies. Some stone specimens were present, but it was not what they looked like that drew scientific attention, but their presence alone that drew suspicion. This is Geo-Archaeology at its best! And, it is Archaeological Forensics at its best. Bon apetit.

[shawomet]

This should be the full article, from Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature2 ... nature.com

[hardaker]

if you have a 'save website, complete' option on your 'save page as' button, you can download the entire thing.

[shawomet]

if you have a 'save website, complete' option on your 'save page as' button, you can download the entire thing.

I was wrong, that was a link to the complete article from Nature, so it's posted here now....

[shawomet]

Always great when received wisdom gets a jolt. It's true of any discipline, but really looking forward to more of this....

[circumspice]

Large bowl of popcorn & large coke on standby...

[shawomet]

I was impressed by the evidence, simply as presented at yesterday's press center nference. Particularly as it pertains to the decades long studies by one of the authors on mammoth sites in both the US and Siberia, and what I found to be the compelling evidence for how human induced fracturing will distinguish itself from fracturing produced by other means.

If we thought Monte Verde was a tough slog, this will be a hornets nest tossed into the study of early humans in the Americas. Here's a primer of sorts on the mastodon site by the museum in San Diego:

http://www.sdnhm.org/consulting-service ... -mastodon/

[MichelleH]

And then there is this:

http://westerndigs.org/mastodon-site-in ... -skeptics/

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Chris -

You're famous now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbM4vHcRyz0&t=3s

I can just see the load of Bigfoot and Giant nutzbarkheit this "find" will produce.

[shawomet]

It looks like the 2 main bones of contention, pun very much intended, are 1, are the tools actually tools, and 2, is it more likely the bones were broken by construction equipment in 1992. Lead author Holen says it is easy to tell the difference between human breaking with large hammerstones, and breakage by heavy construction equipment. Critic Gary Haynes says you cannot distinguish between the two. They both can't be right. A couple of things come to mind. There should certainly be a difference in appearance, in patina, assuming the bone is mineralized to some degree, between a bone broken 130,000 years ago, and bones broken 25 years ago. If broken when it was already fossilized, 25 years ago, there should be a very noticeable difference in patina between the broken surfaces and non broken surfaces. Also, would the fracturing itself appear different if the bone was broken when the bone was still green or fresh, and when it was fossilized? I should think it would, since it would be the difference between fracturing bone, and fracturing stone(mineralized bone). I would also like to know who are the authorities, in terms of experience and eye honed for subtleties, where the causes behind fracturing bone is concerned.

Holen and his co-authors must be pretty confident in Holden's ability to distinguish human caused fracturing from all others. I assume the co-authors would not be putting their names and reps out there otherwise. Which doesn't mean they're right. But I think it means they've anticipated the particulars of the criticism to be able to address the "what caused the breakage" problem.

Anyway, some criticisms described in this article as well. And, probably not without bias by this author, judging by the very loaded title of his article, which sounds like a command passed down by the Academy:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/mas ... .uvD3ZVDmL

[shawomet]

The authors of the article in Nature, and the San Diego museum, might be criticized for themselves making a big deal of it to the media. Coming out by press conference, even though it is in Nature, might seem presumptuous where their own study is concerned. It is exciting. But speaking of it as proven won't go down well even if it were irrefutable at first glance, which it won't be to most. Both from the point of view of reflexively defending that level of orthodoxy that resists "impossible" dates tooth and nail, and simply because it is only one site, the news should have been presented more cautiously. The way it was presented, I think, is an end run around the opinions of their peers. The team and museum had to know it would be highly controversial by its very nature, without making it sound like a foregone conclusion that changes everything.

Of course, it might. Eventually. But it's a confrontational stance almost, if you're an archaeologist elsewhere working in the peopling of the Americas, and here's this small team telling the world they've made a discovery, and this is the brand new narrative. The archaeological community knows press conferences and single sites don't constitute new regimes generally. Science doesn't advance by decree.

So I guess I could view it as I've described, and maybe that's fair. The reaction will be stronger by reason of the aggressive presentation alone. I guess if that's what you want. It might bespeak of one hell of a confident position, in the long run, by the authors. They do have balls. They're confident in their case, and understand the implications would overturn the narrative still again. Hopefully, they're not just caught up in themselves, and actually not only have something with this site, but can advance their theory by finding more sites.

[Cognito]

Lead author Holen says it is easy to tell the difference between human breaking with large hammerstones, and breakage by heavy construction equipment. Critic Gary Haynes says you cannot distinguish between the two.

With regard to hammerstone percussion ripples, Gary Haynes is full of it. Construction equipment will not do the same thing. Anyone who has examined thousands of flintknapped stones can spot the difference immediately. Just analyze the evidence and forget the provenance and dating. If the site indicates a hominid presence, study further. Good grief!

[circumspice]

Lead author Holen says it is easy to tell the difference between human breaking with large hammerstones, and breakage by heavy construction equipment. Critic Gary Haynes says you cannot distinguish between the two.

With regard to hammerstone percussion ripples, Gary Haynes is full of it. Construction equipment will not do the same thing. Anyone who has examined thousands of flintknapped stones can spot the difference immediately. Just analyze the evidence and forget the provenance and dating. If the site indicates a hominid presence, study further. Good grief!

HEAR HEAR!!!