Texas Site Pushes Back Known Settlement Date For North America 149
Velcroman1 writes "The discovery of ancient stone tools at an archaeological dig in Texas could push back the presence of humans in North America, perhaps by as much as 2,500 years. The find was located 5 feet below materials left by the well-known Clovis culture, which was once thought to have been the first American settlers around 13,000 years ago. It was 'like finding the Holy Grail,' Waters said in a telephone interview. To find what appears to be a large open-air campsite 'is really gratifying. Lucky and gratifying.'"
Too bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Perhaps they found the tools of GOD?!
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Perhaps they found the tools of GOD?!
More like BP
Texas 13000BC, South India 1.5M BC! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Texas find is interesting, because it's dealing with settlement of North America, but to me the India find in the same article was much more interesting. Acheulian stone tool designs in India at 1.5 million years BC, saying humans migrated out of Africa at least 100,000 years earlier than we thought! That difference is a lot longer than the time modern Cro-Magnons have been around.
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Those humans would have been Homo Erectus, not Homo Sapiens.
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Those humans would have been Homo Erectus, not Homo Sapiens.
Not necessarily.
Our knowledge is severely limited. We can NOT say "Homo Erectus did not co-exist with Homo Sapien", all we can say is "we don't have any evidence that they did." Those are not even close to being the same thing, and it's possible that tomorrow we'll find Sapiens from much earlier or Erectus from much later. It's also likely that there were other species which we have not, and probably never will, find direct evidence that they existed.
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we can say that the fossil record shows that homo Sapiens did not evolve until about 200K years ago.
so yeah,.... unless you find some Modern human remains that are 1.5 million years old... I'd say that I am correct.
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Nah they found the tools of the people who created god
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Frankly, if the Texas Democratic Party can't take the buffoonery of the Texas Republican Party and make votes out of it, then they deserve what they get.
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Frankly, if the Texas Democratic Party can't take the buffoonery of the Texas Republican Party and make votes out of it, then they deserve what they get.
They have Democrats in Texas??
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
People live in Austin, yes.
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People live in Austin, yes.
you call that living?
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People live in Austin, yes.
you call that living?
outstanding living, as a matter of fact.
actually, it's the only place in Texas worth living.
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I lived in Austin for a year. The stupidity level was worse than radiation at Chernobyl. Austin is not, in my opinion, a place worth living in.
I lived in Austin for a year and a half. The weather was worse than living at Chernobyl, that's for sure. Other than that, Austin is pretty great if you live within the city limits, and are capable of not talking like a fag when you go outside of them. I'm a big white guy (in spite of having a Mexican surname and two saints for first names) and I can sound like anybody I like so I did just fine no matter where I went in Texas. Austin has numerous incredible advantages including a live music scene that is th
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Of course, most TX Democrats would be considered Independents anywhere but TX or UT.
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A friend and his wife moved to a town outside of Austin, in part because of the lower cost and because they were told by locals that the town had a liberal population, important since they were coming from San Francisco. Several friends and I (including some people who live in Texas) tried to explain that a Texas liberal and a California liberal (particularly a Bay Area liberal) were not even remotely the same thing. They moved back a year later after deciding that Texas wasn't for them.
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*Western* Massachusetts (Score:2)
The state doesn't all resemble Boston.
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But that's a defining characteristic of electorates. It's why the word "idiot" has the etymology it does.
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Frankly, if the Texas Democratic Party can't take the buffoonery of the Texas Republican Party and make votes out of it, then they deserve what they get.
The same can be same about national politics. But Democratic politicians are too stupid and/or gutless to make hay out of it.
If the typical D politician had half the brains & balls of the typical R politician, this would be a very different country.
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at least the Texas history books are not racist anymore by way of exclusion
Yep, now they include both kinds of music: country *and* western.
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"If Kunte receives five lashes on Monday and two lashes on Wednesday, how many thanks does he give to his master?"
His name is "Toby"!
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Ah shucks, teacher, that's a trick question. Kunte thanks him *every* day of the week.
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They will state that God created man out of the clay and dust found right here in Texas, which turns out to have been partially prefab.
Also, "Tornadoes"? Or Breath of life!
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Is there an actual Earth science textbook that puts forth a young Earth creationism theory? (ISBN please?)
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Too bad the Texas text books state that this is 7000 years before God created the Earth.
Cite?
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Too bad the Texas text books state that this is 7000 years before God created the Earth.
Cite?
You want me to cite a joke?
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You want me to cite a joke?
When it's a ethnic and culturalist slur, yes.
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You want me to cite a joke?
When it's a ethnic and culturalist slur, yes.
Texas is a cultural slur against other Americans.
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Have you ever been to Texas? Our textbooks say no such thing.
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Also, it never ceases to amaze me that there are links to the fox news site for science-related articles. Yeah, the same fox news that panders to those who are most hostile to science/scientific discovery.
The obvious conclusion to this apparent paradox is that your assumption is wrong.
I doubt you'll admit it, however. :P
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originals? (Score:1)
they better not open the Pandorica or the Daleks will really invade this time around.
Well, that's sad. (Score:1, Insightful)
I sign on to make a wise-ass comment about creationism and Texas and find two others beat me too it.
Either /. commenter creativity has hit a new low, or Texas's reputation is so overpowering that such jokes are inevitable.
Re:Well, that's sad. (Score:4, Funny)
Either /. commenter creativity has hit a new low, or Texas's reputation is so overpowering that such jokes are inevitable.
A little from column A, a little from column B.
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Either /. commenter creativity has hit a new low, or Texas's reputation is so overpowering that such jokes are inevitable.
A little from column A, a little from column B.
But does it run Linux?
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Wouldn't an inverse woosh be a thud?
No, it would be a "shoe".
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Headline: Post Pushes Back Known Wise-Ass Comments About Texas Date For Slashdot Story
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Clovis humor (Score:5, Funny)
Indiana Korg and the Charred Stick (Score:3)
So the Clovis culture was one day's easy digging away from being the first archaeologists?
Settlements (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, I was trying to figure out what web-site in Texas would have the power to push back the legal settlement date of something that affected the entirety of North America.
God, I am really starting to hate living in this world of lawsuits.
Interesting story, terrible headline (Score:2)
"Known settlement date"? What the hell does that even mean? Perhaps "date of first known settlement", but come on. Even if the story is filled with grammatical problems, at LEAST check the headlines before you hit submit.
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"Known settlement date"? What the hell does that even mean? Perhaps "date of first known settlement", but come on. Even if the story is filled with grammatical problems, at LEAST check the headlines before you hit submit.
Some site in Texas sued all of North America, and North America is settling. However, the settlement date is being pushed back from the known value.
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I suppose you're right, the grammar is fine. But that doesn't mean it makes sense.
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The grammar, syntax, and semantics are all perfectly correct. It makes sense.
It's possible you were confused by the existence of alternate definitions of some of the words. That is perfectly normal in English (completely unambiguous language is a rare exception) and indeed the majority of natural languages. Context is what makes distinguishing possible. I believe there was sufficient context in the headline to distinguish. Most other definitions of "settlement" make no sense in the context of "North Am
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There are other ambiguities with the headline that makes it confusing.
The site isn't what did the pushing. It was the discovery of it. The headline would have made a lot more sense if it had said:
"Discovery of Texas site pushes back known settlement date for North America."
"Known settlement date" could be today. There is a settlement in North America today, right? So it needs to specify that it was the FIRST known settlement. You could argue that since we're pushing it back, that must mean it's the firs
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The site isn't what did the pushing. It was the discovery of it.
Everything is conditional on knowledge. The site's existence is what pushed the date back, but we only know of its existence because we discovered it. In that sense, "known" in the headline is implied and thus redundant. But okay.
"Known settlement date" could be today. There is a settlement in North America today, right?
The settlement date would be today if someone was settling today. And indeed, someone probably is settling in North America as we speak. For them, that would be their settlement date. It would not be the settlement date for North America, as North America is already settled.
W
Misleading headline (Score:2)
Clovis people as oldest culture in Americas? (Score:1)
That theory has been long ago discredited. It's amazing that it still decorates US history books - is it because almost no one teaching this subject and the kids learning about it don't care at all?
Anyway, this finding helps debunking the mantra...
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Yes, didn't some Europeans boat along the edge of the Atlantic pack ice during the last ice age (pre-Bering strait land bridge) and land in Eastern North America? I thought the found some ceremonial spear points somewhere that matched ones in France, but predated the land bridge migration.
I don't recall about the spear points, but there is an oddity regarding a population-tracking mutation that occurred in Europe showing up among the native American populations. And just those in the eastern part of North America, IIRC.
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Please do enlighten us with more recent knowledge. I'm well away from archaeology; the last word I know is Jared Diamond's, which was: even if Clovis culture wasn't the first one in North America, it was the first widespread one, and so predecessors are merely interesting curiosities. Much like L'Anse aux Meadows: it's impressive that the Norse made it that far, but it didn't really go anywhere.
The problem is, anomalous dates are found scattered all over the two continents, suggesting that the precursor population wasn't just a minor thing.
Assuming the anomalous dates are actually correct...
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Hmmm, I'm now reading a nice book named "1491" (see http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8 [amazon.com]). It has quite a few interesting bits of information about the Clovis precedence being challenged more and more, with some sites that seem to be older being located in the South America; if only one of these recent findings will become generally accepted, it will be enough to discard the Northern Passage theory of Siberia migration during the last ice age (whic
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That theory has been long ago discredited.
I don't think it has been as thoroughly discredited as you say. (Or maybe I should say, the discrediting isn't broadly enough accepted for you to state it as you did).
However, a steady sequence of anomalies has popped up, mostly in the past decade or so, so that people who argue for an earlier settlement are no longer dismissed as a lunatic fringe. I suspect there will eventually be a consensus on an earlier settlement, though it's too soon to say what the new mainstream view will state.
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Not a big breakthrough (Score:5, Informative)
This is getting a lot more hype than it should: Several other sites, as well as genetic studies, have pointed to the existence of pre-Clovis human habitation in North America, and it had long been a working hypothesis for a lot of archaeologists who had been studying early American habitation.
The only really interesting question is what these tools most resemble: If they look like they're related to a culture not from Siberia, that would be a much bigger deal, since it would suggest migration from Africa or Europe or Polynesia.
Re:Not a big breakthrough (Score:4, Informative)
If you proved they'd come from Polynesia, that really would be a big breakthrough - pushing back Polynesian settlement by more than 10,000 years. Easter Island and Hawai'i were settled within the last 2000 years.
Good lord... (Score:2)
They found ol' Dinosaur Dan!
"When y'all gonna let me outta here?"
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Only problem is (Score:2)
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Texas A&M is not known for its digging efforts (Score:4, Funny)
Bryan/College Station's worst disaster occurred when a small two-seater Cessna 150 plane, piloted by two Texas A&M students, crashed into a cemetery earlier today. Texas A&M volunteers have recovered 300 bodies so far and expect the number to climb as digging continues into the evening. The pilot and copilot survived and are helping in the recovery efforts.
I know it's old, but it never fails to get the goat of my Aggie buddies.
The world's most trusted science reporting source! (Score:1, Flamebait)
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And to make matters worse, it was an AP story! ZOMG!
Knee, meet Jerk.
Dating methods? (Score:1)
I wish they'd post more information on how they dated the tools. It's not that I doubt the science, but the article makes it sounds like they dug 5 feet deeper and found tools, so they must be thousands of years older. I can almost hear Ray Comfort now saying "The Clovis people dug a 5-foot hole and buried their old tools. All these scientists found was an ancient landfill. Now look at this banana..."
Why does the quality of news articles always have to be so low? Off-topic now but: It's an online publ
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New York Times explains: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/science/25archeo.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
Given the lack of sufficient organic material buried around the tools, the radiocarbon dating method was useless. Instead, earth scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, used a newer technique known as optically stimulated luminescence. This measures light energy trapped in minerals to reveal how long ago the soil was last exposed to sunlight.
Steven L. Forman, who direc
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Website pushing back settlement date? (Score:2)
Re:Until the next discovery (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you charging the archaeologists with falsifying data? Because it sure sounds like that's what you're doing, and if so, you'd better contact the Texas A&M ethics board with your allegations. If you're not willing to do that, and provide evidence, you should probably just STFU.
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Well it's kinda impossible for new findings to push it forward. Any new findings will either be the same age or newer (and thus don't make the news) or they're older and push the date back.
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Not necessarily. There could be some discoveries that alter geologic timetable presumptions, and thus move dates forward. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, and certainly not as drastically as before, but there are still occasional changes.
Re:Until the next discovery (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm certainly not one to begrudge someone their cynicism, but I fail to understand what you're finding "interesting" about that. Of course the discoveries that make the news are the ones that set the date back further.
Finding tools from 1000BC might (or might not. IANAA) be a valuable find, but it's not news because we already KNOW there were people around earlier than that.
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Or better yet, as with any debate, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As the claimant, the burden of proof is on you to show that a professional is falsifying data. If you're unable to do so, withdraw your claims.
I'm just saying that [logical fallacy]...
What are your credentials and what professional experience do you have as an archaeologist that you're able to make informed observations on the age of th
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See.... observations on human behavior.
In the name of open and honest discussion I just admitted that my view might need some adjustment. Not sure how the makes me a "faggot".
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Re:Science in Texas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone in Texas still believe in science?
Lots of people in Texas believe in science.
It's the ones who don't believe in science who make the front page on Slashdot.
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Does anyone in Texas still believe in science?
Presumably some of those people in Mission Control still do...