Humans in America 25,000 Years Ago? 576
Ephboy writes "A researcher in South Carolina has found stones that appear to be man-made stone tools that date from 25,000 years ago, about twice as old as the best documented evidence of human settlement in North America."
Where have they gone? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:3, Informative)
oh.. and I'm Chippewa, BTW.. card carrying, voting, and casino owning.
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:5, Informative)
On July 16, 1763 General Amherst wrote in a letter to Colonel Bouquet;
"You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."
There are several other confirmed examples as well. Have a look at The Staight Dope for more about this one. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html [straightdope.com]
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:3, Informative)
BBC link [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:4, Informative)
Before departing England the Pilgrims actually offered thanks to God for the devistating plauge that had depopulated the New World, leaving it open for them.
Before departing England Squanto (yes, Squanto came from England to meet the Pilgrims, and spoke with them in perfect English) had intended to rejoin his native people, but upon his arrival found that they had been wiped out by disease, hence his hooking up with the Pilgrims in a sort of mutual survial pact in the first place.
I'm afraid that the US can't really take credit for any brilliance in military strategy here. It was mostly an accident and the later intentional germ warfare conducted against native tribes was informed by previous unintentional example.
For the most part you out strategied us every step of the way (except, perhaps, for being too nice) and we simply used a very crude, but very effective, method to deal with those of you that remained after the various plagues.
We swept over you like a flood.
The story isn't entirely unique I'm afraid. The Tartars did the same thing to my Causcasian ancestors, so thouroughly that the very word used to describe an endentured state is my people's name.
KFG
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not to say that the Europeans (and later the U.S.) did not do some atrocious things. Some of what was done was unforgiveable. Thank goodness we as a society have come a long way since then.
Boy are you wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Scalping WAS a bounty hunter thing. You see it started with you got $10.00 for every "Red Skin" (thus the term Red Skin) of a male you brought in and $5.00 for every female or child "Red Skin" you brought in. When these piles of skins started to stink and were also to hard to carry around and trade. They reduced it to scalps. so scalping started.
Point of intrest.... Isn't it great that our Nations Capital's football's team is named after this. see the Indian wars still do exist.
Yes we can be "savag
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:5, Insightful)
They were and are humans just like everyone else and suffered from the same vices, power struggles, warfare and savagery as every other example of humanity throughout history.
Re:Where have they gone? (Score:5, Informative)
The Aztec were bloody and brutal (the Spaniards conquered them so easily because lots of surrounding Indian nations pitched in their eager help). The Iroquois were master politicians who successfully played the British and French against each other for over a hundred years, and the Pohantan were trade warriors, exercising power by keeping secret their knowledge of the New England waterways (it was the main reason they were upset with John Smith; they were afraid he was discovering their water ways and would sell the information to the Iroquois.)
The "tribal" Indians were the nomadic peoples in the great plains and the desert southwest and the small communities of the Pacific Northwest.
Your condescending attitude aside, only one of us is speaking from ignorance it would appear, cloaking it in sophistry and rhetoric.
Re:Speaking of Chippewa, (Score:3, Funny)
All country music does that to me. I call it bumper sticker music. Every song is can be summed up on a bumper sticker.
I've been there.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've been there.... (Score:3, Informative)
A quote from that show:
One team even proposes that the first Americans came from Europe, not Asia
did the submitter... (Score:5, Informative)
fp?
Re:did the submitter... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the crackpots and holy-rollers seem to be in charge of christian PR these days. If you want us non-cristians to have more respect for christianity, you'd best clean your own house.
Seldom a day goes by without some christian trying to reform government around his own peculiar ideas, putting ten commandments in courthouses, dropping opening prayers at government meetings as soon as some non-christian signs up to deliver it, dropping even the word evolution from science textbooks, the list goes on and on.
They are winning the PR battle to represent christianity. You need to clean your own house before trying to clean the world.
Creationism and Darwinism (Score:3, Funny)
Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:5, Funny)
The very idea is utterly ridiculous. A cursory glance at ape anatomy shows that it is impossible for man to have 'evolved' from one. It is just a rubbish idea. Everyone with any education at all knows that man actually comes from australopithecus.
Re:Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:2)
Beee-yooo-ti-ful non-troll troll.
Mod parent up, up, up, up.
Re:Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:2)
Not only funny but accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans of course are not descended from apes but from a common ancestor ... which was not an ape.
Re:Not only funny but accurate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not only funny but accurate (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not only funny but accurate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:3, Insightful)
A cursory glance at ape anatomy shows that it is impossible for man to have 'evolved' from one.
From my observations of both ape and human behavior, the only reasonable conclusion is that apes evolved from us. :)
Re:Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:3, Funny)
Man descended from lemmings. Or perhaps sheep.
Re:Man did *not* descend from apes. (Score:3, Funny)
Creationism (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly this "evidence" of humans in America 25,000 years ago was only created when the world was created 6,000 years ago. QED.
Re:Creationism (Score:2)
Used for voting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Used for voting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Used for voting (Score:5, Funny)
How much you're willing to bet... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that the loudest arguments will not be over how old these remains are, but there they came from, and if they are indian (native american) or not in origin...
Re:How much you're willing to bet... (Score:2)
Re:How much you're willing to bet... (Score:2, Funny)
Who listens? Congress, of course (RANT!) (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the problem as I see it: (short version) Theists want everyone to believe they know the One Absolute Truth Praise God. Scientists actively research That Which Exists And How It Works. Occasionally, science discovers something that doesn't fit with the posited "One Absolute Truth". I'm just going to step over how the hyper-religious react, because I could rant all day about that. The problem we face isn't so much in that they attack us for the discovery; that washes out with time. No matter how pissed off the religious are, they don't dare say that the sun orbits the earth. They'd like to, but they know that 95% of the world would laugh at them. The problem is that with each discovery, they retrofit their dogma, with God still the omnipotent creator, and gloss over the fact that they were wrong.
1000 years from now if this continues, the conversation about evolution/artifacts could potentially be unchanged; We could know an overwhelming amount of detail about what happened and when, and how; and the religious people, after being soundly beaten, will just respond "Oh, but that's how God wants it to be. He made it that way when he created the world because he wanted to test our faith/remain mysterious/because god is unfathomable". This is the argument that needs to be attacked. David Hume showed that all the proofs of God beg the question of God's existence. As long as they cheat and we play by the rules, ignorance will win out over wisdom, because ignorance will wear any mask, even pretending to be wisdom itself.
When the religious right attacks science, the debate needs to be held in a forum where proper rhetorical practices are observed, otherwise they'll always appeal to emotion, and we'll always have to back down so we don't get labeled.
Unfortunately, even if we beat them in debate, they'll still pretend they're right. We need to frame this issue in the popular mind, because there's no arguing with angry people. They ignore, then they attack. And at the extremes they cheat too: If you win, they get teary and ask why you hate the baby jesus, why you serve the devil, why you won't let them have their beliefs. In fact, none of that is true; they can still have their beliefs. But they make it look like you're attacking them, and so draw sympathy for their side. If you lose (as in, if they get public sympathy against you) then they attack you as a "sinner", and an "atheist", and insult and slander you for not being one of them. In other words, they try to force you to give up your beliefs (which is absurd when you've seen the evidence yourself, viz Galileo).
The reason I dislike the western church so much (the organization, not the teachings) is that the western church is basically a political organization predicated on greed, hate, fear, and studied ignorance. And personally, my personal opinion that God is more likely a verbal construct than a literal being comes from the continued bad behavior of the church; If God existed, "He" wouldn't let the church get away with all that crap in His name. When people tell me I "have to" believe in God, because He *is* real yadda yadda yadda, I want to hit back with "Oh yeah, well, ERIS is REALLY real, and predates your religion by 1000 years! so HAH!" But I haven't had a good opportunity. One time I told some evangelists that "I already have a deity", though :)
HEATHEN AND LOVING IT! :P
Re:How much you're willing to bet... (Score:3, Interesting)
I did hear some interesting theories, apparently based on DNA studies of indigenous people on islands of the cost of South America and some archeological finds, that the first peoples to settle in the americas were not the people now know as native amaericans.
They were nergoid rather then mogoloid, and thought to have come across the sea rather than the land bridge. The theory went that the Native American's ancestors had gone south and driven out and killed the first wave on inhabitants, a few of whom su
Re:How much you're willing to bet... (Score:4, Informative)
You've apparently forgotten that all recent genetic evidence shows that we are all descended from Africans. So not only could "negroids" leave their home continent of Africa, but they did so and reached every continent on earch, evolving as they went. BTW, you're one of "them", and so is everyone else.
Re:How much you're willing to bet... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an interesting finding (Score:3, Informative)
Either modern humans developed somewhat earlier than we thought, or else they spread over the earth in a flash, like some extremely virulent form of kudzu or something.
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:5, Informative)
Wells believes that the wave of migration leading to Australia began some 60,000 years ago. The wave leading to Central Asia dates to significantly later, probably 45,000 - 40,000 years ago.
To bring this fully on topic, genetic evidence indicates that people could not have reached North America much earlier than 15,000 - 20,000 years ago, so I'm inclined to believe that the article's suggested 50,000 year date for a hearth is simply wrong. It is probably just a natural feature (remains of a naturally ocurring fire) and the purported "tools" are probably just naturally fractured rocks. You'd be amazed at the broken rocks that some archaeologists (I'm an archaeologist by training) will call "tools." Only microscopic wear pattern analysis of sample edges can begin to establish that some randomly fractured hunk of rock is really a tool. I didn't see any mention that this has been done in the article. Another possibility is stratigraphic mixing (different levels of the site have been disturbed or moved by the activities of burrowing animals).
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:3, Interesting)
Saying that there were no people in North America before this, is akin to claiming a mathematical proof by absense of a counter example is valid. It isn't a proof, it is a lack of a counter example.
Likewise there appear to be situations where there are genetic markers which do not match the 15-20,000 year window, and appear to be branches frome Europe, rath
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:2)
Although it's admittedly barely on the fringes of credible science, there is evidence of a global technologically-advanced culture a long time ago. Stuff like similar pyramids in Egypt and South America, golden Mayan sculptures that the Spanish thought were of birds but actually look more like jet aircraft, myths of Atlantis, a fused-glass "floor" found in a core sample taken in
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:3, Informative)
Have you ever excavated a Native American "pyramid?" I have. They bear no resemblance to Egyptian pyramids:
Egyptian Pyramids:
1. pointed on top.
2. built entirely of solid stone.
3. No structures on top.
4. Chambers always inside pyramid.
American "Pyramids"
1. Flat on top (that's why I put "pyramid" in quotes).
2. Built mostly of rubble (i.e., dirt and garbage). Sometimes,
Re:This is an interesting finding (Score:3, Informative)
Bzzzt. Wrong answer.
First off, try reading the article. The slashdot blurb is so wrong it isn't even funny. The tools appear to be 25,000 years than the previous earliest known in the new world - which was NOT Clovis. These things are from about 50,000 years ago. Humans in the new world 25,000 years ago has been known for many years. The population just seems to have been tiny, prior to the
Old joke (Score:5, Funny)
German scientists dug 50 meters down and discovered small pieces of copper.
After studying these pieces for a long time, Germany announced that the ancient Germans 15,000 years ago had DSL.
Naturally, the Russian government was not that easily impressed. They ordered their own scientists to dig even deeper.
100 meters down they found small pieces of glass and they soon announced that the ancient Russians 20,000 years ago already had a nation-wide fiber net.
American scientists were outraged by this. They dug 200 meters down & found absolutely nothing.
They happily concluded that the ancient Americans 25,000 years ago had wireless network.
Uh-oh (Score:4, Funny)
ok, so (Score:2, Insightful)
there mystery solved.
What are you smoking? (Score:2)
Re:ok, so (Score:2, Funny)
Are you suggesting stone tools migrate?
ARTHUR:
Not at all. They could be carried.
SOLDIER #1:
What? A swallow carrying a chisel?
ARTHUR:
It could grip it by the handle!
SOLDIER #1:
It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound stone tool.
ARTHUR:
Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
SOLDIER #1:
Listen. In order to maintain a
Re:ok, so (Score:2)
It is predicted that humans were throwing these so called tools at some swallows down in the Rift Valley when
Mormon twist? (Score:3, Funny)
Being here THOUSANDS of years before they claim the nephites showed up, that's gotta hurt the ol' church.
Re: Mormon twist? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Being here THOUSANDS of years before they claim the nephites showed up, that's gotta hurt the ol' church.
Since when have contrary facts hurt religions?
Re: Mormon twist? (Score:2)
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Discoveries like this and others facts that disprove their theories are not going to change their views, as they claim that god created the world at $time with everything, including fossils, geological features and other dateable items intact.
I can however assure you that they are NOT correct, as I know that the giant creator-wombat created the world out of a can of spam and some duct tape, with people, rocks, birds, the thoughts in your head, absolutely everything intact only 5 minutes ago. Go on, try to disprove it.
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:2)
For all we know, day 1 could have been 4 billion human years.
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:3)
Those who believe they can take the Bible 100% literally are _sheep_ just as literally. There are some advantages to being as dumb as sheep, still it would be for the best if they kept quiet and stuck to following their Shepherd.
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, in fact the world won't be created until next year, and what we experience here is a mere computer simulation of ourselves and our future "past" as we are about to enter "recorded" history in preparation for that major even
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can stop right there and have a true statement. God is pretty much unprovable by definition. Most athiest and thiest I know agree on this point.
Science cannot remove a possible theory [...]
Science is not an actor, it doesn't do anything and has no agenda.
Those who understand scientific practices know this, and wouldn't try. Science is the process of finding explainations that fit what has been observed, and that have predictive power. Thats it, there isn'
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:2, Informative)
And Secondly, Mormon theology says that the garden on eden was actually in the americas too, and somewhere between Adam and the flood, (inclusive I guess) Noah ended up in the old world.
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mormon twist? (Score:3, Insightful)
The finding has been disputed (Score:5, Insightful)
More data is needed, no matter who is right. I do believe American civilization is a lot older than the previously-accepted figure, but 25,000 years means people discovered America about the same time they discovered northern Europe. Assuming that date is accurate, and there are some good reasons for questioning that, too.
Part of the problem is that archaeology is seriously underfunded. Where I grew up, they are currently conducting an excavation of a large Iron Age settlement (4000+ inhabitants) with evidence it was first built 12,000 years ago. The site seems to have been the center of commerce for the whole of the North of Britain from the end of the Ice Age through to the Roman Occupation. That's one big, important site. Total funding: $44,000 a year, to cover site surveying equiptment, excavation equiptment, preservation efforts, education of the locals, pay for the full-time archaeologists on-site, paying the farmers whose fields are getting dug up...
In South Carolina (where I lived for a while), things are a whole lot worse. The self-proclaimed "Holy City" of Charleston is definitely unlikely to fund work that contradicts the idea the world was created in 4004 BC. And that's one of the more liberal areas!
Nor is South Carolina a place filled with philanthopists. Charleston, Mount Pleasent and West Ashley are all fighting bitterly over who gets to keep the Civil War submarine "The Hunley". None of them want to pay for it, they just want to have it.
If they're not willing to pay for a serious conservation + museum for a part of history they are tightly intertwined with, they're certainly not going to pay some archaeologist to traipse across the countryside digging up fossil remains that largely serve to remind them that they are just a bunch of tourists in comparison to the settlers who were there first.
Is it finally God vs Science ? (Score:2)
I just wanted to emphasize the tourists part with a few Golgafrinchan comments about how us humans came to this planet ... But I don't carry my HHG2G bible (in an Orange cover to boot) around.
Now since the God is in the White House [outlookindia.com] , anything that challenges Biblical Creationism might get the short stick ?. Sadly even education seems to teaching creationism rather than darwinism. I hate how these pe
I've wondered at this myself (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I've wondered at this myself (Score:5, Informative)
Most everyone accepts at least the reasonable possibility of a pre-clovis occupation.. I'd say most find it likely, but prefer to withold their theories till more evidence can be discovered.
However- One thing that most of the people I know will agree to: The European route isn't that likely. It's not a matter of denying it because of it's antiquity, nor is it denying that one COULD skirt the ice, had one a significant maritime adaptation- It's the fact that there's no evidence of any Solutrean (European, at this time) maritime adaptation whatsoever. No evidence of reliance on seafood, and very little coastal occupations in the first place.
Re:I've wondered at this myself (Score:2)
Now, talk about skirting the pacific way the hell before clovis- Well, that's another story entirely.
Re: I've wondered at this myself (Score:2)
> alternatively, as I recently saw on Nova, these first explorers came from France, the same people who painted the fameous Lascaux caves.
Actually, that's one scientist's pet hypothesis, and is not generally accepted at present.
> Go figure, just don't underestimate our ancestors.
Good advice.
I'm ignorant (Score:2, Insightful)
(As to the creationism / darwin debate, people forget that the fact that new evidence can make us throw away previous scientific belief is what's good about science, not what's bad)
Re: I'm ignorant (Score:4, Informative)
>
You have to date stone by dating its context. The best way to do it is to sandwich the stones between clearly datable layers, but lots of times you have to just date stuff the stone is "associated with".
Also, as I understand things 50Kybp is just about at the limit of what you can reliably test with carbon dating.
Warning Label (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Warning Label (Score:2)
By chance, you don't happen to live under a bridge...do you?
(checks posting history) [slashdot.org] Well! I guess you do!
Re:Warning Label (Score:3, Informative)
The grandparent poster is making reference to a sticker that one of the southern states (Texas? Alabama?) wants to put on high-school science texts which discuss evolution.
Presumably, the grandparent poster is underscoring the absurdity of such "governemnt warning labels" for unpopular thought, by demostrating that in any context other than a high-school text, such a warning is and should be treated, as the parent did, as ridiculous.
Yes, Virgi
Also note... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Warning Label (Score:3, Informative)
- "Question 1: How Does Evolution Add Information? "How can point mutations create new chromosomes or lengthen a strand of DNA?"
Wrong on many levels. Point mutations obviously don't create new information. Consider duplications, deletions, etc. Chromosomes can duplicate, polyploidism is possible, etc. ect... Enough mechanisms to add new information.
"Question 2: How Can Evolution Be So Quick?"
Evolution of large structures does not work on the level of sin
$5 says they found... (Score:3, Funny)
Let's hope the Army Corp. of Engineers (Score:2)
Reperations (Score:3, Funny)
damn, trying to keep the cave man down.
I am a little skeptical. (Score:2, Insightful)
1999 BBC Documentary (Score:3, Interesting)
The dates listed in this documentary match up to the correct dates from the CNN story (as opposed to the incorrect dates in the story summary).
Here is a link [bbc.co.uk] a BBC article about the documentary.
Re:1999 BBC Documentary (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes I saw that. The doco argued that humans had ocean going navigation a long time ago ... not surprising considering even homo floriensis had to do something like that 500,000 years ago. Anyway the doco argued that north and south America were occupied by these people but that the people from Mongolia i.e. the current Native Americans came in and made short work of them. Look it wouldn't surprise me. These days we really underestimate how much nomadic peoples move .. even on a continental scale. For instan
Older evidence exists (Score:2, Informative)
LK
You mean creationist claims #CC111? (Score:5, Interesting)
Finding new skeletons in older rock can be easy. Finding fossilized skeletons- the same age as the rock- that would be interesting.
For more reading, check out the whole index of standard creationist claims [talkorigins.org], as well as their good set of FAQS [talkorigins.org], including How do we know the age of the earth [talkorigins.org]?, and fossil hominids [talkorigins.org].
As to humans making it out to the New World that much earlier than previously known, I'm not surprised... we're a wandering species (and genus), [slashdot.org] going way back. Modern Homo sapiens was poking about in odd places by 100k years ago, so there isn't any inherent reason why we shouldn't have been there. However, generally when humans arrive in force we tend to leave evidence (like stone age habitats [psu.edu] or megafauna extinctions [amonline.net.au]), so these potential first North Americans were keeping fairly quiet, archeologically-wise.
No longer news. (Score:2)
The current model must be updated to show progressive waves of settlement, rather than a single event, and try to discern differences between each of the successive cultures, and try to find where
BFD (Score:2)
ok, what's the deal? (Score:2)
Well, after this election, I'll believe anything...
Oldie but Goodie (Score:3, Funny)
Genus: Stupidious Maximus
The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport, RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds. This guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institution. Bear this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Mr. Williams:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull."
http://www.wilk4.com/humor/humorm20.htm [wilk4.com]
Uh huh (Score:4, Insightful)
So people came to South Carolina 25,000 years ago and left no traces on the rest of the continent for 12,000 years? Yeah right. Off the top of my head, here are several more likely explanations:
INAABMFWIARDL (I'm not an archaeologist but my friend works in a radio-carbon dating lab). People have been scouring the continents for over 50 years and found nothing earlier than ~13,000 BP and suddenly these guys stumble across something twice as old? Even if the site is legit it's gonna take a lot more finds to convince archaeologists people were here that early. People don't exactly confine themselves to small areas and leave no traces for thousands of years.
Sounds to me like more bogus science "journalism". Write about the crazy new theory to draw eyeballs and devote two paragraphs to the established consensus that this guy's a nut. The author oughta be run out of town on a rail.
Re:Uh huh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh huh (Score:4, Funny)
So people came to South Carolina 25,000 years ago and left no traces on the rest of the continent for 12,000 years? Yeah right. Off the top of my head, here are several more likely explanations:
[I didn't write this, it is an email classic]
Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Sir:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it's modern origin:
# 1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
# 2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
# 3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
# A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
# B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities
NOVA on PBS had a special about this field (Score:4, Informative)
There is RNA evidence that some native peoples here in the U.S. might have come from a population that was from the area that is now France.
link below to NOVA web site with the program
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/ [pbs.org]
Murrayian Protocaucasoid was first in America? (Score:3, Informative)
It appears that the first homo sapiens settlers of Asia and of North America were related to some of the Australian aborigines, specfically, the Murrayians, which were a mix that included a protocaucasoid type.
You can see a picture of what these amazing people may have looked like here. [tripod.com]
THey are also related to the Ainu of Japan.
They conquered Asia, Indonesia, Australia and then the Americas long before the ancestors of the present Asians moved across the Bering Straits.
Traces of them have been found in the Americas, however. The Kennewick man was likely related to them. In the next year or two, new research out of mexico will likely confirm their presence. Some traces of the typical Murrayian skeletal features (but their genetics) have been seen in current (or recent) native Americans in Baja California and Tierra Del Fuego (see here [andaman.org] for more.
THey may have been the first homo sapiens out of Africa. However the Negritos may have been before them.
the certain evidence will be bones (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Can't Be True (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever a scientist gets experimental results that are far outside what was previously known and expected, the proper response is to either wait for independent verification (in this case, similar dating results from digs elsewhere in North America at the same depth) or subject the experimental procedure to intense scrutiny. Here, I would expect him to be able to justify
1) That the artifacts really came from the time he claims them to be from (probably easily doable via an independent dating test)
2) That the artifacts really came from the place he claims them to be from
3) That the artifacts are manmade.
Until each of these points is well supported, and barring the independent verification mentioned above, I'd hold out on adjusting the history textbooks.
Re:Can't Be True (Score:2)
Agreed. The only date that matters is the date whitey got here.
Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but... (Score:2)
According to the CNN article the scientists dated the site it was found, so they might have used this method on something which has been found with the stone. However, I'm apparently clueless
Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, I'm stupid, but... (Score:2)
Just checkin
Pan