Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/17/carolina.dig/index.html
This article is blowing my mind. It turns out that maybe
everything I learned in my history classes about when humans first
arrived in the Americas is wrong. Also, if humans have been around in
the Americas for 50K years and we supposedly branched off from other
hominid lines 30K years ago in Africa ... well, these numbers just don't
add up, do they? Anyone have a revised history that takes everything
into account?
---
(CNN) -- Archaeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the
history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of
human settlement thousands of years.
But their interpretation is already igniting controversy among
scientists.
An archaeologist from the University of South Carolina on Wednesday
announced radiocarbon tests that dated the first human settlement in
North America to 50,000 years ago -- at least 25,000 years before other
known human sites on the continent.
"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said
Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of
Archaeology and Anthropology.
If true, the find represents a revelation for scientists studying how
humans migrated to the Americas.
Many scientists thought humans first ventured into the New World across
a land bridge from present-day Russia into Alaska about 13,000 years
ago.
This new discovery suggests humans may have crossed the land bridge into
the Americas much earlier -- possibly during an ice age -- and rapidly
colonized the two continents.
"It poses some real problems trying to explain how you have people
(arriving) in Central Asia almost at the same time as people in the
Eastern United States," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at
the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum.
"You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion ... We're talking
about a very rapid movement of people around the globe."
Schurr said that conclusive evidence of stone tools similar to those in
Asia and uncontaminated radiocarbon dating samples are needed to verify
that the Topper site is actually 50,000 years old.
"If dating is confirmed, then it really does have a significant impact
on our previous understanding of New World colonization," he said.
But not all scientists are convinced that what Goodyear found is a human
settlement.
"He has a very old geologic formation, but I can't agree with his
interpretation of those stones being man-made," said Michael Collins of
the Texas Archeological Research Lab at the University of Texas at
Austin. Collins disputes that the stone shards at the site show signs of
human manipulation.
But whether the Topper site proves valid, Collins said most
archeologists now believe people settled in America before 13,000 years
ago, refuting a theory that has held sway for 75 years.
Since the 1930s, archaeologists generally believed North America was
settled by hunters following large game over the land bridge about
13,000 years ago.
"That had been repeated so many times in textbooks and lectures it
became part of the common lore," said Dennis Stanford, curator of
archeology at the Smithsonian Institution. "People forgot it was only an
unproven hypothesis."
A growing body of evidence has prompted scientists to challenge that
assumption.
A scattering of sites from South America to Oklahoma have found evidence
of a human presence before 13,000 years ago -- or the first Clovis sites
-- since the discovery of human artifacts in a cave near Clovis, New
Mexico, in 1936.
These discoveries are leading archaeologists to support alternative
theories -- such as settlement by sea -- for the Americas.
Worldwide, ideas about human origins have rapidly changed with
groundbreaking discoveries that humans ranged farther and earlier than
once believed. Fossils in Indonesia nearly 2 million years old suggest
that protohumans left their African homeland hundreds of thousands of
years earlier than first theorized.
Modern humans, or homo sapiens, most likely emerged between 60,000 and
80,000 years ago in Africa. They quickly fanned out to Australia and
Central Asia about 50,000 years ago and arrived in Europe only about
40,000 years ago. Ancestral humans -- hominids like australopithecines
and Neanderthals -- have never been found in the New World.
Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal
next year, which is the standard method by which scientists announce
their findings. Until research is peer-reviewed, experts in the field
may not have an opportunity to evaluate the scientist's methods, or
weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.
Archaeologists will meet in October of 2005 for a conference in
Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss the earliest inhabitants of North
America, including a visit to the Topper Site.
Goodyear has been excavating the Topper dig site along the Savannah
River since the 1980s. He recovered many of the artifacts and tools last
May.
Goodyear dug four meters (13 feet) deeper than the soil layer containing
the earliest North American people and began uncovering a plethora of
tools. Until recently, many archeologists did not dig below where Clovis
artifacts were expected to be found.
Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed
hundreds of possible implements, many appearing to be stone chisels and
tools that could have been used to skin hides, butcher meat or carve
antlers, wood and ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance
called chert, a flint-like stone found in the region.
Goodyear and his colleagues began their dig at the Topper Site in the
early 1980s with the goal of finding out more about the Clovis people.
Goodyear thought it would also be a good place to look for earlier human
settlers because of the resources along the Savannah River and the
moderate climate.
---
--
~ Cyde Weys ~
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/17/carolina.dig/index.html
This article is blowing my mind. It turns out that maybe
everything I learned in my history classes about when humans first
arrived in the Americas is wrong. Also, if humans have been around in
the Americas for 50K years and we supposedly branched off from other
hominid lines 30K years ago in Africa ... well, these numbers just don't
add up, do they? Anyone have a revised history that takes everything
into account?
---
(CNN) -- Archaeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the
history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of
human settlement thousands of years.
But their interpretation is already igniting controversy among
scientists.
An archaeologist from the University of South Carolina on Wednesday
announced radiocarbon tests that dated the first human settlement in
North America to 50,000 years ago -- at least 25,000 years before other
known human sites on the continent.
"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said
Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of
Archaeology and Anthropology.
If true, the find represents a revelation for scientists studying how
humans migrated to the Americas.
Many scientists thought humans first ventured into the New World across
a land bridge from present-day Russia into Alaska about 13,000 years
ago.
This new discovery suggests humans may have crossed the land bridge into
the Americas much earlier -- possibly during an ice age -- and rapidly
colonized the two continents.
"It poses some real problems trying to explain how you have people
(arriving) in Central Asia almost at the same time as people in the
Eastern United States," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at
the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum.
"You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion ... We're talking
about a very rapid movement of people around the globe."
Schurr said that conclusive evidence of stone tools similar to those in
Asia and uncontaminated radiocarbon dating samples are needed to verify
that the Topper site is actually 50,000 years old.
"If dating is confirmed, then it really does have a significant impact
on our previous understanding of New World colonization," he said.
But not all scientists are convinced that what Goodyear found is a human
settlement.
"He has a very old geologic formation, but I can't agree with his
interpretation of those stones being man-made," said Michael Collins of
the Texas Archeological Research Lab at the University of Texas at
Austin. Collins disputes that the stone shards at the site show signs of
human manipulation.
But whether the Topper site proves valid, Collins said most
archeologists now believe people settled in America before 13,000 years
ago, refuting a theory that has held sway for 75 years.
Since the 1930s, archaeologists generally believed North America was
settled by hunters following large game over the land bridge about
13,000 years ago.
"That had been repeated so many times in textbooks and lectures it
became part of the common lore," said Dennis Stanford, curator of
archeology at the Smithsonian Institution. "People forgot it was only an
unproven hypothesis."
A growing body of evidence has prompted scientists to challenge that
assumption.
A scattering of sites from South America to Oklahoma have found evidence
of a human presence before 13,000 years ago -- or the first Clovis sites
-- since the discovery of human artifacts in a cave near Clovis, New
Mexico, in 1936.
These discoveries are leading archaeologists to support alternative
theories -- such as settlement by sea -- for the Americas.
Worldwide, ideas about human origins have rapidly changed with
groundbreaking discoveries that humans ranged farther and earlier than
once believed. Fossils in Indonesia nearly 2 million years old suggest
that protohumans left their African homeland hundreds of thousands of
years earlier than first theorized.
Modern humans, or homo sapiens, most likely emerged between 60,000 and
80,000 years ago in Africa. They quickly fanned out to Australia and
Central Asia about 50,000 years ago and arrived in Europe only about
40,000 years ago. Ancestral humans -- hominids like australopithecines
and Neanderthals -- have never been found in the New World.
Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal
next year, which is the standard method by which scientists announce
their findings. Until research is peer-reviewed, experts in the field
may not have an opportunity to evaluate the scientist's methods, or
weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.
Archaeologists will meet in October of 2005 for a conference in
Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss the earliest inhabitants of North
America, including a visit to the Topper Site.
Goodyear has been excavating the Topper dig site along the Savannah
River since the 1980s. He recovered many of the artifacts and tools last
May.
Goodyear dug four meters (13 feet) deeper than the soil layer containing
the earliest North American people and began uncovering a plethora of
tools. Until recently, many archeologists did not dig below where Clovis
artifacts were expected to be found.
Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed
hundreds of possible implements, many appearing to be stone chisels and
tools that could have been used to skin hides, butcher meat or carve
antlers, wood and ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance
called chert, a flint-like stone found in the region.
Goodyear and his colleagues began their dig at the Topper Site in the
early 1980s with the goal of finding out more about the Clovis people.
Goodyear thought it would also be a good place to look for earlier human
settlers because of the resources along the Savannah River and the
moderate climate.
---
--
~ Cyde Weys ~
Bite my shiny metal ass.
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