Posted on 01/08/2007 11:14:54 AM PST by blam
Archaeologist's find could shake up science
By HEATHER URQUIDES
Published January 7, 2007
Archaeologist Albert Goodyear is working on the find of his life.
Based on radiocarbon tests and artifacts he's found along the Savannah River in South Carolina, Goodyear believes that humans existed in North America as many as 50,000 years ago, shattering the long-held notion that the earliest settlers arrived here about 13,000 years ago in Alaska via a lost land bridge.
Not everyone is convinced, but Goodyear believes further excavation and testing at the South Carolina location, known as the Topper site, will confirm his findings.
He's taking a break next week to come to St. Petersburg for a talk at the Science Center about Florida's first inhabitants. It's a coming home for him. After all, it was here that his interest in all things old first began.
You're from St. Petersburg?
I was born in St. Petersburg. I went to Boca Ciega High School, graduated in 1964.
What drew to you archeology?
I think it was in second grade, at Mount Vernon Elementary, we had a unit on Florida heritage. You study the state tree and the bird and all that, and we studied the Seminole Indians. I was really captivated. I thought, 'Hmm, that's the way to live.' I think that sort of predisposed me. When I was 8, my grandmother pulled out an old family trunk with an Indian arrowhead. That really fired up my imagination.
Your work at the Topper site in South Carolina showed that humans existed in North America far earlier than previously thought. Why does that matter?
People, just regular people, are extremely interested. ... I think it taps into a deep curiosity that humans have about their origins. I don't care whether you're in France or South Africa or South Carolina.
Do you think the Topper site will be your greatest discovery or is that yet to come?
I hope it is. Not just for our site, but for the sake of the program. The profession is slowly moving along to accept that there really were people here before the Clovis (roughly 13,000 years ago). The Topper site is unique ... it looks to me like it's the oldest radiocarbon site in North America. That's a huge statement. We're still working on it. Just to have literally found a site of that antiquity, the implications are just enormous. It does say, if it's that old, that people were getting into the United States the same time they were getting into Australia. That's part of that very old migration story. Literally, if it all works out, and I'm convinced that it will, obviously it will be the find of my lifetime.
What's it like to now be the one that people come to listen to?
It comes with the notoriety of the Topper site. ... People are curious about it and want to know what it is, and is it true? I try to cover that when I give these presentations. For me it's fun. It's pretty gratifying because I've always liked working with the public - especially amateur archeologists, since I started out as one.
Heather Urquides can be reached at hurquides@sptimes.com or 892-2253.
If you go
What: Albert Goodyear talks about "Florida's First Peoples"
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Science Center, 7701 22nd Ave. N
Details: Tickets are $6. For more information, go to www. sciencecenterofpinellas.com or call 384-0027.
GGG Ping.
Leo G. Carroll can.
The PC correct and Liberals would be upset and shocked to find out that European white man was on the North America continent 50,000 years ago....
Viking ping
And the creationists are upset because the universe is only 6K years old.
Anything that upsets both camps is good in my book.
One model of migration has X splitting in western Asia, and branches going both east and west. The eastern branch could have traversed Alaska and Canada, spreading into the US around the Great Lakes and finally reaching the Southeast. If done before the most recent glacial episodes this should have been possible. (Lots of animals did it too.)
I would like to see this documented. That would be a lot of fun!
Topper (archaeological site)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Topper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina in the United States. It is noted as the location of controversial artifacts believed by some archaeologists to indicate human habitation of the New World as far back as 50,000 years ago.
Since the 1930s, the most widely-accepted theory concerning the peopling of the New World is that the first human inhabitants were the Clovis people, who are thought to have arrived approximately 13,000 years ago. Artifacts of the Clovis people are found throughout most of the United States and as far south as Panama. The standard theory has been challenged in recent decades, with possible pre-Clovis sites, such as Cactus Hill and Monte Verde, suggested by a growing number of archaeologists. To date, no conclusive evidence of pre-Clovis inhabitation has yet been definitely established.
In 2004, Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology announced that radiocarbon dating of a bit of charcoal found in the Topper Site dated to approximately 50,000 years ago, or approximately 37,000 years before the Clovis people. Goodyear, who began excavating the Topper site in the 1980s, believes that the artifacts are stone tools, although other archaeologists dispute this conclusion, suggesting that the artifacts may be natural and not human-made. Other archaeologists have challenged the radiocarbon dating procedure of the Topper artifacts. Goodyear discovered the artifacts by digging 4 m deeper than the Clovis artifacts. Before discovering the oldest artifacts, he had discovered other artifacts that he claimed were tools dating around 16,000 years old, or about 3,000 years before Clovis. Until the recent challenges to the Clovis theory, it was unusual for archaeologists to dig deeper than the layer of the Clovis culture, on the grounds that no human artifacts would be found older than Clovis.
Upset? Not a chance. I love it, and I'm a professional archaeologist with 35 years of dirt under my fingernails.
These new discoveries are what help keep us going. Some of my recent work has supported an early coastal migration along the west coast, but we're looking at probably no more than 15,000 years ago for that one. Still, its great fun.
I always wondered where Helen Thomas was born.
No - we would just be native rednecks!
That far back it is highly unlikely the concepts "European" and "white man" would have any meaning at all.
Yes it is "upset". you are telling me that the scientific community has accepted with open arms the claims in recent decades that have pushed the migration model as far back as we see it today? They fought it at every turn.
Is this mostly true?
It varies widely, but it certainly can happen.
The normal practice is to excavate until the yield drops to nothing, then do another level or two just to be sure. Often, an auger is used to get another meter down just in case.
Many sites have clear bottoms, with rock or other layers, but when you are in soil deposits you don't have that.
It is common to use a backhoe or other mechanical device to sample the stratigraphy of a site on a major project, but when you're in a cave or down 5 meters, that is not always possible.
So, yes, the lowest layers can be missed if there is a sterile layer between cultural layers. In areas of heavy soil deposition a sterile layer can be several meters in thickness. And, when you are dealing with sites of some reasonable antiquity, there will often be fewer cultural materials, they will cover a smaller area than the overlying sites, and they may be much deeper.
Its enough to give us nightmares! (I like it when I hit a solid rock layer, as then I know there's nothing else down there.)
Yet more evidence that radiocarbon dating is a bunch of BS. It's amazing that anyone still listens to the Darwinists.
Science schmience. This will make no difference at all to physics.
Some did, some didn't. Depends on where you work, and how much you like projectile points.
Folks who had a lot invested in Clovis resisted the idea, while those working on the coasts or in other non-Clovis areas were much quicker to accept the idea. Also, following Kuhn's model, the younger generation accepted the new ideas quicker than some of the older generation.
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