Discovery casts doubt on Bering land bridge theory

Contra Costa Times ^ | July 30, 2003 | Allison Heinrichs

[NukeMan]

An archaeological site in Siberia, long thought to be the original jumping-off point for crossing the Bering land bridge into North America, is actually much younger than previously believed, shaking the theory that the first Americans migrated overland during the final cold snap of the last great ice age.

[NukeMan]

Looks like something you'd like to read....

[ElkGroveDan]

Using radiocarbon dating, scientists found that the Ushki site, the remains of a community of hunters clustered around Ushki Lake in northeastern Russia, appears to be only about 13,000 years old, 4,000 years younger than originally thought.

OK so THIS site isn't old enough. Nothing in this discovery says they DIDN'T cross there 4,000 years earlier. All it shows is that this site is irrelevant to the debate.

[Dog Gone]

I don't get it. Just because the Siberian settlement wasn't the direct source of the human migration during the land bridge doesn't prove that the land bridge wasn't used by someone else.

[vannrox]

Thanks. You are right. This is a very interesting and good read.

[blam]

Thanks

The Diring Site in Siberia at 250,000 years old.

[blam]

Calico: A 200,000 year old site in the Americas?

[Redcloak]

"We have to think bigger now and start thinking outside the box."

Maybe they could paddle out of that box...

[HamiltonJay]

Given the fact the land bridge is mostly underwater, finding out one site is younger than believed doesn't rule out its existence or use... the "land bridge" was huge... not saying they didn't come in boats... but this hardly discredits the land bridge theory in and of itself.

[blam]

'Arlington Springs Woman', 13,000 Years Old Human Skeleton, California Island

[Aric2000]

Ping!!

[ml/nj]

I haven't read it yet, but Red Earth, White Lies is supposed to have a good refutation of the Bering Land Bridge theory.

ML/NJ

[skeeter]

Exactly what are they carbon dating? Pieces of wood?

[NukeMan]

Yes, the newspaper title is a bit hyperbolic; I guess it's only natural to want to pump up the importance of the find. Presumably there may exist other undiscovered jumping-off points further away. I don't know how large the Ushki Lake site is - what is the boundary of land considered 'only' 13k years old and thus too young to support migration from that area?.

[NukeMan]

I just finished reading it. Well worth the effort. DeLoria's main criticism is the theory of Pleistocene megafauna extinction via native overhunting. He ripped that one up nicely. In the process, he outlined many of the problems concerning the Bering Strait Land Bridge theory of native origins. Highly recommended.

[Dog Gone]

blam has read more about this whole issue than I certainly have, and he's posted several articles about it in the past.

I really don't know. I think it's pretty clear that humans were relatively late arrivals to the Americas. Whether that was 13,000 years ago or 40,000 years ago is an interesting question. But it's more a matter of historical curiousity than determinitive of anything else.

[Sloth]

...said Michael Waters, co-author of the research that appeared last week in the journal Science. "We have to think bigger now and start thinking outside the box."

Start with different cliches.

[Sam Cree]

bump

[Physicist]

University of Kansas anthropological geneticist Michael Crawford said early humans probably could not have crossed the land bridge and traveled to New Mexico in 400 years. Reaching South America by foot within 1,000 years was even less likely.

I don't see this at all. That's a diffusion rate of around 10 miles per year. Even non-nomadic people can achieve that.

[Question_Assumptions]

But some archaeologists argue that due to the nomadic characteristics of America's first settlers, the seemingly difficult feat of traversing both North and South America in 1,000 years is not

They would not only have had to be very nomadic but able to adapt to the multitude of changing climates (each containing a different mix of new plant and animal life) as they travelled from North to South America. That is a pretty tall order.