Crude stone "tools" found in northern Minnesota may be at least 13,000 years old

National Geographic website ^ | February 15, 2007 | Stefan Lovgren

[A Strict Constructionist]

"I'll definitely wait to call them ,"man-made tools""

Well they are from Minnesota, so the term "man-made" is iffy based on their politics.

[art_rocks]

Oh, I thought it was a tool used to make US Autos by UAW workers.

[Moonman62]

They found Helen Thomas' baby toys.

[Coyoteman]

Lately they've been finding caucasian remains predating Indian remains and that is making some people very upset.

Sorry, no.

What you are thinking of is Kennewick Man. Jim Chatters, the first anthropologist who looked at the find commented that it was not typical Native American and that it had cranial morphology more like Europeans. That seems to be a characteristic of the earliest settlers in the western US, who came from Asia either by foot or boat. They did not come from Europe.

Chatters has a good summary here.

[blam]

Could that be a Cartifact?

I read this book by George Carter, pretty good too.

George Carter was a geologist and during his field work he would occasion upon stones that he though looked 'worked.' He would take them to archaeologists and ask for their opinion and often would be told that they are definately altered by man and were very ancient, usually over 100k years old. Then, when he revealed where he found them all opinions changed...they were all found in the Americas.

Anyway George was undeterred and kept 'ambushing' archaeologists so often that the archaeological community began to call his stones 'Cartifacts.' George eventually became so frustrated that he obtained a PhD in archaeology but was still mostly ignored. I think he is dead now.

Calico: A 200,000 Year Old Site In The Americas

[blam]

BTW, George Carter said that one of the most ancient archaeology sites in America was covered over by the expansion of the grounds of the University of San Diego and also with the building of the Naval Observatory there.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, but alas...

Tools Found In Walker, May Be 14,000 Years Old
WCCO-TV | Friday, January 12, 2007 | Associated Press
Posted on 01/12/2007 11:34:52 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1766543/posts

Archaeologists Explain Significance Of The Walker Site (Minnesota)
The Pilot-Independent | 1-24-2007 | Molly MacGregor
Posted on 01/25/2007 6:47:01 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1773793/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks TXnMA. There are sites older than this one, regardless.

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[TXnMA]

Assuming that the 14,000 BP date is correct -- and assuming that these crude specimens are man made -- then we do have a problem:

1. People with extremely rudimentary stone toolmaking skills (typical of cultures that ended over 1Ma BP in Africa) survived here until 14,000 BP (and learned nothing -- and left no evidence -- in the interim).

2. Then they suddenly advanced from

   

   to

   
   (Clovis Point from Minnesota)

   in only two millenia...

[SunkenCiv]

It's only a problem insofar that the interim is filled by artifacts currently misdated due to the glass floor of Clovis-first-and-only.

[SunkenCiv]

Retracing the footprints of time
by Steve Sandford
September 9, 1996
web archive version

Direct radiocarbon dating of the Calgary site is not possible because the ancient artifacts were not found in conjunction with organic matter, such as bones or decayed plant matter, which is necessary for such testing. Absent such verification, Prof. Young dismisses the find. For one thing, he says, the artifacts are so simple they could merely be naturally-occurring rocks; he says that most informed scientists are doubtful they are tools. And even if they are tools, he adds that there is no way to be sure that they were originally situated where they were found under the gravel, since the site has served as an exposed gravel pit for the last 100 years. Comments Prof. Young: "Any dude could have put that rock there."

Ancient stone tools chip away date of early humans' arrival
by Margaret Munro
National Post
Jan 16 1999
web archive version

Recently, Dr. Chlachula and his colleagues have discovered three more sites containing what they believe are preglacial stone tools. One set of choppers and scrapers, described in the current edition of The Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, was found in a gravel pit near the town of Grimshaw in northern Alberta. The other tools were unearthed last summer at two locations west of Lethbridge. All of them, says Dr. Chlachula, indicate that humans roamed through the Prairies between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago... Dr. Richard Morlan, curator of paleo-environmental studies at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que., says he has no reason to doubt Dr. Chlachula. Few people in the world, says Dr. Morlan, can match the 36-year-old researcher's expertise. Professor Nat Rutter, the former head of geology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, agrees, noting that Dr. Chlachula has three PhDs and extensive field experience in both old world and new world archaeology... Prof. Rutter, at the University of Edmonton, also has much confidence in his research skills. "Jiri's work embarrassed a lot of other people," he says, because it suggests that Canadian archaeologists have been looking in the wrong place for human artifacts and they should be hunting underneath glacial deposits. "They may not admit it," says Prof. Rutter, "but they're all out there looking now."

[redheadtoo]

This is obviously a prehistoric paperweight. Proof of the sophisticated society of early man on the American continent. And, given the time of year, these people appear to be getting their tax forms in order.

[dave k]

Minnesota was also the location of another simalar find:

Kensington Runestone

Fact or fiction? Considering that Lake Agassiz was formed around the same time frame, these types of finds are not surprising.

[TXnMA]

"It's only a problem insofar that the interim is filled by artifacts currently misdated due to the glass floor of Clovis-first-and-only."

Say Whaaaaat?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm no "Clovis firster" -- and certainly no "Clovis-first-and-only--ier"! (I worked on spatial analysis of data from 41WM235 -- the Wilson-Leonard [aka"Leander"] site...)

BUT -- we know from other continents that lithic tool develoment from the barely-dinged pebble shown in this article to long, thin, soft-hammer percussed and symmetrically-fluted bifaces took over a million years.

Dating them only a couple of millenia apart (less than the use-span of Clovis, BTW...) just because they are both on this continent makes no sense at all.

The case under discussion is like (in 2007) calling my great-grandfather's wooden-wheeled wagon, "a 2006-model Mercedes".

(Actually, a travois would be a more apt level-of-technology analogy for the illustrated "tool"...)

[Cementjungle]

Artist's rendition of user of the lost tool trying to explain how it was lost.

[G Larry]

I get the dating the rock thing, but how do they date the chips in the rock?

[TXnMA]

"...how do they date the chips in the rock?"

"They" don't...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deliberate flake removals leave distinctly-shaped (and very-well characterized) scars. I see none of those on this "tool".

There are those who claimed that freshly-broken surfaces on obsidian (a very homogenous and amorphous volcanic glass) weather and patinate (form a hydrated "rind" of softer weathering) at a constant and measurable rate. OTOH, hydration rates are very much a function of moisture availability, pH, temperature, etc, -- so "dating" by measuring the thickness of that "rind" is highly suspect...

BUT -- the chunk of "rock" pictured certainly "ain't no obsidian". Direct dating? No way that I know of...

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, nice...

Wilson-Leonard Site
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/plateaus/images/ap5.html

[aruanan]

Are we supposed to believe that Early Americans' lithihic technology leaped from this "dinged pebble" to the sophisticated and beautiful (...and still tough-to-replicate with primitive knapping tools) Clovis points -- in only one thousand years?!?

Don't assume both lie in the same trajectory of development. In the present day world we have Stone Age people as well as people who build space shuttles.