First Americans - Homo Erectus in America

http://home.pacbell.net/tcbpfb/ ^ | January 01, 1999 | Tom Baldwin (apparently)

[SunkenCiv]

stumbled across this old link on here:

http://www.westmount.ci.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/early_man.html

Then tracked down the web archive version of the page itself.

[SunkenCiv]

That's it, I'm going to bed. I got the name "Tom Baldwin" from a websearch for "tcbpfb", which one Tom Baldwin uses on the Amazon website.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Henchman]

THX for the Ping

[SunkenCiv]

You're most welcome. Now I *really am* going to bed... ;')

[mcg1969]

You said "Homo Erectus".
heh heh.
(SHUT UP, Beavis!)

[SunkenCiv]

Only because the term "Homo Flaccidis" is now classified as Hate Speech. ;')

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

[ForGod'sSake]

Once the door is thrown open to an earlier arrival date for man on this continent, then serious study will hopefully begin on the many early man sites to be found in both North and South America, but currently ignored because of their threat to the comfortable group of academics who have built careers around Clovis.

Now this I like. I gather statements like this have kept him out of the mainstream of archeology's finest. I did a quick Google for Tom Baldwin + archeology with basically zero hits. So, who is this guy?

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

Just some guy who used to have a homepage, I guess. :') I'll dig up (so to speak) a little more along this line, not by Tom Baldwin. :')

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

[ForGod'sSake]

I'll dig up (so to speak) SNORT! a little more along this line, not by Tom Baldwin. :')

You da man!

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

---

The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age by Richard Rudgley

"The first discovery of a Palaeolithic site in Japan took place just after World War II. Until this time so strong was the belief amongst archaeologists that there was no Palaeolithic at all in Japan that excavators of Jomon sites would stop digging once they had reached the bottom... simply because the discovery of earlier artefacts was seen as totally impossible... In 1980 artefacts from a number of sites... were reliably dated... Those from Zazaragi were dated to 130,000 BP although sceptics maintained that they were perhaps no older than 50,000 years... IT must be said that the idea of Homo Erectus being the first American is, to almost all archaeologists, absolutely out of the question... According to Simpson and her team, a number of distinct types of artefacts, including hand-axes, hammerstones, and scrapers, were found at Calico, and their forms could not be the result of natural forces but can be nothing else [than] the tool kits of 200,000 year old occupants of California. They also claim that these artefacts are of a comparable technological level to those found at Lower Palaeolithic sites in China, and see the lack of acceptance of their finds as indicating a psychological barrier on the part of most archaeologists in accepting new and controversial data that does not fit neatly into preconceived notions of the antiquity of humans in the Americas." [pp 247-260]

---

I posted this (August 4, 2000 20:03:05 EDT) in my old "Ancient Times" club on the Globe (defunct), wrapping up with "IOW, don't stop digging..." The classics never wear out.

[BenLurkin]

"That used to be McGreevy!. He's okay BI me!"

[Lazamataz]

Homo Erectus probably wanted gay marriages.

[ForGod'sSake]

...and see the lack of acceptance of their finds as indicating a psychological barrier on the part of most archaeologists in accepting new and controversial data that does not fit neatly into preconceived notions of the antiquity of humans in the Americas.

Psychological?!?! I give up; what's this all about?

I know nothing about the field except it must be filled with very narrow minded people.....IMO. I mean, what's at stake here?

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

Imagine, if you will, a street gang. Members are devoted to the gang's success, and those who try to leave suffer terrible consequences. Every kid growing up on the block eventually has to choose to join the gang, or else. Years go by. A gang with an adjacent territory tries to take over. It was bad enough when the other gang was on the next block over -- never had to interact with 'em, but the idea that they existed was almost too much to bear...

Another way to look at it -- there are academics and students who should have bumper stickers which read, "My Professor Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It."

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list (alt)
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.

[SunkenCiv]

Check out this Listmania:

Crackademia and its Discontents by Kevin S. Currie, discontented grad student

[ForGod'sSake]

Is that you Rod(Serling) ;^)

Going with the gang analogy, I think one needs to define success. IOW, what do they hope to gain by protecting or even expanding their "turf"? There's a bottom line here somewhere....I think.....maybe.

FGS

[ForGod'sSake]

Check out this Listmania:

A quick look would "suggest" that most of this problem with "psychologically" entrenched positions is due at least in part to academic air heads? We're not just talking narrow minds but shallow ones as well?

Again though, to what end? What's to be gained?

Since so many things are tied to money/power, I suspect it is play here. I just don't know how it works in academia.

FGS

[beyond the sea]

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent

That would be nice, but there will be way too much Dem. big city and other massive voter fraud for that to happen.

[SunkenCiv]

:') Bush will win 35 states' electoral votes, perhaps as many as 40, and will indeed face the fraud problem, as he had to face it in 2000, when Gore tried to steal the election from him and from all of us.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!