Posted on 03/06/2015 5:05:35 PM PST by BenLurkin
“The discovery of this tool below a layer of undisturbed ash that dates to 15,800 years old means that this tool is likely more than 15,800 years old, which would suggest the oldest human occupation west of the Rockies,” U.S. Bureau of Land Management Burns District archaeologist Scott Thomas said in the release.
But! Don’t get too excited, because the Associated Press spoke with Donald K. Grayson, a professor of archaeology at the University of Washington, and he didn’t seem completely sold on the find just yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“I think that makes us criminals.”
Well, at least the NSA knows who we are!
“I actually liked Noory over Bell.”
Well Noory is certainly more entertaining in one fashion- his guests can elaborate at length on a subject and Noory will then ask a question that they have just answered in detail.
It’s just the next question on a list his staff has prepared for him and Noory hasn’t the faintest clue that it’s already been answered. Noory excels in not paying any attention to what his guests are saying.
Is “Snap-On” written on it anywhere?
Thanks BenLurkin and Kenny Bunk. My apologies to anyone getting this ping message in error. Donald K. Grayson is another climate change advocate, opposes the Superhunter/Overkill hypothesis, and coauthored a very cranky and strawman-based hatchet job on the Clovis impact theory. This hand tool really is a hand tool, and isn't the first Pre-Clovis artifact ever found, not by a long shot.
http://www.blm.gov/or/news/files/BLM_Archaeological_Discovery_Final.pdf
sidebars:
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/145-1409/features/2370-peopling-the-americas-paisely-caves
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/145-1409/features/2368-peopling-the-americas-monte-verde
unrelated sidebars:
http://wvxu.org/post/rare-native-american-artifact-discovered-newtown
http://www.ktoo.org/2015/03/02/improbable-archaeology-stone-tool-found-in-sitka-landslide/
and soon to be a topic in its own right:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/ncsu-sfs030515.php
(if you post it, it won’t hurt my feelings a bit, just be sure to ping me)
Now I'll have to spend the rest of the weekend wiping iced tea off of my keyboard.
Well, if you say so -- you probably have more info about it than me. But I work with quartz materials like agate, chert, flint and chalcedony on a regular basis and count me skeptical, at least based on the image. I see no evidence of knapping and the piece's blunt edge shows little sign of the sharp conchoidal cleavage "blade" most scrapers I've seen display.
As for using the volcanic ash for dating it should be mentioned that streams flood (there's one nearby) and winds blow. Both can redistribute sediments, especially light ones like volcanic ash. The discovery will be exciting if it proves out but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I agree about pre-Clovis artifacts. Many more will likely be found when the oceans again start receding in the coming ice age.
Thanks Bernard. Winds may blow ash around, but they don’t work worth a dang on stone artifacts, and this one was under the ash, hence it antedates the ash, unless one wants to posit ash that blows around for three or four thousand years. And the stone still had traces of blood.
> extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
That’s an old Saganism, it just meant that Carl classified anything he didn’t already believe as an extraordinary claim. In fact, AFAIC, that particular Saganism is literally the only extraordinary claim ever made, apart from “the debate is over”.
Prior to radiocarbon dating, it was extraordinary to claim that artifacts in the Americas were older than 3000 years — even though that was starting to change, it took RC dating to finally pull out the rug. Science progresses just like one funeral following another.
But the new floor was about 9,000 years, and then later 11,000 years (Atlantis age, ironically enough).
Now that has increased to perhaps 14,000 years — that’s the conventional low chronology that has been retroactively applied to Meadowcroft and Monte Verde.
It remains mysterious (koff koff) that a single group of a few thousand, or some say only a few hundred, prehistoric hunters managed to stampede across Beringia during a short window when it could still be reached on foot, but before it flooded, and then waited around for some generations until the glaciers melted and they could explode across the 10,000 mile length of two continents, arriving everywhere at once.
And all during those millennia, they were completely alone and undisturbed by anyone else. :’)
I was an archaeologist for 35 years and worked in New Mexico for 20 years. The Oregon environmental setting mentioned is similar to desert, aeolian settings on which I worked in NM. I have personally documented wind mixed matricies of artifact materials of different temporalities. We also had success in obtaining blood hemoglobin samples from stone tools that were exposed on the surface in dunal, aeolian situations.
Winds in that part of Oregan as well as in the desert Southwest typically blow 35 to 50 mph from early Spring to early summer. Part of my research methodology questioned whether blood hemoglobin would remain on stone artifacts after centuries of sand blasting. I was surprised that it did! As far as I know, I was the first to use blood hemoglobin analysis in New Mexico.
Thanks Nucluside!
(You can check it for yourself at https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/2REODE57LE2NVGRALK2BA7H3WY.jpg&w=32...
SMH...
TXnMA
Well, it is the ComPost... :^)
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