Posted on 11/07/2019 2:57:41 AM PST by Openurmind
Buried under a peat bog, Monte Verde is near South America’s tip and about 30 miles from the Pacific in present-day Chile. Excavations began in 1976, led by archaeologist Tom Dillehay. Although no human skeletons were found, an excavated layer — radiocarbon dated to about 14,000 years ago — held clear evidence of human inhabitants, including a child-sized footprint.
Dillehay and colleagues also reported potentially older artifacts from Monte Verde in a 1988 Nature paper. From a deeper layer dated to 30,000 years ago, they found three clay-lined burned areas and at least six stones that appear to have been shaped into tools. However, the finds were considered too meager to constitute a strong case for human presence.
Decades later, in 2013, Dillehay returned to the site to lead a team that dug 80 probes and test pits in the land around Monte Verde. The work, published in a 2015 PLOS One paper, identified 12 discrete spots with signs of a campfire (charcoal, ash, burned clay), stone tools and animal bones. Radiocarbon analysis dated the finds between 14,500 and 19,000 years ago.
Here is the link to the PLOS paper...
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141923
It’s worth noting...it’s about as far south as you can go in Chile (500 miles from the end-point).
I absolutely think there was an earlier southern migration from New Zealand and Australia. From the PLOS one paper...
"Human genetic and skeletal studies provide different types and scales of information and varying opinions on the origin and diffusion of early South Americans [17–19]. Archaeologists generally disagree about the origin of South American material culture. Two different perspectives have been proposed to explain the earliest known stone tool technologies, each with varying implications for the interpretation of early sites. The first is that Clovis bifacial technologies reached South America ~13,000 cal BP in the form of Fishtail projectile points [3,6]. This model is based on diffusion and comparative morphological analyses of fluted point styles and leaves little room for independent technological development in South America. The second is that North and South American tool assemblages, including both bifacial and unifacial industries, are different adaptations to different environmental and cultural conditions, yet both derived from an earlier currently undefined technology somewhere in East Asia [1,4,5]. The arguments advanced in support of the second model at present hinge on evidence recovered from sites such as Monte Verde II in south-central Chile [13,14], Gault and Friedkin sites in Texas [9,10], Cactus Hill in Virginia [11], Paisley Cave in Oregon [8], and possibly other sites [12,15,16,18,20–22], all of which contain varying types of bifacial and unifacial assemblages dating ~14,000 cal BP or earlier. There is no doubt that some lingering influences and contacts existed between North and South America, but some of these appear to have taken place after the initial colonization of the southern hemisphere and, in some later cases, may even represent reverse migrations from south to north [7]."
If you go past 12,900 years ago...oceans were around 300 feet less than what they are now. When the glacier over North America melted (in a hurry), it had dramatic affects on coastal regions...raising up the water levels.
A couple of years ago, I was reading through a piece on maps, and there’s this map which has been around for generations...showing coast regions of Antarctica. It’s a port to port map...meaning you used it for sailing from one port to another. It begs questions because it shows the bays and harbors along Antarctica region. But you’d have to go back a heck of a long time ago, when this region not have been covered with ice or glaciers.
Fyi
I have seen those maps, obviously ancient knowledge passed down. But I have always wondered why not a migration along the Antarctic ice sheet? If the Inuits could do it in the north and survive just fine on what few resources are available in the north, why not the same in the south? Because we can’t find any paleo-shipyards? no wood for boats? The Inuit don’t have these either and can float, hunt, and survive just fine.
And to add to your point about sea levels, the Antarctic ice sheet would have been much larger and well within reach of New Zealand. And if they could not float, then how did they get to Australia 60,000 years ago? Even with lower sea levels they still had to float to get there. So they could float to get to New Zealand and then forgot how? It is not unreasonable at all to think that if man reached Australia and New Zealand 60,000 years ago that they could have reached South America by 30,000 years ago. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current would have taken them right to the tip of South America even if it was by accident.
It was only a decade or two ago that all college courses taught that the earliest Western Hemisphere humans were the Clovis Culture at approximate 13k years ago. It was the equivalent of the infamous phrase ‘settled science’!
Another item of recent scientific reconsideration, the planets of our Solar System have been in stable orbits since shortly after planetary consolidation. The THEORY of the Jupiter Grand Tack has its origins in the numerous ‘Hot Jupiters’ found in the exo-planet searches of recent years.
This is why I DESPISE the term ‘settled science’ as an utterly vapid argument in any field. History is full of consensus theories that have been overthrown by later research. As the late Arthur C Clarke states in his first law; “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
”If you go past 12,900 years ago...oceans were around 300 feet less than what they are now. When the glacier over North America melted (in a hurry), it had dramatic affects on coastal regions...raising up the water levels.“
Had humans been on an evolutionary track that had started 13,000 years earlier, Al Gore would have been trying to stop this.
Oh I know, I have had the fortune to speak with several of these very prominent and “distinguished but elderly scientists” over the years.
But especially in SCIENCE. "THE" sole determining characteristic of science is that it is NEVER, EVER "settled".
Anyone who purports to be part of the science profession who uses the term is automatically "not a scientist", and should have any credentials he, she (or "it" these days) might have revoked.
Time and our dynamic earth have buried more than we will ever know.
Then, a lot of what has been buried is later consumed, over long periods of time, in the plate tectonics, as the edge of some plate is submerged below another plate and what remains on it is crushed to extinction by the heat and pressures below the surface.
Who knows but what we call the ancient past today is not actually young compared to some period we will never seee the evidence of.
Thanks Vaquero. Monte was in my graduating class. ;^)
Yep, that is a fact. :)
This is why I DESPISE the term ‘settled science’ as an utterly vapid argument in any field. History is full of consensus theories that have been overthrown by later research. As the late Arthur C Clarke states in his first law; “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
I think that “generally accepted science” is probably a better term than “settled science”. You can always add to generally accepted ideas, but settling seems rather permanent.
You brought it up.
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