Posted on 12/17/2006 4:21:22 PM PST by blam
Penon Woman
Penon Woman
Scientists in Britain have identified the oldest skeleton ever found on the American continent in a discovery that raises fresh questions about the accepted theory of how the first people arrived in the New World. The skeleton's perfectly preserved skull belonged to a 26-year-old woman who died during the last ice age on the edge of a giant prehistoric lake which once formed around an area now occupied by the sprawling suburbs of Mexico City.
Scientists from Liverpool's John Moores University and Oxford's Research Laboratory of Archaeology have dated the skull to about 13,000 years old, making it 2,000 years older than the previous record for the continent's oldest human remains. The most intriguing aspect of the skull is that it is long and narrow and typically Caucasian in appearance, like the heads of white, western Europeans today. Modern-day Native Americans have short, wide skulls, typical of their Mongoloid ancestors, who are known to have crossed into America from Asia on an ice-age land bridge that had formed across the Bering Strait.
The extreme age of Peñon woman has introduced two scenarios. Possibly there was a much earlier migration of Caucasian-like people with long, narrow skulls across the Bering Strait and these people were later replaced by a subsequent migration of Mongoloid people; or alternatively, and more controversially, a group of Stone Age people from Europe made the perilous sea journey across the Atlantic Ocean many thousands of years before Columbus or the Vikings. The first Americans may have actually been Europeans. They were definitely not Mongoloid in appearance.
The skull and the almost-complete skeleton of Peñon woman were originally unearthed in 1959 and were thought to be no older than about 5,000 years. Peñon woman formed part of a collection of 27 early humans in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, that had not been accurately dated using the most modern techniques. In 2002, at the insistence of geologist Silvia Gonzalez, who had a hunch the bones were older than previously thought; the remains were taken to Oxford University to be carbon-dated. Small bone samples from five skeletons were analyzed using the latest carbon techniques, and dated the skull to about 13,000 years old. The study was peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal Human Evolution.
At 13,000 years old, Peñon woman would have lived at a time when there was a vast, shallow lake in the Basin of Mexico, a naturally enclosed high plain around today's Mexico City, which would have been cooler and much wetter than it is today. Huge mammals would have roamed the region's grasslands, such as the world's largest mammoths with 12-foot tusks, bear-sized giant sloths, armadillos as big as a car and fearsome carnivores such as the saber-toothed tiger and great black bear. The bones of Peñon woman, named after the "little heel" of land that would have jutted into the ancient lake, were well developed and healthy, showing no signs of malnutrition. The two oldest skulls analyzed were both dolichocephalic, meaning that they were long and narrow-headed. The younger ones were short and broad, brachycephalic, which are typical of today's Native Americans and their Mongoloid ancestors from Asia.
The findings have a resonance with the skull and skeleton of Kennewick man, who was unearthed in 1996 in the Columbia River at the town of Kennewick in Washington state. The skull, estimated to be 8,400 years old, is also long and narrow and typically Caucasian.
"The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas."
"Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
A case for Inspector Morse.
What, did she have her ID on her?
Absolutely fascinating, blam. If I keep up with these posts, I may eventually understand something about all of this. Between this and Kennewiick man, it seems there was something that went on in human history that we know almost nothing about.
Thanks. I remember reading that one. Trinkaus is here at one of my alma maters.
Looks like Shrek's sister.
I guess this means that the Indians took the white mans land and the white man took it back.
It has little to do with God or religion. Last Year AT SEAC conference (South Eastern Archeaological Center) Al Goodyear did a presentation of his site on the Savannah River. His presentyation consisted of finds that could date man on the North American continent to as early as 60,000 years ago. I have seen the evidence and some of it is interesting to say the least and several collegues at the conference were convinced. The jury is out and alot of work needs to be done but I believe now that we know what we are looking for and where these people may have been living (coastal communities) we will see more and more evidence popping up.
What I love is the speculation that these caucasians were fishermen living in coastal areas leaving the inland areas of NA untouched and pristine and then the Native American's ancestors arrived caused the extinction of the Mege-Fauna and then drove out the peaceful native caucasians. :)
As soon as scholars PatrickHenry and Junior agree in wankfest over a speculative fossil find that looks like an ABC reporter, they will climb all over this thread. Hell hath no fury like a Darwinist scorned.
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First Americans
Abotech | 4-26-1999 | Sharon Begley - Andrew Murr
Posted on 05/23/2006 7:30:48 PM EDT by blam
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1637150/posts
Study Says Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago
Source: National Geographic
Published: 8-31-2001 Author: Not stated
Posted on 09/03/2001 06:59:54 PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b938cda48c8.htm
40,000-year-old footprint of first Americans
The Telegraph (U.K.) | 5-07-2005 | Roger Highfield
Posted on 07/05/2005 6:38:09 AM EDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1436721/posts
Alleged 40,000-Year-Old Human Footprints In Mexico Much, Much Older Than Thought
Eureka Alert/UC-Berkeley | 11-30-2005 | Robert Sanders
Posted on 11/30/2005 2:24:19 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1531402/posts
Archeologist finds evidence of humans in North America 50,000 years ago
Canoe (Canada) | November 17, 2004 | AP
Posted on 11/18/2004 1:04:06 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1282689/posts
Ancient Tools At High Desert Site Go Back 135,000 Years (California)
San Bernardino Sun | 11-24-2005 | Chuck Mueller
Posted on 11/24/2005 4:02:17 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1528086/posts
Calico: A 200,000-year Old Site In The Americas?
ASA On Line | unknown
Posted on 12/17/2001 5:22:22 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/592435/posts
First Americans - Homo Erectus in America
http://home.pacbell.net/tcbpfb/ | January 01, 1999 | Tom Baldwin (apparently)
Posted on 09/24/2004 10:54:26 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1226526/posts
First Mariners
Archaeology | Volume 51 Number 3 May/June 1998 | Mark Rose
Posted on 09/25/2004 3:44:19 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1226673/posts
Erectus Ahoy (Stone Age Voyages)
Science News | 10-22-2003 | Bruce Bower
Posted on 10/22/2003 3:28:49 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1006058/posts
Extinct humans left louse legacy(Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens)
BBC News | 10/06/04 | Paul Rincon
Posted on 10/16/2004 6:53:39 AM EDT by TigerLikesRooster
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1246930/posts
Javanese Fossil Skull Provides New Insights into Ancient Humans
Scientific American | 28 February 2002 | Sarah Graham
Posted on 02/28/2003 6:48:16 AM EST by PatrickHenry
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/853647/posts
JOURNEY OF MANKIND (The Peopling Of The World)
The Bradshaw Foundation | Unknown | Stephen Oppenheimer
Posted on 04/25/2005 8:11:40 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1390941/posts
New Twist On Out-Of-Africa Theory
ABC Science News | 7-14-2004 | Judy Skatssoon
Posted on 07/14/2004 11:53:47 AM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1171229/posts
Sabre-tooths and Hominids
Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana | Alfonso Arribas & Paul Palmqvist
Posted on 11/22/2002 5:18:45 PM EST by Sabertooth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/794165/posts
An extrapolation of the GPS data for South American data show that South America and Africa were joined between 87,000 and 2,000 years ago, the larger number being a linear extrapolation and the smaller a minimal exponential extrapolation. The extrapolation is based on insufficient data to be adamant about the time required for movement, but the methodology is the same as the extrapolation of the sea-floor spreading data used to arrive at the continental drift number.
http://www.jpdawson.com/pelgnet/pelchap8/Chap8.html
I can't vouch for the source - or the detail - but if there's any further scientific info around that verifies this statement, I would love to hear about it.
Looks like 'they' might have WALKED to their destination?
Soooo......White Europeans are the "real" Native Americans!?!?!
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