The Antiquity of Man in America

Natural History (Pick from the Past) ^ | May-June 1927 | J. D. Figgins, Director, Colorado Museum of Natural History

[SunkenCiv]

Readers of the discussions relative to the antiquity of man in America must frequently wonder because of the antipathy for the acceptance of evidence of that character, and often they may have inquired "Why should we not expect to find such evidence, since there are neither conditions nor facts that interfere in the slightest with such an expectation?" Obviously then, denials of the antiquity of man in America, without convincing proof that we could not expect to find such evidence, are purely supposititious.

[SunkenCiv]

My, how times have changed. NOT.

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

[ValerieUSA]

supposititious

what a word

[Mackey]

"Words, words, words."

...sayeth Hamlet, and also, appropriate to the hidebound archaeologists:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that one didn't look right at first. ;')

[ValerieUSA]

Okay, maybe it's a little large

Does this have anything to do with "jumbo shrimp"?

[ForGod'sSake]

OK, lemme see if I've got this straignt now. Back in the 20's some diggers found arrow/spear points in Texas and Oklahome associated with extinct bison? Best guess when this species of bison became extinct? And that would make these artifacts and the humans ascribed to them approximately how old? I mean other than older than dirt ;^)

FGS

[ForGod'sSake]

I ask questions of supposedly knowledgable people in a particular field and I'm met with silence. Do you have a clue to any of the questions I asked in my previous post or are you too busy to share any knowledge you may have? Why post any of this if you're not willing/able to discuss it?

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

I ask questions of supposedly knowledgable people in a particular field and I'm met with silence. Do you have a clue to any of the questions I asked in my previous post or are you too busy to share any knowledge you may have? Why post any of this if you're not willing/able to discuss it?

I have *other* clients, you know. ;') Actually, I think you're giving me too much credit.

OK, lemme see if I've got this straignt now. Back in the 20's some diggers found arrow/spear points in Texas and Oklahome associated with extinct bison? Best guess when this species of bison became extinct? And that would make these artifacts and the humans ascribed to them approximately how old? I mean other than older than dirt ;^)

It appears that access to that particular 1927 issue would be needed. I'm enough of a geek to find out if my local library (or one of the college libraries) has it either real or microfilm, and try to find out for you.

Keep in mind that this article is from 1927, and that "[t]he Folsom discovery in 1927 led to acceptance of a late Pleistocene occupation by people carrying with them a refined lithic technology," IOW that "Clovis" wasn't in the vocabulary of the writer of this article. These artifacts about which he writes would later fall under that rubric.

Clovis wouldn't catch on for a number of years, not until some kind of scientific dating was available (probably radiocarbon). If that seems hard to believe now, realize also that until the 1950s, it was believed and taught that humans have 24 chromosome pairs (99+ per cent of humans have 23 chromosome pairs; some rare syndromes like Turner or Downs result in one fewer or one extra chromosome, unpaired).

"For thirty years, nobody disputed this 'fact'. One group of scientists abandoned their experiments on human liver cells because they could only find twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in each cell. Another researcher invented a method of separating the chromosomes, but still he thought he saw twenty-four pairs. It was not until 1955, when an Indonesian named Joe-Hin Tjio travelled from Spain to Sweden to work with Albert Levan, that the truth dawned. Tjio and Levan, using better techniques, plainly saw twenty-three pairs. They even went back and counted twenty-three pairs in photographs in books where the caption stated that there were twenty-four pairs. There are none so blind as do not wish to see." (Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, p 23-24)

The correct number of chromosomes could have been discerned, one would think, during the almost 35 years involved in the events above. The most daunting realization is that the double heliacal form of DNA was discerned in 1953, two years before this chromosome count was corrected.

One of the observations made about the Clovis points is that their distribution makes clear its origin doesn't lie in the north. Recently it has been advanced (on lithic evidence) that the Solutrean culture of SW Europe appears to have had a presence in SE North America, and perhaps was the precursor somehow of Clovis.

Prior to the hard-won acceptance of Clovis (which was a victory of quantity, not of quality), the bias was that humans didn't enter the Americas until about 1000 BC. Ruins of towns abandoned longer ago than that are now known throughout the Americas.

Sorry you had to wait, and I hope this helps.

[ForGod'sSake]

...and try to find out for you.

Please don't bother. I thought you may have some information at hand that would address the apparent discrepencies from this early find and its conclusions(based on a now extinct buffalo line?) to more recent finds with their attendant conclusions that don't exactly support each other.

These artifacts about which he writes would later fall under that rubric.

Clovis? Apparently a species of buffalo has become extinct during modern times if Clovis is associated with it. I'll have to do some looking around myself. Thanks for the reply.

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

Well, Clovis ruled (under so-called calibrated radiocarbon dates) 13,325 - 12,975 cal before present, just a few hundred years, and sufficiently long ago that it can't really be called modern. The European Bison was hunted out and/or went extinct due to climate change somewhat more recently, but still prehistorically. Examples of modern extinction include some bird species such as the Passenger Pigeon (hunted out to sell squab to hotels out east).

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

[ForGod'sSake]

Well, Clovis ruled (under so-called calibrated radiocarbon dates) 13,325 - 12,975 cal before present...

Understood. The problem lay with my own confusion concerning the age, era, epoch, etc labels. Any time I see "cene" at the end of a time period I automatically think ancient, as in way back. Thanks for your patient explanations.

FGS

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure, glad I could help. I'm not sure when the Pleistocene ended, probably 10000 years back. Our own time is (often) called the Holocene. :') I dunno where that name came from offhand. For that matter, I dunno where the name Pleistocene came from, or the preceding period name, Pliocene. Or even if any of these names are still all that current. :'o

[SunkenCiv]