Retracing the footprints of timeDirect radiocarbon dating of the Calgary site is not possible because the ancient artifacts were not found in conjunction with organic matter, such as bones or decayed plant matter, which is necessary for such testing. Absent such verification, Prof. Young dismisses the find. For one thing, he says, the artifacts are so simple they could merely be naturally-occurring rocks; he says that most informed scientists are doubtful they are tools. And even if they are tools, he adds that there is no way to be sure that they were originally situated where they were found under the gravel, since the site has served as an exposed gravel pit for the last 100 years. Comments Prof. Young: "Any dude could have put that rock there."
by Steve Sandford
September 9, 1996
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Please trust me; this site is no gravel pit. The tools noted were found under several layers of varied strata in an area that has been mostly undisturbed for XXXXXX? years.
Ancient stone tools chip away date of early humans' arrivalRecently, Dr. Chlachula and his colleagues have discovered three more sites containing what they believe are preglacial stone tools. One set of choppers and scrapers, described in the current edition of The Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, was found in a gravel pit near the town of Grimshaw in northern Alberta. The other tools were unearthed last summer at two locations west of Lethbridge. All of them, says Dr. Chlachula, indicate that humans roamed through the Prairies between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago... Dr. Richard Morlan, curator of paleo-environmental studies at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que., says he has no reason to doubt Dr. Chlachula. Few people in the world, says Dr. Morlan, can match the 36-year-old researcher's expertise. Professor Nat Rutter, the former head of geology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, agrees, noting that Dr. Chlachula has three PhDs and extensive field experience in both old world and new world archaeology... Prof. Rutter, at the University of Edmonton, also has much confidence in his research skills. "Jiri's work embarrassed a lot of other people," he says, because it suggests that Canadian archaeologists have been looking in the wrong place for human artifacts and they should be hunting underneath glacial deposits. "They may not admit it," says Prof. Rutter, "but they're all out there looking now."
by Margaret Munro
National Post
Jan 16 1999
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