Posted on 07/22/2020 9:09:36 AM PDT by Theoria
Archaeologists in Mexico found stone tools and other signs that people were living in North America 30,000 years ago, much earlier than widely believed, according to new research reshaping the debate over the origins of people in the Americas.
In a study reported Wednesday, scientists led by archaeologist Ciprian Ardelean at Mexico’s University of Zacatecas said that they had unearthed hundreds of unusual green limestone spear points, blades and other implements from a lofty cavern in the central Mexican highlands. For wandering hunter-gatherers, the cave served as a makeshift tool shed possibly beginning as early as about 33,000 years ago, the scientists said.
These new finds at Chiquihuite Cave, located almost 9,000 feet above sea level and about 400 miles northwest of Mexico City, are the latest in a series of discoveries across North and South America that have archaeologists pushing humankind’s entrance into the Americas deeper into antiquity. The discoveries in Mexico were published in the journal Nature.
“It is a fundamental change in our way of thinking,” said anthropologist Ruth Gruhn, an emeritus professor at the University of Alberta who helped pioneer studies of early migrations into North and South America. She wasn’t involved in the find. “Dates of around 30,000 years ago indicate that people have been on both continents twice as long as generally believed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
My thought was that they were going to refute the idea that people came to North America through the land bridge. If native rights fanatics can say they were “always here” it makes their claim as victims even stronger.
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Me, too -- and handle and examine them under magnification.
The most significant observation was that the flakes appear to have been detached by a blow from a soft hammer, like bone or wood.
Soft hammer (aka"billet") knapping is a sophisticated, finely controllable knapping technique. Early cultures relied on hard (stone) hammers exclusively -- until some genius discovered that a soft hammer enabled the controllable removal of long, sharp, thin flakes by causing the (prepared) striking platform to fail in tension (not compression or shock, as with a hard hammer).
Even before I visited the site, I'd love to have samples of that "green limestone" to experiment on -- with a range of hammer materials and knapping techniques. Then, I'd have some known results to compare with the found "artifacts" -- so I could judge them myself.
My big question is, "How did those prehistoric folks manage to see well enough for tool-knapping -- back in the dark depths of that cave?"
TXnMA [physical chemist -- with a "retirement avocation" in archæology]
P.S. Congratulations, Sam Gamgee, you just exposed the "shiny heinie" of your ignorance for all of FR to see...
This wall inscription hints at something: Yaba Daba Du
Thanks TXnMA, great post. Nice to have a knapper weigh in. And no one takes a knap like a knapper...
One look at Kennewick Man and I knew he was one of my Irish forefathers, he probably got lost on the way home from the pub. Now I demand a casino.
“Wouldn’t it be hilarious if there was already a population in the America’s that was then displaced by “Native” Americans that came over the land bridge?”
I’d bet the farm on it.
I've always thought that Mexican caves do great work.
Very interesting. I didn’t know that flint knapping had these variations.
I understand... but 30,000 years is a long time, much longer than the time frame in which the ancestors of the current Indian populations were thought to have arrived. There was actually an interesting site found a few years ago in the Pacific Northwest, possibly Washington State, that got a lot of attention until it was determined that the remains and artifacts found there were possibly Caucasian rather than Mongoloid (Asian). In other words, Prehistoric Slavs rather than prehistoric Asian populations. I think the material is in the archaeology lab of a university there and has disappeared from view.
So I agree, people do use these things for political purposes - but therefore, what we need is more information and more objectivity, not less.
Below, posted to FR 19 years ago:
But, but Native Americans!
At 82+ -- with diabetic retinopathy -- I am now a better "napper" than I am a Knapper. (Fact: I just got up from my Siesta"... '-}
But -- my knowledge in my specialty scientific field of lithic technology keeps on growing...
livius, here's one of my handouts (I found on my server) on the subject of "lithic reduction processes" -- that I use when I lecture on and demonstrate the principles of lithics work and analysis:
If I locate the handout specifically on "Soft Hammer Reduction & Thinning", I'll pass it on to you...
Thanks for posting the article! (Who thought to look 9,000 feet up!?!)
FRegards,
TXnMA
Just a suggestion: Maybe the cave was an upland hunting area that was returned to seasonally for big game. The tool cache could have been left intentionally so that it would be accessible year after year (would you really want to haul all that stuff down the mountain?) It would have made for a nice hunting encampment as well as a tool shed for a highly mobile group.
The original forensic archeologist made an error which was corrected almost immediately.
Kennewick Man was not caucasion and was not ever caucasion. The original forensic anthropologist’s expertise was on modern characteristics. That’s why he made the initial error. Once they recognized the antiquity of the burial, appropriate experts were brought in. The report said that he could not be placed in any modern group but clustered most closely with Pacific Islanders.
None of that means anything to modern people. No one has the same charcteristics as their ancient ancestors. For instance, did you know that Caucasions, Native Americans and East Asians were closely related that long ago?
30,000 YA is longer than the guesses of when the ancestors of Native Americans arrived on the continents but it’s not longer ago than the genetic guesses when they separated from their old world ancestors. Maybe the Berengia theory is wrong. Maybe they simply evolved on this side of the land bridge.
Not a bad speculation. And the altitude might enable them to look down on where the game was...
I found a site in Spanish from the Universitad de Laredo. Thank you Google translate! Anyway, it specified that there were alpine glaciers in the higher peaks, over 12K feet. Like Glacier National Park is today.
So 9K might have had snow, but not under the ice.
The other thing I was going to point out is that some South American Indian groups are thought to be of Polynesian origin.
No they have some recent Polynesian genes (also some Polynesians have recent NA genes - pre Columbus). All sub Arctic NA’s are related to each other and Kennewick which was DNA tested before giving him to the local Indian tribe, proved to be a NA.
Who thought to look 9,000 feet up!?!
Reminds me of that old joke.
Dumb guy #1: "Look, a dead bird."
Dumb guy #2 puts up his hand to shade his eyes as he scans the skies: "Where? Where?"
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