Posted on 10/07/2007 10:07:52 PM PDT by blam
Site provides evidence for ancient comet explosion
JOEY HOLLEMAN; McClatchy Newspapers Published: October 7th, 2007 01:00 AM
COLUMBIA, S.C. – For the second time in less than a decade, a South Carolina river bluff holds evidence pointing to a theory with history-rewriting potential. Microscopic soil particles from the Topper site near Allendale might hold a tiny key to a big theory: that comet-caused explosions wiped out the mammoths and mastodons, prompted the last ice age and decimated the first human culture in North America about 12,900 years ago.
The comet theory first began generating a buzz at an international meeting of geophysicists in Mexico in May. The findings were published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They’re about to go mainstream, with a National Geographic Channel segment today. The History Channel will film for a future show at Topper this week.
“People are fascinated by it,” said Allen West, an Arizona geophysicist and one of the leaders of the comet team, who’s speaking Wednesday at USC. “It has diamonds and giant elephants and Indians. Any new catastrophe theory that comes along gets plenty of attention.”
The new theory holds that a comet broke apart in the atmosphere above what is now eastern North America, producing explosions and wildfires as the pieces smashed into the surface.
Scientists, led by Richard Firestone of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., took soil samples from throughout North America and in Belgium. In a layer dating to about 12,900 years ago, they found high levels of iridium, nanodiamonds and glasslike carbon that could have been caused by a comet explosion and subsequent fires.
The Topper site, on the Savannah River, provided compelling evidence, in part because of earlier findings by Al Goodyear of the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at USC.
Goodyear drew international attention in 2004 when stone points found at Topper that apparently were sharpened by humans (Clovis points) were carbon dated to nearly 50,000 years ago. That put human beings in North America thousands of years earlier than thought. For generations, scientists have thought the first humans arrived 13,000 years ago via a land bridge from Asia.
Goodyear’s work at Topper, along with similar finds in Brazil and Chile, prompted scientific reconsideration of when humans arrived in North America. It also led to skepticism by scientists who didn’t buy Goodyear’s theory. In that regard, he found kindred spirits in the comet group.
“This is a pretty wild theory,” Goodyear said with a chuckle. “I’m glad I’m not doing this one.”
He welcomed West to dig at Topper. At the same depth as Topper’s undeniable Clovis artifacts, West found high concentrations of iridium, nanodiamonds and glasslike carbon.
West’s findings prompted Goodyear to do his own study on the disappearance of Clovis points. These stone tools are found throughout North America only in soil dating back about 13,000 years or more.
Not long after that, a different style of points began showing up from people scientists have dubbed the Redstone culture.
Goodyear’s recent study found there were four times as many Clovis points as Redstone points at similar sites. That would indicate a huge population drop from the Clovis to Redstone cultures, possibly caused by some natural catastrophe.
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did A Comet Blow Up Over Eastern Canada? (Carolina Bays)
Ping to you.
Good article. Thanks.
Am I the only one to notice “Goodyear” and “Firestone” here ?
Hot damn! Things are FINALLY shaking up paleontology. Maybe things like Skull Cave in Calaveras, CA and the taiga remains in Alaska and Siberia will finally get a look at.
I do California archaeology.
Tell me about Skull Cave, and why it should be looked at again.
You mean the Hardy Boys had it wrong??
Seriously, what is Skull Cave? That article from Archaeology about syphilis being a New World mutation of yaws was an eye-opener; I'm beginning to develop some interest in archaeology, after too many years of ignoring it.
Cheers!
Abstract
In February 1866, workers found a human skull deep in a mine in Calaveras County, California, believed at first to be of Pliocene age. It was passed through several hands before reaching J. D. Whitney, State Geologist of California and Professor of Geology at Harvard University.
While some scientists accepted it on face value, other scientists and the public press refused to believe it and even ridiculed the claim. Some believed it was a "plant," while others had faith in the reports of the miners, which led to a long controversy.
Apparently two skulls became confused in transmission from one person to another, but in the end they were identified as fossilized Indian skulls of modern type, and it was finally admitted that the one taken from the mine was "planted" as a joke.
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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
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Gods |
Thanks Blam and ConservativeMind. |
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You probably have more firsthand knowledge than me, but my understanding about Skull Cave is that there are geological depositions there that are about as old as the original Bering Strait hypothesis, about 10,000 yrs. before present. From what I’ve heard, it seems to resemble mass depositions of prehistoric creatures in other areas that seem to have been caused by some type of catastrophic event.
Duh, maybe I should have stated that there seem to be many human remains of comparable age as the depositions. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a full examination of the cave.
For buried treasure! Maybe that's where Long John Silver hid his loot.
“wiped out the mammoths and mastodons, prompted the last ice age and decimated the first human culture in North America about 12,900 years ago.”
an aspect of this I haven’t seen spelled out in any arcticle is the implication that the paleo-indians were able to expand without any traces of other cultures/genetics being assimilated because the preceding cultures were dead or otherwise severely depleted, numbers-wise.
In fact the theorized event may have enabled paleo-indian expansion in the first place.
That thin black mat is identical in looks to what I see on the sides of many of the older roads here in Missouri, where they cut into the sides of hills.
I have a feeling that this ‘mat’ is likely predominant across the entire northern continent of America.
Just look at the artificial cliffs where hillsides have been cut along the roads you travel, and I bet you’ll see them as well.
Thanks for the info. I’m sure that there’s traces of this in California, where I am. This will be pretty awe-inspiring if/when somebody maps it.
You mean something like this:
"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.
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