Posted on 03/17/2008 2:18:53 PM PDT by blam
Clovis Overkill Didn't Wipe Out California's Sea Duck
Newswise — Clovis-age natives, often noted for overhunting during their brief dominance in a primitive North America, deserve clemency in the case of California's flightless sea duck. New evidence says it took thousands of years for the duck to die out.
A team of six scientists, including Jon M. Erlandson of the University of Oregon, pronounced their verdict in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (online, March 13) after holding court on thousands of years of archaeological testimony taken from bones of the extinct sea duck uncovered from 14 sites on islands off the California Coast and 12 mainland sites from southern California northward.
Erlandson and his co-authors from California Polytechnic State University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the California Department of Parks and Recreation (CDPR) and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) demonstrated that humans first hunted the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) more than 10,000 years ago, but the bird persisted until about 2,400 years ago. Their findings that Chendytes survived more than 7,500 years of human predation are based on the first radiocarbon dating of Chendytes bones from six coastal archaeological sites.
Erlandson and colleagues, along with UO alum Don Grayson, now a University of Washington archaeologist, suggest that the drawn-out road to the ducks' extinction raises serious questions about the "Pleistocene over-kill theory" that the Paleoindian Clovis culture rapidly hunted numerous large mammals and other animals to extinction on their arrival in the Americas in the late Pleistocene.
The ducks' lifestyle served them well for millennia, the researchers noted. Many of the birds nested on the Channel Islands off the California Coast, where few predators existed before humans arrived. After seafaring Paleoindians colonized the islands about 13,000 years ago, however, Chendytes may have been driven to smaller and more remote islands. Human population growth, the development of increasingly sophisticated watercraft, and the introduction of dogs and foxes to the islands probably put greater pressure on the birds. Eventually, the flightless duck, like great auk in the North Atlantic, had no place to run.
The five co-authors with Erlandson, an archaeologist in the UO department of anthropology, were: Terry L. Jones (corresponding author), head of social sciences at California Polytechnic; archaeologist Judy F. Porcasi and Thomas A. Wake of UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology; H. Dallas Jr. of CAL FIRE; and Rae Schwaderer of CDPR. The paper, published online in advance of regular publication, is freely available on the PNAS Web site.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of 62 of the leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. Membership in the AAU is by invitation only. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.
Links: Erlandson faculty page: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eanthro/faculty/erlandson.html; UO anthropology department: http://www.uoregon.edu/~anthro/; Museum of Natural and Cultural History: http://natural-history.uoregon.edu/; T.L. Jones faculty page: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~tljones/; the full paper (PDF): http://tinyurl.com/yvmjxe
Ahem, more or less the way I would have done it.
GGG Ping.
Thanks for the ping.
I think those crafty Clovis-age natives killed off the ducks in a way that made it look like it took the ducks thousands of years to die out.
Never trust a clovis age native. Ever.
You sound just like one of those Folsom agitators.
Be a uniter, not a divider
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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Thanks Blam. Looks like it'll be another good week for GGG topics. |
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BINGO!!
I suspect the Aflaks were responsible for this.
Nope. It didn't happen until mango salsa became available...
I watched the same show, hoping they would make some reference to the piles of bones around the world, especially in Alaska and Siberia, presumably deposited around the same time period. Was not to be however. Maybe when they're able to cobble together a uniformitarian theory to run up the flagpole.
If you are suggesting that all of these bone piles are from Noah's flood you are only fooling yourself.
The evidence from many fields of study fails to support such a flood.
One problem (out of many). All of those bone piles would have to date to the exact same time.
One more problem: there is mtDNA continuity on the west coasts of North and South America going back over 10,000 years. No discontinuity for a flood about 4,350 years ago.
Still another problem: soil scientists and archaeologists have found no evidence for an extensive flood in the soils of North America about 4,350 years ago.
Perhaps there is another explanation for the various bone piles?
Leprechauns??? oops; I’m about 37 minutes late with that.
Just my hypothesis.
???
The evidence from many fields of study fails to support such a flood.
Har! Like the "scientific community" would actually report any such findings. The marching orders are to search for evidence to support uniformitarianism. Otherwise, no funding.
One problem (out of many). All of those bone piles would have to date to the exact same time.
Do YOU know how old they are? I can't find where anybody has even taken a second look at these huge piles of bones. Any ideas why someone from the "scientific community" hasn't studied these very peculiar deposits? If I have missed something, my apologies, but I doubt an apology will be necessary.
Still another problem: soil scientists and archaeologists have found no evidence for an extensive flood in the soils of North America about 4,350 years ago.
Not surprising since they can't even seem to find huge piles of megafauna bones stashed in various places around the planet. And where is the 4,350 years coming from? As far as I know, this catastrophe supposedly occurred around the end of the last ice age, ~12,000 - 14,000 years ago.
Perhaps there is another explanation for the various bone piles?
Alright, how about a huge wave???
I think I've asked you before regarding your ideas, I don't think you offered any.
Speaking of 10,000 BC, has anyone seen that movie yet? I could do that on Thursday, been ages since I’ve been to the theater.
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