According to estimates I've read, there were more than 3,000,000 Indians living in the U.S. at the time Columbus arrived. At 40 tools each, this means there should be 120 million tools for this group. If Indians had been here just 10 generations (150 years) the number of tools should approach 1 billion. Any idea how many have actually been recovered?
In my book "Wie alt ist das Menschengeschlecht?" [How Ancient is Man?], 1996, 2nd edition, I focused for Neanderthal man on his best preserved stratigraphy: Combe Grenal in France. Within 4 m of debris it exhibited 55 strata dated conventionally between -90,000 and -30,000. Roughly one millennium was thus assigned to some 7 cm of debris per stratum. Close scrutiny had revealed that most strata were only used in the summer. Thus, ca. one thousand summers were assigned to each stratum. If, however, the site lay idle in winter and spring one would have expected substratification. Ideally, one would look for one thousand substrata for the one thousand summers. Yet, not even two substrata were discovered in any of the strata. They themselves were the substrata in the 4 m stratigraphy. They, thus, were not good for 60,000 but only for 55 years.
So, for 55 years, this group, annually tracked in 2.75 inches of material? And there it lay? No erosion of whole layers of stuff? Continuous dragging stuff in and out and we don't gouge into last year's stratum, or the year before's? We're left with 55 distinct strata like so many rings on a tree? And this ended, what, 2000, 2500 years ago? How many strata have been layed down since the neanderthals lived there? 2000? 2500? Were they of equivalent dimension -- 2.75 inches each? Because if they were, that would mean a minimum of 450 feet of stuff piled on top of the 4.4 feet of neanderthal strata. Are the caves big enough to hold that?