Posted on 08/15/2003 5:38:57 PM PDT by blam
Artifacts hailed as major find - Weapons used more than 10,000 years ago
IRWIN BLOCK
The Gazette
Thursday, August 14, 2003
The discovery in the Lac Mégantic region of three fragments of spearheads, believed to be more than 10,000 years old, is being hailed as a major find.
The artifacts, which will be displayed at a press conference today, are said to be the first evidence of human habitation in Quebec after glaciers receded and the ice age ended some 12,000 years ago.
They are from fluted spearheads typical of weapons used in the early Paleo-Indian period, which existed from 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
The fragments are of the Clovis style, which was characteristic of weapons and tools of that era in several parts of North America.
They were unearthed by an archeological team led by anthropology professor Claude Chapdelaine, of the Université de Montréal, on a wooded lot near Lac des Araignées, southeast of Lac Mégantic, 250 kilometres east of Montreal.
He identified the site eight years ago as a promising area because it had been an old exit for melting water during deglaciation toward the Atlantic seaboard, making it ideal for caribou herds after the stabilization of the water levels. The herds usually attracted human hunters.
This is the first such discovery in Quebec, although similar findings have occurred in Maine, New Hampshire, Nova Scotia and Ontario.
"I am relieved and pleased for Quebec archeology," Chapdelaine said by phone from Mégantic. "God gave me three pieces this year - I'm hoping to find more in the coming years."
Chapdelaine expects the find will encourage other Quebec archeologists to explore more promising sites in the province.
Photographer Robert Galbraith, an amateur archeologist who has been searching for Paleo-Indian sites during 20 years of collecting artifacts, was thrilled at the find.
"This is great news, awesome - the Holy Grail of archeology, to find the earliest occupation of the land," Galbraith said.
"At that time, this was a tundra-arctic environment, and you'd have the caribou and the arctic wolf, boreal and tundra-type species that native people would hunt with spears," Galbraith said.
"This is a pre-bow-and-arrow era - a time when people used spears and rocks. Thrilling."
They don't know who they were.
Some archaeologists have linked the Clovis points with similar points in the Iberian area in Europe of the same time period.
Methinks someone wants reparations to include the possibility the right to sue the Creator because the The Big Bang deformed at it's existence.
True, and you are right, they should be called something other than paleo-indian. Columbus was looking for the direct route to China, and called the people he found here Indians, perhaps thinking he might be in India. Total accident of history.
Sounds to me more like, We don't know who we are.
Pure balderdash! Everyone knows that there was never one weapon in existence, until the invention of guns. Everyone died of old age until guns came along. /sarcasm
What could that mean? Europeans peopled the Americas at that early date? How?
European DNA Found In 7-8,000 Year Old Skeletons In Florida (Windover)
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.
Fascinating!
Damned SUV drivers!
They probably came here by ship.
There are rumors of Egyptian artifacts in the Grand Canyon, specifically in some caves located in a mountain called Isis Temple. There are rumors that Roman weapons, armor, and other goods have been found around Tucson, though I have only read this somewhere and haven't yet found the article itself.
I think we tend to short-change ancient peoples. I believe they were a lot more advanced than we give them credit for.
Yhwhsman
The orthodoxy that the new world was peopled in ancient times solely via the Bering Land Bridge is under serious reconsideration, as new archeological, linguist, and DNA evidence is being examined.
Evidence now suggests that prehistoric man followed the coastal waters from both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans when their levels were much more shallow and the continental shelf more exposed.
Evidence for exploration from other peoples in historic times includes the Polynesians, Chinese, Japanese, Cathaginians, Phonecians, Norse, Irish, Welsh, Africans and many others.
Watch out. This interest can become as addicting as Free Republic.
That would have been during the Ice Age? Scientists must have some coastal maps of the period. Know where I can find trem (Perhaps in the book you recommended)?
Evidence for exploration from other peoples in historic times includes the Polynesians, Chinese, Japanese, Cathaginians, Phonecians, Norse, Irish, Welsh, Africans and many others.
Last time I looked all such "evidence" was little more than rumor and far-fetched correlation. Has that changed?
Any suggestions, blam ?
Last time I looked all such "evidence" was little more than rumor and far-fetched correlation. Has that changed?
I think evidence is always subject to interpretation. Some of this I've read in http://www.ancientamerican.com/, as well as articles posted on FR.
Linked below is the latest example.
Open Boat Crew Defy Atlantic Storms In 16-day epic
3,000 miles across the Atlantic in an inflatable raft.
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