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Posted on 11/19/2004 8:07:26 AM PST by blam
Fire Pit Dated to Be Over 50,000 Years Old
Thu Nov 18,10:10 AM ET Top Stories - AP
By AMY GEIER EDGAR, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBIA, S.C. - In the growing debate about when people first appeared on this continent, a leading archaeologist said Wednesday he has discovered what could be sooty evidence of human occupation in North America tens of thousands of years earlier than is commonly believed.
University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear said he has uncovered a layer of charcoal from a possible hearth or fire pit at a site near the Savannah River.
Samples from the layer have been laboratory-dated to more than 50,000 years old. Yet Goodyear stopped short of declaring it proof of the continent's earliest human occupation.
"It does look like a hearth," he said, "and the material that was dated has been burned."
Since the 1960s, anthropologists have generally accepted that hunters migrated to North America about 13,000 years ago over a land bridge into Alaska following the retreat of Ice Age glaciers.
But other sites, including the Topper dig in South Carolina, have yielded rough stone tools and other artifacts suggesting that humans lived in North America thousands of years earlier when the climate was much colder. While there is no ironclad proof that an older culture existed, scientists are increasingly open to the idea that humans arrived from many other directions besides the northwest, perhaps even sailing across oceans.
But a 50,000-year-old fire pit would scorch the prevailing occupation theory.
Goodyear's evidence was examined by other scientists, who performed radiocarbon tests on samples to determine their age. However, he made his initial case for the fire pit Wednesday in a news conference rather publishing data in a scientific journal edited by other researchers.
Goodyear, who has worked the Topper site since 1981, discovered the charcoal layer in May.
Thomas Stafford, director of Stafford Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., then took samples of the substance for tests at the University of California at Irvine.
The results showed that wood varieties — oak, pine, red cherry and buckeye — had been burned in a low-temperature fire at least 50,300 years ago, he said.
Stafford described the burnt layer as measuring 2 or 3 inches thick and about 2 feet wide. Rather than a simple black band in the soil, Stafford said the layer had the "shape of a very shallow plate."
He said it could have been the result of a fire tended by humans, or the ashes could have been deposited by wind, rain or flooding.
Other researchers were more skeptical of Goodyear's discovery, noting that previous claims of very old occupation at other sites never have been verified.
"We still need to be cautious," said Vanderbilt University anthropologist Tom Dillehay. "I would not yet rewrite the books. The find is very significant and shows that there is much we don't understand and can't easily reject or accept."
Other scientists were blunter.
"I think it's a 50,000-year-old geologic deposit," said University of Texas archaeologist Mike Collins. "It has almost nothing to do with the story of the peopling of North America."
Modern humans are believed to have emerged from Africa 100,000 years ago and spread around the world, elbowing out less capable human cousins like Homo erectus and Neanderthals.
"Other researchers were more skeptical of Goodyear's discovery, noting that previous claims of very old occupation at other sites never have been verified."
Actually, previous claims were similarly dumped on, rejected on a priori grounds, and never investigated. So I guess that qualifies as "never verified." ;')
Thanks for the ping.
to all:
Archeologist finds evidence of humans in North America 50,000 years ago
Canoe (Canada) ^ | November 17, 2004 | AP
Posted on 11/17/2004 10:04:06 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1282689/posts
Retracing the footprints of time
Alberta Report (via Web Archive) ^ | September 9, 1996 | Steve Sandford
Posted on 09/30/2004 7:56:25 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1231460/posts
I recently found the same thing. The earliest Conan I could find was in 1742 somewhere near Bamberg
Good info, thanks!
It depends on what degree of "certainty" you are looking for. The only "variable" that affects radiocarbon dating directly is the variation in the amount of C14 being formed in the atmosphere by radiation from the sun, which is affected by the variation of the "solar constant". Cross-calibration of radiocarbon with dendrochronology takes care of most of that error for "more recent" dates (out to -10-20,000 years or so).
Most people who think carbon dating is "propaganda" are biblical creationists, trying to stuff their religion down the throat of science.
I would agree with the former, I would disagree with the latter. I'd also say there is a similar correlation to conservatives and those that say the "science" of global warming is propoganda.
My use of the word 'European' was a direct quote from a Dr Arnold ----(?) who did the DNA lab work and also appeared on the documentary I mentioned above.
Good article, thanks for the link.
I think Mike Collins is an academic deposit.
Haplogroup X was called European DNA because it was thought that it only occured in Europe. If it were actually European than one of the founding maternal lines would have had to have come from Europe. Now that X has been found in the Altai the case for Europe is pretty weak.
How does that relate to the possibility that all of todays Indo-Europeans originated in/around the Gansu Province region in China?
On another point. James Chatters (of Kennewick Man fame), thinks that Kennewick Man came from a line of people that spawned both todays Asians and Europeans.
I don't know about Indo-europeans being from Gansu Province. (Do you have a link for that?) Indo-european is a language family that many people seem to think originated from anywhere from central Asia to the Black Sea area. All of the sources I've read are talking about a much older population ancestral to several language famlies. Wells "The Journey of Man" dates them to 35,000BP; Cavalli-Sforza "History and Geography of Human Genes" dates them to 50,000BP+
Both place the population somewhere in central or western Asia. Sounds like Chatters is following that line of thinking.
No. It was contained in the book, The Tarim Mummies, by J P Malloy and Victor Mair. Although, if you've noticed, I post a number of articles from that region.
"Indo-european is a language family that many people seem to think originated from anywhere from central Asia to the Black Sea area."
I've read a number of articles (some years ago now) that claimed linguists had traced the origins of the Indo-European language to Anatolia...pretty convincing articles.
Those guys to our south's been trying a long time to equal NC barbeque....;-)
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Wow, they found the very first Pig Pickin'!
ping
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