Posted on 01/08/2007 11:14:54 AM PST by blam
Archaeologist's find could shake up science
By HEATHER URQUIDES
Published January 7, 2007
Archaeologist Albert Goodyear is working on the find of his life.
Based on radiocarbon tests and artifacts he's found along the Savannah River in South Carolina, Goodyear believes that humans existed in North America as many as 50,000 years ago, shattering the long-held notion that the earliest settlers arrived here about 13,000 years ago in Alaska via a lost land bridge.
Not everyone is convinced, but Goodyear believes further excavation and testing at the South Carolina location, known as the Topper site, will confirm his findings.
He's taking a break next week to come to St. Petersburg for a talk at the Science Center about Florida's first inhabitants. It's a coming home for him. After all, it was here that his interest in all things old first began.
You're from St. Petersburg?
I was born in St. Petersburg. I went to Boca Ciega High School, graduated in 1964.
What drew to you archeology?
I think it was in second grade, at Mount Vernon Elementary, we had a unit on Florida heritage. You study the state tree and the bird and all that, and we studied the Seminole Indians. I was really captivated. I thought, 'Hmm, that's the way to live.' I think that sort of predisposed me. When I was 8, my grandmother pulled out an old family trunk with an Indian arrowhead. That really fired up my imagination.
Your work at the Topper site in South Carolina showed that humans existed in North America far earlier than previously thought. Why does that matter?
People, just regular people, are extremely interested. ... I think it taps into a deep curiosity that humans have about their origins. I don't care whether you're in France or South Africa or South Carolina.
Do you think the Topper site will be your greatest discovery or is that yet to come?
I hope it is. Not just for our site, but for the sake of the program. The profession is slowly moving along to accept that there really were people here before the Clovis (roughly 13,000 years ago). The Topper site is unique ... it looks to me like it's the oldest radiocarbon site in North America. That's a huge statement. We're still working on it. Just to have literally found a site of that antiquity, the implications are just enormous. It does say, if it's that old, that people were getting into the United States the same time they were getting into Australia. That's part of that very old migration story. Literally, if it all works out, and I'm convinced that it will, obviously it will be the find of my lifetime.
What's it like to now be the one that people come to listen to?
It comes with the notoriety of the Topper site. ... People are curious about it and want to know what it is, and is it true? I try to cover that when I give these presentations. For me it's fun. It's pretty gratifying because I've always liked working with the public - especially amateur archeologists, since I started out as one.
Heather Urquides can be reached at hurquides@sptimes.com or 892-2253.
If you go
What: Albert Goodyear talks about "Florida's First Peoples"
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Science Center, 7701 22nd Ave. N
Details: Tickets are $6. For more information, go to www. sciencecenterofpinellas.com or call 384-0027.
I think I heard this guy on Coast-to-Coast the other night. . .
You need to include the /sarcasm tag in your posts. Otherwise folks will think you're an idiot.
I think you are cute, too. I guess you have never had a five year old. They understand the importance of myth better than you seem to.
So all those fossils were created out of whole cloth?
About Aryanism: it was more the self-deception of a whole cultural elite that fancied itself as godlike. Hitler was simply the reductio ad adsurdum.
Myths are never created out of whole cloth. It is said that to write a biography is to create a myth. Lincoln was a real man, but he is also mythical. The dinosaurs were real, but they are, especially to a five-year old, mythical beings, because they are so much MORE than the most amazing living animals.
So, what is the "myth" of the dinosaurs. Please be as specific as you can.
I thought this was old news. If I remember a NOVA report from last year, scientists had used DNA sequences and evidence from other dig sites to throw the Alaska trail into question.
I believe problems arise when persons use the wrong isotope for the material and time they wish to date.
In any event, this presentation provides no evidence to say radiocarbon or other isotope dating is a bunch of BS.
ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth CreationistsThe American Scientific Affiliation: Science in Christian Perspective Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.
This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.
Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
Tree Ring and C14 DatingHow does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)
How precise is radiocarbon dating?
Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?
Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?
Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
This sounds like something I would do.
I disbelieve in Darwin's theories in toto. I also understand that humans have been around for literally millions of years.
I am an old earth creationist. And in my reading of the Bible, it is not clear about timelines. The Vedas are clear about timelines, though.
6K = six thousand.
My turn for links.
"What about carbon dating?"
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asphttp://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
"Does carbon dating disprove the bible?"
http://www.answersingenesis.org/radio/pdf/carbondating.pdfhttp://www.answersingenesis.org/radio/pdf/carbondating.pdf
"Raising the bar on Creation Research"
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/creation-researchhttp://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/creation-research
"The problems with carbon-14 dating"
http://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.phphttp://contenderministries.org/evolution/carbon14.php
"The problem of carbon"
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=79http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=79
I can keep going...
*
I do a lot of radiocarbon dating in my research, and am reasonably familiar with the literature. What the creationist websites do is extremely poor science at best and more often is pure apologetics.
Examples:
It is very common to see errors of fact. Here is one:
Another fact, which proves quite embarrassing to “old-age” proponents in regard to radiometric dating, is the half-life of Carbon 14 itself. Not only is the actual half-life length itself in some contention, but the effect it would have on the upper limits of its capability in dating illustrates clearly the level of fraud that has been foisted on an unsuspecting society. Consider that Carbon 14’s half-life is around 5,630 years 3 (though estimates range from 5,300 to 5,700 years); in only ten cycles of this, there would be nothing left to measure in the extant specimen! This means that the absolute maximum age radiocarbon could date a specimen to would be around 56,300 years; yet daily society is barraged with reports that some new find was dated in the hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years using Carbon 14. Source
This is particularly laughable because no scientists claim millions of years for radiocarbon dating! The upper limit is generally given as about 50,000 years. This author apparently doesn't even know the difference between radiocarbon and other forms of radiometric dating!
Here is another example:
First, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, one must assume the rate of decay of carbon-14 has remained constant over the years. However, evidence indicates that the opposite is true. Experiments have been performed using the radioactive isotopes of uranium-238 and iron-57, and have shown that rates can and do vary. In fact, changing the environments surrounding the samples can alter decay rates. Source
This has several errors, one of which is that the rate of decay for Carbon 14 has changed over the years. Not so. The experiments on uranium and iron were extremely specialized and had nothing to do with what occurs in nature, nor with Carbon 14.
Here is another goof:
The second faulty assumption is that the rate of carbon-14 formation has remained constant over the years. There are a few reasons to believe this assumption is erroneous. Source
In 1958, shortly after the invention of radiocarbon dating, de Vries published on the need for corrections based on atmospheric fluctuations in the production of Carbon 14. These corrections (based on tree-rings) are a standard part of radiocarbon dating today--everywhere but on creationist websites.
Another common error is using religious belief as a scientific fact. Here is an example:
...consider that it is essentially accepted that an antediluvian water canopy existed surrounding the earth; this would have acted to either negate or at least significantly reduce the effect of cosmic, x-ray, and ultraviolet radiation in the upper atmosphere. Source
What this author is doing is claiming that an "antediluvian water canopy" is altering the normal production of Carbon 14 isotopes in the upper atmosphere, without a single shred of scientific evidence for such a canopy. The presence of such a canopy is a religious belief, not a scientific fact.
Another error of the same kind:
Third, for carbon-14 dating to be accurate, the concentrations of carbon-14 and carbon-12 must have remained constant in the atmosphere. In addition to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, the flood provides another evidence that this is a faulty assumption. During the flood, subterranean water chambers that were under great pressure would have been breached. This would have resulted in an enormous amount of carbon-12 being released into the oceans and atmosphere. SourceThis again assumes a fact based entirely on religious belief, rather than scientific evidence. (Actually, a global flood about 4300 years ago has consistently been refuted by scientific evidence.)
This is the quality of research you will find on the creationist websites. I could give more examples, but I think I have made my point by now.
I'll stick with the links I posted above rather than the ones you posted.
(By the way, your first four links are bad, but I was able to cut and past from them.)
Agreed. I love it!
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