Posted on 04/15/2008 6:50:32 PM PDT by blam
Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High Desert
An interview with Dennis Jenkins
See Interview About Dennis Jenkins
In this interview, conducted at Paisley Five Mile Point Caves on June 13, 2007, by Rick Pettigrew of ALI, Dr. Dennis Jenkins describes the remarkable discovery of human DNA in coprolites dated between 14,000 and 15,000 calibrated years ago. This evidence, reported in the 3 April 2008, issue of the journal Science, strongly supports the proposition that human migrants to North America arrived at least 1000 years before the widespread Clovis complex appeared. The data also support the conclusion that the first human population originated in northeast Asia. Dr. Jenkins, standing in the very spot where his field school team recovered the evidence, relates why and how the excavation was carried out, explains the significance of the find and shares his personal reflections on making a momentous discovery. Images woven into the interview show the environment surrounding the caves and the student archaeologists comprising the field crew.
The Interview:
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Dennis Jenkins:
Dr. Dennis Jenkins
Dennis L. Jenkins received his B.A. (1977) and M.A. (1981) degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1991. He is an Archaeologist/Field School Supervisor for the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology/Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon. As Co-Director and Supervisor of the University of Oregon Archaeological Field School, Jenkins has worked for much of the last 15 years on the archaeology of the Fort Rock Basin and Chewaucan Basin areas, focusing on paleoenvironmental studies, lacustrine adaptations, settlement and subsistence patterns, exchange systems, and the evolution of hunter-gatherer foraging strategies in arid landscapes. His primary research interests involve Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene cultural transitions and settlement-subsistence issues among hunter-gatherers of the Great Basin. His archaeological experience spans some 31 years with more than 100 excavations.
Jenkins began work in the Fort Rock Basin during the summer of 1986. He hired on with the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology, where he currently works as a Senior Research Associate, in l987.
He directs excavations related to highway construction projects in the Northern Great Basin and adjoining regions. His research includes the application of specialized analytical techniques involving DNA and obsidian sourcing and hydration and prehistoric bead type and distribution analyses.
Jenkins has authored or coauthored numerous publications, including co-editing (with C. M. Aikens) the 1994 volume, Archaeological Researches in the Northern Great Basin: Fort Rock Archaeology Since Cressman (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 50, 1994), and more recently Early and Middle Holocene Archaeology of the Northern Great Basin (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 62, 2004).
His most recent research involves the recovery of human DNA from pre-Clovis coprolites recovered with extinct faunal remains (camelids, horses, bison, and pika) in the Paisley Caves.
GGG Ping.
Not sayin' he's not smart and all but typical white people don't stand in the latrine.
“human DNA in coprolites”
So, were the humans the eaters or the eaten?
The last true ice age didn’t end for another 4000 to 5000 years. How did they survive in Oregon?
My cracker grandma's out there standing in the latrine right now.
You got a problem with that?
They are working in eastern Oregon.
Think Great Basin rather than Pacific Northwest.
Sittin’ down on the seat in the outhouse ain’t the same as standin’ in the hole.
The reason I love FR is that the culture is so elevating. Or is that elevatin'?
;-)
14,500 to 14,000 years B.P., the ice-sheet surface sloped from about altitude 1,000 meters at the international boundary to between 0 and 300 meters at the ice terminus on the continental shelf and in the southern Puget lowland.
It would have been like Siberia in the Great Basin
“typical white people”
I don’t know what your game is mister, but I know code when I hear it. Er... when I see it typed that is.
The Clovis Man theory was based on the first tools uncovered in North America. A professor of archeology I have seen on the History Channel says the tools trace back to Europe. This tends to lay waste to the idea that Asia was the only gateway used to access this country.
Yeah, light up a smoke in the “little house of contemplation’ after the Memorial Day family reunion and you’ll get elevated right over that treeline yonder.
It would have been like Siberia in the Great Basin
Yet it appears there were folks living there.
I would like to learn more about the mtDNA from that site.
Not many people realize that the world's ugliest desert aka Mojave/Great Basin, extends all the way up into British Columbia. As an added bonus, I do believe it gets most of its moisture from snow (but still low enough precipitation to qualify as a desert) - a first amongst the world's deserts.
Nothing is more depressing than leaving the upper Sonora and entering the Mojave as you drive north/westward from southern Arizona towards Calif.
Well, now we know, according to “The One” that typical White People are well versed in Scripture, good shots and suspicious of strangers. Not bad things by any means.
That was probably Kennewick Man and most people believe he may have been an Ainu from Japan. I believe he was probably related to who-ever these people were: Vintage Skulls
"The Clovis Man theory was based on the first tools uncovered in North America. A professor of archeology I have seen on the History Channel says the tools trace back to Europe. This tends to lay waste to the idea that Asia was the only gateway used to access this country."
That was probably Dennis Sanford. See his article below:
Why is that? I've always liked the Mojave.
Why is that? I've always liked the Mojave.
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