Hunters present in North America 800 years earlier than previously thought: DNA analysis

http://www.physorg.com ^ | 20 OCT 2011 | Provided by Texas A&M University

[Red Badger]

The tip of a bone point fragment found embedded in a mastodon rib from an archaeological site in Washington state shows that hunters were present in North America at least 800 years before Clovis, confirming that the first inhabitants arrived earlier to North America than previously thought, says a team of researchers led by a Texas A&M University archaeologist.

Michael Waters, director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M, and colleagues from Colorado, Washington and Denmark believe the find at the Manis site in Washington demonstrates that humans were in the area around 13,800 years ago, or 800 years earlier than was believed. Their work is published in the current issue of Science magazine.

In the late 1970s, an adult male mastodon was excavated from a pond at the Manis site. The distribution of the bones and the discovery that some of the bones were broken suggested that the elephant had been killed and butchered by human hunters, Waters explains. However, no stone tools or weapons were found at the site. The key artifact from the site was what appeared to be a bone point sticking out of one of the ribs, but the artifact and the age of the site were disputed.

Waters contacted team member and original excavator, Carl Gustafson, about performing new tests on the rib with the bone point. New radiocarbon dates confirmed that the site was 13,800 years old. High resolution CT scanning and three-dimensional modeling confirmed that the embedded bone was a spear point, and DNA and bone protein analysis showed that the bone point was made of mastodon bone.

"The Manis site is an early kill site" Waters says.

"The evidence from the Manis site shows that people were hunting mastodons with bone weapons before the Clovis stone spear point."

The new evidence from Manis supports extinction theories of large mammals at the end of the last Ice Age, Waters says. During the last cold period, herds of mammoth, mastodon, camels, horses and other animals roamed Texas and North America. At the end of the Ice Age, these animals became extinct.

"While these animals were stressed by the changing climate and vegetation patterns at the end of the Ice Age, it is now clear from sites like Manis that humans were also hunting these animals and may have been a factor in their demise," Waters adds. He also notes that "there are at least two other pre-Clovis kill sites in Wisconsin where hunters killed mammoths."

'Clovis' is the name given to the distinctive tools made by people starting around 13,000 years ago. The Clovis people invented the 'Clovis point', a spear-shaped weapon made of stone that is found in Texas and the rest of the United States and northern Mexico. These weapons were used to hunt animals, including mammoths and mastodons, from 13,000 to 12,700 years ago.

Waters says that "the evidence from the Manis site is helping to reshape our understanding of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas, the last continent to be occupied by modern humans."

[Red Badger]

This figure shows a mastodon rib with the embedded bone projectile point. (A) Closeup view. (B) Reconstruction showing the bone point with the broken tip. The thin layer represents the exterior of the rib. (C) CT X-ray showing the long shaft of the point from the exterior to the interior of the rib. (D) The entire rib fragment with the embedded bone projectile point. Credit: University of Copenhagen

This figure shows the anatomical position of the Manis rib. (A) Two vertebrae with the Manis rib inserted into its correct anatomical position. The blue arrow points to the embedded point fragment. (B) Side view of mastodon vertebrae with the Manis rib inserted into its correct anatomical position, with the trajectory of the point indicated. (C) Mastodon skeleton showing the location of ribs 12 to 14. Credit: University of Copenhagen

VIDEO AT LINK............

[Red Badger]

GGG PING!..........

[Bidimus1]

Were they Hebrew ? (sorry just had to say it.. my apologies to those that do not get the ref.)

[eastforker]

Boy are they really gonna be confused when they find one with a lead bullet or a lazer burn!

[FritzG]

It's their cover story for Nov. I'm not a subscriber, but here is some articles from them.

The First Americans: Mounting Evidence Prompts Researchers to Reconsider the Peopling of the New World

On the Trail of the First Americans [Interactive]

These dates still don't go back far enough. Topper and others like it will rewrite everything.

[MHGinTN]

I’m still waiting for one to show up wearing Nephite or Lamanite beads.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Charles Mann writes about this in his books “1491” and “1493,” the Americas before and just after the arrival of Europeans.

[Buckeye McFrog]

It took one helluva man to run up and kill a mastodon with a rock.

I don’t suppose the University of North Dakota would be allowed to rename its hockey team after these guys?

[Red Badger]

NCAA would go berserk..........

[DManA]

They left out the European Route.

[TheOldLady]

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[moovova]

Oh geez...here’s another group that’s gonna want reparations because of the atrocites brought on by those evil-white-European-criminal-invaders.

[Eldon Tyrell]

.. and the natural evolution of the tools -

The article even say s”Clovis people invented ...” -

[conservaterian]

They found a “Mitt 2012” bumper sticker on the rear end of the mastodon.

[calex59]

These clowns keep missing the vital point when it comes to extinction of the animals after all the glaciers disappeared. What killed them off was lack of water, once the glaciers melted the water rapidly evaporated with no way to replenish the supply. Since there wasn't enough water to supply all the animals, large numbers died out.

They quit having offspring because with the water, went the feed. This can be seen among the deer of today. If any given year is dry and the food supply low, deer will NOT have twins, and in many cases will not have fawns at all. In years when the food supply is plentiful, deer will have twin fawns. This is a well documented fact. A fact that scientists hate to mention when they are talking about extinction because they want to put the blame on man.

Evil man killed all the animals. There is no way a bunch of cave men using either bone points or flint points and using only spears, killed off any species to the point they became extinct. Nor did they kill enough of them to "aid in the extinction".

If men killed all the animals, why was there so much game in North America(not to mention south of the border)when the white men first showed up. Millions of buffalo, while they are fairly large they are nothing compared to Mammoths and Mastodons, so why were they still around? Not to mention, deer, Elk, Moose, Antelope, Bears(grizzly and black bear), wolves etc. Answer: Because primitive man, including Indians, couldn't kill them fast enough to wipe them out, even by running them over cliffs.

Once the herds had dwindled to the size the food and water could support the extinctions stopped.

[blam]

This Journey Of Mankind constructed from the dna work of professor Stephan Oppenheimer shows humans exhiled at Meadowcroft 25,000 years ago. These must be the people with the 'European' X gene.

[blam]

Why 50,000 bp is a "Crazy Date" for Topper

[blam]

"Charles Mann writes about this in his books “1491” and “1493,” the Americas before and just after the arrival of Europeans. "

Posted to FR in 2002:

1491

[blam]

"They left out the European Route. "

Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?)

[Dusty Road]

Somebody say Clovis? Heres one I made last week, I use hammerstones and antler to make them.