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An international team of geoscientists from the United States, Canada and Europe has discovered a large impact crater beneath the Hiawatha Glacier in remote northwest Greenland. A paper on the discovery was published in the journal Science Advances. The Hiawatha impact crater is approximately 19.2 miles (31 km) wide and lies under an ice sheet that is 0.6 miles (1 km) thick.The scientists believe this crater was formed by a 0.6-mile wide iron asteroid that slammed into the Earth at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, perhaps as recently as 12,000 years ago. ..." “Researchers were looking at the map...

On a bright July day 2 years ago, Kurt Kjær was in a helicopter flying over northwest Greenland—an expanse of ice, sheer white and sparkling. Soon, his target came into view: Hiawatha Glacier, a slow-moving sheet of ice more than a kilometer thick. It advances on the Arctic Ocean not in a straight wall, but in a conspicuous semicircle, as though spilling out of a basin. Kjær, a geologist at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, suspected the glacier was hiding an explosive secret. The helicopter landed near the surging river that drains the glacier, sweeping out rocks...

New data from Greenland ice cores suggest North America may have suffered a large cosmic impact about 12,900 years ago. A layer of platinum is seen in ice of the same age as a known abrupt climate transition, US scientists report. The climate flip has previously been linked to the demise of the North American "Clovis" people. The data seem to back the idea that an impact tipped the climate into a colder phase, a point of current debate. Rapid climate change occurred 12,900 years ago, and it is proposed that this is associated with the extinction of large mammals...

Greenland ice core analysis shows drastic climate change near end of last ice age Caption: The North Greenland Ice Core Project camp. Credit: NGRIP Temperatures spiked 22 degrees F in just 50 years, researchers say Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation. The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just...

Who are the first Americans? In the 1920s and 30s, discoveries made near Clovis, NM suggested a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that dates back nearly 13,200 years ago. But new evidence may actually point to Texas as a possible origin. Archaeologist Wilson W. "Dub" Crook has found that may just change the way we see history.

The earliest human footprint on record in the Americas wasn't found in Canada, the United States or even Mexico; it was found much farther south, in Chile, and it dates to an astonishing 15,600 years ago, a new study finds. The finding sheds light on when humans first reached the Americas, likely by traveling across the Bering Strait land bridge in the midst of the last ice age. This 10.2-inch-long (26 centimeters) print might even be evidence of pre-Clovis people in South America, the group that came before the Clovis, which are known for their distinctive spearheads, the researchers said.

The Bering land bridge was exposed at various times over an almost three million year period, when wide scale glaciation lowered sea levels by as much as 150 metres. The land bridge was part of "Beringia," which refers to the stretch of land between present day Siberia and Yukon Territory. It's been home to woolly mammoths, steppe bison and humans. Jeff Bond, a geologist with Yukon Geological Survey in Whitehorse, has produced a map showing what Beringia looked like 18,000 years ago. At that time, much of the earth was glaciated, but Beringia remained predominantly ice-free due to its arid...

By sequencing and analyzing 15 ancient genomes found throughout the Americas—six of which were older than 10,000 years—these researchers determined that, around 8,000 years ago, the ancestors of Native Americans were still on the move, migrating away from Mesoamerica (what is today Mexico and Central America) toward both North and South America. These groups moved rapidly and unevenly, sometimes interbreeding with local populations, complicating the genetic—and historical—picture even further. The close genetic similarity observed between some of the groups studied suggests rapid migratory speed through North and South America. The Meltzer and Willerslev team, which included dozens of researchers from...

In the lowest layer of the Area 15 archaeological grounds at the Gault Site in Central Texas, researchers have unearthed a projectile point technology never previously seen in North America, which they date to be at least 16,000 years old, or a time before Clovis. While clear evidence for the timing of the peopling of the Americas remains elusive, these findings suggest humans occupied North America prior to Clovis - considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Paleo-Indian culture of North America, and dated to around 11,000 years ago. In 2002, Area 15 of the Gault Site in...

Through excavation of the Debra L. Friedkin site northwest of Austin, Texas, a team of archaeologists has identified a particular style of projectile point dated between 13,500 and 15,500 years ago — this is earlier than typical Clovis-style technologies dated to 13,000 years ago. The team found more than 100,000 artifacts, including 328 tools and 12 complete and fragmented projectile points (about 3-4 inches, or 7.6-10.2 cm, long), excavated from the Buttermilk Creek Complex horizon of the Debra L. Friedkin site.From 19 optically stimulated luminescence dates of sediments, they determined the artifacts were between 13,500- and 15,500- years-old.“There is no...

Ancient tools that may give historians a glimpse into America's history were recently discovered just feet below the surface in Texas. Researchers with Texas A&M University made the stunning discovery during a dig at the Debra L. Friedkin site, located just 40 miles northwest of Austin. Archaeologists have been searching for artifacts at the site near Buttermilk Creek for more than a decade — but this may be their most important find yet. Michael Waters, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M, and staff from Baylor University and the...

FULL TITLE: Discovery of Ancient Spearpoints in Texas Has Some Archaeologists Questioning the History of Early Americas ______________________________________________________________ Archaeologists have discovered two previously unknown forms of spearpoint technology at a site in Texas. The triangular blades appear to be older than the projectile points produced by the Paleoamerican Clovis culture, an observation that’s complicating our understanding of how the Americas were colonized—and by whom. Clovis-style spear points began to appear around 13,000 to 12,700 years ago, and they were produced by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers known as the Clovis people. Made from stones, these leaf-shaped (lanceolate) points featured a shallow concave base...

Full Title: Discovery of Ancient Spearpoints in Texas Has Some Archaeologists Questioning the History of Early Americas Archaeologists have discovered two previously unknown forms of spearpoint technology at a site in Texas. The triangular blades appear to be older than the projectile points produced by the Paleoamerican Clovis culture, an observation that’s complicating our understanding of how the Americas were colonized—and by whom. Clovis-style spear points began to appear around 13,000 to 12,700 years ago, and they were produced by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers known as the Clovis people. Made from stones, these leaf-shaped (lanceolate) points featured a shallow concave base and...

Sam Clovis, a former national co-chairman of the Trump campaign, is one of three Trump figures known to have been contacted by FBI informant Stefan Halper during the 2016 presidential campaign. Clovis received an email, out of the blue, from Halper, whom he did not know, on August 29, 2016 — after Halper had been in touch with Carter Page and just before he contacted George Papadopoulos. Page and Papadopoulos were peripheral, sometime volunteer Trump foreign policy advisers, but they are key figures in the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election. Clovis,...

... Clovis, who made the final decision in March 2016 to bring both Page and Papadopoulos onto the campaign, had no inclination that Halper was spying on Trump associates. Clovis and Halper met for coffee on Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2016 near Washington. Clovis said the conversation was innocuous, focusing mostly on foreign policy issues, including China, one of Halper’s areas of expertise. ... I've always have been suspicious of both Page and Papadopoulos and still am. I'm adding Clovis to the list. Thinking he's now a contender for the campaign plant. Halper just has that "That was easy"...

A secret FBI informant who has come into the spotlight in recent days reportedly met with three advisers to President Trump's campaign during the 2016 presidential election. The Washington Post reported Friday that in addition to meeting with Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, the informant – described as an American academic – also met with former Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis. The informant, a professor who is said to be a longtime U.S. intelligence source, met Clovis for coffee in northern Virginia in the summer of 2016, during which he offered to provide foreign policy advice to...

On a rugged bluff overlooking the Ohio River, known locally as "Devil's Backbone," centuries of overgrowth obscures a secret of history... In 1799, early settlers found six skeletons clad in breastplates bearing a Welsh coat of arms. Indian legends told of "yellow-haired giants" who settled in Kentucky, southern Indiana, southern Ohio and Tennessee -- a region they called "the Dark and Forbidden Land." Archeologists debunk the legend. They say that evidence indicates that the natives of the region once conducted a vigorous trading network nearby and buried their dead on the bluff... Upstream about 14 miles from Louisville, Ky., the...

<p>WASHINGTON — Sam Clovis, a former Trump campaign official who is now linked to special counsel Robert Mueller's federal probe into Russia's interference in the presidential election, is withdrawing his nomination to be the Agriculture Department's chief scientist.</p> <p>“We respect Mr. Clovis’s decision to withdraw his nomination," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday.</p>

The senior Trump campaign official who brought George Papadopoulos onto the Trump campaign met last week with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors and testified before a federal grand jury, NBC news is reporting. Sam Clovis, the campaign’s co-chairman and top policy adviser, brought Papadopoulos onto the campaign’s foreign policy team last March, The Daily Caller was told on Monday. Interactions between Clovis and Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old energy consultant, became a subject of intrigue on Monday after a federal court unsealed documents showing that Papadopoulos accepted a plea deal earlier this month for lying to the FBI about his interactions with...

Top officials on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rebuffed requests from a lower level volunteer seeking meetings between the then-real estate mogul and Russian government, according to email exchanges leaked to The Washington Post. According to The Post, George Papadopoulos, an energy consultant, sent a half-dozen emails to Trump campaign officials suggesting and requesting meetings between Trump and members of the Russian government, including Vladimir Putin. The campaign emails, which were read to The Post by an unidentified source, reveal a previously-undisclosed connection between a member of the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Papadopoulos indicated in some of the emails...