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Calico: A 200,000-year old site in the Americas? New World archaeological sites inferred to be even slightly older than the 11.5 ka Clovis complexes have been controversial; so claims for a 200 ka site in North America have heretofore been treated with substantial disdain. But the acceptance of Monte Verde and Diring may soon change that. The classic "ancient site" in the New World is "Calico," located in the Central Mojave Desert of California (Shlemon and Budinger, 1990). Two issues have dogged acceptance of Calico by mainstream archaeologists: (1) the authenticity of the artifacts; are they truly the product of ...

Penon WomanPenon WomanScientists in Britain have identified the oldest skeleton ever found on the American continent in a discovery that raises fresh questions about the accepted theory of how the first people arrived in the New World. The skeleton's perfectly preserved skull belonged to a 26-year-old woman who died during the last ice age on the edge of a giant prehistoric lake which once formed around an area now occupied by the sprawling suburbs of Mexico City. Scientists from Liverpool's John Moores University and Oxford's Research Laboratory of Archaeology have dated the skull to about 13,000 years old, making it...

Rep. Paul Gosar (AZ-04) questions BLM Director Neil Kornze during a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing about the coordination between the White House and the BLM to lock up more public lands in Western states using the Antiquities Act.

The Iroquois, the Osage, the Tuscaroras, the Hurons, the Omahas, and many other North American Indians all speak of giant men who once lived and roamed in the territories of their forefathers. All over what is now the U.S. are traditions of these ancient giants. Over 1000 accounts of seven-foot and taller skeletons have reportedly been unearthed from ancient burial sites over a two-hundred-year period in North America. Newspaper accounts, town and county histories, letters, scientific journals, diaries, photos and Smithsonian ethnology reports have carefully documented this. These skeletons have been reported from coast to coast with strange anatomic anomalies...

Research Casts New Light on History of North America Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso’s research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois – were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought. Newswise — Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his...

Underwater Archaeologists Find Possible Mastodon Carving On Lake Michigan Rock September 4, 2007 11:51 p.m. EST Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer Traverse City, MI (AHN) - Underwater archaeologists in Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay are speculating a boulder they found in a June ship wreck to be engraved with a prehistoric carvings. Mark Holley, a scientist with the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve Council, believes that the granite rock, which was found hidden at a depth of about 12 metres, has markings that resemble a mastodon. A mastodon is an elephant-like creature that once inhabited parts of North America....

In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan. [Image: Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan? View larger]. If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest. [Image: The stones beneath Lake Michigan; view larger]. In a PDF assembled by...

The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan. According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years...

Land-ice Bridge, New Research Suggests -- Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research. Dr. Ron Janke began studying the origins of the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small, moon-shaped dunes that stretch from the southern tips of Lake...

Scientists tantalize with 'iceman' findings Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun Published: Friday, April 04, 2008 Scientists from around the world who have been studying the centuries-old human remains that melted out of a glacier in northwestern British Columbia in 1999 will gather for the first time in Victoria later this month to talk about what they've learned from the unnamed "iceman." The Kwäday Dän Ts'ìnchi Symposium will be held April 24-27 at the University of Victoria. It is being held in conjunction with the Northwest Anthropology Conference. The conference brings together more than 30 researchers from fields as diverse as archeology,...

Iceman's DNA linked to coastal aboriginals Judith Lavoie, Canwest News Service; Victoria Times Colonist Published: Saturday, April 26, 2008 VICTORIA -- Sisters Sheila Clark and Pearl Callaghan held hands and blinked back tears Friday as they talked about their ancestor Kwaday Dan Ts'inchi, better known as Long Ago Person Found, a young aboriginal man whose frozen body was discovered nine years ago at the foot of a melting glacier in Northern B.C. Three hunters found the body in 1999 in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, part of the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. And earlier this month, 17 aboriginal...

The year 1776 saw both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and publication of Gibbon’s "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."Today the United States stands on the top of the podium of world powers: however, does a Roman fate await? A visit to the dramatic Pueblo ruins in the American southwest, former home to a complex civilization that abandoned its settlements in the 12th-13th centuries A.D., warns us that circumstances can change, and dramatically. Archeology offers an education in patterns, possibilities and challenges that the U.S. should value and exploit for its future. For the U.S.,...

Invasion of the Kennewick Men By Jackson Kuhl After almost eight years of labyrinthine litigation the case of Kennewick Man has ended with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and archaeological science is the winner -- for now. In a February 4 decision, the Ninth upheld the district court ruling stating that since no relationship could be established between modern American Indians and Kennewick Man -- physically, contextually, or otherwise -- he is not a Native American as defined under NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, thus NAGPRA isn't applicable. The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) therefore...

Next Kennewick Man will need protection Published Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 The court decision to allow scientists to study the ancient skeleton known as Kennewick Man has aided humankind's quest for knowledge. Unfortunately, it also spawned a congressional effort to change federal law to keep science from learning anything about the next Kennewick Man. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings is trying to thwart the move with proposed legislation of his own. Good for him. With so many unanswered questions about man's future, we've never had a greater need to understand our past. The Kennewick Man ruling, upheld by the 9th Circuit...

“We can do wonders if we get them early.” — Dr. Norman Spack, director of Gender Management Service at Boston Children’s Hospital After decades of relentless activism, propaganda, and indoctrination, the general public associates homosexuality not with the lewd scenes of a 1970s drag march, but the Hollywood image of a mild-mannered, hardworking same-sex couple that simply wants “equality” and “tolerance.” This politically correct myth obscures reality. As the gears of the sexual revolution grind on, the homosexual movement seeks nothing less than the complete rejection of Natural and Divine Moral Law, the elimination of the natural differences and complementarities...

Aboriginal groups want bones of the extinct Beothuk people to be removed from museum vaults and brought back to Newfoundland. A woman named Shanawdithit was the last known member of her people, with her 1829 death in St. John's marking the end of the Beothuk. Disease, persecution and the Beothuk's decision to withdraw from coastal communities have been cited as causes of wiping out the Beothuk. The location of Shanawdithit's grave is not known, but the skulls of her aunt and uncle -- a chief -- languish in a museum in Edinburgh, Scotland. The remains of at least 22 Beothuk...

The original intention of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), passed in 1990, was to facilitate the return of Native American bones and sacred objects to descendants and culturally affiliated groups. NAGPRA sought to balance the rights of Native Americans to reclaim ancestral remains with the right of society as a whole to learn about our collective past. By and large, the law was succeeding. In recent years scientists and representatives of Native peoples have been working together to everyone's gain. For example, archaeologist Alston Thoms of Texas A&M University has been consulting with Native Americans about...

Senate bill could untie Kennewick Man bones Published Thursday, October 4th, 2007 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer A Senate committee has approved a bill that could clear the way for Native Americans to claim the ancient bones of Kennewick Man. This is the third time the change has been proposed to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It would ensure federally recognized tribes could claim ancient remains even if a direct link to a tribe can't be proven. Tribes have pushed for a change to the law since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004...

Last week, Hillary Clinton condemned the Bush administration’s “open season on open inquiry” and promised to end its “war on science.” She might have chosen a better target, closer to home: the Senate, where the Indian Affairs Committee has just approved a two-word change to federal law that could render the scientific study of pre-Columbian history in the United States virtually impossible. One of the first casualties of the revision would be Kennewick Man — the popular name for a set of 9,300-year-old bones found along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash., in 1996. Human remains of that age are...

The dispute centres on legislation introduced by the Ministry of Justice in 2008 which requires all human remains excavated at digs in England and Wales to be reburied within two years, regardless of their age. The decision, which amounts to a reinterpretation of law previously administered by the Home Office, means scientists have too little time to study bones and other human remains of national and cultural significance, the academics say. "Your current requirement that all archaeologically excavated human remains should be reburied, whether after a standard period of two years or a further special extension, is contrary to fundamental...