proof for 130,000-year-old human in California

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: punkinworks10
HOLY CRAP

That is astounding, looks like Carter and McNeish werew correct after all.

This gives new life to such finds as texas street and calico hills.

Not really; it's too early for that.

This is going to be an interesting debate in the paleontological communicty. Looking forward to it.

Opens up all kinds of doors. I recall something about Leakey putting a date of about 200k on some flaked cobbles in the Arctic. Then there's Thomas Lee at Sheguiandah. Heads will explode!

a reply to: anti72

nice find

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: punkinworks10
HOLY CRAP

That is astounding, looks like Carter and McNeish werew correct after all.

This gives new life to such finds as texas street and calico hills.

Not really; it's too early for that.

This is going to be an interesting debate in the paleontological communicty. Looking forward to it.

Opens up all kinds of doors. I recall something about Leakey putting a date of about 200k on some flaked cobbles in the Arctic. Then there's Thomas Lee at Sheguiandah. Heads will explode!

I don't recall Leakey being in the Arctic... I was fairly certain that it was Africa. That and Lee are plausible because we have evidence of hominids in the area at that time.

a reply to: Byrd

Its pretty sciencey, ill give you that. And it isn't easy as far as work goes. I work with a lady (who is well outside her degree) with a degree in Anthropology. I was shocked, actually, to see it hanging on her wall given what we do for a living. She shared some of the stories of her labs working in the desert around the general area of Alpine, TX (Sul Ross graduate), and i'd sweat and swat flies just listening to her.

I love anthroplogy, so it isn't a sleight. But its a study supported with science, not a science itself.

a reply to: anti72

This is game changing to the point of disbelief.

I always thought (as have others) that early man crossed the frozen Bering straight about 13,000 years ago, and a part of me still thinks there was an extra zero thrown in by accident because this seems to good to be true.

And if it's true...wow.

originally posted by: Fowlerstoad
a reply to: anti72


Well, it makes theoretical sense, since Homo species got to Australia, and such ... why not the Americas?

Sure, but (as far as they know) not 130,000 years ago.

The first humans in Australia seem to have arrived about 55,000 years ago. The first humans in the Americas are currently though t to have arrived a little less than 20,000 years ago over the land bridge that (at the time) existed between present-day Siberia and Alaska.

Some theories say there is evidence of humans in the Americas dating back 30,000 to as much as 40,000 years ago (maybe arriving through some means other than crossing from Siberia?)

But 130,000 years ago would be a game-changer -- even if they were talking about Australia and not the Americas.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: punkinworks10
HOLY CRAP

That is astounding, looks like Carter and McNeish werew correct after all.

This gives new life to such finds as texas street and calico hills.

Not really; it's too early for that.

This is going to be an interesting debate in the paleontological communicty. Looking forward to it.

Opens up all kinds of doors. I recall something about Leakey putting a date of about 200k on some flaked cobbles in the Arctic. Then there's Thomas Lee at Sheguiandah. Heads will explode!

I don't recall Leakey being in the Arctic... I was fairly certain that it was Africa. That and Lee are plausible because we have evidence of hominids in the area at that time.

Of course the Leakey's primary association was with Olduvai Gorge. I have to find that New World reference. Sheguiandah is Northern Ontario...Manitoulin Island, and still the focus of ongoing debate.
Edit to say, could be a faulty memory had Leakey in the Arctic, when it was actually the Calico Site where he was raising some eyebrows.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

JohnnyC,
Yes, you are thinking of Leaky at Calico, but may be conflating it with this,

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon
A. V. JOPLING,' W. N. IRVING2 and B. F. BEEBE2
ABSTRACT. The stratigraphic position of artefacts of undoubted Pleistocene age found in the Old Crow Basin has long been in question.
We report on geological, palaeontological and archaeological excavations and studies there which show that artefacts made by humans
occur in deposits of Glacial Lake Old Crow laid down before Sangamonian time, probably during a phase of the Illinoian (=Riss) glaciation.
The geological events surrounding and following the deposition of Glacial Lake Old Crow were complicated by a changing lake level, localized soft-sediment flowage, pingo formation and dissolution, and by the colluvial transport of vertebrate fossils and artefacts.
Following deepwater stages of the Lake, an environment not greatly different from that of the present is suggested by the excavated vertebrate fauna and by permafrost features, although warming during the succeeding Sangamon can be considered likely.
Sangamonian and later phenomena in the Old Crow Basin are referred to briefly; they show that humans persisted in the area for some time.

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

JohnnyC,
Yes, you are thinking of Leaky at Calico, but may be conflating it with this,

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon
A. V. JOPLING,' W. N. IRVING2 and B. F. BEEBE2
ABSTRACT. The stratigraphic position of artefacts of undoubted Pleistocene age found in the Old Crow Basin has long been in question.
We report on geological, palaeontological and archaeological excavations and studies there which show that artefacts made by humans
occur in deposits of Glacial Lake Old Crow laid down before Sangamonian time, probably during a phase of the Illinoian (=Riss) glaciation.
The geological events surrounding and following the deposition of Glacial Lake Old Crow were complicated by a changing lake level, localized soft-sediment flowage, pingo formation and dissolution, and by the colluvial transport of vertebrate fossils and artefacts.
Following deepwater stages of the Lake, an environment not greatly different from that of the present is suggested by the excavated vertebrate fauna and by permafrost features, although warming during the succeeding Sangamon can be considered likely.
Sangamonian and later phenomena in the Old Crow Basin are referred to briefly; they show that humans persisted in the area for some time.

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon

It was a while ago. The past...it can be confusing, eh?

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

JohnnyC,
Yes, you are thinking of Leaky at Calico, but may be conflating it with this,

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon
A. V. JOPLING,' W. N. IRVING2 and B. F. BEEBE2
ABSTRACT. The stratigraphic position of artefacts of undoubted Pleistocene age found in the Old Crow Basin has long been in question.
We report on geological, palaeontological and archaeological excavations and studies there which show that artefacts made by humans
occur in deposits of Glacial Lake Old Crow laid down before Sangamonian time, probably during a phase of the Illinoian (=Riss) glaciation.
The geological events surrounding and following the deposition of Glacial Lake Old Crow were complicated by a changing lake level, localized soft-sediment flowage, pingo formation and dissolution, and by the colluvial transport of vertebrate fossils and artefacts.
Following deepwater stages of the Lake, an environment not greatly different from that of the present is suggested by the excavated vertebrate fauna and by permafrost features, although warming during the succeeding Sangamon can be considered likely.
Sangamonian and later phenomena in the Old Crow Basin are referred to briefly; they show that humans persisted in the area for some time.

Stratigraphic, Sedimentological and Faunal Evidence for the Occurrence of Pre-Sangamonian Artefacts in Northern Yukon

It was a while ago. The past...it can be confusing, eh?

Yep,

I just discovered the yukon paper a few days ago on the Patagonian Monsters blog.
It is very detailed amd most informative.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Byrd

Its pretty sciencey, ill give you that. And it isn't easy as far as work goes. I work with a lady (who is well outside her degree) with a degree in Anthropology. I was shocked, actually, to see it hanging on her wall given what we do for a living. She shared some of the stories of her labs working in the desert around the general area of Alpine, TX (Sul Ross graduate), and i'd sweat and swat flies just listening to her.

I love anthroplogy, so it isn't a sleight. But its a study supported with science, not a science itself.

I don't really know how you're determining what area it's supposed to be, but very broadly in the United States at universities they divide disciplines up into the sciences and the arts and then reshuffle them into "colleges" under that university. Anthropology is always in the sciences and never in the arts.

My Masters' is from the College of Science within my university. Not from the College of Arts.

Let me posit a theory - DNA researchers will tell you that about 50,000 years ago there was a human genetic "bottleneck" affecting every continent, where there were less than 20,000 people on the entire planet (less than 2000 in the whole of Europe). These same genetic researchers will tell you that ALL of the pre-1492 populations of the Americas were the descendants of only about 70 people. Nearly all major civilizations/religions have a Flood Myth/Story. Is it possible that a global catastrophe reduced the global population to "pockets" of people on Earth, where there previously were much larger groups of individuals/civilizations - that involved massive and sudden flooding. This theory would tend to explain why indigenous populations carried the same distinct physical/ethnic traits - because these groups were the descendants of those small groups of survivors. Instead of a model where all human life began in Africa and migrated from there, THEN developed different ethnic traits - you have a model where you have a very small group of survivors that take on the traits ONLY of those people in the group. To my mind, this model seems more likely to explain why certain areas of the world had populations with the same ethnic traits - pardon the use of primary colors here, but white people in Europe, yellow people in Asia, black people in Africa, brown in the Middle East and Red people in the Americas.

originally posted by: TSZodiac
Let me posit a theory - DNA researchers will tell you that about 50,000 years ago there was a human genetic "bottleneck" affecting every continent, where there were less than 20,000 people on the entire planet (less than 2000 in the whole of Europe). These same genetic researchers will tell you that ALL of the pre-1492 populations of the Americas were the descendants of only about 70 people.

Can you cite some sources... I find the last one particularly hard to believe and I think the first one is only h.sapiens and not other humans (h. neanderthalis)

Nearly all major civilizations/religions have a Flood Myth/Story.

Only the ones that live in areas where there are floods (Eskimos, for instance, don't ... the Egyptians didn't, either.) Many accounts actually happen only after Christian missionaries move to the area and start teaching the Bible.

Is it possible that a global catastrophe reduced the global population to "pockets" of people on Earth, where there previously were much larger groups of individuals/civilizations - that involved massive and sudden flooding.

No. That would have also wiped out all the animals, including the tiniest ones and destroyed whole ecosystems. That kind of disaster leaves a big mark in the geologic record.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: anti72

So the question being begged: how would we know if this were human and not mousterian or something?

Mousterian is a type of tool.
Mousterian tools are flint tools created by - humans.

Harte

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

Opens up all kinds of doors. I recall something about Leakey putting a date of about 200k on some flaked cobbles in the Arctic.

In 1959 Louis Leakey, while at the British Museum of Natural History in London, received a visit from Ruth DeEtte Simpson, an archaeologist from California. Simpson had acquired what looked like ancient scrapers from a site in the Calico Hills and showed it to Leakey.
Leakey viewed it as important to study the Calico Hill site,[7] as he was convinced that the number and distribution of native languages in the Americas required more time than 12,000 years to evolve and acquire their current distribution.[8] In 1963, Leakey obtained funds from the National Geographic Society and commenced archaeological excavations with Simpson. Excavations in an area stratigraphically separate from a verified 10,000-year-old Paleoindian site were carried out by Leakey and Simpson, who believed that they had located stone artifacts that were dated 100,000 years or older, suggesting a human presence in North America much earlier than estimated.

Wiki

Harte

a reply to: Harte
Thanks. I think I may have recalled 'sub-arctic' from the original discussion and my poor addled self scrambled the memory.
However, if true, this all goes a long ways towards vindicating Thomas Lee on the Sheguiandah site in Ontario.
Here's a kind of a layman's thumbnail of that controversy.Canada's Sheguiandah Site: pre-Clovis or Paleo-Indian?
The writer, Lee's son, Richard, has also published recently in Ontario Archaeology in support of his father's theories.
And it does remain the one circumstance that I am personally aware of when an archaeologist was hounded out of his career for promoting controversial views.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Not to derail too much but I thought I recognized Lee's name, and sure enough he was the guy who made the finds on the Ungava in the eastern arctic.

I agree he took a drubbing over it as well. His finds just didn't fit the narrative that Canada needed at the time to bolster it's claims in the arctic. I think he nailed it and it's just a matter of time before someone goes back into it with fresh eyes. Hope I'm still around to see it!

originally posted by: Caver78
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Not to derail too much but I thought I recognized Lee's name, and sure enough he was the guy who made the finds on the Ungava in the eastern arctic.

I agree he took a drubbing over it as well. His finds just didn't fit the narrative that Canada needed at the time to bolster it's claims in the arctic. I think he nailed it and it's just a matter of time before someone goes back into it with fresh eyes. Hope I'm still around to see it!

Yes, that was Lee as well. But, I need to correct myself...Pat Sutherland got beaten up over her Arctic research, but that was not by her peers, but by our Dear Leader at the time, who feared Danish claims to underwater resources.
We're far from knowing the whole story, but it goes to show you that facts do rise like dream.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

I'm still very dubious about a 100k + date. Other hominims seem to have stayed well below the Arctic Circle - and indeed you'd need technology to survive there.

a reply to: Byrd

i could post more links....

www.cla.purdue.edu...

but honestly, it doesn't matter. I think reproducability is required for a science, which is hard in much of anthropology.

Ill tell you this though: golf is not a sport.