Hello and good evening one and all. While researching for another thread of mine
Olmec
Giant Stone Heads Mystery Solved? I ended up with more questions than answers, So I thought I’d pull it together here in one thread.
Which made me research just who were the first Americans? Well that argument opens a great big giant can of worms. It all pretty much comes down to
this fellow here and who you ask.
The Clovis Point
Clovis points are the diagnostic projectile point associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the Paleo-Indian period around
13,500 years ago. They are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were found in 1929 by local men who eventually encouraged Edgar
Billings Howard to visit. This first visit occurred in August 1932 while Howard was digging with a joint team from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences and the University of Pennsylvania at Burnet Cave in the Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico. Clovis points are often found within the remains of
Pleistocene megafauna.
Most geneticist agree that the first wave supposedly came out of Africa between 50 to 60 thousand BC and made it all the way to Australia and possibly
China, Who’s to say they didn't make it all the way to North America and headed
south?
While others feel that it there was an influx of early European blood during the last ice age.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
According to the still-debated New World migration model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land
bridge which formerly connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The most recent point at which this migration could have
taken place is c. 12,000 years ago, with the earliest period remaining a matter of some unresolved contention.[1]
These early Paleoamericans soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.[2]
According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a
wide range of traditional creation accounts.
DISCLAIMER
To date, no consistent pre-Clovis cultural patterns have been established and the accuracy of these claims have been found controversial and
unverified.
Topper
Topper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina in the United States. It is noted as the
location of controversial artifacts believed by some archaeologists to indicate human habitation of the New World as far back as 50,000 years
ago.
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is an archaeological site in south-central Chile, which has been dated to 14,500 years before present.[1] It pre-dates the earliest
known Clovis culture site of Clovis, New Mexico, by 1000 years, contradicting the previously accepted "Clovis model" which holds that settlement of
the Americas began after 13,500 years before present. As such the Monte Verde findings were initially dismissed by most of the scientific community,
but in recent years the evidence has been widely accepted,[2][3] although vocal "Clovis-first" advocates remain.[4]
Cactus Hill
Cactus Hill is an archaeological site in the U.S. state of Virginia. It lies in the southeastern part of the state on the Nottoway River roughly
45 miles south of Richmond. The site, owned by the International Paper Corporation, is situated on sand dunes above the river. The site has yielded
multiple levels of early occupation. Archaic stage material is underlain by fluted stone tools associated with the Clovis culture dated to 10,920 BP.
A lower level yields artifacts including unfluted bifacial stone tools with dates ranging from c. 15,000 to 17,000 years ago. White pine charcoal from
a hearth context on this level dates to 15,070 radiocarbon years BP[1]. Further charcoal deposits retrieved at the site date to as early as 19,700
years ago, although these deposits may have been made by forest fires.Cactus Hill is arguably the oldest archaeological dig in North America.
OK so the verdict is still out on who the first true Native Americans were. This however should not downplay their amazing accomplishments! I always
shutter when I see old movies or read old books that make statements that Native Americans were uncivilized. I still cringe even as I type this. It
seems that wherever we see great accomplishments in Native American cultures there always has to be some outside influence that is responsible.
Africans are responsible for the Oldest Mesoamericans the Olmec . Even with Central America there seems to be some controversy over who they were and
where did they come from. Especially with the Olmec who were before the Maya and Aztec
Olmec
The great majority of scholars who specialise in Mesoamerican history, archaeology and linguistics remain unconvinced by these speculations.[34]
Many are more critical and regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous
Americans.[35]
The consensus view maintained across publications in peer-reviewed academic journals that are concerned with Mesoamerican and other pre-Columbian
research is that the Olmec and their achievements arose from influences and traditions that were wholly indigenous to the region, or at least the New
World, and there is no reliable material evidence to suggest otherwise.[36] They, and their neighbouring cultures with whom they had contact,
developed their own characters which were founded entirely on a remarkably interlinked and ancient cultural and agricultural heritage that was locally
shared, but arose quite independently of any extra-hemispheric influences.[37]

Well as I've stated before I'm not against the idea of ancient sea traders but to date there is no concrete proof of such travels yet, and on top of
all that there is no DNA evidence nor are there verifiable artifacts.
I do believe that a truer or should I say a more accurate history of Ancient America has not been completed yet, They are digging up older and older
settlements and some artifacts just don't seem to fit into the time line that has been so neatly laid out before us and that leads us in new
directions which in turn teaches us a new version of events and so on.
There is a lot of jungle that has yet to be explored and as with most archeological endeavors it's been mostly based on luck. For example look at
Caral Supe. Nobody thought to look in that area and it turned out to be one of the oldest in the new world. The question becomes was that the oldest?
Source
Last December, Haas and Creamer again made headlines with a paper in Nature that presented carbon datings for 13 sites with platform mounds and
residential complexes in river valleys near Caral.
Some appeared to be even older than Caral, with dates as early as 3200 B.C. “It is now clear,” the couple wrote, that Caral and other Supe Valley
sites “were parts of a much more extensive cultural system that reached across at least three valleys and an area of 1,800 square kilometers.”
They called the region the Norte Chico, a colloquial term for the north-central coast of Peru. And they mentioned Shady only in their
footnotes.
One of the major problems with early Proto-civilizations is that many of them never needed to develop the wheel for example or even writing. Look at
ancient Egypt the very early periods, no wheel. Yet they developed and prospered.
In South America there is no real way to know just how many cultures flourished and then died out for various reasons and there could have been many
groups of mound builders.
These groups may have never developed writing nor used large stone blocks. The jungle could have reclaimed such locations and rain would have just
simply washed away the evidence of mud mounds and huts, what we are left with are simple stone carvings on wall surfaces such as what was found in
Brazil "The Ingá stone"
Inga Stone
The Ingá Stone (Pedra do Ingá in Portuguese) is located in near the small city of Ingá in the Paraíba State in the northeast of Brazil. The
Ingá Stone is also called Itacoatiara do Ingá. The word Itacoatiara means stone in the Tupi language of the natives that lived in that area. It is
composed of some basalt stones covered with symbols and glyphs undeciphered until now.
Most scholars think its origin is related to the natives that lived around until the 18th century, but there are also some people that defended an
extraterrestrial origin. Most glyphs represents animals, fruits, humans, constellations (including the Milk Way), and other unrecognizable
images.
And
El Fuerte
Bolivia
Not far away from Samaipata, one of the most important archeological monuments of pre-Columbian time in Bolivia can be found: El Fuerte (The
Fortress). This archeological place has been declared Cultural Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO. This mysterious place has been given many hypothetical
explanations for its origins. It is supposed that El Fuerte is the work of the Amazonian pre-Incan 'Chané' culture, and later on was used as an
advanced city by the Incas and finally by the Spanish colonists that turned El Fuerte into a fortress.
El Fuerte near Samaipata from aside village near el fuerte El Fuerte is the largest carved stone in the world. This archaeological monument reaches
a height of 1.949 metres above sea level and is on the ridge of a hill of a sandy rock where ancient cultures sculptured figures but emphasized snakes
and pumas, as well as waterways and wells, triangular and rectangular seats, vaulted niches, among other details.
We know for example that these cultures flourished right up until the first Europeans in 1492 showed up in the new world and all the early explorers
stated that there were people everywhere all up and down the eastern coasts of North America the Caribbean and South America. We know that man was in
the Caribbean very early on
Ortoiroid people
The Ortoiroid people were the first human settlers of the Caribbean. They are believed to have originated in the Orinoco valley in South America,
migrating to the Antilles from Trinidad and Tobago to Puerto Rico.
Rouse theorizes that the Ortoiroid developed for a large amount of time in South America before moving to the West Indies.[1] The earliest
radiocarbon date for the Ortoiroid is 5230 BC from Trinidad; the latest date is 190 AD from Puerto Rico.
Even in North America if we traveled up the Mississippi at that time. We find Mound builders who were possibly contemporaries of the Aztec and maybe
even the Maya
Cahokia
Cahokia kəhoʊkiːə is the site of an ancient Native American city (650-1400 CE) near Collinsville, Illinois in the American Bottom floodplain,
across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The 2,200-acre (8.9 km2) site includes at least 109 man-made earthen mounds. Cahokia Mounds is
the largest archaeological site related to the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies in eastern North America centuries before the
arrival of Europeans.[1]
Cahokia was settled around 650 CE during the Late Woodland period. Mound building did not begin until about 1050 CE, at the beginning of the
Mississippian cultural period. The inhabitants left no written records beyond symbols on pottery, shell, copper, wood, and stone.[4]. The city's
original name is unknown.
Now I know I haven’t covered some of the all time favorites, we all know about the plains Indians and the Great Aztec and Mayan pyramids or the
Incas. I thought I’d show more of the lesser known tribes and locations there is more here than meets the eyes. So if there were Asians or Africans
in Native Histories in the end it does not mean a thing.
We should be proud of what the native peoples of America have accomplished and we do have a rich heritage! I say we should get to know it. Oh and by
the way I say
we for a very good reason.
You see my family ties on my father side to this land run deep.
Finally I’ll leave you with a few pictures to ponder.
Cohoke North America
Olmec Central America
Olmec Central America
China
Thanks for reading
[edit on 19-3-2009 by SLAYER69]