New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America

New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

A remarkable series of several dozen European-style stone tools, dating back between 19,000 and 26,000 years, have been discovered at six locations along the US east coast.

www.independent.co.uk...
More evidence that archaeology suppresses new discoveries and hides behind the status quo...

Well, OK, I'm being sarcastic. This looks pretty exciting in terms of dating the peopling of the Americas. It doesn't address why so many of the oldest sites are apparently in South America, but it adds new dimensions to our knowledge base even as it invites even more questions. I look forward to seeing the book come out.

Does this mean Columbus Day will now be known as Ogg-Ouk-Eck Day?

yes, European cave men discovered something that was already there, and had people already living there.

How the blinking heck did they get there?? Land bridge between Russia and America?

Originally posted by illuminatislave
yes, European cave men discovered something that was already there, and had people already living there.

edit on 27-2-2012 by illuminatislave because: (no reason given)

It says between 19000 and 26000 years ago, approx 10000 years before the ancestors of the Native American peoples crossed over from Siberia. So who were these people who were already there?

'Discovered' is quite an emotive word in this context, granted, probably 'travelled to' would have been better - it's pretty amazing anyway - since they would have had to travel westwards, by boat, across the Atlantic.

peace
J

Originally posted by woogleuk
How the blinking heck did they get there?? Land bridge between Russia and America?

They walked over:-

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by woogleuk
How the blinking heck did they get there?? Land bridge between Russia and America?

The link (now fixed) to the story tells the tale. One thing I question is that in years past, ships would load up on ballast in the Olde World and dump it in the New. That has led to some unusual anachronisms...old world artifacts, even an Acheulean Handaxe if I recall, being found in marine settings in North America. Could any of these items have been discovered in that sort of context? Red Bay, Labrador is loaded with Mediterranean roof tiles for that very reason.

But I suppose the smarty-pants will already have taken that into account.

This would be around the Pleistocene Ice Age (circa 20,000 ago), sea levels were 350 feet lower than now, and the Laurentide glacier would still have been covering much of Canada and the northern part of the USA. They may have been able to hug the coastlines with canoes, or lived in fishing camps as they migrated along this route to North America.

This information coincides nicely with another discovery of the oldest rock art in the Americas;

Rock art discovery could shed light on when New World was settled

"It shows that about 11,000 years ago, there was already a very diverse manifestation of rock art in South America, so man probably arrived in the Americas much earlier than normally is accepted," explained Walter Alves Neves, the archaeologist and biological anthropologist leading the team.

Not that the rock art is related to the group making the stone tools from the OP, but another indicator man crossed to the Americas sooner than the generally accepted Serbian land-bridge crossing.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Very interesting, we should know in about 3 years if the evidence stands up to counter-scurtiny

It is however puzzling how the Europeans would have made their way to the Americas in that time frame, but then Indonesians made it to Madagascar.

The Solutrean hypothesis theories have been around for a long time, since the early seventies to be precise and stemmed from a single artifact fragment recovered from an excavation in Cactus Hill, Virginia. The theory has some significant holes in it. The dating has been met with some speculation as well as has the fact that no other corresponding Solutrean cultural markers have made an appearance to support the claim, not withstanding that a recent DNA study completely refutes their presence here.

In fact, the entire theory was proposed on the basis of contemporary flint knappers like Bruce Bradley believing that the overshot flaking, and pressure flaking styles smacked of classic Solutrean industry. Its a long shot to say the least.

From an archaeological standpoint what is more interesting is how what could be safely called a pre-clovis artifact made its way all the way to Virginia in the first place. However, the mind blowingly large Clovis age quarry located at the Gault site in Texas has shown that these people were both industrious and apparently well spread out during the late Pleistocene.

Good synopsis here:
en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks for the read OP S&F

ETA:

More evidence that archaeology hides new discoveries and hides behind the status quo...

I know that you were just being sarcastic but I want to assure you that this is an entirely false statement.

What is more to truth is that people with their own theories and agendas (governments included) use archaeology in the same way a drunk uses a lamppost ...for support and not illumination.

..Insert Sichin and Von Daniken here....

Originally posted by skjalddis...
'Discovered' is quite an emotive word in this context, granted, probably 'travelled to' would have been better - it's pretty amazing anyway - since they would have had to travel westwards, by boat, across the Atlantic.

peace
J

Why by boat?
20000-30000 years ago would be towards the end of the Pleistocene period, which ended 15000 years ago, and the last significant glacial period ended then. And were the ice anywhere near the 45th parallel, foot travel would've been possible. Given the 6 discoveries in the OP's source link were not very far south of the 45th, it's plausible boats weren't necessary or even viable for travel during the period considering the probability of icebergs and floes.

They were following the ice line.
Eskimo kayak is very suitable and endurable in cold, much better than modern materials for extreme cold.
Also, they could have crossed over North pole.

reply to post by clowdstalker


You are correct that the Solutrean hypothesis has been refuted. What archaeologists fail to take in to account is that people living in independant groups can find similar solutions for a problem (in this case the "extra" step of material removal in a projectile point. The practical upshot to this technology allows for tighter binding of the head to the shaft and the added benefit of reduced weight which allowed longer points to be made for the same weight.

So maybe the indians killed the Euro people, later on we got our ''revenge''?

White People in U.S.A.. 9,000 years ago
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Exciting.

I wonder perhaps if todays native people may be a mixture of those early "european" peoples and the asiatic people from the west.

I enjoy this type of stuff. Really gets the old brain rollin'.

Old news in my experience.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm surprised the 8 yr old link still works.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Decisive evidence would have to come from an independent arena. Douglas Wallace studies mitochondrial DNA, part of the human chromosomes that is passed unchanged from mother to daughter. It only varies when mistakes occur in the replication of the genetic code. Conveniently for Wallace's work (piecing together a global history of migration of native peoples) these mistakes crop up at a quite regular rate. The technique has allowed Wallace to map the geographical ancestry of all the Native American peoples back to Siberia and northeast Asia.

The route of the Clovis hypothesis was right. The date, however, was wrong - out by up to 20,000 years. Wallace's migration history showed waves of incomers. The Clovis people were clearly not the first humans to set foot across North America.

"DNA lineage predominantly found in Europe got to the Great Lakes, 14,000 to 15,000 years ago"
Douglas Wallace, Emory University

Douglas Wallace's DNA history bore fruit once more. In the DNA profile of the Ichigua Native American tribe he identified a lineage that was clearly European in origin, too old to be due to genetic mixing since Columbus' discovery of the New World. Instead it dated to Solutrean times. Wallace's genetic timelines show the Ice Age prompted a number of migrations from Europe to America. It looks highly likely that the Solutreans were one.

Selwyn Dewdney for the win.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Was reading this earlier today myself. Last week they published details on the oldest known cave art found in the Americas (in Brazil) and then this news this week.

I do find it interesting that they are postulating that they crossed on the ice (glaciers). This wouldn't surprise me at all to be honest - if the sheets really provided a land bridge then it would certainly have been possible (if not cold and hard) to cross it.

Whats known as the 'clovis' people emigrated from the basque area of Europe to North america, as the poster above typed, using large animal skin 'kayak' type boats, this stuff is well know to acheologists.(spell checker on the fritz again)

You might want to check this out.

Is it possible there is more to the cross than we previously understood?

What did the ancients try to convey with its image ?
Did the cross design ancient buildings, shape philosophy and invent geometry?
Was the cross the secret instrument of the geometer and the power of rulers?
Does this ancient spherical computer reveal the true nature of Time itself?
What could this revelation mean to you?

Why is there a wheel on a Celtic cross?
The Wheel on the Cross was obviously designed to spin, Why?

Did the wheel measure the spin of the earth ?
Do the interweaving serpentine sine waves represent the cycles of order and chaos?
Do the four arms represent the four seasons ?
Did Neolithic and even Palaeolithic sea faring hunter gatherers invent zodiacs (Signs)
so that they could navigate by the stars?
Did ancient people use natures astro-logical mathematics to design sacred buildings ?
Does the cross represent "As above so below"?

www.crichtonmiller.com...

Originally posted by pikestaff
Whats known as the 'clovis' people emigrated from the basque area of Europe to North america, as the poster above typed, using large animal skin 'kayak' type boats, this stuff is well know to acheologists.(spell checker on the fritz again)

I'm sorry, I am a licenced archaeologist and this is unknown to me. Please provide resources.