10,000-Year-Old Human Settlements In Bolivia Evidence Of Ancient Amazon Peoples

10,000-Year-Old Human Settlements In Bolivia Evidence Of Ancient Amazon Peoples

Archaeologists announced a discovery that has broad implications for the history of the Amazon: evidence of human settlements in Bolivia dating back at least 10,000 years.

International researchers came to this conclusion after discovering remnants of human activity in three mounds examined out of the hundreds that scatter the the Llanos de Moxos region in present-day Bolivia, according to the paper published this week in peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE. Inside some of the mounds was evidence apparently left by human foragers, including ancient sea shells, animal bones and charcoal. Radiocarbon dating of the soil suggests the mounds are the oldest known archaeological sites in the area.

I'm not exactly sure how to take this other than it's an interesting read. I thought I'd pop in and share it with those here who care for this type of story/discovery. It's short but sweet. There are some photos.

I'd like to hear others take on it.

As always stay tuned...

reply to post by SLAYER69


Sweet slayer,

From the other archeological evidence in SA, it been only a matter of time before more settlements were found.
S&f

reply to post by punkinworks10


With all the evidence that people have been in SA for at least 20k years and as many as 40k it stuns me that the academic world still hangs tenaciously to that 13k year threshold.
What I would like to know is what kind of points they used, ad that will tell which wave that came in with, and also human remains, as the skulls would tell us a great deal.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by punkinworks10

 

With all the evidence that people have been in SA for at least 20k years and as many as 40k it stuns me that the academic world still hangs tenaciously to that 13k year threshold.
What I would like to know is what kind of points they used, ad that will tell which wave that came in with, and also human remains, as the skulls would tell us a great deal.

Actually, the academics are the ones arguing that it's 20k years and possibly more.

What this simply says is that they've found a 10k settlement in the Amazon area. That's interesting because the decomposers of the area rather quickly tear apart anything and turn it into soil. The mounds look interesting, though, and could turn out to be village sites.

What this will do, however, is spark more research on this group and provide better evidence for how early the Amazon was actually peopled.

reply to post by SLAYER69



From your source.

The region of present-day Bolivia explored by researchers was previously believed to have been environmentally unfriendly to early humans, discouraging habitation. This new research proposes an alternative version of early human history in the area, however.

I wonder how many "other" areas were actually suitable? Researchers need to rethink this.

There might be other settlements out there. I guess its all a learning experience, even for those who are actually doing the job of finding them.


S&F

Curious to know if the "Clovis First" dogma still looms over the Americas? I mean, 10k......that would kinda challenge the whole notion, unless they went down to the Amazon, then up to the Desert Southwest.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Well I doubt they are 10,000 years old since man was created about 6,000 years ago as is the oldest known artifacts of mankind I think are not even 6000 years old of course.

Originally posted by Kaboose
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

Well I doubt they are 10,000 years old since man was created about 6,000 years ago as is the oldest known artifacts of mankind I think are not even 6000 years old of course.

Oh jeez.....

Interesting find.

They have already found some skull thought to be related to Australian Native peoples (well they were immigrants too), from around 10,000+ years ago.

www.cosmosmagazine.com...

www.youtube.com...

The puzzle is still there, so did they cross the bridge to Alaska or row their canoes?

Were they fair skinned, yellow skinned or red skinned? We will never know.

reply to post by Kaboose




Sigh...

Well, to each their own I suppose.
No offense intended..

reply to post by Byrd


Hey Bryd,
I was brief in my post, but what I was getting at is, in NA at least, there is still a lot of resistance to a preclovis occupation.
With some early sites the counter claims still being made ate so outlandish as to be as bad as ancient alien theory.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan
Curious to know if the "Clovis First" dogma still looms over the Americas? I mean, 10k......that would kinda challenge the whole notion, unless they went down to the Amazon, then up to the Desert Southwest.

The Clovis First is pretty much out the window, thanks to sites here in Texas (among other places): www.nytimes.com...

Originally posted by punkinworks10
reply to post by Byrd

 

Hey Bryd,
I was brief in my post, but what I was getting at is, in NA at least, there is still a lot of resistance to a preclovis occupation.
With some early sites the counter claims still being made ate so outlandish as to be as bad as ancient alien theory.

I think most are in favor of a Pre-Clovis peopling of the Americas. Buttermilk Creek is certainly reported to be one such site, and there are others that have been dated to 20,000 years and maybe earlier. Genetic analysis also shows an earlier presence.

There's a good article on this in the Encyclopedia of Human Migration: onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

reply to post by Byrd


Yes ,
The field is slowly comming around, but there are still very vocal curmudgeons out there.
Liks this guy in response to a. 20+k year old tool assemblage in Brazil

, Stuart Fiedel, has turned into a crackpot himself when he suggested that the Toca da Tira Peia tools were made by capuchin monkeys.)

anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org...

Byrd ,
If you can find the time,

check out the link that was posted to Nova's "Ice age death trap",in the thread on earliest huntinge.
The first 45 minutes deal with an excavation of a ancient lake in Colorado, that yields mammoth , mastadon, bison and such going back 200,000 years.
All pretty straight forward stuff until the last 15 minutes, when they go over the front half of a mammoth, only the front half , that was buried in a peat bog, and was covered with stones.
Stones not found in the bog itself, and the cracked rib that has cut marks on it. Here's the kicker it is securely dated to 60k years ago.
Hmm 60 k!
Here's the link
m.youtube.com... ac.1.23.youtube-reduced..0.4.175.PV3Ohihis40

I highly reccomend it.

Originally posted by punkinworks10
Byrd ,
If you can find the time,

check out the link that was posted to Nova's "Ice age death trap",in the thread on earliest huntinge.
The first 45 minutes deal with an excavation of a ancient lake in Colorado, that yields mammoth , mastadon, bison and such going back 200,000 years.
All pretty straight forward stuff until the last 15 minutes, when they go over the front half of a mammoth, only the front half , that was buried in a peat bog, and was covered with stones.
Stones not found in the bog itself, and the cracked rib that has cut marks on it. Here's the kicker it is securely dated to 60k years ago.
Hmm 60 k!


[editby

I viewed the film, two corrections the lake is 150,000 years and the clay layer was dated to 45,000

Intriguing to bad they didn't find more cut marks or stone tools

reply to post by SLAYER69


Niède Guidon, that woman anthropologist whose team found hearths she dated at 45,000 bce in South America and was soundly ridiculed? (I believe it's Pedra Furada in Brazil, and the dating went as far back as 60,000 for some artifacts, and the whole ordeal (ridicule) led her to give up archeology if my shaky memory (aided by wiki) serves... so even sexism can change the timeline).

With the CO find noted above... well, timelines are made to be broken...

Originally posted by Hanslune

Originally posted by punkinworks10
Byrd ,
If you can find the time,

check out the link that was posted to Nova's "Ice age death trap",in the thread on earliest huntinge.
The first 45 minutes deal with an excavation of a ancient lake in Colorado, that yields mammoth , mastadon, bison and such going back 200,000 years.
All pretty straight forward stuff until the last 15 minutes, when they go over the front half of a mammoth, only the front half , that was buried in a peat bog, and was covered with stones.
Stones not found in the bog itself, and the cracked rib that has cut marks on it. Here's the kicker it is securely dated to 60k years ago.
Hmm 60 k!


[editby

I viewed the film, two corrections the lake is 150,000 years and the clay layer was dated to 45,000

Intriguing to bad they didn't find more cut marks or stone tools

edit on 4/9/13 by Hanslune because: (no reason given)

Hey Hans
My bad on the dating, but intriguing yes, very.
I would bet there is a nearby campsite yet to be found.

Some cultures had pottery before the Bering Migrations

BEIJING — Pottery fragments found in a south China cave have been confirmed to be 20,000 years old, making them the oldest known pottery in the world, archaeologists say.

The findings, which will appear in the journal Science on Friday (June 2012), add to recent efforts that have dated pottery piles in east Asia to more than 15,000 years ago, refuting conventional theories that the invention of pottery correlates to the period about 10,000 years ago when humans moved from being hunter-gathers to farmers.

20,000 Year Old Chinese Pottery

Sea voyages are possible with pottery. In North and South America, the high protein diet and nomadic life style diminished the utility of fragile, heavy, earthen vessels. So no pottery was made in the Western Hemisphere. Devolution.

reply to post by punkinworks10


I would think so, but as the site has been re-utilized that could be difficult. If they could figure out where running waters was at that time they might locate it.