Earliest sign of human habitation in Canada may have been found

The Canadian archaeologists are being coy but they think they've discovered something important off the Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands)

Signs of a fishing weir dated (maybe) to 13,850 BP.

Oldest site in Canada?

A geologist will now study the images to ensure the rocks are not a natural formation, then the team will return next summer to take samples of the sediment near the site and to look for stone tools. Ernie Gladstone, the superintendent of Gwaii Haanas, said such research helps Parks Canada and the Haida manage the land and sea of the archipelago, which includes a UNESCO world heritage site at SGang Gwaay. Mackie's theory matches up with the oral history of the First Nations, Gladstone said. "We know that people have lived in the Gwaii Haanas area for many thousands of years," he said. But "much of the very early history of Gwaii Haanas and Haida Gwaii lies below the waters of Hecate Strait." If the current exploration site pans out, it's a testament to the incredible resilience of the Haida, Mackie said. "The village that you were born in would be underwater by the time you died," he said. "And they're able to take all this change in stride, and they probably even thrived on that."

a reply to: Hanslune

As I saw on a recent program, they were in tune with the sea and farmed it. I love the way they carefully layered rocks along a graded inlet so that the clams would be trapped behind them after high tide. I love me some fried clams. It would be therefore quite plausible for them to have erected weirs to reap fish around the grasses too. Nice find.

I had read a piece a few years back about a site in New Brunswick dating back 30,000 years . I will keep looking for it but this is one find on the east coast dating back 8,000 years .

Canadian Broadcasting Company News - February 17, 2005

HALIFAX - Archaeologists are showing off a treasure trove they call one of the most significant discoveries of Mi'kmaq artifacts in Nova Scotia.

Hundreds of arrowheads and tools, some 8,000 years old, were discovered last summer along the Mersey River, near Kejimkujik National Park in the southwest region of the province.

Workers from Nova Scotia Power were doing repairs to generating stations on the river. As water levels dropped in some areas, the riverbed was exposed for the first time since dams were built 70 years ago.

Suddenly hundreds of artifacts appeared in the mud.

"The quantity of material, the quality of material, the age range represented by the material, all is just fascinating for us," said archaeologist Bruce Stewart, who was hired to investigate.

Pottery fragments, spear points, knives and other items were found around 109 ancient campsites.

www.danielnpaul.com...'kmaqVillages-MerseyRiver.html a reply to: Hanslune

a reply to: Hanslune

This one is going to be difficult to prove. It's hundreds of meters underwater and without finding some sort of artifacts, it's a tough sell. Unfortunately, the rise of sea level following the last glacial period means that so many coastal settlements and even large swaths of low lying areas inland (Sundaland, Doggerland for example) are underwater.

On that note, it's good seeing more and more underwater archaeology conducted!

a reply to: theantediluvian

Such research 9underwater excavation) is very expensive. I've seen estimates that it is x50 more expensive than land excavation but the new machines make it more likely and easier to get an idea what is down there.

Hey there Hans,

 I just started this book





Which details the excavations on Haida Gwaii.

 And I have recently read about extensive underwater excavations on the island, I would imagine it will be published soon.

 They have found a great deal of cultural materials. One of the things mentioned is that there appears to be a cultural discontinuity about 8-10k years ago.


 Now I have to ask, why is bluefish caves being ingnored? The newer work clearly shows a much older occupation than at coastal sites.

Bluefish Caves


The Bluefish Caves site consists of three small caves located in the northern Yukon. Excavations at the site have uncovered stone and bone tools as well as butchered animal remains. The stone tools include microblades, burins, and wedge-shaped cores, all made of imported high-quality stone. Thousands of tiny flakes, the remains of tool-making, were also found. These artifacts were found in context with the bones of extinct horse species, suggesting an occupation before 10,000 years ago. Further excavations uncovered material dated to between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago.

www.sfu.museum...

a reply to: Hanslune

I watched a geologist who was working on finding traces of the biblical flood. She made the point, after examining the contents of a drill going down thousands of years in Iraq that there was never just one huge flood. Simply that there were two regular floods a year plus a lot of spasmodic floods. In fact there were so many floods that the people had to be very flood aware when they built anything, planted anything or crossed over land. It was a normal condition of the land now marshy areas bordering desert. She said flooding was the norm so people would have been flood savvy most likely whatever country they lived with in with reasonable rainfall or ice nearby.

Why shouldn't this norm have happened in a lot of other areas in the past? We concentrate mostly on Egypt but I suspect this was the norm for quite a lot of areas and as people travelled the knowledge of how to deal with it, went with them as well as new ideas filtering out. They were probably better at handling floods that we are today with our policy (in the UK) of building on flood plains.

I have never thought that a land mass with its ability to support life, as in the Americas, would not have either had its own development of mankind or not have lured people hungry to travel and explore onto its shores. I just think that either the traces of earlier civilisations, if too near the surface and not made of rock, would have simply gone under the plough or jungle/forest and been cleared or be so far down they have not been unearthed.

Although completely irrelevant to historic proof, I keep coming back to the early mention in the bible that the earth was fully populated. What the original scribe meant by 'fully' I don't know or even if we have the correct translation of the original wording, but I still think we have lost knowledge of the more ancient of our civilisations and people's wanderings. What we do know for certain is that when the water changed course or dried up to the point of not enough to support human life, man simply moved on elsewhere.

Great information as usual and fascinating thread.

a reply to: Shiloh7

Hey Shiloh

Yep lots of floods, just like today. As most civilizations arose in river valleys flooding became a common human affliction especially as the flood brought great soil down to the people = more agriculture and food = more people.

Yep to the folks who were writing the (parts) of the bible with their limited scope of knowledge it would have seemed to them that there were people all around. There were many cities and villages within their narrow range of perception at that time.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Hey NA expert

When you finish give us a thread and get us up to date. The area of the world I'm least knowledgeable about is NA.

originally posted by: Hanslune
a reply to: punkinworks10

Hey NA expert

When you finish give us a thread and get us up to date. The area of the world I'm least knowledgeable about is NA.

Hans,
Certainly not an expert, but keenly interested.
As I progress through the book, I'll update on this thread, since it's about Haida.
The article I read about the UW excavations was pretty detailed, it might have been in a regional archeological scociety's journal. They were physically diving the site, and I believe they their evidence was pointing to a tsunami type event, that may have led to the discontinuity.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Very good point on Blue Fish caves. I was kind of surprised to see that the dates you quoted were considerably younger than what I. Have read previously. If I'm remembering correctly there were human remains dated to 28,000 BPE and what appears to be a mammoth bone worked by man which was dated to approx. 40,000 BPE. Even the 15,000 BPE date is impressive and indicates that we need to take a harder look at Beringia to see what treasures may lie under water there. Judging by the movements of some of the animals that were traced there, they had a migration pattern that took them back and forth from Siberia to North America and back again. Going by the migration routes, it stands to reason that humans either set up shop on Beringia or followed the herds as they migrated back and forth. I'm just hypothesizing but as an educated guess goes, I don't think I'm too far outside the ball park with the reasoning and Beringia is the least explored area of NA and the most likely to contain late Pleistocene artifacts.

a reply to: peter vlar
Peter,
I intentionally chose the most palatable dates.
I have read some of the critiques of those early dates and some border on the rediculous, just as do many of the critiques of other very early sites.
One person asserted that the nearly 40k yo flakes of mammoth bones were fashioned 28k years later by humans.
Or that random natural processes, such as a ceiling collapse formed those delicate flakes that have a sharp edge and smoothed back opposite to it. I guess mother nature uses bone flakes as tools.
It's a lot like the 24k yo river clay that hauled itself a 1/4 mile up the hill, dug a pit and deposited itself into the hearth, complete with human thumb print, at Pendejo cave.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: peter vlar
Peter,
I intentionally chose the most palatable dates.
I have read some of the critiques of those early dates and some border on the rediculous, just as do many of the critiques of other very early sites.
One person asserted that the nearly 40k yo flakes of mammoth bones were fashioned 28k years later by humans.

Fair enough on the more palatable dates. Jacques Cinq-Mars has finally got some funding to continue digging at Blue Fish and he seems quite certain that there are older finds in the layers beneath what has already been found and dated. Considering the 30,000 yr old human site in which mammoth and rhino bones were fashioned into tools by humans living on the Siberian side of Beringia. It seems to me, overly logical that they would not have stayed put and would likely have crossed Beringia and likely back to Siberia as they followed herds to hunt. Even if it turns out that they did not cross or go back and forth the Siberian site is incredibly important as it shows that humans had adapted to the extreme Arctic weather. This makes it even more likely that there were at least hunting parties crossing back and forth and drives a huge nail into the coffin of Clovis first. In my opinion, and take it with a grain of salt as North American sites aren't very big in my search of the past, I have some serious doubts Regarding natural processes accounting for the chipped bones. Particularly so when considering the older layers beneath what has been excavated thus far. I think Clovis First is hanging on by a thread and within a couple of decades older incursions into North America will be widely accepted. Especially as more work is done and older sites like Monte Verde are uncovered. Either the people who were in Monte Verde had boats capable of crossing open oceans or the found their way through the glaciers 20KYA when the corridor was open and travelled to SA on foot. The latter seems to me to be much more likely as no evidence that I am aware of indicates boats that were able to navigate large expanses of ocean.

Or that random natural processes, such as a ceiling collapse formed those delicate flakes that have a sharp edge and smoothed back opposite to it. I guess mother nature uses bone flakes as tools.
It's a lot like the 24k yo river clay that hauled itself a 1/4 mile up the hill, dug a pit and deposited itself into the hearth, complete with human thumb print, at Pendejo cave.

I agree that the flakes show definitive signs of workmanship by humans and that natural processes just don't account for what is found, at least at this particular site. In regards to Pandejo cave, again, not a result of natural processes. There are layers of newer relics in the top layers indicating that there is a long tradition of usage at this fairly small cave which is further evidenced by older layers than 24K as well. I have always doubted Clovis First, even back in High School, but now there is a lot of tangible evidence supporting the fact that Clovis likely had neighbors when they first arrived here. Its a shame that Berringea, is almost entirely under water currently, making it very difficult to extract data from the area. However, Pamdejo is far from water and much more easily excavated. I'm hoping that funding comes through sometime in the near future so that we can find out exactly how long ago it was used and if there is a direct trail from Berrigea all the way down to Monte Verde which at 14,500 YA is still significantly older than the oldest Clovis sites and may very well tie in to Hueyatlaco which would be amazing if that turns out to be true.

a reply to: Hanslune

An older date for Bluefish cave has been confirmed./

The timing of the first entry of humans into North America across the Bering Strait has now been set back 10,000 years.

This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by Ariane Burke, a professor in Université de Montréal's Department of Anthropology, and her doctoral student Lauriane Bourgeon, with the contribution of Dr. Thomas Higham, Deputy Director of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit.

The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at 14,000 years Before Present (BP) according to the earliest dated archaeological sites, is now estimated at 24,000 BP, at the height of the last ice age or Last Glacial Maximum.

The researchers made their discovery using artifacts from the Bluefish Caves, located on the banks of the Bluefish River in northern Yukon near the Alaska border. The site was excavated by archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars between 1977 and 1987. Based on radiocarbon dating of animal bones, the researcher made the bold hypothesis that human settlement in the region dated as far back as 30,000 BP.

First humans arrived in North America a lot earlier than believed

THE settlement dates keep gett pushed further back, BUT;

The Beringians of Bluefish Caves were therefore among the ancestors of people who, at the end of the last ice age, colonized the entire continent along the coast to South America.

How can that be if people were already there at this time period, Pedra Furada +40kya, Monte Verde +32kya. and several other sites in SA.
There ia also the inconvient fact that some indigenous SA people are more closley related to Oceanans than to Beringians.

I know Graham Hancock is a guy who has earned his share of detractors but I found his investigations into they worldwide flood myths in his recent book to be very intriguing.

The Younger Dryas impact seems to have caused several devastating floods over like 1500 years and looks like it was most responsible for the disappearance of the Northern Ice Shelf. The idea of navigating areas where ice had opened up passages, coupled with the histories I have seen above talking about people having to be prepared for rapidly rising waters are very intriguing.

I think they even thought they identified an impact site near Halifax.... Very good post!

originally posted by: punkinworks10
THE settlement dates keep gett pushed further back, BUT;

The Beringians of Bluefish Caves were therefore among the ancestors of people who, at the end of the last ice age, colonized the entire continent along the coast to South America.

How can that be if people were already there at this time period, Pedra Furada +40kya, Monte Verde +32kya. and several other sites in SA.
There ia also the inconvient fact that some indigenous SA people are more closley related to Oceanans than to Beringians.

I had the same thought. There is still a certain amount of ignoring of SA going on in NA circles. But east-west from Europe hasn't been entirely discarded yet, either.

originally posted by: Hanslune
The Canadian archaeologists are being coy but they think they've discovered something important off the Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands)

Signs of a fishing weir dated (maybe) to 13,850 BP.

Oldest site in Canada?

A geologist will now study the images to ensure the rocks are not a natural formation, then the team will return next summer to take samples of the sediment near the site and to look for stone tools. Ernie Gladstone, the superintendent of Gwaii Haanas, said such research helps Parks Canada and the Haida manage the land and sea of the archipelago, which includes a UNESCO world heritage site at SGang Gwaay. Mackie's theory matches up with the oral history of the First Nations, Gladstone said. "We know that people have lived in the Gwaii Haanas area for many thousands of years," he said. But "much of the very early history of Gwaii Haanas and Haida Gwaii lies below the waters of Hecate Strait." If the current exploration site pans out, it's a testament to the incredible resilience of the Haida, Mackie said. "The village that you were born in would be underwater by the time you died," he said. "And they're able to take all this change in stride, and they probably even thrived on that."

Finds at Bluefish Caves are older than that, aren't they? CBS report on the new dates for Bluefish Caves site

Harte

Can we now come a step closer to accepting Atlantis...and mermaids please?

In my opinion, the aussie natives were there what, 50-75k yrs ago?

Being in NA, especially up along the "land bridge" or from the east from somewhere in europe to Canada wouldn't take 50,000 yrs.

Besides, South America seems to have had major civilizations long before N. America.

Why would that be? They came from the west, maybe? Easter Island as a stop?

Anyway, by passing a whole continent to go 1000's of miles south, even with the glaciers, doesn't make sense to me, since these people grew up in the cold. lol! And crossed the Bering Straights on foot.

Maybe it was the paleo tourism industry. Or retirement communities!

Free chocolate and tomatoes!

I believe they just haven't found the earliest hardy souls, yet.

Meh, I'm just a cook, what do I know.

But it's all very interesting to me.

S&F.


ETA; you can only find proof when you find it.
I won't hang my hat on such a timeline.

a reply to: burgerbuddy

one of the most profound thoughts, one that i have adopted came from a cook