XPost: sci.archaeology.mesoamerican, soc.history.ancient, mex.indigena
XPost: alt.religion.shamanism
David Dalton wrote:
June 21’s CBC Radio One Ideas program may be of interest.
Here are the details:
Title: Indigenous archaeologist argues humans may have
arrived here 130,000 years ago.
Abstract: The dominant story in archaeology has long been
that humans came to North America around 12,000 years
ago. But indigenous archaeologist Paulette Steeves points
to mounting evidence suggesting human migration may
have occurred closer to 130,000 years ago.
Link to article, which contains a button to play the 54 minute
radio program: https://tinyurl.com/p4hzr4s9 .
Paulette Steeves. Haven't read her book, but in general
pre-clovis sites work has gained a lot of ground. The Monte
Verde site in particular all but forced acceptance of the
notion.
<
https://www.smu.edu/~/media/Site/Dedman/Departments/Anthropology/MeltzerPDFs/Meltzer
et al 1997 AM ANTIQ On the Pleistocene antiquity of Monte Verde.ashx>
"The potential importance of the Monte Verde site for the peopling of
the New World prompted a detailed examination of the collections from
that locality, as well as a site visit in January 1997 by a group of Paleoindian specialists. It is the consensus of that group that the
MV-II occupation at the site is both archaeological and 12,500 years
old, as T. Dillehay has argued. ... "
Quite a number of such sites:
<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pre-Clovis_archaeological_sites_in_the_Americas>
The Cerutti site is the only that seems to go way out there,
and has some real issues.
From 2017
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318469280_Were_Hominins_in_California_130000_Years_Ago
Abstract
In a controversial study published in Nature, Holen et
al. (2017) claim that hominins fractured mastodon bones
and teeth with stone cobbles in California ∼130,000
years ago. Their claim implies a human colonization of
the New World more than 110,000 years earlier than the
oldest widely accepted archaeological sites in the
Americas. It is also at odds with genetic and fossil
evidence for the dispersal of anatomically modern humans
(Homo sapiens) out of Africa and around the world.
Recognizing the incompatibility of their claim with
extant knowledge, the authors suggest that the Cerutti
Mastodon locality might have been created by an as-yet
unidentified archaic hominin, for which no fossil,
archaeological, or genomic evidence currently exists in
northeast Asia or the Americas. We assess Holen et al.’s
(2017) supporting evidence and argue that such
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,
which their paper and supporting materials fail to
provide.
From 2020, though
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X20304478
Raman and optical microscopy of bone micro-residues on
cobbles from the Cerutti mastodon site
Abstract
...Our analysis of two cobbles (pegmatite CM-254 and
andesite CM-281) identifies bone micro-residues that
are not evenly distributed over the cobbles, and are
unlikely to have been transferred from sediment or
from passive contact with adjacent macro-bones. Bone
micro-residues on cobble CM-254 were recovered from
surfaces associated with usewear, but were absent
from the naturally broken surface found in direct
contact with a mastodon rib. In addition, bone
micro-residues on cobble CM-281 were recovered from
upward facing locations with impact marks and other
usewear; but were absent on the downward facing
surface. Bone micro-residues are absent in sediment
away from the bone concentrations. These new data
support the argument that the associated concentration
of broken stones and mastodon bones is in situ, and
that bones in this concentration were likely broken
by the pegmatite cobble (comprising CM-254 and other
fragments), when it struck mastodon bones placed on
the andesite cobble CM-281. These findings add to the
totality of evidence that supports human agency rather
than geological processes as the driver responsible
for the CM taphonomic pattern.
That doesn't quite meet "extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence" especially when they phrase
something as "likely" ...
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