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New debate over first humans in the Americas


Claire.

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We have humans in the Americas now? :o

I'm kidding, I'm kidding!

*holds hands up in surrender*

;)

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Just now, Claire. said:

Ancient Bones Spark Fresh Debate over First Humans in the Americas

Who were the first Americans and when and how did they get here? For decades archaeologists thought they knew the answers to these questions. Based on the available evidence, it seemed that big game hunters from Asia known as the Clovis people were the first to blaze that trail, trekking across the now submerged land mass of Beringia to enter the New World around 13,000 years ago.

Read more: Scientific American

So this is slightly above my head but the article raised a question for me. They dated the mastodon bones to 130k years ago but can they definitively say thats when the bones themselves were broken? Isnt it just as likely that the bones surfaced as a result of a flood or some other factor at a more recent time? Humans then came across them and tried to break them for tools or hell just out of curiosity? 

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Just now, LV-426 said:

 

*holds hands up in surrender*

;)

Well thats a position the brits should be used to standing in :D ;) 

 

edit to add totally just playing 

Edited by Farmer77
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Just now, Farmer77 said:

Well thats a position the brits should be used to standing in :D ;) 

Touché! :lol:

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30 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

So this is slightly above my head but the article raised a question for me. They dated the mastodon bones to 130k years ago but can they definitively say thats when the bones themselves were broken? Isnt it just as likely that the bones surfaced as a result of a flood or some other factor at a more recent time? Humans then came across them and tried to break them for tools or hell just out of curiosity? 

Well, definitely? No. 

They have experimentally shown how the marks and fractures on the bones are compatible with a use of stone tools on fresh bones, that's it. 

It could have been a human (vague term), a hominid or something else. 

Or nothing altogether. 

Since at that time if I am not mistaken mega fauna still roamed there, I wouldn't exclude that possibility as well. 

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Yet interesting but they will need a habitation, burial or stone tool production site that can be accurately dated.

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A few thousand years would take a little convincing, 100,000 years would seem to require an encyclopedia of sites and verification.  I wonder what was ice-free 100,000 years ago?   Maybe there is a bias toward artifacts deposited post-glaciation.   Most artifacts and camp sites would be spread across lands after the glaciers receded.  Anything deposited before the glacial advance would have been scoured, churned, and scattered.

The finders will need to get a lot more evidence out of this site or find others in what were ice-free areas. Pretty interesting though.

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8 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

A few thousand years would take a little convincing, 100,000 years would seem to require an encyclopedia of sites and verification.  I wonder what was ice-free 100,000 years ago?   Maybe there is a bias toward artifacts deposited post-glaciation.   Most artifacts and camp sites would be spread across lands after the glaciers receded.  Anything deposited before the glacial advance would have been scoured, churned, and scattered.

The finders will need to get a lot more evidence out of this site or find others in what were ice-free areas. Pretty interesting though.

The suggested date is 130,000 years ago - which would be the early part of the last interglacial period (Eemian), when the Earth was even warmer than it is today.   There would have been no ice around the Bering Straits, but sea levels were higher then as well.   So any homonid in California would most likely have been a descendant of once that had crossed the Bering Straits earlier, probably during the previous ice age, when a land bridge would have existed.   Pushing the theoretical date of homonid arrival in the Americas back to maybe 150,000 years ago.

During the most recent glacial period, ice sheets did not reach down to cover California, so glacial action is unlikely to have removed any further evidence of homonid activity in the region.  

Of course, homonids are not the only species today that uses very basic tools - crows, sea otters, apes do.   So maybe these tools - if they are tools and if they do date to 130,000 year ago - were used by some species other than a homonid?  

Or maybe it was aliens?  Or time travellers?  ;) 

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Clovis First's demise is rather painful to watch as it writhes in agony. The only thing keeping man out of the New World prior to Clovis are archaeologists who close their eyes and hum, loudly, at the mounting evidence.

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There is, of course, no reason why homo habilus couldn't have reached the Americas 1.5 million years ago.  

Maybe, without competition from other homonids, they survived in small numbers until 130,000 years ago - and these tools were used by the vary last ones to ever live?

Or maybe they didn't die out entirely, even then.  Nor when modern humans arrived.  Maybe a handful still roam the great forests with their big feet ....... :o  ;)

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1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

Clovis First's demise is rather painful to watch as it writhes in agony. The only thing keeping man out of the New World prior to Clovis are archaeologists who close their eyes and hum, loudly, at the mounting evidence.

 

No archaeologists that I know ignore evidence, no matter how contradictory to current thought it is. Science would never evolve if we did that. 

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There is one good reason homo habilis couldn't make it to the Americas 1,5 millions years ago, Siberian cold. Homos are hot climate creatures, they need adaptation in their diet and bodies to move as far North as Beringia, whether it's dry or under water. If there isn't demographic pressure to move this far North, they simply won't. Just the same reason we don't have possum or armadillos in Canada.

If they really are onto something with these bones, homo sapiens is unlikely as it was still far from the Pacific coast back then and keeping himself in the warmer regions. Neandertal and Denisovan are much more likely to be in the Americas 130,000 years ago.

HM125K.jpg

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Looks like there has been Human Activity in the Americas 130 000 years ago, stretching our history further in the past. 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-evidence-human-activity-north-america-130000-years-ago-180963046/

What do you think about this? Is this going to change our understanding of America? Is this disproving the theory that all humans alive are descendant of Africans?

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We talked briefly about this in another thread.  The takeaway from the articles is this:

  • Speculation at this point, though it is solid research
  • Debate is ongoing in paleo community (best suited to know if evidence is bogus or not)
  • Currently unsupported by other evidence

It's not old enough to disprove the 'Out of Africa' theory, and in fact would only support it.  If found to be true, it would have to be one of the earlier hominids (not h. sapiens) though this is unlikely since we don't see any evidence of them in Siberia until far later.

My personal opinion is that (as they did say) the dating on the site is wrong.  If the actual date is closer to 30,000 years, that would make a lot more sense.

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59 minutes ago, TheBIHLover said:

Looks like there has been Human Activity in the Americas 130 000 years ago, stretching our history further in the past. 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-evidence-human-activity-north-america-130000-years-ago-180963046/

What do you think about this? Is this going to change our understanding of America? Is this disproving the theory that all humans alive are descendant of Africans?

It's probably not Homo Sapiens, so it wouldn't be an issue with the modern human spreading as we understand it now. But having any other Homo in the Americas this far back is revolutionary in itself. If confirmed, bigfoot fans will open some champagne for sure. :D

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Didn't old man Leakey insist that their were humans (hominids) in the Americas like 120,000 years ago? Or did I dream that. He found some (unconvincing) footprints or something....

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41 minutes ago, Gingitsune said:

It's probably not Homo Sapiens, so it wouldn't be an issue with the modern human spreading as we understand it now. But having any other Homo in the Americas this far back is revolutionary in itself. If confirmed, bigfoot fans will open some champagne for sure. :D

It's still human activity. And who said that it couldn't be Homo Sapiens? Looks like speculation, to me. 

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2 hours ago, Kenemet said:

We talked briefly about this in another thread.  The takeaway from the articles is this:

  • Speculation at this point, though it is solid research
  • Debate is ongoing in paleo community (best suited to know if evidence is bogus or not)
  • Currently unsupported by other evidence

It's not old enough to disprove the 'Out of Africa' theory, and in fact would only support it.  If found to be true, it would have to be one of the earlier hominids (not h. sapiens) though this is unlikely since we don't see any evidence of them in Siberia until far later.

My personal opinion is that (as they did say) the dating on the site is wrong.  If the actual date is closer to 30,000 years, that would make a lot more sense.

Thanks for the summary!

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I have to say I'm a bit.... skeptical ? 

How did the 'hominids' get to San Diego in California ? 

Could they have evolved there independently ? If so, from what ? I don't think apes have ever existed in California ? 

Why have they left no other signs of their existence ? 

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7 hours ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

 

No archaeologists that I know ignore evidence, no matter how contradictory to current thought it is. Science would never evolve if we did that. 

Then whatever you think you know of science, you are,woefully ignorant of scientists in general and the Clovis controversy in particular. I was warned by Dr William Bass in the early seventies that the field of American studies was a minefield of dogmatic assertions and to tread lightly.

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3 hours ago, TheBIHLover said:

It's still human activity. And who said that it couldn't be Homo Sapiens? Looks like speculation, to me. 

I can give you speculation if you like, I call remnant Homo Antecessor who were pushed there by Neanderthal, Denisovan, Floresinensis, Erectus and all other we haven't heard of yet. You read it here first! ;)

Now if we try to patch what we know, there are only a few hint of homo sapiens in Middle East around 100,000 years ago, let alone 130,000 years ago in the Americas. The oldest remains found in northern Asia are Ust-Ishim (45,000 years ago), Kostenki (~32,600 years ago) and Mal'ta boy (~24,000 years ago). There's still a 90,000 years gap. They aren't that close to Beringia anyway, so that route is not very likely. Yana is a mammoth hip bone with stone blade stuck within (~28,000 years ago).

Eurasia+Siberia.jpg

On the coastal Pacific front, there is a 100,000 years old Chinese homo, which doesn't have a name yet:

http://theconversation.com/bone-suggests-red-deer-cave-people-a-mysterious-species-of-human-52437

As the author says himself: "The fact is that we’ve really only scratched the surface in East Asia." So there may be some more East Asian Homos we haven't dig out yet. An unknown East Asian homo would be more likely than anything else at this point, but speculation is all we have. Any Homo could have broken that bone, if it really was broken by an Homo.

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Really good article from National Geographic examining the evidence and various theories, as well as what additional studies are being done to back up the claim.

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