New Evidence Pushes 1st Americans back to 15-20, 000 years bc

[Cleito]

Archaeology and the Peopling of the Americas: New Evidence from Texas Pushes the Entry Date Back

Peter N. Jones
August 24, 2007

People have always been interested in the question of when American Indians first arrived in the Americas. Was it 10,000 years ago across a frozen bridge of land, or perhaps via small boats from Japan, eastern Asia, and Siberia 20,000 to 35,000 years ago. Answers to these questions have always tended towards the frozen land bridge theory, which postulated that people first arrived in the Americas at the beginning of the Holocene epoch (12,500-9,000 calendar years before present). In the last twenty years or so, new archaeological and genetic evidence has challenged this long held theory, completely revolutionizing our understanding of when people first arrived in the Americas. The genetic evidence has been fairly compelling, pushing back the entry of American Indians into the Americas approximately 15-20 thousand years to the late Pleistocene. The archaeological evidence, on the other hand, has been slower at revealing a human presence older than the early Holocene in either North or South America. Newly emerging information from Texas, however, is providing compelling archaeological evidence for a late Pleistocene (25,000-12,500 calendar years before present) peopling of the Americas, bringing the archaeological evidence in line with the genetic evidence.

One of the most important, and perhaps intriguing sites that have recently come to light is Gault, a large site more than 800 meters long and 200 meters across. Excavated and analyzed under the leadership of the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Texas, Austin, the site occupies the constricted head of a small stream valley where reliable springs flow and abundant chert of extraordinary quality crops out. Clovis technology, historically thought to be the technology used by the first American Indians, is abundantly represented at the site, with several hundred thousand pieces of stone, bone, ivory, and teeth having been found and dating to the late Pleistocene/early Holocene boundary (12,900-12,550 calendar years before present). Most artifacts recovered are debris from stone tool manufacturing processes, but a diverse array of tools occurs as well, along with bones of several kinds of animals.

Along with the Gault site, several other Clovis sites have also been found along the Balcones Ecotone in Central Texas. Each of these sites were near good springs at outcrops of abundant, high-quality chert, and were strategically situated in relation to diverse floral and faunal resources. The location of these sites, along with evidence from prey choice patterns found across the Great Plains of North America argues that the first American Indians were highly sophisticated hunters and gatherers who utilized a wide variety of resources, and who had a knowledge of the seasonal dynamics of their environment.


More importantly in terms of the peopling of the Americas, there are a few areas of the Gault site that excavations have revealed small numbers of artifacts in strata beneath well-defined layers of Clovis artifacts. It is not clear at this time whether the underlying materials are early and sparse Clovis manifestations or if they represent a human presence at the site prior to the Clovis technology time period. This evidence, coupled with archaeological evidence from Cactus Hill in Virginia, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania, Monte Verde in Chile, and several other sites, strongly argues for a late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas.

For example, Monte Verde in southern Chile dates to approximately 12,500 years ago, Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania has revealed stone artifacts dating at least as old as 16,000 calendar years before present, Cactus Hill in Virginia has revealed approximately 15,000 year old non-Clovis artifacts underlying a Clovis component, and burned and cut bones at Cueva Quebrada in Texas with wood charcoal have been dated between 16,000 and 14,800 calendar years before present.

These sites offer strong archaeological evidence for a late Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. In conjunction with the genetic evidence, it is no longer possible to argue that American Indians have only been in the Americas for slightly over 10,000 years. Rather, the evidence now overwhelmingly points to a much greater time depth in the Americas by American Indians. In fact, as our understanding of the early peopling of the Americas becomes more scientifically grounded, it appears that what American Indians have been claiming about their history is correct – they have been here since illo tempore (time immemorial). Only in this case, illo tempore approximately translates to 20,000 years or more.


http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=35913

[Mark of Australia]

Hi Cleito,

Very interesting......  not the content of the article itself but fact that just a couple of notches down this forum board you will see a thread entitled 'Valesquillo - Mexico'  and therein you will see how there is clear evidence of humans being in the Americas 250,000 years ago !!!!  it puts the dates in the article below to shame.

 what's interesting to me is how we see a clear example on this very forum of the orthodox line contrasting with some serious evidence 'right next door' on the same forum. Your sanitised article that shows the current views amongst the establishment,the views that have only been maintained by ignoring and cutting out vast amounts of evidence that went against those cherished views of theirs ....It just seems to me to be kind of ironic how these two 'views' are right next to eachother on this forum for all of us to see.It's a perfect example of what has happened in science according to 'Forbidden Archaeology' (the book).... If you've read 'Forbidden Archaeology' and 'The First American' the irony wont have been lost on you.
  I better shut up now coz I am not really able to correctly communicate the intricate entaglement of ideas that is the question of paradigms in acadaemia.  You'll notice I sometimes go off on these types of rants on this subject  ,just look in my Forbidden Archaeology thread in 'Alternate Archaeology' 


The content of the article below actually seems really pathetic to my mind . (dummy spit) 


...I've outdone myself once again  :PThis post looks like it is worthy of my Forbidden Archaeology thread . (proud)

[Bianca]

Richard MacNeish, discussed earlier in connection with ancient dates, has made a study of early peoples in Peru published in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.  The Ayacucho valley high in the Andes of Peru has evidence of human occupation going back in unbroken sequencethat spans the millennium from 20,000BC to AD1500. 

There is a progression from early hunter, to farmer, to subject of imperial rule.  Deep in a cave, MacNeish found an assemblage of rather crude stone tools he called the Pacaicasa complex, after a nearby village.  The people who fashioned these distinctive tools occupied the Ayacucho valley from as much as 22,000 years ago to about 13,000 years ago.


http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,422.30.html

[Bianca]

One of the best sites in North America is the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in southwest Pennsylvania.  As the depths of the shelter were excavated, archaeologists led by James Adovasio of the University of Pittsburgh recovered over 400 stone artifacts from a level dated at 15,000 years ago from charcoal in
a fireplace.  These included slender "bladelike" items similar to those found at European Cro-Magnon sites.  From an even deeper level came a radiocarbon date from a possible basketry fragment of over 17,000 years ago.  Adovasio's work
was published in American Antiquity in 1977.

In an even more recent discovery, reported by Bruce Bower in SCIENCE NEWS in
1986, a rock shelter in Brazil known as the Pedra Furada has been radiocarbon dated to 32,000 years ago.  A hearth in the shelter dated at 17,000 years ago contains a rock with two red painted lines, suggesting that cave art began in Americas about the same time it appeared in Europe and  Africa.  The walls and ceilings of Pedra Furada are still covered with prehistoric paintings.

Other, more controversial sites, argue for even earlier dates.  The Hueyatlaco site in Mexico may be as old as 250,000 years.  Virginia SteenMcIntyre of the U.S. Geological Survey showed in 1981 that layers containing artifacts were 250,000
years old.  A date this old was hard for archaeologists to accept, since it was ten times older than any other date in the Americas.  The debate in the journal QUATERNARY RESEARCH is ongoing.


http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,422.0.html

[Bianca]

Even more ancient, and more controversial, is the Calico Hills site in California, excavated by Louis Leakey (SCIENCE, 1970).  Leaky's estimate for the age of the stone tools from the Calico Hills site is as much as 500,000 years!  Such a concept was unthinkable to other archaeologists, who quickly came up with the alternative explanation that the stone tools were simply naturally weathered rocks.  Vance Haynes of the University of Arizona has been amajor proponent of the natural geological artifact theory, and this is now the most commonly held belief (SCIENCE
1973).  Leaky died soon after excavating the site and was unable to carry on the debate.  The site remains controversial; but, as with the Hueyatlaco site, the controversy is between mainstream archaeologists, not between science and the occult.


http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,422.0.html

[Mark of Australia]

Hi Bianca ,

Yes, in The First American ,I've just read how it describes what Louis Leakey found and the response to it from the establishment and it's relevance to the Valsequillo finds.

It seems it really was very turbulent times in the sixties ,not only archaeology but so many sciences, it's amazing to think that at the time Leakey was digging at Calico and Irwin-Williams was at Valsequillo ,IT WAS NOT YET ACCEPTED THAT THE CONTINENTS HAD BEEN CONNECTED AND DRIFTED APART !!!!!  that was only accepted in the late sixties !!!