Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Settlement in North America

by SamCogar Fri Mar 25, 2011 3:09 am

The discovery of ancient stone tools at an archaeological dig in Texas could push back the presence of humans in North America, perhaps by as much as 2,500 years.

Thousands of artifacts dating to between 13,200 and 15,500 years ago were uncovered by researchers led by Michael R. Waters of Texas A&M University. They report the discovery in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The find was located 5 feet below materials left by the well-known Clovis culture, which was once thought to have been the first American settlers around 13,000 years ago.

It was "like finding the Holy Grail," Waters said in a telephone interview. To find what appears to be a large open-air campsite "is really gratifying. Lucky and gratifying."

The trove of 15,528 artifacts, including chipping debris from working stones and 56 tools such as blades, scrapers and choppers, was found in the Buttermilk Creek complex near Austin.

The location is the oldest credible archaeological site in North America, Waters said at a briefing. The artifacts were found in an 8-inch (20 centimeter) layer beneath 5 feet (1.5 meters) of earth and other material from later human occupation at the site.

In a separate paper in the journal, researchers report evidence of early humans in south India more than a million years ago.

Researchers discovered more than 3,500 quartzite tools of the distinct Acheulian design used by the earliest humans in Africa starting more than 1.5 million years ago. They dated the tools to at least 1.07 million years old and some possibly 1.51 million years old.

The discovery at a site called Attirampakkam in the Kortallayar river basin helps anthropologists understand the spread of ancient people from Africa into Asia. Leading the research team was Shanti Pappu of the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in Tamil Nadu, India.

The find is unprecedented for archaeological studies in India, said archaeologist Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford, England, who was not part of the research team.

He said it could mean that early humans migrated out of Africa earlier than the oft-cited 1.4 million years ago, carrying the tools to southern Asia.

"The suggestion that this occurred at around 1.5 million years ago is simply staggering," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/24/texas-sheds-light-americas-settlers/

by Andrea Cristobal Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:51 am

They should long have been looking for older artifacts here. For me the 25,000 years or so originally thought didn't seem like much time to populate 2 continents. They would have had to cross the land bridge, travel all the way through AK, cross waterways, large mountain ranges, (some went east into Canada and to the east coast) enter the lower 48.

Then go the vast length of the US, into Mexico and beyond. All that walking, without stores or any other amenity, having to hunt and so forth.

It never seemed accurate somehow IMO. I wonder how many more and how much older they may eventually find. It also seemed to me that some archaeologists had their minds made up as to the timeline and may not have been looking too hard or were possibly discounting finds.

by SamCogar Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:58 pm

Thousands of artifacts dating to between 13,200 and 15,500 years ago were uncovered by researchers led by Michael R. Waters of Texas A&M University.

They should long have been looking for older artifacts here.

Artifacts older than 15,500 years are scarcer than “hen’s teeth” and any as much as 13,200 years old are almost as scarce. And that is most probably because 98% of any such artifacts would now be ….. under water.

Those two “magic” numbers can be explained by the following “conjoined” graphs, to wit:

Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Settlement in North America HoloceneInterglacialmeltwatertemperatureMediumWebview

Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Settlement in North America HoloceneInterglacialmeltwatertemperatureMediumWebview

What you are seeing there in the upper graph is the proxies of the Post Glacial Sea Level Rise of 130 meters (427 feet) which began around 21K years BP (before present) ….. and which are substantiated by the lower graph proxies of the Holocene Interglacial Global Temperatures. Aka, Global Warming that was “fast n’ furious” between said 15.5K BP and the 8K BP time period.

The first immigrants to the New world from the Old would have remained fairly close to the “water’s edge” until their population increased substantially and things got crowded and then some would have moved/migrated up or down the coast and/or to “higher ground”, which could have taken 10,000 to 40,000 years before any "cross-continent" migrations began . But their “tracks” of said migrations are not visible to present day researchers. And that would explain why the Clovis culture with their expertly fashioned “tools n’ implements” seem to have appeared “out of nowhere”

For me the 25,000 years or so originally thought didn't seem like much time to populate 2 continents. They would have had to cross the land bridge, travel all the way through AK, cross waterways, large mountain ranges, (some went east into Canada and to the east coast) enter the lower 48. Then go the vast length of the US, into Mexico and beyond.

There is now some pretty good evidence that there was a migration across the North Atlantic to North America ….. with said immigrants following the “edge-of-the-ice” from Europe almost straight across the Atlantic to somewhere south of Long Island, NY. It had to be south of Long Island because it was covered with a 3,000+- feet layer of glacier ice prior to the start of the “Big Melt” at 18K years BP (see above graph).

It also seemed to me that some archaeologists had their minds made up as to the timeline and may not have been looking too hard or were possibly discounting finds.

Some, not all, archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, etc., have based their life’s work, education, notoriety, fame, career and/or job status on their illogical and/or junk science claims …….. and they ain’t about to concede anything without a fight.

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