Megafauna and Native American Origin and Migration [was Re: Extinction]

["Terry W. Colvin" <fortean1@frontiernet.net>]

Primitive Asiatic Neolithic Age tribes crossed the Bering Strait isthmus
at least 20,000 years before the present (ybp).  Also, people in skin
boats used the Kamchatka Current to follow the Aleutian Islands
archipelago and the Americas coastline.  Folsom humans lived 12,000
ybp; Sandia humans lived 20,000 ybp, and the Del Mar and San Bernardino
humans lived 48,000 and 100,000 ybp, respectively.  These latter groups
hunted, fished, foraged, and gathered along seacoasts and inland.
Their artifacts (bones and stones) now lie beneath Pacific Ocean waters.
The melting glaciers and icecaps raised sea levels.  Clovis humans, the
megafauna hunters, did exist throughout the Americas between 10,000 and
12,000 ybp.

Problem:  Current theory states three migration waves, each separated
from the other by a few thousand years, began 14,000 ybp.  This context
and association of human bones, toolkits, and settlements has been
accepted up to now by the Hrdlicka (Clovis dogma begun in 1932)
generation of ruling archaeologists.  The Old Crow River and Yukon sites
have yielded radiocarbon dates at 25,000 B.C. (Clark 352)

Origin:  One core area is the Khakass steppe in southern Siberia along
the Yenisei River.  The Khakass tribes made stone idols 2,000 years
before those on Easter Island.  A common stone and totemic motif of
the Khakass' and Northwestern American Indians' is "the head of a
man with an eagle's beak." (Sarazhakov 17)  Also, common features are
founds in songs, decorations, and household utensils.

Dental anthropology supports the peopling of the Americas by primitive
tribes migrating from NE Siberia and across Beringia.  Ales Hrdlicka
of the Smithsonian Institution and others studied five dental features
to group human populations.  Two patterns emerged in Asia:  the
Sundadonts and the Sinodonts.  The former are more common in south
Asia, Polynesia, and the aboriginal peoples (eg, the Ainu and Jomon
of Japan).  The latter are more common in northern Chile, Mongolia,
Japan, NE Siberia, the Aleut-Eskimo, and the Native Americans.
(Turner, 88-90)

Current texts cite two middle Holocene, Wisconsin Age, migrations and
one in the late Holocene.  The first were the Paleo-Indians around
14,000 ybp; the second were the Na-Dene between 12,000 and 14,000 ybp;
and the third were the Aleut-Eskimo between 10,000 and 11,000 ybp.
Genetic, linguistic, and other evidence exists to support the three
migrations theory; however, the same evidence also points toward
earlier and more mixed migratory waves and impulses.  Return waves
into the frozen north are hinted at by the recent Paleo-Indian find
in central Alaska, dated to 11,700 ybp. (KVOA TV 4, Tucson, Arizona)

Douglas C. Wallace at Emory University, Atlanta did studies of
mitochondrial DNA from the Ticuna Indians in South America, the Maya
in Central America, and the Pima in North America.  The 99 individuals
had inherited genes only from the mother.  An entry window between
15,000 and 30,000 ybp was derived. (Bower 68)  Svante Paabo, University
of California, Berkeley, did mitochondrial DNA studies of Pacific
Northwest tribes.  An entry window between 40,000 and 50,000 was
derived. (Bower 361)

Early boat-using peoples could easily extend their range from coastal
NE Siberia, through the Aleutian Islands chain, and on to the Americas
western coasts between 25,000 and 60,000 ybp.  Variable glaciation and
lifeways adaptation to an austere environment in Beringia would have
made this relatively easy.  Hunting, foraging, and gathering along the
rocky coastline and intertidal zone would allow earlier and more rapid
migrations. (Bednarik, Science Frontiers (SF) (63))  Many of the
archaeological sites were destroyed and or submerged beneath alluvial
gravel and rising sea levels during the ending Wisconsin Glaciation,
15,000 and 18,000 ybp.  Unknowns such as Stone Age boat technology,
true environmental conditions, incentives to move out of NE Siberia,
and accurate areas of glaciation cloud this theory. (Fladmark 8-19)

Calico Site, California:  Numerous tools show use-wear patterns through
microscopic examination.  Uranium thorium testing gives dating of
200,000 +/- 20,000 ybp.  Much debate in academia rests on specialist
knowledge.  Scientists familiar with 12,000 ybp Paleo-Indian artifacts
insist the allegedly older Calico artifacts "look" identical. (Carter
and Duvall, SF 52)

North America:  The Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania has
yielded radiometric and cultural dates of 13,955 to 14,555 years,
and accelerator mass spectrometry has given "50 internally
consistent dates" up to 16,770 ybp. (Adovasio and Carlisle, SF
57 and 72)  Outside Fort Morgan, Colorado landfill digging uncovered
bones, worked flints, and burnt stones estimated at 30,000 ybp.
(Baltimore Sun, SF 14)  The Orogrande, New Mexico cave site guards
stone artifacts, hearths, animal bones, a clay shard with one human
fingerprint, and human hairs dated with sediment analysis and Carbon-14
at between 19,180 and 35,000 ybp. (Chandler, SF 76 and 83)  Gold-bearing
gravel in California between the 1850s and 1890s turned up human skulls,
mortars/pestles, stone sinkers, double-headed stones, and other
artifacts at levels down to 130 feet and beneath thick lava beds.
Barring wayward miners and or flood waters, these sediments are
1.6 million year old! (Gentet, SF 75)

South America:  Human artifacts at Valsequillo, Mexico are dated at
250,000 ybp by fission-track dating of igneous rocks and uranium
dating of a camel pelvis. (Steen-McIntyre, SF 21)  Stone tools and
hearths are Carbon-14 dated to 32,160 +/- 100 ybp at the rockshelter
at Boqueirao do Sitio da Pedra Furado, Brazil. (Guidon and Delibrias,
SF 47)  Cut bones and a stone tool at Toca da Esperanca (Grotto of
Hope), at Central, Brazil were dated to 300,000 ybp by uranium-thorium
testing at the Weak Radiation Laboratory in France. (Muello, SF 54)
Tools and radiocarbon dating of hearths at Monte Verde, Chile were
dated to 33,000 ybp. (Morlan, SF 72)

"At least five South American archaeologists admitted that they are
suppressing pre-12,000-year-old data out of fear that their funds
would be cut off by American colleagues who endorse the short-
chronology school of thought." (Wilford, SF 65)  The old dogma (12,000
ybp) proponents oppose almost all the cultural context and dating at
Monte Verde.  Lynch says, "Most of all I find it improbable that
13,000- and 33,000-year-old sites would be found, one nearly on top
of the other." (SF 70)  Academia bias and "he who has the gold rules"
are placing unscientific brakes on new discoveries.  Where is the old
theory -- synthesis -- new theory process?

Other Evidence:  Knut Fladmark's theory of initial entry along the
Pacific coast and linguistic diversity point towards migrations
starting at least 35,000 ybp. (Gruhn, SF 59)  Joseph H. Greenberg
of Stanford proposes migration starting at 50,000 ybp based on his
broad-brush or "mass comparison" language studies.  He uses words
for parts of the body, personal pronouns, and common nouns in
seeking patterns between language families. (Morell 441)  His
generalized and polymath approach is stridently criticized by
specialists, who use the fine-brush approach to compare vowel,
consonant, and inflection sounds.

Clovis Police (Marshall, SF 72):  The 12,000 ybp dogma if repeated
often, emotionally, and in the "right", ie, American, science
publications will keep new dating squashed.  Also, anomalous and or
unaccepted data are tagged as "erroneous" or "unscientific"; and is
just not published.  This impels amateurs and mavericks to set up a
"shadow archaeology". (Theocharis and Psimopoulos, SF 55)  Often
statistics are changed, sensational sites such as Calico are held
up as the only evidence, and or the credentials of the investigator
are doubted. (Bray, SF 57)  Ironically, the Royal Anthropological
Institute, in London regularly publishes a "time depth of at least
35,000 years for occupation of most of the Americas". (Gruhn, SF 59)

Conclusions:  NE Asia origin is a given.  The Clovis dogma sets
humans in the Americas at 12,000 ybp and no earlier.  Dating is
based on many hunting camp sites with large spear points, animal
bones, and nearby charcoal.  The weight of new evidence points to
earlier migrations of sea hunters, foragers, and gatherers that
lived initially along the Pacific coastlines of the Americas.
Underwater archaeology, better dating techniques, and a new
synthesis of data will undoubtedly alter the Clovis dogma.

                       WORKS CITED

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--------------------------
My teacher, Carolyn A. Buchanan's comments:

We may live to see a change in textbooks -- some elementary school books
now say 25-30,000 ybp.  There never was a problem with accepting
Australian "raft/boat" people at 40,000 - perhaps reluctance for an
earlier NA date is residual of "moundbuilder" mentality - ie, wrong
to have taken the land from people who were here as long as Europeans
were in Europe.

You have highlighted a problem of research, science, archaeology, and
learning in general - a reluctance to accept change in old ideas.
Archaeologists could save face by admitting they didn't have all the
evidence - instead some try to ignore or debase research that doesn't
fit".  Of course they do have a lot to lose!
-------------------

Terry

-----
TRUETT GARNER wrote:
> 
> > >Or do you simply attribute the whole of the Late Pliestocene/Holocene
> > >extinctions to human action?
> > >
> >Yes, though it is possible that climatic stress may have rendered some
> >animal population more vulnerable to human predation.
> 
> Actually, I suspect the combination was a major factor.  Also some of the
> Late Pleistocene extinction in North America appear to have *preceded*
> human arrival here, at least based on the dating of finds in the La Brea
> Pits here in LA.  (Even though the peak extinctions occurred shortly after
> our arrival).
> 
> Homo sapien occupation of North and South America has traditionally
> been associated with Clovis/Fulsom projectile points that date to 14,000
> mya .New evidence now puts the origin of these points in the southeast
> instead of western North America ,indicating a much earlier appearance here
> , for Homo sapiens. More and more the human occupation date in North and
> South America is being pushed back . A 14,000 yr. old Clovis site has been
> found in Peru and newer sites in North America seem to indicate a human
> occupation around 20,000 - 30,000 yrs. old . Given that proposed length of
> time , I find it quite feasible that mammoths , bison , camel and horse ,
> to name a few , were indeed hunted to extinction by this new clever ,
> well-armed predator for which they had no natural fear of , or defense .
> My $.02 worth,
> Regards ,
> Truett Garner

-- 
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA)
< fortean1@frontiernet.net >
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