Posted on 07/14/2012 9:58:45 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The ancient people who have long been thought to be the first humans to colonise North America were actually johnny-come-latelies, according to scientists who have comprehesively analysed the ancient fossilised poo of their predecessor Americans.
The new revelations come to us courtesy of Copenhagen university, where some of the investigating boffins are based. The scientists say that their results demonstrate conclusively their somewhat controversial thesis: that the "Clovis" culture dating from around 13,000 years ago - which has long been thought to be the earliest human society in the Americas - was actually preceded by human habitation at the Paisley caves in Oregon.
"When we published the first DNA results from the Paisley Caves four years ago it caused an outcry," explains Dr Paula Campos, one of the prehistoric poo experts.
"Many archaeologists felt that our results must be wrong. They considered it an established fact that Clovis were the first Americans. People would come up with any number of alternative explanations to our data in order to repudiate our interpretation. Today we demonstrate that our conclusions were right."
The so-called "Clovis First" theory had until 2008 been accepted as unquestioned truth among archaeologists, who considered that the Clovis people - so called from 13,000 year old archaeological finds near the village of Clovis in New Mexico - were the true native Americans. When the still more ancient 14,000-year-old excrement was found at the Paisley caves, it was pointed out by disgruntled boffins that no stone tools or other evidence of the type seen at Clovis had been found, and that the DNA poo evidence could have been erroneous.
Dr Dennis Jenkins of Copenhagen uni was having none of that, however, and he continued to poke about in the caves. Now he and his team are back, this time packing stone artifacts including "Western stemmed" stone projectiles and new, more comprehensive DNA dating.
According to a Copenhagen uni statement:
The new study refutes every one of the critics’ arguments and uses overwhelming archaeological, stratigraphic, DNA and radiocarbon evidence to conclusively state that humans — and ones totally unrelated to Clovis peoples — were present at Paisley Caves over a millennium before Clovis.
"During our excavations in the Paisley Caves we’ve found a completely different type of dart points," enthuses Jenkins.
"These new points are of a completely different construction from those found in the Clovis culture. As our radiocarbon dating shows, the new finds are as old, or possibly older than the Clovis finds, this proves that the Clovis culture cannot have been the 'Mother technology' for all other technologies in America. Our results show, that America was colonized by multiple cultures at the same time. And some perhaps even earlier than Clovis."
"Humans were present in North America at least one thousand years before Clovis and these earlier peoples probably had no technological or genetic similarity to the iconic Clovis Culture," adds the prof's colleague Thomas Stafford. "The Clovis First debate has ended. The theory is now dead and buried."
So there. ®
The oldest human remains found in the Americas were recently "discovered" in the storeroom of Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology. Found in central Mexico in 1959, the five skulls were radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers from the United Kingdom and Mexico and found to be 13,000 years old. They pre-date the Clovis culture by a couple thousand years, adding to the growing evidence against the Clovis-first model for the first peopling of the Americas.
Of additional significance is the shape of the skulls, which are described as long and narrow, very unlike those of modern Native Americans.
Many things have happened since then but it appears the spawn of Spain are fulfilling the papal bull to the detriment of the English experiment called the US Constitution.
There are always exceptions but on average,which colonies have become the most successful countries—the Spanish or the British? I would prefer to to live under what works but that was and is still a revolutionary thought.
Lamanite ping
The most recent discoveries at this site are even more advanced than expected.
Poo don’t lie.
So where does that leave “Wrong-Way” Heyerdahl?
Native Americans arrived ...
Huh? If they arrived from wherever then they quite obviously were not native.
Granted that the countries started by settlers from the British Isles have tended to turn out better than the former Spanish colonies, there are a number of reasons--not all going back to the differences between Spain and England in 1492 (since England itself had a lot of developing to do before absolutism was defeated there). The former British colonies in Africa and Asia, where the English were a small minority, and often left afterwards, have not done as well as the countries created by settlers--the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The former Spanish colonies generally had a minority from Spain ruling over a larger indigenous and impoverished population who had little chance at economic betterment.
I would not expect DNA residue on the actual points, but maybe some have been found in conjunction with human remains.
Ping
Was thinking the same thing!!
And they should return the fossil poo to her for a proper burial.
Along with her BS!!
Interesting. Seems like I had read similar suggestions a number of years back. I don’t track this stuff as a hobby.
Yah... This is not news. The author needs to upgrade his sources. Even when I was studying this sort of thing at grad school in anthropology in the mid-80s, there were several sites dated much older than Clovis: Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania, at least 16,000 years BP, perhaps 19,000 years BP; Monte Verde in Chile (way south in Chile!), perhaps 33,000 years BP, at least 15,000 years BP). Clovis is not the first culture of humans in the new world, just one of the easiest of the old ones to identify. This “established fact that Clovis were the first Americans” crap is just that: crap. (Think global warming...)
“Would not ALL of them be called Native Americans whether they came across the land bridge, down the coast by boat or of Polynesian descent across and up from South America.”
Or, if standard theories persist, someone might say no, those we call “Native Americans”, from any source, were really “Asians” in “origin” and they, not even “Native Asians” as, in the entire human race there are only “Native Africans”, the ancestors of us all - if standard archaeological theories were to persist. O.K. don’t shoot the messenger!!!
If standard evolution and archaeological theories were to persist, then in the human race there can only be “Native Africans”, as every other group of humans, anywhere else, were immigrants (not ‘native’) to other lands, from Africa, or immigrants - to additional lands - of those first immigrants; leaving only Africa as a source to be called “first humans here”. O.K. again; don’t kill the messenger!!!
I am, tongue and cheek, trying to hit on any idea of “first” peoples; as the story of humanity IS a story of migration, settlement, death, starvation & extinction, migration, settlement, conquest and merging cultures, migration, settlement, migration settlement - over and over. The ancestors of everyone’s ancestors came from somewhere else, if we go back far enough.
LOL, no argument from me on that. I seldom use the term “native American” as you and million of others born here fit that term. I call myself American Indian and even that is because a misguided explorer thought he was somewhere else in the world. I’m even wondering if “Aboriginal American” is correct.
First After The Last Ice Age Western Hemisphere Dude.
I prefer paleo-American.
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