Posted on 10/13/2003 12:26:57 PM PDT by Bernard Marx
Associated Press
KENANSVILLE When workers digging up peat at a former central Florida sod farm unearthed human remains with their backhoe, they called the police. But this was a cold case that authorities were unlikely to solve.
The bones found Thursday appeared to be those of a young man who died in his late teens or early 20s about 4,800 years ago, said Anthony Falsetti, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida.
"It's quite significant because it ties into some earlier discoveries in the 1980s ... dating back to 8,000 years ago," Falsetti said Friday. "It continues to fill in the picture of early life ... in Florida."
The remains are being suspended in water at the lab, so they don't dry out and crumble into dust. Archaeologists will not photograph the bones, and he will not receive a nickname. Instead, the skeleton is designated as 10-B-03.
The Bureau of Archaeological Research in Tallahassee will survey the site where the remains were found for other signs of a past civilization. Animal bones designed in a decoration were also found with the remains discovered about 50 miles southeast of Orlando, Falsetti said.
After consulting with the two American Indian tribes of Florida, state archaeologist David Dickel said the bones were expected to be reburied in a private ceremony attended only by experts. There will be no marker, to thwart collectors and vandals.
"He lived in a simpler time with a simpler life, but this was no primitive," Dickel said. "Even though it's only bones, we think of it as a life."
Mass grave?
By no means, I didn't mean to imply that the tribe of Florida Stupid Voters inhabited the entire state. And I'm sorry if you thought I did.
But it's also clear to everyone that the tribe does exist in Florida and even has a heavy concentration in Palm Springs.
And the Tribe raised it's voice in California by trying to get the election delayed because they weren't going to be able to figure out how to punch the ballot cards.
Sorry to be so long in responding. Overhunting by paleoindians is the conventional explanation and it may be correct but I have serious doubts. First, there's Africa where some experts say humans have lived longer than anywhere else and there are still plenty of megafauna around. There are still lots of large mammals in parts of Asia, too, where humans have lived a very long time. Why did such alleged overhunting occur only in places like the Western hemisphere, Australia and partially in Europe (fewer extinct species)?
There is certainly evidence that paleos hunted big mammals like mastadons. Yet when I put myself in their place -- armed with a stone-tipped spear and maybe an atlatl and lots of false bravado -- I ask why in the world I'd preferentially go after something utterly ferocious like a mastadon, mammoth, sabertooth tiger, etc. instead of a critter under 250 pounds, most of which didn't go extinct anywhere.
The disappearance of big mammals in Australia occurred between 40,000-20,000 years ago (dating is imprecise), and theres evidence humans have been there for as much as 50,000 years. There's absolutely no physical proof the extinct large Aussie animals were hunted by people. Maybe they were but why aren't any spearheads or other human tools associated with animal remains as in Siberia and the U.S.?
Maybe the paleos used wasteful hunting methods like driving megafauna off cliffs and cutbanks. But how do you herd giant ground sloths, monster cats, grouchy giant bears and mega-kangaroos? Even if they did, why did the extinctions occur across the board and involve mammals of only a certain size? Even the Amerinds, who hunted buffalo by driving them off cliffs, didnt succeed in diminishing their numbers by much. That was left to European colonists armed with rifles who were determined to eliminate the buffalo as a source of Indian food, fur and sinew. They nearly succeeded where untold generations of more primitive hunting methods failed.
I dont have an answer or even a pet theory yet, but I dont think hunting by paleoindians is the only answer.
WTH? Afraid that photographing the bones will steal their mojo?
I agree. (2004 bump.)
I finally got around to ordering Baillie's book. I'm about half way through it and am impressed with the research. It's clear that something happened at the times studied and I'm very open to his thesis. Many years ago I took on the problem of the Great Extinctions as a lab project for a historical geology course. There's no question in my mind that we live very uncertainly on this frail planet.
Good book. I'm presently reading Eden In The East, by Stephen Oppenheimer. It's about the human dispersal that occurred when Sundaland went under water at the end of the Ice Age. This is the second book that I've read that 'suspects' that the original Sumerians were immigrants from Asia.
Now, the next book you gotta read is The Tarim Mummies by JP Malloy and Victor Mair...an excellent book. BTW, Malloy is a colliegue of Mike Baillie at Queens College, Belfast.
From JimSEA | 04/24/2004 6:36:09 PM CDT replied:
I am about 2/3 of the way through The Tarim Mummies and it is one of the very best I have read. It is one of those books I will be sad to finish.
Is Political Correctness the only "science" involved in this matter?
Kewl, 4800 year old backhoes!
Geez, what an ignorant fool.
BTW, peat does tend to preserve remains rather well. I remember years ago seeing and am still impressed with the Peat Bog Man in Denmark.
Tollund Man (Note the rope around his neck)
European DNA Found In 7-8,000 Year old skeleton in Florida (Windover)
Also, read the article linked, Bye Bye Beringia
Yep, that's him! If we all should look half as good.
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