Clovis Speakers Discuss Man's Origins In The United States

The State/AP ^ | 10-27-2005 | Meg Kinnard

[blam]

Posted on Thu, Oct. 27, 2005

Clovis speakers discuss man's origins in the United States

MEG KINNARD

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A University of Texas archaeologist opened the highly anticipated "Clovis in the Southeast" conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center Thursday by rejecting the premise on which many experts once based their theories on man's North American origins.

At the meeting, sponsored in part by the University of South Carolina, Michael Collins called the idea that the first inhabitants traveled by way of a land bridge from Asia "primal racism." Instead, Collins said, they arrived by water, because "the rich marine environments" along the northern Atlantic and Pacific coasts are "very attractive regions for human exploitation."

Conference staffer Thomas McDonald said that roughly 400 people had pre-registered for the four-day conference on Clovis - the culture traditionally thought to have been the first in North America.
In recent years, many experts have begun to consider other explanations, such as migration from Europe, and not Asia. That idea was advanced by Dennis Stanford, head of the archaeology division of the department of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History.

Other speakers talked about the wide array of paleo-Indian artifacts throughout the southeastern region. University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear discussed his research at the Topper site in Allendale County, calling the spot "the Goldilocks location to be doing archaeology." In 1998, Goodyear announced that he had discovered artifacts thousands of years older than Clovis materials at Topper.

University of Tennessee professor David Anderson also encouraged private collectors to consider sharing their artifacts with the public. Be "thinking about where you're going to be 100 years from now," he said. "We're all part of the archaeological record."

Afternoon speakers discussed the discoveries of Clovis tools from sites throughout the Tennessee River Valley. Showing slides of the dozens of samples recovered from a Tennessee location, John Broster of the Tennessee Department of Conservation said, "It sorta gets boring in a way, after a while, I guess, but it's still really exciting."

On Friday, Jim Welch will moderate a discussion that Goodyear said "might get a little hot and heavy." Goodyear said he hoped artifact collectors would attend and help to heal some of the "antipathy" between professionals and collectors in the field.

Scheduled events culminate in a Saturday visit to the Topper site.

[doc30]

Back then, the continents were connected and sea travel may have been along the coast by water rather than hiking across land. Inuit traveled between the Aleutian islands and the mainland by kayak.

[orionblamblam]

They migrated to Kobol.

[Fraxinus]

I disagree, it depends upon where your starting point is compared to your destination, most (probably all) of the water hazards on the coastal route from the Yellow Sea could be easily traversed in a day in a curragh (hide boat). Any large canoes or curraghs that sank are now under ~150ft or more of water and sediment.

[Camel Joe]

Maybe they caught the redeye flight from somewhere?
Check this link out, http://www.philipcoppens.com/bbl_plane.html

[Migraine]

What exactly is "primal racism"? LOL Has a nice ring to it, though.

I think that is when racist thoughts are screamed, very loudly.

[mlc9852]

Makes sense - lol

[Sam Cree]

*

[GSlob]

"Of the most feared warship in history, the Athenian trireme, not one survives."
Quite a few were lost at Salamis - what happened to the remnants? At least bronze ramming prows should have survived, even if everything else did not. Here at least the search area would be reasonably localized.

[Captain Rhino]

It is unlikely any boat constructed of organic materials and using the technology of the time could survive so long except by an extraordinary set of circumstances.

While there have been discoveries of the remains of sizable wooden ships in the waters of the Mediterranean and in the deserts of Egypt, the oldest (probably the Cheops pyramid boats at @2000 BC) are nowhere near the 50,000 years before the present date suggested in this article.

Since the boats in the two coast migration theory would be entirely organic and the biological zones they would be lost/abandoned in are particularly active, it is unlikely that they survived.

There is another factor to consider. Genetic testing of various Native Americans seem to argue they are all descended from a relative handful of migrating families. Given the amount of time that has passed, only a few would be needed to produce so many descendants. Whether you like the overland migration theory or the bi-coastal water migration theory, there were probably not a lot of people in the original groups. And that means not too many organic artifacts entered into the fossil record. After 500 centuries in the ground or water or somewhere in between, what's likely to be left except stone tools and other similarly hard objects?

[Coyoteman]

After 500 centuries in the ground or water or somewhere in between, what's likely to be left except stone tools and other similarly hard objects?

Lot of local open sites have no soft organic remains (not counting charcoal, bone & shell) after a mere 200 years.

[Restorer]

North North Atlantic. Try island-hopping from Norway to Newfoundland in a primitive boat and see how long you last. Which is what the article was referencing.

Much of the coast of the North Pacific is by comparison warm and inviting.

[GSlob]

IIRC, in the Mediterranean they did find stone ship anchors. Anchor seems to be a necessary part of a serious boat, and it had to be heavy - thus not likely to be organic.

[RightWhale]

Nah, the rules are to come across whatever way. Ireland, Iceland, Newfoundland. Not a problem. They were tougher, then, too, didn't know what they couldn't do.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

The public is generally unaware of the rancorous disputes that populate academia, diffusionism being one of the nastiest. Diffusionism is basically the anthropological theory that ancient cultures extended their influence and carried on trade across open oceans. This is but one of a host of oppressive and lying social engineering pillars that can be found also in physics (gravity as "fabric" of univers, solar "wind" is not plasma current), astronomy (planet are formed by disk accretion; black hole, big bang, dark matter are not the result of GIGO modeling), psychology (behaviorism is therapeutic, characterological determinants are genetic), liguistics (language independent of cultural evolution potential), genetics (acquired characteristics or learned behavior cannot become genetic), anthropology (mythology cannot reflect historic events), ad nauseum.

For some reason, any attempt to make diffusionism part of the fabric of anthropology or archaeology is met with ridicule, villification and career sabotage. Barry Fell and Thor Heyerdahl's theories are NOT welcome in mainstream academic jounals, which is why he went to consumer publication with his work.

My take is that the reason diffusionism is considered heresy is a) It implies that cultures of the dawn of civilization didn't have the smarts to navigate large stretches of open ocean, b) The great civilizations extended their influence via conquest rather than trade or active colonization, c) Civilizations evolved slowly via internal means rather than rapidly via cross fertilization of ideas d) Religious and Cultural ideas were home grown rather than disseminated.

A liberal socialist academia would want our notion of history to reject and civilizing influence that is not socialist in origin, ie commerce and evangelization are ligitimized in their minds only as coercive, warlike and unwelcome concepts.

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[blam]

"Didn't know there was anyone left alive that spoke Clovis."

Me too. I thought, Oh Boy!, when I saw the headlines.

[blam]

"Genetic testing of various Native Americans seem to argue they are all descended from a relative handful of migrating families."

Click on my link in post #6 and go on the 'journey'.

[Coyoteman]

Barry Fell and Thor Heyerdahl

I think I would put these two gentlemen into separate groups.

I might add Erich von Daniken to Barry Fell's side though.

[blam]

Iberia, Not Siberia?

[blam]

Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?)

[GSlob]

Well, high time for the Congress to put the border guards on that Solutrea border, and meanwhile we should send Minutemen there as a stopgap measure.