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Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High Desert
The Archaeology Channel ^ | Dennis jenkins

Posted on 04/15/2008 6:50:32 PM PDT by blam

Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High Desert

An interview with Dennis Jenkins

See Interview About Dennis Jenkins

In this interview, conducted at Paisley Five Mile Point Caves on June 13, 2007, by Rick Pettigrew of ALI, Dr. Dennis Jenkins describes the remarkable discovery of human DNA in coprolites dated between 14,000 and 15,000 calibrated years ago. This evidence, reported in the 3 April 2008, issue of the journal Science, strongly supports the proposition that human migrants to North America arrived at least 1000 years before the widespread Clovis complex appeared. The data also support the conclusion that the first human population originated in northeast Asia. Dr. Jenkins, standing in the very spot where his field school team recovered the evidence, relates why and how the excavation was carried out, explains the significance of the find and shares his personal reflections on making a momentous discovery. Images woven into the interview show the environment surrounding the caves and the student archaeologists comprising the field crew.

The Interview:
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Dennis Jenkins:

Dr. Dennis Jenkins

Dennis L. Jenkins received his B.A. (1977) and M.A. (1981) degrees from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1991. He is an Archaeologist/Field School Supervisor for the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology/Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon. As Co-Director and Supervisor of the University of Oregon Archaeological Field School, Jenkins has worked for much of the last 15 years on the archaeology of the Fort Rock Basin and Chewaucan Basin areas, focusing on paleoenvironmental studies, lacustrine adaptations, settlement and subsistence patterns, exchange systems, and the evolution of hunter-gatherer foraging strategies in arid landscapes. His primary research interests involve Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene cultural transitions and settlement-subsistence issues among hunter-gatherers of the Great Basin. His archaeological experience spans some 31 years with more than 100 excavations.
Jenkins began work in the Fort Rock Basin during the summer of 1986. He hired on with the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology, where he currently works as a Senior Research Associate, in l987.
He directs excavations related to highway construction projects in the Northern Great Basin and adjoining regions. His research includes the application of specialized analytical techniques involving DNA and obsidian sourcing and hydration and prehistoric bead type and distribution analyses.

Jenkins has authored or coauthored numerous publications, including co-editing (with C. M. Aikens) the 1994 volume, Archaeological Researches in the Northern Great Basin: Fort Rock Archaeology Since Cressman (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 50, 1994), and more recently Early and Middle Holocene Archaeology of the Northern Great Basin (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No. 62, 2004).

His most recent research involves the recovery of human DNA from pre-Clovis coprolites recovered with extinct faunal remains (camelids, horses, bison, and pika) in the Paisley Caves.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: clovis; coprolite; coprolites; dennisjenkins; desertn; godsgravesglyphs; humans; meadowcroft; oregon; paisleycaves; preclovis; sumnerlakebasin
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Click on the site to get to the interview.
1 posted on 04/15/2008 6:50:32 PM PDT by blam
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To: SunkenCiv; Coyoteman

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 04/15/2008 6:51:07 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: blam
"Dr. Jenkins, standing in the very spot where his field school team recovered the evidence",

Not sayin' he's not smart and all but typical white people don't stand in the latrine.

3 posted on 04/15/2008 7:19:03 PM PDT by Eagles6 ( Typical White Guy: Christian, Constitutionalist, Heterosexual, Redneck)
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To: blam

“human DNA in coprolites”

So, were the humans the eaters or the eaten?


4 posted on 04/15/2008 7:22:00 PM PDT by RouxStir (No Peeing Allowed in the Gene Pool.)
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To: blam

The last true ice age didn’t end for another 4000 to 5000 years. How did they survive in Oregon?


5 posted on 04/15/2008 7:23:24 PM PDT by Soliton (McCain couldn't even win a McCain look-alike contest)
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To: Eagles6
"Not sayin' he's not smart and all but typical white people don't stand in the latrine."

My cracker grandma's out there standing in the latrine right now.

You got a problem with that?

6 posted on 04/15/2008 7:25:08 PM PDT by billorites (Freepo ergo sum)
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To: Soliton
The last true ice age didn’t end for another 4000 to 5000 years. How did they survive in Oregon?

They are working in eastern Oregon.

Think Great Basin rather than Pacific Northwest.

7 posted on 04/15/2008 7:26:56 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Soliton
"The last true ice age didn’t end for another 4000 to 5000 years. How did they survive in Oregon?"


8 posted on 04/15/2008 7:29:12 PM PDT by billorites (Freepo ergo sum)
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To: billorites

Sittin’ down on the seat in the outhouse ain’t the same as standin’ in the hole.


9 posted on 04/15/2008 7:29:21 PM PDT by Eagles6 ( Typical White Guy: Christian, Constitutionalist, Heterosexual, Redneck)
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To: Eagles6
Sittin’ down on the seat in the outhouse ain’t the same as standin’ in the hole.

The reason I love FR is that the culture is so elevating. Or is that elevatin'?

;-)

10 posted on 04/15/2008 7:47:11 PM PDT by RobinOfKingston (Man, that's stupid ... even by congressional standards.)
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To: Coyoteman

14,500 to 14,000 years B.P., the ice-sheet surface sloped from about altitude 1,000 meters at the international boundary to between 0 and 300 meters at the ice terminus on the continental shelf and in the southern Puget lowland.

It would have been like Siberia in the Great Basin


11 posted on 04/15/2008 7:56:58 PM PDT by Soliton (McCain couldn't even win a McCain look-alike contest)
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To: Eagles6

“typical white people”

I don’t know what your game is mister, but I know code when I hear it. Er... when I see it typed that is.


12 posted on 04/15/2008 7:57:29 PM PDT by Brucifer (G. W. Bush "The dog ate my copy of the Constitution.")
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To: blam
The 'Dig" isn't that far from Richland Washington, where the remains of a human were found several years ago (I forget). The analysis later showed that the human was a Caucasian.

The Clovis Man theory was based on the first tools uncovered in North America. A professor of archeology I have seen on the History Channel says the tools trace back to Europe. This tends to lay waste to the idea that Asia was the only gateway used to access this country.

13 posted on 04/15/2008 7:58:38 PM PDT by CT (Conservative in hibernation.)
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To: RobinOfKingston

Yeah, light up a smoke in the “little house of contemplation’ after the Memorial Day family reunion and you’ll get elevated right over that treeline yonder.


14 posted on 04/15/2008 7:58:51 PM PDT by Eagles6 ( Typical White Guy: Christian, Constitutionalist, Heterosexual, Redneck)
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To: Soliton
14,500 to 14,000 years B.P., the ice-sheet surface sloped from about altitude 1,000 meters at the international boundary to between 0 and 300 meters at the ice terminus on the continental shelf and in the southern Puget lowland.

It would have been like Siberia in the Great Basin

Yet it appears there were folks living there.

I would like to learn more about the mtDNA from that site.

15 posted on 04/15/2008 8:00:33 PM PDT by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Coyoteman
Think Great Basin

Not many people realize that the world's ugliest desert aka Mojave/Great Basin, extends all the way up into British Columbia. As an added bonus, I do believe it gets most of its moisture from snow (but still low enough precipitation to qualify as a desert) - a first amongst the world's deserts.

Nothing is more depressing than leaving the upper Sonora and entering the Mojave as you drive north/westward from southern Arizona towards Calif.

16 posted on 04/15/2008 8:03:20 PM PDT by semantic
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To: Brucifer

Well, now we know, according to “The One” that typical White People are well versed in Scripture, good shots and suspicious of strangers. Not bad things by any means.


17 posted on 04/15/2008 8:04:04 PM PDT by Eagles6 ( Typical White Guy: Christian, Constitutionalist, Heterosexual, Redneck)
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To: CT
"The 'Dig" isn't that far from Richland Washington, where the remains of a human were found several years ago (I forget). The analysis later showed that the human was a Caucasian."

That was probably Kennewick Man and most people believe he may have been an Ainu from Japan. I believe he was probably related to who-ever these people were: Vintage Skulls

"The Clovis Man theory was based on the first tools uncovered in North America. A professor of archeology I have seen on the History Channel says the tools trace back to Europe. This tends to lay waste to the idea that Asia was the only gateway used to access this country."

That was probably Dennis Sanford. See his article below:

Immigrants From The Other Side (Clovis Is Solutrean?)

18 posted on 04/15/2008 8:09:43 PM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
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To: semantic
Nothing is more depressing than leaving the upper Sonora and entering the Mojave as you drive north/westward from southern Arizona towards Calif.

Why is that? I've always liked the Mojave.

19 posted on 04/15/2008 8:34:17 PM PDT by Jack Black
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To: semantic
Nothing is more depressing than leaving the upper Sonora and entering the Mojave as you drive north/westward from southern Arizona towards Calif.

Why is that? I've always liked the Mojave.

20 posted on 04/15/2008 8:34:19 PM PDT by Jack Black
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